Master Wholesaling: How to Solve Problems and Build Connections

Dylan Silver (00:01.633)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver, and today on the show I have Guy Hakim, a virtual wholesaler, wholesaling coach, passionate about AI and the way that it can transform the space. Guy, welcome to the show.

Guy Hakim (00:20.278)
Hey, very nice to meet you, very pleased to be here. I’m happy.

Dylan Silver (00:24.595)
Absolutely. It’s a pleasure to have you and you know, I’m a wholesaler by trade. I’m also a licensed realtor here in Dallas, newly licensed. And we’re talking here, it’s the beginning of June. This episode will be released later than that. But when I think about the wholesale space, I think really about problem solving and real estate in general in many ways is about problem solving. But I think wholesale in particular, because you’re dealing with in many cases distress.

is all about problem solving. Your thoughts on that guy.

Guy Hakim (00:57.133)
Right. Yeah, a hundred percent. You get rewarded for solving problems. And you know, we’re dealing with homeowners, we’re dealing with people that have a lot of problems. Let’s face it. That’s why they’re selling their house. That’s why they’re selling it fast. And that’s why they cannot, you know, just get ahead and do it with a realtor. So one thing is exposing the problems. Okay. And the next thing is helping someone. I’m reading a book about sales right now. Okay. And that guy,

Obviously everyone knows him, Grant Cardone, right? So he says, if you don’t close, you cannot serve that person. And it hit me because when I started hosting, was like, yo, I’m stealing the house. Everybody’s like, yo, you’re stealing the house. You gave it for 90, you gave it for 100. But if you don’t close on the house, he did not solve his problem. And we have many, sellers, you know, I’ve just went through one of our days that took us two years to close.

that Lee was in the system two years. It was just a recycle lead and was like, we did not serve that guy. We did not solve that problem. He had the same problem for two years. Imagine how much stress, how much he had to go through because he did want to sell. So when you close someone, convince him as a wholesaler to sell for less, you might feel, oh, I’m taking advantage of that person. But when you close him, when you solve his problem, so.

Dylan Silver (01:54.347)
Mm.

Guy Hakim (02:21.4)
Part of solving the problem is convincing him that he’s going to have to selfless. But the whole other part is building the report, building the relationship and addressing all of the things in his life. We help homeowners like crazy things. We do evictions for them. We had a lady out in Kissimmee now, we’re doing an eviction for her. We did an eviction for her. The tenants, the so-called tenants, now they’re squatters, came back to the house and we’re treating, we’re helping her with this.

We help her cleaning the court enforcement and the stuff that is on the house. We help homeowners with personal stuff they have in their life. Everything you need, it’s almost like when you’re a wholesaler, you do anything but real estate. You just, oh, I got a problem with my wife, with my attorney, with my dog, let me fix it. How can I help? How can I serve? And once you serve all of this,

now you can buy the house. So it’s almost like buying the house. It’s a by-product of helping that person. And I know a lot of people here that are like, oh, these wholesalers are greedy. They’re full of shit. Now they’re not helping. They’re just trying to take advantage. But if you’re actually doing it, then you’re going to understand that dealing with people, you’re in the people business. It’s not really anything about with the house itself.

Dylan Silver (03:25.226)
No.

Dylan Silver (03:37.811)
It’s one thing to do one deal. It’s another thing to do, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 deals, right? Because one deal you could get one deal and you know, you could be done with it. But then to continue to work in this space, you come across so many different issues and you truly, my perspective is you truly do want to help as many people as you can. I’m curious guy to get your perspective, you know, on creative offers. Many wholesalers only have kind of a one size fits all strategy.

And I’m curious to get your take on creative offers versus just a straight cash offer.

Guy Hakim (04:13.932)
Right, so creative change the industry, it’s not a secret. You know, we see pay smorby, we see the community, like he actually created a whole economy, but he did not even invent it, right? He just, he just broadcast it. He just, he just communicated and taught people and put them in a mentorship program and create a whole economy of people that just go into creative right now.

Dylan Silver (04:26.024)
Yeah.

Guy Hakim (04:38.538)
You know, you talk with builders, they already know about creative. You talk with sellers, they’re like, you’re from Pace Morbius. I already got this message. They sell for, don’t want it. So first thing, I think it’s great because you’re just creating more solutions. You know, we have all the sellers and for those of you that don’t really understand, if you have low equity on your property, it’s very hard for you, almost impossible to sell the house traditionally. Some people have negative equity. So they owe to the bank a hundred, but a house only worth 70 or 80.

Now, instead of them going to a foreclosure, now you can offer them a solution that before you couldn’t. So I think creative, it’s an amazing way to create more solution. I think it’s very, very hard to structure, communicate and learn it. It’s challenging, but overall I’m a big fan. I think it’s great for everyone.

Dylan Silver (05:27.519)
I think when it comes to the communication, people drill in on the communication. You mentioned it’s difficult to explain what assuming someone else’s loan is or what financing and you acting as the bank, a seller finances. And there’s more creative ways. I was actually on a run recently myself and I thought about a creative way where I might be able to bring a new offer to people. And when I think about all these things, I think about

communicating it. But I also think about what you mentioned, guys, you kind of have to do everything else but buy their house. So in order to get to that point where you’re talking about the deal, many cases, this is heavy high degrees of emotional distress, financial distress unrelated to the home, that many cases, there could be even death, right? Or a medical issue, right? How are we able to facilitate some of these things to alleviate the burden?

from them, whether it’s bring, how often guy are you bringing families together and having people sit down to discuss all the time, right? All the time, you know, so.

Guy Hakim (06:33.996)
Yeah, 100%. Hey, talk with my attorney, talk with my, you know, husband, wife get divorced. We have to mitigate them. Like we have to like, she said that, he said this. Like we become attorneys, like divorce attorneys, like what’s going on?

Dylan Silver (06:46.186)
all the time.

Dylan Silver (06:50.835)
all the time. You know, one of the interesting things about wholesaling is I’m a licensed realtor. It actually doesn’t really benefit my wholesale business. You know, as to be a realtor, it handcuffs me in a lot of ways because I now held to a realtor code of ethics basically. And there’s like legal ramifications that I basically can’t operate in the same way. In many, in many cases, someone like yourself who’s a wholesaler,

unlicensed is able to help people in ways that I just simply cannot. And I think many people when they’re getting into real estate wholesale, they’re unaware exactly of what they’re walking into. You know, people have heard for things like cash for keys or, you know, subject to creative. But the bigger thing in wholesale specifically is you’re going to be like the ultimate problem solver. Like you’re just taking on everyone else’s headaches and at the end you may get an assignment from it. But definitely in the beginning, it’s a lot of

a lot of taking on other people’s burdens.

Guy Hakim (07:52.622)
Yeah, 100%. I agree.

Dylan Silver (07:55.879)
I guy pivoting a bit here talk about scaling a business in the wholesale space going from you know your first couple of deals to then expanding that what was the marketing techniques what was the business growth like did you bring on partners how did the business expand

Guy Hakim (08:13.656)
Yeah, 100%. So I started and I think one of the things that separate me from others is that I had that owner mindset. Somehow I got into the idea of I have to overcome my challenges and I want to be shortcut my way to success almost. I did went to real estate program and I did one-on-one coaching with a mentor.

At the time, it was a one-time call, about 45 minutes on a phone, not even a Zoom. He was like, hey, do this and this. He’s not a wholesaler, he’s an investor. Hey, get a list, call them, do this, do that. So I had a direction, but I had to figure out the rest myself. And I really, really wanted it. was very motivated. And the one thing I discovered really quickly that I can change myself with others, and I was fortunate to be good at delegation and to finding other people.

Dylan Silver (09:09.728)
Hmm.

Guy Hakim (09:11.828)
leverage and delegation. So for a lot of people, it’s just a good word to put in the business book. But for me, was, I just looked behind. was like, okay, I was delegating. I did not even know what’s delegation when I was delegating. I was like, okay, I need to do call calling. Did it for three days. I hate it. Let’s get a call caller. It was my first call caller from the Philippines. She worked with me for six months and she got me like, you know, a little bit of leads here and there. And then

when I figure out, I did two deals and then when I figure out I spend more money and I get more deals. So first of all, I delegate my lead generation into a call center. At the time, that was like almost six years ago, I found a really good call center that was able to scale my leads, okay, from barely one lead a day to maybe like 20 a week, okay? And at that time I had resource. So I was like, okay, I have too many leads.

Dylan Silver (10:05.761)
Hmm.

Guy Hakim (10:11.488)
Now I have too many sales calls. I don’t hate it, but you know, I want to be doing this. And I noticed by doing JV deals, and that was the first thing when you, when you do JV deals, you actually get to almost partner with someone for a second and be his business partner. I noticed that when I partner with other people, I get their experience. So I was like, okay, I have leads, I have systems, I’m very good at everything, but I’m not closing. And then I found one whole set on that. said, Hey,

you come work with me. Okay, so he was my first, you can say, I don’t like the word employee, he was my first agent. I call them agents, right? Real estate agent. Okay, so real estate agent, acquisition agent, sorry, and then we have acquisition manager on top. So I became an acquisition manager and I have an acquisition agent below me, which he brought so much experience because he worked in another whole so that he did this before. So I told him, look, I have the systems, I have the leads.

You close them, we do, I don’t remember, it was 50-50, okay? And at that point, boom, my business hits. So that’s where I kind of like even start doing real deals, like real money, right? So going from two deals in the first six months myself to 20 deals in the next 12 months. And then, you know, I saw that working and he brought another guy and then I had two acquisition agent and I was the acquisition manager. And I controlled the resource and I leveraged the leads and the system and my knowledge about building the system.

Dylan Silver (11:19.391)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (11:25.974)
Wow.

Guy Hakim (11:38.102)
and I leverage their experience and I delegate the work to them. I delegate the work to the call center. I delegate the work. It’s almost like I was doing nothing, but obviously I was doing everything, but I just put everything together instead of just figuring out myself.

Dylan Silver (11:47.519)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (11:51.615)
you are you were you weren’t closing the deals but you were managing the systems and handling the headaches and and curious you know what was your

perspective and feedback that you saw these guys coming in closing deals. What did this teach you about closing in real estate wholesale?

Guy Hakim (12:13.72)
What does that teach me, like seeing them closing deals or at that time or now? Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:16.767)
Yeah, so at that time, you know, coming from doing two deals to now you’re scaling, you’re seeing these guys who are savvy and are competent in the aspect of closing, right? So you had had all the leads, you did the hard work of generating these leads, right? But you’re seeing them coming in close. Was there was there something specific that you took away from this that said, okay, well, this is, you know, closing acumen or something along these lines?

Guy Hakim (12:37.25)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So I learned everything from them. became, he became my teacher. My agent became my teacher and I learned everything from him. So that was a resource of learning. And then I became a closer. And again, they were there, but I don’t think that without me, that this wouldn’t really like at one point, even later, I had a company like really doing this for me. But if I was not in a company, nothing would happen. So it’s

It’s really like, oh, you got to delegate the business and you do and you manage. It’s really not that because you are the glue and you are the fire. But without them, it wouldn’t happen. But without me, it wouldn’t happen as well. for like seeing them doing this, I learned, oh, okay, that’s how you close a seller. Oh, that’s how you dispose the, oh, that’s what we found about it. So I literally brought people into the organization. At that point, it was not, it was just, what is it? It’s a, it’s a one small business. It’s not even an organization, but

Dylan Silver (13:35.008)
Yeah.

Guy Hakim (13:35.182)
into the company, I brought people into the company with knowledge and I learned from them that knowledge, I implement that and then I learned from more and then I learned from whoever come work to me. So the idea is to bring people into your company that are above the company average and then you increase the average of the company in knowledge and experience and everything. That is to bring people that will increase the overall average value.

Dylan Silver (13:55.125)
That’s you.

Dylan Silver (14:01.173)
I mean it’s huge right like you are the some of the people that you hang around just point blank. think myself personally I don’t know if you can relate to this but it sounds like in at least in the business sense that you can. When I am around high level people I’ll become high level when I’m around all the time made or low level people as far as output I’m going to mirror that and it’s almost without choice like I can consciously say I can try to be disciplined and say I’m not going to do.

less work because others are doing less. But I just feel I feel like through osmosis practically becoming me and the reverse is true. I might be around some super high level people and feel like wow I really can’t possibly keep up with that. But through osmosis over time I’ve personally I can’t speak for everybody I can speak for myself I’ve personally seen my level rise. Have you it seems like you’ve experienced that in your business as well.

Guy Hakim (14:54.061)
Right.

Guy Hakim (14:57.358)
Yeah, a hundred percent. think that eventually you need to find the balance between being, we call it like heads to the wolf or tail to the lions. And we say that in Hebrew. don’t know if it’s even, so you want to be tail to lions or head to the wolf. Right? So there is advantage and disadvantage in each one of them. But obviously when you are with people that above you in one level, are, you, you have inspiration, you grow.

you stretch yourself, need to have that peer group. But realistically, in your business, there’s always gonna be other type of people that you have to increase. You have to be their lions, you have to be their head. So I think the key depreciation of if you adapt yourself into the environment or the environment adapt to you, it’s your leadership level. So I’ll give you an example.

around, if you are negative and you’re around positive people and you are very, very strong person, you can turn all the positive people into negative, right? So it works both ways. But if you’re extremely positive and you just want and you have five negative people, can still as a leader, can take a group of, unmotivated people and inspire them.

Dylan Silver (16:04.885)
The whole thing.

Yep.

Guy Hakim (16:24.746)
and bring them up, so the standard is controlled not by the amount of people, it’s controlled by the amount of leadership.

So I think that the message is you can still work with a bunch of newbies and make them pros. And you can also work with a bunch of pros and make them suck because you just destroy the whole team. It’s all about who’s controlling the rhythm. So I think that I see myself adjusting sometimes to others and sometimes trying to lead them, depending on where I’m at.

Dylan Silver (16:41.739)
Absolutely.

Dylan Silver (16:56.993)
what do you make of the importance of networking in the real estate space i think is the most important thing i i i i i’ve spoken with other people who’s express similar express differently but for me personally when i think about my trajectory i think man i i could have basically you know leapfrog so many steps and so many months if i would have taken networking strategically and and more seriously from the beginning

Guy Hakim (17:25.166)
Yeah, 100%. I think that obviously there’s a lot to learn. So you can find connections, you can find ideas, like practical ideas. When I speak with people, I just take like little tiny bits of what I say and then go to Google and search and see what it means. It’s like, they just throw a name of a lead provider and then I go and I find out it’s changing my whole business, right? But in the same time, you have to filter what you hear and you cannot be so like reactive to everything that you’re saying.

And also you’ve got to find your own way and not being so dependable on other groups. I know that people, there are some people who are just addicted to networking and mentorship. Let’s face it. There’s a lot of people today and it’s very easy. Oh, I did this school and this school and this school and they don’t do this. So that’s a problem. So I think that sometimes you need to know how to shut yourself to anyone else. I’ve literally disappeared.

I haven’t posted on Instagram for like, think two or three years, if you’ve scored my Instagram, it was two years I was gone. I was like, I’m out of here. I’m back with something that I can, I want to be back with something that can be meaningful. Can I, that I can contribute like not just another photo of me in the beach. No, I want to be going back with a message. So I disappeared. I learned a study, I improved and now I’m back to networking. I think there’s gotta be a balance like.

Dylan Silver (18:35.104)
Yeah.

Guy Hakim (18:49.536)
feeling comfortable with yourself alone, but also knowing how to go to others and learn from them and engage with them. So you find employees, you find leads, you find opportunities, you find this. But you can be, you could get addicted very quick to the hype of just talking with people and thinking like, what he’s doing is good. What he’s doing is good. It’s everyone on a, you know, in a meetup, yeah, I do this. Yeah, I do this. And you think like, what I’m doing is not working. So

It’s risky. It’s almost like the comparison word with the Instagram and social media that everything looks bright outside. You got to be sticking. Sometimes you need to know how to shut it off and just focus on your own box and flourish in that space.

Dylan Silver (19:19.585)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (19:33.605)
disappearing is an interesting one you know i’m a i’m a big believer i like fanatical i think i’m the networking junkie you’re talking about guy but i do think disappearing is important i think it’s important you know i think especially you know people with jobs right how do you how do you manage learning while also doing the networking also finding the time to actually do deals it’s it’s tricky i think you know time blocking

like strategically blocking off your time. tell people this like, if it’s not in my Google calendar, I don’t know if it’s even happening. Like what is a calendar if it’s not on my Google calendar? So I’ll block off, you know, time period of my day while I’ll go to engineering school. I’ll block off, you know, my day for podcasts. I’ll block off, you know, my day to do activities as a real estate agent. I’ll block off networking, going to networking event tonight. But before, I mean, to your point, guy, before I had this system,

it was just like kind of whatever motivated me that day and that’s no way to build a business. So you know people do have to be careful.

Guy we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Guy Hakim (20:46.766)
Facebook Instagram guy Hakim GUY Hakim that’s where I’m at hit me up I’m available

Dylan Silver (20:57.493)
Guy, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.