How To Do Novations Virtually

Adam DeVine: Done a bad avenue. Right? I started smoking weed all day every day. I was drinking every day. Mhmm.

I had spiraled. Laziness is a disease. It's a disease. Yeah. Get comfortable in here with challenge.

If you don't embrace this, you will not be here to embrace any. Real estate's a sport. It's a team sport that you are not going to run far on your own.

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we have Adam DeVine with Perch Rock, and Adam Flew in from Hamda, Connecticut to talk about how his team is doing novations virtually in multiple states, a challenge if I've seen one. So, guys, I'm gonna mention to create a 100 millionaires. Information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years.

If you'll take consistent action, you will become one. And, guys, if you get value out of the show, please hit that subscribe button. That way we can all grow together. You ready?

Adam: Let's rock and roll.

Steve: Alright. Let's go. So first question is, what was your life like right before you got into real estate?

Adam: Great question. So prior to real estate, I was playing hockey, played junior hockey for several years, had a career ending concussion right before going off to playing college.

Steve: Had a what?

Adam: Career ending concussion.

Steve: Career ending concussion.

Adam: So I had about eight, nine concussions total while playing.

Steve: Wow.

Adam: So I I went through and we'll get into that. I went through a a bit of a time. So when I, finished up playing hockey, I was gonna go off to college and play. Mhmm. Told I would never play hockey again.

So I finished up my degree at home, doing a lot of stuff online, just to get the degree right. Parents really pushed for it. I personally think it was a total waste of time, but it is what it is.

Steve: I I don't I don't disagree strongly on this one.

Adam: I'm working a bunch of, like, you know, side jobs and just little part time gigs to make some money, but I'm really interested in real estate. I start following a guy named I don't know if you know Nick Ruiz. Yeah. So

Steve: I I follow off of something. He wrote a book. Right?

Adam: Yep. Flip. So I buy the book. I I sign up for his program. This is back in 2015.

Steve: Okay.

Adam: I sign up. I start going through it. I'm like, you can buy homes without any cash out of your pocket. This sounds way too good to be true. And I start going into it.

I'm like, I'm gonna do this. I can do this. This is this is great.

Steve: Right.

Adam: So fast forward, I finish up school, my degree in 2016

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And I end up getting a job selling medical devices. I do it for about five months before I get fired.

Steve: For what?

Adam: I just the the, owner knew that I was doing real estate and not going to surgeries or showing up late, and it was a pretty, easy fire. And it it was great because it just wasn't for me. But I did that for about five months. Mhmm. And I was also doing real estate.

So I'm on the side, like, figuring out how do I use this money for my job Mhmm. To get deals and then get out of doing this.

Steve: Right.

Adam: So I I did a good job, though, of having a little of a nest egg Mhmm. When I did get fired. But getting going, you know, I'm locking up contracts. I'm going through you know, back in the day when you were using Craigslist to either acquire a deal or or sell and market your deals. Facebook, it was much different then.

Steve: I

Adam: had a couple deals, and, I'm falling on my face. So, you know, during that time, I'm working my job, in medical device sales, while I'm doing real estate. And, you know, I realized once I got fired, that was it. Went all in and ended up working with who my business partner is now today.

Steve: So talk to me about your your first deal. How did you find your your first deal?

Adam: My first deal was found through Craigslist. So I used to post beta ads on there, and I would also

Steve: Beta ads?

Adam: Bait ads.

Steve: Beta ads.

Adam: So I would post ads for, you know, building your buyers list. Mhmm. But I'd also post that, you know, we buy houses cash on there. That was one of the channels. I had an individual reach out to me.

Mhmm. I was surprised as, you know, it's that one off person.

Steve: So

Adam: they reach out to me on there. I go and look at the property and I contract it. I get the property under contract. I make, I think, $4 on the deal. Was was it was it

Steve: first deal was a success, though? Yes.

Adam: Wasn't wasn't much. But

Steve: Right. But you the first deal you contracted, you did sell. Correct. Well, that's a win. Right?

So were were there any challenges?

Adam: Oh, of course. I mean, you're you're going through the pitfalls of, you know, dealing with attorneys, getting the right paperwork together. I mean, a lot of it's hand holding. But Right. Again, being able to get to the finish line and just having the right people there, it it definitely was nice.

Steve: What would have happened if you never found your first deal?

Adam: I would have kept going. I would have figured it out. Right. Take anything else. Persistence is key.

Mhmm.

Steve: Was that while you were still working medical, or is that before you or or after you got fired?

Adam: This is while I'm working medical.

Steve: That's why you're working medical sales. Gotcha. Okay. So you do your first deal, four k. What were you making in medical sales?

Adam: I was making 36,000 a year as a base, and then I never got any commissions even though I was promised all

Steve: all this money.

Adam: I wasn't there long enough, so I wasn't really making much money.

Steve: Gotcha. So that one deal is already more than what you make a month?

Adam: Pretty much.

Steve: Gotcha. Okay. So what happens after your first deal?

Adam: After my first deal, I'm falling on my face.

Steve: Right.

Adam: So I'm still struggling to get stuff to the finish line.

Steve: What is falling on your face, look like?

Adam: Everything under the sun of being a new investor. Not even knowing the right questions to ask, what to do. You know, you're super motivated and hungry to go make money. Mhmm. But you don't know what foot to put in front of the other.

So I'm kinda you know, I call it standing on pizza. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Mhmm. But I'm figuring it out as we go. Mhmm.

One of the things that I've always been a big fan of is being a team player. And in my mind, I'm thinking, why don't I find someone that's doing this at a very high level? So, you know, 2016, I'm refereeing a hockey game. Right? And this coach is swearing at me, screaming, skating up and down the ice.

I look over my shoulder, and I'm like, who is that? I'm like, oh, that's Bob a chance. Like, I had sent Bob a Facebook message back in, like, April, May when I finished up school.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: You know, how are things at Fortune Builders? You know, this is back when he was still involved. You know, I'm looking to get into real estate. No response.

Steve: Freaking Bob.

Adam: You know? Hey. Exactly. So persistence is key. I'm like, you know, let me bite my tongue and get yelled at all game.

Steve: So Bob, the chance, you knew who he was before the hockey game?

Adam: Correct. I played men's league against Bob. Yeah. Growing up in, you know, when I was younger in junior hockey, so I knew who Bob was.

Steve: So from from hockey and who Bob was. So it wasn't from real estate, but from hockey and who Bob was.

Adam: Correct. I actually had no idea he was involved in real estate until I I looked him and looked him up and saw him.

Steve: Okay. So do you see this guy's like, okay. Well, he's involved with Fortune Builders. Great. Let's leverage this connection.

So you were aware of him, but you didn't really know him, I guess, at this point Correct. When he was cursing you out.

Adam: Correct.

Steve: What was he cursing you out for?

Adam: It's just typical Bob in the hockey world. So,

Steve: it's just everyone just cursing everyone out in on on ice?

Adam: Well, when you're a referee, you're not liked by anybody. And then, you know, being in the Northeast, you have that New England mentality. People are gonna you know, they're gonna give it to you very blunt.

Steve: Yeah. Right. So they're not concerned about your feelings.

Adam: No. Not at all. What feelings?

Steve: So he's he's cursing you out, and instead of responding, you see who he is. You you what do you do then?

Adam: Bite my tongue Mhmm. Because I'm thinking back on that Facebook message where he never replied.

Steve: Right.

Adam: Ultimately, I'm not worried about how I feel. It's what can I get from this? Right. You know, selfishly, I'm looking to advance my real estate career. There's a relationship here.

Plus Yeah. We get no we get much more with honey than vinegar.

Steve: So Absolutely. So what'd you do after that?

Adam: Game goes on. They win, like, 12 to one. I mean, they blow the other team out.

Steve: They blow the other team out, and he's cursing you the whole time.

Adam: Oh, yeah. Where's the call, ref? That's a nice. Trim. Trim.

Like, god. Give it a break. But it is what it is. You sign up for it. Right.

At the end of the game, everybody gets in line to shake hands. Usually, the coaches will shake the referee's hands at the end of the game. Bob doesn't shake my hand. Mhmm. Not surprised.

So I go to put the nets up against the boards when the Zamboni is coming on the ice. Mhmm. And I see him outside the locker room. So I'm like, do I go up to him? Do I mention I you know, I'm in real estate?

I'm like, alright. Let's do it. Mhmm. I put the nets up. I go off.

I'm like, hey, coach. He goes, what? I'm like, hey. Are you Bob LaChance from Fortune Builders? His face drops.

He sticks his hand. Oh, hey. How are you doing?

Steve: And, like So hockey Bob turned into professional Bob in an instant.

Adam: In a yeah. In a snap of a finger. So I'm like, hey. What's going on? My name's Adam Devine.

I I reached out actually months ago. I'm new to real estate. I got a couple deals, but I've been struggling. I just wanted to see if I could chat with you, see if we could we could partner or find a way to work together. Mhmm.

Gives me his number, says, hey. Give me a shout.

Steve: Right.

Adam: So I follow-up with him. We set up a time of, you know, a week or two later to meet for coffee. Mhmm. And he starts talking about, you know, what do you wanna what are you looking to get out of real estate? Why are you getting into it?

And I went through all that and then tells me he has a virtual assistant company. And at the time, like, I know nothing. Like, what virtual assistant? Like, cool. Yeah.

He's like, we may be looking to hire a sales rep. Would you be interested?

Steve: Okay.

Adam: Like, sure. Okay. We meet a second time for coffee. He also makes an intro to a guy in my backyard in Southern Connecticut that ran a meetup group at the time and helped me with some other deals getting trying to get some of these other deals to the finish line. Just, again, answering questions, learning the industry.

I meet back up with Bob, and I say, yeah. I'm in. It's like, you know, do you want the role to be a sale rep here at Riva? This is back when it was investor virtual assistant services. So this is prior to the branding change, like, way back.

Okay. I jump on board. I do it for little over two years, end up being a sales manager, kinda overseeing things there, going to events.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: When he had his spin off from a former business partner, I stayed on. Right? I I learned a ton from Bob, the mentorship of, you know, having questions, answers, from becoming a better sales rep, going through different types of training. So to me, I saw that I was getting better. It's quantifiable.

Right. But I had also wanted more for myself.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: So funny enough, when I saw the the opportunity right before my 20 birthday, I decided to ask Bob, present him, like, a nice PowerPoint of what I can bring for the company. Yeah. I asked for 50% ownership of of that company, which two years ago, Bob had signed an LOI for a, very high amount of money to sell the private equity Mhmm. Which fell apart. But I'm asking for a company that's generating millions of dollars every year, not knowing any better.

And Yeah. And it was an aggressive, you know, beeline right at Bob

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: For this. And Bob fired me that next day, which was my 20 birthday. It's never personal

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: That I was fired.

Steve: Why were you fired?

Adam: Probably the way I delivered it and and what he went through, you know, from watching his company almost kinda blow up in flames to salvaging it, watching, him and his wife fly over to The Philippines to salvage it for two weeks Mhmm. And to get it to where it is today, not only growing it back to where it was, but surpassing that, say, seven, eight x Mhmm. It's pretty impressive. So

Steve: So was it the you didn't necessarily deliver in a diplomatic tactful tone? Correct. Got it. So if you had to do it all over again, your approach would be different.

Adam: Yeah. And and knowing Bob, you know, when you go to ask for money or some kind of Mhmm. You know, ownership, it's it's gotta be done the right way. I've witnessed this with other people in our, our time.

Steve: Alright. We need to hire nine salespeople in the next five weeks. We launched our done for you cell service just a month ago, and the demand for it has has been absolutely crazy. We have all these people reaching out to us saying our cell service has been so helpful for them. Please get us more salespeople.

Speaker 2: If you are in high ticket sales or looking to get into that space, if you want a calendar filled up with people raising their hands saying, call me at this time, please sell me. I wanna be sold to by a highly experienced salesperson, we are looking for you to have that role. We wanna take people who are good and make them great. People who wanna be held accountable the same way Michael Jordan would want his coach to hold him accountable to take him to that next level.

Steve: So if you want Ian Ross or myself to train you to get better at sales, if you wanna be able to control your income, decide exactly how much money you make, and you wanna work at a company where you value and appreciate it, we encourage you click the link below. However, we're only hiring superstars. If you're not a plus caliber, don't click below. So, I mean, you and I, obviously, we know Bob pretty well. So what is the right way to approach Bob?

Adam: Make sure you're bringing value and you're conscious of what you're asking for.

Steve: Gotcha. Okay. Anything else?

Adam: Well, it's funny because I never took it personal. You know, when he had fired me, I actually and he's talked about this on the podcast is I thanked him. I said, dude, I I appreciate everything you've taught me. Thank you so much. I've learned a ton here.

Wish you nothing but success.

Steve: Right.

Adam: And at the time, Beth had quit working her job in medical sales to help grow that, which they also have the medical division now, which is a very successful, division. So I can understand them being like, hey. Screw this kid.

Steve: Alright.

Adam: You're out. You know, we're we're trying to salvage a company here. But I wrote him and his, him and Bethel a a letter Mhmm.

Steve: You

Adam: know, saying, hey. Thank you. I never meant any harm by this. You know, my goal was generally to grow and just advance my professional career, and I wrote at the end of that letter.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: I said, Bob, you and I will be business partners one day. Because we go you know, we'd go to lunch every day, got along well with them. It was never personal, but, you know, it's business. Right? People make a decision.

We have to just be mature enough to move on. Mhmm. Right? And we kept in I mean, I talked to maybe Bob every other month. He gives me a call around, like, August 2019, right before Labor Day.

Mhmm. What's going on, man? How's everything going? I'm like, good. Yeah.

I'm wholesaling some properties. I'm doing listings. I'm getting more active. I just bought two rentals. So I'm like, you know, I'm I'm full fledged going hard into, you know, just making money and trying to grow my own success in the business.

Mhmm. Bob says I'm looking to get in a whole you know, grow a wholesaling company. I'm looking for someone to do acquisition. I said, sure. Let's do it.

Yeah. He offered me some ridiculously low amount of money. And I'm like, I see a different avenue here.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: We start doing deals, sending over leads every day, and he's not tracking them. You know, you're when you're first starting out, you know, everything's kind of all over the place.

Steve: For for sure.

Adam: So fast forward that to January 2020. I go to the office one day. I'd say, Bobby, you're gonna be around? I got something for you. So, yeah.

Sure. I'll be around.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Go up to office. I'll give him a check for about $7,500. He's like, what's this for? I'm like, this is for all the closings, listings, wholesale deals that we've closed your partner on. He had no idea.

Mhmm.

Steve: And

Adam: he was very thankful for it given his experience in this business. He's like, no one's done this. And I I think that's integrity. And, yeah, I appreciate I told him, hey. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be needing to ramp this up.

There's a business model here. I don't know what that looks like, but we should map something out. We sat down and kinda went through what is what does that look like overhead and started PerTruck. We turned into a a business.

Steve: So the 7,500 you gave him, this is from deals that you did that were his leads, or how what was

Adam: Correct. So what Bob was doing is he was sending over leads from his cold call company.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Right? Deal dialers. Those leads would come over to my email. Mhmm. I would get on the phone and call them.

Steve: Right.

Adam: We used RealFlow at the time, which was a which is a mess. It's not a really good scalable CRM. It's good for a newer investor, but, everything was kinda solved over the place. I'd call the lead. I'd go on the appointment.

I'd contract it, and then I would try to make money. Most of our deals were going retail because, again, when you're a new investor, you're like you're just trying to make money.

Steve: Right.

Adam: But we partnered on everything, and the goal is, hey. If we close a deal, then I I'm gonna give you 50% of it. I think that's fair.

Steve: Right.

Adam: And and that's what we did. So he wasn't tracking that. He didn't know stuff had closed. And when I delivered the check and went through those deals

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: There's a level of trust and appreciation.

Steve: Right.

Adam: I think in our industry, integrity is number one. If you're gonna build relationships with people, then you better do it right.

Steve: Oh, yeah. I mean, relationship is the single most I think the most important thing inside our business. So this is you said January 2020, is when you guys he reached out to you in '19. In '20, you give him the check, and, like, there's something here. I want you to be involved in it.

Adam: Well, it's Bob, there's a business to this. Let's not do one off deals.

Steve: Got it.

Adam: Okay. Let's build out what the structure looks like to grow.

Steve: So then what will happen after that?

Adam: So we sat down. We mapped out what does the cost look like for a CRM.

Steve: Do you

Adam: wanna build out? How many leads do we need to start sending over? Because he has the cold calling and the text messaging set up from VAs. Mhmm. So we're already at an advantage there.

Yeah. Or then I can do everything between being a 27 year old kid. I have the time. I have the availability. You know?

I'm all in. Mhmm. And we'll get this thing ramped up. So he starts falling over leads daily. We build out a Podio, and we just start trying to acquire deals.

Right?

Steve: How helpful was it that he had a virtual agency?

Adam: Oh, it's impeccable. Like, massive one eighty. I mean, I think we were at a complete advantage, much bigger advantage than any any other person getting going in it because, you know, one, the partnership is good. But today, we're still working together after what we've been through. Mhmm.

So alignment of people. But two, when you have that marketing machine, people say all the time. Right? What's more important? Sales or marketing?

I'll tell you it's marketing.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: As a salesperson, if you can't generate leads good leads consistently and successfully, you're out of business.

Steve: Absolutely.

Adam: You're just you're not gonna be operating. Right. So we have that. But then to connect that Mhmm. To the execution of closing these deals, that's where you start to see the growth.

Absolutely. So we we're we're very privileged.

Steve: As far as integration goes. Right? And I'm getting really, really technical here as far as your organization. But, you know, how many how much were you able to pull from the VA, the virtual agency, as far as resources goes to help you execute your business?

Adam: Getting going, it was predominantly the cold calling Mhmm. Text messaging.

Steve: Got

Adam: it. We didn't have a business in place or, you know, I'll just put my humble hat on. Bob and I are not operational people. Right? We're we're action takers.

We're salespeople. So for us, it's like, oh, I could do this better than them. I get it done quicker, so I need a VA for it. We didn't really have anything on the admin side or the operation side. Yeah.

It was strictly cold calling. It was text messaging. We had a VA build a website out, but that's really about it. We had made our first hire back in October 2020. That was our first first hire that we had brought on.

Steve: Yeah. I

Adam: was a salesperson. But, like, other than really this the marketing side, we we really just ran a business focused on how do we make money. Like, right now, we can't worry about department heads and different verticals in our business. It's like, let's get cash coming in the door. Right.

And we have capital to invest into those things. Mhmm. And that's how our brains work. Some people may think differently. Some people are operational assassins.

For us, it was we can generate money much quicker by working. Here's what we have to work with. Let's exploit it.

Steve: Okay. So you guys get rock and rolling. Alright. At this point, are you guys focused entirely in your backyard?

Adam: No. Today, we are in Connecticut.

Steve: No. At this time.

Adam: Oh, yes. Right. At the time, yeah, we were we were really just in majors major metros in Connecticut. We weren't even going into tertiary markets. Alright.

We played around where we knew we can make consistent, simplistic money.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And, again, the landscape of wholesale in Connecticut is very, it's it's very unique. It's not like many other cities and states where you can just go in and you can have a ton of players. I mean, you have very intelligent sellers. You have that New England, Northeast aggressive mentality of people. You have two attorneys on a transaction.

What we didn't have at the time was all these wholesalers popping up because of stuff they saw online.

Steve: Mhmm. It

Adam: was a very small space, and there was not many direct to seller marketers. So we knew that if we went into major metros, we could have that success to find the investor in a deal.

Steve: They're talking about, the the attitude, right, in Connecticut. Because you guys are in Connecticut. We got clients in in in, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Philly. Different attitude. So how because I you you you've been in multiple states.

How is your approach different to a homeowner in the Northeast versus your approach to your your homeowners in the South?

Adam: That's a that's actually a really good question. So I don't know if it's much different per se. I mean, it's more so the approach, and how we're going at that deal. I mean, up north, we're we're definitely aggressive back, and we're gonna mirror that seller. If you're an order taker and you try to appease them, you're gonna have a phone slammed in your face.

You almost need to disrespect that seller to keep them on the phone because now they're fired up and they wanna go at you. Yeah. But what we're doing is we're creating stimulus so that they're not gonna exit that phone call.

Steve: Right.

Adam: You go down south. It's it is a different approach. Sometimes we put an accent on, like, hey, Chuck. What's going on, man? It's me.

I haven't given you a callback. So I have to frame that conversation Yeah. To align with them. And if I don't have the accent, I have to slow down my communication. Mhmm.

One thing, though, is you can be far more direct at a seller in the South, where up north, it's almost like dating. If we're too quick to what it is we want Mhmm. It becomes a game. Like, oh, I'm not really looking to sell.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Oh, you're not looking to sell. Why'd you ask me to call you back? Oh, well, you called me. Wait. You asked me to call you back.

It's almost you know, if you're, like, dating at this point. Yeah. It's like, who's gonna release their cards first? Down south, it's a very nice warm touch, and we call our Florida, Georgia, our Arkansas market. It's it's like you can have that black and white conversation.

You can build that rapport.

Steve: So we have, there's a Tommy in in Boston. Right? Got worked with his team for a bit. And, he has a guy in his organization, which I always laughed at was, he had an appointment where the guy was just completely rude and disrespectful. And he was like, look.

You're obviously having a bad day. I'm having a bad day myself. Can we just get past this part and just have a conversation about the home? The guy's like, yeah. And then they had a conversation about the guy's house.

It's fascinating versus here. Like, you wouldn't start off a conversation this way. I wouldn't expect you to be aggressive, from when I walk into your home.

Adam: Yeah. It's you you'll have those from time to time, and it's funny. Like, I I know Tommy's, you know, guy up there, Jared.

Steve: Jared. Yeah. Yeah. It was Jared.

Adam: Jared gets it. You know, him and I actually had a phone conversation about a month ago about the seller psychology and the type of, you know, human dynamic we deal with up there, Connecticut, Massachusetts. I mean, you just you gotta be a dog. This is not, hi. This is Adam from Percher.

I'd love to talk. Click. Click. So, yeah, those guys get it up there, and they obviously run a good business.

Steve: But, you

Adam: know, you can it's same with Joe Terrell in New Hampshire. They can we can all relate to one another on what it is we're dealing with for, for sellers.

Steve: So you start off cold calling and texting in 2020. Right? Is that still your predominant marketing channel, or what are you guys doing today?

Adam: Yeah. It's still our predominant marketing channel because we're doing everything at calls. Right? We're fortunate that we have Reva plugged in. Mhmm.

We can cold call and text on volume. Texting is obviously taking a massive shift in the landscape.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Adam: So you we've had to adapt to that, but it's still it's still been a channel that's worthy enough of investing in. Mhmm. We also run mail. Mail selective. We used to do a lot of mail back in the day.

And the way this market's going, we may have to start doing more again. Mhmm. But as of right now, our channels are making sense of doing cold call and text message. We did a little bit of PPL for a bit, and it was good. But when we look at our numbers, the amount of money that we're investing into cold call and text and, again, the privilege we have with Riva, we've doubled down on that.

It's been good.

Steve: Gotcha. So the challenges that you have with with texting, you say the pivot. How did you guys pivot?

Adam: You just become more compliant. I mean, you saw what happened with LaunchControl. Launch changed up a lot of their messaging, and Mhmm. You'd have to scrub for list much better. DNCs, a lot of numbers were not getting sent out too.

Right? You know, you used to have maybe a a 10 to 20%, nondeliverably, deliverable rate.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: That rate sometimes is above 50% depending on the list we're contacting. So you had to get strategic with, alright. Where are we targeting? How are we scrubbing these lists? Mhmm.

Obviously, we wanna scrub for litigators, and we're not looking to end up, as an example. And then, obviously, using other platforms too. Smart of contact's another one that's been pretty good for us. But if I were to suggest that to the average person out there or an operator that's having to go pay and not get this stuff at cost, then I would all I would honestly recommend some other channels.

Steve: Gotcha. Gotcha. So being smarter with with, the data, who are you predominantly using right now for data?

Adam: We use our own data. Like, we're we're pretty simple and Mhmm. And basic. We've looked into several providers inside of CG. Mhmm.

But we never move forward with it after looking into the pros and cons and what we're doing. We pull everything out just simply from, PropStream. Mhmm. We skip it through IDI, and then we hit those targets.

Steve: Gotcha. Okay. So at which point did it make sense to go into multiple states?

Adam: We went into multiple states solely for hedge funds. Mhmm. So, again, we're a part of Collective Genius, which is a fantastic mastermind. We have two operators in there, you know, Rich and Adam. And we had connected with them back in I think it was 2021.

Steve: It was something like that. Yeah.

Adam: In Tampa when they first got back in the group. You know, being New York guys, we were able to connect just having that mentality. Mhmm. We saw them at IMN, that August.

Steve: Right. We

Adam: followed up with them about doing some work together. And this isn't a time where, like, hedge funds are buying, like, wildfire. Mhmm. Like, if you have a deal, they're buying it.

Steve: If it's

Adam: one ten to par, they're buying it. Like, it's over market value, they're buying it. Mhmm. They're like, this is too good to be true. Right.

We talked with them. They gave us their buy box. Mhmm. Immediately went after it. And week week one, we had three contracts.

Steve: Nice. We

Adam: were almost to the point where we're getting a property a day.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And we're all looking around the office, like, we're gonna get rich. This is great.

Steve: This is it.

Adam: So we start going into 1st Arkansas for them. Mhmm. This is, like, August 2021. They immediately tell us, let's test out this little market in Alabama. So we're going to Alabama.

And we're hitting parts of, Charlotte outside of the city, Georgia. Now we're working for other funds. We went in Ohio, so we're doing stuff for the funds that are buying affordable housing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And it's like, wait a minute. These sellers are easier to deal with than up north. Right? One of our newer reps got his success in our office and became what he is today based on that upfront momentum of getting two real big deals. And it's funny because we are doing virtual novation now.

Mhmm. He pulls off the first virtual novation in our office where the seller's like, oh, the fund's not gonna take it, but I talked to the seller. They're cool novating it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: We're running a virtual novation in Arkansas.

Steve: Right.

Adam: Agent was on board with it, explained to the agent the process, seller was cool with it. And we just saw a huge avenue of opportunity to say, like, there is money to be made outside of our backyard.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And we don't need to go see this asset. Right. We can make a phone call and acquire.

Steve: So the ideal was to wholesale to the hedge funds. But if it didn't fit their box, then the second step is to novate the deal.

Adam: Correct. So we don't have a buyer's list, right, out of thin air going in these markets. We're betting on the funds. Yeah. And we're betting on our abilities to get the deals that they need at the price points that are acquirable.

So if we can't, it's like, okay. How do we still make money off of this this product?

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Well, there's the MLS. We had started doing ovation in 2020 when Brewer ran out came out with, Brewer Method. We signed up for it. Even though we're doing ovation, we learned a lot from that course.

Steve: Right. And it

Adam: was, alright. If we can get one or two things, then it's worth it. We've got far more from it. The network, the community. Mhmm.

So we were able to apply all the things we're learning to become better now virtually in these other states.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: So you see the amount of opportunity there. It's like, okay. This is an eyeball moment. It we can go and make money virtually anywhere.

Steve: So that first deal that you guys did, Innovation, what were the challenges you faced on that one?

Adam: I recall, it was a guy that we'd called on a Friday. I remember being in the office. He was contracted on a Saturday. I think it was just a matter of explaining to him this this deal in Arkansas, explaining to him the process of having agents come through the home. And most of our deals we've ever had hair on, it just comes down to transparency.

One, setting the right expectation, but making sure they understand the expectation you're setting

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: The same way you're explaining it to them, they have to interpret that.

Steve: Right. And

Adam: you have to be able to funnel that in your brain to filter out, like, is this person actually understanding what I just conveyed to them? That is always a challenge.

Steve: Yeah. How did you guys overcome that challenge?

Adam: Getting really good at training and practicing and making sure the reps were on on your calls twice a week. Yeah. We're we've been in your training community now since 2020 when you first rolled out with it. Mhmm. We've consistently been in it.

And I always tell our newer reps, like, do you wanna be great? Get on here and train. So we would incorporate your training with brewer training, but also our own in house proprietary training.

Steve: Right.

Adam: And then getting the feedback and the objections and rebuttals that we faced with sellers to making sure that, alright. Let's use this in Wednesday morning's training, Thursday morning's training. Like, for our reps to get better, they need to write down where they're facing difficulty.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And that's the answer. Right? If we're facing a challenge

Steve: It's really simple. At at at its core, that's the best way to get better is, hey, reps. Every time you have a problem, write it down Right. So we can fix it. Correct.

Adam: Help me help you.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, it's it's so mind numbingly simple, but it feels like no one wants to do that.

Adam: Yeah. Laziness. Yeah. I tell our reps laziness is a disease. It's a disease.

Yeah. Get comfortable in here with challenge. If you don't embrace this, you will not be here to embrace anything.

Steve: Most business owners waste their time and money on solutions that never fix the root problems. They'll address all the symptoms due to slow revenue. And because they're only fixing the consequences, the real problem stays hidden and the cycle of wasting time and money continues. It's like having a lingering headache that won't go away despite trying every over the counter medicine. When reality, should have just gone to the doctor and had them figure out exactly what was causing the headache.

And that's what's so difficult about business. You can see and feel the symptoms and yet struggle to find it. Now imagine you can find a prescription that doesn't just mask the symptoms but actually addresses the root cause. Where would your business be if you address that right now? That's what our sales event is about.

Your marketing doesn't suck. Your leads aren't bad, and your operations aren't terrible. It's that you haven't addressed what actually makes you money in wholesale, which is the conversations you have with homeowners. It's critical that you build trust with sellers, demonstrate that you fully understand their situation, know exactly what's keeping them up at night, and paint the ideal outcome that leads them to a better future by working with you. That's what it takes to get signed contracts and keep your business going.

Simply put, at our event, you'll walk away with a framework, phrases, questions, documents, and process to close more sales and buy more houses. Join the hundreds of others who've come to our live event and dramatically grown their business. Our event is happening soon and is available for you to join only if you're willing to take the pill. Yeah. Something you and I have talked about is, the need for bite in the reps.

Can you talk about

Adam: that? Yeah. Absolutely. So I'll be straightforward. You you gotta be, like, you gotta be a junkyard dog.

You gotta be hungry. You don't get, like, a rottweiler or a Doberman. You can feed that dog all day long. You'll keep eating.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: That is the type of hunger you need. There has to be a bigger I want to make money. I need to make money. Mhmm. You need to make money to come in here and be successful.

And we've had, I mean, we've had a pretty good amount of attrition in our office. Yeah. The turnover in our industry is naturally high.

Steve: Yeah. Very high.

Adam: Whether it's from partnership operations, we've seen whether it's in CG, outside of CG, it's a very, very difficult business to be in. And then having reps come in here to stick around, not go off in six to eight months on their own, or have success in here and actually make money, and then getting them to stick around, we've realized by looking back, right, connecting the dots, looking back is what Steve Jobs would say Mhmm. Is where did we drop the ball and where did we have success? And we've always been able to tie that back to athletes. Bob's a Bob's a hockey player.

I'm a hockey player. We have four more former college slash professional hockey players on our floor. Those are the guys that have made it. Yeah. I mean, we are a little biased towards the hockey players.

Steve: I'm hearing that.

Adam: Our director of operations played college soccer. Our follow-up specialist played college soccer.

Steve: Mhmm. I

Adam: think everybody on our floor except one individual, between acquisition and disposition Mhmm. Played sports, and he was in he was in the marines.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: So when you find those right people that have the ability, whether it's contact sports, military for discipline, like, those are the folks that we've seen the patterns of success. They can handle adversity and and achieve success.

Steve: Yeah. I think that's, for us, one of the things we're looking for is if you play if you play college sports.

Adam: Yeah. Or you

Steve: play sports in college, then there's two things that we know for sure. A, you're competitive. Right? And, b, you're willing to sacrifice. You're willing to, have some delay gratification.

Right? Willing to not party as hard, willing to perhaps eat better, drink more water, whatever. Things that you don't want to do for a specific outcome. So, yeah, we we definitely love that. As a matter of fact, one of the things that, we we started doing I learned this from Leon, alright, our friend Leon Barnes at CG, is that he loves people that work at enterprise.

Because enterprise spends a lot of effort and resources in recruiting college athletes, to to to work over there. So let's talk about that real quick. Right? What else are you seeing as far as the the sports component? I mean, I'm thinking hockey.

I'm thinking fighters. I'm thinking guys are are are always ready to go to blows. Blow go to blows. Is that accurate, or am I am I crazy?

Adam: I think you're part of you is accurate. Yeah. Even the guys that are a little bit on the timid or more reserved side side as hockey players in our office, these guys are still ready to get into battle and and take it head on. It's just being able to it's being resilient. Yeah.

Our recruiter who also played he was a MLB draft pick. He played triple a baseball. We've we've trained him on how to go after professional athletes

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: Hockey players. Right? Recruiting off of different platforms to contacting individuals, whether it's players, coaches. We're putting a focus on building that that a team. It's almost a club.

Like, do you wanna be in here? Like, this is a club. This is not a, hey. Come in here, dip your toe in the water, and maybe it works out. Like, we have it written on our wall, whatever it whatever it takes.

There's one other word in there that's inappropriate, but that's what's on our wall. And if that mentality is not embraced and exacerbated, then you're in the wrong place. Like, you need to be in constant real estate to be successful. Yeah. Nine to five, great.

Not for you. Right. Good luck having any type of traction and momentum. And we let our guys know, like, you're gonna work on the weekends. Mhmm.

You're gonna call. When you're out with your girlfriend at 07:00, great. That text message came in on that 38 k deal.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: You're taking it. You're gonna actually go call the guy. Oh, you don't wanna do it? This isn't for you.

Steve: Right.

Adam: And and it really, Steve, a lot of people, it's not for them.

Steve: It is not for most people. So there's a, I got to watch this, interview. It was with, it was Tom Bilyeu, and it was on Impact there. I can't remember the name of the guy, but he's a CIA agent. Have you watched this interview?

Adam: I have not.

Steve: Alright. So, basically, he talks about the CIA actively recruits people that are traumatized. Right? And, and Phil Green and I have talked about this. You know?

Salespeople were generally were broken in some capacity. Right? Or damaged goods. So what he talks about is is always important whether what CIA is looking for is someone that had a traumatic upbringing because it's always child issues. Right?

Someone that had a traumatic upbringing, but not so traumatic that they're dependent on external, you know, drugs or medications, whatever. Right? So, like, you're damaged goods, but you fought through it. You figured it out. And if that's the case, then you qualify for the CIA.

Right? Because it will throw you out there, and, you know, there's you're you're gonna be at high alert at all times. Your head's on a swivel, but you have to figure it out. If you wanna make it home, kinda look at sales as the same way. Right?

We wanna recruit people that have that hunger because they've got a chip on their shoulder because they got something to prove. Right? Whatever it is, they've got that hunger that 95% of our, fellow Americans do not have.

Adam: Yeah. I'm a big believer in, your your problems or your greatest power. Right? Yeah. Problems create profit.

We've heard that before. But your your inner struggles are your successes if you exploit them. Grant Cardone's talked about it. Mhmm.

Steve: You

Adam: know, if we can go through some kind of pain in life and and leverage that, then you you have a massive advantage. I don't believe at all that kid who comes from a a silver platter and a handout and tons of money will ever be successful. They don't know what it's like to have to work for it. You could be on that winning team like the Bruins last year, one of the playoffs. Number one, I think they lost, what is it, eleven, twelve games all season.

They were ousted first round by Florida. Mhmm. Right. They didn't know how to handle adversity when it hit him in the face at the wrong time.

Steve: Right.

Adam: The battle tested warrior that can survive the trenches and seen all types of outcomes is the person that's ready, and they're always gonna win. So that person that's experienced, whether it's and I say this too. We've had drug addicts in our office. We've had, misfits, students that were failures, people that have had broken homes. Like, those are the people that if we can make sure they're qualified culture fit

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And they can come in here and leverage what they went through, they'll be successful.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: And that person, and time and time again, proves the narrative.

Steve: Yeah. No. I I I totally, totally believe that. And for us, we don't have as many former college athletes, but we do have our actual fighters. Right?

Guys that study martial arts. Nice. Right? Competitive martial arts. So, you know, don't have to worry about whether they could protect themselves or handle themselves, you know, at an appointment.

So, you talk about talent of buying over the phone. Talk to me about, you know, what you guys have done as far as having sales talent or buying over the phone.

Adam: Practice ten thousand hours. We hear it all the time. You ever see the read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. What makes the Beatles successful? What makes Jordan successful?

What makes Steve Jobs successful? It's ten thousand hours of that craft in in that one thing. Yeah. So how do we get good on the phone? One, constant training.

Right? We had our in house training that's proprietary. We've built out Bob and myself through Kajabi. Then we have brewer method. Then we have your training that we're on.

Mhmm. We have several other trainings we're a part of. Wartime, we've we're now a part of that group. So I believe that we can make connections to everything to utilize for our arsenal. It all comes to training.

Steve: Right.

Adam: Right? You're either getting better or you're getting worse every day.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Right? Are you shooting 300 free throws a day? Are you Larry Bird? Are you the kid that's like, I'll just shoot at practice? Hey.

We're we're gonna crush you. Our guys are on the phone every day, and I tell them, you're gonna get better. You're gonna you're gonna love this. This is gonna be stimulating. It's gonna be like a drug

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Once you get to that level of success.

Steve: Right.

Adam: But to getting to that point, we had to fail. Like, you have to try to lock up this contract over the phone and now sell it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And only way you do that is by failing and then learning from that. Right? Writing our failings down, but running daily training. So I'll run trainings. One of our team leads also runs several trainings a week, and then we're on calls with you.

Steve: Right.

Adam: So all of that is integrated into us day in and day out. And then it's only good if we use it, so it has to be applied. If it's applicable, we'll get some results out. Right? And over time, it slowly compounds.

You make 200 calls in a day, and you people say sales is a numbers game. Yes or no. Make 200 calls in a day. You may not be the best rep, but you have way more at bats than the guy making 40. Right.

And the guy making 40 might be a seven. Your vet will probably beat you. But for you to get to that level, it's just put in those man hours.

Steve: You can put in the work.

Adam: Put in

Steve: the reps. So doing this virtually, what are the greatest challenges for you doing this virtually versus doing it in your backyard?

Adam: The challenges are you you will lose out on some face to face appointments. You're gonna have some folks that are gonna ask you questions outside of your state. You know, where are you guys located? Mhmm. And there has to be the right frame and answer for that.

We have to make sure we're answering that question that's one that's appealing to them, but it's creating trust. But it's also also, most importantly, it's it's validated. Can I look this up and see that what you're telling me over the phone is actually truthful? So we're big on that. And if we can make that connection and align that with everything, then it creates that ability to have the rapport for them to make a decision to work with us.

But you're gonna run into challenges of losing deals to other investors.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: There's gonna be times where someone just doesn't believe you altogether. They just they don't think this is legitimate. You called me. I don't think this is real. I looked this up.

I don't know how I feel about it. I want you to come out to the property. We'll encourage folks to come to us to save us time now so we don't go look at homes. Like, well, don't you need to take a look at the home? We'll go through our process and how we're,

Steve: you know, a

Adam: tech based home buyer, and we have the ability through our our data and analytics to buy the home without having to come out to immediately see it and then going through that process after about the innovation of having accessibility to the home. Mhmm. But we will encourage us that you're welcome to come to our office anytime, and we'll run appointments with sellers. Now you've seen our office, you've seen us face to face, and you've seen the home in which we operate in. Mhmm.

So the legitimacy is all there. And if you'd like to speak with anybody at the company, you have that ability.

Steve: You're inviting them to fly into your home into your hometown? If

Adam: they wanna fly in, you can get on a plane tomorrow. But we'll have them drive in from Connecticut, the people that have skepticism. If they're in these other states, Florida, Georgia, I'll encourage them. I'll get on a Zoom call with you. Like, what do you wanna do?

Whatever you What,

Steve: what states are you guys in right now?

Adam: We are currently in Massachusetts. We're in Connecticut. We're in Pennsylvania. We're in Florida. We've slowed up immensely in Arkansas and Georgia.

Mhmm. We're kinda pulling out. We're looking to get more dialed in. So as the months transpire, we're going to predominantly be in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and parts of Florida.

Steve: Gotcha. Why Florida?

Adam: It's a good state. There's a lot of demand down there. Yeah. A lot of demand.

Steve: It's, in Florida, it's turning into, like, the new, like, Ohio where, like, everyone there is successful. Right? It's just like, no one's having a hard time in Florida. It seems like everyone I talked to in Florida is, like, loving life.

Adam: If you look at the dynamics to where's the amount of migration going, you know, people are moving to those affordable Panhandle towns. People are moving to those high end luxury markets. If you can find a great deal, it's going to trade. Yeah. I mean, I've moved my brokerage down to six different states for this purpose.

And Florida is one that we're actively Mhmm. Doing the reciprocity work, and I'll have to sit for the state exam. But if you're gonna go all in on it, then, yeah, you need to go see where you're getting results and, you know, how do we improve. But I think Florida is always gonna be a market where there's gonna be demand regardless of, good economics or bad economics. People wanna go live in that sunshine state.

And then the other two states, one being Connecticut Mhmm. It's a challenging attorney state with a lot of upside if you get a good deal. Mhmm. And Pennsylvania is just it's been a consistent market for us. So

Steve: so you you said you're gonna you're a brokerage in six different states?

Adam: Correct.

Steve: Why do you have a brokerage in six different states?

Adam: We reciprocated to these markets to leverage for doing novations.

Steve: Mhmm. Okay. So so that you can do novations.

Adam: Correct.

Steve: Why not join a nationwide brokerage?

Adam: Good question. Never looked into it. Never thought about it. And there's rules and regulations. We also like the ability that if a deal doesn't go as a novation, you know, we'll shift to a listing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: We've done that in several different states several different times. And, you know, we don't have to go split that with the brokerage. We don't have to abide by their rules or their their marketing requirements. Like, we do things on our own. So it's been good.

Steve: Yeah. I'm just curious, because we we moved everything over the real, and we weren't even in multiple states. I was just over the headaches of, of compliance.

Adam: Might be something to look into.

Steve: Yeah. Now you guys are we we're talking about the Northeast. The Northeast, they love their attorneys. They they love using attorneys. So talk to me about the challenges with doing deals in attorney states.

Because now that you've been in multiple states, you've been in title states, what are the biggest differences?

Adam: It's day and night. We we when I hear people complaining about tough markets that are in title, I laugh. It gets comical. Mhmm. You can come to my market anytime.

And I'm not talking about, oh, we're in a attorney state. I look at Georgia. It's like, it's really a title state. Right? The attorney owns a title company.

The title company is handling the predominance of the closing. Mhmm. The attorney is one attorney on the deal. He's more of a facilitator.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: In Connecticut, there's representation. Right? So you have an attorney that is is going to kill your deal. Like, they're gonna take your agreement. If it's a board agreement, they are going to write their terms in it.

You know, get redlined back to our attorney, then they'll redline it, or we'll get on the phone. I mean, we've pitbulled attorneys several times.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: We're doing one right now actually in New York where, we had to go direct at the attorney and just tell him how this worked because our attorney wasn't really getting through to it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: So you almost gotta get him into being in a comfortable state of, like, this is what we're doing. This is how this works. Mhmm. The seller's on board. Your client, right, your client wants to do this.

Mhmm. Are you going to dictate or facilitate the transaction? So, I mean, you deal with a lot of the nightmares too. We've been detached from it. I always tell our our reps, be detached from the outcome.

Mhmm. And go into that call when they ring up, oh, I want my attorney to reveal. Have fun with it, banter. Great. Will your attorney determine what you eat for dinner tonight?

Do you check with your attorney on if you should put 87 or 93 gasoline in your vehicle?

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Do you call your attorney and ask them what flight you should take on vacation? So why are you calling them about selling your home? Mhmm.

Steve: Then it's

Adam: like, I gotta call my accountant. It's like, oh, are you gonna call your dentist too? Have fun with it. If we could banter with them and show them that we're detached from the outcome and and almost humanize the situation, like, downplay it. Right.

We can get rapport built simultaneously

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And then synergize that with the attorney. No. So we'll take some approaches. We'll reach out to the attorneys, and we'll have that conversation about what it is we're doing Mhmm. To make sure that before that doc gets there and they try to crush it, they already know what's going on.

Steve: Right.

Adam: But, I mean, there's there's really no way around it. We've brainstormed countless hours on how to overcome the attorney struggles, and Mhmm. Unfortunately, it's just it's just the nature of selling homes in the Northeast.

Steve: Are there real estate attorney associations?

Adam: I'm not sure. I'm sure there's some type of organization or groups. I know our attorneys that we work with, they've told us they have meetups. So

Steve: Maybe we should start one.

Adam: Yeah. Right? The attorney mastermind.

Steve: Well, it's just a real estate attorney's certification. Yeah. Right? And then we can all put the friendly ones.

Adam: Exactly.

Steve: Alright. It's like, oh, yeah. Make sure your attorney is part of the realtor real estate attorney association for you.

Adam: What what's the sign up fee for that? Yearly, it's, like, $9.97. Just making $20. Start it start it Whatever

Steve: it is. Right? So then we can dictate the the attorneys that are looking at it.

Adam: Sounds like a great business model.

Steve: So that me, you, Billy, when we when we hang out at CGU next week, let's definitely brainstorm that.

Adam: Sounds like a plan.

Steve: So, there's another hockey player, RJ Bates, you ever you ever talked to him?

Adam: I have not. I know Bob's been on his podcast.

Steve: Yeah. So, he and I, we were we were bantering about something, and he was really bitter about this deal he was doing in New York because there were three attorneys involved. Right? So do you guys close on everything, or do you guys wholesale? So this is a scenario.

In this deal, there was an attorney for the homeowner. There was an attorney for the buyer, and neither attorneys would work with him. So he had to have the attorney for the for to represent him in the assignment. There were three attorneys involved on this transaction. Is that something that happens?

Adam: I didn't mention that, but, yeah, that's that's par That's par for every deal because we have our attorney, the seller has an attorney, and the buyer has an attorney.

Steve: There's three attorneys. There's not even two attorneys in every deal. There's three attorneys.

Adam: Correct. Our attorney that's collecting our fee represents us

Steve: Right.

Adam: Referring to the buyer and sellers. The buyer's gonna have an attorney. Mhmm.

Steve: The

Adam: seller's gonna have an attorney. We're gonna have an attorney. There are a few attorneys where they'll play they'll claim facilitator where they only just really represent our fee. They don't represent us. Mhmm.

And then we'll also get that attorney to represent the seller, but there's, like, a handful of guys that'll do it. Mhmm. What we do to overcome it is we'll tell the seller, hey. Listen. If you use someone from our preferred attorney network, we're gonna cover that fee at close, which is anywhere from $8.50 to, you know, $111,200 dollars.

So in their mind, like, oh, I'll use your attorney, and we'll refer them another attorney we consistently work with.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: So they don't represent us. It's just a referral. Right. And that attorney usually will understand the navigation of transaction.

Steve: Mhmm. We'll

Adam: have our attorney, so it's smoother. Right? There's not as much red tape coming up.

Steve: Or there's not as much, chest, pounding.

Adam: Oh, it's such an ego game because attorneys love themselves.

Steve: Right. So okay. So three attorneys is normal. Yes. How much complexity how much more challenging is it than just buying it yourself and then selling it?

Adam: Well, if you're gonna buy it yourself, you're still gonna deal with the seller's attorney if it's not one of your preferred attorneys, and they're gonna mark that agreement up.

Steve: Are the buyer attorneys easier to work with? Like, is it or is it they're difficult as well?

Adam: They're all the same. They're all the same. It's all attorney driven. So one attorney, maybe repping a buyer, and then you've had them before as a a selling attorney. It's it's the attorneys that understand the investment landscape versus the ones that are retail attorneys and have never seen an assignment or an ovation, and they're sitting there looking at it like it's a it's a whole another language.

And it's like, you gotta try to educate them, and then your attorney talks to them and does it on a professional level. And I've seen it where my reps just jump right into the email chain and go right at them.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: They don't like it, but they sure as they sure know what's going on after that email.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, I think that as as pain as much of a pain in the butt as attorneys are, I do envy you guys because you guys don't have as many iBuyers stepping into it because no one wants to deal with those attorneys. So you got a little bit of something to keep those guys out. So we mentioned, Collective Genius a couple of times here. So how long you guys been a member of Collective Genius?

Adam: I've been in CG four years. And Bob's been in there, I think, twelve.

Steve: Yeah. So why do you keep going back?

Adam: It's the best mastermind in the industry. Anyone can say that the amount of knowledge and golden nuggets that we've gotten from that group over the years. Every meeting that we go to or event, we come home with value. Right. If I look inside of our business today at at Pertruck on how many vendors that we're using inside of CG, I can almost count on both hands.

Mhmm. Might might be more than 10.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: Whether it's data, analytics, disposition technology, acquisitions training, operations. I'm you got I can go off top of your head. Yeah. CRMs. CRMs.

Yeah. You got Sharper. You have there's Stephanie Betters. You have eighty twenty. You have Audantic.

We have you guys over in sales training of Brewer. And then you have the relationships that you can go and and reach out to. I mean, I've flown to several offices and been able to see operations that are doing stuff that we desire to get to and being able to have that person or individual open up. I mean, for example, last January, we got to fly and see the the late Oliver's office, which, god, you know, god rest his soul, is a a great individual. I think he's a pioneer in our industry, and being able to see what what he had accomplished was just I'd never seen anything like it.

And when you get to go see that, and that person's such a giver, like, that's what makes that group so special. Yeah. Seeing guys like Jason and Leon, they're so bought in.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: You don't have that anywhere else.

Steve: Yeah. They genuinely care Yeah. About all their members. So you mentioned the hedge funds. About June 22, it seems like hedge fund just came to a complete stop.

Right? How did that affect your business?

Adam: Didn't affect us at all. I'll tell you why. Collective genius. Mhmm. Being a part of the group, we hear and see things that are going on before it becomes a challenge.

Right. The best presentation ever till still to this day for me was when Frank and Eric went on stage in 2022 and talked about eyeballs and why every deal that you get should go on the MLS. Mhmm. Again, we're doing novations. We were also selling the funds.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: I watched that. I sat in there, and I was I almost got two and a half pages of notes. Mhmm. Went back home from the event. I see we were never selling to another fund again.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: We're done.

Steve: So you pivoted beforehand?

Adam: Correct. We were done. This is when he Frank talked about Barbie on on on the commercials. Like, when you start to see Barbie, like, the music is coming to an end. And it was such a well sought out presentation because Eric's hitting on great points.

Frank's talking about why you should be getting your deals on the market and the, potential pitfalls working with funds. Rates are getting ready to go up. We had already noticed it. I mean, we'd saw it in 2021. We started doing more deals with funds.

The goal post would move because they're counting our money.

Steve: Right.

Adam: Wait a minute. This is this is a a timed model. This is gonna be done. It's a dead end road. Yeah.

So one package said every deal is going to the market. And we did. We we finished up what deals we had in escrow with our funds and closed.

Steve: Yeah. But

Adam: we did not continue to sell inventory. Every avenue was to go to the market. And I'll tell you what, we had our best to this or as a business, we had our best year by a landslide.

Steve: Yeah. I remember that presentation. You're right. It was it was a it was a really, really good, presentation, and I do remember the Barbie ad for the Super Bowl that he played during the presentation. And then you mentioned IMN.

Are you still going IMN?

Adam: Yeah. We went last year. Mhmm. It wasn't very good. I'll be honest.

Just a lot of the funds are starting to be quiet. You're not really getting the amount of insight and knowledge, and they're keeping their cards close to their chest. We're gonna go again this year. Obviously, curious to see what the funds are doing, but, again, they go down with their own narrative.

Steve: Are you on East Coast or West Coast?

Adam: East Coast.

Steve: East Coast. Miami. Gotcha. Yeah. Because I'm working my way in.

I'm gonna be try trying to be, like, one of the guys that I am in, so we'll see where that goes.

Adam: Nice.

Steve: Right? It's different when you pay to be there versus being on stage.

Adam: Yeah.

Steve: Right? So that's that's the angle I'm working on. We'll see where that goes. I'll keep you posted on that. And then I can give you what they're saying behind closed scenes if I make it that far.

Let's see what else was there. I wanna talk about some more about, the grinding through tough times. I know we talked about the the perseverance and this and that, but I wanna say probably because, you know, with you definitely, there's a lot of, like, cannot hold you down. Right? You are gonna persevere.

You're gonna power through. What are some of the major challenges you experienced in your journey, getting into real estate and in real estate?

Adam: Yeah. I'd I mean, I went through a real tough time, which, as you know, we run a podcast called Pucks to Properties. Bob and Tom run that in the office where we have hockey players come on that either played in college, junior, professionally, and then made the transition into real estate. And, we all talk about it, and it's very hard. At 21, when I was told, I'd never play hockey again with several concussions.

I mean, I finished up online because I couldn't go to school. I was waking up with excruciating headaches every day, migraines, forgetting where I was parking. I'm 21, and I went down a bad avenue. Right? I had started smoking weed all day every day.

I was drinking every day. Mhmm. I had spiraled. I mean, I my coordination I had ended up going, to see the same doctor that Sydney Crosby went to back in 2011, and I was fortunate enough to get in with that group, and get my life back. Right?

Learning a lot about how the brain works, what to do to heal your brain from a concussion. And I had went through just, again, a lot of depression. Like, I got to the point where, like, you know, I'm questioning a lot of things.

Steve: Like Is is this because hockey was your future?

Adam: It wasn't my it wasn't my future, but I loved it. I mean, if you look, there's a guy a lot of guys that don't play pro. Like, we just hired a guy who's 30 years old. He's been playing the last seven years making $250 a week. They don't do it for the money.

Mhmm. They love the game. Right. I loved the game. And when you lose your identity, you you need to figure out what that next thing is.

So I went through really bad time, and I believe that I've wrote articles on it before. Real estate's a sport. It's a team sport. You are not going to run far on your own. Right?

Run fast, run by yourself. Run far, run with a team. Right. The only reason we've had so much success and growth through good markets and bad markets is because of the people we have in our room. Right?

You talk about gritty people. When you have a team of those individuals, it's it's a very powerful force. So, again, going through bad times for me helped me get to where I am. I needed to find that new identity in my life. I needed to find that new stimulus that was gonna be a challenge, but allow me to strive for greatness

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And achieve the things that I want. Right? Financial freedom, freedom of time, and then, obviously, how do we build around that? How do we grow that team? So for us, it's it's finding out your identity.

You gotta go through bad times. You gotta really learn who you are, and I think you learn a lot about yourself not by good times. Mhmm. It's by going through struggles and trials and tribulations, things that are not so welcoming in your life, whether it's emotional, health, physical, relationships. Like, you need to endure that.

Embrace it.

Steve: What about real estate? What were the toughest times in real estate?

Adam: This past year, we went through, definitely a challenge. You know, we had scaled to about 42 people in the office, totally with our company, 28 in the office, and then was at another, twelve, thirteen with virtual assistants. So we had a pretty sizable organization. Our former COO and director of sales start a company while they're working here. And we had watched

Steve: A competing company? Correct. So Without you guys' blessing.

Adam: Correct. Start a company. We watched five reps, all of a sudden working for another company that happened to be theirs. So we had went through, a bit of a fall there

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Of rebuilding and and restructuring. But, it was the greatest thing we went through. Right? It created a lot of turmoil internally.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: We've been fortunate to keep on all the right key players in our office that were successful

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And grow from that on who do we wanna hire, why do we hire them, what to look out for. Before this, I was pretty bullish on giving anyone a chance. So, you know, hey. You wanna get on the phone and work full commission? Great.

Now I'm we'd say no to almost everybody. So going, that was tough.

Steve: That was a lesson I learned some time ago. And it was like, yeah. If you wanna work, you wanna get paid, you wanna make money, let's do it. And you realize that not everyone, either has will do what they say or has the right intentions. So the guy that decided to go off to do his own thing, what have you guys done since to make sure that doesn't happen again?

Adam: We do everything under the sun. Mhmm. But to first start out by telling you a background check

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: When you realize this person in a rap sheet the size of an arm span. And we had known people in our network that had also had, unfortunate dealings with this individual. Mhmm. Including one of our reps that went through something. But, you gotta do background checks.

Yeah. Do a background check. I don't care how good the person is or how great they sound. Do a background check. Know who you're bringing in your office.

Look into who they used to work for. Right? Use top grading techniques. You know, one of the things we'll do is, like, oh, where did you used to work? During an interview.

Oh, I worked at, x y z Chevrolet. Oh, great. I think I know. Who's the manager over there? Oh, it's Bill Withers.

Oh, great. Provide me Bill's number. I'd like to talk to him about you. Are you cool with doing that?

Steve: Right.

Adam: And we've had people say no, and the media immediately, you tell me no. I wanna know why.

Steve: Right.

Adam: I want you to be vulnerable. Mhmm. Who are your references? Where did you last work? Is this accurate?

Do you have pay stubs? Right? I wanna know that what you're telling me is the truth, and we're not letting people in. We've still to this day, like, we had one other person kinda fall through the cracks with us, and we got them out in two weeks. Right?

Hire fast, fire faster. But, yeah, I mean, you just need to do your due diligence and be really patient

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: To bring on those people when you say, hey. This is someone that we wanna bring on. Alright. Let's go through an actual process of vetting them

Steve: Mhmm. For

Adam: a week or two weeks before we actually accept the position.

Steve: What are you using now for background checks?

Adam: We use TransUnion. Mhmm.

Steve: Simple. Yeah. I didn't know they did background checks.

Adam: Yeah. It comes, well, my my admin does it. But I I see the logo, so it pops up. It's TransUnion. I don't I don't know the name of the other platform that they're using.

I mean, I would check with my recruiter and my admin on it, but I do know TransUnion comes up as one of the tools being used.

Steve: So one of the things that I like to do, and we were you just mentioned this earlier, was that I like to give people second chances. So where do you draw the line between background checks background checks and second chances?

Adam: It's it's just a conversation. It's intuitive. Right? Talking over with your leadership team. Yeah.

Oh, we'll do that. If someone's got a bad background or maybe they're a criminal or they had something in their past, you can learn from it. Yeah. It's just you have to have that conversation with them and see what they say, and then you make a decision.

Steve: Yeah. Because and the reason I'm asking this question is that there was a time, probably ten years ago now, where I looked around. I was like, who are my best? Who are my best people? It wasn't that college athletes.

That was not the answer. All my best people were drug dealers in high school and college. Right? These were the guys you went to if you needed something. Now mostly marijuana.

Some did other stuff, but it's mostly marijuana. But, you know, you kinda see it like, well, they're pretty good at letting people know what they do. Somewhat extroverted, have an understanding of sales, have an understanding of finances, have an understanding of conflict resolution. Right? Collections.

They have all these skill sets. They're not afraid to pick up the phone and deal with the challenge. So this is this is that that that that same line. Right? You're talking earlier about healing the brain.

I'm fascinated by this. I love human psychology. I love grit and all this stuff. What do you do to heal the brain?

Adam: So I went to a practitioner, and they do functional neurology. So it's eye movements. They say eyes are your puppet to your brain. Right? So being able to look when your eyes may be jerking or they're moving slow one way and fast in another.

They'll use a lot of technology. You know, there's there's eye goggles watching the patterns of the brain, and then they'll do different types of head exercise with movements of ocular tracking, looking at I mean, it's dots, targeting. So I did that. I went through all this because I'm a big believer of naturopath. Right?

I'm not a fan of putting any type of pharmaceutical in my body or something that's not natural. It's there's gotta be a natural way to healing. And then doing my research on like, if Sydney Crosby and Peyton Manning went to this practice, alright, there's there's value here.

Steve: Qualified.

Adam: Correct. So, I mean, a lot of this stuff is much higher grade than my level of intelligence to articulate and speak on it. But being able to go there and go through the different types of, you know, body movements, and it's something I can can show you offline. But Mhmm. Going through all of this has not only improved my brain, but I think has improved my life.

Right? Where I was prior, what I went through, and how I feel now

Steve: Mhmm. I

Adam: don't think I'd be there at all if I went to our regular doctor. And we look at anybody today. There's you have Colin, Cole Taylor in our group. Right? He's a he's a he's a trainer, he's a nutritionist.

You have these people in there to get you better. Like, we don't have your general doctors or practitioners. Alright. Yeah. Like, let me take your blood pressure and get on the scale and yeah.

You're fine. You're you're fine. Take a couple pills and all it's it doesn't work.

Steve: And then give you some cholesterol medication.

Adam: It doesn't work. Right? Imagine taking a pill for real estate. Like, there's a side effect to that.

Steve: Yeah. There definitely will be a side effect to that. Alright. So going back then to the title, I know we we kinda touched on this already a little bit, but explicitly, someone's listening. Alright.

I'm ready to start scaling nationwide virtually doing novations. It's a bold goal. Alright. So what are the first three to five things? If someone wanted to go nationwide innovations?

What are the first few steps they should take?

Adam: Commit to it. Take a market where you can have success Yeah. And have the tools, whether it's a real estate agent Mhmm. To list your deals, a a buyer pool of individuals you could sell those deals to if they don't if they fall apart, a good title company. I mean, those are really important, but I would say go into a title state, test it out first, don't hold an attorney state.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: I I've I've had people reach out to me like, oh, I'm looking to go into Connecticut. Like, alright. Great. I'll give you all the return attorney connections you need. Like, you're just not equipped for this.

You're telling me that you wanna sign up and be a Navy Seal today. Like, okay. Good luck.

Steve: Right.

Adam: But I would recommend people find a state where there's, an ease of struggle, and you can have that opportunity to chew onto a deal and have success. Right? If you're doing that in your own state where you do novations, you have a licensed brokerage, great. You're ahead of game. Use the brokerage of that relationship and just start practicing in your market.

But you're gonna need to be hardened because you're gonna get a lot of no's on the phone. Right. Until you become a better rep. And until then, like, just get really good at being uncomfortable.

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Finding a real estate agent. What do you like to use to find real estate agents?

Adam: We use Zillow. Right? Agent finder. Type in the city that you need an agent and start looking at how many steals did they sell last year.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: We won't work with an agent that does 30 plus deals a year. They're obviously running a good business. Mhmm. You could find the agent that's doing somewhere between a sweet spot, like, eight to 28 to 22.

Steve: Someone's on the way up.

Adam: Yeah. They'll take you on in a heartbeat. Right. You know, and especially they gotta work. Right?

Again, you you talk to people like you are. I work hard. I'm committed. I'm motivated. K.

Great. You know, we'll find out in a week if you answer your phone on Saturday and Sunday.

Steve: Right.

Adam: See if you're getting us these offers. We'll see if you're going the extra mile. We've had good agents. We've had our right agents, and we've had some agents that just are not good.

Steve: Yeah. But there are quality realtors out there.

Adam: Yeah. You're gonna have to look for them.

Steve: What would you do to find a good title company?

Adam: Look in your network. Right? If you have relationships, go to your network.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Google. Right? Google title companies in whatever. So let's say you're looking to go do business, South Carolina. Google title title, investment friendly companies or title companies, investment friendly, South Carolina, and pick up the phone and call them.

Like, ask them if they do Novations. Ask them if they're familiar with it. Ask them if they regularly see it. Like, don't just go, oh, hey. You know, my my buddy's cousin's friend who got into wholesale, like, two and a half years ago says there's this company you can use.

I saw them bigger pockets. Like, do the work. Pick up the phone.

Steve: Yeah. Call

Adam: the title company. Have a conversation.

Steve: Screen them. Correct. Yeah. And then Novations. We're talking about Brewer Method.

Adam: Yeah.

Steve: Right. So brewmethod.com. There's a lot of it's funny. You know? Prior to 2020, there weren't no there weren't any innovation gurus.

There were none. Yeah. AirBrewer comes out with this thing in 2020. I wanna say 2020. And then right after, there were, like, four other, like, innovation gurus that somehow have all this experience that we never heard of.

Adam: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. It's fascinating how that goes.

Adam: I think one of them is now doing something totally different than what they had perceived to present themselves as experts, but Yeah. That's the business. Right? Brewer is still crushing it because he's he's real.

Steve: He's real. He actually is doing it, and not only is he doing it, he's doing high not only is he doing a high volume of them, but he's also teaching how to do high volume of them, which is, you know, one of the great blessings I've had, you know, I was gonna say, potentially number four is, you know, being able to work with you guys, with you and Bob. I I still remember, right, because it was 2020. I wanna say April and May 2020 where we launched the the sales training for CGE members. And, like, you were on the calls.

Bob was on the call. And, like, I had my sales training that I had already been teaching for some time with non CG members. Having you guys and your team come on and give me tough objections that I'm not hearing. Right? Because I'm what I'm hearing is in Phoenix.

And I'm not saying Phoenix is easy, but what I'm hearing is just limited to Phoenix. You guys come in with your attorney challenges. Right? Your Northeast attitude challenges really helped me create a better better sales training platform, so I really appreciate that. And see, so we talked about the real find a realtor, title company, make sure you you you hook up with with Brewer.

And then everything else we talked about with getting quality salespeople, we talked about with college athletes and so on. How long you had a recruiter?

Adam: We hired our first recruiter in March 2023. Mhmm. Actually, we hired one in January. He's a buddy of mine that I grew up playing hockey with. I thought he'd be great at the role.

He had also worked for an AHL hockey team part time. A month into it, he's like, Adam, just gonna be honest. It's not for me. Mhmm.

Steve: I think

Adam: you run a great organization. You got something awesome going on here, but this ain't for me. I was like, love you to death, dude. Appreciate your transparency. Mhmm.

Let me know I can help you, and he was out. Found a found a second rep who actually he was a a former Google recruiter.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: So he got laid off. Came in from our friends over at Sharper.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: This is through our a quarterly review. They just said, hey. We have a recruiter that is looking for a home. I'll send them your way.

Steve: Yeah. So What are you paying that guy?

Adam: We were paying him a salary of 60,000, and then we were paying 2 k a place.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: And then we brought on, a second recruiter back in August Mhmm. Of 2023. So we had two recruiters at the time. Right? This is, like, after seeing the operation of Propertyforce was running on our visit, we're like, oh, we could take this thing to the moon.

We have the marketing. We've been we had scaled and did it the wrong way. It's like Jason shows that photo of that house at the beginning of CG. Mhmm. Right?

You know, our home got swiped away. Yeah. But it was good. So we had ended up letting go other one who had we'd first hired on. Our recruiter now is still with us.

He's a, you know, former professional baseball player. Mhmm. And he just you know, he does a great job. It's been a it's been a game changer having an internal recruiter.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: And and we had actually used Darren Carter on that individual. So, obviously, kudos to Darren and his team for making that happen.

Steve: Yeah. That's phenomenal. So what what is your why? Why do you do what you do?

Adam: Freedom. And I had said this when I had sat with Bob when he asked me this question back in 2016, you know, interviewing me to Riva, why are you doing this? And I said, I wanna have the financial ability and the time ability to do whatever I need to do if something ever ever comes up, whether it's health, whether it's my family. If I need to go fly somewhere to go take care of myself in a pinch, I can do it. Mhmm.

And I talk about my experience with concussions, and that really was it. Going through a real bad time with your health, money doesn't matter. Don't care about a cool car. Don't care about your big house. You only care about getting your health back.

Right. That's all that matters. Money money is not gonna do it at that point. Right? If you're in a bad place, how how do you get out of it?

You need money, obviously, to go invest in those high quality top practitioners

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: But you need time. Right. And if you don't have the two, because you have this great corporate job that pays you half 1,000,000 a year, but you don't have the time to go do anything with it Mhmm. What good is it? So that's my why.

And, obviously, like, you know, I I look at money as like a scoreboard. Right? It's it's a game at the end. It's a sport. You know, you're either getting better or worse.

And how do we quantify that when we look at our our profit, our revenue every year? What do we do to get better?

Steve: I'm

Adam: a pretty simplistic guy, but at the end of the day, my why is just I don't know what I would do if I didn't do this. I'd have to find something to, like, con just keep me focused. Right? It's like you stop working, you start dying. I love it.

Steve: Yeah. Me too. I have that same thing. I think it's an affliction, but I have the same exact thing. The concussions, you know, is you had a significant number.

I'm just thinking in hockey. How do you get concussions? I know you guys will hit each other at really high speeds. But you guys also have a lot of gear. So, like, how does you know, just kinda talk me through, like, how do you guys get concussions?

Adam: Yeah. So whether if it's you're fighting and you hit your head or somebody hits your head in a in a punch to blow to the head. Mhmm. A lot of mine came from hits. I actually have one on video.

I'm I'm breaking out of the zone, and the d man gives me a breakout pass. Mhmm. I'm skating up the center of the ice, and I'm looking back to catch the puck. And this d man is crossing over reading the play, a textbook. You read it perfectly.

He's six two. I'm five seven. Lines me up, cracks me in open ice. My gloves and stick go up. I smoke my head back.

You're going one way, and they hit you.

Steve: It's like a car.

Adam: Your head goes forward, so your brain inside your skull jolts forward.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And then it goes back, right, as you're going down. But then when it hits the ground, again, it jolts forward and back. So inside of your your head, right, you have your brain. It's getting sloshed all around your skull. Your skull is not protective

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: Of that. Right? You're going to have some kind of injury. And even though you have a plastic helmet on to protect your skull, it doesn't protect your brain.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: And that repetitiveness is where you start to have that trauma.

Steve: That was a clean shot?

Adam: They threw him out of the game.

Steve: They threw him

Adam: out of the game. Yeah. I mean, it was a charging penalty. But if you were to ask me if I thought it was a clean hit, I would tell you yes. Yeah.

He lined me up perfectly.

Steve: Like like, within the rules of the game, it was legal, but it was unnecessary.

Adam: It was no. It was a head on hit, but, I mean, he had taken way way more than three steps. I mean, he lined me up. He'd read the play perfectly since it was a it was a clear as day charging penalty. Right.

But in terms of, like, hitting me head on, yeah, I just I had my head down, and, fortunately, it happens in hockey. Mhmm. Catching a pass from behind and it's kinda I was given a buddy pass, actually. Like, my d man set me up pretty good for it, but it's that's the game.

Steve: It's like throwing the ball in the middle of the football field.

Adam: Correct.

Steve: Like, just just throwing a jump ball in the middle of the ball field.

Adam: Yeah. You're gonna Lining you off

Steve: of Ray Lewis, they just destroy you.

Adam: Yeah. Pretty much.

Steve: Gotcha. Not helpful. No. What's your biggest struggle today?

Adam: Biggest struggle today, I'd still say it's the people aspect of the business. Anybody will say that is that no one's really figured that out to to maybe Phil and Eric.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And those guys are absolute rock stars.

Steve: Precise in this level.

Adam: Yeah. Well, after seeing their office last year, I was mind blown.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: This is this this is a enterprise level company

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: With enterprise level people. But Yeah. Finding people that are going to stick, that you can create the right culture, the right bonuses, the right, structures for them to internally grow, We just we still have not figured that out. I think that's a struggle if you ask anybody in CGS, is recruiting, is hiring, retaining, how having those people grow. You look at how many operations it went to guys that I'm doing $5.06, $78,000,000 a year, and then year or two later, they're they're in rebuild mode.

So, yeah, I would say the people component is just constantly something we are needing to get better at. We have not figured that out.

Steve: What are you guys working on right now to get better on it?

Adam: Reading books. Right? We just finished up with, top grading

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Who not how, working with Sharper. PI has been great for us. Mhmm. And we're still trying to learn on, you know, what are things that we could look for. Then just this is a big intricacy and nuanced business.

You learn from the little things. I think the devil's in the details, and that's gonna come from failing on hiring people that weren't a fit. So many people hire someone, and then they, like, don't succeed whether the person falls out, and they never try something again. For us, it's like, okay. Great.

We learned this, this, and this. Let's do it again. Mhmm. Let's do it again. And we've had so many people come in and out over the years, like,

Steve: you

Adam: know, five years into this. Like, the only way you learn is by having filling. Yeah. So for us, it's how do we keep doing this, but then retain. And one thing is, right, having a recruiter, we say no to a lot of people.

Mhmm. You have to do that. You want a people? Like, most of those people aren't a players that are coming in.

Steve: Well, it kinda goes back to what you you mentioned earlier. Right? Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah. Right.

The only way to get good at something is to do it a lot. That's it. And so many people give up. And recruiting is not one of those things. It's like, we're trying to buy houses.

Just turn into marketing. Let's have a lot of conversations. Right? Recruiting is not something that you can just alright. Let's turn into marketing.

Let's just have a lot of conversations. No. Right? It's not that simple. So, yeah, I I am with you on that.

And that is something that I think that that is always the final frontier. Right? Marketing, it changes, but not that much. Sales, something we we hang our head on. Finances, it can be figured out, but, god, it's just your brain is it's just not the way the brain's supposed to work.

And the people, that's the last component. How do you stay motivated?

Adam: It's naturally driven I'm wired that way. And if you look at my PI and my my captain, my a is in the third quadrant.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: My c is past the third quadrant.

Steve: Really?

Adam: My d comes back. Yeah. My c is off off. It's in the writing.

Steve: So three? Three plus. Three.

Adam: Three plus. Yeah.

Steve: So three on the a. Three plus on the on the negative on the c. And where's your d?

Adam: My d is in the subjective box, but it's it's almost to the middle. Mhmm. It's not. It's not exactly there. It's like what is that?

Two or a one?

Steve: So, yeah. That's you're very driving for results.

Adam: At the end of the day, it's just we've always had that mentality. Right? Whatever it takes, put in the work.

Steve: Well, I know that about you. So

Adam: Just blue collar, hard hat, lunch pail, you know, strongest will survive, last man standing. There's far better operators and smarter individuals than me. It's just kinda figure out what you're good at and align that with the right team. Yeah. I think we have a really good core of individuals in our office that help.

Like, Bob has some skills that I don't think I've seen people ever, have at his level, and there's things that I will do that he's not gonna do. There's things he's gonna do I'm not gonna do. Our our senior sale reps have skills that they've been able to acquire. And we look I think there's there's a tall telling story of our PIs in there. We've had the greatest success with the captain profile.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And it's that person that has that far wide a and that far wide Yeah.

Steve: I mean, if there's one profile I would use to hire in most seats, it would be the captain. Yeah. The the decision making, the wanting results now, and then the details are good enough. Right. They're not excellent.

They're not awful. They'll do. Right? And then someone else can clean up the mess. So, yeah, I I I love the captain profile.

What's your superpower?

Adam: My superpower is, resilience.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: Just keep going. I'm willing to go one more. Right? Go one more. One more call.

One more one more rep. One more conversation. One more hour. Mhmm. Just it's being able to eat eat the eat the struggles.

Right? Stay in the fight. I just I I love it. I thrive on it. I think being a mental warrior in this business is far greater.

You can I'm not a big guy. I'm not a tall guy, but I believe mentally I will get in the battle, and I'm gonna withstand and stay in there longer than the other person. Just I'm gonna stay in the fight.

Steve: Yeah. And I think that that is something we see consistently. Right? We had Jason Medley on the show years ago, and I remember, like, alright. Like, what's your super powers?

I will out suffer you. I believe it.

Adam: We talked about on that podcast, the book, Outwit and Devil. Mhmm. It was a great book. We actually read it

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: After. So I I would agree with Jason on that. That is Jason for sure.

Steve: Yeah. It's a it's a that and that's a fantastic book as well. What's your biggest regret?

Adam: Not buying rentals sooner. Mhmm. Not buying more rentals sooner and not keeping more rentals.

Steve: Where are you buying your rentals?

Adam: Right now, Jacksonville, Florida.

Steve: Gotcha. I've been

Adam: buying bought I've bought a couple now from our buddy over there, Obi Dorsey. Mhmm. I'm actually buying one from Gonzalo who was on the show. Mhmm. I buy stuff myself.

So we market down there. I bought stuff off the MLS. It's one of those markets where you can still get good deals because it's such a distressed market.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: We had a portfolio between Bob and myself about 35 doors, and we sold off the 2021 to focus solely on our wholesale business, which 10 x'd where we're at. Very thankful for it, but I do regret back in seventeen, eighteen, nineteen when I was just getting into this. When I would go look at a deal, I'm gonna buy a rental. Single family is a $100,120 grand in Connecticut. I bought three of them.

Mhmm. And they're all a 100 plus k in appreciation. Imagine if I bought 20. Yeah. You know?

So I think the biggest thing, especially, because we'd went back and forth on you see some of the big players inside of our group. Right? You got you got Phil. You got Eric. You got New Western.

You got some real, you know, Padly. You people talk about, can you sell these companies? I'll be I don't I just don't see it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: And you can get fixated, and I could be wrong, and you can eat those words. And I hope I do because it'd be really cool to see someone who can sell one. But if you think about it, we're working a job. If you want to escape this and have that secondary income and something that is truly sustainable and can be traded or sold, It's a portfolio real estate.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: I think you look at Kava, what he'd he's done is really inspiring, you know, hundreds of section eight homes. I even look at Bob. Bob obviously makes great money here in Perch, but having a a real a virtual assistant company of 1,200 VAs, that's fixed income.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: That is income that hits every month. Yeah. You can walk away from that. I can't walk away from this. We got

Steve: Doug right here. Right? I don't know if you you hung out with Doug at all. But

Adam: I'd seen him at CG, but I have not seen him here.

Steve: So, he's doing pretty well.

Adam: Yeah.

Steve: Right. He was doing real estate. He started real estate well before the o seven crash. So, he helped himself to some some really healthy, homes back then. Which failure did you learn the most from?

Adam: Which failure did I learn the most from? In, personal life or real estate?

Steve: Either.

Adam: I can do both. I'd say one is, you know, going through the struggles with concussions and and health is don't take your health for granted. Right? Put yourself first. Right?

You can't pour from an empty cup. I go to a gym every morning. Right? I'm gonna eat whether I'm running, whether I'm lifting weights. I've put a big focus into my health physically, my nutrition

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: My my mental state. I mean, I worked very hard, and I'll I'll drive my brain in overdrive and burn the candle at both ends. When I'm done, I'm done. Turning my phone off, I'm not talking and going to bed. That's it.

I haven't drank in close to seven months, which is a big game changer.

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: So I would say, one, I wish I did this sooner and took my health serious because I'd be far more ahead of where I am now in my professional business life, even my relationships, family, if I put my health first. Mhmm. Because you're in a better state. Yeah. Business, it's it's just hiring.

Right? It's going through what we, experienced this past year and learning from that on how to find the right people. And then as you grow, I had a good conversation with other CG member, Bobby Suarez. I got to talk to him a little bit, and he had gave me some some feedback and insight, which I appreciated his time. And he talked about, do you wanna grow a company that's, you know, hundreds of people, this big organization?

You're worried about people and constantly having to hire on new department heads, and it's it's a chaotic orchestration. Do you want that, or do you want something that's tight with a lifestyle business where you're making the same amount of profit? Maybe not same revenue, but profit. Mhmm.

Steve: And

Adam: it's it's a quarter of the struggles.

Steve: Right.

Adam: And that to me hit because you it says it in traction. Right? Do you wanted a a 100,000,000 company that's making, 10% profit, or do you want a 5,000,000 company making 30% profit? What's the answer?

Steve: Depends.

Adam: Well, it depends on the person. Correct. But I'd say going through, again, all these failings, the beauty of our business is you gotta get burned to earn or burned to learn.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: Right? You could tell me till you're blue in the face. Like, Adam, this is why you don't do this with people. You can't you can't just let anyone in your office. You could tell me you're blue in the face.

Mhmm. Until you experience touching that hot stove, then you know what it feels like. Right. That is how you learn.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, I want to believe I learned from others' mistakes, but there are mistakes I have to make myself. Sure. And Gary Harper talks about this. You know, there's, like, the five different phases.

And from phase one as solopreneur to phase two where everything just sucks, to phase three, now you got a profitable business. To go from phase three to phase five, you gotta go through phase four, which is more sucking.

Adam: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Like, if you're not willing if you're not doing this with a deep purpose, don't go to five. Just stay at three. But so many of us go to five hoping that we can skip four, but you can't. Yeah.

Adam: Foundation. We'll have Gary and Susan in our office next Tuesday for our quarterly, so they're the best.

Steve: They're the absolute best. We I absolutely love them. Grateful grateful to to have them as friends.

Adam: Sharper's done so much for our business, and, yeah, they really know what they're doing, which is great. It's awesome to obviously have them inside of CG.

Steve: Absolutely. Yeah. We had, Amanda Dean here about a month and a half ago. Right? Because she she she was coaching our team and yeah.

She's

Adam: She did all three of our three out of four of our quarterlies for 2023. We had her q two, q three, and q four, some cancellations, but and I said, alright. We we can't have so and so come, but, like, who else would you want me? Amanda. Amanda.

Amanda. She's a rock star.

Steve: Yeah. Every time we're like, we want Amanda. Like, you should have some varieties. Like, I know, but I want Amanda.

Adam: She gets it. She would fit in very well in the Northeast. As a southerner, she would have no problem on our phone calls.

Steve: Yeah. She doesn't have a filter. No. Yeah. She's awesome.

What book have you gifted more than any other?

Adam: It's Angela Duckworth, grit, and then another one would be 48 laws of power by Robert Greene.

Steve: Yeah. I went through that one again, 48 laws of power. And I'm I keep quoting law number four in our sales training recently. Do you remember which one that is?

Adam: I do not.

Steve: Say less. Right? We feel this need to justify. Here's the reason why we do it this way. I can't do this because we're like, no.

Just just tell them no. You can't do that. And that's it. Now they've got to accept it and then come up with a counter. So

Adam: The more you say, the less you sell. The more you justify, the less you validate. I tell our reps all the time that in the office

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: Just make your point and move on. Let let them negotiate with themselves.

Steve: Exactly. It's a

Adam: great book, and he's a great author.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I gotta pick up his other books. But, yeah, definitely, 48 Laws Power. I went through that a second time recently.

So, guys, if you got a lot of value today, please subscribe. Again, don't keep us a secret. A rising tide lifts all boats. We are trying to create as many millionaires as possible. What are some last thoughts you'd like to leave all the listeners with?

Adam: Get into this business if you're interested. Hit it full steam ahead. Mhmm. Two feet deep into the pool. Right?

You're gonna dip your toe in. Like, don't even try it. Just stay at home. Don't go to the seminar. Don't watch the YouTube video.

Mhmm. Take action and execute on it, and just be willing to do whatever it takes, and you'll be successful. It's so funny because the barrier entry is limitless in this business. Like, anyone can get into this. Mhmm.

Steve: I think

Adam: I'm living proof. Right. You look in my office, we're a bunch of misfits. But you have success because of the resilience, the tenacity, the fortitude, the grit. Those soft skills that can't be taught but acquired Mhmm.

That get exploited are the ones that win. Mhmm. So for the people out there that wanna get into this and, like, where do I start? Like, figure out what it is you desire and work back mentally

Steve: Mhmm.

Adam: On where that starting point is and go and do it. Well, where do I go to do it? Just start taking action. Yeah. It's going to be a mess.

You're trying to go cook a cake, and you don't have all the ingredients. Eventually, you'll get them. Just figure it out.

Steve: Right. Yeah. There's a a I was like, Art Williams, I wanna say. Can't remember say for sure, but it was a great it was an insurance agent. He he had his whole speech, which was do it.

But what do I do about just do it. But what do I just do it. And that was whole speech was just do it. Right? Because the answers will review themselves.

Adam: Yeah. Absolutely. And you gotta, again, you gotta learn. Our success has just came from failings for everything, from acquisition to disposition, to asset types to buy, to what market, to what sub I mean, everything has came from taking an l. The more losses, right, failing for the more losses we can get, the better we'll be.

I'm always a big glass half full kind of person. Very thankful for every freaking loss. Right? I wouldn't be here today if I didn't ask Bob a chance for 50% of his business. And I talk about all the time.

Great team Yeah. Teammate. I mean, you know, phenomenal leader. Mhmm. We if we didn't have what we have today, the partnership, the same vision, that hockey background, like, we'd never have this.

It's just not here. But that's the power of people and team.

Steve: Yeah.

Adam: So when you find that and you bring your skill set, exploit it. Go be great. Be who you are. Who cares about the noise? Focus on what you want.

Be you, and everything comes in over time. Right? It's a long game.

Steve: Oh, I love it. I love it. There's a great message. I remember it was something along the lines of, like, you know, master, why is it that, you know, I can't do what you do? And his answer was, because I have failed more than you have tried.

Right? I've eaten way more crap sandwiches than you've even gone out to even attempt. Facts. Right.

Adam: I couldn't agree more. Look in CG. Right? The the guys that have been there the longest, the the individuals, the most amount of doors, most amount of wholesale deals, volume. They've been in the game the longest.

Mhmm. There's something that comes from compounding. Right? It's the eighth wonder of the world. Mhmm.

Warren Buffett talks about it. He who understands it earns it. He who doesn't loses it. Right? You had Leon Johnson on this podcast and still one of my favorite shows back when I wanna buy all these single family homes.

Mhmm. He compounded. He stuck to the game, becomes boring, and he gets that success through consistency. But how many times do you think that guy failed across the course of forty years? The guy's been failing longer than you've been alive.

Steve: Right. Get

Adam: ready to get hit, kid.

Steve: Exactly right. Perfect. Someone wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Adam: You can reach out to me, via email, adam@perchrock.com. Or reach out to me on Instagram at the Adam Devine Facebook. So if you ever have any questions or wanna chat, if you're selling deals in Jacksonville, Florida, I'm your buyer for rentals, so send them my way. But I'm always happy to give a a hand or or help out. Somebody has questions with virtual innovations or or anything business related.

I'm a big believer of giving.

Steve: Alright. Perfect. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Adam: Likewise. Thanks, Steve. Alright.

Steve: Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you guys next week. Shout out to Steve train. Jump on

Adam: the Steve train. We real estate disrupt

Steve: us.