In this episode of Real Estate Disruptors, Steve Trang interviews Ben Toaff from Trusted Capital Homes, who scaled to $5 million in assignment fees despite challenging market conditions. Ben shares his journey from selling photocopiers to building a lean but highly effective wholesale operation, emphasizing that superior talent acquisition and team quality are the primary differentiators in scaling a wholesale business.
Hire experienced sales professionals from other wholesale companies rather than training beginners - it saves months of training time and delivers faster results
For acquisitions, avoid hiring analytical personalities (blue on DISC) and focus on green (compassionate), yellow (influential), and moderate red (driver) personalities
Women are underutilized in wholesale acquisitions because they naturally disarm sellers and build trust more effectively than men
1:55:06Josh Stech, founder of LendingHome and Sundae, shares how he built a billion-dollar real estate lending company in just five years, scaling to 14% market share. He discusses the venture capital playbook, hiring at scale, maintaining culture with 500+ employees, and his transition to solving the property sourcing problem for investors through Sundae's marketplace model.
1:47:49Tommy Mello, founder of A1 Garage Door Service, shares his journey from massive debt to building a billion-dollar company. He discusses critical business lessons including the importance of systems, hiring for attitude over experience, and how he scaled from a local garage door business to a nationwide operation that sold for $570 million.
Get a free AI-powered review of your sales calls. See exactly where you're losing deals and how to fix it.
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Quality over quantity in team building - Ben generates $1M per rep while most companies average $500-600K per rep by focusing on recruiting excellence
Use Indeed Smart Sourcing and position job ads with higher salary ranges upfront to attract better candidates, then screen for experience and personality fit
”“The key is good people. I would say that's the number one reason why people can't scale their wholesale business. They know how to do the marketing, they figure out how to sell, but they can't get good people.”
”“We have the same agency that everyone else has. We have the greatest acquisition team pound for pound. And I would say my acquisitions team and my transaction team, no one's ever had a better one. Period.”
”“My take is everyone puts all this emphasis on training, and training is great. But why would you not put more emphasis on the recruiting? If you can just start with a higher quality person, how much time is that gonna save you?”
”“Women are disarmed people. When it's a woman calling, men just trust them. They can't be as rude. That's super underutilized. There's almost no one in this industry that has female reps.”
Trusted Capital Homes
Real estate wholesaler who scaled to $5M+ in assignment fees per year. Founded Trusted Capital Homes, the largest wholesaling company in Florida. Closed 500+ transactions generating $6M+ in fees across 30+ states.
23333 words
Ben Toaff: My two favorite role models of all time are Kobe Bryant and Donald Trump. I'm highly competitive, highly driven person, and that's just who I am. I mean, I don't play to play to finish in second. I play to finish in first. Whatever I put my my focus on, I wanna strive to be the best.
A big part of becoming the best at something, the first step is believing in yourself that you can become the best. Maybe I'm not the best at the moment, but I truly believe that I will be the best. That's why I made my name American on wholesale because that is what I'm striving to be. The first step to becoming the best is believing that you are the best.
Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of disruptors. Here we have Ben Toff with Trusted Capital Homes, and Ben flew in from Miami to talk about how we scale to 5,000,000 in assignment fees despite Bidenomics. Now, guys, I wanna mission create a 100 millionaires. The information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years.
If you take consistent action, you'll become one. And if you get value out of this show, please hit that subscribe button. That way we can all grow together. You ready?
Ben: I'm ready. I really appreciate you having me, Steve. Thank you.
Steve: Oh, appreciate, you coming on. Appreciate Vic connecting us. Right? Vic Heredia. Great.
Great, dude. So what was your life like right before you got into real estate?
Ben: So I went to University of Maryland, studied civil engineering, you know, did not wanna be an engineer. Mhmm. Kinda had my family pressure me into doing that. Mhmm. And then I moved to Miami, which was it was a kind of a new adventure for me.
And, you know, the one thing I didn't know going to Miami was how important it was you had, you know, to speak Spanish in order to get a great sales position in Miami. Especially, this is, eight years ago. Miami was even more Latin back then than it is now. So I went to Miami, and I got my, you know, I got a sales position selling photocopiers, which is a very it's it's like a it's an old
Steve: school Very old school.
Ben: Type of sales position. Yeah. And I was going knocking on businesses' doors trying to sell photocopiers. And after three months, I sold my first photocopier, and I, got my first commission check. It was $200.
And, you know, that was a lot of effort to make so little money. Yeah. So, I quit the next day. And then there was, an ad, that I saw, you know, about wholesaling. And then I ended up seeing some YouTube videos, with these two guys that I'm not gonna say their names, but they're actually they were on your podcast.
Mhmm. And they were talking about how they were making about, 50 or 60,000 a month, wholesaling houses. And my initial thought was they don't sound very educated. Mhmm. You know, I I have an engineering degree, you know, pretty sharp guy.
And my initial thought was if they can figure out how to do this, there's absolutely no way I can't figure out how to do this.
Steve: That was the same exact reason why I got into real estate. It was, like, it was the realtor side. Right? It's like, I'm a smart guy. You know?
These realtors are making this kind of money. I can make this kind of money.
Ben: Exactly.
Steve: But for me, turns out there's a lot more than just intelligence involved in selling real estate. So alright. So you see the ad. I'm guessing Instagram, something like that.
Ben: Yep. Right. It was YouTube or Facebook. I don't know.
Steve: YouTube. Right? So you you you buy the course? Did you just dive deep into it?
Ben: So I I I went to, I called up the guy that was, you know, that was behind it. It was called Dave Real Estate Investors. Do you have you ever heard of a guy named Dave Dinkel by any chance?
Steve: I've heard of the name Dave Dinkel. I cannot picture the guy, but I heard the name.
Ben: He he runs the my, the Dave Real Estate Investors. You know, he runs that that program. And some of the top some of the top, wholesalers and real estate investors in South Florida, were all ment mentored by Dave Dinkle. Have you ever heard the name of John Aaron by any chance?
Steve: No.
Ben: Have you heard the name of Gabe Garcia?
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah. So Gabe Garcia was in his program as well Mhmm. And Florida cash homebuyers. And so I ended up joining his program, and what he initially taught me was how to get deals off of realtors.
Mhmm. So my first couple of years, all I was doing was just, making offers on listed properties and and getting deals like that. And my first, I would say, about 1,000,000 or so, maybe 1,500,000 in assignment fees were all off the MLS.
Steve: Really? Yeah. When did you start? I
Ben: started in 2016.
Steve: 2016.
Ben: Yeah.
Steve: Alright. So right off the bat, dealing with realtors. So you're contracting them and then wholesaling
Ben: them? Yeah. So we would typically lock them up, you know, I would say 30 to 50,000 under the MLS asking price.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And then we would just have, like, a usually about a $15,000 assignment fee, somewhere around that.
Steve: Gotcha.
Ben: And we got a lot of I got a lot of deals like that, and that was kinda how I got started.
Steve: Okay. So the $200 commission was enough for you to quit your job. Mhmm. What was your base there? Do you remember?
Ben: 35,000.
Steve: 35,000. Yeah.
Ben: And then
Steve: $200 for banging on commercial bills businesses. Like Correct.
Ben: When you
Steve: talk about that, so you started and, like, I can barely picture it because, like, we're we have people that come in here from time to time, and I always feel so bad. Like, they're working so freaking hard. I did not know the commission's only $200.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, it wasn't a very large deal, but it it just wasn't very
Steve: make so much more just dark door knocking pre foreclosures.
Ben: I mean, there's a lot of ways better ways to make money. The reason I did that job is because there was one person at the company making $300. Mhmm. And so, you know, they kinda dangled that, and I was, oh, we can make $300.
Steve: And And you can be just like this guy.
Ben: Yeah. Exactly.
Steve: Okay. So then right off the bat, though, you you seemed like you had success. Mhmm. So you you hired a coach Correct. Before you started.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Now that's different. That's not how most people start.
Ben: No. Most people, they kind of try it on their own first.
Steve: Right. So why did you hire a coach before you start?
Ben: Because I knew that it was gonna, you know, shortcut the the way of success. And I also I had no I had no sort of framework on, like, what's the first step. I didn't and and back in 2016, wholesaling wasn't what it is today. I mean, it wasn't as popular. It wasn't at you know, there wasn't as many people doing it.
So, I mean, there was a lot, but not anywhere near like it is today.
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: And, that just seemed like the only, you know, logical way to do it.
Steve: Right. And then so you hit your straight right right off the bat. A million and a half years in your first two years?
Ben: So it took me three months to get my first deal. And then, basically, my first twelve months, I only did one or two deals. And then and my my second twelve months is when I really started to put a lot of effort, and that's when we did I think it was I did about $404,150,000 Mhmm. In that second year. And that was with no team.
Steve: What was the biggest difference? You're saying that as much effort? Were you distracted?
Ben: Yes. Yeah. I was 23 years old. I was living in, the Flamingo, which is, like, the one of the most famous, party buildings in Miami Beach. Uh-huh.
Steve: All
Ben: the strippers lived in that building. And
Steve: That sounds a little distracting.
Ben: Yeah. Just a little bit. Yeah. And, you know, I I wasn't I wasn't focused.
Steve: Gotcha. Okay. So what changed to get you to focus?
Ben: Great question. Great question. So I had a roommate at the time. We had a two bedroom apartment, and we got into an argument. And he said, you know, Ben, you're just, you're just a frat star.
All you do is party. You just wanna girls. You know, you're not you're not you don't really work very much. You're not focused. And he was right.
And he was right. I mean, I was I wasn't focused.
Steve: Right.
Ben: And at that point, he didn't wanna be my roommate anymore. So I needed a new roommate, and then I also realized that I needed a business partner because I needed someone that would hold me accountable to to, you know, to to put in the work every day. So I convinced my best friend to quit his corporate job. He was living in Israel at the time. He quit his corporate job and moved all the way to Miami, and I convinced him that we were gonna become millionaires together.
Steve: And That's a sales job. Convincing your best friend to quit his job and move countries.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: That's a sales job.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, he was a a good buddy of mine, so, you know, I he kinda there was some trust there, but, we did it. I mean, we we we moved there, and then that the fact that I had someone else counting on me and not just myself Mhmm. That was enough to get me to to work hard.
Steve: Gotcha. You ever say thank you to the guy that dumped you, The roommate?
Ben: No. No. I did not. I did not. That maybe maybe I should looking back.
Steve: Yeah. I mean, so I was a bonehead, like, out of high school. I was working at a restaurant, and I did not care for the way I was treated by my manager. Right? I only lasted once, like, a week and a half.
I was like, screw this job. I'm out of here. Mhmm. Right? Because he was unnecessarily rude with his feedback.
Right? I'm 18 years old, thin skin at this time. And, you know, he was clearly on coke. So it's like So what what he
Ben: was your coke. What was he?
Steve: He was my manager Oh. At a restaurant.
Ben: Okay.
Steve: Right? But what he said wasn't inaccurate. I just didn't like the way he said it. Mhmm. Right?
You know, he said I was too slow. I was too methodical. I was being inefficient in the restaurant. Right? All these things.
And he he's like, you know, you could be a hard worker. I'm just thinking, like, I'm cleaning the ladies' bathrooms. It's like the worst place to ever clean anything. You know? Doing the dishwasher and all these other things.
So, anyway, I wish I can go back, right, to say, like, you know, thank you because, like, the things you said changed my work ethic.
Ben: Right.
Steve: But, man, I did not care for that guy. So that's why I was bringing up, like, you know
Ben: Yes. Sometimes it takes, I think that for me, you know, a lot of, you know, negative feelings are a much stronger motivator than than positive feelings. You know? Some people, oh, they need to feel good. That was never it for me.
I I mean, I always, you know, felt like I had this chip on my shoulder Mhmm. Whether, you know, was business or in other things, and that always was something that pushed me forward a lot, you know, better than something positive.
Steve: Right. So alright. You can convince your friend to come and work with you, and that's when you get to 400 k.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: The second year. Right? So no team, just you
Ben: two. Correct.
Steve: Alright. And then what happened after that?
Ben: So, my buddy didn't like the business, because he wasn't comfortable. He felt that we were lying. We were calling up realtors and saying, hey. We're gonna flip the property when really we're just gonna assign it to someone else, and he wasn't fully comfortable with that. So he, you know, I he ended up he was treating it more like a nine to five.
Like, he would put in the minimal amount of effort. Mhmm. And I was I was grinding.
Steve: Right.
Ben: Because as soon as I started to get these checks every day in every week, ten, fifteen, 20,000
Steve: Very motivating.
Ben: I was very excited. And, you know, I just wanted more and more and more and more and more. So I was willing to at that point, my mindset was the harder I work, the more I'm gonna make. That was that was literally you know, so I was just grinding to the core. Mhmm.
And, so after about a year or so working together, you know, he wasn't happy. And I realized that I was working a lot harder than him, so I decided that I was gonna buy him out Mhmm. Of my business. And he but it was also you know, he had moved he had moved from another country to come work with me, so I didn't wanna just, you know, cut him off. You know, I didn't wanna break the friendship.
Steve: Right.
Ben: So I generously gave him $52,000 to, walk away.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And so that's what we did. And then, he was a little bit a little bit bitter about it at first, and he said, you know, you couldn't make it without me before, and you're not gonna be able to make it out without me again. And that kinda motivated me again.
Steve: Great inspiration.
Ben: Exactly. So the first month after he we broke up as partners, I did 90,000 in assignment fees with no team. It was just me. I I had one guy that was sales. He didn't wasn't very good.
He had he got one deal, but the rest was all me, and it was just off realtors. And then after I did that big month, that was the biggest month I ever had, $90 in one month. After I did that big month, I decided it was time for me to, you know, open my first office and actually start to hire people like a, you know, real team.
Steve: He didn't handle it well when you guys broke up. Mhmm. Are you guys talking today?
Ben: Now we're best friends. Yeah. We're still best friends. You know, it was a little rocky for a little bit, but no. That's my my my buddy, John, and I would say he's probably my closest friend still.
Steve: Awesome. Yeah. Because it's always hard. Right? Because, like, I I you're the first time I've heard someone where, like, you were friends beforehand, you got in business together, business ended, and is at the same terms.
Typically, there's a bit of awkwardness. Right? Like, yeah, we're still friends. It's still cordial, but, man, we don't talk.
Ben: So that's best friends. I mean, you know, like, he's like, I would say I probably trust him more than anyone else.
Steve: Gotcha. Well, that's awesome. For those that are listening that has, you know, those kinds of situation, what might you recommend to make sure that it heals properly?
Ben: Well, I think that, you know, going on that point, I think that, people are too quick to have a business partner. Mhmm. I think that a lot of times when people are starting a new venture, they're always a little bit scared. You know? Okay.
It's a new venture. I don't know. I know. I don't really know what what direction I'm gonna go in. They're kinda figuring it out as they go along.
They don't always necessarily know exactly what to do. And so they like to have a partner because they can bounce ideas off each other.
Steve: Right. But
Ben: and in the beginning, it sounds great. But then as the business evolves, their goals may not be as aligned as they initially thought. So my advice is if you're starting a business or if you start getting into wholesaling, don't necessarily just have a business partner for the sake of having a business partner because it's a big commitment. I mean, you you you you splitting your business, and you typically, what happens is is one person is gonna, you know, bring a little bit more to the table than the other person.
Steve: For sure.
Ben: And then there's an instant, there's an instant kind of, what's that called? Is it instant conflict of interest?
Steve: Yeah. Well, there's this this feeling of, like, why aren't you working as hard as me? And now you got this negative energy
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Inside the business.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: And that and that can be, you know, that can be challenging. That can be challenging.
Steve: For sure. Okay. So, you have your first, 90 k month, huge, and you decide to launch your own office.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Alright. So what was the first thing you did in launching your own office?
Ben: So I I I I had my own office. It was it was nothing spectacular. It was probably it was a 400 square foot room in Downtown Miami, you know, maybe a third of the size of the room in the room right now. Mhmm. It was just there was probably I think there was four or five desks in that room.
And, you know, I was my goal was I wanted to hire, you know, a couple other people on commission so that they can help me make you know, get more deals and make more calls to agents. So I, I had I had a couple agents. I had a guy named Mayer, and I I met him on the basketball court, and I recruited him to come work for me. And then I had, an agent named Christina. Christina still works for me today, four or five years later.
And then I, you know, I had one other girl named Melinda, and we would just basically, I would just assign the counties. Like, I had Miami and then Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, and everyone have their own little area, and they would just all the they would call all the listings in those areas. And, so we would, you know, we would we would get a couple contracts every week, and I was doing I would do all the dispo. I would do all the dispo myself. And while I was doing the dispo, I was also getting my own contracts as well.
I was working I used to wake up, every day about five in the morning, six in the morning, go to the gym, and I by the time it was 8AM, I was working. So 8AM I used to work eight to eight, without breaks
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: Stopping straight through. So I would work eight to eight. Yeah. So that year, with those with that setup and that team, we did 750,000 in assignment fees with no marketing. Zero zero marketing expense.
Nothing. The only I had almost no expenses. It was almost you know, besides for the commissions I paid to my agents Mhmm. There was no expenses. And, 400 or 450 of the I don't remember.
It was either 400 or 450 of those was from myself.
Steve: Right.
Ben: So more than half.
Steve: Usually how that goes.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, I was putting it I was putting a lot of a lot of effort.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And then at that point, there was a guy named I mean, you had him on his podcast years ago, Rafael Vargas. Right. And so I used to see his ads, you know, on on Instagram with the with the Lamborghini and whatever and and the Cartiers. And, he was, you know, talking about how he scaled his his wholesaling company in Tampa to several million or whatever. Right.
And, I ended up going to have did you ever go to his sales event?
Steve: No. I never went to his events. I'm sure it was an experience. I got a chance to see him speak at one event. I mean, it was an experience there, so I'm sure it was
Ben: Yeah. I mean, it was interesting. It was interesting for sure. So, I mean, I went to this event and ended up, you know, joining his his program. And, yeah, do you know a guy named, James Jones?
Steve: Name sounds very familiar. Can't picture him, but it sounds very familiar.
Ben: Okay. James Jones was, another guy I met at the event. Mhmm. Basically, I ended up Oh, yeah.
Steve: He's like in Mississippi or or or or No. East Coast. He was in our sounds terrible. He was in our program for a minute.
Ben: So He James Jones is from Memphis.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah.
Ben: You know who I'm talking about now?
Steve: Yes. I do.
Ben: Yeah. Okay. So I ended up, meeting James Jones, and, I became partners with him for a little bit. Mhmm. Yeah.
And so that's kinda how I started to get into the off market. And then so that's, obviously, that that was back in the cold calling ages. I mean, that was, like everyone was heavy cold calling. I mean, people still do it, but not it wasn't like it was it was a lot easier to do it back then
Steve: Mhmm. Than
Ben: it is now because now now there's all TCPA and there's a lot stricter. Back then, cold calling used to work significantly better than it does now. Yeah. Well, there were there
Steve: were fewer fewer people doing it. And, yeah, there weren't as many lawsuits, and Florida kinda led the charge on, like, the texting because of how rampant it was in Florida. Right.
Ben: It was I mean, there was a lot of people. That's when I think I think because of Rafael Vargas because a lot of people went to his program Mhmm. And they're all doing the same thing. They're all like, oh, just heavy cold calling. Call all the high equity homeowners.
Mhmm. You know, just plow them down. And he brought this wave of real estate investors
Steve: Without a doubt.
Ben: Into into that whole, cold calling thing. I think that was a big part of it. And so, yeah, we gotta begin the cold calling. And, at one point, I had 20, 20 VAs. I had 20 Filipino VAs.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And then we were also doing, ringless voice mail. Right. Ringless voice mail. I had a class action lawsuit against me.
Steve: You did?
Ben: I lost a $100,000. And In fines? Or So what happened in the in the in the class action lawsuit is they they brought they brought a class action lawsuit against me for, the ringless voice mails, And I was stupid enough to have talked about it specifically on my Instagram, and they the attorneys literally quoted that in the in the lawsuit. Oh. And, yeah, I was pretty stupid looking back.
And then so they they brought this lawsuit. We initially, we settled the lawsuit. I think it was for, like, 20,000. I hired, like, the best the best attorney I could find. Like, I was not because I was scared.
Yeah. And so it was 20,000, but then they came back and sued me in another court. So they sued me twice. They sued me in one court, then we, like, set it was, like, settled with prejudice, I think it was. And then they came back and sued me in another court, and then we settled again.
So in total, between the settlements and my attorney's fees is about 100,000.
Steve: I didn't know you can do that.
Ben: You can. Yeah. You can. It was I mean, it was it was it's kinda like they're doing a Trump now, because Trump, like, that you know, I think they, like, they do they settled they they dismissed the case, but then they bring it again.
Steve: Like, the
Ben: guy, Jack Smith in Florida, if you know what I'm talking about.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah.
Ben: So you can definitely there are definitely ways of doing that. Yeah.
Steve: I know, but if you settled one, like, the fact that they can go, like, have two bites of the apple, it's it's it's it's terrible. Okay. So you did RVM, blast. Mhmm. You get sued.
This is all around 2019, 2020?
Ben: This was 2019 or something like that. I don't I don't recall a fan.
Steve: Okay. So you got a team. You're growing your team. What challenges did you have in building your team?
Ben: So that was big. So we were do so we're doing the the RVMs, but then once we got rid of those because, obviously, we stopped after that. We were doing we're just doing cold calling. And then the challenge so I started to I started to, you know, re I just hired a bunch of people. I was aggressive.
I was just like, okay. Let's hire as many people as possible. And I would I was, initially, I would pay them commission only, but then what what what I realized is commission only is you can't you can't hold people accountable. I mean, you can't tell them, hey. You gotta show up at this time, and you gotta leave at this time.
So then I that's when I started to offer, like, a small salary, you know, whether 2 or 3,000 a month, whatever. So then I started to hire people. And, Miami I mean, I would argue that Miami Phoenix, Arizona and Miami are kind of, like, the two, mecca cities Mhmm. Of wholesaling houses. Yeah.
That's where the the the the highest the most people live that do this business. Mhmm. So my thing was I wanted to get people that had already worked for someone else. I wanted to get people that I didn't have to teach them from the very beginning. Interesting.
Because
Steve: a lot of people don't wanna hire someone that's worked somewhere else.
Ben: No. That's in my opinion, obviously, there's bad people and good people. Like, if you hire someone who was terrible at another company, then they're not really gonna help your company. But if you hire someone with the track writer success Mhmm. And you bring them over into your organization Everything
Steve: you're saying makes sense Mhmm. In most companies. Right. It's just what I've heard from a lot of companies. They don't like to hire, people that have tried it somewhere else.
But, anyway Try it
Ben: on their own or try it at another company?
Steve: Try it on their own, but also, like, yeah, I guess mostly try it on their own.
Ben: I'm talking about what people that worked at another company doing it for someone else.
Steve: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. So you're hiring that way.
So and now you're putting them on a small salary.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Okay. And then that changed the performance?
Ben: No. So what happened was is I hired a bunch of people, and I said all these cold callers will generate all these leads, and I had I had six acquisition people at the time. And I hired a guy. His name his name was Jason. And Jason, worked for this company called Invest Quest Partners.
Have you heard of that company or no? They were big back in the day. And Jason was there for four years, and so he had a lot of experience. And he was kinda like their lead guy.
Steve: Right.
Ben: And their comp that company wasn't doing so well, so then he I got really lucky. I use in, Indeed Indeed Smart Sourcing.
Steve: You know
Ben: what that is? Mhmm. That's, like, the the best way to find people in my opinion. Yeah. So I got I found him on there.
I got in touch with him and, ended up hiring him. And then about a month later, I hired a guy named Robert. Robert and Jason, they both work for me today. They're they're my they they're my two best people. And, they but Robert worked for Property Force.
You know, Property Forces. Right? Yeah. Robert worked for Property Force, and Robert came over and worked for me. And, so that that one is six agents, including Robert and Jason.
And after a few months, I realized, wait. Robert and Jason are the only ones that are bringing in revenue. Mhmm. Everyone else is, like, you know, 5% of my revenue, and they're doing 80% of my revenue
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: Or whatever it was. And so I just realized, like, I'm just this is I'm just gonna just fire everyone else. Mhmm. So I fired everyone else
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: Except for Bobby and Jason, and then I had one TC. So it was Bobby, Jason, me, and one TC that I had, And I would do the dispo, and I would underwrite the I would underwrite the deals and do the dispo. And then, Bobby and, and then we had a TC that kinda manage the the transaction stuff. And with that little team, we did 1 and a half million. So, basically, with two two acquisition people.
That was it. Yeah. And then that's when I started to that's when I got in touch with, Robert Wensley.
Steve: Right. That's when
Ben: I got in touch with Robert Wensley. And Robert because I I I met Nick Perry at the gym, and Nick Perry was like
Steve: You met him at the gym? Yeah.
Ben: I met Nick Perry at the gym in South Beach.
Steve: Because
Ben: Nick Nick I live on South Beach, and Nick, lived there briefly.
Steve: Oh, I didn't know he lives in Florida. Yeah.
Ben: Just for, maybe a year or so. Okay. And then when I met Nick, he told me about investor lift. Mhmm. So then I got I got on the phone with with, Robert.
Robert's like, yeah. We you know, with Cartel, we have all these buyers in all these markets. And I'm like and he's like, you can just do PPC in all these markets, and it's great. So we started to do PPC, and then we would go really, really broad on the targeting because we had investor lift.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And that's when we started to you know, we scaled that next year. We went from 1,500,000.0 to, 3,800,000.0.
Steve: Wow. So 1.5 to 3.8. Now what's interesting is you're already doing really well. Mhmm. 1.5 with two acquisition managers.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Pretty good. Mhmm. And, were you spending a lot of is it cold calling?
Ben: It was just cold calling. Yeah.
Steve: So marketing really wasn't that expensive?
Ben: Nothing compared to what I spend now.
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah.
Steve: Alright. So 1.5, you said the 3.8.
Ben: Correct. $20.21 was, one point five and three '20 in 2022 is 3.8.
Steve: So you have a business that's working, and then you get wind of investor lift.
Ben: Correct. And
Steve: then you know where all the buyers are. And then based off of that, start marketing to all these other cities.
Ben: Correct. We we we just started going into all the well, we didn't initially go nationwide. We would only go for, like, major markets. So we would do, like, California, Washington state, you know, in Georgia, North Carolina, all the hot markets. We didn't really go after, like, you know, kinda b and c markets.
Steve: Right. Now it's interesting you're saying, you know, 2022 was a big leap for you. Correct.
Ben: For a
Steve: lot of the people, 2022 was a step back.
Ben: Why? Oh, with that when the market turned?
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: Well, that being said, the majority of the revenue is in the first half.
Steve: Okay.
Ben: Yes.
Steve: Gotcha. Alright. So but at this point, you still have two reps or you have more?
Ben: Three reps.
Steve: Three reps. Okay. So talk to me about how this roller coaster where you're, like, you just start crushing it in the first '22, and then how you pivot it after.
Ben: I'm filming this video for the man himself, mister Ian Ross. The guy crushes. The guy's the best person in sales I've ever seen. I've invested elsewhere, and it haven't 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.
OTE is around 20 k a month from month two. So 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, man. If 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 more money.
Steve: My name is Lance McCann. I've recently switched in sessions with Ian Ross. Those conversations with Ian has made me $50,000 in the past two deals that I've had. I was able to renegotiate go back and renegotiate the original purchase price on one deal, and I saved $40,000 and I got another $10,000 off by
Ben: the deal.
Steve: Just call me in, give me a chance, you won't regret it. 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 good after.
Ben: So yeah. So the market obviously changed because the there was tons of inflation. Everything and the hedge funds were really aggressive. And then boom overnight, they raised the interest rates, and suddenly, there was no hedge funds.
Steve: And Mhmm.
Ben: Fix and flippers weren't really buying much compared to what they were before. Right. So that's when, you know, I was freaking out because I've been selling the deals. Mhmm. So I we we had all these deals, and they just weren't selling.
And then that's when, obviously, the whole Novations thing came came into play. So Novations, it took us about ninety days, I would say, to really figure out how to work them correctly. You know, because I I had a buddy, Andres Olaya. You know who that is, obviously. I think he was on your show, or he might have been in your program.
He he was started telling me about Novations. And so he taught me a little bit about it, and then I I also talked to my friend Angel. And then we just started to implement Novations.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And it took us some time because they're they're very intricate innovations. There's there's more moving pieces than a wholesale deal.
Steve: Quite a few more moving pieces.
Ben: Yeah. A lot yeah. A lot more moving pieces. And then yeah. But after about, I would say, about ninety days or so, we kinda figured it out.
Steve: Mhmm. What did you figure out?
Ben: You know, how to how to get the you know, you gotta how to pitch it. How to pitch it. You know? You because it the it's not only about getting the seller to sign the AIF. You really have to disclose what you're doing.
If you don't disclose to the seller, like, hey. We're gonna sell your property to someone else Mhmm. Then what happens every time is they always back out.
Steve: Of course.
Ben: And so in the beginning, you know, we were kinda maybe a little bit more vague with the disclosure. And then over time, it you know, we became more transparent. And what we realized is that you have to be transparent. Otherwise, it it it doesn't work. Go up.
Yeah. It doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. So we started doing Novations, and then, you know, it took us a little bit of time.
But then 2023, you know, even though we weren't with Novations, we were able to do 3,300,000.0. So we went a little bit less than before, but we had completely changed our model.
Steve: Yeah. I mean, I would say to go from 3.8 to 3.3 in that environment is pretty good. So what were some of the biggest pivots you had to make? I mean, I know you said you had a, innovations. What are some of the other big pivots?
Because most people's business went down all around, like, significantly. Well, a
Ben: lot of people I would say, you know, like, 80% of people went out of business completely. Yeah. So yeah. We were still we I was determined to the main thing for me was I I, you know, I thought about it. I said, you know, maybe I should just cut cut my losses and and just, you know, not wholesale right now or Mhmm.
Whatever. But for me, my people, my team that I I had worked so hard to get my people, I was like, I don't wanna I don't wanna lose my people. So I have to keep this train running so I can keep my employees because my employees are phenomenal. Mhmm. I mean, really good.
So that's what really kept me motivated to figure out how to continue to make the business work. The hardest, I would say because once you get the the, you know, quality acquisition people, that is, you know, that that is a very that's a big challenge to self. But I would say the most overlooked position in this business by far is transaction coordination. Mhmm. Transaction coordination, if you're gonna scale to multiple million dollars a year, it means a lot of you we have a lot of files.
We have we have a 100 files in escrow at once. You need a a very good transaction coordinator that knows how to communicate with the title companies, clear probates, talk to the city to clear liens Mhmm. Deal with, for lack of better word, imbecile sellers. I mean, the sellers are not intelligent. I mean, they're they're very difficult to deal with.
You need to have someone that can really, you know, make them feel comfortable so that they can work with you.
Steve: You have to have a heart of a servant, patient, like a teacher.
Ben: Exactly. Exactly. Because, I mean, if you it's not just like working with a realtor. We're the realtor. Hey.
We're doing this. They understand. Mhmm. But with a seller, they they don't understand anything.
Steve: Right.
Ben: So you have then you have to hold your hand. So finding the transaction coordinators that can get the job done and and and deal with these difficult sellers, that was the challenge at that point. And, you know, after a while, what I realized was the best people to hire transaction coordinator are people that worked in the past closing files at a title company Mhmm. At a title company
Steve: Right.
Ben: A title processor, a title closer because they understand on a deeper level the file. Then if you hire if you go and you hire a transaction coordinator to work for Keller Williams, they don't shit.
Steve: Why is that?
Ben: Because they don't deal with the kind of problems that you do in wholesale. I mean, if you're dealing with they just send an email. It says, hey. The inspection ends on this day. The closing date's on that day.
It's a very
Steve: It's a shallow
Ben: It it's an easy job.
Steve: Yeah. It's compared to all the moving parts. And, like, when we do wholesale, it's dirty title. It's so much more work to clean up the title. I don't know exactly why it's so much different, but it's significantly more challenging, cleaning title up.
Ben: But there's there's problems on three sides of the deal. I mean, you've got sellers trying to back out from the contract or because they got a higher offer. And then you've got buyers that sometimes the buyers are upset that you're making too much money. Mhmm. I mean, I don't know about you.
I don't like double closing. So we we put 80,000 or more on the sign on the HUD, and the buy you have to be, you know, ready for the buyer. The buyer's gonna give you pushback.
Steve: Right.
Ben: And you gotta be able to let them know. Be like, I'll take your escrow deposit. Mhmm. I mean, we do take their escrow deposit. I've done it before.
So We have people try
Steve: to cancel even after you threaten the deposit because you're making too much?
Ben: We've had multiple deals where we were going to closing, and then either the buyer is backing out because there's time fee or sometimes the lender, the hard money lender
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: They would, wouldn't fund the deal. And so what happened was we would take their escrow deposit. What you know, could be 15,000 or 10,000 or 5, whatever it was. And then we would blast the property out, and we would sell it the next day for for for another buyer. Mhmm.
Happened at least several times.
Steve: Yeah. I wanna say for us, if we've never done a deal together before
Ben: Mhmm.
Steve: Anything over 50, we double close. Mhmm.
Ben: And if
Steve: we've done a deal together before, then it's a 100 k. It was he's over a 100 k, then
Ben: So it's I I don't like to double close.
Steve: Is it because do you guys have, like, a transfer tax in Florida?
Ben: No. I mean, that's not why. I just don't wanna pay the fees. I mean, it's gonna cost about $5,000.
Steve: Really? Yeah.
Ben: Do you
Steve: guys so it's not it's not that bad for us in Arizona. I think that's the difference.
Ben: Maybe it's $4,000. I think it's yeah. But because the title company usually, they charge, settlement fee to the buyer, settlement fee to the seller. Mhmm. So if there's two closings, now you have four settlement fees as opposed to as opposed to
Steve: two. Right.
Ben: And then you have two, what's that called? Title returns.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: You got two title insurance. So you don't have that in the Amazon?
Steve: Oh, we do. But I don't think it's as as bad, here. Mhmm. I think the fees are just lower for whatever reason, here. And then I don't know what it's like in Florida.
We have investor rates here. So, I I think when it, when I did the math last time I had to do do, it was, like, $1,700,
Ben: right,
Steve: to double close, like, yeah, whatever. Because, like, the we talked about poker before the show. Right? Like Right. You know, the philosophy in poker is, like, the pot's big enough.
Right? I'll just take it down now versus trying to build a bigger pot. Like, for me, it's like, yeah. You know, I'd rather not double close, but if there's a buyer we don't have a relationship with, right, we're just gonna double we're just gonna double close because it's not worth. And for us, we can use the second leg to fund the first leg.
I don't know if you can.
Ben: So that's not an issue. The the the the funding is not the issue. No. We don't we can do that. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. But, anyway so,
Ben: We just like to get a big escrow deposit. So that's a big thing. A lot of wholesalers, they'll get, like, a $5,000 deposit. Mhmm. I always try to get a big one because I don't want the sell divided back out.
So if I my thought theory is, like, if I have 10 or 15 or 20,000 on the table, then they're not gonna they're not gonna walk.
Steve: That's pretty good. We don't see that as often as far as deposits from the buyers. One thing that we did, was, towards the end, was we were sending Stripe fees sorry, Stripe invoices. So instead of, like, I'm gonna go through title, like, you have to pay me earnest money. Right?
Because now for sure We
Ben: do that too.
Steve: Yeah. So you're definitely not playing playing any games. Okay. So you go nationwide. You do, initially, how many markets?
Ben: Initially, we were doing about seven states.
Steve: Seven states.
Ben: About seven states.
Steve: And then today?
Ben: Today, we, we've closed deals in 35 states.
Steve: 35 states.
Ben: Yeah. We don't but we don't actively market. Like, we we probably market in about 30 states.
Steve: Market in 30 states. Okay. So let's talk about it. So we talk about 5,000,000 through or despite biodynamics. Right?
So we're talking about the last three and a half years.
Ben: No. 5,000,000 this year.
Steve: 5,000,000 this year.
Ben: Yes. Alright.
Steve: So it's 3.8, 3.3, and you're on pace to do five this year.
Ben: Right now, we have 3.75 closed Mhmm. This year. And, yeah, we're on pace to do about 5,000,000.
Steve: So, really, we're talking about, like we're talking about through Bionomics. Despite Bionomics, we're, like, including all these years, it's really 10 plus million.
Ben: Oh, yeah. It's closed. Yes. Correct.
Steve: When I
Ben: say five minute this year alone.
Steve: Yeah. So we want five 1.5 to 3.8 to 3.3 and then almost four already, and we're not even done. Or we just finished q three.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Yeah. So, really, we're talking 10 plus despite biodynamics.
Ben: So I've done 10 in the past three years alone.
Steve: Yeah. So then let's talk about, how are you doing this. Right? Because, like, we don't really hear numbers this big generally. And it sounds like you run, this but, outside of marketing, a fairly lean operating.
Ben: Spend a lot on marketing, but I don't have a lot of a lot of my team is much smaller than you would think. Alright.
Steve: So let's start let's start there. So what does your team look like today?
Ben: So today, we have, six acquisition agents.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: I have three dispo agents, two transaction coordinators, three follow-up specialists. Those are VAs. And then I have a full time, tech tech support slash marketing, and then I have, full time bookkeeper.
Steve: So it looks like you're finally outside of dispo seat.
Ben: Yes. I I no. I gave up dispo a couple years ago.
Steve: Because all these other examples, like, you were still the dispo guy. It seemed like that was a harder seat for you to leave.
Ben: Well, dispo yeah. I love doing it. Yeah. I love doing it.
Steve: What is it about dispo that you
Ben: because because you can be direct. I mean, I'm I'm I'm I'm a driver personality. I'm I'm the red in the disc test. So for me, it was just easy because the buyers, you know, we would just send out the owner Vesterlift, and then the buyers would call in. Mhmm.
And I would just I would just bluff. I mean, I would just say, hey. I've gotten this offer even if I didn't. And then I would just bid them up. I mean, I and I would I was very direct.
I mean, because buyers are getting on the phone because, you know, real estate investors, they tend to be, you know, the drivers too. They're these are these are they're investors, entrepreneurs. They're calling me up. Oh, I want I want it for, 10,000 less or 20,000 less. I would just hang up the phone.
Uh-huh. I would just hang up the phone.
Steve: You just hit the end button.
Ben: Because I knew I'd get more. I knew I'd get more, and, like, that was it. And I even had deals where we sent out the assignment Mhmm. And, you know, the guy didn't sign it yet. And then I got a call, and I got more I have more money.
And I just said, I and I know people say, oh, that's fucked up, but I I don't really care. Like, I already I'm the one who's making the money in marketing.
Steve: So I love this I love that we're having this conversation because not a lot of people put, like, the strongest players in the Dispo side. Right? They generally put their strongest sales guys in the acquisition side.
Ben: It's a different type of sale, though.
Steve: It's a different type of sale. Right? But, like, so we do with our sales trainer. We have our acquisitions training. We have objection handling, lead manager, and then DISPO.
And what I found is the DISPO training is not nearly as much sales training as it is conviction and mindset. Right?
Ben: That's correct.
Steve: Right? It's like, this is the price. The price is the price. And what we see a lot of, you know, sales teams that put their dispo guys in the roles is, like, the dispo guy has to sell this deal, but he's not confident in the price.
Ben: That happens a lot.
Steve: And you and I, if we smell weakness, we're gonna we're gonna sniff it out, and then we're gonna beat you up. Mhmm. There's no smell and weakness when Ben's saying this is the price.
Ben: That's correct. I was convicted on the price. I mean, I mean, obviously, after you had the property after a few days and you're not getting your price at that point, you you know, you have to be realistic
Steve: for that.
Ben: But you need to be posturing. Exactly.
Steve: Right. So talk about the mindset, because we again, I don't think we really talked about this much on this podcast, but the posturing and the mindset behind this bill. So what do you go into it when you're when you're doing this bill?
Ben: Well, I mean, with Dispo, with your because when you're selling to an investor, you really have to understand the market. Mhmm.
Steve: You have
Ben: to understand that because every market's different. Right. Every market's different. Like, if I go and I sell property in Miami, it's a lot different than if I sell property in Alabama. It's a lot different because there's just a lot more people interested in a property in Miami versus in Alabama.
Mhmm. So you have to first of all, the first step is knowing your products. I mean, what are you selling? What is the, you know, what is the how much demand is there for this product that you're selling? And then once you understand that that demand, and if if it is strong demand, like, if because the property's in a good market, you just need to you just need to be able to, with conviction, explain that to the buyer.
Mhmm. Hey. This is a concrete block house. There's x, y, and z comparables that are direct comps that sold for this much more. You know, this is an easy rehab.
You and I both know this in a yeah. The house might need work, but you and I both know that you can fix this without a problem. Mhmm. And you know that this property is gonna sell in two days. Right.
For x amount. So if you can make that pitch, the buyer's gonna go with you because the buyer knows too that that's the truth. But then they're always gonna call you and say, hey. Oh, it needs so much work. It needs this.
And they try to make it seem like it's like there's uncertainty Mhmm. In the repairs. But a real investor, there's not so much uncertainty in the repairs.
Steve: Right. And they know what it is. And if they don't, they're gonna be the contractor. Right. But the other thing I caught up I caught here, right, is you tell a story.
And then I I think that's a big thing. Right? So when we're buying houses, we gotta talk about what's going on in their world and this and that and help them picture and imagine, like, what it's gonna look like when everything's done. Right? But in dispo, there's a story.
It's not we're not negotiating this comp. We're not negotiating this property versus that party versus that property. Right? It's like you're saying that we both know it's this, this, and this, and then you're gonna be able to do that. So you're you're pitching a story already associated with the property versus just, here's a property, three two, good area, here are the comps.
Right? That's a different conversation. Now we're just talking about the property, but you get the property and the story associated with the property.
Ben: Well, you're you're paying you're you're making you're basically you gotta pick paint it like, hey. This is easy money.
Steve: Right.
Ben: This is an easy 50, $100, whatever it is in profit for the investor. Right. Because if you're just showing the property, hey. It's a fucked up property. It doesn't look great.
But if it's like, no. This is a great investment and you know that they're easy money, that's where the sale is.
Steve: Right. So those are very different. So I appreciate this perspective because I noticed that most most business owners leave acquisitions last, and you left this full last.
Ben: Because that was my acquisitions wasn't my strength. Yeah. That wasn't I'm not, for acquisitions, you have to be a compassionate person when you're dealing direct to seller because the sellers are always in a weird situation. Yeah. And that's not my strength.
I'm I'm more of a driver. So I it's easier for me to work on this boat than it is on acquisitions. Yeah. So I delegated acquisitions first and then the dispo later.
Steve: Mhmm. I would challenge you on that. Right? Mhmm. If you were back in that role, I'm sure knowing what you know today, it'd be very different.
Probably in the very beginning, you might have those challenges. But, I mean, it seems like you know a lot.
Ben: I could do acquisitions, but it's it requires me to bend my personality. Yeah. It requires me to, you know, I have to
Steve: stretch myself friend and who you are.
Ben: To stretch myself. For dispo, it comes naturally to me.
Steve: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. So six acquisition managers, three dispo, two t c, three follow-up, and these guys are VAs. So, I don't see lead managers.
Is that what
Ben: The follow-up people call back the old leads and just try to get them back on the phone. Because the problem is a lot of leads don't pick up the phone. Mhmm.
Steve: So right now, I go to website. It's one of your websites. I fill it out.
Ben: Goes to my acquisitions.
Steve: Goes to acquisitions.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Right? And, perfect. Alright. And so let's talk about the the marketing side. So we we're talking about, you know, on pace for five.
Correct. And we said marketing is the biggest cost. Like, how much are you spending on marketing?
Ben: So I used to spend more. I used to spend at one point, I was spending 200,000 a month, which was way too much. I was just I was just addicted. I just thought more marketing, more money, and that was not that is not true.
Steve: It's an understandable position. Yeah.
Ben: And that was not that was a learning curve. But now we spend, like, last week, we spent $27,200. Mhmm. I literally track it to the day. So I have it every day.
I get a marketing report from my marketing guy Mhmm. And it shows me how many leads we generated, and how much we spent on each campaign. So we have several different campaigns. We have, we have our main campaign, which we market to those main markets. Mhmm.
That one, the cost per lead is higher. Then we have our broad campaign where we market into 30 plus states. And then, we also have campaigns we have two other campaigns that we run-in house, that are also PPC, also, similar type ideas, but we just run them ourselves versus with an agency. And then the we also do PPL. Mhmm.
We also do property leads, and we do Lamassu Mhmm. With Scott.
Steve: Gotcha. Alright. So what is the main campaign?
Ben: The the one we we mean we spend the most money? What you're
Steve: saying? There's a main, there's a broad, and there's two
Ben: in house. Main one is where we target. So that's that's where we make like, this year, that campaign, we've probably made about 1,100,000 in revenue. We probably spent around, I would say right around, like, 270,000. If I'm I'm just guessing offhand, but that's roughly what we spent on marketing so far.
Steve: And that's but that's PPC?
Ben: That's PPC. Correct. And you're
Steve: in in Florida, in Miami?
Ben: No. So that campaign, we target Florida
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Georgia, all of the major markets in North Carolina. We target the best markets in Virginia, Philadelphia Mhmm. New Jersey. We target, the best markets in California Mhmm. Phoenix, Arizona, Denver, Colorado, great fucking market.
Mhmm. Salt Lake City. We also target Washington State and Oregon. I believe that's it, but there could be some more.
Steve: And that's the main campaign?
Ben: That's the main one. Yeah.
Steve: Is that because it's based off the population then?
Ben: No. Those are where the biggest assignment fees are.
Steve: Alright. So then what are the broad campaigns?
Ben: The broad one, we target anywhere that's decent. Literally, like, anywhere that has, you know, like, decent population and where we feel that we can make good assignment fees. Obviously, you know, we don't target, like, Detroit, Michigan because, like, the assignment fees are so tiny that
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: The marketing will out You know, you only make 4,000 on the assignment fee, but then your marketing cost 3,000. It's not worth it.
Steve: Right.
Ben: So we target we target pretty much every decent area in The US. Every and, I mean, literally, every decent one. We target Hawaii. We target statewide California. We target yeah.
Like, every decent area.
Steve: Gotcha. Okay. But then you also have two in house. So the first two campaigns are using a third party?
Ben: Correct.
Steve: And then the two you're doing in house? Correct. Why do you have some in house, some third party?
Ben: Well, because we're just, you know, we're just I because I work with Nick.
Steve: I work
Ben: with Nick, and, you know, Nick helped me kinda kinda bring some of my stuff in house. And, obviously, we're trying to we're trying to lower our costs. I mean
Steve: So is there something like you're trying to transition from using a third party to everything in house?
Ben: Well, we track everything. We track everything. So we constantly are tracking, like, what's our cost per lead, what's our, you know, cost per deal, and what's our ROAS on all the campaigns Mhmm. So that we can determine, like, what is being most effective. And so if our in house campaigns are outperforming the ones with the with the agency, then, obviously, we would favor towards those.
But it's kind of hard to get rid of a campaign that is successful even if it was with an agency.
Steve: Yeah. Well, it is. It is. I agree with you. Mhmm.
But I'm just going back to, like, a moment ago. You're like, I got this one model that's making a million and a half. It's like, well, let's go ahead and add this other model. Right? So, like, you you obviously have comfort in making changes and pivoting.
Ben: Well, we're we're it's a constant experimental game. Right. We're trying also, it's better to have more campaigns. It's better to have your marketing dollars spread out because with PPC, when you spend more on one campaign Mhmm. Your cost really goes up.
Right. So we we would rather have several different campaigns. Also, it gives us more consistency.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: It gives us more consistency. Because sometimes we'll have a campaign, and we'll get, 10 leads in one day from that campaign. And then the next day, we'll get two. Yeah. So when you have more campaigns, it, allows you more consistency in your marketing.
So you because, ideally, we would want the same amount of leads every day, but that's not what happens.
Steve: Right. Gotcha. That makes sense. And And then you're obviously, you said you're doing PPL and and Lamassu. Now Correct.
On page to do five mil Mhmm. With six reps is not a common thing. I mean, you're getting pretty close to 1,000,000 a rep. Correct. Right?
So you obviously must have some sort of process for finding great people.
Ben: That's the key. That's the key. I would say that's the number one reason why people can't scale their wholesale business. Mhmm.
Steve: They
Ben: know how to do the they figure out how to do some marketing. They figure out, you know, how to sell or whatever, but they can't get good people.
Steve: Right.
Ben: That is the key. The key is good people.
Steve: I completely agree. So how do you find good people?
Ben: It's tough. It's tough. I mean, basically, I use Indeed.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And either I get them off of an either I get them off of an ad, meaning they apply to my job, or we do smart sourcing where we reach out to them. But regardless, it's it's not about it's about you have to know how to screen them. We have a very we've kind of, identified what we're looking for in the people. Mhmm. So for acquisitions, we're looking for people that we want them to have they have to be able to, you know, disk you know, disk test.
Right? Yep. So on acquisitions, you got red, red, yellow, blue, and green. You don't want any blue.
Steve: Right.
Ben: You don't want the fucking blue. You do not want the analytical people because they will overthink it, and they won't, they don't connect with people as well. Yeah. They're because that's not how their brain works.
Steve: Right.
Ben: You the the green the green is is deadly. Mhmm. Because the green is the is the people that are have that that compassion energy
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: They can get anyone to trust them over the phone. Mhmm. That's the green. The yellow is also very important. The yellow is the influence.
Mhmm. It's the ability to bullshit people.
Steve: Right.
Ben: You have to be able to bullshit people. I mean, you gotta convince them this is what your house is worth, and, you know, you have to be able to change their opinion. Because they're gonna come in asking for x price, and you need it for less than that, whether it could be 30% less or 50%, whatever it is, and you have to be able to influence them.
Steve: Right.
Ben: And then there's the red. The red is the closer. That's the driver. You need you want that, but you don't want too much. Because if if someone is super pushy, they're gonna scare people.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: They're gonna scare people off on the phone. So that's the you know, we that's what we figured out after hiring and firing, you know, a lot of reps over the years. So so that's kinda what we figured out. So first is identifying what you want in the rep as far as the personality, and then we look for the experience. We look for the experience.
You know, do they have inside sales experience? Do they have a track record of working at a company for a long time? And, ideally, they have, ideally, they worked in real estate or real estate wholesale already.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: So now that you have your you you personality you're looking for, you you know what experience you're looking for, the other thing that you, you're looking for, you want a good voice. You Yeah. They you want them to have a good voice. If they have a choppy accent or they or they if they have a harsh voice
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: It it typically doesn't work as well. Doesn't mean that
Steve: What's a harsh voice?
Ben: You know? And, like, maybe if they they have to have good tonality.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: Like, they have to be able to mirror people.
Steve: They have
Ben: to be able to because inside sales, you don't have your body language. They can't see you.
Steve: Right.
Ben: So the only thing that you have is your voice, and you need they need to be able to their they have to have good tonality and voice. Like, their voice has to sound good. Yeah. We we love to hire women also. We love to hire women for acquisitions.
I mean, they they because women are disarmed people. Mhmm. When it's, and that's very underutilized. There's almost no one in this industry that has female reps. It's not common.
Steve: Few. Very few.
Ben: Not common. Super dumb mistake. Mhmm.
Steve: And I
Ben: know that you had a female rep. I'm pretty sure. Yeah.
Steve: Bro,
Ben: what's her name again? You didn't have a woman that used to work for you, or she still does? I don't know.
Steve: I mean, we have a female, in in ourselves. Absolutely. Yeah. She's been with me forever. But I'm just thinking, like, there's a friend of mine, there in in Virginia.
They're doing, you know, stupid, stupid numbers, and, like, his best rep, female.
Ben: Female's the best. Right. Yeah.
Steve: She was a bartender. Right? She can BS all day, every day, can talk to anybody, be your best friend instantly, but also trustworthy.
Ben: And and and well, it's usually a man that's making the decision to sell the house. Mhmm.
Steve: And
Ben: then when they're on the you get these, you know, these men, and they they call you call you up to sell your house, and it's a woman. They're just, oh, they just trust them.
Steve: Right. They're gonna be a lot less rude.
Ben: Exactly. They can't be as rude. That's correct.
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: So yeah. So we like we like I mean, we do hire men and women, but we, we to be honest, we do we do kinda favor the women a little bit, I mean, just to be honest. And, yeah, that's what we look for in acquisitions. And, I like older reps. I like people that are a little more mature.
I prefer to hire people, you know, thirties plus. Mhmm. They because they have they have more life experience, and they're able to connect with people easier. People that are younger, they don't they're not gonna connect as well with the elderly sellers.
Steve: Yeah. And then we've we've had the same exact experience. Yes. Right? Hiring 25 year olds, they can't understand the problems the homeowners are going through.
Ben: Exactly. And they're not as it it that's what we've seen has worked. And I've gone through, obviously, enough reps to know that. And then yeah. So for transactions, like I mentioned before, we look for people with experience in the title, but then they also have to have the yellow and the green.
They have to be able to, manipulate people, and they have to be able to connect with people so that they can work with them. DISPO, we look for the drivers, people that can stay firm on the price and convince people on the price. And, also, DISPO is a lot of cold calling. Yeah. Because they have to do a lot of cold outreach.
Steve: A lot of prospecting.
Ben: Right. We don't really do cold calling acquisitions because they're just getting warm leads. But on DISPO, they we we still do cold calling. We do God mode on investor lift, and we do cold outreach to find buyers. So that they have to be okay with that rejection and Mhmm.
Just calling people till they find the right buyer. Right. But, yeah, I mean, it's also about how you position your ad on Indeed. That's big. Mhmm.
So a lot of people, they are they try to cheap out the employees. They try to, you know, they wanna offer as low salary as possible Mhmm. And as low as commission as possible. And if you live in a major city, it doesn't work that well. I mean Right.
You're gonna if you offer a low salary and a low commission, you're gonna get low quality candidates. Mhmm. So the way I do it is I position my ad. You know, I'll offer a little bit of a higher salary, whether it's, you know, 50,000 or 60,000. And then I'll just put in a small print.
I'll say, we're offering between 40 and 60 depending on your experience. But if I put the big number at the front, at least I get the applicants. Mhmm. And then I can talk to them on the phone. But if I were to go on my ad and say, hey.
We're only offering a $30,000 salary in Miami. You can't even pay your rent. Right. Then you don't get any applicants. Mhmm.
Steve: Yeah. It's it's fascinating. Are you talking about Indeed? Because we had when Nick Perry was on the show, I wanna say, man, it's probably, like, four or five years ago now. I think it was, yeah, probably 2019 that he was on the show.
And, he gave a master class on Indeed PPC. Right? Like, how to bid Right. On Indeed. And here you are coming out later on talking about, like, how to market.
Ben: You have to position your ad correctly
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: Or you don't get the right candidates.
Steve: So what are some other things you're doing to to put yourself above, right, against all the other people that's got their their their, the hiring ads? Right? Because Miami's a big city. Mhmm. And it's not just real estate.
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Ben: So that was a that was a big thing, and it's still work in progress. But so we we position the ad with a good salary. That way, we can get a good amount of applicants, and then we get on the phone with the the applicants. And, obviously, I screen them like that. But what I just did recently, like, about, I would say maybe a month or two ago, is I created a website just for recruiting.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And on the website for recruiting, I put all the testimonials from my employees, and it taught you know, all my employees talk have, you know, videos about how they've been in my company for years and have made good money and and things like that. And that kind of brings more legitimacy to my business. Because if I send that to applicants, then they can see, oh, this is this is legit. Because there's a lot of companies on the I mean, you know, when people go on Indeed to apply for a job, they there's tons of companies. Right.
So and they don't know anyone from anyone else. So by having a website to it gives us more legitimacy. That's another thing that I've done. But, I mean, the other thing is that, you know, people, when they come into our office, it's a it's a better environment
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: Than they expect. You know, we have house music going on. Everyone's laughing, and it's not uptight. A lot of people don't wanna work in an uptight. You know, if you walk into an office and it's super quiet Mhmm.
And, you know, everyone's no one's talking to each other. It's like it's intense. It's intense. But that's not how in my office, everyone's having a good time. Everyone's joking around.
Everyone is, you know, affable and getting along. And when when applicants come in, they they're like, oh, wow. This is a team that I would wanna be a part of. You know, we have, a foosball table on the on the balcony. So we play foosball.
We used to have a basketball, a little poppet shot thing. So those little things, they can go a long way. Because if an applicant's deciding between your company and another company where it's like, oh, fuck. This is gonna be depressing as fuck. Have I gone here every day?
They very well might, you know, okay. I wanna be part of that team.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And then that's, and then when we interview them you know, I'm a passionate guy. Yeah. So they feel that. They feel that in the interview. They feel this guy really you know, he he's passionate about what he's what he's doing at this company, and that that kind of you know, that draws him in.
They they they that draws him in to come work. They wanna work for someone like that. They don't wanna go work for, you know, some guy who's, you know, 60 years old that they they can't even they have nothing in common.
Steve: Right. A a a stuffy culture.
Ben: Exactly.
Steve: Exactly. So, how much are you using your your social media to bring in talent?
Ben: I don't like that. I don't like that. I hire my dispo manager off that, but I I don't like it because the social media people tend to be more entrepreneurial. Mhmm. And I'm not looking for the entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs. I want people that I I I have a high chance of retaining. Mhmm. That, I reject a lot of people for that reason because they they all have their own business or this and that. And I don't usually like to go with those people because they just vary.
The chances of retention are a lot lower.
Steve: Gotcha. And then, you know, talking about how important talent is, do you guys have a recruiter?
Ben: No. Because I don't trust a recruiter. Maybe I'm making a mistake, but I don't but I don't trust them.
Steve: How come?
Ben: Because I feel like I I'm the only one that knows that I'm what I'm looking for. Mhmm. And they don't know what I'm looking for. And I feel like if I hire a recruiter, I'm gonna have to pay them, and then I'm just gonna have to screen the candidates again. So I'm why why would I pay them?
Then I'm still gonna do the same work.
Steve: Yeah. So it was clear that you're really, really passionate about what you're looking for exactly. So, again, just to emphasize, because you got, you know, lots of competition in Miami. I mean, I've worked multiple teams down in Miami. Mhmm.
Right? So there's a lot of guys down in Miami, let alone Florida. Right? So for you, you're saying the biggest difference is the people that's on your team. It's not
Ben: That's the asset in your company.
Steve: It's not the PPC. It's not the tools. It's just We
Ben: have the same agency that everyone else has.
Steve: Right. So it's just straight up, you'll put your team against anybody else's team.
Ben: We have the greatest acquisition team pound for pound. And I would say my acquisitions team and my transaction team, no one's ever had a better one. Yeah. Period.
Steve: So I was just at a family mastermind, down in Tampa a couple weeks ago, and that was literally my presentation. It was like, the difference between you, your team between you and everyone else is just one thing, the one thing you guys wanna talk about. Because, look, all your guys' marketing is the same. All your copy is the same. The your tools are the same.
Only difference is that guy's got a better sales team than you.
Ben: That's correct. I mean, that's all you got.
Steve: What are you gonna do about it? Right? And then, like, come see me in the back of the office or back of the back of the, the the conference hall. But that was my presentation. Like, over the course of thirty minutes, like, it all comes down to the best team.
So, man, like, it was a great time for you to come down Mhmm. To really, like, dial in this message. Because I I genuinely believe that. Right? We see so many people that, they get frustrated.
Like, you know, like, I I went to this event. I bought this guy's marketing tool. I bought this guy's CRM. I bought this guy's, Dispo tool.
Ben: But they don't have the people.
Steve: Yeah. And that's some something that you know, there's a book from Good to Great. Have you read that? No. So it's a great it's a good, it's an excellent book by Jim Collins, but one thing it talks about is, like, there have been multiple people that studied Southwest Airlines.
Multiple people that try to replicate south Southwest Airlines.
Ben: Right.
Steve: But it's not their policies and procedures. It's not the airplanes. It's they just hire nicer people. Right? Like, I know there are a lot of people that listen to the show don't care for Southwest Airlines.
I do like Southwest Airlines. Right? It's simple. You don't get the first class seats, but it's simple. Right?
But they're always kind.
Ben: I've never been on Southwest. Yeah. Like I said, But
Steve: A lot of like, right. Like I said, a lot of entrepreneurs generally don't like Southwest as much, but I always love them. Their hub is here. But the point is, like, it's always a pleasant experience. Right?
Or Costco, right, or Nordstrom's or Ritz Carlton. Like, you look at all the major brands, they don't have this big secret. They just have better people.
Ben: People's everything.
Steve: People's everything.
Ben: It's everything.
Steve: Yeah. So how did you come to figure that out?
Ben: Well, like I mentioned before, I had six acquisition people, and then I realized only two of them were bringing in the deals. Mhmm. So that's when that was the that was where it clicked. I mean, I was like, it's not about how many people you have. It's about the quality of the people.
I I mean, I get a million dollars out of a good rep. So and most companies in this industry, they, you know, their top reps are doing five or 600 k, and my reps are doing double that. So it my take is everyone puts all this emphasis on training, and training is great. I agree with that. But why would you not put more emphasis on the recruiting?
Mhmm. Because if you can just start with a higher quality person Mhmm. As opposed to having to train them
Steve: Alright.
Ben: How much time is that gonna save you? I mean because if you get a good candidate and it could and then they let's say they they do training. Right? It could take them ninety or a hundred and eighty days
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: To get to the point where do you want them to be. But if you just hire a good candidate right off the bat, even if you have to pay them a little bit more Mhmm. You just saved all that heartache and months and months of training. To be honest, I never trained my five people. I mean, a little bit, but we don't we don't we don't even have good training.
And that is somewhere where can where we can improve. Like Yeah. We don't do, like, daily huddles or or any of that stuff. And that probably is a bad thing. I'll be I'll be the first one to admit that.
But at the same time, I put in the work on the front end Mhmm. To find the good people so I don't have to put as much work on the back end. Right.
Steve: Oh, it makes a lot of sense. Like, I mean, you're looking for the, you're drafting your players. You're you're playing, fantasy. You're drafting the best players from the get go.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Right. Okay. And then, you have multiple dispo strategies strategies, which is interesting. Mhmm. So we have Brandon Bateman on the show, a few months ago, and we talked about importance of focus and then, like, you know, what diversity looks like.
And he has made the argument that nationwide wholesaling is not a distraction so long as you have basically, you know, one preferred exit strategy, maybe two. You've got multiple exit strategies.
Ben: You have to have multiple to go nationwide.
Steve: Yeah. So talk to me about all your different exit strategies and how you manage all of them.
Ben: So the way we do it is when we, when we have a sell on the phone, there's I there's basically I mean, there's there's four strategies.
Steve: I mean,
Ben: there's four strategies. Either we're buying it so we get it under contract. Right? It's a we we we contract them blind. We don't know we don't know we don't really know what the condition's like when we contract them.
So either we're going in and we know, hey. We're gonna we're gonna wholesale this. So, typically, houses that we wholesale, we we wanna make like, meaning we don't put on the MLS. It has to be in a core market. We're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna try to wholesale a house in a town with 5,000 people
Steve: because we're
Ben: not gonna make any money. Right? Or and it's hard. So it has to be in a core market, and it has to be for an, you know, for an investor. It has to be well below market.
And, typically, if I'm gonna wholesale it, it's gonna be distressed, meaning it's gonna be in bad condition. So that's for the wholesaling. Now most of the leads that we get aren't gonna fall in that box. They're gonna fall in the novation box. Mhmm.
Usually, with PBC, they want to the sellers are relocating or, you know, they inherited the property. But a lot of times, they're just relocating or they're unhappy with their realtor.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: They're calling in. It's listed on the MLS. They haven't been able to sell it, and they're calling you and saying, hey. What what can you give me for this property? So if that's the case and there's nothing wrong with the property, then we're, you know, we're gonna try to novate it.
Steve: We're gonna
Ben: try to novate it. There's nothing wrong with the property. But that being said, if where do I go to wholetail? I go to wholetail in two instances. There's two reasons where I go to wholetail.
A, because our spread is too big, and it's for an end user.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: Okay? So let's just say the the house, they agree to 200,000, but it's worth 300,000, and there's nothing wrong with it.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: I could innovate it, but there's a high probability that the deal gets blown up because the spread is too too large. Mhmm.
Steve: You
Ben: listed on the MLS for a 100,000 more, seller gets cold feet. Mhmm. So that's where I go to buy I go to buy it. Okay? Yeah.
The other reason I go to buy it is also because it's for wholesale, but, again, the spread is too big. Mhmm. The spread is too big. So I go to wholesale when the spread is too big. I don't wanna lose my deal.
I don't wanna go through
Steve: Protecting it.
Ben: And protecting the deal. So that's where I go to wholesale. Mhmm. And then sub two, we mainly do that when they have no equity. So if they have no equity, they just bought the house in the past couple years, but they have a good interest rate Mhmm.
That's where we go to sub two.
Steve: And then are these properties you're keeping a portfolio? What are you doing with them?
Ben: With the sub two? Mhmm. No. We assign them.
Steve: You assign them.
Ben: I assign them.
Steve: Gotcha. Okay. So four extra strategies. But wholesale, wholesale, sub two or innovation. Right?
So those are kinda really in line. Sub two is different. What challenges do you have dealing with sub two, like, trying to sell those?
Ben: Well, we also no bait the sub twos. Mhmm. So we like, for if if the if the deal is in the middle of nowhere, then we will just get the AIF signed, and then we'll we'll mark down the MLS to realtors as well. So that's the strategy we've done as well. Mhmm.
But, challenges, there's not really any challenges. I mean, as long if the interest rate is low Mhmm. And the property is in a good market and the end the entry fee has to be low. Because if you send these people on investor lift, they're trying to get, like, an 80 k entry fee, and it's like, no one wants that. Right?
Steve: Right.
Ben: So but, I mean, if you could keep your entry fee on, you know, $30 or less and the interest rate is attractive, then usually sells itself.
Steve: Yeah. And then I wanna go to your IG. Mhmm. America's top wholesaler. Mhmm.
Pretty bold claim. Right? America's top wholesaler. What what is your vision with that?
Ben: I mean, the vision that is the vision. I mean, I I'm highly competitive, highly driven person, and I don't my two favorite people my two favorite role models, of all time are Kobe Bryant and Donald Trump. And, you know, that's just that's just who I am. I mean, I don't play the I don't play the finish in second. I play the finish in first.
No matter what my I put my you know, what real estate wholesaling has been my main focus for about eight years now. And before that, it was I had I had other focuses. My focus in high school is basketball. So regardless, my whatever I put my my focus on, I wanted to strive to be the best. And a big part of becoming the best at something, the first step is believing in yourself that you can become the best.
So when you know, maybe I'm not the best at the moment, but I truly believe that I will be the best. And that's why I made my name America's Not Wholesaler because that is what I'm striving to be. And the first step to becoming the best is believing that you are the best.
Steve: Yeah. You have to believe deserve it. Correct. And I love that. And you're going back to basketball.
That was the reason why you gave the compliment on the Steve Nash jersey.
Ben: Yes. I like Steve. Steve Nash, one of my favorite players. So, yes, love Steve Nash. Yeah.
Steve: Okay. So what is the vision? Right? How old are
Ben: you? I'm 31.
Steve: 31. Okay. 31. What is the vision for yourself? You think you wanna be the top?
What does that look like?
Ben: I think that Donald Trump's gonna pull off the election. Mhmm. And why do I talk about that so much? I think that that makes a big difference. I think that him being reelected will the interest rates will come down Mhmm.
And the hedge funds will come back into the market. And wholesaling will become significantly easier than it is now. We still do well now, but the difference between now and two years ago was that we used to sell properties in thirty days or, you know, three weeks. So it was a lot quicker. Mhmm.
Steve: And the turnover was quicker. Cycle is much shorter.
Ben: It was much better. I mean, you could make money a lot faster. Now we have to wait ninety days, and it's it sucks. Mhmm. It sucks.
I mean, it's not it's not ideal at all. So I think in thirty five days from now, Donald Trump will shock the world Mhmm. And win the win the election in The United States. And at that point, after all the experience that I've gained over the past few years, I will go to aggressively scale my company. The company Property Force, that was they were I was always kinda very in you know, that was always my biggest competition, and I was very envious of them because of how big they went.
In 2022, Propertyforce did $30,000,000 Mhmm. In assignment fees. I believe that in the right market condition, I can scale to that amount.
Steve: Right. And that was just in two states?
Ben: Two or three.
Steve: Was it three?
Ben: They did a little Alabama, Georgia. They also did Texas. But yeah.
Steve: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Good, man. I know they were in this market for just a minute.
Right? And then they bounced. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So, like, I mean, Oliver was a good friend. So Mhmm. I don't even know. Like, he was on the podcast back in '18 or '19.
Ben: It's a real shame what happened to
Steve: him. Absolutely.
Ben: I I don't know Oliver on a personal level, but, I mean, it's it sucks.
Steve: It sucks. It absolutely sucks. Right? And he got it kinda
Ben: He was an inspiration to me. He's all he's also he lived in the same building as me. The Flamingo that I mentioned earlier, Oliver lived in that building when
Steve: I lived in the building, and I and Oliver was also Jewish like I am. So he was a big inspiration to me. Yeah. Oh, it's an inspiration for me as well. Right?
I I'll look up to the guy. Like, for me, it was really hard, you know, when when we found out because, like, he was such a giver. Right? He always wanted to give back. So but going back to, you know, wanna be the best.
So your vision then is Trump wins, hopefully. Mhmm. Right? And after that, the markets, the interest rates will go down. And with that, the funds will start buying again.
And we're already starting to hear, like, the funds are starting to buy again a little bit because I think they're kinda seeing what's going on.
Ben: Are they? That's news to me.
Steve: Yeah. So, so then when I'm buying again, now you feel like it's gonna be, easier to dispo. Cash motorcycles get shorter. Are you planning we thought about scaling. We thought about growing a bigger team?
Ben: Yes. I believe that I believe that with about, my goal is probably have I think that, by next year, I'll have at least 12 reps. Yeah. At least I'll double the size of my team.
Steve: Gotcha. Okay. Fascinating. And then what's the number, like, you you're you're you're targeting?
Ben: Who Next year, I wanna do 10,000,000. Next year, I wanna do 10,000,000. And then by 2020, by 2026, I would wanna be probably 20,000,000.
Steve: Gotcha. I love it. So double every year. So this is fantastic. So if someone wanted to, you know, reach out to you or follow you, so your IG is the best place to go.
America's top wholesaler.
Ben: Yeah. I'm pretty active on there. I mean, I post, but I also you know, I have my, answer my DMs and stuff. I get a lot of people, you know, reaching out to me. I do have a a course where I kind of, deep do a little bit more of a deep dive into, you know, how to recruit people, how we set up our marketing, all of the intricacies in our business.
I I I break it down Mhmm.
Steve: In the
Ben: in that course.
Steve: Gotcha. Cool. Perfect. Is there somewhere they can go to get that?
Ben: It's on my Instagram.
Steve: On your IG. Alright. Perfect. So, what does your life look like right now? Right?
I mean, when you started as a a you know, your first year kinda dilly dallying, did, like, with the thing you said, like, nine deals your first year? Correct.
Ben: Two deals.
Steve: Two deals.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: Your first year. Alright. So, like, what how does your life look different today?
Ben: So, yeah, I one thing I forgot to mention is I did, I hire I recruited, I promoted Bobby to COO. Mhmm. So Bobby, that was about four months ago.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: That was inspired by Nick, to, you know, finally make that that leap to have someone on the day to day. Mhmm. And so Bobby runs the day to day now. I don't really do much, to be honest. I mean, I don't have to I I only look at the business from a higher level.
I look at, you know, I mean, most of what what I do now is look for I'm recruiting. I'm a I I use Indeed. That's it. I I mean, Bobby handles the data today. We touch base, but he knows what he's doing.
Mhmm. And, yeah. I live on South Beach, in the ICON, in, like, a $2,000,000 condo. I have my my Lamborghini, you know, the Huracan. I had it for a few years now, so it's, like, not that.
It doesn't excite me the way it used to be. People who are will get Lamborghini are like, oh my god. Lamborghini now. It's like, whatever. I honestly, I don't even drive it that much.
I had to drive my other car more. But, yeah, I travel a lot. I love to travel. I probably travel 40% of the time. I go to Cancun a lot.
I like to go to Barcelona. I like to go to I've been to every almost, you know, every major country in Latin America. I've gone to most of them. You know, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and all. I go there all the time.
So, yeah, I like to travel, and I'm very focused on building my business from a higher level. I'm not I don't look at the the individual deals anymore.
Steve: What's the best part about traveling through South America?
Ben: It's very affordable. That's one thing. So you can kinda live a five star a five star lifestyle for way less than it would cost in The US. And to be honest, I mean, the women
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: Women are I mean, I've they're amazing. I don't think I need to dive too much deeper than that. I think
Steve: they're on gas. Friends like, yeah. You should come down to Colombia. The women are beautiful. I was like, I'm married.
Like, what are you talking about? Why are you, like, telling me about this? I'm like, no. I'm not gonna go to Colombia. Are you insane?
Yeah. I mean, I guess that wasn't really a thought on his mind. So another question, this might be a weird question. Do you wear your your same jewelry in South America as you do up here?
Ben: It depends where. Mhmm. If I'm in a safer area, then, yeah, wear some of my jewelry. But in general, no. I don't wear as much jewelry in Latin America.
But this watch, I I do usually bring it.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: If I'm not in a dangerous area, I I do wear it. I never had any issues. And I've been to Latin America probably 20 plus times.
Steve: Yeah. Gotcha. And then, besides financial freedom, what else do you love about real estate?
Ben: Tax breaks. Yeah. Tax breaks. I mean, that's the main reason why I have my rental portfolio. I mean, the cash flow is irrelevant compared to the tax breaks.
Steve: What kind of portfolio do you have?
Ben: Me and my I have a partner named Will Fernandez. He we he he has a construction business, so we partner. We buy rentals together. We have about 30 units in Florida.
Steve: Gotcha. And is this as a result of your marketing, or is it something different?
Ben: Some of them are from marketing. Sometimes I buy them from other wholesalers. Mhmm. Sometimes I will buy them off the MLS.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: But, yeah, we usually buy properties that are cheaper, like, 30 to $50. We like rural properties Yeah. Because we we want the cheaper price, but we don't want ghetto tenants. Mhmm. So we'll buy rural properties.
We'll fix them up, and then we rent them out. So we should buy off, like, 30 to $50. We'll put in, like, 30 to $50 in repairs. We'll kinda be all in around 100. And then we usually rent them out for, like, 1,300 to 1,500, which is a pretty good cap rate.
Steve: Fantastic. And
Ben: then they're usually worth, at that point, up close to about $1.80 to 200. So we usually have a lot of equity.
Steve: Nice. Equity and cash flow and the tax break.
Ben: Correct. Now the only bad part is the hurricanes. We did just get nine of our houses damaged by the hurricane.
Steve: Gotcha. Is that covered by insurance?
Ben: Some of them are insured. Some of them aren't. But, you know, you make we make it work.
Steve: Yeah. What would you do if money was an object?
Ben: If money wasn't an object? Mhmm. What would I do if money wasn't an object? Meaning I had unlimited money?
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: Good question. I didn't I didn't I wasn't prepared for that one.
Steve: It's another version of what is your why, but everyone default for why is, like, in the past. So I always looked like to look at, like, you know, what are you trying to do?
Ben: Well, I mean, I used to have you know, I definitely want I wanna buy a yacht at one point. That's definitely one of my, like, on my on my on my vision board. I definitely wanna own a yacht. But I think more, you know, more I do more important than that is the traveling. I wanna travel the world in freedom.
I I wanna go, you know, I wanna I picture myself on a on a private jet, you know, just without even having a plan. Mhmm. With, like, big part of traveling, I'm also a fucking plan. I'm gonna go here on this day, and I'm gonna go there on that. And that sucks.
Mhmm. I mean, it's not. I just wanna have the freedom where I can get on a plane with a one way, you know, a one way flight or one way whatever it is and just go I wanna go to Australia and just land there and just
Steve: Can you can you do that today?
Ben: I I could, but I wouldn't feel good about it. Like, I wouldn't feel good about it. Like, I wouldn't feel like because I don't feel like I'm where I'm I don't feel like I'm at my goals yet.
Steve: Gotcha.
Ben: I don't feel like I'm at my goals yet. So I could do it, and I I do travel sometimes, but it's not it's not the same care It's
Steve: not the same spontaneous yeah. Yes. Because I feel like that's how Wensley is. Right? I'm talking to Robert.
It's like, hey. What are you doing? I was like, oh, I'm just going over here. He's like, when is this like, when did he find this? Like, oh, no.
I'm just doing it.
Ben: That is freedom. That sounds great. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Robert's living that lifestyle we all want. What is your biggest struggle today?
Ben: My biggest struggle today? Mhmm. My biggest struggle today is it's a good question. I'm trying to give you an honest answer, and it's not always so easy. I I still have struggles.
I still have anxiety.
Steve: Mhmm. You
Ben: know, I still have sometimes I have difficulty sleeping. But my my struggles and my and my strengths are kinda the same. I mean, I I'm great at hiring good people to come join my team, which is why where I'm at today. But that I feel is still a weakness. Like, I still feel I could do a better job.
I feel I feel like because I know that the difference between my company being a $5,000,000 company and my company being a $100,000,000 company is the people. Mhmm. I mean, I need more quality people. So I'm still trying to figure out how can I systematize and hire many good people in a systematized way? The same way that we get 30 leads a day at PBC, how can I, hire 30 a players a year?
Steve: Yeah. So does everyone have to be inside your office?
Ben: The way I set up my team, I like it like that.
Steve: Yeah. So I would recommend so the one I recorded last week was Steve Richards. Alright. So the episode for yours. Mhmm.
I'll listen to that one because he talks about how to find the best people, how to figure out who's gonna be great before you hire them. We go on, actually, in great, great detail about that conversation. How do you measure success?
Ben: How do I measure success? I think I measure success by if I'm moving if I'm improving. I'm improving. If I'm in the same I need to be improving. If I'm in the same place today that I was a that I was a year ago, meaning I'm making the same amount of money or I'm in the same physical condition or I'm in the same health.
I wanna be improving in my health, my business, and also in my, you know, I I in my in my in my, the the way I am as a person Mhmm. Meaning, like, the impact that I have as a person. If I'm I want to be every year looking back and saying that I'm not I'm in an I'm in an improved position from before. If I'm improving at a good rate, I'm happy with that.
Steve: Right.
Ben: But if I'm not improving, that's not good.
Steve: So, you know, hypothetically, you bring home less than 25 than you do this year.
Ben: Mhmm.
Steve: Where does your head go then?
Ben: Not good. I'm not happy with myself. Yeah. And and that and that as long as I'm holding myself accountable in the short term, then the long term should always improve.
Steve: Right. Gotcha. And then what is your superpower?
Ben: My superpower is is is, believing in myself even when others don't.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And I think that, you know you know, people, they sometimes they they, you know, they see see me, and they might think, oh, this guy is full of himself or he's cocky or he, you know, he he might not he might he thinks of himself greater than he is. But if I don't believe in myself before I I get to somewhere, then no one is ever gonna, you know, no one is ever gonna Mhmm. I'm never gonna be able to get there.
Steve: Yeah. And that is that shows up with the Kobe Bryant
Ben: Mhmm.
Steve: And the Donald Trump. Can you give an example of a situation where someone doubted you, but your conviction, how you do to show to show them?
Ben: So when I was a freshman in high school, I I was the last guy, on the on the basketball team. I was the last guy on the bench. Mhmm. And, the team was all freshmen and sophomores, and there was only one junior. So it was basically all freshmen and sophomores on that team.
That was for the whole school. It was a private school. And they used to always make fun of me. Mhmm. They call me a bench warmer and things like that, and that it really bothered me.
Steve: Teammates or, like, fans?
Ben: The my teammates. My teammates. And it really, you know, got on my skin. It it it gave you know, really bothered me because I I was very passionate about basketball. It was a big passion of mine.
And, you know, that that I used to I used to get home from school at 6PM because it was it was a it was a or it was a Jewish school, so we had dual curriculum. So I got home at 6PM, and I used to play basketball in the dark with no light for about two hours on my own. And I would just keep shooting over and over and over again until, you know, I just get better at shooting. Mhmm. And then in the summer when the summer rolled around, I would play eight hours a day every day every single day.
Steve: Pick up basketball?
Ben: I mean, I was playing basketball camp. We used to play in the morning, in the evening. I I would just play the whole day.
Steve: Mhmm.
Ben: And I was just convicted. I'm, you know, I'm gonna get better. And, that second year that second year, came back to school and we started to play, you know, the team again, and I was starting to do much better than the year before. And they were everyone was shocked. You know?
I was like, oh, shit. He's really a lot and I was I was better at that point, I went from you know, there's about 12 people on the team. Mhmm. I was better than five or six of them already, so I was already better than half the people on the team. It was the same people.
And then about couple days before the season started, I broke my ankle. Oh. And so that was really discouraging. But, yeah, I didn't let it stop me. I was, after I broke my ankle, I was actually playing on one foot.
So I was limping around on one foot and just shooting with one foot. And then, eventually, my ankle got better a few weeks later and, first came back. My coach put me in with two minutes left in the first half. I hit two, three pointers, and then I was the sixth man on the team for the rest of the year. So I went from last guy to the sixth guy.
And then the next year, remember, it's the same players because it was all freshmen and sophomores. Next year, I was a starter Mhmm. On the same with the same exact team.
Steve: Yeah.
Ben: And then I laughed at them and called them Dementia worms.
Steve: Of course.
Ben: So You gotta remember that. Yeah. Yeah. So that was that was, I mean, that was, you know, kind of that first time when I when I was able to push through the odds.
Steve: So the the best way to motivate you is to doubt you.
Ben: Correct.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I I can't remember which year I did this, but we had to put, like, you know, like, kinda like your plan together. I was like, what's the reason why? Like, why is this important?
And my my why on the bottom was, like, to prove the haters wrong. Like, that's it. Right? Everyone has ever doubted me. They're gonna see what we're gonna do.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, it's it's there's no better feeling.
Steve: Yeah. Well, for people wired like you and me.
Ben: So you also are competitive like that?
Steve: Yeah. Unnecessarily competitive. Yeah. Because, I mean, I talked about this in the podcast a few weeks ago. Right?
Like, for me, I don't play to win. Right? I play to watch you lose. Like, that is the a
Ben: You love like that. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. I love watching, like, how pissed someone gets when they lose. So it's not it's not about me winning. Right? Because me winning actually didn't even feel that great.
It's watching you, like, get so frustrated.
Ben: About it like that.
Steve: And you're so frustrated that you can't win. That's the
Ben: Yeah. I mean, you wanna be the best. I mean, you wanna be there's a having someone that's better than you at something and then being able to overtake them Mhmm. And look back at them and say, hey. I'm doing it better than you.
I mean, that is a it's a hell of a feeling.
Steve: It's incredible feeling. Like I said, great for people who are like you and me. But not necessarily really. Probably for most people watching the show, but not true for most
Ben: of the But I think as an entrepreneur, I think you need like, you have to have that competitive spirit.
Steve: You have to have the desire to to win. Right? Mhmm. It's not necessarily competitive. I don't think all entrepreneurs are necessarily, like, hypercompetitive.
I think they're competitive, of course. But I think there's also degrees, right, of, like, have you read, relentless by Tim Grover? So he kinda talks about it, which is, like, you know, you got, like, I'm gonna butcher it. Right? But he talks about the closers, the cleaners, the coolers, the I think the closers and the cleaners.
And, basically, the cleaners are the are the Michael Jordan's of doing weights. Right? And, Kobe Bryant's. And we talked about in there as a difference between those guys and everyone else. Because if you're in NBA, right, like, you're, like, top fraction of a percent best in the world.
So then how do you become the best?
Ben: Gotta work harder. Right?
Steve: You gotta work harder, but you have to have a dark side. And it's a dark side that pushes you through. Right? You have to control it's it's easy for the negative energy to leak out. And you see it sometimes from Kobe.
You see it sometimes from from Jordan. Right? But those that have the dark side, but they can control it, are the ones that become the best.
Ben: See the Donald Trump too.
Steve: See and Donald Trump. Right? And so this kinda goes back to what I'm saying. Like, for you, I see that in you. Right?
And so it's it's cool. So, what is your biggest regret? You spent countless weeks going back and forth with a homeowner only to lose a deal because the seller changed their mind, another wholesaler made an unreasonable offer, or what the seller needs from the sale, you just can't pay. Now imagine you've got the ultimate control on a property that you just locked up, meaning you're on title and every decision has to go through you, eliminating virtually every external threat. That's why the installment method was created.
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Ben: with the
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Ben: My biggest regret my biggest regret was not my biggest regret was not scaling my company quicker Mhmm. In the in in the beginning, when the market was good. Because now, like, I really wanna scale my company right now, but it's we run it's we don't want our margins are not what they used to be. I mean, it's much harder to scale when with a with a ninety day period than it was when it was, you know Mhmm. When it was, like, flipping properties in two weeks.
Steve: And having the the hedge funds willing to pay over market.
Ben: Crazy prices. Yeah. I mean, I mean and flippers were paying a lot of money too. Mhmm.
Steve: And it
Ben: was it was a lot easier. Also, I I wish I did novations when the market was hot.
Steve: Man, you're not alone. Right? Yeah. So, like, I remember we brought novations to the market in 2020. Right?
August 2020, Eric Brewer was on the show. We brought innovations to the market. Mhmm. And internally, I'm talking to my team. I was like, hey.
Like, we should do this. And they're like, ah, you know, whatever. I was like, but we should do it. So, anyway, I asked every once in a while. I was like, hey.
We're doing this. They're like, no. It's too horrible. I was like, alright. Whatever.
Like, I'm empowering you guys to run it. And when we had to do it in '22, and our acquisition guys are running on appointments, and they're like, we see we should have done this forever. It's like, I was asking you guys
Ben: to. Right.
Steve: Right? But But
Ben: you could have stepped in and said we gotta fucking do it.
Steve: I could have stepped in. I had a partner. I like, this is your department. You run it. Right?
I'm gonna take care of this side. You take care of that side. Didn't wanna push them too hard. But, man, after, the partnership ended, I'm talking to the acquisition guys. It's like and they're like, Steve, we should have done this earlier.
It's like, I don't wanna hear that.
Ben: Yeah.
Steve: I don't wanna hear how much money we left on the table. Right?
Ben: Left a lot of them. I I think that if you do if you could do novations back in the market's high, you could have made
Steve: Yeah. Stupid amounts of money. And Eric Brewer was loud about it, but, people didn't really care about it in their twenties.
Ben: Brewer does it in, like, bum fuck PA Yeah. Which is, like, incredible because, I mean, those properties are not great.
Steve: He's doing really well. Still doing really, really well with it. And then what what, how did you learn your greatest lesson?
Ben: How did I learn my greatest lesson? Should've been more prepared for these questions. How did I learn my greatest lesson? Trying to figure out what my greatest lesson is first.
Steve: Or what is your biggest failure?
Ben: I learned my greatest lesson. I feel unprepared for the question. How do I how how do I how did I learn my greatest lesson of what was my biggest failure? I think that the way I, you know because the way I grew up, I you know, I was Orthodox Jewish, and I didn't like that. I didn't like that.
My dad kinda pressured me to do that. You know, I had a I went to Jewish school my whole life, and I couldn't stand it, to be honest, because it was just forced on me. And that kind of, you know, that chip that that put on my shoulder, you know, that I because I was always, I just didn't wanna I didn't wanna be forced to do anything. I wanted to make my own decisions. That, you know, put this chip on my shoulder that I wanted to have the freedom to make my own decisions.
Mhmm. And that what really pushed me over the edge and motivated me to, you know, go this far into, you know, building my business. Most people don't take it as far as I do. I mean, they they, you know, they might do they might, you know, make once they get to that point where they make a couple $100,000 a year, that's usually enough. I mean, they're usually, like, you know, they're usually happy with that
Steve: because
Ben: that's that's enough for them to get what they wanna they wanna do with their life. But for me, even at this point in my life, I still want more. Mhmm. And it's because I have that chip on my shoulder from the way I was raised.
Steve: Yeah. So, you know, some people are taking their foot off the gas. You're still pressing it all the way down.
Ben: Because yeah. Because that's where and you need to have some sort of internal drive to to want to do that. Mhmm. Because most people, they just you know, they're already comfortable with that.
Steve: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And then what book have you gifted more than any other?
Ben: Gifted to other people?
Steve: Mhmm. I'm
Ben: not big on books. Yeah. You you ask me a lot about books. Mhmm. And it and and I feel almost stupid, like, not have not being able to answer those questions, but I'm just not a big book guy.
I don't think that's how I learn. I learn more from experience. I learn more from, you know, doing things and failing in them and learning from my failures and then going back and doing it again. So I know that that's a question, that you asked, but it's not I don't have an answer for it.
Steve: Well, I mean, obviously, you picked up coaching before Mhmm. You started. It's clear you're very intuitive.
Ben: Mhmm.
Steve: And then you also have a lot of who's in your life. Right? Because, like, you know, do you know what it is? Do you know that person? So clearly, right, association proper association is really important to you.
Correct. So I wouldn't say it's dumb because, like, I I remember, you know, we're talking earlier about poker. Like, when I first started playing poker, you went to the casino, learned a little bit. It was like, alright. I clearly need to learn more about this.
Right? So I bought all these poker books. Right? I have a library of I actually have more a library of of poker books more than I have of sales books. Right?
Like, it's just like it's the library like this one.
Ben: Play poker tomorrow? Because I I love poker.
Steve: Gotta get clearance. You know, there's there's someone else I gotta report to. But Mhmm. But I I I got all these books. I got really good at poker.
Right? I got another friend, WN, back then, and I watch him play. I said, hey. Like, where'd you learn that? He's like, what do you mean?
I was like, like, how do you read that? How do you know that was the right move? This and that. It's like, I can just feel the game. It's like, okay.
Well, I don't have that. I got the math reasons for doing these things, but I can't just feel the game. It seems like that's what you have. You can just kinda feel what's the right thing to do.
Ben: That's correct. It's an it's an it's an is it yeah. That's correct. It's an emotional thing.
Steve: Like, it's a
Ben: no. It's intuitive. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. Right? Which I can get over time, but, man, like, for me, it's a lot easier just to build a foundation of books and then compare it to that, but, like, more power to you. So, like, I would hate for you to feel dumb because you clearly have it figured out. You got a lot of good things going on.
So I wanna think about some last thoughts you wanna leave all the listeners with. Guys, if you get value today, again, please subscribe, share this, leave a five star review on iTunes. That way, we can help more people. What are some last thoughts you'd like to leave all the listeners with?
Ben: I'd like to leave them with a thought that, you know, don't don't doubt yourself. If you have something that you really wanna go after, just, you know, as long as you're putting your best effort forward, you you gotta go for it. And real estate wholesaling, it's not easy. Mhmm. I think that's one thing that's very kind of misconceived about this industry.
They everyone tries to pitch it like, oh, this is so easy. You just get a contract with the homeowner, then you flip it. It's not easy. I mean, there's a lot of moving parts, and there's a lot of competition. There's a lot of people that are competing in this little space of real estate wholesaling.
So, you know, if you wanna get into real estate wholesaling, make sure that you're doing it with intention and you're putting your best foot forward. Because if you put a if you half ass it, you're just not gonna succeed. Yeah. You're not gonna succeed. And also know that you will be competing with me.
Steve: Right. This is this is not something you can side hustle this thing.
Ben: No. And that's it's it's not that easy.
Steve: But that's the way it looks on social media.
Ben: But and I don't like that. I don't like the people that paint it like this is easy because that makes it devalues what I've done.
Steve: Right.
Ben: It devalues what I've done. And there's a lot of people, specifically, literally in Phoenix, Arizona. I mean, this is like you said, this is the home of the gurus, and they paint it like, hey. This is wholesaling houses. It's super simple.
It's not that simple.
Steve: It's not.
Ben: It's not. I mean and you have to do this at a high level and and to do a lot of deals and make a lot of money in this, you really have to have it systematized and done the right way.
Steve: Alright. With massive intention.
Ben: Massive intention. And if you half ass it, you just won't you won't succeed.
Steve: Yeah. Perfect. I think that's a great message. Thank you so much for coming on. See you guys next time.
Ben: Appreciate you guys. Shout out to Steve train. Jump on the Steve train. Disrupt us.
