Wholesale / Fix and Flipping 90+ Deals a Year and Owning 325 Doors

Steve Trang: Jump on the steep train. We real estate disruptors.

Steve: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining for today's joining us for today's episode of real estate disruptors. Today, we've got Caleb Pearson with zoomoffersnow.com. Now Caleb flew in from Charleston, South Carolina to talk about how he's doing almost a 100 deals per year. Now I am on a mission to create 100 millionaires.

The information on this podcast 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. Now our sales leadership training is just around the corner. If you're not signed up yet, you're gonna be missing out on rent sharing what it takes to build a company that does a 100 plus transactions a month. DM me the word leadership if this sounds like something that might be of interest to you.

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That way we can all grow together. And don't forget, we do have part in the disruption tomorrow and certainty talks the day after that. Now this is also a live show, so please ask your questions for Caleb to answer. You ready?

Caleb Pearson: Yeah. Well, let's do it. Thank you for having me on.

Steve: Oh, it's my pleasure. It's actually my honor. I've look been looking forward to this for a while. So first question is, what got you into real estate?

Caleb: You know, I graduated college, moved down in Charleston, South Carolina. I sold timeshare for like a month and a half and did really well at it. And I had this lady come in as one of the potential buyers, and she goes, no, no, no, no, no. You don't need to be doing this. So she kind of wrote me in and took me to a friend who was a high producing real estate agent, and then I started cold calling for her.

She gave me the phone book and, or some cold leads, and all I did was just call down lists for months at a time. And then once I got my first deal done, I was hooked.

Steve: So time share. Time share. So you went you went to college.

Caleb: I went to college. I had a job lined up in Raleigh Mhmm. But I moved to South Carolina for the summer and did time share for I was gonna do it just for the summer. Alright.

Steve: It was just it was just a little side thing, get a little extra income.

Caleb: Yep. Yep. It was just my summer gig. But it was good money. It it was really good money.

Steve: How was the how was the training? Fantastic.

Caleb: I mean, they basically the sales training's so good. They teach you how to ask all the right questions to where you basically put somebody in a box, and they cannot tell you no. Their only way of getting out is to say, I can't afford it, which they've already prepped people and people have filled out forms so they know what these people's income is, so they know that's a lie. So it's, I mean, it's really, really good sales training.

Steve: It's like a really, like, bulletproof, like, you can't screw up the sale.

Caleb: It's the it is some of the best sales training that I've been through in any profession.

Steve: So I I'm asking this because, like, I I actually do share with some people that are, like, you know, we're talking about sales training, and we do that. And I was like, if you want to experience sales train or you wanna experience sales, like, high quality sales, go to a time share. Because, I went to one with my wife in Hawaii many, many years ago. Yep. And I asked her, like, do you wanna be the good guy or the bad guy?

Because I knew it was gonna be, like, a quality, you know, sales appointment. Yep. It's like, I'll be the bad guys. Okay. I'll be the good guy.

Caleb: Yep. And that's actually part of the sales training of the process. Yeah. They ask which one of you guys had that conversation out

Steve: Oh, really?

Caleb: In there. Yeah. I'm telling you, like, they beat you to every punch before you even give them the objection. And when you get to the end and you know what they make and you know how much they spend on travel and it just makes no sense to say no, so that's why all your friends end up walking out buying a timeshare.

Steve: Well, I told my wife, and she's like, she's gonna be the bad guy. So we get to the end, and I said, well, what do you think? And she's like, I wanna do it. I was like, all right, let me stop this right here. She's supposed to be the bad guy.

We're not buying this. Right?

Caleb: But it looks sexy.

Steve: It looks great. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I was a realtor, so, I was like, I feel bad for wasting your time, but, you know, we're trying to get the luau thing. Yeah.

And she's like, don't feel bad, honey. I closed two out of three. I was like, wow. It's crazy. Yeah.

Caleb: And it's good it's good money.

Steve: So, like, what kind of money were you talking about as far as, like, a timeshare?

Caleb: I mean, I think my first month, I made, like, $18. I mean, but right out of college, that's kind of a lot of money.

Steve: Yeah, probably a lot more than you were planning on making with your other job.

Caleb: Yeah, and sometimes I heard some of the managers tell people things that I didn't really agree with or knew weren't totally true, so there was a little bit of a- of a

Steve: Boiler room feel?

Caleb: Yeah. I felt a lot better about myself selling real estate.

Steve: Yeah. So this other lady comes in and, like, pulls you out. Like, was she actually there for a timeshare, or was she there to recruit?

Caleb: She was there just as a potential client Okay. And then introduced me to this lady. I mean, it's just funny how introductions happens to other people, send to other people, and then this has ended up being what I've done for the last ten years.

Steve: So you started cold calling. So how long ago was this that you transitioned, I'm sure, to cold calling for real estate?

Caleb: It was about ten years ago.

Steve: Ten years ago? Yep. Okay. And then so you started cold calling. Like, who are you cold calling?

Caleb: Expired listings for sale by owners. I listened to every, like, Tom Ferry, Mike Ferry coaching YouTube video that you could watch. Got pretty good at doing that, and that's how I built my entire retail business was off of just the street.

Steve: Calling for for listings.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: Yeah. I had a chance to go through the Mike Ferry coaching. I didn't go through, like, the full training, but, you know, I went through it was like like this 14 set DVD. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. And it was really high quality training. I didn't like the way he taught it, but it worked.

Caleb: I mean, it's kind of like it's aggressive. It's aggressive sales.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: But it's good.

Steve: The one that stuck out to me was like, hey, mom. It's Mike. This is a business call. Right? When he's calling his mom for referrals, like, man, that's like so direct to the point.

Okay. So what was, like, your first year like calling expires and cancels?

Caleb: Well, I mean, it was it I you just get better. The more you do it and the more sales training, the more the more higher education that I was getting, the better I got at it. So let's say one out of 10 for sale by owners the first year that I was calling, I'd set an appointment. Well, I got to where I was, like, seven out of 10 people that I talked to that were selling for sale by owner. I was getting in their front door.

So you just get I mean, I guess you just get more proficient at it.

Steve: Yeah. So were you going then you're cold calling. Were you then going out there as a listing agent?

Caleb: I was setting my own appointments, running the appointments as a listing agent, taking the listing.

Steve: Okay. So you were joining someone else's team?

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: And you were basically the, cold calling, booking your appointment, going out there, getting the listing.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: You're handing it off, or are you

Caleb: yeah. We actually had she had a staff on the back end that was coordinating the pictures and getting it into the MLS and doing that, like, a listing coordinator. So

Steve: in your first year, how many how many deals did you do?

Caleb: Say 60 to 70, somewhere in that range. Really? Yeah. It was a pretty good amount. Now I had the I had heard that would go on the appointments with me when I first started, which if I didn't have that, I would have missed some of those listings.

So, I mean, I had a good mentor.

Steve: Yeah. Well, that's awesome. Yeah. So when then did you start buying houses?

Caleb: So that was back in 02/1314, kind of at the bottom of the market. And I'll tell you, it was one deal that got me into the investment side. I had a, I had a an expired listing. I talked to the guy and he said, it it was listed, I think, at 200. And he said, man, just get me an offer.

I don't care what the offer is. Just get me an offer, and I'll look at it. So I knew one investor in town that I called, and I said, hey, man. This seller's super motivated. What can you pay for it?

And he said a 100. So I'm thinking, there's no way. There's absolutely no way this guy takes it. So I called the guy back and said, yeah. My investor said he'll pay a 100.

And the guy's first response is, how quickly can he can he close? So I'm thinking, there's no way this guy's taking this. I got And called my guy, he said ten days. We closed it and called the other guy back. He said, I'll take it.

Made him a quick, probably $50.60 grand in profit, and I made $3,000 in commission.

Steve: So

Caleb: I was sitting on the wrong side of the table in that scenario, and I just told myself, like, I'm never doing that again. So then I figured out who's flipping houses or who's wholesaling and how are they doing it across the country at at a high level? And just I always go to the find the best coach right off the rip Mhmm. If I'm gonna build a business.

Steve: So you go in there, and you so the guy makes $50.60 k on this deal. Yeah. You're making $3,000.

Caleb: $3.

Steve: Like, did you, like, cold turkey change, or you're like or this is, like, it's, like, percolating in your brain for a year? Like, how what was the transition?

Caleb: No. I immediately went and found a coach, or a mentor that was flipping homes and just started picking their brain while I had my retail business still going, because our retail business still grew for another, call it, five, six years. But then we built the the the fix and flip wholesale arm side by side with it.

Steve: At this time, were you still on the other team, or you're your own team? At at

Caleb: this time? I started my own retail team, so I branched off from the lady that brought me under her wing. Okay. So I had that team going, and then I had to figure out how to build a wholesale fix and flip business that wasn't based around me being that person running the appointments.

Steve: Yeah. But you were still cold calling at this time?

Caleb: A little bit, but not as much. I was more of, like, overseeing the teams.

Steve: Okay. So you got the retail team. Yep. And then you got this house buying team.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: Now when I started this podcast years ago, my vision, right, was, like, to take the realtor community and the wholesaler community, and they kinda, like, marry this, like, the two communities. Right? Yeah. Because it just makes sense. And what I figured out after a month and a half is this marriage is never meant to be.

Right? Realtors kinda judge the wholesalers, and wholesalers kinda judge the realtors.

Caleb: Yeah. And I'd love

Steve: to get your take on this.

Caleb: 90% of realtors don't know what a wholesaler is. Yeah. And then wholesalers don't think that realtors bring much value. Mhmm. But really, I I see because you've sat in both seats Right.

You understand the value that both of them could bring each other if they would work in cohesion, but just nobody's figured it out.

Steve: Like oil and water.

Caleb: But our team, I mean, it's awesome because the wholesale team, if they can't go buy the house and sellers just want retail price, then they just flip it over to the retail team and they list it and everybody's happy.

Steve: Yeah. They just pitch us off all over there.

Caleb: Correct. I mean, it's it's a solution for the sellers. And then we win either I don't care which side. I mean, I prefer them to sell us the house.

Steve: So you've been you're a top producer. Right? Like, have you gotten any pushback, blowback inside your realtor community for the fact that you buy houses?

Caleb: No. And we market to our to the agents across the market at least once a month, whether it's through text or through email blast, saying that we're out there ready to buy houses. And, I mean, we have some of the best deals we get are from real estate agents.

Steve: So talk to me about that that marketing message. How are you connecting with real estate? Because right now, real estate are getting blown up. Right? I mean, there's people out there.

You know, Ryan Zolin, someone who's here, he's teaching people how to buy houses from realtors. Yep. Right? How like, what what is your messaging when you're talking to realtors?

Caleb: Yeah. So we do it mostly through the Zoom offers app, which I guess we'll talk about here in just a few minutes.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: But we're just emailing them saying, hey, guys, we're sitting on some cash right now looking for a deal. If you have any highly motivated sellers or any houses that need work, we'd love to get your number on it. I mean, it's simple as that. And we're buying, I'd say, between two and four from agents a month.

Steve: Wow. Okay. So what are those are there, like, rebuttals? Are they receptive? Like, what is, like, the mix of conversations you're getting from realtors?

Caleb: A little of both. I mean, you know how it is. Some agents you get the few people that say, oh, you guys are a bunch of sharks. What, are you just gonna send us a bunch of lowball offers? And then you get the other people who say, hey.

I have this listing. These sellers aren't motivated, but I've got another guy that we're gonna be putting his house on the market next month. He doesn't really wanna put it on the market and needs x, y, and z. Can y'all come make a make an offer? Yeah.

And then we go provide that seller a solution, and that agent gets paid.

Steve: Okay. So you said you went out and sought a mentor to help you build out this house buying arm. Yep. What was, like, that transition like from when you put your flag on the ground? When was it approximately?

Caleb: Probably four years ago.

Steve: Okay. So say? You put your flag on the ground, like, we're gonna start buying houses. What was that progression like? Was it, like, instant success, or what were some of the challenges?

Caleb: My guess was probably six years ago. So I got into Collective Genius, fortunately. I knew somebody that was in Collective Genius, which is the mastermind that we're both in. Probably before Jason should have let me in. It was back when it was not It's way harder to get in now.

But we were doing 200 retail transactions a year and had kinda dabbled in a few flips. Yeah. So I talked to my buddy that was in there, and he talked to Jason Medley, and Jason Medley let me in. And that was just like the gasoline to the fire. Because everybody in that room's doing what?

50 plus?

Steve: A lot more than 50 plus. I'm one of the small fries in there.

Caleb: Yeah, I would say the smallest guy in there might be doing 50, up to what, 600 to 1,000, some of those guys.

Steve: Yeah, I think there are multiple guys doing 400 plus transactions. Yeah,

Caleb: so it was awesome. I mean, I got to go sit in a room with those guys and tell them, I'm just getting started. What would you do? And they're like, here's my direct mail piece. I would send this.

Here's what the text message software we use. Here's the CRM. I mean, all they were, they just threw up everything that they've learned for the last, call it, fifteen, twenty years Yeah. And just let me run with it. I'm a good implementer.

So all I do is just copy everything that they did, implement it, and then we've run with it.

Steve: Yeah. I'm thinking right now, there are some guys in there that are doing a thousand plus transactions a month. That's crazy.

Caleb: Yeah. I mean, there's some I'm one of the small fries in there too.

Steve: Okay. So, it was pretty quick then, the the evolution. There weren't, like, any, like, major hurdles in in in transitions to start buying houses on top of doing your retail business?

Caleb: No. I mean, it's pretty similar. And if you I mean, if you know how to run a business, it's a retail business wasn't a whole lot different than building the wholesale fix and flip business.

Steve: Well, and that's the reason why I'm trying to, like, marry this community. It's just, like, we're all doing the same thing. We're just marketing it differently.

Caleb: Yeah. Well, good luck.

Steve: Yeah. I've given up on it, but but that was that was the original intent. Okay. So at some point along the way, you became the number one REMAX agent in South Carolina. Yeah.

Talk to me about that.

Caleb: That was just from just brute force. And then we brought in additional salespeople over time and just I taught them exactly what I did. Here's the script. Here's the people I called. Here's how we do it.

And then we we just got highly productive. Yeah. And Was there

Steve: something you did differently? Because, like, as a as a new real estate agent out of real estate school, right, everyone's promising everything.

Caleb: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Like, what did you do in recruiting to separate yourself from every other real estate team that's recruiting?

Caleb: Well, it was I mean, I hired my brother, my cousin, their friends, and they kind of just saw my growth pattern, and they saw that what I was doing was working, so they didn't give me a whole lot of pushback. I mean, pretty much the first few people that I got on our team, if you told them to do something, they didn't ask questions. They just would run through a wall for you, which was awesome because then they saw quick success, and they told friends, and we didn't really have great hiring processes. We just brought on whoever would come on at the time. Obviously, we've refined those over time, but that's it.

And then here's how we do it, and we get people ramped up. Most of our guys are doing 10 plus million right out of the rip on the first year.

Steve: Wow. So you didn't have to really recruit too hard. It was just like, we have success, and people are like, Caleb, I like what you're doing. How can I be a part of this?

Caleb: Correct. That's Yeah. That's exactly how it

Steve: it's I mean, that's that is a way to market. That was kinda how we grew our brokerage initially. Yeah. Now at some point, I closed my brokerage down. What's the story with with your building your team and the brokerage and so on?

Caleb: Yeah. So I've never closed my brokerage team down, but I own a REMAX franchise that I bought eight, nine years ago, I guess. And we kept it for about six years, and then we sold it. It just wasn't making any money. There isn't a whole lot of money, as you know, in owning a brokerage.

The money's in selling real estate. So it just the amount of time and the amount of risk that was involved with it just wasn't worth it, so we shut that.

Steve: Oh, we have people that reach out to us from time to time, you know, and, like, hey. You know, I heard you have a brokerage. Like, what do you recommend? And I always just tell them, don't. What do you say?

Caleb: Don't. Build a sales team. Yeah. But I'm just a big proponent of building a business that's based around the lifestyle that you want. Sure.

And if you wanna build a brokerage with a 100 agents, you're gonna go ahead and forfeit a lot of your your quality time.

Steve: Yeah. Well, let's talk about that. So what is the lifestyle that you're trying to live, and then how did you build a business to support that?

Caleb: Yeah. So it used to be just run eighty to a hundred hours a week as hard and as fast as I can go. Mhmm. And then strategically over time, I've gotten into a couple different other masterminds that have taught me how to build a business around my lifestyle. So adding people, quality people in certain positions in each business, that gave me a lot of time back.

Buying the apartments has given me a kind of a safety net that has helped me not have to work as many hours and as as hard as I was running for so many years. And just just building it all of our teams with really good people has been probably the biggest key.

Steve: So number one key, if you're trying to build a business that supports your lifestyle, is the people.

Caleb: Is the people. And hiring good a players, putting the right people in every seat in each business.

Steve: Okay. So how do I go about hiring a players today? Like, I'm telling you, like, I'm actually, you know, in a market potentially for a COO. Yep. Right?

So I'm telling you, Caleb, I'm looking to hire a COO. How would you counsel me?

Caleb: Yeah. So I would you can't you have to have a process, obviously, when you hire someone, especially hiring someone at that level. Yeah. I'm not a huge fan of, like, Indeed and hiring through that or any of the job sourcing, I like hiring a headhunter to go find somebody because the best quality of person that you're probably gonna find is already working somewhere else. They're not unemployed.

Yeah. So I like the headhunter process, and let them go find you good quality candidates. But then it's still up to you to put them through a process to bring the right person on and then onboard them the right way too. Because you might get the right person, and then you might not be organized when you onboard them, and they, like, a COO type person needs some he doesn't wanna come into complete chaos.

Steve: Yeah. Well, whoever hires definitely gonna be walking into chaos. So that's just kind of the nature of the beast. So, in working with a headhunter, is there any parameters, any like, we have someone in house right now that does our recruiting, and he absolutely refuses to make a job posting and has to give him a thought out job description as well as some, key metrics that we're gonna hold this person accountable for us. Like, man, like, that'd you work for me.

Right? Yeah. But what, like, what is the core communication like with your, headhunter?

Caleb: So I actually I have a COO now that handles that. Yeah. Like, when we go to hire somebody, he provides that or he provides it to me, and I just might take some notes to make some adjustments. Because we're not built to sit down and write out a three page job description. Yeah.

And that's not your personality. No. And that's why you've probably been putting it off for so long. I have. So, I mean, you need to find a good person in your organization to at least build out the template for you and then let you just make make the adjustments.

Steve: Well, then what about the the hiring process? Or you're talking about the the screening process. So, you know, I was talking to someone earlier today, and, like, we're so concerned about how to find people, but not as many people put an emphasis on screening people out, making sure the wrong people don't get in.

Caleb: Yeah.

Steve: So what do you guys do as far as making sure we're bringing the right people in and keeping the wrong people

Caleb: out? So I like to let them run through at least two interviews that's with either one of my sales guys and then my COO first before they even talk to me, because they need to get two yeses before they get to me. And most of the time, like, those guys have been with me for so long, they know our culture, they know our core values, they they can ask the right questions to see if that person fits.

Steve: Yeah. Is there any particular, resources you like for recruiting or screening or any particular tools?

Caleb: You know, I we haven't hired in so long. Mhmm. That was just what we used to do, and we would just either bring in a headhunter or my COO was taking

Steve: I mean, like, truthfully, you know, like, Alicia would go and meet with them. Like, I removed myself from even meeting with them because I'm just a rubber stamp. Like, I just like, I we have the expectations. We have the we use PI. We use the interview questions, this and that.

But, like, if you make it past the two first two people, like, I'm not gonna be the one to be so, like, yeah. It looks for me. Like, looks good to me.

Caleb: Yeah. I mean, I I love the PI. Yeah. Nobody gets into our organization without doing the PI either. Okay.

Now I'm not the pro at reading the PI. We've got another guy that we send it to. Yeah. He tells me, here's what you need to watch out for in that person. They're gonna this is how you manage them.

This is what you can't do to manage them. I I love the PI piece to it.

Steve: Yeah. So let's talk about building your organization to a point where you're doing a 100 transactions a year, and this is whole between wholesales and flips. Yep. Right? So, like, if I come to you and I say, hey.

Alright. I am ready. You know, I'm doing a deal or two a month. I am ready to now start doing a 100 deals a year. Yeah.

What are two or three big things I need to do to build an organization that that can handle that?

Caleb: Probably can't do it on your own Mhmm. Or you won't have a lifestyle. So make a hire whether and it's probably gonna be that person's probably the salesperson, and then your first hire is probably gonna be some sort of administrative person Yeah. That can handle everything on the back end. But to go from two a month to call it eight to 10 a month, it's mostly gonna be marketing as you know.

Steve: Yeah. So is there, a couple of pieces of marketing you like better than anything else?

Caleb: I love direct mail.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: I know you guys you said y'all aren't even doing direct mail, but you're in a different way different market than we are too.

Steve: So we love direct mail. We used Investor Machine for a very long time, and it's been great. It's just we got punched in the mouth pretty hard, in the middle of the year, so we've kinda scaled back.

Caleb: Yeah.

Steve: So direct mail is is your favorite piece.

Caleb: Yeah. And I just think of just from what I'm seeing through Collective Genius, some people swear by it, and then the people that are in the huge markets, they they don't swear by it. Mhmm. I don't I guess it's just because there's so much competition.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean, I know someone in my market that does really well with With direct mail? With direct mail. Right? So, obviously, he's doing something right.

Caleb: Yeah. You

Steve: know? So it's not that it doesn't work, but, I mean, we just kinda had this again, got fun. I just kinda show you the board. Right? Like, we got properties that we're flipping, and, the question isn't, like, are we gonna lose money on it?

The question is how little can can we lose, on these flips? Okay. So marketing, you you think is is the biggest thing.

Caleb: I think ramping up marketing is the easiest way to go from two to eight to 10 a month.

Steve: And so that makes total sense. Now a lot of times, people are talking about scaling and scaling. Right? Like, it's like doesn't seem to be the buzzword today, but it was a buzzword. It seemed like six to twelve months ago.

Caleb: When the wind was at everybody's back.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Right? And so

Caleb: money was just blowing everybody's ears.

Steve: Yeah. So if I go and spend, let's say, $15.20 grand a month in marketing, I'm gonna have some serious issues if I'm not prepared for it.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: What are some serious issues I'm gonna run into by spending, you know, $15.20 grand a month in marketing?

Caleb: I mean, if you don't have sufficient reserves Mhmm. You're gonna run out of cash fast, because there's a cycle of cash. If you send $20,000 out the door, it's gonna take sixty to ninety days minimum, would you say, before

Steve: For direct mail, yes.

Caleb: Before those dollars start returning back to your pocket.

Steve: First of those dollars, not all of it, the first of the dollars.

Caleb: Correct. So I'm seeing that, and that's where I think we're seeing the biggest shift in the market is all these people that ramped up so fast and they didn't have enough cash in the bank. Like, we're starting to get a lot of calls off of our postcards from flippers that ran out They got 75% of the way to the finish line on the flip, and they don't have any money to finish it because it's all out marketing or it's all

Steve: Or down payment or whatever.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: Yep. Yeah. And all the reserves are or all the liquidity is locked into the assets.

Caleb: Liquidity is gonna be the keyword, I think, over the next, like, six to twelve months.

Steve: Yeah. So cash reserves is one. Anything else?

Speaker 3: What

Caleb: do you need to watch out for?

Steve: Is that what

Caleb: the question was?

Steve: Because if we tell someone to go spend more on marketing, you know, I can say, like, for me, one of the things that I learned very quickly was that I didn't have the resources to take the calls.

Caleb: Alright. That was that was gonna be my next answer.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: Just answer the freaking calls. Because you can send out $20,000 worth of mailers. Well, if those calls come in and you don't have somebody live answering them, your chances of conversion will go through the floor. Right. So that's the biggest one is don't go spending more than you can handle Yeah.

As far as incoming calls go.

Steve: Right. And then as far as, you know, we have Jason Lewis. He's been on the show. I'm looking forward to have him come back very soon. We have, like, differing ideas as to or he and I are the same, but other people have different ideas who should be answering the phone.

So, you know, you got, like, these calling, answering services. You got answering services. You got VAs. You You got lead managers. You got acquisition managers.

So there's, like, four different people, right Yeah. That could be answering the calls. Who's answering the calls at your company?

Caleb: My top sales guys.

Steve: Your top sales guys.

Caleb: My top sales guys. Okay.

Steve: What's the rationale for that?

Caleb: Because I started listening we used to let them go to a VA company, and then they would warm the lead up and pitch it to the sales guys. Mhmm. Well, the the sellers were actually getting frustrated with the VAs because they were so poor that they weren't they would just hang up the phone, and you couldn't get them back on the phone again. Yeah. So when those people are calling in, yes, what do you what'd you say?

Four out of 10 are good calls when people call in off of a postcard? But those are four super valuable leads.

Steve: That you paid a lot of money for?

Caleb: That were super expensive

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: And that somebody can easily ruin if they're not good on the phone. Yeah. So that's why I want my best people answering them and live answering them. I ride my guys about their call answer percentage on a weekly basis.

Steve: What is, the target as far as answer rate?

Caleb: A 100% is the target, but they don't hit it. Yeah. But that's the goal is to get to a 100.

Steve: What is, like, typically, what do you see?

Caleb: Around 80 to 85 is what we're seeing usually.

Steve: You know? And it's such, like, an obvious thing when someone points it out. You should have a 100% target answer rate. You know? But it wasn't Eric Brewer who was talking at CG.

He's like, yeah. You know, we found out we're in the sixties. Yep. And, like, we moved, like, heaven and earth to get it up to, like, I think high eighties, low nineties.

Caleb: Yeah. It's hard to get to a 100. Yeah. I mean, even one week. We rarely ever have one week where that's a 100%.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: But that's so I know some people that have, like, stacked different schedules where some people are you got certain people that answer the calls until call from eight to two and then from two to eight. Yeah. I don't know what the exact solution is, but just answer the damn phone.

Steve: And it sounds so obvious, but something we totally miss, we're not tracking that metric.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: Yeah. Alright. So somewhere along the way, you bought a bunch of doors as well.

Caleb: Yes.

Steve: So talk to me about this journey.

Caleb: So that was another collective genius driven

Steve: move. Mhmm.

Caleb: Tim Brotz and Corey Peterson, who you know both of them. Mhmm. They were in the group, and I was kinda, like, looking around saying, alright. Who's got the best lifestyle in here or quality of life to where they don't seem like they're just grinding away? And they were two of them.

So all I was You

Steve: do seem pretty relaxed.

Caleb: Yeah. So I flew I went to Corey's event immediately, and then I flew to Tim's event, or I've been I flew to Tim's office like three separate times and just picked their brains, and they were awesome about sharing ideas with me and how they got started, and told me what not to do when I got started, and what to do. And within about two, three years, we picked up a little over 300 doors.

Steve: Wow. I actually had a chance to go through Tim's course, at some point or his event, and it's crazy. Right? The things you don't even realize are, like, you know, that you talk about, there's, like, what you know you don't know, and that's what you don't know you don't know.

Caleb: And you

Steve: hear his nightmare stories like, wow. There's a lot that can go wrong if you're if you're not aware of the come upcoming challenges. Yep. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when you first started buying doors?

Caleb: I didn't realize, not to get political, but I didn't realize, like, I'm not buying any more blue states. The the eviction laws are tough. Mhmm. Never really thought about that being an issue. I looked at an apartment like a house when we're flipping them and doing major rehabs on apartments, and just your problems are a lot bigger when you multiply it by 60 doors versus one door.

So we blew through some budgets on some rehabs. Like How badly? Like quarter million dollars.

Steve: Off by a quarter million?

Caleb: Yeah. Off by a quarter million dollars. Actually, probably off by a little bit closer to $350,000 on one.

Steve: Well, what what did you miss?

Caleb: Just when you take 50 doors and you and the the renovation cost goes up is $2,000 over your door per door budget. Yeah. That's a 100,000. So you can do the math and see how if you miss some air conditioning units or some hot water heaters or a roof that you didn't think of. It's just everything with apartments is you add another zero or two.

Steve: Mhmm.

Caleb: So that's either a good thing Mhmm. Or it's a bad thing, if it's in the wrong direction.

Steve: Yeah. The one story that stuck out to me was, like, there's a difference between vacant properties, and it was, like, economically vacant, or there's another term for this. Right?

Caleb: Is that economically vacant, where they're living there, we're not paying?

Steve: Yeah. He's like, oh, yeah. Like, you know, it's this percentage occupied. And you, if you're a new investor, take that to accept, oh, we got this many percentage of people paying. Like, no.

Yeah. No. It's it's occupied, but it's not collecting rent.

Caleb: Correct. And sellers will lie to you and provide you false financials. And, I mean, you really ought to we've gone one extra step to asking for the bank account showing canceled checks or showing that that money actually came in because the financial said, call it, $60,000 that month came in. But really when they sent the bank accounts, only 40 came in. So that's just and then you go and you buy a property based on those numbers, and then you realize you just bought, you bought a problem.

Steve: Yeah. Have you bought any problems?

Caleb: I would say every single one of them has come with some sort of problem. Yeah. Now I've just gotten to where I like 1990 and newer, B class. They just seem so much more low maintenance

Steve: Mhmm.

Caleb: Easy to manage, and easy to to stabilize Yeah. Than the old stuff.

Steve: So you bought it to attain a certain lifestyle? Yep. Have you attained that certain lifestyle from the apartments?

Caleb: I'd say we've gotten pretty close.

Steve: Okay. What is the lifestyle you you aspire to have?

Caleb: I wanted to play golf, call it four days a week, and then work, call it, thirty, forty hours.

Steve: Got it.

Caleb: And I'd say I'm pretty close to doing I mean, that's about about what my whole week looks like.

Steve: And then as far as, you know, getting these apartments, what would you say is the hardest part in getting apartments?

Caleb: So that's changing. The hardest part of the last three years has just been finding them. Finding deals that pencil and that work. And now, I think now that the market is changing, I think that the deals are gonna be easier to find, but the money piece is gonna be harder. Mhmm.

Because especially with higher interest rates, making the deals work from the financial, standpoint is a little bit more challenging on the underwriting side than it has been.

Steve: So I'm not very educated on the multifamily side. Yep. So with the interest rates going from I don't know. Like, what was the Fed rate beginning of the year? What's the Fed rate today?

Caleb: I don't know that.

Steve: I'll probably like, maybe two points. Right? Yeah. For the year, something along those lines. How does that directly translate to the valuation, or the financing of an apartment complex?

Caleb: Yeah. I mean, it'll drive it has to drive cap rates up. I mean, cap rates got squeezed all the way down to where people are buying stuff in the three to five cap rate. That's

Steve: the Phoenix market?

Caleb: Yeah. And they just when you put debt on them, they really don't cash flow.

Steve: Right.

Caleb: But now when you're throwing debt on those things, they're gonna really negative cash flow if you're buying them at that low of cap rate. Mhmm. I think cap rates will definitely come up.

Steve: And that directly brings the value down.

Caleb: Correct. Yeah. I mean, because most people are throwing debt on these things. Yeah. And you have to they I'm not I I will not buy property if that thing's not cash flowing.

And people have been doing it for the last two, three years just buying stuff based on a pro form a Mhmm. Or based on that they think it'll appreciate. Right.

Steve: Well, they had to.

Caleb: They had to if they wanted to buy. Yeah. But I'm just I don't I think in any market, you don't you only buy good deals. Don't buy just to buy.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So the financing is the is the biggest thing right now.

Caleb: Financing is huge.

Steve: Yeah. And then you have something oh, we were talking about, offline. So having two three twenty five doors, you and I were talking about how I have, back in my day, I was an REO agent, and I was sharing some of my nightmare stories. Right? Like, you have to have all these listings that you're paying utilities every month.

And then my worst one was I had to spend 20 plus thousand on the roof. Yeah. And I was just, like, anxious for the reimbursement from the from Bank of America on that one. You've got similar issues right now in your business.

Caleb: On the apartment side. Yeah.

Steve: But talk to me about the utility situation.

Caleb: So utilities are a pain in the ass. Yeah. And every town is different. So it's not as easy as just going in and setting up the utilities online. Like, sometimes you have to call in.

Some of these towns want you to come physically in, which we've figured out ways to not do it. But either way so you're setting up utilities for Apartment 1 A. Mhmm. Well, then you renovate in one a. You put a tenant in it, you call the town to put it to transfer it into the tenant's name.

They don't do it, and then you couple months later, you see that you're still paying utilities on it. Well, when you're in 300 something doors and you multiply it by 20 or 30 of them where you've paid an extra month or two in utilities, that that adds up. Yeah. So just the logistics behind the utility piece on these properties is it's it's a pain in the ass.

Steve: I I can't even imagine that. So the other thing you've done is, you created something some time ago, zoomoffersnow.com. Yeah. So what is that, and how did that come to fruition?

Caleb: Yeah. So that is an online offering software that we built. Back in my retail days when I was running, call it, twenty, thirty listing upon appointments a month, I would go and I'd I'd meet with all these families, and there was always, call it, five to seven of that 30 that I sit down with that would be super motivating. They would say, Caleb, I wanna list it at, call it 300. And then I'd ask, well, what's the lowest you'll take?

And they'll say, $2.20. I'm like, well, damn. That's that's a high percentage that's pretty motivated that the market doesn't really they the buyers in the market don't know they're super motivated. Mhmm. So I said, how do we get offers in front of everybody that's raised their hand and put their house on the MLS?

And what would how would you do it? You'd sit down on zip forms and write call it how many active listings do y'all have in

Steve: we got, like, 20,000. But back when I was very, very first starting, I, as a realtor, was writing 20 to 30 offers a day for another investor. Yep. Right? Typing it up, mail emailing it, sometimes faxing the offers.

Caleb: Yes. Which took half a day for you to do.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: So I said, alright. How do we get offers in front of the 20,000 active listings in the MLS without having to sit down and individually type it up? So I was sitting with out of drinks one night with my buddy and was telling me about my idea and trying to figure out how we could do it. And he said, well, I've got this guy that does software. So he puts us in touch, and I tell him about my ideas.

And then he says, oh, I can build that. So what we did was we built an app to where in, like, three clicks, you can select which listings on the MLS you wanna make offers on. I mean, you can cast a net over the entire MLS and send 20,000 offers out if you want in about three clicks, where it'll auto populate the offer, sign it for you at the bottom, and then send it to the listing agent, attached in the email so it looks just like a regular offer sent from an agent.

Steve: So it looks like a regular purchase contract.

Caleb: It looks exactly It's

Steve: not an LOI.

Caleb: It looks exactly like if you were to sit down and type it up and fax it or scan it off Yeah. To them, and it's signed.

Steve: Wow. Okay. So I could just look at these. I I set up a safe search that matches these criteria. Yep.

Right? Like, hundred days on market. Yep. You know, handyman special.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: Yep. I get these six. I go into Zoom offers now. I was like, alright. I like these six properties, and then we're just sending offers.

Caleb: Yep. You can individually do them, or you cannot do it on all 300 that pop up. Like, it has a search criteria to where you can say anything that's been on the market for ninety days or more, anything that's three bedrooms or more, 4,000 square feet or less. The software even has you can put in keywords like handyman special or motivated seller, and it will populate all the listings in the MLS that had that search criteria. And then you can just click, click, scroll on what you offer.

So it has, like, a little toggle that's up to a 100% off what you offer. So if you scroll down and offer 55¢ on the dollar, it will populate the offer with that price, sign it, send it off to the listing agent.

Steve: Wow.

Caleb: Then you just field counter offers all day.

Steve: Okay. How are you guys calling afterwards, or are we just letting them?

Caleb: So we started out as soon as we built it, Justin on my team went in, and he he probably made 2,000 offers in one one little fell swoop, and then just the phone calls came just flooding in. So what we figured out was if you do about a 100 a day, it's manageable. Mhmm. So he'll just go in in the mornings, pull up the list, the hot sheet, and then pull up anything that falls into that criteria in a couple search save search criteria that we do, and he'll send those off. And then Yeah.

He doesn't even put his phone number in the email. It just says the body of the email says something along the lines of, we're hey. We're local real estate investors. We know this isn't full price. Please send us, either an acceptance or counter offer back via email because he doesn't wanna talk to 200 people a day.

Steve: So

Caleb: Only the motivated ones.

Steve: If you guys are listening, right, like, there's a way that you can just blast your offer to all the listings Yep. In MLS. Correct. So what kind of calls is he getting? Or I guess he removed the phone number.

So what kind of calls was he getting?

Caleb: A little bit of both. I mean, it's kinda like direct mail. You get some people that are pissed off and saying this is just I mean, it's a disrespectful offer, and then you get some people that couple call in and say, hey. My people aren't willing to take x, but they'll take y.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Caleb: then he just negotiates back and forth. Most of it's done through email, though. Yeah. But we're picking up between two and four deals a month from agents, mostly through the app.

Steve: That's awesome. And then we mentioned earlier that we we connected through Collective Genius. Now one of the things I really enjoy, at CG, one of the things I look forward to is playing basketball. Yep. Right?

Now you're an assassin. Right? I don't know how because you don't play between CGs, but you you did play college ball.

Caleb: Yeah. I'm retired now, though.

Steve: Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, was there anything that you took from playing college basketball that translated to your business?

Caleb: I mean, working on a team, I think was a a key part that I took to business. Working as a team, being a leader, help supporting others, being respectful of others, the hard work that has to that goes into being a college athlete. Yeah. I mean, I just think there's a lot lot of intangibles that that translate into business.

Steve: There's someone I connected you to very recently. Dan Nicholson, he wrote a book Rigging the Game, and he mentioned, like, you can learn a lot about a person based off the way they play basketball or based off how they play their favorite sport or hobby. Right? And so for me, he I was in that conversation, I was thinking of two different things. A, I'm not athletic, but I will hound you down.

Alright?

Caleb: I would agree with that as you end up guarding me most of the time.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I take it personal when you're hitting those game winners. Right? So I will hound you down. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is I always want the game winning shot. Not saying I'm the I'm I'm the best athlete. I'm not saying I'm the best basketball player. I just want the game winner. Alright?

And we're talking about so how this might translate to business is that I will outwork the competition. Yep. Right? And the the taking the game winning shot may potentially demonstrate, like, I don't care if people get mad, which means you'll be willing to take more risk.

Caleb: Yeah. You're you're pretty fearless.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So it was just I I was just kinda curious your thoughts on that now. We have a whole bunch of questions in here, which is awesome. So before we go to answer all these questions, we're gonna take a quick commercial break, and then we're gonna answer all these questions.

Hey. Steve Trang here. A lot of you have been asking me for sales management training. I didn't feel quite right teaching it, but I found the perfect guy to teach it for us. So, Wren, tell us about it.

Speaker: Steve, we're gonna be introducing some really intense fundamentals and philosophy behind the management of sales teams. Have a ton of experience building really high performance sales teams and really taken a little bit of this and a little bit of that management practices and theories from all over the place and brought them together to create a unique whole person perspective that drives low performers to high performers and elite caliber salespeople into sales champions. And couldn't be more excited to partner with you on it and the sales disruptors brand.

Steve: For sure. So go to disruptors.com/success, and we'll see you at the next event.

Caleb: Oh, yeah. Sorry. So we're adding the feature. So right now, the app sends offers to all the agents. So it's pretty much only making offers to the active listing agents in the market.

So agents that have active listings. So I said, alright. Well, how do we touch every agent in the market that has a real estate license? So the app will you'll be able to send just a blanket email out to the entire data to the entire agent list. So, like, how many how many agents are in Phoenix?

10,000 plus? I

Steve: think it's 40,000 plus.

Caleb: 40,000 agents. So the app already has perfect data because it's pulling from the MLS. So it has their their email and their their phone number. Yeah. So the app will be able to send out once a once, twice a month, as as often as you want to, one blanket email, then you can just say, hey, hey, first name.

I'm sitting on some cash right now looking for an investment property. Do you have any listings either on the market or coming up where sellers are motivated or the house is, in disrepair? Yeah. There's no way that doesn't pick you up deals Yeah. There's no 40,000 agents.

There's there's no chance.

Steve: That's awesome. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. So there's some, pushback here. Someone was saying, realtors don't provide much value, neither do wholesalers.

You wanna you wanna add some your your opinion on that?

Caleb: I mean, good

Steve: Sounds like their mind might might be set already.

Caleb: Yeah. Good real estate agents don't provide any value. And then, I mean, wholesalers that back out of deals and don't don't fulfill what they tell you they're they're gonna do, and they don't end up closing the deal Yeah. They don't provide any value either. But you can't tell me that we haven't helped families get out of situations that needed quick cash, or just did not wanna go through the whole home sale process?

Steve: Well, I would say, you know, realtors are not that valuable if you look at them in the way that the industry or not the industry, the general public looks at them. Right? Because the in the general public thinks all a realtor does is put the house in MLS.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: Take pictures. Right? And if that's the perception, if that's what you think realtors do, then, yeah, that's not really that much value. You can do that with software. Yeah.

Right? But navigating out of a sticky situation, being able to negotiate, I would argue today, is very different than it was, just a a few months ago. I actually had Matthew Potter. He was on the show, I wanna say about a month, month and a half ago. And he was he coined this term.

I don't know if it's if it's going anywhere else. They called them COVID realtors. Right? These are all the realtors that got started around COVID. Yeah.

Right? Using that stimulus money to go to real estate school.

Caleb: They had it great for two years.

Steve: Yeah. They can't negotiate worth crap because they haven't been through a market where you actually have to negotiate.

Caleb: There was no negotiation. Everything was as is, and you pretty much take it take it the way that that it looks or you're not buying it.

Steve: Exactly. So, I would challenge there's there's a lot of interesting situations that I I believe that realtors do provide a lot of value, but if it's just putting a sign in the yard, definitely, that is not where the value comes from.

Caleb: Agreed.

Steve: Robert is asking on Facebook, how can you close two out of three timeshares? So I can't answer that question, but, what would you say, you know, additionally, that we didn't cover really helped you become successful when you were selling timeshares originally?

Caleb: I mean, it just come came back to good teaching and good sales coaching. I mean, everything that I've ever done at any sales organization, whether it's the retail side, timeshare, or the wholesale side, I would always go find the best person in that office or the best person that I could find to teach me what they're doing, and then just copy exactly what they did. Yeah. So now I think once you got and showed success, I think in that organization, they started feeding me the best leads that came in too Right. And most qualified buyers that came through those doors.

So that helped my I'm sure that helped my numbers.

Steve: Probably did. Now we're talking about sales training, so I've had the honor to work with you guys, your team, as far as the the sales training for buying houses. Yep. So, you know, I talk to people, they're like, well, I don't really need sales training. Right?

And you're you've seen it from the I love this. Right? From the timeshare side, from the cold calling expired side, and from the buying houses side. Talk to me, like, why do you invest in sales training?

Caleb: Because without sales, there's no income. I mean, without quality salespeople, the difference between a good salesperson, a mediocre salesperson, and a poor salesperson is hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Wouldn't you agree on that?

Steve: I would agree with that wholeheartedly.

Caleb: I mean, I think on the whole sale flip fix and flip side, a good acquisitions man, a very good sales sales trained acquisitions person is a 10 to $20,000 per deal, difference in profit.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: Or the deal just even just doesn't even get done.

Steve: Yeah. Or he just even coming back to the office with a signed contract.

Caleb: Yep.

Steve: Yeah. So, let's see what here. What does he do in his systems to make the point of lead discovery through conversion and ultra efficient process? What is in between that process? So so lead discoveries to conversion.

So I guess, you know, talk to you us about, you know, when you're running an appointment, what do you do to go from the discovery part to getting a signed contract?

Caleb: From so most of our deals are coming from direct mail. So call comes in, and it's through CallRail, so it's all recorded. Live answer like we talked about. They go through a script. We use your script.

Yeah. We qualify the appointment. We confirm the appointment the day before

Steve: just to

Caleb: make sure the person's gonna show up. And then my sales guy goes to the appointment, and he uses your sales scripts as well, for the presentation Yeah. To get the signed contract. I mean, it is a process. It's not just, hey, you wanna sell your house?

Okay. I'll meet you there Thursday, and then you you go out there. I mean, we are trial closing these people on the phone, making sure that they're ready to sign contracts when we're getting out there, or at least prepping them that we want them to make a decision when they go out there. And then the guy at the appointment is reinforcing, I want you to make a decision when we're out here.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: So just building a sales process.

Steve: Yeah. Let's see what else we have here. I don't understand some of these questions here. So Real Places, you're saying does he reorganize segment, or what are his segments? So if you can just re ask that question a different way, Real Places.

The other one was, if you were to be consulted by Dan Kennedy, how will you describe and define his segments? So I'm not sure what segments means. Maybe by marketing?

Caleb: I don't know that I understand that question. I do love Dan Kennedy, though.

Steve: I do love Dan Kennedy.

Caleb: His books are, some of my favorites.

Steve: So let's talk about how Dan Kennedy has made an impact for you and your business.

Caleb: The no BS time management book is probably my favorite. That guy's just ruthless in the the way he does everything. But and then the note so that basically taught me how to prioritize my day Mhmm. And not chaotically just put out fires all day long. Right.

So being proactive about my day, I'd say that was the big one of the biggest things from that book. And then the no BS management I think it's ruthless management of people. I think he's a little bit more of a beat your employees over the head with a stick than hang a carrot out in front of him.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: But I definitely picked up a couple good nuggets from from that. I mean, I've read probably six of his books.

Steve: My favorite term from the no BS time management book was, time vampires.

Caleb: Yeah.

Steve: So it would just come in and just suck the time out of you? Yeah. I think that, I've had multiple people ask me, like, I wanna get better at marketing. I was like, oh, well, then you need to just go review all Dan Kennedy stuff. But make sure you leave your credit card in a place that you can't access it because the guy is the absolute best when it comes to marketing.

I mean, he'll tug at your heart, and you'll wanna buy.

Caleb: Yeah. In his books.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So I the the the joke I've made is, like, you know, treat anytime you're watching, Dan Kennedy material almost like you're going to a strip club, like, you just you cannot access any of your capital because you don't want to buy whatever it is he's marketing.

Caleb: That's true.

Steve: So Lotto on YouTube, if your primary marketing channel was taken away and had to pick up a new one, which would you pick up? Interesting question.

Caleb: So it's been direct mail for so long. Mhmm. And we talked about our Zoom offers. So it was interesting with Zoom offers. So Zoom offers worked really well from, like, 2014 through 2018.

Mhmm. I guess, those were the years that we had it when there was a lot of inventory. Well, then the inventory fell off the cliff in our market. I'm sure it did here too. There was just nothing on the MLS, so buying on the MLS stopped.

Yeah. But now it's almost it looks like our direct mail is dropping down. Our response our response is dropping. So now we're having to go back to the MLS. I like going to the MLS and to the realtors in the market.

Yeah. And the the agents' incomes are getting whacked right now, so they're motivated as heck to put deals together.

Steve: Yeah. And that kinda goes back to the COVID realtor thing. Right? Like, if they're used to selling two, three houses a month without doing anything, and now it's taking, like, sixty, ninety days to sell one property Mhmm. They're they're a little more motivated, maybe even more motivated than the homeowner.

Caleb: Correct. They're definitely more motivated than the homeowner Yeah. In a lot of situations. And they will they'll take the homeowner and throw them under the bus. I mean, not all real estate agents work in the best interest of their clients.

Steve: No. Not at all. And another question from Lotto. Would you ever develop commercial from the ground up from the ground up?

Caleb: I wouldn't by myself. Mhmm. I would find somebody that's done it before me that's very good at it and partner with them first before I before I went that route.

Steve: Yeah. That's a great point. And then, if you couldn't do real estate anymore, what business would you start?

Caleb: A sales training, coaching business.

Steve: Come at me.

Caleb: Let's go. I'm just kidding.

Steve: But is there another business that you find, fascinating?

Caleb: I think if I couldn't do real estate, I think I would just get around. Maybe back into basketball of some type. I'd love to work for, like, an NBA team or something. That'd be fun.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, like, playing basketball, like, I enjoy going there's, like, there's you, There's Leon. There's Jimmy. Right?

So for the guys that don't know Jimmy Vreeland, he was on, part of the disruption last week. And there's more guys. Santini. Yeah. Right?

There's a bunch of guys just like it's a lot of work to keep up with you guys.

Caleb: Yeah.

Steve: Alright. How do you incentivize your salespeople enough to stay with you and not run with your systems? Which is, I think, the greatest fear we talk about, you know, with our sales leadership. The five is retaining the talent. So how do you retain top talent?

Caleb: I mean, just creating a good culture in the office. Mhmm. We compensate them very fairly. Like, most of our sales guys make they're highly compensated. Yeah.

Could they go off and do it on their own? Yeah, they could. But not everybody's built to go build a business, as you know. Some people are just very good salespeople. Yeah.

But that that doesn't mean they can go be an entrepreneur and actually build a business and take the risk of sending $20,000 of marketing out a month to not know that that money's not coming back. So I just don't think I've never really gone at it with a scarcity mindset concern that people are leaving and just have always just tried to treat them right, pay them right, and

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: And knock on wood, they've stayed.

Steve: What do you I mean, I was I was around $20 $20,000 a month. What do you guys typically spend a month in in direct mail?

Caleb: About that.

Steve: About that? Yeah. Are you guys doing TV at all?

Caleb: We're not doing TV.

Steve: Yeah. And then let's see what else are there. Rephrase. Each seller must fall into a segment. What segments is Caled defiant such that his correspondence communication is more relevant?

I guess, how do you segment your audience, your your targeted audience as far as maybe direct mail?

Caleb: I mean, we buy all of our lists. Mhmm. We buy Richard's list Yeah. Which is authentic. Mhmm.

And we just, I mean, we just mail them. Yeah. So And we have we have strategies in how we mail them and when we get the leads and how many times we hit them and their their score. I mean, there's definitely a process to it. Yeah.

That'd be a whole podcast in itself.

Steve: You wanna give a high level? What are one or two things you do with that list?

Caleb: Mail it, text it. Mail it, text it, call it. Mhmm. But we haven't we're not big on cold calling like we used to be. We need to get back to it.

Steve: Well, you know, our team's doing really well with cold calling. They're enjoying it. And then we saw Jesus post this morning. Did you see that in the Facebook group? Uh-uh.

So Oklahoma City has passed some legislation to have their own local DCPA compliance, which could be a real thing across the country. Right?

Caleb: Yeah. That'd be a problem. Yeah.

Steve: I mean, because Oklahoma City was one of the first markets to require some sort of regulation. I think they had to be a licensed realtor, right, to to wholesale in Oklahoma City. And so they've just passed something where it's, I think they called it mini TCPA. Yeah. $500 for infraction or something along those lines.

Caleb: I think I just moved markets. Yeah.

Steve: And then, Brian's asking, could you share some samples of your postcard marketing? So I think I mean, how different is it than what, you see as far as, like, you know, investment machine or you don't have right?

Caleb: It's just one of their templates. Yeah.

Steve: I think a lot of people try to overcomplicate this, but, really, it's just doing it.

Caleb: And doing it consistently. I think what people do is they send it out once, and then if they don't do a deal from it and we have plenty of weeks where mail 5,000 mailers go out, and we don't get any return from it.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: But we do it every single week with the same amount, and we track it. How many calls are coming in? And it used to be 1% was kind of the rule.

Steve: I've never gotten to 1%.

Caleb: No. Now we're, like, point 33%, somewhere around there. And it just I mean, it's constantly going down as direct mail costs constantly go up. So then it's important to go make sure that you're squeezing every dollar out of every deal.

Steve: Yeah. I think our best was a half percent response rate.

Caleb: Yeah. That's just your market's more competition than ours. I would say.

Steve: So, Christopher Lee, how did you decide to choose your marketing when you started building your portfolio?

Caleb: Most of my deals came from brokers Mhmm. Around the country. I just picked the phone up and just cold called a bunch of commercial real estate agents, told them I was looking, and that's how, like, my first deal went down. And then once once you close one deal with that agent and they see that you can perform You're in

Steve: some sort of database?

Caleb: Correct. They send you another one. And then once you it's like it's kinda like a snowball effect. It's like once people know that you own stuff, then they start bringing you opportunities, and that's how my entire portfolio has been more word-of-mouth.

Steve: I think what Tim did was, like, the smartest thing. Right?

Caleb: Tim's yeah. That's why Tim owned 10 times as many doors as I do.

Steve: Let me let me start a, course on buying apartments. Yeah. And then everyone's like, hey, Tim. How do I close this deal?

Caleb: Yeah. Because they know how to go he'll teach them how to go find them. They'll go find them, and then they they don't really feel comfortable closing them, so they bring them to I mean, Tim's yeah. Tim's got it going on.

Steve: Yeah. He's he's either one of the smartest things you could possibly do.

Caleb: Yeah. That's why his portfolio is, like, 4,000 doors.

Steve: Yeah. And you guys did an island together. Right?

Caleb: Yeah. I've sold Tim a couple properties.

Steve: I remember he posted about that island. I was like, this is this is crazy. Right?

Caleb: It's like a 100 acres. They're working on building some tiny homes out there.

Steve: Yeah. It's cool. I talked to when I saw that, I mean, I tagged I I think I shared it on Facebook to my wife. I was like, hey. So Tim's buying, an island.

I wanna get in on this. And she's like, for what? So we own an island. Like, there's not much For an ego plan? There's It's not a sound business decision.

Right?

Caleb: Yeah. But I they're trying to turn it into where it'll cash flow with the all the little tiny homes out there. Yeah.

Steve: Less smart.

Caleb: And he's gonna do masterminds out there. It's cool. It's a cool spot.

Steve: Yeah. But you were involved in in that somehow?

Caleb: I was a real estate agent in the sale of that one. Yeah.

Steve: Got it. How was the due diligence on that thing?

Caleb: I wasn't a whole lot of help for the guy that said real estate agents aren't helpful. He has his own due diligence team

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: In their office, and they they did most of it.

Steve: Yeah. I can't imagine. This is not as simple like, hey. Why don't you go, you know, check out the plumbing on this property?

Caleb: No. It's more like calling the town and figuring out what can be put out there and what type of hoops they're gonna have to jump through to build out there.

Steve: Yeah. And, Christopher Lee is someone that we used to we do a lot of running together, but since I started playing basketball, I haven't been running so much. And then, Khalil, would you suggest what would you suggest is the best way to get started for a beginner wholesaler with a low budget?

Caleb: I know I'm sitting here self promoting Zoom offers, but and that's only $500 a month, where you know how expensive direct mail is. Yeah. Direct mail, you can easily get up to 20. I mean, we know we have friends that spend over a $100,000 a month on direct mail. Yeah.

But for $500 a month and you're you're I can't guarantee you're gonna do a deal, but if you use it, you should do at at least a deal a month from it. Does that

Steve: come with MLS access? Or I mean, it's just private money. It just pulls an MLS. That's crazy.

Caleb: But that's worth $500 just to be able to email all the agents in the market.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, to get quality realtor data, it's hard.

Caleb: Super hard.

Steve: Yeah. So that's that's a that's a no brainer. Let's see what else we got here. This is a question that if you don't want to answer, you don't have to. Do you ever intentionally direct mail a seller who's listed with a realtor?

Caleb: No. Yeah. Not intentionally. And then all of our postcards say if if your home is listed with a licensed agent, this is not to solicit your business. Not not to solicit your business.

Steve: So someone that mentored me I never did this. But someone that mentored me is like, why wouldn't you mail to everyone? So you're listening with real estate. They've already raised their hands, and all you have to do is just put that language there.

Caleb: I mean, that's that's technically your loophole.

Steve: I I I never did it. I thought it was clever, you know, but I did not have the cajons to

Caleb: I've never done it.

Steve: To go to war with the realtor community.

Caleb: So You wanna make them your friends. Exactly.

Steve: I'm

Caleb: telling you you want them on your side, not your enemies.

Steve: So what are you excited about for I mean, I know we still got a couple more months this year, but what are you excited about in 2023?

Caleb: I think distress is gonna go up.

Steve: I think so.

Caleb: I think so. I think it's gonna be a tougher year on the retail brokerage side to actually sell homes. I think there's gonna be less transactions in the markets.

Steve: Oh, it's gonna be significantly less transactions.

Caleb: A lot less. Yeah. So I think you're gonna see a lot more sell. As you see on the inventory start stack up, I think you're gonna start seeing a lot of people get desperate and start unloading some stuff at prices that they shouldn't Mhmm. Which will, in turn, maybe drive some prices down a little bit.

Steve: Right. It's kinda like this vicious cycle where if we just don't participate in it, you'll be fine. But somebody's gonna participate, and it just keeps going

Caleb: down. Correct. Yeah. And I I the PPP money and that the idle money is starting to run out, but I think

Steve: I think it started to run out. I think it's ran out.

Caleb: I I and I think we're gonna you're either gonna get your ass kicked from it Mhmm. Here in the next twelve months, or I think there are gonna be some people that that build big businesses and and capitalize on the opportunities.

Steve: Well, this is a kind of market where you can, like, make a name for yourself is not the right word I wanna use, right expression I wanna use, but, like, you can really, like, create your opportunity in this market.

Caleb: Yeah. You can separate yourself.

Steve: Separate yourself. That's what it is. What is your why?

Caleb: My why is really just getting quality time. And, like, you brought you asked where I wanna go with things in my business and my weekly schedule. My why is just being able to spend quality time with who I want, when I want, with my family Mhmm. And then how do I build businesses that support that?

Steve: Yeah. What is your biggest struggle today?

Caleb: I mean, I feel pretty blessed. I don't have a lot of terrible struggles. I'd say I've got some challenges with some of these big apartments, then the renovation projects on some of them. But, I mean, they're they're a blessing just as much as they are a struggle.

Steve: Yeah. How much cash do you typically have to raise to to take down an apartment complex?

Caleb: Usually 20%. Yeah. Well, more like 30% because you're gonna wanna raise the, renovation money too. Right. Just depending on how much it needs.

Steve: And, like, your typical apartment, like, how much are you buying it for?

Caleb: Most of my stuff's gonna be between 1,000,000 and $5,000,000.

Steve: Okay. So

Caleb: I'm not doing, like, the huge deals like Corey and Tim are doing.

Steve: Yeah. So, like, 300 k to maybe, million and a half.

Caleb: Which is pretty easy to raise. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Okay. How do you stay motivated?

Caleb: I've had a number that's I wanna make x amount a month in passive income, and I'm not to that number yet. So Yeah. That's kind of been, like, the carrot hanging out in front of me.

Steve: So you're an entrepreneur. One thing we tend to do is move the goalposts.

Caleb: It it'll get moved, I'm sure.

Steve: Yep. Yeah. So do you believe that when you get there, you'll be able to be content?

Caleb: Probably not. Yeah. No. Man, I'm a rabbit chaser.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: I'm gonna chase the next shiny object even if I get to that number.

Steve: Right.

Caleb: I'm not sitting at home doing nothing.

Steve: Yeah. And I'm and that's the biggest struggle we all we all face. How do you measure success?

Caleb: Quality of life.

Steve: Yeah. Do you have any kind of, like, targets, metrics at all in in saying, like, you know I mean, it it sounds really crazy, right, to, like, scorecard your life.

Caleb: Yeah.

Steve: But is there anything that you look forward to, like, give you an indication you're doing the right thing?

Caleb: I don't know. I mean, I I don't wanna tie it all to financial. Right. I really just wanna get to where I can, again, do what I want, when I want, with who I want. And I'd like to be able to take not only my immediate family, my wife, my two kids, but, like, be the provider of fund for my brother and his wife or my parents, my in laws.

Like, that's when I know I feel like I'm winning when I can take them to go do fun things and experience things that they they haven't been able to do.

Steve: Yeah. Speaking of of your wife, you know, I was giving you a hard time because you've never won a belt before.

Caleb: I have not won a belt, and she has.

Steve: And she has. What were some eye opening things from that from her winning that belt for you? Actually, before I do that, what what is opening what is winning a belt?

Caleb: Oh, so at Collective Genius, they everybody does a presentation, and then the best presenter for that particular event wins, like, a wrestling belt.

Steve: It's I

Caleb: mean, it's the trophy for that event.

Steve: We all want it.

Caleb: Well, you've won.

Steve: I know we all want it.

Caleb: Oh, we all yeah. We all want it. I've never won it. You've won it how many times?

Steve: Just once.

Caleb: Okay. You've won it. So she came to me and she said, hey, Caleb. I've got this kind of on my heart. I want to speak at this one.

Mhmm. I'm like, okay. What are you gonna talk about? And then she goes and she starts building a presentation on being married to an entrepreneur. Mhmm.

There are a lot of things that she asked me and said to me as she's building that presentation, and I think it hit the room pretty hard. It did. Being entrepreneur being married to an entrepreneur is not as easy as we think it is. We think, oh, we provide you this glorious life. We're awesome.

Right. Yeah. We just think we're fantastic. And, man, you get to go do these trips, and you get this quality of life, and, really, that's not all they want. They want some of they want more of you.

Mhmm. I would say that's the biggest thing.

Steve: Yeah. Was there anything else in her presentation that, like, was eye opening for you?

Caleb: I would say the biggest was that she just wanted more of me and that she wanted to actually know more about the business Mhmm. And be more involved than I thought she would wanted

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: Have wanted to be.

Steve: Right. And, there was one note I took from her from her presentation was to go back and evaluate, you know, what the spouse needs to feel safe. I believe it was, like, you know, what what is the number in the bank account or something along those lines Yeah. To feel safe, and then having an open dialogue about the progress in that. Right?

Because otherwise, they're operating in the blind Yep. In the dark, and there are no good thoughts when we're operating in the dark.

Caleb: Correct.

Steve: Yeah. What is your superpower?

Caleb: I'd say delegation. Yeah. I'm pretty good at delegating, like, figuring out what where which direction we need to go and pitching it.

Steve: Yeah. Would your team feel that you're great at delegating?

Caleb: They probably don't appreciate as much delegation as I get. So, yeah, I I guess that's the answer to that one.

Steve: Yeah. I'm only asking this because, like, I I have this habit of, like, hey, like, let's go do this. Right? And in my mind, it's like a crystal clear picture. Yep.

And in there, they're like, what the hell did Steve just say? Right? And then we found out, like, we actually, I presented on this. Right? This is something I learned from their Yacht was like, you know, like, what does he want me to do?

Do I have the resources for it? How will we know we're successful? And then, do I accept the responsibility? Because, like, I just kinda, like, one way, like, hey. Go do this.

And they're like, I don't wanna do this.

Caleb: Yep. And you give no instructions or no instructions. Yep.

Steve: Alright. We talked about what was it in in in, Rocky, if you're right, like, the classic visionary. Yeah. Yeah. So okay.

And then, what is the greatest lesson you've learned?

Caleb: Oh, the greatest lesson I've learned

Steve: from business? In general.

Caleb: I'd say the greatest lesson I've learned is just is don't burn bridges.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: And treat people how you wanna be treated. And I think that would just I mean, that's the gasoline behind building a big a great business.

Steve: Have you seen this? I guess, when you're bringing this up, like, a situation where you've done it on accident, someone sent it to you, or you witnessed it?

Caleb: A little of everything.

Steve: Yeah.

Caleb: I mean, I used to be quick to snap and burn a bridge. Like, if I thought somebody crossed me, I thought there was always only one side of the story. Mhmm. I never really looked at as how they looked at me or how they looked at how they've helped me grow or helped me do this for so long. Mhmm.

I've always thought about it as like, I've always I did this for you. I did this for you, and then just you're dead to me. Mhmm. And I'm just not that way anymore. I try not to burn any bridges.

I burned bridges in the past, and it just you there's no way there's nothing that can win from burning a bridge. Yeah.

Steve: I mean,

Caleb: you never know when you'll need those people again, or you know you'll never know know when they need may need you.

Steve: Yeah. Have you seen it cost you, opportunities?

Caleb: I mean, definitely.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I've had, I've had people reach out to me. Like, hey. We love what you're doing.

You know, we'd love to be involved in this. You know, help help us promote this. And I go back to, like, do you guys remember, like, two years ago when this went down? Yeah. And they're like, oh, like, yeah.

So I'm good. Thanks. Yeah. Maybe I should be a little more forgiving, but I have a really long memory. Yeah.

What is your favorite best or most interesting failure?

Caleb: My most interesting failure? Mhmm. That's a great question. I mean, I'd say my biggest business failure was we've we flipped a house and lost, like, a $150,000 just because we didn't manage the con the contractor right. We didn't manage, I mean, there everything was mismanaged throughout the whole process.

The purchase price, the resale price, the contractor, we got stuff stolen. I mean, it's everything went could've gone wrong went wrong with that one deal. And, we put in safety precautions going forward to to to avoid

Steve: One of your earlier deals.

Caleb: Yes. It was, like, my fifth deal.

Steve: Yeah. And, there's something I posted about it, in in the CG Group. I don't know I don't know if you saw it. I were talking about, you know, like, who we're gonna sell to? Who is the avatar we're selling to today?

Right? And I put one of the things in there. It's like, I was that green buyer who grossly underestimated repairs Yeah. Who had no experience dealing with contractors or subs, but expected to make, like, twenty, thirty k on a flip. So was that kinda like

Caleb: That was pretty much what happened. Yeah. Yeah. And then I don't like to go now that I mean, you know, I can easily go out and find a buyer like that to the wholesale property too. I could easily sell something to somebody that I know they would pay x price, and they're gonna turn around and lose money, but they'll never come back to me ever again and buy.

Steve: Right. Get back to the burning bridges thing.

Caleb: Correct. So I would rather treat them as I would wanna be treated. Tell them, here's probably where the numbers are gonna fall. X y z, you run your own numbers.

Steve: Mhmm.

Caleb: But this will make money. Yeah. Because I want my people coming back and returning and buying from us.

Steve: Absolutely. That's a great point. And in what book have you gifted more than any other?

Caleb: How to Win Friends and Influence People. Yeah. Definitely.

Steve: What is it specifically about that book that reaches out to you? Because I know you you really focus on sales, right, and communications and and

Caleb: Yeah.

Steve: So what is it about that book that really, resonates with you?

Caleb: It just really teaches you how to build relationships with people, and be more inquisitive about that person and truly care about what's going on in their life. Yeah. Talk twice as much as or listen twice as much as you talk.

Steve: Perfect. So, I'm gonna make a couple of quick announcements. So think about what you leave the listeners with, and then we'll leave you with some final thoughts. So, guys, if you got value today, please like, subscribe, share, comment. It helps us reach more people.

And then we do again have our leadership sales leadership training next Friday and Saturday. If you're interested, DM me on Instagram, the word leadership. And then we do have part disruption tomorrow and certainty talks on Friday. And next week, we got Landon and Jesse Boeckly, who also do a lot of MLS deals and are flipping very well in Vegas. They'll be coming in next week to talk about their journey.

So what are the last thoughts you'd like to leave all the listeners with?

Caleb: It's gonna be it could be a next a tough next eight to twelve months, and I think a lot of people are thinking that. Don't quit. You you may take some losses here over the next couple months. If you bought some bad deals here in the last four to six months, It's coming. But just don't let that discourage you and don't quit.

Steve: Yeah. Do you find, again, going back to your basketball career, that this grit thing is kind of something that was ingrained in you?

Caleb: I think you're born with it.

Steve: Born with it?

Caleb: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. So, yeah, everyone, don't quit. Do not let this market discourage you. If someone wants to get ahold of you or or connect with you, how is the best way for them to do that?

Caleb: I'd say just email me.

Steve: Yeah. Yep. And your email?

Caleb: It's Caleb, c a l e b, then it's casincat,pasinPaul,team,tea,masinman,@Gmail.com. So it's Calebcpteam@Gmail.com.

Steve: Alright. Perfect. Thank you so much. Cool.

Caleb: Thank you for having me on, bud.

Steve: Of course. And I'll see you guys all next week.

Steve: Shout out to Steve Train. Jump on the Steve Train. We real estate disrupt us.