Lathe Lavada Shares How He’s Getting $35k Fees in Competitive Las Vegas With Work Life Balance

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. This is, thank you for tuning in today, for today's episode of Real Estate Disrupters. Today, we've got Laith Levada with theflippingboss.com, and he's here to share how he's getting 35 k spreads in his wholesales, 45 k on his flips, all while maintaining work life balance. If this is your first time tuning in, I am Steve Trang, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only app you'll need for wholesaling. And I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires.

So if you're interested in that, please let's connect on Instagram. If you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave. Give me a thumbs up. And as a reminder, I don't charge a dime for this 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 this show. If you get value today, please tell a friend you can share this episode right now, tag a friend below, or tell them your best takeaway from the show later on. That way, we can all grow together. And don't forget, this is a live show, so please post your questions, and Leif will be happy to answer them for you. You ready?

Lathe Lavada: I'm ready.

Steve: Alright. First question. What got you into real estate?

Lathe: That's a loaded question. I'll try to make it quick, but it it goes a long ways back. So, you know, I grew up with very little in the way of monetary speaking. So for me, you know, real estate, I was searching for something that provided a bigger and better and a brighter future. So as I was going through school, you know, it's kind of made the entrepreneur out of you.

A lot of entrepreneurs grow up with, you know I hate to say very little because we have a lot, especially in The US, even if you don't have anything. Give you an example, though. I grew up with houses that had cardboard walls. Yeah. My folks were on, you know, basically welfare.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: And so all of that had an impact on me growing up because I I was getting one message, you know, work hard. Hard days work for hard days income. And I was seeing something different. And so, you know, it just a lot of, you know, I don't wanna say pride, but you just you don't feel like everybody else. You know?

And so

Steve: Being an entrepreneur.

Lathe: Well, actually, yeah. That's true enough. Yeah. You you have a different headset altogether. You're always I I almost liken it to, running from the devil because you're always running from some devil Mhmm.

You know, in your past or in your background where where you're always searching for the next thing, you know, the shiny penny syndrome, you know, or what's the squirrel, you know. And that comes from at least for me anyway, and I think for a lot of entrepreneurs is coming from nothing and not wanting to go back there.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: So that's kind of, you know, you know, you're running from this this past. And so you have to kinda fight that though because you'll you'll keep jumping from thing to thing to thing. I think my dad was an entrepreneur as well. I didn't know him too much after nine. But, anyway, so there was a lot in the past that built me to be an entrepreneur, to want more, do more, have more.

But I did grow up with a really strong ethical moral context Mhmm. And a Christian background. So, you know, there was a lot of limiting beliefs there. Should would one wanna chase the dollar? You know?

And so, you know, the get rich quick thing, you know, not that I wanted that, but a lot of times my family would make fun of those sorts of things, you know, almost being the black sheep in the family, if you will, a little bit. And then, you know, I actually didn't I was just telling you before the show. I don't think I told you before, but I didn't I didn't start out in first grade kindergarten. I started out actually, I was supposed to be in the fourth grade. My brother had a little bit more reading.

I couldn't even write my name. So I actually started out, we both got put back to the third grade, and we were twins. So I left that part out, fraternal twins. So he was actually ready for the fourth grade because he could read. I couldn't.

Teacher just sat me in the back and said draw some pictures. So that that was a hard start. And then going to school with the secondhand clothes and the, you know, the poking, yeah, you know, poking at you because of that with, you know so a lot of that, it really built me who I am. But it may you know, I read in a psychology book one time, it said, you know, if you grow up poor, you always know what poor is like. But if you grow up rich, you'll never really truly know what it's like to be poor.

Yeah. So I think that coming from that background and coming from I I have a a good level of understanding for both worlds.

Steve: So Yeah. At which point did you decide to jump into real estate?

Lathe: Well, yeah. Let's fast forward. So that's the baseline. So got into personal training for about nine years, learned the sales business, one to one training, beat myself to death in front of people, sold 20 plus thousand dollars worth of training a month, worked to seventy, eighty hours a week if even if that's possible. Right?

Mhmm. Fell asleep in my car when I got home, worked woke up at five, went to bed at 10:10, eleven, twelve, but fell asleep for an hour before I went into my to my house. And then I worked Monday through even Sunday, you know, half Sundays, all Saturdays. And so just beat myself to death. The girl that I was dating at the time, you know, you know, you you you first date the first love of your life seems to be that well, at least for me, it was anyway is that that woman who's materialistic.

And I thought she was the love of my wife, but, man, she just I made some bad decisions trying to support her life. You know? So she I I don't wanna give her necessarily credit, but she was one of the factors. She's like, you gotta go try something else and make some more money. And so I I got I started, stockbroker.

I I got it. And that was just to me, that type of sales environment, like timeshares, which I tried some years later, I'm a though I can close hard, I don't want to. I wanna close for them, not for me. Mhmm. And that environment is not it's like it's it's like car sales, which I never did.

But but I became a very good, salesperson, a very good negotiator. But, anyway, one of the things that she had suggested is go learn loans. Now I looked at it and I'm like, okay. Whatever. Because I had no, like, concept of, you know, some of these guys that you have on the show, eighteen, nineteen, they're doing deals already.

Mhmm. I had no concept of a you could go get a loan for $250,000 and buy a house at this time. But I started listening to different reading books and multiple streams of income and zero down and loan books and this and that. And I started thinking, well, you know, you need to go learn financing. So I actually a few years later, I actually went and got my loan officer license when they had just started the test in, I believe it was, Salt Lake City.

It was funny because I read book after book. All the guys in the office said nobody could pass at that time because they just initiated the test the testing or new testing. And I ended up passing and nobody else passed. And I'd never done a loan ever. I just read a bunch of books.

So

Steve: And what year was this?

Lathe: And I think that was about in 02/2004.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: Yeah.

Steve: So then you became a loan officer.

Lathe: Yeah. I became a loan officer for a short spell, bounced around a few areas, then I became an account executive. And whether I knew it or not, through a lot of the one on one training, which we'll get to in a minute, is the direct response stuff. Whether I knew it or not, I was doing all the same concepts. It was just one to one, and it was prospecting Mhmm.

Versus marketing. So getting into the real estate, happened when when I was an account executive, really started doing loans for loan officers. Oh, boy. That was good. Mhmm.

That was right before the fallout, though. Yeah. But that was a nine to five job with ridiculous income. But then after that, I got my real estate license. I'm like, you know what?

It's time to just settle down and and stick to something here. So, that's what I did. And I stayed in real estate through the thick and thin, and I I got into doing short sales. So we're we're going forward a little bit, but my training is a lot in well, I'm a real estate broker and real estate agent. And when I was doing short sales, I learned how to market.

Not one to one, but one to many.

Steve: Yep.

Lathe: And I started taking thirty, forty short sales a month. But that was myself. I didn't have a team. Oh, I had a team, but they're my support staff. They weren't sales staff.

And I started bringing people into the office and so on. And I killed myself doing that. I mean, I was putting in long hours, meeting with at least 30 people a week, and just, you know, grinding it out.

Steve: So you're doing short sales. At which point then did you transition to wholesaling or flipping?

Lathe: Well, once I started doing short sales, then it was I got really good at negotiating the deals down Mhmm. Low because, they weren't selling. So I had to I had to show the lender, that this thing wasn't worth that. It needs repairs. So if you negotiate that down and you're gonna sell, then who are you gonna sell to, which are investors?

So so I started selling to a, not really a partner investor, the short sales, and then we started doing the short sales and putting them back on the market and reselling them. And so that so but once I learned that, marketing, the the proper marketing strategy, like, well, I can point this thing anywhere

Steve: Right.

Lathe: And get anybody I want, which leads into building the lifestyle that you want. So you can really build whatever you want. So but at this point, I'm like, okay. I can build anything I want. If that's the case, let's go, you know, overcome the belief system that there's no deals out there.

Mhmm. It's almost operated in my own little bubble, if you will. I mean, the real estate wholesaling stuff, all that, it was too good to be true to me because of my background. Yeah. You can't make that much money.

You can't do that. How is that even possible? You know? So I just didn't even I had, like, these blinders on. I was looking through my own paradigm, if you will.

So a lot of it was just overcoming. But once I proved myself this this marketing thing, oh my god. Let's, well, if that's the case, let's go market for some real profitable stuff.

Steve: So when did you start marketing for for that?

Lathe: I think that was in well, it was about 02/2013 when I really started.

Steve: So you started going after distressed properties?

Lathe: Yeah. Distressed properties. Uh-huh.

Steve: So then how did you go after those distressed properties?

Lathe: Well, a lot through I did a lot through, direct mail, obviously. Mhmm. Well, maybe not so obvious. It's changed nowadays to a little bit more sophisticated, if you will, a different media, a different platform, or, so there's all types of way. But I started doing it through yellow letters at first, and that those got a heck of a response Yeah.

Especially from the people who were late. Right?

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: I'll buy your home for cash. Give me a call. Blah blah blah. And so those got a really good response. Even I hired them at that time, I hired a marketing lady who actually folded the letters and printed them out on a couple printers.

Mhmm. And I got the cost down from, like, some of these companies charge on a bulk to, like, 99¢ to a dollar 50 depending on the volume. I got it down, like, 50¢. Yeah. So I ordered the postcards.

I ordered the pads. I cut the tops off at Home Depot or OfficeMax. And then I and they were the right thickness. I bought them through Costco in bulk because you have to run it through the printer. Mhmm.

And it printed out the variable font on there. Mhmm. So, I mean, I got those babies down to 50¢ for a, for a letter. And I was paying her a salary, so I basically was getting someone free marketing person who was doing my mailing. So it worked out really, really well.

So that's that's how I started with direct mail. And I did bring, this book here

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: Which is the the ultimate sales letter, which was one of the first books that I read by Dan Kennedy, where he went into, you know, direct response and sales copy. And I'm like, wait a minute. Sales copy? That's what sales copy is? Yeah.

It's salesmanship and print? Wait a minute. I can can and clone myself?

Steve: Well, that's something definitely we're gonna go deeper into in a little bit. But for sure, Dan Kennedy has been very influential in my business

Lathe: business as well. Mhmm.

Steve: So you were starting doing direct mail, and you you meet with a homeowner. Right? And you still kinda have this mindset, like, do will people really take this low of an offer? So talk about your first couple of appointments. What was your first, wholesale deal like?

Lathe: You know, that's an interesting question. I hadn't thought about that, but I guess I never really had once I proved myself they were there

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: And there was people willing to do it, I never really spent much time on are they gonna take a less than valuable offer because I'd done so many short sales Right. And negotiated with the bank. And so it was like, you know, coming from the loans, for me, short sales were just a negative loan, a reverse loan Mhmm. Proving you can't afford it rather than you do. And the house was in such disrepair.

I'd get inspections done. And and so it was all kind of a natural transition.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: You were

Steve: justifying why the prices were so low.

Lathe: Right. So it was very easy to go in. I mean, I would talk to banks and I mean, when I was doing sales, actually, they would call me the hammer. That was my nickname at first or, twenty four hour fitness back when I was a personal trainer because I closed so much. Yeah.

But I'll sometimes I was rough, but not all. I tried to be consultative. But, what was your question again? I got I'll I'll ramble if you let me.

Steve: Well, so what I wanna hit on right now because you're in Vegas, which is super competitive.

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? Because it's not an easy market. No. And I've Well,

Lathe: it's just like yours, I think. Right? Only I'm a little smaller.

Steve: Right. Yeah. So I'm I'm hearing, you know, it's it's just a little harder to get, to get deals because it's so competitive. But But you're sitting here, and you're getting 35 k wholesale fees. And Yeah.

When you flip them, you're making 45, which then for us, we're making 18 that flip. We're pretty happy.

Lathe: Right.

Steve: So I wanna see, like, why is your why do you have this success in your super competitive market versus everybody else?

Lathe: Yeah. Well, I think it has a lot to do with my marketing, you know, authority marketing. I position myself as a almost a celebrity, if you will. I don't consider myself one, but I try to position myself like that in the minds of the prospect, whether by, preceding them, with content or marketing stuff, prior to the appointment

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: Or how I market and what I market with. And that sets up a different unique dynamic. Mhmm. Because now I'm like the doctor. Right.

You know, prescribe to me what you need.

Steve: Yeah. Well, we have someone in our town, not for wholesaling, but for traditional. Russell Shaw. Right? The guy is a big deal.

Mhmm. So when Russell Shaw calls you, it's like, oh, I gotta answer this call. I gotta talk I gotta take this. Right? The guy's on TV.

He's on radio. I'm getting his freaking newspaper. The guy is a celebrity. So when he comes when you work with him, instantly you're impressed, you're odd, like, yeah, whatever he says is probably it. Right?

Yeah. It's fact.

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: So how are you able to get this message across? Right? We call it authority marketing, direct response marketing. We're throwing around a lot of terms that aren't necessarily, well understood.

Lathe: Right.

Steve: So can you elaborate?

Lathe: Yeah. Well, you know, the easiest way to say it is you position yourself in the mind of your prospect like you are a celebrity. Mhmm. And the word is self aggrandizement. Right?

Nobody's gonna claim claim that mountain and put the stake in there for you.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: You have to do it yourself. Yeah. So, you know, if you wanna be on TV, you go be on TV. You'll find a way. You know?

Whether you pay for it or where you get, nobody's really necessarily gonna invite you. You know? Especially a white dude from Idaho. I mean, it's not and nobody's ringing my phone off the hook to say, come on and be my my show. So you have to position yourself.

It's about positioning. You have to position yourself as an authoritative, credible, person Mhmm. Which you should be. Most people who's been doing business are. Right.

They just don't realize it, and they don't talk like it because they don't believe they are. It's that self confidence. Now I had to overcome a lot of, lack of self confidence because I didn't start talking to other kids until the fourth grade. You know? So to be in a group or, I mean, it still makes me a little nervous today.

Yeah. You know? I I I get the chilly willies, you know, but you just have to do it. But, yeah, position yourself as that credible, authoritative expert. Mhmm.

And, you know, you've gotta look the part as well. You know?

Steve: What does that mean?

Lathe: Well, I say that, you can really be authoritative, credible celebrity with whatever. I guess it depends on who you're targeting. You have to know who your market is. Absolutely. Like, a lot of times, I'll go on TV because I do a lot of TV marketing Mhmm.

And I'll be wearing a suit and tie. I wasn't gonna wear a tie to this thing today because it's it's much more relaxed. This is even overkill. Right? I needed your shirt.

But and that and that's cool because it's the environment at which you're in. Right? We all know the scoop. We're we're grinding it out. We're working on a day to day basis.

You typically aren't in a suit. But when I go on TV and my folks are 65, 55, whatever plus, and they come from all a myriad of different backgrounds, maybe than the military or whatever Mhmm. I always get the same comments. Boy, you seem so relaxed, and you seem so trustworthy, and you're so well put together, and I really like your suit and tie. Now sometimes I'll also get, I can't stand seeing that guy's hair anymore.

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: You know? You know, I'll get weird stuff too, and that's okay. And you have to have some thick skin. But generally speaking, I'm I'm dressing for them, not me. And that's important.

You have to do it for them Right. Not bathrobe if I could, but that doesn't gonna send the message that you want it to send.

Steve: Necessarily get you in the room?

Lathe: No.

Steve: No. So let's talk about that. Right? So first step, being of celebrity authority

Lathe: marketing, getting on TV. If someone wanna

Steve: get on TV, what should they do? Getting on TV. If someone wanna get on TV, what should they do?

Lathe: Well, first of all, it's not for the weak of heart. Mhmm. Right? It's not something you can just go out and do and roll up and start doing. Yeah.

And I don't wanna say that to stop people from doing it, but it's something where you probably should have a little bit above a bankroll Mhmm. Because you're gonna have to test a little bit. And with anything that you do, you're gonna have now I've lost a lot of money, but, thankfully, I've made a lot more money than I've lost.

Steve: Alright. Well, you and I talked about one of the lessons learned during the election.

Lathe: Yes. Yeah. During the political window. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Yeah. So there's different things that can come up. And so you when you roll things out, you should test a little bit. Like, with me on the yellow letters, I got a lot bigger response. And my lists were smaller, but they were really, really niche.

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: So I got a good response so I could get my bank roll up. If I wasn't doing that, then maybe I should be knocking doors. I always say, you know, if you're just starting out, you don't have any any cash, then you should start with prospecting. But build that bankroll so then you can roll it right into marketing. Don't go and buy the new car.

Don't go buy the Rolex. Don't go buy the shoes and the fancy whatever Mhmm. Because that money, 80% I try to put 80% as much money into marketing as possible. Because if you don't, then you don't have consistent income. Then you're, like, pretty much and I dare I say, a lot of the realtors out there Mhmm.

Where they're going and they're working for a client, they close a deal, and they're like, okay. Where's my next deal? And they're not doing any marketing. They're doing all prospect. How are you gonna do prospecting when you're working with this client?

Now you can get referrals, but I'm not a big believer in that's gonna pay the bills and keep the light bill on. Mhmm. You need to go generate some business, and then you'll get the referrals. Like, I just did two referrals from the wholesale. One was over a year ago that we did a deal.

We just made $50 on a wholesale fee. Actually, excuse me. $49,000 on a wholesale wholesale deal under under thirty days. So, so you do get the referrals. But I digress.

Going back to rolling out the marketing Mhmm. You gotta test. And TV is expensive. You know, you can get you can get on shows for free. You can't.

But you've gotta have you've gotta position it right. It's gotta be a community message. There's a way to do that. In this book right here, that's why I brought this book. The Ultimate Sales Letter.

It was the one of the first books I read, if not the first book I read on sales copy and what a actual copywriter is. And I write all of my spots when I go on TV, and I script them. If I go on a show that won't use my, my questions and my headlines, then I'm probably not gonna go on that show. One of the things I always tell them, especially when you're paying for it Mhmm. For, like, an interview appearance or something like that, because there's a paid for and there's the unpaid for.

So there is a difference there. But you gotta know how to position it if you're gonna get free marketing, and you're not gonna be on that often. So that's why the paid for stuff works Mhmm. Or your commercials, you know, your one minute or your two minute if you're lucky.

Steve: Let's just say I've I've been wholesaling. You know, I'm doing five, six, seven deals a month. Mhmm. I wanna add TV to my marketing channel.

Lathe: Okay.

Steve: What should I be prepared to start with per month?

Lathe: Well, I mean, you can get on for 800, a year. It's, like, $2,500. So, I mean and then how long is it gonna take you to find a deal? Right.

Steve: You've got a good number. For how long?

Lathe: What's that?

Steve: For how long?

Lathe: For how long?

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: You know, I'm a big believer that the market doesn't pay for itself right away. It's or the marketing doesn't pay for itself right away, then it's probably not gonna work. Because I've done stuff where I've held out four, five, six months. I've gone in the whole tens of thousands of dollars before I tested it. And, you know, a lot of these account executives that'll sell you stuff on, radio, TV, they are not your advocate.

They are their advocate. And they don't really understand. Like, if I was an account executive, I'd like, okay. How's this stuff gonna get my client money, and I'm gonna show them. Let's even write copy for them.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: Let's get this thing to work.

Steve: That'd be a smart way to do it.

Lathe: That would be.

Steve: So alright.

Lathe: I should be account executive for TV. Right?

Steve: So the first thing is TV.

Lathe: Uh-huh.

Steve: Second step for authority marketing, celebrity marketing. Mhmm. Radio. Radio? Radio's good.

Lathe: Like, here let me give you, like if you wanna get started in TV, like, go get on your local interview show, do an interview, and use it in your other marketing. Mhmm. So don't necessarily use that marketing to drive leads. Use that marketing to help you precede your appointment because you can send it out as an email. You could send it out as a CD.

You could do a a number that you put on your website to build the credibility and authority when the people meet you in person, because they don't know how long long you've been on TV. Right. Right? Now I'm on there a lot, but, but I've got it to work. Now I caution the listeners out there because my buddy tried TV in Salt Lake.

Whether it's you, which I don't know if it is him or not, I don't know if it's the market. That's what I mean. It may not work for every market. Like, I've I've tried it in a secondary market, and it was like gunshot effect. There wasn't enough people dense enough in that area to make it pay for itself.

Mhmm. So definitely be ready to test, and, and you can make it work. And it's the same thing with radio. But, like, if you did a radio like, I had a radio show for a while when I was doing short sales. I ended that, and I've thought about bringing it back, but, it doesn't necessarily make sense.

The podcast for that sort of thing for local may make more sense for people. Yeah. And it's a lot less expensive. But if you were gonna do it, you could contact your local, AM radio talk show station. You could get, like, a morning show or a late show.

Just say, hey. When's your cheapest show?

Steve: Right.

Lathe: Oh, it's a couple $100, and it's midnight on Friday. Sweet. You go in. You got a professional sew studio. You have sound good sound system, all that.

And you do a show that's informational, about, you know, selling your house for cash. Maybe you only do one spot, and then you use it and you send it out as a credibility and authority authoritative marketing. We do what's called a a shock and awe kit Mhmm. Or package. You can do it virtually through your email, or you can do it, before you go on the appointment or before you talk to the seller.

You can precede you, call it pre canning, pre cloning

Steve: Yeah. Yourself. Let's elaborate on that. So because the reason why I wanna have you here is that I want to make sure people understand, like, getting deals is is one part of the equation. Mhmm.

But getting these large spreads, you can only get it by preselling the seller before you even get there.

Lathe: Right.

Steve: So this is a story marketing piece. So we talked about TV. We talked about radio. Now we're talking about the shock and awe kit.

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: So elaborate what exactly shock and awe kit is, and after that, we'll talk about what goes in it.

Lathe: Well, shock and awe is just like shock and awe. You're shocked, and they're in awe. Mhmm. Right? That's what we call shock and awe kit, and I don't know who coined the phrase.

I learned it from Dan Kennedy.

Steve: I learned it from Dan Kennedy.

Lathe: You yeah. You can call it, like, for a news news a press a press kit, credibility kit. I mean, it's labeled whatever. But you're using it for shock and awe.

Steve: Or the bomb. We also called it the bomb.

Lathe: The bomb. Yeah. So all is it meant to do is you know, the law of reciprocity. If you give somebody, they feel like they gotta give you something back. So it works on that mentality too.

But nobody else is showing up like you. Mhmm. So you wanna give them that nobody else something that nobody else gives them. The other thing, authority marketing is a book. You know, it's easier than most people think to write a book.

Yeah. You know, you can go and and hire a, you know, a ghostwriter, a copywriter to interview you, put it into a book about, you know, how to sell your home for top dollar or how to sell it for cash. That shows up before you with a CD of testimonials or a sheet of testimonials. We've even used a a simple newsletter that we use through a a newsletter pro. Mhmm.

But you could use a writer. You could hire a writer on Upwork or something, put together a newsletter every month, interview you, and we send that as soon as we talk to someone, we send out the newsletter in the mail to them the very day that we talk to them. Mhmm. Now I do a little bit differently than some guys, but the bigger guys, may not even do this either because they wanna do more volume. But I have found that it gets the bigger spreads.

Mhmm. And it allows me not to have to go and actually meet with the person in their house or anybody else. So it allows me to be very scalable. So that's one thing I should say too. I still get these spreads without sitting down in front of somebody, over the phone.

I do it over the phone. So a lot of times, we'll do the inspection beforehand, and so we drop whatever it is off before that. We'll schedule that out, and then and then we'll schedule the appointment to usually talk with me or one one of my inside, salesperson. Mhmm. So they've had to jump through some hoops here.

Right. So to get to me. And and they're willing to wait because I'm not clamoring all over them. It's the I I had to be I keep well, I guess I don't hate to, but I keep bringing up Dan Kennedy, but the welcome guest going from the of the annoying pest to the welcome guest Mhmm. That's what it allows you to do.

They wanna talk to you at that point.

Steve: Or you're presenting yourself as the surgeon. Yeah. Right? Like, everything's been leading out to an okay. Now now the expert's coming in.

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? So, in the shock and awe kit, what's in the shock and awe kit?

Lathe: Well, if you wanted to truly do a shock and awe kit, you would include maybe something personally for them Mhmm. Like the whole thing where realtors put their logo and their contact number and stuff on something, some sort of tchotchke or, you know, calendar or mug or something, like a pen. But you wanna do something nice to where they'll actually use it and hold on to it. Right. Like a calendar.

I'm not sure people are sticking those on the refrigerator. They're using

Steve: random USB sticks for

Lathe: a while. Those are sweet. The other thing are the, cell phone smartphone

Steve: Charger.

Lathe: Chargers. Yep. However, people that we buy stuff from may not have a a smartphone or a computer or anything else. But a lot of them do, but some of them don't. But that's kind of a cool, thing.

But you gotta think of something that's creative. Like, I thought about, I haven't put this one into action, so if I see it out there, I'll know who where they got it from. But a Cracker Jack box Mhmm. You know, the the red and white

Steve: I remember those. Yeah.

Lathe: Yeah. So a lot of people in our age range. So that might even I'm not a big fan of sending food just because I wouldn't eat food that I received from somebody I don't know by mail, but I think it would still be nostalgic nostalgic, and it kinda bring them back good memories. Right. So you show them, wow.

That's cool. And then you see the testimonials, and then you see a couple newsletters in there. Like, when I send out my newsletters, I talk about my origin story and my why Mhmm. Which is my wife and kids. And so, I have a story about that, and I'm always surprised when so I got your your story.

It's so awesome. You know? You're a self made man, and you're from Idaho too. And and, it just it set and they've never even seen me on TV. Right.

So you don't have to be on TV to set that same thing up, but you can precede yourself and set up a con a connection, that rapport or affinity bridge Mhmm. Between you and them, that bridge between you and them that makes you a credible, trustworthy individual before you even get there and pre sells you. That's what the shock and awe kit is meant to do. And you can do that with a lot of different items. Like I said, some tchotchke stuff, a book, a pamphlet, a consumer guide.

You know, you could do just a simple PDF. You could do some testimonials. You could do a CD, and you could make it as nice or not as nice. The better the nicer you make it. Look.

If you send a $60 kit out to someone who has equity before you talk with them, they're gonna be blown away.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: And if you got I mean, if you're dealing with somebody else, especially if you're doing both real estate and the wholesaling stuff, because now nobody else is showing up like that.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: Most real estate agents don't wanna spend a couple dollars, let alone thousands of dollars on a lead. They can't. They don't make enough spread. Right? So that's the nice thing is that that's the other thing that that I really, key in on is the, monetary competitive advantage.

Steve: So, Max has a question. Max Jimenez is my business partner. I'm late. I don't know if you said it. What is the lead to deal ratio from TV?

Lathe: The lead to deal ratio?

Steve: How many leads do you get from

Lathe: TV in

Steve: a month? How many deals do you get from TV in a month?

Lathe: We probably get around 200, 250 a month. And then from TV, we've done as high as 10 deals a month. Yeah. So, I mean, it could be it just depends on the month. Like, we've had a couple months where we didn't do a deal, and I spent $40 on TV.

But then the next month, I did two or three, and we killed it

Steve: Right.

Lathe: Off just from TV. Or we did 10 the next month. So or we just we had people to saw us on TV a year ago. So it's hard to quantify from TV, and it's a harder animal to track from TV Mhmm. Because sometimes they go online and submit a form.

Sometimes they get a postcard, and they see me in both. So I know everybody wants to track their numbers.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: And you can kill yourself trying to do that, and you should. I mean, what it's easier with direct mail. But when it comes to TV and radio, you can still do it. But for the new phone I mean, for the advanced folks, they probably already know how to do that. And you can lead them to a website specifically.

But if you're doing anything with branding, it makes it really difficult because now if you're trying to brand your name and it's a it's a beast.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I think the, Perry Marshall in his 8020 marketing book does a really good job explaining, like, you know, you wanna start with Google pay per click because that's, like, the ultimate direct response. And then you got mailers, and then you scale eventually to radio and then TV and then billboards or vice versa, one of those two. Right? And the point is that you can't track necessarily those last couple of pieces.

Lathe: Right.

Steve: But what you can do is dramatically increase the impact of your Google pay per click, of your direct mail, of your radio because now they've seen you from

Lathe: all these different sources. Yeah. Right? You're you're hitting them from land, air, sea. Right.

You know? And they're seeing you ever we have a lot of people say, yeah. I saw you on TV, and then I got your postcard. Or I got your postcard, and then I saw you on TV. Right.

And it's interesting. Those ones are really, really good because they've seen you in multiple places.

Steve: I hope so.

Lathe: Yeah. And because you have the credibility to back up the postcard, and I put a family picture on there to build some affinity with those folks and this and that. But, it's, like I say, it's hard to track those those other pieces. Yeah. But I would I would caution and I would say that there are so many shiny pennies out there.

You know, get good at one before you roll out another one. Mhmm. You know, don't just jump to TV because I'm saying it. Don't just jump to ringless voice mail because somebody else said it. You have to overlay your own filter on top of this stuff, and you also have to, I mean, you have to be cautious because, different markets like Facebook is really hot right now, and there's people pulling deals off of Facebook.

But think about it. How many fifty five and sixty five year old plus? And there's more and more granted. And there are deals there. But I'm just saying, you know, it depends on the marketing or the your target market.

Like, there's the three m's. Right? The marketing, the media, and the message.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: All these things work, but you have to really dial them in. And with Facebook, you can really dial them in. With With PPC, you can really dial them in. Yeah. They've reeled that back a little bit.

Mhmm. But there's still ways to do it and be effective at it. But, again, when you go to these different really, people need to understand, I think, that and I needed to understand that these are all tools in a toolbox. You've got all these marketing modalities. You've got ringless voice mail.

You got calling. You've got, direct mail. You've got TV. You've got radio. You've got billboards.

All these things. You don't have to do them all at once to make a good income, and maybe you shouldn't do one of them at all because your your market is not there.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: So where's your market? What are they using? Where are they at? Are they in the newspaper still? Where are they?

And so and it might be different for every area too. So market market, media, and message.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: Work on the media, for your market or work on the message for your market and the media you're going on too. What what are you gonna be what do you what's the message you're gonna send out?

Steve: Right. So we talked about direct response marketing in passing, but why don't you explain to the audience what exactly direct response marketing is?

Lathe: You just send out a message and you get a direct response to it.

Steve: I know it's really sounds really simple. Right? But why is it effective?

Lathe: It's effective because it's not brand marketing.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: You're not marketing yourself as, oh, look at me. Like, most realtors make this mistake. They put their big picture. It's the biggest thing on there, and they're all dressed nice and fancy. And I think it works good for the really good looking ladies, because, you know, it does.

You know, they end up selling luxury homes and this and that. Now it all I ain't always gonna work that way, so I'm kind of joking. But but that type of that's me marketing versus marketing for the client or the customer. And so you always wanna be focused in on them. Where is their head out?

You gotta be laser focused on you gotta get into their head. Like, a lot of these Robert Colliers is a, he was a copywriter from way back when. I I believe it was, wait, eighteen hundreds. And the same stuff he was talking about then is still effective today. Yeah.

And one of the things he said is you gotta meet the people in the minds where they're at. You gotta get into their heads, and you gotta talk to them and their fears and what they're experiencing. And if you do that, then it's gonna drag them out of all the clutter of all the messages that are around them.

Steve: Yeah. You gotta enter the conversation that they're having with themselves.

Lathe: In their own head. Yeah. And so if you think about what are their trials and tribulations Mhmm. You know, they're getting a divorce. If they sell the house and it's destroyed, then how are they gonna move their stuff?

You know? And I should say, it's not all about my marketing, why I get these bigger deals and the authority and credibility and all that. That helps. But it's not all about that. It's about the little endosynchosys that go into it.

Why I have good successes for one, I'll close a lot of the deals myself. And when times get tough, I jump back in and take all the the the convergent calls because there's nothing else for me to do except for do marketing and close deals. And I close them all remotely over the phone. But then I give it back to my other person when I'm interested in doing more volume and the and the deal flow has gone up. Yeah.

So that's one of the reasons is because we just really I got my finger on the pulse of the closing. And I'm just, you know, really good at getting in people's heads and explaining things to them in a simple way. So that's one thing.

Steve: So how did you get there? How do you how will you teach someone? Or how can someone learn more about getting in the prospects, the homeowner's head?

Lathe: Well, I

Steve: mean that conversation.

Lathe: It's like this ultimate sales I keep referring to this thing because it there's a lot of checklists that you can and a lot of questions. The ultimate sales letter that he lays out here, a lot of questions on how to get in that prospect's head. Mhmm. Ask yourself the question, what keeps them awake at night? Somebody's laying in bed and they've got to sell their house or they're because they're facing a medical condition, what worries do they have?

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: Right? And then when you get onto the phone with them, you're compassionate. You're understanding. You're willing to listen to what they have to say. Like, I'm always telling my inside sales gal, listen to them.

Peel the onion. Get down underneath the layers. If they just say, well, I gotta move out of town, don't just take that as surface knowledge.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: You've gotta dig deep. You gotta say, well, if you don't mind me asking, what is the reason why you're having to move out of town? Well, I wanna move back to my kids. Is that really enough? No.

Well, why is it that you wanna move back to your kids? I mean, a lot of folks you know, what's going on? Well, yeah. My my daughter's having a tough time. She's going through a divorce, and I'm 65, and I don't have any family here, and I just wanna get there before I die.

I mean, that's the conversation we have. Right?

Steve: Right.

Lathe: And if you would have never got to that unless you didn't go past the first one or two questions.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: And you gotta be willing to listen to their story because that's what builds the connection. And so everybody's about, well, dollars, dollars, dollars. People just don't sell because of dollars. Mhmm. They sell because who you are and how they feel about you and the relationship you build.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: If they're talking to one of these national buyers that makes them feel crummy

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: Then they're not gonna sell to them. They're gonna sell to you because you make them feel good. Mhmm. So it's not always about the now sure you'll get a lot of people and it is about the numbers.

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: And they're shopping you. You're probably not gonna get that deal anyway unless you go over there and you just use every sales tactic you have. You twist their arm and you just pull out every little dirty trick you can, which, you know, that's one way of doing it.

Steve: It is one way of doing it.

Lathe: You know, I I prefer to get on the phone and say, I'm not gonna meet you at your house. I just sent off for a pre inspection. And the reason being is is I help so many homeowners. I couldn't help everybody that I normally could help if I had to go to every house. I mean, it takes me thirty minutes to get anywhere in this town.

Mhmm. And thirty minutes to get back by the time I meet with you, that's a quarter to a third of my day gone. I can't talk to as many people if we do it this way.

Steve: Right. I like that. Right? I can't help as many people if I'm visiting them in person.

Lathe: Right.

Steve: So we met through a strategic coach.

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? And we had it was funny. I met you. I met Matt Strong, our lender friend in Salt Lake Yeah. And Todd Todd Swaggerty

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: Who I had no idea who he was until the last one when I was asking who's whose traveler mug is this? It was at Investor Fuel. It's like, it's mine. It's like, oh, who are you? It's like, oh, I'm Todd with Yellow Letter HQ.

It's like, you introduce yourself as the direct response or as the as the, mail house guy.

Lathe: Mhmm. So

Steve: it's just funny. So strategic coach is how we've connected. And you're a very big fan. You're very passionate about all these different, you know, high level coaching programs. You wanna elaborate on on the benefit?

Lathe: Yeah. Well, I love masterminds. In fact, if you if you see my site, really, what I offer is high level coaching and mastermind

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: Because I believe that's where the biggest success comes because it was for me. Mhmm. Because a lot of times, you're standing in your own way with all these different belief systems you have from your past. And a lot of times, you've gotta unlearn what you learned. Like, when I was a real estate agent, reason why I didn't move forward faster is I had the real estate headset on.

Well, you can't do that. It's illegal. That was what was going through my head because they train you one way of thinking, not the investor way, which is perfectly legal.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: But as an agent, you gotta unlearn those things. So and the other thing is is a lot of things like, it took me so like, I'm a twenty three year overnight success. Right? Mhmm. I mean, it took me that long to get it.

I'm like a hard learner. Right? Because I want everything perfect. I'm a control freak, you know, and I I gotta have everything lined up and my t's, my i's dotted and my t's crossed, and I gotta understand everything before I jump. And that's just the way I am.

And I have a strong moral and ethical code that doesn't allow me to actually take action unless I think I can do some or get somebody results or even close on a house. So I have to convince myself that there's a way to do this, that this not just convince myself, believe and know. Actually know that there's a way that I can close this deal. Yeah. So but the other thing is I I had to know that people were getting results cause easy to hear, talk is cheap, right?

Mhmm. It's easy to read a book and think, oh, yeah, that's great in theory. There's a lot of things we talk about but we won't do. Mhmm. Right?

So for me, the mastermind is awesome because I went to one way back when when I was actually already doing wholesales and stuff. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna, at some point, have a mastermind because this is beautiful. Right. Because it allows you to step out of your way, see it's like this podcast.

See other guys, but even the podcast, just listening is not like standing in front of somebody, and this dude is saying, look at my spreadsheet, man. Mhmm. I'm doing this amount of business. This is my stuff. And you're taught and you the believability, like, if they can do it, then I could do it.

Steve: Absolutely.

Lathe: And so the mastermind is like it's like a gold mine of all these people, these high level people that are there who are doing it. Mhmm.

Steve: And

Lathe: they're doing it this way and they're doing it that way, and you take a piece of this and they had problems with this and you're having problems with they already solved the problem. Go find someone who have actually solved the problems. Like Dan Sullivan talks about, find a better who.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: You know, but find the people that are gonna they say you're like the five people we hang around. Well, I never truly understood that. I've been hearing that since I was 18, 19 years old. Right? But what does it really mean?

And and where do you find them? Like, I joined, you know, local BNI groups and this and that, which nothing wrong with that. But it's not the group of people that were gonna propel me in the industry that I wanted to be propelled in. Right? These are business people, only one from each thing go in there and, each company.

Masterminds, it's a bunch of wholesalers, if you join the right one, or rehabbers who figured it out, and they're all working to help you figure it out.

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: And they have this abundance mindset. And that's the thing with masterminds. You know, you can go out there and pay x, y, and z Mhmm. For for help and this and that and and spend all this money just floating around buying a little piece of this and a little piece of that, and all sudden you got all these products on your show. Well, there's nothing wrong with that.

And some people can learn from that and take action.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: For me, you basically gotta hit me over the head with a hammer, say, dude, this works.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: So the mastermind for me is great. So there's different levels, I think, of learning. There's some guy like you. I mean, you're the guy I'll tell you one thing, and you're doing it tomorrow. You're like this and you make it work.

Yeah. And a lot of things do work. I just am very cautious. So I've gotta prove it without a shadow of a doubt that I have, exit strategy x, y, and z in place or I ain't doing it.

Steve: Right. Well, we talked about this offline. Like, you and I have very similar Colby's

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: Colby, results. It's just I'm a little higher on action taking, and you're a little higher on the fact finding. Yeah. But we're very close On everything else. Just a little different.

So, for everyone to understand, we talked about, you know, the 35 k spreads. How many deals are you doing a month right now in in Vegas?

Lathe: With the 35 k, you know, it ranges five to 10 deals in Vegas Yeah. Any given month. And then 35 k is an average. Mhmm. You know, sometimes we'll get a 10 or a 15 that throws us out a lot of whack.

You know? Yeah. But generally speaking, yeah, just just last month, we did 50 on one, forty nine on another. I just put another one on our contract. We'll be probably do 60 to 70 on.

Steve: Yeah. And it's crazy because this is Vegas, which is just like our market.

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: So it's not that you're getting these kinda crazy spreads. Yeah. So what I understand.

Lathe: I have access to the MLS for one

Steve: Right.

Lathe: Which allows me to dial in and really understand, which a lot of folks do have access to good value, but I'm really good at looking at value. Mhmm. And I'm really good at I I mean, I every little endosyncracy, like, I make it work. Like, the other thing too is this is something I really wanted to talk about is better buyers. Mhmm.

First of all, in wholesaling, you've gotta have the better buyer, and the better buyer for you might be the rent and hold buyer. Mhmm. It might be this buyer. It might be that buyer. If you had this huge list of investors, if you send them out all your properties, some of those people will stop looking at your stuff.

Mhmm. Don't you? Because you're like, I'm not gonna get this deal. This guy's gonna give it to somebody else. It's wasting my time.

You gotta build again that relationship to where maybe you'll walk away from five or 10, but you're not gonna burn all 5 or 10,000, but you're not gonna burn all your buyers. Mhmm. So you need that relationship. Like, I still send stuff out. And here's the thing.

People wanna automate everything, and they want all this time freedom. The way I my friend and I, we have this conversation all the time. Dude, you cannot completely walk away from everything. Somebody's always gotta be spinning the plate. Mhmm.

And the plate spinner, it gotta know what he's doing. Right? So I'll step in and I'll spin the plate. Right? Like, if she sends it out and this one guy buyer who we've been selling a lot of our stuff to, if he's gotta talk to me just to say x, y, and z and tell me that he's unhappy about the money he's gonna give me, that's okay.

Mhmm. But I better pick up the phone when he calls. Otherwise, he's gonna go make the deal. Mhmm. So it's about the relationship.

So that's another thing, is that you need better buyers and you need better relationships with the buyers. And the other thing is is when you're in rehabbing, for instance, the reasons why I got 45 plus spreads on those two is because I had the buyer in mind. I'd walk through. I do my own walk throughs, which is one reason why I really don't like the rehabbing business as well as I like the wholesaling business Mhmm. Is because it's a bottleneck.

In my business, I constantly, consistently ask myself, how how can I not be here? Because really where I wanna be, not necessarily on the beach, but it's really pretty there. Mhmm. I wanna be wherever my family is.

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: And my family isn't at work, and my family isn't out in the field. And so if I can take a call for thirty I I was in New York for a couple weeks. People wonder how I can go here and be there and do all this. Mhmm. I was actually closing a deal at, Sephora in New York while my wife was looking at makeup with our little one.

And I closed I think, Alyssa, it was like a $60,000 deal on the phone. Mhmm. I was in Hawaii one time getting ready to do a a TV appearance thirty minutes before. I took a phone call, closed the deal, and that one was like a $60,000 profit. Mhmm.

But you've gotta be willing sometimes to do stuff that makes you a little bit is out of your comfort zone. But but I'm I'm willing to spin the plate when I need to spin spin the plate. Like, I gave everything over to my inside sales girl to close. Multiple months, she didn't need me. Market shifted and changed a little bit.

Okay. Wait a minute. What's going on? Mhmm. I needed to get back in like Sam Wald of of, Walmart.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: He'd used to fly a plane around, and hover over the busy supermarket or, stores, you know, department stores and stuff. And or even, I think, even regular, grocery store. And he'd land his plane. He'd go in and see what they're doing. And he would go to the ones that were the busiest.

And then he'd go back to his Walmart. He'd get there, and he'd be the cash register.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: Figuring out what is gonna make it work. Yeah. So if you're not in your business and I'm not saying like, I told you before, I probably spent if if I wanted to. Now I don't because my mind's always running, and I'm always working on this project and that project outside of my main business. But let's just say I was a normal person, which I don't know if you can be as an entrepreneur because you just can't shut it off.

Right? Mhmm. But, ultimately, I really only have to spend five to ten hours in my business a week. Mhmm. And that's usually taking phone calls or pushing this button on the marketing Right.

To make it work. So it's all about lifestyle for me. It's not about the number of deals. It's about the net because I never wanna lose money. I wanna make money, but it's also about, giving the people what they want.

And I draw a line in the sand on what I wanna make, and I always buy on worst case scenario and buy on best case scenarios. A lot of times, and I've had this conversation a lot too, is that a lot of people will they will they will say what they'll take. It's not proper negotiating to say, well, will you take 200? I'm always like, well, what's the least you'll take? Or you know what?

I've been looking at this one, and it's real tight. And I wanna I wanna make this happen for you because I know what you're going through right now, and I want it to be smooth and and leave everything in the property you don't want. You know, all the normal stuff. Yep. And I know you don't have a whole lot of cash to work with right now, and you have to soften stuff too, by the way.

Mhmm. You know, so I'm not saying I'm gonna go in and gut the place. Mhmm. My friend did that one time. I'm like, I got all over him for that.

I said, this is their home for thirty years. My god. Don't say you're gonna gut the place. So you go in, I'm gonna remodel it. I'm gonna make it look fabulous, and I can't wait to show you what it looks like after we're all done.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: You know? So it's that personal approach. But, I've I've forgot where I started on that one. I went rambling. But, you've gotta you've just gotta be willing to, again, listen to the person that you're talking to on the other side and put them first.

Steve: Talking about, well, go to the next part just real quick. What does your organization look like today?

Lathe: Well, you know, basically, I haven't this is one thing also I wanted to share with you is that, systems, you, all of us I I think most people try to get the people who are working in their business to do systems. Have we ever had any success with that?

Steve: Not that I can recall.

Lathe: Okay. So wouldn't it be hire someone, whether it's out sourced or whether it's a full time employee, which is what I did Mhmm. Because things are always changing. I hired a systems and development person who's actually twenty six years in the military, retired now, who that's his Kobe. That's what he does.

He systematizes. Mhmm. He runs troops of, of, what do you say, a 120,000? I don't know. It's something ridiculous.

Steve: What's this Colby?

Lathe: It's it's mine, but it's a systematizer before a fact finder.

Steve: Okay.

Lathe: So they're systematized fact finder and then and then the rest is like us. So, anyway, I hired him, and he took and he interviewed and he got all the all the systems put into a systems manual. Mhmm. So and that will really change how your business operates. Yeah.

But I think you really have to have that one dedicated person who likes to do that, working with your people to do that. And now my business is, I would say, almost a 100%. And I don't I don't say a 100% because it's always a moving target with this stuff. Mhmm. And they're they're a person you should employ for it's like your bookkeeper and your accountant.

You know? But he's consistently working on systems and helping me design. He also designs my information products, and and that because he loves doing it. So I think that's a big that's that's where my business is, really, is it's systematized. It's optimized.

It's automated. We've got the people we we need. I'm always trying to scale back on what we don't need and cut costs because I always want to be spending more on marketing than I am on overhead.

Steve: So going back to the overhead Mhmm. So you got your systems guy.

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: Any cold callers?

Lathe: I have one cold caller, and one person who answers warm calls, the calls coming in, the inbound, and one doing outbound. And we are gonna engage, I believe, with, Call Geeks. Mhmm. I kinda like what they got going on over there, but it's a test.

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: So I have to be willing to write the check and say, okay. I'm not gonna get anything back

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: Which is okay. We're having so we've had so much success with everything else. I take I take new movements slow because there's no reason to flush money you don't need to flush, especially when your business is running, how it needs to run. And and so, yeah. To answer your question, we do and we have had and we've done just about every marketing known to man, and then I've pulled back and I've implemented again.

So there's ebbs and flows in the business. And like we talked about with, with TV, you've got the, the political windows where nobody can really run unless you're running big dollars, and then they carve out a spot for you, because you have a certain relationship.

Steve: Well, what we were talking about was you had basically a goose egg one month because no one was listening on the radio. Mhmm. No one was watching TV, and no one was checking their mail because they were tired of all the political crap.

Lathe: It and it was, yeah, it was at the end of the political window right before the election, and there was so much political unrest going on that, yeah, nobody's watching.

Steve: No one's watching. No one's listening.

Lathe: Right. And they're well, they're tired of watching and listening too.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: And so they just block it all out. So that is, you might as well just pull it all off the air at that point. I did not. We still got some deals. After that, the people call, but it was it was terrible.

I did do a goose egg. Yeah. Yeah. So gotta gotta be prepared for that.

Steve: You talked about the buyer list earlier. Right? So if someone wants to build a buyer list, like, how should they build a buyer list? You're talking, like, you know, building a better buyer list to to maximize your fee.

Lathe: Right. Yeah. To build a better buyer's list is you really want to like, for instance, we just pulled the list in Oklahoma, and we found out that most people, which is obvious kind of, but it it shows again when you buy the buyer's list in that market that most people are rent and hold. It's more of a turnkey rental market. So it depends on the market you're in, but you wanna find the the buyers.

Who's buying? So it's that whole thing that you gotta find out what they want, and you gotta give it to

Steve: them. Mhmm.

Lathe: And if you can give them what they want and it makes you money, then cool. But you gotta go find what they want. So who like in Las Vegas, most of the guys are rehabbers. Mhmm. They're not turnkey.

Why? Because you can't really make a good return on properties there because the rent doesn't necessarily match Yeah. The mortgage or isn't higher. So you don't get a good cash on cash return or a return on your investment. So but there still is opportunities for that.

I'm not saying there's not. There's some people who buy it for appreciation. So there's still those buyers in the market, which is fine. So that's one thing to learn is is that there's all these different buying models out there. Just because you have yours, doesn't mean somebody else doesn't have another one.

Mhmm. Like, this came this came up dramatically for me when I started looking at wholesaling. I couldn't get over the fact of, well, how can they buy it if I can't how am I gonna make money if it doesn't fit my model? Mhmm. Well, wait a minute.

There's a there's a buyer out there who has all of his own money. He doesn't buy with loans at all. And he has a contractor or he's his own contractor who will buy a property, and his profit is my expense. Does that make sense?

Steve: Yeah.

Lathe: So So I might be paying for hard money. I might be paying for the extra for the contractor. He's going in there putting sweat equity in or he's got a partner. And now that whole $2,030,000 that I would have made on my spread, it it's still there. Mhmm.

I can still make it because they're making money on something else on the deal, so they can pay more for it. Mhmm. So, so that's important to understand. So buying a finding a buyer's list, which I have a little small training that you may would may talk about later, but it'll actually show you how to go into list source Mhmm. And actually pull the buyers off of list source that are absentee or corporate buyers and find the hottest ZIP codes in that area based on what area you wanna work.

Mhmm. And then once you pull that, you can also see what properties they're buying. Then you can go and do your search for sellers with those property characteristics in those areas. And then, basically, now you got the shopping list. You go find the properties.

But the other step too is calling these buyers once you find who they are by doing the search on list source Mhmm. For these absentee equity buyers, investor buyers, because that's who you're gonna find, are the rent and hold buyers, then you call them. You have a conversation or you have somebody high level on your staff call them. But these are high level calls. So, really, that's when you gotta spin the spin the plate again.

You should call them yeah. And figure out what their buying criteria is. And if you find out what it is, then you're more confident to say, yeah. We can buy the house for 200,000 because you're basing on this guy's model. Then you bring it to him.

Boom. You got a deal. Now if you don't think you can buy it because it's not your model or you don't have somebody's model to buy from, you're more apprehensive Mhmm. To put that thing under contractors.

Steve: The less confident buyer.

Lathe: Yeah. Reality, we're all a lot of people are really honest and true and good, and you don't wanna do something that you're gonna ruin somebody else's life doing. Like, I don't wanna put somebody under contract and then pull out when they got everything loaded up in the U Haul. That's not the way to go.

Steve: That's a travesty. It's happening a lot,

Lathe: unfortunately, in our vet your buyers, make sure they can close, and and make sure you understand their buying criteria. And then you can go shopping and then bring those deals to your buyers. So it's more about the buyers.

Steve: So, since we're talking about marketing a lot

Lathe: Mhmm.

Steve: What is your monthly marketing budget?

Lathe: You know, it ranges. It goes for anywhere I've had anywhere from 30 to 7 70,000. Mhmm. I'm sure there was a $100,000 in there somewhere. You know, I'll spend anywhere from 5 to 10.

I've even spent $15,000 for a deal. But it just ranges when you're testing. Sometimes it's out of control like that. But when you have these big spreads Mhmm. Then it's it's okay.

That's the monetary competitive advantage. It's when you lose that advantage that it's troublesome. Like Vegas right now, you have all these national buyers coming in. They're buying stupid. Like Zillow, make an offer.

Right? They lost, I think, was $27,000,000 last year, and they wanna go lose some more.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: And because they're buying the market and doing what they do, they have a different model for what they do. You know, I always say you can't compete with stupid. So I'm not you know, my big selling is I don't know if that's gonna close because I don't know how they're gonna buy it. Mhmm. So do you wanna sell with a guaranteed buyer, or do you wanna sell with somebody we're not really too sure about who just lost 27,000,000?

You don't know when they're gonna pull the rug out from underneath their feet. Do you want your U Haul loaded up in the front driveway? And and and then they call and say either reduce or we're canceling. We don't want that. Right.

So I I put that seed of doubt there anyway, but a lot of times, find it very difficult, to, to compete with the national buyers in Vegas. Mhmm. But I I still do, and I still get deals. But it it does make it a little bit more challenging.

Steve: So then the last question, because we were talking about work life balance. So how do you keep a work life balance? Like, you know, doing these number of deals with everything you get going on between wholesaling, flipping, what how are you

Lathe: How do I do that? Yeah. Well, it's just the self managing company, which Dan Sullivan talks about, which, you know, I I think you have to be willing to let your employees fail for you to succeed. Mhmm. A lot of times, entrepreneurs are in there doing it and mucking China shop.

I do a lot of drive by meetings. It screws everybody up. And so you're really your own worst enemy.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: So you gotta just step back and let people do it. I got an email the other day that was talking about simple thing like inspections, and I was like, oh, yeah. I was getting ready to say, oh, do do it. And I'm like, no. That's her job.

I step in, they're gonna start emailing me. Mhmm. You really gotta step back and let your employees and your people do what they do and let them fail. Because a lot of times, they don't wanna fail. But if you say, hey.

Your failure is my success. I'm willing to let you fail so I succeed. Do not be worried about failing. Now if you do it over and over again, that might be a different story. But

Steve: Right.

Lathe: You gotta learn from your experiences.

Steve: Yeah. First failure is okay. Second failure, like, hey. What's going on? Third failure is like, hey.

This is You

Lathe: do this again, you know. And but and and we and then the culture too. Like, one of the things that I did, Joe Polish's Genius Network Mhmm. 25 k mastermind of a lot of high level entrepreneurs. One of the things that he had he has a guy in there who talks about culture, and he's done a really good job of doing culture with his staff and everybody.

One of the things he had was three monkeys, a little statue of a monkey Mhmm. Sitting in the corner. And it was it was actually a lawn statue, but it was, like, almost a bronze looking thing really cool. I actually found that exact statue. And then I found three little monkeys to sit on all my employees' desk, and they were all one was, you know, speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil.

And I put that I kid you not. I put that on my employees' desks, and I think it transformed really the way they thought about things, and it kept them uplifted and in the positive. And so you've gotta do things like that. How? What's that?

Steve: Why did those monkeys do that?

Lathe: Well, because, I mean, it reminds you, I shouldn't be talking, you know, BS here, you know, and bringing everybody else down. Mhmm. And if somebody else is bringing me down, then I'm just gonna close my eyes and my ears. Mhmm. So it just reminds them that the water cooler talk yeah.

The water cooler talk is not really tolerable.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: So when you build in a culture of you being there without you being there, that's what's really helpful and useful because you are the heart and soul of your business and they need you. Mhmm. And you're only able not to be there if you actually build culture for them and they understand what that heart and soul is of the company. So having good people support you, but then supporting them is really important. And so my staff is my team.

Just like a quarterback, he can't win the Super Bowl without his his other his other players.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: So you've gotta be willing to play. You've gotta be willing to step back, and you've gotta be willing to get somebody to systematize or you've gotta systematize, which may or may not happen like me because I can't sit my butt down long enough to do that stuff. Mhmm. But I can pull the trigger and delegate and ask questions and get on the phone and talk with him till his ears bleed because that's just that's just how I am. Right?

Steve: Right.

Lathe: So, so getting getting out what's inside of you and how you run your business and somebody who can put that into a a format that people can fall follow and putting that into some sort of, system like Kajabi. They use it for information marketing, but you can use it to run your business or any sort of portal or even Dropbox so that somebody I mean, like, we don't all the time help people or we don't all the time move furniture from this place to that place. We have a few places we stage still with rehabs, but, she has a document, an SOP, for moving furniture. And so and we don't do it all the time, so she forgets. So she said, I pulled up that SOP again today.

Mhmm. And guess what? She never called me.

Steve: Right.

Lathe: But she was able to do it. You know? So that's I can tell you that systematization and those SO standard operating procedures for your business are. Right? Mhmm.

Hopefully, I said that with the right accent. But very important, because you can only walk back from your business when it's truly systematized and everybody knows where the ship's going and how they're gonna get there. Mhmm. If you don't have that, then you're always gonna get yanked back. If you don't and if you don't have a runner, or someone who can do that type of work for you, guess who the runner is?

Steve: You are.

Lathe: You are. Yeah. So and that's the whole thing with unique ability, which is, I think, something we may talk about today. But I don't know. We're we're We're we're there.

Steve: We're wrapping up. Yeah.

Lathe: Oh, we're wrapping up. So unique ability, you you need to do what you're good at and leave the rest for the best.

Steve: Right. Right? For what you're good at.

Lathe: Yeah. Otherwise, you're just not you're gonna be hating life, and I'm good at getting in there. And and, actually, I should say the other culture thing is the superpower thing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Lathe: With strategic coach, everybody's we're actually developing a a picture that everybody keeps on their wall, and everybody chooses their own superhero. Mhmm. And then their heads are on the superheroes and the bobblehead dolls and all that.

Steve: Oh, really?

Lathe: And then they have superpowers, you know, and that reminds them, hey. I have my own superpowers. There's a reminder that that they have a superpower. So That's awesome.

Steve: Yeah. So you've got a podcast coming up soon.

Lathe: Yeah. The flipping boss, that will be, going active here in twenty four to seventy two hours depending on the approval from, from iTunes. It'll also be on our website, the flipping boss. We've got several episodes already recorded, so those will be launching there. One of them is about lifestyle, and we're gonna be doing that with, actually, that's when we're we're completing right now with my systems guy.

What better guy to do that Mhmm. To create the lifestyle than my systems guy. So we're gonna have a really good conversation there. So I'm excited for the podcast. Have some great people on there.

I wanna have you on there too.

Steve: I'd be honored.

Lathe: Yeah. And the thing is you won't have to fly to Phoenix to do it.

Steve: You know, it it's it's funny. Like, I have this weird thing where you have to fly in.

Lathe: Well, this is awesome.

Steve: Yeah. Well, people are flying in. Right? You you manifest it. Like, this is Yeah.

This is what I want. And now we have people flying in from all over the country.

Lathe: It's crazy. It's that's awesome. And I flew here, and I hate flying. Right? And the last last thing I wanna do is be away from my family.

And I I'm I wouldn't say I'm scared to fly, but I I'm I'm hesitant to feel comfortable in an airplane. Yeah. So, but, again, it's all about lifestyle. I would rather be up in my second home Mhmm. Not in Coeur D'Alene for the summer rather than being in a studio in Las Vegas when it's god awful hot.

That's why I bought the second home, by the way, because I can't stand the temperature in Las Vegas.

Steve: Oh, it's just like, here. It's perfect. Yeah. So how could someone get a hold of you?

Lathe: The best way is through the flippingboss.com there. And like I said, I've got a, it'll I don't know how long it'll be up for, but I have that how to find better buyers Mhmm. Where it walks folks step by step, through the process of doing the search on list source, even how to work with that list a little bit. So it's a it's a really good training on how to really even if if you wanna go virtual or if you want you're just starting out, how to find those better buyers. Mhmm.

And so, that's pretty much the best way is through the website there. It'll have the podcast on there and everything else that anybody could ever wanna be able to get in contact with me.

Steve: Okay. Perfect. Yeah. So, guys, next week, we got Joshua Jennings flying in from South Carolina. He's been talking about how he did 137,000, I think, on on just one deal.

And, again, in the Phoenix market, guys, if you guys need help getting ARV, trying to figure out what to offer homeowners, or you need, help closing the deals in the living room, please reach out to me. We'll be happy to help you with that. And you want a copy of our assignment contract, go to realestatedisruptors.com, and opt in, and my assistant will send you a copy of our assignment contract. And, again, if you guys did like this show, please share this episode right now because a rising tide does lift all boats. Thank you guys for tuning in, and thank you.

This was incredible.

Lathe: Thank you. Appreciate it. Nice to be here.