How Kevin Sold 552 Homes for $150MM in 2017

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we have Kevin Kaufman with group forty six ten, and he's here to share how he and his friend sold 552 houses for a 150,000,000 in sales volume last year. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trang with Stunning Homes Realty, broker owner of Stunning Homes Realty, cofounder of OfferFast, the one app you need for wholesaling, and I help people become real estate entrepreneurs. If you're excited for today's show, please give me some thumbs up and some hearts.

And before we get started, I just wanna share that I did start this show because I've struggled. You struggled. We've talked about it. We've joked about it. And we wanna shortcut that struggle for as many young leaders as possible.

So I don't charge a dime for the show. I don't make any money doing this. Here's all I ask. If you get value out of this show, please tell our friend. Either share this episode right now, tag our friend, or tell them your best takeaway from this show later on.

That way, we can all grow together. And don't forget this is a live show, so please post your questions, and Kevin's gonna be happy to oblige.

Kevin Kaufman: I'll do my best.

Steve: You ready for this?

Kevin: Let's do it, man.

Steve: Alright. So what got you into real estate?

Kevin: Oh, I'm gonna hopefully do this without crying. Just kidding. So, actually, no. Honestly, I had a I had a professor. I was going back to school.

Mhmm. I'll I'll I'll go I'll give you the short version here. I was going back to school. All I knew is I wanted to be in business for myself one day. That was it.

I'd always kinda, like, I always managed to find myself in jobs I didn't deserve and get paid more than I had earned and or get paid more than I really deserved. Like, I didn't finish college, yada yada yada. So I'm going back to school full time. I'm working full time, and I had just turned down a big promotion, which would have been great for my career at GE

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: Finance. And turned it down because I just didn't think it was worth it. Like, I was like, I'm not that's not gonna help me reach my dreams. And, there was this guy. His name is professor Goodner, Tracy Goodner, and he's a Facebook friend of mine, and I'll tag him here below later.

And, professor Goodner was teaching a class. I think he was on business plans. And one day he walks in and he says, hey. We're not gonna, like, talk whatever's on the syllabus. We're not talking about that today.

We're gonna talk about money. And, and so I'm, like, well, my interest is peaked. What are you gonna tell me? And I knew that he was a business owner, but what I found out is he only taught to give back to the community. Mhmm.

And he he would teach one to two classes a semester. And he breaks down real estate and how he's used it to build wealth. And he breaks down business and how money works. Like, I've never heard it before. And what I come to found out is, like, this guy, he if you've read Rich Dad Poor Dad

Steve: Uh-huh.

Kevin: He lives that life. Like, that was him. And in fact, he was, accredited through Rich Dad Poor Dad to teach his teach their classes and through the Maricopa Community College System. And so, like, he shook my world that day. And I remember asking him, like, can I buy you coffee?

Like, I like, all all I knew is I needed to be closer to this guy. I need to learn more. And, so he agreed. We went and had coffee, and he set me straight on a few things like, you know, don't quit your job. You still have to work.

Blah blah blah. Mhmm. And so, basically, for the next three or four semesters in a row I think it was three in a row, so it was four total. If he taught a class, I took it. And it happened luckily, they were all about real estate and real estate investing, and there was no more business plans.

Mhmm. And, and then I was still finishing up all my other, like, general stuff that I needed to take, for, like, a full schedule. And I at some point, I realized, like, real estate is is where it's at. And I also knew that I had to keep working. Like, I couldn't have I would definitely wasn't independently wealthy.

You know? Yeah. Making $50 a year was knocking or $60 a year. What I was making at a time wasn't gonna wasn't gonna get me there.

Steve: For college.

Kevin: Yeah. And so yeah. And, like I said, overpaid always. And and so I eventually realized if I'm gonna still work, maybe I should just work in real estate. Like, that was my that was literally my thought process.

Steve: Yeah. And

Kevin: I didn't know anything about business. I didn't know anything about, I didn't know anything about the real estate business. I just thought I could go work as a realtor if I'm gonna keep working because I wanna be around real estate. I know that much. And so that was my whole thought process and why I decided to get a real estate license and sort of go after it.

And and I did. Like, I that's that's kinda what set me up up on the path. And finally, it was '7, so great timing. I was like, I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna just jump off the deep end. I'm gonna quit my job and go get a real estate license.

And and all my friends were like, you're you're freaking crazy, dude. What are you doing? Like, you literally had people try to tell me not to do it.

Steve: I had the same exact thing because I we talked about this. How I started in May '7.

Kevin: Yeah. So me yeah. Me too. We're licensed the same month. Right?

Yeah.

Steve: Everyone's, like, trying to slap you. Like, what's wrong

Kevin: with you? They're like, dude. You're too late. I'm like, no. And, basically, tell me not to do something.

It is the same as, like, encouraging me to do it. Right. Sure. If the crowd goes that way, for sure, I'll go the other way. And so I was I was after it, man.

I was like I was like, I'm just gonna go figure this out. And I don't know. I'd arrived in real estate school. Fred, my business partner, always teases that I was the one apparently, it was you and me that kept the real estate school open that year.

Steve: Yeah. It was it was definitely very slow at those times. Okay. So, what were some of your early struggles? I mean, you started in 2007.

Obviously, we know the market wasn't fantastic, but what were some of your, early struggles?

Kevin: Man, I was just lost, like, in general. What the one thing I think I did right in 2007 was I just went to class because I I didn't know any better. And I knew that I'm good with people and building relationships. I've kinda always known that. I didn't feel comfortable with the word sales, though, and I had to get over that.

I did really enjoy being around people, though, but I knew nothing about real estate other than I had bought one house, and that was it. My buddy was a realtor. That that was my the extent of it. So I started going to class every day. And then I just tried to go apply what I learned.

And luckily, I kinda got thrown into the mix because Fred, my now business partner, needed some help with some short sales, like, when I first got licensed. And and I basically said yes. I always joke that he tricked me into it because he was leaving the country. He was getting married and then going on his, honeymoon in, like, Fiji or wherever wherever they went. Bora Bora.

And so I got like, I had sold two houses, and here it is. Now it's, like, July or August 2007. And I've got I'm babysitting his 13 or 11 short sale listings, and he literally had told me, I don't even know if we get paid for doing these. He's like, I don't know who will pay us. The seller is broke.

Yeah. And And I like, I'm like, well, this sounds like a genius idea. Let's do it. And so I just kinda dove in, and I just tried to figure it out. To be honest, I just learned by, like, deciding, I'm gonna figure it out.

You know? I had learned from Carlton Sheets, like, you know, late night infomercials, like, no money down type stuff. Like, I learned I I studied all that stuff because to me, that wasn't necessarily about, like, a lease option. It was about finding solutions. Yeah.

And so I just decided I would use that same mindset. I would attack the real estate industry with that mindset. And I don't know, man. I just tripped my way through the first six months, to be honest with you. Ben, I managed to sell a few houses and survive.

And we ended Fred and I ended up teaming up together not long later, not long after.

Steve: So, what does the group forty six ten mean?

Kevin: So that is, so if you go back to 2008 so we start we teamed up February '8, so just over ten years ago now. And I gotta go backwards in the story to give you context for it. We started teaching real estate, short sale classes because we were doing a lot of short sales because nobody else wanted to. Again, tell me not to do something, and I'll just do it. Yeah.

And so I remember I went to this real estate, like, a CE class, and the guy was on short sales. And the first thing the guy says is don't do short sales. They're bad for your business. And it's a three hour class on short sales. And I thought, like and you gotta understand, like, for context, it's February 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona.

And I'll never forget, I'm in this training room in Ahwatukee, and it's built for, like, 30 people comfortably, and there must have been 65 people in the room. Mhmm. And it's everyone is, like, wanting to know. And now I've closed, like, three short sales, so I am the expert. And, sadly, I actually was the expert in the room.

And I was that guy for the next three hours that just kept raising my hand and going, no. You're wrong. That's not actually how it works. And and I kept doing that, and I was that guy. So Don't

Steve: phone any of my classes.

Kevin: Yeah. No. I don't always do. Okay. I I do that a lot.

But this guy was just wrong about everything. He just didn't he he was talking about what happened in the RTC days, not what was happening February 2000 It

Steve: wasn't relevant.

Kevin: Yeah. It totally wasn't relevant. And you could tell I could tell because I was in the trenches, and I was experiencing this firsthand. And so I remember I came back. I'd said, Fred, dude, we have to go teach people what we're doing because nobody knows what they're doing.

And so we decided to start teaching classes. And and, anyway, the reason I share that is because that that fast forwarded our business in a big way. Mhmm. I mean, the day we started working together, which was, like, February 2 or 02/03/2008, whatever that Monday was, we had, I think, 11 listings between the two of us. And within ninety days of it, we had 50.

And it was just because we decided we'd go teach classes, and people started referring us deals. Yeah. And we got known as these the short sale guys that were quote, unquote experts. And, so we start growing fast. I'll never forget.

This is how the name came up. Sitting at my desk, Fred sitting in his card table. He's sitting at my sister in law's card table, which was his desk at the time Mhmm. In this office, not any bigger than this, actually. And, I said, hey, dude.

We're we're out of signs. We need to order some more. Do you want me to put your name on them? I don't want my name on any signs. I don't want my phone number on any signs.

I don't want my name on any signs. And he said, not a chance. And I said, we should probably think of it like a team name then or something. Like, how does this work? Because we weren't we were just, like, trying to help each other.

We were literally backs to the wall backs to each other trying to make ends meet, and he he said, well, we should definitely think of a team name. Yeah. And so I went home, and I thought of some names. We had this guy who, if you've ever seen any of our old Short Soul Power Hour videos, you know who he is. His name is Mark Collard.

We always call him coach Collard.

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: And he had, read the book seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey, and I think he'd gone to, like, one of those day long trainings.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: Well, I think it's habit number two, if I'm not mistaken, is begin with the end in mind or think with the end in mind. And that always stuck out to Fred and I because of the fact in short short sales, when the every question I would ask, and I didn't realize at the time, but it was the script I was using. I just didn't call it a script then. Every question I would ask of a homeowner, I was thinking about what's gonna happen nine months from now when I'm, like, at close at the closing table. Mhmm.

Like, I was thinking pricing strategy, my negotiation strategy with the other agents, how I was gonna do this with title, what is gonna be like between the first lender and the second lender and the mortgage insurance companies. Like, I was literally in my mind going through that whole process. So begin with the end in mind or think with the end in mind stuck out to me.

Steve: Okay.

Kevin: And and to Fred too. And, my buddy Mark or coach as we call him said, hey. That, that came from the scripture, Isaiah forty six ten in the Bible. He had taken all seven of those habits. Mhmm.

And I don't remember if it came out in the class that he was at or if he just did it. And, for context, Mark is this guy who says he's wider than I am, and he was a Spanish pastor. Like, he he led a congregation in Spanish. And so he's this guy that you can't help but to love. He's just, like, the most lovable guy, and he's a fun guy.

And he's the type of guy that would shave something into his chest, you know, like like the Texas Longhorn logo or something. He did. And so he that that came that stuck out to us is beginning with the end in mind. And so this I said, what about group forty six ten? I sent an email, and I sent it to Mark and Fred.

And Fred, they both responded right away. Group forty six ten's Perfect. And so we we just went with it. Like, it sounded the minute it came out loud. We all went, that's it.

Cool. That's the name. And so it wasn't a big statement. A lot of people are like, is this a religious statement? Are you are you just, like, trying to have an altar call?

Nope. And it's so it's just it's beginning with the end in mind. It's or think with the end in mind. That's all that it is. Mhmm.

And it's definitely started some unique conversations, some good and some not so good.

Steve: Well, and I think it's great too because you're talking about the end in mind. You're also talking about, like, servicing the client. Yeah. Right? It's not just they're you're not in it just for the money because you're in it just for the money.

You won't last in this business.

Kevin: Yeah. That's a fact.

Steve: So I think the $46.10 helps you remember why you're doing it too.

Kevin: Oh, totally. Totally.

Steve: So we generally advise people against partnerships. In fact, in the last episode, Brent and I were talking about how awful partnerships are. Oh, yeah. So how is it that you and Fred have been able to succeed together for so long?

Kevin: You know, my thinking on this has evolved. And what I mean by that is I get this question a lot. I get a phone call four to six times a year that says, hey. So and so in whatever city said to call you, and because so and so and I are thinking about forming a partnership, and they they said, you're the only one you and your partner are the only ones they know that aren't husband and wife or family related somehow that have had a long standing partnership that's really worked out well. Yeah.

And so I started having these conversations with people four to six, seven times a year. And here's what I realized. There's some dumb luck is involved. Like Sure. Like, we're not that smart.

But we've also done some smart things that have supported the dumb luck. Yeah. And what those things are to give you an example, day one, before we even agreed to work together, we we both love Mexican food, and I'm from Yuma, Arizona. Oh. And,

Steve: so you're, like, the biggest, most famous guy from Yuma then?

Kevin: Not quite. Pearl Culp is the most and Cain Velasquez, actually. But at any rate so, we drove to Yuma to go to this my favorite Mexican food restaurant. It's called Chili Pepper by Mr. G's.

And, we drove down there, and we literally typed down on a piece of paper those 11 listings that we had. Uh-huh. How were we gonna compensate each other on any on that? That? And we then what would also any other deal ever look like?

And then so if I brought a deal in, what would I compensate him on it? And what would and vice versa? And then what happens if we created a deal be just because we're in business together? Like, it wasn't from my sphere or his. And we had decided, you know, we'd do those fifty fifty, but we actually started eighty five fifteen on the other stuff.

Steve: Okay.

Kevin: And so we had both come from some relationships where, business wise, we we were we felt we were the ones left holding the bag Mhmm. And and shoulder in the burden, and so neither one of us were gonna ever let that happen again. And so we were very clear about that from day one, and it, you know, it took us over three years to get to a fifty fifty on everything. And it's to to this day, it's a competition. We're super competitive.

Yeah. And so even though the money is split fifty fifty, trust me, at any given moment, one of us knows who has more referrals for the year. Like, like, so much that my wife said to me at one point. She she was for some reason saw, our numbers for I was showing her something in our system. I think we might might have been, like, our new tech system Mhmm.

Where we got a reporting at. And she goes, does Fred know you have that many more referrals than him this year or deals? And I was like, oh, he knows. Trust me. Like so I mean, it's a thing.

Right? So number one is is we we agreed that nobody could live off the other person, because you can't do it. We were gonna split we split expenses $50.50 Mhmm. But income was split $85.15. Couldn't live off the other person.

So that was number one. Number two So

Steve: that's still intact today?

Kevin: Well, no. $50.50 now on everything. Okay. To be straight with you, at this point, he's he's earned 50% of anything I ever get. If I win the lottery tomorrow

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: I might not give him 50%, but I'll give him a little bit.

Steve: Give me a call first. I'll

Kevin: give you

Steve: some advice.

Kevin: So thanks. I might need a good attorney's number. Yeah. So the the reality is I feel like he's earned 50% of whatever whatever I have that he wants. I would probably just give him 50% of.

Yeah. And so the other part of that is we there's we have the same vision. Like, we we both know where we wanna go. We take different paths to get there. Mhmm.

And we definitely have, some similarities, yet very big differences too in our personalities. Right? And so, like, there's a reason I'm the one here doing the podcast because you and I have built a relationship over the years, and he and you haven't with him. Mhmm. And it's not that he doesn't like people, but that's not his strength, and it's not what gives him energy.

But I could you know, if you and I came up with a crazy idea today to go sell a 100 houses or something. Right? I could I could I know that I could take it back and go, dude, this is awesome. Look what Steve and I thought of. Mhmm.

Here. And he'd make it work. Say, somewhere between the operations team and my brain, he'll make it work. Yeah. And, and so we're really good pairing like that.

We had a friend describe it's like you guys are opposite corners of the same brain. So I think a lot of that that's some of the dumb luck. Right?

Steve: You just compliment each other really well.

Kevin: Yeah. We do. And the other piece of it, which is I think we do really smart, is there's just no ego involved. And I can remember we've interviewed people who have known us for years, about just different things, and they've been like, okay. But really, who makes the decisions?

Like, really, who has the final say? And we're like, really? Both of us. And they, like, people have a hard time grasping that that we can be in such lockstep that we can make the same decision. And the reason why is this.

Number one, we disagree very rarely on the on a, say, a strategy or a method or a direction. Mhmm. And I think I think I don't know if this is true, but I think the safe place for us is that if, if we disagree, neither one of us are afraid to sort of give in to the other person because we already know that if we screw it up because we screw up a lot, we're just gonna stop doing that. So I always tell people, like, we have two strengths. Then first strength is that, we screw up a ton, but luckily, the one thing we're better at than screwing up is we stop doing that, and we'll just go a different direction.

So for instance, if I wanted, say, one system and he wanted another, probably one of us feel stronger about it or has a better argument, so we'll just do it. Mhmm. And the other person doesn't care because we're either gonna get the result we're after or we'll just go the other direction.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And so I think that's helped a lot. And I think

Steve: So it's I

Kevin: think that's how it's worked.

Steve: So it's not having a big ego.

Kevin: Yeah.

Steve: And the willingness to accept that you're wrong.

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, I'm never wrong, so it's really easy for me to have a good sense of humor about it.

Steve: I have the same problem.

Kevin: And if he was here, he would also tell you the truth is, he and my wife have been friends since second grade or third grade. Like, neighbors, they grew up in this there's this group of friends. Mhmm. They grew up on the same, you know, same block. They're friends to this day.

And, and he would tell you that he loves my wife and my kids, and I I I love his wife and his son too and so more than I like him. And so, luckily, that also helps a little bit too.

Steve: Yeah. It helps it helps to get to you with the struggle. Yeah. Right. So, you know, we talked about a 100 and or 552 for a 149.9.

I put a 150 to kinda get your ego right where we're at.

Kevin: Thanks, man. I really needed that.

Steve: But why didn't you just try a little bit harder just that last month? Gets to that one fifty. I'm just messing with you. So how did you guys get because 500 even a 100 is a big number. Right?

Kevin: I mean,

Steve: we have a lot of people doing it, but five hundred's gotta be some sort of man managerial or logistical nightmare. So what's the first step in that journey, and what does it look like to get there?

Kevin: Man, you know, it is and it isn't. Like, the the one thing I've learned is, like, the bigger your world gets, the the smaller your focus needs to become, which sort of in a way Mhmm. Makes everything else easier Yeah. And also usually makes it messier.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: But as long as you can get past that and so I don't I think number one, like you said, what's the first step? Like, I think think you're gotta be willing to, number one, let it get big.

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: Want it to get big and be willing to let it get messy. And the perfect example I can think of that is, like, I can remember back to 2000, 2013, 2014. You know this. Like, we were having quite a shift in our business. Right?

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Kevin: And Fred and I were back in the, what I would call, the trenches. Like, I was we were on the listing appointments. We were showing the buyers, you name it. And a good friend of ours who's a kind of a friend slash mentor, Ben Kenny, was like, hey. Hey.

Come up. Come up. Come up here, guys. Let me help you out. And so we we flew up to Bellingham, Washington and and stayed with him, and kinda just shadowed his team for a couple days.

And the way he would do it is he would say, okay. Go watch this. Observe that. Come back in an hour or forty five minutes or two or whatever, and we'll talk about it. And then he'd send us send us on our way to the his next assignment.

Right? And so at the time, we're selling you know, I think 2013, we did, like, a 130, 140 transactions. Pretty good, but, like, neither one of us are happy with it.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And, Ben's doing 700 transactions, mostly in Bellingham, Washington, which is the size of this complex. And and so we caught ourselves going, why are they doing that? Why do they do that? Why do they do this? That's why would we do that so much better.

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: And finally, we went, okay. We might do it better, but he's selling 700 houses, and we're selling a 130. So maybe we should just shut up and listen.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And what I realized on that trip was Ben was willing to just let it be chaotic and messy for the sake of growth, in all things.

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: And go home at night. And I was like, we gotta do that. And once we, like, accepted that, I think that was when our I don't think. That was when our business started to take off. That coupled with kinda like a model change with the way we approached, the way our salespeople interact in our company and things like that.

It was, that was the big catalyst for us to be able to go from, like you know, we had done 219 transactions a couple years earlier, in the short sale world. Mhmm. But at the time, we're at one thirty. That like, the very next year, one thirty was, like, then one sixty was but was the year we actually went to visit Ben. And we were able to to almost triple maybe not triple, more than double, though, the following year and just keep growing now, you know, $5,550 last year.

Steve: Now when you went out to see Ben, were you only in Phoenix?

Kevin: Yes. We were considering going to Colorado at the time. Mhmm. So our business partner there, Aaron Lobovic, who the guy's an animal, absolute monster, is someone that we've known for years, through the short sale days, and we were considering expanding. We're doing this thing called expansion, something we'd actually considered back in 2011, but we got a little distracted with something.

Yeah. And so we sort of let that kind of just sit on the back burner. And once we got done being distracted and got back into our business and then fixed our business, we went, okay. We could have these conversations. And I'll never forget, I'm sitting in a meeting in Denver, and, Aaron Lobovic is in the meeting and a guy named Leo Sanchez, who at the time worked for a company called Waypoint Homes.

And you remember them? They bought a ton of

Steve: houses there. Right? Yeah. Big hedge fund buyer.

Kevin: Yeah. And so and we had sold a lot of homes to Leo and built a relationship with them. And we're he was struggling in Denver because there's not a lot of inventory. There wasn't then either. And so we're trying to just introduce him to people that we thought either had a lot of, what's the word I'm looking for?

Not clout. I don't hate that word.

Steve: Had yeah.

Kevin: Had a lot of pool in the in the industry and or had a lot of listings. And so we thought it'd be beneficial for both parties. So we set up a bunch of meetings because we knew we know a lot of people in Denver. Set up a lot of meetings, and we're just sitting in the meeting one day. It might have been towards towards the end of the meeting.

Leo goes, gosh. This would just be so much easier if you guys lived here or if you sold real estate here.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And Aaron is across the table, and he looks at us. He goes, If you guys did that, he's like, I would totally be interested in talking to you about maybe partnering on something. I've been thinking about getting into retail sales.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And we're like, light bulb moment. Couple months later, that's right right about the same time as this trip to go see Ben Kenny. Like, so we come back. We're revamping the model in Phoenix, and we're gonna go launch it in Denver all at the same time because Fred and I are like, you're gonna do if you're gonna do something, you might as well do it big. Right?

Steve: Right.

Kevin: So

Steve: If you're gonna if it's not gonna work, at least make a biggest mess as possible.

Kevin: Oh, yeah. Like, if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. Right?

Steve: Oh, a 100%.

Kevin: So

Steve: So that was in February.

Kevin: '14. Yeah.

Steve: '14. And then to get you to the next level, are you growing here? You added additional markets. What's

Kevin: Yeah. So so Denver, I think it's important to say that, in Denver, we got really lucky. Aaron is phenomenal. Like, we're not that good at hiring. Nobody is.

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: This This guy hadn't sold real estate before. You had a real estate license, been around it his whole life, invested, but not done retail sales. I think he'd sold two or three houses. And in his first twelve months, the guy sold 72 houses transaction, 72 personal deals, as well as another 33 through other people through like a showing assistant and a team member that we hired two team members we hired kind of partway through the year. Wow.

So he crushed it. Right? Right? In every sense of the word, we were surprised because he converted at a level that we didn't know somebody could convert and we could actually generate the leads at a rate that we didn't know we could generate the leads. And we're able to teach him how to do it and then we were able to service it.

Well, I don't know that we're able to service it. We we stumbled a lot, but it helped start to build the systems that we have today, which I think are phenomenal. And so we got a little false sense of, like, we might know what we're doing. We we didn't know what we're doing. But we are figuring it out.

Right? That the one thing we did know is we had the right guy, and we're figuring it out. And so, yeah, we started just going, wow. Then now at the same time, Phoenix is growing because we've switched up the model here, and we got our agents. We're training them to take both listings and work with buyers.

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: Fred and I are stepping out of production and just working through people and trying to help them become better agents. I'm trying to hire people. Fred's trying to train them better, and Aaron is doing his thing in Colorado. And, you know, we're flying him out here monthly so we can spend time together. He's shadowing me on a list of appointments.

He's shadowing Fred on listing appointments.

Steve: So he does 72 personal deals, and he's shadowing you. That's amazing.

Kevin: The guy's a monster. Yeah. He's a monster. And, so that was like I don't know that that was the growth plan. It just happened.

And it was very organic from the standpoint of, like, he did better than we thought he could. Mhmm. And we did better than we thought we could on our end of the deal, and it's just started working. And it's just been a learning process since. And, few months later, kind of about halfway through the year, Stephanie, a girl named Stephanie, who's who's with us, in Nashville, who actually worked on the team.

I hired her when she was a kid. Like, in 2009, I had hired her literally to answer phones. Mhmm. Because short sale days, phones ringing off the hook from agents and you name it.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Kevin: And so and she had worked her way up to be the listing agent, on our team and towards the end of the short sale run. And she kinda got burnt out, and I I won't go into the story, but she left. She went into commercial real estate. She eventually married Fred's brother. And so so she's now his sister-in-law, which has nothing to do with her ability.

Just Just she's connected. Right? And, she her and Fred's brother moved to Nashville because he's a musician. And couple months later, she's like, she wants to get back into real estate. And we're like, well, we're geniuses at this expansion thing because, like, we're crushing it in Denver.

And so and we love you. Like, we've we never wanted to not be in business with you. You wanna be back in sales. Like, let's do it. Yeah.

And so she got licensed middle of that year, and we started growing there too. And the reality was is it wasn't like we were trying to expand. We just she said I wanted to expand. Or she said she wanna sell real estate. We're like, well, if you're gonna sell real estate, why not?

We can do this together. Mhmm. And so we did. And that was kinda how it, like, started taking off, and then and then we fooled ourselves.

Steve: Well, that's fantastic. I mean, that's a great journey. So how would you explain to a person that's new in the business, what is expansion? How's that different than traditional real estate?

Kevin: Yeah. So the way I would explain expansion is quite simply this. To me, in its simplest terms, expansion is simply expanding your leads, expanding your your, your administrative services or what I'd call your hub support Mhmm. And, your training. Right?

And so and taking those to a different market than where you're currently at.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: What it looks like in our world is if you came and sat in our office in Tempe, what you would see is there's a lot of folks that are licensed in Arizona, and some of them are also not some. All of them are also licensed other places like Colorado, California, Tennessee, etcetera. Mhmm. And you'll see that we actually what we're doing is we're providing services there just like it would in any other team in any other brokerage. The difference being, some of the agents are in offices that are in another state or another city.

And so we generate the leads the same way. We use as much technology as we can to, help with the culture Mhmm. That you that you that you don't get when you're not in the same office every day. And we we're a team. Like, truthfully, it's a team that just happens to work in different places, and it's like, the old hub and spoke model, if you will.

So, like, there's a hub where everything kinda central comes out of there, and then there's salespeople. There's agents on the ground in these different locations that we operate in, and they get all the same services that the agents in Tempe do. Right. The agents in Tucson do, and the agents in San Luis Obispo, Lake, etcetera. You name it.

So that's what expansion is, and it's now it's way more complicated than that. Right? Of course. Like, between like, let's face it. Real estate's you it'd be fair to say it's antiquated, like our laws and and and the way things are run.

And so you have to but you have to follow the rules. Right? And and so you have to work your way around. Like, there's a lot to learn there. Right.

But in its simplest form, that's what expansion is. It's just selling real estate in more than one location. And, yeah.

Steve: So, you know, there's a lot of really big producers in the valley. Yeah. Right? So what would you tell one of them? Say, hey.

You know, you guys are doing really good here. You guys should go expand, or should you only expand if that's what you wanna do? Should you only expand if you have the boots on a floor that you already know and trust versus going out recruiting? What would you say to those people?

Kevin: Yeah. I wouldn't ever tell anybody that they should expand, to be to be real honest with you. It's not easy. It's a challenge, and and most people aren't up for it. Yeah.

It's hard. It's expensive. What's expensive about it? Well, it's like it's not it's not profitable on day one. Like, it's not.

And and let's face it. As real estate agents, most of us want, like, quick returns, and and we want fast results. And I no doubt that I want that too. And it's not that way with expansion. And it's not easy.

Like, it's a challenge. If you think it's a challenge to lead people that you look in the eye every day, try leading people that are in another state that need to show up every day and do the same thing. Practice scripts and lead gen and go on appointments and hopefully use the scripts that you like, it's it's a challenge. So number one is I wouldn't tell anybody that this should expand. And if I've ever told you that, if someone's watching this, I'm sorry.

But it is exciting. Okay? Because what happens is two things. It starts to turn your business into more of a business if you're not already treating it that way. Mhmm.

And you have to learn how to do some of those things that, quite frankly, you don't have to learn if someone sits in your office. Like, there's a lot of, like, cheats, if you will, that someone can get just because they sit next to you and they can listen to you.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: You don't have to get great at communicating if they can just overhear everything you say. Mhmm. And as long as they're willing to learn. Right? And so it it's a challenge, and I love a good challenge.

And so if if you're gonna do that, I would say you gotta be up for the challenge. Be ready to not make a lot of money on this, and it's not like a, you know, instant gratification thing. However, it is a lot of fun, and it could totally change your life. And and I wouldn't just go recruit people. Wait for the right relationship.

Like Yeah. Here's the deal. When you expand with somebody, the way it should work is and I say should, like, you know, the way perfect world is Mhmm. It's just like the right next step for you and for them.

Steve: It's organic.

Kevin: Yeah. It's very organic. And I would love to, say that it's anything different than that, and I know some people that have forced things different than that. And you might say that it's worked a little bit on the outside. I know some of the war stories on the inside that that the public doesn't get to see, and, it's not it's not always that easy.

And there's certainly some people that are that are gaining traction and winning at expansion. And I can tell you right now, a lot more people are not winning at expansion than are winning. And that's not to say that it can't be done. Yeah. It's to say that this is still really new in our industry, and it's still really hard for most people in our industry to even wrap their head around.

And we just haven't figured out the there's not a perfect model for it yet.

Steve: No. There's just a And it's a massive, like you said, a massive, massive test in your leadership. Your leadership's gotta be on point Yeah. To lead people across the country.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. To lead yourself too to to handle to handle that.

Steve: I mean,

Kevin: that's a challenge.

Steve: Alright. So you've got a lot of Facebook groups. I don't know, but probably, like, 20 or 30.

Kevin: Well, no. I only have one.

Steve: Only one?

Kevin: Well, I mean, I guess I have two, one for my team and then the one.

Steve: Well, I was talking about, like, like, the Tesla and

Kevin: Oh, yeah. Wait. I do. I forgot about that one.

Steve: I should really

Kevin: take care of that.

Steve: Okay. I was gonna say, like, stop harassing me because, like, every time you create a group, you're inviting me.

Kevin: No. I only have, like, two groups. I didn't I forgot about the Tesla group. So maybe I should go pay attention to that.

Steve: Yeah. Maybe you should.

Kevin: I'm gonna close it. I don't know.

Steve: Okay. So then tell me about the next level

Kevin: Next level agents.

Steve: Yeah. So Let's talk about that group then. Why did you what is it? Why did you make it?

Kevin: So so next level agents, the group formerly known as real estate agents who want real results. Mhmm. The true story is, Fred and I and our buddy, Cody Gibson Mhmm. Who is an agent in Portland, also who is crazy, does this expansion thing had discussed that we would love to have our own Facebook group because there's a lot of Facebook groups out there that maybe

Steve: So many.

Kevin: So many. Right? That maybe just maybe brought, like, a different conversation to the table. Yeah. And because we didn't love the groups that we were in, and we didn't love the conversations that were happening in those groups.

And and so we just thought, well, that'd be kinda cool to have our own group one day. I wish we would have thought of that earlier. Yeah.

Steve: And

Kevin: so we didn't do anything with it. And, one day, Saturday morning, I just woke up and decided, today's the day. And I

Steve: Hotaras were making this.

Kevin: Yeah. I literally went in and created the group. I couldn't think of a good name, so I went with real estate agents who want real results because that sounded good in the moment.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't a lot of research

Kevin: offline. Like, it was a good 45

Steve: close groups.

Kevin: Good of it was, like, a good forty five seconds of thought. Yeah. And, and I text Fred and, and Cody, and I said, hey, guys. We finally have that Facebook group we've been talking about for so long. True story.

That is how it started.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And we had always said, like, well, if we had one, like, we would we would just have try to have good conversations in it and try to bring value Mhmm. And see what happens. It it'd probably be a lot of fun. And so we did. We added a few people that day.

I think we might have got to, like, a thousand people that first day or 500 or something like that. Mhmm. And then it just started growing. Right. And I think the power of it initially was that the relationships that myself and Fred and Cody have were able to draw in other people that won't necessarily go to the other Facebook groups and per participate or even read, much less actually put their own opinions in and post on.

And so I think that that helped. And then we were also able to use some of those same relationships to bring in free webinars and content to our people

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: In the group just as a give back. Like, literally, we just thought, how many eyeballs could we get on this? We didn't know. And so that was where it started, and then it just started becoming this thing Right. Where it was, like, people were talking to me about it all the time.

And people are going, can I do a webinar in your group? And I'm like, yeah. Why not? That'd be cool. And next thing I know, people are, like, really responding well to it.

And so we just start feeding it a little bit. You know, we start giving it a little more attention and, you know, sort of very it was also very organic. Like, most good things real usually are. And, it grew, and here we are today. So it's just over 23,000 members.

Steve: Wow.

Kevin: It's called Next Level Agents. As you know, we just did a live event in person last month in Las Vegas where we had just over 200 and we had about 260 registered, probably about 220 showed, and there were another 70 people watching online on the livestream. And we just brought massive content that day at an unbelievable like, the whole goal was, like, let's go see how much content we can bring and how much value we can deliver. And the truth is, like, I called all my I called all my friends. I called my friends.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: I had a waiting list of people who would like to speak at it because people were like, yes. I'll come speak.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And, the reality was is that all my friends over delivered. Like, they're all givers. Like, you look at people like Joshua Smith and Jason Abrams, like, it Via Williams. Like, these people just come in, and they're just like, I'm just gonna give. Mhmm.

And they come in, and they just gave to the audience for whatever their time slot was. My my friend Chelsea Pytes and Travis Tom, like, they just all said I'm just gonna give. They I didn't pay them. I didn't even pay for their flights. They just said, yes.

I'll come give. Mhmm. And because I think that's what people in our community do. Right? Like, when they really

Steve: do producers do.

Kevin: Yeah. Well, because it's one of the keys to, like, getting further is giving more.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And, so you maybe wanna surround yourself with people that do that. Like, that's Absolutely. That's something I picked up along the way. And I know that you have too. And so, like, these people who all command, like, their own day long training classes or more, You know?

Josh does the boot camp, and Jason speaks three to four times a week. Mhmm. These guys are speakers and and they're practitioners, and they just came and gave massive value. And my buddy, Dustin Runyon, who you have got to get on this show, by the way, comes in.

Steve: And Let me when he comes in.

Kevin: Just absolutely blows it out of the water

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: Crushes it that day. And people are just like, oh my gosh. This is content wise, this is the best event I've been to in years.

Steve: Really?

Kevin: Yeah. And our goal was our goal was this. Let's bring the most value. Like, I'm not I'm not gonna bash any companies or any brands, but most of the most of the conferences out there are either totally lacking in in in real estate content

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: Or they're or there's an angle. You know what I mean? Like, there's

Steve: Oh, totally no.

Kevin: There's a reason why there's why the people who, you know, who are on stage or Yeah. You know, why why someone's pitching whatever product or whatever. And we just went, like, no. Let's just let's just give great content. Mhmm.

And so we ended up we already scheduled next year's event. Like, we sold, I don't know, like, 60 something, 70 tickets to next year's event. Yeah. The day of the event, we're like, oh, people wanna come back. And so, like, the response room was awesome, and it felt felt cool to know we delivered on what we thought we could do and we just hoped we could do.

We just had an idea. Kinda like just like the start of the group. We had an idea, and then we were like, I wonder if we could do an in person event. And if we did, I wonder if it would bring the community, like, closer together. Mhmm.

And it did.

Steve: That's you, Fred, and Cody. Cody.

Kevin: Yeah. Okay.

Steve: And so I just want you to know, like, my offer still stands. I will keynote for 50,000.

Kevin: It's only 50,000? Only 50,000. You wanna give me the discount?

Steve: That's the next level discount.

Kevin: That's awesome, man. That is that's really big of you, by

Steve: the way. You know, I I wanna

Kevin: give. Okay. So Oh, man.

Steve: So what was the what was the takeaway? So you so you did it because you wanna give back. Right?

Kevin: Yeah.

Steve: And then, you know, what was, like, the after it was all done, what was the you know, we were to do it again, we'd do this differently. Or

Kevin: Oh, so many things, like, that we saw that you just don't see when you're putting on an event of that magnitude that you just don't see until you see it. And you're like, oh, man. We do this different. We do this. The one thing we knew we made a mistake from from the get was we made it a one day event, not a two day event.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: Because it's a destination. Even though it's Las Vegas and it's easy for almost everybody to get to Mhmm. It's still people go, it's only one day? Like, if I'm gonna go out of town, like, I wanna make it two days, then I'll make it a weekend. And so we knew right away it had to be two days.

We couldn't do it. Like, our schedules are just too booked. Yeah. And we had backed ourselves into a corner. We couldn't change the date.

So number one is next year's will be two days. And we just learned little things just like room setup and chair configuration and length of talks and length of breaks and do we have the vendors in the room or out of the room? Just things like that that you just don't know it until you see it, and we go, oh, totally shoulda saw that coming. And so

Steve: That's how all those mistakes are, though.

Kevin: Yeah. And so now we have a list, like, literally a nice big list of all the things that'll that would that went right and all the things that we'll do different for next year, and Yeah.

Steve: It'll be better. Very cool. So I know that the purpose was to give. Was there any ancillary benefits? Like, man, you know, like, that was awesome.

We did this. Here's here's a, a side a positive side effect or consequence that we had no idea was coming from it.

Kevin: I don't wanna say that we had no idea because the truth is so when Fred and I started teaching this class, and let me go backwards in time to 2008, we start teaching the short sale classes. We didn't charge. We gave away everything we had. And the one thing that maybe we shouldn't have I don't know. Maybe we should have sold some some more some of our content.

I don't know. But the thing that that did for us that I still reap benefits literally to this day, like, reap the benefit of it today Mhmm. Was that we would give back to the real estate community constantly by giving away our information and trying to help other agents sell more houses, close more short sales, give more value to them, and the like, it just created, relationships. Like, my buddy so many names. So one of the things I didn't tell about that year was a guy named Steve Chater.

He didn't coach us, but he mentored us. Mhmm. Mhmm. And he really helped us get clear on our mission, vision, values, beliefs, and perspectives and around which help you decide where your business is really going, right, and who you are. Right.

And Curtis Johnson's a good friend and Russell and Wendy Shaw and, Tim Cusick. Like, I could go on and on, Jeff Lucas. Like, I just created all these relationships because we were willing to give our time, our resources, our energy, and and stuff always comes back. And at first, it looked like referrals, and then it looked like introductions and, relationships that would just open doors for me. And it's still doing that to this day.

I mean, literally, people call about that group all the time. Yeah. And literally either call or message about the group, and it's because something cool happened in there. You know? It's just I don't know that you can put a price tag on that.

I'm just a firm believer if you just work to give value. There's always a way to, quote, unquote monetize it. And whether that's actually because you can sell something or because somebody enters you to introduces you to someone else, and then that leads to a business opportunity, or it might lead to 15 listings in one of your markets that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise is

Steve: Right.

Kevin: You you never know. And so I think from that, number one, it was the thing that we were looking for is build the community even stronger in the group, and I think just continued, like, goodwill. Like, referrals come out of it for sure. Absolutely. We'll get referrals out of it.

That's I always tell people, you should go teach. You'll get referrals out of it, and you'll learn.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: It's a it's like it's a no brainer. The more you give, the more you get.

Steve: So one thing that you mentioned there was kinda fascinating. So you're getting phone calls about this group. Kinda the calls you get about the group, if you can share.

Kevin: Yeah. Like, first of all, from agents, from people that wanna be in the group, people that wanna speak at the event. Mhmm. People wanna do webinars in the event, people that want to be sponsors of the group, like companies, you name it. Like, we get calls about the group.

Like, hey. I heard you had this really amazing event. Can I buy a copy of the recording? Or, how can I get involved next time? Tell me more about the literally phone calls, text messages, emails about the group.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And it's just become this thing, right, that's sort of, like, has grown its own legs and now is a thing.

Steve: So I am, in the strategic coach. So one of the things that, Joe Polish

Kevin: and I was just gonna say Joe's name.

Steve: And, Dan Sullivan. Dan Sullivan talked about is when Joe started I Love Marketing, the intent, maybe at some point, was to monetize. But let's just BS for thirty minutes

Kevin: Yeah.

Steve: Or an hour, and let's just have fun. Yep. Just riff. And one thing he said was that after a 100 episodes, people were constantly blowing them up. I was like, what are you selling?

I wanna buy it. And they're saying, I've got nothing to sell. I'm just giving away content. And they said, you know what? After a 100 episodes, let's celebrate it.

Let's take the best of the first 100 episodes. And I might be butchering into details. You might know it better. But let's take the best of the 100 episodes, throw a notebook, and sell it for $99. And they sold out their first run.

So it's fascinating. Right? So you get these additional calls, like, I wanna buy the recordings, or I wanna sponsor it

Kevin: or

Steve: this or that. And I harassed you. I was like, hey. I wanna speak for money. Anyway

Kevin: so So it's funny. Joe Joe always says, so I'm in a mastermind group that Joe leads. Mhmm. And Joe certainly monetizes it.

Steve: I'm planning on joining you.

Kevin: It's awesome. Right. And, you know, one of the things that he says is life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. And, like, getting to know Joe, as you know, about a building that happens dumb luck next door to his. Oh.

I'm in in this parking lot. Like, if I told you the names of the people I saw walking through my parking lot today Mhmm. It's rad. Yeah. And Joe's next like, there Joe Joe's the most connected guy in business.

Right? He's the most connected guy. And so, dumb luck, I buy the building next to him, and my friend, Michael Bernoff, goes, dude, do you know Joe Polish? I'm like, yeah. Who doesn't know who Joe Polish is?

He's like, no. Do you know him? His building is next door to your new office. And I go, no. He's like, let me introduce you.

So that happens last year about this time or Right. Like, last September. And so Joe I ended up joining Genius Network, which is the mastermind group, and it's dude, it's amazing. Yeah. It is amazing.

And one of the things I've gotten to know and I've learned so much from Joe in a short period of time, like, that dude gives. He genuinely believes in just giving and giving and giving. Yeah. And he'll monetize. And that guy's a great marketer.

He knows how to sell. Right. But he genuinely gives. Like, he one thing that he said to me, I remember the first time I met him, and we're kinda walking around his office. We were doing, like, the whole tour because his office is cool.

Yeah. You should check it out. He says, like, yeah. My thing is I wanna I'll sell you what you want, but I'm gonna give you what you need.

Steve: Oh, I love that.

Kevin: And so the guy's way more than about business, Mhmm. And he's got, like, a such a big mission, in life. And, man, I just I freaking adore that guy, and I'm so thankful that our paths crossed Yeah. Because he's changed my life in a lot of ways in just the, whatever, nine months that I've known him.

Steve: Well, that's incredible. Good stroke of luck

Kevin: to be next door

Steve: to that guy. And then the other thing you said that, you know, life takes from the takers and gives to the givers or vice versa. You know, one book I read, I wanna say, like, four years ago, was impactful for me was give and take.

Kevin: Oh, oh. Have you

Steve: read that book?

Kevin: Adam Grant.

Steve: Yeah. So, you know, the thing that they said, all the guys on the bottom, performance wise or compensation wise, they're givers. And that's like, okay. Well, I'm a giver, so I'm kinda screwed, I guess. And then you look at everyone else in between, they're takers or mattress.

The guys on the top are the givers.

Kevin: Isn't that funny?

Steve: We talk about giving back. That's, you can't you can't, what's the word I'm looking for? Symbolize it.

Kevin: Yeah. So, you made me think of, first of all, that my first who I would consider my first mentor in life. And he was a guy who's he's passed away. His name is Brian Clemmer. And he had written a book called the, Compassionate Samurai.

And the reason he wrote that book was in his experience of the world, there were two kinds of people. There were the nice guys, the givers, who, who quite frankly were compassionate and they were willing, like, they give you the shirt off the back. The problem is that was the only shirt that they had. And then his other experience of the world was that there were people that were, were samurai and they'd kill you, Right? Like, in business and in life.

Yeah. And so what he wanted to do was train a world of compassionate samurai, and it was you know, he that was his view of, like, no. You can be absolutely amazing in business, and you can be giving. Mhmm. And it's there.

You don't have to be one or the other. And it's I think of a song called by Green Day called Nice Guys Finish Last. Like, when you said givers are on the bottom, yeah, Nice Guys Finish Last. How many times have you heard that saying? How many times have people say, oh, I guess Nice Guys Finish Last, and they let that be the theme of their life Mhmm.

Instead of being like, oh,

Steve: actually, nice guys finish first. Alright.

Kevin: Which do you wanna be on the first or last? It's totally your choice. Mhmm.

Steve: Absolutely. So what are you passionate about?

Kevin: Currently, besides my family, my I'm passionate about the fact I got to hang out in the fort that my daughters built last night. This morning, I've got a three year old and a five year old. Mhmm. And we have to tell spooky stories with the with the flashlight up above our face this morning at about 6AM before I went to the gym. I like, my daughters were insistent last night that I wake them up early today because it was a gym it's a gym day.

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: And I go work out with a trainer, and I gotta be there by seven, and it's in Scottsdale. So I I've gotta leave my house by, like, 06:25.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And, so they're like, wake me up early, and I'm like, you know, wake me up. I'm like, this would be too early. They're like, come on. Wake us up. And so I woke them up, and we went and played, and we did spooky stories.

So, like, I'm passionate about that. I'm obviously passionate about business, and I've I've had a big change in my life, just around what I'd call, like, an overall health journey. Like, you might notice, like, these glasses have a, like, a little bit of a different tint to it Mhmm. To kinda block out different different lights. I've gotten into some what I would call really weird stuff from a health perspective because Yeah.

Quite frankly, I'll be 40 next week, and I feel better than I did when I was 21. And I've been on this journey, and it's easy to go to look from the outside to go, well, you're a really big guy. And I'm like, yeah. I am. And I'm down 70 pounds from where I was, like, eight or nine months ago.

Really? Oh, yeah. And I'm not in fact, I'm not I'm working less hard than I was then. That was the problem. So when I was younger, I was really overweight.

I was over four hundred pounds at one point. Lost all the weight. Like, started working out. Started counting my calories and, like, I could look at a piece of food and tell you what were the macros in it, what were the calories in it. Mhmm.

And I would go to work out five, six days a week. Well, eventually, like, my body's, like, it stopped working. I don't know how to say it. Like, it's things stopped working. And so meanwhile, I'm seventy pounds heavier.

I'm working harder than I ever have. And you like, if I had one more doctor tell me to eat less and exercise more, I was gonna punch him in the face. Yeah. Because that's actually not always in fact, it's usually not the right advice.

Steve: It's not the right advice.

Kevin: And so what I I've been on a journey, but I kept going, well, I'm an accountable guy. And so, like, I must just not I must be cheating. I must be doing this wrong.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And, I'm I'm self aware of the fact that I like like to eat and what I like to eat and etcetera. I measured my food. Everything I put in my mouth for two years, like, I'm aware of it. And so I finally like, this journey led me to, discovering guys like Dave Asprey,

Steve: Bulletproof

Kevin: Coffee Mhmm. And then finding my chiropractor, doctor John Toma in Scottsdale, and then finding my now general care physician, doctor Brian Glick, who is a functional medicine doctor through chance, through a podcast on through a Joe Rogan podcast I was listening to, who the guest was Rob Wolf, which is why I was listening. He mentioned a, a website. I went to that website because I've been searching for a good functional medicine doctor, someone that digs deeper. And I go in, and I and first of all, it's a process to get on the waiting list.

And I sit down with the guy for two and a half hours as my first appointment. And probably my average appointment with him is two to two and a half hours. And I go to him and I do blood work every ninety days, and he adjusts medication and he adjusts vitamins, and we've slightly changed. I'm talking slightly changed the way I eat. And all of a sudden, the weight that I couldn't lose before and, oh, and I just stopped working out.

I just stopped working out. And so I guess that theory doesn't work to exercise more.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: Because I stopped working out for about five months, five or six months, and before he would let me go because my adrenals are all jacked and bunch of different things going on. And so weight the weight starts coming off. Like, I start feeling better instantly. Like like, I don't know what time of the day it is right now. It doesn't matter.

It could be 7AM. I'm ready to go the rest of the day. Yeah. Like, I'm ready to go until I go to bed. And so just through that process and then refining things like my chiropractor, he's he's so weird.

Like, I say that in the most, like, adoring way.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: Like, I wear these goofy glasses at night. I've got a pair of glasses. Like, the lenses are really yellow or orange, and they block out blue light.

Steve: Okay.

Kevin: And then I got another pair of glasses. They're literally safety goggles. They're red. And they block out all blue and all and all green spectrums of light. So all artificial light is gone.

And you you can't stay awake. Like, it keeps your body in its certain in its natural circadian rhythm. Yeah. So doing stuff like that, I won't geek out too much, but, like, infrared and and red light therapy, spending time in the sun. Like, people think, oh, I can't go in the sun.

I'm a get sunburn. Well, you you get sunburned, number one, because your diet sucks, and number two, because you're not used to being outside the way you should be. That's actually why people get sunburned.

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: And so, like, just understanding the way our bodies, like, have have evolved and understanding more of this information that is now available that quite frankly, like, my I have a cardiologist because I had a weird thing happen with my heart a few years ago. And even though I've lost, like, 70 pounds, like, literally, his advice to me, this is just weeks ago, was, like, you need to lose more weight, stop eating so much, and start exercising more. I'm like, dude, you're never gonna get it. Like, he thinks that's the answer. I'm like, well, okay.

Cool. Like, in like, not to go too far down a rabbit hole, but, like, so people when they have, say, high blood pressure, what are the they say, don't eat salt. Mhmm. Actually, salt's not it. You probably got inflammatory markers in your skin in your blood, and those are the things you need to work on.

It probably has way more to do with the types of food you're eating, not the fact that in fact, most people need more salt.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And so when you dig into stuff like that and you try things, when you start realizing what other people are doing out there to feel better and to to just live a better life and you start testing them on yourself

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And seeing what works, dude, it's a game changer.

Steve: Well, so when I met with you many, many months ago

Kevin: Yeah.

Steve: About a completely different topic Yeah. I told you, like, I started keto. Yeah. Right? And so it's very frustrating because we've been told our whole lives count your calories and work out more.

Kevin: And don't eat fat.

Steve: And don't eat fat. And all I do now is eat fat. I guys laugh at me. I put butter in my coffee in the mornings. Right?

Lots of butter, lots of bacon. I've lost almost 30 pounds since the beginning of the year. And I was telling my wife, I played on Sunday and was hooping it up against driving by people, which I haven't done in over ten years.

Kevin: All of a sudden you're fast. Yeah. At least faster.

Steve: Right? Faster. So it's actually working. Right? The things I'm trying to do are actually working now on

Kevin: about this sport.

Steve: So listening to everyone's advice about eating this or whatever and exercising more, No. It's just you have to know what to eat. Yeah. And and everyone's just, misinformed unfortunately.

Kevin: You know what I I'll tell you because this will this trips most people out. You know what I cut out of my diet? I was already eating fairly keto and paleo. Like, I don't eat grains. I just I cut that out years ago.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: When I don't eat much dairy with exception of some cheese. Like, you know when I cut out? I cut out certain vegetables, and I'm not exaggerating. I cut out tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, like, because those are my favorite vegetables that are high in what they call in lectins. And electin is just a plant protein.

It's all it is.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And if you if anybody wants to geek out on that, look up the book called The Plant Paradox or just Google doctor Stephen Gundry. Mhmm. And I'm not saying he's a 100% right, but he's definitely that made a big difference. My doctor, doctor Glick, my my primary care physician said to me in the first meeting, he's like, I need you to eat more vegetables, but don't eat. And I'm like, what?

And so he literally so you're telling me to eat more vegetables, but stop eating the ones I actually like. And he's like, oh, yeah. He's like, just throw a bunch of ghee or butter Mhmm. And garlic on the ones you don't like, you'll start liking them. And I go, what?

He was like, oh, yeah. You just taste bitter. He goes, watch. I'll show you in a blood test that you are a bitter taster. I'm willing to bet.

And he names all these different foods that I don't like. He goes, you don't like those foods, do you? I said, no. And he goes, it's because you taste bitter more strong than most people. Just douse it in ghee, which is clarified butter.

Mhmm. For those of you that don't know what that is. And so add fat to it Mhmm. And eat it and watch what happens. And so then I cut out tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, my three favorite vegetables, and all of a sudden I started feeling better, like, within days or weeks.

Like, my energy levels just went way up, and I stopped working out. And then, so you mean to tell me that because I stopped eating that? The one thing I did do that I gave up is I would have either a sugar free Monster or a Coke Zero a day. But that wasn't the thing because I had given that up for years before. I'd literally two and a half, three years, I went without any sort of artificial sweetener, any diet soda, any drink that had any sort sort of sweetener, I went without.

So I know that that wasn't the thing.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: But I did give that up too at that point, and then I got rid of all foods that are high in lectins. And I just kept gradually adding more fat and more vegetables. That's it.

Steve: I know. Fats. I love fats.

Kevin: It's crazy. Right?

Steve: It's really good.

Kevin: So funny. We my wife and I were it was date night the other night, and we went to this place that we don't want to go. And it was good, but something was missing, and neither one of us knew, but it was good. And so we're talking later the night. She's she's it just dawned on me what was missing from dinner.

I go, what? She's like, fat. There was not much fat in the dish. I'm like, oh my gosh. You're right.

Yeah. So it's crazy how much you we I buy cases of ghee at a time.

Steve: Yeah. So Well, I go every time I go to Trader Joe's, I buy eight of those

Kevin: The bottles?

Steve: Sticks of butter.

Kevin: Oh, this the butter? Yeah. That's awesome.

Steve: Alright. So what is your superpower?

Kevin: I think my superpower is connecting.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: It's funny you asked this because my friend, somebody who I admire a ton, Brian Gubernick

Steve: Mhmm.

Kevin: Led a mastermind mastermind for us at for the VIPs for the Next Level Next Level agents group. We had a dinner the night before

Steve: Okay.

Kevin: And, for a couple of the VIP ticket holders. And he asked that question to a bunch of us in the room, what's your superpower? And I said, I think it's connecting. And he asked me why. And he made me go he made me go further.

And so the reason I think connecting is my superpower is because I'm number one, I enjoy it. Mhmm. And number two, I'm really good at it. Like, I I remember weird stuff. Like, I know like, this is small, but it'll give you an example.

My first experience of you was in a mastermind in 2014 in that office in Tempe. Yeah. And that's my first like, I know I just play stuff like that. And I know that the last time we had lunch, we had it at Mad Greens in Tempe.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And I remember talking about Keto. Like, I just I don't know. Sometimes it's important stuff. Sometimes it's not, but I'm I'm really good at going. Like, I knew that you I knew what car you drove.

And then when I saw you in the parking lot, I also knew that that wasn't your car.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: Right?

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And it's I don't know. There's something about me that has made me good at that Mhmm. That I definitely used to my advantage. And I would say if I have a superpower, that's it.

Steve: Very cool. And definitely helpful in real estate.

Kevin: Yeah.

Steve: Alright. So what lesson would you wanna teach today's young real estate entrepreneurs?

Kevin: Get used to the boring grind. And I hate the word grind because I'm not the twenty four seven grind grind Gary v grind guy. I don't like that message. Yeah. If that's your thing, do it.

Cool. Good for you. I'm not that guy. Like, I wanna go to bed at a at a good time, time, and I wanna take care of my body and I wanna and my mental state. Like, I wanna so that stuff's way more important to me than grind, grind, grind.

Mhmm. But what I mean by that is when you're working, freaking work. Like, when it's time to make phone calls, make phone calls. When it's time to be with somebody, be with somebody and stop bouncing around from idea to idea. The people are always like, do you think this will work?

Do you what if I did open houses? What if I did cold calling? What if I did, mailers? Well, it yeah. It'll all work if you freaking do it.

And if you do it every day consistently over a long period of time, it will work. The question is will you work? Like, that's the real question. Like, the the the truth is the cold hard fact is real estate is very, very simple, but it is hard work. Mhmm.

And it can be boring as heck to come in and do the same thing every single day because you kinda feel like you're on this, like, rat race, like, or on a treadmill Mhmm. That you can't get off of. But the reality is is once you start connecting the results, when you start seeing the results for being consistent for a long period of time, that gets exciting. Connect your excitement to the outcome, not to your daily activities.

Steve: Alright. Celebrate the rewards. That's not the activities. Yeah.

Kevin: You you

Steve: gotta do the activities. You gotta celebrate, but remember the activities.

Kevin: Yeah. You you have to do that. Like, so many people I know just they'll make phone calls every day for a month. Mhmm. And then they'll stop.

I'm like, why are you stopping? Like, why? What's the what cool. You're gonna do open houses now every day? Yeah.

And they'll do that for a month. Mhmm. And then they'll go on to mailers. And then they'll go on to sitting at Starbucks with their computer open and a sticker on their computer that says, hi. I'm a Or whatever whatever the

Steve: I haven't seen that.

Kevin: Avoidance tactic is that they're gonna use that day to just doing the work. It's so real estate is so dang simple, and there are more tools available to us than ever. There are more technologies available to us than ever. There are more ways to connect than ever. And yet realtors as a whole, we all think of like, we all run around inventing ways to not work.

Steve: Yeah. See. See. What was it? Someone came up with the term.

Oh, Brent said it last week, creative avoidance.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. That's a perfect example.

Steve: Alright. So we'll go with the one last question as a selfish question. Cool. What book should I read? What book have you read recently?

I was like, man, that's a mind blowing book.

Kevin: What book should you read? Yeah. That's a tough question. I I've read some really great books recently. Mhmm.

One of them would be Willpower Doesn't Work by a guy named Ben Hardy, and that's about setting up your environment for success.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: I think that's really great. I think there's a book called So Good They Can't Ignore You by I'm gonna butcher his last name. It's either Cal Workman or Cal Newport. I think it's Cal Newport. So Good That They Can't Ignore You.

Mhmm. That is all about not following your passion, but creating your passion by being diligent Mhmm. In something. It's the anti follow your passion book. Interesting.

And just write. Like, that book is a game changer in my opinion for people that will read it. But if you said, like, dude, just give me one book that's, like, gonna give me all the superpowers.

Steve: It's gonna finish it because I'm gonna finish 2018 on a bit flying out the eight.

Kevin: Dang, man. This is so tough. Like, my favorites my favorite all times are Tools of Titans, Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss.

Steve: So you love that book? Because I've heard mixed reviews.

Kevin: Love them both. Yeah. They're like reference books. I love I love here's why I love those books. And I ran into one of the guests on the books today in my parking lot because of who's in my parking lot.

Yeah. And I'll probably post a picture I took with him tomorrow. His biceps are extremely larger than mine. And, he, like, he gets people that are the best. Tim Ferriss gets people that are the best at what whatever it is that they do.

So it's one thing I one of the reasons I will always listen to his podcast, and even if I don't know the guest whereas other podcasts, I will cherry pick based on the guest. Mhmm. Because I know that Tim Ferris is he knows that person is the best at what they do or one of the best. They're world class. He he knows them.

He's researched them, and he's knowledgeable enough in the subject to have a good conversation and pull stuff out. And I don't think anybody's better on the planet than him Farris at that.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And so there's these two books full of nuggets and wisdom. And some of them are one page chapter. Some of them are four page chapters. But they're so full of these golden nuggets of life and in business and money and fine like, all these different things that to me, they're they're there's probably not a better set of books. And then the one thing has also been huge in my life.

Steve: Amazing

Kevin: book. Folk get just being able to focus. Right? Yeah. Getting able to focus on what's most important in the moment.

Like, that that's a game changer.

Steve: Okay. Awesome. And so what is the best way for one of our listeners to get a hold of you?

Kevin: So Next Level Agents Facebook group for sure. I'm in there. You can't you can't not see me if you join that group. Yeah. You'd find me on my Facebook page.

Just research Kevin Kaufman or go to Kevin and Fred on Facebook. That page is fine too. Instagram, I love Instagram. Like, probably spend more time there than anywhere else just because it's new and fun. Yeah.

It's not new, but, you know, it's Newer. Fresher. Yeah. But I love Facebook. So, yeah, I would say facebook.com forward slash, I don't know, Kevin Kaufman, I guess.

I'm not sure what

Steve: to do or I'll

Kevin: post it. I'll post it in the comments or something.

Steve: Okay. So awesome. Thank you very much. Yeah. And, again, guys, if you like this show, please share this episode right now, and join me on Friday at 03:00.

We do have a special guest flying in from Florida. Rafael Vargas is gonna be talking about how he's wholesaling in multiple states and how he found one big investor, which is gonna propel his business to the next level where he's already doing 40 plus deals a month. His business is gonna go to the next level and how all of us need to step up our game. Don't forget to visit our website, realestatedisruptors.com, to find out more about these shows, upcoming events, and just general information about us. So thank you guys for for watching.