The Journey to 100 Deals a year

John Harcar (00:00.727)
Right on. Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here with Alex King. And what we’re going to talk about is the journey to a hundred deals a year. Guys, remember at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and really all real estate entrepreneurs. I mean, we help them two to five X their business. And we do that by providing tools, resources, and opportunities to build the business they want to build, which in essence lets them live the life they want to live. So, you know, Alex, welcome to the show today, man.

Alexander King (00:30.882)
Thank you, John. Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me.

John Harcar (00:33.829)
I’m definitely excited to hear about your journey, man, because I know a lot of folks that are listening might be at the beginning of theirs and it might be some good stuff for them to pick up. But before we kind of jump into all that stuff, before we get into the weeds, tell us about yourself. You know, what did you do before real estate? How did you get into real estate? You know, just kind of give us a little how you got here.

Alexander King (00:52.974)
Yeah, John. So I’m Connecticut based. We’re 75 miles north of Manhattan, right outside of New Haven. You’ve heard a little school called Yale University. You know, that’s our closest market. And real, you know, cut and dry. I started out on my father’s lobster boat, pulling lobsters up from the trawls one by one. And, you know, now

John Harcar (01:04.141)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander King (01:20.908)
making calls one by one and we’re five years in and we scaled up to 100 deals last year and I really want to just connect with more people. We are in virtual markets. We just closed a pretty cool deal in Texas as well. So I know you guys are in Texas, right? Yeah, so we’re Boise.

John Harcar (01:40.28)
Nice.

Yes, yes. Well, I’m personally in Boise. Our company is in Texas,

Alexander King (01:49.038)
You have a lot of listeners in Texas. We were in Sugarland, closed that one today, a pure novation deal. So it was a journey, just like every deal.

John Harcar (01:55.415)
Nice. Well, yeah, we’ll we’ll talk about some deals and stuff here in a minute, but I’m just kind of interested and curious on so lobster guy to picking lobsters to picking up the phones. Was your father in real estate before? Like, is that kind of how you guys got started or where did the whole lobster to real estate flip happen?

Alexander King (02:08.578)
Yeah.

Alexander King (02:17.046)
Yeah, so none of my family was really in real estate before. My grandfather owned a trucking business, bringing watermelons from Florida up north here to Connecticut. So my dad was in that for a little bit. Then he started his own business. And I think business was kind of something that always was in my DNA and in my head because…

John Harcar (02:31.055)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (02:43.971)
Entrepreneurial DNA,

Alexander King (02:45.806)
Yeah, because I mean, you’ve probably worked for a lot of people too. And it’s like, you you’re always thinking like, what else is out there? You know? And so no, no one was in real estate really before they owned their own houses. the real switch started happening. You know, one day when, you know, I…

It was a hot August day and you’re baiting these traps and you hit a wave and the bait comes up and it hits you in the face and you’re like, man, this is, like there’s a love to it but enough is enough. And I still love fishing, it’s one of my biggest hobbies but that was kind of a turning point for me on.

John Harcar (03:13.349)
You

John Harcar (03:25.229)
Enough. Yeah. Yeah.

Alexander King (03:38.574)
you know, the switch and I had a friend who’s currently my business partner now and we were playing Monopoly one night and you know, a local kid in our area came up on Instagram or something on like wholesaling and we’re playing Monopoly and we like made a pact to just, you know, go into wholesaling. We bought that Astro flipping course. Yeah, from Jamil and

John Harcar (04:01.251)
Yeah, yeah. From a Jameel.

Alexander King (04:08.43)
You know, we put 10,000 plus whatever it was on a credit card, you know, and went to the coffee shop every night after work. We were on launch control and you know, boom. One, one text like really, really switched it all. We, got like, you know, probably a 50 % discount deal over one text, you know.

John Harcar (04:21.541)
Launch control, I love it. I used launch control before.

John Harcar (04:37.219)
Man, that’s huge because just the one thing, I mean, yeah, you had to put on a credit card, but you guys made the commitment, right? You made the commitment to each other. did you guys set yourself a timeline as to when you guys want, know, say this is when we want to get our first deal by?

Alexander King (04:58.24)
I mean, back then, like you’re burning through like a couple hundred dollars, like a dad, a dad. And like back then that was like, like this is kind of adding up. Like we already put money on the course. So like the time was already ticking for us, you know, had to get one ASAP.

John Harcar (05:08.014)
Mm-hmm

John Harcar (05:12.099)
Yeah. Yeah. How long did it take?

Alexander King (05:20.46)
I wanna say…

two months, three months, but it felt longer than that. And I know a lot of people are at it for almost years sometimes before they get one. We were lucky enough to have, and this was pre-COVID when real estate was on the rise, but it wasn’t as competitive as right now when people are getting absolutely bombarded left and right.

John Harcar (05:47.609)
Yeah, and the market’s the way it is.

Alexander King (05:49.516)
Yeah.

John Harcar (05:51.247)
So you get this first deal, what kind of profits you make on it?

Alexander King (05:56.27)
funny, we had a local contractor that we knew from a friend’s dad. We trusted him and he offered us like 10, I think maybe 15 on it. And we gave him our word and then a few other buyers came and offered us like 15 or 30 more, like 30 spread in total. and we were like…

John Harcar (06:19.235)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alexander King (06:23.67)
we can’t, you know, and that was, still kind of our motto. If we give somebody like, okay, our word.

John Harcar (06:30.593)
That’s how you build the trust man. Sometimes you got to give and and yeah that that is the hard part sometimes and but that’s how you build strong buyers And here’s a nugget for you guys is that if you got a buyer that you work with that’s good to you Be good to him once in a while because you’ll keep him around don’t always you know It’s not always greener on the other side might be once but then that fast grass fades So tell us about so tell us about what you did with this. You got this check, right? Did you invest back in the business? Did you go buy shiny objects? What did you do?

Alexander King (07:01.07)
You know, what did we do? We definitely did have like a nice little dinner. We had congratulated ourselves. But, you know, we never been really ones to go out and splurge that much, you know. So we did put it back in the business and it was smart because…

John Harcar (07:09.719)
Of course you have to man that’s that’s a foregone conclusion.

Alexander King (07:30.768)
We just threw it back into the marketing.

John Harcar (07:32.895)
Yeah, I mean, you most people they get you know, they break through the barrier they get that first check and it’s like man I’m gonna treat myself. Well, trust me if you put it back into the business, you’ll treat yourself a lot better later So how long did it take to get number two?

Alexander King (07:44.302)
then,

Alexander King (07:49.27)
Yeah, so number two came by through a Facebook for sale by owner and it was like the hardest deal ever and it was like $2,000 and it’s almost funny sometimes like the $2,000, $3,000 deals are the ones you work hardest for, know? All the time, yeah.

John Harcar (08:06.701)
Not sometimes, always. They always are not necessarily worth the, the, the, juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Okay. So what do you think are some of the challenges that you faced in either getting your second, third, fourth, or even just like kind of as you grew in the business?

Alexander King (08:14.797)
Yeah.

Alexander King (08:26.146)
Yeah, good question. So the challenge is going from there. think when you’re that green, you want to try to figure out what direction you’re going to go with it.

think the real pivoting point is when we got our own office and got a few other guys calling for us. And we’ve always really scaled the phone model, pick up the phone and call. And I think that was more when we started picking up the traction.

John Harcar (09:10.371)
So you start doing, you say pick up the phone and call from someone that you were texting. So just get them on the phone.

Alexander King (09:17.888)
Yeah, start getting them on the phone. know, our first real big investment was a call center with Lamassu. Yeah, we were with them for almost since they started, ground up. We were with them up until last year, you know.

John Harcar (09:28.267)
Mm, yes. Yeah, I they’re pretty good.

John Harcar (09:38.501)
Okay. Okay.

Alexander King (09:42.186)
Once we got more leads coming in and a few guys that we were paying out commission, that really got the train wheels going.

John Harcar (09:52.473)
Man, when you say guys paying out commission acquisition managers.

Alexander King (09:56.044)
Yes, yes.

John Harcar (09:57.037)
Nice. Okay. What other challenges did you come across in your building or your growth?

Alexander King (10:04.14)
Yeah. So like which type of marketing, I think that’s a good challenge. So like I said, you know, we picked the call center and then, you know, call center. All right. So let’s try to dip our hands in, you know, I think the next one we did was, you know, mailers trying to understand that, let a lot of self self teaching on that. And then, I know recent

John Harcar (10:22.425)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (10:26.053)
Yeah. How did you do when you were doing mailing?

Alexander King (10:33.516)
You know, we had no intake system or KPIs set up for it. We would just blanket it out, you know, and get the call and kind of be on your feet and on your toes.

John Harcar (10:40.889)
that people call.

John Harcar (10:45.029)
Mm-hmm.

Do you think it provided the return that you were hoping for?

Alexander King (10:53.194)
Mailers, think they hit a list, a certain list of people that other times don’t get hit on calls and others. So some of our biggest deals, like we had a $70,000 deal from a mailer. And it’s most of the time these people that put it on their refrigerator and just keep it and wait.

John Harcar (11:11.716)
Nice.

John Harcar (11:19.951)
Yep, true, very true. A lot of folks do that, right? Or they find a, hey, I just found this when I was moving, getting ready to move. I know you mentioned wholesaling is the biggest part of your business, probably, right? But I mean, on average, how many properties do you flip? How many properties do you hold? What does that whole structure look like for you guys?

Alexander King (11:42.894)
Yeah. So, I mean, we were talking about the merry-go-round before. So we’re on that ride at the wholesale, which it’s exhausting, but we’ll pick up probably, you know, 30, 20 to 30 % of them are ones that will actually close on and flip. 10 % will actually add to our portfolio. So then the other 60 % is probably just the wholesale. Yeah.

John Harcar (11:46.991)
Yeah.

John Harcar (12:06.969)
Just wholesaling. Well, do you have a team that does the flips or you just contract out to different subs?

Alexander King (12:14.326)
Yeah, I’ll GC most of them or we have partners that we’ve met through the industry where we’ll do the financing and they do the work and then split the backend 50-50. And I wish you could do it all, but there’s only so much bandwidth, know, John.

John Harcar (12:35.639)
Yeah, no, I 100 percent. What kind of trends are you seeing in the industry now or in real estate? I know we’ve been obviously having a tough time in the market, but where do you where do you kind of see things trending towards? Because tax like, you tax was supposed to be dead.

Alexander King (12:50.828)
Yeah, I mean we had to go through the 10 DLC, you know, that was brutal to go through, but we got it. And we have been, you I know just this month we have three deals off texting. And that’s primarily in Northeast. I know this market has a supply issue up here. Nobody, there’s nothing for people to buy. Unlike, you know, I know a lot of the Southern States, there’s a lot more.

John Harcar (13:13.093)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander King (13:20.558)
You know out there for people to buy so up here I mean we get we get an off-market seller a lot of times You know that the thing’s gonna move whether it’s a novation or a wholesale, you know

John Harcar (13:31.215)
Yeah, texting is a data eater, man. mean, are you are you niche down your lists? Are you kind of doing a more of a wide shot in hotter areas?

Alexander King (13:44.524)
Yeah. So that has been my arch nemesis this, this, yeah, this, this first quarter, because it’s like, you buy all this data. What are you like not going to send out a text to again, you know, or were you going to buy more that you just bought last quarter? You know? So, we purchased, Audantic, last year we had their data. Have you ever heard of them?

John Harcar (13:50.021)
Achilles heel.

John Harcar (14:10.981)
Okay. yeah.

Alexander King (14:14.476)
Yeah, so they performed fairly well. We also got a Tom for our data. Yeah, a Tom, an Adam, tomato tomata. And it’s really just keeping track. know, what I haven’t hit every, you know, two or three quarters, I’ll re-skip the ones.

John Harcar (14:23.086)
Adam Dada.

whatever it is.

John Harcar (14:39.909)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander King (14:41.134)
and try to go against what I’ve already had to send them the text out again or the calls out, but it’s tough.

John Harcar (14:48.677)
Well, that’s what I think what I love. That’s what I loved about launch control was the ability to resend text and not being charged for it. Right. You can send you can send a million texts to one number, but you only charge one time. Right. And that’s what I loved about it. And I operated my virtual business just from that for years. So yeah, it’s a great tool. What are what are kind of some

trajectory you see your business going like where do you see kind of you in the next couple years? mean, are you going to move up to more flipping, maybe get into commercial stuff?

Alexander King (15:28.48)
So one of our buildings that we bought last year has been a commercial building, Triple Net Lease. And it’s a dream of a property, knock on wood. And it really opened my eyes to how much some of these other properties drain you.

John Harcar (15:37.103)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (15:53.593)
So is that what it is? Less maintenance, less attention, less demanding.

Alexander King (16:00.718)
I mean, they’re a publicly traded company. It’s a trade school that’s in there and they’ve been great. I would like to. It’s just, I feel like, and I don’t know what your stance is, those deals don’t come around as often as the ones that we wholesale every day like you and I do.

John Harcar (16:23.394)
No.

John Harcar (16:27.865)
Yeah, yeah, if you find a unicorn of a deal, keep it.

Alexander King (16:32.194)
we, we, we do have some fun stuff going where we’re developing, have you ever heard of Mohegan sun, casino? It’s one of the biggest, casinos and best casinos in the Northeast and, there’s a small town outside of it called Norwich and, we’re developing a 12 unit building out there, which, which, is a first for me, you know, so we’re going through the.

John Harcar (16:55.279)
Sweet.

Okay. What got you, what got you amped to that? Was it just a sweet deal and you’re like, I gotta?

Alexander King (17:07.094)
Yeah, so our lenders brought, one of the lenders brought it to us on a foreclosure and it was a two family with a five car garage and then this, you know, monstrosity of a, you know, 20,000 square foot building that really just the owner wanted to do something with it and never ended up doing anything with it. So it was a good deal. Yeah. That’s why I kind of why we did it.

John Harcar (17:22.405)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (17:34.533)
Our topic was, you know, 100 transactions, you know, the journey to 100 transactions. What are a couple key things you think that, and this kind of goes, follows in the advice category. A question I would ask is, you know, what are some things you folks need to know, focus on practice structure to get to that level where you are, whether they’re starting brand new or whether they’ve got some deals under their belt and are looking to scale.

Alexander King (18:02.776)
That’s a great question. I think that one of the three biggest pillars into this are marketing and selling your ability to sell. And then I don’t know, the third is just consistency, I would say, you know, but,

John Harcar (18:18.949)
Mm.

Alexander King (18:22.606)
I was fortunate enough to have another job actually selling boats, new and used boats. I’ve always been a boater, fishing, and these guys, from the general manager there to the owner, the ability to sell, the ability to ask the question, if I could get you $100,000, would that work? Yeah.

John Harcar (18:27.247)
Hmm, cool.

John Harcar (18:44.453)
If I can solve this problem, what would that be worth to you?

Alexander King (18:49.364)
Exactly. I mean, I think that’s that selling is huge for people that are at the art of the sale process. You know, I felt I’ve fallen in love with it, you know.

John Harcar (18:57.903)
Sure. Okay.

Yeah, no, mean, anybody, especially in our business, you know, that’s a that’s a must. So what else? So I know how to sell. I know how to talk to people. Like, what are some other things that I could do to set myself up for success in this business?

Alexander King (19:13.55)
You know, I think that the focus too, you know, I’m a big culprit at it sometimes too. It’s like, oh, should we go look at this, you know?

meme stock that is about to blow up and put money over here. Basically just cut out all the noise and kind of just focus on what’s actually working. Because there’s so much noise on Instagram and there’s so many strings that have, not just Instagram, everywhere, are pulling you in every direction.

John Harcar (19:40.453)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (19:47.469)
everywhere.

Alexander King (19:51.24)
So I think that focus is something I gotta focus more on and other people should too.

John Harcar (19:58.615)
Okay. and let’s say there’s some folks that are on here that are, you know, listening and kind of curious about starting a business and you know, they, they resonate with you. Maybe they’re up in Connecticut or whatnot. How would some of these guys get ahold of you?

Alexander King (20:13.838)
You can get ahold of me on Instagram, Alex King, REI. You can call my cell phone. It’s 203-533-9934. We have a group that’s in the works called Prosperity Partners for up here northeast that want to join, grow, and learn real estate no matter what level you’re on.

John Harcar (20:40.483)
Yeah, and I wanted it to and before we before we started I want to talk to you a little bit about that So what is that prosperity partners? Is it just coming in a partnering with you? Is it a coaching program? What is it?

Alexander King (20:51.884)
Yes. So there are both components. So there’s a free join the WhatsApp group, do deals with us, join a network of people in this area. Just like, you know, your community has people that bounce ideas off each other all the time. It’s, it’s, it’s very important to have a community like that, especially advisors. It’s a lonely game sometimes, you know, you know, especially

John Harcar (21:12.463)
Board of Advisors.

John Harcar (21:16.645)
tremendously. You got no one to celebrate because no one understands what you go through to get to that pinnacle or that peak.

Alexander King (21:25.13)
Exactly, exactly. And if you are starting it on your own, it’s like, you know, I’ve been there in the coffee shop getting no after no or in your room getting no after no, you know, you’re trying to see where the light at the end of the tunnel is.

John Harcar (21:38.699)
And you got your wife or significant other going like, OK, so you’ve been doing this for like three weeks, three months. What’s going on? Are you going to spend time with us again? And you’re just like, man, it’s right there.

Alexander King (21:45.794)
Yeah.

Alexander King (21:49.418)
Yeah. Yeah.

John Harcar (21:51.397)
Well, awesome. I have the contact information that you’ve given us. I’ll make sure I put that into the show notes so anybody can get ahold of you. Are there any last tidbits, nuggets, things that you’d like to leave our audience with before we sign off here?

Alexander King (22:08.718)
No, John, I mean you’ve been great. I did follow you on Instagram earlier this morning. You I want to stay connected with you guys

John Harcar (22:14.031)
Cool. 100%.

Alexander King (22:19.726)
You know what, I think that…

If you have an itch that you’re trying to scratch, you know, and you’re working for somebody else, it was one of the hardest things, you know, to tell a my, you my father and, know, a bunch of other employers that I became very close with that, you know, I, I’m not going to, you know, continue to take over the business or I’m not going to, you know, continue to work here, even though I love you guys. You know, I think that having that hard conversation, putting myself, you know, 10,000 in debt really makes

You need to crawl out and get that need to do something and fulfill yourself. So I think you just got to do it if you’re thinking about it and go burn the boats and go all in.

John Harcar (23:05.833)
I’d it. I’d love it. Burn the boats. Guys, I don’t know about you. I got a bunch of good information. I got a bunch of nuggets. I wrote down some good things. I hope you did too. And Alex, once again, thank you for coming on here and sharing your experience. Yeah, we will definitely keep in touch. And everybody, thank you again. Come join us tomorrow for the next show. And I hope you guys all had a great time. See you on the next one.

Alexander King (23:28.792)
Thank you, John. See ya.