Real Estate Freedom Series – John Martinez

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] What’s up everyone. Hey Mike, Hambright from flipnerd.com. I recently hosted an online event for members of my professional real estate investor Facebook group, which you can access by visiting flipper.com/professional. It’s only for professionals, not a new folks, but wanted to share this with everybody.

And today I wanted to share, um, this amazing event that we call the freedom series with eight industry legends. Today’s episode is with the one and only mr. John Martinez. Awesome. Everybody. Next up, we’re going to bring up my buddy, mr. John Martinez is going to join us here. Okay. Hey, John, how are you, bud?

John: [00:00:41] Hey Mike, how are you doing

Mike: [00:00:43] good. So you’re enjoying the lockdown, right? I mean, you’ve had, this was a, this was a, uh, a market made for you, right?

John: [00:00:50] Almost I thought so at first, um, cause I haven’t changed anything, but it is a bit more difficult when the kids are also in lockdown.

Mike: [00:00:59] That’s true.

[00:01:00] John: [00:00:59] So, so little change there.

Mike: [00:01:02] Yup. Awesome. Well, hope you’re doing well. Congrats on the new house. I saw you posted some pictures. That’s amazing. Yeah. So John glad you’re here today. Uh, we’re talking about this event is really, you know, 4th of July is coming up here. We’re talking a lot about freedom and what being an entrepreneur or a real estate investor.

You obviously, you help a lot more real estate investors, right? Invest in yourself. And you’ve changed the lives of a lot of people really help them build out their teams, but just what this industry or being an entrepreneur has done for us and the freedom it’s provided. So, so my question for you and anyone who’s listening right now that has not yet posted it comments here, like what is freedom.

Mean to you as an entrepreneur?

John: [00:01:39] Yeah. So a good question. I, I looked at these questions beforehand, so I kind of cheated and I thought a lot about it today. Um, but freedom, I think it, it has to do with time. Um, I mean it’s a hundred percent time and I think it’s. When it comes to time, control of time and your options, because you can have a lot of, [00:02:00] let’s say you have a lot of time, but you have no options, so you can be unemployed, but since you have no money, you really can’t go do anything.

You can’t help anyone out. So you have no options. Right? The opposite side of that spectrum is you can have. All the options in the world, all the money in the world, but no time to actually do anything with it. So I think it’s, it’s having the time, uh, just complete control. So what you do with your time, no restrictions at all, who you do those things with, who you see, who you take along on your adventures, anything just, just complete and total control of your time with unlimited options.

To me, that’s that would be complete freedom.

Mike: [00:02:37] Yup. Yup. And so how would you say, you know, you’ve been around a lot of real estate investors and due to the fact of like, what you do, you help with sales training, you help people really, you, you’re not, you’re generally not helping brand new people. You’re helping people they’re trying to level up.

Right, right. So, you know, there’s a lot of people in this group. In fact, we created this group with active real estate investors. If people. Apply and there, and they’re not actively [00:03:00] doing deals at at least 10 to 20 a month a year, and we don’t allow me to the group. So that’s what this group is all about is, is kind of leveling up those that want to take their business to the next level.

So what are some of the things you’ve seen in terms of how people can kind of break through that? A lot of people on their own are able to do two or three deals a month and, um, And again, I’ll tell you and you know this, I know you grew this. I just want to say for anybody that’s joined us since we started, the goal is never units.

The goal is not necessarily money, even though we all want to make more money. The goal is those resources, give you the ability to start to add a team and scale your business and stuff like that. And give you more of your time back, which we just talk about. So talk a little about what makes the difference between the people that you’ve seen.

That breakthrough, that kind of self employed role to be in more of a business owner.

John: [00:03:50] Okay. Yeah. I think it’s a lot, it takes a lot to break through and I’ll tell you why, um, in order to get to that place where you’re doing [00:04:00] some deals and you’re making some money in order to get there from nothing, you have to grind it out.

Right. So it could be the first six months, a year, first, five years. Most investors, most anyone starting a new business learns that in order to be successful, I have to do, I just work my butt off in order to be more successful. I have to work even harder. So when I see the success, the more successful I’d say entrepreneurs or investors do is at some point they flip that and they say, it’s no longer about working harder.

It’s about Le verging the resources, and it’s just a mindset shift. They stopped working so hard and they say, What do I have that can replace 10 minutes here, an hour here, uh, my time here and they start to focus on, on systems, on people, on automation and taking some of that money they’ve made and just leveraging the living daylights out of it.

So I think it’s, it’s those who are successful can make that mind shift change, which again is really hard. Cause you get to a certain place. Placed by grinding, but [00:05:00] they shift to, okay, I’m done. And now I’m going to start leveraging and they start scaling back their, their time involved in the business instead of doing more.

Mike: [00:05:07] Yeah. And it’s hard to we’re as real estate investors. We’re, you know, we’re all cheap. We’re trying to buy everything at a discount. I’ll just do it myself. Um, and so, you know, on some level you have to bet on yourself and say, do I want a job or do I want a business? Right.

John: [00:05:22] I agree a hundred percent.

Mike: [00:05:23] Yeah.

Yeah. And when you have kids, you have a family, you have your you’re having more and more children as time goes by. But you know, a lot of people are real estate investors don’t realize that they don’t have time. They think, Oh, I own a business until something happens. It could be more kids. It could be a health issue.

It could be other things that you realize. I really don’t have freedom at all. Like I am self employed. I make money. Maybe it’s more than I made in the year I had last, but you don’t really have that time, right?

John: [00:05:55] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s a big difference between owning a business and, and, and having a [00:06:00] job and you can continue two quite easily.

Right. Um, you know, and that’s really, that speaks to me cause that’s my number one goal is to not be needed, just have a business that runs a ton of mostly without me. Um, you know, again, I think mindsets change as you go on in the beginning, I thought it was sexy to run a lot of stuff and to be heavily involved in the bigger operation you had, um, The more value you had as a person?

I know that’s weird, but I think a lot of people are, I’m going to have a business that’s huge and offices everywhere, and 500 people under me. And the more I started to go down that road, I realized that was just making my job harder. And I was giving myself harder and harder and harder work. So that’s kind of when I made that shift, we talked about a moment ago about, okay, how do I accomplish the same by taking me out of it?

So. Yeah, I, I think, um, no, I think that’s a good as answers I’m going to give.

Mike: [00:06:57] Yeah. Yeah. So talk a little bit about, [00:07:00] obviously you, you, um, are, you know, just the, the top sales trainer in the industry here. Talk about, uh, for folks that, you know, I think there’s this, uh, this isn’t intended to be a promotion for you, although a lot of people with you and I hope more people will, will work with you.

So this isn’t meant to be a plug for those either watching, but it’s a little bit of a shameless plug, I guess, is. People investing in themselves. I think a lot of times people have been in sales before, or, you know, I’ve been guilty of hiring salespeople that are like, Oh, he’s kind of, I guess my best description would be, he seems salesy.

And he’s a pleasant guy. Nice to talk to. There’s a difference between being nice to talk to, and being able to structure a deal. And so talk about this in the context of, you know, Gary Harper was on a little bit ago and he said, One of the things he said is how to get more freedom is be willing to invest in yourself right in your business.

So talk about the importance of investing in yourself through improving your sales skills, sales techniques for you or your team.

[00:08:00] John: [00:08:00] Yeah. I mean, I’m a big believer in that too. Um, I invest heavily in myself. Um, sometimes it means buying stuff or taking courses. Sometimes it means just. Buckling down and spending time learning something or studying something can mean all kinds of different things.

But investing, singing yourself is, is super important. And you know, when it comes to sales, you know, to relate it to, to freedom. Um, let’s say you’re solo preneur. You’re doing well. You’re doing five, 10 deals a month. You’re you’re, you know, kicking butt. Well, there comes a time where if you want more freedom, you have to get more efficient at what you do.

Right. So that’s going to mean, okay, how do I take a, what, what is three calls for me to typically close a deal and turn it into one? How do I take that? 90 minutes? Sales call and turn it into 45. How do I increase my conversion rates? So I don’t have to be on 25 appointments a week or make 25 offers, but I can get the same way just 10.

And then you can extrapolate wait that out to a sales team and things like that. But so when it comes to freedom, you said in the beginning time, well, there [00:09:00] comes a time where. More activity only gives you more of a job and you have to switch and say, how do I leverage that leads I have? How do I leverage the time I have with sellers and how do I start winning some of that time back?

And that means conversion rates. And so that’s kind of how sales, I believe translates into this

Mike: [00:09:15] conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, patients mentioned the last one and I’ve said this before too, is when people say, well, I want to buy a house. I want to double my business. It’s like, okay, well you need to double your leads.

Not necessarily double, but you need, I think that top of that funnel, right? Yeah. I need, like, you can’t just say, I want a house. It’s like, okay, well, go get, go get 20 leads. Like 20 leads should go a house. If you’re, if you’re closing at 5%, something like that. Right. And as a business owner, you have to think about, okay, well, it’s not.

It’s not the end resolve. It’s like how it at the top of the funnel do you say, okay, I need more leads and guess what you’re going to need. If you need more, leads more people to work, those leads because unless you want to work harder, then that’s what you gotta do.

John: [00:09:58] Yeah. Well, I mean, you’re going to have [00:10:00] diminishing return.

So as you grow, um, you know, larger staff things falling through the crack cracks, you might take, you might close 5%, one out of 20. But if you double or triple your, the amount of it, isn’t this or doing that might dip down to two or 3%, and now we’re on paper thin margins, right? And you start to get into a dangerous area and you’re working harder and harder and harder to get the same thing.

You know, I’ve, I’ve worked for a lot of investors now. And I can’t say how many times I’ve heard the story where it was. I knew I needed to scale to get myself out of the business. I ended up going from 10 deals a year to 50. Made the same amount of income with 10 times the headaches, the stress, the turn, just killing themselves.

So with scaling, um, you have to get, yeah, better. Right? So in sales specifically, you have to convert more because as you scale and you have diminishing returns, you’re going to have to make up for those diminishing returns somewhere. Or at some point you go into the red. Yeah, just have a big business that, I mean, I’ve read two stories about multibillion dollar businesses this week that, you [00:11:00] know, cost got out of hand and it doesn’t matter if you’re doing 20 billion a year.

Once you have those paper thin margins and dip into the red, no matter how big your business is, it can go South.

Mike: [00:11:09] Yeah. And in some instances it’s a little bit different too. Like I think a lot of real people, let’s say there’s a lot of people that want to be real estate investors and they start to have some level of success, but they’re doing it all.

And so they make it work. Cause they’re. You know, they’re the skin off their back. Right. They’re just hustling. And, um, and he was hustling through it. Right. But they’re, they’re not the best salesperson that they could have. And that’s such a key role. Like I’ve, you know, I’ve had students that people before that I’m like, look.

Like if my, we have this joke with my wife and I she’s like if, if she had ever had to be in the acquisitions role, we would have never bought a house because she’s very risk averse. She’s very pleasant to talk to you. Like that’s not a problem, but she’s just not a, you know, she’s, she just is not the right person to be in a sales role.

And if I was responsible for managing cash in our [00:12:00] business, like we would have been out of business a long time ago and it’s not incompetent. I just like, I put it off until. It’s like a bigger issue. And at that point, like you might be dead, right? So sometimes there’s people that are entrepreneurs that could be great real estate investors.

They could be the great owner of a company, but they’re not necessarily the right person in the sales role. And I’ve seen people that try to force themselves to do that versus finding the right person and that right person sometimes can run circles around them in an acquisitions position. Right?

John: [00:12:29] Yeah. I mean like everything else in the world, um, Bringing it on that first person.

It’s hard to let go, but, but absolutely. I mean, I can just speak personally. Um, no, I’m a sales trainer and I don’t even handle sales for my own, the company. Not because I can’t write. Right. But because of burnout, I know if I’m doing sales eight hours a day, then I’m going to hit a point where I’m no longer effective.

Right. Because it’s just, it’s, it’s burnout. It’s too much volume. So I know, even though I can do it. [00:13:00] Someone else can do it better than I can because they can do it all the time. They can, they can have all the conversations, every conversation, their chipper, they love talking to people. They love meeting people and, and that energizes them.

So, so even in my own business, being a sales trainer, I outsource sales. I know if I give them the system, they are built to just go at it. And, and because of that, because of their personality, um, you know, one-to-one, can I crush it probably. Uh, but when we’re talking about all day long, every, uh, every day, I’m not the best person for that role.

Mike: [00:13:32] Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t give you the lifestyle you want or the freedom you want. It doesn’t allow you to focus on growing the business or living the life you want. Right. You’re you’re, you’re. But basically in a job at that point, so exactly. Yup. Yup. Awesome. Yeah, John, what, what’s the biggest piece of advice you could give to people that, um, are you get more freedom in their life?

Right. So, and we’re kind of, kind of defining that as probably more time and more money. Um, there’s a bunch of people, anybody [00:14:00] that’s watching this right now, or that’s going to watch it in the future is, um, you know, I think everybody wants. To make more money. They want more of their time back. They want to work less, like all those things.

What’s the big piece of advice you can give to people that are listening to this right now.

John: [00:14:13] Yeah. First of all, I would say all money does is lets you have more time and let you control how you spend it. So again, I think it just comes down to time. The money just helps you control more of your time. But the biggest advice I could give is probably the, the, what I had to do myself to kind of.

Start to transition from, from grinding to trying to own a business. And it was really limiting myself how much I work, how much I had control 11, it started small, right? Hey, I’m going to, you know, we’re all 24 seven, you know, a business owner. So it started with I’m taking a day off. You know, or an hour off and just baby steps, um, and, and letting that grow until you get used to it.

Right? And then you don’t want to go backwards and it’s, you know what, I’m only going to work four days a week and you get used to it and you don’t want to go backwards. [00:15:00] So, um, we’re running multiple businesses now that I think I’m involved maybe three to four hours a week, but I’m still at that point where it’s.

I I’ve gone even further. I’ve has told myself what would happen if it’s real morbid, but if I passed away, these businesses still have to run and support my family if I wasn’t there. So even if it is just four hours a week, a lot of people would say, dream job. Great. You, you made it, but I’m still worrying, right?

I’m still going, you know, again, instead of enjoying my time, I’m spending my time worrying, thinking if something happened to me, How’s my family going to, what are they going to do? Right. So I, I’m now focused on how do I get out completely where, where the business is autonomous. And I literally own it as an asset and don’t run it.

Mike: [00:15:48] Yeah. That’s great. That’s great. And I, and you know, everybody has different goals. Not everybody wants that. I think a lot of people would love that. Right. So it kinda depends on what everybody’s goals are. Yeah, I think, um, but that’s important to think about sometimes we, we [00:16:00] kind of realize that. We have a legacy.

We have a family behind us that you could get insurance and things like that. It’s not quite the same. And I think that’s a great goal is, uh, if I don’t know if you heard me upfront, we had this wild hair idea last week about like, what if we just buy an RV and just leave for a year and a half? There’s a pretty good chance.

We’re going to do that here. Like right after this next investor, if you will coming up in August, like let’s just go. And, um, it sounds crazy, but I know we’ll figure it out. And I know it’ll force me to be more resourceful, get things done in a compact period of time. And it forced me to enjoy, um, we’re going to go to all these amazing places.

If we do it, it’s going to force me to enjoy that more. Now I just kinda take. You know, life for granted sometimes. Right. It’s easy to do, but, um, but no, I think it’s a great thing to say. How do I, how do I disappear? How do I make a business run without?

John: [00:16:50] Yeah. It doesn’t mean that you have to disappear. I’m probably never going to disappear.

Right. What it means is you have the control. If you want to, you can, if you need to, you [00:17:00] can write. Um, so it doesn’t mean you have to disappear. But the option, it’s that option that you’re looking for.

Mike: [00:17:06] Yeah. And I can say this with all honesty, 13 years almost in business. Now, whenever I leave town, like my business does better.

Cause I’m just thinking of a way, like, I’m just like. Because I’m an idea guy, right? I’m like, Oh, I got this idea for something like, when that eliminates people can just like put their head down and do what they need to do. Then they’re more effective with me. So. Awesome. Well, John, if folks want to learn more about you, I mean, they already have a lot of people that they’re watching.

You already know you, where can they go to learn more about what you’ve got going

John: [00:17:32] on? Yeah. Um, Midwest rev.com is our, our core website. So Midwest, R E V as in Victor, Midwest rev, uh, dot com, um, tons of free the videos and stuff like that. And we’ve also got a YouTube channel. So if you, uh, search Midwest revenue group, probably 150, 200 videos of just free training and stuff, um, Everything from running a business to, I mean, obviously it’s mostly sales stuff, but there’s a variety of stuff in there.

Uh, REI [00:18:00] specific for lead managers, acquisition managers, and for the business owners and how to run those teams and build those types of teams. So, uh, Midwest revenue group, the website, or the YouTube channel, probably the two

Mike: [00:18:10] best places to go. I’ll drop a link here in the comments and just a second. So John, great to see you, my

John: [00:18:15] friend.

Good to see you, Mike, as always

Mike: [00:18:18] looking forward to seeing you against me. Thanks for being such a good big giver of my friend. Yeah. See

John: [00:18:22] you soon.

Mike: [00:18:22] Okay. Take care. Hey, I hope you enjoyed our freedom series, which include eight shows with eight talented, the real estate industry. Legends. How can we work more together?

I hope real estate investors in a few different ways. I’d love to help you get to know you better. And here’s how I run the investor fuel mastermind. It is a leading. Mastermind association of America’s top real estate investors. You can learn more about [email protected]. In fact, our next meeting is coming up very fast.

If you go to investor fuel.com, you can learn more or schedule a call to talk with our team. The second one as I help real estate investors generate better. Leeds. I’m the co founder of an agency [00:19:00] that we call the investor machine. You can learn [email protected]. We help take a consistent that high quality lead generation off of your plate.

So you can focus on getting more of your life back and driving the business. The third way is I have a professional real estate investor network group. It’s a free Facebook group for professional real estate investors. Only, not for newbies, have a soft spot in my heart for it. Newbies as well. And I’ll talk about that in a second, but if you’re experienced, if you’re actually doing deals each and every month, you should check out our professional rules.

It’s an investor network by going to flipnerd.com/professional. That’ll redirect you to the right Facebook group. And last but not least for the past, almost seven years, we’ve created over 1500 video podcast shows hundreds of blogs, lots of free training, all on flipnerd.com. You can go there and check it out.