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Show Summary
In this episode, Scott Bursey sits down with Jose Samano, broker and founder of the Power Real Estate Group. Jose shares his journey of building one of Southern California’s most disciplined real estate teams, turning Orange County into a training ground for “sales athletes.” He discusses the importance of practice, proficiency, and process in real estate, and how lead generation, mentorship, and authenticity have driven his success. Listeners will gain actionable insights on scaling teams, generating high-quality leads, and cultivating long-term relationships in real estate.
Resources and Links from this show:
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- Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
- Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
- Mike on Facebook
- Mike on Instagram
- Mike on LinkedIn
- Power Real Estate Group’s Website
- Jose Samano on Instagram
- Jose Samano’s Phone Number: (714) 925-4418
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Jose Roberto Samano (00:00)
So I like to say I digitally door knock. I’ve digitally door knocked millions of homes this year, millions of homes this year. And ⁓It’s just a more efficient way to be able to do that. so I tell people, imagine walking down the street and every homeowner that’s interested opening their door and yelling at you like, hey, I want a valuation. I want to sell my house. I don’t know the value of my property. And just like yelling at you. That’s the feeling that I get every single day that I wake up and come to work because that’s how many lead, inbound lead opportunities we’re generating for our agents.
Scott Bursey (02:06)
welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Scott Bursey And today I’m joined by someone I’ve really been looking forward to chatting with, José Samano. José, welcome to the show.Jose Roberto Samano (02:21)
Well, thank you so much for having me here Scott. Appreciate you. Thank you for reaching out first and foremost and you know, we’d love to provide some sort of perspective and feedback on kind of what I’m doingScott Bursey (02:32)
Awesome. José is the broker and founder of the Power Real Estate Group. Now, the real brokerage. We’re featuring a leader who has turned the 714 Orange County, Anaheim into a personal training ground for sales athletes. José, if you could give us just a little bit of a rundown of what ⁓ you’ve been up to here recently.Jose Roberto Samano (02:57)
Yeah, mean, recently we’ve been ⁓ just trying to ⁓ bring on another hundred agents to our team. ⁓ We currently have about 160 agents on our team, 500 agents in our network. And the reason why there’s two different kind of categories is because we have a ⁓ high accountability team and a pretty much no to very low accountability team. And, you know, we understand that there’s…people are looking for different things and have different needs. So we try to meet them where they’re at and kind of go from there.
Scott Bursey (03:32)
Sure, absolutely. And I think our audience is really going to take something away from your unique perspective. José, you have an obsession with the fundamentals of practice. I know that to be true. You treat real estate like a professional sport. Role-playing by 9 a.m., you know, on the phones by 9.30. For any agent who thinks they can wing it to the top…Jose Roberto Samano (03:44)
Yes. Yeah.Scott Bursey (03:57)
Your breakdown of why practice and proficiency is massive. It’s a huge wake up call for those in the industry. And we can really appreciate that. What markets are you operating in right now?Jose Roberto Samano (04:13)
So currently we operate in Orange County, Riverside County, and LA County. We’re also in the high desert. So we cover about 340 zip codes in Southern California. So it’s quite a pretty massive farm area. ⁓ So, you know, most people farm, you know, the old way. ⁓ I got into their industry in 2004.somewhere around there. And so my mentors were from the 90s and the 80s. ⁓ And they talked about all these things like, you know, role playing, floor time. They talked about these concepts. And so all of we do all of the same concepts. We just added a little bit of technology behind it.
So I like to say I digitally door knock. I’ve digitally door knocked millions of homes this year, millions of homes this year. And ⁓
It’s just a more efficient way to be able to do that. so I tell people, imagine walking down the street and every homeowner that’s interested opening their door and yelling at you like, hey, I want a valuation. I want to sell my house. I don’t know the value of my property. And just like yelling at you. That’s the feeling that I get every single day that I wake up and come to work because that’s how many lead, inbound lead opportunities we’re generating for our agents.
Scott Bursey (05:27)
exhilaration and José for people who don’t may not be familiar with your world give us the short version if you would what’s your main focus these daysJose Roberto Samano (05:29)
Yeah.⁓ My main focus these days are marketing. It’s generating the opportunity. I do believe that he who generates the opportunity holds the keys to the castle. ⁓ And so I started kind of noticing this with the online lead portals like ⁓ Zillow, like Realtor.com, Redfin. I’m a huge partner of Zillow. I’m a huge advocate for them. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.
⁓ and understanding what it is that they were doing. so in a small, you know, ⁓ just my entrepreneurship in a small way allowed me to look at the opportunity and say, okay, well, how could I do that? How can I replicate a little bit of that? And ⁓ that’s kind of what been my focus for the last two years, being able to generate our own opportunities. ⁓ So we can then pay the agents a little bit more, make it easier for the agents to be able to get in front of more clients. ⁓ And yeah.
That’s kind of what I’ve been focusing on. Yes. Yeah. Yep.
Scott Bursey (07:25)
That’s awesome. What caught my attention about you, José, was the way you’ve been able to pioneer this idea of sales athletes. It’s really fascinating to me. In an industry that often celebrates the side hustle mentality, you’ve demandeda level of grit and elite level training that has set a new standard for what it means to be a professional in Southern California. Could you elaborate a little bit on your philosophy in that regard?
Jose Roberto Samano (07:50)
Yep.Yeah, so I I played sports all of my childhood. I played soccer, I played basketball. I was a part of the cross country team. ⁓ You know, I was part of the ⁓ track and field team, believe it or not. I’m not as fast anymore, but you know, I can hang in there. ⁓ so one of the things that happened to me, I remember when I was on the basketball team for our school was that I saw that our basketball team, our basketball team wasn’t very good, right? ⁓
I just enjoyed playing basketball, so I did. But I grew up playing soccer and I had a passion for soccer, right? And our soccer team was CIF champions, Division I, ⁓ and they took practice extremely seriously. They practiced all summer. They practiced ⁓ during the off season. They created groups during the off season to practice some more during the winter. Like literally they just, ⁓ our coach was
You did summer cross country, you did ⁓ fall cross country, and then you did winter soccer, and then you did spring track and field. then, so you like were in some sort of training or, you know, cross country training or track and field training year round just to be able to make the soccer team. And I remember him telling people very clearly, ⁓ if you don’t necessarily, like he couldn’t make you do this, but be like, if you don’t do this,
you’re going to be way behind everybody else and you’re not going to be able to keep up pace. And that was something that was kind of stuck with me. Also, my best friend was like the star player on the basketball team and he would make me practice with him every single day. And I would just remember kind of that relentless and I enjoyed it. You know, for me, I’m a competitor, so I really enjoyed getting better at my craft and doing that. And when I got into real estate, you know, as time went on.
and I developed my own office, the one thing that people would always ask me is like, what’s the secret? And I was like, well, the secret is just showing up every day, number one. And then it’s like, what is it that you’re doing? Right? And the number one question that I ask agents, especially listing agents, go, well, how many listing presentations do you practice a week? And often the answer is zero. And then I say, okay, well, how many people practice do you do a month? Zero. And I’m like, I get it. So you practice on your clients.
Okay. And ⁓ I don’t want to practice for $50,000 is on the line. You know, I want to be in the game and I want to know that I can perform and I want to, you know, just be very sure of myself and, you know, every single objection that I’m seeing, like I literally would take every objection because it didn’t happen overnight, right? Like in the beginning, I was losing most of the listening appointments I was going to, if not all of them. And I started kind of writing down, okay, like this is the reason why I lost this one. Okay, this is
where I feel like I lost this one. And then I just worked on it, worked on it, worked on it, ⁓ practiced at the office. I literally had a journal that I used to call myself journal. And I would write down, you know, how I would, the next time that I would present, how I would change my presentation. And then so, you know, just really kind of studied it. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Bursey (11:08)
Well, absolutely, and that kind of mindset is what makes champions. That’s awesome. It’s impressivethat you’ve reached that level of, I guess, autonomy. Was there a specific moment, José, or a particular deal where you realized, okay, hey, this is actually working?
Jose Roberto Samano (11:26)
⁓Yeah, mean I went on a yeah, I mean I remember it vividly, know So one of the few things that really kind of changed the game for me. One of them was ⁓ I really started trusting my gut feeling right like I stopped listening to what everybody else was telling me to do Because I knew that it was outdated ⁓ For example, we’ve always been taught that the realtors are the ultimate ⁓ You know professional which is true, right? But like they’re they’re they’re
that they were like the ultimate like bearer of truth when it comes to like the value of the home and like clients had no clue. And I was like, yeah, that could have been true like 20 years ago when the internet didn’t exist. And I know the system is not perfect, but it gets people an idea. And it’s not only the system, like they see the houses that are selling around their neighborhood, they get the flyer. mean, realtors do a good job of marketing so they could see what’s kind of happening around the area.
So they kind of have a general idea of what their house is worth. Now, some people are in the upper range of whatever they think their house is worth. Some people, I found that most people are actually in the middle. They’re actually very realistic about their number. And all I did was start asking people about what they thought their home was worth. And that eliminated that whole ⁓ conversation at the appointment. Because then I would do what’s called the appraisal strategy, which is
what an appraiser does. Appraiser justifies the value that he’s given on the purchase agreement. So he already knows what the value that he’s trying to attain in any sort of purchase contract, right? And then all I did was work that backwards. Okay, can I get that number? And if the answer is yes, then the conversation just literally becomes about how I’m going to get there for you. And it’s not adversarial.
Scott Bursey (13:49)
Absolutely, it’s dialogue, it’s effective communication. Hey, it’s real talk. Now José, every operator I know has a moment where things, you know, got real. Maybe a deal that went sideways or a time that they had to pivot fast. You mind sharing one of those moments with us?Jose Roberto Samano (14:10)
Yeah, I mean honestly like when I started the company was one of them right ⁓ we started about five years ago⁓ And in five years, we’ve done over 3,000 transactions, recruited over 1,200 agents. And the moment that things got real was when I signed $15,000 least a month with no agent. ⁓ Yeah, so it’s like, ⁓ that’s a real big belief in yourself, right? And it’s kind of one of those things that, it’s fight or flight, Mr. Mulhern, rest in peace, told me that. ⁓ And I was very sure of myself, I knew…
that I could do it. knew that I could get people to follow my lead because I care about them, number one. It shows I try to inspire people by showing up every single day and being here. Like I’m usually one of the first people here in the office. I mean, I’ve been doing this for 22 years and ⁓ I just been staying at it. But the moment that I remember Bivoli was signing ⁓ an agreement for 15K without any agents, I think I had like two maybe. ⁓
We had no furniture. I couldn’t even get a printer. And, you know, as far as deals go, I stopped doing transactions five years ago and that was my secret to success, which I don’t recommend because there’s, there’s a, have to have a high pain tolerance, right? Cause you’re literally putting other people first. But I started giving all my deals away. And when I started giving all my deals away to people, it allowed me to exponentially grow my business to a high number.
really quickly because I could generate deals and ⁓ I just became a referral agent. So I just started generating a ton of deals, referring them out to people, teaching them how to do real estate because you only learn by doing and that allowed me to bring in a lot of people to the office and increase their transaction count very quickly. you know, in hindsight, that’s what worked.
Scott Bursey (16:08)
What a winning recipe. That’s fantastic. And what a great mindset to have that approach. And honestly, it’s what separates the folks who just dabble from the ones who stay in the game long term, José. Let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next?Jose Roberto Samano (16:10)
Yeah. Thank you.Yeah. Yeah.
Our lead generation company. So we really want to focus on the lead gen. And then once you start, know, once we were able to do lead gen in one area, we learned a lot. All right. And we’re still continuing to do that.
But now, because we have a very good foundation, ⁓ we’re able to then segue into just another pillar. It’s not like we’re going into a completely different direction. It’s just literally sidestepping ⁓ just so we can get that going. ⁓ Because a lot of people, when they take another lane, they go all the way to the far lane. They don’t go to the lane right next to it.
you know, the famous saying says jack of all trades, master of none, right? But the actual saying says, oftentimes better than the master of one. So that changes the entire concept of that saying, right? Which is actually you’re better off mastering more than one thing. But the problem is that people don’t master one thing. They start at one thing and then they go to another. And I say, when you do that,
let’s say you’re at 5 % proficiency, you’re starting at zero again. But if I am at 90 % proficiency in that one thing and I segue, I’m at 50 % proficiency in that next thing, right? So you need to kind of stay in the game in the one lane for a while till you feel very, very comfortable and then do take a sidestep into a second lane. But not only until you feel like you’ve mastered this one thing, can you do that.
Scott Bursey (18:48)
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. What’s the next real goal for you?Jose Roberto Samano (18:54)
My next real goal is to be in multiple states. My next real goal is to, there’s a company that we have called Vende Tu Casa, which means sellyourhouse.com. And that’s my little baby. That’s what I’ve been working on. ⁓ And again, that comes into like the whole lead generation and that company came about me trying to help my community, know, like anything else, right? And, you know, just trying to deliver different programs that are out there, like the iBuyR programs, like, ⁓ you know,buy before you sell, which is a bridge loan from like companies like HomeLite, Offerpad, all these other companies that are out there. And then also there’s a company called Revive that I really love. And what they do is they help sellers flip their own home. Right. So I really love the concept of it. I mean, it’s not for everybody, but if you’re in a certain price point, it does make a lot of sense to go in that direction. And so not only do they give you the money, they help you with the contracting and they actually manage the project, which is
The reasons why most sellers aren’t successful in doing their own flips is because they don’t know how to time manage or contract correctly, or they don’t have the, like the palette or the taste level that they need to have or the detachment from the home. So they can, they could create a home that’s going to sell, not a home that they’re going to live in.
Scott Bursey (20:16)
Absolutely, yes. The map, if you will, the roadmap to success, a good plan. Absolutely. We see people chase doors of revenue all the time. For you, is that goal the destination or is it just the fuel that allows you to do something even bigger, ⁓Jose Roberto Samano (20:21)
Yeah. Yeah, correct.mean, honestly, like, feel like in life you have like three, three kind of periods of your life. Like one is how do I help myself? Right. And you go through that process and then eventually
I mean, obviously you need money, right? and, eventually that’s, know, you can do it, right? You’ve done it multiple times, right? And then, so then it becomes like, okay, well, how do I help people around me that are immediately within my world, right? That I could see, right? And then eventually it becomes like, okay, well, how do I now create something that’s beyond me and something that could help other people that are not even close to me and that maybe might not even know me or how do I change?
I mean, I don’t want to say change the world because that seems like kind of like a big lofty goal, but like, how do I change certain things that, you know, people think it’s, they’re supposed to be a certain way. because I do have the skillset and because I do feel and believe that I could really do something like that. ⁓ again, the change for me was to, ⁓ with Venetu Casa to be able to help my community number one. And then it became, how do I help agents who maybe want to focus more on, on that sort of,
know, type of clientele. So ⁓ that then became me doing lead generation in multiple languages. And I got that from Mr. Beast. So we now can create pretty much leads in every language other than English. And we see a very big impact there.
Scott Bursey (22:04)
And it goes deeper than that. It’s the caring mentality, wanting to give back to the world for what you’ve received for the talents that you’ve acquired. And really you’ve developed those talents through your dedication. So that’s just really outstanding. That’s big, especially when you’ve already got the, you know, resources in place José. That next move can either, you know, compound things or create chaos, depending onJose Roberto Samano (22:11)
Hmm?Yeah.
Yeah.
Scott Bursey (22:34)
how you play it. Now I know a lot of our audience is either earlier in their careers, you know, or looking to level up and I think they benefit from hearing this. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?Jose Roberto Samano (22:44)
Hmm.⁓
For building real, I mean honestly just just carrying being yourself not trying to take advantage of people I know a lot of people say fake it till you make it but I’m like, you know, I rather just be myself It’s hard to be to be to try to pretend to be somebody else obviously be put together, you know, like ⁓ Know your stuff. Honestly, most people want to help people if you’re just honest like I tell people
In 2013, I decided to go from the lending side to the real estate side. And I door knocked, I sent out 30,000 flyers. None of that worked for me. And there was a young lady that said, hey, there’s a company called Zillow that you should probably look into. You pay them and leads come in and you could work with them. So sure enough, the third person that came in, she told me,
⁓ I asked her hey, why did you pick me and she goes because you had zero sales and zero reviews ⁓ And I was like, okay, and she goes yeah I thought you would have the most time and I kind of wanted to help you and I was like, alright Well at a pity I got a transaction. Okay. Alright, cool, right? But yeah, so I just always find that most people want to help people. That’s the reason why I’m doing this right? I want to help people. I I see it all the time people tell me
José, why are you investing a lick of time with these agents or that? And I’m like, look, man, I got an opportunity. I’m very thankful for everyone who’s given me an opportunity in my life. I’m very thankful for this country that’s given me an opportunity. And because I am, you I’m an immigrant and I’ve had that sort of mentality of I’ve received an opportunity. I give every single person in our office an opportunity to shine if they want to put in the work, right? So our doors are open for people that are not even part of our team.
⁓ I have an open door policy as long as you have a real estate license and you’re somebody that’s presentable You can come to my training you can come to I like to say we’re like the Statue of Liberty man Like we let everyone in here as long as you give me your wounded give me your you know, like that whole thing ⁓ I’m a big believer in that. I just I just I like to give man
Scott Bursey (25:03)
It’s more than that. It’s being authentic and genuine, caring, and when a person has those components, things just tend to evolve naturally. And I can tell that’s what’s occurring for you. Everyone says provide value, but when you were, you know, starting out and didn’t have a huge bank account, let’s say, or a massive portfolio, what was your currency? How did you actually get the attention of the bigger players in your industry?Jose Roberto Samano (25:18)
Thank you.Like for ⁓ other brokers, it’s my know-how. Spending enough time to actually know, my knowledge was my value, right? ⁓ For ⁓ clients, saving them money. Saving them money was my biggest value. So I became a great negotiator. I looked for opportunities. I looked for opportunities. Even today, right? Like I tell people, with the BRBC being signed, ⁓ one of the things that I tell my agents to do
is track down every single transaction as a buyer that you’ve done, see how much money you’ve gotten off the price, and then see how much money you’ve been able to collect in seller concessions. And if you’ve gotten down payment money or down payment assistance money, also put that in those categories. And when you give somebody a flyer or your presentation, you could say, I’ve saved $200,000 in transaction count or, you know, shaved off the prices of homes. I’ve helped my sellers or buyers
earn an additional $150,000 in concessions, that’s the reason why you should work with me. Right? Because a lot of people do say this, like, oh, you should work with me because I have a lot of value. And it’s like, what is it? What’s your value? Oh, well, I know the contract. Well, you’re supposed to know that. Well, I’m on time. Well, you’re supposed to be on time. Well, I answer my phone. Well, I mean, these are all things that are like you’re supposed to be doing, dude. is your real value? Right? And so to me, sometimes it’s like part of it is
A lot of it is monetary, right, to a buyer or a seller, and then it becomes your knowledge and know-how. And then how do you demonstrate your knowledge and know-how? Well, by demonstrating a monetary value to it. So there’s a little bit of that.
Scott Bursey (27:12)
It sounds to me like you’re into the deeper connections, the relationships. And relationships are everything in this space. All right, before we wrap, José, if someone wanted to reach out and connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’ve been doing. What’s the best way for them to contact you?Jose Roberto Samano (27:16)
Yeah. Yeah.Yeah, my Instagram José Roberto Samano. can kind of contact me on their ⁓ my website. Same thing. ⁓ And my number so 714-925-4418 you guys can reach out to me. I’m usually pretty easy to reach out to and I’ll try to get back to you pretty quickly. But yeah, any of those works. Mm-hmm.
Scott Bursey (27:49)
Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, your story, and definitelyyour perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. Thanks again for being here.
Jose Roberto Samano (28:01)
Thank you. Thank you so much. ⁓Scott Bursey (28:03)
And for those of you tuning in, if you’ve got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators, just like José, who are out there building real businesses. We’ll see you in the next episode, everybody. -
