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Show Summary
In this conversation, John Maxi shares his journey in real estate, emphasizing the integration of AI into his business processes. He discusses the importance of getting out of his own way in sales, building a sustainable business model, and the role of relationships in real estate transactions. John reflects on his background in data science and how it informs his approach to investing and acquisitions. He also highlights the significance of personal connections and the human element in real estate, despite the growing influence of technology.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
John Maxi (00:00)
You know, everyone’s like, right, even I have an AI software toolkit that I’ve sell and everyone wants to do AI this and AI that. And, you know, if you plug and play the system, you’ll never have to talk to anyone again, because it’ll all just do it for you. And I think that’s, I think it’s the wrong direction. I think that takes away the fact that, you know, when you’re dealing with sellers, this is a huge, a huge thing in their life is selling a property for most people.Q Edmonds (02:00)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. Excited to be here today. Excited about my guest. I have someone, know, listen, a marketing company, ⁓ incorporates AI. Very good. We use AI as a tool. I think he’s going to show you and talk to you about how it can be beneficial for you as well. And I love that data science, right?He’s analytical, he gets into the science, he gets into the weeds of things. And I absolutely love that. I wish my brain capacity could work like that. I retain information, but I don’t like to figure things out. So I’m happy to talk to someone like him so he can maybe help me out a little bit. But I’m so excited to talk to and introduce you all to Mr. John Maxi Mr. John, how you doing today,
John Maxi (02:51)
I’m doing awesome Q. Thanks for having me. Very excited. Happy to be here. Happy to chat. Yeah, I’m very much on the analytical side of things. It’s got its own challenges, but it’s got some fun stuff too.Q Edmonds (03:06)
Absolutely. Well, my wife is analytical, so you can already imagine. Drives me up a wall, because she can see beyond it. Her brain be, do, do, do. But anyway, love you, babe, if you’re watching. So Mr. John, that’s what I want to do, sir. I want to dive right in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. If you want to give us a little bit of an origin story of kind of how you got doing what you do, know, kind how you walked up towards it, we would love origin story.And also, if you don’t mind telling me what part of tell us what part of the world you’re in. And so Mr. John, sir, you have the floor.
John Maxi (03:41)
All right, thank you. Yeah, I am right now. I’m in northeast Wisconsin, some about 45 minutes west of Green Bay, right on the top of Lake Winnebago. And I’ve been living and investing in this market for the last five years. Moved up here in 2020. ⁓ I got I got my start in real estate. I guess philosophically, you know, many, many years ago, probably as everyone did.reading Rich Dad Poor Dad in high school and being like, yep, all right, well, there it is. There’s the answer to everything. So I just got to figure out how to apparently buy some rental properties. Being the analytical person that I am, spent many, many, many, many, many, many, many years in school. I can’t go to any more school. There’s no more degrees to get. I’m done.
But while I was doing all that, I spent a lot of time building Excel sheets and some of my own software programs to start analyzing real estate deals. And so I wasn’t in a position as a grad student where I was going to be buying anything.
But I spent a lot of time building my own analysis tools. And I would just, you know,
go on Zillow or find what was listed and say, here’s the purchase price. Here’s the mortgage. means blah, blah. Like, ⁓ wow. I couldn’t buy it for anywhere near that. I have to buy it way less than that or drive the rent stuff or whatever and just get, have a lot of fun really. ⁓ Just pretending like I was going to buy places. ⁓ And then, then one day ⁓ I, I woke up and my wife and I were both out of school and we had jobs and we kind of said, I guess we can
I guess we could buy one now that we’re, ⁓ and so, and so we started buying, ⁓ and so pretty soon here, about the 25 doors, 26 stores, ⁓ in a couple of days. and along the way, I’ve always wanted to have my own acquisitions arm as part of the real estate business. So.
It’s, I’ve always thought of real estate investing as kind of a triangle or a pyramid. And at the bottom you have your off market acquisitions. Then you got your flippers and you got your landlords and then you got your retail buyers. And so if you sit at the bottom of that pyramid and you’re sourcing the best deals, you have every exit strategy open to you. So if you keep it as a rental, you keep it as a rental.
If you want to turn around sell it on the MLS without fixing it up, you probably can. If you want to fix it up and flip it, you can. ⁓ So it just always kind of made intuitive sense that to build a really long lasting sustainable business, you want to control your deal flow and you want to be able to have flexibility on your exit strategies. And so that’s why I’ve always have really wanted to build and grow my own.
marketing company at the bottom to source deals.
Q Edmonds (07:53)
Yeah, I love it. Thank you for taking us through the journey walking us up to where you are now I found it very interesting when you said I was pretending I was going to buy right I love when you said that but it also it makes me think you know cuz you’re a better your dad a guy and So I’ll use this analogy real quick my wife and I when we started dating We would say we’re gathering data on each other where we are potential to each otherbut I don’t know if that’s potential can turn into a disaster or success. So I had to gather as much data as possible. So when I think about you as a data guy, I know you said you was pretending, but to me, I think you were just gathering data. You were just putting things together in your mind that way when you poured the, when you and your wife say, let’s do it, you had already envisioned different ways to be successful in your mind. So that’s kind of what I think about when you said it, to be honest with you. And so.
And that kind of leads into my question because I always say destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning there are things in our life that prepare us for the next steps. There are tools that we learn over here that prepares us for things over there. And so I wonder are there strategies and tools that you can identify in yourself that you know that has helped you over the journey kind of being a man that you are today?
John Maxi (09:18)
Oh man, that is, that’s a really awesome quote. I mean, that speaks to me actually in a lot of ways. So like, that’s really cool. Yeah. So I mentioned I went to school for a long time. So a long, a long time ago when I got out of college, I’m sad to say how long ago it is now, I was,studying to go to medical school, I ended up not getting in, but I ended up getting into a PhD program. That’s the schooling I went to.
When I had that split in my life, this what your quote makes me think of is, I could basically on the river of life, I could keep going with this other opportunity.
and see where that takes me. And maybe I could meet back up with the other branch of the river going down medical school. Or I could try to turn the canoe around and row against the stream. I went and I got my PhD. And I went with the river and I said, if I want to go back to med school later, I can. But that path is what set me on
everything that led to now. So I didn’t use, I left academia as soon as I graduated. ⁓ but when I was, when I was there, I spent all this time learning to program on my own because I wanted to use it in my studies. what that meant was when I left school, I was able to get a job at a startup doing some really cool stuff. Cause now I can say like, Hey, I went to school. got this fancy degree, whatever. But I also taught myself how to code.
And so now I can do these things that are valuable to your startup company and I can apply that other knowledge that I learned along with it. And so that is kind of like the genesis of, okay, I can teach myself these skills to do what I need to do as things move along. just cause I, you know, it’s easy to say, man, I wish I would have skipped all that schooling and just got straight into real estate when I was 22, right? 23.
and I’d have that much longer of a head start. But there are so many cool things that I learned and got exposed to that then launched me onto this path of data science and AI. And then I’ve been able to, again, like these different paths, right, coming together. And now I’m doing both of them together. And I think ultimately I’m in a better place having taken the path I took.
than worrying about what I could have done or what I didn’t do. so that’s why like you said that quote and I was like, that hits at home because I feel like I took kind of a winding path and there are some things that I wish at the time, like, I you know, could move heaven and earth and get back on that path. But, you know, I think things happen for a reason. You got to follow where you’re going and make the best out of everything and just continually push and learn and grow.
and just use every experience you have to its fullest potential.
Q Edmonds (13:18)
No, I totally agree. And I think as you so eloquently said, I think that’s what you’re doing. think so there’s a term, I think it’s called confluence. And I think confluence is when two body of rivers, two body of waters, the merging point is called the confluence of the two merging together. And you so eloquently said, when you look back over your life, your experience, you had a confluence, man. You had things, the rivers, they kind of just started.you know, running together and now you can’t separate the one from the other. Like it’s in you. part of your destiny. It’s part of who you are. It’s part of your makeup. And so I appreciate it. My wife and I, have a saying that kind of centers us when we feel like we should be further along and our communication and our finances and whatever in our harmony. We have a saying when we say time takes time. And so we, that’s kind of center us. Like when I’m mad at her, because I feel like you should, we,
She should did something further along. She mad at me like, you know, what are you doing? We say, okay, okay. Time takes time. That’s it. We’ll get on the same page. That’s do all the necessary things that we know we’re supposed to do. Like talking to each other, like connecting, like agreement. And so when I, when I hear what you’re doing with your business, I hear you’re doing all the necessary things. And know, we talked about some things backstage. You’re doing all the necessary things you’re doing. You’re being self-aware enough to know like, Hey, this is what excites me. And this is what.
No, no, thank you. But you’re not shying away from it. And so with that being said, Mr. John, I do want to ask you, what is your next real goal? Like, what are you looking to solve or scale next?
John Maxi (15:40)
Yeah, so we talked about kind of, you know, I got some off market acquisition company and on that side of things, I am very excited about, like you mentioned, kind of getting out of my own way in the sales department. And so I have a couple of VAs that I work with of a small team.But I’m really the point person for everything acquisitions when Windows comes through and ⁓ I have realized yes that I Have success in my business when I get out of my own way and I am in my way in the sales department So a big push for me this year is Is bringing someone on? that can handle ⁓ That fight that phase of my business and really go through you know
lead intake, some lead generation all the way through contract signing. And me being the analytical person, I just want to take myself out and be the manager in the back of the car shop saying, here’s what we can pay, right? And letting my acquisition manager run that back and forth between me and the seller. ⁓ Because that’s just where I’m going to have the most value. Another thing we had talked about
that kind of dovetails in here that might be interesting is, so I am part of a coaching program and I brought this up to my real estate coach and, you know, John, are you the right person to be running sales on your team? No, I’m not. Okay. That’s a good, good thing to realize. So what are you gonna do about it? Well, I should hire someone. Okay. Do you know any, are you the right person to hire a really good salesperson? No. Right. No, no, I’m not.
⁓ and so that, that led into, ⁓ actually reaching out to like fractional sales managers that are actually the right. That’s their whole job is defining a company of sales process so that it’s not just me, you know, and whatever I say it is it’s, ⁓ what’s, what’s the hiring like, what’s the onboarding like, what’s all the management of this person like? ⁓ and so again, trying to get out of my own way.
you know, I, it’s one of those things where like, yeah, I could hire them, but I probably would, it’s likely I’d hire the wrong person. It’s likely I’d give them too much time to succeed. Cause I’d be like, it’s probably my fault that they’re not succeeding. Right. Like, don’t know what to tell them. ⁓ and so again, it’s this thread of like, I need to get out of my way. Cause I, I know what I want to be happening. Right. And I know what things should be doing, but it doesn’t mean I’m the right person to get it from.
where it is now to that point. So I’m really excited for that process. And then mentioned the AI business that ⁓ I’m growing. So I’m really excited about for that this upcoming year. it’s just a bunch of tools that I use already in my investing business that I’m now offering up to others.
I use them every day. I see the value. get it. have people that are really happy with it and just trying to spread the word and get that out there.
Q Edmonds (19:09)
Absolutely. I love it, man. I really, again, I think I said this before, I love your self-awareness. know, because being self-confident and self-aware are two totally different things, right? A self-confident person, they’ll do stuff at the detriment of everybody else, like, because they’re confident, the business will fail, everybody else will fail, nobody will be in the right place. But a self-aware person, they’re aware of themselves and aware of how they affect others, how they affect their business, how they affect the flow.And so, I just want to, it may mean nothing to you, but I’m still going to say it, man. I applaud you for your self-awareness. I really do. It’s refreshing. And it makes me as a leader in my own right within my family, within my community, makes me think and take inventory of like, okay, what are things you need to get real curious about that you may be in a way about? So I appreciate your gift of vulnerability, I think one of the last questions I want to ask you, man, I want to get your perspective on relationship building.
Is relationship in business building relationships isn’t important to you? Has it benefited you well? Like what is your perspective when it comes to building relationships?
John Maxi (20:16)
I mean, I think it’s super important. This is a straight to the point answer. ⁓You know, everyone’s like, right, even I have an AI software toolkit that I’ve sell and everyone wants to do AI this and AI that. And, you know, if you plug and play the system, you’ll never have to talk to anyone again, because it’ll all just do it for you. And I think that’s, I think it’s the wrong direction. I think that takes away the fact that, you know, when you’re dealing with sellers, this is a huge, a huge thing in their life is selling a property for most people.
Right? Like you’ll deal with some landlords that have hundreds of places and like, don’t care about selling one particular property, but most people, it’s a really big deal. Most people that are the buyers, it’s a big deal for them too, because they’re, they’re putting their own livelihoods at stake as entrepreneurs that it’s going to be a good deal for them. And they’re going actually turn a profit on the And ⁓ then just the number of moving pieces in real estate transactions.
Right. It’s you and the seller, but there might be an agent. There’s probably a lender. There’s going to be a home inspector. There could be an appraiser. There’s going to, you know, other buyers later down that there’s so many people. And if you can’t bridge that gap between those people, things get stuck. Things don’t go through and you know, you can have AI help you. Right.
facilitate those conversations or make sure that you’re talking to the right people at the right time. ⁓ But I’m super skeptical of, they’re like pie in the sky, AI will do all of this stuff. ⁓ And that’s kind of why the system that I’ve built is really puts you at the center of it as an operator. And so you have a team of AIs, but
You are still in control of each one. You’re doing the handoff from one AI employee to the next. So that when you have your ARV analysts give you back a number, you got to report, you could read and approve. right. When you go to the rehab estimator, you’ve got to report, you can read it and approve it. Whereas if you have this, you know, this easy push button system that people love to promise, you know, you could have one wrong thing happen.
at some point and then it’s getting that wrong is going to go through your whole system and you’re have a bad offer or a bad exit because you took yourself out of it. so, you know, going back to the relationship piece, it’s same thing when you’re, or if you’re talking about your AI employees or the real people that you’re going to be dealing business with is, you know, you want to have that back and forth. You want to know how you can bring the value. You want to know
what data they need from you in a conversation, right? Like how is your contractor going to know what it is you want done? How is your lender going to know, you know, what they can do to, you know, get your business, keep your business, you know, what are you looking for? How can you help them? And it’s all about bringing value to each other person in your community. And I think that’s kind of
the bottom line of, those, those relationships are super important and it’s about what you can do for others and you’ll get back everything you give.
Q Edmonds (23:51)
Yes, sir. man, you just said it. That’s know, given it will be given back to you. You know, you’re going to reap what you sow. And so, ⁓ man, that’s that’s incredible. That’s kind of like the last thing you said. So, Mr. John, I really see you as the perfect person between the confluence, the streams of river that’s broken between relationships and a like the streams of old, you know, relationship with within real estate, old school relationships.handshakes, building relationships. We know that stream is flowing strong. But then here comes this new stream when it comes with AI and people are skeptical about it. Is it going to replace the human interaction, which really it can’t. And listen to you talk about the handoff from one AI to another. I see you as the perfect person to handle the confluence between old school relationships and AI and letting them merge together in a way where it can work together and totally make sense where we’re not missing the human interaction.
And we’re advantage, full advantage of AI. So I’m really excited about what you’re building, really excited about your innovation. And I just really want to just thank you for taking time out just to come here today. And so listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, Mr. John, how can they get in contact with you?
John Maxi (25:09)
I Facebook is where I do most of my social media. So there’s John Maxi on Facebook. think the one that looks like me and not the older version of me, that’d be my dad. ⁓ And then you can find out if you do [email protected] for an email or you can check out www.realestategpts.com.to find more about the AI software there. And I think those are probably the easiest ways to get in touch with me. Send me a message on Facebook, send me an email, Google me, and I’ll come up.
Q Edmonds (25:51)
Absolutely. Well, Mr. John, want to say first, thank you for your time, because time is definitely precious and valuable. So thank you for your time. Two, thank you for your story. Again, thank you for the gift of your vulnerability, you sharing things that you didn’t have to share, but you did. And lastly, thank you for your mindset, for your perspective. And thank you for bringing that mindset to this platform. I believe you’ve given people just enough where they might have a shift.around what they’re thinking about, what they’re doing, and even that they shift around AI and using that as real tool. So Mr. John, I really appreciate you coming through today. Thank you so much.
John Maxi (26:28)
Yeah, thank for having me. It was a great conversation. Very happy to be here and share my time with you. It’s great.Q Edmonds (26:35)
Solisten, y’all heard Mr. John, you got the value. Definitely go check him out. Check out his website, check him out on Facebook, but definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up great people just like Mr. John. So thank you, sir. Again, to everyone else. We’ll see you on the next time.
