Relationship Marketing

Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. Really excited to talk to my friend, Brian daily. Today, we’re going to be talking about some very innovative, innovative ways to generate leads through relationship marketing.

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And build more fulfilling lives or all of those around us on today’s show. We’re going to continue our conversation, fueling our businesses and our

lives. I’m glad you’re here.[00:01:00]

Hey, Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian: Hey Mike, thanks for having me. Yeah. Glad to have you here.

Mike: Excited to talk about this topic too. I’ve always been really big on relationships. You know, a lot of people that have been on the show know this, but throughout through overtime, I’m, I’m big on building my own network.

My relationships with people that ultimately turned into investor fuel, which you’re a member of, but, um, you know, in terms of marketing, it really is. In many ways, an ONTAP niche, because a lot of us want immediate gratification. We want to like send out mail and buy a house right now. And the relationship stuff just takes time.

And there’s really an art to it. So excited for you to kind of share what you’re doing and share that with some of the folks that are watching.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I am too. I, um, I do agree it takes time, but, uh, when w when it plays out the numbers really make sense.

Mike: Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. So, Hey, before we jump into this, why don’t you tell us a little about your background?

From before you became an investor, even, uh,

Brian: okay. I’ll try

Mike: to do this. We don’t have to go back to birth. I mean, but just like tell us a little bit kind of [00:02:00] how you got into the space and a little bit about,

Brian: I read rich dad, poor dad, like many people. Um, I, I got it for, uh, when I was 17. I hadn’t really done much personal development or, or business development at that point.

And that book I just fell in love with. And from that point, Real estate was always something I wanted to do. A business was always something I wanted to be involved in and personal development was always a theme in my life. Um, Fast forward through college, because that was just a blur. Uh, the, at the end of college, I knew I wanted to get a real estate and, um, in my head, uh, it made sense at the time I just, I wanted to learn the financing side first.

So I started with loans, um, uh, had the pleasure and honor to work with. You know, a small entrepreneur who was bold and fun to work with and just had a bunch of [00:03:00] cool ideas and, and, and that kind of rubbed off on me. That’s when I really fell in love with, with the entrepreneurship side of business. Um, but loans and I learned a lot, uh, you know, got into marketing and business building and all that stuff with him.

But, uh, loans kind of took a hit with, uh, the, uh, 2006, seven meltdown. So yeah, had, uh, had the opportunity to go, uh, Being an asset manager for, for a bunch of foreclosure banks for, you know, so one of the big four banks, uh, I guess I can say the name, JP Morgan chase. I was an asset manager for, um, and until 2000 end of 2011.

Um, just had a, uh, it was an amazing experience to be able to see a big, bigger business operate. We were, uh, we were an outsourced asset management company for JP Morgan chase and I was an asset manager for them. So anyway, I ran the over 2000 transactions, you know, from, from the foreclosure. [00:04:00] Sale in until we sold it.

Most of the time to investors. Yeah.

Mike: Was that all in San Diego where

Brian: you’re at now? No, no, sorry. Uh, 13 states, uh, a lot in Florida. Uh, not surprisingly. Um, but yeah, so, uh, all around. Uh, but I did, I did also do California in San Diego. Um, Anyway. So in, I don’t know if anybody was around, uh, back then, they’ll remember in 2010 ish, there was like this robo signing fiasco, uh, within the banks completely shut our, our industry down for six months and we couldn’t do much.

So that’s when I really was like, okay, this is, this is a time I’m going to go figure out this investing thing. Had a partner. We started with $5,000 in our name and we just went out there and made it happen through wholesaling. Um, it’s like a lot of people’s. Um, the smart decision we made here is that we rolled all the bit, the money into the business and allowed us to go full-time really, [00:05:00] really quickly.

So I went full-time in, uh, January, 2006. And, um, over the next six or sorry, five, five years, I guess. Um, we built that company up, um, primarily doing flipping here in San Diego. We eventually started, uh, syndicating apartments and started a construction company. Um, but in, from 2005 to the end of 2016, for two years, the business was a business partnership.

Very rough to say the least. Um, it was an amazing learning experience, but, uh, rough to be in. And finally, uh, had enough. Uh, threatening multiple times. I decided to finally walk away at the end of 2016. Um, see, I couldn’t do this quick. Sorry. Um, that’s fine,

Mike: man. We’ll start from birth. I said I was like, yeah.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. We’ll just go back to the beginning.

Brian: Long story short. Uh, I [00:06:00] was burnt out from real estate, burnt out from running a business. So I, I went to go run a company for somebody else in the info marketing space. Online learned a ton, Darren Hardy. He’s my mentor. Now I can’t speak highly enough about the programs that he puts out there.

Um, but two years in had the edge again, I wanted to go out and build my own thing and started that in 2019. I’ve been doing it in San Diego since. Only flip we have in-house construction. We focus only on properties that we’re going to buy, uh, renovate and sell. Um, although, you know, we will take some down as rentals along the way, and, uh, we’ll buy about a hundred properties this year.

Mike: Awesome. Awesome. Good stuff, man. And that’s impressive. And in a market, you know, the price points that you’re at and, and all that. So kudos for ramping that back up quickly and, and definitely some amazing success out there. I know what you guys have going on, so that’s cool stuff. And you, you’re an amazing leader, man.

You have a really [00:07:00] amazing team. I’ve met several people on your team, you know, a lot of real estate investors struggle with that part of building a team. That’s not really the topic, what we’re gonna talk about today, but I know you’ve really put together an amazing organization. And so it’s, it’s been very impressive for sure.

Brian: Yeah, thank you. I mean, um, the, the funnest part about doing it has been, has been building out the team. Um, I really love, you know, seeing really good people come in and flourish and take off on stuff that, I mean, to me, it’s kind of the highest form of, of laziness, right? It’s just delegate, delegate enough.

I don’t want to do anymore. So, um, You know, it’s rewarding and, uh, you know, at the same time as it, as it is scratching that lazy edge,

Mike: well, there’s nothing wrong with that. At the end of the day, none of us got in this business to be beholden to a job. Like we really wanted to build something bigger. Right.

So bigger than ourselves. So, um, cool man. Well, let’s jump into relationship marketing. You, you get a lot of deals from relationships with realtors and wholesalers and you know, maybe other people as well. And I know [00:08:00] that it’s a, it’s not just, uh, You know, calling a bunch of people and hopefully something falls out of the sky.

It’s a very systematic approach to building long-term relationships and nurturing them with content and other things that might exist. But talk a little bit about just kind of high level. What is, what does relationship marketing mean to you and, and kind of, why do it,

Brian: well, you know, they’re put simply in the business, I see two primary funnel.

Of getting new leads. One is through, uh, an incredible machine that has to be built nowadays in order to go market to sellers, um, or a, uh, very thoughtful, uh, long tail approach to building relationships with, with people that can, can refer you leads. Um, Y you know, I, I, I went back and forth when I originally started.

It’s like, which one do I, which one do I want to do? And to me, it lines up with mine. Uh, strengths more [00:09:00] than, um, more than direct seller marketing does. Um, I love marketing, but I, I, I’m not a big fan of the one-to-one sales. It’s just not my thing. Um, and, and so, uh, you know, when it was just me starting up again, that’s why I originally made the choice.

This is what I’m gonna start with. This is what I’m good at. I already had kind of a network yeah. At that time. Um, why, you know, why do it though? I mean to me when you look at the economics of it, um, I’ll just use my example here in San Diego. Uh, it’ll cost probably anywhere between five to $7,000 in direct seller marketing.

Um, just in marketing expenses, not, not in labor and all that stuff to, to buy a, a property from a seller and usually not always, but usually it’s a one-time thing. Uh, and they’re done. Right. And, um, With a, with a referral partner, you, uh, you know, [00:10:00] you create a relationship with somebody that their network and or marketing is the one paying to generate the leads.

Um, and so you’re you kind of paying for the result after you already have the result? Um, you know, maybe you’re paying a little bit more on the purchase price, um, but you have no idea. Marketing expenses. Yeah. Um, and, and then if you do that once without that person, you have a trust built with somebody that can do it multiple times, um, across, over a year.

I mean, we look at it as our average referral partner refers us about one property a year, but some of them refer us like 15. Oh wow. And so from an economic standpoint, strictly, I mean, our, our costs. Purchase on the, uh, direct seller acquisition side is, you know, five to 7,000 where as our cost per purchase on the, um, on the referral partner side is like [00:11:00] $50.

Um, so, um, that’s why we do it. I also, I think there’s like, I think now more than ever there’s, uh, more. Opportunity in the referral partners. Um, in the past, since I’ve, you know, I’m older now, I’ve been doing this, uh, over a decade, which is crazy. Um, Uh, and at least I’m going to speak about San Diego and every market is different.

Demographics are different and, and whatnot, but in San Diego, it was, uh, you know, the referral partner stuff that we would do was through short sales and foreclosures. That’s where the leads would come from. And, and the source of those leads would be, would be real estate agents still. Um, and then we would buy from wholesalers, uh, every once in a while, but on the, um, It was very rare that we got direct sellers or sellers referred to us off market, uh, to, to buy, to buy the house that were, you know, it was in [00:12:00] disrepair repair or something because right.

For the most part that was kind of looked down upon. I mean, most agents, you know, if the dealing directly with the owner, it was just understood that they’re going to get more money. Uh, just by putting it on the market and you don’t really, you know, don’t deal with the shady investors. I think the new eye buyer wave has completely flipped the script and, um, a lot more sellers are going to real estate agents who, which in San Diego, um, our market is kind of dominated by real estate agents.

I mean, there’s 30,000 of them. Um, oh, wow. And you know, most people still have a friend or family member. That’s a real estate agent. So they’re usually the kind of first call when something comes up. So, um, so yeah, I mean, now real estate agents have caught on to the idea that, Hey man, this is what people want.

You know, we live in an Amazon inspired world. They want the easy button. People have more equity than they know what to do with, [00:13:00] especially now. So you’re willing to sacrifice it for the, for. For the easy offer. So some convenience. Yeah. I think that is why more people should be doing it because I think.

You know, even if this is just a San Diego conundrum, I do think it’s going to spread into other,

Mike: I’ve always said through everything that I’ve done. I don’t know if these numbers are entirely accurate, but they’re, they’re not far off. Is that the, the off market kind of deal, um, percentage of deals that are that happen kind of off market in America is probably around 5%.

Like it’s a, it’s a relatively small number. Then the retail market is 95% now. Some subset of those are also distressed. Right. And they might be able to, uh, come to a guy like you or me. Right. Um, but, um, you know, some, obviously a big portion of the retail market is true retail ready? Like there’s not a lot of value, add opportunity.

People want top dollar for, um, But there’s no doubt that that kind of retail channel, the stuff [00:14:00] that kind of would go on the MLS or through realtors anyway, is way larger than the off market piece is my kind of, you know, that’s my belief. So in my experience, but so talk, let’s talk a little bit about, I know you go after you, you kind of work with realtors, you work with wholesalers, let’s talk about, um, why would realtors even want to work with you?

Like what’s the benefit of them coming to you versus. Listening to it on the MLS, like they would normally do. Like, are they bringing only distressed stuff to you and how are they incented to bring it to you versus to just list it and let, let the MLS work.

Brian: Very good questions. So, um,

Mike: that’s my job,

Brian: Brian.

I know I’m trying to figure out where to start. Um, okay. So let’s, we’ll, we’ll focus on real estate agents. Um, Well, one thing, you know, why, why would a real estate agent bring us a market, a property off market, mainly because, and this is the key part about [00:15:00] working referral partners because they can trust.

We’re going to do what we’re saying. We said we’re going to do. And usually when we’re getting something off market it’s because the seller wants this done in one shot, one and done, and we pay as much commission as we possibly can. And. You know, if, if they’re already have a signed listing agreement with the seller, then that, you know, whatever, whatever that fee is of what their fee is.

Sometimes we have people come bring us properties that they, they aren’t getting paid by the seller. And we tack on a, uh, a commission for them. We tack on a finder’s fee, usually about 2%. Um, if we can, if we can fit it. And then the cool thing about, you know, referral partners that get it. It’s if you’re really open and honest about what the numbers look.

And why they look that way. Um, and you say, look, we can’t, we can’t pay the fee on this one, or we can’t pay as much on [00:16:00] this one. Um, but we’ll, you know, if we do better than expected when we sell it. Yeah. We’ll make it up to you. Um, you know, a lot of, a lot of these, you know, a lot of people really want to help the sellers and they understand the, the numbers.

And as long as you’re, I found, I found as long as you’re just brutally honest and not trying to hide anything. And don’t, don’t lie. Don’t cheat, don’t steal. Um, They respect it. And, um, you know, the worst they’re going to say is no, this doesn’t work and okay. Can you just go onto the next one is, um, so we pay as much as we can.

Um, you know, it does, you know, it’s from a real estate agent perspective, which does take a little bit of training on, on your part over time. But, uh, when they do a deal with you, Even if they’re getting 2% commission or, or 1% commission compared to, uh, uh, two and a half percent buyer’s fee or, or listing agent listing fee, [00:17:00] the, we make it so easy on them that they realized that they barely had to work for that.

And for them, I mean, the ones that really get it, uh, they realize that. They can do this over and over and over again, and have a much more profitable and less stressful business because the worst part about dealing with clients is the emotional. Toil that it usually is involved in just trying to wrangle them together to make decisions and stick to those decisions.

And, um, and they don’t have to do that with us. It’s,

Mike: non-emotional offering a level of certainty. You can close faster. We’re not going to come back and, you know, with an inspection report, I mean, you probably have some room there. If something comes back like, oh my God, we totally missed this. But, um, it’s not like a traditional retail seller that is going to have to go through a series of steps to get, you know, whether it’s getting.

Approved for financing and passing the inspection for the lender as well. Like all that stuff. You’re, you’re basically the easy [00:18:00] button and they can, if they, if they work with you, they, they pretty much know that they’re commission safe and it’s going to get locked in potentially even represents you and maybe get both sides of the commission and all that stuff.

Brian: Right. Yeah. I mean, you know what we’ve, you know, focusing on mainly referral partners is kind of. Forced us to focus on our service, our product, uh, more than our marketing and our sales. And there’s. A great quote out there by Jeff Bezos, uh, where he talks about, you know, in the past, you know, smart businesses would spend 70% of their time working on their, um, market sales and marketing and 30% of their time working on a product that’s shifted in this new consumer focused economy.

And that has been, um, that has been a real key. Part of our success with referral partners because [00:19:00] they, you know, they’re a microcosm of just consumers, what they want. They want a great experience and they want shorty and confidence and they want things done fast. Um, and so we’ve really focused on, you know, working on ways that we can provide.

Uh, quickly and efficiently non-contingent offers that we feel comfortable, um, leaning into and, and, and, you know, putting our money behind it, um, and sticking to it once we do. And that really has stood out a lot. Um, and I think it stands out a lot with sellers too. And I think with the new onset, You know, this, this, I buy our wave and whatnot.

I think it’s gonna become more and more important to focus on, on that, that side of the, um, the product.

Mike: How do you [00:20:00] build a relationships? How do you start to whether it’s educate or. Entertain or whatever it might be with agents to, to basically build that relationship. Like it’s not as simple as just, you know, putting in an offer for something that’s on the MLS or you could pound the phones and just call all the realtors and introduce yourself.

I mean, I was obviously way more kind of art to it than that. So talk a little about how you build a systematic approach to you, um, building the, kind of starting those relationships and then maybe talk a little how you nurture them. Right.

Brian: Um, so it really does. It’s it’s less of a strategy and more of a character, a heart issue.

Like it starts with the spirit in which you’re trying to have these conversations and dialogues and make offers the key thing that I’d always, I always told new, uh, new acquisition people coming in and, um, anybody that asks me it’s like, I don’t, when I’m dealing with a real estate agent or a wholesaler, I focus [00:21:00] less on that property.

And I focus more on the person and, you know, getting to know them, getting to know what w what makes them tick, what matters to them, trying my damnedest to buy that property, but making it very clear to them at the beginning that I came, I care more about. The relationship, then I do the, this, this one property.

I know if I, you know, if we do right by you we’ll have more opportunities in the future. Sure. Um, so I think that spirit is the most important before I did anything fancy. Uh, all, all I did was, was that and make phone calls and, uh, you know, uh, make at the time again, it was foreclosure and REO, a foreclosure and short sale dominated markets.

Um, I would just make phone calls, right. Uh, off properties that are on the MLS that are being listed, you know, for, uh, clearly to just try to find an easy cash sale for, for foreclosure or, or foreclosure short sale. And that would be my, [00:22:00] my script basically every time from there. Um, again, not fancy, just getting involved in that real estate community.

Um, And going, going to events and mixers. And, um, you know, I think a lot of, I think a lot of investors, at least in our market that, that have the money and actually do the buying, they go into these situations and feel like they’re the important ones and they need to be, you know, that they, they can throw their weight around because they have, they have money.

And to me that. I that’s what turns most real estate agents off. You know, if you, if again, you approach it from that same spirit, they’re the client, you know, even though technically from their point of view, you might be the client. Also. I, you know, I look at it as like, Hey, there they are the client. And, um, I, you know, I would be nothing with, without them because, you know, we get 95% of our business from, from these people.

So yeah. Treat them that way. [00:23:00]

Mike: You go directly at agents or do you try to go to brokers that have a bunch of agents on their own? And I know there’s a lot of brokerages that have no, maybe once a week or. Maybe more frequently they have gatherings or trainings or things like that. And in fact, I’ve been to speak that some before over the years, are you going after like brokers and saying here’s how I can help your agents and help you by the way?

Or are you going after just individual agents? Typically,

Brian: when I, when I, you know, when we started just individual agents, because. Well, one, I find brokers don’t have that much sway to be honest, but they are a good in, um, to those individual Asian conversations. They, you know, so I do, I, I, I used to go do like a, um, what’s called.

Lunch lunch meetings, uh, lunch and learns and learns and stuff like that. Um, and that works, that works. I mean, the cool thing is all of this stuff works and it doesn’t cost that much money. It just takes effort. Um, you know, [00:24:00] but, but, uh, you know, it’s also, uh, when you get in front of a, a broker and you’re talking to multiple agents at once, you gotta make it.

You, you can perform, right. I mean, you gotta be up there and talking confidently. Um, I do, I do feel like at least in our market, this is a ho this is, does not work for a wholesaler. Um, you know, because. People have caught on to that. It can, they’re just

going

Mike: to go resell it again. And not that there’s anything wrong with wholesaling, but your ability to guarantee that you can perform is different.

If you’re a wholesaler versus a you’re going to take it down and rehab it

Brian: for sure. Yeah. If you’re dead honest about it with real estate agents, like, Hey, um, I’ve got, I’ve got these buyers and this is, this is what I do. Um, and you create that kind of relationship and trust with, with people. They, there are people out there that I know that have great relationships with wholesalers.

They know they’re wholesaling and they’re okay with it because they perform and they [00:25:00] know what the hell they’re doing. Um, it’s just tough.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. So how do you nurture those relationships? So how do you, cause I’m sure like everything, you get a bunch of people that, yeah. I’ll send you my deals, I’m interested and you get this big list and then some of them, you know, maybe it’s just math, like everything else, right.

It’s just, you have a huge list and some performs, some you never hear from again. And so how do you nurture those relationships? I know you have a newsletter and you do some other things. I mean, perhaps you do more than that, but how do you kind of nurture those relationships too? Because effectively, just like any sort of follow-up would you really do want to be known as like tapping him on the shoulder?

Like, Hey, I’m still here. Hey, don’t forget about me. Right. As you kind of nurture those relationships over time. Um,

Brian: well, exactly that, I mean, again, when I, when I started, when it was just me, I had a goal to make a certain number of conversations every week and write a certain number of handwritten letters.

No, thank you letters. And that’s it. I mean, go, go to a certain number of [00:26:00] events and, um, just stay in touch. I know I, I have like little tools here that I help, uh, you know, that, that I use to help my acquisition people. And then I also used to use, so we have, I have like a, uh, a referral partner, um, sales pipeline, and then I have a way, you know, we categorize.

Are our potential prospects, referral partners like AB or C the person three plus deals a year. Is this person a one to two or zero to one. Uh, and that helped me focus on making sure I was spending more time staying in front of the people that had the opportunity to send us more, more deals. Yeah. So. I mean, w I got now, I mean, this is going to, uh, probably overwhelm people.

It doesn’t have to, but I, I have a, a database of over 3000 real estate agents and [00:27:00] wholesalers that we’ve talked to at some point in the past. Um, now that’s not just me. That’s, I’ve got three other partner acquisition managers that are, are out there. Um, adding to that, um, But I think our are like, we’ll buy a hundred properties this year.

And I think our number of referral partners, people that we’ve actually closed deals with is about 75. Yeah. That’s it. I mean, to buy a hundred properties in, in San Diego, um, yeah. A hundred, almost a hundred million dollars in real estate and it’s just 75 relationships. Um, yeah. That’s awesome.

Mike: Yeah. Um, so w w let’s talk about wholesalers a little bit.

So what do you do different with wholesalers? I mean, obviously the most common thing that people do is just get on a bunch of mailings. And, uh, they’re shooting properties to you and then you have to go evaluate, am I interested in this or not? Usually there’d be S offers. And, um, then somebody has to call them.

And then nine times out of 10, they’re saying all that’s already sold, you know, but, [00:28:00] uh, you know, that’s not the relationship. Well, that’s more of the reactive way than the proactive way of building relationships. So what do you do? That’s different than what we just talked about with, uh, with realtors, but with wholesale.

Brian: In the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty similar. Um, the, the one difference with wholesalers is. I want them to make as much money as humanly possible. Um, so, and I want them to know that, like my goal is to make you as much money as humanly possible, but to always be able to perform and that’s caveat.

And sometimes that means I’m not gonna be the highest offer. Um, and, and rightfully so. And they should, because this is how they, they pay, you know, pay them. Yeah, they’re going to go to, you know, if they, if they feel like they can and not written, and they’re not risking the deal by going to the higher offer they’re going to, and I’m totally comfortable with that.

Um, how we stand out, um, how, [00:29:00] how will you, uh, focus on those relationships? It’s very similar. I mean, getting, getting to know them and their business and, um, You know, and how they operate, um, and what they care about, what they look for, all those things, you know, just getting to know them, um, is super important.

So if you know, I, I don’t, I don’t buy from, I don’t buy from any wholesalers that I, we haven’t, we don’t know really well. I mean, I I’m on a couple of lists, right? I don’t, I don’t even most of the time because we’re so busy right now. I don’t, I don’t look at them because I, I know, um, um, um, choking up a really steep hill to try to get that, that gr um, the, the main thing I found, like the, the most successful that I I’ve been with wholesalers is fi [00:30:00] finding the ones that are just.

Are really active, but maybe don’t have the best disposition strategy. Um, and, uh, being the resource of going back to the same thing with real estate agents, if we’re going to. We’re going to close. Right. And sometimes it, you know, I’ve granted, I mean, I pay for marketing in other ways when I’m dealing with referral partners.

I mean, sometimes I’ve bought skinnier deals than I want to in order, you know, because we miss something and I just, I just, I already already committed. So I’m not going to sacrifice that, that relationship. You know, when, when I look at the, when we look at these relationships, I mean, Just dollars and cents wise.

Um, I mean, especially wholesalers, because we can do, we’re going to do three plus deals a year with them. I mean, revenue wise, as long as we’re doing our job, right. Uh, [00:31:00] on, on the analysis and, and, uh, w you know, in the flip and whatnot, I mean, that’s 150 plus grand in revenue for us in San Diego. So. If I have to take a $20,000 haircut on a deal to make sure that I’m this person’s first and main go-to investor, then I’m going to do it.

Yeah,

Mike: that’s awesome. I, I think there’s, you know, you could do this in any market, but there’s, I think higher priced markets like yours are probably, you know, you probably have a little bit of an advantage there in that. There’s, there’s not as many ready and willing kind of rehabbers that can guarantee that they can close and hard.

Money’s a little bit harder to get a higher end properties and stuff like that. And so that’s a good thing for you. Right. And so,

Brian: and I don’t know. Well, I mean, we have, we have some of the stiffest competition when it comes to yeah. There’s

no,

Mike: there’s no way. Yeah, for sure. Your debt is definitely very competitive there, but

Brian: our money is super cheap.

I don’t know. I is, you know, [00:32:00] I haven’t had the benefit of, of working too many non high-priced markets. Right. So, um, yeah, so, um, I, I don’t, I, I don’t quite know how the dynamic changes

Mike: that could be off there, but you know, when you’re in markets with a hundred thousand dollar houses or $80,000 houses, you know, more people can scratch that together.

Then then a 500,000, a million dollar house, you know, maybe, maybe I’m wrong, maybe

Brian: I’m wrong, but what I would do. I mean, and I’m not saying

Mike: any of that to like, you know, I, I don’t mean that in a negative way. I mean, it’s a

Brian: no, no. I mean, what I would do is if, if I was in any market and our, you know, had an established business, um, but you don’t do referral partner sales.

I would go get your MLS data from a title rep or something. And. Just take, take a couple hours. I mean, the, the boons of figuring this out could be worth a lot more. So worst case scenario, you [00:33:00] lose a couple of hours, best case scenario. You analyze that data and say, holy crap, look at all these cash sales that are happening through real estate agents.

Um, I, I wonder, you know, I wonder if they, uh, if they actually have a relationship with those, those buyers or if they’re just throwing stuff up. You know, on the, on the market to see what sticks and, um, look at the numbers of what the person paid for it and what you could have paid for it. And you know what, maybe if, even if you’re a wholesaler, you know, what, what you think a buyer on your list would pay for it.

And if, you know, you could, again, if you spent a little bit of time, you could probably find out whether or not. And, you know, this makes financial sense for sure. Sure. Yeah.

Mike: Is that how you, when you start to, like, maybe you could share a tip in terms of, so in your market, I don’t know how many real estate agents there are in DFW.

There’s 8 million people here. So probably half of those are licensed. I don’t know. I don’t know how many are, but there’s a lot, there’s obviously, you know, probably [00:34:00] tens of thousands for sure. Um, so. In any market just using this as an example, or your market, as an example, when you start to say, well, I could start marketing or cold calling or sending emails or whatever it might be to tens of thousands of people, or do you say, well, let me find the people that are actually doing deals or let me find the people that are actually doing cash deals.

Like, do you narrow the list down when you’re getting started for who to go, try to talk

Brian: to you for. Now, so, yes, for sure. I would, depending upon the market, I would pull a couple different lists. I would find out who is doing cash deals. For sure. That would start there. I mean, that’s your low hanging fruit,

Mike: right?

Cause you know, they’re probably investor friendly, right?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I, I would, I would also I’ve found that the sweet spot in our, in our market in particular. Um, and this is definitely gonna change by price point. Um, but the, the agent that’s doing 10 to 15 [00:35:00] properties a year are typically, um, the ones that have figured out the newbie stage and are going through the growth stage.

And this is when they start to realize more opportunities exist with a larger network and, um, And, and, but they haven’t quite like for our market. They haven’t quite nailed down who their primary investor is. Um, so, you know, uh, going for the big fish, uh, to me has been quite a waste of time because a lot of the times, even if you get an audience with them, they aren’t the ones making the decisions.

They’re now running a machine. They’re not, uh, turning the dials, so to speak. Right, right. Um, So anyway, you know, for our market, you know, 10 to 15,000, you know, uh, or sorry, 10 to 15, um, you know, that’s rough roughly, I don’t know, like a hundred, [00:36:00] a hundred to 200,000 in gross commissions, um, for that agent. Um, you know, and they’re usually, I I’ve found, uh, the, the best ones because they EV like once a year, Like clockwork, they’ll get an opportunity.

Um, and that’s, I mean, I’m asking if you can, you can get a seller to come back to you every year. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Mike: Awesome. Awesome. Well, what are some, you talked, we talked a lot about some things inside of there. That’s the things that work. What are couple things that, that you’ve seen people try to build relationships?

Or what are some, I guess, what are some kind of common mistakes or mistakes to avoid that? We tried this, but it just doesn’t work. I mean,

Brian: um, so I mentioned a couple of them, uh, you know, lying. They can, I mean, You know, I can smell it. [00:37:00] Um, you know, be really like just ultra transparent, even if you’re doing your second or third deal or your first deal, just be ultra transparent.

Um, and, and you know, if you’re young, if you’re newer in the business, then. Approach it from the standpoint of a listing help and not being there, the resource that’s going to save, you know, save their business. Right. That’s not, um, it’s just not realistic. So, I mean, just be, uh, don’t try to fake it till you make it just be ultra transparent.

Um, the, the going back to just. Check, your check, your heart, your, you know, when you’re starting these conversations in the end, if you come from the right spirit, you know, it’s just, it’s a numbers game, just like everything else. So it’s not like everybody, I talk to you. I I’ve got a relationship and for sure, sure.

80% of [00:38:00] the agents I’ve talked to in the past, think I’m think I’m weird, but, uh, you know, um, Just if you approach it from the right spirit and don’t get so, so entrenched in what the result is for, for awhile, you know, just get just focused on, on, on trying to make friends, trying to build your network and, um, and be a resource.

Right. I always just try to give more than I’m taking in anything more than thinking. You’re great at this, by the way. Um, No. Well, if you just try to give more than you take then, um, you know, it it’ll it’ll work out. I mean, if you’re doing a bunch of seller stuff and you’re busy, I would just start. Start with a couple of hours a week, just put it put aside and you know, it’s a lot, I find a lot easier to talk to real estate agents into sellers.

Yeah,

Mike: for sure. For sure. Cause you you’re you’re entrepreneurs, you have your business owners, you, you have that mindset of [00:39:00] how can we create a win-win situation here? So, yeah. That’s awesome. So in terms of, uh, you just talked about giving and obviously you’re a part of the investor fuel, uh, mastermind.

We’re very big on giving there. In fact, you just, you guys just won the biggest giver award of the last, uh, event by just being open and sharing so much everything you just said, you just proved at the most recent, uh, investor fuel event, but you’ve been a member for a little while now. I think you started right around new year’s.

I think we talked to like new year’s day or the second or something like that. Um, would you mind just sharing your experience so far? I know you’ve been in other groups before. Would you mind just kind of sharing maybe a little testimonial about investor

Brian: fuel? Yeah, absolutely. I’ve found the most transformational thing I’ve ever done in business is by joining a mastermind.

Um, I realized in the first mastermind I ever joined, uh, how little I knew, uh, and I realized that very, very quickly and we had a successful [00:40:00] business at the time. I thought I was the shit. Uh, and I was like, I don’t know. I forgot how old I was. I was young. Um, And getting around, getting, getting in a room of, of people that really understand the pains and the struggles and the victories and the feelings of elation, uh, as it relates to our specific.

Business model is, uh, extremely, uh, transformed again, just transformational it’s it’s it’s, uh, it was the biggest change that I made when we were growing the first company. And then, um, you know, when I joined, um, investor fuel, I missed that, you know, we were, we were starting to grow in and I realized that I didn’t, you know, from a, from an entrepreneur stamps, I can talk to other business owners, but they don’t [00:41:00] fully, they don’t really get it, uh, intricacies.

Right. You gotta just, uh, so for me personally, the, the being able to just have people in a room that are the, the beauty of investor fuel is that everybody there is just a hundred percent open with everything they do, um, how they do it, why they do it. Um, and then. There’s I’ve been involved in some, you know, some, you know, the first mastermind I was in was amazing, but it also got to, it seemed like there was a lot of ego, uh, pride involved towards the end.

Um, and, um, and I don’t sense any of that with, uh, with investor fuel and, and really that’s how you get truly authentic and, and wise, uh, advice and strategies. And then. Feedback from people that you, you know, um, that you feel like is coming from the right [00:42:00] way. Anyway. So hopefully that explains it.

Mike: Yeah.

That’s great. Now we’ve got to get, we’ve got a good group and that’s part of our culture is just giving it the end of the day you grow through vulnerability. Like we, you know, I always say making mistakes is a stepping stone to success, right? It’s not something you should hide. And I think in our group, people are open to admitting their mistakes.

Not, you know, because they’re not going to get called out because I mean, Dan, we all make them so, uh, or if you can help each other learn from each other’s mistakes, then it, it, you know, uh, we’re all able to climb the learning curve faster and kind of win and grow faster together. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Awesome man.

Well, you’re crushing it out. And San Diego, you’ve got a lot of great things going on. Thanks you for sharing all this knowledge with us today. If folks wanted to connect with you somehow, um, and you know, learn about what you’re doing or find some way to work with you or anything like that, where would they go to contact you?

Brian: Um, so I’ll just give my email, uh, that’s probably the best. So it’s Brian B [00:43:00] R I a N at the San Diego. Home buyer.com really nailed that brand on the head. Um, yeah. So, uh, T H E San Diego home buyer.com. Um, you can check out our website on there too. We just read it. It was, uh, it’s been fun. Uh, I really, really like it.

Mike: I’ll check it out. I’ll check it as soon as we get off here. And then, uh, if folks wanted to get on your newsletter, I know you’ve got a pretty amazing newsletter. How do they, how would they get on that?

Brian: Oh, great question. I didn’t come prepared with my, sorry. I just

Mike: thought I was like this amazing.

Brian: I know that I know that URL.

Um, but I, I have, uh, uh, easier texting, but I just don’t, I don’t have handy. Um, that URL is good. Real report.com backslash sorry. Uh, [00:44:00] backslash signup, uh, with the, uh, man, this is going to suck, uh, S I G N death.

Mike: Okay, well, for those of you that are driving right now, you’re like, oh my God, I’m going to get an accident.

Don’t do that. Well, I’ll add it, but I’ll add it down below in the show notes. So you can just go to invest your fuel, go under shows and then, uh, check out Brian’s show. We’ll have these. In there for sure, buddy. So awesome. Well, Hey, thanks for sharing. Uh, amazing information today. I think, you know, in this day and age, like obviously I run an agency, so I, I think very highly of paid advertising, but I don’t think that everybody should have all their eggs in one basket.

And, uh, you know, relationships are the type of thing that you can build. Deep and wide moat, because most real estate investors and just, most people are just kind of lazy and they’re not willing to put that effort in, but if you’re, if you’re into relationships, if you’re into creating win-win situations, um, I think you shared some amazing [00:45:00] insights today that people can use.

So thanks for that.

Brian: Cool. Yeah, of course. Thanks for.

Mike: Yeah, of course, of course. Always. Good to see you, everybody. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. I hope they got some great value out of today’s show. We’ll have these links. We talked about down, down below here, and you can learn a little bit more about Brian is a really, really amazing guy.

Um, if you haven’t yet checked this out, go to investor fuel.com. You can learn more about our mastermind. If you’re an active real estate investor, we’d love to talk to you and see if you might be a fit until then. We’ll see you on the next episode.

Brian: Take care.

Mike: Are you an active real estate investor? If so, and you want to latch onto the power of surrounding yourself with over a hundred of the nation’s leading real estate investors, all committed to building stronger businesses and living richer fuller lives. You should jump on a call with us to learn more about Investor Fuel, simply visit investorfuel.com get started.