Wholesaling Systems and Processes

Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. Really excited to have my good friend Rafael Cortez on today. He is an operational expert, uh, very systems and processes oriented, which is really how most of us should be treating our business right today. We’re going to talk about systems and processes for wholesaling, and we’re going to go through his wholesaling business.

Welcome to real estate investing in secrets. We’re all looking for freedom and the opportunity to live better, more fulfilling lives. But most of us were trained our entire lives to work for someone else to chase their dreams. How can we use real estate investing as a vehicle to achieve financial freedom?

My life is dedicated to answering your real estate investing questions and helping you build an investing business that allows you to change your. And the world around you and to enable you to turn your dreams of financial freedom into a reality. My name is Mike Hambright from flipnerd.com and your questions get answered here on the real estate investing secrets.[00:01:00]

Hey, Rafael, welcome to the show.

Rafael: Thanks somebody from him, man. It’s an honor.

Mike: Yeah. Glad to be on. And for those that don’t know, I was actually on your show recently. So a lot of us that are podcasts or sometimes you’ll, I was on your show and I was like, Hey, why don’t you come on my show. So, um, some kind of back-to-back shows here.

Great to see you always. And I’m excited to talk about this cause I talk about, you know, uh, I have, I actually have. I don’t know if I should say this out loud. When I create content, I try to stick to, I’ve created some pillars of content that I like to talk about. Things that like surrounding yourself with the right people.

Uh, and your network is like one of my pillars and treating your business like a business with systems and processes. Having the right people in place is one of my pillars. Like I talk about that all time. I know that’s a, that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. Cause I think a lot of wholesalers, it’s certainly a lot of newer real estate investors.

Um, treat it like a job for sure. Right. And guys like you and me are on a mission to help them turn it into

Rafael: a real business. Right? Absolutely. I think, I think it’s a, it’s often overlooked. I think it’s often overlooked people [00:02:00] get enamored with the idea of, oh, you know what, I’m going to, you know, get a wholesale deal and then bank out 30, 40,000, $50,000 on a deal.

Right. And then what happens is that people get paid on that and then they have to start over. Uh, rebuild the whole thing. So it becomes like this project as opposed to this business. And I think one of our good friends instead of best, uh, Tom Crow, right. Hustles a season, uh, I added the, uh, the portion of not a business strategy.

So I’m, I’m a big believer that also the sixties in that a business strategy, eventually you have to create something that’s sustainable. Um, otherwise you’re just going to be. And that self-employed business owner. That’s

Mike: exactly right, man. I say I use those same words all the time is that people get into this first.

I think a lot of people get into it for one of two reasons, but they’re kind of tied together, financial freedom. Like they want to get some big paydays and then they want more control over their life. And what ends up happening with a lot of people is they might make. You know, either they make a ton of money or they make enough money to like, keep them at least, uh, not from going back to a [00:03:00] W2 job because they can’t make that kind of money there, but it’s not great money, but then they’re still a slave to their business.

So they don’t have that time. Freedom. Maybe they’re making decent money. But if they go on vacation, the business stops somebody, the family, God forbid gets sick. The business stops, you know, and that’s not a real business.

Rafael: That’s yeah, no, absolutely. There’s no consistency. A couple of things happen there, like psychologically, right.

And people start getting pissed off, uh, with the quality of life they’re living, because they’ve seen the possibilities. Like when you tap, for example, when you get a check of 30, $40,000 and you’re used to a nine to five. It breaks your mindset. It really breaks your thought process. It’s like, holy crap.

Okay. I can make this much money. Right. What if it happens every month? What if it happens every month? A couple of times, um, you know, some people start getting a taste of that. And then when they go back to the nine to five or they lose that consistency and, and, and get trapped in that hustle, um, there there’s almost discontent, you know what I mean?

They’re like, Ugh. I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen the, the, the greener side of the lawn. Like, I don’t want to go back to, to the other side where I can’t make, you [00:04:00] know, these things. And ultimately I think we all work for four options. Right? We were, we’re trying to dictate our options and have a, you know, a good range of those.

Right, right. Yeah.

Mike: Before we jump in here for if anybody that is listening right now that doesn’t know who you are, tell us a bit about your.

Rafael: Um, so, uh, background, uh, I, um, I used to be a firefighter firefighter when I was 19 years old, uh, launched my first business, which was a non-emergency medical transportation business, nothing to do with real estate.

And I was 21 years old at the time. So I’ve been, I’ve been used to having my own ball of wax to play with, uh, for last, you know, 18 years. I’m 39 now I’m going to be 40. Uh, but, um, but yeah, so that’s how I started as an entrepreneur in 2009, I got into fix and flip. Because I had the, I mean, I was able to put some cash aside and, and, and wanted to invest.

Right. Diversify the transportation business was doing well. Um, that’s where I got my, my, uh, my feet wet and really got baptized under fire when it [00:05:00] comes to two systems, because it’s an industry that has a lot of logistics. You can’t, you can’t perform. If you don’t like you’re forced to systemize, uh, when you’re in transportation, just because of the nature of the beast.

Yup. And, um, and. Brought in some of the methodology and systems and strategies and, and, and discipline from the firehouse into that transportation business. And then I kind of, you know, that spilled into the whole real estate thing. I started doing fixing and flipping. Uh, I bumped my head a few times in terms of, you know, you know, losing some casual flips and then breaking even on others and, and, you know, the, the whole, the whole digging the trench thing.

Right. Um, and, uh, and after that, a couple of years after that, I started whole. Uh, when I, when I realized that I could, you know, make money just from, you know, selling the vested interest in the property, as opposed to swinging a hammer, like it’s game over, this is why.

Mike: Yep. Yeah. That’s awesome, man. And now you spend a lot of time helping people grow their business and turn it into a real business.

[00:06:00] Not a job.

Rafael: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, eventually, I mean, I went back to school. I have a bachelor’s in business administration. I have a master’s degree in psychology and the second master’s degree in organizational psychology. So that’s my official title. I’m an organizational psychologist. And I put people in business, uh, people in systems together, uh, you know, essentially I’d like to play with that kind of stuff.

Um, and ultimately like the, the, the bottom line is to, to create a machine that works without you. Right. It’s not. Uh, if I go on vacation 30 days, I want to come back and make sure that everything’s still humming. I don’t want things to fall apart, which is often what happens. I know I’ve been blind to at times.

Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. Once I, most of my business got to a point to where, when I left, my team did better while I was gone, then I was away. I knew, I knew I was on.

Rafael: Yeah. Yeah. Tapping into the talents of, uh, of the team is, is, I mean, it’s huge, huge, huge, empowering

Mike: to think about like, I want to go on vacation, like. Yeah, this is a, this is a perfect sign.

If we go on vacation [00:07:00] and we’re able to compress and get all this stuff done, like right before we get right before we leave. And then right before we get back, but it’s, it’s like I got a week’s worth of. Worked on in one day, that’s a sure sign that you need better systems and processes because there is a more efficient way to do what you’re doing.

And you figured it out when you were going to go on vacation or when something happened. And so that should be a sure sign. That’s like, Hey, get these systems and processes in place. So your, your company is doing a week’s worth of work in it. 365 days a year. Right.

Rafael: It just seemed like the level of productivity.

Right. Um, one thing that happens that, I mean, I was, I was, I was micromanaging when I had the transportation business and I got burned out. So, I mean, it’s not a, it’s not a, a happy story, you know, throughout, uh, I really got burned out. I got the more lies I was fatigued, tired, and I was 26 years old. Uh, anyway, just take me, take me.

I don’t want to live anymore. Um, and I’m not that type of guy, right. I remember waking up when I was 17 years old and they’re like, I own the world [00:08:00] in my head and the disbar, it can, and it kind of lost that because I got so, so ingrained in that, in that hustle, that micromanagement, that, you know, that trying to break walls with my forehead type of deal.

Um, and I think a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we, we fall into that space accidentally, right? Because we, we were watching the bottom line. We’re hiring, maybe we hire bad and then we have to, you know, we’ve got a baby that we’ve got to take care of and instead of an employee, who’s a board. So yeah, there’s a lot of things that play into it.

But. Um, you know, eventually made it to a point where we have a pretty solid team and then the, uh, the companies, I own multiple companies now and they, they kind of feed each other and, and, uh, you know, they all elevate the same time, so it’s pretty cool. And I haven’t, it’s not like I’ve done that on my own.

And if I hadn’t tapped into, into teams into the talent of other people, uh, which I’m blessed to have in, in, in, in my reach it’s, I mean, it w I wouldn’t be anywhere.

Mike: That’s awesome, man. Well, so they were going to get in, we’re gonna talk about, and kind of six steps or a process [00:09:00] of the wholesale and blueprint, um, that folks can kind of use to basically help them be more efficient in their business.

Right. So let’s kind of dive in what’s.

Rafael: So the, uh, the, I call it the wholesaling business blueprint, right. And it’s a path it’s a, it’s a tried and tested battle-tested, you know, approach to getting deals on a regular basis. Now, the, the, the framework, um, you can, you can transfer it, you can apply it to two, I don’t know, commercial real estate, traditional real estate.

We have a similar framework and in my brokerage, um, and, and. But the, the steps are the same. Like the essential principles are very similar. Um, so the first one is going to be sourcing. You gotta have a way and understand that you don’t have to have a big, massive team to have a process in place. It can be a one person operation.

They can’t emphasize that enough. You can be a one person operation and still understand it. You’re following a framework, uh, because when you get ready to hire people and plug people into your system on to operating system, you know where to plug them into, you know, you don’t, you know what to keep them [00:10:00] accountable for.

So that’s important. That’s why it’s important to segment kind of like the actions that go hand in hand with the business. The first one is going to be a sourcing. So thing deals, you know, that. All we do is pretty much gaging for, for interests and sourcing can look like, you know, pay-per-click term ma um, PPC campaigns, direct mail campaigns, SMS taxing cold calling is a big one for us.

Um, but all you’re doing at the sourcing stage is plowing through. You know, if you’re pulling lists or you’re reaching out to people and the raising their hands, okay. They may want a million bucks for their $200,000 property. That’s fine. We’re not pre-qualifying we’re sourcing. Um, and the reason that we segment that to, uh, to just the sourcing stage is because if you hire cold colors, for example, there’s a lot of attrition.

So if you have the cold callers do pre-qualification as well, you’re always going to have to be. And it’s easier to train for a one-page cold call script than it is to pre-qualify and have social awareness of what’s going on and teach them the industry. Right. So we segment that, [00:11:00] um, sourcing. The second step is pre-qualification.

That’s where my lead managers. So anytime somebody, uh, somebody raises their hand, they want an offer. It automatically goes to the lead managers and they have that conversation, that discovery conversation, where are they? Pre-qualify, which is stage two, stage two. Um, we could call pre-qualify based on condition, motivation, timeline, and price.

So we have four pillars that we follow and it’s a very, you know, structured. About conversation, not robotic, but structure. So there’s, there’s certain ways that we ask for, for details and stuff like that to kind of discover what the real issue behind the sale is. Right. Because ultimately what we want to do is produce a solution and I just give them a, uh, an offer.

And then, uh, if they don’t take it, we move on like, no, there’s, there’s, if there’s a problem to be solved, I mean, we can, we can come in and play in that area. Yeah. Um, yeah. That I, they get pre-qualified three out of four, makes it over to a requisition. So we’re not burning out our snipers, right? Per se, like the acquisition specialties.

These are, [00:12:00] uh, these are people who are trained in negotiation. We spent good money, uh, building them up and empowering them that to, to train. They go to continuing education and whatnot. You can spend a lot more money in time with somebody who’s doing acquisitions because they’re going to be making a lot more money.

Um, then for example, the cool calling one mistake that I see all the time is, um, that, uh, they’ll have. Position rep a cold call pre-qualify and then run the deal and sometimes even display. And if that person leaves like that percentage of your business, if you only had two people there, 50% of your businesses just left, right.

That’s crazy. Like that’s where the wheels fall off. Right. But we, uh, we go to acquisition, um, and then get that contract signed. You have everything, uh, uh, I sent over to Dysport, which is stage number four disposition process. So the manager has a couple of different responsibilities. The, um, the, one of them is going to be built up the buyer’s list.

Like, so even if there’s no, there’s nothing for them to actively do marketing at [00:13:00] that time, say all the properties are being marketed. Right. Live with the buyer’s list and everything. They’re still building out the, uh, the buyers list. They’re, uh, they’re, uh, building relationships, going to meet up something, just, you know, broadening up the network like you, like you were talking about earlier.

It’s very, very important. Uh, so that happens at this. Uh, and of course, you know, sell the deal, get paid. So that stage for most businesses, uh, stop there. The, uh, if you look at, uh, like, uh, the life of a wholesale deal, people get paid and then boom, they go back to sourcing to deals, right. Uh, or, uh, you know, looking for sellers again.

Uh, but I think if you leave the last two steps out of this equation, like it’s a big mistake. The, uh, the fifth one is, uh, measuring. We were always track. We track KPIs. We track reach. We track conversion, uh, cost per lead cost per deal offers made. I mean, there’s a, and we run this measuring, uh, stag through, uh, through a single meeting every single every week.

So every week we get together, we go over the scorecard and it’s a very methodical approach. That’s what takes me about 90 [00:14:00] minutes to jump in on that call and then be part of that meeting. Everything else is run by, by itself. And then it just kinda, you know, tap in during the week, but it’s not sucking up my time because all the other roles are assigned, you know, what.

So it, uh, it works well on the measuring stage. Now what you find there, it’s crazy. For example, it can give you a couple of weeks, uh, no, about a month and a half ago. I think we, we saw a drop, like a drastic drop in leads and that’s because we’re tracking a single every single week. Right. So we saw a dramatic drop boom, the, the leads bottom down.

Uh, we go into the campaigns that we’re running. We found out that, uh, they had red flags, new words on the SMS, um, you know, protocols. So we go in there and a lot of those words were part of the templates and what not. So he had to come in and we caught it the next week. Right. So we didn’t have to wait two, three months before we spent a bunch of cash and our results and whatnot, to figure out what the judge, you were tracking,

Mike: the KPIs you instantly knew there was a problem somewhere.

Rafael: Exactly. You’re tracking the numbers and you know, we’ll get measured. What gets measured gets improved, right? Simple. Yes. [00:15:00] Uh, principle. And so we saw that it bottomed out, we came in and fixed that next week. We’re right back up. Um, and, but like, that’s the kind of stuff that you have the ability to see when you measure stuff properly.

Um, then as we’re digesting all that information, we have a sixth stage, which is the improve. Like you never forget to ask yourself, what could we have done better? Uh, like when we have, I don’t know, we close three, four deals in a week or, you know, whatnot, we’ll go over every single one of the. And then, uh, okay.

What happened to this conversation? We’ll do a breakdown or management via the acquisition manager does a breakdown with, with the management team or I’m sorry, acquisitions team. And, uh, you know, what happened? Um, did we leave any money on the table? Was there, did we. Uh, you know, how, what did we do? Good that we can actually come in and then, uh, turned into an SOP standard operating procedure for stuff going forward.

And that’s the improvement process. And then you go back and figure it out what that looks like and start sourcing again. But, um,

Mike: the circle, right? You run your business, you review how it went. You figure out what you can do better and you just get better and better and just [00:16:00] keep going around it.

Rafael: Yeah, absolutely.

And, and, uh, and when you, when you break it down like that, it just brings a lot of clarity. It brings a lot of clarity, because for example, we don’t have enough prospects for acquisitions to work. Uh, we’ll look at the conversion. Okay. So we go one step back. Okay. Do we have enough leads that we need to convert?

If that’s. Uh, but they’re not making it over to acquisitions. We know we have a conversion problem. Right. So that’s where the bottleneck is. Now, if we don’t have enough leads, we know we can go down to another step to the sourcing. So you figure out what your kinks are at and then you can come in and work.

Um, and then, uh, I mean, it’s my favorite part, right? Coming in as the, as the owner, as a CEO, and then taking that 30,000 foot view, looking at the overall machine and then seeing where the gaps are and proving that, uh, that’s the, uh, you know, the, um, I think. Uh, it’s a, it’s almost like an ego boost when you come in and they’re like, oh cool.

I see that. They didn’t see it. I saw it. But it’s because you know, the overall, you know, you’re cheating, you’re kind of cheating because you have the blueprint, like you have the whole thing laid out.

Mike: So [00:17:00] talk a little bit about how people there’s a lot of people that might be listening to this that are newer, newer, and they don’t have a team yet.

It’s just them. These things are harder to do. I mean, you know, you, you should go through a similar process, right. Obviously if you’re a wholesaler, you’re. Take it you’re, you’re generating leads somehow. You’re qualifying them going on appointments and making offers where they do it over the phone or in person, and then you’re ultimately selling the properties.

Um, and then in the back of your mind, you’re like, oh, what can I do better? You kind of learn from it, but you’re not using reporting right. Per se, but this all gets kind of better and easier to manage when you can pull yourself up and not have to do the day-to-day tasks as well. Right. So what, what are, what are some tips you could give folks for?

You basically scaling your business up. And I talk about this all the time. Like you got you’re here and you want to kind of get here. Right. And how do you bridge that gap to go from a solo for newer to having a team cause the business. I can get you where you want to go from my expense to the most people is once you are doing, [00:18:00] you know, every market’s a little bit different, but three to four deals or more a month, because now you’ve got the revenue, the profit afford, uh, some people on your team to kind of do some of the things that will help you pull out of the day-to-day and you can run it like a business.

Right? So talk, let’s talk a bit about kind of bridging that gap, going from the solo preneur to a scaled up entrepreneur and some advice you would maybe.

Rafael: Yeah. No, absolutely. Well, first thing is going to be, I mean, you can, you can scale, uh, chaos or you can scale systems, right? So you have no idea what you’re doing.

You’re thinking about scaling. Uh, you need to come back and then just go back to the drawing board, figure out what the process is. And, you know, for example, because if you hire too soon, uh, say that, I don’t know, I wanna, I want an acquisitions manager or a grad positions guy, like, okay, what are they going to be doing?

What’s the accountability that you’re going to be holding them up to. Right. And that’s huge to know. Well, I think when we’re starting off, especially bootstrapping, I bootstrapped every, every business that I’ve been a part of. Um, it’s um, we have the opportunity to lay out the foundation, right? So we [00:19:00] know what that looks like, uh, Soleil, that foundation, and you don’t have to get it perfect.

Right? You don’t have to dial everything in and then have everything, you know, massive imperfect action is a thousand times better than having a real. Uh, you know, business plan, massive imperfect action is going to really tell you what you need to focus on. So start, uh, you know, figuring it start documenting everything.

One thing that I do is which is a, it’s kind of like a hack, uh, but everything, every time I’m doing something new, say that I’m, uh, I’m running comps through a new system or something I’ll turn on. Um, I go to loom.com and I have an account with bloom. It’s like 10 bucks, stupid cheap. Uh, but you turn that thing on and you start talking over what you’re doing.

You’re. So you go through that one process, right? And in three minutes later, now you have, you actually have a trainable, uh, piece or a trainable piece of material. You can give somebody else so they can learn it. And what happens that you start documenting all your actions, um, and, um, And breaking it down.

Right? So for example, if somebody wants to scale like the first person, if you’re cold calling is one of your approaches, the first hire is [00:20:00] going to be, it’s always going to be a VA. Uh, don’t go and try to, you know, get a director of operations right out of the gate, a dispositions manager. Would you not generating deals?

Uh, you need leads. You need to have that consistency and, and I’m telling you it’s, it’s a game changer. When you have a one thing that I see often, it’s a lot of people that are going to my, my, my program is, you know, they they’re really good at negotiating and selling deals, but the consistency’s not there.

If you plug somebody in at the beginning of that whole chain and the sourcing part, it’s going to be like the it’s like they’re filling the tank every, since. You know what I mean? So that consistency is there. So if you’re hiring, if you’re thinking about scaling and moving on to that next level, uh, your first hire is going to be somebody who keeps that consistency in the market, in the marketing going on.

If it’s a cold caller and make sure you give them enough leads and have them pumped that stuff, uh, you know, just stay on it eight hours a day and then dialing. And, and because when you have a trickle of. You feel that pressure to move right? A lot of times it’s oh, I don’t have anything. So I have to [00:21:00] generate and that’s really what stops people in their tracks and they don’t move forward.

Um, yeah, so that would be a, one of the things. If you’re looking at hiring hire, you know, at the base. Uh, you can, um, as you start to plug more people into it, you can hire and, and do, for example, profit share, uh, pay based on percentages of revenue. I’m a big proponent on, on merit pay. I do a lot of bonuses.

Uh, you know, also I’ll do 10, 20% on, on commissions from whatever they generate based on merit. And that works out real well. And the second thing that it does is it keeps my overhead and my personal profitability. Um, it it’s kinda protecting that, right. Because it’s based on production or variable compensation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So the, um, the, you don’t always have to go, you know, straight up salary and keep it, you know, with that corporate structure, you can get a little creative when it comes to having your own business. Yup. Yup.

Yeah,

Mike: that’s great. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making as they kind of scale their business up?

It could lead [00:22:00] back to what you said, which is they scale chaos. Right. But, uh, aside from that, what are some other things you see that, um, people do in the process of going from a solo preneur to running a real business with.

Rafael: So, so here’s, um, uh, one is, is hiring too soon and not, not understanding, I’m not saying that you have to be an expert, but you have to understand the different areas of your business.

Ultimately, it’s your responsibility. You’re not coming in to buy, unless you’re buying an already running, you know, wholesaling. Um, then it’s a different story. Right. But, uh, but if you’re building it out, you have to understand, you have to know enough that you’re dangerous in it, that way, you know what to keep people accountable for.

Um, I, I want a mistake that I see, I see, uh, people who have 30, $40,000 available. Okay. What do I do? What do I put into my, who do I hire? Uh, and they’re not generating deals yet. Um, go through the trench. Uh, the, the best advice I can, I can give anybody, I mean, hell, before I, before I started hiring, I think I was on 1200 face-to-face appointments, at least, [00:23:00] uh, before I actually, you know, brought somebody into the team and started, you know, doing some of that stuff.

Sure. But you have to go through that, uh, through that practice, to that repetition one, because you’re going to understand the conversation. You’re gonna understand how sellers, you know, um, uh, process how they think, and then you can train your people. Um, but two it’s, it’s a. If you don’t go through the process of actually doing that kind of stuff yourself at the beginning and, and getting, you know, based in it, uh, you’re not going to be ready when the real conversations happen.

For example, if you’ve never had a negotiation conversation and you want to hire somebody to do lead gen, uh, whenever they do produce some. And you make it to that seller’s table. You’re going to be freaked out. You know what I mean? It’s yeah. You may have a script, but the practice is not there. This thicker skin is not there as opposed to when you, I don’t know, hit a hundred conversations in cold calling and you can reject, then you build up that muscle.

So the biggest advice, or, you know, I guess mistake that I see people hiring too soon for the stuff that they don’t like to do. Um, And the [00:24:00] keyword there is, or the phrase is too soon. Right. And you still have to understand it, even if you don’t like doing it, it’s not a good, it’s not going to be a forever thing, but it’s definitely something that you need to come in and understand it.

Yeah,

Mike: that’s great. Awesome, man. Is there anything we missed today? I think at the end of the day, we were on the same page. We want people and I think people want this too. We want it for them. And they want it to build a business that can give you the lifestyle you want. And you know, maybe you make a lot of money, but some of that money needs to be reinvested back in the business to help you kind of grow a basically buy your time back.

Right. So is there anything else that we missed today that we didn’t cover?

Rafael: Um, the. The doubt, you know, when it comes to the psyche, a lot of people feel that they, you know, what, I, I don’t have what it takes. This is, this is insanely difficult. Uh, it it’s, it’s not for me. It’s I don’t know if, you know, if I can do it, you know, these people do it, but it’s them it’s uh, it’s um, it’s going to sound cliche.

Right. But if, if I can do it, anybody can, it’s the, uh, the process of following. Uh, [00:25:00] something that’s already laid out. It’s gonna be huge. Uh, and, and having that, uh, that, understanding that if you put enough, if you give something enough time to work, it’s it pans out. Right. Because you figure out the kinks along the way.

So if you were, you were thinking about jumping into, I don’t know, wholesaling or flipping or something, just do, do the due diligence, but take that. That’s step. I mean, take that first action that, that, uh, that’s gonna unravel everything else. Don’t don’t don’t wait until you have it all figured out in your mind, you know, down to the detailed to, to actually take that first step.

It’s not trust me like two steps into it. Everything’s going to change.

Mike: Yeah, that’s what I’ve been talking about this a lot lately, but people just, you have to stop being afraid to fail and look forward to failing. Like nobody wants to fail. Nobody wants to crash and burn, but those failures are stepping stones.

Those are lessons learned. A failure is not final unless you actually quit and say, Hey, I’m done now. This is the end. Otherwise a failure is just. What do I not do? I [00:26:00] don’t know. Don’t do it that way again, that way again, next time, let me adjust a little bit and do it this way. Like those are opportunities to kind of learn and adjust and you have to go through that process to get to anything that’s meaningful down the road in your life.

Rafael: And I think, I think failures are great. I mean, fail fast, right? Fail fast and fail often. I guess it may not sound like the most sound advice, but the thing behind that is that you get over it. For example. And a failure actually led me to the family mastermind. Uh, I was like, all right, cool. I need to think outside my box because my box sucks right now.

Uh, I was like, so I eventually made it out, you know, made it out to that place, to that Munich side mastermind, which is amazing. I mean, that’s where we’ve met and, um, and, um, And, you know, one thing led to another, like that opened up my perspective in so many different things, but it’s a failure, that’s a lesson, you know what I mean?

That lesson opens you up, opens you up to different things. So don’t, don’t, uh, don’t fail once and then feel like you’re, you were just so devastated that you can’t keep going. [00:27:00]

Mike: And when, when, uh, when, uh, when, uh, when a little kid learns to walk, right, you fall down, you fail. You learn, like if I put my hand on something and stabilizes me, you kind of learn, and the next thing you know, you don’t need to hold on to anything.

Right. And that’s just, it’s the same thing. Like for us, it’s just a different version of falling down or having to prop yourself up or whatever, but those are

Rafael: lessons learned. Yeah. We can choose the heart that we want. Right. We get that nine to five forever. It’s pretty hard. Uh, you know, hustling and then building a business.

That’s pretty hard too, but I don’t know. I like that second one better,

Mike: more controlled. So Rafael, if folks want to connect with you, obviously you got a podcast. I know you train and help. A lot of people were, where can they go to connect with you?

Rafael: Uh, social leader is going to be the best place you can find me everywhere at Rafael Cortez, CEO, R a F a E L Cortez CEO, the CEO post podcasts on iTunes and everywhere as well.

Um, and then if, uh, people want to download a version of the, the, uh, what I just went over like six stages. They can go to REI, wholesaling.com. Forward slash flip. [00:28:00] And, um, and that’s gotta be a full PDF on just kinda breaking down. You know, some of the stuff that I talked about given, you know, some, some of the KPIs that we look at in terms of metrics and measurements and stuff like that, so, yeah.

Awesome.

Mike: Awesome. Well, appreciate you joining us today.

Rafael: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks so much, man.

Mike: It’s an honor. Yeah. And everybody hope you got some great value from the day. Great stuff here. Rafael is a great guy. He’s got a ton of knowledge. Um, we have, uh, re-invigorated and kind of relaunched our Facebook, uh, our Facebook group, which is pretty active with thousands of real estate investors.

So go over. If you go to flipper.com/. So.com flipnerd.com/group a. You can update and get access to our groups there. We’re putting a lot of live content and they’re actually live trainings every week now. Um, so we’d love to see you there and, uh, otherwise we’ll see you on the next show. Thanks for listening to today’s show.

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