From Broke To $2MM Revenue From Cold Calling

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

Strand Brown: Yeah. Well, that Wren stuff is powerful because there's not there's nothing like that in the marketplace, in my opinion.

Steve: Yeah. It's incredible. I'm very, very fortunate to have him. Right? To to be able to work with him on this.

So absolutely. I mean, I could say, you know, even just running my, you know, brokerage over a 120 people at one point, there's nothing that makes makes me wanna pull my hair out more or age faster than managing salespeople. So there is a way to do this without aging, without looking like this. So, anyway, again, back to you. What was your life like before real estate?

Strand: What was my life like? How how deep we going, bro? Like, we can go off track.

Steve: Before you saw that there's another world, another way.

Strand: Before I saw there's another way. I'll start off very beginning. I grew up in a small town in Utah, Bluffdale, Utah, like, country town. We have, like, a stoplight. And at the beginning, I thought I was gonna be a pro skateboarder.

That's what I wanted to do. Pro skateboarder? Pro skateboarder.

Steve: Interesting. Okay.

Strand: Until my dad sat me down. He's like, bro, either you're gonna be, like, watching the football games or you're going to be playing in the football games. And you're pretty good at football, so we should probably be playing in the football games.

Steve: Is your dad athletically inclined?

Strand: No. I'm adopted.

Steve: I was

Strand: I was adopted at birth, born on heroin, two amazing parents, Mike and Kim Brown.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Yeah. So

Steve: you were your your dad saw the talent, and so you're playing football.

Strand: Yeah. Well, I mean, I was still and this is, like, middle school time. Right? It's being a dinner at middle school, or I'm afraid to send my son in middle school, honestly. Yeah.

And so I just, like, wanna go skateboard. My mom would, like, take me and my friends to, like, some churches, and, like, we go, like, find the biggest staircase we could and, like, try and ollie down it and do some tricks. Yeah. And then, like, seventh, eighth, like, seventh, eighth grade summer came along, and my dad was like, yeah, bro. We gotta kinda like, stuff's coming along.

Like like, because I had, like, high school coaches coming to my house in, like, seventh grade. Like, hey. Yeah. So, like, you're coming over here. So my dad my dad saw the writing on the wall.

Steve: I didn't. They're recruiting you to play at their high school. Yeah. So that's pretty awesome. But you weren't were you even playing a football in middle school?

Strand: Yeah. I played football from, like, nine years old, and then eighth grade is when I really started to play, like, a lot of sports. So I was on, like, three different basketball teams. I was on my rugby team. I didn't run track yet, but I played football.

Yeah. And so that's when it like, sports really started to kick in.

Steve: And we're gonna evaluate your basketball skills on Friday. Yeah. Because you'll be joining me and Xavier to play some ball. So alright. So your dad said that, you know, you're gonna have, either you're gonna watch it or you're gonna play it.

So, basically, he was kinda determining your career path?

Strand: No. Because he told me to be a dentist because he's an electrician. And then he was like, bro, dentists work four days a week, and they don't have to go out in the cold. You wanna be a dentist? That's what he told me my entire life.

He's like, you're gonna be a dentist, and he owns his own electrical company.

Steve: Yeah. No, bro.

Strand: You're gonna be a dentist. You're gonna love it. Okay.

Steve: So you're gonna go to college, go through high school, go to college for dentistry, and hopefully with a football scholarship? Is this, like, is this the the plan?

Strand: The plan I didn't really start thinking about scholarships until junior year. Like, so sophomore year, I was, like, an all American in rugby. Mhmm. I lettered in all my sports and track, football, and, rugby. Traveled the country junior year.

I was in year I traveled to Europe with, USA rugby on the junior national team.

Steve: Oh, really? Wow. Okay.

Strand: That was that was pretty fun. All state and football. I had scholarships in three different sports coming out of high school. I had one in track, one in football, and one in rugby. And then from there, I had, like, one of my football scholarships was a partial.

Mhmm.

Steve: And it

Strand: was, like, to Weber State, and then I had a full ride to a junior college into where this is, like, my first instance of, like, betting on myself

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: To where, like, they're like, yeah. Like, we'll give you a partial scholarship. And then they had offered a full ride to a dude who's down at snow, and I went down to snow, and I beat out that kid. And then I didn't go to Weber State.

Steve: Okay. So you go to you play football. Did you study for dentistry? I mean, I don't even know what you studied for dentistry in college.

Strand: But No, bro. When I was at my junior college, I studied art. I took an art class, a first aid class, and these are, like, four credit classes. These were big classes. Because, like, I was like, I'm transferring out, bro.

I'm not flunking out. So I took, like, an art class, first aid class, a very rudimentary math class, and, like, probably something else. And then Utah came to, like, visit me and, like, yeah, bro. Like, here's a scholarship. Like, we're ready to go.

And then, like, but we've seen your classes, and you need to stay another semester so you can actually, like, get into our school.

Steve: Yeah. The Utes? Yeah. Was it the Utah Utes? Yeah.

Strand: It was Utah Utes, and then Fresno State came along. And at that point in time, they ranked, like, seventeenth in the country, like, when Derek Carr and Davante Adams were just they were gonna leave as I was getting recruited, and I was like, yeah. I'll go there.

Steve: Gotcha. Okay. That's why you're in Fresno? Yeah. Okay.

So you go play for them, graduate. No. No. Okay. So then what did you do after Fresno State?

Strand: So Fresno State senior year, I didn't play at all, and I try and, like, get this point across. Sports has showed me that I can work really hard at something. Mhmm. And if I just continue working, I'll get the result I want. You just kinda have to stay, like, faithful at it.

Right?

Steve: Because And consistent.

Strand: And consistent. Because my first my sophomore year at Fresno State, I didn't really play. Junior year, I hurt my knee. And so, like, I was, like, in and out of it. And then senior year, I finally played.

But then my sophomore year, every year, I had a dude in front of me who went to the league. And then one of them still in the league. He's been there for, like, nine years. Yeah. Right?

And so, like, I kept working at it. And finally, my senior year, I'm all conference. I'm seventeenth in the country in tackles. Like, I I was doing pretty good.

Steve: What position? Safety. Safety. Alright.

Strand: Like, strong safety. Mhmm. Like, strong safety. Mhmm. Safety.

Just kinda, like, moved wherever.

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: Run around recklessly trying to tackle people.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: And then I was partying a lot. And that's what kinda, like, leads me into, like, my real estate journey. Right? Because, like, I'm like, bro, you gotta protect yourself from yourself. And we know we wanna go hard because we're going to NFL, and only, like, a thousand people ever get to live this life.

So we're gonna live this life, or we're gonna do it the smart way. Mhmm. Because we don't wanna end up on TV unbroke. Like, we don't wanna do any of that. And so I started reading, like, Bigger Pocket stuff, Grant Cardone, Dave Ramsey, because I thought it was just gonna be filthy rich.

Steve: Mhmm. Of course.

Strand: Right? Of course. Like, well, I'm gonna make it. Blah blah blah. I did not make any money then, Phil.

Yeah.

Steve: So how far did you go with it? Like Well, just tryouts. Tryouts.

Strand: So I tried out for the Seahawks, and then I tried out for a Canadian team. And then I had I could have, like, tried to do more or I could have, like, gone over to, like, Europe and played. Yeah. But, like, I was like, do I wanna do this, or I don't wanna start a career? Yeah.

He's like, bro, it it is hard to make it in the NFL, and my coach in college, my d coordinator put out nine first round draft picks at DB. Yeah. So, like, he knew what he was doing, and, like, he was I was really close to them. And he was the only person's, like, feedback I'd really take. I was kinda hard headed.

I was like, alright, man. What are my odds? What do you see? I was like, Stratton, you will stuff into existence. He's like, but you're gonna be a special teams guy and a practice squad guy.

Yeah. And but, like, he put out D'Angelo Hall to Davian Clowney. Like, like, he's like He knows what he's doing. Yeah. He knows what he's doing.

Steve: I mean, the reality is Seahawks aren't a real NFL team. So, like, you really probably skated by. So alright. So you decided this is not the road for me. Mhmm.

So then what'd you do after that?

Strand: I started a home inspection business. Home inspection business? Home inspection. Because I wanted to be in real estate. And I was like Did you

Steve: go back to Utah or do you Mhmm. Fresno State or Fresno?

Strand: This is in Fresno.

Steve: Okay. So how'd that go?

Strand: It was awful. At this point in time, my girlfriend's pregnant. I found out she was pregnant when we when I was trying out for the Seahawks. Mhmm. And so I start my home inspection business.

I get certified, and it was awful. You don't

Steve: have to be an apprentice for home inspection?

Strand: I don't know, bro. I I found it on Craigslist. Okay. I found it on Craigslist. They gave me a certification.

I spent, like, two months, like, going through it online. Maybe I had to be an apprentice, but I was like, bro, I can make 6 figures a year. I gotta do, like, however many inspections a day. I worked it all backwards. Yeah.

And I was like, bro, I'm a get it. And I wanted to still be in real estate because, like, the whole goal is still to, like, buy rentals and do stuff like that.

Steve: So how'd that go? So, like, when we what what didn't that work so well? A crawl space.

Strand: I did one home inspection, and I went in on crawl space. Like, I'm never doing this shit.

Steve: Okay. So going in the crawl space, I'm guessing in the summer. Yeah. He's like, okay. This is not for me because

Strand: Oh, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. I could get bit by a snake. I don't really fit. Like, I'm not, like, a huge guy, but I'm, like, six two.

Yeah.

Steve: You're a little bit bigger. Yeah. Okay. So then what what would you do after

Strand: that? After that so during that time, I keep going all these meetups. I go to these meetups. I'm talking to people, and I met, shout out Alan Foleo, the show up investor. I meet Alan.

And at that point in time, Alan was like, yeah. So I wanna buy a jet. Three years ago, I was making $30 a year. Now I make $200,000 a month. I own 30 rentals, and I have a bunch more rentals in Indiana that's in the portfolio.

And then he start pulls out his phone. He starts showing me checks. He's like, people on Instagram, they'll show you this shit. Mhmm. And he was like, look at all these.

And I didn't really think much about it. And then I remember, like, one day I was I don't even know what I was doing. I was like, drinking with my friends, and I was like, bro, this home inspection shit's, like, not not gonna, like, happen.

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: So I texted him. I was like, bro, what do you do again? And then he told me, like, go download PropertyRadar and go door knock all of these doors. Anyone that's in pre foreclosure, go knock them all.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: And so I did that for a summer so much that my pregnant girlfriend thought I was cheating on her. Yeah. And I'm just like, wake up. Get up. Start knocking doors.

And eventually, I got someone to sell. Right. And so that was, like, my first real foray into real estate. And then even when my son was born, I had an infant son, and I get out of the car, grab the, whatever, the baby carrier, and I walk up.

Steve: You're doing this with your son? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow.

Strand: That's my little partner in crime. Like, that, the story gets a lot, crazier. But, like, at that point in time when I came to, like, Europe, I remember, like, I I was with my son every day. Like, he was just, like, my partner in crime and have

Steve: him with me everywhere. Wow. Okay. So what would have happened if you never closed your first deal?

Strand: What would have happened, like, if I just never got into real estate?

Steve: I mean, you're door knocking. Right? You're going out there. You're hustling. What what if what if it never happened?

Strand: I would have figured it out.

Steve: So you said you got one deal. What's that first deal like?

Strand: I only made $1,500. Awful story. The dude so the husband had quit his full time trucking job because his wife had dementia so bad that she was bedridden. And so he couldn't work anymore, and he was taking care of her all day. I got the I got the paperwork signed on, like, a one page contract with a Sharpie.

And I was man, it it was like I cried. Like, it was awful. We're just trying to help them out. And so those are the only people we've ever give money to before escrow.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: And, like, before we close or anything else. So Yeah. We gave them money. Alan gave them money, not me. I had no money at the time.

And, helped them move into a new place. And that was, like, my first deal.

Steve: Okay. So you door knocked the property right radar, sold it to Alan.

Strand: No. Alan just sold it for me. Like, The deal was at the beginning. It was like, bro, find me a deal. I'll pay $1,500.

Steve: Got it. So you're basically bird dogging.

Strand: Just bird dogging for him. And that was still even though it wasn't a ton of money, the best decision I ever made was working with Alan Folio. Mhmm. And, like, for Allan Follio, because I got an MBA in real estate over that time. Like Yeah.

I was with him. Me and Zeno would be with him or just me and him, like, for the next year and a half. Yeah.

Steve: Like,

Strand: it'd be me and Zeno and Allan.

Steve: Well, I appreciate you sharing that because I think that's one of the big things that, you know, they're always there's so many people, like, you know, want to do this on their own, whether it's, you know, just do it a 100% solo with YouTube University, which nothing wrong with that. Right? It's where we're at right now.

Strand: Yeah.

Steve: Or, you know, maybe, you know, hire a mentor this or that. I think it's awesome to find someone that's doing what you're doing and just work with them because the information you can get working for somebody Broads. Unparalleled. Unproads. Right.

Because you're actually in that world. Right? And if there's a question, you call them because you both have a vested interest in having that conversation

Strand: right there and

Steve: there to solve that particular problem. So that's cool. Alright. So then after your your first deal, how do you keep the momentum going?

Strand: Then after that first deal, I would door knock and I'd cold call on Mojo on the go while I was driving. Nice. Okay. In between the in between the doors. And then from there, like, I'd just stay cold calling.

I remember me and my son would go walk around the park for hours at a time and have Mojo on the go on my phone, and I'd just be walking because I was like, I don't want I was like, I don't wanna be in the office, man. He was like, yeah. Well, I'm not going to the office. Until we started, like until he started not we he started hiring on more people. And then, okay, I gotta be at the office because now I like, we gotta, like, set the tone for the company and everything else.

Steve: Yeah. That's awesome. Okay. So then at which point then did you or what what what year was it that you started working with Alan?

Strand: Shit, bro. 2018? 2018. So it's not even that

Steve: long ago. When did you part ways with Alan? 2019. Okay. And then

Strand: No. Not 2019. 2019.

Steve: Doesn't say it was before because we met in May. Yeah.

Strand: We met in May. So 2019. Yeah. So 2019.

Steve: Okay. So then what struggles did you have? Right? You started in 2019. What struggles did you have?

Strand: Number one, I left a sales job with no real savings and decided I'm gonna go spend more money on marketing, and I'm gonna make all this fucking money.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: And, obviously, that did not go well.

Steve: Not an unusual story. Right? It's pretty common, but it's one of those things. Right? Like, if you're not gonna go out and take a look if you're not gonna bet on yourself, how are you gonna make it?

Strand: Yeah. You gotta

Steve: bet on yourself, but they're pretty high bets pretty high stakes bets.

Strand: Yeah. And I think the number one thing like, over the last couple years, the only thing that you can really tell yourself is I'm built for this shit.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Like because, like, you're gonna go through so much ups and downs and question those awful decisions that you made.

Steve: So many awful decisions that we make along the way.

Strand: Oh, bro. So many. So then what are some of

Steve: your biggest victories along the way?

Strand: I'd say the biggest one was getting through it, dude. Like, at a point in time means, you know, we're homeless. We could only afford to eat bananas and rice. It was just crazy, bro. So we got through it, and then I got to, like I'd had my son to me the whole time.

So, like, that was a really, really big victory. But I think a lot of people wouldn't have stuck to it. Like, we talk to new people all the time, me and you both, and a lot of people won't even stick to it. Yeah. Like, they just won't make a 100 calls a day for three hundred and sixty five days.

Because I promise you if you do that, you'll win. You will.

Steve: It kinda reminds me in a way of, like, pursuit of happiness. Right? Will Smith and his boy. Right? And he's trying to sell the bone scanning.

Strand: Yeah. From technology. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. But, I mean, there but he was homeless. Yeah. You know, he had to get to the shelter by a certain time or he wasn't gonna be in the shelter. Exactly.

Did you have situations like that?

Strand: We weren't situations like that. Shout out my beautiful, amazing significant other, Kalani. Luckily, she came in clutch at a time. We when I first broke off, I started just donating plasma to get marketing money. And then my first, like, month or so on my own, I sold everything I had just to pay my rent.

Steve: Mhmm. But, I mean, you talk about donating plasma. Right? Like, you you you stretched as far as you can go.

Strand: Oh, yeah.

Steve: Right? Like, I remember, I spoke at, WeLive nineteen.

Strand: Right? Okay.

Steve: Remember, like, it was Max Maxwell's event. I'm watching him promote it, and it was an interesting, you know, experiment to see him experiment to see him promote it. But you you could see him, like, not screaming at the camera, but he was pretty intense. It was basically, like, if you tell me that you wanna make it in real estate, but you're not willing to sell your possessions to get here, you don't want this. Right?

Like, go sell your PlayStation. Go sell your TV. Go sell that other, you know, stuff you don't use anymore. If you're not willing to do that, you don't really want this. Yeah.

You went and sold plasma.

Strand: Wrote plasma, all my Fresno State's like, all my Fresno State gear. Like, I remember I had my helmet, and I had to, like, put that shit on offer up. And I was like, alright, bro. Someone's gonna buy it from Right. Like, and I sold it on eBay for, like, $500, but that went a long way.

Yeah. Right? Like and so doing stuff like that, either you want it or you don't in my opinion, and then people will say they're broke and then still have an Xbox. They could still have all these other things. Like, probably, it can get way worse.

Steve: I remember this is completely unrelated. But, like, I remember, like, showing properties as a realtor. Right? Struggling, but showing properties. And, like, this is before where flat screens are being cheap or cheap.

Right? Mhmm. And I show these, like, apartments and fourplexes and this and that. And, like, everyone's living better than me. Like, I'm struggling.

I am struggling to make entrepreneurship work. Yeah. Right? Like, I don't have, at this time, a flat screen TV. I still got you remember those, big, tubes?

Right? Two TVs. Right? Like, I was like I saw Sony Vegas. Right?

Like, I still have my Sony Vega. Right? Everyone's got a flat screen TV. Like, whatever. Your friends have flat screen, like, whatever.

Right? Yeah.

Strand: You got the thickums.

Steve: But then I was showing rentals. It's like everyone in here is living better than me. It's like, man, this sucks. Like, is this really worth it? But, like, you know, obviously, it all works out for all of us in the end.

So how do you feel when you finally realize real estate is is something that can make work for you?

Strand: I knew it's the only thing that could work for me because I had no other skills. I got dropped out of college because I was like, I'm gonna prove everybody wrong and that I can do this real estate thing without having a degree.

Steve: You were talking about earlier? Yeah. Like, I

Strand: I could take my son to work, but I couldn't take my son to school, and we didn't have a babysitter.

Steve: Yeah. And so

Strand: I was like, yeah. We're like, this is stupid. Why would I continue going here? Like, no. Like, it's not making me money.

I got the job I wanted to get. Yeah. And so at that point, I was like, bro, you gotta do this because, like, what else are you gonna do? You don't have any skills. You don't wanna be an electrician.

You don't wanna be a dentist. And so I was like, I don't know. It was like do or die mentality. Like, what else was I supposed to do?

Steve: Yeah. So you were raised LDS.

Strand: Yep.

Steve: Did you ever go on a mission? No. No. So you don't have that, like, the two years of extra experience of door knocking?

Strand: No. I have I feel like college football is a solid mission.

Steve: Yeah. So, you know, for me, this is a great honor to have you here. You know? You're we had our event. Right?

It was May 2019 was our very first event. We held it here not that far from right here. Yeah. Right? And, and we're talking to you and, like, looking back, I had made a decision.

I wasn't gonna hire or not hire. I wasn't gonna bring on anybody into our program that needed this to work. Right? Because, like, you need this to work. What I mean by that is if you didn't have any money from marketing behind you

Strand: Bro, it's not gonna work.

Steve: It's not gonna work. I can

Strand: teach you everything. And it's still not gonna work. If you

Steve: don't have money from marketing, you can't make this work. Right? So while I was talking to you, I didn't know this at the time, but you were broke.

Strand: Oh, dead broke. Dead broke. Like, had I

Steve: known this, I wouldn't have brought you in. So I'm glad that, you know, you didn't share that part with me. Right? But it's such an for me, it's such an amazing, you know, journey to see where you made it from, like, literally, you know, having to wait for your I mean, you're waiting for your tax return

Strand: Yeah. To come back. Alright, Steve. I'll give you half, but I need to wait for my tax return, then I'll give you the other half.

Steve: Right. That was this the the situation you're in, but to go from where you were all the way to here. And, like, it's cool to see this journey. Like, we still have photos you sent me. Right?

Like, it was the event that we had there and that you were saying, like, there was Michael Ray who's, like, a character.

Strand: Still a character, bro.

Steve: Still a character.

Strand: Shout out Michael Ray. Yeah. If I can shout out Michael Ray. Shout out my man, Mike.

Steve: Amazing human being. Right? And then we had Willie, you know, Willie Coleman there. Yep. Vic Heredia there.

Vic.

Strand: JR. JR.

Steve: But it was such an amazing group. And, like, I I love hearing, like, you guys, you know, share once in a while. Like, here's what we're doing, right, together. So I just wanna, you know, just give a shout out there. Like, just for me, this is full circle.

I always appreciate seeing, you know Yeah. The journey here. And then since then, you have well, I guess, let's talk about I I was gonna talk about Jamita, but before we talk about Jamita, let's talk about your your journey here. Right? Like, we're working together.

You're in our mentorship program. You're starting to make deals. Mhmm. And then I think you were working with Michael to sell. You were selling some some of your properties, or what was that situation like?

Strand: Michael who?

Steve: Michael Ray? Michael Ray?

Strand: No. I didn't really ever do anything.

Steve: Michael Ray. Okay. So then you were doing the wholesale thing. Mhmm. At which point, you say, hey.

I'm gonna start a cold calling company.

Strand: So this is another amazing story. Those who should not be named, we will that's how this got started. So I'd say at a point, we only we were, like, eight callers, and we're trying to go to 12. And so I'm using one service provider, and I use them, and they they couldn't make it happen. They give me, like, four, honestly, just shitty people, like, sound like they're in the sticks.

I was like, well, I can't do this. Like, I'm paying you guys a lot of money to me. Like, I'm out. And so then I go to another service provider, nothing works. I go to another one, nothing works.

I go to this guy who I knew, who I went to an event with. I went to his event. I was like, hey, bro. I heard you got cold callers. Like, I've broke bread with you and everything else.

It should work. Like, alright. Here's some money. I send him some money. We do a deal.

I was like, alright, bro. Here's here's some more money. So I send him some more money, and he falls off the face of the earth. Just falls off. No KPIs.

No leads.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Nothing. I paid him for a month upfront, and another guy wanted to JV with me. And so, yeah, bro. Like, I had my own marketing money

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: And then another local investor was like, yeah. I wanna JV with you. Like, here's my money, and then I just want these amount of ZIP codes, and that's why I'm gonna market these. And he disappeared with all my money. And I tried calling him, nothing.

Couldn't get a hold of him. You went

Steve: through six cold calling companies?

Strand: I went through quite a bit. I went through quite a bit.

Steve: That's insane. So when did you decide, alright. We're gonna make our own.

Strand: After that situation. After that situation, I was like, well, can I can I cuss?

Steve: Because it's You you already have been.

Strand: So Okay. I said screw it. I said screw it. I said screw it, bro. I'm just gonna take it all in house.

Mhmm. And so I brought it all back in house because, back when I was working for Alan, we'd built out an in house call center. And we hired on, like, eight people at minimum wage. It was a it was a disaster, honestly. Like, we didn't know what we were doing.

Mhmm. But it, like, gave me some experience with, like, the dialers, the amount of data we need to buy, everything else. Like, bro, I already know how to do this. I already know how to lead the teams and everything else. I'll just bring people in house.

And then at that point, I just had, like, a small team. Our calls are generating me leads. I had a leads manager that sent me the deals. And then it was, like, a pretty, like, lay down and, like, simply run very efficient operation. And then I did, like, I hosted a meet up on it.

Like, hey. Here's how, like, my business runs with only virtual assistants. And then a bunch of people started, like, approaching me for it. And that's kinda where it came from when I thought I could make a couple bucks. And then, obviously, my, partner on that Chase, he was the only guy who I knew was a operator.

Because they were like, I'm I don't like, I was like, I'm not, like, a day to day operator guy. I'm, like, more of, like, the salesman in the marketer, like, an operator.

Steve: So but what what year approximately was this?

Strand: COVID. COVID.

Steve: So 2020. So 2020. So you decided to launch this cold calling service, share about it in a meetup, and then it goes gangbusters. Like, what's what's that journey like? Because we have people talking about, I wanna start this service, that service, and then, like, it all sounds so easy.

Yeah. That's Right? You and I were talking about the challenge of exercising restraint in the face of opportunity prior to the show starting.

Strand: 100%.

Steve: Right? So what was it like? Was it simple starting another arm? Or It was pretty.

Strand: It was simple until, like, we started to, like, really get, like, a lot of clients. Mhmm.

Steve: And then

Strand: I was like, oh, wow.

Steve: Right.

Strand: Like, oh, wow. Like, now we, like, really need to hire on, like, staff.

Steve: Yeah. And So what was what was that obstacle like when you when you when you you hit a point where you had too many clients? Or

Strand: Too many clients, less time, and so it was a lot more. Like, it forced me to, like, learn how to, like, delegate significantly and fast because I was like, alright. We're bringing on a ton of people. Like, alright. I need three sales coaches.

Alright. I need the support person. I need this. You know? Oh, like, I need, like, all these people.

And so I just had to hire people fast, get them trained up, and then pretty much like, alright. Here's the vision. Do not come to me for anything that you can Google. Our goal is is we are just gonna build fast. We're gonna make the best company.

Mhmm. Anything that is not aligned with that, you'll probably get fired. Yeah.

Steve: What were some lessons you learned from hiring, other cold calling companies that you haven't put in place here at Call Magicians so that you don't deliver that same bad taste.

Strand: Get KPIs, dude. You'd be amazed when people don't get KPIs. Always have, like, access to call recordings Mhmm. And transparency. If you ever wanna get rid of someone, get rid of them immediately.

As far as, like, if I you have a caller with that person or if it's a round robin, like, hey, bro. I don't like that guy. I think he sucks. You guys should probably train him more. Yeah.

Because that's where your that's where your marketing dollars are going, bro. Wholesaling, no matter what anybody says, is not a real estate company. It's a sales marketing business.

Steve: Yeah. So someone that's using you guys has access to the KPIs.

Strand: Yeah. Like, we get they get daily and weekly reports, and then they get weekly calls with us. Got it.

Steve: Let's see. So how many VAs are you guys managing right now? Over a 100. Over a 100. Yeah.

So, you know, I've been pitched throughout the years. Steve, you start cold calling or not cold calling. You should start VA virtual agency. Right? And And every time I get pitched, it's like, no.

Absolutely not. And I give them the same two reasons every single time. Right? There's two well, we already talked about salespeople, how I did not enjoy managing salespeople. Right?

So there's two things we we can't control. We can't really control your expectations. Yep. Because as a potential client, you might hear, oh, so and so is killing on cold calling. Bro.

I'm gonna hire five cold callers, and this is gonna be easy.

Strand: And then you have no back end, and you have no

Steve: follow-up system. So you experienced this. Right? So I was like, I don't want to take my brand and have someone be like, well, Steve, this is your cold calling company. Like, how come the service is not good?

I was like, I don't want any part of that. Exactly. But then, b, having had VAs for twelve, thirteen years now. Right? Like, because from a real I had VAs from back in the realty days, like, with my out desk.

Right? Like, just random days, like, oh, we have a storm. Right? Yeah. No power today.

And then we I remember I still remember, like, one of my first VAs, I bought her a power generator just so that she can have consistent Internet. Oh, yeah. Right? And so I didn't wanna have to deal with clients that are gonna be super angry. Right?

That would dilute the brand. And I didn't wanna have to deal with VAs that would just not show up because it kinda takes me back to I never managed, like, a Gap or an Abercrombie and Fitch, but I imagine managing teenagers.

Strand: Bunch of yeah.

Steve: Right? It's like just no call, no show. Like, this is great. I I have clients that are paying me for your service, and you don't show up. That's fantastic.

So how have you dealt with those two particular challenges?

Strand: Everybody in our upper management team, we bought a generator for sure. And I was like, I don't care. Like, your ass has a generator, and I pay for your Wi Fi. You're gonna show up to work. Right.

And but it's you can't just say that. Right? Like, you we do bonuses and everything else right through that. We know that we care about them. Mhmm.

And then they're really bought into the culture. Like, shout out Danny, Eric, Ken Martin, Elk, who are, like, our main group Mhmm. Who run all that over there. What else do we do? If, really, if someone doesn't show up for a day, but more likely they're fired.

Steve: Yeah. But let's talk about, like, Ace Strand. You know? I just was listening to real estate disruptors, which is obviously the best real estate podcast, you know, on the planet. Right?

And I wanna hire five cold callers because I I heard that cold call is hell or maybe not even podcast. Like, mastermind. Hey. Yeah. I just came from this mastermind, and this guy's killing it.

Strand: With cold calling. He's crushing it.

Steve: Murdering it. Right? So I wanna hire five cold callers. How are you setting that person's expectations?

Strand: So if you're gonna go do it yourself, this is what you should do, and then I will say, this is what generally most cold calling is gonna take at least three months to bear any fruit. Take that for what it is. We're calling someone randomly saying, hey. Snell me your house, dude. And then they gotta go pray to Buddha, go pray to Allah, go talk to their wife, go talk to their dead wife, and then then they're, like, ready to start playing ball.

Yeah. But with the people who you're hiring on, I don't hire on anybody without any responsibilities.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: So I want you to have a kid. Like, oh, if you're a single parent, you're for us. Mhmm. We got you because we know that you want to come to work and actually pay bills.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: I don't want teenagers. I want professionals.

Steve: Right.

Strand: So that's number one. That'll alleviate a lot of your nonsense. Right? So I want adults would be one big one. Anyone who comes into our company at the beginning, like, they have to take a series of personality test, English test, they have to submit their voice recording, and they have to have sales experience and real estate experience.

Mhmm.

Steve: And

Strand: then Oh, they

Steve: have to have sales and real estate experience.

Strand: Yeah. Like, we wanna, like, dial it in. And then if they don't have real estate experience, would they have, like, okay. What type of sales experience do you have? And that way we can see, like, okay.

They sound good. That's only one part of it. Then we still gotta see, like, how good is, like, your actual English Mhmm. And then all that other stuff. So, like, you can set that up in internally just in your Podio.

Just set it up to, like, they gotta submit all these forms. Mhmm. And that way, you could just grade them all out, and that will really, really simplify your process. Yeah. And then I'd tell you fire we only have about 4% of the people make it through our two, three week training.

If someone's a killer, like, obviously, you know

Steve: How many? 40%. 40% make it through training.

Strand: Yeah. Wow. Like, we we let them go, though. Like, because, like, we need to do us a favor and them a favor to where, hey. You know what?

If you, like, fall off in the middle of training, like, they don't get paid if you just, like, disappear. Yeah. But if they if we fire them, they get paid obviously because, like, hey, bro. Like, we just don't think it's gonna work for you, dude. Like, you're not cut out for this.

Steve: We wish you the best. We wish

Strand: you the best. Here's your money. Let's keep on going. Right. Yeah.

So that's how we How

Steve: about, like, the the real estate investor that comes in and is like, I wanna hire five cold callers because

Strand: and, like, what are you doing to properly set that guy's expectations? We'd let everybody know it's gonna take on average, like, at least three months to get bear any fruit. And then we're really gonna bet them out. Like, okay. Like, what's your back end system look like?

Like, how how much time in the day Like, are you a new person? Like, you have, like, an hour a day to, like, make these calls Mhmm.

Steve: Of,

Strand: like, follow-up? Like, okay. So, like, what's the ROI do you have? Like, we wanna vet out everything that they have going on the back end so we can make sure that they're successful as possible.

Steve: Got it. It's, like, the number one thing. And then I I was looking at your website. You have some performance guarantees or something along those lines.

Strand: So if anybody doesn't make any money with us for six months, we will give them a year free. And if anybody ever goes three days without leads, we'll give them a day free because I can throw my six year old son on a phone for three days for eight hours a day, and he will get me a lead. Yeah. Like, if someone else doesn't do it, as long as it's not like we need to provide people ample data. A lot of people aren't giving them, let's say, 10,000 records a month at least.

And then I was yesterday at our meetup, I was talking to a dude who's using Mojo dialer and he only has one phone number. And he was, like, telling me, like, his cold call is not working. I was like, bro. I was like, you're you're setting your dude up for failure. He's like, he's paying for Mojo dialer too.

It was like, number one, take that off his plate and pay for a dialer. Go get call tools, ready mode, whatever it is, batch dialer, and you need to have at least a 100 numbers, like, 50 to a 100 numbers per caller.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Because now the carriers are cracking down, so we, like, wanna stay ahead of them. Yep. We don't wanna get marked to spam. And then a lot of people don't train them either. Right?

And so with us, like, obviously, we do a ton of training. We train our people two times a day. They get we listen to every single one of their phone calls to get one on one coaching every week.

Steve: Yeah. And then we recently you called me. Like, Steve, let's do something together. And I was like, no. I don't do anything with this.

Well, nothing to do with this. We're like, well, how about you guys train them, and then we will still make sure that they're showing up. They're doing the work, and they're doing everything else. All you have to do is just do the training part.

Strand: Yep.

Steve: Okay. I can we can handle that responsibility. So we just recently rolled out. You posted about a month ago, disrupts our certified cold callers.

Strand: Yep. So you wanna talk

Steve: a little bit about that?

Strand: Yeah. So we have been paying you actually for the last two years to train our sales coaches. Right. Because, like, with I already knew the value in it. And, again, you just gotta think who not how.

I was like, well, I can't train them all the time who's good at it. Steve is good at it. And so we've been paying you for the last two years, and everything's built on really disrupt your sales system anyway. Yeah. And so that's what was awesome.

And then now it's like, okay. How can we even dial this even even more to get better quality leads and then really killers on the phone? Because I don't see anybody training people online. I got I gotta be real.

Steve: Yeah. So we're rolling it out. If you guys are interested in, checking that out, text c c c to 33777. And, you know, we have or go to just call magicians.com. Right?

Or you can go to callmagicians.com. Yeah. Go to callmagicians.com. But I'm excited to see where this goes because, I mean, if we can get the callers dialed in even further and I already I mean, I'm already using you guys. Right?

I'm a I'm a client. Right? So I'm already happy. But if we can provide that training to more people, right, hopefully, we can generate even more success. So and we talk about cold calling, but it's not just you're not just selling a service.

You're actually using it. Because you're using this I mean, in the conversations you and I have had offline, you're using this to buy self storage now. Yeah. Let's talk about that journey.

Strand: Yeah. That's been a wild journey.

Steve: Yeah. So you you've closed on your first one. Yeah.

Strand: We bought our first one right before the beginning of the year.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Yeah. And then we have another one under contract, and then I just got a verbal on another, like, small townish thing.

Steve: Not small townish thing. It's a town. Right? But you're using your cold callers for self storage.

Strand: Yep.

Steve: Right? So talk about that experience. Is there any difference in using your co callers for calling motivated homeowners versus calling people that own self storage facilities?

Strand: With and so I this one time back in the day when I was trying to call land in Utah because I have a friend whose dad develops. And I called this guy and I got talked off the phone. Like, talked off the phone. He asked me some questions I had no idea about. So I was like, okay.

If I if that happened to me, how should we prepare a cold caller to do this? And so for a lot of the, like, multifamily and self storage stuff, I tell people, like, we just wanna gather how many units. Are they even interested in selling? Because in my opinion, in the multifamily commercial space storage space, there's not a whole lot of sellers, so you should hop on the phone with any of them regardless. Mhmm.

Right. I mean, we're not gonna get a ton of leads, bro. Like, we need to just hop on the phone with them, talk to them, build that relationship because we wanna with that stuff, it's a lot more relationship building for the long term because I want them all to carry the note for me. Like, all three of the ones that we have right now are owner financed. Nice.

Like, $7.25, 900,000, and 500,000. Yeah. All owner financed. And so with that, if you're gonna what we did, it was like, okay. We're gonna have her call, gather our basic info.

Are they interested in selling? They'll ask why are they interested in selling, but they're not gonna hit them with, like, the four pain points and, like, really dig in there because we don't want them to get in, like, cap rates and other stuff like that and, like, everything like that. But then we're just scraping as much as we can, and then they can come in. And then I think it's your job as a salesperson to, right now, really dig in because those are a longer sales process. Single family is really fast.

Commercial is a lot

Steve: slower. Earn. Yeah. Earn earn earn the the sale. But you're also using this for ERC.

Yeah. Talk about that. That one's exciting.

Strand: I'm not

Steve: gonna lie. So what are you doing? Like, who just random is like, I'm gonna start cold calling for ERC. Talk to me about this.

Strand: I don't I don't wanna disclose too much because I it's it's big, bro. Alright. We, I just trained up some people Mhmm. On everything that we know, and then we started cold calling small business and that Yeah. That company is doing very well.

Steve: Yeah. Well, so, I mean, that kinda goes show you, though. Right? Like, because we had Josh on the show Yeah. A few months ago about ERC.

Strand: Exactly.

Steve: Right? And, like, people are, like, skeptical.

Strand: I'd say that's the biggest objection that we get with ERC is that, like, it's is this a scam?

Steve: Yeah. Like Well, I mean, I am getting text messages now. Like, obviously, like, there are people marketing for it. So I mean, again, like, we're talking about cold calling here, but this is not Strand is not just like a service provider. Like, he's actually using it to his maximum extent.

So when he was telling me about that, I was I was just kinda laughing to myself. Now somewhere along the way, you partnered up with Jason Palliser. How

Strand: do you Pritchard. Jason Pritchard. Jason Pritchard and Dean. And Dino. Dean Rogers.

Shout out, boy, Dino. Shout out, Jason.

Steve: Yeah. And you guys are doing this meetup of a crazy amount of people. Yeah. So talk to me about how this came to be.

Strand: So our meetups, I think everybody, if you are if you wanna get more deal flow and just get more influence in your market, you should start a meetup.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: So well, as I was doing this stuff with you, I started my meetup. And for a couple times where I'd show up, and I'd call Kalani, like, thirty minutes. I'm like, yo. Nobody showed up, dude. I'm coming home.

Mhmm. And I happened, like, two different

Steve: turns. And,

Strand: it kinda morphed from there, and then I kept hosting meetups, hosting meetups, hosting meetups. And then a really big one, right, before COVID hit me and Jay, I think I met Pace and Jamil because of you at, like, whole scaling or something.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: And they, like, said they wanna do some stuff, and I reached

Steve: Well, Pace came to our first meet our our first, live event.

Strand: Yeah.

Steve: Right?

Strand: I but I didn't meet him there, though. You didn't? I didn't I when I met, maybe I did. I don't know. Yeah.

Possibly. Right? But so I knew Pace. I never really knew Jamil.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: And so I was like, hey. Do you guys, like, wanna come out? And so we flew him out there, flew him out first class, put him up in a really nice hotel, picked them up in nice cars, right, the whole shebang. Right. And then, went on all day, like, looked at deals and everything else.

And then we had, like, 250, 300 people show up for that meetup.

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: That was really cool.

Steve: Yeah. That's I think that's when I saw a couple months ago.

Strand: No. That was the first one.

Steve: That was the first one.

Strand: That was that was the first one right before COVID hit.

Steve: Gotcha. This is, was this pace in Jamil do America? Yeah.

Strand: This was pace in Jamil do America style.

Steve: Okay. Got

Strand: it. And then so it at the end of 2021, me, Dean, and Jason all got on the phone because, like, Dean had started to meet up. I had a meet up. Jason had one, and me and Jason already, like, like, done them together. Yeah.

And, like, well, why don't we just, like, do this together? Like because, like, sometimes, like, we would throw, like, two, like, one one week, one another week. It mess with the attendance and it'd be, like, two how to do this meetups in a row.

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: And so, like, the people didn't like it. And so, like, alright. How can we do this together and make them really, really big and bring a ton of value to our community? And so last year, like, we rented out a brewery. Got, like, 350 people there.

Like and so we're doing these really, really big ones. We don't charge for them. The last one with Payson DuBille, we charged for them, but we I think it was I don't even 25 to a $100. We got, like, 600 plus people there. Yeah.

And that one was really cool, and that was just a all day meetup where everybody got to come network, learn. Last night, we had a woman's panel of four amazing women, and we had 250 people there.

Steve: Yeah. And so All day meetup?

Strand: Yeah, bro. It was like an event. Like, it was like a meetup of I spoke. Jason spoke. We did, like, panels.

They got to hear Pace and Jamil. They got to hear, we have some other speakers too. And, like, it was, like, crazy value.

Steve: This is

Strand: what all we're trying to do is, like, help people in our community get further. Like, yeah, we all have coaching programs and everything else, but, like, I got my start from meeting my first mentor in real estate at a meetup.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Jason's, learned from the same guy too.

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: Dean got his started a meetup. Like, meetups to me are so important because, like, we can pour back into people, help them get there, then if they just take action, like, I promise you, if you follow what your coach says and you do it for a year, you will be successful.

Steve: You can't not be successful. So

Strand: And we're going on tour is the next thing.

Steve: Yeah. I was talking to Dean about that. I was like, are you sure you wanna go on tour? So what's what's this idea of going on tour?

Strand: I'm I'm trying to I'm we're following pace in the middle steps. I think their brands took off the most, and they went and built a really, really strong brand across the country. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. Without a doubt.

Without a doubt. Right? And so we're like, okay. How can we do that? We wanna speak on 24 different stages this

Steve: year. Mhmm.

Strand: Where we're at? Four right now. Yeah. And so the reason we wanna do that is just to really, like, get more brand equity and help more people, and we started a podcast called Deal Champs. Mhmm.

The first episode released next week. And all that is is we're gonna talk to people and highlight their best deals, and we wanna crown a Deal Champ at the end of every month. Yeah. Give them a nice little belt and a chain. You know?

Steve: Chain? Yeah.

Strand: Like the you know, like, the turnover chain that Miami has?

Steve: No. I'm out of it. Yeah.

Strand: It's like when they're a champ, right, when I'm gonna give them a good fat chain, look like Mike Tyson, give them, like, a belt, you know, a crown. Yeah. I

Steve: mean, sounds like you're really passionate about it. So I'm excited I'm excited for you guys about this. So, I wanna go to the audience questions. But before we do that, let's do a real quick commercial break, and then we will answer, everyone's questions. You're not hitting your revenue targets.

Your acquisition guys have had the luxury of paying near retail, and your dispo guys have basically just been able to post anything, and it sells immediately. You might be wondering, do I have order takers or closers? Maybe the training has gotten a little lackluster and the management might have even gotten complacent. And now that we're facing these serious headwinds, you might be wondering, do I have all the skills necessary to lead my salespeople in in this new shifting market? If you're asking yourselves these questions, please text leaders to 33777, talk to my team, and see if we can help you as we overcome this new market.

So the first question from YouTube is Kalani Young. And then the question is, how did your sports background influence your mentality and work ethic as an entrepreneur?

Strand: Shout out Kalani Young, my beautiful girlfriend. My sports background showed me that you have to outwork every single person around you, and you really have to, like, will things to happen.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Because, I mean, a lot of times when people are like, man, are you butthurt about the NFL and everything else? I was like, no. Because, like, I didn't, like, force their hand.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Like, when I went to the Seahawks, I did not ball out of control. Like, bro, we gotta pay this dude.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: So that really, like, showed me that. And then, like, being able to sit there and work out a skill for a long period of time and not seeing any fruit, but knowing eventually it's gonna pay off. Like, sucking at sales at the beginning

Steve: Mhmm. But

Strand: then you're just more at bats, more at bats, more at bats, and awesome. Okay. Now I'm actually good at it. Now we're closing deals, and then all entrepreneurship is just acquiring more and more skills in Dell and gave more and more skills.

Steve: I mean, there's two things I heard there. Right? The first

Strand: one was delayed gratification. Yeah. For sure. Right.

Steve: You can put off right now, like, this we have an instant gratification. I think they call it a microwave culture now. Right? Like, I want satisfaction. I want satisfaction now.

If I put this post up on Facebook and I don't get a like in the first two minutes, like, I feel, like, really bad about myself. Right? Yeah. So that's that's the first thing. But the second thing was extreme ownership.

Right? Like, you know, I didn't force the Seahawks' hands. And, like, I am not any kind of athlete. Right? I just like to play basketball.

But, like, when we were playing our leagues, you can tell who's winning and losing based off how they talk to the officials. Right? You know what I'm talking about?

Strand: What are you talking about? Right?

Steve: If you're complaining about the calls Yep. Right? If you're talking to the ref over and over again now Luka Doncic, I think, is an exception to this rule, maybe LeBron too. Right? But you can say, like, whoever's complaining to the ref are the victims, and they're the ones that don't win.

Right? And so, like, the things we always say, right, in our timeouts and our huddles, like, you gotta play through the officiating. You can't complain to the officials. If you complain to the officials, you're not owning your your role, right, your spot on the team, and you can't expect result. You can't complain about the results if you're not owning Yeah.

Your role. So I love that you're talking about, you know, extreme ownership. You didn't force a Seahawks hand. Like No. If you it was up if you could have made it a bad decision on them to not pick you up.

Exactly. Right? So, cool, I really appreciate that answer. Michael Butler, how much money have you spent on developing yourself?

Strand: Shout out butts, another Fresno, another Fresno guy. Shout out butts. Thank you, Mike. Hundreds of thousands of dollars on education over the last couple years, and it's been the best thing I've ever done. I mean, I I think the number one thing that you can control is you.

Mhmm. Okay. Control anything else like you. And so you should always invest in yourself. Like, I mean, me going to your event was investing in myself, and a lot of my, like, network that is really strong now has come from that event.

Like, you can trace it all back to that event. But I spend we probably spend 6 figures a year on, like, masterminds and coaching.

Steve: Yeah. Which has been, because I want hundreds of thousands, which has been the most, expensive? The DM family. Yeah. And in the DM family, you get

Strand: to connect with who? Mark. Josh is in there. Austin Rutherford. Well, it's Terry Terry Thayer.

The other Terry. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Summers. Sorry, Summers. I forgot Summers' last name.

But but there's, like, bro, there's there's hitters in there. Like, there's I am by far the small fry in that room, and I don't say a word. Yeah. I just go in there, and I listen, and I try and absorb everything of dudes doing eight. And then, I I mean, Josh and another dude are crushing it.

Yeah. And I get to listen to them.

Steve: I love what Terry's posting out there.

Strand: Bro. Shout out to you, Sam's man.

Steve: I want I told him I wanna do something with him or I wanna debate him

Strand: because I'm on Terry's side, bro. What like, what are you talking about?

Steve: What he's saying, I understand where he's coming from. Don't necessarily agree with him. The part where I would say that he says realtors, are on life support.

Strand: Well, they're on life support. What what are you talking about? They're on life support, bro. You can't win that battle with t sums. What are they doing right now?

Steve: The ones that are actually selling houses are actually selling houses. Like

Strand: Okay. Three people are selling houses. Cool.

Steve: Yeah. So I would say so realtors get a bad beat. Right? Because remember, I'm wearing two different hats.

Strand: You wear two hats. You wear two hats.

Steve: Realtor and, buying houses. So realtors from past for many years have been not that different than a lot of the wholesalers the last few years.

Strand: Just throw it up. I throw it up. Someone's gonna buy

Steve: it. Right. Put a sign in the yard, house is gonna sell. If I get a property in the contract, it's gonna sell. Right?

There's not that much difference. Right? So the I would say the difference today for a realtor who's earning their commission is actually doing something to actually sell the house. Right? It's no longer just putting a sign in the yard and sticking on MLS.

Just like today, a wholesaler is actually earning

Strand: Pushing. Uh-huh. Pushing to get those deals sold.

Steve: They're earning every bit of it. Right? So before, you could sell it for 30,000 to a hedge fund and not really do anything.

Strand: That's not a damn thing.

Steve: Right? So when he says realtors on our life support, I would argue that the way we're treating realtors is a very general statement.

Strand: No. Bro, they don't even pick up their phone. I was, bro, I I bitched about this, like, once a week. Like, I I will try and buy deals on the market Mhmm. And I will call them up, and I cannot get them to answer the phone.

The only way they feed their children Mhmm. Is by talking on the phone. Right.

Steve: And

Strand: they don't pick up their phone. So They aren't life support.

Steve: I would also argue you cannot judge an entire industry based off who you're talking to. I'd I

Strand: can't talk to anybody, though. Like, who am I talking to? I can't talk to anyone. They'll pick up

Steve: their phone. I would like to sit here over your shoulder and see who you're actually trying to talk to, right, on the on on the phone with your realtor is. But, anyway, like like I said, right, I think that'd be this'd be a fun conversation because I see him clowning on everybody. He's Well, summer's still so hard. He's an equal opportunity, trash talker.

Strand: And he's great at it.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean, he's he's he's doing the makeup and wig and now too. I mean, he's going next level on this. Adam on YouTube wants to know, how do you manage multiple businesses? They're they're all getting started with clarity.

How are you not running around like a chicken with your head cut off?

Strand: Everything is always chaos, and it'll always be chaos. And I think that's something you kinda have to come to terms with. Like, even Elon Musk doesn't know what he's doing. Elon Musk is like he's like, yeah, but we're gonna do it. Mhmm.

But I'd say delegation and Yeah. Getting people read the book Unique Ability two point

Steve: o. Mhmm.

Strand: And that book really gave me clarity. Like, I am I only do what I'm good at, and you will not catch me doing anything operational. Yeah. Like, I I market. I sell.

I can lead teams. But am I gonna be in, like, the day to day? No. That feels really heavy to me. Mhmm.

And so then I hire on people. And, like, at the beginning, right, like, you're gonna work in it really heavy. When you get a little bit of capital, you can act actually, like, hire on someone who can handle a lot of that stuff for you at the beginning. Yeah. And then clarity wise, I think something nobody really talks about is, like, setting, like, the culture of the company.

And that I'd say that's the hardest part across multiple companies because you have to be the face of it. Like, you you have to drive that ship in that way.

Steve: It doesn't matter what company it is. Culture has to be the same.

Strand: The culture has to be the same. You have to be pushing that culture consistently because you can hire on one wrong person. We're not a Fortune 500 company, and that person can just decimate the culture Yeah. A matter of fact.

Steve: Toxic. Yeah. What is your unique ability?

Strand: What is my unique ability? I'm pretty good at networking. Yeah. I'm a maverick on the PI. I just like to think of cool stuff, and then I'm like, okay.

How are we gonna do this? And I I really like to just think a lot, I guess. Yeah.

Steve: So I think the other thing too is not running around like a chicken not running around like a chicken we had cut off. I would say systems.

Strand: Right?

Steve: Because you're talking about KPIs. Right? You gotta have effective reporting.

Strand: Yeah. Like and I guess I need to go into more detail with that. Like, get traction, get scaling up.

Steve: If you can go

Strand: to, like, Gary Harper, go to Gary Harper, get systems, get a actual operator, and then data not drama. Mark is the one who's hammered that into me. Like, alright, bro. Like, what are the numbers? Mhmm.

Because then when we have numbers, we have a plan and we can even if we have, like, a goal and we've been tracking KPIs for, let's say, six months, now we can be, like, alright. So if I put in these inputs and I got this, I need to 10 x these inputs if I wanna get the next result that'll help me reach my goals.

Steve: Alright. Absolutely. Although I would argue if you want a 10 a 10 x, your output You gotta do something different. You can't 10 x your inputs. That would just break things.

On IG, Tommy wants to know, how much should you be making when you hire your first employee? That's an interesting question.

Strand: That's an interesting question. How much should you be making? For me, it was just like a feel. Like, as soon as you're, like, trying to, like, actually do something, you can afford it. If you're just wholesaling, you wanna hire on a cold caller, I'd say just be able to have, like, three months worth of stuff.

Mhmm. Because I I think the hard part with people at the beginning is they hire on a cold caller for, like, a month, and, like, it's not working. And then they let them go or they run

Steve: out of cash.

Strand: Mhmm. Like, bro, just keep pounding the phones the way you're doing to stack up a little bit of cash and then have, like, at least just three months of reserves for that cold caller. That's not a lot of money. It's like a couple thousand bucks if that, and then hire them on. But if you just have go scrape up some money and figure it out every month, do it that way.

But I think as soon as you can hire on someone to help you, like, get stuff going and help you market, you should do that immediately. And for the, like, scrubbing list stuff and everything else, just pay someone on Fiverr because that's not making you any money.

Steve: I would say the biggest thing, Tommy, is you wanna make sure that, these are not falling through the cracks. I think that's when you hire. Right? When deals are falling through the cracks, now it's costing you money

Strand: Legitimately.

Steve: Not to hire. Vontae on YouTube. I work for Ultra Investment Group in Baltimore. I only hire young people that live with their parents. Then wonder why they couldn't get them to do anything.

So it's like a freight house every day.

Strand: Yeah, bro. That's So

Steve: they like your comment about the hiring adults.

Strand: Yeah. But you gotta hire adults. I don't hire friends and family either. Yeah. I refuse.

Steve: Well, you know, it was interesting because we had I had someone come on the show. John Burley came on the show. He was talking about how he only hires people that are a certain age. Right? Because they know what happens when you drink too much on the weekend.

Or if they drink too much on the weekend, they know how to deal with it.

Strand: They come back. They know how to bounce back.

Steve: They know how to drink water before going to bed. Right? Or, like, you know, certain, if your kid's sick, they know how to handle. Right? Because, like, if you have, like, a one or two year old kid gets sick, like, your world's falling apart.

Strand: Yeah. Here you go. Oh my god.

Steve: Yeah. But there comes a point where, like, okay. Well, this is just how you handle your kid being sick. Right? So it's really interesting, idea about hiring, you know, adults of a certain age.

Claudio on YouTube wants to know, what data are you recommending for your VAs?

Strand: What data am I recommending? Honestly, high equity still performs really well. Most of your people who can afford, like, Adantic and eighty twenty, like, they get Adantic and eighty twenty in a machine. High equity, and then if you can go to your accounting courthouse, that's always amazing. Like, if you can get that really niche stuff.

And then if you're broke, I'd suggest you get started the way I did in door knock, pre foreclosures, use PropertyRadar, batch leads, or PropStream. I could sell the same, or you pull it from your county courthouse.

Steve: Yeah. And you probably rate it out. It's not expensive.

Strand: No. It's a it's a $100, bro. Right? Less than

Steve: a $100. Right? It's like $50.70 bucks. Yeah.

Strand: I like it. That's amazing. Like, for your cold callers, you're gonna run out of niche data, though. Like, you're gonna you're gonna hit a lot of high equity stuff at a point.

Steve: Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, at some point, you're gonna be calling everybody. Yeah. I mean, that's kinda one of the things that we did.

Right? Like, you know, your poor team, like, working with us. Like, they've been calling everybody. Right? There's not like a

Strand: You gotta let some stuff rest, bro. We ran out of data. Like

Steve: But they're still hammering the phones. Yep. They're still hammering the phones. They're talking to the same people all the time, and it turns into deal it turns into deals. Right?

Like, it's crazy to me. We we're looking at the board. Like, we got 87,000 that's been closing this month.

Strand: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? It's not bad considering all we got are four call calls.

Strand: Well, that's all.

Steve: Right? So, like, there's a at some point, you just call everybody. Yeah. Right? And if if you got callers, you can you can go through all these different lists, but at some point, at some volume, you just call everybody.

So, Tommy's follow-up question. What are three big things I should have in place before I hire my first employee? And these these are some really deep questions.

Strand: Alright. What are three things you should have in place before hiring them? Get a Loom account, and I'd write down everything that you hate doing. Like, if we're really gonna dive into this, write down everything you hate doing. You need to get done and record a Loom video on it, and that would probably be the things you need in place.

Have a way to pay them is another thing. And, like, have a set structure of how they get paid. Like, I didn't even think about this when I was hiring people. Like, alright. You're gonna get paid on the fifteenth and the first, and that's the way you're gonna get paid.

Steve: Right.

Strand: Let them know that. I I think you should have your own set of core values. And then as it gets a little bit bigger, you bring as you bring everybody in, like, hey. So this is the culture that we're building. One thing that really helped us out a lot is, like, what are the what do you think would be, like, great core values for us?

Steve: Mhmm. Right?

Strand: And so we got, like, Care three sixty, strive for excellence are, like, the really two biggest ones that we care about.

Steve: Yeah. So you found your team helped you identify your core values?

Strand: I had them, but I wanted more buy in from them.

Steve: Mhmm. Got it. And that's the key there. Buy in. So, yeah, I think those are all great points.

Matt Pierce on Facebook are currently disbowed with your investor there. Recently, I hire a full disbowed manager, NTC. I need to

Strand: bring on acquisition managers. How is your team set up? We everything we do is partner based, and so we send it to different partners. We have two of them that we generate all the leads, we manage all the leads, and we send them to them to close and sell. So I just, again, leaned into my unique ability, and I didn't wanna I don't wanna keep doing more as you, like, keep scaling off, you get that really bad entrepreneur ADD.

Like, how can you make things efficient so you don't have to take on more? Right. And so with that, I I mean, I'd honestly pass it off to you because, like, we're super hands off for what we do. Yeah. Like, it's super easy for me, and it makes good money.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: And, like, we don't have to worry about dispo. We don't have to worry about acquisitions.

Steve: Yep. And then what do you recommend for a sales CRM?

Strand: I I don't know where you're at in life. I mean, good old Podio Mhmm. Is probably I mean, free Podio can get you a long ways, and I don't think you should I think you going and spending money on a really expensive CRM at the beginning is a really bad choice. Yeah. I think just pounding the phones is what matters.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I think you don't need a CRM to do your first deal. No. And then at some point, you do Podio, and then becomes a point where you're running a business.

It feels like a business. At that point, we recommend Left Main, personally. So, there's a question about so what is ERC that's from ICE?

Strand: What is ERC? ERC is the employee retention credit for anybody who retained their w two employees through COVID, through a certain amount of quarters, let's just call it 2020 and 2021, they are eligible for up to $26,000 for every w two employee they retained. If you wanna go learn more about that, you can go to www.erchere.com to learn more. Yeah. ERC is a great thing for small businesses.

A lot of, like, restaurants got decimated in California. We've been able to help out quite a few.

Steve: Shocking. California restaurants, During COVID? Can't believe that happened. Wants to know what adjustments have you made during 2022 into 2023 that was different from the years before when it was easy to find deals.

Strand: Man, we just gotta buy deeper. We gotta and it I mean, it I'm not gonna lie, but we got hit hard last year, like, towards, like, the end of the year, like, third and fourth quarters because, like, stuff was moving and then it slowed down to where I guess we're talking to our partners. It's really just because I don't like locking up contracts and having them fall out. Mhmm. Because that's just the it's it's bad morale for me.

Yeah. Right? And so, overall, like, we're like, let's just not lock it up because, like, we know we're not gonna be able to throw it out and sell it, bro. Like, let's just get a banger of a deal and keep on going. And if you have to negotiate and walk away and let someone else go buy a bad deal, so be it.

If they go out and make $500, cool.

Steve: Right.

Strand: But to me, like, that's not worth it. It's a lot of time and energy to get that thing to the finish line. So buy deeper.

Steve: Matt Pierce on Facebook. What is your daily routine like?

Strand: What is my daily routine? Oh, and besides buy deeper, we pitch a lot of creative in our storage stuff and other commercial stuff. What is my daily routine? Generally, like, I try and get up between four forty and 05:30. I think it depends on how bad, like, how late I work the next day.

I I try and get, like, a solid seven hours. Mhmm.

Steve: If I

Strand: don't get seven hours of full groggy. Lately, bro, I've been doing have you seen my stories? No. Dick.

Steve: I create I don't consume. I'm sorry.

Strand: I got this ice bath, bro, and I've been doing it every morning. That Yeah. That's been a the other day, I laid in bed for thirty minutes just like, like, I'm ready to go to war, and it was raining outside. So I start off my day, as of right now, getting in my ice bath, getting the cold plunge for five minutes, and then I wake up and I work. And then from there, I'll wait until, you know, wakes up at, like, seven.

Mhmm. Time with him, breakfast, everything else, and then take him to school, and then I go to the gym. And then from there, it's various meetings or calls or whatever it needs to be. Like, after, like, really, like, 09:30, ten, like, my day is just rolling for the rest of the

Steve: day. Yep. And then Dean on Facebook. Right? Like, most entrepreneurs start how like, most entrepreneurs start, how are you able to navigate and work through these through those broke days.

Right? So that's our friend Dean Rogers.

Strand: Shout out, Dino. How am I able to navigate broke days? Well, you just can't give up. I think I it bugs me how many people give up. Like, I don't know why you gave up.

Your life sucks now. It's gonna suck if you give up. You might as well just have it keep sucking until you get there.

Steve: I mean, it makes so much sense when you say it.

Strand: Right? I mean, your life is working hard sucks. Not working hard sucks. We might as well work hard with the chance of a positive outcome. Yeah.

Right? To where that's the way I see it, but I was raised with, like, a really good work ethic from my parents. Mhmm. Whereas I, bro, I I have to make this work and I hard workers and I learned this from sports and even my, like, strength conditioning coach, Joy Bose, in college, like, bro, if you work hard, you'll be fine, Strat. I remember me and telling me him telling me in college, Strat, you'll be fine in life.

Don't worry. You work hard.

Steve: Mhmm. There's a great quote. I'm gonna totally butcher it. Right? I can't remember who said it.

It was some super some super smart guy. It was that most people prefer the certainty of misery versus the misery of uncertainty. Yep. So most people would prefer their life sucks and just know when the life's gonna suck.

Strand: That's a really good point.

Steve: And to do something about it and maybe life not sucking. It's crazy to think about. But you look

Strand: around, it's kinda how it is. Gross 100% the way it is.

Steve: Yeah. So, let's see here. Kalani, follow-up. Who would be your first hire?

Strand: Someone else who can market for me.

Steve: Really? Because I think you're pretty good at marketing.

Strand: If you're in real estate and, like, as, like, a you should hire on a cold caller or texter. Not someone who's, like, gonna sell for you. Yeah. Like, someone because, like, I can only when you're buying a cold caller at the beginning, I'm just buying back another eight hours of, like, sifting through people so I can talk to more people.

Steve: Yeah. So you say a marketer, so cold caller.

Strand: Cold caller. I don't consider, like, an administrative person on Fiverr to clean your list for hire, I guess. But that stuff's not making you any money. Don't do that stuff.

Steve: Yeah. I would argue administrative stuff first.

Strand: You think so? I mean I

Steve: think so.

Strand: But the administrative stuff to me, I just see it as, like, a ten ninety nine, like, hey, bro. Send us to Fiverr. Mhmm. Tell them this is how I want my list screened, and then tell them send it back.

Steve: Right.

Strand: That's, like, $5.

Steve: If Fiverr charged $5, it's like those, like, dollar stores that used to be a dollar. It's It's not really a dollar anymore. But my point is that, you know, having an assistant that can take care of all the Yeah. Mundane stuff. Right?

I I think there's value

Strand: That that's a solid point. That's a solid point.

Steve: I think there's value in getting your teeth kicked out on cold calling. I think there's value when you

Strand: I'm not telling you to stop, though. I think when I whenever I'm talking to new people, I'm like, you need to stay on the phones as much as possible. Right. Because if you get on the phone, nobody's gonna be as good as you. So you go and you hire on a cold caller.

Let's say, best case scenario, they're 80% as good of a salesman as you are. Mhmm. Then you just lost 20% productivity if you stopped on the phone. Right. Right?

So we need to keep on calling ourselves while we hire on these people and, like, actually keep building momentum to get it going. And then, eventually, you'll know when it's time to step out, bro.

Steve: I guess for me, like, I look back as, like, how many people, like, offload calling because they don't wanna be on the phone? It's like, that call reluctance is gonna is not gonna go away when they have someone raise their hands. Right? Ever. Cold caller, get someone to raise their hands.

So, you know, now it's passed over to the lead manager, right, which is you because you only have a cold caller. If you're not gonna follow-up with that person that raised their hands, you're still not gonna make any progress. Exactly.

Strand: And you're not gonna make any money. Yeah. You're just not gonna make any money.

Steve: I mean, how many times have you seen that? Because I've seen that on the coaching side. Right? Like like yeah. Like, I don't like you know, someone would, hey.

Go do this. Okay. I got all these leads, and now what I do? Like, call them.

Strand: Right. Bank of phones.

Steve: Bank of them. But I you see so many people with car reluctance with they have money, but don't have, they got money.

Strand: But there's not a fire.

Steve: But there's not a fire. So you have not seen that on your side.

Strand: No. Because, like, most of the people who come to me, like, if generally, I'm I'm not gonna take that person seriously. I'm like, bro, like, this is what we have to do, and this is the only way, and you know this is the only way. Like, shit ain't gonna change.

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: Right? For the new people, that's when they come to me and, like, they don't, like, really get it. I feel like if you're in coaching, bro, you get it. Like, you know it has to be done.

Steve: You have a very different experience than I I have experienced.

Strand: Because, like, well, I have a bunch of, like, new people to meetups come to me. Right? Like, we don't do a ton of

Steve: So I'll tell you, like, on the other side. Right? Mhmm. When I first became a student, right, when I hired a coach, very first time, like, I I was Craig Proctor. At this point in my life, a thousand bucks a month was a lot of money.

Right?

Strand: Well, I mean, that's a that's $12 a year.

Steve: Yeah. Right? So I hired, I joined this coaching program, thousand bucks a month. And I I remember, like, alright, Steve. Here are the things you need to do between now and the next event in four months from now.

Okay. Perfect. I go do all those things. Because for me, a thousand bucks a month is a lot of money.

Strand: And, you

Steve: know, I like to make money. Right? And I show up, and there's a table, and there's seven of us. And we look around the table. I was like, alright.

What have you done since our last event? I was like, here's what I've done. This, this, this, this, and this. Right? And by the way, I don't consider myself like a high Driver.

Doer. I don't like doing things. Right? But I was at a point where I had to do all these things. We live around the table.

What was what was everyone else doing? And the other six people have done nothing. And I'm like

Strand: I've had a couple people come to me and, like, bro, here's the plan. And then they just don't execute on anything, but then I'm like, hey. Like, this is the plan, and then it's essentially me following up with them. Like, have have you execute have you executed against our plan yet? Yeah.

That that happens, but at the same time, there's nothing I can do to help them. Like, there is only one solution.

Steve: I understand that. But I'm saying that's this has been my experience. So I'm wondering if you had those that are like, hey. Like, you had

Strand: I have one right now, like, who who's at the top of my head, who I know exactly who I'm thinking about. And they're amazing, and we did we just gotta start banging the phones.

Steve: Yeah. Is it Vontae's question, is it worth hiring a part time VA?

Strand: I have mixed feelings about this. I think when you're hiring on someone part time, what are they doing for that? Or is it because you're being cheap? Is it because you're, like, thinking about, like, their time? You're like, well, they're gonna get burnt out spending eight hours on the phone.

Well, they're gonna go get another job Mhmm. On the phone because that's what their skill set is.

Steve: So,

Strand: like, they're gonna do that shit anyways. And then what are the bad habits they're learning from that other shitty business It's completely yours. Yeah. That is competing against yours. Like, so if you can afford a full time person, you can mold the culture significantly better.

You build a better relationship. But if you're at the beginning, you can't afford it, I get it.

Steve: Yeah. I struggle. Like, I had the option to hire part time VAs. I never did because for me, I was always worried about, like, what else are they gonna do? Because if they're only working four hours for me, they might go work for someone else that's four hours.

That could be eight hours. And now I'm getting, like, four hours out of, Bro, you're getting nonsense. Sixty hour Yeah.

Strand: You're getting nonsense.

Steve: Yeah. So that was for me always my greatest fear. Claudio wants to know, what is the skip trace of choice? Who do you like to skip trace with? I think

Strand: skip trace with. A company called Direct Skip is who I like to use. Shout out, Peter.

Steve: Instagram. Ian wants to know, what are you looking for when you're hiring a sales trainer for your VAs? Steve Trang. There you go. Fantastic answer.

Fantastic question. Darren on YouTube I mean, and again, that kinda goes back. Right? We're talking about, certified call disruptive certified call callers. Right?

So if you guys are interested, text 233777, or go to callmagicians.com. Darren, when did you desire to hire a lead manager? He is a current call magicians client. What's his last name?

Strand: Darren Dixie. You need more leads. Generally so all of our lead managers, the way we think is that they need to be busy for forty hours a week because, like, we dedicate them to that business. Like, that person is in your business. They know your business.

They know your culture. And so if you're only gonna have enough to be, like, twenty hours a week, that makes it hard. And then it would be Darren, get my number from Eric. It would be us sitting there and talking about, okay. What does your day look like?

Because some people have money that they can place on a leads manager and to do other things. It really all depends on where you're at in business, but, generally, I'm back to, like, the full time thing. Like, can we keep this person busy for forty hours a week? Like, can they actually, like, bang out the phones for forty hours a week? If not, then let's just hire on another caller at, like, a lower price because the leads manager is gonna be more money.

Steve: Yep. Vontae, how sorry. You're talking to Darren. Let's see here. I have will be called on Tuesdays.

You have to list the calls. Oh, so Johnny Cash Out for Facebook. What markets are you in? We're nationwide. Nationwide.

Strand: Primarily Fresno, and then we have nationwide.

Steve: So how does nationwide work?

Strand: At a point, I ran out of data. That's what we're talking about earlier.

Steve: At some point, you just called everybody.

Strand: Yeah. At a point, I ran out of data and because we have to train those people up somehow. Right? And so I was like, I gotta keep going and buying more data so I can, like, call it. Yeah.

And so that's what turned in nationwide because, like, we can't just keep calling the same list. At that point, bro, that list has just been ran through at probably, like, a thousand times. Like, if we would've stuck to, like, what we had Mhmm. That's what forced me to go nationwide.

Steve: So I'm gonna ask a totally selfish question. Right? So, you know, obviously, you and I, we've been working together for some time now. I mean, coming up on four years. Imagine this.

Sounds good. Right? You had reached out to me a couple years ago. I was like, Steve, we want you to train our sales coaches on the methodology for cold calling. Obviously, you've been exposed to all sorts of different philosophies, mindsets, approaches, this and that.

Why did you reach out to us to train your cold callers?

Strand: Because I know you. I know you're a good guy. I know your personality. And then, like, I've gone through that process, and I've gone through the other, let's say, ones that are out there, and I thought they were too wordy.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: So it didn't make sense. Yeah. And then, like, you're in it, and it's you're like me, bro. You're pretty straightforward. You know?

To where, like, majority of the time, it was get to the point, was asking good questions, then move from there. But for me, it was, I know you. I can trust you. And it took a while because I was like, Steve, I wanna do this. You're like, yeah.

Yeah. I I don't know Strat. I don't know Strat. And so I worked through a little bit, but you were the guy who wanted to do it just because for me, everything is relationships. And I had a relationship with you, and I'd rather support you and your business Yeah.

Than someone else who, let's say, I'm not necessarily friends with.

Steve: Yeah. I appreciate that. And then we're talking about philosophies. This is a conversation you and I had offline. Right?

Let's see how much we wanna bring online. Right? Okay. Is that I have again, I've been using VAs for about thirteen years now. And when it was not a common mainstream thing, all the VAs were in The Philippines.

Mhmm. Right? Now this is just kinda every it's, like, everywhere. Right? I mean, there's, Philippines, Egypt, Mexico, Colombia, Belize, whatever.

Right? So in my experience working with cold callers or I'm sorry. When working virtual assistants, and we're in The Philippines, we get consistent and reliable, except for typhoons. Right? We get consistent and reliable.

Right? If we work with Central And South America, we get inconsistent but better results.

Strand: Yeah. Sounds better.

Steve: Right? So what has been your experience? Because you've gotten to work.

Strand: We we have employees in over I mean, like, seven different countries is, like, where we're at

Steve: Mhmm. To where

Strand: at this point, it's just hire the best people from around the world. Yeah. Like, hire the best people from around the world. Let them work from home. Let them spend a ton of time with their family.

Let like, help build them up as a human to be, like, really, really good hard workers. And then I always tell them, like, bro, I'm going to be the best husband, best wife, best father. That's whatever you do. If we're going out and playing soccer, we're gonna dominate. Right?

Yeah. To where that's what you need to look for to where because you're gonna get great people, bad people, and that's why we decided to go, like, worldwide because we're just like, bro, we just want, like, the best people. And if we're ever was working from home at a point in time where we had a chick in Seattle working for us, she couldn't get her papers. And she was she lived in Mexico at a point and worked for us, and she moved

Steve: to Seattle and started working. Nice. So NDO, there's a question not for you or for me, but, hopefully, the team can support this. Right? How are we live right now in four k with different camera angles?

Strand: Bro, I saw the setup. A team. That's how. Team. That's exactly the right

Steve: answer. Right? That is definitely the right answer. This is, you know, I've made the joke or, you know, I made the comment, like, in transitioning and growing the business. You know, as a business owner, you had to step out, and I have I've literally sat in every seat in the company.

I I used to say that. I can no longer say that because media company is on such a different level. I can't even, you know, I can't even fathom on how to begin doing this. I mean, programming the screen this and that. So what does what does your business look like today versus, you know, four years ago when you were still door knocking?

Strand: A lot more employees. I'd I'd say this. A lot more employees would be the biggest thing. And what I've had to change is I've had to really grow as a leader. I'd say that's the one thing that, like, a lot of people don't really talk about in the space because you hear all these podcasts, but then really the thing that if you wanna have, like, an a plus company, you gotta be an a plus person and a plus leader, and you gotta be able to lead other a plus people.

Steve: Right.

Strand: I'd say the what's changed is me. The biggest thing that has changed is I've grown.

Steve: Yeah. And I think that's I think that every that speaks for definitely, everybody. What is your why?

Strand: I wanna be filthy fucking rich. Everybody asked me that. Right? Like, I'm supposed to have some, like, powerful why. Like, I wanna spend more time as my kid, but I wanna buy a jet.

Yeah. Like, what is Why a jet? Why a jet? It's all it's all ego, bro. Right?

Status. Yeah. Status. Like, come on, bro. Like, I'm real with myself.

I do think it'd be cool to, like what would it be like to, like, buy a basketball team? Yeah. Like, that's I've been thinking about that a lot lately because I met the dude who bought the Jazz. Mhmm. Right after he sold Coltrics.

Steve: He

Strand: bought me a pizza at the Pie in Salt Lake. And so I got to sit there and, like, talk to him for, like, thirty minutes.

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: And he sold it for a ton of money.

Steve: So when Sarver got in trouble right? Robert Sarver with the Phoenix Suns.

Strand: Oh, yeah.

Steve: Right? And they're like, okay. Well, he's gonna have to sell the company. So I started placing some phone calls. Right?

I was like because I I mean so, you know, we bought a bank. Right? And so, like, the guy who founded the bank was the guy who everyone had to talk to if they were gonna be involved in sports. Right? I mean, he knows the Colangelos.

He helped the Cardinals, you know, identify their stadiums. Like, he like, he knows everyone. Right? So I talked to him. It's like, you know, like, hey.

Like, get yours on the ground. Like, you know, keep me posted. And then my best friend, knows one of the sun's owners. So, alright. You go talk to him.

I'm gonna talk to this guy. Right? And this this this meet, you know, at the water cooler, whatever. So we find out, okay. So you don't have to buy the whole team.

You just buy it for 1%. Yeah. But the going rate's $4,000,000,000. And he like, this is what they called well before they sold, you know, a couple weeks ago. Like, going rate

Strand: the new, who's the dude who went on bigger pockets was bought it. Right?

Steve: I don't know exactly who bought it. Okay. But it's $4,000,000,000. Right? So it was 1%.

It was 40,000,000. It's like, alright. I just gotta raise $40,000,000. So you wanna start a syndication. That's all it takes to buy 1% of a sports team.

Strand: Well, I think that's what most of them the new people, that's what they do. Like, I know Chamath who bought the warriors. Like, he bought the warriors. We bought into the warriors, and he raised a bunch of money.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: I know Ryan, who owns the jazz, did the same thing.

Steve: Yeah.

Strand: Like, you go out and you're, like, you're still doing business raising the money.

Steve: Yeah. We can do the same thing here. So you let me know when you're ready. But I think the question of what is your why, I think it's one of those questions, though, that it's hard to answer as well.

Strand: Well, it's a it's a hard one because, like, I do want a ton of status. I want wealth. I wanna spend a ton of time with my family. I wanna feel what it's like to, like, really fly in a jet. Like, my thing as a kid, and I was an awful child.

Right? I feel bad for my parents. Like, I do what I want. Right?

Steve: So You're a maverick.

Strand: I'm a maverick. Right? What is I mean, besides, like, spending more time with my family, bro, like, what else is there? Like and then at the same time, you need to be realistic with yourself. If you spend eight hours with your kids every day, you're probably gonna kill yourself.

Steve: Well, we learned through COVID, right, that spending time with our family is not quite Exactly.

Strand: Yeah. That's, like, not quite like what you thought it was gonna be. You know? Like, it's

Steve: what is your biggest struggle right now?

Strand: What is my biggest struggle right now? Always finding more better people. Like, highly talented people. And that that probably just goes on me being a better

Steve: Yeah. Right. You gotta earn your way into that room. We're talking about, you know, earlier. Right?

Preston Brown, like, maybe checking out, you know, your best life,

Strand: y b l. True. Yep.

Steve: How will you know when you're successful?

Strand: It always changes, bro. I get in a lot of people's eyes, I'm successful in my eyes. Like, we were talking about this before, bro.

Steve: It's a Yeah. Bro, it's

Strand: a it's a rabbit hole of, like, going through all that stuff. I don't have any metrics of being successful because I had one of my friends the other day tell me I was an NFL athlete, and I was like, bro, if we said that to our friends, I played with them at Fresno State, they'd all laugh at me.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: But to the outside world, I'm an NFL athlete. Right?

Steve: I mean, you try it out.

Strand: Right. I mean, like, to, like, oh, well, you did it. No one else did it. But to me, that's not success. Success to me is being a pro bowler.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, for you and me. Right? Because we're joking about this because there are people we know that make these claims. So we're gonna say, alright.

You are you are a professional player. And by extension, right, I played

Strand: Bro, you're for sure a d one basketball player. I don't care.

Steve: I mean, I tried out.

Strand: You tried out. D one basketball player.

Steve: I tried out for d one. It was a disaster. It wasn't that far, you know, under the rug, but I did try out.

Strand: What is your superpower? What is my superpower? My superpower is I would just say connecting with people. Yeah. Connecting with people is probably the best thing I do.

I don't I'm not very smart. I guess I work hard, but everybody works harder when you get to this point.

Steve: True. Right? Yeah. Working hard is no longer, like

Strand: Like, working hard is no longer, like

Steve: That is just the cost to get in. That is not a bragging point.

Strand: And then at a point, like, okay. If you're working hard, we should probably be spending more time thinking because, like, now, like, you're just you can get down that whole rabbit hole, but I'd say the best thing I can do is just connect with people. I have a lot of friends, I say.

Steve: Yep. If I was to talk to Kalani, well, she says she's. Oh, man.

Strand: I don't know, bro. I was saying. No? Ask her. Ask her.

She might be watching.

Steve: Alright. And you can put that in the YouTube comments. I'll be curious to hear. How did you learn your greatest lesson?

Strand: How did I learn my greatest lesson? What has been my greatest lesson? That was a hard one, bro. Failure? I mean, I feel like now, hopefully, I keep making bigger and bigger mistakes Mhmm.

That are, like, as I'm, like, trying to well, not trying to. As I'm leveling up, and it's like, wow. That was a really, really big lesson. But it all comes from just more massive action, and then, like, you're, oh, man. That was really bad.

But then you learn from it Mhmm. And then you go again. I would say not hiring soon enough. And my biggest lesson that I always try and get people is, like, I wish I would have thought bigger at the beginning. Yeah.

Like, I wish I would have thought a lot bigger at the beginning.

Steve: Isn't it crazy, though? But everyone else says, like, your your your head's in clouds. I'll get your head out of the clouds. Right.

Strand: And then now, like, some people are probably like, what are you doing? Yeah. That's way too small.

Steve: Well, it's kinda like it goes back to, right, Steve Jobs says, you know, those that are crazy enough to think that they can make a dent in the world are the ones that do. Exactly. Yeah. Which failure did you learn the most from?

Strand: Which failure did I learn the most from? Trying to think of a recent one. Man, there's just so many failures. The failure I've learned the most from would probably be the NFL, bro. I think it when I came to terms with that and I was really like, I didn't force their hand out.

Steve: The

Strand: NFL was probably the biggest failure of my that is the biggest failure of my life so far. Yeah. Because everything I'm doing now, I feel like I I will it into existence over time.

Steve: What could you do differently?

Strand: There's not a whole lot you could have done differently. But, like, it's Is

Steve: it really a failure?

Strand: I I guess if I wanted to keep playing and keep trying to stay at it Yeah. I could've. But, I mean, up there, like, you're saying, man, like, he's a lot bigger than me, and he's a lot faster than me. Like, there's a lot I no amount of film is gonna change this. Yeah.

Right? To where in college, like, I wasn't the biggest. I wasn't the fastest, but I just watched more film than everybody else.

Steve: Explain to me watching film. Right? Like, how does watching game film help? Like, I understand it, like, theoretically. Right?

So, like, who are you studying? The quarterback, the receiver?

Strand: Quarterback, receivers, O line formations, and so I get a point. I'm like, okay. So here's this formation. We're at this point in the field. Alright.

What's going on? Okay. I know that there's, like, two possible things that they can do here. Mhmm. Like, just according to their tendencies.

Steve: Okay. So it's tendencies. Yeah. Like, there's, like So, you know, like, if this formation and you know that this is their star

Strand: wide distance, this formation, like, you can, like, narrow it down pretty far to, like, okay. We're here. Alright. They move this guy to there. Generally, they do this.

We're gonna be getting this. Okay. But we got, like, two different plays.

Steve: Okay. So it's like, for me, this is like watching or studying poker.

Strand: Yeah. Like, you're you're just breaking stuff down to, like okay. These are the two possibilities. Got it. Alright.

I'm gonna get I'm gonna bet because I got a 60%. Even like a I got a 50.01% chance over here. Awesome. Like, I'm going for it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Strand: Right? But it's like just playing the bets, and then

Steve: Got it.

Strand: Educating yourself on what could happen, and you're doing that over and over again every week.

Steve: I remember there's this one game, right, where Tony Romo called, like, the next seven plays.

Strand: Bro. Right? And he's like, okay. Well, when the defense does this or this side of the field, okay, probably it's gonna happen like this. And then But I

Steve: I remember watching it like like, holy cow. He just called the the next seven plays Yes. From up there. What's up?

Strand: All you're doing on film, though, is you're watching from up top. Mhmm. So you're watching from that booth. Yeah. But, like, in in, on TV, they zoom in on, like, the whole line.

Generally, like, I'm used to watching football, like, out.

Steve: Right. So I can

Strand: see everybody on the field doing everything else. And so it just helps you in all those different situations just to be more successful.

Steve: Yeah. Well, that makes total sense. Right? Because that takes me back to, like, you know, when we lost to the Super Bowl. Was it, James Harrison?

He's like, I knew this play was happening. Right? When he intercepted in the end zone. Yeah.

Strand: Like, bro, they know. And their entire job like, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, bro, they're just

Steve: on film. On the quarterback side. But when the linebacker's like, I knew this pick play was coming, jump the lane Well, you can run into other side.

Strand: See the formation, and then you're like, okay. This guard's pulling up, bro. We know it's coming. Yeah. And you can just beat the guard there.

Got it. It's really interesting.

Steve: Glad glad that question came up. What book have you gifted more than any other?

Strand: It was Think and Go Rich, but Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. Yeah. Yeah. Outwitting the Devil.

Steve: What is so powerful about that book for you?

Strand: I think it's a frame breaking book of the way you analyze everything. Mhmm. And then controlling your thoughts. Al so Alan Folio is the first person, like, really, like, I'm really woo woo vibrations, all that, bro. And I think it is really helpful because it helps you analyze what's going on upstairs, and you don't.

Most people just walk around with the same program running every day to where Think and Grow Rich, Outwitting the Devil, anything Bob Proctor. Mhmm. That'll help you actually, like, start to realize what's going on upstairs, and that's when you can start to change things.

Steve: It's it's funny. Right? You say woo woo, but, like, we can't explain it.

Strand: Bro, I can't explain it, but it's real. But it's true. It's true. Like, I'm I will die on that hill.

Steve: Yeah. Right? Like, I can't explain it.

Strand: I can't

Steve: give you the science behind it, but it's real. Yeah. Alright. Cool. So I want you to think about a message you wanna leave the listeners with while I make a couple quick announcements.

Guys, again, if you got value today, please like, subscribe, share, comment. If you wanna work with Stratton's VAs that we will train, disruptor certified callers, go to call magicians.com or disruptors.com/ccc. We do have our dispo training in two days. If you guys are interested, right, go to, just DM us the word dispo. And next week, we got Jason Grace coming here to talk about short term rentals.

So what are the last thoughts you wanna leave everybody with?

Strand: First last thoughts, shout out my beautiful girlfriend, Kalani. We couldn't have done it without her. Shout out my parents. Shout out my little boy, Zeno. My business partner, Kyle, who we own the rentals with.

My other business partner, Dean. And then Ian, and obviously, Mark Evans and Allan Folio. And I would say the number one thing is don't give up. Like, everybody wants these, like, profound things, but, like, if you don't give up, you can't lose. And I know it's not gonna, like, change your life, but, like, if you can take a beating forever, like, there's so many people who are successful after six failed businesses.

And this is real estate, bro. It's not complex. Like, you're not you're not doing tech, bro. Right?

Steve: It's not rocket science.

Strand: Yeah. But we're hopping on the phone talking old ladies, man. Yeah. So just don't give up and stick to the same thing for a year, and I promise you, your life will change forever.

Steve: Yeah. What's the best way for someone to reach out to you?

Strand: Best way to reach out to me, send me a text, (801) 860-8032, and follow me on Instagram at StratDaddy, the best IG handle in the world in my personal opinion. But, yeah, my number is (801) 860-8032. StratDaddy.

Steve: Thank you so much.

Strand: Thank you so much.

Steve: For watching. See you guys next week.