Key Takeaways
Focus on fewer keywords in PPC campaigns - the Mathis twins reduced their average cost-per-click to $4 by simplifying their keyword strategy instead of targeting multiple keywords
Build accountability systems with your business partner - weekly Level 10 meetings with specific accountabilities transformed their business operations
Close wholesale deals entirely over the phone - they switched from in-person visits to phone-only closings, making their business more scalable
Speed to lead is critical for PPC success - all website leads go directly to their cell phones and they call back immediately, even at 11:30 PM
Follow-up consistently gets deals - they made follow-up a core company value and credit persistent follow-up for most of their closed transactions
Quotable Moments
”“Follow-up gets the deal. It's so important to us as one of our company core values. Like, follow-up is a core value for us.”
”“If we spend $7,000 a month, we are going to make minimum 115,000 online. We just know that.”
”“Right now, the average cost per click in the South Florida area is well over $40. Our average cost per click now is $4.”
”“I genuinely care about people. And most of the people one thing I love about PPC, most of our leads are really highly motivated sellers. They really wanna sell.”
About the Guest
Joshua Mathis
Freedom Cash Home Buyers
Joshua Mathis is a real estate wholesaler and co-founder of Freedom Cash Home Buyers based in Miami, Florida. He transitioned into real estate after starting and selling a cleaning business with his brother Jeremy, and now specializes in wholesaling properties primarily through pay-per-click marketing and MLS strategies. He focuses on building systematic approaches to real estate investing and emphasizes the importance of follow-up as a core business value.
Full Transcript
15327 words
Full Transcript
15327 words
Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we have Joshua and Jeremy Mathis with Freedom Cash Home Buyers, and they flew in from Miami, Florida to share how they're making a $100,000 a month through pay per click. Yep. And also as a subplot, defend their names because Miami was thrown on the bus in one of our previous episodes.
So, if this is your first time tuning in, I am am Steve Trang, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only only MLS for off market wholesale properties. And I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires. So if that's something you wanna do, let's connect on Instagram. If If you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave. Give me a thumbs up.
And as a friendly reminder, I don't charge a dime for the show. I don't make any money doing this. So here's all I ask. This is what it costs for you to listen to the show. If you give value today, please tell a friend.
You can share this episode right now. Tag your friend below or tell your best takeaway from this show later on. That way, we can all grow together. And I am asking everyone for help right now because I'm trying to get to 10,000 subscribers. So please subscribe.
And if you can, ask your mom to
Joshua Mathis: subscribe too.
Steve: And stay tuned to the end. I got a special announcement. So don't forget this is a live show, so please post your questions for Joshua and Jeremy to answer. You ready?
Joshua: Yes. Ready. Ready. Let's go.
Steve: So what got you guys into real estate?
Joshua: The long story or the short story?
Steve: Long story. We got an
Joshua: hour. So we had a cleaning business before we got into real estate. We had about eight employees, and it was, it was bad. We were making really good money, but as far as managing people and how to lead, we're 22 or 23. They were telling us when they were gonna work.
It's basically bossing us around.
Steve: Did you have, like, a Molly Maid franchise or something?
Joshua: No. We had a no. So the long the long story of it was we had a mentor of ours. You know, this guy has a huge company probably now. You know, they're doing a 150,000,000 system wide sales in his company.
And he wanted he would try to recruit my brother and I to work for him right out of college. And we was like, no. We wanna do our own things. We wanna take the entrepreneurial route. So he said, hey.
Look, guys. I have an opportunity. You know, a lot of my franchises are saying these practices are dirty. Let's start a cleaning company together. He's a franchising guru.
And he says, hey. You know what? Let's start a cleaning company together. So we ended up, you know, strategizing, planning with him. He gave us the money.
He said, you guys figure it out. You know, you got I don't know nothing about cleaning. Here's the money. You guys figure it out. So long story short, we, started the company.
We grew it. And in eighteen months, we sold it.
Steve: Okay.
Joshua: Yeah. But it was just, you know, doing that eighteen months from Monday through Saturday. We were working a hundred and seventeen hours a week. And I was just getting ready to have my first kid. So I came to him and I said, look, man.
I can't work like this. I wanna be in my daughter's life. You know, I wanna be around. I wanna see her when she takes her first step. Mhmm.
So we ended up, selling that company and got into real estate. But what made us sell it was the guy, our our mentor and also an investor, every month or every quarter, we would sit down and strategize with him. And at one strategy meeting, we come in, we start complaining about this, that. He's listening. He's taking our complaints, which he never did.
And when we were finished, he said, listen, guys. Just sell the company. Right. Sell the company. At that time, I never thought about having an exit from a company.
Mhmm. So I sell the company and I'm telling you, go find something else to do. You guys are 23 year 23 years old. You'll figure it out. So we got into real estate while we were still simultaneously operating the cleaning company, but did our first wholesale deal.
And it's like, listen, we called the broker the next that we the next day after we got the check, you have one week to get this comp this company sold or we're shutting it
Steve: down. Oh.
Joshua: Yes. Yes. So he found us a buyer. We sold the company and just been doing real estate full time.
Steve: What did you guys end up selling for? You said you worked in a year and a half?
Joshua: Yep. Yeah. So the the interesting thing about, you know, that was a cool process. The whole process of selling a business, you really get to see the ins and out of things. So, for that for a cleaning company, you can sell for 1.5 times cash flow.
You know, that our first year we did, like we netted, I think, 55,000. So because of that, we could have sold for, like, a $100. Mhmm. Take a wild guess on what you think we sold the company for. 50?
No. First time ever, anybody know we sold that company for $20,000. But what happened was when we first put it on the market three months prior to actually selling it, we had a ton of offers close to asking, but just being ignorant and just thinking, oh, no. We can get more. We can get more.
We didn't get more. Those people that was supposed to that wanted to buy our company, they came when we went back to them and say, hey. Listen. Do you guys wanna take our offer? No.
We already purchased something else. Or we already purchased the company. We did that first real estate deal, which netted us 20 k. It was like, if we can do this at least once a week, we'll be good. Mhmm.
We called them, listen. Drop the price to $20, sell the company. Let's get moving. Yeah. Even the guy who bought the business for from us, he said, you guys are nuts.
You know? Because every everything was there. We had, you know, SOPs, everything in place for him. So he just, you know, he bought you
Steve: guys created?
Joshua: Yep. Yeah. From the ground up. Really? And he started it was just us two cleaning offices.
And then, you know, we started growing the accounts, growing the accounts, started hiring people, and just man I think that the the the breaking point for us was just managing those employees Mhmm. And not knowing how to do that. That really set us over the edge to really okay. Let's find something else to do because this is not gonna cut it, managing these people forever. And at that time, we didn't understand that we create a middle manager, all the things that we could have done to save the company.
The other 23. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: So what like, you know, I said, said, okay. We gotta change. We gotta go a different route. Like, why wholesale? Why real estate?
Joshua: Well, when we first when we first focused on real estate, it was fix and flip like everybody. You know, because most people, you don't learn about wholesale, at least from my opinion, until you actually get into real estate. Because HGTV glamorizes the flip and flip the the fix and flip model.
Steve: Those guys that get all the glory.
Joshua: Right. Right. Yeah. And you say, oh, I can do that. I wanna do that.
And then you get in and say, wait. There's an easier way. Less risk, possibly
Steve: the same
Joshua: at all. Well, really no risk at all. And I can make a sim the same type of money as them. And that's kinda what led us to wholesale.
Steve: Okay. So So but you guys weren't flipping. You guys just jumped straight into wholesale?
Joshua: Yes. We jumped straight into wholesale.
Steve: So who kinda guided, you know, showed you guys the way?
Joshua: We had a so we heard it well, we was we heard one of those ads on the radio. Oh, come to my come to my event. I'll teach you real estate. We went to it. And before you know it, we maxed out our credit cards.
And yeah. Before we did our first deal, we were like 72 $72,000 in debt. Yeah.
Steve: From seminars.
Joshua: Yeah. From seminars. And the the greatest lesson we learned from those seminars was, hey. Join your local RIA. So we talked to a buddy of ours.
He's a successful broker down in Miami. And we said, hey, man. We wanna do some real estate investing. And he said, man, you guys should talk to one of my friends. You know, he's good.
You know, he he owns a local Ria. He can help you guys out. So one thing led to another. He introduced us to the guy and, you know, it's just taking taking on taking off from there.
Steve: Yeah. It's crazy.
Joshua: I
Steve: had someone they're asking, like, someone's asking. I won't mention the name of the of the event, but I'm like, you know, I'm thinking about going to whatever. And I always my advice always is, like, go. You know, you can't get too much information. Just, you know, you gotta shoot like a strip club.
You gotta leave your wallet at home.
Joshua: That is a great way to put it. I love it. That is a great way to put it because when they get you there, they I'm excited. You are they get you excited. They they do a great job of selling.
Your average profit is 45,000 on the deal. You do one deal. You pay us back. And not bad mouthing those guys, but it was just, yeah, something I won't ever do again.
Steve: Yeah. Okay. So you got some education from the seminar, and then you got you got some more information from the the the RIA group.
Joshua: Yeah. We got no. We got zero education from the seminar Okay. Except go join your local RIA. And then when we learn when we went to the RIA, that's when we really start learning how to wholesale, and we did everything exclusively at first on the MLS.
Okay. So yeah.
Steve: Talk about that. So let's walk through your first wholesale deal.
Joshua: So our mentor who really taught us wholesale, he he teaches on the MLS. And when we started about three and a half years ago, the MLS was hot. Like, you can go on and you can get a deal pretty pretty easily. Mhmm. Our first wholesale deal came.
We actually got two deals on the contract. So I we we I made an offer. The realtor comes back and says, okay. Come up a little bit more. It was two duplexes.
At that time, it was a 100,000 each duplex. Now those duplexes are now worth easily 225,000. Mhmm. So we should have kept it, but whatever. Hindsight is $20.20.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah.
Joshua: So we get the deal under contract. We sell one of them because, you know, when you're first in the business, you know nothing about it. We sold a duplex and a buildable lot where you could build another duplex on the lot for basically pennies.
Steve: Mhmm.
Joshua: But we were just so happy to get our first deal and then make $19,700 that was like, oh my god. Like, this is amazing. Right. Of course. The other duplex, it took us six months to sell because it was no.
We just couldn't find a bar for it. But we were able to prolong it because there was a term in our contract. So we prolonged the closing for six months. We finally sold it.
Steve: Basically tied it up until you find your own buyer. Right.
Joshua: Yes. Alright. That wasn't that wasn't the intent. But at that time
Steve: And the agent was totally okay with that.
Joshua: No. No. No. Oh. Oh.
No. Oh. No. No. No.
No. It was horrible. It was it was a bad experience. I'm I think she called me everything in a book. But It was a learning experience.
It wasn't a bad experience. We we learned a lot from it, you know.
Steve: So let's talk about what you learned. Because that's that's one of the things that's I think is important right about this show. Is guys that are newer, like, there's all this glory. Right? Like, you just get in and you're just gonna get some super nice car, super nice watches
Joshua: Yeah.
Steve: Look real clean in a suit. Right. But in reality, it sucks when you start.
Joshua: Right. Right.
Steve: So what were the lessons you learned?
Joshua: So I I think I think number one, you know, we did find a mentor and he kinda guided us through that process on how we could could keep the lane closing because it was our first deal. I knew nothing about a contract. I didn't know what the exit clause were. We didn't know what clause we could use to, potentially, you know, save us or save the deal. So he was saying, okay.
You know, the the way we sent the contract, it was, you know, we we had a, you know, like, a twenty day inspection period. That was one thing. And then, we kept delaying we we had the title company. So the title company and that's that's another thing I wanna share. Make sure you find an investor friendly title company.
So the the title company we were using at the time, they're investor friendly. So they were making up every excuse on the book on why we had to delay. So Yeah. What else would you what'd you say? Just I can't even think about anything right now.
Oh, you know what? The the the thing that that really helped us was in the in the contract. It stated that the tenant had to be out. So, you know, there's a clause in the contract that, you know, that we were getting the property vacant. Mhmm.
But the tenant wouldn't leave, so that kinda helped us as well. So the tenant said, nope. I have a lease. You know, my lease is up in another, you know, three or four months. So that helped us as well.
So during that time, while we were dealing with trying to get the tenant out, we were still, you know, marketing the property, trying to find a buyer. Yeah.
Steve: Buying time.
Joshua: So the biggest thing is really understanding the contract.
Steve: So Benjamin Amos wants to know, like, you know, gaining traction. What was I I mean, I I understand today what your business is. But at that time, you're saying MLS. So you're just calling So MLS listings?
Joshua: There's there's a system in Florida that you can use to send out a ton of offers.
Steve: Mhmm.
Joshua: You can send out, I think, like, 30 offers a day. And what our mentor told us, and what you know in sales, follow ups get follow-up gets the deal. Mhmm. It's so important to us as one of our company core values. Like, follow-up is a core value for us.
And that was the bulk of the business. Every day, we send out 30 offers. And then the next day, hey, Steve. Did you get my offer on 123 Main Street? Yes.
Do you think we can make make a deal happen? No. We have a buyer, and we will put it in the CRM system to follow-up two weeks from that that that conversation. Because most at that time, it was okay to have a fourteen day inspection period on while doing deals on MLS. Now if you try to get anything more than five days inspection period, they know you're a wholesaler.
So so, I mean, that was our core business, sending out offers, making phone calls, and following up. That's all we did. For the first year. For the first year.
Steve: And when was that? When was your first year?
Joshua: 2016. Three years ago.
Steve: So not even that long ago.
Joshua: Yeah. 2016.
Steve: Okay. And then, Christian Huberas wants to know what title company do you guys currently use in Miami?
Joshua: We use a company called Cooperative Title. It's owned by a a lawyer.
Steve: That's a friendly name.
Joshua: Yeah. Cooperative Title. Really great title company.
Steve: Yeah. So then you guys have any other struggles in the beginning?
Joshua: Just like everybody trying to trying to understand the business, trying to find deals, trying to learn how to sell deals and find buyers. The typical struggles is what we had on first year in the business. I mean, I think what really helped us though is, you know, we had each other because, as you know, you're you're struggling trying to find that first deal. You're struggling trying to get that first deal. And there were days I'm like, man, I don't know.
Because remember now, I'm getting ready to have a kid. I don't have no money. So I'm like, look, Jeremy. I can't, you know, I can't keep fooling around. Like, I'm have a kid to take care of.
Because it did take us three months to get our first deal. And then mind you, we were both were working nine to five. We had we totally neglected the cleaning company. It was like, whatever. If it if it goes by the wayside, whatever, we'll figure out a way to pay the investor.
Right? So it took us really three full months to get to get our first deal on the contract. Well, our first deal was really two deals. So Mhmm. To get it under contract, but another five months to close them.
Yeah. So five months to get the paycheck. Yeah. Which is is important
Steve: part. So then how is your operation different than your your buddies in Tampa?
Joshua: When are we in Miami? Right now, I think it's different because our only focus right now is online. We we do all of our advertising online. That's how we do our lead generation. That's that's the that's our business online.
Steve: Now that's gotta be somewhat brutal because I've done a lot of pay per click. Right? I don't know. You heard me talk about this, but, like, let's see. Five years ago, six years ago, it was just me and Sean Terry.
Right. That was it.
Joshua: Yeah. There were
Steve: a couple other guys and but they weren't, like, consistent. Right. Today, I was, like, I was just actually looking at so back in 2012, my cost per click was, like, $2.30. And my cost per phone number, right, not necessarily a right phone number, just cost per lead was $12.
Joshua: Oh, wow. Can't get that today. Not at all.
Steve: I would kill for that. Right?
Joshua: Right. Right.
Steve: So, eventually, it became like, wow. This is just stupid expensive. So, like, how are you guys able to sustain pay per click? Like, is there not a lot of guys doing it? Or what would you say is your competitive advantage there?
Joshua: There are a ton of guys doing it. It's just for us when we first made a decision. So let's talk about how we made a decision to go online. So we're in the MLS. We're doing 10 to 20 deals a month.
And I'm talking about our average is about $20.25 k per deal.
Steve: 10 to 20 a month through the MLS.
Joshua: Right. Through the MLS. Like, we were we were hitting the phones. Like, we have to but one thing about us, we know we know hard work. Okay.
So at one point, it started to dry up a little bit instead of doing, like, consistently between ten and fifth 10 to 20. Sometimes we would do, like, seven, five. And I I came there one month. I'm like, listen. You know, this thing is about to dry up.
We need to find a different method. I wanna go online. No. Let's do mail. Because at the time, all the gurus were preaching mail.
And All the gurus are still preaching mail. Right. Well, yeah. Yeah. They still are.
But he was like, man, let's do mail. So for about a month, almost to a fist fight, I told him, if I wanna go I wanna do what everybody else is not doing. So if everybody's doing cold calling, getting mail, I wanna go and do online paper online advertising. At that time, we knew nothing about it, but we got a buddy who who knew more about it. He connected us with another guy who was, like, an online advertising nerd.
Mhmm. So we met with the guy and the guy said, listen. Give me six months and you guys are basically gonna flush your money down the toilet. Mhmm.
Steve: So at
Joshua: the time, we were doing okay. So it was like, you know what? This could be something that's great for the business long run. Those first six, eight months was
Steve: tough. Mhmm.
Joshua: Just to see money going down the toilet, no leads coming in. But the guy, over time, what he figured out was, okay, what what the reason why most people spend so much on PBC is they wanna do a ton of keywords. Mhmm. What he did was he simplified the keywords. So we only go after a few keywords.
And another thing that he did was make sure that we're not focusing strictly on PPC. We have other ways to find people online that are cheaper. So right now, the average cost per click in the South Florida area is well over $40. Our average cost per click now is $4. But we do other things online, like retargeting, display retargeting Mhmm.
And other things. So to help us out. To really to reduce that. That that that was a really turning point of our business because, like, I didn't wanna go online. I did not wanna do it.
You know, nobody was doing it. And I'm saying, look. Everybody's doing mail. We should get into mail. Everybody's saying, you know you know, mail mail has the highest, you know, return on investment.
So I really wanted to do the mail. And he was like, no. We should go online, which was a a a one of the probably the best one of the best business decisions we've made when it comes to this current business that we have. We know If we spend $7,000 a month, we are going to make minimum 115,000 online. We just know that.
And that's probably really the only KPI that we track. The cost per cost per contract as well. But once we start to really track that, we know, okay, we spend x, we're gonna we're going to generate y. We are gonna increase it really soon, but we have to build our team. So
Steve: Yeah. So cost per click is $4 today?
Joshua: Right. That's blended. Blended. But if I if you just look just at PPC, we're spending $33 on average per just for PPC.
Steve: So on the initial click, 33. Right. And then cost per lead is? Right now, 1,300. 1,300.
That's cost per lead or contract? Per contract. I'm sorry. Cost per contract. Cost per contract is 1,300.
Yes. Because, like, when I stopped, I said screw this. Yeah. I was I was at $35 a click. Right.
200 I think $280 per phone number. Right. And then cost per contract was something stupid.
Joshua: Right. Right.
Steve: Right. Higher than 1,300 for sure.
Joshua: No. Right now, 1,300. It it it it it it varies month by month.
Steve: If it was 1,300, I'd still be in it.
Joshua: But Alright. But it it vary it varies month over month, but on average, we're at $1,300.
Steve: And I'll attest to the follow-up because you guys were harassing me or you were harassing me on Instagram, because there are a lot of people that ask. And I was like, you know, I get I I I throw hoops out there. Right? It's like, well, you know, go do this. Go do this.
Right. And then, like, I'll get to it, whatever. Right. But you did not leave me alone. So I will attest to the follow-up game.
Joshua: Follow-up is Keith. You wanna get deals, follow-up. Let's
Steve: help him. So let's see. I'm I'm going through some of the questions here. So Robert Carrillo wants to know, how did you work, with the realtor as a wholesaler? Did you have to provide proof of funds?
What was the relationship like?
Joshua: You so that it was, we sent out the offer. Realtor calls us. Hey. You know, we take
Steve: So you would submit the offer before the realtor before you talk to the realtor?
Joshua: Yes. Okay. Because we had a CRM system that would just allow you to send out the offer. So we sent
Steve: What's the CRM software for that? Sorry.
Joshua: It was called ReaFax.
Steve: ReaFax.
Joshua: ReaFax. Reaifax. Reaifax. Reaifax. Reaifax.
Okay. I think it's right now, I think they only operate in Florida.
Steve: Okay. So,
Joshua: so we were using that to send out the offers. We will send the offer. Realtor calls us and say, hey. We're thinking about accepting your offer. We need a proof of funds.
Our mentor at the time, he would give us a proof of funds, say, hey. These guys have a $400,000 line of credit. We'll use his proof of funds and send that to the realtor. And then from there, they accept the offer and it's just the the typical process, get it under contract, blast it out to your buyers, you know, schedule the showing date, get buyers to come to the to to see the house Mhmm. Get it under contract with the buyer and go to closing.
Steve: So, typically, what percentage of do you guys do you guys based on ARV, based off list price? I imagine you guys based off ARV, your offer.
Joshua: We were just. So in the in the CRM system, what was pretty cool, it allow you just to set, like so they had their own way of doing, I guess, ARV. So you can you can set it to send out the offers at, you know, 75%. So we would most of the time, we would just click 20 properties and just send a blind offer. We didn't do no map, no numbers.
We know we just had it set at 70% to send the offer. And a lot of times, you know, it would take you know, that sales cycle was probably three to four months before we got a call back. Because they have that road tour has been through other wholesalers who's offered too much or, you know, they've been through so many finance buyers, and they see we're consistently following up with them. So they're saying, hey. You know what?
These guys are serious. They wanna buy. So then they'll accept the offer.
Steve: They're just giving up because you're like George Foreman.
Joshua: Whereas, like, I'm gonna
Steve: work with these guys or
Joshua: they're gonna
Steve: they won't leave me alone. Right.
Joshua: I'm not gonna leave you alone. Alright. So do
Steve: you guys still work with agents?
Joshua: We just discontinued that, what, two months ago.
Steve: Yeah. Two months ago?
Joshua: Yep. Because that we we tried to continue to do it with VAs, but we just realized that we were making $57,000 on a deal, and
Steve: it was very too low.
Joshua: Yeah. We just wasn't worth our time. We spoke we we said, let's build out a real team around PPC, and we can do something really, really amazing, which is what we're in pro in process of doing.
Steve: Gotcha. Josh Bennett wants to know what CRM you guys are using.
Joshua: Right now?
Steve: Mhmm.
Joshua: Notes on my phone. The notes. The notes app on my phone. No. Right.
Guaranteed. We are building out of audio, man. We're building out of audio right now. We're spending a ton of money building out of audio system, but it was people when when we tell people that, they say no way. But for me I was
Steve: trying to stay in the seat and not jump over the table.
Joshua: We we we have missed out on some deals because of it. But what and I'm I'm in charge of acquisitions. He's he's dispositions. What works for me is I genuinely care about people. And most of the people one thing I love about PPC, most of our leads are really highly motivated sellers.
They really wanna sell. This is not something where I wanna go and try to bid. These people wanna sell. So with me actually caring about their needs and fulfilling their needs, so I just have an innate ability to remember, okay. I know that this person said call them back on this day because they at that point, they they are gonna hear back from the bank as to whether they got the loan mod or not.
Mhmm. So but but because we've missed out on so many deals, we we now should have a PODIO up and running about two weeks? Two weeks. Yeah. Yeah.
It's been a lot too much process doing it now.
Steve: And, Janae King wants to know, do you guys think wholesaling is oversaturated?
Joshua: Yes. I do. I I I I think it's oversaturated, but I still think you can get deals. Because one thing that we've just we we just left some of the guys out here in AZ, Jesse and Josiah. And, I first of all, I love the culture the culture that you guys have out in Arizona.
To see how many deals you guys are doing per month and you guys all know each other, that shows me that there are a ton of deals out there. You just have to know how to find them. Yes. I think there are a ton of wholesalers now, but they are there are a ton of, a lot of deals. And a lot of people are falling off because a lot of people say, I wanna get into the game, and they see it.
This is hard work. It's not just I'm a get a deal. I'm a make $20 on the deal. No. You got a market.
You gotta follow-up. You know, you gotta go through that process. So, you know, you get a lot of people that come in and a lot of people that just leave because one thing that we do, you know, we're big on giving back. And we have what's called impactful hour. And once a week, we meet with anybody in our community that reach out to us and say, hey.
I wanna learn about real estate. So we say, hey. Come to my office. Schedule with our assistant. Come to the office, and you get an hour of our time.
You can ask any question that you want. And a lot of people, they start. They're excited. Three weeks in, man, I I call the seller. You know, this didn't work out.
That didn't work out. You never hear from them. So Right. A lot of people want to get into the business, and then they see this is hard work, then they just
Steve: The checks are sexy.
Joshua: Yes. Definitely. They are.
Steve: The the work is not is
Joshua: not as sexy. At all.
Steve: So then, George Gonzalez wants to know how much you guys are spending on a on a monthly basis. I heard you say 7.
Joshua: Right now, we we still are at 7, but within the next yes. The the within the next Man. The within the next month or so, we're gonna increase that. The only reason why we're at seven is because we don't have the, a full team. And what's starting to happen is we're generating so many leads.
I'm on the phone. And I believe the only way you win in business is if you pick up your phone. Just pick up your phone and you that's you've done half of your job, at least in my opinion. And to speak on that, sorry to go. Like, I don't understand how a lot of guys are in business and they don't answer their phone.
I just don't get it. Like, Like, I can understand your, you know, your Grant Cardone, but come on. And a lot of guys that we reach out to just don't answer the phone. Or even like, we are sent we sent the guy a lead. And it was in Florida.
We wasn't in this part of Florida. And we told the guy, like, work the lead, work the lead. The guy would he he wouldn't answer his phone. He wouldn't return the text messages. Thankfully, we end up keeping the lead.
We found a buyer in that part of the state. And, you know, we made $27,000 on that deal. But, I mean, if telling this guy, we could have split it $50.50. You could have made nice money. The guy wouldn't answer the phone or return
Steve: a text message. Yeah. Wow. But I'm telling you at the 7,000, because that was at 9,000 when I took
Joshua: my basketball.
Steve: I took it home. I'm not playing this game anymore. Alright. So 7,000. I mean, that's that's crazy awesome.
Joshua: But but how long how long were you doing it?
Steve: I was doing it for a long time.
Joshua: Okay. I mean, I was
Steve: doing it from two thousand twelve. Oh, okay.
Joshua: So I
Steve: didn't I didn't stop until last year. I was like, man, this is just getting out of hand.
Joshua: Right. Right.
Steve: But I didn't have a professional worker in it. I was the guy doing it.
Joshua: See, that's and that's and that's the that's the huge that's a huge issue right there. Mhmm. So when we first when I first made the decision, when we first made the decision, I went to I have a buddy who owns a huge marketing company. He markets solely for dentists. So I go to him.
I'm like, listen. I want you to do it. My PPC for me was like, listen, man. This is a full if you really wanna compete, you this is a full time job from somebody. Like, you either got to hire a company or you have to bring somebody in.
And luckily for us, my that friend, he introduced us to now my cofounder in a different company. And we just been crushing it. We're crushing it. So
Steve: Stephanie Shepherd wants to know what company you're using for PPC.
Joshua: So we again, I we apart we we have our own company that we that we generate leads for other investors. Mhmm. So we partner with the guy after him doing get so long for us. Now we have our own company.
Steve: Yep. Josh Bennett wants to know if you got any advice for a 16 year old getting into the business.
Joshua: Harvard. And then you accountability. Yeah. Accountability is, you know, everybody talks about hard work, discipline, and consistency. Accountability has transformed our business.
Big time. Big time. Once we set, you know, accountability in in place for each other, it's just, you know because as an entrepreneur, who's there to hold you accountable? You say you're gonna do it, you never get to it. So at the beginning of this year, we made a conscious effort and say, you know, we meet we have a level 10 meeting every Monday morning at 08:35, and his three accountabilities for last week need to get done.
If not, he's gonna hear my mouth and vice versa. And from there and, you know, I'm talking about things that really move the that move the business. Not, you know, oh, I'll make 10 calls. No. Things that are really gonna, you know, make sure that you take that business to the next level.
So accountability is key. So I have to agree with that.
Steve: Weekly level 10 meeting. Weekly. Alright. So, Josh, weekly level 10 meetings from, the book Traction. You guys are looking at SEO at all?
Imagine you guys must be looking at it.
Joshua: We we do a little bit of it, but not much. Not much. We do everything is more so paid advertising.
Steve: Yeah. Andy Dragunova wants to know if you guys are using the OfferFast app to move your deals in Miami yet.
Joshua: No. Not yet. Not yet. We have we have a good group of buyers. And one thing we missed out on a lot of deal is because we don't take we don't get a deal under contract unless we are about 95% sure we can sell it.
Yeah. And that's that's that's probably not the best strategy, but it just works for us and our personality. I just can't imagine calling somebody and say, hey. After having your property for two weeks, I I I can't do the deal. So for me, I just know I couldn't sleep.
I can't sleep well at night doing that.
Steve: But Yeah. That's our business philosophy too. We don't cancel.
Joshua: We were just we were just talking with Jesse about that. And, you know, for us, it's key. You know? Because you treat people how you want to be treated. Yeah.
Well, if we get that deal, nine times out of 10, we know we can sell it. Or if not, we can close on it. We'll rehab it or keep it as a rental. So, you know, these these people that are calling pre foreclosure, foreclosure, tax deed Divorce, relocation. And they they need to get out of the house and, you know, you're tying their property up for two to three weeks.
And, you know, we're just not those type of guys.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. We're definitely losing deals. But, I mean, we we tell them, like, we're gonna close on your deal. Or unless we're too far apart on price, then we'll tell them, like, we'll pay this price.
But just know in two weeks, we might come back and say no.
Joshua: Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right.
But we'll
Steve: set the expectation upfront if we think we can't close on it. Okay. So you guys are doing, wholesale. Are you guys flipping to or just purely wholesaling?
Joshua: So our business is really unique. So our first year in business, we did strictly wholesaling. Mhmm. And then we said, hey, man. One thing that we always did, we tracked our deal.
So every deal we sold, we saw okay. We know what we sold before to our end buyer, and we saw what they flipped it for. And we would start calling these guys and say, hey. How much did you put into this house? So we start counting their pockets and say, hey.
This guy's making $50.60, you know, dollars 40,000 on the flip. So our second year, we switched everything. We start flipping. Just only doing flipping, you know, three to five flips a month. Mhmm.
And then you see, you know, flipping is fun. It's cool for social media, but when you have to deal with contractors, squatters, people stealing, you know, stealing out of the property.
Steve: And she's growing legs.
Joshua: The the the biggest issue is cash flow problems where you work, you know, you have, you know, $400, half $1,000,000 out in in expenses and nothing coming back in. And you gotta take a line of credit. And then we said, you know what? We need to switch back to wholesaling, which is, you know, a great decision that we made. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. I agree with this philosophy. We did a flipping thing.
Joshua: It sucks. We we, like, we we did it we did it backwards. You know how most people, they grow a business, scale it, and they leave it. Uh-huh. We grew a business They say, you know what?
We're we're gonna leave it a little bit. Then we went to so year two was more so rehabs. Mhmm. And then year three, which was last year, building our rental portfolio. And then now we're sitting back like, damn.
No. We don't have a team. We need a team right now. It's just purely, purely wholesale.
Steve: So let's talk about that, the team. What does your team look like today?
Joshua: Dispositions, acquisitions. We have a transaction coordinator. We had an assistant who quit us on Monday. On Monday.
Steve: Oh, yeah.
Joshua: And that was fun. One thing I wanna share about that though is if you if you have good talent, pay you know, you gotta pay for talent. And for us, you know, she came highly qualified. She was good. And it was it was two things.
It was, you know, the the because she thought, you know, okay. These guys are asking me to do one thing, but then she came in and she saw it's it was a lot more. And then two, you know, she had other aspirations. She she had other things that she wanted to do Mhmm. As far as, you know, having kids and things like that.
So, you know, it wasn't the best fit for her. But, yeah. So the dispositions, acquisitions, We have a transaction coordinator. And how many VAs? Four no.
Five VAs. Five VAs.
Steve: And what do the VAs handle?
Joshua: So one is, you know, list building, because we're really focusing on building our buyers list. Mhmm. Mhmm. So two of them focused strictly on just building a better buyer list for us because we started to track our numbers. And before, we used to focus solely on acquisitions.
And we would use people like Keely to we never used Keeley, but it's people Other wholesalers. Other wholesalers. Deals out of, strong buyers list. And then you see and you look at your numbers and you say, you know, in one year, you paid out a 100 and, you know, $40,000 to somebody. I can hire somebody, three people full of time, to build that list for me to build buyers.
So, you know, now we're focusing on really building out a strong buyer list. So we we get to a point where, okay, we have a deal in a certain ZIP code. We should be able to go to this list, call the seven buyers that have all bought, you know, fix or flip or rent or whatever that deal is and say, hey. We have a deal similar to the one you bought down the street. You should take a look at it.
Mhmm. So that's one thing. Another thing is building list. So, you know, for foreclosures, preforeclosure, things like that. And the last VA just does some miscellaneous tasks, you know Gotcha.
Little things. Yeah.
Steve: Okay. So the assistant that you had that quit, what was she doing?
Joshua: Making our life so much easier, so much easier. So much and and for us, you know, when she came in, it was very clear on what we wanted. So our what we really wanted from her was to understand our entire business because, you know, we travel. We're doing this. We're doing that.
And certain times, you know, you're like, now I'm on your show. He's doing acquisitions. Oh, he's probably getting a phone call right now, and we're missing out on that lead. So that lead would have went to her, and she would have kind of prequalified that lead. You know, she would put in together contract.
I mean, contracts for us, managing the VAs. We're building out our office. We expanded the office. We're getting ready to build out the sales team. So she she was helping with that.
So every aspect of the business, she she played a part in. Just really understanding, you know, how we operated, how we thought. So if we're not there, you know, things can continue to move smoothly. And another thing was helping us get organized. Yeah.
Like, one thing I'm not a we we were highly unorganized. We was like and we still are. And we still are. Yeah. Did you get so focused on, you know, I'm getting I'm getting deals in, you know, doing deals.
And then you you folk you figure things out. You're like, man. Like, I have to call him and say because I'm doing this boat. Hey. When can I when can I show you when can I show this property?
Or what is the seller's number? You know? You know? So she was helping us get organized. So we definitely are gonna bring somebody else in and really help us to get organized and get our stuff together.
Steve: So when you guys talking about scaling, right, spending more on PPC, you need the the sales team Mhmm. To handle that. What does that sell? Like, what is your vision for the sales team?
Joshua: Anybody that's listening to this podcast that has any sales experience, we're looking for you. That's our vision right now. Because one thing that you posted, which resonated with me so well with me doing acquisitions, I realized that I understand sales, but I'm not a sales guy. I'm a person I I can't quote it word for word, but you put most salespeople most of your acquisitions, they're they they're not selling. They're just talking to people.
Mhmm. And I realized, that's what I'm doing because my lead is so easy that they're ready they're basically giving me the property away most of them.
Steve: Based on buying a report and not skills.
Joshua: Right. Right. Then that's what I was doing. So now, as far as a sales organization, we really wanna find somebody who has years of sales experience who can come in and they teach us sales and we teach them real estate. The same thing we did with our PBC guy.
And I think that'd be a dynamic situation for us. I mean, because, you know, some most entrepreneurs, they're good at either marketing, sales, finance. For us, you know, he's really good at finance, but we're both really good at solving problems. Yeah. You know, we understand sales.
We understand marketing. We understand finance. We're give me a problem, we can fix it. You know, some if I show you some of the deals that we do, you're like, how the hell does we just solve problems. So we, you know, for us, I think that's somewhat of a strength.
I understand. I'm not strong in certain areas. We're not strong in certain areas. So we're gonna hire somebody that's really good and knows what they're doing. They're gonna come teach us and, you know, you lead that department.
Steve: So I'm gonna disagree with you guys.
Joshua: Okay. Okay.
Steve: I always say you wanna get bodies that have that wanna do sales. Right. But they're probably not guys at sales themselves. And I can help you guys. Okay.
Joshua: Get this just a way offline there.
Steve: You're talking Just the way that our guys are killing it here Alright. In Phoenix. We can talk about that.
Joshua: And we did. We were talking offline.
Steve: So one question I have because, you know, you guys are doing pay per click and people are clicking on on your website. Right? And when they're when we're doing PPC, it's speed to lead. Right. It's super critical.
Joshua: Right. How
Steve: are you guys solving that problem?
Joshua: So, again, everything comes remember, you just said, I'm I'm I'm probably getting a call right now that I'm missing. So everything that happens on the website, it comes directly to my cell phone. So if somebody does a form submission, I get I get a text message, check the portal ASAP. Or if they call, it comes directly to my cell phone.
Steve: Right. If they call. Right.
Joshua: I had it.
Steve: If they call, they went straight to my cell.
Joshua: Uh-huh.
Steve: But when they did a form, how did you guys connect right away? Because if you don't call them in, like, thirty seconds
Joshua: Right.
Steve: They're on the next website.
Joshua: Right. So as soon as I as soon as I get that notification regardless of where I am, I always have my laptop. Okay. So I can do a I can pull comps. And if it's an error that I know, then I don't even need to pull comps.
But I always have my laptop. So as soon as a lead comes in I've been at dinner sometimes with friends. Excuse me, Yoss. I gotta go. We'll get a lead sometimes at 09:00, sometimes 10:00.
And people say, you call people at that time? Everybody has a different work schedule. She probably just got off of work and she's wants to sell her house, so you're right. If she if she filled out a form submission at 11:30 at night and I'm up, I'm going to car. Absolutely.
Like, what? And we've gotten deals that way. Nobody sellers don't say anything about them. They don't care.
Steve: No. They don't. No. They're happy.
Joshua: But but you think about it. We live in an instantaneous society that if you don't get back to me is an issue. So for me, I look at it as I'm getting back to everybody. He'll tell you, it's been times very important meetings. Excuse me, guys.
Like, we were just sitting we were just sitting with Jesse. Hey, Jesse. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Let me step by side.
And I closed the deal on the phone Yeah. During a meeting. We're meeting with one of our investors. They got to give us, you know, some money to do some things and, yeah, to walk out of the meeting. So and I mean, business people understand that, you know.
Yeah. Absolutely. Business is happening. This is how, you know, for that investor, I explained to him, hey. That's that lead is gonna put your money to work.
So you don't have anything to worry about.
Steve: Right. So going back to what you're talking about closing the deal, are you guys closing the deals over the phone?
Joshua: That's something that we just started doing three months ago. So we had this limited belief that we had to go see the house. That's kinda how we were taught. Go see the house, build rapport, and you you can close the sale better face to face. And then we start thinking, how can we scale that?
It's not really a scalable moment. You're gonna be working forever. And just about three months ago, the deal that he said the guy didn't pick up the phone. So we got a deal. So we do deals in Miami.
And this lead came in, as you know, from PPC, sometimes you it picks up outside of your radius. Oh, yeah. So it came it came in from the West Coast Of Florida. And the guy I wish every seller was like this. He basically begged me to buy his property.
But since I had no no understanding of the market, I didn't know anything. I'm like, okay. How can I comp this? What can I do to to get this deal under contract and get it sold? So I found somebody that works that area who's supposed to be really good.
I went I he said, okay. I'll get to it. The seller texted me two hours later, hey. Am I gonna hear from somebody? I'm like, what?
So I'm thinking at this point, his brand is is is brand reputation. He's probably gonna think that we don't do what we say we're gonna do. So I got on the phone. I called him. Had a nice conversation.
I said, well, listen. I can't I can't give you an offer right now. Just give me some time. So I reached out to a colleague that who who does deals all over the state of Florida. I said, count this property for me.
Count the property. I called the guy back. I said, I think he wanted, like, $2.50 for the property. I said, listen. The best I can do is $2.15.
He said, listen. I really need to sell this house. 222, you got a deal. 222, we locked it up. We sold it.
And we've been, like, twenty 7 k on it. Never saw it. Never never went and tried to sell it anything. At that moment, that was about two or three months ago, that was a turning point for us. Now everything is done over the phone.
Everything.
Steve: Yeah.
Joshua: Because right now, we with us knowing PPC so well, you know, our plan is to build out a sales organization and just start taking this across the the state of Florida, possibly in Georgia, Carolinas. Absolutely. Know what we
Steve: so let's see. So we'll go back some of these questions. What does your daily schedule look like?
Joshua: I'll start for me. You know, I I get up, early in the morning because I have two daughters, and, you know, they get my attention in the morning. But before they get up, you know, I do my gratitudes. I, you know, I'm a Christian, so pray, do my, my devotions, listen to some motivational stuff. And then from there, I get them up, get them ready for school, get them out I mean, get them to school.
And and I try to handle all the important stuff in the morning. Every anything that I feel is important is critical. I get that out the way first. And then later on in the afternoon, just, you know you know, whether we need to sell a deal or dealing with the transaction coordinator on getting our deals, closed. And, you know, we have some other miscellaneous things that we're doing with other businesses.
Mhmm. And they focus on that later on the afternoon. But in the morning, it's, you know, critical things in real estate all morning. And then in the afternoon, anything else. Mine's a similar.
Just wake up, pray, spend time with my daughter. Because I know during the day, I really can't spend as much time as I would like right now. So that first thirty to thirty minutes to an hour and a half, depending on if I'm going to the gym or not, spend with my daughter if I go if if I'm going to the gym, I give about an hour and then, like, drop off to the babysitter, go to the gym, and then get to crushing deals, finding trying to like, for me, I think that I think we are so blessed that our personalities fit exactly what we do in the company. Like, I'm a talker. I could talk all day long.
Yeah. Like, all day long. They don't need me here. All day long. I just I just love talking and interacting with people.
Whereas with him, he's more so laid back, reserved, and that that verse for us. But so Jim didn't just go crush the day.
Steve: Gotcha. How did you guys find your VAs?
Joshua: It's a buddy of ours in Miami. He has a company, and he just you know, he has VAs, you know, all in South America. And you say, hey. I need a VA to do this. And, he has a very, very nice team down there in, South America, so he puts me in contact with his manager.
I explained to her exactly what we're looking for and what we're trying to do, and she finds the fit. And it's been working well.
Steve: Gotcha. Jesse Burrell wants to know. What's up, Jesse? Jesse.
Joshua: Oh, baby. My new best friend. Love that guy.
Steve: What's your favorite book? Book?
Joshua: The Energy Bus. By far I any entrepreneur, you have to read The Energy Bus. It's a easy read. It's simple. I'm not to be I'm I read, but, you know, it's more so of when that book took me a week to read.
And it's it's easy read. It's 10 steps that you can not only implement in your personal life, but in your business as well. So highly recommend that any anybody that joins our team, that's not on the go. You have to read that book. Because at first, when he told me to read the book, I'm more of a reader than he is, but I like to read about finance and how does the train go from zero to a 100.
I love reading other people's stories. Mhmm. So he comes to me with this, like, the self help book. I'm like, listen. I don't wanna read this.
Like, man, just please read it. I read the first five pages, fell in love, and it just that's a book that if if I had to give a book to somebody, they say give me a life changing book in that book. Because it just talks about you control your energy, you control what happens in your life. Whereas we live in society now, at least in my belief, it's your fault that I can't do this and this and that. No.
No. It's not. Steve's fault. It's your fault. Alright.
But yeah.
Steve: Good. That's awesome. So I'm getting this question from a few different people is if they want if someone wanna get started online, how much do they have to have saved up?
Joshua: When we first started, we were spending 35 no. We're spending 2,500 when we first started. But, remember, the first six months was we knew we were we we were not going to do really any deals. I would say right now in this market with everybody doing it, we spent 7 k, but I know we are an anomaly. I'm not saying that to be arrogant, but, I would say minimum of, like because we we just took on a customer, and she's spending, like, 4,000, and she's doing pretty good.
I and I don't let me retract that a little bit. It don't it depends on your market. Because if I'm spending 4,000 in Arizona and I'm just starting, I don't know what I'm doing. You're gonna say PPC is a waste of time. It's trash.
So I think it's I I think it depends on your market. But I would say 4 to 5,000 is a good budget to start with. But again but then again, that's a lot of money for a lot of people.
Steve: Absolutely. So Gotcha.
Joshua: I know by the end of this year, we're gonna be spending minimum, like, 25 k online. So
Steve: so let's see. So you guys aren't pulling any data?
Joshua: Not right now. Not right now. We're starting in the month. We will be.
Steve: Okay. So what are you guys gonna be pulling?
Joshua: We're gonna start cold calling. And it's just simply, you know, if you wanna really scale, you can't just focus on one source of marketing. You have to have deals coming in from, you know, every There's nobody's question. What are we gonna be pulling? Oh, different different data.
Same same thing everybody else. Pre foreclosure, foreclosures, tax deeds, absentee owners, high equity, no equity. Same thing everybody else is pulling, really. Yeah. But we're gonna focus on motivated sellers, which are foreclosures, tax defaults.
That's where we're gonna put a lot of our energy because, you know, we wanna focus on, you know, where there's some motivation or people should have some motivation to sell. Yeah. You know, everybody, you know, a lot of people talk about the absentee owners, but I told them, if we do this, I just wanna focus on motivated sellers. I know everybody else a lot of people are gonna be hitting them as well, but I just that's really what I wanna focus on. Until we until we really grow out and we can start doing other things and targeting other people.
Steve: Justin wants to know if you're planning on using batch script tracing.
Joshua: We're gonna give you a shot. If the list is good, we'll keep using it. That's why we talked about it today.
Steve: And then so deal flow, like, how many deals are you guys doing a month right now?
Joshua: Between, like, seven to 12.
Steve: Seven to 12?
Joshua: Seven to 12.
Steve: And then I I I don't think that's something we talked about so far. But, like, one thing that's great about pay per click, at least in my experience was, if it was a deal, it was guilt today.
Joshua: Right. Yes.
Steve: Right. Right. There was no follow-up.
Joshua: Right. Yes.
Steve: It was like, it's either gonna happen or it's not gonna happen.
Joshua: Most I would
Steve: say For the most part.
Joshua: I would say that's about 85% that call in and listen. Man, just give me what I want from my house. And if we can do it, we can do it. If not, then we try to negotiate. But most of the time, 85% of those leads are people that are looking to sell today.
Like, it's it's been times where somebody's house and this happened multiple times. The house is going to the tax sale the next week, and we have to put up the $1,525,000 dollars to stop the sale without doing the title and the link search. Mhmm. So we take that we are a risky company and we do that. I know most people won't, but, yes, those people Yeah.
We just did that. We just did that where we bought 50% of a property and we've come to find out it was fraud. It was horrible. That that was a bad experience.
Steve: Oh, what was that?
Joshua: So this guy contacted us and he was like, listen. You know, I co own this house with my dad. I've just given me a bunch of BS. Mhmm. What else it was?
Because, I mean, on on county records, you know, everything if if everything checked out, you know, he he was on county records. He sent us the deed. He sent us everything. And we and my attorney saw the deed. My attorney saw everything.
My attorney said, listen. There's no way you guys can lose this. Come to find out, we get a call from the police. This was about two weeks ago. In the in the state attorney's office.
Hey. You guys are involved in a fraudulent transaction. And I was just one of the few times I don't drop with him a lot, but I I put it on speaker. I said, listen to this. You guys are involved in fraud, and you guys purchased a property.
And I'm like, listen. I don't know if this is a prank or not. And he said, no, sir. This is the the lieutenant for blank blank police department. I'm like, okay.
This is serious. I said, just tell me what's going on. He said, well, it's not really your fault. This the person that did it to us, he said he's they they done this. He's a known fraudster.
He's a big time drug dealer. The money that you guys fronted him for 50% of the house, he used that to to to hire an attorney to get him out of this case. And we're just like, this is particularly crazy. Yeah.
Steve: I think that's what Jamil was talking about.
Joshua: That was a lot. Mhmm.
Steve: Yeah. Okay. So then, dispositioning. So you're in charge of dispositions? Yes.
What's disposition process?
Joshua: For us, you know, people think I need a huge list of buyers. We sell 90% of our deals to the same, you know, seven to 10 guys. These are all guys we know and trust. A lot of these guys go see the property for us. So but to answer your question, Lee comes in.
He gets it under contract. He sends it over to me. And, you know, I take a look at it, and I say, okay. You know, I do my comps. What can we sell it for?
And for us, you know, we probably price it just below. It depends on the area because there are some super hot areas in Miami where I know we'll get some guy to pay over, you know, pay well over what he should be paying for. Mhmm. So he sends it over to me. You know, we'll price it out.
And certain times, 80% of our deals, we probably sell just off a phone call. You know? And then the the deals that we cannot sell through a phone call or guys don't give us the number that we think we can get for, we'll send it out to our list. And, and then we'll we'll get buyers that call in and say, hey. I wanna take a look at it.
Or we'll get a wholesaler that has a buyer. Mhmm. And, you know, we'll go through that whole process of showing them the house and going in the contract.
Steve: Okay. So VIPs, then the list. And if you guys can't sell through the list, then what?
Joshua: That's rare. Remember I told you, most of the deals we get, we this pretty much we pretty much know we're gonna sell it. Yeah. And, like, we miss out on a lot of deals doing it that way. But Jesse, thank God, really showed us a different way that something else that we can do.
Yeah. So when when there's, a slight chance that we can't sell it, just set the expectation upfront with the seller and just basically do an auction contract
Steve: with them. Yeah. That's what we do. Right. What markets are you guys in?
Joshua: Miami Miami and Fort Lauderdale. That's it for now.
Steve: What are your overhead? And we know we talked about your marketing budget. What's your overhead?
Joshua: 35 k. That's including paying ourselves, paying all the VAs, paying the TC, 35 k. We believe in lean. You know? We try to run as lean operate as lean as possible.
So, I mean, our office is is our office is nice, but it's not some big fancy office. Mhmm. You know, lean is our lean is a principle that we live by. Yeah. You know, we we try to make as much happens with as minimal people as possible.
Steve: 35 sounds like a lot. So are you guys paying yourself, like, very well? Okay. Just wanna make sure. No.
Joshua: He's doing okay. He he does better than I
Steve: do. Yeah. Okay. Any valuable resources that people need to check out?
Joshua: Obviously, the MLS. That's very we we use the MLS every day. And, one resource that, I mean, probably people don't think about, but find a mentor. Find somebody that's doing what you're trying to do. Mhmm.
And, you know, just, you know, if they're willing to take on you as a mentee, ask them questions and Pay the money. Pay the money. Questions. Pay for their time, which is key. Mhmm.
Pay for their time. And, you know, ask them ask them as many questions as you can.
Steve: Yeah. And you guys have you said one hour every week set aside just for that?
Joshua: Yes. For people that Anybody reaches out to us, you know, probably on a Tuesday or Wednesday night because those are kinda slower days for us, but it'll be like 07:00 at night, maybe 08:00. Come into the office, you guys ask any question you want. I don't care what it is. Ask anything.
Oh, we we are really open book. So, like, we don't mind sharing anything. Because you think about our business. We all do the same thing. Think about it.
We all do the same thing. We're good at PPC. You're good at this. That person is good at cold calling. Mhmm.
But we all do the same. There's no secrets. There's no trades. There's could you think you look at this business, you know, businesses that get bought are businesses that have intellectual property. Mhmm.
There's no intellectual property in wholesaling. Yeah. You know, when have you seen a wholesale company get, you know, bought out by private equity? Never. Not yet.
Not yet. But
Steve: I'm hoping. Okay. So what is there, like, a CRM tool or system that you guys could not live without?
Joshua: MLS.
Steve: MLS?
Joshua: Yeah. That's that's about the only thing that we really need him for his cell phone, because he really keeps everything in the phone. That's crazy. That's crazy. Like I said, we're building out a podium now with, yeah, just that.
Steve: Gotcha. What is your why? I'll start with Jeremy.
Joshua: My daughter and his daughters as well. Yeah. Like, we are very close knit family. That's how we were raised. And my daughter is just like that's my pride and joy.
I didn't have a dad growing up. So that's just like, oh, I love that girl so much. That's my why. Same here. Same.
And and also, freedom. Freedom and my my mom as well. My mom is an awesome individual. She's an amazing, amazing person. My mom is, you know, she's taught us everything that we know.
I get emotional to talk about my mom. And the biggest thing that we've ever done well, one of the biggest things we've done thus far is, you know, when we first started making money about what you know, a a year and a half, two years ago, we completely remodeled our house. And she didn't wanna move. She didn't wanna move. She didn't wanna move out the hood.
Mom, if you're watching, please, we need you to move. But, complete renovation of our house. New roof, new floors, new plumbing, kit, anything. New impact. But we're getting ready to put impact windows in.
But, yeah, complete renovation of our house.
Steve: That's awesome. What is you guys' biggest struggle right now?
Joshua: Just building out a team. Trying to we're going through that struggle of trying to figure figure that figure that part out of the business. Because now that we've made a conscious effort to focus on wholesaling, it's building on that team of having acquisitions people, dispositions, and really making sure that everything is intertwined and working smoothly. But the the the reason I think we struggle is because our our experience with the cleaning company. That was a really bad experience, you know, hiring and and managing those type of employees.
So that's kinda has, I guess, slowed us down. We we knew we should have been hiring a year, maybe a year and a half ago, but just that experience itself. So that has been a struggle.
Steve: And that will always stay a struggle. I mean, that's the right. People and systems is the only thing.
Joshua: Right?
Steve: And you can get the systems pretty good. Yeah. But people, you know, they're irrational creatures. You
Joshua: trust me. We learned that on Monday. Yeah. And she was amazing too, man.
Steve: Yeah. It's tough. It's tough. So you're you guys that will always be struggle. I have that struggle.
Joshua: You know?
Steve: Okay. So let's see. Any other questions? Adebayo wants to know if you guys have a cold calling company. You guys are you guys just started cold calling or gonna start cold
Joshua: calling. Start.
Steve: Once the Okay. Excuse
Joshua: me. Once the podium is finished, we're gonna start. Yeah. We don't.
Steve: Adela says that you guys are her favorite investors in Bauer in Miami.
Joshua: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Steve: Biggest struggle in the beginning, networking or self doubt?
Joshua: Networking for sure. I don't think we struggle. Like, as humbly as possible, we don't struggle with self doubt. It's just just knowing where we come from and knowing what we've been able to do, that self doubt has never been an issue for us. Like, I'm I'm the type of person where okay.
If if Steve is doing 50 homes a month, that means I can do 50 homes a month. Mhmm. And I'm gonna figure out how to do 50 homes a month. And I don't I don't compare myself. We don't compare ourselves with anybody.
But I look at somebody and say, okay. What's different between me and that guy?
Steve: If I
Joshua: cut him, his blood is gonna be red. He puts on his his pants one leg at a time. So I just never just more so networking.
Steve: Alright. Evander, Livingston wants to know what's your best success deal story?
Joshua: Is that more profit wise or, you know, the the hoops and hurdles we had to jump over to get it closed? Oh. So
Steve: where first one that comes to mind?
Joshua: I would say profit the the the first profit deal was we got it earlier this year. Boca Raton is probably one of the richest ZIP codes Mhmm. In the country. And the lady calls me, my house is in Boca. This is this is literally a gossip.
I think this is our biggest wholesale deal ever. She calls me. Listen. I wanna sell my house. I owe $1.85.
I know the house is worth about $4.50. All I want is 200 for it. Can you do it? Yes, ma'am. I can do it.
Yes. Like, yes. And she said, okay. Send me the contract. Probably locked it up in less than three minutes.
Wow. We yeah. We made a ton of money on that deal. That's Yeah. That that was that was that was the I wanna say that's a huge success, but that was the easiest deal we've done by far.
As far as success, I would say this is the most successful deal. We haven't even completed it yet. This is the first deal that we're gonna we know we're gonna lose money on it. What is this lady? And this is I'm talking about miraculous what she's done.
So this is when we were entertaining. We had just figured out PPC and we were gonna do another marketing campaign, which is mailers. So we started I sent we sent out some mail. The lady called me and said, listen. Come out.
Let me tell you about my situation. So I come out. She was like, listen. I have this property where we're meeting at, which is a duplex. I wanna keep this property.
But in order for me to keep this, you have to buy my my brother's property. Mind you, this is a this is a year and a half ago that we started this process, and it's still not done. So she was like, listen. If you buy my brother's property, you will allow me to keep my duplex and not my dream is to be a real estate investor. We're gonna lose money on the deal just because it it was a short sale.
The house that we were buying, it was a short sale. The the the appraisal came back too high. There's a squatter in it, so we gotta pay the squatter to leave. We gotta deal with the horrible appraisal. We gotta deal with the house that needs violations.
And violations. So many issues. But the reason why I wanna do this deal is because I don't know how it works in Arizona, but in in Florida, if your house is going to foreclosure, you can go before the judge and and ask the judge to give you more time. This lady, for both houses combined, typically, you can only go to the judge three times. She's going to the judge on each house.
Well, for one property, it was 18 times and other one was 12. And every single time, she figures out a way to get that sale stopped. Stopped. And I'm like, at this point, like, listen. I know we I know I we we're in this to make money, but we're really in this to help people.
We started this because my mom went through foreclosure. We figured out how to get her out of foreclosure, and that was part of getting us into wholesaling and really helping people.
Steve: Yeah. So that
Joshua: I think I think that would be the the biggest biggest success because now she's I think she's closing on her property in about two weeks, the one that she wants to keep. So And as in you you know, touch on something that he said. Said. The name of our company is Freedom Cash Home Buyers, and we live by the model. We wanna set people free from whatever situation they're facing, whether it's, you know, foreclosure, taxes, or I just wanna move out of state because my daughter lives in another another state, we wanna set you free.
So that's the name. That's how we came up with the name.
Steve: Gotcha. I'm gonna ask you this question, and it's not me. It's Pace.
Joshua: Oh, I know.
Steve: So have you guys ever kissed the same girl and they thought it was the same person?
Joshua: They didn't think it was they knew it was somebody different. But, yes, we have yes, Pace. We kissed the same girl. Yes. One time.
Steve: Alright. Pace.
Joshua: Love Pace.
Steve: Let's see. Yeah. Everyone's like, you gotta answer Pace's question.
Joshua: You gotta have Pace's question.
Steve: T bracy wants to know how old are you guys?
Joshua: 27. 27. 28. Sunday. 28 on Sunday.
So if you wanna come to Miami and party with us, hit us up on Instagram. Alright.
Steve: And how would they hit you up on Instagram?
Joshua: Mathis Twins. Mathis Twins. That's our Instagram handle.
Steve: Who runs it?
Joshua: We both do, but we're not the best at it. Like, we we do it now to to really build awareness to try to help people Yeah. And to to really show people you're capable of doing anything that you set your mind to. So our Instagram is more so for inspiration, but I could tell you we both hate it. We we hate posting.
I hate being on, like, on like, doing the story. But I understand it's a necessary evil because if you do it right, you can be pretty good. You know You're hanging
Steve: out with pace. Right? You see how important it is.
Joshua: Yeah. Right.
Steve: Alright. What is your guys' favorite best or most interesting failure?
Joshua: I for me, our most interesting failure is where we are right now, in that we don't have a team, but a huge team or the team that we should to free up our time and do bigger things and and different things. And that it it's not really a failure. It's just more so like a lesson learned that whatever the next company that we get involved in to really, number one, learn how to let go. You can't do everything yourself. Focus.
And then focus. And if we would have focused two and a half years ago, we would be way, way Bigger than what we are. Bigger than what we are. But everybody's journey is different. I wouldn't change my journey for anything.
Like, I love my journey. So Yeah. Because now we know every aspect of real estate. Development. We're taking on development projects.
I'm talking about houses with million dollar liens. Every facet of real estate, we have some experience. We've done flipping. We've done wholesaling, rentals, you know, development, managing rental properties. So everything you can think of.
Yeah. It is. It is. It is. What you learn, you learn.
Steve: Alright. So I'm gonna circle back with you guys for last thoughts. So before we do that, guys, due to multiple requests, Max, Jimenez, and I, we're gonna be doing another workshop this coming September. So it's gonna be September, I believe. If you want to see if you qualify, come to our workshop in Phoenix.
Go to disruptors.com. Fill that out. And next week, we got Jory Alston coming out as well from Miami to defend your guys' city.
Joshua: Yeah. Let's go, Jory.
Steve: Yeah. So we're gonna put Jamill in his place. So we're gonna talk about how to reach you. So, guys, if you like the show, please share this episode right now. Rising tide rising tide does lift all boats.
So we'll go with final thoughts. I'll start with Jeremy.
Joshua: Final thought is anybody out there that's trying to get into this business, that's really trying to figure out, you know, how to maneuver this business is this is a very simple business. Don't do what I did. Over complicate things and overthink things. This is a very, very simple business. So just work hard at it.
It is hard work. And just remember, follow-up gets the deal. To to you said you asked us a question about our failures. One failure, that we had, and it's to tie into, you know, what I wanna really wanna say is we when you get into something, make sure you do your due diligence. Don't just take people's word for it.
Because that ad on the radio, if we would've properly done our due diligence, you know, we wouldn't have been out of that money. It's a valuable lesson, but, you know, make sure you guys do your due diligence before you sign up with any mentors or spend money on, you know, whatever it is. And number two is just set accountabilities for yourself. Make sure you set accountabilities to your for yourself and for your team, so that you continue to push your business forward. And, I mean, just treat people one of our core values is people over profit.
So always treat people how you wanna be treated. Mhmm. And we firmly believe that, you know, I don't care how much money you can make on the deal. If you treat people the right way, you do the right things, you know, that deal will come back to you. We missed out on a lot of deals, just by you know, we know we could've made a lot of money on it, but but we knew, okay, we'll probably have to do something wrong or cheat a person, and that's just not who we are.
So, people over profit. Always treat people with respect, be honest with people, and it'll always pay off better in the long run.
Steve: Yep. Awesome. Thank you, guys.
Joshua: Thank you. Have a nice day. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.


