Welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. Our mission is to share what we have learned from our experience and the experience of others to help you make more money investing like a pro. We want to teach you how to create wealth by investing in real estate, the discount property investor way. To jumpstart your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com, the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. Thanks for tuning in.

David: Hey guys, welcome back to the discount property investor podcast. I am your host, David Dodge. My co-host Mike Slane is in the field today helping with some of our rental rehabs but I have an amazing guest, an awesome person, a coach, a real estate investor and a mom that flips, Lauren Hardy is here with me today. Lauren, welcome back. How are you?

Lauren: Hey, what's up David? I am doing very well. It's been a long time since I've been on this show, so much has changed and we have so much to talk about.

David: I love it. So we had Lauren on once before and we're going to get her on again guys, don't worry. It'll be hopefully not as long as the last time. So if you haven't heard Lauren on our show already, go back and check it out, it's episode 166, Lauren Hardy from This Mom Flips and today we're actually at episode 282, holy cow. So we've done 120 episodes essentially between now and then and it looks like I had you on back in like maybe August-ish of 2020, no, May, May of 2020.

Lauren: May, yeah.

David: Wow, it's been over a year but regardless, happy to have you back on the show. Lauren was just telling me that she's got hundreds of students and she is crushing it and her students are crushing it and not only is she coaching people but she is doing this, right? She has her own wholesaling business, it's a virtual business. Lauren, I'm going to have you obviously tell you know, everybody, you know, a little bit about yourself but just really quickly before you jump in, I really, really, really like you know, interviewing Lauren because not only is she just an awesome person but her strategy is just so unique. She lives in Southern California where the prices are really expensive and it's really hard to come across deals so she virtually wholesales and that's the beautiful thing about this business is you know, once you figure out a couple relatively simple systems and processes to put in place from these systems, you don't have to be in the market that you're doing deals in. You know, you could- you can be virtual in the sense of you know, a couple states away, you could be a couple cities away. I mean you could in theory, you could be across the world. so it's just really, really cool. So Lauren again, welcome. I'm so happy to have you. Tell us a little bit about yourself just for those who don't know and I would imagine most people know who Lauren is, but if you don't know, tell us a little bit about you.

Lauren: Awesome. Well yeah Dave, it's great to be on, good to see you again. A little bit about me, I'll give you kind of a brief from the start. I started getting into real estate investing about 9 years ago and I was 25 years old and I had a baby and I was pregnant and I was very desperate to leave my full-time job.

David: And what was that?

Lauren: I was working in corporate real estate so I worked for a company called the Irvine Company at the time. It was a wonderful job, great benefits but you know, I was driving about 45 minutes to work every day, working for 8 hours then driving 45 minutes back. I really wasn't seeing my daughter very much you know and when she got sick, it was difficult. I had to see how many sick days I had left and use up vacation and you know, it was tough and I was married at the time, I'm not anymore but I was married at the time and both of us had corporate jobs so it was really hard to juggle the responsibility of being a parent, I learned that really quick. When you got you know, a full-time corporate job, it- out of the parents, somebody's got to either be at home or have more of a flexible job and neither of us had that so I sought out to you know, find something that I could do from home so I could be the one that had the flexible schedule for our kids and I just found out I was pregnant so I had nine months to do it.

David: You had one child already and you found out you were pregnant with your second child.

Lauren: Yes.

David: And you were basically saying all right, this is the deadline I'm going to put out there in the universe, I'm gonna-

Lauren: Yeah.

David: I want to be able to you know, do something and by the time I have that second child, I want to have this business up and running. I love it, it's very cool.

Lauren: The whole plan was that I'm going to take my maternity leave and I'm not going to go back.

David: Yeah.

Lauren: So I has a solid months you know, 9 months to 12 months cuz maternity leave's about 3, you know to figure it out. So I didn't know what I was going to do, I was looking up other businesses. I had a bunch of ideas in my head. I think I was always kind of a natural entrepreneur cuz I always had these business ideas but I was at a barbecue, my brother was there and my brother had just started flipping houses maybe a year before me so he was having some good luck with it at the time. Now this was 2011, 2012, it was a very different environment in real estate. We were post-recession, there were motivated sellers everywhere even in Orange County. There were deals everywhere. I mean if you just wanted to flip a house, you could, like you could find a deal on the MLS, you could go to the courthouse steps, there were so many options. So my brother, you know, said you should think about what I do because like I work from home and honestly how much money do really need to make to replace your income like, what- like what is the dollar amount you need to make every year? So I thought about it and I took my salary which was at the time $55,000 and I took away the daycare expense which was I don't even know like half of my salary.

David: Yeah, it's probably 30, 40 grand, right.

Lauren: It was like I think by the time like you know cause you make 55 but you don't take home 55, you have to pay taxes so it was like half my paycheck was going to daycare. So like I came up with a number of like I think it was like $36,000 was all I had to make every year to be the same, to be equal and I would use the health insurance from my ex-husband which husband at the time and you know, I had this whole plan like okay, all I have to do is make $36,000 so my brother was like that's like one flipped house in California, you just have to flip one house a year and do that. I was like you know, okay, no brainer, sign me up, how do I do it? So he gives me- the next, like the next day he comes and gives me this course and it was from this guy named Mike Cantu, he's a local real estate investor here. He is awesome, love the guy. Back then, these courses would come on CD's so it wasn't like how it is now where you log into some sort of online portal. It was these little CD's and it was so- it was amazing. So I would pop in CD's and drive like to my morning commute, listen to them.

David: Oh these are just audios, they weren't even-

Lauren: Audio.

David: They weren't even DVD's, they were CD's.

Lauren: CD's, audio.

David: Wow.

Lauren: So I was just listening as I was driving and Mike was just teaching the business and if I ever need to write something down, like I had a notepad, I'd like write it really quick but for the most part it was all auditory and I was just listening and it took me a week to listen to the whole course, and from then I was like alright I'm ready, like let's go. I'm going to do exactly what Mike said and I did. I did every thing that Mike said in that course, step one to I mean, he- so back then direct mail was the thing so Mike was all about direct mail. I even copied his exact direct mail piece letter-by-letter, same font.

David: He probably wanted you to.

Lauren: Same font, everything. I mean, I use the same font like I was like, I am not deviating and I wish you guys, I mean I tell my students this: don't deviate from what I say.

David: Don't deviate, right.

Lauren: Stop deviating. So I did exactly what he said and it took me- I started mailing you know, some letters like a week later. It took me 4 months to get my first contract. So that's something that people don't realize, it takes time. So I didn't get my first contract on the first house that I flipped for 4 months of marketing and making offers. Now what I realized was I didn't really understand offer pricing very well and I was going off of a 70- I was going off of the ARV * 70 - repair rule and that's why I hate that rule now, I say it publicly.

David: 70%.

Lauren: 70%, I say I- the whole ARV repair rule thing, I say it all over, I hate that rule because what happens is people hear that on a YouTube video and they go to California and use that rule, and that rule- first of all that rule doesn't really work anywhere right now, but 70% doesn't work very well right now in the market place we're in but they use it in markets, like they think it works everywhere and it doesn't. It didn't work in California where there was a little bit more demand for homes. So I was offering too low essentially, that 70% was just making the- [alarm goes off]. Woah, I'm so sorry.

David: You're fine.

Lauren: That 70% was making my offer price to low so I was just, I just kept getting outbid by other investors, sellers, I was making sellers mad, I was- it was rough, you know. So it took me a while to adjust my pricing. I worked closely with my brother. I just kept trying to make offers, eventually we found a really good deal. My brother and me had that idea- like the agreement that we would flip my first few homes together, split him 50-50, he would find the money, he would show me like how to handle the rehabs and-

David: So this was- so your intentions were rehabbing at the time, just fix and flip.

Lauren: Yeah, it was- I was- I started out at the house flipper. So yeah, I did my first deal. It was in Laguna Niguel. It was a condo and I bought it, I always say I bought it on the last day of the recession because the next like when we bought it, the property value started going up and it went up 10% just in the hold time and I didn't even hold it that long.

David: Amazing.

Lauren: Yeah, so we thought we would maybe make 35 thousand on that house and split it, we made 65 on my first deal so talk about beginner's luck, right? By the time I was in escrow with that-

David: And you guys fixed it up?

Lauren: Yeah we fixed it up.

David: Nice.

Lauren: We had a contractor but we you know, fixed it up, remodeled it, put it back on the market, ended up getting you know, a really, really good payday so I- my goal was I needed to have a full years salary in savings so I really wanted 55,000 in my bank account like I needed to see that number before I felt comfortable quitting my job so at this point I had a few more months to go and I'd already gotten my next project. So our next project was an identical thing, it was literally identical but in the neighboring city, it was in like Laguna Hills and it was another condo and it was the same numbers like insane profit, we made over about 60 on that one so I ended up having you know, enough money by the last day of my maternity leave, you know, it was there, they closed, I was ready. I picked up the phone and quit my full-time job and that was like one of the most memorable days of my life was you know, just breaking through the shackles of corporate America.

David: Yes, and it's a hard thing to do.

Lauren: It is.

David: It's a frightening thing to do especially I mean you had a year of savings sounds like, right? At that point.

Lauren: I did, I did.

David: So you hit the ground running but you know, a lot of people don't have that kind of money saved and/or any.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: Yeah, wow.

Lauren: It was, you know, I am all about- okay, this is a little whoo-whoo but I feel like I'm a- I'm very good at manifesting. That is one of my skills, I feel like I'm very good at manifesting.

David: It's a powerful trait.

Lauren: I really recommend if you guys have like a goal is envision yourself there. So like I pictured myself calling my boss and quitting my job and then walking outside and it's 10 o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, like and I'm outside and it's daylight, I'm not in an office building, you know?

David: Awesome.

Lauren: I kept replaying that vision that entire year every day I was like envisioning this phone call and how it would go and then I would open up the door and the sun would shine on me and it was you know, it was going to happen so it did, that moment, it came you know, true so I do feel like manifesting does help a little bit if you picture something enough in your brain like you're going to do whatever it takes to get there.

David: Agreed 100%. Manifesting is such a powerful exercise, it really is.

Lauren: It really is, it really is. So you know, that's kind of my- I like to tell the long story of how I got started just cuz it's always encouraging I think when you first get started and you hear that I didn't close my first deal in the first month, you know it took me awhile. It took me over 6 months to get paid, so 4 months to find a deal and I think we held it for another 4 to 5 months so I think it took me 8 or 9 months just to get my first check from this business.

David: Yeah, wow okay.

Lauren: So calm down people who get discouraged after a week of you know, sending out some direct mail or text or whatever.

David: Agreed, 100%.

Lauren: You know, calm down.

David: You got to have some patience in this game. That's right.

Lauren: You do, you do. I mean, I would like to say the rest is history but essentially what happened in the marketplace was we had a few more years of it being relatively easy to find deals and I was flipping houses primarily. I was wholesaling the ones I didn't want but I was flipping and I got from you know, 3 deals a year to maybe I remember 11 deals a year, you know. I was having a hard time finding consistency though because as the market got more stable, it got really stable in California and it just became impossible to find deals but I realized that my friends in other states were not having as much of an issue finding deals as I was so I realized like either I'm going to have to figure out how to make California work which I'm really doubtful. I'm losing sleep at this point cuz it's going like 3 months before my next project like I would go 3, 4 months and not have a contract on a house and you lose sleep at night, you know? At this point, I'm like a single mom at this point. I'm going oh my gosh, how am I going to pay my bills? So I made the decision to go out of state and figure out how to do this business in a different state where there's less competition. Arguably Orange County, LA, one of the most competitive areas in the country I would say like next to like you know, New York City, there's not a lot of places that are this competitive. Our average house price right now is 850 thousand in Bay Area like so I'd say California, it's Bay Area, LAOC even the Inland Empire little bit, very, very expensive territories and very difficult to wholesale or find flip deals so I made the decision I think it was 2016 to go virtual and the first venture was I built some homes in Nashville, so we did some spec homes, ground-up construction in East Nashville. That was super fun and then that got me into wholesaling and more of a volume wholesale model. Hands-down,  wholesaling virtually is way easier than house flipping virtually so I decided to focus more on wholesaling than chasing around contractors across the country and yeah, now I'm in four different territories. I am primarily virtual wholesaling at volume and about a year, a little over a year ago, I launched a coaching program that teaches- focuses on virtual wholesaling so that's my long story but if you guys didn't know who I was, there you have it.

David: No, I love it. Lauren, thank you so much for sharing. What states?

Lauren: Right now I'm in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and two territories in Oklahoma.

David: Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma times two. All right, I like it. Are you not doing anything back home? And where are you at? Are you in Orange County?

Lauren: I'm in Orange County.

David: Okay.

Lauren: Yeah, I'm not. you know, the other day I was tempted to maybe pull a list and send around a text messages to you know, some neighborhoods in the Inland Empire. I was tempted to do that cuz like why not? But I haven't spent our marketing dollars in my hometown in a long time because they just go further in other states so you know.

David: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah.

David: I love it. That's awesome. So you're in four markets. Now, you said that you made the decision in 2016 to go virtual, you started doing spec homes in Nashville and how long did you do that for?

Lauren: I think it took about a year all together, maybe a little bit over a year. I built three of them.

David: Okay.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: And was that difficult? That was virtual, right?

Lauren: Yeah, it was virtual but you know I got really lucky, I had a really good contractor so our relationship was you know, really good. I trusted the guy, he did a wonderful job so you know, it wasn't that hard. I actually think like ground-up is easier than flipping in many ways because when you're flipping, you know, you can have a-

David: Oh, there's so many things that can go wrong.

Lauren: There's more variables because- yeah.

David: Yeah, and you remove a wall and all of a sudden you gotta fix the wiring and then all of a sudden the wiring's going through the attic and you may have to then go up the attic and then you're in the attic and you're like well shit this board needs to be replaced and it's just, it's one thing turns into 12.

Lauren: Absolutely, yeah, and that's what was happening to me when I started trying to flip virtually which I've done it a bunch of times and every time I would say I'm never doing this again and then I would do it again, and then like I was like okay for real this time I'm never doing it again so I have held on to that one. I've not done it in probably a year. I just- it's not an enjoyable process. Every time it would you know, maybe the contractor would do one house well and then the next one, they would take advantage of me like so they would you know, kind of lure me in and think we're cool, you know, like they would be good at first, right? Their first project would go pretty well.

David: Yeah, once they realize that like hey the boss doesn't ever come to- doesn't never show up like.

Lauren: Right. They'd realize I'm not there and then they can make up stuff. So flipping was pretty difficult but the ground-up, you really can't make anything up, you know?

David: Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. You need a foundation and then you got to build the house around it and everything on the inside.

Lauren: Yup, there's nothing for them to lie about.

David: Yeah. I like it.

Lauren: I mean the first bid, there shouldn't be change orders unless you are changing like your materials, like if you were changing-

David: Right, which is either you're doing it or it's out of stock.

Lauren: That was you, like that was your choice.

David: That's basically it, right, so we got to go with something else but even at that, you're able to go online and figure out the cost of that per foot or per pallet or per whatever you're buying it at and it's again, it's very straightforward. I love that.

Lauren: Yeah, so that experience was actually amazing but the flipping was less desirable and so I do not recommend flipping virtually unless you have somebody that is vested in the project with you local. So if you have like a partner that maybe put some money into it so you know if they-

David: Having boots on the ground is-

Lauren: Boots on the ground and that they have a little bit of a you know, a stake in the game here. I would say that's important. If they didn't put any money in it, I mean what is their motivation to like make sure it goes seamless, you know?

David: Love it.

Lauren: So yeah.

David: So you started that in '16, did that for about a year so sometime in 2017-ish you moved into the virtual wholesaling space. So you were already in the virtual space for a whole year, it just wasn't with the wholesaling, it was with the flipping and you had done a couple houses and then in 2017 you said hey let's do this virtually. So, did you remain in Nashville?

Lauren: Yes and no, so okay I kinda did all three at the same time in 2016. I still had projects in California.

David: Okay, got it.

Lauren: I hadn't let go of Cali. I wanted to diversify that year so I had the Nashville properties, I had the Cali flips I was doing then I started wholesaling in Nashville virtually kind of all in the same time so I would say 2016 was a little bit of everything.

David: Okay, okay.

Lauren: But after those homes were built in Nashville, then we decided- I mean, I wanted to do more development deals but just nothing really penciled that I could find so I was just focusing on wholesaling and if something came up, great, if it's not, you know, whatever, we'll just wholesale. So I stayed in Nashville I want to say at least another year, maybe a year-and-a-half to two years but what happened in Nashville is a very interesting time for that area. It was going through a major major development boom. They were- people were moving-

David: It still is.

Lauren: It still is, people were moving to Nashville in troves, I mean it was a crazy- it was the number one real estate market in the country, so it started to feel like California. I started to feel like I went to it from one California to another California like if I'm going to go and have to compete this hard for deals, I might as well just be in my backyard like what am I doing? So I wanted to find a more balanced market that's more stable and I decided to look for something totally different. I wanted to go in a market where people were holding rentals, more of us a rental market where you know, it's sub 200,000, you know more of your just kind of bread and butter middle American market.

David: Yeah, your middle class areas.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: Absolutely.

Lauren: Just you know, something in maybe the Midwest or something and so I stumbled on Oklahoma City and then that's really when the volume started going. So we've done, you know, I would say we do about 50, 55 a year. I think this year we'll definitely do more. So that's when we started doing it more in volume.

David: I love it. That's awesome.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: So awesome. I'm looking online right now, the population in Nashville grew 19% from 2010 to 2020 so that is-

Lauren: Wow.

David: That's 1 in 5 so it basic- yeah, that's crazy. That's a crazy-

Lauren: Crazy.

David: And it's still growing and that's just from 2020, so 2020- we're almost into 2022 at this point but yeah 3/4 of the way essentially through 2021 and its booming. I was just down there with my wife probably- oh it's probably been four months ago at this point and man, even in the current atmosphere or climate of covid, right?

Lauren: Yeah.

David: Bars were still crowded and packed and people everywhere and man, it's actually, it's growing crazy. I'm actually working on, I don't have it under contract yet but we're working on it, package of 63 houses there right now to wholesale.

Lauren: Oh, wow.

David: Yeah, but it's going crazy and the value's are just through the roof.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: So yeah, I get it, I totally get it. So you stumbled across Oklahoma City and you just started just doing the virtual wholesaling and now you've expanded into Pennsylvania and in Kentucky and even another market within Oklahoma so you're doing 4 markets. Holy cow, that's awesome. On pace to do over 55 deals this year, amazing. Tell me a little bit about your team.

Lauren: Yeah, so this year we're actually growing the team. So I kept the team very, very small during this whole time. It was like me, May- depending on what our market- I did have cold callers at one point, I think I had one to two cold callers and then one person and me so like I think I had a four person team for many of these years at most.

David: Wow, that is a small team. So what does that one person do? Just basically, were they like your executive assistant or do they-?

Lauren: They were kinda- so I had someone who was doing like acquisitions, I had prospectors like cold callers and then I had one guy that was doing acquisitions and he was helping me with dispositions and then we got an acquisitions person and now he still focuses on dispositions sales so we kind of-

David: You basically had like a- like an assistant then kinda.

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, he was like me like I would teach him everything that I would do. Now it's way more formal roles.

David: Right.

Lauren: So, you know, I have-

David: Now is that person local to you said Oklahoma city was the first place that you kind of went to do the volume and the virtual wholesaling specifically, was that-

Lauren: Yeah.

David: So the cold callers I'd assume were VA's right?

Lauren: The cold callers at first were not, they were local here. I mean your- see I've kind of- we're talking lots of years so it's like you got to pick a time to ask me what was everyone doing.

David: Right. No, no, I get it. So when you started-

Lauren: So right now it's different.

David: Yeah.

Lauren: Right now, we've- I actually- so I kept it pretty lean and mean for you know, I would say up to the beginning of this year. 2021, I decided to hire more and try to scale this more so that's why this year we should do more deals this year but so now I have more formal like job positions, it's more organized. So if you want to talk about what I'm doing right now, like that's probably the most relevant.

David: Let's hear it.

Lauren: Yeah, so I have a virtual assistant or virtual lead generation specialist. That's- we even created special titles now.

David: I like it.

Lauren: I am not your like operations person as you can see but I hired someone to be and so now I use people by their titles. So we have a virtual lead generation specialist, he is texting and cold calling for leads so he's bringing in maybe 8 to 10 leads a day. We have other campaigns as well, we do- we run tv ads to bring leads in too but he's doing the outbound marketing for us and I just hired a new acquisitions person making that three acquisitions people. We have a dispositions which is the guy who's been with me from day one. He's been with all the positions at one point, but we've moved him to disposition sales and he's in charge of once we get the contract, he's selling them.

David: Love it.

Lauren: And then I have a couple VA's that help.

David: Okay.

Lauren: So they do- we've got a VA that manages the texting campaign and manages the lists and uploading the lists into the software.

David: So it's still a relatively small team. You plus the acquisitions and one dispo and a few VA's.

Lauren: Pretty small. Yeah. Yes, it's still pretty small.

David: So you've probably got 8 or 9 people give or take total including yourself.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah. It's still pretty small.

David: Awesome. I love it. So the guy that does the dispo, is he also doing closing coordination? Or you're doing that?

Lauren: He- okay, you know what? I left one person out, we recently just hired a TC. We hired a TC, a transaction coordinator, she works part-time. So she's helping doing the closing coordination. Yeah.

David: Awesome, awesome. Yeah, we have a closing coordinator. You know it's funny, I hear people say transaction coordinator, TC. I just- it's never stuck with me, I've always just refer to them as closing coordinators but it's the same thing.

Lauren: Yeah, basically.

David: Yes, we have a closing-

Lauren: She calls like the sellers and schedules like the buyer walkthroughs and stuff.

David: Love it, and it helps them get familiar with the title company, make sure they got all their i's dotted and t's crossed. I love it, that's awesome.

Lauren: The next thing that I really want to hire. So we actually, we put a formal like offering to someone to hire another person actually on Friday and what we want to do is move somebody into disposition sales. So I want to explore this role and maybe we can explore it together is having- so his name is High who does my dispositions right now and we're just getting now overloaded, like at this year, like I said, we're growing and now it's like we're getting you know, like 20 contracts a month and it's too much for him, like he's getting to where I think he's not able to really market all the contracts so he's you know, letting some things drop. So the newest position that I really thought we need is, why don't we have anybody in disposition sales who's like their one job is just to get on the phone and sell those contracts? And High is a little bit more of he underwrites our contract so he makes sure that we don't put anything under contract too high, so he looks at the numbers so he has to look at all of our leads and-

David: He's doing acquisitions too.

Lauren: He- I mean kind of in that sense that he has to help price it out for the acquisitions people.

David: Or underwriting them at least.

Lauren: Underwriting, yeah so he's underwriting the deals. He's the one in the end like when the like- my idea is that he'll collect the offers from you know, the end buyers and negotiate and try to raise you know, the fee and manage the TC manage the dispo sales person, but we've never- there's this hole in our company that I thought about, that we haven't had is really just somebody to like just focus where they have the contracts in and their job is to sell them and to get on the phone and call the local investors, make sure that they see our deals you know and really work them. What are your thoughts on that? Do you have somebody on your team that does that?

David: So it sounds like the guy that you have doing the dispo now has been with you really long time, right?

Lauren: He has, yeah.

David: Yeah, so we do have somebody on our team. So we have VA's that do a lot of the inbound, we have VA's that do cold calling, cold texting just like you and we have a closing coordinator, we have acquisitions guys. I have a girl that does just dispositions, that's all she does. Our closing coordinator kind of steps in, her name is Megan, she kind of steps in and helps out where there's gaps and I don't do anything virtual, right? So I'm in St. Louis, Missouri in the Midwest, not too far from Oklahoma and essentially myself and my partner Mike do a lot of the underwriting, reason is and I'm a little different so my next question after we get through team is going to be about some of your strategies, obviously virtual is one but there's a couple others that I'm going to ask you about here in a second. But really, the name of the game for us is keep the best, wholesale the rest, all right? So wholesaling is an awesome business, I love it. You know, we're doing anywhere from 6 to 12 deals a month on average but those are deals that we have essentially passed on, right? So they're deals nonetheless, I don't think that's the right word, right? But they're not deals that we want to add to the portfolio of rentals or actually fix and flip, so we have a couple fix and flips going. We're not really a fix and flip company, we're landlords at heart.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: That's really where my passion is.

Lauren: Yeah, you- I remember that.

David: Yeah, it's the passive income and it's using the BRRR method. I absolutely love the BRRRR method.

Lauren: I know.

David: It's such an amazing strategy. This time last year Lauren, we had about 87 properties. One of my business partners wanted to retire and we had to pay off some debt so we took it down from 87 to about 40, we sold over half the portfolio, I think it was even 35 and right now I'm sitting on about 60.

Lauren: Cool.

David: So we went from 87 to 35 and then we're at 60 and then as of right now, we probably have another 40 doors under contract. So the goal is to get back over a hundred or back you know, get to a hundred by the end of the year and but again, I'm sidetracking here.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: The main thing that we love is building that portfolio of rental properties to create passive income and a lot of people don't you know, they don't really talk about it when they're talking about being a landlord but like the depreciation-

Lauren: Yeah.

David: - of owning all these properties is massive, you know? And I don't make millions of dollars, I do okay, but I barely pay any taxes.

Lauren: Oh my gosh.

David: Like barely any.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah.

David: Like last year, I think I maybe paid like 12 or 15 grand in taxes, you know when the in theory it should have been like a 150 grand in taxes, you know? 200 grand in taxes, but I barely pay any at all because we're depreciating these properties. These properties are cash flowing, the market has been appreciating which is awesome so there's just a lot of advantages.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: So what we do is we keep the best, that's the slogan around here, we keep the best-

Lauren: Okay, so you and your partner look to see what came under contract so-

David: That's right, and we wholesale the rest.

Lauren: And the you wholesale- okay, so-

David: So, you know-

Lauren: So there is a whole in my company like- cuz essentially High needs to be you and your partner in this like- and then I need someone there. He's just too busy is what we came down with in the last, when we started getting 20 a month, we're like okay.

David: That's a lot.

Lauren: He's too busy, it's too much for one person.

David: Yeah.

Lauren: And I can't step in, I've got so many other things, other projects, you know, other things-

David: And you're busy with coaching to0.

Lauren: I'm busy with coaching, I got a software launching. It's just, it's crazy so we wanted to insert someone, you know, to help him essentially so he's kind of gonna be like that person that sort of that you're saying on your team is you and your partner, you know, and I totally get the you know, the idea of wanting to keep you know, these rentals. My goals are different, you know what I think that's what is the beautiful thing about real estate like to anybody who's listening like everybody's goals are different and there was something in me that did not- I don't like have this, I don't see myself holding a bunch of single-family rentals, it was never really a goal of mine. I mean my dad had a bunch of single-family rentals, maybe like there's something about listening to him bitch about them all the time, I don't know, but I- it was never like when I saw myself you know, when I was younger like what do I want to do is not to be a single fami- like to own a bunch of single families, I wanted to own companies so I've been investing my money in myself.

David: I love it.

Lauren: Which is that's what I'll do is just in myself and building businesses but what I really and I'm going to say it out loud publicly.

David: Put it out in the universe.

Lauren: This is putting it out in the universe, I'm manifesting right now. So my big goal is I do want to own buildings, so I want to own at least a 50-unit multi-tenant building. I'm not sure yet if it's going to be apartments, maybe we'll do something different you know, I don't know, maybe apartments maybe you know, mobile home parks or who knows, maybe industrial buildings like I don't know, you know? But I want to own multi-tenant buildings. That was my background, I've got a background in commercials so that was always where I saw like myself going. That was always the goal I had so I never got really into like keeping my wholesales as rentals because my head was always like, let me just do this, invest in other things and then I'll have a really nice balance sheet and I can buy some commercials.

David: Yeah, build the capital, focus on what you're good at, stay in your lane, you know a lot of people have a big issue with that, not issue that's the wrong word but like they struggle with staying in their lane and they're chasing shiny objects all the time. I mean you try to chase two rabbits, guess how many rabbits you catch?

Lauren: None, yes.

David: Right. So it's such- I love it. The fact that you're ultra focused is cool but you got these big goals too of you know, multiple-

Lauren: Yeah.

David: You know, big multi units and again, you're not necessarily defining it into just the residential side so that's really awesome. I love it.

Lauren: I don't know- yeah,  IU don't know yet and again I think when you're- like you said, stay in your lane like I love that. Don't feel like you have to do every shiny object just cuz you listen to a podcast, like you guys, like just right now this is a perfect example, maybe for a minute, David could have made me feel a little bit like oh shoot, I should be buying single families and doing BRRRR, you know what? I'm going to buy a book on BRRRR right now, let me get on Amazon, I'm going to BRRRR houses like that's what happens when you listen to these podcasts like you go oh, shiny object.

David: I'll send you my book.

Lauren: Yeah, oh my god now I need to BRRRR houses, you guys I'm such an idiot because I haven't been BRRRR-ing these houses so I'm gonna do that, you know but again like when I sit back and I have my thinking time and my quiet time, Lauren never visioned herself there, I didn't, I had a vision, I have a vision and Lauren is going to own a building. My vision is a building, for some reason that's what it looks like in my head. Not saying that there's better or anything better or worse, it's just that wasn't my vision and so stick with like where did you really see yourself going, like you know meditate on it for a second-

David: I love it.

Lauren: And like what's your vision, and then just like I'm putting blinders on to you know, the other ideas they come in and man it's hard like sometimes like, you know, there's- you know, maybe I should think about BRRRR-ing some of these homes, why not? You know? But-

David: There's so many strategies you know, and really what I tell my students is here's the- and I'm sure you're the same way Lauren, we share a lot of similarities. I basically tell them listen guys, I do fix and flip, I do wholesale, I do rentals. My passion is rentals but because I'm doing the BRRRR method, I have to buy it at discount for the BRRRR method to really capitalize to its fullest, okay? And regardless of what you want to do, right? Do you want to be a wholesaler? Do you want to be a landlord? Do you want to be a fix and flipper? You know, none of those are really good strategies if you're paying retail.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: Those doors are cracked or closed, right? In terms of using a metaphor and if you're able to go out and buy a property, even if it's only at like a 10 or 15% discount, ideally its 20% or greater, right? But even if it's only a 10 or 15% discount, you know, now you have the ability to go walk through that wholesale door, that fix and flip door, those doors are wide open to you when you have a discount, but if you don't have a discount, you're climbing- you're fighting an uphill battle, right? So what I tell my students and I'm sure you're the same way, but learn the marketing game, learn how to find the deals, you know like last year, basically for the last couple years, my partner Mike and I have been buying about a hundred houses a year and only like two or three of them, maybe four or five, maybe, are listed MLS properties. You know like 95% plus are direct to seller marketing.

Lauren: Yup.

David: So again, it doesn't really matter what that exit is, figure out how to find deals.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: And t

hen from there, you can figure out what you want to do because you've essentially mitigated your risk by buying those at a discount, right?

Lauren: Yeah.

David: And yeah, but that's really kind of the strategy so that's what we teach people is hey figure out how to get that marketing ball rolling and then from there, if you want to get into wholesaling, great. I think wholesaling is such an amazing strategy, the only downside to wholesaling is you have to start over once you get, you know, do a deal, right?

Lauren: Yeah.

David: So you have to constantly do the marketing. So I really like the landlording business because I get paid every month, right?

Lauren: Right.

David: It's a lot smaller check but if you times that by 60 a year, you know we want to get up to two or three hundred doors in the next couple years and I don't see any reason why we won't, you know, we're already almost to a hundred basically at this point so yeah, I think it's awesome. It's really cool.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: So Lauren, tell me a little bit about the coaching program, so it's a virtual program right?

Lauren: Yes.

David: Cool. Lay it on me, what you got?

Lauren: So you know, a few what was it? Maybe 2 years ago I was on the Wholesaling Inc. podcast with Brent Daniels and I was sharing with him, you know, my struggles in California and how you know, I had to go virtual and I made it work and I, you know, closed 55 deals that year and I guess, you know, they had their ears perked up a little bit because my story sounded like a lot of other students within the tribe and they were struggling with telling what this- telling the students what to do because none of the coaches at Wholesaling Inc were virtual and they were all in markets that you know, where more conducive to wholesaling, you know, and they didn't- it was like a hole in their coaching program offering that they didn't really have. So Brent, you know, it was funny cuz after the podcast, Brent was like so what are you up to? Like what do you feel like doing? And it was funny cuz at that time I was like I think I'm going to try the BRRR method and buy, I was actually looking at the single-family thing but then again, meditated on it, I was like nope that's not where I see myself going. So Brent was like, you know what? Screw all that, you should be a real estate influencer and I was like what is that? He's like you just would be really good at it, you're very, you know, you got- you're good on the camera like you're good at speaking.

David: You got awesome energy, absolutely.

Lauren: I got good energy, right? I'm a lot, you know. I'm hyper and I talk a lot and you know, I found a career that just meets those needs very well. So I didn't know what an influencer was, did not know what Brent was talking about. I was like what's an influencer, what? you know, and so it turned into me going down to Phoenix and just hanging out with Brent and seeing like what that look liked for him as a coach and you know, the filming and the YouTube videos and what that all looked like and he's like you should put a course together in virtual cuz there's none out there. And he's right, there really wasn't a lot. There was a few courses but not really so I put something together, it took me about a month. I just wrote down all the mistakes I made in four years ago in virtual so nobody would have to make them again.

David: I love that you led with that.

Lauren: Yeah, I just-

David: Started with hey these are the mistakes that I made, don't make these and then of course you built on it to add all the other stuff in there, but that's awesome.

Lauren: Everything was mistakes, I just wrote down all the mistakes, the I wish I would have's for the last 4 years and I packaged it up in 10, now 11 modules in a coaching program and we launched it, we went live. So before we went live, Tom made me coach some students for free just to make sure I had it in me and that you know, I really did know what I was talking about and you know, they really vet the coaches, they check my huds and everything to make sure I'm the real deal and we launched and within you know, the first year, gosh I think within the first year we got maybe 250 students. We now have over 320 students right now that's been through the program and it's crazy because you know, I never- you launch something and you don't really know if it's going to work cuz I was never coached before so I didn't- maybe like, maybe I'm just special and I was able to pull this off and nobody else could, no it turns out that I'm actually not that special. I have students that like, were doing so much better than I was even four years into it after taking my program. It's like hilarious and I'm like you're doing better than I was before I wrote this program, like you're doing better than I was then. That's crazy and this is your first six months in the you know, the business. I've had some students really, really do well. I've had students all the way from India to Spain and everywhere in between.

David: And are they wholesaling in their markets or are they wholesale in the US or both?

Lauren: Virtually. So everybody that got in is mainly they want to be able to go virtual, some are doing it in their backyard but more rare. Most of them are doing it in virtual markets and it's either because they have jobs where they travel a lot or their spouses have jobs that they've had to move around or they live in areas like California, Miami, some of these Florida markets are just getting so blown out, a lot of New Yorkers, a lot of New Jersey, just high price markets, they are in markets that are very high priced so they come to me to teach them how to wholesale in markets that are you know, lower price point where they can do more deals.

David: Easier barriers to entry.

Lauren: Yeah, easier, yeah just easier markets to wholesale, easier markets to hold rentals. My coach, you know, find the rental markets, that is like your best bet because then you could also, I always say wholesaling's a gateway drug, so it's a gateway drug to other real estate investing.

David: It is, it absolutely is.

Lauren: It totally is, totally is. You can quote that.

David: It finds you- I'm going to. It finds you or it teaches you how to find deals.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: And on top of that, it teaches you how to get your feet wet flipping them, right?

Lauren: Right.

David: It's going to build your confidence.

Lauren: It does.

David: Incredibly fast when you start doing deals and then again, from there if you want to pivot into the BRRRR method or rentals or fix and flip or maybe it's owner financing or sub 2, it could be anything right? You still got to learn how to find those deals. I love that.

Lauren: Oh 100%, it's such a good entry point for someone. You know what's so crazy and where I look at how wholesaling I think is really going to benefit me in my dreams and aspirations of syndicating large multi-tenant buildings. So you know, I'm learning and hanging out in circles. I'm doing exact- like so commercial real estate and actually buying buildings, that's new for me, right? Like I'm a beginner so what did I do? I looked for a coaching program, you know, and I started surrounding myself with you know, other influencers that do it and I bought books on it and right now I'm in a coaching program that's mainly focused on raising the capitals to syndicate deals.

David: That was actually one of my next questions is hey you're a coach but how many coaches do you have? And it sounds like you got one.

Lauren: Yeah so I'm in a coaching program right now about raising- I mean like we're talking millions and millions of dollars like you know, to buy these things. So I'm learning the skills of raising large amounts of money and the funny thing is, is when I hear them talk about how they're you know, going to cold call for you know, to talk to high net worth individuals or just these other marketing strategies they're going to use, my wholesaler background was like well why don't you put that on a drip feed campaign in your CRM and so then you're not texting them you know, like every 3 weeks check in with them and see if they're interested or you know, like I'm thinking like the marketer in me because of my wholesaling experience. So it's funny how you know, that experience, yeah I mean maybe I don't end up BRRRR-ing homes or getting a bunch of single-family rentals, but like it has helped, it applies to other industries. The sales and marketing that you have to do in wholesaling, I think it is one of the most sales and marketing intensive businesses you can own.

David: I agree, 100%.

Lauren: If you can hang and still manage to do 50 deals a year, you know, wholesaling houses like you can do a lot of other businesses very well.

David: Yeah, and then that's- you know, that is this business. A business without leads is really no business at all, right? You've got to have the leads and that's really where the marketing comes into play. You know, if I was just to try to do my business from the MLS, we would obviously do more than 3 to 5 purchases a year because that would be the focus but it wouldn't be near a hundred, it'd probably 15 or 20 tops, maybe not even.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: You know? But because we've mastered, you know we're constantly learning of course, you know, what's working? What's not? Where are we seeing a positive ROI or a better ROI? Where can we shift resources? Where do we shift people? It's a constant, you know, learning process of course, but once you figure out the direct to seller marketing, it just makes your life a lot easier because you have a steady flow of deals coming in and if you want to wholesale them, again like I said earlier, you can wholesale them and if you want to go fix and flip them, you can fix and flip them and if you want to be in landlord like my passion, then you can do that as well but without having the deal flow and the consistency, it is very, very challenging. Absolutely, 100% agree with that. So tell us- I don't want to go too long, I know you got things to do and I really, really appreciate you coming on the show today just providing all this value, telling everybody you know, how you started. There's a lot of value there, you might not realize it but I know that there's going to be a lot of people that are going to reach out to me after this episode and they're gonna be like man that was awesome and it is, this is great. So before we jump into the next topic which is the software, I want you to just give me a little sneak peek on that, the coaching programs, you've already had over 300 students and you're on the Wholesaling Inc. podcast, I'm on the website right now.

Lauren: Yes, yeah.

David: Guys if you go check out wholesalinginc.com/virtual or just go to Wholesaling Inc and at the top, you can see programs and virtual is one of those, you can learn all about Lauren's program. It's virtual investing mastery with Lauren Hardy and she has an amazing program over there. What'd I miss?

Lauren: Man, I mean that's a perfect place to send people. I also have some freebies I give away on my personal website so if you go to laurenhardyco.com, so laurenhardyco.com, I've got a free flip deal analyzer calculator that should be uploaded right now, hopefully it is. We just launched that one and we got a free wholesaling mini-course and a free seller script so if you want to you know, get some freebies, check that out. I also drop a video a day on YouTube, very you know, tutorial, short to the point, lots of information being thrown at you so check out Lauren Hardy on YouTube as well.

David: And Instagram.

Lauren: And Instagram is this mom flips, yeah so everything I do, we drop it on Instagram as well so yeah, if you want to-

David: And then your YouTube is Lauren Hardy, right?

Lauren: Just Lauren Hardy.

David: Okay, and that's H-A-R-D-Y for anybody that's driving their car right now and is curious. So Lauren Hardy on YouTube, on Instagram this month flips and then her website is laurenhardyco.com and guys, she's got some freebies over there so you would be a fool to pass on this opportunity. Go check them out.

Lauren: Who doesn't like free stuff?

David: Free flip deal analyzer, free wholesaling mini course and then of course some free seller scripts over there as well. Awesome. Lauren, that is amazing and then of course, if you haven't heard of Lauren, she is one of the hosts of the Wholesaling Inc podcast which is the number one podcast on the planet for wholesaling real estate so check it out. I love it. Lauren if you don't mind, I know we only have a few minutes here but let me- if you don't mind, you know, tell me a little bit about this software that you're going to be launching, super curious.

Lauren: Yeah, so we are launching a CRM. This is actually the first time I said this out loud on a podcast but it's been a year in the making. After I got some coaching students under my belt, I noticed a need for more sales funnel management training. What I mean by that is what even- what's a lead? How often do I follow up with them? How soon do I need to give them an offer? Students were asking me these questions and I realized that nobody teaches this in school. There's not a class in school that teaches you, you know, how to generate leads and then- and talk to them.

David: You don't learn about money and you don't learn about sales.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: And those are the two things that you kinda need to have to be an entrepreneur or a business owner.

Lauren: Right, and you know a lot of the software that's out there, you know, there's amazing softwares in this space, you know but we thought about like how could we teach someone sales funnel management skills with a software right out of the box? Well, a CRM, that's the most obvious so we created a CRM. It's a you know, a CRM that out of the box is going to teach you sales funnel management habits.

David: I love that.

Lauren: And it's not gonna- it's already preset, there's tasks in there so when you do an action, there already is a follow-up task and it's going to let you know, like when-  this CRM's going to let you know when to follow up and in fact it's going to follow up for you because we have follow-up automated drip campaigns already preset, we have automated texting follow-up, automated email follow-up, you know, if you put in a seller just a new seller in your CRM, it'll automatically text the seller hey my name is Lauren, I'm going to be calling you today. Here's my information in case you want to give me a call but I'll talk to you soon. So we've got every kind of automation that you can think of in this CRM. I'm super, super excited about it and I think we're going to be able to soft launch in about probably hopefully October 2021. We're in beta right now and I just want to make sure it's perfect.

David: So a couple months, so that's right around the corner.

Lauren: Yeah, we wanna make sure it's absolutely perfect but yeah, we call it Deal Pro and it's me and Tag Thompson created it together and David, we got to get you on Deal Pros Live on Wednesdays so you better-

David: I would love that.

Lauren: Yeah, you better be on it.

David: We gotta get you on my Coffee with Closers  on Wednesdays.

Lauren: Okay good, we'll do it. Absolutely.

David: We'll have to swap an episode, yes.

Lauren: Yeah, we do. We were Deal Pros Lives and nobody really knew what it was about but the whole thing was that it was cuz we were creating a CRM, and so-

David: So what's the URL?

Lauren: It's gonna be dealproscrm.com, we have not made it live yet because it's not ready.

David: So D-E-A-L-P-R-O-S, no apostrophe I'm assuming.

Lauren: dealproscrm.

David: crm.com, got it.

Lauren: Yeah, deal pro.

David: Okay, awesome. So Lauren, one of the things that really stuck out with what you just said and I just want to- I just want to reiterate. She said out of the box, it's going to teach you sales funnels habits. I love that cuz it's all about the habits, right?

Lauren: Yup.

David: It's all about the consistency. So before Lauren and I started this episode, we were chit-chatting just for a couple minutes, 3 or 4 minutes and you know, one of the things that we were talking about was the fact that you know, a lot of students will come to her or they'll come to me and they'll say yeah I want to get my first deal in the first 30 days and we're both of course like yes this is great, let's do everything we possibly can but at the same time, it's not that realistic, you know? Some people do get it in 30 days.

Lauren: Right.

David: It took you 4 months to get your first contract and 4 to 5 more months to get paid. It took me 4 and a half months to do my first deal as well and I was doing wholesaling out the gate so I didn't have to wait, I maybe had to wait 2 weeks to get paid but essentially it was a, you know, 4 to 5 months to get that first deal and that's kind of an average, right? It's usually a couple months to get that first deal but even if you look bigger than just first deals, right? So I'm talking about my data which is 7 years strong at this point and we've done about 700 deals at this point. On average it takes us 4 to 6 months so let's just say 5 months to go from lead being entered in my system to contract. Now that's not getting paid, that's just putting that property under contract, it's about 5 months on average.

Lauren: Wow, okay.

David: And one of the things that you had just said, out of the box, it's going to teach you sales funnels habits. Habits is the key word there guys.

Lauren: Yes.

David: You got to be really consistent. In fact, one of my favorite sayings is consistent persistent action equals success. You have to be consistent so you have to have habits and your system it sounds like is going to help teach people how to have these habits, you know, like you can't just follow up once or twice.

Lauren: Right.

David: You got to be consistent with this follow-up in and you know, I was looking at a- we did a couple deals last week and I was just going- I always make sure every one on my team gets a bonus when we do a deal. I want to make sure the cold caller or the cold texter that touched the lead gets a bonus. I want the acquisitions guy to get a bonus, I want the dispositions guy to get a bonus. I want everyone to get paid because it encourages everybody to work harder and be happy and have good energy, right? So I'm always- when we do deals and sometimes I don't even know what's going on because I've trained people around me to do such amazing jobs which is a little embarrassing to know that I don't know what's going on half the time but I you know- but at the end when it's about to close I'm like hey let's take a look, right? Where'd the lead come from? How did we get it? How long has it been in the system? And lately, what I've been noticing is the amount of follow-ups that have gone into play over an average of 5 months, I mean it's usually 15 to 30.

Lauren: Wow.

David: It's not 6, it's not 4, it's definitely 1 or 2.

Lauren: Right.

David: Now, would a lead come in that is a deal right away? Yeah it happens, right? But that's icing on the cake, typically it's going to take 4 to 6 months for a lead to turn into a deal and the number of touches, right? So a touch could be you know, usually it's outbound, it could be inbound but usually it's outbound and it's a call, it's a text, it's a voicemail, it's an email, it's anything, it could be a postcard, it could be a contract, just anything that's basically letting them know that hey I'm here to help and if you have an issue or a problem, you know I can solve that problem for you.

Lauren: Right.

David: And yeah, it's usually 15 to 30 touches so the fact you are building out a system that is going to help teach those habits is awesome. I can't wait. I can't wait to check it out.

Lauren: Yeah, I'm so excited and we'll definitely have you on Deal Pros Live and we'll you know, demo it for you so you guys you know, can see. We're going to be doing a lot of demos, you know, on that Wednesday time slot so we're really excited about it but yeah, that's all I'm working, you know, working on and working hard. Working hard over here.

David: I love it. So tell me a little bit about Deal Pros right before we wrap up, Deal Pros Live, the live. Yeah.

Lauren: Deal Pros Live is me and Tag Thompson and honestly, it started out as just like we were just talking about any type of topic wholesale related.

David: Yeah, of course.

Lauren: You know, comping houses for people, you know, anything. It was all very unscripted Q&A. It was just a time we could put people on the hot seat so you know, we made- it was kind of cool that you know, we made a lot of breakthroughs for people. We had some loyal listeners you know, that would ask questions and we were just giving it to them straight and so I love- the thing I like about Deal Pros Live I think it's cuz it's my platform so you're going to get a little bit more of me giving it to you straight, little bit more Lauren unscripted, where I do feel like when I'm on other people's platforms or on Wholesaling Inc I'm a little bit more this is a family show.

David: I like it. This is more unscripted. So what time's? This is every Wednesday, it's a live show, I'm assuming it's on YouTube.

Lauren: Every Wednesday, yeah we were doing Wednesday 5 p.m. We took some time off so we're going to relaunch and we'll let you know so follow me on Instagram so you guys can get the notice of when we relaunch and we're going to start bringing in guests and we are going to start probably talking about what we've been working on this entire year.

David: What time zone?

Lauren: Pacific standard, so Deal Pros Live 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

David: I love it. Awesome. Guys, check it out. Deal Pros, it's going to be launching in October. Deal Pros Live, Wednesdays 5 p.m. It's going to be coming back. How many more weeks do you think it'll take to get that back up?

Lauren: I think probably 2 more weeks.

David: 2 more weeks?

Lauren: Yeah.

David: Okay, awesome. This will take a week to publish so basically, you're going to have one week from the time you're hearing this before Lauren will be back live unscripted Wednesday nights and then of course guys, don't forget, check out laurenhardyco.com for some free resources, thismomflips on IG. I love her IG, she's always got great content and her YouTube channel is really popping right now. It's doing great. She puts out some amazing long-form content over there and you can find out more on YouTube of course at Lauren Hardy. If you're looking for a virtual coach, Lauren is the best in the business. I can tell you that with certainty. I have seen and talked to several of Lauren's students that have had great success and Chris and Brent over at Wholesaling Inc are constantly praising Lauren for how hard she works and how much she cares about her students guys so again, I can't speak highly enough about Lauren. Lauren, thank you so much for coming on today. I know our audience is going to find great value in this. I'm incredibly grateful for your time and do you have any parting words for today?

Lauren: Oh my goodness. Parting words, I'm like the worst at that. Okay, how about this, parting words right now, this is very on brand. I was listening to the skinny confidential and they had the author of this book called essentialism and I'm super into this like this word right now and so I just got the audio book essentialism, but essentially it is focusing on you know, activities that's really going to move the needle and trying to block out things that are kind of wasting your time so only doing what's essential. So let's put it all out there into the world that you know, look at your day right now and what are things that you did today that didn't really move the needle, isn't really productive, let's eliminate that.

David: Cut them out.

Lauren: Let's focus on just what's essential and don't forget to manifest.

David: I love that last part too.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: Very cool. Hey Lauren, thank you so much for coming on, we're gonna have to bring you back here in a couple months as well. It'll be good to catch up with you as well.

Lauren: Yeah.

David: And I'm looking forward to you know, talking with you a little bit more about Deal Pros as well as my live show Coffee with Closers. Guys, if you have any questions for Lauren, reach out to her on IG. That's probably the best place in terms of just you know, random communications but don't forget YouTube and her website as well as wholesalinginc.com. That's all for today guys. Signing off. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you soon.

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