Donovan Ruffin Shares How Equity Cash Offers Wholesales 30-40 Properties per Month

Donovan Ruffin: One, thank

Steve Trang: you for joining us for today's episode of real estate disruptors. Today, we have Dono, Donovan Ruffin with equity cash offer all the way in from Texas. Yep. So that's pretty cool. And he's here to share how they're wholesaling 30 to 40 properties per month, which is a massive number, kind of hard to wrap your head around.

If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Tring, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only app you'll need for wholesaling, and I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires. So if that's something you wanna do, let's definitely connect on Instagram. If you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave. Give me a thumbs up. And as a friendly reminder, I don't charge a dime for this show.

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So if you've got questions, Donovan has promised me he's happy to answer them, all of them for you. Yeah.

Donovan: Is he

Steve: ready to go?

Donovan: Let's do it. Yeah. Hammer him out.

Steve: Okay. So first question, what got you into real estate?

Donovan: Oh, wow. So, funny story. So I was actually in sales at the time and, one of my buddies sends me a $18,000 check. And I look at this picture on my phone and I'm like, I know you. I went to high school with you.

If you can somehow come across $18,000 and someone's willing to pay you that, then I can too. So I guess that's how I found my way into, the wholesaling business and real estate. Yeah. That was back in, like, late twenty fourteen, early twenty fifteen. So it's been a been a few years.

Steve: So but it's not that long ago.

Donovan: No. Yeah.

Steve: Right? Yeah. Before the numbers you guys are putting up together right now. So, like, this is, like, Instagram. This is, like, he's just showing it to you.

Donovan: No. He just texted a picture to me. And I'm, like I mean, it was, like, a talk of, like, our our group at the time. It's like, hey, we're gonna get into real estate. It's like our next step because we try to, like, develop a little mastermind to keep each other accountable.

Steve: Well, that's cool.

Donovan: And he was the one that, like, stepped forward and made something happen of it. So I appreciate him.

Steve: Awesome. Awesome. So, tell us about your first wholesale deal.

Donovan: Yeah. So my first deal, came from Bandit Sign, actually. It's pretty pretty standard typical of the first first type of deal. Mhmm. Just laying them out on Friday nights and then get a call in in Garland, Texas and go to a house and lock it up and sell it.

And I made, like, $4,000 and put that all back into marketing and Yeah. Just kinda Garland's

Steve: what part of Texas?

Donovan: It's like DFW. DFW? Yeah. Oh, it's so Like a little outskirts.

Steve: Where I'll be

Donovan: next month? Yeah. Okay. So You're gonna you're gonna Dallas next week?

Steve: Next month.

Donovan: Okay.

Steve: Yeah. So, you're you're you're putting on Bandit signs Mhmm. And that's how your buddy got his first deal?

Donovan: Yeah. Actually, I believe that's how you got his first deal

Steve: as well. Yeah. So you start off, you you put a Bandit sign, you get a call. Mhmm. How's that call go?

Donovan: Yeah. So it's like, hey, I see your sign. You guys buy houses. I mean, you get all types of calls with bandit signs. I still put bandit signs out.

Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I buy houses. And it's like, just sticking to, like, the traditional, like, script. It's like, okay. Just lock it up and then figure it out after it's under contract.

And

Steve: So you go meet the homeowner? Yep. Run the appointment? Yeah. Any idea what you're doing at that time?

Donovan: No idea. No idea. Okay. Pulling Zillow values, like, this is what Zillow says it's worth and, just running, like, a 70% rule, just standard typical numbers. Mhmm.

So

Steve: Alright. So you locked it up. Mhmm. How are you moving it?

Donovan: Yeah. So, Facebook, actually, there's tons of Facebook groups out there. So I posted a deal. It's like, hey, I have this property. Once again, no idea what I'm doing.

So, sent it out on Facebook and had I mean, at that time, I mean, properties would sell, like, within a matter of minutes. Mhmm. So it's it's crazy because, yeah, it's like I ended up having, like, 20 people come look at the property. And now that I realized that I got it, I get an extremely discounted price. And somebody got a good deal.

Yeah. You know? So, that's what happened.

Steve: We don't maximize our first deal.

Donovan: Yeah.

Steve: For sure. Our first deal, we're like, man, we just hope this thing closes.

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

And so $4,000 at the time was like, man, this is more than I make in, like, two, three weeks. So it was What were you

Steve: doing at the time?

Donovan: So I was in in sales. So I was, all commissioned, door to door sales, actually, selling cable. So that's kinda,

Steve: That helps. Yeah.

Donovan: Yeah. That's

Steve: a really relevant experience.

Donovan: Yeah. So I was actually in, that business since I was, like, 18 up until just recently this past year.

Steve: Okay.

Donovan: So it's yeah. It's like, sales is is kind of my forte.

Steve: Yeah. So

Donovan: it made it pretty easy when I got into real estate.

Steve: Very cool. And I like the part where you're like, you know, I got this deal and I'll just post it. I don't know what I'm doing yet. I'll just post on Facebook. Because there are so many people that are like, I gotta build my buyers list.

I gotta get this right. I gotta get this many people on my buyers list. Yep. Such a backwards way of thinking.

Donovan: Yeah. You

Steve: know, like, if you got a deal, it's gonna gonna sell.

Donovan: Yeah. For sure. Yeah. It's kinda like the the fire and then aim method. Right.

Exactly. I mean,

Steve: I still

Donovan: operate like that. It's like I don't like, even when I go, like, shopping, it's like I don't know what outfits I'm gonna put together. I'm just gonna buy what I need and then just put it together. You know? So Awesome.

Steve: So what were then some of your early struggles?

Donovan: I guess some of the early struggles is, you know, I mean, San Antonio, like, finding a deal. Mhmm. I remember going, like, maybe I get one lead per month, and just laying bandit signs every every single Friday. And it was a grind, you know? So it's like when a lead came in, you really valued that lead because it's like, man, I worked my ass off for a whole month every Friday night sacrificing that time, and that effort, and obviously money too.

And when that lead comes in, you gotta really value that lead and and make the most of it. So

Steve: Yeah. Well, it's a lot easier to appreciate it. Right? When you're the one that's putting out the bandit signs.

Donovan: Oh, yeah. For sure.

Steve: It's a lot harder. And, you know, there's no disrespect to it, you know, people that work with us. But, like, when the lead is just there and, like, it's for them to follow-up Yep. It's at the same same fashion? Yeah.

Because they're not the one banging in the

Donovan: bandit signs. Exactly. Yeah. So I I mean, I tell it to my guys now, like, fast forward, it's like I mean, we're I mean, we're all spoiled, you know. It's like we just hit our database and our CRM, and it's just, like, it's just another lead.

Mhmm. And, back in the day, it's like, man, we really had to work our ass off to get those leads. You know? So Yep.

Steve: For sure. Any other struggles?

Donovan: You know, just, like, like, figuring stuff out. You know? It's like you you work your ass off for, like, a month and then get a deal under contract and aren't able to sell it. Numbers weren't right, stuff like that. But, I I mean, struggles, it's just like I mean, it's it's not too difficult, I guess, if you just follow instructions.

So Right.

Steve: So how did you overcome that?

Donovan: I

Steve: guess just buying so buying it wrong. How did you overcome that at that time? Obviously, you have different solutions now. But

Donovan: Yeah. So I guess, so really learning how to evaluate the property versus just throwing crap against the wall and hoping it works just because I'm, like, a salesperson, quote unquote. It's like, I could sell anything. Yeah. Then I realized, like, man, I really gotta make sure the numbers work so the end investor can actually make money too.

Mhmm. So actually just really studying the market and and studying the areas and comps and really getting a thorough understanding of how to evaluate properties. Yeah. As well as, like, the constructions out of it too. So, but I mean, you could figure that out in, like, a couple weeks and

Steve: Right. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So when I was looking you up, the first thing I found was Doxa. Mhmm.

What's that about?

Donovan: Yeah. So that was actually, my marketing company, that I operated in. Me and my business partner, where he was actually my old boss at the time, when I started in sales door to door when I was, like, eighteen, nineteen. So me and him kind of built sales teams all around the country. And, we partnered with Fortune 500 companies selling their products either door to door or business to business.

Yeah. So our business model was, hiring sales reps, paying them all commission, and then having them go door to door, business to business, and then, slowly organically building leadership out around the country. So Yeah. It was pretty amazing on what we did in that company. And, I appreciate it every day just because, I mean, yeah, it was like a million dollar company.

But, having that skill set and that experience and then now being able to apply that to real estate helped dramatically.

Steve: Oh, I bet. Yeah. I bet it translated really, really well.

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: So you're doing thirty, forty deals a month. Right? Mhmm. Those are crazy numbers.

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: So what are you doing different than everybody else?

Donovan: Yeah. So I that's funny that you said that because I always try to be, like, opposite of everybody else. It's like, hey. If people are doing this, then I'm gonna go do this just because it's like, hey. It's saturated over here.

You know what I mean? And I really started to pay attention to the industry. And, what I realized is there's a lot of gurus out there. There's a lot of information on YouTube. There's a lot of, literally free information out there that anybody can obtain, when it comes to, like, marketing and finding deals and stuff like that, which is great.

I mean, it it's awesome. Mhmm. But what a lot of people aren't doing is yeah. You can get the leads to come in, but, like, once you grow past a certain amount of inbound leads that are coming in, you physically can't close all those leads yourself. So what I realized is, like, once you get the marketing standpoint down, it's like, man, the the sales team is actually probably more important than the actual marketing standpoint.

Mhmm. Just on being able to to leverage not just your time, but other people's time Right. As well as being able to organically build more individuals, and having them handle the phones and leads as well. So, I guess that's that's what makes our company different is just we focus more on the actual sales team Mhmm. Recruiting, training, and developing our people, within our company versus just the actual marketing.

Because, yeah, that's one division in our company, but, we believe or, I mean, I I honestly believe that the sales team is probably the most important.

Steve: So talk about that. How are you first, how are you finding them?

Donovan: Well, I guess starting off, it's, like, people that I know. Mhmm. And the reason why I did that is especially starting an organic, acquisition team in real estate, because I really wanted to work with people I could trust, especially because they're they're handling, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of information with leads. So, you know, just like on Instagram and and Facebook, your social media, just kinda showing people what you're doing. I mean, if you follow me on social media, obviously, you can kinda see that I'm always posting what I'm doing.

Yep. And, obviously, people get attracted to that. You know? People see that you're growing. You're doing something different.

They wanna be a part of that. And then, obviously, if the core values fit, we're able to bring people on board and and give them opportunity to grow with us. Right. So as far as being able to find them, we stick to people that we know, or we get to know. And then social media is probably our biggest

Steve: So people reach out to you. Yeah. And say, hey. I love what you're doing. Mhmm.

I like to do the same thing.

Donovan: Yeah. Or it's like, hey. It's like, I love what you're doing. I'm doing this right now. I don't see I can grow as much as if I was with working with you guys, and it's like a real thing.

And, you know, it it offers a a platform for us to express what we're doing, live time just kinda like this. Yeah. And people get interested in it. And, I mean, there people are probably watching this other job right now. It's like, man.

Yeah. You know what I mean? So Right. But, yeah, we use a social media platform, for recruiting for the most part. And then, we haven't really built out, like, the, like, the traditional recruiting types, like, with Indeed, CareerBuilder, and stuff like that yet.

But Right.

Steve: We're

Donovan: gonna be launching that next week. So Okay. Yeah.

Steve: So you got people coming in. Mhmm. How are you onboarding them?

Donovan: Yeah. So, obviously, the traditional onboarding process, like, if you were to go get a job at, like, a fast food restaurant Mhmm. What do you typically have to do?

Steve: You gotta sit through and watch this video. Like, what this company it's about the company. Here's what we do. Mhmm. Right?

Donovan: Yeah. So it's, like, the intro.

Steve: Right? Don't harass anybody.

Donovan: Yeah. It's like the red lines, intro. This is the expectations. This is what you're gonna get paid. Mhmm.

And that is a process, you know, especially when people make big career moves. Yeah. And we're recruiting people all around the country. It's like some of our top guys come from, like, three hours away and move their their family and their and their wife and or from, like, literally getting a moving truck and packing all their shit and coming all the way to Dallas.

Steve: So if you are moving from out of state Yeah.

Donovan: To work here. Absolutely.

Steve: Yeah. So you're like a corporation.

Donovan: Oh, yeah. Almost. Yeah. And and I like it like that. You know?

That's pretty cool. I I strategically recruit in a certain manner in a certain way. And, and it's it's tough to to kinda get your feet in the door with us just because it's not like we're hiring everybody. You know? And it's like my last company, it's like, hey.

If we hire the more people we can hire, the more money our company makes. So it's like, we're just hiring everybody.

Steve: Yeah.

Donovan: Now it's kinda like, man, we really gotta be careful and pay attention to those core values when we bring people on just because it's not like a a short term gig or it's not like something that we can just give access to everybody. So, but it's a huge opportunity. Yeah.

Steve: What are your core values?

Donovan: So obviously, honesty, loyalty. I mean, like, when when we when we look at people and their core values, it's not necessarily, hey. This is just a whole bunch of words Mhmm.

Steve: On

Donovan: our board and this is what we abide by. It's like, hey. Who in your life, respects you the most or who believes in you the most? You know? Mhmm.

Or if you are, to to leave your last position, who do you think you'd still be in contact with? And and little things like that, you can really, dive into people and kinda see where they're at.

Steve: So based on how they answer those questions Yeah. You'll figure out whether they're fit or not. Yeah.

Donovan: It's like, hey. Interesting. Your your last your two jobs ago, do you still are you still in contact with any of those people that you you worked with back then? You worked there for, like, a year. And it's like, no.

I haven't I I don't like any of those people. Yeah. It's like, well, what about this job? Mhmm. And it's like, you can kind of learn little patterns like, oh, you're probably like a piece of shit.

Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. But,

Steve: yeah. It's like, to

Donovan: be honest with you, I just like, I haven't really, like, sat down and have, like, my list of words and put them on my wall in my

Steve: office. Yeah.

Donovan: It's kinda, like, lame.

Steve: Okay. So

Donovan: I guess it's not late, but I guess in the book Traction, it'll tell you different.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So you've got your your core values, and that's how you're hiring

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: And firing. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Donovan: Yeah. Mhmm.

Steve: Right? Okay. So now you got the core values. How are you training these guys?

Donovan: Yeah. So, obviously, like, when when I started in the venture of just going all real estate, I had to, like, sit them down, one on one and Mhmm. I called it the launch pad. So it was in my office. It's just me and them.

So I could give them, like, time and focus and make sure that, we're, like, operating and understanding the the system and the model, very strategically. Because when you're building sales teams, one of the most important things that you have to understand on the initial approach is duplication. Mhmm. So if you over complicate things, it's gonna be really difficult to duplicate yourself. And a lot of sales gurus and real estate gurus, they know a ton about real estate, which is great.

But the problem with that is you can't take, like, ten, fifteen years of knowledge and just give it to somebody on their first day, their second day, or even their first year. Mhmm. That's a a striving journey. So what what I did is I really just simplified it. And I just look back to the the aspects of sales and what works on actually getting a product moved to individual to individual.

It's just personality and, getting to know somebody on the phone and just really developing that personal relationship with people, in organic standpoint. And then once we develop that relationship, then we we dive into, hey. This is the price we needed at or whatever the case it is. Mhmm. But, yeah, it's that that one on one approach is probably the the, most important when we're training people.

Now it's to a point where, the duplication process for leadership, has been passed down to certain people in our organization where

Steve: That's cool.

Donovan: When we do bring people on, then, hey, you're sitting down with this person. You're gonna be responsible for them. You're like their their overseer, their manager, and then you get, like, a percentage of of what they bring in, throughout their entire work of working here. So, that's kinda how we're building it out.

Steve: Okay. Yeah. Fascinating. So you said, you know, you got you got to a point now, you got managers. Right?

So how many people are in your organization?

Donovan: So we actually have, see, we actually I mean, in office, I would say, 20 people full time. Mhmm. And obviously, we have cold callers. So we have a ton of cold callers. But on payroll, every week, we have over 60 people now.

Steve: Wow.

Donovan: Yeah. So it's like, you look at that. It's like, man, I'm really, like, employing 60, like, people that, like, pay bills for their families and stuff, you know? So it's a lot of responsibility. But it's, it's, it's awesome to kind of see that it's like, man, I'm I'm really making an impact on people.

It's not just me. You know what I mean? Right. So

Steve: So the cold callers.

Donovan: Mhmm. Local? Overseas? Yeah. So we actually use, Call Geeks in in Mexico.

So we have 16 callers there, and then we have about 20 cold callers in The Philippines.

Steve: Okay.

Donovan: So we're just leveraging both of those. So you

Steve: have 36 cold callers?

Donovan: Yeah. Okay.

Steve: So you guys so they're calling what list?

Donovan: So we're hitting, I mean, pretty much all the the standard absentee, 55 plus, the high equity, the unknown equity. Those are pretty much the main the main list that we hit. But we're when we buy list, obviously, because we have a lot of cold callers, we have to buy a lot of data.

Steve: Oh, yeah. So Oh, yeah.

Donovan: Like, we're like, we really don't have that many filters. We're just if it's a lead, it's a phone number we're able to call them, then Yeah. We put it through. So

Steve: So and We buy a lot. Yeah. You're buying throughout Texas. Right?

Donovan: Yeah. All of Texas.

Steve: Okay. So, but your people are based mainly in Dallas?

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: So then you're pretty much buying everything over the

Donovan: phone. Oh, yeah. Yep. Even on even in Dallas.

Steve: Yeah. So how are you handling let's walk through that. Right? You negotiate a deal

Donovan: over the phone.

Steve: Mhmm. What's the next step? Like, you got a verbal agreement over

Donovan: the phone. Well, we we don't really like verbal agreements. We like sign contracts, and and the reason being is because it's it's pretty it's what you gotta understand is, like, when you're talking to a seller, they don't really do this too often. I know we do it, like, every day, so it's normal to us. And sometimes investors forget about that.

It's like the the person that you're talking to probably only done this once or never before, so they don't understand the process. So we're just explaining the process on how it works. It's like, hey. We're gonna put this property under contract to purchase. We have interest in the property, and then we're gonna send one of our guys to go take pictures.

Mhmm. After we go take pictures, we're gonna send it to our contractors, and then we're gonna walk some of our contractors to the property. Mhmm. That's pretty much it. Yeah.

So we like to keep it simple.

Steve: Okay.

Donovan: Yeah.

Steve: So co callers. They're calling everybody.

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? And then you got, how many acquisition people?

Donovan: So we have about 10 in acquisitions right now.

Steve: Okay. So Yeah. They qualify to lead Mhmm. Pass off the acquisitions. Yep.

An acquisition runs the appointment, runs the call Yep. Locks it up Mhmm. And it gets passed on. Yep. So, co callers, I'm assuming, are just a wage where it's just Yeah.

Some sort of hourly salary.

Donovan: Oh, yeah. Like how we pay them? Yeah. We just pay them by hour.

Steve: Okay. Acquisitions. Mhmm. How do you compensate them?

Donovan: Yeah. So, we actually have junior acquisitions and then we have senior acquisitions. So junior acquisitions, they start off with a thousand $1,500 salary. Mhmm. Then we pay them 1%.

And then we we base it on tiers. And then, I mean, if we have to if they choose, like, hey, I need some cash and something like that, we can just give them, like, $25 per contract that's signed, etcetera, etcetera. Because it's it's kinda like a training phase. Especially you don't have that much sales experience because we wanna dedicate one of our leaders to come, hey, like, one on one train with you and spend time with you. So we have to compensate them as well to make sure you're successful.

And then we have senior acquisitions, and they get anywhere from five to 10%. Mhmm. So if you make under $50,000 in gross, you're making 5%. Anything above a 100,000, then you're making 10%. Mhmm.

So that's kind of how we we pay out for acquisitions.

Steve: Of the fee?

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. Of the fee.

Steve: Okay. And then the acquisition guys, are they responsible for any outbound calls or everything is just

Donovan: No. I mean, cold

Steve: calling warm transfer?

Donovan: Yeah. Everything is like a warm transfer. Okay. Cold calling is great. And I know a lot of people do that in house, which is awesome.

Mhmm. We used to have a bunch of in house cold callers and we just found it more profitable just having in house acquisitions. Mhmm. Because we're we're running out of space a little bit. Yeah.

So we're like, we could either get a bigger space or get more quality people or develop our people better, but what's gonna be more profitable? So we just fired all the cold callers and Mhmm. Or promoted some of them, fired the rest of them. And then Alright. We just have all in house acquisitions and dispositions and transactions.

Okay. Acquisitions.

Steve: One thing that I thought Carlos and Sal, what they do is interesting, is they've got a lead manager, someone that follows up. Yeah. If the acquisition guy can't lock them down there, but there's a potential in the future.

Donovan: Yep. Do you

Steve: guys have something like that?

Donovan: Yeah. So that's where our junior acquisitions comes in. It's similar, except for we don't call them lead managers. We call them junior acquisitions. Mhmm.

So they'll handle some of the, like, the colder leads that come in and, do the follow ups, etcetera, etcetera, while they're learning. And they're learning how to pitch people. They're learning the process, etcetera, etcetera. And then once they're promoted to acquisitions, then, hey, there's another junior acquisition. So we're just constantly bringing them in.

Steve: Okay.

Donovan: Yeah.

Steve: And how about moving the property?

Donovan: So dispositions. Mhmm. So once it's under contract, we'll send our boots on the ground and go take pictures. We'll have transactions work with title, etcetera, etcetera. And then we're we're scheduling times for showings.

If there's people on the property, if it's vacant, then our disposition team just shops it to everybody and their mom. Yeah. But if it if it's occupied, then obviously, we'll have, like, a showing. Mhmm. So I have three disposition guys right now.

We just hired another one, so we'll have four, disposition guys. And they just literally shop the property to pretty much everybody in Texas.

Steve: Okay. And are they responsible for developing relationships with cash buyers list?

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. So that's what their their full time job is. Mhmm. So when they first start off, it's it's kind of difficult, obviously, because they don't have that that list or that brand or whatever on social media and stuff like that.

But Right. When we bring them in, obviously, we train them on what works and, how to organically build that list out. Mhmm. Because we like to work just off, like, the VIP. You know?

Yeah. Yeah. You can buy a list. You can just spam everything and stuff like that. It's a lot easier for us, to just work the VIP with, like, real cash buyers and just, hey.

Call them, have a conversation with them, explain our process. And then when we have a property in that area that they really buy in, they're the first ones to to be there with the earnest money. So Okay. That's kinda how we build that out. So it takes a little bit more time to to do it with that approach, but it's a a little bit more organic and it's a a lot less stressful when the the contracts come in just because we essentially know we have a buyer for it.

Steve: Are you maximized? Yeah. Your, your your your return. Exactly. Yeah.

Okay. So 30 to 40 a month today. What were the challenges, like, the major, you know, milestones Mhmm. From doing, like, your first deal until, like, was there a number? It was like, man, I gotta start hiring.

Donovan: Yeah. Well, I guess, I guess I skipped, like, a big section. I was actually doing rehabs pretty heavily before I really started wholesaling. Mhmm. Before July, to be honest with you, I probably did, like, 12 wholesales in in total.

Mhmm. But I was doing mostly rehabs. So what I would do is I would go raise a bunch of money, and I would just buy rehabs from wholesalers. And that was my business model while I was operating the sales company.

Steve: Right.

Donovan: So I was just kinda like, you know, I was like getting my feet wet a little bit and then all of a sudden I look look over and I'm like running crews out of like five, six houses a month. And then, before I actually, like, made a serious decision, I'm like, man, I needed to just focus on wholesaling. I was I was doing, like, ten ten rehabs a month on average.

Steve: Wow.

Donovan: Yeah. So, I guess in in my market, I I became like a, quote, unquote, like, local celebrity, just because I would buy everything if it made sense. You know? Everybody knew who I was. Yeah.

But the problem with that, it's it was just really difficult to to scale it or to duplicate it, just because there wasn't, like, a a system behind the networking approach to just find the deals from wholesalers.

Steve: Mhmm.

Donovan: So when I went to Carlos and Salas event, I was really motivated to figure out how to actually dive into the marketing aspect, because That was your your

Steve: their your their first all in event?

Donovan: Yeah. Their first all in event. And

Steve: that what helped you flip the switch?

Donovan: Yes. Because, I mean, I was spending, like, $100,120,000 dollars a month just on assignments. And I was like, man, what if I just spent that in in marketing? What would happen? You know?

And that's essentially what happened. It's like, I don't I don't like, yeah. I could spend a $100 on marketing. It doesn't make a difference because it's like I was doing that anyways. Just find having people find me deals.

You know? So, and obviously I mean, I still buy some here and there for rehabs, but we wholesale most for the most part. But I guess one of the biggest challenges, while scaling in real estate in a sense, was just finding that way to develop a team around it, to duplicate that process. Because, like, if if I see myself doing something, I'm I'm not physically doing it just because I have to do it. At this point, I'm I'm only doing it to learn how to develop a system so I can train somebody else how to do that.

Yeah. And the reason why I'm doing that is because if you look at, like, the the biggest companies in the world, billion dollar companies, and you look at how many people, represent that company or work for that company, it's gonna be in the tens, twenties, 30 thousands.

Steve: Right.

Donovan: So you can't look at, like, the CEO of that company. It's like, this guy does everything. You know what I mean? Yeah. So if you look at it in the real estate sense, it's like there's a, like, thousands of mom and pop shops out there Mhmm.

And nobody's really, like, cracked the code. It's like, hey. Let's be a billion dollar wholesaling company.

Steve: Yeah. Is that the goal?

Donovan: Oh, yeah. For sure.

Steve: Yeah. Awesome. So you're gonna go nationwide?

Donovan: Oh, yeah. We have to. Yeah.

Steve: When does that start?

Donovan: Right now. Awesome. Awesome.

Steve: Yeah. Scoping out Phoenix right now.

Donovan: Yeah. So I was like, in traffic. I'm like, there's traffic. There's a lot of people here. It's a traffic jam.

Steve: Yeah. I think we're, I think we're the fifth largest metro now.

Donovan: Wow.

Steve: Okay. So when did you realize it was time to or what were the challenges you had, you know, when you're you you obviously, you went transition from flipping to wholesaling. Mhmm. What were the major obstacles you had when you was like, alright, I'm gonna spend a $100 a month in wholesaling?

Donovan: Yeah. So I guess, some of the main, like I mean, it's one of the biggest ones actually was we're getting a lot of contracts and it was getting difficult to move. Mhmm. I mean, especially, like, I had a couple acquisition guys and no transaction coordinator, no dispositions, no nothing. And it was just, like, me just trying to market all these deals on Facebook.

And I'm like, these guys are like, let me sell them. I'm like, no. Just stay stay focused on acquisitions. So we had a a little bit of a fall off for, like, a a month or two Mhmm. Which was pretty challenging.

And then I was like, well, obviously, I just need to hire some disposition guys. Right. So that's that's what we did. And now it's it's it's falling pretty smoothly.

Steve: So you said July. So that Yeah. To go from basically were you when you were buying, were you even wholesaling at that time?

Donovan: I mean, I I would do, like, maybe six a year wholesales.

Steve: Okay. So you were doing that to where you are today, doing 30 to 40 a month. Mhmm. That's in less than a year.

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: So that's kind of crazy. Right?

Donovan: Well, yeah. I mean, you can you can look at it like that. But, I mean, what you have to understand it's like compared to like my last business, like I was operating and, like overseeing like 80 people at a time. So it's not as challenging to me personally, you know. So it's like I feel like I still have a lot of work to do.

I'm obviously not the best or the biggest in the country. Yeah. But eventually to to get to that point, I still have a lot of work to do.

Steve: Very cool. Let's see. We got a couple of questions in here. So, Roger Pena was I wanna know how many call callers you had. You said you had call geeks and you got, like, 16.

Donovan: Yeah. So 36.

Steve: 36.

Donovan: Yeah. 36.

Steve: 36. Okay. Alright. So so so thirty to forty a month, and that's pretty consistent. How what markets are you in in Texas?

Donovan: All of Texas.

Steve: All of Texas. Yeah. Like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin. Like Like,

Donovan: if you live in Texas and you own a house, you probably have your phone number.

Steve: Yeah. You're gonna they're gonna hear from you.

Donovan: Yeah. You're you're gonna you're gonna, get a RBM, like, once a week from us. Alright. That's I go to, like, meetups. It's like, dude, leave me alone.

I'm like, dude, that's not me. I don't know. Oh, yeah. I get I get You're just blanketing the

Steve: whole state. From our friends Yeah. In town. Mhmm. I get their I get their

Donovan: voice mails. Yeah. Well, I guess, like, once we had the dispositions teams, now we're just, like, banging it out. Mhmm. And we're we're getting buyers, like, literally all over Texas.

So we're we're trying to strategically build it out. So when a deal comes in in, like, an off brand city, we already have buyers for it. So, but it's growing, you know. So

Steve: So are you operating also in areas like rural areas?

Donovan: Oh, yeah. Yeah? Oh, absolutely.

Steve: What are the challenges in doing rural areas?

Donovan: I mean, probably, obviously, the buyers. But, once you have the buyers, I mean, like, rural areas, people will sell their house for pennies. And then if you have somebody that really wants something, they'll pay top dollar. So it's just glamorous.

Steve: So the spreads are better?

Donovan: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So it's a lot more work, obviously, but the average deal size is probably double than if it's an MSA.

Steve: Okay.

Donovan: So that's what we're finding. So everybody always looks at, like, find the the best ZIP codes with the most cash buyers, which is sexy because we're operating in in ZIP codes that people aren't even looking at just because it's that that doing the opposite approach. You know what I mean? Just doing opposite of what everybody else is doing.

Steve: Yeah. The contrarian approach. I love it. So, Omari wants to know, what's your average spread per deal that you shoot for?

Donovan: That we shoot for, it's about 30,000. But our our average deal size right now is about 26.7.

Steve: Okay. Aaron Alvarado wants to know, is there any real estate books that you're you would recommend?

Donovan: It kinda depends on the level of where you're at. I mean, if you're just starting off, read Flip by Nick Reese. Mhmm. He's actually gonna be in Phoenix, so I'm excited to to chop it up with him. Yeah.

I mean, Traction's a good book. I would say I mean, to be honest, Flip's the only real estate book I actually read. Yeah. I I read a lot of, like, personal development books. That, I mean, it's the mindset.

I mean, because once again, it's just like, you can get the million dollar formula on YouTube, but it's just like taking action is the most important part, you know?

Steve: Oh, that's the biggest thing. I get people that reach out to me on Instagram and Yeah. You know, they're thanking for the for the information about it. And I always respond with, that's awesome. I appreciate that.

Mhmm. What action are you taking?

Donovan: Exactly.

Steve: Right? Because all the information is useless

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: Without the action. How many leads do you require to do thirty, forty deals a month?

Donovan: How many leads? Mhmm. So our average, contract, per lead is about one over 37 Mhmm. Which in 32. But as we're hiring more people, it's it's we're trying to get it back down to one in 30.

Mhmm. So I guess you can kinda do the math from there.

Steve: And then but

Donovan: our average fall out is about 20%.

Steve: What's that?

Donovan: Our average fall out is about 20%. So I would say about 1,500 leads

Steve: Okay. Ish per month. So, just for everyone to understand, when you say lead, what is a lead to you?

Donovan: If they wanna sell in thirty days or less. Okay. That's a lead to us.

Steve: Alright. Perfect. Is there any particular marketing technique that you like the best?

Donovan: Obviously cold call.

Steve: Mhmm.

Donovan: Banded signs is my love. That's what I started with. I'm still loyal. Yeah. And a lot of people, they give up on it for whatever reason.

And we just scale it even more every every month. Yeah. So we're putting thousands out every week. And, I mean, those are just home run deals as soon as they said they're trying to sell a house.

Steve: Interesting. Yeah. You're finding there's less competition on those?

Donovan: Yeah. No. I mean, I I mean, I don't really see competition at all. I mean, I even train my guys if you see abandoned sign out there that's like ours, they're trying to buy houses, they're sitting right next to to theirs. Mhmm.

So,

Steve: So you're the competition.

Donovan: Well, no. I mean, it's the the way I see it is, you see two banded signs, we buy houses right next to them and and you wanna sell a house, what are you gonna do?

Steve: Call both.

Donovan: Call both. Right? So one guy's not gonna answer.

Steve: Love that mindset. So, obviously, you're pulling data. Is there any particular data that you like pulling best?

Donovan: Data. The best list is probably gonna be absentee, I'd say. I mean yeah. That's I mean, that's probably an easier list to start with Mhmm. To be honest with you.

But Is

Steve: there a particular company you like pulling data from?

Donovan: We use ListSource. ListSource? Yeah. We skip it through. Need to skip.

Steve: Need to skip? Yeah. That was the next question.

Donovan: Mhmm. Alright.

Steve: So you got 10 acquisition guys, four disposition guys, 30 Cisco callers. Is there anyone else in your organization?

Donovan: Yeah. So I have two transaction coordinators. I have a CEO now. Actually, the guy that got me into real estate, Prince.

Steve: Oh, he's the one

Donovan: that Yeah. Cool. So, we kinda, like, merged with him. We like, him buying buying you out here. You're working with us now, technically.

So it was good for for all parties. And, we have a couple of in house agents that work with us full time Okay. Which is pretty cool. And then, obviously, our boots on the ground and, they work full time. They don't do anything else because they're so busy going around taking pictures.

Steve: So boots on the ground. What is that exactly?

Donovan: They go take pictures and if they have to meet with Right. Okay. Sellers, sign contracts, stuff like that.

Steve: Okay. So that's different than your disposition guys.

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. Disposition guys stay in office. So our boots on the ground, we pay them 50 to $100 each time they go to a property. Mhmm.

So they're able to work literally work full time. And then we have our banded sign team. So we have four guys that that do that full time. So,

Steve: Man. Well, that's the reason why you're asking why people are stop doing this because they don't have four guys doing Yeah. Putting out banded signs. Right.

Donovan: Well, I guess the the the biggest thing too is, like, when I bring somebody on, I want them full time. Yeah. And there's no half assing anything Right. When you have somebody full time. And, when you have somebody full time, especially when they're compensated off effort and tasks, they're just gonna do more, you know, just because they they need to pay their bills and they wanna grow.

They wanna do fun stuff. They wanna invest, etcetera, etcetera. So you can give them that platform and that opportunity to do that Right. In this business, which is pretty beautiful.

Steve: Cool. Are there any KPIs that you like to track?

Donovan: What I like to track I I definitely like tracking leads per contract. I we also like to track, I I know people who track, like, calls per contract. Mhmm. We actually track, conversations, per contract. So if, our acquisition guys are on the phone for more than two minutes, we're able to track that on CallRail Mhmm.

Which is very effective because, hey, like, out of five conversations, you're able to get a contract. Like, this is amazing. You're a salesperson. Imagine if you call 10 people and had 10 conversations

Steve: Right.

Donovan: Type deal, versus, like, hey. You've talked to 20 people and had 20 conversations, and, you know, I have a contract. What's going on? Mhmm. Because the leads are expensive.

The data is expensive. You know? It's we can't just freelance and market cold and never talk to them again. We gotta make sure that we're paying attention to that stuff. Yeah.

And yeah. So we we like tracking that. But we also like to track, like on Colorado, there's a pretty cool feature on who's talking the most, the agent or the the customer. Mhmm. So we're tracking that too.

Our guys are, like, getting on the speed. It's like, hey. Who's talking the most?

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Carlo shared that in our in our in our meetup. Mhmm.

Donovan: Yep. Yeah.

Steve: He's like I think you guys he was targeting, like, seventy, thirty. What do you guys find?

Donovan: Yeah. Seventy, thirty. Yeah. I mean, the less you say, the more you make. Just keep it simple.

Steve: Yeah. Simple enough, right? Easy to remember. Okay. So, who is this?

Jacqueline Brown Kelly wants to know what's the game plan.

Donovan: Take over the fucking world.

Steve: Love it. So Omar wants to know if you make offers of the phone. You do everything over the phone. Yeah.

Donovan: Tell those guys to get back to work.

Steve: Yeah. Get back to work, guys.

Donovan: Yeah. They're at the office probably watching this live. And

Steve: so let's see what else was there. Do you have any NDAs in place for you guys on that are boots on the ground?

Donovan: Yes. So pretty much everybody that works with us, they they on the onboarding process, it's pretty pretty red lines that, hey, you're you're operating in this company. We're gonna give you everything, and you can't operate anywhere else, within, like, a two year period past termination or if you leave.

Steve: Yeah.

Donovan: And I believe that's pretty important just because, I mean, everything that we're doing as far as on the marketing standpoint is really expensive. Mhmm. And when we first kind of dabbled into it, we had to have situations where, like, people would come in and try to learn stuff and then just take data and bounce. And it's like, oh, we're probably not gonna do that again. So Yeah.

My guy's facing a lawsuit and it's not pretty for him. But yeah.

Steve: Dominique wants to know Dominique Allen, how do you train your cold callers to be effective in qualifying leads?

Donovan: So cold calling is pretty actual is actually the simplest thing in the world just because you can go on Google and get a cold calling script. Mhmm. And then you can hire somebody to actually train them, full time. So they're actually hiring people all day on upwork.com or, or people that they know in their area in Mexico or in Philippines. And people in in cold calling, it's it's actually a simple entry level task.

So I don't really run that department. To be honest with you, I just trained somebody how to train somebody and then that was it. Right.

Steve: Oh, it

Donovan: makes sense. Yeah. It's like a, hey, you're gonna be on the phone with them for, like, five minutes. Say these words and send the lead over. That's pretty much it.

Steve: So Pedro wants to know, are you emailing blasts your to your buyers?

Donovan: We did. And the I mean, it's a funny story. So, Carlos and Sal bought I bought a list from them, which is beautiful. And they didn't tell me that I couldn't just send it to everybody at once. So it's like, yeah, let's just send a $2,000 email real fast to, like, a couple 100,000 people.

And, our our email servers are like, fuck. No. Yeah. So I don't know what I have to do to I don't know if I have to because when I send an email from my house, it's different than sending it at the office. But I think we, like, broke our server at the office where we are not allowed to send emails.

Even to, like, title companies, like, if we send an email to a title company, like, automatically goes to spam. So being new, to to the approach of sending it out in mass is is something that we are experiencing a challenge in. But we're gonna figure it out. But Yeah.

Steve: There's Yeah. Tech guys that specialize in that. That. So

Donovan: you'll you'll So if you are a developer or a tech guy and you're looking for an opportunity, we're actually hiring full time. So Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Because I've I've made that mistake too. Yeah. Do you encourage your people to move up? Like, grow, get promoted?

Donovan: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, I like, that's that's the, like, the game plan. Like, when you're running a massive operation, you can't do it by yourself. Mhmm.

And you're gonna cap out mentally. You won't have so much time in the day. Since you have so much time in the day, you're not gonna be capable of training a 100 people or even having a 100 conversations in a day by yourself. It's just not it's not possible. Yeah.

So when you're scaling, you gotta learn how to duplicate that process and develop a system, and a pay plan to be able to do that, for your guys to to get promoted to, to handle more responsibility and handle more training. Yeah. So for example, when a junior act starts, they're gonna be training with, elite acquisitions, and they're gonna be responsible in training them. Mhmm. And then their goal is to get them to acquisitions so they don't have to be someone on one with them anymore, and they can get back on the phone

Steve: Yeah.

Donovan: Which is awesome. And then once your acquisitions, you wanna be lead acquisitions, so you can now start developing a sales team, within the organization, and develop more free time, leverage more time, and make more money, make a percentage on your entire organization, which is awesome. Yeah. So our guys got got a pretty cool opportunity, I would say.

Steve: Awesome. Is there any mastermind group that has impacted you the most?

Donovan: Mastermind groups that packed me most all in was was probably really good one of the best. I I do love going to masterminds, especially high paid masterminds just because it kinda cuts out, like, the entry level. I mean, I'm I'm not really entry level and it I don't really have, like, the time to to mentor people, which is because I'm focused on my business. So I do appreciate going to masterminds, but I try to go to as many as possible. So Okay.

If I see, like, a strategic group getting together, if it's free or whatever it costs, I'll probably go. Yeah.

Steve: Alright. What is your monthly marketing expense? I know you're saying you were at a 120

Donovan: Yeah. When you started,

Steve: when you when you made the move. Move.

Donovan: Yeah. So we're we're probably still around there. We we like to buy data in in bulk. Mhmm. So, like, when we buy data, we buy all of it.

So it's it's really expensive

Steve: Mhmm.

Donovan: Just because we're preparing for what's gonna happen in, like, the next quarter. Mhmm. So we we bought a couple markets already. So it was a couple $100. Yeah.

Awesome. So it's and, yeah, it's like, hey. You could spend a couple $100 and it's profitable. It's cool. But, we're when we buy stuff and data and things of those sorts, it's for, like, months down the Road.

Yeah. So that's kinda how we're we're we're rolling right now.

Steve: What about monthly overhead?

Donovan: Monthly overhead, our office is, like, $7 a month. Payroll is probably, like, $56 a month. So it's, I mean, anywhere from, like, 60 to to 80, give or take.

Steve: Okay. Yeah. So couple million a year.

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Are are there any resources that you love?

Donovan: Resources at, as in what? Like, gyms, food, gas, gasoline?

Steve: Any particular tools, CRM, anything that you, you know, use like, you couldn't live without.

Donovan: Yeah. CallRail, blessed my life because we can keep people accountable, fire people account with accountability, which is awesome. It's a beautiful tool. Obviously, Podio is our baby. I actually spent a lot of time on Podio just trying to figure out how to.

I, like, taught myself how to code Mhmm. Just because I was inspired by myself. I was like, hey. Yeah. Podio Ninja.

You know? And you're able to make adjustments like that versus just using, like, investor views.

Steve: Mhmm.

Donovan: I don't really recommend it just because I'm a sales guy and a business owner. So it's like, I don't wanna be coding all day. But, hey, if one of my guys needs something changed on CRM, we're able to change it like that. So Yeah. It's a it's a cool thing to have.

But once again, it's I'm learning it so I can train somebody else how to do it. Yeah. You know what I mean? So Podio is good. We use, obviously, MLS too.

And then in Texas, we use Propello. Shout out to my guys, Daniel. Yeah. You you did an interview with them too. Right?

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. We just did we just did an interview, and they did a pop up as well. Yeah.

Donovan: Daniel and Ryan are my my boys.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Are there any apps? Torrance, Torrance Williams wants to know if there's any apps that you that you use.

Donovan: Yeah. There's a Podio app. There's a CallRail app. No. I'm just kidding.

For bandit signs, SimpleCrew is pretty cool. So we're able to track, where the sign's placed with the picture with the time. And, you can't, like, fluff it. So you give guys some signs. They don't just put it in a dumpster somewhere.

Mhmm. So I appreciate that app as well. But, the chase.com app is pretty cool. No. I'm just kidding.

But, yeah, it's like It is. I'm not really the, like, the tech guy where I have a whole bunch of stuff. I'm the sales guy. I know how to train sales reps and develop sales teams.

Steve: Cool. So What would you do if the market shifts, if it takes a dip?

Donovan: Well, we're actually, looking to partner with some liquor stores in in Dallas. So we're probably gonna start some liquor chains, which is a market proof product. Mhmm. But when it does dip, we're pretty excited because, we're we're preparing for doing a lot more wraps, obtuse, and then getting back into the buying holds.

Steve: Yeah.

Donovan: It's just too aggressive right now. I would I would say to just focus more on buying holds versus fix and flips or wholesales Mhmm. Just because things are still moving top dollar pretty quickly. So

Steve: Oh, yeah. They are.

Donovan: So hopefully, it does take a a shit here pretty soon just because, you know, gurus have disappeared and stopped teaching everybody everything, and people don't know what to do.

Steve: And they call our company. Well, I think they're always a guru. So these who knows what if they know what they're talking about. What

Donovan: is your why? My why? So, yeah. I think, that's probably one of the most important things to me. It's probably my family.

When I first started in sales and I started really taking it serious, my sister, was sick at the time and she was having none of the blood pressure seizures. So she couldn't work, like, full timer. But I I wanted to take on more responsibility and help my sister out, my my family in that standpoint. And when I kinda took on that that role of being able to to spend more time with her, I I knew that was important. I had to take my my job and my career more seriously.

And then I learned it's like, man, once I took the foot off the gas just for myself, I, like, doubled and tripled just like that just because I put somebody else before myself. Mhmm. And then my mom, like, she's probably one of my biggest inspirations. She worked I mean, she raised four four children all by herself as a single parent, worked multiple jobs at the same time. And, her her last job, she'd worked in a refinery and she used to send us pictures.

This is when I was in sales as well of, like, her hands bleeding. Oh. Just because she'd work, like, hard manual labor, like, sixteen hours a day. Mhmm. So that that that took, like, a a pretty big toll on, like, I need to make things happen because I'm not gonna have my mom continue to work at this job anymore.

Yeah. Which she doesn't. She hasn't worked in, like, two years. I mean, I help her significantly and not necessarily retire her, but it's like I want her to focus on what she loves in life. Right.

So and I mean, obviously, it's just my family is probably the most important thing to me. But as you bring people on into the business, it's you you start to gain more family members, knew somebody before you even had a girlfriend, much less a wife, much less now a child, with somebody and you really develop that family bond with your people. And it it it becomes less about whatever the hell you have going on. It's it's more about like that that kid that was born, you know? Right.

You start to work a lot differently and a lot more strategically when you make it about your family and about your people. And you'll do whatever it takes to to make sure that they win and that they have an opportunity to win. You know? So

Steve: That's incredible. Yeah. What is your biggest struggle right now?

Donovan: My biggest struggle right now is probably man. I guess, like, I guess it was yesterday was Wednesday. I was flying out here. And I was packing my suitcase, and I was leaving. I'm like, man, I'm mentally exhausted.

Like, when you're running a big operation, it just comes with toll and knowledge just on your body and you're getting like a baller belly and stuff like that. But just mentally, it's it's it gets draining sometimes, you know? And it's very stressful and you gain some gray hairs and stuff like that. Your partner's like, what the heck? You're 24.

You have gray hairs. And I'm like, well, it's about my people, dawg. Like, I'm out here in the in the trenches with them, you know. I wanna help them win. But just gaining that clarity of of of learning how to balance my time so I'm not as stressed.

Mhmm. And, like, understanding that, hey, it's it's okay to, like, breathe. Like, I got an Apple watch. It's like, it just told me to breathe for, like, a minute, and that was amazing. You know?

So I guess just finding time to actually breathe for myself, is probably a big challenge right now just because it's about everybody else. You

Steve: know? So I just came back from a strategic coach.

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: Have you have you have you heard of that? Mm-mm. So it was this big thing run by Dan Sullivan. It's just about entrepreneurs. Okay.

I would definitely check that out because I think that one's the best for finding work life balance.

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: Really helps you kinda get clarity on on how to do that. Yeah. Not that anyone needs necessarily equal balance

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: But just how to be a little less stressed

Donovan: Yeah.

Steve: With that.

Donovan: Yeah. For sure.

Steve: I'll definitely recommend checking that out. What is your superpower?

Donovan: My superpower is sales. Yeah? Like, I I believe I'm a closer.

Steve: Okay. Did you natural your whole life?

Donovan: Well, yeah. Come to think of it, it's like my mom always tell me stories when I was a kid that I don't remember, and I was like a salesman back then. Yeah. And when I was, like, just learning that you had to make money, you know, when I was 13, 14, I was always the type to just, like I was literally, like, flipping electronics out of my mom's basement and running a whole operation on Craigslist when I was, like, 15. Yeah.

And people would come in and out of the house and she's like, what are you doing? And, it it was crazy. I understand where she's coming from now. Right. And then when I started driving, I started flipping cars in high school, just cars in and out.

So I I gained a lot of of, like, understanding people and what people want and the value add that you're able to give to the marketplace with your product at an early age, which I'm extremely blessed for.

Steve: Yeah.

Donovan: And then, obviously, taking, the the leap of faith to go all commission sales and just making that your decision, at 18 years old made a huge impact on my life just because it's just like I eat and breathe sales. And it's like if everybody's a salesperson and

Steve: Right.

Donovan: If you're not making all commission or own a business, you're a pussy. You know? So, now I'm looking at it. It's like, man, people are paying salary to their sales guys. Like, are they scared they're gonna disappear if they don't?

Right. So, but, yeah. It's like, I I guess, having some some basic sales skills helps dramatically. And even when people ask me about real estate, it's like, hey, how do I get started in real estate? I'm like, I recommend just go get a sales job for a year, you know?

Yeah. Just banging out all commission. Just work it a year, and you'll learn more about anything in in life just by being able to to do that and survive through the trenches and sales like that. I can't

Steve: believe you were flipping cars in high school.

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. So That's crazy. I was just buying them on Craigslist and taking them to to Garland, Texas and tinted the windows, putting rims on it, putting it back on Craigslist, like, three days later, and I I made money. So

Steve: And what kind of what kind of money were you making? Flip doors.

Donovan: Not a lot. You know, like, $500 here, $22 here.

Steve: It's pretty good for high school.

Donovan: Yeah. I mean, it it was cool. You know?

Steve: What were you when you were door knocking, what were you selling door knocking?

Donovan: So we were selling AT and T cable

Steve: Okay.

Donovan: U verse. And then, we essentially pioneered a b to b campaign for AT and T, just doing it business to business. So

Steve: Cool. Yeah. What's the greatest lesson you have learned?

Donovan: I guess the biggest lesson that I've learned in business is you never wanna get content. And what I mean by that is, people set their goals right, and it's great to hit goals. But what's after that? You know? Mhmm.

Are your goals big enough where where it challenges you? So setting too small of goals is actually a discomfort for people that are around you. And what I mean by that is, like, for example, when you have a team of of two people and you set a goal of, like, hey, I'm gonna make a 100,000 for the company this month. And I'm, like, well, what opportunities did you give everybody else that was working here? Like, what good does that do anybody else but yourself, you know?

Mhmm. So set big big goals early early on, because it it you'll really challenge yourself to to strive towards that. But on top of that, it's like you don't want to get content with a certain dollar amount or a certain type of success or achievement, because after you cross that finish line, you're just gonna take a break or you're just gonna slow down. So always be on pace and don't look at the money per se. Look at how many people you're able to impact in your organization versus how many dollars you can make.

Yeah. And I promise you'll be able to go a lot farther by doing that just because money is easy to make. Mhmm. Especially once you crack, like, the code. You know what I mean?

Steve: Right.

Donovan: But what's after that? You know, you can have all the money in the world, but what good does that do anybody? Yeah. You know, it's just paper.

Steve: I like that. What is your favorite best or most interesting failure?

Donovan: The best failure? Mhmm. Man. I guess the best failure. Well, I I always tell this story and people hate when I tell this story, but I actually lost money on a rehab.

Mhmm. Oh my god. Like, why'd you say that? I actually me and my, prince actually, we lost a lot of money. It was like 40 or $50 between both of us.

And we are looking at that situation. It's like, man, we're so appreciated that it happened because now we know how to pull comps. Now we know how to buy it right. Now we know what it feels like to lose. Mhmm.

And you don't wanna lose again. Yeah. Losing sucks. I fucking hate losing. Do you like losing?

Steve: I don't take it very well.

Donovan: No. You don't start a podcast to be, like, number last on Apple or No. On Facebook.

Steve: I'm always looking, like, where's where do I rank? How do I get

Donovan: better? Rank. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

So losing is actually, very significant for you in business because you're gonna learn how it feels. Yeah. And you'll never want to feel like that again. Right. You know what I mean?

So losing an employee sucks. It's like, damn, I don't want to lose anybody else again. How do I do it better the next time? Mhmm. You know?

Which is awesome. So you can take tons of losses, but if you're losing all the time, what are you, a loser? Or you're just lazy? You don't wanna put up the work to go in, you know?

Steve: Yeah.

Donovan: So you mix a whole bunch of different things and and the mental brain to to get you to go. But I think the biggest one for me is is not the fear of losing, but the feeling of losing, you know?

Steve: Right.

Donovan: I don't wanna feel like that ever.

Steve: Well, I mean, you're definitely going in the right direction. And I think, for sure, learning from the failures. That's the that's the constant theme

Donovan: Yeah.

Steve: From everyone that's been on this show.

Donovan: Absolutely.

Steve: Is there anything that you wanna leave the listeners with?

Donovan: Yeah. I guess, you know, if you're you're watching this and you're you're paying attention to me and you're looking at Steve, I don't know, where you guys are in business because I don't know how many people are watching. But if you can take anything from me, I come from nothing, you know. I'm a small country town boy from Ohio, made my way to Texas, found my way in the real estate game, doing a lot of volume, helping a lot of people, help a bunch of employees. But you can look at at me and look at all the obstacles that I could face if I were actually focused on them.

Steve: Mhmm.

Donovan: And you throughout this entire interview, and I'm sure people were asking, it's like, what's your biggest failure? What's your biggest failure? What could you do better? Mhmm. Whatever.

It's like, I don't know. I don't focus on that stuff. Right. I focus on what I'm good at. I focus on what's working.

And if I lose over there, I don't even realize it happened just because it's part of the overhead. Right? Mhmm. It's part of the cost of doing business. Right.

So understand that if I'm capable of doing this, so are you. I mean, I'm 24 years old. I'm, like, ethnic. Right? And I'm just a regular person.

But at the same time, you wanna have a focus to help people in some sort of way and make people come first regardless if that's your customer, if it's your employee, if that's somebody that you're talking to. You're the least thing that's most important in this world. It's about the other people. So if you wanna change the world, and if you really wanna do something significant in business, you have to make the main focus your people. Yep.

And it's not about the money. It's like there's no dollar signs in here. There's no payment in between me and Steve. I I don't get paid to do this. He doesn't get paid to do this.

We're doing this to help you guys. We're doing this to inspire you and tell you that it's possible. You can continue to watch another interview after interview and looking for that magic nugget, or you could just focus on actually going and getting off your ass and actually doing it. Mhmm. And nobody's gonna tell you to to go do it by yourself, especially in this

Steve: So Sales is not

Donovan: You have to be self motivated. Yeah. So get off your ass, get off Facebook, and get back to work. Yeah. Like, that's the only way you're gonna strive to do better.

Right. I love it.

Steve: And that's the reason why we have this show. Right? Yeah. Because, I mean, we're all doing big things.

Donovan: Mhmm.

Steve: But I want everyone to know we're awesome people.

Donovan: Yeah. For sure.

Steve: Right? We screw up. Yeah. You know? We're we're flawed individuals.

Yeah. But we're still doing big things.

Donovan: Absolutely.

Steve: So we can do it. Yeah. Anybody can do it.

Donovan: Anybody can do this.

Steve: Yeah. I love that message. Yeah. Alright, guys. So that's up that's it for the show.

I just wanna share again with you guys. If you guys need help getting ARV or closing your deals in Phoenix, please reach out to me. And if you want a copy of our script or our assignment contract, you have to go to realestatedisruptorsdisruptors.com opt in, and then we'll email you what we're using. And then we do have Tiffany Burns here next week, so definitely tune in for that. And if you guys haven't signed up for WeLive, definitely do that.

I'll be out in Dallas next month, and maybe we'll pop by your office, check out what the operation's looking like.

Donovan: Dude, yeah. Come come through, man. Yeah. Yeah. Just if you're in Dallas, let me know.

Steve: Oh, I'm definitely gonna do that. So that's it. If they want if the people wanna reach out to you, how would they do that?

Donovan: Yeah. So, Instagram probably works best. Best. I think I might be capped out. I don't I don't know.

But, I

Steve: think Instagram, you don't get capped out.

Donovan: No. Facebook. Yeah. Facebook. Well, Facebook, there's a limit to it.

I don't like limits. Do you like limits? I don't like limits. Yeah. So I'm not a fan of Facebook, but you can add me on Facebook.

Obviously, I'm tagged on this on this interview. Or you can add me on, Facebook I'm sorry. Instagram, the donovan roughin. I'm private, and, I like to brief people before I accept them. I don't like bots.

I don't like fake followers. So if you're gonna follow me, make sure that you're paying attention.

Steve: Awesome. Awesome. Yes, sir. Alright.

Donovan: Thank you

Steve: guys for watching, and thank you. That was Yeah. That was incredible.