KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How a CPA Agent Built His 28 Units in 3 Years & Maximized the Value of His Business

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Welcome back to another episode of The Agent Goldmine, where Shelby and I are introducing and interviewing Josh Bowerly. And a little bit about Josh for those that do not know, he is a CPA by trade. He's also an agent with us. He has an author of the bestselling book called The Accounting Quick Start Guide. And you're making an even bigger presence now on social media. You and your wife, Courtney, or you Josh and his wife, Courtney, are. are a team, both a domestic team as agents within our crew, as well as real estate investors together. And you've built a 28 unit portfolio in less than three years. And then you sold a lot

of it off in 2021. And now you're working on building your portfolio backup, acquiring 10 to 15 rentals per year. And you're also flipping on the side. And you're an agent. And you've got kids. You're out in the Columbus, Ohio area for those that want to reach out to him. your his Instagram is Josh underscore Bowerly I'm going to spell Bowerly it's B-A-U-E-R-L-E and I would love to talk about both like CPA stuff and your social media stuff you and I got actually connected through a CPA because you were helping out with like my file and you saw the like my tax returns or like the income, not just with selling, but also the rev share. And that's what you were like, whoa, what the heck is this? And so that's how we got connected. And next thing, what do you know?

You're both on the team. And we're stoked to have you. So Josh, welcome to the agent cold mine. Yeah, thanks for having me. So it's kind of crazy. After I did your tax return, I saw what you were doing, started following you. And I was like, man, this is crazy. So I told my wife, we're going to join this team and I'm going to be on this podcast. And here we are. Dude, that's like such the cool. It's a cool story. I freaking love it. Um, okay, Josh, before we dig into the social media stuff that Allie talked about, also like your perspective with so much CPA background and I know a bunch of agents just don't know shit about like taxes, what's right, what's not? So I want to dig into all of that. But first, can you give us a little

context on you? Like, what were the things in your life that kind of created you into the human that you are to have accomplished so much and still have really big goals looking ahead? Yeah. I mean, I guess I had good parents and my parents were both entrepreneurs. So that was kind of always something that, like I didn't sit there and say, I want to be an entrepreneur when I grew up, but it was never, like, scary to do that, right? Like I started my first business when my wife was pregnant with twins. It was just never a thing. We just did it and it was, and it happened. So it's just never been scary. It's just always been something that that I was willing to do, willing to take that risk. And that's, I think that's the biggest thing with entrepreneurship, right? You got to be willing to

take that dive and take that risk. Oh, my gosh. So what before the CPA stuff, though? Like, was that, you know, out of college, was that kind of your first thing? Yeah. So I switched my major. I was like a six year bachelor degree because I kept switching my major, switching colleges, had no idea what I wanted to do. Finally settled on accounting, got my CPA. And then like I was one of the people that would go from like every two years I'm

switching jobs because it's like, oh, I don't like this job. I bet I want to be a financial advisor. Oh, that doesn't work. I want to work in taxes. So it was just all over the place. And I finally realized like it wasn't the job that was a problem. It was a job. Like I needed to be my own boss.

I'm just not someone that can work for other people. So as soon as I started that, I just randomly started my own accounting firm. And boom, it just all clicked into place. And here we are. Being that you work with Courtney, your spouse, both on investing first and now agents, is that something that your spouse was already wanting to do? Or was there like a conversation with like, hey, you know, like, did you have to win her over? Yeah, for sure.

So she did not come. That's not in her background. And that was really scary for her. So I think it was just like one step at the time, right? Like I had to start this accounting firm and prove to her that it worked and start bringing an income and then she gets behind it. And then I started to want invest in rental properties and she's like very uneasy about it, right? She's never been someone that's known people that own rental properties.

So we had to buy one and it worked and we bought two and just slowly build it up. And as she sees it at work, she comes on board with it. So to me that's the key. If you have a spouse that's doubting it, you can't get their doubts away by telling them it's going to work. You've got to show them. You got to slowly start to show success and then they get on board with it. Okay, so what I'm curious about is your experience as a CPA and how it pertains to what you know now about like real estate agents and how many, you know, I'm sure you look out there and you're like, man, everyone's just really fucking this up and they don't even know it. Can you share some of the insights that you have, maybe like the top things that we're all doing wrong that we could fix in our businesses?

Yeah, so I think the big thing is most agents are coming from previously being an employee. some sort, right? Whatever it is. You worked in nine to five somewhere. You were an employee. You weren't responsible for bookkeeping. You weren't responsible for setting up an entity. And your taxes were simple. You didn't have all these complexities. And now you go into real estate. And at first, it almost feels like you're still an employee, right? Because you have this broker that maybe feels like a boss and you have other agents that are helping you out. And you don't realize necessarily that you are a business owner. And with that, you have to figure out, do I need to set up an entity? Do I need to open up separate bank accounts for this

business, separate credit cards. How am I handling the bookkeeping? Because every dollar coming in and out of that business has to be tracked. And then the tax complexities come in, right? It's not as simple as, oh, I put my W2 into turbo tax and I'm done. You have to figure out what type of income is taxable. What can I deduct? What can't I deduct? What type of entities should I be taxed at? So it's just all these various complexities that I don't see a lot of agents either doing it all or or doing properly. I think if you just really start to focus in that you are a business, you're no different than someone that has whatever, a shoe store down the street. Like, that's easy to see as a business. But for a lot of people, it's hard to see that as an agent, you're an independent

contractor, which means you are a business in and of itself. Where do you see that a lot of agents mess up? What's like a couple of common myths that you see that you can just squash right here? Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing by far is they are not doing any kind of bookkeeping or proper bookkeeping. They're getting to year end and then they're trying to throw something together, whether it's a spreadsheet or giving their poor CPA a box of receipts and telling them to figure it out. And it's just got to be something that you're doing throughout the year. At the minimum, you have to be using some type of accounting software. I'd use cloud-based accounting software. So think like QuickBooks Online or Zero, the two big ones. You have to be tracking that

throughout the year. Number one for tax purposes, like obviously your CPA needs to know that so you cannot overpay on taxes. You can deduct everything you're entitled to. But maybe even more importantly, like, how do you know whether your business is succeeding or failing? If I can't look at an income statement and say, oh, maybe I did, maybe my commissions were 20,000 this month, but I spent $18,000 generating leads. So I only made $2,000. And so many people get to someone like me at the end of the year, like, oh, I had a great year. I made $400,000 in commissions. And then I do their tax and like, yeah, but you spent $380,000 in all your expenses. So you made $20,000. They just had no idea because they're not properly tracking me. I have tried. I have tried quick

books online. My goodness is it overwhelming and just entirely too much. I don't want to have to spend like hours, just even learning. And this is the simple, like the, whatever the basic quickbooks is. What, what are, and you also mentioned zero, which I hadn't heard of. What are some other ones that might be more user-friendly? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so a lot of people like QuickBooks online. That's probably the most popular. I personally like Zero X-E-R-O. I think it's just a little bit more user-friendly. There's a few other ones. fresh books. Honestly, they're basically all the same. There's a few different interfaces. Some are a little bit more user-friendly than others. The key is you've got to get in and learn it and do it.

And it's just, it's that initial getting in and figuring it out. And it just, you look at it. And you're like, this shit is overwhelming. Like, how am I supposed to do this? And like, I've seen your stuff, Allie. I did your taxes. You did a spreadsheet and it was really freaking good. So that worked for you. But now, like, you've got to do the take the next step and get that accounting software. Because number one, if you're audited, the IRS is going to look at the spreadsheet and be like, yeah, this is super organized and I like this more than most people's, but I want to see software that's linking to your account. So look, if it's something and you look at it and this is overwhelming, I can't figure this out, I don't have time for this. You can hire someone

that does all of this for you. There's a company called bench. That's like bench.com, I think is the website. And they have packages as low as $250 a month where they're going to hook up to all your bank accounts for you and they're going to sit there and handle it. You're not going to be completely on involved. They're going to have to email you and be like, hey, you spent $50 at Walmart last week. What was that for? And you're like, oh, I bought a new printer for my office, whatever it is. So you're not going to be completely hands off, but you're going to not have to deal with figuring it out and setting it up. And there's a million, you can hire individuals that do it for you. You can hire companies that do it for you. But in the grand scheme of things, it's not that expensive

to make sure that this is done right. Josh, I have over the years gone through my fair share of bookkeepers and CPAs, to be honest. And I'm always. always telling myself that next year will be different. Like, I am your, I'm your worst nightmare for sure. And so how do I go through, how do I, how do I hire a bookkeeper and know that they're legit and not? Because this is the other thing that I do. Every month, I'm like, because they'd be like, oh, we're just still catching up. And I would just let that slide for so many months. And then I'm just fucked constantly. Help me. Yeah. So bookkeeper is a lot like real estate agent, right? where there's a very low barrier to entry.

Like, you don't have to have a special license for it. You don't have to have someone telling you you're able to do it. So there's a lot of really, really bad ones out there. And, I mean, there's no real tests that I can give you like, oh, this is how you figure out if they're good and bad. But number one, I'd figure out someone that specializes, like, they should work with a lot of real estate agents. Don't get, go get someone that they work with whatever, an Amazon e-commerce seller.

Like, they should be specializing in real estate in general and work with a lot of real estate agent so that they know your business, know what typical deductions are involved with it, and just know how to set it all up. And then from there, I would get specific recommendations. Like, you should be able to find another agent that works with them and like, yeah, this person is awesome. They give me my reports on time every single month. They all came from recommendations. I know. No, it's a really hard thing. It's a really hard space to find the right person in. So here's what I do. Number one, I would give them a couple months. Like, they better be giving you those reports at the end of every month. As long as you're giving them what they need.

Like if you're giving, if you're not giving them what they need, they can't give you what you need. But if you're doing your part and they're not giving you yours, then it's time to switch. And I would also, if you have a CPA that you're working with separately, like after a month or two, send them what they're doing and like, hey, what does this look like? Is this, does this look good to you? Because as CPAs, we've worked with a ton of bookkeepers and we can spot pretty easily whether they're good or bad. And correct me, so you have spot, you have built and sold two CPA businesses now. and I believe you have a non-compete. So do you have like a recommendation for listeners out there or, you know, for me for a CPA

who you know personally trust does really good work, works with real estate agents and investors? Yeah. And I would say number one thing, they don't have to actually be a CPA. Like CPA is kind of a catch-all. I'm a CPA, but you don't have to be a CPA to be a tax professional. So there's enrolled agents as well. They're really good. And the one that Allie works with Natalie Collodi, she is really good.

She's featured on Bigger Pockets a lot. She specializes in real estate. So she's done agents. She's done investors. She's a big one I would look at if you can still get her while she's still available. I have a very specific question as to an app. So going kind of going back to the different types of bookkeepers. There's an app that I heard of called Herdler.

And I don't think it has any ease, though, in Herdler. But I'm paying for this thing too. And because I was like, oh, yeah, it's a swipe thing. So think like Tinder. You swipe left. If it's like a business expense, you swipe right. If it's like a personal or if it is business, which one? But I'm like, okay, this is a lot more simple than QuickBooks.

Have you heard of Herdler? That's the first question. I haven't. I have not, but they should probably be marketing as the Tinder of Accounting. Like, how many people would you get just by saying that? That's genius. Okay. Hardler, maybe you can sponsor this episode. So I think that, I mean, okay.

Okay, granted, you know what? I don't even want to speak about it too much because I haven't used it. I'm paying monthly for this, which is cheaper than I think quick folks, but like I feel like I'll have some more ownership. And like I feel like I'll actually be able to use this. But, okay, if you don't know about it, it's something that I heard of through like the Tom Ferry ecosystem. Actually, Jason Boyce uses hardly. I don't know if he uses it for his actual like bookkeeping. But yeah, something to look into, maybe.

Yeah, as long as it sinks up. up to your bank accounts and is pulling that info in automatically and then spitting out a profit and loss and balance sheet, then it's probably going to do a good job. Okay, cool, cool. What else? What other common, Ali said common myths earlier, but like really easy. So we've talked about bookkeeping. We've talked about just like tracking your expenses. What other things would you say off the top of your head? Yeah, I'd say the other big thing is on the tax side, just knowing what you can and can't deduct. And then so like your entity, most people know to form an LLC if they can, but from there, once you become profitable, should you or can you be taxes in S corporation,

which is going to save you, so you can't pay an amount of taxes. And you got to talk to your broker about that. Some states allow you as an agent to do that. Some states don't. Some brokers do and some don't. Yes. Knowing what you can and can't deduct, can you go through like a list of examples, just fling it at us on what you can or can't. Yeah. Is it okay to use my favorite example of a stripper. You can do whatever you want. This is your show, Josh. We're just here. So the IRS standard of what is deductible is it has to be ordinary and necessary in your business. And those are super vague. That's what the IRS does. They're vague. They don't give much guidance. The bottom line for me is you have to be able to prove that it increased the bottom line of your business.

So either what you spent money on helped you bring in more money into your business or help you cut costs to reduce the expenses in your business. And the standard that I always look at, the case it comes up, is there was this stripper back in the 80s, right? And her name was Chesty Love. And she decided that if she had these gigantic breast implants, she would do really well in her business. So she got them. And she deducted them on her taxes. She called them business assets and deducted them on her taxes. And the IRS came in and said that appearance-related items are not deductible.

We don't care that you show us that you increase your business hundreds of thousands, the dollars with these. They are not business because they're appearance related. So Chessie took it all the way to the appeals court and she won because the appeals judge said that no reasonable person would ever get triple G breast implants or whatever it was and that these were clearly for business. She could clearly show that they increased her bottom line and that they were a business asset. They were deductible. And I think the bottom line for me there is it shows that almost literally anything can be a tax deduction in your business if you can clearly prove how it increased the bottom line of your business. So that's what you need to be thinking about everything that you're doing.

How is this increasing the bottom line of my business? So like I'm going to a conference and I want to deduct it. I'm going to the bigger pockets conference. Yeah, maybe it's mostly real estate investment related, but how can I deduct this as an agent? Did this increase the bottom line of my business? Yeah, I went and talked with six people that might be using me on their next flips, whatever it is. So anything you're doing in your life as an entrepreneur, I'd be looking, at it in saying, how can I prove this increase the bottom line of my business? And from there, there's a good chance that's going to be deductible. Let's go further into travel and trips. What do you, what should agents do if they plan on going to conferences or even like small,

not a formal conference, like a meet up, you know, like, hey, let's all meet, uh, Lake Gaston, North Carolina, you know, and talk business. For example, just for example, like a hypothetical. What should agents do beforehand to make sure that everything is good to go? So travel, there's a lot of people think like, oh, as a business owner, I can go travel with my family and bring my laptop and work while I'm there and now it's a business deduction. And that's not the case. With travel, you have to prove a business purpose for being there. It's got to be something that you had to be there to do, right?

If I'm just working from my computer, I can do that at home as well. That doesn't matter. But if I'm going to North Carolina to do a mastermind with other agents, and I'm learning specific things that are going to help me in my business, that is absolutely a business trip. Now, if you're going to go there for three days and then spend another two weeks just vacationing, that's where things get tricky, right? So you should be spending the majority of the days for business purposes. So if you're going to be at the conference for three days and you want to spend another two on travel, whatever it is, that's fine, no big deal. Then for people who bring,

a lot of people like to bring their family with them, right? Like they'll go to one in Florida and maybe hit Disney World when they're done. In that case, you need to figure out what is a direct expense and what is a shared expense. So like flights, you can deduct your flight because you're going to the conference. You cannot deduct your spouse and kids flight. But a hotel room, you'd have to get a hotel room either way. So the fact that they're in the hotel room with you makes no difference. You can deduct the entire hotel. So it's splitting that up, figuring out how long you're there, how long you're on business, who's going with you and all that good stuff. In food, like is every, what about all the little details that go along with?

Is that, does that go into direct versus, I don't know. Yeah. No, yeah, good question. Because that's like, yeah, you're on one meal, right? So you're on one bill usually. So, I mean, for me, I'm going to deduct the entire meal. And meals themselves get tricky because it's typically 50% deductible. Then COVID happened.

They want to get people to go back to restaurants and they made certain ones 100% deductible. So the bottom line there, don't try to figure that out. Just put it 100% into your accounting software and let your CPA figure out what portion is deductible. What else related to travel should the audience know about? Yeah, I mean, it goes back with any other expense. You have to be able to track it, right? You can't just be like, oh, I went on vacation and I did this.

You should be tracking everything you're doing, what the business purpose is. You don't need to be like my dad and save every receipt that you had since 1971. As long as I would use a credit card, use a business credit card, it's going to show up automatically. That's normally accepted as receipts. But bottom line, it's just tracking it. What's my purpose? What did I do? What did I accomplish?

How is this increasing my business? And that's why that at least monthly minimum. Is that your recommendation, a monthly reconciliation of your books? Absolutely. Yeah. Number one, just for tracking your business and being able to see those stats every month. Dude, because, yeah, I'm the nightmare. And it is always the end of the year when I'm like,

dude, this would have been a lot easier to remember what all these things were for, had I done it along the way instead of, you know, now. So. And that's what most people do. And look, I'm a CPA. I should know better in my rental business. I'm not going to touch it until January. And then I'm going to be killing myself to get it all done. So don't do that, but that people do. And it can be done. But if you want the true benefit of bookkeeping, you need to be monitoring it monthly. Josh, do you happen to have a like tracker, a simplified like template for for tracking their business monthly?

Yeah. I mean, that's where your accounting software is going to have to come in. You're going to have to use zero quickbooks online, fresh books, whatever it is. And you're going to have to have some type of accounting. That's where if you're just using a spreadsheet, you're going to have to go in and manually do that every month. And that's where it's not going to be done. All this is, it's tough because it's just like anything in real estate or in business. It's like we're always looking for some sort of shortcut. You know, would it be easier if we just did this or maybe like turn our, you know, focus away from it.

I'll deal with that later. But really it's like this is just like anything else where it's like we have. to take the time to figure it the fuck out or pay someone accordingly to do it, but there's like no way around it. And I'm just saying this really for myself out loud because I've just recently, you know, gone and tackled the automations through like websites, you know, like the triggers and the automated and the entry into the CRM and all of that stuff, which I've been trying to put off for years and have someone else figure out for me. And then this is like another one of these things. Josh, could you talk us through your.

Golden Nugget, which I'm looking at right now, looks super dope. Guys, you can go to the agent goldmine.com, scroll all the way down to get access to the goldmine. And Josh brought us a business checklist for super finance nerds, looks like. So Josh, can you walk us through this checklist? Yeah, so it basically breaks down into four separate categories and just a checklist of knowing all the things you have to have. So like setting up your entities, setting up a separate bank account for the business, sending up a separate credit card, and then moving into bookkeeping, whether it's hiring somebody or doing it yourself, getting the accounting software, running a monthly profit and loss, saving, monthly balance sheet, and then taxes, hiring a tax

professional, making sure you know what is and is not deductible, getting the proper entity taxation designation. And then on the last part, I do have increasing the value of your business, which I know you always talk about Shelby building a sellable business, which I love. I think more people in real estate should be thinking about that and aren't thinking about that. Like you want what you're doing now to be an asset at some point. You don't just want to stop doing real estate and then it all disappears, right? You don't have an asset that you can eventually sell. So we talk about like various things that you can do to improve the value of that business.

Let's talk more about that, about the future as agents are considering leaving the business or just retiring. At what point, well, this is hard, right? Because a lot of agents will want to step out of production, but keep their, you know, book of all their clients friends fear, day, when would people, agents don't retire? You know, like I'm trying to think of when I would want to sell my business. I don't even know when. So that, I guess that's my question is, when would you suggest people sell? Yeah. And my guess is part of the reason people don't retire is because they can't afford to because they don't have an asset that they can actually sell, right? So that's part of the reason of focusing on this as early on as possible. So that if you get to the point that you

don't want to be doing that grind anymore, you do have something you can actually sell and, and have money after you're done in the business. How would you go about, okay, let's say I'm ready to sell. I'm ready to sell my business. I want to wipe my hands clean. I no longer want to do the referrals. You know, I'm just, I'm done. What, how would I value my real estate agent business?

Yeah. So this is a good question. And there's, so the way it normally looks, so I went to sell my tax business, right? And it was a very clear a tax business is worth. between one and two times your gross revenue. So that was simple. I just look at what my gross revenue is, and it's worth somewhere between one and two times that.

Every business has its own multiplier. For agents, it's hard to find a specific one because there are not many agents who are building a business that they can actually sell. When I look at brokerages, it's two and five times your net income. So part of this is going to be going back to this is why you have to have a proper accounting.

You have to have those financial statements, so you can see how profitable your business actually is. And then you can look at it and say, okay, if I make $300,000 in my business, there's a good chance that's going to be worth two times that, so $600,000 or $900,000. And there's all various factors that will help determine that. Like, number one, you eventually need to have it so the business is not relying on you because why is someone else going to buy something that you're going to disappear from and relies entirely on you?

So as you start to build, you need to pull yourself out of that as much as possible. What type of systems do you have in place? Can they just immediately walk in and take over exactly what you're doing? or are they going to have to search through your inbox and figure out how the hell you run this business and how they can get it doing it, how they want to do it? So all these things help determine the value and these are all things you can focus on day one to help 20 years down the line when you go to sell it. And for listeners, if you are driving and missed, you know, the ability to write that down, in his business checklist, the one we're uploading into the agent goldmite.com, there is a whole section on

maximizing your business value. So a lot of things that Josh just hit on about, you know, creating SOPs and additional revenue streams, you know, those types of things that you can read through and think about how to implement them over time within your business. So when you are ready to sell, you're actually able to. How can we make this a little bit more tactical for agents that are there? Like what specifically, so obviously getting their systems in place, how would you, how would an agent that's had, that's been working for however many years, be able to step out? Does the I think it's almost like chicken or the egg, right? Like if I'm selling my business to Shelby, obviously my book of business knows me.

Do I start the introduction to Shelby and then at that point she can take over? Or does it happen after it's evaluated? Does that make sense? Yeah. No. And it can be done a million different ways. So like when I sold my tax practice, both of them, the way it would work, the people that bought it had never met my clients.

They'd only known me. And it was a slow phase out. So you kind of phrase it as, hey, Ron and I are emerging. Ron's coming on. You'll be starting to talk to Ron. And over a year's time, two years time, whatever it is, you slowly start to phase out. So the clients get used to the new owner and less used to you. But I'd say the more you can do up front before you even get to that point, the less time you'll have. So a lot of people get to the point they spend, they're going to sell their business. They don't want to spend two more years helping to do the transition, right?

The way you do that is by getting yourself out of that. So whether it's building a team under you that they're going to start to handle stuff. No one you work with gets used to working with any one person, right? You have a team and they go to this person for this and this person for this. So they're already used to working with multiple people. Anything you can do so that people that come to work with you know that I want to work with Allie, but I'm working with Allie's team. I'm rarely if I were going to talk to Allie directly. More you can do that, the easier is going to be when that time goes. At what point should people do create a will in case they haven't already re like redo it you know um and touch on trust as well yeah so that this would be more i would talk to

your attorney about this um and not near enough people have wills that if you have assets that you're going to pass down you need a will otherwise it's going to go into probate and it's going to be a mess and more taxes will be involved in are necessary so as soon as you have any type of assets whether it's real estate assets or even like 401ks or money in the bank or a business or a business that you have that income is still going to come into, you'd have some type of will that designates where that money is going to go to after you pass away. As far as trust,

now you're getting into a more complicated tax arena. Again, if you have assets that you need to start protecting, then I would start looking at a trust. And this should be a conversation that you're having with your attorney and your CPA because it's very specific to your business. And you can get on the bigger pockets forum and everyone's going to be like, oh, what you got to do is go create seven LLCs and then have a trust under it. And then no one can ever come after you and they sue you.

And like, that's all garbage. Like most people aren't going to even need a trust. And the ones that are, it's not going to be as simple as finding it in bigger pockets. So I'd, uh, I'd talk to an attorney and talk to a CPA about it. We, Drake and I recently set up a trust. And by we, I mean him. So he did that. He also, I'm so grateful, has taken over like all of the bookkeeping and all of like the CPA.

Because that's something that, you know, I just, you know, self-admitted that I was the world's worst nightmare. And so I'm really grateful now that I'm a partner who is like, I love this shit. Let me, you know, nerd out on all the details. And so, anyway, all that to say. Well, I guess more so the stuff of what passes over to your spouse, right, or to your kids. The fact that revenue share can be is willable, you know, so the agents that are with EXP that have revenue share, you know, in case, just preparing for the future, what should

agents within EXP, or I guess anybody else like Keller Williams, anybody who gets like profit share, revenue share, what should they do specifically in order to make sure that their spouse is set for success? Yeah. And that's where that's where it will comes in. And that's where if you don't designate that, you're kind of at the mercy of what the state says and even what your business says after you die. So that's where you're going to want to talk to an attorney, talk to a CK.

make sure it's all in place. Okay, Josh, the time has come. You gave us a little teaser in the beginning about how your business has exploded. Maybe it wasn't the word you used. I'm using it. Your business has been booming from your recent efforts on social media. Can you please share what you're doing

and the results you're seeing? Yeah, and I think I treat it maybe a little differently than a lot of the advice is like be very targeted, right? Like have a niche, have specific things you're talking about. People should come to you for stuff. And I've kind of went about more of the, I want people whenever they think of anything real estate related that they come and ask me a question. Part of that is because we also are investing in real estate. So we want to buy houses as well.

But I want someone like, for example, a couple weeks ago, someone came to me like, hey, she mess with me on Facebook. She's never met me. The case, someone told me that you know about houses and I need to buy a house and I can't find anything in my budget. So she had no idea what I even did, didn't even know really know what a real estate agent was. And then we were able to help her find an off market property and getting a contract today. So I just want people to come to me and be like, hey, I have this going on with real estate. Can you help me? So another example, last week, last Friday, someone from my hometown message me and said,

hey, my husband's mom went into long-term care. She needs someone to buy her house quickly because of Medicaid stuff. So now we're able to do a cash offer and buy it and turn it into a rental property. So like I don't want people to just think like, oh, Josh helps people in this neighborhood list properties over $700,000. Like, I want them to come to me for any real estate question that they have, even if it's tedious and something I can never answer or don't want to answer. Like, I'm happy to help them in that and point into someone that can. But I want them to come to me and see if it's something that I can help them with and turn it into something in my business. Wow. So

how specifically are you doing that within social media? What are you saying and where are you posting? Yeah. So like I'm posting every time we do something in our rental business or our flipping business, I'm posting about it, posting the specific numbers, posting the remodel pictures, that kind of stuff. Anytime we get a new buyer or a new seller, I'm posting about it. Anything that happens news with interest rates I'm posting about it. And that's where I kind of use my finance and CPA background to really dig into the numbers and like, hey, you might be hearing this about interest rates, but this is kind of what it actually means for you. Like, you should be buying now with interest rates, whatever it is. So anything in the market I'm posting

about. And then so here's like an example of what happened. That girl reached out to me like, hey, I need to buy a house in this budget. I can't find anything on the market. So then I took that and went into her local Facebook page, her local buy and sell Facebook page. She said, hey, I have a buyer that needs something for $100,000. She's not picky. She needs something desperately. I had like six people reach out to me. Like, hey, I want to sell my house.

I was thinking about putting it on the market. You made me reach out to you. So one of those she's going to buy, and now the other five, I might turn into listings. So it's been crazy. Dude, that's incredible. Okay, before we get too far, I want to pull it back for platforms. Did you already mention, so you're posting anything and everything. Are you posting it on a bunch platforms or which?

Instagram and Facebook and then I do YouTube videos as well. And with this posting, are you, you mentioned that you're posting it yourself. What is your process? Are you just like the thing happens and then you swing it out immediately or do you have a schedule set? What does your process look like? Yeah, no, it's just anything and everything. It's random. That's one thing I need to have is a better system of when I'm doing it. But right now, it's just like in the moment. Like yesterday, I closed on a rental property and I posted a story about how I went and knocked on the house next door thinking it was mine and was like furiously trying to get these people out that were supposed to be

out and realize that my house was next door. And I post that and then I like, I get interaction. Like someone messaged me about wanting to get into rental property. So it's just random stuff like that. Activity gets activity for sure. That's like one of my my favorite things lately. It's like the more shit that you push out into the universe, the more comes back to you. It's just amazing. Right. And I would say the other thing is, like, I've been doing this for six months, like really hard at it. And there's times like, this is never going to work, doesn't doing anything.

And then boom, like over two weeks span, we're just getting all kinds of stuff. So it takes a while to gain traction and then everyone else and all just explodes. I'm curious, so you're posting things. And when you say, like, boom, the explosion, we have the one example about the woman and you potentially getting listing leads off of that scenario. What are some other examples of how people are they actually reaching out or are you doing outreach to them based on comments or likes or something? What does that look like? Yeah. So a lot of it is people actually reaching out to me. So I'll post it in these groups. Like, hey, I'm looking for a house for $100,000, something that's like a crazy

budget that you can't find. And then I'll specifically say like, hey, if we get this with you, your real estate commissions will be half what they normally were. This will be a super easy process for you and then they reach out to me like, hey, I was thinking of selling my house. But then sometimes people will just like it. And I'll go to them like, hey, I saw you like that. Do you have anything that you might be selling? So one of them, the one I actually got her under contract was like that. She didn't reach out to me. She just liked it. And then I reached out to her. I really like that. I like that, you know, I think most people in that instance wouldn't take the initiative to reach out. They'd probably just wait. So that's really cool. So,

Okay, so consistently over the past six months, you've been sharing anything and everything at no specific time frame just in the moment as it comes and now based on that. And being, you know, solving people's problems as they come up and being aware of any engagement, whether it be just alike, you have been able to get prospects out of that. So my next question, which, Ali, before I, it's a little bit of a segue. So if you want to do anything else on social media specifically, then what I'm curious about is once you have these people, can you talk about your capture? So like you're having these conversations. How are you capturing their contact information? And then from there, are you putting it in a CRM? What does your follow-up look like?

That kind of piece. Yeah. So like you know how you said you're a nightmare with the bookkeeping stuff? This would be my nightmare. I'm not good at like getting into the CRM and doing all the things I'm supposed to. So it is mostly like they message me. I take down their number. I text them. I call on whatever it is. I get their email. But so far, I've not been doing it into a CRM. So that's the next step of doing. That's actually, I need to make my wife do that because she's good at that stuff. I am not. So, dude, we have a CRM accountability group once a week. I know. So I know. I need to join it. Send her. Okay, gotcha. But right now, I'm sure, you know, you probably have them, are you on like a whiteboard or maybe a piece of paper and you're remembering

to follow up or maybe this is a bad question? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, yeah, we, yeah, we're writing them down and putting them on a whiteboard and legal pad or whatever I have in front of me. But yes, we're making sure that we're actually following up with them. Okay, cool. Okay, Josh, I'm curious about, you know, kind of the way ahead. You are a newer agent. You have a lot of experience building businesses, selling businesses in the investment space. And as you look ahead for your agent business, what does that look like for you?

And I'm curious about, like, what the specific agent part looks like, but also, like, how it ties to investments in your overall goals. Yeah, and it definitely does all tie together, right? So like there's times I'll go on an appointment. Someone wants to sell me a house and I'll go there and I can't give them what they want. So I can just be like, hey, I can't give you that, but I can list it for you. And I think we can get that. So it definitely ties together.

I would say going forward, like I don't want to be the person that does 100 deals a year. Like that's never going to be me. I would like on the agent side to do 20 plus deals a year and then use the other side to drive my business, whether it's finding rental properties, listing my own flips, whatever it is. So I kind of see it as like the agent side brings in the revenue that we live off of. And then the investment side is what creates our long-term wealth. Gotcha.

Makes sense. Very exciting. Ali and I are both excited to be a part of your journey as it unfolds. And Josh, what did we not talk about today that you might want to share with audience? Anything we missed? So, yeah, I mean, I've been in two different, I mean, I've had my license since February and I'd already been in two different brokerages. One was just like a no commit, like I didn't have to split commission.

so it was great for flipping my own stuff, but offered no support or didn't help me build a business as as an agent. Then the next one, a friend got me into one that gives you leads. And they gave me a few legit leads, but that was a nightmare for me because they basically thought you were employees. And I'm not good at that stuff. And then my wife would be like, what is wrong with you? Why can't you just do what they're asking you to do? I just can't. Like, it has to make sense for me or I can't do it. So then I started following Allie and then Shelby. And like everything that you guys were doing made sense to me. It resonated with me. Like, your social media stuff that you're doing, how you're talking about more than just being an agent. You're talking about the investment side. You're talking about

building an actual business in this. So all of that resonated with me. And then I started going to the trainings. And it's just everything about it was what I was looking for as an agent, but also as an entrepreneur that that doesn't want to be an employee of a business wants like support and training, but doesn't want them to be like, and this is how you run your business. So everything about that has been awesome and exactly what we needed. That's awesome to hear. I love that because I I agree. I mean, I interviewed 13 different brokerages. So I don't have any other brokerages, like as a background. But I interviewed the type of person that I am. I interviewed 13 different because I wanted to make the right choice the first time and not like move my entire business. But yeah,

I definitely saw the differences there where even though I'm a 1099, people are expecting me to be in that office from certain hour to certain hour and do cold calls for their for their leads just because they decided to purchase Zillow leads. You know, like if I were forced to cold call, I would have been out of the business within two months. Like, if that was the only way for me to generate leads. So, like, fuck that, you know. But yeah, no, I agree with like, just our business building mentality to retire early or at least have work become optional.

And even just like, it's something as simple as like what you guys are wearing. Like, well, my last business is like, yeah, you got to suit up when you go to listing appointment. It's like, nope, I'm going to wear a T-shirt and like, oh, make sure your tattoos aren't showing. Like, no, I'm not going to cover up my tattoos. That's stupid. So just like the people in five colors, like you're in sweatshirts and t-shirts and t-shirts and people have tattoos that show like something as simple as that I think makes a

difference in in what brokerage you're choosing. And I just want to say that like we're also really excited to have you on the crew too because like literally you were here for a week before. Maybe not even that long when I was like, hey, do you want to teach our entire, you know, organization about your CPA backgrounds, what they should know. What was the actual title? You came up with it. It was really good. building a tax-efficient, sellable real estate business, I think. Yeah, that's it. So all that to say, we are grateful to have you too and the value that you bring to our organization.

So thank you. Awesome. No. And that's a part of it too. Like you guys are always looking to leverage the skills of other people on the team and like what they can teach other people. So it's awesome. With so many different backgrounds and people like focusing on different things. Yeah.

It's like a melting pot of just like information of people that are. like subject matter experts in whatever topic they're in. So it's like, it's super cool. Headed to the wrap-up questions with all the businesses that you've worked in, sold background personal. I'm curious as to what your favorite app or tool is. My favorite app or tool, man. I really like the one that you gave me, the Opus Pro,

that you can create those videos and break it down into simple content. I use that all the time. For videos I'm doing, I use that Wondershare Film, Mora. Those are probably my two tools I use the most for my social media stuff. I thought you were going to say quickbooks. No. For real. Well, I guess you liked the zero one better. Yeah. We've talked about accounting enough. Yeah. Okay. Josh, what events, if any, are you going to in the next 12 months? So, yeah, I just got back from an investing conference. I'll probably go to at least two more investing conferences next year. I'm part of a private investing group that they

put on two a year that I'll go to. And then next year, I get to go to the five pillars meet up, right? Pillars retreat. It's going to be, the next one will be Memorial Day weekend of this year. We have none of the details figured out yet, but absolutely, yes, writing you down to get one of those slots. Perfect. Because it fills up. Cool. How can we help you in your business? man, anyone that wants to reach out about whether it's buying, you have a house to sell to me or for us to list or you're looking for a house or you want to join the team. One of the other things I had someone reached out to me, like, hey, it looks like it's really cool what you're doing with your brokerage. I'm getting my real estate license.

How could I join that team? So if you're interested in, you're happy to talk about that. Perfect. And Josh, where is the best people who are interested to reach out to you? Instagram, best place, Facebook, YouTube. any of those. And that is Josh Bowerly. Josh underscore B-A-U-E-R-L-E. Hit him up on Facebook. Hit him up on the gram. Hit us up also, Allie the Agent, the Shelby Show, the agent goldmine on the gram. And that is it. In case you have enjoyed this episode and gotten just at least one nugget,

I know that you've gotten several, though, give us a five-star review. Hit him up. Tell him thank you for being on the show. And to everyone listening.