Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast

In 2018, we looked at all of the deals that we’d done, and out of 58 deals, 53 came from the follow-up. If you want to increase your conversion tactics, you need to be prepared to follow-up with old leads. Take some things off your plate by automating and delegating the work. I share all of my follow-up tactics, including how I use REI Simple and virtual assistants to help me with this work so that you can see how to make this work an essential part of your business. I’m in a lot of masterminds and I interview a lot of people on my podcast, and on average, you’re going to get a deal after 3-4 months and six to seven touches. So who’s going to be doing your follow-up? You’ve got to get someone to do it for you and in spite of you. It can be frustrating to come across an old lead and not know when the last time you contacted them was. I explain how a virtual assistant can help you solve this problem. Operate under the philosophy, No lead left behind! I make no secret about how much I love REI Simple, my white label CRM. But I love it because it does so many things for you. I walk you through how you can automate and delegate to REI Simple emails, direct mail, phone calls, texts, reminders, and really everything you need to stay on top of your old leads. In this FREE mind map I share: —Postcards you can start using today —Tear off letters that work for older generations —Cris Chico’s sample offer —Calculators on how to make lease option offers —Auto-responders —And seriously, so much more Text the word FLIP to 313131, and we’ll send this real estate resource to your email address. There are going to be so many opportunities for real estate investors in the coming market shift, so get your business automated and ready. What’s Inside: —80-90% of your leads are going to come from the follow-up. —The only three things that your VA should be doing or you. —I don’t like doing ringless voicemail, so I share some of the tools I’d recommend. —The exact script I use for contacting old leads.

Qualified, active buyers are going to become your new best friend, so I want to talk about strategies for finding your new BFFs. In-person networking, buyers’ lists, websites, and Realtors are all going to help you in this transition. You need to dig your well before you’re thirsty. If you’re already thirsty and you need the cash, it’s a lot harder to make that fast money. Don’t wait too long to build your relationship with buyers. I share my current favorite way to find buyers right now, including the strategies I use to contact them in a kind, yet persistent, way. As you’re building your buyers’ list, don’t be afraid to use your own cell phone. Don’t be that hard-to-get guy that never returns phone calls. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had buyers tell us that we are the only people that answer our phones. Be a real person on the other line and edge out your competition. I’m going to hold nothing back in here. I provide you with all of the websites I used to find buyers, all of the places you can go to buy bandit signs, all of the networking opportunities you shouldn’t miss, and so much more. Your marketing strategies will change with the market shift, but that’s great news for you! Investors who aren’t ready to shift will lose out when they find that their same old tactics don’t work anymore. I’m still actively looking for deals, but I only purchase with my students. If you’d love to work with me, contact me to see if we’d be a good fit. And don’t forget about my FREE mind map! What’s Inside: —It’s much easier to shop for what buyers want than to sell them what you have. —If you need proof of funds, you can always use your buyer’s proof of funds. —Why packaging deals for your buyers will help you attract buyers. —My current favorite way to find buyers right now. —The questions you need to ask buyers to find out their criteria.

There are three things to be focused on in this market, and your ability to succeed through this market shift will rely on how well you can do these three things. I describe the huge variety of creative financial deals you can offer when you would choose to offer them, and I give you examples in real-time on how to figure out the offer. You need to learn how to make multiple offers. No more one-trick cash-only offers because they’re not going to work anymore. When you find buyers, you’ll need to offer solutions and creative financing for them. If you become that go-to creative financing guy, you can make nearly any deal work, as long as the seller realizes they’ll have to choose between terms and price. Financing is going to be getting harder and harder as money dries up, so when I say creative financing, I mean: —Owner financing —Seller financing —Seller carry back —Rent-to-own —Lease purchase When you make an offer on a nicer property, I recommend a different strategy based on the MAO formula. MAO stands for the maximum allowable offer, and this formula has been around for a long time because it works. I walk you through how to figure out to offer for a nicer home. In my FREE mind map, I offer calculators so that you can calculate a price that still nets you enough income to make the deal worth your while. Now, after you text “FLIP” to 313131, you won’t be able to make edits on this copy. So what you need to do is go to file, make a copy, and download this mind map so that you can make edits on your copy for your business. What’s Inside: —The more options you can give a seller, the more deals you’re going to make. —In this market, you need to be thinking about making a “quick nickel rather than a slow dime”. —The three options I like to give sellers. —Why I like Redfin data over Zillow, and how I use it in my calculations —Step-by-step instructions on how I figure out an offer.

Hey guys! If you’ve ever wanted to “watch Joe LIVE” doing marketing… then you’re in for a treat. This Friday, May 15th, I am doing a Live Marketing Masterclass. This will be live, and I am going to pick a city and, from scratch, do some seller & buyer marketing. We’ll be doing live calls, and showing you how you can do marketing, even during this pandemic. learn more at: livemarketingclass.com

Wealth doesn’t disappear; it transfers. As the market changes, I want you to be prepared for where the wealth moves to. I’ve got some encouraging words for you today, but more importantly, I’ve got tons of ideas of how you can position yourself to be a part of these new opportunities. There are two very important rules you need to understand as we move into the opportunity phase of this crisis. One, time is your friend. And two, emotion is your enemy. Your mind will only find whatever you focus on, so focusing on fear won’t help you see the opportunity. Emotional reactive decisions will kill your business, so you need to come up with a plan based on data and not drama. A lot of your competitors have pulled back on their marketing. I’m seeing a 30-40% reduction in ads on Facebook. People are scared and they’re reacting to their emotions. But not you. You’re going to: —Detach yourself from your own bias. —Invest and don’t save at this very moment. —Grow your income as you work on your personal development. Instead of focusing on the negative parts of your life and asking why bad things are happening to you, focus on gratitude. Turning to gratitude will help you be able to see the opportunities that exist. We need leaders more than ever, so are you ready to step up and lead? I give away a ton of free content, and today is no exception. If you’d like a copy of this mind map for free, text the word “Flip” to 313131. What’s Inside: —Every crisis comes with an equal amount of opportunity. —Fear drives short term decisions, and these decisions cause long-term problems. —How can you serve your customers better in this crisis? —As entrepreneurs, we are problem solvers, and there are new and exciting problems to solve every day. —Where I see the opportunities coming in the real estate market.

If there’s one lesson former teachers Marlena and Josh Dates have learned about real estate investing, it’s “Never pause your marketing!”. From Florida, Marlena and Josh have an eye on how Airbnbs are impacting the market, the best marketing for your dollars, and where the market is going because of COVID-19. Even if they have to borrow money from their parents, Josh and Marlena say they will always use direct mail marketing because it always gives back way more money than they put into it. Marlena says that you know what to expect from direct mail because you know the numbers, and it’s a consistent, reliable form of marketing. The only drawback to direct mail marketing is when sellers get 15 different postcards. That’s the time when Marlena and Josh double down on building a relationship with the seller. Because they know, as I do, that relationships are an important part of real estate strategy. What are hard money lenders doing? And are there still buyers and sellers in this market? As active real estate investors, Josh and Marlena have their finger on the pulse of Orange county and its surrounding areas. They share why sometimes lease options don’t work for them, and in what kind of circumstances they lean on creative financing deals. The good thing about real estate is it doesn’t drop overnight, so no matter what you see on the news, you’ll be able to see well in advance if prices are going to stall. This advanced warning gives you time to adjust your offers and your marketing to keep doing deals. What’s Inside: —Josh and Marlena moved from teacher into real estate full-time. —Virtual wholesaling allowed them to travel around Europe and still close real estate deals from their phones and laptops. —Follow up with old leads because fortune is in the follow-up. —How Josh and Marlena figure out an offer using Podio.

I love opening up the conversation to include our listeners because they always have such great stories and questions. You guys really make my job easy, so thank you for showing up with your concerns and comments. We talk about how to have natural, easy conversations with sellers, what to do if your deals keep falling through, and how creative financing will help you as this market shifts. Do you want to know how to make even more money on every deal you’re making? The real secret is packaging deals together. This looks like putting together financing, contractors, property management companies, Realtors, and insurance companies all wrapped up in a tidy bow. Watch and see if you don’t go from making $5,000 a deal to $10-15,000 every time. If you find a seller, and you can’t come to terms on a price, that is the perfect time to offer an assignment lease option. Gavin’s role plays with a student for how that conversation might sound, and gives tips on the best way to phrase this offer. I love doing these role plays with our students because it really gives everyone a chance to see common problems laid out. Closing on a deal isn’t the final word on the deal. Communication throughout the entire process is part of the trust that you have to maintain with a seller so that there are no surprises for either of you. I know without a shadow of a doubt that no matter what happens in this market if you can sell deals with creative financing, you’re going to do really well. And if you’re interested in coaching, contact us to see if we’d be a good fit. We’d love to help you take your real estate business to the next level. What’s Inside: —I explain the double-dip strategy that yields big returns. —If you can sell packaged deals with financing in place, you’re going to crush it. —How to find buyers that will want to buy your packaged deals? —Gavin role-plays with a couple of callers to help them work through some current problems they’re facing. —A caller wants to know if you can raise private money for lease-option deals.

Yes, the market’s a little uncertain now, but there’s still death, divorce, and inheritance problems. There are still tired landlords and people still need a place to live. And all of these situations create opportunities for us. You’re just going to have to take this uncertainty and pause, plan, and pivot to take advantage of the changing landscape. As entrepreneurs, you should be used to changing your focus when you find that what you’re doing isn’t earning you enough money anymore. Mike shares about his shift into more quality work as things slow down in the DFW area. He reminds you to remember why you got into this in the first place. A slowdown is a great time to reflect what you should be doing differently. Take this time to improve your systems and processes. That’s how you do what you do. Some of us say we’re business owners, but what we really are is self-employed. Get out of your own way by creating systems and processes that help you operate your business. Mike uses Asana to track his team’s work. We talk about the difference between systems and procedures, and why they’ll free up your time. We talk about the different options we’ve used, and I share my trick for creating standard operating procedures that remove a ton of work off of my plate. Hint: I’ve even outsourced that too. Both Mike and I agree that small-time operators are going to stop dabbling in paid advertising. Do you want to move into the big-time? Do you want leads? Then you’re going to have to spend some money to capture the leads those operators are leaving behind as they stop advertising. What’s Inside: —When there’s fear or uncertainty in a market, banks will naturally start pulling back. —How can you bulletproof your business for the next downturn? —Quality and price are your two main levers, and Mike gives advice on which to pull in this market. —There are too many unknowns right now to hang onto houses for that long. —Do not stop focusing on lead generation. Seriously, don’t. —Scale your business so that you stop being the bottleneck in it.

One of the biggest reasons for having a website is to build trust with your audience. A nice website can communicate really quickly what your brand is and who you are. A janky website, on the other hand, sends the message that you don’t really know what you’re doing. If you don’t have a beautiful website right now, don’t worry. I talk with REI Conversion founder Jessey Kwong about how he builds solid websites for the REI world. If a seller or buyer lands on your site, how likely are they to convert? A huge, bright orange call to action button leaves no doubt what you want a visitor to do. Jessey warns that you should put your forms on your front page and stop hiding them on another page, or you can expect your conversions to plummet. A website doesn’t have to be flashy to be effective. Whether or not you’re optimized for SEO seems to be a hot topic, but what does that even mean? Jessey talks about the different parts about SEO. He builds his websites to be fast and secure, which is half of the SEO game. The other half is content, and that’s going to be up to you. I personally prefer running ads to my website as a better marketing strategy, but there are pros and cons to both of these methods. Where is your time better spent? Building websites and writing code? Or making offers and talking to sellers? Focus on the $500/hour activities, and delegate the rest of the work to a company like REI Conversion. For my listeners, Jessey is offering a 10% discount; just click on the link in the show notes. What’s Inside: —One of the biggest problems Jessey sees with websites. —Why you should stop using your slogan as your headline. —Automating your offers can help you find properties while you sleep, literally. —What problem are you solving for your website visitors? —Start asking, “Who can do the $5/hr. jobs for me?”.

One of the mistakes that people make is that they try to sell the lease option concept, but they lose every single time. Instead, you should start thinking about how it’s all about positioning. In this coaching call, Gavin walks some of our students through the wall they keep running into as they talk to sellers. Positioning yourself as an investor when you talk to sellers should be the basis of all of your conversations. You are investors, even if you plan on using a lease option. Explaining to a seller what a lease option is right away can be overwhelming, especially if they’ve never worked with an investor before. As Gavin walks our students through what they’re doing, you can see this really cool “Aha!” moment when they realize that they’re assuming what the seller wants. It’s easy to think you know what the seller wants, but when you approach a deal waiting to be sold on whether you should buy the house, you give the seller a chance to talk. While the seller is convincing you that you should buy their house, they’re convincing themselves even more that they’re ready to sell it, no matter what. They might be a tired landlord or an out-of-state homeowner, but either way, when they realize they have a chance to make some money, they’ll get excited about an offer. Sometimes a sandwich lease option won’t work for a situation, so Gavin shows our students how to transition from a sandwich lease option to an assignment lease option. When you work with coaches like Gavin or myself, we can help you figure out where your script needs some tweaking. Sometimes all you need is an outsider’s view to help you see where you can improve. What’s Inside: —One of the biggest mistakes made with the lease option concept. —How a coach can help you untangle one of your common problems. —How one offer can make another offer look better. —Don’t assume you know what the seller wants; let him tell you. —The point where you should mention lease options (and it might surprise you!).

I started in real estate right before the crash, so I have to be honest and say that I made a lot of mistakes when I entered the real estate market. I’m embarrassed to say that I lost homes to short sales and foreclosures before I finally figured out what I was doing. And I learned that lease options in a down market work really, really well. The 3 things you need to be focusing on right now are making more lease option offers, making buyer offers, and following up with your old leads. Increase the amount of offers you get accepted by being flexible in your financing when you use lease options. There’s a lot of power in being able to give the seller any price they want as long as they wait for it. I walk you through my philosophy and how I make my three main offers. In addition, in my Mind Map, I’m giving you a calculator for the three different kinds of offers: —Cash offer —Seller financing interest only —Seller financing principal only This free Mind Map will help you figure out how to handle this changing market. It’ll include calculators, marketing tools, letters, and a lot of other things that will help you pivot and shift. When you get the link, you’ll only have View privileges only. If you want to make changes, go to File and make a copy or download it and save it as an Excel spreadsheet. I walk you through how to find a rental house on Zillow to make an offer on. Remembering that you want 15 percent equity and 25 percent cash flow for the properties you’re looking for, I run the numbers on a couple of houses to show you how to find a great deal. What’s Inside: —You can give a seller any price they want as long as they wait for it. —Remember the sandwich lease option rules: cash now, cash flow, cash later. —I share examples of a cash offer, wholesaling lease option offer, and a sandwich lease option. —I walk you through how to use Zillow and Redfin to find rentals to buy. —Get my free Mind Map with the tools you need to make better offers.

The three keys to success are marketing, automation, and delegation. Using automation requires you to find the best tools to streamline your business, so I’m really excited today to talk about the automation that Howard Zonder has created with his Land Speed business. For new investors who are just getting into land investing, Howard and I talk about some different strategies for figuring out where to buy. Howard’s had great success in Colorado and Utah, but you might be more interested in infill land. Infill land is smaller lots in a town or around a town in the “doughnut” area. Howard gives his thoughts on this as a long term strategy. If property taxes are really high, that may not be the best place to start your land investing journey. If property values are really high, or bureaucracy is common in that area, those also might be signs that that’s not a great place to start. There are a lot of land investing courses out there that tend to focus on the same handful of counties. There are tens of thousands of counties across the U.S. where you can turn a profit. Howard and I talk about our criteria for where to look for empty lots. Constantly mailing in small batches creates some good business flow for Howard. He talks about how this strategy allows him to adjust bad offers or rely on data instead of blindly mailing out thousands of letters with no feedback. And because his software Land Speed Price Boss pools together all of its mailings, he can still save money on the bulk mail price. This attention to data is why Howard created Land Speed. Hard numbers don’t give you a rough idea. Hard numbers give you solid data to make good business decisions, and to help you find the best place to invest in land. What’s Inside: —Does tax assessed values play into land comps? —How I teach my boys to find comps for vacant lots. —Your offers are only as good as your data, and outliers will wreck that data. —Everyone figures out investor comps a little differently, and Howard walks me through how he comes up with his comps. —Break away from the land investor pack by investing in different counties.

We opened up our show today to you to answer the questions on your minds, and we had some really, really great questions that touched on where you’re at, and how this market is doing. Gavin covered the basics, we talked about partnering with local Realtors, and we shared our favorite real estate tools. One of the top questions on everyone’s mind is: Have prices started to drop? We’d love to give you a solid answer, but right now we have no idea what the market’s going to do. The numbers we’ve been given show a delay in closings, but that’s all so far. There are some things you can do to prepare, and Gavin talks about what they are. Don’t get carried away by new and flashy real estate ideas. The basics have been and will always be: —Marketing —Talking to Sellers —Making Offers —Following Up Right now one of the most important things that you can be doing is building your buyers’ list. Gavin shares a huge variety of ways to find buyers, starting with Realtors and going all the way through skip tracing buyers or chasing them down at meetups. Gavin’s super simple marketing plan requires some pre-planning, but most of all it requires action from you. And we know there’s a lot of information constantly coming at you. That’s why you should write down and just do what he’s telling you. Stick to the basics, listen to what the master of basics is laying out for you. In this current market, the normal sandwich lease options need to be looked at more closely. Gavin feels a little more comfortable with 25 percent instead of 15 percent, and he explains why he feels that way. I talk about some different scenarios you might find yourself in, and what I’d do. We also discuss some of the huge benefits for working with a Realtor. What’s Inside: —How to reconnect with old leads and warm them up again. —Training a VA will free up your valuable time to make offers. —Success in this business comes from doing the simple, basic things. —Some ideas on how to tap into the distressed Airbnb market from me. —The three most important questions when you’re looking for buyers. —Do you need an LLC to operate in other states for lease options?

I started in the wholesaling business when it just didn’t seem like a great time to be moving into real estate. Gavin Timms started in real estate with literally zero experience. We both believe though, that real estate is always a great industry to be in. If you’re short on money, but long on time, we have some solid pointers for how you can make money starting today. First of all, money is made on the phone, and sales is going to be a million dollar skill for you. You have got to learn how to talk to people. When Gavin first started out, he knew that he could get on the phone and talk to anyone. So by partnering with a wholesaler, he chased down her old leads and brought her some new deals. Get on the phone and call everybody you know in the business. Start networking and connecting with other wholesalers to see if you can follow up on their leads for them. Or, if it was just me, I’d make 50 phone calls a day, calling every broker, property manager, or landlord that I know. And I’d ask them two questions: —Are you looking to buy anything? —Are you looking to sell anything? Serious investors are still out there looking for good deals, so here’s what you absolutely need to be doing. Fire up your buyer marketing. You need to start building a relationship with buyers. I share some of my best resources for finding buyers, including my favorite CRM. If you need a little help getting started, Gavin and I are offering virtual coaching. We want you to succeed, so we will set you up with the systems that we’ve had great success with. What’s Inside: —The one skill you absolutely need, no matter the market you’re in. —People do business with people they like, so build rapport. —The absolutely huge opportunity coming up with Airbnbs. —The many, many ways you can chase down buyers. —Become a broker, and how that can help you earn money today.

I am so excited about this side hustle opportunity from Lee Arnold of Capital Syndicate. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Lee is a private money lender based in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and because he doesn’t rely on Wall Street money, he’s not pulling back during this market upheaval. Instead, he’s looking to invest in more secure, lucrative real estate deals. Lee has all of this private money and he wants to invest it, but he needs help finding deals. He’s looking for a handful of people willing to go through his capital syndicate model to get educated on the types of borrowers and loans that work for his business model, and he’s willing to pay a fee for this work. The biggest distinction that Lee wants you to understand is that he does not lend to owner-occupants or to individuals. He’s looking for a specific kind of borrowing in a specific kind of circumstance. He offers investment-grade loans to LLC, or an S or a C Corp, and his program will explain clearly how to find the right kind of deals that he wants. This private money brokering used to be a lot more prevalent in the market, so it’s nothing new. The beautiful thing about brokering, Lee says, is that it merely requires you to have access to capital. And he’s got plenty of that. Taking Lee’s Capital Syndicate program doesn’t limit you to Lee’s company. It teaches you to become an independent private money broker originator, and then you can work with hundreds of lenders across 40 states But make no mistake about it, Lee absolutely wants you to work with him, so he plans on offering the best competitive rates for your clients. Whether you’re looking at just supplementing your income while you work on your real estate business, or this is something you want to pursue full-time, this is a great way to use your real estate network in a way that nobody else is. What’s Inside: —Use the real estate networks you already have to start a new side hustle. —The absolute best markets to go into with private money brokering right now. —Who pays the fee for the loans, and how is that structured? —How you can get paid to broker your own deals.

The first thing to realize is that there are no answers. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s focus on the things you can actually do to prepare your business to survive during this economic uncertainty. I talk with Jason Medley from Collective Genius, one of the best real estate masterminds in the country, about the advice he gives to all of his investors. It’s like we’re a bike that’s shifting gears, and right now the gears are grinding and haven’t caught yet. They’re making a terrible sound, and everything feels uncertain, and we’re waiting for them to catch so that we can take off again. We’re in the gap right now. Everything in real estate is paused or waiting. Buyers are pulling out, trying to sit out for a better deal. Sellers don’t want to admit that they can’t make as much money now as they could a few months ago. And you can’t buy. We’re all just waiting for everything to catch and go together again so we can shift into a different gear. While you’re waiting for the gears of the economy to catch, Jason says you need to: —Manage your costs and expenses. —Manage your liquidity and cash. —Communicate at a level you’ve never communicated at before. —Be planning and stabilizing the ship. Jason explains the profit-first model of revenue minus profit equals expenses, and how it makes a difference for a business during lean times. The PNL statement is going to be your key in helping you make some of those tough decisions coming at you. Jason walks through what that might look like for you. The virus is not the problem. The virus is only revealing the problems in your business that have been neglected prior to its showing. What’s Inside: —Scaling responsibly will turn your business into a cash cow. —How money and liquidity aren’t the same, but still both matter for your profitability. —Why you absolutely have to have a PNL, and utilize it. —Going through and figuring out what you need to let go before you need to do it will free up a lot of your mental headspace. —Why now is the absolute worst time to quit your mastermind.

Forward thinking Cris Chico from Virtual Wholesaling knows how to look ahead and predict where things might end up because he’s already been down this road before in the last market upheaval. Cris is an expert in using Facebook ads to find seller leads, so he talks about where he sees online marketing heading as the real estate market changes. Picking a market isn’t as simple as pulling out a map and pointing to a part of the country that you think would provide steady returns. Cris shares his leads strategy that decides for him where his next market should be. If you’re ready to get started on Facebook advertising, because it’s the easiest platform to start with online advertising, start with a Facebook business page that makes you look like a real person, and not a robot. Cris shares how he targets his audience, and I was completely surprised since it’s the opposite approach I thought he’d take. How sellers want to communicate in the online world is totally different. They might prefer the entire exchange over text message or email, and you need to follow their lead to keep that relationship casual enough that they’re not turned off by your pushiness. Cris’s Public Service Announcement: We all have to contribute to keeping the wheels of real estate moving forward. For Cris, this means keeping Realtors and brokers included in transactions and possibly making less money on each deal. As the market changes, so will the amount of money that everybody can make. But there’s still plenty of deals to find. Sellers who might’ve ignored you a few months ago are ready and aware that they’re in a different position now. Contact your leads and make some offers. What’s Inside: —The trigger that changed the Miami market in ‘06, and what that means for today. —How Cris Chico creates targeted audiences in his Facebook ads. —The three things everyone should learn how to do to thrive in this economy. —The key to creating a memorable website name. —The best image to use for your Facebook ads, and how to make that image pop.

Check out the 5 Sellers A Day Accountability Group @ https://www.5sellersaday.com/join-challenge

An indisputable law of business is that the more revenue you make, the less profit in terms of net margin you’re going to make. It’s not what you make, it’s what you keep. Alex Pardo from The Flip Empire podcast and I talk about how to shift and scale business as we navigate the shift in today’s market. Do you know those checks on social media showing someone’s profit from their latest deal? They’re fake. They don’t tell the whole story, and Alex has discovered like I have, that a bigger business doesn’t always mean more money. It also means more overhead, more pressure, and more time away from your family. So using the Gino Wickman book Traction, and an EOS implementer, he redesigned his business to fit his purpose and his life. We’re coming out of a seller’s market and going into a buyer’s market. Alex describes how the smaller teams he’s downsized to is pivoting to this new market, and what marketing is working for him. To him, it seems like the hottest marketing trend quickly becomes old, so shifting back to the classics works better for him. He’s going old-school a little bit with bandit signs, postcards, and he’s even considering newspaper ads. But he’s still focused on building those relationships because follow-ups and personal contacts are still key for him. If you’re looking for a high level mastermind/coaching group, he’s started one up to fill the void he felt was in mastermind groups. He’s doing some pretty awesome work with missions trips to Guatemala to help others, and he’s still got a few spots left. What’s Inside: —Scaling your business with a lack of focus in your organization is a recipe for disaster. —Have a vision for your personal life and then design your business around that. —Transparency and vulnerability is going to be the new currency in 2020. —The marketing that’s working for Alex as we move to a buyer’s market. —Alex’s racey bandit sign that pulls in more deals than you’d think.

If you’re a collector of courses, then what you need is this 30-day challenge group in your life. Gavin Timms and I have done this before and it was hugely successful for our previous coaching students, so we wanted to offer it up at a time when everyone has a lot more time on their hands. Starting April 13th, jump in with us and start making offers. Gavin and I are going to be teaching you, with simple, easy scripts, how to make offers on the phone. We’re going to teach you marketing tactics that work. Gavin and I even role play a couple of scripts to show you how easy this can be. We’re going to be teaching you the fastest way to get leads, using cold calling and SMS texting. We’re not going to overcomplicate this with VAs and fancy, complicated triple dialers, although you can use those things if you want. The challenge group will offer daily support the first week, and then coaching calls three times a week after that. Plus, you’ll have access to a private Facebook group where you can show up with your offers and lean on us for support all month long. We don’t want to complicate this because we are challenging you to make five offers a day. So in this challenge, we’re going to teach the easy way to make offers so that you can make more of them more often. And here’s the thing. If you get a deal under contract, we’ll partner with you on it, or help you find a buyer. We want you to succeed, and this group is going to give you the support you need to stop taking courses and start making deals. And if you complete everything in the course, you’ll get your money back. There’s only winning in our 30-day challenge group. What’s Inside: —Our 30-day challenge group is designed to help you make real progress in real estate while everything is shut down. —We don’t care about perfection, we care about progress. —This challenge will put in a structure to your day that will give you some momentum. —Find out how to complete the group challenge and earn your money back. —All the support you need in the accountability group, including goals, weekly zoom calls, and tons of help on your offers. —Super simple scripts to help you start conversations with sellers and Realtors.

I’ve said it before and I’m going to keep saying it: There are only opportunities around you right now. Take some time to reconfigure your real estate dreams and start making some money. Sean Terry from Flip2Freedom has shifted over to remote wholesaling over the last 20-30 months, and he has some awesome advice for how he’s reworked his business to adjust for this change. Surprisingly, Sean and I are both seeing old leads bubbling up from months ago as sellers feel a lot more motivation to sell and regain some liquidity. But Sean warns that you have to structure in the COVID-19 pricing, which means offering just a little bit less than what was offered even 90 days ago. Maybe you’ve heard me talk about my success in small towns, but you’re a little nervous that you’re going to get stuck holding the house in a market that doesn’t move. And I get it. But both Sean and I have only had success in these hot little real estate markets. Even in this mess, with everything closed down and everyone working from home, Sean can still do deals virtually. By using the ultimate close question and walking the seller through the process over the phone, Sean is still closing deals and making money all over the country. Moving to virtual wholesaling is the perfect answer to the uncertainty that’s in the market right now, so if you need some help with a script or getting a system in place, Sean’s set up a course right now called Remote Millions that can help you transition over to virtual work. And he knows a lot of you might be struggling, so he’s offering 50% off the price now. You’re still going to be able to do business remotely, and that’s one of the true beauties of real estate. So if you need a little help getting started, I highly recommend working with Sean. What’s Inside: —Massive buyers like Redfin and Zillow are pulling out of markets like Phoenix, so Sean’s seen a huge surge of leads while his marketing costs remain the same. —Sean has one of the absolute best ways to find sellers and buyers for small towns. —How Sean’s phone system lets his team work virtually, but still stay connected. —Marketing that currently works for Sean, and if he plans on changing it.

There are some similarities between right now and 2008 when the liquidity was sucked out of Wall Street, but there are also some key differences. Rob Swanson and I have both navigated one crash before, and Rob’s spent a lot of time looking for patterns in previous market crashes. Getting back to real estate fundamentals is going to help you navigate this crazy market. Because the market’s been good for so long, some mediocre real estate investors have managed to look good. A great market makes everyone look good. Ask yourself the classic real estate question as you approach any deal, “How do I make money with this?”. Don’t buy without solid numbers to back up that deal. Make offers, make more offers, make lower offers, make better offers. Don’t stop making offers because of fear. Just adjust your offers. All of your old leads become new again as potential sellers start to feel the urge to sell-off. I’m seeing leads from 9 months ago calling me up again, ready to unload their properties, so I urge you to utilize your CRMs to follow up on all of your old leads. Instead of buying for equity, in a boom-bust market, Rob’s focused on stable markets and he explains why that is. But his idea of stable markets may differ from yours. He goes looking for neighborhoods that are about 50-80% tenant-occupied. These numbers are important because Rob is looking for a very specific kind of house in a very specific kind of neighborhood. You don’t need to be scared about where the market’s heading. There will continue to be opportunities all over, but you may need to get creative about financing, or creative about finding your deals. Use solid data from something like Freedom Soft and REI Simple to find and track your deals, and you will come out on top. What’s Inside: —Fear creates the motivation that everyone’s been looking for. —In this environment, old leads start bubbling up and become hot, new leads again. —How Rob is marketing for more buyers right now, and why he buys in C and D neighborhoods. —Organize before automation, otherwise, you’re just organizing chaos. —There’s a lot of mattress money in small towns with motivated sellers, so don’t write those small towns off. —How Rob defines A, B, C, D, and War Zone neighborhoods, and why those definitions matter when looking for solid neighborhoods to invest in.

Every crisis comes with an equal amount of opportunity, and this is going to be really, really important in the coming weeks and months. First, I’m going to step back and help you do some big picture thinking by outlining some plans you need to put in place, and then I’m going to share where I think the housing market will go next, and how you can capitalize on the opportunity. By studying the Great Depression, I realized that there are some companies that did very well during and after the stock market crash, and I think that we can learn a lot from these companies about things we need to be doing right now. Things like carrying little debt, doubling down on marketing, and so on. Again, it’s important to recognize that opportunity when it comes knocking. Now is a time to create a safe space for your audience. What should that look like for your company? Well for one, you need to be a leader with positivity and optimism. As entrepreneurs, we are problem solvers, so what problems can you solve for your audience? How does this big picture thinking play into real estate? This is the absolute best time to get into real estate investing. Yes, you’re going to have to get as creative as H.E. double hockey sticks, but this is going to be like 2009, and I tell you why. I go through the real estate strategies that you’ll need to adapt to continue to meet and serve your customers. And don’t forget that now is not the time to shut down and ignore other investors. You absolutely want to be plugged into a great network right now. Community collaboration and masterminds are going to be the secret to massive success in the future. Global insights and support from other business leaders will be critical for your ability to survive and thrive right now. Don’t quit your masterminds! In this webinar, I cover all of the directions I can see real estate moving into as the economy enters a recession and the world grapples with the COVID-19. Remember, opportunity is knocking. Don’t let fear keep that door closed. What’s Inside: —Wealth does not disappear; it transfers. —Why you should detach yourself from your own bias. —How to prepare for the WORST and the BEST case scenarios. —How can you find empathy for your customers? —Preparing for a buyer’s market will require a shift in your mindset. —It’s important to be educated in these two things: creative financing and fast cash strategies. —As wholesalers, sell to people what they want rather than what you have.

I like to think of myself as an ethical wholesaler, but there are a lot of guys out there who aren’t. States are getting smart to wholesaling methods that aren’t ethical and that rip off sellers, and that’s what we’re seeing with Oklahoma’s legislature. Because I don’t want you to worry, but I think that you should be cautious, I’m going to lay out some things you should keep an eye on going forward. Broke wholesalers are tying up properties all over the country. They hear that wholesaling is the fastest, easiest way to make money in real estate (and it is!), but they’re going about it the wrong way. And it’s giving wholesaling a bad name. They’re doing the daisy chain method of wholesaling and bumping up the prices of properties while stringing along a seller who just wants to sell their home before it’s foreclosed on. Number one, if you’re going to be an ethical wholesaler, you have to have the means to actually close on the property. And number two, you have to have the intent to close on it yourself. And this is key. You can’t put stupid clauses in your contracts. I give some examples of stupid clauses that cause sellers to stop trusting you. So, listen, it’s normal for a state to want to protect its citizens from this kind of unscrupulous wholesaling. It happened in Illinois, and now wholesalers are required to have a real estate license. And while you might think this could be a terrible wrench in a wholesaler’s plans, for some of my wholesaler friends with real estate licenses, it’s just reduced their competition in Illinois, providing them with an edge over everyone else. These kinds of bills aren’t going to go away, so I share how you can prepare for them. What’s Inside: —Daisy chain wholesaling deals are jacking up the prices for everyone. —Find an investor-friendly broker to work with. —What it means to be an ethical wholesaler. —Why states resort to these types of bills, and why it’s not always a bad thing. —New investors would benefit by partnering with local, ethical wholesalers. —My thoughts on the benefits of having your own real estate license.

Why would a vacant landowner be willing to sell their lot for so cheap? It’s like the treadmill analogy; because every time they look at the property, they’re reminded of all the things they thought they were going to do with it but never did. I get into the nitty-gritty details of buying, selling, and flipping vacant land with Dave VanSteenkiste from Mile High Rural Land. Land sellers are in a slightly unique niche compared to houses. They’re not often in a distressed situation and frequently own the land outright, especially if it’s been passed down from a parent. Sometimes they’re out-of-state owners, or they’ve just owned the land for years and years with plans to build something someday, but that someday never happened. As a result of their uniqueness, land offers aren’t based on comps like houses are. They’re based on what the rest of the land is currently selling for. Dave walks us through how to assess how much you should offer for a property, and he talks about which tools he uses to decide how much a property is really worth. Even though Dave’s been using direct mail marketing with a lot of success, he’s also turning to Facebook as a marketing tool. Because love it or hate it, Facebook isn’t going away anytime soon. He talks about how he uses VAs to run this part of his business, how to post so that you give people enough information, and why he’s stopped using Craigslist. We walk through some possible deals in Oklahoma together and Dave is generous with his knowledge. I’ve been letting my teenagers learn how to evaluate deals, make offers, and find properties to give them some real estate experience. Making a mistake on a land deal isn’t going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, so it can be a great way to learn about flipping and real estate. What’s Inside: —Land deals can be had for as cheap as 20 cents on the dollar. —The classic marketing method Dave finds land sellers. —Which platforms, tools, and CRMs Dave uses to find and track land deals. —Little tricks Dave recommends for listing the property on Facebook marketplace —Dave and I walk through how to evaluate some land deals in real-time.

There are so many reasons that someone would opt for a lease option, but they just need someone to structure that deal for them. Even if you have no capital, you can still get into real estate by structuring these deals between sellers and tenant buyers. Lease options are one of the easiest and fastest ways to become an investor without holding a ton of mortgages. A lease option can be very attractive to a seller who doesn’t have a lot of equity in a home, and they need to sell it, but they can’t afford to even pay the Realtor commission. I am strongly, strongly opposed to those people that teach that you should put a tenant buyer in the house only if they can pay you the most money. Everybody should win in a lease option deal. There are three centers of profit on a lease option; cash now, cash flow, and cash later. This gives you the flexibility to create any deal that is attractive to the seller. You can afford to be flexible because you’re going to make money no matter how the deal is structured. 10-15% of homeowners right now have little to no equity right now, and some of them even have negative equity. As we move into a recession, I talk about why lease options will become more popular and easier for investors to do. This is a great thing, and not something to worry about. Because I really want you to understand how simple and easy this is, I break down a deal I might offer for a great house in Nashville, and how I would structure that offer. I show you what a sandwich lease offer, a lease offer, and a wholesaling lease offer look like. I really think that lease options are one of the fastest and easiest ways to make money in real estate, so I want to invite you to join my free webinar. I go into a lot more detail about lease options, including free calculators and spreadsheets for you to figure out what a win-win-win situation looks like for the houses that you find. What’s Inside: —What exactly is a lease option? —The many benefits of a tenant-buyer, including their own sweat equity. —What’s attractive about a lease option to a seller? —Why would a tenant-buyer want a lease option? —Build a portfolio of homes with little to nothing down as an investor. —All of the many, many benefits of lease options to YOU.

If it feels like the sky is falling, I want to reassure you that what you really feel is opportunity knocking. As the market shifts under us and you can no longer count on appreciation, easy financing, or interest rates staying low, you can still find a way to make money. However, you’ll have to adapt to this new market. And those investors who can adapt to the changing market are going to be the ones who survive. You know the classic book Who Moved My Cheese? This moment is like that book. You’ve got to see where the cheese is moving. Now is the time when creative financing like lease options will help you when the market is starting to trend downwards like it’s currently doing. The market is moving to deals like: —Subject 2 —Owner financing —Land contracts —Contract for deeds —Lease options The beauty of these deals is you can offer the seller any terms they want as long as they’re willing to wait. But you don’t want to hang onto those contracts, and I talk about why that is. There are a lot of people freaking out right now because they have way too much debt and are heavily overleveraged. That’s the beauty of lease options: you can control property without owning property. Gavin talks about why you want to give your marketing and your business a good hard look right now if you’re the one freaking out. If this uncertainty is making you rethink your 9-5 job, Gavin and I share some ways that you can dig into real estate as a side hustle. And if you’re concerned that this will take up too much of your time, I have some ideas for how to automate this as a side hustle so that you can make money and still spend time with your family. What’s Inside: —Why it’s better to make a quick nickel than a slow dime right now. —If you want to make money right now, you need to understand wholesaling and flipping contracts. —Why you have to change as the market changes. —I explain the three keys to success in this business; marketing, automation, and delegation. —We talk about how important reserves are during a downturn.

Whether you think that the coronavirus scare is an overreaction or not, there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty in the market right now. This is definitely the time to be nimble and to readjust your business plan. I’ve had some great success flipping rural land out in Oregon and Colorado, so in this podcast, I explore that idea some more to give you some ideas of how to zig when everyone else is zagging. More than just preppers are looking for vacant land. Hunters and outdoor enthusiasts are also looking for vacant rural lots. They might want the land to build a cabin someday, maybe shoot their guns, or drive their ATVs all over. But you know what? It’s a demand that’s come roaring back with this virus stuff. There are a lot of disadvantages to being stuck on one single kind of deal, and you’ve got to be nimble enough to pivot. If you’ve been offering 80 cents on the dollar for homes in Southern California, then what will you do if the cash buyers disappear. I talk about all of the different ways that real estate might be impacted by a downturn, and I give you some ideas of where you could pivot to next. For me personally, I’m going to spend some more time teaching about lease options and land investing. I think that education about different real estate deals is really vital as people maybe shift out of the stock market and into real estate. Networking, masterminds, and coaching are going to become even more important to you. Just getting out there and talking to different people is going to help you keep your ear to the ground to hear what’s coming next. Stop thinking of this as the end of the world. It’s not! It’s an opportunity, and you need to be ready for it. What’s Inside: —What kind of response rate I have for marketing on vacant lots. —The reasons that people want to buy a vacant lot can vary widely. —If you’re stuck on one aspect of this business, I offer a slew of places you can pivot to. —How coaching, networking, and masterminds will help you in the coming days. —Why you should consider lease options and other creative financing deals.

The U.S. is bracing for impact on the coronavirus, and the markets are all over the place. It seems like there’s a daily dose of fear along with every new piece of news, but I’m here to tell you that it’s all going to be okay. I quit my job in 2009 at the height of the recession, and it was honestly one of the best things that I’ve ever done. The absolute first thing you need to think about right now is how much debt you have. Are you overleveraged? Is that fix-and-flip going to sink you if you don’t get it sold right now? Are you relying on a refinance to fix your cash flow problems? Do you have multiple exit strategies if the next deal falls through or if you can’t get something sold? I’m going to predict that preppers and survivalists are going to be looking for great real estate deals, so I share a few ideas about how you could capitalize on that, and I promise more on this subject in the future. When I moved from wholesaling to traditional lease options, I found that it was a safer bet for me because I wasn’t really holding any assets. I explain how lease options can be a great safe harbor right now as everything is up in the air. Most importantly, don’t panic! This is a great time to learn about lease options or to adjust your real estate strategy. Step back, see where the market is going, and find a new way to make some money. What’s Inside: —I offer some predictions for where the market is heading right now. —How debt will slow down your ability to pivot in real estate. —Why I moved from wholesaling to traditional lease options. —Why now is the best time to learn about lease options.

When you’re the boss, every month you’re an employee of the month. But if you’re really and truly honest with yourself, are you really working as hard as you could? Are you using the excuse of “hustling” to work through your family’s dinner because you’re really dragging yourself out of bed every day? If I’m going, to be honest, lately I’ve been wasting a lot of my time reading the news and catching up on stuff. Really, it’s not good for me. I’m not even watching things that feed my soul, but just a never-ending cycle of news from all of my favorite news networks. By the time dinner rolls around, I’m scrambling to play catch up with the rest of my day. I didn’t get started on time, so I couldn’t get everything done that I needed to. Instead of pausing to focus on my family, I have to work through dinner to finish all of my work. We forget those basic work principles sometimes as entrepreneurs. All of that “early to bed, early to rise” stuff goes out the window when we can write our own schedule. I mean, that’s why we want to be entrepreneurs in the first place! You don’t have to hustle your face off, but you do need to get out of bed already. Start your day early. Get your work done before dinner. Maybe even spend a little bit of time in the Good Book and feed your soul a little. If you want to make your family a priority, you’ll need to build your life around that schedule. Be the kind of employee who really deserves the employee of the month plaque, every single month. What’s Inside: —We forget about those basic work principles sometimes as entrepreneurs. —Focus on what you can control, and it’s not the news. —Get up early and read good stuff. —Be careful what you feed into your mind. —Make time for your family and your kids.

If you come across a seller that absolutely has to sell because of a job transfer or divorce, but they don’t have any equity in their house, what kind of options do they really have? If they sold the house outright, they’d still have to bring some cash to the table to get rid of it, and they don’t want to be a long-distance landlord. There are a lot of different ways to make lease options work for you. Depending on how you structure the deal, you can get all of the benefits of owning an investment property without actually getting a loan or a mortgage. I explain the sandwich lease option, where you pay the seller’s mortgage for him and then rent his house out to a tenant buyer. It’s like cash now, cash flow, and cash later model. If there’s not only no cash flow, but no equity, what can you do then? That’s a great time to use an assignment deal, where the money you make is from the assignment fee the buyer pays you. Even when you find a seller that refuses to sell to you because they think you’re going to make too much money off of them, there’s still a way to make a little money. You can hire yourself out as a consultant to them, and teach them how to create their own lease option for their property. The beauty of all of these different kinds of lease options is this: you’re going to find a seller that’s stuck on the terms or the price. Either one is so important to them that they can’t see themselves to a deal. So you can put together all of these options, and give them some choices. They can pick one, and then BAM. You have a deal. If you’re interested in learning more about lease options, you should check out my webinar class. What’s Inside: —How to structure a lease option deal when there’s no equity. —I talk about the different circumstances you might want to use a lease option. —What to do when the seller doesn’t want to budge on the price. —The three profit centers in a sandwich lease option deal. —How to make money on a deal when there’s no cash flow.

Some things stink pretty fast, like dirty diapers or overcooked broccoli. Leads, however, get better and better with age. If you want to truly be a real estate investor, you have to fully commit to chasing down your leads. If I gave you a bunch of marketing leads today, how many could you close? How many times would you call them? One of my favorite coaching clients told me that she was going to call her leads as many times as it took until they sold their house to her or to anyone else. It didn’t matter who they sold their house to; she was going to get a yes or a no out of them. Here’s a secret: There is no “no”. “No” really means “Not yet”. And she knew that! Your leads need to be followed upon. You need to follow up on your follow-ups. You should have a CRM full of notes about how many times you called and talked to your leads because it takes an average of 2-3 months to make that sale. I would say that it’s 65%, maybe even 95% of all of my sales that come from following up. It is going to be incredibly rare that you’re going to find someone willing to sell you their house for 60 cents on the dollar on your very first phone call. So if you’re going to be in this business, you have to give it a solid six months of your time, and you have to absolutely commit to following up on your leads. No lead is ever truly dead. Nurture your leads. Follow up on your leads. Don’t give up on them because old leads just get better with time. What’s Inside: —Why persistence matters with leads. —Lessons learned from one of my best coaching clients. —How many touches you need to make on a lead. —How many months it may take for a lead to work for you.

If you remember visiting your grandparents in a senior living facility, you probably have a lot of the same ideas about it that Brandon Schwab did. On a trip to Florida, Brandon accidentally stumbled on a quietly successful part of senior living: boutique senior homes. He shares how he sold off every rental in his portfolio to move into boutique senior living homes, what his numbers are, and how he balances the ethical implications in this business. After realizing the huge amount of cash flow potential in smaller senior homes, Brandon set about finding the perfect home for his first investment property. He describes how he structured the deal, his average profit, and how he filled the house. Because he didn’t want to be the owner/operator, Brandon had to partner up with someone. He shares why he chose an RN, what he looked for when hiring one, and how many hours he has an employee on site. He also shares what that includes, and how much he can charge per client. The sweet spot for senior boutique homes are ranch homes, and he can usually fit 10-16 beds in a good-sized ranch home. By offering a caregiver ratio of 1:5, he does give up some of the profit, but he gives great care. And he still ends up with a profit margin of 38%. Instead of chasing dollars, he has pivoted and become a purpose-driven business. He shares how experiencing end-of-life care changed the mission of his business, and how it’s shaped his employees. If this idea intrigues you, Brandon’s actively looking for deals for 5,000+ square foot homes across the country. If you’ve got a deal for him, book a thirty-minute call with him on his website. What’s Inside: —What kind of home you’re looking for to open a boutique senior living home. —Who you should partner with so that you’re not the owner/operator. —The limitations for 2 story homes, and commercial regulations for these homes. —The ethical considerations that Brandon’s had to think about. —How Brandon still uses lease options for financing senior homes. —Brandon breaks down his monthly numbers for us, holding nothing back.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about my tools, my systems, and my CRM because my students want to know if they can keep it simple, or if they need to track their leads like me. A lot of people are thinking, “I want to do deals, but all of this technology stuff is just overwhelming.” I’ve got the 1980 edition of Robert Allen’s book Nothing Down, which is over forty years old, and 98% of the stuff in this book is still relevant today. Because while there’s been a lot of changes in the technology side of real estate, the principles are still the same. I embrace change. I love it! But you don’t need all of this advanced technology stuff to get started. When I first started in real estate, I was tired of being on the computer all day at work, so I developed the “manila folder” system. Hot leads, cold leads, warm leads, these all got different follow ups, and I share how I tracked them, and why I did it this way. Some of you are technophobes. And some of you want the latest and greatest. It doesn’t matter if you’re an expert at Podio. The only way you’re going to make money in this business is making offers and talking to sellers. If you show me an expert in Podio, I’ll show you a broke wholesaler. Because how do you make money in this business? Make offers, make offers, make offers. It wasn’t until I’d been wholesaling for 3 years that I moved over to the fancy technology. If you’re stuck with technology, use the manila file system. But whatever you choose, don’t get distracted or sidelined by CRMs or apps or whatever it is that someone’s selling. Get on the phone and make those offers. What’s Inside: —I share my original, old school paper tracking method. —If you’re overwhelmed, use my manila folder system to help you out. —This one thing is the key to your business, no matter what tracking method you use. —Why a 1980 edition of a real estate book is still relevant today.

At about 60,000 postcards a month, Don Costa from the Flip Talk podcast has dialed in on a system that works for him. He holds nothing back today, sharing the tools he uses, the conversations that work with sellers, and how he’s organized his team. Following up on warm leads are where people are too often dropping the ball. 80% of Don’s January contracts were from following up. 80%! Some of his current follow up tools that are working are: —Ringless Voice Mail (RVM) —Cold calling databases —Emails and texts from a CRM —Personal phone calls I used to use those yellow legal pads to keep track of all of my leads when I first started out, but it was so hard to keep track of warm, cold, or hot leads. Don jumped right into using a couple of different CRMS, and he talks about the different advantages of some of them. He warns that you shouldn’t get caught up on the perfect business card, the perfect postcard, the perfect website, or the perfect business name. Just get started. Don’s detailed tracking system from his postcards helps him plug numbers into Slack and keep everyone on his team on the same page. He emphasizes that the key to the direct mail marketing channel is consistency, followed quickly by answering the phone live. There’s an ebb and flow in the direct marketing world. Sometimes it works great, and then everyone else sees that and jumps into that marketing stream. Then it becomes the law of diminishing returns. He shares how he balances that trend in his own business. I’ve been seeing a lot more success with wholesaling in small-town markets, so Don shares his own experience with that too. He talks about how to find the seller’s pain points by asking questions, and why it’s important for the seller to name a price for their house first. What’s Inside: —How Don structures his office following CA labor laws. —The tools Don uses to keep his team on the same page. —Don’s 5 step method he walks his leads through. —How to find a seller’s pain point. —Don’s tracking system for direct mail marketing. —CallRail versus SMARTPHONE, which one wins?

I love meeting with students and seeing how they’re making lease options work for them. And Ray Shurman from America 2nd Chance is proof that you don’t have to stick with just one way of doing business. He shares how he started with lease options and tenant buyers, and why he moved into fixer-upper lease options (FULO). Ray must be a quick study because he’s only been doing this 2 years. He shares how he structured his first deal with tenant buyers, and why he likes to keep the terms simple. He’s found that simple terms help everyone involved feel like they’re not being taken advantage of. One of the beauties of lease options is that you’re not limited to distressed properties. So Ray uses that to find solid deals that promise great ROI. He shares how he finds leads with expired FSBO listings. And this part was really cool to me; Ray’s doing something a little different with wholesaling. Instead of offering lease options to tenant buyers, or just buyers, he’s offering lease options to rehabbers. He finds rehabbers with a great reputation and partners with them. He calls these fixer-upper lease options (FULO), and they require a little different deal structuring. He talks about how he seasons the deal in a trust to fulfill FHA requirements and the benefits of partnering with a rehabber. Instead of getting cash right away, the FULO offers you cash a little bit down the road. And the beauty of this is, if the rehabbers don’t sell it on time, you’ve still got a beautiful house to sell. It’s a great win-win situation for everyone involved. What’s Inside: —What a FULO is and how to use it. —How Ray finds deals and leads. —Why you don’t want to use a tenant-buyer in a FULO. —Why he puts the houses in a trust to season them.

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Nobody, and I mean nobody’s doing radio ads, and that means it’s a perfect medium for advertising. But there are some misconceptions about radio ads, like the costs or where the audience is really hanging out. Chris Arnold from Wholesaling Inc lays out those misconceptions and the truths about them, and he even includes some of his advice that he gives his own coaching clients. First and most importantly, you are not your demographic! When you’re advertising, you have to think about where your demographic is, and if they’re over 50, they’re not on Spotify. Chris reverse engineers the three demographics on radio and then explains how to target them. I have a local friend that I heard on the radio, and he was so over the top excited that I barely recognized him! But Chris assures me that enthusiasm and local personalities are great selling points for listeners. Becoming that local celebrity and having people recognize your voice builds your credibility and authority, and you become the first person they think of when they want to sell that apartment building that’s been giving them constant headaches. Chris shares some of his blueprint for making great and effective radio ads, and how to identify what your audience wants. He coaches his clients through their ads so that they’re successful for them, and he breaks down just how cheap your advertising costs can get in this marketing channel. Radio yields lower call volume, but with higher quality leads, which is the exact opposite of the spam-like direct mail approach. Chris’s team also feels proud of their radio ads because they don’t make them feel sleazy. And he uses a vanity phone number for every market he’s in so that it’s easy to remember (super important for radio ads!), and so he can tell which ads are working in which market. Chris works with a lot of coaching clients helping them create radio ads that work, but he does not want to saturate the market with radio ads. So he only works with a limited number of people in each market. If you’re interested in moving into radio ads, follow the link in the show notes and get together with Chris today! What’s Inside: —Why you should start with 60-second radio spots. —How to identify your demographic and stations to advertise on. —Making a virtual wholesaling team become a cohesive team. —Chris breaks down the dollar per dollar return on marketing. —Why he answers all of the calls live.

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First of all, before we get started today, I want to tell you to take everything I say with a grain of salt, and that you should definitely consult a real estate attorney when dealing with legal matters. But now that I have that out of the way, I want to offer up some creative ways for finding and using realtor contracts as the jumping-off point for your own contracts. One of the benefits of using a realtor’s contracts is that they’ve already been written by a lawyer. These contracts have already been written with the local city, municipal, county, and state laws in mind, so any tricky local laws you might run up against have already been accounted for. You could straight up ask a realtor friend for one, or you could get your own real estate license so that you could access one, or you could ask a realtor’s association for one. Some of the associations might copyright their contracts, so you’ll have to tread lightly if that’s the case. When I use these contracts and come to the part for the broker stuff, I just cross it out and write in big, bold sharpie, “Non-brokered transaction”. Or, if you want, you could cut and paste the relevant part of the contract out for your own use. You really just need the right language for your contract, which these provide. The bottom line is, review the contracts you do use with a real estate lawyer. Find an investor-friendly, creative type real estate lawyer to sign off on your contract. I’m closing with some examples of how a contract protects you, why you need a standard purchasing agreement in place, and how to find the best eviction attorney in town. If you do decide to become a realtor, I’ve been working with Keller Williams for years, and I’ve been really happy with them. If you head their way, tell them I sent you. What’s Inside: —How to find realtor contracts. —How to find a great eviction attorney. —At what stage you should partner with a real estate attorney. —Why having an airtight contract protects you.

Dealing with probates and tax delinquents requires a little bit of care and finesse, which Jason Lucchesi from No Flipping Excuses, is happy to provide. He opens up about all of his tips for chasing down leads in this podcast, and how to navigate the difficult conversations you have to have with people as they’re dealing with the loss of a loved one, or losing their home. Marketing himself to folks with quit claim deed, AOD, or deeds with the name “trust” on them are just a few of the ways that Jason finds probate leads. Most of the time these leads are older folks who are looking to downgrade from their big house after their partner has died. Jason’s built a relationship with local attorneys who know he’ll purchase a home quickly and fairly. Jason shares the tools he uses to purchase data, and he points out that in non-disclosure states, this information may not be online. Building relationships with elder care professionals and county clerks help him work around some of those limitations. Many times people who are selling off a house after death aren’t just trying to sell the house; they want to sell the contents of the house too. So Jason’s had to accommodate these kinds of sellers, but it’s been surprisingly beneficial for him. Tax delinquencies are another tricky situation because many of these folks are on a fixed income with no hope of fixing their situation. Jason shares with me the kind of questions he asks them to determine if he can help them with tax assistance, the very stringent requirements of a tax payment plan, and how he helps homeowners find a better situation. You might have to navigate probates and tax delinquency deals with thoughtfulness, but the high-profit margins make them worth your time. What’s Inside: —How you can use LinkedIn to find real estate investors, and the job titles you should search for. —How to handle tax delinquencies with a bankruptcy attached. —What to say to a bereaved spouse about selling the house. —Using county records to find tax delinquents. —How to handle tax delinquency with a mortgage attached. —The importance of building relationships with eldercare professionals.

On his platform, Lending For Deals, Matt Bell currently has 132 lenders in 50 states with all kinds of deal types and credit profiles. Now that is music to my ears. And while they don’t currently do every deal in every state, they do most deals in every state, and they can pull up your best options for whatever address you’re looking at. As an operator, you can be incredibly cash flow-sensitive, so having your different options laid out for you in one spot is going to be hugely beneficial. Instead of selling you as a lead to all kinds of lenders who bombard you with phone calls, Matt’s company is a little more like Lending Tree, where you’re paired up with hard money lenders who are the best match for you. Over 10,000 kinds of loans are offered, including: —Rental Lending for BRRRR —Fix and Flip Lending —Construction Lending —Land Development —Bridge and Rehab —And more They have a solution for nearly every credit profile because if you’re doing deals all over the place, sometimes your credit fluctuates, depending on how many deals are open. This is a website and system built by investors for investors. Matt talks about if they do transactional funding, if they offer proof of funds if the deals on Monday are as good as the deals on Thursday, and whether they offer refinances. The only hard no he can offer is that they absolutely do not do lending for home loans. These loans are strictly for business purposes only. I’m hugely excited by the potential in Matt’s platform. There’s nobody out there doing anything like this, so I’m looking forward to seeing where this will go. What’s Inside: —What kind of deals Lending For Deals can do. —Some different scenarios for how a loan could be structured with them. —Why they started Lending For Deals. —Matt recommends his favorite books. —Matt’s optimistic about the future, regardless of recession or election results.

Real estate experts love to focus on so many different things, like wholesaling and raising capital and flipping houses, and oh, rehabbing too. All of these scattered focus shows up in their bank balance. They work 80 hours a week so they don’t have to work 40 hours a week, and they listen to that voice that tells them to hustle their face-off. Who gave you that vision anyway? Shaun McCloskey knows this culture well, and he wants you to have a better vision. 85% of people don’t like what they’re doing, he says, and not many of us are keeping our New Year’s resolutions either. We want some change in our life, but we don’t know how to make that happen. For 13 years, Shaun’s been coaching high-level entrepreneurs to create a vision that allows them to live the life they want. He starts with their vision first and then helps them build their business around that. He breaks that down for me and then shows me what that kind of work looks like for some of his clients. By helping his clients combine what they love, what the world needs, what they can make money at, and what they’re really good at, he can help them identify their new direction. He talks about how he uses Humanlytics to create a personality profile that helps his clients get to the point where they truly “Know Thyself”. Shaun walks us through some of the thinking exercises that he does with clients, helping them see what they truly want in their personal and business lives. Today’s podcast is a closeup view of the workshop he’s hosting in St. Louis on March 12-14th, which you should totally come to since I’m speaking at it. He’s invited 12 experts (and me!) to a panel to talk about how you can create a life vision that you really love. If you come to this event, you can expect to prune some things out of your life to make room for more success, more family time, and more personal development. What’s Inside: —Shaun talks about his pivotal moment in coaching. —How Shaun uses the Japanese idea of “ikigai” to teach his clients. —Using a worst-case scenario model, Shaun helps his clients see what they truly want. —What Disney Imagineers, Engineers, and Implementers have to do with creating a vision. —If your business burns to the ground, how would you rebuild? —Get tickets to meet with Shaun in St. Louis on March 12-14th.

When I got started in real estate, I bought a lot of courses. You could even call me a course junkie because I spent so much time buying them and so little time actually doing what they told me to. Justin Wilmot had a similar beginning, and in that way, we are kindred spirits. When we started actually doing what the courses told us, our wholesaling businesses started to take off. A lot of people ask, “Does this course work? Does that course work?”, and sure, they all pretty much work. But, and this is the key part, you have to follow through and do the legwork. Justin’s key turning point was when he invested in a mentor that followed through with him. Having someone he was accountable too, and having invested his last dime in the business, Justin had no excuses and no way to move except forward. Stop asking “What if?” and start asking “What next?”. Stop making excuses for your inaction and just start working on the business that you’re thinking about. Justin’s business has grown a lot in the last few years, and he’s learned a lot about finding the best deals. But even the most experienced investor makes mistakes. He opens up on the money he just lost on an emotional purchase and shares what he learned from it. He talks about his new rule, “Water is gold”, and how that’s currently shaping his wholesaling business. Justin’s team is essential to his business. He provides the vision, and then he delegates out the work. He never wants to have 100% of the profits so that he can parcel out the work. He’s built his business to serve his life and not the other way around. What’s Inside —Justin shares how he started in real estate. —Tools that Justin currently uses to run his virtual wholesaling business. —We talk about our first mentors and their valuable advice to us. —Justin opens up about why he just lost $60k in a deal. —Justin shares his tips and tricks for making his team work together better.

I’ve been working with my own sons teaching them how to flip land, so it was really great to talk with Willie G about his experience in the vacant land business. Willie started out as a banker at Wells Fargo, but quickly realized that being an entrepreneur was a better route to success than the corporate world. He gives some great advice on how he has scaled up his land flipping business, and some predictions on where it will go in the future. One of the really great parts about flipping vacant land is the scalability. You don’t have to manage a big team to do it. Willie did his real estate flipping on the side of his regular banker job until he made $50,000 in net profit for two months in a row, and then he realized that he had enough cash flow to just walk away. He realized pretty early on that very few people can pay cash for land, so he increased his buyer pool by offering term sales and found that that’s where the real money’s at for land flipping. My sons and I have been using neutral mailers to target vacant landowners, but Willie’s found that he can offer a specific price in his mailers by targeting uniform markets and is getting a great response rate. He also aims for deals where he’s offering 25 cents on the dollar because this lets him sell it for three or four times what he paid for it. Because Willie offers term rates on his vacant lots, he does have to factor in a default rate. But one of the beauties of term rates is that he can break even in about 12 months, and he’s still left with a property to sell if a buyer stops paying. We talk about the up and coming markets for vacant land, and you might be surprised where it’s at. Willie shares a final piece of advice: Diversify and buy a lot of properties, and trust that they’ll sell. What’s Inside: —Willie G shares the tools he uses to run his real estate business. —Discover why term deals are almost always better than cash deals. —Find out how to broaden the pool of buyers for vacant land. —Willie G recommends some surprising up and coming places for vacant land. —Why Willie looks for a uniform market to blanket with mailers.

I know there’s some of you who are out there wholesaling and making $20-$30,000 a month, but if you stop buying and selling, you know your income is going to go down. So you think about it, and then you may decide to keep a few of your very best deals to try and create some cash flow in your business. But really, what is your long term strategy for building wealth? Russ and Joey from Wealth Without Wall Street break down for us the idea of infinite banking. Nobody’s really getting excited about a savings account. The interest you earn is just dinky, and it’s really more like a holding place or a warehouse for your money. In a savings account, your money is accessible, but that’s just about it. Infinite banking is redirecting your savings into whole life insurance policies, just like the bank does. The policy Russ and Joey recommend is a dividend-paying whole life policy that’s in a mutual life insurance company. This isn’t like your uncle’s policy with some sort of steady premium. And it doesn’t have an immediate return either. But we’re playing the long game here, with an eye on a horizon at least 3 or 4 years out. This is not a traditional whole life policy where you put in your $500 a month and have a million-dollar death benefit. You’re going to be putting a lot of cash into this vehicle that’s immediately accessible, and that you can use as collateral to borrow money against. Russ and Joey share: —How their clients use these policies. —How to reverse engineer a policy based on the cash flow you need. —How they use the whole life policy in their own lives. —How you can use this policy in real estate deals. I know this is a whole new topic for a lot of you, and I know I had trouble wrapping my brain around it in the beginning. That’s why Russ and Joey are offering my community access to their courses. They really believe that you need tools, you need education, and you should definitely understand this before you start investing in it. What’s Inside: —How to borrow against the collateral of an insurance policy. —Joey and Russ discuss the differences between term and whole life insurance policies. —They share how their clients are using these policies to fund real estate deals. —The difference between a savings account and a warehouse (hint: not much).

Almost straight out of high school, Jason Roberts and Rachel Schneider started their own mortgage company in St. Louis. Working 12-15 hour days, they were able to find great success…..until the market crashed. After filing bankruptcy, losing cars, and a primary residence, they were literally at their rock bottom. But what could have been a disaster ended up being a huge blessing in their life. They had the chance to step back and figure out what they really wanted in life. They already understood what makes a business successful. And when it comes to businesses, if you understand the mechanics, the vehicle doesn’t matter. So they took everything they knew about running a successful business and started buying short sales. Because they had lost literally everything during the crash, they didn’t even have enough money to use direct mailings. So they took the foreclosure data, ran it through whitepages.com, did a reverse address search, and started calling the numbers that popped up. They realized that the core of a real estate business is just having a conversation with someone who wants to sell their house. Relationships are the engine of real estate! They use a variety of lists to get phone numbers today, including: —Eviction notices —Facebook ads —The state’s probate list —Pre-foreclosure list from the county courthouse, the state, and the legal newspaper —Vacant list property They’ve focused on building the pipeline for their leads, and they don’t worry too much about the ones they lose. And they’ve expanded their marketing because they really think that having their faces and numbers everywhere helps them reach different kinds of people. If you’re in the Missouri area, they’re offering a real estate boot camp coaching other investors to do what they do on January 31st, February 1st, and 2nd. What’s inside: —Jason and Rachel share their absolutely lowest point, and when they decided to change. —Finding the kind of marketing that resonates with people is incredibly important. —What kind of marketing Jason and Rachel currently use. —Their favorite lists for short sales and pre-foreclosures.

In 25 years, real estate hasn’t changed much. It’s still a relationship business that requires negotiating and huge trust between parties. But the tools we use to find leads, fund transactions, and find reputable buyers is very different. Cameron Dunlap from Real Estate Wealth Network goes deep today on the app he built, the funding he currently does, and how he finds cash buyers. If your phone’s not ringing, you’re not making any money. Real estate business requires constant leads, and that can be a problem if you’re chasing down unmotivated sellers all the time. Dunlap spent 2 years developing a software that lets him scour public data and clues him in on which properties would be a good lead. He measures 19 different data points, including liens on the house, age of the mortgage, and home equity. Using an app that doesn’t rely on an algorithm, like Zillow or Redfin do, means that Dunlap’s data is more precise. It’s like having a full time VA scouring the market and looking for specific properties, but it’s all in your pocket. And because it’s nationwide data, there’s no reason for you to feel stuck in your neighborhood. That kind of data is gold! If you don’t have the means or intent to close on a deal, you could be accused of brokering without a license, and man, you do not want to do that. You have got to have transactional funding available for you when you make your offers so you can actually close on the deals. Dunlap decided to just reverse engineer this funding by offering transactional funding to anyone who purchases his package of tools. It’s just a one time fee for these tools, and then his company will fund unlimited deals for you for up to one year. Because I think this transactional funding is such an amazing deal for you, we’re doing a webinar about it, with a link down below. There are some stipulations on the funding, so you do not want to miss this information. What’s inside: —Why Cameron Dunlap doesn’t trust automated valuation models (AVMs). —How Cameron is using transactional funding that complies with Dodd Frank. —The Motivated Seller Data Feed gives you unbelievable information about homes. —What Motivation Stacking is and how it will change your leads forever.

Don’t just make more money in 2020: make more profit. This is the year you need to simplify your business and focus on the right things that will help you navigate any change coming your way. I’ve given a lot of thought to this, and I have over fourteen key things that you should focus on in 2020. First thing’s first, forget the hustle. Spend more time thinking and reading and planning this year so that you can spend the time you actually work operating at high peak efficiency. We are not in the real estate business, regardless of what you may think. We’re in the marketing business. Never stop marketing because leads are the lifeblood of your business. As the market shifts, you’re going to need more cash on hand. If you want to survive a slowdown or a recession, you need to protect yourself from being overleveraged. Don’t take on too much debt right now. Take some time to focus on profit and in order to make that profit, you have to make offers, make offers, make offers! It is the number one rule in real estate. You may need to be flexible on the kind of deals that you’re making. Don’t be a one-trick pony! Lease options, land contracts, owner financing, and other kinds of deals all help you find and close deals when you come up against houses that don’t have enough equity. Stay focused on cash flow and have an exit strategy. If you want to stay relevant in 2020, you need to learn how to sell. Take some courses on selling, join a mastermind, create a mastermind, and get some accountability going on in your life. Keep your skills sharp so that you can adjust with the market, wherever it ends up going. If there’s something you’re just not good at, find a partner that’s an expert. Work together on deals and grow your business together. I really think we’re going to see some exciting things happening in 2020, and if you take some time to prepare now for a great year, you’re going to be ready for whatever’s coming down the road for us. What’s inside: —Sit down and figure out your numbers this year so that you can capitalize on profit. —Find partners, talk to people, join a mastermind and get out of the house to keep your finger on the pulse of the real estate market. —14 specific and actionable items that will transform your 2020 real estate game. —Plan now for success this year by keeping more cash on hand and protecting yourself from taking on too much debt.