Become a Top Wholesale Agent: Proven Methods for Rapid Success

Brett McCollum (00:01.494)
All right guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Brett McCollum, and I’m here today with Matt Miller. And today we’re gonna be talking about wholesale agent development. Before we do guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs to 5X their businesses and allow them to build the business they’ve always wanted and live the life they’ve always dreamed up. Without further ado, Matt, how are you, man?

Matt Miller (00:24.59)
I’m doing great. How are you today?

Brett McCollum (00:26.192)
Thanks for being on the show. It’s really good catching up with you pre show, you know, getting to know you a little bit getting some background in history. Just it’s gonna be a good show man. I’m excited Yeah, all right before we do before we get into it age-old question classic Matt, who are you tell some background? You know, how’d you get you know, give us the history. Who are you?

Matt Miller (00:34.85)
Yeah, I’m excited as well.

Matt Miller (00:45.878)
Yeah, definitely. So Matt Miller, I live in Long Beach, California, my favorite city in Southern California, but I am biased. I’m married. I’ve got two kids, a two and a four year old, and been running my own business with some partners since July of 2020 in the wholesale space. And prior to real estate, I was

Brett McCollum (00:54.692)
There you go.

Brett McCollum (01:06.404)
Very cool.

Very cool.

Matt Miller (01:14.094)
been in the game for a while, but I was in the military. So got in the military, got out, went to school, and then got, I was a medic in the army and stationed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, the 101st Airborne, and spent some time overseas. Got to learn a lot about leadership and a lot about, uh,

Brett McCollum (01:18.488)
What? What branch?

Brett McCollum (01:23.812)
in the Army.

Brett McCollum (01:27.702)
cool.

Brett McCollum (01:35.672)
Yeah. What was that? I’m sorry to cut you off. What was that like? You know, you’re overseas, you’re an army man, you’ve got a huge responsibility, obviously. What was that like?

Matt Miller (01:49.262)
I think the experience in the military is I needed it as a kid. I went in when I was 17. And when I was deployed, was from 21 to 22, I was deployed overseas in a combat zone.

Brett McCollum (02:01.379)
Hmm.

Matt Miller (02:02.338)
The level of expectation and what you can get from people with even not a lot of years of service, I think the Army sort of places the responsibility on you. One, there’s excellent leadership development there. And two, they take new people and expect them to perform at a high level and they end up getting what they expect, which is honestly a lot of kids running around.

Brett McCollum (02:15.79)
Okay.

Matt Miller (02:28.94)
you know, fighting the war and doing all the things that the country needs done. So a lot of really good lessons that I probably didn’t appreciate until later, but it served me pretty well, especially around just, just the basics, work ethic, showing up on time in the right uniform. And, you know, you get modeled a lot of real true leadership behavior because you’re in a crisis.

So it’s not just window dressing on how you actually lead and motivate people and take care of people. get it. You know, I had some very, very good local leaders for our brigade and battalion that really modeled what that looks like on a higher level. that I was lucky to have that at a young age.

Brett McCollum (03:12.324)
Let ask you this question because when you said this it kind of hit my brain. You mentioned regarding responsibility. As kids, they say, here’s responsibility, and it’s just dropped in your lap. I’ve had some high-level leaders around me have a similar thought pattern, and it’s always been interesting to me to see like people tend to rise up to what is given to them, you know, the right people anyway.

tend to rise up into that. And you met, like, was that kind of your experience as well from what you saw?

Matt Miller (03:51.422)
Yes, and the way that it’s done in the military, you almost do more for other people than you’d ever do for yourself. So you don’t want to make a mistake because it’s going to affect your team member. And they start that out very early in the training. I make a mistake, I show up late. I don’t even get punished. It’s the entire group. So you realize how much your behavior is tied to the outcomes.

Brett McCollum (03:59.681)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (04:18.201)
Yeah.

Matt Miller (04:18.326)
of the people around you and it gives you a level of responsibility to like be there for, you know, your brothers and sisters in arms and how important that is. And I think that carries over pretty well into to life generally. And people tend to look up to folks that they trust and that they know are going to show up and support them. But yeah, people, people constantly rise to the level of expectations you set for them.

Brett McCollum (04:37.42)
Mm-hmm. Man, that’s super cool.

Brett McCollum (04:44.632)
And that’s a beautiful thing. It’s something that I need to continue to remind myself of, right? Especially even as parents, you know, with our children. That’s a huge thing. Yeah. I I have to say before we even get too much further into this, thank you for your service. We certainly appreciate you, Yeah. Let’s talk real estate a little bit. You said 2012, give or take, was that when you kind of got your first introduction into that?

Matt Miller (05:05.408)
thank you. Yeah.

Matt Miller (05:13.878)
Yeah, I was lucky enough, a really close childhood friend of mine, I went into the service, he was an athlete, he ended up going into the NFL and finding his way to a small wholesale shop in Dallas called New Western Acquisitions, which I think most people who are in this space know, they build just an absolutely incredible company and organization that’s nationwide and developed a lot of leaders in the process.

I moved out to Houston, Texas to work with them at their like newer Houston branch and then eventually 2013 left to go to California with a very small group to launch their west coast operations.

Brett McCollum (05:55.556)
Very cool. And you did that for approximately, was it seven years that I kept doing the math right?

Matt Miller (06:00.974)
Yeah, it was seven years in California. And then in July of 2020, first child on the way, looking way further down the road on career and what I really wanted. It was time to spread my wings and start my own company. So left in Fairtrade in July of 2020 and currently eight offices in California and, you know, a couple of thousand transactions in the books and continuing to kind of grow and develop our team members.

Brett McCollum (06:27.64)
That’s fantastic. Yeah. mean, and what a, what a like journey, right? It’s a, and I think that speaks a lot to your character, that it wasn’t, Hey, let me work somewhere for five seconds and move on. mean, seven years is a long time. And especially in the REI space in the wholesale space, like, you know, you see these when you’re in, when you’re a acquisitions manager, whatever your, your role was, you know,

Matt Miller (06:47.47)
you

Brett McCollum (06:55.0)
You see the whole pie and I’m only getting a slice, you know, and like, man, I, and I know how to do, but you sticking with it for that period of time. what I mean before you, it taught you, have to imagine it taught you how many, so many lessons of how to operate a wholesale business before you ever started one. Like, does that, did that translate for you some way?

Matt Miller (07:16.566)
It did. And I’d done some investing prior to getting into real estate. I’d bought my own home and then turned it into a rental. I had done some renovation projects locally in Sacramento where I’m from. So I had some experience getting in, but understanding the complexity of managing a business.

Brett McCollum (07:23.255)
Okay.

Matt Miller (07:36.162)
both P &L management that I had the responsibility for, which was excellent, but also realizing the people component that was so huge. And not really just the back office support, but how to support the private contractors agents and their career development and their ups and downs coming into the industry. That was some of the best learning lessons. And in the rear view is I launched my own company also realizing how much work.

goes into managing a large organization and how impressive that the older a company gets and the bigger and the bigger the footprint, the complexity just starts to snowball. So a lot of very good lessons during my time there that I’ve been able to translate over and evolve on.

Brett McCollum (08:20.216)
Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing too, like the business side of it. I have a mentor that always says business is easy. People are difficult. And as you’re growing a business out and you’ve got more people coming in and different personalities and different, mean, maybe this is the wrong way to say it, but we all bring baggage into something that, you know, good or bad. and that comes in with it, you know, and Hey, guess what? Hey, Matt, you’re the owner of this company and you get to inherit those problems now as a result of.

owning a car, you know, what’s that been like for you?

Matt Miller (08:54.252)
I’d say that it’s been really excellent launching and running the business as I’m a new parent, as there’s so many parallels. And I think that if you do a good job on the people side, because they’re bringing a lot of things into the business, expectations, oftentimes I really judge success and leadership on

it’s pretty apparent like how well are the people around you doing? And a lot of times when you’re running a wholesale business or in the investment space, it means they’re doing so well that eventually they leave to go do something else. And I had folks that came up with me and left to go to master’s programs at MIT for real estate development. I had a guy leave to go to Harvard Law.

Brett McCollum (09:24.932)
Mm.

Brett McCollum (09:35.224)
Yeah, true. A lot of turn. That’s why I mentioned that seven years is a long time. Yeah.

Matt Miller (09:51.682)
but is now back working as my general counsel at the new organization. So you see these evolutions of the people that come in the door. They do their first, they buy their first rental. They buy their primary residence. They get financially secure for the first time. They get a confidence because they came on and learned enough about leadership and life and business to be able to really evolve as people. And then eventually they’re gonna wanna stretch their wings and go, whether it’s people, do something deep.

Brett McCollum (10:18.564)
But I would imagine it’s your heart probably is for that to happen too, isn’t it? Like that’s, yeah.

Matt Miller (10:22.604)
It is smart, but I think that it’s sort of a notch in your belt as a leader to know that that’s happened, that they gave the confidence, just like your kids when they head out the door. When I left at 17, I’m sure it wasn’t fun for my parents, but it also meant that I had enough confidence at that age to say, I’m out of here and I’m going to be fine.

Brett McCollum (10:42.424)
Yeah, and good on them for that. I mean, yeah, you’re growing leaders and when they become leaders, know, that’s like, found the chess on like I did it, you know, but it’s also like, now I’ve got to hire again. It’s a revolving door.

Matt Miller (10:54.179)
Yeah.

Matt Miller (10:58.094)
And I think you give them also like, it’s always important to have career path, right? Wherever you’re at. So there’s always gonna be a path toward management and leadership, but some of the biggest and best individual producers, if they get forced in that path, I think they don’t tend to thrive there. They wanna build, they wanna do more, they wanna see what’s next. And you know, I’d love it if that…

Climb is with me and I can find a place for them in the organization, but I’m also realistic that a lot of those folks are going to go and find out what that next thing they’re going to conquer and learn is going to be and we’ll run into each other again. The industry’s small.

Brett McCollum (11:37.998)
Yeah. Have you ever heard of a book called The Energy Bus?

Matt Miller (11:43.382)
No, I’m not familiar with that one.

Brett McCollum (11:44.878)
So it’s a pretty easy read, not over the complicated, but the premise of it is in organizations where we have, you got Matt, you got Brett, and let’s say your acquisition, I’m disposition, we’re both doing great, and now I’m gonna go up, I wanna do this next thing, just like you’re talking about. Sometimes your seat on the bus in the organization is best here, but not there, and your job as a leader is to figure out where those seats are, because you get the wrong,

the right person on the wrong seat, the energy that gets sucked out of the room, that gets sucked out of the organization, that gets sucked out of, you comes from it. And he almost communically calls them energy vampires. And largely it’s because they’re sucking it out, right? And largely it’s because they’re in the, not so much they’re bad people as much as it is they’re in the wrong seat. Get them in the right seat on the bus. And that’s the, I think that’s the mission of every leader of an organization, right?

Matt Miller (12:42.946)
Yeah, I totally agree. You see that from taking a person that might be in dispositions or sales, and they’re good at it. But they want to figure out what’s next, and they want to grow, and they maybe step into an acquisition role. And sometimes that’s the wrong seat for them, or sometimes it’s the right seat, but it’s not comfortable yet. So you’ve got to keep them in that seat.

until they develop the skills and get to the next level because they’re so good at their primary job and they’re learning a completely new set of skills of underwriting and negotiating on contracts and stuff that goes into the acquisition side of the house. Same thing with leadership.

Brett McCollum (13:19.34)
Yeah, this is a good segue talking about development. And that’s what you’re doing. And that’s something that we kind of touched on on the top of the show with wholesale agent development. Tell me a little bit about what wholesale agent development is and kind of what you guys are doing with it.

Matt Miller (13:37.654)
Yeah, I’m happy to. So I think our whole philosophy as an organization is centered around like, who’s the core customer? And I would argue for a lot of other companies, the core customer ends up being the real estate investor who’s flipping or the seller, right? That’s who they’re serving.

We’ve known since inception that the real estate agent is the core customer of Fairtrade Real Estate. That’s who we’re gonna put the most energy into. Granted, those other customer buckets are incredibly important for the business, but knowing who our core customer is has helped us keep very focused on agent development. And with us…

everything starts out with really strong sales fundamentals. So almost every agent without exception, unless you’re coming in with a long track record, is gonna come into a disposition sales role and learn how to do investor relations and sell the company’s inventory to those fix and flip investors, buy and hold investors, developers that work in the California markets that we’re in. And we put energy into training around…

the skills needed for that role. And then once you’ve proven your ability to do that, we start putting training into the acquisition side of the house. And that’s the sort of standard career development with us. You start in sales, move to acquisitions. And then if you have competency in those two roles and show capacity for leadership, you have the right character, move you into a leadership role, managing a team.

Brett McCollum (15:11.268)
Okay, yeah, that’s incredible. Let’s spend some time for a moment talking about like, let’s say, know, Brett just joins the, and I’m in the sales role on the disposition side. Are you hiring, are they licensed agents from the jump? Are you getting them licensed? What’s that evolution like?

Matt Miller (15:30.348)
Sure, Fairtrade is a wholesale brokerage. Everyone, including the founders or licensed brokers or agents, all the people that join need to already be licensed in California.

Brett McCollum (15:41.676)
Yeah. Why did you guys elect to go that direction with it?

Matt Miller (15:46.574)
Good question. I think the main piece is having a barrier to entry and sort of another outside governing body that makes sure that the conduct of the person is…

Brett McCollum (15:58.244)
Mmm.

Matt Miller (16:01.122)
you know, above board, they’ve had to at least have the discipline to take the basic real estate sales classes past the test, past the background test, and they’re obviously interested in the space. The license also gives them flexibility with what they’re gonna do in their real estate career generally, whether they’re, you know.

able to grab commissions from when they’re on the acquisition side of the house to benefit the brokerage or if they’re doing their own projects. The folks that join Fairtrade Real Estate and that get into the investment space in wholesale, they’re interested in real estate and investing. They want to invest. They want to own doors. They want to flip properties. They want to do all those things. And I think being an agent adds an additional tool that’s very, very helpful for anyone entering.

Brett McCollum (16:48.278)
Absolutely. I agree completely. In the wholesale space, mean, it’s a mixed bag, right? You know, you’ve got some people like, I’ll never get my license because I don’t need it. Why would I do that? You’ve got the people that are like, well, I’ve got my license because it allows me more flexibility to do this. But I think what I really resonated with with what you said was barrier to entry. Right. I mean, there was a time and it’s still out there now, like you see some bad actors out there.

the wholesale space right no buried entry they watched a five second youtube short on you know what a wholesale deal is and i think they’re the expert now and then they go out making you know it’s just not good you’re attracting high level like higher level talent ideally i would imagine by just that one thing

Matt Miller (17:38.998)
I agree, yeah, it takes our recruiting funnel because we develop wholesale agents and narrows the potential candidate pool down. And I’d say that generally the folks that are coming to work with us, they share a few traits, right? They have that entrepreneurial spirit that most agents have.

They’re interested in the investment space much more than the traditional real estate listing representing buyers working on open houses on the weekends, more standard traditional transactions.

and they tend to be younger in their careers. They’ve been at another brokerage for a little while and or their early entries into the space. I landed at a wholesale brokerage, my first real estate job and hadn’t, you know, and that’s I’ve been in the space since then. And I don’t think I would do well in traditional real estate. I have a lot of friends and colleagues that work the traditional space. It’s a very different set of skill sets.

Brett McCollum (18:19.63)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (18:43.694)
have you, that’s okay. because it’s agent focused, right? That’s your team. I know a lot of the agents I know, right, have a predisposition to struggle with wholesale. Because I don’t give them the right fiduciary responsibility. All the classic things that your agents will tell you. How much or if at all,

Do you run into that when you’re working with new agents in your organization?

Matt Miller (19:19.692)
I’d say new agents coming into the company, they understand it really well up front and there’s not a lot, they wanna get into this space. And I personally feel that this, licensed wholesale space is about the best place to be on real estate right now. I rehab properties myself, I know what it’s like to be a flipper. I’m a landlord. It’s very glamorous on the surface. But the trade and the art of being able to put a deal together where there’s enough spread for everyone involved.

seller gets what they want for the property. There’s a profit margin for the wholesaler and the end investor makes a margin on their renovation project or gets their next rental property. To me, it’s a beautiful thing and a beautiful place to be. I’d say agents definitely like we’ll say the realtor community has some bias unless they’ve worked successfully with operators before.

Brett McCollum (20:15.319)
I agree a million percent.

Matt Miller (20:17.014)
And one thing that sets us apart is we don’t assign contracts. We concurrent close everything, meaning we have credit facilities, we fund with our own cash, we’ve bought over a billion dollars worth of real estate in California. Like our companies have taken title to that.

And I think understanding the licensing, understanding the people with the capital and cash and experience to actually close the purchase, really helps when the agents are educated or they’ve had a successful closing, it sort of changes the dynamic. And I think the industry generally has to evolve because expectations are raising, things are getting more complex, and the seller situations that you have to solve in order to have a profitable deal,

Brett McCollum (20:47.394)
Absolutely.

Matt Miller (21:02.414)
It feels like, least in the market right now in California, there more complicated problems, both with the property and with maybe how title’s held. So all those things you really need a professional for.

Brett McCollum (21:14.66)
Wow, no, I couldn’t agree more. I love that philosophy. just, you know, I know a lot of the traditional like, you know, traditional agents, if you all like, you know, come work with us for a minute, you know, and then tell me what you think, right? Like I love that approach.

Matt Miller (21:30.126)
One of the arguments I make to traditional agents too, Brett, is how much earnest money do you have out right now? And the answer’s always zero. It’s like, well, I have $860,000 in cash out right now in earnest money. Do you have credit facilities you have to maintain in order to purchase property? How much real estate did you purchase? How many escrow fees did you pay? How many title policies? I just, and it’s not to…

Brett McCollum (21:51.618)
That credibility stack just bam, dropping on them.

Matt Miller (21:58.691)
dismiss the hard work that goes into being a listing agent or a buyer’s agent, it’s very challenging. It’s to recognize that there’s a very big risk from a professional investor and wholesaler and additional costs that get taken on that oftentimes are in the background or not thought about. And I think that only when you have that conversation with the other real estate professionals, it really starts to connect the dots on the value that you’re bringing to the table.

Brett McCollum (22:16.921)
Right.

Brett McCollum (22:25.476)
Yeah, that’s incredible. Man, we could, I know we could keep going on about that too. I wanted to ask you, all right, it’s 2025, Obviously, know, all the normal objections of real estate today, rates, taxes, insurance, all the things like that, prices on homes haven’t gone down, but everything else has gone up. What’s working for Fairtrade today is from a…

You know, either it be like a what is your target audience still looking like? How are they coming to you? And then moreover, I see the challenge on the wholesale side on my bit is our investor buyers, right? That are buying a little more conservatively than they have and things like that. What are you guys running into right now?

Matt Miller (23:13.698)
So I’ll tell you from each bucket’s perspective, starting with the agent’s perspective. It’s harder to do deals right now. There’s less transactions, let’s say, in Q1 of this year than there was in Q1 of 2024. So coming in.

to the business or being seasoned in the business and seeing transactional velocity slow down for a number of reasons, that’s always a challenge. So you have to lead through that and just have all the agents focus on the fundamentals. think fundamentals to me are tied around.

strong relationship development, understanding what that fix and flip investor is really looking for, understanding the returns, understanding what they might be doing with their strategy on the resale for the property, whether now they’re doing ADUs or they’re doing a small value add, and really understanding the scope of work that they’re comfortable with. From the seller side, I think the competition for deals is as high as I’ve seen it in recent memory.

Brett McCollum (24:11.524)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Miller (24:21.62)
And that comes for from a lot of different spaces. If you own a home, you have people like Fairtrade that you could sell to directly. You have every local listing brokerage wanting to list the house, competing with compressed commissions for the listing of the property. You’ve got companies like Opendoor coming in and providing an alternative solution for certain housing types. So there’s a lot of competition.

for the home seller to get their attention and to win their business. And then from the investor’s perspective,

they need to execute the right strategy that’s current with what’s going to make sure the house sells in today’s market, right? And that’s the demand from these owner-occupant buyers who have high interest rates. They’re going to want a very nice product. They’re going to want the right materials, the right finish outs. It’s probably going to have to be staged correctly. So, and that also means that the fix and flip investor can’t really be a hobbyist right now.

Brett McCollum (25:27.971)
Right.

Matt Miller (25:28.514)
You need to be a professional, meaning like they probably either consult with or have a designer. You know, they’ve got consistency in bulk material pricing. They have a strategy before they go in of both where they’re buying and the type of rehab they’re going to be doing. And if they’re doing it at scale, it’s probably pretty similar for all their projects, but they know they have a good idea and they’re predicting what that owner occupant is going to want, right?

Brett McCollum (25:52.558)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Miller (25:53.366)
And maybe that’s finishing out a portion of the house to be a detached office. You know, there’s all these different things that are very relevant today that they need to really be thoughtful of. And then also getting the right cost of money, the right crews, and the right inventory sources. And we’re able to come in as an inventory source, like you probably do in your wholesale business. You’re another inventory source for that professional investor, whether they’re fixing and flipping or holding onto them as rentals.

Brett McCollum (26:22.094)
Right. Yeah, I think the thing that we’re seeing on our end, I’m curious to hear your perspective on it is, and you touched on it too, right? On your disposition agent side, like on that side of it, cultivating the relationships with the people that are actually buying before there’s a product to push in front of them.

Matt Miller (26:43.564)
Yeah, I think that comes down to our process is pretty straightforward. We require an investor to become Fairtrade verified with our sales team prior to receiving the inventory that we have available. And there’s a number of reasons for that, that we don’t just have like an open marketplace for anyone to go on to.

It really sets the right expectations. Part of that onboarding should be a conversation between the agent and investor about what the investor is looking for, very specifically, counties, price points, how they’re financing the property.

who’s involved in the purchase and then also walking them through like, this is how it works with Fairtrade. We sell out the door prices to the investors, which we’ve got a lot of positive feedback from, but they also need to know we do a concurrent close. They need to know how the option and sales contract work. They need to know how to communicate with their agents. So it’s really about like aligning and communicating well early so that when the deal comes up, if it’s a good deal,

Brett McCollum (27:29.348)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Brett McCollum (27:47.108)
It’s just.

Matt Miller (27:49.452)
They can move on it, underwrite it quickly and make the decision quickly because it is hyper competitive, just like the markets I’m sure you’re in. And I don’t want the education of the investor or our agents to be the reason the deal doesn’t come through for that particular group.

I’d rather everyone know the rules of the game and be able to operate in a space where they can make quick decisions and thoughtful decisions so they can still be profitable, but also still compete.

Brett McCollum (28:21.528)
Yeah. See, I think the shift in wholesale in the last, let’s call it 18 months. Okay. Fairly recent history has gone from you could just literally, it was just order taking and the wholesale business. And now it’s, have to have a really, really solid, disposition process. And I think a lot of the people that got into wholesaling when it, when the times were really good like that, just like I said, the order takers, they didn’t cultivate the discipline of how to sell.

later and what you’re doing from my perspective on the outside looking in here is really really like it’s almost it sounds to you it’s counterintuitive like yeah that’s what you do but i can tell you from talking with a lot of wholesalers across the country that is a people aren’t doing that and what they ought to be doing is really like rewind guys listen to that like matt you laid out a very beautiful like clear a to z this is how we do it you know

If you guys can cherry pick that one thing from this episode, if you’re wholesaling, I promise you your wholesale business will like it’ll explode a heck of a lot faster than what you’re doing right now because what you’re doing is spending time creating clear expectations with your buyers, with your processes so that when the right deals come out, there’s a reason right now there’s like almost a 40 % fallout rate in contracts right now in wholesale across the country. That should never happen.

You know, I get it. Sometimes title is weird. Sometimes we can’t solve certain problems. Sometimes like, but 40 % of that is not those, right? It’s usually a you’re not good at your disposition process and you’re hurting sellers in the meantime, right?

Matt Miller (30:02.488)
Brett, one thing that I’ve seen and we do pretty frequently is there’s groups that are really good at marketing and good at the acquisition piece that end up sort of like offloading the disposition stuff onto Fairtrade. They call us, they call our senior agents and say, hey, I just got this deal. It’s in LA. I’m hire for it.

Brett McCollum (30:23.012)
Good. And if they recognize that they should do that.

Matt Miller (30:26.414)
Yeah, why don’t you guys dispo it for me? And I think I’ve seen a lot of other smaller groups like really scale with that as an option because they tend to actually flip the ones they really like the rest they dispo through us. You know, they assign it directly to us. We’ve got, you know, we’re funding, we’re closing these things. So there’s a lot of transparency with that and it allows them to not maybe have to manage such a big disposition team, but

If you are doing Dispo in-house as a wholesaler or investor, the time that goes into that relationship cultivation and the onboarding process for a new investor is really critical. And you’re going to get it back by actually being able to put deals together in the future. If you have a giant list or you’re just putting it on investor lifts, some of these platforms that…

Brett McCollum (31:05.419)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Matt Miller (31:21.026)
You get a text, you get an email, it feels like you, sent it out to a thousand people. I don’t know if that sells stuff in today’s market. There’s a lot of deal flow coming in from a lot of different sources. Attention’s really spread thin and the fundamentals really come back anytime there’s market disruption.

Brett McCollum (31:41.636)
Yeah, think that, say that one more time. The fundamentals really come in when there’s disruption. I think that’s a huge factor. And for our audience and for people that I talk to routinely, we tell them often, like, hey, Matt, 50%, I don’t know how your JVs look like, but let’s say it’s 50 % of something is better than 100 % of nothing. And most people, most wholesalers, I’ll say it like this.

are good at one or the other. And they usually don’t have a team. They’re usually solopreneurs trying to figure something out, or they have like one VA. You know what mean? Like they’re small. That’s 99 % of organizations. And they don’t have a clear process map for that. So it would be wise of you until you create that to find a fair trade or somebody that is a specialist in that space, develop that relationship. If you’re strong in acquisition, let’s say. And if you happen to be like,

you guys and strong in disposition. I would make the other argument and maybe you stink at acquisition. Find the people that can, you know, do acquisition and split, go 50-50 if that’s what it means. But I think that’s really special. Like I just wanted to highlight that from you guys. You have a very clear process, especially in today’s market when it’s like you said, it’s harder than maybe it ever has been fundamentals in disruption. Like he’s like, that’s huge, man.

Matt Miller (33:09.794)
Yeah, and I just thinking through the JV model or the partnership model, like I don’t think people in the wholesale space need to, I think with collaboration, there’s a lot more deals that get closed and the drop rate falls generally and it’s a better outcome for everybody, including the seller, right? Everybody, yeah.

Brett McCollum (33:32.068)
Check your pride out the door, know what you’re good at, do that, and then find the person that can help you collaborate where you’re weakest at. And then over time, mean, Matt, you weren’t great at everything when you started off in 2012, were you?

Matt Miller (33:47.662)
I was not. Sales was probably the hardest learning curve I ever had. I’m much more analytical, much more geared toward like the acquisition seed.

Brett McCollum (33:52.345)
Yeah.

and you traded whatever that percentage was on your whatever you made for the education of that seven years you were in that organization. And now you get to run like, I think that’s a lost thing is we want to just be the one be the guy or the girl or like now. And sometimes you got to, hey, I’ll trade 50 % of this deal to make sure that I can keep going.

Matt Miller (34:19.618)
Yes, and I like that your thoughts on the keep going because my big concern is that as the as industry transitions you have really talented folks that can have a big impact on their own lives and they may throw the towel into early.

And you really gotta push through the hard times. And part of that is doing things you maybe haven’t done before, including like consider JV, consider potentially a market expansion, considering different marketing tactics on your acquisition side, but definitely reconsidering how you’re doing Dispo. And if it’s working, especially if you’ve got people that have large splits or you know, you too, and they’re not…

bringing things to the table that leads to closings, or the software you’re using isn’t actually selling any houses, you really gotta look at, know, line itemize your expenses and figure out where you’re weak and figure out how to, you know, how you can use leverage to get better in those areas.

Brett McCollum (35:21.398)
I agree. Yeah. Well, man, Matt, we could probably talk for hours and hours and hours about this, you know, like, as you guys can tell. but we’re going to need to try to wrap up here a little bit before we do though. I like to ask people, you know, if there’s like a, I mean, you’ve talked full of great advice throughout this part of the show. Okay. But if you could leave somebody with something that you’re like, this is kind of something that’s always stayed with me. It doesn’t necessarily have to be.

Wholesaling could be something from your your army days. It could be something from your adolescence. It could be whatever it is, but what’s something it may be stayed with you? That you maybe you carry into everyday life

Matt Miller (36:00.782)
Yeah, I touched on it before, but I think I’ll do one on the personal side called leadership side and one that’s on the real estate side. So on the leadership side, you need to really judge your success by how the people around you are doing.

Brett McCollum (36:09.208)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (36:16.644)
Hmm.

Matt Miller (36:18.102)
It’s a very simple way to see if you are an effective leader of a business, of your family, of anything. The people around you are doing well, you’re succeeding at your role as a leader in that capacity. On the real estate side,

Matt Miller (36:39.224)
I would say that.

Matt Miller (36:44.13)
just continue to grind through the challenges. We were chatting before the show, Brett, about if you’re 10 years in the investment business or the wholesale business, you’re a grizzled veteran. And that’s because so many people wash out of real estate broadly in the first one to five years and go do something else. If you really want it and you really want a different life and you really want something different for your family and your future,

you have to push through all the hard times and connect yourself with the right groups of people or organizations where you’re going to continue to grow. So just, you know, your environment is going to be crucial, but also your own grid.

Brett McCollum (37:26.424)
Yeah, don’t quit, right? Yeah, yeah, I love that. Well, guys, it’s been a phenomenal show. Matt, if people want to reach out to you, get to know you a little bit better, what’s maybe a, some way they might be able to connect with you.

Matt Miller (37:39.106)
Yeah, I’d say the best way is just reach out to me directly on LinkedIn, Matt Miller, Fairtrade Real Estate. My phone number’s listed on there, but I respond quickly. That’s the only social platform I have, but I’d love to connect with everybody. let’s close the.

Brett McCollum (37:52.856)
Yeah, guys, you heard it. You heard it. Find him, look him up, connect, do it. There’s no there’s no ifs, ands, buts on that one. If you’re in that in the California market or just in general, Matt’s somebody worth following, okay? So do that. Well, Matt, been a pleasure getting to know you, talking with you, drawing out a ton of quality information. You’re an absolute rock star and I appreciate you having us.

Matt Miller (38:18.488)
Thanks Brett, same here. I really appreciate the opportunity. Okay.

Brett McCollum (38:21.316)
All right guys until the next one. Take care everybody