West Point, Pro Baseball, Multiple Combat Tours, and a Successful REI Business

0:00So you started building your your brokerage and I think at the same time if I understand it right you started investing in your own properties as well correct so how did that how did that play out what year I guess did you start your brokerage and how did it grow over time yeah we we were so I was licensed in 2012 and 2016 or 2015 around there you know we really got going start Selling Houses and U yeah it started first with u my my assistant at Keller Williams at the corporate office came with me I told I was like look give me give me 90 days to get my feet on the ground okay because otherwise I'm just going to pay you to

0:48Watch me get set up but I promise after 90 days I'll bring you in and she's you know she's still with me today she's she's amazing and you know if you if you have a hard time coming up with a job description for an executive assistant you just tell them your job is to to to make your value twice as large to everything that you do so she doubles me and and she's amazing at it so she came in after 90 days and was my first employee and the business the business didn't deserve to hire her but I but I knew who she was I knew her track record I knew that she wasn't a person that I was going to have to to tell to do anything like she was just going to help me grow the business at all costs she's like in the trenches with me doesn't

1:37Matter if she has a license or not she's you know she's going to do the thing and so we we work together to grow and you know just systematically over time adding admin first then agents you know we we built this brokerage team and I have I have three agents that work with us on the team and then we have four administrative folks that support those count me four agents so we have four admin supporting four agents and a couple of virtual assistants and but it's you know I didn't do everything at one time it just systematically you know when you you always want to lead with admin support because producers they're not they don't sign up to do admin things you know they sign up to produce and

2:25That's what you want them doing that's how they that's how you all make the most money so when you're as you're build the the admin team you will know because you'll have capacity and then you go get the producers and so we did that you know my the number of homes that we've sold U I think the first year sold like 28 homes U second year in the 40s and then it then it just really went up and you know now we're in the hundreds of transactions U this year this year has been a humbling year just because the number of houses that are selling right now are just so low but I but I believe our market share is right you know I think we're we're still gaining ground and I know we're doing the right things but yeah we've continued to grow over time and and I think you know the future is bright I mean it's

3:14A great business very profitable and then yeah investing to your point whenever we would sell a big house you know we we would buy an investment property essentially so you know you you you you get fortunate here and there to to have a big payout with an opportunity that you're developing and and rather than spend that on a new car or go buy a bigger house myself or anything like that Chris and I've always gone and buy bought an asset and U the be so this is another great thing from the military my wife and I got married and we were married for over nine years before we had our first child and she was a

4:02She was working as a CPA and I was working in the military and she lived off her income and I put mine 100% in the bank and so we you know we found ourselves married 10 years we were married for 10 years and we had never lived off my income not one not one time wow you we just lived off hers for 10 years and when we had the the baby we're like okay well now we have real responsibilities let's combine our accounts and so that's when we brought everything together but we had we had had 10 years of marriage underneath our belt before we ever thought about living off of the second income so we've saved half our income our our basically our whole adult lives together and that's given us the

4:50Ability to go acquire assets too which you know is when you're saving half of what you make and deploying that into assets I mean that you can accumulate things faster that way yeah yeah absolutely and I think that's a smart strategy that you did where you had your active income Focus and then you you know like you said you'd take excess and put that into Investments I think the thing that I've seen a lot of happen to a lot of people is that it can be distracting you know like they can the the Investments can be take them on a tangent and then all a sudden the thing that got there goes away so how I'm curious how you analyze opportunities and maybe you can talk through some

5:38Of the things that you've invested in and how you decide this is worth the time and effort yep I'll say this I'm a real estate guy everything that I do is around real estate and I would love it if it was just residential real estate Okay so so I I buy residential single family homes that's what I invest in now once I accumulated a certain number of properties I started as a limited partner investing in some commercial assets but I wasn't the I wasn't the person making those decisions you know my your financial advisor your accountant and all you know they they start tell you like okay well why don't you diversify a little bit well I like real

6:27Estate so my diversification went from single family to commercial real estate but it was still real estate and I understood the the purpose of cash flow and how that mitigates risk and I understood the tax benefits of real estate I understood how to look at a deal and see if it was a good one or not the type of real estate I mean that that can change but what your fundamentals for how you pick a good asset you know that that's pretty consistent when I was in I think in the 50 year of my real estate business I was selling a good amount of homes but I wanted more luxury homes in Central Austin and my database has

7:15A bunch of people that look like me in it and that that's natural right because you know database is built from your friends it's built from my NBA program it was built from Kristen's Finance you know family there that she was working with so we had all these great people that were all buying houses and selling houses but but the the multi-million dollar homes that were right around downtown in Austin we didn't have a lot of that business and I I wanted more of that and so whenever you want something in business you start looking at your competition and and asking yourself well how do they get it and again you look you look at yourself and say well what am I good at and what what resources do I have to be able to go and u kind of attack this a way that someone else has already proven to be successful and

8:03I was looking at these Builders and these Builders had guys like me calling them all the time like saying you know hey I wna I want to buy this soon as you're done selling like I have a buyer for this as soon as you're done with the house let me buy it and I was seeing a lot of the the new construction homes selling to unrepresented buyers like man you know what an opportunity there for my real estate business to capture some money represented buyers even if they don't buy my new construction home I can still work with them to go find what they're looking for so so I said okay well to Le generate for more listings in Central Austin I'll just start a construction company and you know I went and found a guy that I call him my gray-haired guy he he

8:51Had been building for 30 years and I said you know how much do I got to pay you to come build houses for me he said well if you guarantee me me this every year I'll come build you a house and we'll sell it together I said done and so the construction company was started with me and him and his cell phone because his cell phone had all the people at the city and their numbers it had all these Subs that he' worked with the last 30 years you know the cabinet guys the foundation guys the framers and we you know we scrap scratched together a little budget we we went and found his property bought the property and he built a home and for 12 months took calls on that home from unrepresented buyers and was starting to convert them into clients and you know and that and and then

9:40We sold the house and it went really well we made a nice profit and and so I didn't for four years I didn't spend a single dollar out of my Construction Company not a single dollar that I spend out of the construction company so I just kept pouring it back into more opportunities you're saying the The Profit left over after everyone was paid that's right got it I either bought more Properties or I hired more people and that and that's how it scaled so I was blessed to have the brokerage company that essentially I lived off of so I didn't need the money from the the the construction company I just wanted the leads from it the leads from my BR did you need to be involved and from a Time perspective was he pretty much handling all the dayto day of that or were you yeah but he needed leadership he

10:28Needed leadership okay so and he didn't have the MBA C and I you know and I work with investors on these deals because we scaled up a little faster than than just the horsepower that I have or maybe the risk you know my risk tolerance to put all that money into one thing it just I'd rather share the reward with investors rather than be so you know concentrated in that part of my life so yeah I did so I worked with investors I'm the one that worked with the banks I worked with the attorneys of course I did the Acquisitions and sales and then I needed to lead him he needed leadership to stay on track but he knew how to build the house and so I I did spend a lot of time but but that time that I spent in the construction company it

11:16Was the same time that I was using to lead generate for more opportunities so rather than rather than call a bunch of for sale by owners rather than go door knock rather than like call these withdrawing lists and all the stuff that agents do to try to drum up business I just repurposed that time into leading a construction company that I just happened to make a profit and Le generating through that U and I'm happy to say you know this year well late last year I brought in the CEO and he's leading the company now so wow I'm still involved U but now I'm I'm spending you know again all of my time on my brokerage business again with just a small sliver and the construction company because it's it's got a leader now that I can just you know touch base with and

12:06He's he's growing he's growing it well he's he's the right fit and you know it's it's paying off so and then the so and you mentioned this at the beginning I have a laundry company before before you go on that I just had a quick question because I think this is something that if I was listening i' I'd want more clarification on because I know this is your your expertise and it's leadership and you you mentioned that this partner you know he had the the skills but he needed leadership and so you you helped lead him and it was really successful what does that mean when you say that like what what like from a blocking and tackling standpoint yeah what did you do that helped him be successful if someone else is in their the same position yeah

12:58you know as a lead I think every day you start with just Vision because I think vision is exciting but Vision also tells you if it's done perfectly this is what it looks like in the end right this is what this is what it looks like when done right and as a leader your job is to tell the people on the team that vision and you do it all the time because even though the vision is simple people will lose they'll lose sight of the vision they'll just Veer off you know because you know life they got more they got more going on in their life than just your home that they're trying to build priority just making sure that the priority is super clear we got we got eight hours of work today what are you going to do and

13:48you know he would give me the things that he was going to do and I'd say you know what let's start with this and then work down the rest of it right again I wasn't telling the guy how to to build the house I was just telling him what was most important today in pursuit of our vision and I would tell him why so that he understood why yeah you know and and Leadership again leadership is teaching people how to think if you could teach them how to think to get what they want and their motivations align with yours then you're going to get what you want as a leader so you just got to teach them how to think and how to go get what they want and have the right people on Board and they'll go get it so there's Vision there's priority there's accountability you know did did you get done what you thought you were going to get done

14:37And if and if that accountabil that accountability exposes problems and in the military we were taught when there's a problem you always look at yourself as a leader first you ask yourself first have I trained this person well enough to succeed yes or no next did I did I equip this person well enough to succeed do they have the resources needed yes or no then have I motivated them well enough to succeed yes or no right if if you say yes I've trained them yes I've equipped them yes I've motivate them and they still can't get the job done they're not technically capable of doing the job and you just made a poor hire right but those those are the things so that Vision the the priority the accountability and just making sure you're doing your job as a leader like that that's what I

15:25Did you it's nothing too Nuance it's just those high level things just over and over every single day