Dominick Felix and Gonzalo Corzo Share How They’ve Done 200 Deals in the Last 2 Years

Max Jimenez: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us today on the episode of Real Estate Disruptors. This is not a camera trick. I'm not Steve Trang. I'm Max Jimenez.

And on today's show, I have Dominique Felix and Gonzalo Corso. They have flown out of Jacksonville, Florida to share how they've done two hundred two hundred deals in the past two years, including 19 in the last month. These guys are crushing it. They're come they flew straight out of Florida, and they're gonna share today how they're doing that. My name is Maxi Manis again.

I am Steve Strang's business partner, and I run the wholesale operation on max cash offers. I'm actually max in the max cash offers. So Steve wrote this. So, you know, if you wanna laugh at that, it's fine. You know, Steve's core message is we're on a mission to create 100 millionaires.

So, you know, one of the things that I asked to help out my business partner, Steve Trang, is that if you like this episode and you get a ton of, value out of it and you watch it and you have not subscribed, please hit the subscribe button. That way you guys can get the alerts whenever new episodes come out. You know, the other thing is we don't Steve doesn't charge a dime for this show. So, you know, he doesn't make any money doing this. He does it out of giving back to the community, the real estate community.

So all we ask is that you listen to the show, share it with a friend, and subscribe. You know, and also, please please right now, this is a live show. Please share. Please share the show. Please, also ask any questions.

These guys are I just these guys, ask them off camera if they're if they're willing to share, you know, all their what what goes on into our operations. So they're gonna be an open book for us. So make sure that you put your questions on the live, and that way we can get them get get to answer them. Okay? And are you guys ready?

Dominick Felix: We're ready. Yeah. Let's do it.

Max: Awesome. Awesome. Welcome. So like Steve like Steve does, what got you both into real estate?

Dominick: Go ahead, man.

Gonzalo Corzo: Yeah. So it was actually my older brother.

Max: Okay.

Gonzalo: So I was going to school to be a, police officer. And I wanted just, you know, security. Right. I wanted entitlement in a way of being a police officer. You know what I mean?

Have that respect in the community. Yeah. And, Nice. Yeah. And I was going to school to be a cop.

My older brother is a real estate agent. Okay. And he was telling me, dude, you gotta get into real estate. I was 18. Right?

He was pushing Rich Dad Poor Dad on me. Right? He was like, you gotta do this. And for about a year, I was like, dude, that's all you. You know?

Do you. You'll do real estate. I'm gonna do me. I'm gonna be a cop.

Dominick: You can

Gonzalo: be the successful one of the family. Mhmm. And it got to a point where he was just like, dude, you would crush it in real estate. So I'm I'm gonna pay for your first event. I'm gonna fly you out with me.

We went to an event in, Nevada. It was a real estate event, personal development event.

Speaker 3: Nice.

Gonzalo: And I just looked at it as, like, a free weekend trip with my older brother. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, dude, dude, I'm in. And I went to that event, and it just, you know, totally changed my mindset about, just owning businesses, getting into real estate Right.

Making more money, passive income in the long term, stuff like that. And so that at that event, I was like, alright. I I gotta get into real estate. Two weeks after that event, I dropped out of school Wow. And just went all in with real estate.

Max: Right. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. What what got you into real estate?

Dominick: Oh, man. I mean, so just ever since a little kid, just all of the successful people around me, some part of their success was attached to real estate. Right. Whether they made a lot of money in their jobs and they bought assets, whether they were directly involved into real estate, or, you know, one thing or another. Anytime anyone had, like, an extra chunk of money, they wanted to buy a piece of property.

Gotcha. So it was kind of always around me as far as what the how people measure success in a way. Right? So I had a different business before this, which I did very well in. And I also bought a lot of real estate, buy and hold assets.

And, through that process, I figured, I learned about wholesaling. Right? Right. And actually attempted to buy a property from a whole

Max: wholesaler, which I wind up

Speaker: backing out on and they kept my

Max: earnest money. That doesn't happen.

Dominick: He was

Gonzalo: he was one of those.

Max: Was he the wholesaler? Yeah. Yeah.

Dominick: Right? Right? Probably. I don't know. So, I learned about wholesaling and then I realized very, very quickly that wholesaling was the, in my mind, in my mind right now, is just the best way to get assets at the most, the best price, basically.

Speaker: Right. Right.

Dominick: The lowest price. So there's a lot of real estate that I bought wrong. There's a good amount that I bought right over time after buying x amount of assets. But the seller direct concept just blew my mind, and I was obsessed with it at that point. Yeah.

Max: It makes sense. Right? Like, always always think about, like, wholesale is the first tier of invest of real estate investing, you know. And you're right. It's one of the things that I look at as far as, you know, that's the because you know how to source properties.

You know how to source a deal. So, I guess the next question, when how long ago did you both partnered up to start, you know, your business together?

Gonzalo: Yeah. So we opened up RLA Regency Litho Assets. It's the name of our business. Right. We opened that the actual LLC up in June 2017.

Right? It was June 2017.

Max: Yes.

Gonzalo: And, so it was a little bit over two years ago. And then we met in January 2017.

Max: Okay. January 2017.

Gonzalo: And I was I was wholesaling before I met Dom.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Gonzalo: And basically, I had these big buyers that were out of the country. Right. They were buying rental properties, trying to build a portfolio in Jacksonville.

Max: Right.

Gonzalo: And Dom had his rentals on the market.

Max: Wow. Okay.

Gonzalo: And so I basically put in some offers, wholesaled some of his rentals to my buyers,

Speaker: and

Max: that's how Dominic and I connected. Gotcha. That's awesome. Pretty similar story, you know, like I was sharing with you guys how Steve and I, you know, we're right both got together. So what did your first wholesale deal look like together as when you guys after you partnered up?

Dominick: Well, it's funny. When we, when we started our wholesale business Yeah. Like Gonzales said, we met in January. Right. About a couple of months after we met, we proposed to each other to go into business together.

Max: Okay.

Dominick: And then, like he said, we launched it officially in June.

Gonzalo: He proposed to me.

Speaker: I proposed. I got

Dominick: on one knee. I got on one knee. Knee.

Max: Actually Where's the ring at?

Dominick: I had to lay down flat to propose to him. So, that's not a short joke, Jean. So, so, yes. After a couple months, we knew we wanted to be business partners. Went into business with each other June 2017.

Max: Nice.

Dominick: We launched our first campaign. It was a direct mail campaign.

Speaker: Right. Right? Okay.

Dominick: And here's the thing Direct mail fun. Here's the thing. We had an agreement, right, which which gee hasn't made right yet. And this comes up. This is what happened.

Right? We're supposed to bring $350 to the table for a $700 $700 direct mail campaign.

Max: Right.

Dominick: Gee brings $300 I bring my $350 so we made, we actually had two deals from that campaign that we may have had another one, but the two that stand out, our first deal was just a $2,000 assignment fee. The second one was a $13,000 assignment fee. Nice.

Max: That was awesome.

Dominick: And it really made everything very real for us. Right. Now the the thing is, like, you know, fast forward is now close to two and a half years later. You know, we're having consistent six figure months. We had 19 deals last month, so we're doing really, really great.

Dude still didn't pay me much because

Speaker: it was He still

Dominick: had to pay

Max: Where's the $50, man?

Dominick: And he won't do it.

Gonzalo: It's just a great story. So now it'll never get paid off. Oh, man.

Dominick: So now my kids can't eat lunch. Like, we're struggling on our part, but he's living lavish with Ferraris and Lamborghinis and stuff.

Max: So you go and ask him, where's my $50? And then he says, the way my savings account works

Gonzalo: is to my checking account.

Max: Yeah. I got my bank account. Checking.

Dominick: I got a

Max: savings. I got a savings. Awesome. So that's that's really that's really great. You guys have done a lot in the time that you guys partnered up.

Overall, what does your operation look like right now in in Jacksonville?

Dominick: That's a great question, man. You know, so we really like to focus a lot of time on the system. Everyone talks about systems, processes, automation. Yep. Super important to us.

We kind of prematurely built our system to handle a heavy influx. Mhmm.

Speaker: And

Dominick: now that we've got it to where we have it at, we can capitalize a little bit more on the sales. So now we're working on hiring more and more salespeople to to funnel, you know, just leads and and deals through the system. Yeah. So we're really big on systemizing the process. Yeah.

There's a lot of judgment in real estate. Everyone talks about the transactions as in a lot of times it's more of an art versus a science and you have to make judgment calls and gut feelings. We do a lot of that and we understand that. So we cater to that. But we also want to spend a whole lot of time figuring out how to take the judgment out of it.

Right? And how to just make it more of a science than it is an art. Correct. Because real estate is very, very funky. So what we've done is we've, we kind of have like a round robin flow in our office.

Right? Right. It starts with the marketing and lead generation. So we have an individual that handles that. Okay.

And once, you know, we we pull in the leads, it goes to an underwriter in our company. And the underwriter basically runs the numbers, looks at the level of motivation, and then takes that lead from the underwriting state and assigns it to our acquisition managers.

Max: So we

Dominick: have a few acquisition managers in our company. Right. And then they go to work on locking up the deals. Right. And once they lock the deals up, then it goes to our buyer marketer.

Nice. And the buyer marketer, just, you know, markets it in so many ways. You know, email blasts, connected investors, BiggerPockets, Craigslist. There's, like, a good handful of things that they do and they have their checklist so that nothing gets missed. Right.

And that's another thing. Like, we have like an 82 step deal flow.

Max: Okay.

Dominick: That, basically when we have a deal, we have a written checklist that goes from person to person. Right. So it just goes down kind of like an assembly line. It goes down the written assembly line so that no part of the deal gets missed. So that by the time it goes to closing, it really is a smooth transaction because they can get very messy very, very quick.

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know that probably just as well as we do. Right. So after the buyer marketer, that's gonna cause interest to come in Mhmm. From the public, you know, from buyers, from investors.

Right. It's gonna drive calls into the company, emails into the company, text messages into the company. Right. What we do do a slight bit as well is we do proactive buyer reach out Okay. To where we have our disposition manager reach out to buyers proactively rather than always reactively.

Speaker: Right.

Dominick: And we see that makes a huge difference. So that's one of the things that we want to capitalize on a lot more more in the near future. So for that matter, we're hiring an additional disposition manager.

Max: So because

Dominick: you guys

Max: it sounds like you want to focus it more on the relationship aspect instead of a blast per se, you know? Yeah.

Dominick: Yeah. Correct. I mean, part of the reason is we're so damn busy every single day, you know? Yeah. You know, investors, they're working on their flips.

They have their buy holds. They have everything going on. You've probably seen it in tons of people's email inboxes. They have a thousand unread emails that they haven't gotten to. Most of them are probably ours because we're email blasting so damn much.

But, you know, they don't as much as we cover with our marketing, they miss our deals.

Gonzalo: Right.

Dominick: So we have to take our deals and put it right in front of their face.

Speaker: Right.

Dominick: In order for them to recognize, oh, this is a deal that might be able to work for me. We want to capitalize on that aspect.

Speaker: So we're

Dominick: gonna spend more time working on that. Right. So the buyer marketer goes to the disposition manager. And then once they lock up a deal under contract on the disposition side, then the deal goes to our transaction coordinator that handles everything from that point on. Awesome.

This way, you know, we keep our our sales team just working on purely sales and separate out all the, you know, the attention takers.

Max: Yeah. And sounds like you guys have it down to a t, which is great. Okay.

Speaker: And, you

Max: know, you guys can elaborate a little more on this, because we're talking about your business and your structure. Yeah. I think that's the that's that's that's the dividing line that we're fighting where you become more of of, an individual person making a deal or two to where you go into owning a business. Right?

Gonzalo: Yes. Right.

Max: And, you know, I think that's kinda you guys have found the way. And you're always trying to improve. You know? And I think that's what you guys are trying to do as far as do we have a business, or do we have just a, we do wholesale deal here and there. Right?

Speaker: Right.

Max: And so what what specific systems, since we're on that, are you guys lean on more than anything?

Gonzalo: As far as, like, programs and stuff like that?

Max: Yeah. So you two yeah. As far as programs, like, to you know, with all the processes and all the 80 steps,

Speaker: I mean,

Max: let's well, let's talk about that, the 80 step process, you know, to make sure that the deal goes correctly. Where are you guys running that in a in a certain system, or how is that laid out for your acquisition guys?

Gonzalo: Yeah. So, basically, we use, very old fashioned. Right? Old school. Right.

We just have a folder Okay. In the office.

Max: Okay. Gotcha.

Gonzalo: So the we call it the deal flow. Okay. Right? The deal flow is what's, like, 80 something steps.

Speaker: Gotcha.

Gonzalo: And we're always taking some out, adding new ones.

Dominick: Yeah. A written checklist.

Max: Gotcha. Okay.

Gonzalo: But it's literally 80 something steps.

Speaker: Yeah.

Gonzalo: And it goes from the beginning, very detailed as to create a new lead inside of Podio, because we use Podio as a CRM. Right? Okay. So create a new lead inside of Podio. Run comps.

Create offer item for acquisition closer. Send to acquisition then it goes back to the disposition marketer, then it goes to the disposition manager. Yeah. Then from that, it goes to the transaction coordinator. So that the way that we manage that, track that is literally a Manila folder.

Gotcha. Yeah. Every property gets a Manila folder. And then in the front flap, we just staple that deal flow. Yeah.

And as it goes around the office, everybody just checks off on that.

Max: That's awesome.

Dominick: And it works out great. We made it very simple. It's a visual, tangible item. And it does drive them to make changes in our CRM. I mean, we're not doing everything with physical papers and folders.

Right. Right. Right. Right. But it drives them to keep our CRM

Speaker: a

Max: lot more organized. And the key there is tangible. Right? So they're it's right there. They're looking at it to compare it where it's maybe in the CRM.

I'm assuming that's cut a lot of, you know, steps from them coming to you guys. I'm I'm assuming that's

Speaker: that's probably

Gonzalo: That's the idea.

Max: That's the idea.

Gonzalo: Because nobody in our office has, real estate experience. Yeah. When we first got started, I was I was the only one with wholesale experience.

Dominick: Right.

Gonzalo: Dom had an experience with building a business, and I think that's what made us partner up. Kind of what you were just saying is you can you can wholesale as a side hustle

Speaker: Mhmm.

Gonzalo: Or you can wholesale and treat it like a business. Right. And that's what I think brought us together is I wanted to take wholesaling to the next level. Right? Building a business, having team, having employees, and stuff like that.

Speaker: Right.

Gonzalo: But I had never done that before. I had just been, you know, wholesaling. Right. And Dom had full blown business. Yeah.

And, that's how we kind of got together. So I think that Yep.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Gonzalo: That was huge. And going into, the business, everybody that we brought on had no real estate experience. Right. So it was me teaching Dom what the system to create, and Dom putting it into a checklist, Dom

Speaker: Right.

Gonzalo: Creating the script for it and stuff like that. And

Max: yeah. That's awesome. And and, you know, going just going off that, I know a lot of majority of partners Steve, actually let me back up. Steve has a question. He's he's on here.

So Mhmm. His question is, you know and I think this is perfect, you know, that we can piggyback off that. He says a lot a large majority of partnerships fell. How do you two keep your partnership healthy?

Dominick: You know, it's, it's communication, I think, is the ultimate number one thing. We we meet a lot. You know, it's hard to to meet as much as we meet without disruption to the business. So we'll meet at unusual times. So one, huge contributor is we meet every Saturday and every Sunday

Max: Okay.

Dominick: Early in the morning before starts. Yeah. Yeah. So our meetings will be from, like, 6AM until 8AM. Most of the time it goes to, like, nine or ten.

Speaker: Yeah.

Dominick: Yeah. Just because we can't get away from it because we're so dialed in. Gotcha. And when you make momentum and progress on something that you're working on really, really hard, you step away, you're gonna have to refresh and that's gonna waste more time. So we just try to get it done.

So we'll meet Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings Nice. Every single week.

Speaker: Right.

Dominick: We discuss, whatever it is that we have to discuss. Right. We get our arguments out of the way, and then we go to work with, with very little disruption throughout the week.

Max: Right. Right. Now, is that aside so is that you, like, your Monday morning meeting per se, but you do it on Saturday, or do you guys hold a Monday morning meeting as well? Yeah. Just between yourselves.

Gonzalo: No. So we do not hold, like, a Monday morning meeting with the team or anything like that. But the the those are our days and times to meet with ourselves. So we'll just throughout the week, we'll just think of an idea. Oh, that's something to talk about this weekend.

We'll jot it down, and then we'll have, alright, this Saturday, let's talk about, you know, when are we gonna hire the next dude? Mhmm. Or, you know, is this campaign working? Whatever. Right.

Because just throughout the day, we're still very involved in in the business. Right.

Max: Right. Yeah. I I I totally feel you because that's I am too. And there's sometimes where I'll have to take a Saturday or, you know, to to or I call them my, buffer days or, you know, where I go hide because Yeah. I gotta be out of the office, man, because I gotta get stuff done.

But I totally understand where you guys are coming from on that. Now yeah. How how's your business as far as, like, you know, wholesale deals, flipping, rentals? Like, what's what's the percentage of each one in your business right now currently? You would say

Gonzalo: So before I answer that, I do wanna touch on one thing Okay. With the partnership real quick.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.

Gonzalo: Because I think it's something that really makes us work well together

Speaker: Yeah.

Gonzalo: Is we have a common vision.

Speaker: Okay. You know

Gonzalo: what I mean? So we have similar goals, similar mindset to the level of success that we wanna achieve.

Max: Yeah.

Gonzalo: And I think that's what makes us Yeah. A a good partnership, because we know, okay, we both, you know, wanted a $100,000,000 company in the next ten years. Right? So it's not like I just want to do three deals a month and relax on the beach Yeah. Yeah.

And he wants to build an empire. It's gonna clash every single day. Decisions are made differently because of the end goal. And so we have a very similar vision.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Gonzalo: And I think that's what helps us and makes it easier for us to agree on things and stuff like that. Because I might, you know, what we decide might be not the best decision in the short term, but it might be better long term. And so we'll agree to make different decisions Yeah. Based on our long term goal.

Max: Makes sense. Yeah. I don't know if you guys have done this already, if you've taken a Colby test. So Steve and I, you know and it sounds like you're almost similar to us where you guys probably have a lot of different strengths, and then you come and work together.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Max: So you have a strength set that matches with his. But on the Colby test, if you take the Colby test and then if you take one, it'll tell you how you guys work together. And we have total separate strengths, so that's how we work really well. Plus, same vision and everything, you know, and that's huge. I mean, you know, if you guys if you're not in tune to walk together, you know, you're not gonna be heading the same direction.

Dominick: Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah.

Gonzalo: So the Colby test, no. We haven't taken that.

Speaker: We haven't taken that. We haven't

Gonzalo: taken that.

Dominick: Yeah. Yeah.

Gonzalo: I agree. Is that like a disc test?

Max: Sort of. It just gives you, like, the strengths. It's free. Gotcha. Yeah.

It's k o k o l b y. Gotcha. So if you guys could take that.

Dominick: Take it out.

Gonzalo: Yep. That's awesome, man. Well, the Yeah. In fact To go back to the second question, yeah. 100% of our business is wholesale.

Yeah. We recently just did our first, kinda, wholesale deal.

Dominick: Yeah. Abby just texted me. We have 36 leads as of right now. You wanna use that at the interview?

Gonzalo: That's awesome.

Max: We just did.

Gonzalo: We did it. So, yeah, 100% of our business is wholesale. We recently just did our very first wholesale Right. Kind of thing, where we just had a seller who really needed to close by a specific date. And we're to the point now where we're more comfortable.

Okay. Now we're willing to you know, we have some private money Yeah. Lined up for for whenever deals like that come up. So we recently just did our first, like, actual purchase and then, sold it.

Dominick: Yeah. We've kind of forced ourselves to always make it our business to make the wholesale process work Yeah. Without but we might be testing. Like you said, we just did our first one, so we might be testing the other model just to see if there's anything we're leaving on the table as well. Makes sense.

Makes sense. Okay.

Gonzalo: Because it wasn't a huge profit, but it was an extra deal.

Dominick: Yeah. Yes.

Gonzalo: You know? Yeah.

Max: It makes sense.

Gonzalo: So it's just making us think, okay. Maybe the profit margins should be bigger when we do that. Yeah. But it could also add an extra five deals a month. You know?

That's true.

Speaker: So

Max: Well, and you know the old saying. Right? Like, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Yeah. We've had I mean, we've done a couple hotel deals.

We're not the best at flipping either. We hate we don't like flipping. Yeah. But, yeah, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

Speaker: Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Dominick: Right. Right.

Max: You know, so Jaime Cardona's got a question. He says, what marketing channels are giving you guys the most deals?

Dominick: So we're we're huge. So the so we look at there's two things. So marketing channels. Right? So, I mean, all we really do right now is cold calling.

Okay. Yeah. We do do a little bit of other things as well, but 95% of everything we do is cold calling.

Max: Gotcha.

Dominick: We're very big on it. We're trying to perfect it as much as we possibly can. And, just by sticking with that and starting with that one lead approach, I think has made us great at it. And then now we can just go on to other things from there if we so choose. I think prior to that, what we're gonna do is we're just gonna expand, the markets that we're that we're currently in.

That's awesome. Yeah.

Max: Yeah. And our big sorry. No. Go ahead.

Gonzalo: And our biggest performer is absentee owners. Cold calling, that's our biggest Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah.

Max: It seems

Dominick: it's weird.

Max: We've we've seen an increase in cold calling because we were doing really good in text. But, yeah, cold calling never goes. It's always working. Nice.

Gonzalo: That's awesome.

Max: Have you guys tried anything besides the cold calling at all?

Dominick: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean Okay. We we do some RVMs here and there. We're not consistent with it.

Yeah. So we're we're testing that out. We have to look at the data and then put something into place to where we can become consistent with it. And we're doing the same thing with direct mail. Gotcha.

I think last time we looked, they were getting, like, a four x return

Gonzalo: Yeah.

Dominick: On our direct mail.

Gonzalo: Yeah.

Dominick: So I think that's okay compared to what people are saying about direct mail. Yeah.

Max: That's awesome.

Dominick: We can only go by the experience that we have.

Max: Right.

Dominick: Right. Right. So, we may increase that Right. Once we

Speaker: Right. Right.

Dominick: Compare what we're gonna do next.

Max: That's awesome. So Steve just corrected me. He says it's k o l b e, Kobe. Oh, okay. It measures behavioral tendencies.

Gonzalo: So Oh, nice. Yep.

Max: Oh, that's awesome.

Gonzalo: Yep. Oh, Chase is watching. He said, boom. Cold calling is king. Yes.

Yes.

Max: So, you know, what were some of your you know, we'll move on to this question. What were some of your early struggles, you know, after you both partnered up? Early struggles? Yeah.

Dominick: I think, I don't think we had a whole lot of struggles with each other. Correct. I think we've always been more than a 100% committed to the cause, to the greater good of the company. Right. I would say the struggles were gaining momentum in our company, seeing good spreads, having great months, and, basically making our long term vision clearer.

It's all getting that way now. But when you hear of of a lot of the big dog doing, you know, 15 to $25,000 average spreads

Speaker: Yeah.

Dominick: And our average spread in the beginning is, like, $4,500.

Max: Right.

Dominick: You know, we we just had to figure all of that out, which we're still figuring out. You know, our average spread is between 7,008.

Max: Okay.

Dominick: And we'll get the 20 some odd thousands, the 30 some odd thousands. We had our biggest one recently, 42,000. So we'll get the bigger ones, but we also get the smaller ones. And when we average out how our entire month goes, we're between 7,008 on average. Nice.

Yeah. So I think our struggles in the beginning were, keeping hope on getting to the goals that we wanna get to with before figuring out the way to get there. Okay. Yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah.

Gonzalo: So I don't know if it was a struggle or not, but I do feel, like, in the beginning, I think an internal struggle was we were working a lot on the on the system Mhmm. Of the business.

Max: Right. Right. Right.

Gonzalo: And you, you know, you can spend a lot of time trying to perfect your website and whatever Yeah. Yeah. And it's not really bringing in that money.

Max: Right. You know

Gonzalo: what I mean? So we we did a lot of reinvesting in the business Gotcha. As soon as we could. Yeah. Right.

So, alright. Money's coming in. Let's hire somebody. And that's something that I learned from this guy. Right?

He's just what if it's a repetitive task, we need to hire somebody to do it, you know, or take it off of our plate. And so I think that was one of our challenges was there's a lot of stuff that are that's repetitive Mhmm. And then just trusting that, alright, I am gonna hire these people. This is gonna cost me some money, you know. And we have to trust that we are gonna close deals.

Right? Because in the beginning, it's super easy, for you to for a deal not to close if it's just you. You know what I mean? Alright. I can make it through this month Right.

You know, with my credit card or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll make it through this month, and then next month, let's have some closings.

Dominick: Right.

Gonzalo: But when you have payroll, you know, it's

Max: It changes.

Gonzalo: 4 yeah. $2 a week now, and then it becomes, you know, $7 a week now. And it's, so that was in the beginning was just Right. Alright. We had to put the money, and now we're seeing the fruits of it.

Right. So I don't know if it was a, you know it was more of a mindset shift that I had to have in the beginning. Right. And we're seeing the fruits of it now. Yeah.

And so now it just makes me want to do more now of what we did in the beginning. Like, we just gotta hire more now or spend more money marketing right now so that we can have this feeling that we're having now in a year from today with, you know, million dollar months. Right.

Dominick: And it's almost like shifting your mind from being worried about spending money to getting excited about wanting to spend more money. Yes. Right. Because you know the return that you're capable of making.

Speaker: Right.

Max: Right. Right. Makes sense. And it's a struggle, I think, for every business owner. Do we Yeah.

Do we make another hire? You know? Yeah. We're going through something like that right now too. But Yeah.

Absolutely. But, yeah, it's always a struggle. And, I mean, it's it's I think like you said, you hit on you hit on the head. Like, it's a mindset thing. Right?

Like, do I need this or

Speaker: not? So Right.

Dominick: I think

Speaker: one of

Dominick: the things that helped us with that because Yeah. You'll get, you know, loaded with tasks. Right? They can be repetitive, whatever kind of tasks they are. And it'll be a 100% clear that you have to hire someone to take those off of your plate.

Right? The hard part about figuring out if you can hire someone or not is Yeah. When you're in between a lot of tasks and not enough tasks. Yeah. And I think our rule of thumb is if we're in between, we're gonna take the next step and hire somebody.

And then it's our job to be accountable to the business to fill that person's role. Right.

Max: Yeah. And just going off that, how does your organization look right now, your guys?

Gonzalo: So we have we have eight cold callers. Mhmm. We have two underwriters. So an underwriter is somebody who when when the cold callers get a lead Mhmm. They push it into our CRM Podio Yeah.

And notifies the underwriter. And then the underwriter starts running comps on the property. And they're the ones that create the offer amount for acquisition closers, to offer. Okay. So it goes to our underwriters.

So our underwriters say, we have a calculator that we've that we created and we put in the comps. It'll create an offer range for for them to to put into the property.

Max: Yeah.

Gonzalo: And then they'll judge to the best of the ability. Okay. The calculator says 70 to, you know, 85. Yeah. But the seller owes 83, you know, maybe let's just let's just do the 85 on this one.

You know, there's no point of trying to negotiate that to 70, you know, stuff like that. Right?

Max: Right.

Gonzalo: So they'll try to use their judgment to the best of the ability, and then they'll task it over to the acquisition closers. We have three closers right now, three acquisition managers. Okay. It's where everybody uses different names for everything. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But our closers, our acquisition managers, they're the guys who call sellers, negotiate. We do 100% of our negotiations over the phone.

Dominick: Okay.

Speaker: Try to

Gonzalo: lock them up over the phone through DocuSign. Right. So we have three, acquisition closers right now. We have two interviews on Friday. Did you see we had another one?

Max: Yeah. Nice.

Gonzalo: So two on on Friday for another acquisition closer. And then once they lock it up over the phone and get the DocuSign, then we send a field guy. So we have one field guy. Right. We have a company car for him, and he just goes to the field

Speaker: all day.

Gonzalo: Interesting. He'll de board properties, change the locks on houses, do live negotiations. He actually started off as a cold caller

Speaker: Right.

Gonzalo: Then became an acquisition closer, and now he does our field.

Dominick: Okay.

Max: That's awesome.

Gonzalo: So that's all he does. He'll meet buyers, and we have an appointment with buyers. So yeah. So we're very systemized, and only one person really needs to be in the field. Gotcha.

Yeah. Makes sense.

Dominick: Just so the acquisition managers can stay on the phone trying to get more sales done. Right.

Speaker: Right. Yep.

Max: Yeah. Wow. Are you so we don't, like, our we don't, lock stuff a lot of stuff a lot of our stuff's done in appointments. Mhmm. Are you guys doing all your stuff in Jacksonville?

Is that Yes. Yes. Okay. Gotcha. No.

No virtual wholesaling at

Gonzalo: all? No virtual wholesaling. Not yet. Okay. Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Max: Yeah. That's awesome awesome that you guys are able to do that. So Yep. It's always a good thing.

Dominick: It's weird. So it's kind of isn't it like a hybrid in a way? So we kind of operate in a wholesale in a virtual fashion in our current In your current market. Because we're locking them up over the phone before our field guy goes.

Gonzalo: Yeah.

Dominick: The reason he goes is for the pictures, the property assessment, and to see whether, you know, we were right on our numbers or not. Right. Right. Yeah. So we kind of preset it so that we can easily adapt to other markets.

Speaker: Right.

Dominick: Right. We just need boots on the ground representation.

Max: Yeah. I mean, you guys are setting up that system, right, if you wanna go to another market. So that's actually that's actually a good, a good way to do it. Yeah.

Dominick: So Yeah. Thank you, man. Yeah.

Gonzalo: And so once our field guy comes back, he'll give it to our disposition marketer.

Dominick: Mhmm.

Gonzalo: And she'll just, she's actually, like, our our office liaison. So she kinda, coordinates acquisitions with dispositions. Okay. So she'll have, she'll take on the file after a closer has locked it up. Mhmm.

We still gotta set appointments to go look at the property and stuff like that. So it'll so she'll take over seller communications until it goes to close.

Speaker: Nice. And

Gonzalo: then she'll market the property out, blast it on our website, blast it to our buyers list, put it on Craigslist, you know, Facebook groups, stuff like that. And then she'll hand the file over to our disposition manager who handles the influx of buyer calls as proactive reach out for buyers. And then once we lock up the deal with the buyer, then she'll hand over the file with the transaction coordinator. And that's when the transaction coordinator then takes on the clients, buyers, and sellers to closing.

Max: Okay. Mhmm.

Gonzalo: Yep.

Speaker: Wow.

Max: That's a pretty good structure. I mean

Gonzalo: And then we have a property, or project manager.

Max: Yes. Who

Gonzalo: helps us on, like, the business development side. You know, the pulling the list, sending the mailers out, uploading stuff to the dialer. And, yeah. Yeah.

Max: That's interesting. I've heard people call their disposition guys project managers. I think Scott Utsu was here a couple weeks ago.

Gonzalo: Oh, yeah.

Max: Yeah. He so he calls his disposition guy, project managers because, you know, homeowners don't know what a disposition person is or anything.

Gonzalo: So we're

Max: gonna have our project manager go out.

Gonzalo: Oh, that really is.

Max: Oh, wow.

Speaker: So what

Max: you said and then you said project manager, you know, handles your leads. That's pretty cool.

Dominick: That's a good point.

Gonzalo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Max: So it just makes it easier, I think, you know, so you don't get stuck in the face.

Dominick: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Max: Is there a specialty that you focus on, like, you know, as far as, elite stores or, you know, any properties specialty that you guys So

Dominick: so the the I think our specialty is that there really isn't a specialty, that it's very, very broad. Yeah. Yeah. I think our approach is just a guerrilla marketing kind of approach, where we cast a very large blanket. Mhmm.

And, and we take it from there. So we've built a rather large team so far Yeah. Compared to the typical wholesaler. Right. We're using the bigger lists, the absentee owners, the vacant properties, the tax delinquents, the 55 plus lists.

Those are our four main lists. You're welcome. And, and we just basically we attach the bigger lists. We realized that the smaller niche lists, they might need a little bit more attention, a little bit more nurturing. We weren't very good at it.

We could have become good, but we chose just a different approach. Yeah. So I think that, that's that's our niche is that it's niche. It's just a very large kind of approach to what we're doing. Correct.

Correct.

Gonzalo: Yeah. I would say the only thing that we do disqualify out Mhmm. Is when we pull our list and stuff like that, we try to go no higher than 300,000 Okay. Price point

Dominick: Gotcha. For our market.

Gonzalo: For our market. Okay. Yeah. In Jacksonville.

Max: And then how far are you going back as far as, like, transfer date or anything like that? Last purchase date?

Dominick: Just pulling everything.

Max: Just pulling everything. Yes.

Gonzalo: Okay. Yeah.

Max: Yeah. Sounds sounds good. Because you could probably I I can see that. That's that's that's usually a good way just because you never know what's what's in that, you know, in that general list.

Speaker: And you

Max: have a lot more people that you can market to. Correct. Jerome Tag wants to know, how do you pay your field guy?

Gonzalo: How do we pay our field guy?

Dominick: He's on salary plus bonus.

Max: Okay. Okay.

Dominick: Right? We've tried a whole bunch of different things over the last couple years. So he makes a certain salary, and then I think we're giving him 2%. 2%. 2% of the deals that are closed that he that he works on with the closers.

Max: Yeah. Okay.

Dominick: You know, if he did absolutely nothing on a deal, then we don't we don't pay him out on it. But he mostly touches almost all deals.

Max: Yes. Got you. Perfect. Perfect. And then, how consistently are you guys pulling data and skip tracing the data?

Dominick: So we're getting on a consistent pull now where it's gonna be monthly, every single month.

Max: Right.

Dominick: We basically we would pull large batches, and we would work on them. And sometimes we can work on the batches for a couple of months before having to pull again. Okay. Now with what we pull, like, basically, absentee, vacant, 55 plus, and tax delinquent.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Dominick: Now that we know what we're good at, we're pulling everything left that we can pull in our market. And then we'll just revisit once a month Okay. And pull refresh data.

Speaker: Right. Right. Right.

Max: Okay. That's pretty cool. That's a good process. And then as far as, do you guys wanna share, like, what your monthly expenses just for marketing and a little bit of the overhead, you know, since you guys do have such a large operation. I mean, do you guys wanna kinda talk a little bit about that?

Gonzalo: Yeah. Yeah.

Max: Yeah. Okay.

Gonzalo: So but but what did we say? It's, like, $7, right, for payroll

Dominick: Yes. A

Gonzalo: month or

Dominick: a week? 7 to $8.

Gonzalo: 7 to $88 for payroll a week. And then we're spending probably around 10 to $15 a month Marketing. In marketing. Okay. Yeah.

Max: Okay. So you guys are you guys are running per gain then? I mean, for the most part.

Gonzalo: Yeah. We're trying to. Right. And then everything that we're making

Dominick: But that's not including incentives. Oh, okay. So we'll pay out incentives to our acquisition guys. Sorry. To the dispo person.

Yeah. So I would say five, six, 8% of our deals get paid out in incentives Mhmm. Plus a team, a general team bonus. Okay. So we're probably paying out, close to 10%.

Yes. Okay. In incentives to the team.

Max: Okay. Well, you have to, in a way, because you want to make sure that they're happy. Right?

Dominick: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker: They're the

Max: front line. Yeah.

Gonzalo: They're they're watching right now. So you guys better you guys better be happy.

Max: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. No. That's really awesome.

I appreciate you guys sharing that information. Yeah. Yeah. Sure, man. Ray, Brandon Rayburn, and I think you guys kinda touched this a little bit.

If you guys wanna go a little bit more into them is he wants to know how involved are you both in the day to day operations? What does that look like?

Dominick: We're we're busy every single day. Very, very involved. So we don't really touch the specific transactions.

Max: Okay.

Dominick: So we're not talking to sellers. We're not talking to buyers. Okay. Maybe a little bit when we have to if we have to put out fires and things like that. Right.

But, the system is not perfect yet. Right? So there's all this judgment that has to be made, exceptions, and then up training for the employees that have to be done. And that keeps us very busy all day. Then, you know, project development is huge.

I think that's one of the key things that is gonna help us to go from good to great. Yeah. And that's why we have our project develop our project manager role. So we wanna build on the project development department so we can continue to master master, you know Yeah. Masterize the system Right.

You know, fix up the comp whatever the case may be. So I think that's what differentiates us. Mhmm. So yeah.

Max: Nice. That's awesome. It sounds like you guys are working, quite a bit on your standard operation processes, which is Yeah. You know, that's the big thing. Right?

So when you do hire somebody new, it's, like, all there. You don't have to keep retraining or Right. I mean, obviously, you have to train. But

Gonzalo: Yeah. That's that's what we're we're constantly working on. And then, you know, we're the challenges of just trying to scale and grow. You know, doing more deals means

Speaker: Right.

Gonzalo: More angry buyers, more angry sellers, more, you know, more fires to put out, more angry tenants calling. What's going on? And so it's just handling that. And then a lot of a lot of, the situations that come about, you know, our team hasn't handled it hasn't they haven't handled that kind of situation in the past.

Speaker: Right.

Gonzalo: And so they will bring us the the problem. Yeah. We tell them how to fix it.

Max: Right.

Gonzalo: And then we let them fix it. And then if they can't fix it, that's when we'll get involved.

Dominick: Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Gonzalo: But a lot of this is us telling them, alright, oh, the seller offered or the buyer offered 50, and we have it under contract for 50. Right. Should we renegotiate the seller and try to make it work, or should we just counter how long have we had the deal? Yeah. Those decisions, we're still making.

Max: Okay. Gotcha.

Gonzalo: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

So we're still very involved in the office every single day There before everybody gets there, you know, there till every after everybody leaves. So very, very involved.

Max: Yeah. Nice. Nice. Yeah.

Gonzalo: We have

Dominick: a cool

Gonzalo: little, office setup. Mhmm. And then me and him are right in the middle. Wow. That's cool.

Dominick: So he's like a huge rectangle.

Speaker: Yeah.

Dominick: Yeah. It's a literally a boiler room. Right. Right. And then inside of the rectangle, it's, it's a built kinda cabinet desk space where you can put desktops on top.

Okay. So I can have a vision of half the office. He's on the other side with the vision of half the office. And I think that's another key thing that helps us as well is being on the floor with the people. Right.

Because the system is not perfect yet. Right. And because we want to hire leadership, positions over time. And until we can do that, I think we need to be in there every single day.

Max: Yeah. No. That makes sense. I mean, you know, you you're leading by example and they're watching you guys. Mhmm.

And it just makes them wanna go. So Yeah. Templeton Walker said, two killers right there. Tell him Templeton said, what's up?

Gonzalo: That's my boy. What's up, Tim?

Max: What's up, brother? Tim's a real good dude. I liked him. Yeah, man. Oh, yeah.

He's also part of Sunny Homes Realty. So, you know, I guess that leads to my next question is, what CRN or what tools or systems you, you couldn't live without

Gonzalo: right now?

Dominick: Oh, they want all the CPAs. All the CPAs. I asked you guys off camera. Everybody watched totally cool with it.

Gonzalo: We're totally

Speaker: cool with it.

Gonzalo: Did you send waivers to everybody watching? I did. I really

Max: I don't know.

Dominick: That's we need 10%, guys. 10%.

Max: That's Steve, not me.

Dominick: Yeah. We we I mean, there's so many.

Gonzalo: Well, I mean, the systems that we could not live without, I think, number one is, our dialer, call tools. Right? We use call tools.

Max: Okay.

Gonzalo: So the auto dialer for our leads could not live without that. Our Podio. Right? Our our CRM Podio could not live without that. I would say Zapier.

Mhmm. Like Zapier and Globiflow. Yeah. The different automations inside. I mean, could we live without it?

Maybe. Mhmm. You know, like, but it's Well, your life would be easy. But we can't scale.

Speaker: Right.

Gonzalo: You know, we wouldn't be able to scale them. Different automations and, you know, with the push of a button, this happens. And

Speaker: Correct.

Gonzalo: Without that, it's it's tough to scale, and you can't really create a system, then you're more people dependent. We don't wanna be people dependent. Yeah. We wanna be system dependent. So let's see.

Call tools, Podio, what else?

Dominick: Zapier, GloFlow, you said. Google Docs. Google Drive.

Gonzalo: The Google Drive, everything, you know, all of our business. We have a physical folder. Yeah. But then we also have a a Google Drive folder inside of, you know, Google Drive. Right.

Add everything in there. You know, I I can pull up any HUD right now, anything, just because it's easy for me to to do that. So I think those would be the best.

Dominick: I mean, our email blast, Mailchimp. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's probably a ton we're not even we're not even thinking of. Yeah.

The we pull our data from list source. We pull some data from REI Pro, look at mortgage data just to make sure that there's even room in a deal Yeah. For us to spend so much time negotiating. Right. So we look

Max: at that.

Gonzalo: Oh, Vomber.

Dominick: Vomber.

Speaker: Vomber. Vomber. Vomber. Vomber. Vomber.

Vomber.

Max: Vomber. Vomber. Know. Hey, guys. They they're giving the juice.

They're giving everything out. So make sure that you guys share the go and subscribe to the podcast and, ask your questions. So we we're still here live. So Yeah.

Dominick: And I think what's important too about all of these systems Yeah. Is you have to decide integrates with another system or not Correct. Or if it's even possible to integrate those systems. It's very important to look at before you choose one system over another system. Makes sense.

Yeah. Because I think a lot, if not all of our systems are integrated in one way or another. Right.

Max: Right. Right. And I think that goes back to workflow. Right? I mean, sometimes you're looking for the right process, and then a certain system, you can't integrate it with that process.

So that's a very good point. I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, Steve likes to ask his questions since it's it's it's a black cloud that's starting to form or, you know, you know, what, any plans as far as if the mark market takes a little bit of a dip? Have you guys thought about that at all? Are you guys just humming away?

Gonzalo: Publix is always hiring, bro.

Max: I'm with you. I'll be right behind. No.

Gonzalo: So as far as, like, the the market crashing Yeah. I don't think we're really scared of that. We know, like, you always hear a lot of people everybody says, I can't wait till it crashes again. You know, I can't wait till the market tanks because then I'm ready to buy. Right?

So we know that when the market tanks, there's gonna be more buyers than there are right now. Right? More bigger, buy and hold investors. Right? So I think the clientele is gonna change.

Speaker: You're not

Gonzalo: gonna be we're not gonna be selling to flippers anymore. We're gonna be selling to buy and hold rents. Right? Yeah. Trusts and and stuff like that.

Funds and so that's just the way that we'll just shift is let's market now to landlord buyers. And I think we'll be doing, you know I don't I don't think it'll it'll change our growth. It might make it even more. Yeah. But I don't think it'll change our growth.

We're not really too worried. I hear everybody, every single event that I go to. I know. Dude, as soon as the market crashes, I'm gonna buy everything. Right?

So everybody says it, but there are those big, real buyers that are waiting for the, you know, they're waiting for the dip. And as soon as it tanks, I think it'll remove a lot of the competition that can't really make it.

Max: Exactly.

Gonzalo: And, we will just succeed even more than than we are today.

Max: No. I totally agree with that.

Speaker: I mean,

Max: that's that's down to a t what I believe as well. You You know? And you're definitely, your buyers are gonna change. Mhmm. And, actually, I was having this conversation with somebody two days ago who has a big, wholesale business here.

And, you just have to build those relationships now. So when it does, Deb, you know, you're they're on your they're on your call they're on your phone already

Dominick: to connect

Max: the call. Yeah. So definitely gonna change.

Speaker: I

Max: think it's pronounced Sanad Sabique wants to know how do you pull the mortgage data?

Gonzalo: Oh, Sanad, my man. Oh, okay.

Max: You know him?

Gonzalo: He's in he's in Jacksonville.

Max: Okay. Yeah.

Gonzalo: That's nice.

Max: Give that secret away?

Dominick: I'll give the I'll give the secret away. Yeah. I mean, so so it's basically a lot of the systems that that are out there Okay. For the purpose of real estate investing, wholesaling real estate.

Max: Yeah. Yeah.

Dominick: They provide it. You just have to know which ones to go and which ones to use. Gotcha. And it's hard to see sometimes

Speaker: like, it's not really advertised all

Dominick: the time that they can just something you figure out. Like, we figured it out as we were using it. Mhmm. So in the system that's called REI Pro, it's myreipro.com. Right.

If you create a login, they give a free trial and all that stuff. So if you create a login, there's an area that you can go into that you click mortgage and it tells you when they pulled the mortgage out and how much it was. Like, I don't think I'm pretty sure there's nothing out there unless you know something different that will show you the current balance of a mortgage right now. We have to just verify that with the mortgage company, with the seller, or the the title company will find that out. But we could find out that a mortgage was pulled, when it was pulled Right.

And then how much was it at that time. Yeah. I don't

Max: think there's anything that gives you a 100% accurate unless I'm wrong.

Dominick: But Mhmm.

Max: It's always gotta be done through an official payoff. Okay.

Speaker: So you

Max: can you

Dominick: can get close.

Max: That's what You know, you can

Gonzalo: We can calculate. Calculate. Right? Yeah.

Max: I mean, accurate, a 100%, you you have to get an official payoff.

Dominick: Now in addition to being able to see when a mortgage was taken out and the amount, normally, if you have a, like, a Clerk of Courts website, you can go there as well to see if there's a satisfaction of mortgage. Yeah. Was that ever paid off? Is it free and clear right now? Right.

Max: Right. Correct. I know we've been talking about systems. We've been talking about data. We've been talking about operations.

Now I'm gonna bring it down personal to you guys. So what is your why? I don't know if you guys if you both have a why or not or, you know, which I know I mean, individually. I know you have your why as far as business, but individually, what is your why that drives you?

Gonzalo: Yeah. Definitely. So to me, it's, you know, my it might sound a little, corny, but it's building a legacy. You know? Yeah.

It's it's being an example to my family and to everybody around me that Mhmm. You do need to strive to become the best out there. Not the best that you can be, but the best out there. Right. Right?

Because sometimes the best that you can be, you're the ones that determines that. Right? So You can think you're the best right now? Yeah. I can think I'm doing the best that I can right now, but it's not true I need to be the best.

Right? So it's my why is really just to prove to my family and everybody around me that, you can achieve an incredible, amount of success. Right. And I need to prove it to them. Right.

And then once I achieve the level of success that I wanna achieve

Max: Yeah.

Gonzalo: Is obviously giving back. You know? It's cool because I I just moved from, and it's funny. I haven't told this to anybody, but I just moved from a new house to another house. Right?

Max: Yeah.

Gonzalo: And I would I had this little corner shop that I used to go to all the time. Right?

Dominick: Right. Right.

Gonzalo: And, and the owner I became really close with the owner just because I was always there. He's just super humble dude. Has, like, eight kids. Right. Immigrant from Haiti.

Right? And he has his own little corner store. And, basically, I'm moving, so I'm not gonna go to that corner store ever again, you know. So before I left, I just went to the corner store. I just gave the dude a $100.

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: And I

Gonzalo: was like, dude, here's a $100. Like, I'm not gonna be able to come to the store anymore, but I love your shop. You're always super nice to everybody that comes. Like, here's a $100. Yeah.

And, just being able to do that, you know, just gives you an incredible feeling.

Max: Yeah.

Gonzalo: The the look on his face, you know, was just super Gratitude. You know, surprised that somebody would even do that. Yeah. So just having that feeling is just like, alright. Now I need to do more.

Like, I need to be giving away a $100 to everybody every day that I, you know. Obviously, that's not feasible right now.

Dominick: $50. Right?

Gonzalo: That's why I don't give him his 50

Speaker: so I

Gonzalo: can give other people. Spend over here, man. Yeah.

Max: Because being spent on his wife. You're my guy.

Dominick: He don't even know a $100. I'm his business partner. I

Gonzalo: think But Yeah. Yeah. So that at least that that's my why, you know, is to be able to to make a difference and, you know yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

Max: How about yours?

Speaker: I'm

Dominick: gonna take it back. So, basically, my real father, passed away when I was one years old. Okay. He was building a really, really great business.

Speaker: Right.

Dominick: He's building a printing company. This is back in the 70s. He started out of the basement of our house. Then he went to build it in Manhattan. He had an office probably the size of this room.

Mhmm. And then he grew it to the entire floor of that building in Manhattan with aspirations to go to a 2nd And 3rd Floor. And he was just, like, on the fast path to success.

Speaker: And he

Dominick: had a massive heart attack and died when I was one years old. My mom didn't know what she was doing. She sold it, didn't get a whole lot of money and we grew up broke. Right? Everyone's talking stories about his legacy, what he did.

Everybody loved him. And I feel like I would like to be the individual to take the baton. To take the baton. Continue his legacy from where he left off. And just take that path to the next level in honor of him.

And thankfully, g allowed me to name the company after what his business was named. It was Regency Litho Assets.

Gonzalo: Yeah. Yeah.

Dominick: And if you know that litho, it's it's short for lithography, which means printing. Oh, okay. So his company was Regency Litho. Litho.

Max: That's awesome.

Dominick: Right? I also have, like, a weird chemical imbalance in me. Or maybe you can look at it as a chemical balance.

Max: Right.

Dominick: To where, like, you know, you look around you, right, and you see, that you're capable of so much. Right? And I have a very canny ability to solve problems. People come to me with an issue. And I can think of three ideas, like, almost instantly.

Speaker: And

Dominick: then we just have to pick the best right idea to bring that to a solution. And I just feel like it's my responsibility. You know, if I'm capable of doing things like that, it's my responsibility to apply it to the best of my ability and grow as as vastly and as much as I can in that ability. Yeah. Yeah.

So those are my whys.

Max: That's awesome. And let's hold back to, like, you know, after you're long gone, it seems like you both are you guys are even on the same vision as your wife's, like, leaving a legacy. Right?

Dominick: Yes.

Max: And just squeezing everything out, like you're saying, giving back, solving problems and stuff. So those that makes really good for leadership skills.

Gonzalo: So Yeah.

Max: That's actually awesome. And, you guys mind sharing sharing what are your superpowers?

Speaker: Oh.

Gonzalo: What is my superpower? That's a good So

Dominick: I could I can take it first. I'll give you

Speaker: a second.

Max: Give me a second.

Gonzalo: I'm thinking of it's like flight or invincibility.

Speaker: Or

Dominick: So when I talk on a layman's level, I just basically say, is it okay to curse? I basically say I have the ability to figure shit out. Yeah. That's my superpower. Nice.

Like, you can say what the problem is. I might probe with five to 10 questions, figure out different parts of it, and I'd say, you know, alright, this is what we have to do. Yeah. Most of the time, I'm right. And if I'm not right, I'll have options.

And g is a great decision maker. Yeah. He'll pick what's the right one out of the options. I think that we go

Gonzalo: through that a lot.

Dominick: Yes. Yeah.

Max: Cool. Be the problem solver, Steve. Yes. Exactly.

Gonzalo: Yeah. It's true. It's true. I guess my superpower, I would say, is the ability to, the ability to Be young. Be young and and and look young.

Yeah. There you go. The ability to I I wouldn't wanna say to persuade others, but the ability to motivate somebody to make a decision that I want them to make, that makes sense.

Max: Right. Right.

Gonzalo: And by making them think that they thought of it on their own.

Dominick: Or even to make the decision that they wanna make.

Speaker: Right.

Gonzalo: Yes. Yes. Yeah. So the ability to lead others, I think I'm just I've always been a natural leader.

Dominick: Mhmm.

Gonzalo: I've always been able to paint a better picture of why my idea is better.

Max: Yeah.

Gonzalo: And so it's being able to lead others, I think, is my superpower. It's just going into a room, understanding that somebody is going to have to become the leader.

Speaker: Yeah.

Gonzalo: So it needs to be me, basically. Yeah.

Dominick: That's awesome. Because most of the time, you probably come across this a lot. Most people are not gonna step up.

Gonzalo: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Dominick: If someone asks who wants to volunteer, no one's gonna volunteer. Correct. Right? So g would

Gonzalo: be the guy to go volunteer. Yeah. Go volunteer. Yeah.

Max: No. That's awesome. I mean and I think most of us here, you know, being entrepreneur, being the driver and stuff, we've already jumped. We've built we're building our plane down the road where, you know, we've burned our bridges, if you wanna call them.

Dominick: So Yep. Yep. Yep.

Max: Yeah. Now you're reaching out. You know? Always, the way I look at it is always, I'm moving up so I can extend my hand back down and bring those on top.

Gonzalo: So Yeah. Yeah.

Max: That's what you have to do. What is your biggest struggle right now in the business? I know you guys kind of touched a little bit on some things that you need to grow in. Yeah.

Dominick: So I generally speaking, I think finding and retaining good people

Gonzalo: Yeah.

Dominick: You know, is is a huge struggle. You know? There's a lot of people that will volunteer to come work for you. Mhmm. And then we have to make our best decisions.

And it's it all revolves around the interview. Right? One or two step interview process. You have to ask the questions. But the way we've been approaching it lately is there's questions Yeah.

But we just wanna have the conversation with the dude or the lady. We have to we wanna talk with them, see if, see if we vibe with that individual, if they're like us. There's people that have been over qualified that want to work with us that we just turn down. And we don't offer them the position. So it's just finding the people that are just like us so we can enjoy our workplace.

I don't wanna be in a workplace that I own. That I don't have the best time of my life in. We want to have the time of our lives in our workplace. And we are having that right now. So we want to keep that going and make it just better.

Max: Yeah. You want to find people that figure your culture, your core values. You don't want to wake up and, like, oh, I gotta go see that guy today. Today. Yep.

Awesome. And I think that's a struggle. That's, a lot of business owners struggle with that, you know.

Speaker: And Right.

Max: Because you always wanna keep that core. I mean, I know we were up to, like, nine people one time, and then I mean, right now, we got three acquisitions that these guys are great. They bought into you have to get them to buy into what you believe.

Speaker: Yep.

Max: Not only into doing the work, but what you believe as well.

Dominick: So Right.

Gonzalo: That's true. Right.

Dominick: Yep. Yep.

Gonzalo: Yeah. I'd say another struggle I think that we have is how to grow. Meaning, do we grow with people? Do we grow with technology? Do we grow

Dominick: with tweaking Existing processes.

Gonzalo: Yeah. Tweaking existing processes Right. Or testing something new out, you know. So I think that's a common struggle Mhmm. Of every business in general, you know.

But Right. I think that's something right now, like so for example, like, last week, we just upgraded everybody's, computer. So we have, you know, 14 people in in the team. So 14 brand new computers, and we upgraded the computer so that we could give everybody four screens. So four monitors.

Alright. So we just upgraded everybody to that. Nice. So it's like $15 that we're gonna cough up, you know. So it's like, alright.

We're gonna spend $15. Instead of giving them new computers, Should we just send a shit ton of mailers with that?

Max: Yeah. You

Gonzalo: know, so it's like, it's always having that struggle of

Max: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: What are

Gonzalo: we gonna do with this money? Because we know we need to use it to grow. Mhmm. But what are we gonna do? Are we gonna hire more people?

Or are we just gonna send more marketing? Should we send more RVMs? Should we, you know, get a better computer?

Speaker: Should we Yeah.

Dominick: And we're already great at a certain marketing approach. So do we try other marketing techniques out, or do we do what we're already great at and go to another market?

Max: Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

That makes sense. I mean, do you but I'm more where you're at. Do you expand? Yeah. I think that's that's something that's something good, to struggle with.

And, you know, before we kinda wrap this up a little bit, two more questions here. What was your as far as just the business and you both can whoever wants to go first, what was your favorite best or most interesting failure so far in your business?

Gonzalo: Our more our most interesting failure. Yeah. So I think a most interesting failure in the beginning I I don't know if it was a fail let me let me put it to you this way. I think everything happens for a reason, you know. But I I think in the beginning, we were very I think we tried to niche down too much.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Gonzalo: So it's funny because we were just cleaning up our projects list. Mhmm. Right? We have a list of, like, a 100 to 200 projects. Mhmm.

We just think of an idea. Alright. Let me add it to the spreadsheet, and then

Max: we'll get

Speaker: to it.

Gonzalo: Right? And, we just had to clean it up because it was, like, alright. Are are some of these projects just, like, stupid stuff? You know what I mean?

Dominick: Or another problem was we would have, like, we like to create visuals as drivers for ourselves. Mhmm. So in the project development department, Ally, she's our project develop project manager. And she has a whiteboard. Alright.

There were like 20 projects on there.

Speaker: Yes. And

Dominick: so she had two she wasn't really finishing. She was in the middle of a lot of them. Yeah. So in the meeting that Gee's talking about Right. We said, listen.

We're just gonna keep three on the board. Erase everything. Put it on the spreadsheet. Keep it tucked away. Right.

And you have the visual, Yeah. Then when you get those done, as you get one done, add another one to the bottom. Makes sense.

Max: A lot of clarity in that.

Gonzalo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what I was getting at is there was a project on the project board that said expand our, our data list to over 75,000. Right.

Right? And it took me back to our in the beginning, we were only pulling lists of properties that were up to 50,000

Max: Right.

Gonzalo: And only working in the hood. Mhmm. And so it was good for us in the beginning because I had a lot of hood buyers coming, you know, starting this business.

Dominick: Define the hood. Right? Where I grew up. Where I grew

Gonzalo: up. And, so I think that that kinda limited us in the beginning. But I think it was needed, you know. But at the same time, yeah, we were only pulling lists of up to 50,000.

Max: Okay.

Gonzalo: Like, properties that were worth, at the most, 50,000.

Speaker: Yeah.

Gonzalo: And then we bumped it up to 75,000. Mhmm. And then we bumped it up to a 100,000. Right. And then a 150.

Now we're up to 300,000. And we feel very comfortable with

Dominick: what we have done. 300 too.

Gonzalo: Yeah. We went above 300. We did up to 600. Yeah. But we just don't have much success with, you know, And so, I think that was an interesting failure.

Yeah.

Dominick: Yeah.

Gonzalo: Not a failure, but, you know, something that we went through was just, like, why were we only pulling this stuff? You know what I mean? Like, we should have pulled it everywhere. But it is what it is. We made our mark.

And I feel like that's why also, like, in the beginning, our average deal size was 4 to $5 because the properties were only worth 5 to $10 anyways, you know. So Yeah.

Dominick: Yeah. So to add to that really quick, and I don't know if this can this constitute as a failure either because it's something that happened over time, not at once. Like we said in the beginning of the interview, we we built our system. Right? And we prematurely built it to get ready for a heavy influx in higher sales.

Right. You always gotta think, like, should our concentration be reversed? Because sales is the number one most important thing in our business. Right? Right.

Right. We need to be talking to sellers every single day

Speaker: Mhmm.

Dominick: And doing deals, as many deals as we possibly can. Right. So was too much time spent on the system? Correct. You know, everyone wants to they wanna learn.

They wanna educate themselves. They wanna automate. They wanna get the systems, put all these things together, tweak them. Yeah. But if you're not doing business in there, you're hurting yourself, you know?

So should we have had a way bigger focus on sales than we did on the system? Right.

Max: But I think that comes with the struggle of working on the business and in the business. Right? Right. Because you're trying to generate income, but yet you're trying to expand. Yep.

And that's always that struggle. Like, how much of it do we focus on?

Gonzalo: So yeah. Right. Yep.

Max: Yep. And then what book have you both gifted more than any other?

Dominick: Oh, I've got one. But do you wanna go first?

Gonzalo: Yeah. I mean, for me, it would be E Myth.

Max: E Myth? Okay. E Myth

Gonzalo: revisited Michael Gerber. Right. I think that book truly changed my mindset into because when I got started, my brother, you know, my brother's a real estate agent. And so he was the one that got me into real estate.

Dominick: Mhmm.

Gonzalo: So when you talk to a real estate agent, it's not really, somebody who owns a business. It's just somebody who has a super successful

Speaker: Right.

Gonzalo: Side hustle. You know? Makes sense. And they're they're they're self employed. Yep.

And so I wanted that. Right? I was like, I wanna be a super successful realtor. Then I got introduced to wholesaling, and then I was like, alright. I'm just gonna you know, I don't wanna be like my older brother.

I didn't know you could also wholesale, so I'm I'm gonna try to wholesale and try to sell my brother some properties. Right? And then I read e myth, and that e e myth was kind of what shifted me to instead of I just wanna do 10 to 15 deals a year. Right. It's let I should hire a person.

Dominick: You know

Gonzalo: what I mean? I need to hire another person. I want a CEO. I want a CFO. Yeah.

I want a COO. You know what I mean? Right. Right. Right.

And so that's what kinda that's the book that totally changed my mindset. In the very beginning was instead of treating something like a side hustle, it's treating it like a business. Right.

Speaker: And

Gonzalo: building it like if you were gonna franchise Right. The business. Even if you're not gonna franchise, you need to build your business. Like if you were going to franchise, that's the only way you'll achieve real freedom

Speaker: Mhmm.

Gonzalo: Through a business. Right. You know? Right. That's very true.

Dominick: That's a great book.

Max: I actually gave that book to my cousin a couple months ago,

Speaker: because he

Max: owns a flooring company and he's involved.

Gonzalo: Like Yes.

Max: He's been involved for years. Yep.

Speaker: But Yeah.

Max: Why yours?

Dominick: So I feel like this book is one of my secrets.

Gonzalo: And I'm gonna I'm gonna really Let it out, man.

Dominick: A lot of people From the real

Max: estate people throughout their show.

Dominick: A lot of people haven't read this book. I'm surprised. Even some high level producers haven't read this book and it's really a next level kind of a book. And if you download it on audio and you hear the the reader, I think something Blazers or I forgot his name, it's a very monotone read. So it's hard to listen to.

But the content is just so powerful. It's called Zero to One.

Gonzalo: Is that it? No.

Dominick: It's called Zero to One. Zero to One? By Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel, one of the biggest angel investors in Facebook. Okay.

And he, created PayPal and partnered with Elon Musk and all that stuff. It's called Zero to One.

Max: Okay.

Speaker: And,

Dominick: it's not like you're taking steps zero to one, then two and ten. It's not like that. It's going from zero, building a company from nothing to being the only one. Yeah. Like creating a monopoly type of business.

Right? Right. Yeah. And it's a very different way of looking at a way of building a business or the type of business that you want to build. Right?

It's kind of it's billionaire thinking. It's next level thinking. I think it was super powerful to me. It makes us look at the business in a different way. It makes us look at what we're going to do next to make it truly different than what the rest of the world does.

And that's just it just appealed to me. It was awesome. So I highly recommend that book for anyone that hasn't read it yet.

Gonzalo: Yeah. And it's a small book. Yeah. It's awesome. It's a small read.

Max: Small excuses for anybody. Yeah.

Gonzalo: We have excuses.

Dominick: We have a very, very successful, very, very rich friend that lives in The Netherlands that referred that book to us. And he said, if you read this book, he goes, frankly, that's all of the business education you need better than a Harvard business education. Yeah. And then I read it and I was just blown away.

Gonzalo: That's awesome. And I get this Harvard degree. I kind of feel

Dominick: about that book the same way I feel. So I went to the growth conference too that was based in Las Vegas. Right? Right. Right.

They have all these really powerful speakers and they were all great. They were all great. Right? Right. Right.

And, you know, you network with people and you're talking to them about, oh, who's your favorite speaker? Who's your favorite speaker? I'm gonna follow this. I'm gonna join this guy's program and all that stuff. They were all great.

No one liked the guy that I liked. And then I didn't know this until afterward, but he was the only billionaire speaker on the stage.

Speaker: Oh. Do you ever hear

Dominick: of a guy named Naveen Jain?

Max: I don't think I have.

Dominick: Naveen Jain. I think he worked very closely in building Microsoft with Bill Gates. Mhmm. He's like his right hand man, and then he branched off to make his own company. Right?

So Nadine Jain was like, he's talking about things like curing sickness.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Dominick: Curing sickness. And he and he talked about how he's going to do it. Yeah. And that just blew my mind. It wasn't I'm gonna go make a million dollars flipping houses.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll become a millionaire in

Speaker: a year.

Dominick: So I wanna wholesale. It was just like sickness starts in the gut. Right. And there's something in your gut that communicates with the cells and I wanna cut off that communication so people can't get sick any

Max: longer. Makes sense.

Dominick: And it blew my mind. So and it's really no one no one really caught that. No one really it didn't resonate with almost anyone I talked to.

Speaker: Right.

Dominick: So that's how I feel about the

Max: book as well. Wow. Okay. I'll have to put that on my reading list. I haven't read that

Speaker: one. So I'll just order one.

Gonzalo: Don't read it. That's mine. That's mine. And I'll give

Max: you some feedback. As we get ready to wrap this up, you know, I wanna kinda give you guys an opportunity to, give you, you guys that way, you guys can let the audience know how they can reach you, what you guys have coming up. And, I'm gonna make a quick announcement after you guys do that, and then we're gonna go back into any last thoughts that you guys can leave with the audience. So, you know, go go ahead and let the crowd, let the audience know how they can reach you and what you guys got coming up here soon.

Dominick: Sure. Sure. Sure. My name is Dominic Felix. And you can follow me on Facebook, Dominic Felix.

You can friend request me or follow me. Real Dominic Felix or Real Dom Felix on Instagram. We also have a Facebook group called The People's Wholesalers, where we go live similar to this show, and we give a lot of free information, a lot of good posts, a lot of good interaction in that, in that group as well. Awesome.

Gonzalo: And me, Gonzalo Corzo, on Facebook. And then on Instagram, real Gonzalo Corzo. And, yeah. We have the, the Facebook group. And then we have done we just had an event

Speaker: Okay.

Gonzalo: Actually, in it was in August. Right?

Max: Yes.

Gonzalo: Right. Yeah. So we had, like, 70 people there. Nice. And we we, you know, do, we just did that was, like, our first big training.

Mhmm. Right? Just because a lot of people have been asking us. Right. So we're doing another one in January.

It's in Jacksonville, Florida. And it's gonna be January 23 through the twenty fifth. Okay. That's called Power Up.

Dominick: So everything that we talked about our business here

Speaker: Okay.

Dominick: Is a detailed explanation of it at the event with all of that deal flow and all the checklist and everything that we use in our business provided so that people can choose to use it Okay. Or tweak it that tailors to their business.

Max: And if they join the group, your Facebook group, all that information will be there for that event coming up?

Dominick: Yes.

Max: Okay. Awesome.

Speaker: What was

Max: the name of the Facebook group one more time?

Gonzalo: The People's Wholesalers.

Max: The People's Wholesalers. So, guys, go and go and, request to get access to it. I'm not sure if it's a private Facebook or not.

Dominick: It's free. You just have to join. Awesome.

Max: So I'm gonna make one quick announcement, and then I'll come back and get your guys' final thoughts. So if you guys wanna kinda just, you know, think about what you guys wanna say, and then we'll kinda end up the show. So tomorrow, we have the legendary Sean Terry is gonna be on the show. Steve will be back tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Hopefully, everything's okay. So don't forget to tune in tomorrow. Again, everyone, if you have not subscribed to the podcast, please go subscribe. Steve is doing a lot of great things for the community again, and he's just wanting to grow this thing and and give back as much as possible. You guys know the motto.

It's, you know, we're trying to create 100 millionaires and, you know, we get, you know, we get investors that come on here. They give out their heart. They they they show their business. So, very valuable content. It's not about us.

It's about you. You know? So make sure that you subscribe to the YouTube channel. Can't say that enough. Tune in tomorrow.

We will have Sean Terry, the legendary Sean Terry here on the podcast. So with that being said, I'm gonna let Dominic and Gonzalo give their last thoughts and give you guys some insight. So go ahead. The floor is for you guys. Whoever wants to go first.

Dominick: Yeah. I mean, I would just say, for people that are doing deals at our level, less than our level, trying to get into it or doing a deal here or there, you're gonna look at our company. You're gonna look at there's so many people you can compare yourselves to. And it's it's so cool to see so many different companies that operate so differently in the same industry, and they're all doing extremely well. Right.

Right? So a lot of people are nervous. What do I do next? How do I grow it? No one is a 100% right.

Right? I think we're all right. The key is to just get started. Just make a move. Just take action,

Max: and you'll figure it out along the way. Awesome. Nice words.

Gonzalo: Yeah. And I think, what I would say

Speaker: is I'm

Gonzalo: gonna go a little deep, but I think it's Driveway. Change change your sphere of influence.

Max: Yep. You

Gonzalo: know? Stop hanging out. If if if you wanna have incredible amounts of of success, or you wanna wholesale a ton of properties, you Yeah. You wanna have a a portfolio of whatever properties, like, you need to do your best to get in the rooms with people who have the amount of success that you that you, want to achieve. Right.

And everything that you do needs to be needs to align you with those people. Right. Right. How can I get around successful people? If if you're the smartest one in the room, to me, you're the dumbest one in the room.

Right. Right? And so everything that you need to do, you need to just change your sphere of influence. Change the people you're hanging out with. Change the people you're talking to.

And, only try to surround yourself with successful people. And that'll make everything else easier.

Max: Awesome. Sage words. Awesome. That's great. Again, if you like the show, please share this episode right now.

A lot of golden nuggets were dropped. And like Steve always likes to say, a rising tide lifts all boats. Awesome, guys. It was awesome having you guys on

Dominick: the street.

Speaker: Yeah. Thank

Max: you, man. Appreciate it.