Build the Business that Fits your Life

Gino Paloma: It's easy to get stuck in the weeds of the business and just work and grind, designing my life and designing what I wanna I don't want to do

Steve Trang: a million dollars a month. I need to talk about I don't

Gino: want to do even probably like $7.50 a month. I'd rather build a team as profitable as can be, as tight niche that can be, that can run effectively without me being here.

Steve: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disrupters. Today, we have boy wonder, Gino Paloma with EasySell ATL and Gino Flynn from Kennesaw, Georgia to talk about how he built a million dollar business traveling seven months a year. So I don't know which part is more impressive, the million dollar business or traveling seven months a year, but we're gonna get into all of that. Guys, I wanna make sure to create a 100 millionaires.

The information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. If you take consistent action, you will become one. And the show is brought to you by our sister company, Investor Lift. Get access to millions of cash buyers across the country. Go to investorthat.competent disruptors to get 10% off.

And, guys, if you get value out of the show, please hit that subscribe button. That way we can all grow together. You ready?

Gino: Let's do it, baby.

Steve: Alright. So it was just a few years ago that you were here, and you were in that other studio. Yep. Right? We're talking about your journey.

So what are what have been some of the biggest changes that you've got to experience in the last two or three years since you've been on the show?

Gino: I would say a lot more failure. That's a big change, because, you know, like, I I came, I think, on in, like, 2022 Mhmm. Just before everything started getting hard. So I I started this business, back at 2018 and, you know, throughout 2019, just was able to reap the benefits of, you know, starting out but still being able to, you know, sell deals pretty easily, find deals somewhat easily. I wanna say it's always easy, but find deals.

And then 2020 came, miracle year. We tripled the business and revenue and even profits and, you know, we're like, this we know what we're doing. Yeah. 2021, same thing. You know, I started becoming even more, like, just educated on the business, growing a team really that year.

So, again, all point being is done. By the time I get on your podcast and I think, again, around 2022, I believe, when that June hit after you know, I think it came in in April and that June hit and things started changing, I would say, back to your original question, a lot of things got harder and changed. Learning how to, again, figure out how to look at a cash flow statement, how to read a p and l, how to know that, hey. Look. Your deals aren't gonna sell in seven days or less on or go under contract or seven days or less, and that and now it's time to start becoming a true business owner.

Now you

Steve: actually have to work for it.

Gino: Exactly. Now you actually gotta be a business owner, not just to get lucky. Right?

Steve: Yeah. So before, you could just get contracts and sell them. Yeah. Or you can just land them. It was not really that hard.

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Gino: Yeah. So the big major change shift in marketing, I think, was putting more emphasis on dispo. Mhmm. I think before what we did is, like, a lot of people did is, like, lock the deal up and let's we'll sell this thing no problem or lock the deal up and just post it to our buyers list. And even at that time, though, we did start selling properties on MLS Mhmm.

On wholesale. Like, we didn't buy them. We would list them on there with equitable interest.

Steve: Right.

Gino: So even though we did that, we still had to be put more emphasis on our disow department. It wasn't just a list on the property now and it'll sell. It's like, now we gotta start talking to agents around the deal and try to, you know, presale the property or whatever it might be.

Steve: So So talk to me about that. So you've got a deal Yep. And you're listing on MLS. Yep. Now I took for granted that that's, like, common practice.

It's a function of living in a bubble.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: So you and I are collective genius.

Gino: Yep.

Steve: We get to surround ourselves, Eric Brewer, Ryan Bartlett, Phil Green, like, the biggest operators

Gino: Yeah.

Steve: In the country. So, again, we take for granted you just list property in MLS.

Gino: Exactly. I had no idea to do that unless I joined Collective Genius. Right.

Steve: But that's not common practice. Yeah. So how are you marketing properties on on the MLS?

Gino: Yeah. So right now, what we currently do is in Georgia, North Carolina, Raleigh Durham area, and Dallas, Texas, that's majority of those are our markets.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gino: Actually, more forty forty in 40% Dallas, 40% Raleigh Durham, 20%. But right now, marketing spend in revenue in those in Atlanta is 20%.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gino: So how we're doing in those markets right now is, you know, the the conversation with the seller, we can go in detail with that. But how we're legally doing it is we get into an agreement with the seller that states multiple times that we're listing the property in multiple listing service. And also attached to it is a POA. Mhmm. On the POA, it just appoints me, actually, as the owner, the ability to sign a listing agreement on the seller's behalf.

Mhmm. Now let's make let's make note here that this is obviously a little more advanced strategy to talk with your attorneys. But what's also willingness that that POA, what's also helping us in this case, we have really good relations with brokers. Mhmm. Nico.

He's a broker that helps us in all those states. And why am I bringing that up? Well, because, technically, we don't have a POA. Right? Because it's not notarized.

It's not it's not filed. It's not notarized. But what it does is that extra document there secures or makes the broker more comfortable with our process and take on that responsibility or risk of allowing us to list them on on the seller's behalf. Right? Because they have something to show, like, alright.

The seller knows what's going on. We have it on three times on our agreement. We gave them the whole spiel of why we're doing this, made it clear as can be. Again, that was a problem we didn't do upfront maybe when we first started this. It's it's not being completely, you know, transparent.

And what I mean that is we still had everything under agreement, but I've learned if you say it one time to a seller, it's not enough. You gotta say, like, three or four times, and even that sometimes, meaning, like, you're gonna list it on the market. Even that sometimes Right. It's not enough. But, again, now we've gone into it where we have it three times on our agreement that we're gonna do this.

We had told them multiple, multiple times. And, again, that allows us with the help of our good relationships with the brokers, allows us to put this on the multiple listing service.

Steve: And, we're going nationwide as well. You know? So that's something that we Thank you. We started in the middle of last year, and now we're, with Bateman Collective. Nice.

We're we're going hard in in multiple states. And, yeah. So doing novations in other markets, we had to find other realtors to work with.

Gino: Yep.

Steve: And, when Devin on my team, Devin Cooper, our DISCO guy, is like, well, I can't find any agents that are competent. I was like, well, why are you talking to agents? Just hire Nico.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: He has a brokerage. Just run everything through Nico, and you're still the dispo guy.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Yeah. So that's what you guys are doing.

Gino: That's what we're doing. And it took Nico a little bit longer to get in certain states that we're in. Like, Texas took a longer. In that time, then we just used flat fee listing service.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gino: What I like about Niko is I want to call him up right away. We share season tickets in the hogs. We were talking about it earlier. Like, I can tell him fix this on the listing and have his guys and

Steve: Alright.

Gino: But it's still, like, in the meantime, we use those providers and then now, like, we have Nico. Yeah. You you're just a I mean, you're just a display. You just you know?

Steve: Yeah. Is is it top line?

Gino: It is top brokerage.

Steve: Yeah. Top brokerage. So you so let's take a step back. So we talked about the technical. Yeah.

So let's talk through the conversation with the homeowner. Right? Because, like, something we see all the time, we we did, you know, the brewer method with Eric Brewer. We launched, installment method. You know, these guys, Devin Robinson, Matt Crawford, these guys in in South Carolina and North Carolina.

Like, they have this whole other different way of of, buying homes and listing on MLS. And the objections we get, whether it's novations or installment, is why would anyone go with you versus listing with a realtor? Yeah. So how do you overcome it?

Gino: Yeah. No. That's what again, like you said, it's what everyone comes to us with. And I think

Steve: I I talked to host

Gino: the hotline on this too. Like, same question. Right? What why haven't you listed with the realtor?

Steve: That's our first question.

Gino: Like, why don't you just listen with the realtor? And by this point in our process, we don't talk about price first. We talk about motivation. So, usually, by this time, we would already have an idea of why do they wanna sell. Mhmm.

And it's usually because, you know, they want a quicker closing. Right? Well, agents, you know, they usually lock you into a six month listing agreement. And, of course, they do want to, you know, get you the most for the property, but they're just like us. You know, we're, you know, we're trying to give you the most money.

That's why we're able to give you this price. So we're similar with the agents in that respect, mister Seller. But also, agents don't really have a responsibility. They don't really care how fast they get paid as much as, you know, us. We're having a sixty day agreement with you.

So we have to do this quick and we wanna you know, we are getting this process started for you and we're gonna close in six days versus listing agreement six months. Right? Because that might hit on the motivation of they wanna sell this quick. Mhmm. So that's, again, that's why I reference motivation, figuring out.

Another big thing that we tell the sellers is that, look, we're not gonna do traditional open houses. We're not gonna make you do all this paperwork, you know, simple things like that. And the the open houses, we're gonna have, you know, people coming in here that are either gonna partner with us on the deal or people that are gonna be the ones purchasing it, from us, and they're gonna be prequalified. We're gonna prequalify these people so that you don't have to worry about people backing out and closing in six months for now because you can't find the right buyer. We're gonna do that for you.

And so we're gonna take over all that legwork schedulings and all that stuff. So just again, it's really important. It's hard to, you know, role play right here like we're doing because it's really what is their pain and how are we gonna solve it. Sometimes, you know, again, it's pushing away, doing the good old Steve Trane method that'll send their training in there, but just saying, look. We we might not be a fit.

You might you maybe you should just listen on the market. Why don't you? And, you know, usually, they'll come back crawling to you. You know that best.

Steve: Yeah. And and I do have the great, you know, good fortune. You know, we work together for years now. And, and for me, it's an absolute pleasure. I get to work with your sales team.

Right?

Gino: Oh, yeah. I'm blessed for that.

Steve: And, I don't know. Sometimes I kinda put them against each other because I'm training your lead guys, your dispo guys, and your acquisition guys. Right? And I was like, well, why you guys do it that way? We gotta talk about the process.

So by the way, I do need to have a conversation with you about this later on.

Gino: Let's do it.

Steve: Alright. I told them I'm gonna I promise I'll talk to Juno about this. Alright. So another thing too is I think a lot of people underestimate because, like, they think like you. They think like me.

Listen. I'm a mess. Who cares? Like, what's the big deal? Right?

Like, I remember the very first time I bought a house, and I was thinking, like, they would have netted more. They let me list it, but they wanted to cash off. Right? So 15 k. And I was thinking, like, if Gino paid me $15,000 with just I wanna be able to walk into your house at any random hour, reason reasonable hours with two hours notice for the next six months, but that's cool.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. 15 more thousand.

Steve: Or 15 k? Sure. Whatever. I don't care. I don't I've got nothing to hide.

But most people, the general population, there's a lot of anxiety listing home with a realtor, having a bunch of people walk into your home. And people underestimate that because they're thinking like you and me.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Right? Oh, there's a challenge? We can solve it. Is it, if, closing is delayed, if there's a problem with the appraisal, whatever.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: We repairs needed. Love solving problems.

Gino: Exactly. That's how we get paid.

Steve: That's how we get paid. Yeah. But the average homeowner that remember that the average, but for a percentage of the population, that brings in a lot of anxiety. If you guys don't believe us, like, why are iBuyers why are there so many iBuyers?

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: They're bringing in that convenience. We're offering the same thing. It's just we do it a little bit differently.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Okay. So we talked about the what. Or we talked about how, the conversation. And you mentioned it's a Novation?

Gino: Yeah. I mean, we don't consider it Novation. We just market it on MLS. Right? Novation, obviously, everyone's got different terms.

You know? We usually how we sell them in Georgia because the and a lot of the other markets, the markets we're in, they're so cheap to double close. Mhmm. Just not to introduce all that innovation paperwork. We just go under contract with the buyer and double close.

And if it's conventional, work out something. So but same concept. Right? We market on MLS. All our deals are on MLS.

Steve: So you market on MLS, so you could double close. So, all you're really doing then is just the ability to market it. That's all

Gino: you're getting. It's marketing it.

Steve: Okay. So, then the other wrinkle here Mhmm.

Gino: And this

Steve: is something that's come recently in conversations I've had is why have your dispo guy do it with a flat fee agent versus paying a realtor the full commission to represent both sides?

Gino: Well, I mean, first off, I save 3%. You know? Right? So if you're having my if I hire an agent on our team to do it and not that you have to pay 3% for traditional, it's 3% for a seller's agent.

Steve: Right? Right.

Gino: So, you know, right there, I pay our guys commission based on our profits. Mhmm. It's not 3% of the deal. I'll tell you that. The gross, at the sales price.

Steve: Right.

Gino: Right? So it's obviously a convenience there, saving money. Mhmm. That's the biggest thing. The second thing is is, like, we have a broker that we're good friends with, like I mentioned already, and we felt I feel like we pretty much have, you know, someone, like, hands on with us that's able to make the changes we need as if, like, a a listing agent would as well.

Like, you know, because that's the convenience is that they're a listing agent. They should know what they're doing, hopefully, and do and should, and but do it, you know, pretty quickly. And that's what I feel we have with Nico as the broker, and but with also the convenience of not having to pay the 3%. We put all of our deals on there, you know, per year, I mean, it counts up a lot more. So that's the biggest reason why.

I've talked to some people about it, though. If you have an agent that you're really close to, that would do it for a low commission or flat fee. Like, when you're first starting out, maybe that's how you wanna do it just so you can get a little bit of a, you know, you don't have to worry about those ins and outs of things of contracts and things like that. Get that pushed away. But, I mean, that's why I currently just use a dispo rep.

Steve: Yeah. And then the arguments I've heard right. And, again, the the part about the price makes total sense. Right? Because the percent is can add up real fast.

The other thing too is, the guy on my team, I can call him up at 08:00 at night. Yeah. Like, what is going on with this?

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Not that I'm looking forward to having these conversations, but if I call my 08:00 at night, they'll answer the phone.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: With a listing agent or with a realtor, I might call them at 03:00 in the middle of the day, working hours, working hours. And I might not hear back until the next day.

Gino: Yeah. Okay.

Steve: It's just the cost. I think probably not even just the money. The the the Energy and time to willpower and diminishing and the frustration and all that. Yeah. Exactly.

Make up for that.

Gino: Yeah. And that's what I was kinda mentioning. I said it with Nico being the broker. That's an advantage. But, also, like, again, you were asking about display agents being listing, actual agents or a distal person.

Like you said, like, that's you're not gonna be able to speed to the conversation. It's just completely out the window if you go just to an agent. You know, that has other deals going on.

Steve: Right. And, like, with a listing agent, I think at best, I might get 50% feedback.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: At best, I might get 50% of the people that show the property feedback.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Bizpo agent, the expectation, you're calling every freaking realtor.

Gino: Mhmm.

Steve: You keep calling them until you get feedback.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: And you can you can dictate that.

Gino: You can see it too. And you can see it. Control it. Yeah.

Steve: Through CRM. So then how many so let's see. Is there any other questions here? So conversation with the homeowner, the technical know how to do it, implementing with DISCO. Is there anything else that's different than any traditional Yeah.

I mean selling?

Gino: I would say the big thing there is, like, if we're selling to, I believe, it's about 30 to 40% conventional buyers. And so, obviously, you can't assign deals then, and it's even hard to double close, like, same day. Most of the time, you can't. So when you're doing this and, again, the whole point of this whole strategy is we can offer the seller more money, and we can sell the deal for more money. That's the name of the game in business.

Right? Especially where we're at. Sell the deal for most money and lock up as many contracts. And, obviously, we talk about this. I'd love to hear your feedback on this, Steve.

I tell I talk to people this a lot. Even though I'm very big into sales, motivation, hitting pain, I can do the best job of hitting pain. But if I can offer 30,000 more dollars to a seller, face to face. Now not always. There's always cases where we we both know where sellers will say, hey, Jean.

I could take, you know, I'm taking 20 price tags. I love you guys. But on the majority level, if you can offer more to a seller, and, again, I'm talking extremes $2,530,000 dollars, they're gonna probably pick take your offer over the next person no matter the situation. Right? Right.

Situation actually might be a little bit in there. But just regarding if you're in the same playing field. Like, if I give 30 more grand, more than likely I'm doing the I'm doing the deal. So it allows us to do that. It allows us to sell it on the market, like I said, and and us to try to sell for as much money and make as much.

Yeah. But back to your question, you know, what's different about that is if we are selling to these conventional buyers, what we have to do is talk to their underwriters too. This is a little intricate part of it. Right? If you're selling to a conventional buyer, which is part of the strategy, you're gonna have that happen and you want to because that's how you can sell for the most money.

Mhmm. You can't just talk to the the the agent buyer's agent and say, hey. Is the lender gonna be good with the double close? Right? Because you're trying to pick the best terms for your buyers.

So as a lender when you talk to the excuse me, the agent the buyer's agent, are they good for to do a double close? The buyer's agent's gonna say whatever they want to get the deal done. Right? And because what if, like, some of these lenders why I bring this up? Is some of these lenders will say, no.

You need to hold it for three weeks. Mhmm. Well, if I knew their offer was gonna make me hold it for three weeks to do this deal, right, because they wanna show me on the title or whatever it might be on the deed, their the the lender, I might not have picked this buyer Mhmm. Versus a cash buyer that might have been 5 or $10 less. So, again, the point being is that you wanna figure out with these broker with these buyers' agents or with these buyers, you wanna figure out how quick and how, you know, lenient are they with these double closes or these closing procedures.

So, again, don't go to the buyer's agent. Go don't go to the buyer's lender necessarily, like their loan officer. Go to the underwriter. Try to find a way to get into the underwriter or tell them we need approval from your underwriter in writing of what they will do in this circumstance of us. And we openly tell them we're wholesaling the deal.

We don't own the deal. We give them disclosures now that shows, like, hey. We're not responsible if our deal backs out with the seller. Like, we're not responsible to to do your, deal with you because it's not our fault. Again, the whole point being is you're being as

Steve: Extra disclosure.

Gino: Extra disclosures as possible. And so if you can get down again, you ask what is one part in the the system that you might not know that's different than traditional is. You gotta go to the underwriter Mhmm. And see what they would be willing to do on a double close or a closing time period because that's gonna decide whether you pick that buyer that might take a three week, like I said, closing or three week, you know, hold back versus someone that can close same day, double close. Or

Steve: How are you getting, how are you talking to the underwriter?

Gino: Big thing is going to the agents first. The goal is to tell them, like, look. We need this is standard protocol. We need to get something from your underwriter or at least get on the phone with them Mhmm. To understand it.

Then, of course, the agent says, well, I I mean, we only got the you maybe can talk to the loan officer, or you can maybe talk to the, you know, the bank or the lender. Right? And then it's just, again, a constant process of trying to weed through the next person to get in there. And then, again, it doesn't happen all the time. I don't wanna say we're perfect.

Right? Sometimes we're drastic for an offer. We'll accept it. But the point being is overall and, you know, I think the big difference there is, like, you actually have to go to versus the cash deal. Obviously, you know, confirmed the cash didn't get proof of funds.

That's it. Yeah. Versus now, you gotta dig deeper and and just trying to communicate and tell them, like, this is just normal practice. I think just telling them, like, this is what we normally do. But sometimes, again, buyer's agents say, you can't talk to the underwriter.

Mhmm.

Steve: Okay. Well, this is

Gino: what we've done in the past. Get on the phone with the seller. This is how we've done it. We get on the phone, excuse me, with the actual buyer and us on a two way call with the underwriter, stuff like that.

Steve: Mhmm. Yes.

Gino: It sounds like a lot more work, and reality is it's really is, but you're gonna make a lot more money. And if you build a good process and procedure on it, you can have someone on your team that's just designated to talk to these people. So

Steve: That's why I was wondering. Who on your team is actually talking

Gino: to? Majority of the time is first, if it's easy layups. Right? It goes dispo rep, talks to the buyer's agent, talks to the lender, and talks to the underwriter. Hopefully, it goes straight to the underwriter.

If it gets a little more in intricate, then I think we would to gosh, you know better on this because I'm not seeing over this, but I'm pretty sure that one of our DISCO assistants, it's on the phone that starts doing that. Yeah. That's a VA. So

Steve: Yeah. And that's incredibly powerful. Like, I know one of the things that we pitch in going to the market. Mhmm. Hey.

The reason why you wanna do this, blah blah. And, also, we're only gonna have qualified buyers

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Walk through the home. Right? That's part of the pitch. Yeah. And so with having the qualified buyers come through, you guys are willing afterwards to talk to the underwriter before you get a contract, signed.

I know plenty of realtors don't even call the loan officer

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Yep. Prior to accepting the offer. So, like, we'll find out sometimes where a a a buyer will get disqualified and we'll ask the loan officer what happens? Like, oh, they never submitted the financial statement.

Gino: Why did you give them a preapproval?

Steve: Right? Exactly. So you guys are taking it one step further and you're actually talking to the owner.

Gino: Yeah. That's our goal on it as much as possible is to do unconventional, like I said, that's 40%. Majority of the time, we are 60% selling to cash or hard money guys or someone that has a, you know, financing a little bit sooner. But, yeah, like you said, it's an important part because we got burnt. We go to the closing table with our seller, and then we have to fund the deal.

We're never gonna leave the seller out. But, like, it's, like, two days, three days. Oh, they can't close for another three weeks now because you guys are wholesaling it. Like, we we've been on a contract for twenty five days. Like, you're you guys knew what we were doing.

We told you, mister agent. Well, yeah. But I talk I just talked to the lender and they said they need this. Like, we've got so many times like that.

Steve: Right.

Gino: Obviously, you learn after two or three of them. Like, we're not accepting unless we talk to this lender. Right? Or underwriter. Excuse me.

So how many of these are you doing a month? So on average, what we looked at last year, I believe we were just under 200, contracts. Mhmm. Our goal is to close at 60%. Mhmm.

We're trying to work that up. But, yeah, I know on contract wise, we list everything. I would say 90%. I know I'm throwing numbers out here, but some of them we do take down on wholesale. If they're really good deals, we're not gonna risk putting them on the market.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gino: But roughly last last month, we had 21 contracts. But our goal this year is to do on average about 23 to 25. So I think it comes up to about 25 per month. Mhmm. Contracts and all those go on the market and then close in at 60%.

So I think it's roughly, like, thirteen, fourteen closed deals a month. Mhmm. And, you know, with that being said, almost all those will be this type of strategy. If not, if they're just very good deals, again, about 10%, 15%, we'll take them down. So one or two a month will take down.

It just we never get into the flipping game. I've learned that it's not something I want to. And I'm saying that now, like, I'm looking at some of our deals. Like, we had our first time ever, like, on two deals we did. They weren't even flips.

They were hotels. Even that, I I I lost, like, $3 on what it just closed last month. And I'm like, even that now, I'm like, I should stop buying properties, man. I'm just

Steve: I think we

Gino: just stick stick to what I know in the whole selling. But, again, any big deals the one that I did lose money, I thought was a big deal. Mhmm. Course, it happens to some of us. But, any big deals is the ones we're taking out wholesale and beating, like, 60 plus k and and usually depends on the access to it.

So if they say no access, then we're gonna take it down.

Steve: So you're not wholesaling at all really right now? No. Everything's on the MLS.

Gino: Yeah. No. I would say, yeah, 95% is non wholesale. Yeah. Non assignments, non Or

Steve: I guess wouldn't say non wholesale. It's a different way.

Gino: It's not assignment fees.

Steve: Yeah. It's not just crash buyer.

Gino: Exactly. And that's

Steve: marketing off the MLS.

Gino: Yeah. And that hurts your cash conversion cycle. Right? From the time the lead comes in your system, you spend money on it, comes in your system, the time you get paid. I think on ours, it's, like, eighty days or seventy five days versus, like, if you're doing cash deals, like, it's, like, thirty five, forty days.

So, like, this takes double the time for us to get paid, which hurt last year sometimes, right, when you're, like, having a bad month and it's contracts and you know two months from now, you're gonna be in hurting and you can't speed it's hard to speed it up, like, we're mentioning because you're not selling to traditional cash investors off your buyers list. Right? So it's a little, you know, again, give or take there.

Steve: What is your average, gross profit

Gino: per deal? Yeah. It's about 33,000.

Steve: 33,000. So going off the MLS, about 33,000. And, what was your average wholesale fee prior to this?

Gino: I believe it was, like, 17 to $18,000, like, $17.05. I think it was roughly. And this is in 2021. We started 2022 doing this. So it's been a while.

Well, we had a mentor that we, learned from, Brent Bartlett. This is, again, back in the end of, I think, 2021, we hired Rand to coach us. I remember telling you about it, and, and we're I was excited about it, getting him to be one on one coaching with us. And a big thing that his organization was doing was doing this. I was like, wait.

Hold on. I didn't even thought about it. Back to what we were talking about earlier, Collective Genius Mastermind Groups we've been a part of is, like, I he put in the room with him, and he told me about this. I was like, I didn't know this thing existed, that you could even do this. So we quickly started trying it 2021, and we saw, like, woah.

We did one. We did two. We got twice the amount of money we thought we were gonna make on this deal by putting this on the market Right. And worked out the kinks of it in the beginning, obviously, working with the lenders, underwriters, trying to learn that. So by the time '22 hit, our deal size again pretty much doubled.

And I think in 2022, when we went full on with this, I know the year was also up and down because of the, the way interest rates went. I think our deal size was, like, the first quarter when it was still hot was, like, 44,000. And we were shooting for 35,000. And so we're like, holy crap. This is the money.

And so, again, that's that's really why we did it to make more money, and to allow us to pay more to sellers, to be honest too.

Steve: Yeah. We can pay the sellers more. Exactly.

Gino: And

Steve: I think one of the other things too, you're the one that, first ones to tell me, like, Steve, like, I'm selling everything open and ordered.

Gino: Yeah. That was another thing. I mean, that was again from people in CG. Right? I I it wasn't me that created that, but, like, I took from people in CG and yeah.

That time, 2022, I believe. Yeah. 2020

Steve: Yeah. '2. 2021.

Gino: 2021. Yeah. Through 2021 and the beginning of 2022, but most of 2021, we took them. We took them. And now looking back on it, I know we all think this, but, I I we could have ran them really out of business then because they were buying houses from us.

You got the experience too. I swear to god, 60 k over market value on a couple properties. 60 k over market value. So back to that. Yeah.

We're just taking advantage, and I'm looking for that next one now. So big thing. We can, you know, talk about it, but it's just finding people that are just on the top of this business. And I tried to intentionally pay them somehow or to bring some value into it. Right?

Like, I think we all try to do it to see what they're doing, and that's what's led us to the open door. Rand talking to us about listing on the MLS, and I'm on the hunt for the next one.

Steve: Yeah. Well, so let me talk about that. So, you know, we're gonna walk down memory lane

Gino: Mhmm. Of all

Steve: the different things you've done coaching wise. Right? Personal development. It sounds like personal development is really important to you.

Gino: Yes. It is.

Steve: Right? What was the very first program you went through?

Gino: The first program I went through, like, to be like, the first full program was disruptors. Just before that, though, I did go into, like, Max Maxwell's, like, WeLive, all their events, and all that. Yeah.

Steve: Those I remember meeting at WeLive.

Gino: Yeah. We met at WeLive nineteen.

Steve: I remember, at some point, you worked with Kong.

Gino: Yeah. Well, I just became a good friend to them and started doing stuff with them. But, yeah. So Kong was, like, a little bit after that, like, working, became good friends with Kong.

Steve: Yeah. Because oh, yeah. Because we were speaking at WeLive, and it was Kong was there as well.

Gino: And you were with us. It was me, you, Kong, and, like, two other guys just hanging around, John Paul too, my former business partner. And then, yeah, we were just talking stuff, laughing, and that was a good night.

Steve: So you got to work. So not work, not necessarily coach by Kong, but you got to work alongside Kong. Yeah. Right? And then you obviously were at was that, WeLive with Max Maxwell?

Somewhere along the line, you were working with All In.

Gino: Yeah. I just again, with them too, it wasn't through their program, but I bought into some of their, softwares, their systems, their process. And I really dug into just, again, hanging with them, talking with them at I think it was, Tony Robbins event or Tony Robbins. I don't wanna mix it. Tony Robbins Robinson.

Right?

Steve: Yeah. Tony the closer.

Gino: Tony the closer. Let's say that. Not Tony Robbins.

Steve: Little different. Yeah. A little different guy. Different guy. Yeah.

Gino: So, anyway, he had an event, and then all in guys were there, and I had a pretty one on one conversations, a lot of stuff, but not through their program either. But to your point, a lot of coaching throughout the years and including maybe I didn't go through the program, but a lot of coaching through Kong, you know, all in watching a lot of their stuff, taking in buying some of their not programs, but buying in some of their softwares and

Steve: some Their products.

Gino: Products. And then Max Maxwell, Steve Trang, Big Stevie. It was the first program, like, I really took on and and went through a system and learned, you know, a bunch of things right through it. So, again, everyone here, we're having this combo, but I would say 100% check out salesdisruptors.com right there. Got the t shirt on.

Steve: That's right.

Gino: But yeah. And now you're training all our people. So but, yeah, it continue your flow. Like you said, went from working with Max Maxwell, working to going through his events, Kong, All In, Steve, sub two, Pace, becoming pretty close with Pace too and learning a lot of stuff that he does there. Then it brought me into I know I'm missing some stuff along the way.

I did join Tiffany High, and their stuff in, like, 2021 or 2022 just for the the three week. Actually, I think Chandler did it with my past partner too. He did all of it. So I think it was, like, a three week program or maybe it was three month. I don't know.

Don't hold me to it. And then, I've I've started it a lot now. The last, like, year, Eric Brewer did Novation, did private money course with you as well. Oh, yeah. Private money, and then we did the the, the Novation, the Brewer Method.

And, what else? I mean, just a bunch of different A one on one

Steve: with Ren.

Gino: One on one with Ren. Worked a little bit with some of, Eric Guidance in Mhmm. Which maybe a lot of you guys don't know, but big player in San Diego.

Steve: Low key. Like, if you don't know Eric, you're missing out.

Gino: Yeah. Big time, Eric and Phil. Yeah. And then Sharper Sharper as well. Sharper solutions, doing a lot of the quarterlies.

And so, yeah, I've I've tried to get as much as possible, get in, you know, money groups. And I know, like, obviously, I follow Steve. Help me a lot through this too by, hey. Go here. Go there.

Go to these people. And then that's, like, obviously just took it from there. So I've been a big help. Big Stevie.

Steve: Well, appreciate that.

Gino: Asian dad too. That's the that's the second name. We call him Asian dad. Yeah. My Asian dad.

Steve: Yeah. The when we text, right, it's like, you know, my Italian son.

Gino: Yeah. He's the real Italian too. Born in Italy.

Steve: So So and I bring this up because there's a lot of people, not necessarily the people listening to this show.

Gino: And a lot of

Steve: people that listen to the show probably are more personal development minded, but there are a lot of people that are opposed to investing in themselves. Yeah. So what would you say to someone that's like, you know, I can figure out my own.

Gino: Well, that's an a good question. I I I look at it, and they're thinking of it as an expense most of the time. They're like, I could just figure this on my own, and I don't have to save my I can save my $7, $10, $15. The reality is it's just like the marketing spend. And, again, like you said, a lot of people watching this.

I know and I watch it and a lot. They're doing business and they're having business deals. And there are no problems spending $10 on SMS or $10 on mail a month and all that in looking because they're looking at it as a return. Again, most of the people watching this. Right?

They look at it as an ROI on their marketing. And the same thing, though, with personal development. Pineda, we forgot I mentioned Pineda too. Just to bring this one up, like, we went and paid $5 to golf with Pineda. Steve was making fun of me.

All these guys are making fun of me, laughing. Like, good. I we're just messing around. Right? And I was

Steve: I was really more envy than it was. Okay.

Gino: Well, you know, I'm just messing around. Like, we're we're joking. Like, you're paying for golf to play golf with finata $5. And, again, to the whole point of ROI, yeah, we went. We built a good connection, able to, you know, build a relationship with Ryan.

And then six months later, we were speaking on stage in front of 400 people for him. He invited us on. You know? And that obviously led to a lot of deals and business done. Looking at that $5, I'll tell you, we more than $10.20, 30 x that with deals with people with our own program we had.

And so, again, challenging those people to think, like, what are you trying to get out of it? Are you gonna have a return on your investment? Is the brewer method you're gonna learn to spend the money on it? Can you make, you know, multitude of, you know, multiples of that back? And and brewer method was part of it.

Rand did teach us to put on MLS, but I'll use use a lot of Eric Brewer's methodology and and talking to sellers of to be able to allow us to put this on the market.

Steve: Right.

Gino: So, again, back to that, like, five or whatever it was back then, five k now. I don't know what it is not to put it on. But back then, it was five k. Right? And, well worth it either way.

We've done drastic hundreds of deals, closed deals because of that system. And so think about that return on that right there.

Steve: It's outrageous.

Gino: It's outrageous. So, again, back to your point. Look at it as an ROI. You're investing in yourself. Is it a return on investment?

You can keep it the rest of your life.

Steve: Yeah. It's not

Gino: gonna go away. It's not like the mail piece, though. Even if you look at it as ROI, the mail piece, like, the January campaign's done now. Yeah. You might get a call a year later.

I get mail is a bad example.

Steve: But Yeah.

Gino: You know, it's done versus this. You can keep the rest of your mind. You know?

Steve: Yeah. Especially forever.

Gino: Sales training, right, for the rest of your life.

Steve: One thing that you and I were talking before we all went on air was that, yeah, season tickets to the Hawks.

Gino: Yep. I

Steve: was like, why don't you just do the the Ryan potato model?

Gino: Yeah. See, yeah, he talked to me. Steve's already helped me with that too.

Steve: Yeah. So what's the what's the proposed plan, and is that something you wanna do?

Gino: Yeah. I know. Would you bring it up? So, yeah, me and Steve were just talking just before this, and Steve put this in my head. So, again, Ryan Pineda paid him to golf five grand.

Obviously, for him, you know, it's just it's a good relationship building four hours with them. So me and Steve were talking. Steve's idea to give him the credit. He said, look. You got we have season tickets.

Me and my buddy, Nico, we mentioned already, right behind the bench, the Hawks bench. And I was behind the visitors bench. Excuse me. So we purposely did that so we could resell them. Anyone comes up.

We got the Lakers coming in. We got Golden State. We got Clippers, and we got, Suns all within four days of each or all within, like, six days of each other. Yeah. So point being, Steve said, you know, why don't you do something where you charge x amount of rate and have them come in.

They can sit with you court side. You got a two hour game. Go eat before. We go eat and maybe after. Maybe not eat after because we're gonna have food there too.

But we go hang out after and make it a a whole product and shit. We need to start doing that. Yeah. It started no cursing, but, shoot, we should start doing that.

Steve: Right.

Gino: So, again, that's that's the new proposal potential. Thanks, Steve. You might be the first. He's coming in for free. Steve, you're welcome on and come to any game you want.

But, no, that being said, like, it's

Steve: right there. But that's a function. Right? That's a function. Yeah.

Of going to Ryan's event. And, like, you know, for better or for worse, we have this connection because you were in my mentorship program.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Right? And we got really close to that. And then you were in stuff too, so you have a relationship with PACE.

Gino: Yep.

Steve: And you went to Fineta's thing, your relationship with Fineta. Like, yeah, it's money. Yeah. There's a cost. But how much value do you get from that?

And, you know, and other, other podcasts I've dealt with, like, there's no shame in buying relationships.

Gino: That's what I was gonna say. I bought friends, but I don't now we have relationships, like you said. You know?

Steve: Yep. Absolutely. So, you're virtually wholesaling with 40 team members?

Gino: Yeah. Roughly now it's about 35. Mhmm. About thirty, thirty five people on and off. Right?

But virtually wholesaling, just meaning that even if we're living, like, reside in Atlanta majority of my time in the year And, you know, even if I'm there, it's we're locking things up over the phone. So Steve knows that. That's what we're gonna talk about probably after this a little bit too is just and we've and go on that little tangent. For five years, I've been doing it started in 2018, 2018. And ever since then or since being people say closer, closer, closer, closer person, closer person.

Now in 2018, I wanna design this business going into that to be where I could be anywhere in the world. I fell in love in traveling. But when I was, like, 16, my parents took me to, Europe, and I saw that world as to this exists. There's you know, you see 2,000 year old churches. You see 2,000 year old, you know, buildings and food and all this.

So, again, caught my bug there, just to bring it back to the story, is that I was like, I I wanna do this all around the world. I don't wanna go in person to someone's house and try to lock up a contract. So that influenced how I built the business.

Steve: You built the business to suit your your lifestyle.

Gino: Exactly. Suit where I wanted to

Steve: be and how I wanted my lifestyle. A lot of power in that.

Gino: Yeah. And I say it was I have no regrets in doing that in five years. Like I said, within that five everyone was still saying to me, you just go in person. Go in person. I don't wanna say I was being stubborn.

I came to one point. I think I was talking to you maybe about this too and ran. I talked to a multiple, and they're like, look. If this is working, don't change what's working for you. You know?

Now fast forward to today, we're starting to do maybe a little hybrid model, but, obviously, it's not me going out there with our acquisition reps. But back where you're saying virtual company majority in all the last five years, locking things up over the phone, selling deals. No one really going in person other than hiring people to take pictures and stuff like that. So Yeah. That's what's allowed me to live the, the lifestyle.

Steve: So we're gonna talk about traveling. Right? We're gonna talk about that. But before we talk about that, you've gone through a little bit of, you've had some experiences with partnerships.

Gino: Yeah. Had some I had a lot of experiences with partnerships. I don't wanna say a lot, but I've had a good amount of experiences. So

Steve: So what, what were some of the biggest things that jumped out, and what lessons did you learn from that?

Gino: Yeah. I mean, so the first one that I had was of a childhood best friend. And that was

Steve: Famous Netflix actor.

Gino: Yeah. Famous Netflix actor. The lead role in the Netflix movies, John Paul Caicos. Full full count. I'm actually an extra in it, but John Paul was the lead actor in it.

But yeah. No. I I we're just childhood friends, and it was one of those things I think a lot of people do, or at least a lot of people I talk to. Right? They say, hey.

I've been friends with this guy all along. We were doing deals. Like, before this, we were selling shoes on eBay. We were to buy Apple cables from China, Alibaba, sell them on eBay. We would buy stuff at Ross, flip it together.

And so we all had that entrepreneur together mind. And so I discovered wholesale when he was actually filming that movie. And so as soon as he came back, I brought him in. I was like, let's go. Let's do this together.

That was a part now looking back on it, like, you know, don't bring one. Your best friend's just to bring him in as a partnership, especially if you have the same qualities and, same characteristics. Like, again, we're both pretty good at sales. We're both talk to people, and that's not a good partnership necessarily. I think a good partnership, right, is someone that can compliment you.

Mhmm. More than likely, he's probably not your best friend, and it's not defined from childhood. It's you know, you really wanna be precise on who you're gonna pick and, you know, really decide and dissect if this person is gonna benefit me and help me. And and on that point is, like, are they gonna bend or excuse me. Are they gonna be able to come in there and and hold me you know, keep me balanced?

Like, if they're good at sales, I'm good at sales. Who's gonna do the marketing? Who's gonna do the systems? Who's gonna do operations? And so my first partnership was really just, hey.

We're friends. Let's go do business together. Obviously, that didn't work out in the long term. One, also visions. Right?

You didn't have the same visions. Right. Jean Paul wanna be an actor, and he was playing the lead role on Netflix for me that was on Netflix. Like, I should've what was I thinking? Like, we're we're gonna do wholesaling forever to you know what I mean?

So, you know, he had aspirations. I had aspirations. At end of the day, it just turned to be like, look. We're both doing the same job, and I have more energy to do the wholesaling because I'm full in. You're doing acting.

Like, it's best priority to part ways. So, again, just learning that where's your the person that you're thinking to partner with, are they gonna benefit you? Are they gonna balance you? Are they gonna be able to do the things that you don't like? Are they gonna be really good at the things you don't like?

Not that that can they just do them? Are they gonna be really good at the marketing, really good at the systems? Yeah. And, also, where's their vision? Do they wanna be wholesale or they wanna be, you know, doing real estate for the rest of their life?

Whatever it might be. Right? And if there's any conflict in the beginning, it's not getting any better. You're not gonna have a better scenario down the road, to be honest. So, like,

Steve: just get it out the way so that don't get closer. No. Get further apart.

Gino: Exactly. Everything changes. So, I mean, that's that was the first big partnership, and that's, I think, one that a lot of people can kind of relate to. They might have a similar experience.

Steve: Yeah. And I'll say for sure, you know, the my partnership that ended, the most recent relation that ended was because we started off with similar visions.

Gino: Yep. Right?

Steve: And then we had very different visions.

Gino: Exactly. And

Steve: a lot of those distractions and visions is because I saw what was possible with Collective Genius.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: And I wanted that. Right? It's like, Frank Cava's doing what? Yeah. His name.

Doing what? Phil Green's doing what? Let's do all this things. Amanda Dean, she's a person on the show before you. Right?

Gino: She worked

Steve: with Dan Lane. Like, Dan Lane, Jeremy Fish, Amanda Dean. What are they doing? Why are we doing that?

Gino: Talk to that. Yeah.

Steve: So it's just a difference of vision. And so it's hard to work together Yep. When you have different aspirations.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: And other thing too just on your point, is I got a chance to go to ClickFunnels, September.

Gino: Mhmm.

Steve: And, Eric Thomas was speaking on stage. You know Eric?

Gino: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The motivation. Right?

Hip hop preacher. Yeah.

Steve: Right? And there's one thing he said that that really stuck out for me. And it was just because I would die for you, doesn't mean we should do business together.

Gino: See. Exactly. Right?

Steve: It's like, yeah. Just because I love you, doesn't mean we should work together.

Gino: Exactly. Yeah. Right. 100% it.

Steve: But we so often when we start in the beginning of our entrepreneur journey, he's like,

Gino: look.

Steve: You know, you and I, we get along.

Gino: Yeah. Right? Exactly. Let's just find someone that you would die for. And you say, oh, let's do a business together.

You know? Yeah.

Steve: Right. Because I'd die for you. Why would I not work hard? Why would why would we not give you business for you?

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Just because you would doesn't mean everything else Supposed to. Falls into alignment. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

So what else? Was there other parts?

Gino: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So off that, that was about 2021, I believe. So 2021, we decided to part ways, and it was mutual cordial.

Good friends still. And then that led to, at that time, Chandler, some of you guys might know that's watching this. Chandler was working as a marketing director from us at the time doing marketing things and a lot of other things, helping us tremendously. And Chandler is actually lucky enough I had Chandler too because he's very blunt. And he was literally, like, told that my John Paul my my buddy John Paul, he's like, we don't want you here anymore.

And Chandler didn't even own the company. He was saying that. Like, he was, like, he he's already telling him because he saw what the end of it. So Chandler helped me a lot with that Yeah. Which led into me and Chandler growing the business in 2022, 2020 and and end of 2021, Chandler joined and immediately impacted us.

But, again, by the 2021, John Paul was out. All 2022, me and John Paul, or excuse me, me and Chandler just took over. And, again, Chandler came in there, and he did everything. And I learned from my previous partnership, Chandler did a lot of things, a lot of things, almost everything better than I could in on in certain parts of the business immediately impacted, grew the business, helped, you know, this department get back on its feet. This department build the procedures.

This so very good partnership, and it just ended up being more that vision thing as well. Early or middle of this year, roughly, is when we decided, like, it I kinda felt it coming. Chandler is obviously, again, for him, he had a different vision. He wanted to help more people through the education space, which why not? You know what I mean?

It's not something, like, I'm upset about. Like, of course, like, that's what he wanna do. That's what's fulfilling. More fulfilling for him. And so I think after a year of him being in, the dispo director role for us as well, that paired with, you know, the visions on our education company growing and building more clients, I think it ended up being an end goal or just, you know, decided to part ways.

And, again, Chandler, we're still, you know, cordial still. It's not like you screw him and stuff like that. You know? You know, we're still very good friends, and we're still partners in the education company. Yeah.

But just decided that, hey. The best thing for you, Chandler, like and you fulfilled it. And and it's not me. I Chandler's the one that made this, which is what I'm happy about. It wasn't like I had to, like, push him away or he had to push new ways.

That's what I like about Chandler. We said, look. This is what you wanna do. Alright. Go do it.

And so, again, now just broke up from that and, you know, just, again, like I said, cordial. Nothing that's too hostile, but, hostile at all. Just working towards and helping each other. Like I said, still working with the education program because, you know, I still have ownership, but it's Chandler's boat to to row.

Steve: So it doesn't really sound like there's, a lot of lessons necessarily. It was just kind of a story.

Gino: It was story. I mean, lessons look. Here, let's talk about this. Steve. I called Steve up.

Right? And then right before I even gave, Chandler and our organization, he never became an equity partner. He was a profit split not to diminish what he did. He did everything the same, and he got paid as if he was equity partner. But I who'd I learned that from?

Steve. Right? So I broke up from John Paul. Immediately called Steve. I said, look.

Chandler's killing it for us. You know? Chandler's doing this. I see him being a a fit for a longer term. And, you know, Steve's like, well, hold on.

You know? Don't think about putting that equity out yet. Right? Don't think about that. Make, you know incentivize Chandler, incentivize whoever that person might be into getting some sort of profit split or equity.

And luckily I mean, I probably would have just gave it because it's my personality a lot of the times. But, you know you know, Steve told me, like, let him earn it. So throughout that first year, we I consistently gave, Chandler, you know, goals based on the court. Hey. We do this to score.

It goes up. We do this to score. It goes up. We do this to score. It goes up.

And sorry not to mess up this whole conversation, but twenty twenty twenty twenty, 2020 is when we got John Paul. I'm a year behind. So Chandler's with me all 2021, all 2022, and then this year. So sorry not to throw that back in the combo, but so it was it was another extra year on there. But, again, like I said, I called you up, and then that would've been at the beginning of 2021.

So 01/20 is when drop all left, and I'd asked you. And, again, Steve was telling me, look. Take your time. Let Chandler earn it. Let him do it, and that's what I did.

And so that's how it progressed. Big lesson there. That's what you're asking. The lesson is big lesson is just don't. Even if you have someone on your team that thinks you might be a good COO or someone on your team that you think might be a good director, don't just give them hey.

Let them prove themselves even if you build these through there. And, again, of course, figure out their goals. Their goals might be you might be paying them $3 a month, and they're the star player.

Steve: Why why

Gino: would you not go up to $5? But, you know, the reality is we're talking about in detail with our partnership. And I quickly, you know, with you made that adjustment and started rewarding them based on quarter to get certain more amounts of profit split per year. And then, again, final goal or final lesson there is when we exited the business in middle of this year, May, June, it's very simple. It's just you had profit split.

Now you don't. You know? You're gone. You're working. You're coming up.

So thanks to Steve for that advice. You know?

Steve: Save you a little bit of headache.

Gino: Saved me headaches. Now a year or two years later. Right?

Steve: So And who knows how expensive it would be to buy them out? Exactly.

Gino: So, I mean, obviously, we worked something out where it was scores where he got, you know, more than, you know, amount amount of money, and it wasn't just like, you're screw you. You're gone.

Steve: But Right.

Gino: Again, it just still worked out to where it wasn't a massive headache.

Steve: Yeah. Well, that's that's the the challenge of giving up equity. And I say giving up, like, not in a way to, like, you know, we're we're being charitable.

Gino: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: It's just that once it's given Yeah. It's hard to take it back. It's hard to take it back. It's really hard to take it back. It's really, really, really messy.

Alright. So you're traveling seven months a year.

Gino: Yeah. That was about last year.

Steve: You're doing, like, 13 transactions a month.

Gino: Yeah. And last year was a little less than that, but this year is 13. But, you know, it did over $2,000,000 in gross profits last year.

Steve: Yeah. It's $2,000,000. So multi so I I gotta fix the title now because I said million dollars. It's multimillion dollars.

Gino: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Right? But you're traveling. How does that work? We've got a

Gino: great team. We mentioned about thirty, thirty five people just ending on. You know? Hopefully, I'm not losing them every week, but, you know, goal is not to lose them. But, you know, we're making some adjustments.

But, again, about 30 people on our team, great directors. I got five directors right now, from a marketing, lead management director, acquisition director, disposition, transaction coordination. And those are the five directors. And what I'm able to do is even though right now, onto what Chandler's saying is he was a COO. Now I don't have a COO, but what I look at and it's kinda what Frank Kava used to teach about.

He's another guy that's in our collection team's mastermind, is that, you know, going down and using your directors as their own kind of COO. So so the point is, you know, having a great group of COOs. I talk to them weekly. Those are really the only dedicated calls I have, minus our our win meeting, our level 10 meeting. And just, again, having clear, concise goals and KPIs and being able to identify what is success for that role and that company and that department.

And, again, that's what allowed me truly to take out, you know, that seven months. Now that being said, it wasn't seven months of just shut the phone off. I worked every day, probably, like, just less than new normal, but, like, four to five hours a day, I was working new Monday through Friday. And, I mean, reality is if you ask my fiance, it's every second of the day. I'm thinking about so why did you ask her that?

Did you do that? And to give her some credit, she is the transaction coordinator. So she's getting hit at, like, 11PM. Like, hold on. I just thought of is that deal?

Did it get solved like that? And so it's this is luck you know, as as as great as it sounds, it's not, you know, seven months off. But at the same time, you know, it allowed me to do what I wanna do, like I told you, in 2018 where I

Steve: was able

Gino: I went to Europe. And and now the last two years, we've been to Europe on average for seven months just Europe combined the last year and, been to Japan this year or last year, excuse me. Went to Africa for just a couple days, part of the trip all over The US. So, yeah, I mean, it it it just allowed me because of my great team and directors, allowed me to start doing what I really wanted to do.

Steve: So at Clarity, It's not vacation seven months a year.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Because you're not in the 48 states.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. Not in this in this continent.

Steve: Yeah. So and that that doesn't water down anyway. Right? Like, you're still working remotely, but you don't actually have to be at the house. You don't actually have to have a face to face sit down.

Hey, Gino. Come to my office. We can do a conversation. You're able to do it all virtually.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: So five directors. Five directors. It was it was transactions Yep. Leads, dispo, acquisitions. Marketing.

Marketing. No finance.

Gino: I'm the finance director.

Steve: You're the finance director.

Gino: I'm the finance guy. I learned that in 2022 quick. I need to be on top of that finance director role. So Why? Yeah.

Why? Because I saw money going out of the business that I didn't think was possible coming out of the business, especially when I started. You know, we all started right where I was like, when I first did it, it's like, wait. Hold on. People spend $5 a month on this business?

This is when I first started. Now I'm looking at, like, yeah. Well, we spend multiple we spend 6 figures at every single month no matter what if we make no money. So I quickly realized, like, I need to step it up and try to actually monitor my expenses. So yeah.

So I'm the finance director.

Steve: Got it. Yeah. Alright. So talking about these five, directors. Mhmm.

How did you find how did you find these directors?

Gino: Good question. Of course, the multitude of different ways. Transaction coordinator. So my fiance's been doing it for two and a half years, and and so she that was pretty easy find. She's She's laying next to me in my bed.

Steve: Personal question. Yeah. Was she a transaction coordinator and then your fiance? No.

Gino: Because we met when we were 15. So Okay. There's no TCs involved at 15 years old. But I

Steve: just wanna make sure you're right. Like, for everyone else, like, hey. Like, you know, we

Gino: all It wasn't a HR problem. No. It was well before that. Right?

Steve: Okay. Alright. So your fiance? Alright. So that one's the easier one.

Yeah.

Gino: That's the easier one. Right? So then, marketing director, his name's Adam. He's he came from actually being a referral from Jared, which is a former acquisition manager of mine. He became an acquisition manager, actually.

Adam, I know you said he's marketing director for about two years. He was his his, PI is a, predictive index for behavioral test, is a I don't wanna butcher it because he just retook it. Operator. Mhmm. And I had him in the, the PI or had him in a sales role, which just meant that over time, he's gonna

Steve: hate it.

Gino: He's gonna hate it. So that happens, of course. PI was right. And now I quickly saw that we needed a need for marketing, put him in that. So, again, it was an internal hire.

We go and go over to lead manager director, Jordan. Met him on a plane going to LA in, like, 2020, right before COVID, I actually remember. And, he saw me reading a book, Traction. It's right when I was reading Traction too. And, he's like, what is that about?

And so funny enough, his fiancee now or, actually, his wife now, actually, no one went to the wedding. I should know that. His wife now, was, at that time, just left the sorority, not to go into this, the sorority talk on the real estate structures podcast, but no. Was in the sorority of my fiance now, at our college. So they're like, oh, wait.

We know again, she she left the year before, but they knew each other. And so they started talking on the plane, which led to Jordan talking to me. I told him what I'd do. About six months later, he tried doing it. After six months later, he's like, can I join the team?

So he started as a lead manager back in, like, 2021.

Steve: Got

Gino: it. Early twenty twenty one. And so he's been worked his way up, L and director. Very, like, a rep amazing job. Next is AM director, Marcus, which Steve, you'd work with him, train him.

Amen. Just through social media. That's how I found him. Yeah. Worked with us for a year as an AM.

A little bit actually less than that, and then quickly saw that he had the leadership skills. The ability to communicate very well

Steve: to

Gino: to the other, acquisition managers, AM director. And then, Brad is our disposition investment sales rep director. Sells our deals. It came from social media and, very he worked in a more and he worked on his own too. I think he worked in a Keeley franchise as well, but been amazing.

Knows way more than what I would know, and that's the goal, obviously, for your p four eight to go in there. And so, again, social media. So it's a mix of social media, you know, in person. I just met him on the plane, Jordan, but, and then internal. So all over the place, to be honest.

Steve: So pretty good to have a former Kaylee guy.

Gino: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: They they have some pretty good internal training on Dispo.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: Yeah. But the power of social media. Right? And so but they didn't find you through social media. You found Marcus through social media.

Gino: No. They found me through social media.

Steve: They found you through social media.

Gino: Through your point, Marcus and Brad both found me through social media.

Steve: Yeah. So, I mean, the power of social media. So talk about, like, the Yeah.

Gino: The

Steve: fact that's had for you.

Gino: Yeah. No. A lot of my people, I think probably out of the 30, probably 10 came from social media. They saw me post, and it's great that we're a virtual company too because we got people that Marcus lives in Washington. Marquise joined us earlier this year or last year.

Excuse me. He's in Florida. So, yeah, the power of social media, man, just putting stuff out there and showing people that you're actually doing this business. And I gotta do a better job, to be honest. The last three months, it took a little hiatus from it.

But I need to get back on it and, you know, that just showing people that you're doing this business, I think, is a lot of respect, especially in the last year and a half when a lot of people we know left the business or they're not doing it.

Steve: Early retirement.

Gino: Yeah. Early retirement. They took a little break. But, no. So yeah.

That's the ability, I think, to social media allow give you, you know, the credibility to see you doing it. They see you hanging out with Steve. They see you hanging out with Eric or Rand or Ryan or whoever it is. Right? So I think it's very important, not only just for, you know, hiring people, but, you know, I I think for long term longevity in this business being owned so that you could pivot on certain things.

Right?

Steve: Yeah. And, there are a couple different advice I remember in our we have a ton of conversations over the years Mhmm. And in in mentorship. One of them, I think, kinda took the hard other one, I think. Went went sideways.

But, yeah, I was pushing so hard to create content. Yeah. Right? And I think you just fought it so hard.

Gino: Yeah. It was it's not naturally something, you know, like obviously, I'm extroverted on, you know, I I am like, again, excuse me, I get, you know, power. I feel great talking to people, but just, like, putting the camera on, I was just it's just that, you know, it drains me. Right?

Steve: Yeah. But I was pushing you, like, dude, your your brand should be, like, the college kid that wholesales. Yeah. And I was pushing you to create, like, TikTok not TikTok, Instagram reels or Instagram videos. I guess at the time because reels wasn't the thing yet.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, go create Instagram content of you talking about doing wholesale deals while you're at college. Yeah. Right?

But I think, like, I got a lot of pushback there. The other

Gino: thing Yeah. It was the the way but, yeah, that's another thing. Yeah. We did this all through college. It's helped me build that virtual team as well because it forced me to have into have to go to school, you know, even though I didn't really go that way.

I mean, I went to school, but I didn't really, you know, eight hours a day or eight hours a week versus

Steve: Well and because you were doing well in wholesale, you could afford a VA.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. To take

Steve: your classes.

Gino: And that's what we did. Yeah. You know, I did have a VA. My executive assistant still today is, she did at the later part of my she did a lot of presentations and tests for me. So Yeah.

Steve: She deserves her own degree.

Gino: Off the record. Exactly. Exactly.

Steve: Not to out you. Yeah.

Gino: Yeah. Yeah. I know.

Steve: On a public podcast. I got

Gino: my diploma still, man. Don't worry. I can't take it from me.

Steve: But the other thing too was, you know, we're talking about building your brand, leveraging TV. No. My understanding, you don't do TV.

Gino: Yeah. So that was a big thing you were talking to me about. Right? I started in the beginning or 2020 right after the election Mhmm. Strategically.

But, started TV and did it for two years. And when 2022, the '22 hit, but towards that end period, it just yeah. It it it was starting to swallow. You're getting $35.40 grand a month. Right.

And you're not seeing any return or very little. But, again, to your, for you bringing it up, like, Steve told me, you know, if you're doing this for ten more years, people will know you. And, you know, even those I did it only for two years. I still have a lot of people that, you know, friends, family, and also other people, like, oh, hey. You're doing the TV commercial.

Steve: Yeah.

Gino: To Steve's point, which kinda is contradicting what I'm saying, I need to get probably back on in some sort of marketing capacity.

Steve: You know Steve Ham. Yep. Right? PPC Force. PPC Force.

So I was talking to him, and he was we were having a conversation about, like, if I wanna do PPC and Phoenix, it was other than that. Dude. Well, you could do it. A, you should do it. B, also know you're going against the buzz saw.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. What are you talking about? Like, Doug Hopkins.

So so who cares? Right? Like, I'm gonna say Marcus Doug, but we're doing PPC. Like, what's the difference?

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Nobody could top Doug Hopkins in conversion rates. Meaning, if you go to Steve Trang's PPC site, you're gonna get between 1316% conversion rate. 13 to 16% of people landing on the page are going to put their their information in. Yep. Right?

That's industry standard. There's nothing good or bad. That's just how it is. Yep. My understanding is Doug Hopkins has a 25% option rate.

Right?

Gino: Like, if you 50% more. Yeah.

Steve: Like, sell my house fast, buy my house. Oh, I'm on Doug Hopkins page. 25%. Right? So that means he's getting more leads Yep.

Cheaper because Google is seeing it has a really good conversion rate.

Gino: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: So he's buying more deals, getting more leads, and he's paying less on TPC Yep. Because of his brand.

Gino: Exactly. Alright.

Steve: So I guess with all that being said, are you gonna be going back on TPC then?

Gino: I think it's a definitely possibility. Now with that being said, I'm also in three different areas now. Atlanta is not really where we're finding the most return on our list. So that's why it's I mean, ancient it's a question I should be saying is yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Dad.

Steve: Well, I'm just curious. Right? Because, when you were doing TV and it was harder, you weren't doing the MLS audio.

Gino: I was. You were? I was. Yeah. For for it just happened that the MLS model was during the 2022.

I started in 2022. So I'll start and when I mean I start, I start MLS in 2022 and TV in 2020.

Steve: Yeah.

Gino: So it was towards one year of doing that OS model.

Steve: I was just curious how that would look.

Gino: Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it would be a lot better. I think during that time, though, like, we mentioned that 2022 is a little dark age. I know in Phoenix, it hit hard in that June 2022.

Steve: Still have it. That's cars.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. So and and then it hurt all the big, I think, markets in San Diego and even, like I said, Georgia. Like, I mean, it just wasn't. So, I mean, like you said, I might have caught the bad end.

It stick there and got a little bit too. But Atlanta is another, like, market where you got Doug here. You got, a lot of big players. Opendoor, why oh, of course. So I forgot his name.

Mark Spain. I mean, I know you're not in the area, but you've probably heard of Mark Spain.

Steve: Yeah. If you talk to Amanda realtor world, you know Mark Spain.

Gino: Yeah. If you talk to Amanda, which, you know, she was here last week in Nashville, like, he's ginormous. In Nashville, Georgia, Southern Florida, I think maybe even near South Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, the guy dominates dominates. And I think, PPC force we ran PPC force in Atlanta. Cost per click was, like, $750 Per click.

No. Per click. Ask Steve Hamm. I know it sounds ridiculous. He was telling me because he's like, look.

You're you need to spend, like, a 100 and something thousand dollars to even get the leads that you wanna hit. Then you gotta convert. Yeah. I know. It sounds like but I'm telling you, it's cost per click.

Like, it's, like, a ridiculous amount that you had some because usually, what's cost per click usually?

Steve: $40 ish right here.

Gino: Okay. Well, then maybe I'm retarded. No. Maybe that's my visionary talking in there. But I I swear it was like, okay.

So maybe it's cost per lead. Yeah. But I still think it was it was something ridiculous. But it was it was still 800 and something dollars. Because here, it's probably what?

4 or 500 cost per lead?

Steve: Cost per lead. Cost per lead, I think these days, probably closer to $250

Gino: Okay.

Steve: Because, only because we had a lot of people retire early

Gino: Oh, they left early?

Steve: In the wholesale business.

Gino: Back in the day, it was, like, 4 or 500

Steve: Oh, yeah. $400 a month. I think that that was just normal.

Gino: So when that was going on in Georgia, because this was 2022, I think still people are trying to survive. They were taking early retirement. They're still trying to survive. They, in Georgia, like I said, it was, like, $7.58 50. It's like, dude, dude, it you're not spending a 100 k a month.

You're not even gonna hit in Atlanta. And that's partially why we started adapting to just try these other markets that still had very good median sale home price. Right? So we can still get our deal size that we want. They still had very low supply, low days on market, and I'm talking about Dallas and Raleigh Durham so that it still would facilitate and not increase our cash conversion cycle while still having the MSA, this population, the target.

Because even up to about two months ago, we were very heavily SMS. Not that that was our only marketing source, but it was heavily SMS marketing. All point being back to TV and back to what we're talking about is, like, we're that's why maybe you should start building a brand in those other markets too as you will.

Steve: Could be Mark Spain.

Gino: It could be Mark Spain and big Marky. I could take him out. It's gonna be it's gonna take a

Steve: little bit more money.

Gino: A little

Steve: bit of time.

Gino: It takes I think I got the time on him, and I think he's probably, I guess, in his age, probably, like, 40. Yeah. 24. So we got another twenty years to

Steve: In fifteen years, it'd be bigger. Exactly. Yeah. So talk to me about expanding the Dallas and Raleigh. Yeah.

So, like, what was the vision in going to the markets? Because I think you were, Dallas was the first market you expanded to, or was Raleigh?

Gino: Yep. Dallas was the first one.

Steve: Okay. So why why Dallas?

Gino: Yeah. So back to the the what I was just mentioning is what we wanna figure out, obviously, you wanna check all the boxes. We wanna still be able to dispel them a list, or we're still able to do that in Texas. We still wanna be able to, reach a lot of people. We're SMS marketing.

We need to go through data like crazy. Dallas Fort Worth is a huge MSA. We can do that there. Right? Just as much as Georgia.

I think they're just, you know, they're I think four or five not they're bigger. So that's the point. Right? So they're we can hit just as much people. Their days on market and we specifically, just, the the tryout Dallas, we pulled 50,000 records and, of the top k or the top ZIP codes that had the most cash sales and most people that were, you know, buying in there.

So we did that. We didn't just hit all of it at first, and so we went in there with the targeted mindset because, again, median home price, the amount of population, the low supply that was still there during this time was just this they're all equivalent to Georgia. If you put them next to each other I remember looking back on this with Chandler when we were there, and we're like, it's pretty much Georgia right here just, you know, two hour plane right away. Yeah. Now with that being said, obviously, we had difficulties with it being an hour behind us.

We had to change phone numbers. You know, back to talking about in person versus over the phone, I had that same conversation for the last five years, like, I did there with go stay in your state. You can take all your your all your, money in Georgia. You don't need to leave the state, and I've fought for five years on that too. Like, yeah.

I can. I'm I'm going deeper and deeper. Got to a point with SMS. We're sending 27,000 outbound text a day. There does get a point where it becomes like, alright.

Let's try to target some low hanging fruit somewhere else. Right? And so that's what we did. Quickly saw success. Did three multiple 6 figure wholesales.

So we're, like, oh, you got like, we there's such a good deals. We're not gonna put these on the most. We're gonna buy them, last year. And so that was a big thing again, though. Back to your point is just looking at demographics, looking at the supply, looking at the median price, looking at days on market.

That was the reason we took Dallas. It looks similar to Georgia, and we felt still being out of the disco there like we do now. Let's try it out. Right? Yeah.

A lot of people. Same thing with Raleigh Durham. Less people there. But regarding statistics, they're way better than Georgia. Days on market's so low compared to Georgia.

I think I just looked at it again last week. I think it was, like, nine or 10 in Raleigh Durham, and Georgia now is at, like, eighteenth. So that's, like, for days on market and same, like, supplies. And this is Oh. They're they're the best at the time when I was looking for this.

Excuse me. It was, like, in July or, yeah, July. They were the best by far in terms of the whole country other than some little markets in in California that had that very hot stuff. But, you know, like, in in the Southeast where we're at, like, they were the hottest market. So quickly pivoted there.

Again, worked in slowly, bought some data, went in there and where we saw the success, started targeting it. And now it's like I said, it's about 40% of our marketing spend goes to Raleigh Durham in Texas.

Steve: So you pull data. What data do you like? For the statistics or With SMS?

Gino: Oh, for me? Oh, for SMS. Yeah. For where we get our data, Audantic. But, you know, of course, it gives you a certain amount of records.

You get tapped out. We pull from straight from the, county as well. I mean, PropStream's in there too with the county stuff, but, like, PropStream, and we we just pull everything at this point. Eighty twenty is a very good software, or very good data. We don't have as much with them, but they're very good as well.

I like to put them on the podcast because I hear everyone doing creative eighty twenty. But, yeah, that's where most of our stuff is, like, just a bulk data and just freaking nail and bail, man. Nail and bail. I'm an SMS. And, obviously, that's seen some of its challenges in the last six months.

I say we did a really good job other than November. Started really getting hit hard, and that's why going into this year, to to make a quick story on it, going to this year, we about took SMS down in half, focused on doing some cold call, doing that that at scale. Now I feel really confident my cold calls are probably best return right now. Mhmm. And then mail and PPL paper leaked.

Steve: Who are you using for Coles?

Gino: Coles are using PBS, which I don't know if you heard about them. So they used to be the white label to Carlos and Sal's company, Hall Geeks. They would be the ones that are making calls. The Egyptians. But, you know, they had a little beef going on.

Steve: They'll fall out.

Gino: But I don't get they're giving us the stuff. I and, like, I said the same guy. I saw their whole message. You don't know who's telling what, not to discredit any side. And we talked to them.

They, of course, they said that's all BS and that. And and, again, I think the guy that they had that the beef with Carlos and Sal is not the same. Like, they're, like, friends, This company, they're not the same. He had his own company off this company. Anyway, long story short, they're giving us, like, a nine x return right now.

I don't care who they are, man. I don't care what's going on. I mean, obviously, we have ethics in it, but, like, we got nine x return we're spending. We just bumped it up to this month, so I can't give you an accurate number. But back, we were spending, I think, like, eight grand a month in an assistant nine x return.

Steve: Yeah. So I'm glad to hear that, full call call still work for you guys. So so PBS?

Gino: PPL. Yeah. Yeah. PPS is the cold calling company.

Steve: And then PPL, who are you looking right now for PPL?

Gino: PPL, we started in December heavily. Motivated Leads is great. Lead Zolo is one. And then the Property Leads. Property Leads.

Steve: I don't think I've heard of that one.

Gino: I I I think that's their name. I can ask for marketing director.

Steve: Okay. I think I think I get marketing material from them, but

Gino: I don't think I mean, to be honest, in, August or excuse me, December when we started, I think we spent about, $18, and we got, like, four contracts. And I was like

Steve: Pretty good.

Gino: That's that's pretty good, but, you know, with us, we're 60% right now of all. So it's like you take that to maybe two or three closings. Let's say it's two. You're at 9 k per cost per deal. It's a four roughly four extra churn.

Just like I said, our deal says about $3,335,003 point something. It's not the gray. So I was a little bit like, okay. That's good, but let's see if we can't pump a five or six, especially spending not that much money. I mean, I know 80 k's a lot, but at the same time, it's not like you're spending 50 a month.

Right. And now, the start of this year, I think we have up to today, January 10, we're at, like, nine contracts, and six of them came from PPL.

Steve: Gotcha.

Gino: So now you asked me today how much? I'm on the hot burn for PPL now too.

Steve: So no PPC. No PPC. Okay.

Gino: Now that might be something in the future with not in Atlanta because, like, I told you we had the experience there, and it was not a great experience. So then these other markets, Dallas and Yeah. Probably Durham.

Steve: And, I mean, mean, you talk about Atlanta. We we mentioned some big names, but there's also you know, Paddly's there.

Gino: Well, exactly. Paddly's there, and we're doing similar things. Right? Yeah. Now they don't focus mostly on, you know, paper lead, and they don't do I mean, I'm good friends along.

Go see insurance with them. Fran and pet client. You know, they're focusing mostly on mail. But, you know, regarding the PPC TV, it's not like we're facing them. It was that literally, like and this is a year ago, and PPC was a year ago too, but it's you're facing Open Door, Zillow, off the bat.

The biggest guys are buying I think in Georgia and I know we all felt this in 2021, even parts of 2022 is I think they were the most, they took the most market share in Georgia. I think it was, like, 3030% of the homes bought in 2021 was from a, or it might have been 2022. Excuse me. It was from a hedge fund or a REIT or whatever. Yeah.

So, like, they took the market share in Georgia being I mean, I

Steve: know how that feels.

Gino: Yeah. I was gonna say Phoenix, just the same. Right? Right. So we're competing with those guys.

And when you're talking about them, like, back to the p p c c force Steve, talking to him, and he's like, bro, like, March Spain is spending multiple million dollars a month in Atlanta. You you know what you're gonna have to do to even get some of that. And so we're like, don't do that. And so but back to your point. Yeah.

We still got obviously, they're just in Phoenix. There's multiple people that are doing this. Right? Good relation. I was just hanging out with Clint two weeks ago talking about businesses and learning from them and seeing how he grew that quick.

It's just amazing. Obviously, big help for rent. He'll tell you that himself. But, like, just learning from them, you know, and learning from everyone in our team. It looks like you guys do in Phoenix here.

Right? Just trying to learn from the top guys and take bits and pieces. And I think it's good to mention the show, like, you gotta know what you wanna do. Mhmm. I think you probably share some consent with this.

I don't wanna be doing a million a month. I don't wanna do have the people and do and have that mental stress. I know what it looks like. We know people that do that, and it's it's not as pretty as it seems and seems, and it it's really not the profitability too is not always there. Like, it's much

Steve: chaos. A

Gino: lot of chaos. And so, you know, for me, it's it's looking at it and and try not to compare myself and try to, you know, comparison's thief of joy, but looking at it and say, look, what can I take from him? Him? Not just I'm talking about I'm talking about everyone in our market, anyone at Clifton Genius, take a little piece, and how can I use that to fit my Right? Lifestyle, my dream of a business.

Right?

Steve: Also, how much chaos can we contain? Exactly. Or are you okay with? So talk to me about the challenges of going to a new market.

Gino: I think the big challenge is there is just understanding where you're supposed to be marketing to. Mhmm. For example, if you came to Atlanta, people come to Atlanta and they go to Atlanta, the city of Atlanta. You don't go to city Of Atlanta. Every street's different.

Every, you know, little mark, every house has a different value based on when it was built. You know, again, the big thing was, like, every street, you could be $300 house or a $50 house. 50 might be a drastic thing, but, like, very, very different markets, a very different streets. A lot of people go there, and people don't like flipping there because the county gets the city gets involved. Anyway, point being is, like, if you go to certain areas, you need to learn where is the best for our type of business to get into.

And that's where I think a challenge in the beginning is. And it's talking with luckily, we're in a good group. Collective Genius, we keep mentioning the mastermind we're part of. Talking to guys who are doing deals there and selling them. Like, look, man.

We're gonna come in here, but I wanna work with you. I wanna work some things out. I wanna figure out how we you can benefit with us too if we do some deals. But where would you go? Luckily enough, Brad, who's our dispo director, he's from Texas.

So he had a good background on where we should target marketing. And then in North Carolina, just talking to a lot of guys and then using data to really adjust and then internally see, okay. We're getting a lot of hits in this city. Let's try to blanket the city in SMS text, you know, do a little strategic marketing there. Big thing.

And then think another big thing is we're closing attorneys in Georgia. Both of these, I mean, use closed attorneys. We go through title companies. I think NorthCon is a closing attorney state, but it's just building these relations with those closing attorneys and title companies depending on the state. You know, we've got screwed a couple times where they say they're they answer their calls or they say they have good customer service.

Obviously, everyone does, and then we can't get to a closing scheduled at all. Right? So that's a big difficulty that I would say everyone probably face and you might face if you're doing this. It's just like and you're going nationwide. It's like finding I know you can use nationwide title companies.

You gotta find a really good one to do that too because we've used some of them, and they're, like, they're not giving us as much attention. Right? So they're not maybe giving us the best service. So I think, again, like I said, the the biggest ones is knowing where to market and knowing, who you're gonna get used through your closing journey or your title company. Those are the biggest challenges.

Steve: How would you better closing it, attorney or

Gino: Yeah. I mean, our big thing is referrals. We used referrals and actually bit us in the butt, So we probably should do a better job at doing that. Now we did have a text one we've been using from the beginning. And how we did that is it was referrals, but also having a deeper conversation with their attorneys.

Like, this is what we do. This is how we do it. How quick can you get this done? How quick can you get title back to us? Then let us know if it's good.

How quick can you be able to run all your reports, all your liens? Are you gonna have someone on staff that can work on our deals particularly or give it more? Of course, they're not gonna upfront. They don't know who you are. They aren't gonna say, yeah.

We're putting everyone on you. But, like, hey. If we do this, what would it look like? A little sales trainer from Steel. Like, hey.

If we say we are doing 10 deals a month here, what how what kind of service would it, like, would it look like for us? Start playing and quickly saw, like, this company is legit that or this people were talking about it and, you know, kinda did a little pre preemptively vetting them and making sure that they do deals. And Alright. Biggest thing though, like I mentioned already, though, is is just referrals. There's people that you know.

We know a lot of high high class business owners, high class entrepreneurs that they're using them. Like, obviously, they're they're not crap. Hopefully. Right?

Steve: Hopefully. Well, I mean, we use the we use a company that, you know, in in Vegas. We did we did one Deal. Wholesale in in Vegas. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, that was in the four who it's just I'm doing it. Right? And so, because we were tight with Sean Bob, we used the company that Ryan Pineda has a lot of great relationship with. And I gotta say that's probably one of the worst experiences I ever had.

Gino: Really? Right?

Steve: And I I don't know. But, like, I mean, I don't know. Ryan. Right? It was just Ryan gets great services with Ryan.

Gino: Exactly. See? Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: We're just like, you you've never done a deal with me. You don't know who I am, this and that. And then, you know, being in Phoenix, we're totally spoiled. I we take for granted, how easier how much easier things are here. Mhmm.

You know, it wasn't till we left here and went to other states. Like, service is important here. Exactly. Every title company knows. There's another title company in

Gino: Take your lunch.

Steve: Growing distance.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: You you can hit them with a rock from from there.

Gino: So they're all competing

Steve: and vying for each other. So, like, if they don't pick with the phone, they're not being respectful. Right.

Gino: Yeah. Thanks.

Steve: See you later. And I'm gonna switch. It's the other states. It's just like, yeah. If you don't like our service, too bad.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: And that's just the way it's like.

Gino: How is this how is that possible? Like, even in Georgia, we have a really good relationship with her after five actually, my first deal with them. And, we have a really good relationship, but if I was not to do it with them like, people use this. These guys say the same thing. They said they're terrible.

I'm like, if they're allowed to in Georgia, what you're saying is, like, there's three or four big ones, but you're you're really out of luck if you don't use them. So you gotta be able to Yeah. Adjust. So I I would love that Phoenix ability here, and then you do that.

Steve: Ian here. He's our head coach right in our sales community. He's the one that's running through coaching calls a week. And he was he was in Atlanta for a little bit. And, he was talking about how these guys would not even, like, give any suggestions or direction Yeah.

Without upfront payment. He was like, what? Like, I I just have questions. They're like, yeah. Pay us.

Like so I don't know if that's a good normal thing in Atlanta.

Gino: No. I mean, I haven't experienced that. But, again, I have my relationship with the guy, but I wouldn't doubt that's a lot of other ones. Like I said, it's not as as nice as Phoenix's with that respect.

Steve: Alright. So let's talk about your business today Mhmm. Versus three years ago. I know we talked a lot Mhmm. Right, today that there was a lot of our episodes.

Things have changed. Yeah. But, like, you know, for the listener here who's getting started

Gino: Mhmm. You know,

Steve: comparing to what your life was like when you were at college Yeah. To where your business is today, what are the biggest differences?

Gino: I would say the biggest difference is the talent. Mhmm. I'm transparent. Like, what I've realized in the last year, two years, and I graduated in 2021 since then of using that as the the benchmark. Since then, what I realized is that there's a big difference between b b minus players and a a plus people.

And I've quickly seen our team by adding those people in place whereas, like, what the heck's I can need only one of them to be two of the other people. Right? And I've literally seen that where we've let go two people and brought them one. He did just as much as the other two people. Mhmm.

Or more. Or more. Right? So the example, like you said, like, what did I see since or what's our business look like? Now I feel like we're we're stacked with a talent.

I like to believe everyone is on the team that has a talent. I mean, that they're they just I look at them. There's just heck yeah. Like, face you helped me, Steve, with that question. I was like, knowing what you know now, would you hire them again?

And I can say, at least everyone on my team right now is a heck yes. Right? And so that's important versus in 2021. There are some people who are like, we just need to bring people on. We need to bring people on to make ourself a business.

And back to, again, comparisons, thief and joy. Hey. This guy has, you know, like you said, CG. This guy has this many acquisition managers. This guy has many lead managers.

I need to go hire more people. So in 2021, you know, we let go of some people. And in 2022, the same. I would say I learned a lot from that. And I said, really, the last year, 2023, has allowed me to step back and say, look.

Let's break this down. Let's get the best people. Let's get the a talent, and let's really focus on bringing in, a team. I feel we always had great culture, but really now focusing deep on the a talent and recruiting as if it's, like, leads in our system, marketing, which I'm sure you're obviously aware of. Doing that, teaching, you know, my training my mind is, like, look.

I gotta be a recruiter. I'm trying to recruit a couple people now, which I've learned from, like, Eric and Phil. Like, trying to, like, not take them from other people's companies, but I'm over here trying to and that no one that and that we know. But, like, I know this guy does this. What can I offer him?

Like, what special things can I get to get him on our side and try to work with us? So, like, this that mindset, I said, is a big change in the last two years is and I think it'll help me throughout my life as a business owner if I'm doing wholesaling or not. It's just the ability of, you know, finding talent and bringing them on.

Steve: Yeah. Phil and Eric, I think, are the absolute best Yeah. Than you wanna know at identifying and recruiting and retaining

Gino: talent. Exactly. Retaining.

Steve: I mean, retaining talent. So, like, it was, you know, when Wren and I, we launched ourselves the issue of training.

Gino: Mhmm.

Steve: And, you know, people would ask us about, you know, retaining this and that. I was like, you know, like, the best the best are Phil and Eric. Yeah. But if you wanna learn it, there's no better than us to teach it because those guys won't teach you.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. No. No. They're, they I mean, they're always go giving, but like you said, I mean, I would say regarding how they do things, the best of the best Yeah.

A lot of things that they do Right. Recruiting.

Steve: But these guys have their heads down, and they're only focused on one thing and one thing only. And that's building the best Exactly. Real estate company in the planet.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: So besides financial freedom, what else do you love about real estate?

Gino: I love solving big problems. I think what's good about this business is and a lot of businesses, every business, you're solving a problem. Whether you're working at a restaurant or not, you gotta solve the problem of getting the client the food. But, you know, in this business, like, we're solving problems that like, literally, like, yesterday, we had my first ever eviction. Luckily, Adam, our marketing director, went there and was witness in court and was fighting for us.

And I'm looking at that again while you're saying you get excited. It's like, that challenge right there just saved us, like or we're gonna make 60 something thousand dollars on that deal. We just solved a problem, and it was a problem with getting a tenant out from a for a seller that's gonna make us $60,000. You mean? Right?

So point being is, like, this you know? And I think everyone watching this is doing deals. There's it's so fun when for me, I like to think I well, I I do enjoy it, but I like to think I'm pretty good at it. It's like when Dyspo or TC are bringing me some sort of problems and, you know, my goal is empower them and try not to be oversteppy to to keep doing a better job with that. But Mhmm.

They bring me stuff, and I love just wait. Why don't we throw that to them? Why don't we give the the tenant, if you're not letting us in, which we train on? Why don't we give him, like, you know, a $50 gift card here? Oh, he doesn't want that?

What if we take, his family out to eat at their favor certain things like that where we can go and solve the problem because that axis is gonna allow us to make 40 k on this deal. Or let's, you know, again, solve these problems. And and I think other than just, you know, doing what making money and and, you know, traveling and what this business allowed me to do is is also just, like, constantly be trying to solve different problems and learn stuff.

Steve: Yeah. And I think for us, being the, what are you you're a persuader?

Gino: No. I was a persuader. Yeah. Now it's just a maverick, but Maverick. Persuader originally.

Steve: I don't believe maverick. I think that's wrong.

Gino: So it's a b over a maverick. Okay.

Steve: So that

Gino: makes sense.

Steve: That makes sense. Yeah. So, Maverick, right, for me, I've my profile now says venture. Right? But, like, what do we do as high a's on PI?

We love solving problems. Yeah. That's our favorite thing to do. Another thing I forgot, I was, about this. I just thought of this now because you're talking about solving problems.

I had a proud proud papa moment. Right?

Gino: Oh, yeah. Here we go.

Steve: Right. So we're at CG, and Jeremy Miner's on stage. Uh-huh. Remember that?

Gino: Yeah. I remember it. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. And he went around. He's asking people, and he hit him with an objection. And I know you felt like that wasn't your best moment. Yeah.

But you did good.

Gino: Yeah. And it it was funny that you bring it up because I I was thinking about that a little bit ago. And I was like, to set the scene, so Jeremy Miner, you guys might know him as sales trainer. And he was on the siege, like you said, Steve, on the stage, and he came up, like, start the presentation. He just looked at him in the eye.

And I was just doing something, like, oh my I was writing something down. I look up. He's staring at me. He's like and he does to my fence, he, like, he don't understand our our how we work in our business next day. He's like, you cold called me, you know, three days later, and I call you back and say I'm not interested.

I was like, what the hell was he talking about? So I had a brain fart for, like, the first, like anyone that watched this, the CG that they would know, like, this they were laughing. I was just sitting there like, what? What what do you want me to do? But, yeah, to Steve's point, you know, I remember just saying to him, like like, what did I do wrong or something?

Like, his response was like yeah. And he was the seller that said, hey. I'm no longer interested in selling. Is there something I did wrong? Mhmm.

Steve: But you

Gino: can go ahead and have them Well,

Steve: that was I was saying, like, it was a it was a it was a probably one because, like, I'm interested in where so you went straight to sad puppy

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Takeaway. You know, I wasn't even sure I could help you anyway.

Gino: Yeah.

Steve: And, like, for me, I was like, yeah. Like, even under fire because you weren't you were on your phone or Yeah. Yeah. I was like, yeah. Fire or something, and he hit you with an objection that you weren't even listening for.

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: And you still were able to handle objections. Yeah.

Gino: I think, Steve, like I was saying, guys, if you haven't the training that I've learned from you, again, I started in in the 2020. Steve sold me on it. However, you covered that call. I was like, shit. And that that sound of those biggest thing, I think it was, you know, it was over $10,000 to do it, which is well worth it.

Right? You see what we're talking about, the people I know because of Steve getting on this podcast now before anyway, back to the point is, like, the sales training that I've learned through that and the the things I've learned help me every day through things. And not just through business, which has made millions of dollars to the training that we learned from Steve, but also, you know, from just hanging out with family members, talking to my fiance. Now she catches on, obviously. Now she'd be laughing.

Like, listen to this. Like, I can't push away. Hey. Probably no way we could go to this restaurant. Like, just but at the same time, like, you're bringing up is the ability to have that now trained in my head.

Like, I was talking earlier is, like, you keep it forever now.

Steve: Yeah.

Gino: Thanks to Steve, though. Yeah. Thanks. Big Steve, though.

Steve: It was it was totally internalized. Like, you didn't have to spend a lot of time thinking about it. It's like, well, I don't know. I'm just pulling away.

Gino: Yeah. I'm just pushing away, man. I don't know what's going on exactly.

Steve: What's your biggest struggle today?

Gino: I would say our biggest struggle today. I mean, we got a struggle in every single day. I would say the biggest struggle for me is constantly being a better leader. I think I've taken a lot of leadership stuff. I think that that's the one room I still believe I have a lot of growth in, and maybe you never become a great leader, like, to your own respect.

But I feel like there's some times where I maybe overstep boundaries. There's I'm I'm friends some of my friends that now are the AM direct or excuse me, the, marketing director. Like, Adam, like, sometimes might jump over boundaries saying stuff, and, I got no one to really like, I try to tell him, like, if I'm saying something, like, too over the top, like, make sure you come after me. And, obviously, it's only so much you can do. Mhmm.

Right? I think it's getting better now. I'm not saying that to strengthen a terrible boss, but, you know, like, certain things, like, mess around 24 years old. Yeah. Right?

Started this 19. So you can see kind of what the culture of the business is. It's from a 19 to a 24 year old. So we have no filters and a lot of stuff, and only to bring it up in this conversation. Like, maybe sometimes I take it too far.

I like to think I get it right back, but, you know, back to the thing, like, just being a better leader, empowering our leaders, giving them what they need. I think what I should do and this has actually hit me hard the other couple weeks ago, is, and I was actually talking to Clint about this. And I'm all big about education. We've talked about this on the show already. Right?

A lot of stuff I do, and I I got Steve training a lot of our team. But I need to invest more in some of these directors and some leadership, including myself, but invest in them more in in in targeted mentorship. Right? I pay for one on one a lot for people. Like, we talked about, do that the same for them.

Get them on one on one with other people's COOs, whether it was their guidance. You know? Whoever it is. Right? And start investing more into them.

Mhmm. And And I like the thing I do again. I Steve's training, we have a lot of trainers, but just think again, being a better leader and empowering the directors, give them what they as many things as I can to allow them to succeed. So I'll say that's a little struggle mentally that I'm dealing with. It's just coming that better leader and empowering the team even more.

I'd like to think you could always be a little better. But

Steve: One of the best investments I ever made, was to hire Larry Yatch. Yep. Right? And, this is the time where, like, alright. See, we need to remove your business.

I don't know if I'm ready for that.

Gino: Yeah. Alright.

Steve: So we hired Larry Ash, and he was on the show, some time ago. He was the top Navy SEAL on the ground at Iraq while we obeyed. Right? Last time. And, man, like, him working, it wasn't one on one.

It was him having coaching sessions with my, department leaders. Mhmm. That was one of the best, the best. Now we're all talking the same language. We're all using the same words.

We're using the same when we're referencing this or that, like, we're all we all know what we're talking about.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: And, man, that increased accountability to a level that we never had. Yeah. So I'm just throwing that out there.

Gino: No. And then we actually did put on it. We did that, but we didn't pay for Larry. There's a little bit significant difference in price. So we went, like, another route, and I don't think we didn't get what we was our fault, to take into extreme ownership.

And, like, the book it was our fault. Yeah. But, you know, that's that's where we're at with it. So There

Steve: were a few different pricing options, and I went with Larry for one reason only. And that was because I'm I just know myself. Yeah. If you're trained by Larry and you teach me,

Gino: I just can't Yeah.

Steve: Exactly. Serious.

Gino: Dude, that's what I think happened.

Steve: But if Larry says it alright. Like, let's go. Right? Like, okay. You you ran the the steel units?

Okay. Yeah. Let's do this.

Gino: Let's do this. Let's go. Right?

Steve: Like, when a SEAL says it because I remember one time I said something, and he said to me, in all seriousness, Steve, I can never go to battle with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, why is that?

I was like, your lack of attention to detail is gonna get someone killed.

Gino: So, yeah, when you hear it from him, then you're Yeah.

Steve: When he says it

Gino: Then he says that

Steve: you're Right. That's one thing. When and we talked through it and this and as okay. I I I understand the responsibilities now. Right?

Because, again, we're paying for coaching. Yeah. But one of his

Gino: coaches

Steve: said that. I was like, yeah. Whatever.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. I'm

Steve: now with you.

Gino: Exactly. And that might be a thing for that is me too. And I think that's what ended up happening. So no. But back to your thing, I'd love to look back into it more and do some other, like, leadership stuff.

I know Dan Hardy. Right? That's who Darren Hardy. Darren Hardy. Yeah.

Steve: Darren Hardy was awesome. I I I've learned a lot from Darren Hardy, John Maxwell, Simon Sinek. Yeah. But I would say the one that was the most impactful was Larry Yash. And I think the only reason why it was more impactful is because he gave us a unified language, and he coached us as a unit.

Yeah. Whereas everything else was, like Individual. I learned it. Yeah. Right?

I like, we or we we read the books together. Right? We read the five dysfunctional team together. Right? Like, there's that, and that's great.

But it's different when you have the instructor instructing your entire team so you guys can all grow in the books and send directions. Oh, yeah. I like it. Yeah. What would you say is your superpower now?

Today?

Gino: I think connecting with people, relationships. I feel like I've done a good job over the years, five years connecting with people. We've kinda talked about it earlier. Maybe it's paying the relationship, but overall, it's keeping it going and and keeping those relationships flowing and and being able to provide value. Again, going into these not to just oh, the value is paying, but also, oh, furthermore, trying to provide more, to that person or individual as much as I can.

Right?

Steve: Yeah. I think that's a big thing. Even though, you paid to be in the room, you're an active participant. And I can say, running a program is actually another struggle. Right?

It's getting people to wanna come into the room, but once they're in the room, they're quiet.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: And it's like, okay. So, like, now I'm just like I just kinda picture myself as a college professor that's just droning.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. Right?

Steve: Like, sounding monotone, like, the the teacher in, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Right? Like, if there's very little participation, it's like, alright. Well, I can help you guys getting something.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: But you're coming in like, alright, Steve. I'm dealing with this. Alright, Steve. I'm dealing with that. Hey.

We did this. This didn't work. We did this. We had the success. Hey.

Like, now that I've got this figured out, what's next? Like, for me, as a mentor, it's way more satisfying to see someone go from point a, you know, like j or or or k or whatever, right, versus, like, okay. Like, you're, like, 10% better

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. Than when

Steve: you started here.

Gino: No. No. I think it's important, like you said, just asking questions and and being, like I try to get into the rooms. Everyone says it, but I try to be in the the dumbest one in the room. And pretty easy to do that CG.

Like, you're looking around at, oh, what the heck is going on? I don't even know what I'm doing compared to some of these guys. But I think, like you mentioned, just asking questions. You do a good job, and we'll probably have a lot more coming in the sales team because we're running these hybrid calls. I think we've already talked to you about it.

Steve: Oh, yeah. We've talked about them.

Gino: Yeah. So they're starting that tomorrow. So good luck to big Marcus and Marquise. But

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I I I love Marcus, poor Marcus, Marcus Damo. Yeah. He's he's the guy I pick on whenever we're talking about, difficult people.

Gino: That's good.

Steve: We're talking about, like, you know, high d personalities. Yeah.

Gino: How do

Steve: you deal with high d personalities? Like, alright. Can you imagine Marcus if I called him and asked him how his day was going today?

Gino: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Oh, so you can respond?

Gino: Exactly. Why are

Steve: we asking this question? So thanks, Marcus, for putting up with that.

Gino: Big Marcus. Individualist. Right? That's where you originally tested?

Steve: It makes sense. Yeah. It makes sense, individualist. Which failure have you learned the most from?

Gino: I mean, obviously, a lot of failures. Right? Failure I learned the most from, I would say and they're not necessarily failures, but the business partnerships. I think that's something I learned a lot from is just being constantly communicating, constantly identifying if this is a long term fit, asking yourself if this is a long term fit, because that kind of flows into your employees too. And, just realizing and seeing, like, what does the future look like?

And not just because it's very easy. Right? Put your glasses on. Just start driving and not think about what's gonna be in front of you really, you know. And and what I mean by that is, like, it's easy to get stuck in the weeds of the business and just work and grind.

And I think that's what happened with Chandler and me and, you know, we were just like, let's keep going. Let's grind. Let's grind. And we're not like, what what are we what's the goal in the future? What do you want to be doing?

Why are we doing this? And it's just like going back to this the fundamentals of, are we gonna be to get do we want to do this in the future together? Do we wanna do, you know, this and and not just partnerships and your employees. Right? And so if you can have that conversation clarity, like, hey.

We're on for the ride. Let's go. This is where we want to go. Again, it's my job to be a better CEO and leader and show the people and and identify this.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gino: But it still helped me today. Like you said, it's, you know, something you learned from. And I think that's the biggest thing really right there. The the biggest lesson is just constantly be doing that. And I still, again, not perfect, but trying to constantly be, you know, seeing that The

Steve: iteration.

Gino: In future partnerships. I know that now. I have that on the side of my hip, you know.

Steve: Yeah. And, we had Jacob McKinney. He's in the the whale club, and we're talking about it this morning. I think he said partnership charter. It's an actual book.

And I'm like, hey. Here are all the questions you should ask each other before you agree. Right? Yeah. That's You Brilliant.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. There's so many. Right?

Steve: Right. Like, yeah, I wish we because, like, we've done the the attorney stuff. Right? Like, the attorney is like, hey. We're gonna have an operating agreement.

Yeah. Happens to this, happens to that. And that's great. Right? Exactly.

But that's really a moral, like, how do we divorce well?

Gino: Exactly. This is not like,

Steve: how do we make sure we're completely aligned in the future?

Gino: Exactly.

Steve: So partnership charter, shout out to

Gino: I gotta check that out. Yeah, Jake. I know Jake too. So

Steve: Yeah. He's he's another rock star.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. You provide a bunch of value.

Steve: Yeah. So, wrapping up, what are some last thoughts? You'd like to leave all of us there. So

Gino: I think comparison is the Easter joy. I like I know that came up a couple times already. Like, in this business specifically, I know, I mentioned too a little bit is that we help and coach a couple clients and not a couple a lot of people. And a big thing I see them doing is they kinda compare either to us, coaching them, or they try to compare it against their friend that they hear about on Real Estate Disruptors podcast, or Masterminds. Right?

And they don't know, like, the true, like, what's going on in the business and more importantly, like, what that person wants to do in the future. And it's very easy to say, oh, this guy is doing this many deals and be like, I need to build my team like that. And I've learned over the last two years, and that's where I probably it's a good thing to leave off is, like, just designing my life and designing what I wanna I don't want to do a million dollars a month.

Steve: I need to talk about I

Gino: don't want to do even probably, like, $7.50 a month. I'd rather build a team as profitable as can be, as tight niche as it can be, that can run effectively without me being there. And I feel like we're doing that or on the pace to do that right now. It's where we can make money or I can make money, and I can go work on something else. And, again, if I was just to copy other people, you we listed some names today.

It's very easy to say, we need to go way faster. We're failing because we're not hitting those people's numbers. And Yeah. I think for me, like I said, it's just something you gotta do if you're listening to this is don't look at my thing. Right?

My thing has been five years.

Steve: Of course,

Gino: I'm not even close to the biggest fish in the sea. Right? But don't look at me to compare yourself. Don't look at, you know, anyone else necessarily. You can use that to fuel your fire.

You can use that to take stuff. Again, not just to don't look at other people for, you know, to help you. Like, I'm not saying do that, but, you know, just use some things and and design it around your life. And I think that goes back to just doing, I think, the gap and the gain. We know that book, Dan Sullivan, right, and, Ben Hardy, where they talk about, like, look at yourself.

Don't compare your other people. Compare yourself from three years ago. Compare like, compare myself five years ago. I didn't even know what wholesaling was or a little over five years ago. And now, you know, we do a multiple $100,000 a month in wholesaling revenue.

I would never thought that was possible. So, like, just that right there just makes you feel a lot better as a person, gaining more confidence, and, again, makes you feel better.

Steve: Yeah. You're not comparison to what you don't have. You can very figure yourself to what you've done.

Gino: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Awesome. Someone wants to reach out to, you know, a big boss, Gino. Big boss. How do they do that?

Gino: Yeah. And they reach out to me on Instagram. Gino, g I n o, Palomba. They spelled it out there, Dane.

Steve: I saw that.

Gino: Disrupt you guys. No. Just kidding. Palomba, P A L O M B A. So reach out to me.

Like, I'm open to questions. Got a YouTube channel. I need to pump that back up. But I like to thank me and Chandler. We both put out a lot of value for, you know, people starting or people still doing deals.

And, you know, you got questions, hit me up. And like I said, I started by doing that. Steve helped me out a bunch. Max Maxwell, a lot of those guys. So I'm willing to help in in any questions you guys got.

Steve: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Gino: Thank you, Steve.

Steve: Having you on.

Gino: Thank you.

Steve: Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you next time. Steve train. Jump on a Steve train. We real estate disrupt us.