The Science of Flipping - Episode 138: Interview with Sean Terry – Flip2Freedom

Episode Date: February 12, 2019

document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab2feb30e", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/post/3024", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab2feb386", {"title":"Episode 138: Interview with Sean Terry - Flip2Freedom","subtitle":null,"summary":null,"duration":"","poster":null,"chapters":"","transcripts":"","audio":[{"url":"https://audio.simplecast.com/05d3e04b.mp3","mimeType":"audio/mpeg","title":"AUDIO/MPEG","size":0}]}, "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); Justin interviews Sean Terry, the foremost expert in wholesaling. Sean has built several multi million dollar business and is now refocused to build more. Sean talks about his need to get re-energized and how we all at some time or another loose focus. Get a Free Coaching Call with TSOF team. CLICK HERE TO FILL THE FORM. JOIN MASTERMIND  — APPLY NOW!!

Welcome to the Science of Flipping Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. What's up, everybody? Welcome to this episode. I am extremely grateful to have one of my closest friends, a business partner of mine, a serial entrepreneur, a successful entrepreneur, Mr. Sean Terry. What's up, dude? How are you? What's up? What's up, JC? In the house. So he is in my industry in terms of real estate investing, real estate. And so if you need to know anything real estate investing wise, you can find him at the science or I'm sorry, flip to freedom, flip to freedom Academy. He's all over the place. He wrote a great book. I'll let you kind of promote yourself here momentarily, dude. But, um, if anyone is in the industry of real estate investing, you need to

follow him on Instagram, Facebook, flip to freedom with the number two, right dude? Absolutely. The number two. All right. Um two all right um he was uh one of my original mentors became one of my best friends became one of my business partners we run masterminds together we coach together we do business together so it's been great dude so welcome to the episode man i know it's been a long time since we both jumped on a podcast i know it has it's funny when i think back and I first met you guys, it was, it was at collective genius, which is a real estate mastermind. And I remember at the time, um, and it was pretty expensive, right? It was, it was a lot, especially at the time at the time.

Yeah. So it was a big check and this was the first mastermind I ever actually really invested in and didn't really know what to expect. But I did know you because we were all here in Phoenix. And so I walked into the room. There's maybe there was maybe about maybe 10 people there, roughly. So there's about 10 people there. And you and Eddie were there and got to talk to you guys. And it was weird because, you know, we're kind of, you know, hanging out. And I really, I think at that point, and see, it's funny because all the years, you know, that I've, you know, have done business and I literally started in 2003 in real estate, you know, flipping and wholesaling houses. So this was, when was that? Probably 2010 or 11 or so?

It was 2011. Yeah, so 2011. So from 2004 to 2011, I did everything myself. And I always would try to find the free way, the book. Facebook wasn't around and YouTube wasn't really big. So there wasn't a lot of place to get information other than the bookstore to try to figure out how to do this business. So I would consume tons of books and try to figure out every different angle when it came to real estate investing and, you know, and wholesaling and stuff like that so and i was the

type of guy that never wanted to pay for education right i never wanted to pay for education i was you know i was like you know oh i i would see it and it was you know whether it be a mastermind it's a huge check or it'd be someone's course that was you know 500 bucks or whatever and i always always try to you know you to learn what they know or whatever and not really invest in the actual platform of the education. So this was a huge step for me to actually cut a five-figure check, to go to a mastermind and kind of sit there. And the thing is, the whole time I'm thinking is,

am I getting my money's worth, right? Yeah. So I went there with an open mind. Obviously, you know, the thing is, the whole time I'm thinking is, am I getting my money's worth, right? Yeah. So I went there with an open mind. Obviously, you guys were there. That's where we kind of built our relationship. And there's some other really key people that I got to meet at that mastermind. But it was pretty amazing. I think from after that two-day event, I really came away knowing that if I really want to accelerate my success, instead of trying to hack it on a cheap way to try to find it, it's better just directly to go to a source. Find someone you resonate with.

Find someone that you like and trust and find someone that's doing what you want to do to do and then buy all their stuff join their math do whatever you got to do get as close as possible and uh and duplicate it so that's how we met and you you invested in yourself and i invested myself and it was this you know a stretch at the time oh Oh, bro. Of course. When Eddie and I heard that price point, we were like, well, okay. That was the biggest check. Well, second biggest check. But I think what you're bringing up is so apropos for where my mindset is right now. You and I read a ton. You and I just talked about you put me onto Grant Cardone's new book. That was awesome. But one of the things that I've really found to be so true is you need to be able to, and when people say this word, I don't love it a lot, but level up. And I don't just mean by simply leveling up who you're around, but level up what you're digesting, right? So if you don't have $12,000, $25,000, $30,000, $50,000 to invest in mentorships, masterminds, coaching, you name it, you need to be downloading audiobooks, one a week.

You need to be buying the book if you're more of a reader. You need to be finding where Sean's speaking, where I'm speaking, where the people you admire are speaking, and get to that event to shake that person hand, to open up an opportunity to figure out how to be into their world. Right. It just so happens you, me and Kent, we're all part of the same mastermind, which is a way to buy yourself into their world. Quite frankly, I didn't know I was going to meet you there. Right. But I struck I wrote that check. So did you. And now seven years later, we're doing business together. We're running masterminds together. We're great friends. We're hanging out with each other's families.

We're going traveling together. Right. But I paid for that, quite frankly. And that's the reality is I invested in myself to put myself into a position to now be a part of your world, to be a part of your business, to do business together. And that's where I believe the entrepreneur misses the boat. They think about leveling up in terms of I'm going to buy a new car or I'm going to buy a new house or whatever. But I think even the simplicity of listening to audio books and continuing to fill your head with good information, with motivational, inspirational, you know, personal and business taxes and strategies. That's the power of leveling up,

right? To level your game up, level your thinking up is really where I think a lot of entrepreneurs missed the boat. Yeah. And the thing is, you know, there's the whole mindset of first off investing in yourself or investing in education or surrounding yourself with other people. And I mean we're not pitching up some boardroom mastermind. You're asking me what – we were kind of talking and what's the – what has been a key component. And it's interesting because I had a very hard time with that mental struggle of paying for education or paying for mastermind. It's funny now. I have a 20-year-old daughter that's attending Grand Canyon University here in Phoenix, and she's studying to be a nurse.

That's what she loves to do. That's what her passion is, what she wants to do. But I'm paying $40,000 to almost $60,000 a year for room and board, for all the classes, for all the stuff she's got to have, for all the books she's got, for all the dad, the dad, the dad, the dad, you know, with the food. It's like it's like crazy. So I'm sitting there. I'm going just like, you know, so now she's going to become a nurse. Right. And now she's going to be a nurse.

Right. nurse, right? And now she's going to be a nurse, right? And then, you know, when she gets out to make, you know, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 maybe dollars a year and work ridiculous hours, you know, although it essentially is her passion, it's weird. So now, you know, people go, they have an opportunity to learn directly, let's say from a Grant Cardone or a Kent Clothier or, you know, or yourself or whatever. And you have a course or training or education or material and hesitate because, you know, you know, what I've learned is now I'll just buy everything up and then be able to, you know, apply that information. And even if it's one golden nugget, one or two, three golden nuggets that push forward, it's just amazing.

But you also talked about leveling up. And if I look back in my career, you know, when I, you know, was back in 2010, I, you know, I was I went to the mastermind. I met you guys. I was in the process of starting my own podcast and my own training. I literally, what my action level, my intensity level, my drive level was extreme. Just, I mean, massive. I had the pedal to the metal. I literally would squeeze every ounce of every minute out of every single day and literally go from seven, eight o'clock in the morning, wake up, get my daughter, get her school

and stuff like that till two o'clock in the morning, sleep for a couple hours and do it all over again. Not only between running to appointments, running my wholesaling to selling the properties, doing all the marketing, handling all that, managing transactions and building a membership site and doing podcasts and doing interviews and stuff. It was like insane. But I did that for a huge amount of years that created massive amounts of momentum. And I got to tell you, once you – and this is a – people listening to this are – they're at different stages of success in our life. But to be straight up with you, I took my foot off the gas.

Sure. And I've been pretty much living off the momentum that was built by the masses amount of energy that I put forward in the early days. So, I mean, it's amazing because, you know, I have a team now and a staff and sales guys and stuff like that. So we tend to, you know, tend to kind of sit back and then, you know, we want to manage instead of becoming a producer, right? You want to become a manager. And now you're managing the people within the business and they either produce results or they don't produce results. And this year was, you know, for my real estate business, for my

information business and education business, it was off the charts for this year for my real estate business. We had a good year, but it wasn't a stellar year, wasn't what I wanted it to be. And I think primarily because I wasn't 100 percent, you know what I mean? I wasn't all in, in it to win it. You know, I hired on sales guys. They want to, I paid for marketing and leads and training and stuff like that. And I kind of sat back to let them get the deal and tried to coach them on the way. And it's my fault. You know, it's my fault that I didn't step in there and I didn't go in and dive in and grind in and do what I had to do to get stuff done. And I backed off of my intensity level.

And so to kind of relate that, you kind of look at where you're at in your business. I think one of the key factors is keeping that intensity level at a consistent basis because as soon as you get some success, right, and you've got, you know, money in the bank and everything, everything's cranking, right, then you're kind of back off and you go, oh, hey, now I can enjoy it, right? You know, where, you know, where, you know, now I know, you know, keep the intensity as hard as you can, and then boom, then take a week off or whatever, you know what I mean? And then boom, hit it hard again for three or four months and then take a weekend off or whatever, then hit it hard. And, uh, and the problem was I was, I was operating at probably about 30% of my potential and yeah, still making money and still doing deals and do stuff like that, but operating at 30%. So when I hear you say level

up, you know, I always ask myself the question, what am I operating in? Am I operating at 100% of my full potential? Or am I operating at 30% of my full potential, you know, and I see people like a Gary V Banner Chuck or a which you got to be able to hang out, which was I thought was awesome, amazing, and like, like a Grant Cardone and some, you know, like, at my lab. So you're looking at all those different things. And you're looking at, you know, these guys are ultra successful. But they've leveled up and they stayed at a hundred percent pedal to the metal all the way to, you know, cranking at all times on a consistent basis. And I had to – I really had to reflect on myself. I spent some time over the holidays and stuff like that kind of reflecting on what I'm putting in, my energy level, my intensity level, and made a decision to level up myself. I think we could end the podcast right there.

That was it. That's so where my head is at too. And I think it's partly because you and I just recently talked about that I couldn't be more in alignment with you right I had an incredible 2018 We did not achieve like overwhelming a goals, but we did great. Yeah, but quite frankly I took my Foot off the gas to I traveled you know better than most right I traveled more than practically anyone You probably know I had a great year, but did my businesses flourish to where they could have? No. And that's where I took a step back. Um, and quite frankly, that time I got to spend with Gary V was instrumental in

this reframing of what it really takes because he's full out all the time. And you see that on social media, but, um but I know I could play harder I know I can and it doesn't have to be work harder necessarily I don't want to just use that in terms of how to pinpoint it But it means stay focused and that's my word for the year is be really extremely focused on everything I'm now more involved in my real estate deals than I ever have been. Right. And, you know, I believe this year we're going to be more profitable in reshifting where my focus was. Right. So I wanted to be the biggest, the baddest. Well, now, OK, let's actually what does that mean? Nothing.

Right. What really means anything is how are you lining your pocketbooks? What's your profitability of your business? Right. And to stay focused on that profitability. And so I'm very in line with that, partly because of Gary Vee, partly because you and I have been talking, partly because of the book Obsessed or Be Average by Grant. But that's it, is being able to be focused for an extreme amount of time and then release and go on a week-long vacation after three months of crushing it and still having that life. I think you and I have been able to build a certain lifestyle that I think we've become accustomed to, which is great, but we need to get to the next level too. I mean, we're falling short of our potential. I've been sitting in this comfort zone, right? This comfort zone.

Now, I've got several businesses that do millions of dollars a year and stuff like that, but it's still in the comfort zone. I know I could level them up. I could tenfold them. I could crush them. But I've been sitting in this kind of little comfort zone, kind of holding out and just kind of sitting there. And so people understand is, I mean, I have a beautiful wife.

I've been married for 22 years, 2019 will be 23 years in November. I've got two beautiful daughters. I've got a 15-year-old that's a sophomore. I've got a 15-year-old that's a sophomore. I've got a 20-year-old that's in college and down the street from where we live. So, I mean, the thing is there's a difference between going all in

and then excluding the people you love. I don't want to be the guy who has $100 million worth of apartments and has these killer businesses, but I'm divorced and I go home. My kids hate me and I go home alone, you know, to my house, you know, and I'm just sitting there. Okay, I've got all this great stuff, but for what, you know, we got to realize what our purpose is, what what what is driving us to do it, to leave our kids a legacy and have phenomenal relationships with the people that we love, with friends, you know, and getting together and doing stuff and stuff like that. So I look at the whole, you know, raising to a bar, and that doesn't mean shut people out. I think what it means is we can raise to the bar on all different levels, meaning, you know, if I'm going to go out, work out in the morning, I'm going to get to the office. So what am I doing, you know, within those hours of being at the office, right?

And I think what I was doing, I was playing at 30% and it was still producing results, but it wasn't producing phenomenal results, right? So now I'm looking at my day and this is another and, and, and like, I, and this is another thing I got from Grant, which, uh, you know, Grant's amazing and a great example and a great mentor, but, um, breaking your day down into 15 minute increments and then pack your schedule during that time with the highest per productive most, um, that was going to move your business forward, whether it be making phone calls, whether it be doing interviews, whether it be doing something on social media, whether it be making sure your marketing is going out correctly and having done. Or maybe it's even going on an appointment or whatever the case may be. Pack your schedule so tight during that time.

And then bam, at 5 o'clock, 5, 36, whenever it's done, bam, you got to shut it off. Now, guess what? I've got to put 100% into my wife and kids. You know what I mean? Then you got to put 100%. When I'm with them, guess what? I've got to take the phone. I've got to put it down, right?

Because now you're sitting there. If I'm sitting there talking to my wife and I'm on my phone, is she important? No. She's not. If I'm sitting there talking to my kids and I'm on my phone, is she important? No. Yeah. If I'm sitting there talking to my kids and I'm on my phone, is my kids important? No. So I take the phone. I put it aside and put 100% energy and focus into my family and kids because honestly, the bottom line is I've never heard someone on their deathbed or never heard of someone say on their deathbed,

I wish I had more time to make more money or get a bigger bank account, or I should have bought one more property or flipped one more property, bought one more building, right? It's all about, I should have spent more time with the people I love and really made an impact there. So I think we have to get perspective on, yes, we're building a business and yes, we're crushing it, but we have to allot a certain amount of time within that time, crush it, right? But then the other time. Crush it, right?

But then the other time, crush it with the people that are most important in your life, which is your family, right? And that's all that matters. I mean you have a beautiful girlfriend now and stuff. And the problem is if you turn it on from 5 o'clock in the morning until 1 o'clock in the morning or 12 night, you know, and you're completely engaged in something else. Well, guess what? That relationship is going to evaporate quickly. I can tell you. No doubt. And there's so much we could go on for quite a long time about this, right? Because there's other things to that, right? So I sacrifice my mornings, but she doesn't love because I'm an early bird, right? And so I'm up early and she's like, can't you sleep in a little longer? I'm like, absolutely not. Cause I got to get done what I need to get done. But then I am able to get home

at a reasonable hour and spend time with her. So there's a give and take. And I think it also depends on what stage of life you're in, right? If you're a, you know, just getting started. Yeah. You might have to work 80 hours a week. You did it. I did it. I sacrificed everything because I knew I needed to build something. Looking back now, almost 11 years later, right, it was worth it. And so when you're in a phase in your life, you have to figure out, you know, where are you focusing your time, energy and effort, and it may change. I used to go the 80 hours a week. Now, to your point, I go in early and I get out around the same time, but I'm sacrificing my own morning to make sure I get done what I need to get done. So the rest of the day, so those timing, there's no

blueprint specific because to your point, married two kids, your schedule looks different than mine. You have sports that you have to go to at three o'clock in the afternoon. You have this, that, and the other right now I can sacrifice my morning morning but still be home by 6 30 and spend the rest of my evening with my girlfriend right crush it all but you can crush it all day but your intensity level is a 10 at every point in every minute of the day versus being an intensity level you know where maybe you're kicking back or talking to this or without without moving within in you know urgency and without moving with intention you know I mean yeah and we tend to get in business and we get lulled to sleep by success and then all of a sudden we're not moving with that intention anymore we're not

moving to conquer to crush or to are you're on a mission you know we just kind of show up and kind of handle the fires as they come toward us you know I just had this conversation with the client of mine that has reached a certain amount of success they've never seen. And I can already tell they're taking their foot off the gas. I can see it because I'm following them on social media and they're traveling more and they're doing fun things, which I appreciate. And God bless. The reason why we do this is to live an incredible life.

I'm the first person to say last year I probably overindulged on that. But that's also why I now have the perspective of, hey, dude, like you need to watch that because your business will maybe still be successful. But you won't see that growth. You won't see that gain. You won't see the achievement you've had. You will stay static at that level of success. And is that really what you want? Right. Because if you want more more pulling yourself out of

your business won't necessarily create that right like you need to be involved in your business at this point still regardless of you achieving more success than you ever have because quite frankly you want more right and so it happens some 99 of us that reach a certain level of success you take your foot off the gas because you want the lifestyle. That's why we do this is to create a lifestyle, right? Well, that's great. But then you just won't see that same growth that you've been able to achieve. Yeah, and I think obviously hiring the right people to manage I think has been an absolute critical and crucial aspect of it.

And when you hire the right people that do produce results and see, we do a Monday morning meeting. We have our, you know, our, our, um, you know, our, my 80 is plasma on the wall. We put up all our scorecards and everyone reports on their numbers. So everybody sees what everybody else is doing. Um, and if someone's not producing, it's, it's completely transparent and evident that they're not producing. Um, and, and, you know, either if someone doesn't produce, and they consistently don't, we have people report every Monday, right? And then if they don't produce, then they get a report every day. And if they don't produce every day, then you know, sales guys got to report, you know, got to, you know, basically report every, you know,

after every appointment, and, you know, lead managers and stuff like that have to report every hour. So I think when what happens is your goal is to hone in and figure out what the problem is. And if you can't figure out the problem, then they have to be replaced because some people don't have the skill set or the ability. I can tell you I've made probably some of the biggest mistakes financially in the business is a result to hiring the wrong person. And then I like people and instead of just cutting it, which my gut feeling said, get rid of that person, trying to work with them and mold them and coach them into the right person which can't happen right they're either got it or they don't and next

thing i know and it's funny i hired this um this one sales girl she uh and she was a solar sale so she went out door to door and talked to people and sold solar, right? Brutal. And she was the top salesperson and this, that, and the other. So I ended up hiring her, and this is about – this is not last year but the year before. I ended up hiring her, and I was excited about her. I thought she was used to it. She went door-to-door houses and sold solar and she was a top rep. So that being said, it was like

middle May. So I got her started middle May, got her trained up. She worked through June. July, I have a beach house in Southern California in Dana Point. So we went to the beach house. So I'm disconnected, right? I'm out. I'm at the beach hanging out with the kids, doing whatever for a month. And then I came back and she was still kind of, eh.

And then now it's August. August is gone. Now we're into September. And I look back on the amount of appointments that she went on, the amount of revenue that she brought in. that didn't happen and stuff like that, literally $378,000 in a matter of mid-May to when I actually got to fire her and lost 300% because of what we're talking about, you know, you know, and then trusting and there's who's going to produce and yeah, you know, and oh yeah, okay, working and trying to coddle someone to produce results. So now when I hire, I put people through a pretty grueling hiring process. But then when I do a contract, it's only for 30 days, right? And I can break it at any time, right?

So if in 30 days you don't show me what you've got and you don't bring your best game face on, then see ya. That's it, I've got a loss leader, I've got 30 days is the most I'm gonna invest in, if they don't show me what they got, they're done. I know if someone hired, if you hired me, man, I would show up early, I'd be there late, and I'd do whatever I had to learn, whatever I had to learn, and do whatever I had to do,

and make whatever I made happen, and I know, I would make sure that, and, and I know that I would make sure that you know, that I know that I want the job more than anything. Right. Right. So, and I think finding those people, finding those people is difficult. Yeah, I know. Hiring is a whole another episode. And you know, the next part is again, another episode. Do you grow big and scale and have all these employees in overhead or do you stay small and keep it all? Right? I mean I think that's a strong – you got to look at both sides.

I think in my perspective it comes down to maintaining a profit margin that is acceptable. Now, for some people listening to this right now, they're working in a startup, right? Maybe an internet startup or app startup or whatever set up. And there is no profitability margin, right? For a year, two years, three years, but they're raising capital to turn around and invest to in the marketing and stuff like that. So I guess it depends on what business model you're in. And I mean, I know, I mean, like Open Door, for example, I don't know their profit margins,

but it can't be a lot, you know what I mean? But they have an X billion dollar valuation and they're going to sell off the Wall Street, make a bunch of money. So that's a different business model, I think, than what you and I were talking, what you and I do. But from a perspective of growing it massive, you know, if you have the ability to scale it or if it's just like a mom and pop business, kind of like what we run, is that as long as you can maintain a profit margin, you know, and you and maintain it, if your profit margin increases, you know, you can reinvest into hiring someone and growing

it and building it and stuff. But as soon as your profit margin kind of diminishes and it goes away, then that's when you're thinking, do I really want to have the headache of managing, have a big office, have a big team of people dealing with all that type of stuff. Totally. I agree 100%. And we could spin this off into 18 different conversations. So for the sake of time, dude, I want to let you know I appreciate everything you've done for me. Just so everyone knows, when you talk about leveling up, I mean, Sean literally has been

a mentor to me to start my first podcast, The Science of Flipping, which now has led to my next podcast, The Entrepreneur DNA. He's helped me. That's a great name, by the way. I love that name. Which one? Entrepreneur DNA. That's really good.

DNA is the, you know, the strands that make up a person. So if you can get really to what those strands are, you know, that make up the person, I think that's, uh, that's pretty cool. The DNA that makes up the entrepreneur. I think that's pretty cool. And that's the, the entire point of that podcast, right, is to bring on entrepreneurs like yourself where you and I are in the same space. But from the Jesse Islers to Craig Ballantines to all these other entrepreneurs that aren't in our space and what makes them successful and create all those pieces of DNA that make the successful entrepreneur, that's the entire point. So – but anyways, Sean, where can we point everyone to find you?

I mean, again, like I said, he's been one of my mentors for so many things. To this day, I'm still asking him about marketing. He's a genius marketer. So we keep going back and forth about different marketing strategies. And he's a great advisor for that. But real estate based, dude, where do they want to find you? Where do you want to point them? Yeah, they just go to flip the number to freedom dot com flip to freedom dot com.

I have a book on there. It kind of explains the entire business of flipping houses with no cash or credit. It's a great business. It's probably one of the best businesses you get. You can get into and you can scale it to monster levels if you want, which is amazing. And also, too, it starts with flipping, which creates immediate cash flow, and then it can turn into building a long-term cash flow business. Because think about it.

If you had 100 houses or you had 1,000 units of apartments for all paying you every single month, that's great. That means everything is completely taken care of and you don't have to worry about anything and you can just do it if you want to do it for fun, right? Yeah, totally. I couldn't agree more. That's why we do this because we love education. We love talking to people. We love inspiring and motivating and exciting people and stuff like that there's no doubt why i appreciate your time dude i know

you're slam thank you so much um and i'll see everyone else on the next podcast boom thank you guys much appreciate it later