What's actually going to help you do more deals?

Cole Ruud-Johnson (00:00): What's up guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Off Market Operator. In this episode, I've just gotten back from a three week trip to Europe, three and a half week, really four week trip to Europe and I am back on the mic. I'm updating you guys on kind of some thoughts I'm having around business and how you guys can scale. Spent a lot of time out there just narrating on what you guys need to take your business to the next level. So without further ado, let's get into it. (00:26): People Don't fail at real estate because they suck, they fail because there's too many ways to succeed. That's why I suggest you focus on the most important skill and all of real estate, which is finding deals. I'm Cole Johnson and in this podcast I share the exact steps I've used to source 400 deals by age 24. This will allow you to do three things, control your deal flow, make unlimited income, and build your empire as an off-market operator. (00:55): A lot of us in real estate and other businesses, but especially real estate, we're just not solving for the right problems. And I just got back from kind of a jaunt around Europe. I was in Europe for about three weeks in total. Went to London, went to all around different islands in Greece, um, on a cruise. Went to Turkey, a few other places. I was asking myself questions. I was kind of accidentally disconnected from work, not on purpose. Mostly it was an accident. I bought some wifi package that wasn't doing it on the cruise and I couldn't connect the calls and couldn't connect the emails and I don't like that. As an operator, I like to be in my businesses two hands, two feet every day. I've built companies in a way where I don't necessarily have to be, but I still like to be. (01:31): And so I had questions spinning around in my head quite a bit while I was out there around what makes successful business not a successful business. I talk about a lot how I think in real estate it's more of a game of focus than anything. I don't think any of us really truly fail because we were not capable of doing a deal or doing a flip or doing a wholesale, but really because it's overwhelming and there's so much information out there and there's so many different people telling you different things and you know, innovation, this wholesale that fix and flip this subject to that you never really get like a clear A to Z guideline. That's really what we built our, our coaching group on. It is on that guideline that A to Z premise of how do you get from A to Z clearly with baby steps. (02:08): And I think a lot of people fail because they don't stick to one thing for long enough and really give it a meaningful effort where they get traction and you know, the 10,000 hours racks up. So anyways, that was kind of a, an intro to the episode you guys post intro intro Today I wanna talk to you guys about what I call like the the need to be truths. And we're all building companies, you guys and for so many levels, you know, from zero to a hundred, from a hundred to 500, from 500 a million. I give away a lot of tactical advice, right? You know, how do you build a buyer's list? How do you work with your buyers? How do you build a marketing list that converts? How do you cold call it scale, how do you little nuances, how do you automate and systemize a real estate business? (02:44): Partnerships talking about all that kind of stuff. But today I really wanna talk about what needs to be true for you to get to where you want to go in this business. For some of you guys that you just want to do five deals a year and have that replace your W2 income and travel for the world and you know, virtual wholesale, that's awesome. Some of you guys, you wanna learn how to source off market deals so you could do more flips, more commercial deals and grow that side. That's fricking awesome for a lot of you guys. You want a million dollar year also business or a million and half. I can help you guys get there as well. And so what I'm gonna talk about today, you guys is kind of the three tiers of scaling and, and what needs to be true. The first off to go from like W2 or you know have a side household in wholesaling and you want to go from call it zero to 250 grand a year, okay? (03:23): Running at a 40% profit margin at that level, most of you guys will be able to do that. You'll be netting call it 80 to 120 grand or so, 80 to 140 grand or so. What needs to be true there is the first thing first you have to be willing to sacrifice a portion of your day every day towards this, okay? I believe to a certain extent entrepreneurs and business owners can be crafted. They don't have to be born that way. But the one thing you have to force yourself to do is show up every single day and keep momentum going in your favor every single day. Somehow you can't be the person that works on this one day a week for four weeks. The people in our group, we've had over a hundred people in our group go from zero to having a successful wholesale company cause we're very hands on with them. (04:04): We don't really just open it up to anyone. And we've found out that for most of them, most people in our group, if they're half asking this and they're, you know, taking a baby step here this week and then that week and then this week, they never really get that momentum that adds up for them to actually be able to do consistent deals. The first thing that needs to be true for you guys, if you want to go from the first realm of say zero to two 50, call it zero to 500 k, if you want to play in that ballpark, you have to be willing to do some kind of daily, daily activity, daily revenue generating activity towards your business to get to do that between zero and 500 a year and your own business and any business business especially in real estate. Cause of the moving pieces and things you have to learn by going through it. (04:41): You can only learn so much through courses and through podcasts and stuff like that. The second thing that needs to be true is you have to be okay with your family's friends relatives laughing at you being man that sounds scammy man, that doesn't seem real man. You need to go back and get a job man, you should have graduated college, this, that and the other. I mean I remember vividly when I was probably 19 and all my friends were home from college one summer and I was in the car on the way to the grocery store and this one girl was like, yeah, you know, I mean I just really made a mistake really be back in college and I remember looking at it and go, could be right but I just have a feeling that this is the path for me. And if you guys feel that way about this business or any entrepreneurial journey, you guys have to remember just because you follow entrepreneurs on Instagram and Twitter and that's all you talk about or and hear about you listen to podcasts, that's that's what you're, I guess ecosystem is most of the country, most people on this earth don't live in that kind of subset of the population that business owner GoGet it real estate kind of world. (05:33): So you are gonna have to need to be okay. That's the truth. You're gonna have to need to be okay with that happening cuz it does a lot of you guys will have the luck of having supportive families idea but for a lot of people it's not the reality and it is the hardest part of this for a lot of people is stepping out of that box and that conforming box of what your life should look like and going, hey, you know, after I get off of work I'm gonna go drive for dollars after I get off of work, I'm going to go make a hundred cold calls after I get off of work, I'm going to go to a real estate meetup and meet someone and try to move the ball forward. I remember you guys, when I was 18, 19, I was going to meetup side and I didn't know who anyone was. (06:04): I'd never done really that many deals, didn't have a brand but I, I just showed up and you know, that goes hand on hand with the first need to need to be true, which is show up every single day and move the ball forward somehow with some kind of momentum. The second thing is really have to insulate yourself and protect yourself from what other people have to say about your business. Cuz it is possible a lot of the gurus online about this stuff. Even if they have done five deals, 10 deals and whatever it is, it's possible, okay? You don't have to have a real estate empire or a billion dollar business to have an incredible life from business that's funded by your own company. So first thing, first, it's a hundred thousand percent possible for you to do this, but you have this that need to be true. (06:41): The second need to be true, you have to be okay with that. The third thing that needs to be true is that you're going to have to confront expanding your capability to deal with stress. And I see so many people in this business, in any business and I wanna be really honest in this episode, I thought about this a lot when I was out in Europe as how can I better serve people that come through our programs or that hear me talk on my podcast or just in our ecosystem is a lot of people don't talk about this. Even if the business model is quote on quote easy more, the business model is doable or we can help you get started and do deals. Business is such an emotional game, okay? If you can't regulate emotions and stress, it's very hard to get done what you need to get done every single day. (07:21): It's very easy to write a to-do list out of 5, 10, 15, 20 things, but it's even easier to convince yourself not to get through all of those and push stuff off day after day after day after day and deals fall apart, pirates fall apart, lawsuits happen, money gets lost, things happen in this business. You guys have to be okay and it needs to be true that you're okay confronting your stress level and expanding that you guys. And it happens with time, right? Your callous towards stress will grow and you'll get more and more used to dealing with more complex things. But that's the third need to be true. If you guys want to get to a 500 k a year and I don't wanna talk about they'll be belong beyond that, but to get to 500 K, what do the three need to be true so far? (07:58): You have to be okay showing up every single day, building momentum, you have to be okay, insulating yourself from other people's opinions and you have to be okay pushing on the upward upper limits of your stress levels. It's the reality of it. The fourth thing I would say that has to be true to get from zero to 500 k is you have to have what I call like 2000 hour knowledge. So you don't have to be 10,000 an hour BM master, but you do have to invest in a course or two in a mastermind or two and spend some time on YouTube and you have to have some kind of knowledge, product knowledge about what you're trying to do. If you guys do those four things, I have no doubt in my mind that anyone can't get to 500 k a year in this business, right? (08:33): If you're showing up every single day talking to sellers, talking to buyers, if you're showing up every single day and insulating yourself in people's opinions, you're showing up every single day and understanding that days are gonna be hard and stressful and that's okay. That's what you signed up for. And if you're, show me every single day understanding you're gonna have to invest some in your education and understanding of the business, you are going to get to 500 k a year. I'd have no doubt about that. So okay, let's move beyond that. What needs to be to get to a million dollars, that's the kind of two points gonna hit a million dollars a year at that point. Then you can take it to three and then you can take it to five and I'll talk about what that looks like. But to get, you know to a million and half, we did one year, 3.3 to get between 500 and it's call it a million half. (09:10): The next thing needs to be true is you need to be okay managing people from zero to 500. You don't really have to from 500 to 1.5, you're not gonna have a huge team, but you are gonna have people on your team, whether that's virtual assistance or cold callers or an acquisition manager or a transaction coordinator, you're going to have to bring people in so you can focus on the biggest constraints in your business. Your job as an operator of a company is to focus on and alleviate constraints until you hire that out and then someone else's job to do that. But what you wanna do, you want to build systemize, delegate and continue to scale. And so what, let's say it's transaction department honestly from, you get from 500, a million and a half, your biggest constraint is the same thing, right? It's more marketing, more seller conversations, but at that point to increase efficiency, now you're investing in a better C R m, you're investing in better operations, you're investing in your first acquisition manager. (09:57): The first thing that needs to be true to go from 500 to a million and half per year in this business, you have to be okay in managing some people and not being a solopreneur. What what goes hand in hand with that is you have to be okay reading the books and doing the work and becoming someone people wanna work with and work for. I've had partnerships in the past that I felt like every person that was a part of it didn't really embody that you guys have to create a culture that people want to work with and work for. And that comes by really checking yourself and saying, just because I'm the boss or cuz I'm the leader doesn't mean I'm above anyone else in the company. And I hate to com out that stuff with myself for long when when I was early on like, oh I'm the guy, I'm the boss, I'm the leader. (10:33): It's not the reality of the situation. If you want people to come and work for you and stay long-term, you have to be the guide they want to work with. So that's the first need to be true is you have to have people that wanna work for you. The second thing needs to be true is you have to invest and more systems and you have to actually go from like hustler to operator. This is where you become an operator. I talked about the HOAs, a lot of hustler to operator, architect here is where you go from that hustler, that zero to 500, now you're really becoming an operator cuz you're hire making your first two hires, you're improving your crm, you're improving your tech stack, you're improving your database, your list stacking your marketing, you're automation, your KPI tracking and you're really becoming an operator. (11:08): And that's the second need to be true beyond having a team is investing more in your infrastructure. The third thing that needs to be true to go from 500 to 1.5 is you have to be okay with balls dropping. It's the reality of it. Your job as a business owner is to focus on the top constraint, which is talking to more sellers. And like I'm talking about right now, streamlining and hiring balls are gonna get dropped, contracts are gonna get missed, leads are gonna get missed, deals are gonna fall through. And that's part of hiring you guys. If someone doing 80% of what you can do, it's a hundred percent awesome. So you have to be okay with balls getting dropped, things falling through the cracks. That's a hard control bit for people to let go of as they move up from hustler to operator architect. (11:44): But I go to op operator in any company you have to be okay with trusting your team and balls getting dropped. If you guys can go, can do those three things out out of four thing that needs to be true, you need to go full-time into your business. You can't have a million dollar year site hustle business. I don't believe that if, if you're operating it the right way. But if you can do those four things, if you understand that it needs to be true, that you have a team, it needs to be true that you have investment and your your tech stack and stuff like that, it needs to be true that you are bringing in more resources for your company needs to be true. That you're all, all four of these things needs to be true including that last part. And that might be the biggest one of going all full-time into this. (12:18): Then you can get there. If you guys do those four things, you will get from that 500, a million half to go from a million and a half above you guys. This, the main thing that needs to be true here is you guys, the constraint changes, okay? It goes from a volume to a capacity problem. If wholesaling is a conveyor belt or we're moving deals to the conveyor belt, what gets you from 500 a million half is building, not just having your first few employees but now you're moving up the ladder and you're having a management staff. So the main reason people get stuck below this cause they don't have that management level, they can then do the day-to-day below them with, with the sales team and whatnot. You need a sales team, not a sales guy. And I got stuck at you for a long time over and over again cause you need a sales team and not a sales guy. (12:58): You need a dispo team but not a dispo person. You need a transaction team and not a transaction coordinator. And so what needs to be true to go from a million and a half to three to five to 10 as you go from, okay, I'm an operator and I have three people that work for me. I have a sales guy, a disposition guy and a transaction guy where I'm an architect, I'm a leader and I have people below me that make sure we have a sales team, that we have a dispo team than we have a transaction team. And that's a level that if you guys wanna get there, that's what comes with that. That's a lot more leadership training and things of that nature. But this is the first lesson that I kind of thought about and wanted to go through with you guys as I was out in Europe is this whole thing way deeper in H to O to a and helping you guys kind of internalize and embody what needs to be true at each level of this business and what's constraint to focus on. (13:39): Again, the overarching constraint when you go from H to O is the same thing. It's more leads, more marketing and making sure you have the infrastructure to do that. When you go from O to a, it's becoming a way better leader. Having a team under you and, and buying back your time continuously and focusing on the constraint of the time. So, uh, what I can leave you with guys is what got you here won't get you where you want to go. What got you to wanting to quit your job isn't gonna get you to a million dollars. What got you to a million dollars isn't gonna get you to five. What got you to $10 million net worth isn't gonna get you to 50. What got you to 10 flips a year isn't gonna get you to 50 flips a year. Okay? What's gonna get you there is understanding how the constraints change, the demands of your company and serving that and being okay, being bored. You guys can do all this stuff. I believe in you that you can, you can build a real estate company as big as as badass as you want. And I'm excited to continue to network and communicate with you guys and help you along the journey of going from H to o to a (14:35): Well. Guys, that was a incredible episode. I love doing that one. I love talking about those kind of concepts of, you know, h to a and building your business around constraints. And I think a lot of us need to continuously every single day bring us back to what's gonna move the needle and what is going to break through those constraints that we're we're facing. Cuz it changes. And you know, it's very true I mentioned in this episode, but what, what got you here isn't gonna get you to the next level of your life, your business, your personal, your relationships, your finances, all that kind of stuff. It's important to continue to solve for new problems, new constraints, and like I, you know, really enjoy talking about, you know, if life is truly just a game of, you know, solving bigger and bigger problems, let's make 'em as big as we can. (15:13): And, you know, what's the biggest one in your business right now? Let's solve for that. We don't need to go and do all the nuances. I let's focus on the thing that matters the most and move the needle on that every single day. As always, you guys please DM me, share, like, comment, gimme your review. What means the world to me on this podcast. I wanna continue to grow this and, and the direction you guys need to help you grow your companies. Very receptive to feedback. I respond to every single DM myself. So please reach out. I love hearing from you guys. And then as always, if you can subscribe on Apple Podcast or Spotify means the world. And until next time, as always, you guys are one deal away.