How RJ Bates III Bought 125 Houses in 50 Days

RJ Bates III: The hoodie you were wearing in the episode had a white supremacy logo, and I'm like, that's totally not the case. It was a gift. It was a hoodie that was given to me that had Viking symbols on it. But this person with three followers on Twitter at the time sent that tweet out, and it red alerted A and E, which then red alerted Disney. And so then they had to ask me questions.

First three months of 2023, go look at my YouTube channel. Go look at my podcast. There's nothing. I sat at my desk staring into an abyss, and I just killed my business.

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Welcome to today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. So we have RJ Bates the third with Titanium, and he flew in from Fort Worth, Texas to talk about how they did a 125 contracts in fifty days. Guys on a mission to create a 100 millionaires, the information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. If you'll take consistent action, you will become one.

And, guys, if you get value today, please subscribe, share this with a friend. That way, we can all grow together so that I can help create more millionaires. You ready?

RJ: I'm ready.

Steve: Alright. So, it's been quite some time over two years since you last been on the show. A lot's going on. Yep. So I think first and foremost, let's talk about these obnoxious belts.

RJ: Yeah. Well, these are earned. Okay? Some people are confused. Okay?

Some people date that I I actually, like, made these myself.

Steve: That's

RJ: fair. I I did not pay for these. I did not have these made. These were one, for the closures Olympics. That was the first 01/2021.

This is the 01/2023. And then they were running buy one, get one free sale. So I guess Just in BOGO. Yeah.

Steve: Where's the 2020 built?

RJ: You know, that one is sitting in the all in office, right where Carlos paid for it to sit.

Steve: So, it was a it was a remarkable run. Right? So, first year, me, you, Steven Morales, got screwed. We were clearly the three best. Right?

Second year, you went all the way. Yep. And there were some questions. There were some comments. I included in making these comments.

RJ: Okay.

Steve: In that, you know, like, RJ's style is not replicable. Yep. Right? You can't repeat this. Yep.

RJ can do it. Right? I mean, I remember the first year is, like, look me up. RJ Bates is the third. Dallas, Texas.

Right? Over and over, guys. Like, well, who else can say that?

RJ: Right.

Steve: But then you did it again in the third year. Right? So you want two belts back to back, and then now you're teaching people

RJ: Yep.

Steve: How to do it how to do this. So I guess, perhaps, I might have been mistaken and that this can't be repeatable.

RJ: I I don't think you were mistaken when you said it. The style that I used in 2021 yeah. I mean, I I couldn't hey. You know, just Google my name. Move me up.

You know?

Steve: Just tell them that you're RJ based the thing.

RJ: Yeah. Exactly. Actually, funny enough, we did have someone do that, and I had to tell them, like, stop giving me my name. Yeah. That's not okay.

But listen. Over the years, there was a lot of more calls. Right? A lot of refining my skills. And I have to say, like, you saying that did irritate me a little bit because it was like, well, how am I ever supposed to take this to the level where I wanna be training people, where I wanna train my team.

Right? I started looking internally and saying, maybe I'm able to close at these KPIs. But if I can't ever work myself out of the seat, how am I gonna live the life that I want? Right? How am I gonna achieve the vision that I have with what we're trying to accomplish with changing other people's lives?

Like, you talk about your vision of creating a 100 millionaires. The reason why I've had my podcast since 2017 is because I wanna change people's lives with real estate investing. How can I do that if literally people like you are saying and it was a good point? Like, you can't replicate what you're doing. So there was a lot that had to change.

And then, also, the reality of it was is between 2020 and 2021, I was still pretty green when it came to closing deals. I'm a business owner. I'm not an acquisitions person. You know? It's like you were talking about when you have competed in 2020, when was the last time you had talked to a seller over the phone?

Steve: I hadn't talked to a real seller in over, like, a year and a half before it closes Olympics.

RJ: Right. And and then we're hopping on, and then people are judging us based off that. And, you know, it's like, yeah, we're not actual closers per se on a daily basis. So me spending more time on the phones and actually developing a system for that, has completely changed now.

Steve: Right. And so it was closed Olympics twenty twenty and then 50 deals.

RJ: Yeah. So they we did the closures in Olympics. And then from there, I got warmed up and was like, hey. I like talking on the phone with sellers and this live camera stuff. Also, I I have to give a lot of credit.

I read the book relentless based off of Aaron Bevan's recommendation. And when I read that and Tim Grover outlined what a cleaner was and how Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant were like, hey. If things aren't going right, give me the damn ball. I'm gonna go win the game. And I was like, things are not going right in my business.

Like but I'm a cleaner. Mhmm. So that's what inspired the first fifty day challenge was, hey. Give me the damn ball. I'm gonna go fix this.

And it did. It completely changed our business from 2020, basically, till the 2022 was the the SOPs, everything that we were doing was based off that fifty day challenge. Yeah. And then that's when you saw more refined skills in twenty twenty one closures Olympics. And then 2022, I don't have the belt with me, but it was the wholesaling live challenge where, uncle Charles, Michael Giannis out of San Antonio.

They decided they wanna do Closers Olympics live on stage in front of 500 people. Now that was insanity. Mhmm. You think Closers Olympics is crazy? Like, they had us on speakerphone holding our phones up to microphones in front of 500 people with an MC running around screaming.

I'm out of the cellar like, what's happening? Well, I'm at a real estate event. Just try to buy your house right now. But I got a signed contract there in sixteen minutes, and, that was that was probably the moment where it was like, okay. This is real now.

It wasn't a people could say it was a fluke in 2021. Right? But but when I did that in 2022, it was like, okay. That elevated the brand a little bit.

Steve: And then you did fifty days again.

RJ: Yeah. So we'll we'll talk about it here in a little bit. There was an event that happened late twenty twenty two, early twenty twenty three, kinda derailed our business a little bit. Mhmm. You know?

I was emotionally, like, distraught from it. Like, what what am I doing? What am I trying to do? You know, I I just I felt kind of lost in the business a little bit.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: And, someone said, hey. Why don't you do one of those challenges again? And me and Cassie didn't even really think about it for probably longer than two weeks. We started it was like, hey. Let's do it again.

Let's give me the damn ball. Let's make changes. We worked on the marketing for it, everything over about two weeks and then just started going live. We didn't even really make an announcement. Just kinda made a little, hey.

RJ's going live

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: Day one. And the big change there was is outbound versus inbound leads. The first time we did it, it was all about texting, cold calling. This time, it was all about inbound leads. And, yeah.

So 2023, we we did another fifty day challenge and, again, completely changed our business and trajectory of where we're going.

Steve: Yeah. So that was prior to the last close of Olympic.

RJ: Yeah. I actually made it go all the way up until the, like, the last day of the fifty day challenge was, like, the day before the Closers Olympics.

Steve: So what kind of fine tuning did you have at that point? Dude,

RJ: I was so locked and loaded. I actually felt bad for the competition. It was like, dude, I mean, I've literally been going live for eight out eight to nine hours a day for fifty days straight.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: Like, I just gotten a 125 signed contracts in fifty days. I mean, it was like they literally, when we we did a random will on when we're supposed to go, and I got the worst spot. Like, the final spot on Saturday night. And I'll never forget. They they came back to me, and they were like, hey.

The open run guys, we're gonna put after you. So you can go, like, more towards, like, three, 04:00 on Saturday. And I was like, no. I don't need it. I don't want any controversy around this.

Mhmm. I was like, I'll be fine.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: And they were like, no. Seriously, RJ. Like, you're you're like the defending champ. We we don't wanna make sure you have what happened to Keith Everett? Right?

2020, he was going at, like, eight, 09:00 at night. No one was answering the phone. Right. And I said, I'm not worried about it. Just let's go.

And, that's how confident I was going into the 2023.

Steve: But you had let's see. You had crazy confidence going into it. You felt like it was unfair to everyone else. Yep. But the reality is, anyone was paying attention.

They knew you were doing this.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Right? So it's not like they didn't have the opportunity to keep up. It's like, you know, you watch, was it the Redeem team?

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? They're getting back from the club, and they're drunk, whatever. And then they see Kobe in the elevator, like, what are you doing? Yeah.

RJ: It's like,

Steve: I'm going to practice. Yeah. They're coming back drunk. He is going to practice.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Right? So it was like, you can either keep up with the competition or lose the competition. But it's your choice.

RJ: Yeah. Exactly. And that's it's funny you bring that up because, like, I saw some people go live for a couple days.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: And it's like, I'm putting in fifty days for eight, nine hours. You're going live three days for an hour. Do you really think that you stand a chance? Like, I mean, it's just it's it's anything else that competitive I mean, there would have had to have been something catastrophic happen, for me not to win. That's how confident I was in it.

And, quite frankly, I think even as judges, y'all kind of felt that way. As soon as the call started Mhmm. I'm on the I'm on the phone. Like, looking back at it now, y'all are kind of like, oh, this is this is a little different Confidence level, the way that the conversation's going. This is headed towards a close way faster than everything else.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, it's a level of professionalism. Right? Yeah. And having a process.

And that's something that, you know, I noticed, unfortunately, a consistent theme is that everyone has a process. And, like, it's totally nerdy. Right? Yep. Following processes, like, who wants to follow a process?

But we don't have a repeatable process. How can you know when you're deviating? Yeah. You're just going off in this other direction, and, like, you're letting this seller just take you completely off the path. Yeah.

And they're just, like, going with it. And for me, it's just so painful.

RJ: But, dude, go look at my Saturday night close. It is with the crazy brother

Steve: Oh, I remember it.

RJ: Who is cussing out his sister, not to me, not to her, calling her every name in the book. What people might see is me cussing, me mirroring his tonality. But as far as inserting my process, I still checked all of the boxes. Yeah.

Steve: You didn't let him off the hook.

RJ: I mean, everything that I wanted to accomplish on that, inserting a couple of cuss words and talking a little bit more of a southern twang. I mean, to match him, I mean, that was easy. But I was still doing everything that I wanted to accomplish in that that conversation even with one of the craziest sellers. I mean, you had the same thing in 2020 where you had a crazy seller. Yours was probably a little bit harder to check out the boxes, though.

Steve: I checked off a good amount of boxes. The only thing was that I go back. Right? Like, I couldn't say the things I wanted to say with a thousand people watching it live.

RJ: Yeah. Yeah. There's there's some things that you just have to be like,

Steve: Right? Like, there are some things that are best implied.

RJ: Not not everyone wants to get canceled like RJ.

Steve: Yeah. So sales are becoming more difficult in this market. You have more competition than ever before, and homeowners are less willing to work with you on price. More and more leads are coming to you that have listed their home with a realtor already or talking to a realtor. Because homeowners are pitting you against yourself, you feel like you have to pay more just so you have a chance.

It doesn't have to be that way. Remember what it was like when you had little to no competition? What if you could connect with a homeowner and build so much trust that they feel like nobody could compete with you. Would you close more sales? That's why I wrote active listening two point o.

With our book, you can develop so much trust that the homeowner won't want to work with anybody else. If you want a copy by book, go to closemoresales.com/book and download it today.

RJ: It cancels like RJ.

Steve: Yeah. So thinking about the process then. So I don't know. It's like, do you remember then? Like, what were those processes that you wanted to check each box with the, you know, the crazy seller who's hated his sister?

RJ: Yeah. I mean, obviously, first thing I wanna find out is is do you have a house that you wanna sell? Yep. How much do you want for it? I wanna get that price right out of the gates.

Mhmm. Then I wanna understand the motivation. So open ended questions. Tell me a little bit about what you got going on. I don't say about the property.

I don't say about your life. I don't wanna ask how did you come up with that price. It's just tell me a little bit about what you got going on. As soon as I start that, that triggers me starting the analysis of the property. So I'm gonna go in.

I'm gonna start comping it, underwriting it, doing a Google Street View, seeing if this is property I wanna buy while I'm listening to them. Mhmm. Because it's such a vague open ended question, normally, it gets them talking three, four, five minutes.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: Especially with him. He was a talker. He wanted to tell me everything, so he gave me plenty of time. It was a great show, specifically because this is a competition. There's an entertainment aspect.

So it's like, the more I could get him talking and cussing up a storm and, you know, just being who he was, the better. And I kinda just stayed out of the way. And so now I understand why he wants to sell. It was an inherited property. You know, he was the executor of the estate.

His sister's, you know, batshit crazy, whatever. And he's gotta get rid of this so he can cash out his 50% of the inheritance. This what is that check off? Tons of motivation. Right?

Now all I need to figure out is is was the price right? And the price was pretty close. So at that point, it's just go in for the close, make sure he feels comfortable with me. So that's why I always say build a reverse report. I just mean I build the report at the end.

I I know now this is a deal I'm willing to close. So I built a report there at the end with, you know, talking about his sister and all of that, and then explain our process and then just ask him if he would come down a little bit on Bryce, and he didn't got the contract signed. Honestly, when you go back and you watch that specific close, I probably did less than, like, four minutes of talk time

Steve: Right.

RJ: The entire close.

Steve: Yeah. The thing I learned the most on top of him cussing at his sister, him yelling at his wife, like, what should we do? Was you busting over, busting open a six pack? Yes. Yeah.

That's what I remember from it. Right? And, like, everyone that knows us Yeah. From before closed Olympics, like like, is Steve gonna judge RJ for it? I think that was a question.

It's like in in both ways.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Like, am I gonna play favorites, or am I just gonna be, like, unnecessarily mean? Right. Right? I thought I I was I was pretty fair. But I was

RJ: you were always pretty fair with everybody. I mean, I watched the entire day, because I wanted to see what the competition looked like, and I enjoy it. I mean, it's a sport for me at this point, and I kinda feel like I run the thing. So, I I thought your feedback during the calls was invaluable for for so many different people because there were closable deals on Saturday that did not get closed. Yeah.

I I mean, that that is a fact. And and for me, it was hard to watch because I'm like, there was nerves setting in. I mean, whenever you have to watch something for eight hours that you're getting to compete in and you're like, if that was my lead, I'm in the finals. Am I gonna get that lead?

Steve: Right.

RJ: Because there were some guys that never got a lead. I mean, they just didn't get to move on because they didn't have a an opportunity. But most everybody had an opportunity.

Steve: There were, like, two or three that were closable that didn't get closed. I was like, yeah. Like, if this is just painful to watch. Alright. So you won back to back, and then you go on to, kind of a a rebrand Yep.

Sorts. Right? So I see titanium baseball cap Yep. And cling King Closer

RJ: Yep.

Steve: T shirt.

RJ: Yep. So that came from you know, we're both part of a mastermind, family mastermind. Mhmm. And I go, and I've I've always worn a titanium shirt, always worn a titanium hat. That's our brand.

That's our company. And several people that I respect are are boy, CJ, b m one. I mean, what do you call him? You say he's the Shug Knight of of Margin. Right?

Steve: He's gonna be the he's gonna be the next, he's gonna be the Shug Knight of, of our industry. He's gonna be publishing other other influence.

RJ: So okay. He came up, and he had one of those hand on the shoulder conversations with me. He was like, hey, bro. See these? Someone else gave you these.

You gave yourself the name Titanium. Other people gave you the name King Closer. That's your brand. You should run with that. And coming out of that, it was like, okay.

And you literally had just made that Shug Knight comment to me. Mhmm. And I was like, I should probably be listening to this. Yeah. And then Robert Wensley, our other friend, who I think we both really respect for what he's done with Investiture Lift Mhmm.

Comes up. And I don't know if him and CJ had had a conversation or what, but he was like, hey, dude. Your brand's King Closer. Like, you need to change it. He's like, make a shirt.

And I was like he's like, rebrand everything. King closer. And so leaving from there, I I was inspired by some of the the speeches given at family, but I also looked at it like I always do. I mean, it's my personality. I'm a cleaner.

I I saw other people get up there, talk about what they were doing with their education companies, how much growth that they had had over the years, and I'm like, like, we can beat them. We we actually do this business. I mean, some people were literally talking about a lot. It's like, yeah. Last time we did real estate was, like, four years ago, but now we're in this.

And it's like, we're still in the business. We're passionate about this. And so we decided, okay. RJ is the king closer. This is the brand that has been given to us by the people, by the industry.

Of course, we're still titanium because that's that's our company. But king closer, that's who I am. And it's it's something that I earned through these competitions. And and, listen, people can laugh about the competitions all they want. Mhmm.

But, you know, I mean, it's not easy having a thirty minute shot clock in front of you. And, to be able to do that time and time again, I mean, I'm I am proud of it, and it was funny. I think it was Naaman. Naaman told me at an event we were speaking at, he goes, I'm so glad you won. And I I he generally meant it because he said, if I had won, he said, you would have seen one picture of me wearing that belt.

He said, but you winning it and the way your personality is, it's actually brought something to this. It means something. And it it meant more to him because of how much I I talk about it Yeah. And how much I bring light to the competition and how hard this is, and how it's something that our industry does need to pay attention to. How do we talk to people?

So, yeah, man. It's a king closer is something that I'm I'm proud to to call myself because it's not something that I just went out and said, hey. I'm the king closer. Something that I feel like I went out

Steve: and earned. Yeah. I heard

RJ: that every week. Yeah. I know. I just just wanted to make sure that here on Real Estate Disruptors, everybody knows. Yeah.

For those of

Steve: you that don't watch the part in the discussion and are only all listening to real estate disruptors, yeah. So this is this is the infamous RJ base.

RJ: We're we're approaching a thousand days of me being the undisputed deal closer. Just saying.

Steve: Yeah. Well, again, for the record, right, in the very first closed Olympics, I am the only one I know of that actually closed a deal that actually closed.

RJ: You did. You are the one that did that that first year.

Steve: That first year.

RJ: That first year.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So you got King Closer, then you got Titanium U. So what's the difference between King Closer and Titanium U?

RJ: So I'm King Closer. That's that's who I am. Titanium University, that is our community. That's where you can come learn everything that we're doing. You know, we have the the course.

We also have the community Facebook group, as well as we do daily implementation calls with everybody inside of there. You know, the the king closer is more of, like, the persona, the brand. There's not really anything behind that other than understanding, what you're getting yourself into. Right? I mean, we're we're about closing deals.

We wanna stand out in that way. I always use the the example of every time we we bring in a new group of people to Titanium University, it's like, this is a community that is based around results and closing deals, and we are going to get you on the phones today where there's no time to wait. Mhmm. I don't care about you messing up. I don't care about any of that.

It's about we're gonna take action. So, yeah, the the king closer is just that persona behind it.

Steve: And then what does someone get in joining the Titanium University?

RJ: I mean, listen. It's it's an ever evolving organic, video course. I mean, as we change last time I was here, it was all about texting, list pulling, right, data. Now three years later, it's all about inbound leads. What's it gonna be in 2027?

So once you're in Titanium University, as we pivot, you'll always have access to that. It's a lifetime membership. And then those daily implementation calls. Like, this morning, I spent an hour with with the whole community just answering questions, talking about, you know, what what I see going on inside the community as well as what I see going on inside of our business. And then you have access to each other inside the Facebook group.

Dude, it's yeah. I'm I'm very proud of what we're being what we're creating right now.

Steve: Yeah. It's very impressive. Because you and I, we've we've known each other for a long, long time.

RJ: Yes.

Steve: We've had all all sorts of conversations. Right?

RJ: I knew you when you had all of your hair. So You know? You never knew me was there, so I can make that joke.

Steve: But we I got to see, right, this transition of, like, you know, someone who started his fifty days, 50 state 50 deals in fifty days in 50 states. Right? To where now you have this brand, you have this following as really, really cool to see. So you mentioned something about the difference in in leads. So right now, you're focused predominantly on inbound.

Yes. Whereas before, it was pulling a list and text blasting it.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Obviously, that had to change.

RJ: Yes. It had to.

Steve: Right? But, like, what are you doing right now for for inbound?

RJ: Yeah. So a lot of PPL, pay per lead, you know, lead Zolo, speed to lead, property leads. Those are the three main providers. And, the difference I dude, legitimately, the first fifty day challenge, if you go look at my face on day one and then see my face at the end of day 50 Like,

Steve: is it like Obama when you left

RJ: the office? I looked like I ran it. Like, I was dead.

Steve: Eight years in the office?

RJ: Yes. I mean, I literally, I am drained of everything. You go look at this 2023 run, I look more refreshed at the end of the fifty days because it was, like, enjoyable. You know? I mean, it was like, hey.

All day every day. Not every day. I mean, there was days where things didn't So

Steve: you weren't getting chewed out?

RJ: Well, the how'd you get my number? Why would you think I'm selling my house? You know? All of that. What's an absentee owner?

You know what I mean?

Steve: Did you ever do the text blasting before, like, all the text blasting campaigns?

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Did you ever get some inappropriate photos?

RJ: Yeah. There's one on my YouTube channel. It dude, most of the original fifty day challenge has been taken down. Okay? Because, I was sharing my screen.

I mean, it had addresses, phone numbers, names, everything. Right? So, like, about once every two months, YouTube will take one of the videos down. Yeah. The one that still exists was and, I mean, it is right there.

Just dude responds in all his glory, not his glory, someone else's glory. And, that one still hasn't been taken down. And the worst part about it was is it's like, I didn't know it was there, so I, like, I brought up I shared my screen, and the response, it just popped up. And it it exists for probably ten, twelve seconds. And then I was like, oh my god.

I'm breathing out. But, yes, I texting, there was a a lot of very inappropriate things.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I'm just sharing that for some of the people that haven't been around as long. They might have missed that opportunity to really get to know their their clientele.

RJ: If you really wanna know how bad texting was, just go back to my TikTok and just scroll as fast as you can until you get to the beginning. Uh-huh. And then just listen about 10 or 12 of the old TikToks, and then you'll realize how bad texting was where I'm just getting cussed out left and right.

Steve: So you did better with the inbound from PPL. Who do you like for PPL?

RJ: Lead Zolo, Speed to Lead, and Property Leads.

Steve: Yeah. I think Property Leads is gonna be here next week. Okay. So inbound, easier than outbound.

RJ: Yeah. Well, here's the thing. It it's easier on your heart. Right? I mean, like, it's stress levels.

Right? But, it it does cost more money. So there is a stress level that some people have when it's like, hey. I invested $5,000 in the leads. I need to see that return.

They start stressing out about this person hasn't answered. That person wanted full retail. Whereas if you're texting, it was so, inexpensive to, you know, pull data and skip trace it. So there's a different level of stress that comes along with the PBL. I I think sometimes we don't talk about that because it's like, yeah.

You know, PBL is amazing, and I closed one out of 10 or one out of seven. That's not the case. I mean, I I was talking to to someone in our community today, and she's like, I've spent, you know, a couple of thousand dollars, and I still haven't gotten a deal under contract yet. Is it me? But then we started breaking it down, and it's like, well, she has sent contracts, but she hasn't gotten them signed yet.

Maybe there's an issue there with the closing process and how yeah. It's better, but it's just new problems.

Steve: But now this makes sense when we're doing part of the disruption, how angry you would get at us about cold calling.

RJ: Yeah. Cold calling sucks. You wanna

Steve: take a moment to share your thoughts on cold calling?

RJ: Yeah. I I do not think that b bull should cut their teeth with cold calling. You do.

Steve: Right. Why? Because I think that in sales, the best way to get good Mhmm. Is reps.

RJ: You it's not a rep.

Steve: It's a rep. You're getting No.

RJ: A dial is not a rep.

Steve: You might look at even if it isn't a rep. Right? A dial is not a rep, but human interaction is rep. It may not be the highest quality rep, but it's a rep.

RJ: Let me tell you. All those reps I got in 2020 Mhmm. Where people are saying, how'd you get my information? Why would you text my wife?

Steve: You still got deals.

RJ: Yeah. But that wasn't that didn't help me.

Steve: Look. So, you know, maybe I shouldn't say this on podcast. Right? So, like like, two of my favorite people to hire. Right?

What's it what's it called when you're, when you you turn your life around, you know, criminal? Rehabilitated.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Okay. Rehabilitated drug dealers that never got in trouble.

RJ: Right? Okay.

Steve: They're pretty good at talking to people, and they're resourceful. The other one, people that go door to door to sell religion because they've got reps. K. They've had the door slammed in their face countless times.

RJ: I hear you. I hear you. But you do not need to get your teeth kicked in to be successful at closing deals. Here's the thing. The reason why that we're saying this is is because when people got started in 2015, 2016, what were their options for marketing?

Cold calling, direct mail?

Steve: Door knocking?

RJ: Yep. Yeah. That was it. Things have gotten better. We're not leveraging the technology that exists nowadays.

Steve: So maybe I'm biased. You know what my do you even know what my one of my first jobs was out of high school?

RJ: Cool calling. Yeah. Yeah. So Look how you turned out.

Steve: Pretty damn good on the phones.

RJ: I mean, sure. I don't see your belts up here, but

Steve: I couldn't afford to buy those belts. So but, anyway, so PPL, you enjoy those. They're a lot less stressful, than than than doing the outbound. So, since you came on to the show, you've been canceled not once, but twice. Right?

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: So part of the disruption

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: You got canceled. What happened?

RJ: I I did a podcast with you. That's that's what happened.

Steve: So let's talk about PTD. Right? So, maybe not everyone here knows the whole story. Yeah. Because if you didn't watch the very last episode, you may not know catch the whole story.

RJ: Right.

Steve: Alright. So we started part in disruption, and I shared this with you just now. You may not have known this. Right? So we started, part of this eruption, we're like, let's do a show where it's a bunch of trash talking because I've got this theory that the better you are at trash talking, the better you are, at closing.

RJ: Yep. Right?

Steve: I still believe this to be true.

RJ: Yeah. I me too.

Steve: Right?

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: And so let's say, okay. We have RJ at a hell of a time if you started the trash talking during closed Olympics. As Keith said, let's turn this into a WE.

RJ: Thank you. Finally, someone else says it besides me.

Steve: Yeah. Keith said it on a call. Yes. And you were like, hell, yeah. Yeah.

Right? Me, I was like, okay.

RJ: That sounds fun.

Steve: This is gonna be great.

RJ: Right.

Steve: And a side of me came out that no one else had ever seen before. Right? Because that's always been, like Right. My private side. Like, I I'll talk trash in private areas, but never, like, outwardly.

So when Keith said, let's talk trash, he's like, alright. He kept calling you out. And I posted that. He was like Yeah. Why?

RJ: Dude, what's funny about that is is Keith was the one that said it.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: I have trash talked Keith probably, like, 10 times online, and he never says anything back.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: So he's like, man, at least counter something, anything. Yeah. No. Dude, the the trash talk back then was awesome. And then when you reached out to me about pardon the disruption and you were like, I wanna do a podcast where we keep the trash talk, but it's also informative.

Mhmm. I loved it.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: And then you were like and I got Chris Jefferson, and I knew CJ. Mhmm. I was like, that's awesome. And they were like and I got Eric Brewer, and I'm like, oh, I didn't know Eric.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: So I was like, dude, I just I'm a little bit worried about this guy I don't know that you're bringing in. Mhmm. But, dude, that dude has had some of the most savage roast of he roasted me more than anyone I swear. Well, he might have gotten you just

Steve: He got me quite a bit. Yeah. Like and I I still remember before meeting Eric face to face, right, before I got into Collective Genius. Like, I remember seeing him on Facebook. I was like, who is this guy that does these, like, hundreds and hundreds of deals Yeah.

Year in, year out. He's gotta be like this beast. Mhmm.

RJ: And

Steve: he is just a goofball just like the rest of us.

RJ: I've never gotten to meet him live. Yeah. Because every time I go anywhere, he doesn't show up. I think he's afraid to meet me in person.

Steve: He could be.

RJ: He could be.

Steve: But part of the inspiration as well was not just the trash talking, but the last time you were here for a podcast. Right? Because you had won the close of the

RJ: Yes.

Steve: And then you and I, you came in to talk about winning the belt. Yep. And you and your Bengals gear or whatever. And, my colleagues, my in the office were like, Steve, that was, like, a very different podcast. Yep.

Right? It wasn't just educational. There was, like, this energy.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: And so, again, that was kinda like the birth. BTD is like, well, you know, we have that, camaraderie. We have the trash talking. Let's do this. So there's a lot of fun.

We got to educate. Now we got to entertain. Fortunately, the downloads Yep. Did not line up with how much fun we were having.

RJ: Agreed. And but the other thing is is listen, we did it for what? A year and a half? Mhmm. Close to two years.

Yeah. I mean, some point in time, it's like, alright. We we did that. Like, let's change it up. We're still gonna do stuff together.

Right. You know, I we gotta probably jump the gun there about, hey. We're just gonna take a week off, and then RJ's gotta carry the torch. But we we're we're still gonna do something here because I think the the energy is there. Everyone that watch Pardon the Disruption, I mean, I've I've gotten more feedback from that probably than anything else I've ever done where it's like, dude, PTD, awesome.

You guys, everyone says they watch every episode. And I'm like, you guys know that we could see how many you guys aren't watching every episode. I don't know if you know this, but we do it on weekly basis. But, I I I loved it, man. It I said it all the time.

It was one of the most fun days I've ever done. It was

Steve: a lot of fun for my for myself as well, and my coach actually called me out. And she's like, like, we're in the middle of a coaching call. And she's like, it's Amanda Dean. Right? You guys are wondering.

Middle of a coaching call. She's like, wait. I forgot. Stop it right here real quick. You canceled PTD.

RJ: She was mad at me.

Steve: She was upset.

RJ: Did she fix it, or you bring it back?

Steve: No. No. I explained to her. It's like, my focus right now we're gonna talk to this a little bit about, marketing here. Yeah.

Like, my focus has shifted quite a bit as far as marketing goes. But the other one like, that's the funny one. Right? But the sad one.

RJ: Yeah. A and E.

Steve: Yeah. Like, I don't know how much you can talk about it, but that was Oh, dude.

RJ: I'll I'll tell the whole thing now.

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RJ: I mean, I I don't really care. It was crazy. I mean, you know, to have Pilgrim Media reach out to us and say, hey. We want you to be on zombie house flipping on A and E and establish show. This is gonna be the fifth season.

It had always been in Orlando. And so they were like, the new idea is there's gonna be a team in Tampa, Orlando, Dallas, and Fort Worth. And you guys will have a run of, like, five episodes, and then we'll go to the next team for five episodes. And then that way, we keep the show running basically year round. And it was awesome.

I mean, we were super excited to do it once we've made the decision to do it. There there was some apprehension at first, you know, especially for me. I was like, I am who I am. If you want me to be scripted, I I can't even do a script on my calls with sellers. It's not gonna happen.

Like Yeah. And they were like, no. We the the hilarious part about me being canceled is is the reason why they reached out to us is because they called Brent Daniels Mhmm. And asked Brent to to do it. And Brent said, I don't wanna do it.

And then they found out Brent lived in Arizona, and they were like, we don't wanna go West Of Texas. And Brent said, Texas. You seen RJ? And he was like, go check out RJ's YouTube channel. So they went and watched my YouTube channel and said, that's the guy we want.

Like, that personality.

Steve: That personality is uncastable. Right.

RJ: So what they got, they canceled even though that's what they wanted. So, you know, we we were in the middle of flipping, like, you know, you know, I I couldn't show up to pardon the disruption a lot. Mhmm. Because of the amount of flips we had going on. We were in the middle of flipping, you know, 10 houses at once.

We had completed multiple episodes. We got the honor of being the season premier of all the teams, So that was, like, a big deal. They looked at the footage, and they said, hey. Fort Worth is gonna be the season premier. And it aired 12/03/2022, and feedback was amazing from everyone at A and E and Pilgrim Media.

And, you know, some people said it was good. Some people on social media said it sucked. I got to Twitter, you know, where it's like, who put this fat guy? Yeah. Who decided to go get a big white guy with a big beard that's fat?

That'd be on TV. You know? I saw some of that, and it was like, okay. This is the reality of being on TV. And I was like, alright.

This is this is what I expected. Like, this is gonna be the new norm for us. And, the middle of that week, second episode's coming out on Saturday. I get a call from the executive producer, and she said, there's a tweet from a gentleman, that says that the hoodie you were wearing in the episode had a white supremacy logo. And I'm like, that's clearly not the case.

Mhmm. It was a gift. It was a hoodie that was given to me that had Viking symbols on it, and the symbol is a vaut nut, which is a very common Viking symbol. It's on almost everything Viking related. But this person with three followers on Twitter at the time, sent that tweet out, and it red alerted A and E, which then red alerted Disney.

And so then they had to ask me questions. They wanted to know, was my name really RJ Bates the third? Why did I name my son Trinity? Why did my contractor put a Roman numeral three on one of the projects? And she was doing it as, like, a symbol.

Like, hey. I did this for you because you flipped this house and did such a great job. I put a Roman numeral three on this back deck, and they thought that was me showing that I was a part of the three percenters, which I guess is a white supremacy group.

Steve: Oh, didn't know that.

RJ: And I'd be either. Then when they told me that, I was like, can you explain what this is? What group did I join? And they asked me those questions. I told them the truth, the next Saturday.

I mean, there was no concern about us being, like, canceled over this. This is kind of like, hey. We're just asking. Gone.

Steve: Our eyes crossed the trees.

RJ: Okay. We're all good. The next Saturday, my son had a hockey game at 10:30. The episode's supposed to air at ten. So I'm walking around outside the building with it on my cell phone, and a rerun of Orlando from the season before airs when our second episode is supposed to air.

And so I start texting people, like, hey. What's up? And then I start getting texts from, like, the contractors and vendors that were supposed to be, you know, featured on that episode. Like, what happened? Where's our episode?

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: And everybody's like, we don't know what's happening. We don't know what's happening. I got that sinking feeling like, oh, this is not good.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: And two, three hours later, me and my son are driving in the car, and I got the call. You've been canceled. We don't know why. We'll have answers for you on Monday. So Saturday, Sunday, I have to go with no answers.

That Monday, everybody on our team, every single person lost their job. I I had to see people pack up out of their apartments.

Steve: Oh, like the media team?

RJ: Yes. Production team. Every single bird I mean, a cameraman the the cameraman that were our team were the original cameraman of zombie house flipping. They had moved from Orlando to Florida, moved their or to Fort Worth, had moved their entire families. I mean, they were fired.

You have no job now. I mean, it was ruthless over a harmless hoodie that meant nothing.

Steve: Over an idiot tweet.

RJ: Yeah. I mean, that that's really what it is because the the hoodie itself means nothing. The symbol is not racist in nature. I'm not racist. There's no proof of that.

And, basically, what I've been told is is it it went to, one attorney at Disney, and he basically said, how many episodes have we aired of this guy? One, just pull the plug.

Steve: Yeah. It's crazy to me. Because like you said, the consequences. Right? Because I didn't I didn't even think about, like, your team.

I'm just thinking about you, your debt, and your your contractors, your hard money loans, and all these other things. Like, it's a it's a setback for you and your operations. You just stopped everything to focus on this. But, yeah, there are a whole bunch of other people they got.

RJ: Oh, dude. And they paid a lot of money to fire us. Mhmm. Because, like, there was trade outs. So, like, for example, a, you will mention Steve Trang flooring.

Mhmm. Steve Trang will donate $10,000 worth of flooring to this house. Mhmm. And so the flooring company says, absolutely. I'll do this to be on A and E over and over and over again because this is the whole thing about these shows.

They just keep getting aired over and over, and then the episode doesn't air. So now you're coming to me going, you need to pay my $10,000.

Steve: Right.

RJ: Well, a and e just took care of it. They they stroked a check for every single person. They paid us for every single episode that we filmed.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: To not be aired. I mean, over nothing. And the the most disappointing part for me was one, the people getting fired over something that I felt responsible for. Even though I shouldn't feel the responsibility of wearing it, but that's still every day that I filmed, I wore a black T shirt that said titanium, except for one. That one day was my birthday.

I wore the Viking hoodie because it was a gift that was given to me. And it only made the scene for, like, three seconds, and it was because they showed the back of it because we did floor to ceiling marble on the fireplace. They wanna get a cool angle of me looking up the floor to ceiling, and that's when it showed. It just it bothered me that so many people's lives were impacted by it. And then the next thing that that really bothered me was, the fact that I had to explain to so many people what happened.

And no matter what, when you look at someone and say, I got fired, I got canceled, then the immediate question is why. Mhmm. And it's not like me. I have to tell the I have to say why. And and that's why Cassie always gives me a hard time.

She's like, stop talking about you being a white supremacist. Stop stop saying that, you know, you know, you got fired for for being racist, and it's like but that that's what they said. It's not true. But I think a lot of times we wanna run from that. And the first couple of months, man, I mean, it it impacted me.

I mean, I I probably first three months of 2023, go look at my YouTube channel. Go look at my podcast. There's nothing. I sat at my desk staring into abyss going, and I just killed my business. And I just because, dude, the moment this happened, our team, people started quitting.

I mean

Steve: Why?

RJ: I don't know. I mean, was it an icky situation? You know? I mean, imagine if you're a black guy that works for me, and I come in and I say, I got fired because I wore this hoodie and it was a white supremacist logo. And then you go home and you have to tell your wife why your boss got fired.

I mean, suddenly, it starts to like and then business is not doing good because, like, I'm not being proactive. Cassie's not being like dude, we were, like, emotionally, like, distraught. And then also, we had all these houses that we had to finish flipping that were supposed to be for the show, so not super profitable because you're basically over rehabbing them. I mean, there there was a lot of negative energy in the in the building. Even though we were trying to, like, keep it going, it was it was a full reboot of, like, everything.

A lot of people left. The ones that stayed didn't surprise me. The ones that left didn't surprise me. But also just me and Cassie had to hit a reset button on, like, up here and how we were gonna overcome that.

Steve: And I remember you shared with me, when it went down, and I was pretty upset about it as well. Yeah. And I went to the team. I was like, hey. I'm gonna record a video.

You remember what what I was talking about?

RJ: Yes.

Steve: Right. I'm gonna talk about how my wife's a premises.

RJ: Yes.

Steve: Like, Steve, you're not we will not let we will not support you in this venture. Right?

RJ: You were like, you said that? And I was like, bro, I love you, but I I don't know if this is the right move. I don't know I don't know if you should do this or not. You know, I I freely talk about it now. I mean, when it first happened, I got told by a lot of people, like, hey.

Keep it under wraps. You know? You don't want Disney coming after you. But at this point, I think everyone needs to know why it happened. You know what I mean?

But we just were hanging out with Dolmar and Keisha, and they were like, we still get people asked what happened to the Fort Worth team. And I'm like, oh, we got canceled. Like, hey. Hey. Let them know.

Like, I mean, it it it is what it is. I think Jamille had the best perspective out of anyone. He said, what does being on TV do for you? It gives you the opportunity to build your brand by saying you're on TV. You are on TV.

No one can ever take that away from you.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: He goes, in fact, you probably got the better end of this. You got one episode, and then you're done. You're like, move on with your life. He's like, you couldn't be like me where you just have to do it over and over and over again. And, I I will say there was a part of me that really enjoyed it, though.

I mean, it was like a new creative side. I mean, you create a lot of content. It was like, once I figured out how much goes into it in creating it, like, me and the executive producer were really, like, clicking on finding new ways to bring energy to a show. So I I missed that, and there were some really funny moments that'll never be seen. I wish they would just release it.

Like, come on. Let us see it. But yeah.

Steve: But now you can officially put the asking on TV. Yeah. On your Yeah. Postcards.

RJ: It's on my song.

Steve: Is it?

RJ: Yeah. Have you have you heard the song? I have

Steve: not heard your song.

RJ: You have not heard the king closer? No. Did you know that I released a song? No. Well, let's let the world know.

As of 05/03/2024, if you go on to Spotify, Apple Music, you search the king closer, There's gonna be a song, RJ base the third and the dropout kings. That's, it's my official song. It's my first ever single.

Steve: Alright. May maybe I'll download it. We'll see.

RJ: It ends with explicit word as seen on TV.

Steve: There you go. But looping this all back Yep. You were saying there was something that happened that made the second fifty event more, impactful.

RJ: Yep. I mean, it was this. I mean, it was getting canceled, sitting there and trying to figure out, like, where what are we gonna do now? Like, we had a five season contract. Oh, it was five seasons.

Five seasons. 100 episodes. Like, that's where we were going. Like, we were gonna go flip a 100 houses, 100 episodes. This is gonna build a brand.

This is what we're gonna do. And it gets yanked out from underneath you. And then the moment it gets yanked out from underneath you, you feel everyone that's followed you that was super pumped about that moment started going, and then all of a sudden, it's like, yeah. I'm I'm putting in my two weeks notice. I'm out.

Yeah. And it's like so not only are things not going well, but everything's falling apart. And so looking back at someone came to me and they said, hey. Why don't you do what you what you did in 2020? Move another fifty day challenge.

And so, yeah, that's what inspired it, and it was just the moment that I went live on the first fifty day the the second fifty day challenge, first dial, signed contract. It was like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah. We're back. And next fifty days, I mean, a 125 contracts.

So many people showing up every single day and then implementing the same things that they were watching me do inside of their business. And we made it a lot more fun this time. Like, we had Cassie involved. Like, I still Valentine to, like, step away from the live. She would take over.

I'd go do PTD with you guys. It was just a lot more it it gave us the energy to get back into where we needed to be. And it's like, as as much as I hate how it went down and the impact it had on other people's lives, the fact that we're not on TV is, like, one of the best things that could have happened to us.

Steve: Yeah. And as a result, we got to see, be a legend at a lady.

RJ: Yes. Yes. Yes. The the greatest poster in, PTD history with me having be a lady or be a legend, not a lady. Wait.

Be a lady, not a legend?

Steve: It was something along those lines, but, yeah, we got to see that poster PTD over and over again over RJ's shoulder.

RJ: With the wooden walls.

Steve: Yeah. With the with the serial killer walls. So alright. So then the second run at fifty days

RJ: Yep.

Steve: 125 contracts. That kinda sounds unbelievable.

RJ: It's all live on YouTube, baby.

Steve: So we kinda touched on it. We had a dancer on it, like, the sales skills and the inbound or that, but someone listening today. Right? I want to do a 125 contracts. Let's forget a 125.

I wanna do 50 contracts for fifty days. Let's be Right. Reasonable.

RJ: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Right? So step one, what am I doing here?

RJ: Well, step one, you have to have lead generation. Mhmm. Right? I mean, for me, what I had running was lead Zolo, speed to lead, and I had four VAs cold calling data. So all the data that I had accumulated over, you know, the past four or five years, still want that touched.

I still want that being called. So those VAs were pumping me cold call leads. I would go into speed lead. I would buy the leads there where people could see why I was choosing, what leads I was choosing. And then I had lead Zolo coming in.

And the crazy thing about it is is those were the three sources going into the challenge. But out of the 125 signed contracts, 13 of them came from TikTok, Instagram, and my YouTubes being live. Mhmm. So sellers watching TikTok or Instagram and seeing me talk to other sellers and saying, well, sure. Why don't you buy my house too?

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: That one blew my mind where it was like, okay. So what is that? Like, 12% of our contracts came from social media. That was unexpected. Yeah.

But it starts with lead generation. And then from there, it goes to your closing skills, and your comping and underwriting skills. Like, you need to know what a good deal is. You know, being full nationwide, there's a lot that goes into that. Understanding where an end buyer's gonna buy in Florida in comparison to Mississippi.

Mhmm. Two different numbers. Right? Two different types of buyers and, your closing skills. I mean, like, listen.

Anybody could go watch my lives and mirror what I do. Mhmm. Right? But you have to have the ability to have that human interaction, to solve their problem by buying their real estate. Like, that's if you break it down to as simple as terms, that's what I'm doing.

And then after that, it's transaction coordination and dispositions.

Steve: So inbound leads

RJ: Yep.

Steve: And your four VAs co calling.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Gotta get them on the phone.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: What CRM were you using?

RJ: So we started off funny enough, you asked that. We wanted to make it as simple as possible for people to mirror. So when we were doing this, we were using a free version of Trello.

Steve: Okay.

RJ: So and then we realized, okay. We can't do the free version because we need to zap in leads from Lead Solo. So we actually got the paid version. It was, like, $49 a month or something like that. We were just zapping the leads in and just So

Steve: just some Trello?

RJ: Yep. No automations.

Steve: Then you're calling from your cell phone?

RJ: No. We have landlines at our office. So you're getting a call from yours.

Steve: Okay. So but it's not, like, rocket science.

RJ: No.

Steve: Right? So inbound lead goes your email.

RJ: Yep. You

Steve: it zaps into Trello.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Pick up a landline Yep. And you call it.

RJ: That's it.

Steve: Not extraordinarily difficult.

RJ: And almost, I would say, 60% of those signed contracts happen on one one dial.

Steve: Yeah. So at that point then, it's sales skills and transaction coordinating.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Sales skills we're gonna talk to about in in a moment. Transaction coordinating Mhmm. Who's handling that?

RJ: So we have an in house TC that we use, but I suggest at this point, everyone should just hire David Olds.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: I mean, there's literally no reason not to, because he's, what, $325 on average per deal.

Steve: Yeah. Extraordinarily cheap.

RJ: Yeah. And do you know I I hate this more than anything because with all of the stuff that I've done in in my career, probably the number one question I get asked is is, what's a good title company in Jackson, Mississippi? What's a good title company in Birmingham, Alabama? And I'm like, this is what you need from me? Right?

If you just hire David Olds, he just tells you which one to to use. Yeah. Right? And then he knows what contracts to use, what language needs to be used. He handles all of that.

We we didn't have that option, so we hired internally Mhmm. Trained up, and I still think internally need someone communicating with David Olds' company. So even if we were outsourcing that, but, yeah, everybody listening should hire David Olds.

Steve: There you go. And then for everyone that needs to know how to get there.

RJ: Your guy. Easy r a I closings, what, backslash disruptors?

Steve: I assume it's disruptors. I don't know. It's EZRAI closing for sure, though.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: So, so David Olds for TC, underwriting you mentioned a moment ago.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Underwriting is different in a tertiary city

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Than in a metro area.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: So what are the main things to be looking out for?

RJ: So our process, as soon as we're on the phone with a seller, I'm gonna take that address. I'm gonna look it up on Google Street View. I'm gonna pay attention to what I'm buying. Right? Is this, like, in the middle of nowhere?

Is it closer to a city? What is considered rural? What is considered a tertiary market? Because I started seeing it now where this is, like, the new trend that we're moving into where it was like, k. Everyone wants to talk about PPL leads.

And then the problem with PPL is, well, you get leads in the middle of nowhere. And then all of a sudden, I start seeing people saying them leads in the middle of nowhere are, like, top 10 markets. Mhmm. And it's like, okay. Slow down.

Right? You're not gonna get leads in Phoenix, Arizona, and Dallas, Texas. K? That's just not gonna happen. But Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that's a pretty good market.

Okay? Like, that's not tertiary. That's not rural. So we wanna pay attention to that by going to investor lift, plugging in the city first, and saying, how many buyers do we have in this city? K?

If I have less than 2,000, then I'm gonna go to the county. If I have more than 2,000 in the county, I'm closing the deal. That's plenty enough buyers to be able to see that. So I'm basing on how many buyers do I

Steve: have. Mhmm.

RJ: K? If I have buyers, Now I'm gonna move into comping and underwriting the deal. And then the next problem people have with rule or tertiary is, well, what if I can't find comps? What I found amazing about this is is how little effort people actually put into trying to find comps sometimes. It's like

Steve: Well, you have to be able to just push a button and get the answer.

RJ: Yeah. You know? It's like, I I punched it in the the Privy or PropStream or whatever, and I couldn't find anything. And it's like so the first thing is I always wanna do is is I wanna expand distance. Mhmm.

K? So I get anything on distance, and then I expand time. And then I flip flop it. So if I go back in time, then can I condense it down, and can I see what's close to the property? And then if I expand out, I can go further out in time.

The other thing about this is is Zillow, Redfin, realtor.com. A lot of times, they show you a lot of things that maybe don't show up on PropStream or Privy in a actual rural area because they don't have the MLS access outside of the major city. So if you just go there, a lot of times you could see what properties are listed for, what they sold for. And, again, you could be simple just by buying an extreme discount.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: And you don't have to have an exact ARV. Like, if you could see, like, this is a $2,250,000, and the seller is saying they'll sell it to you for 50.

Steve: Like Lock lock it up.

RJ: We're good. Yeah. Send the contract. And you got 2,500 buyers. We're good.

Send it.

Steve: So how are you disbowing the deals?

RJ: Through investor lift. But, I mean, it it takes work. Right? This isn't like there's a misnomer that you you swipe your card for a VSSL lift, and then you put it on there and you blast it out, and it's just sold. Right?

That's not how a VSSL lift works. I mean, it it does require work involved. Right? You have to have marketing skills, when it comes to email blast with the text blast. And then I think you actually need sales skills when you're talking to the end buyers.

Right? Yeah. Explaining why it's a deal. Right? And then actually getting in contact with them.

There's so many wholesale deals out there that it's like, what stands out about your deal in comparison to the other 25 that they got in their email in the past hour?

Steve: Right.

RJ: Right? So we're we're actually cold calling a lot of buyers, and getting them on the bone. And and another thing is is once you dispo a deal in a location, build that relationship. Like, that's that's your buyer. That's who you're gonna go back to over and over and over again.

So we don't do any bidding wars. It's first come, first serve at our price. So that's, like, a huge thing for us to enable us to be nationwide is that we do not want to create this icky feeling of, like, you said 200,000. I'm ready to give you 200, and then we're like, but this guy said two zero five. Mhmm.

Because that's how I feel like you burn bridges with those empires.

Steve: It's a 100% how you burn bridges.

RJ: Well, you know that more than anybody here in Phoenix. I'm sure the bidding wars, what, in 2020, 2021 were just insanity. Well,

Steve: we definitely got the most we could Yeah. For the properties.

RJ: I'm not just saying for you. I'm talking about just a general.

Steve: But I think you just have to go in there cognizant. Right? Like, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be one or the other. Yeah. I'm either gonna try to get the most on every single deal, or I'm just gonna have a few relationships, and that's it.

Yeah. And you have to figure out which style works best for you.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Sounds like you're more in a relationship side. Right?

RJ: Well, because we're nationwide too. Yeah. I mean, we have to. I I can't go try to find a new buyer every single time I get a deal in a random city in Tennessee. Yeah.

You know?

Steve: But just it's just different. There's pros and cons for each one. And, really, I I don't think there's, like, a one size fits all. It really just comes down to, like, which style works best for you as a business owner, for your dispo rep. Right?

RJ: Do you wanna be a new western or a a net worth? Mhmm. Right? These big box wholesalers where they create those bidding wars, and they know for a fact that their the lifespan of their buyers is one to three deals, and then the majority of them are gonna realize I can get better deals elsewhere. This deal actually existed from another wholesaler before New Western even got it.

Steve: Right. But But New Western is doing a job a job of spreading the gospel Yep. Right, of, like, off market properties.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: So they're doing the hard work finding the buyers for us. Yeah. And then we can sell it to them.

RJ: Right. If

Steve: you're sure what's what's their end of investment?

RJ: Like, they create they carved out their their niche, and they're doing it better than anybody. Yeah. I'm not I'm not knocking what they do. I mean, they make a lot of money, and they move a lot more deals than any of us.

Steve: Yeah. I mean But Just just a thousand or more every single month.

RJ: I mean, but it's it's a it's a different type of business. Right? Right. I

Steve: mean Yeah. Again, I don't think there's a one size fits all. So looking at that, so that is that's a dispo. That's a 125 ish contracts. Right?

Fifty days.

RJ: 125 ish. 69.2% of them close.

Steve: So remark it's remarkable. Right? So let's talk about the the the sale styles.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Or a few different things. You've gotten a lot of flack, I don't know, for some reason, of being, like, this offer taker. Some people are saying this.

RJ: This. I don't know who would say that. Just my closest friends.

Steve: So but talk to me about this perspective. Yep. Like, we say, right, ingest. But, like, I think some people believe that. Yeah.

So let's talk about that. What does that mean?

RJ: I you know what? At first, it pissed me off. I'm not gonna lie. I at first, it was like, wow. Like, and then it it kinda made me chuckle because I was like, well, maybe they're just missing the point.

I I not you guys. I I know y'all were just joking. But there are other people where it's like, I mean, comments that I see on my videos and everything, things like that. Really?

Steve: There are people out there that thought you were legit. Like

RJ: Yes. Wow. Yeah. Like, there's legitimately people that are like, you didn't do anything in the entire call, and I'm like, you're starting to get the point. Mhmm.

You want you wanna see the $18,000 wire that I got for doing nothing?

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: Don't you wish you could do that?

Steve: Right.

RJ: Like, that's amazing. And it's embracing the fact that we're the buyer. Mhmm. Right? And the the flow of the conversation, like, the ideal close for me is is, Steve, do you wanna sell?

Yes? How much do you want for it? $100,000. What do you have going on? You tell me all this terrible pain and motivation.

I keep asking questions. You know the light we're buddies, and then you tell me, if you could just give me 85,000 because I've become your friend and your buddy and I'm asking really good questions and you feel a connection. And then I explain our process and I say, what's the best you could do you could do for me if I cover all the closing costs? There's no realtor commissions, and you say 75,000. So through that, and I say, sounds good.

What's your email? I'm an order taker.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: But, really, I got you down $25,000. Yeah. And I didn't even try to negotiate.

Steve: So I think, so Ian Ross, he runs our Close More Sales podcast. Right? He's our our our our coach inside the our sales community, salesdisruptors.com if you guys are curious. One of the things that he talks about is not seeing the scenes of the sale. Yep.

Right? If you can see the sales happening, you're doing a bad job. Yep. You can't see the seams happening here when you do this. Right?

So it's kinda like officiating. Like, if you can see the officials

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Man, it's badly officiated game. Right? So, like, the ideal officiating a officiated game Yep. Is you're not aware that officials were in the game.

RJ: Yep. It's not good that we all know Angel Hernandez's name. Right? That that just means he's the worst umpire in all major league baseball because he he just keeps making mistakes. Yeah.

Steve: But you don't wanna be known. Right? And so, so I think what people are missing if they really believe that, right, just my perspective Mhmm. Is that you're getting them to negotiate against themselves. Yep.

RJ: Because if

Steve: you don't like the price, you can say, oh, that's not gonna work for me. Yep. And that's it. Right? It sounds like order taking.

It sounds like it, but really, it's just, it's everything Chris Voss talks about.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Right? It's like yeah. You know? We need to hire nine salespeople in the next five weeks. We launched our done for you cell service just a month ago, and the demand for it has been absolutely crazy.

We have all these people reaching out to us saying our sales service has been so helpful for them. Please get us more salespeople.

Speaker 2: If you are in high ticket sales or looking to get into that space, if you want a calendar filled up with people raising their hands saying, call me at this time. Please sell me. I wanna be sold to by a highly experienced salesperson. We are looking for you to have that role. We wanna take people who are good and make them great.

People who wanna be held accountable the same way Michael Jordan would want his coach to hold him accountable, to take him to that next level.

Steve: So if you want Ian Ross or myself to train you to get better at sales, if you wanna be able to control your income, decide exactly how much money you make, and you wanna work at a company where you value and appreciate it, we encourage you click the link below. However, we're only hiring superstars. If you're not a plus caliber, don't click below. Is that not gonna work.

RJ: Told I I was talking to Brent Daniels, and he was talking about, you know, inbound, outbound, and he was asking me a question about, well, could could your style work cold calling? Yeah. Said, okay. So I call you. This is a cold call.

Hey, Steve. Just reaching out to see if you're interested in selling this property. Yes? Awesome. How much do you want for it?

I don't know. You called me. How much you wanna give me? Oh, I'm I'm sorry. I thought you said you were interested in selling.

Do you wanna take some time to think about it, call me back when you have a price? If they're motivated, they're gonna chase after you.

Steve: They're not gonna let you leave.

RJ: They are going to chase after you. Yeah. If they let you go, guess what? You probably just saved yourself about twelve minutes. Right.

I'm trying to to do something to convince them, which is not so why I say even on cold calling, what is the purpose of cold calling? It's to mine to find leads. Right? With with these inbound leads, we could be super hyper aggressive on it. You could do the exact same thing on inbound or outbound.

Yeah. Like, it's just about your perspective, and are you willing to burn the bridge that fast?

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: Because most people, you know what they tell me? RJ, I had to wait thirty minutes to get that seller on the phone. Mike, so what? You're just gonna waste another fifteen just because you have someone on the phone? Yeah.

For me, it's about I just wanna get the contract. So I'm gonna burn that bridge and be hyperaggressive right there early on.

Steve: Yeah. Well, you know, you're you're clear. Right? And I think that's the confidence. Like, okay.

Well, this doesn't work for you. Okay. No big deal. Right? But not needing the business is why they won't let you they don't want you to leave, particularly if they have to sell.

Yep. So, I hope hopefully, I didn't leave that offer taking attack against you.

RJ: No. I I I think you did with Eric. Yeah. I think you definitely let it for Eric. No.

The the comments have always been there.

Steve: Really?

RJ: Yeah. They've always been there. And I think it's partially because, think about it, man. There's so many people in this industry that have a script or this is the way that you're supposed to close. I don't do anything that they say to do.

Yeah. I mean and in fact, I'm anti it. I mean, I'm like, don't place sellers on hold. Don't do the fake finance department. Don't do the underwriter.

If you have an underwriter, that's fine. Do it. If you don't, don't do that. Right. And I think that is what creates disdain in some of my comments because they look at it and they don't believe in what I say.

Because maybe they did sign up for that program. Maybe they are using that script, and it does work for them. Mhmm. I've never said it doesn't work. I'm just saying I think there's a better way to do it.

And this is the I have proof to back that up.

Steve: Oh, yeah. I mean, I like I said, you know, and and going back to judging, you know, during the competition, like, there's nothing that you did. Like, I don't RJ is doing this wrong. Yep. You've got your own spin on it.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Or you got you've got RJ's personality on it, but all the same stuff. We prescribe and teach the same exact thing. It's just your personality.

RJ: I'm so glad you said that because that is what everybody should be leaning into is their own personality. Yeah. I I've said that. Like, don't don't try to be me on the bone Mhmm. Because it's it it will come across very disingenuous, and it's like, it's not a good look.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: But if you're leaning into your own personality and and you're leaning into them believing that they're truly talking to a person that cares about their problem Mhmm. And a person that can actually solve their their their real estate needs, that's who they wanna do business with. And and then everything else in between, it's gonna work itself out. You know?

Steve: Yeah. But, again, you know, we talked about it earlier. It sounds kinda nerdy. Right? But having a process to follow and then adding your own flare to it later on.

It's, I play a lot of poker in my life. Right?

RJ: I was

Steve: a Me too. Failed professional poker player. But, you know, it was always interesting because, like, I get at the poker tables, I get addicted. So what do I do? I order all these books.

Right? David Sklansky, Mason Malmo, all these books on how to play poker the right way.

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: And once you learn the fundamentals and the principles, now you can have fun and add your personality to

RJ: it. Right.

Steve: But, man, at the table, everyone wants to just add their personality to it regardless of the math. Yep. Regardless of the processes. Mhmm. And I think that's kinda what you're seeing here.

RJ: Yeah. For sure. And it's funny, man. Me and you both, like, different styles a little bit, but it's like you said, technically, we're we're teaching the exact same thing when we talk about sales.

Steve: Teaching the same principles. Yeah. Just how we apply it a little bit different.

RJ: Yeah. Exactly. But we also both played poker

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: A lot. Like, I bought a car from online poker windows. I mean, it was like, dude, that was a big I wanted to be professional poker player too. And then I realized, you know, when full tilt went full tilt. I then I started wondering, like, wait.

Was I winning because I was on the right side of the algorithm? Like, were they cheating for me? Yeah. But I I do look at that. It it's a lot there are similarities with closing deals and playing poker Mhmm.

Where there's sometimes that, you know, we have to bluff a little bit. Mhmm. There's also some lines we just have to be like, no. Fold. Fold.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah.

RJ: This is the one I'm going all in.

Steve: You know, that's true. Right? Fold this handful. It's like you're spending most of your time folding the hands. Yes.

And you're saying most of the time hanging up this call. Like, this is not the call. This is not the call. Oh, we have a hand.

RJ: But who who wins majority of poker tournaments? Majority of time, it's either the person that gets uber lucky Mhmm. And is playing super aggressive, and they just go on a heater of luck Mhmm. Or person who folds over and over and is so strategic about when they decide to play Mhmm. That next thing you know, you don't even think they've been playing, and you look over and it's like, they're just stacked with chips.

How did that happen? Yeah. And it's like, that's how I want my business run. I don't wanna be the just the person slinging stuff around.

Steve: Trying to play every hand.

RJ: Yeah. No. Yeah. No.

Steve: That's a great point. I'm glad we came up with the poker analogy during the show.

RJ: That's what I'm talking about.

Steve: So, you mentioned underwriting.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: You've been kind of a on a bit of a tear about underwriting.

RJ: What listen, man. Why why do we have to lie about this stuff?

Steve: I I don't know. I think we have to have this this posture. We have to say with the show that we're credible.

RJ: How does it make you credible? I why okay. When did we decide that being the shot caller, the decision maker is a bad thing? What kind of pudding soft society are we? I mean, it's like we we need to have the bad guy Mhmm.

Behind closed doors. Mhmm. So we can be the good guy when we have to tell them that we're not gonna give you 200,000. We're only gonna give you 175,000.

Steve: I am a fan of playing the higher authority game in negotiations. Right? So if I say like, hey, RJ. Look. Ask more than I can get approved.

What you're looking to get? Mhmm. Nothing that I can. But if I can get that number approved, what would happen after that? Mhmm.

And they're telling me, like, they're committed. Now I've cleared the obstacles.

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: And they step outside real quick and get in and we get a signed contract. Right? Yep. But that's just for me to clear to get a clear commitment knowing that there's nothing left. Right?

They're saying they're all in on this deal.

RJ: Here's the thing, though. Everything that took place up until that moment led you to that moment. Yeah. Like, you're leading yourself to that moment.

Steve: Right.

RJ: That's part of your process. Mhmm. My thing is is if we are constantly leading ourselves to we need to be on hold for three minutes Mhmm. To then go talk to the fake finance department, to then come back to be on hold for three more minutes, to then come back to talk to the I I'm lost. Mhmm.

I've already closed the deal. Right. And we're just we're we're spinning in circles in a conversation. I don't think it's what this industry is going down a path right now where regulations are coming after us. Realtors are going I mean, basically, it's pointing in a direction where over the next couple years, to be a wholesaler, you're gonna have to be licensed.

Steve: Or you have to buy the house?

RJ: Yes.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: Wholesaler. So I'm saying, to be a wholesaler Yeah. You're you're gonna have to be licensed or buy the house. Right? Yeah.

I don't think that it's wise of us to continue to be pushing out all over social media that we are intentionally lying, manipulating, and making up stories to sellers Mhmm. And then saying, but we have a place in the market because we help people.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: If you help people, why are you lying to people?

Steve: So I had a chance to talk to, an owner of a major major wholesaling, operation, who's had a chance to be in front of a judge not once, but twice. Mhmm. And, we have our, like, you know, the precedent says, this state says we can do it. This state says we can do that. Right?

We can just double close all these things. Right? And I was explaining to us to explain to him all these things. Right? And he said, just let me stop you right there.

If a judge has to stop to understand what you just said, you lost. Yep. Like, damn. Like, it doesn't even matter Gotcha. What your position is.

Right? Because put yourself in a position of the judge who's dealing with case after case after case after case all day every day, and he just this is just a job. He just wants to get through the day. Yep. Right?

This is not a Supreme Court justice. Right. This is a guy who's sitting here who may have just had to deal with a situation where, you know, someone's trying to get a, I don't know, a settlement or, they were a civil suit on, like, commissions, a civil suit on evictions, right, collections, whatever. Like, he does not have the brainpower to understand, wholesaling, arbitrage

RJ: Right.

Steve: Double close.

RJ: Is I that's what I'm saying, dude. And and when we talk about this as an industry, like, we need to get back what what is being leveraged against us? Are we good for sellers? Mhmm. Do we have any ethics?

There's no there's no code of conduct for wholesalers. Right? So why are they bringing regulations down on us? But, essentially, to try to eliminate us

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: To get us to go under the code of ethics and the fiduciary duties that realtors are held under.

Steve: Yeah. We're we're in the minority. Well, here's the thing, though. We could I mean, if you look at the commercial real estate agents, they're still not under any kind of, Yeah. Right?

Like, a realtor has a code of ethics.

RJ: That's where we're getting pushed to.

Steve: I know. But I'm saying, like, commercial real estate agents, aren't aren't regulated. So they gotta figure.

RJ: That's what I'm saying. The direction we're headed is that even in single family real estate Mhmm. Is getting pushed in the direction of what commercial agents are.

Steve: No. But commercial agents are they can do whatever they want. There's there there are no

RJ: I know. But what I'm saying is is what what just happened with the NAR settlement. Right? Buyer's agents are no longer Well,

Steve: those are residential. I'm saying residential agents are all screwed.

RJ: Yes.

Steve: Yeah. I'm saying the commercial agents are still doing whatever they want. Yeah. There's no regulations there whatsoever, or very, very, hardly any, regulation. So I wanna touch on two things on the underwriter.

Right? So, That's

RJ: what I was gonna ask you. Don't move on from the underwriter. I want you to say something about it. You always keep making me say something about you.

Steve: RJ is the bad guy.

RJ: Yeah. You have an opinion on this too.

Steve: RJ is the bad guy for sure. So, I do, you know, sales training. I'm very fortunate where I get to train, some of the top operations in the country. And in our calls, I say that stop saying underwriter, and I say it for two reasons. Mhmm.

First, I learned from a mentor of mine some time ago. If they have to Google it, you lost a cell you just didn't know yet. Yep. I don't believe half the country knows what underwriter is. No.

So you talk to an older couple,

RJ: and

Steve: you say, I have to go talk to underwriting.

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: There's a possibility in their mind. They're like, who's the underwriter?

RJ: Do you know what that sounds like?

Steve: I mean, car finance

RJ: Under. I mean, it's the connotation behind it is is we're coming in low. Mhmm. Underwriting. Like, it I I agree.

I think dude, the majority of this country has no idea what is happening in real estate transaction.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean, even people that own a home, there's a large percentage of them that don't even know what the word escrow means.

RJ: Oh, yes. I I did a, closer reaction to Naaman Taylor where he said escrow, and it set the seller off because she didn't know what that meant.

Steve: Right.

RJ: She's like, my escrow is fine because she's thinking about her PITI escrow account. Yeah. And he's saying, I'm gonna deposit money into escrow and

Steve: She lost it.

RJ: She lost it. And he had to work another ten minutes to get it to come back.

Steve: Right.

RJ: And then I I paused it right there, and I said stop using language that they don't understand.

Steve: Right. So we lose sales Yeah. Saying fancy words.

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: And you and me underwriting is like a joke word.

RJ: Right.

Steve: But for a person who's going through the rest, whose family is going through bad times, you throw out the word underwriter. Mhmm. They might not know what it means. Mhmm. Right?

So you're confusing them. If they're confused, are you more likely or less likely to get signed contract? Second thing, I think second thing I say is stop taking ourselves so goddamn serious. Like, we buy houses. We're not doctors.

Yeah. Right? Like, we're helping a person out of a bad situation, but we are not, this this image

RJ: Yes.

Steve: We place upon ourselves. We're not angels coming down from heaven to save to rescue the day. Like, we're helping someone out of bad spot. Yeah. I I genuinely believe we're doing a good service.

But this idea of, like, we are a, the finance department or the, or or loan mortgage originator.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Like and maybe, you know, there are house buyers that believe that they're more important than that. Like, for us, like, this is a one to one human to human interaction. Right? You're doing business with me.

You're not doing business with disruptors. You're not doing business with our financial solutions, Trane Holdings. Right. That's not who you're doing business with. You're doing business with Steve.

Yes. And so when you say underwriter, it's like, who?

RJ: My favorite part is it it's funny because they're doing business with you.

Steve: Right.

RJ: They don't even know who you are.

Steve: Or your company.

RJ: They don't care. Yeah. I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten a signed contract. And as we're saying bye, they say, what's your name again? Yeah.

They you see exactly what you're talking about. Don't take yourself so serious. Okay? Yeah. They care about one thing.

In this process, like, is my need going to be resolved?

Steve: Right.

RJ: And how quickly are you going to be out of my life?

Steve: Right. It's that question we've talked about in the past on, uncertainty talks, which was like, am I gonna be okay? Everyone has this one question in their mind. Right? Consciously, subconsciously.

Am I gonna be okay? Yeah. Our job is to deliver the message that you're gonna be okay. That's our only job.

RJ: So this is why going back to it, I wanna be the shot caller.

Steve: Right.

RJ: So if I'm on the phone Mhmm. In in your scenario, am I okay? Right. So we have two different scenarios. You wanna sell?

Yes. How much you want? Okay. What's going on? Okay.

I can do that for you. Mhmm. K? Silver. They are confident Mhmm.

That I'm gonna take care of them.

Steve: Right.

RJ: They are gonna be okay.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: The other scenario. How are you doing today? What do you what do you got going on this Memorial Day weekend? Oh, that's awesome. I love going out on the lake too.

Now let's talk about real estate. And then they go into how's the roof? How's the HVAC? When's the last time you did that? And it's we're twelve minutes in, and then it's how much would you want for this?

Let me see if I can get that approved for you from my underwriter. And then we put them on hold. And then we come back, and then we say, we we didn't get you a 100,000. We got you 44,000. How's that make you feel?

You know?

Steve: No one says that.

RJ: Well, okay. Whatever. Whatever these fake things. But $44,000, and and then we we put them on hold, and we come back. We eventually land on whatever number we feel at.

I I think you you get to a point where it is it's hard for me to see how some of these scripts work.

Steve: Yeah. Well, it takes significantly more practice.

RJ: I I've yet to see a video where I've watched that script go down, and I go, okay. I now I see it.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: Every time I watch it, I'm like, wow. Wow. This is

Steve: It's got no direction.

RJ: This is awful.

Steve: And the other thing, right, the risk. And it's not a huge risk, but there's a risk of them having to do something in the middle of this call.

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? Like, hang on. My wife's calling me.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: Hang on. There's someone at the door. I think they're in closed Olympics. Like, it's a my my son's birthday cake's coming out.

RJ: Yes. That was insane.

Steve: Right? There's a phone dying.

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: There's all this risk that the longer the conversation goes. Right? If you're face to face, two hours, three hours, whatever. Right? They're not gonna hang up on you while you're in person.

But if you're doing this over the phone, this is, every minute that goes by, there's some risk of you just losing a sale for something you can't do anything about.

RJ: Or you losing the sale or the close because of something you said that you should have said. Right. I mean, going back to closures Olympics, we've seen that multiple times where it was like, the fish took the hook. And then they just decided, no. I'm not gonna close this deal.

I mean, there there have been made up program names. There have been, you know, asking, recovering alcoholic, what they were drinking on a holiday weekend. I mean, it's just like, why? So Why did we have to ask that?

Steve: So there's something funny too. Right? Like, we talk about, we haven't talked a lot about identity on this episode, but there are some times we've talked about identity. Right? And part of your your identity is if you learn this really cool tactic and technique, and then you gotta use this technique everywhere.

RJ: Tactics can be broken.

Steve: So, like, this guy wants a cash offer. Yep. But you want to apply this other cool thing you learned at this event that you paid for.

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: And I think that sometimes gets in the way. Or I saw some guru do this really cool trick on Instagram Yeah. And wanna apply it here. It's like, no. Just do one thing that always pisses me off, Steph Curry.

Right? You walked in.

RJ: One of

Steve: my favorite players of all time.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Every time he throws behind the back pass, out of the out of balance, when the simple bounce pass would suffice, drives me insane.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: And I think that's kinda what we're alluding to here.

RJ: Absolutely. On that note, I I love the analogy there with Steph Curry throwing those out because that kind of stuff does kill me. And it's I I tell my son that. My son plays travel hockey, and and he loves these fancy plays, but I'm like, that's not what the coach is looking for.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: We're looking for the end result.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: Right? And and you talked about these these tactics. Right? I think the moment that won me the twenty twenty three closers Olympics was not the close on Sunday. It was the respect that I earned from the judges on my first call with the seller where I could have easily closed it sub two.

Steve: Mhmm. But I

RJ: told the seller, no. You need to do a short sell, and I connected them to potter. Mhmm. And I got him to go through a short sell because that was the right strategy for him. And when everyone asked, why didn't you just close it sub two?

So because it would have cash flowed. Mhmm. Makes no sense. We're upside down. We have negative equity, and it needs, like, 30,000 in repairs.

Where's that cash gonna come from? We're already upside down. And they were like, yeah. But it's closer to Olympics. I mean, you could've just closed it.

This is the stigma that Closers Olympics has is that that's what we do.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: And I said no. Moved it to a short sell and then went and closed the deal because yeah. To your point. Yeah. I know what sub two is.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: My deal's sub two all the time. Just because you know it doesn't mean it's

Steve: Yeah. It doesn't have to be done. Yep. And then, you said somewhere that being a podcast host

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: You feel healthy, you become a better closer.

RJ: Absolutely. Dude, think about it. You're interviewing me right now. Right? You asked me a question.

You have no idea how long I'm gonna talk. Right. You and I both have interviewed people where sometimes who who was it? I interviewed someone, dude. I asked them a question, and I looked up at the clock because I, you know, I do mine virtually.

So I'm I'm I've got a little clock that I can look at. Eighteen minutes in, I still had not asked the second question. I mean, eighteen minutes of just talking. Here's the thing. Do you know how many times my second question changed?

Well, I was like, k. I've got my follow-up question. And it's like, we're still going. We're on a different topic now. Change.

So as a podcast host, you ask a question. You have to listen to what your guest responds, anticipate when they're gonna stop talking, and then have a follow-up question or decide to change the topic. Right? And a lot of times, as a podcast host, it's more important to continue the conversation on that topic than changing it.

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: Because if you change it, then it could be awkward, especially for the get for the audience where they're like, oh, I I wanted to hear more about what they were talking about right there.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: Right? Same thing with closing deals. Right? You ask a question to a seller. Seller starts responding to you, starts telling me about pain and motivation.

You're looking at your script, and you're like, oh, okay. Cool. I was supposed to ask about how old your roof. And the seller's like, that's fucking awkward. You know?

Like, what? Five years old. You know? And it completely kills the clothes. Mhmm.

You build that skill through podcasting. It's one of the best things that I've ever done is become a podcast host. Just with the ability to listen Mhmm. And decide what my next question is gonna be from listening.

Steve: Yeah. Darren Bentley posted on Facebook the other day, and he said that the secret to running a good podcast is to forget about your agenda, forget about the likes of follows and this and that, and only focus on the audience Yep. Which we can't see.

RJ: It's hard.

Steve: Right? But only focus on the audience, but that's something that I can say for sure. My focus has always been like, I've had a script. You give me crap for having a script. Right?

But it's, RJ is talking. I need to follow-up with whatever RJ said in a manner that the audience will appreciate it.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: Right. So those are the things I had to do during the show. But in an appointment, homeowner's talking, I'm listening, and I need to ask a follow-up question that will affect the audience, in this case, the homeowner

RJ: Mhmm.

Steve: In a manner I would like for them to be affected. Right.

RJ: So And, hopefully, move you closer to the result that you want Mhmm. In in that scenario, right, with the homeowner, which a lot of times, that's the the tricky part. You could do something that makes the the homeowner feel warm and fuzzy

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: And react positively,

Steve: but it

RJ: ain't moving you any closer to the result that you want.

Steve: Right.

RJ: And, I personally, that's why I I actually enjoy not doing belly to belly appointments anymore because of that. Yeah. There are so many times where you sit down in the living room, and you're three minutes in, and you're like, I ain't gonna be home for dinner tonight. It's over. You know?

This this person is just gonna tell me the whole life story, and I don't think this is leading to a closed deal.

Steve: You stick around?

RJ: Yeah. Okay. Well, how do you how do you pull away from that?

Steve: I gotta go take care of my kids tonight. My wife's got yoga. Yeah. She's got was it Zumba? Is that the thing?

What is that thing?

RJ: Say Yodle?

Steve: Yoga or Zumba, somewhat whatever. Right? She I got my wife's got things. I gotta go home so I can get

RJ: My wife's got things. Yeah. There you go.

Steve: I told her I'd be home at 08:45.

RJ: Ultimate ultimate pull away right there.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, like, yeah, that's something that we've done. Like, even on the phone, it's like I go go on and on and on. I was like, you know, I apologize. Like, I I'm supposed to take my daughter to piano tonight.

RJ: Right.

Steve: Look. Can we just get back on track?

RJ: Can you accept my offer?

Steve: We're just gonna get back on the agenda. Right? Like, the way I've gotten back people back on agenda. One is, like, can you slow down? You're going kinda fast.

I'm writing this all down. And then they'll stop. And then once they stop talking, they don't ask my follow-up question. That's my first go to. Right.

Second go to is, like, here's the thing. I'm not trying to be rude here. Like, you have to take my kids to piano lessons tonight. Right.

RJ: Gary, I got you. Question about the belly to belly appointments.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: So we have a couple of community members that have come in with heavy accents Mhmm. Or are it's it's very obvious that they are, you know, different ethnicity. Right? With you doing belly to belly appointments, has it ever been beneficial or not beneficial that you're Asian?

Steve: I have never noticed a difference. I I've had colleagues that have said that they've been it's been harder to refer business to me because I'm Asian, which I thought was interesting. Yeah. But I've never walked into the appointment as, like, oh, they don't like me because I'm Asian. The, the things that I've said, right, this is definitely not politically correct.

But being Asian, like, I get the benefit of being a minority and, like, a white person.

RJ: Right.

Steve: Right. It's

RJ: like Right.

Steve: They're not gonna the the joke I made is, like, when they when the police officer pulls me over, he probably thinks I'm speeding to go to, like, class. Right? Like, back in the day. Right. Right?

It's never like he's up to no good. Right. He's probably on the way to class to study.

RJ: Right.

Steve: Right? And so, like, I got that benefit. So, like, I don't I I've never seen or I've never felt like I've gotten any kind of, discrimination for at the appointment.

RJ: I would say, you know, I the reason why I asked is because I've had people say that they're worried about their accent. Mhmm. Because they're closing all on the phone. Right?

Steve: Like I say, it's harder to close over the phone with an accent than in person.

RJ: I I told them to lean into it. I said, for me, it's not necessarily a bad thing unless you make it out to be a bad thing. Thing. You can more push into the fact that, you know, there's power behind the fact that you're not just like, I don't really have anything to lean into. Mhmm.

Right? I'm kind of the prototypical. I'm a white male. Mhmm. You know?

And sometimes that is used against me. I I will say that there have been times, where there are certain neighborhoods that, you know, they did not wanna sell to a white male.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: That that was the the case.

Steve: I mean, you're gonna gentrify it, so that makes sense.

RJ: Yeah. And then literally, that's what they've said.

Steve: Yeah. I would say that anyone that has that concern again, like you said, just lean into it. Yeah. Just just be yourself because it's like we said a moment ago. They don't care about us.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: They care about whether you can solve their problems.

RJ: If that's an issue, then they're probably not the right seller for you.

Steve: Right. They're not motivated enough.

RJ: Right. Because reality of it is is if they're super motivated, they don't care who buys their house.

Steve: Right. And that's my belief as well. Right? The the joke we've made is that, you know, if you were, t boned, right, leaving your your leaving your office and you wake up, you can't see anything at the moment. All you know is your shirt's wet and you smell a lot of iron.

Right? Your your vision starts coming back. Mhmm. And this EMT is just, like, banging on your win window to for you to open the open the the door. Are you gonna ask where he went to college?

No. No. Are you going to ask him which ER you're gonna go to? Are you gonna ask him for the Yelp reviews on that emergency room?

RJ: Yeah. No.

Steve: No. Right? Get me fixed now. I don't care who you are Right. Who you're with.

I wanna get

RJ: fixed now. Care if it's an EMT. I mean, if it's just a person, like Right. Get me out of here.

Steve: Yeah. Right? So I think the concern about the accent to your point, if they're motivated enough, it's completely irrelevant. And that's who we target. We target, motivated owners.

So then the last thing I wanna ask you about is, so hopefully you guys got value here talking about the different sell styles or how similar or how different, however, you guys wanna look at it. You're going really hard in organic right now.

RJ: Yep.

Steve: While I am going less organic right now. So talk to me about your plans as far as organic contents.

RJ: Yeah. So for me, man, it's about leaning into the momentum that we generated with the fifty day challenge, and also kind of me playing the role that I need to be playing with my team. Mhmm. We did the fifty day challenge. We finished up.

We did our last ever crucible. And at that crucible, Nick Robbins attended, and he was, sitting in the back. First break, he comes running up to me. He's like, hey. I've gotta ask you questions.

And, normally, that's, like, the most annoying guy, and I'm like, I'm okay. Yeah. What do you got? You know? I just got done talking for two hours.

I'd like to go pee. I take a break. But okay. And I could tell that there was an energy about the way that he was asking questions and about what was going on, and we kinda hit it off. We started talking over the next two days.

And it was just one of those, like, I talk about embracing moments, and I said, hey. Let's have a Zoom call next week. And, I wanna talk to you more about what you got going on in your business. And we hop on a Zoom call, and right behind them is is two comma club ClickFunnels award Mhmm. Followed with, like, several other ClickFunnels awards.

And I'm like, okay. This is a good guy to be talking to. And I was like, so you said you ran a marketing agency. This is a big need that I have for my education program, And we decided to do some work together, and it it kind of really started gaining a ton of momentum about October. Just everything kind of everything that we started doing started working.

And the more organic content that I push out there

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: The more eyeballs that are on us, the more people we have coming back saying that's I I wanna be with that guy. I wanna be with the guy that did, you know, this live or that video or he made fun of Steve Trang on a between two belts episode or whatever it is, the more personality that I can put out there, the more that people know who they're signing up to to join the community, the better. And, I mean, really, when we went to family, it it goes back to that family mastermind in September. Pace Morby talking about no one will outwork me. Mhmm.

I'm a cleaner. Like, fuck you, Pace. I can outwork you. Like, I I my engine doesn't ever stop. I'll I'll go live for fifty days for eight hours.

Mhmm. He can only go live for twenty six hours straight. I beat you in one week. So for me, it was about, alright, every single day of the year, there's a it's a TV show. There's something coming out.

Mhmm. And and to impact as many lives as possible, man. I mean, I I know that what we do works. I know that what we do works the right way. Mhmm.

And we see that not only with our results, but we also see it with people like you and Jerry Norton and Robert Winsley that come to us, people that I looked up to and I respected, and now you guys are, like, kind of starting to give kudos to us where it's like, hey. You guys have been working on this for a while now. Mhmm. It's like you said, like, dude, it's kinda cool. This is the third time I've been back here.

You know, like, the first time it was kind of like, okay. You're this flipper in, like, five different states. And it's like, okay. You wanna close your Olympics? And now it's like, alright.

So not only multiple close your Olympics, but now it's the brand, and you're starting to impact other people. And we transition from this loose cannon where it's like, just Google me to now there's a process. Right? And and I wanna run with that. I wanna help as many people as possible.

Steve: Could you do the same thing with paid marketing with Nick?

RJ: Well, the paid marketing is happening.

Steve: Right.

RJ: So my job is to be the organic machine. His job is to be the paid marketing machine. So Right. My we we got the paid marketing running. It's it's my job just to be me.

Yeah. That's my job. My job is to come do this. My job is to do deals live. And and the reason why is is because the proof of concept.

Mhmm. Right? I mean, no one can ever take away what we do by doing it live. Yeah. By the way, did you see our boy, StratDaddy?

Gonna do a challenge?

Steve: Yeah. Gonna be,

RJ: Oh, so he talked to you? Wow.

Steve: Yeah. Well, he needed someone that can help him close. And

RJ: This is awesome. You know, he gave me a shout out on the post on Facebook, and he didn't even call me.

Steve: I called him about some gossipy stuff. Yeah. So I reached out to him.

RJ: That's how it happened?

Steve: Yeah. That's

RJ: awesome. I saw him in person

Steve: Yeah. Like, a week and a half ago. Yeah. That was awesome. Yeah.

How was it?

RJ: It was it is a bit dude, they did great. I love those guys.

Steve: I was looking for the Trump shoes

RJ: Yeah.

Steve: On stage. Yeah. I did not see you wearing the you were not rocking Trump shoes.

RJ: They haven't showed up yet.

Steve: Were they they're the forty fives? Were they Yeah. Yeah. I I would I'd now see you wearing the forty fives.

RJ: Yeah. We we just went with the Jays. Then they haven't come in yet.

Steve: Yeah. So, yeah, how was that event?

RJ: Oh, dude. It was awesome. Great, guys. I saw you were gonna be on WealthCon.

Steve: Yes.

RJ: Yeah. Yeah. Dude, that prepare yourself. K? I know you did Max Maxwell's event.

You

Steve: know long time ago.

RJ: Yeah. But I'm just letting you know, I don't know what lights they have at WealthCon, but you will not be able to see for a week. K? When I walked out there, if you have nerves do you still get nerves? No.

That me either.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: But you will not have any nerves because you do not know the size of the crowd, and I'm wearing a hat. Mhmm. I walked out there. Dude, they are the brightest lights I've ever seen before. Literally, I mean, it was unbelievable.

Steve: It's in Vegas. Right?

RJ: Yes. So

Steve: I can wear my poker glasses.

RJ: But, no, I I'm excited for you, man. Welcome. That was an awesome event. I I think if anybody is looking for a great event to attend real estate wise

Steve: Mhmm.

RJ: And have that motivation, I did I got to see Tim Grover, Neil Patel. I mean, just, I mean, obviously, for me, it was amazing because of Tim Grover and the relentless book. But Ryan puts on a hell of an event, man. I think that's gonna be awesome opportunity for you.

Steve: Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. There there were some people on there. I was like, wow. That person's gonna be at the event?

Yeah. It's insane. Like, the network he's created.

RJ: I know. Yeah. It it was hilarious. At one point in time, Ryan comes up to me, and he's like, have you met so and so? And I was like, no.

And he's like, he's a billionaire. You should probably meet him. And I'm like, wow. Okay.

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: You know? It's not every day you have someone telling you to, like, go shake a billionaire sand.

Steve: Yeah. Ryan's done remarkable things. He's gonna be, coming on here, I wanna say, about a month from now. Yeah. We'll be doing a rebrand.

It's gonna be part of

RJ: it. Nice. Yeah. Doing a rebrand?

Steve: Yeah.

RJ: You are? Yeah.

Steve: You

RJ: didn't tell me it?

Steve: Can't say it during the show. It won't it'll ruin the What?

RJ: Well, you just said it.

Steve: It's gonna gonna be a rebrand. Right? It's gonna be titanium disruptors. They wanna ruin a surprise for you.

RJ: So does this mean I'm gonna be, like, one of the last episodes?

Steve: We'll figure this out. Figure this out. Man. Gonna get canceled three times.

RJ: This means that my if you made me the last episode, that would be one. I will I will literally make me a belt that says they canceled me.

Steve: So, yeah, that's exciting. You know, doing doing the wealth con thing with Ryan, you just posted that. I didn't even know that was gonna get posted, and it's it's gonna be a lot of people. Yeah.

RJ: Yeah. So It was 2,000. Yeah. It was 2,000 strong.

Steve: I think I could see, like, the first three rows when I was at MaxMax. Yeah.

RJ: You won't even know there's people.

Steve: Alright.

RJ: He just walked out, and I was like, I hope I'm walking in the right direction.

Steve: Hopefully, you can see at least where the ledge is

RJ: and Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Steve: Or the edge of the stage. Alright. So, man, like, I think we gotta cover a lot of I hope that everyone that's watching, listening, right, got a ton of value, different perspective. I mean, it's always great to talk to someone else that's, you know, legitimately closing deals and their actual strategies and perspective because there's a lot of stuff out there. And, I don't agree with all of it, and I love having you on because I agree with everything you're you're

RJ: talking about. Fake underwriters.

Steve: Everything you're talking about. I agree with everything you're talking about. So thank you so much. Appreciate it.

RJ: Thanks, man.

Steve: Alright. We'll see you guys next time.