Chris Jefferson Shares How He’s Flipped Hundreds of Homes, Wholesales Many More, and How to Get Your First Deal

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we've got Chris Jefferson from Richmond, VA. He's gonna talk about how he's flipped hundreds of homes, wholesales many more, and how to get your first deal and not oversimplify the process. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trang, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only MLS for off market wholesale properties, and I help entrepreneurs create businesses that support their family, lifestyle, and goals through mentorship.

I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires. If you wanna join me on that journey, drop me a message on Instagram at steve dot trang. If you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave. Give me a thumbs up. And as a friendly reminder, I don't charge a dime for this show.

I don't make any money doing this. So here's all I ask. This would it cost for you to listen to this show. If you get value today, please tell a friend. You can share this episode right now, tag your friend below, or tell everybody to take away from the show later on.

That way, we can all grow together. And this is a live show, so please ask your questions for Chris to answer. Are you ready?

Chris Jefferson: I'm ready, man.

Steve: Alright. Thanks for coming out here, dude.

Chris: Thank you for having me, man. Thank you

Steve: for having me. My pleasure. My pleasure. So first question is what got you into real estate?

Chris: What got me into real estate? So, I got arrested my senior year in high school as an athlete. You

Steve: know, I I thought that I got arrested.

Chris: I got arrested. Right? So senior high school

Steve: Okay.

Chris: At school, everybody's coming to Senior parking lot. Everybody's coming out of school. So I'm that guy. Right? And, you know, I I thought that I was gonna go play ball in night in college.

I had dreams and aspirations of doing that. But, thankfully, what ended up happening to me is I had a business teacher. Okay? I got involved with DECA pretty early on in high school. Awesome.

I did really well with it. I had a lot of success, and she really inspired me and moved me to pursue business with my life, you know, as I moved forward. So I graduated high school and really kinda just got locked in on business. I saw that real estate was really an opportunity. I was that kid when I was growing up that was reading Fortune magazine and Forbes.

This is before the tech bubble, right, before that blew up. And I would look at those lists and see that everybody was successful in real estate, man. So I just wanted an opportunity to to do something dynamic with my life. And So

Steve: straight out of high school?

Chris: Straight out of high school.

Steve: And what year was that?

Chris: That was 2004.

Steve: 2004? Yeah. Okay. So you hit the ground running.

Chris: Hit the ground running. I didn't make any money for a long time. No. Definitely hit the ground running. Got into real estate.

I just learned. So I started out being a bird dog. You know, I called it trading addresses with people, for a couple $100

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Usually around $250. I was leaving, church one day, and I saw a bandit sign. So I didn't know what that was at the time, but I see a we buy houses sign right on the telephone pole. And I see it, and something just tells me to call the phone number. So pick up my phone.

I call the phone number. Guy picks up the phone, and I say, hey. I just want to learn how to invest in real estate. I'm willing to work completely for free if you're willing to teach me. So we start talking a little bit and he finds out where I went to high school at.

Mhmm. I tell him my name and he's like, wait. He's like, you played played ball with my son. Right? So we start talking about it and I'm like, yeah.

Yeah. Now I know him. Yeah. And so so he says, hey. Meet me at one of my properties tomorrow and we'll talk and I'll show you some stuff.

So he introduced me to a concept of wholesaling. Right? And I started to pursue that, you know, kind of after I found that. Went through a lot of different things in that in the interim. Went to college little bit.

That didn't really work out. Right? I just kept finding myself back at real estate.

Steve: Well, it's pretty cool though that you're you're educated or introduced to wholesaling at that time because not a lot of people even today, people are still like, what is wholesaling?

Chris: What is wholesaling? Right? Right?

Steve: Yeah. It's been around for a really long time.

Chris: Absolutely. Right?

Steve: And so that's pretty cool. And I think the other thing too is that you were intentional. Right? You had made a decision you were getting into

Chris: real estate.

Steve: Right. Because if you didn't make that decision, you're gonna get into real estate. That way, buy houses sign is is just one other thing about that.

Chris: Just a sign on the side of the road that you don't know what to do with. Right?

Steve: But you had you had clarity of what you wanted to accomplish, and you went after it.

Chris: Absolutely. Alright.

Steve: Cool. So when did you pop your first deal?

Chris: So that's a great question, man. So, my first wholesale deal did around 2006. Mhmm. So I had a guy that I was bird dogging a lot for, and I was trying to get into that wholesale space. So I give this guy this deal, and he he says to me, he says, you know, I told him I wanna make $5.

Right? At that time, $5. And today, $5 is a lot of money to me. Right? Mhmm.

Steve: So I

Chris: tell him I wanna make $5. He's like, sure. And I'm like, wow. I'm like, this is really how this thing actually works. You know?

So I popped the cherry man in o six and kind of went through that for a couple years, and then Great Depression happens. Right. Things got a little bit different, right, when that happened.

Steve: So you were learning predominantly from a mentor at that time?

Chris: Yeah. So I had a mentor. I I and I like common mentor because it was more more than real estate. It was a it was really a business life mentor

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: To me. Showed me kind of what a business person looks like, how to manage different people, how to work through and problem solve. Really being a business owner is just dealing with problems every day

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: And figuring out how you can solve those problems. And, you know, he really just gave me an opportunity to kinda understand that. And, you know, we're still really good friends to this day. He's since retired and hung up his his hat from from investing in real estate, but he absolutely supports my business and has been a phenomenal help.

Steve: Well, I think it's really crucial. Right? Because, like, right even right now, there's a lot of information. There's no shortage Sure. Of knowledge out there.

Right?

Chris: Yeah.

Steve: And we all put out, you know, massive amounts of content. But it's still really hard to figure out exactly how to get started where you know, at which point and which specific steps. I know you're gonna talk about it a little bit. Sure. But you, you know, you cling down to somebody and you learn from them.

And that's something that I've told people. Like, if you got money, get a mentor. If you don't got money

Chris: 110%.

Steve: Work for somebody.

Chris: 110%.

Steve: Right. Like, trying to do this on your own with no money. I it's just I can't even imagine.

Chris: It's it's not it's it's difficult to do. Right? Yeah. I encourage everybody to find somebody in your market that you can trade value with. Yeah.

Right? Because, you know, me being a leader now in my market, what is valuable to me is somebody that is intentional about, trying to help me inside of my business. Right? So when somebody comes and says, hey. Like, Steve, can I just cold call for you?

Yeah. You give me a list. I don't really know how to cold call, but if you're willing to show me, I'll show up every day and make phone calls.

Steve: Right.

Chris: That's what it was for me with this guy.

Steve: I wish I had that. Yeah. I wish I had people with this guy.

Chris: I need more people like that, man. Yeah. So what I did with this guy is I just got really intentional about helping him fix problems.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: If he had a contractor on a job site that he needed to have a conversation with, I was willing to go out and talk to that contractor, try to figure out how we could fix that issue. Somebody hadn't paid rent. I'm going out to the property. I'm trying to talk to them about, hey. How can we fix this issue?

And again, this is during the recession. Right? So it wasn't like it is today. Hey. It's the fifth.

We're gonna send you pay or quit. Right? It's like like, no. Hey. Look.

We gotta try to work out. We wanna try to keep you in the property. Mhmm. So I did a lot of those things, and it was a value exchange. I never made a dollar.

Never asked them for anything in that capacity outside of wholesale and deals too.

Steve: Yeah. Awesome. So another detail. Yeah. Start in o four, but your first deal was in o six.

Chris: Exactly. I hear

Steve: a lot of people quitting after four months, like, this is fake. I think, you know, you see in all these different Facebook groups, like, this is is you know, I was sold something or I was pitched something. But you took two years to get your first deal.

Chris: Yeah. And and and the funny part about that, right, is I wanna make sure I give him credit. I give him a lot of of of respect respect for the help that he gave me inside of that deal. Mhmm. My true like, my first deal on my own took me all the way until 2010.

Right? So Wow. Once I got intentional about trying to build my own business Mhmm. Without the need for him to directly help me in kinda every single capacity, it took me two years. So from again, I'm I'm on a long stretch.

I graduated in o four. Right? So now we're talking 2008, opened my first LLC. I'm just ready to go make things happen. It wasn't until 2010 that I started really getting my own personal traction in my own personal business.

You know?

Steve: So what were you doing in those two years with no money coming in?

Chris: So, I was working at a $15 an hour job. I had a motorcycle man when I was out of high school. I bought a motorcycle. I sold my motorcycle. I had an Infiniti.

Sold the Infiniti. Moved back home with my mom. You know, I'm living at my mom's house trying to kind of just figure life out and, you know, it helped me. It was my rock bottom. Right?

One thing that I talk to people about a lot is I got really comfortable and okay inside of my rock bottom. So when I would talk with people running to old friends and they'd say to me, you know, hey, man. I heard that you're supposed to be doing real estate. What's going on? Like, for me, I was in a space where, like, I was okay being that guy that wasn't where he's supposed to be yet.

Mhmm. Because I internally knew I'm I'm headed to a certain space. I know exactly where I'm trying to go. Yeah. These are the things that I'm I'm trying to actively make happen.

Steve: I'm successful, just the results don't show it yet.

Chris: Exactly. Right. But mentally, internally in my mind Right. Like, I'm going for it. Like, I know that I'm going to make these things happen.

Steve: Yeah. So one of our our, a coach that I still work with, and he says, like, I'm a millionaire. My big account might not show it.

Chris: Right. Right. Right.

Steve: But I'm a millionaire.

Chris: Yeah. Absolutely, man. Alright. And you gotta have that mentality. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Steve: Okay. So let's talk about that first deal.

Chris: Yeah. So my my first deal first wholesale deal was a very easy deal. I still remember the street, Merriman Shore in Richmond, Virginia. I find this deal. I take it to him, and I sold the same deal to him.

Right? So I take the deal to him, and, I had a tenant that was ready, Section 8, ready to rent that property, like, legit just ready to go. And purchased the property, I got $5,000. I didn't even get paid on the HUD. I didn't even understand what that even was at the time.

He wrote me a a personal check.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: And so that was kind of my first taste of what they really looked like. And then I found BiggerPockets. So what changed my life was I found BiggerPockets. So when I found BiggerPockets, I was always into, like, online web forums, things of that nature. When I found BiggerPockets, man, it just it just did something for me.

Yeah. It was a space that I could go to. I could see people asking questions, getting specific help, getting the information that they needed. So really, like, what Bigger Pockets really did for me is by the time I started encountering things in my own business, I felt like I kinda had already experienced it through other people's experiences

Steve: Right.

Chris: That I had read about on Bigger

Steve: Gave you some confidence.

Chris: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve: So your first deal closes. Yeah. And after that, it gets easy?

Chris: No. It doesn't. Right? So we're in the recession. So I think it's important for people to understand.

So when a market starts to drop in the capacity that it did Mhmm. Right, the opportunity to wholesale becomes pretty nonexistent. So I was just in a weird space of I felt like I'd found this thing that was gonna change my life, that was gonna be completely dynamic, and then boom, It's gone. Right? And so I'm stressed about that.

I'm trying to figure out how do I make this work? What are the things that I'm supposed to do? And that's how I found rehabbing. Right? So then I got into rehabbing houses.

So around 2010, I did my first rehab. Lost money on that.

Steve: Wait. You just did your first wholesale deal.

Chris: So I moved really quickly into doing doing rehabs.

Steve: Okay.

Chris: And one thing I wanna say about that is a lot of people's idea is that, they wanna get to rehabbing as quickly as possible. And I was that person. It's a different market now than it was then. Mhmm. One of the most important things to understand right now is that people like me, right, we flip houses for active income.

So you need to make active income today, so you wanna go flip houses ASAP. Mhmm. Right? You can can create that with wholesaling. Yeah.

With no debt, you don't have to worry about hard money lenders. You don't have to worry about contractors. You're not running the lows every single day. You can create that active income opportunity really right inside of wholesaling itself.

Steve: Right. Well, it's it's fascinating because I think a lot of people that end up in wholesaling, a lot a lot of them start as flippers.

Chris: Right.

Steve: And, like, wait a minute. What's this wholesaler doing? How much am I paying?

Chris: It's crazy, man. It's crazy. So yeah. I mean, wholesaling is is by far to me the best way to do real estate. Period.

It's the foundation that you can create inside of your business. It gives you the vertical to really move into literally every single other piece of the business. Yeah. And once you control a deal as a direct to seller marketer, you control where that becomes a subject to. You control whether it becomes a rental.

You control whether that's an owner finance. You control whether it's a rehab. You've got kind of full control of that deal. When you're a rehabber, and especially right now, you're rehabbing for active income, you're literally waiting for somebody to bring you a deal. So you're just kinda like sitting in the wings.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: It's like, I hope Steve brings me a deal today. Right. You're calling every wholesaler in town. You're trying to be the first on their list. You you gotta take full control of your business.

You've gotta kinda control these things. Wholesaling has given me the ability to be able to do that.

Steve: And wholesalers are controlling how much you can make as a flipper.

Chris: Yeah. Especially right now. Right? So, like, margin has become, like, a big topic of conversation.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: So you got a lot of rehabbers. They're good with, like, $10.15, 20,000 on a deal. Now they're planning to make $20.25.

Steve: Right.

Chris: But once you really get to the bottom of that closing cost, paying, you know, attorney fees, things of that nature, realtor fees, the 20,000, 25,000, everything doesn't go right on a rehab. Nope. So now so now that number has changed to to something completely different.

Steve: You know

Chris: what I'm saying?

Steve: Yeah. I think they're I mean, 18 k, I know is, like, pretty common in our market as a target. Yeah. It's, like, 8% of the of the property value. Right?

Like, that's what they're and it's so skinny. And so

Chris: what are guys getting wholesale?

Steve: What's that?

Chris: So what are guys making wholesale? They're making Oh,

Steve: guys are making 15 to 20.

Chris: Exactly. And the beautiful part about wholesale that I realized was, wait. I'm looking at it as I'm only making 5 or 10,000 a pot. Mhmm. That's the wrong way to really look at that.

The way to look at it is if I do 10 deals a month and make 10,000 a deal, now I've made a $100,000 in a month. Right. Right? So to be able to do that in this market rehabbing so it's it's difficult.

Steve: It's hard to scale. Hard to scale. Hard to scale. Alright. So you you you did your first deal wholesale.

It's like, alright. I'm gonna flip. Yeah. And you lost money on that one.

Chris: Lost money. So I just didn't manage contractors right, man. I didn't know what I was doing exactly. You know, I walked into that situation trying to figure it out, trying to do things the right way. There's no, you know, there's no real true, like, guidebook to real estate.

Every deal is different. How you manage different situations is gonna change as you develop your business. So, I kind of goofed on the management, contractor. And so I finished that deal. I lose the $15.

I'm thinking about going back to college.

Steve: You lost 15 on the flip.

Chris: Lost 15 on the flip.

Steve: After paying the the the party money lender.

Chris: This is my money that I saved up.

Steve: Okay. So it was your loss. It wasn't like you owed anything. I lost $15.

Chris: Lost it myself. Right. So I'm still with my mom. Paying a whole bunch of money in child support at the time. This is before I got custody of my daughter, and I'm just kinda dealing inside of that process.

So, again, I'm already back at I'm back inside of my rock bottom.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Right? But it's okay because, again, like I said, I've I've gotten comfortable in that. Right? Yeah. And so I accepted.

That's where I was at, and I said, you know what? I'm gonna give this another shot because I didn't wanna didn't wanna be regular. I didn't wanna be just a regular guy that worked a regular job making $15 an hour. I would never get I I remember those times as a kid

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Looking at Forbes, looking at Fortune, being in the airport with my family on vacation, and seeing people in suits with briefcases. Like, I wanted to know what that really felt like. Right. Well

Steve: and I I kinda the analogy I like to use, I've seen other people use it, is like the matrix.

Chris: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Like, once you know it's not for you, like, how do you go back into it?

Chris: You can't, man. And so I I figured that out, and, I said, you know what? I'm gonna try it again. So I went back to the same hard money lender. Right?

I was paying a lot of money at the time for hard money. It's different than it is now. So I go back to this lender. I buy another deal. I pop 55,000 on that deal.

Rehab. Nice. It was good. So I take that 55, and I reinvest it back into my business. So a lot of people don't know this, and I do talk about it, but I didn't pay myself for two years.

So I kept working the $15 an hour job. I kept living at home with my mom. I still didn't have a nice car. I got a car my mom gave me. And, everything that I made, I'm talking literally every penny, for two years, I dumped it back into my business.

Steve: So how much did you dump into your business?

Chris: So when I quit my job, I quit my job in 2012. I had over 300,000 in the bank, and I owned a a a very good amount of property by that point.

Steve: That's awesome. And you were still working that $15 an hour job.

Chris: Man, I was still working at T Mobile, still coming and punching the clock every day. And the funny thing with that, man, is that so I went on vacation, to Miami. Right? And it's the first time I remember going somewhere on vacation as an adult where I could actually afford to do something. Right?

Like, I remember I rented a jet ski. It was, like, a $150 an hour, and, like, I could never do something like that before as an adult. You know? Right. And so I'm sitting on the beach.

Right? And I'm like, man. I gotta go back to work on Monday. You know? So I show up to work on Monday.

My supervisor kinda just, like, said something that triggered me a little bit. You know? Mhmm. I got frustrated with the guy, and I just walked out and never went back.

Steve: Yeah. You

Chris: know? And then I because it hit me. I had a fear of leaving my job. I truthfully, I should have left a lot sooner.

Steve: Right.

Chris: But I had a fear of leaving my job. And a a friend of mine, she said something to me that I never forget, and I recommend it to a lot of people. So something she said to me, she said, hey, you're working forty hours a week. Alright? And you make, like, $25,000 a year.

Okay? She said, are you saying with everything you're doing right now, flipping houses, you're doing these different things, that you can't leave your job and make $25,000 back with forty hours of your time back a week.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: And so, like, her just saying it that way, like, hey. If I give you forty hours

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: A week, you're saying in twelve months, you can't make $25? Right. And I'm like, well, I've already made $25 flipping a house.

Steve: Yeah. It's really obvious Yeah. When someone else says it. Yeah. But you don't necessarily

Chris: No. No. No.

Steve: See if there I mean, there's lots of things. Right? That like, someone said to me, I was like,

Chris: oh, damn it. No. It's funny you say that. Right? So, like, so, like, one thing for me and I and I encourage people to understand this, and it's something I had to figure out myself.

Mhmm. Sometimes we just need somebody to tell us things we already know.

Steve: Right.

Chris: It's it's that moment of clarity. Like, I know that I was working forty hours a week, and I was only making $25,000 a year. Mhmm. Like, I knew that. But I had this weird attachment that or fear of leaving my job.

Well, I've got a kid. I've got I need insurance. What am I gonna do about this? What am I gonna do about that? And it was just that conversation that made me realize, man, I'm never going back to t mobile, man.

Yeah. You know? So I left. I got heavily into flipping houses. Up to that point, we're already doing about twenty, thirty flips a year.

2013, I started doing new construction. So we started building houses. Reason I started doing that is that the market has started getting more competitive. Right? You know, it wasn't like before where you could just call your realtor, and your realtor's got five houses for you to buy.

Right? So it got to a point where I needed to be able to create my own my own inventory. And then I found that infill lots was a way to be able to do that. So I wasn't competing with everybody to try to buy a house. Yeah.

Steve: Right? Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So you added development.

Chris: Correct.

Steve: You didn't pivot. Correct.

Chris: Right. So I continued to do rehabs. Mhmm. And then I started to do development, new construction. I like new construction.

New construction is a lot easier than doing rehabs because you're just really kind of putting something together based on a preset plan.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: So we did that for a number of years. And then it got to the point in 2015 where we had so many projects. My business has gotten huge. We're doing a ton of different projects. I'm making a whole bunch of money.

Right? And, I start running into cash flow issues. Right? And I remember because I called my accountant. Alright?

And I'm So go ahead.

Steve: It's a hard thing for people to understand.

Chris: Sure. You're making a lot of money. You're making a couple million dollars a year.

Steve: Right. But you had no money.

Chris: Exactly. Alright. So here's what happens. So people understand this. This is a rat

Steve: It's a really strange concept.

Chris: It is, man. It's the it was hard for me to understand at the time. This is the rat race of being a rehabber and being in the development world. Right? So I'm making all this money and I remember I'm talking to my I didn't feel it though.

Steve: And I

Chris: talked to my accountant and she's like, yeah. You did 1.7. Like, that's great. And I'm like, well, where's the 1.7 at?

Steve: You

Chris: know? And she's like, oh, well, look. You you own 10 pieces of land over here. You've bought these 15 houses over here. Because I've been stacking up land.

I've been stacking up inventory to build a pipeline of, single family development. Right? So my mentality was at the time, alright. Everything I make, I wanna put it back on the street.

Steve: That's the

Chris: only way that I'm gonna be able to make money. Mhmm. Right? And so I ignored the kind of liquidity inside of that. So it got to the point where my burn rate a month is over $200,000.

It was crazy. Right? It's nuts. So I had over 20 active projects. I've got project manager on staff, superintendent, and I'm waking up every day ready to go crazy.

Steve: Right? You're stressed.

Chris: Stressed, man. Highly stressed. Not looking forward to going to the office. And I'm frustrated because I feel that, hey. I've been in this a long time.

Why is everything not falling exactly where I want it to fall? Mhmm. And I was I was measuring that based on the liquidity. Right? And so sitting in the office, it's March.

I've got enough money to run through August, you know. And I'm talking to my right hand guy, my my head of operations, and I'm talking to him. And I'm like, Mark, man. I'm like, what are we gonna do? Right?

Like, I got enough money to make it to August, man. And he says, hey, he goes, why don't we just wholesale some of these? So here's the funny thing about all of this. I never stopped creating my own direct to seller marketing. Mhmm.

The problem is that I only cherry picked the deals that I wanted to buy.

Steve: Right.

Chris: So we'd have all these leads. I only bought in a couple specific neighborhoods. So if it was outside of that neighborhood, we had tossed the lead. So, like, we would just literally throw money. Literally.

It sounds so crazy. We would throw money out of the window. That's how, like, locked in I was with rehabbing and development. Right? And so we started realizing, like, we're sitting on leads.

We've got leads coming in weekly. And we're buying, like, one or two of these a month or two or three of these a month, but we've got maybe 10 leads coming in. Mhmm. So we reshifted our focus. I had a large amount of inventory, like I said, at the time.

So what I did is I started selling off inventory. And this is how I found wholetailing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Alright? And I don't even think it was called wholetailing at that time. Mhmm.

Steve: Like, a recent recent term?

Chris: Yeah. We just got liquidation. Yeah. Alright? And so you're like, alright.

I need to liquidate some of these projects. Let me go and get some of these going. And what I started finding was the market had rode up so high. I had bought some of these so early. I was making money without I mean, I'm making money on lots.

I remember I had two lots that I bought side by side. I paid 50,000 for each one. Right? And I'm selling them for 95,000 a piece. It was the same dirt.

And so once you start realizing, like, things like that

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Your mindset shift occurs. And I'm like, oh. So what I've done is I've gotten caught up in being the man. Right? I've gotten caught up in doing the best houses in the neighborhood, doing the HGTV before and after pictures.

Yeah. What I've gotten away from is the rate of return is the goal of your business. Like, ROI is what it's really actually about. Right? So once I refocused on that, we started building this wholesale business.

And, to fast forward a little bit, I hired some consultants in 2017. Harvard educated guy. He comes in first meeting. He looks at all my businesses. He goes through my financials, and we're looking at my tax returns.

Alright? And, he goes, hey. He's like, what is this business right here do? And I'm like, look. I don't need any help with that.

That's my wholesale business. That's kinda just something I'm doing on the side. Like, I need help with this development stuff. Right? And he says, no.

No. No. Or his wife says, no. And she's like, is that the net profit?

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: And I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, let's can we please talk about this?

I need help. Right?

Steve: The problem child, not the good kid.

Chris: Exactly. And she goes, wait. If you're making that kind of money wholesaling, why are you doing some of this stuff? And I'm like, that's a really good question. Yeah.

Alright? So then that shifted that gear into going kinda all in as we are now in that wholesaling business.

Steve: Yeah. And that's a question that comes up a lot. Guy to guy in our office, you know, he was like, I wanna start doing some more traditional business this year.

Chris: Right.

Steve: And I was like, what?

Chris: Yeah. It just it it doesn't make sense.

Steve: I I can also, like, as your as your broker. Right?

Chris: Like, I

Steve: love hearing this as your broker.

Chris: Right. More money. Right? Right. Yeah.

Steve: But as your friend, like, what are you talking about? You told me you did 60 k on each of those two flips you did.

Chris: Right. Why why are you trying to do something different? Yeah.

Steve: Like, just double down on what's working.

Chris: And that's really what it comes down to is I realized and understood, after that conversation that day, I'm really good at sales and marketing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Wholesaling is literally just a sales and marketing business. So I realized, let me let me dial all the way in. Let me go as firm as possible on just honing my skills at selling sales and marketing. And what that's been able to do has been transformative. I don't wake up stressed anymore.

Yeah. I'm not running to Lowe's at 06:00 in the morning to pay for an order. I don't have a bunch of superintendents and and project managers anymore on payroll. Yeah. Now we've built out a wholesale operation.

I still do some fix and flip, but those are very every budget I used to have fix and flip was over a $125,000. Now I don't have one over 25,000. Yeah. So we're doing for us

Steve: You're really cherry picking.

Chris: We're really cherry picking very small rehabs to do. Yeah. I do enjoy the process of rehabs. Some deals just work out where you have to rehab them. Mhmm.

A lot of those rehabs, they start out as this the intention starts out as a whole tail. And then we just get to a space where it's like, alright. Well, to really maximize the value here, let's do some form of rehab to kind of pick the property. Right.

Steve: Yeah. So I wanna go back to this topic, though, just a little more. Because it's something that, you know, I've heard other people preach. Just staying in one lane. Right?

Yeah. You know, we got, Pace who was a generous host driving you around.

Chris: Absolutely.

Steve: And he's talking about sub two, sub two, sub two. Right. Right? And right now, there's this big thing about multifamily.

Chris: Oh, yeah.

Steve: Alright? And so there's no shortage of things to get excited about. Right. So how do you stay focused?

Chris: That's the million dollar question, man. Yeah. So so here's my personal opinion. Pace and I have been talking about this since I've been in Arizona, actually. So everybody's got a different perspective.

Here's mine. I believe in just building up one vertical extremely aggressively. Mhmm. Like so make a focus to get really good at wholesaling. Build an operation that can really work for itself, and you can outsource a lot of the work inside that wholesale business.

Mhmm. And then start looking at other verticals to get into.

Steve: Right.

Chris: I think a lot of the issue is is that I think as people naturally, we have this weird fear of time. Right? And What do you mean? Alright. So for example, I remember being in my early twenties.

I'm making a whole bunch of money. Right? And I feel like I'm not making it fast enough. Alright?

Steve: And so a little impatient.

Chris: I'm impatient. Alright? I'm making really good money. I'm a millionaire. Alright?

But my thought process is I need more because I see everybody else doing all these things. This guy's got a Lamborghini. This guy's doing this. This guy's developing this apartment complex. And my mind was I needed to be doing those exact same things.

So what happened is I lost sight exactly where I was personally at.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: And I started focusing on what everybody else was doing, thinking that's where I needed to be. Right.

Steve: And

Chris: so what I realized, I was 25 at the time. And time is like a very interesting thing to me. Alright? Because what what I had to understand is somebody told me this. Alright.

So if I'm 25, I've got God willing. I've got a good forty years of life left. At least. Hopefully. Minimum.

Alright. So if I've been able to do all this in twenty five years. Right? I've only been in real estate five. What like and I've got forty to go, and I'm stressed and upset that I'm not where I wanna be at.

Mhmm.

Steve: It's because

Chris: I was comparing this the places I wanted to be to everybody else. And this is with social media, these Facebook groups.

Steve: Even harder.

Chris: It's tough, man. And so my encouragement to anybody watching this, my my my personal process is you gotta find out what your ideal life is. Alright? And I talk about this a lot, but your ideal life is important. So it's not I I can't look at you and say, you know, what does Steve have that I want?

You got a nice Tesla. Right?

Steve: Thank you.

Chris: Alright. So and I I want a Tesla. Right? But I'm not comparing you having a Tesla to me. Right.

I just know what my ideal life is. So, how do I wanna take care of my family? Alright? What type of car do I wanna drive? Where do I wanna be able to go on vacation?

Alright. What kind of school do I wanna be able to put my kids in? That that's your ideal life. You've gotta get comfortable inside of that, figure out what number it costs to create your ideal life.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: And then you build your business to support that.

Steve: Right.

Chris: Not support what Steve wants to do, what Pace wants to do, what Max wants to do. It's like, hey. What works for me? What is my personal ideal life? And then let me chase and pursue that.

Steve: Yep. I love it. You gotta design your life. Exactly. Right.

Chris: Absolutely.

Steve: So and that's something that I've I've mentioned a couple of times. You know? I I just wanna reiterate this. You know, a lot of people, they get into this business for time, freedom of time, freedom of money.

Chris: And you get away from that.

Steve: And then you forget. Yep. And you get in the chase. And once you're in the chase, man, you're comparing, you're competing.

Chris: It's hard to get out of that, man. I was there. So I know.

Steve: And so we gotta remember why we started. And once we go back to remember why we started, then we can design our business to support Exactly. That why we started.

Chris: Yeah, man. So figure out your ideal life. Everybody's number is different.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: So my the number I need that for the things that I want is gonna be different than the number that you need for the things that you want. Right. You just gotta get locked in and focused on your own personal number. And, like, to me, that's like real success. Success isn't having the things that everybody else has.

It's having the things that you set out to have in the first place.

Steve: Right.

Chris: Like, this is a weird thing. Right? So, like, we all get into this business, and this is, like, the progression of, real estate to me. So we get into the business. We first hear about wholesaling usually.

Right?

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: There's somebody listening to this is going through this right now. So you find out about wholesaling and you're, like, geeked up. Like, you're going crazy. You're like, man, I'm gonna be a millionaire. I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna drive a Lamborghini. All these crazy things. Right? And you get super pumped up on that. And then you're like me.

It takes you a long time to do your first deal. So then you start hitting the pavement and you start getting stressed. And you're starting to get frustrated because you're like, why haven't I done a deal yet? This isn't working. That's not working.

Why are these things not transitioning into

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: The income that I thought that I could create? Right? And there's a lot of different things that that that impact that. To me, a lot of what that is is we we start to lose sight of staying focused. Right?

And I encourage people to understand that being a wholesaler is not a part time business. No. Alright. And so this is how it works. Right?

So you get pumped up. You're super excited. Then things stop not they're not working. So you're spending some money on marketing every month or every couple of weeks or when it's convenient, when you got extra cash sitting around. And then you can't transition that into a deal.

Well, it's because you're not being consistent.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Right? And so you can't do this kind of part time thing with real estate, especially wholesaling. Yeah. So I've done every kind of every piece of real estate investing. Wholesaling is the bottom of the totem pole.

Right? So, like, the guy who owns the office building, he might not even know what wholesaling is like we talked about earlier. Right? Right. Now the benefit is hustling is rewarded in wholesaling.

If you have the ability to work consistently and extend effort daily, you will be rewarded in wholesaling. It's just about being consistent, but the concept is super simple. So the concept is really just finding somebody who wants to sell a piece of property. Right? Contracting that and selling your equitable interest in the contract to somebody else on an assignment.

Really simple. Very basic. Right?

Steve: Not as easy as it sounds.

Chris: It's not. So I agree with that a 110%. It's not as easy as it sounds. Yeah. But I know in hindsight, if I had been consistent and worked daily

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: In this business and talked to sellers daily in this business, I would have done a deal way sooner than two years.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Chris: For sure.

Steve: For sure.

Chris: I mean,

Steve: that's something that Brent is always always, you know, just hammering on. Right? Right? Meaningful conversations. How many meaningful conversations to be

Chris: able to help? Have conversations with sellers daily. It's easy because we have these personal hang ups that are preventing us from getting things done. Yeah. And so it's like, I know I gotta go to the gym.

Mhmm. Alright. I know I need to work out, lose some weight. Right? And so for me, what starts to happen is, then I make an excuse to not go to the gym.

Yeah. It's like, I'll just go tomorrow or you start the diet. You get a weekend.

Steve: I'll start on Monday.

Chris: Exactly. You're like, I'll just start on Monday. We do the same thing with wholesaling. Yeah. Right?

It's the same concept because it makes us have to actually work Mhmm. Ourselves to actually get it done. It takes, like, personal effort to actually do the business.

Steve: Alright. Yeah. So wholesaling, that's your bread and butter today. Absolutely. Are you developing too still?

Like Yes.

Chris: So we just finished an apartment complex development a couple months ago. I'm looking for some more opportunities right now. My mindset on that has changed quite a bit. Yeah. I'm only really kinda looking for long term stuff that I can put some money in Mhmm.

And be involved in. I I like the process of wholesaling. I look at life in two buckets. So I look at an active income bucket, and I look at a passive income bucket. I wanna support my passive income bucket with more development opportunities.

Really interested in mixed use. The market is really at a point right now with finding these opportunities in Richmond. So we're in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. Right? Yeah.

Steve: So it's

Chris: a little different here. You guys got with, like, five, six million people here. Yeah. Richmond is a smaller city. Mhmm.

Not very, development friendly. Right? I can see that. But I'm trying to help the city work on that. So we need to get a little bit more development friendly.

So those opportunities aren't as abundant as I feel they should be. So now we're stretching out. So, like, we've moved our wholesale business. We're still primarily in Richmond. Now we're in Norfolk, Newport News, Portsmouth, and we're looking to find, development opportunities as they come up in our market.

So it's not something I'm actively chasing anymore like I used to be. Yeah. But if it comes up in the pipeline, then we're absolutely gonna do it and take it down.

Steve: For a passive income bucket, you're saying you could develop it and keep it?

Chris: Absolutely correct.

Steve: You're not selling it.

Chris: No. The benefit is, you know, it's like the BRRRR strategy.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Like, you can apply that to an apartment complex.

Steve: Yeah. Exactly.

Chris: Now you're talking about pretty nice take home on that cash out refi. Yeah. Right? When when you do that. So that's my thought process on that.

That'll help build some more active cash flow.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: But really the wholesale business right now for me is designed to be able to do that. Right. And I'm looking for those passive opportunities. I see that coming whenever the market cycles. We've been talking that the market's gonna drop for, like, four years, it feels like.

I don't think anybody knows when that's coming anymore. Mm-mm. Now

Steve: we're expecting to continue appreciating.

Chris: No. Everything looks super solid right now. Right? I know in in Richmond, we're down to, like, two two point one months of inventory right now, which is crazy.

Steve: Right? We're forty five days here.

Chris: It's it's just nuts.

Steve: That's crazy. Yeah. Is people tend to overcomplicate this wholesale business.

Chris: Yes. Right? Yeah.

Steve: Tell me about that.

Chris: So I I think we over I think we overcomplicate it, by not being consistent. Right? And what I wanna see more people do, and I've kind of been on a mission this year to really see this, is to take some of the complexities out of actually being successful in this business. So here's the thing. Somebody asked me earlier today, hey, if I dropped you in Reno, Nevada Brent Daniels' estimate.

He said, hey, if I dropped you in Reno, Nevada with $500, what would you do? And I'm like, very simple. Right? I'd go buy a list. I'd skip trace that list, and I pick up my phone.

Mhmm. That's it. Right. Right? And so that that's how simple this business is.

What happens is there's probably 20 people watching this right now that don't like the cold call. Mhmm. And they'll tell you, like, man, I hate cold calling. I don't wanna talk to anybody on the phone, Things of that nature. We don't like cold calling because it's it's the path of resistance.

Steve: A lot

Chris: of human nature is to always take the least path of resistance. So for me, to simplify things, it's like, hey. If I just gotta get on the phone with somebody and and build some rapport, create an appointment opportunity if that's how I'm running my business, get out in front of them, put something under contract, like, that's that's simple to do. Right? The hard part you said earlier the wholesaling is hard, and we agree on that.

Alright? What's hard about it is the effort and work that it takes to get that one seller to pick up the phone Mhmm. And say, hey. You can come take a look at my house. Right?

Steve: So I've had people say they don't like the cold call, and my responses have been one of two things.

Chris: I'm curious to hear your response. Too bad. Or Yeah.

Steve: Earl Nightingale had this thing called the strangest secret. Mhmm. And have you heard it?

Chris: No. I have tell me, please.

Steve: It's great. It's like classics, like 1940

Chris: Okay.

Steve: Or nineteen thirties. Yeah. And it's basically it says, like, you know, we we did some research, and what we found were were the guys that were wealthiest or the guys that didn't wanna do the same things you didn't wanna do Yeah. But they did it.

Chris: You you gotta face the resistance, man. You gotta walk through it. This is my advice to everybody listening when it comes to cold calling. I I I my first job out of high school was in a call center doing bill collecting. Mhmm.

Like, that is, like, the true form of

Steve: a call. On your resume? You're hired.

Chris: Oh, man. No question about that. Debt collector.

Steve: Hired. We don't even need to have an interview.

Chris: No. That's a business that'll beat you up for real. Yeah. So I cut my teeth doing that, and that's on the phone all day just calling people, trying to get them to pay something.

Steve: You know what I mean? Chris, what do you have in your account?

Chris: Something Please give me a I got a quote. Please make a payment. And so, you know, I learned how to cold call through that and then working at T Mobile. Alright? Here's the thing though.

When you're cold calling, you're cold calling people that are going through stuff. So we're already pulling motivated list in the first place. So we're pulling list of tax delinquent. We're pulling code violation list. We're pulling list of people in probate.

Yeah. So somebody just passed away, and we're actively calling them trying to buy their house. So we we can't we can't be amiss and think when Steve answers the phone and somebody in his family just passed away. Right? Then he might tell me to get the f off the phone.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Right? Or he might not want to talk to me today. Yeah. The power is in once you realize that and you start bridging the gap in those conversations to start focusing on the communication and helping that person. Mhmm.

Right? So instead of being in a scenario and just actively thinking about doing a deal, it's like, how can you be of service to that person and help them kind of solve an issue? Right? But I I think that's where we get into the space of really kind of over complicating the business. It's just not focusing on those type of things, you know.

Steve: So do you coach?

Chris: Absolutely. So

Steve: Okay. So what I'm your coaching student. Chris, I don't wanna call. I don't wanna call. I don't wanna call.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so here's the thing. I'm gonna ride you hard, man.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Alright. So I'm gonna get you on the phone. I'm gonna sit with you while you're on the phone. Alright? And we're gonna I I believe in watching film.

So I told you I grew up playing sports. Mhmm. So for me, I'm I'm I'm a a student of of the business. I'm a student of the game. Right?

And so what I like to do is get you on some calls, get you to understand that it's okay to not do well on the call. Mhmm. Alright. That's like there's nothing wrong with not doing well on the call. I'd argue that it's almost better to not do to do well on the call initially because we then we can truly figure out what you need actual help with.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Right? So we're just gonna go through film every day. Right? It's just like the QB. Yeah.

Alright. So every day, I'm your coach.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Every day, man, we're just going through film. We're not focusing on getting the deal. That's not important. What is important because remember we got time. Right?

Steve: We're

Chris: only 25. Yeah. I wish I was still 25. I'm 33 now. Yeah.

But we got we have nothing but time.

Steve: Wish I was 33.

Chris: Exactly.

Steve: So we're just focusing on we're just focusing on Yeah.

Chris: Honing the skills, getting better. Like, we're gonna getting better. Like, we're gonna get on the field eventually Mhmm. And throw touchdowns.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Like, we know that's gonna happen. But right now, we're just daily gonna go through the film for the next couple of weeks. You're gonna make two, three hundred calls an hour. Right? And we're just gonna go through every live contact

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Every single day. And then we're gonna talk about I'm gonna coach you up. Like, let me be Belichick. Mhmm. You can be Brady.

Right? I'm let me get you coached up. And once we get there, man, I'm gonna put Bledsoe's gonna get hurt. Right? You're gonna you're gonna go on the game.

Now you're hall of famer.

Steve: Right. You know

Chris: what I mean? Exactly. But I think we're just constantly in this rush. You know? We find out the business.

We get excited, and we're just gonna do a deal right now.

Steve: So let me ask you this. Right? So I'm your student. Sure. And I'm supposed to be doing 200, 300 dials an hour.

Chris: You're asking me something I'm probably dealing with right now.

Steve: Right. But we have a call or whatever. Yeah. And I was like, so I got me, like, 30 calls last week.

Chris: So you're not serious about the business.

Steve: Right? The conversation.

Chris: Yeah. And I and and I'm not in a space where I wanna keep your money

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Right, as a student or as your coach. Right? Because if if you're not willing to put the work in to make the phone calls

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Then the reality is you gotta accept you're not serious about what you say you wanna do. Yeah. And so that's what I mean about treating this business as a part time business. Mhmm. Like, you can't wholesale part time.

You've gotta do wholesaling on a daily basis and a consistent basis. So if you're a past student and you only made 30 calls last week, you're not you you don't wanna wholesale. You this isn't this isn't what you wanna do. Right? Yeah.

Steve: Your actions don't line up with

Chris: your words. No. You wanna be

Steve: a

Chris: bill collector. Yeah. Alright? You want you wanna work somewhere

Steve: and you wanna work

Chris: collect your bills. Exactly. You know? So I would my encouragement to you would be to to try to coach you up, try to have a conversation, to get you to a space where you understood that you need to make more calls. Right?

But if I but if I can't get you there, as a coach, it's my responsibility to be honest with you at the same time

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: And say, hey, Steve. Look, man. You're just not ready to do this shit. And And there's maybe something mental that you gotta overcome to get to the space that you are ready.

Steve: See, I was I was trying to be Tom Coughlin earlier on Facebook. I don't I don't think that worked. Yeah.

Chris: He got us here.

Steve: He got us here. Alright. So Charlie Pritos says your only competent decision is yourself.

Chris: 100%.

Steve: Diana says, yeah, her biggest problem is being consistent. So let's talk about that. Consistency. Try to overcome that.

Chris: And again, man, there's so many people that have been trying to do this, and I respect the people that have been trying to do this for a long time because I I remember personally what that feels like. I I remember I used to I mean, I remember waking up sometimes, man, crying, because I wanted to do a deal so bad. Right? But my actions didn't match my words.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Alright? So I felt it. Like, I I felt that I wanted to not live at my mom's house anymore. I thought I felt that I wanna be able to take care of my family and do these different things, but I wasn't walking in that every single day. Alright?

So the consistency became the issue. So what I had to do is I started time blocking. Alright? So I started managing my time out in a way where I used to work three to midnight when I worked at T Mobile. Okay?

So I knew I had to get up as early as I could. So it would take me, like, fifteen, twenty minutes to get home. I'm trying to get in the bed by 01:00 every night, every morning. Right? And I want to get up as early as possible so I can start working actively on real estate.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Chris: so this is when things changed. Like, I started making that self commitment. And I think a lot of this comes down to, when you ask me about consistency, is being willing to make the self commitment. Right? So it's like I used to love playing video games.

Right? I still do. I don't get to play them as much as I want.

Steve: Right? That's what I was telling Brent a a few weeks ago on his show. It's the give up list.

Chris: Yes. I like that.

Steve: What are you willing to give up to be successful?

Chris: I like that a lot. Right. So, like, you you gotta be willing to give some stuff up. So, you know, watching your favorite TV shows, watching the game every week or every Sunday. Like, that's all time.

Like, a football game is four hours.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: That's four hours on a Sunday.

Steve: That's only during one slot. There's three of them on Sundays.

Chris: Absolutely. Yeah. Exactly. So think about how much time you're giving up. You're giving your whole Sunday up.

Yeah. Right? So if you're not where you wanna be, you gotta have that give up list. I really like that a lot. You have to create something like that in your life.

That's that's what makes that's what separates the people who go far in this business Mhmm. From the people that sit around for a couple years like I did originally Yeah. And don't get where they wanna go. Because you're just not willing to sacrifice some stuff. Right.

The other part of that too, and I had this conversation with somebody recently, is you gotta get comfortable inside of your rock bottom. I said at the beginning of this conversation that one thing that I did is I got comfortable in my rock bottom. I got comfortable, with the embarrassment of not being exactly where I wanted to be yet. Yeah. Alright?

So I got comfortable with telling my family that I'm doing real estate investing. And every time I bump into somebody in my family, like, hey. How's the real estate investing? You done a deal yet? Nah.

You know, I got comfortable with people not supporting anymore the things that I said

Steve: that I wanted to do with

Chris: real estate investing. Mhmm. I remember at first, like, that being something hard for me to deal with, because I was so excited about it. I was so pumped up about it. And then people tell me, hey.

That's not gonna work. Hey. You're not gonna be successful when you do that. So once you get comfortable inside of that, then, like, nobody can weaponize those

Steve: things against

Chris: you anymore. So when you take that power away from people's words, right, and you you have that to yourself, just like, hey. Look. I know I'm not where I wanna be at right now.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: But that's okay. I'm 33 if I'm not where I wanna be right now. Like, if I can act take action and get consistent every day, like, I'll I'll get there.

Steve: One thing I wanna add here. Right? You're saying when you first started, you had your enthusiasm. Right. And people were using it against you.

Yeah. But one thing I wanna, you know, really push upon everyone who's listening is that enthusiasm. Embrace it as long as you can. I get I I don't have 5,000 Facebook friends. Right?

But I get a whole bunch of friend requests.

Chris: Yeah.

Steve: And I reject crap load of them. Yeah. Because I don't know who the hell you are. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, this is in your profile. You're not posting about it. You're not talking about it. Yeah.

If I don't know your real estate, I don't know why I'm gonna accept your friend request.

Chris: I'm the exact same way. I've got, like, like 1,300 friend requests sitting right now

Steve: that I

Chris: need to try to go through. But

Steve: My first filter is are you in real estate or not?

Chris: Yeah. Like, you gotta you you you gotta carry that excitement. I like how you said that. It's easy to lose that, though. I think it's fair to say.

Steve: It's the first thing to go.

Chris: Yeah. I think because you go make those cold calls.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: You don't get those deals. You're working on unlimited budget. Yeah. And so you I like that. You lose that enthusiasm of wanting to do this business.

No. I mean, it's it's just one of those things. I think that's that hard spot that you gotta be willing to push through. Because, like, the reality is the other side of that is amazing. Yeah.

Right? Like, doing that deal and and making $5 or doing that deal and making $10, like, somebody listening to this right now, like, $5 can change the trajectory of what their year looks like.

Steve: It's like Max. That's right. You're one deal away.

Chris: You're only one deal away. And I love that saying so much because that that's that's really truly what it is. Like, you're one deal away from anything that you want, but you have to go through that barrier of entry and that that resistance to kinda really get there.

Steve: Gotta pay the price.

Chris: Got to.

Steve: So Carlos Sanchez wants to know, you know, you were in the industry in 2008. You stated during recession. Wholesaling disappeared. Yeah. How are you preparing for when the market changes?

Chris: I love that question, man. So, that's why I do a lot of hotel deals right now. I really love hotel deals. That allows me to kinda continue to build my private lender relationships.

Steve: Mhmm. I

Chris: built my business largely on, private capital. I believe in private capital a 110%. I'm doing things like getting with people like PACE. Tony senior is an incredible resource for me. Getting with people like Tony senior.

Learning about creative strategies. I think that creative investing is what will carry people through any downturn in the cycle. Yeah. Everybody that I know that is, what we we would call sometimes, like, killing it. Right?

Where they've got, like, the house, the car, the passive income. Those people got really good at creative financing. Right? And when the market was down, they started doing substitution and collateral. They started doing subject to owner finance.

I know one of my lenders, I've had conversations with him where, he was taking over properties, 0% financing. Right? Like, people were, like, were begging him to take over projects. Market dictates

Steve: what the market dictates.

Chris: Yeah. So, like, you've gotta be willing to ride the wave of the market. And again, to answer this question, stick stay committed to being direct to seller. Mhmm. Right?

Like, carry that through your entire investing career. Always market, always be direct to seller. But start now. Anybody listen to this? You gotta start now learning about creative financing, learning how to structure deals, learning how to raise capital.

These are all things that are gonna take you time to learn. Right?

Steve: Time to figure out

Chris: how to exactly execute that. Raising money is not hard. I used to think raising money was, like, the hardest thing in the entire world. Mhmm. And I I got, like, way too dependent on hard money.

Mhmm. And the thought of raising private money to me was, like, no. I can't do that. Right? Well, the reality is the hard money Lender just takes my before and after pictures.

Alright? He shows them to his buddies Yeah. And he says, hey. I know this guy, Chris. He does these crazy beautiful houses.

Mhmm. Why don't you guys give me some money? I'll loan it to Chris, and then we'll all just make some

Steve: money.

Chris: Yeah. I don't want that. I wanna talk to the guy. I wanna talk to the buddies. I don't wanna talk to the hard money lender anymore.

I love the way you put it. So you you got you gotta start building some private lender relationships.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Now when I say that, when I talk to people that I teach and things of that nature, their mindset is friends and family.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Right? I don't raise money from friends and family. Alright? My mindset is I'm going to IRA events. Most of the money I raise right now to this day, millions of dollars a year comes from IRA events.

Yeah. Right? I'm going to family office events. I'm going to these different places.

Steve: Family office events?

Chris: Yeah. So family office is consider a family that has wealth. Mhmm. Right? There's family they they can build what's called a family office.

And that family office goes and invests that money, for that family. Right? So there's events that are held around the country for people who have family offices. Alright? So you go to these events.

Here's the beautiful thing about raising money that I figured out. I've got something they don't have. I got deal flow. Mhmm. Alright?

So I don't have the money they have. Right? So if I'm at an IRA event, a self directed IRA event, then I know walking in the door that everybody in here is managing their own money Mhmm. And they're trying to figure out how to make more money themselves.

Steve: Right.

Chris: Right? So they've got the money. They have no deal flow.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Right? So now I'm that conduit. So now I'm having that conversation, and I'm just leading it with deal flow.

Steve: Yeah. I love it. This is something that Don Costa spoke about before is that Yeah. You know, like, we're we get intimidated because these guys have all

Chris: this money. Exactly. But they

Steve: don't have the deals.

Chris: They don't have deals. And so what what they want and what they crave is the deal flow. Yeah. So if you can

Steve: bring that

Chris: deal flow in, you can really get a lot of things done. Alright.

Steve: LaShawn Campbell just jumped on. So I think we're supposed to sing happy birthday for your song.

Chris: Happy birthday, Lashawn, man. Shout out to her. Absolutely.

Steve: So Warren Anacock wants to know, what are the best three ways you're finding deals?

Chris: So best three ways that I'm finding deals, SMS, cold calling, and RVM's a 110%. So, you know, we call those the triple threat. Those are the three things that we focus on, daily in our business is, to make sure that we're cold calling, to make sure we're sending text, make sure we're sending RVM. I also wanna say too, man, that cold calling has to be the foundation of your

Steve: business. Yeah.

Chris: Brent and I just had a good conversation about this. I know he loves cold calling. Right? I know. He loves cold calling, but it's so true.

A month ago, I had a list. It was 7,600 people on the list of records that I bought. Okay? So we go skip it. We've got all this data.

I've spent the money for all this data. I go I go load it into our text platform. That's 700 or 7,600 turns into, like, 700 phone numbers. Mhmm. That were mobile that we could actually text.

So what happens is, again, we talk about path of resistance. People don't want a cold call because they don't want to deal with that cold interaction. Texting is a softer interaction. And so they just go to to try to text.

Steve: Less painful.

Chris: It's less painful. But you gotta look at how you're cutting your list down.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Right? So we lead off like, we start off with cold calling in our business. We wanna start there, then we transition into, texting and RVM. Mhmm.

Steve: But

Chris: those are my three biggest lead sources right now by far. SMS is my biggest lead source, but I I I wanna caution when I say that, just to be clear. I don't wanna say that, and then people just try to go focus on doing SMS. So that's why I'm saying you wanna build that cold calling business first.

Steve: Yep.

Chris: Because if you're working with smaller amounts of money when you're first starting out right. I started out with no money. So when you're first starting out, you wanna cast as wide a net as possible. So you don't wanna just try to do SMS. And so I think what happens is people, they start to stretch that budget.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: So their budget might be $200, $300 a month, $500 a month. So they start trying to stretch that over multiple months.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: And then they're frustrated because they haven't done a deal. Where if you bought a list of a thousand, right, and only a 150 of those were numbers you could actually text, now you're truthfully only talking to a 150 people a month

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: When you could be talking to a thousand. Mhmm. Right? And so so I think it's important for people to understand to not to not try to go directly just into texting from the gate.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: I I think I think you really just wanna try to start cold calling first. And the benefit of doing that is that that impacts how you do your business with everybody going forward. Once you can have a cold interaction with a seller, now you can have a cold interaction with a private lender. Now you can have a cold interaction with a contractor. Now you can actually go have a cold interaction when you go to a seller's property and meet with them.

Like, it gives you that basis of confidence

Steve: Yeah. You got

Chris: to reps. Exactly. You get your reps.

Steve: Alright. So there was another question here. Max Max was jumped on. What's up, Max?

Chris: Max, what's going on? That's my guy. Shout out to Max, man. He's amazing dude. He's been, been such a resource, man.

So shout out to

Steve: him. Incredible what he's done. Angie wants to know, does direct Angie Kinston wants to know, does direct mail still work in your market?

Chris: So direct mail still works everywhere. I do not do any direct mail anymore. However, you can definitely direct mail. You can definitely make money doing direct mail everywhere. It's just it's a it's a costly form of marketing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: I don't think you should just try to do direct mail to 500 people a month. Yeah. Right? You gotta be willing to put some money behind your direct mail marketing campaign. So if you can send out a couple thousand pieces a month, now I think you can get some traction.

So to answer your question, absolutely, you can direct mail, make money. I know people in my market biggest player in my market, he does direct mail. Yeah. Like, all he does is direct mail. So, yes, you can make plenty of money doing direct mail.

I just don't wanna spend 40¢ on a postcard.

Steve: I think you just gotta grow there. Right?

Chris: Yeah. I agree. I think I think that's something you you bump like, you grow into that vertical

Steve: Right.

Chris: In your marketing flow.

Steve: Yeah. Eventually, you get the TV and radio and all that other stuff. But you start Yeah.

Chris: You gotta start small. Cold call. Start with

Steve: cold call. So I gotta ask a question. Go. What's alphas only? That's a

Chris: good question. So, so I first met Max. What do I mean Max? I met Max, in August, I think. Mhmm.

And, we started having a bunch of conversations hanging out. Really, not even, like, business wise at first. It was really just talking in in familiar minds or similar minds. Right? And, I think a couple of months come in Winston Salem hanging out with him, and he's like, man, I just like hanging around alphas.

Right? Yeah. And I'm like, yeah. Me too. Right?

And he's like, that's why I like hanging out with guys like you, Nasr. Like, you guys are alpha. You're not here trying to get something from me. You're not looking for anything from me. Like, you're comfortable standing in your own space.

Right. So I guess he came up with this phrase, alphas only. Right? And that and that what it says says is and this isn't just men. This is men and women.

Right? But, like, it takes alpha to do this business. Like, it takes that level of confidence Mhmm. To be successful in this business. Right.

Like, you can't do business on emotions. You know? No. You're not gonna get very far doing that.

Steve: No.

Chris: You know, sometimes we're in that space where because we're dealing with our own personal things, things of that nature. But you gotta look at business, kinda remove the emotional aspect of it.

Steve: And I think just, you know, to add, like, a little nuance, you can definitely be vulnerable.

Chris: Absolutely. Or you can

Steve: be vulnerable, but don't get carried away with

Chris: it. Absolutely.

Steve: Kip Stevens wants to know what's the legality of SMS? And if you don't wanna answer that question, then we can always send them to an attorney.

Chris: Yeah. So I appreciate that. So, what's the legality of SMS? Look. You gotta you gotta send SMS at your your own leisure.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: I'd recommend talking to an attorney for sure. You know, that that form of marketing, I think, is gonna see some changes within the next twelve months. We'll all kinda see what that looks

Steve: like.

Chris: Yeah. I mean, that's I think there's a shelf life there personally. We're getting creative right now in my business, not getting stuck on doing SMS. We've been doing SMS for a little over a year now. And so, again, this business is a business of phases.

You know? I started out door knocking with a suit. Right? I used to throw a suit on and go knock on people's doors. Back when I used to dress up, I would wear a suit and go knock on people's doors, and I and I I thought, well, I'm looking professional and doing all these different things.

But I I had some success with door knocking. Right? And I think we'll get back to door knocking here pretty soon. I think door knocking is working for some people really right now.

Steve: Oh, it's working great. Especially people know what's talking about. Yeah. Like, Direct Mail, we're kinda talking about a little bit. Alicia says she's having luck with Direct Mail.

But, like, people are quietly doing well with Direct Mail. They're just not telling people about it.

Chris: Yeah. It's a hidden secret. Funny enough, right, I think we're gonna end up back where this thing all started in the first place, which is really kinda direct mail.

Steve: Right.

Chris: I think we'll get back to a space where direct mail is the highest form of marketing, for most people.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: But, yeah, there's people I know personally that are killing it with direct mail, and they're not doing any text. They're not doing cold calling. My point though with cold calling and text and that and and RVM is for people that are on a smaller budget, which is how I was when I first got started. There's a lot of people listening to this who don't have a big monthly budget. You know, $500 a month can get you really kinda moving with traction, on low low cost forms of marketing, like SMS, like cold calling.

You know, you can get a you can get a PowerDollar, a $180 a month. Mhmm. We use call tools. I believe that we're paying for one user. I think it's a $100 a month.

Steve: Yeah. It's really cheap.

Chris: You can get a lot of velocity

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: With something like that.

Steve: So, Ray Lewis has a question. If you could just expand on on you know, we're talking about you got the list

Chris: for, you

Steve: know, when you get started, you got the list and you're calling them Yeah. On your phone.

Chris: Yeah.

Steve: That's really it. Yeah. You want it was a few additional steps, you know, for Ray to get his first deal.

Chris: Yeah. Alright. So you got a list. Alright. You you've skipped trace that list.

Right? So you gotta skip it. Let me help some people that are listening to this. So a lot of people, I feel like they get data. Right?

Mhmm. Or they don't understand data. Let me say it differently. I don't think a lot of people understand truly data. So data is literally the backbone of doing a deal.

Alright? And what I mean when I say that is where you buy your data is extremely important. Alright? And how you skip your data is extremely important. And what I mean is I see people who, they have not they're like, get a list and they're, like, going True People Search or Mhmm.

Fastpeoplesearch.com and some of these other websites. Yeah.

Steve: And then they're like, well,

Chris: I haven't been able to do a deal. Right? So please please please focus on spending money on good data. If I've only got a couple $100 a month, if I'm spending it anywhere, I'm spending it on my list, and I'm spending it on skip tracing. Alright?

Because you wanna get quality up to date information to be able to contact somebody. So you skip trace your list. You start making calls. You get somebody that comes on the phone and says, yeah. I'm I'm open to an offer.

Right? So now you're at a point to answer this question where you're like, oh, alright. Well, how do how do I make this offer? Alright? So I subscribe to a different level of thought probably than anybody else who might have come up here already.

And I like simple business. I like doing things simple. I'm from the country. Right? So we love doing things a little easy in the South.

Alright? And so what that really looks like is we base our offers based on as is comps. Literally that simple.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Alright. So we don't look at 70% loan to value and ARV and repair cost. We don't get carried away with that. I think a lot of people get confused when they're first starting with these terminologies and how to do those different things. The beautiful part about where we're at in the market cycle is there's an abundance of data available.

Okay? Mhmm. So we use a website called totalviewrealestate.com. It's a free website, so anybody can check this website out. We get a property.

We have a deal a seller on the phone. So I've got my list. I've skipped it, and I'm on the phone. Somebody finally answers. Right?

Steve: And they

Chris: say they're willing to take an offer. What's your offer? So we'll plug that address in totalviewrealestate.com. Alright? And we're gonna look at the comparable sales data that populates in that box.

And so use an example. If I'm trying to purchase a property and I'm looking at as is comps, so if I see the comps are showing at one fifty, one forty, something of that nature, then it's safe to say the comps that I see listed for forty, fifty, sixty, seventy thousand, those are likely as is comps. Okay? So I wanna communicate with that seller. I wanna know, hey, what's the condition of the property?

Have you made any updates to the property in the last five years? I'm looking to pull some information out of them so that I know how to compare that that property out. So if I see that property is 800 square feet, if I see that it's a two one Mhmm. Right, then I'm looking at comps and I'm looking for other two ones on that list. And so when we're making those offers by phone, what what we're looking for is, alright.

So I see four two ones that went in a range from 50 to $65,000.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: That's enough data for me to know this property is likely worth 50 to $65,000. Mhmm. Right? So now we're gonna back off of that 50,000 to start to create our offer. Okay?

So we're gonna start our offer at probably $35,000. So we're gonna make that because the biggest thing is when you finally get somebody on the phone when you're cold calling Mhmm.

Steve: And

Chris: you ask them if they're interested in an offer. And they say, well, Steve, what's your offer? You gotta have an answer for that. Yeah. Right?

And so this helps us quickly kind of come up with that, initial offer offer range. So we're gonna get that 35,000. We know that there's a market set for 50 to $65,000. So we're gonna go ahead and make that initial $35,000 offer. We know they're likely not gonna take that.

If they do, we call that a home run. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm. Likely, though, they're not gonna take that initial offer.

Now I can leverage that to kinda figure out what their asking price might be. Okay? So that'll help me maybe get that information. But I know that I've got a window, again, of 50 to $65,000 I can sell it for. So let's say I get them at 45,000.

I know based on cash comps in the market right now, within a quarter mile or half mile radius, I know I can move this property for at least 50,000. Yeah. Right? And so I'm gonna get it under contract, a lot of times without even seeing it. Mhmm.

Alright. I'm gonna get the property under contract. I've got inspection clause in my contract that's gonna give me some protection when I go to take a look at that property physically. Okay? But that's how we're coming with our offers, man.

So that's the next step that you would need to do is come up with how you wanna make that offer. But simplify that process. Right?

Steve: Yep. Awesome. Very cool.

Chris: Yeah.

Steve: Let's see what else there was. I think a lot of people here, they're really, really appreciating. You know, they're they're they can relate, you know, to your earlier part of the journey. So I think that's pretty cool.

Chris: I've I've been through that. Yeah. I know what that struggle feels like, man. You know, it's, it's funny, man. So a couple years ago, I felt like I got away from that a little bit.

Mhmm. I achieved a bunch of success. I was doing a lot of different things. And I do believe that God gives you humbling moments, man. And, one thing that I had to do in my own business is I had to go back and touch the sellers again.

I had gotten so far removed from the process of being on the phone and making offers and going on an appointment and doing these different things, talking to cash buyers. That's what I liked about seeing PACE today. And yesterday was I mean, that guy's active. Like, he's he's out here, like, talking to sellers all the time.

Steve: Yeah. His his thumb is on the pulse.

Chris: He's not playing around, man. Man.

Steve: I had to

Chris: do that in my own business. I had to get re comfortable actively making my own cold calls. Right? Because we had a bunch of VAs making cold calls, things of this nature. I had to go back and kinda retouch those things.

But my encouragement, man, is embrace that struggle you're in right now in your business. Mhmm. This business is purely mindset. Again, we already said the concept is really simple. Right?

The the the mindset piece, like, the thing we have to overcome internally, is a difficult part, man. But anybody that space right now, you know, keep pushing, keep being consistent, keep focusing on talking to a seller or multiple sellers, really, on a daily basis. You have to talk to people, talk to sellers daily.

Steve: That's powerful. Miss Smith wants to know, are we gonna be building again?

Chris: I get that question all the time. I'm sure I will be building again. I hope I don't build a house this year. Yeah. But I'm sure I'll be building again.

I'm looking for for different opportunities down the line. I'm I'm a person who rides the market cycle. When the market drops, I'm gonna be buying up a whole bunch of land. I'm sure I'll be building again at some point. It's not something that, I'm adverse in wanting to do.

My model of how I would build houses has changed. You know, I've got my class a license at one point. We subbed out all our own work. I've I've had employees on payroll, that were contractors. How I would do that now is I would partner with the GC.

Mhmm. This is what we do now in some of our most of our projects. I'd partner with the GC. I'd work out a cost plus relationship. And so, anyway, he doesn't know what that means.

Cost plus means, whatever the project cost is. So if that project cost is a $100,000, you're paying that general contractor 15% of the cost of doing the project. Yeah. I have found that's probably the best model to use. Mhmm.

Keeps you and the bill or the GC honest. You can build in a savings buffer, inside of that as well where the builder gets a kicker if they save you some money. Mhmm. I've already like, I know that process. I know process.

I know how to put a house together. I know how that works. But what I also do know is extremely time consuming. Yeah. Alright.

When you try to do and do those things yourself. So would I build a house again? Absolutely. Would I, do it myself and GC the project myself? Absolutely not.

Steve: Right. And then, what Kerwin wants to know, what's the biggest mistake you made in real estate?

Chris: Oh, man. So biggest mistake I made in real estate. So I probably got two. Alright? The first one being, and and I mentioned this earlier, when I started doing a lot of development, started doing a lot of fix and flip, I I got away from actually wholesaling deals.

So I was just cherry picking deals that I wanted to buy myself. I'm scared to know how much money I left floating out there over the years.

Steve: Leave it alone all the time.

Chris: Right? By doing that. So that's that's one, mistake that I would say. And I'd say my second mistake is not buying rentals soon enough. Right?

So I started out when I was really young. So at the time, you know, you give me the concept of, you can make $30,000 or you can make $300 a month. Mhmm. Well, 30,000 sounds pretty sweet. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: So I was always chasing that $30,000 nugget. Right? What I found is like, so when I ran into cash flow issues, for example, what I realized was, oh, wait. So if I would have had a buffer of passive income or cash flow coming in Mhmm. That could have mitigated that could have paid for some employees.

That could have paid for some of these different things. That could have paid for, you know, monthly mortgage payments, things of that nature. So those are two things, man, that I really go back and would do differently. I have no regrets on anything that I've done, but I would have not stopped wholesaling, properties off. Right?

And I would have absolutely, from the get go, focused on buying rental property. And that's why I think this subject to conversation is important because it gives people like me Mhmm. Now I was making $15 an hour. Yeah. So I couldn't qualify to even go buy rental property.

Steve: Right.

Chris: Then I was self employed making some money, but, you know, I'm I'm x y z on my tax return, so I can't go to the the bank because they wanna know that you can service the note. Yep. So, I I would absolutely, 110% encourage everybody, to focus on cash flow, focus on building those things into their business. And that's why I've gotten to a space where it's an active income bucket and a passive

Steve: income bucket. I think what I wanna emphasize on, you know, the part where you're saying you wish you would've just kept continued wholesaling. Right? Yeah. And you hired a consultant

Chris: on. Right.

Steve: And they gave you that, like, hey, dummy. Like, what are you

Chris: doing?

Steve: Yeah. So to add to that, because a lot of people are opposed to coaching. There's a very strong anti guru movement, which I support Right.

Chris: Most of it. I'm I'm wait. Can we if we don't if we don't mind? Sure. Tell me what part you you support of the anti guru movement.

Steve: I support vetting your guru.

Chris: Can we talk about that?

Steve: Let's talk about it.

Chris: Alright. So one thing that I think is really cool is, so I'm coming on your podcast. Right? Mhmm. I think a couple people were trying to connect us together.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Like, hey, you gotta get this guy guy, Chris, on your podcast. And so, we first talked. You're like, hey. Send me some HUDs. Right?

And so I'm like I'm like some HUDs. I'm like, man, I've been doing this ten years. What are you talking about? I'll send you some HUDs.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: So then I thought about it. I'm like, no. I'm like, this is the way that it should be. Right. Right?

Like, no. Somebody should have to show you huds Mhmm. Like, to to be able to come up here and have a conversation with you. Right. Like, you've got a a great platform.

You're you're you're motivating people. You're inspired to help other people. You you wanna have people that are organic and genuine in the things that they're doing. Right? And so once I started thinking about it, I'm like, no.

I'm like, qualifying to come up and have the conversation is great. Like, that's what it should be. Should be. Right. We shouldn't be in this space where you can just say you're doing these things

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: And you don't have to prove it. Right? So I I like I love this concept of vetting. So I do think, and I agree with you, right, that we we have to be in a safer space. The Internet is like the wild west, man.

Steve: Oh, yeah. For sure.

Chris: I've so I've been doing more online stuff, and this this is a very interesting space to be in, because you can really be anybody you want online.

Steve: Oh, for sure. Or on the phone.

Chris: Or on the phone. Right? So I I do think it's important to vet. I do think that people should embrace coaching. Mhmm.

I think coaching is a great thing. The way that I learned, was I I learned better when I have, like, direct steps in front of me. I think where people mess up is that we don't realize the importance of being able to connect the dots. So coaching proper coaching with somebody vetted gives you the ability to really kinda go and connect those dots. Right.

Steve: 100%. I think the other another thing I add to it when I'm talking to some people about this is, like, I might not be your coach. Right? I might not be the best coach for somebody. Right?

Just find someone that you resonate with. Someone's like, that guy's living the kind of life I wanna live. Right. I should copy what he's doing. Yeah.

Not copy just anybody.

Chris: Sure. But that's why I think it's important to know what your ideal life looks like.

Steve: Exactly.

Chris: Right? Because, you know, the sometimes the guy with the cars and the crazy house and things of that nature, he he's he's not living a life that you might want to live. If you're chasing freedom

Steve: Especially if he's driving a Lamborghini. Let's go to the road.

Chris: Teslas are better. Right? I've I've had I've had a large scale business. Right? Yeah.

I know what it looks like to have to constantly work twenty four seven

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: To be able to support that enterprise. Right? To be able to manage all those things out, which feels a lot better these days is waking up and have some freedom and flexibility to say, hey. Who can I help today? What's what's let me go in my inbox and see who's hit me up and see who I can actually reach back out to and help.

I didn't have time to do those type of things before because I was so caught up in my own space and things I had to take care of for myself. You know?

Steve: So Carlton Hooks is a guy in my office, someone that I've trained, and he wants to ask your opinion.

Chris: Sure.

Steve: So for us, we don't talk about price. We don't talk about conditions of the house. Only thing we care about is does Chris have real pain? So

Chris: Okay. I I know where you're going.

Steve: So he wants to know what your thoughts are, but the fact that we don't talk about the property at all ever.

Chris: Yeah. So we do talk about the property. So we probably do it backwards, it sounds like, in the way that you do it. The beautiful part is backwards.

Steve: It's just different.

Chris: It's different. I like that. So the beautiful part about this business is there's a lot of different ways to make it work effectively. Right? So what we found that's worked for us is getting some initial information about the property.

Mhmm. Like in that phone call, we're gonna get some initial information about the property. And then we're gonna also use that through conversation to figure out what your pain point is.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: And so what I mean like that what I mean by that is, you know, hey. Well, Steve, how did the property fall into disrepair?

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Right? You know, so did something come up that made you not be able to replace the roof? Right? So So, like, you may answer that question in a way that's gonna let me know what your financial hurdle is. Mhmm.

Because if if you got to replace a roof and it's leaking, like, you know that you need to replace the roof.

Steve: Yeah. Right?

Chris: You know what I mean? Yeah. So, like, being able to answer ask those questions to find out what the context clues inside of that is. So I do like asking about the property condition, not upfront, but kind of close to upfront. Yeah.

And then leveraging that through the conversation.

Steve: Kind of use that

Chris: Yeah. We use that kind of as as kind of a poking stick.

Steve: A transition.

Chris: Exactly. Throughout the conversation. Yeah. Absolutely.

Steve: Okay. So life is good. Life is great.

Chris: Can't complain. I'm in Arizona.

Steve: Why are you pushing still?

Chris: So that's that's a beautiful question. I live for the deal. Yeah. I love it, man. I love talking to sellers.

I love negotiating. I love I literally love the art of the deal. Yeah. It's it's just one of those things, man. I don't think I'll ever get out of my system.

You know, I'm doing coaching these days. I'm doing a lot of different things in the Internet space, things of that nature. I can't ever see myself not loving the deal, man. It's, it's it's in my blood, man. I but I'm I'm getting, like, psyched up right now thinking about it.

And that's why I think I identify with PACE so much. Mhmm. It's like I see those same things in them, you know. Yeah. Just going out, talking to sellers, being active, actually doing the business.

I love it, man. And there's just something special about riding around, going different places, and, like, seeing your work. Mhmm. Right? And, like, you ride through a neighborhood.

And I'm like, man, like, that's crazy, man. Like, I built that house eight years ago.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: You know, like, I don't I don't ever want to lose what that part feels like.

Steve: Right.

Chris: I don't know where everything is gonna go in my career. I don't know the different things I'm gonna do in the future. But what I do know for sure, nothing in the future is worth giving that

Steve: up. Yeah.

Chris: You know? So I'm always gonna chase the love of of the business, man. It's, it's what's got me here sitting talking to you. It's just ten years is a grind, man. I've I've been through a lot of ups.

I've been through a whole lot of downs, you know, in in ten years. And I've got I've got more downs in front of me. You know, like, I've I've got things that are not gonna go right in front of me right now.

Steve: That you don't know.

Chris: And you don't know what's around the corner, but, like, I I I'm I'm embracing that, though. I love I love that part of this business.

Steve: So what's your superpower?

Chris: What's my superpower? I think the determination. I I think just the the willingness to and the determination to just continue to move forward. You know, I talk about I said this in my intro video at We Love when I spoke at We Love. Like, man, life hits you on the mount.

Like, things are gonna consistently happen in your life, that's gonna kinda knock you down and punch you in the mouth a little bit. But you have to be determined to walk through that. I was on a call earlier with a guy, on a Facebook live, a guy named Jesse from Houston, Texas. Right? And like I said to Jesse on on the phone from Houston, Texas, you gotta be willing to stand tall on your stuff.

And you gotta be determined to take the resistance to go through that. One one thing that I'm proud of, I call my superpower is, like, I don't have fear. Right? A guy who works for me, man, my right hand guy, we had some crazy stuff going on a couple years ago. Life was rough.

Right? Casual issues, different things going on. And, he's like, man, he's like, why why do you seem like you're not scared of anything? And I said, hey, man. I said I said, you know, look.

I said, I just don't have any fear. I come from a family of sharecroppers, man. My family's from South Carolina. Right? I come from some folks that ain't never really had much anything.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: You know what I mean? And so right now, everything in the last ten years has been a win. Yeah. Right? I got arrested.

I told you at the beginning of the conversation, I got arrested my senior year of high school. There's people that saw that situation happen that thought nothing positive or good was ever gonna happen inside of my Right? And so the determination to walk through that and not to have any fear of the outcome around the corner. So I no longer operate from a space of fear. Well, what bad thing is gonna happen to me next week?

Because I know I have the determination to walk through it and get it figured out. And it's okay to have to go through stuff. Right. You know, like, I'm not somebody that acts like things don't happen and you don't go through tough things in business or in your personal life. It's gonna happen.

It's part of the game. You just gotta be willing to walk through it and get to the other side of it.

Steve: 100%. So on the flip side of that is what's your biggest struggle right now?

Chris: What's my biggest struggle right now, man? You know, I wanna say, I gotta get better at hiring. You know? That that's one of my Achilles heels.

Steve: That's the last piece.

Chris: I'm telling you. It's tough, man. It's the

Steve: last piece. After you figure that out, which I don't think anyone ever has, but once you figure that out

Chris: Oh, man. It's this is why it's tough. Easy. It's so tough. So by default, default, I see the good in everyone.

Steve: I've got the same problem.

Chris: And I don't and I I don't know that I'm gonna ever get out of that. I think that's just who I am.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Like, I think I'm programmed that I I literally just wanna see people win. Yeah. Like, I'm so thankful for the space that I'm in, the things that are occurring for me and have occurred for me. Like, I want everybody to be able to experience those things. Mhmm.

Now when it comes to hiring, alright, you know, we have people that come in. I'm super geeked up for them. I'm like, oh, man. He's like, this guy is gonna be great. You know?

Steve: Changed my life.

Chris: I'm like, man, this is gonna work out. And Ned doesn't work out like that. Alright? And so Achilles heels, something I gotta get better at is I hold on to people for too long.

Steve: What What have you done about that?

Chris: So, this is what I've done recently. And, but it so with some resistance. So I'll talk about that. So I got Mark in my office. He's like my right hand guy, runs everything.

He's the man. Right? So I've put him as the barrier to me. Alright? That's right.

Alright? That's good.

Steve: Because

Chris: I'm just I'm just too I love everybody, man. I wanna work with everybody. Right? So, like, now I'm like, now you gotta go through Mark. Like, once you pass Mark's, like, sniff test, alright, then you can work with me.

Now here's what happens though. So somehow they get through his filter. Right? And they come in. They start out pretty good.

You know how it goes. Right? For a week week later, now Mark and I are sitting around like, what are we gonna do with this guy?

Steve: Yeah. What

Chris: are we gonna do with this girl? Like, they don't get it. And so this is what I realized. We gotta train, train, train. Alright?

We have to spend as much time as possible training somebody. So once we know that we've gone above and beyond training somebody, if they're still not doing well, now I'm comfortable saying that's not on me. Mhmm. But if but if I know that I'm not giving the support and the training they need daily as much as I should, I I can't place all the blame on them. Right?

I've got to take some responsibility inside of that. So we've been working on that. However, we keep running into this issue of, I even still wanna try to work these people to to try to make them better. And, Mark's like, hey. Now we gotta we gotta let these folks go.

So that's that's a constant struggle, for me right now. But I'll I'll get it figured out.

Steve: Yeah. Let me know when you do.

Chris: I will.

Steve: Because I rubber stamp everybody. So, like, basically, they gotta get through Max, my business partner. They gotta get through Summer, my right hand person.

Chris: Yeah.

Steve: If you can make it past them, pretty much I I'm a rubber stamp because I see the best in everybody too.

Chris: Yeah. I'm the same way.

Steve: So I'm gonna end it. The the last question we have is from Paul Rowe.

Chris: Yeah.

Steve: What are the top three things you would do if you're gonna try to vet a guru or a coach?

Chris: Interesting. So the top three things that I would do if I was gonna vet a guru. One, I would ask them their real experience. Right? I wanna know what deals are they actively doing in their business right now.

Like, there's people out coaching wholesale and haven't wholesale in ten years

Steve: Mhmm. Or

Chris: five years. Right? I wanna know

Steve: Or zero years.

Chris: Or zero well, there's a whole lot of that. There's a whole lot of that for sure. There's definitely a lot of that. So yeah. I wanna know if you're even wholesaling.

Alright. Like, are you actually actively, doing deals? So that's that's gonna be one of my first questions, for somebody. My second one is probably gonna be a little bit different than most people. My second one is gonna be, like, what adversity have you been through?

Right? I've got a concept, and Max and I have talked about this. Like, I I only like working with people who have been through some stuff because I've been through some stuff. So I like, if you can't make it through any turbulence or adversity, then we're probably not a good fit for each other. Because the way my brain works is, like I said earlier, I don't have fear.

When that problem or adversity comes up, like, I'm gonna punch through it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Chris: Right? But if I'm with you and we're in business together and that adversity comes and you you fall or you falter, now now you're pulling me back down with you. You know? So I wanna know what somebody's been through. I think what people have been through, it tells you a lot about the person.

I think it tells

Steve: tells you a lot

Chris: about their character.

Steve: Mental toughness is a very undervalued

Chris: 110%, man. You wanna know somebody's mentally tough. What if somebody you're getting coaching from starts running to a hard spot in their own business? Now they've made commitments to you, and because they're going through some stuff, they can't honor their commitment to you as a customer. That's not that's not fair Yep.

Right Mhmm. To you. And then thirdly, man, I I would look at what value am I getting from this person, for the cost. Right? I see these, like, crazy things online sometimes.

Like, I saw some a couple weeks ago. Ago. Somebody was charging something like $2. I don't know if they've done a deal or not. I'm not sure.

But, like, somebody's charging somebody $2, and clearly from looking at the person's Facebook page, I wasn't under the impression that they were anywhere near where they wanted to be to be charging somebody Mhmm. $2 for help.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: So part of the problem is when you want that help so bad when you're first starting in this business and it's not where you wanna go, you latch on to whoever offers it to you. Mhmm. And that question is really good because you should vet somebody out. You should say, hey. Can I see some huds?

Yeah. Right? Hey. I wanna get coaching from you. Can you show me your most recent deal?

Mhmm. Like, do you mind just taking fifteen minutes to walk me through the last deal that you did?

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Right? Like, what what's the harm in doing that for somebody? You know? We've we've got into a space in this business. Again, like I said, man, you can go online with me any way that you want.

So we've got into a space where people want the help so bad that you don't have to prove anything to them to to to be able to earn their business.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: Anybody Anybody comes to a workshop that I do, anybody that I do coaching with, you know, I wanna make sure they see that I actually do real estate. Like and that's why I said earlier, I'm like, not doing real estate is is not even a thing for me. Right. I'm always gonna be in a space where I'm doing real estate. So you wanna ask those questions, man.

You wanna get familiar with who you're doing business with, and you wanna make sure they got the same similar goals and and characteristics that you have.

Steve: Yeah. I love it. I love it. That's great. That was a great great question by Paul.

Alright. So I'm gonna let you think about what you want to leave the listeners with.

Chris: Sure.

Steve: Alright. So I'm gonna make one, quick announcement or a couple. So guys, we're a month and a half away from, our event. Max and I, we're gonna be talking about what works in our business, two and a half days in Phoenix, April. We're gonna talk about what's working in 2020 and that was working in 2013.

The feedback we got is people love the transparency level of detail that we dive into each topic. I'm a nerd, student of the game. So when I go into a topic, I go really deep. The feedback we also got was we gave up too much information, which I proudly wear as a badge of honor. It's a

Chris: good thing.

Steve: If you wanna double your business, go to disruptors.com, see if the workshop makes sense for you. And we're taking next week off for spring break. We'll be back in two weeks with mister Casey Ryan from Las Vegas. He's gonna talk about how he's running, from what I've heard, one of the most profitable wholesale business that he's got profit and volume. It's hard to do both It

Chris: is.

Steve: Well. So he's gonna talk about that. So last thoughts.

Chris: So last thoughts, man. I just wanna be a vehicle of encouragement. Anybody listening to this podcast, watching this on Facebook Live or YouTube, stay consistent. Work work as hard as you can. Again, it took me two years.

Whatever space you're in right now, whatever things aren't going the way that you wanted to go, I can assure you if you stay consistent and work hard, you are by far gonna get to the other side of that. Just stay committed if this is what you really say that you want. Talk to sellers on a daily basis. That's gotta be your priority every day when you wake up. How can I get on the phone or get in front of a seller today?

That's gotta be critical. Don't overthink this. It's okay not no thanks in this business. It's okay to be in a space where you don't know how you're gonna find your cash buyer. You don't know these different things.

There's there's there's nothing wrong with that. Build a network and a source of people in your ecosystem around you that you can lean on. I've got a Facebook group, Wholesale and VA Supercharged that you can check out. You've got one. Real Estate Disruptors Facebook group.

You've got a high level people in your group. I'm in your group.

Steve: Yep.

Chris: There's people that can help you get you the information answers you need. It's okay to not know everything. I don't know everything. You probably don't. Right?

Steve: No.

Chris: But you take steps actionably every day, to do better. I'm always available, man. Check me out on Instagram. It's the easiest place to get me. Shoot me a message.

The Chris Jefferson on Instagram, t h e Chris Jefferson. And, shoot me a DM, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. And, guys, man, keep grinding. Keep working hard, man, and much success to everybody.

Steve: That's awesome. It's a great way to end it. Thank you.

Chris: Thank you for having me on, man. I appreciate it. Thank you

Steve: guys for sticking around.