]David: Alright guys, welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. This is your host David Dodge. Today I am joined by a fellow wholesaler who resides out of Columbia South Carolina. I am pleased to introduce Mr Ben Lovro. Ben, how are you, buddy?

Ben: David I am doing fantastic, man. Super humble that the opportunity comes to share some knowledge today, look forward to diving in, man.

David: Cool, very cool. So I was just chatting with Ben before we started the show, and he has some really interesting and fascinating things that he was telling me a little bit about his life story. I wanted to see if Ben would be willing to share that as well in terms of how he got started in real estate investing, and why he is doing it today. You have only been doing real estate full time for two years?

Ben: Two years. Yep, January 2018. So full time it has been just under two years. Been studying up two and a half, probably close to three, but as far as full time real estate investor, January 2018.

David: Awesome, Ben, Awesome. Let's jump right in, man. We are both wholesalers. If you guys are not familiar with wholesaling, wholesaling is defined one of two ways; one is flipping paperwork, people like to describe it that way. The other way you can describe it as flipping houses without fixing them up. So sometimes you can assign those houses without closing. Other times-- in my business we close on them, then we resell them, we don't touch them, we don't go in them a lot of the times. So you're flipping houses with very little work being done, or you are just selling the paperwork. So if you are new to wholesaling, don't forget to check out out free wholesale course which can be found at freewholesalecourse.com, very simple domain, and or check out our book on the Ultimate guide to wholesaling real estate, we have the book as well as the audio version available on Amazon as well as audible. Ben, tell us a little bit about why you chose real estate, and how you got into real estate. Let's start there.

Ben: Sure. So real estate is one of those foundational vehicles for building wealth, right? I think-- it's very underplayed as you're growing up. Going through schools and traditional education systems. There is nothing touched on as far as financial literacy, real estate, understanding the way to build a business and all that. My journey into real estate was paved with a lot of mistakes which we will dive into later on as we progress in the interview. But what actually had me focused and driven 100% full force towards real estate was after I read 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' by Robert Kiyosaki, I know that's a foundational book that a lot of real estate entrepreneurs kind of spike that interest with. That was the game changed-- the moment that I finished that book was the moment the trajectory of my life took a complete shift, when I just started running full force towards real estate.

David: Okay.

Ben: That's the short winded answer.

David: Okay. So you read the 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' book, it opened up your eyes to I guess other opportunities or other ways to make money that has multiple benefits of course. But while you were reading that book, you were waiting tables?

Ben: Yep. I was waiting tables at a restaurant downtown Columbia. I was working relentlessly every single day, we are talking six, seven days a week, working saving, working saving, spinning on a hamster wheel. I was in this transformational change. This was shortly after I had served a short sentence behind bars which we will touch on in a little bit. Man, just spinning my wheels. I knew I was being called to something far much greater because of my past. I couldn't just go to college and present some degree to a corporate executive or whatever the case might look like.

David: Sure.

Ben: I knew I was going to have to outwork the person next to me, right? So here I am waiting tables busting my tail, making better money than I had ever made in my life, but I just knew there was something more. First business that I had started to craft and develop was a DJ business. I been a DJ in my past life with night clubs, dance parties, outdoor events. So I was kind of wanted to take that and turn it into something much more positive. I thought was I could target weddings, private events, corporate functions with the opportunity to grow and have DJ's under me where I would operate almost as a booking agent. Simple shift in that season was when I read '7 habits of highly effective people', and 'The simple principle began with the end in mind', just changed that whole dynamic, right? I started asking myself, do I really want to be a 50 year old DJ up there with a microphone hyping a crowd up? You know? I'm just-- I realized right then and there that-- it was probably-- not that it wasn't my calling and not a passion of mine, but maybe that wasn't it. Maybe that wasn't the vehicle, right? I stumbled it into it, so 7 habits of highly effective people, then Rich dad poor dad, it ended that transitional period of my life. I am like, dang that is really interesting. Very simply, Robert Kiyosaki talks about the difference between an asset and a liability. Asset is something that is going to put money in your pocket every single month, a liability is going to take money out. That's why you have kids wearing Jordons in the hood, yet a more frugal or wealthy person-- not everyone is the same, but they might be a little bit more mindful on what they spend money on. They are going to get assets first that are going to generate long term wealth and income as opposed to liabilities to like a car payment and something that is going to pull money out of your bank account. So that was that season getting into that. I can't say it's been easy by any means, but it has been a journey that start with a single step, and I am more blessed than I can even tell you right now.

David: I love it, man. That's great. You decided that you didn't want to remain waiting tables forever, you decided you didn't want to be a DJ like you mention in your 40's or 50's. So you read those two books, 'The highly effective habits' I believe it was--.

Ben: 7 highly effective habits of highly effective people'.

David: It's been a while but it's a good one. Then of course Rich dad. Those are two great books by the way guys if you haven't read those yet. Great great books, I would highly recommend them. So you read those books, and you decided at what point that you wanted to do real estate?

Ben: Read the book, and I think the biggest barrier for an entrepreneur is taking the information that is coming in, and not getting stuck in the analysis part, right? Analysis paralysis. But, how can I get out there and take action? How can I take the principles that I am learning and reading, and actually put them into some type of diagram in my everyday life? I bought my first investment property which was out of State, this school investor, known as the Foreclosure King. I got plugged in with him, my girlfriend at the time who is now my wife, one of her connections, she is like, you need to reach out to this guy, he is doing it, making some big moves. Me, brand new person just like, I'm going to be a real estate investor. I had the vision, I had the thought. So I called him, I bought an asset out of State, spent almost all the money I made waiting tables, I dropped like 22 racks on this quadplex. Long story short, after pulling out my hair, man, as you can see; eight months later we sold it. I had a contract like a week out the gate for twice what I paid for it, then they pulled out because there was a lot of underlying issues. I could have lost my tail. In that bit risk and exposure period is where I fell into wholesaling. The moment I learned out can make money, and make a lot of money in real estate without having to use your own money, and without having to extend yourself, risk your tail with extensive repairs. You can get involved in real estate for little to no money and make 10-20 spreads without even touching the asset, it blew my mind. That's what changed my entire business model. I think a big key for early investors or any business owner doesn't just have to be real estate, but it's being able to see into the future, right? Being able to try and see what's coming up and avoid those potential risks and shortcomings that could cause your business to tank. I could have lost my butt, and all that money I worked three years for could have gone down the drain, right? So wholesaling real estate was just one of those things that-- it's blown up a lot since then. You see a lot of new investors getting into it because it's popular. You go to anything big wealth-building seminar-- or coaching even or whatever it might be, there is always going to be a facet of real estate, right? It's an easy point of entry, and it has changed my life.

David: Love it, you did a great job, okay cool. So-- you started out with an out of State property, you learned about wholesaling. Let me ask you this; Mike and I in lots of previous episodes have talked quite a lot about this, how long did it take you from the time that you learned about wholesaling and started researching it, learning about it, reading, courses, books, whatever it was, but from the time you learned and said, oh this is cool I want to do it, to the time you did your first deal. How long did that take you?

Ben: We are talking about six or seven months.

David: That's pretty standard.

Ben: You heard about a lot of overnight success stories like, I started wholesaling and two weeks later I picked up my first contract and made a $30'000 spread. That was not my story. I had to fail forward for half a year six seven-- might have even been eight months, it was a long period. In fact, I probably should have quit. I shouldn't say that, but the time and resources I had spent on just learning this, and just trying to figure my way through it. It's not for the faint hearted, it's really not. It could be one of the best decisions you will ever make if it's a passion of yours that you can catch, but it is not for the faint hearted. Entrepreneur is not for the faint hearted. But, it is such a powerful vehicle to accelerate your wealth or your vision, and give you a greater purpose for the future that will change not only your life, bit potentially your family tree.

David: Absolutely I love it, absolutely. So how did you start? How did you learn? Did you find someone else that had done a deal and they were telling you about it? Were you watching podcasts or Youtube videos? What was the thing that introduced you? I don't believe that in 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' he talks anything about wholesaling.

Ben: Nope, so it was a mesh of a couple of different things. For one, I got plugged in with a local REIA, for those of you that don't know, it stands for Real Estate Investor Association. Any large city or town where there is a real estate presence, there is probably some kind of REIA if not several. That's a great place to get plugging with with different investors, different movers and shakers in your industry. Another place I spent a lot of time was YouTube, which for those of you which are probably already doing your research, or if you are falling on this podcast, you are realizing you can gain a lot of valuable information on YouTube. I happened to run across the Discount Property Investor podcast, and your training course. I didn't actually go through the training course, but one of the very first videos that I watched was with you and your partner, man. I was like-- literally giving away this information for free.

David: If these two knuckleheads can do it, you can do it, right?

Ben: Yeah. I am just thinking like-- how can these guy afford to give away all this knowledge for free? That's like the scarcity mindset you tell yourself like, when we have knowledge, keep it to yourself because you don't want to give it away to your competition. The further that you grow and progress, you realize it is quite the opposite. The secret to living is giving, the more that you can give freely with your information, time and resources, and help others grow, it's only going to accelerate your influence, your purpose, your wealth ten fold.

David: Absolutely.

Ben: Really cool just to see the transformation in your own mind and thoughts and perspective. Tons of value that these guys give away.

David: Sweet thank you for plugging the podcast. I am glad you took it. As of today we have had over 5300 plus people have taken our course. It's a great place to start, guys. Again, if you are new to wholesaling, and you want to learn about wholesaling, what it is, how it works, how easy it can be, check out that course, it's FreeWholesaleCourse.com. Really, really simple. So after you found the podcast and you started learning, YouTube, maybe some books and so on and so forth, what was the reason it took seven or eight months to get that first deal? Were you in a State of analysis paralysis? Or, were you just not marketing? My thing is, it took me about three to four month to do my first deal. The first two months I thought I was a wholesaler, but I wasn't picking up my phone and cold calling, I wasn't sending any mail, I was basically driving around trying to talk to one or two people a day, not I try to talk to thirty people a day. So my business is on a different scale, right? But what was the reason for the time delay?

Ben: Quite honestly I think it comes down to one of scarcity mindset, and two a believe in myself.

David: Another common reason, that's why I asked.

Ben: Yeah I think it has a lot of deal with of course the action. I was taking action, but coming from a place of scarcity, I was not willing to invest my heart and money into any form of marketing. So here I am browsing Craigslist, I was working on my SEO from the beginning, so I was doing some Investor carrot website. They have the SEO training, so here I am plugging away at these things, trying to have very little exposure, because I knew how hard I was working on the back end. Man, just not making much traction, browsing Craigslist, trying to find a free deal which-- there are deals to be had on Craigslist don't get me wrong.

David: Absolutely. Few and far between, just like the deals on the MLS.

Ben: Yep.

David: You are not going to be able to have as much success. We take students on, we tell them, find the for sale by owners, find the properties that are for rent. They are either going to be on Craigslist, Zillow, or they are going to be on Facebook market place. That's where 95% of the deals are going to be. However, people that you really want to approach are the people you can get your marketing message in front to before they post on there. You can still find deals that way, and that's what I did in the beginning. Literally the first thing I did before I sent out my first direct mail campaign, the first thing was I was calling and texting, Craigslist, for sale by owners, and those who had properties for rent. I got deals, but it took time. I learned that this is the marketing business, we talk about this a lot on the course, and even more in our book, but this is the marketing business, once you learn that you have to invest time and or money into marketing, you don't have a business until you learn that.

Ben: That's right.

David: That's the reason it took me three to four months to get my first deal. The first two months I was spinning my wheels, I thought I had to learn more, I don't know enough. I wasn't doing any marketing. I was doing a couple of cold calls here and there, but nothing of any significance. I actually hired a local coach here in town, and he was like, David, you are in the marketing business, how do you expect your phone to be ringing all day long with motivated seller leads if you are not telling people this is the business that you're in? You need to be spending money on a marketing budget. If you don't have money to spend, that's okay, but you need to be allocation, three four five hours a day to be posting ads, or following up with those people that are posting those ads. So I would assume you had a similar reason for the delay.

Ben: Yep.

David: Just because-- you mentioned motivation, you mentioned analysis paralysis, and I think that is very, very common with most people.

Ben: I think it's human nature. Quite honestly without a road map, the value a mentor, without a road map showing you step by step what needs to be done, I would say-- it's very difficult to get started. But, fast forward two years ago till today, we are talking-- it was insanely difficult to find phone numbers and skip trace information two year, 18 months ago. If you had a good source like you know, Skip Genie and a couple of others were the only providers maybe, unless you had a TLO account. I mean you are talking a $1.50 a skip in some cases. So you look at how the data game has accelerated the past couple of years. We have more tools and more information at our fingertips today than at any other point in history, right? Talk about like-- on a budget, your cost per lead when you have a cold calling team, when you are just hitting the phone, because you can just pull that data, or get your own driving for dollars list and access that, get it skipped the same day and jump on the phone, because you are your own best asset, you know? You are just trying to identify people in some type of distress and solve a problem. It's a mesh, but it's so crucial to have some type of a mentor, coach, someone that can kind of look from the outside and tell you this is what we can work on. When it comes down to it, we are not really in the real estate business. You said it yourself, we are in the marketing business. Better you can get with marketing for motivated sellers, the more opportunities you're going to find.

David: Love it, you nailed it, man. I preach and preach and preach that. All my students, I talk about it on podcasts, I did a speaking engagement over the weekend. That's my number one thing, if you want to get into wholesaling that's great. I love wholesaling, I do a lot of it, my company does anywhere from 8-10 deals a month on the low side, and at the end of the day though, we are in the marketing business, and real estate just happens to be the product and or service, you can kind of look at it both ways. It is the product and or service we are buying and selling. Just because we are buying and selling real estate doesn't mean we are real estate investors. We are actually in the marketing business. The way I see it, if you buy a property then you buy it to fix and flip, buy it to add to your rental portfolio, that's when you become the investor. You are taking on added risks. If you are just flipping properties, not really a real estate investor, you are just a good marketer. It just so happens to be that real estate is the the product and or service depending on how you look at it that is actually being purchased bought or sold. You nailed it, Ben. That is it, man. This is the marketing business and you have to get good at marketing, or if you don't have the funds, you have to have a budget of time. It's either a monetary budget that is set aside for cold calling, bandit signs, direct mail, skip tracing, then cold call, skip tracing to call or text. Whatever it might be, I am on the radio right now, we do ad words. There are so many different ways. I have a course in our Discount Property Investor university that has 50 plus ways to find off market deals. I have actually come up with a list of 50 plus individual ways to go about finding deals off market direct to the seller, which is going to be your best deal.

Ben, let me ask you this real quick, because we have a lot of people that listen to the podcast that are very new to real estate investing. Why would one want to locate a motivated seller and buy off market? What is the benefit of doing that?

Ben: You are going straight to the source, right? Think about-- I mean wholesaling real estate could be similar to car sales. A car sales person buys a cheap car or someone trades a vehicle in, they know they are going to be giving it at a discount, right? To pull their credit and get a better car. When you are going straight to the source, you are skipping the middle man, right? Plus I think the biggest key with that is we are finding people in distressed situations, right? What happens when we are in distress? We are grasping for straws and looking for an answer to anything that is going to get us out of this situation, right? So when you are able to contact the seller who is out of State owner, they have this burdensome rental property, or they just inherited a property because their loved one passed away, they have no idea how to facilitate any real estate transaction, they just want out, right? They are wanting that easy button. If you are able to get in front of this person whether it be in person or on the phone, and you have a people mentality, you are going to be able, one, to identify that personality type, figure out what their need is, and then you being a creative marketer or real estate investor, identify the best solution on how you can meet that need, right? You realize wholesaling is more situational than it is a want-- it is more a need than it is a want. It's very situational. Someone is facing foreclosure, someone had a loved one that passed away, vacant property-- whatever the case is, there is some type of pain point, when we find that pain point with the right mind set and the right training, you can identify a solution to dive in and be able to solve that problem. On the other side you are going to make a nice little pay day at the end of it.

David: Love it, love it. Again, guys, you are seeking a win win in all of these scenarios, right? At the end of the day, again, I was at a speaking engagement Saturday, it was a room full of newbie investors. I said, all that I do as a wholesaler, all I do is trade convenience for a discount, hence the name of my podcast, Discount Property Investor. That's it, all I do is trade convenience to a seller, no matter what problem they have, alright? I like problems because problems equal profits. No matter what problem they have, that's the solution I am going to provide. Typically it looks like this but not always, it looks like a quick close, it looks like cash, it looks like as is, so they don't need to go in and paint or do any repairs or any of the clean out, we do all that for them. Last but not least-- speed, right? I kind of mentioned quick earlier, but cash, as is and speed, those are the three main things I can provide to them. When I walk into a property or somebody calls me on the phone and they say, hey I got one of your letters, Dave, or I heard you on the radio, or somebody from your team called me last week and left me a voice mail. Whatever it was, right? They say, I got this property. I say, great tell me more about the property. They tell me a little bit more about the property. The next thing I do is I say, why do you need to sell? I appreciate you taking the time to respond to the postcard or any of the ads I placed, or whatever it might be, I want to thank you, but why do you need to sell? Before I even let them answer, I finished with, because I don't really need to buy. I would love to be the buyer, okay? But I disqualify myself often before I even let them answer. They say, well the why is because of this, this and this. If they don't give you a why, ask when, because when will always reveal your why. A perfect example of this, I went on an appointment a couple of months ago, a guy said-- I got to sell this house, I got to have it sold by like next Wednesday. Let's assume today was Monday. I had little over a week. I say, no problem, why you selling? I am not really interested in talking about that. Okay, no problem. When do you want to close? When do you need to close by? I need to have funds in hand Wednesday because I am going to jail Thursday. He just told me his why, I didn't ask why I asked the when. The when always reveals the why. We got the deal done, bought the house 60 cents on the dollar, but it was a win win. Very few other people on the market place would be able to close the deal that quickly and with cash. Again, if you look at the 10'000ft view, the big picture of what I actually did, all I did was solve his problem by offering convenience. He knew I wasn't going to pay retail, and he knew as an investor that I didn't need to buy that home, but at the right price I not only wanted to but I would love to buy that home.

Last year my company bought 98 houses, the year before-- sorry this year, we are already at the end of October, we have already purchased about 85, so we should be close to 100 by the end of this year, close to what we did last year. I tell people all the time, even the sellers. Last year I bought 98 houses, but I didn't need to buy any of them, okay? I am an investor, I don't do this for free, I don't do it for a loss, I have to make money. I am more than willing to provide you will convenience if you are willing to provide me with a discount. If you are not interested in selling your property to me at a discount, I just want to stop the conversation right then and there, because I don't want to waste any more of their time, let alone my time. I love that. I like to disqualify them and myself right off the bat, and figure out why they need to sell. If they are looking for retail on that property, I can not help them personally. However, there is a lot of benefits of being a real estate investor, I know a bunch of real estate agents, in fact I own a brokerage. I have real estate agents that work for me. I can send them out to help those individual people. Again, I try to do a lot of this over the phone, so it prevents me from having to spend time driving around and so on and so forth.

Ben: Absolutely.

David: Boom!

Ben: That's huge, that's huge. Setting the scarcity upfront is important too. I think the most important thing you can outline is that you are going to set the stage for the entire phone call. You want to identify upfront if this is a good fit for you, is it a  good fit for us? Let's take any disqualifying questions and put them right here upfront--.

David: Put them upfront. Absolutely.

Ben: That way we are not going to waste 15 minutes of our time just to find out that you want retail. If you do want retail, please let me know so we can hand it off to one of our partnering agents.

David: That's right, absolutely.

Ben: Coming out and setting it with the scarcity, I don't need to buy another house, I don't, right?

David: Right.

Ben: But then, that's almost like you're pulling away, that does something to people psychologically, especially when we are in distress, right? At that point you are clinging to straws, because this guy doesn't need me. You recognized your need for them, right? I think the whole thing with wholesale is-- we in most cases not every, in most cases we give people what they need, it's not always what they want, right? But we help people in distressed situations. If there is a way to solve their problem, we are going to give them exactly what they need, right?

David: Absolutely, one of my really good buddy's has an office in my building. He is pivoting more into wholesaling recently, but prior to that he has just been an landlord. He always says, man I love wholesalers, they provide liquidity. I never thought of it that way until he said it that way. That's exactly what wholesalers do. We provide liquidity. We don't provide people retail, because if you understand the definition of business, I will read you the definition of business if you don't know, but the definition of business is so simple, 'It's the act of making money'. That's it, okay? Four or five words. The act of making money. This is a business for us. If you are not buying a property at a discount, it is going to be very difficult to make a profit on it, unless you are able to add a ton of value at half of the cost, okay? So yes, wholesalers, we a provide liquidity out in the market place, we are helping people, providing the with solutions. At the end of the day we are not doing it for free and or for a loss. There has to be a profit there, this is a business. I love it, Ben. I am agreeing with every single thing you said, man. I love it. I absolutely love it.

Hey Ben, let's skip ahead. I don't want to go too long. When you first started out, it took you six to eight months to kind of get your feet wet, doing some deals. Tell me a little bit about the first deal you did real quick.

Ben: First deal I did-- it was a cold call, it was a sweet old lady who happened to be in a nursing home in Atlanta. Called her on a vacant property list. When she answered, she had trouble talking. She was in pain, she was not in good health. We identified that the property that I addressed did in fact belong to her. I asked her, how much would you like to sell it for? She's like, I don't know, $8'000. I'm like, okay. Take mind, this is in the rougher zip code in Columbia, right?

David: Okay.

Ben: The more you dive in with the real estate investing, you realize there are the good places, and the not so good places.

David: Absolutely.

Ben: If you hear this podcast and you are not in real estate and you're like, this guy is buying a house for $8'000, that's absurd. It happens, every single day.

David: We buy them for two or three thousand dollars.

Ben: It's insane. So when you are in a rougher area--.

David: You don't want to be in those areas.

Ben: It's harder to sell a house in those areas too. Anyway, she's like, I will take $8'000. I'm like, will you meet me at five? She's like, okay. I got a $5'000 house that two weeks later I sold for 15k.

David: Boom, 10k.

Ben: That was it. That was the belief. That showed me that this vision is real. That was like the epiphany moment, wow.

David: How long would that have taken you to make 10k waiting tables of DJ'ing?

Ben: Waiting tables--.

David: Doesn't really matter. Point is, it would have been--. Weeks to months versus 30-40 minutes. You spend five or six months, eight months or whatever it was up to that point learning that knowledge, that specific knowledge that was needed. Once you do one, the second one comes easier. The point I want to make here, guys, yes you may have to spend some time and some money educating yourself. Hopefully you start listening to more podcasts like this so you can learn from out mistakes, right?

Ben: Yep.

David: Once you learn how to do this, wholesaling is extremely simple. I don't like to use the word easy, because simple and easy are two totally different things.

Ben: Yep.

David: Something that is very simple can be difficult. Often times wholesaling is difficult, okay? At the end of the day, the process in which you go about or go through in order to get a deal under contract, locate the motivated seller first, then get it under contract and shop it to your cash buyers, then take it to the title company and sell that deal is extremely simple. You spend a lot of time educating yourself, working up, you got this first deal done, okay? Here is really the point I want to make, this is why I ask. Let's assume it took six months, doesn't really matter the exact date, right? That was from zero to one. What was the time frame between one and two?

Ben: Second one honestly took about two months. After that it was a domino effect.

David: Doesn't matter. Six months to two is a third.

Ben: You are compressing time.

David: You are compressing time.

Ben: Such a key take away I have gained in the past couple of years is how can I take the [00:35:23.06 - inaudible] and multiply that. How can I 10x my results? It comes down to compressing time. The only way to do that is to surround yourself with people who have already been where you want to be.

David: I absolutely agree, 100%. So the second deal it took about two months, then I would assume the third, fourth and fifth took less time. For my road, my journey, it took me three to four months to get my first deal. The first two months I was just reading, I wasn't really doing any marketing, maybe even the first three months. I hired a coach. He is like, David, you have to send postcards. At the time that was the big thing, still very popular. I just sent a batch of postcards out last week. Then what happened was I got a deal within three weeks of sending postcards out. It took me about three more weeks to get my second deal. I went from four months to three weeks, then my third and fourth deal were done simultaneously two weeks behind that, right?

Ben: Same seller or different?

David: All different.

Ben: Yep.

David: Yep, all different. To this-- I have been doing this almost five years, I keep saying four, but I think I have been saying that for two years now. Been doing this full time for five years. I have done close to 400 transactions, maybe more than that even. I know for a fact it's over 350. That's-- over three to four years work. It took me three or four months to get the first one, absolutely. In your case a little longer. The thing that is so beautiful about this business is that-- I am circling back here, it is so incredibly simple. Once you learn these very important basic principles, then you have to go out and find the motivated seller. That part right there can be difficult. I am not saying it's easy, I am saying it's simple. However, it gets more simple and easier the more you do it, alright? You have to learn how to get good at marketing. From there everything else will fall into line. Love it, Ben, love it.

So how many deals are you guys doing a month at this point? You said you were in a couple of markets already which is awesome.

Ben: Yeah, so I would say Columbia we are between five and six deals a month. Atlanta Georgia which is our secondary market at this point-- we are having a little bit of growing pains. We found a niche and we were wholesaling vacant land, at least when it was hot over the Summer. Since Summer has kind of dwindled off, we are not able to move these lots quite as quick. We just launched GooglePPC out there, so we are probably at three deals a month and hiking up from there. So between the two markets I would say we are close to ten.

David: Love it, man.

Ben: A lot of people will tell you-- again, laser sharp focus. Don't get distracted from the main thing. I think that's a key take away from any beginner especially. You don't want to-- I guess virtual wholesaling has kind of taken off and a lot of people are like, oh I can do it all over. My recommendation is, have laser sharp focus at whatever you do.

David: Totally agree.

Ben: Instead of trying to be a master at all these different marketing channels, become the master of one until you have mastered it, then you can essentially hand that off to a VA or an assistant, and you can move onto the next. If you are trying to do the shotgun approach at marketing and try and do everything at once, you are going to paralyze yourself, right?

Quick little story, I think this is like a John Maxwell teaching or something. They say when a lion trainer walks into the lion den, he has a side arm at his hip, but the most valuable tool he is carrying is a four legged stool. If the lion was to come at him, he simply thrusts the stool at the lion, and the lion tries to focus on all four legs, thus becoming paralyzed. It paralyses it. Same thing with out vision. If we are trying to do too many things at once, you are going to become paralyzed because you are not grasping the concepts of that one thing.

David: I totally agree.

Ben: You have to keep that one thing the one thing.

David: Totally agree. Try and chase two rabbits and see how many rabbits you catch.

Ben: Absolutely.

David: Doesn't work very well, you have to go for one. I love it, totally agree. Ben, what else do you want to add, man? What else you got?

Ben: Okay so-- trying to think of some nuggets for someone just starting. If you are just starting, my encouragement again, biggest take away is just focus on that one thing at become a master, right? Surround yourself with people who are going to bring you to that next level, right? If you have any toxic people in your life, you need to start stripping that away. As hard as it might be, it might be your family members, it might be your best friends. You are the best one that is going to know if it's a toxic environment or not. You want to surround yourself with people who get it. People who are going to support your and push you towards your vision. At the end of the day, it's not an easy journey, and you are going to need people in your corner who are going to continue to encourage you and push you along. It's that, that is going to help you reach that next level. Just a little bit of quick mindset.

I would say focus-- when you see the majority doing one thing, find a different way of doing things. Which is where David's 50 ways of marketing could be a great way to get you in the door and figure out creative ways to save a little bit of money, yet have that exposure to market to motivated sellers. Cold calling, a year or 18 months ago wasn't as hot. Now it is the hot new thing because everyone is jumping on the phones because it has gotten blown up. Cold calling has always been around, bit it hasn't been pimped out if you will like it has recently, right? One of our primary marketing channels is cold calling. I have five callers right now. Again, when you see the majority doing one thing, I would encourage you to try doing something different. The more creative you can get, and the more personal touch you can put on your marketing, the more successful you will be.

David: Man, I love it. Those were some good nuggets there. I totally agree with everything you just said, 100%, you nailed it, I love it. So what's next for you, Ben? What are you wanting to do over the next one to two years? Are you looking to expand into more markets? Are you looking to build out the current markets, looks like you have two you mentioned, Columbia South Carolina and Atlanta. Are you doing any fix and flips? Are you doing anything in terms of building a rental portfolio? Or are you just laser focused on wholesale?

Ben: Yeah so-- that's a great question. Starting off as the buy and hold strategy, I acquired several low end assets. We are talking houses I bought for $5-7-10'000. I would go ahead and market it as is, collect a small down payment, $3-5'000 and owner finance it. It has been good. In some cases I am making 100% return on my money per year. The standard of people and the headaches you have to deal with can be a pain in the butt. Now that being said--.

David: With that being said, let me say one thing real quick. With that being said, I don't even like buying rentals anymore that rent for less than 900 a month, because of that exact same reason. You just nailed it.

Ben: Yeah, you are dealing with that type of people, right? You create with whatever you want with that in your mind, but you are dealing with that type of people. It has been a pain in my butt figuring that out. Foreclosing on this house in Indiana right now, this dude is crazy, that's a story for another day.

David: One of my best friends has a fix and flip business in Indiana. After the podcast I will connect you, maybe he will want it.

Ben: Yeah, that would be awesome, man. Kind of string from that-- eight or so owner finance properties, we just started picking up rentals this year. We got three, we got our fourth under contract which I will hold onto. Rehabbing we started this year as well. First thing was learning the progress of the deal. I think the easiest point of entry was of course wholesaling.

David: So wholesaling is the marketing business. I love it, Ben. You have pivoted from becoming an expert at marketing, which sounds like you're good at, you're doing deals. That's the only way to determine whether you have been successful or not at your marketing efforts, are you doing deals? Well you're getting good, right?

Ben: Absolutely.

David: You're pivoting now into more of an investor role, you're keeping properties into a portfolio, and you're fixing and flipping, I love it, man.

Ben: Yeah, huge. We are taking on one or two flips at a time. I got our first luxury flip, in a place called Forest Acres out here in Columbia. Beautiful house, man. It looks like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air's house. Pulling up it has the big pillars, four pillars in front. Little bit smaller than that big old mansion, but my acquisition manager is going to play Will Smith, going to do a tight little trailer video of the Fresh Prince. Anyways, that's the progressing in the real estate business. Goals, we got an office complex under contract, looking to close on that the next three days. It's a little bit longer of a due diligence period, because commercial property is a little outside of my forte, so there are different codes, it's very different from residential real estate.

David: Of course. Yeah it's different for sure.

Ben: So we are getting that--. In the process of building some training coaching platforms. Ultimate goal of course is to get some speaking engagements. I got a little one on the way. I guess right now the question in my mind is, do I really want to be on the road a little bit throughout the year, or do I sit back and do the family thing? Of course systematizing a real estate business is doable. You could take yourself out of those seats, hand them off to people. Right now it's like, it's moving. I wouldn't say it's a complete well oiled machine. I could go on vacation and my business would run for at least a short period of time.

David: Yeah, that's great.

Ben: Overall vision is to build some type of empire.

David: I love it, man. That's great. You don't have to necessarily have them-- the goal dialed in, you just need to know where you want to go, that's perfect, I love it. I absolutely love it. So that's awesome, very cool. Ben, tell us a little bit more about your website.

Ben: So best place to find me, I am the only Ben Lovro in the whole world--.

David: That's L.O.V.R.O?

Ben: Google my name, you will get my web page, probably some of the investment sites. We got a lot of valuable content on there. That is where we house the flip connect media cast, where we interview entrepreneurs and real estate investors from across the nation. The goal is to get plugged in with some different global people as well.

David: Of course.

Ben: That's it. Big on social media. Again, your network is your net worth. The more that you can surround yourself and get plugged in with some of the those crowds of people that are already modeling the stuff you want to achieve is the way to do it. Social media, all channels Ben Lovro, check out the website, I would love to have you guys.

David: That's right, guys. Check him out on social media, then of course BenLovro.com. Man, I wish there wasn't any other David Dodge's. I get told a lot, man you have a great name, two D's. I like my name by all means. Jeez, there is like 300 David Dodge's out there. There is, there is so many of them. I was at the car dealership the other day and they are like, which David Dodge? I'm like, what do you mean? They are like, do you live at this address or this one? Both of them are in St Louis where I live. I am like, what? There is another dude here who got my same name? You got a good thing going with that, with a unique name, I love it. It's not anything out of the ordinary by any means either. It's just-- yeah that's great, that's awesome.

Ben: That's why you just dominate the SEO game as David Dodge. So anyone Google's your name, boom! You are controlling that space. I think that's a big thing as you progress in this industry is-- figuring out how you can create your narrative. You are the author of your life. The more you can create your life with purpose I think the more success, the more influence you are going to have.

David: Man, you nailed it, I love it. Ben, thank you so much for coming on the show. We are going to wrap up with that right there. I think we are approaching about an hour, we like to keep the episodes a little less than an hour so that's great. Thank you so much for coming on. Guys, check out Ben on social media, check out his actual website, BenLovro.com. He has some exciting things that he is working on that he didn't even mention that we talked about prior to coming on the actual podcast here today. Definitely go follow Ben and follow what he has been doing as well in terms of some of the things he is going to be putting out on that website in the very near future. If you guys are listening to this podcast, then most likely you are new to investing we are glad to have you. Remember, you make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. So you want to become a discount property investor. Just because it is the name of my podcast, doesn't mean you can't also call yourself a discount property investor. I do not buy properties at retail. I haven't done that in close to five years. Every property I buy, I buy at a discount. I make my money when I buy, I get paid when I sell. One last thing I want to end on guys. Wholesaling is the best and easiest way to start, it is the simplest as well. It doesn't require a lot of capital, you can essentially flip contracts, okay. However, wholesaling is a job. If you are getting into this business to replace a job, then you need to understand that wholesaling does require a lot of work. We talked about this earlier. It's very simple, but not necessarily easy, okay? What I recommend you do is you learn how to market to motivated sellers, you start with wholesaling. Then you can refine those skills. Skills of making offers, running repairs, doing comps, walking around properties, determining repair estimates, so on and so forth. All these things. In the end, what you want to do is be able to cherry-pick the best of those best deals, so you can add those to your portfolio of rental properties, or you can add them to your next fix and flip project, where you can take a 10-15k wholesale, and turn it into a $75'000 payday and so on and so forth. So again guys, I appreciate you for listening, I appreciate you Ben for coming on the show and sharing some gold nuggets with our audience. Don't forget, guys. Go follow Ben on social media and look him up online, BenLovro.com. Until next time we are signing off. If you guys have any questions or anything for me in the meantime, feel free to reach out. Thanks, guys.