Brent Daniels: The the biggest issue that we run into is from the time we're zero to 12, that's how that's what sets our financial thermostat. In my life during that time, my dad adopted me when I was two, and my dad moved us when we were I was nine to Australia, and then we moved in in junior high to get another, bump up. And so just leveling up. During during those prime time years, it was kind of like lower income, lower middle class. That sets certain things in your brain.
When I got out of college and I made a $100,000, I was like, oh, my gosh. That is a lot. It took my dad so many years to make all this, and we just didn't talk about money. We didn't talk about being an entrepreneur. We didn't talk about sales.
We didn't talk about these things. And so I think it took me a while to be around people that their financial thermostats were either forced or raised really high to be able to understand, okay, wait a second. I need to buy asset. I need to be putting the money into these things that are gonna pay me for a long period of time and think longer term and not just be so hand to mouth with it. Because you you get to that that upper limit of your financial thermostat, and you feel like, I don't deserve it.
I'm gonna go hire people. I'm gonna go spend money on this marketing channel. And I think that's the problem that real estate entrepreneurs have, and it crushes them.
Steve Trang: Everybody, welcome to today's episode of disruptors. Here we have Brent Daniels with talktopeople.com back again. If you don't know Brent, obviously, a major major player in the Phoenix market. And today we're talking about what real estate investors get wrong and how it's costing them, everything. Guys, 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, you will take consistent action. You will become one. And guys and guys, if you get values out out of guys, if you get value out of today's show, please hit that subscribe button. That way we can help more people.
Sorry if I sound kinda crazy. I got crazy man over here.
Brent: That's right. Brent. Throwing you off.
Steve: One of my favorite people. Yeah. So you ready?
Brent: I'm ready.
Steve: Alright. So, you and I were at an event not too long ago. Oh, by the way, we're redoing this because my server got hacked. Yeah. Right?
Brent: Bummer, man. Yeah.
Steve: I know. I tried to pay the hackers, but their Bitcoin wallet was invalid. Completely in What
Brent: a shocker.
Steve: Actually, it's not a shocker. But yeah. So, anyway, we were talking, and there were all these, things you were talking about as far as, making healthy investments, philosophy inbound versus outbound. But I wanted to talk to you. You know, just jump right into it.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: What real estate investors are getting wrong.
Brent: Yeah. Well, most real estate investors when they're starting out buy bad deals. Mhmm. Right?
Steve: Right.
Brent: I mean, that's the first thing. I see so many people buying in these lower income areas to get the cash flow, but the the cash flow versus the repair cost and vacancy cost and turnover cost of those properties is bananas. Yeah. It that that that to me is the biggest quicksand in real estate investing is those low income housing for the extra cash flow. You gotta buy them cash.
You you gotta buy them their $40.50, $60,000 in economies that are going down every single year. There's no appreciation. And so I think people buy a lot of bad deals in that sense. I think people buy a lot of bad deals in the sense of just because I can, I should? Mhmm.
And and that's usually when you see creative deals, when people are either taking over deals sub two or they're doing a creative finance, and they're able to do the deal, but it's in areas that aren't desirable. It's not in the areas that, have good school districts. It's not in the areas that are gonna appreciate really well. It's not gonna be in the areas that the tenants take really good care of this. And so you just see people just getting absolutely swallowed up by these portfolios that they wanna build, and they're able to say that they have all these doors, whether it be 10 or 15 or 50 doors, but it's killing their lifestyle.
It's wrecking their business because the attention that they put on their portfolio is bananas. Mhmm. Or even worse, they go and get a property manager to take care of all of these headaches, and the property manager doesn't care. They they'll they'll they'll find somebody else to to, give them portfolio to manage. So they're they're kind of doing an okay job keeping these properties, filled up, but the conditions are getting really rough, and the and the cash flow just gets totally eaten up.
Steve: One of the things I've seen, investors do wrong. Right? Like, I get into wholesaling. I start doing deals. Mhmm.
And I'm doing deals. I start buying properties.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Right? You hear you hear, the older guys in the business. What's your biggest regret? Not or is selling all those properties. Right.
Brent: That's
Steve: what they say is their biggest regret.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: But we also see on the
Brent: flip side the super wealthy guys that made all their money from flipping houses.
Steve: Yes. Those guys.
Brent: I mean, look at it, though. They're they're still rich. Yes. They probably still have investments. They're probably still buying assets.
Should should they have cherry of course. You and I both know we've sold properties that we should have kept for a long time. Maybe. Right. Maybe not.
Maybe it would have ruined our our our current business. Maybe it would have, you know, poured molasses on, you know, the the all of the systems and and Well, that's where I'm going with this. Right?
Steve: So, like, let's say, you know, there you hear one mantra. It's like, you know, keep every third, keep every fourth, keep every sixth, whatever it is.
Brent: Sure.
Steve: Right? There's all these different variety depending maybe on where you where you live in the country.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: But, like, if I keep every fifth property, what you're suggesting is potentially I start buying rentals that don't work out
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: The way it's supposed to work out.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: And now it's a distraction from my active income.
Brent: Yeah. You're talking about that? And it keeps you in your business longer. You know? If if our if our plan is to move from self employed to business owner to investor, right, in the whole cash flow quadrant Rich Dad, which, we can get into a little bit.
But, if if we're in there, how are we supposed to replace ourself if our attention's going towards being an investor? I think you make the move to business owner. You pull yourself out of the day to day, and then you cherry pick the best deals because you can put your attention on that. Take a
Steve: step back. Yeah. Cash flow quadrant.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Right? So what are the four?
Brent: Employee, self employed, business owner, investor. That's how how does you how do you get income into your household? Right. Those are the four ways.
Steve: Employee, you work for somebody.
Brent: Yep. Pretty simple. W two.
Steve: Right. Self employed.
Brent: Ten ninety nine.
Steve: Right. So you're working on your own or you're working as a salesperson for somebody else? So what what are we how do we how do we define
Brent: In real estate, typically, we're salespeople.
Steve: Right.
Brent: I mean, that's that that's the skill that we build. It's our effective communication with property owners, define great opportunities, and then turn those opportunities into income. Right? Whether that's flipping, whether that is, assigning Mhmm. Or novations or whatever else.
Steve: But you get it. And then business owner Yeah. Is you have people working for you. Yeah. Right?
And investor is when you're out of out of it completely to be in the business owner
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Steve: Or maybe just a different business altogether where you're not actively involved. Right. Right.
Brent: Yep.
Steve: Okay. So you're saying that if we're buying rental properties as a business owner
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: For to become, you know, an investor, we're potentially pouring molasses on the business.
Brent: Yeah. If we're self employed and buying rental properties, it's gonna take us longer to get out of our business for sure.
Steve: Right.
Brent: For sure.
Steve: So can you talk about some of the places I mean, you've coached how many people in your program?
Brent: One on one over 3,500.
Steve: 3,500.
Brent: Yeah. I mean, it's been seven years, Steve. I started in 2017, and, but we started the business in 2004. Right? And when when did you jump in?
02/2007. O seven. Right. Perfect. Yeah.
Great time.
Steve: Great time.
Brent: So I got my license in o four, really got going as a as an agent, and then a broke owned a brokerage and and did all that, and then was, raising funds to buy properties at the foreclosure auctions because that was the best place to get deals
Steve: We're the best.
Brent: And flip those properties. And that was a good time until the hedge funds figured that out and and then became an agent again and then figured out what wholesaling was, what assigning deals was, or replacing myself in a purchase agreement was. And then from there, I talked to 45,000 property owners, right, just banging phones for five years, Steve, of of nine to noon making calls. And it started out with canceled expired listings. Or sale by owners.
Steve: Mike Ferry school.
Brent: Mike Ferry school of, go get out there and earn it. Right?
Steve: Punch in the face as much as you can as fast as possible.
Brent: Get as much rejection as possible. Build up your skills of human communication. Learn how to, like, get into a conversation and make people feel comfortable, like, instantly. Mhmm. And so it took a while to build that up, build those skills up, and door knocked 15,000 doors.
I mean, really was in the hustle season for a while. Yeah. And, and then was able to start hiring really great talent. And it took me a while to find the right talent. And and now I'm out of the out of the day to day, and now I can look at, being an investor.
Steve: Right. And coaching a lot along the way. Mhmm. Right? How many of your coaching students did you see?
Alright. I'm doing deals now. It's time to buy properties.
Brent: Yeah. I tell them, listen. You can't buy a rental property unless you have 300,000 after tax in an account. Mhmm.
Steve: You tell them that now. Yeah. But that you didn't start They
Brent: don't listen to that, by
Steve: the way. That way.
Brent: Well, listen. Everybody's goal is, be is to grow their wealth, grow their net worth, have enough passive income to be able to cover all the expenses. Right? That that is the goal. When I do one on one welcome calls with all the students over the last seven years, it is what what is your big goal?
My big goal is I wanna own a bunch of property, and I want that property to be able to pay for my lifestyle, and I wanna be out of the rat race. That's it. I wanna be out of it. I wanna be out of the day to day worrying about money. I've got other things to worry about.
That one, I want off the off the checklist. Right? And so great. How are you gonna get there? You know what I mean?
How are you gonna have enough funds to buy enough of these opportunities? Are you gonna raise funds? Are you gonna are you gonna buy these yourself? Are you gonna partner with people and go and do it a little bit at a time, or do you wanna go faster with this? I wanna go faster with this.
Great. Don't buy any rental properties for the next two years. Yeah.
Steve: What do you hear there?
Brent: Yeah. That totally makes sense.
Steve: Mhmm. And then but you say they don't all listen?
Brent: No. So what do
Steve: they tell you when you say that?
Brent: They say, yeah. Then I I this is what I say. I say build build your cash machine first. Mhmm. Whether that's assigning or flipping, depends on where you're at in the country.
Mhmm. Would depends on if you have a real estate license or if you wanna get one. If you don't wanna get one, great. Flip properties. If you do if if you if you do get one in states that need a license to assign deals, then just assign deals.
Mhmm. But build up your build up this cash machine to add to your income side of things so that you can, one, destroy all the the bad debts you have. Right? The credit card, the student loans, the car loans, all that stuff that is just, you know, liabilities. Get rid of all of that stuff Mhmm.
And, and then start buying assets. You know? But but build it up first. And, listen, everybody has their own plan. All I'm telling you is I see people really successful wholesalers and flippers destroy their business as soon as they start adding to the rental portfolio.
Steve: So let's talk about that. You have some anonymous, of course. Right? But do you have case studies where you've seen, like, someone that was killing as wholesale Yeah. Crushed it crushed their business as a result.
Brent: Well, I see a lot of a lot of wholesalers destroy their business with flips. Yeah. That's the that is the Achilles heel of us out there running and gunning, finding opportunities is then, oh, oh, look at this. If we flip this one, we can make a $100.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: But if we assign it, we can only make 40. And then you go and you flip that house and you make 45,000. It takes you six months. You went out and you were at Home Depot picking out, colors that is non income producing as opposed to being in front of property owners, having good quality conversations, and and doing what's actually income producing. If people understand that that having conversations and making offers to property owners is the highest and best use of your time.
When you're self employed, they win. They win every time. It's a numbers game. I will 100% guarantee. I don't know which camera to look at.
There's so many great cameras
Steve: in there. All great.
Brent: A 100% of the time, if if you have enough conversations, make enough offers, you will win.
Steve: Alright. So you've seen wholesalers really go off the, off the path flipping. But going back to rentals then, like Mhmm. What what situations have you seen where, like, someone's buying rentals and then they just their business
Speaker 3: just went to a dumpster?
Brent: There is, like, early on '17 through, like, '20, it was like, oh, I'm gonna go buy this turnkey rental property. Mhmm. I give them 60,000. They start sending me checks, and and it was a scam. I mean, people were buying properties that weren't real properties.
It's literally like a Ponzi scheme.
Steve: Oh, really?
Brent: Oh, yeah. They were just they were just raising more funds to send more rental checks to people. I mean, big people in our industry were were, like, picked off by this. I mean, they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But then even even worse, yeah, even worse were the people that actually bought the turnkey rentals Mhmm.
And bought a bunch of them. And then all of a sudden, they realized that the properties are getting destroyed. They're not worth what they they, bought them for. They they got these properties that were totally renovated with a renter in it. A year later, the renter's out of it, and the property's destroyed.
And now the now they have to sell to me or somebody else like me for a cash as is offer because they don't wanna put money into they don't have money to put into these properties. So So turnkey rentals and also buying in areas that don't have strong economies.
Steve: So a few weeks ago, we had, Sharon Lechter here. Yeah. Awesome. Author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. And Rich Dad Poor Dad is the reason why I'm in real estate.
Me too. And there was this, like, beautiful dream of if you just buy properties Yeah. It's mailbox money. Yeah. Right?
Yeah. It's a beautiful dream.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Not quite reality. And so you're telling me if I buy a 20 cap in Indianapolis, it's not a 20
Brent: cap. Yeah. I I mean, I would have to look at this specific deal, but I would say over overall, I would say
Steve: for my 20 cap. I would
Brent: say that it's bogus. Yeah. I would say that you're wasting your time. I would say you need to buy in areas that appreciate. You gotta buy in areas where they're building new jobs.
Mhmm. 14%, Steve. 14% of this beautiful, country of ours is populated. 14%. Mhmm.
Okay? There's a reason for that. It's called infrastructure. Yeah. It's called economy.
It's called lifestyle. Right? It's called climate. It's all these things. Why wouldn't you wanna buy assets in areas where people wanna live long term?
Mhmm. You know what I mean? And so, there's a lot of opportunities to buy the the trap houses and the and and and whatever. I don't even know what a trap house is. I just hear that term and out.
Yeah. How'd that go?
Steve: Well, we'll see. Yeah. We closed on this is Garfield Historic.
Brent: Okay.
Steve: I closed on it three weeks ago.
Brent: Oh, well, that's a good area, though.
Steve: Right. So we're into it for like, we bought it for $2.50. Yeah. And
Brent: What is a trap house? I don't understand.
Steve: Like, I My understanding right? I mean, just lead blindly leading the blind here. Right? My understanding is where you go. Yeah.
Drugs are cooked
Brent: Okay.
Steve: Prepared.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: You guys just hang out.
Brent: Yeah. You
Steve: just do drugs. Oh. Right? And so the house that we just bought, when we're walking, I was walking around with pottery. Right?
Because pottery's my realtor on this one. Yeah. We're walking around. I was like, why
Brent: bass, by the way.
Steve: Pottery's incredible. Why are there eight inch holes from the inside to the outside in three different places at this house.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Right? So we're just kinda looking at it. This is weird. And Matt's like, oh, I got it. This is how they sell drugs.
Brent: Got it. Well, you just stick your arm through a room?
Steve: Hey. Money comes in drunk.
Brent: I don't know who yeah. Right?
Steve: Because they
Brent: can't get a picture of your face, I guess.
Steve: Like, the the the when we're walking it as a final walk through, like, why is this door here with a bike chain
Brent: on it?
Steve: Like, this just seems like an odd thing to have a bike chain for your kitchen pantry. It's like, oh, this is how they secured the materials. Yeah. Yeah. Got it.
Right? Yeah. So, anyway
Brent: But you're gonna flip it?
Steve: Nah. I just hotel that thing. I got an offer for $3.00 5. So, I mean, clear 50, not a lot of work.
Brent: So you flipped it?
Steve: Flipped it. Yes. Yeah. Flipped it with 0. The the you know what I did to upgrade the property?
Brent: Nothing.
Steve: I put four cameras in there Yeah. That automatically connect to the Internet Yeah. And they are battery operated.
Brent: Yeah. But I think you know? And and I've been reframing wholesaling because, you know, it gets a it's it gets a bad ramp. I get it. Some big time people call it, bottom feeders.
We're bottom feeders by doing that. Big time
Steve: is going to bottom feeders.
Brent: Pretty much anybody at bigger pockets. You know?
Steve: You know what's funny?
Brent: And and other people. I I mean, I think people that own a bunch of rentals think that way. I think people that do the flips think that way. You know what I mean?
Steve: They're both,
Brent: they're bigger than us. Exactly. They they don't wanna get into the nitty gritty. They don't wanna sit in a in a living room that has, you know, feces and or
Steve: You gotta shower.
Brent: Million. Literally, I did the calculations because I had a conversation. I was just curious. I'm just naturally curious. And I was talking to the seller, and, I was like, so and the cigarette was lit inside.
And I said, well, how many how many cigarettes do you enjoy a day? And they said, well, I don't know. A pack and a half, two packs. And I go, how many are in a pack? He goes, 20.
She says 20. And I said, so, like, 30 a day? And I go, yeah. And I go, how long have you owned this property? It was, like, twenty four years.
I go, so you certainly smoke 30. I said, is that the spot that you like smoking? Is that, like, your spot? And she's like, oh, yeah. I know I shouldn't smoke indoors, but, you know, it was like a million cigarettes.
Literally, a million cigarettes smoked inside this house. So I get it. If that's bottom feeding, great. Yeah. But we make the most money.
Steve: The one of my best deals
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Was there's a lot of smoking in the house. Yeah. I foolishly thought, you know, one coat of paint and one, whatever you call where they clean the AC ducts
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Would be enough. No. It was not enough. No. We had to have a second coat of paint and a second set of cleaning.
Brent: Oh, yeah.
Steve: And even then, freaking air fresheners Mhmm. All over, like, the plug in.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: All of our house. Anyway, so going back to this, we're talking about, oh, you know, based off what you're just saying right here, you're talking about something people are looking at as bottom feeders. Yep. I like Chris Iman's event last night. Right?
Yeah. Chris Iman had this event with the real estate commissioner there.
Brent: Awesome. And it
Steve: was it was a great event. It was funny to me that Chris Iman wasn't there because it was his event. Yeah. So I'm just hanging out with Jack.
Brent: Yeah. Sure.
Steve: But, I was fascinated by the real estate commissioner because the question obviously is what's going on in the regulation in Phoenix. Yeah. Right? And she is surprisingly very wholesale friendly. Yeah.
She knows what wholesaling is. Mhmm. And she's all for it. Yeah. And her basically, her advice was, don't screw it up Mhmm.
For your fellow wholesalers. Right? Yeah. So she says, I don't care about equitable interest. The equitable interest, you mark it on MLS, whatever.
Mhmm. Don't care. Surprised by this sort of commissioner.
Brent: Sure.
Steve: Right? Because, like, she has to report to the or the realtors, you know Yeah. Report to her. Yeah. Right?
So she's like, I don't care about that.
Brent: You mean the realtors complain to her?
Steve: They definitely complained. Yeah. But she has to regulate them.
Brent: Yeah. For sure.
Steve: And so she doesn't care at all about our our industry. She's like, it's it's it's needed in our, market Yeah. Which is very really refreshing here.
Brent: Awesome.
Steve: Right? What she did say was, I don't care and and she's okay with memorandums.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: What she doesn't like is you can't perform and you won't release the memorandum.
Brent: That's a scam. That's a scam. Right?
Steve: So she's opposed to that. She just says, if you know friends that are doing it, slap them. Yep. That was where her answer was. And then she also the other thing was, not performing.
If you can't perform and you're on a contract, that's not her she said, basically, that's not my area. That's the attorney general. Mhmm. That's that's technically fraud. Right.
Going to contract under false pretenses.
Brent: Yep.
Steve: Which is, you know, a lot of people, our peers, teach it this way. But the third thing, which was surprising, is she does not care at all for sub two. She does not like sub two. Mhmm.
Brent: That
Steve: was the one thing I was surprised. Like, how I was surprised at how cool she was with wholesaling
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: But how opposed she was to sub two.
Speaker: I'm filming this video for the man himself, mister Ian Ross. The guy crush is is the guy's the best person in sales I've ever seen. I've invested elsewhere, and it haven't got the same results. I've gone from being a set up, making 5 k a month, to being a hybrid role, making 11 k a month, to now be four months down the line from 5 k to on a closing opportunity, inbound, full calendar with the best opportunity, the best offer in my space. OTE is around 20 k a month from month two.
So I've gone from 5 k to 20 k. If that's not a return on your investment, I don't know what it is, man.
Brent: If you're
Speaker: a salesperson and you don't invest in sales training, you're gonna get left behind because your job is to be better at sales, and sales training directly makes you more money.
Speaker: My name is Lance Buchanan. I have recently switched in sessions with Ian Ross. Those conversations with Ian has made me $50,000 in the past two deals that I've had. I was able to renegotiate, go back and renegotiate the original purchase price on one deal, and I'd say $40,000 and I got another $10,000 off by the deals. Call me in, give me a chance,
Steve: you won't be ready. If you like what you just heard and you'd like to have similar types of results, similar success, text close, c l o s e, to 33777, and we'll see if you qualify to join Advanced Sales Mastery. We are taking people from good to great. Yeah.
Brent: Yeah. That's I mean, I think they had picked their battles. You know what I mean? There's so much going on and so many transactions.
Steve: Well, she comes from a family real estate investors. Oh, awesome. Right? So they're like Yeah. So she was like
Brent: So she knows.
Steve: She's like, I don't know why you guys are picking me to be the commissioner because, like, I'm probably, like, the last the worst person you want in the seat, but I'll take it. Yeah. So Yeah. That's what we have.
Brent: But I I I was reframing my thought on wholesaling because I think as a real estate entrepreneur, real estate investor, whatever it is, there's there's three big skills that you have to get really good at to to keep leveling up in the game. First one, find deals. Easy. Right? Mhmm.
Find deals. Have the ability to have a nice pipeline of deals. Whatever that is. If you wanna buy in the MLS, you wanna buy at the auction, you wanna buy from wholesalers, you wanna go direct to the homeowner, whatever it is. You wanna talk and build a great relationship with agents that send you deals.
Great. Find deals.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: Number two, raise funds.
Steve: You got a source property.
Brent: You got a source deals. Yeah. Number two, raise funds.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: That's it. Right? The ability to raise funds, the ability to make sure that the people that you raise funds with get a nice return, and you've got a good healthy relationship. That is a huge skill. Mhmm.
And the third one is property management. Right? So those are the three main, skills that I see as a real estate investor.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: That that second one of raising funds, who raises more funds than wholesalers? We get a 100% Mhmm. Of the purchase price covered, and we get paid for it
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: Upfront. Mhmm. We get our share upfront. Right. You know what I mean?
It's a interesting perspective because it's like, it forces you to get real deals. Yeah. It forces you. That I I mean and so, it's not raising funds in a traditional sense of, like, we're gonna you you do all this and we're splitting capital.
Steve: Sorry. You're sourcing deals and you're sourcing capital. Yeah. Alright. How when I get a deal, how do I operate within this deal?
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. And then and then after you're out of the deal, you don't have the responsibility of making sure that this investor gets, a return. Mhmm. I don't know what that investor wants to do.
They might wanna live in this property. They might want to hold it in their portfolio. They want might wanna flip it. They might wanna turn it into a short term rental.
Steve: You know, we do, you know, we have our sales training program, and one of the calls we have twice a month is dispo. Yeah. And surprisingly so, like, acquisitions, it's just straight sales.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: It's all sales. Dispo, where I find the most work is mindset.
Brent: Oh, yeah.
Steve: They have a hard time moving a deal at whatever, you know, the business owner says, hey. Move this deal at this price. Because they have their own belief on what that property is worth. Yeah. And I I want I wanna say I spend, like, a third of the time on my calls, like, stop putting your value on it.
Mhmm. Has nothing to do with your opinion of value. What do you say who determines the price?
Brent: Buyer. Every time.
Steve: Buyer determines every time.
Brent: Right? Every time. Whether it's this table, this book, this microphone, these cameras, the a house, a a a a cyber truck, whatever.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: If people aren't willing to pay the price, they don't sell. Exactly.
Steve: And so the and the example I've used, right, because, you know, in my lowest times, I was I was a realtor. You know? Me too.
Brent: It's gonna be okay.
Steve: It's gonna be alright.
Brent: It's gonna be okay. Right.
Steve: So go to therapy for that. So I, I would show houses to, you know, young couples. And they're like, I wanna live with I want a three two in Tempe for under 150,000. This is the time when you can get a three two for under 115 Tempe. Right?
And I show it to him, and I look at it. This property is trash.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? Based off my standards.
Brent: Oh,
Steve: yeah. Right? This property is terrible.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: I don't say it, but I kinda make the face. Right? And, like, are you sure this is the one you want? And I'm imposing my Yeah. Lease.
Brent: Yeah. Your opinion.
Steve: Right? Yep. Which has no place here. Right. No place.
Yeah. And, like, I had to it I had to lose a few deals to realize, right, like, this is better than living in a dorm room. Yeah. This is better than living in an apartment. Right?
Because they can't have their pets.
Brent: Sure.
Steve: This is better than living with mom and dad.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? So with these dispo guys, they have a hard time getting the most amount of money because they're underwriting it based off their parameters. But like you said, we don't know the guy that's been buy is a buy and hold. We don't know. Maybe there's a guy that, like, just really loves this neighborhood, and he'll pay the most for this neighborhood.
Yep. We can't impose our our our beliefs on somebody else.
Brent: Well, there's a hierarchy of cash buyers that we sell to. There's a hierarchy of of, investors. You know? At the very bottom, you're gonna make the least selling to another wholesaler. Right?
And then I have
Steve: to call Brent Daniels about my deal. I'm not making a lot of money.
Brent: That's right. And and then, flippers. Right? And then you get into, you know, some people that will the hedge funds used to be fantastic. Right?
But not not as much. But the but you got buy and hold guys. You got the BRRRR guys. You got short term rentals. You've got people that wanna use them as second homes and then people that wanna live in them.
So there's there is, you know,
Steve: Don't forget the pass split guys.
Brent: The what? The
Steve: pass split, guys. Those guys will pay the most.
Brent: The oh, yeah. That's well, listen. I mean, if you could figure out how to rent out rooms and make that something that you don't have to put your I I mean, I don't know. People like action. People like a lot of action.
So if you like a lot of action, do pad split. Yeah. You know what I mean? But, yeah, I think listen. You know?
At at its core, I think that if you build a machine that will run without you and then be able to see all of the, market changes and adjustments and and watch what's going on with the deals that you sell, Mhmm. You can see who the best investors are that are keeping these properties, and then you can build a relationship with them. And they can literally take you under their wing and say, this is how I evaluate a deal in this market, in this ZIP code, in this school district.
Steve: Right.
Brent: And that is that's that's the knowledge that you want. Absolutely. That's what you really need. And if you're just like, oh, I'm gonna go buy that house in Alabama because it's a good deal. Mhmm.
It's a it it's fifty fifty. I mean, you might win, you might lose. But I don't wanna play that game. I wanna play the 90%, 95% that I'm gonna win.
Steve: And you mentioned the third one was,
Brent: Property management. Mhmm.
Steve: So talk about that.
Brent: Yeah. So, I mean, at the listen. Buying assets and long term, you have to be really good at managing properties. You know, you look at somebody like Ken McElroy or some of these other guys that have these big portfolios and able to really raise funds is because they can manage them. Mhmm.
If you have a terrible property manager and you try to buy an apartment complex, you better just, like, burn your money. You know what I mean? It's not gonna happen. It's just not gonna it's not gonna work out for you. So that skill is huge if you're gonna if you're gonna get the red hotel, so to speak.
You know what I mean? If you're gonna get that big, you know, signature property at the end of this, which I think is the smart move, that's that's you you you need to have somebody that knows property management, and you should know it too. That should be the next thing that you really understand is some because if you're like, I know nothing about property management, but this person's a good referral, and they're gonna be great, and they're gonna be able to take care of all this. You don't know if if they're overwhelmed. You don't know if they're really the person.
You don't know if they're they're at their peak of of efficiency, and you're gonna push them over the top, and it's gonna ruin their life. Like, you gotta be able to really understand the process of property management and getting really good tenants for a really long time because turnover will kill you. Vacancy will kill you. Repairs will kill you.
Steve: Yeah. And
Brent: that's what a good property management will put the right people in your property.
Steve: What I've seen, with some of these apartment owners dealing with a bad property manager reminds me of the scene of the dark night where the jokers is lighting money on fire for no reason.
Brent: Yeah. In that big warehouse.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: He's like, this is my half of money. I'm gonna pour some gasoline on and slide down and throw this cigar on it. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. That's kinda what it's like. So, you know, you mentioned earlier, the importance of cash flow or appreciation over cash flow. So, like, we did part in the disruption a few years.
Oh, I guess we stopped in earlier this year, We did it for
Brent: a
Steve: couple years. Yeah. And one of the arguments I made is, like, you don't buy apartments for cash flow. Right? You buy them for the
Brent: forced depreciation.
Steve: Yes. And you're kinda saying the same thing here. It's like, don't buy for cash flow, not initially. Mm-mm. Right?
Buy it because it's gonna appreciate the most. Yeah. And then eventually, you can live off the cash flow.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: But initially, buy strategically for appreciation versus cash flow.
Brent: Yeah. And find markets that you can appreciate at least 6%. Mhmm. Five to 6% a year.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: You know what I mean? And you're not gonna get that in areas where the economy is drying up in those in those, areas because everything goes down at that point. People move out. People don't pay property taxes, then everything, you know, kinda goes to shambles.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: And so, listen. I I think that there should be investors in low income housing. I think that there should be people that are providing that for sure. But I think that, you know, it's, I don't know. I think that it's one of those that you have to really buy those right.
Mhmm. Like, really, really, really discounted.
Steve: Well You
Brent: know what I mean? You gotta really build in a huge buffer of equity in that, to be able to do that long term.
Steve: That's one way to do it. But we have, you know, we have Mike Fitzgerald on the show. Chris Jefferson has been on here before. Like, they figure out a way to get government subsidies.
Brent: Well, sure.
Steve: Right.
Brent: That's another thing.
Steve: So, like Yeah. Go build where the city wants you to build Yeah. And they'll supplement it. So I was a commissioner. I don't know if you know this.
I was a commissioner for the, health and human services at city of Chandler. Alright. I did it for a year. Right? Like, let's give back to the community.
Sure. Let's volunteer our time. Yeah. Never doing that again.
Brent: Right.
Steve: Right?
Brent: Yeah. I've
Steve: been part of that was
Brent: I was on the silent witness.
Steve: What's that?
Brent: I was in the silent witness, group Yeah. Where, you know, people send in, like, tips on, you know, people that did crime. Yeah. You know? Crime.
I I'm so, like, bubbled. Right? You know what I mean? But, like, I it was, yeah. It's it's a lot.
Steve: You don't see the best. Right? But in doing that, you could see, like, oh, the city has this much money, this amount of money to dedicate towards this particular project. Right. So, like, for us, we can invest where cash on cash makes sense.
Another avenue, if you wanna invest in those areas, is you can find a way for the government Yep. To subsidize your bill. Yep. Okay.
Brent: Which I think that that that's smart. They inspect it. They make sure that the the people that are living in there, they go through qualifications. They're great at making sure that the that the people are taking care of the property, that the that the landlord's taking care of the property. There's a good accountability on all those.
Usually, there's either six months or yearly inspections depending on the area.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: Depending on the area.
Steve: Right.
Brent: Depending on their budget. Great. I think that that's that's an interesting opportunity. Yeah. It's not an opportunity that I see is is, as good as buying in really good areas, really good school districts with really good appreciation.
Steve: So you're not a big fan of me going down to Mississippi and getting 24 or 30 caps?
Brent: I mean, do what you want, but I wouldn't.
Steve: Alright. So moving on. There's we've you we've been doing this. Right? You said over twenty years.
I'm getting close to twenty years. Right? There's different seasons in our journey.
Brent: Yes.
Steve: What are the major seasons inside our journey?
Brent: Well, listen. I, I think people underestimate how long you need to be in hustle season. I think people hire way too soon. I think people hire right away. Well, people people will hire as they get started because they get into a funnel that's all about hiring VAs to do the highest income producing activities in your business, and it never works.
Never works.
Steve: There's funnels that say, like, hire VAs now.
Brent: Of course. Oh. You should you are too good to initiate the conversation. Mhmm. You should just be getting the leads, going on appointments, collecting checks, bro.
It's easy. Just get these VAs. They're super trained. They'll do hours and hours and hours of work, and they'll just put these leads in your lap.
Steve: Alright.
Brent: It's nonsense. It's nonsense.
Steve: Not only are they trained, but they have amazing work ethic.
Brent: They do. Right? I mean, listen. They are trained, and they do. But what I'm saying is as a entrepreneur
Steve: Well, I'm just saying it's
Brent: need to build I know you are. You need to be you need to build the skills of effectively communicating with property owners.
Steve: But where I was going with this is that even if they are well trained,
Brent: even
Steve: if they have a great work ethic
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: You still have to manage them. And that is where people are like, oh, I got this VA. They'll do the work, and you just delegate Yeah. Or they just abdicate responsibility.
Speaker: Yeah.
Steve: Alright. Here are the leads. Let me know which ones wanna sell.
Brent: Yeah. And
Steve: that's it. They haven't been trained on actually how to manage people effectively. If you haven't if you don't know how if you even started that journey of how to manage people
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Definitely should not be hiring. Yeah. So, anyway, could we go back to what you were saying as far as the hiring VAs?
Brent: Yeah. I mean, it took me a lot of calls and a lot of experience to hire the right, people for, calls, for texting. And, they did a fantastic job, and the return on investment was absolutely outstanding. But I also had all my systems in place. I also had the sales skills.
I also had the ability to go and and close, when there was, you know, multiple offers on these on these properties. You know what I mean? And so I just think that people get, seduced by the idea that you don't have to do any lead generation. You could just have leads in your lap, and you're gonna be able to go and close them. I just don't see that as a as if you look at the percentage of success, I I think that it's it's really low.
I mean, some people can. Listen. So there's gonna be outliers in anything. Some people can, but the majority in my experience, they they come to me after trying.
Speaker: Mhmm.
Brent: And they said I, you know, spent $3.05, $1,015,000 doing this or that or, you know, whatever the the the new shiny object is, and it didn't work. Well, there's And it didn't work because they didn't build the skills. They might be great people generating leads for them, but they don't know how to close.
Steve: Well, they built they're not building the skills. They're not building the the management side.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: On top of that, like, where we stand today in 2024 is very different than where we stood in 2020.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Very different than in 2016. Mhmm. The quality of your operation today is substantially better than I imagined it was in 2020.
Brent: Oh, yeah.
Steve: Right? And, like, what we can get away with like, I still remember in 2012. Like, I left so much point on the table. 2012, like, follow-up wasn't even important. Right.
Right? Like Right. I had very little competition.
Brent: Sure.
Steve: Right? Today, even if you have a great VA and they fill out that lead Mhmm. Right? They go to talk topeople.com.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? They go to all these other websites
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: And they fill them all out. Your team is on them now.
Brent: Yeah. Well, there's a difference between inbound and outbound, but yeah.
Steve: Right. But your team is on it now. But on the other three websites, if you have a VA who's gonna call that lead whenever
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: You just lost that to Brent. Mhmm. Right? Yeah. Because you weren't managing them correctly.
Because you just thought, oh, they got the leads. They'll schedule. Let me know when I need to close with the appointment.
Brent: Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I mean, it's it's hard.
It takes longer than you expect, Steve.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: You know what I mean? It takes a lot longer than you expect for you to, one, be able to to be a effective leader, to understand how to hire talent, to understand the personalities of really talented people. Mhmm. It's like being a a GM of a basketball team, of an NBA team. You know what I mean?
When you have really, really, really talented people that are the top of the class when it comes to acquisitions, operations, disposition, transaction coordination. It takes a lot. You gotta earn that right, and I love that. I think everybody should go through the the mud. I think everybody should fist fight for a while.
I think everybody should go through all those crazy emotions that we go through as entrepreneurs of, you know, I suck. I'm great. I'm I'm a mid as the kids call. You know what I mean? Like, you know, all these things.
You know? And and you gotta go through all those things and and and earn, earn the ability to be able to actually lead people and and do it with enthusiasm and do it with experience. And I think a lot of people have imposter syndrome because they haven't done it. You know what I mean? Mhmm.
We have more performers in our industry, let's be honest Mhmm. Than we have, p you know, real proprietors, real real real business people. You know what I mean? There's more people doing photoshoots right now as we speak for Instagram than there are people talking to property owners and closing deals. You know what I'm saying?
And and so
Steve: I just really hope
Brent: And and so that that's the problem. I mean, that that truly is the problem. People people think that instead of, you know, investing into their team and into buying assets, let's go buy followers.
Steve: Mhmm. Yeah.
Brent: That's bananas, bro. That's insane. That's insane.
Steve: So how long?
Brent: On top of that, they go through the comments for the for the celebrations and for all the hate that they get. Their emotions are going all over the place to to a point where you you you meet people that, you know, have these, big they're very good on camera. They're very good at breaking down their deals and very good at doing live calls and doing all this stuff and all that. And then you meet them, and it's almost like they're on Xanax or something. It's almost like they took an Ambien, and they're just like, you know, just dead.
Their eyes are dead because of all the emotions that are involved with social media.
Steve: They've been drained from all those ups and downs.
Brent: For sure. Yeah. You were you were just I mean, I I would caution that. I would say, you know, work in silence for a long time. Do do the Alex or Mosey thing.
You know what I mean? Where you come out of nowhere, but you just sold a business for $50,000,000, and you know what you're talking about.
Steve: Right.
Brent: You know what I mean? Like, Gary v doing his thing. He was out there, like, hustling for years. We see peers of ours that were, like, in masterminds with him in, like, 2009 or whatever. Mhmm.
You know? And now he's you know?
Steve: And, Well, so how long is hustle season?
Brent: Yeah. Seven years.
Steve: Seven years.
Brent: I would say.
Steve: Alright. And so Yeah. What does the end of hustle season look like?
Brent: You have a million dollar net worth.
Steve: Okay. Yeah. So what does your operations look like then at the end of the hustle season?
Brent: You should have a a a profitable business. It depends on where you're at in the country. I mean, everybody's cost of living is different. But I think as long as you're sitting between 3040% profitability in your business, that's a good spot to be. Right.
You know, as long as you're hitting the your your financial goals of paying for your lifestyle and having extra to get rid of your debts and then extra to be able to buy assets. Mhmm. Yeah.
Steve: Okay. So and I I and we've seen this a lot. You know? We've talked about this in on uncertainty talks with Paul Sparks that people think you should hustle you should put everything back into the business. Mhmm.
Brent: It's a
Steve: mistake we see a lot. Right? Mhmm. I'm in hustle season. I take everything I make Yeah.
Brent: And
Steve: put it back into the business. Yeah.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: And they don't pay themselves. Right. What are your thoughts on that?
Brent: Yeah. I think it's it's ridiculous. Well, first of all, why you why why do you have overhead Mhmm. If you're not paying yourself? What do you what what are we talking about?
Well You you could go out right now with zero budget and knock on some pre foreclosure doors or knock on some doors of ugly houses or vacant houses and talk to the neighbors, get the contact information for the homeowner, call them up, and make deals happen right now. Zero budget. You keep all of it.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: Right?
Steve: Right.
Brent: But people go, ah, just exhausted. Oh, just I made 15 calls today. You know? I I did or or or or on the other end, I did eight hours of calls. There was nothing there.
I'm getting burnt out, all this stuff. It's like, that's part of it. Mhmm. Enjoy that. Mhmm.
You know what it like, working hard should be the goal. You know what I mean? Everything's gonna come out of conversations and offers. If you truly believe that, if I can convince your the whole audience that if they have enough conversations and make enough offers that they will win the financial game, then that's the big domino. Mhmm.
Right? Right. That's the big domino. That's the highest income producing activity that that you can do. If I were to there and and I was giving you a thousand dollars an hour, what would I pay you for?
Would I pay you for for delegating tasks?
Steve: Not sorting leads.
Brent: Or would I tell would I would I delegate for, you know, making logos or, picking out, you know, fonts for your what you know, for your website or whatever. Like, what are we talking about? We are real estate entrepreneurs. This is how we start. This is how we go, and we we we cut our teeth and we get our experience.
And with that experience gets skill, and with skill gets confidence, and with confidence gives us the ability to grow.
Steve: Right. But so, eventually, you start paying for, VAs Yeah. Organizing data, whatever. Pay for CRM.
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: You pay for, I guess, if you have to. Right.
Brent: I did it all with an accordion binder that I got from from Staples for, like, $20 that had one through 31. And if it was the eleventh, I pull out the eleventh. I'd read my leads. I'd call follow-up with my leads.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: What are we talking about? Luke Rodfold has made millions, and all of his leads are on his wall. They're literally displayed on his wall. He just goes to the wall, and he goes, oh, I gotta gotta call this section of the wall today. Yeah.
Millions. Raised millions of dollars.
Steve: Right.
Brent: I mean, they're they're on their way to to huge developments and all these things. And so that's what I see. I see the people that, you know, really just focus on what if if somebody were to pay me a thousand dollars an hour, what would they pay me for? Yeah. $2,000 an hour, what would they pay me for?
Well They're not paying you for managing your VA. They're not.
Steve: No.
Brent: They're not managing you for pulling lists. They're not man they're managing for you to find deals
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: And lock up deals.
Steve: Right.
Brent: That's it. So if that's the big domino, why aren't we all focused on just doing that and building the skills within us to do that?
Steve: Well, so let's talk about we're gonna talk about in a second inbound versus outbound. Right?
Brent: Ego.
Steve: Right? In a second, we're gonna talk about that. But you do have to pay for leads at some point.
Brent: Sure.
Steve: Right? So you're Absolutely.
Brent: If you're
Steve: paying for leads, you got a marketing budget. Yeah. So the mistake we've seen over and over again is, like, alright. I I had a 50 k month.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? So now I'm gonna take the 50 k month. I'm gonna go buy this CRM
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: This tool Yeah. That lead source, pull this list
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Put 30 k in the PPC. Yeah. And they don't keep any of it. Today's show is brought to you by Motivated Leads dot com. The problem today with many lead sources is that you have to pay for the lead even if it's not any good.
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Put 30 k in the PPC. Yeah. And they don't keep any of it.
Brent: Well, first of all, that 50 k is not 50 k. The 50 k is more like 32 k after taxes.
Steve: Right.
Brent: Remember that. Yeah. Okay? Mhmm. Remember you have a business partner in this whole endeavor.
Mhmm. Right? Right. Let alone your business partner with property taxes and sales taxes and and, and state taxes and all those things. Right?
So you made 50, but the the excuse the reason people start running it up is they go, oh, I'm an LLC. Mhmm. I make 50, but I could put money. If I put it's either I give it to the government or I, you know, buy this, you know, invest in this whiz bang thing that's gonna give me a bunch of deals or invest in this great trained person that's gonna do all these things or bring on these I'd rather give money there. And this is how I felt.
I mean, this is this is how how I got into really deep trouble with expenses is because yeah, but that there's there's it's every month you have to pay for that.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: You know what I mean? Right. Like, that's a that that is now a responsibility that you have to pay for, that you just you just invested in this long term thing that's gonna take money from you.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: Right?
Steve: Every month.
Brent: Right. So it's like you you were talking about put money back into it, put money back into it. You should pay yourself a you should have a minimum standard for how much you take home a month.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: And I think I I and I wanna set it for everybody listening to this. It should be a minimum $20 a month.
Steve: $20 a month.
Brent: $20 a month after taxes. So that's more like $30.35 that you're making.
Steve: So
Brent: And you don't hire anybody until if if if you're taken out of your 20 k a month, to go and and and invest in your business, you're you're gonna be out of the business in in a year and a half to two years.
Steve: So from what I'm hearing is until you're clearing 20 k by yourself, like, just pure effort on your own
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: Should not start incurring monthly expenses.
Brent: I think that you I mean, if there's tools, if there's a dialer, if there's a skip tracing, if there's places that you pull lists, I mean, I think that you can keep your budget under 2,000 a month and do that. Yeah. For sure. For sure.
Steve: Okay. And then not trying to bring up, like, a source object here. Yeah. Right? But you had to pay the price of some heavy heavy obligations when the market crashed.
Brent: Bro, five foreclosures. I saw the the Mercedes CLS five fifty, which is kind of an old man's car, but I was young. It was fast. I liked it.
Steve: It it was a beautiful car.
Brent: That was repoed. The Range Rover Yeah. That one was repoed. Repoed. Yeah.
I watched them.
Steve: That's gotta
Brent: It's like the middle of the night.
Steve: It's gotta be some scars.
Brent: Oh my gosh. I was just like, oh my god. What what what is going on with my life?
Steve: So see
Brent: I got a judgment. I got served at 27 years old. Got served with the judgment for $742,000 for not paying, the remainder of a ten year office lease.
Steve: Pretty good there. I put 700 k right here. Yeah. Yeah. You you got it.
Yeah.
Brent: I mean, business credit cards. My my credit was so bad, Steve. I couldn't go Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase Bank, and I think Bank One was at the there at the time before everything got kinda consolidated. All of them would not give me a checking account. I didn't even know you they checked your credit score for a checking account.
They wouldn't give me a checking account because they thought it would overdraft. That's how bad my credit was. I mean, whatever what's the bottom? 400?
Steve: 4 I've never seen anything lower than $403.50, allegedly, but I've never seen stuff. I think $4.40 is the lowest.
Brent: I was I was 11. Yeah. That was my credit score. 11. No.
It was bad, dude. You know, I mean, it was it was that bad. And so, it was because I thought that if I reinvest in my business, if I go and hire really great people that I can replace myself with
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: And, that that I'll pay them a dollar, but I'll get, like, 3 or $4 out of their efforts.
Steve: That's what they say in the book.
Brent: And and yeah. I mean, on paper, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And it doesn't work that way.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: It doesn't work that way. You gotta you you gotta be the person that that that deserves that.
Steve: You gotta
Brent: be the person that can lead that. You gotta be the person that can recognize changes in in what's going on in the market. You gotta be a person that that has backup plans to the backup plans. You have to be a person that's very conservative with your approaches for long term profitability. And that was very difficult for me because I'm not.
Oh, you're I'm a run and gun, wild ego, nice cars, 3,400 square foot house with four dogs and, you know, and and and two people. And it's like you know? I I say all these things not like bashing younger people or people starting out or whatever. I'm saying these things from real experience, and this isn't just mine. This is most in this business.
Most don't stay in this business for a long time. Mhmm. Look at the coaching companies that are have been around over ten years.
Steve: Not a lot.
Brent: Where are they? Where's the gurus that have been around for over ten years?
Steve: Can't think of a lot of them. Right? Over ten years, we got John Burley who was on the show recently.
Brent: Okay. Keep going.
Steve: I don't have Keep
Brent: going. Right? We're
Steve: on the grand we see at the family, family mastermind.
Brent: Always. Staple. Yep. That's it.
Steve: Eddie Speed. That's it. Sure. Yeah. It's hard, but it was hard.
It was hard to find these people. Right?
Brent: No. No. No. How many flipping coaches?
Steve: Oh, flipping coaches.
Brent: How many how many wholesaling coaches? How many you you know what I mean? Like, there's a reason for that. It's because people don't have financial intelligence, and that's the biggest thing. The the the title of this show, right, of of this whatever the the subject is Mhmm.
Is is all about, you know, how investors lose everything. Yeah.
Steve: How real estate investors get it wrong. What invest what real estate investors get wrong and how it's costing them everything.
Brent: Yeah. Ego. Mhmm. They want to be performers. Mhmm.
They want an audience.
Steve: Accolades. Of course, bro. I mean, of course the other day. Might get it might come back to bite me. Who knows?
Yeah. Have you noticed that that all the guys that were banging the gongs every time they close a deal or sign a contract?
Brent: Where are they?
Steve: I don't know. I don't I don't know what they're doing.
Brent: Yeah. Well, all those big big teams got washed out in 2022.
Steve: Right.
Brent: Yeah. Overhead. Mhmm. I mean, that's just financial literacy. Yeah.
How much how much income versus expenses and how many assets do you have over your liabilities?
Steve: Right.
Brent: And I'm telling you, your wholesaling business is not an asset. Your wholesaling business is the cash machine that helps you buy the assets. Mhmm. But if you're not taking money home and then buying it into long term investments that's gonna pay you over a long period of time, then you're making a huge mistake. But that's that's financial literacy, one zero one.
Steve: Right.
Brent: You know what I mean? And I think that the biggest issue that we run into is from the time we're zero to 12, that's how that's what sets our financial thermostat. Mhmm. And, in my life during that time, my dad adopted me when I was two. My biological dad and and my mom I mean, my mom's my mom, but my biological dad bounced.
He loved partying, so my mom's like, boom. At, like, I was six months old. So I'm living in a bathtub in my uncle's, house that he rented. Yeah. And then my mom met my dad at a company called, Garrett that turned into Allied Signal.
It turned into Honeywell. Mhmm. And my dad moved us when we were I was nine to Australia to get a pay raise. So we moved to Melbourne, Australia for a year. Yeah.
And then, and then we moved in in junior high to get another, bump up. My dad moved to Frankfurt, Germany for a year. I went there for a whole summer. And so just leveling up. During during those prime time years, it was kinda like lower lower income, lower middle class.
I mean, we're doing okay, but it wasn't anything crazy. But that sets certain things in your brain. You know what I mean? It set when I got out of college and I made a $100,000, I was like, oh my gosh. That is a lot.
This is a lot. It took my dad so many years to make all this. Right? And and and and we just didn't talk about money. We didn't talk about being an entrepreneur.
We didn't talk about sales. We didn't talk about these things. Right? It was like dad goes to work, mom goes to work, and, and and we play sports and and get together as a family and and have dinner every night.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: You know what I mean? And so I think it took me a while to be around people that their financial thermostats were either forced or raised really high and, to to be able to understand, okay. Wait a second. I need to buy assets. I need to be putting the money into these things that are gonna pay me for a long period of time and think longer term and not just be so, you know, hand to mouth with it.
Because you you get to that that that upper limit of your financial thermostat, and you feel like I don't deserve it. So I'm gonna go buy I'm gonna go, hire people. I'm gonna go spend money on this marketing channel. I'm gonna go and and promote myself and do all these things. Right?
Get the And I think that's the problem that that that real estate entrepreneurs have, and it crushes them. Get the cool man
Steve: to follow you around. Yeah. Get the videographers.
Brent: Well, we have a friend that literally put a billboard out
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: When he hit a 100, hit a million, followers.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Trying to
Steve: remember who this was.
Brent: Yeah. Don't worry about it. The the it's not at a million anymore. You know what I mean? It it's it's just I think that, if you focus on keeping your head down, finding really great deals, building a real business, pulling yourself outside of that business and being a real, business owner, making sure that it's raining really good inbound leads at some point, You can have a really great cash machine that helps you buy assets, and then you can teach, and then you could coach, and then you can go from perspective of, hey.
Listen. I know what the worst looks like, and I know what, like, the high life looks like. And I'm gonna steer you in the direction that that makes sense.
Steve: Well, we got to see all our colleagues experienced this in o nine.
Brent: Oh, yeah.
Steve: And a little bit again in 2223.
Brent: '22. What dude, if anybody wants to do a really interesting experiment, go look at the surge volume for wholesale real estate in 2021, and go look at the, search volume right now.
Steve: Wholesale real estate?
Brent: Wholesale real estate. Go look at the Google search. There's like a chart.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: And you'll see 2021, it's like here, and now it's maybe 10% of what it used to be.
Steve: Alright. We'll definitely look that up.
Brent: It's it's incredible. Well, Batch did their whole study. Mhmm. Did the whole study, and they they looked at in in 2022 how many people were, considered wholesalers or consider have done a wholesale transaction, and it was, like, 70 to 90,000,000. There was a range.
Now it's, like, 10 to 20, dude.
Steve: Interesting. Yeah. And Why?
Brent: Because people didn't last. People didn't build real skills. Right. If they were making money, they'd stay in
Steve: it. Right?
Brent: It was easy. Well, it was it was easier if you didn't have skills. Yeah. But when the mark that's what I'm saying. When the market shifts, the people that have the skills are the ones that now we're doing better than ever.
Right. We're doing better than ever.
Steve: So one thing, we talked about on previous episode was that you also have your house paid off. Yeah. Right? Yep. That's different.
Brent: Mhmm.
Steve: So, well, give me some perspective on that.
Brent: Well, listen. You know, I think that even with an investment portfolio, I think the goal is to get it all paid off. I think debt paid down through the rents of the, through the rents, that that you receive over the years, paying down all your your mortgage, it takes a long time. You're paying interest for most of the first ten years. I mean, if you look at the scale, it's like, you know, interest is here and and principles up here.
Right? It's very heavy in in in the interest. And so you gotta own these. If you buy a property, you should, feel like you're gonna own it for a really long time and or you're gonna really buy it the right time, package it, and go buy something bigger.
Steve: Right.
Brent: And, and I think that that the goal, if you really want cash flow, then you can't have debt. You can't have debt on those things. Or there's two sides. There's the, you know, Kiyosaki go buy 6,000 units and have a bunch of debt on them and and have great cash flow because you have huge volume. Or there's Zach Keeps where he owns 300 rentals.
He he has 90,000,000 in equity, and he has 30,000,000 in debt. You know what I mean? Like, which side do you wanna play on? Which side are are you gonna get the biggest, amount of cash flow from?
Steve: Right.
Brent: And so there there's a couple different ways to do that, but I think the more the more approachable way is Zach keeps way of of just adding properties each and every year
Steve: Once a lot
Brent: and and paying it down.
Steve: Once there's a downturn a lot better than the other.
Brent: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well and then you get into commercial loans versus residential loans. And commercial loans, man, they they'll call those due.
Steve: Right. You know what I mean? Moment's a win.
Brent: Oh, yeah.
Steve: You don't have to miss a payment.
Brent: Oh, brother. I'm telling you. So yeah. I mean, I I I think that, I think that the way that Zach I I've I've really been digging into what Zach I had no idea. I had no idea how many properties Zach had.
I had no idea how much equity he had. It blew my mind. I was
Steve: on the zone.
Brent: I was on the 11 out of 10 podcast, with the with, Robert Wensley and them, and, it, it blew my mind. He he he did that in twelve years, bro.
Steve: Yeah. He he's, he likes to manage.
Brent: He does. He manages them all himself.
Steve: All of his property.
Brent: He loves his action.
Steve: He he he loves meeting with the tenants.
Brent: Loves it.
Steve: But, yeah, like, he he he's he he figured something out. So let me ask you this. For the people listening
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: Is it potentially, possibly, you're starting to overcorrect like Dave Ramsey?
Brent: On on paying things off? Mhmm. No. I think paying bad debt off is fantastic.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: I think that you can accelerate the the the, the end date. Like, if you were to look at your portfolio and say, okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna have all these paid off so I can have all this cash flow coming in. It's interesting. My old next door neighbor, he, his his parents had an eight plex that was next to him.
So it's two down from my my house in in Central Phoenix, and he didn't work. He didn't do anything. All of his money came from that rental property that he owned free and clear.
Speaker: Mhmm.
Brent: And I said, have have you ever, like, pulled out equity? Have you ever done anything? Why would I do that? That would lower my monthly income. Mhmm.
And I was like, this guy got it. And he owns a couple more. Mhmm. He only owns three properties living total like, he does nothing. He stays up all night.
He sleeps all day. He's like a bohemian type of guy. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, just living the life because his parents bought one, multifamily and two two rental properties and paid them off.
Yeah. Now do I want my kids to do that? No. I I mean, I think if you if your kids at 40 or 35 or 40, inherit this big wealth and they they they haven't made it themselves, you have bigger problems. Okay?
Let's be honest. You didn't do your job in in in showing them how to, have some financial intelligence. But, yeah, I think if you're if you're end if you want your end day faster, then stop taking any cash flow home and just just put more towards the principal payment on those loans, pay it off.
Steve: Right.
Brent: Or what Michael Jake, a great mentor that I had that I had years ago, he said buy twice as many properties as you need, get them all to 50%, equity, sell half of them, pay the other half off, and you're out. Mhmm. You're out of the rat race forever.
Steve: Fascinating. Right? Yeah. And then at some point, like, you've been known we we made the the comment earlier, Mike Ferry. Mhmm.
Brent: And I
Steve: said to you, you're like a younger, better looking Mike Ferry. Yeah. Right? Yeah. But you're not you're not Sure.
You're instead of the realtor, you're
Brent: Definitely shorter and, you know, more squatty.
Steve: Less angry. Yeah. So he was the the cold call guy for for real estate agents.
Brent: Yes.
Steve: Even far and away, the loudest
Brent: Yeah.
Steve: For a long time.
Brent: Yeah. I
Steve: can't think of anyone longer or louder Yeah. About cold calling. Yeah. Right? But you've also had a transition recently.
Yep. So talk about this recent, change in your business. You spent countless weeks going back and forth with the homeowner only to lose a deal because the seller changed their mind, another wholesaler made an unreasonable offer or what the seller needs from the sale. You just can't pay. Now imagine you've got the ultimate control on a property that you just locked up, meaning you're on title and every decision has to go through you eliminating virtually every external threat.
That's why the installment method was created. Through installment payments, you have full control of the property as your name is now on the title. Any decision the seller wants to make now has to be approved by you. No longer can they pull out equity, go with another buyer, or change their mind. And manage and combining the best creative financing with the flexibility of marketing the property on the MLS to collect the most amount of revenue possible, all while having total control of the property.
This is just a tip of the iceberg. The concept here is simple, but implementing is challenging. So visit wholesale2024.com to learn more so that you'll never have another deal blow up. Change in your business.
Brent: Yeah. So, lead generation, there's only three ways to get leads. Right? You are, out there prospecting for them. You're you're earning them.
Right? You have a low budget. You're starting out. You don't have a lot to have people call you. Right?
That's the second part. The second part is marketing. So you got prospecting, which is door knocking and cold calling. Mhmm. That's it.
You know what I mean? And and by the way, this isn't just property owners. You could call agents. You can make offers on agents. That's very proactive.
You can you could bid at auctions. That's that's very that's very, proactive. Right? That's that that's one side of it. The second way is marketing.
Marketing is
Steve: The first one is effort.
Brent: Yeah. Earning it. Yeah. Earning it. The second one is buying it.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: That's where I'm at now. I want inbound leads because of a couple different things. Your your cash flow cycle is a lot faster when you can buy leads. So when you are out there being really proactive, expect a hundred days. Expect from the first time that you talk to them to the time you actually get paid and have money in your account is a hundred days.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: With, inbound leads, our biggest one is pay per click, and we started TV ads locally Mhmm. And in Facebook, all inbound. The sales cycle is thirty days. So you you you move your money faster. It's far more expensive.
The ROI is way lower, but you can scale it up. Mhmm. You could you could keep throwing money at this. You look at some of the guys here locally that just do a phenomenal job. I can't even imagine the amount of deals Doug Hopkins does and Andrew the home buyer and all those guys that are building real brands that are long lasting.
I mean, they walk into a house and people are like, yeah. Here. You know what I mean? And so the the the the amount of time is way shorter, and, the amount of leads in your database is way smaller. So you need, like, one out of 60 to 70 when it's cold calling, even more for texting, probably a 100, leads, per deal.
With with pay per click, we're we're, like, one out of 14. Mhmm. With Facebook, it's more like one out of 30. Those are those are much, lower quality leads. And then TV, it's like one out of four people that call you on TV, you close.
You know what I mean? You don't get a lot of calls, but, it just it it I I was seeing that my acquisition team was getting, burnt out by so much lead follow-up every day. Mhmm. I mean, my junior acquisition manager who's responsible for doing the lead follow-up was calling 50 leads a day. Mhmm.
Just follow-up, hand dialing every day, every day. That's exhausting.
Steve: Right.
Brent: You know what I mean? And texting and then following up, and then you got the new ones piling on you. So you get your 50 out of the way, and the new ones are piling in on you. And now you've got, you know, 52 tomorrow, and then you got 54. And then you're trying to disqualify, but then, you know, the the lead manager's like, oh, no lead left behind.
You know? And it was just it was too much with a small team. And I know in real estate, if you can keep a real lean, efficient, really talented team, that those are the ones that really last.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: The big old teams always get downsized when when the if the if the market is in accordion, when it squeezes back in, you gotta fire everybody. You gotta fire a lot of people, get rid of a lot of people, or they naturally leave because they're commission only Mhmm. Which is a huge mistake Mhmm. For really talented people, even in sales. And, and and so they they just naturally just dissolve out of the business.
Steve: What do you pay? If you're saying it's a mistake, what are you paying your your sales guys now?
Brent: 80 k base plus, plus commissions on deals. So my closer will get 6%, and my junior acquisition will get 3%.
Steve: Yeah. Yep. That's pretty good. So you guys are listening. I wanna reach out to
Brent: Well, none of that works unless you give them good leads. Mhmm. You know what I mean? And so really great, talented closers and salespeople, they they're they're they wanna win. They're natural winners.
They love winning. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so you gotta put them in a position to win. And if you have, you know, if they have to go through a 100 leads to get one win Mhmm.
They're gonna start looking over their shoulder for other opportunities.
Steve: Yeah. And the way you're paying them is not unlike pharmaceutical sales Yeah.
Brent: Or tech Exactly. And people stay in there forever.
Steve: Yeah. Really hard to get those people over. Right.
Brent: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Good luck. Yeah. Oh, good luck.
Pharmaceutical sales? Oh, man. Talk about lifestyle. Wow.
Steve: So, so you have your own tool now Yeah. You've launched.
Brent: Well, not a tool. I have a I have a pay per click agency.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: So, Matt, who was who's my studio, producer, His best friend was working at a company called TTEC, which is Google's outsource for, Google Ads accounts for these big companies. And so he had access to look at all the different companies and and, and and what was seemed to be working from a, you know, how many people go to the site, how many click on the site, how many fill it out, and how many of those end up being appointments, and how many of those end up being, deals, for real estate and for other for other industries. And so, TTEC was they're kind of like a a boiler room for tech guys. You know what I mean? It's not a great, you know, whatever.
It's a pretty big company, but, he wanted to change. He wanted something smaller, and he wanted something where he was running the show. And so I brought Jesse on and, early last year to run my own in house, and he did. And he did a phenomenal job. And then, he he wanted to do more.
And I was like, hey. Do you wanna do you wanna open this up to my students and to other people that that are at that point where they they want the inbound leads? And I'm telling you, the top of the pyramid besides referrals, and referrals are number one. If you could just get a referral of, like, hey. My aunt wants to sell her house.
Will you buy it? Great. That's the best. Right? Right below that, top of the pyramid is intent based leads, and that's pay per click.
Steve: Yeah. It's
Brent: pay per click. People literally searching. Sell without an agent. Mhmm. Sell my ugly house.
Steve: Right.
Brent: Sell fast. You know what I mean? We pop up. They fill it out. You have to answer within thirty seconds of getting that text message in.
Mhmm. It sends it out to, like, four all four of us. I even get them just because I love the action. And, and and we're on it in thirty seconds. Mhmm.
And we go Monday through Sunday, twenty four hours. So I've got Joshua who came on board that takes for the shift from, like, five to 7AM. Five 5PM to seven, AM and and weekends. And then, Chad and Ryan's team takes it, takes it during, you know, nine to five or eight to five or seven to five or whatever. Yeah.
Steve: Reminds me of floor time.
Brent: Yeah. It is. It's a 100% floor time. Yeah. That's exactly what it is, but it's money time.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, if they're filling out three or four forms on a website, and we're the only ones calling them at 08:47 at night Mhmm. We're setting that appointment.
Steve: But, you know, it's funny, like, how many things I've taken from the realtor world and applied it into our industry.
Brent: Oh, yeah.
Steve: Right? Oh, yeah. Floor time is just that classic, like, oh, you're the best closer? Alright. You get Mhmm.
This time. Yeah.
Brent: Yeah. You get prime time.
Steve: Right.
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah. Absolutely.
Well, listen. It's a yeah. That's a you earned that right.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: You know what I mean? But, yeah, inbound has radically changed the business. I mean, it is it is like that because I'm spending a $100 a month right now.
Steve: Spend a $100 a month.
Brent: $100 a month. 50 on TV, which just started. That's like a but I see the guys doing it over and over and over. And, I I think I know the stats, and I've I've got the right, right team and the right systems in place to be able to to handle inbound. Before, I didn't, Steve.
That was a big problem. That transition from outbound to inbound where you're just kinda like, oh, I'll get to that lead when whenever. Right? No. No.
No. No. No. No. No.
This is you don't have a schedule. Mhmm. This is you gotta be available all the time. This is you better love the action or you're not gonna you're not gonna make it in this.
Steve: Yeah. I'm curious. Have you talked to Kyle, with Andrew, the house buyer or home buyer?
Brent: Yeah. He's like, why are you copying my name? Yeah. Oh, he's great. I mean, talk about a guy that that, just prints money.
That guy's like a money money machine. I can't But
Steve: He's brilliant.
Brent: Yeah. He really is.
Steve: Yeah.
Brent: Yeah. I think that, because we're Joe Homebuyer. That's what he was saying. He's like, I saw your ad. It's like Joe Homebuyer, manager of the homebuyer.
What the hell? I was like, yeah. It's a franchise out of Utah. Don't worry. You know?
Like, I don't I didn't name it. Yeah. But, yeah, he he's phenomenal. But I haven't talked to him in a while.
Steve: Gotcha. Yeah. I was just curious if you were, like, comparing us with him because he's obviously, you know, running the
Brent: I should. Yeah. I really should. Gotcha.
Steve: Alright. Well, I mean, we're coming up with that towards the end. Anything else we haven't talked about that you want to make sure we emphasize?
Brent: I think just what what would people pay you a thousand bucks an hour to do? Mhmm. And how do you do that all day? Yeah. You know what I mean?
I think if people really frame it that way and really focus on that, especially for their first seven years
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: Or until they they have a million dollar net worth and I'm not just talking, like, in your house. Don't the house your house doesn't count.
Steve: Right. Right?
Brent: You know what I mean? You live there. You're that that that's that's a a million dollar net worth outside of your house, outside of what you think your business is worth, outside of all that. Mhmm. Assets.
Real assets outside that you don't use. I I just just focus on that. Just stay just head down, and you're you'll survive all the different markets. You'll survive whoever's in the White House. You'll survive whoever's in Congress.
You'll survive the interest rates. You'll survive inflation. You'll survive anything that they can throw at you. You're gonna be bulletproof. Mhmm.
If you just focus what what would somebody pay me a thousand dollars an hour to do. Yeah.
Steve: Or put another way, would I pay someone a thousand dollars an hour?
Brent: To do that?
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So, if someone wanted to find out more, talk to people.
Brent: Talktopeople.com is our PPC agency. We are going bananas with it, Steve. It is so much fun. I am telling you. There is there are some markets out there that people aren't I I wanna get into these markets.
Mhmm. You know what I mean? Because you get in with Google Ads in these markets, it is, like, wide open. And I'm not just talking just as, like, being bombastic. It is it is crazy.
If you really have somebody that really knows how to put together your website, really monitors, your leads, really make sure that you're getting on it, and you have the training to make sure that your systems are in place to be able to do it, it's it's, it's unstoppable. It's a it's a no brainer. It's awesome.
Steve: What are the two of the three biggest system changes you had to make?
Brent: Thirty seconds to a lead
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: Twenty four seven. And, we set an appointment right away. We're we're almost like a plumber mentality or an electrician or a roofer. Like, they call in before we're getting into prequalifying and doing the whole dance and this whole thing. Okay.
Great. Yeah. What's the what what is your address? Fantastic. We have an availability today at 01:00, 03:00, or tomorrow at 11:00.
What works for you? Mhmm. Okay. Great. So tell me about the property.
Mhmm. Right? We are and and somebody's going on that appointment, and it's either gonna be a real estate agent. If it's a beautiful house that should go retail, if it's original condition or rough, we're gonna we're we're sending our acquisition team. So that I'll give you a fourth one.
Have a really good realtor on your team and probably have somebody on your team that has a license so that you can get 50% referral
Steve: fee. 50? 50. Nice.
Brent: Dude, I'm loading up Stacy and her team.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: Stacy Granger on my team, who's with North and Co, she's on five to 10 listing appointments a week. Mhmm. Yeah. You know? You list 30% of those, now we're talking.
Steve: I'm trying to think like, that's something I haven't heard in, like Yeah. Four or five years. Yeah. And we used to have our meetups. Yeah.
That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So talk to people.com.
Brent: Yes.
Steve: Guys, if you got value today, again, please like, subscribe, share. You're listening on iTunes. You're listening on Spotify. Please give a five star review. How can someone get ahold of you?
Brent: My phone number is no. Alright. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.
So, some CallRail number. No. Just Brent, just find me on, Instagram. We put a lot of love and attention into our YouTube channel as well. It's not a traditional I'm not a YouTuber.
Steve: Mhmm.
Brent: You know, I think that, you know, I I've been put on this planet to be a teacher, wanted to be a teacher, went to, NAU and started the education program, and then kinda, you know, made some decisions there. And, basically, I just didn't wanna be a a government employee, to be honest. And, but we put a lot of love and teaching into the YouTube channel, so check it out. Brent Daniels on YouTube.
Steve: Awesome. Thanks so much.
Brent: Thanks, Steve. You're the man. Yeah. I love you.
Steve: Like you too.
Brent: Yeah. There you go.
Steve: Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 4: Shout out to Steve train. Jump on the Steve train. Disrupt us.