How Adrian Hernandez Went From $350K As A Realtor To $7MM A Year As A Wholesaler

How Adrian Hernandez Went From $350K As A Realtor To $7MM A Year As A Wholesaler | Disruptors Podcast

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Adrian Hernandez: I'm not okay with the fact that a buyer, especially a first time home buyer or a buyer that has been saving for fifteen years to buy their first house, now has to pay an agent an additional percent or percent and a half. They now need to come out of their pocket to pay that agent. I'm not okay with that, Steve. I literally got bad at the agent because she was holding the deal from going into escrow because we were only gonna give her 2%, and she wanted two and a half. And her her buyer is a first time home buyer, and now she has to come out of pocket because that agent can't do enough business because they're so worried about that half of a percent.

And she goes, well, you're it's taken away from my family. No. It's not. It's your lack of production that is taken away from your family. It's the fact that you don't know how to go out there and get more deals that you're gouging this one buyer over half of a percent.

Speaker 1: Oh, this

Steve Trang: is good with you.

Speaker: Okay.

Steve: Good. Let's have a look.

Adrian: Let's have this debate.

Steve: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of disruptors. Today, we have Adrian Hernandez with my home sold, and he drove in from Dana Point, California to talk about how he went from 350 k a year as a realtor to 7,000,000 a year as a wholesaler. Now, guys, I'm on a mission to create a 100 millionaires. The information on this show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years.

If you'll take consistent action, you will become one. And if you get value out of this show, please share this with someone that you like or if you don't like them, but share this with them. That way we can all grow together. You ready? Let's go.

Alright. So Yeah. Appreciate you coming back on. Very excited. Thank you.

I can't believe it's been three years

Adrian: since you were last on. Three years. Yeah. That's wild. It doesn't feel like three years.

Steve: It doesn't six months. It doesn't feel like

Speaker: three years.

Steve: But, you know, a lot has changed. You know, back then, we were still doing the night show setup. Right? You join Collective Genius. We get to hang out multiple times a year now Yeah.

Adrian: Which is cool.

Steve: In person. Right? Well, let's talk about what are some of the big things that have changed in the last few years.

Adrian: Yeah. Well, what's going on, guys? I'm Majron Hernandez. As Steve mentioned, out of Dana Point, California, my home sold. A lot's changed.

I can't believe it's been three years. Right? I look back and, it was actually my wife and I were going through the show the other day, and I'm like, I can't believe it's been that long. Mhmm. Right?

Well, what's changed is I got some gray hairs on my left hand side now.

Steve: Yeah. You can't see them? No. It's no?

Adrian: Shit. It's cut. Okay. There's another one, so I'm on this side. Anyway, so that that changed, but our business has changed in general.

Right? We were all outbound marketing. So everything that every deal we would get was from text messaging, cold calling, and we've transitioned. We're all inbound now. We went from 15 guys to five guys.

We've completely consolidated the team. We went from a large I'll say it. My ego just wanted this big office and this big team, and I realized that it was less profitable than a than a than a lean, mean operation. So we were grateful to join Collective Genius. We were grateful to join your sales training, which if you guys haven't checked it out, shameless plug.

It's absolutely incredible. Just that Collective Genius being around all you guys has drastically just changed the landscape of our business. We thought we were doing good. Mhmm. And it's like, wow.

No. Now we're actually yeah. So that's cool.

Steve: Yeah. Well, that's great. So let's talk about that. You say you you were entirely outbound back then. Right.

Now you're entirely inbound. So for those that are still strictly outbound and there's no judgment here. Like, we No. We all start. Right?

Right. What has been the biggest differences? What have been what has been surprising to you?

Adrian: Yeah. So my partner, Nick Ramirez, shout out to Nick. One thing we noticed, we were we needed a lot of people for our outbound. Right? When we had 20 cold callers and we were sending 10,000 text messages a day, we needed that floor.

Right? We needed the Sales floor. There was so much coming in that they they had to they had to be on every single lead. Now it's not it's not so much it's not so much a thousand leads. Right?

It's minimal lead. I won't say minimal, but it's less leads Yeah. More deals. Right. Right?

We're dealing with more of the I need to sell versus, well, maybe if the numbers line up. Right? Mhmm. These people actually need to do something. So it's always been a mission to go on inbound.

Right? It's, I mean, for two and a half years, we've been trying to be on TV. For two and a half years, we spent $250,000 trying to get on TV, and it never happened. But it was a blessing in disguise because we can all have the right marketing, but unless you have the sales team to help that marketing, you're just wasting money.

Speaker: Right.

Adrian: Right? And we noticed that. We noticed we we were wasting a lot of money at the beginning because we didn't have our sales in order. We thought we did. Right?

We didn't know what we didn't know, and we thought we were bigger than what we were actually are.

Steve: Yeah.

Adrian: So it was a really when I when we joined Collective Genius, it was a good, you know, a good little balloon popped. Right? And and it and it humbled us, but we're really grateful for it because we were able to tailor back, and we were able to make our sales operations better. We were able to make our infrastructure better. We're able to make our processes better, and that's really changed the trajectory of our business.

Steve: So that was my experience as well when we switched from, cold calling and texting to PPC. It's like, yes, it's cheaper. Right. At least at the time, it was cheaper, cost per lead to do texting than it was for PPC. But we didn't measure effort or time or banging our head against the wall.

Right? Right. And we didn't account for that. Right. And, when, like, the the light bulb went on, then it's like, yeah, we can actually cut off our overhead quite a bit.

Now, we'll spend more in marketing. Right. But we can cut off our overhead quite a bit, and we can cut down our management

Adrian: Yep.

Steve: Quite a bit, which is really, like, we look at what what's the part we hate the most. I I think managing is up there. If it's not number one, it's top three.

Adrian: Yeah. The people. Right? Yeah. It's the hardest part.

Steve: It's definitely the hardest part. So now one of the things we talked about was, like, something happened, and then you had to stop texting. Right.

Adrian: Yeah. What happened? Well, the regulations changed. Right? When we first got into text, rarely anybody was doing it.

Right?

Steve: Mhmm.

Adrian: And as we see in this industry, right, once one source gets going, everyone hops on it. Right? And it just Oh,

Steve: Oh, we all

Adrian: copy and paste. Yeah. Exactly. So we were sending out it was working. We were getting out it was incredible.

We were getting deals over the phone. Mhmm.

Speaker: We

Adrian: would send out text messages. We would get four or five deals a week all over the phone. Yeah. Never even seen the person. A lot of these were all text messages.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: They wouldn't talk to us. They wouldn't get on the phone with us. They would get on the phone with escrow, right, because they needed to do what they needed to do. But I can't count the number of deals we did just via text. Literally, all texts, never picking up the phone and calling them.

Steve: Text, text conversation, signed contract. Signed

Adrian: contract, DocuSign.

Steve: So text message and DocuSign. Yep. And then finally, when they open escrow, they'll talk to somebody.

Adrian: Then they'll talk to escrow. They'll be like, hey. Our escrow officer's gonna reach out. Okay. You You know how many people would text us?

Just text me? Yeah. Just and and so, obviously, that changed.

Steve: I believe that part. The thing that's, like, hard to, to fathom is all the people that, like, would agree to sign into contract Via text.

Adrian: Via text. Incredible. Yeah. But at that time, it was just taking off. Right?

And then, obviously, regulation came in. It started getting difficult. We got hit with a lot with a potential. We didn't end up they ended up going away, thankfully. Right?

But that scared us. Right? That lawsuit scared us, and we started to look at things and go, okay. We can't be having this much risk exposure.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: Right? And and it was great because we would look at text messaging and look at cold calling, and you guys, those numbers are those x's are big. Right? When you you look at cold calling, you can spend 10,000 to make a 100,000. Right?

You can literally have a 10 x return. It's not the same on inbound. Right? Inbound, you're like three x. Right?

Two and a half x. If you have a three and a half x, a four x on inbound, that's a good that's working. You're spending a 100 to make 400. Right? Right.

So those numbers are different. But like you said, we weren't accounting for the management. We weren't accounting for the amount of time that we were spending on these thousand cold call leads to get one deal.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: So the x's make sense, but what about the time and effort? And that's what we weren't paying attention to.

Steve: So how was that transition? I mean, did you just go in one day? It's like, alright. We're changing models. Everyone go find a new job.

Like, what was that like? Like?

Adrian: No. It was a slow transition. It was a slow transition. We as I mentioned, we tried to get on TV. That didn't work.

So we said, alright. We'll revisit that later. So we went all PPC, and we joined multiple different PPC companies. We figured out what was working, what was not working, and so we started with PPC. And then right after PPC came the mailers, and then we were finally able to get on TV.

Steve: Why do you say you couldn't get on TV?

Adrian: We hired a it was an agency that we hired, and it just didn't work out. It did you know, I I I believe in sharing good news. Right? So it just didn't work out. And that's perfectly fine.

Steve: So it was incompetence or you were locked out?

Adrian: We were locked out. We were locked out, told one thing, and given another. And that went on for two and a half years.

Steve: Okay. So you're talking to the companies like, hey. We wanna get on TV, and they're like, you can't do it.

Adrian: They're like, oh, no. You can. And then last minute, they're like, oh, no. You can't.

Steve: Right.

Adrian: And instead of going there, we're gonna put you on streaming

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: On on demand. And I didn't wanna do that. Right. So at that point, we pulled the plug, and I learned PPC. So I actually run actually, I don't think you know this.

I run all of our in our in house marketing. Awesome. So I learned PPC, grabbed a course, learned it Mhmm. Perfected it. Right?

Yeah. Mailers, perfected it. Do all of our mailers on our own. That's awesome. TV, I'm now directly with the stations.

Right? There is no agency. I deal directly with them. I am the agency. Mhmm.

Right? And and it's just it it's worked. It's really, really worked for us.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So you took charge of marketing. I did. In some ways, you are the chief marketing officer.

Yeah. How do you feel about that?

Adrian: Well, I feel like eventually I gotta let it go, and I'm slowly am. Right? I brought someone on, and they're now running the PPC ads, and they're in charge of that. I'm still making sure they do the right thing. But for us, we needed to.

Right? We we we hit a threshold where we're like, okay. It what's not it's not working, and there has to be another way. And then I was I was meeting these guys that were, you know, Casey Casey in in Vegas. Right?

He they crush it. And I started to look at their marketing is in house. Right? I was at at Pinedo. Their marketing is in house.

And it just it was a light bulb. I'm like, you know what? I need to bring this in house. So how I feel about it is I eventually need to it. Right?

Delegate or stagnate. I know that's gonna happen. Right? You guys all have heard that saying. So I I do need to delegate it, but I'm very grateful that I learned it because now I know what works and doesn't work.

Steve: Yeah. So, like, I started doing my own PPC, I wanna say, back in, like, 2011. Right? And then at some point, I was like, this is too hard. I stopped doing it.

Right? And then we hired the agency, and that worked. Like, Bateman Collective, like, they've worked for us. And then we stopped buying houses. And then, you know, I'm looking on the the education side.

Right? The sales training side.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: And we've tried so many agencies. And every single one just couldn't get it done. Mm-mm. They couldn't get it done. It was crazy.

I was like, there was just one day, I was like, screw it. I'm in the marketing department. Right. And I learned the Facebook ads. I learned the copy.

I learned the funnel and all of that other stuff. Right? Right. And now we got to a point where we can actually so we we brought it in house, and now we hired somebody who also has had success, and now they're doing

Speaker: it.

Steve: And, like, it is just crazy how different the energy is when you have a third party where you're just one of, I don't know, 30 people Exactly. 70 people, whatever, versus, like, this guy is not only thinking about my thinking about my business forty hours a day or a week. He's actually thinking about my about my business sixty, seventy hours a week because he gets paid on performance.

Adrian: Yep. Yep. And what got me, Steve, we had an agency. We a whole week went by. Right?

I'm like, where are the leads? Right? One, two. Where are the leads? I finally called.

They're like, oh, Zapier's been broken for two weeks. When were we gonna figure this out? Mhmm. When but, again, we're just a number on the list, Mhmm. And they don't get to us till week week three of the month.

Mhmm. And so for week one, week two, no deals. No and we don't see it till week three. And then they're sending us these back leads that have already signed with other companies.

Steve: Oh, you were getting leads that you paid for.

Adrian: Yes. Ten days weren't getting. Fifteen days later because Zapier was broken, but they didn't realize Zapier was broken because they didn't check on the account till week three because we were just a number. And when I saw this, I'm like, how much money did we leave on the table in three weeks? Right?

We're spending, at the time, I think it was, like, $2.50 a day. Right? I'm like, this adds up. Mhmm. Right?

So when we saw that, I'm like, we this has to change. Right? This has to change. So we were not fearful to bring it in ourselves. We we one thing, guys, is we all need ego checks.

Right? We all need ego checks, and I'm very grateful for all the ego checks because it told me there's nothing wrong with you learning this. There's nothing wrong with you taking this on. And a lot of us think we need to go hire somebody. No.

No. No. You need to focus on what you do. You need to go delegate it. Yes to a point.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: I don't firmly I don't fully believe that. I I I'm not a firm believer in that at all.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I go back and forth. Right? Because, like, how you we got started, you guys started how I got started as we hustle and grind.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: You know, grind our faces off, basically. Right? We just go and go and go, and we learn. You gotta delegate. You gotta hire this out, hire that out.

And that works. But at the same time, there are times where it doesn't work.

Speaker: Mhmm. And

Steve: it's really bad when it doesn't work.

Adrian: It you lose a lot of money. Yeah. And we you know, when you look at it, we lost close to $350,000 in marketing. Mhmm. I'm sorry.

There that comes a time where you just need to, you know, you need to something's gotta change.

Steve: Yeah. And I still think it's not that you have to do it. Right? It's not that I have to do it. Right.

I made a decision because I just gotta hire everybody else. And I felt like whoever I hire has to believe the same things I believe. So I need to learn it.

Adrian: Right.

Speaker: So

Steve: now I can monitor the guy that I hired. Right. But you can still hire just bringing it in house. And we're seeing this a little bit as a trend at CG. We are right.

It's like, for everyone that doesn't know, it's collective genius. We're seeing this a little bit where people are like, let's bring in a person in house who's handling all the stuff, which, you know, parts of me is, like, is that the right decision? Other parts of me is, like, well, I mean, if you get a higher ROI Right. Right.

Adrian: And if we hire the right person too.

Steve: Hire the right person.

Adrian: Because you can also hire the wrong person. And we've all experienced that in all areas. Not at times.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I think I think, you know was it, like, in in in baseball, if you hit three out of 10, like, you're a hall of famer? Right. I'm not hitting three out of 10.

Adrian: Yeah. No. And there has to be a time. Right? And, you know, Nick and I were talking about this.

I'm like, dude, we we learned it. Now it is time to bring on a CMO. Right? And we we are having those talks with certain people, but I'm doing it slow. I'm gonna do it very, very slow.

And even then, we're gonna oversee them like a hawk because there's too much I mean, we're now spending $300,000 a month in marketing. If we make a mistake, it's a massive mistake. Right? And it affects the sales floor, and the whole sales floor is expecting to make money on that money. Mhmm.

So it's we're also very we're responsible for our salespeople, and I and they have families, and they gotta eat too. So for me, it's like we can't leave it to chance. Yeah.

Steve: You gotta be fiduciary there.

Adrian: We have to.

Steve: Or a good steward of

Adrian: it. 100%.

Steve: Okay. So then, also, since we last did the show here, we got to hang out at WealthCon.

Adrian: Yeah. That was cool.

Steve: Yeah. You were on stage.

Adrian: Yeah.

Steve: And I remember saying to somebody, it's like, I hope I don't have to go directly after Adrian. I hope there's a person that's a buffer between me and Adrian, because I don't wanna go right after Adrian. And, like, I looked as, okay, good. There is one person between us. Because you are an animal when you're on stage.

Adrian: Thank you. I appreciate that. Coming from you, that means a lot.

Steve: You're an animal. The passion, it is just reeking. Right? It is, like, you know, you're an uncaged beast Yeah. When you're on stage.

What's that about? Yeah.

Adrian: Yeah. That's you know, I tapped into that. For me, it was I really enjoy it. Like, if I look at you know, my wife asked why. Right?

And I'm like, there is just a passion in me when I get on stage just to to help somebody, and I'll tell you what it was. Somebody I saw somebody get on stage, and they were passionate.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: And they had energy that made me go, I want that. Mhmm. And so for me, it's like, can I influence somebody? Just one person in the audience. Talking to

Steve: an earlier version of yourself. Talking

Adrian: about earlier version. Yeah. Okay. The 16 year old me who watched some guy in my parents' living room with so much energy that made me go, I wanna be able to have this effect on somebody. Yeah.

Right? And then I went to Tony Robbins at 19. And if you guys know Tony, all he is is just a big freaking ball of energy that is raiding at you. Right? And I witnessed that.

Steve: For, like, twenty hours a day?

Adrian: Yeah. All day. Doesn't even doesn't even go to the restroom. Right? You're like, well, this guy's an animal.

Yeah. And I saw that, and I'm like, I want more of that because I was so moved. That event changed my life. I was just I was this I was this short Mexican kid from Fontana that just did not believe in himself. That was just real.

I had it in me. I knew I had it in me, but there were all these layers. Right? These these beliefs, all these layers that just pulled me back. And when I went to these events, it it changed everything for me.

It it tapped me into who I am today. And for me, if I can if I can just give somebody an ounce of that, right, and their life can change, that's that that that would mean the world to me.

Steve: Yeah. That's awesome. What did you talk about?

Adrian: Yeah. So it was about mindset. Right? I believe that we all have the same systems. You guys have all gone on this seen this show, seen great individuals on this show, and a lot of you have copied their systems and their processes.

Mhmm. You may have hired their cold callers. You may have used their data, and we'll see it doesn't work for some people and it works for others. And what I'm a big believer on is changing the BS in our head. Right?

That belief system in our head that takes us from where we wanna go to where we don't wanna go. Right? And and a lot of you are thinking, you know, when I ask the question BS, a lot of people think bullshit. Right? And it is.

It's bullshit beliefs that hold us back. I've given the same list to one individual and the same list to another individual, and they both work aggressively hard on it, and one gets more deals than the other. Mhmm. Is it timing? I don't think so.

I think it's the belief system. What they at the end of the day, the energy they put out. Right? The I'm gonna win regardless of what happens. And when you look at all of the successful entrepreneurs, all of the successful, the athletes, what is it?

It's hunger. There it's hunger. They're hunger to win. They get on that court, and Steph Curry gets on that court, and he knows he's going to win. Yeah.

And there are games that they lose, but in his mind, he's going to win. Right? Kobe, Mamba mentality. Right? I'm going to win.

I believe some of us, we have the vision. We want to, but there's just this little belief system that holds us back from getting to where we are to where we wanna go. And if we can change that, if we can alter that, it speeds up the process.

Steve: Yeah. I think the the kind of a bit of a desire component and, like, you know, I don't know. How old are you?

Adrian: Oh, it's a good question. How old am I? 34. 34.

Speaker: Okay. I got

Steve: eleven years on you. And the reason why I bring this up, you may be a Kobe guy. Right?

Adrian: Right.

Steve: I'm a Jordan guy.

Speaker: Okay.

Adrian: No. I I'm a Jordan guy too. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: And one of my favorite quotes from him was like, I've never lost a game. I just ran out of time.

Adrian: Right. I love that quote. Right?

Steve: It's just like, if there was a little bit more time, my I would have outwilled you. Right. Right? I would have crushed you.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: There's a little bit more time.

Adrian: A little bit more time.

Steve: So, so talk about that. So you say, like, you know, the the difference is is in the belief system. So how can someone change it where, you know, if, the same same exact circumstances? You're right. Like, there are people that watch your show who are using the same exact tools.

Right? Same list. Same service provider. Same CRM. And there are some people that take that information, and then in a few short years or even a year later, they're just crushing it.

Right. And other people are like, the leads suck. System doesn't work. I will sold a bill of goods. It's just another guru selling me another product.

Yep. Right? Because we hear those people too. Yes. We do.

How do you go from a person that's like, I knew that guru guy was selling me a bill of goods to the guy that's like, man, I can't believe they give us this information for free.

Adrian: Yeah. I'm a I'm gonna tailor it back and keep it super, super let let's just where we can all utilize this, the environment. And I wanna challenge everybody to grab a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. And on the left hand side, write down everybody that is always let's say that, yeah, they're negative, but when you go to share something with them, they're not enthusiastic about what you're doing. Right?

They're just always got there's they're always shooting it down. Mhmm. Right? They always have something to say. There's a reason why it won't work.

Right? Reason why it won't work. Right? You're cold calling. That's never gonna work.

Right? And even though you're you're doing it, right, you still hear this voice. And on the right hand side of the page, I want you guys to write down everybody who is always, like, pushing you. Right? They hear it, and they're like, dude.

Go for more. Go you could do this. And what we need to do is we need to get rid of everybody on the left hand side of that page. Right? And some of you are like, well, that's my family.

Okay. Well, maybe we don't completely get rid of them, but we have to create some boundaries. Maybe stop telling those people what you're doing. Right. Maybe stop telling those people what you are trying to do because every time you do, all they do is just what the hammer smash you down.

And I had to realize this. I remember taking out a sheet of paper, and I looked at everybody on the left hand side, and I'm like, this is not good. No wonder why I'm not getting there. Because every time I I get a little bit ahead, I share this with these people, and they just bring me back down. And even though I may be making the calls, subconsciously, I'm like, they're right.

This isn't gonna work. No one's answered for a whole hour. No. They're right. No.

This isn't. And all I did was put off that energy of it's not gonna work. Mhmm. Right? And so when we surround ourselves with those people that are, yes, you can do it.

For me, everything changed because now that was my new environment. My environment was you could. It's possible. And that it it it left it left seeds of it left seeds of possibility, not seeds of doubt. And rather if we all know it or not, somebody is leaving you some sort of seeds.

What are those seeds germinating and creating?

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: Right? What trees are being planted in your head? And for me, I want I want seeds of of growth. I want seeds of opportunity, not the other way around. And I've seen both sides of it.

Steve: Oh, you make a good point. Like, don't share your hopes and dreams with the, the negative was it negative Nancys or whatever. Right?

Adrian: And

Steve: the other thing too, you know, something I learned from a coach was that, you don't have to say cut off your mom. Right. Right. But maybe you talk to her once a week or once a month versus every day. Right.

If she's that person, it's always gonna crap on your dreams. And it sucks. Right. He put you on this planet. But if she's the one that's holding you back, like, you gotta just either say less

Adrian: Right.

Steve: To her about what you're doing or, you know, go to, reduce the the exposure. I mean, look, my parents, they love me. They did. Absolutely love me. Right?

And they want me to win, but they also say things in the very beginning. Right? When are you gonna go back to a to a real job? Right. Right?

And it's like, what do you mean go back to a real job? Like, I'm working hard here.

Speaker: This is my real job. This is my real job.

Steve: Right? But they're saying out of love Right. Out of care. They they don't like seeing their son struggle. Exactly.

But the words that come out of their mouths still, even with love and care, still plant seeds of doubt. Yes.

Adrian: They do. And they carry with you. They carry with you on a sales call. They carry with you in your energy. I remember I would have a great morning, and I would get on the call, and the rest of my day would be crap because my parents said something that just threw me off.

Speaker: Right.

Adrian: So I'll never forget the conversation I had with my mom. Because, see, I was a big Mike Ferry guy. Right? And so every day from I would get in the office at 7AM.

Steve: And you had that powerful mindset to be a Mike Ferry guy every day.

Adrian: Oh, yeah. Just getting yelled at. Right? But but every day, I was in the office 7AM. I would role play from seven to eight.

Mhmm. From 08:00, I was on the phones calling expireds and then for sale by owners, and then I was doing circle prospecting till noon. Well, my mom every day would call me at ten. Now I'll never forget the day I picked up the phone and I said, mom, I'm sorry, but I cannot take your phone past 12:00 unless somebody has died. Mhmm.

Do not call me. And a matter of fact, wait until 12:00 to let me know because there's nothing I can do about it.

Steve: Right.

Adrian: Right? And I remember that having that conversation as she was quiet. And then I said the next thing, I don't wanna hear about any negative news. I love you. I know you love me, but I'm trying to do something.

And every time we have this conversation, it just brings me down. So can you do me a favor? I don't wanna know about what's going on in the family. I don't wanna know what's going on unless somebody is dying, then tell me about it. But after twelve

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: And I'll never forget. She goes, I really respect that. I am sorry. Thank you.

Steve: That's a very healthy response.

Adrian: And it was huge, dude. Until this day, like, I'll call her at ten, and she'd be like, it's, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, mom. I don't prospect in the morning anymore. Like, it's different.

Right? But we have to create those boundaries.

Speaker: You

Adrian: have to create them with your family. Sometimes you need to create them with your spouse. There's just there's there's certain boundaries that have to be set for you to keep a good mindset in what what we need to do. Because make no mistake about it, this shit it's hard. Mhmm.

It's hard. And when you're going through it and you're in the weeds of it, it's even harder. So we need that environment. Right? It's it's how trees let's look at just nature.

Right? A tree in a bad environment is only gonna grow so tall.

Steve: Right. Yeah. So that's huge. Anything else as far as mindset that you wanted to to, speak on before we move on?

Adrian: Yeah. The next thing is creating a vision. You know, one thing that coach helped me with, shout out to Joe DiRafaeli, is he knew I struggled with this mindset thing. Right? And and I believe that we are what you are going through is preparing you to help a person, and I forgot the exact quote, but you're whatever you're going through, you are preparing yourself to help the future younger you, if that makes sense.

Right? Like, everything I'm going through, I believe God puts certain people in my life that were very similar to things that I've gone through so I can help them. Right? And so one thing that that really, really helped was creating a vision letter. I wanna challenge you all to get out a piece of paper.

I don't care where you're at in your life. I don't care if you're just getting started in wholesaling, just getting started in real estate. Take out a piece of paper and write out what your life would be like in ten to fifteen years. Dream big. I want you to just write down some gist of as you're writing it, you're gonna be like, this is a bunch of BS.

Right? Like, there's no freaking way, but just dream. If it's a Ferrari, write down the damn Ferrari. It's a 10,000 square foot house. Write down the 10 foot square.

If it's passive income, whatever it is that you see, but I want you to dream big. I want it to be a four or five page letter of how you see yourself, your family, the cars you're driving, the house you're in, the money you're making, the passive income, and dream super big. And then every year, see if you can do it a little bit bigger. See if you could do it a little bit bigger. And for me, this helped me change my perspective on on on what I what I believe could happen and not happen because when I wrote it down, I thought it was complete BS.

Mhmm. But then all of a sudden, Steve, I look back. Yeah. And I just read a ten year. Mhmm.

And 90% of it is there. Yeah. And this was 2015 when I was an agent in Rancho Cucamonga who was barely I thought was making money, but I really wasn't making money. Right? And I look back and I'm like, wow.

Only if I dreamed bigger. If only if I thought bigger.

Steve: So I became a licensed realtor in o seven.

Adrian: What a great time.

Steve: Great time. And I wanna say it was around that time. It was either '7 or '8. And I went to a Brian Buffini conference. Right?

The buff. The buff. So I went to that conference, and he was like, whatever. You know, like, the first coaching program I went through, it wasn't a coaching program. It was a course.

First course I went through was hundred days of greatness. It was a good course.

Adrian: Yeah. I remember that course.

Steve: And so I went to that course, went to his event, and I remember the exercise, which was write down what you want to be true in ten years. Mhmm. Right? Same exact exercise you just mentioned. And I wrote them down.

And at the time, I wrote down my wish list, but I couldn't see a path to how I get there. Right. Right? It's like Right. I'm writing this down, but, I mean, come on.

Like, can we do this? You know? Like, if we hit 30%, that'd be pretty cool. Right? And I looked at it because they they did they held their end of the bargain.

They mailed it to me ten years later. And I I wish I I wish I know where it is right now. I remember opening. I was like, holy shit.

Adrian: Did it happen?

Steve: Like, 80% of it happened.

Speaker: Dude, let's go.

Steve: But when I wrote it, that version of me couldn't even picture it happening.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: And 80% of it coming true is just crazy. Crazy.

Adrian: There's something there.

Steve: There's something there.

Adrian: There's something there.

Speaker: Yeah.

Adrian: So you've heard of Thatch and Nguyen? Yeah. So Thatch has this say, and and I was very grateful to have Thatch in my life at a very early age. And Thatch used to always say, dream big, and this is this is spelled with a p h. Okay?

And fuck how. Mhmm. Right? So dream Big and fuck how.

Speaker: Mhmm. Right?

Adrian: It's even his license plates, meaning, for how it's gonna happen. Mhmm. Right? Like, don't worry about the how. Just be able to have the the the willingness.

Be able to have the courage to write it down and then go to work, and let whatever you believe in

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: Do its thing. Right. And 10 later

Speaker: Yeah.

Adrian: You got 80% of it.

Steve: Yeah. It sounds cool, dude. But there's something there.

Adrian: There's something. Right?

Steve: So again, like, I think everyone is listening. Everyone's watching, like, write it down. Take the time to write it down because can't explain how the universe works, but it does.

Adrian: It does.

Steve: It does do it. Yeah.

Adrian: And I rather not leave it to chance. I rather for all of you, right, don't leave it to chance. Write it down because something's time is going to ten years is gonna get here whether we like it or not. So we might as well write down something great. We might as write might as well write we might well, obviously, I'm not talking today.

We might as well write down something big because something's gonna happen. Right. And then next take grammar. I don't know how to speak.

Speaker: There you go.

Steve: There you go. Yeah. I mean, I think, because I and I went through that same exercise, with, Sean and Terry, and I I should do it more often because it was it was one of those flip to freedom events. Right? It's like the the letter to yourself.

And like, that that all the stuff we do with NLP, the stuff we do in self training human psychology is like, you know, picture this new reality. But when you can see this new reality, when you can experience in your mind's eye this new reality, it makes everything easier. Give yourself permission to pursue it.

Adrian: Right. Yeah. So And not just in business, but with your you know, one thing I'm challenging myself on is I never write I never wrote down what my marriage with my wife would look like. Mhmm. Right?

And it's like now being conscious of this, I'm like, now I'm writing down what my marriage is gonna be like with my wife five years from now. What's the relationship with my kids when they're 20? Right? And just having the courage to write that down is big. Yeah.

Steve: And then another thing was there are some been some some real estate changes

Speaker: Yeah.

Steve: In in in the industry. One of them was this NAR lawsuit deal. So I saw some I read some crazy stat. Because, you know, the whole lawsuit was, like, people are paying more for houses because buyer agents are collecting commissions. So we can just get rid of the commissions.

Buyers don't have to pay as much. Right? And it wasn't a month or two ago. I read the stat as, like, the average buyer commission now is higher than it was prior to the the NAR lawsuit. So realtors are making more money now per transaction than before, So the whole argument went out the window, and now buyers are paying more and paying out of their pocket versus before the seller paying for it.

Right. Right? So what is your opinion on the matter here?

Adrian: I'm gonna this is gonna get me pretty fired up. Right? So I'm gonna sorry. We're not sorry. It it's this is the problem.

I I'm for the change. Right? I'm for the change. Most sellers realize they need to pay commissions. Right?

And for the most part, every single seller that we've had, they're very, hey. We get it. We understand when you pay commissions to bring buyers to this house.

Steve: The norm.

Adrian: This is norm. Cool with that. All good. This is what I don't ever I'm not okay with. I'm not okay with the fact that a buyer, especially a first time home buyer or a buyer that has been saving for fifteen years to buy their first house, now has to pay an agent an additional percent or percent and a half because that seller isn't offering it.

They now need to come out of their pocket to pay that agent. I'm not okay with that, Steve. And I was recently in a transaction. I'm in a transaction right now where I I literally got mad at the agent because she was holding the deal from going into escrow because we were only gonna give her 2%, and she wanted two and a half. Mhmm.

And her seller, her buyer is a first time home buyer, single mom. You can tell she's been working her you know what off to to to finally afford a down payment.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adrian: And now she has to come out of pocket because that agent can't do enough business because they're so worried about that half of a percent. And she goes, well, you're it's taken away from my family. No. It's not. It's your lack of production that is taken away from your family.

It's the fact that you don't know how to go out there and get more deals that you're gouging this one buyer over half of a percent.

Steve: Yeah.

Adrian: Let's be honest. 5,000 is not a lot of money to you, but it's a lot of money to your buyer.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: But for us, we get caught up in these, well, they need to pay it. They need to pay it. No. You need to go do more deals. Yeah.

Steve: I would disagree with you on that. Okay. Good. I like that.

Adrian: Let's have this debate.

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Right? We talked about this before. Brent Daniels is always screaming about this. Right? Right.

The market is what whatever the buyer will pay.

Speaker: Correct.

Steve: In this instance, it's the the buyer agent commission. Now look. I hated this change. I think the way things were before was totally fine because it was a socially accepted norm. Almost.

Right? So unless, like, people were really up in arms about, like, buyer getting paid buyer's agent being paid by the realtor or by the seller, unless someone like, a lot of people are up in arms about it. Like, why are we changing it? Right. Why are we changing a 100% of the country for what, like, a handful of people are upset about?

Right. Right? But if this is the change, then we switch with the change. So I don't think she should be upset about not getting paid out a half percent. She could have been a lot more creative in finding solutions for it.

Right. She could talk to, I don't know, the lender unless the buyer is capped out on, like, the monthly payments. Right. You could talk to, the title company Right. Having some sort of agreement.

Hey. You guys kicked down your fees a little bit so that we know we can all eat together. She could have called you. I was like, look. If we bumped the price by $5,000, can you agree to pay me the half percent difference?

Adrian: Right.

Steve: I don't know if she did all those other things. Right. But that's what that's where I would start. Yes. Right?

I actually, as all this was going down, was kinda saddened that I had stopped doing real estate because this is all the stuff we learned in the Craig Proctor coaching.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: Right? So like I said earlier, I started in Brian Buffini, but Craig Proctor is the one that made the biggest difference in my business. Mhmm. Because he taught me marketing, he taught me business. Right.

And that's when we were doing buyer agent commissions before this whole deal was going down. Right. Because my ask of you is not just I'm gonna get the 3% from the homeowner. I'm also gonna ask the realtor, or else I'm gonna ask the homeowner for another half percent. My goal is to get three and a half percent every transaction.

Right. Not three. Just like our goal in every listing appointment was to get seven or 8% commission. Correct. That's six.

Everyone else can have six. Right. I'm asking for 708. Right. So I got no problems with this realtor asking for more.

Now if she can't find another way, that's on her to not being able to find another way.

Adrian: Right. And and I agree with you on the find a way. What I don't agree with is the agents who don't find a way and then make their buyer back out of a house that they really want over $2,500 that they could have found a solution for. Right. That's and so what's your opinion on those agents?

Steve: They suck. I mean, like, we

Adrian: You know what I'm saying?

Speaker: That's what I'm saying. Like, we're

Steve: on the problem solving business.

Adrian: Right. Right?

Steve: We get paid commensurate to the problems that we can solve. Right? So she's gotta find a way to solve it. Right? And, again, like, the simplest way is, hey, Adrian, look.

The buyer wants to make this deal happen. You wanna make this deal happen. I wanna make this deal happen. Right. Everyone wants this deal happen.

How can we make it happen? I mean, look, we have this conversation every single time an appraisal comes in low or inspection's really bad. Yep. Everyone comes to the table. Buyer, seller, both realtors, and then the lender gets dragged into it.

They don't wanna get dragged into it. Right? Yep. And sometimes the title company. Every once in a long while, the home inspector has a kick in, like, $50.

Adrian: Yeah. Somebody's kicking in money. Right?

Steve: This happens. So, like, yeah, you gotta solve

Adrian: the problem. 100%. I was not okay with the way in which that agent was handling. And on top of, they're making us pay the broker $250 file management fee, then that just lost I lost it at that point.

Steve: Yeah.

Adrian: Because I'm like, you're making your buyer also pay for your broker transaction fee of $250. Yeah. There has to be other solutions here. Right? And now when we look at it, where do where do those problems come from?

The agents doing one to two deals a year. Right?

Steve: Those are the ones that are a lot less, amenable because they need to steal to close. Right.

Speaker: That's the

Steve: thing that's part where you're going is, like, just do more production.

Adrian: Just do more production.

Steve: Right. Realtors that need this deal to close. I mean, some wholesalers are the same way, by the way.

Adrian: A 100%.

Steve: Right? The ones that need this deal to close are the ones that are causing most of the problems. Right? 100%.

Speaker: You just

Steve: make more money. Yeah. Few more deals, you're not gonna have this problem.

Adrian: You won't have this problem. Right? But it's easier said than done too. And I get that.

Steve: That goes back to mindset though. 100%.

Adrian: Right? And and it also goes back to I mean, do you really care about that client enough to get the property? Mhmm. And for me, right, I wanna do good by doing good. Mhmm.

So if that means I need to cut half of a percent to make this deal work Yeah. We're cutting half of a percent to make this deal work. Right?

Steve: For sure. I'm gonna ask for the moon, but I'm also used to commission equities. Right. Right? Like, as a realtor, I mean, the number of times where I was like, okay.

We had a listing appointment. You're the homeowner, and we agreed that there's a refrigerator, washer, and dryer we're gonna convey. You agreed. I agreed. I didn't put it in the listing agreement.

Adrian: Yep.

Steve: Right? But we agreed on it. And then a buyer comes along, writes a contract, and says refrigerator, washer, dryer, convey. Okay. And I talked to you.

Hey, Adrian. Buyer wants refrigerator, washer, and dryer to convey. This is the terms of the contract, and the seller says, okay. That's fine. Right?

And then closing day, buyer shows up. There's no refrigerator washer and dryer, and you call the homeowner. Hey. What happened to refrigerator washer and dryer? It's like, oh, we took it.

Like, that's not what we agreed upon. And the listing agreement, that's not what we agreed upon during the contract, but what are we gonna do about it? Like, well, that's your guys' problem. Yep. Right?

Not unusual for a homeowner to say this. Nope. And now you as the realtor, as the listing agent, have to cut your commission Yep. So the buyer will close.

Adrian: Yep. It's funny you bring that up. Were you in our office yesterday? We had the same thing happen. We closed.

Mhmm. All the appliances are gone. Mhmm. Yeah. They said figure it out.

Steve: They don't really care. No. They don't. They don't. They don't care about our commissions.

Speaker: They do not. Yeah.

Adrian: So long story short, we're buying appliances.

Steve: Right. That's how it goes. But that goes back to, like, if you're doing enough deals, you can. It's like, alright. Screw it.

I don't wanna waste any more time on this. Move on to the next deal. Right. Versus the guys doing one or two. They need every little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. But there's also been some other changes. Right? So we talked about, you know, the, the texting lawsuits.

Now we just talked about, like, the the buyer agent commission. But there's some wholesaling laws. RJ Bates has been blasting me about South Carolina, which is just ridiculous. He's a crazy person. Right?

But I saw something this morning where someone was texting me, like, hey, they think novation is going away in South Carolina as well. Right? And so there's lots of regulations, obstacles, things coming along. Right. So So what are you guys doing to prepare for all that?

Adrian: Yeah. So we never took on novations. We're in California. I was never just I just I didn't I never bought into it. Reason being, we're in California.

Right? So we do net listings. Right? So a little similar to a novation. The only thing is there

Steve: Drives me absolutely insane that net listings are legal in California, the most quote, unquote consumer protection

Adrian: Right. Yes.

Steve: State and the country's looking at net listings. But anyway, actually, real quick, let's explain what net listings are.

Adrian: Yeah. So net listing seller says, I want $200,000. Right? We look on the market. We think we can get $2.60.

So I say, great. I'm gonna give you $200,000. You're not gonna that's gonna be a net offer to you. We're gonna put the home on the market at 200, and anything we get over is going to be what we earn. Right?

Now I'm not going to that deal without knowing we're not getting $40.50 over. Right? And then that's your net offer to you. Anything over pays for the agent commissions, your escrow costs, title costs, all your closing costs, all that good stuff, and then whatever's remainder is our commission. Right?

And the way we pitch it is let us put our money where our mouth is. Let us go show you that we can actually do this. And, hey, if we do get way more, we'll kick you back. Those last day, we kicked them back $15,000. Right?

They made way more than any other cash offer. Yeah. And they were enthusiastic about it. They loved it. We have a freaking ridiculous five star review from it because it was like, I can't believe anyone gave us this option.

Mhmm. And so that's how we position it. Right? They sign off on the listing agreement. They're signing off on the purchase agreement.

They're signing off on the purchase agreement. They're signing off on the on the seller estimated closing statement. They know how much we're making, and there has been some times where they put some fuss up about it, and we just kick them back. Mhmm. We give them more money, and it always worked out in our favor.

Steve: Yeah. Netlix is a great solution. If you have that as an option. Right? Like, right, California, Texas.

I don't know how many states. For sure not in Arizona. But yeah, I think that's a Yeah. Fantastic listing. Although, the our work around here I don't know if I should say this is being recorded.

So our solution for our net listing is a seller will never be upset paying you less commission. Right? So in lieu of a net listing, I would just charge you a stupid amount of commission, and then I had just reduced the commission as necessary to make the deal happen.

Speaker: Oh, I like

Steve: that. So it's not a net listing. Right. I'm just charging a lot of commission. I was like, oh, the numbers didn't work.

I'll take less commission. Are you okay with that? No one's gonna argue that. But if I say

Adrian: wrong with that.

Steve: Hey, I'm gonna charge you 6%. It's like, hey, by the way, the commission's gonna be 10%. You okay with that? They're not gonna be okay with it. No.

They're not gonna no. After, like, 12% commission, it's like, hey. On this one, we're gonna make nine. We're not gonna get the full 12. Are you okay with that?

Right. Right? So we Yeah. The net listings are not legal in Arizona. That was my workaround.

Adrian: Interesting. Well, another thing we're doing too is so, like, we have this house. I mean, I got the floors redone, paid to get the floors redone, paid to get the outside cleaned up, paid for the landscaping. And that's all cost for me that if it doesn't sell and they decide to cancel, I'm losing that money.

Steve: Right.

Adrian: Right? But for them, they they have no money. They the cash offer doesn't work, but we know we can get more on the market. So we're just getting creative from finding different solutions, and it doesn't work for everybody. We have some people like, absolutely not.

That's totally fine. Right? Yeah. We have our cash offer. That doesn't work.

We can list it. That doesn't work. Thank you for calling in. Mhmm. Right?

But we're we're you know, it's funny. I was just talking about this earlier. We don't I don't consider myself a wholesaler. Right? We consider our company as a company that provides solutions to get your home sold.

Mhmm. Period. And if they have sold. Right? Yeah.

Hence the name. If we happen to buy it, great. We happen to wholesale it, great. We happen to netlist it, great. But either way, that house is selling.

Mhmm. Right? And it and it's gonna chop down

Steve: into many different ways. Yeah. That's awesome. So anything else you're doing as far as, like, preparing for what's going on in in in Yeah.

Adrian: I'll tell you what we're not doing. We're not calling any, this just drives me freaking crazy, and it and it's the bad characters in this industry that is really giving us all these these tightening of regulations. Right? We're We're not calling anybody the day of closing and asking for a price reduction after we're making $50,000. Yeah.

And I'm seeing these videos on YouTube, Steven. They're driving me freaking crazy or, you know, I see it in my local market where somebody's posting a video. It's the day of closing. The seller's expecting to close on that day. You're already making $50,000, and you're calling the seller on the day of closing going, Yeah.

Hey. We're not gonna close unless you lower the price $30.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: There is no morals. There is nothing good about that. No. And and and that's what's gonna cause the regulations. That's what's gonna cause all this BS in this marketplace because you have these bad characters ruining the industry.

Why? It's greed. You're already making money. They're happy. Why are you ruining it?

Steve: Yeah.

Adrian: Right? And and they're the ones that we see. They're like this, and then they vanish. Mhmm. Right?

And then you have your other companies that they stay true to their morals. Right? They stay true to what they're doing, and they're always going like this. Yeah. Right?

And it just it drives me crazy. I see it on social media, and I don't get it.

Steve: They're posting videos about this on YouTube.

Adrian: They're posting videos about this on YouTube. Yeah. I just had this conversation conversation with Doug. Doug's like, I he he's he's flabbergasted. Like, there's someone in Arizona.

We'll talk about it later. Is there someone in Arizona that that posted a video on YouTube? He goes, Adrian, he goes, I I just don't I don't get it.

Steve: Yeah. Very, very unfortunate.

Adrian: Very unfortunate.

Steve: And those are the ones that are going to get this industry regulated. Yes.

Adrian: And And you have a lot of new wholesalers and new agents that watch us and investors. You guys do business the right way. Yeah. There's plenty of business out there. There's plenty of money to be made.

There you're not you're not gonna get very far ripping people off and and and doing this whole bait and switch on the day of closing. These people have plans.

Steve: Yeah. Well, they're relying on the money Yes. Come on the day that you promised us they're gonna get it. They're making life changing decisions based upon your not a promise, but a signed agreement.

Adrian: It's not

Steve: a contract that you're going to do this. It drives me crazy too. As a matter of fact, there was someone there was some big news about a month ago here. Right? Because the attorney general in Arizona is going after two particular wholesalers.

Well, more than two, but mostly two. Right? They have a third partner, but mainly, like, they were named over and over again over and over again. Right? Sam and Cam.

Sam and Cam. Over and over again. And it's because they were doing things like locking up a house as in pre foreclosure, and then the day or the week before foreclosure, it was like, hey. The price that we agreed on doesn't work. We're gonna need to jot the price, and they're not releasing the memorandum.

So the homeowner either has to agree to coercion, right, or lose the house due to foreclosure. And this went on for many, many years. Wow. Parts of me is frustrated it took this many years for them to get busted Right. Because friends of mine in the industry are submitting them to the attorney general years ago Wow.

That they haven't. Right? So they're finally going down. It's it's looking bad. And the problem is not them going down.

That's the good news. The problem is what happens as a consequence The ripple effect. Of these two bad actors.

Adrian: Yep. Yep. Yeah. There's, somebody, Northern Central California, who calls escrow the day of closing, calls title Mhmm. Holds everything until I call you.

Steve: That's just their practice. Hold everything.

Adrian: Day of closing. Hold everything. Because remember, tie you know, escrow and title, they're still gonna proceed. Right? So they'll call them.

We have an issue. Nobody do anything. And if the seller calls

Steve: you, tell them

Adrian: to call me. Mhmm. And they'll let it go on for

Steve: weeks until the seller reduces the price. Wow. I'm surprised the attorney general of California

Speaker: does it

Steve: come for this person to say.

Adrian: Not a matter. It's a matter of time. Yeah. And then we'll see regulations in California.

Steve: Right. Which I think I've heard there's some stuff that's coming down in California. We'll see what happens, but I've heard murmurs. Alright. Bills are being not passed but proposed, right, in conference.

So, so we'll see where that goes.

Adrian: See where that goes.

Steve: Yeah. Now you went from 350,000 a year GCI, gross commission income as a realtor.

Adrian: Doing it.

Steve: Right? Doing it. I mean, there are a lot of people that are happy with 350 k Yeah. GCI. Yeah.

Right? Because that's what that's not 3 mils. 30 mil? No. What's that?

10 mil? Right. Yeah. 10 mil production.

Adrian: 10 mil production. Right. Right. 350

Steve: k as a realtor. And then you went to the wholesaler side. Some would say the dark side. Right? How do you go from 350 a year in gross commission income as a realtor to 7,000,000 a year as a wholesaling organization?

Adrian: Labels down to one word, resourcefulness. Before I was just giving resources to a seller, that was just a one option

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: Listing base. And as I mentioned earlier, there are multiple different ways a homeowner get a home sold, and that opened up the floodgates. When we got introduced to, well, Tylian Guerrero has always been a friend of mine, but he was the one that, like, was like, hey. You guys are wholesaling. We didn't even know we were wholesaling.

Right? I was doing flips in 2015. Nick came in in 2019. He was helping me find flips, and we were passing on a lot of these. And finally, we're like, what what are we doing?

Like, why don't we we know this investor. Why don't we just see if you'll give us a finder's fee. Right? Finder's fee. Right?

We'll pass it to him. You give us $5. Pass it to him. Give us $5. And then finally, Ty was like, you guys are wholesaling.

I don't know if you know this, but it's a thing called wholesaling. Right? And then that sparked off the wholesaling. It was when we met guys like you, like, guys like Hopkins, the like, when when Pineda was was in it, when we met all these guys, like, that's what really we got to see what we didn't know. Right?

We don't know what we don't know. Now it's out there. Right? Now it's it's very talked about, but when in 2019, no one was talking about it. Mhmm.

Speaker: Right?

Adrian: I think Carlos was just starting to create that his seminar that he was doing. Right? Yeah. And it was it was right at the beginning. So what really changed was I got out of my own way, and we got resourceful with clients.

We started giving other options. Right? We started giving the the client a different route, and we noticed that we we came up across a lot of speed bumps on how to do that, but we noticed that we were able to serve more people. Right? And we also changed markets.

I wanted to be this big, you know, luxury agent, right, who sold all these that was my ego. My ego wanted me to be a big luxury agent, and that's not for everybody. Right? I personally do not like doing broker opens. I personally do not like doing open houses on the weekends.

And so for me, it was also, like, I I was doing it. Right? And don't get me wrong. 350,000 was a great living, but I was also not happy, Steve. There was nothing happy about what I was doing.

I didn't enjoy it. I hated doing open houses, and it also could have been because I did them for ten years straight. Mhmm. Right? And so for me, it was also a passion change too.

When I look at this wholesaling and this investment side, I mean, we're now marketing. I'm able to use my creativity. Right? We're able to I feel like we're actually building a real business. Yeah.

Right? Where before I felt like I was I was an independent contractor. Right? Don't get me wrong. I was helping people, but I was under a brokerage, and there were I I personally wasn't fulfilled from it.

Steve: I can totally see you buttoned up. You've got the personality.

Adrian: Dude, tie and all, bro.

Steve: You got the personality.

Adrian: Pocket little pocket square. Right.

Steve: With the with the open houses and probably, you know, like, the music going on, the fireplace going. I can see this. Baked cookies. Baked cookies. Baked cookies.

I can see this.

Speaker: Oh, it

Steve: was real. Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, it was real. You

Adrian: know the other day on your sales call when you said you would walk into a listening appointment with the presentation and your iPad and

Steve: your Yeah.

Adrian: That was me. Yeah. That was me. Full blown projector. Alright, guys.

This is what we're gonna talk about. We have one of three options today. Either you're gonna decide to list your home with me or you may decide to list your home with me, or I might decide not to take your listing.

Steve: Yeah. I still remember. I was so happy. There was a time. Was it, like, 2016?

Somewhere around there. Right? Where they had just gotten the little projectors out. Right? So you could plug into your laptop so you can do your listening presentation

Speaker: on the wall. On the wall. I had one.

Steve: It was like such like a massive innovation, like, for the realtor world. Right. Yeah. Oh, god. Embarrassing.

Adrian: Because I was door knocking. Now what was cool is I was door knocking on a Segway. Mhmm. So I I upgraded. Right?

I used to door knock, and there's a picture. Right? I gotta find it and send it to you. I was door knocking, and eventually, I started going to these big lots. Right?

Acre lots. And I'm like, dude, it'd take me ten minutes to get through freaking to one door to another. So I got this segue, and it just changed everything, dude, because I would pull up, and they would come outside and just talk about the segue. And before you know it, we're inside the house talking about the house. Yeah.

Steve: It was a it was a conversation piece. Conversation piece. I love that. Okay. And then broker opens.

You were going in buses with, like, other people. Is that what you're talking about?

Adrian: I never did the buses, but I would have to do the brokers open where I set up, have all the agents come.

Speaker: All the

Steve: realtors. That's that's always more of like a luxury thing.

Adrian: Yeah. A 100% luxury thing.

Steve: Yeah. But the so the other things that we had to do, like, you know, I didn't do a lot of luxury listings, but, you know, I have one or two. Right? And you had to do the bus tour thing. And for those of you guys who don't know, it's like you and, like, 11 other realtors would all take turns walking through each other's listings and collecting feedback

Adrian: Yes. So you can give

Steve: it to the homeowner. It's like, here's what everyone else is saying so that you weren't the bad guy.

Speaker: Right. They still do it.

Steve: Yeah. Here's what the other realtors are saying about your property, you know, if you wanna get your home sold.

Adrian: Yep.

Steve: Alright. It's this whole, like

Adrian: Caravans. Yeah. Yeah. They call them caravans, right? They still do

Speaker: them. Yeah.

Steve: I know they still do them, but, man, like, I don't I hated those more than open houses. Oh, yes. Yeah. Because open houses, I don't know. Like, for me, I might have been wasting time, but I was doing something with that time.

Right. Right. And I only did, like, three, like, ever in my career. Really? Yeah.

I hate it.

Adrian: Oh, wow.

Steve: But, you know, I will have at least my laptop with me Right. Doing something. Right. Those broker tours, like, you have to, like, mingle with other realtors, and it just it just wasn't for me.

Adrian: Sucks the life out of you, man.

Speaker: It really does.

Steve: I'm also traumatized

Speaker: Yeah. In

Steve: those memories of those broker tours.

Adrian: It's funny because I still own a brokerage and, you know, my the, who runs it should be like, hey. They're having it. And I'm like, don't even think about telling me about it. I don't wanna know. You can go.

I'm not going. Yeah. But what's the I don't care who's gonna be there. I'm not going.

Speaker: It doesn't

Steve: matter. It doesn't matter who's gonna be there. No. So alright. So offering more options.

It has to be more than that. Right? Because 350 to 7 mil, that's 20 x. Yeah. It's 20 x difference.

Right. So offer more options. For sure that makes a difference. Right. Or some other things.

Right? For, you know, for the people that are watching that are wearing their realtor hat, because we know a lot of them, Jose, in CG. Right? Mhmm. So where's the realtor hat?

Yeah. There are a lot of people that are focused on the realtor side that are either looking to, you know, dabble on the dark side with us Right. Or fully embrace it? What are some other things?

Adrian: Yeah. Another thing we changed was our marketing. So our marketing went more distressed homeowners that need to sell Mhmm. Versus those that absolutely want to sell. Right?

I don't want to do business with those I want to sell. I wanna do the people that need to sell. Mhmm. So before, when I was circle prospecting in these high end areas, it would take us a while to get deals. So what changed was is we would go now starting pre pre foreclosures, probates, notice defaults, the tired landlords, not the non absentee because absentee is there that a lot of those are wants.

Right? Some of them are needs, but a lot of them are wants. So we started going after the people that needed to sell, the the homes that they had to do something with. And that opened options because with that, I can still take it as a listing. We still take listings today.

We still take a lot of listings today. Yeah. But we're positioning ourselves where when we go on an appointment, we have that ability. We have that option. If I'm walking into a 8,000 square foot fully remodeled on the beach home, you ain't wholesaling that thing.

Mhmm. Right? It's one option, and that's listing it for sale.

Steve: Yeah.

Adrian: Right? So for us, it was changing that. And then also, I believe agents get stuck in the traditional marketing. I believe the real estate industry, agent wise, we have they haven't evolved from realizing what is real marketing. Right?

They get stuck in the door knock. They get stuck in the center of influence, and they get stuck in the expired listings. When are you ever gonna take that money and reinvest it back into your business? There are very few agents in Southern California that do it, and they do it because they put money back into their business. Yeah.

Right? They change their marketing. Like, a good example if is Steve's, I'm sorry, Tim Smith. Tim Smith, he's, like, mainly, like, all of his videos. I don't know if you've seen that, teach me how to Duffy.

So he sold this house with a Duffy boat, and you know that teach me how to it's the teach me how to Duffy, and it's about a Duffy, and they pulled up in this, Cadillac on rims, and they're getting this Duffy boat, but it's about the house. It's a completely he had millions of views, and the house sold from the views. Right? It was crazy. But it's being able to change the marketing.

I know as an agent from the agency I was involved in, it was pound the phones, pound the doors, pound the 15, 20 year old veterans still pounding the phones, 50 contacts every day, never duplicating themselves, never leveraging themselves, never marketing. So I believe there is a big there's a big miscommunication to what marketing really is. And companies like EXP and all of these, you know, what I believe just downline companies that that it's now how can I get you to join me so I can go sell less real estate and make more money on your downline on my downline?

Steve: So I completely agree with the marketing side. And that's why, like, Craig Procter was so revolutionary for me. Right? And that's, again, like, 2011. But it was when I started marketing to people that needed to sell versus people that wanted to sell.

Like, I was saying earlier, like, 8% commission. Like, it was not unusual No.

Adrian: It wasn't.

Steve: To get 8% commission because we were willing to do more. Right. But either we're gonna buy it and or wholesale it or list it. But paying me 8% on your home sold guarantee or I'll buy it, still netted more than all the other cash offers. Right.

So, like, people were thinking, like, how do you get more commissions? Like, I am providing more certainty, more convenience, ease, and service to get the property sold. And like you said, like, we have to put some money into it to get it sold. Put some money in to get it get it sold. Because I'm looking at I'm gonna get 8% on this

Adrian: 100%.

Steve: In thirty to ninety days. Right. Right? Right. But, yeah, like, the marketing for sure is so lacking because and maybe it's just maybe I'm just judging just the 80% of the realtors.

But, like, the fact that I still see realtor faces at the grocery store in the shopping cart. It mind boggles me. That's still there.

Adrian: Yeah. It's still there at a high level.

Speaker: At a high level.

Steve: Yeah. There's still the you know, I still get the direct mail of I'm the number one agent in this neighborhood.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Steve: And it's just like, you're doing the same stuff that they were doing back in the seventies.

Adrian: Exactly.

Steve: Right? Like, I respect the hell out of Mike Ferry. Right. He's done some incredible stuff.

Adrian: Yes. Right?

Steve: But he's still teaching the stuff that he was doing in the seventies. Yep.

Adrian: And there are agents that are still following Still

Steve: following that system in the seventies. Now look, that system works. Can't argue. It works. But, man, can't take a vacation.

Adrian: You eventually gotta graduate. You eventually gotta graduate.

Steve: You gotta ask more. Right? You were saying that. Just put put that take that money, Put it in marketing. Right.

Right? You were just hanging out with Doug Hopkins a moment ago. Yes. Right? He did in the month of February, which is only twenty eight days.

It's not even a full thirty, thirty one days. I think he said he put a 120 something properties under contract.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Steve: Now he's buying houses, and he's listing houses.

Adrian: That's what you guys think about real real fast. Twenty eight days, a 100 contracts.

Steve: Under 20 something.

Adrian: 120.

Steve: Right. Four a day. Four contracts a day. Right? But we got these let me put my face on the shopping cart at the grocery store.

Yeah. Realtors. Anyway, that's enough blasting of realtors.

Adrian: But in essence, guys, go to people that have to sell. Not only that, it's real festive. I also remember talking to the people that wanted to sell, and it was like pulling freaking it was literally pulling teeth. Right? Trying because I remember trying to convince trying to convince you to sell your house even though you really didn't even want to sell your house.

Steve: Yeah.

Adrian: Right? You didn't need to. I'm sorry. You didn't need to. You kinda wanted to, and I'm sitting here trying to convince you Mhmm.

When I could have been talking to 10 other people who needed to.

Steve: Right. Yeah. And that was, you know, again, I was bringing up Buffini earlier, but, like, that was, the context of one of the things he always I remember from his, you know, hundred days of greatness was that, you know, you got five people that you talk to. Out of every five, one of them just sucks the life out of you. Yep.

And then you get bad service for the other four. Yep. And that's kinda what you're talking about. Yeah. Right?

Like, you could've had 10 quality conversation with people that needed to sell and sitting over here convincing this one guy

Adrian: Who doesn't. Who

Steve: doesn't need to sell. Nope. And he's demanding you. He's telling you how great his property is, how great the view is. Right?

And how like, he's doing you a favor. Like, you have the listing.

Adrian: Yep. Exactly. And then you have to kiss their ass to get to continue to service it. So I'll never forget I'm leaving an appointment. I'm on the freeway.

It's when sellers advantage was blowing up.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: And all of a sudden, I I'm starting to see these billboards. Right? And I'm like, dude, what is going on? Mhmm. Right?

And then somebody says, oh, dude. They they do, like, they do 200 deals a year. And I'm like, I don't see any agents doing bill. Then I saw them on TV. And then I saw and I'm, like, starting to connect the dots.

And I'm like, wow. And then remember, what was that? The caveman?

Steve: The We buy ugly houses.

Adrian: We buy ugly houses, and then I saw them. And And then people that were joining them, that would blow up. And I'm like, okay. There has to be something here. Right?

And this is before taking a course or listening to anybody that I realized there's a marketing piece missing, and that's what made me really shift.

Steve: Yeah. Well, there's a good case study. 72 sold.

Adrian: Oh, yeah.

Steve: Right? I mean, they're not really relevant any anymore once the market got challenging, which we all knew Right. Happened. But that's really good case study.

Adrian: Right?

Steve: I mean, like, they blew up. I mean, they were everywhere. Everywhere. Right? They were, every you couldn't watch a Cardinals game.

You couldn't watch a Suns game anywhere and everywhere. Yep. Right? Now, I appreciated that they were doing that because they weren't. I will say that they weren't competing against me.

They were in a bit, but they're using my title company. So, like, a little bit. So, you know, it wasn't so bad. This is back when, you know, title company was just printing money for fun.

Adrian: Yeah.

Steve: Things got a little bit different. But I think the other thing too, because we're talking about convincing. So, we have the great honor of working with you and your team on the sales side. Yeah. So can you share a little bit about your experience there?

Adrian: Yeah. So, well, everything I've been trying to get my salespeople to understand, Papa Steve done a great job in doing so. Right. It's it's changed the game for us because, you know, I'm what I love about your sales training, Steve, is it puts everything I've learned into one sales training. Right?

Like, as you talk about how to approach an appointment, you talk about the the ways in which you verbally communicate with them, how to communicate. Right? All of that, I believe, is the secret sauce of this business. Because, again, we can all generate the same leads, but what separates you from getting the contract over the other person? Yeah.

It's not how good looking you are. Trust me. That don't that doesn't work. Right? It's about how you can professionally right?

Your communication piece, get them to understand that you're the person they need to sign with. Yeah. And that's what your sales training does. I mean, dude, my guys walk in every Tuesday hyped up out of their mind. Was there, like or we're on a text.

Right? So as you're saying stuff, we're responding like, dude, that was good. Right? That was really good. And and and what it's done is it's really we were with one, two, three, four different systems.

It's putting these systems just into one. Right? And, very grateful for it.

Steve: Yeah. I appreciate it. And our guys love it. Yeah. Appreciate you and your team.

Appreciate Nick. Right? Yeah. Because I remember when you reached out, I was like, hey. You know, I think we're ready for it.

I was like, okay, man. That's awesome. Yeah. So yeah. Happy.

It's a pleasure always, to work with you guys. You know, one thing I wrote down here, I didn't say this earlier. So at some point, somewhere along the line, you lost a significant amount of money and you turned that into something positive. Yeah. What was that?

Adrian: So I decided to buy houses in Arizona. Mind you guys, I'm in Arizona. I'm in California. And and somebody says, hey. We could buy houses in Arizona, team up with the wrong partner.

Long story short, I buy, these pieces of wood on dirt in South Phoenix. It's not even a house. Just pieces of wood on dirt. No foundation. I buy an $800,000 house in Scottsdale.

I buy a $600,000 house in Central Phoenix, and then we buy a North Dakota house. Now at the time, I'm in the process of shutting down one of my brokerages, so I'm just not thinking. Right? Mistake on my end, and I'm just giving this contractor money. Right?

Just giving them money. Back up a little bit. We did one flip, made $20 each, thought he was good, just took one deal for it, just started giving them money. Mhmm. Well, then I'm asking for progress pictures.

I'm getting these progress pictures, and finally, someday, I sit down, and I'm like, this something doesn't look right. So I get in the car and I drive down here. Not one house is touched. Not one house is touched. No remodel is done.

He's sending me pictures of other remodels that he's using my money for. Right? Yes. So I finally meet him. I finally see the projects.

By the time and I didn't know about lisp pendants. I didn't know about any of this stuff. Right? I was still super green, and I'm realizing, oh, wow. Like, I'm, this is bad.

Well, at that same time, he vanishes. Till this day, he's vanished. I'm trying to find him. He's vanished. We're still in a lawsuit.

He's vanished. So total, when you look at everything from start to finish, I lose a million bucks. A million dollars gone. And I have to take a look at what's next. Mhmm.

And it was the biggest blessing in my life. It was the biggest setback I've ever occurred in. Right? We've heard Tony say, life doesn't happen. Two, yeah, happens for you.

Right? We've all heard that cliche saying, but it really did. Right? It it it taught me so much about this game. It taught me it also taught me the resilience to keep moving forward.

Yeah. Right? All that mindset work I did at the beginning, it helped me during that time.

Steve: You you tested your beliefs.

Adrian: Right. Yeah. Tested the BS. Right? Is this working or not?

Speaker: Yeah.

Adrian: And it made me so much stronger. Now we know what to do. Right? But it you guys, when you're going through that, because you're gonna go through, there's a matter of time before you lose money on a deal. If you're flipping houses, it's going to happen now.

Don't make the same mistake. You're not gonna lose a million. Right? But, I mean, how many deals do you know where somebody just gets in, market changes, whatever the case may be? It's in those times where I believe the world, God is testing you to figure out how much you how much do you really want this.

Right? Yeah.

Steve: So I

Adrian: was coming down here every week. Every week, finally sold the first one. The second one this is crazy. I think I told the story. The second one, I have a private lender on this deal.

I have a guy there's no way I'm out of this. This is the $800,000 house in Scottsdale. There's no way I'm getting out of this thing. No way. Right?

There's no way I'm putting it on the market. Market, I'm getting 700. I don't have a $100,000 to recuperate the the loss. So long story short, I do a seller finance deal on a house that's not even my money. On a private money, I do a seller finance deal just praying that God's gonna send me somebody.

Right? He sends me this guy. This guy shows up in an old beat up February. Old, like, seventies Ford f two fifty. If you guys know, like mind you, I'm like, holy shit.

I just signed this house as a seller finance sale. This guy says he's gonna refinance, do a cash out refi, and get me paid off in six months. Yeah. God must have been with me because he did it. Yeah.

And in six months, he did a refinance, got me out of the deal, and it just it put everything together. Right? It it made me realize that we just have to keep going. No matter what you're going through, just keep going. Have faith that's gonna work out, and then keep the right people around you.

Right? I was calling my coach every day. He was walking me through it, helping me through it. It was the toughest, but the most liberating, and I say liberating because it really was time of my life.

Steve: Yeah. Did he put the money into the property Yeah. So that he could re

Adrian: so he could refinance it.

Steve: You ever look at it? What it look like after?

Adrian: It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably worth $2,000,000 now.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So, putting down your brokerage, were you doing wholesaling yet?

Adrian: Nah. We had just started to do wholesale. Started wholesale. Yeah.

Steve: How much of this was poor planning, and and and, trying to do too much of it. And how much of this was Adrian's ego?

Adrian: Oh. Oh. All of it. It was poor planning and it was ego because I thought that I was untouchable. Right?

I thought that nothing could happen to me. Right? I'm I've I've done all these I've done these flips before. Right? I got it.

I have an I have these access to a private money. I got it. Right? Mhmm. No big deal.

You know, if I look at it, it was all ego. Yeah. Yeah. It was me trying to flip out of state because it was trendy to flip out of state. Everybody was talking about going out of state.

And I remember telling Nick, and Nick goes, something don't feel right, man. He goes, something doesn't and this is where trusting your partner comes into play. Right? And I apologize to him. I'm like, dude, I should've listened to you.

I I owe you a huge apology. I should've listened to you. Yeah. Because he told me, he's like, dude, something doesn't smell right. And but I had so much going on.

I let my ego get in the way. I thought it was way bigger than what I was. Mhmm. And life took a, life took a pin and just popped that balloon real fast.

Speaker: Yeah.

Steve: It's, I don't know how many humility lessons I've had in in in going to business for myself, but, I've lost count. Yeah. Because every time, you're like, man, I I got this figured out. And we don't. We got it.

This is it. Got it all to get put together, and then you get served a a giant piece of, humble pie. What was it? I was, I'm I'm in a different mastermind, and there's this kid. Right?

It's the mastermind is 500 a month. Nothing crazy. Right? And so, there's this kid in there and he's like, hey. I'm trying to figure this out, this out, this out, and so on.

Right? And that's and I I this isn't Discord. And he had mentioned that he was 18 years old. I was like, you're trying to figure out what's out right now. You're trying to have all the answers right now.

Like, you've got time. Like, so many of us would happily give it all back

Adrian: All of it.

Steve: To start over at 18 with what we know now.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Steve: We'd give it all back to start over right now. Right? It's like, you got time. And his response was like, you don't I don't have time. I need to make this work.

I don't no. It's not a lot of time. I don't have time to waste was his response. Right? Like, he's a young, hungry go getter.

Right? And, the someone DM'd me because we're we're, we're in a mastermind together, and he used the best phrase, which was, the hammer of humility is upon him. Right?

Speaker: It

Steve: was like Matter of time. Just a matter of time. Right? Like, I'm not trying to show my ego here, but, like, the message that my friend was trying to send me was like Right.

Speaker: He

Steve: has no idea who is trying to advise him.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: Right? And I'm not saying here because, like, I got it all figured out.

Adrian: No. We don't. It's just I've screwed up a lot. 100%. Right?

Yep.

Steve: So the but the hammer of humility is, like, one of my new

Adrian: Hammer of humility.

Steve: I like that.

Speaker: One of

Steve: my new favorite phrases. Right? Because we've had the velvet hammer. Right? Right.

Someone is gonna, like, make this right, make it hurt a little bit, not too much. Right? That's the velvet hammer. I'm gonna get the hammer of humility. I love that.

Adrian: That's so good. And, you know, never forget. Right after that, I had a really good friend tell me, every every time you think you have it all figured out is the day you lose. Mhmm. So now I don't have anything figured out.

Mhmm. I don't have like, I when people ask, I'm like, dude, I have no idea. I'm still trying to figure it out. I have no idea what I'm doing. Right?

And I just it's I'm me humbling myself to know we don't have it figured out. And I come to the team every day, and I'm like, you guys, let's be honest. We do we still don't have this figured out. So every day, let's find a way to get better. Every day, let's find

Speaker: a way.

Steve: A pretty good idea. Right. But we're open to changes.

Adrian: Open to changes. And I believe, you know, you have to get served some hammers of humility Mhmm. Until you can control your ego enough to to to get there. Right? But it took it took a while.

It took all of my twenties. It took all of my twenties, Steve, buying dumb shit, buying stuff I didn't, bunch of humility hammers for me to realize, woah, bro. You need to slow down, and this is where you need to stay. Right? And every time you go here, life's gonna kick kick you back down to where you need to be.

Steve: He does a pretty good job of that.

Adrian: I learned.

Steve: It's like it's like undefeated. Yeah. It it really

Adrian: is. I

Steve: have not been able to stay up here.

Speaker: No. No.

Steve: There's always that that alright. You feeling pretty good?

Adrian: And if you do, it's just a matter of time before something's coming.

Steve: Yeah. It's undefeated. That hammer's undefeated. Now you have a partner. Talk to me about that dynamic because, there are a lot of partnerships I've seen where it has not worked out.

Yeah. I ended a partnership recently on good terms. Right? It's like, hey, look, our visions are no longer in in alignment.

Adrian: Right. And that happens.

Steve: It's not it's not a bad thing. Right? Like, you're you're all this way, I go that way. Right? And we're in good terms and we still talk.

Right. Like, that's probably the only partnership where we ended where we still talk. Right? That's good. And so talk to me about how you handle, a partnership where it still feels like you're both on the same team and not, like, you know, every once in a while, like, what's he doing over there?

Speaker 3: Hey. My name is Brian. I'm a real estate investor. Ian's sales training has helped me buy more houses at a deeper discount. Most recently, Ian helped me reframe a question which resulted in me buying a house for less money than other offers to sell it at on a table.

If you're considering sales training, I don't think you can go wrong with Ian's.

Speaker 4: I'm filming this video for the man himself, mister Ian Ross. Guy Crashes, the guy's the best person in sales at all. I've invested elsewhere and at home got the same results. I've gone from being a seller, making 5 k a month, to being a hybrid role, making 11 k a month, to now be four months down the line from 5 k to on a closing opportunity, inbound, full calendar with the best opportunity, the best offer in my space. OTV is around 20 k a month from month two.

So I've gone from 5 k to 20 k. If that's not a return on your investment, I don't know what it is. You're a salesperson and you don't invest in sales training, you're gonna get left behind because your job is to be better at sales, and sales training directly makes you the point.

Adrian: If you like what you just heard and you'd like to have similar types of results, similar success, text closed, c l o s e, to 33777, and we'll see if you qualify to join Advanced Sales Mastery. We are taking people from good to great. Don't get me wrong. We've had those moments. We have our challenges.

Got a big one the beginning of the year. Yeah. Got into one last year. Right? But what I love about Nick and I is we both understand each other's strengths, and it's taken some time to get there, but he's accepted mine, and I've accepted his.

We're also two completely different people. Right? I'm very much on stage yelling, screaming at the crowd, trying to get them to move. Right? And Nick's Moore there when they finally need help, bring them in, sit them down, help them figure it out.

Right? So we're two different people, and I think for a partnership, that plays a big role. Because I used to be in a partnership where we were both the visionary, high visionary, high chargers, and we were just two Rams just butting Mhmm. You know, butting each other's heads back and forth back and forth, and we got nowhere. And when that partnership ended, it ended badly.

Right? Yeah. So Fireworks. Huge fireworks. Even till this day.

Right? It's just it's not and I've released it. But for Nick and I, we're we're blessed because we're two we're two completely different people. Right? He's much more humbler and calmer than I am.

Right? I'm much more hard charge, lead the field, push, but, yeah, he's there to pull me down. He's also there for that back end support. Right? He's he's the one that makes the people feel good in the office.

I'm the one that pisses everybody off. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Adrian: But you need the two. Right? And and and we've had our issues. We've we've, you know, we've we've gone back and forth on that, but but also being able to be humble enough to let the other person lead. Be humble be humble enough to be, you know what?

You're right. I go ahead and do what you gotta do. So for, like, Dispo. He runs all of Dispo. I'm never sticking my nose in Dispo.

Right? I mean, recently, I'm like, hey. We need to review some SOPs, but yet he's the one like, alright. Boom. This is what we got, and then I'll come in and alright.

Cool. I trust what you're doing. And having that trust in your partner. Right? You know, Nick and I battled with the trust at the beginning, and then we we got it locked in.

Right? And and there's times where one of us will make a mistake, but we're humble enough to come back and put our egos in line. Yeah. And we've had screaming matches at each other. Right?

Don't get me wrong. We've had those moments. But at the end of the day, we call each other. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Cool. It's it's it's like a marriage. Right? It really is.

Steve: For sure. Yeah. I haven't got there yet where we were screaming. I think that's just the way I'm wired. Yeah.

But the problem I have is that when I'm frustrated and this is not healthy emotionally, it's not it's not emotional maturity, is that I was sharing this with somebody else, earlier this week. It's not I don't it's not that I get angry and yell at you. It's like, okay. He's not the one. We're done.

Actually, we had our quarterly strategic meeting on Tuesday. Right? And Gary Harper and Susan Harper, like, they're our coaches for Sharper. And they were saying something. And, Manny, who over here, who runs media, there's a question of, like, we're talking about how he's got high standards.

Excellence. Right? And he just does what he does and we don't have to, like, micromanage him, which is great. But the question was and they're like, well, Steve, you know, if Manny decides to just just start mailing in a little bit. Right?

Like, how long would you give on give him until you would, like, do something about it? I was like, well, after about four days, I'm not gonna have another conversation with him. I'm posting on Facebook

Adrian: looking for someone new.

Speaker: Looking for someone new. Right?

Steve: Again, this is not the most necessarily emotionally healthy. Like, we're pretty good.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: Right? I I'll share with you I'm frustrated. But my sharing with you my frustrations, it's like maybe once or twice. There's no yelling. It's like, here's what's going on.

You know, this is different than what I expected. You know, like, what are you expecting, mobile app? But, like, after two of those You're done. We're done. Yeah.

Like, I I don't have the the the emotional maturity to keep fighting it out. Right. So that's I applaud you for that.

Adrian: Well, that's my immaturity too because sometimes I just let it go too far. Yeah. Right? And we both have to realize that. So there is a in between too.

Right? You can also be a little too immature about it. Right? Yeah.

Steve: That's true as well. Yeah. And then, I know you said that you wanna talk about Tesla a bit. I'm hoping that you say the right things because, like, Elon's my guy. I hope you say the right things here.

No.

Adrian: I love Elon. I love Elon.

Steve: Okay. So let's talk about Tesla. What's going on?

Adrian: I got a question for you, though. Sure.

Speaker: I got

Adrian: a question for you guys. Do you believe Teslas are real cars?

Steve: I believe they're real cars.

Adrian: Do you believe that that's, like, a legit car?

Steve: Like, I guess, from point a to point b.

Speaker: Fuck. I knew you were gonna say that. I knew you were gonna say that.

Adrian: Okay. So in a car in a car enthusiast world Mhmm. Right? I say this because I hang out with a lot of car enthusiasts, and they and they don't get me wrong. They love Elon, but they'll talk about how Teslas aren't real cars.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: And I know how much you love Teslas. Right? So I was talking to my wife. I'm like, I'm gonna just ask him. Does he believe Tesla's a real car?

She goes, he's gonna give you an analytical answer. Like, it's gonna get him for point. And so literally exactly what you said.

Steve: I mean, what I said to other people I actually had this conversation with Elias, I wanna say yesterday, was that, here's the here's the analogy. So we have this new tool. Right? Which we need to connect with you and Nick about this. So we have this new tool, because we're including for all our clients, which is we're incorporating AI.

Adrian: Oh, yes. I heard about it.

Steve: Right? Like, all your sales call is automatic score by our AI tool. Right? So that's being done. That is done.

Right? The next thing is we're working on is the is the is the automatic role play, like the forced role play. We're gonna piss some people off. But, like, 08:30 in the morning, we're calling you to role play. Oh, yeah.

AI tool. Okay. I like that. Mandatory. So anyway, I bring this up because I was talking to somebody, and there's other people doing this.

We're not the only people thinking about doing this.

Adrian: There

Steve: are other people doing it. And the example I said to him actually was this specific example, was that they can make the tool, but they don't have the sales pedigree that Ian and I have. Right? So, yeah, they can say, like, this works in this capacity or that capacity, but they don't have Ian's perspective on sales. They don't have my perspective on sales.

They have their perspective on sales, which is take it for what it's worth, or they're using ChatGPT's general Internet opinion of sales. Right? How good is that gonna be? Right? And so they can do the AI tool, but they won't beat our AI tool because they're like Tesla in that regard.

I love Teslas. I'm on my fourth Tesla. Right? My wife has two. She's on her second one.

I'm on my second one. But it'll never be a Mercedes. Right? It'll never be a Lexus. Well, maybe not never.

Maybe ten years, it will be. Right. Yeah. But what I've said is that, my car is when a tech company makes a car. It's not a car company making a car.

It's a tech company making a car. If Apple made a car Right. Right, this would be there's a reason why Waymo uses Jaguars or Chryslers. They're using car companies adding AI to it. Right?

Right? Teslas are tech company making cars. Is that where you're going with this?

Adrian: Yeah. Because I believe that a Tesla is more of like a

Steve: Don't offend me here.

Speaker: I'm not.

Steve: I will throw this mic out.

Speaker: I told Doug I was gonna talk about this. He said be careful because Steve will kick you out of there.

Adrian: No. I believe Teslas are I believe they are they're they're electronic machines. Mhmm.

Speaker: Yeah.

Adrian: Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Adrian: And if you wanna call that a car, I mean, yeah. Right? Yeah. Now does it have the the feel, the maybe the feel. Right?

But it's just different. And and I ask because I like Teslas. Mhmm. I like Elon, and I'm a huge component of the engine aspect. Right?

I just come from a I'm a car enthusiast a car enthusiast myself when it comes to those type of vehicles. I appreciate the what Tesla has, but I also know Tesla takes the entire thinking outside of driving. Yeah. Because if you think about it, you don't even need you get in the car, door closes, press the button, and you can go home.

Steve: Yeah. This is an analogy of, like, playing slots or playing poker. Right?

Adrian: Oh, I like that.

Steve: Right? Playing slots. Like, there's literally no thing, and you're just pushing the button. You're not even pulling the lever anymore.

Speaker: Right.

Adrian: You're still gambling.

Speaker: Yeah. You're

Adrian: still driving. You're

Steve: just pushing the button. Yeah. So I just wanted your perspective, not

Speaker: not that sort.

Steve: For me, I in this regard, it is not a Mercedes. Right? Like, I had to go up to Payson for this broker thing, this brokerage thing. This is back when I started my brokerage. And I was looking at it, and it's like and it's cold, so Tesla doesn't go as far.

So I was like, I don't know if I can actually make it there and back even with the charging stations in between

Adrian: Right.

Steve: And my Tesla. So I called my friend Jamil. I said, hey. Can I borrow your AMG 63 for the day? He's like, sure.

Whatever. And I took that car

Speaker: Right.

Steve: Facing it back. And, man, that car drives like a dream. Right? It wasn't a v 63. It was something nicer than that.

It was one of those, like, you know, it was matte where, like, he's, like, if if if a rock touches it, like, you're gonna have to paint the whole car.

Adrian: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Adrian: One of those. Yeah.

Steve: One of those. Drove like a dream. Right? And and, I can say for sure, that's a much nicer car than my car. But what is important to me is not the comfort.

Right? What's important to me is I can go zero to 60 in three seconds. Right? And I can take a corner going 55 miles an hour. Right?

Because, like, I had the Audi s four. The Audi s four, I drove it like a stolen all the time. Right? Right? Fun car.

And you do like the engine, but my model three will destroy the s four all day every day in any performance.

Adrian: Until you run out of battery.

Steve: Until you run out

Speaker: of battery. Until you run out of battery. Until you

Steve: run out of battery. For sure.

Speaker: I'm just hating. I'm just Yeah.

Steve: We're on a racetrack. Right. Right? So long, I guess, is the as long as the race isn't more than a 100 miles

Speaker: Yeah. At least the race isn't more than a 100 miles.

Steve: Right? Because if you drive if you drive it good, right, it's rated for 200 Too good. See, I'm it's rated for, like, 230 miles. But if you drive it good, it's not lasting a 100.

Adrian: Yeah. What are you getting?

Steve: If you're I mean oh, yeah. If I'm going crazy, like 80? I one time but just just to just to see. Right? What what what it actually does to the battery.

This is a while ago, so maybe it's better now. But I remember, yeah, I gunning it. Right? Like, red light. So it hit green.

I gunned it. Right? To see, you know, I went from zero to 60, you know, three seconds. And I think I was going, like, 90, right, on a main road. And I looked at the battery.

Right? Because it's like a cell phone. You can see, like Right.

Adrian: You can see the window. Yeah.

Steve: Right? I think I lost, like, four miles. Just from that initial boost? Just from just gunning it because it's not it's not efficient. Yeah.

It's not efficient. I think I lost four miles going from zero to 90 miles an hour, and I don't think I even hit, like, a third of a mile. Yeah. So That's good.

Adrian: Because when I hit that in the gas car, I can see the gas gauge go like that too. So Yeah. This is relevant. Right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Steve: It's relevant. So That's too good.

Adrian: I just had to bring it up. So Tesla fans, I would not, you know Yeah. I'm not offending you at all.

Speaker: You're not offending you. But,

Steve: yeah, like, for me, it's I want I wanted a Ferrari for the longest time. Right. Right? Because those Italian engines, they sound great. Right?

So you the you can't get past an Italian engine. Right? Like, BMW, I don't need it. I've had them. Yeah.

Audi Same. Had them.

Adrian: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Don't need it. Mercedes for comfort. Right? For comfort.

I'm not a comfort guy. I'm a drive a crazy guy.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: Right? And so for the only thing I'm missing is an Italian engine. Now the Porsche, they have the sound coming from the speakers in the car. Yeah. That's worse.

I do not like them. My neighbor has that. That's worse than silence.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. That is worse

Steve: because that that was fake.

Adrian: Yeah. Now you're just faking it. Yeah.

Speaker: At least be quiet. Yeah.

Steve: So It's too good. It's too good. Oh, but I love my car. So if someone, because you're talking about like, so Dana Pointe, what are all the different areas you encompass?

Adrian: Yeah. So we're on we run TV commercials, so our heat map's pretty large. Mhmm. So our heat map goes, we get 250 miles. Right?

We have from Santa Monica over to all the way down to Carlsbad touching the tip of, San Diego, all the way over to Hemet, Banning, which is the tip of Palm Springs, all the way back over to Santa Monica. So it's a large area. Right? But we that's the way TV commercials work. Right?

They're running on heat maps. So our heat map has has definitely gone out. Now what we did before, we were operating in more in a bigger area. So I actually like this because it condensed it a little bit more. And now our guys are only going about an hour and a half.

The furthest. Even then, if it's an hour and a half, we're more than likely calling someone to go on that appointment for us. We're trying to stay within that hour range. So and I'm asking this.

Speaker: Right. I just

Steve: don't wanna get ahold of you. But before we do that, banning. I don't like that city. Because that's where I got my first speeding ticket. In banning?

In banning California. In a Tesla?

Speaker: No. I don't

Steve: have a Honda Accord because this is back when I was going to UC San Diego for grad school.

Adrian: Uh-huh. Oh, Oh, you went to UC San Diego?

Steve: Yeah. For grad school. And then They told me that. My my best friend was at UCLA for grad school. Right?

It was with the you know, we both grew up middle school together, high school together, ASU together. We went to UCLA. I went to UC San Diego. We were hanging out in LA. Right?

And we're, so I drove up to hang out with him because a friend had flown in. And then my friend wanted to go down to San Diego. So now, okay, we're hanging out LA, and then we're hanging out in San Diego. But, you know, so I'm going home, and my friend, who lives in LA is has to drive separately so he can drive back. So we have this crazy idea.

Adrian: Let's race. Great idea.

Speaker: Great idea.

Steve: My first speeding ticket. Dan in California. Oh, that's awesome.

Adrian: Have you had many speeding tickets?

Steve: I think three.

Adrian: Oh, really?

Steve: In all of all the years I've I've I've I've driven crazy. Three. Because the things that we said in our organization, if you can't talk yourself out of a ticket Right. You're not a good salesperson. True.

Right? That's the first thing. And second thing, I am convinced this is my theory. I don't know. I can't verify.

I can't talk. I'm not random to my police officers. Is that because I'm Asian, they just as they just assume I'm up to something good. Right? Like, I'm on the way to school.

Speaker: I'm on the way to God.

Steve: I'm on the way to, like A tech program.

Speaker: A tech program.

Steve: Take my kids to school. Whatever. I don't know what it is because, like, there have been countless times on a main road, I would drive right by a police officer going 80. Nothing. Nothing?

Nothing. Right? Multiple times. Like, not once, not twice, like, consistently. Right.

And a lot of those times it was on Honda Accord. So, again, I think, like, the stereotype

Speaker: is just like

Adrian: Oh, yeah. That was the Max. Right.

Speaker: That wasn't Max.

Steve: Or they're or, like, they're thinking, like, you know, maybe they just think it's just another, you know, bad Asian driver. I don't know.

Speaker: But Steve, that's too funny. Dude.

Steve: I have like, I cut off an unmarked cop car going a 105.

Adrian: And they pull you over?

Steve: They pulled me over, and I got let go with a warning. Oh. Right? Like, an unmarked cop car with my radar detector on. Right?

And, like, when I when he pulled me over, I was like, you know, I just gotta take this thing down and put it in the glove box or whatever. Not glove box, it's center console. And he's like, you know how fast you're going? I was like, it's going pretty fast. He's like, you know, what should like, what should I do with you?

Like, well, technically, over 20 over. So that's criminal. So you have every right to put the cuss on me, throw it back in the in the back of your, car, back of your cruiser. Like, you're every bit within your right to do that. He's like, what should I do?

He's like, I'm kinda hoping to let me go to the warning. And he was

Adrian: like That's NLP. That's a little NLP.

Steve: Yeah. He was a little Well, spoiler on this stuff. Right? It was back when I was still an engineer. Right.

And he was like, you know, well, you should know better. It's dangerous. Blah blah. Like, you know, go on your and, again, I think there's some bias there because I'm Asian.

Adrian: Oh, most definitely. Because I'm Mexican. I can pull a

Steve: roll of damn time.

Adrian: Yeah. I I can't count how many times I've been pulled over. If I go on my phone right now Mhmm. There's at least a 100 photos of me getting pulled over. Yeah.

Now my ticket to pullover ratio is very low. Right. Right? My dad's always talking crap. He's like, and I'm like, hold on.

I understand I get pulled over, but let's look at my ticket to to to to to the ratio. Right? Yeah. And he starts laughing. And I'm like, and then let's look at the win ratio from those tickets.

Right? But it's all sales. I can't count how many clients I have from getting pulled over. I used to make it a game. But I'd say, how many times I can get pulled over in a month and how many of those will turn into clients?

Because they would just right? And then eventually, one of my cop friends was like, you need to stop doing that. Like, it just needs to stop.

Steve: But It's prospecting. Yeah.

Adrian: It's prospecting. Exactly. Exactly.

Steve: It's a marketing expense. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, long way about this.

You do business with the wholesalers and you Yeah. Yeah. So someone wants to get a hold of you, do business with you. How do Yeah. How do they do that?

Adrian: Wholesalers, agents. If you agents have a deal, you need help converting it. Wholesalers, you need help a deal, converting it or selling it. You guys, you guys can catch me on Instagram at Adrian Hernandez, or just hit me up on my cell, (949) 617-3327.

Steve: Simple enough. Yep. At Adrian Hernandez. Yeah. That's pretty good.

Adrian: I bought it. And then I have the email at Adrian Hernandez that I bought from the baseball. Well, I didn't buy from the baseball player. We bid it against each other, and I won. And then his agency called me a week later and was like, we'll give you double.

Too bad.

Steve: Yeah. I was gonna say pretty pretty popular name.

Adrian: Pretty popular name. So I own the domain and the IG, and the IG was a prospect. I saw him, prospected him three weeks, and it's so cool because I bought that handle in 2013

Speaker: Mhmm.

Adrian: When I bought the handle, and we still follow each other and and and talk to each other, and it's just some random Adrian Hernandez that I bought his name.

Steve: Yeah. I gotta talk to the guy at Steve Trang.

Adrian: I gotta

Steve: talk to that guy because he has some stupid photo. That's, like, grossly inappropriate.

Adrian: And is it just one?

Steve: Just one. Like, it's private like,

Adrian: yeah. He doesn't

Steve: have any followers. So, anyway, I tried buying at Steve, honestly. And he wanted a Bitcoin. I was like, I'm not paying a Bitcoin for Steve. This is back when, like, Bitcoin was, like, 63 k.

I was like, I'm not paying you a Bitcoin for this. Get out of your mind.

Speaker: Like, if

Steve: it was, like, 10 k, okay, we can have a conversation. Right? Anyway, so someone wants to get wants to get do business with you, reach out to you. Now, what are some last thoughts you wanna leave all the listeners with? Yeah.

Adrian: Last thoughts, guys. Number one, do good business. Right? There's a good theme of our talk today is do good business. But outside of that, I I also wanna challenge all of you to not just do good in business, but also do good at home.

One thing I'm really working on right now is I've spent so much time and money in personal development. Where's the time and money in your marriage? Where's the time and money with your kids? How do you see the the future you? Right?

So for all of us, we're gonna put time and money into our business. Put time and money into yourself and your family. Because at the end of the day, success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.

Steve: Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely. We, somebody would wrap it up here, but, you know, we did go to weekend to remember last year. It's a very Christian event.

So if you're not Christian or offended by the stuff, don't go to that thing. But we went. I'm agnostic. My wife's Buddhist. So it was like, you know, we got a lot of friends that really enjoyed it.

Like, let's go check it out. And it was incredible. Right? It was, two and a half days. Two and a half day wedding retreat or marriage retreat.

And the other thing too, like, because we're so hardwired in real estate to spend stupid amounts of money on personal development.

Adrian: Right.

Steve: I couldn't believe how cheap that event was. Right?

Speaker: Was it?

Steve: Like, the hotel is more expensive than the event.

Adrian: Than the event. Right. But normally $20 to own event?

Steve: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Steve: Like, where is the upsell? Like, you're in the back. They're talking about how to be a better husband. It's like, oh, I'm waiting for the upsell.

Adrian: Yeah. Where's the course?

Steve: So yeah. I think 100% investing, putting time and money back into what's important is is is absolutely key.

Adrian: It took me a long time to realize that. Yeah. You know, my ego is in the way and thought I it would just naturally work out on its own, and it doesn't. Doesn't. So Steve.

Much. Thank you. Pleasure.

Steve: Pleasure. Thank you guys for watching. See you guys next time.

Adrian: Let's go.

Steve: Shout out to Steve train. Jump on the Steve train. Disrupt us.

How Adrian Hernandez Went From $350K As A Realtor To $7MM A Year As A Wholesaler

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5 Lessons I Learned In 2025 You Must Copy To Crush 2026

How Adrian Hernandez Went From $350K As A Realtor To $7MM A Year As A Wholesaler

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Adrian Hernandez

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5 Lessons I Learned In 2025 You Must Copy To Crush 2026