Rollin' With The DM - Real Talk - Real Access I 002

Foreign.

Mark Evans, DM here. Rolling with the dm. Real talk, real access. Hanging out with my boy Joe Evangelisti. What's up, Joe?

What's going on, Mark? How are you, man?

Good, man. Don't make me laugh or look away because I'm driving, obviously.

Definitely gonna happen, I promise you.

What's going on, man?

Hey, I know. Not much, man. Hanging out in Florida. Had to come down and get a little reprieve right now with the DM for a couple minutes, work on my business plan, figure out how to level up, you know.

That's what it's about, right?

Absolutely.

So we're just here talking. This is just raw talk, right? Real talk, kind of real access. Like what's going on in your business? Like who? Well, first off, tell people who you are, what you got going on. We're gonna talk about the good, the bad, the ugly.

Yeah, man, absolutely. So my name is Joe Evangelisti. I operate a company called Addison Quinn Development, is one of our companies, our main development company. And I also own a ReMax connection in Haddonfield, New Jersey. And so we do a lot of fix and flip stuff. We do new constructions and we do buy and holds. So we have apartment complexes all the way down. We have a bunch of single families and, you know, we'll buy anything for rehab or for fix and flip anywhere in the South Jersey area. All the way from like Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore points, Ocean City and Sea Isle, that kind of stuff. So all over the. All over the bottom half of Dirty Jersey.

Dirty Jersey. Not only that, you got a big. We're coming out for your golf tournament here next week, correct?

Yeah, we do. We do an annual golf tournament that raises money for veterans. And I'm really proud to have you, Mark, obviously. And then a bunch of our guys from our mastermind group are going to be coming through, so looking forward to a big year. I think we're going to raise probably $30,000 this year for veterans charities, which will go a long way to help people, help a lot of these vets that are coming home, they transition back into, into real life. Some of them are injured, some of them, you know, PTSD and so forth. So just getting them back into, acclimated into society and get them back with their family. So, you know, that's what we're, that's what we're raising money for, to help them.

That's awesome, man. So real quick, like, how can people find about who you are? And then we'll start talking. But like, just if you guys are Brand new here you're experienced. This is for everybody. We're going to talk about the, you know, the beginning stages, where we're started, where we're at, where we're going. But like where can they follow you at? Like working website.

Yeah. So I mean as far as like the investment side of things, I actually blog about a lot of what we do. I talk about what we do. We do not really training, but just getting the word out, helping new investors get into the business. We have the flip. Com. You can check out the investor side there. As far as our developments and our projects that we have going on. We actually have a website called sjcustomhomes.com that's southjerseycustomhomes.com and so you can see a couple of the projects we got working on right now, the things we've sold in the last couple years and you know what's cracking right now with the team.

So that's awesome man. So Joe, talk about like how'd you get started in the business? Just for everyone watching, how did you get started? Why real estate investing?

So I kind of got into it backwards. I did a flip and then I met my real estate broker mentor back in the day about seven, eight years ago, actually going on nine years now. I did a flip and we were short on the market, it was 07. We overpriced it, the market started crashing so we decided to rent it. Long story that I can tell you in another date. But I ran into a big time real estate broker at the time. He was in between homes and he was looking for a short term lease opportunity. We had done a really nice flip on a four bedroom home in Cherry Hill.

Tony Robinson, something about that big, you.

Know, right about that size.

That's your boy. Tony.

Tony Robbins. You want to knock on the door.

See if he's home? He's in London right now.

So anyway, I met this, this guy Rob Driscoll is a really good broker in the area and he said, you know, you did such a great job showing this house to us. Would you consider getting your real estate license? Back then I thought wow, this is cool, I'll get my real estate license, it'll help me develop in the investment space. So I took off with the real estate stuff, sales stuff for about five, six years and then gradually over the last four or five years I really started getting more into the rehab stuff, less into the sales piece. Still own the ReMax, the ReMax office and we have a really high performing team within the office. But now I concentrate mostly on buying acquisitions, doing the rehabs, looking for apartment deals and stuff like that. So that's where I'm at now.

That's awesome, man. So you started in the game. He's like, holy cow, I can make some real money at this. Yeah, right. And you're a rehab guy. You got great, you know, great eye for kind of the business, the game.

Yeah.

You've helped me on my personal house, so I hate that stuff. I don't have enough hair to do rehabs anymore, but I'm losing it. But for you. So, like, you're in the business, let's say, you know, fast forward, boom, now, today, like, say two years ago. That's when you and I met. About two years ago. Yeah. Yeah, two years ago. Your business is cranking. Like, let's talk about the raw stuff that no one really talks about. It's not like rainbows and unicorns and so easy, do nothing, get rich. Like, what kind of challenges did you face in your business? And what were you trying to. Like, how are you trying to progress that next level? Like, what. What challenges?

Absolutely, man. So, I mean, there's a. There's. There's a ton of stress in this business. I don't think anybody talks about the sleepless nights, the stress, the worry, the constant anxiety of whether or not you're going to be able to perform at the level that you need to perform at. I'm pretty open about this. I've talked about it a few times on my podcast and different blogs that we talk about. Not even probably four years ago, five years ago, I was crying myself to sleep, trying to figure out how I was going to pay my mortgage. I'd had a kid, my first daughter. She was very young. I was trying to make that transition into the investment space from the sales space. And, you know, there's a lot of sleepless nights. And you really have to have faith in what it is you're trying to accomplish, and you have to have some sort of plan in action, and you have to follow through. And I think a lot of people, you know, when it gets tough, they back out, they disappear. They go do something different. They get a real job, you know, and I just. I never wanted that for myself. I just. I decided I was going to put 100% effort into it. Whether I failed or not, it didn't matter. And, you know, coming out on the back end of things and, you know, it's exciting now to have some success. But, you know, like, we were talking about last night, Mark, the stress doesn't go away. It's just a different number, you know, so, you know, so that's. So the stress is still there.

Here's the thing that's kind of interesting about stress and about money. Like, we were talking about this today earlier. Like, I'd rather be stressful with millions in the bank, stressed out with millions in the bank, than stressed out with no money in the bank. Because there's a lot of people, like, you know, why do you keep working? Why do you want to do the more, you know, aren't you stressed out? Like, stress is all relative too. Right? Like, what is stress? We're more stressed because we see so much opportunity. We're pushing, we're driving, we know we're better, we're building, building teams, which is. That's a whole nother conversation about management, managing people, expectations, and all that good stuff. Right. So for you, like, what kind of stress? Because when you say stress, what are you talking about? Stress of, like, raising capital, closing the deals, dealing with contractors. I mean, there's 85 different pieces of stress, too.

Absolutely. And I think you're always, you know, it's like. It's like having a balanced life. Like, you know, we talk about what's the five Fs you do. The faith, family, fitness, friends and fun. And fun. Right. So, like, just like, you're trying to have a balanced life, I think balancing your business is always really difficult. Right. So you're either short on deals or short on capital or short on GCs or subs or somebody to help you build the product. You always seem to be short on one. Like right now, I'll give you an example. And we're talking real. I'm in my business right now. Capital, which always used to be a really difficult thing for me to find. Years ago, when I was starting up, it was really hard. I had one lender, he was 200 grand, and I could do one or two deals at a time, and I had to sell one and then fix one and then go find another one. And that was a constant struggle. Or getting banks on your side. We used to beg the banks to take a meeting with us, like, can I get in the conference room and show you my deal? And now the flip side is, ten years later, almost, the banks are begging to take us to lunch. They want to take our business, they want to refinance our properties. They want to be in business with us. Capital is kind of the same thing. We have investors now. We have a couple investors well into the two and three million dollars individuals who are up to that level now, capital doesn't seem to be a problem. If anything, the challenge with capital is keeping it in motion. The three million dollar guy doesn't want his money back. He wants to keep going. Now the challenge is how do we find enough deals? Building the infrastructure, the team that's going to get us the volume that we need. It's not easy to buy five or ten houses a month in a lot of markets, depending on what your criteria is, what you're looking for. That tends to be our challenge. Nowadays, capital is easy. We have quite a few subcontractors. We have the ability to do a lot more. So I think, like you said, the challenge and the stress is I know we're capable of so much more, but, like, I'm laying in bed thinking, how do I do it? How do I get to that level? You know what I mean? So. And that's again, what I'm here to talk to you about. And that's what I spent some hours last night on the notepad trying to figure out. So.

Exactly. So, like, the money, like, because there's a lot of newbie people and, or even experienced people, like, you know, I need to do more deals, but I don't have cash.

Yeah.

I remember us in Cleveland when you got a lot of deals put on your plate and you need a decent amount of money.

Yep.

You're like, oh my God. Like, and then boom, it happens. So I think the thing is, it doesn't hold you back. It actually, you got to push through it, right?

Yeah, absolutely. You got to figure out constantly that glass ceiling, there's always going to be that next level and what makes you uncomfortable. And again, I say this all the time in the podcast, like, you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And when you start to feel yourself being like that comfortable, like, this is easy. There's not a lot of challenge. I think that's a lot of times when stuff starts to go wrong. Right. Because you start getting lazy or, you know, what. What have you, whatever, whatever it may be, you know, getting that uncomfortable and keeping that, you know, that uncomfortability and making sure that you're constantly trying to strive and push, I think is always a good thing. You should be feeling that at least every month or so. If, you know, if my feelings are accurate, I think that's kind of where we're at. So, you know, and then raising the capital, like you said, that ceiling, you know, that was a concern of mine a year ago, all of a Sudden boom. Now we have capital. And it flips the concern to, okay, how do we make that work?

How do we keep it moving? Right. So, I mean, someone's watching this. They're like, well, Joe, it's EAS for you to say, because you have deals and you have money. To me, that's the way you get capital. You actually got to do the work.

Absolutely.

Get the capital, show people, perform, pay them back.

Yep, yep.

That's usually a good thing to pay them back. And then they're like, oh, by the way, I don't just have 50,000. I have 200,000 or 500,000 or more. Yeah. How many people out there have money, though, for deals, like, for what we offer?

It's everywhere.

It's everywhere, right?

It's absolutely everywhere. You know, you just got to look in the right places. You don't realize how many people, first of all, your family members. I mean, I grew up middle class. I don't have, like, wealthy family members, but I have uncles and aunts and people who have 50k in their IRA or 100k in their IRA. That's pretty normal for someone who's worked a consistent job, like a career job, for 20, 30 years, they're going to have that kind of money sitting around. They want to take risks on you, your family. You're close to them. They want to see you succeed. So it's really generally not that difficult to start with family. And then once you build that base, that rapport and that ability, like you said, you can pay it back. And they see that you have a track record, then it's easy to go to more strained, stranger type people that maybe you don't know as well, because now you have an introduction, you have rapport, and you have a history, and I think that's key to raising capital. But like you said, you got to do whatever you got to do to get started.

Yeah, you just got to go out there wholesaling. What? You know, we've talked about wholesaling, but that's a good way to. I think it's a great way in this business forever.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So wholesaling, you can build up a bankroll, build up your confidence, build up your market knowledge. I think this is a lot of thing, too. People don't have market knowledge. Yeah.

And they have to learn their market. They have to understand where they're at. And I think that's what a lot of people get challenged with. They see guys like you who are killing it in the virtual space, but they don't realize that you were born in Ohio. You understand that market. You've been there for 20 plus years working that market in and out. And a lot of these new guys want to jump on and say, okay, well, Vegas is hot. Let me start wholesaling there.

Yeah.

And they don't know anything about. They're living in. They're living in, you know, Maryland, you know, So I think that you have to. I absolutely know that. You have to know your market really well to be successful in that market.

Yeah. I mean, it just gives you confidence when you're talking to that seller. Boom. You put the deal on the plate because you know it. Like, yeah, they say, oh, I want 85,000 for that. And you're like, holy cow, this is a real deal.

Absolutely.

200. You just. You move quickly. So wholesaling, though, can help you build up that knowledge.

Yeah, right.

Without risk. Without a whole lot of risk. Because you always have risk in anything in life. But, like, very little, limited downside risk. Very, very ultra limited.

Absolutely.

On an average, I mean, last month, just by accident, you guys generated a decent amount in wholesale fees.

Yeah, we did almost 30. I think we did 36,000 last month in wholesale fees. And that's kind of like the byproduct we treat our wholesale business, although it is a real business, as kind of the byproduct of our acquisitions business, you know, so we put X amount under contract, and then we'll kind of keep the ones we can handle that month or we want to do, and then we'll wholesale off the rest. They're all good deals, obviously, because we're wholesaling them, and you can see that our investors that are buying from us are having success. They're all good deals. It's just a matter of what we plan on taking on at that particular time and what we need for that month and. And so forth.

That's awesome. So you're sitting there, you got these deals, you got the money, the challenges, like, as you're building the team, what's your team look like today? Yeah.

So our team actually has expanded rapidly thanks to a lot of it. Thanks to you, Mark. I mean, when I. Those of you who kind of follow me know that when I started with Mark almost two years ago, I had one employee, and I had literally just hired her. I think when I met you, I think we might even have had a conversation about hiring her. And she rapidly, you know, took a lot of. A lot of the stress off my plate and allowed us to grow quickly. Now we're up to about. Well, we're at nine employees. We're going to be closer to 20 soon because I'm actually acquiring a general contracting company. But you start to realize the value and the leverage in people. The people leverage, the ability to hire the right people to get the job done that are going to basically catapult your success and your expansion.

No, it's huge. So, like you go from zero employees to now yourself. I remember when you and I first talked. Yeah, you're going to showings, you're all, yeah, you've been hanging out with shorts like you are now. And then you're like, dude, I got a show, I gotta put on a suit.

I'm like, what? Oh, absolutely, yeah, the suit thing, man, I had to get dressed for a funeral like two months ago. So.

Yeah, so now you went from zero employees to now nine employees. You got, you know, possibly 20 things, you know, 20 employees with this new contracting company as well. So literally double your management load. Yeah. Like, how do you deal with your day? Like now what does your day. What does your day look like today?

Yeah, so a big piece of it. You know, we. You hear the prophet, what's his name? What's the guy?

Yeah, Marcus.

Marcus Lemonis. Talks about people processing product. Right. So when you start to expand, the first thing I always try to do is really look from like the treetops down, like that 30,000 foot view and over and kind of see like, what does the system look like. And one of the things that we were really lucky to be turned on to was the EOS traction, you know, piece, which I know that your team does as well, which really helps you not only organize your people, but give them responsibilities and make them accountable for their responsibilities. But also look at it from an org chart perspective of what's the next key player? What's the next thing that's going to help us expand. For example, Colleen is my marketing manager. Colleen can do twice as much lead generation or twice as much on the retail side for marketing if she has one assistant that comes on board. Okay, well, that might be the next piece of the puzzle that we need. It really helps you understand how it is that need to expand in order to, you know, take care of whatever the priority money making thing is, you know what I mean? And that's helped. That's helped less greatly.

No, it's huge. I mean, I think the thing is though, now you're growing the business, you really have to become more conscious of people skills, management skills. You know, everyone works differently. Everyone has different unique abilities. And your job is to, like, you know, because no employer is going to come to you and say, hey, I suck at this job.

Absolutely.

Right. You got to kind of be, you know, engaged in your company and be aware of, like, you know, hey, Colleen's doing awesome, but she could be 10 times better over here. Yeah, that's our job now, right?

Absolutely. It's the right seats on the bus, right? It's good to good to great, like getting the right people, getting the asses in the right seats, and making sure, like you said, unique ability, which is making sure that they get it and they love it and they want to do it. They understand the piece, they're really good at it and they enjoy it, which I think a lot of companies miss that track. They hire a lot of people who might be really good at one thing, but they don't like their job. So they're not going to take ownership, they're not going to expand that piece. They're not going to want to grow it or get to the next level because they're just status quo. They're just getting a paycheck. And I think you build a really great culture when you put people in the places where they want to be, and then they'll help you expand as well. Again, another EOS attraction type principle is just being able to analyze someone, get their unique ability, figure out what they like to do, and then put them in the right seat. I've had to move people around seats. I've had to hire and fire people. We've gone through a lot of those transitions, but now my leadership team is in a really strong place. I feel I have really good managers in place and I hold them responsible. You know, I make sure that's. So you ask what my week is like. That's what it is. It's making sure I hold my people accountable, that they do their thing, you know, along with, you know, getting in the trenches every once in a while when you have to, because you still gotta hustle.

Gotta hustle. So if you have like one or two points for the listener, the viewer here right now, what is like, one or two things about hiring someone that you would say, hey, this is something I would do or not do or should do or should have done.

Yeah.

When you started hiring. But before you answer that, this is Frank McKinney. You know Frank McKinney.

Yeah.

With the treehouse, One of my mentors. Yeah, great guy. There's this treehouse right there. Treehouse office right there. Nice. Yeah, There we go.

I like that.

What's up, Frank? They're actually in Haiti today. They just.

Yeah, yeah, man, we missed that trip. I gotta go next year.

So, like the one or two things, like, yep, hire quicker, you know, have a better job description initially. Like what, what would Joe Angelici say?

So the two challenges I've always had with hiring are the one is, and everyone I'm not, it's gonna sound, you know, redundant, but it's hire slow fire fast. Right? I always give people a 90 day probationary period with three reviews. So they get 30, 60 and 90 day reviews. And when they're hired, they're basically told, look, you're on probation for the first 90 days. The job is not really yours until after 90 days. And we say it's yours and we agree that you're a good fit, mutually. Not just one way, but we both agree that that person likes the spot. The way that, you know, what that does is it allows you the ability to analyze that person for 90 days without them feeling like you're standing over their shoulder because they know they're on probation. You know, they know there being analyzed. And the second piece is, and I think it's really just a mental piece with money. And again, Mark, you helped me learn this. It's that let's say you hire somebody that's $72,000 a year. Well, we always think, oh my gosh, where am I going to come up with $72,000? So much money, I got to figure that out. When the reality of it is it's $6,000 a month, right? So if you break it down that way and you give yourself the ability to analyze the person and make a decision in 90 days, then really all you're risking is $18,000. So just putting things into, if they're a really good fit for you and your team and where you want them, they're probably going to double or triple what you're paying them as a return. Right? So you have to look at it like a people investment. We had dinner there, didn't we? Yeah, you have to look at like a people investment and not so much, you know, just, just a, you know, the whole picture of, oh, their salary is X and then grow with them.

So really what you're saying, it's a mindset shift. So instead of saying, oh my God, it's $72,000, I can't afford it, the real question is, okay, if I invest 6,000amonth for the next three months at 18 grand, how much can that person make me Correct. Based off of what they're able to bring to the table.

Absolutely.

And that's your doubt. Your downside is 18 grand. The truth is, as you grow, the downsides. Not even the money. The downside is the lost time.

Absolutely.

So, yeah, that's why it's a higher slow, because we don't want to waste our time. It's not just waste money, but waste time is the biggest one.

Absolutely.

By far now.

Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. And then the time loss, I think Darren Hardy said in the. I think it was the.

What do you call it?

The roller coaster. The entrepreneurial roller coaster. Darren talks about a bad hire that you keep for too long. If you hired a $50,000 employee and they were a bad hire, they could cost you 200 or $250,000 within that 18 months that it takes you to hire them, decide they're not good, you feel bad, you want to give them another chance, and then you finally fire them, and then it takes you six more months to hire someone else. There's a lot that goes into that. And it's time. It's not just money, but it's also the time of the, you know, acquisition of the person, the disposition of the person, getting the new person back in that seat. So, you know, hiring the right person from the jump is very important. And then I would say metrics is another thing. I'll add a third one is just making sure that whoever you hire has goals, has metrics, has things they have to follow. And if they're really good at following it and they achieve that, awesome. Right?

But that comes from the leader.

Right.

So that comes from the leader. But I kind of feel like we're jumping the gun because we're assuming people are business owners.

Okay.

I'm just thinking, like, in my head now. The more we're talking, like, we could go down this path.

Yeah. We could do us all day.

All day. So, like, for you and I, though, like, my biggest frustration is seeing guys that say they're in business and it's only them. If they don't do the business, they don't make money. I talked to a guy yesterday. Truth is, I talked to him yesterday online. He looks like he's doing amazing stuff. I talked to me. Is no money.

Yeah.

He's dead, bro.

Yeah.

And for. There's a reason why that's happening. He's got big things going on in his life, Uncontrollable things. But yet he's saying, hey, I'm in business. But you're not in business if you don't make money. Leads don't come in your business. Leads don't get felt like. That's not a business. It's a high job. Yeah.

Or a hobby. Yeah.

So it's like that person that's watching us are like, this is bullshit. There's no way I can hire all these people. I don't have the money, I don't have the funds. I always think you have to figure out how. How do you need to get the funds for the first hire?

Absolutely.

You know, everyone that comes to us, they're like, oh, Mark, you know, I can't afford. I'm like, you cannot not afford it. Yeah. You know, if you're trying to grow the business, if you want to keep small and do it yourself, I think that's, I think you're stealing if you do that because you can help more buyers, help more sellers, help private money people get more money on their returns, on their investments because you need more access to cash.

Sure. And hire people generate opportunity for way more people than yourself in the long term. Right. Yeah.

I think even your family though, Right? Like, I mean, if you have kids or you have a wife, like, or a husband, depending if you're a female or guy here, like watching this and saying, how do I, like how do they do more? And I think the problem is they're like, well, that costs money. I talked to, there's a guy in Texas, I won't mention his name. The kids doing like 10, 15 deals a month at least online. That's when I had the conversation. He's saying that, but it's only him. Yeah. I'm like, if you're doing that well, why aren't you investing?

Yeah.

And he's like, but he has money hang ups. I think a lot of us have money. Well, we all have money hang up somewhere.

Sure.

But like it's like, well, that costs money. Or that I'm like, dude, it doesn't cost you money. Yeah. You pay someone five grand, you make 20 grand, that's a four. That's a 300% return on your money.

Absolutely.

But we'll do it in real estate all day.

It's the people. The people don't invest in people. I think that's a really difficult thing to understand or to comprehend is that you need good people to scale.

We've never been taught that though. No, no one teaches it.

No. They really don't teach you how to.

Handle money at all.

Right.

They don't teach you how to balance a check.

All this stuff is new to us out of high school. But yeah, I mean, I think that's the challenge. People don't spend the time and the money to invest in other people because they have this hang up. Like you said that, like they're. If they're afraid, what if they're not successful? What if they don't do what I hired them to do? You know, what if I waste this money? Well, guess what? If you wake up a year from now and you're in the same spot in your business and you're still broke, then you're in the same spot anyway.

Yeah. Think of all you've learned. Dude, I hire people every day. If I just fired two guys today, like it's part of the problem. I learned from it every single time. Yeah. And me, because I'm like everyone and believe everyone, what they say. I always, not always, but I get caught in that thing where I'm like, yeah, like handshake agreements, let's go.

Yeah.

You know, so it's like I learn from that. I get better on my, you know, designing what this role needs to be what my metrics or kp, you know, whatever. My key indicators for them. And I know this is something that we're doing, but like, if you're brand new and. Or you're, you know, you're out there grinding, doing two, three, four deals a month by yourself. Like, the biggest reason, I think, too. You know what I love about employees? Consistency. Every entrepreneur I know is the most inconsistent all over the place.

Right. Just to have somebody in the office 9 to 5 can ground you in ways that you're not used to. Right.

Think about how much you would make extra in your business if someone was just on your marketing for you, following up on phone calls that you're supposed to follow up. You're Hooters, eating wings, drinking beer with your buddies. You just did a deal. You made 25 grand. So now you're rich. And then all of a sudden a call comes in. You're like, yeah, I'll call back. You put his number down on a napkin and boom, you forgot. I'd tell you what.

Our good friend Gary Nealon, you just reminded me of a story that he told me about. God, it had to be almost two years ago now when he first joined the group, he actually came out because he's close to me. He actually came out and met me in my office and we were talking about a bunch of high level stuff and Gary said to me, everyone's heard Take all your list of the $15 an hour chores that you do. I don't care what business you're in, whatever business you're in, if you're doing it solely, first of all, you're not in business yet. But if you're doing solely, there's got to be $15 an hour tasks that you're doing on a daily basis. And if you want to value yourself at $15 an hour, that's totally cool. That's all you're ever going to make is $15 an hour. When you want to value yourself at $50 an hour, you do certain tasks. When you want to value yourself at $100 an hour, $1,000 an hour. Whatever number you want, always try to write down what it is. Can I outsource? Come through the test in a given day, even if you just keep a notepad for a week. Week. And run around and go, okay, I just did this. Well, what would this have cost you? And what is your highest and best use? What could you have done instead of that $15 an hour task? And then look at what you could accomplish if somebody else was doing all that. We're saying the same thing. It's saying it backwards. But being able to see it on paper sometimes and saying, oh, my God, if I hired one person and they did all of these things, I would have nothing but time on my hands to go be more successful the next level.

I think, though, people don't value time like they say they do. I think they're full of shit. And they say time and so why are you doing paperwork right now?

Absolutely.

And I'm like, you're saying that out loud. Listen, if you're trying to lie to yourself, that's cool. I get it.

Yeah.

But, like, until you. I don't think people stop and say, why am I doing this?

Yeah.

And then they say, okay, why am I doing this? And now how do I not do it? That's the real quiet. How do I get this off my plate?

This is like a realtor thing from way back. They just like to be busy. I think people love to be busy. Like, there's so much difference between being busy and being productive. Right. People just like to be busy. They like to feel busy. They like to feel important. What are you doing today? Oh, my. I'm drafting up contracts. I'm sorry.

Sending out paperwork.

Like, none of that just made you money, Right? The action of negotiating the deal, talking to the seller, getting your sales guy motivated to jump on the phone so he can bang out Calls like those are making you money. Right. But this little individual, like, you know, let me run around and do errands thing makes people, like, excited for some reason. I don't get that.

Well, I get it because that's kind of how that's the world we grew up in. Yeah, Right. The busy you are, Whoever's busy over there must be making more money.

Yeah.

And the truth is, from my experience, anyways, the busiest people I know don't make the most money at all. Usually make the least.

Absolutely.

They're frustrated, stressed, you know, and they're doing it for the person that's actually making the money.

Yeah.

But so, like, they're sitting there and they're freaking out, like, oh, my God. And we're not saying stop. If this is what you're doing, stop everything and never fill out the contract. Never close. Like, you have to still close those gaps, obviously.

Yes.

So just to be very.

I'm just saying if you're spending 50 hours a week doing that stuff, then you're probably not doing what you should be doing.

Just think, though, if they had someone consistently doing their marketing, because where I see where people easily could double, triple, or quadruple their business. Just be consistent on marketing.

Absolutely.

If you're consistent with marketing now, you have. Have more leads coming in. More leads, equal more actions which equal more opportunity, Right?

Yeah. I call it the real estate roller coaster. You know, like, you pump a bunch of money into marketing, you do a bunch of deals, you're high as a kite, Right. You're like, oh, my God, I made so much money last month. I never made so much money in my life. And then what happens the following month is the month prior to that leading up to you doing all those deals. You didn't do any marketing because you're so excited about all the deals you did.

So for the following two or three.

Months, you make no money, and you're back down at the bottom of the roller coaster. Right. So then you start, let's pound marketing again. Let's try to get it back up again. So you this constant thing like this, and you're right, the only way to breed consistency in your business is to consistently generate leads whether you need them or not.

Right.

So, you know, making sure that you're sending out something every week. If your budget's 100 bucks, make sure you're spending it every week. If it's 10,000, you got to spend it every week. You just got to make sure that it's consistently going out. Right.

Consistency is the Key to success. I mean, you're either, my buddy Mike always says you're either consistent or non existent. Just so we're clear, this isn't just about real estate. This is business, period. We're talking about business in general.

Yep.

So it's like, you know, leads. So when you're doing marketing, direct mail to get motivated sellers.

Right.

What's your favorite way to get motivated seller?

Oh, direct mail by far.

Direct mail by far, right?

Yeah.

Postcards, yellow letters, either or both, any, anything in between, right? Yep. So not all direct mails created equal, correct?

I mean, absolutely.

So, so direct mail to get motivated sellers. If you drop 500 postcards a week, that's what, 250 a week? I mean, that's nothing. Yeah, thousand dollars a month. And then what about email marketing? Are you doing any email marketing? Are you buying leads from email marketing companies?

Yeah, we buy a lot of leads. One of the things that we switched up in the last probably nine months to a year is I started to look for more web based lead services and stuff like that. I tell you what, the best bang for your buck is still postcards. I believe it's still direct mail. You're going to pay a lot more for an online lead if you're getting, we're paying anywhere between 80 and $220 per lead for certain leads that are coming in our market. And they're good leads. Sometimes they claim to be exclusive. They can't really claim because you know, the seller can be online, you know, going to multiple different websites at once. But either way you're getting a lot of good leads from that. But by far the cheapest and best way, if we're talking about people getting in the business, getting started, it's got to be direct mail because you know you're gonna spend a couple hundred hours like you said, you know, you send 500 postcards, you get 40 to 50 leads back. You know, that's enough to keep most people busy for the week, you know, if you don't have a large team. So it's so easy to just spend that thousand bucks a month. It's really, I mean, that's entry level, right?

Yeah, well, we would think so. So I mean, so like you're getting direct mail. What about just being present? I think a lot of people are sitting at home. How do I get more deals? The truth is they're just not talking to enough buyers. Talking to enough sellers, that's really the answer.

Networking is so, so huge. I talk about this all the time. Everyone's afraid to call each other. Like, if people realize once they get to a higher level, once you started getting invested in a lot of deals, like, we'll wholesale four, five to ten deals a month, depending on, you know, slow month, fast month. I'm selling it to the same four or five people. Like, there's only Pro20 real investors in your market, depending on how crowded. If you're in Chicago, obviously there's more, but in our market, there's only, like, 20 real players. So getting out there, knowing who they are, knowing what they want to buy, knowing where they buy, knowing whether or not they have money at that given time, I could tell you. And I don't talk to these guys every day. My sales guys do. And I can still tell you where four or five of my guys are, how many deals they have going on right now, what their availability for capital is. I mean, I know them inside and out. I know if I have a deal on Audubon, I'm calling this guy because I know he'll buy it. He bought the last four off of me. Got plenty of money, you know? So knowing your market, networking with them, and when you're new in the business, just calling people and talking about the business, everyone's so afraid to pick up the phone. Yeah.

Oh, the phone is the. It's the secret weapon.

I don't get that. I really don't. I still, to this day, because I've always been that guy. I mean, you know, I've always prospected. When I was in real estate, the sales business. Like, I drove the phone all day. Best gift in the world, you know? So when I drive by a we buy houses sign on the side of the road, and I don't recognize the phone number, I'm calling it to this day.

Absolutely.

You know, so a habit. Absolutely.

So we'll get going here in about three to five minutes. But. So, like, someone's watching this. They're like, okay, Joe, this is awesome. I hear what you guys are saying. We're talking about real talk, you know, and all this stuff. Like, is there anything, like, someone's watching this and they're thinking about quitting or they're thinking about getting involved? Like, what do you tell them? Like, someone comes like, joe, I really love what you're doing, man. I want to get involved. Like, what would you tell them?

You got to get started. Like, you just got to get involved, and you got to get moving somewhere. Whether it's wholesale, whether it's. You think you can handle a rehab? Getting started is 95% of the battle. Right. Once you get that motion and that momentum, you can do more deals. But until you do your first deal, you're just talking. Right. You know, you got to get involved.

Somehow and don't over study. No paralysis of analysis. Just get involved, meet people, shake hands, talk about money. I think the reason a lot of people don't succeed in business, period, is money.

Yeah.

They don't talk about money. We talk to people, have money every day. Some money, some no money money, like everything in between. It's just, you got to figure out how to craft your message and have those conversations.

Absolutely.

So key. Yeah. So we have that going on and so like someone sitting here. Okay, next action step. If you would just talk. Besides saying just get started, where would they start? What should they do?

Start getting some direct mail out. Start visiting Uria, Start looking at the deals. You know, your real estate investment group or that's local, if you guys don't.

Know what that is, you know, start.

Talking to the other players in the business and try to find out what deals are they doing. Try to make connections. A lot of wholesalers nowadays, joint venturing is like a common thing, right? Almost every wholesaler, including myself, if you brought to me and said I had a buyer, would you give me three or four grand on that deal? Or would you split the fee, depending on how aggressive you want to be? I don't know if I'd go with splitting the fee on the first deal, but, you know, just say, hey, if I got a. If I got a buyer, would you give me two or three grand just to get your feet wet? And then let that wholesaler, hopefully they're a little bit more versed at it and they understand what they're doing. Let them kind of show you the ropes. It's not that difficult, right?

So it's so easy. The problem is, stop focusing on your problem and where you're at and start asking someone like Joe or me or someone that you meet, like, how can you be a service to them?

Correct.

Because it's not about you.

Absolutely.

I think once that was the big change in my life in business. Like, yeah. When it's like, Mark, no one cares if you're broke. No one cares if you have no money. No one cares about your parents. No one cares about your. Like, no one cares about any of this. Yeah. They just care about themselves. So ask them questions about themselves.

Absolutely. Yeah. Nobody's gonna want to help you if you come in. Me, me, me, me. But if you say, how can I add value to your business. How can I help you? Hey, you got any tough wholesalers that you're having a hard time getting rid of? Why don't you let me do a little legwork and try to find some buyers? Why don't you let me do some Craigslist ads or whatever?

But then they'd have to work.

That's the challenge.

Then they'd have to work.

You got to work. That's the secret. And you know. Oh, God. What's the mf? CEO Andy Frizzell talks about this all the time. Andy is a multi, multi millionaire. Right. But he's been doing this for like 15 years or something. You got to put in the work, guys. It's not going to happen. A lot of overnight success stories, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of people.

10 year overnight stories.

He's a 10 year overnight success. Yeah. Wholesaling is probably the quickest way if as long as you have the confidence to get behind yourself and just do it where you could easily make six figures in your first year.

Oh, I mean, I mean, like without even thinking.

Right. And have no experience whatsoever. But a lot of these guys, when you're looking at big business guys. Yeah. I always call myself, you know, eight or nine year overnight success. You know, I've been drilling and driving for nine years. Years. And didn't really start seeing success until year five. Right.

Yeah. And I think the biggest thing now with where we're at, we were talking about this last night at dinners. Like, we still feel like we're just starting.

Yeah.

Like we're here now compared to here. And now we're like, how do we get here? And then when we get here, we're gonna say, how do we get here?

Here?

Like it never stops.

Absolutely.

So I think it's like. And I. We always hear people surround yourself around guys knowing bigger stuff because it pushes you. Yeah, right.

You know, and that's the next piece. Like once, if we're talking about mid level guys, once you've gotten a few deals in your belt and you feel like you're confident and you can handle it, the next thing I'm going to say is, you've got to get into some sort of mentorship program. It doesn't have to be a mastermind right off the bat, but get around someone who does this at a higher level, hopefully, preferably not in your market. Because I find the guys in local markets aren't going to share everything with you. Find a guy who's a couple States away, who's doing it, who's willing to talk to you about it, who might charge you, whatever that might be, just pay it. If it's good advice and you trust a guy to help you grow to the next level. Mentorship is the absolute key to everything that I owe my success to in the last two years. Not just you know, Mark obviously is amazing. You guys been following him for a while. It's the group, it's being in the mastermind group and having what do we have, 15 guys now all over the country who I can literally call any one of them on their cell phone right now and they're answering a question for me.

Well, they'll actually answer the phone, actually.

Answer the phone because these guys are all workers, they actually hustle but you know, they'll actually get a hold of you and they'll walk you through whatever and you know, don't, don't limit it to just the business that you're in. I mean these guys can, these guys can help me in coaching in life, in financial management. I mean we have some really high end guys in our group, like really good guys. So eventually you got to work your way into that nest because that's where you're going to get the motivation, that's where you're going to get the advice, that's where you're going to get, you know, I'm going to jump on a plane and fly to Florida next week Mark, and talk to you for two days and your mentor is like cool, let's do it. Alright. That's how you get to that position where you can, you have that ability. You know, it's pay to play guys. It's not free. Nothing in life is free.

Nothing is nothing. There's nothing at all free. Absolutely zilch.

Right?

So it's like how do we help these guys? Like you know like you're saying I'm going to just slide over here, but there's the private airport.

Nice.

That's where I need to be. Joe.

I almost flew in there yesterday, just missed it.

But for people like sitting here like figuring this out, like, you know, like you said, you just gotta pay to play. Stop thinking that things are handed to you. Be a value add person that just go up. Yeah, that's all right. I think. So be a value add person and just like come to them and say hey, this is what I'm gonna bring to the table. Stop, you know, stop saying what can you give me? Like you were saying, yeah, like don't call me and Say, hey, will you pay me five grand on this thing?

Deal.

Say, hey, let's see. You got a great deal. I have a potential buyer when we put a deal together. Absolutely. I might even pay you more than you're even asking for.

Absolutely. Listen, how do we make this work if I find you a buyer? I kind of came out backwards with that. I'm not saying go at it with money, but how do you bring value to that wholesaler? Well, if that wholesaler needs a buyer and you have one now, you're bringing value. Right. That's the whole idea. Create value in other people's lives, and that's everyone you meet. You have to constantly be thinking about karma.

100 times over. Cool, man. So people can follow you. The flipking.

Yep.

Check out your podcast, show your blogs, hit them up. If you're in the Jersey area, if you got buyers, if you got sellers, if you got deal, whatever. If you got something, hit up. Joe Evangelistic, guys. So, Joe, appreciate you being here, my man.

Absolutely, brother.

You're the first show, man.

I'm excited. I'm stoked. I want to see it.

You saw the behind the scenes, the chaotic stuff, putting all these cameras up. But again, guys, thank you for being here. Rolling with the dm. Real talk, real success. See you on the other side. Talk to you later.

Sa. Sam.