How Effie Helps New Wholesalers Close Their First Real Estate Deal with AI and Networking

Praxedis Blackhorn (00:00)
the one thing I would say, and I kind of just mentioned where we messed up. We messed up by just chasing too many shiny objects and not not trying something enough times to know truly if it was gonna work or not. And so we see that every single day. I mean, just the other just two days ago, I spoke to another wholesaler who just got laid off from his from his IT job, which really sinks. And so I felt for him. And I was learning, I was listening to a story and I was like, Well, how’d you how’d you get started?

He’s like, well, I started wholesaling. I did this thing. I did it for about a month. It didn’t work. So I went and spent another $10,000 on this other mentorship and to to do that. And that didn’t work. And so then I quit.

Michelle Kesil (02:10)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Praxedis and Marco, who have created an app called Effie, which is a CRM and networking app, and they are wholesalers in the Texas area. So excited to have both of you here today.

Praxedis Blackhorn (02:34)
Yeah, we’re excited to be on here, Michelle. Thank you for having us. Yeah.

Michelle Kesil (02:37)
Of course, let’s dive in. So first off for those new to your work, can you share what your main focus is?

Praxedis Blackhorn (02:44)
Yeah. Yeah. So for the last year and a half or so, we’ve been testing the beta version of our CRM just to make sure that we are competitive in the market, right? That we can do everything else every other CRM can do. and what we’re focused on now is part two of that we’re opening up the app for the open beta on July first. And we’re gonna be testing this new idea where we have a network, what we’re calling a a working network.

To help the new host wholeseller, the person that’s struggling to take action every day, to take action every day, to do what the things that you need to do to close your first deal. And we’re doing that by making the AI and the app nudge you along the way. We’re also giving you an accountability buddy in the app so that both of you can work to your goals, towards your goals together. And lastly, that network that you that you mentioned.

We’re creating a network so that whenever you need a pro to unblock you, they’re there, even if you don’t know them. If you need someone to help you close a deal, someone to help you disposition a deal, or someone to help you TC, a transactions coordinator, you have access to people that are local to the market that you’re working in.

Michelle Kesil (04:00)
Awesome. So what made you s decide to create this op?

Praxedis Blackhorn (04:06)
man. ⁓ So it was it was a lot of things. But really the catalyst of what birthed the idea of Effie was when we went to a a wholesale event. And I was never meant to go to that wholesale event. Well, I was meant to go to it, but I had never planned on going to it. I was actually I was forced to go by Prax. even bought the ticket and everything. But really at that event, we we learned so much, right? We were going in with the mentality of, okay, cool, we’re gonna.

We’re gonna learn this new thing and we’re gonna be surrounded by people who are are doing this and and and we’re gonna learn, right? We’re gonna learn wholesaling. I didn’t know anything about it. But coming from a design background and coming from the military, we had a different set of a different perspective than most people in there. So as soon as we walk in, we’re seeing things, whether it’s the way you know certain companies present their product or the way they talk about it. and we just

immediately just started like brainstorming coming up with ideas of man they should have done this or this can be better the here and that and ⁓ and that just kind of spiraled and we just kept feeding off each other and and at that event we actually stepped off into an empty conference room and we just we just kept rifting off each other to the point where Prax actually reached out to one of his cousins who we hadn’t spoken to in like in two years and asked him, Hey do you want to quit your job and learn how to wholesale? And he was like, Well I gotta talk to my wife first but

Sure, if it’s cool. And that’s just that just started the whole journey. And now we’re here. And after three years, we’ve done over a hundred thousand dollars or we’ve cloud we’ve closed over a hundred deals, yeah, made over a hundred thousand dollars and it’s all been direct to agent on market. we’ve done significantly more than a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, we have, yeah. but it’s all been on market with agents. Yeah. So it’s been the simplest way to wholesale and we’ve just gotten really good at it. Yeah.

Like Michael mentioned, we both met in the military. In the military, we have some things that make our life easier, right? We have like when you get to a unit day one, you have what what they call a sponsor, a battle buddy, someone that just kinda walks you through everything. You you also have very clear guidelines on how to do anything. If there’s ever an argument of the right way of t to do something, you can pull it up. You can pull it up on the internet yourself right now.

And the other thing that we have that’s similar to, I guess, agents, agents have like the MLS, right? You have access to information that the public doesn’t. The military has the same thing. They have a network where you can access a pilot, you can access someone in military, the the the the legal office. And we just felt that we needed that in the wholesaling space. How do I connect with all these people? How do I have someone helping me stay accountable? And we wanted to bring that same stability to this kind of volatile industry.

Michelle Kesil (07:38)
Yeah, that’s great. And what have been some of the main keys that you feel have allowed your business to grow and run successfully?

Praxedis Blackhorn (07:47)
the biggest thing that I would have to say, he probably can say something different, but the biggest thing that I would say is that it’s just the type of people we are. We we’re not quitters, right? And in this business, whether you’re a wholesaler, whether you’re a real estate agent, an end buyer or a transaction, whoever you are, like this this business isn’t is isn’t easy. it’s hard and it takes grit. And so really that’s that’s what helped us be successful is that we didn’t care to fail. If anything, we were

kind of looking forward to it because we were gonna learn from it. Yeah. and so that that was one of the biggest things. The the second biggest thing that I would say is that we weren’t scared to ask for help either. Or or you know, like I said, the the first deal we ever did that was a subject two, we had never done subject two. We we never paid for a mentorship or anything like that, but we saw the opportunity, we saw the problem that needed to be solved. And I just went and found somebody who was already in the community and said, hey,

We’ll give you most of our assignment if you just help us do this for the first time and just teach us every step of the way. And we did. And that worked us. And so we after that, we were able to do more deals. But we took that same approach with everything else that we did. You know, we don’t know how to do marketing. So let’s go talk with someone who does marketing. And and that was, I think that has been one of the reasons we’ve been successful. Yeah. I want to speak more on the software side. I think what

My team only uses our R CRM, no other data tools, no other kind of like comping tools, no tools for lead generation, nothing else. No other dialer, nothing like that. And ⁓ the way that we got it to a point where we can just be on one screen essentially, is that we talked to a lot of people in the industry, we showed them what we have and they told us what was terrible about it. Yeah. Like, I don’t like this, this is stupid, no one uses this. And we took that feedback as

Wow, we just learned so much about what shouldn’t be in here. And we and we applied that immediately. And sometimes their advice was in the past. So we had to, you know, make a few more edits. But I think not being afraid to go out with what you have, regardless of the industry that you’re in, is a is a good skill to build. Yeah. Cause when we first started making calls, we didn’t have the perfect script. We got cussed out a lot. Yeah. We didn’t we didn’t know how to underwrite a property or we didn’t know all the terminology. And so

It took doing imper taking imperfect action to to perfect it. Yeah. Consistent though. Yeah. Yeah. Good point.

Michelle Kesil (10:42)
Yeah, absolutely. And what have been some of the biggest obstacles or challenges that you’ve overcome and learned from in your roles?

Praxedis Blackhorn (10:50)
when you start growing, you get a little excited about spending money. You know, I want to get all the latest things, get a new office. And so I I would say I don’t know, is that an obstacle? Like it it it wasn’t an ob it was just something that we just aren’t paying attention to. So last year we did a really deep audit and got rid of noise and expenses that we just didn’t need. And

I mean it was a huge change to the business, I think. Yeah. on the sales side, like ’cause I I run the sales team. On that side, the biggest obstacle that we saw was, man.

Yeah, I think it like the noise around all the different strategies. Yeah, honestly, that’s what it was. It was it was the noise around all the different strategies. When we first got started, we started with cash and just going, we’re gonna submit cash offers and we’re gonna keep it simple. But almost like on the second week, we started seeing creative finance. And we’re like, man, like that seems like it can help us solve problems. Cool. So we picked one of those things up. And then we saw people having success with off market. And so we switched and did that. But in reality, we very quickly learned that I mean

Riches are in the niches. Yeah, riches are in the niches. But and on top of that, it’s real estate has so many shiny objects. If if you’re the type of person to chase shiny objects and you like real estate’s for you. but you’re also not gonna be successful. because you get you spend so much time on the wrong things. So once we learn that and we just dialed in what it is we were doing, we started seeing progress. Yeah, I think on on the s the software side, I think we the same thing, right? It’s just focusing on the features that the wholesaler cares about when we start

Googling what other people are doing, we get distracted and we build things that no one no one’s gonna use. Yeah. And so that it was that was a lesson that we learned, I guess, in the last year or so.

Michelle Kesil (12:37)
Definitely. And who is like the ideal target audience for your app? Like what is this person looking for support with?

Praxedis Blackhorn (12:46)
Yeah.

So we mentioned that event, right? We went to this wholesaling event. They pitch you like a fifty thousand dollar mentorship. That’s obviously not for everyone in the room. That’s for the people that have fifty thousand dollars to spend right there. some of the software is very expensive. That’s obviously not for everyone in the room. This software, especially the network that we’re building, is for the the other 90% of the people in the room that

Really haven’t seen the people in their home, their community, their neighborhood take action every single day. So they haven’t built that skills themselves. And so they struggle with ⁓ with knowing what to do next. They also kind of feel alone in this new business venture that they’re taking. If that sounds like you, the person listening, this is the app for you. Because you yes, you can go out there and get a similar CRM somewhere else. But

What you really need is to be able to continue to use that every day. And our app encourages you to take the right actions every single day, whether that’s calling a specific seller on your list, whether whether that’s deleting people on your list. Hey, these are a waste of your time. Don’t focus on these. it’s gonna help you make those decisions early.

Michelle Kesil (13:59)
Yeah, and what are you guys most focused on solving or scaling to next?

Praxedis Blackhorn (14:04)
Yeah, our beta, right? I I think yeah. Yeah. So like we want to grow the b like I said, July first, we’re opening up the beta. Right now it’s a closed beta invite only, essentially. people can sign up now. in and on July first, we’re gonna open it up to everybody so that we can start building that network. I think that’s what we’re most excited about is growing that side of the business. Yeah.

Michelle Kesil (15:09)
And what advice would you give to someone that’s newer in the industry, that’s wanting to get into wholesaling, for example?

Praxedis Blackhorn (15:17)
Yeah.

the one thing I would say, and I kind of just mentioned where we messed up. We messed up by just chasing too many shiny objects and not not trying something enough times to know truly if it was gonna work or not. And so we see that every single day. I mean, just the other just two days ago, I spoke to another wholesaler who just got laid off from his from his IT job, which really sinks. And so I felt for him. And I was learning, I was listening to a story and I was like, Well, how’d you how’d you get started?

He’s like, well, I started wholesaling. I did this thing. I did it for about a month. It didn’t work. So I went and spent another $10,000 on this other mentorship and to to do that. And that didn’t work. And so then I quit.

And now I need to do it again. And here I am again. And now he’s trying to build his own software. And I told him I was like, man, it just sounds like you’re trying to do too many things at once. Like you just need to pick one and do it long enough to see if it actually works or doesn’t work. And just adjust and pivot where you need to. And then decide if it is if you need to add or take away something.

Yeah. but that was probably the biggest lesson that that we could have learned in in for us. Yeah, I think when you’re starting out, things are exciting. And so you want to experiment, especially I think with AI, everyone’s experimenting with AI. I think is really decide where you want your money to come from and focus on that. It’s gonna take a while to ramp up, whether you’re buying rentals or whether you are.

wholesaling or just helping with transactions, you know, a title office or transactions coordinator. if you market yourself as someone that does everything and if you really try to do everything, you’re setting up yourself up for failure. That’s that’s really hard for anybody to do, I think. It it’s possible though. I mean we’ve seen people do it. Yeah. But it’s there’s they’re few and far in between, you know? Yeah.

Michelle Kesil (17:03)
Yeah, absolutely. And when you mention like your app has the networking capability, is that for people that are only like in the same city or what are kind of like those attributes?

Praxedis Blackhorn (17:19)
Right. So what I love about it is that you don’t have to know this isn’t Facebook. This isn’t a community either. so you don’t have to know anybody in there. You need to have value for them or you need value from them. Essentially, imagine I just got this lead. The seller is they like me. I just don’t know how to present this offer. You press a button, it shows you five people that are good at closing deals, that have closed deals in that state or in that city.

And you can open up their profile and see, yes, these people have closed deals before. Yes, these people have worked with other people. And you can say, I want to work with you. And you exchange information right there in the app. And the cool thing about it is everything, all your work, all your notes, all your comp, everything is now shared with them. And they can see the exact same thing you’re looking at. So when you’re both on the phone, right, you’re doing a three-way call, you’re both looking at the exact same screen. And you don’t have to catch them up to speed.

Spend a whole hour on a call walking them through the deal. They can see everything that you’re seeing. what’s another example? like a title office. Yeah, I mean, just just to put it, like most wholesalers, it takes them, you know, more than a month to get a deal. I mean, it took us at one point after our first deal. I got extremely lucky. And in the first deal that we got, it was the first agent that I had called, it was the first contract that I submitted, and it got accepted. And I I made we made money on that. It was insane. I don’t know how it worked, but it set us up for failure.

Because we thought it was that easy. And we went another six months without getting a deal. And so when we got to that part though, we stumbled through our first deal, but when we got to the part of like, okay, we have a deal now, a real one. Like, what do we do next? Like, dang, I gotta go learn dispo. And that’s a whole another business, you know. And and I didn’t it was my second deal. I didn’t know that I needed a transactions coordinator. I didn’t even what that was. Yeah. I didn’t I didn’t know what title office to to use because not all of them work with assignments. Yeah. And so

If if I would have had Effie at that time and I got the deal under contract, and Effie said, hey, you’re probably gonna need a transactions coordinator for this because it’s a creative deal. These are the top five in your market. And actually this one’s the best one. You should work with her. And it’s just a matter of buttons. And now you’re not asking, you’re not having to go search for people on Facebook. And and it’s just such a seamless experience so that you can get back to focusing on getting a deal. Like, like I mean, if you post something on Facebook, you’re gonna get three types of people.

The people that want to help you, the people that want to sell you something, and the people that want to take something from you. And you don’t know who you’re getting. Right. And so the we’re vetting these people, but also the communities betting each other. And and you can publicly can see all their transactions publicly. Maybe not what they earned, but that definitely that they’re closing something.

Michelle Kesil (20:05)
Amazing, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing everything.

Well, before we begin to wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more about everything you guys are up to, where can people find you?

Praxedis Blackhorn (20:17)
Yeah, you can go to effieapp.ai I mean, can I give you a promo code that we can share with people? Yeah. So we’ll share a promo code. ⁓ you again, you can sign up for free, join the network for free. But if you want the tools, we’re giving anyone that signs up that’s listening a 70% off on the tools. because we really just want to get you started so that you can start building evidence that you can do it. Anybody can do this. You just need to take consistent action. So go to effieapp

Michelle Kesil (20:24)
Sure, definitely.

Praxedis Blackhorn (20:46)
.ai

Michelle Kesil (20:47)
Okay, perfect. Well appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Praxedis Blackhorn (20:51)
Yeah, of course. Thank you for having us. Yeah, this was fun.

Michelle Kesil (20:54)
Yeah, of course. And from the listeners tuning in, if you have value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations with operators who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you on our next episode.