Rollin' With The DM - Real Talk - Real Access I 005 | Mark Evans DM

Foreign.

It's your boy Mark Evans, dm. Rolling with the dm. Real talk, real access. Hanging out here with my boy, Alex Pardo. What's up, Alex? What's up, Mark?

How you doing, man?

Definitely, man. Thank you for being here. What's going on, buddy?

Everything's great, man. Living the life. We're just talking. This does not suck.

Look around, look around. That's when Dan throws in B roll and just shows how cool it is today.

Yeah, there you go.

Ocean's off the hood. So flat today, but so, man, everyone's sitting here watching. Appreciate you coming out first and foremost, but people are sitting here watching. Who's Alex? And why should I listen?

Yeah, man. So I got started in this business back in 2005. You know, coming out of college, I always had aspirations to kind of climb the corporate ladder. And I always say, you know, be careful what you ask for. I remember three months into the job, man, working 80 a week, I was like, there's no way I can kind of live the lifestyle right, you know, that I wanted to design for myself and my family and not only that, but impact others working for somebody, man. So long story short, I went traveling around Europe for three months. I got back, went to a marketing for deals boot camp, took out a letter from that manual that I got sent out a pre foreclosure direct mail campaign. Ended up landing a deal that made me 44 grand, almost as much as I was making my corporate job.

Wow.

That was back in 2005 and you and I were talking a mutual friend, you know, Ramon Gonzalez. I remember I. I met with home. I didn't know what the hell I was doing and. And there was that fear, right? It was like, you don't want to screw up the deal. I called him and I brought him into the deal and. And that was actually my first deal back in. I want to say it was like December of 05.

Really?

Yeah.

That's. So you went to college.

Would you go to college for fiu, man? So I double majored in finance. Mis. Ask me how much of that I've used in my life. Probably zero. So yeah, man. Double majored in from fiu and Ramon actually went to the same school.

Really?

Yeah.

So you guys got a lot of comment, didn't know.

Yeah, yeah, we did.

That's great. So you did your first deal, you pop off 44k. Were you still working the full time job or you were like done that?

No, man, I was done. I actually at the time, this kind of embarrassing. I moved Back down to Miami because I was living in New York City and I was living at home, and I didn't have, you know, I was like, I got to do this. It's like I burned the ships.

Love it.

You know, And I was like, I'm doing it. So ever since then, man, full time, haven't stopped.

And.

And yeah, man. Just growing from here.

Right. And now, like, what are you doing now today? Like, if you fast forward today, then we'll talk about everything in the middle, but you fast forward today, you're in the wholesale business. Rehab. What side of the business?

Yeah, man. So done all types of deals the last 10 years. But at my foundation, my core, my bread and butter has always been wholesaling. Absolutely. Love wholesaling. You know, people always ask me, you know, shiny object syndrome.

Right.

Like, what should I do within real estate? I always say, regardless of your experience, you should always have wholesaling as a foundation. So. Yeah, man. Right now, I mean, you and I have talked about it. We have. I have a team. I mean, we're currently kind of doing some restructuring, but I have a team of seven people and. Yeah. 100% wholesaling in the South Florida market.

That's awesome. You're in a pretty hot market, right?

Yeah.

How do you get your deals? Do you do co wholesaling direct mail?

Yeah. So probably about 70 to 80% of our deals come from direct mail.

Okay.

And then we pop off some deals from the MLS every now and then we do some co wholesaling. But, you know, like you and I talked about last week, that's gonna be a more of a focus of ours moving forward.

Right.

Just with the buyers list that we have and everything.

That's great. Yeah. So you have a different value in the marketplace is what we're talking about. Like, you have 6, 7, 8,000 people on a list that you build trust, rapport, relationship with through consistency. And now we just get in there and you kind of start nurturing those relationships, extracting, putting those together.

You know, it's about provid. Providing value. I think you and I both know that people always kind of approach others with a handout, looking to get something.

Sure.

And I think if you just have that mindset that you're going to add value and you're going to give to others and like you said, nurture that relationship. You know, good things come from that in the future.

Yeah. I mean, how can it not?

Yeah.

I always have that saying, you cannot give the world.

That's right.

Right. You know, the thing Is too. We're not saying save the world before we save ourself, but at the end of the day, provide great value, have a great product, and everything else falls into place.

That's right. You know, Tony Robbins talks about, you know, the secret, asks for so many things, but he says the secret to living is giving. And that's always. That's something that years ago when I attended one of his events, it just kind of stuck with me.

The secret to living is giving. I like that. It's awesome. So what do you got going on? So you're a family man, You're a lifestyle guy too, right?

Yeah, man. Yeah. So I run. My team is 100% virtual. I work from home. I've always worked from home, never had an office. Have a beautiful baby girl that is about to be two years old and I got another one on the way.

Oh, you do?

Yeah, another baby girl.

May you just telling it, telling me now. Did I not know that?

I don't know, man. I don't know if you never told me about that. I don't.

That's awesome.

Yeah, man. So my wife's pregnant and. Exactly, you know, two years apart.

The.

The girls will be. So family's growing, man. Life is good.

That's great, man. Congrats. You got some stuff going on at the homestead too, right? Doing some remodeling and all that?

Yeah, man. Yeah. So I'm building an office in my backyard. Building about a 400 square foot structure back there.

Oh, you do one of those micro offices.

Yeah, one of those modern sheds. Yeah. So I'm doing. Are you really?

Yeah, I'm getting ready to do one in Ohio.

Oh, cool.

Are you doing it yourself or you hired.

No, man, I can't even pick up a hammer dud.

Yeah, I can pick it up, but I gotta throw it at someone.

Yeah, exactly. Rehabbing is not my game, man. So, yeah, we're hiring all that out.

Yeah. You know, I used to do rehabs, so that's why I gotta wear a hat because I have no hair left.

God bless you, man. I know there's a lot of money in that business. And if. If it's your passion, go for it, but for me it's just. It's not, man.

There's a lot of money, but there's also a lot of risk.

Yeah.

You know, I know you can mitigate your risk by buying properly and sell all that, but like, there's so many what I don't like about it, especially on the retail side. There's so Many uncontrollable environments. I'm in deals. I'm in about 20 retail deals right now, but as a private gu, you know, share some profits, but, like, there's always risk with that. Like, you know, Trump's in. In the office now. Like, if he changes or shifts, like, the interest rate goes up to 12%, people freak out. That affects your deal flow.

And it's a different business model, man. Just managing crews and just. There's so much. There's a lot more moving parts to that business, you know?

Right. Yeah. We got Dan in the background. He's thinking about doing some building and rehabbing. And I told him that's the hardest part. Out of all the pieces in our business, that when you say rehabs the.

Hardest way to make money.

It's the hardest. For sure. It look awesome because the numbers on paper look amazing, but it's by far one of the hardest pieces out there. Like you said, if it's your unique ability and you can get in there and do all the work. But the problem is with that then, because that's how I started, because that's all I knew. Construction, I grew up around it. My problem is I was in there, I was able to do that. So I was in the business every day.

Got it was in construction, right?

Yeah. That's what frustrated me because I was like, I knew I could do it. And then someone's like, oh, that's going to be two grand. I'm like, I could do that for $500, but I didn't have that business mindset thinking, but I could do 20 of them and make so much more as opposed to being here one, you know. You know, it'd be one place at a time.

People watch HDTV now. They want to be those superstars, you know, so people jump into rehabbing, not knowing, and then it's like, you know, the world is turned upside down.

Yeah. I think I'm gonna start a new group called Rehab for Rehabbers.

There you go. Don't need it too.

They do need it. So about you, man. Like, so you're in the market, what's your average price point? Because I. I mean, you have a great podcast show, which we'll talk about, but, like, what's your average price point of house that you're wholesaling?

So typically, about anywhere between 150 and 250. I know that's kind of a broad range, but yeah, man, I mean, we, you know, last year, our average profit per Transaction was about 31, 32 grand a deal. And usually I find that when we get to that, like, 200 to 250 range, our profit margins tend to kind of go up whenever we deal with properties in the hood. You know, our profit margins kind of tend to shrink.

Right.

And ironically enough, there's more headaches involved with those, you know, lean issues and things of that nature. But. But yeah, man, we. Our bread and butter is pretty much 150 to 250 in the Miami market.

Right. That's great. And your goal this year is to have this. This is going to be your biggest year.

Yeah, absolutely, man.

You know, really simpl for maximum growth. I mean, kind of, that's where you're at right now, which is awesome. It's a great place to be.

Just talked about that on the podcast, man. One of the takeaways. I know I was at the Dealathon with you last week, and consistency and simplification, those were like. And that sounds. No pun intended. Simple.

Right? Yeah.

But it's when you. When you really put things into perspective and you realize that to grow and scale, you don't need to, like, get complicated and add all these moving parts. Sometimes just by kind of restructuring and simplifying your business, that's how you can slow down, to speed up.

Yeah, No, I mean, it's. The problem is the social piece to it, because it's hard to tell your buddies, like, hey, I only have two people working for me, for example. You know, I can do more deals oftentimes with two people that I could do with 20 people. You're focusing your time on deal making or people managing. Managing, you know, and as you know, it's hard to manage people.

And the thing is, man, you know, in our space, it's not the sexy thing to talk about that it's just you and maybe somebody else. Right?

Sure.

Everybody talks now about growing a huge team. I've talked about that in the past.

Right.

But you got to make sure that you have the right people on the team. Not just about hiring, but, you know, you got to have the infrastructure and you got to have that consistent deal flow to then get to that next step, I think.

Well, you know, back to that, like, so, like, let's say if you have. I did. I messed up one time. I hired 12 guys to do acquisitions for me. It stressed me out so much to keep lead flow going. I started getting lead stress. So what happens? You just start throwing money, and then you start getting, you know, sidetracked on what's really important, and tracking went out the window like we're like, dude, we just need more leads. Just do it. Do it. Like. And we wasted. So we probably wasted. Well, we probably lost a million dollars in money and unfocused.

Yeah.

I mean, it takes three to four months to recover from that.

Yeah.

You know, because you got to restructure the team. You got to reorganize the vision with them. You got to say, hey, guys, we're actually going small. Not big. Here's what. Here's what that means. Because going small to me is not necessarily about going small in business, but going small and, like, what we're trying to accomplish. But you have to grow, right? Two people, a thousand calls, as opposed to 12 people, 100 calls each or whatever.

You know, I think less is more, man. Yeah, I think that that's kind of the punchline in all this is. Is you don't ne. Always solve problems by throwing more money at them or by hiring more people. I think simplification, consistency, and just that mindset that lessons more.

Right. So for you, I mean, you're a systems guy, right? You love. Yeah, you love the systems.

I love systems, man.

You're like Peter. You're trying to figure out how to automate everything.

Yeah, actually, Peter and I were really just hearing him talk. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of me, man. But, yeah, it's. And so let me tell you, man, sometimes I think that can be a downfall. I think, you know, we have technology and all these resources. I don't know if you agree with me, but I think it's great to leverage all those tools. But, man, sometimes just realize that the phone is like a powerful weapon, and you don't. You need that human interaction at times. I don't think things should always be automated through technology.

Well, one of you know. Yeah, no, I agree a thousand percent. That's how I grew my company. Through the phone. Right. Phone and just meeting people and just being genuine and, you know, humanization. But you've done a good job. Humanization, humanizing systems and processes forward vesting.

Right.

But there is that one little extra piece. One of our girls in acquisitions, she actually lost six deals because she was texting, not calling. She had the deal. And I know the guy that actually got the deal that she didn't get. He called me up. He's like, hey. He's like, she had the deal. She would have just picked up the phone. You know, so sometimes we get busy again. You could be busting your towel and be right there. But if deals keep falling apart, you Got to stop for a minute and look and see what's going on.

And I also think, man, it's knowing who you're working with, whether it's a seller, a buyer. It's, you know, I have buyers that I haven't had very many conversations and they prefer to deal by selling. Sure. You know, so I think it's just understanding personality type types and just the psychology of certain people, how they like to operate and function, you know?

Yeah, it's a great point. Like this is just a seller, mom, mom and pop seller. So like they're going to want a little bit more personalization. The business guy, like you and I, we. I don't care if you talk to me. Just shoot me a text if it's a great deal. I'm buying, I'm in. Send the title, let's close kind of thing.

Yep.

But yeah, you're right. Just kind of identifying who you're communicating with is key. That's right. That's awesome, man.

Definitely.

So for you, like, what's your big, what's your biggest like frustrations when you were beginning? I don't, I always try to remember back in 96 when I was starting, but like, biggest frustration just not going fast enough maybe.

You know what, man? I think one of the biggest mistakes I made, and this is a cliche answer, but it's the God's honest truth is I probably waited too long before I actually paid for a coach.

Right.

You know, it took me two years. And I remember around 2007, you know, my, we were, we were doing well, man. We were probably doing at that time, just my first year in business, we maybe did 40 something deals and I remember we ended up buying a. In La Solis in Fort Lauderdale. We decided that let's get into the rehab game, you know, like I knew, I knew my.

Everyone does it, dude. Everyone does steak, man.

So instead of like most people say, let's get into the rehab game, we'll buy like a cookie cutter fifty hundred thousand dollars house. So I decided to buy a half a million dollar property in La Solas with a partner who I brought in as a funding partner. And yeah, man, house was at the time probably worth maybe 750. I think we picked it up for five and a quarter. Maybe needed about 50 grand in repair. So I'm thinking there's a decent spread there. Lost my shirt on the deal. You know, it was around 2007, the market just totally tanked. It started to shift and Valuable, valuable lesson I learned. I know if I would have had a coach in my corner, I would have never gotten into that deal.

Right.

You know, and then aside from that, it's. I see so many people, they start marketing and then they get leads and it's just them or a virtual assistant. They're working. They stop the marketing.

Yes.

Right. And they close a deal and it's like now they got to start all over. So I think just that consistency with your marketing.

Yeah, well, I mean, at the deal a thon even, right. We're always talking to guys like, you know, hey, my. My deal flow is not consistent. The reason the deal flow is not consistent is simple. The marketing is not consistent. As simple as it sounds. Listen, this is a lot easier said than done. Especially when you're not making deals happen. You start stressing out about money and like, oh my gosh, is it working? Is it working? Really? Just trusting the process. Right.

And by the way, man, just to keep it real, I know this is real talk and I'm there now. You know what I mean? You and I have had long conversations about that. And so it's crazy because even though I know that sometimes you still fall back into that hole. And I think the biggest thing is just surrounding yourself with. With like minded people, people operating at a higher level and just. And then just taking action with the information you get, you know. Right.

Think 100% think about back in the like, right. Even now. Maybe we're all going through it now or sometimes I go through it still. But like when you're scared to make the decision, if you don't make the decision, it hurts you more than if you made the decision because the recovery time is so hard.

That's right. It takes two years. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Like, it's like, oh, well, you only you just didn't drop that week. It's like, well, you got to re. Ramp back up. You got to remember what list you said to. What card did I send to. How many should I send? Like ye. It's, it's. It takes two, three months, like legit to like get back to normal. Normalization.

Yep, that's right.

So for you, like, coach is huge. I believe in coaches every day. But like you said, surrounding yourself. What's the saying in the top five people you're around the Jim Rome quote.

Yeah. Yeah. You are the average of the five people that you hang around with the most.

Right, Dan? That'd be a good quote on the bottom of the video here, I think because it's a powerful quote and it's something like it's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, like, you can't be hanging out with guys doing 20 grand a year trying to figure out how to get to a million a year.

It's not gonna work.

It's not gonna work at all. Yeah, man. So for you. So get a coach you would have done. Is there anything else? Like, would you. Would you study more real estate investing or business building?

Business building, right. That's. That's a mistake I made is I was all about jumping from course to course. Now for me, like, I know a lot of people have a challenge of taking action. That's never been my issue. Like, you can give me something on speed of implementation, right? I think that's one of the things that separates people that succeed from those that kind of struggle. So that's never been my challenge. But yeah, man, I was. I love to consume information now. I take action on a lot of that info. But I would bounce from course to course. And. And you know, and for me, if I would have been bouncing, like, just immersing myself more in business development, business strategy, more marketing stuff as opposed to like the X's and O's of real estate investing, I think I would have advanced a lot farther, quicker.

Yeah, I mean, dude, honestly, like, like we said talk here is like, I think it's what saved my ass for years because I did not do that. I only focused on business. Like I boxed myself in so tight cuz I'm so afraid of shiny object syndrome. Like I. Everyone's like, dude, you need to be doing short member when short sales is like crazy high. I'm like, no. When the market in Miami, when my buddies were making hundreds of millions of dollars in condos, they're like, you got to get them. Like, no, like, could I made money? Yes, but I could have lost two and you know, and then took away from where I'm at today. So I was always. I'm still like very, very, very hardcore. Like, that's why I'm always about going deep, right? With my mindset, with my marketing and all those things. Because it's like, it can crush you even now, man.

I mean, that the content I consume is more like Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, stuff like that. It's not so much, you know, you can always learn something new in real estate for the most part. Things, I think you got to be in tune with the market, especially your local market where you're doing deals. But yeah, man, that's a mistake I made. I mean, I wish I would have known you back then I would have just immersed myself in more business development, business strategy, marketing.

Sure.

Because, man, you know, this, I. I think 80% of this game is mental.

Oh my gosh.

You know, and I, I didn't learn that until like maybe four or five years into the game. You know, at the beginning, I was just kind of doing, doing, doing and running 100 miles an hour. And, and. But yeah, man, I think so much of this is just kind of what's in between your ears.

Well, I mean, think about it. Like we're talking about everything's between our ears, right? And what we're saying, it's like, you know, direct mail is easy. Implementing it's easy. But why aren't we doing it? It's because it's between our ears where, like, we start getting scared, we start pulling back. Where I see a lot of people get in trou retract when they should be pushing up, you know, because this gets scary. You get out of our comfort zone at that high level. And hence why that five person group that you're rolling with needs to be saying, dude, like that's Mickey Mouse. In five months from now, we're gonna be laughing at you spending 10 grand a month. Yeah, you should be spending 100 grand a month.

You know, sometimes it's. It's that saying you can't see the forest from the trees or vice versa.

Yeah, yeah.

And sometimes you need people. That's why I remember when you and I had a conversation, you told me something that it wasn't like, I've never heard that before, but sometimes you need to hear it from somebody else framed in a certain way for it to then click for you.

Sure. It's all timing. Yeah, no, it's. Dude, there's so much opportunity, right? I mean, it never ends.

It's. It's crazy, man. And I think that's where just having a clear vision of like, what do you want your life to look like? What do you want your business to look like? I think that's where it helps and, you know, allows you to just say, hey, is this the opportunity I want to jump on? Or no, it doesn't fit my vision. At least that's my belief.

No, you and I are the same way. Like, we're lifestyle guys. We love hanging out with our spouse. We love hanging out with our kids. Like, I'm not the guy looking to go to 25 seminars a week and just like travel and be crazy and, you know, all that fun stuff. I've been there, done that. I Don't want to do it anymore. But like, I. I think everything, every decision I make is based off of is it going to fit in my lifestyle. I'm not trying to please someone else. I'm trying to please myself.

You know? That's right.

It's so easy. Real quick, just a sidetrack. This is, this is your boy Tony Robbins house right there.

Look at that.

Yeah, that's his pool house he's building right there. There.

Beautiful, man. Tony's a man. I love that dude.

Yeah, now he's got some energy, huh?

Didn't you go to his, his event last year?

Yeah, yeah, I remember.

You were scoping from it.

Yeah, it's March, but yeah. So for you, like, you know, getting going again. It's funny you said something. So it's like, we don't have a problem implementing, I think. I don't know about you, but, like, I'm afraid if I learn something, if I don't implement, it's never getting done.

It won't.

Therefore, I expedite the implementation process.

That's right.

And I'm gonna screw it up.

I've noticed, man, that the longer I take to implement something, life gets in the way. Things happen. You just, you forget about it. I was actually talking another mutual friend of ours, Chris Chico, and it's like, you know, we were talking. When you go to one of these events or when you attend the Mastermind, it's like, what do you. What are the first couple things you're implementing right away? Because if not, you fast forward six months down the road and it's like, yeah, that was a great event I went to. But what did I get out of it? Like, what, what did I do from it, you know?

Yeah, no, I mean, we could talk. This could be like a five hour podcast show. Literally. No, because this is us. This is like how we think. It's like. I think the key is like, again, what we're talking about, everything you're learning from this show, your podcast show, all these things, it's all between your ears. And everything we're talking about is between our ears. Like, how do we get more deals, you know, go out and do this? How do we get funding? Just ask questions. How do you get more results? Implement, like, implement quicker, you know, and.

So much of this, man, I think to kind of piggyback on all this and maybe put a bow on it. I think it's like working out. It's like showering. It's like, you don't just do it once or Twice and expect to results. It's. And I think that's where the power of the mastermind or having a coach comes in. Is that every single day? Because, man, even I'm guilty sometimes of just. I know something, but I might not do it or I might not do it the way I need to do it. Right. And I think when, you know, when I connect with people like you and I just. It's. It helps you elevate your game.

You know, we all win, right? We're all elevating. I think that's the key is, like, sometimes people think the mastermind leader is not elevating. The truth is he has to be elevating multiples as well to just kind of keep adding value to the group because we're all growing, we're all getting scared. We're all frustrated, we're all excited. Like, these things never stop.

Yeah.

You know, Bill Gates, he's frustrated and scared and stressed out. But it might be about donating more money or, you know, hey, I'm gonna die in 40 years. Where do I want this? Like, everyone ticks in different levels.

You know, I think, you know, with. With the Internet nowadays, man. And then people create, you know, they put all this content out there, and I think to a certain degree. Let me know what your thoughts on this. Maybe you totally disagree and tell me. I think it. It almost does an injustice to a certain degree that people out there think that it all, like, rainbows and unicorns, right? That there's no, like, there's no down times, that there's no, like, challenges in their business. And that's not the case at all, man. We all face it, dude.

It's called life. Yeah. I mean, listen, you could be the healthiest guy in the world and go to the doctor and say, hey, yo, you have stage two cancer, like, boom, you got to ride that wave, and then you got to get stronger. And it makes you. The key is. Is life is just not for weak people. If you want to survive and thrive, like, you can get by. If you just want to, like, blend in and be normal and average. But, guys, I don't know anybody that's normal on average in our world. Like, I want to thrive. I want to survive. I want to grow. I want to push the boundaries and, like, what's even possible. Yeah, but no, I agree with you 100% on that. I think it's. Dude, there's. That's. What I was going to say is, like, there's. We're failing right now. There's probably deals falling apart behind the scenes. I just told you, you know, one of the girls lost six deals that could have been 60 grand to our company, and she would have picked up the phone. Like, that's a failure to me. It's not the end of the world, though, because there's another deal on the next phone call.

That's right. And I think the key is taking the lessons from that.

Right.

And then. And then tweaking it so that you don't, you know, your team doesn't continue to make the same mistakes.

Well, no, it's key for. So for me, like, I learned about that and immediately did a call with the people involved in that side of it and just said, guys, as a leader, you know, instead of, like, you know, you're stupid, you lost this deals, blah, blah, blah. It's like, hey, guys, what did. What can we learn from this? This is a great lesson for all of us. You know, what's the opportunity and the obstacle that we just occurred? Like, it's real. But learning from. From it. Please, let's not have that happen again. Here's. And then they all, like, you're right. I should have totally picked up the phone.

Yeah. And actually, I use, you know, situations like that because one of the things that I've done with my team, and I know that you guys do this a lot, is. I know. I think you do a daily huddle. Yep. But we do weekly trainings, like, with the acquisitions department, the sales department, and we'll use things that we drop the ball on as, like, coaching lessons.

Nice.

You know, and I think that's one of the things that I. That I talked to a few people about is at the end of each deal, we'll kind of, like, do like a debrief. Like, what went well, what didn't, you know, what can we do better? What can we implement going forward? And I think for me, that's. That's something I'd like to share with people that's been really helpful and beneficial for us.

No, absolutely, man. I love it. What. What's been, like, the biggest lesson in the last 30 days for you on your team? Like, I think.

I think we touched on it, man. It's. It's. Honestly, and. And this really kind of hit me like a ton of bricks in the last couple weeks is. It's just simplifying, man. Just understand that a huge team doesn't necessarily mean more profit and more deals.

Yeah.

You know, matter of fact, sometimes I think it's the opposite.

It does. It does the opposite, you know, So.

I think for me, that's probably the biggest thing.

Right.

And then, you know, we talked about consistency. That's across the board. Not just marketing, but just whatever you do, it's, it's. Where are you focusing your time to generate the revenue?

Right. You know, so what is your unique ability? Like, you know, is it like right now? Like, do you have a unique ability?

Yeah, brother. I think for me, man, it's an. And this is actually something that I wasn't even aware of until I started asking people around me. And for me, everybody seems to tell me that just building relationships, like, just being genuine with people.

Right.

You know, and I think, I don't know if that qualifies as a unique quality. But yeah, man, I think for me it's just being able to like, connect people and build relationships, be genuine and like, I sincerely care about other people and I want to help and that.

Sure.

And that sounds so, like, corny cliche, but it's the truth, you know.

No, listen, I'm the same way. I mean, that's what dealmakers are. The key is, is how do you get involved in those pieces and, you know, you can even profit from it, I don't think. As long as everyone's, you know, transparent about that and no one minds paying you for connections and referrals and, you know, helping them sell a deal or buy a deal.

Right.

I mean, at the end of the day, it's all, what is it? Disclosure, disclosure, disclosure kind of thing. That's right. So that's great, man. So what's on the horizon in the next, like, is there any 90 day goal things that you're, you're like, this is going to happen come hell or high water.

Yeah, man. So more consistent deal flow.

Right.

You know, again, we've talked about it, I think, you know, three, four years ago, for the last couple years, I was in a position where we were consistently doing, you know, three to five deals. And a mistake that I made that I want to share with people is I just, I took my eye off the ball, I started to hire people and I let them do their thing. You know, I don't like micromanaging, but you got to hold your team accountable. So if you're in a position, I think, where you're going to hire people and bring people on board, make sure that there's accountability in place. Because before you know it, you wake up and you're like, some months you're doing deals and then other months you're not, you know, and it's. It's riding that income roller coaster. And that deal roller coaster isn't fun.

It's not fun. But so when you say accountable, like, how do you keep people accountable? Through KPI's metrics, man.

Yeah, metrics, man. So, like, for example, you know, we got back from the deal a thon, and like, for my lead manager, it's. Which we're actually consolidating into the acquisitions guy. It's. He's got to go on a certain number of appointments every single week. Right. You know, he's got to make a certain number of calls every single day. Right? Like, those are some of the things that we're talking about on the disposition side, you know, we have to have five meaningful conversations with real cash buyers every single day. Things like that.

So easy. It's funny. So I was helping with a guy. This is true story. So a buddy of mine, he calls 20 buyers a day. The guy makes millions of dollars a year. He still calls 20 buyers a day.

That's awesome.

And just has conversations with them. So I was talking with him, and my other buddy is having challenges in that side with his team. And just randomly, yesterday, I got. His name's Dave. I got like, dave, you mind if I get on the phone with you and your team? Let's make some calls to buyers. I want to talk to them with you so we can. Can show your team how to, like, engage and conversate. Right? So literally we call seven people. We talk to all seven people. And literally every call is different, right? Every. You cold?

No, no. I'm actually trying to point it this way. Oh, no, I'm good.

So every seven. Every call is different, right? Because these guys are getting discouraged because they'll talk to someone and they're like, oh, yeah, they're not real buyers, and they just hang up phone and go on their day.

Yeah, right.

Because people avoid that. Like, I look at it as, oh, my God, there's so much opportunity here.

You know, it's funny, man. Sometimes I think I like. And I realized when I hired somebody on my team, we would do, like, sh. So I jump on a call, and I wanted to hear, and I could tell I was with them, they'd call, and they were hoping the person wouldn't pick up. And I'm like, that's not the mindset you need to have. Like, you have a value and a service to provide these people. You have to connect with them, and you got to build these relationships. And I think a lot of people just put they put so much pressure because it's a sales call. Right. But if I think if you have a mindset shift and you don't approach it like that, you know, like just one, you're fantastic at that, you know, like, I've heard a bunch of your calls and you're just, just like, how can we put deals together? Like, what do you need? What are you looking for?

Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it is a sales call. Every call is a sales call. I don't care if you're calling your, your girlfriend, you're going to sell her into becoming your wife. I mean, it sells going on at all times.

Yep.

We're selling you on something, we don't even know what it is. But there's a sell going on because that's just what salespeople do. Like, everyone's selling something. Likelihood. You gotta like us. I mean, we're something, whatever. But for me, yeah, I mean, like, it's consultive. Like, dude, just ask. They'll tell you what they want. Like if I'm there with an agend just to sell my property, yes, it's going to be a little rougher, but like, I just want to listen to them and see how I could serve them at their best ability. Like, where are you at, how much you have? What are you working with? I don't know if you guys do this, but like I was doing these calls and I was talking to this guy and like, he literally is like, you know, just a good dude. You can tell a good old school boy Ohio guy and just have a conversation with him.

Yeah, Just, just be real. Just connect with people on a human level.

You know, it is like why, I.

Don'T get like why people struggle so much with that on the phone. It's. They sound like robots. They're following a script and that's fine. But just, just be a person, you know?

Yeah, I literally have zero scripts. I give them, hey, these are the five things I want you to take from the call.

Right.

And I have zero scripts. That's Frank McKinney's house. He built the Aqua Leona 32 million dollar green home. Most expensive home and most expensive green home.

32 million.

Yeah.

Wow. He still has that tree house, right?

Yeah, yeah. Down in Delray. Yeah. But yeah, for you, like, people are watching. So like, boom, you make the call. Like, are you using like crazy CRMs? Are you.

Yeah.

What's that look like?

So, no, we use podio. We've been using podio for years. And, and That's a. You know, that's one thing. If you're. Because there's so much noise out there about, you know, use this CRM automate this way. Just if you're gonna get involved in all that, hire that stuff out. Like, don't. Don't roll up your sleeves and start getting involved in, like, all the. The technical, like, you know, all that stuff that. It's the flashy stuff. Right, right. And. And yeah. Does it help you, you know, streamline your process and does it save time?

Absolutely.

But focus on just, you know, doing deals. Don't focus on, like, the technical stuff.

Yeah. I mean, dude, I swear, so many. I mean, before CRMs even existed, people are still doing deals. Right. So I always look at that pen and a paper. Yeah, Pen and paper.

Yep.

Ideally the pen works because every time I grab a pen, it never works, but. But yeah, pen and paper. And just like, you know, again, I think there, like you said, there's so much noise. Every CRM is great if you use it.

I think it's that. It's that saying everything works, you got to work.

Yeah.

You know, whether it comes to marketing, whether it comes to CRM. So. Yeah, man, it's just. I think it's a shiny object. There's so much noise out there about like the latest and greatest CRM and.

Right. We just lost 99% of the viewers because you said they have to work.

It takes work, though. You know, people think that it's not push button simple. You know, you gotta. You gotta get in there and you gotta work, otherwise it's not going to.

Yeah. I call it the Zillow mindset. Have you. Have you. Did you ever see what Zillow looked like when it first came out?

No, I don't think I did.

Oh, my. Dude, it's.

This was back like, what, 08 09?

It's horrendous. It's disgusting. Yeah. But you see where it's at now? So people are trying to build Zillow what it is today as opposed to starting with where you're at today.

Yep.

And when you do that, you're playing someone else's game, not your game. That's right. Same thing with CRM. Same thing with business period, in general. I always say, like, you know, mind your own business. Meaning, like, your numbers are the only numbers, you know, to be true and genuine. And there's a lot of guys that talk numbers out there that have really. They're just. They're. They're lying, but not lying on purpose. Because they probably genuinely just don't know their real numbers. You know, we talked to business guys. It's hard to know your own numbers.

Shark Tank, Marcus Lemonis. You know, you watch all those shows and like, what's one of the first thing to say? You got to know your numbers, period. Yeah.

And if you're watching this and you don't know your numbers, what do you think are the top, like seven numbers? They should know, man.

Cost per lead, you know, cost per acquisition.

Right.

I would say are two big ones. I know cost for lead for us. Cost per lead for us is one of those things. Average profit per transaction that's going to vary from market to market. I think it's, you know, it's reverse engineering your goals, especially with. That's a great thing about direct mail is that it's scalable. Right, right. Versus like something like SEO is you can't do more SEO. I mean, you can to a certain degree, but it's not like you send out X amount of mailers and you know, you're going to typically get 1 to 2% response rate or more. You can bank on a certain number of leads with SEO. You can, you know, so. But yeah, man, the KPIs are critical.

So you're saying cost per lead, cost.

Per lead, cost per acquisition. Right. So like how much mailer, how many mailers do you have to send out to get a deal on average? Right. Profit per transaction.

Right.

I think is a big one. That that's going to vary.

Sure.

From market to market. And then also some of the KPIs people don't talk about, which alluded to, I think at the beginning was, you know, like if you have team members in place, how many call? Like, what are the things that are going to move the needle in your business?

Sure.

Right. So for us, it's how many appointments are we going on on a weekly basis to meet with sellers.

Right.

And for, you know, if you're not going on appointments and you're doing it over the phone. I know that's one of the things we spoke about. It's, you know, how many conversations are you having with people on a daily basis?

Right.

It could be something like that.

Yeah. No, I mean, and the thing is, is each person in your company is going to have a different KPI. Their numbers are going to be different. We have some sales guys that are amazing and we know 110 they're going to close and then you have that other person 1 out of 25, but we know who they are. We know what kind of leads they close. Like you just know the numbers, right? You kind of expectations and angles. So what's great about KPIs too, it forces people to focus on actions and actions equal results.

That's what's going to drive revenue.

Drives rev, right? So it's so key. And I'm kind of old school with like the plus profit thing that you were saying. Like, you know, I'm kind of like when Peter and I talk my coo, it's like, yo, what are we plus today? You know? Plus what? Plus what are these guys walking or what's going on here?

And you know, along the whole thing of KPIs, Mark, one of the things that, that, that I remember I walked away with last week was have your team focus on one main KPI week. You know, because I've been guilty of that, man, where I'm looking at like four or five, six KPIs and I'm like pushing all this stuff on my team and it's like, where's the focus?

Right? Do we all do it? We all think we can do a hundred things and get it done. It's the truth of is what's that 20% of stuff in our business that's going to give us 80% of the results.

80, 20 rule.

80, 20 rule. And it's real, man. Like, and the truth is it helps for procrastination because you have direct focus, right. And, and you can like actually see results and get excited about it. When you're doing 20 things that, you know, 20 things at 5%, like the, to see the bigger results, it's going to be a lot slower, sluggish, more stressful. You're doing a lot. You're definitely working harder, not seeing your hard work pay off. I love like take like even dude, just jumping on the phone and making 20 calls to buyers will change your business. Just that one action and. Or 20 sellers and or 20 other investors.

You know something that I think kills investors and wholesalers and entrepreneurs in general is you get complacent. You know, I think if you can eliminate that gene from your body of getting complacent. I mean, I've been there, you know, like business is going well and it's like you start to like kick up a little more and you don't. You're not as hungry.

Sure.

And so, you know, if you don't even look at your bank account, if you're doing well and you just assume you don't have any money coming in and Just things aren't just. You gotta have that drive, you know?

I agree 100%.

Yeah.

You know, I think the thing is complacency. I think the reason it comes into a lot of people, and I'm talking me included, I had big goals when I started, but I forgot to raise them as I was growing. So being complacent, you might be hitting your goals of where you started, but you're a different person now. Yep. Like, our goals change now every month.

Because you're growing as a person.

Dude, we're growing as a person, as a business, as a team. Like, it's a team. Like, we're all growing. So, you know, if you're like, yeah, I just want to make a million dollars a year and that's it. Like, to generate a million dollars in revenue and real, it's not hard to do. I mean, I know people that don't even have college, high school degrees that do it.

You just got to take the right type of action, I think.

Yeah. Well, dude, it's.

That's what it boils down to green.

Look like, again, we're talking about this real talk talk. Like, I remember when I was doing a lot of deals, I got complacent, I stopped doing a lot of deals, and I'm like, what is wrong? The only thing that was wrong, I wasn't engaged on the actions.

That's right.

Everything else is there. Like, the more green I was, the more money I made. Because I didn't overthink it. I didn't over complicate it because I didn't know how to do those over complications.

Right.

We've all been there.

Yeah.

So it's like getting. Just getting in the. In the trenches and just being engaged. Like, people see us and they're like, oh, you guys are lifestyle. You're on the beach, you're out of the country, state, whatever.

Yeah.

That doesn't mean we're not engaged. That means we're just engaged in different pieces as we grow.

And when you disengage, that's when you start to see, like, your results kind of go this way.

Right.

You know, so.

Yes. So. And it's okay to disengage once in a while, but you got to be prepared for it and you gotta, you know, have a team and like, yo, I need your help to kind of pull it up as you're disengaging a little bit.

That's right.

But don't disengage for years.

Yeah, not a good idea.

Definitely not a good idea. So what's like a top. What's like, anything you're reading right now?

I'm always reading something, man. So Pumpkin the Pumpkin Plant is one of my favorite books.

Oh, good old. That's a great book.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's Michael, right?

Correct.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep. Yeah. The guy from Profit.

Profit First.

Yeah, exactly. Reading Lewis Howe School of Greatness.

Oh, good. He's from Ohio. He's from Bexley, Ohio. He is, yeah, he is.

He's out in California now, though. But yeah. Yeah. Man, I love mindset books. Marketing books. I don't pick up real estate books that often. Every now and then I will.

Right.

But I like more consuming that kind of stuff on, like, videos and stuff like that, like, things like this. But, yeah, mindset books is what I'm really always diving into. I'm rereading traction. I know you're a huge fan of that book, so.

Dude, it's funny. Like, I don't. I can't remember last time I've read a real estate book. Yeah, Honestly, it's like, it's all business building, business dev, you know, mindset, just all that stuff. Marketing market, all marketing. I mean, we're. First of all, we're all in the marketing. We're always marketing. So some good marketing, some bad marketing, but we're marketing at least.

Yeah.

So you're reading those books. What's like, if someone's newer, what's like a great starting book? Think and Grow Rich.

You think you like that mindset book, man? Yeah. Think and Grow Rich. Think and Grow Rich and Rich Dad. Poor dad, which. Those are the two classic ones that everyone talks about, but those were the first two books that I. That I read. And yeah, it's. You know, I think so many people, they want to consume all this content and information. Just read a book and then, like, you're gonna start to see that little by little, it's gonna change the way you think.

Right.

And then it's the whole saying, you know, thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to actions, actions to results.

Right, right. I love it. So on your side, have you ever read the Magic of Thinking Big?

Yes.

Great book. Right. David Schwartz, I think. Right.

Fantastic book. You can actually get that online for free. I think if you just Google it.

Yeah.

You could probably get the PDF for free.

Wow. I think. I think they should charge $1,000 for it. People probably actually implement it.

Unfortunately, most people would never pay it.

You know, but the people at Wood would make millions from it.

Yeah.

I love charging people more money to Scare them because it actually SC scares them to do the work.

Yeah.

They're like, I got to get my money back.

If it's not, you gotta have skin in the game. A lot of people have to have skin in the game.

Yeah, these. We were talking about that earlier seven dollar thing. Most people do nothing with it because it's like, oh, it's only seven bucks. Yeah, but if it's like 7,000, you like, you're like, holy cow, I gotta get my money back.

You know, it's crazy. I got an email not. This may have been like three, four days ago and somebody was interested in getting coaching, but they're like, I'm interested. If I don't have to pay anything up front, I'm just kind of like scratching my head. I'm like, it just, it's the mentality, man. Man, you know, it's that whole entitlement mindset and it's just that person's not going to put the work in.

Dude, call a college. College has way more money than I do. I guarantee Ohio State campus has way more money than I'll ever have. Probably call the school up and say, hey, give me four years of free college and then I'll give you a piece of my money. Like, it's crazy, man. Why do people think that's even a normal question?

No, man, life doesn't work that way.

Well, not only that, dude, if you're doing that, that's coming back to you and that's why you're not making any money. Yeah, because this is not a. Look at this. This guy's passing me this roll. I like his style. Yeah, I like his style.

The DMs rolling too slow here, man.

Well, I'm going the speed limit. I mean, what do you want? I got precious cargo on board today. There you go. But, but yeah, like it's, it's interesting. People like attracts, like. So, like if you're sitting here trying to get things free in life, like you're putting that back into your life. It's like the mirror effect.

Like it doesn't make sense.

It makes zero sense. Yeah, yeah. And people genuinely get pissed off if you don't do it.

I know, that's the crazy thing. They're entitled, dude.

They're mad at themselves. There's no way they're mad at us. It's, oh, your stuff doesn't work then. If you don't believe in. It's like the reason I'm not doing it because I do believe in my time. I do Believe in my stuff. And yeah, like, it makes zero sense. I really don't understand.

It kind of hurts me, but I've just learned to just like, let it go because it's like, whatever, man.

Sure, yeah, yeah. It's just amazing. But so if you're watching and trying to do stuff for free or trying to get people like Alex to coach it, like, it's never going to work. It will never work for you. You'll have every excuse of why it won't work, even if you're trying to. Trying to do it, whatever that means.

The best investment you can make is in yourself.

Oh, my God.

Whether it's through a. A coach, whatever, you know?

Right.

So.

Well, it's like real estate, right? You put 100 grand in, you get a 10 response, 10 return, you make 10 grand, but you put 50 grand into yourself, you could make millions and.

Nobody can take it away from you, dude.

Zilch. That's the thing, Zilch. So it's like, I don't. Yeah, it's crazy. So we've got a couple more minutes and the like, top book to read, which. What would be like your number one go to book or something?

I'm a big like, come contribution is high on like my needs. So I take the Go Giver.

Oh, the go. Great book.

I love the Go Giver.

Yeah, that's a great.

And I'd like to throw one out too that a lot of people haven't like, heard of. So I. I'd say the Go Giver.

Because Great book four our work week.

There's all these great books out. There's so many great books out there. But yeah, for me, I love the Go Giver.

Yeah. The real, the real answer is read them all.

Yeah. My goal is a minimum. Minimum. And this is like on a slow month. One a month, minimum.

Sure.

You should be at least being able to do more than that, you know, two a month ideally.

Or two if you're on a treadmill, you can just get books on audio and like listen to a book a day.

You know, I'm old school like that, man. I like to actually feel.

I do. Dude, I have books everywhere.

Yeah.

I have 10 books in my trunk.

Yeah. But whenever I'm at the gym, I always got like podcast on or something like that. But I actually like to like pick up and buy the book and read.

It, you know, same way.

Yeah.

So we got that. And then how do people like your podcast show? We didn't talk a whole lot about that. But tell us like a quick 30 second commercial about your podcast show, how people can listen.

Absolutely. So, yeah, flipempire, it's called the Flip Empire show and essentially it's two shows a week where we do a master class. I know you and I'm excited to have you on one of them. So every Monday we release a master class show where I bring on an expert and we just do like a 30 minute deep dive. It's nothing too long and it's actionable content. You know, we're talking about strategies, things that are working in the person's business, things that are not working. I think a lot of people, Mark, only talk about, you know, you see all these checks posted on Facebook, but nobody talks about like the struggle and like the lessons learned. And I think there's a lot of value in that. And, and we, you know, we peel back the onion when it comes to that. And then on Thursday I do a, like a Q a, like a 5 to 15 minute deep dive where really, you know, the audience can submit questions and I'll pick a question and I'll give my perspective on it.

That's great, man. What, what's your, what's. It's called the Flip.

Yeah, the Flip Empire show.

So if you just go to flip.

Empire.Com you'll see we probably got 70 something episodes now. I launched it not too long ago, man, like six months ago.

So you're getting some great traction.

Yeah, man, it's growing every month.

You know, my show, when we do our show, is going to be the biggest effort.

I love it. I love it. Bring it, man. Little friendly competition.

Let's do it.

I love it.

But no, it'd be, it's going to be awesome. I'm excited to do it. And then, so they can reach you over there and then if anybody's in the Miami area. Right?

Absolutely, man. So, yeah, so if you guys are interested in, in buying wholesale properties in the, in the Miami and Broward area, go to property wholesales.com property wholesales.com and any way I can help or add value, you know, I genuinely mean that. If, you know, if you have any questions or if you're interested in the Miami market, you want to just do more deals, we're always looking to connect with, with people that, you know, are ready to move. So yeah, you can connect with me there.

Awesome, man. Well, we could do this all day. We're sitting in front of Trump's Mar Lago right now, literally. So I appreciate you being on Rolling with the dm, Alex. Thank you. Bud. Thank you, man.

Thank you, Brother. Sam.