The No Excuses Path to 100 Deals Per Year

Mike: This is the flipnerd.com “Expert Real Estate Investing Show,” the show for real estate investors, whether you’re a veteran or brand new. I’m your host, Mike Hambright, and each week, I bring you a new expert guest that will share their knowledge and lessons with you. If you’re excited about real estate investing, believe in personal responsibility and taking control of your life and financial destiny, you’re in the right place.
This is episode number 405 and my guest today is Jamie Wooley. If you’re just getting started or even if you’re a veteran real estate investor that feels that pressure of today’s more challenging market, today’s show is a must-watch. Jamie started just two years ago and did over 100 deals last year in one of the nation’s most challenging markets. She’s actually in my market, the Dallas-Fort Worth market. She’s on track to do maybe 150 deals or more this year. Super powerful in a market like this.
I’m always inspired by investors that come into a challenging market where everybody else is bellyaching and they just crush it because they’re not willing to make excuses as to why they can’t be successful and give up like so many do. In today’s episode, you’re going to learn more about Jamie, her story, what’s driven her to rapid success and the importance to having a passion to drive you toward success every single day, despite hitting adversity, because we all do. That’s just part of the process of being self-employed and being an entrepreneur. Please help me welcome Jamie Wooley to the show. Hey, Jamie. Welcome to the show.
Jamie: Hey, Mike. I’m very glad to be here. Thank you.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah, it’s great to have you on. I’m excited to learn a little bit more about your backstory. Of course, we’ve been talking here a little bit before we hit Record today. And for those that are listening, Jamie is actually here in my market. And so I’ve known of Jamie for a couple of years, but we didn’t really meet each other until I guess a couple of months back. We talked and then Jamie recently joined my mastermind, Investor Fuel. So we’ve gotten to know each other a lot better. And it’s funny when sometimes there are people right in your market that you know of them, but you just don’t know them.
And I’ve told the story many times, just a little side note here in the past, about how in the early days, I had more of a scarcity mindset. Anybody that was my competition, I just didn’t want to know them. And then I started to find out, hey, these are good people. They’re working hard, there’s opportunity for us to do business together. And so I’m excited that we finally got a chance to meet and excited to finally get you on the show.
Jamie: Oh, definitely. Yeah. I’ve been waiting a while to meet you and I think there’s a waiting line so I was glad I got to bump up and get in the mastermind. I was really excited. And so, yeah, the mastermind was amazing. I got a chance to meet you and so many other people. And I’m just really blessed and glad to be in that group, for sure.
Mike: It’s a good group, yeah. Hey, before we get started here, and I’m really excited because I . . . for folks that are listening right now, if you’re an active real estate investor or you’re trying to get started and you find yourself making excuses or thinking that things don’t work, then you’re going to be inspired today because Jamie’s come in here in the last couple of years, into probably one of the most top five, let’s say, challenging markets in the country that’s on fire from a retail standpoint. But from an investor standpoint is competitive and challenging. And she is just crushing it right now. So stay tuned for that. But for those that don’t know you, Jamie, tell us a little bit a8bout who you are and how you got started.
Jamie: Yeah, sure. So I am Jamie, as he said. And I am currently living in Wylie. I grew up in a very small town of Kaufman, which is just about 5,000 people. And, basically, as soon as I was, I guess, 20, I started a family very early and jumped into kind of the office/admin space. And before long, I realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do and that wasn’t where I wanted to be for the rest of my life.
And just kind of searched for what would make me happy, what I wanted to do. And I realized that real estate was where that was going to be. And so kind of from there, I started learning about real estate and it’s taken me basically to . . . I did 17 deals in 2016. I did 102 in 2017 and we should definitely do well over 150 this year, if not more. So we’re just gradually getting up there.
Mike: Yeah, that’s incredible. And, again, that’s in the Dallas-Fort Worth market that’s a challenging market, for sure. So talk about what drew you to real estate. What kind of drew you into that?
Jamie: Yeah. So, honestly, when I was young with my husband, we were broke and a young family, like most people are. And we bought a property. It was a property with the old shag carpet, with the wallpaper. I mean, it was nothing that I would want to live in. But it was all we could afford. And so what we did was we lived with his parents for six months with my daughter, who was just a few months old at the time. And on nights and weekends, we would go over there and work on the house ourselves. So we basically remodeled the entire home ourselves.
I learned so many skills, as far as on the construction side of it, the design side of it, all of those things. And I just made something ugly beautiful and it was so much fun. At that time, though, I never thought of it as a business or anything like that. And so lived in the home, got a job working for my dad after I did a few things entrepreneurial. I had a golf marketing company, a few things that didn’t pan out exactly how I wanted them to. I’ve always had the ideas and such.
And basically, I kind of . . . it just hit me one day. I really don’t even know what happened, honestly. It just hit me that, okay, it’s time you got to do something different with your life. There were a few variables kind of involved there. And real estate was the only thing I could think of that I wanted to do. Even growing up, my dad and mom both master’s degrees and, “You have to go to college and you have to get an education. And you have to know what you’re going to do.”
And I never knew what I wanted to do. There was nothing that was like, “I’d like to be a math teacher,” or, “I’d like to . . . ” I mean, nothing. It was all, “I don’t know what I want to do.” And I felt like something was wrong with me for so long because everybody knew what they wanted to do and went to school and got good jobs surrounding me.
And I thought I was just this mess. And basically, real estate is I’ve found what I wanted to do. And so I kind of took what I knew from rehabbing our home just to live in and all the HGTV shows and I thought, “I’ve already done this. Why don’t I learn how to do this and then make money from it and at least enjoy what I’m doing?” It’s the only thing I ever thought I want to do.
Mike: That’s awesome. I can tell you that from somebody who has a master’s degree and worked the corporate route, nobody knows what they want. I mean, if people are really . . . if you’re an engineer and you’re really a critical thinker like that and you thought your way through something technical like that, you probably like it. But there’s a ton of people that go to school that don’t know what they want to do.
And what I’ve found is that I love real estate, don’t get me wrong, but what I love the most is the freedom it provides me and the flexibility to kind of do what I want, when I want. I think that’s probably, ultimately . . . you probably would agree, ultimately, too, there’s a big part of what you love about real estate that’s what it gives you, the freedom and things. It’s not necessarily real estate. I like real estate, but it’s a widget for me, ultimately. I like what it’s done for me, right?
Jamie: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it’s a means to an end. It’s a means to get to the goal to where I want to be. And, oh, by the way, it’s kind of fun to make something pretty and to be proud of what you’re doing and help sellers out. It’s really cool. But, yeah. It’s definitely a means to that financial freedom and a lifestyle that I’m wanting for myself and my family and the legacy that I can build to come.
Mike: Absolutely. So for the folks that are listening that are brand new, that have never done a deal, that also watch HGTV, this is a little different, right?
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah.
Mike: It’s a little different, watching stuff on TV and the flipping shows, of course. When you get out in the real world and . . . it’s one thing to do the work and make houses look pretty or whatever. But, ultimately, what most people, when they’re first getting started, don’t quite understand is the business side of it. They’re very different, right?
Jamie: Very, very different. There’s so much to it. I mean, I thought of it as just one house at a time and that’s what I set out to do. Let’s just do two or three houses and pay the bills. And then, once I did the first house, I was addicted. I made $30,000, luckily, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I’m done. I’m sold. This is it.” And then, the more I got into it, a week later, two weeks later, I thought, “Oh, it’s not just as simple as that.”
And finding the houses, for one thing, you can be great at construction, you can be a great designer, but can you just go on the MLS and get a great deal? Not really. I mean, you’ve got a few diamonds in the rough, but you’re going to have to spend all day, every day looking for those.
And even if you get lucky once or twice, that’s not going to sustain you as a business. And there are just so many moving parts in the wholesaling side of it, the flipping side of it. And I definitely did not know any of those moving parts and thought it was maybe a little more simpler than it was. The business is easy, it’s just there are a lot of moving parts to it.
Mike: If you’re an active real estate investor already doing deals and looking to double or triple your business, you should consider joining the Investor Fuel Real Estate Investor Mastermind. We’re a small group of investors that share our best practices, tips and tricks with one another in an effort to all win. We limit our membership to only one to two members per market so everyone shares their knowledge, tips and tricks openly and honestly.
Our members include some buying one to two houses a month, up to some of the most respected investors and leaders in the real estate investing industry, some of which have personally done over 1,000 deals. If you’d like to be considered for our invitation-only, world-class mastermind, please visit investorfuel.com to request your personal invitation. Our next meeting is coming up quickly. Go to investorfuel.com now to learn more.
Jamie: . . . diamonds in the rough, but you’re going to have to spend all day, every day looking for those.
And even if you get lucky once or twice, that’s not going to sustain you as a business. And there are just so many moving parts in the wholesaling side of it, the flipping side of it. And I definitely did not know any of those moving parts and thought it was maybe a little more simpler than it was. The business is easy, it’s just there are a lot of moving parts to it as well.
Mike: For sure. I tell people all the time as well, I coach and mentor a lot of people, and I talk really heavily about how hard of a business it is. And it’s simple to understand, but it’s hard to put the work in every day or to do the work that needs to be done. And it starts to get easier once you do enough volume to be able to build a team, which is what you’ve done.
So why don’t you talk . . . maybe share a little bit about your experience. So you started off . . . obviously, you did 17 deals and the next year, you did over 100. And so, obviously, you didn’t do that yourself. So just talk about not so much your team structure or anything like that, but just the realization that, “Hey, if I want to grow this, I have to build a business and wrap a team around it.” Share your experience there.
Jamie: So there was no way that I could do what I wanted to do, my goal, even on a quarterly basis, without bringing people in. And so having a team is very, very important if you want to make this a business and not just a job. And I did not want a job. And so there are a lot of things I’ve learned from building a team. I mean, one thing is definitely you can get there faster, you can get where you want to be faster.
The second thing is having the right people in place, which I’m still learning about that as time goes on. And, most importantly, just the culture that you’re building and things like that, I think, are so important because you can maybe even have the right people, but you guys don’t mesh well together, your core values, your culture, things like that. And these are all still things that I’m not perfect in. I actually am having somebody fly in next week to kind of go over all of those things with me and implement those things.
Mike: Gary, right? Gary was on the show two weeks ago. Just FYI.
Jamie: I’m so excited to have Gary come. I am pumped about that. I could not have done 17 deals and 102 deals without having other people help me. And so if you want to make this a business, it’s very important that you bring on a team. What I can say, something that’s huge advice and it’s happened to a lot of other investors that I know are doing really well now, but they kind of were learning at the same time as I, when you learn that you need to build a team and you think, “Okay, I need to build a team. I need this person, this person, and this person and here’s what they’re going to do,” you have to make sure you do that organically.
Now, it’s one thing if you’ve got $2 million sitting in the bank. But if you do not, like me, I started out with a $5,000 loan from my father, you don’t want to bring on three or four people all at once and think that in a week, snap, it’s all going to come into play. So this has not just happened to me, but some others I know very well. And we went and learned at a mastermind. We’d go home and we’d just put this on the plate and it’s ready to go. It’s not like that.
So something that I really want to encourage people is when you are growing a team, let that happen organically. You do want to hire to where you aspire to be, yes, but you don’t want to put two or three people in place that you’re not ready to do that as a company yet. So I did make that mistake. I had to backtrack. It wasn’t fun. And then I had to build back up. So it was a great learning lesson, though, and something that is very important for people to know.
Mike: And you’re talking about from an affordability standpoint? I mean, obviously, that’s a part of it. I mean, you can’t just hire three or four people if you’re a brand new business unless you’re, like you said, independently wealthy and you can afford to cover that cost for a while until they pay for themselves. But you’re also talking about just organizationally, you’re just not prepared to just hand over everything to people that haven’t been trained, right?
Jamie: Yeah. All of the above. I mean, definitely. The affordability, yes, but also systematizing it and training them. I mean, if you really want somebody that’s amazing doing whatever position that you have them in and it’s just you, you’re the one that knows everything about the business, or as much as you can, and you bring in three people all at once, there’s no way they’re going to be the best they can be because you’re not going to be able to even give them that attention or that training that they need. So that was really important that I learned, that even though I could afford to do it, at the time, I couldn’t afford to spend the time with them.
And it would frustrate me, it would cause conflicts and problems. Like, “How do you not know how to do this?” “Well, I don’t think you showed me that.” “Oh, okay. I didn’t realize.” I mean, there are a few factors that are involved with that. It’s just making sure that when you do have the right person, that they are the right person for that position, that they’re trained very well because what I try to do now, and I’ve learned, a lot of books that I’m reading and things like that, is if there is a problem that’s going on, I look to myself first.
Did I do what I needed to do to make that person be as successful as they can be? Did I give them the right tools that they needed? Those things are so important. I didn’t know those things in the beginning and now, I’m like, “Okay.” When I see this person or this person that didn’t work out, I probably had a lot to do with that. It probably wasn’t just them like I was thinking.
Mike: Yeah. That’s some wisdom right there because I can tell you, too, a lot of people that are real estate investors, there are a lot of one-man, one-woman bands that are doing everything themselves. It’s all in their head. They don’t have anything documented as to how to do things. And then they just start to find that it’s easier to just do it myself. “I could bring somebody on, but they’re never going to do it as good as me.” And I think what you have to do is come to the realization of that is true. They probably will never do it as good as you.
But you’re your own bottleneck. You’re never going to be able to grow. Nobody got in this business . . . this is my general belief. Nobody gets in this business to be a slave to their own business. We all want the freedom and time. We want to travel, we want to do things with our family. Nobody gets in this business to just work 80 hours a week and never have any end in sight.
Even people that are successful, which most fail before they even get there, even if they are successful, they’ve enslaved to their own business. They’re not business owners. They’re not even entrepreneurs. They’re self-employed. And that’s going to be the end until they can figure out a way to free up that time, to show other people how to do things, right?
Jamie: Yeah. It was great. And kind of to cap it all off is through all of the struggles with building the team, having to scale back again, building it up again, I was just on spring break with my family last week for nine days. Nine days. And we had over six figures come into the bank account. We had four closings and three contracts had. And I had nothing to do with it. It was so cool to see that in two years’ time, I can go from a $5,000 loan to what I just said. Mind-blowing. I never thought that could be possible when I first started.
Now, of course, now I thought it’s possible because I surround myself by people that . . . there’s nothing that’s impossible as long as you believe it and people that have done things that I’m trying to do. And so I can see it on a weekly basis that, okay, if they’re doing it, I can do it too. So, yeah, that’s important, too, is surrounding myself with those people. And the masterminds and the things that I’ve been doing, to be able to get to this point where I can go a whole week and money’s coming in. So it’s the first time that I’ve ever been able to do that. So it’s kind of a big [Inaudible 00:17:58].
Mike: That is awesome. That is awesome. Yeah, I found out a long time ago that my business tends to do better when I leave. And my team will tell me. They’re like, “You should leave more often.” Because, truthfully, I’m distracting. I like to talk, I like to hang out, I like to share new ideas. And they’re like . . . in hindsight, when I look at it, I’m like, “I should bake these ideas a little bit more before I tell anybody about them.” Even my wife, I have to say now, “Hey, I’ve got this idea.” I’m like, “I don’t want to do it, I just want to share it with you. Can I just share with you for a couple..” because she’s like . . . she doesn’t really want to hear about it until it’s time to execute. And my constant idea generation is just . . . scares her. Anyway.
Jamie: I understand. I don’t even hardly tell anybody about it anymore. There are a couple people I’ll confide in. But after a while, people are like, “Oh my gosh, it’s always something.” I’m like, “Well, yeah. It always is. It’s always turning up here.”
Mike: Yeah, I’m the same way. Let’s talk about passion, the importance of passion in this. Because, a lot of times, people fizzle out because they’re doing something that they don’t really enjoy. And I know you’re passionate about it. Maybe we’ll start with saying why passion is important if you want to grow your business. Because you would probably agree that you can have a nice life by doing fewer deals than you are now. Things could get easier, you could have less staff to deal with, you could have less overhead and just run something that creates a nice lifestyle business.
But I think in every successful real estate investor I see, there’s always something bigger, whether it’s they want to give back in some way to a charity or whether they have something to prove to their family. Whatever it is. Just there’s some passion there that drives them from doing . . . taking far more risk than they really necessarily need to do. But talk about the importance of passion and what’s driven you.
Jamie: Yeah. I think it’s very important. Yeah, I could definitely just me and an assistant flip four houses a year and be happy and make enough money to pay bills. But that’s definitely not what I wanted. So I think that in order to have a successful business, in order to be successful in anything, whether that’s working out or . . . anything that you’re doing, a sport, whatnot, you have to be passionate about it or you’re never going to achieve that greatness.
For me, my passion, it’s kind of an accumulation of a few things. So one thing being that I wanted the financial freedom. I don’t have anybody in my family that . . . my dad now owns rentals, but no one that had any form of residual-type income. I mean, some stocks or something like that, some investments. But my family, they’re a hardworking family. Nobody’s just crazy wealthy, didn’t come into a bunch of money. They all worked hard to get to where they are.
And to me, to be able to see the opportunity that if I go hard for five years, I could ultimately have a residual income that’s just insane and pass that along and make that a legacy. And that’s something that I’ve never seen anybody in my family do. And to be able to pass a legacy on to my daughter and maybe grandkids if it’s done correctly, that just, to me, seems freaking insane and amazing. And so it drives me daily.
Also, another big thing is giving back. I have this huge, soft heart. That’s why I’m not probably the best sales manager or anything like that. But I love people, I love animals. There are so many things I would like to do. But definitely, drug addiction and homeless and animal abuse are three really big, big things to me and tug at my heart big. And so I would be the person that would go off for a year and do a mission or just go help animals or something like that.
But you still have to pay bills. I still have to be a mom. So if I could get residual income, there’s nothing stopping me from when there’s an opportunity that I can really serve and help and give, I don’t have to say, “Well, I can’t leave work for a week.” I can just go. And I can go and be helpful.
And also proving. I went to college for two years. I actually had a golf scholarship. Totally screwed that up. I was the party girl and the “I don’t know what I want to do. I’m not going to fly by the rules. I’m not going to get my degree. I’m going to do what I want to do.” So kind of just to prove, more to myself, look what you can do.
Because I would look down on myself about that. “Well, I didn’t go to school and I didn’t do that.” Well, yeah, all that’s well and good. But really, that’s made me who I am today. And so proving, for one, to myself, “Look what you can do.” And also, yeah, I just like to prove, look what people in general can do. I love the rags to riches type stories. Mine’s a party girl that had a kid young and now has a beautiful family and now is doing something and helping others and inspiring others. And I just like to see how far I can push myself because then, when someone comes to me and says, “Well, I don’t know,” or, “I can’t,” it’s like, “Yeah, you can. Look what I’ve done.”
Not to toot my horn, but to say you can too. [Inaudible 00:23:10], I think the more I do and the more I can achieve, the more I can help be an inspiration to others that want to make a change, whether that’s real estate or in something else.
Mike: Yeah, that’s awesome. And let’s be honest, I was the first person in my family to go to college and my wife’s whole family has been through college. We believe . . . and we went to grad school, we’ve done a lot of stuff. So, traditionally, I believe in the traditional education route a lot because I was doing it. I was like, “Well, I’d have to believe in what I’m doing.”
But, in hindsight, all those things were preparing me to work for somebody else, ultimately, which isn’t the path that I chose. So not that I didn’t learn things along the way that I apply in my business now or whatever, but the truth is the traditional education system is a factory to prepare people to go work in another factory in corporate America, for the most part.
Jamie: Yeah, no. It definitely is. And that’s why I think I never knew what I wanted to do because working for somebody else never made me feel excited. And that’s why, in the end, I worked for my dad. I’m a huge daddy’s girl so I felt like I was helping the family out.
Mike: So do you think that women are better at the acquisitions role? So for those that are . . . maybe people that are new that are listening here, the acquisitions, we call them an acquisitions manager or a house buyer, something like that. They’re the role that actually meets with sellers, who generate leads and go meet with a seller. They’re the one that goes to try to help solve their problem and buy the house. But this is a male-dominated industry, for the most part, right?
First off, I was thinking I’m not going to be able to do the math because this is episode 405, but I’m certain that fewer than 5% of the people I’ve had on the show are women. So very honored to have you here. Obviously, I know you’re proud of your womanhood, for sure. The challenge that we have when we go meet somebody at a house is sometimes it’s intimidating if it’s an older person or an older couple and they’ve got a male coming in that’s a sales guy, that’s usually a little . . . I don’t know.
Jamie: Salesy.
Mike: A little what?
Jamie: A little salesy.
Mike: A little salesy. Yeah. Yeah. So are women . . . do you think women are better in that role?
Jamie: One hundred percent. And, of course, I’m biased. I mean, I am a woman. But I think, though, I believe in God and I believe in the way he made man and he made woman. And we are more of the nurturing. We’re more emotional, we’re more nurturing. You men are more providers. And, again, this is as a whole. Women provide too. Trust me, I’m providing. But as a whole, you guys are in there to . . . you’re getting that and you’re running out with the deal. We’re in there, “What can we help you with? I want to nurture you. Okay. Let me listen to you.” So I think women, in general, are better at listening, caring, nurturing. And I think people can feel and sense that.
I do know some great guys are that are in this business and I know that they truly care and they sit down and they talk to the homeowner and they really have their best interest at heart. But I feel like it does let some guards down, for sure, especially an older person or a single female living in her home and having just three or four men come to the house.
It also can be . . . I had one guy that was an older man out in the country, of course. And I was talking to him about everything and we were getting really close to making a deal. His wife just loved me. So when we were signing, I signed my name on the contract and he said, “Are you the owner?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m the owner of the company.” “Well, I thought there was a male owner. How can somebody that is that frail and dresses so cute be an owner of this? I don’t know that we can do a deal.” And he did not. He would not do a deal with me because of that. So it was a woman. It’s only happened once. But he was very old school in his ways.
And it can also be hard going into dangerous areas. I’ve done that many more times than I should have. And I was so passionate and so determined that I made very stupid decisions. So I’d be in some really rough places that all men in the house. And I just thought, “I’ve got this.” Which, looking back on it, I’m like, “What a fool.” It would have taken just one person, I’m gone.
Mike: I’ve felt that way so I know you’ve felt that way. I have a crowbar in my hand and I’m down in the hood somewhere, crawling through a vacant house. It’s like, “Yeah, this could end badly.”
Jamie: It could, definitely. Women, in general, I think, yes, are better at it because just that’s our nature, period.
Mike: Yeah. Even for males . . . so actually, I think we’ll see in the next episode we have after yours is published, John Martinez is going to be on the show again. So John’s a sales trainer, obviously. Everybody knows . . . if you’ve been following the show, you know John. But even they teach the importance of listening, being a good listener. Every sales technique teaches that. So, like you said, women are generally better listeners. So let’s talk a little bit about if people are listening to this, they’re inspired by your story, which I don’t know how you couldn’t be inspired by your story.
You started, basically, two and a half, three years ago. Did 17 deals in your first year and then 100 deals and you’re on track to do well more than that today in a challenging market. Challenging market everywhere in the country. It’s harder to be a real estate investor right now. But you have not let that get in the way. So what’s the lesson to be learned there about coming in and not making excuses and making it happen?
Jamie: It’s perseverance. It really is. You have to push through. There are so many days where I literally thought, especially in the very beginning, “I don’t know if I have enough money to keep doing this. I don’t know if I can even do it.” There were days where I thought, “Oh my gosh, what if this person that is working for me walks away? I’m screwed.” And where we lost money on a house or we couldn’t sell a house, there are so many things that have happened throughout these two years that if I would have given up on the first time or even the 10th time, then I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you today.
And I think so many people forget that the struggle is real. You don’t watch somebody that’s playing onscreen in a movie and think, “Oh, well, they just went to their first audition and had it.” No, they did 15, 20 years of busting their butt, learning to do what they’re doing. The same thing with any athlete or any successful business owner. Now with millennials, you’ve got maybe somebody put some dumb thing on the internet and it makes $3 million. But that’s like winning the lottery. I’m not taking my chances on winning the lottery. I’ll take the chances on myself.
So it’s so important that you surround yourself with the right people and that you get into . . . if you don’t have the money to get into coaching or masterminds, there are definitely other ways. I know Mike has a lot of free content on his site as well. So you can start with those things. My first wholesale deal was off of Craigslist, guys.
So it’s like there is no reason to make any excuse and there is no reason to say, “I can’t do this,” because this is a super tough market that I’m in and I did 100 deals my second year. So there’s no reason that you can’t come in here and make something of yourself within this industry. There’s no reason whatsoever. No excuses. I don’t play excuses.
Mike: Yeah. And really, that’s awesome. So congratulations again. Thanks for sharing your story. I think for a lot of people that are not self-employed right now, people are afraid to fail. And what I teach people all the time, whenever we do our events and stuff, is that you’re going to fail. You’re going to fail every day. In this business, if you convert 5% of your leads, which is kind of a standard, you fail 95% of the time. But that’s okay.
So you just have to get comfortable with failing and you have to get comfortable knowing every day, you’re going to come in and there’s going to be adversity. Something’s going to happen that you didn’t expect to happen that day. And you’re going to figure it out. You just have to not be afraid to get hit in the face with problems because you’re going to get hit every day. But that’s okay. That’s just how it is.
Jamie: Definitely. I mean, just last week, I’m sitting down with my CEO, Ashlyn, and we’re talking about what’s going on with one of our properties. And she’s like, “Yeah, it’s taken two weeks longer. He’s not got this done. He’s not got this done.” And then something else bad happened like an hour later and I’m like, “Man, this day is just not fun.” And then we put that house on the market and we ended up getting like $20,000 more than what we were hoping to get. I said, “Although it took a little longer, although . . . ” and in the moment, we were mad.
We were frustrated. He’s not delivering on what he’s supposed to do. It was terrible. Those things always happen. It’s just how you deal with them. And that day, we dealt with them, but we got a little more frustrated than probably usual. But when you kind of look at it in that grand scheme of things and from that bird’s-eye view, it will work out. The things are going to work out. But you have to stick through those struggles and those rough times. I have stumbled and fallen and failed throughout this entire process.
There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t make a mistake or do something that probably I shouldn’t have done. I mean, I knew nothing about it. And when you build a team, the same thing’s going to happen. You have to let go of the reins eventually. We have made mistakes, mistakes that have cost quite a bit of money. But if you don’t let other people make those mistakes and you don’t make those mistakes, you’re never going to grow as a person or a company or a business. So, to me, it’s all about mistakes. Make as many as you can. Learn from them. Just don’t do them again.
Mike: Yeah, that is true. There are so many times in this business where I’ve said, “Okay. We’re never going to do that again.” Whatever it is. And you learn. You learn along the way. I think you and I talked yesterday about some challenges. Like what can you put in there? Can you write something into your assignment contract to make sure that that’s not an issue?
There are little issues that you learn along the way and you make a part of your process that you say, “Here’s how we’re going to do it going forward because this happened.” It just takes experience. Awesome. Well, Jamie, if folks want to learn more about you, want to connect with you or just learn more about you, follow you on social media, anything like that, where should they go?
Jamie: Yeah, so you can get to me on social media. It’s Jamie Burleson Wooley. And I’m almost at my max friend requests. So if you don’t mind just sending me a PM and just saying, “Hey, I’d like to follow you. I heard you on FlipNerd,” because it’s easier for me just to see that and accept you than have to kind of go through the mess. And also, you can email me directly at [email protected].
Mike: Awesome. Well, I appreciate you being here with us today, sharing your story.
Jamie: Thanks so much for having me on.
Mike: Congrats on your success and we wish you all the best. I know now that we’ve gotten to know each other better, I know we’re going to stay in touch. But I’m excited to see you kind of grow from here. You’re so new in the business but you have so much experience already that there’s nothing but upside from here. So excited to see where you take it from here.
Jamie: Well, thanks. And again, thanks for having me on so much. I had a great time.
Mike: Awesome. Awesome. Everybody, this is Jamie Wooley today, episode number 405. We appreciate you being here with us. We’re going to keep these episodes coming at you. We’ve actually had some really powerful guests on lately that are really action-oriented so you can really learn from them and apply them to your business. And so check out the other episodes, the other 404 episodes, that is.
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