Ep 188: From NFL Star to 8-figure Real Estate Portfolio with "Little to No Money" with Dean Rogers

We didn't do any work to it. It's going to close before the end of the year. $70,000, another flip we're going to make $54,000 on and that those are deals we cherry picked.

Right.

And decided to do. So that's what I love about wholesaling and why, whether you're just getting started or experienced.

Welcome to the Next level Income show, where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larson. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free at our website, nextlevelincome.com. that's www.nextlevelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. On today's show, we have Dean Rogers. Dean began his career in the NFL with the San Diego Chargers. Dean soon realized if he kept playing, his health would be at stake. After walking away from the NFL, he's been in the real estate industry since 2013, leading him to building a successful business in California. Since then, Dean has flipped and wholesaled hundreds of house houses and now has a rental portfolio in excess of $10 million. He's passionate about real estate and helping others learn how to build wealth and freedom. In 2022, Dean created the Wholesaling Playbook to provide a resource for others that want to take their real estate investing business to the next level. On today's show, Dean's going to share a little bit more about his story, some of the things he's learned along the way, as well as the hardships and struggles on his journey to success. Dean, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, man. I'm excited.

Absolutely. No, I'm excited as well. And as we were chatting before the podcast started here, we've been doing the show for about five years and sometimes I forget there's a lot of new listeners. They're just getting started on their journey. And one of the things I love about real estate is that there's something for everybody out there. You can do commercial real estate, but you can do development. You can do fix and flips. You specialize in wholesaling. I can't wait to talk a little bit more about that here for our listeners today. But I think more importantly, Dean, you have a really interesting story and I'm not going to spoil it for the listeners. I want you to share with us your story. I know you're out in California. We were talking about kind of our, our kind of, our both similar backgrounds with, with farming families and kind of being, you know, being from rural areas. But maybe you could share a little bit more personally about kind of how you got started and you know, your career in the NFL as well.

Yeah, so my career started in the NFL. You know, my childhood dream came true and it was an incredible experience. I mean, there's, there's nothing in my lifetime, I don't think. I mean, who knows, who knows what, what, where life will lead me, but it'll be pretty darn hard to match the feeling and experience I had throughout that whole time. You know, my whole life growing up, I'd always dreamt of playing as a professional athlete. And I know growing up when, when we were in class and you'd fill out, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'd always be a little embarrassed to write down professional athlete, you know, but I truly wanted to be and that's, that's what I love most. And like you were saying, I grew up in a small little town in central California called Visalia. And there's nothing but farms and dairies. That's the major industry. And there was not a lot to do. I mean there was really sports, family, church, friends and family like that. That's all that there was, right? And going to school. So sports was my passion and always did well at it was always good at sports. And once high school came around, you know, excelled at high school, got all the accolades, first team, all league, starting to get from colleges. But I was really under recruited. I was a tall white running back that wasn't that fast. I was fast enough, but like wasn't really in my position. That scout made it easy for scouts and starting to get looked at as at tight end and finally got a scholarship offer from a small D1AA school, UC Davis. And they were the only ones that really gave me love. And you know, I had a chip on my shoulder about that. But I, I thought to myself, one day I'll stop playing football. So UC Davis is a Davis. You know, kind of the rise up and you know, flash forward to the end of my career. First team all, you know, first team all American and having scouts come to practice and stuff like that. I'm starting to set in a little bit more than it was possible. But there was still that kind of doubt because it wasn't, you know, like, you see some of these guys at college now where the scouts are showing up with money practically and truthfully now these days, oh yeah, and so I, I got the call, I got the call from the Chargers and they said, pack your bags tomorrow morning. So that's kind of the, the short version of getting there. But yeah. Chris, literally overnight, like out of a movie, you know, everything was crazy. You know, the first day, showing up and walking up the staircase to the owner, Dean Spano, shaking my hand, you know, walking into the room with the contract sitting on the table, signed a three year deal. And now I'm shaking hands with Philip Burs and Antonio Gates and guys I was playing with on the video games, literally like a week before, you know, yeah, are my teammates and they're talking to me and like a couple lockers away, like, it was, it was absolutely crazy and surreal and so here I am. Made it. And from the very beginning, you know, like, played lights out, was playing really good. North Turner was the head coach, telling me I was going to have a long career and kept telling me that, like, right away and kept telling me, kept telling me, I'm like, dude, this is crazy. And then I get in the games and now I'm playing really good in the games and it's like, dude, this, this is nuts. This is crazy. And everything about it was like a fairy tale. And, and like overnight you have status, you have fame, you have like endless opportunity, and everybody wants a piece of you. You know, you're. They want to spend time with you, they want to get tickets from you, they want to, you know, they want to get your autograph. And you're, I mean, it's not like I was Philip Rivers, but people are wanting your autograph, they're wanting pictures with you. And, and it was, it was nuts. So I, I like to give the analogy, if anybody listening to this has seen HBO's series Hard Knocks and HBO series Ballers, it's like the perfect marriage of those two because it was throat intense business side of, of, of the reality of the NFL. And everybody's super alpha, testosterone driven, wants to be the best. And then you have like the Hollywood side too. So it was just.

I'll have to watch those with the boys.

You do, you do? Yeah. Yeah.

Ballers and Hard Knocks. Yeah, man. So let's take, let's take a quick pause. I want to, I want to resume that story. But you know, one of the things you mentioned, kind of almost like that imposter syndrome, right? Where you're like, you know, you're doing well, but you're like, oh, am I really good enough? Am I going to get there? And then you get There, and you're like, wait a minute, is this. Is this real life? And you keep trying hard. I think, you know, my boys play lacrosse, so they're. They're 11 and 13. And actually my. By the time this airs, my son will be 12 to 12 and almost 14. And they used to allow commitments in eighth grade for these lacrosse players, and they found was these college teams that were picking up these eighth graders. You know, five years later, those teams weren't very good. And I was thinking about this. So they changed the rules back to commit as a junior. And I was thinking about this and. But I. I wasn't. I wasn't great when I was young. I kind of, you know, I raised bicycles and I started to develop. And my older son is a little smaller. And, you know, I was having the conversation with him, like, you know, it's almost like a curse. I was telling him for these kids that are big and fast and really good right now in eighth grade, where he is, because I said, they don't really have to improve anymore. Like, they're really good as they are. They're getting the video highlights. You know, they actually have, like, college scouts already looking at them and know people aren't looking at kids like my son that are undersized, you know. Do you have a similar story, Dean, that kind of helped that little. You mentioned that chip on your shoulder, which is why I asked. And, you know, I think, you know, keeping your head down and continuing to work and progress, allow. I think, you know, that grit is what Michelle Duckworth talks about in her book that really drives success. What is that? Is that what you found in your. In your career as well?

No question about it, man. I mean, I can say hands down, without question that there I was not the biggest, I was not the fastest, I was not the most athletic. There was infinite amount of those guys that I went up against. But for me, why was I able to continue to excel at each level? It's because I put in the work relentlessly, nonstop. And, you know, whether. Whether I was sick, not feeling like it, whatever it was, I'm there for every workout. I'm there to study, film and be prepared. Like, I took it seriously at every level. And. And that's what it took. And that's what it took. And. And obviously taking care of my body. Right?

Yeah.

I think it's a big. This is a big message for everybody. Not that. Not that you can't live your life the way you want to, but like high school, I. I didn't drink you know, does, does that mean I didn't go out to the parties? No, I was out to the parties. I was out until 5 or 6 in the morning when the sun was coming up. But I wasn't, I wasn't participating in the other stuff. You know, in college when everybody was doing drugs and, and drinking during the week and on the weekends, that wasn't me. You know, I was at home studying, getting my done, going to bed at a good time and being ready for workouts in the morning, you know. Yeah, it helped that I had a long distance relationship to keep me, like, out of trouble.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, truthfully.

But for me, I think that's what allowed me to continue to perform and, and be in those positions.

No, I love that. And Malcolm Gladwell talks about, in his book Outliers, he talks about that the fastest sprinters in the world. And I forget he quotes like the top 10 fastest sprint times, which are held by like seven or eight sprinters.

Right.

Because some have, you know, multiple of those times almost without it. Without a doubt, or almost without exception. They're all the youngest in their family, so they're chasing, you know, their older siblings and look, Dean, without a doubt, you had the talent, right? You had the talent to get to that level, right? It's, you know, the proof's in the pudding. But there were other people that maybe had a little bit more talent than you. And we see this everywhere. There's always somebody more talented. Always. There's always somebody out there. You know, there's a couple of people in the world, right, that there's nobody above them. But what defines those people is what you said. So if you're listening, I love. I hope you can share that clip with your kids. You know, I think, you know, like Dean mentioned the work ethic, you know, the discipline. And one of my friends that I race with, one national championship, he had one tattoo, and it was across his back. It said discipline. And I'll never forget that because that's what. That's. It works out. So you make it, you make it to the NFL. You're. You're living the fairy tale. How long did you play? What happened?

Yeah, I'll add one more thing to the, to the list.

Oh, yeah, please do.

Is attitude and being coachable. That's a huge thing. Man, did I see some people that were so gifted, they just had the wrong attitude. People that were so gifted just weren't coachable and weren't willing to listen and improve based on what the coach was Saying so, man, that's, those are some intentions that are important.

I'm glad you said that because you know that that's a big part. Again, you have the talent, you can even have the work ethic. But if, if you're too arrogant, if you're not humble enough to be able to look in the mirror and you know, when I had sales reps work under me, I always, you know, and I said, hey, you know what happened here? And you know, I had reps that would say I didn't do anything wrong. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, okay, like, you know, you put your hands up, you're like, I'm not doing anything wrong. I can't, I can't learn anything from this experience. If you have that mindset that there's always, there are always way to. Ways to improve, and that might be whether it's something you can actually physically do or maybe it's just a way you can perceive things or the way others are perceiving the way you're communicating or something like that. Yeah, that coachability is huge as well. And I think that'll, that'll lead, that'll lead nicely into, you know, kind of, kind of the, some of the things you have that you're working on now with your company as well. Yeah. But yeah, so, yeah, so thanks for, thanks for, thanks for, of course, picking up there.

So, so going back to the story, you know, live living the dream. Childhood dream comes true. Playing great, feeling great. The only catch was that I. My main position in college and where I excelled was tight end. Okay. Now, when the Chargers signed me, North Turner moved me from tight end to fullback.

Right.

We had Antonio Gates, hall of Famer, Pro Bowler at tight end, move me to fullback. Now, I played great at fullback, but the reality of that position is that you are a full time Ram crash test dummy just beating your head in every single play.

And how, how big, how big were you at the time?

So 6, 3, 2, 55. Big fullback.

Yeah.

And, and again, really good at it. But just the requirements of that position was go destroy everybody in sight. And you got to run right through the middle of those guys. And when you're running through, you know, the, the big, giant, massive offensive lineman, you know, those gaps to run through that hole, you're the one that's create the hole. And so it's like shoulder width. You know, you're not fitting up perfectly to the side. You're running right through them with your head. And that's what for me to be super effective. And I just, I just felt that in my head so fast. And I just knew, like, alarms were going off in my head and, and my body felt indestructible from the neck down. I mean, the nutrition, the physical therapy, everything second to none with all the training staff and everything. But from the neck up, I mean, just the, the head on collisions was. Was too much, too fast. And I actually had to start icing my head after practice. It got that intense. So I just knew, all right, if I keep doing this, I'm die. So I made the, the hardest decision of my life and said I gotta walk away.

That's what I did. And how many years ending for the audience?

So this is, this is in my first season.

Wow. Yeah, that's. And you had a, you said you had a three year contract at the time as well. Wow. And look this, you know, that's, it's. It's almost unthinkable, right? You know, you spent, you know, so you were at the time, you were in your early 20s. How old were you exactly?

Yeah. 23, 24.

Yes. You're 23, 24. You started playing football at what age?

23, 20. Oh, I started playing sixth grade.

Sixth grade. So you've been playing, you know, for, for your entire adult life, more than a decade. Tell us about. You know, obviously you're talking about your head, but, you know, in the, in the physical aspect of your head, but talk about what went through your head from a mental perspective, because this is something. I think actually this is a bigger thing. I think we don't, we don't talk about this in really American society. You talked about how, you know, you know, football, like alpha males. Right? And, you know, we have a lot in society now kind of saying, hey, hey, hey, like, all right, let's, let's calm that type of energy down. But there are certain, there are certain traits that we have innately, especially for, for somebody like yourself. Men go out, you know, specifically speaking to men right now, you go out, you're successful, you know, you're successful in your career. Look, what we do in America, we say, oh, Dean, what do you do? And you say, oh, I'm a professional football player, or I'm a, you know, I'm a sales director at a company. You know, I make this much money. You know, I drive this car, I live in this neighborhood. You know, we have a lot of pride with that, but I think even more so, we have an identity that's wrapped up around that. So what was going through your Head. As you were saying. Wait a minute. Not only am I walking away from my dream, but you're. You're changing, really, your identity. So how. How was that?

Yeah, it was really hard. It was really, really hard because my whole identity, like you said, was being a football player and didn't really have any other skills or any other passions or desire, but to do just what I was doing. And so the. The thing is, though, I. I knew there was no other way. I had no other place. If I kept doing that, I was going to injure myself beyond repair. And I saw, you know, ESPN was now talking about concussions. I saw old veterans around that were just, you know, glossed over in the eyes and just thought to myself, gosh, if I keep doing this, I'm hurt myself so bad. And I think I use the analogy it's like an egg. You know, once you crack an egg, the. The shell doesn't get better, you know, it just gets worse.

Yeah.

And so that's. That's what I was feeling at the moment. So without talking to anybody, without reflecting on it, without spending a lot of time to try to convince myself otherwise, I just made the quick, brash decision, like, all right, I'm moving on, and didn't look back, didn't talk to family, friend, my agent, anybody. And the perception, it was like, oh, it just didn't work out. But it was like, no, I have to move on.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. Have to move on. And so that's what I didn't look back and didn't spend any time thinking about because I knew it was an unpopular decision. Like, it's almost crazy to walk away from something that everybody would possibly want to have, you know?

Yeah. And I. I imagine that a lot of your peers and your. Your family, your friends, they were, you know, they were also bought into that ideology as well. So you probably. It's. It's. That's a. That's a very mature decision to do that and really understand that you probably wouldn't have gotten the support that you needed from that group. They may have swayed you to. To. Right. Counter to counter to that. And what year was that?

This was back in 2011. 2012.

Yeah. So this is really. Yeah. This is really where. And what. Yeah, sue, what was the. The movie. The. The movie with the concussions in football came out, what, five years ago or so?

Something like that. I made sure not to watch it because I didn't want to know how bad it was.

Yeah, it's not. Yeah. It's certain things, you're like, ah, yeah, after working in the or a bunch of years in the med device space, it's like I don't need to, I don't need to see like any medical shows. Like, you know, it's like real life is scarier, more entertaining than, than what they make it out to be in tv, in the movies. Right? So, all right, so you step away. What did you, did you already know you were going to go into real estate at that time? What next? Today's show is sponsored by Money Insights and their investment optimizer strategy. In my book, I share how I use the same strategy starting over a decade ago to invest my money in two places at one time. This strategy has been used by the wealthiest for generations for estate planning, minimizing taxes, preserving wealth and increasing stability for their investments. Now you can do the same thing. In addition, you can build a plan to build an emergency fund, pay for college, fund a business plan for retirement and ultimately optimize your total financial picture. To find out more information, check us out at the banking link at Next level income dot com.

Yeah, I had no, no plans, no idea what in the world I was going to do. I had optimism, you know, I had, I had positivity. But I got a call from a good buddy that I played college football with and he said, hey, I know you're done playing. What are you, what are you doing next? I don't know. Said, well, I got a great opportunity for you at this big corporation in San Francisco. They're about to go public in a year. Like this is, this is what they're all. I'm like, dude, this is incredible. This, this sounds like exactly what I would want. And so he walked me past all the red tape straight to the hiring manager, got me the job and felt like, all right, this is the start of something new. I'm going to give it everything I got. And the funny part was, you know, I went from a seven figure contract to now a 65000 salary in San Francisco, which is peanuts, you know, like, yeah, getting by. You're like a negative income.

Yeah. That gets you like, like a two bedroom tent in, in San Francisco, you know.

Yeah. We had a studio, 424 square foot studio and I think my office is.

About that size here. So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And needless to say, money dried up fast and started living paycheck to paycheck, started to max out my credit cards and the like, it got so real for me that there was one month distinctly that bank account a couple hundred Bucks credit cards basically maxed out probably 10, $15,000 as much as I had on the limits. And my wife had just opened a Target credit card for $500, $500 limit. We had to use that to buy groceries that month because that was only available money we had. And I just remember this is a little over a year of being in that corporate job of realizing, so what's next? Like, I'm supposed to get a pay raise here, right? So I talked to my manager. He goes and talks to whoever he talks to. He comes back, he's like, we got you a pay raise from $65,000 to $67,000. And my, my gut was just a knots. And I was like, chris, dude, I gotta do something about this. And so I just went back to my studio feeling embarrassed, feeling, you know, low on life, and got on Google and typed in, you know, what, what else do I even like? What do I even, what do I even like? I don't even know. Like, I'm just barely getting started in the real world. And I just remember watching, you know, HGTV with my parents and stuff like that, that made me think, well, maybe be in real estate. How to get started in real estate. Type it into Google and the first thing that pops up is a free podcast that says, how to get started with little to money. And I was like, dude, that's me, that's me, that's me. I have little to no money. And so I click on it, start listening to it, and it's, it's a podcast talking about how to get started with little to no money, with wholesaling and how it all works. And I was just like, oh my gosh, this is going to change my life. It's going to get me back to that dream life I saw was possible with the NFL. And I just became obsessed and took massive action day one and did my first deal on right on my third month.

Awesome, awesome. And, and now what type of deal is it? So you're, you're still in San Francisco, Dean, right?

Yeah.

This is 2013 14.

2013 time frame.

Yeah. So we're finally, we're coming out of the bottom of, of the real estate market. The bottom, like 2012. Ish. 2013. What type of deal did you do?

It was a wholesale deal.

Yeah.

Property I found on an online auction website called hudhomestore.com and these are FHA properties that are in foreclosure and you can bid on them right away if you're an owner occupant or a nonprofit within the first 30 days. After 30 days, investors can bid on them. And this was a strategy, the podcast. So I just started bidding on houses because I didn't have money to do marketing. So I was bidding on basically a free resource and got a property under contract, then went to go find a buyer, couldn't find a buyer. And I went back to the podcast host who was living in Arizona. And I was the same strategy in Arizona because he was telling me what he was doing in Arizona. And we worked together to sell that first deal. And that was the most clever thing I could have done at the time. I actually went to his website and filled out the form like I was a seller. And his team called me. And that's why I'm like, well, here's the deal. I got a house under contract. No worries. Let me put you in contact with him and he'll give you a call. So he sold it for me. We did our first couple deals together. Like that.

That's awesome. So for the audience that may not be familiar with wholesaling, I love the strategy. Especially, you know, like yourself, you're. You're trying to get started. If you're listening to this podcast and thinking like, Chris, it'd be awesome to invest a hundred thousand dollars into syndication. But I'm trying to make, you know, 25 or $50,000 to put in the bank, you know, to just get started. How does wholesaling work? Dean?

Yeah, so here's why I love wholesaling. Here's what it is. So wholesaling is basically a marketing and sales business. In real estate, if you want to be a real technical person, technically not investing yet. You're not putting your money into an actual asset. The asset is this business you're creating around marketing and sales. You're marketing to homeowners that have a problem with their property or a financial situation, and they want to sell quickly. They're looking for convenience. This is about 5% of the market. 95 people. Yeah.

Why would somebody do. Yeah, because this is, this is the thing. I think a lot of people are like, why wouldn't somebody just go sell through a real estate agent? Why on earth would somebody sell it lower than market rate?

Yeah. 95% of the transactions are done with the real, done on the mls. That's standard. But this, this particular audience of people, they are in some sort of situation, life event happened, some sort of financial distress. Some sort of person maybe inherited a property and has no sentimental value to it. They want to offload it quickly and they're searching out for that quick cash offer solution. So as you're marketing to that targeted audience and they're now responding to you, you're having conversations, you're now negotiating deals, finding out the best outcome for them, you come together, come to a decision and an agreement. Now you put a deal together and now, now you're in business right now the other side of that transaction is you actually finding a buyer. Okay. Most wholesale deals and the nature of a wholesale deal is not to actually buy it, not to even own it for one day, but to rather than market that property back again to an cash buyer audience. And they're looking for discounted off market deals. So that's how it works. You find the deal, you then resell that deal to another buyer and you get paid at close of escrow. So that's what is so great about it. You don't have the same risks of flipping a house, buying a rental, having to deal with contractors, deal with tenants. You get paid right then and there. And to give you guys a flavor, like I'm looking at my board here, you can make really good money wholesaling. You know, we have a deal right here, $40,000 deal right here, 38,000, 20,000. 35, 35. One for 39, one for that profit.

Or how much you're buying these homes for.

That's profit, that's impressive.

And that's with no money, no money going in. And I love this. The thing is, you know, you mentioned it's like, oh, you know, your, your, your, your value is your business that you're creating. But yes, if there are people out there, most of our investors, high income professionals, surgeons, executives, salespeople, you know, working 60, 80, 100 plus hours a week, doing very well, they don't have a lot of time, they got excess money, they want to invest that. If you're getting started, we have, you know, resources on our website. How to create 20 to 40 more hours a week. What do you do at that time? You can go start a business like Dean's talking about. And it's a phenomenal way to get started. And what's cool is you can, you can do this with land, you can do this with homes. You can do it. I mean, would you agree? You can do it anywhere across the.

Country, Dean, do it anywhere across the country. You can be any world and technically do it. I mean, I do it virtually. I'm not reliant on being physically where I'm doing these deals. You can do it all through different relationships. That's the beauty of it. It's, it's all about the marketing and sales. And what I love about it is whether you're getting started or even experienced, it allows you to have better control of your cash flow. If you're running a business, it allows you to have better control of your cash flow because you are getting paid quicker. Your cash conversion cycle is so much faster and it's more numbers and transitional focus and you're not having to be someone who has a great eye for design. You're not having to, to know how to navigate, you know, obstacles that come up when you're flipping a house or rentals. But you're really good at finding deals and negotiating deals. You then put yourself in the position to actually buy those assets to flip or keep as rentals. Yeah, you're the one that's a great deal finder now and have those resources and skills now you can cherry pick the best. And just as an example, the properties we have in inventory right now and these are several hundred thousand dollar houses. These aren't like million dollar houses. We got one property we just put in an escrow this morning that we'll close before the end of the year. We're going to make $130,000 on it. And we put no money in. We bought it, closed on it, cleaned it, put it back on the market. We spent a couple hundred dollars. Right. We got a couple another flip here that in we didn't do any work to it. It's going to close before the end of the year. $70,000, another flip we're going to make $54,000 on and that those are deals we cherry picked. Right. And decided to do. So that's what I love about wholesaling and why whether you're just getting started.

Or experienced, I love that. And it's a way again like we were talking about that you can create tremendous value but also cash if you need it or you can create equity for yourself. If you want to be an investor, but you don't have a lot of that. You could do it with a partner like you you mentioned. Dean, you talked about a lot of great things today that I want to underscore. You talked about work ethic, you talked about discipline, you talked about the importance of health. With our coaching clients we always, we always talk about wealth. People want to know how to make money. That's how they typically come to us. But number one, we set health goals because without your health, as you mentioned, like what's the Point that's out there. But you also mentioned something in passing. You said you went out and took massive action. That's something that I love that Tony Robbins says, like, have a plan, have a vision, but then you must take massive action. So people are listening today. They're like, hey, I'm ready to take massive action. I want to learn how to do this. Dean, you actually built a whole coaching program and a mentorship program around, you know, this method of wholesaling, right?

Yep. Yeah, 100%. So just real quick, before I touch on that, what's important to share to the audience is it might sound like everything was easy for me, but it wasn't. You know, when I. When I left the NFL, you know, I walked away from the money, not with the money. And. And I shared with you guys how. How money got really tight. Now when I got into real estate, it started to open up that door to make money along my journey. I made some big mistakes, though, rushing into doing my flips. Actually lost $100,000 on my first couple flips. Bad contractors, using the wrong comps, doing all the things that a rookie investor often does and can get hurt. Well, I made all the rookie mistakes rushing into those first couple flips. I should have stayed wholesaling and get rid of knowing what deals look like. And then, you know, I ended up having another situation later on where I got hurt, lost a bunch of money rushing into a deal, and it was just a bad actor. It was actually someone who scammed me on a deal, and I lost $187,000. So, again, getting really good at finding deals is where I like to focus, and that's what I teach my students. So I have my coaching program called the Wholesaling Playbook, and it's focused on how do you find deals? How do you negotiate? Negotiate deals, and then you choose what the best strategies for you to get paid. Usually that's wholesaling to start. And this all started, Chris, kind of a quick, funny story. This all started not because I had the intent or plan to actually have a coaching program. It started in my own local market. So when the whole world shut down.

Yeah.

And people were scrambling, wondering, like, what am I going to do? Is real estate. I can. I run my business. I got the social media and let everybody know, hey, guys, we're still doing deals. We're doing deals. This is how we're finding deals. Look at some of the results we're getting. And then I opened it up to, hey, guys, if you need help with your deals, Bring your in your leads, bring your deals to me. I'll help you maximize those deals and make sure that we make the most amount of money together. In fact, we'll literally do all the work. Bring us someone who wants to sell. We'll do all the work. Our team will do the whole thing, and we'll split it 50, 50. You get paid more doing less work, and we'll make sure the deal gets done right. And then it turned into what I call my friends with benefits program. Making it fun. Like, hey, right now we're in the friend zone, but like, let's do it together. Let's become friends with benefits. Making money together is what. What it's all about.

Right?

Exactly. That's right. So that in this fun program in my local market, added a million dollars of revenue to our business. Oh, which means it added that much to other people as well.

Yeah.

And. And it was. It was so much fun. And I realized it was so fulfilling. People then started to reach out and say, hey, can you coach me? Can you mentor me? Can you teach me how to do this? And I was like, no. I got my friends with benefits program. You know, we can do a deal together. But then people from other places started reaching outside of my market, and I just. Good friends, like, push and push and be like, you got to do it. You're great at it. You've got a passion for helping other people. I think this could be really great for you. So I started it in 2022, and it's been a little over a year now, and it's all been organic word of mouth through friends, podcasts, of speaking at events. And it's. It's so fulfilling to help other people get results and to see it wins. I mean, I have some students that have made hundreds of thousands of dollars and done dozens of deals and, you know, that have, like, done it like, within their first month and several couple months. And it's just. It's pretty wild to. To impact at that level. And it's a passion project of mine, so if anybody is feeling like that's the right type of strategy for them based on where they're at, I would love for. To reach out. You guys can check me out@DeanRogers.com and connect with me through there. So. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up.

Awesome. Yeah, we'll put. We'll put that in the show notes and then, yeah, deanrogers.com forward/free. If. If listeners want to reach out and get more access to your toolkit that you have online.

Yeah, so I have a free toolkit if anybody's listening and wants some of the tools that I use on a daily basis in my business deal analyzers, scripts, contracts, all those different type of things. More than happy to give those guys away to you guys for free.

Awesome, Dean. Well, look, if you're listening today, you're ready to take massive action. You want to learn more about Dean's program, We'll have the link in the show notes here. But Dean, I, I really, I really appreciate you sharing your story. There's so many golden nuggets that you shared today that no matter where you are in your journey, I think they can impact you. Enjoyed getting to know you a little bit better and enjoyed everything you've been sharing. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me, man.

Hey Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to gift you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.