How Brent Moreno and Adam Johnson earned $1.2M in revenue last year on just a $20k ad spend!

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disrupters. Today, we have Brent Marino and Adam Johnson, with the Mississippi Home Buyers. And they've flown in from Hattiesburg, Mississippi to show how they grossed 1,200,000.0 last year on just 20 k on Aspen, which is, I think, ridiculous numbers. It's phenomenal.

If this is your first time tuning in, I am Steve Trang, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty, founder of the OfferFastHomes app, the only MLS for off market wholesale properties. And I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires. So if that's something you're interested in, let's definitely connect on Instagram. If you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave. Give me a thumbs up.

And as a friendly reminder, I do not charge a dime for this show. I don't make any money doing this. So here's all I ask. This is what it costs for you to listen to this show. If you get value today, please tell a friend.

You can share this episode right now, tag a friend below, or tell them your best takeaway from the show later on. That way we can all grow together. And don't forget, this is a live show, so please post your questions for Brent and Adam to answer. You ready? Let's do it.

Alright. So first question, simple question, is what got you guys into real estate?

Adam Johnson: Go for it.

Brent Moreno: I don't think I had a choice, really.

Adam: Yeah. He didn't he didn't have much of a choice. His dad's been doing it for forty five years. Yeah. He's he's been

Brent: in the business a long time. And my I guess what really drew me to it, because I've been around it all my life, but my brother got out of college, decided he didn't want a job, and he said, alright. What what can I do to make some money? I got a little bit of credit card debt, a little bit of student loan debt. What do I need to do?

And so my dad showed him how to hit the prefore closures, and within no time, he got a deal. And I think they split 40 some odd thousand dollars. And, of course, be it I think I was 19 I might have been 18 at the time, maybe 19. And, you know, they split that amount of money, and I said, well, hot dog. I'm I'm over here busting it for 500 a week, and that seems like fun.

So we ended up buying our first one together 10/11/2002. And

Steve: Together, you two?

Brent: No. No. No. Me and my dad and my brother.

Steve: Okay. Gotcha. So And then 2,002, you said? Yep. Okay.

So you've been out this for a little bit.

Brent: Oh, yeah.

Steve: Yeah. How about yourself?

Adam: For me, it was, it was an escape. It was I've always had the entrepreneurial mindset. I've always chased my dreams, wanted to work in the music industry, checked that box, found out it didn't pay enough. So I traveled around for a long time doing awesome stuff, working for major brands. Had a blast, but I knew that there was a ceiling.

So I was always looking for that escape of what I could do to generate income or, work for myself, essentially. So when I found out about real estate or I found out about wholesaling, which I'd never heard of, I didn't know that was a thing. I thought, well, if you're gonna flip houses, you gotta have hundreds of thousands of dollars, go buy the house, flip it, put them you know, all that stuff. I was like, there's no way. And I saw Max, who was a friend of mine before he got into real estate.

We used to work the same jobs together. Post on Instagram, and he had posted a house. He's like, I just bought this house for 17,000. So, like, that day, I called him. I said, hey.

I said, 17,000. I said, I got that. I was like, next next time you find one like that, let me know. I'll I'll buy it or we can partner in on it, whatever. And, he's like, it'd be easy if I just show you what I'm doing.

So I just next time I was in South Carolina, which is where I was living at the time, my wife

Steve: was in law school there. I drove up to Winston Salem, and he was like he

Adam: was just getting started. He was like, I've been making $20,000 a month Mhmm.

Steve: For,

Adam: like, the last three months. I was like I was like, Jonah from, Wolf of Wall Street. Right. I was like, you showed me $20,000. I'm quitting my job right now.

Right. And, he showed me everything. I was like, showed me his accounts and stuff. Like, oh, this house, this house is what I made. And it's like, this is incredible.

I knew he had been in real estate. Mhmm. We were already friends. He dated my one of my best friends from high school. We We played baseball together.

He dated his sister, so he used to come around all the time. I knew he was successful, knew he was in real estate, but I always thought he would just flip and bought and hold. So I called him up and I'm all excited, and I was like, man, you ever heard about wholesaling before? He goes, oh, yeah. I do it all the time.

I was like, you never said anything to me about it. Never mentioned it to me. He'd gotten so tired of people using his time, and he would spend all his time and energy on friends to teach him how to do the business, and then they would never take any action. So he just told me, he's like, hey. Go read this book and then come back to me with questions.

So I read the book in, like, two days. What book was it? Flipping Properties. It's not anything really special. It's just like the basics.

Mhmm. It's a it's a overview. It's a filter, basically. He just gave me a filter book, like, go read this. I mean, he could have told me to go read, you know, whatever.

He could've told me to go read Harry Potter, and then I'll find the answers there, and I would've went and read Harry Harry Potter. Alright? I just needed the answers.

Steve: He just wanted you to see you take action first.

Adam: Right. So I took action, and he started helping me. Max was kinda helping me get started, you know, giving me advice. And, And, I went and locked up my first deal. I made, like, $13,500 and some change.

And I was like, this is repeatable. All this is all the while while I was traveling.

Steve: So this wasn't that long ago. I mean, Max has only been doing it really for a little

Adam: over two years. Two. This is a little over two years ago. Yeah. January 2017 is when I bought that book.

Steve: Gotcha. Yep. Okay. So at which point then well, let's talk about your first deal. So how did you find your first deal once you got like you said, I'm doing this.

Adam: So I had a little bit of a situation because I traveled a lot for work. When I say a lot, at one point in time, I did over three hundred days in a hotel. Wow. Yeah. A lot.

I was gone. It's definitely a single man's game. So I was already, in a relationship with my with my now wife for a very long time, and I knew, like, if we want we're gonna go do this, I can't stay on the road forever. So what made my first deal really cool was I thought a little bit outside the box. And when I before I got into real estate, I was driving Uber just to kinda pass the time because my wife was in law school.

I'm not sitting here staring at the walls. I'll just, make make the car payment. Whatever. So I created a Facebook Uber group. Don't ask me why I decided to do it.

I was just like, oh, it'd be cool to network. I don't know anybody in this city. We're we're new here. I was like, it'd be cool to kind of network with other people. So I created a Facebook group for Uber drivers, which now there's one in, like, every single city.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And later on, when the real estate thing happened, you know, a light bulb went off in my head. It's like, all these people do is drive around. So I was it's my group. It's my rules. So I just started posting in there, like, hey.

Would you like to make an extra $500 doing what you already do? Mhmm. And message me for more details. And I I started recruiting bird dogs that way. So I found one girl out of, like, 30 people who are, like, talking to me about this because they all wanted money upfront.

Right? They all want cash upfront. She was like, I'm gonna do it. She did it, and I actually gave her a thousand dollars. She sent me 35 properties in, like, one week.

Wow.

Brent: That was that his first deal was the first one we looked at.

Adam: First one on the list.

Brent: Because we were on our way to Philadelphia to the draft Mhmm. For his work, And I was riding with him, and he said, let's go look at a few of these houses. Yeah. That was the first one we looked at.

Adam: She sent me the list. I had I had all the list. I had the the people, you know, found the owners. I started looking up the numbers using white pages. Mhmm.

And while we were in the hotel or driving or whatever, I'm just calling, seeing if there's any interest in selling, and then setting appointments for when I knew I was gonna be back home. And it just so happened, it wasn't the very first call I made. It was the very first call I made, but I talked to several other people before I got ahold of him. Mhmm. On an appointment.

He's like, lo and behold, he's like, I just want when I got in it. I looked at the records. He had, like, he bought it for, like, $25,000. Like, it's two years. He's like, I want the taxes and everything.

So $27,000. I was jumping for joy because it was worth about a 140 Mhmm. On the inside, but I was kinda refraining. I was like, well, let me think about it. Let me run my numbers.

I'll get back to you tomorrow. And, sure enough, I called in the next day, and I was like, I think those numbers are gonna work for me. Let's go ahead and get a deal done, and we'll sign it up. And then I got the deal, and I call Adam. I was like, got it under contract.

He's like, great. He said, you need to call call up some buyers that you met at the foreclosure auctions or whatever. It's okay. So I call up the first person I call, he says, okay. And I call some other people when I when I when I messed up is I I set stages of appointment.

So I was planning on being there for, like, three hours. Like, you come at one. You come at 01:30. The very first guy comes, I had it listed at, like, forty two five or something like that. He comes and he's like he's like Mark Cuban's older brother is what he looks like.

Brent: He's just like

Adam: him. Just, you know, doing numbers and comes in, looking around, goes, okay. What you want for it? I said, well, it's $42.05 is what I'm advertising at. He goes, yeah.

What you want for it? I'm like, $39.09 is what I would take. He goes, okay. Deal. I said, we'll have money in it.

We'll close in seven days. And then he assigned my con the purchase contract he signed with me for another $5,000.

Brent: Yeah. Didn't you call me afterwards when he left and you were like, is this normal for this to happen?

Adam: Well, what happened was the next guy calls me. He's like, oh, I would have gave you 50 for that house. I was like, oh, well, I mean, I'm not mad. I just made $13,000 and some change. I'm like, this is is incredible.

But the night before, I was, like, in bed all night, like, going, what the hell am I gonna do if I can't sell this thing? Right? So it it was a cool experience. So my very first deal was done through a bird dog through Uber.

Steve: Yeah. So I I'm in an Uber Facebook group. I don't know what to do with it. You know? I wanna start recruiting those Uber drivers.

I don't know how to do that without getting kicked out of a group.

Adam: So it was my group. Right? So there was no rules. It was mine. But the way you would do it now is you would wanna see who's spending the most time talking in there.

Steve: Mhmm. So you

Adam: just kinda kinda keep an eye on it and just hit them in their inbox and just kinda go guerrilla style. As long as it's not an admin or mod that you're hitting up

Steve: There you go.

Brent: Brilliant. What's funny is that was two years ago, and I think the Wall Street Journal just, published an article about how Uber drivers are hitting up real estate investors to try to make more money. So Really? You started another trend. Congratulations.

Steve: Yeah. I saw that article, like, a day or two ago.

Adam: Really?

Steve: Yeah. They were mentioning deal machine app and everything.

Adam: Oh, they didn't even hit they didn't even give me any credit.

Steve: They didn't

Brent: give me any credit.

Adam: No. No.

Steve: The light sky the light sky recognition. So were you then you weren't partnered yet then? No. Okay. So at which point then did you guys partner up?

Adam: Whenever I decided to when my wife finished law school, we were both from home Mississippi's home for us. We decided to move back. And we we had been kinda working some stuff, so what's crazy is every time I'd come home to see family, I would be driving for dollars and stuff. I'd have, like, a list of vacants. I'd go to him and I'm like, what about these?

He's he's got a story for every single one of them just about. He said, but follow-up with that one. Mhmm. And I'd follow-up with them, and we'd end up getting deals done. So every time I'd come home, we'd do deals together.

Steve: So home is Hatterasburg. But where were you when you started?

Adam: South Carolina.

Steve: Okay. Columbia. Alright. So you were doing this in South Carolina? Mhmm.

And then

Adam: All by myself. Yeah.

Steve: All by yourself. And then, eventually, you moved back.

Brent: Mhmm. Moved back about was it last June?

Adam: Last May.

Brent: And then we started kinda putting pieces in place. And I I'd say probably January is when we were, like Just January? Everything official official.

Adam: Yeah. We made

Brent: it. Stuff leading up to that, but it was just making everything, like, putting all the right pieces in place.

Steve: Okay. So a partnership is only, like, four or five months

Brent: old. Yes. Yeah. Really? Officially.

Yeah.

Adam: Officially. We were working together pretty much as soon as I I came back.

Brent: We weren't Facebook official back then.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: So then, I guess, when did you quit your job?

Adam: I quit my job no. I quit my job December 2017. Okay.

Steve: I

Adam: had a really cool job most people would kill for.

Steve: Yeah. I

Adam: mean, I was working for Anheuser Busch doing Super Bowls. And, you know, if you ever go to an event and you see the little booths set up where they're giving out free stuff, like, I was in charge of the party, basically, everywhere I went. So it was a good time. But after eleven and a half years of being on the road, it's like, I've already been here. I've seen it.

I've done it. It's not really that thrilling anymore. I hate being around all these drunk people. You know, whatever. It was a thrilling job.

It paid extremely well. I was very well rewarded for it, but there was a ceiling, and I was there.

Steve: I'm kinda picturing you as Duffman right now. Is that is that accurate job description? Kind of. Yeah. You're walking around with your cape?

Adam: I've had a lot of fun on the road. Yeah. I had a lot of fun. I I wouldn't change anything except for the fact that I I wish I knew about Real Estate Center.

Steve: Right. Okay. So you quit your job at the '17. So you start full time in January '18 approximately. You're still in South Carolina.

Yeah. But you're doing deals

Adam: Well, every time I go home

Steve: I'm assuming. Yeah. So you weren't really doing a lot of deals then in Carolina. Is that Yeah.

Adam: I did my first full year in South Carolina. I did about $200,000 Okay. In net revenue.

Steve: Gotcha.

Adam: I was spending about my main my main objective was to pick one form of marketing and dominate it. I picked PPC, and at the time, PPC prices were pretty good there. I started off with, like, $22,000 a month. And then, you know, I'm I tell everybody I'm open books, and there's no secrets with me. Mhmm.

Steve: I

Adam: start running my mouth. And next thing I know, PPC, I'm spending $8,000 a month for the same kind of return. Still good returns.

Steve: Right.

Adam: Still looking at, like, you know, $60 a lead, which is insane for you guys out here.

Steve: Yeah. I would kill for $60 a lead. Right?

Adam: Yeah. I think when I left, I think my leads were, like, up to, like, a 120 whenever I Yeah. Officially pulled out of South Carolina. I still do a little bit in South Carolina, just not as much. I don't I don't spend any marketing dollars out there.

It's all SEO.

Steve: Yeah. When I gave up, it was over it was, like, $2.40 a lead out here.

Adam: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. So okay. So then you were doing wholesaling. You weren't really flipping yet? No.

And then you guys joined forces in Hattiesburg. Mhmm. And then you guys went straight into flip. Like, tell me, like, between wholesale flipping, how did you

Brent: guys I've been doing all of it

Steve: for a

Brent: long time. So rentals, flips, we do wholesaling, I mean, owner finance deals, you name it.

Steve: Right.

Brent: But the, I think the kicker was is that my technology skills are somewhat they're exactly what you would expect for somebody from rural computer. Probably.

Steve: So you're doing your own pay per click. Yeah. Adam was like, boy, what?

Brent: When I

Adam: always and I kinda helped do his. I set his up while I was in South Carolina. So we were testing things. So we were structuring things already to kinda Yeah. He probably had the least to gain, really, out of the whole partnership because he already had the whole structure.

He had the team Mhmm. In place. I just kinda came in and said, look. We gotta really kinda figure out we gotta figure out what KPIs are. We gotta figure out, like, how to how to scale this.

Because he's the he's always been, that's good enough for me.

Steve: Mhmm. I was

Adam: like, well, yes. You can do that when you're not really spending a lot of money on marketing. I come from spending a lot lot of money on market, at least

Steve: a lot

Adam: of money to me at the time Mhmm. On marketing. I needed to know what those numbers were to actually see if I was making any money. Mhmm. And then how to figure out how to scale it.

So I think, you know, I I say that kind of jokingly, but, he had the infrastructure in place. He really didn't need me, but he liked what I had to offer and bring to the table of, like, actually freeing up his time because I told him.

Brent: Because it was a it was a job. Yeah.

Steve: I

Brent: mean, I've had other businesses, and that's what's the weird thing is is that there's been plenty of other businesses, insurance offices, tax offices that were all run very much in the b quadrant. But the real estate side, just because there's so many aspects, like, I wanna be the one hearing what the seller has to say so that I know exactly what I can do with it.

Steve: What's the b quadrant?

Brent: Business owner.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: So, you you know, employee, self employed, business owner. And, so, like, that was never an issue, but I I mean, I was very much active in the I mean, we're still active in the business, but it was there wasn't a light to turn it into a business. Mhmm. It was just it was a job, but I loved it. I still love it.

But with him coming on board, we're able to fill in all the gaps that I don't have. But that's the point. Like, he doesn't really like being in the house that much. Like, he's way more introverted than I am. And so he's basically got it now where I mean, I think next week is booked up with appointments,

Steve: and

Brent: I have not talked to any of these people.

Steve: So who's talking to?

Adam: Karen. Our lead manager.

Steve: Makes sense.

Brent: Yeah. She she's been texting all day. You got this appointment. You got this appointment. And then she followed it up.

She said it's all in IPO, but I'm making you some sticky notes. Like, that that is

Adam: He had yeah. He I I tried to teach him I went with investor PO, one, because it's a great system. Mhmm. Two, because I hate Podio so much. Like, even though it's back end as Podio, I don't ever have to look at it.

I was like, well, I could teach him anything. I can at least teach him how to use a dashboard and not have to worry about looking at a podium. So now he's just taking notes and taking it to Karen. Like, can you put this in for me? I was like, whatever.

We'll just we'll

Steve: run with it. Hey. That's how entrepreneurship is meant to be. That's right. You're not doing the the data entry.

It's like, here. Go make this happen. So I admire that. I wish I had that ability, to do that. Okay.

So then you guys decided to partner up unofficially when?

Adam: Pretty much the minute I moved back. So when did you move back? May 2017.

Steve: Okay.

Adam: So unofficially, it wasn't on paper. Paper. Whenever I moved back, June, we started kinda doing a few deals together.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: We were all I mean, I think we knew as soon as I knew that I was moving back because we didn't know if I was moving back or not. My wife had a couple interviews with some big law firms.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And, I was strongly kinda jabbing her and, like, let's not do that because you're gonna go get into a rut of working eighty hours a week, hoping to make partner. Maybe you don't become partner, and then you just wasted five to ten years of, you know, running a rat race.

Steve: It's like attorney rat race. Right. Yeah.

Adam: Which is a, you know, it's a brutal Mhmm.

Steve: You

Adam: know, they bring these people in. They pay them good money, but you I was like, I will never see you.

Steve: Right. You work you like a dog. Yeah.

Brent: So But least they're friendly to each other. Right?

Adam: She was kind this is this is what's great is that she wasn't really that interested in doing any kind of real estate law whatsoever. She's like, yeah. This is kinda boring. Whatever. I want, you know, I wanna do mergers and acquisitions for major corporate, you know That's a lot more exciting.

Yeah. She's like, that's what I wanna do. You know, fast forward to I was in Atlanta this weekend. She went down to the beach, and she so desperately wants a beach house. She sent me, like, 30 properties.

Her brother's a property manager down there, a short term rental property manager. So I'm getting him started in the business to find deals. Mhmm.

Steve: And

Adam: then we're gonna work on those together and partner. So she's, like, down there driving for dollars and sending me leads while she's down there and and calling the banks, get authorization forms, all this stuff. And I was like, see that light that light just switched. And it's it makes me it's it's a super proud moment. And I was like, look, you know, you're in house, like, we we're gonna bring all of our deals to you.

He's very well connected. We have a meet up that we have 40 or 50

Steve: people at every single month, which in Hattiesburg is a pretty good number. Mhmm. And,

Adam: I was like, all those people were starting to bring you deals. So business is picking up for her, and she's getting to build her own brand. Alright. And I get to do my little marketing thing on the side for her and bring her probate clients and Will's Trust and Estates clients and stuff like that, which also lend to, you know, us. She can't directly say each other.

Call these people. But she's like, look. If you ever wanna sell, I know these people.

Steve: Right. Haim says hello. He's on the in there right now. So how is your operation different? I mean, there's a lot of, I imagine, lots of competition in Mississippi.

Yes? No?

Brent: We we actually created the majority of our competition.

Steve: But how is it how are you guys different?

Brent: Definitely, the our approach is drastically different. And it's hard for a lot of people to grasp, I think. I think most people think that we're just full of it when we say this. But when we walk into an appointment, we really don't care if we buy the house or not. Like, our motivation is solely to go in and be the best possible solution.

Sometimes that means us buying it. Sometimes it doesn't. But we we present all the options equally and weigh out the pros and cons with the seller right there in their living room. And we go through, and we help them through. If they say, hey.

You know what? I think I'd I'd like to spend a little money to paint it and list it. Great. Let's talk to the painter. Here's you know, this is his number.

This is your guy. If he's too busy, let me know. I'll direct you to somebody else. This is the realtor you need, and this is why. And then we get out of the way.

I mean, there's several deals that we do where we're involved, and we don't make anything.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: Because it just gets the deal done. Our buyer's happy. The seller's happy. We were able to do a good thing, and we roll on to the next one. But what's crazy is is that when we really started focusing in with that mindset, bought twice as many houses the next year and made twice as much money.

Yeah. It's the craziest thing.

Steve: Well, it's a consultant role, and you're very clear that you don't need their house. House. I mean, that's a lot of the sales styles that we we embrace, you know, with, how we buy our houses out here. Is that here here's all your options. You should go with a realtor.

You should go you know, you should you should use this contractor. And what they end up deciding is, like, you know, we'd rather just go with you.

Brent: Yeah. They don't wanna go through all that trouble.

Steve: Right.

Brent: That's what I think I found that the the best negotiations are not educations at all or, I mean, not negotiations at all. It's educating the person on what their options are and weighing out the pros and cons Yeah. So that they can make the decision that's best for them. And I think that's where we get the vast majority of our good deals from. It has nothing to do with negotiating.

And we've had some where we've paid them more money than

Adam: what they asked for. Yeah. Right. It and it's fun for us because we get to we get some a lot of times, it's it's it gets really creative. Oh.

And they make really good stories.

Steve: Can you give an example? Yeah.

Adam: How long

Brent: do we

Steve: have? We got the studios all three. Alright. So

Adam: which one you want to Thompson? Thompson Road? Thompson's a good one.

Brent: So, yeah.

Adam: We were talking about this one. You yeah. You know,

Brent: I want you

Adam: to bring

Steve: it home.

Adam: So we had this lady. It's a $140,000 house. She wants a 100,000. Deadset, she wants a $100,000. We're cash price all in probably $60,000,

Steve: and

Adam: that's

Steve: for

Adam: us to actually flip it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: That's not wholesaling it. Couldn't get it figured out. Couldn't get it worked out with her. She owns it free and clear, and we we knew at the back of our minds, like, where we're gonna go with it as far as how to structure the deal creatively, but she wanted the cash. Alright.

So it's not gonna work. So she put it out on Facebook for, like, two weeks, had other investors come, and we just kinda kept tripping on her. Like, have you got it figured out? Have you, you know, are you still where are you at?

Brent: Which was intentional Yeah. Because we knew that nobody else was gonna pay

Adam: Right. What she wanted for it.

Brent: For the amount of work. It wasn't an easy fix up, so it wasn't like somebody was gonna come in and say, well, give us a little equity

Steve: Mhmm. For

Brent: our personal house. It was a decent project.

Adam: So we got to the root of her problem or the root of what she wanted was that she wanted $10,000. She wanted $8,000 to move and, like, $2,000 in her pocket. She wanted to go to Denver or Colorado. Can't remember if it was Denver or not. But so we gave her a $10,000 down.

We've got a $9,090,000 dollar note created, basically, for a hundred and eighty months at $500 a month. And he calls her, and he's like, miss Wanda, I think I got it figured out. I can give you the 10,000, and I'll and I'll do the hundred and eighty months for $500 a month. That's a $100,000. Would you do that?

Which if you run your calculator, that's 0% interest.

Steve: Right.

Adam: She goes, I think that would work. That'd be great. So we signed the deal. Right? That's that's just the story.

We got we got a great house, put 17 in it, and now it rents for, like, $11.75 or $11.50, something like that. Mhmm. And, she goes off in the meantime.

Brent: So there's another piece of distressed property. It's it's five acres total, but it's split up. There's a three acre parcel and a two acre parcel. And a guy had bought a double wide on and he owned both the parcels, but he bought a double wide. The bank only financed the double wide and two acres.

Well, it's halfway on both pieces of property. So they foreclosed on the two acres in the mobile home. Well, now they got an encumbrance issue.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: So they're they're a year into I'm sorry. It wasn't a year. It was probably seven months into they filed a liz pendants, and they're trying to come in and say, no. No. No.

We meant to have that three acres from the get go, blah blah blah blah. So but they couldn't find him, and they're getting ready to do, service by publication.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: Well, we were able to find a guy that found a guy that knew this guy. And so we go talk to him, get it all worked out. We go to his house. Our closing attorney meets us at the house, get everything notarized, hand him $3,500. And so now the bank's gotta deal with us.

Mhmm. So we ended up over I guess, it was about a year. We redrew the property line, gave them a crappier piece of property for a better piece of property, and we both walked away with the same amount. So we set up two mobile home spots. We had one that was paying, and I think the other one would just had the mobile home on it.

We had just put it on there. And the lady that we had bought the house from that he was just talking about was back in town. She said, I'm coming back. I didn't like it out there as much as I thought I would. And she called I think it was called my dad and said, hey.

Do you guys have any mobile homes? I know you're in the business, and I trust you. So we start walking her through it and how we could trade a mobile home for some payments and whatnot. And there there's a lot more that we did in this deal, but, for the sake of time. So, anyway, long story short, we ended up trading her the three acres, the income producing mobile home that was on the property paying $200 a month for the spot and the mobile home that she could move into and 8,000 in cash for the balance that was left on the note.

And I think we figured up all into that house, all repairs and everything, we're in it now for $62,000 in cash.

Steve: Incredible.

Brent: Yeah. It was two and a half years in the making, but it was a fun deal.

Adam: The best part of it is and within that two and a half years, though, she she would call up and need some money every now and then. So we would pay her what we call 10 for 12, and we'd get so she would give us twelve months credit for 10 payments

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Which is a 24% return.

Brent: Thirty five.

Adam: 35% return on our money. And if you structure, like, a five for six, it's like 65%. Right? So if you ever look at little things one of the things I picked up this past weekend, I'm gonna drop that, was this guy was going and buying notes from from used cars' lots. So he they would structure the notes, get the down payment.

So if they say that it was a $5,000 car, a thousand dollars down, he would go and say, I'll give you half half the back principal balance for half the payments upfront. So he would give them $2,000. So now the guy's got $3,000. The dealer's got $3,000 in his pocket. But that's a that doubles whatever the face value is Mhmm.

On that term. So if it was a 20% interest rate, which a lot of buyer payer lots are that or higher, it now becomes a 40% interest rate Mhmm. That he's earning on his money.

Steve: Right.

Adam: And if you do a third for a third, it's triple the face value. If you do a quarter for a quarter, it's it's quadruple the interest rate. Right?

Steve: So it's like,

Adam: it's making it big on, like, really small little deals. There's not a lot of money, but I mean, that's not a lot of money, but I mean, that's a a fantastic return.

Steve: Adds up real fast. So when

Adam: somebody tells you you can't get a 65% or greater return Mhmm. Call them crazy. They're lying.

Brent: Don't call them crazy. See if they'll loan you money at 8%.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right.

Brent: And I'd be I would be remiss if I did not give a huge shout out to my dad Mhmm. Because he is a creative mastermind down into the nitty gritty.

Adam: Yeah.

Brent: And he is the reason that a lot of those creative deals even came to fruition, whether it was me learning from him or, you know, him strategizing. And I just I have to give a little shout out.

Steve: That's fair. So then with you guys' operation, how much is wholesale? How much is Flip?

Brent: It was, say, 60% wholesale.

Adam: Yeah.

Brent: It it really varies because there's so many factors that we look at to decide what our exit strategy is. So it could be anything from like, anything that we buy on terms that's a good long term property. Well, that's usually what we'll try to keep for a rental or keep long term. And then if it's just a good cherry pick deal, that's our flips. And then everything else or if we're we have a lot going on, like, I know we wholesale some stuff that I would have liked to have kept, but it just it wasn't a smart move because we had, you know, three no.

Four flips going at the same time. It was just it was too much. Right. Or it would have been too much to add on.

Adam: Right.

Brent: So I'd probably say, what, five to 10% rentals. Yeah. It could be a little more on the wholesale side, but it's gonna be real close.

Adam: I think our goal is to acquire like, our goal is always to acquire the property ourselves and and hold it. But I don't wanna go one number one, we haven't used the bank, or his him and his dad haven't used the bank in probably, what, ten years really?

Brent: I think, for me, about six. For him Long time.

Adam: So we don't we don't do anything with, with banks very, very, very, very rarely.

Steve: And you guys keep everything, like, $50.50? You guys

Brent: on equity? Actually, forty, forty, 20.

Adam: Yep. Yeah. We give his dad, 20% because he comes in, and a lot of times when we're in these situations, it's an older couple, you know, in their late sixties, whatever. It kinda helps to have that what Adam says, gray hair to gray hair

Steve: Mhmm. When

Adam: in the negotiation because, you know, I'm a young guy. Can they trust me? Well, if it's an older guy who's well established in in the in the area, it makes it easier. So we'll have him come in. Heck, half the time, we have it on a platter for him, and he ends up getting it better

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Than what we had already previously negotiated. I'm like, well, you're just alright. I don't know how you did that. But

Brent: He's good. But it it's a it's a very easy transition too. Because I like, I'll go in, and if that's the route we're taking, it's easy for me to sell the idea and act like I don't have all the details, so they need to talk to Leon. Even if I know exactly what to do and how to do it Mhmm. It's just that extra step where it's I'm helping them rather than trying to sell them on something.

Steve: Right. Gotcha. That makes sense.

Adam: And, plus, he manages all of our rentals. So everything we pick up, he manages that.

Steve: So Really? Yeah. Wow. That's huge. So then is there, so for us, you know, we had to decide what we we moved predominantly or primarily out of flipping.

We just decided we weren't good at it. So we looked at the numbers. If it's, if we can make 5,000 wholesale or 20,000 on a flip, we'll take the 5,000 wholesale and move on. Do you guys have something like that? No.

Adam: It's probably a good idea that we did, but it that's, like, just make it easy. It's more so of just we're so entrenched in the area and know it so well. Like, we know if it's, you know everyone everyone should know where their hot areas are. Right? It's such a small town where we are.

But if we know we got it at a good price, and we know that we only immediately know that's gonna be our next flip. Or if we don't have anything going on and we can make more money doing the flip, that might be the option we take. But I kinda like that, you know, if if $5,000 wholesale or $20,000, it just makes things easy, like, that's the way it's gonna go.

Brent: It's yeah. And because our our market is so what's the word? Eclectic, I guess. It's it's so drastically different just in a small area. So a lot of it too is is gonna be not just the money, but what's the scope of work that we gotta do?

How fast is it gonna sell? Because, I mean, we've done some where, you know, it's a flip that it wasn't just a phenomenal deal, but it contracted and sold within thirty days of you know, it's it contracted within twenty four hours and closed in the next thirty days.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: And the scope of work wasn't really that big. Alright. So for some of those, yeah, all day long. But then there's a lot of deals where I mean, there was one last year. We could have probably made 80 75 to 80 and walked away with it.

But just the scope of work and how long it was gonna take,

Adam: I think

Brent: I think we ended up getting, like, seventeen or 18, and I was thrilled, and we were on to the

Steve: next one. Yeah. We pass on those all day.

Adam: Yeah. We're not trying

Steve: to do any of those. Yeah. So then what does your organization look like today?

Adam: So we have a couple acquisition guys. We have one in North Mississippi, one over in Lee County, which is, like, Tupelo. So that's still kinda open to see if it was Northeast. We have two in Pearl River County, which is about an hour away from us. We have, they're not really our acquisition guys.

They're, friends of ours that are also wholesalers that will Affiliates. Yeah. We'll call them affiliates. We'll JV with them. So if we get any leads down there, we'll just JV, send it to them.

They'll go work it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And I trust them, fully. And then we have our lead manager who's in office, and then him and I are here in or in Hattiesburg and, of co caller. Yeah. We got we got we got our co caller, and that's it.

Steve: So you guys are in multiple cities then in Mississippi?

Adam: Well, we do we do counties. Yeah. Yeah. We do counties.

Brent: Our cities aren't, aren't terribly sizable, so we we usually do it by county.

Steve: Okay. So you guys are in multiple counties then?

Brent: 13 or 14 maybe.

Adam: Yeah. Something like that.

Steve: And then how far is it, like, you know, from, like, north most or south most?

Adam: Yeah. From north all the way to

Steve: the coast. But, like, how far is that? Like, on a drive.

Brent: Five hours tip to tip, probably.

Adam: Yeah. Five and a half, six hours, I would say.

Steve: So you have all those acquisition guys, meaning that they're the ones that are going to the appointments?

Adam: They're going to the appointments. Yeah. Okay.

Brent: They they actually do it's structured a little different because they they're not just the acquisitions guys. I mean, they're the full boots on the ground. So they handle acquisitions and dispositions, and then some of their, little bit of their leg work on, like, county records and things like that.

Adam: Gotcha.

Brent: So they they get a a bigger percentage, but they just do everything. It's less moving parts for us, and it's guys that we I mean, I've known for 20.

Steve: So, like, on those, you've got the deals, you found the lead, and hand out to someone else in another county, and they take it from appointment, basically, they

Adam: answer the phones a lot. They don't anymore. Everything's routed into our our lead manager as far as our marketing just to keep better track of it. But they find a lot of deals themselves as well, so they'll go work foreclosures and knock on doors and stuff like that.

Steve: Oh, nice.

Adam: So they're I mean, they're basically running their own operation. We're just, like, if they ever need any help with anything, we're the ones there to kinda make sure the deal happens.

Brent: Because I usually what no one's gonna be

Adam: a lot of the money is because they basically run their own operation, but we just we're always there pumping marketing and always there to help structure a deal if we need to. So if it's something where

Steve: your guys you guys they're you know, the homeowner called in on your marketing for guys that are, you know, far away from the hub, what do they get as far as a percentage of that? Fifty fifty. Fifty

Brent: fifty. Yep.

Steve: Okay. So you said was that four or five acquisition people?

Brent: We've got, what, three that are pretty much

Steve: Yeah.

Brent: We got close to full time. Yeah. And then we've got one that's, he's almost more of a partner

Steve: Yeah.

Brent: In that because he does some of his own deals, and then we do some deals together.

Steve: Yeah. And

Brent: then we've got, what, three others that are more, what I would call, affiliates that, like, we just send if we get a lead in their area, we just forward it to them and just say, hey. Whatever's fair.

Steve: Yep. Yeah. And then as far as a lead manager, how do you compensate them?

Brent: She gets, what, $12 an hour?

Adam: $12 an hour and

Brent: $100 a deal. Per closed deal.

Steve: Yep. And then what is she responsible for? She's Oh, god. Stop. Me?

Oh, god.

Adam: Harder, but she's takes it like a champ. I honestly, when we first hired her, she has a very kinda soft voice, which is great, but she has a British accent. So I was kinda I was like, we're Mississippi.

Steve: I was

Adam: like, I was kinda weary of putting a British accent on the phone, but it's surprising It's

Steve: been a long time since the revolutionary war.

Adam: Yeah. It has been a very long time

Steve: since the

Brent: It is getting close

Adam: to July 14. You you are correct. But, you know, it's Mississippi, and we have those, you know, mindsets that are out there, but whatever.

Steve: So I

Adam: was like, you know, we'll just run it. We'll see how it goes. If nothing else, we'll find something else for her to do to help, you know, around the office or whatever because she's a great person, and somebody that he'd already known for a while. Turns out I'm listening to her on the phone and oh my gosh. Crushing it.

Crushing it. I mean, having conversations that aren't having to do with anything about the the, real estate because everyone's curious right off the bat. They're like, wait. Are you do you live in Mississippi? She goes, oh, yes.

I live in Hattiesburg. I've lived here for, you know, however long. I'm butchering the accent, I'm sure. But, you know, so that's a conversation piece right off the bat that drops people's guards. Mhmm.

And then turns out, you know, when she starts, she gets to tell her story and make friends over the phone. So she's, like, talking to them like she's known them forever. And I'm in the background going, like, she's freaking brilliant. Right?

Brent: She's It's British, not not British.

Steve: Yeah. She's British. Inbound.

Adam: She's taking all the inbound and she's doing some some outbound. So she's doing a lot of the follow-up. Okay.

Steve: Even though I don't know qualifies as a follow-up for you guys? This is something actually we're working on right now. So what qualifies

Adam: Anyone that's interested in selling that we either so if we're doing some text messaging

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: So a lot of times, it's, hey. Call me at this time. So that's what I consider, like, a follow-up. Mhmm. And then inside of our system, IPO, investor PO, it does automated follow-up.

So once they come into the as a lead, once they're pushed into the system as a lead, they're in our funnel. And depending on what stage they're in, they're getting certain types of messages, SMS, drops, emails, all that stuff. Gotcha. So a lot of that so she handles all of that conversation that handles

Brent: All of it.

Adam: All of it comes back from text messages or voice mails or whatever. So she's following up all those people that are messaging basically our system and and handling it from there and then scheduling the appointment for him.

Brent: Because I I mean, I'll be honest. That was one of my things that I I didn't know I struggled with it till he started coming down and locking up. Like, we were locking up deals together that had I followed up, I wouldn't have to split with him. And, but it was that was one of those things. It's like I had a really good process, but my follow-up game was lacking big time.

And a lot of it too is balancing it out.

Adam: Because you got too much going on.

Brent: I mean When you got deals that are are closing, like, if they're undecided, you're gonna wait.

Steve: Right.

Brent: But then there's more deals that are closing, and they're still waiting.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: And even now, like, just having her full time in the office, being able to go through and and be a catchall to get those and push them towards some sort of closure.

Steve: Gotcha. So then dispositions, who's responsible for that?

Brent: I'd say more me, but our dispositions are really easy. Like, that's it's not a really if if if our business tasks were broken up into a pie, I mean, that would be a crumb Yeah. Of what it takes. Because ours, relationship wise, like, I know my buyers. For instance, did a deal last week.

We'll we'll make a thousand bucks on it. It took three and a half hours start to finish. I show Karen set the appointment. I showed up hour and a half with the guy, hour and ten minutes of that. We didn't talk about the house.

And then

Steve: I

Brent: told him, I said, look, man. You owe 82. You want 30. There's no way I can do it. I'm not even sure that a realtor could do it, but I'll be happy to have you call one and or to give you one to call.

And I said, but flip wise, like, I can't even pay you what you owe on it. But I know some guys that would love to have a rental here. They can probably get you to walk away with nine or 10. And he said, you know what? I trust you if you say that's the route to go for me to not have to do anything because he was traveling two hours just to show me the house.

Mhmm.

Steve: And he

Brent: said, if that's what you say is is the right way to go, then that's what I wanna do. So I went I actually had a lunch scheduled scheduled with that buyer already. So when they lunch, we're wrapping up, and I said, alright. You ready to go buy a house? And he kinda he does, you know, that little smirk.

And I said, no. Really? I said, I've got one right up the street. It's your house. I know you're gonna want it, and I want a thousand bucks.

Mhmm. And so we went thirty minutes, walked through it. He said, yep. I'll do it.

Steve: Very cool.

Brent: And so it was real easy. Like, that's our dispositions is we actually have a few buyers that we can buy on their behalf and then never even know about it till afterwards because we've we've got that kind of a relationship.

Adam: Record. Yeah.

Steve: Yep. Yep.

Brent: And we know where they wanna be. So it's just, like, we get a deal. I can tell you who's buying it, how much they're gonna pay for it, and how fast they can close, and it's just easy.

Adam: How many buyers you ever heard say, I can't wait to write you a 20,000 or $30,000 check?

Steve: Not a lot.

Adam: Yeah. But our buyers do because they go, the more money you make means the more money I make. Right. They they all have that mentality because and with having that mentality, it makes it very easy. So we don't have to schedule showings and do all these blasts.

Now, Grant, we could be leaving a lot of money on the table by not doing that.

Steve: Yeah. But

Adam: But my life is super easy. You have

Steve: a lot less brain damage. Yeah. Yeah. So then, you know, going back to the main point of the of the of the title. Right?

So you did 1.2 based off 20 k in ad spend. A lot of people I mean, there are people in town spending 20 k a month

Brent: Which makes sense. Or 30 k

Steve: a month.

Brent: Range. I've almost can we cut the air down?

Steve: So how do you do that? I mean, how do you like, what is your your your primary marketing where you can have your ad spend be so low? Well, first

Brent: of all, there was not any Internet in that equation.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: So, like, the as far as ad spend, there really, ad spend was zero. But referrals were mail.

Adam: You were doing you were always doing mail, but his mail is he would always he would always be very targeted. So he only hit houses he knew he wanted or he knew his buyers wanted that were on a list of stress. And then we all that stuff came from the courthouse. There's nothing online line in our area. So we actually have a courthouse runner that goes down there every week, pulls the records, puts it into a spreadsheet, and then we now we skip trace it and call.

Well, we text first and then call, and then then it gets mailed.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: So that's our system now. But, you know, when he got he did 48 houses. He didn't even have Internet at his house.

Brent: But that was How is that possible? One house at a time. But it was I was talking

Steve: about not having Internet. Very targeted.

Brent: But see so here's the thing. You know, everybody asked that, but here's the kicker. I didn't have distractions.

Steve: Right.

Brent: Like, there wasn't anything for me to do, but, like, when I went to the courthouse to pull leads, like, that's what I was there for. Like, it wasn't sitting at home going through and then, oh, man. Look. That's a funny commercial. You know?

Whatever. Like, I was there. That's what I was focused on.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: And then you go home. There's not like, I'm not browsing the Internet because there's no Internet. And and I have one bar maybe on my phone if I get in the right spot and, you know, tap my right foot three times and all that kind of stuff. But that's what it was. Like, my focus was on buying houses and what is it?

R r g a or whatever? Revenue generating activities. So that's all I had. And it and I was knocking out deals. I didn't have all the other bull crap to wade through.

Steve: Right. I

Adam: didn't have all this oh, I gotta check this system out and try this out, try this new form of marketing out. You already knew what worked. Now granted, it's a lot more work. Right? You he was going knocking on doors and, you know, building those relationships in the neighborhood, which over time, you know, compound.

Mhmm. And once you have that removed it's very rare that we ever go to lunch that somebody doesn't come up to us and go, hey. Do you have something for me? Or, hey. I have something for you you need to check out.

It almost never happens that we ever go to lunch in town and somebody does not come up to us and talk to us. It's it's just that I use what we call the three foot rule. If you're in my bubble for more than a minute and I can touch you, I'm gonna tell you what I do

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And how you can help me and how I can help you.

Brent: I think that's the I'm gonna get back to answer your question. So two two things because that's the biggest thing. I think people run into on on the relationship side. They don't look far enough past their eyelashes. And they it okay.

Well, you can't really help me right now, so I'm gonna go to the next person.

Adam: Mhmm.

Brent: Like, we spend a lot I mean, I used to take I mean, I have keys to our courthouses. Right? So I can go in anytime I want twenty four seven.

Adam: Wow.

Brent: I used to leave sticky notes on the computer, personalized sticky notes for all the, you know, the ladies at the courthouse. And they or if it was real hot, hot, I bring them snow cones. If it's cold, hot chocolate or coffee or something. But as crazy as that sounds, and I have a lot of people like, oh, that's overdoing it. Well, when you're down in the courthouse and they hand you the phone because somebody's tax delinquent and they say, hey.

I can't help you, but I think I may have somebody that can. And you start taking a a seller call on the courthouse phone because they handed it to you, like, that's a game changer.

Steve: And I

Brent: don't think people invest the time in that. So referrals were a huge one.

Adam: Mhmm.

Brent: And and then the direct mail was very targeted. I mean, a hundred, hundred fifty letters a week, but I was getting 18 to 22% response. And out of those 18 to 22% that were responding, they were highly motivated. And then go in with a very creative attitude, I mean because that's my little specialty.

Adam: In essence, you get there by building relationships with the people in your community. And we were talking to Brian Manley, last night, and he's, like, talking about our group. He's, like, well, how'd you get started and all this other stuff? And, like, how did like, how do you guys have that much rapport in your area? And, like, how do how can I do that's not scalable?

I was like, sure it's scalable. You just start now. Like, it's scalable because it's every day I know I'm I'm gonna go find somebody that needs my help. That's really all there is to it. If I gotta knock on doors to do it, if I gotta make phone calls to do it, if I gotta text people to do it, whatever.

You just start. You start telling everybody. You use your circle influence, what you do, how they how they can help, and how you can help them, and go from there. And over it just starts compounding.

Brent: It's like dating. Right? I mean Same

Steve: way you gotta date a lot of girls.

Brent: Well well, yeah. I mean, obviously. But no. I mean, like so it's like dating. Like, in all all it's funny how much we compartmentalize different things.

So, like, the relationships that that we've been able to build I mean, some of those, my dad's been working on for thirty five years

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: Forty years or a lifetime. And I've only been in the game for sixteen and a half and have really good relationships now. But it was it was just like dating, and a lot of people go in and be like, oh, that late at the courthouse was mean. I'm not gonna go back. We'll go back.

Win her over because guess what? Most everybody's gonna do the same thing you did. Yep. But we don't treat it that way, whereas in dating, like, you know, you've gotta go let's let's go test this out. You know?

We're not trying to get married right now. Let's just spend a little time together.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Brent: then if that works, let's spend a little more time together. And let's spend a little more time together. And most of the time, you're not gonna marry everybody. You're just looking for that one good one.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: Right. And I think people forget that, and it's a long play, which I I mean

Adam: It's a very long play, but it it's just like putting money in the bank, really.

Steve: Well, I mean, I love the part where you get keys to the courthouse. And I don't blame him for not being able to use the computer. The guy doesn't have Internet. Like

Brent: I do now. He doesn't. I know how

Steve: to use

Brent: the Internet, and I can post to social media.

Adam: After after consulting him for a while, he does have Internet now. And also after consulting him for a while, we finally hired somebody because he he he's very, very tight with budget. Whereas in South Carolina, I had a six figure job already, and then I was making whatever I was doing in my wholesaling. It was very quickly doing $20,000 a month consistently. I was taking all that money and just throwing it at everything Right.

Which was a huge mistake. I was trying everything, but I learned a lot. Right? I learned a lot of things very quickly that takes a lot of people years to do. I just was throwing money at it, trying to figure out this and that, and I was like, that's when I finally figured out.

I was like, pick a form of marketing and stick with that. Like, you need a passive and you need a, that's the word I'm looking for here.

Brent: Active.

Adam: Yeah. You need a passive and you need an active form of marketing. So I went with PPC all in. It was like my passive because it's coming in. And then the driving for dollars with my bird dogs, even though I wasn't doing it, that is an active form of marketing to to funnel me.

That's how I was getting all of my deals. So, where was I getting at with that?

Steve: I don't

Adam: I forgot where you're talking about.

Steve: Back to the, the main question then is if you were to if you were to sort your your lead sources, right, like, as far as, like, where deals are coming from, your number one source for deals then, it sounds like a referral.

Brent: No. There that's not our number one, but that's one of the favorites. Because, I mean, if we get a referral, if there is a deal to be had, it's easy.

Adam: Yeah.

Brent: Like, I can get it done, and I don't have to sell it that hard because somebody else already sold it before I got there

Steve: Right.

Brent: Or sold us before I got there.

Adam: Mhmm.

Brent: So they're one of my favorites, but it it's hard for those to be consistent. Right. I would say driving for dollars is a huge one for us. I love it. He loves it.

We pull a lot of deals out of that. Preforeclosures are real hit and miss. That's one reason I'm anxious for the market to just go ahead and crash and be done so all of this competition will stop.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: And so, that was probably a little harsh for a lot of people. But that's just the truth.

Steve: You're not alone.

Brent: You know? So, I mean, I go into a foreclosure sale at $20.16. We probably bought 12 or 13 at the steps. Last year, we bought I'm sorry. 20 yeah.

2017, we bought twelve, thirteen, whatever. Last year, we bought maybe one or two. I like two. Maybe.

Steve: Yeah.

Brent: And this year, I haven't even been to one.

Steve: Right.

Brent: So that you know, I like those if we can catch them ahead of time because those have been some of the best deals and the most satisfying with helping people. Because you're drastically changing how somebody's life's about I mean, you're you're the fork in the road in which direction their life goes.

Steve: Explain that. You're buying at the foreclosure?

Brent: Not a pre foreclosure.

Adam: Pre foreclosure. Gotcha.

Steve: Gotcha. Okay. So going back, it was driving dollars, preforeclosures, and then referrals. Kind of

Brent: a yeah. Referrals are because they're so inconsistent. It's hard to put them on the board. Mhmm.

Steve: I

Brent: mean, we'd probably get four, five, maybe six good referrals a month, but they're they're all over the place. Like, they're not real qualified and stuff like that. So that's just kind of a crapshoot.

Steve: Right. Courtney Frick wants to know how are you guys stretching your referrals? So if someone sends you a a hot seller, how do you guys structure that?

Adam: We just pay them pay if we close it, we pay them $500 if we close it.

Steve: And then when do you JV when do you pay your referral fee?

Brent: It really just depends on the person bringing the deal. Yeah.

Adam: I

Brent: mean, we're we're pretty easy. It depends on how much work they put into it. Yeah. Somebody brings a contract and we just need to find the buyer, $50.50, we're done.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: If somebody sends us a lead I mean, it really depends. They're definitely not gonna get 50%. They might get 25.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: If they've done a little leg work, they might get 10 if they've sent us the lead.

Adam: Usually, if they just send us a lead, it'll be

Brent: It's $500.

Adam: Or a thousand dollars.

Steve: What about those, your Uber drivers?

Adam: So that's one of my fave so they're, you know, that's driving for dollars is what I consider it. Right? So I can't stop talking about this. Like, I'm ET mentioned earlier that I am an introvert. I am an introvert.

I don't maybe seem like it most of the time, especially if I'm on camera or talk. But it's only because I'm talking about real estate or something that I'm passionate about. So Right. You wanna get an introvert to talk, talk about something they enjoy. So I I was actually on my bachelor trip, and we were down on the coast in Biloxi, Mississippi area.

We got leaving a bar, going to the casino and, I get into the Uber car and the guys driving or whatever and I start talking about real estate. And everybody in the car is like, oh god. Everybody's talking about real estate. There he goes again. He's just talking about real estate.

He can't help himself. So I start talking about

Brent: there was a pool going on on how long it was gonna take.

Adam: And, so I started talking to him, and I asked him. He was like, oh, yeah. I I know somebody that would probably wanna say was, look. If you ever see any that are you know, you're driving around anyways, use the same pitch, like, you're driving around anyways, like, with while you're driving around for Uber waiting to pick up a fare, why don't you just drive neighborhoods, send me those addresses, we'll call them, and schedule appointments. If we buy it, I'll give you a thousand dollars.

Oh, man. That'd be awesome. Within a week, it'd send us, like, over 100. Wow.

Brent: And I think he's about 400 to date. Yeah.

Adam: I mean, he's just he's crushing it. Right? So that's that's my favorite, like, because it's it's awesome because it's very rewarding for him. It's very rewarding for us. It's great leads usually.

And we're to be able to teach him, like, we'll check into the records if it's a Rio or not or whatever, if it's LLC, which will hit LLCs as well, just takes we gotta filter those out and find who who actually is the registered agent.

Steve: Right. So it sounds like I need to just take a lot more Ubers is what it sounds like. I just need Uber all over town.

Adam: You just need to talk to more people. Yeah. That's all it really is. It's not necessarily Uber.

Brent: It's just ghostmen. Yeah. It's yard care guys.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: Any landscapers? They're huge because they've already trained themselves to look for the same thing we're looking for.

Steve: Mhmm. Very true.

Brent: Because I I don't know. There's not not many driving for dollars houses where there's not some sort of sticker card or flyer from a landscaping company. Yep. Which when I see those, I'm gonna take the flyer out, and I'm gonna call them, and I'm gonna say, hey, man. Y'all left this on a house with the grass growing up.

Y'all did that a lot? You wanna make some extra money for the ones that don't call you back?

Steve: That's brilliant. That's that's a huge one.

Brent: Heck, we had a I had a postman in 2017.

Adam: That's how I found my lawn guy.

Brent: He made $2,700.

Adam: He came and posted on my mailbox, like, as we were doing the flip on my house. Mhmm.

Steve: He

Adam: came and posted it on the mailbox. And I was like, that's who's getting my business. I called him up. He hasn't been as active as sending leads as I'd like, but, you know, taking those guys out to lunch. Just doing a little bit extra for people and building those relationships and just talking to people instead of just treating them like you gotta give me something.

Right? Everybody wants something from somebody. Mhmm. Of course, everybody does. Right?

But I need to bring value to you of some way of some sort to get that what I want out of you. Right?

Brent: Heck, you get a cooler full of drinks and go follow the trash roots and go give drinks to all the trash guys when they're out on the real hot days and say, oh, by the way, I know you're real busy. Here's my card. On the houses that don't bring out any trash anymore, if you'll send me the address, if I buy it, I'll give you $500. And you're giving them a a cold drink right when you get out of the car.

Adam: I mean, these are basic basic, like, things that you can do. We just we just took it and went a little extra farther. Right? So that's how we got to that point of $20,000 in ad spend and generating that much revenue because it's just all about relationships. We tell everybody that investing is a team sport, and the more people that are playing, the more fun it is.

Steve: Right.

Brent: What I and I think that's where the technology was it was good for me to not have technology because that was it wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna shoot him a message on Facebook or, oh, I'm gonna shoot him an email. Nope. Like, if I wanna talk to somebody, it's either a phone call or I'm gonna go see him.

Steve: I got a tough question for you from Edwin. Edwin Wong. He wants to know, like, what is your profitability at 1,200,000 in in gross revenue?

Brent: We didn't have any employees. We had the the major expense there was that was some flip money and whatever went out to our investors. Yeah.

Adam: We brought on about a half million after everything because most of the profits, those when you get to that 1.2, half of that was probably from flips. Everything else was from wholesale. So I would say probably about a half. About 500,000 is what we brought home last year, roughly. Because we with our with our private money guys that put money in, depending on the deal, if it's a lot of cash and we're buying the house cash and it's not a creative structured deal to where they don't have to put so much cash in, we'll go anywhere.

They'll get a 50 to 30% net, split on the on the profits of it.

Brent: So it's

Adam: really good for them. Mhmm. But, again, it's easy for us because I don't even have to tell them where it's at. I just say, hey. I need a $100,000 tomorrow at 8AM.

Is that cool? Yeah. That's no big deal. Alright.

Steve: Oh, those are the best phone calls. Hey. I found another one. You in? Yes.

Great. So you guys have real estate roundup. What's that about? So that's our platform

Adam: that we, switch that happens in people when they find because I didn't know. It's kind of it's what was weird is it was that same transition that I had from growing up in a very small town and being the kid that my parents, like, we gotta go to college. You gotta go get a good job. You need to work your way up. You know, you're you're smart.

Because then my mom was always like, sorry, Abby. And I don't know if she told you all this, but, she said I was the smartest one in the family, but I didn't finish college.

Brent: You know parents tell every kid that in private. Well, I'll just I

Steve: love you more than other ones.

Adam: No. She's just But

Brent: don't tell your brother.

Steve: That that

Adam: that never happened. I think my brother's the prodigal child, and my sister's, like, right there right there next to him. I was the middle middle kids. Right? So I had to buck the system.

I was a black sheep. Yeah. When I when I found I was always passionate about music, and then I went and did some conventions, where I was working, like, talent conventions and stuff, meeting record label producers and stuff. And they were like, you don't need to go to college for that. Like, you need to go hustle for four years.

Like, you need to go to where what record label do you wanna work for? I was like, this one. Like, we need to go to that city, work in that town, network, meet as many people as possible, promote shows, and that's how you get in the music industry. A music industry degree is gonna do you absolutely nothing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: You're just gonna offset four years to spend four years to do what you're already gonna do. But I didn't even know that was a real job until somebody told me it was a real job. Right? So I didn't know about wholesaling until somebody told me about it and light just went off. So I love seeing that switch happening people when they go, go, okay, this is something we can do.

The click. Yeah. It's just a click and seeing people's lives actually change. But most importantly, we want to make sure people do this the right way because there's something to be said about doing good business by people.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And I feel like there's a lot of people out there who are misled by big checks, fancy cars, you know, or just, you know, whatever. That should not be your motivation for being in this business. And if it is, you know, and there's nothing wrong with money. I love money. Everybody loves money.

But when you truly help people, whether it be people that inside of our group or whether it be a seller, when you truly help people, it's a very, very powerful moment

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Not just for me, but for them. And it's it's worth more money than you can ever throw at me when you see that click happen.

Brent: Because the money is just a means to an end. And that's, like, that's the two things. So did a whole conference in Las Vegas one time. Just self discovery, what really motivates you. And when I got started, it was, you know, Donald Trump look out.

Here I come. I'm in the real estate world now. You know, here we go. And then I realized, like End Of Johnson Towers. Yeah.

For sure.

Adam: Big big

Brent: the big SIP towers.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: And, but it was one of those things, like, I quickly realized, like, most people that do that, number one, it's it's it's here and or here, and it's never here.

Adam: Right.

Brent: Right? Because that's not money doesn't get people out of bed in the morning. Now lack of money will. If you're broke and you got bills to pay, you'll get out of bed in the morning, but only enough to pay those bills. And so, like, when it's when you don't feel good and your back hurts and you already put in twenty hours yesterday, that poster of a Ferrari on your wall is not gonna roll you out of the bed.

But knowing that there's somebody out there that if you don't help them, they may not have a backup plan

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: That's a powerful motivator. Or knowing that you know, on the flip side, getting back to, like, Real Estate Roundup, that's one of those platforms. It has just allowed us to help tremendously more people. Like, your your goal is to make a 100 millionaires.

Steve: Right.

Adam: Right.

Brent: Our goal is to help as many people as possible do their first deal.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: Once you do 20, congratulations. Go somewhere I mean, you stay with us. But, like, that's you're not my focus anymore.

Adam: Mhmm.

Brent: I wanna help somebody get that first deal because that's that click that I just you wanna talk about getting energized.

Steve: Yeah. I would say

Adam: I would say it's that and making sure that we instill in people how to do business Yeah. The right way.

Steve: Well, I think here, Sean O'Rourke asked this question. You might just answer right now is what is your favorite part about this business? Start with you.

Adam: I mean, it's it's true of the impact you can have on people's lives. Like, when you can see a grown man crying because you've solved his problem like that alone, like, we got a video that if you don't tear up a little bit, I don't care how manly of a man you are, it's powerful. Yeah. And there's there's not you can't put any money on that. That.

And just seeing how we can again, this is I know I'm repeating myself over and over, but it truly is that

Steve: It's that important.

Adam: To do to do good by people and to do you know, I I'm not saying you won't ever get burned because it'll happen. That's fine. But all you can focus on that's what I tell everybody. I don't care what my competition is doing. I truly don't.

I really don't care how many people were coming in behind the door at the at the house at after me or before me or whatever else because I know I'm gonna provide such good service that it's almost gonna be impossible for them not to either not to like me. And if they like me, then they'll do business with me. If they don't, it's okay because I want them to make the best decisions for them. And when you truly have that mindset, you will make so much more money in the long run.

Brent: Because people know when you're trying to sell them on something.

Adam: Oh, yeah. You know? 100%.

Brent: And for the guys oh, yeah. And heaven forbid you need to sell them on something. Mhmm. It is a

Adam: Heaven forbid you got What

Brent: is this? Like climbing camelback at June 31 or Yeah. Thirtieth?

Steve: Thirtieth. I

Brent: think there's only well, that shows you. We're from Mississippi. So, but, yeah, it's just a it's a tough road. And when you go in with the attitude of I'm gonna do my best to help, which is what's in your control anyway.

Adam: Yeah.

Brent: You can be the best solution whether or not they say yes. It's totally out of my control. Right. So I started focusing on the things that I can control, which is my actions with regard to helping people. And then if they don't take it, that's on them.

Adam: Yeah. You get those those people that won't take it. They usually end up coming back. They come back.

Steve: So we're we're we're past that hour mark, so I wanna leave you guys an opportunity for each one of you guys. It's like one lasting thought. Like, what message do you wanna leave the listeners? I'll start with start with big sip. So

Brent: mindset is a big one. And I'm just gonna repeat something that my dad used to say all the time. Because when I got started, it's really inconsistent. You know, you knock out a few deals, and then you get so wrapped up with those deals, you wouldn't be putting anything else in the pipeline. So it's it's a very delicate juggling act.

And as a newbie, you're gonna drop the ball a lot. And it's okay. Just give your efforts time to compound. Because a lot of people, I think I mean, I had a phone call. I'm not gonna say any names, but I had a phone call.

I spent probably an hour and a half on the phone guiding this team, this two person team on, hey. This is exactly what you need to do. Do it consistently, and you'll do well. I get a call from one of them a month later. One of them is ready to quit because they haven't done a first deal yet.

That's thirty days. I mean, it took how long did it it I was in the second grade before I could read. That's a true story. I was in the second grade. Can you imagine if I was like, hey.

I'm a month into kindergarten. I'm done. Yeah. Right? It doesn't it doesn't compute, but people get into that.

So that's if it all boils down to one statement to leave you with, do the work consistently and give your efforts time to compound.

Adam: Yeah. How about you? I would say listen, help, and solve. And I wanna emphasize that because listen is very important. If you go in and you're in a house, you're talking to a seller, and you're doing all the talking, you've already lost.

Right. You need to listen and listen and listen some more. God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason. You need to listen twice as much as you talk. Yeah.

Right? Listen to what they have to say because you will find things and hear things and what they're telling you and ways to help them. Right? So that's where the help comes in. I've now listened to everything they had to tell me.

I'm gonna offer to help them the best way I know how and then solve all their problems, whether that's me or somebody else. I'm gonna point them in the right direction. If it's not me, that's okay. I wanna make sure I'm the best fit and they're happy. So listen, help, and solve is what I always tell everyone, like, that that's crucial.

Brent: And listen is a bit of actively listening Yeah.

Steve: Is a bit of Well, you can't help and solve if you're not actively listening. Right.

Brent: Because everything at that point is just speculation.

Steve: Yep. So I think that's a powerful message. So, guys, we have a huge week next week. We've got this giant lineup. We got Todd Toback coming on Tuesday, Gary Tigranian on Wednesday, and Chris the Shark on Thursday.

So huge week next week, guys. Make sure you tune in. Do not miss out. If someone wants to get a hold of you guys, how do they do that?

Brent: Instagram is probably the best. Yeah. If it shows up in my message requests, please be patient. I forget that it's there most of the time, but it's, I realize I don't have to say add anymore. Big Sip Real Estate.

Adam: And mine is mister Sippi, m I s t e r s I p p I. And, real quick, if I want we do have an event that we're doing in October. It's gonna be acquisition intensive. The last day is gonna be talking about creative financing and stuff, but, the first two days are all gonna be about mindset. They're all gonna be about acquisition strategies.

We got, you know, some big hitters. We got Max Maxwell, Brent Daniels, and others coming in. So you could find more info about that at rerlive.com. I'd love to see all of you there. We've only got room for, like, 250 people.

I know we've already sold, like, 60 or 70. So there's not a lot of tickets left, and, hope to see you guys there because it's gonna be awesome. Very cool. Awesome.

Steve: Alright. Thank you guys for watching. Thank you. This was fantastic.

Adam: Enjoyed it. I like it. Thanks for having us.

Steve: Appreciate it.