Ryan Zolin. 3 Biggest Mistakes He Learned from Last Year

Ryan Zolin: The thing that got me in such a good position was not making thirty, forty deals happen every single month. Mhmm. It was going through all those lessons and roadblocks to where what did I have? I had more time, not closing thirty, forty deals a month. I had time to sit back and think.

I had time to talk to the team. We had time to go in there and even put effort into other companies that we were building Mhmm. While maybe we weren't doing 30 deals a month anymore. So, obviously, lost people on the team, things happen, people walked away. But the beauty behind it was that we wouldn't be here today where we're at with what we currently had as a structure before.

Steve Trang: Everybody, welcome to today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we've got Ryan Zolin back with agent investors, and he's gonna be talking about the lessons he learned from the three biggest mistakes last year. It's gonna be a fun episode, I'm sure.

Ryan: Just three. Just three. Just three. And

Steve: as you guys know, I'm on a mission to create a 100 millionaires. The information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. If you'll take consistent action, you will become one. And we also know one of the fastest ways to become a millionaire is to get really good at sales. And so we've had our sales disruptors community for about two months now, and we have our active members closing more deals already.

If you wanna join sales assassins from across the country, go to salesdisruptors.com. And the show is brought to you by our sister company, Investor Lift. Get access to millions of cash buyers across the country. Go to investorlift.com, put in disruptors to get 10% off. And so, I mean, let's just go ahead and get right into it.

Ryan: Let's do it.

Steve: So we made some lofty promises, and we said these are three mistakes. Maybe it's only three mistakes. Maybe it's more than three. But 2022 was a tough year for a lot of people.

Ryan: For sure. Right. For sure.

Steve: And we saw people getting into the industry that haven't been in the industry that long, leave the industry. And one of the things I thought was kinda interesting was watching some of the gurus leave the industry, Right? Which we knew would happen, but I didn't think it would happen that fast.

Ryan: I we saw what was the analogy? It was that the the tides went away, and we saw who was swimming without the trunks. Right. So, a lot of people were over leveraged. Fortunately, I wasn't too much in that category, but we did have a lot of change.

There's a lot of learning lessons. But, yeah, it was it was a rocky road 2022.

Steve: Yeah. And then, you know, for those that, you know, may not be aware, you know, Ryan and I go back quite a bit, and you shared some conversations with me. Hope you don't mind. I'm gonna share some of the private conversations. Yeah.

But, you know, one of the things you asked me, Steve, like, I don't understand. Like, all these people I've been following, looking up to getting their advice are struggling a lot more right now in 2022 than I am. I don't understand. Help me understand this.

Ryan: Yes. Yeah. Do you

Steve: wanna talk about that at all?

Ryan: I mean, honestly, we all know social media is, like, the highlight reel. We know perception is reality. But what I think really confused me was watching a lot of the fakeness happen on social where it was like what was it called? Repositioning. And I was like, no.

Don't call it repositioning. Just say that you have to exit and you have to lick lick, go liquid on this to be able to put it back into your business that's struggling right now, or you have to scale back or you're pivoting or whatever it is. So I felt like there was just a lack of transparency. For us, I mean, obviously, our strategy of working on the MLS and working with agents doesn't cost anything. Mhmm.

So we went from doing thirty, forty deals a month to three, four, five deals. It was a really good month, seven. Mhmm. And we rode that wave for a while. I mean, there was even a few months there that it was, like, straight goose eggs.

It was, like, shoot. But I also remember in those moments, I mean, I was talking to you. I was talking to a few other people, and I was, like, well, are we gonna fall out of the industry? No. Because we're just not making as much money as we were, but we're still not spending that much.

Right. So I don't know. It was it was a lot of, eye opening moments. I didn't really know how to prepare for it, and so I kinda just took a step back,

Steve: rode the wave. One it certainly helps. Right? Because the the promise of agent investors is you can row run a low advertising low expense advertising business. Correct.

And that was definitely

Ryan: helpful. It was my saving grace. So while I failed at a direct to seller wholesaling, this was, like, three or four years ago, agent outreach and MLS deals were my saving grace to keep me in real estate.

Steve: Yeah.

Ryan: Then as the waves got amazing, we rode the wave. Well, then the market got really tight. Okay. Well, it was again my saving grace because I wasn't over leveraged with flips. I wasn't over leveraged with marketing.

I even had an office building. I subleased it. Like, that's not sexy to talk about, but I'm like, that is the repositioning or whatever you wanna call it. I was able to go and sublease it and even make some money by going and doing that. Why not?

So I pivoted with a few things, but we kept in business. And as everyone always says, that's the number one rule of small business, stay in business.

Steve: Yeah. Stay alive. Stay alive by another day. And so I think your lease was, like, $2,400 a month.

Ryan: It was, like, 2,800 with utilities. Everything was triple net. It came out to, like, 33 ish, 3,400. And you're

Steve: like, Steve, I need to get rid of this. It's like, dude, if my expenses are only 3,300 a month

Ryan: I know. You I remember there was a lot of times I'd go to you. I'm like, well, what do I do? And you're like, shut up. Just shut up.

And I'm like, alright. My bad.

Steve: So alright. Now we're talking about, oh, actually, before we go continue, you're talking about, you know, the the fakeness of this and our lack of transparency. I mean, I think that's probably one of the biggest struggles. Right? Is that you see someone privately share, like, man, here's what I'm going through.

Mhmm. And then on social media, it's a call to

Ryan: be All rainbows.

Steve: Right? And it's like, man, like, this sucks. You can't say anything. Right? Like, this sucks.

So the three biggest mistakes, you know, we talked about there's shiny objects. There was

Ryan: It was unorganized. Unorganized. Bad partnerships.

Steve: Yeah. Where where do we start? So, I

Ryan: mean, it kind of all starts with, shiny object syndrome. I think that the biggest lesson that I had to start, which I saw the writing on the wall, we saw markets, like, kinda just tightening up. We saw Arizona. The market started going the wrong direction. Shiny object for us, the very first thing we did was actually try to go hedge fund.

And I think you and I talked about this, the other day. But if I had to put one timeline, one event that I felt like was the trigger point to our, like, setback, it was just not staying consistent with what we were doing. Mhmm. So like I said, when we do our deals on the MLS, we work with agents, one of the coolest things that I think is actually probably the most impressive about what we do, we weren't selling to hedge funds. We weren't selling to institutions.

A lot of times, people are referred to as order takers where you would just get a deal sent to you and you could sell to a hedge fund without even thinking about it. Mhmm. We started to try it. So I think I can count on one hand the amount of deals we did with a hedge fund, and it was extremely hard from response time to having to renegotiate to even being on their timeline, which, I mean, a lot of times is a corporate job, nine to five, Monday through Friday. Mhmm.

Might even be East Coast, time zones. So we struggled with that. Shiny object syndrome was that, I mean, we had a staging company. I was trying to do crypto, NFTs. Mhmm.

I was trying to do all these different things, but the one specific last year shiny object that got in my way was trying to change our business model before the tide even got really bad. Yeah.

Steve: So everyone's talking about how much money they're making from hedge funds. Yep. And a lot of people did make a lot of money from hedge funds.

Ryan: For sure. Shout out to Matt.

Steve: Yeah. Right. And so you went from a model where you were I mean, what was the model before you got distracted with hedge funds?

Ryan: So it was just acquiring deals on the MLS Mhmm. And then also working with agents, doing agent outreach, not necessarily trying to get off market opportunities, just trying to get anything and everything they could come across. Yeah. At that point, we'd sell it off direct to an end buyer. Or if it wasn't direct to an end buyer, it was gonna be to a dispo house that had the buyer.

Steve: So what kind who was buying that you could sell to where it made if you were to focus on them instead of the hedge funds?

Ryan: So last year, I think that was probably one of the roadblocks we'd have ran into regardless. But rather than taking our time and putting it all into hedge funds and different systems and trying to change what we were doing, I think if we just doubled down, there was the coat tail end of the market kinda tapering off that we could've still caught a handful of deals.

Steve: Yeah.

Ryan: So we're we didn't close anything for those goose egg months. I think, realistically, we probably could have pulled another 25 to 50 k in assignment fees if we just stayed true to what we were doing.

Steve: Yeah. So but who were the buyers? I mean, like, these are

Ryan: Mom and pop shop investors. A lot of them are local people here that, obviously, you know as well that they just go and they flip $5.10, 15 at a at a time, and, they'll go in. They'll they're not necessarily buying based on appreciation. Mhmm. But they were buying thinner margins.

They were buying where they were, hoping for a better solution. No one really had the crystal ball seeing what it would have been. Right. So there was times that I mean, I would send deals out and people like, no way. And then I'd end up I was not only the king of the MLS, I was the king of selling a deal that had one comp.

Mhmm. So as long as I could prove that there was one comparable property that sold in the last six months, twelve months, I could make a case for it.

Steve: Yeah. So So the other thing you talked about was the the staging company. Yes. So talk to me about the staging company.

Ryan: You know, I mean, at the end of the day, I take full ownership for it. I was the one that was paying the bills for it. I was the one that paid for the all the furniture to be out where it was. So I have to take responsibility for it, but I had a partner at the time that came to me and was like, hey. What do you think of if we were to go and invest into this?

We were making a lot of money. So I wanted to show that I believe in people, and I believe in the process of growing and vertically integrating. Saw it on a podcast. I'm like, let's do it. So I went and I jumped two feet in, literally went and got the office lease in my name for the exact reason to have a staging company.

Mhmm. Dude, I'm making millions of dollars real estate investing. What do I need a staging company for? A quick little background is that my thought process was bringing my mom in. She was one of the partners too.

She loved design. And so we were flipping houses. I thought my mom could come in, help design it, make it an easy process, kinda help us scale that up, maybe even get her out of her nine to five job. Yeah. So I thought it didn't actually happen.

So we ended up not needing to stage houses in the peak of the market. It was crazy out here. I mean, you could literally be doing the listing paperwork and you have five offers. So then as the market started to get a little bit tighter, staging was relevant, but the profit margins weren't there for us. Our prices didn't make sense.

Some of the furniture we had bought was outdated, had dust on it from being in the warehouse. So we were out there buying new furniture, trying to figure out new things to do. It was, like, five steps forward, 10 step back 10 step 10 steps back.

Steve: What were the projections? Like, what was, like, man, we we buy this we do this furniture staging thing

Ryan: Yep.

Steve: Or do the staging company. We're gonna make eczema.

Ryan: So that's the best part of it all. There were no projections. It was all hypothetical of, like, what we imagined.

Steve: But hypothetically, like, what was a hypothetical?

Ryan: Hypothetical was that we bought it for 25,000, which we shouldn't have done. We should have bought the furniture individually piece by piece, and $25,000 worth of furniture would have been much more organized, and it would have been a better process. Mhmm. So I think if we had just started without buying an existing staging company, that was the first part. But 25,000 in my head would have been a minimum of 6 figures.

Mhmm. The girl that we bought it from, she was retiring, but she was on average making about $100,150 a year from it. Now that was our gross numbers, showed us all the PNLs and stuff like that. We had a formal, like, business broker contract purchasing her existing business and change the name, but it just didn't pan out. Again, part of it was the market, but then it kinda leads into the next thing, which was unorganized.

Mhmm. It was an unorganized mess where expectations were set. Unorganized.

Steve: So Yeah. Those projecting a hundred hundred fifty just because that's what she was doing. Correct. What was the true net?

Ryan: We I don't even think broke even, to be honest with you. I think we lost money on the the senior company.

Steve: So they didn't make money? Sign the lease.

Ryan: Oh, yeah. Three year three year lease. I mean and when you're talking thousands and thousands, my thought was that half the building will be staging company. The other half is my existing wholesale operation.

Steve: Yeah.

Ryan: So that was great, and it was good for culture. But I also realized that, I mean, you don't really need an office unless you're gonna have a staging company that's gonna be,

Steve: like, moving. So it didn't make money, plus you incurred additional expenses? Yes. And then how much time did you spend a week on this?

Ryan: Not okay. Per week, it wasn't terrible. Per month, and when you start looking at it on, like, a macro scale, I mean, it was headspace. It was just stress. It was unnecessary where even if I had an empty warehouse with that office, I could have done events there where I was paying every single month to go out, and I was doing monthly meetups here where it was about 1,500 to $2 a month that I was spending in just doing, masterminds with people.

This was free. I had a a warehouse that was empty that I could have brought people to. Could have saved money there. So it was just like a a pain. It wasn't anything like

Steve: But it was just like when you add them all all up. Yeah. And and

Ryan: A guy at 25 shouldn't have, like, little gray hairs I'm plucking out at night, and I'm like, what the heck is going on? Like, this is just too much.

Steve: And then the other distraction. So, we both fell into this crypto world. I fully blame you for this.

Ryan: Don't even. Don't even.

Steve: Okay. You and Panetta. I blame you and Panetta for this.

Ryan: I was flipping and making some good money there.

Steve: It was just

Ryan: lump sums of money going out, and I always used to joke with the team. Like, if you guys wanna know when the best time to buy, yeah, everyone says it's the dip. Just wait for Ryan Zolin to buy crypto, and I promise you it's gonna go down. So you're ready to go buy. Just let me do it first, and then you'll buy the next day, and you'll thank me.

Steve: Yeah. Because because I know, like, Ryan went crazy with it. Yep. I think he spent, like, 3 quarters of 1,000,000 on, what is it, Neo Tokyo. Right?

Yep. And then you come along, you're like, hey. I bought this Gary v thing.

Ryan: Yeah. I I'm still riding that one out. At this point, I have drank the Kool Aid. I have to. So that's that's where I'm at on that one.

Steve: Right. So but you bought, like, some Gary v thing, I think, for, like, 80 k or something crazy. Yeah. Right. I was like, okay.

These guys are in. Alright. I'm in. And I bought some Neo Tokyo thing. Right?

It was, like, a 140 k. Yep. I don't think I can get 20 k for today. Right? Yep.

And that's just kinda what happened. So you weren't the only one that was getting distracted by Johnny.

Ryan: For sure. For sure. And, also, I mean, it was towards the, more towards the end of the year before early last year, 2021, 2022, where it wasn't too, too bad. I mean, I had the money in the account. I made the decisions I thought were the best in the moment.

Mhmm. The biggest shiny object I felt was obviously that hedge fund move and then, that staging company. Those were the two really big setbacks. The NFT one, I'm still riding out the wave.

Steve: I was told by me for that. Yeah. So, I mean, like, we had Jamil and Brandon just kinda walk through the offices. They got to see my little canvas. Right?

So that's a really expensive canvas. But I'm so grateful I did it. Right? I shared this with you. If I didn't if I didn't get distracted by NFTs, I wouldn't have, circled back into the whale club because it it all worked out in the end.

Ryan: I think that was a thank you. So you're welcome.

Steve: Yeah. That was a thank you.

Ryan: They're like, this is your fault. But also

Steve: But also, it's gonna save me a lot of headache down the road. Good. Okay. So that was number one. Yes.

So those are the three biggest things three biggest mistakes or one of the three biggest mistakes. What are lessons learned?

Ryan: Just double down on what I know I'm good at. Now I'm not saying you don't need to go out there and do multiple things. Obviously, I've got a lot on my plate, and we're even opening up different ventures, different podcasts, all these different, like, opportunities. Mhmm. But all that said, I have really good partners in the things that I'm doing now.

I didn't really have the best structure. I didn't have the best expectation set. Not to blend them together, but being unorganized again was my biggest downfall. Yeah. I felt as if everything was just so fast.

I was making a lot of money, which was awesome. Mhmm. But as you're spending a lot of money and you're trying to grow really fast and you're promising things to people and stuff, it just it became a mess. So my biggest lesson was just to breathe and try to make a more educated decision before just pulling the trigger on something.

Steve: Yeah. Maybe slow down before you jump in with both feet. Correct.

Ryan: Yeah. Run it past Steve.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I think I tried to talk you out of the staging company.

Ryan: You you did.

Steve: So alright. So that's the first one. So the second one was organized. Yeah. So what does that mean?

Ryan: Didn't have a p and l until, like, 2022 officially. Like, I mean, I knew what my tax my taxable income was, and I knew, like, rough range of stuff. But 2022 is the first year, like, down to the penny. I knew where everything went, knew exactly what category it was in, how everything should have been done filing wise. Part of that was comfort.

Steve: Mhmm.

Ryan: A lot of times, I think where people get stuck, we always hear analysis paralysis.

Steve: Yeah.

Ryan: I don't think it was me trying to figure out logos or LLCs or company names. I think it was, like, the actual structure and, like, business of it. Like, people don't realize what you have your LLCs. You've got to file stuff yearly. You've got to make sure it's in good standing.

You've got to make sure that your bank accounts are done right. You can't be paying bills from your personal account for your business, business for personal, and no one taught me that. This is the kind of stuff that I'm really passionate about teaching with generational assets is that I just feel like there's so much stuff out there that isn't taught. And when you get into business, it's like life. It's a free for all.

There is no guideline. There is no book of business. Yeah. There's a million podcasts. There's a million books.

There's a million different resources. They're not alright. So what I had to do was fail forward. I fired my CPA and finance team I had for about six, seven years. I was paying way too much money in taxes, and it was just a mess.

So Well,

Steve: I'm again, going back to one of our conversations, like, I am paying way too much in taxes.

Ryan: Oh, yeah. I paid just under 40 k last year to a CPA. And this year, I'm on track to pay half that, and my tax bill will be multiple six figures less than what I paid last year.

Steve: Yeah. So the cost of being unorganized.

Ryan: Probably if I had to put a dollar amount on it, $2.50 to 300 without even hesitation.

Steve: And so multiple 6 figures is the price you pay for not wanting to look at it. And look. That's how most of us are. Like, that's kinda how we're wired. Right?

We wanna go hard, charge, go all in this and that. Yep. And then we'll figure out the money later.

Ryan: Yep. Virtual visionary. Sorry. Yeah. We're not integrators.

Steve: That's how most of us are, But it takes one I mean, I don't know if we can equate this, you know, like a solid kick to the legs. Right? Like a sweep kick. That was leg sweep.

Ryan: Yeah. Right.

Steve: Like, you were you were knocked over.

Ryan: That was it.

Steve: And you had to survey the landscape.

Ryan: I think this is the best, like, hopefully, picture I could paint here for everyone that helped was that the thing that got me in such a good position was not making thirty, forty deals happen every single month. It was going through all those lessons and roadblocks to where what did I have? I had more time. Not closing thirty, forty deals a month. I had time to sit back and think.

I had time to talk to the team. We had time to go in there and even put effort into other companies that we were building Mhmm. While maybe we weren't doing 30 deals a month anymore. So, obviously, lost people on the team. Things happen.

People walked away. But the beauty behind it was that we wouldn't be here today where we're at with what we currently had as a structure before.

Steve: Yeah. So besides the finances

Ryan: Mhmm.

Steve: Where else do you find if you feel you were unorganized?

Ryan: Dude, I I don't know if it's just me in real estate, but, I mean, I felt like life in general. Like, we always want as humans to have routine. We want consistency. No one likes change. No one likes confrontation.

No one likes uncertainty. That's all real estate really is, especially in 2022. Mhmm. So I was riding these waves. I was trying to figure things out.

Personal life was just the only thing I had stable was Amber. So I think just kinda staying true with her, that was the best thing. Mhmm. The downfall was just the fear of the unknown. And what I've learned at least from years in real estate is that when the fear hits you, you either not up or shut up.

Right? Like, one of the sayings that I always got told is back, when I was over at Keller Williams. They're like, don't be the bitch. Be the bull. I was like, alright.

So I just had to be the bull. So push through it, persevere. I didn't need any fancy podcasts. I didn't need someone patting me on my back when I got up and made my bed. I just had to be self disciplined and understand that it's just 1% better every day, 2% better every single day.

Steve: Were there other things? You know, you're talking about this organized. Right? Finance is a part of it, but, like, how about operations?

Ryan: I mean, KPIs, SOPs, they were constantly changing, but that was also the market. And I don't really Do you

Steve: feel like you're on top of it, or do you feel like

Ryan: I think I was before the shiny objects. I think that I had at least a better understanding as to how to go and make a million dollar a year business from wholesale, adding in multiple people, adding in different ventures, adding in all that stuff. The lines got a little blurred. It became a point where, KPIs are what? Five offers per day?

The only person that I felt was actually being consistent with doing, like, KPIs was Amber. She was writing, like, literally not, any automations or anything, but she was actually manually doing contracts every day. Mhmm. But for five, six, seven people, so she was doing thirty, forty, 50 contracts per day. That's the only metric that I saw that was consistent.

Mhmm. I just kept seeing the deals go lower, lower, lower.

Steve: Yeah. So seeing that you weren't you didn't have, like, clear visibility

Ryan: Mhmm.

Steve: And KPIs again, how did that impact everything?

Ryan: What I've learned to be a better leader now is that I need to have the vision clear because not being able to be the leader that I know that I am inside of, hey. We're not gonna go work hedge funds. Hey. This staging company isn't making sense. This needs to go.

Mhmm. Being able to call it what it is now, I think that was the biggest lesson. But, what it cost me, money Yeah. Headspace, opportunities. I mean, right now where we're at, we have opportunities coming across our table left and right from deals to things with athletes to new shows to, even deals now.

Deals are back up. I think part of that is because we just stayed true. I didn't go jump around, try to do 15 other things.

Steve: So I guess you you kinda already said it, but just to reiterate, what was the lesson then from being disorganized?

Ryan: What was

Steve: the lesson learned from being disorganized?

Ryan: Be organized. Find a way. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're gonna go make less money upfront. You need to have it all planned out and configured before you at least a plan. A plan needs to be in place.

Steve: Well and then have the right account.

Ryan: So I skipped over that because I finally got that now. Shout out to Tyler Blair, one of my best friends, hooked me up with the person that, he's been working with. And now we have a legal department, tax planning, tax strategy. I have a trust set up. I have, they do all my bookkeeping.

They do all my, like, everything finance.

Steve: So So which should save you should save you a lot of money now.

Ryan: And they're cheaper.

Steve: Yeah. Which is crazy. Okay. So that was the second one, is organized. Yep.

Third one. Partners. Mhmm.

Ryan: I'm pretty sure this is one of the first things you had said to me when I, was getting mentored by you, and it was, why do you need partners? And this is even as you had partnerships, and I was just like, oh, Steve's a hypocrite. Whatever.

Steve: I I mean, I readily admit I'm a hypocrite when it comes to

Ryan: this. You're right, though. But it's just that I I thought that having more people again, which is so freaking funny because I used to tell the story when I was a real, like, realtor doing freaking I don't know. I made a $100,000 one year. I had 20 something people work for me.

And all I remember is I was like, add another agent, add another agent. And I have a lot of friends that are still in that same mentality. It's constantly recruiting. Mhmm. More bodies doesn't mean shit.

Mhmm. More bodies means more headaches. It means more liability. It means more problems. While problems can equate to opportunity, as long as they are willing to work and they're actually valuable.

So I had the wrong people in the wrong place. I had the wrong people wearing the wrong hats. And, honestly, as much as it's easy for me to point the fingers, it all comes back onto me. It was under my roof. It was under that office that I signed up for.

So, it is what it is. I just had to understand that partnerships aren't a mess a necessity. And, also, too, if I am gonna go and have partnerships, expectations just need to be cleared out. They need to be put on the table. This is where my headspace is at.

This is my role, and also lose the ego. I'm not gonna walk into anything and tell somebody what their position is if they're gonna help me build something. We are partners. I'm gonna go in there. I'm gonna try to build something along the right people now.

And so the partners that I do have lined up with stuff, I mean, this time around, I feel a lot more confident.

Steve: Yeah. How many partnerships did you have that ended last year?

Ryan: We lost our dispo guy. We lost the flipping department, lost staging company, lost two people that were helping me build agent investors, and then my finance. The finance, agent investors, staging company, Dispo, and then Flipz. I don't know if you count Dispo as a partner, but four people.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. The dispo one is kinda confusing.

Ryan: So just guy on the team, but four people total. Flipping, staging, agent investors, finance.

Steve: Right. So finance. What's the finance component?

Ryan: That was the CPA and all them. I called them partners. They're part of my operation.

Steve: Okay. Not anymore?

Ryan: Not anymore. So now we got the new finance team, got the new accountants, all that stuff.

Steve: And so you had, talk to me about what were the biggest challenges in having a partnership.

Ryan: I'm gonna try to word it in a way where I don't come across, like, the problem. Because, obviously, I had plenty of to blame inside all of it. And then, again, it's all my fault. Stream ownership. Right?

Mhmm. Expectations weren't set, and ego was the biggest issue. So a lot of times where in real estate, you know, the grass always looks greener. Everyone always jumps ship. Everyone always talks about how there's a lot of turnover in real estate, and I always ask why.

It is because they think they can do more without you. Mhmm. And so I applaud that 99% of the time, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's usually not. The problem is that they weren't willing to water the grass where they were. Mhmm.

So ego, I always talk about ego and entitlement is the killer in real estate. It was under my roof. There's a lot of characters, a lot of personalities, a lot of things now that honestly I'm even embarrassed was being said in my office, like, from just inappropriate conversation being had with things that I could tell were just issues that were going on at home that shouldn't have been said at the office. Mhmm. Things that, you know, I mean, I didn't have HR.

So now I'm, like, looking at it, like, the writing was clear as day on the wall. Why didn't I want to read it? So that was probably the biggest lesson I had to learn there was if you're not wanting to have the conversation, odds are you should probably have it sooner than later because if not, it's gonna end with people blowing up at each other in an office during a meeting.

Steve: Yeah. So things are said, whether appropriate, inappropriate, uncomfortable, whatever, needs to be addressed

Ryan: For sure. Right now. For sure.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Because letting it simmer

Ryan: It's gonna pop. Yeah. And it did. But and, again, market change, lot of stress, lot of uncertainty. A lot of people that I had in my team, combine them all.

I had more seniority with what I had by myself than all of them combined. Mhmm. I've seen real estate Yeah. When the going's going great. It's all rainbows and butterflies.

When it gets going, people get going. So that's what I was experiencing was a lot of uncertainty, and it goes back to, being unorganized. If I had a clear vision and I said, here's the three buckets of things we're working on. This is what I'm doing over here primarily. This is what I imagine you guys are gonna run over here, and this person's in charge.

This is what we're working on on the side. X, y, and z, who not how in the right positions Yeah. It would have been a little bit easier.

Steve: It would have been. But I think, like, because you and I had a lot of conversations last year. I think you had clarity. No. Maybe everyone with you with underneath did not have the same clarity.

Ryan: I agree with that.

Steve: Is that what is that that was the

Ryan: I mean, my clarity wasn't expressed. It wasn't, wasn't necessarily communicated properly. I think that's where I could have done much better was being the leader saying, hey. I know that things are rocky right now, but here's what we're gonna do to stay true to this. Yeah.

Where I was trying to be everybody's best friend was, you wanna do hedge funds? Hell, yeah. Let's go work with hedge funds. Matt, what do you do? What how do we do this?

How do we send you deals? Mhmm. How do we learn x, y, and z about new strategies rather than just, hey. We have a system. We have a proven concept.

Yeah. It's It's not always gonna be thirty, forty deals a month, but, also, our strategy changed. I have no desire at all to go do 30 to 40 deals a month anymore. Yeah. Like, seven to 10 comfort, but, also, too, I have the right people in place now where they all know what needs to get done.

They have their own responsibilities. The expectations are clear as day, and what they put into it is what they're gonna get out of it.

Steve: How do you set the proper expectations?

Ryan: Learning this from you, but it's asking the right questions.

Steve: A

Ryan: lot of what I did last year was asking the people on my team was what do you wanna do? Because maybe I didn't even have the right people in the right positions. So, like, even Brandon as example. Brandon told me day one when he started, he wanted to go work with athletes. Well, he's put in two years with us, and what have we done to build athletes?

Is that, writing on the wall that Brandon's gonna leave? I know him well enough. Probably not. Mhmm. But am I failing him by not helping him get to his dreams and his goals?

Absolutely.

Steve: Right.

Ryan: So Press Capital became a very, very top mind opportunity for him and myself. Yeah. So we started building. I think asking the right questions allows me also understand the right people and what they need to do. And then we also did the predictive index, went through went through that with you, was able to get people with the right personalities doing the right stuff.

Steve: Yeah. And then let's say future ventures. Right? So, like, now you know what they want, but how do you set the expectations? Like, here's what you're responsible for.

Here's what I'm responsible for.

Ryan: I maybe I'm an asshole. I don't know. I just have nonnegotiables now. Like, I'm not willing to go put in too much time, effort, energy, or money into something that I don't want to do or something that I don't see the upside in. Mhmm.

It's not that I don't care about the people. It's just that at this point in time, I've helped a number of people that have also just got up and left, and I am a little jaded now. I would rather just go and do what I know is gonna get me into the vision that I want. And those that are around me that believe in it as well, I'll see you guys at the promised land.

Steve: Yeah. Well, that's kinda the same thing too. Right? So, like, I am a hypocrite when it comes to partnerships. Right?

But when I do bring in a partner, it's like, I'll be very clear here.

Ryan: This is what to expect.

Steve: You're driving this.

Ryan: Correct. Operators.

Steve: Yeah. Yep. If I have to drive this, I am not interested

Ryan: In partnership.

Steve: In this partnership. Right? So everything that had that we do, someone else has to be the driver. Sure. And it's very clear, on that.

So, again, so the biggest lessons with the partnerships then is have the right people And expectations. Expectations. And the right people a good mix of that has to do with their, how they behave.

Ryan: I would actually say 90% of it is how they behave. I would rather have somebody that doesn't have all the qualifications, but is a better human because that's somebody I'm looking to build with long term. At the end of the day, I don't expect anybody to be perfect. I'm far from perfect myself. Mhmm.

But if I can build something alongside you for the next five, ten, fifteen years, let's rock and roll.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So expectations with the right people, right people being that have what you guys are aligned in with mission, align, and you you're they have the right behaviors

Ryan: Mhmm.

Steve: In general. Okay. So, so those are the biggest mistakes that we can come up with. Yep. What what's happening now?

Like, that was last year. Yeah. But what is 2023 bringing?

Ryan: 2023. We've picked back up on deals. I mean, look at the whole moral here. We stayed true to what we were doing. We doubled down on the MLS.

We did open another market, so we opened up Florida. Florida's been great to us. But MLS and agent outreach, I am not direct to seller at all. Fix and flips. I am fix and flipping again, but we're doing it with a partnership with another company where we had a similar arrangement that we did in the past.

But this company is going in, and they're knocking out flips in four to six weeks.

Steve: There. So They already have a track record.

Ryan: They own the construction company. They know how to operate 10 to 15 flips at a time, and they understand time is money. So in this time around, flips were also very particular. I'm not going in and taking down any fire burn, any gut jobs, anything like tear down. We are cosmetic lipstick remodel.

Let's get in, get out, move on. Because also as we all learned, the market is not guaranteed. Mhmm. So we got, kinda kicked in the ass on that one, but now we've got it turned back around on flips. Still doing wholesale Arizona and Florida.

We opened up generational assets so we are creating basically what Agent Investors was but for multiple courses and communities out there so we're trying to create financial literacy platform for newer agents, newer investors, and also for the youth. We opened up Press Capital Group where we're helping athletes learn how to create financial freedom. That led to a show that's now gonna be formed where you're helping us build this out postgame. Mhmm. Postgame is gonna be the show where we ask athletes what's the plan after you're done.

I mean, it's all great. You're making a lot of money. But when that goes away, then what? The goal isn't to teach them just real estate. The goal is to teach them all different things from business to life to personal development to obviously real estate kinda be in the forefront.

Mhmm. And then agent investors. Agent investors passed over 500 people. We launched that April 1. I don't know if that was, like, a weird, in a way, saving grace too, but we launched as the market was booming.

So everyone wanted to learn MLS. Everyone wanted to learn agent outreach. And then as the market shifted, everyone's running around like a chicken with its head cut off. So they're looking for new opportunities. So agent investors kinda took off, went from I mean, we just passed over 500 recently, but we got 400 people from April 1 to December.

Steve: Wow.

Ryan: So that was insane. That's been a lot of time, effort, energy, and, I pour everything I have into that community. So bunch of stuff.

Steve: Agent investors, new show.

Ryan: Generational assets, doing deals, flipping is back. Yeah. We gotta hit a bunch of stuff.

Steve: Yeah. The post game, kinda mentioned that, and I think that's I think that's a great title.

Ryan: Right? So Brandon came up with that one.

Steve: Alright. So shout out to Brandon.

Ryan: Shout out to Brandon.

Steve: So talk to me about, like, that should already be a thing.

Ryan: It should, and it's not. I mean, financial literacy should be a thing.

Steve: True.

Ryan: Right? I mean, I don't know. It's tough because I am very excited about it. Obviously, we're all biased. We are very excited about the show.

Huge shout out to Brandon, and then we've got Jamil Jamil Douglas, a former NFL veteran that played in the league. We have a great crew behind this. So what our goal is is really to not just be transparent and get a bunch of athletes. It's to have fun with it. I think that the fact that there is no show here, there's a lot of opportunity in a million different ways possible.

I'm sure there's been business ventures. There's gonna be masterminds. There's gonna be private lending. There might be a fund. There might be us partnering up and buying a bunch of deals together.

Who knows? So

Steve: Well, because, you know, you look at, like, Draymond Green. He's got a podcast. Yep. Doing really well with it. Yep.

Paul George. I mean, I don't know how he spends as much time creating as much content as he does, but he is. Right? So, like, you see it in the NBA, but you don't really see it so much in the NFL. Am I am I missing anything?

Ryan: I I don't know. I mean, I think that there's a number of guys in the NFL that end up on podcasts and stuff, and they're all well connected with the others that do have shows. Mhmm. But what we found is that a lot of the shows that are done by athletes, they're kind of on Zoom. They're not, like, professionally recorded.

They're not done, like, in a studio. They don't have a production team behind it. So it's more of just, like, a hobby rather than it is, like, an intention. So I think that's probably one of the biggest setbacks to why they don't take off.

Steve: So okay. So you guys can bring quality in.

Ryan: Mhmm.

Steve: Why should someone listen to that show?

Ryan: First off, I mean, if you like sports, you're gonna find a lot of joy and excitement watching some of your favorite players, listening to perspectives of guys that have been in the league, some that are still in the league, and what day to day is like. A lot of times people end up paying monthly subscriptions just to be like on a VIP list or on like a news newsletter, email letter, whatever it is. Why? Because they just wanna know what goes on behind the scenes. So I think it's gonna be really cool for perspective purposes to be able to get what an athlete grew up with, how a lot of them really just train their entire life to be a professional athlete.

Yeah. So what is lacking is the financial literacy. And And what we found is we were kind of building up Press Capital Group was that a lot of the stuff behind the scenes, they kind of throw in the financial classes and stuff Mhmm. Towards the end of the day. So after you're done working out, you're done with all the stress looking at film, reading your playbook.

Oh, by the way, here's a class on finance one zero one.

Steve: Yeah. I'm trying to think. It was like was one of those HBO specials or, like, NFL films? Right? We got Tony Dungy coming in.

Yep. Because our guys like, don't go out and party.

Ryan: Yep.

Steve: And, like, don't spend all your money. For sure. Like, at a rookie camp, I just don't see how that mess like, right after the draft, I don't see how that message really lands.

Ryan: It's tough. And I think that maybe that's where us being younger, not only more relatable, but I can ask some questions, obviously. Again, learning some sales stuff from you that if I can ask them the right questions, the goal isn't to call them out. The goal is to make them think of things differently. God forbid, leg snaps on the next play.

God forbid, you don't get that second contract. Willie.

Steve: Willis McGahee.

Ryan: Right? That sounds right.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Blue his knee in just like the

Ryan: So that kind of stuff happens. Yeah. And when that does, then what? I mean, if you don't have a backup plan, if you don't have any other income You

Steve: gotta have Lloyd's in London insurance, man. That was that really

Ryan: came through. For sure. And so what scares, I think, not just me, but the athletes in that position is that if they don't have the keys to success, the odds of failure are exponentially higher. I mean, I forget what the statistic is, but it's, after they're out of the league. Majority of them lose their money.

Majority of them end up going bankrupt.

Steve: Yeah.

Ryan: That's horrible. That's terrifying, especially because you're given lump sums of money. Let's talk about how to keep it, not how to spend it.

Steve: Yeah. So We had, Jason McAuley. Right? He played for the Cardinals. Yep.

He was on my basketball team. Him and Robert Tate, we used to play in our intramural leagues. Fun times. Right? Fun times except Charles Suggs was in our league too, and he was he was really physical.

Yep. Yep. He I mean, I remember, like, he I was boxing him out. He did a swim move, and I, like, flew, like, four feet. But I remember when McGatley, we were talking, and he was like, hey, Steve.

I'm gonna I I I have to leave our team. I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, well, I just had a call from the Redskins. I was like, you gotta pick you gotta make a decision. Right?

So Yeah. Redskins are our teams like, are you serious? Like, no. I'm not serious. Like, go have one.

Right? But it was really important to him to sign with the Redskins because that was gonna be his fourth year. Yep. And I think, if I remember correctly, it's been a while. If I do the fourth year, then I get the pension.

So it was like, I have to make it, and there's this all this pressure. You had to play four full seasons or whatever it was. And and, you know, it's been a while, so details might be murky, but maybe you didn't play the four full seasons. And it's not like four seasons. It's like four games worth four seasons worth of games.

Yeah. Right? So 64 games or whatever. If you didn't play it

Ryan: For sure. Well, I mean expansion. I get why the leagues put that in place. I also understand that the statistics typically are not Most people don't make that. They don't make that.

And that's even before that second second contract. So that means if you're on a rookie contract, I mean, yes, you're making more money than the average person. But when it's all said and done, that's not retirement. That's not enough to be able to get you through life. Yeah.

Steve: You're gonna get ten years of that guaranteed.

Ryan: Our whole goal is that as we're talking to a lot of athletes, we're finding that I get it. You want the watches. You want the chains. You want the nice clothing, bottle service, nice dinners. I would rather see assets.

Let's talk about the liabilities later, and more importantly, let's have the assets pay for the liabilities.

Steve: Yeah. So I was watching a great video from Preston, Brown. Yep. And, he was he was like, you see this car I'm driving right now? It is irresponsible.

It's a stupid amount of money. You should never spend as much money. Right? It's stupid.

Ryan: What kind of car was it?

Steve: I don't know. It was a nice exotic car. Yeah. Right? I mean, it had suicide doors.

He was like, you should never spend this much money irresponsibly unless you're just blowing from, unless you're just spending the money from all your assets. Yep. Right? You've got assets. You can do whatever you want with that money.

Ryan: Literally. It comes from that.

Steve: Yep. But don't spend your active income. Use your active income to buy assets and use the assets that spits off money. The passive income can pay for

Ryan: any kind of liability. And you can blow it on wherever

Steve: you want. It's like, I'm not even sure that's the right answer either. Well But it's better.

Ryan: So my thing that we were comparing it to was aside from, obviously, the luxury stuff and, like, any kind of, like, whatever items, we found a lot of times there's, almost like a salary or an allowance that they're giving to friends or giving to family. Well, now you're creating this awkward tension when you can't pay that, that if you can at least set the expectation that,

Steve: hey.

Ryan: I'm gonna pay you instead of $5 lump sum here, $10 lump sum here, $2 here, pay for this bill.

Steve: Yeah.

Ryan: You're gonna have a set income of $2,000 from this one property. This $2,000 from this one property, they get per month. Mhmm. At a certain point, then you can make the decision of what makes the most sense financially from selling that, refinancing, maybe lowering what their income is from that property. But the expectation isn't unknown.

The expectation isn't that you're always gonna be the provider. The expectation is that they're gonna get something from you, but they understand what it took for you to get that asset. So it's all just, again, perspective, but we're trying

Steve: to and expectations. Yeah. I think Mhmm. It's interesting because I think, like, MC Hammer is the one that everyone knows. Right?

Like, you know, 35,000,000, and it was, like, where did it all go? Like, when all I went to his entourage. Yep. I had, like, 30 plus people always with him.

Ryan: That's it. And it's expensive.

Steve: Very expensive. Very expensive. Friends.

Ryan: For real.

Steve: Yeah. Alright. So one of the other thing I mentioned earlier, like, you know, they should know this already. He said they should also know financial literacy.

Ryan: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? So, like, where is this coming from? You're a young guy. Like, you you already sound frustrated that most people don't have financial literacy. Where is this frustration coming from?

Ryan: A lot of it's internal. It's frustration at myself realizing that I feel like I'm behind. So if I'm 25 and I've had the success that I've had and I feel behind, what do other people feel like that are maybe even just making 40 k a year? Like, are you not stressed paycheck to paycheck? Are you do you legitimately love what you do?

And so I like to ask some of the questions I shouldn't ask people. Mhmm. But I also grew up in high school where they told me I wasn't gonna succeed. They told me the only option for a guy like myself because I couldn't qualify to go to college was to go to community college for first two years, then transfer over to university if I was lucky. Mhmm.

I was like taking advice from a teacher making 40 k a year. I always put the disclaimer. I love education. I love personal development. I love learning.

Mhmm. I hate hypocrite. Hypocrite. Hypocrite. Sorry.

Nothing as you see. But I hate hypocrites that are gonna tell me what I need to do when they aren't practicing it themselves. So when you're gonna tell me you're not gonna succeed because of whatever your personal belief is, I also didn't have the awareness at a young age that a lot of the stuff they were saying was internal within themselves. So they were like, hey. You're not gonna succeed unless you do this, this, and this.

And I'm like, okay. Well, your definition of success is that piece of paper. My definition of success is not giving a shit about a piece of paper. Being on a beach somewhere knowing that my my passive income is gonna cover all my my income or all my, liabilities and all my bills that I've got every single month. So I don't know.

I just feel like the education system, it's failed. I think they a lot of the stuff out there, the reason our society generation wants to make more for doing less. And, look, I get it. I do have Gen z. It's not just my last name.

I have the Gen z in me where I want to make a bunch of money while not having to work either. Mhmm. But I also understand reality. And if you are one of those crypto millionaires that can go make a billion dollars, you're not killed yet. The odds of you finding success and keeping that money are still very slim.

So I've at least found a good lane, and I think real estate's a great industry for people that are trying to go out there and make a lot of money, especially for the youth. Mhmm. But I just wish that there was still a blueprint. Look at where I'm at. I mean, that was year six last year.

This is year seven this year. Mhmm. So year six, I mean, I made probably a couple million dollars total and everything. But in year six, how many failures do we just go through? Mhmm.

I mean, that amount of failures in what I went through in year six is enough to wipe out, I don't know how many people. Like A

Steve: lot of people.

Ryan: Majority of them.

Steve: Yeah. I mean,

Ryan: we saw people that were even wildly successful wildly successful that had to change their entire business. They were selling off things that they had just hyped up and posted on social media bragging about.

Steve: Right.

Ryan: So I don't know. I mean, I think it all goes back just to perspective again. I've learned to ride the wave, and now at this point, I'm just trying to make sure that I can do my, my part, and I wanna show the younger crowd how they can do it too.

Steve: Yeah. And I think I think this financial literacy thing, it's so important. And a lot of people talk about it, and there are people trying to do it. Mhmm. But we haven't cracked the code on how to get that message out there.

Ryan: Because it's blocked with, school systems. So what I've learned is Well,

Steve: if it's tons through school, but, I mean, I don't think

Ryan: Outside of it.

Steve: Think schools even qualify to teach. Right? I mean, how could someone no disrespect to the teachers. Right? But, like, how could someone who's making $40.50 k teach someone financial literacy?

So So

Ryan: I I don't know. I guess the thing for me that was, like, almost like a one in a million, my marketing teacher, it's obviously CT. So CT is not just your traditional, education. It wasn't math, science, history, or anything like that. But he owned a grocery store.

So he was making a quarter million dollars a year. He gave that up and moved across the country to teach business. So I felt the person that was teaching me business at least had the perspective of being on the other side and how hard it was to build that up. So I think it worked in my case, but how many business teachers are out there? How many business teachers are out there that also have actually owned a business?

Steve: It's the

Ryan: same thing in college.

Steve: I don't think it's a whole lot.

Ryan: It's very slim. So I think that where the education is gonna have to come, it's after school. What I would like to do is actually compete against the educational narrative and go and be side by side with the trade school. I think the East Coast, like, of the world, they are they've got it all figured out. They're actually having people go and do the profession first.

And if you like it, then you go get the degree for it. This is like in Europe. They do this in, like, The UK. They prefer you to go and try your trade. If you like it, then you continue it.

Again, don't know the statistic, but the amount of times people change their degree in college Mhmm. You can't expect an 18 year old to know what they wanna do for the rest of their life. I mean, I'm 25, and I could barely think about what I wanna do tomorrow. Like, I 18 years old, you don't make those decisions.

Steve: So So I think, like, right now, I mean, as much as we don't care for Dave Ramsey's some of his opinions, he's really our thought leader out there. Like, he's the best He's the

Ryan: only one. He's one of the most well known, I should say. I Yeah. Definitely am on the same page. I don't agree with the whole save, save, save.

But at the same time But

Steve: you got, like, him. You got Susie Susie Orban. Right? Yeah. Something like that.

Right? Like, you got those are really only voices out there because college isn't qualify or high school doesn't qualify to teach it. And it doesn't qualify to teach it.

Ryan: So doesn't. Yeah.

Steve: It'd be nice, but, I mean, like, for us, the good thing and I'm not even saying that my parents said it the right way, but at least we talked about money. For sure. Right. At least we talked about not going the crazy credit card debt, not spending money you don't have. There was an element of financial literacy, but I also maybe, like, you know, an eighth grade level of financial literacy.

Mhmm.

Ryan: But

Steve: yeah. I mean, I would love for us all to figure out a way.

Ryan: I wanna be just another option. So even if after high school, someone that was in my shoes similar, they could come out of this and say, I want to go to generational assets. Mhmm. Great. Generational assets can actually point you in the right direction to the proper trade school.

Generational assets can point you in the right business, not even necessarily real estate. But what do you wanna do? I mean, a lot of times what I'm seeing with the younger crowd is they fall into the shiny object syndrome. It's the crypto. It's the NFTs.

It's the stock trading, whatever. I get it. But if you don't understand that all of it does take hard work and consistency, you're not gonna find success in anything. So I'd love to be a broker of information to where people can go in, and it's not gonna be me teaching everything. I find the best of the best and the most qualified to teach whatever their trade and their, their secret sauce is to the younger crowd and more importantly, make it affordable.

I think that the education system outside of just college and high school is also flawed because all the gurus charge tens of thousands of dollars Yeah. For what?

Steve: Proximity better than college.

Ryan: For sure. And I understand paying for proximity. Yeah. But I'm not paying to sing Kumbaya and not get what I paid for.

Steve: Yeah. Quality is different depending on who's teaching it.

Ryan: For sure.

Steve: You know, it's kinda crazy. Like, right now, my 10 year old watches on TikTok, YouTube shorts, my rich BFF. K. Right? And, like, that girl is, like, saying, like, intelligent stuff.

She's probably, like, 22. That's awesome. And she's just making TikToks that she's repurposing for for YouTube Shorts. And my daughter's watching. She's like, dad, do you know this?

You know that? I was like, yeah. I did. But that's pretty cool. It's cool that a 10 year old is thinking about these things.

Right? Thinking about buying assets to pay off liabilities.

Ryan: It's conversations that most 10 year olds don't have. They're worried about usually what skin they have on Fortnite or whatever at this point. So

Steve: What was it like? It's like, you know, if you get a credit card, 10 year old shouldn't be getting credit card. But if you get a credit card, make sure you have points that has the highest Right. Return so that you pay it off every month, but you get to use it for travel. What it's like it's cool having these conversations with 10 year old.

Ryan: For sure.

Steve: That's awesome. Yeah. So, before we wrap up, is there anything you wanna leave the listeners with? I mean, we talked about a lot of different things.

Ryan: For sure.

Steve: Anything you wanna leave everyone with?

Ryan: No. We're we're growing. We're here. Still here, I should say. Still here.

So we're I guess that's the message. We're still here.

Steve: Yeah.

Ryan: But, no. We're we're just building. We're keeping our heads down, trying to block out a lot of noise and just stay consistent. We're putting a lot of emphasis and focus into building the financial literacy programs and then also helping athletes. Mhmm.

So I'm sure people will be seeing us a lot pop up with all the shows and stuff we're doing with that. And then aside from that, as always, send us deals, anything and everything we could buy in Arizona, Florida. We'd love to be a buyer. And then agent investors, probably, like, the worst salesperson for it. But if people are interested in learning about what we do to get deals on the MLS and work with agents, agent investors is there for that.

Steve: Well, I mean, that's something that we're all working together doing the family tree.

Ryan: That too. Yes. Family tree. Right.

Steve: And the real family tree, like, I am actively teaching realtors how to find motivated sellers. Yes. Because that's what wholesalers do. Yep. And realtors, for some reason, don't like to do that.

Right. So we're gonna be doing that. And as we marry how to find motivated sellers and realtors, a natural end result is they might wanna join agent investors to get better at that.

Ryan: Or they end up at Family Tree if you're a licensed realtor. And that's a whole other freaking note that I cannot believe we did not touch on. Yes. The Family Tree. I gave shoutouts to Matt, but didn't even mention the Family Tree.

So Matt, Nicole, myself, Amber, you, family tree, any realtor. I mean, we would love to have them. We we just passed over all of I think in the family tree total between all of us were like a 110. So 110 people with us at the family tree. That's insane.

We launched this June. I think you shut down the brokerage.

Steve: Yeah. I shut down the brokerage. May was my shutdown broker. So fifteen months later.

Ryan: We have over a 100 people that are with us, actively closing deals, building community. We do free coaching calls for the family tree members every Tuesday. So if you guys are realtors and you're trying to find a community of people that could help you out and are like minded, this isn't just traditional real estate. I'm not giving you, the yellow pages and say, hey. Go cold call.

I'm not gonna go Go ahead

Steve: with the phones.

Ryan: Yeah. No. No. No. We're doing this 2023 style, everything virtual.

If you wanna be a realtor, we'll help you be the best realtor. If you wanna be an investor, we'll help you be the best investor.

Steve: And I think, you know, it's really key to understand, like, there's a lot of opportunity here. And then on top of that, the most important thing we talk about this in WhaleClub is don't get blown up. Right? Don't blow yourself up. Don't overleverage yourself.

Don't put yourself in position where you can get knocked out. Like, if you look at the companies that have been around for a really long time, what are they really good at? Still being around. For sure. Right?

They know how to make money. They know business. They understand money. But they're not over leveraged. Rule number one, you can never have a situation where the game is over.

You gotta be able to keep playing. If you if you risk it all over leverage and get knocked out It's a lot harder to get back up. That sucks. Yeah. Cool.

If someone wants to get ahold of you, best way to do that.

Ryan: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, whatever. It's just all the same username. It's Ryan Zolin, r y a n z o l I n. Yeah. Really simple.

It was that easy.

Steve: Oh. Thank you.

Ryan: Thanks, Steve. Appreciate you.

Steve: Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you guys later. Steve train. Jump on the Steve train. We real estate disrupt us.