How to find a good real estate investor club

Mike: Welcome to the Flipnerd.com podcast. This is your host, Mike Hambright. On this show, I will introduce you to VIPs in the real estate investing industry, as well as other interesting entrepreneurs whose stories and experiences can help you take your business to the next level. We have three new shows each week, which are available in the iTunes store or by visiting Flipnerd.com. So without further ado, let’s get started. Hey. It’s Mike Hambright with Flipnerd.com. Welcome back for another exciting VIP interview, where I interview some of the most successful real estate investing experts and entrepreneurs in our industry to help you learn and grow. Today, I’m joined by Victor Maas, and we’re going to discuss how to find a good REA club. Real estate investing clubs are critical to real estate and to the real estate investing community across the country and really a great source of networking and knowledge. I’m a big fan of REA clubs. I’m excited to talk to Victor about this today. Victor is the owner of the San Antonio REA Club, and today we’re going to discuss how you can find a good REA club home. Before we get started though, let’s take a moment to recognize our featured sponsors.

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Hey, Victor, welcome to the show.

Victor: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. So fellow Texan.

Victor: Yes.

Mike: Probably not quite as cold down in San Antonio as it is in Dallas right now.

Victor: Beautiful day today.

Mike: When I just said how cold it is in Dallas, there’s a bunch of people rolling their eyes right now because they’re somewhere much colder than here probably.

Victor: Absolutely.

Mike: But Victor, we’ve met a few different times and talked at a few different events. I know that you’re doing some great things down in San Antonio. Before we kind of dive into talking about REA clubs and your REA clubs and some of the things that other investors should look for in a good REA club, why don’t you introduce yourself and kind of tell us how you got into real estate investing and a little bit more about you?

Victor: Absolutely. I think like a lot of folks, we got into our profession and realized that we were not making the kind of money we had hoped for. So we somehow were led to real estate because there’s a lot of zeros involved in real estate.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: Me, personally . . . I went to law school. When I came out and started practicing law, I realized there’s too many damn attorneys out there.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: So I had to adapt or die, kind of thing. But 2004, I met a guy in Houston, and this guy was a multimillionaire, and he was a trainer. Basically, I took a week off of my life to learn what he knows. It was hands-on. There were no books or any of that junk. It was hands-on, on the job training.

Mike: Yep.

Victor: When I came back, the first home I ever went and knocked on, I ended up buying that one.

Mike: Wow.

Victor: So I thought, “Wow. This is easy. I should do this for a living instead.” So I’ve been doing that for a while. When the market crashed, I had to learn to adapt. So part of that adaptation was learning a lot about creative financing, rent-to-owns, and so forth and so forth. So my whole gig these days is not just flipping, but wholesaling, lease options, owner financing. But another avenue stream, revenue stream, excuse me, revenue stream was closing transactions for investors. Since I was always around them, why not do their closings?

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: So now, we do a lot of sub-two closings, wraparound closings, owner financed closings. Ultimately, as entrepreneurs, we’re always looking for better and smarter ways to make money. I had been a member of two or three REAs locally, but I just didn’t feel like they were being run very well. You’d show up, and it was all a sell-a-thon and buy, buy, buy this product and change your life.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: Truth is you really didn’t get a good feeling like it was about networking, truly networking instead of just talking about it, but really networking. A lot of the clubs . . . You didn’t even know there was vendors there . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: . . . to build your team.

Mike: Right.

Victor: So late last year, I was approached by a board member of a local club to offer to take over. I had spoken at their club in May of last year, 2013, and we killed it. We had 120 people show up because I helped promote it.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: Versus every other month, they’re averaging 30, 40 people. I thought, “Well, shit. If I can do 120 . . . Excuse me. If I can do 120 . . . “

Mike: Cussing on this show is okay, Victor.

Victor: Oh, okay. I apologize for that.

Mike: We don’t do enough of it, actually.

Victor: Okay. Wonderful. But no, I thought, “Why not?” So the club was upside-down financially, and I thought I could do a better job. At least I’d been successful doing a few things.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: But they changed their mind, the owner. So I decided I still want to do my own club. I really took quite a few months to figure out how I want it structured. If I go to a club, and it’s all like, I hate to say this, sell-a-thon, who wants to go to that?

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: So I found a good club in Arizona, Arizona REA. They do a fantastic layout for their meetings. They know that when they go there, the promoter, the club owner . . . It’s not going to be a sell-a-thon. It’s going to be about real content, real networking, and you get to build your team for real estate investing. So now that I knew a structure, I launched . . . I hate to say this launched, but I re-launched a previous club that had been here for 10 years, probably one of the largest clubs up until the market crashed, and then they kind of went dormant, but I revived it. Our first REA meeting, thanks to marketing and getting the word out, we drew in 225. That’s huge.

Mike: That’s great. Yeah.

Victor: That is huge. Most clubs average 30 to 50 to 60.

Mike: Right.

Victor: Some go over 100, but rare. But no, we launched with 225. We did again . . . This was in March of this year. Some stupid reason, another expo promoter wanted to do an expo quickly in San Antonio because they saw what we could do. Then they canceled quickly, for whatever reason. We decided we’d take the baton and run with it. So in May of this year, we did an expo in San Antonio. We drew just under 400 people.

Mike: Yeah, that’s fantastic.

Victor: So that was huge. We had 50 vendors. We had 10 speakers. It was a wonderful event. So every REA club is different. You’re going to find that out. My advice to anybody who’s thinking of joining is to go try them all.

Mike: Yep.

Victor: See what fits for what you’re looking for. If you’re into land-lording, and my club doesn’t offer that, then that’s fine. If you’re into wholesaling, and mine does, the other one doesn’t, that’s fine too.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: There’s no need to bad mouth any club. You got to just see what’s good for you.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: For our club, I think what separates us from most of the clubs out there is we spend the first 30 to 45 minutes, nothing but networking, and our vendors all have tables. So you get to have a mini expo every month. So if you need hard money, there’s three or four choices. If you need folks that wholesale you deals, there’s two or three vendors that do that. Insurance, title companies, flipping lenders, the end lenders, the commercial conventional transactions.

Mike: Right. Right.

Victor: So we have all that, and then we start talking. It’s, “Hey. Turn around. Say hi to at least five folks. Get to know them. See what they’re about and build relationships.”

Mike: Yeah, one of the things that I always say about REA clubs, the importance of REA clubs is that . . . As you know, which is part of the opportunity that you’ve taken advantage of here in terms of running a club in San Antonio, REA is that . . . Real estate investing generally is a really lonely business. Everybody is out there, doing their own thing. If you’re doing really well, your head is down, and you’re not talking to anybody. If you are not doing that well, you’re probably hiding because you don’t want to admit that you’re not doing well. It just tends to be a very lonely business. It can be, because we’re so individual. We’re all entrepreneurs, running in one direction. That’s why I think . . . In all honesty, heck, that’s part of why I started doing the interviews. I am maybe a big fish in a small pond, or I’m just not getting enough perspectives. So let me meet other people and talk about stuff because, one, I think it helps me to talk to other people and learn new ideas. Two, I think in the process, we’re educating other people. Same thing that you’re doing through your club. So I’ve been to those different type of meetings as well, that you come in, sit down, and it’s just one-directional communication. For clubs that do that or different people that put on events that do that, I think they’re missing the big opportunity, which is to pull people together and let them network and create a community.

Victor: Absolutely.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: Absolutely. I’ve been to different REAs, even around the country. They all have their positives and their negatives. I can’t say that some of them are any horrible. They’re not.

Mike: Right.

Victor: But for me, I, as a REA owner, want to learn. So if I bring in someone, it’s because I think their topic may enhance what I do. I’m a wholesaler. I’m an owner finance guy, lease option flipper. I try to bring those core topics in. You’d be shocked. They may have that one great idea that puts another deal in my pocket this year. But no, I really have enjoyed the REA experience because I’ve had a chance to meet lots of folks, people that I did not even know are big-time fish in my pond.

Mike: Right.

Victor: It’s great to meet with them. I had lunch with a guy yesterday. The guy owns like 150 houses, and he rents them all. I learned some techniques that he uses that maybe I was not aware of.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: That’s the neat part. I will tell you something funny. You go to these club meetings, whichever they are, doesn’t matter. You see the folks go directly to a seat, and they do this. They will not move. They will not raise their hand. They won’t engage. So for those that are watching this program, I advise you. Get out there. Bring some business cards. If you’re a wholesaler, talk to every person. Are you looking to wholesale buy? Or are you a wholesaler?

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: If you’re a wholesale buyer, what are you looking for? What part of town? And are you cash? Or are you private money? Or are you hard money? Those that are cash, those are the ones you should be working your butt off for.

Mike: Yeah. I think a lot of . . . The kind of avatar you just mentioned of somebody sitting down, crossing their arms . . . There probably is one of two type of people, either the person that feels like every time they go somewhere, they’re being sold something, and they’re like guarding, or two . . . For a lot of new investors, I think they’ll be surprised by this, and I know you’ll agree with it, is back to what I said about it being kind of a lonely business. Just like you said, you went and talked to somebody that you didn’t even know existed, but it’s a big-time investor. There are a lot of people that have a ton of experience that feel the same way that I just said, that it’s a lonely business. They go to those events, and they’re ready to let it fly. They’ll share more than you think. Let’s put it that way. I think if you’re a newer person, and you’re going to a REA club, seek those people out because there’s probably a bunch of people standing around and talking. A lot of times, real estate investors that have a lot to share are willing to share, and they don’t hold back. So you might as well capture some of that and use it as a learning opportunity.

Victor: The investors that I’ve found to be very successful have done lots of transactions. I really break them up into two groups, the ones that don’t mind sharing the information because they subscribe to the philosophy of abundance.

Mike: Right.

Victor: Then there’s the other ones that probably feel the same way, and they’re good people. The problem is they hate when people bug them because they’re making so much money. They’re tired of being bugged.

Mike: Right.

Victor: [inaudible:00:12:41] they’re at these folks. People just gravitate towards them. But the truth is there’s enough people at a good club where you can learn pretty much most of what you need. I don’t mind buying products that speakers come into our meetings. I just bought one last month . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: . . . when I was in Dallas, in fact. I don’t buy a whole lot, but when I do, it’s because I don’t mind spending money on my education.

Mike: Yeah. Absolutely.

Victor: Most people, they never want to pay for anything.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: Give me everything for free. Blah, blah, blah. Guess what. It doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to give to solve people’s problems before you can get stuff for yourself. I think once you help other people, there’s a zig-ziggler. Help people get what they want, and then it’ll come back to you 10 times over.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: The reason we do the club is for that reason. We really genuinely want to help people. We do a bus tour every so often.

Mike: Okay.

Victor: We go to properties. We do a community bus tour. All right. What do you think about this deal? Here’s how we got the deal. Here’s how we structured the deal, and here’s our exit strategy. What do you think? Then they’ll go off and banter back and forth. That’s a great learning process.

Mike: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I think a lot of people will be surprised to hear me say, even people that know me, is my estimate is that I’ll probably spend between $30,000 and $50,000 this year, buying education products for myself.

Victor: Yeah.

Mike: First off, I’m a bit of a junkie.

Victor: That’s okay.

Mike: A big part of that is actually a mastermind group that I’m a part of. That is not cheap, but it has some great high-profile people in it. I think there’s a bunch of stuff that I buy sometimes that I just . . . I know that 90% of it I don’t even want. I just want to hear what they’re going to say about this one thing. If I get what I need out of that, it pays for itself. So, I think a lot of people that are used to being sold . . . I agree with you. Nobody likes the clubs that are all pitchy. Everything is a pitch fest. But somebody said something to me at an event that I was at a while back. Nobody is going to sell you anything. They may try, but I think most of the good products that are out there these days . . . The people really are more educators. They’re educating, and they’re going to give away a whole bunch of free stuff, a lot of free knowledge. If that’s all you get out of it, and you don’t want to buy the product, then it’s probably going to enrich your life somehow. So I don’t think, in all honesty, as a student of the game, I don’t really mind hearing people pitch stuff because I’m trying to learn how they pitch stuff. I’m trying to learn their technique. What is it that I can learn from this and take away? So I think if you go into it being open-minded, just know that nobody is going to sell you something that is going to make you this power real estate investor out of nowhere. You might learn little nuggets here and there from a lot of different people and pull it together and be successful. Yeah, I think even the clubs that are overly pitchy sometimes . . . There’s still a lot to learn there, but don’t go there thinking that you’re going to buy a silver bullet, I guess.

Victor: One of the best suggestions I would give to someone is, you go to these meetings. Find out who’s like you. If you’re into rentals, you should really try to associate with folks with rentals. If you’re into wholesaling, get with a group of folks who are looking to do wholesaling.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: Here’s why. Because the product being sold that day is $1000. I’m just throwing that out there. Two or three or four of you can pull your resources together, go and train the material, and that’s great. Too many people buy a product, and they never do anything with it. They put it on the shelf, and that’s it.

Mike: Right.

Victor: I feel sorry for those kind of folks because they never change their lives. Then you have the worst ones of all. Every meeting that something is being sold, they have to buy it. They’ve got a whole library of products, but they never do anything with it.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: So a way to overcome that . . . This is my nugget of the day. Do it with somebody else, because then you have to hold yourself accountable . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: . . . to that other person. This is a big one for me. I’ll ask you. Today’s day zero. I say, “All right. Go out there, and this is what you go to do to generate leads. Blah, blah, blah.” Then we come back a month later. I say, “All right. How many of you guys went out there and knocked on at least 20 doors?” Literally across the room of 150 people, maybe 10. So I think a lot of people aren’t held accountable. So why do they have to do it?

Mike: Right.

Victor: They’re always going to keep dreaming about it. Honestly, I’m not going to be a dream killer. If you want to learn about probates, wholesaling, flipping houses, owner, whatever, great. But my piece of advice to really help you get to that next level is hold yourself accountable to someone.

Mike: Yeah. Absolutely.

Victor: So you got two or three, four folks in a core group, and you push each other. I think that’s a great idea.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, back to that comment about how a lot of people tend to be very individual and kind of siloed off. I think what you just said is a great idea. Find an accountability partner and somebody that . . . I think a lot of people . . . You and I know this. There’s a lot of people that partner together to do deals. Usually, I think that is people that . . . One person has got money, and one person has got time, and they find a way to make that work. But I think there’s something to be said for saying, “Hey. Let’s just all go in on a deal together and try to learn. We’re okay if we don’t make a lot of money.” Of course, you don’t want to lose any money, but we’re okay if we have to split the pie three ways or whatever that might be, just to get out of the gate. You and I both know. After you’ve done five, 10 deals, really it’s such a confidence boost that you may not need those partners anymore. But if you go into it, not a formal partnership, where you each own part of your company. I wouldn’t recommend that, but some sort of joint venture deal . . .

Victor: Absolutely.

Mike: Where you can break up the next day, and there’s no legal ramifications, but just some way, like you said, to hold each other accountable. That’s a great tip.

Victor: Absolutely.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: What else should we discuss?

Mike: Well, we were talking about, early on, about how you had to evolve in your business quite a bit over the past year.

Victor: Yeah.

Mike: That was how the markets changed. I think that’s a huge reason why people need to be a part of a REA club, because the challenge with a lot of us that are very individual, a lot of people that are very individual, is it’s hard to look around the corner and see what’s coming just on your own. You’re never going to climb the learning curve on your own as fast as being part of a group or a network of people that are looking around the corner.

Victor: Absolutely.

Mike: So talk about the importance . . . I mean, my guess is what you said about your own business and how you had to adjust is a big reason a lot of that influence probably goes into your REA club. Right?

Victor: Oh, 100%.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: When I got started, my mentor was all about buy and flip, buy and flip, sub-two. So obtain the property’s subject-two deeds. Turn around. Figure out what you need to do to fix them up as quickly as possible, and then sell them. This is a pre-FHA 90-day requirement, where you have to wait 90 days before you can flip it.

Mike: Right.

Victor: I literally could flip a house in a month, start to finish, everything. It was phenomenal. Great money.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: But the market did change. You either adapt, or you die.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: So one of the big lessons it took me a long time to get through my thick skull . . . You have to do other stuff, like wholesaling, like owner financing, wraparounds, rent-to-owns, these kind of solutions. Rentals . . . I got to tell you something. You’re going to always be working if you don’t own rentals. I think you know that better than most. My buddy who’s a Homevestor guy, like yourself, he owns over 35 properties. He nets over $12,000 a month with very little overhead. So he’s doing well for himself. He could take a month off, and he’s fine. But you wouldn’t know about these things unless you go to a REA . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: . . . where you can talk to different folks. What do you find works for you? And can that translate into something myself, if I’m a new person to a REA?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. So what are some of the things that . . . The topic really is how to find a good REA. We kind of said you need to go to lots of events, and you need to participate. What else could people do to maybe . . . One of the challenges, I think, a lot of people have with a REA club is that . . . I don’t know specifically the San Antonio REA. A lot of them have one general monthly meeting. So you kind of have one shot to make it that month, but obviously there’s opportunities to network 24/7, effectively. So any other ideas about just networking in general, how you could advise some folks to kind of form a network?

Victor: Absolutely. We’ve been contemplating this for some time, but we wanted to make sure we had everything going good. So far, we’re good. So we’ve actually been talking in our club. Everybody is different, but our club, starting in January, is having a weekly meeting somewhere. For example, special interest groups who are interested in landlording or wholesaling or owner finance or whatever have a weekly luncheon. So if you can’t make the general meeting, this might give you a second opportunity in your core group.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: I think it’s advantageous to know two or three different strategies to find deals, two or three strategies for your exit strategy as well, whether it’s flipping, wholesaling, whatever. So yeah, that’s another way for you to build. You know what? It doesn’t stop you from going to a meeting, getting to know a bunch of folks who have similar exit strategies or whatever . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: . . . and offer to just set up weekly meetings of your own.

Mike: Right.

Victor: So not everybody can do it for you. We can introduce you to the folks, but you got to take the initiative and build up these core groups of your own.

Mike: Right.

Victor: But do me a favor, for anybody who’s listening to this. Talking about it is fantastic. You need to get educated. But for God’s sake, take some action, real concrete action. I’d rather you fail, but at least you took action because that separates you from 99% of the people out in the world.

Mike: Yeah. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. So why don’t you share . . . I know we talked at the beginning about . . . In regard to taking action, we talked a little bit before we started the show about how a lot of folks expect real estate investing success to come to them on a silver platter, whether it’s leads or other things. I know you are as assertive as anybody I know, in regards to being active and not waiting for leads to come to you, to find a way to drum up deals. Do you want to share some of your tips and advice on that?

Victor: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. A lot of folks are busy. I get that. They want to still become real estate investors, do a deal on the side. You might find a local wholesaler. So every time you’re driving around town, you see those wholesaler signs. You call on them. Leave them a message. This is what I’m looking for because I don’t have the time to go look for deals. You may have to pay a little bit extra than you normally would if you’re in my shoes.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: I’m active and literally knocking on folks’ doors or doing marketing and getting calls. There’s really only two ways to get deals, in my opinion. Active and reactive. The reactive is the direct mail marketing, the bandit signs. I’m picking on Wally, who’s at Homevestors. He never does anything active. He waits for people to call him, which is fine, but you end up paying a pretty penny for that. The other side, which is most folks, they don’t have a lot of money. You got to go out there and knock on doors. Find people that are in distress. I repeat. Find people that are in distress. Offer to solve their problem. That’s how we get a lot of our deals, whether it’s pre-foreclosures, city liens, code compliance, probate issues, divorces. You name it. So that’s how we do a lot of our stuff. Okay? But until you take some action, you’re not going to get squat.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: I can line up 100 people, teach them what I know. Maybe five or 10 would take any real action, where they actually look at 100 real leads, make 10 offers, and buy one property.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. What would you say for folks that are . . . One of the challenges, I think, that a lot of people face, and you probably deal with this in your club a lot, is they get overwhelmed with opportunity, sometimes the amount of opportunities, the amount of . . . Not everybody is going to go buy their first five houses, and they’re going to seller finance one. They’re going to do a wholesale deal. They’re going to do a wrap, wrap a mortgage or different things like that. So I think a lot of times . . . Then God forbid, commercial, multifamily, land, all the other things you could possibly do. There’s a million ways to make money in real estate investing. What kind of general guidance do you give to people that are just looking to find a way to get started and maybe need to stay more focused?

Victor: That’s actually the best question I think we could ever answer, and here’s my advice to folks because I’ve done this for over a decade. One, learn to crawl before you walk, walk before you run.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: All that good stuff. So I would advise every person out there. Learn how to find deals in residential real estate. It is the low-hanging fruit. So there’s plenty of those deals. Commercial, that’s great. Apartments, all that stuff, that’s great. But I would advise folks to start small, learn how this game works, and then build up. I would never advise anyone to flip a house as their first deal.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: I think they’re just begging for trouble. You’re better off learning how to find deals, wholesaling them. That would be step number one. Eventually you could go to something a little bit better, which is what I call a pre-hab. I make more money from pre-habs than any other exit strategy.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: I did one two weeks ago. We cleared $32,000 in one week. What we did is we found a very distressed home, quartered house. We get three dumpsters altogether. Hire some guys off Craigslist. Gut it all out. Then we actually held an auction on a Saturday after we were finished on Friday. We sold it, and we cleared $32,500.

Mike: That’s awesome.

Victor: Yeah. So that’s a next step. A third step, obviously you can get into flipping houses, but even more so, I talk people out of that. I really do.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: Because ultimately, you’re going to keep doing that for the rest of your life. One of my mentors locally . . . I was telling you about this guy I had lunch with yesterday. He never rehabs houses. Instead, he uses private money to acquire the deals. He may go in there and gut it out for one day, but then he owner finances it as-is. That’s it.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: Or if he rents it, he doesn’t put a whole lot into it. I don’t want to call him a slum lord, but he’s maybe one step above that.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: People just don’t take care of properties when they’re renting, is his argument. I don’t believe that, but that’s another story.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: But no, the strategy I would advise everybody starting from the number one spot is learn how to find deals, how to tie them up, and how to wholesale. You do that. You can have money your first month. In the next 30 days, there’s no reason you can’t make $5000, $10,000 if you hustle.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: If you don’t, you want it to come to you. It ain’t ever going to happen.

Mike: Yeah. Awesome. Well, Victor, thanks for your time today. We definitely appreciate your insights and stuff. Why don’t you tell us how to find San Antonio REA, for folks that want to learn more? Then tell us about your . . . I know it’s still a ways out, in the spring, in May, but tell us about the upcoming expo and how folks can maybe learn more.

Victor: Absolutely. San Antonio REA. It’s SAREA.com. It’s real simple.

Mike: Great.

Victor: Hold our first meeting the first Tuesday of the month. It’s also foreclosure day in Texas. So that’s a good thing to remember.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: We hold it at the Omni Hotel here in I-10 and Wersbach [SP] in San Antonio. It’s a very nice hotel. We have snacks and drinks and cash bar. People want an open bar, but once I do that, I’m in trouble.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: But no, we get . . . One of the neat tricks that we do is we get vendors to sponsor the cash bar. So they’ll buy 100 tickets, and we pass them out to help folks have a good time . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: . . . but also to relax. There’s food there. I had to learn that. It took me a few months to get that people were hungry.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: So I worked out a deal with . . .

Mike: Especially if they come in the early evening.

Victor: Right.

Mike: Yeah. Okay.

Victor: I worked out a deal with the hotel. No rent, but I have to pay for food.

Mike: Okay.

Victor: Cost me a little bit more with all the taxes and surcharges, but it’s okay.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: We did an expo this year, we drew under 400 folks. It was May of this year, at the end of May. It was such a success. We’re going to do it again May 30th, 2015.

Mike: That’s great.

Victor: The website is Texasexpo.com. Starting beginning of January, we’re going to start getting the word out to get vendors and speakers. This time, we’re actually going to have lunch. We didn’t provide lunch this first one. I don’t think it hurt us, but I think we could have had way more folks show up or stay in the facility.

Mike: Stay. Yeah.

Victor: Yeah. So we’re going to do a barbecue buffet, and we worked that out with the hotel again, no charge for rent for us, but we have to spend a lot on food.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: But we have 10 speakers. We’re going to try to get them to do all core topics. So it’s another reason to come to San Antonio. On our website, we’re going to have, soon, a link to stay at the hotel at a discount. So the way I look at it, I love learning. I do. Whether I’m learning from you or another person, I want to learn to be more efficient at what I do.

Mike: Yeah.

Victor: So what better place than an expo, where I can come listen to you, you, and you. We’re going to have five breakout sessions. So you get a majority of the folks on your core topics.

Mike: Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Well, we’ll have links for San Antonio REA and the Texas expo down below the video here, for those that didn’t write it down and might want to come back and check it out. So Victor, thanks so much for joining us today. Definitely appreciate your time.

Victor: Thank you. I look forward to seeing you again.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Keep doing all the great work down there.

Victor: Thank you very much.

Mike: Take care, my friend.

Victor: Take care.

Mike: Bye. Thanks for joining us on today’s Flipnerd.com podcast. To listen to more of our shows and hear from incredible guests, please access all of our podcasts in the iTunes store. You can also watch the video versions of our shows by visiting us at Flipnerd.com.