How To Successfully Build and Grow A Real Estate Business | Benmont Locker - The A Game Podcast: Real Estate Investing For Entrepreneurs

Episode Transcript
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(00:13):
Welcome to the A Game podcast with NickLamonia digging into the minds and.
Experiences of some of today's brightestentrepreneurs in real estate and
business, along with Hollywood Stars, UFCfighters and your favorite rock bands.
People that have figured out howto overcome obstacles, take chances
live boldly, and no matter what theydo, they always bring their A game.

(00:48):
Alright, welcome to the A Game podcast,really estate investing for entrepreneurs.
And the idea of this podcast is we wantto show average people every day that
they can achieve extraordinary things,whether it is being a better person, being
a better father, husband, mother, businessowner, fighter, entrepreneur, or human.
We have over 350 guestsand episodes in the past.
Archives that you can go back to in justthose episodes alone can show you some

(01:10):
of the top performers as UFC fighters.
Entertainers, real estate investorsand business owners, and you can
learn from the things that they'vedone to have shortcuts and safety
nets to get there faster and safer.
And you can also learn from themistakes they've made so you
don't have to lose that time andmoney if that was not enough.
We have an amazing a game position todaycoming on as a player, Ben Mont locker.
He is with Integrity First Home Buyers.

(01:30):
He's a business partner ofEric Brewer and they are now
running Ramp REI and Ramp REI.
They've kind of had a catchall forall the things that they're doing and
they have known of the King of Nova.
This guy has been somebody whocame from the outdoor sports world.
He was gonna be a soccer player, adentist, and a ski instructor, and
a whole bunch of different things.
And he actually landed on resources ofsystems and processes to build businesses.
And he's built, stabilized, and scaledand even sold multiple businesses over

(01:53):
the years, and came in and eventually fellinto real estate and used his articulate
brain that works like a computer to findthose patterns and to find the ways to
take the data to make better decisionsand scale these businesses to be even
more profitable and more predictable.
If you think about what it is,he dumbs us down really well.
Where if I start out by tellingyou, Hey, we're gonna talk

(02:13):
about systems and processes.
Some of you will get excited,but a lot of you will get bored
and you'll start to shut down.
And I think this guy who is extremelyintelligent and ridiculously profitable,
he literally helped the company, he.
Increase to over an extraa hundred deals a year.
So think about a guy that's takingsomething that's already pretty
badass and making it totally kick ass.
And he talks about how he does that,but he does it in a very simplistic

(02:36):
way where he doesn't overtalk and hereally just says, man, all that is.
It's just a plan.
So if you're listening to this, whetheryou're starting out or whether you are in
the process of scaling, this episode isgonna be extremely helpful to you because
he is gonna talk about how to build aplan, how do you build a safe plan to
predict where your business is gonna go,set your goals, and make sure you find
ways and timelines to identify when we'vegone off the plan and get you back on

(02:59):
the plan so you can make a ton of money.
So I thought this wasan incredible thing and.
Again, I can't say enough thingabout Eric Brewer's whole crew.
These guys come with thehighest level of integrity.
Everybody who's a high level estateinvestor has worked with them at some
point and learned ovations from them.
So we talk about innovations,we talk about business plans, we
talk about predictable outcomes.
We talk about some mistakes.

(03:19):
We talk about being a people business.
We talk about the number one typeof capital you need to have a
long-term sustainable business model.
And we go into some other thingsabout positive mindset about.
Emotional intelligence about wholedifferent, a bunch of different things,
but this guy comes off completelysincere during the whole thing.
He gives some reallygood stuff at the end.
He gives you a way to start tolearn some stuff with him and
actually get some questionsanswered directly from him for free.

(03:41):
So definitely stick around tothe end and definitely see the
show notes for all the ways.
Connect with Bemo.
Connect with Framp, REI and learnall about business processes, plans,
innovations, flip substitute two.
Fun stuff so you guys can maximizeand profitize efficiently in 2025.
So thank you so much for Benmar comingon, being a total stud, being such a
nice guy, and we just had a great talkand I'm excited to go and meet with him
in person and hang out in Florida soon.

(04:02):
But for us to continue to get amazingguests that make money and help change
people's lives with integrity, justlike Benmar Eric Brewer, the only fee
is for you to please subscribe to thepodcast if you have not done it already.
Please take a second whereveryou watch and listen to your
podcast to subscribe or follow.
The A Game podcast, real estate investorsfor entrepreneurs, and if you have not.

(04:22):
Found that link throughwhatever your platform is.
All you have to do to go is nicnick.com/links nik.com/links, L-I-N-K-S.
And the whole thing here is Iwant to do real estate together.
So whether you want to buy propertiesfrom me, sell properties to me,
or find a way to partner on somelevel on any of your real estate
deals, let's have a conversation.

(04:43):
Either direct message me the wordsreal estate through my social media.
Preferably through Facebookor through Instagram.
So those are the ones.
I'll check more but pop through there.
And then we can have a conversationor just text me the words real
estate to 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3.
Again, text me the words realestate to 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3.
And again, when you go to nic.com/link,you will see all the ways to

(05:04):
connect with us on social media.
The way that Mont know is thathe bought some value to you guys.
For you to please interact withthe posts we make from the show.
Most of you're scrollingall day on social media.
Anyway, please take aminute to connect with us.
We will connect back with youand we can now show Ben on how
we appreciate the information hegot by you guys liking, sharing,
commenting, asking questions on there.

(05:24):
And then he can go out and tell everybodyelse what a great time and what a great
audience we have and we can get thisthing going for another 350 episodes.
So thank Ben Mon.
Thank you guys.
A game podcast.
Have a fantastic day.
Alright.
My guest today is a builder of businesses,systems, and processes for owners and
entrepreneurs who is a master integrator.
I. Fighting out of Gettysburg's,Pennsylvania now by way of Tampa, Florida,

(05:47):
getting hit by the entrepreneur bug.
Early on, he started out in theoutdoor industry and ended up scaling
it to 20 locations in nine statesbefore he sold what he coined as
the redneck TJ Maxx for a profit.
He learned marketing, sales systems andprocesses through his own experiences.
After a brief leap into digitaladvertising and after pivoting from
almost being a dentist and a skiinstructor, this one-time soccer player

(06:07):
found his calling in real estate,helping an investment company stabilize
profit and scale their business.
And from there.
Things have escalatedquickly and efficiently.
Integrity first home buyers witheveryone's favorite investor and
fellow former guest, Eric Brewer,where he has helped add over a hundred
deals a year, and he now teachesinvestors just like you, how to align
strategy with targets and set cleargoals and establish lucrative system

(06:27):
processes and operations to ramp REI.
He's a father, a husband, aphotographer, a dirt bike rider,
and he is our guest today.
Welcome to the A Game podcast.
Long overdue, Mr. Ben, my locker.
Thank you for being here,sir. Nick, thank you, man.
That is a one heck of an introduction.
I you should start selling those.
That should be the new deal, is youwrite a hook for people and welcome 'em.
So, uh, pleasure to be here.

(06:48):
Thanks for having me on the show.
Look forward to chopping it up today.
Thanks, man.
Yeah, I gotta do a little editingwhen we go back there, but, uh,
usually like, I'm like a morning guy.
I think I got up at like four this morningand by midday, like I, I hit the slump.
I made the bad idea of like, Iwas out there and I went through a
drive through and I, I was like, I'mgonna get Wendy's and never do that.
And I did it, and I'm like,now I'm messing up the intros.
It's all going downhill.
So down, we gotta pick theenergy back up, sir. Down.

(07:08):
Oh, that's awesome.
No, no worries at all, man.
Um, yeah, appreciate it.
Thanks.
Looking forward to, youknow, chatting today.
You've obviously got a, um, very storiedbackground in, um, athletics and combat
sports, um, in the investing space.
Uh, always inspiring to see.
People blend personal things togetherwith professional, um, how those
synergize together and compound success.
So love to see where ourconversation goes today.

(07:30):
I love it, man.
You know what I was told, uh, oneof my favorite quotes is How you do
anything is how you do everything.
So how you do the small stuff is howyou do the big stuff on the mats,
off the bats, on the pickleballcourt after off the pickleball court.
But you are, sir, somebodywho's found success in many
different aspects of your life.
And I feel like one of thethings I heard you say.
That there was a couple of really keythings that made me immediately go,
I'm not surprised at all that this guyis such a success, and one of them was

(07:52):
you said that adversity is the norm.
And I thought that that was a very tellingthing because I think you know Billy
Alvaro as well, but when he was on thepodcast, he was talking about, man, people
complain all day about their problems.
I. He's like, as an entrepreneur anda real estate investor, you signed
up to deal with people's problems.
And I think somebody like you whoembraces that, other people think,
oh, I'm gonna become a real estateinvestor and it's all gonna be good.

(08:15):
It's like, well, no, like there'sno business you would start that you
wouldn't think you would have problems,but you kind of take them head on.
It's like, uh, a perspective that it's agood thing, not a bad thing, and you're
ready to come on and take that challenge.
So.
Talk a little bit about like whatwas some of the adversity you
learned along the way, coming upthrough the outdoor sales company
and now translating into real estate?
I'm sure it wasn't all sunshinesand roses along the way.

(08:36):
No, it never is, man.
And in South Florida now, right?
It, it rains for 15 minutes a day,but the good news is it's over quick.
It gets sunny again and you getback up just like in, in business.
So, um, you know, preparingfor that is helpful.
And again, the intro is, you know, anover glorification that skims over all of
the failures and troubles along the way.
Facing adversity though, as youbrought up, is like, I come from

(08:57):
a startup background, so it wasnever anybody coming to save you.
You never come into somethingthat's well oiled that you're like
tweaking and improving, right?
You're not, you're not tuning a, aracing engine that just went around
the, the track it, you know, uh, optimumspeed and everything was do or die.
If you don't want the business to dieor you don't wanna be, you know, without
a job, it was like it had to work.

(09:19):
And when you, I don't know how healthythat is to put yourself in that
position always where to do or die.
Uh, fight or flight I thinkwears you out after a while.
But, um, as you kind of gothrough that, you stop saying,
Hey, this is hard and this sucks.
And you see just the upside.
And it's just like, as soon as I getover this hurdle, hey, alls we have
to do is overcome this obstacle.
You don't really expect much.
And that's not a woe is me stylementality, but it's just like

(09:40):
a, Hey, come on, bring it on.
And, and we assign aperiod of time to suck.
So if you're starting something and youwanna get into real estate investing,
if you don't say, Hey, the next 12months is gonna suck, I'm gonna find
a way to celebrate the wins alongthe way, but generally it's kind of
gonna suck and I'm gonna have to workharder than all of the other people
that wanted to get into real estate orwhatever your, your business venture
is for how long of a period of time.

(10:01):
And then check in on yourselfalong the way to make sure
you're not burning out and such.
But yeah, it's just like you'regonna get knocked down and
things are gonna go wrong.
Part of how you respond is everything.
And I think that's what,what keeps you going?
And that's for little problems, bigproblems or, or any alike really.
So your rocky story, right?
It doesn't matter how many timesyou get knocked out, it's how
do you bounce back from it?
Kinda, you know?

(10:22):
And it's so funny how as we, you know,progress through life, I used to look at
people who are mentors and older than meand would tell me like, simple things.
And you'd be like, I, that doesn'treally apply to my life right now.
It doesn't make sense, right?
And we'll age ourselves here myself.
And it's like, as you get older, even likewhen you get, uh, uh, mad at somebody or
something at home happens, and it's like,well, how long are you gonna be mad for?
That's kinda like business.

(10:42):
Like how long are you upset for that?
So and so let you down?
It's 80% your fault.
You didn't train 'em good or hold 'emaccountable or give 'em the resources.
Now you're gonna tote arounda, an attitude and be upset
for, for like how long.
And it's almost like you evencould assign that period of suck.
To every objection in your day, allowyourself to be mad for two minutes, set
a timer on your phone and say, come back.
I got five minutes to sulk overthis, and then, you know what?

(11:05):
Life goes on and I gotta get backup and, and let's go round two
at this thing and get started.
So I think it's, you know, I would bethe worst empathy coach in the world.
Uh, and where I've foundsuccess is, is very objective.
So it's always just like,okay, what is the measurement?
How do we, you know, objectify this?
What does the data say?
And then let's move on.
And that kind of, uh, uh,suppresses a little bit of, you

(11:25):
know, that emotional aspect.
Um, some of that's great, right,for inspiration and business.
But when you're making decisionson a day-to-day basis using data
has been what's key to buildingand scaling any business.
And then it.
It kind of becomes like commodityagnostic of what you're working on.
I mean, it could beanything at that point.
Um, and it doesn't really matter, dude,you said so many things there that
made me realize like, you're my guy.
Like I haven't heard anybodysay it exactly like that.

(11:46):
And I always say the same thing whereI think too many times we hear people
talk about burying things down and it'slike, you know, you gotta be the leader.
You gotta be strong, you gottabe tough, you gotta grind it out.
And I feel like when you bottle thatup, it, that's where you wind up not
being able to manage those emotions.
And then you take 'em out in the wrongplaces, on the wrong people and you know.
Coming from a background of boxingand jiujitsu, I'm big on rounds,

(12:07):
and it was like, you know what?
You can get your butt kicked one roundand then the bell rings and you're
like, all right, well that sucked.
It got beat up, but new round,like, let me go not have that.
And I started thinking about everyhour of my day, like a round,
and it's like, you know what?
I had Wendy's, but in an hour, if Ineed to eat again, I'll win that round.
I'll have a salad and stuff.
And the same thing of like if I'm in abad mood, if I'm having a bad day, I'm
gonna let myself feel crappy about it.

(12:29):
For an hour, and then once the comesthree o'clock, new hour, like back on it.
So I think that that's the best way to doit is I, I think people watch a Mont or
somebody that's like really successful.
Like, can you guys, and theygo, they don't have negative
thoughts, they don't have bad days.
They don't ever fall into bad habits.
And I think that you do, you just don'tlet them become something that engulfs

(12:49):
your entire day and your entire business.
You just get over themquicker, if I'm correct.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think that's, that's everybody.
And nobody's perfect.
Frankly.
We probably have more of them justbecause we, we subject ourselves
to, to more people and, and moretransactions and, and that compounds.
So that's not never gonna go away.
Um, and nobody's perfect at it.
So like you said, don't beat yourselfup on it, you know, win round two,

(13:10):
what are you gonna do different?
Knowing what you know now and, and howdo you overcome, you know, what that is.
So, uh, I think peopleoften will forecast.
The worst case scenario as an outcomebefore they experience anything.
So nothing bad can even happen.
And Right, subconsciously you're,you're fearful and it's like you
start saying, Hey, I'm gonna fail.
We'll use real estate investing forthe sake of, that's the space I'm in.

(13:30):
And you know, you're in now and it'slike, why wouldn't you start wholesaling?
And it's like fearful of failure.
It's like you didn't even fail yet and youapplied this negative filter there and you
failure to launch is the only thing thatyou failed to do, you didn't even try.
So I think it's just that whole mentalityand you come from obviously, you know, uh,
aggressive combat sports background whereyou're fighting at all times and you have

(13:51):
to fight through your own limited beliefs.
And that self-development, personaldevelopment aspect of things is
actually, I, I believe is one ofthe key contributors to success.
And you don't have to be in, youknow, juujitsu or whatever sports
I thought I was good at playing.
But, um, it's just, you know,having that awareness and making
better decisions when they go wrong.
Right?
If you do eat a Wendy's, howdo you improve the next meal?

(14:11):
How's it on your mind to say, Hey,that's not what I wanted to do.
How do I move forward?
Or, this deal fell off?
How do I get the next one to close?
Or whatever that may be.
So a lot of, a lot of similaritiesthere where people are doing
it every day in life now.
You just have to shift what you'redoing it with when you want to consider
a, a business or a new opportunity.
Man, I, I love that.
I think that that's great info.
And you, you talked about failureto launch, and I think what you

(14:33):
just said about people immediatelygoing negative and already wallowing
in the failure before they've evertried, has killed more opportunities
and more success than anything.
So, being a guy that's, you know,started and successfully scaled
and even sold multiple businesses.
I'm sure there was alwaysa little bit of self-doubt.
Angel on one shoulder,devil on the other shoulder.
What are some of the things that youhave maybe done yourself or maybe some

(14:55):
of the things you've seen people withinyour groups that had some potential
in their life or business and justcouldn't get outta their own way?
Like what are some of thosethings that you could.
Tell yourself for somebody listeningthat is a negative person or maybe
comes from a place of fear and failurefirst, to get past that and actually
get your foot in the door and startdoing things instead of staying in
your head with analysis paralysis.

(15:16):
Yeah, that's a really great question.
And, and that is a skill that I was notphenomenal at for a long period of time.
I, you know, I'm a builder, uh, love newlove systems and processes, and what that
equals is like when things aren't perfector the plan isn't built out right, like.
I start to, you know, get a littletense and I'm like, we're not ready yet.
We're not ready yet.
Right.
And it's like, that willinhibit you from going.

(15:37):
Um, you know, another coach of mine wasalways like, he called it the BS model and
it was like, don't build it, then sell it.
He said that's bs.
Um, he's like, just sell it and build it.
He's like, you know, work onthe plane while you're flying.
I was like, it makes no sense.
It sounds fearful is all get up.
But in reality, what, what the goal is,is to get in motion and get feedback
because what are you even building?
You don't know how people respond.

(15:57):
You don't know ultimatelywhat the challenges are.
What you're trying to do is say, Hey.
I know everything, right?
Like I'm going to precautionaryplan for everything.
I'm gonna build these contingency plans.
We're gonna be so equipped, and thenlike the first day something happens
that you didn't plan and you feel superdefeated and you're right back to,
you might as well just get started.
So kind of come back andanswer your question.
You have to have that visionaryperspective, which is just your

(16:19):
intuition and belief in yourself todo anything because there's gonna
be the days, um, or the challenges.
That is what gets you over the hurdles.
Um, you know, I don't want it to soundbleak, but it's like there's not many new
ideas that are going to occur in 2025.
Like a lot of things exist already.
Like what are you gonna do thatsome iteration of doesn't exist?
I almost could talk everybusiness model out of being

(16:40):
innovative, unique, or different.
Right?
If you really wanted to be thepessimist there, like, oh no,
somebody already does that.
Oh no, there's already competition.
And my dad was a great figure in my lifefor that because he didn't care, which
from, he's an old school sales guy, soit's like, I have an idea, it'll work.
And I was like, dad, like you heardof like Amazon or the internet or
like eBay, like there's a lot ofpeople in e-commerce, like you're

(17:02):
gonna just get into e-commerce.
And it was like, well, youknow, it's gonna be different.
And he, he could sell me on an idea.
Then the days that itsucked, it's just like, cool.
If you believe in what you do, there'sother people that also will see
the value in that, and that becomesyour market share and your segment.
So I think you need to find thisbalance of like reality of building
something, but also ultimately believingin in yourself and pursuing through.

(17:23):
I. Those challenges is key.
Um, that figure, uh, I've alwayskind of been a number two guy
because I lack a little bit ofthat, and I can humbly say that.
So it's like, go find somebody thatcan be, you know, in your sphere, in
your life, and just encourage thatbelief system in you, because that's
ultimately gonna be the gravitythat pulls any project forward.
In your life that, that is challengingis like belief in yourself and

(17:45):
belief in what you set out to dois how you're gonna get started.
Man, I think that's fantastic information.
And one of the things that you havetalked about in some other interviews
and some other things I, I've watchedyou on is you tell the story about a,
a, a guy, I forget what industry it was.
It might have been the digitaladvertising, but he was supposed to
be the leader in his delivery andhis communication was just not good.
He was brash, he was borderlineinsulting, and it was turning people off.

(18:08):
So you became the mediator kind of betweenthe two and you integrated all his.
And you presented it the right way.
And I think that that's a hugelyunderutilized thing where when I
talk to entrepreneurs and especiallynew investors, all they want to
know about being successful islike, how do I calculate arv?
How do I find a good contractor?
And I'm like, that's not reallythe stuff that's gonna keep
you from doing this long term.

(18:29):
You need to learn how to treatit like a business with people.
Because really that's the keyis this is a people business.
And if you don't know how to deal withpeople and you're not easy to work with,
people aren't gonna wanna work with you.
And I think.
Touching on that, what you werecoming to was emotional intelligence,
and I feel like a lot of peopletoday discount mindset and emotional
intelligence as a major skill.
For long-term business,and you seem to have it.

(18:49):
I know Eric has it and stuff.
So talk about how you figure that out,because I think that's a huge thing where
even if people can make you money, ifthey don't make you feel good, if they
don't make you feel valued, if they don'tdeliver the information the right way, I.
People aren't gonna stickaround, but I think that that's
a mid point of leadership thatyou seem to have very well.
Yeah, thank you.
And it's a work in progress for sure.
Um, Eric's been a, a big inspirationin that journey and that resonates

(19:12):
and ripples throughout, youknow, all of our organizations.
You know, you made a really goodpoint there where it's like,
human capital is your money.
Managing relationships to getto where you want is ultimately
what you wanna do, right?
If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you wanna go Fargo together.
Style thing.
We worked on the business for, um, youknow, Eric had a phenomenal business.
He was in business for six,15 years before I joined.

(19:32):
Um, you know, was doing a couple hundreddeals a year and you know, I came in there
and we had kind of an agreement, a placewhere we wanted to scale the operations,
which was infrastructure and internal.
So that's awesome.
Month zero to three, we had 40% attrition.
Employees and it was just mass chaos.
I think four of our six leadershippositions left in the first 30 days.
And I was like, yeah dude,thanks for believing in me.

(19:54):
We got this right.
And immediately that changed a, alot of both of our perspective on
what was important in the business.
And that was like the visionand the culture and then the
performance would follow.
And what I mean by that is, is we hada leadership team, um, and they were
the people responsible for leadership.
What we came to learn was like leadershipis every position that's leading up,

(20:15):
leading down right sideways, inside out.
And we started to encourage everybodywhere it was almost required, where
people had to hold each other accountable.
They had to give feedback,they had to give praise, and
we needed to tighten it up.
Culture was the same.
Culture wasn't pizza parties.
Right, like giving awayprizes and Christmas bonuses.
Culture was the systems and processesthat made people feel appreciated.

(20:37):
It gave them clarityon what their role was.
They felt purposeful.
They knew what we were workingtowards, and the result of that
was they, they worked harder andthey worked more efficiently,
and they felt better about it.
Everything that we wanted as an outcome.
We kind of brute forced our way throughuntil we shifted that perspective and
started investing, you know, into people.
And people are a lot of work.
It's ultimately why people won'tbuild an organization or, or

(21:00):
they don't want to and Right.
It's like the, the people managementthing Today alone, I woke up
before nine o'clock, two of ourcoaching clients texted me and
they had sales positions leave.
Smaller operator, so extremelyvulnerable position they're in.
Right?
And I was like, thanks guys.
Like I almost had a cup ofcoffee, you know, this morning
and you guys dumped this on me.
Um, but what that is, is, is kindof, um, ultimately lack of ownership.

(21:23):
And we take extreme ownership so farthat we implement that book into our
onboarding, um, now of extreme ownership.
And what we ultimately found wasthat you have to hire people with
high performance and download andinstill process and culture into them.
There's two things that can happen.
One is you hire pet projects thatyou wanna feel good about 'em and

(21:44):
they're passionate and they justunfortunately aren't at the, the
phase or the place in life where theydeserve to fill that seat for you.
Or you bring in high performers andyou don't invest into them, um, with
all of the other important things,and they perform for a while, then
they kind of go rogue and thoseguys become your competitors.
Right in your market.
So people need to become reinforcedon a 10 times more basis than you

(22:05):
believe with support nurturing,um, career progressions, one page
plans, what's important to 'em,like leaning into that stuff.
People will perform drastically better.
Once you resonate and connect withpeople, it's almost like you could
stop training directly for performance.
You invest in the people and youwill get the performance from there.
If you have been kicking yourselfthat you didn't start investing in
real estate sooner, whether you'rebeginner, intermediate, or advanced.

(22:28):
Any way you're looking to getit on a residential, commercial,
land development, wholesaling,fix and flips, whatever it is.
Let's find a way to get you involved insome projects, get you some properties,
whether you wanna sell some propertiesto me, whether you want to buy some
properties from me, whether residential,fix and flip, cash flow, multifamily,
whatever it is you're looking for.
Let's figure out a way to getyou involved or find a way for
us to partner up on some deals.

(22:48):
Reach out to me on any ofmy social media channels.
If you go on www.nic.com/links, youwill see all the different ways to.
Connect with me and figure out how we canstart to work together, make it happen.
Everybody that invests inreal estate always just says
they wish they did it sooner.
Best time to start is today.
Man.
I, I, I could not agree with that more.

(23:09):
The people that show that loyalty,get the loyalty back, like they're.
There's something to be said forthat that I think people miss.
And a key thing that I think youkeep saying too, that as we pivot a
little bit out of people is yes, likeyou need people around you, but if
you really want to have a profitablebusiness, the systemization is such a
huge part here with those processes.
And I think I've heard you saythat the greatest area of lost

(23:30):
opportunity is the systemizationand sales and respect to marketing.
And that seems to be somethingwhere you have figured out
how to do that on a level.
And if people don't understand whythat's so important, it's, as you
were saying earlier, data and I've.
Been somebody who became a a data nerd,I still am working on it, but if you are
really good at analyzing data and lookingat it and creating systems and processes

(23:51):
off of the data that you have, I feellike using that from the past is really
a key to help you predict the future.
And so there's not a guess ofis your business gonna work?
You'd start to know how manyphone calls I have to make.
How many people I have to contact, whatmy budget is and all that kind of stuff.
So although that might not be thesexy stuff to talk about upfront,
those are the important things thatreally make or break business owners.
So as somebody who admittedly isn't greatat that, I always pay for people that have

(24:16):
put those together because I feel likemy brain isn't capable of creating them,
but I can follow the leader very well.
So.
Talk about systems and processesin the business of, I guess any
entrepreneur, but specifically whatyou've done for impacting the real
estate business that you're in.
Yeah.
I think, um, before we like lose everybodyin their eyes blade over, right, with
systems and processes, it's like dumbit down to ultimately what that is.

(24:37):
And it's just creating something thatyou, you know how it's being done
and you like, it is like write a, asystem or, or a process is the, is the
how it's done and the tactics of it.
Um, and I think that the, one ofthe larger gaps between, you know,
an entrepreneur and a visionary whodoesn't like that stuff we'll say, is.
Um, because they feel like it's cumbersomeand, and overwhelming and sometimes

(24:58):
you don't know where to start naturallywhen building a system and a process is
like go through and you do it and you,you kind of document how you do it.
And there's so many cooltools out there now, right?
Like, I don't even typemany emails anymore.
It's like I just record a loom for 60seconds and, and shoot my message off
or, or scribe or something that buildsright and follows your mouse and creates
a PDF of how to do something for you.
It's, it's become.

(25:19):
They, you have no excuse notto have some iteration of a
document of how something's done.
And then, you know, people go throughit and you, you do it and somebody
says, well, that's kind of stupid.
Um, or That doesn't work.
And what you wanna do is create insideof any business, regardless of the
size, even if it's yourself, a teamof one, is like, if you see something,
say something mentality where.

(25:39):
If you do something and it'snot good, just change it.
So you update the system and theprocess and Right, it's, it's
not this overwhelming thing.
It could be a Word document, it couldbe we run a, the seven figure business
out of iPhone notes is how we sharecorrespondence, um, amongst our team.
And that's how we get informationback and forth and it's right.
You check off the things that need done.
That's, you know, our systemand our process of, of doing it.
So one is don't overcomplicate it.

(26:01):
Two is if you don't have anydata, start gathering it.
So just start measuring something.
I don't care if it's a notebook.
A Google sheet again, free.
There's a lot of, you know,free 99 resources out there.
Two is then, you know, look back at thedata and start making decisions upon it.
If you collected informationof some sort, right?
And then you, you look back at it andyou said, I don't know, like, I kind

(26:21):
of still feel like this will work.
And the data's tellingyou a different story.
You need to eat some humble pie andsay, Hey, cool, maybe what I thought
was good isn't, and this is, is here,you now have a baseline of something.
Um, so now what are you gonna do with it?
Like iteration one is, is collectit and have it Two is look at it and
be willing to do something about it.

(26:42):
And then how do you improve upon that?
And it's just like, yeah,workout routine or whatever.
You do it once and it's like,okay, that was really hard.
I ran a mile.
Next time is, okay, I'll, I'mgonna do this a little bit
better, a little bit quicker.
And it's not a race to being finished.
Systems and processes getrefined all of the time.
Frankly, the, the more andthe better you get at them.
We have foundational Friday meetings whereevery Friday we pull a process, we run

(27:04):
through it collectively as a departmentalteam and we say, Hey, did that work good?
Or should we change it based upon today'sstructure, today's market conditions,
today's people, how that looks.
So we work on 'em more and more and more.
So kind of embrace it.
Don't overcomplicate it andstart using data to make
decisions if you're not right.
Unless you have extreme intuitionand um, you know, you're a psychic,

(27:24):
but which oftentimes isn't the case.
So establish data, use it, and thenreiterate from it and get better with it.
I like what you said there about thebenchmark and, and having a reference
point because I, I attribute it to health.
Like I tell people every year you go andyou get your, your annual physical and.
How do they know if something's wrong?
They know something's wrong.
'cause something's different becauseit's based on all the data that they've
gotten every year for your whole life.

(27:45):
And all of a sudden you walk in and theygo, well, hold on a second, Belmont,
your blood pressure was this last year.
Your weight was this last year.
Or your cholesterol was this last year.
It's way up or it's waydown now it's test further.
If you're like, what?
What is happening here?
And I feel like starting out that.
People make these assumptions andthey make changes in days or weeks and
it's like you haven't given it enoughtime to build up, like what's a normal

(28:06):
expectation and result for your business?
So what are you measuring it against?
So when, when you talked about startingout there, talk about for somebody new,
getting into KPIs and figuring out howto do that, what's like a good benchmark?
Is it three months, six months, ninemonths, a year before you go home?
We've given it some time to seewhat works and now we go and
we start tinkering with things.

(28:27):
Yeah, that's a, a super, super commonquestion, and that's patience, right?
Yeah.
Time is the only thing.
You can't buy your way.
You can't buy more of it, and youcan't buy it to, to pass quicker.
You know, when we talk aboutKPIs, the, the first thing always
is like, ask for a. Influence.
But as you mentioned, bloodwork, you don't show up to the
doctor and they're like, yeah,another 38-year-old guy just left.
So you should havesimilar realities, right?

(28:49):
It's like we're, we're just different.
So there is no applesto apples comparison.
So, um, don't compareyourself to somebody else.
You don't know how much time has passed.
You don't know whattheir market looks like.
Use it for influence and inspiration,never for comparative analysis
to your business or your projector whatever you're working on.
That's one.
That would give you, uh, what Ikind of call like directionally
accurate input to say, okay, cool.

(29:10):
If I want to do PPC advertising, I talkto three people, and the average cost
of that is $5,000, uh, for whatever.
Um, so then you, you have an idea.
Because with the idea, it becomesvery mathematic that will tell the
story of like, if I spend this money,here's what should happen first.
Here's what should happen.
Second, third, fourth,and we'll use real estate.

(29:32):
So it's like if I deploymoney on PPC advertising and
I have a $5,000 budget, right?
And lead cost is 500bucks, I expect 10 leads.
If you don't get 10 gross leads.
You're sitting around waitingfor a contract to show up
or whatever you need, right?
You're just lying to yourself.
So you can't wait for the end result.
So when you say howlong, it depends, right?

(29:52):
If we said, Hey, we're gonnaspend this money, we should
see an immediate response.
We have gross leads, we have qualifiedleads, we have appointments set
appointments attended, contracts written,and then like, right, revenue closed.
If you're waiting for revenueclosed, that's a hopeful strategy.
Um, and I wish you the best,but that's, you're gonna need
a lot of luck on your side.
So the best thing to do when it comesto planning a budget or, or patience

(30:14):
or time, is measuring all of those,you know, lead, middle and lag metrics.
And you get to a point in timewhere you can immediately, you know,
delineate or depict where things areworking or where they're not working.
And then once you identify that,like anything, like a mechanic,
once you narrow down to wherethe car's broken, you work on it.
Then you quickly can fix it, andthen you move on again, right?
So it becomes this, this mathequation that doesn't lie.

(30:36):
And then you just need to support it,and you need to stay committed to it.
So that's why, and where we take emotionout of it and we say, okay, cool.
Like this is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna staycommitted to this program.
And oftentimes, most oftentimes, theoutcome of people's disappointment is
the lack of consideration, planning, orawareness to what they expect to happen.
I see it.
Multiple times a day where somebodywill spend an amount of money that the

(30:59):
math says they get 0.4 deals out of.
And I'm gonna ask, I'llput you on the spot, Nick.
We'll see how good you are at math.
If you have 0.4 of a deal,how much money does that yield
you at the end of that month?
Zero.
Zero.
So at month two, you have 0.8 of a deal.
So you still have zero unlessthe odds go against you.
So if you are not equipped to runthat play for three months to get

(31:19):
to what math says is 1.2 dealswith the expectations, right?
Who are we lying to ourselvesor we're hoping that.
The, the windfall oddscome in the first 30 days.
And, and that could be the case, right?
You could get, you know, luckyor that one lead that you want to
convert happens sooner than later.
But over time you kind ofplay the casino game, right?
Like you play the odds to, to have awinning formula that let's you sleep

(31:41):
at night that has consistent revenue.
And all of those things comeback to a very objective outcome.
And that's more of like optimizing andunderstanding where you're spending your
money and what you think is gonna happen.
As opposed to like, I'mjust gonna spend money.
And then we'll see what happens.
And it kind of is as simple as thatwithout overcomplicating is just
come up with a plan and then the planjust needs executed and that's it.
So, we'll, we'll make it sound thateasy for the, the sake of today.

(32:04):
I love that man.
And I think you, you nailed it with thesimplicity of it is really interesting
because I always hear what you can'tmeasure, you can't fix, you can't grow.
And I like what you're doing withtaking all these data and you're
taking a simplistic approach to, tofiguring out where it's gonna go.
So talking about all those amazingthings that you just touched
on, we now go to Integrity.
First home buyers and you, youmentioned a bunch of KPIs and metrics

(32:25):
for like how many deals close, howmany calls, all that kind of stuff.
So what is the base ofyour business right now?
Are you guys doing mostlywholesaling, fix and flips and
are you known for innovations?
But talk about what's, uh,you know, 20 24, 20 25.
What is the bulk of yourbusiness over there?
Yeah, so we're direct to seller.
We do all of our own marketing and leadgeneration internally, and that gives
us a variety of different deal flow.

(32:46):
So we are pretty heavily focusedon taking down properties.
Thank you.
Legislation in Pennsylvania 2025.
So if this would've been a couple weeksago, before January 4th, or whenever
laws kicked in, we were probably moretransactional than we are in this year.
And with the legislation changes, wehave shifted to a model of maximum
profit actually being investors, right?

(33:07):
The, the tailwind and the COVID daysare long gone now where you could sell
everything to hedge funds and it was easyand people were paying cash and overvalue.
So that season wore off and now it's like.
Actually investing intodeals, underwriting deals.
So we're taking a lot of stuff down.
Um, controlling inventory.
Maximizing the value, so throughwhether that's wholesale, you know,

(33:28):
still wholesaling the right deals.
Um, and then as you mentioned,innovations, which for, you know,
anybody who doesn't know is, istaking inventory to the open market.
So taking off market inventory, havingthe ability to bring it, you know, on
market and sell it with conventionalfinancing has increased our deal flow
a lot because as we all know, wholesaletransactions represent a, a very small.
Segment of what happens in the realestate space and for all of us, right?

(33:51):
The nine out of 10 leads or evenmore, don't do anything in our CRM and
innovations are a great way to increasethat monetization by, you know, you're,
you're creating inventory on the marketwhere there's a lot of buyers out there.
I remember being at Family Mastermindand I remember that there was a whole
bunch of people that just coming outtaCOVID is kind of when I got in and
they were like, man, our businesseswould've not survived had we not linked

(34:14):
up with Eric Brewer and you guys, andlearned how to properly do ovations.
It saved, I. A lot of investorswhen times are a little bit tough.
So I've done almost everything Ican think of in real estate, but I
haven't actually completed an ovation.
And I, I've learned a lot about them,but there's something missing there.
So I think this is a great time.
As we, we start to kind oftransition a little bit before
we get into the education part ofit, can we go a little bit deeper

(34:35):
into somebody listening to this?
It's like, what do you mean by like,how are you able to maximize profit
on this and take down more deals?
Like what exactly is a novation and, andhow would a Novation deal be structured?
Yeah, so it, it's so funny.
Innovations.
Let, let's go to investing in general.
Investing is a unique businessto get into because it's very,
it's fairly small, right?
If, if you look at what a wholesaledeal is, is you need to find a

(34:58):
highly distressed property witha highly distressed seller.
You need to buy it at ahighly discounted price.
Then you need to go find aknucklehead who's got cash.
To buy the property.
Who wants to endure a threeto 12 week renovation?
Hopefully put it on the market, sellit, and get his money at the end of it.
It's like that is chaos in reality.
Right?

(35:18):
And then you throw in, you throwin what assignments are, it's like,
yeah, I'm not really telling you.
It's like this elusive secret gameof like, yeah, I'm not gonna tell
you where it came from, right?
Like, I don't own the property, but I'mgonna assign it to you in transparency.
I think wholesale is super challenging.
What innovations are, is innovation comesfrom the Latin word nova, which means new.

(35:39):
So assignment equals cash only.
You're assigning your interest andit can only be purchased cash, right?
FHA, va, Freddie, Fannie, all ofthose guys will not fund that deal.
So you need cash.
So again, very small buyer pool circleof people that are out there doing that.
Innovation, meaning new is a new contract.
It is not an assignment, itis a replacement of contract.

(36:01):
So, Nick, if, if you are selling me yourhouse, I have it under contract with you.
But my, you know, good friendBob, he actually wants to buy it.
So I'm not assigning my interest.
I am no my interest, whichmeans I am replacing my.
Interest via innovation agreement.
So I'm stepping out of the dealand saying, Nick, Bob, you guys
are now working together formaking this all happen, right?

(36:24):
There is a monetary reward that Iget for that, which is my profit.
However, now you havea clear chain of title.
Which allows that to beconventionally financed.
So now Bank of America Rocket, anyof those guys, this is a traditional
standard real estate transaction atthis point, and my interest is secured
that at closing I get paid the dividendof the spread amount that I created

(36:47):
through my value proposition and myservices to help put it all together.
So that's kind of the foundationand framework to get started
Drastically different.
'cause one is cash only.
Very limited, very highlydistressed properties.
The other, your buyer's listbecomes Zillow or realtor.com,
and that's pretty big.
And there's a lot of people out therewith pre-approvals, uh, and a lot of

(37:07):
people out there wanna buy a house.
Uh, a lot of homes that you lookat are in decent condition, right.
If you took most common objectionsis like, I'm not in a hurry to
sell it and I'm not giving it away.
Perfect for innovation.
Right?
Oh, okay, cool.
That means that the houseis in reasonable condition.
Right time isn't, isn't aproblem for these people.
Um, and that positions that opportunity.
So we can dig more into that now with,with clarification of like cash versus

(37:30):
conventionally financed, delineating.
One's an assignment, one'sa replacement of contracts.
That's the biggest difference there.
So that's really goodbecause it's, it's timely.
I've been doing, I doinbound, I do outbound.
My, my inbound marketing kind of tooka dive a little bit, so we switched
companies and so to fill the blankswhile that one gets off, I've been
doing more outbound than outbound.
I'm getting a ton of that.
You call people up.
I'm not in a hurry to sell.

(37:50):
I'm not like literally likea hundred calls in a row.
Is that, so that was kindof exciting what you say.
'cause it almost seems like it's a way.
To kind of revive somebody thatwould normally be considered
a dead lead, for sure.
Um, and then we'll, we'll transitioninto that thought process now, where
a, you, you won't love me because Iwill say a standard sales process is.

(38:10):
Really sifting through andovercoming a lot of those objections.
So with outbound marketing, you'realways gonna get that and, um, we'll,
we'll go down that rabbit trailreally quick because with outbound
marketing, you almost need to havea two-prong approach for your sales
team and your sales process, which.
We call it detaching from the outcome.
So if you call someone, and I likeusing extremes for easy examples.

(38:34):
If you're cold calling someone,you have a predictive data set, you
know something about 'em, and weknow that they're one month late on
their mortgage payment history says95% of the time they don't recover.
However.
Johnny's at home and he's 26 dayslate on his mortgage payment.
Life is still okay.
Wright's still banging awayat his, his nine to five, and

(38:54):
he's gonna clean it up, right?
It's no problem.
So if I call that guy and say,Hey man, do you want a cash offer
on your house for 80% of value?
He is like, what?
Like I wasn't eventrying to sell my house.
And you're like, no, butlike, I know you need to.
Right?
And then again, we'll play in theextremes when in reality we're not
aligning with where the customer is.
Now, we know in six months from nowthat that may be the case and that he's
in deep water now, and we need to be atrusted resource and a guide to help him.

(39:17):
But as investors, we often applypredetermined outcomes to everybody.
So we treat everyone equal.
It's like lead equals stepone, lead equals appointment.
Step two is appointment equals contract.
If that doesn't happen, something'swrong or lead source sucks.
When in reality that's not the case.
If, if you treated outboundmarketing really with good intent is
you're establishing a relationshipand you're like way up here.

(39:39):
So it's like I'm building a relationship,I'm in contact with them and I'm
going to nurture this relationshipall the way down to where they
almost start as an inbound lead.
How much time needs to pass before theystart to resonate with the messaging
they're seeing that your companyputs out where what you're talking
about starts to feel more at hometo them where they need a solution
and they're coming to terms with it.
So one is like making sure that you'renot throwing away leads because your

(40:03):
expectations and your preconceived notionof what should happen isn't the reality,
because innovations won't fix any of that.
And we, and we see that very commonly,where if somebody called you today and
right, you're on a high equity list, it'slike, yeah, you could sell the house, but
like, you called me, man, gimme the offer.
And it's like oftentimes, right?
That's marked as wanted Retail,no motivation, unqualified.
It's like there goes 500bucks and that's tough.

(40:24):
That's a tough pill to swallow.
So one is, is the importance of asales process to have highly skilled
salespeople work through those.
Then now back to your original questionof like innovations, is you can
basically take every objection andrepackage that into a value proposition.
That's innovation.
If you are unable to buy a houseat a discounted price, it's likely,

(40:45):
the reality is that the condition iseither better or the circumstances
are moderate and the person doesn'tneed the, you know, expedited
timeframe and all of those things.
And we kind of call that the sellerseesaw, where it's like, for it to be
wholesale, it needs to be so skewed.
That the seller's right condition oftheir home is down here, very poor, and
their motivation is up here very high.

(41:06):
And that is, again, asmall percentage of deals.
So what innovation does is allows you tohave three variables of control, which
is price, um, time and convenience.
And you play a game where, right, likeit's a, a little shell game, um, where
you're controlling the levers and, andyou're pulling them and you're exchanging
value between those three things.

(41:26):
It has to be veryauthentic and transparent.
So Nick, like I hear you, I offered youone 40 for your house and you said one 60.
The only way I could probably payyou one 60 is because we do a couple
of things here at Ben buys houses.
Uh, one is we buy properties and we'llrenovate them, um, and then resell them
or keep 'em for our rental portfolio.
Wholesale.

(41:47):
Um, two is, uh, if we don't havethe capacity to do that or it's not
right a good fit for us, you know,we work with a network of people,
um, who may also be interested in theproperty, um, which right is, uh, we'll
assign that out or we won't buy it.
Um, or number three, what you mentioned,I think you might qualify for something
that we call our equity protection programthat allows you to pay a little bit more.

(42:07):
And you mentioned that if Icould pay that difference in
price, and you weren't in a rush.
That we often can take propertiesto the open market and we can find
somebody who may wanna do some workon this house themselves, or somebody
that just really appreciates thecondition that your house is in.
As you've done a great job maintainingit, is that something you'd be
interested in hearing more about?
It does two things.
It reinforces your cash value offer.
'cause if they hate that and they'relike, no, man, I just wanna sell it.

(42:30):
Then you come back andyou say, okay, cool.
Well let's focus on here, and wheredo we need to be in that cash offer?
Or they say, uh, yeah, that sounds good.
They still are getting a guaranteedoffer for the house, and you have a
sense of confidence that if you takethat thing to the MLS, that one out of
the couple hundred million Americans isgonna have interest in that property,
in the condition that it's currently in.

(42:50):
This would not work necessarilyfor something that needs kitchens,
bathrooms, flooring, paint, electric.
It's gotta be in.
Livable condition for the most part.
'cause in, I'm assuming in most cases,not every case, but in most cases your
buyer through the MLS is most likelygonna get some variation of a loan.
Correct.
So, and that's the whole point there.
So there's a couplethings that will happen.
We still list a. Almost all of ourproperties on the MLS because what

(43:13):
comes with the MLS is newer investors.
So right.
The, the investor journey is anexperience where we all started, you
have no idea where to buy your firstinvestment property from, right?
You, you have Zillow, you'resitting at home on your couch.
Your wife says, I like interior design.
And you say, who on handy, right?
We're gonna do a flip.
That's not uncommon and it works well.
Um, you do that deal, you make nomoney, you exchange experience for

(43:36):
hard work, um, and you say, cool,I know how to do better next time.
Um, so one is you'll still find peoplewho pay a premium for cash properties.
So we strongly still encourage to takeproperties to the MLS that are in medium
to poor condition, and you will gaina lot of, you know, new cash buyers
and people who are out there seekingfix and flips with the innovation side
of things, a RV goes out the window.

(43:57):
We don't care about a RV.
We refer to a term as CCRV, whichis current condition, retail
value in its current state today.
What will this house sell forto somebody with a mortgage
or a loan if it won't, right?
That kind of changes the perspective.
You can still put it on the MLS,but you need to find a cash buyer.
So innovations don't fix.
Condition.
However, in today's market due toprices, demand, interest rates,

(44:20):
inventory levels, the gap is highlytightened in most markets between
a dated house that is livable and aafter repaired value house, right?
I live in Florida and it's like$25 a square foot difference now
in a competitive market betweenlike a 1980s house that has.
Decent looking oak cabinets versussome dude that bought it discounted.

(44:41):
It's expensive to renovate in thismarket and it's like 1 701 7 49.
There is not the disparityof this drastic gap.
So what that means is there'sa huge benefit to bringing
inventory to the market, right?
There is what we callwealth creation, right?
Is like when you do something thatcreates new money or different
money, that's wealth creation.
What you wanna do is youwant to create wealth to.

(45:03):
The inventory space.
So you wanna find inventorythat isn't on the market.
You wanna bring it to the market.
And then again, we had the conversationa minute ago about emotionally detaching
or applying a perceived filter to it.
You have no idea who's outthere that's pre-qualified.
It says I'm handy.
I don't care that it's a little bit dated.
Right?
Oh, I know a guy.
Oh, next year we'll save up.
Oh, after tax season, we'll renovatethe kitchen So long is that it

(45:25):
generally passes inspections.
You will find that's about90% of the people that you
talk to on a day-to-day basis.
People that have decent conditionhomes that are out there looking for an
alternative solution to a listing agent,and you have something to provide them.
So it is as simple as explainingto 'em what you can do for 'em.
You're their trusted guide inhelping them sell their house.

(45:47):
You can kind of work and negotiatea price that they get, which is
drastically different than an agent.
As an investor with innovation,I'll tell you how long I need and
I'll tell you how much you get.
If you invite a real estate agentover to your house and you ask those
questions, they'll be like, I'm not sure.
And, um, I don't know when it'llsell, but the only thing guaranteed
is you owe me 6% commission.
So it's, it's a polarizing view of anexperience, and if you keep it as simple

(46:10):
as that, you're providing somebody withcertainty, with experience, with the
ability to sell a house, with the abilityto market a house, with the ability to
list a house, rather than somebody saying.
I don't know, sign this listingagreement here for 6%, and I
don't know when it'll sell.
I don't know how much you'll get,but we'll do our best for you.
It's like it doesn't feel great.
So if you keep it simply asthat, there's a lot of value for
an investor in doing donations.

(46:32):
Man, this is exactly why I always callreal estate the onion, because the more
answers you give me, the more questions Ihave that gets so much deeper and deeper,
deeper bring them, bring on, we'll change.
This will go from podcast to q and a.And that's exactly the, the value of
these things is these cool conversationsbecause there's somebody stuck out
there like yourself, like somebody else.
That has a deal they're thinkingof right now that I would love for

(46:53):
them just to have a light bulb gooff and them say, oh, I get it.
Like I have a lot of these people whereI could give 'em a couple extra bucks and
ask for 60 days to sell it, and I needtwo days a week to run people through.
And you would be surprised.
There are people that want analternative solution to, again,
paying high commissions without any.
Certainty or expectations.
Now, I'm not saying go sign up abunch of deals and over promise and

(47:14):
under deliver and release 'em all.
That doesn't work forwholesaling either, right?
Like you have to haveintegrity with what you do.
But again, you're, you're shoppingthe world's largest buyer's list.
It is not that hard to bringgood quality inventory at the
right price to the market.
That's so great, man.
So pivoting now for somebodylistening that's like, man,
I have so many questions, butI'm really interested in this.
You piqued my interest.
Is this part of what you guys go through?

(47:35):
Talk about ramp REI and how you guysare helping people, as I see behind
you, skill, power, and sales fluent.
How do you guys help people today?
Is this part of the process that theylearn when they work with you guys?
That's awesome and thanks fornoticing my poster back here.
There you go.
Yeah.
Um, was a recent tagline we came up with.
We spent over two yearsdeveloping a sales program.
For our team internally, um, wesaid, Hey, we're gonna survive here.

(47:56):
Um, we, we do a lot of growth.
We do a lot of hiring, alot of onboarding, um, and
a lot of continued support.
And we went through ampletraining programs in the industry.
And when I say that it's, you know,spent multiple six figures and, and
did a bunch of 'em in person, virtualmodule based, all of these things.
And we crafted what has been good forour team has proven success internally

(48:18):
for a lot of our, our partnersand, you know, coaching partners.
Uh, we've had over 4,000transactions of our own.
A thousand innovationswe just broke, closed.
So we've got enough experience that wesay, Hey, right with that data again,
we look at it and we say, this works.
And what we did was we created aproduct to fulfill our own internal
organization and then we're like, Hey,people were like, oh, we want that.

(48:42):
We want that.
So it took us down, this two and ahalf year journey of building out.
A community that is focused onskills and conversion, um, you're
like, oh, I thought that was sales.
Right?
Sales is a byproduct of having theappropriate skills and converting
enough leads that equals a sale.
So we focus very deeply oncreating a consistent, uh.
Predictable and repeatable process,which is ultimately what an owner of

(49:06):
a business or an entrepreneur wants.
And again, if you're a oneman show, that's you, right?
You gotta be visionary in the morning,and then you gotta sleep good at
night knowing that you have enoughstuff going on that you're gonna
make some money at the end of it.
And not all people lovetraining, holding accountable
and working on skill development.
And we love all of those things.
So we build a community wherepeople can come, and what we

(49:27):
do is we work on the tactics.
We are the foul shots of salestraining in the industry.
I was so exhausted with seeing ouragents who were skilled human beings
fly to a bootcamp, watch an hour video,and get hit with an objection because
all they did was consumed content.

(49:47):
It got to the point where I saidthat they were, we were paying for
entertainment, and I was like, dude,if you wanna watch something for
entertainment, go home and watch ashow tonight on Peacock or Netflix.
We are going to practice sales so thatyour neuro elasticity becomes developed,
your immediate response becomes natural.
You don't have to thinkabout how to overcome them.
We are going to practiceevery day at this point.

(50:07):
We're gonna do it in small doses.
We are gonna break it downto where we know each time.
We refer back to a piece of the salesprocess for where you're having challenges
and we dug in there to basically build acommunity and a network that self guides
brings back current market challenges.
You know, personal challenges, sellerobjections, and we always have a place

(50:28):
where they fit into the sales process.
And we could inherently, again, pointto where the deficiency is, enhance
your skills there, turn you around, sendyou back out to do better immediately.
Not after 47 weeks, notafter you, you wait so long.
It's like the feedback loop is very short.
And we do that by training, like ona daily basis with our sales teams.
That's incredible, man.
So for somebody listening to this thatwants to connect with you with RAMP

(50:52):
REI or anything you guys are doing withinnovations and integrity, first home
buyers, what are some of the best ways toconnect with you and you guys as a whole?
Yeah, it all lives in oneplace now, which is cool.
It used to be a different thing.
So RAMP RE i.com is the home of whatwe do, and we have one community
where everything is baked into that.
Nice.
The cool part about it is we have aseven day free trial and if you play
your cards right and, and join, youknow, for a seven day trial, you usually

(51:15):
can catch two free training calls.
'cause we do, we do about eightcalls a month within our community.
Uh, broken down to salestraining on the tactics.
We have innovation specific calls,we have sales leadership calls.
I run a nerd call that'sabout KPIs and processes.
So we have all of these differentcalls where we suit all of
the needs of these consumers.
And then on top of that, you get access.

(51:36):
There's about 340 activepeople inside of there.
Um, and you can connectwith any and all of them.
So you talk about needing resources, youtalk about needing somebody, and if you
run virtual wholesale in a different areato help you out, you get immediate access
to highly skilled and trained peoplewhere we are there to support each other
and just get better every single day.
Um, super active community, as Ijust preface that with like, you

(51:58):
can't just listen to information.
Um, rules of engagement areyou show up, you play all in
camera, on mic's, off mute.
If you're new you can share feedback.
But we, we role play every call.
We have breakout rooms, every call.
We have homework, right?
We want you to get better.
If that's not for you, pleasesave all of us the issues, right?
And don't jump in, but if you wantto come, enhance yourself as a
human being, as a, a person in asales space, regardless of role.

(52:21):
Um, you know what I mean?
We have people globally.
I think we're on like, uh,four continents of people that
participate now, which is cool.
Um, so yeah, like come and playall in, and that, that's a, it's
just a really fun community to, toget better and win at real estate.
Dude, I, I mean, that sounds incredible.
And, uh, as, as I've said earlier on.
I know a lot of very high level successfuloperators and investors and all of them

(52:43):
have nothing but fantastic things tosay about you guys, your results, your
integrity behind everything you do.
So, you know, I definitely give my sealof approval for all the interactions
I've had now with you and definitelywith Eric Brewer and with everybody
that says nothing but fantasticthings about everything you guys stand
for as people and as entrepreneurs.
And you, sir, are somebody whobrings your A game to everything
you do in life in business.
And this interview has been no different.

(53:04):
You definitely brought your A gameto the A Game podcast today, man.
This has been awesome.
I know I took up a, a lot of your time.
I could asked you a million questions,man, and you were absolute stud about
giving me some of your time today.
Before I let you go aboutyour busy day, do you have any
final thoughts for listeners?
No, man.
I think anybody that's stuck take action.
Uh, it's really tough to be ina place where, you know, you
listen to these things and Right.

(53:24):
I listen to podcasts, I listen to peoplethat are inspirational and sometimes
with inspiration comes right, that, thatrestriction that you feel like you're not.
There and to them.
Um, I would challenge your beliefto surround yourself by everybody
who's crushing it in everyaspect of what you want to do.
And then just lean into that.
And, and if you do 1% ofthat, you're better than most
and you're 1% further ahead.

(53:46):
So reach out, use that community.
I obviously write a sales pitchis come get the free trial in our
community, but literally use it.
Come get in there.
I don't care if you bail in seven days.
Come ask a question that gets you started.
Um, I built.
This with Joe and Eric is apassionate project to help people.
It was outside of the transactional side.
It was the space where these conversationscan exist, where you can have access

(54:08):
to my calendar and we can chop it up.
And I want to help you, Nick, get a,get a innovation under contract so you
get that notch on your belt and you winand can tell somebody else about it.
So leverage your community andyour people and just take action.
Ask for the help.
Just, you know, do 1% more.
Get one step closer, clear one objectionand, and peel one layer of the onion back.
So.
That's my feedback always on these thingsis, you know, coming into this and,

(54:29):
and being a nerd in the sales industry.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, just finding yourway, um, just, you know, left foot,
right foot, but don't just standaround and wait for it to happen.
Man.
I really wanna commend you before wego on the fact that I, I know you're
an extremely intelligent guy and Iknow that you can get very articulate
and deep with all your technical termsand you really have a knack for taking
things and going against the grain andhaving a simplistic way to explain it.

(54:50):
And you keep it entertaining and youdon't make people feel dumb or talk down.
And I. I think that that's a, avery good skill and I appreciate the
fact that you don't give answers.
Like for a guy who keeps saying, I comefrom a sales background, sometimes I
get sales guys on, and every singleanswer is like, this can response.
They don't really give you the answer.
They don't really address the questions.
And it's almost like when you heardRogan with Donald Trump and it was,

(55:11):
everything was like, so man, you,you're direct, you answer questions
and um, and you come from a place thatI feel like you're really listening.
And trying to give information.
That's helpful man, and it didn'tgo unnoticed and I appreciate
your smart mind with yoursimplistic approach with integrity.
As always, thank you so much, man.
I'm really excited to connect with you inperson soon enough, and I'll put all the
show notes for all the ways to connectwith you guys shortly in the show notes.

(55:32):
I appreciate it, man.
Ben, my locker.
Have a fantastic day,sir. The A Game podcast.
Nick, thanks so much man.
It was a blast.
See you soon.
I appreciate it, brother.
Have a great day.

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