The SECRET to Succeeding in Real Estate in 2025

Hey guys, welcome. I have my friend here, Jason, who is killing it. Jason, you want to give us a little bit of background on yourself? How long you've been in real estate, your markets, kind of all that?

Yeah, sure. So we are based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I live in New Jersey myself, not too far from there. I got started in real estate about Shoot, 5 years ago now. I went to Lehigh University in Bethlehem. That was kind of how I got introduced to that area. Started— I actually, I don't want to go too far off on a tangent, but played baseball there. I got drafted to play in the minor leagues with the Padres, got a small signing bonus, took that money, bought a rental property. That was about 5 years ago. One thing led to another, transitioned from baseball to real estate full-time about 3 years ago. And at that point I was mainly buying rentals, but when I went full-time, realized that I needed an active income as well. So I started flipping, wholesaling, and really just over the last 3 years have started to really focus on building that active business and kind of building a team out. Underneath of me. Still buying some rentals here and there, but really flipping and wholesaling is the main business we got going on.

Nice. Yeah, I've often seen that people who are in sports and then take that same mentality into business, they crush. So I mean, I know your background and I know how well you're doing, but can you tell us a little bit about kind of like what you were struggling with or the reason why you decided to kind of go into the inbound route where we kind of help you set up everything with the Facebook stuff so you can get that, those inbound outbound leads. Can you tell us about kind of a little bit about that?

Yeah, for sure. Um, so obviously, I mean, when I got started, I mean, 5 years ago, um, I was getting deals from wholesalers. I was also doing some cold call SMS back then, you know, that was kind of the hot thing to do, um, and it was working, right? More of an outbound model. Um, and then just over time with all the regulations that came out and stuff like that, that kind of dried up. Um, about 2 2 years ago, maybe a little bit longer now, really made a pivotal change in my business going from just completely cutting outbound out and going inbound. Not in the way that we'll talk about, but doing direct mail, which really I think direct mail is kind of in between of inbound and outbound, but it's definitely more inbound than cold calling and SMS. And that worked worked really, really well for us and still does. I think getting to why I reached out to you guys and we've been doing Meta ads is we've been seeing that kind of cool-off performance on mail is just not what it used to be. We're still, you know, I'd have to look up what our lifetime return on ad spend is, but when we first started it, it was at like a 10x. So we just kept dumping more and more money into it and Like I said, over the last year, I think word has kind of gotten out that mail has been pretty hot. So a lot of people are shifting budget to mail. I know at least in our market, it's getting pretty saturated. So we've seen our return on ad spend go a lot— go down and our cost per contract has been steadily going up. So a few months ago, or maybe even really kind of at the beginning of the year, I just started thinking through, you know, what's next with marketing. Like, we've really kind of rode this golden horse just like for the past year or two. We've got— we were getting 90% plus of our deals from mail. And I think that put us at a significant risk if that were to really just dry up overnight. We wouldn't have lead flow. So for me, it was like trying to find the next thing in terms of what's going to give us that outsized return and then also just kind diversifying our risk. So one thing led to another, we could— I know we connected through CG, um, and then we just talked about, you know, us starting to run our own in-house Meta ads, and then here we are.

Nice. Can you tell us a little bit about the success that you've had with Facebook? Because I know that you're crushing it and your market is like super hot. So can you tell us about a little bit of the results you've gotten?

Yeah, so I can actually just pull it up here on this monitor. Um, we have been running Meta at for— actually, it would take me a minute to look into it. I don't want to take too much time. Probably like 3 months now, maybe 4 months. Um, spent $17,000 on it. Um, I know we've gotten 5 deals, and that is roughly like $100,000 in projected profit. Um, so for me, right, the important metrics there are return on ad spend and cost per contract. $17,000 for 5 deals. That's like roughly $3,500, probably our cost per contract, $3,500 return on ad spend somewhere in the 5 to 6x range, which is better than what we're getting from mail right now. So it's definitely been working really well. And I think we're still figuring out what works in our market and it's just continued to get better. So yeah, mail, I think, is kind of been dying off for us, I'm optimistic that meta could actually keep getting better.

Yeah. So that's one of the things that I always tell people. So when we first started working together, the cost per lead on your market was like higher than like everyone else. But in terms of the conversions, I think, yeah, yeah. In terms of the conversions, I mean, they're still really good because your average profit per deal, I know you're at around like 27 more or less on average, right?

0.7. Yeah.

Yeah. So we were trying to like hit our head and be like, hey, how can we keep on dropping this? And we still, you know, of course like try to get better. But the thing with meta is like you can always keep on getting better the more data that you have, right? But the main conversion that we should look for is like, okay, what's our cost per deal and how much are we making? Right? And then especially in your market, since you're like niching down in a local, you know, area, um, that plays a huge role in like cost per lead and all that, but you are crushing. So can you kind of tell us a little bit about like the things that you have struggled with when it comes to like meta or what you think is like the hardest, uh, part? Because, you know, like I always tell the founders like, hey, I think it's best if you as a business owner are the one on camera because no one's going to care as much as you will. And then people can relate to you and the way that you talk and how you, you know, conduct yourself. So I guess, can you tell us a little bit about like the thing that you have struggled with when it comes to like the meta?

Yeah, for me, I feel like the filming is the easy part really. And it's not that I'm like some extravagant personality, like really just natural at filming ads because I'm not. But I almost think just being a more like relatable type of person maybe works for that, especially like local type ads. For me, I feel like the difficult part has been— I'm just like a— I'm naturally a very executionally minded person, more logical rather than emotional. So like for me, I want to understand how everything works, the mechanics of it. And just like at the start, just figuring out how to just set up a campaign, how to set up an ad set, like what metrics should we really be paying attention to? And like when this metric goes off, what are the steps that we should take in building out frameworks for that. So, um, I think that's what's really been most helpful about working with you guys is just having that information given to me rather than having to guess and learn on my own.

Yeah. Did you have any like fear, or what were your fears or doubts before we first started working together?

I don't really, I really don't think I had any, to be honest. Um, I mean, I just knew worst case scenario was we would throw some money at marketing and it wouldn't work. And yeah, like, I guess I'm fortunate to be at a point in my business where like we can have money kind of for R&D purposes with marketing and testing, um, just because, you know, Mail has been good to us the past couple of years, but I guess my doubt was just that it wouldn't work and we'd be stuck here, you know, we wasted $10,000 or something like that on marketing.

Yeah.

I mean, just even off of like we're still doing like cold calling, for example, really just low return on ad spend. But like actually a better example for us would be PPL. We still use PPL. We're getting like a 2 to 3x return on ad spend and like, which is pretty bad, but we just keep it on just to kind of fill in the gaps for our sales team. Like if we have a light week with, with mail, we can get some leads from PPL and we know they'll reasonably convert, not as well as mail and Meta has for us. But so I kind of knew like it couldn't be worse than those. I know the PPL got like the PPL companies are doing what we're doing. So if we're going to just do it ourselves, it can't be that much worse. So I mean, just all again, I just think logically through things. I knew it could— like the worst case scenario is we lose some money and the odds of us like just losing money is pretty slim to none.

Yeah. And I think— what do you think has been the thing that has helped you the most when it comes to like working with us?

I think it just goes back to what was the most— what was the hardest part for me, which was just really understanding the mechanics of how everything works. Like, just as simple as setting up the campaign, setting up the ad sets. Like, should we have our budget at the campaign level or the ad set level? Like, all these little intricacies. I think that being able to come to you guys with questions and just instantly have the answer is what has been the most helpful for me. For sure.

Yeah. What do you think of like the response time with the team, with Paulo and Chris, and how they give you the coaching and send you the videos? Like, what do you think of that?

Yeah, they've been great, man. Uh, they've definitely been good additions. I know, uh, obviously I think I came on board before you had even hired them, right? Yep. Okay. So, um, and it's, I know you've been kind of growing the program, bringing more people in. So, um, In the same way that, right, I know you've got your real estate team as well. So the same way that the founder can't do everything at a certain point, hiring is super important.

Yeah.

Your thoughts would be nice.

Yeah. So for me it was super important. It's like, okay, the main thing that I want to hit on is I want to give the guys results and it's like, okay, what do we need to do in order to achieve that? So I think communication that's very fast is very important and then giving the context and the feedback and Showing like a visual of how everything works is very important. Uh, so we went through a couple of iterations on how to do it. And I feel like now it's like built out, like, you know, solid where we can give the value, give the context, um, do the changes that we need to do, but where you guys still are learning the full, like, you know, 360 of how everything works.

Yeah. I had asked Chris a few weeks ago to just like start sending me Loom videos, like anytime he makes to change on the account. Just talk through like, again, the mechanics of why he made a certain decision, you know, what he's changing and what he thinks is going to happen from it. And that's been like super helpful.

Yeah, for sure. Why do you think that most people don't scale?

When you say— let's clarify that a little more. So when you say why, why do I think people don't scale?

You mean— Yeah, because I feel like our business, like the real estate— Yeah, in real estate wholesaling, because I feel like most people stay stuck between 1 to 3 deals a month, but people who successfully scale, I mean, they seem to figure it out. So why do you think is the reason why other people don't scale or do it properly?

I really think it comes down to like, mindset is almost kind of like a, I don't know, buzzword that I don't want to use, but like what your expectations or what even your, your goals from this business are. Like, I feel like so many people, um, that get into real estate— I don't know if this is because they're like the guru space or whatever, but so many people are just looking to escape their W-2 job or something like that and replace it, and they more or less move into real estate and they replace it with— they're now self-employed. I don't know how many people come into the business thinking like, oh, I'm going to build out a team and really have a business. I know I wasn't thinking about that when I got started. So, like, when I got started, I just wanted to buy rentals and have some passive income. Don't get me started on that. But So I wasn't, I definitely wasn't thinking about building out a crazy team or anything like that. And that's where, but again, we're kind of relating it back to sports and just, just mindset is I'm the type of person who just, I like to, to grow and learn. And for me, I just can see that I could only do so much. I can only flip so many houses a month on my own. The thing I had to do to continue to be able to grow was build a team. So I think it comes down to mindset and what really what you want to get out of the business. Because for some people, you know, to be doing 3 deals a month being a solo operator, I mean, you can make a lot of money and have a pretty good lifestyle. So there's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, I'd agree with you. I feel like it all comes down to your, like, your mental, because I was the same way. Like, I wasn't planning on like hiring a team and, you know, becoming like a leader and stuff. But all this, all of that happens as you are growing. And of course you don't know everything in the beginning, but you just have to be willing to keep on learning. But like mentally you have to believe it like yourself. And if you see like all the people that you look up to or the people who are doing like a ton of deals, it's like they're no different than you and I or whoever, right? We all put on our pants the same way. But what they do have is like a system and like a blueprint. So the reason why I like coaching is like you just basically pay to learn way quicker. And if you have a structure that you can just like follow, now you know how everything makes sense, right? And I feel like a lot of people, they never change from like hustling to being like a CEO slash like owner and what that entails. Because once you make that change, it's not so much about you, but about your team and who you need to become in order to attract you know, the right people, and where you give them like the resources that they need in order to become better. And, you know, give them— giving them like a goal, kind of like a sports team, right? You gotta have a goal, train daily, um, and, and see just like a sports team that you're trying to win a game. And I feel like the quicker that people realize that, the quicker they're going to be able to scale. But it kind of— in, in wholesaling and flipping, it's all about like numbers, right? The inputs equal the outputs and it's all, you know, broken down between numbers, right? Okay. Between like leads to lead to a contract to, you know, how many offers you need to send out in order to get a deal. And it just like sales and marketing. And I feel like people don't see it that way. And the sooner that they realize that, the sooner they'll be able to start scaling as long as they adopt that mindset. Um, I guess like if you could describe like our, our like program in like one sentence, how would you describe it?

This is a hard question for me. I'm a, I'm a rambler, so I like to use more than one sentence, but I guess you can do the sentence and then give us context. No, I'll stick to The challenge, uh, I'll make it a sentence. I mean, just put it factually, it's just learning how to run Meta Ads yourself without being dependent on an agency and really knowing how to do it yourself.

Cut.

That's great.

That's great. That's great. Cause that's like our main, like sub bullet of like what we do is like, hey, we teach you how to get going without like an agency and basically going at like on your own. Because I feel like, I mean, you can get a good experience with an agency.

Oh yeah.

You're never gonna get like a 10 out of 10 because you don't know what to look for. Right. And our whole goal is like, Anyone that works with us is like that. They learn this skill so that they don't depend on anyone else, right? So if they're paying like $2,000 a month on agency fees over a whole year, it's like $25,000. But okay, you can get in for less than half of that and still get going pretty quick. So the extra budget, you're gonna become more efficient. You're gonna have more money to put into marketing, but then also you as a business owner, can apply the principles and start doing it on your own. Because if you think about it, it's just sales and marketing. And if we think about sales, like, we almost never— we never delegated to like an outside agency to close the deals for us because it's like one of— when we're talking to distressed sellers, is the most important like decision that they'll ever take, you know, like selling their house. So my thoughts is like, why should we delegate our marketing when it's something that can be learned? And once learned and implemented, can give you like a huge ROI that can be infinite because you can apply this to like any business. Because when you're in real estate wholesaling, you know about like acquisition, you know, the sale, the disposition, the TC, and everything. And when it comes to like any other business, you got to advertise, right? And you advertise by letting people know about our stuff. And if we can use a platform like Facebook and do that, you can apply that same principle to any sort of business where you market your offer to your avatar And then they come in and then you have a sales process and you will always be able to run a business that way. So for me, it's been huge. And what it's done for my business has been crazy. So that's why I created this in order to help other people have success as well. So that's kind of like the whole goal of the whole program. And, um, I love that you're getting results. That's one of the most important things for me is like, hey, people come in and I want them to get results. Um, but You know, I like, I've liked like seeing you have success and, you know, asking the questions and growing. Because I tell people like, hey, you get in what you put in, just like with anything. Because there's like some people, I think there's like a study that people buy something and then they'll fall off. But the people that make a difference and get the results, uh, are willing to ask the questions and put in the work in order to achieve their goals.

Yeah, 100%. And going back to the agency thing, like, I think there's a time and a place for everything, right? I'm not like— we've done direct mail in-house since we started. Ironically, I paid somebody else to teach me that too, and it's worked out well. Just another example. I mean, the amount of money I've spent on coaching, if you And especially if you go back to like my baseball days, it's, it's an extra, it's a really high number. It's really, I mean, but it's paid off. But I feel like especially when you're like that, that solo operator, you can only do so many things well, right? So, and you're obviously not going to outsource, outsource sales. So for a lot of people, I mean, that's why the agency model became a thing. Right. For a lot of people, you only have so much time in the day. Like marketing is probably one of the easier things to outsource to someone so that way you can just stay on the phones and generate revenue or go on in-person appointments, whatever. Yeah. Um, but you know, obviously there comes a time and a place when you have that, that, you know, if you have a sales team built out and you're ready to kind of take marketing head on and start to create more opportunity and a higher return for your team, to support your team, it can really, it can really be a beneficial decision to make. And don't get me wrong, like, I've had to now— I mean, I'm still sitting very much in that marketing seat. I'm running all of our mail campaigns, I'm running all the meta campaigns, I'm filming all the ads, and it takes time. But I think what I'm really excited about is that one day we'll be able to, you know, we'll be doing enough to where I can just hire someone do like a marketing person in-house, which really, I'm sure, right, if we were running PPC, meta, SEO, a whole bunch of different, like, using different agencies for all of those, I mean, that would support an in-house person, right?

Yeah, 10 grand a month, probably.

I'm sure that we could do a better job if we're in-house and we're, we're our only client, right? So exactly, I've seen that time and time again between bringing construction in-house, um, and then just even with mail, doing it ourselves. So, um, that's something that I, I think you can— once you— when— once you have a small team, um, you can really continue to grow quickly just by looking at different areas of business and saying like, where are we paying people to do things for us right now, and how can we just bring it in-house and do it better?

Yeah. So in terms to— of like your business, like how many deals are you doing right now? Where you're going to get to, what kind of, what's the goal? What's your team look like? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah. Right now we're closing in terms of selling about 5 deals a month. We're usually doing 6 to 7 contracts a month. 75% flip, 25% like hotel or wholesale. We just hired a couple people, so the team is now me and 6 people. Um, 2 sales guys, a project manager, uh, that runs all of our construction, uh, TC, and then kind of like an assistant project manager, uh, support for the project manager. And then we have a VA that does like admin, bookkeeping, utilities, stuff like that.

Nice. And what's the goal? Like where do you want to get to?

The goal is just to keep growing, man. I used to struggle with that question a lot on like, oh, where do you want to get to in 10 years? Because like, I don't even know. Like, I don't even know if I'll be in real estate in 10 years. I would— I'm more confident now that we will be in the same business just because I believe so much in the power of focusing on one thing. I see so many people doing syndications coaching, wholesaling, and flipping. But like, just like, whoa. I've seen such really— I've seen really good results from just staying in my lane, focusing on one thing and growing it. And I've had— I really enjoyed doing it. So my goal is just to keep growing and grow. Really, what's really been fun for me now is investing in my people and kind of seeing them grow, grow with us. Us. So just, I don't have any defined— I mean, we have like a 3-year goal in terms of gross profit, but beyond that, it's— my goal is just to keep growing and stay in the game. Yep.

Yeah, I agree with you. I never think like long term. It's always okay, what I need to do like in the next 6 months, because anything else is a distraction. And you know what they say, Master of many, master of none, you know? So staying focused is huge. And also, like, I would say, like, people often give up way too easily or they don't put enough work, where I feel like the way that things are right now is like, it's very easy to beat other people because their work ethic is not as high. And if you just do like double the volume, you're just going to destroy everyone, which I think it kind of entails a little bit back to the question on why do you think people don't scale? Yeah, I feel like that's one of the reasons as well. It's like, okay, you just need to stay focused and having the mentality like, hey, I'm gonna make this work no matter what, and if I don't figure it out, I'm gonna die trying. Because if you have that same approach to anything, there's no way that you don't succeed over a long time horizon if you keep on trying hard and working hard and doing the right thing, there's no way you don't have success, right?

Yeah. I think those are different questions, right? Why do people not scale and why do people not succeed?

I agree.

Like the, if we're talking about why do people not succeed, I think, yeah, the, the, I feel like the bar for just success is so low. Like you just need to be willing to do the work really. Uh, and you know what, you know, defining what does success look for each person.

Right?

And that's where we get into why do people not scale, right? And that's just based on mindset and goals, right? But to do anything, you have to have a baseline level of discipline and work ethic.

Yep, I agree. I guess like last question is, would you recommend the program? Are you happy with everything?

I don't know, man. Does anybody out here want to spend $17,000 to make $100,000? That's up to them.

Yeah. I know. I mean, you're one of the guys that are spending the most because you have like the biggest like conversions. But you know, some of the guys that are in the group, I mean, they're not spending that much. They're spending $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000.

Yeah.

Many get their first deal within the first 30 days. And then if they need any additional resources, there's like a bunch of killers in the group that can just jump in and help.

Yeah. But yes, to answer your question, yeah, I do.

Yes, thank you. So is there anything outside of real estate that you are kind of like working on that you want to get better at, or I don't know, you have like something that you look forward to over the next couple months?

Uh, I've been starting to prioritize my health a little bit more, um, which sounds funny coming from someone who was an athlete for a living, but, um, when I started, when I went full-time into real estate I don't give, like, I'm getting to the point where I've, I've got the team to really support me and we can grow without me working 12 hours a day. But there was a period for a solid year to 2 years where everything else was a distraction, even, even working out. So, um, I've made it a priority now. Like, uh, you know, I'm not getting any younger, not that I'm old, but Um, your health is something that doesn't come back once it goes. So, uh, making that investment in my health now is something that I'm working on.

Yeah, that's huge. I've done the same thing. Um, I used to be very like into the gym and it's been the kind of years since I've been like consistent. So over the last 2, 3 weeks, I'm like, hey, I need to get on it because like I was feeling super like low energy. And you need to be on it with like, you know, the business, make sure everyone's like succeeding and having the resources. And I was not feeling like myself, so I was like, okay, I kind of need to make a change. And it's not that I was eating bad or anything, like I was still going to the gym, but like my energy levels were very low. So I had to go to the doctor, so they gave me like all these vitamins and stuff. So now I feel great. And you know, our health is the most important thing because like you can have anything, but if you don't have your health, I mean, is it worth Yeah. Well, Jason, thank you so much for your time. Like I said, I'm very proud of you and I love seeing you succeed and like crush it and, you know, asking the questions and showing up every week. Thank you so much for your time, allowing us to talk to you and sharing some knowledge to the other people. But with that being said, thank you so much, Jason.

Yeah, no problem, man. Thank you.