Wholesale Real Estate using TV, and growing over 1000 Flips with Tony Javier

Steve Trang: Tony Javier with professional home buyers, and he's here to talk about how he went from marketing and phone books to getting a seven x ROI advertising last year on TV. If this is your first time, I'm Steve Trang, sales trainer for some of the top investors in the country, and I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires. Question I get all the time is how to become one of the 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 will take consistent action, you will become one.

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That way we can all grow together. And this is a live show, so please ask your questions for Tony to answer. You ready?

Tony Javier: Let's do this.

Steve: Alright. So first question is, what got you into real estate?

Tony: So I've been in the business twenty one years now. Now that's 2022. And, I found a guy or actually, he found me on TV, ironically, because we're gonna be we're gonna be talking about TV. He did an infomercial. It was a late night infomercial.

And he talked about buying properties with no money down. Carlton Sheets.

Steve: Oh, yeah. You've heard of him? Oh, yeah. Lot of lot of

Tony: the old school real estate guys have heard of him. So he taught, you had to buy properties with no money out of your pocket. So I was 20 was I 21 at the time, waiting tables in college. No money. So it was perfect.

Right?

Steve: It's like it was designed just for you.

Tony: Totally. He was talking to me. And so, so I bought the course. And unlike most people that I've heard bought it, usually they put it on the shelf, don't use it. I just I took it and ran with it.

So, got my dad to cosign on first two properties, for me. He put the down payment on one. I was able to do creative financing on the other. And, been prime properties pretty much no money down since then.

Steve: And so you were working as 21 years old Mhmm. And you saw something on an infomercial. And you signed up, and then you just went full steam. Was it easy? Like, was it just like, man, we got the course and then three weeks later we got a contract?

Or or some of the struggles?

Tony: So I think I bought the course in April, and I bought my first property in September. So five months, I think that's fairly fast. Yeah. Some people will do it in the first month or two. Some people takes twelve plus months.

Right? So, you know, I just I'm someone that when I like something and do something, I do it full steam. Right? So it wasn't messing around. I got through that course in a few days, you know.

I started making phone calls. Back then, if you wanted to find an off market deal, you went in the newspaper. Yeah.

Steve: Right? So I

Tony: went in the newspaper, started calling leads. That's how I found, I think, my first two properties at least and, got in contact with an agent. And she had a property, and I bought one from her as well. And she talked me into my talked me into getting my real estate license. So that's how I was able to afford, making some money and transitioning into, real estate full time.

Because I did waiting tables and and left a little bit early in college. But I was in college, so I I, was able to sell real estate and afford to transition full time into real estate. Then then I sold real estate for a couple years and then gave up, the sales side of it and just went into investing for a while.

Steve: You wore the realtor hat for a little bit?

Tony: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Just

Tony: just to make that quick money. Because the first actually, the first 10 properties I bird.

Steve: Oh, really?

Tony: Yeah. So back then, that wasn't taught that much, and that wasn't even a term, I don't think. Mhmm. So for those who don't know, that's buy, renovate, rent, refinance, repeat. Right?

So I did that in my first 10 properties and, used money that a friend had had that invested with me. We would use his money, buy a property, fix it up, refinance it, get a 100% of our cash out, put it into another. And within, what, a year, year and a half, I had a multiple 6 figure net worth. It was crazy.

Steve: That's pretty incredible. Where was this?

Tony: Wichita, Kansas.

Steve: So you were living in Kansas at the time. Correct. And you bird 10 properties in your first year.

Tony: It was probably year and a half. Yeah.

Steve: A

Tony: little more than a year and a half, somewhere around there. Yeah.

Steve: So how did you because it wasn't, you know, common. Maybe it was common in the investor community, but not, you know, well known today. Mhmm. How did you figure out how to do that?

Tony: I've just always been a well, not always. I'd say when it comes to business and figuring things out, I've always been creative. Mhmm. So, you know, I don't know. I just if someone's and you're probably gonna ask me this later, but what's my superpower?

Like, I just figure things out. It's not because I'm the smartest person. It's because I'll just grind and and go and figure out how to do something.

Steve: Right.

Tony: Whether it's I do it myself, I hire someone to do it, I hire someone to coach me, you know, I'll just figure it out. So I don't know. I just had this click that, like, you know, I have I don't have a lot of money to play with. So how do I make it last longer? So I if I remember, I think I talked to somebody that said that if you refinance the property and cashed it out, that you could get all your cash back out if you had money in it.

So I think I just got the idea maybe for somebody, and then I just figured out how to keep rolling that money over. And we still do that to this day.

Steve: So the first two deals, you called in the newspaper. Mhmm. What was that conversation like? And I know you said you got a realtor involved. What was that conversation like calling those two houses?

Tony: Well, the toughest thing for most people starting is just starting and doing it.

Steve: Mhmm.

Tony: Right? A lot of people get analysis paralysis. So I am d I s c. I'm a very high d for those who know what that is. That means I'm a driver, and I just I go full steam.

Apparent. Yeah. And so I just got in I just picked up the phone. I just Yeah. Hey.

You got a property? You know, how much do you owe? And just went through the, you know, the script that they kinda taught you to, you know, the questions to ask.

Steve: But you didn't spend weeks or months mastering that script?

Tony: No. No. I think I looked at it once or twice, and I just started making calls.

Steve: And I think that's something something that's important. Right? Because there are so many people that are like, you know, I need the script. I need the perfect script. Right?

And we sell scripts, but you don't need that when you start. You can just start calling and just talk to people, and eventually, you'll find your way there. And the first two that you called were the two houses you bought or there was more? Oh, no. I think I called multiple before I found

Tony: those two. Yeah.

Steve: Okay. So the other thing is I I just wanna kinda pick your brain here is I think today's social media is very much like the infomercials twenty years ago, thirty years ago. So you got to get pulled in through infomercials and you get to see today on social media. Do you think there's a lot of parallels there?

Tony: You know what's interesting? I think Carlton Sheets may be the first person that I know that used testimonials in their advertising. So if I don't know if you remember the the commercials, but they would flash all kinds of numbers up there. And then, you know, a person would say, man, I I bought the course. I've been in it for three years.

I've bought, you know, 50 properties. I'm cash flowing 5,000 a month, and I have a 7 figure figure net worth. Mhmm. And he has those people that are talking about their success story. And I think that's what people wanna see is they wanna see success stories.

Do you, you know, not only does that person know what they're talking about, but how have other people used it and what are their results? Right? So if you go to a good website, they're gonna have testimonials. We like, if you go to my website for, flipping houses, we have at least a dozen videos on our website. We could probably get more.

We probably need to. But, you know, when people know that there's a success story behind it, it it really pulls. So the really good marketers, I guess, what I'm getting to is with social media, the really good marketers are actually putting people that, have gotten success out of the program as the ad. Yeah. Right?

Rather than just saying, you know, me coming on and saying, hey, I'm great. Check out my program. It's no. Here's Ryan who made 6 figures last month and for the last three months on my program, and it builds a lot more credibility. Right?

Steve: Yeah. So it's not check out this car. Yeah. Alright. So then, what were some of your early struggles?

I mean, you you sound like you had a lot of success really fast. I think a lot of people that are watching this right now would love to have that kind of success today. What were some of the early struggles? It wasn't just rainbows and unicorns.

Tony: Oh, man. Twenty some years. If I could look back at some of those times that were hard, it's like, man. But just like just like they say, I mean, anytime a door closes or anytime something happens, there's a silver lining. You know?

So I look at those, and I I say, man, there's a lot of good things that come out of it. So I compare I compare a lot my first ten years to my second ten years. Mhmm. So you say that, and it's like, did you have you look like you had a lot of success. Well, that friend that I, invested with me ended up getting a lawsuit with him.

So that took

Steve: You had a lawsuit with him?

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. So long story short, we didn't have an agreement in writing. Mhmm. We started having some success, and his dad got in his head of, you don't have anything in writing.

You're providing the money. You should get more than 50%. Yeah. So that was my first big lesson is get everything in writing. Anything you do, get anything get it in writing.

He was a friend. He was a friend.

Steve: Still a friend?

Tony: He actually apologized after months of going round and round, admitted he was wrong and, you know, that kind of thing. So

Steve: But I think this is something that's really important for a lot of people right now because they're talking about partnerships, joint venturing, this and that. And it seems like it'd be easy just like, hey, you know, let's shake hands and we got a deal because I'm that kind of guy. I'm I'm a handshake guy. You know, I actually got what's the word? Chastise last night for for still being that guy.

Right? But I think that for people that are watching, I think there's a valuable lesson here.

Tony: Well, it depends on what it is too. Right? Yeah. Because if you and I said we're gonna promote each other or do something, I can handshake that.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: I mean, we run around with a lot of the same people. Our reputations are on the line. Mhmm. Right? So if I do something to you, it's gonna get around vice versa.

Steve: Right.

Tony: But when it's something like a friend you're going into business with, and they're not or you guys aren't in the spotlight, or aren't in a community together where it's gonna tarnish your relationship, it's easy for someone to screw someone else Mhmm. When all, you know, a lot of other people won't find out. Right? Right. So it just depends on the situation Yeah.

I think.

Steve: So then, I guess, if you were to do it over again, or you say get in writing, what would be involved in getting things in writing in a brand new partnership?

Tony: Oh, it's so simple. I do I do JV partnerships all the time with people. It's very simple. It can be as easy, you know, as a one page document, which I've done before.

Steve: Mhmm.

Tony: There's sometimes where we do LLCs together, and we put prop a property or properties in an LLC. So, I have formats for some of the things that I do. So I've had an attorney draw it up, and then if we have a certain format, we just plug that in. We don't always need an attorney to to fill in the blanks. A lot of it's pretty simple.

But there are times where it's more complex. I'll send it to my attorney. We pay him a few $100 to a thousand bucks to put it together, and it's well worth the money because we know it's done right.

Steve: Right. So parted ways in a bad situation. Did you lose everything? I mean, you see you got 10 properties. Right?

We're talking about the first year. Like, you guys are fifty fifty or supposedly fifty fifty on those 10 deals. Yeah. So when you're saying you had to sue him, we're talking about those same properties.

Tony: Actually, he sued me.

Steve: Oh, okay.

Tony: He got an attorney and said, hey. We don't have anything in writing. I'm providing all the money. I should get more than 50%. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: Go round and round. He writes me this big letter and apologies. He doesn't even call me.

Steve: Mhmm.

Tony: Writes me a letter, apologizes, said, you can have all the properties. Just give me my investment back. Perfect. Great. You know, we had hundreds of thousands dollars of equity in these properties.

And you want your I think it was, like, 50 or $60. So we take that money and, you know, kept rolling it over to different properties. And okay. So again, you know, it was a learning lesson. It was tough at the time because I'm thinking, man, I'm early in my career and I'm already getting sued in my first partnership.

Steve: It's not your last lawsuit.

Tony: No. It's not my last. Our our couple right now. It just happens. You know, you're in business so long.

You need to do enough things.

Steve: So let me ask you this if you don't mind answering this question. Yeah. How many losses have you been involved in?

Tony: Well, I wouldn't I wouldn't count small claims.

Steve: So we

Tony: have tenants and stuff that, you know Yeah.

Steve: Disregarding small claims.

Tony: Oh, we're in two pretty decent sized ones right now that I know I'm gonna win. I mean, I don't wanna be cocky about it, but it's just, you know, there's so much evidence against, them, their contractors.

Steve: Mhmm.

Tony: But I would say, I don't know, six eight, something like that, where, you know, significant enough to talk about.

Steve: So and the reason why I'm bringing this up is because, like, the very first loss you get it's like the very first time you get a letter from the IRS, and you're like, oh, man. This, like, this sucks. Right?

Tony: Mhmm.

Steve: Now it's like, okay. You just get letters from IRS. Well, the very first time you get served is awful. Now it's just like, oh, that's just the cost of doing business. You get totally desensitized to it.

Mhmm. And it's like, I said this before, is that if you're not getting sued, you're not doing enough business.

Tony: Exactly.

Steve: And you feel the same way. I say that all the time. Yep. So alright. So any other big struggles?

Tony: So again, the first ten years to the second ten years. Mhmm. So the first ten years, there were some successes. Right? So, the thing that I didn't do very well in the beginning was I didn't ask for help.

There wasn't social media. I couldn't just post a question. I was very introverted at the time. I'm much more extroverted now. Still an introvert by nature.

Mhmm. There just there just wasn't access to communities and things like masterminds. Right? So when I did something, I thought if I asked for help, I was weak or I didn't know the hell what I was doing. Right?

Steve: I mean, it's culture that we're raising that that we discussed before the show, United Same Age. Mhmm. Right? Asking for help is not something that you were taught to do.

Tony: Absolutely. Yeah. So I just made all the mistakes. I just put my head down and made all the mistakes. So about ten years ago, maybe eight years ago, I started finding masterminds and coaching and, you know, some things that I did at a higher level that were support.

Right? And that's, I think, where I turned the corner. So 02/1011, I bought I I invested my first high level coach. It was someone who had a business that ran without him. And when I looked at a flipping business, I said, how do you not meet with sellers?

How do you not meet with contractors? Property management, same way. How do you have people managing your properties and paying rent? And I thought, man, if I step out of any of these roles, stuff's gonna fall apart.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: Right? Complete opposite. Right? So fast forward about three years later, four years later, that guy didn't necessarily teach me how to do it, but gave me the vision. It's kinda like the four minute mile.

Mhmm. Once Roger Bannister ran the four minute mile, then you had all these other people doing it. So once I heard you could have a business like that, then, it fast forwarded me to that vision of, okay, how can I create a business that doesn't need me anymore? So three to four years later, I was able to step out of my business and move to San Diego. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: Go back to your question. I forgot what your question was.

Steve: Well, we're talking about some of the early struggles. Right? Because, you know Yeah. Obviously, getting sued by a friend is is a major one. But there were so must miss some other challenges along the way.

Tony: Yeah. So that so what made me find coaching was, again, 2010, 2011, I had to fire my whole staff for the second time. So I had five people working for me. Within thirty days, I fired all five of them. Performance issues, stealing And I had two of those employees living in my properties.

No. Three. I had three. Two maintenance guys and my assistant That you didn't stealing from me.

Steve: That you didn't know were living in your properties.

Tony: No. I knew that they were. Okay. They needed help. Mhmm.

Right? And at that time, I didn't hire nearly the higher caliber of people I do now. Mhmm. So I hired really cheap. I hired anybody who raised their hand and said, hey, I'm ready to go.

Okay. Let's go. Right? So you and I talked about screening people earlier, before we started. And, that took a huge toll on me.

Because think about it. Think of if five of your staff members left right now.

Steve: We were all the hurt.

Tony: How crucial is that? I I had to go manage all of my properties. We had dozens of properties at that time. I had to meet you know, take back doing some of the stuff with the contractors. I had to collect rents, deal with tenants.

I had to answer the phone. I mean, I had to do everything. And so while financially I was okay, like mentally, that just takes a huge dump on you. Because you're like, am I failing? Am I gonna continue to stay in business?

Right?

Steve: Is this worth it?

Tony: Is this worth it? Do I need to go get a job? Trust me. I I you've probably asked yourself that at some point.

Steve: Yeah. First, eight years of my career, I was like, what am I doing to myself?

Tony: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So we're both really glad we went we stuck through through it. Right?

Steve: Yeah. Absolutely.

Tony: Because it just becomes a lot easier once you can handle it better mentally. Right?

Steve: Right.

Tony: Like you said with the IRS letters or the lawsuits, it's like, okay. I'll figure this out.

Steve: Right.

Tony: I've done it before. I've gotten kicked in the teeth a few times before. I'll figure this out. I always come out better. Right?

So I guess the point is is that the first ten years were just they were a lot a lot of struggles. Last ten years, still some struggles, but much easier to handle. Right?

Steve: Gotcha. And then one thing that was interesting, because I was asking you before the show, like, you know, what was some of the other things you did for marketing? So you mentioned the phone book. So talk to me about advertising in the phone book.

Tony: Yeah. So I had so when you file an LLC with the state, people can buy that list.

Steve: Mhmm.

Tony: Right? So I get calls all the time because I file LLCs all the time. Right? So I had someone call me and they're like, hey, I I noticed you filed this LLC. I can't remember what the name of it was.

It was like Sunset Properties or something like that. Have you ever thought about advertising the phone book? And I said, no, I haven't. I don't think I can afford that. Well, it's not as expensive as you would think.

Let's meet. Mhmm. So I scheduled a meeting with him, and I stood him up. Cause I I was like, I'm not gonna meet with this guy. So he was good at following up.

He kept calling me, and I was like, alright. I'll meet with you. So he pulls the phone book out, and he says, I can do this for I think the first ad was a $150 a month. And, you know, I'm a college kid, $150, you know. Okay.

$150, I'll I'll do it. $150, I can't remember what I did on that. It was, like, I don't know, at least 20 to $30 worth of business.

Steve: Wow.

Tony: Right? Commissions. Because I was selling real estate at the time. So it was something about buying your house or selling it, that kind of thing. You know, so I'd sell houses, and I think I bought a couple maybe a property or two or something like that.

So then every year, he would say, well, why don't you do more? Why don't you do a $300 ad? Ad? Why don't you do a $500 ad? So eventually, I was spending, I would say what was it?

About $1,000 a month in the phone book? Actually, it was more than that. It was 801, and I wanna say 600 in the other, because there were two main phone books. So $1,400 a month. And I was bringing in well over six figures.

It was probably close to, you know, a couple $100,000 in business.

Steve: Pretty good ROI.

Tony: Off of yeah. Totally good ROI. So, you know, we're gonna talk about TV. So TV builds a lot of credibility. And that back in that day, if you were in the phone book, you're pretty credible.

Right? Because people, when they wanted something, they didn't pick up their phone at that time

Steve: because they

Tony: didn't have iPhones or Google or Yahoo or anything. Well, they did have that, but it was the very beginning. Yeah. And so you what you did, you pulled out the phone book. You know, especially older crowd.

Mhmm. Like, I bet you there's still older people that try and pull out I don't I don't

Steve: even know if phone book's in circulation. I know it was a couple years ago. Yeah. I think, our avatar is probably someone that will still use a phone book.

Tony: Totally. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. So when did when did you stop using the phone book? Or when did when did the ROI go away?

Tony: It started fading off. We were talking about this earlier. I can't remember what it was. I wanna say, like, probably 2010, somewhere in that range.

Steve: I'm just curious only because I remember, you know, Dan Kennedy is someone that I follow a lot. He's a direct response genius, copywriting genius, so and he's like, you gotta advertise in the phone book. And I was like, oh, that's something I'll do one day. But I just never got around to doing it. So that's just that's why I'm just curious because, you know, when when was the time that I was considering it?

So alright. So you did really well with Phonebook. You started in o one. So there was a bit of an issue between 2007 and 2012. Mhmm.

How did that affect your business? It actually helped it. Okay. It helped it, believe it

Tony: or not. Two different reasons. One is I was in Wichita, Kansas at the time. So that's a Midwest market. So prices didn't go up substantially, and they didn't go down substantially.

Steve: So you didn't get hurt as much? Didn't get hurt. Or the market didn't get hurt.

Tony: Yeah. Properties were on the market longer, you know, that kind of thing. But there are more properties to buy. And I and I shifted. I went from just traditional buying of properties to negotiating short sales.

So we would have 20 to 30 short sales we were negotiating at any hitting him in time. And we were buying redemption rights. So if the property went to foreclosure and bid low enough, we could redeem the property and buy it for that price. Or we would, do a short sale and negotiate to, for for the bank to take less than what's owed. So there was ton of business to be had.

It's just people that, didn't shift to doing pre foreclosures and doing short sales probably had a tougher time of finding, you know, finding inventory. Because people that, really jumped on it were were finding those deals before they would go back to the bank.

Steve: Oh, absolutely.

Tony: And then, of course, REOs. Once they went back to the bank, if the, you know, you couldn't buy it or or negotiate, then go back to the bank and there were plenty of REOs on on, the MLS to buy at

Steve: some point. Did you do with did you work with us as well?

Tony: Oh, yeah. Yeah. In fact, MLS used to be, like, our number one source of business. And I think it was about three or four years ago it shifted. I think it was probably 2017, half of our properties we bought off the MLS.

We just go on and just make a bunch of offers and we get we get a bunch of deals. And then all all of a sudden within, like, a year, it just went from, like, I don't know, 40 some properties. We bought off the MLS in one year, and then the next year was, like, five. And now it's, like, one. I mean, it's crazy.

Steve: So, going back to, you know, you you finding the mentor. So you fire everybody.

Tony: Mhmm.

Steve: And it's this time you hire a mentor. What was that new evolution or new version of your business? Like, how did that how did you rebuild that?

Tony: Well, I think it was it was a mindset thing. I think anything we do is a mindset. Mhmm. Right? So the mindset was, basically, you can automate your business, number one.

And two, you need to find better people in your business. I think those are the two big things that that I got out of that. And it just changed my mindset in a different trajectory. So the first thing I did, the first big move I made after doing that is I called my sister who ran an operation as a I don't know. She was an operations manager or something like that for a company.

And she ran all their ordering. She she ran all their sales people. She was basically the hub of everything. Mhmm. And so I called her and I said, do you wanna come work for me?

And so we had lunch. And I told her my goals. I said, here's what I wanna do.

Steve: You recruited your sister over lunch.

Tony: What's that?

Steve: You recruited your sister over lunch. Alright.

Tony: Totally. And I told her what I wanted to do. And I said, would you be on board if I offered you the position? She said, absolutely. And it was I was pay I was gonna pay her the highest out, which wasn't that much really at the time.

I was gonna pay her the highest of anybody I've ever paid before. Right? Because I was used to hiring people at 10, 12, maybe $15 an hour. So to jump up to where I was you know, what I paid her, was well worth it. And now she makes, like, three times the amount of money.

But she runs my operation in Wichita. I mean, she can manage. Right now, she's managing I think it's 15 flip projects right now by herself as the GC too.

Steve: Oh, really?

Tony: Not just, hey, I'm gonna find a GC. It's I'm I'm gonna get the carpet guy in there. I'm gonna get the electrician.

Steve: I'm gonna get the plumbing room. She's managing the stuff. She's managing

Tony: all the stuff.

Steve: All the

Tony: yes. And we just now hired her an assistant to help her with that.

Steve: Wow. Okay. So you hire your sister?

Tony: Yeah. So just level up your game. Just level up my game with people that I started hiring.

Steve: So, a, start hiring better people. Totally. Okay. So after you hire a sister, then what did you do after that?

Tony: I think that freed me up a lot. Right? So, you know, when I talk to a business owner and they're struggling, one of the first things I I ask them is, what are you spending most of your time on?

Steve: Mhmm.

Tony: And they'll talk to me about it. And usually they're, you know, I'm working on project management. I'm writing checks. And and I'm like, okay. Stop.

Write everything you do in your business. Write it down and score it. How how, how much effect does that have on your business Mhmm. From a scale of one to 10, and how much do you like to do that on a scale of one to 10? The things that are closer to 10 actually, I'm sorry.

I do, one, two, and three. So things that are three on your list that are the high the things that you wanna do the most and that bring the most to your business, keep those tight to you for now. Everything that goes below that, try and figure out how to get rid of that.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: Right? So, you know, I we manage over a 100, clients' TV commercials. And so I talk to them a lot and a lot of their struggles, and and I get to see it. And one of the things they ask me is, what is the first step you would take to getting things off my plate? And I say, hire a virtual assistant.

Hire a virtual assistant to take the mundane tasks off of you that you do every single day. Yeah. That that that are mindless. Right? You know, like, you know, when someone signs up for TV, we send them calendar invites, and we we we have this whole checklist we do.

Mhmm. I'm not doing that. My sales guy's not doing that. I've got a VA on the back end that does that. Right.

And it's very easy. It's automated. Even if she messes it up, it's not a big deal. Right?

Steve: Yeah. It's a low risk task.

Tony: Absolutely. It's low, low thinking, low cost, low effect. I mean, it needs to be done because they need to be invited and stuff like that. But if it doesn't happen, it's not gonna be crucial to business.

Steve: Yeah. You're not getting fired. You're not losing tens of thousands of dollars.

Tony: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, like, sales, project management, things like that are pretty important. So figure out how to get transaction coordination. So if we're talking about real estate investing or real estate even real estate sales, I know real estate investors that are still still doing transaction coordination that are doing close to 100 deals a year.

Ugh. And I'm like, do you wanna die early? Like, seriously. I mean, those are just checklist items. You give them to somebody.

If a closing doesn't happen, could it, you know, could the seller back out? Of course. It could be a big deal. But, you know, have them do 90% of it. Come in and check their work.

And, you know, you're you're gonna free up your time substantially.

Steve: Yeah. So I think one of the I think there's two different issues at play. Right? I mean, one is the ability to give up control, and then the other one is the willingness to hire the right caliber people. So and you you had that mindset shift of hiring the right caliber people.

Tony: Eventually. Yep.

Steve: So then the other one is the willingness to give up control. And did you have that issue at all?

Tony: I did the BNN.

Steve: So how did you overcome that?

Tony: So with my sister, I didn't. Because because you're literally the first day when I sat down with her, I said, let's create a spreadsheet. And she started doing it exactly the way that I would. Mhmm. You know, the way she underlined things and capitalized them and organized them.

I'm like, like, oh my god. Like, you know, it was it was basically me doing the work. Right? So that that right there gave me the ability to give up a lot of things to her. And again, a lot of them were low level.

They were transaction coordination, collecting rents, sending out three day notices, stuff like that. But now there are some pretty big things that I delegate out

Steve: that Right.

Tony: That if you would have told me ten years ago I was delegating out, I'd be like, there's no way.

Steve: Right.

Tony: There's no way. I think it just comes with confidence. So, like, when I moved from Wichita, Kansas to San Diego, that was huge. Because I that was my baby for, what, fifteen years?

Steve: Mhmm.

Tony: Fourteen, fifteen years. So to give that up and trust my team to run that without me there putting my eyes on it was really hard. So I think it was like two, three, four weeks later, I made a trip back just to check on things. And then a month later, I'd make a trip back. I'm like, I got and then eventually, it just expanded where I was like, why am I even going back anymore?

So during COVID, I I've I've been back to Wichita, I think, once, maybe twice in the last two years.

Steve: Yeah. It's because I have

Tony: a team that I know is gonna get stuff done. And you know what? I love managing things from afar because I don't I don't get in the little details.

Steve: Right.

Tony: Right? Because you yeah. There's a little detail here and there that you'll you'll catch that, like, man, we need to change that. But all the other little things you're looking at just clog your brain up to where now I can focus on higher level activities and and not have to be in the mundane, everyday, aspect of it. And you know those got a minute meetings.

Right? Hey, Tony. You got a minute? Yeah. It's like they can't do that anymore.

Steve: Right.

Tony: I can shut my phone off. I can you know you know what I'm saying?

Steve: It's just so

Tony: much easier to manage it from afar.

Steve: So going back then, so you you're billing out this operation. Now, you stopped doing the phone book. So what was your next thing as far as marketing goes?

Tony: So I did, direct mail at some point. I can't remember when I started that. Networking was a huge thing. So back, when short sales started become prevalent in o eight, we did a lot of short sale, lunch and learns. Mhmm.

You know, that kind of thing. So we get in front of agents. They would bring us their short sale deals. We would do them and pay them referral fee. They would send us traditional deals.

It was a lot easier to get deals from agents, you know, ten, fifteen years ago.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Tony: Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: Now everybody and their dog is going to agents saying bring me deals. And they know they can put them on the MLS and get back get more new money for them for their clients.

Steve: So it's

Tony: a lot tougher. So then 2012, I went to a poker game. There was an acquaintance of a friend. And I sit down and this guy walks in and I'm like, I recognize that guy from TV. It's so cool.

This guy's from t on TV. He he owned a remodeling company. So he sits down next to me and, I just started shooting the, you know, shooting the crap with them. And so how your how your TV commercials doing for you? You know, just kinda curious.

And he's like, man, we do $2,000,000 a year of business from our TV commercials. He's like, that's the only marketing we do. And I'm like, you're kidding me. That's crazy. And so I was telling him what I do, and and, he's like, call my media guy.

I think I think I think that could be good for your business too. I don't know. Just call him. You know, it's worth a shot. So his name is Drew.

So I called Drew the next day, and, within thirty days, I had a TV commercial. So Drew, the media buyer, negotiated, with the TV stations. I did the script, because I I know I knew my person pretty well. So I did the script. He had a production team.

So I went in and shot the video. He did the editing and production. Mhmm. And boom, I'm on TV. Yeah.

So that's been our bread and butter for the last nine years. We get most of our deals off TV. And it's just, you know, it's about credibility in our market. Pretty much everybody in Wichita I don't wanna say everybody. Most people in Wichita know who I am because I'm I've been on TV for nine years now.

So I actually go back to Wichita, and there's always people that are looking at me or they say, hey, dude. You're the guy from TV. Right? I mean, people just when you're on TV, it just builds a different level of

Steve: Are you still the guy that's on the commercials today?

Tony: Yeah. Absolutely.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: Absolutely. Yeah.

Steve: So one thing that we've heard is a concern is and you probably heard this from your your, clients, is, like, how can I be the one on TV but not the one that goes to the house? How does that work? Yeah.

Tony: I get that question all the time. So every once in a while, we'll get some I don't wanna say crazy person, but someone that's just adamant. I wanna talk to Tony. Like, I'm not talking to anybody else. Mhmm.

Right? Most of the time, if someone asks for me, I've just taught my team to to let them know that I'm the business owner. I'm helping run the business and service everything that's going on, and that they would be the better one to help them. And if I were to help them, it would take longer, and they wouldn't not get as good a service. But you know what I'm saying?

Like I mean,

Steve: probably get less quality service.

Tony: They would get less quality service for sure. So they they they know how to combat that. Yeah. And still every once in a while, my team will be like, this guy's adamant to talking to you. And I'm like, I just I can't.

Like, you guys can figure it out. Yeah. You know?

Steve: So was it comparable or similar? You know? Like, your your first ad that goes out and then phone's ringing off the hook, or was there a roll up? How did that go?

Tony: Yeah. So surprisingly, TV is something you feel like is more branding. Right? Like, you get on TV and it's branding and eventually, you know, they down the road, they they use you or they see you on other things. First month, I spent $3 and made $35,000.

Right? So I'm hooked.

Steve: Pretty good ROI.

Tony: Yeah. Good ROI. And that continue. I mean, I mean, I think it took me took me maybe a third month to get it to to, you know, just second month was dry, and then third month started doing more deals again. So it's been very consistent since then.

It's been five to 11 times ROI, you know, throughout the years.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: And and and, you know, what I don't include in the ROI is the other things that it's helped me with. So direct mail. I do direct mail now again. I've kind of been off on and off with that. But, that ties really good with direct mail.

So I have as seen on TV on everything else that I do.

Steve: Yeah. So I do as seen on TV.

Tony: I do yep. You see the t shirt. So, you know, that's that's the other thing. You recognize the brand. Right?

Or the, you know, this image. Right? Mhmm. So when people see things in the store and and it's there's an aisle that says I seen on TV, I'm more likely to buy those gadgets. Right?

Right. So there's that credibility factor. So, sorry. I forgot your question.

Steve: Well, just the how fast it impacted your business.

Tony: Yeah. So, so the ROI I was I was referring to. So, we get deals from our direct mail that TV helped. So people will say, I got a stack of direct mail, but I called you and only you because you're on TV. I don't know these other guys.

Our margins are better on TV, because we're usually the only one out there.

Steve: Right.

Tony: And if we're competing with other people, we've actually had people take our offer that's less than the competitors, and they go with us because we're on TV and they trust that we're gonna close.

Steve: You're incredible.

Tony: Yep. Incredible. Absolutely. We don't have to explain who we are. I mean, they already feel like they kinda know us.

So, yeah, it's been it's it's been incredible. It's, and inbound leads are, are something that I love more than outbound. Outbound is texting and cold calling and all that. You know? It just takes so much longer to, to build credibility with those kind of people.

Steve: And there are some legal challenges Totally. Those marketing, mediums as well.

Tony: Which is why a lot of people are switching over to us and saying, hey. I'm gonna take some dollars from from that and switch it over to you. Because we're just we know it's coming down the pipe that it's gonna get even tougher and tougher for sure.

Steve: Yeah. So I'm curious and, you know, you've been doing this across the country now. What are some of the let's say I didn't hire you. Right?

Tony: I was

Steve: like, hey, you know what? I wanna start advertising on TV. Mhmm. What are some of the best times? What are some of the best shows to advertise on?

Yeah. So we have a,

Tony: super formula, kind of. Right? I mean, it's it's, basically, what we do is we hit people that we know our demographic, which are usually lower income and older. Mhmm. Right?

So they're gonna watch the shows. I'll just tell one that's probably pretty obvious, Jerry Springer Mhmm.

Steve: You

Tony: know, during the day. It's lower income, you know, that kind of thing. So, we I feel

Steve: like more trashy TV.

Tony: Yeah. Exactly. If you wanna

Steve: call it that.

Tony: Because we've tested it. Right? I mean, we've we've tested different things. So we, you know, we test that kind of stuff, and we've tested prime time where it's, you know, instead of, you know, 5 to $25 commercial, it's a 100 to 300, maybe $500 a commercial depending on when it's airing.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: So we've tried the expensive stuff, and luckily, the cheap stuff works Yeah. For us.

Steve: Yeah. The I was gonna say, we we do a lot of direct mail and we use Audantic. Right? Chris Richter. And he didn't say this outright, but he kind of implied it that, you know, we all have our our our bio what is it?

Print whatever. Right? Data points.

Tony: Mhmm. And he

Steve: said, like, some of the best data points is that they smoke cigarettes or they play the lotto. Right? If they smoke cigarettes or play the lotto, those are probably pretty good indicators for us. So I I don't know if there's any channels that advertise the lottery a lot. But

Tony: Actually, that's funny because my my sister will go into property sometimes, and she's like, oh my gosh. I could not breathe because of all the smoke. So that's funny that you say that.

Steve: There's some commonalities. Yeah. And so you've done close to a thousand flips. What are some of the things that you've learned in all those flips?

Tony: I would say one thing is don't force a deal that's not a deal. I have a lending business too. And I I've done that on one or two deals this last year. And I I'm paying for it right now. So if the numbers aren't there, don't force them.

So don't try and increase the ARV, you know, substantiate that it's a higher than you it is. Don't, you know, think, oh, man. It's 50,000 of repairs and and, you know, go, man, I can get it to 40 when you don't have bids and that kind

Steve: of thing. You know? You know what I mean?

Tony: So don't force deals. Hire really good people. So there's that fine line. Right? Because if you hire someone expensive, your numbers aren't gonna work.

Right? And those are the people that are usually pretty busy anyway. And then you have your lower tier people that can get to it faster. The guy that says, hey, I can start tomorrow. That's not the guy who went higher.

Right? So there's those lower tier people. So you have to find something in the middle where they're not the cheapest. They're not gonna be maybe the top notch, but they're gonna be pretty good and dependable. Mhmm.

Right? So I think just, you know, knowing what level, of contractor to pick and be at. Do good on his business. You know? Don't lie.

Don't, you know, tell the seller something that, you know, that's not true. You know, just be upfront and honest. You know? I I'm not saying that I, you know, cross the line a lot, but there'd be times where I'd, you know, maybe not say something or do something. And now it's like, you know, why not just say it?

You know, just be honest. And, just, you know, good people. You know, we we keep kinda keep kinda touching on that. Just when you have really good people on your team, it just makes things so much easier. I mean, I've got, you know, six businesses now, and I I touch every one of them.

But I don't I'm not I'm not fully immersed in any one of them. I was a little bit last year in in the TV business because we were, you know, ramping it up. But

Steve: It was a new business.

Tony: It was a newer business. Yeah. So, you know, I knew you'd be in it.

Steve: You gotta spend at least one year with your baby.

Tony: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. So on YouTube, Garrett Landry's asking I mean, I think we kinda answered it already. But and you just I guess, for you to reiterate, best way to find motivated sellers.

Tony: TV number one. 100%. I'd fight that all day long.

Steve: And then, he's asking another question about comps. And I'm thinking because, you know, ProStream made that announcement just a couple of days ago. So what websites do you use to pull comps?

Tony: My my team's licensed, so we we pull comps off the MLS. That's gonna be your best data by far. We actually, do lending. Right? So we don't have access to MLSs in other places.

So we we get appraisals, but before we approve them, it used to be PropStream. We'd pull some comps. You can go on, Redfin and realtor.com and usually go through and kinda get an idea of what what, properties are worth. I would never use that to buy properties, you know, substantiate values. I would definitely wanna go through the MLS, but realtor.com and Redfin have pretty decent data in most markets.

There are some markets where they just don't have a lot of data. So

Steve: so because your team's licensed, have you guys used RPR?

Tony: No. What's that?

Steve: RPR is it's, something that comes free with your realtor, and it's nationwide. So you get tax data all across the country, and it's free. And there's an actual button in there to pull an AVM.

Tony: Really?

Steve: Yeah. And so, we we just did the closed Olympics, not too long ago. Mhmm. And I was a judge. And I had no intention of doing any comps.

I was like, you know, we'll just wait for them to give us the PropStream figure, and then I'll judge based off whatever I get from PropStream. And there were some delays, and I'm not a patient person. So I couldn't wait anymore. So I just started doing all the, evaluations myself. Right?

Doing all the ARVs Mhmm. Myself. And I was using RPR, and I never did it nationwide before. It was pretty accurate.

Tony: So if if my team's licensed in Wichita, Kansas and we are doing a deal in Atlanta, Georgia, it'll pull data from Atlanta as well It should. From the MLS?

Steve: From RPR. So it's a realtor benefit. So, like, everyone here that's, like, freaking out with PropStream, if you're a licensed realtor, you get all the information for free across the country.

Tony: Interesting. Let's check into that. RPR.

Steve: Yeah. So What's

Tony: it stand for? Maybe maybe I have heard of

Steve: it. I have no idea. I just know it's narrpr.com.

Tony: I'll check it out.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Alright. And then on again, from, Garrett on YouTube. What's some advice for someone that's a year in and struggling to to get deals more consistently?

Tony: Pretty obvious, TV. Now That is one. Yeah. No. There there's a lot of different ways.

So we do have some newer investors in our program. So we we, manage TV advertising. So my guy, Drew, that got me on TV now, I partnered with him. And now we're getting real estate investors on TV throughout the country. Mhmm.

We do the front end. Drew, the immediate buyer does the back end. So he does all the ad buying and all that kind of stuff. So that is a great way even if for a newer investor. We've got, I'd say at least a handful investors that hadn't really done a deal or have only done a couple deals.

And we got them on TV and they're doing really well and getting a lot of deals. You know, we talked about texting and cold calling. Those are the cheapest and easiest way to get started. But it also takes a lot of time and dedication to do it. Right.

So, that's one. If you've got the money, direct mail, is competitive. So you just wanna make sure you you mentioned Audantic is one place. Mike Hambrite

Steve: Investor Machine.

Tony: Investor Machine. Mhmm. We signed up with him recently, so he's managing our direct mail. So just having a really good list if you're gonna do direct mail and be consistent with it. You can't just do one direct mail drop and expect you're gonna start making a lot of money off of it.

Could be the second or third one before it starts hitting. Networking. If you're if you're newer in it and you don't wanna spend the money, just call around. I mean, it is tougher these days to to find deals from realtors. But I think if you spend enough time and energy, you could probably find, you know, find deals from from agents.

And then driving for dollars. I I think that's something that still a lot of people don't do. So driving for dollars, driving around and just finding What's that?

Steve: It requires working.

Tony: It does require some work. Absolutely. So the great thing is there's, great apps that where you can drive around. You find a a distressed property. You put the address in, and it'll send direct mail to it.

And I think it maybe even does texting and calling if I'm

Steve: not mistaken. Yeah.

Tony: Depending on that.

Steve: Skip trace them. Yeah. And I can definitely vouch for Investor Machine. You know, we're using that in Phoenix and Oklahoma City. So Mike Hambright, Jason Lewis is a fantastic, product.

The other thing too I wanna add to here is there's two parts, right, of getting deals. There's marketing. Right? That's the most important thing. Because if you're not marketing, how are they gonna find you?

Mhmm. But the second thing is sales. You know, right now, there's not a shortage of house buyers. You can just go on Google and type buy my house, and all the ads will be a wholesaler. Right?

So there's no shortage of of house buyers. So then how do you separate yourself? And it sells. Right? So that's something that we hang our head on is sales.

So every business is a sales and marketing business, so don't forget that. So there's two pieces to it. So Cheddar on YouTube is, how much does it cost to advertise on TV?

Tony: You know, it's not as much as you would think. Like I said, the first month, I I spent 3,000, for my first month and made $35.

Steve: Which is ridiculously low. The barrier to entry is not very high.

Tony: Yeah. So here's the thing, is if you try and call TV stations yourself, they're gonna sell you the most expensive package. Mhmm. So you call one station and you say how much, you know, how much is it to be on TV? They're gonna pull this out.

They're gonna say, here's here's what I have for you. And it's gonna be probably 10 to $15 is what they're gonna try and charge you Yeah. Out the gate. Of course, they're gonna start high and then, you know, work their way down. And then that's just one station.

Right? So $3,000 back then, I wanna say, was at least two stations. It could have been three. So when we get our clients on TV, it's it's based on the market. So New York, for instance, it's the number one biggest market.

You gotta spend $30 a month. It's huge. Right? So that takes a lot of people out of the game. But as you step it down, it goes down, you know, fairly quickly by size, you know, once you get to, you know, 30 to fortieth biggest market in The US.

You can spend $5 a month in a lot of markets Wow. And do well. Right?

Steve: That's shocking.

Tony: It is. And even some of the some of the I don't wanna say big markets like, you know, Atlanta, Georgia, for instance, we have, people running TV there. That's gonna be 10 to $15 a month is what you wanna spend there. Mhmm. But we have little markets where we we like to have a $5,000 minimum when we get people, you know, signed up as a client.

But there's some markets where, you know, I've got, I'm not gonna name the market. No. I will name it because he he mentioned it. So on a podcast. But in Florida, we have someone in Gainesville spending, 30 some $100 a month.

And he's getting, I wanna say, like, close to a thousand commercials a month.

Steve: How much did he spend?

Tony: 3,800. And he's making, what's he making? I wanna say it's, like, a 100 somewhere between 50 and $100 a month Wow. Off of that. It's crazy.

Steve: Yeah. So the RPI is outrageous. And then Snaps Investment. Are you using any list to reach out to sellers? And you you already kinda answered, so you wanna just repeat that.

What list are you using?

Tony: I I don't pull the list. I hire, you know, Mike Ambryte and Investor Machine to pull the list. So the

Steve: Investor Machine snaps. Yeah. Matt Smith. Can you network with a realtor to get RPR access with a realtor? So, Matt, the official answer is no.

But I'll let you read between the lines. Jeremy on YouTube, are you currently experimenting with any new marketing channels?

Tony: So we did direct mail, a while back. We stopped because it got really competitive, and then I found about Mike. So we started direct mail. And my clients from t, TV clients, a lot of them were already doing direct mail. So when, they started TV, they started getting the same feedback that I was getting, over the years of, you know, I called you from your direct mail piece because I saw you on TV.

So we're like, and we need to we need to start doing direct mail again. So we we started that back up. Direct mail, TV, and PPC are our three main, three main marketing methods. Yeah.

Steve: And where can someone see one of your TV ads?

Tony: Well, realestatemasterstv.com. You can go on there and kinda see, you can see glimpses of it. Mhmm. And then if you wanna go to my buying site, prohomebuyer.com, my commercial's on there as well.

Steve: Gotcha. And then, Raylan White, what is the minimum ad spend to join TV with you?

Tony: It it's $5. But like I said, if there's some markets where we're getting 800 to a thousand commercials, we're not gonna make you spend $5 to get 1,500 commercials. It's just, you know, there's the diminishing return.

Steve: Right.

Tony: So yeah. We like to have $5, but if you're in a smaller market, there might be a potential of getting getting in for less than that.

Steve: And then Shane Hunt's answering the question. RPR is Realty Property Resource. Okay. So that's all the questions so far, guys. Please ask any questions you guys have.

Hang on a second. So I guess, for you, you removed yourself from all these other businesses. So what's keeping you going right now?

Tony: Keeping me going? I just you know, I don't I don't know if it's a d d, but when I get into a business, I love it. And then there eventually, it's just like I wanna do something new. Right? So, you know, I still talk to my TV clients.

I still I I'm still pretty fully engaged in that business overall, but I have a team that runs, you know, most of it. I just I don't know. I just like building things. I like creativity. I think the next thing that I wanna do is start buying businesses.

So I've built multiple businesses. Mhmm. So I have five or six right now that are going, but there's multiple that I've tried and have not succeeded.

Steve: What are those so I can avoid them?

Tony: MOMs. Multi level marketing is number one. I think I've tried three of those before. That's been a long time ago. But yeah.

No. It's it's, I don't know. I just love business. I love you know, I I used to not be a relationship guy. I used to be, I wanna go to the office.

I wanna put my

Steve: head down. I wanna work for

Tony: eight, ten, twelve hours, fourteen hours sometimes and just do my deal. And, I I got burnout, number one. And two, I mean, it's it's just lonely when you're in the office by yourself. So I like doing stuff like this. I like doing other podcast.

I like, building relationships. We have a lot of affiliates that we promote them and they promote us. Mhmm. And then, you know, just figuring stuff out. Like I said, I like to figure things out.

So if there's a business that I could businesses that I can start buying that I could be like, man, you can just there's a few changes you can make there and you can exponentially change what you're doing. That's I think that's gonna be my next move.

Steve: You know, it's interesting how much how similar we are because I am also naturally introverted. And I was that guy that would go to the company. Like, leave me alone so I can work. And then you realize, well, that's not the best use of my time. Right?

So now more relationship oriented. Totally. And we're also one of the goals for this year is to start acquiring businesses. So we have sales. We figured out sales.

Right? We figured out marketing. We figured out social media. And we figured out oh, and the two other things we wanna add is, a financial accounting company because no one not no one. Very few people understand finances.

Mhmm. So a lot of people need help with that. And then the last thing is hiring. So we wanna eventually have a, an HR company, a a human sourcing, you know, business. And once we have all those pieces in place, it doesn't matter what business we acquire.

Go plug and play.

Tony: Just It's like flipping houses. Right? Yeah. Once you flip a house, then you know how to flip another another, and then same thing with businesses. Is absolutely.

It's just, you know, you can do some bigger numbers.

Steve: Right. So that's what I'm excited about. So it's it's it's funny to hear. Right? We're trying to do the same thing.

Tony: Yeah. It's awesome.

Steve: What is your biggest struggle right now?

Tony: Man, I'll tell you. Things are things are really good right now. Biggest struggle is I I I only work about forty hours a week. Mhmm. You know, I I go to the office between seven and eight.

And I promised my wife I'm home at five for our little boy and for family time. So I've been pretty good at that. But I think my biggest struggle is just wanting to take on so much. You know? And still, even though I'm out of those businesses, I'd still do step into them a little bit too much.

So I could utilize my time a little bit better doing, other things like looking at other businesses. Mhmm. But I I can be a little bit OCD. So, like, when a newsletter is going out, I'm like, let me look at the newsletter. I need I you know, I wanna make sure it's worded correctly.

I wanna make sure you know what I'm saying? It's just little things I do like that. I think, honestly, that's my biggest struggle is just getting, you know, out of some of those things. Actually, number one is email. Yeah.

100% email. I get so many emails. I've tried to hire it out, but it's such a struggle. Because by the time I train someone and I tell them how to answer things, it's just easy for me to do it myself for the most part. So I'm sure there's a medium somewhere where I can find someone to just, you know, respond to them and not even tell me about them.

But that's probably

Steve: Yeah. So we I had two different people go through and answer them for me. And, I'm gonna need a third person.

Tony: Really?

Steve: Well, no. I was like, I'm gonna need a different person.

Tony: Oh, I see. I see.

Steve: Yeah. So that's actually something we decided yesterday in our, they're not level 10 meetings anymore. They're wind meetings. We switched to empire model. And, with that, we're like, okay.

This is something that I need help with some more. So we're gonna hire someone else.

Tony: But you are doing your emails right now yourself? Oh, no.

Steve: No one's monitoring it right now. So it's it's it's great.

Tony: And aside out of mind. Right?

Steve: Yeah. I mean, if it's a big enough problem, they'll call me.

Tony: Right.

Steve: So, you already talked about it earlier, but we'll talk about it again, you know, your superpower Mhmm. Figuring things out. So what do you attribute that to? And how can someone, you know, get better at, you know, that resourcefulness component?

Tony: I think it's just will and determination. So I've had probably two or three pretty low points in my business Mhmm. One of them I told you about. And, even in those low points where I was pretty down, I still went to work and I still, you know, got after it. Right?

Even though I wasn't in the right state of mind sometimes where I'm just, like, you know, trying wanting to give up, go find another job or whatever it is. I think it's just your will and determination. So I say figure things out, but it's mostly because I'll just push through. I'll just go someone tells me, you know, go build a 10 story building. Never done it before.

Tell you what. I'll go do it. I'll do it by the end of the year. I'll figure out how to do it. You know what I mean?

It's just and I think I'm just wired that way. I think you're wired that way. It's a high d personality. So luckily, we're like there's only, like, 10 to 20% of us, I think, that have that. I think less than that.

Might be less than that.

Steve: I think it's five. It could be. It could be.

Tony: So,

Steve: We had, RJ Bates on the show. We were talking about, like, this irrational confidence, right, and this willingness to to fail. It's like, they could send us off to war, and we've never had any training. Like, alright. Let's go.

For sure. And we would be terrible at it, but in our heads, we would crush it. And eventually, that, you know, was it that what is it when you see it, you make it happen? Is that,

Tony: Visualization? It's

Steve: like, you know, in the newspaper. Right? When the newspaper says, like, the economy is gonna crash, then the economy will crash. Right? So it's that whatever you put out there will happen.

So, like, you put out you have this irrational confidence. Eventually, your your reality will line up with which with what was once an irrational idea.

Tony: So true. Yeah. So true. Because you you've probably shared some things with people, and they're like, there's no way. Yeah.

You know? And I'm like, yeah. There is. Yeah. For sure there is.

Eventually.

Steve: Oh, yeah. Might take a long time.

Tony: Maybe twenty years. Maybe next year. I don't know. But it's gonna happen.

Steve: Yeah. So what is the greatest lesson you've learned?

Tony: Greatest lesson I've learned? I think just know that everything's gonna be fine. You know, it's things happen. Like I said, I've had some low points in in my my business. And if I look back, they really weren't shouldn't have been that low, you know.

Because, you know, you're riding a wave and then something kicks you down here. It's like it's just gonna be a matter of time before it comes back up.

Steve: Right.

Tony: You know, just like the stock market, just like anything else. I think people take things to, I don't wanna say seriously. But, you know, when things happen, it's just like you get really down. It's just you can get down, but pick yourself back up and and just know that everything's gonna be fine. Like, if I lost everything tomorrow, which I've been there before where I thought it was gonna, you know, just go out of business or things were gonna, you know, hit the fan, always came back stronger.

Always came back stronger.

Steve: One of my, first coaches I hired, you know, he had this thing where, like, you know, difference between champions and everyone else is how long it takes to go from getting knocked off your horse to getting back on. Right? It's not uncommon to get knocked off and take three to six months to get back on. But you're not gonna be a champion with that mindset. Right?

Like, you just get right back on. Mhmm. And that's the difference. Kai Nguyen on YouTube. When is the right time for someone to get into TV marketing?

Tony: We have people in all ranges. Like I said, we've got probably a handful that were newer, newer. Well, actually, when I say new, I'm saying they've done either no deals or they just done a few deals.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Tony: then we've got some that have come to us that have been in it for a year doing a deal a month, something like that. And then we have a lot of clients that are doing 50 to a 100 plus deals a year. So what it comes down to is, are you ready to take the leads? Because there's sometimes we turn on TV, and they're gonna get a 100 calls their first month. I mean, it's just gonna happen.

Mhmm. So you're ready for TV. Can you afford it? It's not as expensive as you think, but, you know, even 3,000 a month is a lot lot for people. So, commit to at least three months of doing it to know it's gonna work.

I like to say six, but usually within three months, our clients are already crushing it pretty good.

Steve: Yeah. And

Tony: then the size of the market. So like I said, even if someone can spend $10,000 a month in in in New York, if they wanna do New York, we're not gonna do it because we can't get them enough commercials we feel like just to substantiate it. So I think those are the three things you need to look at. And if all three of those line up with you, you can spend the money, you're in the right market, and you feel like you can handle the volume of calls or figure out how to handle the volume of calls. Mhmm.

Then it could be a really good way to to get you jump started.

Steve: And then, Raylan White wants to know what makes you different than other guys who manage investor TV ads?

Tony: What makes me different? Mhmm. I'm not

Steve: first guy on the show. So What's that? Yeah. The first guy on the show that does this.

Tony: Oh. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, I've never talked to him, but, I don't know.

I don't I I would say we both I don't know enough about, their business to know exactly how they run their back end. There's a lot of similarities, and there's some differences.

Steve: Right.

Tony: I don't know. I don't wanna go too deep into that. But, I think we both are have clients that are doing really well.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: So we'll leave it at that.

Steve: I think there's a lot of truth to that. What is the best way to someone else to find someone that does TV managing? I mean, I think you probably want a soft offer you right there.

Tony: Say that again?

Steve: Best way to find someone to broker TV commercials.

Tony: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We do that all day long. So it's kinda like, who is it? I think it's Chris Arnold.

He says, pay you know Chris Arnold. He's Oh, yeah. Pay for speed. Mhmm. Right?

So if you wanna do it yourself, go for it. I mean, I I never wanna say, hey, you know, we're a 100% the best way to go. But most of the time we are because if you were to try and do TV ad yourself, like I said, you're gonna call the stations. They're gonna try and sell you the most expensive stuff. You don't know what time slots to be on.

We've already tested all that. You know, you're paying for speed and you're paying for accuracy. Right? So we've actually had some experienced investors come to us and say, we started to do t like, we started the process of doing TV, but it was too expensive, or the reps wouldn't call us back, or we couldn't figure out script. I mean, there's so many different pieces to it.

So it's kinda like open up a burger joint. Would you rather have McDonald's show you how to do it, and then bam, you're off the ground right away? Mhmm. Or do you wanna try it yourself and figure out, you know, how to make the burger and what machines to use and, you know, all that?

Steve: Just make sure you don't get the McFlurry machine because it never works.

Tony: Do you buy one?

Steve: No. I'm just saying every time you go to McDonald's, buy one of those things, it just is always broken. So we didn't spend enough time here talking about wholesale because Rudy Gonzalez is asking, what is your experience with wholesale?

Tony: Wholesaling? Mhmm. We don't wholesale. So I do all rehabbing. So I partnered up with other people in in markets to to JV with them and do TV commercials together.

So we're so they're wholesaling. We're splitting the cost and and, you know, some responsibilities with my team. I don't love wholesaling. I love closing on properties. We do a little bit of wholesaling where if we feel like it's in a good enough, good enough area and, good enough condition, then we'll put it back on the market.

And if especially if we can make as much money as if we did flipping it. Right?

Steve: Right. Which we can today.

Tony: But right now, I'm burying everything. I'm keeping, 90 some percent of what we buy. Partly for tax reasons. Partly because I think the market's gonna keep going up. You know?

I bought a property back in, April, and, it became vacant. And, my sister said, do you wanna sell it? I said, you know, let's just throw it on the market and see what we can get for it. And I looked at what we estimated it was worth back in April of last year of 2021. So what, nine months later, it went from $1.10 to $1.35 in Wichita, Kansas.

I mean, $25 of appreciation in

Steve: Significant.

Tony: Now is that gonna happen every year? Probably not. But I still think even if it increases $5 a year or something like that, which it probably will. I mean,

Steve: I think there are a lot of people that are, bullish on the Midwest because all the hedge funds are coming in, and they need to deploy that capital somewhere.

Tony: So they're taking their money from the big markets and going to the Midwest?

Steve: I don't think they even have to take money from the big markets. I think they just have so much capital. They just need to buy real estate everywhere.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Steve: Right. I think, it's interesting to see what's gonna happen, but I think, people are chasing cap rates. And cap rates in the Midwest are far sexier than the cap rates out here or in California.

Tony: Yeah. And just all over The US, I mean, think about it. Prices are going up. So even if someone has a house to sell and they wanna cash out, what are they gonna buy? They're gonna buy something that's just as expensive.

Yeah. Right? And then there's no inventory out there. So even if they sell their house, they're gonna be homeless, because they're, you know, they're gonna have to compete with a bunch of other people. So there's a huge, like, trickle effect.

And we have the younger generation that's starting to buy houses. And then someone else said something the other day that was really good.

Steve: Oh, what was it?

Tony: I'll think about it here. And it was Jason Hartman that said something, but he's, but yeah. I mean, there's so many different factors right now that anybody that says the market's gonna crash soon, I'm like, there's no way. Like, San Diego, fourteen days of inventory. Fourteen days of inventory.

So a healthy market is three to six months.

Steve: Right.

Tony: Fourteen days to even you have to get to a six month of inventory. It's just yeah. I don't see it happening.

Steve: Yeah. Has this has to be something cataclysmic, and corona was not it. Michael Joseph is asking, in your opinion, does acquisition a PropStream? You know, when they sold to Stewart, does that change anything for wholesalers?

Tony: Well, I think just what you mentioned, the data, sold properties evidently and I haven't followed the whole thing. I've just seen little blips on Facebook.

Steve: Mhmm.

Tony: But, obviously, you can't pull sold comps anymore off of there. And then I had someone else who black or white labels, off of PropStream, and they said it's gonna change soon.

Steve: Oh, it has to. So Yeah. The white labeling, it has to change.

Tony: No. No. No. No. I'm saying that they white labeled PropStream

Steve: Uh-huh.

Tony: Under their own name. So they have the insight. They were saying that the sold data is gonna come back to them. I guess it got blocked for some reason Mhmm. Is what I understand.

Steve: Yeah. I heard, the rumor is that NAR said they don't want sold data in there, so they unplugged it. So I I I don't know how the white labels will be able to address that unless they get a different solution.

Tony: Well, they should have the same data as PropStream.

Steve: I know what I'm saying. But I think NAR I mean, this is the same reason why Zillow opened brokerages across the country was so they can plug directly into the MLS. Mhmm. Right? So unless PropStream gets MLS data somehow, whoever provided the data to them

Tony: I would imagine they'll figure it out, especially if they paid that much for PropStream.

Steve: Well, I mean, they got bought by a title company, so there's gotta be some sort of resource.

Tony: Yeah. I gotcha. Yeah.

Steve: Cassie Williams on Facebook. When you do hotel, do you use a separate LLC as you do for your flips, or is it all in the same LLC?

Tony: So that was one big learning lesson. So at one point, I had all of my flips and all of my rentals in one LLC.

Steve: Oh, wow.

Tony: And I realized, a few years ago that was not the way to do it. Things just got I didn't realize that things were making money and losing money or breaking even. And, you know, once you have them separated, it's a lot easier. So we separated all of our rentals. So all of my rentals are in one LLC and my flipping company is in another.

And I think I need to take it even one step further and do the operations in another account and then the flipping, you know, the rehabs in in in another. So, yeah. Any anytime you can separate that. I mean, there's a certain point where you wanna do that. If you got a couple properties, that's not probably not that big of a deal.

Yeah. But once you get to a certain point, you probably wanna, take those assets and protect them from each other. So if you get sued from flipping, they don't hopefully affect your rentals. So, yeah, we have our flipping and our rentals in in two different companies.

Steve: Yeah. We just recently broke out our flipping company from our operations company. So even our operations Max Cash Offers is flipping, we'll close on it in a different LLC. We're the only member is Max Cash Offers. Mhmm.

But it's a separate LLC. So And then you just

Tony: pay that money back to the operations company.

Steve: Yeah. So then because the bookkeeping was not fun having the flipping company being the same as the operations company. Mhmm. Yeah. So particularly because the operations is, also doing our wholesale.

So Right. It was just easier just like, alright. All expenses are now in the flipping LLC and that's it.

Tony: My sister's gonna kill me. I I open up a new bank account every few months. Yeah. Every time I do, she's like, gosh.

Steve: I mean, why not?

Tony: Yeah. We we need to hire so right now, we have it our bookkeeping delegated to three different people. Mhmm. One internal, two outsourced. And so we just need to hire one person to manage it all Yeah.

Eventually.

Steve: And that's kinda going back to what I was saying. Like, eventually, we're gonna want to have an accounting company

Tony: Yeah.

Steve: Where they do all that.

Tony: Why don't you acquire one?

Steve: Or acquire one. Yeah. It's one or the other.

Tony: You've seen the profit. Right?

Steve: Oh, yeah. That's, he's one of my heroes.

Tony: Yeah. He's done he's done that a lot. We're all by a sign company Mhmm. So that he can outfit or so he can use that company for all of his

Steve: Yeah. They all it's this massive ancestral Yep. Thing where they're all buying from each other. It's fantastic. Yeah.

And you know, who Their initial role model for me is, Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. Right? Do you remember that?

Tony: I remember Pretty Woman, but I tell me what you're talking about.

Steve: Well, so she was like, what do you do? And he was like, well, you know, I buy and sell companies. So he would go in there and optimize it, like office space, you know, like, rework it and then sell the company.

Tony: I'm gonna

Steve: have to rewatch that.

Tony: I don't remember that part. Yeah. I probably watched it before I really got into business.

Steve: Yes. I mean, I mean, I watched it when I was, like, you know, like, I don't know, like, 10 or 11, but I was like, I wanna do that someday. That's cool. Yeah. So, Cheddar, on YouTube, is listing a property a wholesale property contract, and I'm less more profitable than closing and reselling.

So a single close versus a double close. But you don't really wholesale. So you don't really you wouldn't wholesale off the MLS.

Tony: Yeah. So we, I was talking to one of my TV clients one time, and he said, I said, what are your typical wholesale fees? And he said, oh, you know, 10 to 15 if we hit a home run 2025. I said, for your market and what you're doing, I bet you can make a lot more money. So why don't you close on them, put them on and then, you know, raise the money to close on them, put them put them on the MLS and resell them.

So his next two properties, he did that. And he called me. Actually, he was he was on one of our group calls. And he goes, I wanna thank you for our conversation a couple months ago. He's getting ready to close on two of those.

And instead of making a $20,000 wholesale fee, we're gonna make over a $100

Steve: Nice.

Tony: In each of those. Now, of course, the market was really hot and still isn't

Steve: that bad. Right? Markets helped a lot of us, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Tony: But even even if it wasn't a hot market, I I he priced to what made $30.40, $50, which would have been better than his $20 wholesale fee. So I always tell people if they know their numbers, close on it and put on the MLS. You're gonna get exposed to so many more buyers, and it's it's a feeding frenzy. It's crazy.

Steve: And you do lending. Mhmm. So how does that work? Is this for your TV clients only or is that open for everybody? No.

We do

Tony: some for our TV clients. So we do gap funding, which is a huge need. So there's no other company that I know of that really does this where we'll provide down payment money and closing cost money, to real estate investors to do their deals. So we you know, you have your hard money lenders and private lenders that do first positions. We'll come in as a second position.

And that way, the investor has to come up with little to no money at the front end of the transaction. Right?

Steve: So it's gotta be a lot higher risk. It's gotta be more expensive.

Tony: Oh, yeah. It's much higher risk for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: So what do you charge for something like that?

Tony: It it just depends. It's deal by deal. But usually, 20% fee Mhmm. For to use our money for six months. Months.

So which for a small part of the part part of the deal isn't that much. So $30, you're gonna pay me $6. Yeah. You know? So

Steve: It might sound like, you know, the 20% might sound kinda scary. But comparatively speaking, how much you're paying on hard money costs is really not that much more for a 100% financing.

Tony: Mhmm. And you know what else they get from me too is we're in second position. So I bet those deals pretty hard. So I have my guy do his analysis. He rings them to me, and I'll nitpick the heck out of them.

Yeah.

Steve: And

Tony: I'll I'll be like, why are you wanting to put $50,000 down to this contractor

Steve: for a

Tony: $100,000 recap?

Steve: Interested in this.

Tony: He is going to run with most of your money, you know. So there's a lot of things like that that we do for our clients looking at deals where I've done a lot of deals. So I can look at something and within five minutes, usually find something that they're not seeing.

Steve: Right.

Tony: Right? So it's not just the value of the money or the cost of the money, but it's also we're doing the deal with you and helping you bet that.

Steve: I mean, y'all you have a built in underwriter that's on your side. That's not, like, the one that's trying to kill the deal Yeah. But the ones actually underwriting for the right reasons.

Tony: And the ones that are in first position are willing to take more risk because they're in first position. Whereas I'm in second position, I'm in the first position.

Steve: First position with equity. Mhmm.

Tony: Yep.

Steve: Yeah. Yep. So, Sarah Harris, what's your social media info?

Tony: Well, you can look me up on Facebook, Tony Javier. You can follow my personal page. I think I'm maxed out on my friends. Love for you to follow me there. And then, at real Tony Javier.

I don't post a lot on Instagram. So

Steve: We'll work on that.

Tony: Don't yeah. We're we're gonna buy a business to help us do that.

Steve: Yeah. Alright. Is there a book you've gifted more than any other?

Tony: Traction. In fact, for Christmas, we send out a box, with, some goodies for our clients. One of these was these t shirts here that you can see. Mhmm. Pretty cool.

And then, traction. So we, actually for our our clients, we have an EOS implementer. So traction is basically a business book, that helps you to organize your business better by running meetings better and hiring better and all that kind of stuff. EOS is what they call the system they talk about in it. And so we hired an EOS implementer to coach our clients.

Even though we're doing just TV, I like to add a lot more value to our clients. So we have to be better to do

Steve: You wanna make sure they're successful.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. And if I add value to them, they're, you know, they're just gonna stay with us longer. And, so traction for sure. You know, we sent out over a 100 books this over Christmas.

So that's

Steve: a good

Tony: book to read. I

Steve: want you to, think about what what you wanna leave the listeners with. Let me just one quick announcement. Guys, if you get value today, please like, share, subscribe, comment, whatever. It helps us reach more people. And we do have our workshop coming up in a couple of and I'm sorry, in six weeks where you can come to our office and see our whole operation.

So if you wanna check that out, go to disruptors.com/workshop and you can join our wait list. And you're gonna see our whole operation. We don't have the biggest operation. We did a million dollars last year. So we do enough to qualify to be on the show.

So if you guys are interested in in learning how we do our whole operation, go to disruptorsdisruptors.com/workshop. So what are some last thoughts you wanna leave the listeners with?

Tony: You know, there was, something on Facebook the other day. Someone said it was actually pretty big name. He said, there's no such thing as an elevator to the top. And I almost wanted to chime in and be like, there actually is. Sometimes you just have to take the stairs to get there.

You know what I mean? Mhmm. Because things don't have to be as hard as you think they are. So I talked about the first ten years of my business and the second ten years of my business. It was substantially different.

Obviously, I learned a lot the first ten years, but also the second ten years, I asked for help, went to masterminds, started my own mastermind. I actually have my own mastermind now too. Coaches, masterminds, hanging out with, you know, a group like, I I played pickleball yesterday with a group of guys in San Diego. All successful real estate investors. Yeah.

There's always something there I pick up that we talk about. Someone will be like, hey, did you, you know, take your p p or not p p p, your EIDL. Like, you know, this is several months ago. Someone's like, you know, you can get a million dollars from from your EIDL. And I went online, applied for it, and got like several $100,000 from it.

And I wouldn't have known had I not, you know, been around this guy. So just surrounding yourself with the right people. I think what it comes down to is support. So if if you have the right people that you can call when something's wrong, and, or not even just wrong, but like, you know, like if I want to do something with my sales team, if I called you up, Steve, or, you know, I got on one of your group calls, like, you know, the value that you could provide that you work with so many real estate investors around the country to be able to just call you and say, hey, something's not working here. Mhmm.

Probably within five to ten minutes, you could probably give me something that could be gold that could make me a ton of money or save me a lot of time.

Steve: Right.

Tony: So just having a lot of support and just, you know, trying to figure out how to automate everything you do. You know, I thought that I had to have my hands in everything for so long and control it. And when it comes down to it is there's always gonna be somebody that does something better than you. Yeah. So I thought I was the best with sellers.

I thought I was the best with project management. And, man, I'll tell you what. I after I stepped out of those positions, I realized I realized how much I didn't like it. Because I had more energy. Mhmm.

You know? Because there's things that suck your energy and things that bring your energy. Mhmm. And, you know, just stepping out of those things and and finding people that could step in and do better than I could. It's It's been a game changer.

Yeah. Totally. Yeah.

Steve: And it's a huge mindset shift that we have to get out out of our own way. So I know you said it just a moment ago, but just again, someone wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way to get a hold of you?

Tony: Yeah. Just go to realestatemasterstv.com.com. Again, realestatemasterstv.com. We do, semi exclusivity in markets. So if someone wants to do TV in markets, certain markets, then, they can apply and see if, see if number one, they're a good fit because we don't want just anybody on TV.

We wanna make sure someone's ready. And then also go to tony havier dot com. So if you wanna, look at lending, if someone wants to look into the lending business, they can go there. And actually, all all the stuff that I do is on tonyhavier.com as well.

Steve: So Awesome. Well, thank you very much.

Tony: Thanks for having me.

Steve: It was a blast.

Tony: Appreciate you, buddy.

Steve: Thank you guys for watching. See you all next week.