David: Alright 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. However, I am joined by a fellow investor, Brian Trippe. Hey Brian, how are you doing today, buddy?

Brian: What's going on, Dave? I am doing great.

David: Awesome, man, awesome. So Brian you are located out of Birmingham Alabama, is that correct?

Brian: Yes, sir.

David: Awesome, and of course St Louis is where I am located, all my listeners should be well aware of that. So Brian tell me a little bit about the Birmingham market, tell me how long you have been in real estate, and what you're focusing on now.

Brian: Yeah for sure, great question. First of all David, thank you so much for having me on. Hopefully I am all about providing value, I am going to provide as much value to the listeners as I can. Birmingham is a great cash flow market. I think you just got done saying off air that St Louis is a great cash flowing market too; you can get cheap properties and good rents. Birmingham is very similar. I quit Birmingham more too-- I think people are familiar with Memphis, Memphis invest, and everything that's going on there. Birmingham is very similar to that; similar population, we just don't have a pro-sports team. Though some could say the Alabama Crimson tide are close. But yeah, man, Birmingham is a great cash flowing market. When it comes to real estate, people either invest for cash flow, or they invest for appreciation, and the only reason people would come into Birmingham, the reason people flood, investors’ flood the Birmingham market is for those cash flowing numbers. Like you said, you can get properties pretty cheap, and get great rents. I am talking solid B class properties. So Birmingham is great, i love it. I have been in the state of Alabama for about 20 years now; I am originally from right outside Chicago. I know you got some St Louis people, I am actually wearing a Cubs hat right now, don't want to offend anybody but--. Originally from right outside Chicago, I moved down here in 1998 to go to the University of Alabama. Go out of school, I think like a lot of us that graduated and have degrees, didn't really know what I wanted to do. Kind of bounced around and real estate kind of fell in my lap. When I first got started into real estate I started wholesaling, because I didn't have a whole lot to begin with.

David: How long ago was that?

Brian: So it would have been 2012, so coming up on six years ago. I didn't know anything at all, we had just bought a primary residence and that's all I knew about real estate; me and my wife.

David: So you have been in it since 2012, started out wholesaling?

Brian: That's right, started out wholesaling. Made $10,000 on my first deal, took me 45 days, then on I was like, this thing seems pretty real to me.

David: Right.

Brian: I just started busting it, I have done over a million dollars in wholesale revenue in about three and half years. I was a college basketball coach too, so I kind of took some time off and kind of dabbled in it. Full time of April 2014, so little less than three years ago, or four years ago now, done over a million dollars in wholesale revenue, I have over 80 rentals now, or approaching 80 rentals. Done some fix and flip, started a RIA here locally, real estate investor association. I do a lot of teaching and coaching along the way. So just try and give back as much as I can, love real estate, real estate saved my life. I would not be here if it wasn't for it. So very excited about the subject, and I am thankful for you David for having me on.

David: Yeah absolutely, thanks for coming in. So I got a couple of quick questions for you. 80 rentals that's amazing! How long have you been buying rentals? What's your strategy for that?

Brian: Yeah so when I started-- most of my real estate really started in April 2014. So right at four years ago is when I really started diving headfirst into it. Kind of dabbled in some stuff but, so yeah for about four years, my strategy in the beginning because i didn't really have a whole lot--. My business plan in the beginning was to wholesale and take that money and go buy rentals. But I didn't pay cash for hardly any of them. I did a lot of creative stuff, I am a big believer in owner financing. If you can get it-- I think both ways; to sell and to buy. I think owner financing is one of the huge keys to real estate period. I did some bird strategy stuff where I bought it with cash, then I refinanced my money back out. We did a couple of subject too's, we have done some lease options, we got five and ten year options on properties, so a lot of creative stuff to get to that number also 80, I think we are at 78 now.

David: That's amazing, that's awesome. I would imagine wholesaling is a great means to an end for you, because you can pick up properties for-- anywhere from 30-75-80 cents on the dollar, keep what you want to keep and rent, if they need a little rehab you do that as well I would imagine, right?

Brian: Totally. I think the great thing that's going on right now is we are doing a lot of coaching. We are teaching other people how to do it, and they are bring us the deals, which is a true win:win, because they are going to make money on a wholesale, and we are going to get a great property. Either we are going to flip it or keep it. We have actually been flipping a lot lately, because we are not quite getting the numbers I would personally like for cash flow, so we have been flipping a lot lately. I am a big believer in being diversified, as one of my mentors when I first started, as he put it; be a transactional engineer. I think there is a way to make money with every real estate deal. So figure out what that way is and try to implement that. But if you're new, I don't really know the climate of your audience; I’m not sure if your audience is newer or seasoned. But if you are new and you're listening to this; I highly preach stick with one thing in the beginning, then kind of graduate your way up. Whether it's wholesaling, if it is wholesaling go all in with wholesaling. Don't try and do all these other strategies in the beginning; just stick with one thing.

David: Yeah, I think that is a really good piece of advice, that's awesome. So you said you are doing coaching and mentorship, and you're working with your students. It's a great way to get leads like you said, are you doing that just in your local market? Or do you have a nationwide strategy?

Brian: Yeah so-- thanks that's a great question. I am a huge believer in doing everything local, staying as local as possible, and just dominating that area, dominating your local area. I am sure you have listeners all throughout the country, if not throughout the world. Man, if I were anybody getting started, or if maybe you know a little bit about real estate, and you kind of want to take that next step; whether it be a coach or mentor someone. Stay local, there is no reason to go and compete with all these gurus out there. Be the big fish in the small pond, and I actually have a book coming out that talks about exactly that. It's called 'Nothing's for sale - how to become the local real estate authority'. It's very easy to become the real estate authority in your local area, when it may be a lot more difficult to try and do it nationally.

David: Well let's talk about that. I am interested to hear more about the book, the title kind of throws me off; why that title?

Brian: Nothing is for sale--

David: Kind of counter-intuitive.

Brian: Yeah absolutely.

David: It's creative and I am interested to hear more; let's dive in.

Brian: Absolutely. I think that's what gets people's attention. Kind of the whole premise, the thesis of the book is; don't go out and try and sell something to someone right away. Provide them value, I’m on your podcast and hopefully I am providing your listeners with a bunch of value. If you let me, David, I would love to give your listeners a free copy of the book.

David: Yeah that would be great, how would they go about getting it?

Brian: At my website, nothingsforsale.com. It's all spelled out. F.O.R, nothingsforsale.com, and go on there, put your information in. Just pay a tiny shipping and handling, very inexpensive, just to cover my costs, and I will get that book out to you right away. The book, I am not sure when this is going to air, the book comes out April 12th, so very excited about this thing. You asked about the book itself, everything’s for sale you're right; everything is for sale. But here's the thing, if you provide someone with enough value up front, they are going to want to do business with you. Instead of just going right in for the sale, trying to nickel and dime someone along the way, like every piece of the process. Man like-- I don't know about you, but I get fed up with stuff like that; my bank charging me a $5-- today I went into my bank statement and I have a $5 for-- I forget that they call it, excessive withdrawals or something. It's like, that's my money, why can't I take my money out, take it back in and do what I want to do? They are charging--

David: What bank are you using?

Brian: It's any bank.

David: I've never heard of that, that's crazy.

Brian: Wells Fargo, all of the banks-- Chase does, Bank of America. All of the big ones do stuff like that. You're in real estate you know this. We got money coming in and out in large chunks all day long every day. It's insane. But little stuff like that, like going through the drive thru at McDonalds; if was to ask for a BBQ sauce, do you know what they say? That's 25cents. But-- you know why Chick Fill A is the leader in that space? Because if I go through the Chick Fill A drive thru and ask for ten BBQ sauces, they will say, 'Here you go Mr. Trippe, have a nice day." That makes me want to come back to Chick Fill A little things like that.

David: That's right.

Brian: That's the same premise. If I provide you with a bunch of value up front-- it's the law of [00:10:10.14 - inaudible]. It's almost like I have guilted you into doing something back in return for me. If I give you a free book, you might-- I am not telling you to do this and it's not a pre-requisite, but you might go on Facebook and say, hey man I just go this awesome free book from this guy named Brian, I haven't even heard of this guy and I’m thankful he sent me this free book. Well guess what? That's publicity for me.

David: Oh absolutely.

Brian: It's a fair exchange.

David: I think that's great, Brian. Tell us a little bit about the book. What does the book cover? What is the main message that you're trying to get out there?

Brian: Nothing's for sale, the main message-- it is for real estate investors. It's for any business owner, but it's really catered to the real estate investor that may be doing a lot of deals in their local area, never really thought about how to take it to the next level. I don't know if you're like me, but when we started cranking out a bunch of wholesale deals, probably in 2015, 2016, just doing a ton of volume; people recognize that. So what happens is, they just show up in my office, random people show up in my office and say, Brian I would love you to teach me real estate. It's kind of cool at first because you feel wanted, you feel needed. It's like, oh man I would love to help you. But then after-- it's not-- I am not trying to be mean when I say this, but after so long I’m sure you get invited to lunch all the time. I get invited to lunch, hey Brian I would love to take you to lunch and just pick your brain, and just learn a little bit about real estate. I get asked to lunch 20 times a week.

David: I do too.

Brian: I would never be able to get--

David: I would never ask anyone to lunch to pick their brain, because I know the flip side of that now. But if someone provides me value it's much easier for me to want to give back to them. But if anyone is just knocking down the door to get information from you it can become overwhelming. I love it. So the book, does it cover all things real estate, or does it focus on wholesaling? What do you have in there? What's the main--?

Brian: None of the above.

David: None of the above?

Brian: It's a business book, but it's how to become the local authority in real estate. So I talk about things like what to give away, how to give it away. There might be some people listening who have done some deals in real estate, and what if you just went and started a meet up group? What if you went to Meetup.com and just started a group? I did that back in April of 2016, I started a meet up group. Guess how many people came to that first one? Four.

David: I would say less than ten.

Brian: Four people came to that first group. But did I quit? No. It's patience plus consistency is the formula for success. I was patient with it and I was consistent with it every single month. Before I knew it I had ten, then I had 15, then I had 20.

David: Two years in, this is April second today.

Brian: That's right.

David: Two years in and how many people are at the meetings now?

Brian: Right so I’m getting there, in January of 2017 we changed the meet up because we were overflowing my office, we changed the meet up to a full blown REIA, which is a Real Estate Investor Association. Had 75 people at the launch in January of 2017. We have just had our most recent meeting which would have been in March; we had 204 people there.

David: Wow, that's awesome, man.

Brian: There's another group in town, they were getting 25 or 30 maybe 40 people, it's because we are doing things a completely different way. We believe in giving back, we believe in giving you-- the information is free you know that. You go on YouTube, everything is for free. It's not about the information, that is where I think a lot of people mess up. Why would someone buy a coaching or mentoring program? It's not for the information, because the information is everywhere. It's for speed and proximity. It's for speed of implementation, and it is to be close to you and your network.

David: Right.

Brian: That's why someone would buy a coaching program. The only thing we really charge because your membership is dirt cheap; it's $50 for an entire year. You can't beat that at any REIA. We do these little workshops once a quarter; it's like $200 for three full days of real estate investing training. We do some of that stuff for our local REIA. The book is about how could you do that for people in your local area.

David: That sounds great, man; I can't wait to check out the book. That's awesome, very cool.

Brian: Go to Nothingsforsale.com and I will send you a free copy.

David: I'll do that, that's awesome, very cool. So what do are you focusing on right now? Obviously this book is going to be launching soon, the podcast will probably air right on or right after the launch date, so nothing to worry about with all of our listeners and viewers. So what are your goals right now? You have 8- rentals, you're wholesaling, you got a book out, you have a REIA, you are doing coaching and mentoring locally in your market. What's your goals? I am always interested to hear other real estate investor’s goals.

Brian: Goals I think is an interesting thing because they change, right?

David: They do.

Brian: My goal four years ago is I wanted my wife to quit her job. She was a pharmacist, so if you know anything about pharmacy, she is making a ton of dang money, right? I had to find a way to replace her income. So that's why we ended up getting to that number as quick as we did with the rentals That was my goal was to get her to quit her job because she hated. Now my goals have shifted.

How can I continue to build businesses? So I've got a wholesaling business which kind of runs without me. I have a brokerage that I own that truly runs without me; I don't even step foot in there, I don't even list my own properties anymore. I have just gotten to a point where I don't like it. My soul focus; you asked me what I'm doing today; my soul focus is the REIA. I am on record for saying this; we are going to have the largest REIA here in the country here in the next three to five years.

David: Awesome man, that's exciting.

Brian: It's a completely different way than anyone else has ever known how to do this. Everybody wants to bring in these selling speakers. We don't bring in selling speakers, how about that?

David: Wow that's exciting, because every REIA I’ve been to-- id say at least two or three times a year on monthly meetings, you are talking 20-30% of the time they are bringing in someone who is--

Brian: If not more.

David: -- speaking, then do their two or three hour pitch at night, the following Saturday they have a workshop. They charge anywhere from-- it's usually not cheap. Your three day event is $300, right?

Brian: Yeah, between 2-300.

David: They are usually anywhere between 500-1000. One day or two day workshops that follow those speakers.

Brian: So the national questions is, how can you make money with it if you are not bringing in speakers? Well that's what we have-- I can't really say this yet because we are not totally there, but we're close. My next book is going to be how to build a REIA, how to build a profitable REIA to where you don't bring in selling speakers because I am sure, David, you get sick of going to those things, where they are sitting there selling you, run to the back of the room and do this and that.

David: Typically now I only go if the topic is something that interests me or will provide value to me. If it's just a basic meeting where you're doing networking-- I know there is always going to be some sort of sales pitch involved. I typically will avoid them I'll be honest with you. I love going to REIA's I love networking, but at this point in my career I have plenty of buyers. It is very rare I will come across a deal at the REIA unless it's another wholesaler who wants to JV with me. Yeah I do attend as much as possible, but often times if I have to face going versus not going, and the topic is something that doesn't interest me, or it's a pitch, I will tend to avoid it.

Brian: That's right, and here's the thing; most people in your situation-- you're a seasoned investor, you have been doing it for a while, you don't need to go to a REIA. It's in my book too. I wanted to get people like you at my REIA. So I say back and brainstormed before we even launched this thing; how can I get people to the REIA who are the seasoned guys, who will not only give-- well they will give the REIA credibility. If you have all the biggest investors in town at the REIA, you got a great thing going on.

David: That's a great point, but I am going to interrupt you for one second. Every time that we go to REIA's, there's actually several here in town, probably three if not four of them, 80:20 principle, 20% of them are going to have 80% of the people, there is actually five or six. But every time we go, they say, hey is this your first time going in? Or are you new to investing? Anywhere between 25-50% of the audience raises their hand. Sometimes it's higher, not that it's a bad thing, it's good they are getting people out-- and introducing them to-- a new way to earn money and invest and create wealth, but at the same time there is very few seasoned veterans that are intending every time. So the fact you guys are kind of focused on that is awesome, it's really cool. So how do you achieve that though?

Brian: Building relationships, giving value first. I will tell you a quick story. I am not the biggest, baddest real estate investor in town, I’m just not, I will just be honest with you. Here's the thing, if you look up Birmingham Alabama real estate investors; I will be the first one that pops up.

David: That's awesome.

Brian: I am just saying, and that's what this book is about. It helps you become that authority even if you may not be the authority. So you ask me how I get people there. I give them value. I approach the guy who is doing the most fix and flips in our area. He did 16 million last year in fix and flip volume. I approached him and said-- I thought-- if I had asked him to lunch of asked to ride along with him and all that stuff--

David: He's going to say, yeah get in line.

Brian: He gets bombarded with that crap, okay? It's more like how much are you going to pay me now. I thought of a way to approach him, or how can I get him not only to be on my team, I want him to come to the REIA, I want to kind of leverage him and his name for me and my sake, right? But I want to create a win:win. So I approached him with this, I said-- his name's Matthew and I said, Matthew, I would like to come along and record you, I would like to ride along and record you, and ask you some questions. That way it can help your brand-- I want to do a series on you, basically like a little TV show, and I will do all the editing, I will do all the filming, I’m going to ask the questions. You can use it as like a branding play, then we can have it to educate our audience. He was skeptical but he agreed to do it. He came to me recently, probably of about January of this year. This was probably about a year ago that we did this. He came to me about a year later and said, Brian that series that you did on me, asking me these questions, it's like a 7 part series 10 minutes each. We were just riding along looking at his properties, they are all his properties, made him the vocal point. He said--

David: Probably going through projects in different stages as well?

Brian: Totally.

David: Let me guess, now other people that are seeing this are bringing deals to him, and helping him build his business?

Brian: Totally.

David: -- while also providing value to yourself.

Brian: 100%

David: I love the win:win. I always tell every seller that I go out and meet in the field. My main business is wholesaling. I have rentals, not quite 80, little over 25 at this point. Obviously we do a lot of rehabs as well. I call them more wholetails. We don't like doing the $40-50-60,000 rehabs, we like the 20,000 or less ones. Especially for the rentals, 10-15k. But I always tell the sellers that my offer may not be the best offer. But I want to make this a win:win for you.

Brian: Totally.

David: Sometimes the motivation is not there, but often times down the road it is.

Brian: Yep, I agree.

David: I love it, I love it. So-- that's great, your goal is to focus on building the REIA?

Brian: Yeah.

David: Building the biggest REIA in the country, write another book on doing that.

Brian: Probably.

David: You have this first one coming out; this is your first book, right?

Brian: Yeah it's my second. So I wrote a book on wholesaling just for our local area, like how to do it, a step by step process specifically for Birmingham. So I wrote that-- the beginning for 2017 and I give that away. It would probably-- I’d be glad to give it to your audience, but I am sure it wouldn't do them much value. I give that away at my REIA for people who are new; I just give it to them as thank you for coming, a resource. If they come to the workshop I give it to them, make sure they have that. I am all about trying to provide value, because I truly believe, David, in the law of reprosity. Hopefully there is someone listening today, hopefully they are going to get some value out of this, and I don't know if there is a way, maybe we could do a JV deal down the road; I don't know what it is. I think it actually comes back to networking.

David: I think it does, it always does.

Brian: Networking is the single most important thing when it comes to real estate. Here's thing; most people don't know how to network.

David: Right.

Brian: Most people think networking is-- I actually had someone tell me this the other day, one of my cousins who is brand new to real estate, she said to me, you say networking and I think like someone is trying to sell me something. I'm like no. You know what networking is? I took her-- my books about to come out, and so I have got like 50-- address, the vanilla envelopes so I can put the book in, I have already got them addressed and ready to go. Do you know what networking is? The 50 of the biggest, baddest real estate-- we got to get you on there, David. 50 of the biggest, baddest real estate investors on the country, this is their name and address, where I just direct message them on Facebook and I want to give them value; I am going to send them a copy of my book for free, I’m paying for the postage and everything, because I don't know what will happen. Something-- probably for 46 out of 50 nothing will happen what so ever. But maybe 2,3 or 4-- I don't know, maybe some sort of alliance, I’m not sure. I am just-- everyone asks me why I would do this. You know what? In the beginning you may not know why, but in the end it will be crystal clear. Maybe I can get a speaking gig in one of the towns.

David: Right.

Brian: I don't know, you never know. If you are constantly being, I have a Gary [00:24:24.12 - inaudible] shirt on today and this is his quote, "If you are 51% of every relationship you're in, you will never have to worry about money for the rest of your life". You will just not have to worry about money. Give more than you take-- you're good, you're golden. Just be sure that you are giving more than you're receiving.

David: That's so true. Earlier you mentioned about being consistent. One of my favorite quotes is, "Consistent, persistent action".

Brian: Yep.

David: And it kind of sums it up, man. Truly the secret to being successful is consistently persistent and act on it. I love it, man. I love your energy; I love what you're working on.

Brian: Thank you.

David: That's awesome, very cool. I need to get on that list of the top 50, man.

Brian: You're on there man. Just shoot me your address, I will send you a book for sure.

David: Right. Well speaking of value, I do want to touch on one thing.

Brian: Sure.

David: In our podcast intros, harp on it on every episode. But I like to provide value to all of the listeners and viewers as well. Me and Mike have put together a free course on wholesaling.

Brian: Awesome.

David: Brian if you haven't checked it out yet, check it out. You can even tell your own students to check it out. It's freewholesalecourse.com. We got a good domain for it, very simple. Freewholesalecouse.com. Anywhere from 2-3 hours of content on there. We give away contracts, we give away calculators, we give away all types of value. It is free, we do capture e-mail and phone number, follow up with individuals if they have questions or need any further assistance. But I am all about it too, man. I like to give away the value in the beginning--.

Brian: Totally.

David: -- and I don't ask for anything for anybody to join other than just some of their information. Providing value is huge, man.

Brian: Here's the thing. Because you do that, there are probably scores of people that are out there doing deals today because of that. Not everybody needs the next step, not everyone needs the mentoring and coachship and the one and one and the handholding. But for the few that do, guess who they are going to go to? They are going to go to you, because you are the one that provided that value first, I am just a big believer in that. We give out, like I said the book, the wholesale book, the manual that we have; I give that out for free to people who kind of enter our organization. 95% of them or more don't need any more help. It might be that they don't want, don't really want to put in all the work and effort that it takes. Which I get that, that's fine, they are not who I am trying, not even really trying to sell coaching. But they are not my coaching student anyway.

Brian: No I hear you. It's funny that we have different mind sets on-- our target markets for the coaching programs. You had mentioned before I started recording this when we were kind of getting set up. It seems like there are a lot of people out of the St Louis area that are doing deals, you call them gurus and-- there are five or six that I just named that you're familiar with. The St Louis market is actually very saturated with wholesalers. The amount of market we have to do a deal, just over the last two or three years has almost doubled. Which is fine, not big deal. But I have kind of shifted-- to want to educate people on a national level, just because I don't really want to train my next competitor. I have trained many of my competitors which is fine. I don't have a scarcity mindset. But it doesn't seem your market is as-- what would be the right word for that? Saturated and crowded in this space for your business. So by doing it local it works for you. But, for us-- we will still take on students locally, but we are more excited about training that guy who is 800 miles away-- to get him into the business and make him money, because then they are not necessarily going to be competing with us.

Brian: I am going to challenge you here, David.

David: Sure.

Brian: I am going to challenge you a little bit. Listen, I face the exact same dilemma that you're talking about.

David: I'm all about abundance; it is just one of those things where everybody in my backyard is doing it now.

Brian: I totally get it. I have thought the same thing, and I felt the same thing and it is very easy to feel that. Here's the thing, I started-- I was trying to think of a way that I could do this in my local market, where I wasn't training people to compete with me.

David: Right.

Brian: I talk about it all the time; it's either you have a competitor or you could have a collaborator, right?

David: A strategic partner.

Brian: Sure, so I have tried to set it up where even my coaching students; we do deals together.

David: Yeah I do too, absolutely.

Brian: Set the program up to where-- and even if they go out on their own when they're done, I want to lend money to them, right? I am going to be there with them as much as they want. We got masterminds that are just for our inner circle, we got all these little training things to help them be successful. They are only going to come through my program for a short period of time.

David: Of course, of course.

Brian: We have got the REIA for additional training. We have got the masterminds as well, we have got a lot of things set up to where it's hard to do a mastermind nationally. Some will say it’s hard to do a mastermind locally because nobody wants to share anything. But we have just set it up to where like you said, we have an abundance mentality. Here is the way I think of houses. Yes it costs more to get a deal; we might be doing some things you might not be doing in your local area to do something. We went away from direct mail a little bit and started doing some other things. But-- here's how I think of houses. When I’m ready for my next houses, I go to this little convey belt that's got all the houses on it. I just go over there and pick one up.

David: Okay.

Brian: That's how I feel about it. Just because someone else gets a house, some people thing that's one less house for me.

David: No I don't see it that way at all. Let me just say one thing--.

Brian: I'm not picking on you by the way.

David: I know you're not. But I want to say something that I think is going to provide value. All the listeners and viewers that are you there that may have a lot of competition in the field. Just because I say I am not looking forward to taking on local students, doesn't mean I don't like other people on my market doing it, because they are strategic partners. So one thing we have created-- it's probably about two years old at this point. Nearly every one of my major competitors has copied me on this. I'm not upset about it, I think it's a great tool, and if you're not doing this already, I recommend you do it. So we use Podio as our CRM. It doesn't matter what CRM you have, but most of them are going to allow you to create a landing page with fields. So we created one and we bought the domain 'letscowholesale.com'. Very simple, there is a million different ways you can find the domains that a similar to that. And basically what we do is we have one of the largest buyers lists in the area. If there is another competitors ours, a newbie, it could be anybody for the most part that has a deal that they need help selling, they can go to letscowholesale.com, they can input that information about that property. The form is rather lengthy but it prevents us having to go back and forth via text, phone, e-mail.

Brian: Right.

David: So we are going to know who owns the property, is it owner by contract, what's your price? What do you want to market it at? Pictures and all that type of stuff. Then for the most part we give them a 60% split of the profits. It is a non exclusive agreement that we send over, just a little one page joint venture. If they sell it before we do they are entitled to nothing. If they produce the buyer we take 40% and give them 60%. It's amazing that we have been doing this for about two years. I would say one in five deals actually get approved through the system. We have had over 200 deals submitted through that system so far. We have done 20% of 200, we have done about 40 deals in two years, just by leveraging our buyers list and we are just doing the opposite by levering the efforts, and marketing efforts of our competitors, which I like to call strategic partners.

Brian: Sure.

David: It's a great system that we have built. I know for a fact that other people in the area have copies us but it's okay. They have undercut us so on and so forth. We tell all of our students, once you get to a point where you have a good sized buyers list; leverage it. Go out and meet the other wholesalers in the market and offer to help them non exclusively, to where you are not trying to take away their money, but if you can get the deal done faster or for more money-- it's a great system.

Brian: I love it. What's-- if people are copying that, what's the next-- I would love to mastermind a little bit. What's the next step? How can you take it to the next level? Maybe think if there is another way that you can take it to the next level.

David: Yeah you know it's getting competitive because people are starting to undercut us by offering 70% or $2-3000 flat fees to do the marketing. We don't-- we're not really trying to compete and play that game, then just go hire. So we have kind of said, listen we will give you 60%, we're going to take 40, non exclusive, take it or leave it. However we have one of the largest buyers list. If they want to go to another company and us, or them first then us later; it doesn't really matter to us. Again, we are very selective on the deals we approve. If someone sends over a deal that they have got under contract for 40, and they are asking 45-- that's not a big enough of a split to spend our time or efforts to then give away 60% of that.

Brian: Right.

David: So on and so forth. We also have a brokerage like you said as well. We are really just focused on the investor side of the business. We have the brokerage just to save money on the listings from our own rehabs and so on and so forth.

Brian: Cool.

David: It's a good question, man. How will we improve it? I think just kind of getting the word out that we offer that service. Because a lot of the new investors, and a lot of the students that we have in this area, that's their biggest problem is building that list. But you said it earlier, how do you get the list? You network.

Brian: Totally.

David: It's all you got to do, it's the simplest thing there is. One of the things I tell my students is-- if you want to mail absentee owners, or even vacant house, more really absentee owners, that's fine. But you are going to have a better ROI on your time by skip tracing and calling those individuals. One half of them are going to be buyers that you can add to your list that don't want to sell your a property, so why waste your time and money mailing whenever you are going to get maybe 1 out of 30, one out of 50 motivated sellers from that list? When you can get 1 out 2 individuals that say, yeah I have 3-5 rentals and I am looking for more. Oh great I am in the business of selling them.

Brian: That's great. I love it, that's awesome.

David: Awesome man. Well I am glad to have you on the show today, Brian. Looking forward to getting the book. Tell us where we can find it, and how anybody who would be able to contact you in the event they have any questions, so on and so forth.

Brian: Nothingsforsale.com is where you can get the book. Nothings then F.O.R sale dot come. You can go there, enter your information, pay a small shipping and handling fee, I think its 4.99 or something which I feel is super reasonable. To contact me individually, we started this thing all ALAREIA, Alabama real estate investors association. You can get in touch with me personally, I will give you my e-mail address, just send it to [email protected]. I think it's behind me for the people watching me on the podcast.

David: Those watching will be able to see it, but the listeners are going to need me to spell it out. So, A.L.A.R.E.I.A.

Brian: There it is, A.L.A.R.E.I.A.

David: That's awesome. Brian, thank you so much for joining us today. I know you have provided me with some value, and hopefully the listeners and the viewers are going to get some value out of that book you are putting out there. If you are ever in the Alabama area, specifically Birmingham, is that correct?

Brian: Birmingham, we just launched in Huntsville, we are launching in Montgomery in about a month. Anywhere in kind of central or northern Alabama, it's harder for us to get down to [00:36:37.19 - inaudible] it's about a four hour drive for us. But anywhere in northern or central Alabama come check us out.

David: Check it out, if you guys are ever in the area, hit up Brian, Brian Trippe. Go check out his free book on how to become the local authority in real estate investing. Did I get that right?

Brian: You got it, thank you, David, I appreciate you.

David: Look forward to that next book too, Brian. Thank you so much for joining us. Till next time guys, have a great day, we will see you then.