The Science of Flipping - Episode 67: We Are Back And You Won't Want To Miss This!

Episode Date: June 10, 2016

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Welcome to the Science of Flipping Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. Welcome, welcome, welcome everybody back to the Science of Flipping. We are back and ready to finish this year strong. I apologize for being away so long, but there is very good reason for that. We have been hot and heavy in our business and perfecting our real estate business here in Phoenix, as well as working with the man that you see right here, Kent Clothier, my friend, my business partner, my mentor on building out Smart Academy and all of our coaching tools and software and coaching program. And so it's been a long six or seven months, but we are back. And today's an exciting day for me because I am able to bring in, again, my friend, my mentor, my business partner, Kent Clothier as

a co-host to the Science of Flipping. And for those that don't know who he is, you need to, and you're about to know now uh so kent what's going on my man and and let's hit this off right what is happening man first off is this on this thing is on dude thing is on i've always wanted to do that so and let me just make sure is this podcast rated r i just need to this is absolutely rated r we can say whatever you know what i've came drop mic. I've done everything I need to do. That's it. We're done. Drop the mic and make sure it's rated R. I'm out.

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So listen, dude, I want to just take this time as this is going to be the first one, first podcast episode in a long time that people are getting back into our world and what we do and learning how to become an incredible real estate investor and more importantly, getting in your world and seeing what you've done and what we've done together. And so why don't you spend a little bit of time of introducing yourself because you can do it better than even I can and where you've come from and the hardships you've had and how you got into the real estate investing game and ultimately how you've built a

million dollar a month real estate investing business, which we all aspire to build. So I'll let you take a ride. Absolutely. So guys, first off, it's a pleasure to be here. Looking forward to sharing a lot of cool stuff with you guys over the course of as long as we possibly can, right? As long as we can continue to bring value, we're going to be here. I will tell you that for those of you that have been faithful listeners or viewers of The Science of Flipping, you guys have, I've read all the comments, I've read all the feedback, I've seen it all online. I know you guys are truly devoted to what Justin's been providing for you.

So I'm honored to be here, and I'm really happy that he and I figured out a way to kind of do this together. With all that being said, I'll just take five minutes to do this because I know over the course of probably the next each and every week, you'll get to know a little bit more about me and what I believe makes Justin and I a really dynamic team here. But again, for the sake of time here, let me just tell you, I come from an entrepreneurial family, first and foremost. My brothers and my father and I have an organization called Memphis Invest, Dallas Invest, Houston Invest, that is one of the largest turnkey operators in the country right now.

We've been doing this now for, oh hell, I guess 13 years, maybe even a little bit longer at this point. We've literally bought and sold over 3,500 properties at this point. We roughly do 600 properties each and every year and have done that consistently for the last few years. So let's just call it 50 a month.

And we do it through a lot of really cool systems, a lot of really cool technology, and a lot of really cool people that just really, truly care about our clients. And, you know, again, when you care about your clients and you care about your team and you really keep your eye on the ball, it's amazing what can happen. We're kind of the epitome of that. Our real estate business is wildly successful, has been for many, many years. We run a very large, as I said, turnkey operation that not only does it buy and sell of 3,500 properties now for investors from all over the world where it's just a completely self-contained, hands-off, performing asset that we just send them checks each and every month. So I tell you all that because I want you to know that our second business or the second vertical is all deeply rooted in actually doing deals. We are also in the education and software business. And we own a company called Real Estate Worldwide that Justin and Eddie are a part of and many,

many others all over the country that we provide some of the best lead generation tools and systems in the country right now for real estate investors, right? Through our fine cash buyers, fine private lenders now, fine motivated sellers now, and our smart systems. These are, I mean, I would argue that in almost every successful investor that I've ever interacted with, they own one of those three systems, if not all of those three systems, and are actively using them each and every day. All of those systems were created out of real needs in our own investing business. So we never go out and look and say, hey, man, what's the next coolest, greatest thing we can do? We basically say, what do we need?

What is the industry not providing for us? And so at one point, it wasn't providing financing. During the middle of the recession, none of the banks wanted to lend money. So we went out and found all the people that were paying cash and built an empire doing that. Turned around and released it to the industry. Everybody looked at us like we were crazy. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe you figured out how to do this. And now fast forward seven years, it has just become an absolute staple of the industry, right? Everybody uses it. And so, you know, we're really proud of all those systems. And that ultimately kind of led us to our coaching and mentoring and mastermind side of our business as well, where we are

constantly kind of giving back to our community and sitting down with our clients, taking a vested interest in their own success, showing them in a very intimate environment, one-on-one in a lot of cases on exactly how to go off and do deals, how to do business, but more importantly, how to build a life. And that's enough about the commercial. I will tell you that all of that kind of got started, or I shouldn't say kind of, absolutely got started because I grew up in, as I said, an entrepreneurial family from the very beginning. And so I got started in business at 17 17 and from the time I was 17 till the time I was 30 I was fortunate enough to be right you know in lockstep with my father at the early part of my career and then ultimately in a much larger company where I was able

to build a 1.8 billion dollar sales organization seventh largest privately held company in the state of Florida, based out of Boca Raton, Florida. I can tell you, most of us from the time we're 17 to 30, call it through our 20s, we rarely get the chance to go run a multi-million, much less a multi-billion dollar company, but that was my experience, guys. I mean, that's what I did, and I don't shy away from it. Equally, I don't shy away from the fact that I absolutely lost it all at the ripe old age of 30. I walked out, pissed off, got in a run-in with the owners of the company. I thought I deserved more than I was getting, although I was making a lot and getting a lot, and walked out of there pretty pissed off and decided I was going to go build a company in

spite of them. I was going to go make them regret the moment that they let me get out of that company. I was filled with so much piss and vinegar and anger that I basically made every bad step you could possibly make over the course of 22 months. So by the time I was 30, I walked out. By the time I was 32, I'd lost my entire life savings, almost $2 million. And it ultimately brought me to real estate, right? Because I was sitting around feeling miserable for myself, eating ramen noodles, sitting on a couch two o'clock in the morning and saw a late night infomercial for Russ Whitney. And come on down and get involved in real estate. We'll show you how to do this. And I was just desperate enough to go do it. I went to West Palm Beach, you know,

Embassy Suites. I'll never forget it, down next to the airport. And as I sat there in the crowd, I quickly began to connect some of the dots and realized that what I had been so successful at in groceries, which was wholesaling, That's exactly what this guy was talking about, but he was talking about it in real estate. And so I got involved. I jumped in. I mean, I basically had four grand left to my name that I hadn't spent yet living off of my girlfriend's couch. I had fallen about as far as I could fall and I had burnt every bridge on the way down. So there was no going back into groceries. So I had to do something. And I decided to take a leap of faith. And inside of a couple of weeks, flipped my first deal, made eight grand. And as they say, the rest is history. I've literally flipped thousands of properties since then and built an entire real estate empire. So with all that,

it's really difficult for me to talk crap about the guys that are doing the late night infomercials and any of that kind of stuff or any of the gurus out there because the reality of it is that I'm a product of it, right? I mean, if I hadn't done it, my life would be, you know, God only knows what my life would be right now, but I live a very, very charmed life at this point, right? And so I'm anxious to share as much of that experience with our listeners here as we possibly can. Yeah. No, that's awesome. And I appreciate you taking the time.

And, you know, I think you have a ton of notoriety in this industry and most all people know you. And for those that don't, obviously they're going to get their chance now. But I think, you know, obviously as you've always been an older brother and a mentor to me, you know, some of the similarities, even as of, you know, within the last two years, you've come into my office and sat us down and said, here, dude, I've been here. I've done this. This is nothing new. Thank God you have me to at least help guide you where I didn't have anybody. And I just had to learn the hard way. Right. And so this is going to be, you know, I'm excited to get back to this. I'm excited that you're a part of this now. And, and this is absolutely going to be chock full of, you know, um, applicable, uh, things that you

can do in your real estate investing business. It is going to be chock full of mindset, uh, to get you out of your own, uh, you know, gutter of what you're thinking all the way down to how to build a life that you want. Um, we are going cover it all. As Kent mentioned, anything goes here. So we're going to be saying exactly what's on the top of our mind. And for people like Kent and myself, sometimes that can just fly out there. I think that's actually the first time I ever said the word crap. Let's just be honest, right? Normally I would say shit there.

Absolutely. So let's just kind of get it out there. Get everybody prepped. There's no doubt. This is going to be the real deal. We're not going to be all polished and trying to speak appropriately. We are going to be 100% ourselves, who we are when people don't see us or we're not on stage or in the public eye. This is who we are, and that's what we're going to be bringing to this podcast.

Let's do this, dude. I know that we were just really trying to kind of reintroduce everything, but let's give somebody, let's give everybody at least one thing, right? One thing right now that's, that's, uh, cause I get asked the question all the time and I'm sure you do as well. You know, what's, what's one thing you would share with somebody to kind of help them in a very real way. If you had, if you had five minutes with a brand new entrepreneur, whether it's real estate or otherwise, and they were sitting in front of you and, you know, 20 year old kid or a 50 year old, you know, person that's just sitting there saying, Hey, what, what, what would you tell me as an entrepreneur? What do I need to do? What would you share? Yeah. And I'll make it very specific

to real estate investing. Um, here's what we're seeing right now in real life, in our business and across our student body, um, is everyone is asking where to find more leads. Obviously, as you mentioned, Kent, you've developed the software, and we have a software part of our coaching program called Find Motivated Sellers. The key to that is not only how powerful that system is, but I'm going to take this a step further into the key to all of this is understanding that you're in a marketing and sales business and what we have found in our business right now today live in the month of june is that the majority of our deals are actually coming from mail that we sent in 2015 and as of this week we're still getting calls from 2014 which i know some of you guys are shaking your head like oh my god really, really? The key to this

is building an organization that has great follow-up, that stays committed to sending direct mail. There are other ways to get sellers. There's no doubt, whether it's PPC, SEO, billboards, or otherwise, we have found 95% of our deals have come through direct mail. We put our time into it. We're committed to it and we have incredible follow-up. So when you are not seeing the results that you want, that does not give you the opportunity to tuck your tails, your tail between your legs and call it a day. That is when you dig deeper and you keep going forward with what you're trying to do. Continue to send your direct mail. Do not waver. It absolutely works. Kent will attest to that. He built a multi-million dollar business on top of direct now. And it's because every single day we're skip tracing the leads every single day. We're calling people who told us not to call them back

and miraculously as we're calling them, now's a perfect time for them to sell. Whether they're going through divorce, someone passed away, whatever the callback happened. And now we're getting the deal. Right. And right and so you know the five minute presentation is about stick to your guns send out mail do not stop sending out mail keep sending out mail when you think it's time to quit and make sure that your follow-up game is on point in terms of have a very specific schedule of how you are calling these people back how are you getting in front of them, touching them multiple times. We have guys in here, our project manager comes in once a week to go back through the calls that have already been made this week and hit them again before

the week is even over. So we have really upped our callback schedule game. And that's the most important part right now is to keep doing the direct mail and to have an incredible follow-up schedule so that no lead drops through the cracks. So I'll kind of echo that. I'll certainly echo the sentiments of that. Here's what I would tell everybody, right? Is that I talk to people every day that are brand new entrepreneurs and who, and whether they are, you know, doctors or lawyers or dentists that are just now getting, you know, getting over into this side of the business or they're, you know, they come from corporate America and they're just getting over into this side of the business or they're just, you know, they've been working at McDonald's and

they're just getting over to this side of business. I hear from every possible scenario comes at me in some way, shape, or form throughout the month, and the question is always the same. What would you share with me? What do I need to know? And I will tell you that here's what I can tell you. After being in business now for almost 30 years, it'll be my 30th year next year, right? Dude, you're old, bro. 30 years of being an entrepreneur, right?

So I started when I was 17. I'll be 47 here next year. And I can tell you I have failed, I mean, worse than most of you would ever possibly want to fail. You think you know what failure is? I have got as close as you would ever possibly want to getting to bankruptcy. I have no problem telling you that when I was going through all of my bad stuff, hell, I was suicidal. I mean, I was at that point where I was like, I was so desperate that I just, I mean, I hated it, right? So I've been there. And I can tell you that the big gotcha here is as an entrepreneur is to just understand that there is no timeline, right? You don't, you don't get to write the timeline. The only thing that you get to do and the only

thing you get to control is your action. It's, it's being deliberate. It's taking massive action. It's doing something that scares you every single day. It's what you believe your boundaries are. It's breaking through them every single day. It's, you know, again, just echoing what you're talking about, direct mail. Right when you think you know, when that moment that that thought creeps into your head, it says, well, this isn't working. You know what? I mailed two pieces and I got four phone calls. I'm not going to do any more, right? That thought is where you will be defined one way or the other. Now, that is typically where 99% of entrepreneurs fail because they don't take into account that they don't have any idea what the hell they're even talking about, right? If you knew how to be the greatest entrepreneur in the world, you wouldn't be

struggling. So by virtue of struggling, by virtue of trying to figure this out, it's reasonable to assume that you don't have all the answers, that you're still going through the process. And going through the process means you have to go through the process. You don't have the wisdom. You don't have the experience. You don't have all that intuition that has trained you over the years to tell you, you know what, this is where I need to push. Instead, you're listening to your wisdom and intuition that when you were at McDonald's or when you were at the corporate job or when you were a dentist. And none of that plays here. Right? You basically, that's the point where your normal who you are every day thinks it knows what it's talking about.

And it says, hey, man, this is probably where I need to stop. This is probably where I need to back off. You know what? Maybe I'm not exactly cut out for this. And that's the exact moment when you have to double down. That's the moment where you dig in. That's the moment where you push harder. That's the moment where you say, you know what? Instead of two, I'm doing four. Instead of four, I'm doing six. I'm going to keep on going. To Justin's point, I mean, if they had given up the mailing in 2015, they wouldn't be doing the deals in 2016. So if you're looking for the immediate payoff, if you think that your timeline is that, hey, I'm going to start real estate investing today. And if I don't make 10

grand in the first 30 days, I'm going to move on. Let me help you. Don't. Leave. Get out of the industry. You're creating clutter for the rest of us. You're creating noise and confusion and competition and ignorance for the rest of us. You don't need to play in this pond. The reality of it is play big. Go for it. Double down. Decide that you truly want this.

Decide that you simply will never stop. Whether that's one month, five months, or five years, you're never going to stop. You're going to get it. And when that decision takes place, that's when great things happen as an entrepreneur. So that's what I would share with you. It's just, you never give up. You never stop. You never give in. You are just a relentless pit bull when it comes to this. And you're as obnoxious and as delusional as anybody you hang out with, right? Everybody around you should think you are batshit crazy because you're so delusional about being successful. When you're that way, you'll get

where you want to get to. I think that's exactly right on point, man. And in a word that I tend to use a lot of times with our team is commitment. Where's your commitment level? And, you know, there's no more than 100%, right? People say you got to be 110%. You have 100% to give, right? Let's be real about what you have to give. But make it all 100%. Be determined, have a commitment level, and never give up. Because Kent, myself, and so many others are examples that this business really can provide you with the life you want.

Get out of your own way. Don't try to reinvent the wheel or try to outthink what we've done or the experiences we've had. Just follow suit. Fall in line and you absolutely will be as successful as your commitment level is. There's no doubt. Totally. There's no doubt. Totally. There's no doubt. And for those that don't know, maybe how Kent and I came about, and I'll kind of wrap it up with this. My commitment level was to

be in Kent's world. And I'm sure he gets a good chuckle at this, but man, we met at an event. I am a product of an event. We went to a big coaching event, 300 people in the room. I was in the chair. For those of you that have been in those rooms, whether you've been in our room or someone else's room. Um, I was absolutely sitting in a chair, uh, listening and learning. And I stroked a check for $25,000 of which I didn't have that I borrowed from a friend. Um, so talk about pressure and commitment level. Um, and in that meeting, I had a mutual friend and Kent had a mutual friend named Jason who introduced the two of us and Kent's like, okay, another newbie, whatever,

great to meet you, happy, happy, you know, world's good and in my head, I'm thinking, I need to be in this dude's world, right? He is doing hundreds of deals a year. At that time, you were probably north of 300 a year. Now, you're north of 600 a year but I knew it.

My commitment level to be in his world was beyond anyone else's. People literally thought I was crazy, like, ah, whatever. You know, I'm not even going to try to waste Kent's time. He won't take the time of day. Well, he didn't take the time of day until I annoyed the living shit out of him to take him to coffee, to take him to lunch. That's true. We literally, I joined a damn mastermind because I knew he was in the damn mastermind. I spent another, I think 20 grand to be in our buddy's mastermind. Cause I knew he was in the mastermind and I'm like, dude, I'm, I'm in this

cat's world. I'm getting there. Hell or high water. And you know, even my business partner is like, dude, chill out a little bit. You know what I mean? Take a chill pill. And I swear to God, I remember we were in Dallas at the mastermind and you finally said, yes, you finally said, fine, dude, I'll go to coffee with you. Let's go. Right. And, uh, and that's how it all started. And it was just, I believed I deserved to be in this man's world. And from that point, right, we're doing this podcast together. We're business partners together. We're working on coaching together. I mean, it's really transformed. And I've been able to develop that in part because of you, good man.

So I appreciate it. But it was the commitment level you need to have when you know you want it, whether it's a woman and the wife you want to marry, whether it's a business, whatever that is, get your commitment level to that 100% and you'll get your results. And lastly, I'll say it doesn't always happen on your time. Yeah, you might want it right now. Wouldn't you agree, Kent? You might want something right now. I want to be in Kent's world right now. Dude, it took me a freaking year and a half and spending $50,000 to get in your world. But finally, I broke you. I got in your world and here we are.

And so, you know, always be aware that you'll get what you want. Just also be aware it may not happen when you want it to happen. And just have determination, fortitude, tenacity to not give up. If you are waiting for your first deal, don't wait. Keep moving, keep pushing, keep sending direct mail. It will happen.

Do not give up. If you are going to give up to Ken's point, just quit in the first place. Don't get into this game. But if you want it and you want that life and success and to get your first deal, dude, push as hard as 100% can give you. Yeah, I had a mentor back in the day used to tell me there's only one way to coast, and that's downhill. And so if you want to keep moving up, you want to keep doing things, you've got to keep pedaling. And it's just that simple.

If you stop pedaling, you're going backwards. You have got to keep pedaling every single day. And it's worth it. And guys, we're going to share a bunch of cool stuff with you. I'm really excited. Justin, man,

as always, dude, let's, I appreciate you. And let's knock them out of the park here for the rest of the year. Let's do it. Let's, let's do this thing.

I'm excited, man. And thank you guys all for being such loyal listeners. As always, I love doing this. I love giving back. I know Kent feels the exact way. So thank you for being part of the Science of Flipping community world. And I look forward to being with Kent on here and giving you information on top of information. So for that, we will both sign off and see you next week. Peace. Peace.