Epic Real Estate Investing - Crushing It Virtually with Makenzie Kelly | EREI 175

Episode Date: October 5, 2015

Today Matt kicks off the show by explaining how to identify the holes in your business and resolve them to get more deals under contract.  He asks listeners the important questions they need to consider when trying to increase their investing profits. As if that weren’t motivating enough, Matt then welcomes Epic Pro Academy member and brand-spanking new wholesaler and buy and hold investor, Mrs. Makenzie Kelly, to the show.  Makenzie started investing less than 6 months ago and expects to hold no less than 51 properties this year – forget about what she’s wholesaling!  Simply put: she’s crushing it!   ------- The free course is new and improved!  To access to the two fastest and easiest strategies to a paycheck in real estate, go to FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text “FreeCourse” to 55678. What interests you most? E ducation P roperties I ncome C oaching Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Testing from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. Yeah. Hello. Hello. And welcome. Welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing, the place where I show people how to escape the rat race using real estate. All you got to do is shift your focus from making piles of cash to making streams of cash.

Change that one thing just one time. And you are on your way. you're on your way to financial freedom it's not the most exciting path no it does not it is rather simple but it's not easy either so it's not it's simple not easy not exciting but you know what it is the fastest and then once you get there life then becomes exciting and boy can i vouch for that this has been the best summer of my life and i owe 100% of it to real estate And I owe 100% of it to when the times got tough, I didn't quit. And I owe it 100% to the, I guess we can't give everything 100%.

But it certainly wasn't all me. I had a lot to do with it for sure. If I wasn't here, it wouldn't have happened. But I owe it to the amazing team that I surrounded myself with. And I owe it to not giving up during the tough times. And I want that for you as well. That's why we're here. I'm here to share this information with you because real estate really is the final frontier

where the average person has a legitimate shot of getting out of the rat race, of creating some real wealth. That's your last shot. I mean, yeah, there's exceptions, but you don't want to gamble your life on being an exception. You know, take that path that's created more millionaires and billionaires than any other path. Because if more people have done it that way, that might. must be your best shot. It's the only way it can be. We know humans. We know how they screw everything up. And if more of them are succeeding this way, then this must be the place where your chance of screwing up

is the least. That's kind of a, I don't know if that's the best way to put it. But that's how I looked at it. That's why I chose this path. And I see what real estate is done for me. I see what it's done for more people than anything else. And that's why I'm here to share this with you. And why would I want to do that? Why would I want to share this with you? Well, you know what? It's a lot. It's It's just really not cool if you have something, some information that would help somebody else and not share it with them. So that's why we're here. And, you know, like I said, this summer is, this is like the very first summer, the first real summer. I just turned 46 years old this weekend, this past weekend, 46 years old, this was the very first summer where I actually got to take a bunch of time off.

I got to travel. I've been all over the United States. I didn't leave the country, but all over the United States and had just an absolute blast. And, you know, I just got back from Hawaii. I shared that with you last week. And, you know, none of that would have been possible if it wasn't for real estate. So thank God for real estate. And that's what's available for you.

Maybe you've got more than I do. It's certainly possible because what I have in comparison to some of my peers is nothing. But I remember what I used to have and that was nothing. and now I got something and I want that for you. And speaking on that, how is your business? How is it going for you? Maybe I'm preaching to the choir.

Maybe you already know this. Maybe business is great and you're like, yeah, yeah, get to the good stuff. Or maybe you're like, you know, dude, it ain't all that good. I'm struggling. So how is it really for you? Have you met the expectations that you had for yourself this year? Or have you exceeded them? Or has this year been a disappointment?

Regardless of how you and, answer those questions. I want you to ask yourself, why? Why? Why did you succeed? Why did you meet or beat your expectations this year? Or why did you fail? What went wrong? Or what was there, why was there just little change? Why was this year just like last year? Maybe that was your situation. And I've got two rules to answering this question. Why? First rule is, you're not allowed to say, I don't know. I don't know's are not allowed because you do know no I don't

yes you do you do know I want you to be honest with yourself I mean you can fool other people but don't fool yourself there's no future in that all right you know and if you really do feel like

I don't know man I really don't know I understand what you're saying but I really don't know well the next question for you is if you did know let's just play a game let's pretend if you did know what would the answer be what would it be if you did know it's my favorite question to ask when someone says i don't know if you did know what would the answer be if you did know what would it be and if you remove the jest in that question

and really allow your brain to process the question it's amazing how it will always come up with an answer always so that's number one no i don't know is allowed rule number two and follow rule number two, it's optional, but follow rule number two if you want some really good results to come out of this exercise. Rule number two is you have to take full responsibility for your results. You're not allowed to blame anyone else or anything else or your situation or bad luck or anything like that. You're not allowed to blame any of that on anybody, anybody else. You have to take full responsibility for your results. And that's if they're good too. If you have to great results, that was all you.

Congrats. Pat yourself on the back. That was you that did that. If you had bad results, hey, let's go ahead and let's look into that and see what happened. What did you do wrong? Where did you go wrong? What could you have done better? Whether good or bad, you are responsible. And when you come up with an answer of why you did or didn't meet your expectations this year, you'll have an idea as to what there is to do more of and or what there is to do less of. You know, and if that doesn't work for you, another way to approach it. Another question to ask yourself is, am I doing everything that I know to do to the best that I can do it? Am I doing everything that I know to do to the best of my ability, to the best that I know

can be done? And most likely not. We can always improve, right? There's always room for improvement. And so make a list of those things where you're not playing all out, where there is room for improvement. Well, you know you're not doing the best that you can. And now you know where to focus more of your attention. So if you had a good year, you can get better. If you had a bad year, you can get better. If you had the same old year as last year, you can get better. Now you'll know where to focus more of your attention or delegate someone to take care of those areas for you. Maybe it's not you that's supposed to do it. Maybe it's supposed to find someone else to do it. You know, I have a coaching client that has been at it for a while, a long while, and still has yet

to do a deal. And, you know, from the outside looking in, she's really got me scratching my head. because I know she sends out her mailers. I know she goes in networks. I know she talks to people. I know she answers the phone when the phone rings. And I know she sends out her offers. I know she gets stuff under contract. We talk regularly, and she seems to be doing everything that she's supposed to be doing.

And she's been very close, closing a deal multiple times, but she just hasn't gotten the the ball across the goal line. And it's been a real challenge for me as a coach, because kind of really, running out like, hmm, I don't know what else to tell you. And I asked her this question the other day. I said, where are you not playing all out? Let's just pretend there was a place that you could improve in your business. Where would that be? Where are you not doing all that you know to do the best that you can do it? The same question I just asked you to ask yourself. Where in your business are you not doing all that you know to do to the best that you can do it? And she thought about it. And, and

And she thought about it and thought about it. And, you know, eventually she came up with an answer. And she said, I could send out more offers and send them out a little faster. And I was like, okay, because I'm telling you right now, you can do all the lead generation you want. You can call all of those leads you want, make all the visits to motivated sellers you want. But if you're not writing offers, you're not going to be doing deals. And if you know that you're not playing all out in that department, all of that money you're spending on marketing and buying the lists and banging your head on the wall and frustration and talking to all those people, it's all for nothing if you're not writing offers. And if you're not doing it diligently.

And so I was like, okay, tell me more. And she said, well, I get the offers out, you know, two, three weeks from the time I speak to them. And I was like, aha, this is a very big deal. I mean, I knew she had been following the instructions of making sure every lead gets an offer. She told me that she was doing that. She's been telling me that for a while. And she's the type of student that does whatever I tell her to do.

She's just like, okay, just point me in the right direction. I want this really badly. And she's been at it for a long time. So I know she wants it badly. But you know what? Either I wasn't clear or, you know what? I just never asked where or I never asked her when. she was sending those offers out.

So we're meeting this week to create a system where she can send offers out immediately with the click of a button the very second that she hangs up the phone with the lead. Now, do you see how this could make a significant impact on her business? I mean, if you're doing this business virtually or remotely and most of your business

is conducted through the phone, mail, email, or fax, speed is. of the absolute essence. That is your weapon against the competition is speed. I've always talked about this from the very beginning. This is a game of speed. You've got to get your properties under contract as soon as possible

to make sure that your competition can't get in. And even if, you know, your privilege to live in the area of where you're working, of where you're doing your investing, speed is absolutely of the essence there too. There's no exception. Speed is so important in this business.

It's why I always say that you've got to have your minimum deal standards, you have to know those just like this. So you can make quick decisions when a deal does come across your table. So you know whether to go after it or not. Whether it's worthy of your time of further investigating it or not. You know, vying for a motivated seller's attention via their mailbox, it's pretty competitive these days. The market is good.

People are selling. People are selling and flipping properties and they're making money. So a lot of people are out there doing it. And if that motivated seller called you today, and they don't feel that they're in good hands to get their problem solved and get it solved in a reasonable manner. Guess what? They're calling the number on the next marketing piece that they receive. And maybe they receive three or four on the same day that they called yours.

Maybe there's three or four offers on the way and you've got to make sure yours gets there first. And if they're not getting an offer from you in two to three weeks, can you imagine how many more marketing pieces they're probably receiving? that time. Even if you're taking two to three days to get your offer to a seller, you're still walking a really fine line of allowing unnecessary competition into your space. Speed is of the absolute essence. So that's an example of where the solution to your unmet expectations live.

Ask yourself, where am I not doing everything that I know to do the best that I know it can be done? Be honest with yourself. You know, or maybe you're sending out your mailers. But are you sending them out consistently? When was the last time you sent it out? Well, I sent it out consistently for the last four months ago, or four months ago I was sending out consistently.

But it's not working now. Well, are you still sending it out? Or are you still returning those phone calls? Are you still following up with those people? Are you following up the best that you know how to do? Could you make one more call? And then are you writing your offers? Is everybody getting an offer?

And are you getting those offers to your people at a reasonable time? and then fine, I'm doing all that. I got deals under contract. Well, now nobody's buying them, Matt, so that part's not working for me. Well, are you marketing? Are you exposing that property to as many people as possible? Are you following the 15-point checklist inside of the Academy of how to get maximum exposure for your property?

Because exposure creates demand, demand drives value. That's how you sell a deal. And if you're doing all of that, then it's like we have to go back to when you're putting the property under contract and maybe you just don't have a deal. Maybe you're not buying low enough because properties are selling every single day. People are buying. There's more money out there right now to buy real estate than ever before, I think.

It's got our private Facebook group of my mastermind group. A guy just posted a thing there and he says, I've got, I don't forget the exact number, but it was an obscene number. says, I have $10 million to deploy for an investor in the next 90 days, something like that. They're trying to buy deals. There's more money out there looking for deals. And if you can't sell your deal and we had to come to grips here recently with a handful of deals that we got here and we couldn't sell. I was like, you know what?

If I was my own coach, I'd tell myself I didn't have a deal. So we just dug it down a little bit more, got some second and third opinions. I'm like, sure enough. We just didn't buy them low enough. So those are all the different places you look. and so where am I not doing everything that I know to do the best that I know it can be done? You just got to be honest with yourself. And you got to follow that question with the question, why.

And keep asking yourself why, as many times as you can until you do get an answer, because you will drive it down and get a focused answer. And then take action on that answer. All righty. So I had a great call last week that I want to share with you. It's with an Epic Pro Academy member. who just got started this year and I don't know

it's probably right just about second quarters when she got started this year and oh by the way if you're not a member of the Epic Pro Academy yet and if you've been thinking about it I'm just going to give you a little bit

of a hint, a little bit of a heads up that there will be some significant changes being made and you might just want to join sooner rather than later so that you're how should I say

grandfathered in into these changes. Because there's going to be some big changes in the content, some big changes in the resources, some big changes in the services, and the fee structure. And that's a clue there. I can tell you that the lifetime option just might be going away.

All right? Wink, wink. But if you're already a lifetime member, there will be nothing new for you to do to access the new academy. Got it? All right. Just a heads up.

All right. Just came to mind now that I'm thinking about it. I mentioned the Academy. So here we go. Anyway, our call today is with an Epic Pro Academy member who just got started this year. She lives in the San Francisco area and is wholesaling and buying and holding in the Midwest. And she's working 100% virtually. And in the last few months, she's absolutely crushed it.

We met earlier this year in San Francisco. And I think she just wanted to make sure that I was real. but we had a nice get together and I got to meet her husband and we sat up and probably talked for an hour, hour and a half or so. And then she joined us on one of our property tours

with Cashflow Savvy actually. She went to see how our operation worked and so we got to know each other even better then and we had a great time. She's a real joy. And then she attended our live event just this past July in Los Angeles. So she's been sticking pretty close

to the Epiproo community. She chimes in quite frequently inside of our private face group, a Facebook group. And then she just kind of let the lessons inside the Epic Pro Academy just fill in all the holes. And she was up and running and closing deals with an inspiring amount of speed. And I want you to hear her answers to my specific questions so that you can take what she says.

I mean, the questions I was asking her, I had you in mind so that you can take what she says, apply it in your business, in your market, and crush it yourself. I think her answers may surprise you as well. And so we'll get to that call right after this. Have you ever wondered how some investors seem to get the inside scoop and snatch up all the deals? Wonder no more. The secret to finding deeply discounted properties has been exposed, and it lies within your ability to find motivated sellers. Go to find motivated sellers ASAP.com and download their proven five-step checklist to find motivated sellers in any market.

Find motivated sellers ASAP.com. Deeper discounts. Less secret. Find motivated sellers ASAP.com. So on the phone, I'm joined by Epic Pro Academy member, McKenzie Kelly. Mackenzie, welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. Thanks, Matt. Good to be here. Good to have you.

You've been dying to get you on the phone for a while, but you wanted to wait until everything was just right. I've been avoiding you. You have. But you've been avoiding me for a good reason because you want to make sure that the stuff that you had, the really exciting stuff that you've shared with me over the last four to six weeks. You want to make sure that that closed and you have.

something solid to talk about. So that was a good reason to delay. Yeah, I didn't want to be a poser. I wanted to be legit. Got my stuff. Yeah. Super. So no poser is allowed here. Only legit people. And that's why you're here. So give us a little background of, you know, where you're from, what you do, and how you came interested in real estate. Okay. So I'll try to start with a little background. It's not quite a short background, but I always say first and first. foremost, I'm a mom of two amazing boys. I'm also a wife and my husband's a police officer locally. And I also own another business aside from a real estate business. So I began my career in this business pretty young. It's emergency medical services right out of high school. I began working as

a wildland firefighter. And then I went on to become a paramedic. So my trade is really like, not real estate. Like my trade is helping people and saving lives, I guess. So quickly, I worked my way up through the ranks, and I became the operations manager for that company. And I took over a flailing division, and I turned that division around and started making a lot of money for the owners of that company. And at the same time, I was finishing my business degree, and I was asking myself,

why am I making all this other money for these other guys who aren't treating us so well? And then, oh. That's the natural entrepreneur mindset right there. I make a terrible employee because I've thought of that every single job I've ever had. Go ahead. Why am I making these guys all this money? I totally just turned their business around. I was finishing my business degree.

I was five months pregnant. And then I happen to pick up this book that I always say like ruin my life. But it really changed my life for the better. and this was more than 10 years ago, like 12 years ago now. Rich Dad, Dad, Poor Dad, you may have heard of it. Once a place. I read that book, and I came home, and I was not the same person as I was before, and my husband says I turned into an absolute monster.

But, no, I just had a lot of really great ideas, and he just didn't know what to do with me. And I realized that, yeah, I wanted to be a real estate tycoon at that point. But I was a paramedic. I was pregnant. I was running somebody else's business. for them. And I realized something had to change. So, I mean, I was pretty good friends with the other guy that was running the other division. And he just so happened to also have an

entrepreneurial mindset. And we asked ourselves the question, why are we doing this for somebody else? We should be doing this for ourselves. So we took the big leap. We quit our jobs. And luckily, we had some money stashed away in home equity. Lending was good at the time. It was around 2005. So we took money out of our houses and got some loans and, like, somehow convinced the bank that we were a good deal. And they gave us some money. And we started in 2005 with one ambulance and six employees.

And now, as of this month, we are about 65 ambulances and 300 employees strong. Wow. Yeah. And, of course, over the last 10, 11 years, years. That was my life, obviously raising my kids being a wife, being an entrepreneur. And I run all the finances for the company. So it was a lot of work because my background wasn't as a CFO. I had to learn how to become CFO. And then things kind of started cruising along, getting a little bit more stable and a little bit easier. And I'd had a couple,

in between, I'd had a couple of instances where I thought that I wanted to try real estate again, but I didn't have a lot of time to invest. So I kind of just threw money at projects. And this was in the 2007 to 2010 range, and I lost both of those projects. So that was kind of painful and embarrassing because here I am a smart entrepreneur. I'm thinking I'm a smart entrepreneur, and I did that wrong. And so I kind of swore off real estate for a while. I'm like, okay, this isn't going to work.

I'm just going to stick with the business, what I know. But then I realized, like, hey, I don't want to consider myself a failure or anything. Failure isn't going to define me. I want to figure out how to do this better, do it differently. What do I need to do? What do I need to learn? Clearly, I need some help. Let's figure out what I can do different.

Real quick, before you go next, then along came epic. Okay, there's the cliffhanger. No, real quick. With such, and maybe you answered this. Maybe I just didn't catch on to it. But with such a successful business, you've got 65 ambulances, 300 employees, you do very well for yourself. What was your interest in real estate or why real estate? I wanted to do real estate before I ever wanted to do the ambulance company.

Okay. I love the ambulance company. I love being a paramedic. I love helping people. I love it that we have a lot of people out there saving lives and helping. At the same time, I also knew that real estate was where it was at. If I didn't start diversifying my money, it's easy, even as a business owner, to get kind of stuck in the rat race still. You know, you start making a lot more money.

Your expenses can easily go up and you can start spending a lot of money too. You know, here comes the multimillion dollar house and here comes the nice cars. And I didn't want to get stuck in that. trap again because I wanted at some point to be totally financially free and not have to rely on the business with my sole income. And then my other motivation too is for my husband, because he has been my strong and steady and working as a police officer for 17 years now. And we all know cops are kind of having a hard time right now. They're getting a bad route. out there. It's a chest deal of what they're going through. And so I would love to replace his

income so that he doesn't have to work anymore if he doesn't want to. Now, I don't know if he, he'll probably work until, you know, he's 80 years old, but he knows. Right. So it's only, only because he wants to, not because he has to. So that was kind of, it was multifaceted. Okay. Very good. All right. So those are some good reasons. You've always been interested in real estate. So that's always kind of been there. You're looking to diversify your income and kind of spread yourself out a little bit, create some stability, I guess, some security in there. And then your husband, replace your husband's income and give him the option to quit, so should he choose to. Okay. Great reasons. Great reasons. And then also you read the book,

Rich Dad, Poor Dad, so that kind of naturally linked it all together anyway. Oh, yeah. And that's, I mean, I don't know if anybody ever listens to the podcast and hasn't read it, but read it because it makes sense and it's a big aha. And in fact, I'm actually reading it to my kids for their bedtime story right now. Oh, that's awesome. And they love it. Super. I think about how different so many of our lives would be if just in high school,

they swapped out catcher in the rye and just snuck in rich dad, poor dad in there instead. Like, seriously? What that would do for people after high school? That's just, it's amazing. I think for America, I think it would change our economy. I think so.

I think so. Entrepreneurs built the country and we're running out. out of them. So absolutely. Yeah, we need more. Exactly. For sure. So along comes epic. And this is when 2012, 13? Not even. No, January. Right around January. This past January? Oh, okay. Around the first year, maybe it was December or January. I started looking for help. All right. Like I need to, I can't do this on my own. I need to learn how to do this different. I found you on a podcast. That's where I found you.

And I was listening to this guy. And I'm like, ha, he's kind of cool. Nice. I'm blushing. Yeah. And then I carried on. I was like, I have to meet these people. Let me meet these people.

I want to know more about what they do and how they do it because it makes sense. They sound smart and they've been doing it and they've been successful. And so those are my criteria. do you have a proven system? Are you successful at doing it? You know, you're more than willing to share all your supposed secrets and help. And I think your idea or your way of helping lives is very generous. And I really appreciated that.

So I was like, I want to meet these guys and I want to find out what they do and how they do it. and it's just been an amazing journey from there. So it kind of just evolved, and I went on a property tour, and I appreciated all the information and learning everything, and then obviously meeting everybody because you guys attract amazing people and have an amazing team. And from there, I made the decision to start wholesaling. Although, I don't know if you remember Matt,

but we did have a conversation when you said, McKenzie, there is no way that you have time to do this, which was the best thing for you to say to me because you lit a fire under me, because any time somebody says, it's like, there's no way, McKenzie, it's impossible. Instantly, I have a visceral reaction, and I go, oh, yeah? Well, watch me.

And I said that. And I said that because you had shared with me, we met in a lounge with you and your husband, and we talked for a long time. I am and a lot of that conversation was about your existing business and how busy you are and how much you have to do. And I was just like, wow, I don't know if wholesaling is going to be the right thing for you. And you're probably right. I just wanted to put that in some context.

I just didn't say, no, you don't have a chance. Don't even do this. No, no. Okay. But I think, you know, I think it was the right thing for you to say because it was true. Right. At that point in my business, it was true that I did not have time. And then I thought to myself, well, smart entrepreneurs figure out how to make time.

And, you know, Richard Branson has how many businesses, and he still has time to go hang out on Neckar Island. So how is he doing this? Well, he has a team around him, right? So it took me about three months to do a better job at building my team within my business. and some negotiations with my business partner to allow me to take some steps back to have more space and more time to create this other business. And everything just fell in place. And so I did have more space and time. And then I started, it was a very slow ramp up.

I started ramping up in April. My kids and I would fold letters at the table because, number one, I just want to see like, does this really work? But I had to send out letters. And through the Epic Pro Academy, even the quick start, you always tell everybody, you just start and people will call. And I was like, well, he said so, okay, he seems pretty trustworthy. Let me see if this is going to work. So I'd send letters out, and sure enough people would call. Okay.

So everybody likes to hear the details. So you were writing your own just yellow letters, the same one in the academy? I was printing them off my computer. You were printing off your computer. Okay. Very good. I'm too lazy to do that. Yeah.

Okay. And then so were you sending them out daily, weekly? I think I would send out a batch a week. Okay. 300 or so a week. And it was really just to test the water. Like I knew that if I wanted to get real results, I had to scale it up. Right.

But I wanted to test the water, not spend a lot of money, and see what would happen. Super. So 300 a week. Right. 300 a week. Who are you sending them to? Those ones were to out-of-state. Out-of-state.

Non-owner-occupied out-of-state investors. Yeah. And I was sending them. I wasn't doing it locally. I was doing it virtually and still trying to figure out how to put all those pieces in place virtually. Did you have any ties to that market? No. How did you pick it?

Not at that. Not at the time. How did you pick it? It was almost like a dart. That was where we went on our property tour. And I had heard from like years ago, I had a girl who I had. I'd worked with whose boyfriend did flipping and all kinds of stuff in Indianapolis, and she moved to Indianapolis with him.

So I knew, like, okay, if people are actually moving there to make this happen, something's going on. Okay. And I did a little bit of research, and Indianapolis kept coming up. Along with, there's a lot of other Midwest properties and cities that are good to invest into, but I wanted something where I was, I was investing purely for selfish reasons. I wanted to do wholesaling, not because I wanted to sell any of the properties. I just wanted all the properties for myself.

I want to find every single wholesale property for myself. And that has since evolved. Okay. So I wanted something where I could get a cheap property and then I can get cash flow from it. Got it. Cool. Okay. So you're saying out 300 a week.

That's how you picked your market. So now what? What was your experience off there on the mailings? So I would get, I got some interest. I got some people calling up and saying, yeah, my property is for sale. And then I was like, uh-oh, shoot. I can't go and look at this property on my own. I need to find somebody on the ground there that can help me.

And then was the next challenge. And I know that a lot of people asked us, like, how do you find somebody on the ground and, you know, in a distant place? And there is no special way, like there's no secret way. It really is just networking, talking to a lot of people, trying, you know, trying different people on, you know, to see if it's going to work for your business. And I always say I got really lucky, but I think it ended up just being persistent. networking that I found a great partner on the ground in Indianapolis. I found a couple that weren't so great.

I had one kid that I found on Craigslist that he was okay, but I couldn't call him past, you know, five o'clock California time because he was in bed by that time, and I'm just getting started on my stuff. And then he was hit and miss, and then I had another realtor that was really busy, that didn't really care to help me out. A handful of other people until I found my one partner and I actually went and met with him in person.

I made a point to go out to Indianapolis, meet with him in person. He and I talked on the phone several times. He was more than willing to help me out. When I went out there and met with him, that was when I realized, hey, this guy's really smart. He knows what he's doing. Let's give it a shot.

Ultimately, where did you find him? How did you cross past with him? I think on a forum. I think I found him on a forum. And then we just hit it off. And he has a finance background also, worked for a Fortune 500 company, and is very smart financially.

And he can negotiate a deal. You put him in front of a seller, and he can negotiate a deal. So it worked out great for both of us because he didn't like dealing with the day-to-day paperwork, having to do the marketing, having to set up the appointments, having to follow up on the contract, having to find the sellers, all that kind of stuff.

But you put him in front of a seller and he can close a deal and request more. So our strengths really complemented each other. So it worked out perfect. Perfect. But there's no secret trick to finding somebody. It takes work and it takes effort. And then there's a certain level of trust because you're far away in two different You know, two different times.

So you found somebody there. So you, um, then, uh, they were going out. And so how long did it take basically since you guys, you found the right person, how long did it take to get the first deal under contract? Um, days. Literally days. Because I had, I had deals lining up. Because you were already mailing.

You were already receiving calls. You were able to set up appointments for him to go out on. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Yeah. And while I was out there, we went out and looked at a, lot of properties and from those properties we were able to put several in our contracts.

So, yeah, we, I would say so far my numbers to date, so I think I went out in June to meet with them. We have closed on six properties and we have two more in the work. We have a flip that we're going to end up doing ourselves. And then, I mean, and that's actually the minor stuff, what we're doing. We have a set of 18, like 18 units that are going to be seller finance that we're going to close on. And he's been doing fantastic negotiating with the seller on the seller finance deal. Awesome.

I found it. And then he's doing all the negotiations. And then we also have 33 unit seller finance deals that should be closing in November or well. You said 33? You said 33? Wow. And then we have another 120 units that we're working on right now.

I don't have a closed date on that one. Wow, fantastic. That's the fun stuff. Totally. Okay, let's back up for a second. So he's going out and meeting with the sellers. He's negotiating, getting the stuff under contract. Then what are you doing?

Are you selling? Are you holding? What are you doing with the property is next after you get under contract? Most of them were wholesaling. Okay. And through what means? Finding buyers. And then what do you mean through what means?

Okay, so you're finding buyers. Is this person, is your partner? Is he a licensed real estate agent? He is. He is. Okay. So he's got access to the multiple listing service and everything. He does.

Okay, perfect. But I'm just finding cash buyers through my marketing efforts as well. Got it. Now, the, so now to find the cash buyers, you're defining that through your marketing. Through my marketing. Okay. And you're just doing basic stuff like Craigslist? Basic stuff, Craigslist, posting on forums, word of mouth, back page, postlets, all that stuff.

Yeah. And I have a landing page on my website that they can go to and then I can get their information, check their name, put it into my database. So, first. So really just the checklist out of the Academy. It's a checklist. I'm following everything that you said, and it's working. I love it. I'm like sitting here hoping I'm going to learn something.

Cool. All right. So a bunch of deals. Congratulations, by the way. That's just awesome from June to, just what's that? June, July, August, like four months, right? And you've got a bunch lined up. looking back

what do you think of like what really brought it all together what is really like when did it start to click and you're like oh my god this is actually really working was there a certain event or something that happened or

I think when you close your first deal and you see that check come into your account you're like like you wipe the sweat off your brow and you're like who at work I could tell my husband now you know because there's always that

one partner that's kind of the serial entrepreneur that like sometimes hide some stuff from their partner because they're not really quite sure if it's going to work or not but I don't want to spend a whole lot of money to see it's going to work it works and it works and like you said if you just work the system it will work but you have to be persistent and expect challenges to come up on your wholesale properties would you mind sharing what your average profit was per property we go for 10,000 because we split it so I actually think our average was probably about 7,500 though because we had a couple that didn't quite make our 10,000 mark but 7500 yeah yeah and I think you know if you can get them at the right price it's not hard to sell them for 10,000 you just have to get it at the

right price and my time's worth a lot. So if I'm going to do that kind of work, I'm going to make sure that I make that kind of margin. It really is on the buying side, though, right? It is on the buying side. Yeah. And the investors are still happy with getting a great deal. They're getting an amazing deal, and they love it. Awesome. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. I'm trying to pull something out of it, but I think we covered everything. We saw how you found the deals. You just send the mail. You answer the phone. You set, you, you've created a partner on the ground. They go and you set appointments for that person.

They put under contract. You go through the property marketing checklist and academy. And they sell. And they sell. Did I forget anything? I mean, that's, I mean, of course, it sounds simple. And there's always road bumps that come up and speed bumps and challenges. And, I mean, you're dealing with humans.

Right. And oftentimes with properties, there's a lot of emotion that is around it. So you have to be good at mitigating that emotion and trying to come up with the win-win situation. And I think, you know, for folks that are in the academy and they have access to your email, I think that's helpful. Like if they need like a real quick question of something maybe they've never seen before, that's where you can help out. but it's fun.

I think the thing for me is doing this is super fun because I love real estate. So it's worth it to deal with those ups and downs because the reward is so much fun. And winning is so much fun. Right. You know. It's awesome. No, I'm having a blast. I'm enjoying it.

Oh, the other thing that I want to say too is, and I know you cover this a lot, lately is the system. So I do have a virtual assistant that I've hired who does help me answer the phone. So I don't have to answer every single line. I only talk to the important people. And so that also

maximizes my time and makes me more efficient that way. And he does a lot of my marketing for me. Okay. For the sellers and the buyers or one or the other? Both. Both? Okay. He does both. Yeah.

Fantastic. And he's been amazing. Did you find him through VAs for real estate? Yes. Okay. Yep. Awesome. One of Robert Nichols guys.

And he treats my business just like it's his own. He is so excited every time we get a property under contract. And he works some days harder than I have a chance to work just because I'm doing so many other things. So he's consistent. He's there. He's answering the phone. He's doing the marketing. getting everything out, so I don't have to worry about dropping a ball and not tending to details.

Because I'm an entrepreneur and I'm not super detail-oriented sometimes. I like the big wins. I like the big picture. I like to go out and develop business, but I don't like answering all the calls that come in. I don't like dealing with all the marketing, and I don't think that that's an efficient use of my time. So I've hired Gilbert to do that, and he has done just... amazing. Yeah, I've got four now, four full-time from Robert.

And the work ethic blows me away. It's just like days. That's great. The days like we'll be chatting on Skype for some trying to resolve something. And I'll just, like, at the end of the day, I'm tired. I'm ready to go to bed. And he'll say, okay, I only got two more hours. I should be able to get 40 more calls in.

I'll contact you tomorrow. And I'm just like, thank God for you. You know? Totally. Yeah, ours have been invaluable. And they just, they do exactly what they're told. They work hard. They learn well.

It's like, it's been amazing. They're great. And I think that's one thing that I learned having a larger business is you can't do everything yourself. So if you do want to scale the business, you're going to have to get help. And you're going to have to put people in place. to do your job and figure out how to let that go. So I think as smaller entrepreneurs were control freaks, right?

We don't want to share those jobs because nobody else can do it as good as we can. Well, you know what? No, they can't. But if you can hire somebody who can do 80% of what you can do, that's a huge win because that just freed up 80% of your time. And it's 80% of it that actually gets done. So like 100% of it might get done 80% as good as you can do it, but that's better than you doing 100% 50, 60% of the time

because you're managing everything else. Exactly. Right. Yeah. So you do that and you stamp that out multiple times and now you have a system. Totally. And now you don't have to be there all the time, you know, once you get going and you have good system.

So that is one thing. I think that I've learned, you know, now having 300 employees on the other side and multiple levels of management. That's the only way that we can do it. And there comes a point when you kind of go, oh, my gosh, this business is bigger than me. Well, good. That means you've succeeded.

Another question I have, and this is something we're starting to do as well, is expand our boots on the ground for this purpose, is do you have anything in writing with your partner? I probably should, but this one I don't. And I would say, obviously, you know, best practice is put it in writing in case something goes bad. But he only gets paid when I get paid. So all of the transactions go through my company, and then I pay him half of the transaction.

So he actually has to trust me that he's going to get paid. So I guess that you certainly could The reason why I don't is because he has another business also So I don't want to just You know require that he does certain things You know it ends up being mutually beneficial And in fact we're going to be meeting here in a couple of days And you know talking about even bigger plans and where we can go from here

But I do agree that it's always best to have things in writing. I don't. I don't, I'm comfortable enough with it right now. I mean, I have a bunch of LLCs with various partnerships, and of course we have formal operating agreements there, and everything's in writing. But I have a lot of partnerships, affiliate-type relationships,

and everything where there's nothing in writing. And we just have the right relationship, you have the right relationship. I was curious of how you went about that, because we're going to be expanding. Well, we already have done it, but we're looking to do it in every market now. And, you know, when you start going wide,

sometimes you can kind of lose focus because you don't necessarily get to go as deep as you normally would. But you've got one relationship, and that's obviously gone deep. So there's a mutual trust there. Yeah, it's really well. And I think that as long as the contracts are going through your company, I think there's very little to lose.

I think if they start insisting that the contracts go through their company, then I would probably insist on some sort of agreement. Right. The only place I'd play devil's advocate is maybe you have an answer for this is you send him out on an appointment. And he's like, oh, sorry, McKenzie, that one didn't work out. But he actually did the deal without you. Have you thought of that? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and that hasn't come up yet. Okay. And I have thought of that. And if that does come up, then I address it. at the time. And then, you know, obviously I think that it's never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket anyway. And so I have been looking to potentially diversify and coming up with Plan B's and Plan C's in case that doesn't work out.

But it hasn't not worked out yet. Right. So, in fact, he's even brought some stuff to the table, too, from his other stuff. So I think that's his way of saying, look, I'm going to be. fair, we'll work together on all this kind of stuff. But I can't say that everybody has the same work ethic as we do or the same, you know, morals and ethics. So that's why contracts are born and lawyers make lots of money.

Right, right. But I think what you've really proven, and it's something I've said over and over again, and sometimes you just don't get it. It's become such a cliche that maybe gets overlooked or just dismissed is that this is a people business. So that when you're talking about, you know, you've done these deals. and you'd love to say it's easy, but there are some speed bumps. There are people involved.

And then also with your partner that you found, you went through a few bad apples before you found a really good one. And it is all about relationships with whether it's a partner, whether it's a customer or a client or, you know, a seller on the other side. Yeah, it is. It really is. And trying to establish that win-win relationship because you want them to come back. You know, even sellers will come back.

I have sellers that have come back from mailings from three months ago. They're like, oh, remember me. It didn't work out back then. Can you look at this deal now? And you're so nice back then. You really tried to help me. But now we're ready. Oh, okay.

Cool. All right. Let me see what I can do to help. And I think it's always coming from a position of what can you do to help them instead of I need this cell. because you should never ever need a cell. It should always be what can I do to help you. And then, of course, your buyers. You want to do your best job to take care of your buyers

because they're most likely going to be repeat customers. So bending over backwards, even though we had this one buyer that was just, I must have rewritten the purchase agreement 15 times by hand. I told my husband, I go, I don't know what I'm doing with this guy. oh my gosh, I hope this works out. And then he's coming back.

But he was particular about every single thing. I think he was an engineer or pilot or something by trade, something where it's like the particulars count. And he would ding me on like two cents here or $2 here. And I had to continually rewrite the purchase agreement. But as much as I wanted to tell him, like, you know, this doesn't make sense. and you're being a jerk about it, the right answer is, you know, he's my customer, he's my client.

Yes, you're correct. Let me figure out how to make this work. And as long as I was still winning, you know, when you get to a point when you're not winning, then you have to say no. But I was still winning, and it was still going to be a good deal. So I had to swallow my pride, bite my tongue, and just say, yeah, what can I do to make this work for you? It's hard sometimes, though, because your ego gets in the way. Totally. So that's, you know, everything we've just discussed here in the last two minutes, three minutes, is the reason that every time I see some sort of push button system promoted online, like, that will never work.

You're forgetting about the people that are involved. You know, there's just, you can't push a button and make this happen. So you're a perfect example of that. No, yeah. And everybody has a story, which is, I think, another reason why I love real estate is everybody has a story about, you know, everybody has a story about. about either why they want to buy a house or why they want to sell a house. And I love hearing the stories. Some of them are like somewhat tragic why they have to sell their house,

but they're very thankful that you can step in and help them out. And some of them are great stories. Like it's just time. They're just ready to move on. But I love hearing that. And I think they want to be heard too. And the more that they feel heard, the more they trust you that you're going to take care of them. Right.

Right. awesome. So, McKenzie, what are you excited about for the future now? I'm going to be a real estate tycoon. I don't know about you. Okay, so that was your real estate tycoon. That's your short term. What's your long term? I know. I always think I think I would love to just have passive income and be retired. But I think I fool myself when I say that because I would be bored. I think I can never be bored. I have to always be doing something.

So, you know, there's a lot of opportunity actually coming up in the ambulance industry, too. So it's going to be a very delicate balance between the opportunities I say yes to in the ambulance industry and the opportunities I say yes to and the real estate. But I think I can balance it. Definitely goal number one is to bypass my 2015 goal, which was a question. requiring three properties in 2015. And if we close on these two-seller finance deals, that will be somewhere around 51 properties. So I think I hit that goal.

By a touch. Just a little bit. Yeah, barely. And then on the real estate side, scaling up and seeing how well I can create the system and make the system work. Yeah. Awesome.

Break it a couple of times. and then put it back together again and see if I can fix it. So let's do this again at the end of the year to see if you actually hit your goal. Okay. All right, because it's looking close. No pressure. No pressure. Right.

No, that's awesome. McKenzie. You've been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for being so generous with your information. And the best of luck to you. And as you know, my phone line, door, email is always open to you in any way that I can help. You're awesome.

I appreciate that. There are two steps to wealth. First, stop doing what poor people do. Second, start doing what wealthy people do. The wealthiest people do what they do best and delegate the rest. If only you had the time and resources to do it. Now you do. We're VAs for real estate.com and we have some free information for you.

Get the five-step shortcut to hiring a rock-scentate. our virtual assistant that will make you millions. Go to VAs for Real Estate.com. Stop doing what poor people do and do what wealthy people do. VAs for Real Estate.com. That's it for today. I'll see you next week. I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream.

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