Why You Might Need 100 Offers Before Your First Win

Welcome to the Painless Flipping Podcast, where I bring on experts and people that are in the industry that are taking on the deals, taking on real estate deals, and we learn from them. And today I got Mark LaFleur. Is that right?

That's right. That's right, man. How are you?

We got Mark LaFleur, who's a chef, ultimate chef. He's going to tell us how he got into real estate investing. Mark actually reached out to me, so letting me know about some of the deals he's been doing recently. And I said, man, let's, let's talk about your journey in real estate because It doesn't matter where you're at in real estate, whether you just started and you're kind of dialing, you're trying to figure it out, whether you've done a couple deals or you've done hundreds of deals or thousands of deals, you can learn from everybody because everybody has something to offer. So, Mark, I wanted to bring you on here and kind of learn what's your journey been like, man. Tell us a little bit about yourself in like 60 seconds. Just kind of give us a little intro and then we'll start just chatting it up.

Yeah, yeah, man. Thanks. Appreciate it. Well, married, 6 kids, and So I spent a lot of time with the family.

Yeah, you got 6 kids, right?

First and foremost. Yeah, 100%. Um, uh, and, uh, got into real estate. Well, started, uh, my interest in real estate has kind of always, you know, been around, uh, as a young man, you know, in my 20s, early 20s. Uh, around 2015, um, started listening to BiggerPockets, a lot of BiggerPockets all the time. Yeah, yeah. Basically turned off the radio anytime I was in the car, stopped listening to music since 2015, more or less.

Good for you, man. That's amazing.

Trying to listen to as much stuff about real estate as possible. Um, so fast forward, you know, like 2019. So I stumbled around for like 4 years, um, trying to do deals. I did one or two successfully, um, with the help of a local mentor Mm-hmm. But that relationship didn't work out, you know, in the long term. But at least I knew the concept was real. So that was pretty sweet. So yeah, 2000— that brings us to 2019 where I started taking it more seriously. And in 2022, May of '22, actually, I invested in a course Um, so up until this point, I was more doing houses, and I switched to vacant land after I bought this course here. And, um, it's taken off like a rocket since then. So really, since May '22 up until now, I've done the bulk of all my transactions, and I'm having a ball making money.

So, dude, I love to hear that, man. So you were doing houses and it was a struggle?

Right. Getting my teeth kicked in.

Yeah, getting your teeth kicked in. Where were you doing deals? Like, where were you doing— trying to do houses?

Miami.

Miami. Okay.

Yeah, and I'm in Miami, so my backyard.

And when you went to Lots, what did you do with Lots? Like, is it Miami still or somewhere else?

No, then I switched to Nationwide because under the tutelage of my mentor, um, you know, I was exposed to how Really, you can do a parcel of land, you can do a transaction anywhere, right? Right. You got to get somebody to take a look at it, but there's a lot less moving parts. So, um, I'm open to buying anywhere, but primarily I'm in Florida right now, still buying lots.

Yeah, so I want to hear about this. So you said in your intro, 6 kids. That's a— that's, that's awesome, man. That must be super fun with the family when you get together. What age, if you don't mind me asking, like, what is the age range?

Yeah, yeah, the, uh, the eldest is 19. He'll be 20 in, uh, February.

Amazing.

And, um, the youngest is 6.

Let's go, family!

Yeah, yeah, I love that. 6, 8, 10, uh, 12, 14, and 19.

Amazing. And do they see you doing this real estate stuff? Are they interested, or what's going on with that?

Um, you know what, man, they see me working all the time, so yeah. Um, like I said, I was I'm still doing some part-time private chef work. And, um, yeah, yeah, so they've always seen me working with clients. I'm coming and going and, you know what I mean, doing my thing. Um, I haven't had a regular job in over 10 years, you know. I've been 100% self-employed, so they always see me moving and shaking. What's that?

I'm assuming you like that because you've been doing it for a while, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, I worked in restaurants, uh, catering companies, uh, with other chefs for a long time, and, um You know, all that's good, that's good experience. But at the end of the day, um, I'm kind of a wild card, you know. It's really tough, uh, taking orders from other people. Um, it's just something in my DNA. I just don't like it. I don't, I don't like being told what to do. Uh, I'd rather do what I want. And, um, even if I make less money, I'm happier doing what I want.

So you'd like to— do you like to dance to the beat of your own drum, man? You like to be, uh, you like to be in charge. I like that, you know. I'm the same way.

As far as the kids, you see, you asked if, if they're interested. I'm trying to get my eldest, the 19-year-old, interested.

Yeah.

You know, he's still a really young man. He's timid. He's not very outspoken. He's kind of shy and stuff. Yeah. So, you know what I mean? He wants to, like, like many young men his age, make money as an influencer on YouTube or like dropshipping and all that stuff. And I'm like, okay, that's, that's cool. Like, I'm going to support you either way. I'm trying to get him over to this side. He sees the checks. He's like, oh yeah, I want some of that money. But he's not quite committed to the process that it takes. Not yet. He just needs some more seasoning in life. So he'll get there.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's really hard to instill a desire in people. It really is, man. Like, you either want it or you don't. But obviously you can influence and you can show by example. But to really get them to buy in. That's what I do for work. You know, that's what the Painless Flipping Apprenticeship is. We get people to buy in. We, you know, it takes time. It takes effort, right? Like, even if people want it, then you got to do the work. And doing that work, you know how that is. You've been doing the work for 10 years. Like, sometimes you want, you want something, then you're like, well, dang, I got to do this to get it. You know, it's a lot. It takes a lot. So let me ask you this. So about talking about that type of work and getting your son to do it, and he's like, oh man, I like, I see those checks. What kind of work does it take to do do the amount of deals you're doing or do a deal? What would you say? Because, you know, I want to hear from your experience.

Yeah, I mean, if you ask me, make 100 offers as fast as possible. If you're doing anything other than making 100 offers, you're wasting your time. Just make 100 offers. It doesn't matter where you get the leads, how that happens. You could screw them all up. Make 100 offers. I guarantee you, you're getting closer to your first deal. So, just count that one metric.

I love that. I love that. So, let me ask you this because in the, I would say, the house game, making a ton of offers, I don't see it being as efficient or effective because there's so much involved, right? There's so much trust that needs to be involved. Like, if the agent gets like— a real estate agent has a listing and they just get a ton of offers, like, a lot of the time they don't know who that is. They don't know if they can perform. They don't want to put their name on the line. But would you say there's a difference in just making tons of offers in land versus making tons of offers in, um, single family?

Yeah, there is a difference for sure. Um, you know, land is, is just more transactional in nature in general because, um, there's less emotion tied up into it. Um, I say less because there's not no emotion. I have been cussed out by plenty of landowners, of course, who have told me that my daddy grew tobacco on this land, uh, and my granddaddy grew tobacco on this land, and I grew tobacco on this land. And I'm not selling for a penny less than X. Yeah, fine. So that does happen. Um, nonetheless, it's less emotional. Um, you get a lot of people who just don't want it anymore, probably going to lose it to taxes, then they inherited it, they don't have any basis into it. So for them, it's just like a someday check because they can liquidate it at any time. Um, so yes, it's You know, yes, it's easier in that sense, but for sure you still have to build some rapport. Um, you have to have the person that you're talking to, um, know, like, and trust you. Of course, that offer doesn't mean squat. So, okay, yeah, there's a little bit of that. Yeah, for sure.

So let's preface— I'll preface this for when you're making offers. It's not just like an auto generator just sending multiple offers. You're making legit offers where you're talking to someone. Before you make the offer?

Absolutely. Yeah, I don't just send out offers blindly. Okay. Um, I know some— like, that's pretty popular in the land game, like sending—

that's what I thought you were doing for some reason. Yeah.

And, um, I never got into that, um, primarily because mail is expensive. So, um, I've spent like 8 grand on, on direct mail when I first got started, like, with that mentor. And I did do 3 deals off of it over the course of a year. But I basically broke even. Like, I was profitable, but like, I made like $1,000 when it was over a year's time, right? Yeah, so yeah, yeah, over like 12 to 18 months. Yeah, because they don't all call at the same time.

Exactly right. So mail hits at different times, right? Like, at least the deals. Um, when you're calling these sellers, um, of these land, do you— are you making the offer, um, Or are they kind of giving you an idea of where they want to be and it's kind of close? Or are you usually having to lowball them and just kind of cross your fingers and hope they accept the offer? How does that usually go for the ones that you do get?

Yeah. Well, so I am not talking to sellers as much these days, but I can speak to when I was. So, yeah, I'd call them up and I'd ask them, "Hey, you're interested in an offer on this property?" And they either say yes or no. And if they say yes, Um, you know, I just try to kind of confirm a couple of things about the property, you know, try to figure out if they ever had any plans for building on it, like if it's an infill lot. Depending on the property, I have some questions that I want to ask just to get them to open up and talk to me a little bit. Um, and then I always ask them, um, not as quickly as possible because, because I don't want to seem aggressive, but, um, pretty early on in the conversation I'm asking, yeah, well, what do you want for this thing, you know? What's— and I don't know how many. More often than not, they don't throw a number out there. They're like, "Well, you called me." Yeah. Okay.

Because a lot of times in wholesaling, they sometimes are in the money, right? They'll say, "I just want this." And it's like, "All right, that's already a deal." And those are low-hanging fruit. And so I don't know if your experience has been just a lot of the deals that you've done, you happen to call at the right time and you're in the money, or it's like, okay, I had to, you know, build rapport, make the offer that was lower, and then, you know, go from there. So yeah.

Yeah, building rapport, make the offer that was lower. Um, I guess a handful of times it's a laydown and then I still negotiate them a little more, you know.

Of course.

Yeah, make someone feel like they won or they look stable.

Yeah, you never want to give someone— if someone, if it's a laydown, they say, 'I'll take $90,000 for it,' and you're like, 'Okay, sounds good,' they usually are like, 'Wait, hold on, maybe I can get more for it.' So you don't want to do that. Yeah, never do that.

Everyone always negotiate a little bit. You got to make them feel like you guys have to do the dance, and then they have to lead in the dance, but you're really leading. You got to make them feel like they fought and won for it. So yeah, always negotiate a little more for sure. Uh, but these days, just to tell me what you're doing these days. Yeah, yeah, these days my website's bringing in the majority of the leads, and these leads are hot and ready. Hot and ready like Little Caesars, you know what I mean? They raised their hand, they filled out 2 forms on my website, and they're waiting for a call, you know.

How'd you get the website to generate leads? Is it SEO?

SEO, yeah.

Great job. How'd you find out? How'd you learn how to do that?

I had been doing it for my other business, the chef business. Okay. Or so I've been doing it for over 10 years now, so I'm no stranger to it, and I know that it, uh, it's effective. And it's— it doesn't create the volume of leads that you'd expect. But when they do come through, they are ready to go, man. Like, they're kind of like PPC or PPL leads, you know what I mean? They're just like— they're reaching out to me. So I have a, like, an upper hand in the conversation, you know what I mean? I kind of hold the cards with a little bit of leverage. So in those situations, I'm asking them straight up, what do you want for it? You know?

Yeah. Yeah. Because they're coming to you.

They're going to tell me every time. They never— oh, well, what do you— well, you called me. You filled out my thing on the website. Well, you know, I didn't— I didn't call you. So how long—

I have a question about your SEO. How long have you been doing that site? Because I know it can take some time to get that SEO going. Or did you just do it recently and it's popping off already?

No, it takes seasoning. It's been live for 4 years now.

Okay, so 2020. And what was the SEO that you did around it? Was it like specific location? Like, hey, land, are you saying nationwide land?

Like, what, how did you go about that concentration on, um, vacant land and mobile homes in Florida?

Okay, so specific. You weren't just nationwide. It's too, that's too broad. You had to go specific.

You can go broad with SEO, but I just want to focus on Florida as my primary market.

I love that, man. Okay, well, dude, I've learned a lot from you, man. So tell me, I know you reached out and I love to bring people on, but I want to know how we got connected. I know you reached out, but how did you find out about, you know, what I got going on?

Yeah, you said—

yeah, let me know.

Well, I listen to a lot of YouTube, so I always have. So I love probably 2 to 3 hours of educational content on YouTube, kind of stuff like what we're doing right now, just people talking about their story and what have you. Just picking up nuggets and, uh, inspiration. And since I don't have like a local community of people really doing it, it's, it's nice to hear other people and what they got going on, right, etc. So I think I first— I can't remember when I first heard about you and your stuff there. Uh, maybe it was on a Jerry Norton.

That's— yeah, me and Jerry are pretty tight, so I, I probably came through Jerry Norton's and then maybe that way. Yeah.

Yeah, you were talking about how you do your thing and your approach to the business and so on. And I really resonated with that. Excuse me. I really resonated with that. So I stole some of your stuff, of course, and implemented it into my business. And I hit you up because I was actually interested in the JV— or not JV, but the marketing agreement or whatever documentation that you have to give to buyers. Um, because, um, and correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, you kind of, uh, you know, work with the buyers a little bit more intimately depending on the deal. And then, um, you have them sign directly and you have this agreement and they pay you. I don't— I can't remember if it was outside of title or inside of title, but on a set, not on the HUD or whatever it was. I wanted that documentation because I'm doing that now and it's more on like a handshake. They always send me money, but I kind of just want some paperwork just because, like, you know what I mean?

Like, I'm doing it more now. I remember you. I do remember now that you asked me for that. So, so this is what I do. I work when I have a buyer that I know wants a deal and it's out, not— it's a handshake. I have, I have, I create an invoice on my CRM. I have a CRM that you can create invoices. You can create an invoice anywhere. Right, sure. So I create an invoice and then I send it to them in DocuSign or PandaDoc, and I put my signature and their signature at the end of like $5,000 or whatever, whatever we're agreeing on, right, for the consulting fee. Does that make sense? I send that over to them, I sign it, they sign it, and it says blank is agreeing to pay the— like, this buyer is agreeing to pay this for the consulting fee. I send that to— once we sign, we send it to the title company that the deal is closing on, and the title company knows what's going on in the description of the invoice says is my invoice information, like for— not my invoice, my wire information. So when the deal closes, the title company just wires me the money, wires me the funds. So it's an invoice that's sent to the title company, and the title company knows what's going on because the seller is like— sorry, the buyer's like, yeah, this is, you know, this is who I'm working with, this is a consulting fee. So they pay it out. So you never have to worry about like your buyer kind of paying you because the title company's in the loop. And if they don't want to get the title company like to disburse the funds, then I would kind of be a little cautious about that. Be like, "Why not? That's how I usually do it." But if they're like, "Oh, I'll just give it to you later," that's fine, like if you have a good relationship. But for me, it's just easy. It's just like, "Hey, when the transaction closes, just the title company will just send me the money. It's easy." Right.

Because buyers, they're like squirrels, man. As soon as they get that one nut, they're on to the next one. They're like halfway done with it, they drop it, they're running back and forth. And sometimes they don't mean to kind of like keep you waiting. Um, but, um, that you don't always get paid right away. I learned that the hard way. Um, but yeah, I, I close outside of title with, um, like 2 or 3 buyers. And, um, sometimes those buyers, we close inside of title as well. I recently had a title agent tell me like, hey, I need an agreement. I'm like, we've done like 3, 4, 5 of these without an agreement, but now you want one and that's fine. So that's why I started like thinking, all right, let me just always have it go through title. I'll always have the HUD as well so I can keep track of my deals for tax purposes and just for proof that I'm actually doing the business. And so that's how we met and you were gracious enough to ask me to, you know, just kind of share what I got going on here. So I appreciate it.

I love it, man. Yeah. So I hope what I said helps you. I think like if they want an agreement that you could say that technically is an agreement, right? Like it's paperwork that's signed. If they want something a little bit more exclusive, you could write something up, but it's mainly, it's a consulting fee.

That's it, right?

So yeah, man. Well, it's been a pleasure and I want you to stay in touch. And I know that I've learned a lot from you and from the way you operate the business, and I know a lot of people have as well. So if anybody wants to reach out to you just to connect, where can they hit you up, man?

Yeah, I mean, you can give me a call or a text. My business number is 954-613-6115. That's 954-613-6115. Or you can shoot me an email, info@hitpropertygroup.com, H-I-T propertygroup.com. Um, either one of those be the best way to get in touch with me. And if you have deals, uh, send them my way because I'm buying anywhere in Florida. Um, don't send me that retail stuff because I don't want it. Go find a builder. Bring me something at 60% of conservative retail value that can be supported by comps, and I'm your buyer all day long.

And we got a fan. We got a fan for you. You got Manuel, I think that's how you say it, Manuel Rank. Such an inspiring video. Mark's ability to balance being a personal chef and wholesaling real estate is amazing. Thanks for sharing his journey. Man, you got a fan out here, Mark.

Thanks, dude.

Yeah, man. You said this is your first interview, but hey, you crushed it. So I guess watching all those other interviews, you learned you learn how to get it done, you know?

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm no stranger to talking to people. Yeah.

Well, congratulations, man. Always inspiration to learn from others. And I'm proud of you for taking action. And one day, I know your kids are going to see obviously all the hard work you're doing. You know, they're going to get into real estate just in their due time if they want, right? Or maybe they might be an influencer. Who knows?

I told them, listen, do whatever you want to do, but always have a way to make some money. And that'll be real stayed on the side over here. So when you're ready, I'm ready to teach.

I love it, man. Well, appreciate it. And we're signing off, everybody. If you like this video, please like the video because if you like it, the algorithm says, hey, this is a good video, let me get in front of more people. And by the way, if you guys want to learn how to wholesale, whether it's land or lots or anything, what we do is we have a free training every week in our Facebook group where we go over like the core principles of how to get into getting your first deal. And, you know, if you want to learn how to get that first deal, pop in on our Facebook group. We do it at 4 PM Eastern Standard Time today and every Thursday. Catch you guys later.

Peace.

Hey everybody, what's up? It's Nathan Payne, and for the first time ever, we just released this insane training bundle that has literally everything that I've learned from doing a combined 4,000 deals in real estate, all from starting with absolutely no previous business background experience or any real estate experience. Plus, there is over $19,000 worth of free gifts that we're throwing in, all for an insanely low, low price. If you want to get your hands on this, be sure to click the first link on the description below right now.