Aaron Bevans: Steve, I'm I'm weeping. I'm like, I'm crying, man, because I'm reliving this traumatic experience. It was my my mother trying to commit suicide, and she attempted suicide in front of me while my dad was leaving. And she said, please don't leave. And if you do, she grabs a knife.
If you do, then I'm gonna hurt myself. Well, she punctures her arm, and blood is gushing everywhere. In that moment, I I grabbed a towel, I ran over to my mom, and I I wrapped her arm, and I'm like, don't you ever do that again? I've never had a deep voice. Whenever I said it, my brother was in the room, my dad was in the room, my mom was there, and everybody started busting out laughing.
So in that moment, my interpretation was, oh, I have the ability to control the state in a room. So I became, at that age, the motivator, the inspirer. Like, I'm the encourager. Like, I feel like the energy in the room is my responsibility. And so that's the first experience to tell myself things like, it's my fault.
You know what I mean? All these negative, ugly things that you would never guess that I talk to myself this way because I'm always the encourager and positive person.
Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Disruptors. There we got Aaron Bevans with Standard Virtual Assistants. And Aaron drove in from San Antonio to talk about how he went from serving ministries to building multiple 7 figure businesses. Guys, I'm on a mission to create a 100 millionaires.
The information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. Even if you'll take consistent action, you you will become one. And guys, if you get value out of the show, please hit that subscribe button. That way we can let YouTube know this is good stuff. You ready?
Aaron: I'm ready, man.
Steve: Alright. So what was your life like right before you got into real estate?
Aaron: That's a good question. Right before I got into real estate, I was a painter. I was and I was painting, like, construction painting, not artistic painting. And this was probably, like, the most crucial story. I try to water it down, and I've thought about ways that I can water it down, but I don't know any other way to to to say it.
But I was in the ministry, like you had mentioned, and that was my number one focus. So that was probably and I I credit a lot of my ability to sell and from, you know, being in the door to door ministry, speaking from stages, being being trained by by mentors who who, you know, preach the the message and scriptures from stage. And I loved it. I had a passion for it, but I was a little bit imbalanced. And so the previous relationship that I was with, that I was in, which it was a marriage.
Steve: At how old?
Aaron: I was married at 23 years old. K. So at this point, I'm married for, like, a year and a half. Mhmm. And my wife at the time is a she owns a a a business Mhmm.
As a hairstylist. And her business is growing over a year and a half period, and she comes home one day and she's like, Erin, I I don't like the way I'm starting to feel about you. And I'm like, woah. That is not what you wanna hear being after being married for, like, a year and a half. And I'm like, what do you what do you mean?
Like like, am I doing something wrong? And she says, well, over the last year and a half, I feel like me and my business have been growing, and I don't feel like you've been growing.
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: And it's not about the money because I obviously didn't marry you for the money. I married I married a a poor preacher boy. Yeah. Right? And and and I didn't get paid to to to to preach from the stage.
I I was, you know, on on volunteer work, you know. So I, you know, when so when I I ask her, like, what what so what what's the issue? Like, what she's like, well, you don't feel that your potential is being missed out on? Like, if you were to die today, your boss wouldn't so much as write me a condolences letter. You'd be replaced within the hour.
And she's like, you don't think you have more potential within you? It's not just about, like, being on stage and and preaching. Like, you also have to take care of your family. Like, I need for you to grow. And and so I was like, my pride was shattered.
But once I got over myself, I realized, well, you know, she wasn't disrespecting me. She was calling me out, and maybe she's bringing out some valid points. Maybe I do have some potential that I'm leaving on the floor right now.
Steve: How long it take for you to get over it?
Aaron: I would say, like, a week. About a week. I mean, my heart my heart was crushed.
Steve: I mean, like, you know, there's generalities here. Right? And these might people would might deem this as sexist or whatever. But, like, I don't know. I'm pro science.
Mhmm. So, like, for the most part, like, men, we pride ourselves on being the breadwinner. Mhmm. Right? Like, being able to provide for the family.
And the worst person to hear from is your wife.
Aaron: Is the person you're supposed to be providing for.
Steve: Right? And I think the other thing too is, like, you see this a lot in the entrepreneurial world. Mhmm. Right? But I I see it mostly more from the men's side where the men are growing.
They're doing the personal development. They're going through coaching, and their business is growing. Mhmm. And the wife is content Mhmm. More or less.
Like, here's a life I've chosen. Mhmm. Like, I don't have to do personal development with you.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: I don't have to grow as a person.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: You got the other side of that.
Aaron: Yep. 100%.
Steve: Yeah. Okay. So you took a week Yep. To, like, get out of bed or whatever.
Aaron: Process it. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. So what happened after that?
Aaron: Yeah. I realized that that she was right. That maybe she sees something in me that I didn't see in myself. I didn't see myself as a provider. I didn't see myself as an entrepreneur, much less a businessman or in the world of capitalism.
In fact, I kinda prided myself in the fact that I'm a simple kind of guy and I'm okay being content financially. Alright.
Steve: Don't need earthly possessions.
Aaron: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But I'm incredibly competitive. Mhmm.
I'm incredibly competitive. So now that this beast had been awakened in me Now mind you, I'm a high school dropout. So I didn't have any trades. I went from I dropped out of high school to go into the ministry because high school just seemed like a waste of time to me, and I wanted to do I knew I wanted to do something big with my life. I just never imagined that it would be with business.
So, you know, I was all in on the ministry, and then I would paint to be able to make ends meet. And so when when I licked my wounds and and got up, I was like, okay. What can I do? But I hate school. What can I do where I can start making a crap ton of money and start competing as a head, as a provider?
And not and I'm not content with being a provider anymore. Like, I need to make more money than her, and I need to I need to I feel like now this this insatiable hunger had been awakened for, I wanna make money. I wanna be a good provider, and I and I I no longer want this. I never wanna have that conversation again where my person is coming to me saying, hey. Like, I'm starting to lose respect for you because I'm outgrowing you Yeah.
In this area. And, again, the it had nothing to this was I don't feel like this was a materialistic conversation. I think it was legitimately how it was framed. And that is, I'm now leading you financially and that doesn't feel good. I want I want my head to be leading me in all ways, not just spiritually.
And so I took that to heart. And so and so I got on this this self development kick and, and that's what that's what started me on the journey to to business and entrepreneurship.
Steve: Yeah. So, what were you doing in the ministry?
Aaron: I was preaching from stage. So I was a well known speaker at a at a young age.
Steve: I mean, I could totally see that. That.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. I it was something that I was always fascinated with. I would I would love to take notes and and listen to the speech. The I loved the magic that a good speaker can like like, they can cast a spell on on an audience.
I loved that. And then also door to door. Mhmm. You know, I would I would preach door to door sharing sharing the message, try to start conversations. We also did informal preaching where we would go to bus stops and try to see if we can start up, random conversations with people and and see if we can talk to them about the scriptures.
Steve: So you're already selling religion?
Aaron: I was selling yeah. I was selling religion. That's right.
Steve: Alright. So this is you say preacher boys. Like, was there a family, history or this is you're the first one that went into it?
Aaron: No. It was like, I had my grandfather was was a a missionary, and my dad was in the ministry. And this is something that that was instilled in me at a young age. I rebelled for a long time. So a lot of people who if you're watching this, you know, they're like, there's no way.
You know what I mean? But but I was I was definitely a big rebel, you know, in my early years in high school. And and I was doing music at an early age and getting involved with the lifestyle with music and things like this, but I wasn't I wasn't fulfilled. You know? I always knew I was gonna do something big and impact a lot of people, but I just was not.
Mhmm. I wasn't satisfied. And when I started studying the scriptures and then sharing that with other people, there is a there's a level of euphoria that I felt that I had it it was unmatched. I had never felt that before. And so that's what that's what started me on this journey of of the ministry and the scriptures and sharing it.
Steve: So you look what you you look at when you get into personal personal development. Is that the first direction you went?
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: Alright. So what's the first thing you did?
Aaron: First thing I did, I found this gentleman by the name of Tony Robbins
Steve: Okay.
Aaron: On YouTube University.
Steve: Right.
Aaron: And there was a podcast. I remember I was going to the gym. Mhmm. There was a podcast where he was talking about where he he made a statement that just, like, kicked me in the groin, man. He said, wherever you are financially, physically, wherever you are relationally right now is just an accumulative it's just an accumulation of all of your decisions and responses and reactions over the last five, ten, twenty years.
Yeah. So he's like, now those responses have come from beliefs. And the only way to change the next five, ten, fifteen years is to change your current beliefs because your current beliefs will reflect are are are gonna be reflected in your actions and that's gonna, you know, produce the results. Right. So he said, I'm gonna give you a hack on how to rewire your mind.
And I was like, holy crap. And I remember I'm like, I'm I'm locked in, man. I'm I'm, you know, I'm paying attention. He says, I want you to go back in your mind to when you first started casting these limiting beliefs that you currently have on yourself. Your current limiting beliefs about money, about employment, about work, about whatever whatever area that you're trying to improve.
If you're unhappy with where you are right now, it's because of your set, your current programming, your current beliefs. So I want you to go back to when those limiting beliefs first started. And he says, here's here's a hint. It probably is associated with a traumatic experience that you had in life. Mhmm.
Because that's typically where limiting beliefs come from. And he gives the example of the little kid who is playing on the sofa, is backing up on the sofa, falls down, cracks his head on the ceramic vase. He looks over, he sees blood gushing from his skull, and he looks up and he's like, he associates that trauma with brown couches. Mhmm. And so now he grows up hating brown couches, and his interpretation is that heights and couches cause pain.
And it's like, no that's a limiting belief, and it was a wrong interpretation, but that's where limiting beliefs come from. It's typically around a conversation that they that they that they heard and it hurt their feelings or some sort of traumatic experience where this this this misinterpretation, this wrong interpretation. So I went all the way back to so he says, I want you to so I I want you to go back to that traumatic experience where you can recall your first negative interpretation becoming a limiting belief. Mhmm. And he says, so here's how to rewire.
Your sir your subconscious mind does not know the difference between a real experience and an imagined experience.
Steve: Right.
Aaron: And so you can literally lie yourself into into beliefs. And so he says, what I want you to do is replay that emotionally traumatizing experience, but I want you to pause it in the middle of the scene, and I want you to now step in as third party, and I want you to speak to yourself and give yourself the appropriate interpretation of that experience Mhmm. And and do that as an exercise to rewire that memory and start rewiring your beliefs. And I'm like, this is so crazy that it just might actually do it. And so he says, I want you to write write it down.
So I get to the gym. I'll never I'll never forget. I have my journal, and I'm writing down the experience, and I'm reliving it. Steve, I'm I'm weeping. I'm, like, I'm crying, man, because I'm reliving this traumatic experience.
Steve: You wanna share what your traumatic experience was?
Aaron: It it was my my mother trying to commit suicide, and she attempted suicide in front of me while my dad was leaving. She was begging him not to leave, and she said, please don't leave. And if you do, she grabs a knife. If you do, then I'm gonna hurt myself. And he called her bluff and started out the door Well, she punctures her her her arm, and blood is gushing everywhere.
Now check this out. This is really interesting. In that moment, I I wanna say I was, like, six six or seven. I I grabbed a towel. I ran over to my mom, and I I wrapped her arm, and I'm like, don't you ever do that again?
Now I guess my I've never had a deep voice. So I guess my voice was really squealy or squeaky, but but, however, whenever I said it, my brother was in the room. My dad was in the room. My mom was there, obviously. And everybody started busting out laughing.
So in that moment, my interpretation was, oh, I have the ability to control the state in a room. So I became at that age, I became the the motivator, the inspirer. Like, I'm the encourager. Like, I feel like the energy in the room is my responsibility from that age. But what ended up happening was I would never talk to anybody about any of the negative things because I'm not supposed to because I'm the encourager.
I have the ability to make people laugh in the darkest of moments. So I would just internalize everything. And so that's the first experience that I can think back to beginning to tell myself things like it's my fault that my mom attempted suicide or I'm not good enough or you know what I mean? All these negative, ugly things that you would never guess that I talk to myself this way because I'm always the encourager and positive person. Mhmm.
So I'm, like, crying writing this down, but when when it really got emotional is is me free because he Tony says to freeze frame that moment, freeze frame the moment, meaning everybody freezes around except for you and young young you. And you get on your knees, and you're going to you're gonna speak the proper interpretation into younger you. And and the fact that it evokes an emotional response shows you are you are speaking to your subconscious mind and, and make that a habit and start to and start to rewire your mind with these new beliefs. And so that was my first that was my first time experiencing self development. And it's, like, the idea that you
Steve: can do that because there's two different things. Right? So, like,
Aaron: when we're
Steve: talking about limiting beliefs, like, one of the things that I've come to understand limiting beliefs is they're there to protect you.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? Like, it's your safety mechanism. So they're there to protect you. Problem is it's not protecting you.
Aaron: Mhmm. Right?
Steve: So it's stopping you from doing things to keep you safe, but in reality, it's actually not keeping you safe.
Aaron: Mhmm. So you
Steve: had to go back and do these exercises to redo your belief system and remove these limiting beliefs. And, like, what you just talked about here is, like, it's a really, really powerful way. Right? I think everyone that's watching might be worthwhile to or watching and listening might be worthwhile to go back a few minutes to understand this exercise because this is how you go back, right, without a therapist to go and undo some of that damage that we have inside our inside our own systems.
Aaron: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I'd encourage anybody to do this, everybody to do this because, and just warning, like, you you might shed some tears.
Mhmm. You know? And and if you're not shedding tears, you probably need to go back a little bit deeper. Yeah. Because all of us have those moments that that, you know, could be a conversation with a parent.
Mhmm. You know, somebody that we look up to, you know, you know, crushed our heart, you know, and broke our heart, you know, a failure. We knew we we could have been doing more and we didn't. We ended up losing or coming in last place. There there's these moments.
There's pivotal moments that created beliefs in us that that have have led us up to where we are now. So
Steve: we're gonna talk about all those times I didn't get picked to play basketball. Right?
Aaron: Led to your led to your dark side?
Steve: Yeah. Like
Aaron: Your competitive dark side?
Steve: Middle school. Right? Like, hey, you know, like, we've got five. We're good. Right?
Maybe that's I I gotta go back and do this exercise. Alright. So you go to you do this exercise. Mhmm. Right?
You you you were able I mean, it's it's remarkable that you can go watch, you said, YouTube? Yep. Watch this Tony Robbins YouTube video
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: And go do it yourself. Mhmm. Because, I mean, like, there's a lot of stuff that he puts out there. I I remember going through, I think, his personal power, I think. Yeah.
It's like a thirty day series. Yep. It's like one of the best things I went through. I think it was personal power too. And, like, it helped a lot, but I don't think I went as far with it as you did.
So it's really remarkable. Mhmm. Okay. So you're able to redo your programming.
Aaron: Then what?
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Aaron: Yep. I just got on this this self development kick from Tony Robbins. I started to get into more practical things like right after Tony Robbins, I found this book called The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, and I started applying this or trying to look for a an avenue to apply the compound effect, which the compound effect basically states, you know, small daily habits over a long period of time yield massive, you know, disproportionate results. And I'm like, okay. Now I need to find a vehicle to apply the compound effect.
Where can I put small daily behaviors into where a year from now I'm gonna be unrecognizable financially? So I start looking around everywhere. And of course, like most people in this situation who, you know, no trade, no background, I found sales.
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: And and, Yep. A lot
Steve: of people fall in the sales.
Aaron: Yep. And and I'm like, this is it. Sales is gonna be how I am going to compete and become a provider and and become the man that I know that I can be on on a financial standpoint.
Steve: When did you figure that out?
Aaron: That was this was in '20 this is, like, 2016. And I start, at this point, I'm doing direct to, direct to to it's direct sales at Costco's and Sam's Club's. The I'm the person handing out the samples
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: And then encouraging you to buy.
Steve: Okay.
Aaron: You know what I mean? And that's where I cut my teeth. From there, I got into door to door sales, door knocking and selling energy. Mhmm. You know, you're
Steve: Like solar?
Aaron: So, it it was before solar really started to to to hit. This was in deregulated markets. Like, I was in Illinois at the time. And, you know, if if if your current provider, you're you're purchasing at 0.032¢ a kilowatt, I can get you to 0.02¢ a a kilowatt.
Steve: Gotcha. So, like, for utility company?
Aaron: For utility company. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And so and so, that's where I really started to make my first money Mhmm.
And apply the compound effect which was okay, the daily activity of knocking on door. If I knock on a 100 doors a day, I can just trust that I could be the worst salesman ever. I could have bad breath, you know, be absolutely horrible at sales. But if I'm if I if I stick to this behavior, if I if I just trust the process, like, I'm gonna be unrecognizable in in six months to a year. And I saw that.
And that's what got me on. Did you do it? Yeah. I did. Yeah.
I built a team, became a a manager, bought a van where I would I would I would recruit people. I would take them in the neighborhoods, drop them off, and then we would door knock for eight hours. And and, that's when I first started making my my first little bit of money.
Steve: So personal question here. Mhmm. Are you were you still with your wife at that point?
Aaron: At that point, I was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. I was.
Steve: So did she see, like, you're hitting your potential?
Aaron: Yeah. She did.
Steve: Okay. Did that dynamic did that dynamic change?
Aaron: It did. It did. Yeah.
Steve: Alright. So you're doing door to door. You're having success here. Mhmm. Then what?
Aaron: I wanted more now. I wanted more now because I'm I'm like, okay. I'm doing this, and every sale, I'm making $50. Mhmm. And off off of my off of my agent, I can make, like, a $20 override.
Mhmm. Is there something that I could be selling where I could make $500? Is there is there a product I could be selling where I could be making a thousand dollars or more? And my father-in-law at the time said, and I was talking to everybody about this because I when I become obsessed, it's all I wanna talk about. So I'm like, anytime you see me, I'm either talking about either talking about God or business, man.
You know what I mean? And so and so, you know, he knew about that. So he he he said, hey. There's a a seminar coming to a nearby hotel. It's got a legacy tour, and it was the Rich Dad Poor Dad seminar.
Mhmm. And it was free. And at the beginning of yeah. Free. Yeah.
Exactly. So I I'm sitting in this hotel room, and I'm watching this guy, this super charismatic guy, give this presentation on how and he's showing checks on his on his projector, you know, $5.10, $15,000. Before the Instagram. Oh, yeah. The most
Steve: glossy checks on Instagram.
Aaron: Facts. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. This was your this was your typical guru before social media.
And he's talking about how he's making all this money without using any of his own credit, without using any of his own money, and and and you can you can be making money in the next, you know, four to five months utilizing the strategy. I'm sold. Like, as far as I'm concerned, I have found the thing that is going to this is the vehicle that I am going to use to get rich. So at the end of the at the end of the seminar, they're like, well, if you wanna learn more, $500 and you can come to the two day course.
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: And so I didn't have any money. So I leaned over to my significant other, and I'm like, hey. Like, $500, I promise this is not another thing. Like, please, like, be willing to invest in me, and I will make it worthwhile. Like, I this this this will mean a lot to me.
And she she put up the $500 Mhmm. For that that weekend seminar, and the rest is history. We went to that weekend seminar, and I wanna say, like, seven or seven or eight months later, I closed my first wholesale deal for for $750.
Steve: Nice. Six you said how like, eight or nine months?
Aaron: But but yeah. But yeah. It was seven seven to nine months given it.
Steve: Seven months. Okay. So you learned how to wholesale from a Rich Dad event?
Aaron: From a Rich Dad event.
Steve: I didn't know they did that.
Aaron: Yeah? I never heard of wholesaling before before Rich Dad four Dad.
Steve: Yeah. We had, Sharon Lechter in the seat two two weeks ago. You know who that is. Right? Mhmm.
Yeah. So, like, it's funny.
Aaron: Which is really dope. I actually saw I was looking up I was looking up podcasts. I was like, no way. That's so cool that you were able to get her on the show.
Steve: Yeah. So, alright. So it's real now.
Aaron: Mhmm. Right. Proof of concept. Yep.
Steve: So that 500 turned into $750, like, we're profitable.
Aaron: Yep. Yep.
Steve: And then, what happened after that?
Aaron: It was like that $750 may as well have it may as well have been a million dollars.
Steve: Mhmm. Steve. Your first one.
Aaron: Facts. Because I felt it was like a shark smelling blood. I'm like, I'm looking around, like, no police came to to arrest me. This is real. Wholesaling is real.
Like, it's legitimate. I feel like I feel like I and here's what was crazy about it. I'm looking at the $750. And mind you, this is a lot of money for me. Mhmm.
You know what I mean? $750. I'm looking at the seller. The seller is in tears because we solved their problem. The buyer is excited and, like, patting me on the back, and I just made $750.
I'm feeling like a superhero right now. So that was in fourth quarter twenty seventeen. Mhmm. 2018, I did half $1,000,000 in assignment fees.
Steve: Wow.
Aaron: We averaged about 40 to $50,000 a month, and 10 x'd our our ad spend. Because, no, our our operational expenses, we were all in at, like, 5 k. Mhmm. At that time side note. At that time, if if you remember 2017, 2018 in real estate, everybody at that time is preaching, mailers.
Mhmm. Right? Everybody's preaching mailers. And very few people are cold calling at that time.
Steve: Right.
Aaron: Well, I was broke. I was broke. So I'm like, I can't be doing these mailers, man. I don't have the time because, you know, I'm I'm full time at my job still. I don't have the time to be handwriting all these letters because I I for sure can't afford to send them out.
And so, I started I started cold calling. And I would I would skip trace. I would I would spend, like, a couple hours. Would I would drive for dollars once a week. K?
Spend, like, four or five hours driving for dollars. Then I would go to been verified Mhmm. Right? Or truepeoplesearch.com where you can get free script tracing. Right.
And I would spend another four to five hours just plugging in one by one into spreadsheets the the numbers next to the names Mhmm. And the addresses. And then throughout the week, I would I would just cold call them. And, and so that's what we did. That's what we did for for the first Pure hustle.
Yep. Yep.
Steve: So that's remarkable that you actually did it from Pure Hustle. You didn't have to pull a list. Yep. Right. That you didn't pull a list.
You didn't have a bulk skip tracing.
Aaron: Yeah.
Steve: Which really wasn't a thing yet.
Aaron: That skip tracing wasn't even making ads yet, bro.
Steve: Yeah. So manually skip tracing through the free free database. So then, so you said this is through 2018?
Aaron: This is yeah. Yeah. This is yeah. This is early twenty eighteen when when I'm doing this.
Steve: Okay. Yep. And then what happened after that?
Aaron: This is when so now I'm starting to make money money. I close my first my first real deal on my own. That's like $14,000. Then my next one is like $28,000. My next one is $10,000.
And this is all within my first ninety days. I have never touched money like this in my life. So I closed those first three deals in about ninety days. I'm looking at my bank account like, okay, it's time to make major moves. So this is when I start looking for mentors.
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: And so in my search for mentors, around that time, I found I found three people. I found Wholesaling Inc, and I fell in love with Brent Daniels, who's still a good friend of mine today and and, like, one of my one of my favorite mentors up until today. But I hired Joshua Gaiman first with with cold calling on steroids. And I found Joshua Gaiman through a Max Maxwell podcast. Mhmm.
So so I paid him $5,000. He helped me scale my operation through ringless voicemails. We were doing massive ringless voice. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah.
He was killing
Steve: with RVMs. He was killing with RVMs.
Aaron: Crushing it, bro. I crushed it with RVMs. That he helped me crush that half $1,000,000 year in 2018. Yeah. So from from him, he helped me scale my operation, where where I I kinda effectively got out of cold calling and went to ringless voicemail, scaling that at a massive level.
Then I was like, I gotta go to to to Brent Daniels. Brent Daniels helped me, you know, turn the operation into predictability. Mhmm. And then through I don't know if it was through Brent Daniels, but I know that my next mentor was actually you. Yeah.
So so, so you had the sales course. Mhmm. And I think at the time, it was, like, $1,500 a month. Yeah. It was
Steve: not what it is today.
Aaron: Yeah. I got it I got it back back when it was for the low low. Yeah. But that was a lot of money. In fact, I remember, a confession confession.
I remember I think it was, like, four, five, six months after starting, we had a, I had an ebb in business Mhmm. Where I had to have the most embarrassing conversation. I don't think we've even talked about this up until now.
Steve: We haven't talked about this conversation.
Aaron: I remember this conversation. Do you know do you know what I'm talking about? 100%. It's probably one of the most embarrassing conversations I've had to have because I'm coming off of, like, really big months. A lot of people are getting to know me.
I'm I'm spending $1,500 a month in in, like, really effective sales training. I'm having an ebb in business. Oh, I remember what it was too. I was in the middle of two flips. I was being drained.
I was being eaten alive. And and I was to the point where I was having to borrow money from my acquisitions people to keep my marketing afloat and pay for pay for unexpected fees in my in my, in my flips. And I had to have a conversation with Steve Tring, who was behind you up until this point. Steve is like a hero, somebody I know in social media. And I'm like, dude, like, I I I can't afford the training anymore.
And I remember you being like, well, why? Like, it's you've been in the training. Do you not feel like it's effective? I'm like, no. No.
It's effective. It's yeah. And then you're like, well, then why wouldn't you continue to pay for it? I'm like, ah, this is such an embarrassing conversation to have. But, yeah, I I had to I had to I I had to stop the training, and I remember being so ashamed from that moment.
Mhmm. But, yeah, you didn't you didn't, demean me in any way. No. And the next time we effectively met up, we were competing with one another on,
Steve: Closest Nightclub before that. Yeah. Like, you had you had already made a brand for yourself. Mhmm. Right?
And I didn't know you were working with Josh Gaiman because I I actually know Josh Gaiman, I don't know, from, like, 2013, 2014. Right? Like, before he blew up with our business. Right? Because he was a struggling realtor.
Aaron: I was
Steve: a struggling realtor. Mhmm. Right? He's doing mobile homes. I'm trying to figure out short sales.
Like, go away
Aaron: Wow. I did not know that.
Steve: Back. Right? But, yeah, I I remember, so I'm in California. I don't know where, but I'm in a hotel Mhmm. With my family.
Right? But we scheduled our sales call.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And so I remember telling my wife, like, hey, I need to watch the kids. I need to go downstairs in the lobby. Right? Which there was, like, hardly like, it's hard to find the Wi Fi. Definitely no power supply.
I remember that. I was like, I gotta make a sales call, and I I was looking forward. Like, there's not a lot of times where I feel any pressure on a sales call. Mhmm. I was thinking, I gotta close Aaron Mhmm.
Because he's an influencer. Right? If I close him and he tells other people, like, that makes everything easier. Mhmm.
Aaron: So I
Steve: remember having this conversation. I I don't know if it appeared. We can actually go back and watch. Because I I have every sales call I've ever taken
Aaron: down the road. Bro, that's so crazy. This is this is, what, 2018?
Steve: 2019. 2019.
Aaron: 2019. 2018.
Steve: Right? So I have every sales call we're taking, like, recorded on Zoom. But I I had pressure on myself. Like, I gotta close him because this guy's got influence. Right?
But, yeah, like, you know, it happens where people are like, hey. Things aren't working out. Like, you were you picked up the phone. You didn't duck me.
Aaron: Mhmm. Right?
Steve: You picked the phone. Like, here, I'm being honest with you. I'm being vulnerable with you. I've got problems. I've got challenges.
And if if I remember correctly, I tried counseling you through those problems as well. You did. You did. Yep. Like, here's how you get everything back together.
Yep. I guess, like, falling down and just part of the business. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm.
Okay. So that happens. And then along the way actually, before this, you already launched Superhuman. Yep. Yep.
What's Superhuman?
Aaron: Yep. Superhuman wholesalers came from I'm a natural teacher. And I love there there's a certain euphoria that I get from watching the light bulb come off in somebody else's mind. So that's like I'll I'll borrow the phrase from Pace Morby. It's it's like it's the emotional currency.
I love money, by the way. But there there's a there's a a very satisfying emotional currency from helping people and leading people. I love that. And so when I closed my first deal, there was two thoughts. There was like, I'm gonna be rich.
Mhmm. The second thought is I'm gonna help so many people get rich. Mhmm. And so that was always in my in the back of my mind. How can I help other people with this?
Because this is train changing my life. I wanna help other people. So in 2019, I said, we're gonna launch. We're gonna and I remember being up at, like, 4AM, and I still have the notes and writing down my vision. And I borrowed the vision from the story of Jesus Christ.
And not to get religious, but this is where I where I borrow. And I said, okay. How is one man let's borrow let's borrow religion out of this. K? So I'm not talking about religion.
I'm talking about the historical figure, Jesus Christ. Yeah. How is this individual able to impact the course of history over the next, like, thousands of we're still talking about him today. Right. Whether or not you believe in in his doctrine or not.
Right? Right. So let's look at how he did it. This man, he had a vision that he said would encompass the entire world. So he was he was crystal clear in his vision.
So I'm like, okay. We gotta create the vision. The vision has to be massive. So create a massive crystal clear vision. The second thing that he did was he recruited a core group of followers.
Mhmm. And he made those the individuals that he primarily poured into, and then he made, then he had those individuals perpetuate the the the the mission. So everybody is talking about, Andrew Tate. Like, Andrew Tate came up with this model of having other people preach your message. It's like, no.
That's Jesus Christ. He borrowed it from Jesus. Right? And so I'm like okay, that's how I'm gonna do this. That's how I can blow up, that's how I can preach this message and blow up a massive I had this vision of I wanna create a massive group of people nationwide who are supporting one another, to be able to to utilize this vehicle of wholesaling to to help them, you know, achieve financial security and freedom Right.
Through real estate. And so I said, okay. We need to recruit the the disciples, the individuals who are gonna ride for me and die for me. The people who have I'm like, I need this person gone. They're like, where you want them?
In the ocean or the desert, boss? You know what I'm saying? I and you only need, historically, you only need 11 of them. Mhmm. Even if one betrays you, you only need 11.
So I'm like, okay. I can find 11 other humans who who can believe in my vision. And so I said I'm gonna do this, and here's gonna be my lead magnet. Because his lead magnet was, be my follower. I will help you change your life forever in this life and the afterlife.
Right? So what's so that's his lead magnet. What's my lead magnet? My lead magnet is I'm gonna help 10 people achieve 6 figures with predictability in the next twelve months. Mhmm.
That's my lead magnet. That's my that's my pitch. And and and up until that point, I had created enough of a enough of a brand where I feel like people I could get 11 people to trust me. Mhmm. Right?
And and so I said and and what we're gonna do is we're gonna congregate together because you need to meet with them. By the way, Napoleon Hill talks about this in his book, Think and Grow Rich. He calls it the mastermind principle where you need to meet with your with your people at least once a week. So I said so we we started meeting every Sunday in the morning Mhmm. For free and just just going over the principles and KPIs and things like this.
Well, we we exceeded our goal in 2019. We helped our goal was to help 10 people hit 6 figures with HUDs and everything. We helped 20 people achieve 6 figure revenues in 2019. Yeah. And since then, the the community now has over 20,000 members.
We've helped over a 100 people achieve 6 figure revenues and 15 vetted 7 figure 7 figure earners through wholesaling real estate.
Steve: That's awesome.
Aaron: Yep. It's
Steve: really cool. Yep. Right? Because because this is gonna go back to Closers Olympics. Because what happened to Closers Olympics, in addition to you going me and you, there was also there was team Superhumans.
Yeah. There was team Titanium.
Aaron: Yep. There
Steve: was team Disruptors. I don't know I can't remember who else. It was Oh,
Aaron: that was the Pace Morby. The Pace because remember oh, wait. No. That was until next year. Yeah.
Yeah. That was till 2020. That was the next year.
Steve: Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. You're right. 2021.
Steve: Yeah. So anyway so yeah. You guys have this crazy idea for Closers Olympics. Walk me through what this idea is for Closers Olympics.
Aaron: Yeah. So the Closers Olympics a lot of people don't know this. The idea for Closers Olympics was spawned through Quentin Flores and myself. Mhmm. The reason why is because, Q and me have always had a rivalry.
Mhmm. Right? And, you know, we we kinda grew up in the business together. And so and so we we always knew that we were we were neck and neck, and that we were always comparing our businesses to one another. How many deals did you close?
How many and then we would go on social media, and we would create these little memes. Before memes were even a big thing, we were creating memes of one another, clowning one another. Like, I'm the illest closer in San Antonio. I can prove it. You know?
And and, and we would go we would just have this this this fun banter back and forth. So finally, Q hits me up one day. And he's like, dude, what if we do a challenge where we go live on all platforms and and we call the sellers leads for them? Mhmm. And he's like, what we can do is will you we'll we'll we'll cross market by using your audience.
We'll get my audience there.
Steve: That's right. Because he had his audience too.
Aaron: He had a massive audience. I had a growing audience, and he's like and I'm like, who else can we get here? He's like, two upcoming stars. Well, one major upcoming star was Keith Everett at the time. Mhmm.
Right? So we're like, let's call Keith and see if he'd be down to do this. And then an OG in the game we considered OG was Chris Jefferson. Mhmm. So we asked Chris.
So we got him together.
Steve: I guess, like, five of him as the OG. Oh, yeah. And you guys are just too young.
Aaron: Well, he you're like OG to Chris?
Steve: I mean, we're we're the same. Yeah. We're just approximate, I guess. No. A 100%.
Aaron: He was like he's like the veteran. He's like the veteran in the in the crew. And, they said yes. We pitched it out. Mhmm.
We sold out. We said that we were gonna cap it out at x amount of seats. We sold out. It even exceeded sales. To this day, we did we did we ran that play like three times.
I think we charged like a $150. We sold out every single time. To this day, the lowest viewed one has, like, over 60,000 views. Right? The the others are like, excuse me.
Over a 100,000 views. It just it went viral. It just just crazy. And so No
Steve: one's done that yet.
Aaron: Yeah. No one had done that up until that point. Right? To to not only go live calling, right, but to go live calling, you know, the your audience's leads. It it was crazy.
So from there, Elijah Rubin and and Keith Everett come up with the idea during COVID because COVID hits. Mhmm. K? Now remember when when COVID first hit, baseball shut down, basketball shut down, and then this before the fun times COVID. Right?
Before before TikTok COVID, it was like fear COVID. Like, everybody was like, yo, what it what's gonna happen to our business? Like, are we gonna be able to take care of our families before we knew there was gonna be a stipend that was given out to people and stuff? There was this this fear. And so Elijah Rubin and Keith Everett, true innovators, these guys were like, how can we breathe life into our industry and still make a crap ton of money?
Mhmm. Right? And they were like, well, sports are gone. What if we bring the Olympics? Mhmm.
Right? But let's do Olympics for closers. Right. And and so they hit me up. They hit up q, and that was the core four.
That was the original core four. It was Elijah Rubin, Keith Everett, Quentin Flores, and and me. Mhmm. And we were like, we need to get all the biggest players in the game involved, like, all the people we all look up to, and and let's create this this incredible experience for for people called the Closers Olympics where we're gonna get all the the greatest closers in our in our niche of the industry Mhmm. And we're all gonna be calling calling leads together.
So we called you, Brent Daniels, Max Maxwell, Chris Jefferson, you know, lot lots of other players. Carlos' two closers. Carlos' two closers.
Steve: RJ Bates, Steve Morales. Yep.
Aaron: Nick Lovano? Nick Lovano. Nick Perry was a part of for the first one too. No. That
Steve: he wasn't in it. He was a he was a different one.
Aaron: Oh, oh, he was in the next one. Oh, Donovan Ruffin Ruffin was supposed to be in the first one, and then he had his closer coming.
Steve: Spicy Tony or whatever.
Aaron: Yeah. That's right. That's right. So fun side note on that. It broke our server.
It broke that. It broke our server. We had we had a special server set up. Whenever on the day of launch, we coordinated the launch where all of us flooded the the the timelines, with with the links for the website and everything. And our website shut down within the first hour.
Mhmm. And and, and even even the company that we were utilizing to stream the entire thing, it kept shutting down during the Closers Olympics because we we had over a thousand members there on our on on our first Closers Olympics. Yeah. That was that was a fun fun time. So it
Steve: was a lot of fun there.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: There's a lot of trash talking.
Aaron: Lot of trash talking.
Steve: I wasn't on the initial list, if you remember. You weren't? I was not on the initial list. There was another guru that was on that list who bowed out because his thing was, like, if I get, if if I show up and fail, this will hurt my sales running business.
Aaron: I remember this. I forgot about that, Steve.
Steve: Right? So Yeah. Elijah calls me, I think, like, two weeks before. And, basically, he's like, hey. We got this other guru.
He's bouncing out Yep. Because he can't afford to look bad.
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: Right? So I was like, hey. Like, you know, Jesse Burrell said, you know, probably you'd be a good fit.
Aaron: Yeah.
Steve: Like, but I don't know if you'd be able to. I was like, I'm doing it. He's like, you're not worried about your brand. Right? Because, like, what what everyone know me for us?
Like, real estate.
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: But I also have sales training.
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: That's right. And I basically said to Elijah right? I was like, Elijah, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna win. Mhmm.
Aaron: I'm
Steve: gonna sell a lot of sales training. Right? There was not any, like, hesitation
Aaron: Yeah.
Steve: Doubt or whatever. Right? And truth be told, I made a lot of money Woah. From Closest Olympics. I I would venture
Aaron: I didn't know that. I I didn't know that.
Steve: I mean, Carlos probably made a lot of money.
Aaron: I'm sure he did.
Steve: But, like, that was how I was able to do so well when I joined Collective Genius. Mhmm. Because they have already seen me in Closest Olympics.
Aaron: Wow. And
Steve: they're like, if you can teach my team to do what you do, it's like, I can do that. Right? If you can teach my team to do what you do, then, like, we want you to be our guy. And so I told Elijah, like, Closest Olympics crushed it for me. Wow.
I did not. I can I can easily tie six figures, if not multiple six figures, from close Olympics?
Aaron: No way.
Steve: Yeah. That's so dope. Right. So but anyway, like, part of the thing was that you and I were supposed to go Yeah. So what was what was that?
Aaron: Yeah. So so so so it it was it was poetic justice. It was poetic justice. It was funny the way it all worked out because we had the the the pregame where where, the matchups were created. Mhmm.
And it was a spin it was a spin of the spin of the wheel. And after after the you know, halfway through the matches, me and you are matched up together. And it was poetic justice because you were my mentee. Mentor. Oh, my mentor.
My mentor. My bad. My bad. But but we are gonna chop that up and utilize that. No.
But you were my mentor, so it was cool because it was like, and so part of my trash talk was the karate kid beats mister Miyagi. And, so, yeah, there was a lot of trash talk there. And so it was very humbling whenever you you swept the floor with me for sure on our round. But but, but yeah. So so I definitely lost and this is part of this is part of the trash talk, you know, that RJ Bates, you know, utilizes to this day that that I I I have failed.
I have lost almost every public live cold calling or or sales challenge that I've ever done.
Steve: Yeah. Oh, RJ is heartless. So, but we did that, and that was a lot of fun. Right? And then after that, and somewhere along the
Aaron: way Mhmm.
Steve: You started a cold calling company. Yep. Yep. Right?
Aaron: So talk About two years after that.
Steve: So talk to me about, that's this one or that's the other one?
Aaron: That was the first one.
Steve: So the first one was two years ago. Yep. Okay. Two years after that. Okay.
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Aaron: So it's an interesting transition because up in up until this now, 2017 up to 2020, I'm doing these other ventures like coaching and but I'm primarily focused operationally on my wholesaling business. Well, it was recommended to me to read this book by Mike Michalowicz called Profit First Mhmm. Which is a new new accounting approach. Right? Which basically states instead of instead of suggesting that the normal bottom line talk, which is sales minus expenses equals profit, aka the bottom line, the new accounting approach is, x I'm sorry.
Sales minus profit equals expenses. Mhmm. And if you don't have enough for expenses, you're either not making enough sales, your margins are too low, or your expenses are too high. Very simple math. I could get behind this.
Well, there's a chapter in this book, Profit First, called, Dig Your Own Well. And what it says is that as entrepreneurs, we're accustomed to being the rainmakers. Mhmm. In other words, we go out and do a rain dance, and we make money fall. Mhmm.
He says, now that's great. But if you wanna, if you wanna run, an efficient operation at scale, most founders know that you need to be maniacally frugal. You have to be incredibly efficient in your operation, and that gives you a competitive advantage. And one of the ways that you do that is by not just bringing in more revenue, more top line revenue, but figure out where you can dig your own well because you might be sitting on, figurative reservoirs of of revenue. How?
Well, do you have expenses that are unnecessary? Do you have other ways that you could be generating revenue that are underneath the the the scene Mhmm. Right, to be be generating more revenue? And he gave examples of all these different companies. So I'm looking at my company after reading this chapter.
He gives he gives a a call to action. Go go look at your company. Oh, he and then he gives here's the call to action. He's like, you need to solve for the impossible. And then he describes what the impossible is.
He says the impossible is, as an entrepreneur, you need to ask yourself, how can I accomplish double my current production on a third of the expenses? He's like, that's the impossible. Mhmm. And he's like, you're gonna rack your head and frustrate the hell out of yourself, but you're going to come up with really exciting ideas. Some of them are gonna be trash, but you're gonna find an idea.
You if you if you stick to it and solve for it, you will find ideas that will allow you to maximize your profitability and and and dig your figurative well while while you're doing your rain dance. So I start asking myself this question, okay, how can I double my my wholesaling company's revenue on a third? Like, it's impossible. How do you do that? And so I started to to okay.
Look at where is my biggest expense? And my biggest expense was marketing. So I say, okay. How can I offset my market? And so long story short, I said, well, what if I owned the company that did the marketing?
Then not only would I cut that expense, but that now expense would would would eventually be an asset. So it wouldn't be an in the expense column at all. It it would it would be another means by by which I can make money, but also would solve for being able to to to provide a faucet of of leads so that, you know, I I can I can I can double my my my production? Mhmm.
Steve: And
Aaron: so and so I I became obsessed with this idea of how how can I own the the marketing company? And I looked at PPC. I looked at, you know, mailers. I looked at door knocking. I looked at all these different marketing methods that I was accustomed to and familiar with.
Mhmm. And I was like, the one that I feel like I could probably get into and make something happen, you know, in the in in the most streamlined way is cold calling because that's what I know. And so I started, you know, my reticulator my reticulating activator. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but, you know, I was starting to look for the opportunities now. And I had a cold calling manager, and, I started to court and flirt with this idea, with her.
And before you knew it, me and her became partners, and we were now scaling a a a host, a a marketing a marketing team. Mhmm. And that was in 2022. We scaled that in about a year and a half. We scaled it from about 99, from from about 50, employees to about 400 plus employees, ended up selling for for for about 1,400,000.0 and, and and, and exiting that company.
And and, it was it was, yeah, incredible incredible experience. And now and now I'm starting another virtual staffing agency.
Steve: What's the biggest lesson? I mean, because that's a short period of time. Mhmm. '22 so you sold this year or last year?
Aaron: Last year.
Steve: So you start in '22, sell it in '23
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: For 7 figures.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: What were the lessons in that journey?
Aaron: There was a lot. There was a lot. And and, and I and I split ways with my partner on good terms because I know she's probably gonna see this. So I love you. But I would say, man, have tough conversations early on in business so that you're not getting to a point where you're trying to exit a company or and you're having equity conversations, and it's like, oh, we never wrote that in our management agreement or, like those suck.
Those conversations suck really bad because now somebody seems greedy Mhmm. Or somebody seems entitled. So so have real have the tough conversations upfront is one of the lessons that I've learned. And I and I feel like I'm learning that in in all areas of life. Like, have the tough conversations upfront.
Another thing is as this it's such a BS idea that we're going to we're gonna build a noteworthy a noteworthy successful business, and you're gonna scale yourself out of it. And, to the point where, like, you're not involved in the day and and you're not involved in the operations. Like, it's such a BS philosophy. And and I'm like, where is this idea coming from? And what I mean is I think I I'm and I realized that it was me.
Right? I'm I like, this idea of you you've just started a company a year ago, and you're like, my my my company my company is is failing, and I don't know why. And I have my management staff and you know what I mean? And it's because you've entrusted the operations to people who are not the owners and don't have the owner's mentality. And, every successful founder that I have studied, every single successful founder that I have studied is is somebody who is borderline micromanagerial.
Mhmm. Borderline, like and some are like, I'm not a micromanager. I'm just, like, involved in the details. It's like, okay. You're a micromanager.
You know what I mean? They wanna know the details. They wanna they and and at the very least, even if they have other people doing the task, they're they're involved in the reporting. They're they wanna know what's happening. So I would say that one of the greatest lessons I learned is if I'm going to if I'm going to expect something, then I'm gonna verify it over and over and over again, and I'm gonna check it, and I'm I'm just gonna be involved in the details.
Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. So the idea that you can just start a business and after a year, just in owner's box and chill, Not realistic.
Aaron: I I don't believe that that's realistic. If you're gonna if you're gonna sell a company that you're trying to exit for real, for real, like, no. There's no way.
Steve: Yeah. So I wanna go back to the tough conversations.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: So knowing what you know now Mhmm. How would you approach this tough conversations? Because I think a lot of entrepreneurs I I definitely was in this category for far too long. I feel like I feel comfortable now. Sales training, surprisingly, has helped with with this.
Mhmm. But, like, how do you walk into a tough conversation?
Aaron: Mhmm. Yeah. Let's let's let's start with the end in mind. Mhmm. That's what I would do.
Like, let's start with the end in mind. Like, what's your vision? Because my vision is to build something where we're gonna exit. Like, I wanna exit something. Like, I wanna I wanna raise a child that eventually is gonna leave the house.
You know? And so so let's start with the end in mind. And what do you want out of this? What what do you want out of this? What do you need from me in interim and by exit in order for you to feel like I've been a good partner?
Mhmm. And by the way, like, I'm not just pulling this out of my neck. I have these same conversations with, employees and associates who are coming into our you know? We're starting with the end in mind. Like, hey.
I'm if I'm bringing you onto my team, I have an expectation that I want you to hear for at least five years.
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: So what would you need from me as an employer? What would you need from me as a company, as a culture, in order to feel like I'm okay committing to this team for five years? Years. So I do the same thing with partners now. Like, let's start with the end in mind.
What's your vision? Here's mine. What do you need from the company? Mhmm. What is what is something that you will absolutely not tolerate?
Here here are my, you know, red flags. Here are the things that I won't tolerate. Mhmm. And just get all and then, of course, one of the big ones. Right?
Equities, you know, or compensation. Is this an equity conversation, or am I a 100% owner and you're and you're a profit share? Or are you gonna be an employee? Are you gonna participate in the exit?
Steve: You know? Expect to, like, what do you want out of this? Yeah. Exactly.
Aaron: Role? What are the roles? What are the roles? Here's another good one. Setting the expectation to revisit expectations every incremental period of time.
Mhmm. You know what I mean? That way, we don't we're we don't feel like we're locked in. Let's revisit this conversation every 90
Steve: on the same page.
Aaron: To to make sure we're on the same page.
Steve: Yeah. I'd, I did the sales leadership thing with Ren. Right? Ren Bartlett. And I still remember when we when we started.
Right? Because, like, I've learned, hey. Let's do this together. What do you want out of this? What, you know, what do I want out of this?
What are your expectations of me? What can I expect from you? Mhmm. Right? Like, those are the conversation we had.
Mhmm. And he hit me with another one, which I thought was great. If we come to a situation where you're not holding up to your end of the bargain, like, how should we how should I approach this conversation? Woah.
Aaron: I'm like, man, that's really good. That's good. Right? That's really freaking good.
Steve: So yeah. So the biggest biggest, biggest lesson tough conversation. Another thing too, you mentioned Mike Michalowicz. And, like, for everyone that's listening, like, I love Mike Michalowicz. Right?
I went through Profit First. I went through, Pumpkin Plan? Pumpkin Plan. I went through, I think, Clockwork.
Aaron: Clockwork.
Steve: Right?
Aaron: Like Have you have you been through, Toilet Paper Entrepreneur? No. Really, really good. Yeah. Really, really good book.
Steve: I guess, so many freaking things to read. But but I love Mike Michalowicz. He's, like, one of my favorite Yeah. Authors. Right?
So for for those of you that are listening
Aaron: He makes his books fun. Right? They're it's instructional, but but they're fun. Yeah. He's he's witty.
He adds a lot of humorous stories in there.
Steve: He's he's got that nerd humor. He doesn't take himself too seriously. Like, so you can actually kinda laugh
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: As he's saying as he's sharing his stories. Mhmm. So while you're going through this, right? So I can I'm gonna share with you from the outside looking in. Mhmm.
Right? Because, like, you're kinda present like, you're huge in social media Mhmm. Kinda quiet. Huge in social media, kinda quiet. Made some business decisions.
I'm wondering what Aaron's thinking. Right? You know, post, like, hey, like, this person doesn't speak for me. Right? Like, that whole deal.
Yeah. So went through, you know, multiple situations at universities. Right?
Aaron: Yeah.
Steve: And so on the outside looking in, I was like, what is going with Aaron? Mhmm. He seems kinda inconsistent. How like, we haven't talked about this.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Like, how does that conversation land? What are your thoughts on that?
Aaron: Holy smokes. Yeah. The fact that you're saying this out loud is crazy. Because I'm
Steve: just an outside looking at it.
Aaron: No. No. I appreciate it. In fact, there's been there's been key people to hit me up. Like, yo.
Like, what's happening? Like like, if I would have mentioned their name, like, people that that a lot of people know. Lessons learned, man. Lessons learned along the way. We were talking about this prior to going live that I I feel like I've always prided myself on being somebody who's a great judge of character.
Mhmm. And I'm not. I am, like, the I'm not a good judge of character. Like, I fall in love with people really quickly. Mhmm.
I forgive really, really quickly. And, you know, I put I found myself in multiple situations over over the last few years where I'm partnering up with people who are you know, for all intents and purposes, perhaps they're great humans, but not great partners in business with me at least. Mhmm. And and I lost I've I've lost multiple 6 figures, 7 figures in these partnerships. And now one thing about it that I that I will say is one of the lessons learned is is to be so much more so much more, what's the word, painstaking about how I go about partnering with people.
Mhmm. Because yeah. Yeah. It was it was humiliating for me to have to go on social media and say, hey. I'm no longer associated with this partner that everybody so fondly associates me with because of issues that are happening behind the scenes.
You know what I mean? I lose credibility there.
Steve: Right.
Aaron: You know? And then for people to see that multiple times throughout my career, you know, I've I've lost certain, business opportunities because of that. I've also gained a lot throughout the throughout the years, but but but, yeah, does that answer that question? I I mean, I I I think that it fundamentally comes down to if I could answer it in the most succinct way, it it's it's me learning how to vet out who I'm partnering and and associating myself with business.
Steve: So is there anything additional you'd like to add then? Like, let's say, I call you. Hey, Aaron. Let's do this thing together. Mhmm.
What are the things you're looking now you're asking yourself now to make sure, is this person I even wanna be involved with?
Aaron: Oh, that's a good good question. The first thing is is track record. I I have learned I can no longer trust somebody's claims on social media. We have to vet out your claim because if your role for the for the organization is gonna be operator Yeah. You know what I mean?
Then I
Steve: want a social media guy. You said what? I don't want a social media guy.
Aaron: Yeah. I don't want a social media guy anymore, man. Like, I want somebody, you know what I mean? You know, I want somebody real. Yeah.
You know what I mean? But, yeah, if your role is gonna be operator, I I'd like to know and and our objective is to build a 9 figure company together. I'd like to know that you have experience in operations. And if not, okay. Great.
Let's go into the experience together with me knowing so that I'm not relying on you. You know? And so and then and then here's the next thing. Track record on the negative side. Are you well reported on Mhmm.
By other people in business? Who have you done business with? I'd love to get refer I love to get referrals now. Mhmm. My current business partner in the virtual staffing agency, I got I had multiple referrals.
Our partners that we work with for for multiple aspects of our organization, we get referrals from multiple credible people before we go into business with with with people now.
Steve: So I I'm consulting these, these guys, and, they were on a podcast. And they're talking to the guy, and the guy was an attorney. Right? The guy running the podcast. And afterwards, he he texted me.
He's like, hey. Like, this guy has nothing but good things to say about you. Mhmm. Like like, does he owe you money? Like, what's the story?
Mhmm.
Aaron: I was
Steve: like, you'll be pretty hard pressed to find people that have something bad, to say about me. Now there's a couple of things here.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And maybe this would be helpful for you. I don't know. Mhmm.
Aaron: So
Steve: I gotta listen to, listen a chance to listen to, ET. Right? Mhmm. Eric Thomas, hip hop preacher.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And one line I like that he said a lot was just because I will die for you doesn't mean we should partner. Woah. Right? Like, it's two different things.
Aaron: Mhmm. Right?
Steve: Like, just because I love you Mhmm. Does not mean we should work together.
Aaron: Mhmm. Right?
Steve: So I thought that was pretty good.
Aaron: Man, that's so powerful.
Steve: Right?
Aaron: Yeah.
Steve: And then, you and I, well, I was at Wholesaling, and there was an organizer Mhmm. Who did some pretty or her her partner did some pretty bad things. Mhmm. Right? Stole a lot of money from a lot of people.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: I'm talking to Jamil. I said, hey. Just so you know, this person has the accusations thrown against her. I picked up the phone. I called her to address the allegations.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: I did not like her answers to the questions. Mhmm. So she's out of my life. Mhmm. And then Jamille, probably more like you, is like, just like that, you're gonna eliminate her from your life?
Like, yeah. Like, I have a a a line that I said, I like to keep my jersey clean. Right? I want there to be no question about where I stand, about my integrity and this and that. And if you don't operate in integrity, well, nothing to do with you because it only makes me look worse.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And again, he was like, just like that, you're gonna limit her from her life. Like like, she was nice to us. She treated us well. She flew us out there. This and I was like, I get all those things.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: But I want nothing to do with her. Mhmm. Like, there's no nothing good can come from continuing this relationship. So, just something that, that came to my mind. Because you love people.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Jamal loves people.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: These are the challenges you guys have. Whereas, I'm more cold than calculating. And then, we did a podcast at one point, for your show.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: We talked about the dark side. Yes. You wanna talk about the dark side?
Aaron: Yep. Yeah. Actually, this is one of and I told you this on the show. This was one of my favorite shows because, there's very few people that I've been able to have this conversation with. But the dark side is a phrase used by, Tim Grover in the book Relentless when he discusses his the pattern that he's deducted after working with some of the highest performers in basketball, namely Michael Jordan, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and what he's found what Yeah.
Steve: My favorite, Charles Barkley.
Aaron: Charles Barkley. But yeah. And and so the cool thing about this book, Relentless, is that he applies it to business. Mhmm. He and so he says in the world of high performers, there's three classifications of high performers.
We're not even talking about the people that don't show up. Right? We're only talking about high performers. There's three categories of high performers.
Steve: Getting paid today.
Aaron: Yeah. That's right. That's right. There's the coolers. These are the guys that show up and do what they're supposed to do and nothing else.
Mhmm. Alright? And then they leave. Those are the Dennis Robins of the world. Right?
They're gonna be they're they they might they might not show up for practice. You're like, where dude, where are you? I'm in Vegas with strippers and cocaine. And it's like, what? But but when they come but when they come in, they they perform.
Mhmm. Right? Those are the coolers of the world. Then you have the closers of the world. The closers are the people that they come in clutch last minute.
These are the guys that are typically very arrogant. They're very cocky. Oftentimes, they're not good with money in the world of business. They're just they're they're, they're they're great technicians. They they they're they're here for they're they're here for the clutch moments.
Right? Then you have cleaners. The cleaners are the individuals who the game will be different because these guys were here. Mhmm. Right?
The game will be played different because these guys were here. Kobe Bryant, the game is different because Kobe. Mhmm. The game is different because of Jordan. Right?
And we can we can name people in art, in science, in mathematics, in business, in politics who are the cleaners of the world and every and every walk of life. So he says cleaners are these top of the line, top performers, the cream of the crop. He says he noticed that one of the patterns was that they have the ability to tap into the dark side.
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: The dark side is there are pains and traumas and anger and resentment and, even even, you know, you know, just very, very dark aspects of of the of human psychology that they use as fuel. In fact, Kobe Bryant talked about it as being he says this is when Mamba comes out. Mhmm. And he in his last interview with Patrick Bedavid when he was talking about this, he he he says he says, he and he says, this is the first time I've ever said this. This is I love I've listened to this so many times.
He says before big games, he would put on the Michael Myers theme music in his ear, and all he would visualize is the ski the ski mask because it was emotionless. Mhmm. And and and and the the Michael Myers theme music is playing in as he's walking out onto the court, and all he can think about is anybody in my way is being murdered. You know what I'm saying? That's Mamba.
And what he was doing is tapping into, this dark this dark side. Now one more one more illustration about this with Kobe because I love this. The game that he had after his dad died, and this is also in the documentary called Mamba, I believe. You can hear him in the locker room, like, audibly weeping. And he's like he's, like, angry, and he's, like, and he's crying, and he's, like, hitting his chest, and he's, like, and what he's doing is and he says this later on, that what he was doing is he was tapping into these darkest of feelings.
And then when you see how he performed on the court that day, it's like this emotionless killer. Like you look at him, like I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. You know what I mean? And that's the dark side. It's it's the ability to take like the people who perform at the highest level, they are not crushed by pain.
Mhmm. They will utilize this pain as fuel to be able to achieve heights of success that that just, like, astonish everybody else. Yeah.
Steve: They're just gonna walk over adversity like speed bumps.
Aaron: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely.
Steve: So you have a dark side?
Aaron: I do have a dark side. I'll say let me say one more thing about the dark side. Every single one of these individuals has Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James. There was a scandal associated with them. Donald Trump.
Right? You name them. You name somebody at the height of the height of the height. Now there's some people who manage to just keep it so clean. But if you have this sort of dynamic energy, Napoleon Hill says you're probably extremely sexed in nature Mhmm.
Or you you have the propensity to some gambling addiction or something. There's a vice lying somewhere within you. And anybody who's like, oh, what? No. It's like, okay.
Well, you're just not gonna play at this level. Yeah. But but, but it's just part of the game. If there's an up, there's a down. If there's an in, there's an out.
Right? If there's yin, there's a yang. If you're gonna be dynamic and you're gonna have the drive to be able to achieve heights, like, you're going to have to keep your dark side in check. So I'm just kinda throwing that out there.
Steve: Oh, no. You're good. You're good.
Aaron: Yeah. In in regards to me having a dark side, bro, I have I have a wicked dark side, bro. I was just telling I was I was going live every day, and and I was in front of the camera every single day for like two hours a day. And I was starting to, like, open up to the camera and, and say stuff that I probably wouldn't normally say because I was getting comfortable. And I was, like, sharing some of my thoughts.
And then and then people were like, yo, Aaron, that is so dark. And I was, like, sharing some of my streams of consciousness. And I I I go very, very dark places. Like, I I go to my I think about my death. I think about how I'm gonna die.
I think about the times I was abandoned. I think about all of the worst times my heart was broken and the people who left me. And it it it it it's the reason why I'm fiercely independent now. And, like, I'm so easy to like, if you've hurt me and or I feel like you're gonna hurt me, I'm so easy to be like, I will remove you from my life. And, like, you would not even sense that I have any emotion because I just I I have this I I do have this dark side that that I have to I have to I have to utilize it for proper fuel and not, like and and not go to a dark place because of it.
You know what I mean? But but I I do have it for sure.
Steve: I remember we talked about this. Right? Because this is this is on your podcast, and I was telling you about mine, and you were laughing. Right? Because, like, I play when I play anything, I don't play to win.
Like, it's not about winning. Right? That sounds crazy. As a competitive person, it's not about winning. No.
It's all about you losing. Right? Like, that's why we're playing the game. It's to watch you lose and watch you get pissed, frustrated, whatever.
Aaron: I remember that line. That was, like, one of the the the best bars of that of that show. Yeah.
Steve: But that's how like, if we're gonna play. Mhmm. We're gonna play.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? But that's the goal. So, like, I used to remember, like, countless nights of just laughing at my best friend. Right? Because they're playing, like he's always, like, alright.
Run it back. Run it back. Run it back. Or whether it was NBA Jam, NBA Hoops, right, NFL street or NFL blitz or whatever. It was just nonstop, but just just to watch him lose.
Like, I didn't, like, I didn't even care when I lost.
Aaron: It's so dark, bro.
Steve: It's just to watch you lose. It was great. Right? And, like, we're kinda talking before the show. Like, we're talking about insider trading.
Right?
Aaron: I was
Steve: like, yeah. Like, I watched these guys, like or I'm watching the show billions. Right? Thanks to my friend Felipe Posanza at eighty twenty REI. Mhmm.
So you gotta watch this show. Mhmm. Because that guy is you. Mhmm. I was like,
Aaron: let me
Steve: check it out. Mhmm. And everything he's doing in the show is like, I do that. Yep. Yep.
I'm not seeing anything outside of it. I was like, clearly illegal. Right? So it's a good thing I'm not in stocks.
Aaron: Yeah.
Steve: But, like
Aaron: What it reminds me of is is there's a direct correlation between entrepreneurs of today Mhmm. And military generals and kings and conquerors of of ancient history. And Rockefeller and and lots of Andrew carney Carnegie and and Vanderbilt and a lot of these guys whenever you whenever you listen to their autobiographies or they're oftentimes quoting Napoleon Hill. You know what I mean? And and people after World War two are quoting, you know, Winston Churchill and peep Alexander the Great.
All of these great business minds, they oftentimes are inspired by these military strategists. And and and for the longest
Steve: time Napoleon Bonaparte, not Hill. No.
Aaron: I mean I mean Napoleon Bonaparte. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron: And, and Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan and and all these incredible conquerors. And I've come to the conclusion now the reason why is because people like you and I, if if we were born hundreds of years ago, it might not have been entrepreneurship. It might have been conquering on the war field. Right? Because because of this wiring that we have where it's like it's this ambitious wiring where I wanna be the number one, and I want everybody else to be subsidiary to me.
Right? To be subservient in some in some in some, you know, in some way.
Steve: Yeah. So, I was gonna go with this. Dang it. So, yeah, I would say that this, oh, I don't remember what it was. So there was a guy I was recruiting, right, as a realtor.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And, And, like, he had a lot of success. He's had a lot of success. Right?
Aaron: So I
Steve: wanna recruit him to draw my brokerage.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? So I was looking forward to meeting him. And, like, a friend of mine, she's a, top loan officer top female loan officer in the country. She's got this event. So she hosts it.
I show up. That guy shows up. So I, like,
Speaker: I'm looking forward to meeting
Steve: him. Right? And I meet him. We had a pleasant conversation, this and that. And, like, he came to the office.
Eventually, he didn't come over because I didn't care about COVID, and he was really passionate about COVID. Right? So anyway oh, I know what it was. I offended him by my COVID videos, but I was making complete mockery of COVID. Right?
Anyway, so we're driving home from dinner
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And my wife asked me. He's like, hey. Like, you got to meet him. Like, how was it? Mhmm.
And this is where I know something's wrong with me.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: It's my first two words out of my mouth. I was like, how was he? I was like, he's soft. That was like, first word. She's like, what do you mean he's soft?
Aaron: I was
Steve: like, he doesn't have it. Mhmm.
Aaron: It's like,
Steve: what does that mean? And I was like, I don't know. I'm just telling you, like, when things go down, I'm not looking to him to be there. Like, he's gonna be the first one that's gonna fold. And she's like, why do you think like this?
Like, I don't know. I think this is an entrepreneur thing, but I think it's this.
Aaron: I've no. Dude, you're literally speaking my language. You're literally speaking my language. This is exactly how I talk. In fact, I know I know that I had this conversation in the last couple weeks or so with my with my my executive team.
Steve: Yeah. Yep. So, yeah, she's like, what's wrong with you? He's like, I don't know this. Who you married?
Yep. So, two, three weeks ago
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: I think three weeks ago, we did cage match Mhmm. Right, with our friend, RJ Bates.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: I think we're friends. I don't know. Mhmm. I wanna return my call since I crushed him. So we did a cage match Mhmm.
Two hours Mhmm. On his channel.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And guys will link the the the video in here in the in the show notes.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: So we did a a cage match two hours. He talks to sellers. I talk to sellers. Mhmm. He what's the word I'm looking for?
Sabotages me. Right? He's like, hey. We're going live at at four. Mhmm.
Right? So, okay. Great. He text me at, like, +1 55 or something like that. It's like, where are you?
I was like, about to step in a meeting. He said, we're going live. I was like, no. That's not what we agreed on. Right?
Like, I told you I'm busy at this time. So I was like, alright. Let me put out some like, let me hold my phone call, reschedule some other stuff so I can show up.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: I show up fifteen minutes late.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: He's got a guy on the phone. Mhmm. And he's contracting three properties. Yep. So I show up late.
I'm kinda rattled. I don't know if you can tell because I was not in a good mood because, like, things got switched up on me.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: So I'm kinda, rattled before we just start the call, and I came in kinda hot. Mhmm. And then I walk in, like, RJ's got three.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Okay. I don't know if I'm gonna get one today.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And now I gotta get three.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And I go through the leads
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Provided by you. Mhmm. Alright. You were the one that was providing the leads for that cage match.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And we go through it, go through it, go through it. I get the first person on the phone. She wants according to the notes from your team, she wants 5,000 for her home.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: It's been vacant for thirteen years. So we don't know what condition it's in. But she wants 5,000. Right? And ARV was, like, 94,000, something like that.
And so I get her down. Like, how much can you negotiate? I was like, I can do three. Right? But we get an agreement at 3 k.
Right? I was like, okay. Good. So I'm down $3.01.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: RJ takes a call, blows it. I take a second call. I look at it. ARV is this. Here's what he said he wants.
That's a deal. Call him up. Lock him up. Second one. Alright.
I'm down 32. But I'm 2 for two on your leads. Mhmm. Right? I said, RJ calls, makes a couple more phone calls, goes nowhere.
I'm feeling great about myself. And I'm just looking for a package of at least, two or three houses. So that gets me over time. Like, I don't wanna have to close two more. Mhmm.
So I go I scroll down the the the sheet. It's like, oh, here's a person with three properties.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Call the guy up. Long conversation.
Aaron: Yep. Yep.
Steve: But eventually, we got an agreement on his property on his three properties. Mhmm. I'm up five three.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: And so for the record, you guys will wanna watch these videos. I was three for three. Yep. Contracted five houses. Yep.
So in about an hour twenty minutes Mhmm. I contracted five properties.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: RJ contracted three properties
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: From your leads.
Aaron: Yes, sir.
Steve: I think you were the biggest winner. I mean, emotionally, I felt like I was the biggest winner. Because it goes back to it's not that I wanted to beat RJ. I wanted him to lose. I got I I I accomplished my goals.
Right? But the biggest winner was you. So talk to me about what were these leads? Because, like, they were all lay downs. Mhmm.
Mhmm. It was not a battle. Mhmm. It wasn't contentious. Mhmm.
Right? I just called them. As a matter of fact, someone said, Steve and RJ aren't even good closers.
Aaron: Yep. They just have dope leads.
Steve: They just got great leads. I was like, hang on there. Right? Like, you still have to close them. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Right? But to his point, like, the leads are really good. And I even made the comment, like, man, like, if this is if these are if these are the leads I can get every day, I'll close a 100 deals a month.
Aaron: Mhmm. Right?
Steve: Like, that was, like, what I said in there. Yep. And I don't, like, not believe that.
Aaron: Mhmm. So
Steve: talk to me about these particular leads.
Aaron: Yep. So SVA has a proprietary system that it goes about filtering leads for. Mhmm. Now I will be a 100% transparent. I've seen a correlation amongst our clients between high performers that utilize these leads.
What I mean by high performer? Somebody who has multiple exit strategies, quick speed to lead, and they follow a sales process. That's a high performer in my book. Are performing at anywhere between an eight to 10 to 10 to I'm sorry. Eight to one to about a ten to one lead to contract ratio.
My team is performing at about a 10 to one lead to contract ratio. And so we have a proprietary system that we go about filtering the leads. We'll we'll utilize some of the highest quality, skip tracing for you. We'll pull records from multiple distresses, such as, tax liens, code violations, divorce, preforeclosures, etcetera, etcetera. Then skip trace them using the highest quality skip tracing.
And then we'll then we'll, have those leads, filtered through quality assurance into the database Mhmm. So that you're bringing in they're bringing in motivated sellers for you. Yeah. So so that's basically the system. And, and what we find is that if you're sticking to the best practices, which is, again, speed to lead, getting to the lead within an hour, you're following a sales process, You're making an offer on the initial call, and then you have a relentless follow-up, then there's no way that you're not absolutely crushing it.
Steve: So, obviously, I cherry picked the leads.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: Right? Because I think there were, like, 60 on that spreadsheet.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: Somewhere around there. And they all said, here is what they said they want.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And here is, like, Zillow and whatever data sources. Right?
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Alright. So, like, I can look at it and say, okay. Like, this person wants this and this is what it's allegedly worth. Right? And then you just kinda call and just close them.
Like, I was baffled by how many people wanted, like, significant discounts
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: On their homes.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: So a question here
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Because I cut my teeth in the Phoenix market.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: I don't know what it was like fifteen, twenty years ago, but they're not nice today.
Aaron: If
Steve: you call if you co call, a homeowner in Phoenix, they're fairly impatient
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Quite to the point. Mhmm. The leads we were calling, they were in Saint Louis
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: In Louisville. Yep. Like, everyone was so damn nice.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: What's with that?
Aaron: Yeah. I think that I think number one, it's a cultural thing, but then also there are certain markets that there's there's not as much competition in. And so, you know, if you're in Phoenix, obviously, you can still run a 6 figure operation here.
Steve: 7 figure. It's heavy.
Aaron: Operation. Yeah. So but the fact of the matter is those these leads are being beat up here. They're being called over and over and over again. Whereas if we call in Saint Louis, you're gonna have a fraction of the competition.
Another great market is Oklahoma. If you call in Oklahoma, you know, hey, how are you? And they're gonna tell they're gonna tell you about their day, about their cousin, and you know what I mean? You're just gonna have a great and, actually, the challenge is not wasting your time talking about unimportant things because you're because in the in the in the in the name of rapport. You know what I mean?
Spending an hour with a seller thinking that you're doing a good job building rapport when it's like, no. You could have accomplished that in in in forty five minutes or thirty minutes. You know? But, yeah, some markets are just gonna perform differently with with cold callers for sure. And those smaller those smaller markets are are definitely some of them.
Steve: So your company Mhmm. Pulls a list from multiple data sources?
Aaron: It'll be, one data source.
Steve: One data source.
Aaron: When when you say data source, you mean different types of probate,
Steve: divorce Yeah.
Aaron: From multiple data sources. That's correct.
Steve: Okay. So you guys are pulling the data of your own process, pulling the data.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: By VAs?
Aaron: Yes, sir.
Steve: Okay. So you got your own VAs pulling the data. Mhmm. And then you skip tracing them. And then you have a quality control person inside your organization
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: To make sure everything looks good.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And then you send it over in a spreadsheet. Like, how does that work? Because I was just like, I was calling out of Google Sheet. I wasn't calling out of CRM.
Aaron: So yeah. So ours for the the the challenge just went straight to a spreadsheet that we could share with you guys, and then we can monitor the leads. How it would normally go in an operational stand standpoint from a operational standpoint, it was it would be plugged. The leads the the data would be uploaded for you Mhmm. Into the dialer.
Your caller running the campaign will then make those calls and then have, a link to your web form, and then they would upload the deals, the the leads information into the web form that's automatically populated into your CRM.
Steve: Okay. So guys that are listening, it's simplevaleads.com, simpldvaleads.com. I think you guys are watching, obviously. It's in the show notes. There should be something popping up on the screen here.
So you start a cold calling company
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: In '22.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: Sell it in '23
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: For a really nice exit.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And you went ahead and did did another one? Mhmm. Was there not a non compete?
Aaron: There wasn't a non compete. And, honestly, I didn't I left for a couple reasons. Number one, the I didn't see the future of telecommunications virtual staffing in Asia. I saw the future of telecommunications virtual staffing in Egypt because we can get competitive pricing on labor to offer our clients affordable packages while still having a a an accent that was a little bit more palatable to the American ear. And so and plus, it's cheaper for me to fly to Egypt if I need to go visit my operations.
Mhmm. So there were there was a few variables. So I was exiting not because it was time for my exit. I've always had the vision of exiting at an 8 figure, 9 figure milestone. But I'm like, let me just exit now because this is not this is not where where I see the big play happening.
In addition to that, there were some turbulences that were happening amongst the partnership Mhmm. That I'm like, I think everything is screaming to me that that, that I need to I need to go ahead and and cut my losses now and dip.
Steve: So you didn't see the future exit from a company based in Asia?
Aaron: Not not for not for telecommunications. Asia upon that. Yeah. Asia, like and namely The Philippines. You can have I believe you can have some of the most incredible virtual assistants for administrative type roles, accounting type roles, back end operations, logistic type roles, just brilliant minds that have run my business.
But in terms of telecommunications, I feel I felt like I can get, I can get better better English speakers with customer support and customer server service background and sales backgrounds for for, at the same cost of labor, if not lower. Mhmm.
Steve: And
Aaron: then there was other other variables like like being able to travel there and things like that.
Steve: So you see, more administrative in The Philippines. Yep. More sales in the in Egypt. So I've never worked with, Egyptians, as a VA. So, like, my own personal experience and what I've seen in in training lots of people is Philippines is great for administrative stuff.
Mhmm. Because as long as there's electricity
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Like, they're good. Yep. They're great.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Their only challenge is typhoons. Yep. Like, this seems like it's always typhoons.
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: Right?
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: But besides that, like, they are, like, clockwork Mhmm. And, like, they're reliable. Mhmm. And they'll follow a process.
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: And we say, hey. Do it this way. It gets done that way.
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: But in selling Mhmm. Not so much. So we are expanding to South America.
Aaron: Mhmm. Mhmm.
Steve: As a matter of fact, I went to a time share over in Cancun a few weeks ago.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And, I got a chance to sit in a time share. And, like, as a salesperson, like, I was having the best time of my life watching these guys try to close me, listening to how they handle objections. And afterwards, I came back as I was actually actually talking to my friend Felipe, because he has a placement agency based off of, South America.
Aaron: Mhmm. It's like,
Steve: if you can find me these timeshare people, I'll hire these guys. Because their training is on point. Woah. Like, I remember, like, you know, the we were there, myself, my wife, her two cousins, and their husbands. Right?
And, her cousin gave the objection. Yeah. The price doesn't you know, it's not gonna work for us. And he just immediately, like, okay. Like, let's pretend we can agree on price.
Like, what else is important to you?
Aaron: Woah. And I
Steve: was like, this guy is in South is in is in Mexico. Like, man, like, he's like, that was the perfect answer. And I'm sure he's been trained and scripted and all these other things. Mhmm. But the fact that, I mean, it was no sweat.
Aaron: It was natural to him.
Steve: It's natural. So I was like, okay. Like, I'm gonna have to start picking up my own sales guys. Mhmm. Potentially, Mexico, Central America
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: South America, as long as they have that time share experience.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? Because, like, I used my favorite, before I still is. I mean, it hasn't gone away from it. But, like, my favorite's always been, like, debt collector.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? If you can handle debt collection, then you can handle just about any situation. Mhmm. Because people are pretty angry
Aaron: with you. Mhmm. You're
Steve: doing debt collection. Mhmm. Forget cold calling homeowners. Calling to collect debt. Yeah.
You get a lot of angry people. Right? So I've always loved debt collectors, but now I'm adding to this, like, timeshare because they get professionally trained.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? A debt collector, I don't know how much training they get, but they're willing to get punched in their face all day every day. The timeshare, these guys are trained. Mhmm. So that's where I'm at as far as, like, location.
But, yeah, like, what you're talking about with Egypt is fascinating.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. I've we've thought about, South America as well. In fact, that's that's, you know, one of the places that we wanna eventually expand to, for sure.
Steve: Yeah. So we talked about so serving in the ministries. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm.
To building multiple seven figure businesses. And we're talking, you know, if everyone's listening, right, is paying attention is that we're talking about your wholesaling company.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? Your first one that you exited. Mhmm. And then this one right here.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: So talk to me about, like, the biggest lessons now to get you to where you are today. Like, we talked about a lot of different lessons. But, like, for someone that's starting, you know, listening right now who is still, you know, doing 6 figures a year wholesaling.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: What are the things they need to be on a lookout for if they're trying to build a 7 figure business or multiple 7 figure businesses? There are two types of salespeople out there. They're the convincers,
Aaron: and they're the sales professionals. For the
Steve: first nine years of my career, I was the convincer. Convincers are always out there trying to convince people to meet with them and buy from them. Their strategy is to try to push hard and never take no for an answer. And by focusing on this strategy, I spent a lot of time on cold calling, the next marketing gimmick, features and benefits, how they and their company are the best, following up until the prospect buys or dies. All of this requires time and energy.
The problem isn't the model itself. It's that their approach pushes prospects away. And this is the same exact thing that happened to me before I figured out the close more sales formula. The solution? Sell customers exactly what they want to buy.
That's right. I said it. We sell customers exactly what they want to buy because I would rather get an easy sell with a happy customer instead of a difficult sell from a customer who felt sold. No. Thanks.
I did that before, and it sucks. So here's the deal. I explain everything in the closed mortgage sales course. It's an 11 module course that shows you everything you need to know to close more sales. The best part, you can use this in any industry, not just real estate.
So no matter what you're selling and to who you're selling to, this formula will lead to easier sales. Go to closemoresales.com/salesmasterclass, one word, closemoresales.com/salesmasterclass.
Aaron: Yeah. So the the the skill set to get to six figures is is sales. I think I think if you learn sales, and you're selling the right product or service, six figures. And you can do that through through hustle. Mhmm.
7 figures, I it took me a couple it took me it took me three three and a half, four years before I yeah. Like, three and a half years. '17, '18, nineteen, twenty, twenty one. Yeah. So it took me, like, three and a half, four years before we could touch seven figures.
And that's, like, day in, day out, six days a week, twelve, fifteen hour day work weeks. You know what I mean? Mhmm. To get to where we would touch seven figures. And that was because by the time I got there, I hadn't done my taxes the whole time.
You know what I mean? So it's like so I would say so, like, big lessons learned was was I would say let let's start on a macro level. Number one, it's just I love what Darren Hardy says. He's like, just be here five years from now. Mhmm.
That that I think that's number one. Just be here five years from now. Just be here ten years from now. And and, basically, what what he what he means by that is, the average millionaire only becomes one after five years of mastery Mhmm. In his craft.
So so, you know, don't let social media fool you. Like, you know, most of the millionaires who are real on social media, like, I I can promise you they've been there for years mastering their craft. And if they've collapsed the time and did it the right way, I guarantee you they were collapsing the time through through fifteen hour days at six, seven day work week. I promise you. So just be here five five years from now.
That means don't get distracted. Don't go off to the next the next big, sexy thing. Stick with the monotonous. And and this this, reminds me of a quote from Alex from Ozi. I love this so much.
He says, if you can commit to the monotonous, painstaking, mind numbing, boring work consistently, if you can if you can if you can commit to it for a quarter, you can change your your financial trajectory. If you can commit to it for six months, you're gonna be unrecognizable financially. If you can commit to the mind numbing, boring, painstaking, you know, behaviors for a year, you can change your life. If you can commit to it for five years, you can change the world. Yeah.
And it sounds crazy. It sounds so crazy, but think about the last time, like, if you're watching this, think about the last time you committed to something that was so mind numbing and so painstaking and so boring and tedious, and you stuck with it six days a week for an entire ninety days. I'm almost willing to bet that there's nothing you've ever committed to. No. There's nothing that you've ever committed to for that long.
Not your diet, not your not your career, not anything because most humans won't do it. So so if you really think about it, going back to the Jesus Christ example, right, as a historical figure, his ministry only lasted, historically, three and a half years. Changed the course of history. But if you if you read the accounts seven days a week, right, for three and a half years straight, twelve to fifteen hour days. And by the way, it says it says he rose before the sun and oftentimes didn't go to bed until after the sun set.
So if if if you're willing to commit to the painstaking, behaviors for three and a half years, you can change the course of history. The fact of the matter is that most people won't do it. So I think that that so so the first lesson is just to be here. So just stay in the game. Right?
Like, that there's so much credibility just to be like, dang. You're still in the game. And to to be like like the people that we've seen so many people come and go over the last few years. Mhmm. But it's like it's cool to, like, look to the left and the right and be like, okay.
Like, these are the these are the the the big dogs that are still here. You know what I mean? So that's number one. The next thing is, okay. But if you're gonna stay in the game, don't be I love what John d Rockefeller says.
He says, don't be the person that's like, I have ten years of experience. And he's like, no. You have you have, one year of experience repeated 10 times.
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: So if you're gonna stay in the game, don't just be here as a bench warmer. Continue advancing your skill set. So if you wanna be a seven figure earner, the skill set that I believe that you need to learn, at the seven seven figure level is is I I would encapsulate it by saying leadership. So, like, recruiting, hiring, and and and retaining good people.
Steve: Mhmm.
Aaron: You have to be able to lead people at the seven figure at the seven figure level Yeah. For sure.
Steve: Anything else?
Aaron: No. Has it
Steve: been seamless? This standard for, SVA?
Aaron: No. It's everything but seamless.
Steve: Alright. So, like, what
Aaron: what Okay. So so oh, okay. So here's a good one. Here's a good one right here. Here is so cliche about, like, be comfortable on being uncomfortable.
Like, get uncom get comfortable being uncomfortable. Mhmm. And then and be willing to face your fears constantly. Because I'm telling you right now with with SVA, our first wave of clients, it just the whole business imploded. You know what I mean?
It just absolutely imploded on itself, after generating massive amounts of revenue. And it's like there's these moments of, like, like, do I just suck? Like, do I do I just suck as a as an as an entrepreneur, as a as an operator? Like, why why is everything going wrong? And then you then, so so you have to be prepared to go through hell if you're an entrepreneur.
So I would say the so so the the side point to that, the the the cure is, I would encourage you to be a voracious reader and or listener of the forefathers in entrepreneurship, the forefathers of of of of noteworthy success. Because what you're gonna see in the stories of Andrew Carnegie and Vanderbilt and and Ford and and and all these incredible Steve Jobs and Bezos. What you're gonna see is there's these moments where they're like about to go bankrupt and they have to raise, you know, $10,000,000. And Steve Jobs has to go to his competitor to go raise capital from his competitor. Like and he talks about his story and how he pitched him on the story and how he framed it and walks away with a check for x amount of millions of dollars to keep Apple afloat so that now it is what it is.
Like, there's so so I I would encourage you. So so so so the first point is, you know, you gotta be ready to go through hell and go through war because you're a military commander now as an entrepreneur. Right? Mhmm. And so how do you do that?
The solution, I believe, is become a voracious reader of of entrepreneurial history because I it it will remind you you don't and maybe you do suck, but you don't suck. You you don't suck over right? Right? Because the market's telling you something probably. Right?
Or the life is telling you something. But it's not that you just inherently suck why all these things are happening. It has to happen to all of us in order for us to get to where we're going. So just keep pushing, keep swinging, and then and and be advancing and and and growing along the way.
Steve: Yeah. And then, you know, what you and I have talked about offline is, like, The Man Who Built America is, like, one of my favorite shows.
Aaron: Just Love that show.
Steve: Raw, red blooded entrepreneurship and capitalism.
Aaron: Yep. Yep. Yep. 100%.
Steve: So, again, guys, if you guys are interested, it's, simplevaleads.com. And, again, like, I will put my name on this one because I went through and called these leads. And three for three. Like, it was wild. Wild.
I mean, I wish I could close everything, right, like that. Like, I would I would never say I'm a 100% closer, but, like, that felt felt really, really good.
Aaron: Yeah.
Steve: So describe what your business looks like today versus when you went first went out on your own.
Aaron: Man, my business today, if I could encapsulate it, I would say I have a great staff now. I have just a great team now, individuals that I can rely on, and, obviously, still have to verify and inspect things, hold people accountable. Right? Part of five star management is is, you know, setting proper expectations and and then holding them accountable. But but I would say that's probably the biggest difference.
I think for the first couple years in business, even though I tried recruiting, I was so fiercely independent Mhmm. That I lost out on money and lost out on opportunity because I'm trying to juggle more balls than I can than I can possibly hold.
Steve: Right.
Aaron: And and now I see the need for leadership and having people in the right place and holding them accountable for their rocks and their tasks. I would say that's probably the biggest biggest difference in my business and organization now.
Steve: What would you do if money was no object?
Aaron: In general or in business?
Steve: General.
Aaron: Man, that's a good question. If money was no object, I I would I I would I would continue to scale my business. I would I would continue to scale my business and and and then move on to move on to the next one. I'm gonna be building businesses until I die. Mhmm.
I'm gonna be building businesses and leading movements until I die.
Steve: Yeah. You know why? It's fun.
Aaron: It the it's a thrill. It's a thrill of of I'm a leader. I I and I my, you know, growing up, my dad, he he named me Aaron Solomon Alexander Bevins. He said, Aaron, because in the scriptures, Aaron was Moses' brother. He was the speaker.
He said, you're gonna be an eloquent speaker one day. He said, Solomon because Solomon was known in the scriptures for his wisdom, and people came to seek him for his wisdom. He's like, you're gonna be known for your wisdom. And Alexander was one of the greatest military commanders of all times, and he says, you're gonna lead movements whenever you grow older. And so I believe he brainwashed me into believing that I was gonna be this really important figure in human history.
I believe that I'm gonna be a very important figure in human history before I leave this Earth. So I I feel like I I it's not it's not through politics because I hate politics. I I can't stand it. I don't think that it's gonna be only through religion because even with religion, you it requires capital to change the world. Mhmm.
So I know that it's gonna involve capitalism and and entrepreneurship because I I don't want to have to I wanna affect change, and I wanna have the pockets to be able to affect change. Yeah. I wanna be the one lobbying. You know what I mean? So so so that's that's partially why.
Steve: My retirement plan is to get into politics.
Aaron: Really? Yeah. No way. That's interesting. That's really, really interesting.
Steve: Do anything important. It's just that it has a really good retirement plan. So
Aaron: That's hilarious.
Steve: Right. I mean, they all make 6 figure pensions.
Aaron: So,
Steve: what is your biggest struggle today?
Aaron: In life or in business?
Steve: Any.
Aaron: Okay. I'll tell you business, and then I'll tell you in life. In business, my biggest struggle right now I need more capital. Mhmm. I need more capital, man.
I need more capital. I'm not I'm not I need more capital to grow where where we wanna be. Like, we're outgrowing we're outgrowing our current our current revenue. Mhmm. You know what I mean?
So, I mean, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. That's my biggest struggle right now. Like, I'm on a I'm on a raising capital frenzy right now.
Steve: How's that going?
Aaron: It's going good. I've I I have an investor I'm meeting with on Friday to to hopefully raise the capital necessary for us to expand by four times, by by four x, you know, by the end of the year. And so
Steve: I got my my white collar friend Mhmm.
Aaron: Right?
Steve: Robert Wensley Mhmm. With InvestorLift. Matter of fact, I called him earlier today Mhmm. For some consultation
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: On some white collar stuff.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right. So I I I when when I when I talked, I was like, yeah. You're my white collar friend. Right? Mhmm.
Because he's a Harvard grad.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And he knows this whole other world about Y Combinator and safes and, like, that convertible nose and all these other things. So he's educating me on that side because I'm trying to raise money too.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? So he was my first investor
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: Into our sales training organization because we have the same thing. I'm trying to build a company I can exit for 9 figures. Mhmm. Don't know if I will, but I'm trying to make it at least worth that.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: And so, yeah, get yourself, if you don't have one, a good white collar friend
Aaron: who can tell you how
Steve: to because we're the blue collar. We just hustle. We just put our nose down. We just work. Mhmm.
Right? But these guys play in a whole different world.
Aaron: That's right.
Steve: So Yep. I mean, maybe you already have that, but if you don't, I would say get yourself one of those. Noted. What's your superpower?
Aaron: My my superpower is my ability to to inspire people to action. I can get people to serve me. Mhmm. I can get people to serve me.
Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think your dad was really intentional with that name.
Aaron: Mhmm.
Steve: We actually had a guy in here, a little over a month ago, maybe two months now, Olofemi. And he's Nigerian. And, like, they've got, like, multiple names, kinda like what you have, where it's, like, they all have these meanings. It's like Mhmm. How cool.
Like, when they name their kids, it's like, here are all the characteristics that we expect from you in your life. It's it's it's it's really, really incredible.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: And then what book have you gifted more than any other?
Aaron: Oof. More than any other? What book?
Steve: You've gone through a lot of books.
Aaron: I've gone through a lot of books, but and I've gone through I've I've gone through periods where I'm giving away a lot of books. Shoot. The book that I've given away more than any other book, there's a there's there's, like, three of them. Mhmm. But the one that I've given away more than any other book is The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.
It's the first book that in fact, our 15 year old, that was the first book that that he started reading. Yeah. And, and because it I I feel like it's just it's a simple read, and it will revolutionize your entire life. I think if you were if you were to read it and and actually apply even some of its
Steve: I think that must have been giving away a lot, and I'm a very big, Darren Hardy fanboy. What are the other two?
Aaron: Traction by Gino Wickman Mhmm. And Think and Grow Rich.
Steve: Great, great books. Mhmm. So only thing about some last thoughts I'm gonna leave everybody
Aaron: Okay.
Steve: With. Guys, hopefully, you got a lot of value today. I I think Aaron shared a lot a lot of wisdom, particularly for such a young guy. Again, if you guys want are interested in checking out those leads, simplevaleads.com. What are the last thoughts you wanna leave all the listeners with?
Aaron: I would tell the audience, you know, if you have feelings of fear and not being worthy and whether or not you can do it, just understand, those feelings are never going away. Fear is never completely going away. The only thing that you can do is drown out the fear with more positive thoughts. Meaning, we must fill our mind, and this is where the term brainwashing comes in. Mhmm.
Right? We have to brainwash ourselves for positivity, for enthusiasm, for excitement. And and so if you're thinking that life's gonna get any easier when you get richer, no. Like, you have to become stronger to become the steward who's worthy of millions and billions of dollars. Life is going to get worse.
It's going to get harder. And so if you're if you have this mindset of I'm just gonna retire young and and and rich and fat, I'm telling you, it doesn't really exist. And if you do, talk to all the people who have tried it. It's depressing. It's it's not the life you wanna live.
Rethink it. You're gonna be working for the rest of your life. Accept that. And and and you will have to constantly be going to battle with negative thoughts, feelings, emotion, and and, and the law of polarity that says if you go out to if you set out to do something righteous, you will be be set, on the path of drama. It's just the way life goes.
Steve: Yeah. That was a lot, a lot of wisdom. So thank you so much. Appreciate it. It's great.
We're supposed to do this a long, long time ago. Thanks. Glad it finally happened. Thank you guys for watching, and we'll see you guys next time.
Aaron: Shout out to Steve Train. Jump on the Steve Train. Disrupt us.
