Relationship Marketing for Investors

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] Professional real estate investors are different. We’re not afraid to go all in and take educated risks to build stronger businesses, help our families live better lives. This is the FlipNerd professional real estate investor show. And I’m your host Mike Hambright each week. I host a new episode live and bring you America’s top real estate investors as guests let’s start today.

You know, I got some numbers from. Uh, an appraiser, uh, cause you know, we’re trying to put out statistics and data. DFW is down 30% from last year in available inventory

units. Yeah.

Tony: [00:00:44] And, and um, I, I just think we’re going to keep seeing a decline in available units, which is creating a big bottleneck. On on every level.

So wholesale [00:01:00] purchasing to retail purchasing it’s I mean, we’re already, and the demand is higher, right? So the demand went up and the available units went down. So this year has been a very, very challenging year.

Mike: [00:01:14] Yeah. Yeah. It’s uh, you know, I think it’s gonna be that way for awhile. Yeah, it’s hard, harder to buy, but when you get the deals, they’ll be way more profitable than they would have historically.

Right. And sometimes the market’s still, even from the time you buy it, you’re making 10, 20 grand more on it than you thought.

Tony: [00:01:29] Oh yeah. Yeah. So even a what’s that, that saying even a, even a full can overpay and still turn a profit and it, it. They win, you know? And it’s like, Oh man. So,

Mike: [00:01:43] but try not to be the fool.

I try not to know you want to get careless with it. Right. There’s a lot of people, I think there was. In the last market, there was a, there were people that would buy and they could sit on properties with hard money, even because the properties were appreciating faster than the [00:02:00] cost of the hard money.

Yeah. And you know, that, that, that, that, that doesn’t make sense ever. Right. So like, don’t take advantage of that. Right. So, um, anyway, you just gotta be

Tony: [00:02:08] careful don’t bank on

Mike: [00:02:09] that don’t bank on don’t count on that, right? Yeah. Yep. So, uh, cool buddy. I think we’re live. Let me see if I can see us in our group here.

Oh, it looks like you, somebody sharing our post or something. So. Cool. Well, Hey guys, we’re uh, sorry, fumbling through this a little bit, because this is the only the second video we’ve done live in this group. And so I’ve recorded over 5,000 podcasts and I’ve done some that are live, but there’s always a little more technical, uh, Hoop hoop jumping through, then we just recording it and it happens behind the scene.

So in fact, I recorded a podcast for our investor fueled podcast, right before this that’s not even going to come out for a month and it wasn’t live so a little bit easier to execute that, but excited to have my buddy Tony Sicilian here with us today is also a fellow Dallas real estate investor. We’ve known each other for [00:03:00] a long time now.

So Tony, happy to have you here, buddy.

Tony: [00:03:03] Thank you, Mike. I, uh, I’m, I’m honored to be here.

Mike: [00:03:06] Yeah. Excited to have you here. So we’re one of the things that Tony believes that we were talking about ahead of time is, is just by helping people. Tony is an investor, he’s also a lender, does a number of other things.

And, um, and we were talking about just how we both feel like by helping people, whether it’s through. It could be through coaching. It could just be through providing a service, like hard money or I’m the mastermind I lead or other things like that, that we personally get a lot of value from it. And in, uh, in exchange for that.

You know, there’s a personal paycheck of just the joy of doing those things. And there’s also a business side of it too, that comes out. So you kind of do these things without expecting like, Hey, I just gave you advice, like pay me for it. It’s not necessarily that way. It’s that stuff comes around six months, a year, two years later.

And you just find, if you constantly giving and helping, then you’re constantly getting benefit one way or another. And it’s just this ecosystem that, uh, you don’t really know it exists until you focus on it for awhile. It might. Am I saying that right,

[00:04:00] Tony: [00:03:59] Tony? Absolutely. There is no direct, at least in my mind, there’s no direct paycheck that comes from helping people unless you’re charging, but there is no direct paycheck, but it comes around in the form of people call me back and they’re like, Hey, I know you helped me on this deal.

I got this other one. Would you take it from me? You know? And so maybe you get to buy a deal or, you know, it comes back in the form of a loan. Um, I definitely enjoy helping people. Figure out problems. It’s that I’m definitely attracted to problem solving. I think over my career, I’ve been dubbed the problem solvers.

So whether it’s title issues or buying the worst of the worst houses, um, I take them, uh, and I show people that we perform and then, uh, they call you back on the next one or they call you back with, Hey, I need this, or I need that. Can you connect me with this person? And so, yeah, it doesn’t always bring me direct income, but it makes me happy.

Yeah. [00:05:00] And furthers my network and my, my ability to grow.

Mike: [00:05:03] Yeah. I’ve said for years that even as a real estate investor, like once when I first started in investing, like we were, you know, we were burning through cash where like I was, you know, we were financially, we were not in a good place. Um, and that when I first started, I would go out, like, I would literally pray like in front of us, like, God, please let me buy this house.

I need this, I need this house. And it didn’t work. Like, it just didn’t really work. And I think once I realized like, Hey, I can’t wait unless I help that person. Right. So you’ve been talking with sellers and I’ve kind of said for years, like, look, if you wake up in the morning and you’re like, I’m going to go try to help as many people as I can today.

And just know that every once in a while you’re going to win too, then I think that’s a good way to. To run the business because you don’t want somebody that you don’t want to go meet with a seller and find out that, well, there’s no way to be able to buy this house and be like, just stand up and like walk out.

Right. You’d be, you’re still trying to serve and add value while you’re there. Cause honestly, yeah. When you lay in bed at night, thinking about your day or thinking about why am I doing all that [00:06:00] it helps you to know I’ve found, maybe everybody doesn’t feel this way, but that, gosh, I didn’t get anything today, but I really feel like I helped help people.

Right. And, um,

Tony: [00:06:08] In which case you actually won. Right? Right. So I don’t have to win with the contractors, especially I was telling you this before. I, I still go after all these years, I still am the one that goes on all my bike calls. Yep. Um, I don’t have a buyer. I go do it myself. And when I walk in to that appointment, um, I have to leave.

And this is kind of my motto where I might not buy the house, but I’m going to leave at the very least. I’m going to leave them with information that I believe that will help them. Cause they’re going to sell that house most likely whether they chose to sell it to me to another investor or retail, they’re going to sell it.

And if I can leave them with some, some knowledge, knowledge is power and I can help them make a better decision. Um, then I’m happy. Then I won, you know, I did, I didn’t get the contract, but I still want, I’m still happy with my performance. Uh, [00:07:00] That day, you know, we all have to be able to sleep at night

Mike: [00:07:03] reciprocity, right?

Like we all karma is alive and well, if you’re doing good things, if you’re helping people, you’re putting people before yourself. You just have to know that that’s going to come back around because it, it, it very much is true. And, you know, we’ve had people before. Certainly a lot of people that we can’t buy their house and we just treated them.

Right. And the next thing, you know, some referral comes through, they’re like, you know, there’s somebody named Susan or church that we talked to. And I guess you’ve talked to them about buying their house and you know, we’re in a situation where they said we should talk to you and we should only talk to you.

And when that happens, you’re like, Holy cow. Like, I didn’t count on that. I didn’t treat you right. Yeah. Expecting that. But if I do that enough, like karma is alive and well, it comes back around.

Tony: [00:07:42] Absolutely. If, if, if all I did that day was help that little old lady or that young or that old couple or whatever, if all I did was help them find a moving company, right?

Cause in this business, you always have to keep your Rolodex, uh, full of, of resources, you know? [00:08:00] And one of the things I am find myself doing constantly is paying for movers to help my sellers. Um, I do it way too often. Uh, but helping them move and transition yeah. Into that next, that next chapter. Um, yeah, they, they get so, uh, so grateful that, that gratuity, that sort of gracious mentality comes back in so many ways and it’s, it’s a blessing.

Right. And so, um, I think that makes me happier. And, and makes me feel free and makes me feel proud of what we do. Um, yeah. I want to buy houses. Yeah. So when I buy them to where I’m profitable, but it’s gotta be a win for me. It’s gotta be a win for them.

Mike: [00:08:43] Yeah. And, and I think that the point of what we’re talking about here is this extends beyond just sellers too, right.

Is like, if you’re talking to wholesalers, Yeah. Or you’re looking at deals that wholesalers are bringing you like on, on one level, we all get sent a bunch of wholesale deals that are total BS. And we’re like, there’s like no way [00:09:00] in hell, but we all know that sometimes they’re like, well, I don’t, I’ve never even seen that guy.

He’s a new guy. So if you take the time and I’m not saying that everybody does this, a lot of us don’t have time for it. But if you were to just jump on the phone and say, You know, how did you come up with these numbers? And the truth is, is if you, if you were to do that consistently and talk to people and say, can I give you a little guidance here, a little thought on this, or here’s why it doesn’t work for me.

Did you think about this? And you can want to help people then. It’s going to happen, where that guy’s going to come back around. Or if you say, look, tell me if you can’t close this deal, like, come back to me. Maybe I can talk to the seller with you, whatever it might be. Um, there, there’s going to be some opportunity.

That’s going to come your way, but it all starts with taking the time to help somebody. Guide them, give them your thoughts or opinions. Now I have and everything and not everybody wants my opinions, but so don’t, don’t force it on somebody, but if they’re willing to listen and you’re willing to help opportunity will come your way.

Tony: [00:09:53] I bought a house from a wholesaler last month and I wasn’t the highest, I was [00:10:00] definitely lower than what he was asking for. And I said, Hey man, look, this is my number. Uh, I’m not the type of guy where if you don’t take it now on I walk, you know, where you come back to me next week, I’m going to be lower.

It’s that’s my number. There is no emotion when I’m buying from a wholesaler, it’s not emotional, right. I’m not saying, Oh, well this is my Canberra. I know he’s making, you know, X amount of dollars. Like I’m going to, I’m going to offer him, you know, way less than what he’s pitching it to me at. Right. It’s not about that.

It’s, it’s a pure statistics. Yeah. A purchase. So if I make you an offer in, and it works that day. Great. If it doesn’t work that day, call me back. Absolutely. I’d be happy to take it. You know, in that situation, he called me back a week later and I was still able to buy it. You know, it was a win for me. We made money on it.

It was a win for him. He made some money on it and he knows he can call me back and. I might not be the highest, but we are definitely a guaranteed close. So yeah, I think you have to approach it, [00:11:00] whether you’re buying from wholesalers or sellers, or even when you’re dealing with your contractors, right.

Don’t, don’t beat up your contractors to get the cheapest price on every deal. Ultimately, your guys are going to get mad at you, right? So we do flip enough houses. You get bad contractors. So I think just treating people right. At every level is so important to happiness in this business. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike: [00:11:24] And for those of you that are watching or listening right now, this isn’t, if you’re just a real estate investor, there’s a lot of opportunity to apply what we’re saying here.

If you’re in a service business, like Tony is also a lender. I have a, an agency investor machine that Tony actually is a, is a member of an investor fuel, which is a mastermind for professional real estate investors. I mean, those two businesses for me are all relationships. They’re all people that are coming in cause they know me or trust me.

And I don’t take that lightly. And it just happened from being helpful over many, many years. Right. And so, um, I think there’s a lot of opportunity for you. To do that in your business. So how do you give some, give some tactical things like on the [00:12:00] lending side of your business? How do you, you, I know you get business from everything we just talked about.

You’re being helpful. Lending a hand. Yeah. Giving advice, a guy advice and guidance. So I tried to merge those two words there. Um, but just talk about some tactical things that you do, and then maybe other people that are kind of watching you’re listening to this could apply in their business as well.

Tony: [00:12:18] I think on the lending side, it’s really interesting because, uh, there’s, there’s a lot of lenders out there.

Um, my motto lately is cheap money, eight easy and easy money ain’t cheap. And what I’m, what I’m trying to explain is that the, you don’t always need the best rate. You need the people who can perform with you. Right. I think people look at it. Some people look at lenders as greedy cause they’re charging, you know, a higher interest rate or whatever it is, but that’s not necessarily the case.

Um, we’re loaning on an asset and we’re trying to help you be successful. If our clients, if you know, I work with invest Mark mortgage, right. [00:13:00] And if our clients borrow money from us for a deal, if they go belly up, I mean, we weren’t successful. Right. So they’re not going to come back to us for another deal.

So I think knowing your lender. And we’re not in what I call the law to own business we’re in the loan so that you could be successful business, you know, on the same, uh, same kind of deal. Cook it out there. Get good backs. We want to make good loans. To people who, uh, need to further their real estate investment career and make sure that they are able to perform, make sure that they have the resources for the right contractors, you know?

Uh, and I think that that breeds good clients and successful investors.

Mike: [00:13:48] Yeah. Yeah. Even as a wholesale

Tony: [00:13:50] kind of apply that.

Mike: [00:13:52] Yeah. Even as a wholesaler, I think there’s a lot of wholesalers out there that, that recommend other contractors or recommend lenders sometimes. [00:14:00] So if you’re, you know, if, if you’re not doing this right now, I think there’s an opportunity to when you sell your property, you know, it’s a little more turnkey.

Like here’s a bunch, especially for newer people that you might be selling to. Here’s a bunch of resources that can help you if you buy this deal. Or quite frankly, even if you don’t. Um, and the truth is is the, those vendors often they’re not. Paying the wholesaler to share their stuff. I mean, they’re not necessarily affiliates.

Right. But then sometimes what happens is if you, what I found is when I want to help vendors in my business, like I send every, so truthfully I never, I really never send anybody to my best general contractor. Cause like, ah, yeah. That’s like giving away your best babysitter, but if they’re like a roofer HVAC guy, any other trade that I’m like not taking up a lot of their business, um, I’ll share those openly.

I’m a little selfish sometimes. So that’s a good thing, but, uh, that’s uh,

Tony: [00:14:47] those vendors are very common, right? We never want to,

Mike: [00:14:51] I can’t tell you my best babysitter, but her sister also babysits. Um, but, uh, I’ll say this, like. There was, there had been a time where I would [00:15:00] recommend lots of different vendors to people just because, uh, I, they did a good job for me.

So I thought, I would tell you like, Hey, this is if you need a glass guy or when did I like to go to this guy? And then what happens is the next time I call that guy and I need something. He would say, you know what? You sent me a bunch of business. That’s, that’s amazing. And he’s like, you know what? I’m about six weeks out on like new windows right now.

But like, I can come. Measure you out this afternoon. Right. And they’re just like, it’s just this, it benefited me in an indirect way. Um, just by doing good, that didn’t cost me anything. Right.

Tony: [00:15:32] A friend of mine called me yesterday and she’s like, Hey, I got this house in skeet. It’s a, it’s a pier and beam and I need it.

It’s a house that we’re keeping. And I wanna, I want a good. A foundation company. And I was like, I joke because I laugh because people ask all the time, Hey, do you got this? Or, Hey, do you got this guy? And so I try to give, not just one. I try to give a, so in this case yesterday, I gave her three contexts. I [00:16:00] was like, here are my three best.

Whoever you go with, you know, the choice is yours. Right. And it’s because I don’t want them to call it. God forbid they do a bad job. I don’t want him to call me back and be like, Ooh, this person messed with me. Like, Hey, I gave you three, you know? Um, but, but yeah, those guys call me back and they’re like, Oh man, thank you so much for that.

You know, whether it was my granite guy. Cause. I don’t put granite in every house or, you know, I mean, you definitely have to keep your trades busy. You have to keep them, uh, making money. Right. Everyone’s got a profit. And I think that if we allow everyone to profit where they need to profit, then we all grow as a community.

And so it’s just, it’s that same. Uh, I said this to you. This will be the third time. Now I travel in a pack. Um, I don’t want to be the lone Wolf. I want to be in the pack and I want everyone to be right there with me, uh, as successful as I am and, and doing good deals, making money and having that [00:17:00] freedom that we’re fighting for.

Mike: [00:17:01] Yeah. Yeah. It really forces you. And I have found too, um, that, uh, I wasn’t always this way. Like I’ll say when I first started, I had a little bit more of a scarcity mindset. I mean, I came out of corporate America. We were very much in a situation where we like to be successful as soon as possible. Cause we were just living off of savings and um, you know, it was just a different time, I guess.

And then I started to learn like, wow, I. I started to meet people at REIA clubs, for example, this is like back in 2008. Right. And so I’m like teaching, you know, I would teach them some of the stuff that I’ve done and yeah. People are like, well, can I come check out one of your rehabs? And like, sure. It kinda made me feel good, honestly.

And the next thing I know, I’m hosting you, you know, this is probably, I was hosting. Yeah. These big events called rehab alive where I’d invite like 40 or 50 people to come, like watch us rehab a house. And they just come out like three times before, during and after. And we would just talk about it. And the next thing I know.

I’m bringing in, you know, coaching students and stuff like that. And it just turned in. It wasn’t the intent, but it just turned into people. Could you teach me these things or can I, you know, people would bring [00:18:00] me deals. People are asking if I need, you know, am I looking for a new lender and just buy something that started off as maybe a little bit of ego?

Like it made me feel good to kind of show what I’m doing. And then it turned into like, wow, there’s a. There’s a business opportunity here and it’s helping people to, they’re asking me for it in fact. And so next thing you know, we’re doing deals together and we’re working together and all sorts of stuff.

There’s a lot of good things that kind of come out of giving first, I guess.

Tony: [00:18:25] Yeah. And that further your, that, that freedom that you now have. Right. I mean that, that, so ego, isn’t a bad thing. Arrogance is a bad thing. Right. So that makes sense. So, so, you know, feeling good, just. That’s a good thing, you know?

Um, and I enjoy that. I enjoy, um, I have a lot of clients, uh, from the lending side that call me, Hey, can you help me with comps on this? And I’m like, send me comms and let me like, and I just kind of teach them how to read comms. Right? There’s I don’t want to be giving, um, I’m not a realtor. I don’t [00:19:00] want to be giving them, Hey, this is definitely going to be this value, but I will help them discern the data that they gave me and say, okay, Really look at this one, you know, and, and this is why this one sold for less, or it was on the market for longer.

And, um, I know my core, probably my 10 core clients call me multiple times. John’s a day for, Hey, can you help me with this? Or, Hey, can you help me with that? You know? And yeah. It’s great. I enjoy it so much. Um, I got, uh, a review from a house that I bought from these, this seller and they didn’t make much money.

They walked away with a couple thousand bucks, but they wrote me the nicest letter saying how I saved their life, you know? And it was like that sort of thing. When you get that. Yes, I am. I’m very proud of that. But at the same point, I know I did everything I could for them, you know, and same thing. That was actually one of the moving situations where I helped.

Help them move, you know, so it’s a little thing and that made me feel good. Gave me a good, [00:20:00] you know, a good pep in my step type thing, and I can roll it into the next deal. Yeah,

Mike: [00:20:06] that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Um, nobody that’s watching right now. We’re we’re recording this. We actually, I guess I say recording it live, of course you record everything live, right, but we’re actually broadcasting it live.

If you’re an experienced investor, we’d love to have you in our professional real estate investor, Facebook group. It’s a, if you go to flipnerd.com/professional, it’ll redirect you there, but it’s called the professional real estate investor network on, uh, on Facebook. We’d love to have you in the group where we’re growing the group right now, where we do limit it to people that are.

Actively doing deals. And so we don’t have, it’s never going to be a group with tens of thousands or a hundred thousand people in there that are asking all the newbie questions, which are fine. There’s plenty of groups or that here, we’re talking about stuff that helped take your business to the next level.

So we’d love for you to join the group if you haven’t yet, Tony, if folks wanted to learn more about you are connected. Obviously you’re doing deals in the Dallas Fort worth market, and you do some lending here. We’re also going to connect with you.

Tony: [00:20:53] Uh, you can connect with us on Facebook, uh, at invest it’s facebook.com and that’s mark.mortgage.

[00:21:00] Uh, you connect with me on my Facebook, which is facebook.com/tj Sicilian. Uh, or just give me a call eight one seven six eight zero. Four five, five, four, aye. We’ll try to answer it even though it rings all the time, but I’ll try to answer and I’m here for you. If you need, if you need help, if you’re in the DFW area, I’d love to connect and go have lunch.

Mike: [00:21:25] Sounds good. It sounds good. And everybody, uh, I don’t think I said that we were, um, we’re just kind of starting this new show here had been podcasting for seven years now, but we’re doing this one live, uh, cause I think what we ultimately want to make it interactive inside of the group. So if you’re not watching it live, join the group and um, and you can join, it will be marketing when we go live so that we can ask questions and we can kind of banter a little bit there as well.

And we do that about once a week on average. So go check out that group. Appreciate you joining us today, Tony. Thanks,

Tony: [00:21:51] Mike, my pleasure. Hope to see you again soon.

Mike: [00:21:54] Good to see you, buddy. And so you’re, I always have, I don’t always have people on, I have people on my podcast that [00:22:00] are, uh, in the Dallas Fort worth market.

And there’s people that I’ve known guys that, you know, through someone like Eddie speed. And so that I’ve known for like ever, and we only see each other, like on a podcast or like an event in an event in like Orlando or somewhere. And we’re like, why don’t we ever see each other in our own marketing? I guess Dallas is a big place, but it is, it is.

Kind of funny how that works.

Tony: [00:22:21] So we gotta to go, uh, hopefully we’ll find a restaurant that lets us have happy hour again sometime soon. Yeah, yeah,

Mike: [00:22:28] yeah. Cool buddy. Good to see you, everybody. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see, on the next show.

Tony: [00:22:32] Take care guys.

Mike: [00:22:34] Thanks for joining me. On today’s episode, there are three ways I help successful real estate investors take their businesses and their lives to the next level.

First, if you’re in search of a community of successful real estate investors that help one another, take their businesses to the next level and a life changing community of lifelong friends. Please learn more about my investor fuel real estate mastermind. By [00:23:00] visiting investor, fuel.com. If you’d like a cutting edge solution for the very best done for youth lead generation on the planet where we’re handling the lead generation for many of America’s top real estate investors, please learn [email protected].

And lastly, if you’re interested in them, Free online community of professional real estate investors that isn’t full of spam solicitations and newbie questions. Please join my free professional real estate investor Facebook group by visiting flipnerd.com/professional. [00:24:00]