Jason Lewis: So many of the things we're taught from when we're young, I think, are a lie. Right? The the whole dream of go to school, get a degree, contribute to your four zero one k, and then when you're old, retire and do nothing. Like, every step of that is bad, including the last one. If you are the type of person that can go build that, you're probably not the type of person that's gonna be really excited to sit back, hash checks, and do nothing.
Like, God made us to grow, to build, to create. The thing that I love about life now is I get to do all of those things. I get to have ideas. I get to grow. I get to be a part of people's life.
I get to make the people that work for me and our clients' lives better and feel that growth, that contribution, that everything else. If I had it to do over again and if I was starting a business today, my goal wouldn't be growth. My goal wouldn't be massive revenue. My goal wouldn't be any of these things. It would be to build a business that was worthy as soon as possible to have a high level CLO in place because what I found is
Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us for today's episode of Disruptors. Today, we have my good friend Jason Lewis with Creation Utah, and he did fly in from Salt Lake City. Likewise, he's at one business doing multiple 7 figures, another business doing 8 figures a year while still being present with his wife and six kids. Guys, if you get value out of today's show, please hit that subscribe button.
Please share so that that way we can create more millionaires. Ready? Ready. Alright. So before we get into 7 figure businesses, 8 figure businesses, and being present, let's catch everyone up.
Right? So you were on here, this is the third time. Let's quickly go through so everyone gets up to speed into who you are and why you should pay attention.
Jason: Sounds perfect. Alright. So we went deeper into this in the last two podcasts, so I'll do, like, Reader's Digest version. But Yeah. Everything that we're gonna talk about today only makes sense if you kinda know backstory, who I am.
So I'll start, November 2008, get back from my mission for a church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Bottom of the real estate market, decide to pick something safe, go to school for radiation therapy. That's pretty safe. Very safe. Cancer's not going anywhere for a while.
Yeah. So hate it. Along the way, read Rich Dad Poor Dad and say, oh, I wanna be a real estate investor. Mhmm. This is fast forward to 2012.
Only no one per only have heard of one person actually doing real estate investing in 2012. Hit them up for a job a couple times, get told no all three times, decide, hey. I'm just gonna show up tomorrow, try to be useful. You don't have to pay me anything until I'm worth something. And then at that point, just pay me what I'm worth then.
Yeah. So start as the guy getting the mail and grabbing lunch and rise up the and we were doing a home a month at that point, basically, 12 houses a year. We he and I grew that to over a 150 homes a year, big commercial complexes, a big construction team as well as sales team and everything else five years later. So he would be we're gonna talk a lot about business and things like that. So he would be CEO.
I would be COO Yeah. At that point. So that was basically the 2012 to 2017 journey Yeah. Is growing that with him to there. 2017, close to the end of twenty seventeen go out on my own.
And then at that point, just one man show solopreneur, had a pretty good couple months for a ramp up, did a million dollars. And and when I say million, we're not talking like realtor million of I sold a million dollar home. We're talking, like, wholesale fees plus net, or so gross wholesale fees plus net flip. Mhmm. So did a million in 2018, 02/2019, and then from 2020 all the way up to today have fluctuated in that roughly 3 to 4,000,000, and a 100 to a 150 deals a year.
Steve: Yeah.
Jason: Then along the way, had a friend say, hey, you're you've really got this direct mail marketing thing figured out. Would you be willing to help me with ListenMail? Sure. I helped one, then I helped another, then I helped another. Ultimately, that grew into Investor Machine today.
Yeah. Where we've done over so we're five coming up on six years, and we've done over 50,000,000 in direct mail managed for myself, as well as other people. It's been my leading channel quarter after quarter after quarter as well as a lot of people. I think our first client we ever had still with us today, five years later and just really, really honed in the principle of getting really good lists of who to mail, what exactly to mail, how frequently to mail, etcetera.
Steve: So Collected a lot of data.
Jason: Collected a lot of data. Yeah. $50,000,000 worth of data and and about that much, you know. The cool part of the 50,000,000 is the hundreds of millions made by clients along the way, but also the what feels like 50,000,000 learning opportunities that have come up along the way to get better and better and better and better at this all along the way. So, big important things that happened in there was so one important thing to know about me, I'm the you you and I have this in common.
I'm the weird one that can both visionary and integrate quite well. Yeah. So I've had seasons in both seats. So I started Journey as integrator to a 10 out of 10 visionary. Then, moved to being this the visionary and the integrator for quite a while at Creation Utah, and then eventually brought in integrator, in Rob, my COO.
We talked a lot about him on the last one. So then I so Mike Hambray, partner in Investor Machine, was is visionary at, Investor Machine where I was integrator. And then eventually, brought in Brent, COO, there to help run things with me as visionary. Mhmm. So naturally, I am energized by being a visionary and that is my preference.
Right. And I really like building things and taking them to the first, like, 80%, but that last 20%. And then afterwards, they're just running it over and over and maintaining the day to day. People that love it, I'm not one of them. Awesome.
Yeah. One of my superpowers is I feel like I can I have an above average ability to do stuff I don't like for an extended period of time and just keep going along the way? So, you know, a lot of the time that I've spent in both companies in different phases is in doing that just stupid, boring, repetitive, keeping the stuff going, dealing with the title issues, dealing with, you know, the seller that wants to back out, dealing with the happy customer, the unhappy customer, etcetera. Not my jam, but, I'm more of a builder by nature, but it it takes all of it to ultimately be successful
Steve: at work. And one of the things that was important to me is having you on is you gave a presentation, I don't know, is it six months ago or nine months ago at Collective Genius?
Jason: Both. So I did small room nine months ago, move out, and then I got big stage for, like, a workshop, at the next one.
Steve: Got it. And the there were a lot of, what's the word I'm looking for, jabs, in multiple different seats, particularly, specifically the COO and CEO seat. Yeah. Right? Because you've got to see both.
You got to experience both. You can say, like, here are things I don't like about the CEO seat as a COO, and here are the things I don't like about the COO and the CEO seat.
Jason: Mhmm. Alright.
Steve: So we gotta talk about both. So and this is also critically important because we're talking about, like, you know, multiple seven figures in one business, the wholesaling business, yearly. Yeah. Right? And then doing, 8 figures, in the, direct mail business.
Jason: Mhmm.
Steve: So are we ready breaking it out? Was there anything else you wanna add as a digital?
Jason: That's great.
Steve: Okay. So, becoming CO able. Mhmm. That was something you kinda, like, coined when we were at CG. Yeah.
What does that mean?
Jason: Yeah. Okay. So and, actually, I'll take a I'll take just a step back Sure. For for why. So, when I got into the journey, it was reading Rich Dad Poor Dad.
Mhmm. And I I bought all the way in. Right? Like, the dream life is to beat cash flow.
Steve: Your, your freedom number is what it was?
Jason: Yeah. Passive income. Yes. Yes. Get in the freedom number.
Get exit the rat race and then and all of it. Right? Which has turned out to be a little bit of a pipe dream for me, at least.
Steve: I did. I think it's been a pipe dream for a lot of people.
Jason: Yeah. And keep in mind, I've done all of this stuff in real estate. Right? And I have, you know, a decent sized rental portfolio. Now granted, you and I share a disadvantage if we're in appreciation states more so than, Cash flow.
Cash flow states. Right? And, I mean, I've had years where I've made 7 figures just in appreciation from my, rental portfolio Right. Which is which is great. But in terms of, like, cash flow, I have a really, like, lot of equity, low interest rate, 20 plus rentals, you know, rented at market rents and everything else.
And last year, it was I mean, the amount of equity in there is in the millions and millions. Mhmm. And last year, I think I made $60 or something like that in total passive income from all of it. Right? If you look at, like, my return on equity, it's like I don't I'm not doing the math here, but it's shockingly bad.
Now you still have the tax benefits. You still have everything else. I still like rentals. So I'm not gonna, like, completely destroy rentals, and every different market is different along the way. I like the tax benefits.
I like the paying down the mortgage. I like all of that stuff, but I think it was the wrong vision. Yeah.
Steve: But it's the right vision to get you in.
Jason: It was the right vision to get me in, and I bought in and everything else, and it was really exciting. It was the right goal. I'm gonna change the world of this. But I feel like along the way, I discovered what the real dream and when the real goal is. Yeah.
And that ultimately is building businesses with the right CLO and team in place. Mhmm. And I've now done it twice. When I, was here last time, I'd done it once. We talked a lot about doing it once, and now I've done it the second time.
And I 100% doubled down on my opinion. The best life. And here's the thing. We'll we'll go back to whale club principles. Closer over more.
Right? I'm not here to say this is what everybody's best thing should be. But for me, absolutely the best life is being the CEO to a business with an excellent COO and or being the visionary to a great integrator. And in my opinion, it is absolutely a better life than the fast track, from Rich Dad Poor Dad. And and let me tell you why.
I mean, I'm sure you have friends and know people too that successfully sold businesses young And then, like, cashed out. They were awesome. Went to the beach, you know, went to Europe, went to Australia, got really good at pickleball. What happened six to nine months later?
Steve: Bored out of their minds.
Jason: Bored out of their minds and they're back. Right? Like, so many of the things we're taught from when we're young, I think, are a lie. Right? The the whole dream of go to school, get a degree, contribute to your four zero one k, and then when you're old, retire and do nothing.
Like, every step of that is bad, including the last one. Yeah. Because most people, especially if you are the type of person that can go build that, you're probably not the type of person that's gonna be really excited to sit back, cash checks, and do nothing. Like, God made us to grow, to build, to create. And so the thing that I love about life now is I get to do all of those things.
I get to have ideas. I get to grow. I get to be a part of people's life. I get to make the people that work for me and our clients' lives better and feel that growth, that contribution, that everything else. But because I have such great people, I also am here for this week on spring break.
And in June, when my kids are off this summer, I've got a trip like every other week in July. And so I can I can insert myself as much or as little as I want to? In Utah, in February, that's a lot because I don't have a lot of hobbies in Utah in February. But in June, July, August, that's not a lot because the heavy focus at that point is kids and my wife and everybody's home for the summer and helping them grow and ultimately achieve their goals. So if I had it to do over again and if I was starting a business today, my goal wouldn't be growth.
My goal wouldn't be massive revenue. My goal wouldn't be any of these things. It would be to build a business that was worthy as soon as possible to have a high level COO in place. Because what I found is everything else takes care of itself after that.
Steve: What does it mean to have a business where you can that can have a COO that takes care of it? What is that?
Jason: Great great question. So, yeah, you both the so this is this comes to CLO able. Mhmm. Right? Your business has to be CLO able, and you have to be CLO able.
Business, first, you have to be able to afford them. They're not they're not inexpensive. But I will say this happens at all different phases. Right? So if I'm a small person, like, one two man show and I'm looking to go make this type of thing happen, I'm starting with a high level executive assistant.
Steve: Yeah.
Jason: I read the book last year, Founder and the Force Multiplier, done by a realtor. And basically, this guy figured out how to make a high level EA is integrator, basically. And you can get a lot of the way and a lot of the benefit just with that. You don't have to be seven and eight figure to go and do this. So start with that.
If you're a little bigger, then you're looking at more like rocket fuel type of type of book. So you have to be able to afford them. You have to be not crazy risky. You need to be, you know, like, you need to like, if if the type of person you're looking for is reading a job ad and or you hit them up, are they gonna be interested or not? And, again, you have to start
Steve: So a business that is a when you say a business seal, will you mean, like, a business attractive enough for a person that wants to work at the company?
Jason: Correct.
Steve: Or something like the vision. Because, like, one of the things I've talked about or you we've all heard, right, like, the vision has to be big enough for everyone to fit in it.
Jason: Yes. There's not a lot
Steve: of companies where the vision, like, I can fit myself in there.
Jason: Right.
Steve: Right? Like I've said before, like, I can work for Elon. But outside of him, there's not a lot of other people who's like, yeah.
Jason: I can
Steve: see myself working there.
Jason: Yeah. For sure. Like and the thing that he's so good at is every business. It's about changing the world. Yeah.
You know, it's making human making like, saving the future of humanity and may by making us multiplanetary at SpaceX. Yeah. Or, you know, saving the Earth through sustainable cars. It's not just, hey. We wanna make electric cars.
It's it's all saving the Earth.
Steve: Right. Yeah. So step one, building a business that's attractive
Jason: Mhmm.
Steve: For someone that want to want to work there. Correct. Yeah.
Jason: And then two and even bigger, you yourself have to be COO able. And so this is talking to your average everyday visionary. And the thing that I found, and I'm friends with a lot of us average everyday visionaries Hundreds of us. Between the between the between the masterminds, my friends, my investor machine clients
Steve: clients. Yeah.
Jason: People that I've worked with and for, what I found is, like, by nature, visionaries, integrators drive each other nuts. Mhmm. It's almost like men are from war women are from Venus a little bit, and you kinda have to learn how to, like, talk to each other and live in each other's world Right. For a little bit.
Steve: Yeah. So, what then to be CEOable? Let's start off with, the negative qualities. What are some of the things that you find for everyone that's listening, right, that c that's the CEO owns the company? What are some of the things that a CEO does that would drive you, the CEO the COO version of Jason?
Mhmm. Integrator. Absolutely bonkers.
Jason: Yeah. So number and so I interviewed a bunch of my CEO friends on this one. And definitely the most common one, the woman in the red dress. Mhmm. Shiny object syndrome.
Mhmm. There's nothing worse than right? And I remember this this happening to me, I've seen this happen so many times throughout my work history and all of the companies where, you know, I'll use an example of when I was COO the first time. Kenny would on Friday be like, dude, Jason, I've got this idea. He's gonna change the world.
This is so exciting. We're gonna do all this stuff. Oh, that's awesome. And I'd get so excited, and I'd work all weekend, and I wouldn't sleep. And I'd come back Monday, and he'd be done.
And he'd be like, oh, yeah. This is the thing now. Right? And I know he said it was this, but now I think it's this. And and, like, you never actually get the momentum.
So you're doing all this work on all these different things, but you never actually see one thing through
Steve: Mhmm. All the
Jason: way to the end. So Yeah. That one is probably number one.
Steve: The shiny object syndrome.
Jason: Mhmm. And, honestly, the biggest solution to that is just, EOS. More sharper, rise. Mhmm. You know, work in quarters, have rocks, collectively sit down and agree and say, hey, this is what we're gonna do this quarter.
I get that you're fast moving and wanna jump and pivot and everything else, but, like, stick this through. Mhmm. Another one, not providing the resources. It's like, hey. I'll I'll use a, you know, wholesale example.
Hey. I really wanna do 8,000,000 this year. Awesome. What's our marketing budget? $25 a year.
Cool. Can I hire more people to network? No. But go do it. Make it happen.
Mhmm. Like, not not doable.
Steve: Does that happen a lot?
Jason: Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. It'll totally happen where where you'll because,
Steve: like, what I see is typically, like, you get all the responsibility but none of the authority. Like, that is something I see, like, hey, Jason.
Jason: Here's what
Steve: I want you to do, but you can't tell the salespeople to do that. And you can't tell the administrative people to do that. Yes. I see that. Like, a lot of a lot of responsibility without authority.
Jason: Yeah. I've seen both. Yeah. What's another good one that's just the worst?
Steve: So then just for everyone who's listening right now is taking notes here, so they have to make sure that we need to allocate resources to support the goal or are not allowed to say this is the goal. Mhmm. Right. That's the fix. Yep.
So Correct. Plan, budget for the goals.
Jason: Yep. Okay. Here's another big one. Unrealistic timelines. Mhmm.
This idea and it the the the thing that sucks about being the visionary and the integrator the thing that's great is that I have the strengths Mhmm. Of both. The thing that sucks is that I also have the weaknesses of both. Right? And it's so funny because, like, I'll use, you know, when we had Mike sitting in visionary, me sitting in integrator, and then me as visionary essentially to the operations team.
Right? He comes to me with, you know, things that he wants and deadlines that are absolutely ridiculous. Mhmm. Right? Yeah.
But then the funny part is whenever I'm talking to my team, the inner the the running joke is, and you want that this afternoon. Right? So, like, it's great to have the the foot on the gas. Elon Musk has the the classic example that Cody Sanchez shares where, he's with a group of his engineers and they're flying cross country. Mhmm.
And he's got some major initiative he wants them to roll out with Tesla and the factory and everything else. He says, how long should it take? And they're like, two, three quarters, maybe four. Mhmm. And he's like, cool.
We're gonna turn the plane around and we're gonna sleep in the factory until it's done. Mhmm. And they knocked it out in, like, two days. Yeah. Right?
What they said was two or three days. So in terms of the crazy on both sides, integrator by nature is, like, I want this to take you know, I want plenty of time and this is gonna take a long, long time. So you need the Visionary's gas. But you also if you just do it the visionary's way, it's gonna be crap. Like, we live in a world that wants excellence.
Now here, you never get an MVP, a minimum viable product released, and you're never you never actually get it done. But it's the marriage of both Mhmm. That ultimately is the sweet spot. But realize that, like, your gas is driving them nuts Mhmm. And their brakes are driving you nuts.
Steve: Yeah. It's, because we've gone through, like, this rollerco not rollercoaster, but the seasons in in in my business here. Right? And we were like, okay. Like, let's be responsible.
Let's not go so fast. But then you see, like, okay. Like, revenue is going down. Right? Like, us slowing down and being responsible, we over corrected there as
Jason: well. Mhmm.
Steve: Right? So it goes
Jason: like both ways.
Steve: And so, like, I can't was it Cameron Herold or somebody else? But the point was, like, the visionary is the dragon, and they need to fly around and burn things. And then the team needs to put that dragon on a leash so they don't fly too far away from the castle.
Jason: Yeah.
Steve: Right? And so it's that that balance. Yeah.
Jason: And it and it ultimately takes both. Mhmm. And it takes respecting each other Yeah. To be great in the business.
Steve: Right. Anything else CEOs do that drives CEOs crazy? Because this this is probably, of all this, this is probably the most important part for everyone that's listening. Big changes are coming. Changes you've already heard about, that AI is going to change the world.
But you've already heard all that. I've been hearing it too. And I mostly dismissed it that AI cannot affect the sales industry because sales is the one place that human interaction cannot be replaced. But I was looking at it all wrong. I was thinking about how AI could not replace the salesperson.
I didn't take the time to think about how I could use AI to be better than my competition. And so I got serious, started looking at how AI could give my team a competitive advantage over everybody else, such an unfair advantage that eventually the competition won't have a chance. And I've started sharing it with some of my clients, and now they're using it too. And I feel kind of bad for their competition, but only a little bit because they're going to eat their competition's lunch. And if you want to know what my clients and I are up to, you can join us.
I'm doing a Zoom meeting. We're only letting a 100 people in. I want to keep this intimate. If there was a setting for only 25 to 30 people, that would be even better. Will I see you there?
Do you want to dominate the competition? If that sounds like you, register for the call here. Disruptors.com/ai.
Jason: Yeah. So the one thing that I didn't include Mhmm. In the CG presentation that I that I wished I would have if I had a little more time that I'm gonna include here Yeah. In terms of most important things that a visionary does, we've all heard the story of, Steve Jobs. What did he wear every single day?
Steve: Black turtleneck.
Jason: Same black turtleneck. And why?
Steve: Doesn't have to make any decisions about his outfit.
Jason: One less decision. Right? Decision fatigue is real. You've got, like, the Israeli study, with the Israeli judges where at the end of the day, their likelihood of getting out of jail was extremely low. Yeah.
Steve: You're screwed. You're screwed.
Jason: The beginning of the day. Yeah. So the thing that's really hit me hard since then is that as a visionary and, actually, this is really true for both the CEO and the COO and the small solopreneur, etcetera. One of the most important things you do is make decisions. Mhmm.
And I think that we probably shortchange the importance of making decisions. And, yeah, I mean, here's a perfect example. So I finally sold a house. I think it funds and records today. Mhmm.
I've owned it for three hundred days. And you wanna know what we did to that house? We had a granted, it was in Roosevelt, Utah, you know, which is outside of my wheelhouse. It's a three and a half hour drive, but we got it for a good deal. We did wind up making money in the end, but, you know, three and a half hour drive, and it was a remodel.
In the end, in those three hundred days, we had a crew in there for, like, a week to trash it out, and then we turned around and sold it to our wholesale list. So why, Jason, did that take you three hundred days to do that? And I can tell you why. It's because Jason was drinking the Hormozi Kool Aid of maker day and manager day. Mhmm.
And I was all in on, okay, Monday is maker day. I take no meetings, and I'm just gonna build stuff. And it was awesome. Mondays were amazing. I was changing the world on Mondays.
Tuesday was manager day, meaning I started meetings at nine and then went straight to five, 06:00. No breaks back to back meetings. Meeting at the end of the day was my property meeting. The one that I did just just before here Mhmm. Where I made decisions on all you know, I've got millions, if not tens of millions in inventory, and I'm making all these decisions at 04:00 after I've been in meetings from 09:00.
Steve: Yeah. That's right.
Jason: And and it just didn't fit in the wheelhouse. So what did I do? Week after week after week. Hunt. Hunt.
Hunt. Really? What should I do with this? Well, I don't know. We'll figure that one out next week.
Well, what if we this? What if we that? I don't know. Let's talk about it. I did that for almost a year.
Wow. While just collecting interest on this house. Uh-huh. And then finally, in the end because we're talking well, should we remodel it or should we this? And I just didn't make a decision Mhmm.
Because I was fatigued Mhmm. At the end of the day. So the thing that I and I mean, when when we finally decided we were just gonna wholesale it, Rob, my CEO, was like, are you are you kidding me? Like, after all this, this is what we're gonna go do with this stupid house. So there's so many decisions that we make as business owners.
Are we gonna buy it or not? Are we gonna do this marketing channel or that marketing channel? One and the other one, the constant decision. One in the hand, two in the bush. One in the hand, two in the bush.
Be cognizant of the importance of those decisions you're making, and you're only a couple of bad big decisions away
Steve: Yeah.
Jason: From bankrupting your your business. I mean, I got lucky. Good market timing, inexpensive house, etcetera. But, you know and that's just one example of the the people you hire, whether or not you fire. I had one decision that Rob and I made together around an employee a couple months ago that I legit think was a half 1,000,000 swing.
Like Good. Good. Good.
Steve: Okay.
Jason: And then yes. Good. So legit. Like, just over and that quarter million over the last three months, and it'll be half 1,000,000 within six months. And we were a fifty fifty ball.
Steve: What was the decision?
Jason: What to do with a particular employee. Got it. And, do they stay? Do we perform an improvement plan? Do we this?
Do we that? Do we this? What what do we do here? And we wound up making that, and it wound up the right decision. And, like, in hindsight, it was like, oh my gosh.
If I would have done this the other way, it would have been so bad. Mhmm. And, but the those little things add up. So I would say willy nilly fire. I'm just gonna this and this and this and this.
Like, slow down. Take some time. And then the other one is, like, one of the other ones that I mentioned
Steve: before is taking the time to make good decisions versus shooting from the hip. Yes. At least for critical decisions.
Jason: Mhmm. Yeah. Another big one is that you says, have a vision. Mhmm. That you call yourself the visionary.
Right. Have a consistent vision. Like, if if I ask you, hey. What's the vision and what's my part in it Mhmm. For the next one, three, five years?
Be able to answer that and be able to answer that at least in a somewhat similar fashion
Steve: Yeah. Consistent.
Jason: Over the year. Yeah. Like, where where are you looking to go, and what's it gonna ultimately mean for me? Mhmm. Another one of those resources, interestingly, is time.
Like, hey. I'm the COO. I'm running. I'm I'm doing everything here, but you still won't take it the time to meet with me and give me what little time that I need. Mhmm.
Make sure they get they they don't need much to run a long ways. Right. But you still need to give them the time. I remember feeling that way when I was COO the first time. I was like, dude, I'm running your whole company.
You can leave for two weeks and not have to do anything because of me, and I can't book an hour with you. Yeah. And I remember getting an email from Rob about a year ago saying, dude, I have been trying to get this one question answered from you for three days. I don't ask that much from you. You just ask him or answer my question.
So, again, weaknesses Mhmm. And strengths of both sides, be available.
Steve: Yeah. So, again, for everyone that's listening, I guess, absolutely critical. So now let's go the other side. The aspirational things. Like, what are the things that are, good traits for a CEO to have to be COO able?
Jason: So, I mean, it's the reverse of all the stuff that we talked about. Right? It's I think it's a great vision. You know, in CG, they went through the one page plan. Then in EOS, they call it the the VTO.
Mhmm. Right? Have that dialed in. Know, hey, this is where we're going. But it's not just the vision.
I've said it a couple times, but I wanna make sure I hammer it in. It's what is my part? Cool. We're gonna go get to 10,000,000, and you're gonna be rich, and you're gonna buy a new boat, and I'm super excited for you. What does that mean for me?
Right. Have that built out. And then the other big one for visionaries is keep keep the promises. Right? And because of that, you know, as and I I have lots of different friends that I talk to and coach with, things like that, that we that we have these conversations with.
We get this idea, and we get really excited about it, and we wanna share it. Mhmm. Not all ideas are meant to be shared Yes. Very quickly. Right?
Mhmm. We don't realize the emotional ping pong that we're playing with people Mhmm. When we share these ideas. Like, for example, hey, you know, you be and this isn't just for CEOs. This is for everybody.
Hey. You're on my team. Hey, Steve. I've been thinking. Well, in the meeting the other day, I know that you're doing dispo, but, like, I think we're gonna hire another acquisitions in, like, two weeks.
And I think you may be perfect for it. And, you know, it's gonna be awesome. It's gonna it's gonna help you reach out your goals. You're gonna be making $2,300 a year. You're gonna listen.
I'm so excited for you. All this stuff. Get them so hyped up. Sleep on it. Next day, actually, Steve has the exact wrong profile for this, and he's actually doing great there.
And I forgot that, you know, I've got my other buddy, Ben, that I was tying up for this. You know, it's fine. I'm gonna go with Ben. But you don't realize that, like like, Steve's done at this point. Like, Steve has been through the emotional ringer.
So, like, I call it the idea locker. Mhmm. It comes from I think I shared that it comes from The Chosen. Mhmm. You fictional carrier there's two different fictional, Pharisees talking.
They've seen Jesus, at the Sermon on the Mount and the one his brain is just lit on fire and he's got all these different ideas and things. But, like, being a super Jesus friendly Pharisee was not chill back in the day. You had, like, Pharisees, religious leaders, and Jesus was kind of the opposition. Mhmm. But one guy listened to him and was like, no.
That actually makes sense. Yeah. So he's got all these ideas, and his buddies, like, let's just put these in a little, like, cool locker for a little bit before you go blow up your career. Let's make sure you really like it. I think the same thing applies to all of us as visionaries.
It's like, have that idea locker. Don't get your team, your CEO, or anybody else all excited about a thing that you're ultimately not gonna do. If a week from now I mean, the number of bad ideas I've had are countless. Mhmm. But that's because I have a 100 ideas a week.
You know, that means if you a 100 ideas, we can call it 400 ideas in a month. Two of those might be good ideas. Yeah. But you need all 400 to get to the two. Mhmm.
But if you're running all 398 through everybody, like, they're not wired the way you are.
Steve: Momenting it all over them is not fair to them.
Jason: Yes. Exactly. So, like, just let it chill for a little bit. Mhmm. Anything from changing role.
And just think, like, the things that would be emotionally charging to people. Like, things around, hey, future, bonus plan, role change, things like that.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I think things are gonna affect they're gonna affect things at home.
Jason: Yes. Exactly. Money, especially.
Steve: Okay. So nothing, additional as far as, like, aspirational qualities CEO needs to have.
Jason: Leadership is ultimately the big one. Mhmm. Right? Be a great leader. Be and these are the things that if I'm, one of the smaller investors in our audience, maybe I don't have a big team.
That's a skill that you've gotta learn if you wanna come and do the some of the similar things that you and I have done. You need to be able to attract and retain talent and better and, you know, what's people ask me, what's the difference between, you know, a person doing 10 deals a month versus 50 versus 100 versus 200? Consistently, it's just the difference in the level of the team they have Mhmm. Which they're gonna hit the team you have is gonna hit the ceiling of who and where you are. So the more you grow personally Mhmm.
The higher level team you have, the better the results ultimately you're gonna get. And it's it's cool to see it across the masterminds and Yeah. The the CG realm.
Steve: So, and again, just for everyone that's, you know, we we we touched in the beginning, but, like, this is the things you've learned. We got one company doing multiple figures. That one already had a COO. Mhmm. And the one right here is doing eight figures, recently hired COO, which we probably should go through after this, the journey in finding a good COO.
So let's talk about the COO, who probably isn't listening. Right? So we can be as mean as we want about the COO. So what are the things that we don't like? As a CEO, what are things that COOs do that can drive the owner crazy?
Perfect.
Jason: So number one, I call it the the pee in the Cheerios. There comes and by the way, I don't believe me, ask Mike. I am not scared to pee in Cheerios. Again, I have all of the strengths and all of the weaknesses. Right?
Like, the visionary comes in and says, hey. I have an idea. And it's like, alright. Hang on. I gotta start.
Let me get let me get ready. Right? Like, at least here like, yes. Four out of 400 ideas, 398 may be bad. Mhmm.
But the two are great. You know? At one one day, someone on whether it be Elon or someone on Elon's team Mhmm. Said, how do we catch a great big rocket? I know.
Chopsticks. Let's get let's have the thing fly in, and let's have the chopsticks fling in and just hold it up in the air. Right? That was someone's idea. That was someone's idea.
And it's real now. And when I saw it the first time, I got misty eyed.
Steve: Like, it absolutely amazing. Human accomplishment. This is a milestone.
Jason: From a a business.
Steve: Or or not from a business of humanity.
Jason: From humanity that was done by an entrepreneur. Yeah. Not by a government, but by an entrepreneur. So, like, realize that, like, sometimes you can crush the visionary spirit and soul because in the end, they need you to get the ideas done. Mhmm.
And we get that you're overwhelmed, and we get that I you know, my my favorite title for COO is chief pooper scooper. Mhmm. That is whether it whether you be integrator, operations manager, whatever. Like, the day to day is just full of crap. Yeah.
Every day there's some problem, something going on, four disciplines of execution calls it the whirlwind. Mhmm. And you can get completely consumed in the whirlwind, and it's a full time job. And we visionaries don't give the whirlwind nearly enough respect. Mhmm.
But if we just live in the whirlwind, we stay exactly where we're at for forever. Yeah. So hear out the visionary's ideas, help them scrub it out, help them take it to the finish line, and then work with them in a framework to say, okay. You know, these ones are later. We can go and do these ones now and ultimately work in and on the best things.
Steve: Yeah. Okay. And I think one of the things I I do personally, one of the things I enjoy about the team I have is that I can have the ideas and say, okay, guys. Like, which ones are the good ones? Which one are the bad ones?
Yeah. Like, here are all ideas. Which ones should we actually do something about? Which one should we just, like, alright. That goes in the opportunity column in Asana.
Jason: Yep. Yeah. We call that quarterly planning. Yeah. Well, I just did it with both companies last week and the week before where you sit down and this is where Jason gets to fill out the whiteboard.
Yeah. This is everything. Here's every idea that we could possibly do and everything that's in siding. And we beat up every different one, and then we say, okay. These are at this quarter.
And don't worry, Jason. We'll get to the other ones. I mean, you and I I mean, did I not when we were talking right before this, I was like, oh, that was one that I wanted. Mhmm. And it's gonna be on next quarter.
I'm just sure of it. It's gonna be on next quarter's rock.
Steve: Right.
Jason: I can't do it this quarter. Mhmm. Unless I wanna personally see it all the way through without using any company resources, which will never happen. Yeah. But it's gonna be next quarter, and I'm really excited.
Steve: Yeah. Okay. So what else? What what are other unattractive qualities from COO?
Jason: The reverse side of the speed. Mhmm. Brakes, brakes, brakes. I don't wanna do anything. I think we talked probably enough about that one.
I would say another one is, like, the COO has a lot of control because all the people typically report to them. They're typically the one doing the one on ones and everything else, and it's almost like this, like, hiding them. Or, like, you know, there's, like, a which way do you face type of thing too. Not being unified. Like, I wanna be good cop, and I'm gonna make a visionary bad cop.
Don't worry. I'm here with you Mhmm. Team versus the two of you working in unison and being the leadership team.
Steve: Yeah.
Jason: I've done that varying levels of good and bad. Rob and I do that extremely well, and Brent and I do that extremely well at this point where I mean, the team basically knows there is no mom and dad. Mhmm. If I if I get an answer from Rob, it's the same answer I'm gonna get from Jason. It's basically if I get this answer from Jason, it's the same answer I'm gonna get from Brent.
Steve: Right. So what we're saying here is don't play both sides. We are there's the CEO and a COO is one team. Yep. And that's kinda like I remember specifically from, the five dysfunctions of a team.
Mhmm. Right. It's like
Jason: Great bug.
Steve: Right. Like, the marketing is like, no. You're not on team marketing. Yeah. You're on a leadership team, and you speak for the leadership team.
Like, you gotta go and support marketing team, but you're on the leadership team, not the marketing team. Yeah. And that's kinda what you're talking
Jason: about here. One of the most impactful books I read last year, that team you're on before the team you lead Mhmm. Principle and everything in it. Yeah. At investor machine, we had years ago a struggling dysfunctional leadership team.
We all read it. We figured it out, and now life is much better.
Steve: Person's not there or that person made corrections?
Jason: Both. Depending on there there were some that made it, and there were some that didn't.
Steve: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. So yeah. So make sure COO CEOs watching this probably enjoy that.
You're on the same team. Yes. Okay. What what are some other if you don't have anything, let's talk about the attractive qualities.
Jason: Yeah. Okay. Let's
Steve: But what are the things that, like, are are really important, to a CEO from the CEO perspective or from the CEO's, performance?
Jason: Yeah. So I'm looking for a partner. I'm looking for someone that's gonna help me get it done. I'm looking for someone that I can come with an idea, and they're gonna contribute as much as they are takeaway. Right?
And we're gonna run it through, and it's gonna be really exciting. And then someone that can take it and run with it. Mhmm. I'm looking for somebody that, can run the day to day and that floats the right balance of, running the day to day, but also keeping me involved in the number of things that they need to. Mhmm.
Right? Because you don't come as much as you want it, you also don't as the company owner who you know, when you're the one on the stand, if if it all hits the fan. Right? You're the only one up there. And so there's certain things you wanna be involved in and others that you don't.
So successfully floating that balance, you know, maintaining a high culture, keeping the team happy, ultimately hitting goals and growth, and ultimately, like, being a friend too. Like, two of my closest friends are my two CLOs. Brent lives in Dallas. He's coming out, in June for a weekend, and we're gonna or July, we hang out for the weekend. When I was just when we were just in Dallas, we hung out when we were down there for CG.
Rob and I do stuff, like, it's important to have, like, a deeper relationship. And I will say, like, you can see it at CG too. When people come with their CEOs and the COOs, like, it's like a deeper connection friendship that, again, like, when you nail this, it makes your life rich and beautiful.
Steve: Yeah. Let's talk about real real world application. Right? Because since we last recorded an episode, you hired Brent. Yep.
And I was actually having conversations with you about I was looking to hire someone to, eventually sorry. Sales manager eventually be operations person. I failed. We have another one now. Okay.
Alright. Which we get we did a lot better with the second hire.
Jason: By the way, Brent was round four at investor machine. Yeah. So I nailed it on round four.
Steve: Right. There you go. Alright. So, yeah, we got someone now. It's 3 or 4.
Jason: What's that? It was either around three or four.
Steve: Yeah. We got someone now that, like, super excited about. But the one before, I was, like, I was super excited about. And then I got less and less excited over time. Yeah.
So let's talk about, like, what did you do? How did you know to how do you know Brent was the right one? And then what did you do to make sure you got Brent?
Jason: Great. That's a that is the right question to ask. So, Rob, first off, anytime you successfully do this, there's just an element of luck.
Steve: Yeah.
Jason: Right? I mean, some of the I mean, like, we use Gary Keller as an example. I consider him to be one of the best, brightest business minds in the world.
Steve: Most one of the most innovative.
Jason: Absolutely incredible. Billionaire runs an amazing business. And if you look at his track record of picking CEOs and CEOs over the last ten, fifteen years, I mean, he's got one that's suing him now. He's got one that turned out, you know, like, it was one version of not great after another, and I consider him a 100 times more skilled, if not a thousand times more skilled than
Steve: He's definitely smarter than us. Yes. And before we continue, the creator of the best lead magnet of all time,
Jason: Which
Steve: is The Millionaire Real Estate Agent book.
Jason: Yes. Correct.
Steve: He grew Keller Williams from the best lead magnet of all time.
Jason: I agree. And I have read Millionaire Real Estate Agent, and I'm, like my goal was to become a seventh level investor.
Steve: Me too. I read I still remember, like, talking about, like, you're out there and you're shooting. Right? You have to have the vision. You gotta hit it.
And I was like, wait a minute. There's a world where I can be in a seat where I don't have to do anything? Yeah. Like, I'm just a realtor. Like, I'm reading this book because I wanna be a more successful realtor.
Jason: Yeah.
Steve: There are this many levels to this. So, anyway, genius.
Jason: Genius. That book, The One Thing
Steve: Mhmm.
Jason: Multiple of his books are just Yeah. As yeah, as good as it gets. Right. And I had a MAPS business coach Mhmm. Which is owned by Gary Right.
For seven years. Mhmm. So, yes. Big big fan of him. But if if Gary Keller can strike out that many times in a row with his budget and his resources Yeah.
I'm not saying it's all skill. I got the absolutely element of luck. So Yeah. Rob, I would say was luck too in that he started as acquisition manager, was a great hire and frankly, a way better hire than what I deserved Mhmm. At that phase of the business that I was in.
I mean, I think Rob started with me in '20, like, late twenty eighteen, 2019. No. I think it was January 2020, which is, like, the the business was still small. And he, older than me, came from McKesson, fourth biggest, fifth or sixth biggest company in America. Mhmm.
And he not only was an amazing acquisition manager, but he also coincidentally had the attributes to grow into becoming a great COO. I didn't have predictive index. I wasn't doing disk monitoring. Like, it just it just, like, that one was luck. Mhmm.
Brett, I was very and and so I didn't get lucky round one, two, three on, trying to figure this out. Before we continue, what
Steve: were the things you think you did wrong on those first three? Like, great question. The learning lessons?
Jason: Yeah. So one, I undershot it on budget. Two You can
Steve: get someone for 50,000 a year? Correct.
Jason: Two, I would say, probably not using predictive index the way that I could, would, and should. And then three, I definitely on the side of, like, I like to milk my mistakes too long. Mhmm. You know? Because I just believe in people and I believe in things, and I just wanna keep trying and trying and trying and trying for so long to make it work.
Steve: So yeah. Before you continue there, I will say
Jason: By the way, I I did the I did the numbers better. This is round four. Round four? Yeah.
Steve: The part about I wanna milk it and and and wanna wait too long and so on. So I took the PI again, recently predictive index, and it says I'm a venturer now. Okay. Right? So my a went off the charts, which I don't which is surprising to me because, like, I I listen to people better than I ever did before.
And my c, which is the driving versus steady, is now at zero. So before, it was close to one sigma on patience. I was very understanding. I was like, look. I wanna make this work for you.
I wanna make this work for us. It's not working.
Jason: Yeah. So that's See,
Steve: and Let's see what all the way to zero.
Jason: I'm much more moderate. Yeah. It it I think you and I are similar, but I I retook the predictive index. But my feeling at this point for people like you and I on the predictive index, we know the test too well. Mhmm.
It it it almost doesn't count anymore. I can make the test show anything
Steve: that I
Jason: want based on exactly how I it. And so you just but so not paying enough, not knowing exactly what I was looking for, probably going COO, you know, when it comes to picking talent, you know, you have a price point and experience point. And I I almost call them like windows. Mhmm. Okay.
I'm willing to pay this much, and I'm looking for this much experience. I'm gonna get somebody in this window. Mhmm. You may be able to get somebody let let's say your point is right here. Right?
And I wanna pay this of of it. You gotta get the top 5% of of experience and price of what you're looking for. And it can happen. It can certainly be done. But statistically, you're not as high because you're gonna be hanging out down here.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jason: On the flip side, if you're willing to pay up here, now you look more like here. Mhmm. The bad news is there is still a chance that you're gonna pay double and still get a person that's not as good as what you want because there is still a range of people at every Yeah. Different price point. But in general, you're moving the range up and increasing your statistical likelihood that you get the right person.
Steve: Got it. That makes makes a lot of sense.
Jason: So, so I would say things I did, you know, wrong wrong price points along the way, getting the wrong person sticking with them too long. And then I would say a really big mistake that I made is so did it wrong, did it wrong, did it wrong, and then got locked in with a particular leadership team that at the time all felt like they probably should be the heir apparent Mhmm. That none of them were. Mhmm. And this was when Investor Machine tripled in a year, and we're barely holding it together.
When you like, there's healthy growth and there's unhealthy growth. Right? I mean, what did was it Cameron we quoting Cameron Herald again, wasn't it him that said, like, 40% a year is, like, like, 25 to 40% is really good growth? Yeah. Yeah.
300% is nuts. Yeah. And it's it's cool to say. It's not that fun
Steve: to live in. We've talked about, like, Darren Hardy is someone we both look up to. And the thing I still remember, we talked about is, like, our businesses die from indigestion and starvation.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And we were one one key person of a number of them leaving away from complete implosion Mhmm. At investor machine for a long time. So I basically was like, I have to be the one Mhmm.
Because I lose any of I lose any or all of these people if I bring in an outside hire, and none of these people are the one. Mhmm. So then we had the whole dysfunction of a team thing that we talked about and and everything else. And then once things stabilized, cleared out a lot of that kept some of that kept the best. And, at that point, was able to bring in somebody outside, but I was very intentional about it.
So I Before we continue, I think we should hit
Steve: just hit you know, there's a traumatic memory that you and I have along the way. I believe, if I remember correctly, this is around the time also, because I remember I was talking to how you're doing it. Like, this is, like, a bad time right now. And I believe we were talking about this as we're going to watch the Bucks game.
Jason: Yes. I'm really glad the Bucks game story is making it onto this podcast.
Steve: One One of the worst decisions we ever made.
Jason: Yeah. I told my neighbor about this decision walking back from the dropping my kids off at the bus last week, so I still haven't gotten over this.
Steve: Yeah. So, we are in Tampa Yep. For Collective Genius. Mhmm. And we happen to get a bunch of people are like, hey, let's go to the Bucks game.
Right? This is a Monday night game. Let's all go to the Bucks game.
Jason: So a
Steve: bunch of us went, and so we go, and it was just an awful game. It was a bad like, Tom Brady could not And
Jason: this was Tom Brady's last season.
Steve: Yeah. Could not complete a pass. Right? And, I mean, I still remember, like, him throwing an interception right at the middle linebacker. I was like, man, like, he's done.
Jason: Yeah.
Steve: He's done. And so I think, end of third quarter, we're like, we already know leaving the stadium is a disaster. Like, we know this. We've been told this.
Jason: That last mile takes or that first mile takes an hour.
Steve: And that was when we left before the rush.
Jason: Yes. We left, but it wasn't it wasn't end of third quarter. It was, like, halfway through the fourth quarter.
Steve: Halfway through the fourth?
Jason: And I think they were down, like They were down 13.
Steve: Yeah. They were down 13, and we're like, okay. This is it's over. Let's just head back, beat the rush. Yeah.
And as we ordered the Uber, we're just like we hear this cheer. I was like, no. Please do not make this comeback. Right? And we were sitting in the end zone where the comeback was happening.
Jason: Yes.
Steve: Right? We had good seats
Jason: Yes.
Steve: Of the end zone. Right? And so yeah. So we hear this. It's like, ugh.
Alright. Well, let's watch this. Let's turn it on, watch it on our phone, or take an Uber.
Jason: Watched on my phone in the back of an Uber heading to Clearwater.
Steve: Yeah. And, yeah, we're watching it. And, so there's the first touchdown, which we kinda hear hear the crowd noise, and then, yeah, we're in the Uber while we're still waiting for, sitting through traffic or whatever. It's like he had two fourth quarter touchdowns Yeah. To win the game I
Jason: think the one In
Steve: our end
Jason: zone. As time ran out. Yeah. It was it was last season, the GOAT, all of it. Yeah.
Yeah.
Steve: So anyway.
Jason: Yes.
Steve: Very good. Yeah. You're you're, I think, down at the moment because we're talking about, like, your hiring situation
Jason: and then It's not good.
Steve: And then we rubbed this whole deal with the Yeah. With with the with the goat situation. Yes. So today's podcast is brought to you by motivatedleads.com. With them, you can get $300 worth of quality local leads sent exclusively to your inbox by just mentioning my name.
I've used them, and they're one of the best producers of solid seller leads on a local level. And they fully guarantee the leads that they send you. To get your $300 free credit, just head over to motivatedleads.com, hit the claim your area button, and let them know that I sent you. Alright. So we've figured out the turmoil here.
We stabilized it. Now we're on a mission to find a COO?
Jason: Yes. And very intentional. Like, my one thing is find a COO. And so I read every book there is to read on this. I read Founder and the Force Multiplier, which is more talking about executive assistants.
I read, Cameron Herold's
Steve: Second in Command.
Jason: Second in Command. Great book. I read, rocket fuel. Mhmm. Anything that I could read, and I just, like, learn absolutely everything I can to become, like, what is the master of this and who exactly am I looking for?
And I put the time into figuring out all of these different things. Who who exactly am I looking for? Yeah. Then pay a recruiter, one of those expensive, you know, way we're we're not talking post something on WiseHire. We're talking the ones that's sending people messages on LinkedIn.
Mhmm. So pay a recruiter, and, we wound up getting a a number of good candidates, but wound up settling on Brent. And, I mean, things that Brent did before he worked with me. You know, Dickies Pants? Mhmm.
He was their VP of marketing. They were dying. He started a marketing campaign that took him from a dying brand to selling for $900,000,000. From there, he went to a fund. They buy big apartment complexes Mhmm.
And they had and when when at their peak, he took them all the way up to a multibillion dollar fund as the COO Mhmm. In in that case. And then after that comes here. That's that, like, proven Mhmm. Talent, and he's been awesome.
But I will say it still takes time. Mhmm. 2024 was still it it getting him fully up to speed and running and every everything else.
Steve: So we talk about the track record, which is obviously critical.
Jason: Mhmm.
Steve: What about the intangibles? What do you think you need for a COO that you said, okay. He's got these attributes that we require for this role?
Jason: Yeah. I mean, it's all the stuff that we talked about, you know, as well as core value alignment. Somebody that's going to do things right, someone that's interested in growth, someone that's willing to work really hard, someone that is gonna work as a with a team, high emotional intelligence. Another big one. If you're gonna report directly to me, you and I have similar profiles Mhmm.
You have to pick it up quick. Mhmm. If if somebody can't you know, you can you absolutely can have a lower COG score and learn slower and work in my organizations. It's okay. Just not directly for me, or I'm not gonna go over enough times for you to
Steve: Right. It's it's it's it's a it's a drag Yeah. On you. Gotcha. Anything else about Brent or hiring?
Jason: I mean, I didn't the the recruiter was one arm that I had, but, I mean, I had I had gone speaking of Keller Williams, I'd gone fully into their hiring process, and their hiring process is amazing. I had, you know, sent everything out on my social media. I had called people to say, hey. Who do you know that might be interested? I'd reached out to my network.
I had the recruiter. I had a job posting. You name it. I had done it all. All points bulletin.
Steve: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. And then, you know, as we're talking about this, you know, we're talking about the importance of a COO, and there's a couple different parts. One's being an attractive enough business, but the other part is being a good enough leader.
Jason: Mhmm. One
Steve: of the things, I've said this before on the show, is that there are a lot of gurus out there that get a really bad name.
Jason: Right?
Steve: They're like, well, they don't really do it. They don't know what they're talking about. Like, they're just coaching. They're just on education. And I have, a hypothesis, I suppose, that the reason why they're just a guru and never someone that does it is because they're missing this piece.
Jason: I would agree a 100%.
Steve: Right. Like, they never hired the guy that can go implement it. Like, they have this idea that I have to be the one that implements and executes.
Jason: Mhmm.
Steve: It's hard to implement and execute.
Jason: It
Steve: is. Right? Because it takes a couple different things. You and I are both blessed that we can do it. Right?
But it also takes the willingness to just eat crap. It's terrible. It's not fun. Right? And so, I think, like, a lot of the gurus, I think the reason why they don't make it is because they don't wanna go through a season of eating crap so that they can get, not necessarily a COO, but, but, like, the right executive assistant Mhmm.
Jason: The
Steve: right operations manager, and then eventually the right COO. Because, like, you watch what these guys spew online. It sounds pretty good.
Jason: Mhmm.
Steve: It's hard to tell, I would think, on the outside looking in that these guys are just frauds. They sound like they know what they're talking about. They just can't get it done.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a difference in reality too. I've found extreme visionaries have their reality. Mhmm.
And and they're so good, and they, like, they 100% believe that reality. Like, they're not lying. They're not trying to deceive or anything else. They're just sharing their reality with you. And it it doesn't necessarily matter in this case that their reality is not real reality or have anything to do with it.
Steve: You think they're a little, not hallucinatory, but, disconnected from reality?
Jason: I think that's some of the most successful people in the world. Mhmm.
Steve: Because I agree the most successful people in the world have a different perception of reality. Yeah. They have an altered reality so that they can filter things out. You know, we talk about Kanye West, Elon Yeah. Trump.
Trump. In order to survive all the viciousness, you have to have this it's not a false sense of reality, but your own version of reality Mhmm. To survive to to mentally deal with
Jason: it. Yeah.
Steve: Right? So you think it's the same thing where they have the the the gurus that's just to have it?
Jason: I I do. And it's but here's the thing. It's, like, people are looking for an escape. Right? Like, they're not necessarily like, we don't go on Instagram because we're going to look for reality.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jason: Right? So a lot of the most successful gurus are the people that are selling the dream Mhmm. Not necessarily reality. You and I have had conversations before about one of our common downfalls as as influencers and people that own service providing companies is our reality. Right?
You know, to 2022 when things were going down and hitting the fan, you and me were like, it is hitting the fan. And and I'm losing money and everything else. And a lot of your, you know, other gurus and people are like, oh, no. We're still making millions. Like, this is this is still awesome and amazing.
And everyone's like, well, I want what they're selling. Right. Because they're still making millions. No one was making millions. No.
You and I were just Honest. Honest. And willing to say, hey. We're getting kicked in the shorts right now. Mhmm.
Because oftentimes, reality isn't always what sells. But for as for me and my house, I will just share reality because I can do that and make the amount of money I need to make even if it's less.
Steve: It's, you know, you tell me about these different versions of reality. It's kinda like, you know, something that's kinda trending. I haven't even been so much recently, but the last few years is like, well, this is my truth.
Jason: I'm I'm not on that team.
Steve: Every time I hear, like, that's my truth, like, I just really wanna roll my eyes. Yeah. So now going back to all this, business is better than real estate. So elaborate on that. Like because you've done the real estate thing and you've done the business thing.
Why is it more, I don't know, more enjoyable? Why is it more emotionally rewarding?
Jason: Yeah. So first off, I love real estate, and I'm a deal junkie. And it's and it's exciting and it's great. And, you know, I've got a rental portfolio and we're doing flips and, you know, actively in real estate all the time. But to me, again, if I started the journey over again, square one, you know, look and let's say you take everything I have and you drop me in Cincinnati.
Yeah. My goal is to build a business that can get to a COO running it as soon as possible Mhmm. And pick the widget. I know real estate, so I'd probably pick it again. Yeah.
But it could be marketing. It could be whatever thing. Get enough revenue. Get someone in charge that can run it, and re get to that point of CEO COO relationship. I get to build.
I get to create. I get to interact, manage, lead. I get the all of the different human needs that Tony Robbins talks about, contribution, significance, growth, security. All of these different needs get met and added to
Steve: Mhmm.
Jason: By the business. And if you do it right, you can do it as much or as little as you want to.
Steve: Alright. And then the other thing we're talking about is you do get to be present with your family or you're intentionally present with your family. Because we're saying 7 figures, 8 figures, and present for your wife and kids. Correct. Because there's also that.
Like, we've seen plenty of people that have great businesses that are not present.
Jason: Yep.
Steve: How are you doing all that and being present with your family?
Jason: Great question. So I'm I'm a big, big believer in this. And keep in mind, you know, it's this is my advice for where I'm at now. Right? I heard, Chris Williams and Hormozi were just on a were well, I just listened to the podcast.
They were on a while ago. And, you know, you and I are at chapter 10 in our journey, and someone may be listening to this at chapter one. And chapter 10 advice may not be perfect at chapter one. Right? Yeah.
Chapter one may be just the down, shut up, and grind so you can afford it later. But Yes. What I've seen way too often is people, you know, get caught in the grind and never pull out of it. But, you know, it's year after year, and then pretty soon your kids are gone. You don't have a relationship with them.
So for me, you know, I've I've done well. Life is good financially, and I'm you know, it's just priorities. What what comes in first? So I don't work before nine, period. And the thing is most business is less urgent than you think.
And if you don't answer before nine, calls don't typically even come in before nine. It can it can make it till then. So I get up with the kids, and we do our morning routine. Mhmm. We do breakfast.
We, you know, make sure everybody's mind's right. We're set. We're ready to go for school. Mhmm. I don't work weekends, and I'm off anywhere between earliest four, latest six every single day, evenings, focus on the kids and I do so every Friday night so I have six kids.
Mhmm. Every Friday night is date night with one of the kids with either me or my wife. Every Every Friday night. Mhmm. Date night with one of the kids.
We do rotating and either my wife or them, and they get to pick. What are we gonna do? We do dinner. We do well, funny enough, my, seven year old twins, both of them, it's the Maverick gas station. We go get, burritos and hot dogs from the gas station and a bag of chips.
Literally, we'll go to any what restaurant you wanna go to? We're gonna go anywhere. It's seven eleven, basically, where we go. But
Steve: Are you saying it's with the wife and the kids or one of the kids? One
Jason: so one parent, one kid. Okay. Could be me and my wife. Then Saturday night is date night, me and my wife. Got it.
We shoot for a monthly overnight, the two of us, and then, try to fit multiple vacations in a year or two. But then I take and apply the same principles from business to home too. Now we have a family mission statement. We have one, three, five year visions. Each of my kids, the of the older kids has a vision board basically that shows this is what I'm looking to do and be.
This is the school I wanna go to. This is the type of person I wanna be when I'm married. And then we have it broken down into, you know, based on the vision, what are the goals for this quarter that we're doing as a family and that each of us are doing individually? All those same things apply. The scariest book I ever read was The Millionaire Next Door.
It's the I mean, it's boring, but fascinating and terrible. It talks about, you know, it's like a research project on millionaires. Mhmm. Which is where you learn that they're not driving Bentleys. They're typically driving f one fifties.
Steve: Jeep Cherokees or Mercury or Jeeps. They're driving Jeeps. Jeep.
Jason: That's true. Yeah. Full size American made cars Yeah. Was their go to. But the scary part is first generation millionaires' kids, by and large, don't turn out Mhmm.
Super well.
Steve: Yeah.
Jason: I'm not gonna be that guy. Oh, and, you know, think about it. With AI and everything that we're learning with the health industry and things like that, it'll be interesting to see how old we get when we die. Right? Because, you know, it's we're talking thirty, forty, fifty years.
And at the rate at which the health industry is moving, it'll be interesting to see how long we die. Like, in terms of leaving kids an inheritance when you die, no. The inheritance for your kids is the time while you're there. Are you teaching them how and helping them ultimately grow and become who you are?
Steve: And I think, you know, there's a whole book about 18 summers. Right? There's that. But then there was something that I can't remember. It was published like a year and a half ago.
Something along the lines of, like, by the time when when the kids leave the house at 18 years old, 95% of the time you're spent with them has been spent.
Jason: Yeah. And, really, by the time they're 13 or 14, 95% of the time they're gonna listen to you Yeah. Is about done too.
Steve: So We got those challenges as well.
Jason: This is that window for me. My kids are my oldest is is 12 turning 13 in a week, and then I got the five and five years down to seven, and then one year old. Like, I'm in the thick of it, and the business needs to grow a little slower along the way. The family stuff has to happen first. But, again, coming back to the COOs, because of the amazing COOs.
I mean, Investor Machine, we just added 20 clients, in the last two months, and our clients are getting some of the best results we've had. We've got more first month because I mean, that's always the goal. There's nothing that feels quite so good as starting a new marketing channel Mhmm. And getting that contract in your first drop or in your first month.
Steve: For sure.
Jason: I actually just partnered with a friend in Orlando, and I'm the money for the market. I've never done this before, but just once I was like, you know what? I'll I'll spend the money on the marketing, and we got a deal on, like, our third week that covers the next four months of marketing. Yeah. It's like, all all gravy from here.
So, like, Investor Machine is doing awesome. Mhmm. I just had my second best month. We did, just shy of a quarter million last month in Creation, Utah. So, like, they're doing great, and I'm doing and here's the other thing coming back to our previous conversation.
For a business to do great actually doesn't require that much from the visionary. Mhmm. I think more most visionaries do too much.
Steve: Yeah. Screw things up.
Jason: They're they do more yes. Like, hey. Do your do the the few parts and things we talked about need to happen, but, honestly, some of those things happen best on vacation. Yeah. Like, coming up with that next idea may happen better tossing a ball with a kid.
We talked about presents. That's the part that I'm still working on presence wise. My my my happen while I'm tossing the ball with the kid. And so, you know, don't don't come in and overdo it. Screw stuff up.
Come up with more ideas and try to, like, overoptimize. So that's the beauty of getting this done. Right? Is it can be done without having to have a crazy amount of work life. I mean, look at Elon.
You know? Look at everything that Tesla's doing and SpaceX is doing and, The Boring Company's doing and Starlink. Twitter and
Steve: Yeah. X Starlink.
Jason: X and x AI. Mhmm. And all of these companies are doing all of these things, and he's spending most of his time in the government. Mhmm. Right?
He's
Steve: got Doge going. It's, no one talks about his right hand person. I forget the guy's name. He's that one right hand person
Jason: Yeah.
Steve: Who make sure everything's coordinator.
Jason: Which I think is a tragedy. But that's but that's the nature of things. The right hand person never I mean, you don't hear as much about the Steve Mhmm. Wozniackis No. Or the, you know, all of the number twos
Steve: along Harold only because he wrote a book about being a COO.
Jason: Right.
Steve: Not because he was the COO.
Jason: Exactly. Yeah.
Steve: So one thing, because I think that, you and our friend Stephanie Betters has a problem. When clients are upset, you take it very personally. True. So how are you handling that now with Distance. The balance?
Jason: Yeah. It's just distance. Yeah. It's just anybody being upset. I'm not really excited about the takeoff list calls from mailers that I sent.
Like, if I listen to a group of, you know, f you, you're the worst person ever for sending me a mailer, I don't feel great. Mhmm. When, you know, if if for whatever reason we can't get a contract moved and we have to cancel, horrible. Right?
Steve: Right.
Jason: Wrecks me on the inside. Just distance.
Steve: So just not making it to you? Is that what it is? So, like, let's say
Jason: I'm aware of it, but I'm not in it and a part of it. I I now have the account manager Mhmm. Who is you know, all my account managers are US based. Great. Awesome.
And there's the director of account management who came from that same billion dollar fund company that was overseeing, you know, investors of multimillions of dollars and had, like, 20 account managers under her, like, her capacity. What I have her doing here here. Same thing with Brent, COO. His capacity, what I have him doing here. So I have, like, people are extremely well taken care of.
Mhmm. I have to like, the only way I cannot be a part is if I know you're gonna be extremely well taken care of. So there is an awesome account manager at Investor Machine, an awesome account manager, a director of account management, a COO, all of whom are every bit or more equipped as me to take great care of you. And then I still hear about it and know, but I'm not directly involved.
Steve: Care than Jason probably ever did
Jason: Yeah.
Steve: At this point.
Jason: Yeah. Especially at follow through.
Steve: Yeah. Alright. So then, you know, we haven't really touched a lot on Investor Machine. We talked about it a little bit, but, like, you know, you've managed 50,000,000 plus in ad spend Mhmm. In marketing spend.
What is investor machine for those that have not watched the other two episodes? Hey, disruptors. I just wanna share that myself as well as about half of the people on the show for disruptors are members of the Collective Genius real estate mastermind, also known as CG. Now I've been a member of the Collective Genius for well over four years now along with about 700 other top tier real estate investors that flip a combined over 50,000 homes per year, and I've personally made a ton of money and developed some deep personal lifelong friendships there. If you wanna look behind the scenes of what it's like to be an esteemed member of this organization and how it's helped me scale, please check out cgmastermind.com.
Jason: Yeah. Great. So investor machine is how I do mail. So, I mean, in the quarter oh, I said we did. So I undershot how we did last month.
I think it was actually a half $1,000,000 month. Okay. Because we did 1,100,000.0 in quarter one. Mhmm. Maybe even higher.
My numb my numbers are clearly wrong. So January, February, March in, Creation, Utah, we did 1,100,000.0, and the vast majority of that came from my direct mail. Brent Daniels' t t p PPC was actually my number two. I haven't had PPC hit by number two for a long time. Newer to them, and they've been crushing it for
Steve: me. Awesome.
Jason: And then it's a mix of relationships and everything else that I do. So, so investor machine is three parts. First, it's the list. List is one of the most important parts of of any type of direct mail campaign. So the list is three parts.
One, nicheless. So we go and get I've got an army of 60 virtual assistants. We go and get all of the hardest to get lists. There's the easy stuff like absentees and notice of defaults that you can get. But then there's the really hard stuff, the probates, the tax sales and tax delinquents, the, water shutoffs, evictions Mhmm.
Code violations, the stuff that you have to, like, get directly from the county, direct from the courthouse, one at a time, typically putting a variety of things together. Mhmm. We go and get those lists. So that's part one. Part two, we stack everything.
So we stack those motivations with, year bill, year zoned, ZIP code, everything, every different aspect of a property makes someone more or less likely to sell. Mhmm. I'm sure if you're in Mesa, you're more likely to sell than if you're in Scottsdale. Right. If the home was built in '22 1940, more likely to sell than built in 2018.
So when you look at all of these different aspects, we built a software. It's cost me over you know, it's cost me 7 figures that can take all of these things. Look at all of them together. Okay. It has these attributes.
It has each of these different things. This is the score. Then the final magic step, which was the one that we added, I think, after you and I met last time. Because the cool part about that is I created a formula that worked bangin' for Utah. But that same formula doesn't work Mhmm.
Everywhere because markets are different. So the last part is the predictive modeling. Mhmm. That's where you go and say, okay. Who sold to an investor in this area?
And, we're going to give the scores of each of those things based off of who sold to an investor. Mhmm. So in one market, absenteeism may be hottest, but in another one, it may be probates. In one market, the sweet spot is homes built between 1980 and 1960 versus another is older than 1920. Mhmm.
All of those things is what we go and do and figure out to build the list. And then the last piece is throw it into an AI machine learning model to come in and say, okay. Now that I've got all this data, you do your Yeah. Million different analyses and come back and say, this is exactly who you should mail.
Steve: I mean, this I was gonna say, like, this looks that sounds like machine learning, regression modeling. Yeah. Right? Because, like, every stock trader is a genius when they get to look backwards. Yes.
Right? And then they take this thing and they run it forward, and there's only one that's been incredibly impressive in it, and that's Ray Dalio.
Jason: Yes.
Steve: Outside of Ray Dalio, I don't know very many other people. I'm sure there are some good ones, but we don't hear about them because Ray Dalio is the best
Jason: of all time. Mhmm.
Steve: Right? And all it was was just regression testing.
Jason: Mhmm.
Steve: Hey. Let's look backwards, see what works Yep. And test if this works forward. Yep. If it works forward, put a lot of money there.
Jason: Yep. And then you can do it quarter after. And then here's the other really exciting part. Yeah. For us, with our 50,000,000 in marketing, you know, and five years, we can say, okay.
We made these projections. This is what we thought it was gonna be. So then we marketed to this, and then this is who sold. This is where we got it right. This is where we got it wrong.
Okay. What did we learn? Reiterate. Reiterate. Reiterate.
Yeah. Continue to add more things, more pieces of data. The other cool thing that we can do is, you know, so this this comes in the last part, which is so we provide the list, and these things can be bought separate or altogether. I'm a fan of altogether. So we also cover the strategy and the creative.
So we put a phone number that rings to both of us. So way back when when you were our customer, when you were inactive real estate, it was your number that was on it. Right. Now we put the number that rings to both of us. Mhmm.
It can be ported to you anytime. So this gives us another amazing amount of data. Mhmm. Because again, millions of postcards going out, all the responses come back, and we plug in the address for every single response that comes back, which tells us, okay, we sent all these who responded and what did we learn from it. Mhmm.
And then we get a list of your buys from us as well as from everything that you do and say, okay. What did we learn from it? And across all of our customers, we're running split tests on almost all of them as well as each other. So we're saying, okay. In this one, we're we're testing this versus this.
We're testing, you know, names. On this one, we're testing colors. On this one, we're testing the check letter versus a postcard. These these these are things. We're testing all these different things, taking and learning every single month, and it's crazy the stuff that we know.
Like, I can tell you a female name performs better than a male name and substantially better than a company name. I can tell you how each different color performs on the exact same creative. If you make it this color, it's gonna do better than if you make it that color. Wow. All the way down to, you know, every different, you know, where you put wording, whether or not you address their motivation on there.
The the amount of detail and things that we know Mhmm. Is awesome. And the one thing I learned from it is my and from all the stuff that we talked about, the thing I consistently learn over and over again is that my gut is not always right. Mhmm. I created a postcard that I was so proud of.
I paid creative writers to write it. I paid graphic designers to do it and it was perfection. I shared it in a CG one time, this amazing postcard that I had, and I had tons of members using it. Now that we actually have the data, it's in our three worst performers of every piece we've ever said.
Steve: What was the piece?
Jason: It's just like a little white postcard. It's got a picture of you and or your team, and it's focused entirely on just we're gonna buy fast. It's written in pen with consistent font and consistent color throughout it. It's all about authenticity, but also, like, I thought it blended all of the best of what we had. Mhmm.
And for whatever reason, America doesn't like it. And there's no then there's no market exceptions. I can't even say the East or the West. Across the board.
Steve: Across the board. Massive rejection.
Jason: Yeah. So, you know, that's the that's the cool part is, you know, you get to lean into a system that's proven. And for me, that's as much of the benefit as anything else. Even, like, I've been through a cool health journey the last little bit. Believe it or not, I've actually lost weight intentionally because it was lose weight to then woke up.
I've known the principles of diet and exercise forever, but I got a specific health coach that was like, hey, man. Just do exactly what I say, and you're gonna get this journey, and it's gonna take you this long. And I trusted him, and I did what he said. And I've seen incredible changes in my body already. And I feel great and we're right on track to exactly where I'm looking to go.
Even though, you know, I've known not do this and do this Mhmm. Since I was, like, 12.
Steve: Yeah. It's not rocket science.
Jason: Yeah. But there's just a power in, hey, I've got you. I'll guide you through this. Mhmm. I'll help you.
You know, we'll listen to so we even listen to people's calls
Steve: Mhmm.
Jason: As well to make sure they're doing their part too.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jason: To say, hey. You're coming up a little bit short on, on your just even the main one that we track is just answer rate. Mhmm. It's amazing how many people struggle with just answering the phone.
Steve: Yeah. Gotcha. So if if someone wants to find out more about working with Investor Machine, how would they go about that?
Jason: Investormachine.com. And Simple enough. And if, they mentioned Steve Trang, I'll give him 30% off sign up fee. Ah, just for you.
Steve: Nice low bonus there.
Jason: That's right.
Steve: Alright. Well, thank you for that. Let's see here. We didn't talk about I'm curious, you know, with Brent and yourself. Did you look into working genius at all?
Jason: I have I did the working genius one time just because I was interested, but I haven't gone deep into working genius.
Steve: Yeah. I was just curious to see if you've played around with that because that's something that I've been really gung ho on. You know, we use predictive index, but now I won't hire someone without also taking, Working Genius. Yeah. It's,
Jason: I listened I think I listened to, like, a summary of the book again just, like, a month ago. Yeah. Not it's interesting. I just haven't gotten as into it as you have.
Steve: Yeah. It's just it's it's it's an excellent predictor of, like, their behavior. Not not necessarily behavior, but what part of the work they love the most. Because if you if you hire someone that galvanizing, which is, like, motivating people is their frustration zone, and you put them there, to manage salespeople, they're gonna burn out. Mhmm.
Right? And so, like, it's just figuring out or, like, you don't ever wanna put someone that's got no invention in them. I think in the the COO seat, not to say they need it, but it was a frustration zone. Inventions where we, like or resourcefulness comes from.
Jason: Mhmm.
Steve: Like, hey. We have a problem here. It's like, oh, shoot. I better call Jason. That won't work.
Right? So, anyway, just curious to see how that, you looked at that. So wrapping up here, what is a message you wanna make sure that everyone walks away with today?
Jason: I think I probably come back to Closer Over More Mhmm. Which is figure out what you want and get really clear on that and go work for that. Yeah. I see so many people get caught up in just pursuing relentlessly more. But when you get clear on what that is, you know, just make the choices that are gonna help you get that.
One of the things you've heard me say all the time is track net, not gross. Mhmm. Right? That's because what I want, net revenue. Mhmm.
I work for net revenue. Mhmm. I don't work for 200 deals or, hey. I want everybody at CG to think I'm cool because I did all these things. I just don't care.
I, like, I want net revenue and increased net worth Mhmm. In less time so that I can spend it with the family. And a lot of my life now is, like, I just want life to be good. I wanna I wanna wake up and enjoy my everyday. You know, I'm in here in Phoenix on spring break this week with the family.
Yeah. My goal that I'm working towards is when I'm getting on the plane on Friday, I wanna be as excited about going back to my day to day life as I was about coming here for spring break. Yeah. I've been there. I'm getting close to back there, but that's my big goal right now is just so excited about my day to day life that I would never leave.
And the biggest contributor to both of those is the COOs.
Steve: Right. If somebody wanted to connect with you, how would they best go about doing that?
Jason: Friend me on Facebook. Mhmm. And then, I think I'm on Instagram as well. And what is that? And I yes.
I'm and I'm growing both of those. So we just brought in we just brought in a, awesome marketing guide, investor machine that's gonna help me get Steve Trang level. Okay. Not Steve Trang level. That that was over I grossly overshot that.
Worked my way up in terms of actually having a better social media presence. You're gonna be really excited if you're my Facebook friend. So far, I post four times a year. But I think we're gonna we're we're gonna ramp that up.
Steve: We're gonna finally know more about Jason. Potentially.
Jason: I've committed I've I've committed before. I haven't seen that one. I haven't seen that one through so long.
Steve: I've heard you promised it before. I think even in the last podcast, I think you promised it.
Jason: I that's not surprising. So when you see it is when it'll happen.
Steve: Perfect. Alright. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on. Thank you guys for watching.
See you guys next time. Alright. I'll see you. Steve train. Jump on the Steve train.
Disrupt us.
