Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I started real estate in 2019 with my first full year.
We've been through 10 market cycles. I feel like in the past six years and I've seen people come and go in the industry. Six years is really not a long time for the amount of people that I've seen come and go.
But the key is adapting, adapting quick and staying on your feet. So I never stuck to a business model or never. Oh, we're gonna grind it out and figure it out. I understood very quickly the level of marketing that we're handling is no longer sustain when the Flash crash happened. How do we adjust?
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Hey everybody, this is Joe Siegel, your real estate asset protection attorney in Florida. For real estate investors and others who want to protect their assets from being taken by potential creditors, we're here today with Henry Kameho on this episode of a master series of Trust this and we're going to talk about empowering the Hispanic community through real estate investing. That's Henry's passion and he started as a real estate coach and investor and entrepreneur and journey walking through hospitality while building his career as a realtor. In 2018, after attending a fix and flip seminar, he launched his company Soflo Flippers and never looked back. Since then he's completed over 200 real estate transactions before the age of 30. He's older than that now and completed even more and co founded the one on one real estate community, a rapidly growing platform where he's helped over 2000 Spanish speaking students launch their own investing journeys. He's role model in the fix and flip space, combining tactical knowledge with purpose driven leadership, especially for aspiring investors who often lack access to mentorship and education. He's on a mission to help others, especially within the Hispanic community. As I said earlier, achieving financial freedom through real estate. Henry, welcome to Trust this today. How are you doing?
[00:02:01] Speaker A: I'm doing amazing, Joe. Glad to be on and thank you for the opportunity.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Well, I heard, I was reading there that you started in hospitality. What exactly did you do in hospitality before you got into real estate?
[00:02:11] Speaker A: So I, I went to school and started in studying business just because I didn't really know what I wanted. But my parents were really adamant that I needed a degree and I ended up falling into the hospitality school of fiu, which is a great program. I fell in love with that and I decided, okay, let's run with this, see where it takes us. I ended up working in the beer industry as a salesperson right out of college. I got a good job offer and during that time is when I was Exposed to real estate fix and flip. But I thought that selling beer and working in the beer industry was my passion. And that was going to be the career path, you know, until real estate came along.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Well, so then you started as a realtor and saw your first fix and flip. What was the moment or insight that made you realize that real estate was really, really your plan, where you needed to be?
[00:03:01] Speaker A: So I had my real estate license, I got my real estate license. I think I was 18 or 19 years old when I got it. Just out of like inertia, you know, I joke that everybody needs two licenses in Florida, your driver's license and your real estate license. So I didn't do much with it. You know, maybe a cousin do a rental over here, represent one buyer or something. But I wasn't really in it. It was just kind of this side hustle. It wasn't until I was invited to an event to learn about fix and flip. It was a bus tour, right? So big boss and the coaches were going to teach us how they buy, rehab and sell these properties. And that event that I was invited to, I thought it was a scam when I received the cold call to go to the event, but I said, I have nothing to lose. Let's check it out. And that, that event, when I saw the coaches talking about making 30, 40, $50,000 in one transaction, that was my yearly salary, you know, so it really opened up my eyes to, wow, if these guys can make so much money on a deal, I could do it too.
Let's see what this is all about and never look back. I. We went to that event. It was a Saturday, Sunday event on Tuesday. I already had the investor lined up on Thursday. I had the contractors ready to go and we filed the paperwork to get the LLC started that same week.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Wow, you moved fast. So what was it, what, what do you think it was that gave you that confidence to say, okay, yeah, I don't need this 9 to 5 job anymore. I can. Even though, even though it's sales and I'm sure a lot of it was commission based, but you still had that backstop of a salary. What do you think that was, that. That triggered you to go, yeah, I could probably do this.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: So I didn't necessarily quit. I didn't quit my job right away. I started the, the flipping business as a side hustle, right. Which was a challenge in itself. We'd have, I'd go out to see properties at 6 in the morning, find the ones that were on lockbox. So, you know, no Realtor is going to meet you out there at 6am so that I could make my, my sales visits at 9am because they'd attract me. But I didn't. I did three flips my first year while working full time.
And that was when I said, okay, concepts proven. I did three flips. We made money like I had.
We made $90,000 on those three flips.
My salary was 50 grand back then. So at the end of the year, I was like, okay, this doesn't make sense to work 40 hours a week for 50 grand. When my side business produced more money, I'm quitting and I'm going all in. Which was scary because there's, there's no steady paycheck, you know, and if you do three flips in a year, you only get paid three times a year. That's right. It's not a whole lot. But I just saw a way bigger opportunity and believed in myself, which is something that I tell my students is extremely important. You know, people love to blame external factors for their outcome, but Jim Rohn has a great saying that says person's results are 5%, their external outcome 95%, how they react to these external outcomes. And I truly believe that I could have very well said, H, I'm 25 years old, I have no money. Who's going to lend me money to get started in this business? I made up all the excuses as to why I can't do it, but that wasn't. I just never saw it that way.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: What did you use for financing that for those, those first few deals? How did you, you afford those?
[00:06:36] Speaker A: So I hadn't, I had, I had no money, but I had a couple grand in the bank account and not great credit. So I understood I needed to leverage relationships. I remember the event was Saturday, Sunday. On Monday, what I did is I grabbed my phone and I started putting a little star next to every name that I found on my contact list whom I thought could be a potential investor or partner in the business. And I started making calls, started making calls. And I started. It was never, hey, Joe, want to lend me money so I could start in real estate? It was, joe, we need to meet. I have a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in real estate. Would you be interested to learn more? Yes. No. Let's sit down in the office. Right. Obviously I got a bunch of no's before I got that first yes, but I got the first yes in one day. You know, it was probably 15, 20 calls, but it was the first day I got a yes, let's sit down. I said, perfect. Tomorrow we're sitting down. So we sat down, and I prepared a business plan. I'm like, look, these are three flips that I found on the mls. They weren't mine or anybody that I knew, but I said, if this guy bought the house, this is a good thing about real estate, right? Everything's public record. So if this guy bought the house for 300,000 and is now selling it for 450,000, these are the before pictures, these are the after pictures. These are the. The MLS will show you that this guy potentially made 40 to $50,000 if I make the following assumptions.
So I did that three times and presented those three business plans with the limited knowledge that I had at the time there. I. I now know that there were a couple holes in that. In that business model, but it's about taking action. Not perfect action, right? So I gave them that business. I gave them those three.
Those three examples, and I said, this could be us. I'm the agent. I'm the boots on the ground. I'll do the negotiation. I'll find the properties. I have the contacts. Like, let's make this work. You have the money. How do we do it? And, yeah, he. That first investor who believed in me, still invests with me today. It's been seven years now, and it's been a great relationship.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: How did you work those deals out? Did you pay them? Was it like a loan that you just paid them interest, or did they actually have a equity interest in the property with you?
[00:08:57] Speaker A: So the way that the program is set up, that program that I. That I participated in, they tell you, yeah, just grab somebody's, you know, savings and pay them 10% interest on it or whatever.
That was the initial route. I wanted to just pay interest, but what my investor told me is like, hey, man, if you're going to just pay me interest, I know you don't have money.
So if we lose money on the deal, how are you going to pay me? And I was like, okay, that's.
That's a good. That's a good one. I don't know what to say to that. So he proposed. He's like, this is what we're gonna do. We'll partner up. I want 70% of the business. And as we progress and we have success, I'll give you a little bit more equity every time.
That's what we did.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: That's a good way to do it. So have you worked yourself out now that you. You're. You Guys are much more equal partners in your eyes.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So the good thing is there's so many ways to structure, you know, Now I have many other investors. Some of them are flat out interest. Some of them still have equity. But this investor in particular, I started earning more equity in the business until we got to 50%.
When he got to 51%, he said, this is as. This is as low as I'm going to go because it's my money.
At that point, he had.
He had trusted me a little bit more. So there was a lot of money on the line, and he said, I'm not going any lower than 51%.
What are we doing now?
Because as you go, money becomes less important because your credibility grows. Right.
So then I said, okay, let's get creative. What if the company paid for my car because my car is a work vehicle, Right.
So the company started paying for my truck. I need my phone to work, Right. Can the company pay for my phone? Yeah, it's an expense. Okay, cool. So let's pay for my phone and my Internet bill. Let's pay for my gas, let's pay for my food, let's give me a salary. Let's pay for my insurance. And little by little, the package for me being the operator became a little bit more attractive. You know, it had to make sense financially based on what the business was doing. But that's how I was able to justify to continue leaving 51% equity, because we just negotiated different ways.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: So now you're. You're 25 years old. You do your first three deals that first year. Now by the time you're 30, you've done 200, and you've done even more than that now because you're older than 30 now. How. How did you.
How did you get 200 done? How did you scale that to get to that point?
[00:11:27] Speaker A: So 2019, we did the three flips. I was working full time in 2020. I decided, okay, we're gonna go full time into real estate. And I speak to my partner about it.
What's the bottleneck? What's the constraint? It's. We can't find enough deals. The bottleneck wasn't rehabbing them. The bottleneck wasn't selling them. It was finding, acquiring the properties. So we decided, what if we start doing direct to market, I mean, direct to seller marketing, and start a wholesaling business?
Wholesalers, real estate wholesalers. What they do is they basically market to distressed homeowners and they give you a cash offer for your property.
So we decided, okay, what if we open a real estate wholesaling business?
We did that in 2020 and we started doing direct to seller marketing, which would fix our constraint of not finding enough properties. I'm originally Venezuelan, so I have family that, that lives there. And the first thing I did is start, start calling contacts in Venezuela. And hey, I need a higher English speakers that could do outbound calling, outbound texting and do the marketing out there. I basically. So what I did is I basically started a call center in Venezuela and I based an operation out there that my company was subcontract to do the marketing for this wholesaling business. And in 2020, we went from three deals a year to 16, 2021, 2022 was a whole other story.
We were putting properties under contract left and right.
We found other exit strategies. Back then there was hedge funds buying single family properties like it was, you know, nobody's business. So we were putting these things under contract.
I remember my acquisition guys would tell me, this seller wants Zillow price. The sellers would just look at this estimate and be like, I want this estimate.
And I'd tell them, okay, what's the average actual value of the property? Okay. Over the estimate. Okay. Just, you know, we were just putting things under contract and selling them to hedge funds. We were selling to Open Door. We were selling to OfferPad. And that really just.
It was a machine, you know, it was rolling, it grew on its own. But the key was the marketing.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I've got a lot of wholesalers I've worked with over the years. And I always tell people, a lot of people can't do both.
Doing the flipping is one level of risk and the marketing is another level of risk and expense. And a lot of people can't marry those two business models together and make it work without expanding their team just enormously. But it sounds like you were able to do that with the virtual folks. Out of, out of the.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: It's a common misconception. People think I want to get started in real estate. So they're naturally attracted to real estate wholesaling. What they don't understand is real estate wholesaling is not real estate. It's a marketing and sales business. You don't own any real estate. You never, you don't never really control the asset. You're just selling paper. So I don't know. I, I understood that. I'm guilty. I'm one of those that said if I already do real estate, I should be able to do wholesaling. Fine. But I quickly understood I'm in a marketing and sales business. We need a pivot. And that took up most of my time for the, for those two years, 2021, 2022. But. But it was definitely a very good feeder of opportunities for my fix and flip business.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Well, I just want to point out something you said in 2020, okay, that's the start of the pandemic all the way to 2022, which was the flash crash, when interest rates just started booming.
At the end of 2022, you've sounds like you flourished through what a lot of people would have considered, you know, bankrupting times.
Because the weight of just the, the external forces on businesses during those three years there and the uncertainty.
So what, what deal. What do you have one deal that stands out to you that taught you the most in any of that time there?
[00:15:29] Speaker A: So that there. That's like a package question. There's definitely a deal that taught me the most. But I'll tell you what the key is, especially over these, these last. I started real estate in 2019 with my first full year.
We've been through 10 market cycles. I feel like in the past six years. And I've seen people come and go in the industry. Six years is really not a long time for the amount of people that I've seen come and go.
But the key is adapting, adapting quick and staying on your feet. So I never stuck to a business model or never. Oh, we're going to grind it out and figure it out. I understood very quickly the level of marketing that we're handling is no longer sustainable.
When the flash crash happened. How do we adjust now? Right now my business is very different than it was two years ago and it'll probably be very different in two years. But you gotta keep, you just have to stay alert. And I feel like that goes. The same goes for any business that you're in. You have to stay in tune with the market and you have to be able to adapt quick. If you're flexible, you're stronger.
And the one deal that taught me the most was definitely my first deal.
It took me six months to put my first property under contract. I had a KPI for myself, which was every single day you're going to visit three properties at a minimum and you're going to give three offers at a minimum. It meant I have to leave my house at 6am So I can visit three properties that were on lockbox before 9:30 because that was when I had to be at my first, you know, stop. They tracked me through an app so I leave my house 6am, 9:30, I have to be at the first stop.
And at night, 6pm when I got home, I started sending offers, negotiating with realtors and finding the properties that I was going to visit the next day. 3 to 4 properties times 180 days. I visited like 500 properties to get that first one on their contract because my processes were so inefficient that I didn't, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. I learned the hard way by doing so. That definitely taught me a lot about being efficient, about negotiation, what to look for, what not to look for in properties, and how to take better care of your time. So that was a big, big, big learning experience.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: So how did the idea for SoFlo Flippers come about?
Why did you name it that? What was it that finally said, okay, yeah, this is it? And what were your first 90 days like? It sounds like those long business hour days. How did you just stay awake? How did you find the energy for it?
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Just young and dumb, man.
I was so, so hungry. I couldn't. I just. If this Guy could make $50,000 on a deal, I could do it. That's. I would just repeat that to myself every single day.
I just didn't take no for an answer. And it was the ambition. The, the, the. This can't be it.
I used to visit 16, 18 publixes a day in my area to make sure that the beer was stocked. Talk to grocery managers that didn't want to talk to me. They have like 80,000 other products to deal with. You know, they don't want my craft beer on their shelf even. And it was just. There's no way that what am I going to do? You know, become the manager and maybe make $70,000? Let me come. That this, it wasn't for me. It wasn't for me. The ambition didn't fit in that model. So I, it was kind of like a do or die thing. It needs to happen. This is how it's. This is the only thing that. That was the only plan I had to really get out of this little structure, 50 grand a year thing that I didn't want to fit into. I wanted to really control my own economy. And that's why so Flow Flippers was. And it needs, it needs to work. It just needs to work. Those 90 days, those first 90 days were stressful for sure because I was leaving everything aside, you know, just focusing on figuring out how to make this work and really buying into the mindset that it was Possible. I remember I used to tell my friends, I'm a real estate investor and I have a real estate company. And they were like, okay, cool. How many houses do you have? Let me know. None yet, but.
And they're like, so what? How are you a real estate investor? Aren't you selling beer? Yes, but I'm a real estate investor because I already have the company and I'm going to start buying houses. They look at me like I was crazy, but it was part of the mindset that, hey, I can do this. I am going to do this. It's the only plan. It needs to work.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: John Morgan wrote a book about how you can't teach Hungary.
And it sounds like you've definitely, you started out very hungry with that ambition and kept going with it.
How do you, number one, do you still feel like you're that ambitious, that hungry? And how would you, how do you keep that alive?
[00:20:26] Speaker A: How do you keep that alive? So one thing that's very important if you have any, any goal in your life, is to understand the why. Why are you working towards that and make sure that the, the goal is very, very clear.
Sometimes the path isn't always clear, but the goal needs to be clear and the why needs to be clear. If that's the case, then you're always going to find like your North Star, right?
My why has changed dramatically over the years. You know, when I started, I wasn't even married. I then got married. My why changed. Okay, cool. I'm building this life for me and my wife and I. Then I had my first kid. My why changed. Okay, cool. My kid or, you know, a legacy for my children. And then you start helping people and then your why changes again.
You know, I'm. I have the power of changing other people's lives. Your why changes again. So understand your why is what I'm trying to get at. And don't feel people think that your why needs to be this super philosophical, inspiring thing.
Not always my why. When I started, I was in survival mode. You know, I just wanted to pay my bills and have a little bit of extra money so I could go on a cruise once a year.
That was my why. And then my why changed to I want to provide a life for, for my wife. I want my wife to decide whether or not she wants to go to work.
I want to be able to buy her a nice car. You know, things like that. Don't, don't feel like it needs to be the super profound thing because it's hard when you're Starting out, and you're in a. In survival mode, and you hear people say, I want to change the lives of thousands of people. You're just like, henry, dude, show me how to flip a house. So that was me. That was me.
But now that I honestly, I see the impact that I'm having through one on one, my why has changed to helping others. And that's why one on one, which is my education business, has become the most fun I've ever had, you know, while working, because I feel super passionate towards it.
I know I went on a tangent, but just understand your why. For sure. Understand your why. Don't feel guilty of whatever your why is. And if that's clear enough to you, which is all that matters, if it's clear enough to you, you'll find the way to carve that path.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Let's talk about one on one. Your real estate community. How has that, number one, how did you decide you wanted to do that? How have you done it? What is it? How is it working for you?
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Great. So one on one is my. Is my.
My education business. We teach people how to fix and flip. It started in December 3rd of 2022. A buddy of mine, he was just starting to do real estate content in Spanish, and he posts a story. He says, hey, if I rent a bus and I invite you guys to come see my projects, who would be interested in buying a ticket to that?
Like, 50 people commented on his. On his Instagram, I'll go, I'll go. That's awesome.
Do it.
So he says, okay, cool. I'm gonna do it. And he calls me Henry. I have this idea. I want you to be, like, the guest of honor. I want you to be the speaker with me at this event.
And I said, cool, yeah, count on me. I mean, what do you want me to talk about? Just your journey. Just talk about your journey. Create a presentation about what you do, where you were, where you're at now.
I said, perfect, I'll be there. You could count on me. He ended up having a really hard time selling tickets. All those 50 people that said, yes, yes, yes, when he sent them the link to, like, okay, cool. Pay 300 bucks. Crickets, right?
So we. We learned together that you got to do a lot if you want people to pay you for your. For education. And we started doing marketing through zoom calls informally. I just did it to, like, help out my buddy, you know, I wasn't looking to make any money on this deal or anything like that. And December 3rd comes along. Sixteen tickets had been sold he tells me, dude, invite your family if you can. So I took my uncles, my aunt, my mom. I took like, 10 people so the bus would look a little bit more full.
And we had such an amazing time sharing our experience.
And people were so grateful and so inspired by what we do that it was a moment of realization. Like, we. We're not that special. Like, we're not extraordinary. We're not extremely smart. We don't have these crazy talents. But, yeah, look what we've accomplished. You know, it's hard to step back and really see how far you've come when you're so worried about where you're going. That's always been me. I think that's. That kind of comes with ambition, you know, you're always looking ahead, so you never have time to really step back and just smell the roses. And that was a mo. It was an aha moment. It was. We've come this far. These people are super grateful for it. They loved it. We had a great time, my buddy and I, Marco, my business partner, we had a great dynamic.
What if we make a real business out of this? Like, can we make a business out of this? So we questioned ourselves, and we said, you know what? Let's sit down and talk about it. He told me we were having some beers after the event, and he said, if you're, you know, if you commit to this with me, one on one is as much yours as it is mine. He had made up the one on one brand, but there was no brand.
Yeah, so that was on the. On that Saturday. On Monday, we were sitting down in Marco's office, and we have that picture, and we share that picture in our events, which now have hundreds of people of Marco, my dog, and I and his board in his little office drawing out a funnel, drawing ideas what one on one could be, what one on one should be. And yeah, here we are a couple years later, not even three years into this, into this dream, and now it's. It's kind of. We say it pretty quick, but now our workshops have hundreds of people. Today we have an online workshop. Yesterday was the day one. Today's day two.
Almost 300 people connected.
Wow.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Are most of them Spanish speaking?
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Is that so? We only. All our workshops are in Spanish. All of our educational products are in Spanish.
We found that that could be our competitive advantage. Everybody's doing it in English, and I mean, there's a lot of big, big, big education companies in English. There's big hitters in the English market, but who's bringing it to the Latinos, you know, and it's a lot of us.
So that's where we saw kind of like the blue ocean. Right.
And let's jump in there and bring all the knowledge that we've acquired from all the mentorships that we've paid to English speakers to the Latin community and it's been great. So everything is in Spanish and everybody's.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: From all over the country.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So all our workshops up until March of this year were in person and it was two times a year since March. We started doing our workshops, first monthly virtual model. And it went great.
So now we've, we've scaled that and now we're doing our workshops every two weeks. And we do it 100% virtual. It's a three day event.
So we start five, well, four hours, so five to nine on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And we're doing it every two weeks and we're getting hundreds of people every two weeks. So it's, it's grown, thankfully. It's.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: What is, well, what is something that you've learned from that scaling that it sounds like you started doing them in person and now you realize that, oh well, it's even better to do them virtually. What led you to that realization?
[00:28:30] Speaker A: And so there's a. There we're still going to do the in person events because I feel like people still need that.
People still need that personal touch. And the networking that you could do in an in person event is very, very different. It's also very different for our sponsors. Right. So our sponsors on the virtual events, they don't get the same recognition, they don't get the same relationship or touch with our clients as they would in an in person event.
So the in person event is particularly good for, for our sponsors and for the networking, but the energy in a room of 600 people that all have the same goal, that are all there to learn the same thing is you can't, you can't duplicate that.
But unfortunately, people in the digital age that we're in don't want to leave their house or have a hard time leaving their house because you can get everything with a touch of a button. Right.
So if we want to cater to the masses, we need to give them what they want. And these people want to connect from their pajamas or they want to connect from work or wherever they want to connect from, we have to give it to them. We learned that that's what all the big guys are doing in the industry. So we're going to do the same. We started this Model in March and it's been going great. And now the guy in California yesterday there was a guy, a guy from California, the vip. I remember he was asking a question, he could connect and it only cost him the price of the ticket. Prior to he would have to pay the ticket to the event, fly out, pay the meals, three nights at a hotel. The barrier to entry is much higher and access to the same information.
There's obviously some things that you're not going to be able to feel in the virtual event, but I think it's had a great success because, because of how accessible it is.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: Do you guys track the progress of the attendees after the event? Have you had any way of measuring the impact you've had overall on the community?
[00:30:28] Speaker A: So we have, we definitely keep tabs on our high level students, on our elite member students and it's inspiring to see how well the community stays together because the mentorship is a year long. We're two and a half years into this business.
So the first graduating class per se, they are done.
They've been done with the program for a year and a half now.
Out of that graduating class, I want to say 75% or maybe a little bit more, did their first flip. And out of 25 of them, six of them are, it was 20, the first graduating class, six of them are now coaches, ambassadors for the brand. Like they're actively working inside the one on one brand. Aside from their fix and flip business which is, I mean if you look at it percentage wise, it's more than 25% of the first graduating class is now a key part of the One on One brand. So ours, I don't know what that metric is, but our stick rate is incredible. The guys that, that, that have a success through our program, they stick around and yeah, they, they become friends, family, part part of the business.
We've met a lot of really cool people through this business.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Well, and you've also created a network nationwide now sounds like of, of that everybody can work together to share not only ideas, but share deals. Does that happen, sharing deals, working with each other?
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There's a lot of capital that gets raised through relationships inside of the community. Deals that people share, they partner up on. We also have strategic alliances with wholesalers who we know are reputable that could provide deals to our community. Lenders that we know are reputable that lend to our community.
Title companies, attorneys, like we, we create this network of people that we work with that we know are not going to make us look bad and that we know are serious in the business. As you know, real estate, especially in Miami, there's sketchy people in, in there. So we definitely want to make sure that we're bringing you the credible guys, the people that, that are true professionals.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: Yeah, trust me, I was in title for almost, I think, 25 years. And we always. Anything coming out of Miami Dade, Broward county, we always were like, we gotta watch this one closely. Because it's. If they're coming all the way to Orlando for a title company, there's usually something going on with it. Definitely some fraud happening there. So. Yeah, some sketchy folks down that way. What, so you've come a long way, I mean, six, seven years here.
What is something that you've had to unlearn in that time that you thought, this is it? This is absolutely a truism.
It's a, it's a law. It's not a theory. It's not a hypothetical.
It's. It's real. And now, now I know it and it's like, no, that wasn't the case.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: That is a great question.
What is something that I've had to unlearn? Oh, one. Okay. The boss is always right or you do what the boss says. That can't be further from the truth. If you're trying to scale a business, if you're trying to scale a team, and that took me a while. Because your boss tells you to do something, you just do it, Right? There's. There isn't in most corporate scenarios, in most workplaces, there isn't truly a space for you to question it. And I understand that because we need efficiency in the workplace. If I need something to be done, I can't give you a whole explanation as to why. Right. That would be completely inefficient.
But there's a line there, and it's not an absolute truth. And I think that my key, my key to success as a leader has been understanding that as the boss, as the leader, my job is to make sure that my employees or my team members have all that they need to be successful.
Not that they are doing what I told them to do.
My job is to equip them so that they have the highest percentage of success possible and not do what I think is right, always.
So implementing those spaces where they could bring up and question, where they could bring up and say, hey, I disagree, or this is how I think we should do it. This is the constraint that I see in my position has been fundamental to my success as a leader.
So the boss isn't always right and it's not always do as I say.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Well, I think that one of our core values is be humble. And that to me has been the thing is I tell people I don't want you just the boss has to be humble. The owner has to be humble enough to go, yeah, okay, I need you questioning me and pushing back sometimes on what I've said to do. I don't want you to do it all the time, but at least when it's, when it's a real issue, I do need you to push back on me and say this, this sounds stupid or this isn't going to work or, and why.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: I think it's a blessing to have people in your team that could identify when is the time to push back and when is the time to bring their input. Because sometimes we're not in the trenches all the time. We don't see everything like they do. You know, it could be sometimes you're too nearsighted when you're in the trenches and sometimes when you're too far out, you miss things too. So that balance I think is key to a harmonious relationship and long term success.
[00:36:17] Speaker B: Well, it also makes the employees feel empowered. They don't feel like they're just automaton doers. Just do what I say, do what I dictate to you and don't think, just do.
I've never wanted employees like that and I don't any business owner who does. I don't know if they're going to be that successful for very long. What's something that is important in your daily routine that you wish you had.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: Started sooner that's important? My daily routine? Oh, I, I used to just get up and go right away and never give myself any time to organize my thoughts or to like prepare for my day.
That took me a while to just sit back and you know, take those 10, 15, whatever, five minutes that I'm gonna need to organize my day. That's very important. I'm not a big like to do list and check off but I do like to prioritize what needs to get done in a day. I do like to, you know, sometimes it's sit in my car for five minutes before I get off to go to the office and all these external factors start interrupting my day to organize my thoughts. Sometimes I'll turn on YouTube and just listen to like some Jim Rohn stuff, you know, or listen to a book or a podcast, anything to just clear my mind. And it's again, it doesn't have to Be the super profound thing where you're meditating for doing yoga for 30 minutes, but just give yourself five minutes to organize your, your thoughts, organize your day, Set yourself up to win that day is key. And that used to be, you know, get up, just get on my phone, start putting out fires as soon as you can.
Give yourself that time to, to prioritize, to really clear your mind.
[00:38:08] Speaker B: That sort of takes me to the, to the next question. What are some of the books or podcasts that you find most helpful for you?
[00:38:15] Speaker A: So I really like Bradley.
I like his podcast Dropping Bombs. He has some characters on that show sometimes, but it's all about people that have built businesses through all aspects that you wouldn't even think about sometimes. And it's very interesting to see everybody's journeys a little bit different and tagging along with that. I love hearing other people's stories and learning how they got through their situation.
Everybody's situation is unique and everybody has a different skill set to deal with whatever that that was. So you learn a lot through that. And these two books particularly, that really, really stuck with me and I think had a huge impact on my life. Number one, Shoe Dog by Phil Knight is my absolute favorite book.
You see what, what he did, you know, to build Nike into the brand that it is now. And being an entrepreneur in a very small company compared to Nike, there are so many things that you can relate to.
There are so many things that I almost felt like, dude, I feel the same way a little bit, you know, so seeing that he had the same struggles as some of us entrepreneurs that might have 1, 2, 3, 4 employees, it doesn't matter how big you are, we have the same struggles.
So that was, that was incredible to understand that he has a great story.
That's Shoe Dog, Phil Knight. And then the other one, which is the opposite, is the ride of a lifetime.
Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, he did the opposite. He climbed the corporate ladder to like probably the absolute highest position that I could think of right now, be the CEO of Disney. Right. It's the opposite of start from scratch selling shoes to making the biggest shoe company in the world.
So it's two very different paths to success, two very different thought process, two very different ways to reach the end goal, which is be extremely successful. So I thought those two books, they, they complement each other because they're so different. And there's things that I picked from each one of their stories that I thought were truly inspiring.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: Well, that sort of brings us full circle back to what you Were talking about your, your virtual events versus your in person events. I do a lot of coaching. I go to a lot of coaching, go to a lot of meetings. And I agree with you that the in person is better because you do that networking.
But it's not just the networking. I've literally been sitting in workshops and seminars and intensives with other lawyers. And we'll be sitting there and we're talking about, you know, how hard it is to find people, how hard it is to hold on to people. Back when the, the great resignation was happening, we were all, you know, having this problem and there was this lawyer who's sitting beside me, and we just started talking and I said, yeah, well, we just can't find people and we can't hang on to the people we've got.
He said, I thought I was the only one.
And I think that's a big part of those, those networking events. Because as an entrepreneur, you are, you do feel isolated and you feel like I'm the only one who's ever had this problem. I'm the only person. Person who is having this problem. It's never been had before. It's so unique. Everything that I do is. I've only done it. No one else has ever done it. But when you just get out there, read other people who've been through it, watch podcasts of people who have been through it, and talk to others who are going through it, we can all get through this together. It's just we have to break out of that solitude sometimes. We've got to come out of our, our shells and go talk to others and get into those mentoring and coaching programs with others who are on that same journey to get to that point where we're not alone and we can learn, we can grow from that. And I think that's probably, it sounds to me like that's probably one of the things that's helped you move bob and weave with all the different changes that have happened. The 10 different markets we've been through in six years is this. You've. You've opened yourself up to listening to others. Would you say that's true?
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Absolutely. It's. It's consistently investing in your education because people would think or in your personal growth. People think, okay, cool, I'll pay a mentorship. I'll learn how to fix and flip, and then I'll never have to pay a mentorship again. Nothing's further from the truth. You need to stay in tune. You need to stay in circles of people that are doing the same as you and, and it's tough.
Back to what you were saying of I'm the only one having this problem. You open Instagram right now and it's like everybody lives in a movie. You know, people don't post the struggles. People post the trips and the cars and this and other wins, which it's cool because you want to share that. But some people live and die by that and they think that they're the only ones that are having problems. Hey, I'm posting wins, but trust me, I'm having problems too. And those spaces, those masterminds, those networking events, getting out and being with people that are doing the same thing as you and have that abundance mindset of sharing their knowledge and growing together is absolutely necessary. It's not a want, it's absolutely necessary if you want longevity in your career and you want to continue growing.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: And I think that's so hard to find in any sales driven industry where you see so much of life as a transaction. Fix and flip a house, you're going to pay me for it, you're going to buy it. I've got contractors that work with. It's very transactional. It's hard to build that abundance mindset that well, no, there's no scarcity here. There's plenty of to go around for everyone. And as I give, I'm going to get back more and you're going to give and we're all going to get back more than we ever give during our lives.
It's very hard, I've found for real estate investors to flip that switch of yeah, yeah, yeah. You deal in transactions all day, but stop it. When it comes to your growth, you've got to have this abundance mindset. You can't look at life as a transaction. Every single thing you're doing is a transaction. You have to start looking at abundance. And what can I do? And some of the best real estate investors I've seen, most, most successful ones I know are the ones who approach every sale, every purchase of a property, every contract as how can I help you win? How can I get you into your first house? How can I help really get you into this house? How can I help you get out of this house?
It's, it's, they approach it that way not as a how much, you know, can I, can I shave off of this purchase price that I'm going to win? And I've, and I've won and I've. And they've lost, you know, in life and that's not a good way that's not a healthy way, mentally and emotionally, I think, to go through life. What do you think?
[00:45:21] Speaker A: No, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And that's. I don't know how you teach to get out of that mindset. I feel people just need to grow out of it. Right. Which is why opening yourselves up to groups like this makes you understand that and putting yourselves around other like minded individuals is the number one thing that you could proactively do.
But I love that you're talking about that in our, in our coaching, we tell everybody, I'm not here to teach you how to flip a house.
That's simple. I'm here to teach you how to build a fix and flip business. Business is anybody could go flip one house.
Not a lot of people could say they live off of fix and flipping and that they could create a financial freedom, which is an overplayed term right now. But it true through real estate investing. And it all starts with fix and flip. And that's what we want to teach. We don't want to teach you with just one house. So we're not focusing on the transactional. We're focusing on building that business. And we try to try to push that into their mindset every time we can. And that's kind of like one of our main points with our, with our students.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: Wonderful. Well, we wrap up. Dana, you got other things you need to be doing.
One of the things. Our mission as a firm is to help people aspire to a better life.
So I always end every podcast episode with a question to my guest who has helped you aspire to a better life. And it doesn't have to be just one person.
So who, who's helped you?
[00:47:01] Speaker A: So I'm definitely going to say my wife. Even though there's been a lot of key players that have helped me implement the vision, I think that it's extremely important for you and your spouse or your significant other to be aligned on what the vision is.
And then, hey, there's going to be a lot of key players. I've had coaches that are phenomenal in the industry and so many coaches that I have a lot, a lot to be grateful for. But at the end of the day, the number one key player in my life has been my wife. And keeping that, you know, that vision clear and supporting you.
As you know, being an entrepreneur is a lonely road. Being an entrepreneur, there's some very long nights. There's a lot of sacrifices having that other person there to support you and to understand that we're doing this together. The goal is that that's where we're going. I appreciate your sacrifice and I'm here to, to hold it down has been key to my success.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: That's wonderful and I hear that a lot. And, and some of the best relationships I think I've, I've heard and it's my coaches who have taught me this.
They sit down with their spouse at the end of each year and they basically do a vision alignment planning for the next year with their spouse. I mean, we do this in business every quarter. You do it once at home, right? Why not at home? Why not at home?
[00:48:30] Speaker A: So what I do is I have two small kids, so getting away is tough. But what we do is we'll do if it's a weekend getaway or one trip a year at least where it's just us two and at that trip we work out some time to sit down. You know, the last time we did it, we were on a beach in Mexico. You know, what better place to just clear your mind? And yes, we went to the beach with a little notebook and a pen and we just took a minute to write some stuff down and try to align on what the goal is, what the vision is. We actually have one coming up in two weeks. We're going to do just a weekend cruise is so hard to get away, right? Us to weekend cruise. We already did the traveling with the kids for summer. Now let's just do something us two real quick and let's take those 30 minutes to sit down with the note somewhere quiet. And where have we come?
Where are we going? What do we need to do to get there?
[00:49:29] Speaker B: That's wonderful. Yeah, that's great advice, great coaching and very happy to have you on the show today. I'm so glad that you came in. I think that your, your words were and your journey are going to really inspire a lot of people, which is what we hope that this podcast does.
Again, thank you for being here and if you ever need us in the future, please don't hesitate to call or email me, whatever. For now though, I'm going to go ahead and sign off and if anybody has any questions about about us or Henry, we'll have links down in the show notes and please take care and have a great day. And until then, trust this.
Thanks for listening to this edition of Trust this. If you got something out of it, please press like and subscribe and give us a five star review to help us reach others who can benefit from this series. Until next time, keep aspiring to a better life.
