#65 How Derek Boone Found His Lane in Real Estate (By Ignoring the Noise)

Welcome to the Scale with Pros podcast with your host, myself, Cody Barton. The number one place to be if you want to build a business beyond yourself. And for all the resources we talk about in the show, make sure to head over to scalewithpros.com alright, so we have another amazing guest here on the Scale with Pros podcast, Mr. Derek Boone. And excited to have you here, man. And you know, I know, you know, we just, you know, met a couple months ago back at, you know, one of our buddy Jesse's events and you know, you're doing a lot of cool things and the real estate space and helping, you know, people, you know, scaling their, their offers and really doing some amazing stuff. So excited to talk about it. But you know, before we get into it, Derek would love to have you share with everyone, you know, kind of your background, like how you got into entrepreneurship and you know, then fast forward to, okay, where, you know, what's the business look like today? And then, you know, we'll go into some questions on, on scaling to where you're at now.

Okay, great. So first I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you for even allowing me on this platform. I admire you in a lot of different ways. So it's just dope being able to have a conversation with you in this light. We talked several, several times, but being on this platform means a lot. The second thing is dope for you, just having this platform to allow other people to hear these type of conversations. What I realized that a lot of people don't have these seven, eight, nine figure conversations that you and I have. So being able to allow other people to hear is dope. So, but a little bit about me. My name is Derrick Boone. I'm a real estate investor in Philadelphia. I got started in real estate in 2016. I started out as a real estate agent. Honestly, when you first get started in real estate, everybody thinks like real estate agent or like a flipper is the only kind of two things. So when you think flipper you're like, and that's from hgtv, but you think flippers, like all this money is needed. So like agent is kind of like the first thing you go with. But to really be honest with you, I went to this really, I went to two real estate events in my life before, you know, being in the field. One event was kind of like it wasn't really anything. But the second one I went to was how to buy a multi family class because, you know, you think that's how, you know, you scale and I owned a. I owned a house that I lived in, so I'm like, I want to invest, I to want, I need, you know, units and things like that. And the guy that was teaching a class, he said, you should give this a try. Essentially it was a home buying seminar, but he structured it differently than an average home buyer. He was looking for investors to do multiple deals with versus like a traditional home buyer. So I went thinking investor, and he was looking for clients. But the guy that was teaching the class that ended up becoming my mentor, he said, you should give this a shot. And I'm like, that's what I'm here for. He said, no, I think you should give this a shot, like what I'm doing as an agent.

And.

And I'm like, I didn't really come here. I'm thinking about building my own wealth. I didn't really come here for that. And he said, no, I really think you should give this a shot. And one thing that I believe in is if you seek advice or information from someone and they tell you what to do and you don't do it, that's kind of like dumb. That's backwards. So. And a guy name was Anthony. So I took his advice. I immediately went and tried to get my license. I failed the test like nine times, to be honest with you. I kept failing by like a point or two. So I never really studied. I just kept saying, I'm gonna get it next time, a point. And then that's when I was like, you know, let me actually study for this and take this stuff serious. And that's when I passed. I got licensed March 2017. And then I sold my first house. April 2017. By December 2017, I sold like 20 something houses. And it kind of like just took off from there. Everybody in my office was trying to figure out how was he doing this and things like that. Especially because right before I got into real estate, I was working at a retirement home. I was working dietary, so my job was serving elderly, you know, prune juice, all this stuff. And then before that I worked at McDonald's. So I didn't really have like a full blown. I went to Penn State Abington for, for a little bit. That didn't work out strictly because my floor, I just wasn't going to class. So real estate was big for me because it was the one thing that I could do that didn't require a degree or a big background, like a good resume. So I just went all in on that. 2016 to 2017, I mean, 2017 to 2018, sold a bunch of houses. 2018 to 2018, I built the team and we sold even more houses. We kind of doubled in triple sales. And then that 2019 to 2020, I found out about real estate wholesaling middle manning houses. That's when I met this guy in my brokerage, Keller Williams. He was walking out of the office meeting someone else, but he came on a Saturday. So on Saturdays you need a five to get in and out. So the guy was like, hey. I said, hey, I'll walk him out because I'm leaving out anyway. Me being me. I just asked him what he does. He said he just made 17 grand on the deal. And I'm like, how long it takes to 30 days? I said, I just made eight grand commission and it took me 30 days. But you wearing basketball shorts and like a T shirt. I got a suit on instantly. Kind of like, what the hell? Cuz, you know, in our business we just think about scale. How can we make more in a short amount of time with less work? So that just kind of clicked for me. He taught me real estate wholesaling. The rest was history. Just me and him. Started a real estate wholesaling business. We sold a bunch of houses and then at Some point, like 2021, the end of 2020, going into 2021, I had about 60,000 in transactions, all about the close in December. All of them terminated. Buyer didn't want to buy anymore, Seller had title. It just, you know, typical stuff. Y and at that moment I said, I don't want to have to start from scratch every single month over again. So that's when I said, you know what, let me get back to my original plan was to buy multi, like buy properties for myself. I feel like sometimes we get caught up in the. The cash coming in and we forget about the wealth to build. So I lost track of that, just doing transactions and I went back to wealth. And that's when I just started buying a bunch of properties, you know, renting them out and things like that. And then where we kind of at now? We still buy houses. I literally just sold a flip yesterday and bought a house yesterday. So where we at right now is in the midst of like 2021 to 2025. I just was posting what I was doing from buying houses, fixing them up, doing deals, and you know how it goes. You start getting questions. Yeah, but went off and said, you know, let me start teaching classes. And then that just went to the next stratosphere. People just was. People say, I'm a genuine guy, but I literally am a genuine guy. Like I really want to see people win. And I think that's what really mixed in with information. And this is what I would say to anybody that wants to scale, be yourself and be genuine because you don't even have to have the craziest marketing. You can have die hard fans just by you just being you and it just kind of scale. We, you know, had million dollar years, then we had million dollar months and it just kind of like scaled up. I set up some collaborations with some people and we took it to the next level. And that's kind of like how it just transformed and now we kind of dying down from the coaching itself. Because what we do currently, like at this exact moment, which you know, you helped me out with as well, we have a growth partnership agency, it's called PV agency, which stands for partnership blow up. Where people essentially come to me and like how you win all these click funnel award, how you build, make your strike hit multiple seven figures, how you do that. So I step back from, okay, me being a front face to nail. I help other people making 20, 30, 40, 50k a month or even 100k a month, how to scale that to seven figures or multi six figures. And that's what we do now. We have a lot of successful people and I truly love it. I truly, truly love it.

So, so awesome. So, you know, it's this journey and so something you didn't know about me, Derek, is I also worked at McDonald's and in the closet that I have back here, I have my McDonald's hat. It was the last job that I ever worked when I was 17 was at McDonald's and I took it and I took my name badge and put it in my hat when I quit. And because I was in network marketing and was making enough to quit the job at that point and I kept it. And I'm like, I'm gonna keep this to always remember, you know, the last place that I ever worked. And so, you know, we have that similar background in that. But yeah, so there's a lot to unpack there. So the agent route, we have a lot of similarities. Like we both worked at McDonald's, we both got into real estate getting our license. I got my license because I didn't know how to fix and flip. I didn't know how to wholesale. I just was like, I want to be in real estate. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Rober Kiyosaki's book. I'm like, everybody, you make Money in real estate. Like, I'm gonna get my license. And you know, I did that kind of similar path. I was selling a bunch of houses for other people and I was like, man, like, I'm trying to buy some houses, I'm trying to flip some houses. Like, what am I? Like, I don't want to do this anymore. And so it's super funny that we both kind of went that, that path. And so, so you, you know, you've built this portfolio of real estate. You're helping people, you know, blow up their, their businesses and, you know, really, really grow them as well. You know, I'm curious, you know, so with everything that you know, that you've gotten to like, what do you think it is that really helps businesses go from like the first, like say six figures a year to getting to a million plus a year? Because that's, there's only. It's like nine. It's like 7% of businesses in the US actually get to a million plus a year. So I'm curious, what do you think is the difference maker and getting from six to the seven figures a year?

The goal from zero to six is consistency and hard work. Simple as that. You can literally make $100,000 a year by just working hard. But it go from six, I would even say like 200,000 to a million. Like you can make 150, 100 just working hard. But to get to that, that second level of six figures at 200,000 up, I truly believe you need systems because at that point you have too many leads where you can't even keep up with, like whether it's online businesses or real estate wholesaling or real estate sales, like you have too many leads that you can't keep up. So you need to implement systems, CRMs, follow ups, you know, whatever system that you need to make that work. Because let's say, for example, each deal you make 10k, but you have 100 leads that work. That. So you think about it, 10 deals, 10k each, that's 100k. And then it takes, let's just say 100 leads. They do that just. That's not realistic. But let's just say think about you. Now you want to do a million, that's you can't manage all those leads in your cell phone. It just does it Google Sheet. It's just you need systems. So in order to scale, you need those systems. But in order to scale in the right way, I truly believe, and this will work for me, having that system and then having that one Support person. One help. When I scaled in my real estate business is what really, really helped me scale in my real estate business was one a partner somebody and then two hiring that first team member which for me was a virtual assistant changed the game. When I had my wholesale business we had three, we had three VAs, two acquisitions people and then my in states person was me and him was doing dispo. That changed the game because it was. We could really kind of like run as like a machine. And then in the online business with coaching, it was me and then I had one virtual assistant that helped because now it can help with some of the customer support. The lower down on complaints or issues or you know, just questions and then they could go ahead and manage more of the DMs. So it just started kind of like hey, your job is your SOP is to hit all these DMs with this exact message with these replies. And now I started getting sales. Even when I wasn't paying attention to DMs I was having people from our marketing strategy. My VA ran the whole marketing strategy. So all I had to do was focus on showing up leads came in. It just. That's. That's really the only way to really take it to that next level. It's that seven figures. And well when I say to get to like multi seven figures you're going to have to, you're going to have to pay. It just is what it. You're going to have to pay for some ads, you're going to have to pay for some collaborations you're going to have to pay for, you know, or join partnerships where you give a little piece of the equity so they can bring in their resources. Either way you look at it, you're going to have to pay something. Either giving up equity or actually paying cash to get to that multi seven figures. What I truly believe, I love that.

So I want to comment on the. So talking about going from the 6 to 7 specifically you said the 200 to over a million a year. The, you know, it's like so some systems need to start going into place like having a CRM customer relationship management tool for those that maybe don't know and you know, so it's like having that so you can manage and you know, take care of your follow ups. Make sure that you're not leaking out, you know, leads and leaking out follow ups that could be converting into new cash for the business and then starting to getting the team going, you know, building virtual, you know, getting some virtual assistants. If that if that's the right thing for the business or you know, those first couple team members. What do you think? Where have you found the most help from virtual assistants? For example, I'm a big proponent of virtual assistants. I've had a virtual assistant company for five years and they've worked. They literally have VAs that work in all of our businesses. So it's like I'm a freaking massive fan. But what are some of the roles that you had virtual assistants helping you with and whether it was the real estate or the coaching business? And where would you recommend that people go to find good virtual assistants, whether it's agencies or self sourcing them?

I think so I'll answer each one a piece. I think virtual assistants are good for people for two different reasons. One, it helps your business, but then also helps you because virtual assistants are for people don't know. Virtual assistants are people that you know, work in your business, but they not might not be in your state. They might not even be in their your country. So we have this natural slang or culture about ourselves that like, you know, I'm in Philadelphia, you're in Arizona, you have your own slang or your own way you talk. And when you talk to someone in another country, it doesn't register right away. So you'll say a joke to your friends in Arizona, I'll say my joke to my friends in Philadelphia, and we get it. But then you talk to somebody in the Philippines, you know, Asia, whether it's no Mexico, it doesn't register. So it makes you have better communication because you can't talk like how me and you would talk to someone over there because they're not going to register it. And I'm telling you from personal experience because I was talking like I'm talking to you and I. Yeah. And things weren't getting done the way I wanted to get done. I realized it was my fault because I wasn't saying it clear for them to afford to register.

Yeah.

And it made me communicate better as a leader. And then the second thing I would say, virtual assistants, they're great because you put a task in front of them, it gets done. But also it makes sure you have your SOPs and everything on a sheet. And because you can't just say, hey, look, I got this meeting with coding. Just, you know, just set up the meeting and just set some stuff up. Like you and I will probably get there. But someone overseas might be like, what the hell does he mean just set something up? So that's what I'll say. It helps when it comes to virtual assistants, I would say. And it's just anything as a team, as a team leader, put people in a spot where you know they're gonna win. Like, if you have a virtual assistant that has a strong accent, don't put them on the phones. Like, they're. They're not gonna win. They're gonna get hung up on.

It's just.

This is impossible. It's not gonna happen if you have a. One of the things that we do is when we first hire a virtual assistant, we need to make sure the Internet is working, make sure they got headphones, make sure everything is premium. So that way you don't have them on some important role and the Internet goes out. But you kind of knew that to begin with, so you're setting yourself in them up for failure. So that's some of the biggest things I would say, like, give them a task that you know that they can perform optimal. And checking their resume, doing, getting voice recording, do maybe two or three interviews. Like, make sure it's on point so you know what you're hiring for. And what I come to realize when it comes to virtual assistant, just because they're applying for the job doesn't mean they're a bad, bad person or a bad team member. Companies just shut down out of nowhere, and they could have just lost their job. Yeah, it just is what it is. You and I may have shut down companies just because. Not just because, but for whatever reason, you're moving on to something else. Big companies lay off people all the time. It has nothing to do with the person. It's just. So if you see a virtual assistant that says they've been working for five years and now they're looking for employment, don't automatically think, oh, they must have did something to bed. The person could have just shut down shop and things like that. Where I always found my virtual assistants was on a website called onlinejobs Ph. And that's where I always found my virtual assistants. And it's been very pivotal for me and my business. I honestly would say I've had two in person in the States, like in Philadelphia, people, and they've done an amazing job. Amazing job. But what I realized, for the same price point, you can get three individuals that may even have a higher skill set. It's just what I realized with people, we lean more towards the end state person because we can talk and just like, you know, be a little more comfortable, if that. That makes sense. But once you change your. Your whole mindset and Understand, like, look, I gotta be clear as day. Then it makes way more sense to go this way.

Absolutely. I'm totally on the same page with that. I. It's interesting because I, you know, had, you know, an admin VA that would help me, you know, and you know, for a while and you know, I eventually, you know, I text you with my assistant Rochelle, and she's here in the U.S. and the main reason that I went to a U.S. virtual assistant, or not U.S. virtual assistant, because she's here. She lives like five minutes from my house. But, you know, the reason I went that route was, you know, one, you know, a lot of the banking stuff, like she manages like I do a lot of private money lending on, you know, to different investors here in Arizona. And so like she does all of that, you know, I got. Had her get her notary so she can notarize documents for me, which makes that really easy. And also all of like the life stuff, like she, she'll go run errands like when it's, you know, some people might judge me for this, but like during Christmas time, like I have her buy all the presents for people and then she wraps all of them for me and she brings them to my house, puts them in my house for, you know, for whoever it is. And it's like she just handled like she, she like manages my household, makes sure all of all the bills are paid, but also coordinates meets landscapers here, make sure stuff's getting clean. Like she just handles like my stuff here physically. And we do some different meetups and stuff. So she, she helps manage all of that. So she's like over all of my life basically. And yeah, so that's where I went to the. In person was really just I wanted more, you know, in person stuff that it's like I don't want to go drive my cars to get them serviced. Like she comes to my house, picks them up, drives them get some service, then they just show back up in my garage and I don't have to do anything. You know, it's just like there's like a niceness that comes with that that I appreciate. But the VA's have, I mean it just changed my life too. And that's again, like, you know, have a VA company. I think online jobs PH is a great place to self source talent. The interesting thing, and this is, you know, for the listeners, is that I've learned from being in the VA space and like building friendships with other people with VA companies is, you know, for, for those listening where do you go to find what types of talent? Because different countries have different types of talent that are like, they just more like niche in like Philippines is great for like call center customer service. You know, outbound calling is good too for lead generation works there. If the, if like you said the accents aren't super strong, you know, data entry phenomenal out of the Philippines. If you want like sales and you know like MBA level talent and that speak great English. South Africa is a great place for people. Eastern Europe is great for editing for web dev. Huh.

I literally heard that someone was telling me like the best closers they found from trying all across the globe was in Egypt.

Yeah, Egypt has. Because there's great English speakers there. I actually have a couple of buddies. They're actually in scale with pros. Daniel and Ben. They, they have an agency out of, out of Egypt. They have a call center there. So yeah, they, they do well out of Egypt and have speak really good English and they you know people do source closers from there. And like I found like Eastern Europe is like where we'll go to find like you can find web development work pretty affordable there. Video editing as well. India is great for like web dev as well. I'm not a fan of the call centers in India. You know, I don't know why people, you know, it's like the Philippines is way better in my opinion than if you're gonna have customer support and then you have like Columbia. I have a buddy that has a big call center in Colombia and they do great lead gen and sales, you know, Mexico, some, some areas there. But like it's so interesting like how the world is like, you know, it's just like the whole world, there's a talent pool out there. And I think the crazy thing too, and I don't know if you've experienced this like talking to people that haven't used virtual assistants and their companies are like hired them is the talent pool where they're like, they just assume because they're like in another country that they're idiots. I'm like, I literally have CPAs that like we do, we have a bookkeeping line of business at our, at our VA company and like we have people that have CPAs and that have like their master's degrees. Like they have these degrees and they have like high level talent, you know that have worked for you know, other big companies from the US and you know it's like like you said, it's like you can get this talent for a fraction of the cost and oftentimes I've found I don't know what your experience has been is the gratitude level, the loyalty level is like 10. It's like 11 out of 10 versus, like, America. It's like a hit or miss sometimes of, like, whether people are grateful for, you know, the opportunity.

You give $100 tip, they're like, with you for life.

Yeah. They're like, you know, crying with joy.

Yeah. We're like this. But what I really. Not even just, they think they're, you know, idiots. What I realize is people are scared of, hey, I don't want to give them access to my Instagram to handle my social media because, like, what if they deactivate my account? Or, hey, I don't want to give them access to QuickBooks. Like, what if they know my numbers? Or, hey, I don't want to give them access to my emails. What do they start emailing people? Some crazy stuff. Like. Like what?

Yeah, yeah. And I think that just goes to, like, also, like, building trust and leadership and delegation in general. Like, you know, I think sometimes when people hold on to things too tight and they're like, it has to be me. I'm like, you know, the way that I always try to build trust, we know new hires, new team members is. And people can do this, is you start with small things first. Like my, My, you know, executive assistant here, Rochelle. Like, I didn't give her access to be able to, like, move money, you know, within the first couple months. Like, I had to, like, warm up to that for, you know, a few months. Before I was, like, really comfortable to do that. Now it's like she's, you know, wiring out, you know, millions of dollars, moving stuff around, like, managing all of that. And I'm like, I just, you know, I'm. I'm okay. But it's like, I think what most people can do to build that trust is, like, starting with small things. You know, it's like people think that when they hire someone, whether it's us or a virtual assistant, you have to start with open heart surgery is their first task to trust them with. And it's like, you can give them a small task, they do it, they do it successfully. Or if they don't, like, you can coach them. And, you know, you coach them up and you start building that trust back and forth of like, okay, if I give them this, I can count on them. Because we've already, you know, we've already done a lot of other things where we've been able to build that trust. So what what for you have you found? I guess just on the topic of, you know, delegation and you know, to your team, I know, you know, obviously our team at skill with pros, we've been working with you for a little bit whether you want to go down that path of like, maybe some things that have been helpful from the delegation standpoint, from things that we've worked on with you or other, just tips and delegation in general that you'd give to people listening.

So I'll start with you guys. What some people have to understand is if you don't really know something, you can't do what you don't know. And sometimes you know how some people, they have the toy and they need to look at the instructions. Some people just need to look at the back of the box. Oh, this is how you put it together. I'm gonna just match it all together. For me personally, locking in with you guys were a little bit of both. I get to get the hand on instructions from you guys directly. But now being able to sit back and watch, like, oh, this is how I see how. Because I hear it. But now I see how. Okay, you're not always involved on every single aspect, but I'm having an amazing experience. That was like the biggest aha moment for me. Like, I had got on two or three zoom calls and I'm like, and I'm having an amazing experience. I'm like, wait a minute. I haven't talked to him like on Zoom. Like, we talk facts and stuff like that. I haven't him on zoom and like in three weeks, like, wait a minute. But you, you know, you having so much fun. Time is passing, time is fine. I'm not even realizing it. That was a aha moment for me. Like, okay, because you know how someone can say like, hey, here's how to make a million dollars. But until you see it, you're like, I believe it now. So now, you know, investing with you guys and being able to see it now I believe it to now I start implementing my things. Sometimes it's not always actually the steps that you have to take. Sometimes you just need to see the steps for you to actually. So, like, now that I see the steps, it's like, hey, I don't want access to go high level because I want you to have to go do it. And I. You report back to me. Like, for example, I literally just text one a person on my team and I said, hey, what's the updates on leads me? Three months ago, I would have logged in, checked in myself Took some time. Now I just sent, hey, what's the update on the leads? What's the update on the sales? And just get it like this. Now, when it comes to, like, so, one, I appreciate you guys for not just the information you guys gave me, but also just being able to see on the inside what this actually looks like. And this is amazing.

I love that. And real quick. So it's like, it's going from, like, you're becoming more of, like, the conductor of the symphony versus, like, conducting the symphony and, like, playing the violin over here and then, like, you know, playing some other instrument and conduct. You know, it's like you're moving more just a conductor, which is great.

And when you become the conductor, you can manage more trains instead of actually being the person that's fueling handling this. This. Like, for example, we just locked in two new clients today. Six months ago. Three, our conversation. Three, four months ago, I would have had to tell them no, because it's like, I can't. It's too much going on. So it's just. It's just. It's just amazing. But when I answer your question, Reverend, in regards to delegating. Yeah, Delegating is. Is. Is important. Like, when you think about delegating as, like, the heart of the business, like, until you delegate, you're like, you're. You just can't pump blood nowhere. Like, it's just like, I can't really. There's no other way to explain it, because you can. You're only one person. You only do but so much at one time, and you don't know everything. You're not the best at everything. So once you start dele, one, it relieves some time to release some stress, and three, it actually might turn out better than if you would have did it. So.

Absolutely. My. I. My team makes me look so much better than I feel like I actually am. Like, I mean, Adriana, for example, it's like I put together these, like, janky documents, and I'm like, this is my idea, Adriana. And then she, like, like, makes it look all pretty and, like, flow better, and I'm like, you know, it's just like having. Having great people, you know, to, you know, execute that. It's just like they're living in their zone of genius, and, you know, you can continue to just live in yours. Right? It's like, it's hiring the people that their zone of genius is. The area of whatever outcome you're trying to achieve needs that zone of genius.

Yeah. It is a Game changer. So if anybody on here watching, definitely, if an opportunity is available, definitely, you know, get with Cody and his team. Like, you guys are amazing. Even if you don't want direct help. I would, I would just be a part because I should see firsthand, like, what's going on. Like, they say, they say the best way to. To. How do they say it? The best way to learn from somebody just to invest with them. Like, let me funnel hacking. Let me go ahead and be a part of their funnel to see what exactly is going on. So now it fully understands it's hard to figure things out from the outside.

Mm, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. No, I love it. And I know, I know you have a hard stop coming up here in a couple minutes, so I'll ask one more question before we close it up. Derek. So what, what would you, like, what would you go back and tell yourself to get to. Go to like to where you're at in business now? Like, what would you go back to your early self and tell yourself to go faster? Like, what would have been like, one thing that you would have changed to go faster?

The one thing I would say. I'm trying to narrow down. I would say three things.

Yeah, well, let's take the three. We'll take two bonus ones.

All right. The first thing I would say is delegate early. If I told you how much, if I literally went down the line of the things that I used to do myself, you wouldn't even believe it. Like let's say, for example, the coaching business, I would build the funnels, do the copy, send a text message, organize the classes, organize the in person events, sometime even go pick the food up for the. I'm talking about, I was doing like everything. It is ridiculous. So delegating. The second thing is I would say reinvest at the maximum level possible. So sometimes we reinvest, but at like we tread water when it comes to reinvesting, we're not really deep sea diving. So let's say, for example, you make 100k, like let's say you make 100,000 a year. Sometimes we invest 5k, maybe 10k, maybe 3k, maybe nothing at all. Just, hey, look, I'll pay for a little system or maybe I'll pay for another class when we should actually go all in. Hey, look, listen, let me go ahead and invest 20k into this to help me make 200 next year or make 300 next year and things like that. Because when we kind of invest small, our return on investment is small. So now you're realizing why you only went up to 120,000 next year. When I finally invested, I invested 50k into this mentor. When I tell you I literally 10xed my income. The very, like, I gained an extra $500,000 the next year. So, like, when you invest big, your return investment is big. It's just like, you know, anything, banks, real estate, you invest small, your return is small. So I would say to anybody, like, I'm not saying just spend money just to spend it, but if it makes sense, make that investment. You know, if you gotta just, hey, we not going out to eat. I know I made money, but hey, we still gotta kind of keep it moderate. No vacations right now because we're doubling down. I wish I would have did that earlier. Like, I invested, but like, as far as, like, really, really investing, I wish I would have did that as well as I do it now. And then the third thing I would say is move faster. Move faster. Sometimes we lose out on. Yeah, success loves speed. Sometimes we miss out on the best opportunities in our life because we took too long to respond back. We took too long to think about it. We took too long to even consider it. Like, we just took too long. And like, for example, I, you know, we connected in Arizona. And imagine if I would have said, give me like three, four months to think about this.

And people do that. And then like three, literally. I won't say their names because bless their hearts, but I had people that reached out and they're having issues with their team and operations and they're like, they haven't been on vacation in like a couple years. And they're like, stressed out their eyeballs. And in January, that's where they were. And they're like, we're just going to see if we could fix it by summer. And they're like, it just started with us. And they're getting started this upcoming week. And they spent the last six months trying to fix things on their own. And they're like, we. Yeah, we, we couldn't do it. So we're here. We are. And it's like, you know, it's like, happy to help them still, but it's just like, you know, people like, I don't like the brain damage of trying to figure out stuff on my own. I just like hiring professionals. I'm like, if I could solve my problem faster, I want. If, like, if I go to Disneyland, I want the fast pass. Like, I'm not going on, I'm not going in the way. I'm not waiting in line. Like, I want to go. I'm going to go on the ride three times before someone goes on at one time because I want to go faster.

So I'm 100% with you. So, like, just move faster. Half the battle. Half the battle. I would say half the battle is a mixture between showing up, execute and executing fast. Everything else kind of like falls into place once you do those three things. But showing up, executing, executing immediately is like, I'm talking about you can win just off of those half, and then the other half is strategy. But that first half, like, you literally can make money just off that first half.

Man, I love it. Well, Derek, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast and sharing some nuggets with everybody. You know, again, our goal for everyone on here is, you know, they can see the path over and over again from guests that have scaled seven figures and that are, you know, doing really amazing things in their business. So thank you again for taking the time and for everyone listening, we'll see you in the next episode.

Thank you.