Epic Real Estate Investing - The Truth About Virtual Wholesaling | 347

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

Today, Epic Real Estate Investing gives you step-by-step instructions for successful virtual wholesaling deals. Matt teaches how to market for motivation, capture the call, build rapport, set up the deal, and seal the deal. Follow these five hot steps to find success and financial freedom in virtual wholesaling! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terio Media. Yo. I'm not sure for what you came for. Throw you smoke up your ass, seminars. It's next door. Line your tips up, man, just like a neck for. All you're winning and wanting, yo, that's what we check for. By building power to cash, create cash flow.

Epic, real estate, investment, I make your cash grow. When I can tell, you ain't worked as hard at all. Tell people you work hard, you ain't working hard at all. Go deep with your investment. You're for going wide. Too cold for your. Yo, you need to go inside. It's not a money problem.

It's an idea problem. Epic real estate investment, then we can solve them. Scared money, you don't make money. Passing income cash flow, yo, how you create money. Safer as a losers. Open your eyes and see them. Matt Derry, y'all creating your financial freedom. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow.

Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the... Yeah, we got the... Yeah. And welcome. Welcome back to the Epic Real Estate Investing Show. If this is your first time here, glad you found us. Speaking of finding stuff, I found something really, really cool this week, this past week.

If you enjoy self-learning, you like personal development, whether it is personal development or business productivity or spirituality or efficiency, you know, whatever it is that you like to learn. If you like self-help, I interviewed a really, really bright guy earlier this week, and he's taken this genre of book, this self-help industry or I guess just the idea of the self-help Health Health Book and he's just taking it to an entirely new level. And he's enrolled the authors of the biggest best and brightest people in the business of self-help like Stephen Covey, like Deepak Chopra, like a Grant Cardone.

I mean, the list, it is endless. He's got the, I mean, you name it, they are there. And he's taking these books and he's turned them into basically courses, like this audio, video, interactive courses. And I think it's really, I think it's going to catch on. because I think that's so much of us. I mean, just entrepreneurs in general are very much into self-education, you know, going ahead and continuing to learn and knowing that that process never ends.

And he's doing this all for just seven bucks a month, which I'm not sure how he's making any money. But if this sounds like something for you, you can check it out at virtual mentorship.com, virtual mentorship.com. And I'll be playing his interview in an upcoming episode so you can hear more about it. but if I was just kind of geeked on it and I signed up immediately and I was like, this is cool.

Gosh, even if you don't use it, what's $7 a month, right? That was my logic, but it's so cool that I know I'm going to use it. So I just wanted to share that with you. What else do I have to share?

Oh, Epic Intensive. It is on the books. I think it's May 30th through June 1st. And it's going to be in Indianapolis. The website, I believe, is up and official, or at least it will be by the time you hear my voice.

And first 25 people are in for free. Okay? We're going to be repeating the cash flow conclave with such a success here in Los Angeles. We'll be doing that again in Indianapolis. First 25 people for free. Go to epicintensive.com. All righty. So for today, let's talk about virtual wholesaling or even just virtually investing in general.

It doesn't have to be wholesaling. But just if you wanted to invest and you want to have a really hands-on experience in a different market, a market different from where you live or where you live or, where you spend most of your time. Let's talk about that because it's through our REI ACE program that this subject kind of comes up frequently around which market should I hang my shingle, where should I plant my steak in the ground, or where should I commit to for my business? As, you know, really just everyone believes there's something better out there than the

market they live in or are investing in. And, you know, it's, you know, we talked about this. It was a while back. And actually we just had two sequential weekends of ARIA's fulfillment summits. And that's just the place where students will come to our office here. And Los Angeles will go ahead and we'll just copy and paste our business into theirs. We'll show them how to use it. So it's a good 48 hours and boom, they're up and running and they're off on their way.

Anyway, about that when the portion of this is all discussing about what market to operate in. And every once in a while, not every once in a while, more than every once in a while, someone will pull me to the side and say, hey, Matt, do you think I really should invest where I live? And here's the deal and this is why. And I hear that all the time. And my answer is always yes. If there's houses there and there are people that live in those houses, then there is opportunity there. You can invest there. I mean, who built that community in the first place? It was a real estate investor that built the place. Right. So there's always, I think there's diamonds and gold to be found in every single market. And I gave this example. I don't know. Gosh, it was exactly just brought up to my attention.

thought it was really funny and I started thinking about it. I was, I was, I don't know, three months ago or so when we were talking about, I had the one student that was really pissed off about their market and thought there was no activity and the next day I had talked to a new student who decided to go invest virtually and is crushing it in the person's market that the guy was complaining about that there wasn't any opportunity there. So I thought that was really ironic and it happened at the perfect time. I mean, I've had those two conversations probably within, I don't know, 24 to 48 hours of your

part. and I totally scratched the episode that I was going to do for that day, and I shared that story with you. That was a few months ago. But anyway, the grass isn't always greener, is my point. And if it is greener, it's probably just getting more water. That's how the saying goes. And my recommendation is that you invest in the market that you live in.

Okay, that's my recommendation. At least to get started. Okay? I want you to learn the business. I want you to learn the business there. Get a couple quick flips under your belt, you know, whether it be flipping a contract, or flipping a house and flipping that house before you rehab it or flipping the house after you rehab it. Just like get some quick flips. Go in and buy low, sell high, understand how the

transaction works, understand all the different moving parts in a real estate transaction, how your business is going to pan out. And, you know, if you're just getting started, don't introduce something like an unfamiliar market into the mix as well. I mean, you can just understand you're going to have to significantly lower your expectations as far as the results that you're going to get you have to lengthen the learning curve a little bit as well. So if you're just getting started, start in your own market. That's my suggestion. Doesn't mean it's right. Doesn't mean it's wrong. Doesn't mean you're going to fail if you don't follow it. I'm just saying that's my suggestion. The caveat is, though, if you do have a team and you have operations set up in another

market or you have the ability to leverage someone else's team or the ability to build your own team really quickly because of the relationships that you have there, you know, turnkey is a perfect example. That's where you can go in and you can leverage other people's operations to go ahead and invest in a market that you don't live in. And so, you know, you can certainly pick up a market where you're comfortable with the team there. And then secondarily make sure that that market is going to support your investing goals. So you can do that. Just understand you're going to need a team there. Whether it's your team or someone else's team, you're going to need another team there. And if you're comfortable with that team, go for it. And just make sure that, make sure it's a good

team that you're comfortable with. And then secondarily make sure that that market, and that team is going to support your specific investing goals. All righty. So with this advice, I think it's pretty sound advice. I don't know what you're thinking right now, but I think it's pretty sound advice, but people are still left with the frustrations around which market to pick. Like it just kind of goes in one ear out the other,

or they acknowledge it, but they say, no, there's going to be a different way. And, you know, they don't know who to trust. They lose deals to local investors. That's a big frustration when you try and do this when you don't do it right. And, you know, with the underlying fear being, this just isn't going to work. work. It's going to take too much effort for too little reward or just very slow rewards.

That's the big fear when you don't get this part right. And those are all really justified frustrations. Those are justified concerns. And they are why I give the advice that I do give to do as much as you can in your own backyard before going into another market. But still, I get the pushback. So I'm going to stop giving that advice out with such conviction and force. I'm still going to give the advice, but if you push back, then, okay, I'll go ahead. I'll help you do it. I just want you to understand what you're playing with here, okay?

And I'm just going to get out of your way, and I'll help you to the best of my ability, but as long as you understand going forward, then, hey, I'm not going to stop you. All right. So, because, and the reason I would say that is because there is a right way to run your business virtually. And you can do this successfully. And when you get it right, you get into markets where you can do really high volume. That's the really appealing part for everybody. and, you know, there's high volume for low profits and then there's low volume for higher profits is kind of the mix.

And you want to just, you know, people are really allured to that high volume market. And, you know, you get to interact with cooperative local team members when you do this part, right? You can level the playing field even with the local competition if you're doing this virtually, if you do it right. And you can experience all the fruits of your labor that you were hoping for that that virtual market would produce. It is possible. Although if you did apply the same amount of effort and work in your own, own market, you'd get comparable results. But that's not what this is about.

I'm going to let that go. Let's talk and focus on the truth about successfully wholesaling virtually or investing virtually. Okay? Because it can be done successfully. You know, McKenzie Kelly, a student of mine, I've talked about her frequently. She lives in San Francisco and she set up a virtual business in Indianapolis. And she did it very, she's done very well for herself. Parker Stiles, most recently.

He's done the same. He lives in Atlanta, and he wholesales virtually in North Carolina. In fact, he's been traveling all winter, running his North Carolina business from multiple locations. So it can most definitely be a reality for you. And to help it make a reality for you, I've got five hot principles for you, okay? In North Carolina, South Carolina, I always get those two mixed up. So Parker, if you're listening, if it's South Carolina, we'll get that fixed later on. You can correct me later.

But he lives in Atlanta and investing in one of the Carolinas. but you can do this well and he's done it well and i've got five hot principles for you one market for motivation two capture the call three build rapport four the set and five sealing the deal so market for motivation capture the call build rapport or build rapport the set the setup and then stealing or stealing no sealing the deal all righty so uh of those five which one do you need most to make this work for yourself all right so maybe you don't know but just from those little uh titles there So let's go through each of one of them individually and then you can decide for yourself. Right.

So number one, market for motivation. And this is no different than if you were to run your business in your own backyard or any market for that matter. That doesn't change. Remember, you are not a real estate investor primarily. That's not your primary job, meaning that's not your real job. Your real job is first a marketer. And second, you are a problem solver. And then you are, in fact, a real estate investor.

But you've got to get those other two things in front. So to begin, you still have to set up your lead machine. You've got to have leads. It doesn't matter which market you're in. And you do that by first identifying what problems you're going to solve, right? We're looking for property owners with problems. Could be absentee owners. Landlords and absentee owners, they got problems all the time.

It could be code violations or you can look for property owners that are in default or they have tax liens against the property or they're in probate or condemned houses, divorce, bankruptcy, retirees, expires, fizzbos. I mean, they're in an endless number of problems out there for you to solve for people. and the more peace of mind that you bring to those people with problems, the more equity they're going to give you in exchange. That's the trade-off, okay? You find the people with problems, you help them out. They pay you with equity. That's how it works.

Right. So next, you're going to want to promote your solutions to these problemed property owners, right? The solutions you bring to the table are, as a real estate investment is what you bring to the table. You can do this as a fast transaction. You can make an easy transaction. You can do it for free with no fees, right? There's no realtor fees or you can pay the closing costs.

They don't have to do repairs. They don't have to fix the property up. There's no, let's see, you can preserve their dignity. You can give them certainty like this is really going to get done. You can preserve their credit score. You can eliminate the burden of property ownership. I mean, you bring a lot to the table that problem property owners that what they're searching for. You bring a lot to the table.

You have a lot of value here. All right? So you bring that to the table. Now you just need to, you just need to be easy to, too, find. These property owners need to be able to locate you when they need you. So that's the third component of building your lead machine. The vehicle that you're going to use, you've got to choose the vehicle that you're going to use to promote your solution. You can choose more than one vehicle. And those vehicles are postcards. Those are letters. PPC, pay-per-click, Facebook,

bandit signs, car magnet. Yeah, like a car magnet on your actual vehicle. So one of the promotion vehicles can be your vehicle. Your clothes. clothing, your bus benches, TV, radio, networking events, email, text, phone, voice, all kinds of stuff. We've talked about all that stuff a lot here. So there's all different types of vehicles. So you've got countless combinations of problems, solutions, and vehicles that you can match up to build your lead machine, to market for motivation.

Remember, the foundation of every deal lies within the seller's motivation to sell. If there's no motivation, there's no deal. So that's number one, market for motivation. Number two, you've got to capture the call. You've got to capture the lead. you know, before you launch your lead machine, before you let it loose on your market, make sure that you are capturing the information of every person that responds to your marketing. You've paid good money.

You've put a lot of effort into building that lead machine. You probably put making an investment into that lead machine to get it running. So make sure that you are capturing everything that it captures. So does I say? No, capture everything that it attracts. Everyone that responds to your marketing, you need to capture it. At the very least, you need a call capture phone number. and a landing page with an opt-in form.

At the very least, you need those two things. And you can get as sophisticated as you want with this, but that's the minimum that you need. Because once you can capture your leads information, once you capture that call, once you capture that email inquiry, you now have the ability to follow up. And that's where the fortune is, right?

The fortune is in the follow-up. And you can engage your follow-up system to do all of the heavy lifting of following up for you as well. You know, inside of REI solutions, it's all there underneath one umbrella. You've got unlimited phone numbers, unlimited landing pages, and you've got all the follow-up systems already preset for you, all for the different categories.

That's all set up for you. Okay, so that's number two. Capture the call. Number one's market for motivation. Number two, capture the call. Three, you've got to build rapport. Okay, you've got to build rapport. Now you're talking to these leads.

You've captured the call. You've contacted the lead. Now you've got to start building rapport. This doesn't change with your marketplace either. You're dealing with distressed property owners, and they're going to want to talk to a person. They are in distress. They don't want to talk to a machine.

They don't want to talk to an automated phone tree. They don't want to talk to anything like that. They want to talk to a person. They don't want to talk to technology. So they want to talk to someone that they like, someone that they trust, and someone that they feel can get the job done. Now, it's a little bit more challenging doing this strictly over the phone when you're working virtually, but certainly not beyond any realms of reality.

It takes a little bit more practice, a little bit more skill, maybe a few more repetitions under your belt before you get really good at that. but it can be done absolutely it's it's been done from since the phone was invented it's been being done all right so you build rapport in a couple ways one by asking a lot of questions and two listening to the answers listening more than you talk and then um what you do to build that report is you're going to set appropriate expectations and we do that with what we've called here and we've covered it several times in the past a transition agreement right and kind of does all of those things for you now here's where the difference is made. This is where the big difference between investing in your

backyard and virtually, this is where the big difference is made. It's what happens next after you've reached an agreement with the seller over the phone. And that agreement could be an agreement to meet with the seller or it could be an actual agreement of price and terms. Say you went ahead and you created a deal right there on the phone or you just created an opportunity to go out and meet the seller. Okay? So this is where it is, though. One or the other, you've got to get the contract signed. And this is typically where your virtual deals will fall apart. I mean, even if you had the best rapport and reached an agreement with the seller, what most people don't realize and what most people take for granted is, particularly in these high volume markets, all through the Midwest,

all through the south, gosh, I would say it's not even limited to there at all by any means. No, it happens on both coasts as well. is that what most people take for granted is everybody does not have an email address. Everybody does not have access to the internet. You'll be surprised on how many people that you'll talk to that do not have an email account or they don't have access to a fax machine. They've got to drive 20 minutes into town just to be able to send you a fax. So understand that that gets in the way a little bit.

Then even if they do have e-mail, email or have facts, that moment from from hanging up the phone to that person waiting around for your attached purchase agreement via email or they're waiting for your electronic docu-sign type document because you're going to make it really easy for them, right? It still breaks down here about 50% of the time. And that cuts significantly into your cost per deal. So you need someone there to go. I mean, people will lose email.

They'll say they never got it. They say they can't figure out how it works. They'll say they don't want to put their information into the document. Or they'll just say they forgot about it. Or they got sidetracked. Or someone came along in between that time you hung up the phone and the time they received the contract. And they got the deal because they were there face to face. So it breaks down a lot here even when you think you're doing really well over the phone with the seller.

Okay. So really, you need boots on the ground. you need boots on the ground to go to the property and get the contract signed. A mobile notary could be an option. It will increase your conversions a bit. But when the seller starts asking additional questions just prior to signing the contract, that notary can't answer those questions for you. That's not what they're there for.

They're just there to get a signature. Sometimes that works in your favor because they can say, I'm not here to get a, I can't answer any questions. I'm just here to get a signature. And sometimes the seller just kind of will go ahead and go along with the flow. and other times say, well, uh-uh, wait a minute, I need to talk to them again. You're going to have to come back out. So even that happens.

So it increases your conversions a little bit by having that actual mobile notary there. They instill a little bit of, I guess, obligation on the seller's part and it actually gets done. But you need boots on the ground. You need a teammate that can go in and get the contract signed. So that brings me to point number four, the set. The setup. You know, how you set up the person that the seller is about to meet. Specifically, how do you try.

transfer the rapport that you have built with the seller on the phone over to your teammate that's going to go and meet them in person. Well, the trick here is what's called edification. You got to edify that new person. This is where you uplift and improve the position of this new person that the seller is going to meet. Right? You got to build them up. You can't rely on just setting the appointment, having that person go out there, and then they build themselves up. You know, if I tell you, you that this is the greatest real estate investing podcast on iTunes, you're like, okay, yeah, maybe, maybe not. It's pretty good, Matt. I listen to it a lot, but it's good. But if someone else told you that, hey, if you listen to that guy over there on iTunes, that epic real estate investment podcast,

that's the best one out there. You're more inclined to give that more weight, right? You're more inclined to say, oh, yeah, well, maybe I should check that out. I haven't listened in a while. Maybe I'll go back and check it out again, whatever it may be. So when you edify yourself, it's, you get doubt, you get skepticism. But when you edify someone else, you get, you get a lot more validity there. People will believe you. It's just like if you're the restaurant owner, come to my restaurant. It's the greatest restaurant in the world. Yeah, of course you say that's your restaurant. But if your friend said, you've got to go over there, that pizza is amazing. I've never tasted cheese like that. You've got to go try it. Boom, you're getting over there because you want to try it.

You don't want to miss out on the pizza, right? You want that cheese, right? So you need to think about edifying your person on the ground in that regard. right there are the best pizza in town so there are countless ways of doing this i'll just give you one way that the basically the way we do it it's a little bit different each time because the conversation's a little bit different each time with each seller but but this is the idea you know once an agreement has been made with the seller and that's whether it's price and terms or just it's an agreement to meet at the property and that appointment has been set with the seller so after the agreement has been made whatever that agreement is and the appointment has been set with the seller this

we kind of go to. First, we go to this transition agreement, right? I just mentioned that a second ago. So the transition agreement, it's basically what you're going to do is you're going to one set expectations, and then you're going to give each party the right to say yes or no. You're going to create this nice free space. And this really builds rapport, and it really creates trust. It's really something like this. Mr. Selle, what it's going to happen is I'm going to come over and I'll see it Monday at 3 o'clock. And you're going to show me around. I want you to point out everything that you think directly or indirectly affects or impacts the value of the property. And then I'll ask you a few questions.

We'll compare it to what it looks like out there, what the market is doing. And then we'll come up with a fair offer. All righty. And then you can decide whether you want that or not. This is what I can tell you, though. If at any point during that process, I don't feel this is going to be a good fit for me. I'm going to let you know. Okay.

If it is a good fit, I'll give you a fair offer right at the end. But what I would like for you in return is if at any point during, in that process, you don't feel it's going to be a good fit? Will you promise to tell me right away? And if it is a good fit, then you'll go ahead and you'll entertain me offer and you can be the judge. Is that fair? See what I did there? So I set the expectations. This is what's going to happen. And then if it's not a good fit for me, I'm going to say no. But if it's a good fit, I'm going to say yes. I just need the same agreement from you. So Mr. and Mrs. Seller, if you don't think it's a good fit, will you say no? You promise to say no? That's fair, right? Okay, good. And if it is a good fit,

you will say yes, right? Perfect. Great. So that's the transition agreement. And so I say that just before this next part, we go through the transition agreement and then I followed up with something like, all righty, so I got you down from Monday three. We'll formalize all of the paperwork and then we'll start the process of getting you the proceeds for your property, just like we promised. But it looks like I'm going to have a conflict and I won't be able to make it personally. But that's actually good news because Bob, Bob's available. And he's been working with people in your situation a lot. longer than I have you. He really knows his stuff. And I actually kind of hate to say this, but you're probably in better hands with Bob than me anyway. So when he shows up on Monday at

three, you'll be able to resume the conversation with him, just as if it were me, because I'm going to fill him in on all the details before he arrives. And if you should come up with any questions between now and then take advantage of your time with Bob. As his knowledge of the process in the market, it's really unmatched. You're going to love him. You're going to be in great hands already. So I'll talk to you soon. Bob will see you at three. take care. Something to that effect. That's how the conversation goes. So I totally edified Bob. I totally set him up. Right. So they're going to be just as excited to meet with Bob, if not even more, if I did it well. And you get better and better at this. And, you know, you can play on the personalities. If there's room for humor, use the humor. It always softens things up. If it needs to be really serious, then get really serious. And hey, Bob knows his stuff. He knows how to get people out of tough, tight situations like yours. And, you know, you can direct it and make a specific for that situation. But now your boots on the ground, in this case Bob, he's all set up for the meeting with the seller, right?

So now, sealing the deal. Okay, number five, when Bob arrives to the property to complete this transition of rapport, because you started it over the phone, you're transitioning this rapport from yourself to Bob. So when Bob meets the seller, he's already got a head start on building that rapport. But it's not complete yet. So how do we complete this transition? How do we complete this handoff? well, Bob's going to repeat the transition agreement before beginning to view the property.

This is key. Okay. So Bob's going to say, hey, Mr. Seller, Mrs. Seller, I heard all about you from Sally at the office. And, you know, she told me about your situation. So this is what we'll do is I just want you to show me around the house. I want you to point out everything that directly or indirectly impacts the value of the property. I'll ask you a few questions. And then we'll kind of take at the end.

We'll compare that over what the market is doing. and, you know, as we go through this, if there's any moment where you feel like this isn't going to be a good fit or do you just promise to let me know, just let me know right away, because I'm going to do the same. If I feel like this isn't going to be a good fit, because I can't buy them all. So if it's not a good fit, I'm going to let you know that as well. But if it is a good fit, I'll have a fair offer for you at the end. And if it is a good fit for you, then you can be the judge of what that offer says. Is that fair? Okay, good.

So there's the transition agreement. So that is really kind of completes that whole transfer of rapport. So Bob has taken that hand off of the report in a way that you and Bob are really one of the same. You said the same thing. I said a little bit differently the second time. It comes out a little differently each time. But I cover all of the points, right? I set the expectations and we each got permission to say yes and no.

And that transition agreement will do that transition agreement right there. If you both get that down, it's going to do that for you. Now, when it's time to present the contract, Bob is there in person and he can get the signature right then and there. And the biggest barrier to successfully wholesaling and investing virtually, that's been removed. Now, everything else is the same. Okay. So if you want to invest virtually, that's the right way to do it, okay, to build a real predictable and controllable business. You've got to go find a bob, right? You got to go find somebody like that. Or you can be the bob, right? And you find someone else in another market that, you know, wants to invest where you are.

but it's going to be a difficult time if you don't have people on the ground operating on your behalf. If you want to do this virtually, you're going to need people there. It's just going to be tough. It's just going to be tough. It's just going to be tough. And your cost per deal is going to be higher. And your frustration level and your blood pressure might go up a little bit. But you can still do it.

I'm just saying if you want to do it the right way, that's how you do it. So if this is something you'd like to explore, I mean, how do you find someone on the ground in the market that you want to work with? You know, McKenzie, she was able to do it after a few false starts with people. but she stuck with it and finally found a good match for a business partner. She had to make a few flights back and forth out from San Francisco to Indianapolis to create that relationship. But she did it. Parker did the same thing. Made a trip out to, gosh, North or South Carolina, sorry, Parker.

One of the Carolines, and I'm sorry to everybody in the Carolinas, because I'm sure that's totally blasphemous if I can't keep those straight. So we went out to one of the Carolinas to assemble his team, but in both cases, it was a process. both for McKenzie and Parker, it was a process and a process that involves people, right, which inserts a wide array of variables. And keep in mind, you're working with people and relationships, partnerships, partnerships even. And it's no different to creating that relationship virtually than it is in your hometown, in your backyard.

There's no shortcuts here. Relationships are created in the same way, whether that's over the phone or whether that's on the ground in your own backyard or on the ground in this new virtual market that you want to go into. Okay, so where would you start looking? Let me give you some pointers. Or if you want to take this on. Where would you start looking?

Or what type of person would you be looking for? I think other, maybe like going through Craigslist and seeing who's advertising properties for sale, trying to find other investors, maybe other wholesalers, that's probably a logical place to start. progressive realtors, forward-thinking realtors, you know, those unjaded realtors, those could be a good fit, or maybe brand-new realtors, that could be a good fit. Maybe a contractor or a property manager or another local investor in the area, you know, those might all be good starting points.

Think about someone that you actually might know in a market that's looking for something to do that you might want to partner up with someone that you already know. That could be it. McKenzie, she found herself a forward-thinking, of the box realtor as her partner. I'm not sure how Parker ultimately ended up with his guy. I'd heard this story a few times. I don't know who actually ended up

and who this long-term relationship has been with. I'll ask him the next time we speak. But I wish there was more of a step-by-step process I could give you for finding your own good boots on the ground. But people are involved. And when people are involved, anything can happen. But those would be good starting points. I'd be a little guideline.

I wouldn't take it as gospel. Don't abandon your intuition. I want you to trust your instincts. be resourceful, you're smarter than you think, you can do this. You know, I did it a while ago. It's probably been about close to three years now where I try to do this organically, kind of how I'm explaining it to you right now. I reached out actually to add a little bit of advantage or so I thought.

I reached out to a dozen or so of academy members thinking it would be prime recruiting ground for business partners. You know, they've gone through the academy and they've been trained the way I want them to be trained, and I just thought this was going to be a great relationship. I thought it was going to be like, felt like a home run deal. One of those nights I woke up in the middle of the night and was like, aha, it's going to be fantastic. And after reaching agreements with these dozen members or so, I started marketing in their areas and channeling all of these leads to them. And I had to say, after just a couple months, it was a pretty disastrous outcome.

I would say with the exception of just one or two, one specifically that comes to mine right away. But I think, yeah, there's someone else from that group I'm still working with. but if I had to do it all over again, I would have charged them. I just would have charged them a fee for the privilege to receive the benefits of my marketing. I would have charged them. Not because I wanted the money, not because I needed the money, but to first, one, make sure that they really wanted to do this, to make sure that they understood that this was a commitment, that they are embarking and entering a business relationship with me where I have

expectations for you to carry out your part. They needed to understand that. and I don't think they did. And second, I would have charged them to make it difficult for them to quit. That's what I think charging that fee up front could have done. It could have, you know, maybe I only had half the people, and maybe half of them might have stuck it out a little bit longer, and we could have had success there.

Because at the end, that's what they all did. They all quit inside of a couple months. So I've learned a lot about people since starting this podcast and running an education business, so much more than I did when I was just a real estate investor all by itself. But for the most part, and there are some exceptions, but not many, not many. So for the most part, those that have made the largest investments in their education with Epic with the coaching program or the Epic Pro Academy, those that have made the largest investments

have had the greatest results. There's a connection between how much you invest in yourself and how you follow through. You're just a human being. That's how we all work. and there's, like I said, there's been some exceptions, but not many. And really, on the other side of that, I think that, I think I've said this here before, it's been a while. Gosh, we've got almost nine years of podcasts.

I can't remember what I have said in or what I haven't. But every once in a while, I'll receive an email from someone with a really good story as to why I should take them on and mentor them for free, or how I should give them a free membership to the Epic Pro Academy. And, you know, sometimes it's a sad story. It pulls in my heartstrings and I crumble and I allow it. Sometimes it's an inspiring story of where I want this person to keep winning in the way that they are. Like, I want to keep on going.

I want to be a part of it. And I allow it. And sometimes, I don't know, just sometimes I can't describe it. Sometimes emails are just, like, maybe they're just well-timed. They hit me at the right moment. And I acquiesce and I do favors. I do favors for people every day, all day, every day, big favors for people. And when I look back on these specific types of favors that I've done,

done where I've decided to, you know, honor or give scholarships to the academy or help people out a little bit more on the side. Not one, not a single one that I've coached for free or gave a free membership to has done anything, nothing, not a single exception. And two of these people, two of these people I was thinking of right now are two. two of my closest friends in the world even. They've seen what I've been able to do over the years. They've wanted a piece of it.

I've showed them exactly how to do it. I didn't charge them anything. It's just because of the love I had for them. And they've done nothing. They've disappeared and they don't even bring it up anymore. And all that to say, this is my point here, I went off on a little bit of a tangent there. But all that to say, if I were to build a new virtual market,

I'd ask for the boots on the ground guy or the boots on the ground girl. to demonstrate their commitment in a way that it would be painful for them to quit me. I mean, maybe it's money that would be that, maybe it's something else. So all that to say, I know I just made this all about me, but it's not about me, it's about you.

Just consider that element of people when you're out building your virtual relationships because yes, it's a relationship and you can get along with the person, you might like the person, they may be great, you got everything in common and like you could be best of friends, but it's still a business relationship. And business can be,

tough, right? It takes commitment and it takes daily commitment. It takes daily commitment and consistency of all the right activities and you got to stick it out. You got to do it long enough. You've got to have persistence involved in there. So there's more to it than just liking the person that you're working with. Okay. So consider all that. And if I were to do this right now, I would, I'd probably go through my cell phone, something for you think about. Or I'd go through my Facebook friends and I'd look for someone that I already knew. That's how I probably would really do it. I don't. I don't if I'd reach out to strange realtors or strange investors, although it's been proven that's a successful path to do it, or it's a path that can be successful. But I look for the people that I already

knew. I look for people that I already liked, already trusted. Someone like that happened to live in an area. If someone like that happened to live in an area that I'd be open to invest into, I would start there. You know, there's a saying, hire for character, trained for skill. Have you heard that before? So the character is a little bit more difficult to find a skill can be the easiest part of that whole equation. So hire for character, train for skill, that's what I'd do. I'd look for the character first and then see how to get them all trained up. I've actually been thinking about this for a while because it's a topic on many aspiring

investors' minds. I mean, I think there's a need out there for creating these types of virtual relationships. But before I tried to assemble some sort of solution of matching up character and matching up skill and matching up commitment, trying to get all those connected for people, I wanted to check in really with my own community to see if there was indeed a need. So I dropped a specific question inside of the Epic Private Facebook group last week. You might have even saw it because there were so many responses. I just want to get the feedback from the Epic community.

And I wrote something that was like, you know, among my inner circle of REIA's mentoring clients, there's a decent number of them that are looking to run a portion or all of their business virtually. the big problem in most cases is that they need to create equality boots on the ground relationship for any chance of predictable long-term success. And after sharing this idea inside of the Epic Pro Academy's private Facebook group, the demand for such a thing, it was really high. There was a lot of response there. So what I'm doing is I'm creating a match.com of sorts for Epic members to create an environment

where these types of connections can more easily be made. So it's not just going out there and starting cold, right? So that next and integral step of this process is really to do my best to fill this exclusive members area with quality trained members. So what we're doing is completion of the two-day ground and pound certification school in St. Louis that would be required to participate. The school is in St. Louis. You don't have to be in St. Louis. You can travel there and go to the school and then you go back to your own market, take that training and use it back in your own market. But completion of that certification in that thing, we've added a certificate.

element to that school. It's been really successful, but that would be required to participate. So my co-trainer in the certification program, Jeff, the guy who taught the ninja negotiation session at the most recent Epic Intensive in Torrance and totally knocked the crowd off their feet with his unorthodox and his counterintuitive yet highly effective seller conversion conversations. It seems to be between, in my own event, it's either Tim Barry or is Jeff Garner, who everybody's favorite is, but I'm getting over it. I'm okay. I'm not sensitive like that. But Jeff and I, we've been working very closely with a small group of people for the last 12 months.

And the results, they've been amazing. And we're going to work together with another group over the next few months starting March 21st. There'll be other dates, but that's the next one and that's the one that's in stone right now. March 21st. So here's some of what we're going to work on. We're going to be focusing on the essentials of taking that incoming call for motivated sellers and how to bring their guard. down so that they tell you the truth about their situation, why they're selling, so you can, you know, potentially solve their problem without or or with very little money. And then we're going to design and implement your conversational conversion process to engage new leads that come in, focusing on the first 10 days of them inquiring about your service, about what you do. And then three, we're going to invest a ton of time on the psychology of lead conversion, you know, working the key phrases,

the strategies, the techniques. And I mean, this is where you turn people that want to sell into those that need to sell. And where people that need to sell, we can help you turn those into selling to you at deeper discounts. And then four, one of the most overlooked opportunities for real estate investors is in what we call the during unit from the moment that someone actually signs the contract

to the time that transaction is over and everyone's happy. So what we'll do is we'll work on some hidden ways to leverage this experience and turn that into other deals as well. Number five, we're going to really my favorite high probability, low cost way to generate more businesses by orchestrating referrals with the people who already know you, the people who already like you and who already trust you. We're going to talk about the secret psychology of why people refer anything and how to be really the only one that they refer. And specifically how to orchestrate referrals in your business. And then the last half day of day two, what we're going to do is we're going to transition from the classroom out to the field where we're going to drive to and walk through several. houses and various states of rehab to analyze the traps to watch out for and recognize all the

hidden gold mines to look for as well. And then seven, once the classroom and field trainings are complete, a written and oral exam will be administered to receive official certification and inclusion to the ground and pound certified area of the Epic Pro Academy. Right. So whether as an RIA's partner already or in your own business or any one of these things, can really move the needle immediately for your real estate investing efforts as a certified ground and pound acquisition specialist. That sounds terribly official, doesn't it? Well, it is.

We're going to make it official because we're going to make it pay officially. And my experience is that one thing here will resonate with you and stand out as the big opportunity for you specifically. So we'll be able to spend more time on that one with you. So this year, Jeff and I were going to be working with this group personally. And we only want to work with the people who can commit, who can. can implement and who can follow through. So we're ready to get started in March and we're inviting you if this makes sense for you to join this certification program. All right. So here's how it'll work.

For two full days, March 21st through the 22nd, we'll immerse ourselves in the conversational conversion process. Then we're going to get together as a group every other week for the next six months to check in on your progress to overcome your challenges and provide direction of what to do next. So you can put it into action. You can report on your skills or your results and you can make corrections and you can continue to hone the most valuable skill that a real estate investor can possess, converting a lead to a contract. I mean, we really want to create some amazing partnerships and success stories from this. So we'll be spending one on time with you to make sure we really maximize your results. So the more you implement, the more we'll work with you. Okay, so we're going

to be working closely together. So we'd like you to be sure that you have some time to dedicate to this over the next few months, all right? So there is an investment required. There has to be. There just has to be, as it's just not going to work if there is. And as I kind of explained to you from my previous experience, it's nothing extraordinary, yet it is enough to cover the certification programs costs and just to demonstrate a student's commitment to their RIA's counterpart.

So with all that said, this boot camp training, it's centered around the highest paying skill you can acquire as a real estate investor. And up until now, we've reserved it really only for our RIA's clients. But now we're going to open it up as a standalone training opportunity. As it is the highest paying skill that you should invest in for yourself, especially if you have everything else all dialed in. This is where you really could probably invest an endless amount of time and money and just resources into improving this part of yourself.

And I say that to illustrate that whether or not you're looking to set up a virtual business, whether you're going to do that or not, this is a program that will serve you. So many people are so concerned with, you know, more leads, more leads, more leads, more leads. That seems to be the constant thing. How do you generate more leads? How do you increase your marketing? How do I build this lead machine?

I need more leads. I need more leads. I can't get any leads in my market. And in many cases, that's really the wrong approach, right? Or at the very least, it's only half of the approach you should be considering. meaning it might not be more leads. You know, if you converted more of the leads you're already receiving, would generating leads be such an issue for you?

Would you need to spend more money on lead generation if you could convert better? Could you cut down on your marketing costs if you could get more contract signed for discounted properties in that way? Right? Is it more leads or is it converting the leads that you already have? Because the better you are at converting those leads, the less money you have to spend on your marketing, the less time you have to worry about generating leads.

I don't know. You know your situation better than I do, but I want to make sure that you have all of the information that you need to make an educated decision for yourself about whether or not you want to consider this invitation to apply. So if this ground and pound certification program feels like this could be a good fit for you, let's hop on the phone for a short talk and we'll confirm one way or the other.

Okay, so before we do talk, however, I just want to make sure that you know what this is. Okay. This is first a program to elevate your skills in the most valuable place you could do it for yourself. Okay. That's first thing. Secondarily, it's a certification program to illustrate your commitment to yourself to other epic investors across the country inside of this members area, this exclusive members area we're going to create.

I don't even have a name for it yet. But it's just going to be a small group of people that have all demonstrated this commitment to excellence and a commitment to themselves and commitment to their business and give them the ability to potentially create these virtual relationships. You know, as I'm thinking about this at the moment, just understand that this isn't a job opportunity. Okay, there isn't a guarantee to match people up with each other. I'm not going to be involved in the business or the relationships that happen inside of this

environment. I'm just creating an elevated environment of like-minded people who have all chosen to make a commitment to getting better at investing and make more money. Okay? Whether that's individually or it's collectively, it doesn't matter to me. That's up to you. I just want to create this environment of people. that, I don't know, where the element of trust can be elevated and the element of respect can be

elevated as well, all right? But everything else, that's up to you. So if you like the way that this sounds, I would love to work with you. Jeff would love to work with you. We want to help you succeed at this, okay? So go to ground and pound school.com to apply. Ground and pound school. com. Go ahead. Apply there and we will take it from there. All righty. So now you know, Time to do. Long episode today. Didn't know where it was actually going to end up, but that's where it ended up. So go to ground and poundscool.com to apply. We'll take it from there. And that's it for today. God bless and to your success. I'm Matt Terrio. Living the green. The cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. You didn't know home

world. We got the cash flow. This podcast is a part of the C Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit C-des. SweetRadio.com