David: Alight guys welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. This is your host David Dodge. Mike Slane my co-host is out in the field today buying us our next rental property. So I am joined today with a friend of mine, Willie Goldberg. Hey Willie, how are you doing today?

Willie: I am doing well, David, how is everything going with you?

David: Everything is going great. I got my workout in this morning, I already went out and drove for dollars for about 90 minutes, added about 50 properties to my personalized list, had lunch with one of my best off market wholesale buyers. Now I am knocking out a podcast. Man, productive Monday for me. How about you?

Willie: It's going well. I hit the gym as well, then just talking to buyers and sellers for the most part. Trying to close some deals. Everything is going well over here.

David: That's what's up, man. That is what's up. That's what I like to hear. So for anybody that is new to the podcast, this is the Discount Property Investor podcast. It's hosted by myself David Dodge and Mike Slane. We have a free course that teaches people how to get people started in investing in real estate via wholesale or via finding discounted properties, alright? You make your money when you buy, you get payed when you sell in real estate. It always works this way, you make your money when you buy, you get payed when you sell. So if you haven't already checked out out free course, FreeWholesaleCourse.com. Today I got a good friend of mine on the show, Willie Goldberg. Willie has a unique investment strategy. It is one that I have been interested in for several years. However I am all in on wholesale. So I just haven't really dedicated some time to learn about land investing. So I have Willie on the show today, and we are going to jump in. Willie is going to tell us what he does, how he makes his money. Essentially he is wholesaling too, but he is just doing it a different way, he has a different approach. Another thing I like about what Willie does, is he is doing it all over the place. He is not doing it in his back yard. Whereas I teach people, if you are going to do the traditional wholesaling of real estate. Start in your back yard. Go on those appointments, meet those sellers, build rapport. Do the things you need to do to get them to like you and trust you, sot hat way you can buy their home. With land, A, he is not doing it in his back yard, he is doing it in different markets which is awesome. But B, there is a lot less of that back anf forth and that rapport building that is involved. I am going to quit talking, I am going to let Willie take the floor. Willie, tell us a little bit about what you're doing. You know what? Let's start with this. Tell me about your background. What motivated you to get into real estate? How long have you been doing it? Start there.

Willie: Yeah no problem. My background, I was born and raised in the Chicago land area. So been here-- born and raised and lived here 18 years, then bounced out to California to go to college. I was out there for several years. Then I was just bumping around coasts. I moved-- so Chicago to California, then the East Coast had a couple of jobs out there, working in the banking field, investment banking, corporate banking. I bounced around in Charlotte, then Boston and back to Chicago. Moved around a couple of jobs. While I was in those jobs, I didn't really-- I wasn't super motivated, didn't feel that's where I wanted to spend my career. I was in there, I was kind of miserable working these jobs. So I decided while I was there that this is not really what I want to pursue. So I started looking into ways in which I could get out of the rat race. So started listening to a bunch of podcasts, listening to Bigger Pockets. I originally did find wholesaling, and that was kind of the niche I was going to go down.

David: You originally did or didn't?

Willie: I did find wholesaling, of course there are so many podcasts out there. Wholesaling houses, and it seemed like a very lucrative niche. It is really what I originally started to do. So this is probably end of 2016, early 2017. So it was tough for me because I was working a job that had tough hours. It was hard for me to go on appointments, to go drive and go meet sellers at a property. So I didn't know exactly how I was going to go about doing that. So I kept listening to podcasts. I heard about investing on vacant land and flipping vacant lands. So I saw the fundamentals in that the business were pretty much the same thing. It is the exact same thing as wholesaling houses. You sent out direct mail, you are buying properties at massive discounts, even more discounted then what you are likely buying in wholesaling houses. I tried to-- and what really attracted me to it was you could literally buy properties, buy these lots, and you could to everything virtually, you don't have to go on site to any of these properties. All you are doing is you are sending out mail in areas that make sense to you. You are are looking on Google Earth when leads come through, then you are buying the lots. It is pretty much an internet marketing game. It is much more of an internet marketing game than wholesaling houses. You are putting these lots on your website all over the place, building your e-mail list, building your buyers list, focusing on video and e-mail marketing to kind of offload these properties. Yeah so I started doing that. I started focusing on California, doing all this behind a computer screen while I had a corporate job working-- just hustling on the side. Ultimately called it quits at my job a little over a year ago. So been doing land investing--.

David: What was the job? Sorry I don't know if you mentioned that yet. What exactly were you doing when you started this?

Willie: When I first started it was investment banking, got out of that-- I actually got fired from that job, then I found a new position in [00:06:07.15 - inaudible], I didn't want to go back to investment banking with those hours and try and do this on the side. I was working corporate banking, did that for about-- honestly it was about seven or eight months before I decided to call it quits. I've been doing land investing a little over two years, almost two and a half years at this point. So starting to see some success at this point. Just keeping it rolling right now.

David: Hell yeah! That's what's up! That's cool! So what made you chose wholesaling over other niches out there in terms of real estate? You had mentioned that you first-- you started listening to podcasts, and you did the bigger pockets thing. That's how I started as well with the podcast I hired a couple of coaches. What exactly got you interested in land versus all the other things that you can do in real estate? We both know there a thousand ways to make money in real estate.

Willie: The majority of niches out there I would say are more long term strategies, not really active strategies. What I did find-- the niches I was interested in was wholesaling houses then obviously flipping houses. Those are kind of the niches that I thought would get me out of the rat race and get me to do something full time. So I-- pretty much ruled out flipping pretty much right away because I think it is a little more capital intensive, a little more risky. I think sourcing deals is really-- the fundamentals is really what you need to build a foundation in real estate, to be able to source those properties as we were discussing earlier before the call. I found wholesaling, the active nature of it, the money you can make in a short period of time, that's what really attracted me to it. I just found land because it is very scaleable model. You can buy and sell deals pretty much-- an average deal at this point I probably spent three hours total from talking to seller originally and to closing that deal, then marketing it and sell side. It's really scaleable. I don't leave my computer screen and that makes it scaleable, because I am not even going on site to any of these properties, and still making six or seven grand on average profit per deal. Yeah that's kind of what attracted me to this niche.

David: Interesting. I love it. Okay, well let's do this. Tell me a little bit about your strategy as a wholesaler, right? How are you finding your leads? How are you building your buyers list? Who are your buyers, right? What exist strategies are you utilizing? If you don't mind.

Willie: Yeah, so in terms of my strategy I send out a direct mail. So I chose the Counties and areas that I am interested in. There are various criteria that you look into to determine what makes an area a good candidate for this niche, you pretty much want to find cheap areas that have high demand. So I send out direct mail, then I buy the properties. In terms of building my buyers list-- it's the same kind of process for wholesaling, same thing--.

David: Are you looking to buy houses? Or, are you looking to buy land, or both?

Willie: Just land. I filter out-- I literally use-- there is a third party data source [00:09:23.12 - inaudible] I am not sure if you are familiar with it or not. That is kind of what I use to source, or to build my lists. I just filter those lists so I doesn't have any improvements. I put improvement percentage zero zero. So there are no homes, no-- even if there is a fence there will be some form of improvement, so I am looking for residential vacant lots out there.

David: But these are residential lots though.

Willie: Agricultural, recreational.

David: Got it.

Willie: Not looking for commercial or anything like that. I literally take them under contract, and I throw them on my website. In terms of building my buyers list. I have an opt in form on there. Anyone who goes to my website, put links all over the internet on various sites where I market my properties. People find my website, they go there, opt in to view my listings. So I capture their e-mail, they go through my e-mail sequence and I market on there. The main way I grow and build my e-mail and buyers list is through Facebook market place. I am not sure if that is a decent way--.

David: We use it a lot lately, man. Craigslist used to be really big until about a year and a half, two years ago. Facebook market place is huge, it's great. I tell-- I went to a conference-- I am going to interrupt for one second. I went to a conference recently. I try to get to a couple of conferences a year. Max Maxwell had one just recently, a couple of months ago.

Willie: Yep.

David: I went to the conference, and they do these little breakout sessions. I went to the breakout session, and there was a speaker there speaking about his wholesaling business and what he did. There was probably a hundred people in the room at this breakout. It was a smaller group, but then the big conference. He kept getting interrupted by these new investors, so this is really great if you're new, listen in right now. They kept saying, well before I go out and I market for motivated sellers I would really like to have somebody I could sell those to. He kept having these questions about building the buyers list, building the buyers list. He was doing a great job of answering the questions, but he was doing a good job of answering one offs, not answering that whole philosophy of buyers, right? I kind of stood up and took over for a minute. We made eye contact and at the end he was great grateful that I did. I stood up and said, listen I own 40 plus rental properties, I wholesale anywhere from 8-10 deals a month. I have been doing this for four years. By all means I'm not an expert, but I probably know more than most people in this room. I was like, my buyers list right now has between 8-12'000 people on it on any different part of town. I am only in St Louis Missouri, right? Basically figure 30-40 mile spread in every direction.

Willie: Yep.

David: We have a huge list, 8 thousand, 10 thousand, 12 thousand, depending on the zip code or part of town. At the end of the day it is only one person that buyers that house, not eight thousand. So having that reach has been beneficial, but it has not necessarily mandatory of required. Then what I said is, when we do our marketing of course we have a website, of course we send it out to our buyers list. We used to go on Craigslist and market it too, but we don't do that anymore because Craigslist is junk. We take our properties straight to the Facebook market place, or the MLS, but often times the market place. We sell just as many deals from the market place as we do from a buyers list of 8-10-12'000 people. The point is, the moral of this story is that you don't need a big buyers list to sell your deals. With the creation of these groups, the market place-- not just the market place, but localized groups. In St Louis there is probably 6-8 St Louis real estate investing, or investing in the St Louis area, you name it, right? We post in those groups, then we post in the market place. We are selling 50% of our deals this way. What does that tell you if you're new? You don't need a buyers list, you don't even need one. Just take it to the damn groups. So I hate interrupting, but that's value, that's a gold nugget right there. For anyone that is listening or watching and you're new to this, don't let not having a buyers list I should say stop you or slow you down. You have the floor.

Willie: I totally agree with that. Yeah so I am selling a bunch of properties on Facebook market place at this point. One thing I would do in terms of your listeners is the same kind of strategy. I am probably-- I could share my screen if you're interested and show-- for people that are enquiring about properties. I am getting 15-20 people at least a day reaching out for properties. I never mark properties as sold on there, but the first thing I ask--.

David: I don't either! I have to interrupt again, this is gold! When I first started I was making fake properties, which is not really right, and I don't teach people to do this, I am not ashamed of it, I don't do it any more, but I didn't know any better. Essentially when you do that, you are misleading people, right? So what we do now is flip the script. I know a lot of people that have gotten into trouble for doing this, or they get called out online. I don't really care, if someone wants to make me a target, make me a fucking target, pardon my language, I don't care, right? But my point is, that is not a good way to do it. A better way to do it is whenever you do get a deal, and it sells, don't delete it. Just keep it up there. When we are doing 5-10 deals a month, sometimes these properties will stay up there for three or four months, right? If they sell in the first two days, we will keep them up there, because again, we have it under contract or we own it, we are not misleading anybody. Instead of marketing it as sold, gold nugget, keep it as available, and when they contact you just say, oh I have been busy, I haven't been able to mark that as sold, it's gone. However, here is a link to my website that has ten other properties for sale. It is gold, I assume you are doing the exact same thing?

Willie: Yeah, I am doing the exact same thing a little bit differently. Pretty much the same thing, but what I do-- whenever anyone asks about a property on the market place, I don't really answer any of the questions. Whenever they inquire is this available or whatever, I just say, what is your e-mail? I will forward you more information. That is the first thing that I do.

David: Capturing an e-mail too, I love it! Boom! Gold nugget.

Willie: That's really-- I am getting-- I don't know, 50 or 60 e-mails a week, largely from Facebook market place, just because I am capturing those e-mails, the virtual assistants are going in there, whenever somebody acquires their-- replying saying, what is your e-mail? They capture the e-mail, then they say, okay great. They throw it in my system. At that point they give them the link to the listing on my website. They ask any additional questions they have. I have one additional step, but that is kind of how building my buyers list and growing it pretty quickly-- relative to other people.

David: I love it, man. That's awesome. So you are not necessarily wholesaling houses, you are wholesaling land. You talked a little bit about your strategy, you talked a little bit about your buyers list and how you are building it. That's really smart, I always like to work smart, not hard, smart way to build that list. So that's cool, I am going to pick up on that and start utilizing those tips right there. But how are you finding the seller leads? Let's talk about that.

Willie: Just the seller leads. I am sending out direct mail. Direct mail works great for land. With wholesaling houses it is pretty competitive. You are really focused on spending a lot of money on marketing on the buy side. You don't have to take title to the property. With land, since you actually do have to take title to the property-- first of all there is less people doing it. There is a ton of land-- taking title to the company and spending a few thousand bucks for some of these lots. You-- the competition is way way lower. Direct mail and the amount of money, and the amount of mail you need to send out to get a deal is significantly lower than it is with-- wholesaling houses.

David: Sounds like you spread is about the same. I know there is a lot of people out there-- you are in Chicago, right?

Willie: Correct.

David: Okay. You are not necessarily doing this in your back yard which is cool. But in St Louis for example, the average wholesale spread is 6-8k. Have we done deals that are 50, 60, 80k? Of course we have. Have we done deals where we only made 800 bucks? Of course we have. The average spread is somewhere between 6-8k on average. That is me doing 250 plus deals, closer to 300 at this point. That is our average. There are other markets out there where the average might be 10, 12 or even 15, 18k. In my market it is about 6-8. It sounds to me like you are getting a similar spread, or wholesale fee is a better way to word it.

Willie: Yeah. Let me clarify. I am probably averaging about seven grand a deal, but I am selling these deals on terms, so I do a lot of owner financing. So I am not collecting all that cash upfront. At this-- that is another point I like to emphasize. That is kind of why my business started growing exponentially, when i started offering owner financing. I take title of these companies, I buy for cash, I sell them on easy terms. So I started doing that March of last year, so March of 2018. So it has been about a year and three months. Since then I have sold-- I currently have about 130 properties that I have sold on terms. I am collecting monthly payments on those. Over 30 grand a month coming in on that. That-- in accommodation with everything else I'm doing really-- just expedited the growth and allowed me to scale.

David: Man, that's awesome, you're crushing it, Willie, that's phenomenal, man. Great work, dude, great work. So tell me a little bit about your operation. You have a team I'm assuming. What does the team look like?

Willie: Yeah so with-- I don't necessarily have a sales manager. I don't have a disposition manager. It's pretty much me and virtual assistants. I don't need people driving for dollars, I don't need cold callers calling for me. It is a little-- it is probably quite a bit less over head than it is maybe your traditional business. At this point it is me, virtual assistants, kind of pretty much doing all of my property postings, due diligence. Pretty much anything besides-- the only things I still do are talk to buyers, talk to sellers, then send out the mail. That is kind of the three things that I think are the most important aspects of the business, so I have not outsourced those just yet. Everything else like diligence-- I do some administrative stuff for deeds and that kind of thing. It needs signatures and stuff. Other than that, the virtual assistants in the Philippines are really handling--.

David: How many do you have? Two?

Willie: There is an agency I use in the Philippines, they work with a bunch of different land investors. I work directly with one of them and she outsources all my tasks to, to whatever army they have out there.

David: Cool. I like it man, you have a team of them then?

Willie: Yeah.

David: Do you have one person that manages that team? You kind of just work with them? Or are you in charge of managing? The reason I ask is because I have two full time VA's down from three. I had three but I just couldn't keep the third one busy. I still struggle keeping the other two busy. So some weeks I will give them enough work that it will bleed over into the following week. Then there will sometimes be days where they are all caught up, and until I can get my marketing together and create work for them they might just be sitting around. That's why I ask.

Willie: Yeah. So I just have that one VA who I sent all my tasks too, then she outsources everything. I try to keep it-- just so I have one point of contact so I have less to deal with.

David: Smart.

Willie: That's how it's handled.

David: Let me ask you this. When you say you are using direct mail to find these sellers, and I am assuming you are shooting for the motivated ones. That's what the business is all about.

Willie: Yep.

David: Are you sending a letter / postcard that says, hey I'm Willie, and I want to buy your land? Or are you sending an actual signed offer? The reason I ask is because I know people doing it both ways.

Willie: Yeah.

David: And I'm curious to hear what you're doing.

Willie: So I am sending out direct offer letters. I pretty much look at the market, see what's trading, then I pretty much market to around 15-20% of what the market is. Sometimes a little bit more if it is a nicer neighborhood, but if it's a rural property around 15-20%. Yeah I just blast the list that I am targeting in that area. Yeah that's how I'm handling it. I want to set a low bar so there is no expectation of any retail value. I want to make it very clear I am buying this at a really low price. If you are interested and you're motivated you can contact me, but I don't want to deal with the inbound phone calls. If I just send out post cards saying that I am interested in the property--.

David: Yeah you're going to get a bunch of people, that's what we do, also in our back yard so we can vet these deals pretty easily, because I know most of the neighborhoods. If it's this neighborhood, hey I am willing to pay 30-40k in the neighborhood period. If they want 60 okay thanks bye. So you probably get a lot of people that respond, but they just fill out the form and mail it back, and you don't even talk to them sometimes.

Willie: Yep. It's easier with land for just sending out offers, because a lot of times on just a per acre basis, with houses there is a lot more location specific, you need to get a little bit more granular with the pricing. With land you are just valuing per acre basis. It's a lot easier, but I go to my PO box, it happens all the time.

David: Man, that's awesome. So tell me a little bit about the average deal that you do. Let's take a step back. You are in several markets, I don't know if you are willing to share those markets or not. Tell us what the vicinity of the country you are doing your deals in, and what does the average deal look like?

Willie: Sure, I am actually out in several markets at this point. I started in Southern California, and now I've expanded--.

David: You live in Chicago?

Willie: I live in Chicago. I started in Southern California, just because I happened to send out mail there, buy some property, build a buyers list there. Now I am out in Colorado, New Mexico and Florida as well. Still in those four markets. In terms of what an average deal looks like, I am pulling up my numbers right now so I can give you exact numbers.

David: Sure.

Willie: Let's see, so let me just average over the last eight months--. Let's see, the average sale price is about eleven grand, then--.

David: What do you mean by that? Is that the purchase or the sale?

Willie: That is the sale price.

David: That's what you're selling them for?

Willie: Yeah, a little over eleven grand. Let's see, my margins on that is-- carrying these formulas over to Excel and averaging them. My average profit-- gross profit on those is about eight grand. Just over eight grand. So pretty good margins I would say.

David: That's great.

Willie: So I don't collect the vast majority of that I am not collecting today, I will be collecting it on an average of 35 months, that is my average term length. Managing buyers and getting paid is a different beast in itself, but that's kind of what the deals look like.

David: Right, man. That's awesome. So, man-- I tell ya, we just published our first book, it's called 'The ultimate guide to wholesaling real estate'. It's been available on Amazon now for probably going on three months, maybe four. We just got it on audible as of about two weeks ago. We are really excited. The reason that I bring that up is because in our book-- we talk about this so many times, but people chose real estate because they want freedom. They quit their job, or they turn a hobby into a business, because real estate can provide freedom. The key words there are can provide. Typically what happens and this is sad, we try to coach people on how to not let this happen, or how to stay away from this or avoid this. What happens is people get into real estate because they want freedom, and six months later they find they are working twice as hard as they were at their previous job, or their previous place of employment, and that's okay for some people, or-- in the beginning. But, don't lose sight of your goal is my point here. So if you get into real estate to create freedom for yourself, don't become a slave to real estate. I bring that up as a precursor to the next question I am going to ask you. That is how much time do you spend on your business every week? The second part of that is, what do you spend your time on whenever you're doing that? How much time are you spending on your business a week? Let's start with that.

Willie: In just the land business itself, just buying and selling land it really is not that much time. To be honest it's probably 20 to 30 hours maximum, there is absolutely no way I am spending 30 hours a week--.

David: You're like me, but most people it takes them several years and it doesn't have to. It truly doesn't. But yeah, don't lose sight of that, get in real estate to create freedom, don't let it do the opposite. That's great, 20-30 hours a week, that's about how much I work, I probably work about 30 hours a week, but I truly enjoy what I do. You have probably heard the quote or the saying I should say, if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life. Not everyday I love it by any means. At the end of the day I typically enjoy what I did. So it goes a long way. So 20-30 hours, you're crushing it. Of those 20-30 hours, what are you spending the majority of your time actually doing?

Willie: At this point it's probably talking to buyers, talking to sellers. If I'm sending out a mail campaign-- looking up Counties and then pricing those, doing some diligence in terms of finding our what properties are worth, whether or not I should do a deal.

David: Sure.

Willie: Looking at deals, talking to buyers, talking to sellers, sending out mail.

David: Whenever you're doing that though and you're sending out mail, you are doing your due diligence, I would imagine there is some on the back of course, but you are doing a lot of it before you even talk to people, right? You are sending out offers. So you are basically needing to determine-- let's say you buy a list or you get a list of 300 properties, you need to determine what these values are worth, then I would imagine you just put a simple formula in place to multiply it by .2 or .15 and that's your offer. There is a little bit of work that goes into it before you even click the button to send the mail out, right?

Willie: Yeah about 80% of the diligence is done before I send the mail out. I am sending offers to properties that I am interested in buying. When it comes back I am just looking up comps, making sure it's not crazy, seeing what I could sell it for, making sure there is road access, determining if there is anything wrong with the property or anything like that. But you're right--.

David: That's sweet. One of my great buddies Brent Daniels out of Phoenix Arizona, he just recently started doing some land investing, they have actually been doing quite a bit, been following him online and he's doing quite a bit. Yeah he makes posts all the time--.

Willie: Is it the same kind I'm doing or is it--? What's he kind of doing?

David: You know, I don't know exactly; that's a great question. But I do know this, they send out mail, and it is the same strategy you use saying, hey I know you have this property, I'm interested in buying it, here is a written offer. Whereas mine is, hey I'm Dave I'm looking to buy your house, call me, I will come and meet you and walk the property. I do a lot more work than you guys are doing so that's why I am so interested in this. But essentially the posts that he makes are great, because on any given Monday or Tuesday he will make a post. He will have like five or ten contracts in his hand. They are contracts that he mailed out to people that he has never spoken to, and maybe they call or inquire, but a lot of these people they just sign it. Say, sure I'm ready to sell. They mail it back to him. One of the things he does which I think is kind of unique is he doesn't even have a closing date on these offers. I don't know how he words it but I can find out. Essentially it's just like, hey whenever I can make this work, or whenever I find-- we will figure that part out. But typically there is no closing date. It's more of a letter of intent. However you make it look is what it's going to be. It's an offer.

Willie: The offer letter is a total formality. I literally put in there buyer has the right to cancel agreement at any time or for any reason at any date. Just gives me all the power.

David: Hell yeah, cool. So buy side marketing, how do you chose a County? What's your budget? If you're new to this and you want to get involved, where would you point somebody? How do you determine these things?

Willie: So in terms of choosing a County, I mean there are several land websites you can go on, and pretty much just look up-- you need to find Counties where the land is going to be in your budget. You need to find-- there are some toggles you can look up and filter on these sites where you can look for a property that is under a certain amount of price range, and above a certain amount of acres. Say you want to buy a property above five acres, which is what I recommend so you get out of the neighborhoods, and under 40 grand, so you are sending out mail to cheap property with a decent size, then you can see in which States and which Counties within those States have the most property for sale. We are trying to buy property in markets where there is already an established market. You don't want to be the market maker. You are there to go here there is already an existing market, then just buy in those markets. You want to find where there is the most property for sale under those constraints. That is generally a decent start in terms of finding areas that this will work in.

David: Okay, you did a great job of explaining that. It seems to me like that right there almost requires some coaching, which you offer, right?

Willie: That is correct.

David: We will circle back to that, but you did a great job. But, to me I have been doing this four years, I have done 300 plus wholesale deals, I got a book out, obviously a podcast. I know enough to be dangerous, but I would still want someone to come and help me learn that. The fact that you offer a coaching program is awesome. We are going to get to that in a minute. Let's talk about the sell side of marketing. How do you sell the property? What is the budget on that end? You are obviously doing due diligence on the front side, you are determining your County, you are determining your price point, you are determining your amount of land in terms acreage. You send out those offers, you do a bunch of due diligence to determine what those offer prices will be. The offers come back, or people will call you and want more information and sell them on the phone. Then now you have a contract. What the hell do you do next? What's next?

Willie: At this point it's beautiful. I don't really do anything. I give the virtual assistants the APN and account money, and they do it all. They post it on my website, they make payment links on my website.

David: They just buy it with their credit card on the website?

Willie: Go to my website, click buy on terms, scrolling through my e-mail and someone buys a property, it's great.

David: I have never heard of anybody-- I have been doing this for a long time. I have never heard of anybody doing it that way, that's cool.

Willie: That's my funnel, that's how I'm selling these things, people see the down payment link for 250 bucks, 250 a month for however long, they just buy.

David: That's cool. That's really cool.

Willie: Post it on my website, post it on a bunch of different land websites, post it on the Facebook market place. I've got them recently responding to Facebook inquiries. They are going through, they are at least filtering those leads for me, then I am talking to them to close if they need additional closing.

David: I will tell ya man, the fact that you are selling these things on terms, I am assuming you are selling these things on seller financing, owner financing versus lease option. Are you doing any least option?

Willie: No.

David: Okay, cool. The reason I think that is so cool is when I first started investing full time. I have been investing for 15 years, but I have been doing this full time for close to five now. I've been saying three and a half to four years for two years, so probably close to five now that I have been doing this. When I first started, I hired a coach, his name was Joe McCall, you guys have probably heard me talking about him before, and he focuses on lease options and wholesaling them. Which sounds crazy, and it sounds complicated, but Joe does an awesome job of simplifying it. He has his own podcast it's called Real Estate Investing Mastery. He's a coach, he's got courses, he does it all. But I am telling you this because it's how I learned. To this day, I have only done a couple of lease options on the buy side. However, I am so grateful and happy that I learned that side of the business first, because there is a lot of money to be made when you sell on owner financing or lease options, or terms is basically how you define that. You can essentially get somebody to pay anywhere from 10-100% more for a property if you are willing to spread out the time frame in which you collect your money. It's awesome, the fact you are not just selling these for cash, you are giving people the option to make payments. I would imagine you're breaking even, probably sometimes on the down payment, other times within six months to a year you are collecting payments from them for three to five years, I love it, it's awesome. It's cool.

Willie: That's exactly it.

David: You're crushing it, man.

Willie: I am interested in the program.

David: We have already talked a lot about some of the things that you do differently than what I do, because I am the traditional wholesaler, I do reverse wholesaling, I do regular wholesaling. I use terms to sell these properties, but I am not buying, I do a lot but the end of the day there is always a house on it, unless it's a vacant lot that I am selling to a builder. 9 times out of 10 there is a house, there is a seller that I actually have to meet and shake their hand and do all these things. Your business doesn't look anything like that.

Willie: Yep.

David: So tell me some of the things that you are doing differently than the traditional guy like me, because I'm curious.

Willie: I guess in our niche, anybody can buy property at this kind of price. The hard part for us, and I guess what wholesaling differs from land investing, our game is a marketing game. If you get good at marketing, and selling and disposing of these things, then you are going to do way better than the average investor in this niche, yeah like I said, it's so easy I am getting deals to buy property all the time. There is no shortage of buying property. What I'm doing to sell properties-- so I built out a sales funnel, my e-mail marketing is on point, my video marketing is-- does really well and helps sell properties. I would say my marketing in terms of building my buyers list, getting those e-mails from the market place, getting 50 or 60 e-mails a week, then-- really video marketing, building out a sales funnel, having a website that collects e-mails, then having an automated e-mail sequence-- yeah and doing the video marketing thing and creating--.

David: What's the video marketing all about?

Willie: So-- pretty much video marketing, I create property videos--.

David: You just hire people off Craigslist or Fivver or something like that?

Willie: I go on Google Earth, I do a screen share, I pretty much display the property.

David: Draw and outline around it? Zoom out and show what's around it?

Willie: Exactly.

David: That is a very creative way, I would never have thought of doing that. That's smart, man. You're crushing it. Hey, one thing I do want to say, in my book, you are not going to be able to read this, but on chapter two, essentially it's page nine, the first part is just a bunch of-- who we are-- what' chapter is what. When the book starts-- paragraph number two, I'm going to read it, it says, 'Our business is marketing, our product is real estate, let me say that one more time. Our business is marketing, our product is real estate.' Willie, you would agree with that, right?

Willie: Yeah absolutely. Nailed it.

David: Check out 'The ultimate guide to wholesaling real estate'. If you guys are interested, I am just going to throw it out there. Lot's of gold nuggets. Willie you are doing awesome, man. You're crushing it. You were correct. I totally agree with you, this is the marketing business no matter what. But, when you get into a niche like land, it is 10 X marketing, man. It's multiplied because-- like you said, you are talking to some buyers, talking to some sellers. But, you are probably talking to-- between 1-3% of these people or less. The majority fo them are just-- yeah I'm interested, why hasn't somebody sent me an offer sooner?

Willie: Exactly.

David: Which is awesome, man. So tell me a little bit about your favorite deal. I've got favorite deals. I did a couple of wholesales over 50 grand, love those type of deals. Tell me about your favorite deal.

Willie: Favorite deal, that's a good questions. I will tell you just one deal I did. It's the kind of situation that it happened in. Not the one where I made the most money by any means. But-- it was a very profitable deal. What happened was, I sent out mail to a guy-- I bought a property from him and sold that, it was long gone. He contacts me about probably six months later. He says-- I got another letter in the mail, it was a different investor, it wasn't you. I've worked with you in the past, you close pretty quickly and you're a nice guy to talk to on the phone. I will give you a shot at this. It was 160 acre property out in the middle of the desert, no road up to it, literally impossible to get to. I am thinking this property is a piece of trash. Who would ever want to go to this property? Who would want to buy this property? You actually can't get there-- maybe if you have a four wheeler.

David: So it was very remote?

Willie: Very remote, literally when you think of the middle of the desert, that's this property.

David: So this lead came from a referral? You had done business with this guy in the past?

Willie: Yeah.

David: You didn't necessarily spend money on this particular property, it was a referral lead?

Willie: Correct. He asked-- the offer in the mail was for 22 grand, and he's like, if you can buy it for 25 grand I will sell it to you. It was 160 acres for 25 grand, on a per acre basis it's not bad, but where this property is, hell no.

David: Right.

Willie: I'm like, I can't do it at that price. I will buy it from you for 18.

David: You went lower.

Willie: I went lower.

David: I do that a lot too. It's risky.

Willie: I was very much ready to walk away. Then, he like-- he says, okay let me think about it, gets back to me a couple of days later. He's like, okay 18 it is. I'm thinking, this property is a piece of trash, I don't even want this for 18. So I asked this guy, what's the highest and best use of this property. I know there is no road up to it, nothing out there. Why should I buy this property? He's like, well you can contact these guys, I got an offer from them about-- six months ago or whenever he got it. It was a different company that made an offer on the property. It's the government organization that just buys vacant land. So you can give them a call and see if they are interested. So he literally gives me their phone number.

David: Gave you the buyer.

Willie: Gave me the buyer. I pick up the phone, I call them. So I have it under contract at 18, I am thinking I'm not buying it. I contact this guy-- the organization, and they are like, yeah we will give you 43 for it, close as quickly as you can. I was like, yeah absolutely, I got that contract in place, double closed. Yes, that is probably my favorite deal because the context is pretty--.

David: Willie you have heard this before but I am going to say it again, the harder you work the luckier you get. That's-- it's so true. You create your own luck, man. I've been doing this for five years full time ish, I get a lot of my business these days from referrals. Some of our best deals fall into our lap. It's the craziest thing. I try not to boast about those particular deals too much, because if you are a student of mine, or you're learning to wholesale; deals are not going to fall in your lap. It took me probably every bit of two years before deals started falling in my lap. But, the last three years, one a month sometimes two or three a month will fall into my lap. So it just goes to show you that whenever you start putting your efforts towards something, you start building a funnel of leads, another thing is that I am a big advocate of don't keep your business a secret. Everybody that is friends with me on social media knows that I buy houses. To the point of where people unfollow me but I don't care. If you have something that you want to sell me-- so don't keep your business a secret. The harder you work, the luckier you get. It's in all aspects of business, investing, life, all of the above. Sold it in the 40's bought it for 18, massive profits.

One thing I often forget is-- we are in the business to solve problems and create win wins. Willie, you know this, right? Some of our listeners sometimes need a reminder. This was a triple win, alright? You helped the seller sell it, okay? He won, he got payed. You helped this buyer find another thing to buy, that's their goal is buying properties, boom! Win. You were in the middle, everyone was happy, and you got payed, you got a win, so triple win. We always shoot for at least a double win. Win win whenever we are doing deals, and often times everybody wins. So that's beautiful man, I love it.

So next, do you have any specific benchmarks or goals that you are looing to hit in the next 12 months?

Willie: Yeah, in the next 12 months-- my 2019 goal is two million in sales, I am trying to do 180 goals, so I am trying to focus on doing more deals, and try and hit two million in sales, that includes owner financing, and then-- yeah I would say two million in sales, 180 deals.

David: Awesome, that's great, man. My 24 month goal is 150 single family homes. I have 44 as of today. So I am almost a third there but it's a two year goal versus a one year. That's cool, man, 180 deals, two million gross revenue, awesome. I love how your deal is to find not only a dollar amount, but also a time frame, that's a very important thing. A lot of people miss that. They say, oh my goal is to get skinny. Okay, well-- how are you going to do it? When? You have to have those components in the goal in order for it to be-- to even create a plan that is implementable to reach it. One of my favorite quotes, and it's in my book is, 'a goal without a plan is a dream'. So define your goals clearly and build a plan. You are doing awesome, you're crushing it.

So do you have-- I already asked you that question. How do you scale your house wholesaling business, or in your case your land wholesaling business? What activities or tips and tricks could you give the audience to go from maybe doing one or two of these deals a month, to scaling up to five or ten?

Willie: Yeah so I would say you need to leverage virtual assistants if you're trying to scale. At this point I don't do any of the sale side marketing, they do all my property listings, all of my postings, they are following up with people. You need to leverage them and have them do all the menial tasks you don't want to do, and just focus really on the core aspects of the business which is talking to buyers, talking to sellers, sending out the mail, then comping out properties, doing your due diligence. But if you can focus on the high dollar activities and outsource everything else, that's really how you're going to scale.

David: I completely agree. One thing we teach out students as well is, figure out the hundred dollar an hour jobs, and do those jobs, or even the five hundred dollar an hour jobs. Don't waste your time focusing on the four, five, six dollar an hour job. Find someone else that is grateful for that type of income, not saying that it's cheap, because in those countries it is great money, it's good. So it's a win win again. I love it, man. You have to know where you need to put your efforts at and outsource the rest. Very cool.

So Willie, what would you say the most challenging thing about what you do is?

Willie: Most challenging thing is probably managing these people-- I constantly have people that are late on their payments. So it is just a little bit of a headache when you have notification that this person missed their payment again. You try to do your best to contact the, be in touch with them, and try and make them pay on time, but managing that can be a headache and it's always frustrating when some one stops paying. So I think--.

David: It's like dealing with renters, man.

Willie: You know all about it.

David: There is a lot of it that goes into-- a lot of management that comes with that. But, like we said earlier, you can get anywhere from ten to-- even a hundred percent plus isn't outrageous. It depends, if you give somebody a 10-20 year term on a property, you might be able to sell it for three times what you bought it for, four times. No big deal, I love it, man. That's good, that's a great-- you did a good job answering that challenge, that's good.

So what pieces of information have you been-- has been most transformative in your business that you wish that you knew starting now? I could talk about this particular question for days. If we can narrow it down to just one or two things, what would be the thing that transformed your business the most that you wish you knew a couple of years ago?

Willie: So in terms of what transformed my business, I would say owner financing, offering property on terms.

David: I was just going to say, kind of what I was thinking.

Willie: Yeah that kind of transformed my business right away, helped me scale.

David: How did it transform your business? I would imagine number one profits increased.

Willie: Yeah I just got to sell the property way quicker.

David: Speed is everything.

Willie: Speed of the sale.

David: Speed is everything, guys. Right now I have got eight rentals being rehabbed. I have two or three more properties that I'm flipping. There is more to just making 20, 30, 40 grand on a flip, okay? If you do that in two months you're doing great. But if it is taking you ten months to do that, and you are only doing two a year, you probably made more money at your day job than you do now in real estate. Don't discount time no matter what you're doing, especially when you're in real estate investing. Time is one of the heavy variables there are in our equations.

Willie, do you mind talking about rental-- about your rental property portfolio? Do you have a portfolio of rentals? Are you acquiring these the same way you're doing your land deals?

Willie: No, I'm actually-- I don't do any of that. I am only focused on land at this time.

David: Okay, nothing wrong with that. That's cool, because you are ultra focused, laser focused is what I like to say. That's another thing too. We tell our students when they join our coaching program-- listen, there are ten thousand ways to make money in real estate. We are happy to teach you all ten thousand ways. But, before you learn about all of these little things, ultra focused, laser focus yourself on just finding deals, we talked about this earlier. At the end of the day, you make your money when you buy, you get payed when you sell. So you have to be laser focused on finding those deals. It's awesome, I love it.

So what are your long term goals with this whole land investing business? What are you trying to do long term?

Willie: I am taking it year by year. At this point I am pretty happy with it, it's going pretty well. Just trying to scale it and hit those goals that I kind of mentioned and go from there. At some point I will probably want to have a bit more capital, try to buy some maybe a larger more expensive real estate assets, but at this point I'm pretty satisfied doing the land thing. Probably stay focused to keep doing it, yeah just keep trying to scale.

David: Nice. Let's talk about your coaching business, give us some information about what you're doing, and how your students are learning, where would get to find out more information about you? Do you have a website? A phone number? Any of the above. Let's jump into that.

Willie: I am offering three options for coaching services for anyone that's interested in the land investing business, offering one on one coaching. That is most time extensive on my end. I am also offering group coaching. I put together a complete online course, detailing step by step everything on how to chose a County, how to build a list, price list, how to get it out in the mail, how to close a transaction. Then special focus on marketing and selling. As we discussed, that's the most important part of this business, how to build out terms of business and how to scale. That's the online course, there is group coaching calls once a week that are associated with that course. The third option-- so the first option is one on one, second option is group coaching, the one on one students get access to the group coaching. The third option is deal partnering where you can work directly with me to partner on transactions. Students fund the cost of the property acquisition. I advise on how to market and sell the property, and which properties you should not buy, we split the profits 50:50 on the back end.

David: That's a phenomenal program, I love it. We do all the above as well, we do the deal partnering too. People love it, because-- whenever I first started wholesaling, I would imagine your story is pretty similar to this. It took me about three months to do my first deal, took my partner almost five, four and a half. The reason is because we didn't know what we were doing. Having the ability to have somebody kind of hold your hand, partner with you on deals is so valuable. Once you go out and you do that first deal, a couple of deals, get them under your belt, it's confidence is really what it is. Your confidence goes way up, and you no longer self doubt yourself on these things. You start-- the amount of deals you start doing-- having someone be there to help you on these deals, partner with you on these deals, hold your hand on these deals has tremendous value, Willie. I love that you are offering that to your students, that's awesome.

How does someone find you?

Willie: So yeah if you are interested-- I put together a free course on the subject, so if you're interested, go to FreeLandFlippingCourse.com. If you are interested in viewing what I have got for a coaching service go to WillieGCoaching.com. Or you can shoot me an e-mail at  [email protected]. Those are the best ways to.

David: You said have you have a free course at FreeLandFlippingCourse.com?

Willie: Correct.

David: Sweet. So they can go there, figure out what you're all about, what you're offering. Check out the free course, we have a free course too. We love providing free content to everybody. Then of course those who want a little extra help, we are here for them. We have a business built around coaching, but at the same time I would imagine your business is just like ours in the sense that-- it's not so much about the money, it is just about doing more deals and helping people. I absolutely love partnering with people on deals, because A, I get payed, but B, I am able to help them, build confidence, and get it done quickly, just like you are with your students, man. I love that. That's awesome.

Any advice for those that are getting started? Obviously if you want to learn more about land flipping, go to FreeLandFlippingCourse.com. Do that now. But what is some advice you would give to somebody that is starting out that doesn't know much about real estate or sending offers, or marketing? What would you say?

Willie: Yeah I would just say go to take action, don't over think it-- yeah, find others that have done it-- take action and things will fall into place over time. So hard work like you were saying. Once you're in the game, in the trenches, then things start to work out, and you start to find some luck. Just take action and keep working hard, things will fall into place.

David: Love it. Willie, thank you so much for coming on. Again, check out his free course, FreeLandFlippingCourse.com. WillieGCoaching.com if you want to learn specifically about the program that he has. What is a good way for them to reach you again?

Willie: [email protected].

David: That's easy enough, very cool. Well guys, check him out. Willie, thanks for coming on. So happy that you were able to provide some of your time to come on the show. I know I learned a ton about land investing, it has been something I've kind of wanted to start doing for-- going on three years now. I am very focused-- which is a good thing, on my wholesaling real estate houses, not land in the St Louis area. But I do plan very soon to branch out and start doing some of these land deals. So I can tell you this, you will be hearing from me soon. If you are listening this or watching it on YouTube, thanks for listening. Check out Willie's course, FreeLandFlippingCourse.com and reach out to him directly if you have anything that you need. Anything else that you want to add, Willie, That I left our or forgot?

Willie: No I think that's it. I really appreciate you taking the time and having me on the show.

David: Awesome, very cool. Well guys, don't forget Willie has a free course, just like my free course, FreeWholesaleCourse.com is where you learn how to do it with the houses. If you want to do the land go to FreeLandFlippingCourse.com. Alright guys, we are signing off, until next time, see you then.