From NFL Player to 100 Deals a Year

Speaker 0: Shout out to Steve Trane. Jump on the Steve Trane. We real estate disruptors.

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of real estate disruptors. Today, we've got Dean Rogers with deanrogers.com, and Dean flew in from San Diego, California to share how he went from the NFL to a 100 deals a year. Now I am on a mission to create 100 millionaires. The information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years.

If you'll take consistent action, you will become one. We know you wanna be a successful investor. At times, you might feel frustrated or anxious because you're either not buying enough or you're not buying deep enough. I know how deflating it is to walk out of the house without a contract. We've helped hundreds of people buy thousands of houses at deep margins.

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The live show, so ask your questions for you to answer. Ready?

Dean Rogers: Let's do it.

Steve: Alright. So first question is, what was your life like before you got into real estate?

Dean: Life before real estate was being an athlete, you know, living out the dream of making it to the NFL, and and I got to do that. Right? Yeah. So before, knew nothing about real estate other than I grew up in houses and liked what they looked like and saw HGTV and thought, like, that was cool, but didn't know that's what my life was gonna lead to.

Steve: So before we started the show, maybe do a bunch of bands Yeah. Feeling right now. Yeah. Feeling You

Dean: feeling a little pump in

Steve: the arms? A little pump right now.

Speaker 3: This is crazy.

Dean: A little bit. Let's see.

Steve: So, NFL, what team?

Dean: The Chargers. San Diego Chargers.

Steve: Chargers. It's my second favorite team. They were my team when I left.

Dean: Before it was your now your first favorite.

Steve: It was the Cardinals Uh-huh. When I moved to San Diego.

Dean: Okay. But you're back to the Cardinals now? I have

Steve: to be. Okay. It's the hometown.

Dean: Alright.

Steve: Right? I mean, I don't love them, but of all the teams, I love them the most.

Dean: Okay.

Steve: So, what year were you there?

Dean: 02/1112.

Steve: '11 and '12. What position did you play?

Dean: So I went I went from playing tight end in college. Mhmm. North Turner switched me to fullback.

Steve: Okay.

Dean: So moved me to fullback, and that's kinda where my story starts as to why I stopped playing football.

Steve: Are you were you a little thicker at that point? Then Oh, dude.

Dean: I was juicy. Yeah. I looked if you've ever played Madden Mhmm. And you go to create a player, I looked like a creative player. Like, I was just I got a video of me walking off the field, and I just look

Steve: Well, Well, did you look like a tight end Yeah. Right now?

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: So naturally, did you have to gain a bunch of weight to be a fullback?

Dean: I didn't have to switch. I was already two fifty five.

Steve: Okay.

Dean: So Have

Steve: you lost a lot of weight since then then?

Dean: I'm two thirty five now.

Steve: Okay. So So play fullback. Didn't like that position or just I

Dean: loved it. So well, I shouldn't say I loved it. I love tight end a lot more. Mhmm. But I was playing really good.

So I show up. Right? And North Turner switches me to fullback. And I'm like, well, I'm not in the position. I'm not a a first round draft pick.

I'm not gonna tell Antonio Gates to scoot over. Like, that's my position. I'm gonna be grateful for the opportunity. So I show up, and day one like, they don't mess around. Like, when they sign you and you sign the dotted line, there's no, like, warm up process.

Practice tomorrow.

Steve: Okay.

Dean: Right? Here's your gear. Like, we're going. And so I'll never forget the first day I get there, I'm nervous as hell because I went to a smaller college, UC Davis, and all the linemen weren't as massive as they are at, like, the big top d one colleges.

Steve: And you're not playing against ace SEC.

Dean: Exactly. Yeah. And everyone in the NFL and the defensive offensive linemen, like, the skilled players, they're still massive, huge, but the defensive offensive linemen are insanely huge. And I just remember being so overwhelmed with how big they were that I was like, dude, am I gonna get destroyed here or what? And I woke up the next morning and was like, alright.

I got this. Like, let's just show up and ball out. So, the first snap I'm in at fullback, we run a counter, and I come around the off the edge. And Bob Sanders, Pro Bowl strong safety, comes flying off the edge, and I light him up. And it was just because I was like, I'm going a 100%.

I'm not holding back. I light him up, and North Turner throws his clipboard. He's like, there you go, Rogers. Like, he was just fired up, and I was like, oh, this is cool. Yeah.

So I was just a 100% from there. Just play after play, you know, showing up, doing good, and same thing in the games. Like, the games are even easier than practice. And all of a sudden, I go from dreaming of this as a kid to a reality and North Turner telling me, like, you're gonna have a long career. And it was pretty nuts.

Steve: And then

Dean: It was pretty surreal. And then I have this realization junior sales kills himself that year. ESPN is talking about

Steve: the Kardashians.

Dean: And as a fullback, not a tight end, at tight end, well, on a blocking play, you're blocking a guy one or two yards away from you. As a fullback, you're running

Steve: 10 yards

Dean: to run through a narrow hole

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: Between giant tall linemen. And the best way to be effective is to run as fast as you can head first through that. So I started to feel it. Like, after practices, I'd have to start icing my head and Really? For real.

Steve: Wow.

Dean: And that, to me, scared the living hell out of me to the point where I was like, on one hand, I have my dream and a short life. In the other hand, I have some other life I haven't figured out yet, but a longer life.

Steve: So you opted out?

Dean: So opted out. Whatever that pill is in the matrix, the red or blue one or whichever one keeps you alive, I took that one.

Steve: Gotcha. That's a major decision.

Dean: A huge decision.

Steve: I was gonna bring up Antonio because you brought him up. What was it like playing with Antonio and Philip?

Dean: So here's the coolest thing that is relatable to everyone else who's an entrepreneur. Right? People look at you. They see you online. You're Steve Trang.

Like, you got a lot of really cool stuff going on. You look at other people online, Grant Cardone, Pace Morby. I mean, I could name a bunch of people.

Steve: Right.

Dean: They're like, dude, look how cool this person is. Like, you almost get a little bit of celebrity factor. When you sit across the table from them, you're like, oh, they're just like me. Another dude. Right?

They may have accomplished more. They might be making hundreds of millions of dollars. Right? Some of these players. Mhmm.

But when you're in the club, you're boys.

Steve: Right.

Dean: So all of a sudden, I go from playing video games, Madden, while I'm training for four hours a day before the NFL and then playing video games the other four hours. I'm now sitting next to Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates, and we're just homies. Yeah. Like, we're talk we're sharing stories in the locker room. You know?

Steve: I was thinking particularly along the lines of, like, the tirades. Right? Because we always laugh when you see fellow observers just chewing someone out.

Dean: People love to ask about fellow observers. Yeah.

Steve: Because it's, it's I don't think he means that's freaking. I think he says Thanos.

Dean: He doesn't even say frick?

Steve: I don't think he even says frick. I don't even know what

Dean: he said. Freak. I I can't remember.

Steve: Yeah. But it's just it's fascinating to see him just completely lose his mind on a linebacker, on a dirty play, whatever Yeah. And still stay within the confines of his rules. Right.

Dean: I've

Steve: ever heard he's one of the worst trash talkers. Like, one of the biggest trash talker in NFL. He was he was

Dean: He's always running his mouth. Yeah. And he was so in practice, in games, in the locker room, like I was telling you before, in the ice bath, like, he was always just running a game. And whether it was, like, see who can hold their breath the longest in the ice bath

Steve: Yeah.

Dean: Or I I was like I couldn't believe when I saw this. In the locker room, everyone is so competitive. You've seen hard knocks.

Steve: Right.

Dean: Right? Everybody is so hyper

Steve: to be to get there.

Dean: You have to be to get there. They're so hyper competitive that one random day in the locker room, Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates see some other guys playing a game where they would toss the water bottle across the locker, see who could get it in the laundry basket, and it was a thousand dollars to throw. Well, Philip Gates and, Antonio Gates and Philip Rivers, they're like, well, now we're gonna play bigger money. So they're, like, throwing $10,000 a bottle. They get up to, like, $300,000 double or nothing.

They move the laundry basket. Phil Rivers drains one from the back. He was double or nothing, makes it, and runs off, or else he was paying up Antonio $300,000. Like and here I am as a rookie thinking, dude, that's a lot of money.

Steve: A lot of money.

Dean: Pretty crazy. But Yeah.

Steve: So there's something he said there that I think is really interesting that I think everyone needs to really understand. Practice was harder than the game.

Dean: It was. Yeah.

Steve: Elaborate on that for me.

Dean: So in practice, right, you're you're all because it's so hypercompetitive, you don't just lollygack, especially as a rookie. Like, you got you gotta you what you put on film is what the coaches see. Mhmm. That's the biggest thing is what you put on film. It's not necessarily the side conversations or how good you were at the playbook.

What you put on film is what they see. So you had to perform every time. No matter if it was a drill, just a random drill, or actual like, we're doing 11 on 11 practice drills. And so because of that and because you're doing that many repetitions, it was intense, physically, mentally, everything. And there's trash talking going on there too.

Right? And I remember pancaking Larry English who's in the league for, you know, over a decade in practice, and Donald Driver, the starting linebacker, middle linebacker at the time, talking trash locker. Hey, Larry. Dean was saying he pancaked your ass and was telling everybody about I'm like, I didn't say anything. Like, I hey.

Whatever happened on the play happened, but I'm No. I just did what I did. And so, like, there's always this competitive edge to it.

Steve: Well, I bring this up because one thing I talk about ourselves training is the importance of practice.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And what we always say is that NFL players don't get paid for the sixty minutes. They get paid for practice. They get paid for sleeping well. They get paid for eating well.

Dean: So true.

Steve: And that going crazy in the off season and getting a bunch of weight. Yeah. Right? So that's what you get paid for. And then the byproduct is the is the income.

Dean: 100%. Yeah.

Steve: So I'm glad to hear from someone that's been in NFL to say the same thing because what's been really theory to you.

Dean: When you get in the game, right, and you've put in the repetitions, you know how to run the play, you as long as you just didn't mess up the play, you usually get the result. Right. You're like, oh, well, that practice led to getting that result, and it and you might have just executed on a a couple times in the actual game, and it's a lot easier. Right?

Steve: Right. So So you opted out of the NFL. Yeah. Concerns about concussions, which makes total sense. Yeah.

You do right after that?

Dean: So right after that, I had a good friend from college, Ryan Troy, who hit me up. He knew I was done playing. He said, hey. What are you up to? I got an amazing opportunity that I think I could walk you in the door, software company in the Bay Area, and it sounded like the perfect thing that I would wanna do when I knew football would be done.

And so he basically walked me in the door, got me an interview, got the job, and I didn't look back. Right? When I was done with football, I I could've gone down the journey. Do I go to another team to, to to try to be tight end right? Do I do something else?

I just I knew that when my eyes were opened about the concussions, like, it just I couldn't do it anymore. Even though I'm sure you've seen ballers on HBO. Even though the lifestyle can provide amazing opportunity. I mean, people treat you like a celebrity everywhere you go. It's pretty nuts.

But to to transition out of there, I said, I'm not looking back. I'm just moving forward. My buddy walked me in the door, got me the job. And to me, I I almost laughed how easy it was because I was spending all hours of the day training. And, like, you had to be so physically and mentally prepared because you're performing on stage in front of 80,000 fans, and they're all looking at you to catch that ball or to make that block or to do whatever it is.

Right?

Steve: Or they're ready to judge your next mistake.

Dean: Or they're ready to rip you to pieces. Right? So being prepared for that environment and then going into, an office desk job and typing on the keyboard, I was, like, spinning in my chair. Like, this is a joke. This is so easy.

And I had all this energy, so I just put it into it. And I busted my butt and told myself, okay. I went from the 7 figure contract to the $65,000 salary. It's okay, though, because I'm gonna I'm gonna prove that I'm worth more, and I'm gonna get a big pay increase after the first year. I mean What

Steve: were you doing?

Dean: I was working for a software company.

Steve: You were a programmer?

Dean: Not a programmer. So to make a a long story short, it was like a consulting position, but it was like a startup within a startup.

Steve: Okay.

Dean: We had this secret project we were working on.

Steve: Alright. So 65,000.

Dean: 65,000.

Steve: Butt. You're gonna make a 100 something for sure.

Dean: I'm gonna finally hit 6 figures, and I'm gonna get into that game of providing well enough to make it to the next level, climb the ladder, all that stuff. Congratulations, Dean. You busted your butt. You're gonna get an increase to $67,000. And that's where the light like, I was so pissed off.

I was so pissed, and I felt like my my value, my worth wasn't realized and that I was not in the right position to create that freedom. I had this amazing dream of of the NFL creating like, I got my whole family. Everybody's gonna get a house type of thing. Right. Now how can I provide for even my own family?

Yeah. And so for me, I I went what a lot of people probably have done. I went and thought about what are the things that I like. I remember Dean Graziosi late night infomercials. Yep.

I remember love it or list it, watching it in the living room with my parents and, like, I like real estate.

Steve: Right.

Dean: But I went to Google and I typed how to get started in real estate, and I found Sean Terry's flip to freedom podcast, the first thing that showed up.

Steve: Godfather for all of us.

Dean: The godfather. And he was one of maybe two or three people talking about real estate investing, how to get started with little to no money. Right. And for me, going again from the 7 figure contract to the $65,000 salary in the San Francisco Bay Area, things got tight pretty quick.

Steve: I can only imagine.

Dean: So I I I said, well, this this is, like, the perfect thing. And I remember listening to that podcast and just the energy that Sean Terry had and all this stuff, I was like, this is my guy. Yeah. This this guy gave me energy. Right?

Just his morals and ethics and, you know, he's a God believer and, like, he was helping people that were janitors or or pest control people and changing their lives. I'm like, dude, I can just apply my energy and my effort. This is gonna work. And I followed what he did. Now this is a free podcast Mhmm.

Just with audio. I had no no YouTube, no visual like this. It was just audio. And I remember obsessively listening to it and followed what Sean was saying. My first deal was on a strategy he was talking about he was doing Mhmm.

Getting, placing offers on hudhomestore.com. We could place offer on Right. Foreclosure properties, and I got a property under contract. I had to, within forty eight hours, send in a thousand dollar deposit and sign contracts. Mhmm.

And then I had thirty days of close. I tried to find buyers, couldn't find a buyer. I got smart, thankfully, and I went to his Sean Terry's website and filled out the information like I was a seller.

Steve: Remember those?

Dean: So then his acquisition person called me, told him what was up. I had it under contract, trying to wholesale it. He's like, dude, Sean can help you. Got on the phone with Sean Terry while he's driving his car. He's like, yeah, man.

I'll totally take care of you. I'm like, sweet. He got us sold within a couple days, made $12. We split it. I made $6.

Steve: Nice.

Dean: And that was in within three months of the first day of me doing that Google search.

Steve: All from information from the podcast?

Dean: All from the podcast. Nothing else.

Steve: So that must open your eyes?

Dean: Big time.

Steve: So what do you realize?

Dean: Like, I could do it over and over and over again, and it was possible. And that was I think that's the biggest moment for most people is first taking the actions to to do their first deal and realizing there's more opportunity. But then closing that first deal, you just it's a pivotal moment that you just have that breakthrough.

Steve: Gives you that belief.

Dean: Gives you that belief.

Steve: How about your second deal? How did you continue that momentum?

Dean: So I did a couple more deals doing the exact same strategy with Sean Terry, co wholesaling it in Right. In Phoenix, Arizona. And then as I'm living in San Francisco, working the corporate job, I took some of that money I made and put it into direct mail marketing, what Sean Terry was also teaching

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: In the market I grew up in in Central California. I was living in San Francisco. The houses were big, expensive. They scared me. I didn't understand why they were so expensive, but I started looking at my own market and my own backyard where I grew up.

Steve: And that exactly is that?

Dean: That's in Central California. So some of the bigger cities, Fresno, Visalia, Bakersfield, those areas. And those are price points I understood. $2,300,000 houses.

Steve: Right.

Dean: And the neighborhoods look all pretty much the same or similar. Track homes built in the fifties, in the sixties, in the seventies, and so on. So I was like, this I can do. So started direct mail marketing in between lunch breaks, after work, on the way to work. I was I was taking calls, calling back voice mails.

Steve: When was this approximately?

Dean: It was in 2000, '14 '15.

Steve: 2014. After you closed your first bunch of deals and you started doing direct mail

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: How much longer did you stay at your job?

Dean: For still for years. And that's one of the biggest things that I like to preach to people is a lot of people think they have to burn the boats. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. But some people believe they have to burn the boats to be successful. But if you can find yourself in the right position, you can create flexibility to where you still have that safety net, but you can still go out and chase your dreams and create that.

I mean, there was a guy I spoke to and and interviewed yesterday on my podcast. He had been in his corporate job for twenty five years, and he just ended several months ago that job. Meanwhile, he's raising $75,000,000 for a reg a, fund that he has and buying mortgage notes.

Steve: Mhmm. From people there?

Dean: What's that?

Steve: From people at that job?

Dean: No. Oh, you

Steve: might wanna explain what a reg a is for everyone that's listening.

Dean: Yeah. So I don't I don't wanna proclaim to be an expert, but, basically

Steve: Still want them thinking it's music.

Dean: What's that?

Steve: I don't want them thinking it's music.

Dean: Yeah. So reg a. Thank you. So regulation a fund, as he explained it to me, is where he can go raise money from both accredited investors and non accredited investors and is able to do marketing. So there's different funds that allow you restrictions or no restrictions.

This is the least restrictive fund, and he's able to raise $75,000,000 up to $75,000,000 within that fund.

Steve: So did you have any struggles along the way as you're growing your your real estate business? Oh, yeah. What were some of those struggles?

Dean: I like to talk about the struggles because I'm almost proud of them because of where I'm at now. Right? If I had had the struggles and stopped, like, I think probably a lot of people do, unfortunately. The real reward is by not stopping, and the real success is earned by not stopping. So for me, after that first year, doing a couple deals with Sean Terry, doing a handful on my own in my local market, I had stumbled upon my business partner.

A business partner, his name is Louis Mota. He's a real estate investor, Central California, had already been doing deals, already had success, thinking anything he touches is gold. That's what he tells me now. Mhmm. And I had wholesale him a couple deals.

And he's like, hey. You're really good at what you do. You wanna flip houses together? I was thinking, yeah. Sounds like the next thing I wanna do.

I just joined Fortune Builders. Mhmm. Took all their training. I'm an expert now at flipping houses.

Steve: Of course.

Dean: I'm ready to go. And, so he's like, hey. Things are slowing down in Central California. You were doing stuff in Phoenix. How's the market out there?

You wanna flip houses there? Yeah. So here I am thinking I know enough about Phoenix to go flip houses.

Steve: Right.

Dean: So I call up one of my contacts who's a realtor. He says, yeah. I'll find you houses. He brings us houses, shows us the comps. The numbers look great.

Let's buy them. We get a contractor. We meet him in person. We fly out here. It looks good enough.

We make all the rookie mistakes of trusting the comps of the realtor without doing enough due diligence, trusting the the the contractor without calling one reference that would have said he sucked. And the punchline is lost a $100,000 on my so we bought six houses in a month and a half.

Steve: All from that realtor?

Dean: All from that realtor. Four of them, we made money, normal deals. The first two we bought, horrible. Like, the contractor work, horrible. Had to redo all of it.

The comps, great on this side of the street. This side, the warehouse was not good, and lost a $100,000. For me, that was a huge setback, and I didn't have the money to pay it.

Steve: So What'd you do?

Dean: Well, I coulda tucked my tail between my legs, or I coulda just said, alright. Put my pants on tomorrow and get to work. So my partner's like, hey, man. What are we gonna do here? I was like, let's go get more deals.

So went back to our market

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: Got out of Phoenix and started finding deals, more flips, making money from those, and was like, alright. I'm out of the hole now.

Steve: Did you see the guy with IV in there?

Dean: Was that you?

Steve: So yeah. We had a had the IV guy come in today. Struggling as you can tell. Yeah. But, yeah, it was, like, what are you gonna do?

Yep. Quitting is not an option. It's like, we have a gas in town. Gotta make this work.

Dean: Right. Pull

Steve: out all those stops.

Dean: Professionals don't

Steve: wanna do it.

Dean: Professionals play hurt, man.

Steve: Right.

Dean: And for you, from one athlete to another, I know that you weren't gonna quit. I saw those posts this morning while I got off the plane. I was like, Steve with an IV. I'm like, he's gonna be there, though.

Steve: Oh, gonna make it work. Gonna make it happen. So what are some of your victories? I mean, we talked about your early victories, but what were some of, like, the crowning achievements, things that you like to brag about?

Dean: Yeah. So at first, you know, I had that first struggle. Then I went from getting out of that hole and getting traction and momentum and really building a real business, making real money. Then I had another setback. I think it's worth telling because the lessons I learned is painful and is expensive more expensive that that they were were were are worth sharing.

And the next lesson was to do your due diligence like I should have on the first one, but to really do your due diligence. And just because someone's in your circle

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: Doesn't mean that they're the right person.

Steve: Right.

Dean: Because they might be a wolf in sheep's clothing. So the next mistake was a guy in in San Diego market. I was wanting to do flips there because San Diego market's sexy.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Dean: HDTV style stuff. So I'm like, well, I wanna break into this market while I'm also doing stuff in Central California. And there were some trusted people within the the circle, doing deals with one of the guys. And he's like, hey. I got this new construction deal ready to break ground as soon as you buy in.

I just want someone to do the deal with two houses next to each other. I'll do one. You do the other. Show me the numbers. I didn't verify anything.

Like, I didn't call the architect. I didn't call the engineer. I didn't call the hard money lender who was already set up and ready to fund the whole thing. I didn't call anybody. It's almost embarrassing that I did no due diligence.

I just put all my faith and trust because I wanted to do that next deal and make the money that was projected so bad that I was willing to just blindly have faith. And soon as I bought into that deal for 185,000, a piece of dirt, I quickly found out that it was house of cards. And the architect, the engineer, the hard money lender, none of them had been paid. The money that was tied to my piece of property Mhmm. Money had already been withdrawn on fake receipts.

Like, it was sick, nasty. It was just bad criminal stuff. And turns out the house of cards fell really deep for this guy. He ended up having, like, dozens of lawsuits and millions of dollars he screwed over on people. The short story for me was if I would have made one call, one phone call to the engineer, the architect, the hard money lender, they would have said, oh, yeah.

This deal isn't good. And I would have saved myself losing a $187,000. And at that time was not a good time. I had so much money in my flips, and it hurt really bad.

Steve: You know, you say it's embarrassing. I have made multiple stupid decisions. It wasn't the number wasn't the same.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: But one simple reference check. One. One simple phone call. Yeah. It's taken me now forty three.

Took me forty three years to now finally make one more phone call. Just ask It's

Dean: almost too obvious.

Steve: Where could this go wrong? Because we're just trusting, especially if it's a referral.

Dean: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? Like, if Dean says this guy's the guy, hey. Dean's a good guy. Right. Right?

I'm sure this guy's good. It'll work. It'll work. Not only will it work, it'll be a slam dunk and nothing go nothing can go wrong.

Dean: Right.

Steve: Took me a really long time. Right? So I made some massive blunders in the last few years that although the numbers don't match up the same, I feel every bit as stupid Yeah. For making those mistakes. Yeah.

So I totally get that.

Dean: Painful mistake, but, it's something I had to learn, I guess.

Steve: Yep. So we talk about NFL to a 100 deals a year. Yeah. So how many years did it take for me to go working from NFL to work in that, startup when you're able to do a 100 deals a year?

Dean: Yeah. So first year, I probably did eight deals. Second deal or second year, probably did 20 or so. Then we started scaling right after I made the big mistake. Then we did about 40.

Then we scaled it to about 50. Then we got it to about 70, and then we got it past a 100. Right? So I was probably five years in to finally hitting, a 100. And at that point, we were just flipping.

We were only flipping houses.

Steve: You were flipping a 100 a year? Yes. That's no small feat. No. A lot easier to wholesale 100 houses a year.

Dean: Oh, a lot easier. And I think what as part of my career, my journey, when we scaled it to flipping a 100, it I felt broke all the time. Yeah. Because the next you know, I'd be flipping 20 houses at a time. And as one deal closed, more money would go out for the next couple flips.

Right? So it was just this conveyor belt of cash and always feeling broke. And then all it took was 2,018 in the fall, interest rates had jumped up one month, and the market kinda took a pause back.

Steve: Slow down a little bit.

Dean: Slow down a little bit. And I remember having 20 plus properties in inventory and scaring the crap out of me. And I told my partner, I'm like, we're really good at finding deals. These flips are too small margin to, like, to be doing this. Let's let's focus on the deals that are easy, that we can get in and out of.

We'll flip those, but all the other ones, let's wholesale.

Steve: Right.

Dean: So we pivoted to anything that penciled that's around the same time, 2018, started buying rentals. The light bulb went off at the same time of cash, always feeling poor. I need to create wealth too. So we started buying rentals since 2018, started wholesaling majority of our transactions, a couple fix and flips at a time, and then anything that made sense as a rental.

Steve: Yeah. I think a lot of people that are flipping I'll I think a lot of us and I'm not I've never been a great flipper, but there's this idea of, like, when this this thought that goes to your mind, I'm making a lot of freaking money. Where is it?

Dean: Yes.

Steve: Right? Yeah. This is like every time this flip closes, and, yeah, you made 20 k or 50 k on this one, Is it along the way, I think as entrepreneurs, we can't help ourselves. We commit to two more flips.

Dean: Yeah. I think part of my problem was too is getting caught in doing more deals. So the margins that we had on those deals, we were willing to buy a deal that said 15 or $20,000 on paper. Mhmm. Now the price points were low price points.

We were feeling comfortable. We couldn't really get hurt. And, sure, a couple of those, we lost some money, $10.15, 20,000. But when the reality is you have too many projects, you go over time, over budget, the 15 or 20 on paper turned into $12.10, 8. Right?

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: And then you're like, okay. I might have done 20 deals, made a couple $100,000, but all my money is out in more projects. Right. It's

Steve: always out it's always out on the streets.

Dean: Yeah. Always out on the streets. Now if every one of those deals was making 50 or $100,000, it would have been a whole lot different story. Right? But for that, that's when we shifted to more wholesaling, and we started making more money.

Not only having more money in the bank, but actually making more money per deal.

Steve: So this might seem like a really simple question, but what did you have to change to flipping a lot to wholesaling wholesaling a lot?

Dean: Yeah. Nothing from the marketing standpoint. We're already doing that. We just have to shift our focus to we're we're in marketing and sales now. We're not in marketing, sales, and construction.

And the easy flips we did, they were easy and take a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of thought. Mhmm. So we were able to get really focused on being good at our sales process and building our team, started hiring people. And that's when things really started to become a business rather than us just grinding going through those flips.

Steve: Did you start doing a lot more transactions that way? Yeah. Yeah. So what what other processes did you actually have to change? Did you do more marketing?

Did you So over the years do more more marketing. Yeah. Or create more relationships or some some of those other transitions?

Dean: Yeah. So for us, I think the biggest things that have happened over the past couple years is realizing that for us to get where we want, continue to get the results as a business owner is I needed to be a business leader. Right? That was a big shift because to go from hustle mode and being the one grinding it out to now having to lead people is a whole different skill set. So I had to look myself in the mirror and understand I need to learn the skills around leading and, and providing training.

Like, Steve trained training. We bought your sales training, right, because we needed support. And we've done additional training and and continue to reinvest so that we can dial in our sales process and see how that transforms our business. As a result of doing that, we've definitely gotten things dialed in, understand what works. Right?

I'm now coaching and training other students in real estate in how to be successful, do their first deal or scale their business. So, yeah, that's been the biggest thing over the past couple years. And as a result, we have a real business down. We have a real process, and it's repeatable. It's predictable and a lot more enjoyable too.

Steve: Was there any resource that you liked in particular for leadership training?

Dean: Not in particular. I'd say I kinda pick stuff from a lot of different people, and I'd say most of it has come from my network. So I think that's going back to what are what are some of the biggest things in the past couple years. When, when the scandemic happened, right, and we had to stay at home and you could only be on your phone, I really relied heavily on more outreach. What's funny is around that same time in February 2020, I had started a meetup with the idea that I wanted to connect and meet more people.

And February 2020, had that first meetup. We had about a 100 people at our first meetup. It was amazing. Great turnout, lots of energy. March 2020, next month, ready to go, meetup, March 13 or something like that.

About ready to get on my flight, and it's canceled. Everything in the world shuts down. So I'm thinking to myself, how in the world am I gonna connect with people? I just had this idea that I needed to connect with more people and and try to add value to more people because that would bring more relationships and everything like that. How am I gonna do it now?

So I went to social media. And when I went to social media, I was intentional about, okay. I want to help people. I wanna show them what I'm doing and how I'm being successful. So I would share value, and then it was, I wanna share results.

K. People like to see results. Cool. And then it was like, well, I can help you with the deal. Right?

I can help you do your first deal or maximize a deal you're not sure what to do with. Right? And that turned into what we call our friends with benefits program. So that's where we'll actually

Steve: Interesting name.

Dean: Interesting name. So it's and it all kinda stems from I would share the results of doing a deal with somebody. Mhmm. And I would say, I love doing deals with friends. Like, who doesn't like to make money with friends?

And I was like, well, it's kinda like friends with benefits. Right? So, started that. That grew to last year. We did a million dollars in revenue just from the friends with benefits program.

Oh. And that was just through the power of reaching out and giving value to others and having that abundance mindset of, like, if I'm gonna do everything I can, even if you just have a qualified lead, I'll help my team. We'll work on it, work with the seller. We'll negotiate the deal, get it on a contract at a good price. We'll dispo it, sell it top dollar.

Like, we'll help you do a whole deal, and we'll split it with you $50.50. A lot of people were thinking, wow. That's too good to be true. Are you sure?

Steve: It's almost like, excuse me, when you first connect with Sean Terry.

Dean: Exactly. Exactly. So it's come full circle for me to where now at the point where I'm coaching and helping people and I have the friends with benefits program, I've realized over the past two years of starting on social media with, you know, the the meetup that I started and the the idea of I just wanna give value to others and share what we're doing and how we're having success. It's evolved into this just law of attraction to where we're actually doing more business, more relationships. Right?

I joined the mastermind that you're into Right.

Steve: Which is

Dean: why why I'm here. Right. Because I joined that mastermind. And I joined that mastermind because a good friend, Tony Javier, who's been on here, connected me with Matt Andrews, the guy who runs the mastermind, and said, hey. I think you guys should connect.

So the past couple years, the relationships that I've built has evolved into a better business and way more opportunities.

Steve: So before we jump deeper into this, we're talking about leadership. Yeah. Did you find your experience with sports helps you in a leadership component?

Dean: A 100%. So I think in sports, what you'll find is there's good coaches and there's bad coaches. Right? And you can spot it pretty quick, and you can feel what that's like. It's not just something you you see or you hear.

Like, you can feel whether they're a good coach or not. And a lot of that is about their passion, how they're showing up, and what they're doing or not doing. So I think by seeing that and then seeing how a locker room reacts to the way the coach is acting and talking, and can rally the players together is a lot of what I try to bring. Right? I try to bring that energy of, like, let's go freaking do this.

Right?

Steve: Do you

Dean: want a coach before the game who's gonna fire you up and get you motivated or one that's like, alright, guys. Just give it your best?

Steve: That's probably me.

Dean: That's you.

Steve: I'm the one I'm the one that's gonna make sure you practice really hard, and you can't screw up on the field.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: And then get out there and show them what you got. Yeah. I would not be the one to fire you up. I'll probably bring in someone else in the firing up. I'll bring you in Okay.

To fire them.

Dean: There we go. But But

Steve: I'm the I'm gonna be the one that's super anal and detailed Super focused. On training. Yeah. Right? We're talking to the coaches.

He's living the way he's supposed to be lifting. What's really cool is I actually have a friend, Hover Ross, who who was a starting left tackle for the Cardinals and for the Patriots. Mhmm. You know, he had to protect Tom for a bit. Right?

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: And he said it was just two totally coaching two totally different coaching styles. Belichick, he just didn't care what you did. Right? As long as you knew your role, as long as you knew who you're going against, knew what their best move was, how to counter that, their second best move, how to counter that. Right?

As long as you're prepared for your next game, you really didn't care about much else. Whereas Danny Green, my way my way is the only way, and it's it was ran like a dictatorship. You see the different results. Right. Right?

Colonels versus Victors. Yeah. So, so right now you're saying what's been the best for your business today is the friends and benefits program.

Dean: Hands down. No doubt.

Steve: If someone that's listening to this, hey, wants to replicate that, how can they replicate this this model?

Dean: Yeah. So that's that's one of the most exciting things that I like to share with people is you're you're either the new and unexperienced investor or you're the seasoned experienced investor. Right? Has all the skills, maybe the all the resources. Right?

Both of you have an opportunity to work together. Both of you can add value to each other. The the new unexperienced investor might not believe that, but I'm here to tell them that they do. Right? And and here's where the magic happens, and here's what I realized as the seasoned experienced investor with resources is the new unexperienced person, a lot of where they go go wrong is they just wanna buy Steve Trane coffee.

They wanna pick your brain. Right? How can we get lunch? You you're too busy. Send

Steve: them to a calendar link Yeah. Where they buy it.

Dean: Yeah. You're you're too busy. You don't have time for that. Right? And it's not to say that their time is not worth it, but, like, you gotta focus your time and prioritize.

Steve: I can't afford to do it.

Dean: You can't afford to do it. Right? Where there is a lot of value that new unexperienced investor can bring is by bringing a deal. Sounds kinda obvious.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: But I think people kinda miss the point. Like, how do you get the experience seasoned, Steve Tring? How do we get your attention? Bring a deal. Here's a lot of value.

Like, we're gonna exchange serious value. There's gonna be dollars made together. Like, when I brought Sean Terry a deal, he got on the phone with me. Right. Nobody.

I'm a nobody at that point. He got on the phone with me, called me from a cell phone in the car because I had a deal, and he turned it into a deal when I couldn't.

Steve: Right.

Dean: That's where the value is for the new unexperienced person is go find deals. That's it. Mhmm. Don't don't spend your time, you know, building business cars and figuring out your LLC name. Go find a deal.

I had nothing established at that point other than took action. And I brought a deal, Sean, and there we go. We started a relationship. We did more deals as a result.

Steve: Right.

Dean: Same is true as the seasoned experienced person with resources. The best way to grow your business is to go add value to other people. You have a lot of value to give, so go do it without expecting something. And so that could be on social media, could be at meetups, it could be a lot of different areas. And and I wouldn't recommend going and getting coffee with people because that's a time suck.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: But if you can add value to others just through text or social media or meetups, people are gonna be attracted to that because they see that you're a a giver, and there's gonna be that exchange that happens. And that's what happened in our business, and it grew like crazy.

Steve: So putting out this, I guess, a large net for people to come into. Probably, the question then is, how do you create this this net that's attracting people? How do you get people to join?

Dean: How do you get people to

Steve: They wanna connect with you. Why why should I connect with Dean? Right? Like, I'm on Instagram.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: What's compelling me to connect with Dean?

Dean: Yeah. I think the biggest thing is if you're just yourself, people are gonna either like you or they're not. And so for me, it was, hey. I'm in my market. I wanna support my market.

I wanna give value to my market. That's why I started the meetup. Now I'm sharing what I'm doing on social media. I'm inspiring people. I'm I'm answering questions.

I'm helping them out, helping solve problems that they're going through with their leads, and that starts the spread. Right? It's that organic marketing called word-of-mouth.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: And people, when they say, hey. I got this deal. What do I do with it? Call Dean. And so that's that's how it happened, really.

Steve: Right. And it's it's simple. It's not a secret.

Dean: It's not a secret.

Steve: Sean's done it. Yeah. Pace has done it a lot.

Dean: A lot a lot.

Steve: Jamil is actually he reached out to me the first time as a lead, a Zillow lead, but I always reach out to him first because he was the one that, you know, put me under his wing and answered my questions.

Dean: Mhmm.

Steve: So it's not a secret. Is there anything you're doing differently or above and beyond that's separating you from the other people with following in your in your market?

Dean: Yeah. I'd say the biggest thing that you would see when it comes to athletes or top performing entrepreneurs is is just about that consistency that we talked about. You know, there's there's gonna be people that can get similar results. They could go to other people, but it's about who can help you not only now, but continue to help you and who's gonna be in your corner. And one of the things I wanted to mention, I know we talked about it before, is your what what you guys have done in Arizona, the whole idea of collaborating over competition

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: Is something that I I've been really passionate about in helping to build in Central California. And so I wanted to take a little time to talk about, so myself, I started that meetup. Right? Stratton Brown, he has his own meetup in Central California, and then Jason Pritchard has his own meetup in Central California. So similar to how you guys have been collaborating, we started collaborating, and, it didn't happen until I remember in 2021, Jason had a meetup one week, and I had mine the very next week.

Usually, you want them spread out like a month, so you don't have people saying, I just went to one. I don't wanna go to another one. Right. So, I remember getting on the phone with with Jason Pritchard and Stratton Brown and saying, guys, we gotta collaborate in 2022, and let's plan out. Let's, you know, cross promote each other, and let's do cohosted events.

And so over 2022, doing a couple co hosted events and having several 100 people come to these, these are free events. Right? We're not looking to make any money from it. It's it's grown to the point where just two weeks ago, we had an event that we call collaborate to dominate, and that started from the last cohosted event we had. We had Michael Zuber and Ty Leon Guerrero show up to it, and they said, hey.

We love what you guys got going on here. Let's let's do an event together.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: So we all five got together, and Ty has relationships with Pace and Jameel. So he sent them a text. They're like, dude, we love Fresno. We love collaboration. Let's do it.

So we got them on board to come to the event, and then I sent a text message to Henry Washington, cohost on Bigger Pockets, amazing story of how he got started, and he's like, I'm in. So we, within a week, sold out 600 plus tickets to this event. All the money is going we charge so people would actually show up because there's only so many people that could be there. And, all the money went to a local charity. Right?

We didn't wanna make any money from it. And it was all about the theme was collaborate to dominate. And every single one of us on stage had made has made millions of dollars with the concept of collaborating Mhmm. And doing deals with other people. Right?

You guys in Arizona talk about squatting up Yep. All the time. And so we're trying to preach that message and have, as a result, created a similar community in Central California we're super proud about. And what it's developed to now is Jason Pritcher, Stratton Brown, and myself, we're gonna work together to kinda do a roadshow like Pace and Jamille did and go speak at other meetups. So one of the the shout outs I wanted to say is, like, hey.

If you got a meetup you want us to speak at, we wanna come talk about collaboration because it's powerful. And you guys Oh, it's You guys

Steve: very powerful.

Dean: You guys laid laid the the the tarmac down for us. You guys laid the the roadwork for what that looks like, and so we're trying to create something similar.

Steve: I think that's awesome. I saw what Pace and Jamil done with it. I think it's fabulous. Yeah. If you guys can just continue, spreading that message.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: I mean, that's incredible. So you talked about Stratton. Yeah. Stratton and I are collaborating on something else. Nice.

So it's a secret. You guys have to stay tuned.

Dean: I love that.

Steve: But did he share with you what he and I joke about?

Dean: The basketball?

Steve: So you saw I commented from one professional athlete to another. Yeah.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: Right? So he tried out. He was on a practice squad or tried out for an NFL team.

Dean: Mhmm. Did you

Steve: know that?

Dean: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's told me.

Steve: So we make that joke that he's basically an NFL player, and I tried out for the ASU basketball team.

Dean: Did you?

Steve: I did. It was not good. But they had walk ons. You you just never know. Right?

Yeah. Well, it was a disaster. Anyway, so I joked to him, like, I'm basically an athlete. Yeah. Right?

So I was just asking if you guys have talked about that because he and I kinda laugh each other. That's why I said, like, from one athlete to another

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: It's an inside joke we've had going on for

Dean: Well, I got a new inside joke about basketball Yeah. And being an athlete is, you know, we gotta bring it up at some point. Now what what better time than now? Sure. When I interviewed Carlos Reyes, he said he was a baller.

He was good at basketball. Mhmm. And there was, you know, a game that took place.

Steve: There was a game that took place.

Dean: Carlos Reyes and the Mexicans Mhmm. Against Steve Trang and the Asians.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: And he said, you know, some things went down.

Steve: We're a little competitive.

Dean: Yeah. How'd that go?

Steve: Well, we lost the first game.

Dean: That's what he said.

Steve: We were up at halftime, and then the what do you wanna call it? The ringer brought it from Mexico.

Dean: Mhmm.

Steve: The guy played professional ball in Mexico.

Dean: Okay. And he

Steve: got hot in the second half.

Dean: Okay.

Steve: So we lost a little bit when the when the clock was out. I don't take losing well. So they're, like, chilling, laughing. Walk up the car. I was like, let's run it back.

Well, this guy's hot, so we lost way worse the second game.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: But I think the things that he remembers is I I got a little angry.

Dean: You said it got physical out

Steve: there. No one gets handwones. I mean, that's just the way it is. That's just the way it is.

Dean: No handwones?

Steve: There are no handwones. Right? I'm gonna file you. I'm gonna get my money's worth.

Dean: Wow.

Steve: Right? So return an effort.

Dean: Okay.

Steve: Xavier, a major, is a good friend of mine. We play basketball every every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Last Christmas Eve. Right? Twenty fourth.

He tried to dunk on me in a fast break. Right? It's a one on one. He he got up. That's probably one of the best jumps I ever got.

Right? You got up too? I got up too. Wow. Right above his elbow.

Dean: I well, I gotta comment on this too. I saw a picture of you this morning

Steve: Yeah.

Dean: Working out

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: Was only of your knees down. You had some serious calves.

Steve: Yes.

Dean: Some serious calves.

Steve: Yes. So my trainer is like we're working out, and the trainer is like, hey. We need to next time we do this exercise, we need to take a picture of this. I was like, why? She's like, this right here, before whenever he gets this exercise more than any other, like

Dean: It was impressive.

Steve: It looks ridiculous. It's like, alright.

Dean: It was impressive.

Steve: So, the secret here, right, is have a big stomach. Right? Carry more weight. If you're if you can just carry more weight in your stomach than your legs

Dean: Yeah. That's It works out.

Steve: That's a secret. Yeah. Yeah. So you put in here, you know, Steve Trang versus Carlos. I'm waiting on Carlos.

I'm waiting on Carlos for one on one.

Dean: You ready for a rematch?

Steve: I am ready.

Dean: Now is this a one on one, or is it Steve Trang and the Asians versus Carlos Reyes and the Mexicans again?

Steve: I don't think that's a fair matchup.

Dean: Because of the ringer?

Steve: Because of the Asians. Oh, okay. Advertising's not so good. So, but we actually we talked about it. So, we're we're gonna set up a five on five.

I will say, Carlos, if you're watching balls in your court.

Dean: Dang.

Steve: We're ready.

Dean: Dang. Okay.

Steve: I mean, we're practicing. Right? I'm playing three times a week. So You

Dean: said Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Steve: 05:30. No exceptions. Yeah. So, one thing we also wanna talk about was you mentioned something about CRM.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: What's what's the story with with the CRM?

Dean: So I'm a nerd when it comes to that kind of stuff. Mhmm. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what CRM worked. As a matter of fact, for the first, like, five or six years, I used Google Sheets and color coordinated. Like If

Steve: you can make it work.

Dean: You you can make it work. Not recommended. Right? Because it's all manual, all painful. I know you're using left main.

Mhmm. Right? I haven't gone down that route. I tried Podio several times, failed because it was just customization nightmare for me. I ended up with ReSimply.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dean: And I actually love it. I'm on their advisory board now.

Steve: Oh, nice.

Dean: I'm a cheerleader. Yeah. I love it because I just I think it's good.

Steve: Is it a set it or forget it kinda deal?

Dean: It is. It's the kind of, like, you configure it, and it just works.

Steve: Yeah. That's awesome. I think that's I think that's a good option for a lot of people. Yeah. I actually like Podio.

Intel just kinda started falling apart. But, you know, like, I've been in this game for a long time, and we used to use Infusionsoft. Mhmm. Did you ever get into that?

Dean: I did.

Steve: Yeah. Right. So Infusionsoft was awesome if you could customize it to the level that needed to be customized.

Dean: Right.

Steve: I think Podio is in that category. I think Podio is everything Infusionsoft wanted to be, truthfully. Yeah. But I think Podio is good if you guys are using Podio. But, yeah, I think if you're looking for a set and forget it, it sounds like ARIA simply is a great option.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: Right? If you want something customized, Salesforce is the antropod gorilla.

Dean: Of course.

Steve: And there's no right or wrong option, truthfully. It comes down to preference. Right?

Dean: Yep.

Steve: What makes more sense for you? If you're in a position where you like to have a standard platform that's consistent Mhmm. A lot of users, is it already at Simply?

Dean: ReSimply.

Steve: ReSimply. Yeah. ReSimply is the way to go. Yeah. I think that's a fantastic option.

If you're someone that can't stop tinkering like myself

Dean: Yeah. And that's how I am too. Like, I got in Podio. I was like, I'm a change this. I'm a change this.

I'm a change this. And I I couldn't go to bed at night.

Steve: You can't stop tinkering.

Dean: Couldn't go to bed.

Steve: Yeah. There were lots of nights. I I remember one time with Infusionsoft. I was customizing something. I was setting up the texting automation.

I was like, let's test this real quick, and I did. And I sent 215 text messages at two 02:00 in the morning. Right? Because that's how late you're staying up when you're tinkering. Right.

I got a lot of angry text messages.

Dean: Oh, I'm sure.

Steve: But, anyway, I want our two deals out of it too, so it was worth it.

Dean: Nice.

Steve: Right. I had people I guess they were clubbing or working late. I don't know. They text back, sorry. I haven't got back to you.

Like, who text back at 02:00 in the morning? Sorry. I haven't got back to you. That was awesome. So right now, are you more focused on wholesaling or flipping?

Dean: So right now, the majority of our transactions we do, we'll do another 100 this year, is wholesaling. We'll we'll kinda cherry pick the fix and flips, ones that are easy, simple because of the fact, not that we're not capable, we just know if we do too many big big projects over time, over budget, and I just don't want any part of that anymore.

Steve: Right.

Dean: I just don't. And with that said, we are doing, like, an $80,000 renovation job right now on a project. Seal you know, the the walls caving in, was a total hoarder's house. But even if we spend a $100,000 on it, my partner and I were talking about it, we can't get hurt on it because we have that big of a spread. Right?

There's there's 80 to $100,000 we can make on the deal, so we're not gonna get hurt. But we we definitely cherry pick, and then anything that pencils as a rental, we'll do that. And then the other part of the business that I'm most passionate about is the community aspect. Right? The the meetups that we're doing, the roadshow that Stratton Brown, Jason Pritchard, and I are gonna do, and the coaching that I'm doing.

Because to take people that are, like, maybe not fully believing in themselves, I mean, you're you're on the path to create a 100 millionaires. Right? Mhmm. That why are you passionate about that?

Steve: I think it's probably one of those things, you know, growing up poor. Like, coming into this country as a refugee. Right? Immigrant. Live in a mobile home park.

Wow. Right? You see, like, what can happen Yeah. When you have money.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: Right? So You have options. And I think that for me, this can lead to cancellation. So for me, having had everything taken us from us due to communism in com China Yeah. And having it happen again in Vietnam, I wanna spread the gospel of entrepreneurs.

Mhmm. Can't become a millionaire, generally speaking, with a nine to five. So you need a side hustle, need to run a business, whatever.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: So for me, I'm looking to even create millionaires, we can change people's lives, and we can keep this capitalism train going because I've feel like this capitalism train is

Dean: Staring a little bit. Right?

Steve: It's it's going maybe a little the wrong way.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah. So that same passion you have for me to go from the NFL and basically walk away from that dream and have to start all over from scratch, and it was the mere fact that I believed in myself, took action, being able to help someone have that moment for themselves and guide them through it is pretty remarkable. Like, that's super fulfilling. And because I organically started doing that through the friends with benefits program, I wanted to take it to the next level, and good friends like Stratton Brown pushed me to do the coaching.

Now I have my coaching program to where I'm helping people do their first deals to scale their business to doing more deals, and it's just super rewarding. Right?

Steve: Oh, it's incredibly rewarding. Yeah. So let's take a quick commercial break, and then we'll go into the audience's questions. Cool.

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Steve: No. No. Alright. So, Maffe Umaro, what podcast was it? I'm not sure I understand that question.

Go green. Go green, sorry, on Instagram. How did you build your buyers list?

Dean: So it started with just the good old fashioned organic hitting the streets with who I already knew was buying because I was a a flipper. But the best way to do it right now is to go to Facebook, go to your local groups, and let them know you got a deal. You wanna sell it. Give them some of the details of it, and you're gonna get people that respond. The next best is to go to PropStream, and you can build a buyers list right there.

And then when you get export that list out, you just go to Google. Go to Google. You search their address. You find or you search their company name. You see them on open corporates.

Right? You see who the owner's name is, and then you go to true people search, and you skip trace that person for free, try to find their contact info. So you do that grassroots, you know, free stuff. And then, another one is just Google. Like, we buy houses in Phoenix or, sell my house in Phoenix.

And you'll see who's spending money to attract leads. They're gonna be buyers or wholesalers. Right? And either of those people can help you. So those are the the ways to start.

There's the more advanced if you go to investor lift. Right? Now you've got the Ferrari, and you got all your buyers just sitting in front of you, and you can skip trace them and do some of those same strategies to make contact.

Steve: And I think just, real quick for everybody that's doing the Google pay per click thing, don't click on the ad.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: Copy the URL. Nothing made me angrier than finding out the person spent $45,000,000 Right. To submit an inquiry. So but it's a great point. Right?

You know who's actively Yep. Buying houses. Alex on IG, how as a business owner were you paying for as a benefits who are in the industry or do you mean licensing? How are you paying people friends of benefits?

Dean: Yeah. So the way it works is they bring us the lead. Right? Or they bring us a deal under contract, and then we basically take over from there. So we'll work it as if it's our deal.

We'll handle the the contracts. If it they already had it under contract, we'll have them assign it to us for $0 because we wanna control that whole process, make sure it gets done. Then when the deal is closed, we write them a check for 50% of that. We'll wire it to them or PayPal or Venmo, whatever, right, is easiest. And then we just ten ninety nine them at the end of the year.

Steve: Aaron Jones is asking earlier, who you got a one on one Carlos.

Dean: Who got one on one what?

Steve: Me or Carlos. Oh,

Dean: one on one.

Steve: That's not my that's my question. You can't hurt my feelings. No. That was an area question.

Dean: I think Carlos has got it too.

Steve: He does. He does. He surprised me. Yeah. And he's got a good shot.

Dean: I kinda wanna keep it PC and say, I wanna be at the game seeing it there, and then I'll know I'll know who won. I think I think, it'll be a close game, though.

Steve: We're talking about doing a pay per view event. See who will come.

Dean: People will pay money for it.

Steve: Yep. Thank you, Steven, for the kind words. What are his links to follow? How could someone follow you?

Dean: How could someone follow? So if you go to to IG, Instagram, you can find me Dean Rogers Real Estate. You go to YouTube. It's just youtube.com/deanrogers. You go to deanrogers.com, you'll you'll see everything from my social media stuff to information about my coaching program.

So, I always tell people the power of networking on social media is so untapped. If you just wanna, like, connect and nothing more, connect. Like, let's let's start talking because that's where things start to happen.

Steve: It's crazy how there was a there was a period of time, right, where all the money, all the information, all the control were all controlled by the times in the industry. Mhmm. And today, you can reach almost anybody Yeah. Through social media.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: Right? I haven't had Elon Musk retweet any of my stuff yet.

Dean: You'll keep trying, though.

Steve: I'm gonna keep trying. I'm gonna keep trying. Right. But you can literally connect with almost anybody on this planet through social media. Yeah.

And people don't necessarily leverage it.

Dean: Yep.

Steve: Are you changing anything with the market shifting? This is from Ralph Pena.

Dean: Yeah. Great question. Kinda like you said, I'm I'm going back to the basics. I'm looking at everything with scrutiny, making sure that our team is more dialed in with how we do things, our process, our script. We are adjusting to what are some of the strategies that are gonna be most effective when a market is shifting such as creative financing.

So we're a part of PACE Morbius sub two community. Right? We have your sales training. We have all these different pieces of the puzzle that other great leaders in the industry are doing, and we're making sure that we're on top of it so that we're prepared. I was just watching a Sean Terry webinar.

He's talking about, the bear market, right, is what his his spin on the the marketing was, and talking about creative financing, lease option purchases. So we're making sure that we're not gonna be behind the game. We're trying to get out ahead of it. We're having to work a little harder. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Dean: Today was was texting a potential new hire for a disposition specialist to have them pounding the phones, talking to buyers. Right? What what do you think about this deal? Where what are your numbers at? And adding new buyers because gotta work a little harder right now.

There's still deals happening, but get back to basics. Do only what's working. Right? I I mentioned this couple weeks ago at the event we had. Trimming the fat.

Looking at the marketing. Hey. I spent $10,000 trying this marketing for the past couple months. Gone. Right?

Didn't yield the results. It's the other thing I'm trying, gone. These ones are the ones that are working. I'm gonna focus on that.

Steve: Right. And it's something to always be diligent about, but even more so right now, trimming the

Dean: fat. Yeah.

Steve: I was asking how I feel today. I actually feel fine, but my voice is just shot. On Facebook, Elizabeth, I wanna collaborate to get my first deal. I wanna start my first meetup in Chicago. Any tips for finding the first deal and starting your first local meetup?

Those are two different questions.

Dean: Those are really good questions. The tip I would say for finding your first deal is to look at all your different hustle strategies. You got driving for dollars. You can go on Facebook Marketplace. Right?

You can cold call. You can go get free lists from the county. Start calling those. Like, there's a lot of different strategies, but I get pretty focused on one of them. Driving for dollars is one of the best ones, I think, if you're just getting start.

It depends on where your budget is. That's maybe a better question to to ask back to the question Right. Is do you have any budget for marketing? Most people, the answer is no. I don't have money for marketing.

So you wanna focus on those three strategies, and you gotta put a lot of effort in. And you gotta realize that you're in the position where you might have to expend a lot more energy than you thought you had to just to get that one deal. And I think most people come come up short because they put in all this effort, and they thought it was enough. So they say, well, then it just doesn't work. Right.

They move on to the next strategy, or they buy a coaching program, or they just they just give up and don't do anything going forward. But you gotta put a lot of effort in to get that first deal.

Steve: I love that you bring that up. So because we heard people like, I can't get a deal. I can't get a deal. I was like, well, what are you doing? It's like, I'm making, like, 10 calls a day.

How many deals are you expecting to get? 10 calls a day. Right? So going specifically into your driving for dollars suggestion, how many houses do you have to drive by, drop a mailer, call call, whatever, Maybe get a first deal.

Dean: Yeah. So Jamil made a good post the other day talking about you need to be talking to 30 people a day. You need to be talking to 30 people, and you need to be making, like, five offers a day. That's a lot of effort. If you reverse engineer that, what's the effort you need to think about the different strategies or one strategy you're gonna implement and then the effort that goes in behind that?

So for me, there's there's a couple different things you could do with driving for dollars. I don't think you should go book, you know, book on your calendar hours to go drive, like, many hours, because a lot of people get burned out doing that. I'd say just go drive for dollars on your route to where you're going. The little secret is, you know your destination's here. Go drive through the neighborhood that's before your destination, and then the same on the way back.

And do that everywhere you go, and you're gonna find houses in different places on a regular basis. And just have that notepad on your dashboard. And might that take more time, but it's probably gonna be more effective than you just trying to book off hours and go do it yourself. The other little hack I would say is to to get the conversations up is you need to be calling realtors and wholesalers on the deals that they have that they're posting on Facebook and realtors for deals, like remodeled properties or fixer uppers on on the MLS, just calling them and asking them, letting them know what you're looking to do. You can start having a lot of conversations on a daily basis if you just do that.

So I think people fall short because, like you said, that they made 10 calls within a day and and maybe less, and they're wondering where the results are.

Steve: And then the next one was the

Dean: The meetup. Meetup. Yeah. So don't do it on your own. Like, if you don't have a presence, you don't have a business yet, don't do it on your own.

Maybe go find somebody who is reputable and already has a business in the market. Maybe squad up with them to start it to help bring that attraction. Because if you just go do it on yourself and you don't have any, like, traction yet in the market, people might be less interested. So that, I think, is the best way to do it. Mhmm.

And, yeah, go from there on post it on Facebook and all that.

Steve: I think on top of that too, when I started my Meetup, I use meetup.com. That works surprisingly well.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: So I think meetup.com. And then for me, even though it's my Meetup, I I invited other influencers.

Dean: There you go.

Steve: So I had Jamil headline my first one.

Dean: There you go. Right.

Steve: It's nice to have Jamil in your backyard.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: Right? So this is 2018. Right? So having Jamil headline my first one. My last one was March 2020.

It was Chris Jefferson. Right? He does PTD with us. That was the last one I did. But having other people headline it is another way you can you can grow your your meetup.

Yep. How big is your team? This is from, Anna Sullivan.

Dean: Yeah. So we got eight people now. We got me, my business partner. We got two acquisition managers. We got an office manager.

We got a marketing manager, and we have a leads manager. And then we have another that we're gonna be hiring for dispositions. So that's gonna be the eighth person.

Steve: Office manager. Don't typically hear that in wholesaling operation.

Dean: Yep.

Steve: You hear that in realtor office or other

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: You know? I wanna say more established industries, but more common histories. So this person office manager.

Dean: This person wears a lot of hats. Right? So this person, needs to have a great enter great energy, need to be enthusiastic, and they also need to be able to juggle a lot of things. So our office manager is our transaction coordinator. She works with escrow, does all all of that.

Right? And then she deals with, you know, any contractors that we're dealing with. She deals with our property manager, anything related to our rentals, paying all of our bills, and then helping with everything else. Right? Helping with the events that we put on and everything else.

So she's definitely the glue that helps keep us together, and I think her positive energy is is half of what makes her do so well.

Steve: Strand says, let's go, Dino. Collaborate to dominate. So with, Strand, what I was talking about, can you guys comment put in the comments here, would you guys be interested if my team, our sales training, strained Stratton's cold callers?

Dean: Oh.

Steve: Right? If we take our sales training and combine it with strands cold callers, is that something you guys would be interested in? Put in the comments. Let us know.

Dean: Sounds like a no brainer.

Steve: Sounds like it, but we'll find out. But collaborate to dominate.

Dean: Yes, sir.

Steve: And then how do you get your numbers right for your cash buyers when you start? Because from Sunmont.

Dean: Yeah. That's a great question. So I think right now, the real life adjustment is, first and foremost, we already understand what numbers buyers are willing to buy at, not only because of the number of transactions we've done, but because we flipped too. So when we look at the deal, we truly understand what is this house worth because we've put our money on the line time and time again. So here's the real comp.

Second is we know what it costs to fix and remodel the property. So that's the next part. So what price do we need to buy it at, or what price would an investor need to buy it at for it to be a deal? So we start there. Now what are we adjusting to now with how the market's adjusting?

We're back in about 10% off of our ARV just to be conservative. Because it's a moving target right now. There's some people that are still very optimistic and are selling their properties and are confident, and they're willing to buy. And then there's the other half of the buyers that are just like, I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna sit on the sidelines unless it's a killer deal.

So we're trying to to capture a little bit of both and make sure that we've got a healthy deal that someone's confident to buy, and it's not gonna make it hard for us. Right? We'd rather do good deals rather than get a bunch of deals under contract and pretend like we're doing a lot and really not doing deals at the end of the day.

Steve: That's great. Great point. A lot of people are focused on contracts instead of closings. Stratton also wants to know, how much do you bench?

Dean: How much do you bench? Well, I'd almost rather say how much did I used to bench. Right? I think my shoulders took a beating in football, so, not quite the same. But I did get my bench up to 400 back in the day.

So I used

Steve: 400.

Dean: 400. I used to throw some weight around. There were some strong strong dudes I used to lift with that encouraged me. I mean, dudes in the NFL, you'd be lifting with strong safeties who are repping out close close grip bench three thirty five.

Steve: Like Really?

Dean: Yeah. And, so that motivated me to lift more and used to throw the bench around.

Steve: So back in the day, much, much younger, I used to play a lot of pickup basketball, fights, and fitness.

Dean: Mhmm.

Steve: Because that's where the NFL players play. Those linemen They're no joke, man. Don't move. Yeah. When they stick their arm out, it's not good defense.

Yeah. That's what they do. Yep. They're an immobile object.

Dean: It's crazy. Yeah. That was so going back to the the NFL days, lineman being huge, overwhelming Yeah. I remember distinctively the first game pregame, one of the one of the starting left tackle, he's like, hey, Dean. Let me, let me warm up on you.

So I was like, alright. I've done this before. So I stand there, and he's he goes to punch my chest. He almost put a hole through my chest, dude. Their punches are like no other.

Right. So strong. Like, I had to I had to gear up for the second one that he was coming with because it was just that powerful.

Steve: Yeah. They're immobile objects. Mena also wants to know, do you do Brazilian jiu jitsu?

Dean: I don't. No. I haven't done any wrestling, jiu jitsu, anything like that. I do have my six year old, son who's been in Brazilian jujitsu a couple times, but I haven't done it myself.

Steve: What is the best way to reach out to the bigger players also on social media to get a response?

Dean: Yeah. So I go back to what I said. You're gonna get someone's attention if you say, hey, so and so. Hey, Steve. I got this lead right here.

Here's the numbers. It looks like a good deal. Alright. Would you be interested in working this deal with me? You just come out with that.

Mhmm. You got my attention. Right? Like, I'm interested. I might be running around busy, but, like, I I wanna I wanna give attention to that because I wanna help that person, and it could be a great opportunity for both of us.

Yep. That's a win win. So I think that's the the no brainer way to do it.

Steve: That that is actually leading with value. Yeah. Are sellers more open to creative finance nowadays with a slowdown of the traditional routes?

Dean: Absolutely. And I think it all goes down to the comes down to the narrative that's in media, and the media is starting to talk about interest rates high, the market going down. So if you then come to the conversation with the seller of the same narrative and say, hey. Well, here's my cash offer, and they're maybe not interested. I might have another option for you, that could be a good fit.

I might actually be able to pay you a little bit more. Now their ears might perk up.

Steve: Right.

Dean: And now you have a conversation that leads to different options for them.

Steve: Follow-up question. Any tips for a newbie about to jump all in into real estate full time?

Dean: I guess the question would be, what are they doing now? But I think I think there's no better time than now to get skilled up. Is it gonna be as easy as the past two years? No. Because you could just find any deal and almost sell it instantly.

But as people are as Warren Buffett said, as people are greedy, you should be fearful. As people are fearful, you should be greedy. Right now, people are starting to let fear creep in a little bit more. And so because of that, now's the time to dig deeper and to get your skills up

Steve: Right.

Dean: And to put more effort into seeking opportunity because the opportunities will get better and better.

Steve: Yep. And, you know, it's felt I hear this complaint, like, there's too many wholesalers. That market's saturated. It's too competitive. I wish it wasn't so competitive and saturated.

Well, guess what? It's not competitive or saturated anymore. Right. Might be harder. Yep.

What'd you what'd you ask for?

Dean: Yep.

Steve: How was the biggest skill or what was the biggest skill or mindset that served you in transitioning to real estate from football?

Dean: Yeah. Without question, it was the discipline that I got. Go making it to the NFL, I can tell you right now, I wasn't the biggest. I wasn't the fastest. I wasn't the smartest.

Wasn't the most athletic. It was the fact that I continued to put on film and in the game, get results, continue to stay healthy. Like you said earlier, I continued to get good sleep in college. Maybe the blessing I had was that I was still dating my high school sweetheart who I ended up marrying. Right?

But I didn't go out and party. I wasn't out getting drunk, doing anything like that. Like, I took football serious. I took school serious, and I had opportunities as a result. That led me to the NFL.

So I think it's just about being disciplined and consistently putting in the work. The other thing I like to say is I don't have a perfect day by any means. I I don't wake up as early as you do to go play basketball. I don't have the miracle morning routine or anything like that. In fact, a busy schedule, like, my my full day calendared out gives me anxiety.

I don't like that. I like the freedom to be available for opportunities, and I like the, freedom of being able to just go work out during the middle of the day at lunch. Right. Right? So I think that it's just the fact of being consistent and disciplined is what will yield results and not giving up.

Just not giving up. Because I've been kicked in the teeth. I've been punched in the gut. Yeah.

Steve: We're talking about those deals.

Dean: In the nuts. Like, I've been hurt bad. And that's emotional pain, physical pain, financial pain. Right? And it's just being able to push through that and not give up is is the ultimate win.

Steve: How do you bounce back from all that? Right? Is that Yeah. That is that the discipline? Because you have staff and overhead, is there a minimum deal requirement amount for you to actually do the deal?

Dean: Yeah. Short answer is no. We don't wanna step over money, but in our deal analyzer, we have in there defaulted 20,000. We want our our minimum deal to be 20,000. Are we willing to make 5,000?

If that's what's on the table, I'm gonna make it. I'm not gonna say, no. $5,000. I don't want you. But in our deal analyzer, we put 20,000, and we do our best to make an offer below that so that we have room for negotiation or room for a better deal.

Steve: And what do you look for in any any of your potential hires?

Dean: Someone that just is determined. I think there's too many people who might check a box or do something like that. But, like, are you gonna show up? Are you gonna really put in the effort? Like, I have several people on my team right now that just go the extra mile.

They go the extra mile, and they're gonna continue to make more money as a result and make the company better because of the effort they put in.

Steve: How do you determine that? How do you determine that in an interview or in the recruiting process?

Dean: Yeah. So one of the tips I got from Tiffany and Josh, hi, is that the question one of the questions that they like to ask that I haven't put to the test yet, but I know I know that it will work, because I haven't hired anybody since, learning this tip from them. But it's to ask what what are their role models and what are the or or people that they look up to and what are the, characteristics of those people. Right? If they say that they're hardworking, they're loyal, they're dedicated, right, they hustle, different things like that, that's pretty encouraging.

Right? If it's just that, oh, they have a ton of money. Right? They're they're they party a lot and have a good time. I don't know.

Maybe that's not the right fit.

Steve: They love to travel.

Dean: Yeah. Exactly. Thanks. Yeah.

Steve: Yep. What marketing channels is your marketing manager handling?

Dean: Yeah. So we have, direct mail. K. So that's where they probably spend the most amount of time is figuring out what's working, what's not, because there's lots of different lists that we're mailing to. They'll work with the cold calling team to send them the list that we're we're cold calling.

And then we get some of our data from outside providers outside of, PropStream and some others that are directly from the city. So we'll work through that. Right? And then mostly other marketing set it and forget it. We have our PPC.

We have, TV ads that we do. So that's the main stuff that they work on is the data.

Steve: Another person asked how much do you make for us. Would you advise a newbie a newbie to that's starting brand new to do it by themselves first or twenty eighteen?

Dean: So this advice came I can't remember if it was Pace or Jamille at the event that we just had. And it was, you're probably gonna make more money and learn more as a newbie. And if you got the stuff, right, to go join an established company and be with them for however many years because they're already they've already got things up and running. They already have the opportunities. So by joining that organization, you can make money now and do learn the skills that you need to do it on your own.

So my advice would not to be do it on your own at first and not to squat up with someone else new. Because I think too many people not not this squatting up is bad. Right? We've been promoting squad up the whole time. But I think a lot of people a new person will go to another person, new person, and and almost get married in, like, a business relationship and figure out, oh, that person doesn't even wanna work hard or they quit already.

Steve: Right?

Dean: And now they got this uncomfortable thing where maybe they're tied up in a business entity together. Like, they got married before they even dated.

Steve: Squad up, but don't partner up.

Dean: Yeah. And me and my partner, we developed our partnership organically. We did flips for a year and a half before we decided, you know what? Maybe we should get an entity together since we're doing this.

Steve: I think this question has already been answered, but have you or any big players willing to do deals with people through social media?

Dean: A 100%. Yeah. Social media is the easiest way to just get in contact with somebody and start, start doing deals.

Steve: So as Xavier, as I was talking about earlier, what's your current team structure, and how do you continuously build skilled build and skill up your team?

Dean: Yeah. So the team structure we talked about, but the build up and skill, as a leader, it's not a it's not a one time deal of training. Right? You know those better than anybody. You have to practice, and it has to be constant practice.

And and, what happens to people in game time situations is they default back to what they practice. And if you haven't practiced it enough or consistently enough, you're gonna default to bad habits. So when I listen to calls sometimes and and am reminded we need more training, it's because I hear some bad habits on the phone of saying certain things that just shouldn't be said or or, you know, certain tonalities or whatever it is. So, yeah, it's just about continuous practice. Are

Steve: you constantly investing into your team, like, products or events or something like that?

Dean: I'd say at the beginning, I wasn't, but I realized that this year, especially, that it's something that we gotta do. Right? And and the best way to do it is through somebody else. It's almost the whole parent, situation whereas you as a parent go to tell your kids not to do something. This is better for you.

They might not listen so well, but you have a teacher or you have some mentor or something tell them to do something. Oh, that's a great idea. Like, well, no kidding. I've been telling you that. Right?

It's the same thing with your team. If you're the one that is the only one training them, in my opinion, not as effective. But you have someone come in as an authority and give training, they're a lot more attentive and take it more seriously.

Steve: Well, definitely a lot more receptive. Yep. What market are you focused on currently?

Dean: Central California.

Steve: How much have you invested in Masterminds or courses to date?

Dean: Not as much as I should, honestly. It's been about $50,000 probably so far. And anybody I've talked to that's at the same level or higher, I'd probably say more higher that I admire and look up to, have spent a lot more, and I think that's a direct result of doing that.

Steve: I'm thinking on the scene of Wolf of Wall Street. Those are rookie numbers.

Dean: Yeah. Right?

Steve: That's alright. You're still young. What is your favorite real estate or business book or podcast?

Dean: Real estate disruptors, of course.

Steve: This of course. After real estate disruptors. Of course. After those

Dean: Second is gonna be Sean Terry. Yeah. Just because of his energy. And, you know, he's the OG that that got me in the game, so I like that. And more recently, I like Alex Hormozi stuff.

I mean, he's he's that hot chick on on new hot chick on the block, and the stuff that he says is just fire. It's just good, straight to the point, very practical. I can put it in action right now type of stuff. I think it's really good.

Steve: He's the hot chick again. He was also the hot chick back in 2015

Dean: Okay.

Steve: When I was first getting into the education space.

Dean: Nice.

Steve: It's funny. It's it's amusing to see this evolution.

Dean: Yeah. It's

Steve: kinda like you see Gary v. Remember a long time ago, 2005, my friends are like, you see this crazy guy who's just screaming at the camera on YouTube about wine? Who is this guy? So we watched him. He was like, this guy's insane.

And now it's Gary Vee. Right. Always interesting to see this evolution. Besides financial freedom, what else do you love about real estate?

Dean: I'd say the barrier to entry. Anybody can do it, which is what's so exciting about it because and the fact that there's no limits too. Like, if you wanna go buy, you know, some skyscraper, like, there's nobody that can tell you no. No. There might not be a seller ready to sell it right now, but there's nothing preventing you from buying a multifamily deal, buying a single family house, wholesaling a deal.

Like, there's zero barrier to entry. And and and, you know, we could get details and say, well, on some things, you might need a license for this or something or but in general, like real estate, there's almost limit limitless potential.

Steve: If you want it badly enough, you can make it work. Yeah. What is your why?

Dean: It's just just about that financial freedom. That's really it. I don't have, like, some big story that led up to, you know, a health scare or something like that, but it's been since day one. Like, I've I've wanted to be the person in my family that has changed everything generally generationally. And it's yours seems pretty similar to that too based on your your story, and wanting to have impact.

Like, I wanna have amazing freedom with my family and be able to be present in their life as much as possible.

Steve: How how do you feel that's going as far as, for your family

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: Being that

Dean: I think that's a struggle as an entrepreneur. When you get real about it, I think there's moments where I'm very present, and the ability because of the business that I have to be at the games, to be a coach, to go the middle of day for school activity or whatever is there. But then there's other times where you're in grind mode, and you're not there. You might be physically there, but you're not mentally there. So that's that's a constant battle and struggle as an entrepreneur, and I think almost all of us would admit it.

Mhmm. So that's something that my wife's good about reminding me about.

Steve: Good.

Dean: She does a great job at reminding me.

Steve: She has to. It's important.

Dean: She does have to, and something that is, I think, consistent thing to work on.

Steve: What's your biggest struggle today?

Dean: Big struggle in business?

Steve: In general.

Dean: In general. Probably feeling like I've done enough. Like, feeling, I wouldn't say fulfilled because I do feel fulfilled, but feeling like, enough's enough. And I think as entrepreneurs, we struggle with that versus I wanna make a 100,000. Boom.

I did it. I don't feel any different. I wanna make 200,000 or 250. Right? Now I wanna make half 1,000,000.

I wanna make a million. It's like, well, what's where's the next where do you feel like you've made it?

Steve: You're gonna keep moving that goalpost.

Dean: Keep moving it. Yeah. I got a million dollars in the bank right now. I still feel poor. That's is that good or bad?

I don't know.

Steve: Well, it kinda it kinda ties into our solvable problem, which is something we talk about on our Friday episodes, uncertainty talks. We we we tend to have this move of the goalpost. I'll be happy when. Right. There's a somewhat mathematical way to figure out when that win is, and we can work on that together.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: So happy to work with you on that later on. You've taken some major body blows in the business.

Dean: Yeah. I have.

Steve: How do you keep going? How do you stay motivated?

Dean: That's a good question. I don't know if it can be taught. I don't know what your I'll be curious on what your opinion is when I'm done, but I think it's just that internal drive. Just not being willing to quit, being relentless, and just knowing that it's it's you against you. And I think when people can realize that and be willing to compete against yourself and push through the adversity And and having done it, whether it's on a small scale or a large scale and gaining that self confidence is when you build that that thick skin, that tough skin.

So, yeah, man. I've been beat down.

Steve: Yes. You have.

Dean: The mistakes I've made, they were large, big mistakes at not good times. And I had to look at myself, and there there were nights where my heart was pounding going to bed, and my mind was racing. Like, what's gonna happen next? Is there another bad thing that's gonna happen? And it was just knowing, believing in myself that I had to push through, and it was it was me against me.

Steve: So I do believe it's, a little bit in pain. A little bit you're born with it. I think part of it was also your programming too. You know?

Dean: Yeah. Good point.

Steve: I think, for us, you talk about growing up Asian. Failure was not an option. You were expected to get a 100% on everything. So I think that you're programmed to keep

Dean: Would you say that was good for you?

Steve: I'm happy with it. I would say it's not without its flaws. Yeah. Right? I have issues because of it.

Dean: So growing up in sports and being good at them, I was then expected to always do good at them.

Steve: Right.

Dean: Right? And it's not like I was, you know, whipped if I didn't have a good game. It wasn't anything weird like that.

Steve: But What happened, Dean?

Dean: Yeah. It was an expectation. So I always, like, strive to to be great. Right?

Steve: Yep. And then you talk about, you know, the the getting back. I actually took an assessment a week and a half ago, and the one that had the highest rating of all of it was a bounce back ability.

Dean: Wow.

Steve: So it was 99%. I was like, man, that's good. Yeah. So cannot keep me down. Not that I can't fall down.

Can't keep me down. What is your superpower?

Dean: I thought about this before. I think at this point, the superpower is definitely being consistent and just I keep showing up. Like like, athletes, you know, athlete to athlete, professionals play hurt. Right? Hey.

When I'm sick, not feeling good, I still show up.

Steve: I'm not

Dean: I'm not taking a day off. Like, I'm not just I don't feel like it today. So I think that's part of the superpower. And I think the developing superpower is the ability to connect with people. And when I'm with the person, build a good relationship, like a legit relationship to where we're we're transferring energy, and we're we're both feeling it.

Like, we're both liking it. And I think that's helped me over the past year, two years to really open up new doors and new opportunities and build these business relationships that are fun and make a big impact. You know?

Steve: Was it you that made that comment to Stratton?

Dean: Which one? The

Steve: one he quoted? The The one where I was commenting athlete to athlete?

Dean: Yeah. I responded to that.

Steve: No. Was it was it you that was in his ear? You you quoted somebody.

Dean: No. No. No. I didn't I didn't, tell him to post that.

Steve: What was some other people say is your superpower?

Dean: I'd say hard work. I'd say, genuine, humble, good person. Like, I I only say that because I tested this out at an event I was at. They were like, text three friends and see what they say about you. That's that's what people think about you.

So I sent the three texts, and they were all, like, in that category. Right?

Steve: That's awesome. Right. And that's the exercise. That's the way the only way to find out.

Dean: That's the only way to find out. Yeah.

Steve: How How did you learn your greatest lesson? Did we already cover that one or was there another lesson?

Dean: Did we cover it? Yeah. I I got it's just so obvious sometimes. Just make the extra phone call. Just make the extra phone call.

Like you said, it could even be a referral, someone in your trusted circle. Yep. I I had someone call me the other day, and I had this gut feeling that I needed to dig more. So I I actually did it. I listened to my gut feeling, which sometimes I ignore it.

Mhmm. I listened to it. And it was like, well, ask them if they've done this before. Right? And then now you can find out if they have or they haven't.

Right? And and you'll get your answers if you just ask questions and ask other people.

Steve: Right. What book have you gifted more than any other?

Dean: Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Steve: What was the what was the effect you found from giving those books out?

Dean: It felt good. It felt really good to potentially create an opportunity for someone to have a breakthrough moment. And it didn't have to be real estate's the way, the only way. It's just that shift in the, worker mentality, the employee mentality versus the entrepreneur mentality, the business owner, the investor. Right?

Mhmm. And I that's what I love about that book. It's just so simple, and anyone can understand it. And that just can have the break the glass moment. Like, oh, now I get it.

Steve: Yep. I got a chance to meet Kiyosaki a couple weeks ago.

Dean: Amazing.

Steve: He's, very different person.

Dean: Well, say, what's he like in person?

Steve: He's at that age where no one's opinion matters anymore.

Dean: No filter?

Steve: No filter.

Dean: And he's already made up his mind?

Steve: He's already made up his mind there. You're not gonna convince him anything. That's fascinating. Right?

Dean: That is. Yeah.

Steve: So but, obviously, right, impactful, change a lot of lives.

Dean: Yeah.

Steve: I want you to think about something you wanna leave all the listeners with while while I make a couple of quick announcements. Guys, if you found this valuable today, please like, subscribe, share, comment. It helps us connect with more people. We do have our sales disruptors event next week. So if you're interested in checking that out, go to millionairesupport.com.

Talk to my team. And we have part in the disruption tomorrow. I hope my voice is back by tomorrow. Trash talk is really important part of that show. I gotta bring it.

And then we got Bob the chance coming on the show next time, so make sure you tune in next time. What are some last thoughts you wanna leave everybody with?

Dean: Yeah. So the two things I like to just let sink in for people is, Tony Robbins had a a powerful message. Right? And his was that you're one relationship, one person away from a lifetime's worth of income. So if you think about that, right, you and I meeting today could develop into something that could radically change our life and create a lifetime worth of income just from this one interaction that we had.

Right? Or maybe someone that knew me saw the show now now knows you as a you as a result or vice versa, has a a connection with one of us and now creates a lifetime worth of income for them or for me, and it just becomes the snowball effect. So by going and putting yourself out there and meeting people, being yourself, and coming with a good attitude and positive energy can open up a lifetime's worth of income. And I think that is insanely powerful.

Steve: Yes. Very powerful.

Dean: So, there's that. And then, I had one other one that has left my mind. I can't think of the other one. But yeah. No.

That's that's the biggest takeaway for sure.

Steve: How can someone get ahold of you?

Dean: So just go to deanrogers.com. All my social's on there, Instagram, YouTube, all that stuff. Connect. I'm telling people connect because when you connect with people, new things develop, like I already said.

Steve: And he needs a friend with benefits.

Dean: Friends with benefits.

Steve: Yes. Cool.

Dean: Thank you. Awesome, man.

Steve: Thank you guys for watching. See you guys all later.

Speaker: Shout out to Steve train. Jump on the Steve train. We real estate disrupt us.