Charles Nguyen Shares How He Started His Wholesale Business with One VA While Working a Corporate Job

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we have Charles Nguyen, the facilitator, and he flew in from Houston to talk about how he quit his comfy corporate job and did wholesale on the side until he was able to go full time. If this is your first time tuning in, I am Steve Trang, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only MLS for off market wholesale properties, which will be launching in Texas in just a couple of weeks in Houston. And I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires, so let's connect on Instagram, steve dot trang, if you if you're interested in joining the mission.

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And this is a live show, so please post your questions for Charles to answer. You ready?

Charles Nguyen: Yep. Let's drop some value.

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

Charles: So what got me into real estate? It's time. That's, to me, the most valuable commodity that we have. Mhmm. It's, you use it up, you're never gonna get it back.

Yeah. So, I've I'm probably a very stereotypical, person in the sense that, I'm a was a corporate guy all my life. Mhmm. And, I worked I legitimately worked probably the ninety hundred hours a week in investment banking. So, I just needed to do something where I could spend more time with the family, and that's kinda what drove me to start looking at other other avenues to, you know, do something besides sit in front of the computer all day.

And So

Steve: grew up. Parents told you I had to go to college. Yeah. Alright. Get a degree.

Yes. And get good job. Yes. And you did all those things.

Charles: Yes.

Steve: And you were loving it

Charles: Yes.

Steve: Until Until yeah.

Charles: So, I mean, I probably I grew up the stereotypical Asian. So if you haven't figured out by my last name or kind of my skin tone, then I'm Asian. And I grew up exactly like you said. Good grades. Right?

Probably, I'm guessing, similar to you. If if I came home with a 100, my dad would probably say, what's wrong? They didn't give extra points?

Steve: No extra credit?

Charles: No extra credit. Yeah. So then I started, you know, long story short, but getting back to, the corporate world. Yeah. I was working a whole lot and then I was like, well, I'm spending a lot of time, you know, I enjoy doing it, but also spending a lot of time building someone else's business, whereas, you know, I know you know, I look back now and for sure, I was neglecting kind of my family.

You know, I had a wife. I also have two kids now. So it's, you know, doing things that were taking me away from all of them. And, you know

Steve: So how many kids did you have when you made the conscious decision?

Charles: I had two kids. Yeah. So I had both of them.

Steve: So you're working how many hours a week?

Charles: I was probably, at that time, probably between eighty to ninety hours a week. Really? Yeah. Like yeah.

Steve: What kind of job was this?

Charles: So I was a I was a director of IT at a major investment bank. So Okay. I pretty much looked after the trading floor for commodities. So my my job That's

Steve: not just all the time. That's really stressful.

Charles: Yes. Very stressful. You know? Every everybody's right? We we literally see billions of dollars floating across our screen all day.

Yeah. And it's like, hey. You know, somebody walk up, hey. You just cost me $10,000,000.

Steve: So that's what we dealt with all day. Yeah. And So a lot of people have a hard time quitting, you know, a good job. Right? They're making good money, and they have a hard time to quit.

So just put it into perspective, like, when you made a decision, like, this is not for me. I'm gonna go do something different. How much were you making?

Charles: So I was well over 6 figures. Mhmm. Probably multiple 6 figures. So it was yeah. So it's, I made good money.

Yeah. And, you know, and I was, you know, I'm most people in Houston who know me and know my personality and profile know I'm a really humble guy. Like, I really don't you know, coming on here is kind of even, you know, outside of my comfort zone Yeah. Because I'm not really used to talking about myself. Mhmm.

Much less good things. Yeah. That just not my personality.

Steve: But Multiple six figures. Yeah. And this is not for me.

Charles: Yes.

Steve: Right. Okay. So then so then you decided real estate? Yes. And then did you immediately go into wholesale, or you're just like, I wanna buy some rental properties?

Like, what was that journey like?

Charles: Yeah. So that so the first thing was I did look at other things. I looked at franchises. I looked at opening other businesses. And then actually someone who worked for me, he he actually gave me some advice.

Right? He's he's from India

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: In Asia. And what he said was, his ancestors would tell him, you can't go wrong with buying dirt Mhmm. Which is basically his way of saying, go look at real estate.

Steve: Right.

Charles: So then I looked at it, and I was like, it makes perfect sense. Right? Because and, right, coming from investment banking banking, arena, it's like, okay. I can't buy stocks at a discount. Mhmm.

I I can leverage a little bit with margins, but you can't really leverage

Steve: Right.

Charles: Like you can with real estate.

Steve: No.

Charles: And with the tax implications and, you know, just appreciation is, like, real estate made perfect sense.

Steve: Yeah.

Charles: Did I start off wanting to be a wholesaler? No way. Actually, it was probably the last thing I would think I wanted to do because I always wanted to buy and hold real estate. Right. In reality, I first started off with saying, I'm gonna go buy apartments.

Mhmm. Right? Because that was all the rage and it was just, like, for for what

Steve: What year was this?

Charles: It was probably 2013. Okay. So I was

Steve: because it's still a rage. Yes. I've been a rage for, like, six years.

Charles: Yes. It's it's a big rage. Yeah. So I and I went and went through lots of training about apartments. Mhmm.

But what kinda stopped me a little bit from going forward with apartments is because it just would take a long time Mhmm. To get a deal. So Yeah. For me, it's like, okay. If it's gonna take me a year to go get a deal, then that kinda doesn't fit my personality in terms of you know, I come from investment banking, so I'm a bit aggressive when it terms to Yeah.

You know? Oh, I

Steve: can't picture you being aggressive.

Charles: It's almost in corporate world, I'm almost a different person than I am outside of outside of outside of the corporate world. I'm just a completely different person. I'm mellow, laid back.

Steve: Right.

Charles: But when it gets to, like, go and get stuff done, then it's like Interesting.

Steve: So I gotta talk to you, like, the people that work for you and see how Charles is. The real Charles is.

Charles: Yes.

Steve: So it's funny you mentioned franchising. Right? Because, I've mentioned something I mentioned before with Robert Allen's multiple streams of income. And one thing he talks about there is MLM, which I think is good for a lot of people that are getting started to any kind of industry. But the, but he also talks about franchises.

And so I had that when I was at Intel. I was like, this is boring. I can't do this. I was playing poker, right, to make extra money just for variety. But he talks about franchising.

And so I was looking at franchises, and they all were terrible. Like, you had to have, like, basically everything that was any good was Molly made. Because if you wanted to just do a Jamba Juice, you had to have, like, a proven record of 75 successful franchises and 300,000 in the bank. Yeah. So there weren't really a lot of good franchise options.

So it's interesting that you went through that same journey

Charles: Oh, yeah.

Steve: As well.

Charles: I looked at it. I looked at, the big ones I started looking at was subways because everybody has Subway. Everybody has Subway. And then, I even looked at Chick fil A. Mhmm.

Chick fil A was but their model is just completely different.

Steve: So it's not really franchising. Yeah.

Charles: Yeah. It's it's you're kind of paying to manage a store for them.

Steve: It's like running a seven Eleven.

Charles: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then I was like, no. Let me just go look at real estate.

Steve: Okay. So then at what point do you say, alright. Apartments is not it. So wholesale, like, did you decide then to buy, like, houses, or did you decide wholesale? Like, how did that come about?

Charles: Yeah. So what I decided to do, I I still wanted to go do lots of buy buy and holds because when I really look at it, it was just like, I I wanna do things where I didn't have to spend a whole lot of time. Mhmm. And almost when I looked at it, it was like, oh, wholesaling. You know, I just it just didn't kind of fit with me and almost because I didn't know enough about it back then.

So then what I started doing was just starting to market and learning how to market and then start building systems because I'm I'm an IT background. So I build systems and processes. And then it slowly just evolved into, well, I have a wholesaling business. Whatever I wanna call it, if I'm generating leads and going, you know, go and get houses under contract, whether I sell it to myself or someone else, then Yeah. Effectively, I've got a wholesaling business.

Steve: Right.

Charles: So it became where I built an engine, and it's like, well, I can't stop the engine. It just Mhmm. Has to keep on going.

Steve: So what's interesting is you're wholesaling on the side. Yep. But you hired a virtual assistant before you quit. Yes. Like, the traditional avenue is you do it wholesale.

You got a couple of deals. Alright. Peace out. I'm quitting this job. I'm gonna start my own thing.

And then as you ramp up some more, then you hire the assistant. And probably a physical assistant, not even a virtual assistant. Duh. What happened here?

Charles: Okay. So for me, it was in the beginning. And I'll probably say, I made every mistake that every investor we we talk about every investor new investor makes. I probably made every single one. You know, the biggest one for me was I I was doing everything myself.

I mean, everything. I mean, it was pretty I I mean, it was fun because it was new, and my my personality type, I wanna go learn. So I'm gonna go try and do everything. Yeah. And, also, the thing I'm learning even more recently about myself, given all the personal the profiling that I'm looking at and and reading about is my personality is right it's hard for me to delegate.

Extremely hard for me to delegate. Really? Yes. My natural tendency would be, I'm gonna try and do everything myself

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Because it's almost the almost the expert mentality. Mhmm. I can do it better than if I hand it off.

Steve: Which is the opposite because you you never talked about predictive index. Yes. And you had me take it. Yes. And I said the one thing I love to do Yes.

Charles: Is delegate. Exactly. And, because I think our personalities are very similar. Yeah. The the kind of the difference, the big differences I see is you're much better at delegating than I am.

Steve: Lazier. Much lazier.

Charles: Yeah. Or smarter. And, also, I think in risk taking. Mhmm. I'm kind of a by the book kind of risk Mhmm.

Averse type of person, whereas you might be a little bit more

Steve: Is that why you hired the assistant before you quit your

Charles: job? Yes. Well and I also hired her because, she did forty hours of work a week while I was still at the corporate job. Wow. So it's it was, you know and I'll tell you what happened that made me hire is because for a long time, every night, you know, the kids go to bed at nine.

Mhmm. So, you know, that nine to 2AM time frame, that's that's when I did real estate.

Steve: So Really?

Charles: Oh, yeah. And the weekends. So for about three days straight, every day the same thing happened. It's, you know, right around 09:30, 10:00. I get I get I'm on the computer and I'm thinking, okay.

What do I do now? Do I generate a marketing list? Do I submit an offer to somebody I talked to earlier in the day? Or do I respond to the title company about what they're asking for? And every day, it was the same thing.

I was like by the third day, I was just like, I'm done. I'm just gonna hire somebody Mhmm. To take care of all this stuff. So then, pretty much the next day, I was like, okay. I'm gonna go find a service to take care of

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: To to help me find somebody who's gonna do forty hours of work, forty hours a week of work for me. And, so then I I went through the hiring process, and here's one thing I recommend. For me, I went through a service. And some people say go through Upwork and nothing wrong with that. Mhmm.

For me, it all boiled down to time. Yeah. The one thing I realized now that I probably didn't even know back then was that if I go with the service, they will take care of a lot of infrastructure things

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: With a virtual assistant that I I wouldn't have thought of. Yeah. Like backup Internet, backup power, making sure they show up on time, those types of things, and coaching. Insurance. Yes.

The health card. Yeah. Absolutely. So so I I I definitely paid more than what normal people would pay. Mhmm.

But because I went through a service, and they took care of all that. Yeah. I didn't have to worry about it. I was like, nowadays, I'm like, thank goodness.

Steve: So is she still with you?

Charles: Yes. Wow. Four years. Wow. Next month.

Steve: Okay.

Charles: As a matter of fact, she's probably not listening right now because she's actually on the way to the US Embassy, to try and get her visa.

Steve: Oh, cool.

Charles: She's got a flight to Houston next week.

Steve: But Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. So I look forward to meeting her.

Charles: Yeah. So, you know, if everything goes right at

Steve: the First thing

Charles: of the

Steve: story might be a little different. Yeah. Yeah. So then you hire this virtual assistant, and now you're off and running. Well, I guess, how many deals were you doing before you decided to hire the virtual assistant?

Charles: So so let me let me walk back a little bit in terms of what I was doing. I was doing a deal probably every couple months Mhmm. Because, again, I did everything I wouldn't say the wrong way, but just when you're talking about when people make mistakes, that's what I did. It's I'd get a deal. I wouldn't do anything else but work on that one deal.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And then the next thing you know, it's like, okay. A couple months later, it's like, oh, I need to go do another deal. Yeah. Alright. And it's like, oh, okay.

I gotta start marketing. And then, alright, I wouldn't do another you know, it takes a little bit of lag time. Yeah. So I was probably doing a I can't remember at that time. It's probably a deal or two a a deal every couple months.

Mhmm. Right? And then once she came on, then she was basically forty hours a week Yeah. Doing right? Making calls.

Steve: So how much were you making? Okay. So you you hired her, and she's helping you ramp up. So you ramp up to what after you hired her?

Charles: So okay. And then also the other quick thing Mhmm. To mention as well is when I first started off, I didn't I wasn't doing rule, what I would call wholesaling.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: I was doing deals because I was really into creative financing. Mhmm. So, like, my first deal, I did a subject to to and did the owner finance wrap on the back end. Mhmm. And I'm like, I I don't I don't know if I recommend that to anyone on their very first deal, but I also had had mentors that helped me.

Steve: Right.

Charles: So, you know, so my deals were a little different back then where they're all almost all creative because that's that's just what I was kind of taught and grew up on.

Steve: What was it? Is the reticular activated? Right? Like, you see whatever you know.

Charles: Exactly. Yeah. So everything everything looked like a deal. Yeah. Because it's how can I structure it Mhmm?

To be to be a deal. Right. No equity? That's perfectly okay too. Yeah.

We could just take it subject to.

Steve: Okay. So now you hire her, and you she ramps you up to what?

Charles: So at so in '2 let's say, 2016 Mhmm. So I was probably doing, like, in neighborhood about three it got up to about three to four deals a month. Okay. And then, also, my business model got a little different in 2016 as well because at at that probably 2015, I had a particular deal where I was actually in Florida at a at a seminar. Mhmm.

And then I had a very hot Internet lead come in. And, you know, they come in they came in at three in the morning. Mhmm. So those are generally, for me, the hottest leads.

Steve: You

Charles: know? If they're up at three in the morning and reaching out Mhmm. So I talked to them for a couple minutes, and then I was like, okay. Their price wasn't in my range. So then but I said, I'll shoot you an offer anyway.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: So then I shot them an offer, and then, I was like, here's my offer. And then they ended up calling me back a couple hours later

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And saying, hey. I you know, you're a little off, but it might be close enough. So then so I'm in Florida. I was like, okay. This is a deal.

And I'm like, how do I get it done from Florida? Mhmm. And I happened to be with one of my buddies. And he said, well, just call so and so and have him go out. I was like, okay.

That's brilliant.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: So then, called him up and said, hey. Do you mind going to take a look at this house for me and put it under contract? He said, absolutely. So he went out, locked it up, and he actually put together a pretty good deal where the owner was gonna carry. Mhmm.

And right. So we did that. And then afterwards, when I got back, he's he's like, hey. Do you mind if I sell it? And I'm like, yeah.

Go ahead. So then he ended up selling it. Mhmm. And I never saw the house. Mhmm.

And I end up, like we actually closed and then sold it on MLS. Mhmm. I never I never talked to the seller. I never talked to the, any of the buyers or any of the agents. Mhmm.

And then I was like, okay. This is much better than going out to houses. Yeah. So then so then I started shifting my model to say, hey. I don't really wanna go to houses anymore.

Mhmm. Let me go focus on what I do really well, which is go generate leads and put in systems and processes.

Steve: Gotcha. So because I'm trying to get some lessons, right, for the people that are listening right now that have jobs. Yep. So, like, what are the big takeaways?

Charles: So for me and I will tell you the big takeaway is, don't be afraid to get help. Mhmm. So, like like, my very first deal, I will tell you, I went to to the house. I had no idea what to say to the seller even though I kinda knew, but that was my first time really talking to a motivated seller. But I had, at that time, my mentor with me, Ray Sasser.

He's OG from Houston. How did

Steve: you find your mentor while you were working?

Charles: So I went to I went to a ton of classes. Mhmm. I mean, you know, there were some people who saw me at virtually every class that there was in Houston. So

Steve: you're working eighty hours a week. I mean, you're not working. You're already going to these things.

Charles: Yes.

Steve: Did your kids even know who you

Charles: were? They did not. No? No. And that's a really good point too is if you if you're doing this

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And you wanna go really far, make sure your significant other is fully on board. Yeah. Because that was the first thing I did after I figured out that I wanted to do real estate.

Steve: Yeah. Because I remember still, like, when I was a kid, I think I was, like, seven. And my the second oldest, there's I have five younger brothers. But the second oldest was, like, my dad was working, his job, going to community college, and then running the restaurant that we opened that was an absolute failure. Right?

And I remember, like, my dad would come home and try to pick up my little brother, and he would cry because, like, who is this guy Yeah. Trying to pick me up?

Charles: Yes. No. Absolutely. A 100%. I'll tell you just a quick story of what what hit for me Mhmm.

Is after I left corporate America

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And, you know, because I was never really really around. Right? Yeah. I mean, honestly, I, you know, I work too much. Mhmm.

One of the things that really hit me was two different instances. One, you know, my daughter, she's the older one. One day after I'd I can't remember. It might have been a month after I left, so they saw me a lot more.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And she's like, hey, dad. Can we have a chat? I'm like, wait. What what How

Steve: old is she?

Charles: At the time, she was probably must have been nine.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Eight or nine. Okay. So it was like, oh, okay. Yeah. I'm dropping everything I'm doing.

Steve: Yeah. You

Charles: know? And then something happened very similar with my son as well. Mhmm. Because, I'd I'd go pick him up, you know. And I'm occasionally, I go pick him up with my wife.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And then if my wife is there, then he's running and giving her a hug.

Steve: Yeah.

Charles: You know, when I pick him up, it's kinda like, oh, it's it's that guy. Yeah. So one day, out of the blue, he came and ran and gave me a hug when I picked him up. And to me, that's why we do what we do. Mhmm.

It's get get time back and create memories like that.

Steve: Absolutely. Okay. So then you're doing pretty well, and then you decided to okay. It's, like, tell this job to, like, you know, take it back or I'm out of here. Right.

What was that like? What was the mindset? What was the process? And, you know because I I can say for myself. Right?

Right? I talked to all my friends and my parents. Right? Like, this is what I'm doing. I'm quitting, and I didn't have reliable income.

I just quit. Right? It goes back to that risk tolerance you're talking about. So, like, what was your process in, you know, trying to find support or having that conversations and talking to your, you know, your close ones close loved ones.

Charles: Yeah. So that's very interesting because I'm not sure if yours was the same as mine. But, you know, like, kinda like family and friends who are not in real estate, then when I would talk to them, they're like they look at me like, wait. Wait. Wait.

Say that again? You're about to leave your job to go flip houses? Mhmm. Like, okay. Let's sit down and have a talk.

Yeah. Alright. So then what I what I realized is, you know, I can't really have those type of conversations with people who are not in the industry because they don't it's not their fault because, right, they they care about you. They think you're might be doing something crazy.

Steve: They're raised in the same environment we were raised in.

Charles: Exactly. So then, right, what the conversations I would have like that would be with my you know, it's real estate buddies. Mhmm. You know? And it's a different conversation with them because it's every time I would see them, it's like, when are you quitting your job?

Yeah. It's just a completely different conversation.

Steve: There's, there's a video of, Max Maxwell, Scott Oates, and, and Brian Orekpu and, where they were like they they they ambushed him. I was like, when are you quitting your job? And I talked to Brian about that. He's like, I didn't even know the camera was on. It was like a very personal Oh, wow.

Charles: Okay. So it was real. I was

Steve: like It was real. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So okay.

So you talked to your your your close people that you care about. They said don't do it, which was just like what my friends and family said. And then you talked to other people and they said, when are you quitting? Exactly. And that was the impetus you needed.

Charles: Yes. And then also, and I'll also give credit. I mean, I a lot of my business, I grew up on, you know, your your last, guest, Sean Terry.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: I mean, I watched a lot of his videos. I, you know, I grew up on his podcast as well as, I I I went to, one of his events. And

Steve: Extreme Freedom?

Charles: Yeah. Extreme Freedom. And, I was in his mastermind as well. The boardroom? Yep.

Steve: Oh, you were in the boardroom?

Charles: Yeah. I had no idea. Yeah. And, you know, so I'll give credit because him and, Pat Precourt Mhmm.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Between those two, they they gave two pieces of advice. One is, and I'll share it with everyone here as well.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: One is, when you look at what you're making from, from, let's just say, right, on every deal you make $10,000 per deal, then it's how many deals do you really need to do per month to equate to your monthly salary? Or and let's not even count monthly salary. Can you pay your bills? Mhmm. Then it's like, okay.

If you've spent forty hours a week doing that, how much more can you make? Yeah. So that's one thing they said. And then the other thing, which is almost even more impactful, is, you know, make your decisions based on based on faith instead of fear. Because, right, you just gotta have faith in yourself that you can go make it happen versus the fear that I'm gonna lose all this income that's steady.

Steve: Right. That's huge. A lot harder to do when you're married with kids.

Charles: Yes. Right?

Steve: When I quit, I had full faith and confidence in myself because I was always kinda irrationally confident. But I didn't have a wife, and I didn't have a kid. So when I was at Intel, everyone was like, you're so lucky. Yeah. You don't have these responsibilities.

You can do it. You're young. You're single. Whatever. So I think that's even more impactful like you said that.

Right? Because people that have responsibilities

Charles: That's

Steve: is a harder leap to take.

Charles: Oh, yeah. And that's why I said you gotta have your significant other on board. Mhmm.

Steve: I mean,

Charles: you know, and people always ask me, like, how do you do it? Because they see especially when I started in real estate, they were like, do you really have a wife? Because and kids because we see you, like, everywhere. Mhmm. I'm like but when I start doing things, I kinda get obsessed.

Yeah. It's like, I'm gonna learn. That's that's my profile. Alright? My PI profile says, yeah.

I'm just gonna try and learn everything I can.

Steve: You're taking the COB test?

Charles: I've not taken the COB test.

Steve: Well, you gotta do that. You're gonna nerd out. You gotta really nerd out. Come on.

Charles: Well, that PI is scary accurate.

Steve: I know. It's extremely accurate. There's no question about that. And if you guys want to take the PI test, shoot me, you know, shoot me a DM, shoot me a message. I can definitely hook you guys all up with that.

I signed up based off Charles' referral. Yeah. Okay. So when did you quit exactly?

Charles: So it was about three years ago this month. Okay. So, you know yeah. And I I'll tell you, it was kind of a little weird. Right?

Because, you know, you always think about what are you gonna do first? And in the back of my mind, it's like this is a little odd, but I was like to my wife, I was like, let's just go have lunch Mhmm. The day after. And, like, I just wanna have a drink. Like, just because I see people you know, you go to lunch

Steve: a lot

Charles: of times. It's like, what do those people do for a living? You know? So I was like, I'm gonna go and, you know, I'll just have one margarita.

Steve: There is people out there that actually eat lunch during the day? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Charles: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so we did that. That was that was always my memory of the first day of of, independence, so to speak.

Gotcha. She also she used to ask me. I was like, hey. Before. And she's like, what are you gonna do after you, you know Mhmm.

You used to that's what that was your life for, like, seventeen years. Right?

Steve: Seventeen years. Yeah. You

Charles: know, I lived and breathed IT. Yeah. So then I was like, well, you know, I was kinda joking with it, but not really. I was like, what I'm gonna do and it's kinda funny, but I'm gonna be the carpool dad.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And I've been the carpool dad ever since.

Steve: Which means?

Charles: Like and so every morning, I drop off the kids and I help out on the carpool line.

Steve: So, like, you're picking up, up, like, neighborhood kids?

Charles: No. No. No. No. I'm just dropping the kids off at school and Okay.

Opening doors to

Steve: let the kids out. Gotcha.

Charles: Okay. I was just like, I'm gonna volunteer somewhere. I'm like, that's

Steve: Oh, at the school? At the school. Yes. Gotcha. Not your kids.

Charles: No. No. No.

Steve: Oh, okay.

Charles: Yeah. Drop them off. Drop off the kids and then help help open the doors so that the kids can make

Steve: it Interesting. You know, Haim talks about that. You know, his his thing is about his passion is about the spending time with the kids. Yep. And I was joking with him, like, his you know, they might think he's unemployed or homeless.

You know? How much time he has for his kids.

Charles: Yeah. Yeah. I know. And it's it's actually kinda neat because it's like, I actually get time with them every morning

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Where it's and, you know, we do a couple of things like, nowadays, I I have them say what they're grateful for every day.

Steve: You

Charles: do? Oh, yeah. So it's I'm trying to instill that in them a little bit of, you know, what I even I'm trying to do Mhmm. Which is, you know, it helps me too because then Yeah. They'll remind me and, that, hey.

We gotta do that. And then the other thing that I told them to do as well is don't let me get on my phone because I'm bad about getting on my phone. So now they remind me to get off the phone.

Steve: That's That's good. And, you know, I think listening to your story is I have a lot of, I never worked the eighty or ninety hours a week. I was working, like, thirty hours a week in Intel. I had really comfortable situation. But what was important to me was creating a business so I have more time for my kids.

And my parents did an incredible job. I'm incredibly grateful for them, but they were never there.

Charles: Right.

Steve: You know? So that was for me. Like, I need to create a business so that I can be there for the kids. So I can drop the kids off. I don't open the doors, but I drop them off.

Yes. Right? So No. Very cool.

Charles: Yeah. No. I agree. And, you know, it's kind of surprising. Like, honestly, when I left, it probably took me three months before I told my mom just because I was I wasn't sure how she would take it.

Yeah. You know, because my my dad had passed away a while back. Mhmm. But I called her up and said, hey. You know?

Just so you know, I, you know, don't have the corporate job anymore. Her response was good. You you work too much. You you were stressed out too much or Yeah. You know, you just look like you were working too much.

So I'm

Steve: like, oh. The worst. Right? To look like you're working too much. Yeah.

Okay. So you you quit. Now you're going into it. Right? Now you've got all this newfound time.

You bought eighty hours Yep. Time. What was that like?

Charles: So it was really good. I mean, right? And so then I started building up, building up, you know, what I'd call a proper business

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Right to where it's, you know, where, you know, marketing properly, you know, at the time, right, I mean, it was a lot of direct mail back then. Mhmm. Marketing. Right? Doing deals and just trying to do things so you can scale.

Mhmm. So that was most of 2017. And for me, right, 2018, I, you know, I went through a lot more personal stuff. Mhmm. So then, it was

Steve: kind of I

Charles: almost viewed that as almost definitely, in the second half of the year, kind of like a little bit of a lost year just because of a lot of things that I had going on.

Steve: Right.

Charles: And so then this year, it's almost like a revitalization for me.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And a lot of people who know me, they've definitely noticed a big difference, especially of what I'm doing now versus or even my how I how I've evolved from even the beginning of the year. Even I'm completely different than when we first met at WeLive in in Dallas.

Steve: So let's talk about that. What's what's what's the journey, and what what was the cause of that?

Charles: So, so the cause of that was just kind of some some business dealings that I was in, and it's just kinda, yeah, it probably might not be good to talk about that right now. Mhmm. But, so that kinda led me to kind of being even more kind of, almost my natural personality. If you look at my PI test is I'm reserved.

Steve: Mhmm. And, you

Charles: know, I'm very quiet, and I'm just the back of the room type of guy. Yeah. Because a lot of people who know me in Houston, they see me. There's two people in particular. They'll see me

Steve: at an event and they'll come up to me

Charles: and it's like, hey, Charles. We don't go to events very often, but, you know, if we know we wanna find you, we know where to look. The back of the room, you know, kind of blending in with the furniture. I'm like, yeah. That's weird.

So then, but I've started to come out a little bit more, in terms of, you know I think the impetus of kind of pushing ahead was then I started focusing on, okay, I want to scale. That's kind of one of the drivers is it was in the last year. I was like, I'm gonna do whatever I gotta do to start scaling up.

Steve: Yeah.

Charles: You know? So this year, I've personally probably spent more in training

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Than I have probably in the last, probably, two years combined because I started to go into to different events Mhmm. And also to network and also to network and also figure out how to grow this business kind of as fast as I can. Yeah. Because, you know, if people haven't noticed out there, like, the game's definitely changed.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Things I was doing probably a year and a half ago

Steve: It doesn't work anymore.

Charles: Completely different now. Yeah. I I characterize it as what I was doing a year and a half ago was kinda old school stuff. Mhmm. And now it's like all the new school stuff.

Steve: Right.

Charles: And so, you know, I'm aggressively just trying to go after as much as I can right now and grow. Yeah. Because one thing I also say is, you know, I think you talk about a lot about PPC

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Back in back in the good old days.

Steve: Oh, man. Those are great days.

Charles: Yes. And I always look back at yeah. I look back that, alright, the 2015 range. Mhmm. And I was getting probably leads for $15.

Alright? And nowadays, you might get a click for $15. And, you know, when me and some of my buddies who we did a lot of PPC back then well, what we thought was a lot of PPC back then, we look back at that now and we're like, we we should've went all in. Like, just not double that. Just triple that.

Just dump everything into that Mhmm. And and let it fly.

Steve: Right.

Charles: And, you know, I always look back at that and say, I don't want I don't wanna say that again Right. About this market.

Steve: So one thing you talked about, and this can be a completely shameless plug on my part here, basically, you spent a lot on the on seminars, events, whatever. So you were here with Elizabeth Yep. Four months ago. Yes. What were your big takeaways, when you went to that?

Charles: Yeah. So the big takeaways for that is, and I I probably I mentioned to you and, probably I haven't shared this too far publicly, but, what I got out of that, like, I think it was labor no. It was Memorial Day weekend. Yeah.

Steve: I was really poor poor planning on my part. This is okay. I'm an action taker, not a salesperson.

Charles: Yeah. So I the day I got back from the event, I was like, I changed all of my text message Mhmm. To the format that you guys have. Yeah. And, like, when I see something that I'm like, it makes sense and resonates with me, I'm like, I'm gonna go do it.

Right. So then, the very next day, we changed all the scripts. Right? Retrained everybody, say, to use these scripts. And then, you know, every so often afterwards, I would ask them, and I was like, hey.

How does how is it working? You know, I'd ask the angels that. And then they're like, the scripts are much better and they have more meaningful conversations with people. I'm like, perfect. That's Right.

What I what I would expect from the scripts that you guys have. Yeah. I mean, it's just kinda night and day, because I've mentioned to you, I I've gone to other sales training

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And, you know, and the sales training is you know, they're kinda similar, but what I told you and, you know, I was speaking to you honestly back then because I even still feel the same way. It's like your scripts were just much more efficient. Yeah. Meaning, right, instead of 30 conversation, it was like, okay. Five minutes.

Mhmm. And it's, like, to the point where it accomplished the same thing

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: But it was just much more condensed. And then that way, it's like, you can have more conversations.

Steve: Right. Way more conversations per hour without losing opportunities.

Charles: Oh, yeah. No. So I, you know, I I highly recommend, kind of and I've told quite a number of people. Yeah. Just ask go go to Steve's stuff so you can get his scripts.

Yeah. And I'm I'm not just saying that because I'm here. Most people who know me are like, yeah. I'm not gonna plug something or

Steve: Yeah.

Charles: Or or say something's good if I don't believe in it.

Steve: Right.

Charles: You know? Because I got I got people calling me from all over the place asking me my opinion about stuff because they know I'm gonna give an accurate answer that's unbiased because, you know, that's just kind of how it is. The other thing I would also say about your event, and I I probably even mentioned this to you as well, is one thing that's a little different about your event that I found was, a lot of the people that I met there, right, I still keep in contact with. I mean, a lot of them. Yeah.

I mean, a bigger percentage than I probably say at other places. Yeah. And also, right, look, my personality is, you know, a little bit more reserved, so it's even harder for me to, connect with people. But, one thing I found out with your event was, yeah, it was just really and I think we talked when we talked about it, it was kinda like it's who you end up resonating with. Mhmm.

That's who you end up attracting.

Steve: Right.

Charles: So, you know, one thing I encourage to folks if you're going out to networking or going to events, it's not just to learn. Right? I probably get as much value from learning from other people as I do, from the events itself.

Steve: Right.

Charles: You know? And you make good connections. I mean, you know, Stratton, JR, Michael. I mean, you know, we're chatting a lot.

Steve: Yeah. And they're all crushing it.

Charles: Yeah. Oh, yeah. They Yeah. Yeah. We talk a lot.

Steve: So one thing you talked about was more time working on scaling now. Yep. So now you got this event, whole scaling.

Charles: Yes. So what is that about? So whole scaling is, kinda it's gonna be now four days

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Of content. So three days, we're gonna have a lot of great speakers like yourself Rafael Vargas, Lee Kearney, Nick Perry, a whole bunch of of people who are actually in the business. Yeah. And we're gonna come and tell you kind of from almost a to z how to scale your business. And the way we kind of envision and built it was, like, I'm actively scaling.

Mhmm. Elizabeth is actively scaling. Yeah. Ricardo's actively scaling. So we're we're we brought in people basically, like, we wanna learn from

Steve: Right.

Charles: And we're like, okay. We'll just invite invite the rest of the country too.

Steve: That's kinda like how my podcast started. Right? So let's talk about so Rafael Vargas Yes. Right, from Florida. Well, he's in Florida.

He's in multiple places. Yeah. So what is someone gonna get from seeing Rafael on stage? Stage?

Charles: So from Rafael, you're gonna he's gonna teach you how to how to pick markets and just dominate them. Yeah. Like like, I've I've, you know, I'm one of his students as well, and I've literally become a data scientist Mhmm. Because of him. Yeah.

Is watching how he picked markets and right down the ZIP codes, I'm like, oh, yeah. Alright. That definitely resonates with me. I'm like, I'm a data guy. So I'm like, yeah.

Steve: And then Nick Perry? Nick Perry? What did they get from listening to Nick Perry?

Charles: So Nick Perry's, they're gonna get hiring. Mhmm. Right? Everywhere I go across the country, it's I'm having trouble hiring. Yeah.

Yeah. So Nick Perry has it on autopilot. It's like, he just shows up on, I think, Tuesdays and Thursdays to interviews, and he just says yes or no. Mhmm. And as a matter of fact, you know, me, him being so close to Houston

Steve: Mhmm. I've gone to his office a couple times in the

Charles: last, few weeks to actually get that implemented. So I'm actively using what he's gonna teach already. And it's you know, I've got a full time person who's just taking care of interviewing.

Steve: Yeah. That's funny. I'm actually in the market. I'm met with a recruiter yesterday to tell them to go find me a recruiter. Okay.

So, yeah, you got that. And then there was, what was the another name you mentioned?

Charles: So, Lee Kearney is coming. Mhmm. Lee, he's done 7,500 transactions.

Steve: Okay.

Charles: Yeah. You know, he's done a few, half $1,000,000,000 of real estate. You know? So he's he's gonna focus on the recession

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And what he's doing.

Steve: So people that because right now, we're all cutting our teeth in the good times. Yes. So he's talking about what to expect

Charles: Yes.

Steve: When bad things happen.

Charles: Yeah. And how to prepare.

Steve: Right.

Charles: And also another person who's gonna talk a little bit about that, along those lines as well is, Daniel Chad Moore.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: He's out of Dallas. And, an interesting thing he's gonna talk about is he's gonna actually walk us through the market cycles

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And what you should be doing in each part of the cycle. Yeah. So for instance, you're right. If we're at the peak, then rehabbing, falling, not gonna be the best thing

Steve: to do. Not the safest thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. And then so, also, we got, Don Costa Yes.

Who I'm in a mastermind with him, and that guy is just dripping with knowledge. Yes. So what's he gonna talk about? So he's gonna talk

Charles: about how to, how to do virtual wholesale and Mhmm. Fit your lifestyle. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Kinda like what you're kinda like what you're doing. Yeah. I'm I'm all about I still have a couple I'm not there yet, but

Charles: a couple more things to do and then, yeah, I don't wanna be doing eighty nine hours a week.

Steve: Right. So going back to earlier, you were talking about facilitator. Right? So you're you're known as the facilitator in Houston. Yeah.

How did you get that nickname?

Charles: So, you know, what people used to always ask me, what do you do? And, you know, the standard answer is always wholesaler, a rehabber, or a landlord. But at the end of the day, I think all of us as real estate investors, we should really think of ourselves as facilitators. Mhmm. And if everyone can become a facilitator, which to me means helping people out or making sure things get done.

Yeah. Because nobody gets happy, nobody gets paid unless a deal gets done. Mhmm. You know? The the seller's not gonna be happy if if the deal busts.

Buyer's not gonna be happy. Lender's not gonna be happy. Title company. So if we can all become facilitators

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Then that will just help everybody. And, you know, in some cases, you know, I won't even make money, helping facilitate something. It's somebody needs something that I might be able to help them with, then I'm like, okay. Here. Go talk to this person.

Yeah. Alright. And then, you know, to me, all that stuff, right, you don't have to get paid on everything. Mhmm. Right?

You will help people out. It'll always come back 20 fold and then, you know, I get a lot of joy from actually helping people. Yeah. You know, I I find myself more joy when someone else does a deal just because of maybe something I said or what what have you. Mhmm.

Steve: And they

Charles: just told me later. I'm like, wow. That's

Steve: It's incredibly fulfilling. Yeah. A 100% is fulfilling. Okay. So there's some questions here.

Ryan asked, best way to hire a VA. What site would you go to?

Charles: So, the way that I hired my first one was I used a service. And I I think they've they may have gone through several names. So, I mean, I'll tell you the ones that I know of that are out there because I think, I use my outdesk, but I think they are actually more geared towards realtors.

Steve: Yeah. They're geared towards traditional. I've used them in the past.

Charles: Yeah. So there's a Rocket Station

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Robert Nickel. And, actually, my first VA was through whatever company he had with my outdesk. Mhmm. There's Riva as well. And you can also obviously do Upwork and things like that.

Yeah. Here's my one suggestion. If you're gonna use a service or even whenever you're hiring, it's okay to say no. Yeah. I'd I would tell you, say no more than you say yes.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Because a lot of times, don't just trust what a service is gonna say that says, hey. This is a great VA. Be phenomenal for your business. I'm like, no. I went through quite a bit of interviewing before I found the one that

Steve: There's something that we learned from Darren Hardy. And if it's not a hell yeah, then it's a hell no.

Charles: Yes. Exactly. I I find myself saying that to people now too. Yeah. And it's sometimes it even when I'm involved, I'm like, if if you're not saying hell hell yes, then don't include me.

Right. You'll you will thank me later. Yeah. Right. Don't include me.

Steve: So, Ryan also wants to know what kind of marketing are you doing right now?

Charles: So I do a lot of, so I do a lot of, I do Internet marketing. So

Steve: Which means? A

Charles: lot of SEO. Mhmm. So one of my sites ranks ranks pretty well even in Houston. Mhmm. And also, I do a lot of telemarketing, mostly on the SMS texting side.

Yeah. Because I think, you know, I will tell you, that's just a very cheap lead source.

Steve: Very cheap. Very efficient.

Charles: Exactly. And, you know, just what I recommend to people is we've my opinion is and I've said it a lot is we probably have, by now, probably a fifteen month time window

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Where you can actually do that. Yeah. And then right. RVMs are starting to get taken away. Mhmm.

Steve: And, you

Charles: know so, obviously, before I say anything else, make sure I'm not a lawyer, so talk to you talk to your lawyers. But I will tell you, I'm not gonna make the same mistake I did in 2015 and not and not try to go

Steve: Not cash in.

Charles: Not go after what I always say is 80,000,000.

Steve: Stratton. What's up, Stratton? He wants to know if you hire someone to evaluate new markets for you.

Charles: I do not. I actually do that myself. So, one of the things that, I learned from Rafael is how to go pick markets and how to go pick even ZIP codes within markets. So a lot of that analysis, you know, it goes back a little bit to my profile Mhmm. Which is I'm a data guy.

I'm an analytical person. And, you know, I kinda like to do that stuff. So I'm gonna gravitate to that.

Steve: Right. No. That makes complete sense. Ryan wants to know what script are you using? Steve's.

That's right. It's our scripts. Yes. Which Max and I created. Right?

Yes. It's not just me. Yeah. So, let's see what else is there. So we already talked about what service you guys are using for VA.

So, Elizabeth wants to know what profile I was. Mine was independent. Is that is that what is that the exact word?

Charles: You yeah. I think it was independent or individual.

Steve: Individualist. There you go. Individualist. Individualist, Elizabeth, which means I'm gonna do whatever I'm gonna

Charles: do. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I I I even looked

Steve: at it.

Charles: I was like, yeah. Our our profiles are pretty similar except for those kinda two things. Delegation is, a little harder for me. It's much better now, though. Here's here's the one thing

Steve: I'll Well, you because you can kinda grow into that.

Charles: Yes. Because it's kinda like, I'm much more comfortable with as soon as I know how it works, then I can slowly delegate. And I, honestly, I parallel corporate with real estate. I made the same mistakes in corporate real estate, which is I was told in corporate, you gotta delegate. You gotta delegate.

It probably took me two years. Mhmm. Like, I had a big team, but it was like, my my manager kept on saying, you need to delegate. Yeah. But the minute I realized that I was holding my team back because I wasn't delegating Mhmm.

I was done. I was like, okay. This is alright. I grabbed three of them. I was like, this is your team now.

Mhmm. Between the three of y'all, it's yours and, you know, I'm here to help you. Right. I'm just gonna facilitate whatever you need. I'm I'm just air traffic control.

Right? I'm gonna clear the runway. Everything else is yours, but I will be in the back. Mhmm. I will and I'll provide all the cover you need, and I'll train you.

Steve: Yeah.

Charles: But then I look back in real estate, and I made the same

Steve: mistake.

Charles: I right? I hired my first VA four years ago.

Steve: But the stakes are higher in your own business.

Charles: Yes. Oh, 100%.

Steve: Like, you screw up in a corporate world, like, whatever. The company lost a couple million dollars, whatever.

Charles: Yeah. Oh, yeah. In real estate, yeah. But I'd also say I learned I I made the same mistake because it goes back to my natural profile, which is I'm gonna kinda be a little less risk averse Mhmm. And also try to do everything myself.

Yeah. So then I I hired one VA four years ago. Between that and end of last year, I hired I had one other VA, but then that's about it. And then, I mean, I have another team in between. But, you know, end of last year, I hired another VA because I couldn't deal with the texting.

Mhmm. It was just too much. Yeah. And then so, you know, fast forward now, I've got, like, nine VAs. Most of them hired within the last, probably, two and a half months.

Steve: Wow.

Charles: Yeah. I'm I'm in massive kind of ramp up mode.

Steve: Ben Naman wants to know, what is your cost per deal on text messaging, including all the data pulling and skip tracing per

Charles: deal? Okay. So that's a good question. I'll answer it this way. Because I I even get, because I use, LeadSherpa Mhmm.

Which is a a really good platform. And, the owner, Jason, had asked me if I'd provide stats to his group

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: His Facebook group. And I I said, I'll take a look. I looked at it. I was like, Jason, you realize that my stats would mean absolutely nothing to a new person just given kinda how the software works.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And I explained why. And he's like, yeah. Your stats probably just because of the volume I send Mhmm. As well as just the underlyings of how the software works, my stats wouldn't make any difference because I would expect a new person on the platform to do a lot better than I would. Just there's just some nuances in there.

So

Steve: Because of the volume?

Charles: Because of the volume and because also I send a lot of follow ups. Meaning right?

Steve: I

Charles: mean, if if I send for us, it's always the if I'm hitting something for the first time Mhmm. Right, the response rates are pretty good. Right? Yeah. In 30% range.

If I hit them again in the next month, then it's probably, like, you know, maybe 10%. It's then then I'm happy. Mhmm. But now I'm like because I'm scaling up, I'm like, I don't even look at that anymore. Mhmm.

I'm just like, just send as much as I can Right. In as efficient way as I can, and then that's it.

Steve: So do you have an overall?

Charles: Yeah. So what what I did do is because one of my friends asked me probably a week or two Mhmm. A couple weeks ago to help him out with some marketing, because he he knows I'm I do a lot of text.

Steve: Yeah.

Charles: So he asked me to help him out. So, and I think he's he was okay with me sharing some of these numbers because this is much more accurate for someone who's starting out than than anything I'm doing. So I think his cost was I'm talking about all in cost, getting the data, getting, skip tracing, I think even labor cost and the texting. It was about between 50 and $70 per lead. Mhmm.

And it was probably about 1,500 to 2,000 per deal, somewhere in that range because it was I think it was two different datasets. So

Steve: Those aren't beautiful numbers. They're good numbers. Yeah. But they're not sexy numbers.

Charles: Yeah. But his his spread is

Steve: Oh, yeah? Yeah. Okay.

Charles: Yeah. His spread is just gonna be ridiculous. Awesome. And I the other thing I would probably say about about that as well is just give it a little while Mhmm. Because the follow ups.

Right? Mhmm. There's more money coming in the follow ups.

Steve: Oh, absolutely. I can't speak for, the total cost pretty old because we also cold call an RVM. But I know just from texting alone, on our operation, when we last looked at it, we were under 400.

Charles: Per deal? Per deal. And does that include labor?

Steve: That does not include cost of sale. Right? Because we pay commission.

Charles: Oh, okay.

Steve: That does not include Okay. Cost of sale, because we're not they're not salaried. Right? Right. Right.

Right. They're commissioned.

Charles: Mhmm.

Steve: So if we include cost of sale, it's gonna go way up because these guys are making 20%

Charles: Right. Right. Right.

Steve: Right. Deals. Yeah. Let's see what other questions we got here. So Sameer asked you wanna just repeat it?

What company you use for text messaging?

Charles: LeadSherpa.

Steve: Yep. Yeah. So Jason Nickel, I've met him, at a different mastermind, and he's all about making it better. In fact, he asked me, like, what's it gonna take for you to switch? I was like, dude, just take what you see here in TextMagic.

And for them, leave Sherpa, and I'll switch. That's it. But, it works for a lot of people. Right? Yeah.

Only Sherpa. It works there are a lot of, like, powerhouses using it, it, just for the way we run our operation. It just didn't make sense. Okay. So question here is, how is your operation?

Because Houston's massive. Yep. And I met a lot of people out there. A lot of them. So how is your operation different than your, peers and and competitors in Houston market?

Charles: I mean, I I think the one thing that I know I'm looking to do is take a much more data driven approach. Mhmm. Mhmm. And some other people may be doing that, but I don't I don't really hear a whole lot of people talking about that.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: So, by data driven approach, I mean, kind of with what I'm doing, I go target ZIP codes now. Mhmm. Because, you know, I always say, right, the motivated list, even if it's, let's just say, 10%, then that's if in Harris County, the biggest county in in Houston is about 1,100,000 houses, single family houses. Mhmm. At 10%, that's about a 110,000 houses and, that that's not enough, you know, because because texting is, for me, it's just a big data hog.

Like, right now, I'm probably skip tracing somewhere around 50,000, records a month. Mhmm. Mhmm. So, you know, you run out of property Mhmm. Pretty quick.

Oh, yeah. So you have to go by ZIP codes. That's what I do. And I go target the ZIP codes that are best suited for for my business model.

Steve: So you're going on a general list based off of a ZIP code?

Charles: Yes. And and, you know, you tie it down to the ZIP codes that are ideal for whatever you're trying to do. Mhmm. For me, I and I'd probably recommend this or probably anywhere across the country is, right, what's gonna sell the fastest

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Which is definitely my market is gonna be, like, anything under two probably $2.20. Mhmm. Right? Anything above $2.50, 300 is kinda like, So do I wanna target ZIP codes that are in the 300, 400 range? Probably not.

Not right now, especially in the market that we're doing. No. So find the lower price ZIP codes, and I'll just do blanket targeting.

Steve: Gotcha. So one thing that was, interesting was that, we were all hanging out in Dallas, and there were multiple remarks that these Phoenix people are weird. Right? Like, they're hanging out. Yeah.

And even the questions we got was like, oh, you guys are all on the same company. That's cool. We're like, no. We're we're all in the streets. We're trying to kill each other in the houses.

But outside the houses, you know, we all hang out. In fact, we got, you know, Jesse Evo, Brent Daniels, Pace, and Rafael, Cortez. They're all in the same building Oh, wow. In Phoenix. Okay.

Right? You should definitely stop by there after this. And but that's not the relationship. Because I'll ask you like, hey. What's going on with this guy?

What's going on with the guy? You're like, who? I said, what about this guy? Don't know who that is. There's not that same, dynamic, but you're trying to make that.

Charles: Yeah. You're

Steve: you're you're one of your goals for whole whole scaling, I believe, you talked to Elizabeth, you wanna create this, camaraderie. Yes.

Charles: Absolutely. So

Steve: you wanna talk about what you guys are trying to create there?

Charles: Yeah. So, I mean, it's, you know, kind of I always I talked to you a bit about as well. You know, I look at what, people are doing in Phoenix and it's like, you know because last time I was here for your event, I actually I showed up at the Keeley office. Right? Spoke with Jamil and, you know, I didn't really have a plan.

Right?

Steve: Mhmm. I

Charles: was just like, I'm just gonna go I'm just gonna go hang out with Jamil and then go figure it out from there. Yeah. Next thing you know, Pace is showing up. Mhmm. And Pace is like, hey.

What are you doing? What are you doing for the rest of the day? I was like, well, Elizabeth's coming in, and I'm gonna go meet her, in the afternoon. And he's like, okay. So you got nothing.

Alright. Let's go. Right? So I hop in the car with him, and I spend the whole day with him. And he's he's taking me around.

He takes me over to, Annie, Ivo, and Jesse's place, the batch folks. Mhmm. And, I'm like, this this is just weird. You know? Like, we don't really do that in Houston.

Steve: I mean, there might be small pockets Mhmm.

Charles: But definitely, like, whole scaling. That's what what it's kind of all about is to build a community. Because, you know, for us, what we're doing is, like, we're not you know, because people ask me, like, regularly, like, are you like, what are you selling? I'm like, well, we're not selling anything off of full scaling. And then, like, what are you really, what are you selling?

I'm like, no. We're not selling anything. It's like none of us run coaching programs. We're not selling a mastermind at the end of it. That's what people always ask.

I'm like, no. We're just doing it because There

Steve: is no upselling.

Charles: Yeah. No upselling. Right? And we've kinda made that clear to everyone. It's no upselling.

It's how do you build the it's basically building a a good community. Because, right, I wanna be able to pick up the phone and say, hey, Joe, can you go look at this house for me? Mhmm. And, right, we have people who are like, yeah. I'll go.

Steve: Right.

Charles: You know, without, you know, without questions, like, yeah. You know, and people that we can trust. You know? Because what what I see out of the Phoenix folks is, wow. I mean, that's just, like, you pick up the phone and you you get an answer.

I remember the thing I remember distinctly was Pace going over to the to the Annie and Eva's office and saying he was, you know, kind of tweaking some things with, his his close calling script. Annie's like, hang on one second. She goes and prints out a printout of their script and says, here, take a look at this and, you know, do what you want with it.

Steve: Right. Yeah. Exactly. Right? It's kinda crazy.

Moises Gonzalez wants to know, where are you pulling your lists and script skip tracing them?

Charles: So, I use a couple of different places for lists.

Steve: And, actually, right now, I'm in,

Charles: like you know, I really wanna target almost the whole country. Mhmm. So I'm actively gonna look for where I can go get the most data for the most appropriate price. Yeah. So if anybody knows of any, hit me up.

Steve: I would say probably batch.

Charles: Yes. And, actually, that's who I skip trace with. Yeah. You know, one of the things I also tell people is, people hear me say this, don't ever buy bad data. Mhmm.

Trust me. I've bought bad data.

Steve: Like that is happening. I

Charles: regret it. I'm like, and I it's it's hard to get out of my system now.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: And not that I couldn't probably go figure it out, but I don't really wanna spend the hours I think it's gonna take to go figure it out. At some point, I probably will, but or I'll just go skip everything again.

Steve: Yeah.

Charles: But yeah. And a matter of fact, someone asked me to test something, earlier this week, and on Monday. Like, on Monday, I was like, yeah. No. Not good.

Mhmm. Stay with that. Go to batch. You know?

Steve: Very awesome. Okay. So what does your organization look like today?

Charles: So today, so and we probably didn't explain a whole lot, but, I also do a lot of joint ventures

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Because I'm I'm of the opinion now. I don't I don't really wanna go to houses. I'm more likely to go to a house if somebody asked me to go help them

Steve: Mhmm. Than go

Charles: on my own deal. That's just that's just I'm just like, I you know, sometimes I'll go to houses with people and then, just my buddies. And they'll they'll be like, you know, I've gone to houses with Ricardo. Ricardo looks at me and he's like, you don't really like houses, do you? I'm like, no.

I mean, they they all kinda look the same to me. Yeah. I'm like, I you know, and I'm not I'm not one to say, oh, we can go knock this wall down, do all this other stuff. I can if I think about it, but I'm like, that's not what I really wanna do. So from an acquisition disposition side, then, I'm doing a lot of JVs.

From a a, everything else, I mean, I've got nine VAs now, and I'm kind of actually trying to build that, ramp that up Mhmm. Even a lot more. Yeah. You know, one thing I would probably tell everyone, right, because we talked a little bit about VAs is you gotta build a culture with them

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: To where they want to work with you, and then they'll work hard for you as well. Mhmm. Because, I mean, I've had experience in my corporate life of where I ran teams in Asia, in India, and, in Singapore. So I kinda know the culture as well, so I have a little benefit there. Mhmm.

But it's you have to include them. Right? For me, they're a part of the team. They're it's not like, you know, cheap labor. No way.

Steve: Oh, yeah. That's why you're flying her here.

Charles: Exactly. Right? Yeah. And, you know, so you wanna make sure that they're engaged. The first thing I always tell them, any new person that joins is like, look.

I expect you to do your job very well, but I also expect you to provide some feedback.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Tell me what I'm not doing right. Tell tell me what we as a group are not doing right. Mhmm. And, you know, it's you know, it takes a little while for it to actually sink into them because they're, like, they're kind of used to just the culture is kinda used to

Steve: Well, I think a lot of them are used to being just abused. Right? Yeah. I know I have one that I hired, and she was great. She had to leave, for medical reasons.

But when I hired her, I was like, so you cold call right now already. You use a triple line dialer. And you've got scripts, and you have training. Why are we talking? And she's like, you know, I work with this other company, and they pay $6 an hour, and they were buying houses, but they couldn't pay me on time.

I was like, what? So so they just they're they're used to being taken for granted. So if you just treat them well Yep. They're loyal to a fault.

Charles: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Actually, when we're, earlier, that's what I was doing. It's payroll.

Steve: I

Charles: was like and I even I even told him. It's like, look. It because I've been dealing with a couple of payroll just like I just wanna make it efficient Mhmm.

Steve: To

Charles: where it's you know? At the end of the day, less time for me. Mhmm.

Steve: And I'm

Charles: like, I've been trying to do a couple of things and also make it cost efficient for them as well in terms of whatever the exchange rates and whatnot. And it's been a struggle for me for the last, probably, two and a half months. Mhmm. And, I got on a call with Antoine last night because he's, you know, really big on VAs.

Steve: Yeah. He is.

Charles: Yeah. And I was like, hey. I have this problem. I I'm trying to deal with payroll. And I told him what I was doing.

He's like, don't do that. He's like, just right. I know you wanna automate and make everything easy, but he's like, that's just better pen and paper. Mhmm. And I'm like, okay.

And I'm like, it makes good sense because what he's telling me, I'm like, I'm dealing with that right now. I'm like

Steve: So what was his response?

Charles: His response because we use Hubstaff

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: To kind of do a lot of the tracking. Mhmm. And it's like, you know, to align everything up, then you're gonna end up making manual adjustments all over

Steve: the place. That's why he's saying pen and paper.

Charles: Yeah. And then he's like, don't do that. Just have a spreadsheet. I'm like, okay.

Steve: You're overcomplicating it.

Charles: Yes. I'm reengineering.

Steve: Joe Gonzales wants to know how are you dealing with the new cold calling laws passed in Texas?

Charles: So oh, yeah. I I don't know. I haven't I've heard about the new, laws, but I haven't actually addressed it. Right? In terms of anything like that, it's kinda like, you know, obviously, I'm not a lawyer, but everything's risk versus reward.

Mhmm.

Steve: You

Charles: know, and I don't know enough about it right now to be able to to give you an opinion. It's kinda like bandit signs. I mean Mhmm. You know, they're legal if you get the permits. But, you know, at least that's what a cop told me once Yeah.

At midnight.

Steve: And Warner, Quiroga, I apologize if I'm butchering your name. How are you

Charles: So dispositioning right now, a lot of it is actually through relationships. Mhmm. Not as As

Steve: in you're calling them?

Charles: Yeah. Yeah. More so than blasting that one place.

Steve: Okay. So how many deals are you doing a month right now?

Charles: Not enough. Yeah. A

Steve: little looking for a little more specificity here.

Charles: Yeah. So it's not enough. I mean, yeah, I'm I'm usually one that kind of keeps those things close to the vest, for for a number of reasons. But, you know, because one of the things is and I'll I'll give this advice to people as well. Because sometimes when people, you know, we always see things get posted on Facebook in terms of, right, whoever's doing what.

Mhmm. 20 deals a month. And, you know, sometimes that discourages people. Sometimes it inspires people. Mhmm.

What I always tell people about that is, use those as goals. Mhmm. Right? So if somebody's saying that, hey. They did 20 deals this month.

Me, I'm like, cool. Congratulations. You know? I I don't want people to look at that and say, I'm I'm not doing enough. Mhmm.

Because, you know, it it can be discouraging because you're like, you know, even me some days, I'm like, god. I'm not I'm not doing enough. Yeah. I'm always not doing enough, but I'm like, god. They're they're doing that much, but then you just have to turn around and just kinda be positive.

Steve: Well, like you said, it gives you a target here I can shoot for.

Charles: Exactly.

Steve: So, you know, between data, skip tracing, texting, VAs, everything, like, what is your overall, like, monthly? Like, what are you out per month?

Charles: So right now, it's probably in the neighborhood of about 15 Mhmm. Per month.

Steve: That's not bad.

Charles: Yeah. No. I mean Trying to go nationwide,

Steve: that's not bad at all.

Charles: Texting is cheap.

Steve: Texting is super cheap.

Charles: Texting is cheap. And Mhmm. You know, the the only thing about texting is it's just manually intensive. Mhmm. You have to right?

And you have to have someone good who can process Yeah. And process quickly.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: Because, you know, I mean, I literally ran my own texting when I first started on this show because that's my personal I I gotta try it out.

Steve: Master it first.

Charles: Yeah. And then, it is time consuming. Mhmm. And it can be you know, my nature is, like, I'll be up well, not all night, but up until, like, 08:00. So I'm constantly texting people.

And it's just So I get obsessed with stuff like that.

Steve: So how many text messages are you sending per day as an operation?

Charles: As an operation? So right now, it's probably around the 8,000 range. Mhmm. And so the thing about LeadSherpa is, right, it's someone is manually clicking a button Mhmm. 8,000 times.

Steve: Now not someone's clicking a button. Someone's getting, what is that? Repetitive?

Charles: Carpal tunnel.

Steve: Someone's getting carpal tunnel. Yeah. Better make sure you get good, workman's comp.

Charles: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's it's actually not too bad.

I I've I've done it before. I'm like, you know, you can get through a 100 pretty quick. Right. You know, so anybody who does texting you, it's just I mean, it's just manually intensive.

Steve: And Warner again wants to know how many texts are you sending until you get a deal?

Charles: So I think I mean, the best stats is what I helped my buddy with, and it was probably for that one, it's probably in the neighborhood of seven. Mhmm. Was it about 7,000? But I think that's actually on a little bit on the high side. It and, again, it was kind of their first rodeo with texting.

Mhmm. So I and, also, I expect there's also a couple deals kind of in the pipe. Mhmm. They just haven't signed yet. So, you know, it's always you're not gonna get it first time always.

Steve: Mhmm. But I

Charles: expect them to get a couple more out of that. The Right. The thing that I will tell you that the feedback that he did provide was it's way better than cold calling because he this person would they were doing massive cold and massive.

Steve: I think it's balance. I think you gotta do both Yeah. To to maximize the data you get. So Daniel Martinez wants to know, what is the next level and where are you going?

Charles: So for me, the next level is, definitely nationwide. You know, depending on whose data you your the numbers you're looking at Mhmm. Then there's 80,000,000 single family houses out there in The US.

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: With the marketing channels that we have available to us now, AKA text Mhmm. There's probably no reason why you can't go target as much of them as you can.

Steve: So one of these days, I'm gonna get text message from Charles.

Charles: You will. And when I come to Phoenix, yes, you're gonna get you're probably gonna get multiple text messages. But, yeah, I mean, that's that's the thing. Right? It's, you know, one of the things I've really learned this year Mhmm.

And I pointed back to one specific sign. Right? I went to a Rafael Vargas event. He had a sign up there that said something to the effect of, if you wanna if you wanna go big, then you can't think small. Yeah.

So, literally, that sign then I'm just like, oh, I'm I'm just on a different path now.

Steve: You're you're shoving all your all your chips in the table.

Charles: Yeah. I'm not gonna make the 2,015 most likely. Yeah.

Steve: So Elizabeth Navarrete wants to know what's going on, Elizabeth.

Charles: Is Elizabeth.

Steve: How are you dealing or competing with iBuyers?

Charles: With iBuyers. I met an iBuyer the other week. Mhmm. And I'm actually trying to get a hold of him to see how we can do business together. Yeah.

So iBuyers, they are kind of a different breed. Mhmm. Well, I'll just say right now they are because right they've got a specific buy box. Mhmm. Or their buy box is newer houses.

Steve: Stucco tile.

Charles: Yeah. So Probably not

Steve: in a flood zone.

Charles: Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, and probably not a whole lot of repairs. Mhmm. So if you take out the fact that they're really after kind of the newer houses, then you should still have kind of free reign.

Steve: Yeah. Those are houses that probably should go retail anyway.

Charles: Exactly. And, you know, I've talked to people who've, who've wanted to go to iBuyers and, you know, I'm like, well, if they can offer you that price

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: I I I also use the Steve script as well. Mhmm. Did, yeah. So did Zillow come out to your house and make an offer?

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. We do the score share policy. I love the score share policy. Jason Toledo has a great question as well as what's the number one thing you wish you had known when you started your your real estate investment journey?

Charles: I think I think the one thing let me rephrase it because it's a better answer. One thing I would have done differently is be okay with getting help as soon as as soon as possible. Because it's not that I I didn't get help, but I'm the type of personality where, you know, I try to do everything myself. Right. The first couple months, I just YouTubed and, right, went to meetings and, you know, my personality, I was kind of, you know, back of the room corner type of guy.

So I probably should have done what I do now, which is, you know, like, last night. Right? Perfect example. I had a issue with, right, how to pay VAs. So I say, Antoine, help me.

Mhmm. Alright. And I get a spot answer from someone who's done it.

Steve: Right.

Charles: Whereas in the past And responsive. Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, that's probably what I would do. You know?

That's why, actually, I go to a lot of I even go to

Steve: purposely go to a lot of national events Mhmm.

Charles: Is because I wanna go meet people from across the country. Meet people from across the country who are doing the business and I can, you know, connect with, you know, because, you know, I don't have a problem, like, calling, like, JR and Stratton and and Michael. Like, every now and then, I'm like, hey. Help Help me with this.

Steve: Right. What's your struggle biggest struggle right now?

Charles: Biggest struggle right now is one well, I know one of the things that my struggle is is I wanna do too much, where it's like Or your

Steve: eyes are too big? What's that? Like, your eyes are too big or too many tasks?

Charles: Too many things I wanna go tackle, and I have to limit down what I'm able to do. Because I always think I can do it all. Mhmm.

Steve: You

Charles: know, where it's like, okay. Yeah. I can do that. Because, you know, my profile is like, I'm just gonna try and be an expert at everything. Yeah.

Whereas, like, yeah. I can I could probably do that? But then you start to run out of time. Mhmm.

Steve: And

Charles: I think most people kinda know me that I don't really sleep a whole lot. Yeah. So it's like, you know, I just that for me, prior to prioritizing what I really work on

Steve: Mhmm.

Charles: That's one thing I'm really working on. For instance, in the past, I used to use, getting things done. Mhmm.

Steve: I

Charles: think it's Tim Allen. His Mhmm. His way of doing or, yeah, what his name is. But using that, when I used to use that, I was spot on. My life was a lot more crystal clear on what I'm working on.

But now it's kinda like almost I've got a little too much going on. So that's my that's the thing. If I had to do anything, I'm working on that.

Steve: I love it. That's, you know, I have a I have a friend, and we're talking about some of the challenges she's having. And I was telling her, like, why don't you just start your own mortgage company? You know? And I'm glad she said no because I don't have time to help start a mortgage company.

Charles: Oh, yeah.

Steve: But, man, I would have loved to. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm gonna let you think about what you wanna leave as a lasting message, while I make a couple of quick announcements.

So, guys, you know, Charles has put on this event. Right? Whole scaling live. I'll be speaking there along with some of the other guests we talked about earlier, Don Costa, Rafael Vargas, Lee Kearney, just a lot of really big names, adding a lot of value. And like like we said, you know, there'll be no selling from the stage, and I think that's huge because we've all been to those events where that happens.

So, go to wholescalinglive.com. Put in r e d for 25% off, and I look forward to seeing you guys all there. In fact, let me know in the comments below if you guys are coming. I look forward to seeing you guys all there. And then I'll also be in Biloxi, Mississippi, October 5, twenty seventh for Real Estate Roundup Live.

If you guys wanna check that out, go to bit.ly/rerlive. And then I'll be finishing the year in New Orleans, Louisiana with Chris Rood in December. If you wanna check that out, go to bit.ly/2019skill. So got busy schedule ahead of me. So with that, last thoughts.

Charles: Alright. So, first thing, I I do wanna congratulate you, Steve. I think last, I think it was last week, you hit 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. Yeah. So, keep up the good work.

For all the listeners out there, I'd say, you know, if if you find a podcast that resonates with you, especially one of Steve's, definitely, like it, tag a friend who needs it, comment, smash that share button, and smash that subscribe button as well because we want want him to continue bringing great folks on. One thing I would leave people with is, I would probably say anything is possible. Right, because I've done a lot of things in the past couple months that I would have never imagined to doing, like whole scaling. Right? I've always thought about it, but never right.

You know, once you start going, then right. And once you start thinking in the mindset of going big, then anything is possible. Right? And the key is hang out with the right people who will help push you along versus versus, pull you down. Right?

Just hang out with the right people, network with the right people. If you don't have the right people in place now, then maybe go outside of that circle and go find the right people.

Steve: Upgrade a little bit.

Charles: Yes. Yeah. Always improve.

Steve: So how can someone get a hold of you?

Charles: Probably the best way is probably Instagram. Mhmm. At best real Charles. And I do have to thank Steve, Pace, and Elizabeth for, for for making me actually make my first post on Instagram Yeah. In May.

Was it

Steve: that was when that was your first post? I remember you were going through a struggle. You that was your first post.

Charles: That was my very first post. Oh, this made

Steve: a lot more sense.

Charles: Yes. I and I actually right. So I gotta thank a couple of people as well. I think Edwin, from Dallas Mhmm. At WeLive is when I actually created my Instagram account.

I was sitting at, you know, at the bar and write, like, true friends who you met for the very first time because I didn't meet them for the very first time. They wouldn't let me leave until I created an Instagram account because they knew they knew what I needed even though I didn't.

Steve: Yeah. So Michael Ray is gonna be, in Houston Oh, yeah. For whole scaling live. And we're gonna have to have an intervention. Oh, yeah.

He's not posting enough on Instagram. So

Charles: Okay, Michael. Yeah. We'll talk. I I feel your struggle because, you know,

Steve: I I I go through the

Charles: same thing all the time.

Steve: And we're gonna fix that problem in Houston. So with that, thank you guys for watching. Appreciate it. Uh-huh. Thank you.

Charles: Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it.