Build System Automation (Left Main REI), Process for Data clarity, Train COO’s and be a Cardiothoracic Surgical Nurse

Steve Trang: Everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we've got Stephanie Betters who with multiple companies, so I can't pick one specifically. And she's gonna talk about how you can scale your business through systems, processes, and also being a nurse as well, which is kinda crazy. If this is your first time tuning in, I am Steve Trang, sales trainer for some of the top wholesalers in the country, and I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires.

Question I get all the time is how do you become one of the 100 millionaires? The information on this podcast alone is enough for you to become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. All you need to do is take consistent action, and you will become one. When you hear a nugget, please type into the comment section. And after the show, identify your single biggest takeaway and focus on just that for the next seven days.

If you get value today, please tag a friend below or share this episode right now. That way we can all grow together. And this is a live show, so please ask your questions for Stephanie to answer. You ready?

Stephanie Betters: I'm ready.

Steve: Alright. So first question is, what got you into real estate?

Stephanie: Okay. My husband is responsible for that. My husband, Zach. We met in college really, really young. We were I was 19 when I when I met him.

We started dating. And when we graduated college, we had nothing. We had no money. We just had fresh fresh degrees and no money. And, he convinced us convinced me to buy a foreclosed house.

This was in 2007. Right. Like, right. Great timing. Right?

And, because that's what you do when you have no money. You fit you get a fixer upper and you live in it and you and you flip it. So that's what we did. And I tell them all the time, like, that was not what I imagined you carrying me over the threshold into this disaster of a house with water damage and mold and the whole thing.

Steve: Did you guys move into it?

Stephanie: We did. But thankfully, we gutted it before we moved in. So we took care of the mold, and then literally then we moved in. Like So

Steve: you guys were house hacking back in o seven?

Stephanie: O seven.

Steve: That's awesome.

Stephanie: That was the first one. So we lived in it. We flipped it. It took us about a year and a half, and we sold it literally at the peak. Like, it was 2009 early two thousand nine when we sold it, and we were in Binghamton, New York.

And literally, two weeks after we sold it, the whole market there crashed. IBM was a bigger big employee there. They laid everybody off. So we, like, just got through the nick of our teeth.

Steve: So a fantastic time then.

Stephanie: Yes. So then we took all that money. We put it in a CD and we went to grad school. And so Zach is a physician assistant. I'm a nurse practitioner.

And after we graduated, we were trying to figure out what to do next. We were living on Long Island. It was really expensive to live there, young professionals now. Charlotte, my daughter was born. What do we do?

And he's like, what? Let's do the real estate thing again. That was good. We made money. And I was like, okay.

Well, I'll do it again, but I will never live in it again. So whatever we do, we've gotta figure it out so we don't have to live in that because this I had, like, sheetrock dust PTSD. It was ridiculous. Yeah. So we looked our our family was all over The US at that time, so we weren't married to a certain area.

So we literally picked a place on the map. We looked at Charlotte. We did a little market analysis of that, compared it to Raleigh, compared it to Jacksonville, and we really felt that Charlotte had a great potential that was kinda following those two markets. It was near our international airport, and it was warm enough that our parents would retire there. So we did it.

Steve: There was a lot of thought that went to where you guys are moving to.

Stephanie: Yep.

Steve: And had I didn't hear anything about being a doctor or a nurse practitioner. So you guys were both going to medical schooling? Like, what

Stephanie: Yeah. We were we we we sold our house, went to grad school, finished grad school, then then started this.

Steve: Right. So you guys were studying for what exactly?

Stephanie: Yeah. Medicine. Yeah.

Steve: So you guys are both studying for medicine.

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: And you guys went to Raleigh?

Stephanie: No. Charlotte.

Steve: Charlotte.

Stephanie: Yep.

Steve: You went to Charlotte, and and no part of your calculation was practicing medicine.

Stephanie: Well, it you know, it was a good it was definitely a good place to practice. That that was part of it. Okay. There was the job market there for us was really good. So Got it.

That was part of that was a it's funny. That was secondary.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So you went there, and then you got right back into the real estate game.

Stephanie: Kind of. So what we decided to do was build a house. So this was my thing. And and this comes up a lot for me in my story and still now, but fear is, like, a big thing. Right?

Like, we just made a huge investment in our in our careers. We had cumulatively over $200,000 in debt now. Even though we made, like, $40, it was in a CD. We didn't count it. We had over $200,000 in student loan debt.

So I was like, oh my god. We can't just abandon our careers at this point and just start a company. Like, what are we gonna do? We need to have some sort of plan. I need to have some sort of, like, proof that this concept is gonna work at scale.

So we decided to, build a house in a neighborhood we thought would appreciate. We're like, okay. This this neighborhood looks really good. Let's do it. If we build the house, when we move in and we and we get, equity, you know, if it if it gains value, we'll take a HELOC out, and that's what we're gonna use to start a business.

So that took two years. So meanwhile, I had another baby. We're working. We're trying to pay off as much as we can. We're both working full time.

Just kinda learning as much as we can, reading, everything.

Steve: What were you guys doing?

Stephanie: Listening to podcasts. But, I

Steve: mean, like, what were you guys doing for money?

Stephanie: Oh, we were still working full time. So I was working as a CT surgery nurse practitioner. Zach's a, a, PA in in urgent care. So we were working full time doing that and, like, absorbing as much as we could about real estate. And then so two years passes, and I'm starting to feel a little more secure.

We bought a rental, and I was like, okay. That wasn't too scary. You know, we found a special program. We only had to put down 5% for that. So we bought a rental.

I was like, oh, okay. I think I think we can do this. So then we got an appraisal on our house, and we had, like, $30 in equity, so we took out 20. Mhmm. Like, okay.

Here we go. We got $20. What are we gonna do? And, we bought we we started we started looking on MLS, and our first deal was actually from an MLS and simultaneously a HUD deal. So we got two at the same time.

So one we kept as a rental and one we flipped with private money from, you know, colleagues in the hospital, which is great. You know? You're just kinda chatting about real estate while you're stitching someone up. You know? So that that guy became a private money lender and he funded our flip.

So we took we we put a tenant in that in that house. That was great. And then we flipped that one the other house, which is a little condo, and then we just kept taking that money and turning it. And then we started after four deals like that, we started marketing, direct to seller marketing.

Steve: And what was the those two deals you did, when was that exactly?

Stephanie: That was 2015.

Steve: Okay.

Stephanie: 2015 and 2016.

Steve: So you guys were in grad school for, like, four years?

Stephanie: Two three.

Steve: Three years.

Stephanie: And then

Steve: you guys went down and started. Mhmm. Worked for a couple years, built some equity, and then you guys decided to jump in. Yep. So you're not the crazy people that jumps just jumps in.

Stephanie: Well, in 02/2007, we did. We just bought the house and tried to figure it out. But then after that, we were trying to be a little more calculated.

Steve: Got it. Okay. So 2,015

Stephanie: is when we started it again.

Steve: And then you guys had success right off the bat.

Stephanie: Essentially. I mean, we we definitely bumped our head a lot. Made a lot of mistakes with contractors, with with repairs, and and things like that, but we're pretty good out of the out of the gate. We we made money.

Steve: And you guys were a husband and wife team

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: In the beginning.

Stephanie: So

Steve: you guys would both work well, I mean, do you even have a normal schedule in that? So you didn't have a normal schedule.

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: So then how are you guys able to balance work and life? Well, I guess work, marriage, and another business?

Stephanie: It's really hard. It was really hard. I mean, we worked all the time. We worked we put the kids to bed, and we worked till 01:00, 02:00 in the morning every day.

Steve: Got it. What you know, a lot of people that are are jumping into this are predominantly single with a spouse that may or may not be supportive. Yeah. Right? And that's kinda the challenge as an entrepreneur.

How is it join or or starting a business together as a married couple with kids?

Stephanie: Yeah. I mean, it's it's hard. It's really hard. I was not on board at first. Right?

Like, I had all my own fears I had to deal with, and he had to be, like, patient with that yet also inspire me too, you know. So it's funny. I think I think his vision so I'm not a visionary. He's a visionary. I'm very much a COO type.

I'm a star.

Steve: I'm really surprised because I'm looking at all the accomplishments. You do not seem like someone someone that needs to be dragged along.

Stephanie: Well, I did it first. I then I got, like, addicted. Now he created a monster.

Steve: Right.

Stephanie: But, so I think the job of the visionary, you know, we say, you wanna start the company, you wanna be CEO, you need to inspire your employees to follow you. But I really believe the first person you should inspire or you have to inspire is your spouse if you're married. Like, you've gotta like, they've gotta see your vision. So that took me a bit to see it. And then once I saw it, I was like, I believe we can do it.

I believe you can do it. I think we can do this together. You know? But But it took me a minute. I had to deal with my own stuff and I had to talk about what I was afraid of and and how do I overcome that, you know?

And I have my own personal baggage like we all do, you know? My parents actually were both entrepreneurs. And I'm Really? I'm the first born American in my family. My parents are both immigrants And From where?

Norway and Italy. And, they were like, no. You go get an education. Right? So I was like, I don't wanna throw my education away.

No.

Steve: That's my parents.

Stephanie: Right? So you have to deal with that. They they just want you to go get educated and they don't want you to risk it. So we had all this, like, trash from everybody else. And although my parents are super supportive, they still have that even though they don't mean to be.

Mhmm. They're like, don't risk it. Oh my gosh. Do the safe thing. You know?

Steve: They're looking out for your best interest.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. So, what were your fears in starting?

Stephanie: Losing it. Balance.

Steve: Losing the business or losing, like, your because your career was kinda fixed.

Stephanie: Losing, like, money. Got it. That was really scary because we didn't have any margin. We had a ton of debt.

Steve: So it's

Stephanie: like, what if we take this little bit of margin we have and we lose it all? What if we make a big mistake? What if we get sued? Like, what if the roof what if we don't do it right and, like, you know, contractor comes back? I'm telling

Steve: conversations with my wife.

Stephanie: Oh my gosh. I'm telling you, I was more stressed dealing with that than dealing with people literally dying, bleeding to death at the hospital. Like Yeah. Contractors were more stressful to me than that. That's how bad it was.

Steve: So you were we were talking earlier, bantering before the the show, and you were mentioning, like, you were kinda nervous. It's like, well, no one's ever died on podcast. Right? Yeah.

Stephanie: But

Steve: you've actually had to deal with that

Stephanie: Yeah. In

Steve: the hospital. Mhmm. And with all that stress, pressure

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: Dealing with contractors is more stressful.

Stephanie: Yeah. Now now it's not. But but then, yes. Absolutely. Because it's unknown.

I I wasn't educated for that. You know, you're kinda learning as you're going. That was different from what I was experienced before. You read a book, you go to a lecture, you learn, and then you apply it. And for this, it was like all at the same time.

So it took some adjusting for me, you know, to get used to that. But then once you figure out that no one's gonna die Mhmm. That the worst isn't going to happen, and you're like, okay. I can I can I can move with this?

Steve: Yeah. So then you do you get a handful of deals. Yep. And in in this situation, he was a visionary. You were the integrator.

Mhmm. And then what was your first hire?

Stephanie: Lead manager. Okay. Answer the phone. That was a big pain point for us. So what happened was we started marketing, and we were doing our own flips.

And I didn't know what wholesaling was. Like, we read something about that on BiggerPockets. We're like, we're not doing that. We're gonna flip. But then we started marketing.

We started getting deals that we couldn't close or our our, contractors are busy. So we're like, well, what do we do now? You know? Like, we can't let this we can't make a promise to this homeowner and then not deliver. So we had some other investor friends that we met in the area, and we wholesale the deal.

I think our first wholesale, we made, like, $8,000. And I was like, that was good. Let's do let's do some more of

Steve: that. Right.

Stephanie: And then so then the phone keeps ringing. Right? And we keep marketing. And I'm trying to answer the phone with, like, crying babies in the background. Like, it was super stressful.

So we hired that because it was the major stress point for us is how do we answer live? How do we deal with this? So so that's when Rain joined us. And he's still with us, actually.

Steve: And when was that?

Stephanie: 2016.

Steve: Okay. So a lot of employee loyalty.

Stephanie: Mhmm. So

Steve: that's really good.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: So he saw that pain point. Was it also because you guys are working full time still?

Stephanie: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I

Steve: mean, there's a there's a lot of, leads kinda falling through the cracks.

Stephanie: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Steve: Got it. Okay. So when did you guys scale your operation?

Stephanie: Shortly after that first hire. So I wanna say the 2016, we really increased a a ton of marketing spend. And we went we did, I think, 11 deals in 2016. And then in 2017, we did, I wanna say, more than 50. And then we kinda stuck at 50 up until last year.

We did 200.

Steve: Okay. That's a big jump.

Stephanie: Big jump.

Steve: What were the keys to a big jump like that? Because I think a lot of people are are stuck even just, you know, a deal every other month or or maybe Mhmm. One or two deals a month. Like, that's there's that window.

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: And the the biggest challenge, I think, in that in that area is either your CRM or the right people.

Stephanie: Mhmm. So

Steve: what were the biggest things that helped you jump from 50 to 200?

Stephanie: Addressing those problems right away. Like, both of them. They they were both huge problems for us. Hiring is huge. I I and this is kinda where, like, I became addicted to business.

Right? Because once I realized that I can do more with help, I did more. And more of my like, a whole another room in my brain opened up, and I was like, oh, this interest, this little thing I had an idea about or wanted to have time to further develop, I could never do it. So it was, like, nagging in the back of my brain. As soon as I released some of the tasks I had to do to somebody else and they did them well, like, I was afraid.

What if they what if they ruin it? What if they drop the ball? What if blah blah blah, all the what ifs. And when that didn't happen and it was okay, then I had the time to develop these other thoughts, and then other things were born from them. You know?

So I felt like I could just do so much more. I could reach more homeowners. I could think about new marketing channels. You know, I could train more people, etcetera. So hiring was huge, huge, huge.

But I've had to figure out what I needed first. And, again, I didn't we didn't have a playbook. I didn't know who to hire. I don't know what positions a company needed. You know?

So we kinda just bang some rocks together and try to figure out what the, like, what the pipeline that the lead comes in and the deal like, how does it work? Right? And then we joined some groups and some masterminds and then we and we felt, okay. Now this is a thing. Like, there are people who are doing this, so let's replicate some of the things that they are doing.

And we kinda had a pan a plan moving forward on how to hire. And then a huge problem became data. Our CRM was awful. I couldn't I couldn't figure out things. I couldn't predict anything.

And, you know, my personality profile now and, like, I'm as the COO type. I wanted to be able to interpret data and then make a decision. And I kept coming back to that as an issue. Like, I don't know what I should do next because I don't know what's happened. I don't understand why this lead didn't convert or how many leads I actually need to generate or how I should spend my money that I'm making on marketing.

How do I just didn't know what to do. So we kept we kept looking for a solution for a CRM, and there wasn't one. And then eventually, I got really mad. Like, I I'm not even like, I snapped. I get really angry sometimes.

I'm a very passionate person. You know?

Steve: At at Zach, at the team, at yourself.

Stephanie: I just at everybody. I was so mad that there wasn't a solution for data Mhmm. That I just made one myself. Got it. And then we launched it for our company.

Steve: So when was that exactly?

Stephanie: That was in 2019.

Steve: Okay. And, and it's in Salesforce Yep. Which is not cheap Nope. Generally speaking. Nope.

So, what kind of investment was that as far as time, you know, as far as hours goes

Stephanie: Yep.

Steve: And financial?

Stephanie: Yep. So you can either spend money or you can spend time. Right? We were in a position where I didn't feel comfortable, going forward with the quote that Salesforce developers gave us, which was, like, upper 100 thousands of dollars. Mhmm.

Like and and that was for phase one. Right? So, like, you know it's gonna be 500 by the time you're done with this thing.

Steve: Yeah.

Stephanie: So that's really what made me the the most angry. I was like, what? How is it that's this much money? And I'm so desperate for a solution. So I I decided to do it, and I I spent the next after that decision was made and I, like, snapped on this Zoom call with, like, all these people and, like, it really it really wasn't pretty.

The next two hundred hours, I just built Salesforce. I figured out how to code on it. I taught my I watched videos from, like, 2,000 because all the new Salesforce training videos are several thousand dollars each. Mhmm. You wanna do, like, a developer course, you have to take, like, six and they're all 2 to $3,000.

I'm like, this is like grad school. This is crazy. I'm not doing this. So I bought an old course and taught myself and then just messed with it for two hundred hours and got it to a place where it was good enough that we could launch it for our business. So we we launched.

And then I probably sent another fifty to a hundred hours tweaking it and, like, making things a little better once it was live. And then it, like, coasted. It was awesome. The whole team, like, adapted to it really well. And I still I still tweak it here and there.

I'm still trying stuff all the time. Yeah. We're building out, like, a project management side of it too now. But it was amazing. And and I and I didn't I I I I spend a $150 a user to do it.

Yeah. But I didn't pay a developer.

Steve: So that's crazy because it's not simple to just get in there and just start banging things out.

Stephanie: No.

Steve: And so you're the second person in a row. So because Darren was on the call show last week.

Stephanie: Oh, yeah.

Steve: And he went in there, and he's like, whatever. And he just kinda made it happen.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: It's crazy. I guess, you know, if you know what you want, you're willing to

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: Go what's the word? Go all out

Stephanie: That's right.

Steve: To make it work. Yeah. So you did all left man yourself.

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: So that's kinda nuts.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Let's take a step back. You mentioned, that you are, joined a couple of masterminds, and that kinda helped you open your mind a little bit.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: What was the first mastermind you joined?

Stephanie: Seven figure flipping.

Steve: Got it.

Stephanie: Justin Williams was running at that point. Now it's Bill Allen. Mhmm. It's awesome. A great group of people.

Mhmm. And Bigger Pockets is a big part of that too. And then I joined CG, Collective Genius.

Steve: Yeah. Which is awesome. Yeah. So, like, Darren kinda shared with me, you know, like, for a minute, you know, he was like the hot chick. Right?

Like, everyone loved Darren. And he's like he kinda said to me kinda, like, you know, joking. I was like, well, thanks a lot, Steve. Like, I was, like, the cool kid, and now you're, like, now you're the cool kid. And now I'm sharing with him.

I was like, well, maybe it was us for a little bit, but now it's Stephanie. Right? You're coming in with the CRM. And so, you know, one of the reasons why I never got into Salesforce, you know, because I recognize that is the most powerful. Right?

There's a reason why it's the Andrew Pong gorilla in the industry.

Stephanie: Exactly.

Steve: Right? And I did the Infusionsoft thing, and I've done some other things.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: But I always avoided Salesforce Mhmm. Because it's prohibitively expensive.

Stephanie: Exactly.

Steve: And my wife is an actual admin. Right? Like, she's gone through the certifications. I don't know how many badge she's gotten, but she's got a lot of badges. Right?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: And so I know what they sell it for and what they pay for. I was like, I will never do this.

Stephanie: Right.

Steve: Then I was talking to Dan Bro, and he was like, well, you need to check out this left main thing or the Salesforce thing. I was like,

Stephanie: no. I'm good.

Steve: Yeah. Right? Because I wasn't prepared to drop, like, 20,000 Mhmm.

Stephanie: Right, to

Steve: sign up. And then we were

Stephanie: talking. It's like, no.

Steve: There's no way. It's like, it's like, it's $5. Like, there's no way. There's no way. It's impossible.

Yeah. And so, but then there was a thread that was started within the CG Facebook group.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: And, and they're all talking about it. And then, like, you know, Darren's like, you guys need to sign up for it. And then there are a couple other people. And, I know I talked to I had conversations with Phil Green Mhmm.

Stephanie: Because

Steve: they were building out their own Salesforce.

Stephanie: Yeah. I've

Steve: had conversations with Scott Outz because they're building building out their own Salesforce.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: And when they both said ask her, we're just gonna go with Stephanie. It's like, I they've told me personally how much they invested.

Stephanie: I know.

Steve: Right? I know. And they're like, we're scrapping that. We're going over. And so I was talking to Eric Gudeson, who's, Phil's right hand man.

Stephanie: Right.

Steve: He's like, are you signing up for it? And my response, and this is, you know, a lot of stereotypes involved here. I was, of course, I signed up for it. You know, like, if nothing else, like, the Asian in me just loves a good deal. I just love a good deal.

So when I saw it was 5,000, like, it was like a no brainer.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Right? So, I'm really impressed you did that on your own. I assumed that you're managing developers

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: This whole time.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: So, the other thing I wanna give credit to because and I I don't know the exact words, but, you know, Audantic is auditing all our data.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And so Ryan, who's our integrator, was on the call, and he mentioned that you had the best conversion rate as far as, you know, the fewest pukers, I guess, of everybody. So Yeah. To me, I was like, well, if Audantic's saying that then, really glad we signed up for a CRM.

Stephanie: That's really cool. Yeah.

Steve: So you got your team. You're doing 200 deals

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: A year in one market?

Stephanie: One market. Charlotte.

Steve: And what is your primary marketing platform for that?

Stephanie: Well, we actually we have two primary. Online is is the is one numb the number one. And we have a couple click? Yep. Pay per click.

We also do some of the, like, need to sell my house fast and some of the other people who are selling PPC leads, essentially. Facebook is huge. Yeah. And then we do, some niche mailing, really small list, like a 100 letters a month, like, very, very small. SEO, referral stuff, deal with some wholesalers for new builds because we we're we buy land and buy and and build new, spec homes.

Steve: Oh, you do? You're a developer as well? Yeah. Wow.

Stephanie: We do wholesale and we new build.

Steve: What does it take to qualify to be on the 100 letters a month list?

Stephanie: You have to have gotten an auction date on your house.

Steve: Okay.

Stephanie: So not not pre foreclosure, but foreclosure that you're assigned an auction date.

Steve: Alright. So this is happening. It's not like, hey. Your default. Hey.

Get your stuff together. It's like, hey. By the way, we're taking your house.

Stephanie: Yep. So we open up that line like, hey. Hey, mister Seller. This is Stephanie with Better Path Homes. I I got a notice across my desk here that looks like the bank is trying to take your house.

Mhmm. What's going on here? You know, this is something that we can help you with potentially. That way you can get you you don't lose your equity.

Steve: Right.

Stephanie: And people are like, oh, yeah. I know. I just have my I just have my my court date with the judge. They just gave me a date. My guess, it looks like it's in thirty days.

Steve: Is that how fast it is over there?

Stephanie: Mhmm. After they get assigned that date so it can it can be years up until they get to that point. Mhmm. I'm always alarmed by how long people can go without paying. It's crazy.

And then, of course, like, I sweat it. Right? I wanna be paying everything on time. And then people, like, don't pay their mortgage for two years. Mhmm.

But so it can be a long time before they physically get to the courthouse and get assigned a date. But when they get assigned a date, it's always almost always thirty days later. COVID COVID made it a little bit tricky, but it's generally thirty days later.

Steve: Yeah. It's fascinating because we're over here for the most part now. Right? Not during the crisis many years ago, but for the most part now, if you're late three months, you're getting for close on.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: And it's in three months.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And for us, the greatest challenge is for the first ninety days for the first sixty out of those ninety days, they're like, I got time. I've got time. I've got time.

Stephanie: Right. Exactly.

Steve: Right? And by that time, they've been harassed nonstop. Mhmm. So I think in some ways, it's kind of, you know, a plus as an investor. Like, once that date hits, you got thirty days.

Stephanie: Exactly. And then they know it's real. And even still, though, people will be in denial. Oh, no. Yeah.

Steve: So what are you doing to get to to get them out of that denial?

Stephanie: We we just get to them in person or we get them with a sales conversation. We just dig in a little bit deeper. Mhmm. And we get them to start pulling out some paperwork and starting to look at numbers. And I'll tell you, when you start getting people to open up their mail and look at the what it says, then they're like, oh, it's real.

I can't tell you how many times sellers just don't even open their mail anymore from the bank or from the courthouse even. They're just

Steve: It's better to not know.

Stephanie: Exactly. At

Steve: least they think it is.

Stephanie: Right. So if you can get them to start talking about it and start opening up their mail, they generally come around. They're like, oh, crap.

Steve: So, like, you're on the phone with them. It's like, hey.

Stephanie: Why don't

Steve: you go open up your mailbox?

Stephanie: Or we do this in person.

Steve: Got it.

Stephanie: Be like, okay. This is really important. I wanna make sure we don't miss anything. Where is that letter you got from the county clerk's office?

Steve: So you got a bit

Stephanie: of the

Steve: visual and you got a bit of the the kinesthetic. They're touching it. They can hold just notice.

Stephanie: And it says there how much is past due and how much they need to to to pay to catch it up, and it's a big number.

Steve: You know,

Stephanie: it's like

Steve: Well, if it takes two years to get to that

Stephanie: point. Depends on how long it's been, but, I mean, it can be ten, fifteen, or maybe five even. People can't come

Steve: up with that. You know? What, what is the so over here in Arizona, right, if someone gets foreclosed on, there's excess proceeds and

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: That's supposed to go to homeowner. The lawyer is gonna take their money out of that, but

Stephanie: Yep.

Steve: Supposed to go there. Is it different in Carolina? Because I see a lot of people talking about excess proceeds programs.

Stephanie: Yes. Does

Steve: it not just automatically go to homeowner in Carolina?

Stephanie: It doesn't. You have to apply for it. You have to essentially not sue for for it, but you have to you have to submit a complaint to get that proceeds back. So, yeah, that means you have to monitor the situation, know that there was excess proceeds, and then apply for it.

Steve: Interesting. Yeah. That's very different than we have going on over here. Yeah.

Stephanie: As far as I know, anyway.

Steve: So 200 deals a year. What does your organization look like right now?

Stephanie: We have let's see. I think 12 employees. We have a CEO who's my husband, a COO who is Matt. I hired myself out of that position in 2020, which is very exciting. That's a big goal.

Steve: Yeah. Congratulations.

Stephanie: I don't sit in any seats over there anymore. Well, technically, I'm in the technology officer seat. Mhmm. And then we have a lead intake team, an acquisition team, transaction coordination, dispositions, finance, and marketing.

Steve: Got it.

Stephanie: And every department is about two people deep.

Steve: Depends. Stepping out of the COO role. Mhmm. I mean, that's kinda like a lot of our dreams. Right?

Like, we Yeah. Start this to have time freedom and financial freedom.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: But then you get into it, and it's a lot harder Yeah. Than they make a look on social media.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: So you were able to step out of it. What were things you had to do to be able to step out of it?

Stephanie: Well, first, I we had to fully develop the universe that this was going to be. And and I I think that's something that we kinda take for granted as entrepreneurs is that people aren't normal people don't think like that. Like, you can kind of imagine which world you're in and they're like, yeah. Just do it. It's in you're in this world.

But people who enter your company, they don't know where you wanna go. So having a really clear vision and then strategy to execute on that vision is really important. And then putting those people putting at least those pieces into place, like your your marketing channels, your hires, at least defining what a department is or the job descriptions are. You kinda have to materialize this company first Mhmm. And really articulate where it is that you want this thing to go.

And then hire people that are appropriate for those seats that do better than you would have done in it. And then you have to coach them along to do that. Like, you can't just hire them, but like, peace out. Like, you have to be there.

Steve: That's a dream.

Stephanie: I know. Right? But it doesn't work that way because everything crumples. So you have to be there to organize it and then to make sure that there's accountability and that the the the people you hire have leadership skills so they can lead other people. Mhmm.

And that they can kinda pass you know, you can pass the baton and they can carry it. So that that takes some time and that's really hard to articulate. Find the right person to take over your seat. So for us, Matt, our COO, was our project manager department chair. So he ran all of our rehabs, all of our new builds, and he had people underneath him.

So we chose him because we we trusted him. We worked with him for years. He was actually our agent before we ever employed him directly. And, he did a really good job of managing that department and affecting the bottom line, which is what we need as a c o COO.

Steve: Right.

Stephanie: Like, you gotta show me you can you can move the bottom line number Mhmm. And you can keep it together. So he he over the course of a year or so, we saw him develop out that that, department himself, improve improve numbers, improve efficiencies, and he wanted to put his hat in the ring for the COO. So I was like, let's interview him.

Steve: Very cool.

Stephanie: Yep. So then we hired him, and then I trained him for a year. And then I left in 2020.

Steve: So you're not involved in the day to day?

Stephanie: Mm-mm.

Steve: But Nick still is?

Stephanie: Zach. Yes.

Steve: Zach Zach still is. Yep. So how much and how involved is he on the day to day?

Stephanie: So he he runs the acquisition department right now on top of being the CEO. Mhmm. So he kind of he's he's kind of vacillated there a little bit. The acquisition department will be good, and then it'll require more more attention. It's just like, you know, it's funny.

That's that's our department that definitely has had the most churn. Mhmm. But now people that are in there, the average, the average length that people have been us with us there is about a year Mhmm. Which is a long time

Steve: for most For sales.

Stephanie: Yeah. For sales is pretty good. A little I think it's just about a year is the average between all those people. So he just hired somebody that I think can ascend into the department chair role.

Steve: Awesome.

Stephanie: And then he can be more just in the CEO seat. But that's the one seat that he gets pulled into quite a bit. Bit.

Steve: It's tough. That's the managing salespeople, was it I I was on a call yesterday, and I was with Eli Fisher and Chris Richter for Yeah. The Audantic the the funnel welder challenge. Yeah. And, Chris has asked me, like, what's the most difficult thing?

It's like, it's always it's been the same in every company. It's people. Yeah. It's always the people is the hardest thing. And then within that subset, the salespeople.

Stephanie: I know. Right? They're We call them diva butterflies. We love them, but they're diva butterflies. Butterflies.

No detail. Where am I going? Where's the deal?

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you stepped out of that, and then, you joined Gary Harper? Or what was the next step?

Stephanie: Yeah. So that's funny. So I met Gary in 2018 when he helped us merge. So we merged with a third partner in 2018. Jeff Johnson, who's awesome.

Like, all the core values are aligned. The vision is aligned. He's awesome. And so we met Gary then to help us make sure we were we merged appropriately. So, hey.

We really like each other. Let's not mess this up. Mhmm. And, he helped us with just, like, vision planning too now that we have two we had really had two visionaries come in and, like, how do we do that? So he taught me a lot about systems and processes.

Like, I thought I had some understanding. Mhmm. And I was like, woah. A non biased person coming in and, like, telling you some of the stuff was invaluable. So I met him then.

We became really good friends. And the goal at that point was like, Gary, I wanna I need to retire. I want I need to be in the owner's box. I can't retire. Right.

It's a farce. Right? I'm too young to retire. Yeah. But that was the goal.

I was like, I need to be in the owner's box. I, you know, I don't wanna leave medicine. I was still working full time until really recent, About a year and a half ago, it was only when I went part time. So I was like, I I can't give up medicine. What do I do?

And I need to get out of the seat. So we did so we accomplished that in January 2020. We hired Matt. That was, like, his first time. We started that the year of 2020.

What a great year to start as a new COO. Right?

Steve: Right.

Stephanie: Turns out it was fine. But anyway, so when I when I that happened and we accomplished it, he's like, well, what what are you gonna do now? You just gonna go eat bonbons? Do you wanna come, like, hang out with me? And I was like, well, what do you want me to do?

And he's like, well, what if you come in and you help other COOs? And what if we talk what if you get to be, like, a strategist with other companies and kinda, you know, and help us out? And I was like, that sounds fun. So so then I started working with them. Yeah.

And then simultaneously launched Left Main.

Steve: So what does that structure look like? I mean, is this Gary's baby and, like, you're just kinda talking to people or you're you're selling people into the program? Like, what is your responsibility?

Stephanie: Yeah. So Sharper

Steve: I don't know which one is it.

Stephanie: Sharper Business. There you go. So I'm I'm I'm the chief growth officer.

Steve: Okay.

Stephanie: So what that means is I analyze people who are interested in in hiring a business coach and make sure that we can help them grow. Right? Like, do you are you established enough or do you have enough of at least a a foundation that we can help you?

Steve: Yeah.

Stephanie: And okay. What do you need to grow? I'm I feel like if there's something I'm good at, I'm good at growth. Right? Like, if you give me an idea, I can do something with it.

But I need I need that vision too. You know? Mhmm. But anyway, so I look at those those potential clients and make sure there's something that we can do here to add value. And then I then after that so, essentially, it's kind of like a sales position, but I don't it doesn't really feel that way, honestly.

Steve: No. You didn't sell me.

Stephanie: Yeah. It doesn't feel that way. No.

Steve: I jumped when I when I had that call with you, I was like, here's what I wanna do. You're

Stephanie: like, okay.

Steve: We can do that.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Right? But

Steve: I think probably the people that are scheduling that call are already drivers.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then sometimes sometimes we're not the right fit or sometimes power days aren't the right way to start. Maybe when you start to hear first and then grow to that.

So there's a lot Sharper does a lot of different things. So I just try to direct them in the right place if we're the right fit. And then besides that, I do COO training, and I run people's quarterly meetings and do some annual planning, and I do strategy sessions with companies and kind of handpicked, you know. I only do a little bit of that Mhmm. Because I kinda can.

Steve: Right.

Stephanie: You know. And it's cool because then I get to pick I get to work with people I have chemistry with. And I think that's been really important too.

Steve: How much time commitment is that?

Stephanie: Probably, like, five to five hours a week.

Steve: Got it.

Stephanie: Depends. If I'm running a quarterly meeting, like, you know, the change of quarters, I'll do two or three quarterlies in in that week span just because it's a new quarter. But that's really out of the ordinary.

Steve: Got it. Yeah. And then Left Main. Mhmm. Did you know Left Main was gonna do what is done?

Stephanie: No.

Steve: Okay. What was your initial projection for Left Main?

Stephanie: So first of all, that was never even on the horizon. My Salesforce account manager told me to do it. You know, when I showed them what I built, she was like, this is something. And I was like, no. It's not.

It's okay. She's like, no. This is something. You need to do something with this. She's like, we don't have anything for the real estate industry that's good on Salesforce, like, at all.

Like, that whole vertical is a big empty hole. And she's and she said that, constantly, Salesforce exec executives are talking about the real estate space on Salesforce and how it's underserved. So she's like, you you you need to do something. I'm like, well, what does that mean? You know?

I don't know what that means. She's like, oh, it's like an app just like iTunes. You make an app, and we test it. We try to break it. And if you pass, then you can launch and you can sell it.

So I was like, well, okay. Let me think about that. So I thought about it. I talked to Zach. Zach's like, I don't think you should do that.

He said, I don't think you're gonna make any money at all. I think that it's gonna be way too much work and it's people are pains in the butts and you're and it's not gonna it's not gonna be worth it.

Steve: That last part or the second last part

Stephanie: of people are pains

Steve: in the butt is definitely

Stephanie: true. Yeah. And, you know, he's like, how many people are gonna switch your CRM? Like, how you know? So and I I took that to heart.

I was like, I I wanna make sure I do this right because I'm not here to then, you know, kill myself again. I just killed myself and got out of that, you know. And for me, I'm a workhorse. Like, I will work. Right?

Like, that's but I will hurt myself. Mhmm. So I need so he's great because he protects me from that too. Because when I get an idea in my head, I I can't stop. So what I decided to do was to go through the whole app process because I didn't even know if I would pass.

I'd coded this thing myself. I was like, let me see if it even passes their security review. And I'll go through the steps, and I'll go through the contract thing. So I did. It passed.

It was awesome. It launched in January 2020, right after New Year's, like, literally that next year the next day after New Year's, whatever the next business day was. And then I told my some of my friends about it. I was like, this is what I'm cooking. They saw my Salesforce, and they're like, yeah.

This is cool. I wanna try it. Mhmm. I was like, okay. Let's try it.

I'm gonna I'll I'll I'll put it in your org and let's do it. So I did I did, like, a little beta test with two people and they flipped out. They loved it. And I was like, oh, you like it? They're like, yeah.

No. This is really cool. I was like, okay. Well, maybe we should let maybe we should let other people try. And then they kinda told people and there was this kind of this organic thing.

And it didn't really hit me until like q three, q four last year. Mhmm. When they when I had I don't know. I probably had 20 businesses on there, and they were all like, this is really great. This has really helped me.

They've all felt they all had growth. They all felt like they had better data clarity. They felt like it really impacted their business. I'm like, this is really awesome. Like, are you advertising this?

I was like, well, no. Like, you why aren't you advertising this? And I don't know why I was scared, but I cared so much. I care so much. I'm like, this is like my baby.

And what if someone says my baby's ugly? You know, I I can't I don't know if I can handle it. You know? But, thankfully, when you're around the right people, they encourage you. Mhmm.

Right? And and I'm very grateful for a really awesome network. So I was taught we had this accountability group, and I was you know, we did this weekly thing. And everyone on that call, there was five other people, and they're like, you're acting dumb. You need to talk about it.

So this was September. So I was like, okay. I'm fine. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna launch it.

I'm gonna do it, like, bump pump myself up. I'm gonna do it. And I started, marketing it in October 2020, and then it literally, like, exploded. Yeah. It caught fire.

Absolutely did. And, I mean, I'm so humbled by it, and then I'm so excited at the prospect of helping the industry. And, like, after I see after I I've seen what's happened now, like, I'm coming for the whole thing.

Steve: Right.

Stephanie: Like, the whole industry. I'm I'm coming for, like, all of real estate investment. Mhmm. And, like, I know people are on Podio. Like, I have a thing for like, against Podio.

Like, it almost broke my soul. And I I don't

Steve: What is your thing against Podio?

Stephanie: I just think it's it's not serving our industry the way it should. Mhmm. Right? I think that the tools that we have out there right now available to us as real estate investors who are trying to run multimillion dollar businesses, the tools that we're using are embarrassing.

Steve: It's pretty strong words.

Stephanie: I know.

Steve: What's embarrassing about them?

Stephanie: It's embarrassing because they're clunky. They don't integrate well. They don't automate well. And it doesn't give us the clarity and the data access that we need in an easy way that we're able to make decisions. Right?

Like, I want to be able to look at my CRM and have it help me instead of fight with it. Yeah. I wanna pull a report up and know what's happened and then be like, okay. What's this percent conversion? Like, maybe I turned this dial, turned that dial.

It's supposed to give me something. It's not just me inputting leads into. Right? And then, like, trying to sort through and find them. It's supposed to make me better.

It's supposed to make our our employees better, and it's supposed to make me a better executive. So the ones that are, I think, that are out there in the industry right now are just really they're difficult to do that. Yeah. But I do you know, I will say I will take a little step back and say that there are people who are ready who need that. Right?

There's a there's a but for every seat. When when you're first starting and you need something other than a post it note, you gotta start somewhere. So they have no qualms with that. But I think if you wanna scale, there's nothing in there for us.

Steve: Yeah. Well, especially at this price point. I mean, like I said, I think I've said this to you multiple times, and I'm sure you've heard this actually from a bunch of other people. Your price too low.

Stephanie: I know. But I'm doing that on purpose.

Steve: Yeah. So what's that purpose?

Stephanie: Because I want the industry.

Steve: Yeah.

Stephanie: I want the I I am I'm also I think that the way Salesforce I mean, they're they're a huge gorilla. Right? Like and, like, they're the host of my app, so you can't be you can't be too negative about it. But they've they've been too aggressive, in my opinion, with price. Mhmm.

That they've they've outpriced our industry just like you said. So they've the way the developers the traditional developer has approached our industry, I think, has failed us. Yeah. So what I really wanted to do was bring something that's affordable out to our industry so that people can actually use it and grow their business. And the idea here is a volume play for me.

Like, I'm not I don't make money until I have a thousand users.

Steve: Yeah.

Stephanie: Right? Like, you make a little bit, but I don't take a salary until that happens. So it's a it's a long game for me. I'm almost there. I'm well over halfway there, which is awesome to have that happen so quickly.

But, that's the play. The play here is, like, all time. Like, I want I want the I want the lot. Right? I don't wanna just sell three, four and be like, oh, that was fun.

I really wanna help. I wanna impact the industry.

Steve: So, you know, we're talking about the Salesforce and overpricing. Yeah. I have a friend, very successful, super successful. And she was looking at, you know, building out this project. Yeah.

You know? And the quote came back, and she's successful, and she's got the money. She can afford it. Yeah. Right?

But she the quote came back with a 150 k Yeah. For phase one.

Stephanie: Yeah. And she

Steve: was looking at us like, that doesn't make any sense. So she's like, just dumped it on my wife's plate. Like, here we go.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Doing it. Right? Because it was just so cost prohibitive.

Stephanie: Right. And

Steve: so, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. The the industry or the the 800 pound gorilla has a very interesting pricing strategy.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: It's it's tough to to for someone to get into. And, I mean, I did the Infusionsoft thing, and that was I think as as, like, a marketer or whatever, like, there are people that it makes sense.

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: But very few people have the margins to justify spending that on a CRM.

Stephanie: Exactly. And it's been this thing, like, oh, you only use Salesforce if you're a big company. Mhmm. No. Well, our industry is 10 people or less.

In general, the average real estate investment company is less than 10 employees. Mhmm. But we're doing, you know, millions of dollars a year. Right? But what we can't we so you don't have to be a big company anymore.

That was the idea. Like, let's serve the industry. And if you don't use Left Main, I hope that it inspires all the other platforms out there to be better. You know, you know, rising rising tide. Right?

Steve: Right. Absolutely.

Stephanie: So I'm hoping of course, I hope everybody uses Left Main, but I really want to see better tools for us in our industry.

Steve: Yeah. And then someone here was asking about, Plecto. And this is, the thing I really like Yeah. Is that it already has an interface.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: You don't need a Plecto. You don't need a Podium to go into Plecto. Salesforce. And your your Salesforce is already there. Exactly.

Let's change the topic here.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: You're a nurse practitioner

Stephanie: Yes.

Steve: Still.

Stephanie: Yes.

Steve: What is wrong with you?

Stephanie: I know. Everyone asks me this all the time. You're gonna make me blush. This is a big part of who I am and, what I think I'm supposed to do. And I I struggle a lot with this.

What what am I supposed to do? What what do I do with my skills? What does god want me to do with my skills? What what am I here for? Right?

And it always comes back to me feeling like I'm supposed to still do it. And I don't really have a good reason other than that. Other than that, I just feel like I'm supposed to. It's a burden. And sometimes, you know, I'm tired.

Right? When I when I have my my four days in a row that I'm on call for four days and rounding for four days and, you know, I don't sleep for seventy two hours, I'm like, what the hell am I doing? I that's that's the worst return on my time invested, by the way. Like, I make a fraction of what I make at the hospital is what I at everything else. Like, it's literally the worst return on investment.

But there's something else there. You know? And things really changed as far as my perspective when I show up there at the hospital and I'm taking care of people. My perspective changed when I didn't have to be there anymore. I'm like, I wanna be here.

Right? Like, I'm choosing to be here, and then it becomes so much more rewarding. It was already rewarding, but then there's, like, an extra depth to it Mhmm. Where you feel like what you're doing is really meaningful.

Steve: It's not charity, but in a way, it's it's charitable with your time.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And it's I I see this, I think Scott Myers. Right? I mean, they go down to

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Central America or South America.

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: And they're building houses.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And they're just flying out there.

Stephanie: Mhmm.

Steve: And I think spending is, like, a week. It's building houses in the middle of nowhere.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: And I think if if that's your contribution, if you feel like it's, fulfilling Mhmm. Then I think you should keep doing it. Right?

Stephanie: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: So long as this is fulfilling.

Stephanie: It is. It's extremely fulfilling. Yeah. I love being there. I love my patients.

I love my practice. And I just I get I get my cup filled when I'm there. And it's it's it sounds kinda dumb to say, but it's actually relaxing. Seems silly, but, like, you know what? To show up and, like, do your job and instead of showing up to create the job, it's totally different.

Like, it feels good sometimes just like, I'm here to do my thing. And, like, I don't have to worry about, like, the big picture. I have to worry about carrying the weight of everyone's problems on me right now. Mhmm. I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna control what I can control. Science is fun. Science is predictable. Like, hey. If I do this, this happens.

Yes. That's logical. That's nice.

Steve: I can say for me, I don't, I don't I don't do this a lot, but, you know, playing sports.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Like, you're just in the moment. You're present. There's no

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: There's no stress. It's like, what did this person say? How do we manage this? This person is doing a challenge. You know, there's there's no people element.

There's no, thinking in the future. There's no, how am I paying that bill? Like, there is just literally

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: No other noise except just you and your environment. So Right. You're feeling like that's kinda

Stephanie: That's exactly it.

Steve: Yeah. It's it's nice. Therapeutic.

Stephanie: It is. Yeah. Yeah. So then I keep I keep showing up.

Steve: That's awesome. Alright. Let's see if we had any other questions here. Sean Foster says he truly hates his podium. Sean, we've talked about this.

It's the reason why we made the switch. And Chaim says you're awesome. So I guess you know Chaim.

Stephanie: I do. Hey, Chaim.

Steve: Chaim's a fantastic, fantastic human being.

Stephanie: He is. He's one of my favorite human beings. He's in Israel right now. Right? Yeah.

What time is it over there right now?

Steve: I don't think he has a choice, though. Alright. So we kinda touched on it a little bit, but, I see. Well, let me answer Raylan's question first. Raylan, we made the switch to Salesforce some time ago.

So, we're we've that's that's already happened. Ben wants to know. Alright. So, specifically, in your opinion, why is Salesforce better important? I know you kinda talked about, like, you got the dashboard.

You kinda it. High level, you already know what's going on.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: But, you know, two or three, like, big things why someone that's using Podio that can afford to make a leap. Right? Now you're still grinding. But if you can afford to make the leap, why should someone make the jump?

Stephanie: So the platform stability, number one, this is a this was a big driver for me. The platform itself and the way Salesforce is coded and built on the Sales Cloud is incredibly stable. It doesn't go down, and it's constantly being backed up. So it's very, very stable for all users no matter where you are in the world. It's in fact it's made for that.

Right? So that was a huge reason for me because my Podio went down. Right? That's kinda like what this whole cascade happened is Podio went down like That's how

Steve: you snap on Zoom. This is

Stephanie: Oh, that's why I went to say I was like, what's the number one CRM in the world? I don't even care anymore. What is it? Because Podia went down, and I was like, my hands were tied for three days, and I didn't have any backup. It was just a nightmare.

Steve: I think there was, like, a nationwide, real estate investor panic.

Stephanie: Right? Remember when that happened?

Steve: Yeah. It was all over the Facebook groups.

Stephanie: I don't even know how much how many how much money I lost. Who even knows at this point? But the phone couldn't it was just it was horrific. So stability was a really, really big thing for me. And then I wanted to be able to create something without limitation.

And Salesforce is really set up that way. If you can think about it, it can be done. It can be integrated with. Like, everything plays in the sandbox with Podio. You don't have to have, you know, some complex global flow freaking, you know, jerry rigged integration.

Like, it just does. It plays directly with it, and you can build essentially anything you can imagine on it. So I really, really like that versatility that it has. And then on top of that, it can handle big data. So it can grow with you forever.

So I think you hit your your your max at 1,000,000 records per object. So, like, we have a lead object, for example. If you have a million records in there, million leads, now you you have to buy, like, an, like, an expansion pack. Right? Like, you do on Google Drive if you like you get another terabyte.

Steve: Emails do full. Yeah.

Stephanie: Exactly. Right. So it can handle a lot of data, and then it can process that data pretty quickly. So you can put all your stuff in there and then essentially extrapolate it into really, really cool reports and, like, cross examine different scenarios. So, like, you can cross over.

Like, for example, we have a QuickBooks integration. I can directly marry that QuickBooks integration in. I can tell you, like, live minute to minute how much that lead cost me to how much that opportunity, that appointment, that deal cost me. So when you take an when you take an integration in, you can, like, weave it in to your actual org so you can get all that data out. And and and the reports are nice enough that, like, you can make it so it means something.

So it's not like a spreadsheet or you're scrolling down or that you've, like, somehow parsed over, and it's accurate because it's in the CRM. You have to go to Plecto. You don't have to go to your spreadsheet on Google. Right? So it it, like, it makes the ability of taking complex data and reporting it out in a way that's meaningful.

So those are my top three. I have a lot I have a lot of other ones, but those are my big ones.

Steve: Yeah. Let's see. Guys, please ask your questions. Zach wants to know why you're so awesome.

Stephanie: Is that my husband, Zach? Mhmm. Hi.

Steve: So friendly investors. How much do you use?

Stephanie: To know about, like, bicuspid, aortic aortic valves or anything like

Steve: that? Not not at all.

Stephanie: It's not?

Steve: Okay. So, FriendlyVestors wants to know how much is your CRM and how

Stephanie: can they use it? Yeah. So it's a one time $5,000 site licensing fee. So you get enterprise edition of Salesforce with Left Main embedded in. That's the turnkey solution.

No development needed. You do need to do your integrations. Like, if you have Facebook ads and you have, you know, CallRail, we do some integrations for you, or you can pick which ones you want. But that's the that's the one time fee. And then it's $50 a user a month.

Mhmm. Which is huge. I don't even get that deal. I'm paying a $150 a user because I'm doing, like, my normal Salesforce deal. But that's what it is.

$50 a user a month after that initial fee.

Steve: And that's enterprise, meaning we can go back and modify however we want.

Stephanie: Anything you wanna do.

Steve: So what if you're making changes to yours? Does that make changes to all of them?

Stephanie: So we we do push upgrades. Right? So we all I'm always cooking something. I've got I'm barely scratching the surface of the stuff I wanna roll out. But when we have an upgrade, we we announce to all of our clients, hey.

This update's available. This is what's in it. Do you want it? And we let people opt in so we don't force people to get it. And the reason for that is you may have done some custom work.

And, you know, you may be this is duplicative or maybe it interfere interferes what you did. So if you if you if that's your scenario, you're like, oh, hey. I did this on this object. Is that going to affect it? We can test it first in your little sandbox and then push it to to production.

But you are in control of your org completely. So once you buy it, like, that is yours. We don't have any access to it unless you allow us to have access to it. So we always ask permission, and then you have to grant us access to push updates through.

Steve: So let's say I skip this update, but I like the following update. I have to accept the previous updates then?

Stephanie: Not necessarily. Then you have, like, a subset. Interesting. Mhmm.

Steve: That's gonna take a lot of time.

Stephanie: It does. Yeah. And now I have a whole team. Now it's not just me anymore.

Steve: Got it. Yeah. So you have you have a team behind you

Stephanie: Now I do.

Steve: Managing all of it.

Stephanie: Yep. I have a development team of five. We have account managers. We have integration specialists. We have tier one support and tier two support.

Steve: Wow. Yeah. So you're you're you're an up and running full blown SaaS.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Awesome. That's very cool. What is an example of a report that you would run to help a user make more money per month?

Stephanie: Oh my gosh. Okay. So I love starting with, with quarterly marketing reports, and I also like to look at the time of your pipeline. Those are probably my favorite. Oh, gosh.

I have so many I like that one. But and I also like we have a pipeline manager, so I can see what every rep is doing. Like, every click a rep does, I can see in all the all the all the, records that they're managing. So I can look at my industry and my company, excuse me, and see how many of my reps are in negotiation with homeowners. So I'll start with that one real quick because I have got so many alike.

This is my favorite part. So if I can see the deals that my reps are negotiating with, those are my highest value items in the entire CRM. Those are people who we've made an offer for to offer to. Right? And they have they haven't accepted it yet, but they also haven't told you to go pound sand.

Right? So, of course, the ones that sign right away, beautiful. We get those. We monetize those. But what about the people we made an offer for that didn't accept right away?

If those are, in my opinion, the highest value. So I want it to be super easy to pull that data out and monitor that. How long does it take each one of my rep to close that deal? Mhmm. Right?

If you don't get it on the first time, like, how long are you negotiating with people? And then it gives us an opportunity to lead them. How like, what are the objections? What are the like, how do we overcome this? What are the numbers?

And I can pull them out. At any given time, there's probably six in my company that are being in negotiation at any given time. Not a lot, but I wanna find that without scrolling through anything. I wanna open up my CRM and see which ones are in negotiation right now, and then I can take action. And I can also predict with that information.

So, you know, for example, our goal is to have five contracts a week. And we pretty often we most of the time, we hit that. But if I'm midweek and I don't see numbers in my CRM that are that are telling me I'm going to hit my goal, I wanna take some action against that. And that negotiation one tends to be a big one because if I don't see active negotiations, I know there's not gonna be a deal coming. Mhmm.

You know? And then I can also see, hey, how many appointments are set just by opening it. So I can make predictions which changes how how you how you run because you move away from just playing defense to now playing offense.

Steve: Alright. It's the predictive abilities.

Stephanie: Yeah. If you can predict, then you can be like, oh, not on track. Make do something. Not a marathon pace. I gotta do something different.

Steve: And you're monitoring this list of people and you're coaching your team.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: You don't have someone else whose sole job is to

Stephanie: Oh, well, my the acquisition department chair is the one who coaches. Right? Like, every every department has their coach, but we can pull it up and see it. So I probably spend two minutes a day reviewing my company.

Steve: Yeah. I'm asking this question because, for me, I'm I'm considering we're strongly considering, creating a role within our operator operation whose sole job is to look at deals that didn't close. Mhmm.

Stephanie: Right? Like, opportunities QA. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Opportunity didn't close. Yeah. And their job is just call them, you know, apologize for, you know, not doing a good job.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Obviously, we screwed something up because we didn't buy your house.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: And then bring it in to, either bring across the finish line as a cash offer or a creative deal.

Stephanie: Oh, huge. That's a huge deal.

Steve: Opportunity.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So being able to make being able to change to offense is huge. And then marketing is the other other thing that I feel like makes will make you more money by knowing those numbers.

But I can't even tell you, like, how much money we probably wasted. We used to spend $70,000 a month on marketing. Set a month on marketing. Right? I'm spending about 25 now.

I'm doing literally triple the amount of deals I did when I was spending 70. And that's because we spent so much money just burnt we just burnt money because we sucked at managing leads. Like, when leads came in the system, we're like, what? I don't know. They didn't pick up the first time.

So when you can track your marketing down to the the minute with, like, how long did it take you to contact that lead? Right? Did you even contact that person? And how long did it take you to convert it even to a qualified lead? You can look at that marketing metrics per lead source and per person.

That helps you make a lot more money because now you're gonna spend appropriately.

Steve: Mhmm.

Stephanie: Right? If you find that your marketing source, they don't pick up, they that takes you 30 times to attempt the contact, takes you on average fifteen hundred minutes to for them to pick up the phone. Maybe you're gonna spend more money on the people that, you know, bring you leads that pick up in twenty minutes or the average time to contact is twenty. And contact, I don't mean action. I mean, like, physical conversation.

So we look at that and we look at it across all the different stages of your of the lead, like the lead itself, the qualified lead, which would you call opportunity, the appointment, and then the deal, and all the sub metrics there, you know, like the time to contact and the contacted yes or no percentage, etcetera. So I guarantee if you start looking at your numbers like that, you'll make more money because you'll spend less.

Steve: Right. Oh, that's that's huge. And Darren Dami says you guys are the gold standard, so that's that's huge.

Stephanie: Hey, Darren.

Steve: And then, Ryan Williams. Demo, I posted a link, here. It is an affiliate link, you know, full disclosure. But I posted a link there. You guys can schedule, a a, a demo there.

Stephanie: Oh, awesome. So

Steve: let's see. Oh, I got a lot of comments up here. People love Salesforce. Rita Shorfi says the best thing was switching to Salesforce.

Stephanie: Oh, yay.

Steve: Is there a phone service? Do you use 360 SMS?

Stephanie: I do. I use 360. We actually recently brought them in house. So I've kinda I this is interesting. This was this this did surprise me.

Initially, I thought that people will be married to their phone system. Like, you know, like, you go, like, hard into CallRail, then you have, like, a 100 different numbers. And, like, thought of transitioning that is scary. So initially so Left Main, the $5,000 package does not have a direct integration with a phone. You can bring your own vendor.

Choose whoever you want and we will help you integrate it. But then, honestly, I kind of looked for the bet a better option. We used CallRail before. We used CloudCall before, and I really wanted a Salesforce native program that I could control. So we went with three sixty SMS.

They have a dialer, a text messaging platform, which does automations, drip campaigns, the whole deal, and RVMs. RVM automation too. And not RVM like cold RVM. RVM like, hey. I just saw you opened up your contract I sent you.

Sometimes it's easier to go over it over the phone. Call me back. Like, that kind of RVM drop. Like, we're talking next level. Right?

So they do all of that, and we were able to program it for my company. So then people started, you know, expressing interest in that. Like, well, can I just have what you did? So then, I mean, I brought $3.60 in house, so now you can you can essentially buy that turnkey phone solution as alongside of Left Main if you want to. And then we deliver everything that's already prebuilt on that phone side.

You do have to decide if you wanna port your numbers over or if you wanna buy new. That's the only decision you have to make.

Steve: Got it. Cool.

Stephanie: Control what you can control is the bottom line. Right?

Steve: That's the key. So, we started. Right? Zach had to drag you along. Maybe kicking and screaming.

I don't know.

Stephanie: A little bit.

Steve: And you've said that you're not a visionary, but you're leading all these different initiatives. So how do you align that?

Stephanie: Yeah. So I definitely have some drive. I will admit to that. And I I have some ideas. I'm but that's not primarily who I am.

Right? Like, I I need to get I need to get started, and and I credit Zach to a lot of that. I kinda saw his vision and what he wanted to do and where we wanted to go with this company. And then I got really inspired by other people trying to start start businesses that really where I started was how to fix the problem. Mhmm.

So I didn't create the problem, but I will find a way to fix it. And that's kinda, I think, what my superpower is in the end. It's like, I eat problems for breakfast. And that and I so on those hard days, I have to tell myself that, like, I will fix that problem. I will find a way to fix it.

And how I fix it is sometimes by developing these tools. Right? Right. But for I don't see that the same way as vision. I see that as, like, I'm gonna fix that problem.

I'm done dealing with this problem.

Steve: Right. Well and I think that's really on on the real estate side why we get paid what we get paid.

Stephanie: Exactly.

Steve: We're solving major problems.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: So you're doing over here. You're solving a problem. If you're the best at solving the problem, you get rewarded for

Stephanie: it. Exactly.

Steve: So, going back to your market, what is your average fee right now?

Stephanie: 15 to 17 wholesale fee.

Steve: I think what's your MD like? What is your what is your why? What is your passion?

Stephanie: My passion is impact. I want everything I do to make a difference on every single level with my family and, like, showing my kids what they can do, showing my, you know, my future kids what they can my future grandchildren what they can do. My patients, I wanna impact their lives. I wanna impact our industry. I wanna help homeowners.

I wanna give back. Like, I want everything I do at every single level to have an impact on somebody else in a positive direction.

Steve: And what's your biggest struggle right now?

Stephanie: Time. There's just not enough. I like I like I said before

Steve: It might be because of how many seats

Stephanie: you're in. I know. I know. I know. No more companies.

I promise.

Steve: I've made that promise before.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. I think for real, though, this time. You know

Steve: what Gary said to me? What? Because he came in here in December, and he kinda did this whole thing with my organization.

Stephanie: Mhmm. And

Steve: there was some frustration within my organization. Yeah. Right? Can you believe it? Like, my people weren't happy.

What? Yeah. And so, what happened was I got all these different people running the companies, and they're frustrated Mhmm. With my managing. Right?

And so, like, there has been kinda like a an unspoken promise by Steve. Like, you're not allowed to do anything. Right? Just leave everything alone. Right?

Let's not go crazy. And Gary said, Steve, you can open as many companies as you want. Yeah. I was like, really? Like like a kid in the cage.

He's like, really?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: And he said, as long as you have the right integrator.

Stephanie: Yep.

Steve: Right? And so that was the, the, that's the restraint.

Stephanie: Yep.

Steve: I need to I need find the right guy. If I can find the right guy

Stephanie: Yep.

Steve: Or gal that can do whatever, but I'm not allowed to start.

Stephanie: Until you have it. Yep.

Steve: Until I have that person.

Stephanie: It's so true.

Steve: Yeah. So so you were saying you're not gonna send more companies or you're not gonna or or or you're gonna have, like, a different situation where, like, you'll start a company if you find the right person? Or you find another problem that you wanna that you wanna eat for breakfast?

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess you never never. You should never say never. But I've learned a lot now on how to how to launch and how to run.

This is my third company to do that with. But I still I feel like I feel like I've hit my sweet spot right now, and I don't foresee starting additional companies. I foresee running these. No.

Steve: I'm I'm I'm sure I can persuade you.

Stephanie: Well, mostly, I'm just trying to I'm trying to protect myself from my biggest weakness, which is that workhorse. Like, I will work myself into a coma. Like, I I I my husband will tell you, like, I you have to, like, peel me off the street. Like, I will work until that point. I don't know why.

I don't know why I do that. But I just, like, get at an issue and I just won't stop. So I have to protect myself from what I decide to say yes to. So that that's what comes back to time. Like, I don't wanna spend all my time building, building, building, building.

I do wanna get to a point where I'm like, I'm doing my high impact items. I'm raising my family. I'm traveling. I'm doing all the things I love to do at high impact levels. Like, I'm gonna work hard.

I'm gonna play hard. Right? But I want also to protect my time.

Steve: Is that with the strategist? Is that the high a or the lower c? That's that's causing that part where you won't quit until it's done.

Stephanie: Yeah. I think so.

Steve: Is it one or the other, or is it both? I think

Stephanie: it's probably both because I'm really impatient. So I'm just like, we're just gonna do it. Right? Like, I'll just do it. I try to invent time all the time.

Frank Kiva would tell you that. Yeah. I tried to invent time with him today. Like, oh, there's an hour here. No.

I I cannot invent time. I'm even Einstein couldn't do that. Right. But yeah.

Steve: Alright. So then this might be a so the question is how do you stay motivated?

Stephanie: How do I stay motivated? I think I return to the why, like, the impact, and I review the stuff that's helped, and I review the feedback I've gotten from clients. I review the fee the what my kids say to me, what my family says to me now. And that that keeps me motivated. I mean, I can pretty much get out of bed on the worst day when I when I go run my list.

I'm like, oh,

Steve: my god. Saying that that that keeps me motivated?

Stephanie: The funny thing is is, like, it's all, like, little things, and it's almost, like, embarrassing to say. But they're like, you did it. Mhmm. Like, you can do you did you did stuff. You can do stuff.

Steve: Words of affirmation?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: I'm only asking this because, usually, when, like, words are in a motivator, it's because someone said I couldn't do it. Right? But then you said friends and family. It's like, well, I'm hoping that his accent isn't you couldn't do it. So

Stephanie: A lot of people said I couldn't do it.

Steve: Right.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: And for, like, a lot of entrepreneurs, that's what motivates you.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: But what's motivating you is the words of of affirmation, words of support.

Stephanie: It is it is the words of support. And then I think those are the things that you hear in your head and and try to I try to replace those words with the things that discourage you in the beginning. Right? And all your own self doubt and all your own head trash. Like, I have a ton of head trash.

And I just try to, like, review that list and, like, I can do I can do it. Like, I can eat problems for breakfast. Yeah. You know? And I and and that's stupid, but I gotta say that stuff to myself.

Mhmm. Right? I just say those words, and then I go for a run or something. I'm like, I can do it.

Steve: Yeah. It's not stupid at all. Right? You know what motivates you, and you and you use it. Like I said, for me, it's all those people that said they couldn't do it.

Right?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Like, I still have a list. Yeah.

Stephanie: Do you have a hit list?

Steve: I have a list of of everyone that said they couldn't do it. Right? So, that's what that's what motivates me. Yeah. What is the greatest lesson that you have learned?

Stephanie: Oh, man. Oh, that's a hard one. This may I don't know. This this kind of this is kind of off topic, but I think the the the biggest lesson and the best lesson that I've ever learned is to align yourself with purpose and align yourself with god. And if you do that, and when I did that, I feel like everything changed to start with to start with that purpose.

And I didn't do that for a very long time. I felt like I needed to be in control. Mhmm. I had the answer. Right?

I have to figure out the answer. I need to know what's gonna happen four steps from now for me to be able to do anything. And that kind of to attest, like, the beginning of the story where all this fear I had to get started, all this stuff. Right? And I realized I don't have to have all the answers, and I am not in control.

Mhmm. Like, I am not driving the bus. I can be a participant on the bus, right, and I can do my best. But even if I do my best and it's not aligned with purpose or God's purpose, it's not gonna work out. Like, I'm just gonna spin my wheels, and it's gonna suck.

So I've really tried to be in tune with that, be in tune with what my purpose is. And and I feel like that's made such a huge difference and it's also taken a lot of pressure off to have to know everything all the time.

Steve: Yeah.

Stephanie: You know? Like, I'll figure it out. I'm not gonna and it won't it won't happen right away. Sometimes you just gotta pray. Sometimes you just gotta wait.

And then, like, things work out. You know what I mean? And that doesn't like, I don't mean that to say, like, just lay down. Like, God's got you. He'll send you know, the money will just get deposited in your bank.

Steve: Yeah. The the the secret.

Stephanie: Right. That's not true. But

Steve: Right.

Stephanie: But that alignment, is probably the biggest lesson I've ever learned. Not only for business, but for my marriage too.

Steve: Ben Begg wants to know, if you kept coffee with someone dead or alive, who would he be?

Stephanie: Well, after that I mean, I've gotta say Jesus after that. I have to. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: I don't know if he drank coffee.

Stephanie: Maybe he would. Maybe he'd watch me drink wine.

Steve: What is your favorite best or most interesting failure?

Stephanie: The best or most interesting failure? Mhmm. Oh, god. My most interesting failure. I tried to play guitar, and I really sucked at that.

What else did I really fail at? I feel like I fail all the time. I just don't stop and and accomplish something with multiple failures. I don't know. I can't I I don't know that I can pick just one thing that I that I failed at.

I I failed at a lot. Mhmm.

Steve: Is there a book you've gifted more than any other?

Stephanie: Yes. Jim Collins, Good to Great.

Steve: Mhmm.

Stephanie: I've gifted that one. That's one of my favorites.

Steve: It's a phenomenal book. Phenomenal. Made Ryan read it.

Stephanie: Oh, really? You know what?

Steve: You should actually when you after this, when you go talk to Ryan, you should let him know. Because I told him you need to read Good to Great Yeah. And then Built to Last.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And his complaint to me sound very much the same.

Stephanie: So you should They're different, though.

Steve: That's what I said.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Steve: She should get in his ear. Alright. Let him know.

Stephanie: I'll underscore that. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Alright. So I'm gonna let you, think about what you wanna leave the listeners with. Guys, if you got value today, please like, subscribe, share, comment, tag somebody. The more people that know about this, the, you know, the closer we are, in achieving our mission. And, actually, you guys should stay tuned in the next few weeks.

We're gonna be announcing something that, I think everyone will enjoy. We're gonna be enrolling the entire community into the 100 millionaires project. And then next week, we got Austin Rutherford coming in from Ohio. And then we have our workshop. It's gonna be in two days.

So for you procrastinators, people that might be like me, we have our workshop. It's gonna be all day here in the classroom, and we're offering virtual option now. So if you guys are interested in that, send me a DM. We can enroll you enroll you in that. That's awesome.

Last thoughts.

Stephanie: Alright. Last thoughts. Start small and don't stop. Eat those problems for breakfast. Sometimes that problem is I can't get out of bed.

Yeah. So, like, you eat that problem. I'm gonna put my feet on the ground. Right? And you just start with that, and you just keep going.

Steve: I love it. Build momentum. That's right.

Stephanie: It's

Steve: almost like that, what was that that navy? I think it was an emerald or whatever. It's like, his secret to success was making us better every morning.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. If someone wants to get a hold of you, how would they reach you?

Stephanie: You can find me on Facebook. You can go to my website. So Stephanie Betters is is where I'm at on Facebook. And the website for Left Main is leftmain,rei,.co. Yep.

You can find me there.

Steve: Awesome.

Stephanie: I'm I'm there. I'm out there. Google me. Yeah. Facebook is a great way.

I like I like Facebook.

Steve: Facebook's great. Yeah. Alright, guys. Thank you for watching. Thank you.

This was an absolute pleasure.

Stephanie: Yay. Thanks for having me.

Steve: And nobody died. That was great.

Stephanie: Nobody died.