Santini Lancioni: I actually post my deals every month on my Facebook. I don't know why it's not normalized to talk about profits. We're in this business to learn, especially like people listening to the podcast. But we wanna know what people are making, like, if I'm gonna follow and listen to Santini, is it like, is he actually making money? Do that to show people, like, we're actually doing deals.
Like, because there's people in our market saying they're doing deals and there's they're actually taking leads or roping wholesalers or agents into sending them their leads. I'm like, man, like, we're we're doing deals here. We're not gonna play around.
Steve Trang: Everybody, thank you for joining us for today's episode of disruptors. Today, we have Santini Lancioni with Hall of Fame Real Estate, and Santini flew in from South Jersey. Talk about he doubled his profits from 3 mil to 6 and a half in 2024. Now, guys, I'm gonna mission create a 100 millionaires. Information on this show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire if you'll take consistent action.
So, and, guys, if you get value out of this show, please hit that subscribe button. Give us a five star review. That way we can help more people. You ready?
Santini: I am. Alright.
Steve: So let's talk about what your life like right before you got into real estate.
Santini: Alright. So my professional life before, real estate, I graduated from Stockton University. It's, like, right near Atlantic City, And I went right into, business to business sales. So, worked for a big office supply company and, right out the gate, had success. Mhmm.
And, did that I was there for seven years. But in the first, like, three or four years, I started making really good money, making around 250, $300,000 a year.
Steve: Pretty good.
Santini: You know, it was life changing, honestly. And, you know, my mom didn't graduate, from college. She barely graduated from high school. So I didn't really have anyone to, like, teach me about finances and and where to put my money. And, real estate kinda popped up.
You know, a lot of my friends were in the mortgage business or realtors, and, it just peaked my interest.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: And then, just out of nowhere, my my warehouse manager, he was like, I have six rentals paid off. He's like and it was on Kensington, Philadelphia. It's a really rough neighborhood. But he was He's a
Steve: warehouse manager. Warehouse manager.
Santini: But I'm like, this guy's never stressed out. Like, what the heck? Yeah. No. He he has a good life.
And, you know, one day he's like, I'll take you with me on the weekend. We'll go to to the auction, and then I'll help you you know, I'll show you how I pick up the rent or whatever. Just you could see a day in the life. So I did that.
Steve: That's pretty cool. Really? Someone was willing to do that.
Santini: Oh, it was it was cool. Really cool. Yeah. And, I'm grateful. You know, I still talk to him this to this day.
But, yeah, from that point on, I was like, I gotta learn more.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: And, Bigger Pockets, big it was a podcast that every single day, I would go to the gym. Mhmm.
Steve: I would
Santini: just listen to one of their podcasts.
Steve: And I
Santini: was, like, going through their archives.
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: And, what was this? This was, like, 2016.
Steve: 2016. Yeah. Yeah.
Santini: And, then I started, like, you know, getting the the tricks of how to find a deal, how to house hack. Mhmm. So I found a property, a triplex, in South Jersey.
Steve: Yeah. And
Santini: that was my first rental property.
Steve: Right.
Santini: I put, like, 50 or $60,000 into it, put, like, $15 down, and, it just started cash flowing right away.
Steve: Do you live in that one? I didn't live there.
Santini: You know, I should have technically. It was f FHA, but
Steve: Well, I just think you were house hacking. So Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Santini: Never technically moved into that, but, it was cash flow in 1800. And, at that point, I'm like, I don't wanna keep scaling this. Like, I I need to find a bank that can get me my money back
Speaker 2: because
Santini: I can't just afford to put $7,080,000 dollars, into these properties. It's just not gonna work. Right. It's gonna take too long. So, I found a bank, Vizio Lending out of, like, Texas.
Like, I was just calling around. I literally ran it. They're like, yeah. We'll refile you out in thirty days or ninety days. Yeah.
And, I raised some money from a couple friends. I said, listen. I'll get your money back. You know, you'll make some money. And I did I did two more.
I had proof of concept, and then it went nuts after that. I was like I think I went from, like, two to, like, 30 in, like, a year. And, the power of that was the refinance. So I was getting like, I was buying a house for 40, putting 70 into it, and then it would appraise at 200. So I was making an extra, like, $3,040,000 tax free while keeping this asset that's, you know, cash flowing.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: And, at that point, I'm like, man, this this is like there's no end to this. Like, they they told me I can, you know, have as many mortgages as I want. It doesn't hit my credit. And, you know, I could pick up any house I want. Mhmm.
So I think we got up to, like, a 160 rentals. You know? But in within that time frame, I I did end up leaving my job. It was, like, 30 doors, and I said, I'm out of here. Because I was making so much, money on the refinances.
Steve: You exceeded it's $2.50 you're making?
Santini: Yes. Through the re there was one where I made, like, $80 extra. I'm like, I have to get out of my job. This is crazy, and I don't have to pay taxes on it. Right.
But, you know, that's not the best advice. I would I wouldn't wouldn't advise anyone to do that because yeah. I mean, you're overleveraging yourself. Mhmm. I mean, it's kind of good to have equity in your properties.
Right. But at the time, it was more of, like, active income almost. But when the pandemic hit, that's when all that stopped. Right? Inventory shrunk.
Mhmm. Interest rates went up. DSCR loans went from, like, 75% to 65%. So that 10% swing was crucial.
Steve: Massive. Yeah.
Santini: Yeah. Massive. And, yeah, they just weren't cash flowing anymore.
Steve: So Before we continue. Yeah. Not everyone knows what DSCRs.
Santini: Yeah. So it's a I guess it's like a private debt service coverage ratio loan
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: That, like, private institutional banks will will give you guys. But Right.
Steve: But what's what's the ratio?
Santini: Right now, I think it's 75.
Steve: Explain what the ratio means.
Santini: So the ratio is it has to make so 1.2 is the typical ratio I see. So 20% over your mortgage amount. So if your mortgage is a thousand, they'll let you borrow up to, you know, whatever the the leverage is, 20% over that. So Yeah.
Steve: So 1,200.
Santini: So $1,200 has to make.
Steve: Yeah. So if the rent is 1,200, they'll let you borrow a thousand, something like that.
Santini: Yeah. Exactly. Okay. But that that blew up my business. And
Steve: So it broke the business model.
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: It broke the business model for a lot of BRRRR people.
Santini: Yep.
Steve: Right. I think across the country. Yeah. Like, BRRRR was, like, the hottest thing for, like, five years. Yep.
And then that changed.
Santini: That changed. And BiggerPockets probably was a big reason, you know, for that. Huge reason
Steve: for it. Yeah. Huge. I mean, the people that are asking me about it is like, hey. I'm listening to this thing in BiggerPockets.
You know anything about Burrs? Like, what is this? Right? Mhmm. So, yeah, I think they were the ones that were really pushing it.
Santini: Absolutely. Yeah. So after that, when when all that hit, I built up my construction team. Mhmm. I've learned property management.
I learned what to not to do. So there was a lot of good things that came out of that, but, I probably lost, like, $3,400,000, in that, like, six month period where, like, the whole world stopped.
Steve: How did you lose 3 or $400,000?
Santini: Because I couldn't refinance my money. I had, like, 10 houses just sitting there.
Steve: So, like Yeah. You took money that you borrowed from friends and family Yep. That were just stuck in the properties.
Santini: Yep. And it just like, I was just paying interest only debt. You know? Got it. And then all my tenants kinda froze because they heard that they didn't have to pay rent anymore.
You couldn't evict them. So, like, like, walking on eggshells. So I would say about half of my portfolio stopped paying at the same time. Okay. Luckily, the lenders were giving us, you know, the forbearances and all that.
So Right. We kinda mirrored it
Steve: where Would you say that was, like, the most stressful period? Oh,
Santini: by far. It was I got to a point where I maxed out all my credit cards, and I was just waiting for, like, the banks to say you can start refinancing again. Yeah. So it was a it was a wake up call. Don't overleverage yourself.
What if they didn't? If they didn't, I would have to, you know, raise more money or, I mean, I'm a I'm a guy that would just figure it out, I feel like. But, yeah, I would have had to raise more capital Right. From somewhere. Because I feel like the assets were good, and we renovated on the renew.
And we also could have listed them and sold them if we really needed to.
Steve: Yeah. I think that
Santini: was the last thing
Steve: I wanted to do. Wasn't completely against the wall, but it was
Santini: pretty bad. No. And that's where I brought in a partner too. So at that point, I brought in someone that, he brought in, like, a couple $100,000, but he was from Money. And, I said, listen.
I'll I'll split the portfolio with you. Mhmm. Just help me clean this whole mess up. And, you know, that's what we did. Yeah.
So Gotcha. Okay.
Steve: So this is all so from 2016 Mhmm.
Santini: Picked
Steve: a bunch of properties. Seemed like it wasn't that hard. Like, you just it was easy money. Yeah. And then and then you're saying, you know, with COVID.
But that was really more so COVID is one of us. It wasn't '22 because a lot of people got hurt with birds in '22. You were saying got hurt earlier? I got hurt. Jersey?
Santini: The yeah. Pan the pandemic was when I shifted. So I've I've actually became a business owner during that period versus, like, just an investor.
Steve: Okay.
Santini: You know? And And that's that was the, turning point.
Steve: So what was what did that turnaround look like?
Santini: So it went from that was a wake up call, and I said, you know what? This isn't a real business. Mhmm. I actually have to build out something that's active income. You know?
And that's where the easiest thing to do is to wholesale. Mhmm. I already had the sales background. I was I already knew how to renovate. I did a 160 properties or something like that.
So I already knew how to renovate. I knew what I was looking for. I had the contractors. I had the management. So it was just about finding deals.
And Yeah. I feel like those, like, three to four years of me buying rentals
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: Really gave me such a huge advantage over the market. Yeah. I just and I had I had, confidence to buy houses too. It wasn't like wholesalers are, like, terrified to buy. I'm like, oh, I'll buy these.
And so, I just came into the the market, like, just killing it. You know? I hired one sales guy. We were buying stuff off the MLS, like, slowly, but we started texting and cold calling. Mhmm.
And, then we went out to, like, a mastermind, and we really started learning, like, systems, and then I started hiring people. So within, like, that first year, there was a lot of small mistakes I made, but I feel like I expedited it and, got to a good point of my business. So, you know
Steve: So it sounds like even that transition was pretty easy for you.
Santini: That was easy. Yeah.
Steve: Alright. Now so many people might be listening like, man, this guy is, like, you know, cocky or arrogant or something. Right? So, something that, you know, we haven't talked about yet. Mhmm.
But basketball's played a big part in your life.
Santini: Definitely. Right?
Steve: Yeah. So how has basketball played a part in your life?
Santini: So when I was growing up, we grew up very I would I mean, it's it's relative what you think poor is.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: For us, it was poor compared to where we lived. Yeah. And, yeah. We it was like my outlet, you know, since probably, like, the fourth grade. My brother was he's three years older than me.
He was good growing up, and I always followed him around and, you know, seeing how hard he worked. And, you know, we became obsessed with basketball. We're like, you know what? We wanna go to the NBA or go get scholarship somewhere. So we really bought into that.
And, you know, throughout the years, we would, you know, wake up 5AM and shoot 500 shots a day and just really commit to just becoming the best players in our area.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: And I think that really built that foundation for me because I know how hard it is to like, we didn't I didn't even go division one, and I worked my ass off Mhmm. As a division three basketball player. So, like, the amount of work it takes to be great at anything is incredible. You know? Obviously, height and all that stuff plays a factor, but, you know, luck isn't always on your side, so you gotta work you gotta outwork everybody.
Yeah. And, you know, it also comes with leadership and a lot of people liking you being coachable. So all of that really helped me become, a good business owner and entrepreneur.
Steve: So you think that all translated from basketball onto your business?
Santini: I think so for sure. There was a lot of work I had to do as a leader with business, but I think it was more, like, of a natural flow for me.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: Because, as a point guard, you know, you have to lead people. You have to lead by example. Mhmm. You have to, you know, keep them motivated and encourage them and, you know, obviously, find the right pieces and have the right chemistry. So all those things literally translate to our business.
Tell them
Steve: where to go. Tell them what to do.
Santini: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to have confidence. You know?
You gotta and you have to believe that things are happening before they do. And you see exert and impose your will. Exactly. You know,
Steve: I got I got, you know, three kids. And my oldest one, like, she just doesn't wanna play sports. Like, she plays volleyball, but she's like, it's fun to play, like, pick up, but she doesn't wanna go anymore. And I'm, like, pushing her. And she's like, I don't wanna do it.
It's like it's like, why is it so important? He's like, it actually has nothing to do with sports. I just want you to learn leadership skills.
Santini: Yeah. Exactly. Alright.
Steve: I want you to learn, like, you know, when you lose, like, you can be introspective and figure out why you lost. And, like, let's figure out the lessons here and how to give you a better team player and a leader. Yeah. I'm losing this battle. Right?
Yeah. But Exactly. But that those are the things that I picked up. Right? Like, I'm not don't have your experience or your your skills and success.
But, you know, playing a lot of intramural basketball is the same thing.
Santini: It's like,
Steve: you know, it's my bad. Like, you you drive home. It's like, that's the shot I missed. I missed that pass. Why did I turn that turn it over there?
Like, that was such a stupid turnover. I can't believe I did that. Like, those are kind of things. I don't know. I imagine you had those same things.
Santini: Yeah. Oh, for sure. You gotta learn how to control your temperament and Yeah. Your, you know, your emotion Mhmm. And be able to live for the next game or the next play.
Right. Make sure that your your opponents don't see that emotion because they they'll attack you, you know, if you're playing defense, whatever. So, yeah, there's there's so many things that just may if you work on your, you know, whatever sport you play, if you can work on your emotion, that'll translate over to the pressure that you deal with every day in business.
Steve: You know?
Santini: Or You
Steve: know, getting your mask your last minute shot to go take your next one. Yep. So your last deal that you lost
Santini: A 100%.
Steve: Refocus on the next deal.
Santini: Yeah. Yeah. So for for me, it was a matter like, this was the only thing I had growing up, basketball. Like, when I tell you we had nothing, like, this saved our lives because coaches took us in. Like, when I was 15 years old, my mom, had severe diabetes.
And I remember coming home from school, and she was on the couch having a seizure. And she was never the same since. Like, something happened to her mind. And from that point on, I'm like, I gotta I moved to my friend's house, and I moved to another friend's house. And, you know, at that time, I was one of the best players in South Jersey.
So, like, if I didn't have basketball, no one would have probably helped me. You know, I would have ended up who knows where. So and my brother was off to, like, college or prep school at that time, so it was just me. So luckily, there was a private school, like, one of the best private schools in South Jersey. They, basically paid for me to go to their school, and I played basketball there.
And that was a game changer because I moved in with this millionaire family. At that time, I'm 15, 16 years old. I never really had discipline growing up. You know, basketball was what caught what made me discipline, but Yeah. There wasn't, like, parenting going on.
Like, I could stay out till midnight. No one would care what I was doing. But when I got to school, it was, like, I got to see, like, families, how they function. You know, how you know, they have three kids and, like, how they're doing their homework every day, and they're getting up early, and they're having you know, there's nutrition.
Steve: Same routine and
Santini: Same routine. Yeah. And then, just parenting. You know? And I'm then I go to a private school where there's all, you know, wealthy people, and I'm like, alright.
So I gotta act like that's how you're supposed to behave. Mhmm. So, yeah, that was a that was a great time in my life to grow as a human being. You know? And if it wasn't for the game of basketball, like, those doors wouldn't be there.
There's gonna
Steve: be exposed to it.
Santini: No. At all. And, being popular because, obviously, you're an athlete Mhmm. You know, just it was a great experience, and then it also got me to college. Right?
I was just was terrible at school. Like, literally, I barely passed. I did had no interest in it. Yeah. And, same thing in college.
You know? I only went to college to play basketball, to to literally have a roof over my head and have meals and, be able to play. And that's
Steve: that's
Santini: all I cared about. So so by the time I when basketball was over for me, I had two years of school left. And you could imagine, like, this is my identity. So I had to reinvent myself.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: Still have two years of school that I literally hate going to class, and I just buckled down. I'm like, you know what? I have to do this. It's either that or I I go to the army or who knows? I end up a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City.
Real estate had no I had no clue about real estate at this time. And, also, by that time too, I had no financial literacy. I maxed I had, like, six credit cards, maxed them all out, didn't even pay them. Had hospital bills, didn't even like, ignored them. Like, so I was in collections.
Yeah. So no one had gotten me really through that that time financially. And I was scared to tell people, like, I was just dealt with it. You know, I didn't I I didn't deal with it actually. So when I graduated college and got I remember I was, at the park.
It was like I forget where I was. I was playing basketball. My phone rang, and I was applying to a bunch of jobs. And, the HR manager calls me. She's like, hey.
We wanna offer you this position. It was a $40,000 a year position. And you would think that someone offered me, like, a million dollars. Because I was like, this is, like, another breaking point in my life where
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: I have another opportunity now to make something of my my life. So, like, I was just so grateful to to take that job. So and I don't care what I was selling. I was selling office supplies, but I didn't give a shit. I was like, I'm gonna make the most.
I wanna be the best at
Steve: it. Right.
Santini: So that's that gratitude, and that adversity just growing up. I think that's that all shapes you. You know? Oh, absolutely shapes you. Simple.
So Mhmm.
Steve: So then you take this
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: Transition to wholesaling, texting, cold calling. That seems to be pretty smooth.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: What bumps in the road did you have in that journey?
Santini: So it it was more consistency. Yeah. Stay focused too. Like, I was, you know, I was trying to build out CRMs. I was trying to hire people, being careful my my marketing spend, just having no transparency
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: With metrics and and budgeting. You know?
Steve: Transparency or no understanding?
Santini: Really, yes. It was just like I'm throwing just like whatever people are saying I'm doing. Yeah. Just But I didn't have a plan. Right.
But I knew I was gonna make money somehow. Like, I just, like, alright. All that matters is I get deals Mhmm.
Steve: To the
Santini: table and they they sell and and I can make profit. Right. So at first, it was like survival mode.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: And then once you get to a point of making, like, a 100,000 a month, that's when I'm like, I gotta bring in some real players here. So I brought in,
Steve: This is basically just kinda you by yourself at this point.
Santini: It was it was me and two sales guys. So I was the one, like and you ever hear Roar? Like, I use Roar.
Steve: Like, I
Santini: was the one that would, like, get the I forget where I have the list.
Steve: Yeah. And I
Santini: would send it over to them some skip tracing company, then they would send it back. I would have to so I I had to learn all that stuff by myself. Right. And I would talk to the sellers, go to go to appointments, but it was a lot easier. Like, the response rates were higher
Steve: back then.
Santini: Back then. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. And What more today?
Santini: No. Not at all. But our spend was nothing. It was probably, what, couple thousand dollars a month. So making $30.40 grand a month.
Plus, I had all these rentals. I mean, it was, you know, it was What was the first
Steve: major hire? So do you not play any game anymore?
Santini: It wasn't that I intentionally hire this person. It's that this person changed my business. Okay. So, one of my sales guys, Sean Siegel, he, his brother was looking to to change his job, and he he asked me, like, three times. And I was like, I don't know if I'm ready.
Like, I I could barely handle what I have here. I have two guys and all these rentals. So eventually, I I gave in. I'm like, alright. Just come in.
I don't just run my marketing. And I I don't even have marketing. I don't know what I'm talking about. But I hired his brother. It was, like, 600 a week.
And, it was, like, two weeks of misery. I he didn't I'd had no onboarding, nothing. I'm like, just alright. Here, run these.
Steve: Run the Small business, man.
Santini: Yeah. Run, like, the texting campaigns. And,
Steve: here's all the logins. Go figure it out.
Santini: Yeah. He has no sales experience. Nothing. No real estate experience. But, after, like, two you know what?
I took him to, Tiffany High's mastermind. That's where it was. We went out to Ohio together. Yeah. I'm like, alright.
If you're gonna learn this, I'll give you a chance. So we we flew out to Ohio Mhmm.
Steve: And we
Santini: came back with, like, a 100 ideas. Like, oh, man. This thing actually can blow up. And I saw, like, a transformation in him. And this guy, I mean, he's he's still with me.
He's he's my number two, but he blew up my business in that first year because of how tight he made the systems Mhmm. And how he raised the level of expectations for from everyone, you know, from the TCs to this bow to sales. Like, we actually had to have structure, and he was on top of it. You know, he's he has the definition of, like, accountability, and he has low empathy, so he doesn't let people, like, take advantage of him. Mhmm.
Where I'm, like, the nice guy. I'm trying to keep everyone happy.
Steve: Yeah. I get it. He doesn't care. Yeah.
Santini: So it's a great balance. But, to fast forward to today, man, he's he's a killer. Like, he's he's a blessing. You know? You can't get to certain places in business without key people like him.
Yeah.
Steve: So before we continue, I'll just do a little self plug here.
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: Guys, I'm looking to hire someone exactly like that. Right? I am looking for a person who has no empathy and demands excellence and structure because that is actually, like, right now, we're looking to hire that executive. Okay. So so sorry.
You're talking about that. I was like, oh, man. That's good.
Santini: We just just shout out there.
Steve: You know, we got thousands of people listening and watching. Like, you know anyone. Like, that's what we need. Alright. This is the same person I met at the at the event.
Yep.
Santini: Jesse. Jesse.
Steve: Cool.
Santini: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: I mean, he's a great, great kid.
Santini: Yeah. He's young too. He's, like, 27 now.
Steve: I know, but he is
Santini: sharp. Sharp. Sharp. He he's committed. He lives and breathes the business with us.
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: Yeah. So Yeah. So I love that kid. It's hard to find. Yeah.
Yeah. So I find.
Steve: Okay. So you hire him. Mhmm. Change the business.
Santini: Change the business.
Steve: Right. And you weren't even trying to hire him.
Santini: He just No. I actually, like, didn't really feel like hiring him, honestly. Yeah. We hire him,
Steve: and you could see a transformation in your business.
Santini: Right away.
Steve: Yep. What was the big transformation?
Santini: It was just there was no nothing like no leakage in marketing, leads. Communication was fast. Things were just easier. I just felt like I could focus on things that I wanted to do versus Yeah. All the other stuff.
So he, like, he had my back. I was like, man, I could actually go out there and get more deals now because he has our operations.
Steve: Everything else is covered.
Santini: Everything's covered.
Steve: And you have no stress or less and less stress?
Santini: Less. I hate TC stuff. The transactional coordinating, I hate it. So he took that off my plate, and my bandwidth went through the roof.
Steve: What's your PI?
Santini: I'm a captain now. I was a venturer.
Steve: I I modified. I
Santini: definitely modified, but
Steve: You're pretty close. Right? So for everyone's wonders what we're talking about. Right? Predictive index.
So IA, so very independent. Mhmm. Captain, venture, pretty much the same thing, like, social and impatient.
Santini: Yeah. Definitely. Get tired of doing the same thing too much. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. Not do the same thing over and over
Santini: again. Exactly.
Steve: Yeah. So So we were stuck at TC. Paperwork. Okay. So now that you've got this person set Mhmm.
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Santini: Somewhat. I'm I'm comfortable. I feel like we have a cushion now.
Steve: Okay.
Santini: We have potential. Mhmm. And, you know, we're starting to learn the business. And that's when I think we went from $500,000 for the first year wholesaling, and then Jesse comes in. We go to, like, 1.3 or something.
Mhmm. Then we go to two the following year, and then we go to CG. Mhmm. And Collective Genius opened up our eyes to new marketing channels, new belief system of how this actually can be done, and, new extra strategies, novations, creative finance, all that other stuff. So That was two years ago?
'22? '22. Yeah. So we were, yeah, we were rolling. And then I think like everyone else in in 2022, we were scale we're a scale mode.
Like, I don't really care about making that much money. I wanted to grow the business and and, you know, do whatever I had to do. And then, the market kinda shifted.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: I don't think as bad as everyone else. You got a lot of people got clobbered.
Steve: Yeah. I
Santini: think, like, if you went down 30% in Phoenix, we probably went down, like, 15%. Right? We didn't I don't think we lost any money in a month, but we broke even, like, three months in a row.
Steve: Right.
Santini: And I was already prepared for that because we we had a lot of presentations at CJ. So I started tightening up systems, but
Steve: You guys in the East Coast are fortunate. Yeah. That's not started on the West Coast.
Santini: Because we don't have these hedge funds playing around with our numbers. You know?
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: They're it's good. It's a it's a gift and a curse because the eviction states are it's brutal to have tenants, but, again, hedge funds stay away from it.
Steve: How long does it take to evict New Jersey?
Santini: Six months, probably.
Steve: Oh my god.
Santini: Yeah. I I would rather give a tenant $20 to leave my property than to evict. Yeah. It's it's brutal.
Steve: If it's more than four weeks here, I'm pissed.
Santini: Oh, really? That'd be a game changer for
Steve: us. Yeah.
Santini: Right? Like We buy everything.
Steve: Yeah. Like, the moment you're late. Right? Five days you're late. Alright.
Five day notice. Yeah. Right? Like, hey. You don't belong here.
Right? And we challenge it. Alright. We'll see you in court. Mhmm.
And then, yeah, another three weeks after that. Yes. That's it. And then the constable is changing the locks.
Santini: Oh, man. I wish that we had that case in Jersey, but we don't Yeah. It's definitely a tenant state.
Steve: Yeah. Well, I think I think most blue states are are are very tenant friendly states.
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: Okay. So the market shifted. Yep. How did it how did it impact you guys? I mean, you said there's three breakevens, but then after that, it was just fine.
Santini: Well, what it did for us, our business, is we got rid of some some people that weren't performing. Mhmm. And we tightened up our we really tightened up. Like, we kept the people that wanted to be there, and, the output, like, doubled or tripled. Like, everyone knew they had to do more for less, and everyone bought in.
So when 2023 hit, the market, like, took back off again for us. But we were back in the like, we had the scarce mindset that, you know, things might go be worse. So everyone performed, and we we blew up again. Like, I think we went to, like, three point four, three point five million in profit that year. Yeah.
So that that was a, you know, great feeling.
Steve: Yeah. And, before you continue Yeah. You know, I just want everyone who's listening here. Like, you speak in different languages or different terminology than everyone else.
Santini: I know. I got it. It got simple. It dumbed me down a little bit.
Steve: Yeah. Well, no. No. It's not that. Like, social media, you talk about here's how many deals I do a month.
Here's how much I have in the pipeline. Yep. Here's how much revenue I came I I brought in. You only focus on one number. Profit.
Profit.
Santini: Yeah. Absolutely.
Steve: So that's different. Mhmm. Definitely the way to do it. It's all that matters. It's all that matters at the end of the day.
Yeah. But not everyone stands on that number. Everyone else stands on revenue, deals, deals per month Yep. Pipeline, whatever. Mhmm.
Why are you different? I just
Santini: I know that's what keeps the lights on. You know? That's the real number. You know? We could do 500,000,000 in revenue.
Who cares? Like, what are you what are you making? What's that net in your pocket? You know? And, that's all I I measure.
Steve: You know? Do you get any I wanna say pushback is the right word. You get people, like, looking at you kinda funny. Like
Santini: Where, like, in within my job, like Yeah.
Steve: Because you talk about profits, like, because you, we're gonna talk again to this later on, but I might as well just bring it up now. Right?
Santini: Like, one
Steve: of your guys' like, really good strategies. Jesse's book on it is your meetups.
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: Right? Mhmm. So you have you're you're a bit of a local celebrity.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? And so, again, like, I think anyone here in the Phoenix market that speaks in profits can't really think of
Santini: They speak on revenue?
Steve: They speak on revenue or deals or whatever. Yeah. Right? And so I'm just wondering if you or maybe you don't notice the difference because you've always spoken
Santini: Yeah. I I don't know. I guess people, it could be taken the wrong way or not relatable to certain people, but that's how I measure my business. And that's, you know, I'm in it all the time. So I guess I I don't know.
I haven't really thought of anyone else's perspective
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: About that, but it's real. I mean, that's that's what we But I
Steve: should go to masterminds.
Santini: Yeah. Right?
Steve: It doesn't matter what mastermind. All masterminds. Right? Yeah. Always deals or revenue or this and that.
Right? People don't flex their p and l's No. Their profits. I remember one year, because I I believe in the same thing. I actually posted my p and l in the Facebook group.
Did you? Right? But it was never as the numbers are never as big as. Right? I mean, I showed I think it was, like, 1.2 in revenue, and that includes, you know, some of the flips, whatever.
And then, you know, like, it was I wanna say, maybe, like, 300 40 k, like, profit. Something like
Santini: that. Yeah.
Steve: Right. Like, here's my p and l, you know, for my, wholesale business. And if you guys wanna figure out how to, run a business where you can do this, like, you know, come check out my workshop. That's all it was. Yeah.
Santini: And I
Steve: had so many comments. It's like They pissed off? It wasn't pissed off. It was everyone was confused. Like, why would you post your p and l?
Yeah. Why would you share profits? Like, no. Like, I want he's like, here are my actual line item expenses. Yeah.
Santini: I don't know why it's not normalized to talk about profits. Like, it's almost like we're scared to talk about how much money. We're in this business to learn, especially, like, people listening to the podcast. But we wanna know what people are making. Like, if I'm gonna follow and listen to Santini, is it, like, is he actually making money?
Like, is he just making a lot of revenue, and is he losing money? It's possible. You know? Right.
Steve: So That's and that's one of the hardest things. We had, Ryan Weimer here. He was last year. Right?
Santini: And we
Steve: were saying, like, it's hard even being in the business to know who's real and who's not. Exactly. Right. It's hard. Like, even there's someone I had a private conversation with someone month, month and a half ago.
Mhmm.
Santini: I was
Steve: like, hey. This guy out here, he says he does deals, but the way he talks, it sounds like he doesn't do deals. Like, can you just verify for me? He's like, yeah. Like, I actually does deals.
Okay. Cool. Like, I I just don't know. Right?
Santini: Yeah. Because We gotta audit people, man. That's it. We gotta request a QuickBooks or something.
Steve: Well, we have HUDs. Right? We require HUDs.
Santini: So That's true. Yeah. I put I actually post my deals every month on my Facebook. I know it's it's kind of like you could get some negative feedback from that, but I do have to show people, like, we're actually doing deals. Like, because there's people in our market saying they're doing deals, and they're they're actually taking leads or roping wholesalers or agents into sending them their leads.
I'm like, man, like, we're we're doing deals here. We're not gonna play around. Yeah. So I don't know if it's good or bad, but it it's worked.
Steve: Well, I could say if I was an investor, I'll feel more comfortable investing with you.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: If I had deals to send, you know, if I was in Jersey, I would feel more comfortable. Right. And
Santini: that's my target audience. Right? So Yeah.
Steve: You know? But if you're trying to attract coaching students, perhaps, maybe. I don't know.
Santini: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Different brand.
Steve: Okay. So, so you are a bit of a local celebrity, though.
Santini: I don't know. I mean, who knows? But it's it's,
Steve: But that's the angle you're going for.
Santini: The what I measure, if you wanna call it a local celebrity, is how many leads am I getting organically Right. From referrals, agents, wholesalers, and it's a lot. Mhmm. I don't think anyone in our market is getting as many. Maybe there's one guy that does, Scott Tim.
But, that's the power of the local celebrity. We need to destroy him?
Steve: Like, do we need to,
Santini: like I actually do deals with him. So he's he's a he's a good dude.
Steve: But Alright. We're not gonna go, like, off here with us. I wanna Nah. Okay. Alright.
So, I think that's a huge metric. So Yeah. Go through what are those metrics you track again for organic?
Santini: Okay. So with social media and then with, our local meetups. Right? Our our main there's two goals to this. We wanna have influence, which helps us hire, helps us build credibility, and then we wanna have lead flow, which Yeah.
You know, the more we're out there, the more people see us, they are gonna send us their leads. So they Mhmm. We wanna keep that very local. The way the content we put out not doesn't necessarily have to be in your face every day doing reels. It's more about just deal flow and then maybe a little bit about us personally.
So, we measure that through, like I said, referrals, and, we track it. Like, last month, I got 11 deals outside of our marketing. Mhmm. And that's huge. You know?
I think it was massive. We didn't sell all of them. Yeah. We we will or we we buy them, but then we sell them. But I think we made a $180,000 last month, and that's just one month.
You know? Right.
Steve: It's just
Santini: gonna be over a million dollars easily in referral revenue, from that. With hardly any expense. With no no expenses other than maybe social media. But Yeah. It doesn't cost much.
Steve: So 11 deals.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: So do you have one person whose job is for outreach for this, or how do you get
Santini: It's it's mostly me.
Steve: It's mostly So when you
Santini: when I when I say, like, what's my role in the business other than, like, you know, motivating people, money, and, just structuring the the company. It's it's finding deals, and that's mostly my focus. Like, I wanna put most of my focus in the finding deals and let everything else be managed through our people.
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: I just wanna generate money for our company.
Steve: So you're the is it fair to say you're the relationship guy? Yes. Okay.
Santini: I'm looking to get someone to help me with that, but it's very sensitive, that role. Yeah. Because you're representing our company.
Steve: You know? How do you make sure that you're doing the I guess, let's describe what are the relationship role Mhmm. Roles and responsibilities.
Santini: So for the relation manager position, they were like What you do?
Steve: For what
Santini: I do. Do you generate organic leads? So first off, if someone sends you a lead, you gotta answer them fast. You gotta give them some feedback. And if you like it, buy it.
I mean, sometimes I'll buy it, and I'm like, shit. I don't I don't even know if this is a good deal, but I want your next deal. And it's it usually works out.
Steve: Right.
Santini: Very rarely do we lose ever. Like, I think we're gonna sell, like, 220 deals this year. Yeah. We'll probably lose in, like, three or four, you know? And that's just recently, like, because we bought a couple of band flips.
But, yeah, most of the time, it works out for us. There's always we know what people are paying. That's that's the power of our business model is that we're so local. I could tell you down to, like, the street, the town. Like, I can underwrite a deal faster than anybody.
So if, like, someone from Florida tries to wholesale up there, they can't touch. Like, we're we're faster. We know the numbers, and we're local, and people know us. So there's it's just a huge competitive advantage.
Steve: And we have actually I had a couple people go through our programs
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: Mentorship programs. And their greatest challenge in Jersey was underwriting.
Santini: Yeah. It's very hard. They're
Steve: like Yeah. It's just two streets over, and it's a completely different
Santini: You could swing $300 in one street, literally. One street. So you gotta be careful out in Jersey.
Steve: Yeah. So that was their like, of all the things, it wasn't getting leads. It wasn't sales. It was like, I keep screwing up
Santini: Yeah. The underwriting. And the people don't realize there's, like, a divide in Jersey. So you got South Jersey and then North. North is all attorneys.
South, there's not as much. Probably, like, 80% regular transactions, 20% attorneys. It's hard. Not not to mention, there's, like, 20 CG members in Jersey South Jersey.
Steve: It seems like there's a lot between Jersey and Philly.
Santini: Yes.
Steve: Because they're all, like, always hanging out too.
Santini: Yeah. I actually didn't like it at first, but now I'm like, every time they let more people in, I make more money. So I don't know if it's elevating our our, like, competitive drive and making us tighter and and more alert. But, yeah, that's it's making us I think it's making us better. We we can't Slack, you
Steve: know, at all. So first one was speed to not speed to lead, but speed to response. Right? Yeah. So you get you get an opportunity.
You gotta jump on it.
Santini: Gotta jump on it.
Steve: Yep. What else is your are your metrics?
Santini: Just be easy to you're talking about for
Steve: For the relationship person. Right? Because, like, I mean, like, 11 deals in a month is nuts. A lot
Santini: of it so the the problem with it is is not predictable. They're coming from all over the place.
Steve: You
Santini: know, like, this agent may not have another deal for a year. Mhmm. So I can't really say that's a marketing channel. But the more activity you're getting, it's just it's just happens.
Steve: You know? The more activities that you do then drive
Santini: this Really, it's the wholesalers. The wholesaler bring you the most deals. And the good ones that, you know, they spend a little bit of money in marketing, just pay them their price. You know? Obviously, you gotta get a good deal on it, but Yeah.
That's really the secret. Like, I have, like, five or six wholesalers that send me deals.
Steve: Right. Are you doing anything to nurture those relationships?
Santini: Just respond quick and, not beat them up on their price too much. I always want them to make money. Yeah. I've offered them I offered to pay for their marketing too. Like, there's a lot of things I'm willing to go above and beyond, like Right.
Buy with a tenant in there knowing that it might be I might lose. You don't wanna do that too much. But
Steve: No. But you wanna be the easy button.
Santini: You want me the next one, basically, if I if I do this for you.
Steve: So Yeah. Was it people will do business with you as long as you do one of three things. You can make it, easy, lucrative, or, or fun. Right? Like Yeah.
Right? If you're the easy one or you're the one that they're gonna make the most money
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: Or you guys can have fun together. As long as one of those three, and if you're all free, even better.
Santini: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So think about these wholesalers. They're they're usually not build out like we are.
They're really good usually at finding deals and locking them up. But selling them is a whole different business as well. So you need dispositions. Most of these people, they can't get to that point because they're still worried about marketing. They're still worried about getting deals.
That's where they don't wanna send them out. They could focus on getting three, four times more deals and just sell it to us, a little bit. And we're paying, you know, reasonable prices. So Yeah. I think that's where the sweet spot is for us as far as that relationship manager.
So how many
Steve: deals are you taking down versus wholesaling?
Santini: So right now, we're at, I would say, 10 deals a month we're buying physically, and then we're we're wholesaling about 15 to 20 every month.
Steve: Okay. So a lot more than you flip. Yep. But the ones that the wholesaler is sending you deals Mhmm.
Santini: Right?
Steve: If you guys are South Jersey, right, make sure your assets needs your list. Yeah. So if you got a deal and they send it to you, are you buying all of them or you're wholesaling those as well?
Santini: No. So those we are either flipping because we have a construction team Yeah. Which we've really dialed in. So we'll probably flip, like, 70% of those. And then the other 30, we may just relist like, clean it out and relist it.
Mhmm. Yeah. Or and then some of them will will say, listen. It's not for us. Do you want us to sell this for you?
Nine times out of 10, they say yes. Just sell it for us.
Steve: Gotcha.
Santini: You know? So that's, again, g like a JV.
Steve: Yeah. Will do. And then, Jesse did a great presentation on your guys' meetup model. Yeah. So you wanna share what your meetup model is?
Santini: Yeah. So we basically, like you said, that local celebrity status. Mhmm. We try to create a create like, a a very high end crazy environment for a meetup. So we want it to be memorable.
It also helps our company to, like, when we invite, you know, all of our staff. Like, they feel like, wow, we're we're a part of something bigger than, you know, any anything we've ever seen.
Steve: We're not just a house buying company.
Santini: Yeah. Exactly. And I always tell Jan Jan, he's he runs our our events. And I'm like, I want this to be like Disney World. Like, you walk in there and, like, every corner of the place is is thought out and planned.
So, like, we've taken to the level of now getting, like
Steve: a high standard.
Santini: Like, flamethrowers and we park our trucks out front. So, like, everything is literally thought out of and planned. And, like, the next event we have coming up, we have a $38,000 budget. So It's $38,000 budget for For a local meetup. That's gonna last
Steve: We're gonna have to call something longer. Like, it's not a meetup. This I mean, 38,000, like, this is this is might even be
Santini: It's like a wedding.
Steve: This is event money. Right? Like, I remember I threw an event. I think it was 20 something thousand. Right?
And this is, like, an event for people to fly in or whatever. The 30,000. I've never spent that much in an event. Really? So Yeah.
This is this is event set. This is not
Santini: It's one deal for us, basically. Set. Yeah.
Steve: Okay. So what, when did you guys start doing that?
Santini: We started doing that, like, three years ago.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: And we've seen a lot of success from it. We got a couple hires from it, and I'm like, let's keep doing this because at the very least, we get hires.
Steve: You know? Yeah. That's huge.
Santini: The very least. And then we get to put face with names with the wholesalers because there's a lot of, like, independent wholesalers that are trying to do the business, and I will teach them. I'll show them what we do, and I'll fold them in a little bit to to our business, and we'll get more lead gen from that way. So, if we solely rely on our marketing, we wouldn't be as successful. And that's part of the secret of why we doubled our business this year Yeah.
For sure, is that the outside organic those leads that don't cost as much either.
Steve: Well, don't cost as much. Yeah. And then you get how many people are coming? I mean, 30,000. Like, how many people are
Santini: We're gonna have over 300 people there. Yeah. That's And we have we're we have to cap it too because the fire marshal will shut us down, or they'll charge us ridiculous amounts of money.
Steve: Yeah. I mean, that that that is crazy. So 300 people. And then, like, the mix the mix of people that are coming. Yeah.
Who are you hoping shows up?
Santini: A lot of agents Mhmm. Because they get a lot of deals. So realtors? Realtors.
Steve: Okay.
Santini: Wholesalers, contractors. Mhmm. You know, any any real estate professional, lenders.
Steve: You know?
Santini: So, just really wanna just sell it. Yeah. We so our distribution list, we have 2,500 buyers. So we'll send it out to them, inviting all of them.
Steve: Yeah. You know? And this is very much an abundance mindset deal. Yeah. Right?
Like, we never got to 300. I think the highest server got was, like, 140. Like, that was in monthly events until COVID. Yeah. And I just too lazy to restart them.
But, we had, like I wanna say, like, 140 was, the biggest server we got. Okay. And, yeah, we had, wholesalers, buyers, not so many, lenders. We the the lender sponsored the events.
Santini: Oh, yeah. That we had sponsors. That's how we're able to put all that
Steve: money together. Yeah. So we had lenders, batch. This is before batch blew up. Yeah.
Right? Batch was sponsoring our events. Yeah. So, yeah, that not and that
Santini: Well, this is, like, the wholesale capital of The United States. Yeah. Yeah. You got the best you got the best vendors for wholesale.
Steve: Yeah. Definitely. This is the guru capital. It all starts here. Like, it if it doesn't start here, it's like it's not even like it's not even a real company.
Right? Like, it has to start.
Santini: Yeah. Exactly.
Steve: Or they move here. Yeah. Alright? Absolutely. So you got vendors sponsoring the events as well.
Yeah.
Santini: Alright.
Steve: Okay. So you think that, the the the meetup model kind of being the the the the authority in your market Mhmm. That accounts for majority of your relationship business?
Santini: I think it helps for sure. Yeah. They know that we're the real deal. You know, I've seen other people try this model in our market Mhmm. And, like, they're, like, handing out drink tickets.
Like, get one drink and, like, you kinda feel like it's not the venue is not as nice. Mhmm. So I could think, like, if you come to one of our events, like, there's no way these guys aren't doing deals. Like, you just can't throw something that big and nice and professional and planned out that well. Like, the way we represent ourselves at those events is the way we conduct business.
Mhmm. And I want people to know that, like, we're we're the real deal and we're serious. Yeah. And, you know, that trickles down through the whole organization. So so if people wanna hire or people wanna come work for us, we wanna hire them.
Like, this is how we run our business. And we're very, very predictable and structured and
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: It's a place you wanna be.
Steve: And it seems like you've doubled your business every year. Yeah. Or just about?
Santini: Just about. Yeah.
Steve: Which is kind of insane. Right? Because, like, you can double your business one year.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? That happens. It's not that uncommon. Second year, okay. Like, you're pretty lucky here.
You've got massive jump after massive jump after massive jump. Yeah. What do you attribute that to? So today's podcast is brought to you by motivatedleads.com. With them, you can get $300 worth of quality local leads sent exclusively to your inbox by just mentioning my name.
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Santini: Definitely people. Right? And we made a couple small shifts that made huge impacts this year. So one of the things we needed to get, our average deal size bigger. So I think we went from, like, $20,000 a deal to $30,000 a deal now in profit.
Yeah. And a lot of that was controlling the clock. So how do you control the clock? So when we get a deal under contract, we're always rushing to wholesale it. A lot of times, we can't get reasonable access.
You know, we get one shot at this. So we have to take the the highest offer. You know, 90% of people didn't even get a chance to even see this thing. So now we've last year, we did a great job of raising a lot of money. And now we have a lot of capital, like, almost, you know, more than we need to buy every deal we want.
Mhmm.
Steve: So
Santini: when we buy it, we get the lockbox on the door, and we're able to then, you know, get every investor, get it on the MLS, best and final. And you'd be surprised to see those one off buyers coming out of nowhere paying $20.30 grand more than you thought who would you was your best buyer. Mhmm. Your best buyer won't touch this at 200, and I got guys at $2.50 now.
Steve: Right.
Santini: So, like, little things like that make a huge impact. So raising a lot of capital, was definitely attributed to, doubling our business. We've gotten really dialed into sales. So our sales team right now is is is clicking on all cylinders. Mhmm.
A lot of accountability. Your output is is pretty much doubled from last year, and our marketing too. Surprisingly, our marketing hasn't really changed. I mean Yeah. We dialed up our direct mail a little bit, but, we didn't double our staff.
We didn't spend all this money to scale. We just focused on what we had and made a couple small tweaks and, also too, we've we've our construction team, we got really good. And now that mostly Jesse. So Jesse's really raised the bar in the standard, for our designs. Like, he's done he does a great job, make sure we don't cut corners, and now our budgets stay pretty, you know, on point.
Steve: A hard nose, no empathy, Jesse
Santini: Exactly.
Steve: Is also handling construction now.
Santini: Yeah. And when you get guys like Jesse to manage people that are okay, like, they become great now. As long as they're willing to be coached, they go from good to great because you're willing to listen and be coached. You know?
Steve: Well, it's kinda like if you weren't a player and Michael Jordan, you were on Michael Jordan's team.
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: You just weren't gonna last.
Santini: Yeah. So you gotta elevate your performance. You know?
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Get up or get out.
Santini: Yep. Yeah. Exactly.
Steve: So it sounds like the biggest thing was reducing the cash conversion cycle.
Santini: For sure. Sounds like
Steve: that was the biggest one, which is getting money in and out faster or getting deals in and out faster.
Santini: Getting well, yes. And the deals that we couldn't sell because we didn't have reasonable access is no longer so we're picking up more deals.
Steve: Mhmm. So you're closing more.
Santini: We're closing more. Our sales team's making more. They're more motivated. They're getting more deals. Mhmm.
And the confidence of our closers go up because they know we're actually buying these deals. We're not giving you this lousy wholesale contract. We're giving you a legit contract that you can't assign.
Steve: Right.
Santini: You're our competition is not giving you that. Right. You know, we're gonna close this in two weeks. Here's our proof of funds. We're gonna close it.
You know? And guess what? We get a lot of referrals from those those sellers. Yeah. That's huge.
A lot of referrals. Yeah. So
Steve: So when you're saying, like, you can put a lockbox and you can get as much more as many people in there is because you now own the property? We own the property. Yep. Alright. So you buy it, you will move out, and then you now have access.
Now you can do the highest and best.
Santini: The highest and best or turn it from a investor special to a a retail deal with $10 and one week of work.
Steve: You know? And that all goes back to having that construction experience
Santini: as well. Construction. And and all so we
Steve: have now
Santini: it all into a CRM. Mhmm. And the speed, the communication, the accountability for the construction is so automated now. And, like, I don't have to call my my GC no more. I just go on monday.com and just, like, communicate, like, hey.
What's up with this? Or who who put all this stuff in before I even have to ask them? But we've dialed in through, like, our CRM.
Steve: Do we need to get Jesse in here and talk about how to manage contractors?
Santini: Pretty much. You should have him do one of your trainings.
Steve: Yeah. Because, man, like, con like, the reason why I never got on the flipping is, like, I already have enough managing salespeople. Like, I don't want to manage contractors too. No. Right?
That's just another set of headaches.
Santini: Oh, I don't enjoy that part. Yeah. I hate it. I hate the construction part. I rather wholesale everything.
Yeah. But he's challenged me. He he actually sat down with me one day. He's like, this is the part of the business that gives me energy.
Steve: Oh, really?
Santini: And I'm like, okay. Well, listen. I I I'll respect it. So we got we gotta fill that cup for you and and, you know, he's doing a great job.
Steve: So you listen to him?
Santini: I do listen to him.
Steve: That's not an easy thing to do. No. It's not. So how have you leveled up your leadership?
Santini: Really just for me, it's it's more being more of a coach. I I don't like to come down on people, but, and also me making mistakes. Like, I I gotta tell people, hey. I'm wrong and challenge me. And as long as they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, I'm okay with anyone challenging me.
Yeah. You you have to earn the right dough to challenge a a leader. Yeah. You know? And I
Steve: think his track record that made it easier for him to challenge you.
Santini: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So he he definitely we have a trust, a good a good relationship and true love trust. And he knows we both have the the right intentions for the business.
You know? Right. And he's he's compensated well. There's no lie like, there's no hiding that. He's gotta make he makes the money.
He deserves it. You know? Yeah. So that's a problem.
Steve: And then we'd mentioned earlier, you joined CG in '22.
Santini: 2021. We did. '21.
Steve: Yeah. Okay. What did that do for you? I mean, we've kinda touched on a little bit, but, specifically, what did that do for you?
Santini: I think the the mindset for Jesse was big. Now I knew guys like Eric Brewer and, yourself. You know? I met met a a a lot more people throughout that time. But for Jesse, just seeing, other COOs and other businesses and them getting to $3.06, $10,000,000 Mhmm.
And then seeing, they're the big dogs like Phil Green and them and Doug Hopkins Yeah. Or Brewer. Like, why not us? Like, come on. We gotta get there.
So Yeah. I think that's that's what helped. And then now we're bringing our marketing, guy, Jan, with us. And we we just brought him to California. And he his you would think, like, he was so fired up coming home.
Like, all his lists, and he just really tightened up what he was doing. He he's elevated. So just being around that group is contagious.
Steve: Yeah. Well, I think that thing you just mentioned here. Right? Like, your COO got to come Mhmm. And talk to other COOs.
And it's not a lot of masterminds. We can do that. No. Right?
Santini: I don't think there's any well, I guess there are. But I
Steve: don't know which one Not at this level.
Santini: Not at this level. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. Not not not at this level. Yeah. So the other thing too is you're a pain in the butt at CG, when we're not on the same team on the basketball court. So you don't practice, but you still don't miss.
What is the story with that?
Santini: Oh, man. It's it's like riding a bike, man. Like, to talk about ten thousand hours you put in. I put in my ten thousand hours of basketball. So
Steve: Yeah. It's a
Santini: I guess it's like the confidence. Just seeing the ball go in a lot and the instincts don't don't leave. My body won't, like, you know, slowing down a little bit, but if if I played a if I played for two weeks, I'll be back.
Steve: Yeah. I think it's you and Caleb are the two that we always gotta watch out for.
Santini: But Remember, like, that one week, you you hit, like like, 11 threes that one day or something.
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: We're on the same team, though.
Steve: Yeah. We were on the same team. Yeah.
Santini: I was paying you
Steve: the ball. Yeah. That was that was fantastic.
Santini: Getting doubled, and you were making every shot. Yeah. I
Steve: mean, I love that. Right? Like, you're you got you got people coming rotating to you. I'm wide open. That's not fair.
Like, the thing I've always said is, like, I'm not great on the court. You leave me open, like, you're gonna pay the price. Yeah. Exactly. That's that's that's the one.
And and fouling, I bring that
Santini: as well.
Steve: This year's also been tough for you.
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: So, you know, we talked about, like, a lot of stuff we talked about here. You know, there's a lot of glory here, a lot of a lot of big wins. Right? A lot of people aspire to have where you what you have to get to where you've been. But you've also paid additional prices
Santini: Yes. So that.
Steve: So Yeah. You know, we can look at all the glory. I was like, man, that's great. He has it easy. He's got it figured out.
Let's talk about the things that suck to get there.
Santini: Yeah. Well, I mean, for part my personal life, I have two kids. I have a one year old, a three year old, you know, actually, I have one on the way. So a lot of pressure at home. I mean, everything's good at home.
Love my wife. Love love my kids. But dealing with all of that responsibility, and work, trying to keep an eye on things is hard. So there's we we hired a sales manager this year. Rocks he was a rock star.
He was per a perfect fit, but some things happened where it was unethical. I don't wanna, you know, say it, put him under throw him under the bus, but we had to let him go. Like, he crossed the line. Mhmm. Rock.
Absolutely rock star. I could have changed our business again. So making those tough decisions
Steve: Violation of core values.
Santini: A 100%. Yep. And then I had one of my best friends. I I, we hired him, like, two years ago. Started getting disruptive.
I'd let him go. You know, that was a hard thing. He has a family. We're again, we're best friends. He was making really good money with me.
You know, once you cross the line, though, business is business. We have to cut ties. So Yeah. During that same month, had to suspend one of our best employees for getting out of line. All while, like, going down a closer with all these leads, like, that was hard.
You know? So I had to go out there and perform a little bit myself. And, yeah, it was a
Steve: You had to let you had to you said suspend or let go?
Santini: I suspended one person, let go of one of our top closers, salespeople Mhmm. And then let go of our sales manager
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: Within, like, thirty days. It was tough. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. So what were the internal discussions? Like, were these tough decisions? Or, like, yeah. Obviously, we have to do this.
Santini: So for the sales rep, that was a ongoing issue that we just had to draw the line. We had to let him go no matter what. I would have started losing people in my organization. So he that was an easy decision.
Steve: So not a culture fit?
Santini: No. The sales manager guy
Steve: But he was a closer?
Santini: He was a closer.
Steve: Was he the top closer?
Santini: No. Okay.
Steve: He
Santini: wasn't the top closer.
Steve: How much money did he bring in for 24?
Santini: Alright. 2,000,000.
Steve: They brought in 2,000,000 in revenue Mhmm. To the company. Yep. Right? And you guys had a company meeting.
It wasn't a tough decision. You're like, this is it's a no brainer. We gotta let them go. Yeah.
Santini: It wasn't the first time we had this conversation. Yeah.
Steve: When I bring this up, because everyone is listening, again, like, it's hard to let go of a performing person.
Santini: Yeah. Anybody would make money with this guy. Literally, like, he's just he's a ROI walking ROI. He's just not getting them leads. But you got, you know, core values.
Like, if I were to get to 10,000,000 next year, you can't have a guy like that in your company. Yeah. You know? So that that's the decision we made.
Steve: Right. Okay. So a bit toxic, a bit of a cancer Yep. To the company.
Santini: But a high performer.
Steve: But a high performer.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: And, unfortunately, I think sometimes we see that kinda go hand in hand sometimes where they're like, this guy's a rock star. Also, he's kinda hitting on the secretary. Right? Exactly. Like, dude, we can't have this happen.
Santini: Yep. 100%.
Steve: Like and he's married. Right? It's like, no. We can't have this happen. Right?
Your best friend. Like, what were the considerations that you had to have in having that conversation?
Santini: Well, it wasn't the first time I talked to him. So I think when I did it the last time, it was you know, he understood. Mhmm. It was tough.
Steve: It wasn't a surprise for him.
Santini: It wasn't a surprise. Well, that's good. And I actually got him another job with a competitor. Yeah. So, like, I I made right by him, I think.
And it was tough because, again, he's probably taking a bunch of leads with him, and that's always in the back of my mind. He's gonna end up closing deals that we shoulda had. Mhmm. But you gotta live with it. You know?
I think getting him out of our organization Mhmm. Was a breath of fresh air for him, probably. He gets a new opportunity. He's gonna make money, and then we get a new seat that we a new challenge for us. And, we've I'll talk about it, but we brought in someone new.
But Mhmm. I'll talk about that later.
Steve: Okay. Yeah. And then the sales manager, it was just ethics? Yeah.
Santini: It was just complete ethics. And can you elaborate on that? It was a a lead. What was the it was basically, he went to, one of our lead managers and brought up the idea of, like, them doing a couple deals through our CRM. No one would know.
We use this title company. It was very detailed. And I was
Steve: like, well So he was trying to manipulate this.
Santini: Was a lead manager and not the sales manager? I probably would've, like, maybe forgave him, but it was a sales manager. Like, we our whole team has to answer to you. We can't like, I just couldn't keep it. You know?
But he was trying
Steve: to, get paid outside.
Santini: A couple deals a month for extra income. I'm like, come on, man. Like, you're gonna make way more than all that. Like
Steve: It's crazy. Yeah. And this
Santini: is a 6 figure salary guy that I'm you know? He's only been there for, what, four months. He he made a he made a good impact for our business. Yeah. I couldn't believe it when I heard this.
Steve: He had, Oliver Seidler. He was on this show, I wanna say, '9 2019, I think, maybe around there.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: I remember we were having lunch before the show. Yeah. And he was talking about how he had to let his COO go. Right? Yeah.
Santini: And I
Steve: was like, well, what happened? He's like, he was stealing my Amex points. I was like it's like I was paying a 180,000 a year.
Santini: I think Jesse's stealing my Amex points. Yeah.
Steve: Right?
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: But he was paying, like, $180 a year base
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: Plus bonus. And the guy was, like, stealing the Amex points. And he let him go. And he's like, what Ugh. Like, what is wrong with you?
Yeah. You know, of all the things to steal.
Santini: I know.
Steve: Right? But, like, here, like, this guy is making good money. And he how much money he was was he gonna make if he stayed with you guys?
Santini: Oh, he would've yeah. There's people in our I mean, I hate to say this because people, like, people from my company are gonna listen to this, but there's people that make over half $1,000,000 in our company
Steve: a year.
Santini: Like, literally. So, like, you could potentially be someone that makes, you know, life changing money.
Steve: Right.
Santini: Like, just stick it out and buy in and, you know, it depends on your position. But, yeah, you could don't do I don't know.
Steve: Don't do some stuff.
Santini: Now he's on now he's by himself. It's, like, terrible.
Steve: Yeah. But okay. But you also have good news.
Santini: Good news. Yeah.
Steve: Brought someone in.
Santini: Yeah. So I I think one of my superpowers at this point is I can bring in serious talent. Mhmm.
Steve: I
Santini: think a lot of it is because of my influence. I have a lot of, experience now in this business. People trust me. I know how to maximize people's skills, and I people get paid with me. Yeah.
And I was able to bring over, someone who had their own company, really. He was doing well, and I brought him in as just a sales closer. So it was a very hard sell ego like, for his ego.
Steve: He had to change his identity.
Santini: Had to change his identity. Yeah. But he also has the peace of mind to get paid and not have to bring this home with him as much and have normal schedule. And the first thirty days, he had he got 20 contracts for us. So, yeah, I gave him a massive signing bonus to come over.
Steve: You know,
Santini: I paid him well, and he's already made all that back. And I'm like, I I I just had a feeling that this guy was gonna be a rock star. But I think the moral of the story is don't be cheap with people. If you really feel like this person's a good fit, just give them what they want. They're gonna make you money.
Yeah. Obviously, you need the machine and the leads.
Steve: Mhmm. So that's
Santini: a whole another conversation. But if you have the machine, the leads, and you have a talent, like, take care of them. You know?
Steve: How did that know he was gonna work out your company? Because the 75 k signing bonus Yeah. Is not common in the in this industry. No. Right?
I've only heard one crazy high bonus Yeah. Up until this conversation. Mhmm. How did you know?
Santini: So the the big signing bonus was because my back was against the wall. I needed a closer.
Steve: I just
Santini: fired my my second closer. So, one, I needed them. So at any cost, I was gonna get them. And, I know him. Like, we hang out.
You know, our family our our families hang out, and he did a lot he's done a lot of real estate deals. He's very well spoken. So it was a no brainer to me. You know? Yeah.
I remember sitting at the restaurant with him at 09:00 at night. I literally just let go of, my friend. I was like, what do you want to come over? I was like, just give me the number. Whatever you need, I'm gonna make it happen.
So he wrote it down. I didn't even argue with him. I said, it's done. You'll have this tomorrow. Mhmm.
So I went ahead and paid off like, he so instead of giving the cash, we paid off his student loans, and that was it. You know?
Steve: Yeah. Was it a hard sell for him?
Santini: No. I think I think it was a no brainer. Okay. And it was it's gonna be the best decisions I think he's ever made. He's gonna make way more money now.
Steve: Yeah. And I'm asking this because I'm actually coaching someone else. Mhmm.
Santini: He's
Steve: trying to do the same thing. He's trying to recruit a friend who has his whole own business. Yeah. Where he can look at it as like, dude, you'll make so much more money working here Yeah. Versus you doing your own thing, working crazy hours.
Yep. Right? Like, you're not you know, for better or for worse, like, you're not making it. Come over here Yeah. And make the kind of money you wanna make without the headaches.
Right? So he's he's trying to make this happen.
Santini: Yeah. I mean, he's But
Steve: the other guy has his ego that he's having a hard time letting go of.
Santini: He's gonna have to meet him at some point, like, halfway. You can't force someone to come over.
Steve: Yeah. Is that forcing? No.
Santini: Because, like, part of this is, like, you gotta let go of your company. Like, there's no more like, you are hall like, hall of fame real estate is our company. Like, that is what you are now. Mhmm. So, like, right away, he changed his his profile on Facebook.
You know, his background's hall of fame real estate. Like, he's all in. You know?
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: But that comes at a cost. But he's a performer. He's a top performer. Yeah. So Yeah.
It was worth every dime.
Steve: And then you were saying oh, so we talked about, that about overpaying. So are there other instances where you find yourself overpaying where it's paying off?
Santini: I think if you look at the you could argue that every position in my company is over I'm overpaying them.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: Tell you the truth. I mean, if you you talk to other companies in our market, no one's making nearly as much. Their sales reps, their comp plan is not like ours. You know, our t down to our TC, our dispositions, lead managers, like, lead managers, one of them is making $2.50 a year. Like, that's big money.
Steve: You know?
Santini: That's a lead the guy that sits on the phone all day.
Steve: Lead manager $2.50 is Silly. Is nuts. I'm not hearing anyone else make up $2.50 as a lead manager. Yeah.
Santini: But, all of that formulas we put together, it's very well thought out. We're still at a 35% net profit margin. That's where I wanna be, and that's where I need to be. I've adjusted our comp plan many times to make sure that we stay healthy as a company. That's the most important thing.
So I'm not recklessly paying people. Like Mhmm. It's very, very strategic the way we do this. Yeah. But it's top talent we're getting because of this.
Steve: Yeah. It makes total sense. Mhmm. And then you started a brokerage? Am I reading this correctly?
Or
Santini: So I have a my first hire ever, his name's Mike Coffey. He, wasn't like his his master's in accounting. When I had, like, 40 doors, he came in. I'm like, you're gonna manage all my properties for me. I don't feel like dealing with it anymore.
I'm gonna go buy them, fix them up, you take them over. Mhmm. So he got his real estate license around that time. And I said, one day, we're gonna get your brokerage license. So and we're gonna, you know, put you under our our hall of fame family.
So, he's opened up the brokerage. January 1 was, like, our launch date. And from that day, we strategically picked out, like, I would say, the top five agents in the market. Mhmm. Again, it's like recruiting.
Like, we I feel like John Calipari in my market. I'm, like, trying to persuade people. I'm giving them money. Like, come on.
Steve: But John, unless you say for one year, you're gonna say for
Santini: one year. Not one and done.
Steve: So Yeah.
Santini: We got all these top agents. We have 10 now. And the way we're capitalizing on this is through private money. So when I talk about we control the clock, like, we we doubled our business this year. It wasn't I think the brokers had a little bit to do with this as well because these agents have money.
They're funding our deals, and they're getting the listing back. Mhmm. So it's a no brainer. It's like, alright. We'll give so I pay them 12% on their money annually.
It's like, whatever, one point a month, and I'll give them 2% on the listing. And they're not gonna get this listing anyway. And they control the sale. So, like, they know where their money's at. Right.
And they're underwriting the deal. They know, you know, we're buying these deals so damn cheap. Mhmm. They they literally wanna give us as much money as possible, all these agents. Like, I mostly have to turn it down.
So that's where the brokerage has become super, beneficial for us. On top of that, the branding. It's like, we're gonna do, like, $7,080,000,000 dollars in revenue from the brokerage in sales. It has nothing to do with my investment space.
Steve: Right.
Santini: And it's every post on Facebook or is like HoF HoF, like hall of fame, hall of fame. And it's just, again, influence, local celebrity status. Like, who who's behind the scenes? Oh, that that's them. That's those guys.
Another tool.
Steve: So you got the top performing realtors. Yep. E market.
Santini: We literally I think we have the number one realtor in our market. He's he's doing Faye's his birthday, so I told him I'll give him a shout out. His name is Francesco Puella. He's he's a beast. He's gonna do $40,000,000 in sales this year.
Yeah. You know? He's he's an absolute killer. But, you know, I had to recruit him to come over and, you know, when you get one guy like that, the domino
Steve: Oh, for sure.
Santini: Everybody wants to come.
Steve: Everyone wants to follow them.
Santini: I literally turned down all these agents now. It's like, we have a line of people that wanna come, but, that's not our core business. It's like, we're making money on it, but it's not it's not like, I'll just put it back into the the brokerage somehow Yeah. You know, for marketing.
Steve: So you said something funny, though. They get paid interest plus they get motivated to sell the deals too. Mhmm. So everyone's, like, trying to throw money at you. Yes.
Yep. Most people don't picture realtors and money. I brought this before in a coaching call. It's like, don't forget, like, realtors have money too. Yeah.
The average one doesn't. Yep. But, like, you know, I've talked about raising money from
Santini: realtors, loan officers. Realtors are number one, capital race by far.
Steve: Yeah. By far. So yeah. So, like, don't sleep on that, guys. Like, realtors have money, and they understand the business.
They might not they might not all like the business, but they understand.
Santini: Yeah. We've recruited agents because of that pitch. We will let you fund our deals, and we will give you the listing back. People have come over to our brokerage because of that. You know?
And I'll ask them, like, well, you know, we'll figure out their financial background without, like, digging into it too hard, but they usually you know, their their husband has money. They're in a business. Yeah. Yeah. So we kinda understand, like, where they're coming from.
But we're strategically picking the agents and Mhmm. And get them in the door. Selective. Yeah. Exactly.
Steve: And it's all under Hall of Fame brokerage?
Santini: HOF Realty, we call it.
Steve: HOF Realty. You know, you're dealing with all Hall of Fame?
Santini: No. There's a there could be a a little conflict of interest there. I see. Yeah. So we're trying to we have the we they people know it's us, but it's it's disconnected somehow.
Steve: Gotcha. Yeah. And then, you know, just the other point here, you've raised a lot of private money.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: So beyond beyond the realtors, where else are you finding private money?
Santini: Anywhere. Just like family, friends. Mhmm. You know? Jesse's family, friends he has.
Anyone, really. I mean, we could I know it's not I don't know if it's legal to raise it on social media, but when you're posting your deals, like, people see the quality of work, how fast you're selling them, what prices you get. That, you know, that that's your resume. So, like, anyone anyone that I know, like, hey. You're looking to invest.
I always bring it up. Like, what are you doing? Like, oh, I'm looking to flip a house. Well, would you rather just invest? It's safer.
Mhmm. No. And we get people that way too. Yeah. There's always so much money we need.
We all I also have money. I fund my own deals. So, I try not to let it get out of control because, again, that's another process of managing, personalities. They want updates. You know, things could go wrong potentially, which, thank knock on wood, nothing has, but just another risk that maybe we don't wanna take on.
But, you know, if we wanna put our phone on the gas, I could raise another $10,000,000 or whatever. Yeah. I wanted to.
Steve: What would you even do with that? Buy more deals. Buy more deals?
Santini: Yeah. But at this point, I don't know if we if there's any more deals out there.
Steve: Do you feel like do you have do do you measure what your, market share is in your market?
Santini: No. I actually asked that question to someone if we could get a list of off market deals versus what sold on market. But I don't know what date like, I know all Dantec used to do that.
Steve: I mean, you could track it. It's just I don't know any data company that does it.
Santini: We probably have such a small, small market share. Yeah. That's why I love the business. I'm like, man, there's so many so many opportunities. Oh, another thing I did this year, I didn't bring it up.
We shrunk down our focus. So we had, like, 20 counties we're hitting in 2022, 2023. We went down to nine, and we doubled our our our profit. Yeah. So focus.
Mhmm. We can't get there. We're not going. Like, we're not marketing there.
Steve: Right.
Santini: So within fifty minutes of our of our our office, basically. Philadelphia is literally five minutes. One of the biggest cities in the country, we don't even touch Philadelphia. We don't want anything to do with it. We wanna stay super focused in Southern New Jersey in our our counties.
So, like, we're committed to being local, being the fastest, paying the best price, and and dominating that local market. That's really hard. It's hard. It's hard.
Steve: Was that something that, you thought about for some time, something that got beat into you?
Santini: Just hearing, you know, a lot of stories in CG Mhmm. And just, like, other mentors of, like, going into different markets. And I've done it too. And, like, it's easier actually to get deals. Like, we were in Pittsburgh hard for a couple years.
I'm like, man, it's like, you could talk to anybody. They'll answer their phone. They're cool with selling their house. Yeah. But the spreads were so low.
I'm like, let's just it's war, man. Like, let's go to war in our market. Let's win this the battle here
Steve: Yeah.
Santini: And whatever. Like, you know, that's that's how I feel. Like, we we just need to dominate, and it's a hard market. We're talking about the North you know, we talked about the Northeast earlier. People are just miserable, you know?
So you gotta you gotta just figure it out,
Steve: and everyone was just angry.
Santini: Yeah. You gotta bring extra juice every day in our market. I remember,
Steve: I was 19. We went to, New York for spring break, which is a terrible idea. It was way too cold, but we were we were in, high square Yeah. And walked to one of those, you know, raised pizzerias or whatever. Right?
I told my wife, like, hey. Like, we're New York. Just know, like, they're gonna be yelling at you. Yeah. Right?
It's just it's just a New York experience. And I knew that going in. And the guy starts yelling at me, and I I lose it. Like, why is he yelling at? Like, why is everyone so damn angry here?
Oh, man. Yeah. I just wasn't right. Like, I I was mentally aware of it. Mhmm.
Santini: And
Steve: I told myself to be ready for it. Still wasn't ready
Santini: for it. It's it's crazy. I I've I've read it, a car, and I pulled out of the airport. And I'm like, everyone's driving so nice out here.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: Literally, if this was Philly, people would be swerving in me, like, cut me off going a 100 miles an hour down the street. Like, it's a it's nice to drive out here.
Steve: You know? Yeah. We're friendly out here. Right?
Santini: Exactly. Let me in.
Steve: The the the biggest culture shock, I would say the other direction, was I remember I was I went to Mississippi for an event I was speaking at. And, like, the TSA, like, actually helped you put your suitcase onto, like, the carousel.
Santini: Oh, really?
Steve: I was like, what is going on here?
Santini: In Philly?
Steve: No. No. No. Mississippi. Oh, Mississippi.
Mississippi. The South. They're really friendly in in Yeah. In the South. That's the exact opposite of what it had in New York.
Oh, yeah. Right? That was one year. Right? I went to both of those, and it was just a culture shock in both directions.
Yeah. So looking at life today. Right? You know, you're so shocked to get a job offer for $40,000
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: And where you are today. You ever pictured where you are today?
Santini: No. No. Not at all. Unless I played in the NBA, I wouldn't be like, you're not making this type of money. Yeah.
I didn't think I didn't know the the path. I didn't know it was possible.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So looking back now, like, what freedom have you been afforded, that, you know, you never expected?
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Santini: So I think the biggest thing that's changed my life is from the time I was born until, I would say, like, that day I got that job offer, money has always been a stressor for me. I always felt the pressure from my mom whether we could get food. I can't tell you how many times we got evicted from my house. Like, lost a car, repoed. So, like, I was traumatized financially growing up.
Like, when it was school time, it was hard to get clothes for school. Like, I would wear my brother's clothes or my friends. So, like, I appreciate money a lot more probably than anyone else just because of how hard it was growing up. No. Like, I didn't get a car.
I didn't get anyone to help me financially. So now that, like, we're making money, it's more of, like, a comfort. And, like, I I was telling my wife, like, we never worry about money. Like, that's the last thing on our if we ever argue is about money. She's like, if whatever you want, I you know, I'll take care of it.
I'll get it. But I can go out there and and make more if I needed to. Right. The cool thing about what we do is, like, I don't have to break my stones every day. I literally work from, like, nine to four.
And I work hard, and I work strategic, and the mental stress is is is is a lot weighs on you. But it's still a nine to four schedule. You know? My team picks up the wait the the the wait for me too, and yeah, it's a a group effort. But, yeah, financially, it's it's it's been a game changer.
Freedom wise, like, I could do whatever I want, man. Like, I I just bought a, you know, a beach house and, you know, live in live in a nice house now, but it's just, you know, it just gives you nice things. But Where's the Beach House? Ocean City. Ocean City.
New Jersey. Yeah. Yeah. So Gotcha. Beautiful.
Steve: What is your epic life goal?
Santini: I don't know, man. I've always think about this. So I try to stay in the moment. You know? Like, when I I enjoy what I do.
I think it's because I'm competitive. I think that I enjoy making money, to tell you the truth. And I do enjoy helping people. I love seeing people's lives change. I've I've seen it probably, like, six times, seven times already in our company where, like, legit people have have have, like, just taken a turn for the better Mhmm.
Where they were stuck in their careers. So I enjoy that part of it. I enjoy, you know, our our names, companies, hall of fame. Like yeah, the reason we named the hall of fame because I was inducted into my college hall of fame. That's awesome.
Yeah. So it, like, kinda stuck with me in 2017. I was like I called it, like, hall of fame property management, and then it became hall of fame real estate, hall of fame homebuyers. So that brand's, like, stuck with us. But the point of that is, like, we wanna be in the hall of fame.
We wanna leave a legacy. Like, what does it take to get in the hall of fame? You gotta be the best, period. What does that take? You gotta work your ass off.
You gotta do something that no one has ever done. And that's kind of like what I that drives me. It's like, I wanna do something that no one has ever done in our market, especially because real estate right now is our vehicle. And, I feel like we're hitting plateaus that no one has ever hit. Like, when I got into this and started learning, I remember people were like, our market, you can only do, like, a million dollars on our market.
Like, there's no one could do more than that. Then we did three. I'm like, well, who like, can anyone tell me what else? Now we're doing six. Like and now we shrunk down our our our metro, and, like, now we're doing less counties, and we're doing more.
So,
Steve: like Right.
Santini: There's no ceiling. You know? There's no one else to tell us what we can do now because no one's hitting these these numbers. So
Steve: You mentioned competitive. So Leah and I, Leon Barnes and I were wondering one of these CG events. You brought in one of your acquisition guys.
Santini: Yeah.
Steve: Who was outrageously athletic. Is he still with you?
Santini: He he was a disposition guy. No. He's not with us anymore. It's like but we were recruiting for basketball at that that time in our career. I was, I'll bring in these guys to CJ.
Steve: I was like, yeah. I mean, Santini's
Santini: for it. I don't know.
Steve: Like, is he really on Santini's team, or is he bringing his
Santini: He plays college basketball with me.
Steve: We weren't questioning his athleticism. We're questioning whether he was actually on your real estate team.
Santini: Oh, yeah. That's so funny.
Steve: Man. Yeah. I mean, that's a teeny guy's competitive. What is your biggest struggle today?
Santini: My biggest struggle? I guess the personally, I'm trying to be a I'm trying to be as good I as I am in business as I am as a father, as a husband, and, you know, you're just there's always a a push pull and time and Yeah. A lot of guilt because, again, I didn't my father wasn't around growing up. So, like, I I wanna make sure that I'm the opposite. I wanna be present.
I wanna be impactful. I wanna teach them how to be adults and and be good people. So I just hope that you know, I can do that and also give them the time they deserve. So that's always my biggest struggle. But other than that, I'm blessed, man.
Like, I got a great team. Like, I don't I don't have much to complain about. I'm healthy. I'm what what the heck?
Steve: You know? Yeah. What are you doing to make sure you're, you know, as good as business as you are at home?
Santini: I think it's just being mindful that you, you know, come home and just pay attention to your kids. You know, be as helpful as I can with my wife. You know, just be a good example, not try to lose my temper. You know, I'm I'm pretty good. I have a look.
I don't ever get mad, but I get frustrated. I do get frustrated and, you know, it's distracting, but working on all that. And as they get older and I get more, I guess, used to the style of life.
Steve: It's
Santini: just, you know, it's chaotic when you have kids.
Steve: These are the fun years, man.
Santini: Because you
Steve: said the oldest was four? Three. Three. Yeah. Maybe these are the fun years.
Santini: By the way, three is worse than two. Like, terrible twos doesn't exist to me. It's the three year olds that are Oh, it's way worse. It's hard.
Steve: No one talks about that. Yeah. Like, it gets worse. Mhmm. But I would say, like, for me, you know, like, they're your babies until kindergarten.
Santini: Yeah. And
Steve: then at that point, they're not your babies anymore. Right? Like, their friends know things that apparently you don't know.
Santini: Yep. Right? The teachers are an authority figure
Steve: in their lives now. So, like like, savor that. Oh, yeah. Because I got three, and none of them are and they're all past that point. What is, how do you measure your success?
Santini: I think, obviously, you can use your KPIs, your deal flow, your your profit margin. I think for business, it's gonna be net profit and, also making sure that the your staff is hitting their goals. You know, it's always good to know that, like I would say 9090% of our team has hit their financial goals. So I think for business, we definitely have. And I've hit my goals too.
Yeah. Like, our goal is 4,000,000 in profit this year, so we've exceeded that. Like, Yeah. I would say we we over exceeded it for sure.
Steve: That's awesome. What is this, what is this what is your superpower?
Santini: I think relationships. You know, whether it's recruiting, hiring, strategic relationship within my market, whether it's a house flipper, mortgage lender. Yeah. I've always seen to max out our relationships, and the key to that is just give give as much as you can to them. Mhmm.
And then they're gonna reciprocate. So that's it, man. Like, I'm always looking for me, me, me. And I think, that those relationships have taken us to the next level.
Steve: Oh, man. It kinda goes back. Right? You kinda like a bit of the authority in your market Mhmm. Doing the meetups, people are sending you deals, and that makes total sense.
Yeah. What is your biggest regret?
Santini: Biggest regret. So my brother and I, the best friend, you know, one of my like, a fatherly figure, when I got older, We went into business together early on, and when the pandemic hit, he went into, like, you know, different ventures within real estate, like, construction. And we had you know, I think there was a lawsuit with a partner, and I got dragged into it. And, you know, I guess it was a talk it was hard times for both of us. And we end up saying some nasty things to each other.
Again, this is your my best friend, someone I talk to every day, and it changed our relationship from that point on. Like, I we didn't talk for almost two years. And, you know, within the last year, we we now talk again, but it's, like, slowly getting back. Yeah. But I kinda wish that we set more boundaries early on, and that that didn't happen because, like, you know, he had kids throughout that time.
We we didn't really I didn't get to see him grow up as much, you know. Hopefully, I get back to that point. But, that was probably my biggest regret so far is just not being there during that time. Mhmm. You know?
Instead of us leaning on each other, it became enemies, you know. Yeah. And we just didn't wanna talk to each other. That that was definitely the biggest regret.
Steve: Yeah. I mean, I think it's absolutely key. Right? The boundaries component. Right?
It's for everyone listening. Like, it's Mhmm. It makes sense to be partners. It makes sense to do this together. Right?
It's blood.
Santini: Yeah. You would think. Right? It's Right. Mhmm.
Steve: But It was
Santini: it was a bad combination, I think. Yeah. And now he does real estate. His his, wife actually does coaching too. She she has a big clientele.
She's in the Spanish community, but, he's very he's successful. He's he's again, he's the hardest worker I've ever met probably. He's he's unbelievable. But, it's like two chefs in the kitchen. You got you know, it didn't work out.
Steve: You know? Well, one of the lines I heard from, Eric Thomas, the hip hop preacher Mhmm. He said this, like, it's true. Is that just because I would die for you doesn't mean we should be in business together. Right.
And it's like, that makes sense. Later. I know. And any anytime
Santini: I do business now with people, I'm like, listen. No more handshakes. Like, this this is going on paper, and we're gonna write down expectations, contracts, whatever, because I could tell them the story about my my brother and I. Like Yeah. It doesn't matter if your blood like, things can go wrong.
Steve: Right.
Santini: He might like, he's not wrong. I'm not wrong. We just had different perspectives. We didn't agree.
Steve: Different understandings.
Santini: A 100. And I'm not mad at him. He's not mad at me anymore, but those things happen. Disagreements happen.
Steve: Mhmm.
Santini: And you gotta be clear. Partnerships are the hardest thing. I don't have any partners other than the portfolio, but, like, I I don't like having partners in my business. You know? Yeah.
Just me, and I wanna have the final say. You know? That's it. I'm like you. Right?
Steve: I'm, I've always been a handshake guy. Right? Mhmm. And what I learned is that it burned me over and over again.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: Because and it wasn't like everyone was anyone was a liar. It's just what we shook hands on, what I believe to be true, and what you believe to be true were not the same thing. Yep. So when things went sideways, your memory, I can say for sure, was unreliable because I know my memory is on point. Right?
Yeah. But whenever there's a disagreement, they always remember it in their favor. So, like, for me, yeah, like, I I'm a handshake guy, but we have to put things in writing really these days is to protect me. Yeah. Because because I don't even like anything else.
Yep. It's sad. Mhmm. But Yeah. It's the world we live in.
Santini: I agree. And now that we have so much going on, like, there can't be any more loose ends. No. It could cost us big if there's loose ends.
Steve: Oh, today. Too much to lose today.
Santini: Yeah. Absolutely.
Steve: Which failure did you learn the most from?
Santini: I mean, that that's probably it right there. Just not communicating well. Me not speaking up fast enough. You know? I just felt like
Steve: And you're actually a little brother.
Santini: I'm his little brother. Yeah. So
Steve: Yeah. It's it's hard. I can say it's funny. Like, I have four cousins that are older than me. Right?
But we're all within four years. So, like, growing up because we were a really close family.
Santini: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? Like, we're all within, like, a half mile of each other. And so it's three different families, but I was always the baby in the group. Yeah. Right?
And it's funny, like, ten, fifteen years ago, like, they still look at me as a baby in the girl. Like, what is going on here? Like, I'm physically bigger than all you guys. Right? Like, I have there's a lot of other things.
Like, this doesn't make any sense, but it's this weird thing that you're always the little one. Yeah. I'm guessing there's probably a little bit of that.
Santini: Probably. Yeah. Absolutely. Mhmm.
Steve: What book do you have a gift of more than any other?
Santini: What's that book that was I don't really gift that many books, but the the real estate invest who that guy the financial guy was his name. It was in CJ who wrote that book. Oh. The spin off. I give that I give that book out.
Steve: Oh, David Richters?
Santini: Yeah. David Richters' book.
Steve: Yeah. Profit First for Real Estate.
Santini: Profit First. Yeah. I was giving them out to a lot of our sales team because Yeah. You know, they're $10.99 guys. So I was giving it out to a couple of them and, yeah, hoping that, like, helping them set up their their structure and stuff.
Steve: So Yeah. That's cool. You're making massive, massive impacts. Yeah. So think about last time I'm gonna leave all the listeners with.
Guys, hope you guys got incredible value. I know I did. So please hit that subscribe button. Share this with your friends, with your colleagues, maybe even with your competitors. Who knows?
Right? But we wanna hit as many people as possible so that, we can all rise together. What is the last thoughts I'm gonna leave all the listeners with?
Santini: So anyone that's running a an operation where, you have staff and you're running marketing, don't sleep on those relationships in your market. Figure out a plan to monetize, become that local celebrity. And, you're gonna bring in, you know, probably a couple million dollars a year in extra in the referrals and continue business. So anybody out there listening, don't sleep on referrals and have a plan. Social media, make sure that your brand is geared towards your market on getting deal flow, and then try to do the local meetups.
I think those are two impactful things that anybody could do. Not in South Jersey because we are having on lockdown, but everywhere else. Anywhere else. Yeah.
Steve: Alright. Perfect. Someone wants to reach out and connect with you. What's the best way?
Santini: Instagram, probably. Santini Lancione. Just shoot me a DM. I'd love to, you know, help you guys out any way
Steve: I can. Simple. Just get your name.
Santini: That's it. Yeah.
Steve: Alright. Perfect. Thank you so much.
Santini: Appreciate you having me.
Steve: Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you guys next time. Awesome, dude.
Santini: Is that good? Great. Yeah. Alright. Shout out to Steve train.
Jump on the Steve train. Disrupt us.
