$100,000/mo & Debt Free

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we've got April Molina with ASAP Cash for Home. April flew in from Manhattan to share how she went from hundreds of thousands in debt to 100,000 a month. If this is your first time tuning in, I am Steve Trang, sales trainer for some of the top wholesalers in the country, and I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires.

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

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

They're good. You ready?

April Molina: Yeah. I'm nervous.

Steve: That's alright. There's nothing to be nervous about.

April: Alright.

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

April: Alright. So I started working when I was 14 years old. I worked at a laundromat. So I've always liked having money and having my own stuff. In high school, I started interning, and I went into fashion.

I thought that's what I wanted in my life. I wanted to be in fashion, corporate world, New York life. Quickly realized that wasn't for me. But being in fashion, I was around yeah. Yeah.

We would go to after work events, and I would come across a lot of people that worked in corporate. And all the time, I would come across people that were in sales or in real estate sales, and they were doing pretty well for themselves. And I quickly realized that that's what I wanted to do, so I quit my job and became a real estate agent in New York.

Steve: It's a realtor?

April: Realtor.

Steve: You jumped in the realtor?

April: I jumped into the realtor seat. Yes. I did.

Steve: You said you were 14?

April: No. That was my 14. That was in when I was 14 years old. This is out of high school, my young twenties, 20, 21 years old.

Steve: But you started in fashion.

April: Fashion.

Steve: You you you explore that world, wasn't for you. And then in your early twenties, you're going to the after hours scene.

April: And seeing that everyone that was a realtor, it wasn't real estate or in sales was just they did good for themselves. They weren't in that nine to five kind of, like, mentality. It was

Steve: just look like they were doing

April: They were doing good for themselves. Exactly. So it was like, I I I saw the shiny object, and I dropped it.

Steve: They look like they were doing good. But did you find out whether they were actually doing good?

April: So a a realtor in New York is very hard. Like, it's not an easy industry. Yeah. I wasn't doing sales. I was strictly doing rentals, which was good for us.

Steve: But that's that's I mean, that's a good business as a leasing agent in New York.

April: It's a great business. Best sweet spots were owner OPs, which is owner pays. So if a owner was paying my fee, I was all on board. So I would do one or two deals in New York, and I was charging one month fee. So rents are usually 35, 45, 5,500 a month for, like, one bedroom, two bedrooms apartments downtown.

So I was happy with that. One one or two deals was landing me 9 to $10,000 a month. Yeah. I was like, 20, 21 years old. Like, this is fun.

This is

Steve: this

April: is awesome. But I quickly realized that that wasn't for me. Then quickly realized that wasn't for me when I had a situation with the deal where the the person who was supposed to pay me, she kinda threw the check at me in a very distasteful way. And I felt

Steve: like that Disrespected you.

April: Disrespected me. And I guess I felt right there that she didn't see the value in my work. I mean, I was showing her apartments for weeks walking in New York City.

Steve: Tenant. It wasn't the landlord.

April: It was a tenant. And she had to pay that deal, she the tenant had to pay me, not the owner. Mhmm. So the way she kind of, like, we were sitting at a desk like this and she just, like, threw the check at me, it it it devalued me. And at that point, I was like, you know what?

F this. Like, there's something else that I could do in real estate. That was

Steve: really pivotal.

April: That was a pivotal moment.

Steve: How old were you?

April: I was 19, 20 at the time.

Steve: Okay. So because and I had this kind of experience. I actually had someone where I almost almost punched an owner in the face, in my brokerage. Right? Like, because he came and, like, there was, he was look he was looking for a a reimbursement, whatever.

And he was like, he acted like I did nothing. I was like, are you serious right now?

April: That's exactly how she felt.

Steve: And, I was like, I'm gonna need to leave right now. Like and the tone was like, because if this guy doesn't walk out of here right now, I'm probably gonna slug him.

April: I mean, it was very it it it was bad. And the crazy thing is that there was another agent that was a leasing agent that was working for the owner. Probably met her one time, and she was the sweetest I could be with that lady, but she was just really nasty with me and threw the check at me. And thankfully, her hubby was there, and he kinda caught it. And he took the check and was like, here you go.

You deserve it. So I don't know if they went home and kind of had a little argument, but it was very blatantly disrespectful. And it devalued me, and I just said I'm never gonna be a realtor.

Steve: So right then, no more realtor?

April: I I mean,

Steve: was it cold turkey or, like, you had to make

April: I still had to do it. I still I had to transition out. But at that point, I started doing research. I started looking for markets that I can invest in. I started looking at investments.

Back then, there wasn't really much information. So I was

Steve: How long ago was back then?

April: I'm gonna say 2013 to 2033, 2014 was around the time where I started doing research. I was still dabbling in real estate, as a realtor, and then I was doing side jobs, waitressing. I would do pickup things here and there just to make ends meet. But I was doing heavy research on how can I get into real estate? What other forms can I get in?

How can I get involved that doesn't doesn't mean me being a realtor only? So that's kind of how it started.

Steve: Right. Okay. So you started doing the research, and then what did you what did you figure out?

April: So I knew that New York was unattainable for me to start. I just at that point, I thought New York was just not it was a monster on its own. It was something that I couldn't do. I felt I was kind of giving myself, like, top, like, it's impossible. And now knowing what I know now, nothing's impossible in my in my eyes.

Like, if I want something, I can achieve it. But back then, I was like, New York is not it. So I started looking at markets outside of New York that I can still commute to and travel to. And I came across Pennsylvania because a lot of people in New York, it's very expensive. So a lot of people opt to move out of the city and commute into into the city for work.

It happens all the time. If you're on the train and you work if you live uptown, you're probably on the train for an hour and fifteen minutes if there's no, like, train situation going on, which is always all the time. But if you're commuting from Pennsylvania, it's pretty much the same. So a lot of people choose to move out of the city. They have homes.

They have backyards, and then they commute into the city daily. They'll leave PA at 06:30 or 07:00, and they're in the office by nine. Someone who's an early bird, that's not something that, you know, can't be done. So we started scouting. Pittsburgh was on the list.

At that point, at that those years, return was about, like, the from the documents that I was doing in my research was, like, 98% return on investment in Pittsburgh. Allentown and Penn and Philadelphia were also on my list. So we took Ash and I took a day trip to Philly.

Steve: So you were with Ash at this time?

April: I was with Ash at the time. We took a day trip to Philly, and we realized, hey. This seems this is this is a good market. Like, this market seems to be. It's a metro city.

It is a city. It's a little smaller, but there are people that are commuting into New York. So I know that I can gravitate and grab those New York buyers that are gonna wanna invest outside of New York. And that's kind of how I started building my buyers list, which we'll talk about later on.

Steve: Right. So you expanded to Pittsburgh?

April: To Philly.

Steve: To Philly. And you started operating there?

April: I started operating there as looking for rentals and flips. So wholesale was not on my horizon. We were literally looking for flips and rentals that we can own, take down, do them ourselves, and then, you know, make money on them. Wholesale kind of just landed on our lap because the deals that we were buying had these crazy fees on them that I'm like, who is what is this fee? Like, where is this fee coming from?

Steve: So you're buying deals and you can see what the fee is.

April: You clearly see the fee. There's no blind HUD. There it's just there at your at the HUD. So it's like I'm seeing these I remember first deal was 15,000. Second rental was 17.

And then the flip that kind of destroyed us was about $35,000 in a fee. So I'm seeing these fees, and it's like, woah. Wait a minute. Like, we can be wholesaling. But we went down the realtor and flipped her way.

Steve: Okay. So you said you lost money on your flip?

April: And my rentals.

Steve: And your rentals.

April: Yeah. It wouldn't be Okay.

Steve: So let's talk about the flip, and then we'll talk about the rental.

April: Alright. So this is where it gets touchy. Alright. So Ash and I, we're doing really good. We we're we're doing we're we're we're investing, and we were also investing in New York as silent partners with a friend, but that was just clearly strictly silent partner deals.

We weren't doing anything. We were investing money and we're seeing return. These deals were our own deals that we were gonna hire contractors, manage them from New York, and we could do it all on our own.

Steve: How long is that from New York to

April: it's about a it's 200 a 104 miles. It's about two two hours.

Steve: Okay. Two

April: hours. A 104 going and coming.

Steve: Alright.

April: Total $2.00 8

Steve: Alright.

April: Plus what you drive. So I was I got pregnant, and my pregnancy was very high risk. I was on bed rest. Majority of my pregnancy couldn't leave the I at one point, I was admitted to the hospital. Six months in, and I had to complete my pregnancy until birth.

In the midst of In

Steve: the hospital.

April: In the hospital. In the hospital room. In the midst of going through our our flip. And this wasn't just like a regular flip. That's one thing.

Please don't ever try to do a complete gut job because we took we took a 3,000 square foot home and decided that that was gonna be our first flip to convert, into a duplex completely for, like, first first deal. That's rule number one, don't ever do that, but that was what we did. In the midst of that, I'm pregnant.

Steve: Started a little bit more aggressively.

April: I started very aggressively. I just went all in. Yeah. Started very aggressive. I'm gonna do it.

It it's it could happen. And I'm the visionary, so I love Ash for this because he's like, if you wanna do this, let's do it. Like, whatever you you have the eye. Let's go ahead. Let's do it.

So I'm pregnant. I'm confined in a hospital. Pretty much I'm I'm I have IVs. I'm getting at least four shots a day. They're doing steroid shots on the baby.

I mean it was really bad. Ash was sleeping in the hospital in a little cot waking up driving to Philly to manage the property and then come back and do it all over again for weeks and then I'm in the hospital. I'm unable to leave my room so at that point, it's just everything that was happening took a toll on us and we did the number one thing you don't do you trust your contractors. Hey, we're be everything's going fine. Okay.

We're we're not gonna go today. That was him. I'm not gonna go today. You guys have it. Okay.

We're fine. Believing them that things were happening.

Steve: Yeah.

April: Later did we find out that wasn't the case.

Steve: What was happening?

April: The job was not getting done. They were doing other jobs, where they were supposed to be doing our jobs. Mhmm. Had one guy had a few people pop up. They weren't there even though they were saying that they were there.

And then we pressed our contractor like what's going on and he started saying he had issues with his wife. He was having all these personal issues. The next thing you know, he just disappears off the face of the earth with $80,000 that we had, plus materials that were already bought that went down the drain because we never got our materials. They were in his they were in his warehouse. And then we had subcontractors

Steve: paid them 80 k upfront?

April: Paid them 80 k to buy our materials. Either bought them or did he said he had them.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: Turns out I don't really think he did. And then on top of that, our subcontractors haven't gotten paid. And he just vanishes.

Steve: Oh, okay. So you're paying him. He's supposed to be buying stuff. He's supposed to be paying the subs. And he might have been buying stuff, but it wasn't for you.

April: It wasn't for me.

Steve: And then he was not paying the subs. Correct. Gotcha. And then he went dark.

April: And then went dark.

Steve: Alright.

April: Very dark.

Steve: So then did anything happen in that flip?

April: No. That flip went to nothing. That flip pretty much

Steve: they even gut it?

April: They gutted it. It's gut it was gutted. So it's gutted it's gutted.

Steve: And then they stopped.

April: And then they stopped work.

Steve: I would've better off if

April: I would've never bought the thing. Especially that big of a deal. So it went nowhere. And guess what? We had raised money for that because we we had a really, really good relationship with people that, you know, we we have friends with, family.

So we raised money for that. And regardless of the fact we still had to pay the money out, like, we still had to pay our people. We still had to make it work because, you know, it doesn't really matter. And our relationships, Ash and I, mean more than anything else.

Steve: Yeah.

April: So I got to the point where it was like, we're gonna pay you guys. We don't know how long it's gonna take, but we're gonna pay you. And thankfully, we've been able to pay people back with interest. Even if it wasn't the original interest, but for the wait, it's kind of like a here you go. Like, I owed you plus some interest.

Steve: Yeah. Well, that's good. So how much did you owe?

April: With the house, which we'll talk about that house because I ended up wholesaling. I ended up wholesaling that house. Lender allowed me to wholesale it, and then I we we sold it to the buyer and he paid me under the table because we couldn't let the bank know we were collecting. Mhmm. So with that and with people, that would the house itself was, like, about $2.50, 300, and then with people and everything.

So it was about close I would say 5 to 600,000 in debt total with our rentals, the two rentals we had, that were completely having tenant issues, and that's another story.

Steve: So you bought that for $2.50?

April: Yes.

Steve: Lost 80 k with the sub or with the contractor. And then that's the total loss on that one. Well, it's not a total loss because you sold the property.

April: Sold sold the property later on, but still, we still had to pay our people back. And we only made $10 on that sale under the table. But we had to that had to get paid off. So they got there. As long as that wasn't something that was gonna appear on my credit or Mhmm.

My history, I was okay with that. But that was $2.50. Then we had our investors that we raised money with total about 175. Still sub stubs that need to get paid out. And then just So

Steve: you still so you still paid the subs, made them whole?

April: Of course. Alright. We had to make them whole.

Steve: How much was that?

April: About total is about 30 to $40 with them. Yeah.

Steve: Alright.

April: Yeah. It was a lot. It was it it was a lot. Like, going back to that, there was so many things that I could have done different now that I'm in CG and I

Steve: see what?

April: Never trust a contractor. That's one. Never make sure never do a first deal a complete gut job. Like, that's that's don't do that.

Steve: Start small.

April: Start small. Start small and safe. Don't go all the way in like we did.

Steve: And that's something that's a hard one because a lot of us think we can do anything. Yes. Right? Like, I mean, you might have that same personality that I think a lot of us like, we all have this problem where someone says you can't do this, and your answer is watch me.

April: Watch me.

Steve: Right? It is. It is. And so we start big instead of starting small. Yeah.

But we all have to learn that lesson one way or another.

April: We all have to learn it. It was a very hard lesson. It was a lot of tears. It was a lot of stress. I've never in my life experienced that anxiety that I experienced.

Yeah. It was really bad. Like, days I couldn't sleep unless I was, like, taking Xanax or something like that to, like, medicate. Like, it was bad.

Steve: So don't trust contractors. Don't go don't start big.

April: Don't start big.

Steve: What else?

April: If you are going to do so do it virtually, just make sure you have the proper people on the ground to manage it. Like, not the contractor, not the contractor's person who's on his team, like, completely different person.

Steve: Impartial person.

April: Impartial person that has nothing to do with it that's gonna pop up. Also, don't ever let the contractor know when you're gonna pop up. Like, just pop up. But don't say, hey. I'm gonna be there 9AM on on Monday morning.

Because they're always gonna be there. Yeah. So that's just that.

Steve: Or just tell them all the times you're gonna be there when you're not.

April: Exactly.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So all in all, first deal, how much debt?

April: Total, $2.50, $40, 175 with investors. And

Steve: 175 was for the for the rehab?

April: No. That was that was what we took from investors for rehab, first draw, and then, like, cost.

Steve: Okay. And then you also lost money on rentals? Yes. How'd you do that?

April: So Philly is very block by block. Well, back then so you can have a street with really nice houses, and then around the corner, it's not so nice. They will if your house is on that bad street, they don't care about the comps that are around the corner. No.

Steve: That's the way it is, street by street.

April: That's just very street by street. So I went with the mentality, like, it's kind of like New York. Again, I was not properly educated. So I went with the mentality, like, it's gonna sell. Like, why not?

It's a great property. Like, we and it was also a home we did a good job on. It was a rental that did not look like what it looked now, like it looked after we were done. I mean, we shifted staircases and everything because the staircases were, like, right smack when you open the door. So I was like, I want the staircases on the right.

So we completely did, like, a full gut job, and then it wasn't selling at the price that we wanted it to sell. So that was a deal that those were both rentals. Those were two deals that we sold, and I actually had to come we had to come with money to the table just to, like, get out of the loan and just walk away with it because we were also self managing those rentals, and that's another thing I learned.

Steve: Two of them?

April: Two of them dealing with tenants.

Steve: So did you rehab both of them the same way?

April: Well, one was less gut. The other one was full gut.

Steve: Alright.

April: First three deals, just not

Steve: what you wanted to do. You you were swinging for the fences.

April: I I wanted to do whatever was going to get me to into real estate. I was going to take it to the top. That was just my motto.

Steve: Like, all I mean, but you're you're you're swinging for grand slams. You're not you're not doing singles, and you did it three times right out of the gate. And that's how you got to 600,000.

April: Yeah. Insane amount of debt.

Steve: In how much period of time?

April: That was probably in the span of, like, a year and

Steve: a half. Year and a half. So I just wanted to kinda, like, recap if everyone is watching. So you start off in fashion. You see what real estate agents do.

They do the real estate agent thing. And, like, this actually sucks.

April: It sucks.

Steve: There's a better way.

April: Well, it doesn't really suck. It's just I feel like people don't think that you're worth what you're doing.

Steve: You're not valued.

April: You're not valued as a realtor.

Steve: So I'm

April: sorry to say it, guys.

Steve: It's the way it is. And then you go and you go to Philly, swing for the fences.

April: Major.

Steve: Struck out.

April: Bad.

Steve: Like, there's three strikeouts. And then what?

April: Then at that point, I was

Steve: On all of this while you're in the hospital? While I'm

April: in the hospital. At that point now, I'm out of the hospital. I've given birth, had a c section, so completely had to recover. My son it was it was bad. It was a very high risk pregnancy.

I mean, the operation itself was, like, major. So we come out of it dealing with all this mess that now we have to clean up. I needed to find a solution. I there there was something had to happen. There's no way that there's so many people that are successful that are doing this, and it's not working for me.

Like, something has to give. So while I was in the hospital, I actually my hospital I have a picture of it. I'll show you. I turned my hospital room into an office. I had a printer.

I had desk. I had a board, and I would work from there. I my nurses would come and take my pressure, and they would wonder, why is your pressure so high if you're sitting down? They would that's also how I killed my time because I was there for weeks. Yeah.

I would wake up, do my routine, and then work. So get out of the hospital. I have tons of information from YouTube University. Everything's everywhere, but I wanna put it together. Like, how can I put this together?

Steve: Yeah.

April: At that point, Carlos and Sal were having their 2,018, first all in event where I think Donovan was there, Keith was there, Tiffany was there. There was a few of us.

Steve: A lot of people.

April: A lot of people were starting in that room. And it was happened to be that it was on my son's first birthday weekend, And I missed my son's first birthday to go to that event, that even Carlos made me get up in the middle of the room and say he said, you know, everyone here you guys are sacrificing. There was a few people that sacrificed things, and I was one of them. And he asked to get up and say, what are you sacrificing?

Steve: Did he know?

April: He knew.

Steve: Okay. And I

April: was like, well, it's actually my son's birthday today, and he's turning one. And I'm here.

Steve: Yeah. It's powerful. Powerful.

April: But I knew that it was a way for his for him, for his life. So Yeah. I did what I had to do.

Steve: So from there so this is '18, you said?

April: 2018.

Steve: From 2018. So then that's when you transitioned

April: Into wholesale. Into wholesale. Into wholesale. I got I had all the pieces. I just had to put it together.

I it had to come together.

Steve: But you already knew about wholesaling.

April: I knew about wholesaling. Because the properties

Steve: you bought.

April: The properties I bought.

Steve: But you never went down that route because you were busy.

April: I was busy. And I it you know, it's different to see a HUD and to see a fee, but what's the operation behind it? Like, I didn't know that part.

Steve: So Most flippers don't.

April: What's the operation behind that? How do I how do I get these fees without doing anything? I mean Yeah. The people the person who the people who are selling us the houses were collecting these checks, and I'm dealing with all the stress. So it's like something has to give like this is not this is not adding up

Steve: right

April: and that's when I went to that event and you know ash stayed behind because again, I'm I kind of have the vision of what we wanted so I wanted to go exactly and piece everything together. And I was in that event, just making sure that everything that was there was coming together and piecing together.

Steve: So, yeah, Carlos Reyes, Alex Sines, Sasha Keir, they're running this event. What did you take away from that event, and then what was the first thing you did after that?

April: So first thing I took from that event is definitely make sure you have proper data, and then have your systems in place to make sure that you're you're you're maximizing on your data. So I knew off the bat that I wanted to hire callers. So I learned how to do that, how to hire callers. We first started with Call Geek. So we hired Call Geek, and then I kinda learned what they did.

So then we're like, alright. Now we can do this on our own. I took away from them. So I was like, alright. I could do this on my own.

We started hiring callers overseas in The Philippines and making sure our web form was properly submitted. You know, what I I expected from them when they submitted leads Kind of kept the same model that call geeks had when they were submit leads, but I added a few more things and changed a few more things around

Steve: Yep.

April: So that it could work for us. But but they basically, it was the data and learning how to systemize the process.

Steve: Gotcha. And then how much longer from that event into your first wholesale deal?

April: That event was in September. We probably had, I'm gonna say three deals by, like, October, November.

Steve: So pretty quick.

April: It was pretty quick. I mean, I don't think it was because we went through so much, but it yeah. It was we it was pretty quick.

Steve: So were you doing it in Philly or in New York? We were

April: doing it in Philly. A 100% Philly. New York was, like, not even in my radar right now. Like, at that point, I'm just like, New York is unobtainable for me. I don't even wanna start here.

Steve: Okay. So what was it like you said? You you did three deals and pretty much sounds like the first month. What were the what were those deals like?

April: They were two shells. Damn. I can't remember. There were two shells and I think, like, a regular deal. One was, like, there were, like, small fees.

At that point, we were, like, five this was before we learned how to negotiate hard. Mhmm. So we were, like, $5.07, like, $10,000 deals. And then there's one deal where this, it was a late the one one out of one of the three deals, a lady, her daughter got killed in that house, and she didn't wanna sell to anyone else. So for some reason, forsaken reason, she she felt comfortable with us, with the team that we had, and she went ahead with the sale that was a $22,000 spread.

I'll forever I would never forget that house because it was very eerie going inside that house when she mentioned, like, my daughter passed away in this room that you're standing in.

Steve: Was it eerie before she said that?

April: It felt very eerie. And then we had to go back because we had to board the house in the night, and no one wanted to go inside the house.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

April: I was like, no one. She was actually murdered in that house by her boyfriend.

Steve: Yeah. And we flipped those houses.

April: And we flipped them, and they actually sold it. That was the funniest it's not funny, but one of my buyers was ready to buy it. He He was like, do you know this is, like, the murder house? I'm not buying this house. No one's gonna wanna buy live here once they know what happened in this home.

But it actually sold. Like, the end

Steve: buyer flipped it, and it was really nice. We flipped the house some time ago. And, like, in Arizona, you're actually not required to disclose. Alright. You're not required to disclose a crime or anything like that or or anyone died.

But for me, I was like, if I'm gonna sell this, like, as I'm putting my name on this, like, I'm gonna tell them. It's like, hey. Just so you guys know. And, they're like, okay. Well, let's take 5,000 off the price.

Like, okay. If that's all it's gonna take, then fine. Yeah. As long as you guys know. But, like, it was like a murder suicide.

You know? Like, the guy, how was he? He killed his girlfriend. I think there are two dogs, and then he killed himself.

April: Well, her story was actually on IDTV, ID. He was he he tortured her for days and then set it on fire.

Steve: Oh my goodness. Yeah. So that's So it was very eerie. Yeah. Alright.

So you wholesale that one. And so 2019, I mean, it's a smooth sailing.

April: 2019, we I remember, we're in a lot of debt. So 2019, I I took on that's another thing, like, what I've learned. I took on a partnership that I probably would have never taken, if it wasn't based, like, what we were going through, and I just kind of wanted help, and I needed operational help. So it was going well. Like, we had a really good we had an in house team.

There was a few people working in the office. Everything was going really good. We were getting a lot of deals, but it was like our margins were not there. Like, we were making we were making good money, but we were spending just as much. Like, we were trained in the next mastermind we went to with with Ralph to, like, scale, scale, scale.

Like, you have to make sure you're putting money first. Don't profit first. Like, you if you wanna make 200,000, you have to spend a month. You have to spend 20% or more. Like, we were trained like that.

So we were, like, making and dumping right in. Like, alright. Let's buy $10,000 of data this month. Let's let's up it next month to 20. Then that quickly like, that was another thing where I realized, like, this isn't working

Steve: Yeah.

April: At all.

Steve: So before we get into that, partnership, you entered and left. We don't have to name any names.

April: Of course.

Steve: What were you expecting in the partnership? Where did it go south?

April: Honestly, I was expecting a partnership where we can build. Where it went wrong, it was just we had two different mindsets. We had two different visions of what we wanted. And I don't wanna name drop or Mhmm. Since so long ago.

Yeah. It was just a matter of different different mindsets, like, different visions that we both wanted for the company. Mhmm. It didn't make sense

Steve: for both. Know that going in?

April: No. I did not know that going in because I kind of brought that person into the world of of of real estate. Kind of wanted to, you know, we we we had a sit down. I was like, alright. You wanna come work with me?

Like, this is what's going on. Like, this is what I'm currently dealing with. I'm in a lot of debt. Like, I'm in a lot of debt. My banker even was like, you know, you're buying into debt, like but it's okay.

All in. Like, you know, let's do it. We're gonna figure it out. And I knew I knew that from my mindset,

Steve: I would figure it

April: out. Mhmm.

Steve: But

April: I think that the person that I partnered up with wasn't really, you know, believing that or maybe she wasn't she didn't see it.

Steve: So was it a situation where your vision was bigger than hers or was it a situation her vision was bigger than yours or it was just two completely different visions?

April: Completely different visions. Completely different visions. I was quickly realizing, remember, that year, we're making deals. We're making deals, and it's like we're spending just like, we're spending amounts of money out. So it's like our expenses are kind of like our margins are not there.

I quickly realized that we can have a really good system with where it's it's tighter, smaller, and just maximize on what you have. Maximize on your data.

Steve: Often kind of margins were you having?

April: Oh my god. They were bad. I mean, if if anything, we're, like, at, like, 10 kinda, like, less. Yeah. It's bad.

Steve: Yeah. It was bad. So what did you not like about that?

April: I didn't like the overhead.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: I did not like knowing that it was x amount of dollars coming out and, like, we're not really seeing it, after everything's being paid off because we didn't have that profit first mentality. So it's like, pay everyone, invest in the company, keep

Steve: eat last.

April: Keep yeah. And then keep the scraps for last. So, like, that wasn't really panning out for us. And I quickly realized that you know we don't really need to have that then there's certain people that I've listened to throughout my life as in in podcast like one podcast, I listened to was Jared Jared Dallas. He learned to have a very systemized small team lean machine as he would say.

This was, like, I think, bigger pockets, like 2017, 2018. So I'm like, alright. He's on to something. Like, that's kind of the philosophy I wanna go to. Then I was seeing all these dead deals that we were killing because of, like, dirty titles or, like, they were just not making sense or they're over leveraged.

So we're completely killing them. Then I heard uncle Carl. So I'm like, wait. Something can happen with these deals. Like, there's actually a solution to this.

Mhmm. So when I walked away from that partnership, we, like, left I left everything. We just walked I walked away. I walked up with no team, no anything.

Steve: Oh, so you just Just Alright.

April: Disappeared. Left call callers, assistants, everything. This was, like, June or something of, like, 2019. And I but

Steve: all I left with was a list of dead deals. Mhmm.

April: So when I left that office, I went to a lunch meeting, had a conversation about subject tos.

Steve: I was

April: like, wait a minute. I have this one seller who has three properties. In that table at lunch, I called the seller. He was like, yeah. Come tomorrow.

$5,000, three properties.

Steve: Nice.

April: Deed it over to us.

Steve: Yeah. Oh, so you paid them 5,000?

April: For three properties.

Steve: Three properties. It's not too bad.

April: Not too bad. Yeah. Deleted it over to us. There was some debt on it, some taxes. Buyer wasn't was okay with it.

Flip that. 4? 40,000.

Steve: Nice. Yeah. So it's a pretty good start.

April: And I was like, there's something to this creative. But at that point, it was, like, very, like, fluffy. But I knew there was something because uncle Carl, Dave Day were, like, really big to me. I had I still have their numbers. Like, I was reaching out to them, like, can you help me with this?

That's I joined uncle Carl's mastermind

Steve: Yep.

April: Even way before he was in CG. So I've learned a lot from him, and I'm like, okay. I have to maximize on these trifectas as he calls them.

Steve: Right. I I I wanna touch on something here because you mentioned very low margins and then you margin mentioned profit first. And I think that one of the things that there's, like, multiple stages in this industry. The first is, like, this real this whole this can't be real. Right?

Like, that's, like, the first thing. And then it's like, okay. Well, I can do this. And then after you do one, there's, like, I gotta go all in. I gotta dump everything in, and I can't pay myself.

And you learn after how long, like, that is not a good idea.

April: June 2019, then that's not a good idea.

Steve: So not very long.

April: Not very long.

Steve: Right. And and the reason why is that that works until you have a shift in the wins or this and that. And now your 10% goes to zero instantly or negative. So we always encourage people to pay themselves first, have a higher profitable higher profitable business. I'm glad that you

April: Yeah. Because that was remember, we were still in debt. So at that point, I was already in real estate, and I had to build a buyer's list, doing deals, like JV deals. Like, I was doing everything. Mhmm.

Like, I was doing anything and everything to make money, to figure it out. Yeah. So I wasn't paying myself off of that company, but I'm just doing anything and everything in real estate, putting deals together, syndicating, like, people like you and you you wanna buy, you wanna sell. Like, I need a I need a I need I need a commission. Right.

Like, I was coined I did a few deals with, like, Ralph and, like, his distill. Like, I was known as, like, you gave me a deal. Give me twenty four hours. I'm gonna stamp an extra $40 on that deal in commission. Like, legendary for that.

Steve: Yeah. Wow. That's pretty good. So how did you go from this right here where you start on your own again to,

April: Our lean kinda machine.

Steve: Or lean in a hundred k month hundred k months.

April: So left June 2019. June, July, we kinda broke the whole company off, so I had, like we had, like, a a final payout. So that payout right there when I I I we got our office, and we hired within a month. Like, I already knew our I already had our system dialed dialed in as far as, like, what I needed to get right in running. I need I had data.

I knew I needed my call systems. I needed my CRM, and I just needed my people hounding my leads. So in a month, we set all of that up. And then from September to to September to December 2019, that those months, we made $200 in that amount.

Steve: Wow.

April: Just went straight all in. Like, completely in. Great deals. Big spreads. I learned we learned how to negotiate better.

And Ash is actually really good. Like, I threw him into acquisitions. He wasn't he wasn't gifted for that. He didn't think he had it in him, but he ended up being

Steve: That's surprising.

April: He he he actually became a really good negotiator. I mean, he has no shame in, like, coming in and, like, creating these big spreads.

Steve: So let's talk about that. So you you attribute a lot of your success to negotiating better. What were some tips for someone who's listening, like, negotiation tips?

April: I mean, honestly, going into negotiations, number one, is just don't ever be afraid to deliver the deal, deliver the numbers. I mean, when we're calling sellers, we're we're letting them know, like, this is what we can do for you. This is what our company can offer. Mhmm. These are our solutions.

It might work. It might not. You know, we're going we're we definitely use the anchor. Like, you know, we're gonna use tactics like, well, we see people are paying x amount of dollars in this neighborhood. I'm not saying I'm gonna pay you that.

I'm just telling you that's what they're paying Yeah. Just to kinda get their head around.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: But most importantly, we use what their what is their issues? What can we do to fix it? And how can we deliver? So that right there, you're setting that expectation. You're gonna have a homeowner that's gonna be very open to listening to you and talking to you.

And, you know, we're also gonna define what we can do. So in negotiations, it really comes down to not being afraid to deliver. You know, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, it's on to the next. But if you go with that mindset of, like, constantly thinking about the number, like, the what ifs, you're you're gonna be scared. And it's like, this is what we can deliver based on x, y, and z.

We're gonna prove why. We're gonna say why we can deliver this. These are the comps. This is what's working. This is what's not.

This is what we can do. But once you've set that expectation and you know you you you show the seller what you can offer, I mean, it's either you or another company that's not gonna perform. So chances are they're gonna come to you.

Steve: Gotcha. Okay. So that's 2019.

April: 2019, 2020.

Steve: Okay. So let's talk about last year. So at which point did you join Collective Genius?

April: I joined April 2020. That was my first meetup.

Steve: So we joined the same time?

April: We did?

Steve: Sounds like it. I think I I think I joined in March.

April: March? One of those. It was March or April.

Steve: Yeah. Interesting. Okay.

April: But you weren't there. It was when COVID COVID was really happening, so everyone was disappearing.

Steve: Yeah. I joined right after the COVID crisis.

April: No. It was, like, full blown happening. Like, well, like, we were, like, go in the room and then go back, and it was, like, 10 more people have left. Then, like, we would go for break and come back, and it was, like, less people in the room. Really?

Steve: Everyone was just rescheduling their flights.

April: Everyone was, like, in the back rescheduling flights.

Steve: Because they didn't know if they'd be able to go home.

April: I mean, we were at a point where we were look we were in San Diego. Ash was looking to rent a car to drive to New York because the day after we left, they shut down flights. Oh. After we left San Diego, they shut down all flights. So we were like, we thought we were gonna have to drive to New York.

I mean, we were gonna have to do it.

Steve: We had to get back home to our son. Yeah. Okay. So you joined right before I did. Why did you join Collective Genius?

April: I wanted to be in a mastermind that not only could give me the systems and the processes, but can kind of narrow it, like, where we wanna go in business. I mean, think about it. We just went through, like, serious amount of debt. So You

Steve: went through a crazy roller coaster.

April: It was it was very emotional, and I was very scared to jump into rentals, flips. Like, I was like, let's stick to wholesale. It's very safe. Like, why not? But I knew that there was more to it, and I just had to kinda get the education.

So I actually talked to Billy, Billy Ross. Mhmm.

Steve: And I

April: was like, I wanna be in a mastermind that can deliver x, y, and z to me. He was like, you know, I think you should be you'll be a perfect fit for this mastermind. Like, you're you know, and and Rhonda, I love her. They both feel like you would feel you would be right at home in this. Like, this is exactly what you need.

And I went through the whole interview process. I actually got denied, twice, and then I didn't give up. I text Jason, and then I saw that Rafael was speaking at at CG. So I text Rafael, and I was like, you better refer me.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: So then he, I guess, said something to Jason, and Jason texted me. And he's like, little lady, you know, you're very difficult to turn away.

Steve: Yeah.

April: And I'm like, really? He's like, you've had a few people refer you. So, you know, we're gonna I'm gonna schedule you with Leon. Like, let's let's do this because I was not giving up.

Steve: Man, Leon's a hard ass. Yeah. Yeah. Love you, Leon.

April: I do I do too, Leon. He said it.

Steve: Alright. So, so you wanna get in. You wanna be surrounded by people that can help you navigate this business.

April: In other ways. Like, not just wholesale. Like, what I'm you know, being in that room with CG, like, I'm not the smartest person in the room, and I don't care. Like, I don't mind. Like, I'm a sponge.

Steve: I'm excited about that.

April: I'm I love it. Like, I'm I tell everybody I'm eavesdropping in every single conversation. That's like, Pat,

Steve: I don't care who you are. I'm eavesdropping. If you're speaking, I'm

April: like this. Like, what are you talking about? Taking notes, like, I'm eavesdropping on your conversation.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that's great. Right?

April: It's great.

Steve: So then what have you gotten out of it?

April: I've definitely got out of it, processes. Just making sure that you're aligned with what you want. Set your expectations. You know, don't don't go for the shiny object.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: You know, you don't have to scale. Not everyone has to scale. And just definitely education and learning from others. Like, you can really, really shape the the where your your company is going. Like, I'm all for education.

Steve: Yeah.

April: All for it. Like, pay for it, shortcuts. Like, it's it's going to really, really change the narrative of anyone's business if you are if you are doing education, if you're if you're taking what others are doing and applying to it, applying it to your business. Like, don't try to figure it out like I did.

Steve: Well, definitely don't do it like how April April did.

April: Yeah. Don't do that. Don't please don't.

Steve: Alright. So you mentioned that you don't have to scale, which is something that we all struggle with because we all start like, man, you know, there's gotta be a way where I don't have to run that rat race. And then you think, man, you know, if I could just get out of the nine to five. And you get to this business, and you're like, scale, scale, scale. Like, something happens where you're like, man, if I could just get some more free time.

And you get in and you sacrifice all your time, all anything you enjoy to go crazy in the business. Yeah. So what about CG has said told you you don't have to scale?

April: Not CG itself, but it's just what I want with for my my my vision.

Steve: So you got clarity on what you want?

April: I got clarity on what I want. I

Steve: Gotcha.

April: Have a son who's my life, who's my world. I enjoy little things in the morning that I can do. Like, for example, like, you know, when I we were trying to scale in 2020, we were doing amazing, but I was working more than the nine to five. Like, at one point, I'm like, I'd rather be in a nine to five. 05:00 comes, you just check out and you don't even check emails.

Steve: You don't have to worry about it.

April: To worry about it. The weekend comes. It's like You can

Steve: take a real vacation.

April: You can take a real vacation. Actually, turn off your phone.

Steve: Yeah. That's something that like, do not believe what you see on social media. Like, this idea that we can kinda, like, just turn things off. Like, as a business owner, there's no turning things off. You can reduce it.

You can maybe check it twice that day, you know, on the beach, but you cannot

April: We've been on vacation. Ash is, like, in the in the lobby of the hotel, like, negotiating a deal or, like, trying to help someone. Like, okay. This is what I'm gonna, like, I'm I'm I'm coaching you to

Steve: the through this call. I just heard

April: I just audited your call yesterday. This is what you did wrong in this call. Right. Sometimes nine to five is better. You just, like, check out, don't come back till Monday morning

Steve: Yeah.

April: And that's it.

Steve: And I wouldn't change it for the world. I just want everyone to know that it is not what you see on social media.

April: It's not. It's really not. I realized very quickly that I was drowning. I was very moody. You know, I was I was 5AM getting up.

I had, like, this crazy schedule. Like, if and if I didn't do it, I felt guilt. Like, if I'm not up at 5AM, if I didn't do my affirmations, if I didn't go to the gym, if I didn't answer the call, if I didn't do this, all before nine, I just wasted my day. Like, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm worthless.

Steve: I'd be one of those people that would guilt you.

April: I guilt myself. Yeah. Like, I'm very hard on myself. And I just quickly realized, like, I'd rather have time with my son.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: I'd rather travel. Like, now we're at a stage where, like, do we wanna be in New York? Do we wanna, like, go somewhere? Like, Stephanie said, like, just pick something out of the map. Like, where do we wanna go?

That's where, like, we are now. And it's like, do we really need to do a 100 k or $200,000 a month? Like, can we, you know again, we have a lean team. So, like, with with the 75, 80, or even a 50 k month, like, I'm I'm we're okay.

Steve: Alright.

April: And but it's like, why want more? You know, now my day is I wake up, I I do I do after I go to the gym, but between 07:30 and 10:00, that's my son's time. I get him up. I make him breakfast. I can take my time with him.

I'm not rushing him. I'm not saying, hurry up. I have to go. I have a 9AM meeting. No.

I can walk to school with him holding hands. We can we can we can skip and hop. Like, I'm not rushing him. And that's what I like, and that's what I want.

Steve: That's awesome. Yeah. It's a little bit different, because you're sharing with me, before the show that there was another time where you were walking a lot.

April: Yeah. I looked at it as cardio.

Steve: Do you wanna share with that? I mean, the difference, right, when you're getting started versus where you are today.

April: So we went through this insane amount of debt. And, thankfully, Ash and I were really good with, like, buying you know, we would buy sneakers and expensive bags. So sad to say, but, like, that resale market works. Like, there was a lot of times that, like, sneakers paid our our debt, like or paid our bills.

Steve: Really?

April: Yeah. Like, there was times that, like, I would flip a

Steve: bag to, like, pay a bill off. Wow.

April: Yeah. Like so a lot of things have changed as far as, like, my mindset now, like, what I what I've spent for and whatever. But sometimes I would opt to take a cab to my office. I mean, walk to my office instead of taking a cab to save that money

Steve: to

April: put it towards bills. And I just looked at it as, I'm just gonna shed the weight off from birth. So it's cardio. Yeah. I looked at it as, like, the positive.

Steve: For sure. And you kinda have to. Right? When you're going through hard times, you gotta put that lens on. And that's how we connected.

April: Yes.

Steve: Right? So, I get to work with Ash and your team.

April: Yes.

Steve: So something else you talked about was credit repair. What is you wanna talk about your credit repair component?

April: So remember I said earlier, I was kind of dibbling dabbling in different things that I was doing while I was figuring out, like, what real estate side I wanted to go to. So I was doing tables, then I started kind of doing credit repair. I did it for myself. I I made it happen. I Oh,

Steve: because you had to.

April: I had to do it for myself, worked. I did it for a few people, family members, worked too. So I'm like, hey. Like, let's make some money off of this. So I started posting about it and I got clientele and, like, my family would tell their friends.

And I was doing everything myself. Like, at that point, those years, I didn't learn how to run a business or, like, you know, don't do everything, don't wear all the hats. So I was doing it all on my own. So now as our business model has shifted from 2020 to 2021 now, we're offering more solutions to our homeowners, which includes credit repair. Why not?

You know, we deal with a lot of distressed sellers that are in debt. So one of our options when we're delivering when acquisition is delivering what we do, we say, hey, we also do help we do help with we also have a credit repair department. If you or anyone is looking to fix their credit, we can take you to our sales process, but we can also, you know, include credit repair as well.

Steve: Is that something that's like an additional service?

April: If you are a homeowner with us that we close a deal on, no. It's free of charge. But if you are refer referring people or now that we are doing marketing, like, for my old existing clients that I brought in from when I did do it, those are paid. Our homeowners, we offer that as, like, an incentive. So that's another way to, like, gain

Steve: the So if a home you met with homeowner and they sold with someone else, But they're like, April, I want you to fix my credit.

April: You're getting charged.

Steve: Yeah. It wasn't what what are you charging for that?

April: We're charging our premium package is a $150. Our basic is 40. So a $150 package includes, like, one on one calls, Zooms. You also learn about real estate, how to invest your money, and how to leverage real estate as homeowner if you want to.

Steve: Are you pitching within that

April: Acquisitions pitches it in. They'll throw it in.

Steve: But in that training, if you're buying their house, they're gonna have some cash. Are you educating them on how to be a private money lender? Yes. We are. Awesome.

We are. We are.

April: And we also our transaction coordinator also does it. Our transaction our acquisitions will wheel it in. But when we do close Mhmm. Our transaction coordinator has to do a closing call. It's part of her day to day.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: In her closing call, she offers our referral fee. If you refer anyone to us, we can pay you up to $5,000 depending on the home. We can help you with credit repair or, and we also get a review from them. So she can either take it verbally, they can opt to do it on Google, or they can submit it through our review form. And she has to do that closing call for every deal.

And then she does a she also has follow-up calls. So she has to follow-up on closed deals and remind them that we're still buying. We can do this, and we can do that, which in return has brought has kind of opened the referral line for us to get deals.

Steve: Which has made things more profitable.

April: Yes. So less data buying, just maximize on our referrals. Like, we have we have a pretty decent amount of, like, leads that we're closing that are just coming through our pipeline and then leads that are coming in because they were referred by somebody.

Steve: And now where is your business physically?

April: We're in New York. We still have our office, but we don't have anyone in our office. Everyone works virtually.

Steve: But are you still in Philly only?

April: We are in Philly. We're have done deals in Maryland because it's just, like, fallen in our lap. Mhmm. And we are also have done deals in Jersey. And now we're rolling in New York because I feel like I'm ready.

Steve: What part of New York?

April: We're gonna do we're gonna do The Bronx and Brooklyn. We're only going for, like, apartment buildings, multifamily, because right now landlords are crying.

Steve: Struggling a little bit.

April: They're struggling a little bit. Yeah. So

Steve: I love that.

April: We're gonna touch down on that. See, now we're gonna now we're ready to buy for ourselves. But with CG and what we know now, now we're gonna be very smart about it.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: And the best part about wholesale is that that's kind of the foundation for everyone. So it's like if you make that your foundation, you can get you can cherry pick your deal. Like, so now we're like, we're gonna buy, but we're gonna make sure it's the deal we want.

Steve: Well, that's the most valuable skill. We don't talk about it enough. Like, we talk about wholesaling and it's cool. There's nothing wrong with it. But the most valuable skill is finding the deal.

And if you're the one finding the deal

April: Cherry pick.

Steve: You get the cherry pick. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. So Benjamin Beck wants to know, if you can have coffee with anybody you want, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Oh my god. If I could have coffee dead or alive.

April: Grant Cardone.

Steve: Grant Cardone?

April: I would say Grant. I just wanna I you know what? He's a self made billionaire. Like Mhmm. I I give him props for that, and I would just love to to pick his brain because he gets, you know, he gets a lot of shit sometimes, and I don't really think he cares.

Steve: No. He definitely he definitely doesn't care.

April: And I wanna learn how to, like, be like that.

Steve: I mean, to me, I look at him. He's almost like a twin of, like, Donald Trump. Like Don't

April: say that. That's bad.

Steve: I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying there are a lot of similarities. Right? Super high d personalities.

April: Super intense.

Steve: Right? And they're gonna say what they're gonna say. It doesn't matter if it's completely contradictory to what they said yesterday. Like, they could do what they're gonna do. Yorkish.

April: Very New York. So yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Awesome. So self made billionaire. Alright. Francisco, Jocelyn wants to know how much wholesaling are you doing, how much flipping are you doing, and how much rental is in your business?

April: So as I mentioned, currently, we're just strictly wholesaling. Now we're ready to

Steve: The safe route.

April: To we're we're in the safe we were doing the safe route. Now we're really ready to leverage that. Mhmm. And we're being very smart about it. And I know specifically what we're targeting too.

Like, right now, we are we have a few deals in the pipeline that we're we're massaging the sellers, and and they can work for us as deals that we can take down. But they're, like, more than 10 units and up.

Steve: Yep. So how much, so you're saying 10 units you're wholesaling?

April: Yes. So it's all wholesaling right now.

Steve: All wholesaling. How many transactions a month? I think it's probably what Francisco's trying to say.

April: What he's trying to say? So we're averaging anywhere from eight to 10 monthly. I mean, March, we had 15 on the pipeline. Crazy numbers, and then they all blew up.

Steve: Let's talk about that because no one's I don't think enough people talk about deals blowing up.

April: Oh, so, you know, some what's going on a lot lately, what we noticed in our deals, we have a lot of squatters situation.

Steve: Mhmm. So a

April: lot of tenants that are turned into nonpaying tenants. We have in our market where we It

Steve: should be easy to evict them, right, on on the East Coast.

April: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. Right.

No. Their tenant laws are like, no. It's not happening. So we've had a lot of deals blow up like that where, you know, we're we negotiate with sellers, like, I mean, with squatters. We've done it in the past.

You you usually, it works. Some of them, not so much. But in March, we had a really we had a we had 593,000 in the pipeline to close, and more than half of that, like, blew up

Steve: Yeah.

April: Because of squatters or and because of title situations. Like, title's just not clearing, which I still see there's a solution to it because, obviously, it's not a creative side. So we're working those deals, but squatter situations seems to be the big one for us.

Steve: So you mentioned earlier that there was an incident with one of the squatters?

April: Two incident. Well, yeah, they pulled out of there was a squatter situation. They pulled out guns on our our property manager and kind of scared him off a little bit.

Steve: Does he still work for you?

April: He does. He does still work for us. Because I

Steve: think I would just submit my resignation right then and there.

April: Oh, he still worked for us. He still and then Ash went down and tried to get into the house. I'm like, are you insane?

Steve: Ash went to go Yeah.

April: Because he we wanted to make the deal work. So we were like, it's a $45,000 deal. Like, we need to make this work. So he goes down. He needs to get a picture for the meter that's inside the house, And he's like, can I go in?

He just offered these squatters $3,000.

Steve: Mhmm. So

April: then he's like, can I come in? And they're like, yeah. So he comes to the car. He's like, oh, they're about to let me in. I'm like, are you insane?

You just offer these guys money. Like, they're gonna think that you're carrying this money cash. Mhmm. And there's been a few incidents in our market where investors have been beat up or things have happened. So I was like, absolutely not.

You're not getting in that house. And that deal blew up, and it was $45,000 spread.

Steve: Yeah. Scary.

April: Yeah. And a gun pulled out on us.

Steve: Right. Okay. So you said there was two of them. What was the other incident?

April: Our guy got harassed. That was on our first first run, so he got harassed. Almost got beat up, but

Steve: not so much. It it was okay. And this is in Philly, or this is New York?

April: This is Philly.

Steve: This is Philly. Alright.

April: Sorry, guys. Don't come to my market.

Steve: Alright. Mark Wynn wants to know, what company are you using for cold calling now?

April: I manage my own callers.

Steve: In house?

April: In house.

Steve: And what are your KPIs? What are the maybe three or five core KPIs you measure?

April: Offers submitted daily, how many leads there are being contacted, offers submitted late daily, how many, who we are as we're sending, that's most importantly, and how many dials are acquisitions doing. But most importantly is my offers daily. I need minimum 10 offers a day out, whether it's verbally or sending it in an offer letter.

Steve: Alright. And then, Mark's follow-up question is how do you produce leads?

April: I mean, how do we produce a lead?

Steve: Where do you get your what what what are your top two or three primary lead sources?

April: We are using we use PropStream. We buy data from list source, and then we also scrape the county. So county websites, I've I've hired someone overseas and they, scraped the websites for me, back end it.

Steve: Yeah. That definitely works. So Synafa's And then

April: we stack it. But it's got to the point where now I feel like we own all the like, there's only so much data you can buy in your market until you own it. So, like, my callers cannot tell me there's no beat. Like, I'm like, I'm right now in our Zen call, we have a 183,000 leads. You cannot tell me that there's no data.

If you haven't submitted a 183 lead thousand leads, keep dialing.

Steve: We had, let's see. It was 2019 '19. Myself, Jesse Broil, and Jared Badalis, we bought the list for the entire county. And I was like,

April: what else are you gonna do?

Steve: Yeah. So we got 450,000 records, skip traced.

April: Oh my god. What a bill. Did you did you skip trace it all at once?

Steve: Well, that was the way to get it to the lowest price possible.

April: Oh, you had to bulk it.

Steve: We've bulked it. I think we split 28,000 for everything. Right? It's not bad. It's three ways.

April: No. That's not bad.

Steve: Alright. So now I just want to know how much net profit do you make per year?

April: So last year, we did 765,000 total.

Steve: That was gross or profit?

April: That was gross.

Steve: Gross. What did you end up walking away with?

April: We walked away with $5.25.

Steve: Alright. And then, his follow-up his or her follow-up question is, are you the owner of the business?

April: Yes. I am. With my partner. We're both we're partners in the business.

Steve: Who is?

April: Ash, my significant other. Yep. Yeah. And act head acquisitions.

Steve: Yep. Alejandra wants to know if you're 23 again, what would be the first thing you would do with the knowledge you have now?

April: Definitely not do, ground up deals. I would pay for education. I that money that I had where I was doing real estate at realtor and I was making decent money, I would have found a really good good education course.

Steve: So the money you made I would. Leasing real leasing in New York and apply that towards education?

April: Apply that towards education. A 100%.

Steve: And that's really easy to say that now with the wisdom you have now. But what was your thought back then when someone says, hey, April. How would you like for me to teach you everything I know? And I would charge you YouTube. Yeah.

I'll teach you I'll I'll charge you 30,000. I'll teach you everything I know.

April: I would say I'm going to YouTube University.

Steve: And I had that same problem too. Right? Like, it's that we need to get smacked around to get the humility. Right? Because I remember peep I was like, why would you go to these conferences and pay $2,530,000?

I would rather just lose $2,530,000 learning it the hard way. That was my mindset when I first started.

April: That was. Mine's too.

Steve: Yeah. But that was not the right mindset. It was not the right mindset at all at all.

April: And also with YouTube, you know, not everything that works for someone's gonna work for you. So on YouTube, I'm listening listening or watching 10 different people who are saying, do cold call. No. Do direct mail. No.

Do it this way. Do it that way. Send a yellow postcard. Make sure your your envelope is colored. Put coffee stains on it.

Have your kid draw on it. So it's like, woah. Which one works for your market? So it's like that would have definitely changed a lot.

Steve: One of them definitely works.

April: One of them works. But also, it's what works in your market. Not everything that works in one market is gonna work for yours. Like, some peep you know, in in in the Midwest, people love to talk. Homeowners love to talk.

New York, tell the seller, I have money. They'll be like, so I have money too. Who cares? What company you work for? One of them was like, I'm googling you right now.

What's the name of the company? Like, they're very you know, that's New York market. It's a question.

Steve: Direct. Yeah. We were talking because New York or or Phoenix, you know, everyone's used to being cold called. For for years, they're used to getting cold called. And, one of our buddies was like, yeah.

I just moved to Alabama, and, like, they're so nice. You know, I was like, this isn't him, but I hope you find him.

April: Like, that's not him, but I think you have the wrong number. You know, you try this, like, it's insane.

Steve: Totally different profile. Yeah. And then let's see who else is there. Okay. So you mentioned earlier creative finance.

So Andrew's question is, do you offer sub two? So let's talk about how you apply creative to your transactions.

April: So, again, that kind of fell on my lap. Remember, as I said, I left that partnership and I left with a with a list of dead deals, but I felt like there was something that could be done with them because I had heard uncle Carl and Dave Day on on podcast. So they kind of fell into our lap where I learned, you know, we can take we we can we can have a property deeded over to us or we can have a power of attorney so we can negotiate the debt. Mhmm. Or there's actually investors that would buy deals with debt if those are the type of buyers.

So it just we we look at the deals. We see now it's like no leave left behind. I kinda coined that last year. Mhmm. Sorry, Phil.

And it's we look at a deal, it's case by case. If this avenue doesn't work, will this avenue work? And we subject twos come with it. Like, we've sold lots, we've sold homes with subject twos, with debt on them, and there's a buyer for everything. Like, I believe there's a buyer for everything.

Steve: Who's Phil?

April: Phil Green.

Steve: That's what he says too?

April: No. He said, we we were we had a meeting once, and I was like, no. Lee left behind. And then we kind of, like, both just we're like, who coined it first? I was kind of, like, our inside joke with that.

Steve: Gotcha. Yeah. Phil Green waiting for him to come on the show.

April: Oh, he's amazing. Be I have his I right now in CG, like, I have his his his, like, voice in, like, my head.

Steve: Yeah. He's,

April: He's a monster.

Steve: Yeah. He's in a really amazing person.

April: And and a very competitive market. And because of him, we've actually transitioned where, like, now we're hiring people in like, it's remote

Steve: Mhmm.

April: But we're hiring in America. Like, we're not just focusing on overseas people in The Philippines or South America.

Steve: Yeah. That's for the you guys guys don't know who we're talking about. It's another guy in Collective Genius.

April: Yes. Collective Genius.

Steve: He's doing 30 plus transactions a month in San Diego, and he's making stupid amount of money per flip.

April: Crazy.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, I would be happy to make that on one of my flips. He's making that on average.

April: Yeah. Oh my god. And his and his, COO, he's like, you remember that event where, like, we blew us all away with his presentation?

Steve: Yeah. Eric is is

April: He's a monster too.

Steve: He's ridiculous. Crazy. Super sharp, guys.

April: Yeah. Very sharp.

Steve: Alright. So, so you're only lean. So with your business being lean now, what was your overhead when it was crazy? What's your overhead now?

April: So we went from having an overhead of about 40 to $40.40 to 45,000, and that was including people. And I include also my marketing because our number one marketing is cold calling. So that includes our people. It got to a point where I had a team of 12 cold callers. I mean, it was insane.

So we've narrowed it down to now. We just have very, very, very lean departments. We have three acquisitions. We have our transaction coordinator. We have two dispels, and then we have our cold callers.

And our cold calling, the way we pay them, it completely has changed. Like, I expect certain amount of leads per person. Like, you you'll have you'll be at your price point, your averagely weight. But if you're not delivering x amount of leads, it goes down. So it's like what you get paid, what you're delivering.

Mhmm. Same thing goes for acquisitions.

Steve: Yeah. It was really interesting. Haim was on the show a long, long time ago, and he said that he said, like, basically, like, yeah, they're hourly, but the results are there. Yeah. Right?

Like, you deliver these results, you'll get paid your promised wage.

April: Yeah. So if you are And

Steve: it's not like it's commission. It's just if you don't do what you

April: you you're

Steve: hired to do, I'm not paying you what

April: I promised. Exactly. Like, I'll start you at eight. You have to bring me a minimum of 20. Now if you hit if you're at if you hit from twelve to fifteen, it goes down to six.

And if you hit below that, you're going back to training, which is four.

Steve: Yeah.

April: So you decide what you wanna get paid. Right. It's all up to I put it up to them. And same thing goes with acquisitions now. Like, before I would have our lead manager submit end of the day reports.

Now our acquisitions have to submit their own end of the day report. So it's like no one wants to write that email that you didn't do your job or didn't hit your calls. I wanna see your offers in, where they are at, where they're standing, and and your call audits. And calls are audited every single day.

Steve: Yeah. That's awesome. Who's auditing the calls?

April: Lead manager and Ash. He get he gets he they cherry pick, calls. So we'll run I'll have our lead manager randomly pick calls for every department. It's submitted end of the day. He listens to them.

He has to submit his report by 9AM.

Steve: One thing we're looking to do, I think, next month either next month or July is one of our action ads because we can't we got so many freaking things going on. We can't do it all at once.

April: I know.

Steve: So it was I can't remember if we're doing it next month or the month after that. We're hiring a VA whose sole job is just to listen calls all day. That's it. Like, there's no, like, cherry picking. Like well, maybe there's some cherry picking, but, like, instead of listening to, like, five calls, they're gonna listen to calls literally all day.

All day? Right? And then they're gonna rate them. And, you know, if people are being monitored, they know

April: Oh, they know.

Steve: They're gonna do better.

April: See, we're not we're we have our girl. She'll do, like, a a morning call, afternoon, and a midday and a afternoon call, midday afternoon. So she'll just run pick calls from, like, every and it has to be a five minute and over call.

Steve: Mhmm.

April: But trust trust me, they know it's being audited because we've come back with, like, why did you say that if clearly that that wasn't what he was looking for? So they know that it's being audited and it's audited every single day because that email goes out and everyone cc'd on it.

Steve: Right. I'm trying to go through these. Apparently, we've got some spammer bots here. So congratulations. This is the first episode where we have, these trading people.

April: Trading people.

Steve: In the chat box.

April: What? Crypto?

Steve: I don't know.

April: Oh, man. They made their way to Facebook.

Steve: They made it. This is this is YouTube Live.

April: So YouTube.

Steve: Congratulations. So what is your why? What's pushing you today?

April: My son. More time with him. I don't want to I don't want to have, like I was the way we were going was like that super New York 99% of the time your your son is with, like, a babysitter. Mhmm.

Steve: I

April: don't want that. Like, I want my son to have time with me.

Steve: So that's a New York? Well, it's

April: not a New York thing, but it like, New York, like, we we we just grow up to, like, you have to work and hustle. Like, if you're not doing that, like, what are you doing? Like, you're lazy. It's either you're hustling and and hustling a 100% or you're, like, you're lazy.

Steve: You're a bum. Or you're

April: a bum. So it's like I'm always feeling that, and I was always kind of, like, you know, like, kind of, like, beating myself up because it's like, if I'm not working twelve hours, like, I'm not that wasn't productive. If I didn't work start working at x amount a day and complete all of this, like I

Steve: didn't know that's the way it was in New York.

April: Yeah. It's very it's it's a very hustle hustle and bustle type of city.

Steve: I mean, I know it's a hustle bustle, and, like, they never sleep, but, man, I had no idea that you're being judged.

April: Well, it's not really you judge yourself. You judge yourself. It's, you know, everyone you're everyone's out grinding. Like, you're grinding. So it's like if you're not doing it, then, yeah, you're a bum.

Steve: What is your biggest struggle right now?

April: So I told you earlier, we came back from CG December 2020. And conversation with Phil, conversation with a few people. They're like, you, you know, like, we need you I need to focus on a few different things. So right now, we've kind of been transitioning our company from, like, only having, like, people overseas to building out, having more Americanized people. So, like, the people that are touching my data, my homeowners, like, I want them to be more experienced.

Steve: High caliber.

April: High caliber. So hiring really good people, but not having to have 20 people on on staff. Like, really one or two really good people in departments can go a long way. So building out our SOPs, making sure our onboarding process is dialed in. So, like, there's thirty days into the into the, onboarding process.

Like, we've set the expectations. You're clear of what the expectations are. There's no gray area, and, like, this is what we expect. Like, no joke. So we just kind of been sweeping things around.

We brought in axe credit, the doing credit repair to offer that. So offering more solutions, maximizing on our data so that we're not spending a lot.

Steve: Who's creating the SOPs?

April: I create them myself.

Steve: It's impressive. That's that's a struggle I think every entrepreneur has.

April: I've actually shared it with a few of our our CG people. Yeah. Yeah. Like, signed like, just shared our my Asana workspace with them. And some of them have given me good feedback.

I'm like, thank you. It took six months to build out. But

Steve: Oh, that's awesome.

April: It's still it's still still adding more stuff.

Steve: But It's never it's gonna be never ending work in progress.

April: It's never gonna yeah. I learned that. I'm like, I'm always gonna move things around. But, yeah, building that out.

Steve: What is your superpower?

April: I think my superpower is that I can have a vision and I can kind of put it piece it together. It and, you know, it might not all work, but I'm gonna figure it out. I'm going to get it to work because I don't accept anything but, success success or making it work.

Steve: So for those of the that are just starting, who would you recommend to become their mentor? This is from Perla, Ganarilla. Ganarilla.

April: Who would I recommend right now? I mean, there's a few programs on on on on, people that are doing, you know, like, selling courses. I feel like just do what what look at what you want, like, what model you wanna go, if you wanna do rentals, if you wanna do wholesale, and just pick the person that you kind of click with and connect with. And that the mastermind that speaks to you, honestly. I can't really decide who like, if the ones that existed kind of, like the ones that I did back then still existed, like Carlos and Sal would say those.

But I don't even think they're they're doing it anymore. I think they only do, like, really, exclusive clients now.

Steve: Yeah. I'm not exactly sure what their model is, but I I I I will I will definitely, you know, second that part about finding someone that resonates with you.

April: Yes.

Steve: And then, someone's asking, do you do you guys record your option contracts?

April: No. We don't.

Steve: And is there a reason for that?

April: I just we don't I don't force I don't force sellers or homeowners to make decisions. You know, like, at the end of the day, we're strictly wholesaling. You know, we do mention that we are if we don't doesn't work for us, we're gonna sell it or you know, so we can find someone for it. But I don't I like to do good by people, and that's another thing. Like, you know, I don't I I wanna bring our values.

So I'm not gonna force the seller or homeowner to to sell it a property if they don't want to. So, no, we've never done it. I've never had to, and I don't think I ever will. Unless it's like a deal. Like, if it's like an apartment building that we're trying to take down for us, then yeah.

But other than that, no.

Steve: Gotcha. And then Mark Wayne wants to know, you had $8,000 to start in a new market. What are your first steps with the new 8 k or with $8,000?

April: So first, I would find out if you can, like, get data from the county for free, or if you can, you know, go on Fiverr and find someone. If you're if that your good county website can be scraped,

Steve: then I would get data.

April: Depending if you wanna cold call or not, if you wanna maximize on your time, just find really good a really good cold caller, one or two that can have that experience to to turn your leads around. And then just make sure you're there to hound the lead after when it's submitted and and and make the offers. And make offers. Make offers all day, every day.

Steve: Yeah.

April: 10 offers a day, 50 offers a week should get you one or two deals. I mean, it really should.

Steve: Definitely. If you're putting out offers, you will definitely get deals. What is the greatest lesson you've learned?

April: Greatest lesson I've learned is just make sure that you you're understanding what you're jumping in. Don't do what I did. Don't just, like, swing the hammer and just hope for the best. I wanted to go all in, and I was just like, f it. Like, I'm gonna do it, and

Steve: I'll figure it out as it goes, but

April: that didn't work out so well. So definitely, definitely, like, just realize what you wanna do and make sure that you are are ready and and don't don't do a gut job.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I think the reason why you're successful is that you believe you can do anything. Right? You have unlimited ability. Right?

You got unlimited confidence, which is a great asset. You just don't have to tackle the world on step one.

April: Yeah. Basically. Don't do it.

Steve: Get get there in seven, eight, nine, ten steps.

April: Exactly.

Steve: Right. Samuel wants to know what is the best CRM?

April: Now Salesforce. Two years ago, I would have said Podio, but not so much anymore. Salesforce. We part of CG, we are, we're all transitioning. I think everyone's transitioning over to Salesforce now.

Yeah.

Steve: Who are they? They're like, should I do Salesforce? Like, all the cool people are doing it.

April: Oh my god. Now that I've seen it, I'm like, I can't even look at Podio. Like, we're still working on Podio, and it, like, it annoys me. Yeah. Like Stephanie says, like, we can't predict what's going on.

And it's like, now with Salesforce, they can't submit like, they can't click out of a lead unless, like, tabs are, like, clicked on. And I love that because acquisitions always forgets to notate or tag the damn account. Yep. So now they just can't get off the page until they do it. And I love that.

Steve: So the next question is favorite best or most interesting failure. I'm guessing probably Philly, the first flip in Philly. But is there anything else?

April: No. Surprisingly, that's my best, best lesson. It was my big it was my it was the hardest thing I've ever went through, but it it taught me a lot. Mhmm. It taught me that if I put my mind into anything I can do, like, it also taught me, like, to believe in faith.

Like, I really went through, like, some heavy stuff. And I prayed a lot, that we were gonna overcome it, and and we did.

Steve: You did.

April: And we did.

Steve: Yeah. So, again, we said this multiple times, but it's not all rainbows and unicorns.

April: No. It's not.

Steve: But, there's gonna be a lot of suffering, but it's worth it.

April: It's worth it. It's worth it.

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

April: You know, when I got sent this list of questions, I was like, damn. I haven't I haven't given a gift I haven't given a book. So I haven't given a book. I would say I give a book to moms called, twelve hours by twelve weeks, which helps a kid sleep like, gets you gets your child to in a sleeping pattern so so that you can work and do more. So that's probably the only book I've I'm it's I

Steve: think that's great.

April: Yeah. I deal there's a lot of moms in the industry that I I I I

Steve: do I work with. Say it again.

April: It's twelve hours by twelve weeks.

Steve: Twelve hours by twelve weeks.

April: And it's a mom book. Mom CEOs.

Steve: It's a mom book, but I will probably add to this, and maybe it's not a good idea for husbands to do it. But if you're dealing with a wife who can't sleep, this is a good book for a husband not to give to the wife because that can sometimes get you in trouble. Just leave it on the coffee table. You know what? It's actually a

April: really good book because it teaches you to teach your two month old kid how to go on a schedule. So it's actually teaching you it's it works on its best because it's teaching you to put systems and processes together and figure it out. So I would definitely recommend that book.

Steve: Yeah. So I think that's a great book. It's never been suggested on the show before, but I think that's a fantastic book.

April: Yeah. I wanted to resonate and speak to moms because I am a mom, and I'm always struggling with working too much mom life, working too much mom life.

Steve: You're not alone. Yeah. I I know a lot of really powerful strong women in the industry, and this is something that and even something that I go with back and forth with my wife. She's like, you know, like, how much is too much and so on. So you're not alone.

I think that's a great, great book. Think about what you want to leave the listeners with while I make a couple of quick announcements.

April: Okay.

Steve: Guys, if you got value today, please like, subscribe, share, comment on this. It helps us a lot. Next week, we got Gary Harper who is a great, great friend and someone that helped me kinda see the stupid things that I was doing. So it really helped me fix my business in a big way. So he's gonna be here next Wednesday, and then we do have our, our sales training event, June 11.

If you're interested, send me a DM. Last thoughts.

April: All I wanna say is, you know, you when you're going through this career, you are gonna hit a lot of bumps, and it's gonna scare you and it might make you want to stop and not do it and it's like do it. Don't if that's your why, if you wanna if you wanna if you wanna move forward, don't take the chance, but be very smart about it. Don't do what I did. Don't go into a gut job. Get education.

Like, if you can afford it, if you have money and you're deciding, like, that question, $8,000, like, what should I do? Get the education that's gonna not that's gonna help you get into that. You know? Don't just jump into it. Take the education.

Get educated.

Steve: Yeah.

April: That's a 100%. It's going to shortcut you. It's going to help put everything together. And in the long run, it'll actually work more than trying to just figure it out and, like, take that $8 and, like, go buy data, do this, do that. Like, you're still gonna be in circles.

Steve: Well, you see this. Right? And people buy data. It's like, oh, you know, I I can invest in coaching. I can use investing in data.

And it's like, okay. So go do whatever you think is best. But I know if you go invest that data, that's great. Maybe you'll figure it out.

April: Or maybe not.

Steve: How much you would have say like, what do you bought the wrong data? We bought the data from the wrong place. What if you take that data and it's old or you don't know how to leverage it and by the time you figure it out, the data's useless.

April: There you go.

Steve: Right? So but we don't tell people what to do. Right? Just kinda let

April: them But definitely education, guys. I think everyone here gets and says the same thing. Education. There's a reason why we're all saying it. Don't reinvent it.

Steve: Yeah. There's no one that's been in the show that's like, yeah. I figured this all on my own.

April: No. Get educated. I tried to and saw how that ended up.

Steve: Yeah. How can someone get a hold of you?

April: You can reach me, april@aainvestpartners.com. My, my Instagram, which is pretty hard to type, so if you wanna put it on the notes. And, our I'm on Facebook. I'm all over Facebook. April Molina.

Steve: What was the handle?

April: It's oh, it's so hard to it's a

Steve: p p r r I I I l l. I need to change it. Alright. I'm giving that one up. Alright.

April: I told you. I need to change them for, like, a the real April Molina or something. I don't know.

Steve: Yeah. Alright. So, guys, again, if you have value, please like, comment, and subscribe. Thank you guys for watching.

April: Thank you so much.

Steve: Thank you. Oh my god.

April: Thank you.

Steve: It's a blast.

April: My hands were shoddy. Thank you.