Sam Khorramian - The Story Behind Big Block Realty

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float, Shark with your boy.

My boy, Matt Wolf.

Hey, what's up, Joe?

Hey, man, you're a jerk. Yeah, well, beat you to it again.

All right, who are we talking to today, Joe?

We are talking to Mr. Sam Karamian from Big Block Realty. Yeah, he's a total badass.

This dude's a ninja, so. All right, I got some notes in front of me the. That are gonna show off how much of a ninja this dude is.

Go for it.

So three years in a row, they were on the inc 500 at number 26, number 31, number 33. And then this year, he said they would've been on it again, but he didn't fill out the paperwork.

No big deal.

Oh, and only six years, Almost seven years in business.

Hmm.

I think he's doing something right. Yeah.

His Big Block Realty company has grown by 8,000% in the last three years.

$2.4 billion in gross sales. That was in 2017.

Yeah.

And I think we asked him this on the show, but we said, like, how big is your. Your. Your real estate brokerage? And he said that he is the 49th largest brokerage in the country. Something like that.

40 something.

40 something.

Well, he'll tell you on the. He will tell you, but he what? He's over a thousand agents underneath, you know, in the Big Block Realty organization. I mean, the guy is totally flipping brokerages in the real estate space on its head. Yeah. And changing the model up a lot. Yeah. I think he starts off actually saying how he's doing that.

Yeah.

And it's just super cool. So we met Sam speaking at. When we spoke at War Room up in Beverly Hills about a month ago. And then we actually told the story in the podcast briefly, but like, Roland pulled us aside and was like five or 10 minutes before, you know, like, basically before we. Basically we found out, like five minutes right before. I can't even get the frigging words out because my brain's dead right now. To speak to Sam's group called Closing Table, who he's a co founder of that along with the digital marketer Roland and all those guys. He's basically co founder of that and it's like a mastermind for the real estate space. So we spoke there all about power podcasting, gave him a bunch of ideas on how to use that in that space. That's where we met him.

Yeah.

And he was a super cool guy there. So we're like, I think this guy should be in the show.

Yeah.

And we found out he lives in San Diego, and we're gonna get beers with him soon.

So.

Really, really fun episode. We cover a large range of topics. We talk about anxiety and depression as an entrepreneur, and a really, really powerful topic, something that people aren't talking enough about. It frickin hard to be an entrepreneur. And we dive into some of the emotional toll that it takes on you to grow companies to the size of companies that we're talking about growing here. We talk about how to get into real estate if you don't really know anything about it. If you just want to kind of get your feet wet in the real estate world, what's the best path to take with that? We talked about personal branding. Sam has done an amazing job at branding himself and being all over social media, so we. We talked about that.

He, like, fire hosed us with all these different books that he used very specifically to grow this company and a lot of other stuff he does. He lists all those out and kind of some. Some reasons why this guy. We went to the same college you did. That's pretty cool.

And actually you said, oh, I think you went there a little bit earlier than me, but when I did the math, you guys were probably there around the same time.

Actually, we did, yeah. Yeah. Either way, it's interesting. Cause I don't think I've ever met anybody in the business space, at least in our circles, that went to Cal State San Marcos. Yeah, it's kind of a tiny school, but yeah, man.

And I also learned that they have a mascot.

Go Cougars.

Yeah.

Joe's a coug.

I'm a coug. All right. So, yeah, Sam's just an awesome conversation. I really did like the whole anxiety talk. It might not sound sexy, but it was. It was cool because he was like, this is the stuff that's not talked about in seminars. It was real shit. And it's true, it's tough. And a lot of times you feel alone and you're not. But that's, you know, we talk about. We share a lot of the struggles, and we open them all up on this podcast. So you'll dig.

Yeah, for sure. And also, you want a companion for this episode?

Yeah, why not?

Yeah. Well, you should go get one. If you go to hustleandflowchart.com comp, we actually take notes on the episode and we give those notes away for free. So if you go to that URL, hustleandflowchart.com comp, you can get these notes for free for the first week or so that this episode's been released. But you got to act quick, because we do take those down and replace them with the newer episode notes. So go there and get that. We took notes on everything he said, word for word. No, I'm just kidding. That'd be a transcript.

You don't want to read that.

No, we. We just took the bullet points, the highlights, the tools, the resources, the books, the podcasts. Anything that he mentioned on this show, we took the notes on that. So you have an easy reference guide. You just gotta go to hustle and flowchart.com comp. We'll hook you up with that.

Sweet. Go get it. But let's go hear what Sam's got to say. Hey, Sam. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, guys. Really excited to be on with you.

Yeah, man, thank you. Yeah, another San Diego guy down the street. We were just chatting about how we drive by your office. Didn't even know it was your office before, but about thousands of times. Growing up here in San Diego, I.

Just learned that both of you actually went to Cal State San Marcos. And then Joe wrote Go Cougars. On our notes, and I just learned for the first time that Cal State San Marcos had a mascot called the Cougars.

Yeah, man, I do my research. Come on.

So, technically, I, like, was only at school there for a couple semesters, but I hung out on campus at the fraternity for four years, so there's a friend.

I don't know if I can get.

Too much credit for going to school, but we'll chalk it up as going to Cal State San Marcos for sure.

That must have been, like, the only frat, because when I went there, I think I went there after you. There still, like, wasn't a frat life at all. Sorority life, nothing. So you must have found the guy.

Yeah, it was pretty brutal. But we. There was two, and we made the best of it, so we got kicked off, which left one.

So, anyways, good time.

So you're the reason there's not frats anymore, is what you're saying.

That may or may not be the case.

I love it. All right.

Well, yeah, so, yeah, Cougars, Matt. It's a thing. Cougars.

I've seen them. There's plenty in San Diego.

There's a lot of Cougars.

Anyway. Yeah. So, yeah, just the listener. So we spoke up at the mastermind that you have with Digital Marketer Roland. I don't know how that deal is with that closing table.

Yeah, it's kind of like a DM and US partnership, but we run the Group mainly with Roland Frazier and Perry Belcher.

Got it. Okay. Yeah. So that was fresh to us when we spoke about podcasting to your group. It was actually. I don't know if you even knew this, but it was like, five minutes prior to Roland's like, hey, so the talk you just did downstairs, can you do it to this group upstairs, closing table? Sure.

True Roland style.

But you were gracious enough to let us go grab beers before we gave our presentation.

You guys did a great job. It was great having you.

Thanks, man. Well, let's get into it, because I know you've done a lot and you've got massive visions for yourself, your company. I saw that. What was it that you want to own a casino on the Vegas Strip, or is that.

I do. Yeah. That's one of my big, crazy goals.

Hell, yeah.

Thanks. Well, how did all this start? What were you doing before Big block realty? What's the journey to where you are today?

Really?

It all started for me selling phones in the mall. I don't know if you guys remember the free phone guys. Yep. I was a free phone guy, and I. That was my first real sales position. But I did really well with it. I think it was just kind of like sales has always been something that I was able to more. I guess I could communicate well with people, and I. I did well there. But the cell phone game ended up taking me to the mortgage world. Some guy came and secret shot me for a phone and ended up recruiting me to go start doing mortgages for him. And that's what transitioned me really, out of college and out of traditional business and got me into real estate, so to speak. And that was right before the market crashed. And at the time, it seemed like something that was really unfortunate for me, like getting into real estate right when the market crashed. But it was probably one of the best things that could have happened because I got in at the worst possible time, and if you could survive, then in any market, you could do really well in. So started on the real estate side around 2008. Ish. And one thing led to another. Started doing investing. Started helping people buy and sell homes. I kind of played in all of it. And about six, seven years ago, we had the idea that we could change the way brokerages, real estate brokerages were being run, and we started Big block realty.

So what's the big difference between big block realty and, like, the way traditional brokerages run?

Great question. So traditionally, like, as a real estate agent, I have to work at a real estate brokerage and most brokerages will take 20, 30, 40% of every dollar that an agent earns in commission. Yeah, we took the thought process well, let's give our agents 100% commission, but let's charge them something like $300 a month to hang their license with us. Okay. So we essentially helped real estate agents get big fat raises without having to take on any liability risk, buy more leads or anything. So the basic idea started with, well, let's help them make more money. And then one thing led to another and we realized, man, you know, if, if we're going to really create something that matters, we can't just rely on being the cheapest because if they'll come here for money, they'll leave for money. So we created something that really for us was the type of brokerage that we would want to hang out at. Right. It's really laid back, it's fun, it's Google feel. Really good service, really good support, but at the same time, you can't beat the fees.

Now with a company like Big Block, with a brand new realtor, would they, would they fit in at a company like Big Block or would it make more sense for somebody to kind of go through learning with a different company and then once they kind of have the feel for it, move over to you? I guess the question I'm asking is like, are those other companies more hands on with like mentoring and educating them because they're making more money or kind of.

See, that's a great question.

So most of the people that do the type of model that we do are very hands off. But we knew that if we wanted to win the game that we had to be hands on in all departments. So if you're a brand new agent, we have a mentoring program that we can put you through. We have a training almost every single day of the week. We have a full broker and legal department in house. So we've really taken the traditional approach in terms of give them a lot of service and value, but we're doing it in what we consider to be a value proposition that really ultimately helps our customer win. And our customer is the agent. So we figure, man, if we gave them all of the money and all of the support, where else can they go? And that's kind of what we built.

Yeah, it sounds like you're basically crafting the best agents possible. And it sounds like you probably give them a lot of marketing advice because I know you're branding and all the stuff you're putting out there publicly is already top notch. Do you guys have, like, some internal marketing help for each one of your agents?

We definitely give them training on how to do it, and we've given them different softwares and tools to make it easier for them to execute on campaigns and content creation and stuff, but we don't push any of the buttons for them.

Nice. Yeah. You're just giving them the tools for them to run with.

Yeah, absolutely.

Sweet.

Cool.

What would you say would be.

Creating your own brokerage? I mean, from our minds, we're not even in the real estate world, so it seems like a monumental kind of undertaking to build something of that size. What would you say have been some of the biggest challenges that you ran into over the last seven years of building this thing?

It's a great question, man. I'll start by saying it doesn't matter if you're building a brokerage or selling information or cowboy boots. I think that when you start to do things different than the competition, which is really critical when it comes to building a brand and a business that lasts, I think you have to do things a little bit different. We obviously did things different, and our biggest challenge, especially getting started, was dealing with all of the naysayers from our competition, talking down about us and talking about how our model will never work all the way to even, you know, some friends and family that thought we were crazy trying to reinvent the game. One of the things that I learned is, in business, you should definitely seek counsel. You should learn from people that know more than you, and you should try to find people to tell you what to do. But in terms of your goals and what you believe to be possible, you should only believe yourself. And we just really just decided to believe in our idea and only listen to our own advice in terms of what could be done and what couldn't be done. But we got a lot of good advice and training from people like Roland and Perry and a bunch of different people that were instrumental for us. So, for one, just shutting out the noise and telling yourself that you don't have to listen to all the naysayers.

Has it always been like that for you? Like when you were starting out, what, six, seven years ago? How long has it been?

Almost seven years. Yeah, it has always been like that. It's gotten a lot better because, you know, we're so big today that they can't talk as much about us as they once were. But it was pretty, pretty bad in the beginning. And also, being that we were relatively young for the business, the average real estate broker is a 56 year old male. When I started the company, I was 29 years old.

So there was a big, like, imposter syndrome, if that makes sense. Like just kind of like getting out of your own head. And we're hiring people that are twice our age to be agents here. And. And there was a lot of the mental side from listening to the haters and having that combined with that imposter syndrome. It certainly got heavy at times. But my mentors always told me, if you don't have people talking bad about what you're doing, you're probably not doing anything of much significance. So we just tried to focus on that and keep our heads down.

Yeah. Now, when was it when you took on the counsel and mentorship from others?

Even before we started, man. Yeah. One of the biggest reasons we've had the success we've had is, like I said, I didn't go to college, but I did spend so much time in seminars, in coaching and mastermind groups. I mean, before I had, you know, when I was eating top ramen because that's all I could afford, I was still begging and borrowing money anywhere I could to have coaches and mentors. And that has always given me the competitive advantage because I was just always putting myself in the right environments. And I think when you're starting a new business, when you're looking to scale a business, when you're looking at, you know, accomplish anything, a big part of that happening has to be the environment you put yourself in. Are you hanging out with people that are doing better than you and giving you perspective on opportunity and the things that can be done? So we've always just put ourselves in the right room with the right trainers, the right coaches, and that's been a big help.

Nice. It sounds like you're fueled by the naysayers and all the people talking shit or whatever it might be today.

Yeah, yeah.

It just sounds like you're almost like the Uber disrupting a whole fricking market. That's been kind of archaic. You know, you got the people that are probably almost retiring or getting later in their career little comfy, and then here comes Sam at big block shaking stuff up. What are some pieces of feedback that if people feel like imposter syndrome, you know, maybe they're not. They're just feeling like, ah, crap, man, this is like a mountain to climb. Are there some things that you can give to folks to kind of get past that dude?

He'd be speaking directly to me, at least probably both of us with the imposter syndrome thing. Because I get it all the time. To this day, with just the people we talk to on the podcast, very rarely do I feel like I'm up to the standards of the people we have on the podcast. So the imposter syndrome thing, like, really? You know, it hits me. So, yeah, I'm curious what advice you have on that. Yeah.

I'll tell you. For me.

I always get past things like imposter syndrome and anxiety and stress, knowing that what I'm trying to do is not easy, and talking to people that have been where I want to be and finding that they all felt the same way. Dude. Like, everybody that you know in your scenario, someone that you're interviewing, and you're like, how the hell are they? On my show, I'm interviewing them. Like, dude, where they are today started many years ago by them feeling what you feel right now.

Yeah.

And what that says is, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And I think that part of it is you have to just get real with the fact that when you're trying to accomplish things, there's unfortunate realities that you have to get comfortable with. And by virtue of being real with yourself and telling yourself it's okay to feel like an imposter because maybe you are a little bit, but you have to fake it till you make it, dude.

And.

And that's just part of the process. And, you know, like, anxiety is a real thing for me. Like, especially when we're super busy, got a bunch of balls in the air. Like, you got to remind yourself, like, dude, half. Half the people in the world feel this way, and entrepreneurs specifically feel it more than most. So I always just have internal dialogue and conversations with myself to remind myself that it's not just me.

Is that.

Is that kind of something you repeat to yourself? Is it's, I'm not alone in this whole thing? Or do you have some other things that you kind of, like, mantra to yourself in your head?

I have different mantras. Like, I always say to myself.

I make the money that I make because I deal with things that most people don't want to deal with or can't deal with.

When I'm feeling really stuck, I will pick up an audio book and just, like, put some good things in my head just to, like, get myself there. One of the things that has really helped me a lot is a guy by the name of Greg Reed. He wrote the new Think and Grow Rich called Three Feet from Gold. He said, turn your ants into apes. Your ants are your automatic negative thoughts. Things that you can't control, they're always going to happen. Even if you're Tony Robbins. You're going to have automatic negative thoughts, and that's okay. But you have to quickly turn your ants into apes. And an ape is thinking about a positive experience in your life. The last time you closed a deal, the last time you had someone on your show that you were nervous about, but it ended up being killer. The vacation that you took a year ago or 10 years ago. And essentially what he says, and what I've heard Jay Shetty say, is that it's impossible for you to be in gratitude, but at the same time be depressed or nervous or scared. It's a physical impossibility. You can't be grateful and positive, but at the same time be negative and scared and have anxiety. So be real with the fact that you're always going to have ants. Automatic negative thoughts. But shame on you if you allow yourself to chew on them. So you have to create that trigger in your brain the moment you start to chew on the crap. Remind yourself that if you think about positive experiences you've had, think about your gratitude. You're alive, you're whatever. It's impossible for you to chew on the crap. And that's helped me out a lot, man. Like, a lot.

Dude, that's awesome. That's the new Think and Grow Rich by Greg Reed. Well, three feet from gold or three feet from gold. Yeah, that's it. Sorry. That's cool, man. Yeah, and I know just simple things, like just. It might be weird, but like smiling, you know, just like by yourself, just smiling. It's like there's no way that you can feel bad. Like it slowly just goes away. Like something. Hormones are triggering inside you. You can get through some heavy stuff.

It's so true. You know.

I just. Since we're on the topic, I read an article. I've had a really great year this year, but we were in the part process of buying out a business partner and expanding and it was heavy, right?

Yeah.

Anxiety was really through the roof. And I read an article that to me helped me put a lot of the stress and the imposter syndrome and that stuff aside, because of data, it was an entrepreneur magazine, I think, and it said that 50% of entrepreneurs are certified depressants.

And that the leading cause of death in males over the age of 35 that are entrepreneurs is suicide.

Wow.

And like, I've never had those thoughts, but I'm like, shit. Like, it's okay to feel this way, dude. It's heavy. It's supposed to be heavy. That's why most people go back to the 9 to 5. That's why they go back to the 401k and the guaranteed healthcare. Like it's supposed to be heavy but. But if you remind yourself that it's not you that's feeling off or feeling weird or feeling confused and remind yourself that you're just a normal statistic and your ability to fight through it is the difference, that's always helped me out.

A lot that is so timely. Like I feel like this year, which is interesting because this has been our biggest growth, biggest opportunities, figuring shit out in the business here that I've definitely had a lot more of the anxiety. No, no suicidal type stuff, but more depressed. I would say like little off. And it's, it's interesting that it's coming at like a very positive looking time, you know. And have you found anxiety popping up more so when things are kind of good and potential and you have all these things rather than, you know, maybe if things are just kind of trucking along?

Well, you know, I used to never have the anxiety around things that were positive. But as I'm getting older and have kids and have more to lose, I get anxiety about good things and bad things. It's just weird, dude. But I'll tell you.

No one talks about this in seminars. Like I don't, can't remember a single seminar as I was in. People talking about how it's just part of life and part of business. The old saying, more money, more problems is a real freaking thing, but nobody talks about it, man. Like you get older, you have kids, you have a family, you go from being broke to less broke to not broke to now I have money to, holy shit, this is comfortable to man, I could get really used to this and all of a sudden things get heavier. I do not believe that success always means less worry and less headache. I think it means different headaches and different worries with more zeros behind them, you know what I mean? Like.

If people would have talked about this more, it probably would have felt less off for me when I was going through it. But no one talks about it. I don't know why, I don't know if they're embarrassed, but I'm like, I'm proud to say, like sometimes I go through it and what keeps me positive is knowing that it's part of the game and I put myself in the right environments and, and it's just normal. If you're not feeling it, you're the Special type of crazy, you know what I mean?

You're right, man.

I love that you're talking about it because, I mean, I've been fairly outspoken on this podcast about anxiety and depression and things like that because I struggle with all of it pretty frequently. Probably a little bit more than Joe. But different.

Different stuff.

Different stuff. But no, I hear what you're saying. I've got this business that Joe and I run now, we've been running for 10 years now. I've got two kids. And it almost feels like. Almost like a house of cards kind of thing. Like the bigger this thing gets, the harder it could fall.

Yeah.

And that's the truth, dude. Like, that's the frickin truth. Now, obviously, like, we should be doing things like putting money away and making investments. And over the course of time. I don't know how old you guys are. I'm 36, 34. I think in your 30s, you're learning how to make money. And in your 40s, I read somewhere you're learning how to save money and invest money and feel more secure about your money. And then in the 50s is when you start thinking about really spending your money, and that's when you've built most of your wealth. So, like, for us at this age with new kids and all that, man, the struggle is freaking real. But the good news, which is an unfortunate reality, but the good news is this is where everyone else stops.

Yeah.

You know, like, that's when you. That's when you got to remind yourself the champions are champions. Because when they're down against the clock, they're down. They, you know, they're 10 points down with two minutes left or whatever it is. They, they try harder when they're down than when they're ahead. You. You know what I mean? Like, you can't allow yourself to play defeated because that's really gonna kill the game.

It's true, man. And that's. There's no reason in dwelling on the past. And I know my anxieties will more be like future pacing. Like, oh, there's so much potential here. Where do I start? And then you kind of freak out where. What helps me is like, okay, what can I do right now? Like, right now. And in this moment, you know, I'm grateful to have you here on the podcast so we can actually have a real talk to share with everyone else. Listen, listening. And that's all I'm thinking of. Yeah.

You know what always trips me out? And maybe for some listeners that are feeling this.

They can go Google it but to me, one of the most badass entrepreneur. I don't even know if you can call an entrepreneur. He's just a genius. Is Elon Musk. Like, that guy is creating all the businesses that us creatives thought about when we were kids, like self driving cars, tunnels, going to Mars, flamethrowers. Like he's doing it all.

Yeah.

But if you really watch his interviews, that guy is depressed and he's got anxiety and he's uncertain and he tears up sometimes in interviews. And it's like he is literally changing the face of the earth. And you look at someone like that and you think, man, this guy's got the golden touch. He's got it all figured out. No, I don't think he really has it figured out. I think he's willing to swing the bat really hard and go where people aren't willing to go. And he pays the price in anxiety and depression and dealing with, you know, the things that we see in the interviews. So if Elon Musk can do it, you can do it.

It's true, man. I remember very clearly at the end of that Joe Rogan. Well, the interview that you can watch on YouTube, the very end of it was like the last thing I think Joe asked him was like, you know, what's the piece of advice? It's just love each other. And you could tell that he was. Yeah, he kind of looked empty, but obviously that's what he meant. And it's just, if you think about it, it's like, just be good to each other and good to yourself to start. And as an entrepreneur, man, yeah, it's tough sometimes. You're like, I should have more money in the bank account or my sales sucked today or this week or I had to fire someone. It's like I stopped. But yeah, you. You're not alone. Everyone listening, but totally. Yeah. Well, talking. How about going back to mentorship? I'm curious, now that you're doing the closing table thing, how many masterminds have you guys done so far?

It's closing table started a year and one meeting ago. So a year and a quarter.

How's that been being kind of on the other side now, you know, being mind toured a lot, now being the mentee, the other way around. Other way around.

He's the mentor now. Coming from the mentee.

It's my favorite job. Of all the things that we do, being in that room, running that room and learning from the room is my favorite thing to do.

And I'll tell you from the other side and no one's asked me that. And I'm thinking out loud. The thing that stands out the most is.

The. Like, from the person that's doing the best in the room to all the way on the opposite extreme. And these people are all badasses. They all have the same. The same basic challenges. They have challenges letting go. They have challenges hiring. They have challenges with profitability. They have challenges with scaling. Like, it's just a unique perspective. And, you know, we have a thousand agents that work for us at Big Block. So when I'm working with them one on one, the common denominators are always the same, which, to me is great freaking news. Right? Like, it's great news because everyone's dealing with the same things, but your ability to deal with them is.

The ultimate qualifier. I guess the other part of it that is unique is just because you're the guy in the front of the room, you build relationships with people at an elevated level, if that makes sense. Like. Like you guys. Like, since I was the guy running the room, I'm on your podcast. If it's you or Frank Kern or like, whoever it is.

The doors are more open. And the lesson there is, put yourself in those scenarios. It could be in your local community. Like, start a little mastermind group of top producers. Just in whatever industry you're in or whatever community you're in your local area, be the person that runs the room. And there's so much monetary value that comes on the backside of the group. That's pretty exciting.

I can only imagine, man. Yeah. And it's whoever brings people together. The connector is usually the one that they go to first for a deal and opportunity. Like, I think Roland told us that, you know, inside the war room room, I mean, that's like a hotbed for just all sorts of deals, you know, and just imagine being the guy or the gal, whoever, in front of the room. Like, you're going to get pretty much first say at all that stuff. Yeah.

It reminds me, there's a guy named Marx Acosta Rubio who is one of our mentors. He's been on our show a couple times. One comment that he made that about our business versus other people's businesses. He's like, the difference between your business and the stuff you're doing with your podcast and the subscription service that you sell and a company that's doing it to the tune of $20 million a year. The only difference is balls. They have bigger balls than you. That's it. That's the only difference is that there's areas where they were scared to do it and they did it anyway. And you were scared to do it and you didn't, bro.

That is like true words have never been spoken. And I. Let me just put that in perspective. There's a company in the real estate space that just had the balls to go really big with their valuation for capital for raising money. And at the time that they started raising capital, they had the same amount of agents as US, 1000 agents. They started the company the same time as us. They raised capital at a four and a half billion dollar evaluation.

And raised 750 million bucks.

And the entire industry, bro, everybody in the industry sitting there scratching their heads. How the hell did 1000 agent brokerage get a 4 1/2 billion dollar value valuation? Because they got the balls, dude. They got the balls. They made the pitch. They made it sound good. And they're taking a traditional old freaking business and raising 750 million against four and a half billion dollar valuation.

Balls. That is total balls, man.

Balls.

Straight up balls. So how do you like when you look at balls?

I love it. I'm gonna start a counter. How many times? Balls. In this episode?

Mad balls, yo.

That's great. So what, like, with you looking at that like, how. What would you do differently? Maybe you wouldn't. When seeing that, you know, like, do you tell yourself, oh man, I gotta sack up a little bit more and like, do something different? What did you learn from that?

I tell. What that has taught me is to shut up the part of my brain that tells me you can't do that. Like, I'm a really good big thinker, bro. Like, I have the wildest, craziest ideas. I swear, five years ago I had that same thought. You know what, let's just say this thing is worth a few billion dollars, raise a couple hundred million and with that money we'll win the game. I just didn't do it because I allowed logic to set in. And the thing, the thing that to me is, is lost in progress of life is your ability to be naive. Remember when I, when I was like 20 years old, I thought I could walk on water after getting my ass kicked for 16 years? I'm like, yeah, maybe I can do that. Yeah, maybe that won't work. My, my level of naiveness is, it just diminishes every year. So you have to sometimes like play naive in order in order to think really, really big. It reminds me of a story. Do you guys know who Scott Duffy is?

Who? I know that name. Sounds familiar.

I should intro you guys. He'd be a great guest today. He.

Runs a lot of the stuff for Entrepreneur magazine. But Scott ended up selling one of his businesses. He had like this jet chartering, Uber type business. He ended up selling it to Sir Richard Ransom. And after he sold him the business, he's at Necker island with Richard Branson and he goes for a little walk and he stumbles upon Richard having a talk, like at nighttime on the stand by himself. And it sounds like he's trying to buy the rainforest. So Scott Duffy after hangs up, he's like, dude, like, I overheard your conversation, Mr. Branson. Sir Branson, are you trying to buy the rainforest? And Richard Branson's like, yep, trying to buy the rainforest. And Scott right away was like, you can't do that. Like, no one's going to sell you the rainforest, dude. Like that's like, that's impossible. And Richard quickly said, who says it's impossible? Like, is it too much money? I'm sure I can raise enough money with all the people I know. Or maybe you're saying they won't sell it to me. Okay, but will they give me a lease on it for 100 years and like, can I bring enough noise around the topic with all my influential friends and convince someone to sell it or lease it? What's the point? He was trying to buy the rainforest.

Wow.

How many times in our business and in our lives have we told ourselves, man, you can't buy the rainforest. When Richard Branson straight trying to buy.

The rainforest and what he's doing, it sounds like, because I mean, you gotta think he's got a lot of responsibilities. Because I'm just thinking, as you were saying, you get older, you know, you have kids, you get more stuff, you get a house, whatever. People rely on you. You're impressed. Employees. I mean, think about his level. So many employees and people that rely on him. Yet he's still thinking of creative ways maybe someone, maybe one way gets shot down. But he probably has like four other backups that show the potential of like, yeah, I could, I could do this.

Yeah, it's only impossible until someone does it.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean it, you know, back to what you were, you were saying a minute ago too about how like over the course of your life and as you've gotten older, you've kind of almost trained more fear into yourself a little bit. Well, it's really evident once you have kids too. Because when you, you know, I have a four year old and a six year old and they don't understand why stuff can't happen. If, if you say no, they'll just go, well, why? And then you might give them a reason why. And then they'll go, why? And they'll keep digging deeper and eventually you get to the point where you're just like, I don't know, go do it if you think you can do it, you know. And so it's kind of like when you're a kid, when you're very, very young, you don't have that element. That element is trained into you of feeling like something is not possible or you're not capable of doing something. That is totally a learned element because you're not born scared of anything.

Yep.

Yeah.

It's so true, dude. And like, you know, if we could just all, when we're doing our business, planning and thinking about opportunities and looking, especially when you're looking at your challenges, like, embrace the inner naiveness. Embrace the 15 year old you, dude, no joke. When I was 15, I thought I was going to be retired by the time I was 26. I was like, you know, I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll be rich.

Everything's possible. And when you believe that, you think differently. The it's kind of like Grant Cardone's 10x rule. Like if you've studied what he says essentially is like, dude, 10x your goal. And that simple process of 10xing your goal is going to make you look at things differently. And when you look at things differently, you'll find ways to do things that other people haven't done, which is really a big part of our success here at Big Block. Dude. Like, I've just always looked at things different and did things different than the competition because I thought year one we could get to a thousand agents is year six and we just broke a thousand. You know what I mean?

Yeah. How long does it normally take a brokerage to get to that point?

Oh, I, we, we, if we were in this, we didn't submit the paperwork, but if, if we submitted the paperwork, we would be the 49th largest brokerage in the country. Wow.

That just shows it, man. Geez.

So yeah, not very many people get this big and it's because of their limiting belief. And I'll give you a perfect example. Like when I started this company.

Our lifeline is recruiting agents to come work for us.

Our traditional competition hires a professional, well groomed, well trained recruiter, pays them, let's say 70, 80, 100 grand a year, gives Them bonuses, and that person will go recruit, let's say, three agents a month, and they're a freaking rock star.

Wow.

I was like, well, not doing that. One, because to me, it doesn't make sense. But two, we can't afford it. I went onto Craigslist. I hired telemarketers for commission only. I had 10 people just calling around a script that I make, calling agents. And within our first three, four months of business, we were recruiting six, seven, ten agents a month. And we didn't have the crazy overhead everyone else had. And it's just because I believed it could be done. Like, none of my competition thought you could take any telemarketer and make them recruit agents. I thought, well, in volume, you can do anything. And we've always just done stuff like that that has helped us reach our goals much faster than the competition.

That is so cool.

I love that.

So there's kind of two different rabbit holes that I feel like we can take the conversation, and I'm not quite sure which one to go down first. I wanted to talk a little bit about, like, real estate and somebody that maybe isn't in the real estate world. Maybe some. Some easy ways that they can. Not easy, but, you know, ways that they can start getting involved in real estate. And the other thing I want to talk about is some of your marketing strategies and branding strategies that have gotten you to where you are. Joe, do you have an opinion on.

Where you want to start with the real estate? Why not?

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah. So with real estate, then I'm kind of curious. I mean, mine and Joe's experience in real estate is that we both own our own homes. I'm on my third now. Joe's on his second owned home. And that's pretty much the extent of our knowledge. So if we wanted to be investors in real estate and actually generate cash flow and income off real estate, what. What's. What's your recommendation to people that are just totally green in this world?

Great question. I would say if you have disposable income and you want to get the furthest with it in real estate, first thing I would do is put turn off HGTV and don't look at all those flipping shows, because flipping is not the game, especially for a novice. Most people think that that's where they should go. Statistics show long term that you make the most amount of wealth in real estate by owning real estate for a long period of time and at the same time paying down debt. Now, the challenge Most people have is, especially in a place like San Diego, you don't have enough money to put down enough so that you buy something and it cash flows positive. Does that make sense?

Yep.

So I don't think there's a better vehicle for investing in real estate than looking into large multifamily syndication type deals. This is what you see. Grant Cardone through Cardone Capital pitching. There's a lot of really strong companies. I can share a few if you want. And what they do is they say, okay, we want to go buy this 50 unit apartment building and we need a million dollars outside of the loan that we're getting. They'll go to people like you and me and they'll say, hey, for 20 grand you get this guaranteed rate of return.

And you get equity in the deal. So I'll give you an example of a deal that I'm looking at doing right now, and one that I did that's about to close. So about a year ago.

We put our money, 25 grand into the purchase of a high rise in Texas. Mind you, I'm not doing any work. All I have to do is write a check. This company found the deal, is managing the deal, doing all the work, all the tenant placements, everything, gave them 20 grand on the 20, I mean 25 grand. On the 25 grand a month we were getting, I mean, excuse me, on the 25 grand total, we were getting paid $600 a month in guaranteed rate of return.

Got it.

A year later, they have done all the work and they've raised the value of the property. They are refinancing the building. I'm getting my 25 grand back and I get to keep my equity in the deal. So my monthly cash flow goes from 600amonth now down to like 350 because they've refinanced a bigger loan, so there's more debt. But I got my 25 grand back and now I'm still making 350 bucks a month forever.

Wow. How long did it take for that refi.

It's. It'll be about 18 months before I get that money back.

That's not bad at all, dude.

It's the jam. So now I get my 25 grand back. I still have that 350 bucks a month that is going towards my life. Now I have that 25 grand I can replace in another deal. So I got another one sent to me.

This one's in.

I forget where it is.

I'm blanking on the city, but they need to raise a Few hundred grand and they're guaranteeing 15% return on your money while the money is out. And then they're gonna flip the building for a near double the value. So let's say I give them for simple math, 100 grand. That 100 grand is going to pay me $15,000 a year in guaranteed return at 15%.

And then in two years, let's say they sell the property. I have made 15 grand a year for two years, so I made 30 grand. And now my hundred grand turns into 200 grand when they sell the property. So my 100 turn into $230,000 in a two to three year period.

And this is all managed so you don't have to be the property manager and collect rents on people and never.

You'Re never talking to a tenant. You're never stepping foot on the property if you don't want to. You're not going to Home Depot, you're not doing anything. Now here's the big thing. Everybody should pay attention to who you invest with matters. Right? Like these deals, the ones we're talking about are grand slams. But I have found people to invest with that know how to only do grand slams.

So be aware of who you do it with. Make sure they have a good track record. And let me touch on why this is majorly different than like buying a single family home. If I buy a house and I rent that out, one, I'm probably not going to cash flow, especially in San Diego. But two, if I have one vacancy, I'm 100% vacant.

Yep.

Yeah.

If I have to buy a new roof, I have to buy a new roof for the entire house. Where if I'm buying a building with 50 doors and I have some vacancies, that matters a lot less.

When I need to do a new roof. Yes, it's a bigger roof, but it's, you know, I have. So it's, it's amortized over so many doors or blended over so many doors that maybe the roof is costing me three grand per door as opposed to 20 grand for one door.

That makes sense. So how do these, how do these syndication companies, how do they guarantee a return knowing that there is going to be some vacancies? There could be, could potentially be downturns in the market. How is that stuff guaranteed to you the easiest way?

Well, it's guaranteed in contract. So they pay you or you sue them. And if you sue them and they're not paying you, you're probably screwed anyways. But it's guaranteed in contract. The reason they're able to do it. The easiest way to look at it is, let's just say they're buying a million dollar property and they're gonna put 300 grand down. So they're getting a 70% mortgage.

Whatever that thing is. Cash flowing per month.

Is essentially what they're going to use as the guaranteed rate of return. So the better the deal, the higher the rate of return. Now, not everybody invests that way. There's hundred different ways to skin the cat. But what they're doing is they're essentially saying, we're going to forego all of our cash flow right now and give it to our investors that own 20% of this deal. But we're going to benefit on it once we've raised rents and refi'd everyone out. But now they own 70% or 60% of the deal, but they use someone else's money, a bunch of different people's money, to make the deal happen. So the person that's doing the deal is foregoing a lot of cash flow today, but tomorrow they, they own 60% of this building without putting up all of the money or sometimes any of the money themselves.

That makes perfect sense now.

Yeah.

It's just leveraging to get in the game, get it going. And then they know they're waiting a couple years, maybe longer to refi get the investors out, and then now they own it free and clear.

Yeah.

Look at it another way. Let's say in the next five years, both of you said, you know, we're gonna, we're going to start a syndication company. We're going to buy $100 million worth of real estate in the next 10 years, borrowing money and getting investors for the other half. If all you did was buy $100 million worth of real estate and you kept it for 30 years, meaning now all of your tenants have paid down your mortgage to zero.

Now you own 60% of $100 million worth of assets.

Jeez.

I can see it. That's amazing. I've heard this explained once, and it was actually a buddy of ours.

Yeah. Do you know Corey Boatwright by chance?

One of my best friends?

Oh, yeah. He was actually on the show earlier this year and we were talking about multifamily real estate syndication deals with him as well.

That's right.

He's killing it. So, like, I would look at someone like Corey Boatwright, I would look at Nine Oak Investments. I would look at, I would look at Grant Cardone. Some of his deals are like 6% guaranteed rate of return, other Ones go higher, but for me, I like to find the ones that are grand slams. People get excited and just want to put their money into play. You should be trying to do fewer, better deals.

Yeah. Is there a way, let's say that somebody doesn't have a ton of capital. Let's say I've got, I don't know, to $5,000 and I want to invest that in real estate. Is there any ways to get involved in real estate with sort of lower capital requirements?

Yeah, Grant Cardone does it with the syndication deals. If you, if you are not an accredited investor, most people don't want to take your money because it raises their ability to get sued for a bunch of different things. There are people like Grant and we're rolling out a fund that will as well in the future take money. Some money from non accredited. Grant has his set where some of them are as low as five grand down.

Wow.

Okay.

That's crazy.

Let's say, you know, you put five grand down and I don't know, for simple math, he gives you 10% guaranteed rate per year. You know, to make 500 bucks a year on your five grand you put down is a really good deal, dude. And you know, like, yes, 500 doesn't seem like a lot, but 10% is a really damn good return. And that's how you start, dude. You start with five grand and then maybe he refis you out. You do 10 grand and then you get refi out. Next thing you know you're doing a $25,000 deal. It's just baby steps that start to compound.

Yeah, makes total sense.

That's why I love this real estate game. And for the longest time Matt and I are like, okay, well that's going to be the investment outside of the normal day to day here. That just seems like the most logical. You know, it's owning real estate. It compounds. Like you just said, you can keep reinvesting and it's just cash flow.

Yeah, yeah, man. It always goes up long term.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, I'm. This is more of just my own curiosity question, but what's the difference between doing like one of these real estate syndication deals and an rit?

So a REIT is a little bit different in the sense 1. I'm not as familiar with them, so I can't speak on this intellectually, But I think REITs have a lot less risk.

But they come with a lot less. I don't think you can really lose your money in a reit. I think it's like, almost. I mean, I guess you can in anything, but it's a lot lower risk because it's spread amongst a bunch of assets.

But you also get way less rate of return, I believe.

So I think it's a safer play.

Gotcha. So it's kind of a similar concept though, right? Where it's like a whole bunch of people's pooled money that's getting invested in real estate.

Yeah. So they're starting one fund that's buying a bunch of deals. So let's say that fund that you invested in goes and buys hundred buildings, and one of the buildings is a total dud. Well, your money isn't. You're not going to lose your money as hard because there's 99 other buildings that are keeping the fund alive. In the syndication deal, like we're talking about, there's multiple ways to do syndication. You could syndicate into funds. We've been talking about syndicating into single projects.

Right.

So we're investing in the apartment building 1, 2, 3, Montezuma or whatever.

Gotcha.

That makes sense.

Okay, but talk to a specialist in REITs. I don't know.

I don't know anything about REITs either. I just. I've heard the term thrown around, so I was just kind of curious.

Yeah, I'm sure that it's. It's a good vehicle that I think if you want to play a safer game. But again, on. On the model we're talking about, it's definitely more high risk, but I believe a big part of the risk is tied to the people you're investing with. Track record.

Gotcha.

Sweet. Yeah. And we'll list some of those names out in the notes that we have for this show, so if anybody wants to refer to those too.

Yeah.

Before we get a little too late, do you want to hit the marketing? Like, maybe just like. Because I know you do so much, man. I see your videos. You're doing like, what, Facebook lives in the morning. I think you did one today, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Something mashup, right? Yeah.

I'm kind of curious. What's like the 80 20? Like, what. What are the things that you've noticed for, like marketing and branding have moved the needle the most for you.

What has moved the needle the most for us is.

Gamification. And I'll explain what that means. Marketing to our internal client base for more clients is the biggest part of our growth. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. We. We started a couple of programs internally that we market to our own agents. To help us recruit more agents. So every year we give away a Mercedes at our holiday party.

And the way we do that is every time an agent recruits an agent, their name goes in the hat. At the holiday party, we pull a name and that person wins a three year lease.

Love that.

So the fine print is that it's a $500 a month lease. I mean, reimbursement towards any lease that they get. So they can go get a $2,000 lease or a $500 lease at Mercedes and we pay 500 bucks a month of it. It goes in their name.

Got it.

So we. A lot of the marketing that really works for us that you don't even see is.

Internal to our agents asking for referrals. But externally, there's two things that really work for us the most. Three things. One, like, I do a video every day and I do lives twice a week. That has more than anything given me authority. And it's a trip, bro. Like, I don't even think that I'm nearly out there. But I'll be at events and people come up to me and like, ask me for pictures and tell me that to them I'm like a celebrity. And I'm like, you know, I'm looking at the view tracker and I'm like, oh, that only got 2,000 views organically. Like, that's not a lot of people. But what's my point? It goes way further than I ever anticipated, it being for the amount of views that I see. And what that does is it makes me. It makes it easier for me to get people to go where I want them to go. Grant Cardone said something the other day, said people will give in to the person that they see the most.

So if you're everywhere to them, then you're like 80% way there.

Yeah. So that will bring me my second thing, which is being omnipresent. Like, we retarget hard.

Hard.

Yeah, we're pretty much going to retarget you forever as long as we can, in all channels. That, especially for the spend, is giving us the best return.

That sounds very familiar.

We do that all the time.

You've probably even seen our ads. Because we even retarget all the people that book in to be on our podcast.

Dude, ever since you guys came to closing table, I've been seeing you everywhere.

It's working.

But, like, that's important because you and me, we get it. Your listeners get it. The average consumer has no idea what's happening. They just think you're that big of A deal.

Yep.

And it elevates your brand, it elevates your stock. In their mind. It's huge. The last thing is something that we've been toying with a lot lately. And we learned this from our man, Billie Jean. You guys probably know who that is.

He's been on the show too.

Yep, yep. Which is creating polarizing content. I mean, I can't say anything that Billy didn't talk about that in that episode. So go back and watch it or listen to it. But.

Creating that front end content, that is unforgettable and it's really uncomfortable. And everything inside of you will tell you, man, this is a little too wacky. I feel like a douchebag. Whatever, Whatever. But that stuff goes so freaking far.

Yeah.

No, I mean, we flat out asked Billy on the podcast, why do you pose with pictures of your Ferraris and stuff like that? And he had a really, really great explanation, kind of along the same lines of what you're saying right now. You know, it's part of his goal to be divisive and to attract a very specific type of person.

Yeah, yeah. It's funny because I've always been into cars, and I, until recently, had a hard time justifying the expense. But listening to Billy's presentation a couple years ago, he's like, man, you guys are all worried about being a douchebag and you won't do this stuff. And I don't care about being the douchebag. And that's why I'm killing the game. And no bullshit. I was like, you know what? He's right. I'm gonna go buy the car. So, like, within a couple of weeks, I go get an i8. Like a ridiculous car. Like, yeah, the one with the doors that go up. And I got it justifying in my brain that I'm gonna leverage it on social in my content. After I got the car, I like my videographer. I don't let her do anything with it. I'm like, always feel like a douchebag. And he was, you know, the other day I was talking to him and I brought it up. I'm like, dude, I bought the car. I said I would do it. I can't do it. And he said, look, dude, you have to go and meet the customer where they're at. And that really opened it up in my mind. He said, they're at the place where they want to be able to be the guy or the girl that could buy that car or do that trip or buy that, whatever. And you need to meet them where they're at and show them that you're that person. And it really made a lot of sense. I still haven't leaned into it and it's hard. But you, you, you do that stuff and people remember you for sure.

And I feel like you're doing it the right way. Like your most. Your videos, almost every single one of them is you on camera giving some great kind of motivational or some kind of marketing branding advice. Like go check out his Instagram. And listeners just like, it's on point. Seriously, man. I looked out like, I don't know what you're doing. Yeah, it's amazing. I'm curious really quick because we probably should wrap it up here. Top of the hour. What do you have on tap right now for brew at your office?

We have the. What is it called? Blonde Honey Hip. Honey hip from latitude 33.

Okay.

Yeah, they're pretty good. Haven't had that.

Dude, I really like that beer. I used to be really into beer and then I started to mess with my stomach a lot, so I went back onto the vodka train. But Honey Hip is one of my.

Favorite, actually, the market train.

It's funny because we're both kind of the same way with beer. We actually have two companies that are in the beer space. One is an event we put on every year at the same time as Trafficking Conversion Summit called Overtime, and it's held in a brewery. And we work very closely with the.

Brewery and the brewers to make it.

To actually make the beer for that party. And then we also have another website called Homebrew Academy, which is a site that teaches people how to make their own beer. And the funny thing is, both Joe and I have essentially grown out of beer. We neither of us really drink beer that much anymore at all.

I feel like my stomach's gone away a little bit too. I look better. I feel better.

I probably shouldn't be saying that publicly on a podcast, but it is hypocrites.

That's funny.

That's why we have experts. Cool, man. Well, let's wrap it up and get you to your team over there. What's a book that you find yourself recommending or maybe you going to often?

Yeah. You mentioned Three Feet From Gold.

That's right.

That you listen to a lot of audiobooks. Are there any other ones that you recommend?

Yeah, I'll rattle off a few. One of them you've probably heard a million times. In case you haven't Think and Grow Rich. The original one is like a must read.

And I'll Give you three books that have been instrumental in our ability to land on the inc 500 three years in a row. Number one is, in no particular order, the Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes.

Really, really good book. We got so many nuggets out of that from our hiring processes and our managing everything. So, so good. Number two is, man, how do I even pick four disciplines of execution?

Oh, that's a new one.

I haven't heard that one. Yeah.

If you have a team and you want to learn how to keep your team accountable, keep projects moving, really make progress, really, really good book. I'm going to give two more. Number three, which was really the bible for everything that we've done internally at Big Block is Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, which is essentially the Zappos book. And then number four is the new gold standard, which is. I'm blanking on the author's name, but it's a book about how Ritz Carlton is the gold standard in service. And man, that book will open up your eyes a lot. And for us especially. Cause we're a low cost leader. I also believe we give more service than our high cost competition. And a big part of that is because we've just ingrained that book into our culture and our team love it.

Have you. Are you a fan of any of the Gary Keller books?

I've never read one.

No.

I'm sure they're good. I've heard good things.

No, I've heard the book Millionaire Real Estate Agent pop up a few times, so I was just kind of curious. Never read it myself.

That book is kind of like the bible for people. I just gravitated when I first got into the business to a guy named Mike Ferry and, and really just read all his stuff. But I heard his other book, which is the one thing, is really good as well, but I haven't read it.

That's a good one.

I have read that one.

Yeah, I think it was Corey Boatwright was talking about Mike Ferry as well. Yeah.

Yep. Mike Ferry is my dude. Man. That's.

That's awesome, man.

Cool.

My coach forever.

Cool. Well, we've already. We've already kept you a couple minutes over here. Where do you want to send people after listening to this? Your business is Big Block Realty. Is there. You know what? We're link up your Instagram account. Is there anywhere else you'd want people to go check out after listening to this episode?

I'd say those two things, dude. Bigblock realty.com and you can follow me on Facebook or Instagram at the ninth zero and I'm happy to keep the conversations going.

Thank you for your time. Appreciate it, man. It's been fun.

Hey, this is really good. You guys do a great interview. And any way I can help, let me know. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, man. You got it. Take care, buddy.

Take care, guys.

Thanks, everybody, for listening to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, for taking the time to listen. We want to give you something a little bit special. Every single episode that we do, we actually have somebody on our team take notes. We basically have a Cliffs Notes version of every episode where you can go and find all of the tips and tactics that they laid out, all of the resources that they. They laid out, all the good stuff from this episode. We actually have a nice, simple notes version that you can find on our website. So go to evergreenprofits.com find this episode that you just listened to, and give us your email address and we'll send you the notes. Thanks for listening.

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