Brian Manley Shares How He Wholesales Virtually Including While on Vacation

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Here we have my good old buddy, Brian Manley, another big player in the Phoenix market. And he's to talk about how he's wholesaling virtually for 100 k a month, making as much as 75 k on one vacation through Mexico, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, which is probably not even that fun, and even hitting 200 k a couple of times. If this is your first time tuning in, I am Steve Trang, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only MLS for off market wholesale properties, and I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires.

So if you wanna join us, let's connect on Instagram at steve dot trang. If you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave. Give me a thumbs up. And as a friendly reminder, I don't charge a dime for the show. Don't make any money doing this.

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If you can write what you like to show, that'd be even better. So with that, this is a live show, so please ask your questions for Brian to answer.

Brian Manley: You ready? Cool. Let's do it. Let's jump in. Alright.

Steve: Are you are you recovered from Saturday?

Brian: No. I recovered from Saturday on Monday.

Steve: Okay.

Brian: Yeah. On Monday. On mostly.

Steve: I wasn't recovered till Tuesday.

Brian: No. I wasn't optimal. I was I was kinda I was I was serviceable. I was serviceable.

Steve: Alright. Alright. Yeah. So for you guys who don't know that aren't watching us on our Instagram stories, I rented a house for the weekend for my birthday, and, Brian made a special appearance. So that was awfully cool of them.

Brian: Special.

Steve: All right. You ready?

Brian: I'm ready. I don't know what to expect, but let's do it.

Steve: All right.

Brian: So the

Steve: first question is simple. Is what got you into real estate?

Brian: Okay. They got fired, man. I, I I mean, that's the the truth of it, man. I, you you know, before I got into real estate, man, I, way way back, like, 2008, I kinda dabbled in real estate a little bit. Mhmm.

Steve: Didn't

Brian: know what I was doing at all. Had a couple of rentals and, was really counting on appreciation, like, a lot of people didn't know what they were doing. You bought it. One of them negative cash flow every month, and I was like, it'll appreciate out. I have a plan.

So That's cool. A plan.

Steve: That was everyone else's plan.

Brian: That was everyone else's plan. They didn't know what they were doing, man. Crash happens, all this other stuff, and I find myself back back in you know, I lost my job right around the same time when a lot of the people did. And from there, kinda just resumed, got into sales, been in sales for a while, had that same cycle repeat a couple of times where, you know, part of what what I do is I would go into areas that were, you know, not really performing well with territories or companies, things like kind of help turn around segments of of, you know, either a territory or company. And, the last company that I I got on board with is pretty cool.

Go down to Mexico, do some consulting, just things like that. And one day I remember looking at the you know, they were having a discussion about numbers and I thought okay, they're paying me this, they're paying it. Listen, how does this math work? You know, I'm looking, you know, this is my ex. I get called to come down to a meeting in Tucson.

They hired three people to run the Phoenix market. I'm going down, and the guy I know the guy who got hired at the same time as me. You know, we're we're Chit Chatting. He goes, yeah. It might be I'm I'm getting down about 09:00.

They asked me to come in at nine, and I go, I'm coming at 09:30. I'll see you. So I show up. It's kinda one of those businesses where there's a parking lot in the front, and I don't see his car. I don't even remember his name now.

I think his name is Joe or something. I go, where's Joe? Where's Joe at? They go, he's not here. And I go, it's funny.

I just talked to him. He said he was on his way down.

Steve: So It was a very short meeting. It was a

Brian: very short meeting. So I walk inside. I see the HR lady. And I go, this is what this is. Yeah.

You know, it's basically found a guy, twenty years experience, book of business. They could pay him double what he makes, which is less than what they were paying the three of us.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: And like that, out of a job. So I've been I'd seen this game a couple of times. And me looking at kinda I didn't like the idea of somebody else using me to help build something and then having to start over once it's running and it's fixed.

Steve: Once we don't need you anymore. Once we don't need you anymore.

Brian: I'd had that a couple of times with a couple other businesses, and I thought, I still wanna do this again. So I I took some time, and, coincidentally, myself and partner both lost their jobs back to back days. That one was predictable. It was a buyout. Mine was complete surprise.

So it was just take a little time to figure out what do you wanna do? And then it was really I kinda suspected. Let's get real let's do some real estate stuff. Really no plan. Had a conversation.

I said, I know what you wanna do, and I'm not gonna say it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: And, you know, one day, it's like, you know, I know you're gonna flip houses. Yeah. Flip flip houses. Three days later, we had our first house. Mhmm.

How long was this? This was 2015.

Steve: Okay.

Brian: This was 2015.

Steve: For 2015, you lost you you got let go.

Brian: Yeah. Like, that's a nice way of saying it. I was freed. Yeah. Let go.

Steve: And then you're like, alright. I'm gonna I'm gonna start doing real estate and bam. Yeah. Right off the bat.

Brian: Yeah. Right off the bat. It was like that two months of thinking. And then the first deal was pretty ambitious, but didn't know it was ambitious. So the first house bought was $405,000 house in Scottsdale Mountain.

And there were some money or some savings from you haven't been in corporate before, some sales and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, the package. So it was like, okay. Let's jump in this. Funny thing about it is I didn't know until years later that that first purchase was a result of mine from a wholesaler.

I had no idea. Had no idea.

Steve: This is how the this is

Brian: how the purchase went down. I called an old friend of mine from college. He said, yeah. I've got a guy who's got a property. We meet and have lunch.

Literally decide, hey. We're buying this thing. Let's go look at it. And that was it. It was a whole three day process.

So after that house, I called the guy back, and I said, hey. I need some more houses, and the guy could never give me another house. It wouldn't until years later, I realized because a wholesaler used him to sell it to us. He didn't know how to find houses, then the light bulb went off that realtors don't know how to find houses a lot of times. You know?

But, you know, I thought like everybody else, they're a realtor. They okay. They've got this golden key and, you know, all their all the high I wish. You know? I wish.

So that was really how we got into it, and it was jumped into, like, a big project that was mostly lipstick. But when you're at higher end, even lipstick costs a lot. Mhmm. So it was a good learning process because, I mean, there were long days sleeping there doing a lot of the labor myself, kinda having to be instructed on how to do it because I didn't know how to do that stuff. It was just this is a great house.

And then it wasn't a great house when it was time to sell it. Because what we didn't know is even though the comps really, really supported, you know and it was lipstick throughout twenty, twenty five k into it. Well, the houses that were selling for about 500, they were up on hills in this community. And the idea of just because they're three doors down, doesn't mean they're the same. This one's on a hill overlooking the city.

Yours is down kinda recessed it. So I ended up holding it for, like, two years.

Steve: You're like where the poor people are.

Brian: Right. Right. And the poor people in

Steve: the gate, man, the twenty four hour community. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: It wasn't a great great decision the first time, but learned a lot, man.

Steve: Learned a lot from it. You know, they always say, we've had a lot of people on the show. Yeah. And, like, on their first flip, they made money. They didn't know what they were doing, but they made money.

Yeah. But, really, for most people, you lose money on your first flip.

Brian: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It bled. You know, the funny thing is that I figured out how I was wired then, man, because I'm like, you know, this is probably gonna be 20 k or so lost. I guess, let's just sell it.

Let's keep going. My I never had the thought we're gonna lose money. Let's stop. My thought was, well, now we're gonna do another deal because we're gonna lose money. We gotta get that money back.

Yeah. Almost like the Vegas guy. Guess what? I can try it again. But my ideas, I'm thinking if you go, you know, the the the traditional route and you go get a job and you gotta cover up a $20,000 loss, that takes some time.

Said, okay, well, let's let's do another. And it was like $20.25. It ended up being more because we held it. Rented it at a loss for a period.

Steve: I

Brian: wanted to get rid of it, but we couldn't come to agreement. But, yeah, it was I wanted to ask

Steve: if it was with my friends. Did you? Yeah. I was like, let's sell it. Like, we bought this to flip.

Yeah. And you're like, oh, we're not making that much money anymore. Let's hold on to it. I was like, no. Let's the plan was to flip it.

Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah. I lost because it was three versus one, but my credit was fine. One of those guys got a foreclosure.

But I was like, we bought it too far. Just because our money's less doesn't mean we change the plan.

Brian: Right. Right. And I always think about this when you have one because we had recently our first flop. Like a first one. Like, I don't count that one.

We didn't have a company name yet. There was it was just let's just find a house in the summer and do something because we have time. Yeah. But at First Slop as a company, you know, it's one of those things that I always think about, okay, well, even if I don't make what I wanna make, I just wanna get my money back out and get that capital working. You know?

I don't wanna have my money tied up or I can't use it for other things. So just get it out.

Steve: Right.

Brian: Just get it out. Always think about that. Let's just get your money back out.

Steve: So you partnered up in 2015. Yeah. You guys are still partners? Yeah. Okay.

So it's been a long fruitful relationship.

Brian: Yeah. It was, you know, and it was it had it's gone through ebb and flow and kind of like it really took some time before, roles were really firmly, you know, identified and it was entrenched really. Because before when we first started, it was just flipping and it was just flipping for probably two to almost two and a half years. It was only flipping.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: And so it's really good together putting together some really nice flips. Always made money, always sold. I think our average days for a contract was like eight or nine days. You start feeling a little bit invincible, you know? It wasn't really until, I went to an event in California and I discovered that I was I was kind of isolated, I think, kind of.

We built a lot of things backwards, kind of like you know Jimmy Hendrix they say he played the guitar like upside down backwards because he's a lefty and he learned how to play in a right hand that's what we did we just piecemealed stuff and had no idea what was right or wrong and it wasn't really until I went to an event in California it was a a find and flip or scale and escape event. And, the idea of wholesaling, I thought, oh, I only went to meet people because I felt like starting from, you know, scratch full time day one, there was really a compressed learning curve. When you go full time from day one Mhmm. Where you are at a year is not where most people are at a year, but you're doing, you know, twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours

Steve: a

Brian: day every day. Right. And two people doing it.

Steve: You learn

Brian: a lot real fast. But yeah, wholesaling really, we didn't want to be wholesalers. We we were doing wholesales, kind of accidentally. Yeah. Find some deal.

Didn't really fit us. We'd say, hey, somebody just give us a couple, you know, pay us some money for this deal that we don't really want. We don't have enough money to do it or whatever the case was. It didn't really even occur to us at that point

Steve: in time.

Brian: That's really what we were doing.

Steve: Okay. So, I want to talk about your transition to wholesaling. Before we do that. Partnerships, that's one of the things that everyone asks me, should I do a partnership? And I always tell them, hell no.

Yeah. But I'm the biggest hypocrite because I have a business partner. Right. It's Max. Right.

You know, but I think with anyone else, I wouldn't partner with them.

Brian: Them.

Steve: Yeah. So, for me, partnerships, it's been a blessing for me. But more often than not, I want to say like 90% plus in time, it kind of is kind of like crashes and burns. Yeah. So what was what's helped you guys keep your partnership, healthy?

Because I think some of the people that are listening do have partnerships.

Brian: Yeah. You know, I'll tell you there were some fights, man.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: There were some you know, I think one of the finally accepting that we were good at different things. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think I knew it early on, but sometimes you have to be careful with language. And I used to say things like, hey, we're just different. I look at this.

And what she was hearing is, I'm better. And it's not what I was saying at all. Yeah. I'm saying we're just different. You know?

Mhmm. Both of us for a time, we worked in in pharmaceutical because one of the one of the roles was data analytics. I was a business development manager, a regional business analyst for a large pharma company. We both had the same role. She's way better at that role than I was.

Data analytics, things like that was a strong suit. Me always excelled in sales. Everywhere I went, I either won some award, closed big deals, and it was just it was natural to me, and it didn't feel like work.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: But I also had a much higher risk tolerance. Yeah. So I'm saying, hey, let's do this. And there's no go back circle back to the first property.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Brian: it wasn't really until we were sitting in Mastermind where they were really starting to work. And they said, well, you're the visionary. You're the integrator. And this is why I'm having problems because you're both trying to be the lead dog on the same task. And that was really only having a third party look and say, this is what's happening.

I think that's why it's obvious because I was having thoughts of saying, okay, this might be time to split off. Because, in our defense, when we first started out, it was just hey, let's flip a couple of houses a few houses a year. It wasn't until I looked back later that I realized this whole thing want to create I could've just dragged you into it and this is what that wasn't your plan. You know, let's do all these other things and and that wasn't the plan. So I think realizing that for me going, okay, well, on the one hand, that wasn't clearly communicated for me.

And then the other hand, realizing we're very good at things, just not the same things.

Steve: Right.

Brian: And let's run sideline. And that was it versus saying, hey, I can do everything myself because there's some things I'm just terrible

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: And that was really recognize my limitations because I think I could do everything, and then realize even though I could, a lot of times I wouldn't and I procrastinate because I just didn't enjoy them.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: You know, and going, yeah. We're gonna send out mail. And here you are six weeks after, you know, when when you should have mailed it, I'm gonna get to it. I hate that kind of stuff.

Steve: Visionary. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. I hate that kind of stuff, man.

Steve: So So, so you brought up another point too is that, it was in a mastermind. Yeah. That someone brought this to your attention. Yeah. Right?

So you guys weren't in a mastermind. You guys might have split up.

Brian: Yeah. It's probably 90 chance that we would have.

Steve: Yeah. So then talk about, you know, like the what what what have you gotten from Mastermind? Because I think some people, they hear about it and they're like, that's too much money. It's not worth it. Like, what is your perspective on masterminding?

Brian: So, you know, the well, it is too much money if you're not gonna do anything.

Steve: Mhmm. Right? If you're gonna spend a bunch of money, if

Brian: that's like anything, you know, it's your membership. You know, I've wasted money the past year.

Steve: $80 a month is going on.

Brian: You know what I mean? It just goes, oh, you're fancy. Must be at mountainside or something.

Steve: It is mountainside.

Brian: It's just mountainside. It's got a free plug. We said $80, I thought. Who who was I unwilling to pay? And it was them.

But, no, you know, it is too much when I think, if you're like most people that are just gonna keep getting education, keep getting education, keep getting education, keep getting education. For me, immediately what I thought about was all you can do is one deal and get your money back. Do I plan to do one more deal? Yeah. Yeah.

What if I learn how to do 10 more? What if I'm like, oh, okay. It was a no brainer at that point. So I think one of the main things I got out of it is sitting in a room and sometimes there's some people that are just very impressive people. Sometimes there are people that aren't as impressive, but they're doing better than you.

And I think

Steve: Doesn't that kill you?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. You look at it and you go, let you know, and it's a smash How am

Steve: I losing to this guy?

Brian: How am I losing this guy? I'm super competitive, man.

Steve: I'm super competitive. Yeah. I guess. And that's why

Brian: I tell people you're cheating basketball.

Steve: You go to keep you fair

Brian: and square in that,

Steve: I'm like, Steve cheats, but you

Brian: know, but I am super competitive, man.

Steve: So sometimes you're sitting there and you just look

Brian: at a guy and it's not to disparage the person, but I just go if I have to catalog my skill set or what I and you know, I'm only you know, and it's external observation to the other person. I don't know. They could be brilliant. But I'm just looking and I'm going, you're killing me.

Steve: Yeah. And Literally.

Brian: You're literally. And I go, okay. Well, and then someone will share with you in there because largely what benefited, what was beneficial in this mastermind is most people are in different markets. So people can share freely freely without fear of, you know, creating a competitor that has some insight. Yeah.

So that was the main thing. And then just people who are figuring out different ways of doing the same thing because again, a lot of people, they just created their processes in a bubble. And so it's isolated. It's almost like, you know, if you go to Galapagos Islands and you have these weird creatures that have evolved into these they're not like anywhere else. They they were developed in isolation.

Steve: Right. And

Brian: so a lot of times, the ideas that get shared in there, they're not recycled for somebody else. If somebody had a need and they duct taped it together backwards, perfect it over some time, and they say here. And it saves me three years. The main thing for me was time compression. Yep.

I'm very conscious of time. And so when I think about, yeah, I can figure this out. I can figure this out in probably two or three years. Or I can figure this out in a couple of months. And how much money would I have lost in the three months for me, you know, for me getting this in place now to the three years when I figure it out.

Steve: Right. So you and I, we look at opportunity costs. If I don't do this, how much am I costing?

Brian: Like, some people look

Steve: at the cost of an investment. I'm looking at the cost of what we're gonna lose by not doing it.

Brian: Dude, that's that's probably you just probably encapsulated that thought perfectly. That's absolutely my thoughts are, what's it cost me to not do it?

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So going back to now, you want you went to, an event in California.

Brian: Mhmm.

Steve: And, like, alright. I'm gonna wholesale now. So what was that transition like?

Brian: You know, I the the plan was so when I went there, I said, okay. I don't really know how to wholesale yet. It was just one week weekend event. And I said, okay. But I was I was getting getting nuggets from people each time these masterminds would meet.

It was still primarily flipping. The really the transition to that, it's kind of a funny story, but the whole intent behind it was to start being able to source our own deals. And kind of what happened to us, we had a flip we thought would make about $50.55 ks on. It wasn't a big big house. It was like a $2.52 50 sales price.

We got some pretty good return on that considering the work. And, you know, there was overage. It was a hoarder house. Long story short, at the end of it, you know, we got to the end getting ready to sell it. There was an appraisal that there was a excellent comp.

The exact same house 400 yards away that fell out of being a comp like six days before. It was the same like 14 square foot difference. Appraisal appraiser comes in at the end, knocks off like 12. And so now we're sitting there looking at 30 or do we wait six months? Which, you know, your holding cost on the stuff for you to say, okay, we're selling it.

Well, we end up making like 31 and I know the wholesaler made 30.

Steve: And

Brian: I thought, well, I can screw this up for a few months figuring out how to do it and not get a deal and it's the same as paying one assignment fee. Yeah. So, really, the whole idea was, alright. Well, let's just throw money at it and figure it out so that we're not dependent. And along the way, let's just source our own deals.

The way the wholesaling really started, man, was a funny story. I get a a call from an old lady, and at this time, it was just the two of us. And she says, well, I I'm I think I'm ready to sell my house now. And I said, okay. She goes, you know, when you guys came by and you talked to us, and I just don't think I was ready.

You're the you're the and she names the company. And I said, well, we do that, but

Steve: but that that wouldn't us. And I'm trying to

Brian: tell this, like, yeah. You got the wrong number. Mhmm. She's insistent. And then Lytle was stupid.

Shut up. Yeah. Yeah. Because in my immediate, I go, well, yeah. Yeah.

We do that. So then it clicks around. So, anyway, long story short, this accidental phone call, I was just doing SEO. SEO. I wasn't even marketing in this town.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: I we end up buying this thing, closing it, designing it, sight unseen, made 25 k the first one, and the light bulb goes off. And you go, okay. First first wholesale is $20.25 k. Mhmm.

Steve: We should

Brian: probably do this again. Yeah. And at that point, the decision was, alright. Figure out now how to build it. Mhmm.

So but it was really just dumb luck, the first one. It was

Steve: So then, at that time because I know you're flipping now. Yeah. Did flipping go on the back burner then?

Brian: Yo. We're trying to get in the back burner. So right now, we're doing doing a kind of a mixture. So there's some flips. We just sold our last really big one.

We've got one that's pretty sizable, one that's going on in North Carolina right now. The other there's a whole tail that just left it. So there's a few. But what we're really trying to do right now is let flipping only be about 25% of the business,

Steve: business,

Brian: and only really, really clean stuff. It would have to be it would just have to be a can't miss for it to be any of the flips that we've typically done, you know, the larger than the three fifty, four fifty, four fifty range. We're kinda staying away from those

Steve: right now, but hotels are really hot on

Brian: hotels right now. And then, of course, what we wanna make sure we can do is on

Steve: hotel list.

Brian: Oh, okay. So it's basically it's like the one I was telling you before we started. So there was a a prop property. It looked list ready.

Steve: The owner discovered right before she list listed with an agent. She was literally days away from listing. She

Brian: literally days away from listing. She needed a new roof. Didn't have $8,000, $7,000 for a new roof. Didn't wanna be a landlord again because the last, tenants had torn up the house, but it looked great.

Steve: So she says, okay. Well, I'll sell it to

Brian: you, 114 k. Okay. Great. Needs a roof. So it's hotel is basically you buy something.

It's almost like you you you buy it, maybe throw some little lipstick on it, and then you just resell it again. Sometimes you don't do anything at all to it. So we literally bought this thing, thing, put a roof, and hired a cleaning crew. Re listed it, went under contract in eight days for 162. Yeah.

But we literally just put a roof on it and cleaned it up. And, that's kind of the model we wanna go to. We don't want you to be heavily invested in properties anymore just because I, you know Well,

Steve: I see some of you guys in flips. They look really good.

Brian: Oh, thank you, man. It's those are the fun ones. Like, they're fun. Those big ones are fun, but they come with, you know, the headaches they come with when you do really big flips.

Steve: Appraisal, permits. Yeah. So Yeah. One thing that, when we first connected, you were doing, stuff was at Raleigh? Yeah.

Okay. So I guess let's talk about the virtual component Yeah. Of your business. Yeah. So you're here.

Yeah. Why you're not kicking butt here? Why are you kicking butt across the country?

Brian: Well, you know, I like to lay low. Right? So we're actually coming back here now. We're doing a little bit of stuff here. But part of what part of what we were doing, initially is just the cost of marketing here, which is so outrageous.

And after spending you know, we don't have a whole lot of money when you first start start doing something for marketing. And you realize, partly from the masterminds, what some guys are spending. It was really just a proof of concept to go somewhere where, okay, we know a couple of people here. It's a smaller market. Let's practice and save money here.

We had some roots there because the pharma company was headquartered outside of Raleigh. And so Raleigh was just kind of the start of it. And then the other the other cities there, it was just kind of a snowball. They just marketing and deal start coming. We start looking at the margins and what it cost.

And so I realized I was spending a third

Steve: of my marketing budget that I would spend here.

Brian: And so that's really how that was born. I think that the other thing was that remember that first call? I mean, it was like Lake Havasu. Hadn't been there since 2003. Yeah.

So I'm going, okay. Well, if I can it's a four hour drive away. Why can't they do something that's four hour flight away?

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: It's it's it's the same same effort, and that was really it. But it was this dumb accident that really just said, okay. Well, let's figure out how to do this somewhere else.

Steve: So you're intending to go to Raleigh because you already had your roots there. Yeah. So then let's talk about, you know, if you wanted to expand to another market, what what were the first things you did when you went to to Raleigh?

Brian: So one thing I knew it had good good job market. Right?

Steve: I knew

Brian: it had a lot of schools, highly educated population. I knew it was growing, you know, similar with Charlotte. Center of banking, you know, high earners moving there, housing shortage. So I looked at some of those opportunities and even go as far as to pick up some local publications like, you know, business journal, Raleigh, business journal, Charlotte to kind of find out what businesses are doing there as well. So we can look at population data.

We look at housing data and sales data. Days on market

Steve: Pardon me, I was doing all this, not you.

Brian: You know, it was my idea. It was my idea for some of that. But most of that, yeah. But But, like, the business journal, that kind of stuff. I look at that stuff, but it was really just kinda sitting down and going, hey.

This is what we need to do to figure out. Let's do another market.

Steve: Well, why

Brian: do you wanna do that? Well, why not? We did it once. Mhmm. And then kinda the idea was to be able to insulate, kinda like spread out on ice and insulate yourself against market changes where if it gets really, really brutal in one one area.

Okay. Well, I'm spread on the ice. I don't fall through because I'm not concentrated in one area. So it was just really looking at that data and even like in one of the cities military. So, you know, there's always gonna be a strong pull for, you know, there's gonna be renters everywhere.

They're gonna be buying old investors and they don't know how to find properties. So it was really just looking at the makeups of the cities looking at the education system and looking at is their growth. Yeah. And that's just really kind of how it happened. Some of them, one of them, it's kind of a small town that deals just kept popping up because I think it's just kind of secondary tertiary markets, one of the majors and it turned out to be a really sweet market just because it was close to another one.

So kind of what we did for virtual is looked at, okay, let's not necessarily go into particularly with how we we market it. Some of the secondary markets became a lot more attractive than the primary large ones just based on the competition in them and what I was willing to spend to get deals there, you know.

Steve: So you did the research. Yeah. Figure out where you want to be. What was the first thing you did to lead gen?

Brian: Pay per click. Yeah. Pay per click. That's that's up until probably about six months ago. We were 95% pay per click.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: And And, just reason, man, I mean, we we didn't really have the manpower to take a bunch of calls coming in. We were still flipping, you know, still doing quite a bit of flipping. And so just stretch. It was like it's so much easier if people are calling in and they're already motivated. Yeah.

And so it was just pay per click. Okay.

Steve: Yeah. So let's talk about your pay per click strategy then. Yeah. Right? So you're paying and for guys that don't know pay per click, do you wanna explain what pay per click is?

Brian: Yeah. Absolutely. So Google Ads, when you go on Google and you say, hey, you know, diet food for my fat cat, you know, and the stuff that comes up, you know, that ad you click, you know, for diet cat food. You know, it's pay per click. You click it and it cost somebody money.

Yeah. So it's a bidding process. You know, it's, you know, are you at the top of the page or at the bottom of the page? And most people don't really pay attention to that and realize whenever you do a Google search, the top three or four positions are ads, the bottom three or four positions are ads. And so, you know, a lot of the times what people do is they try to make sure obviously they want to be on the first page because 94% of traffic never leaves page one.

Mhmm. But it costs. And if other people are also engaged in that same strategy, the cost goes way up. Yeah. But it was just a function of not really knowing how to do some of the other things and not really having the manpower to do them that we just continue to do that out there.

Steve: So then you go you get the so that's that's the way you get people in. Yeah. And there's two things. Right? Yeah.

Who's doing your pay per click management and who's handling the website?

Brian: So I was doing it at first, and then I hired a company to have, you know, to be hands off to buy more time because I just didn't like managing it. And then my idea was I spent a lot of time I'm kind of a a nerd and things. And so I learned how to do it. I'd spend long days learning it, but I didn't wanna be managing it. And so I hired a company that was naive to really the the real estate space.

They could probably sell skateboards like nobody's business, but they didn't really understand the space. My thinking was we'll just kind of do a synthesis of what I understand and what they understand. And I'll kind of guide them on what they should be doing and they do the legwork.

Steve: And

Brian: so we did that for probably about six or eight months. I just kept catching things that I thought they should catch. So now I so they went away. They got freed, released. Is that what you said?

Let go. Yeah. They got let go. And, so I manage it now. So and have been.

So outside of that small period, I manage the pay per click.

Steve: Okay. And who's managing the who's who's handling the websites?

Brian: Carrot. Carrot. Yeah. So Carrot websites.

Steve: Alright. So you go through Carrot. Yep. And then someone goes to do a search, buy my house fast. Yep.

Raleigh. And they go to your site and then they register. Yep. What happens then?

Brian: So then the lead comes in.

Steve: And if it's and there's a

Brian: site for each city, the lead comes in and goes to lead manager. So it goes in both the mailbox and then it populates in our CRM, which is Podio. And we have the investor fused, we're still on the original investor fuse, the the one point o.

Steve: Okay.

Brian: The overlay that comes in there goes to lead manager. She calls and qualifies. And so our our lead manager actually does she's got she's got pretty fair amount of training on comps too so she can eyeball things and so what she'll do not only will she rate okay is it a thirty day hot or is it a warm you know 30 to 90 or 36 a day or is it cold? But also rate, preliminarily, is it an a, is it a b, or is it a c based on opportunity? Because what was happening is you get a bunch of hots and the ones that are trash leads.

You don't know that when you look at it initially, it's they're all hot. Yeah. So now before it comes to anybody, it comes to her. She assigns it to either myself, the acquisition manager.

Steve: Okay. So you guys are calling this. And then how are you guys closing them? Right? Because there's two different schools of thought.

And you're you're virtual. Right? So there there's the close it over the phone or this go in person. Yeah. And you're since you're on the other side of the country.

Yeah. What are you guys doing?

Brian: It's everything's over the phone. Even the stuff here

Steve: is

Brian: over the phone.

Steve: Okay.

Brian: It's just and again, you know, it's kind of the template was laid out by that first one. They said, okay, everything was done over the phone. So everything's it's still done over the phone. I think only only in an instance where somebody absolutely demanded to have a person. Would I be concerned about that?

And if it's in North Carolina, there's a couple of people that you can send, but they're not acquisitions. They're not trained. They're just you'd basically having realtors going and parroting points that you wanna to do and just give them something comfortable.

Steve: Give them a checklist. Yeah, like

Brian: we had one lady she wanted to go and she wouldn't sign anything until she could be in front of a person. We sent her to the law firm. We were using the clothes. She just wanted to be in an F, you know, in a building. Right.

Four four walls and a roof. So we sent her there. But almost almost everything is I would say 95%. 98% is over the phone.

Steve: Alright. So you're closing over the phone. Yeah. Then you guys have boots on the ground. Right.

Sometimes someone I mean, are you guys closing the properties without ever going inside it?

Brian: Sometimes you are. The numbers are really, really good. Yeah.

Steve: But but a lot of

Brian: times so if you're signing it, what we'll do, we'll get somebody. We always have those people that will call us and what we do is we have them send us pictures of the property themselves, right? It's not just so that we can see what it looks like. It's also what a lot of people don't get is it's a gauge of, commitment. It's a how invested are you?

You know, if you live thirty minutes away and you drive, you're taking pictures, it's a gauge of motivation. You're really motivated to get away from this because you're driving in rush hour thirty minutes to go take pictures for us.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: So we send them a check list of kinda which pictures we're looking for. They send them back. And at that point, if we go, okay, if we may buy it and close on it, then we'll send out, our guide that we've got that's in kinda in the Eastern Part Of The Carolinas. We'll have them look at it. But we also did one, Mount Holly and some stuff out in Charlotte where we didn't have anybody.

And it was just took a look at pictures. We're looking at, you know, foundation. We're looking at, you know, the the, you know, the big ticket items. You know, is that plumbing issues, electrical stuff like that? And then put under contract and it's on in it.

There's an out if there's something major, but I always let people know, hey, listen. If we find something, we have to come back and and renegotiate this. You can walk away from the contract. We don't lock you in if there's the number I told you and the number that we're gonna do.

Steve: You've got all all the opportunity

Brian: in the world to say, walk away. But I'm going to explain it to you why we have to readjust.

Steve: Alright.

Brian: So there's a lot of education that goes on in that.

Steve: Okay. So and you guys in Carolina, you guys are in attorney state? Yeah. But being attorney state, you guys don't have to all be at the table?

Brian: No, no. We've never closed. We've never gone there.

Steve: I wouldn't say necessarily you. Just somebody representing you.

Brian: Yeah. No. We've never seen anybody.

Steve: Okay. So, so that's wholesaling. Yeah. Is that the only market? So you guys are are back in Phoenix.

Okay. You're do it virtually. Now you guys are in Phoenix. Is are are those the two markets that you guys are in?

Brian: Yeah. So the Carolinas and each one of those cities are different. So there's six so there's we're just dabbling kinda like in the Winston. It's Winston Salem area and all that stuff, but Charlotte, Raleigh, Rocky Mount, which is outside of it. You know, Raleigh, Fayetteville.

Mhmm. Dabble a little bit in South Carolina and some of Mississippi, and we've got a few other markets that we're looking at. We're just doing the research phase right now. Yeah. But, probably in the next week, and we've we're pretty far along in that deterring.

It's just figuring out which one of the two. We've kinda got it down to two that we're we're gonna go into. And then one of them here, we're looking at doing some stuff down in Tucson and coming back here. Okay.

Steve: We just don't

Brian: want to be spread because one of the mistakes we did is tackled a bunch of them at once before we fully understood all of them. And that's how I had the first flop. It was Hell House, you know, we're like, yeah, let's not do that again. Right. So.

Steve: Okay. So one of the things we talked about is, you had well, let's go with the the the nice, very well paid vacation.

Brian: Okay. Okay.

Steve: So so you you you're you're handling all these transactions. What's different? If you're if you're able to do this virtually in Phoenix for the Carolinas. Yeah. When you go on vacation, nothing really changes.

Brian: Nothing changes. Yeah. Nothing changes. The only thing is you you gotta be mindful that maybe you don't get to enjoy every minute of your vacation if you take calls. And that's why I was like, okay, we need to bring somebody else on.

But nothing changes. And so the idea is, you know, for me, you know, a lot of the vision and how we start it was there was this book I read. A friend of mine, Carlin, years ago turned me on to it called The four Hour Workweek with Tim Ferris.

Steve: Great book.

Brian: And, yeah, the idea, all I ever wanted I never wanted to come on and say, hey, there's a dollar amount I have to make. I just wanted freedom of location, free mobility, you know, and and to be able to work when I want to because I can work really long days if when I feel like not doing it, I stop for two hours and then I come back and I give you six more. And I've never really cared about, you know, somebody's start time and stop time. In fact, just recently we just went to a four and a half day work week where Fridays everybody gets off. They go home at lunchtime because Friday afternoons are slow.

We shifted. And so my thing was a lot of days when there's nothing really happening, go home because I'm not paying you to be here. I'm paying you for the value to bring to the

Steve: to the hour.

Brian: Mhmm. But, yeah, nothing changes.

Steve: So how long were you gone?

Brian: Ten days. Ten days? Yeah. It must have been

Steve: really awful making 75 ks.

Brian: It was terrible.

Steve: Alright. So then you've also had a couple of, two hundred k months. Yeah. What was happening? What was popping that was working for you that you're able to hit that threshold?

Brian: Flips. A couple of flips just kinda lined up in the right time. I mean, they just dropped it. And some of the, you know, some of the flips are I mean, again, they're like one deal that we bought. You know, we bought it at, like, $1.60.

We sold it for 400.

Steve: Mhmm. That

Brian: was a good

Steve: It's alright.

Brian: That was a that was a good one.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: But then you've had some other ones where you, you know, it's 95, a 100. You know, they just fall in the same month. So it's not necessarily that we did something phenomenal. Mhmm. It just had rolled.

In fact, it could have been that other one got delayed a little bit. It was supposed to close a month before. Yeah, but that's happened a couple of times.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: So you go. Okay. That's great. You know, really what's instrumental in really getting the the wholesaling side of things off the ground because we went through some growing pains in in q two of this year And because we made the decision last year, we're gonna now have to hire if we don't want to be stuck doing, you know, because flipping and wholesaling, they really are two very separate businesses. Mhmm.

And running both of them, they're just the demands are so different. Yeah. And what was funny is we had this integration of the two because one was feeding the other one. But then what do you do with the surplus? You gotta figure out how to sell them.

It's not as easy as, hey, I just do an ad and it gets, you know, people snake you. There's all kinds of stuff that can happen. So I made the decision to do some hires. After one of those really big months. And we said, okay.

We can be skinny and completely screw up, you know, for a quarter Mhmm. And get things right. Because when you, you know, when you hire people, you have to be committed. I'm gonna slow down to speed up because they're gonna come on. And a lot of times, they're not gonna be very good at

Steve: first. Mhmm.

Brian: You gotta be okay with that. You're human. There's gonna be you're gonna suck before you're good. And so that was really just the idea. So, okay.

Great. Not gonna starve to death for for for a quarter. Let's bring some folks on. But it's really just the flips were the real, real big bobs. And then there are a couple of good wholesales that, you know, just easy ones ones where, okay, you you pull 20 here and it was two hours of work.

Yeah. So I'm not one of those guys that looks as a wholesale fee and says, hey, that's too small for me to do anything. You know, we had working on acquisition manager and just for weeks and weeks and weeks newer. And it was a small deal. But it was for me, psychologically, it was important for that first kill to be his own.

Steve: Mhmm. So I

Brian: don't care that it's only 3 k and you spent all this time. You need to know that you can do it. Yeah. You know, invest in it. I'm willing to lose money while you get good because I'm invested in you long term.

And I want you to be here. I want you to be good enough to do it on your own, but I'm gonna treat you well enough that you wanna stay. Yeah. And that's really the idea of everybody that's in, you know, an organization is that's how we roll. Everybody's everybody eats or

Steve: nobody does. Mhmm. Yeah. I like that. So one of the things, you said to me, so for you guys that don't aren't coming to our masterminds our masterminds, our monthly meet ups.

Like, Brian and I were always hanging out. Gets a little competitive sometimes with the basketball contest. But one of the things that you you said to me, and it really stuck with me was that professional sort and amateurs convince.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did say that to you, man.

Steve: So you wanna elaborate on that? Because I've said that a few times, but it's better if it comes from you.

Brian: Well, you know, one of the things is, you know, it it kinda goes hand in hand with you know? And that kinda actually, you know, at some point in time, I had some business dealings, and, you know, direct direct sales companies. That was one of the things is what you're looking for people. A lot of the mistakes, I think, that new people do, they have trepidation

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: About calling people. It feels ominous to have to call somebody you don't know and then convince them.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: You know? And the idea was just really, hey. Look. You're just looking for who's you're you're not looking for people. You're looking for problems.

Steve: I mean,

Brian: you're not looking for properties. You're looking for problems.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Brian: you're just sorting for who has a problem, who've done that problem. You know, if you think, hey. They've got a lot of equity, but they have zero interest selling. Don't waste your time trying to hammer them, get them to sell in two years. Yeah.

You know, don't be a prisoner of hope. Find out who what's your what's your avatar? Who are you looking for? And then it's just a matter of, would you like some more coffee? Yes.

Would you like some more coffee? No. Would you like some more coffee? No. You just look for

Steve: the guys.

Brian: Yes. The barista didn't get upset that you said, no. You don't want more coffee. Yeah. And it's the same thing.

Are you a yes or are you a no? Both are fine. I just wanna know which one

Steve: you are.

Brian: Yeah. But don't try to convince somebody who doesn't have a problem. It doesn't work.

Steve: Right.

Brian: You know?

Steve: Okay. So going back to a lot of peers in this market, and maybe we already covered this, but how are your how is your operation different than some of the peers in our market? Well, you

Brian: know, we like I said, we operated Jesse called me a hermit. Said, yeah. You know, we're not out much and all that stuff.

Steve: So I think I think a lot

Brian: of it is just developing in isolation and not even knowing all you guys were here until, you know, like, when I met you. And I gotta tell you guys how I first met Steve too. This is kinda deviating a little bit. So I go to a meetup. I don't know if you had your podcast yet or if if you did, I didn't know you had a podcast.

And I saw the meetup, and I said, I just need to meet some more folks who are doing this. Yeah. And the coolest thing there's some people a couple of people I'd seen who I hadn't seen for a while. Jesse was one of them. I hadn't seen him for, like, two years.

But I walk in. I there's nary a familiar face except for his.

Steve: Mhmm. And one,

Brian: I had kinda seen it in that. Steve walks over, introduces himself, kinda introduced me to some other people.

Steve: And

Brian: it was just the most generally and profoundly professional, just kind thing to do. So I remember you I sent you that messenger. Yeah. And I was, like, like, dude, that was just I really appreciate

Steve: it because I'm not shy. Mhmm. But

Brian: you didn't know that. Here's a new face. I haven't seen him walk over, took time away because, you know, you're the you're the guy in the center of this.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: I walked over and introduced, you know, I just I never forgot that. Just a genuinely good kind guy, man. But the how we're different, I think, is that that same thing being isolated, I think, we just figured out something that wasn't a template that we followed. Mhmm. Everybody's virtual.

I don't see anybody. We even have, like, virtual lunches together. Everybody's on Google Hangout. We buy lunch. We all eat lunch together at

Steve: our That's not a real thing.

Brian: Yeah. It's it's real it's a real thing. We have virtual lunches. We've done we've done

Steve: Virtual brown bag.

Brian: My food. Yeah, dude. We, we start our meetings. We used to when Game of Thrones is still on. Every Monday morning meeting, the first fifteen minutes was a Game of Thrones recap.

And, like, if you're not on the call, if you didn't watch it, you get kicked off the call. Like, literally, get off the phone, and then you get to come back, you know, after you finish. So it's just, man, it's a really good vibe, man. I think we were really, really deliberate about building a culture. You know, I'm a big Richard Branson fan.

Mhmm. And just the idea was just culture and cohesiveness. And I was really I was really aware of, I think, you know, the leader is not the most important. The first follower is.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: First follower is who everybody turns to the follow-up, figure out how they should treat the leader and what to make of them. That's interesting. Yeah. So it was very there was actually a, I think it was a TED Talk. Right?

I've seen this years years ago and it was really profound and I thought, yeah, because somebody comes on. There's only so much they can say to you when you're steering the ship, but they're gonna go to someone else and go, so what's really the scoop here?

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: You know, and if they're not lockstep in that first person, if there's only two of you and you make a bad hire, 50% of your company is bad.

Steve: Yeah. So there was a good book. I cannot remember the name of the book. It kills me right now. But, basically, it was like, if you're gonna try to get buy in, don't make the announcement to everybody all at once.

Yeah. Go talk to all the influential people. Tell them why you're doing it. Yeah. Tell them why it's important.

Yeah. And then when you make the announcement to every for the first time, everybody.

Brian: For the first time. Right. Right.

Steve: And all everyone that's that's bought in. Now, your vision is easier to submit your vision. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: I totally agree, man. What if you go out and you hire five people? Now you're outnumbered and nobody follows your vision. Yeah. You've got chaos and there's enough, you know, what you just happened before came down.

There's enough chaos every day. And I tell people, I say, guys, you know, I'm at create chaos. We just had a new hire that started last week, and I told her, just give me a heads up. I I cause chaos. Yeah.

I do. I come out looking at something. There's a better way of doing this. And I mix it all up, and it's like, help me figure it out. Okay.

I gotta do this next day. So fortunately, the integrator can say, okay, let's put this together. This is how this can work. But I'm like, I know this works. It needs to be done.

But again, you gotta go and have the buy in where somebody says, all right, when you scramble the eggs like this, I got it. Okay, great. I'm at liberty. I'm free to do this. Okay.

But yeah, you're absolutely right, man. Let's go and talk to people. Make sure they understand what you're doing. And just because you have, you know, a title, that don't mean anything. You know, if nobody's following you, you're just taking a walk.

Steve: Yeah. Small company title mean squatter.

Brian: Nothing. Nothing. Because I you know, there was a whole lot of things where I was out doing, you know, sleeves rolled up and shoveling rocks. I was like, I didn't need to be done. You know?

I mean

Steve: so, I was gonna ask you something else about that. Dang it. Alright. So, Assad wants to know what kind of marketing are you doing for virtually? We're just talking paper clicks.

Is there anything else you guys are doing?

Brian: Yeah. So paper click and cold calling. So paper click, cold calling, and texting.

Steve: Okay.

Brian: We just we just started, we just got the software to start doing, ringless voice mail.

Steve: Mhmm. We

Brian: don't know how it's gonna work. So we're willing really to just test. But one of the

Steve: reasons we did pay

Brian: per click just started going way

Steve: up. Mhmm.

Brian: Like, wait, when I talked three, four four times what it was. And so.

Steve: It's crazy. Yeah. It it

Brian: there was literally a click for mobile homes. I remember this. One of the markets, they used to be about about a dollar 50 a click. I saw it for $64 like two weeks ago. And I never I had a cow.

I looked at it. So, obviously, can't do this. But fortunately, we had the the the vision, you know, back in that second quarter for that. Let's bring some people on to diversify how we're gonna market because I suspect they'll be creep as things get skinnier and skinnier and skinnier. And, again, you wanna spread out on the ice and be able to do this because this is working great.

So right now, that's what we're doing. It's still probably about 60% pay per click.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: But, like, today, the phones are going going insane. So a whole lot of texting and

Steve: calls. Probably doesn't help if your virtual market is North Carolina, and our buddy Max is over there telling everyone. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. I'm sure, you know, I'm on Carrot. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I suspect someone has had something

Steve: to do and then there's a couple of guys

Brian: and there's a big guy here who his phone maybe one of his old phone numbers just last week called us

Steve: and I'm like why

Brian: the hell is he calling our number so it it it had his name on the caller ID so I called back and I said I don't know who that is but think it's maybe one of his old phone numbers that he was using and it became somebody else. So the guy said, yeah. I've had this cell phone number about six months now. But I'm like, okay. This Eric oh, you're there too.

So I think there are a number of guys here, the cats out there out in that area too. And that's kinda coincided directly what I saw.

Steve: Yeah. Well, 2018 is when we I stopped doing pay per click. Right? So Yeah. 2012 is when I started.

And back in 2012, doing pay per click in Phoenix, it was me, Sean Terry, and a couple other guys who I don't even know who they are. Yeah. Right? And so I was paying, like, a dollar $30 for

Brian: sale. Right? Really?

Steve: And $12.50 for registration. Jeez. Today, if I'm not paying $40, there's no point in playing. At all.

Brian: Yeah. At all. Dude, some of these, there are $98 clicks, $90 clicks now, and some of these smaller tertiary markets.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: And I'm going, I'm just not doing that. Right. But fortunately, it wasn't it didn't wait up until the problem realized itself. It was anticipation and saying because it's my only job is to anticipate opportunities and threats. Yeah.

That's it everything else. Three decisions a day. All I'm all I'm good for is three decisions a day. That's what I try to do make three good decisions a day. That's my role.

And looking at there were just markers that things are going to go crazy now if that was the only thing that we had, I mean we spent double in pay per click last month than we did the month before and I've had a full month of data now because we're what in the October 2 today is the second so I can look at the data and it is double from the month before with no more no more activity than the month before. Yeah. And, you know, it it just at some point, it's diminishing return. You go, okay. I'll do something else.

Steve: So what is Lucas Orozco wants to know, what's your average pay per click cost per lead and per deal?

Brian: Pay per click is 3,255. Dollars 3,255.17.

Steve: Dollars 3,255.17.

Brian: Dollars

Steve: Per per deal? Per deal. Man. But your average margin is?

Brian: About 13.

Steve: Okay. Does that math works out? Yeah.

Brian: It's four to one almost.

Steve: You can do that all day. Yeah. Alright. So then what are, oh, I know what I asked you earlier. So you've got this ability to attract mindless people.

Brian: Do I? Oh.

Steve: These people that are like be able to show up and they're like, do you really think this is how the world works?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: So let's talk about, like, are your are your standards, like, way high? What what is happening in your world that you're finding these people that are just like they're not they're not doing drugs on-site and they're already fired in the first day.

Brian: Oh, that the one guy was doing drugs on-site and he got fired the first day. That actually was a guy. That was a guy. Where did they come from? I just think so I used to think it was just the contractor side of things, right?

But I can tell you, I have never once had a flip where a realtor didn't set off the alarm. And there are there's like in Texas Not the realtor, not

Steve: the listing agent.

Brian: Not the listing. We no. Yeah. Not the listing. But the other realtor, there's never been once.

Record was something got listed and within two hours, there's an alarm and the police are coming in. Somebody owes the money. Right? I think it's just they're a whole I think part of what happens is in this industry, there's a really, really low barrier to entry. Right?

You can literally say, I am a this now and you've never had to do anything but you can call yourself what you want to. And I think it's it's almost like any industry. Can there's gonna be really really good. Like when I was in pharma, probably eighty five percent of doctors that I saw, I wouldn't see them from my own personal health. I was like, God, people trust you.

Steve: But you

Brian: don't know until you can see behind the curtain. So I think for me, man, I think there's just a volume of different people that have to come in. Like this last job, there were three three different crews of framers, three different crews of drywallers, two different crews of plumber, a roofer whose house I had to go to. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Because he took money and ran off. And, it wasn't even a lot of money. It was a fact that this can't spread to everybody else that you got paid and ran off and then where somebody will let you take the money and run off. Yeah.

Steve: So

Brian: it was more of like, you're gonna be an example, you know. But I don't know, man. They're just everywhere, man. We can't can't tell a fun story about one guy. Yeah.

Alright. So we had a guy who, this is how so we thought we had a plan that was idiot proof. We were convinced it's

Steve: idiot proof. That was your first problem.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I was patting us over the back. I was all wrong. So we had a, we had a a house that these beautiful, stained concrete floors.

And, you know, once I was gonna nobody can walk on them for a while. We had a guy who was doing cabinets and everybody because I don't deal directly with most of the trades guy everybody has a name so he's Fred the cabinet guy or John you know this guy like everybody I know them by what they do right so this guy had a tendency of just disappearing but his prices were great he's like a third of everybody else he did good work and he disappeared because a lot of these guys they don't have phones or they have accounts like they're just the trades when you do flips that's who's available so this guy he disappears we said okay great change the lockbox code change the alarm codes on the house we put yellow tape all around do not enter we put a sign in the on the room that was just recently done don't walk in here all of this stuff one day the alarm is going crazy and so there's motion sensors in each room so well I can sort of cat what's what's going on in there so what had happened is cabinet guy who had gone missing pops back up after a week job's already done but he pops back up he just goes to the lockbox and only a person who's kind of like not right just says let me just try to open it because there was the code had been changed.

The concrete guy put the key back in there never scrambled the code. So cabinet guy who we think is falling off the edge of the earth comes back, just tries it, it opens. He goes inside. He's walking over the $6,000 floor job. Alarms are going crazy.

He can't call us because he doesn't have a phone. The police show up. Like, it was all of this to be and the only things in my head to scramble the code. Yeah. I have a 100 of those stories, man.

Steve: But I

Brian: don't know, man. I got magic power to do it, man. If you ever need idiots, man, I I get you some. Bottomless. Bottomless supply.

Like bottomless mimosas, man. Here you go.

Steve: So, you know, one of the things I'm hanging out, like, people that don't know you don't really get the benefit of. Right? You're always dropping nuggets. So you Yeah. So you got lots of wisdom behind you.

So where are you you know, you do a lot of personal development. You read a lot of books. Like, what is your?

Brian: I do, man. I just I just love observation, man. I, you know, I, I do read a lot of books. My Audible, I've got a backlog of probably like 12 books I gotta get to. You

Steve: know,

Brian: I just I just have a voracious appetite to learn, man. And I think one of the things is just some humility in that, you know, I'm not a guy that lacks confidence, but I'm also a guy that recognizes other people have a lot of value. And so I think every person I meet is my superior in some way. I might not know what it is, not readily apparent. I just listen to people and

Steve: I look at things

Brian: and go, what's the why of that? So everything. I dissect everything. Like I look at a light pole. I remember one day I'm driving and I go, I wonder how many people got paid for that?

Alright, so you had a timber guy. You had somebody who had to prepare the log. You had somebody who's operating the saw. You had somebody who's developed the infrastructure. It's logging.

It has to get shipped. It has to be stained here. There's nails. So I'm just breaking down looking at all this stuff. I'm just curious.

I think the main thing is I'm

Steve: just curious about everything. I'm actually a curious person.

Brian: Yeah. I'm naturally curious about everything. Like, I'm my last Google search was what would happen if everybody jumped up and down a plane at the same time.

Steve: And I

Brian: wasn't the only one. That was a search. Other people wonder that same thing, man. But I think that's it. Just listening to people, man.

You know, I get around folks, and they just guys say a lot, and I try to I try to I'm very particular about I'm very, I'm very mindful how I spend time.

Steve: Mhmm. You

Brian: know, I I realized one day it runs out. Like, it's and I'm comfortable with that. But when I spend time around, folks, I'm very deliberate at who I can spend time with because I only get so much in a day. So it's really I I mean, I'm not gassing you up, but like guys like you who are guys who contribute that value, it's because most of the people that are around me, I think, are really high functioning people except for those guys we just talked about. And they just make you better, I think.

A lot of it's probably stuff ripped off from people and absorbed it over time and don't even realize

Steve: where it

Brian: came from. Yeah.

Steve: That's not all me. So other part, talking about time. Yeah. I know that there are a lot of guys out there that are demanding or requiring of your knowledge without offering anything in value Yeah. And reaching out to you, sending you messages.

Yeah. Right? What advice do you wanna give to somebody who wants to learn?

Brian: Yeah.

Steve: And, you know, they're behind they're behind, you know, Facebook Messenger, DM, whatever.

Brian: Yeah.

Steve: What advice would you give them if they actually want to learn from somebody? Yeah. What can they do to provide value or or or, you know, correctly get their message across? Yeah. Because it's hard.

Right?

Brian: I say this to you all the time. I go, go, I don't know how you do it. Like, I must have said that to you at least a half dozen times. Right? It's well, I I think the first thing is don't be rude.

Mhmm. Like, I get messages. We've never seen you. I've never seen you. And I lay low.

Like, I don't talk about earnings. Like, and you know, we had conversations before. Like, I was like, I don't I don't want life to get weird if you start saying, hey. This is what we've done. Mhmm.

So that's why there's the two messages. You know, there's the, hey. This is what you did on vacation. And then there's the other one that says, okay. This is what you do because I'm mindful of that.

Right?

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: And I know that'll attract a lot of that. And I don't wanna be rude to people. Right. Right? And I think until people know the chaos of your day, I think they they need to spend some time just kinda listening to what people are saying their days are like.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: Like, there's a lot going on. The second thing I think is you gotta add value because there's really only two things that are value in this business. I mean, and that's time and it's money. Mhmm. And if once you start getting money, you've got you've got overhead.

You've got other people. I can tell people I start up and I start up negative every month when it comes up your your overhead. I don't but I don't have some of the time they might have. So the first thing you need to do is offer something to value a trade. Because when somebody says, hey.

Let me take you to lunch. If you've dollarized what an hour of your time is worth Mhmm. I'm losing money sitting there eat lunch with you even if it's free. It costs me more than what that hour is worth to me. So what's something that I can't do for myself that you're gonna add that value and then follow-up?

Because I'll tell you, 95% of the people that say, hey. Can you help me out? You know? I say, okay. We'll do this, and they disappear.

It's like a magic. Like, if you want them to disappear, okay. Well, yeah, we'll do this first, and they won't do it.

Steve: Was it you that said, like, give me a call at 6AM tomorrow morning?

Brian: No, dude. 06:00? No.

Steve: There are some ways, like, yeah. No problem. Call me at 6AM.

Brian: Yeah. But see if you'll do it.

Steve: That's their way to find out whether Yeah.

Brian: My acquisitions guy, man. He, so I had him take a a Colby, and I was like, I don't know if I can hire you. You got enough. Like, he literally got enough in it. Been the biggest surprise ever.

I love his work ethic. He surprised me. Right? So he took a couple different assessments. But I'll tell you how he even got a foot in the door.

The we got 93 resumes in for this position in a real short amount of time. Only two people submitted videos like I requested. Mhmm. So the people who knew me, they thought the emails and stuff were coming to me. They weren't.

I had somebody else screening them. If there's no video, trash them.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: So I never even saw that. I said, okay. I can see how many they were coming in. Indeed, they're coming to message. But it was like, will you do the thing?

Because are you gonna be coachable? The first thing is are you gonna be coachable? Mhmm. Because if I've gotta run after you to get you to do the things right recently, I had somebody who went our separate ways because she just thought she knew had never done a deal in her life and was resistant to everything. They pulled her out.

So the first thing you gotta do is show you're gonna be coachable. Second thing, you're gonna bring some value. You probably have time that somebody who you want to teach you doesn't.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Brian: then don't make it be their work to figure out how you're gonna be valuable. Show them. You know? Show them how you're gonna be valuable. And if you've got more time, show them how you can use that time for them.

And that's that's really the thing.

Steve: Right.

Brian: That's really the thing. You know? But, hey, you you you I don't know how many messages you get a day, but

Steve: I had over a 100 yesterday. I I I posted something stupid.

Brian: What did you do?

Steve: Well, I posted, like, here's all the training videos we have. Who wants them? And so I'm still getting through those. I'm still getting through those.

Brian: Alright. I had somebody send me a message, and I had there was only, like, 20 of them or something. Yeah. And I didn't reply right away, and then I got the message back.

Steve: And I

Brian: don't know. Maybe I was being butt hurt and sensitive. But she sent back a reply because I hadn't replied in time, and it was just a triple question mark.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: And the mail, like, that's, like, WTF you doing? You know, like, you do. Like, I was insulted by it. I didn't should I have been, or am I reading into it?

Steve: I don't know. I already know how you're gonna react to it.

Brian: Yeah. But I'm like, w I don't even know who you are and incident. I was like, I was really gonna get to you. Yeah. And now I'm not.

And then so you get people, hey. How do you do this? And so my reply often was like, hello? Yeah. I would you you know?

So don't be rude.

Steve: Yeah. So I think the biggest thing for me, and this isn't necessarily for that, but just in general, like, when someone has to pick my brain and phone call, whatever, I'll tell them, like, if I help you well, I won't tell them. But if I help them and they do nothing with it, kills me. A little part of me dies inside.

Brian: Right. Right?

Steve: Like, I just gave you this time.

Brian: Right. I

Steve: can't get that time back. Right.

Brian: And you know you know what the funny thing is? This is so funny you say that. So I had a relative one time who, man, him pissing me off of wasting three hours my time was one of the best gifts he ever

Steve: gave me. Yeah.

Brian: So he wanted to study for his his GED. I said, okay. Great. Come on. And this is way back when I was I was an undergrad.

And I said, okay. We'll come by. And I spent my I spent, like, three hours with him. I'm I'm excited for him. I go, like, yes.

You're fine. Gonna do this. And then you never showed up again.

Steve: And I was

Brian: a little pissed. Right? But I was also disappointed because going, it's not hard. You showed all this promise. But then I realized that, you know, I said, okay.

Well, from there, I kinda just developed this. If anybody ever asked me to do something, I always ask them to do something first.

Steve: You

Brian: know, even my nieces and nephews will tell you, uncle Brian, if you do A, he'll do B.

Steve: But they

Brian: know I'm not taking the first step ever.

Steve: You

Brian: know, I'll tell people, okay, let's meet next week. Give me a call on this day. They don't call. And I go, great. I got out of something I don't want to do anyway.

Anyway.

Steve: Right. You showed

Brian: me you weren't really serious about it. And that's because that thing is that little part of me would die and I would find out that I've only got so much time in a day. Mhmm. And I've wasted all this time. And you were on board when I was doing the heavy lifting first.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: As soon as you have to do some work, well, it's not that important.

Steve: And then

Brian: I just found out I think that's part of why going back to the even the message question you asked. I I hold the position, and maybe maybe maybe I shouldn't, but I hold the position that most people are gonna react that way because in the moment they're excited, some of them got energized and then life happens. Yeah. You know, get your kids sick. This and they and I think there's this over time, you know, the intent, the law, you know, there's diminishing intent.

I was gonna do it, and then two days turns into four, turns into eight. Mhmm. And, you know, they follow-up with you six months later, and then ship sailed. But I think that's what happens to people. And if you get that a 100 times in a day, you'd have no time to run your business.

And I don't I just think people don't really understand how how many demands are on time.

Steve: No, they don't. And you know, for me, like, I I'm always happy to help. Yeah. But man, it kills me if you're not going to do anything with it. So, like, if you're going to ask for help, do something with it.

Brian: Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Because that's the thing and there's a, is there a little bit of pride?

Let me, it's like, there's some pride involved too. Like, you see somebody like you can be proud of.

Steve: You

Brian: know, somebody taking a step in knowing you. Yeah. Helped happen like that. That's the that's the reward.

Steve: That's fulfilling. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I

Brian: just spent two hours and then nothing. Nothing happened.

Steve: I hate your guts. I'll have ugly children,

Brian: you know, whatever that is.

Steve: So I

Brian: don't really mean that, baby.

Steve: Alright. So, one question I'd like to ask everybody is, what is your why?

Brian: Dude, you know what's funny? I just went to a Mastermind. My friend Steve Richards up in Indianapolis. Right outside of it. Had this Mastermind.

One of the things it really did is dug into, it's called Have you ever heard of an Enneagram?

Steve: Mm-mm. So

Brian: it's just weird. It's a weird I just just practicing the word right yesterday. I think I was a, you know, Enne Meany Money or Gram. I used to call it. But it basically just digs deep into like personality is really what's important to you.

And I realized something, man. I like control, man. Like my whys, I don't like I don't like somebody else controlling outcomes in my life. I realize I don't like, you know, my livelihood being at somebody else's whim. I don't like, you know, if something unexpected happens that I don't have a modicum of control over how how I deal with things.

And so I I I like to I used to say it was freedom, but I realized I'm kind of in that freedom. I want to control my freedoms. I want to minimize other people's influence and what what can happen to me. And at the same time with that, that's also, you know, I want to do that for other people that I care about. And so, like, you know, I I don't know if we ever get the real rough patch I had when business, everything, lost everything.

Where I have I guess I have a screenshot of me with, like, 17¢ in my bank account. Like, he got duh. And I want to you know, part of me wants the people that stuck in there were there. Let them know you didn't gamble wrong. Like, I got you.

Like, you stayed there during the you know, during their time. I got you. But that's really it, man. It's just being able to control as much of my day as I can because I'm mindful that I've only got so many of them left, man. And I'm very mindful of that.

Steve: Yeah. And I think that's a powerful message. Brandon said that last week. Joe Dillon said that a few months ago. Like Yeah.

The the awareness. Yeah. That there is only so much of your time available and not just squander it.

Brian: Yeah. You you know, I mean, because, like, even when I if I waste time, I'm intentional about when I waste it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: Like, somebody else ain't gonna waste it for me.

Steve: Right.

Brian: But if I decide I'm doing something and I'm just gonna be I've planned my activity up to that point to be able to say, I'm not doing anything for this eight hour block, until I get bored and I get restless and I gotta go do something else. But that's rare when I can do that.

Steve: Sound very much like a driver. I might be. And I you know, I when I

Brian: I did what's that thing called? Max something. Max Shrentz or something. It was like driver, and I was like, those guys look like they suck. And I started taking tests, and I was like, well, maybe they don't suck as much.

Steve: You know, like, I might be one of those, man.

Brian: But I'm I'm so chill when people like when the work is done. But I expect you to be excellent, man. Like Yeah. Be excellent.

Steve: I got that same struggle too. I'm a driver, only one I need to be. Yeah. So I hate it when if I'm if I'm wasting time, like, it's no big deal. Yeah.

Someone waste my time. Oh, my God. Dude.

Brian: So we're Yeah. Yeah, man. It's the worst thing ever.

Steve: You know?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I'm that same way, man. I'm that same way.

Steve: So what is your biggest struggle right now?

Brian: Managing time, man. Man man managing time. You know, a few months ago would have been raising capital. Now it's managing time.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: You know? I didn't realize a friend of mine pointed out. He goes, did you work a lot?

Steve: And I

Brian: think I did because of that flexibility I was talking about earlier I go okay I'm gonna take a break now I'm gonna go do this thing but it would still be you know ten eleven twelve hours you know five days a week and then you know five or six seven you know on on a saturday or just want to have downtime and I'm bored bored and I'm pulling my laptop while the game is on. And, you know, just really I I struggle with that because I didn't think it was I was doing it a lot. But, you know, I realized I neglected a lot of things like my health and being active and but I didn't feel like because I enjoyed what I was doing. Yeah. You know, so it didn't feel like I was working this long.

Like I remember one day when I was learning pay per click sixteen hours straight, I got up and I ate. I brought my food back and when I was learning it and I get I can get hyper focused on something and it's not good, man. It's not good. So I think my main thing is just getting better. I thought I was good at saying no.

I'm not as good at saying no as I thought. And then, really just committing to managing my time better saying, okay, this is my time. I'm going to the gym now because you've gone eight months without going to the gym and that's you're gonna be awful you know yeah but that's it man managing time and then figuring out what does that look like like I don't even know what that looks like like do I need to get somebody who does certain tasks? Do I need to do just less of them? Do I need to change the task that I'm doing?

I really don't know the answer.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: But every day can fill up just like that. So I've I now start blocking certain times where I don't check email in the morning.

Steve: Mhmm. You know,

Brian: my email if you send me an email, I'm not checking until 11:30. And then I'm checking again until the end of the day. Whatever comes in between there, you know.

Steve: I have my phone. I do not disturb until 11AM every day. Really?

Brian: How do you manage that?

Steve: Awesome people, man. I got Max. I got Summer. I got other people around me. Someone Send

Brian: me by ear.

Steve: Voice mail. Really? Oh, all my voice goes go to my email. And so if it's important, Summer can get through to do not disturb. Right?

Like my wife. Yeah. Yeah. And so Yes.

Brian: You've got a couple to do that. Okay.

Steve: Yeah. But besides that, so if it's urgent, Summer will call me. But besides that

Brian: Eleven, though? How does everybody else feel about it being eleven if they can't do it? You don't care. You're like, whatever. I'm like, what's Max say?

Like, dude, you're you're do not disturb till eleven.

Steve: Max gets through.

Brian: But he can't be on do not disturb disturb if

Steve: you're on do not disturb. I don't think he can. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: We talk to him, Max. We gotta talk

Steve: about that.

Brian: I'm like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yeah. Yeah, man. So I and mine is do not disturb until, like, 07:30.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: And then like that first hour I get up and then I I read and then I look at data. Yeah. Like every day my first hours, reading data. And I don't care if the world is on fire. Do not interrupt that first hour.

I I just I'm kind of a guy that wants to ease into my day. Like my alarm is the most pleasant thing that wakes you up like you sometimes just lay there and even though I'm supposed to get up, it's pleasant to listen to but like being like just woken up abruptly pisses me off. So if I wake up and you can become a problem in that first hour, I'm gonna give you the worst decision because it was just bothered. So, you know, it's like burn the shifts down. I you know, I don't care.

So

Steve: So you're like the guy that walks around or the or or the guy that wash around. I was like, not before my coffee.

Brian: Yeah. And I don't even like coffee that much, but it's a habit. Yeah. Like these, when I was in sales, I used to have one of these before big sales calls. Mhmm.

And so I went and got one today because that's just like my habit. Mhmm.

Steve: But they

Brian: don't really taste that good. I just Oh,

Steve: if you're getting sugar free, it is

Brian: You know, and then I'm not a sweets guy. Yeah. So but, you know, I'm nachos all day, baby. But not a sweets guy.

Steve: What is the greatest lesson you've ever learned?

Brian: Ever?

Steve: Mhmm. That's a big question. Mhmm.

Brian: The greatest lesson I've ever learned?

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: I'm stumped. I have to pick a category. I have to pick a like, my greatest lesson in when dealing with people, like, can I narrow it down? Sure. Like, was that people will do things in spite of you, often, but not to spite you.

And that we can spite of you, often but not to spite you. And that we can sometimes take what's happened and personalize it because we have unmet expectations and they're just doing what makes sense for them. And it's not to spite you. It's really just in spite of you. And it allowed it allows a whole lot of understanding.

It allows you preservation of relationships when people do things that disappoint and you realize it wasn't at me. Mhmm. It was for them and it wasn't at me. And that's probably that's probably the greatest people lesson that I've learned.

Steve: They're going to do what they're going to do.

Brian: Yeah. And then it's not to hurt me at all.

Steve: Yeah. A lot of

Brian: times they're not even thinking about me. You know, and that was that was one of those things where because there was some I was used to being one of those guys where I wouldn't do that.

Steve: Well, I

Brian: wouldn't do that. Well,

Steve: you're not them.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Well, good thing you're not them because Yeah. Yeah. Then you'd be in violation of what you wouldn't do, you know?

But that's probably the greatest lesson I've learned with dealing with people.

Steve: So I'm gonna let you think about one last thought you wanna leave with the listeners while I make a couple of quick announcements. Okay. Guys, Friday in Houston, Wholesaling Live. I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna actually do three things at in Houston.

So on Friday, I'm gonna do the perfect seller appointment. On Sunday, I'm gonna talk about building your empire and leaving a legacy. And then I'm gonna do an hour of Q and A of just anything and everything goes. It's it's important to me that everyone comes. If you're in Texas, there's no reason not to be there.

Right? It's it's three hours from Dallas. I don't know how many hours from San Antonio. But there's no reason not to be there. So, guys, I'm gonna be there.

Again, I'm gonna talk about the perfect seller appointment. I'm gonna talk about how to build your legacy, so that you can have an army of people that are working with you to pursue your vision. And then an open, hour, just q and a. Anything goes. Any question you've got, I'm happy to answer them for you.

It could be about business. It could be personal, whatever. Happy to answer those questions for you. So go to wholescalinglive.com and r e d for 25% off. And then Brian and I are gonna be sharing a stage in Biloxi, October for real estate round of live.

So I'm gonna be feeling good on Saturday when I speak. I can't speak for Brian because we're gonna get drunk on Saturday night. No. But if you guys wanna go check us out, it's bit.ly/rerlive,bit.ly/rerlive. And then we're finishing the year in New Orleans with Chris Rood in December.

Go to it's two thousand nineteen skillathon, bit. Ly/ 2 019 skill. Again, it's BitLy2019 skill. And so with that, last thoughts.

Brian: Last thought. God, man. The audience so your audience, a lot of it. There's newer people, a lot of newer people too. Right?

Steve: Right?

Brian: It's

Steve: a good healthy mix, but predominantly newer.

Brian: Predominantly newer. I think the newer people really won't care a whole lot about like later down the road stuff. It's like in the first thing, how do I get my first deal? How do I do that? And to that, I would say probably as a newer person, people always say consistency, but it's not just consistency.

Right? I think for I think chunks, doing things in consistent chunks is probably the best step that a newer person can can make. If you're going to knock on door, what people tend to do if you're say you're knocking on doors, they do 10 a day. You know, it's the same as read a book 10 pages a day. Right?

You know, at the end of the year, you've read 3,650 pages. Right? Mhmm. And you're a completely different person after having to digest the knowledge from however many years it took people to put together those three, four, five, or seven books that you've digested. You're different.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: You can't just go read them all in New Year's and think you're gonna get the same effect. Then it's the same thing that the thing little things that people do, they cascade. Like, my day from yesterday today, so I'm you know, it it can change instantly. And if you haven't done the little steps incrementally, repeatedly, so they can compound for you, it seems a lot harder than it is because this isn't rocket science.

Steve: No. It's not.

Brian: It's not rocket science. I mean, it's just it's mundane. It can be disappointing. But if your goal isn't I can I can succinctly put, if you focus on activity and not outcomes, you feel great about yourself? Mhmm.

Just focus on the activity. If it works, sometimes it's not gonna work and it's nothing you did that make it not work. Some the variables outside of the control made something not work. But you can control if you put out, you know, 20 signs, you know, a day.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: Every sing you can control if you get on the phone even though you hate talking to people, you know, and you call 50. Focus on activity and not outcomes. And then when it's it's really unexpected, when a lot of stuff comes out, wouldn't it turn into wholesale? I had some weird unexpected thing that didn't come up because we're doing SEO debt.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: We're mad that wasn't working. You know? So that would be the last thing to leave is focus on focus on activity and not outcomes.

Steve: Yeah. This is an unpopular team, but the Patriots. Yeah. Right? Trust the process.

Brian: Dude, I love the Pats, man.

Steve: Yeah.

Brian: I love the Pats, but for that same reason. Insert the next guy and just we're gonna do it this way repeatedly. Stop us. It works. It works.

It it it just it only works. Yeah. You know? And guys that have done this before you, before me, I mean, Eve, I didn't realize how much longer you'd been in real estate than I had been, and I'm going Yeah.

Steve: Dude, you're probably wise as shit. You know? And I'm going Yeah. You know what I mean?

Brian: It's like, okay. Well, I'm not gonna there's things I'm just not gonna figure out. Yeah. I'm gonna ask somebody who's done it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brian: And then I'm gonna consistently if that's my goal is to ask people, I'm gonna consistently ask people.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how should someone get a hold of you?

Brian: Facebook if they're not rude, man. You know? If they're not rude, Facebook, you know? But, you know, but that's really about it, man. I got somebody somebody, talk to me about not being on IG.

You know? And I'm on there. I think it's Johnny Quest on IG and property carloads of company, but I'm not on there much because that's probably one of those things I need to get somebody to help me do. Yep. And stay on there.

I just forget it it exists until but, yeah, definitely Facebook, man.

Steve: Awesome. Thank you very much.

Brian: No doubt.

Steve: A lot of fun.

Brian: Pleasure, man.

Steve: Thank you guys for watching.

Brian: Thank you.