David Olds | EZ REI Closings & The Real Estate Markets You NEED to Focus on THIS YEAR!

Speaker A: Every person you hire, they're either going to quit or you're going to fire them, or you die first. That's, that's the third option, right,

Speaker B: Fam? What's up? Welcome back to the CEO Pulse podcast, where you get the real, the raw and the mind of entrepreneurship. We are sitting down with none other. This guy's a legend in the real estate investing space. Uh, I mean, if you're active, you're, you know, doing deals and you're actually, you know, in the grind. You probably heard his name, seen his companies, uh, because he hasn't built just one. He's been multiple. Um, but we have David Olds with us. I mean, I, I, I get to call you a, ah, friend. I've known you for years, which is really cool. And, uh, dude, you're a wealth of knowledge in, in the space of real estate investing. Uh, you're a guy that has an incredible track record. You've been an investor for the last 24 years. Started back in 2002. Um, you've, uh, your company has transacted, uh, the transaction coordination company, which is, um, Easy Rei Closings, has transacted over 9,000. Thousand transactions. Yeah.

Speaker A: It's a ridiculous number, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you guys, I mean, you guys do it all under the sun and I mean, there's a lot of stuff that I want to unpack in, in the conversation. And I'm excited to have you in the podcast, man.

Speaker A: I'm excited to be here. I'm sad that I missed it last time, but, uh, yeah, this was one of the highlights.

Speaker B: Awesome. Beautiful. So give us a breakdown, man. You started back in, in 2002, you got into real estate. Started, you know, you, you've done wholesaling, you've done, you know, um, landlord, uh, you know, rehabbing, uh, you know, the whole shebang.

Speaker A: Yeah, I read Rich Dad, Poor dad and did all the things, everything you

Speaker B: said, walk me through, through the process. I mean, you jump into it, you decide to be an entrepreneur, you're going to bet on yourself. Yeah. How did that happen?

Speaker A: And then, yeah, and, and so, yeah, so what happened? I was at the airport, I was picking up our, our kids. They were, they were flying and just, uh, went to the bookstore and was, just ran. I love to read. So just randomly picking up books and grabbed this, this little book, started reading it. I'm like, oh, this is, this is really cool. I love this. Right?

Speaker B: Um, well, so randomly, just randomly, you were at an airport, you picked up,

Speaker A: reached that for that randomly, like, and I know that's the most cliche thing ever. Everybody's like, oh, you know.

Speaker B: You know what, man? But it's cliche for a reason.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I think. I think you have to earn the right to become a cliche. And. And, uh, I mean, it's wild, but, like, a lot of people in. In that we know are actively doing stuff, I mean, they came across. I was like, I read the book. I read the book. So you just never know someone. A conversation, a book, an event, um, a moment is going to plant the seed of growth in you. Uh, and then fast forward.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I talk about that a lot.

Speaker B: 24 years.

Speaker A: There are things in our life and we never realize that moment in time will happen again. The first time I was in this office, like four years ago, you guys were dressing up as Easter or Christmas elves for the first time and never knew that one day I would be back here and be friends with everybody in that room.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So. So, yeah, life takes us in some really weird places.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Sorry. Sorry for the tangent. So you're back at the airport.

Speaker A: Yeah. Read the book. You know, for, uh, anybody who's read it. At the end, Kiyosaki says, hey, if you want to be in oil, be around oil people, stock, stock people, real estate, go join a local RIA. So this was back, and this is 2003 or four, like early, early 2000s, when I really read it and got into real estate. And uh, yeah, I got on my big computer. It was Web crawler because Google didn't exist. And my biggest keyboard and. And, uh, you know, I Googled real estate club in Orlando. And that's how I ended up at, uh, cfri, which is Central Florida real estate investors. And uh, yeah, I just got involved and started going to all the classes because there wasn't what we have now. There wasn't this.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It wasn't all the webinar. Just none of that existed. The only way that you learned real estate was by going to a ria.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, yeah, I just immersed myself in it and took all the classes and went to all the boot camps and just read as bought books. Just did. Did everything that I could. And I do think there. And you tell me because you, you obviously interview a lot of CEOs here. I think there's a. There's, uh, a commonality from the people that I've talked to that the people who build businesses and become successful. I think at some point in your life, you knew you could do more.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And there's an unhappiness and for me, I worked in. In retail. I worked for large hardware companies. Um, not quite as big as Home Depot, but. But still pretty large regional ones in Florida. And I always knew, like, man, I could be the district. I could be the store manager. And when I became store manager, I could be the district manager, I could be the vice president. I. I could do this, right? Like, we have that. That dream, and we just aspire to more. And I don't know, for me, the people that I've talked to, I think that's just kind of a commonality among a lot of people.

Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think it's. It's natural growth. It's just evolution, Right? We'll hit a. We'll hit a, uh. I mean, I don't know, call it a ceiling, you know, a virtual ceiling. And you think I was like, shit, man, I made it to the top. And then once you're right there, you, like, you jump on the roof and then you can see a better outlook. You can see another mountaintop, right? And. And it's like, oh, I can climb that one, too. And then it's just. It's a process. I think. Honestly, man, I think Cadillac got it right, man. The life, liberty and the pursuit. Yeah. I think the key on that phrase or that, uh, uh, you know, slogan is the pursuit. I mean, I. I feel like we have that as a, uh, ingrown need. Certain people are wired that way, Right. Call it achievers, call it whatever. But there's a pursuit until, okay, you get to a point where it's like, man, this is good. I honestly, personally, I don't feel like I'm ever going to stop working because of the love of it.

Speaker A: What would you do? Yeah, I do think, you know, I think we're broken a little bit.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I think there is a part of your brain that if you're a true entrepreneur, you're. You're a little bit broken.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, you've probably got.

Speaker B: You have to be a little crazy.

Speaker A: Yeah. You've got extreme focus, which is great. Right. It's great for building businesses. It's great for dialing in and being, like, staying in that lane and just. I'm going to accomplish this no matter what. The bad news for me at least, is some of the things outside of that in your life, like those can. Can, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Not be as good as you would like. And then looking back and a little bit of reflection. And now I think I'm at the point where I can have some. Some of that Work, life, balance. But in the beginning when you're building, it's like pushing a boulder up a hill. And you know, I realized I probably wasn't the best dad. Not that I was bad, like, you know, was it terrible, but I was. Didn't spend as much time probably where I should have. Uh, but you know, I guess we make choices and we live with it. We try to be better and then talk to other people and explain how you can be better.

Speaker B: You know what? This is something that I heard from. From, uh, Grant Cardona actually a long time ago. And, and. And um. The, uh, the. The uh, concept of counterbalance.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's not something, you know, I feel like it's hard for us to, to grasp. Um, and I'll speak for myself, maybe, you know, people out there are not the same.

Speaker A: But.

Speaker B: But for me, it's. It's hard to, to have this, this really grasp on. On. On life, work, balance. Because if I have that, if I'm excited about something, for example, right now I'm in the middle of developing my, my latest project and I'm excited about it. I go to work on it and I'm like a kid with a PlayStation. Right. Even when I disconnect, right. My mind, it's. It's, uh, it's still like. I'm still thinking about. Yeah. So it's. So it's easy to have something that's. That, I don't know, creates absence and uh. And um. And when you're wired to be, you know, you know, just working 24 7, that can, that can be the mo. Right. So, uh, what I, What I found on that note is. And I think it's a very, you know, interesting that you bring this up, but what I found works for me. It's not. I try to sit with the idea of work, life, balance, and it just, I don't know, it didn't. To me, I had to create something bigger than that, something more. Something that creates counterbalance or forces me to step out, like disconnect my. Right. So what, what is that? Right? It's, it's, um. Um. So, I mean, it sounds messed up, right? But for example, for me, if, if, uh. If I want to create life, work, balance, um, and. And I go, all right, we're just going to go to the. To. We're going to go to the park with the family. I mean, let's be real. When you have a, uh, when you have a mentality that's always going 24 7, you have to be engaged in whatever it is that you're doing. You're engaged at work, you're engaged in the, in the family portion of. So there has to be engagement moments. It can just be, oh, I have family time, and then we're at the table. Because your mind is going to be elsewhere.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Like it's, I mean, that's, you know, as up as it sounds. It's a reality. Right.

Speaker A: And, and to be clear, like, I don't believe in work life. I don't think there is such a thing. Not for people like us that are, you know, if you buy groceries in Walmart, that's great, you go home at 5 o', clock, you can turn that off. But for people who run businesses and have people responsible for that outcome, right. You're, you're just driven because there's that pressure and we want that pressure. We chose it like that.

Speaker B: You signed up for the game.

Speaker A: Yeah, we signed up for this. Right. Um, but what I, even back then, what I did realize, it took me a little bit. But you have to, you do have to, like you said, set some time apart, whether it's a vacation or.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Friday night at 6 o', clock, we're gonna go to dinner and a movie and I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be present.

Speaker B: Engaged. Yeah.

Speaker A: And that's the most important thing when you're with somebody is being present. Right. Phones are turned off, like I'm not paying attention anything. It's you and me, we're here, whether we're at dinner, we're networking or something else. But yeah, uh, I call them like peak life experiences. Those were the things that I wanted to have, you know, with my family, with my kids. But yeah, there is no work life balance if you're, if you're building a company and, you know, you can get it. You know, in the beginning it might be 9010 because it's like pushing a boulder up a hill.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: We're trying to build something. Even with a great coach and a great mentor, you're still building something that takes a lot of energy, right?

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. Uh, it's. And it's important to just have, you know, be conscientious about that type of stuff. Right. You're going to come, you know, across, uh, the, the, the need just like, oh man, I'm getting burned out. And you got to have something that's healthy in that sense. Something that absolutely just comes in and brings, you know, brings you back into, into center, whatever that center for you may be. So. Yeah. Um. All right, so, so you go in, you pick up the book and then you decide to go into, into real estate. What did that look like? Did you just like drop everything that you were doing? Did you transition?

Speaker A: Did you had a full time job all through the town. 2000s. So I was working for. Initially it was a company called Scotty's Hardware stores. There were 180 of them in the state of Florida. So they were a big chain.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And uh, yeah, I was there promoted. I was their youngest store manager. I had a store in Key Largo and then went to tampa. I moved 11 times in nine years. And uh, that was because I was the young single manager.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So they would fire somebody and you can't pick up and move somebody who has a family so who got moved around all the time. One of their only single guys. And then I'd get a call on Thursday like, hey, how'd you like to move to the other side of the state? Like, well, I really wouldn't. He's like, well it's Thursday and we need you there on Monday so pack, pack your stuff and get on the way. Um, but yeah, so after that I went to work for a company called Cox Lumber and then Probuild and 84 Lumber. Basically like building material suppliers. Yeah, I uh, I ran the largest or opened and ran the largest millwork supply facility, um, production facility in the state of Orlando or in the state of Florida in the Orlando region.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So but anyways. But during that time I was, you know, we were buying houses, fixing them up. So I was working 12 hours a day and then I was going home and working on houses and fixing them up because I.

Speaker B: You were building your dream after the 5pm yeah.

Speaker A: And uh, you know, so we'd, you know, flip one or two houses a year and it was really great money. Yeah, that's really great. And I was making like $80,000 a year, which back then was really good. And my wife, she was, she was the assistant purchasing manager for Shea Homes and a couple of other builders. So she had a great job. So we were kind of in the, in this business business. And uh, yeah, that, that kept going until, until it didn't. In Florida, which was 2009. Yeah, that's when uh, that's when things got a little bit, A, uh, little bit bad.

Speaker B: Yeah. 2000. That's actually when I got into real estate. 2009, that's where I flipped my, my first property.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, but I was in a totally different vertical. I was in transportation. So I didn't really get hit by, by everything that happened 2007, 2008. I was just kind of on the, uh, you know, I feel like it was a decent entry point because pricing was, was lower on properties.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And uh. And yeah, so dodge that one.

Speaker A: But.

Speaker B: But, uh, I mean, it's pretty interesting, man. So you get into it, you start, you know, developing and flipping, uh, or, you know, fixing and flipping properties. You do that for years. Um, now, I mean, you're running one of the. I feel like it's one of the biggest and most well established, uh, transaction companies.

Speaker A: Yeah. By far.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah. In, in the U.S. so, I mean, there's, there's a lot that, that's, uh, you know, that goes on, uh, you know, along with that in terms of experience, in terms of, um, you know, one, the track record, building the team. So talk to me about that. So you go from operating and, you know, in the real estate space to building out, you know, a different, you know, a different type of service company. And it's not. I mean, we talked about this, bro, when you were launching that and it was like transaction coordination. It's like, do you have a death wish?

Speaker A: Corey Geary said, that's the dumbest shit I've ever, ever heard of in my life. I'm like, yeah, I know, but I think we can do it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. Like, I had no plans six years ago owning the biggest transactions coordination company. Like, I. Like, it wasn't even a thought. Yeah. So moved, uh, it moved to Tennessee. Started wholesaling because, you know, the market was terrible. We couldn't fix and flip. Right. Because who's going to buy houses, right? Yeah. Like, no, banks. Banks were busy taking properties back, not, not loaning on them. So I had to figure out wholesaling. I tried wholesaling in Florida. Didn't work. It didn't work because I didn't need it to work. And I didn't, you know, I was plenty of money. So got here, I was desperate. Had a wife, two boys, three fat dogs. Like, I had to find a way to make it work really fast. Yeah. Um, so, yeah, during that time we start wholesaling. You know, the market got a little bit better. I started buying some rentals, got really good at buying on owner financing. And then, you know, 2013, 14, the market starts coming around. They're giving all those incentives. So then we got back into rehabbing and then would ebb and flow back, back and forth between rehabbing and wholesaling and partnered up with a couple of different people and, you know, Chattanooga is a great market. 250, 300,000 people in the MSA. But M. As you start adding partners, well, every deal starts getting cut like a pie. So we started virtual wholesaling. Before it was a thing, before it was a word. I think Chris Chico might have been the one to kind of coin it the first time. But I'm like, well, you know, when I brought in this fourth partner, I'm like, well, we need to be in some other market. So we. And we can definitely talk about market selection. But we started going to a couple of other places, and we. We invented ways to lose money, like, 100%. We didn't know jack or the other thing. Like, we knew nothing. And, uh, but we finally figured it out. And over the years, partners come, partners go. And at one point, we were in 114 markets across the country. And then we kind of weaned it back to the 28 very best. But then. Then Covid happened.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you know what happened was a lot of people. Because, remember, when Covid first started, it first hit, like, everybody panicked. Right. Like, and started laying people off.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I was like, well, we're not going to lay people off. Let's maybe restructure. Let's see if, you know, we brought our team in, we talked to them, and I said, listen, I don't want to lay everybody off, but we are going to have to move to a commission only, you know, maybe or, like, a smaller, real small salary. Like, that's the only way we can survive. Here's what we're going to do. Like, uh, on day one, because everything stopped, I said, well, we're really going to lean into the team and let's. We're going to train, we're going to drill, we're going to roll. We're going to do everything we can because all these other idiots are letting their whole team go and going business. We're going to come out of this like a phoenix. Like, I literally said that to them at the time. And then, remember, three weeks later, four weeks later, all of a sudden, bam. Like, it just took off. So, um, one of the things that happened is we got really good at JV deals and, you know, in our wholesaling business, Nationwide property liquidators. So I had a conversation with some of the JV guys. There was this one guy, Mario, Spanish guy, lived in Alaska, was doing deals in Macon, Georgia. He's a client of ours now to this day. But I remember talking to him. I'm like, mario, man, I love doing deals with You. I love that. You know, you keep bringing us all these deals because JV people, they'll bring you a couple, and then they drift off. But this guy was like a year. And I'm like, dude, why? I love taking your money, but why do you keep doing it? He's like, well, two reasons. I said, okay, well, what is that? He's like, well, you sell all of my deals. You do a great job. I'm like, well, thank you, man. I appreciate that. But also, you deal with the title companies. I don't have to. I don't like doing that. Yeah, that was kind of like one of the first seeds that was in my brain. And then the next thing was because we had a couple of coordinators, and we didn't ever let them go. Some of the other people that we know, we both know were like, hey, I let my coordinator go. Can you. Can your people just help coordinate this, get this done? That was the second thing. And I'm like, oh, like, there's a real need for that. And the more I thought about it, first off, remember back then, nobody even taught Dispo. Me and Jamil, that was it. We were the only people talking about it. And, uh, and then when I kind of thought that process through, I'm like, well, nobody's helping people get these deals closed. And what do we do as investors? Right? We go out there and we look for the squirreliest, biggest problems. Death, divorce, probate, taxes, bad tenants, water shut off, liens, child support.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're buying headaches.

Speaker A: Yeah, we are like, we. And we purposely go out and find them, and, you know, here's a. Here's a statistic. I feel like we've probably talked about this before. Maybe we haven't, but do you know the. The fail rate on contracts in the United States?

Speaker B: Um, I have. I know mine, but it's 50. Yeah, 50.

Speaker A: It's literally a toss or, uh, coin toss. That's from Resimpli. That's from First American Title Insurance. That's from freedomsoft. All those guys, they keep track of those numbers. So investors are out there and they're doing all this work. We're spending money on marketing. We're spending time getting. Getting these deals locked up. We're underwriting them, we're finding buyers. And it's a 50% fail rate. Yeah. How much of that is title issues? Because people just don't understand how to work through it. Not one single person read Rich Dad, Poor dad and said, you know what? I want to be a title.

Speaker B: I Want to be a title agent?

Speaker A: I want to be a title abstract. I want to go to the courthouse and deal with dusty books.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Nobody does. And, you know, out of 9,000 files are 7,000 different. Different problems. And you have. It's a mindset. It's the. And it's a different personality type. It's really problem solving.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and anyways, kind of all those things together, what sort of led us to starting this?

Speaker B: Well, you have that, but it's. I mean, it also takes a, uh. I mean, you mentioned it briefly. Right. But you got to have a problem solving mentality to go into it, and then you have to be creative. Yeah, you got to have creative thinking. When it comes to transaction coordination is not one. It's a very. It's very much a soft skill. Right. It's. It's definitely a soft skill. And what I mean by that is that it's something that you have. You have to adapt to. It's not like, you know, doing math or checklist. You know, 2x2 equals 4. Right. Like, that's a hard skill. You learn that and then you have, um. Exactly. For something like that, you may have, you know, a framework, but as far as a checklist, I mean, there's so many different things that pop up in, in deals. And when you have 20, 30, 40 or more, you know, riding on, just closing because of, you know, a TC issue. It's big money, man. It's big money. And, and, uh, you know, once you start to get to a point where you have, you know, an active, uh, uh, wholesaling business, uh, or flipping business for that matter, it, It's. It's, uh. A lot of your headaches are going to be coming from that side. The transaction coordination side. It's not even the finding or the selling. It's. It's a fixing of the paper.

Speaker A: And I'm not saying, like, you can't do it yourself. Yeah, I can go out and change the oil in my Grand Wagoneer.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: 50. 50. I'm going to seize that engine up because I don't know what the I'm doing, but you certainly can do it. Here's the first time I realize this. I, uh, I used to use this title company in Chattanooga. Uh, first and First. First Title Insurance Company. They're on Broad street or something now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, I had this attorney, and we called him Dr. No, because it was like everything I took in there, it was like one out of three. Oh, Davey. This one needs probate. This one's in foreclosure. We can't do it. Because attorneys always want to give you no. Right. It's always. They want to do stuff the hardest way possible. So I remember I go in there one day because I used to hand deliver it. I was operating by myself. I'm so excited. I would hand deliver my contracts in there. I just come from this old lady's house. Like, the sweetest old lady. Like, we came to a deal. I'm gonna solve her problem. I don't remember what it was, but, like, she had to move. Like she needed to sell.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So cool. So I go in, I go see Dr. No. And, uh, he's looking at it, and he pulls a couple things up. And I'm sitting there and I'm happy as a clam.

Speaker B: Says, no.

Speaker A: He's like, oh, man, this thing needs to go through probate. And he's like, you're gonna have to send her through probate. And I remember, I can't. You ever get this. Like, I got a little outside myself, and I'm like, jeremy, what the. This old lady is like, 90. She does not have money or time to go through probate. There's gotta be something that we can do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, he leans back in the chair and I'm like, at this point, I'm like, uh, this is my attorney. I probably. Probably should dial this back a little bit. And he's sort of looking at me and, uh, like, I could literally see the thought bubbles above his head. Head. And he's like, well, man, like, if you can get the death certificate for the ex husband or the. The husband who died, and, you know, if she's got any kids, if they'll. They'll sign off on it or, you know, and you can get two people to do an affidavit of airship. I guess we can get it closed. I'm like, yes.

Speaker B: Say less.

Speaker A: Say, dude, I'm out the door. And I'm like, skipping my big self right out that door. And I got almost to my car, to my handle on the car, and I'm like, whoa, how many deals have I thrown away? Yeah. Because I didn't know how to ask good questions.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because I didn't know that I could challenge these people. Yeah.

Speaker B: And say, you didn't know what to ask.

Speaker A: I didn't know the right questions. Yeah. And I had a mentor who said, you know, ask good questions, you get good answers. But I didn't do that. I didn't understand. Right. Yeah. Uh, so that's what we really just. Just, you know the culture that we've got, and we make sure that all of our coordinators understand that our job is to get these files closed. If you give me your file, that's my responsibility. I'm going to do every single thing I can to close it. Are some not going to close 100%? Some are such a rat's nest or a ball of spaghetti of problems that it's just not worth the time. It's $2,000 deal. It's going to take a year. Sometimes they'll just cut it loose. But that has to be the mentality. Right.

Speaker B: And one of the things, I mean. And, uh, you know, I'll speak from experience on this. Right. Like bringing TC in house. You have to tell them what to ask.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: They don't know. Yeah. And it's not. It's not on. On them if. If, for example, they're an internal hire. Right. So. So one of the things that you guys do very well is. Is like, we don't have to present the issue to you because you're seeing it and then you're. You're interpreting the. The situation like a doctor.

Speaker A: All they do all day long. I always tell people there's 25 people on the other side of that wall.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, this is the only thing that they do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That are working 5, 30 every single day. Hundreds of files a week.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: They. They know it's like the Matrix. Like, they see the bullet coming and they, they understand how to solve it. So. Yeah. Again, you can do it yourself. You can hire your. Hire your own. You can put the indeed ad out and then you can go through resumes, and then you can bring people in and they're not going to show up. And then, then the first person you find and then you're going to make.

Speaker B: Well, and then you have turnover because it's not the most pleasant, uh, role. It's tough in a company.

Speaker A: Yeah. So. Or you can hire us and we're ready to go tomorrow. Yeah.

Speaker B: The, uh. I, uh, love that, man. Switching gears a little bit. Give me. Give me a. I don't know, give me a crazy story on. On the tc. Well, some. Something that pops up.

Speaker A: Uh, food all the time. It's every day. Honestly, this stuff happens so much, our coordinators don't think anything about it. I have to drag them back to our podcast studio and we do a little thing called It's TC in the Trenches.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And sometimes they come back and I have them coming back to tell me one story and they just like, start with Something else the other day, it was like, oh, yeah, we had this deal. It was like almost a $400,000 assignment fee. I'm like, whoa, we lead with that. Like, that's literally what I said. I was so stunned. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, that's a big deal. I want to know about that. But there was this one a couple months ago, and, uh, one of our coordinators, she's awesome. Her name is Abby. She works so hard, tirelessly. All of our clients love them. But, uh, so here's what happens. You submit a file to us, right? It's going to come to us. We're going to assign a title company and we're going to assign it to a coordinator. It's one coordinator throughout the whole process. Keep things moving fast. So Abby gets it and she's like, hey, Mrs. Smith, I'm working with Raph on your deal over here at 123 Main Street. I'm going to be your point of contact from here all the way to closing because I want you to go get your next deal. Hey, Mrs. Smith, I got some questions for you. So I get you paid just as quick as possible. Great. It's kind of the same thing every time. And we've got about a five page intake form. Hannah was instrumental in getting this done. Hannah and Heather, she's great. Yeah, well, after 9,000 files, you know all the questions to ask, right? Like, we've seen literally everything. So anyways, so it's. You know, who else is on title? Where'd you get the property? You know, do you want to close? Remote notary? What's the last five of your social? Is there a tenant? Let me, you know, get the lease. Hey, you're not by chance of foreclosure, are you? Well, yes, I am.

Speaker B: Jesus.

Speaker A: Like, nobody knew. Like, our client, this girl, she had no idea because she didn't ask good questions. Right? Yeah, missed it. Whatever. That's fine. Oh, okay. So Abby says, uh, well, when have they given you a sale day? Yeah, yeah, in, uh, 72 hours. Whoa. Well, okay. So like, she's like, okay, here's what I need you to do. Take a picture with your. I need to see those. I need to see that. And again, we're not a forward closure rescue place, but like, we. We do this all the time. So we had to pull another TC and put two of them on it. They spent 20 hours over the next three days. They got the. They got it postponed. Yeah, they got a postponed. That girl. That was a $68,000 assignment. Now, here's what would happen if you'd have just sent it to your title company, your investor friendly title company. We owned a title company operating in six states. This is how it works. They take that contract. When they get it, they key it into Qualia. Yeah. Uh, your name, the seller's name, the address, projected closing date, and then it sits. Yeah. Nobody's calling on day one. Right. So when this girl found a buyer, and chances are she wouldn't have known it got sold at the sale in three days, the title company would not have known. That deal would have never happened.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's the difference of having somebody who is on your side and protecting your deal.

Speaker B: Man, I love that. It's, uh. And it's a very. It's important to make the difference. Right. Not because you have a title company in place. It means that they're gonna be proactive as to the actions that need to be, uh, taking place. It's not. Yeah, exactly. Like, what their job is, is to catch paperwork and then process it. But if you don't send it over, uh, or don't, you know, don't let them know about things in advance that you don'.

Speaker A: Know about, perhaps title company is never calling and stopping your foreclosure.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they won't. Exactly. That's definitely a transaction coordination thing, so. Man, that's incredible. Give me some stats on. On the, uh. Just the temperature. How. How is it looking right now for the, uh, for the real estate investor out there? I mean, you have. You have a very particular, um, vantage point when it comes to looking at stats, running numbers. Because you do a lot of deals, um, close. Do a lot of closings, uh, and then you do them all over the place, not just one localized area. So we do.

Speaker A: So, yes. I mean, I could tell you a couple of things. We just ran some stats. Um, rural deals are dead. M. Stay out of rural areas. You have a 58 chance, according to our data, of that deal dying. M. Like, if you're in.

Speaker B: That's huge.

Speaker A: It's huge, man. Like, you're literally, like, going into it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You have a 60 fail rate. Yeah. So when.

Speaker B: Wait, is that on top of the, uh, the attrition that you have on normal contracts, or is that just.

Speaker A: We've got it broken down into three main kind, um, of categories. First one is rural. Ah. Then acquisitions issues, and then title issues.

Speaker B: M. But 60%.

Speaker A: And then it's about 30% on acquisitions problems. Not asking good questions. Yeah, contracting too high. And then about 9% is actual title issues.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That like, everything can be solved in time, but sometimes it's just not worth it.

Speaker B: Right. So.

Speaker A: But yeah, 58 chance that your deal, according to our data, 9,000 files. I feel like it's a pretty good sample size that when you get into these rural areas, your deal is going to fail. Why? Why? Because there's no buyers.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. And this is something that, you know, we talk to our clients, we talk to our, our students about is when you're in the acquisitions phase. Again, this kind of goes back to. Because we, we did so much teaching on dispo. You have to understand the minute that, like your acquisitions people have to understand when I put this under contract, who is going to buy it and how are they going to make money. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I'm talking to a seller and there's a tenant in there. Cool. When does the tenant move out? When is that lease up? Are they month to month? Great. No problem. This could be a rehab. But they have eight months left on their lease.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Who's going to buy it? Well, a landlord will now have to look at this a little bit differently. And I have to evaluate this. Is a landlord in this area going to buy it? Is the cash on cash return going to be a enough? Right. Is it going right? Since if it's a rehab, great. We all understand that, you know, fix it up. We, we get that. If it's land, then we also have to understand, okay, what is land selling for? Yeah. Like, it's very basic. But if at the time you contract, you can't figure out how somebody does it, you're going to lose. If your plan is, I'm just going to put everything under contract at 45 of Zillow, you're going to lose. Right. Because especially when you get into these rural areas. So to kind of take that a little further as who's buying it now? Three years ago, four years ago, when interest rates were 2%, everybody was buying

Speaker B: everything because a totally different universe, different world.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah. Um, yeah, that was the multiverse. We're over there. Right. Because people were just buying stuff because it was appreciating so so quickly that they would buy a house in the middle of nowhere. But now, right. When you look at a property, who's going to make money? How does your buyer make money on this deal? You're like, oh, it's a really nice house in the. You know. But I'm like, dude, it's 80 miles from the city. Yeah. Um, who's renting there? It's a city of 2,000 people. Who's going to rent it?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Who's going to fix it up and sell it? Because who are they going to sell it to? Right. This is the problem with these rural

Speaker B: market days on market, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, so again, why would I want to spend my money 80 miles from the city and hold something for six months when I could just buy something 15 miles out and turn it really fast? And you make.

Speaker B: You make a really good point, too. I mean, you know, if you go back a couple of years, Right. Time travel three years, inventory, uh, was way different. Supply and demand was way different than what it is now. Right. So granted, like, there's no, there's nothing here. I have to go out and look for opportunity elsewhere. That's where you had more buyers. I feel like, you know, going out to the outskirts of rural areas and whatnot. As soon as inventory started getting better and days on market started dropping, activity, you know, picked up, they come back to. To their stopping grounds.

Speaker A: Yeah. And we're still not in a bad place. Like, historically speaking, we are very normal. Yeah, I get it. Listen, for those of you that are listening, this is January, May 15th. The market is going to change 100%. Trump is going to put a new Fed chairman in, guaranteed. Like, the dude's out, he's putting somebody new in. This guy is going to drop rates. Yeah, Right. Whether it's good or bad for the total economy, I don't know. But I can tell you it's going to be good for real estate. So buckle the fuck up right now. You need to be getting your processes in place, your marketing lined up. You need to be ready, because it is going to happen. Like, it's clear as day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Lock that in, man.

Speaker B: I, like, I can't wait for that stuff, dude.

Speaker A: It's gonna be.

Speaker B: I mean, if you're positioned right, if you worked on. On the way that you should be working on building the business on a side hustle.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, the opportunity comes at you, comes quick. The people that make it through it or make something of it, it's because they're lined up and it's not luck. They've been working on stuff for years, so. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That was why we never stopped.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. You know, Kent Cloth, when.

Speaker B: When Covid hit, I mean, you were talking about being virtual years before COVID so you were kind of pre. You know, you were primed for it.

Speaker A: Yeah. We had the team set up. We understood the acquisitions. We understood, you know, we had A dispo team. A big dispo team set up. There were four room. Um, we had transaction coordination. We had everything. It was just the market temporary down but we knew it would come back. Right. Like.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: That's the advantage of doing this since 2002 is I've been through a couple of market cycles.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And 2009 and 10 was bad. Yeah. And like, for those of you that remember, if you don't YouTube it, go back and look at Dan Rather coming on the nightly news.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: We don't know if the government can open tomorrow. That's uh, scary.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm telling you, you watch that, it was scary in the pit of your stomach.

Speaker B: Scary.

Speaker A: It is. So now when people are on Facebook like it's the end of the world. We're in a reception. Dude, get. Shut up, shut up. You're just these fear mongers that are out there talking nonsense.

Speaker B: Well, fear sells. It does.

Speaker A: It's, it's, it's uh, we're in a very stable market. This is normal. Ah. When, when I got a loan in 2007 or eight, I got a 7% loan, I thought I was the freaking man.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm m. Like, who did I bamboozle to get. For real, man, to get a 7% loan. Like I thought I was like the coolest guy ever.

Speaker B: Yeah. The, I feel like the, the. Well, I think the reason why everybody thinks that, oh, it's like it's bad right now when rates that are at six and sevens and stuff like that because I mean got spoiled with the 2% and like that shit's not sustainable, man. It's not economically.

Speaker A: I just don't want it. 2%.

Speaker B: No. You know, so I mean, hell, time travel back, you know, a couple of decades and the rates were way even higher.

Speaker A: Like 15.

Speaker B: 15. You had 30. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it was so. So it's, you know, looking at the grand scheme of things, right. You have to step back and you know, see the overall picture what's happening to, to I feel like, to just have a notion, not necessarily don't fully understand what's going to happen with real estate, but have a notion of where it's headed and, and uh, you know, pre plan for it to a degree.

Speaker A: And here's the thing, as real estate investors, the, the good thing about us is we can operate in any market, Right. Very light on our feet. Whether it's government regulation or. Yes, the economy. There is, you know, strategies can shift. Right. No matter, no matter what's happening when, you know, Everything was really bad. We really specialized in under $20,000 properties in the bad areas of town. And I was selling them like hotcakes to landlords because they understood, they understood what cash flow was and how cheap they could snatch, Snatch up these properties. But think about this, man. If, if when all of that was happening, the 2% real estate's on fire. If you could go to a seller who knows that they could put it on mls, Right. Who knows that they can sell it with a realtor and you can thrive. And you're telling me now when people can't sell their property with a realtor or just by putting a sign out, you can't make that business work. You sucked. Like you were just getting lucky. Right? Yeah. So you're just not putting in the work. Right. And especially now, my God, there's so many softwares and ideal, uh, machine and privy and prop wire and you know, I mean like, like, dude, you don't have to leave your couch.

Speaker B: Yes. You can literally do everything from your.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Bedroom.

Speaker A: I'm out driving for dollars putting out bandit signs, putting up, you know, little tear off things in laundromats and say, I'll buy your house. Come on.

Speaker B: We had to, we had to hump it, man. When back in the day, the bandit signs.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, but it was cool, man. It all worked.

Speaker B: So, uh, you actually had to negotiate back in 2011, 12.

Speaker A: I reject the whole thing that the market's too hard. Like you're not working hard enough. I tell people, and I hate this analogy, but I don't know of another one to do. If I was to hold a gun to your loved one or your dog. I'm a big English bulldog guy. But anyways, and said told you, you have 48 hours to go find a property.

Speaker B: You figure it out.

Speaker A: Every single person would go get it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, every single one. So it's. You're not getting off your ass and going out and doing it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So quit crying. Just go do the work. If you know how. They're my partner. If you do the thing, the thing works.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So you got. This is a simple business.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. I think we just like to, to over, uh, complicate things, uh, you know, at times, um, with that. Tell me about your experience building, uh, and transitioning into, Into a, ah, bigger business. I mean, because you went from corporate and ah, into you know, betting on yourself and then doing your own, you know, real estate investments and being a solopreneur.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, grew that. And I remember you Start, you know, when you, you were talking about dispoing and, and you know, pushing, just becoming a dispo company. You did that for a while, added a few people to it. And now, I mean, you're just at a whole different level. Like, talk to me about that, that evolution as an entrepreneur, man, the mindset, you know, uh, I feel like the small mindset breaks, uh, and the think gets bigger, but we also have to become that better version of ourselves as we go through the process.

Speaker A: It wasn't smooth and it wasn't easy, right? So I think coming from a corporate background helped, right? Like you see things, you see SOPs, you get manuals you like, you, you understand some of that. So that definitely helped, um, when, but then when I started running my own company because when I was a young manager, I was really good. My problem is I was a little bit of an arrogant prick, right? And like other managers didn't like me because I was good at what I did. And I was right nine out of 10 times. But that one time I wasn't in those corporate meetings. They were just ram it right up me.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: So, you know, I did have a little bit of arrogance when, when I was younger. And uh, um, but anyway, so I start running my own company and I fell into that. I'm the best. Nobody can do this as good as me. I work the hardest, I'm the smartest. You know, I'm not going to hire Vas. My brother wanted me to hire Vas. I'm like, no, I don't want to train him. I don't want to go through that. Like, I'll just do it. And because of that, I was working literally 14 to 16 hours a day. Also not great for your life outside of work. But, um, you know, finally, eventually, you know, I hired this one girl and her, uh, name was Taylor. And she came in, I started teaching her some dispo stuff. And then I was, you know, doing the dispo and the transactions because I had a partner that was handling acquisitions. So I was mainly handling that second side. And then as our business grew, I brought in a couple more dispo people. And then, you know, now I realized I had to train them. Right? Yeah, because I was just like, you know, I was, I was the, you know, the difference between unconsciously competent and consciously.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Uh, yeah.

Speaker A: So like, I'm really good at selling stuff. I'm just like, I could just do it. And ah, when I had some people in, then I had to start figuring out, well, how do I train these people to, to do this job. And that's when I had to start figuring out like a process and really simplifying it. Because simple is what's scalable, right? If, you know, I don't know if you remember that old movie, it was with Russell Crowe. And I remember the poster, it was like him standing in front of this huge chalkboard and it was all like calculus.

Speaker B: A Beautiful Mind.

Speaker A: Thank you. If that's your business plan. Yeah, that works for me and that works for you. That does not work for the people that come in underneath you. So I always tell you, go watch the founder with Michael Keaton. He's Ray Kroc. Whether what he did was good or not doesn't matter, but McDonald's is a multi billion dollar company and it's run by 16 year olds because it's a simple process.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: So simple is scalable. But anyways, so we brought these people in and, uh, one of them is still with me today, Rachel. And I remember going out there and having a little meeting. I'm like, okay, girls, there's three of them. What do we. What are we doing today? What are we selling? What's going on? Okay, great. Taylor, what are you doing? Well, I'm doing this, this, this and this. I'm like, um, okay, well, you got any leads? You got stuff? Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna sell a couple. Okay, cool. Cassandra, what are you doing? Well, I'm doing this, that, and the other thing. I'm like, okay, great. And then, you know, Rachel. Well, I'm doing this, this, and this and this. I'm like, okay, girls, first off, I love it, love the energy. We're gonna, we're gonna sell these deals. But you guys are all doing six things and you're not even doing the same. Six. Yeah. So we need to standardize this process. Little Henry Ford.

Speaker B: Ish.

Speaker A: Right? Like, we have a little bit of a. We're gonna have some processes and we're gonna do things in a certain order. And you know, so that was the first thing to operate at scale. I had to real. I had to figure that out.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But I couldn't give them this cr. All everything. I couldn't brain dump on them because they would just, they would just check out.

Speaker B: One thing to understand too, is that, I mean, if you're, for example, that's your strong suit, right? Personally, people are not going to have. They're not going to see things the same way that you are. And it's not. I don't, I don't Think it's a matter of iq. I think it's just a matter of, of, you know, people are brought in with different talents. I mean, I mean, I'm not going to play the guitar as, you know, or, or hear music as, as good as Lenny Kravitz or. You know what I mean? And, and yeah, you can, you can talk about, you know, fine tuning the ear or, you know, the skill set all you want, but sometimes, you know, not. Sometimes I feel like there's people who are already come, you know, prepared to see things a certain way. It's just easier to them. Comes easier to them.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, so what I'm, what. The point I'm trying to make, for example, is like, you might be able to visualize a business, see the ins and outs. Um, and, and to you it's like, oh, yeah, it's like my second language. Uh, and then you said somebody else right next to it. They're really good operators, but they can't understand about what you wrote, you know, what you wrote on the board. Um, and what they need is a step by step breakdown.

Speaker A: Right. So to go back to the very beginning, your question like that is, that is a big thing for entrepreneurs to understand, right? Yeah, we think everybody's brain fires off like ours does, and it doesn't. Um, and this is one of the things that, that's been my success is figuring out how to surround myself with absolute fucking rock stars. And we can kind of talk about that team building. But you have to realize there are people that are better than you now.

Speaker B: 100%.

Speaker A: Everybody listening to this is amazing at something in your business, right. Whether it's marketing or acquisitions or dispo or being, you know, paperwork. Right, Whatever. Um, but yeah, you, that was, that was a hard thing to realize. So one, I had to, I had to come up with a plan and processes that were just simple and repeatable over and over and over again. And you know, our friend says, you know, getting rich is not sexy or exciting. It's doing something repeatable over and over again. So, so yeah, so that was, that was one of the first things. And then, you know, that lesson I was able to, you know, kind of keep replicating. So for me, I hire one person and you know, like Taylor in the beginning and, and you know, I fill her up with as much knowledge until she's maxed out, and then like an amoeba. Then, then we hire a second person and then she trains that person. Yeah, and then we train that person. Then, then we add a second One or a third one, whatever it is. So that's kind of how we, how we've grown the team. And then over time. Steve Richards can talk about this. He. Steve, uh, took me off the ledge one day. I'm like, I'm just losing my mind after hiring people all the time and they're quitting. And he's like, bro, take it easy. Like the best, you know, companies that hire Ivy League people in the country, the Fortune 500 people, stay for 18 months.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You run a small, independent little family business, you're going to have some turnover. Dude, take it easy.

Speaker B: Yeah, he's amazing. I love. I was on a call with him this morning. Shout out Steve.

Speaker A: Yeah. And team architects. So anyways, so, you know, I realized that, okay, I'm gonna have to hire people out of every 10. You know, honestly, six. Six probably aren't gonna work out. And that's okay, right? They're not a fit. Whether it's culture, work ethic, they can't show up on time, whatever it is. But, you know, three or four are going to stay for a year, eight months. Right. And you pour into them because you never know. It's like a rental or like a tenant. You never know which one it's gonna be. But usually out of that 10, there's one. Right. Uh, one. One that believes in you. They believe in your vision and they want to be a part of the journey.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And those are the people you collect, and those are the people that you take care of. That's the Heathers, the Hannah's, Angela, Steve. Like, that's my core team around me. Right. Those are the people that rise to the top, and they're the people that help train that next. That kind of third and fourth layer. And those are the people you take care of. Yeah. Right. Because those are the people that allow me to be in Phoenix for three weeks and the company's still growing at home.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, and I, uh, mean, authorship creates ownership. It's. If you bring the team into that development, you know, stage where they're. They're buying is actually improving the process, improving the systems. They feel like they have something now. Now you have not just a payroll, you have significance added to it. And then start creating this really cool culture about, you know, uh, collab, collaborative, uh, you know, work.

Speaker A: Yeah. You have to be, as a CEO, willing to take feedback.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The other day I had a presentation, I changed it all up. And afterwards, Hannah had to send me a message. She's like, you know, I love you, but it didn't go good. You changed it up too much, you know, because we're visionaries and our brain's always going. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. She's like, I hope you don't. I'm like, nope, that's. That's what I pay you for. Like. Like, I trust you.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Have to give me good feedback. Uh, so you have to have people in your life that tell you you're getting a little outside the lines, you know?

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it's. It's just a. You know, when you're. When you're too deep into the trench, I mean, it's hard to see the. The sunlight. You know what I mean? And you need people that are out there. It's. I mean, that's what it comes down to. Um, the, uh. The. I feel like the phrase is. Is, oh, what if I. What if I pour too much into the people that are joining my company and they're coming in and. And then they leave?

Speaker A: Yeah, but what. They don't.

Speaker B: Yeah. What if they stay and then you don't train them? Right.

Speaker A: Like, it's. How did. How did that help? So I. I did have a partner, and he said one of two things I said. He said, every person you hire, they're either going to quit or you're going to fire them or you die first. That's. That's. That's the third option.

Speaker B: Right? Third option.

Speaker A: And then just. Just life takes itself. But, like, that's going to happen.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. So, um, you know, it's. It's. It's like any relationship, whether it's. It's a marriage or a friendship or a work relationship, everything is seasons. And, you know, if somebody's leaving me to go to a better opportunity that I can't do for them, then I want to celebrate that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I want to see them successful because I do care about them now. You know, do you. You know. You know, do you let people kind of in that inner circle in the beginning? No. They have to earn that. You have to be sure that they're going to be around a little.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But, no, I want the best for all of them. And I've had people that have left me to go work for title company companies because I trained them up so good that, yeah, they went to, you know, a job where they can make $120,000 a year. I'm like, awesome. We don't pay our TCs quite that much, so that's fantastic.

Speaker B: What's. I was going to ask you about that. What's your take on that? I mean, I'm, I'm very, very pro, um, you know, employee evolution. Like, if they, if they outgrow me, the skill sets and they, they start thinking about moving on. Um, I really don't. In my heart, I don't hold that against anybody. It's. I feel like it's. No, but. And there's a lot of people that do. Right. It's like, oh, you're gonna leave me? There's no, there's no, uh, um, you know, loyalty or. No, like, come on. It's, you know, at the end of the day, if you, if you're able to be part of somebody's process and somebody's improvement where they, where they came in and then they outgrew the, the potential that you had for them. Right. I mean, I think that's an incredible thing.

Speaker A: It is. You know, for us. Everybody who's at a leadership position has worked their way up.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So literally Heather, my partner who runs all of my companies, came as just a coordinator one day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: She freely says she didn't even plan on staying. It was a part time gig. She just wanted something to kind of get through.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, you know, she, she just rose her way up. All the way. She was a director and then a vice president. Now she's the coo. Hannah. Yeah. You know, Hannah, she started out as a dispositions agent.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: If you knew that in our company. And then when we started ez, like, we're like, hey, we need, we need people that are uber organized. Organized. Super. Like, I'm not organized. People think like, like, I can do it all. I'm terrible at it. But, you know, we plucked her out. We said, hey, would you like to move over to this company? I think this would be a good fit. So she started as a TC and then became like a leader over there, and then, you know, became a leader over multiple teams. And then we moved her up to client success manager, and then now she's our business development manager.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So when you look at people, you know, instead of them outgrowing you, did they come in? How can they provide value? How can they help you grow? And then remember, like, how many people can I put underneath them? Right. If, if, you know, we get to the point where Hannah's doing such a good job and we've grown so much. Like, I want to give her two assistants. Yeah. I want her to manage them. I want to pay her more because they're bringing in revenue. Right. So everybody in Our company, they're all incentivized, right? They have a base, but then they have an incentive to retain customers, bring in new clients, you know, to increase revenue. Right? That's, you know, we are revenue driven at Tom Crow. Revenue in first position. Uh, so, you know, that is always important to us and everybody has to stay focused on that one, making sure that our clients literally get 11 out of 10 service every single day. But the people that are on the sales and marketing side, how are we, how are we attracting more clients?

Speaker B: Yeah, I, um, uh, I love that, man. And the whole mentality behind it too. It's not. When you see an organization operate like that, right? It's not just about the service. It's about, okay, how are they going about the ser. The service itself, because it. That tells you their strategy behind the service, tells you how they think, right? What they care about, what the true values are, uh, whether or not they're going to be there once, you know, hits the fan or, or they need to go the extra mile. Right. Or, or just a, ah, you know, another account, uh, in, In. In the. In the docket. So, um, let's, uh, let's go into, uh. Um. I'm, I'm curious. Give, uh, give us some insight. So, you know, again, you have a lot of stats, you have a lot of, uh, information that's, that's preview to, to a lot of people that, you know, don't have access to it or it's not privy to a lot of people. And uh, but give us, for example, somebody's uh, wholesaling. What markets are, are the best markets, where you see activity going on right now, uh, what strategies, uh, on, on exit strategies. And I don't know if you have any insights on, on, uh, lead generation that's, you know, working out there. Give me kind of like the rundown of where, where people can find the juice. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah. And we're not as tied into what People's Legion strategies are, so I would leave that to somebody who's, who's, you know, I don't want to guess. Um, but I can tell you, um, over the last couple years, wholesaling has actually pulled ahead again. It was pretty even with Novations this year. I think wholesaling went up to 53% of our files. I would have to, I would have to. But it definitely pulled ahead of Novations, which is, which was surprising, especially with all the state regulations. But it's pretty much 80% of the deals are wholesaling and novation. And then that last 20 is broken up between subject to owner financing, buy and hold, wholetail.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Term holds those. That's pretty much where the market is. So I know there's a lot of sounds about.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Yeah. There's a lot of talk like storage units, co living, like all that stuff. You know, there's a lot of attention on social media around it.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: But what's working are the basics. Yeah, right. People out there wholesaling.

Speaker B: You know what, man, I talk about that all the time too. Like, uh, you know, I get asked like, wow, why don't you go into more complex, like, oh, you can work this deal like this. To me, speed of the deal is, is. I mean, that's where the bread and butter is. I'd rather be in and out of the deal in 30 days and make a little less than. Than be stuck with a deal for six months and then, you know, go through the headaches. It's just, you know, the speed of it. Everybody has their own model, granted. But, uh, but what you're saying makes a lot of sense because we have seen that internally. I mean, obviously not, not with the numbers that you guys are running. But, uh, in terms of, uh, you know, closings and transactions and managing the, uh, the exits.

Speaker A: But the data shows. But metro and secondary markets, where the money's at. Yeah. The 58% of your deal dying if it's roll because there's no buyers.

Speaker B: So you have Metro. What do you call a secondary market? What are your stats?

Speaker A: Let's look at like, uh, Charlotte. Uh, right, Charlotte. And then around it, you've got just a group of cities. Like Gastonia is one that comes to mind. Right. Like, those are great markets. This is actually something Robert Wensley told me years and years ago. So think about like virtual wholesaling, everybody in the country, we want to pick these top, top 20 markets. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's going to be Tampa. It's going to be, um, you know, Charlotte. It's going to be Dallas. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Great. Awesome. But everybody's marketing there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Cool. Right? So you're thinking, well, there's a lot of buyers in Charlotte. That's true. Now, do they want to drive 80 miles up into the mountains to buy a property? No. But they will drive eight miles to Gastonia. But who thinks to market the Gastonia and pull a list there?

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: Nobody. Right. So it's, that's what I consider those secondary markets. I live in East Ridge, Tennessee. We are one city outside of Chattanooga.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I can tell you East Ridge is a hot market. To be in. Right. And this goes into path of progress and city growth. Right. Like just outside.

Speaker B: That's huge right there.

Speaker A: Yeah. Great book is um, Emerging Markets by Dave Lindahl if anybody wants to buy that. Fantastic book. But anyways, you know, as a city grows, right. Like people move out that maybe the inner city gets too expensive and they move out to the summer. Those suburbs there is a lot, a lot of activity. So you know, I love to be in, in markets that are 250 to 750. I don't want to be in the four. You know here. It's gonna be very competitive. You guys are all just, it's. This is actually one of our big markets but there's just a lot of competition, competition here. So the thing about virtual wholesaling is you can be anywhere.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You can open it up. You can pick any market in, in

Speaker B: the country, have a system.

Speaker A: Go to the places that are the easiest to do business. My daddy taught me that work smart, not hard. Why do I want to come here and duke it out with you guys?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: M. When, when I can be in Denton, Texas right outside of Dallas. Right. Or I can be in Huntsville, Alabama which is a great secondary market. Right. Go to those places where. And this is a simple formula. You want, you want to go out and you know, pick a market. It's easy. Just Google top cities by population, sort of high to low. Look. 250 to 750. Like be in there. You want to be a little more 300 to 500. Right. There's plenty of cities in there. Pull them up on Propstream.

Speaker B: And you're talking about population.

Speaker A: Population. Yes. I'm sorry, Pull up, um, go to Propstream. Just look for cash buyers last six months and just keep changing the city and see how many are there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like write them down. Right. How many cash sales were there in the last six months? Cool. Sort those high to low. Pick those. That's, that's the easiest thing to do because now we know we're uh, probably in a place that's not going to be over saturated with, with wholesalers. Not that there's not some. But dude, pick up the phone. You'll beat 90 of the people out there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then let's be.

Speaker B: Pick up the phone to do your follow ups. That's it. Like it's not rocket science.

Speaker A: It's not. You don't got to be great on the phone. Just say hello. Yeah. The rest of it will work itself out. And let's be in a place where there are actually People doing transactions. Right. Ah. I tell people if I was to walk outside here and. And somebody just tossed me the keys to an ice cream truck.

Speaker B: Awesome.

Speaker A: Yeah. I'm gonna go fill that thing up with chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Why? Because I'm a chubby guy from Boston. I love maybe a little Jimmy's and some chocolate syrup on top. Like, I'm gonna be happy as a clam. But I start going out, driving around here, and people are like, hey, man, I really want pistachio. Yeah, well, I'm allergic to nuts. Like, legit. I'm allergic to nuts. I don't like nuts. I would never do that. Yeah. You know what I would figure out? I would go put a Covid mask on and some gloves, and I would figure out how to sell pistachio, because that's what people want, Right. Just go to places where people are buying. Yeah. It's not hard.

Speaker B: That's. It's a. It's a very good insider, uh, tip right there, though. I mean, secondary markets, for example. One of the. One of the things that I. I, uh. You know, the way that. That I. I allocate my, um, uh, my markets or I look for markets is like over 300,000 people in population. And, I mean, that's how I grow. But then I spill into a lot of these metro areas. Right. So I haven't capped that in my search, which, uh, I'm going to start doing that. I'm going to cap it at 750.

Speaker A: Um.

Speaker B: And, uh. And if you have something that's that big, odds are that it's going to be pretty close enough to a metro area.

Speaker A: Yeah. The way I came up with that is I know what Chattanooga's population is. Yeah. And I know that I can run a very successful deal business there.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I know that I can do four to six, maybe seven deals very consistently there. Like. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah,

Speaker A: four to seven deals at $20,000 a piece. You're. You're living really good. You don't have to do 30 deals a month. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah, but so that. And that's one thing that a lot of people don't understand. They feel like it's like, oh, you got to be knocking out 10, 15, 20 deals a month. Like, you're Exactly. I mean, it's. It's. Keep more of it and you're going to be better. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker A: We can definitely have a whole separate conversation, big teams versus small teams. But, yeah, you can live a really great life. You're doing a million dollars a Year, you're good. So I knew that and I use that as a, as a baseline, as a benchmark. Right. So you don't have to use Chattanooga, but have a market that you know, like you can, is sustainable for you and then just use that. You know, like when I'm looking at a new market and somebody's like, oh, you should go to Savannah, uh, Georgia, I'm like, okay, takes me two minutes. I pull it up, I look at cash sales in Chattanooga or Hamilton county for the last six months and then I change it and I put in whatever Savannah's county is or whatever city we're looking at and I'm like, oh, yeah, you had more cash sales than us. Yeah, I'm willing to give it a shot.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, that's like the basic, like you can go a little bit deeper, but picking markets is a 20 minute exercise. It's not a three day exercise or a three week pick.

Speaker B: Well, I mean what it turns into is just creative avoidance. It's just procrastination is what it turns into. It's like, oh, I got to pick the perfect like, bro. Like, if there's enough activity, there's homes there, there's, there's going to be, be. Yeah, yeah, there's gonna be people to pick it up.

Speaker A: And maybe you guys can relate to this that are watching it. Like, have you ever been in the shower and been like, well, I guess I bought all the houses I can buy. There's no more houses. There's no, there's no more buyers. I've talked to everybody.

Speaker B: The last time that happened to me,

Speaker A: it's happened to me. Like I can remember it but like get in an airplane, just look down. There's 400 million people in this. There's plenty. There are. Uh, any place any single person is listening to this, go on your roof and shoot a slingshot in a mile radius. Somebody is losing sleep tonight over a property. Yeah. There are people you can help.

Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. Um, before we start signing off, give me the top three things that somebody would need to look for in a good transaction coordinator.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you want somebody that, that's done it before and understands. Right. Hiring just a realtor, which you're probably going to get a failed realtor because why would they leave? You know, because you think that they understand what is what your business is.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Or, uh, you, uh, know, maybe you get frisky and you want to hire a former title agent because they've done title. Well, those people, they haven't done our Business. Right. Uh, retail is completely.

Speaker B: It's not the same as what we do.

Speaker A: Most title companies are built for the three Rs, retail, refi and realtors. They're not built. Our business is crazy. Right. So you want somebody that understands transactions too. That's the first thing. You want somebody who's very organized. Very, very organized. Understands how to take notes and keep track of things. Like what was every single conversation, what were all of those? And what's the, uh, third one? Somebody that's a problem solver. Right. Somebody who just doesn't take the title companies. Well, just can't close this one, you know, there's nothing we can do. You know, this one's going to. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Like, is your underwriter saying that? Are you saying that? Are you.

Speaker B: Where's it coming from?

Speaker A: Yeah, where's that coming from? And you know, kind of an additional thing is, uh, people that the common thing is, well, just go find an investor friendly title company. Yeah. Well, that means a lot of things to a lot of people to us. We're like, oh, you do wholesale innovation sub two. You know, you can, you can assign an fha. Like we could do all those things. Yeah, but you're calling Penelope at the title company who may have been there two years or two weeks. Right. You never know. Right. You don't know who these people are. We always seem to put title companies on this page pedestal that, oh, they're professionals and they know and they're all of these things.

Speaker B: Just like a lot of the other, you know, providers, uh, out there. Real estate agent. Oh, you're, you have your real estate agent. Oh, you know, everything about the world, it takes 90 hours to get a license.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you, uh, know, again, investor friendly means to Penelope, that could be like, yeah, we have this builder who buys lots and he closes on those lots and then builds a house and then he sells them. He's in about. Yeah, right. And also that girl's job at the reception is just send us all the contracts.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So the danger there is you think you have somebody who's going to close your deal and then two weeks before closing when they finally look at it and they realize, oh, wait, you're not really a buyer and you want to assign this. We don't do that because not all title companies are created the same. Yeah, right. It's like a restaurant. You have the muffin shop, the bagel shop, the Italian shop, the Mexican shop, whatever. Right. They're built for different things. When I had my House built. I went to a title company that really specialized in working with builders. That was their gig. Cool. But most of them title companies, they want to work with realtors doing $800,000 houses where the title policy is easy. It was sold two years ago. There's no, um, nothing to clean up.

Speaker B: Turn and burn. Yeah.

Speaker A: We bring the worst business. It's the worst.

Speaker B: Think about that. That's why they're coming to us.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I mean, they, if they, they didn't have any issues to solve, they'd be selling retail.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So. So just by the nature of the business itself, there's going to be stuff that pops up, um, down the road. Road. Uh, especially on the TC side.

Speaker A: So we understand that. And when we started the company, a couple things. Heather and I sat and talked and I said, okay, first off, if you come to me, you're like doing deals here in Arizona. You may do a deal in Montana. Yeah. Who knows? Right. So we knew on day one that we had to be able to operate and have certified coordinators in all 50 states. The second thing was we knew that we had to understand all transaction types because we're real investors.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: We've done this for 20 years before we started this. So I know that, you know, the exit strategy sometimes is dependent on the seller. I can't shoehorn everything into novation or sub 2 or wholesale. Right. It's going to depend on the property and the seller. So we've got to be able to do. And our coordinators have to understand wholesale innovation, sub 2, like installment method, all of the different things. Um, and then just the third thing was just having that culture of we are going to push this thing over the finish line as fast as possible. Because I say this all the time now that I'm in Phoenix, but I'm like little Bobby in Phoenix. This could be his only deal this month. Yeah. Right. And he's got a wife and a girlfriend. Hopefully not both, but our kids and dogs and VAs in an office. Right. Like this has to close. Yeah. Get this effing thing closed as fast as possible.

Speaker B: Let's get him paid.

Speaker A: Yeah, let's get him paid.

Speaker B: Let's get Bobby paid.

Speaker A: Let's get Bobby paid.

Speaker B: No, I love that, man. Um, the, uh, the. This is, this is, um, a question that I like to ask everybody, uh, that I have on the podcast that goes more on the, on the personal realm. But, um, if you were walking down the street and you ran into your 17 year old self.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What advice would you give that kid

Speaker A: man, start eating healthier sooner. Start going to the gym really hard when you get into your 50s. Um, you know, it's funny because I think about that all the time. I'll lay in bed and go, geez, if I'd have started wholesaling when I was in college at UMass, how much richer would I. Richer, more properties. But then I also go like, well, there was no, there was no software. You know, I talked to Lou Brown. I'm like, lou, how did you comp stuff back then in the 80s, we pulled out the newspaper, we looked at what was selling by area. Right. Um, you know, I, I think forward looking a little. He is. I forward looking a little bit. Um, yeah, I definitely get into real estate sooner. And, and I had always had that thought I would talk to my dad before he passed and we would talk about buying properties, and I just never did it. But. Yeah, get into properties, but hold more properties.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And that's the thing that all the experienced people I, I know that are, you know, I had over 100 rentals point at one one point. Now I'm down to like 86 or 87. I wish I'd never sold any of them. Right. But you, you know, right, you need cash, you need, you need stuff. But, you know, buy more properties, hold more wholesaling is awesome. Novations are awesome. It's a great influx of quick cash. But the real wealth, right, is owning those rentals that, you know, for me, mine will all be paid off in the next couple of years. And then I just got like that $50,000 a month.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Coming in every single month. So that's fantastic. But yeah, just hold more properties. Um, yeah, get, get into real estate quicker. I, you know, I wish everybody was doing it, but I do understand, not everybody is built to be, you know, a business owner.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, uh, it's like getting in the ring, right? Like, yeah, some people want to do it, some people don't.

Speaker A: But it can be hard.

Speaker B: Yeah. Entry, uh, barrier to entry is low for a reason.

Speaker A: I tell that, you know, wholesaling, it's, uh, it's the great equalizer. Right? Black, white, purple, doesn't matter. Short, tall, skinny, fat, whatever. Everybody can do it.

Speaker B: That's awesome.

Speaker A: Right? So no matter who you are, you can, you can, like, dude, I started with less than 5,000 bucks.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I tell people I was half a broke when I started, and, you know, we built good, uh, businesses. Um, so anybody can do this. It doesn't matter. Right? And all of the information you want is out there to at least get you started. Right. You may not scale, you may not optimize, but. But you can certainly get started. So it's great. That's the good news. The bad news is anybody can get into wholesaling. Right. And there are people who are out there who are unscrupulous and.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And take advantage of people. And those are the people that are giving us a bad name. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So. But, yeah, wholesaling is fantastic. It's the greatest. The greatest thing I ever found.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, same here, man. If I were to start all over again, I would have started with wholesaling. Definitely. Out of everything that I've done in terms of building and switching careers and. And everything I've done in the past, it's wholesaling would have been top of the list.

Speaker A: I mean, I'm glad I started with the rehab because it gave me a little bit of an understanding, and I come from a building materials background, so it just gave me a little bit of an understanding about, you know, what goes into it. But, uh, but yeah, you. There, There. There were definitely easier ways that I could have made quicker.

Speaker B: No, I get the sentiment. Well, that. But it also, I mean, I feel like it's challenging in its own way. For example, I had a lot of challenges at the fire department.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. So there was a lot of things that you get hit, you get, you. You learn your challenge.

Speaker A: If you can do that, you can do anything.

Speaker B: You learn a lot of things.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I, I can tell you, though, that entrepreneurship, uh, betting on yourself is way scarier than. Than. Than that. Uh, so, I mean, you have, I don't know, you have mitigated risk and in that sense. But when you're betting on yourself, like, there's no safety net. Right. Like, I feel like there's, there's, uh, in. In the corporate world or, you know, whenever you're working for somebody else, and there's this, this, uh, this false sense of security. I'm going to call it a false insecurity. Uh, I was like, oh, if, you know, I have this paycheck coming in. Yeah. When you're like that close to. To the success and fail result, uh, I feel like things, I mean, they just feel hotter, man. Everything just gets. And every single person way more dialed in.

Speaker A: We know everybody, you and me. I would say absolutely every. Every single person. I get it. Everything looks great on Instagram, but everybody has days where you're like, you are on the line.

Speaker B: Oh. Of it all collapsing 100.

Speaker A: It's like, you just, you just have to. And this becomes, it does become a mindset thing where you just have to be like, it's okay, I'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll make payroll, we'll get this bill paid. We'll. We'll figure it out, you know?

Speaker B: Yeah. So the reason I, I say I would have started with wholesaling is, uh, Wholesaling is because of the person that it, it helped, it's helped me become. You know what I mean? Not just, I mean, the, the money and, and you know, the deals and all that stuff. I mean, yeah, you get, you get addicted to it when you start doing good. Right. Um, but I feel like it's one of those things that converts you as an individual. I mean, you step up not just in the, in the business area, but in the, in the self. Uh, you know, you level up as a human being. I, I feel like it's inevitable. Inevitable to, to, you know, once you're in that track record.

Speaker A: Even when I was solo, man, dude, I, I disconnected directv and you know, we, I disconnected a lot of stuff to pay for my next marketing.

Speaker B: Well, bro, you become a thinker. You have to become a thinker. I wasn't a thinker. Like, uh, I wasn't the guy that was like, oh, sitting there and it's like just, I mean, I would have like a shitty call at the fire department or something. Come back with like, oh, that was pretty up. All right, what do we have on tv? It's like, it's, it's a movie, you know, it's like. And then you'd go on to the next, next task. But it wasn't really, you know, um, I don't know. I mean, I would. And again, granted, I was, you know, a lot younger, but, but uh, but when you, when you start betting on yourself and you jump into something like this, um, and you have the opportunity to see the big picture, to connect with other people that are doing amazing things. Uh, and you start getting into bigger rooms and, you know, higher level tables and just exchanging ideas back and forth. Your think gets bigger and you become a whole different individual.

Speaker A: Yeah, you, you start operating how you just see more of the playing board and yeah, there's just, there's just always the calculations just get faster.

Speaker B: So, so it's not. Yeah, for me it's, it hasn't just been the, uh, you know, the real estate and the deals and, and uh, you know, the, the, the achieved goals or, or the money. Right. Coming into it. It's been I was like, man, I, I, I wouldn't be the person I am if, if I, if I hadn't been exposed to something like real estate wholesaling because I, you know, or, or business altogether. Right. As an entrepreneur. Uh, because betting on yourself is what turns you into that person.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So beautiful, bro. If somebody wants to get a hold of you guys, work with you guys, which I highly, highly, highly, absolutely recommend. Um, you know, TC is not one of those things that should like, I think it's on anybody's dream list. Maybe it is, I don't know. But uh, uh, he's like, oh, I want to be a transaction coordinator when I grow up.

Speaker A: It's, yeah, that's your dream.

Speaker B: So thank you. Thank you bro, for doing that for, for the world.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and somebody's got to do it. I'm just happy it's not, you know, me and uh, but you, uh, guys, I mean you guys take it to a whole different level in terms of expertise, in terms of the team that you guys have put together. I mean I can, I can vouch personally for uh, you know, the people that you have, you know, working with you as part of the company. Amazing, amazing people in the group, they all care, which is something, uh, you know, that, that uh, it's rare to find. So somebody wants to reach out to you guys and work with you, find out more about your guys services.

Speaker A: Yeah, we could, I'm sure we could drop a link under this. But if you want to just connect with me, Instagram is good. It's at David Olds rei. Mhm. Um, still answer all my, all the, all my own messages and all that stuff. But yeah, I mean, click that link, book a call. We'd love to talk to you about your business, what you did last year, you know what your goals are for this year and see, see, you know how we can look at, you know, where maybe deals are slipping and where you're not closing these deals and missing out on that 20, 30, $40,000 assignment fee and then. Yeah, how we can help you and show you how to actually offset the cost of what we do and have your own buyers pay it.

Speaker B: That's huge right there. Do you have uh, you know, do you work with people who are just getting started in the business? People who are doing 10 plus deals a month? Like what's, what's the uh, great question.

Speaker A: So when we started we worked on a subscription model where we were, we just worked with people that were doing like 1 to 5 or 6 to 10. Right now we've got clients. I got one client that's doing 40 deals and he's moving up to a plan for 60. Um, but what we. Here's what we realized after doing it for a couple of years. We were getting people who are like, hey, man, I'm new. I don't want to do this. I don't understand this. Honestly, I'm a little afraid of calling title companies and talking to attorneys. Can you, can you help me? So we've got a couple of programs where somebody can buy like just one deal. Yeah, right. Or, you know, you could do like a pay it close kind of thing. Of course, those are a little bit more. Because it's like buying one bottle of Coke as opposed to a case. But yeah, we have something for everybody. But here's the most important thing is when we started this business, I thought, oh, we're going to run the best transaction coordination company ever. We're going to do. We're going to crush it at that. But then we realized our clients have other problems. This is not their only problem. Right. Because like all of us, we run a business. There's a million different problems. So one of the things that we've really dug into the last year is really looking at, okay, in your business, what other problems are you having? Right. That's why we run these statistics, right? Because I want you to close more deals. I want you to get out of the freakin rural areas because your fail rate is gonna be super high. Also, I don't want my coordinators working on a deal that has no, no legs. So if I can help you and tell you what markets to be in which we do that, Heather does this for all of our clients quarterly. Should they get a report. Like, here's how you stack up against everybody else.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Here's your deals that are dying and here's why. Right. And that's hard for hundreds of clients, but she does it. Um, so, yeah, so now we've really gotten into what's the best CRM that I can I can tell you. Do you need transactional funding? Great. Here it is. Like, what do you need in the industry? And luckily, we're connected with the very best in the industry so that I can provide those resources to our people. Not because that's my business, but because I want to make sure you're selling successful. Right? Because the more successful you are, the longer you're going to stay with me, the better real estate is going to be for you. And it just, it just works out. So that's actually become a big part of our business. And we have somebody, Angela, she's our client success manager. And this is what she does outside of the, the deal and the getting the deed and all those weird things. Like that's her job is to talk to all the clients like, every two weeks. Hey, man, what's going on in your business? How's it going? Do you need Legion? Like, what's. Like, is there anything you're struggling with? Do you want to jump on a call? We do a weekly community call. Like, it's just open forum, bring your questions. So, so we've really leaned into that the last couple of years, and it's, it's really helped our clients. And that's why the nationwide average is, is 50%. I have clients that are closing 78 to 88% of their deals because they're coachable and they're trainable and they understand. Yeah, let me quit doing dumb stuff.

Speaker B: Yeah. So love it, man. Well, thank you so much. Incredible, incredible podcast. Great conversation, bro. You are a wealth of knowledge. Um, and stuff, uh, just comes out.

Speaker A: I don't know.

Speaker B: No, it's awesome. Thank you for taking the time sitting down with us, fam. Um, there you guys have it. So reach out, uh, to my boy and, um, and get you. I mean, get your stuff settled, right? Like, go focus on the stuff that you're good at. You know, negotiating deals, locking up deals, finding opportunities that, you know, have some problem to solve. Um, and then I don't know about you, but I leave the, the dirty work of the paperwork to somebody else. Like that.

Speaker A: Yeah, 20, 26 guys is going to be, ah, just a breakout year. Like everybody that we talk to from, you know, Robert Wensley, people at Family, this is going to be the year, like, by the time this airs, you need to be getting your stuff together.

Speaker B: I'm, I'm right there with you, man. I, I wholeheartedly agree that. I agree to that as well. Um, awesome family. All right, there you guys have it. Um, do us a favor. If you like the podcast, make sure you subscribe, like, and share. Send it out somebody who might benefit from listening to everything that we talked about here. We did a full breakdown on, on transaction coordination and, and just, you know, some of the best practices and stats and nationwide, uh, stats, uh, that are coming right from the source. That's one. Uh, but I always like, you know, digging deep into, into the why of, of all these companies and organizations that we see out there, right? The, the, the people that, that operate them, because that tells us, you know, one where the organization is headed. The. The values, uh, the core principles, how they operate, how well they're going to take care of us. We go that way. So. So make, uh, sure that you spread the word. Help, uh, us get bigger. And, um, if you want to find out about real, uh, estate wholesaling, go to reholing.com or find me at the re.CRM.com. uh, with that being said, we'll catch you guys on the next one. Stay focused. You got this.