How To Do Real Estate Working Less Than 1 Hour A Day

Sharad Mehta: I remember sitting at Panda Express with my wife, having lunch, and I said, look, I think I wanna leave my job. The worst thing that happens is I end up losing everything that we're investing, but I can always just go back and get this job in a couple of years. Years. The upside is just infinite. Just be really financially independent.

How was that conversation? My only fear was that

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we got Sharad Mehta with RE Simply, and Sharad flew in from Carlsbad, California to talk about how he's flipped 50 houses a year working just an hour a day. Now I'm on a mission to create a 100 millionaires. The information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years.

If you'll take consistent action, you will become one. And the show is brought to you by a sister company, Investor Lift. Get access to millions of cash buyers across the country. Go to investorlift.com and put in disruptors to get 10% off. And, guys, if you get value today, please hit that subscribe button.

That way we can all grow together. You ready?

Sharad: I am. Alright. Let's see.

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

Sharad: I was a full time accountant.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: And, I being in accounting, you know, I was really into personal finance. I wanted to be financially free, you know, have freedom of time and money. So I tried doing everything. I was really into poker. So I wanted to be a full time poker player at one time.

I absolutely sucked. I have horrible park poker face. If I pocket aces, you would know.

Steve: Really?

Sharad: Yeah. Oh, man. I'm horrible. I'm horrible. I just I was just hooked on to it, but I just realized, yeah, that's that's not gonna get me anywhere.

And then I was following a lot of personal finance blogs, and I came across one of the blogs. I was reading in the comments, someone had mentioned a link to a book called Millionaire Real Estate Investor.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Clicked on that. Just kind of, you know, the title sounded very catchy. Millionaire Real Estate Investor. I bought the book, and that kind of led me down the path of full time real estate investing. And then I started Googling, went down to bigger pockets, you know, just read, started posting and everything, then bought my first property in August 2010.

Two unit, sold in for about 35,000, rented both units for about 1,300.

Steve: We'll get to that. We'll get to that. So accountants. Accountant. Yeah.

So you went to the you went to college.

Sharad: I went to college. I'm

Steve: an accountant. CPA. You were a CPA. So, I've never actually asked this question before. Okay.

So you graduate with a degree in accounting, I imagine? Yes. What was it from graduating with a degree to getting a CPA?

Sharad: It wasn't very hard, to be honest.

Steve: Mhmm. When I

Sharad: went to school, I was super broke. So I didn't have I had I have an accounting degree, but I never could afford to buy an accounting book. So I would go to a library and study from the books that they had. Mhmm. Fortunately, they had a lot of CPA books.

I would just study from that. It helped me prepare for the accounting exams Mhmm. And that helped me pass the CPS. So I passed all my exams in first attempt.

Steve: So Okay. But, like, how long it take for you even like, from I'm gonna get my CPA out of certification Right. To getting it.

Sharad: About it took me about three or four months to Okay.

Steve: So not too long.

Sharad: Not too long. Yeah. It wasn't very long.

Steve: When I see CPA, there's, like, this kinda, like No.

Sharad: No. I'm a CPA. I mean, my wife is a CPA also. For and my brother is a CFO at a company. He's a CPA too.

It didn't take very long. I mean, it's about three, four month. But I I never went into practicing for myself. Okay. Sounds company.

Steve: It's, like, about the same effort as getting, like, a real estate license, perhaps.

Sharad: Yeah. You could say that.

Steve: Okay.

Sharad: Yeah. You could say that.

Steve: Alright. So then

Sharad: why accounting college? It just I moved from India. I wanted I wanted to study something that would ensure that I would have a job. Accounting seemed like the most

Steve: It was a means to an end. It was not a passion.

Sharad: No. It was definitely not out of passion

Steve: for sure. Okay. Well, because you say accountant and you say not a good poker player. In my head, if you're accountant, generally, you don't have a wider emotional range.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Your smaller emotional range should be easier or harder to read.

Sharad: Yeah. No. It was definitely I mean, when I moved from India, I moved here to get a computer science degree, but it would just it wasn't my cup of tea. So I'm like, okay. What should what could I do that would sort of guarantee me a job after I graduate in accounting or finance seems like the most, you know, safest choice to go with.

Steve: So you were working in accounting?

Sharad: I was. I was working for, yeah, one of the largest accounting firms.

Steve: Okay. And then from there, you saw this other world where you can buy real estate and cash flow and so on. Right. Did you how long from when you first found out about it till you did your first deal?

Sharad: Say about six months to a year. That's pretty quick from the time I decided I wanted to buy something to the time I, you know, bought I I bought my own property, like, right after my wife and I got married in 2009 and then bought the investment property within a year.

Steve: Okay. Seeing as how that you were newer to it and you had a full time job Right. How did you find this property? MLS. MLS.

Sharad: It was listed with 65,000.

Steve: Okay. Yeah. Got it. Where?

Sharad: In Indiana. Okay.

Steve: So this is your first property by in Indiana, bought off the MLS, and it was just based off the numbers?

Sharad: Exactly. Based off the numbers. It was I wasn't confident. I sat my wife down. I said, hey.

We're gonna buy this property. The worst case is I make the stupidest mistake ever. The worst case is we end up losing $2,530,000. You know, we had some money saved up. And the upside is the property works out, and we're cash paying, like, $6,700 extra.

Steve: Mhmm. You

Sharad: know? So it's like going based on the number, you know, being in accounting. It's just I could relate to it Mhmm. Using 50% rule, 2% rule, you know, everything that people talked about, you know, on bigger pocket, just, like, following that to the t.

Steve: So I'm not sure our our audience necessarily overlaps with bigger pockets. Right. So can you elaborate on the 50% and the 2% rule?

Sharad: Yeah. So 50% rule would be if my house is rented $4,000 per month, be very conservative and take 50% towards expenses. You may not have those expenses every month

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: But just, you know, set it aside. You know, if you're even if you don't have property management, set aside money for property management. Mhmm. So if I'm renting it out for a thousand dollars, my cash flow would be 500 before mortgage payment. K?

2% rule would be if you're buying a house for, let's say, a $100,000, expect to get about $2,000 a month in rent on that property.

Steve: So shoot for 2%.

Sharad: Shoot for 2%. I mean, it doesn't happen anymore, but you could you could buy it before ten. Twenty ten. Yeah. Yeah.

It did. Okay.

Steve: So the 50% rule doesn't sound like that would be in alignment with today with some of these guys buying these creative deals.

Sharad: Yeah. It would not be. Yeah. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Because right now, what seems to be popular is, like, it doesn't have to cash flow if the interest rate's good. Right. And eventually it'll work out.

Sharad: Exactly. I would not feel comfortable with that. Yeah. But that's what a lot of people do. I personally would not just I'm a very conservative guy.

I'm happy with that.

Steve: Have you always been conservative? I have. Yeah.

Sharad: Okay.

Steve: So you buy your first deal.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Worst case, you lose $25.30 k. I'm assuming that's your down payment.

Sharad: No. That was all in cash.

Steve: So you bought it 65 k

Sharad: It was placed to a 65.

Steve: You bought it?

Sharad: For 20,000, settle for 25, put 10,000 into it.

Steve: Maybe you were a low baller. It's ridiculous, Raj.

Sharad: That's that's what I did. I mean, they talked about, like, my mindset board. You know, I'm just gonna make an offer. What's the worst that's gonna happen? They say no.

Steve: Okay.

Sharad: That's alright.

Steve: Yeah. They 25 for your first one.

Sharad: 25 for the first one.

Steve: What'd your realtor say about this plan?

Sharad: I so one other thing I did was I approached the listing agent directly because, you know, it's not high priced property, so the agent says in making much. So I went directly to the listing agent. Just say, hey. Look. You know, I I need to make an offer on this property.

If you help me, you're gonna get both sides off

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: The commission. And it just it just worked out. But, yeah, I think I the first few properties I bought, I I would just go directly to their listing agent. And it got to a point where it's just getting a little bit

Steve: hectic for me to maintain all that

Sharad: relation, then I started working with a a seller's agent.

Steve: Got it. So you go online, searching, clicking around on Internet, all these properties, reach out to listing agent, and you have them represent both sides. That's the first deal. Right. That was true for the next few deals as well.

Correct. So when you saw it online, you saw the millionaire real estate agent Right. As, like, investor.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Or mill millionaire real estate investor.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Right. So you see this, and you're like, okay. This is interesting. There were doubts in your head, or you're like, proof of concept is already there?

Sharad: I mean, to me, proof of concept was already there. The book talked about, you know, putting money down 20%. The book talked about buying it, you know, with debt in place. My plan was to just buy it straight for cash.

Steve: Okay. So what adversities did you face then when you started down this road?

Sharad: Just not knowing what I didn't know. You know, it just honestly seemed too good to be true. Just buying a house for 35,000, renting for 1,300. It just it didn't make sense. You know?

Steve: It still doesn't make sense.

Sharad: It it doesn't. Right? It I still own that property to this day. Right. Next month, I bought another one for 44.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: With, like, $56,000 into it. It was a three unit. One was I rented out for $600. The other two I rented for total 1,800 doll it just it did not make any sense.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: I'm just thinking, how is this possible?

Steve: Right.

Sharad: And then after that, I remember sitting at Panda Express with my wife having lunch, and I said, look, I didn't wanna leave my job. The worst thing that happens is I end up losing everything that we're investing, but but I can always just go back and get this job in couple of years.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: But the upside is if it works out, the upside is, like, you know, just infinite. Like, we could just be really financially independent. How was that conversation? My wife was very supportive. My parents were very doubtful.

You know? Like, why would you leave a job? You know, you have this amazing job making good money. But just the lifestyle my wife and I had, we were always living on the lower of the two incomes and saving the higher income. So it wasn't gonna affect our lifestyle.

So she was very supportive that, hey. It's alright. If you think it's the right thing to do, let's just go ahead and do it. We didn't have any kids back then, so it wasn't, like, a big decision. You know?

That it wasn't gonna affect our lifestyle. So There

Steve: wasn't a lot of stress in your end.

Sharad: Was not.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So that was actually very similar to myself and my girlfriend, my wife now, at the time my girlfriend. And then my parents were like, why would you give up this

Sharad: great job?

Steve: Yeah. It was the same exact conversation.

Sharad: Yeah. It was it was tough to explain them. You know, they were in India. It was like every parent's dream. You know, their immigrant son or daughter goes overseas, you know, graduates, gets a degree, and but they never think about their son is gonna leave the job Right.

You know, making decent money. Mhmm. But it just it just seemed like, you know, being an accountant, it just like, the numbers seemed really too good to be true.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: It just seemed like there's I I I mean, my my only fear was that it's a scam, you know, that whatever I'm doing, that the property value is gonna go to zero. And even if it goes to zero, I'm getting rent. Who cares?

Steve: Right.

Sharad: You know, I'm I'm buying it debt free. Like, who cares? Like, I just I can just as long as I'm getting rent, I don't care about the property value. I'm never gonna sell these properties. So that was my mindset going

Steve: out there. For the long haul. Yeah. What, what were you making at your accounting firm when you quit?

Sharad: Thinking about 72,000, and I was up for a bonus and a promotion. I was gonna be promoted to manager. So it's a very difficult decision knowing that I was up for a bonus and a promotion, and the economy wasn't very stable at that point. You know, I was working with E and Y that had a massive round of layoff. So it was like everything was stacked against kind of the decision that I wanted to make.

Mhmm. It just it just felt like the right thing to do. It just it it seemed like if I did not do it, I would have a huge regret.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So how many properties did you have when you did decide to quit?

Sharad: Five units. Five units. Two properties, five units.

Steve: Okay. What were you bringing in every month?

Sharad: From those two properties, because I didn't have any debt, about 1,500 a month.

Steve: Okay. Combine between all of them?

Sharad: Yeah. Like net cash cash flow.

Steve: Well, not net. I mean, it's just, like, gross.

Sharad: Oh, like gross? 3,300.

Steve: 3,300.

Sharad: Okay. 31 and 30.

Steve: Yeah. So okay. 3,300 turns into 1,500. So you're still not making you didn't replace your income yet?

Sharad: I did not.

Steve: Gotcha. It's interesting, and hearing the way you talk to your wife before, like, hey. We're gonna buy our first property as well as, hey. I'm gonna quit my job. Is you started off with a worst case scenario.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: I did. Kinda like an accusation audit. So is that something you've always done, or is that just something that you were preparing for these these particular conversations?

Sharad: I mean, looking back now and even looking back at kind of how I make decisions, I always kind of look at the worst case scenario. And then I'm like, hey. As long as I'm ready for this, if it happens

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: This is absolutely worse. Like, mentally, am I ready for it? If I am, like, let's go for

Steve: it. Mhmm.

Sharad: You know? And then I have to always convey it with the upside. Right? I can just look at the downside. Alright?

What are the chances of downside happening? What are the chances of upside happening? And I'm looking at the odds of upside versus downside. Right. The the upside has to far outweigh the downside.

But if the downside were to happen, am I ready for it? If I am, then I'm gonna just go for it, you know, the upside. Well, it

Steve: gives you a lot of confidence.

Sharad: It does. Yeah.

Steve: But not everyone makes this makes decisions this way. Right. Do you think your poker background helped with that?

Sharad: I wouldn't call it my poker background. I was, like, I played it a little bit here and there. Mhmm. Wanted to play a world series of poker. I think I might still play, you know, not with the intention of, like, making it my career.

Yeah. But yeah. I guess I'm I'm sure it had some influence on, you know, how I started looking at things.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Just being ready for it, ready for the worst case scenario and then just saying, alright. If it happens, am I prepared for it? Is it gonna affect my lifestyle? Yeah. The decision that I'm making, how is that gonna impact my my wife, my parents, or, you know, my family and friends?

If it doesn't negatively impacts them in a big way, and then the upside off, you know, would be huge, then let's just go for that decision.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I like that that's your thought process, but also that's the way you communicate this message as well Yep. For your spouse. So when and I'll just bring up, like, my own poker thing was that, for me, my the way I made my decision, including my job, was like, okay. If I make this decision this way a 100 times, what are the long term

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Expected value? Yeah. Right? Expected value is positive. I'm making a decision.

If it's long term if this is, like, a bet, but long term expected value is negative, I'm not making this decision.

Sharad: Right. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I know. I was I was thinking along the same line, but I wasn't as beautifully you explained. I wasn't, like, explaining to my wife or just saying, hey. The worst case, we lose everything. You know, we have about, like, let's say, a 100,000 invested in these properties.

The worst case, we lose everything. Alright. I can always go get this job, make, you know, $6,070,000 again. But the upside is, you know, we could be millionaires if this thing works out.

Steve: Sure. Yeah. You quit your job. Right. Now that you're full time, was it easier or the same?

Sharad: It was a little bit challenging because you I left my job, but I didn't have enough properties to keep myself busy. So the biggest challenge was staying disciplined, you know, not letting the freedom of time. I didn't have the freedom of money, but I had the freedom of time.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Not letting that, like, distract me. So I started kind of connecting, you know, networking with other investors. Fortunately, one of my my best friends, he was visiting Australia, in 2011. And his cousin was a CFO for marketing company in Australia. They were looking to buy properties in US

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Because the Australian dollar was very strong against the US dollar. So my friend connected us and, you know, I kind of, my my friend now, his cousin actually flew down from Australia to Indiana. You know, I kind of ran him through the numbers. They're like, oh, these numbers are just unbelievable. They're they're actually I helped them buy 30 or 30 or 40 condos in Phoenix.

So I actually flew down to Phoenix. They were in under contract to buy 40 condos out of 300 condo unit building. So I flew down to Phoenix, kind of helped them close the deal. I said, hey. I want you to fly down to Indiana and just see the numbers there.

So he flew down. He's like, this is unbelievable. So I started kind of wholesaling properties to them, not really knowing that was what I was saying was wholesaling. Yeah. So I started wholesaling properties to them.

And then all the money that I was making from, wholesaling, I started just buying more properties for myself. And then, you know, because you could easily find something on MLS pack. And it was just like, you could go and choose whichever house you wanted to buy and make a bid on it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: It's super easy. So they were buying about hundreds of houses a year. So I was making money from that. I just go invest in more rental properties from Right. For myself.

So that's how I could just keep my portfolio free and clear.

Steve: Did you live in Indiana at the time?

Sharad: I was living in Downtown Chicago.

Steve: Downtown Chicago.

Sharad: Yeah. So I literally followed the book. The book said, wherever you're living, just draw one mile driving one hour driving radius from where you're living. I didn't even know I was living that close to Indiana. Because when you're living in Downtown Chicago Mhmm.

Unless you have something going on in Indiana, you don't really

Steve: You're not going over there.

Sharad: You're not going over there. So I'm like one mile one hour driving radius. I'm like, wow. Indiana. Like, I didn't even know I was living to a whole different state.

Mhmm. So I started looking a little bit more into it. The numbers made sense. And the biggest factor was it was a landlord friendly state.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: So that's why I started investing in Indiana.

Steve: Gotcha. So you got a lot of education from BiggerPockets?

Sharad: I did. Yeah. Reading reading books, BiggerPockets, just talking, going to local via meeting, just asking anyone who was more experienced than I was, just asking them questions, being a sponge. Yeah.

Steve: So what were the biggest adversities then? That, biggest unexpected adversity in in growing this? Growing the real estate side.

Sharad: Trusting contractors, I would say. You know, not knowing enough about the the contracting side of the the business. I was buying these properties that needed work done to them. So I was just I was naive that if a contractor said, hey. This house needed a new furnace.

I'm like, okay. You know, if you say it needs a new furnace, it must need a new furnace. I don't do that anymore, but that's kinda what my process was back then. So I'm sure I spent more money than I really needed to

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: On the the repair side of the business. Right.

Steve: But but

Sharad: it's alright. It still worked out. But then meeting the right people was definitely a huge, thing that I wanted to make sure, like, networking with the right people, and, you know, helping them also grow their business, you know, not just going in any relationship and saying, hey. What's in it for me? It was

Steve: like, hey.

Sharad: What's in it for both of us? If it works out, how is it gonna help both you and I, not just me? I think that was important. So the agent that I started working with, he was aligned. He He was also kind of starting new in his business, so it kind of worked out for both of us.

You know? I connecting connected him with that Australian company, so they were buying, like, hundreds of properties a year. Wow. It just worked out for everyone.

Steve: Right. Yeah. How are you networking with the right people?

Sharad: I go into local areas and seeing who is active in the market. You know, it's like actually doing deals. You know, what is it that they're doing? What areas are they investing in? Rather than just trying to come up with my own plan, just follow a plan that somebody has already laid out, you know, and then just say, hey.

If it's already working for them, why can't I just, like, you know, like, copy and just, implement in my own business? Yeah.

Steve: This business is not rocket science.

Sharad: It's not it's not like one thing. If I could go back, what I would do is I would hire a mentor or, like, work with a coach Mhmm. Because that would have really scaled up my, you know, the the growth that I was doing. I think that's that's one thing. If I could go back, I would do buy more properties and work with a coach, you you know, who could just kind of guide me rather than just trying to network with people, which is still great.

But just say, hey, Steve, you've done thousands of deals. Would you mind if I just, like, if you have a mentorship program, networking program, can I be part of it? And then you can help me scale. So this way, I can just come to you directly and ask you my specific question other than going to 10 different people.

Steve: Yeah. I have the same regrets. Yeah. Right? If I were to do it all over again.

But number one, it was buying more property.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Number two is don't be too stingy

Sharad: Yeah.

Steve: Getting a coach. Because I was like, why would I ever pay someone 25 k? I would just lose 25 I'd rather lose 25 k on the deal than learn from that. Absolutely. Somebody.

Right?

Sharad: Yeah.

Steve: And and looking back, like, that was such an ignorant statement to me.

Sharad: I know. Yeah. It's it is. I mean, I I've learned from it, so I'm working with couple of coaches now to just kind of make sure I'm doing the right thing. Mhmm.

Yeah. That's one thing, like, exact bought should have bought more properties and worked with the coach. Same. Two regrets.

Steve: When did you know, like, okay. This is it. Like, this is I'm going like, everything I read about, like, this is real. Because, like, even even when you quit your job, it sounded like you weren't, like, fully, like, convinced.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: When did you know it was real?

Sharad: So after about maybe 2012, like, before the end of 2012, like, in a couple of years. So I bought my first property in August 2010, the second one in September 2010. So by 2012, I'm like, this is this is real.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: This is real. I'm I'm I don't think I'm ever gonna have to work again. Yeah.

Steve: I'm a real estate investor now. This is it.

Sharad: Yeah. This is it. Like, I don't think I'll ever work for anyone.

Steve: How how did that feel?

Sharad: Pretty good, man. Pretty good just knowing, you know, I was, like, 20 how old was I? Like, 27, 28. Yeah. Just to be in that stage where, like, hey.

I'm kind of, like, financially free here. Yeah. You know? I mean, I'm not, like, super rich, super wealthy, but I'm financially free.

Steve: You hit your freedom number. Yeah.

Sharad: Exactly. I hit my freedom number, and I don't need to work for anyone. I can just do whatever I wanna do, and not have to work for anyone. So that was that was definitely very liberating.

Steve: What are some of your biggest victories along the way in buying those properties?

Sharad: Like, financial victories?

Steve: Financial, emotional, business, whatever.

Sharad: I mean, emotional was, you know, 2012, we took a pretty nice 02/1213, we took, like, pretty nice vacation. We went to we did African safari. We went to Asia, Europe 2013. You know, we went to Machu Picchu, Argentina, Brazil. Just and it just felt amazing.

It just felt, like, amazing that I don't have anybody that I have to report. Like, we went on a five week vacation in November and December. Mhmm. We went to Africa. You know?

Like, I I remember signing this closing document in the middle of African safari, so I had to go to, like, a local office. It was just it felt so surreal that Yeah. I'm like, I can't believe I'm I'm doing this. I would have I don't think I would have ever been able to enjoy it as much if I were working for someone.

Steve: You bought a house while you're in Africa?

Sharad: I bought a house. Yeah. Yeah. I bought a house while I was in Africa. Yeah.

In the middle of nowhere. This was, like, in Serengeti, Tanzania, and I signed closing down. It just it felt so amazing Yeah. To do that.

Steve: Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. So you're buying properties. Now I looked here in the notes.

Right? You got 50 properties free and clear.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: So you started this in 2010. When did you, like, when was there a transition where you were flipping or the the the solver like, when when did you decide to transition?

Sharad: Transition to flipping?

Steve: Yeah. So, well, to move outside of just buy and hold. Right? Because, like, your your first few years, it just sounds like predominantly just buy and hold.

Sharad: Right. Buy and hold and wholesaling to, this Australian company.

Steve: Right. Right. So when did you add another leg to your business model?

Sharad: It was in 2014. Mhmm. So I'd been working with this title company. You know, every deal that we had done up until that point, we were just buying with that title company. Just, you know, one thing I'd read in millionaire real estate investor book was just make sure you, you know, build relationships.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: So I was buying all these properties through the same agent, through the same title company. So in 2014, you know, we had done like by 2014, we had done like hundreds of deals with that title company. And the person at the title company, the escrow officer came to me and say, Sharad, I have this lender, a local lender. They're trying to liquidate, like, 35 properties. Would you be interested?

I'm like, yeah. Absolutely. So I looked at those properties. Majority of them were in an area that I wasn't super interested in buying for myself, like a c minus d neighborhood. But the agent that I was working with, he was interested.

So I said, okay. You could buy. Just pay me a small fee, and that's fine, you know, whatever you do with those houses. And some of those houses that we bought as a package, I think we ended up buying 20 of those houses. Some of those houses would not have made sense as, buy and hold property.

You know, a little bit more expensive. The cash flow would not be there. I'm like, alright. And the the deal with the lender was either I bought all of them or none of them. So I'm like, alright.

I'll buy all of them. And then two of those properties were in an area where it would not it was just, you know, an hour drive from where I was investing. It would not have made sense buy and hold. So but I only made sense flipping. I had not flipped any property until then.

I'm like, alright. Let's just figure out, you know, how to flip this house. And that's kind of how I was kind of forced into flipping. And then I was on, 2015. I believe I was on a bigger pocket podcast.

And then once that podcast aired, then a lot of investors started reaching out to me and saying, hey. Love your story. Would love to do kind of what you're doing. And then that's kind of just I said, okay. You know, I don't, like, sell houses to other investors, but let me see what I can do.

And then I, you know, started, like, got into this turnkey business model. And it's, you know, their investors in New York, California, you know, coastal areas, high cost of living, but they wanted to buy cash flow properties. May I let me see. So I started buying more properties. I would, rehab them, rent them out, and started working with you know, we were already working with the property management company for the Australian investors.

So I said, alright. You know, we'll give you these properties to the property management company, but these are gonna be US investors buying. So then I got into flipping and turnkey properties from there on.

Steve: Can you elaborate for our listeners what turnkey means?

Sharad: So turnkey property means, a property that an other investor is buying that's basically turnkey really from them. Like, the way we sell it is it's cash flowing from day one. So we would buy a property. We would rehab it, make sure all the foundational, mechanical, everything cosmetic is up to date. We would rent it out, put a property management company in place for their property, then we would sell it to other investor.

So when the other investor buys, it's doing key property for them. They don't have to do anything. They're cash flowing from day one.

Steve: So it's rent ready?

Sharad: Rent ready.

Steve: Property management in place.

Sharad: Right. It's rented out. Yeah. Oh, it's rented out? It's already rented out.

We everything we sell, it's already rented out.

Steve: Yeah. So it's already cash flowing. It's

Sharad: it's already cash flowing.

Steve: You're buying based off of numbers.

Sharad: Exactly. You're buying based off of numbers. So we actually have a lease. We show them, this is what the lease is. This is what the deposit is.

So it's cash flowing for day one. So when you buy, we transfer over the security deposit to you, prorated cash, rental everything over to you.

Steve: Yeah. And it's great because now you can sell to investor based off of, like, here's what the actual net is. Right. And if you're trying to get this return, here's the price.

Sharad: Exactly. Yep. That's that's exactly it was just strictly based on numbers. It wasn't based on I mean, of course, we had to make sense. These investors, most of them were buying with a lender in place, so the appraisal had to make sense.

But I just you know, the numbers, it was primarily driven based on numbers. We would say, okay. This property is rented for, let's say, $1,500 a month. We'll sell it for a $100,000. Let's say, you know, it it didn't matter what our cost was.

Of course, we would make profit on that, but it was strictly based on the numbers.

Steve: Yeah. And, like, for a lot of people that are listening, they might be wondering why would someone buy it this way.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: So why would your clients buy you as a turnkey versus going in there and do it themselves? Because that's what you and I would do.

Sharad: Right. These are high network individual making four, five hundred thousand, you know, some of the investors that we're selling to making billion dollars. It's not the best use of their time

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: To go in, find these properties, find contractors, manage the rehab, rent them out, and do the process. They would rather they I mean, it's like for them, it's like they're diversifying their investment. They have some money in stocks. They have some money in stocks, bonds, and now they're investing in real estate.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: So they know, okay, I'm gonna make like 12% cash on cash. Mhmm. So I'm gonna here you go. I'm gonna buy this property. I have a tangible asset.

I'm gonna make money on this. Right.

Steve: And you can appreciate.

Sharad: Yeah. And appreciation. Yeah.

Steve: I mean, that's kinda one of the things. Right? Like, you have if a doctor says, hey. I wanna get into this business. First question would be like, why do you wanna be in this business?

Right.

Sharad: Exactly. Yeah.

Steve: You're much better off just doing your thing and just make additional cash flow Yep. Versus taking your time away from what you're best at.

Sharad: Right. Yeah. But if you if you have too much money, if you have, like, millions of dollars sitting aside, you know, like, I don't know what to do with it. Yes. Then turnkey makes sense.

Steve: So it's interesting. As a function of going on bigger pockets

Sharad: Right.

Steve: You start a turnkey business.

Sharad: Yeah. I don't think I would have done it other otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. So just based on

Steve: shout out to BiggerPockets.

Sharad: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was, man. It was it was fantastic.

I had no plans to start, turnkey business, but these investors started reaching out like, hey. I really wanna buy properties. Can you help me? I'm like, okay. You know?

Then I remember I sold one property from my portfolio because there's, like, this desperate investor, and I was gonna make 30,000 on it. I really didn't wanna sell it, but I'm like, man, that's $30,000 profit right now. So I sold it to him. I'm like, alright. I'm not gonna do this anymore.

I'm not gonna liquidate my portfolio, You know, the whole reason why I bought it into properties for myself is to have this, you know, like, lifestyle, freedom of cash and Mhmm. Money, time and money. So then I just really got into turnkey business.

Steve: So was a turnkey business now a distraction from the lifestyle you had planned?

Sharad: Not really. I mean, are you talking about now or back then?

Steve: Then. Right. Because you just came back from a five week vacation where you're buying a property in Africa. Right. Now you add a whole new business venture.

Sharad: It it wasn't. I mean, it wasn't scaled to you know, initially, I was only selling, like, a property a month, you know, one to two properties a month. It wasn't, like, very large scale. But it got to a point where I didn't have systems and processes in the business where it started becoming a distraction. It started feeling like work, so to speak.

Right. You know, that's when I kind of started putting more systems and, you know, processes into the business. And it just, it it's I I'm not very involved in the business. Somebody on my team manages it. But, yeah, if you don't have good systems and processes, it can be very challenging.

Steve: Well, that's the reason why I was asking because, like, in the wheel club, right, where we have this this principle where, like, when we say yes to something We're

Sharad: saying no to something.

Steve: Yeah. Well, we're not not just saying no to something. We don't do a good job of conceptualizing Right. Working with the additional burdens.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Right? Like, for example, we hire someone, we think, oh, they're gonna make everything easier. We we discount the fact that there's a lot of

Sharad: training

Steve: Absolutely. Hand holding. They're gonna call you weird questions at weird times, and then that distracts you from your main thing. Right. And not to say that there's anything against hiring.

It's just we don't ever take that into account.

Sharad: Absolutely. Yeah. That definitely that was a big learning curve, not knowing what I got myself into.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: You know, I thought, okay, I'm gonna sell these properties to investors at cash flowing, you know, then I'll never have to hear back from them. But the tenant stops me. They're calling me. Hey, Sharad. You know, there was a lease on this property.

This tenant isn't paying. What should I do? Like, I don't know. Like, we don't have to file an eviction. So you like, you didn't have you didn't even think about the problems you were gonna run into.

Right. But then people start calling you with weird things. Like, hey, this property, you know, like, six months later, there's a leak in one of the faucets or toilet is leaking. Like, hey, is it covered by a warranty? I'm like, oh, I didn't even know we had a warranty on this thing.

Yeah. So they start calling you, asking you these question, then you start figuring out, okay. Next time someone asked, like, I need to have an answer for it, you know, before we so we would put these things in a contract. We'd say, okay. When we sell a property, we would cover for first six months.

If a tenant lease for whatever reason, we'll take care of it. We'll make sure we pay you rent for the first six months if it were to happen. But after six months, it's on you. Or if something were to happen like, you know, act of guard, you know, if it's a storm or a tree falls on your property, that's really nothing that we can control. But if if it's something that should have been done before you bought the property possible.

Yeah. Then we would take care of it.

Steve: So, you

Sharad: know, we we started kind of figuring out as we started getting questions, you know, we started figuring out, okay, what do we need to do? You know, if this happened, let's make sure we set the right expectation for this investor before we get into anything.

Steve: Is creating procedure something that's that came natural for you?

Sharad: Not not really. I'd read, you know, a book. Oh, man. What's that? I can't even remember the name of the book, and it had such a huge influence on me.

I'll I'll come back to me. But yeah.

Steve: I'm gonna throw something out there. Maybe checklist manifesto.

Sharad: That was one of them, but it was it was another one that, oh, man. Yeah. It it just completely changed how I started running my business about it. It's it's about a guy who goes into a bakery.

Steve: It's Emeth.

Sharad: Emeth. Yes. That's Emeth revisited. Yeah. That's the one.

That had a huge influence on kinda how I started looking at my business. I literally was prepare a checklist. We're doing turnkey, And we said, alright. Every house that we're doing has to have the same paint color, same cabinet, same faucet, same toilet, same paint fixture, everything. Mhmm.

And I I wasn't doing this before. I mean, it just sounds so silly now to think about why wouldn't I do that. But, you know, it just there was no I mean, in my mind, I thought that each house had to look different. And I'm like, why? I just started asking why the tenants don't care as long as the house is presentable.

Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Exactly. Nobody cares. In my mind, it was just my, you know, limiting belief that each house had to look unique.

And once we said, alright. This is the spreadsheet. Anything we're buying, it has to be from the spreadsheet. If it's not, let's just make sure we add it to the spreadsheet, and everything is from bought from this spreadsheet.

Steve: So I'm gonna give you a little bit of a nightmare story from my my own personal experience with flipping. Right? So the people have listened know that hate flipping. Right? So I have this problem, kinda like what you said earlier, of trusting contractors.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Right? And they're like, hey. What should I do here? I was like, well, you're the one that's flipping all these houses for all these investors. Like, what are they doing?

Like, put in what you think, what you're seeing as the trend. Just putting blind faith Right. Into a relationship.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: And then, this unfortunate situation was my mother in law's home. Right? Oh, wow. And they're like, yeah. Like, you know, like, what do you think will look good for that bathroom?

Like, you guys are doing all these remodels.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: And I came back and looked at it. I was like, this is not Yeah. What's popular. Right? This is what they put in because I think this is what they had the surplus of.

Sharad: Right. Right.

Steve: Yeah. And so you're talking about, like, having all these items in place, potentially warehouse somewhere, but at least maybe skew a list of skews.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: So, like, everyone looks exact same.

Sharad: Everyone. Exactly.

Steve: And these are kind of things you don't think about until you're flipping at scale or

Sharad: Exactly.

Steve: Right?

Sharad: Yeah. It just it made a day and night difference. It was like, oh, we didn't even have to think about it. We just had to tell at that point, we just had to tell the contractor if we're flipping this house or we're turnkey. That's all we had.

It was a turnkey. It's from a select list of skews that we're doing. If it's a flip, we would just, like, couple of, you know, fancy upgrades we'll do, like, granite countertop. We'll put, like, tile in the bathroom, like, those sort of thing. Otherwise, if it's a turnkey, straight, everything's same.

Don't even ask me. This is a scope of work. Just go do it. Don't even ask us, like, what toilet, what kitchen

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: What, you know, floating to use. Like, it just everything needs to be from that checklist.

Steve: Right. Yeah. That's really smart. So, how difficult then was it? Sounds like it wasn't really terribly difficult once you decided to go down this path of creating SOPs.

Yes. Okay. So so when you're talking about flipping, you're talking about predominantly, flipping as a turnkey investor. When to to a turnkey investor, when did you start incorporating virtual assistant?

Sharad: Virtual assistant wasn't until so I was living in Chicago until August 2015. My wife, she got a job in Carlsbad, so we decided to move to Carlsbad. Yeah.

Steve: It's terrible. You had to move to Carlsbad.

Sharad: I know, man. I know. I miss the weather in Chicago. I miss the snow. Yeah.

So we moved to to Carlsbad. For those of

Steve: you guys who don't know, it's just outside of San Diego.

Sharad: Oh, yeah. Yeah. For anybody on it's it's beautiful weather. Yeah. It's 70 degree all year round.

Yeah. So I we moved to Carlsbad, and I was at this point, I was doing about forty, fifty flips a year. Like, flip turnkey retail, you know, mix of both. And then I started looking at my business. I'm like, okay.

I need a system. You know, it was working great while I was in in Chicago. I could go visit these properties. And then it started also becoming more difficult to find properties from MLS. So I was started doing I'd started doing some direct to seller marketing.

Mhmm. And once I moved to Chicago I mean, from Chicago to Carlsbad, now I could not just if there was an issue with the property, I could not just drive down. You know, if a plumber called me and said, like, previously, what would happen is and it just it's crazy. I think about it now, what an inefficient system I had. I was living in Chicago.

If a plumber called me and said there's a leak, I would literally drive down from Downtown Chicago to Indiana thirty to forty five minute. I'm like, oh, yep. There's a leak. Let's fix it. Yeah.

And once I moved to San Diego to Carlsbad, I didn't have that option. I couldn't just take a flight and say so I said, alright. Let's call me on video. Call me on video. Show me.

Steve: Let's FaceTime this.

Sharad: Yeah. Let's FaceTime this. Yeah. It's like, okay. That makes sense.

Like, what's the estimates? Right? Started looking into this. But I still didn't have, like, a system as I was scaling to use, and that's when I started looking. Okay.

What do I need? You know, I'm doing more marketing. I'm sending out direct mail. You know, I wanna start buying more direct to seller properties directly from motivated sellers. I didn't have anything, so I started looking at what system would I need to manage my business.

Predominantly, everybody back then was using Podio. I just didn't like the idea of Podio. I didn't like to buy this product, and then I would still have to go out and buy everything else to integrate into this. So my You didn't like

Steve: you didn't like to have all the upsells?

Sharad: Oh, no. Yeah. I loved it. I loved it. I I was making way too much money.

You know, I should have given it to Podio. Yeah. I just no. It it just like, I I remember, like, people talk about you would have to do global flow

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Do this, do that. I'm like, I'm not gonna do this. Like, this just sounds crazy. So I hired couple of developers. Like, alright.

I'm gonna have create something for myself, which is gonna be focused on direct to sell marketing, but also focus a lot on project management because I was predominantly flipping houses back then. So I hired a couple of developers in 2016 or '17. And then I started looking into, I'll just create something. So they created, like, a product for me that was very specific to my business, not wholesaling, but buying direct to seller and then rehabbing those properties. And then I started going to other local, you know, masterminds.

And I'm like, okay. This is what I'm doing. You know, what do you guys think? So I started kind of getting feedback from, other investors. But, yeah,

Steve: I was just I I needed a system to run my own business. So you didn't need virtual assistants, so you're creating your own system?

Sharad: I yeah. So I hired my virtual assistant. She's still working with me. I hired her in 02/2018. She was living in Philippines now.

She lives in Canada. She moved there for her master's degree. She's still working for me. And then I also hired a project manager. She was living about fifteen minutes from.

So I hired her as an assistant. I had a home office. Her name is Claudia. She's still with me. So I said, Claudia, I need an assist assistant.

I have the home office. Why don't you come work from my home office? She would come in for five days. After a week, I'm like, you don't need to come in for five days. Just come in four days.

And then after a week, I'm like, you don't need to come in for three four days. Just come in for three days. After I'm like, you know what, Claudia? You're doing a good job. Just work from home.

Doesn't matter. And she amazing, amazing person. So she manages my entire house flipping business now.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Like, she's the one who helped me find the property. She would do all the due diligence, underwrite it, get all the content, everything. So she does all of that. And Apple, who's my virtual assistant in Canada now, she does all the lead management stuff. So, yeah, I hired Apple, Claudia first in 2016, I believe.

Got it.

Steve: You hired them to help you scale your operations.

Sharad: Exactly.

Steve: So you build a system to scale your operations. And once you have started building your own system

Sharad: Then I need people to put in that system.

Steve: Right. Right. Got it. Okay. So working with a VA, I mean, there's a lot of people that use VAs.

Right? But there's you were saying there's kinda something, some challenges where you you have some there's some things you've done to build a culture within your with your VAs.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: What are you doing that's out of the normal exceptional and and making sure you're managing your your VAs effectively?

Sharad: I think what I'm doing is not micromanaging them.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Just if I find the right person and they're really great at doing something, then I'm just gonna get out of their way and say, hey. You control it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: And just will manage everything by numbers. If the numbers make sense, we're moving in the right direction. If not, then we need to tweak what we're doing in our process. Mhmm. But if it's numbers are moving in the right direction, then I I don't need to get involved in kind of how they're doing things.

I just let them you know, I just tell them, okay, this is what we need to do. This is our goal that we need to get to, and then they manage the process at that point.

Steve: So I think that's everyone's dream. Right. Right? To have the VAs that are self sufficient

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Come with batteries included. Right? So they're already driven and motivated. You don't need to motivate them. You don't need to make sure they're doing their job.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: That's the dream.

Sharad: Yes.

Steve: How did you go from what everyone's a lot of people's nightmares? Like, sometimes people can't even get the VAs to show up to an interview Right. That they applied at online jobs at ph.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: They went to online jobs at ph, reach out to them, you schedule a job interview, and then you show up to the job interview. Right. So how do you go from managing people that I would say not not not necessarily unaccountable, but, you know, remotely, there's just some challenges. Right. So how do you go from hiring someone that's you can't even see or or meet Right.

To them being of, high functioning

Sharad: Right. Course. I mean, like, looking back, we have a process now, you know, in Adi simply for hiring people. But, like, when I hired Claudia or Apple, to be honest, I didn't have a process. Like, I wasn't just ready to hire someone.

And, honestly, I was just lucky, you know, to find the people that I did. It's just I had a good feeling about them, honestly. Like, I I I don't wanna say there was, like, something that, you know, that just told me about Claudia Heather, she was gonna be offended. I just had a good feeling about her. Like, one thing I've realized over the years now hiring people is that you can like, I wanna look I wanna hire people that have the right work ethics, that have the right character.

The skill can always be taught. Right. Right? If I hire someone who's highly skilled but is not honest, I cannot have them go to, hey. Can you go talk to Steve?

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Go take his one of his coaching courses and learn how to be honest. Mhmm. You know, stop stealing from the company. There's there's no course, you know? Right.

But I can if if I hire someone who's super motivated, you know, who's willing to learn, I can say, hey, can you go connect with Steve and his team and learn this, you know, sales training? That skill can be taught, but the the character, the work ethics cannot be taught. So I think that's what we focus on now. We wanna hire someone who has the right character, right work ethics. And then if they don't have the skill, that's totally fine.

We'll put them through the training to get the right skills. And then how we, you know, ensure that they have the right character, it's just, you know, we, we get we hire them on a ninety day probation period.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: And we say, hey. Look. You're not we're not expecting you to perform at a high level. We just wanna make sure you fit in with the company. You're the right cultural fit.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: You know? So that's the important thing that you have the right culture fit that other people, you know, you enjoy working with the company, and then, other people enjoy working with you. Right. So one thing we do with all our v is now is every week, someone on my team checks in with them. Hey.

How would you rate your happiness working with us on a scale of one to 10? 10 being, this is the best job ever. One being, hey. I'm already interviewing. I'm gonna give you my two week notice next week.

So we check-in with every single team member, and we say, hey. This is

Steve: Every week?

Sharad: Every week. Every week. And my head of CS reports to me on a weekly basis what the rating is.

Steve: Head of CS?

Sharad: For RE simply.

Steve: Okay. Yeah. So head of customer service?

Sharad: Head of customer service.

Steve: Or and they're checking all the VAs that are working at the company. Correct. How are they feeling?

Sharad: How are they feeling? Like, it's it's like how happy they are.

Steve: So you have an employer NPS score going out every week?

Sharad: Every week.

Steve: Yeah. That's incredible. I've never heard that.

Sharad: Yeah. We we check-in every and then I check-in with the head of our CS team. Hey. How are you feeling? You know?

And I say every day, like, I I do a one on one call with I mean, not one on one, but we do a team call. And I say every day to them, hey. If you're not happy with me for any reason, just tell me. It's not I don't have my ego involved. Like, what we're building it is bigger than anyone individually.

We're big creating something bigger than all of us here. So if you tell me, hey, Sharad. You suck how you run this meeting. I'm not gonna be offended. I just make sure that I replace myself with someone else who's gonna do a better job than me.

Right. But we wanna make sure you're absolutely honest in giving us a rating. That if you lie to us, then there's nothing we can do. But if you tell us honestly, hey. You know, I I grade seven, then we don't say, okay.

Why is it seven? Why not 10? What could we have done to make this a 10? If it's just a busy week, we get a lot of tickets from our customers or whatnot, then we'll make sure we have other people involved. You know, we now we've gotten to the point we've hired additional people, so nobody's, you know, overworked or anything like that.

But, yeah, that's a weekly score that we get from every single team member.

Steve: A super tight feedback system. Yeah. Is it a conversation or is it a web form? Conversation. Conversation.

Yeah. Every every week, someone's having a conversation with one of your VAs Yes. One to 10.

Sharad: One to 10. Awesome. And checking in every every week, like, thirty minute one on one with every VA on our team.

Steve: That's wonderful. Yeah. So going back to character and work ethic.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: How are you screening for character and work ethic? Because those are the most important things. Right? Like, if you're willing to work hard Right. You're willing to work hard and you're coachable, like Yes.

Anything's possible.

Sharad: Anything exactly. Anything is possible at that. But there's, like, there's no skill that you cannot learn. Absolutely none. Yeah.

So, like, what we look for is if someone refers, like, one someone who's been with us for a couple of years, you know, we absolutely love that. If they refer another employee to us, we know that other employee is gonna be a rock star too.

Steve: Pretty likely.

Sharad: Yeah. Pretty likely. Yeah. I mean, we've we've had some bad experiences also. Mhmm.

Yeah. But we go based on that. Right? Right. And then when we're interviewing, you know, we'll ask, you know, we'll I mean, you will get a good feeling based on the interview, you know, how they're presenting themselves, you know, and then, you know, how detail oriented they are if you wanna make sure it's a VIA job.

You know? We'll put at the end of the job listing that, hey. When you apply to this job, just put I'm awesome in the title. If they don't, like, we don't even look at that, application. Yeah.

So we do certain things like that. And just talking to them, you know, asking them, hey. What is important for you? Like, why would you wanna work for us, not for anybody else? Like, what is it that you are looking to get out of this employment?

Is it you're looking to make the most money that you can, or you're looking for a work life balance, looking for a place where you can feel part of something bigger? It at the end of the day, we have to ask the people that we're hiring, why do you wanna work? Like, why what would make this job, you know, absolutely best job ever? Like, what would have to happen? And then we make sure the answers that they give us aligns with our culture that we're trying to build.

Sure.

Steve: And I totally get that. But people also lie in our interviews.

Sharad: They do. Yeah. They do. I mean, then we'll we let, you know, we let go of them.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: We just have to move on. You know, we have our team members that, we have them do, use, like, Hubstaff, for example. So one of the team members was using this software that would just keep clicking Mhmm. To show that they're active. So we had one on one conversation with them.

We said, hey. This is only one time and one time only that you get away with this. If it happens again, we will not have this conversation. We'll just, you know, terminate your employment. Yeah.

And we we told him, look. We're not expecting you to always be busy. No. That's not the the purpose of this. The purpose of this is so we can manage our workforce.

We make sure if someone is working at 80% efficiency, that's that's not sustainable. That's not it. Like, you know, the person will just break down after a couple of weeks of just constantly on calls or meetings. So we wanna make sure if that's happening with you, we reach out to you and say, let's say it's you, Steve. We say, hey, Steve.

We noticed that last three weeks, you've been, like, 80% efficiency. That's not sustainable. You know, let's make sure we get you some help. Is there something we can take off your plate? So once we had that conversation, I think we didn't set the right expectation.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: You know, the employee came in and thought he just had to be super efficient, but that was not the goal. So once we did that, he understood and was like, hey. I appreciate you having this conversation. So making sure, like, setting right expectation and it's an ever evolving process. Right?

We'll learn something that happens with one team member and, like, oh, we didn't expect that, and we make it part of our process. So keep always keep improving the process to make sure if a mistake happens, it only happens one time and one time only.

Steve: So you feel like asking the questions, there's no particular questions or no no particular answers that tell you that someone's got a high work ethic?

Sharad: I mean, if if they say if you ask them, hey. What's the most important thing from this job? And if they say, alright. I wanna work eight hours, make the most money possible, then, you know, right off the bat Right. Not the right fit.

Mhmm. So we have our v eight, and one of the v eight's that we hired, we said, okay. If we were gonna, you know, we we want you to start taking calls with our customers, for example. Say, alright. If we wanna do customer facing work, then I wanna make more money.

Like but you haven't proven yourself that you can even actually do that. Mhmm. It's like, no. If I'm gonna do this, I wanna make more money. So we just said, alright.

You know, this is not gonna work out.

Steve: I just The focus in our language.

Sharad: Yeah. Exactly. The focus on their language. So now we make sure, you know, we have those questions on the interview when we're, looking for a candidate.

Steve: One of the questions we used to ask, we don't really ask anymore. I was like, if you made a 150,000 your first year, what are you doing? And they're like, oh, I'm gonna go on this amazing vacation. This and I was like, okay. They're already like

Sharad: Right. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you can just tell based on the answer. Just like it's it's something on how they show up to the interviews also that you can tell, you know, how they're gonna, you know, part of our culture.

Steve: Right. So we highlighted here working, less than an hour a week. Right. Right? Working on your real estate business less an hour a week, but you're still you flipped, 50 houses Right.

At at some point.

Sharad: Right. Think about twenty, twenty five.

Steve: Right now, today.

Sharad: Today. Yeah. Right?

Steve: But you already have other operations in places. So how are you able to keep the operation going working an hour a week? In that, like, having your brain dedicated an hour a week in the other operation.

Sharad: That's like hiding the right people.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Like, Claudia, she is the project manager or, I would say, like, CEO of the house flipping business. So between her and Apple Claudia lives in California. Apple lives in, Canada. And then we have a house flipping business in Indiana. We don't have anyone local, but we built systems and processes in place that Claudia manages, Apple manages, and they take care of everything.

I get involved in a fifteen minute huddle in the morning Mhmm. Which it's on my calendar for fifteen minutes, but it hardly lasts for, like, five minutes. And that's kind of why checking here, everything going okay. Like, you know, what leads are working, what lead, are not working, and I'll just kind of tweak that. Yeah.

And my biggest involvement is, like, making sure we always have the money for the properties we need, and then, you know, that, the numbers make sense.

Steve: Okay. So say it again. What are you responsible for for your real estate turnkey business?

Sharad: My responsibility is making sure we have always the money available for the number of properties that we wanna buy.

Steve: That's your number one?

Sharad: That's my number one.

Steve: Yeah. How do you do that?

Sharad: I have a line of credit and then a money set aside, you know, for the projects for specifically for the house clipping business to make sure that we always have funds available. And then building, you know, relationships with other private money lenders, just making sure that when we need the money, if we have, like, two or three properties that we're looking to buy, we always have the funds readily available.

Steve: Your core responsibilities mean the money guy? Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So And

Sharad: I signed the buy side and sell side closing document. Right. That's pretty much it.

Steve: So I can't remember where I heard this, but something along the lines, like, if you can only be on the phone for fifteen minutes a week Right. To check-in your business, what would you need to know? Right? So for you and your business working an hour a week, what do you need to know in that business?

Sharad: What do I need to know is so we have a pretty automated system. Mhmm. You know? Like, it's one of the reason why I build recently is to have everyone on my team using the same system. So I check-in kinda where so going back to the books that we're talking about, like, the checklist manifesto was a huge, you know, a book that had a huge influence on kind of how I operate my business.

So having, like, checklists for everything, making sure that we have these processes. Hey. If this happens in our business, then then there are some tasks automatically assigned to everyone on our team that they're getting done. As long as they're getting done, then everything is moving along. So for me, my time is spent spent on making sure we have the money available and we have the right process built out.

So if there's something that needs to be tweaked with the process, then I'll do that. But outside of that, just making sure we have the right process and money available.

Steve: So the rest of it really is just having a dashboard. Exactly. I'm really simplifying because we're gonna get into ARRI simply in a moment. Yeah. But, really, just having a dashboard.

Having a dashboard. Correct. Right. Okay. And that's powerful.

Having a dashboard gives you a lot of confidence.

Sharad: Yeah. Because, like, people will lie. Right? Numbers never lie. It's like one thing numbers are like, two plus two will always be four.

It will never be 5. It will never be 3. It will never be 39.

Steve: It depends who you talk to these days. Yes. Mostly.

Sharad: Yeah. Exactly. Mostly. Mostly. Talking to any sane person, two plus two will always be four.

So if I'm talking to my team and say, hey. We spent 10,000. We made zero money. I it doesn't matter what your gut is about that marketing channel. It did not work for us.

It's as simple as that. We need to move on.

Steve: Yeah.

Sharad: And then if we had 50 leads come in, no appointment, what happened? You know, then I'll go through if something like that happens, I'll go through the leads and see, okay, why did these leads not convert into an appointment or

Steve: so forth. Just like we were talking about earlier, you're counting background and, like, hey. We're gonna do this. Right. Because we're gonna make our decisions based off of numbers.

Right. We're gonna buy these properties based off of numbers. We're gonna turnkey, and we're gonna sell these properties based off of numbers. Like, there's a theme here.

Sharad: Yeah. There is. Yeah. I mean, it's it's my accounting background. It's just like relying on numbers.

You know, I could be anywhere. I could be sitting anywhere. We have team in four different countries now for recently. Right? It doesn't matter.

Like, everybody, we make decision based on numbers and numbers only. If you come and tell me, hey. I have a really good feeling about no. Show me the numbers, you know, for a good feeling. Yes.

I mean, if you're really doubtful about what decision to make, yeah, we'll go with something that we feel pretty good about Mhmm. If you have no data. But let's just go based on the data. If you tell me, hey. Everyone on our CS team is happy.

Show me this code to prove it. Mhmm. You know, that's that's the only way to prove it.

Steve: Do the weekly NPS course.

Sharad: Exactly. For our team members. Like, show me that everyone is happy. If they're not, why are they not happy? Like, what is it about working with us that they're not happy about?

Let's make sure we work on it. Is it something that we control or they have the right expectations?

Steve: Yeah. I think that's that's that's incredibly powerful. Like, it's not sexy. It's incredibly effective.

Sharad: Yeah. And then team members, we'll herd. You know? Some actually find out to, Philippines in couple of months. I've I've never met anyone in my Philippines team.

We have, like, dozen of people working for us now. So I'm flying out to Philippines, and I said, hey. I want you guys to decide where should we meet. You know? I'm only gonna be there for four days, but you decide where do we wanna meet.

You know? How do we wanna have the best time? And so everyone is excited about that. You know, that's part of the culture that we're building. You wanna make sure that they feel heard in every way possible.

Yeah. If they say, hey. I wanna make $50 an hour. So then you have to find another job. You know?

We can't afford that. But if you have the right expectations given kind of what you're bringing to the table, we'll make sure that this is absolutely the best, you know, job for you ever.

Steve: Gotcha. I like it. So before I go before I go back to, the CRM, you own 50 properties free and clear?

Sharad: 45 units are free and clear. Five, I have dead on. Yeah.

Steve: Okay. That goes that flies against the face of every Yes. Real estate investment book. It does. What is the reason or rationale for

Sharad: that? Dave Ramsey. Yeah. He he had a huge influence on kind of how I started thinking about money. So, like, again, being accounting background, really being into personal finance, you know, I started reading a little following a lot with Dave Ramsey, you know, read his books, what he was talking about, Suzy Orman.

But for some reason, I think it was all for influenced by back in 02/1012, you know, kind of what happened with the real estate market. You know, it's just people were overleveraged. I think that had an influence in kind of why I gravitated towards Dave Ramsey and how that influenced in my market my investments. Right? I mean, I I have an accounting degree.

I totally understand. I could leverage and have 200 unit, but that's not something that I'm comfortable with. I would much rather have you know, even the the loan that I have on five units, I think the total loan is about 50,000. So I could just pay it off, but, you know, it just it's like 5% interest. I'm like, I'm gonna keep it.

Right. But I I I totally understand that I could instead of 53 and clear clear units, I could have 200 units with loans on them. Mhmm. But that's not something that I'm comfortable with. I wanna be able to just have a peace of mind on knowing, okay.

If the property is not rented out, I'm not in any distress or about, hey. Let's just find the best tenant we can right now. I just make sure we make the right decision. I'm not in any stress. I have free cash flow coming in.

I don't have to worry about banks or anything. So that's just what I feel comfortable. It doesn't make financial sense.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: It it does not, you know. It it it does not help me make the most money possible with the money that I have. Mhmm. But that's something I feel totally comfortable with. I can increase my return on equity if I wanted to, but that's not in my You

Steve: could make more money.

Sharad: Absolutely. But

Steve: the peace of mind is far more valuable 100%.

Sharad: With more money. 100%. Do you think because you were

Steve: saying you were born in India? Yes. Do you think being born in another country influenced this mindset?

Sharad: I'm sure it does. Yeah. I I don't know how, but I I don't see how it would not influence kind of how I think, you know, coming from a very conservative background. Yeah. You know, it it it has to.

Right? Right.

Steve: And

Sharad: so I I'm not definitely I totally understand I could be making a lot more money Mhmm. With my rental portfolio, but that's not that's not my Well,

Steve: I mean, I bring this up because, so a, right, even though I wasn't born here, I'm pretty much red blood in America. Right? And you read the books and the books like maximum leverage. Right? And they have, like, the seesaw

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Right, diagram and this and that. Like, max leverage, max leverage, max leverage. And you're reading all these books. I'm reading all these books in o four, o five, o six. Right?

Right. And And I get into real estate, and I watch everyone crashing. We're not everyone. Like, 90 plus percent of people crash and burn. And then I see who's standing.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: And everyone that's left standing is free and clear. Yes. Everyone's free and clear. And then what happens? Now I'm a realtor at this point because I was too dumb to understand how like, financing.

I'm a realtor, and I'm helping everyone else buy all these properties Right. Cash. And then I also see, not only are they buying all these properties cash, because they're buying all these properties cash and the market is so depressed, they're cash flowing so much.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: They can just keep buying a property cash every single month.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: And I was like, okay. So there's the book theory. Right. And then there's, like, what happens with reality Yeah. When the market just takes a giant

Sharad: dump. Right.

Steve: And it's not that market will take a giant dump on a regular basis, but it happens. It happens. Yeah. Right? And then where are you?

Like, how naked are you? Right. You're overleveraged or not even overleveraged. You 30% leverage.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: What do you do?

Sharad: Absolutely. And then I think, Steve, you make a really good point, you know, when you said before, for me, personally, like, peace of mind is way more valuable. Mhmm. So when you're looking at investment, you know, there's one school of thought. It's just look at the return on investment.

But you have to look at return on investment, return on your time also, and then how much you value peace of mind. You know, everybody is gonna have different, you know, thoughts around it. For me, peace of mind is way more important than making the most money. It's it's not my goal. I I have a very conservative lifestyle, more than happy with the lifestyle that I have.

You know, even if I make additional money, is it gonna go into bank account? You know? So I'm happy with kind of where I'm at. So I think valuing peace of mind with valuing ROI, you you have to see kinda what's more important for me. Yeah.

You gotta

Steve: figure out what's most important to you. And the reason I was bringing up the the immigrant part is because, a, my parents went through this. Right? It's like, my dad understood this, but my mom refused to let him do it because she's like, this is a risk. Like, I don't wanna risk money.

Right? And then, I'm married, and my wife also believes in free and clear.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: And I'm like, you know how much money we're leaving on the table? Right. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Peace of mind.

Like, she is not worried at all. Right. Right? When everything crashes, there's some money coming in. Yeah.

Every single month covers our bills.

Sharad: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, like, just it's amazing.

Like, there's there's no words to put that, you know, feeling into words, like, how amazing it feels, like, not have to worry about that.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: And just knowing it's it's a decision that I've intentionally make that highest ROI, making the most money is not the most important thing for me. Just having peace of mind, being able to do what I wanna do when I wanna do, that's most important for me.

Steve: Right. Like, buying properties in Africa.

Sharad: Yeah.

Steve: While you're in the middle of Africa. Yeah. Okay. So you created RE Simply. Right.

Right? Which, I mean, I have multiple people that we've mentored in the past that are like, yeah. This is what I use. I love it. It makes my life easier.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Right? So did you start this with the intent of having it be a service, or was this like, hey. This is what I need. And people are, like, bothering you. Like, hey.

I need this. I need this.

Sharad: It it started out with something that I needed for myself. Yeah. It was I mean, yes. When I started the company, I thought, okay. It would be great if other people used it and paid for it.

It would be cool. It would

Steve: be cool. Right.

Sharad: But if it does nothing else and helped me, you know, buy a couple of more properties a year, we'll pay for itself. It's just it was just, again, mathematical decision. It'll just pay for itself. Numbers. The numbers would make sense, you know, the money that I'm investing in this.

So What was your initial investment? Oh, man. It just it's it was nowhere enough what I thought I needed to spend in this. Yeah. I thought I'd just hire a couple of I mean, kind of, you know, what you said it's funny what you said about the contractors.

Mhmm. Hey. Just do what's right. I did the same thing with the developers. Yeah.

So just build it. Yeah. Just, like, just build me a product. Oh my god. That was such a stupid thing to do.

Just telling the the developers to just build, so I thought I would hire a couple of developers for a couple of months, and that would be the end of it. Mhmm. No. No. That was not the case.

Yeah.

Steve: So I guess what did you expect it to be to develop it initially?

Sharad: Oh, I thought, like, no more than three to six months. I said, I'll just tell the developers, this is what I need. They would exactly understand what I need. And I said, okay. Just do this.

Show me a month what you have, and we'll just go from there.

Steve: And your your expectation reality, like, was it, like, off by a factor of 10, off by Oh,

Sharad: it was it was like we we started from scratch. Yeah. We we literally started from scratch. The the the people that I hired initially to build this, after about year and a half, no jokes, I said, no. I'm just starting fresh.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: And it was my fault. Like, I don't wanna blame the developers. It was totally my fault. I just I would I didn't go in with the right expectation. I thought I would tell these people, that I'd hired, hey.

Just please can you build this? And then I'll see you in six months, deliver the product, and then, you know, we'll live happily ever after.

Steve: So, we did offer fast. Right? We we we create our own app for a little bit. And I have the good fortune that all five of my younger brothers are also offer developers. So it made OfferFast a lot easier to develop.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: And so my the second oldest is he he works at Amazon, and he actually worked at an apartment that reports directly to Jeff Bezos' like special, like, projects.

Sharad: Okay.

Steve: So, like, he's, like, top

Sharad: Right.

Steve: At Amazon. Right? I was like, hey. Here's what we want. And I'm telling you the hours of questions he asked me Right.

Sharad: About this page,

Steve: that page, this pull down. I was like, do you really need to know all of this? Yeah. And he's like, you want you want me to an you wanna answer it now Right. Or be upset with the product later on?

Yeah. I'll rebuild it. Right. Like, I guess I'd rather be frustrated with you now.

Sharad: Yeah. Oh, absolutely, Steve.

Steve: And that

Sharad: was probably

Steve: your experience.

Sharad: Oh, Steve. 100%. Your brother is so smart. Like, he did the right thing. Yeah.

I'm telling you, that was my experience. And I was so naive, I said, I'm just gonna tell the developers this is what I need to create it.

Steve: Mhmm. You know,

Sharad: it's like going to a restaurant and telling the chef, you know, I wanna have this pasta, and then bring it out. You don't have to tell them exactly how much salt to put, how much sugar, you know. All

Steve: the raw noodles.

Sharad: Yeah. Exactly. That they should know, but that was not the case. Yeah. Yeah.

And they showed me something like, what is this guy? What is this? This is not what I wanted. Right. Yeah.

So we literally started the product from scratch after about year, year and a half of, like, not doing it the right way. Again, I wanna take full responsibility on how the expectations that I had. I just completely screwed up on it. Mhmm. So then the second time around we started, I was more involved.

I said, okay. This is what we need. This is what it needs to look like. This is what it should do. Mhmm.

So, like, then for a couple of years, I just use it just for myself. You know, everything that we built, just use it just for myself. Then I started going to masterminds. You know, we would do hot seat presentations and show people, hey. That's just kinda what my numbers look like.

Again, the most important thing with the what we built was the data, the KPIs. So I would show other investors. Oh, this is cool. What is this? Like, oh, this is something I build.

Like, oh, would I would be interested. I just felt so, you know, insecure about what I built. Like, you know, it works for my business, but there's no way possible it would work for other people. Like, it just like, it it doesn't seem right something that I built for my business. Other people would be able to get value out of it.

You know, you just have this insecurity about kind of, you know, it's taking your you know, you have a newborn. You take the new one out, and then you don't want anybody to say, hey. Your babies are big. You know, you want, oh, this is, like, the the cutest baby ever. So I always felt like, oh, no.

I have to just think a little bit more. I have to do this. I have to do that. Just then in 2000 2019, I'm like, alright. We're just gonna open it up for a few people just to use it as, you know, beta project.

So we started getting feedback. Oh, this is awesome. You know? And then we started getting feedback just kind of, you know, kept developing more from there on.

Steve: Was this, investor fuel?

Sharad: No. This was, Sharper leadership with Gary Harper.

Steve: Sharper leadership?

Sharad: Yeah. Gotcha.

Steve: Very cool. Okay. So your vision when you started this, what functionality were you hoping when you first launched it? Like, the first iteration of it.

Sharad: The very, very first iteration was project management built specifically for my

Steve: Project management meaning, like, we've got this property

Sharad: The flips.

Steve: That we that we own.

Sharad: Yeah. No. The flips that we have going on. Right. So manage the flips that properties that we bought.

I mean,

Steve: like, properties you've acquired. Yes. Exactly. The properties you acquired from when you acquired it to when it was delivered as turnkey. Correct.

That was the functionality.

Sharad: That was the functionality and managing scope of work.

Steve: Okay. Yeah. So then you can manage basically a flip Correct. Inside your CRM. Correct.

Sharad: It was it was never initial version never started out with the CRM. I didn't even know what CRM was.

Steve: Okay.

Sharad: Yeah. It never started it started So

Steve: it was just I wanna see

Sharad: My business progress

Steve: on all my flips. Exactly. Okay. That was the first iteration. That

Sharad: was the first iteration. That completely

Steve: And that took more than a year and a half?

Sharad: More than a year and a

Steve: half. Okay.

Sharad: So that's wasted money, wasted time. Yeah. I I I don't wanna say wasted time. It's something that I learned from that process. Yeah.

Steve: The experience.

Sharad: The experience. Yeah. I got I got education out of it, let's just say, for eighteen months. Expensive education. Expensive education.

Yeah.

Steve: Okay. So now we can say for all these different addresses, we can see from when we acquired it to when Yes. When when it's sold and then all the different, like, like, permitting, electrical work

Sharad: Exactly.

Steve: When when it rented, this and that.

Sharad: Exactly. All of that.

Steve: Okay. Then what was the next iteration?

Sharad: Next iteration was around the time we started doing more directed selling marketing. Mhmm. So we're still doing project management, but then it had the CRM part of it also, managing your leads. Your motivated seller leads, and then ability to call them, text them from within the system. Mhmm.

So one thing that we started out beginning, you know, with recently was I wanted to see everyone on my team be on the same software. Everyone should be on the same software

Steve: Okay.

Sharad: Using one software.

Steve: Have you worked at your company? What do you call that? Your company?

Sharad: My house flipping Yeah. Max Properties.

Steve: Max Properties. So if you work at Max Properties Yes. Everyone is logging in to recently.

Sharad: Yes. Everything from calling a lead, texting a lead, pictures, videos, communicating internally, everything should be in the even my bookkeeper and accountant are also everything is in recently now. Yes. So that was that was the vision. That's where we are right now.

Gotcha. Everything we're building now, creating now, it's it's grown way beyond my business, way beyond my business. We have people doing dozens of deals a month using our platform, and it's it's just, like, evolved way beyond what I needed for my business.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: So everything we're developing now is based on what other people are requesting. You know, larger teams are requesting and, like, hey. I would need this feature, that feature. You know, it would help my business in this. So that's kind of what we're developing now.

Steve: Right. So we're going back. The functionality is, you can plug into multiple marketing channels

Sharad: Correct.

Steve: Or marketing mediums. Right. So you could do from there, direct mail

Sharad: Cold calling.

Steve: Cold calling.

Sharad: No texting.

Steve: No texting. Right. But you can manage Websites. Websites, PPC Right.

Sharad: SEO. SEO. Right. Your vendors, your buyers, everything.

Steve: So all and all your relationships, everything is Correct. In here. Correct. So then I would let's say I got an address in there.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Or I got, like I I pull a list, from, let's say, investment machine. Right?

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Pull a list. How do I incorporate that into recently?

Sharad: So once you pull the list, you put into recently list stacking.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: I do stack your list. Then you can cold call from within recently. You can send direct mail.

Steve: Mhmm. You can

Sharad: get your buyer seller website all within the system. Mhmm. And you send direct mail. You do cold calling. You can buy different tracking numbers.

And if a lead call is in, you know exactly what marketing campaign they call in from. If you're doing direct mail to probate list, you're doing direct mail to tax list, you can know exactly what marketing campaign they're calling from. So you can know for every dollar that you're putting into each marketing channel, exactly what your ROI is. So for every dollar you put in, how much money you're making at the end of the day.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: Yep. So that's that's what it does.

Steve: Yeah. So, you got basically an automated ROI calculator in there as well.

Sharad: Correct.

Steve: So from there, you know this is what the return is.

Sharad: Right. Your cost per lead, cost per deal, ROI. Yeah.

Steve: So you don't need to download it or extract it or nothing.

Sharad: Correct.

Steve: Click in there.

Sharad: Click in there. Yeah. You can see how long everyone in your team how many offers they made, how many appointments they've been on. You know?

Steve: All the KPIs.

Sharad: All the KPIs.

Steve: All the reporting is right there.

Sharad: Correct. You can click on if someone says I've been on 10 appointment, in person appointment, phone appointments, drive by appointment, you can click and see exactly all the appointments that they went on. Did they actually keep the appointment or did they not keep it?

Steve: Right.

Sharad: You know, you can see the leaderboard, how much revenue each person brought into the business, you know, what is their average call duration, how long they were on the phone, for how many text messages they sent out.

Steve: Gotcha. Right. Okay. So and you're creating this. You said this is for your business.

Correct. And now you're you got other people requesting additional, what's the word? Add ons, but, additional functionality

Sharad: Correct.

Steve: Inside it. Right. So what is the what is your plan? What what is the road map for the additional functionality?

Sharad: The road map for directional functionality is, like, building out more of the the core functionality. Right? Like, the calling features. So you can call you can make outgoing call. You can receive incoming call.

The next iteration the next update that's gonna come out next month is you'll be able to listen in, like, do call monitoring. You know, we have people that have, like, large sales team. They wanna be able to listen into a call. They wanna be able to speak to their, sales agent. You know?

They wanna barge into calls. So those are the features that are coming in, next month. And then also, attaching your incoming emails. So right now, you can only do outgoing emails. Within next update, you'll be able to receive emails within the system also.

So if you have Gmail or Outlook, you can receive emails. Right? So you don't have to log in to Gmail or Outlook. All your emails will come right within recently.

Steve: So in your vision, they'll never have to leave recently? Ideally. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

And you said something fascinating. You have clients who don't even use QuickBooks anymore.

Sharad: Correct.

Steve: They just do everything within recently. Correct. How is that even feasible?

Sharad: What what do you mean?

Steve: You're basically competing against, like, competing against Intuit. Right? Like, they bought Right. How many years ago they bought QuickBooks. Right?

But, I mean, like, that is a corporate, that's a giant corporation.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Right? Like, Intuit is not a small entity now even though they're not a small entity. Maybe because they're such a big entity. Their customer service is horrific, and their functionality is always, like Right. You know, it seems like years behind.

Right. But still, it's a massive It is. It's the elephant in the room.

Sharad: But when you think about it in

Steve: the room.

Sharad: But when you think about QuickBooks, right, QuickBooks is not built for real estate investors. Correct. It's built for everyone.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: And it ends up being awesome for no one. It's, like, good enough for everyone

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: But it's really not solving a specific industry need. So let's say if you're using QuickBooks. Right? You're a real estate investor. I say, Steve, you're using QuickBooks.

And I say, Steve, can you go into QuickBooks and tell me exactly without leaving QuickBooks, what is your ROI on direct mail? What is your ROI in cold calling? You you cannot do that.

Steve: Absolutely not.

Sharad: Exactly. If I ask you, just going into QuickBooks, you tell me cost per lead and cost per deal. Can you do that? No. Right.

That's that's what we do. Like, you don't so think of it this. Imagine your bookkeeper is doing what they need to do. They don't have to know anything about anything else. Like, accounting is account.

It's a science. Right? It just it's debit and credit. So you just go in. You say, alright.

I have this expense coming in. This expense was for ABC marketing company for this direct mail for this campaign. That's all you have to do. When you make the money, our system would automatically attach it to if you sell one two three Main Street property, you made 50 thou we already know what marketing campaign 123 Main Street belongs to. You don't have to, export anything, link any spreadsheet.

You say I made 50,000, our system already knows the 123 Main Street came from direct mail property. So it would update the cost per lead, cost per deal and ROI automatically without you exporting anything, without you using any other software. So that's that's where the limitation of QuickBooks coming. Like, QuickBooks would do the bookkeeping. It would give you some reports, but those are not reports that are relevant to investors.

No. What we're doing is very, very specific to investors. You know, we go in, like, the even the that we use, like, you go into QuickBooks, it says it talks about class. You know? Like, investors don't talk about class.

Like, I don't ask you, hey, Steve. How much money did you make on that class? Right? I asked you how much money did you make on the property. That's what we use.

You know? What property this expense belongs to? So it just it's very simple way. You just manage your books on your own. And, yeah, I mean, once people start using it, I that's honestly the last piece that people feel comfortable with because they have this mindset of, oh, there's no way I can replace QuickBooks.

But once they do and they get this insight into this business, they're, like, blown away. Just by click of a button, they can see exactly how much money they're making from each marketing channel. Yeah. That's the most powerful thing ever. Like, knowing if I'm spending a dollar in marketing, right, you could be spending, let's say, you could be spending $200,000 in marketing, and you're making, let's say, $500,000 on it.

Right? Do you know that you're willing to spend $200,000 to make 500? Could you only spend $1.50 and make 500? Right? That's the stuff most of the investors have no idea about.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: Right? They they say, you know, they're making 7 figures. They're talking about their top revenue numbers. They're saying, oh, I make 7 figures revenue. But how much do you keep off that?

Did you keep, you know, 40% of that, 5% of that? What's the point of making a million dollars in revenue when you're only taking home 50,000? Would you not much rather make 800,000 and your take home is $25,300? You have a much leaner, more efficient business. But people have no idea.

Like Right. It it just it's very it's very difficult to use all these different systems. Right?

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: You have QuickBooks. QuickBooks doesn't speak with your CRM. Right? You have to export data from QuickBooks. You have to export data from your CRM and then have someone match up all the data.

And you have to keep doing it over and over again. It it doesn't give you in real time.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: But our system does that in real time.

Steve: Like, if

Sharad: you spend money on marketing channel, it updates your KPIs in real time.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: So a lot of the investors would have KPIs on their dashboard, you know, on their on their big screen. And then as they get an appointment, as they get an, you know, meeting or whatever, it just updates in real time as they spend any money, make any money. They know exactly, you know, what's going on with the revenue.

Steve: I mean, I like the fact that it sounds like, this expense is tied to a list is or is tied to, a channel. Right. And when you get a property when you when you lock a property up, you already know from the campaign Right. What list Exactly. What channel.

Sharad: Exactly. So if I ask you so, Steve, what do you think the biggest expense for a typical real estate investor is? Well Are they p and l?

Steve: Should be. It's usually staff or marketing.

Sharad: Right. It's it's one of those two. Mostly, I would say marketing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: Right? So that's where if imagine if you can be, you know, 20% better on your marketing. That's a very, very easy number to attain. Right? Once you start looking at how much money you're spending on each marketing, let's say I mean, we have a lot of investor that are doing radio ads or TV ads, for example.

So we tell them, hey. If you're doing radio ads, let's say you're going on two different radio station. Use two different tracking numbers. Let's say you

Steve: spend let's

Sharad: say you spend, like, $5,000 on radio ads, on two different radios. You use the same phone number. You make 20,000. You're like, fantastic. I spent 5,000.

I made 20,000. I just keep doing more. We say, hold on. Oh, which radio station did you make money from? Do you know?

Do you even need to spend money on both radio stations, or do you do one? Or you do direct mail. You send out 5,000 piece of direct mail. Right? You have your probate list.

You have your absentee list. You just use one number. You spend, let's say, $2,500 mailing to that list. You make money, you make 10,000. Like, fantastic.

Four x are done. I need to do more of it. And the question is, hey. Was it the probate list that made you money or the absentee list? Right?

Should you even be mailing to both list? Right? So that's where we we help you exactly with what marketing channel is working. You might realize that you're spending you know, after five thousand mailing list, you only had thousand on probate, 4,000 on absentee. So you spend, like, $500 on your probate, and that's the one that you made money on.

So it's your return. It's not $27,500 to 10,000. It's actually $500 to 10,000. So but you need to keep repeating the proxy. You cannot just do it, you know, one time and then based on that.

But if you have numbers over three or four mailings, and you look at three or four mailings, and you're like, I consistently make money from probate list. I don't make any money from absentee. You're not nearly enough for it to be scalable. Now let's say you're going in another market. You have the data to make a decision.

I should go with probate list in this market because I've proven that I can make money from probate list in market a. If I'm going in market b, at least I'm basing my decision based on numbers, not based on a gut feeling. Right. Not based on a theory that, hey, absentee list list works. I'm going based on the data that I have to prove that my I have 10 x r a, 10 time 10 x ROI on my probate list.

So I'm gonna start with that and see how that works in different market and then just kind of scale from there.

Steve: Gotcha. If someone wanted to learn more about Recently, how would they? They

Sharad: can go to, resimply.com, resimpli.com.

Steve: Simple enough. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you, you got multiple ventures going on.

What is your why?

Sharad: That's a good question. I'm actually working with a coach right now to kind of help me get clarity on that. I think it's at this point, it's about the people that we have in our team. You know? I think with what we're doing with the plan that we have, you know, I I feel like we can make a a generational financial impact in their life.

So I think that's the most exciting part, especially having people, you know, in overseas, in Philippines, or India, like, with what we're doing. You know, I, you know, I have some numbers in mind once whatever we decide to do with the company, you know, with the long term. Then I wanna make sure that the people that have been with us for a long time that they're financially, incentivized. And it's like life changing money for them. Yeah.

So that's the most exciting part is the people that have been with us, in the company and changing their life.

Steve: That's cool. What's your biggest struggle right now?

Sharad: It's, building culture across, people in different countries speaking different languages. That's that's the biggest struggle right now.

Steve: How are you addressing it?

Sharad: I'm flying out to Philippines in couple of months. I'm going to India after that, and there are some team members in Bangladesh. I'm going to Philippines, Bangladesh, and India just to meet people in person. So but we'll we'll have, like, you know, great culture in the CS team. We'll have great culture in, you know, with the Bangladesh team, India team, but not a company wide culture.

So that's that's the part that I'm struggling with, and I don't have an answer for that yet. That's that's why I'm working with one of the things that I'm working with a coach on is, like, how do we, you know, build a culture around it.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, that's probably, a problem that most bigger companies deal with. Right? Because, like, most people do they're either here or they're here in The Philippines or they're here in South America. Right?

But they're not normally in, like, multiple

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Countries. Yep. So, yeah, I imagine that one's gonna be a Yeah. Crack.

Sharad: That's that's a tough one. I I don't have any answers Yeah. To that. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: And it takes a strong leadership to really maintain multiple locations Right. Let alone multiple locations speaking different languages.

Sharad: Absolutely.

Steve: Yeah. How do you stay motivated?

Sharad: I I read a lot. Recently, I've been reading a lot about stoicism, and I'm absolutely, like, fascinated with that. Yeah. And then I I meditate and I journal every day.

Steve: Reading stoicism, I imagine and I'm just kinda based off, you know Sure. Quick read here, quick personality read. I mean, I'm actually I probably was already in alignment with how you already orient your life.

Sharad: To some extent, but, you know, having it's it's more about, like yes. A lot of that I was already doing, but when you read it and it's about, like, reiterating the same principles over and over again, like, you know, based on, you know, stories of the books that I've read, I literally have daily rules to live by note for myself. So I read it every day. First thing in the morning when I get up, I read it every day just to kind of keep reminding me every day, hey. This is kind of what I need to focus on.

It helps tremendously in my personal life, business life, in every way.

Steve: For people that aren't familiar with stoicism. You wanna elaborate what that is?

Sharad: Sure. It's it's, old Greek philosophy popularized by Marcus Aurelius. He was a Roman emperor for about twenty years, and he wrote these, journals to himself, not for anybody else. He wrote these for to himself, and they survived the time. And now, you know, it's it's a book, Meditation by Marcus Aurelius.

Yeah. It's absolutely fascinating, like, the most powerful book that I've ever

Steve: read. Yeah. Yeah. I need to go through it again. Apparently, I read the wrong one.

I said

Sharad: they have so many different translations of it.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I had so many people, like, oh, you gotta read it. You gotta read it.

And I got an audiobook version.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: I was like, that was okay. Yeah. Like like, I offended someone so strongly, a team member. He's like, alright. I'm gonna give you the book that I read.

Right. This is the right one. Yeah. Like, disregard the other one. But, anyway, stoicism, obviously, is powerful.

It's, you know, I think if you look at different personality profiles, a stoic, I would look at kind of someone that's a high s profile

Sharad: on disc. Right.

Steve: Right? And then you look at, like, if you we could tell him about poker earlier, Phil Ivey. You ever watch him?

Sharad: Yeah.

Steve: Right. Like, that guy doesn't need lessons on stoicism. Like, that guy is just stoic.

Sharad: Right. Exactly.

Steve: He's a statue Yeah. At all times. Right. Right? Yeah.

So that's for those of you guys who are looking for an example. Like, as someone that is super calm and, like, what happens happens.

Sharad: Absolutely. Yeah. It just I the the whole principle of stoicism is you just worry about the things that are in your control. Yeah. That's it.

Steve: Right. Like, I have

Sharad: a flight this evening to San Diego. If it gets canceled, the only thing I have in my control is to show up to the airport on time. Anything outside of that is not in my control.

Steve: Right.

Sharad: The same thing in our business. Right? Like, we we don't necessarily control how happy our user is, for example. Like, we don't control if they give us a five star rating or not. We only control the effort that goes in to what we can do to make them happy.

Right? We can only control that we can get back to our user on time. We give them the right response to their question. That's the only thing we control. Whether they give us a five star rating or not, that's absolutely out of it.

Yes. We we just wanna make sure we're doing the things that we can. But if the outcome doesn't align with our effort, either the effort isn't what we're putting is not right Mhmm. Or the outcome that we're expecting is not right. The only thing that comes down is just controlling what's in your control.

Just worrying about the things that are in your control.

Steve: Yeah. And and I think it's a powerful lesson. As a matter of fact, something that I actually was talking about with yesterday. She was upset about something. Well, you can't control how other people feel.

Yeah. All you control is how you responded.

Sharad: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, just, like, even something simple. It it it talks about you have the power to not have an opinion about something. Like, imagine how liberating that is.

Like, I'm not on any social media. I'm not on Instagram, TikTok. I have Facebook account, but only for our, you know, recently group. But outside of that, I don't do any social media. Like, I don't follow any sport.

I could not name you any NFL player right now.

Steve: Yeah.

Sharad: I could not. I got I stopped watching once Hayden Manning retired. But I I don't follow any like, it just feels so liberating. It just feels so light that I don't have to worry about anything. I mean, I would just get so involved in each player's contract.

And I'm like, Sharad, you're not getting a percentage of their contract. Why do you care about it? And once I started thinking about it, I'm like, yeah. It it doesn't matter. And then I don't have to have an opinion about everything.

Steve: Yeah. Something I learned from, from Aaron Hardy was, like, imagine if you cared about your success as much as you cared about other athlete's success.

Sharad: Yes. Imagine that. Yeah. If you just focus on things you can control, and then just work towards it every single day, you know, imagine where you would be. Right.

That's that's what I try to focus on, things that are in my control. It's much easier said than done. You know? I just wanna be very clear. It's much easier said than done.

You know? I don't just get up in the morning. Like, oh, yeah. This is not in my no. No.

It it doesn't. But it's just about keep reminding yourself every single day. Just shrug. Work about the things. Worry about the things that are in your in your personal life, business life.

Mhmm. If it's not in your control, you know, it just there's nothing you can do. Just relax.

Steve: Yep. Yeah. I like it. What is your superpower?

Sharad: Oh, man. If I if I believe in a concept, if I believe in a theory, then I can just commit myself 100% to it. Yeah. Like, just talking about stoicism, you know, it could be anything. If, like, I believe in it Mhmm.

I'm just gonna go all in. I'm not gonna do anything half heartedly.

Steve: Yeah. So the ability to commit.

Sharad: Yeah. Ability to commit. Yeah.

Steve: Gotcha. What would other people around you say?

Sharad: I'm usually very calm.

Steve: Mhmm. I

Sharad: don't get worked up about this is not excluding my wife. I just wanna be clear. People say I'm very calm. I don't get worked up about many things, whether it's good or bad. Like, if something great happens, great Mhmm.

Something bad happens, great. You know? It just it doesn't like, my emotions don't go up or down Mhmm. Based on kind of what's happening. I I can be very relaxed.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Same same thing here. Right? Pretty relaxed that we're on my wife.

Sharad: Right. Yeah.

Steve: Right. It's like, why is that? I say, well, because I care about you more.

Sharad: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Right? And so those that were closest to are the ones that can affect us the most. What is your biggest regret?

Sharad: I think I mentioned earlier not buying old properties and not working with a coach earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Those two.

Steve: How did you learn your greatest lesson?

Sharad: Connecting with other people and making mistakes. I'm I'm okay making mistakes as long as I'm making a mistake only once. If I don't learn from it, then there's something wrong with me. If I make a mistake and I learn from it Yeah. I'm okay, you know, making that mistake as long as it doesn't, like, just ruin the whole company or life.

Steve: Right. Is there any one particular failure that you learned the most

Sharad: from? Oh, the one that I learned the most from is, yes. Making I mean, it did not it did not happen, but I was gonna give a big chunk of my company equity to someone without really consulting with someone. It just luckily, things didn't work out. But if it had worked out, that would have been really, really bad decision.

I think that's when I realized I need something much smarter, way more ahead of me in life Mhmm. To kind of just rather than making these decision based on my gut feeling or, like, not, you know, just having a good feeling about it, but not really thinking through everything that could good or bad that could happen. So that's why I work with a a personal coach now.

Steve: So you didn't have the ability to quantify it because everything else is quantified.

Sharad: Yeah. But that, I could not. It was just based on, like, promises. Hey. If, you know, you give us this much equity in the business, you know, your business will be at this level.

But there's, like, no milestones set in there. I mean, luckily, it didn't work out. But if it had worked out, I think it would have been a pretty bad deal for me.

Steve: Yeah. Who is helping you? I mean, do you feel comfortable sharing who's helping you now?

Sharad: I mean, I have a business coach that I work with. I didn't ask his permission if it was Yeah.

Steve: What book have you gifted more than any other?

Sharad: What book would I give?

Steve: Have you gifted?

Sharad: Have have I gifted? Dating Greatly by Brene Brown. That's the one. Dating Greatly by Brene Brown. It's about vulnerability.

Mhmm. Yeah. That's the one I've gifted the most.

Steve: Dating?

Sharad: Dating. D a r I n g. Daring. Yeah. Got it.

Yeah. Yeah. So Daring Greatly. Yes. By Brene Brown.

Steve: What's that about?

Sharad: It's about being wonderful, you know, being open about kind of it goes against, like, what I just talked about, stoicism. But this is like, but that I I gift it to my family and my friends. You know, it's kind of when you're going through life, you're going through different stages. You need different books at different stages of your life. So back then, like, about a few years ago, I I believe that book had a huge impact on my life so that I gifted to a lot of people.

Steve: What about it inspired you?

Sharad: Just it's okay to be wonderful. You know, it doesn't make you weak, sharing, you know, the the struggles that you're going through. Mhmm. It just if you're more open about it, you'll realize kind of you'll have more genuine connections with other people.

Steve: Authenticity.

Sharad: Yeah. Definitely. Authenticity was a big lesson from it. You know, when you look at, like, social media like, typically, when you're looking at social media, you're scrolling Instagram. You're looking at someone's highlights of their life, and you're typically looking at when you're feeling really low about yourself.

You know, it's not a fair comparison so that the book talks about, like, when you would when you sit across from someone and I'd say, Steve, you know, this is what I'm struggling with you. I like my guard down.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sharad: You're gonna open up a little bit about yourself also. Right? That's that's how you build authentic connections with people.

Steve: Yeah. Instagram and all these other social medias. Like, you're you're is there a sports center top 10 of the day?

Sharad: Right. Exactly.

Steve: Yeah. Or top three.

Sharad: Top three.

Steve: And these are these are the top three things of my day today.

Sharad: Exactly. Exactly. And then it's it's become, like, you know, what can I watch in, like, sixty seconds? Yeah. You know?

Like, people don't even have time to, like, sit in front and watch something like that.

Steve: But this isn't like the time I fought with my wife or I disappointed my kids

Sharad: Right.

Steve: Or my team members are upset because I was supposed to do this and I didn't get it done in time. Yeah. That's not going on social media.

Sharad: Yeah. It's not. Exactly. That's not. Yeah.

That's not. Like, no nobody's putting on social media, oh, I had a cheat day. You know, I didn't feel good about myself. You know, I was supposed to do this. I committed myself to do this, but I didn't do this because this nobody's doing that because Right.

You know, nobody wants to hear that or I I don't know if nobody wants to share that.

Steve: I think if you shared it because, like, when people go, like it's interesting. Right? Because if you go and share, like, your worst failures, people are, like, all about it. Right? But if it's, like, inconveniences or things you're you're down about, they might be, like, stop complaining.

Sharad: Exactly. Yeah. It it there there has to be, like, fine line between your like, you're being genuine about what you're struggling with. Or you complain, oh my god. I can believe how much traffic there is.

Right. You

Steve: know? Yeah. I mean, like, so you were talking earlier, like, you know, how, like, the the freedom that you have from not watching sports anymore. Right?

Sharad: Right.

Steve: And, unfortunately, at this exact moment, I'm a big Suns fan.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: And so, like, I'm, like, screaming at the TV. It's like, why would you do

Sharad: that? Right.

Steve: Right?

Sharad: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. But, like, do I go like, if I go and complain about their ass, like, well, that's not really worth Right. Thinking about.

Sharad: Right. Yeah. Yeah. No. But it's you know, like, I I love like, outside of I love playing pickleball.

Absolutely love playing pickleball.

Steve: One of those.

Sharad: Oh my god.

Steve: Yeah. I'm

Sharad: one of those, man. I I just, yeah, I I only started paying three months ago. I'm totally hooked to it. Yeah. But, like, that's that's one place where I kind of get really worked up.

Man, I can't believe I lost that point.

Steve: So I got Dean Rogers, Tony Javier, and now Paul Myers.

Sharad: Right.

Steve: They're all trying to get me get me the deal. I was like, I'm not doing it.

Sharad: Yeah. No. I I played with Tony Javier. He beat my ass.

Steve: Yeah. I hope so. I mean, the way he talks about it. He's pretty good.

Sharad: He's pretty good. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. So, I always, think of some last thoughts you wanna leave all the listeners with. Guys, hope you guys got a ton of value today. We launched our sales community back in May. We're almost at 200 members now.

So if you wanna join a community of closers, right, you wanna get better at locking up contracts, go to salesdisruptors.com. Join our sales community. What are some last thoughts you'd like to leave everybody with?

Sharad: One one question we get a lot is, you know, people ask us, what marketing channel should I start with? And our answer is always the one that you can stick with the longest. At the end of the day, every marketing works. It doesn't matter whether you're doing direct mail, cold calling, PPC, SMS, whatever it is. Just whatever you're doing, just stick with this long enough.

You know? It's like losing weight. You're not gonna lose weight by just going to gym once. You gotta go long enough for, you know, for you to start seeing effect. So, yeah, if you're an investor struggling to find deals, pick a marketing channel and stick with it long enough, at least at least six months for you to be able to make a decision whether it worked or not.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Someone wanted to connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Sharad: If they wanted to connect with me, it would be through email, charad@resimpli.com.

Steve: Yeah. It's not Facebook.

Sharad: It's not Facebook. Yeah. It's not.

Steve: And then, if someone want, again, find out more about RE simply?

Sharad: Yeah. They go to resimply.com. If they have any specific question, they can reach out to me, and, I'll I'll take it off that email.

Steve: Yep. And for those of you guys listening, it's simply with an I. Yes. Alright. R e s I m p l I Yep.

Dot com. Cool. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Sharad: Thank you, Steve. Pleasure. Thank you, man.

Steve: Absolutely. Shout out to Steve Trane. Jump on the Steve Trane. We real estate disrupt