Building a 7-Figure Real Estate Empire

Cameron is the founder of a thriving 7-figure investment company. His journey began in college, where he laid the foundation for his empire. Over the past 2 years, Cameron's vision and tenacity have propelled his company to unprecedented heights, reshaping the landscape of real estate investing.

Transcript

Mike: 0:00

All right, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Game Changers show. I'm your host, Mike McKay, based in the Jacksonville, Florida market. And each and every week we do this show with people who are changing the game of real estate all over the country. If For anyone in the Jacksonville area if you're thinking about getting real into real estate, or maybe you're already in it, we are hiring salespeople to go out and help us buy some houses. So if you're interested in that, just send me a DM on Instagram and we can talk about it. And this week on the show, we have Cameron Moore out of central Florida. Cameron, welcome to the show.

Cameron: 0:32

Thanks for having me. How's it going guys?

Mike: 0:34

Absolutely, man. So if people who don't know you you want to tell us a little bit how, about how you got involved in real estate and how that's led you to where you are today.

Cameron: 0:43

Sure. So, currently right now I am in the central Florida market. We do some fix and flipping, some wholesaling, kind of a mix of everything. I got started. I've been in it for about three years now. I got started in when I was pretty much in school my senior year, kind of like finishing up. So I graduated in 2021. And I was going to be a doctor, so I was going to go to med school, but decided at the last minute there that I did not want to do that. So I started dipping my toes into real estate and kind of just have been running with it ever since. So that's kind of where we're at now.

Mike: 1:16

Cool. And we were talking a little bit offline of that, at one point you guys had kind of scaled up your flipping operation. I think you said you were doing 15 in one month or something, and there was some learnings along the way there. You want to share maybe some of those for people who are thinking about scaling a flipping operation.

Cameron: 1:33

Sure. Sure. So, in 2023, so yeah, we're in 24 now. So last year summertime, we got to the point where, we were getting a little trigger happy, right? We had a couple of deals go well, starting to feel good about things, started to get some opportunities that came through us, from referrals. So we're getting a lot of referral deals, with realtors, things of that nature, people sending me deals. And I just bought everything that I could. Okay, yeah, it's going to work some way, shape, or form. So we pretty much bought 15 in a month and we were in no way should perform prepared for that. Right. I mean, we're talking, I had two crews that I like knew and trust. At that time we now are down honestly to one, but you know, it's just, we literally slammed ourselves with so many things that like I wasn't prepared for. I wasn't, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. And a lot of these weren't just like cosmetic flips either. Some of these were. 150, 000 flips. So it's like down to the studs. And that takes time. It takes time. It takes a lot of money. That was a big thing as well. So like capital, having cash on hand, being able to like, float that operation. I just wasn't prepared for, of course I didn't do the numbers. I didn't run the numbers of Oh yeah, that's, you need to have X amount of money just to do those flips, with interest payments and things of that nature. So it was just a very rude awakening. And we've obviously scaled back on the flipping side since so we're a little bit more wholesale now, but that was a summer of last year I still to this day have a few of those flips. So learn that. Yeah, learn the hard way

Mike: 2:51

are you still working on him or you made him rentals?

Cameron: 2:53

One of them two of them we're gonna keep a couple of them selling it a lot or some couple of my sort of loss I still have a few more that I'll probably sell it a loss So like I think maybe four of them will take a loss on but at this point I'm like, dude I just won't be done. I want to be done.

Mike: 3:05

So did you make money on the other 11 though?

Cameron: 3:08

Yeah, we did. I mean, some were small. So we had a couple of big pops. So it all comes out in the wash, but it it was brutal, man. It was brutal. It was just, it was holding onto these. The biggest thing was like the time that we took, mentally dealing with these. So I couldn't focus on continuing to build, the acquisition sales marketing side the actual company in and of itself, I was just dealing with these like problem children that we had in our company for quite a long time. And so that took up a lot of mental bandwidth for sure.

Mike: 3:34

Sure. How many a month were you guys flipping before you decided to do 15 at once?

Cameron: 3:38

Yeah. So we're, I would say three, three to five. Right. And it's we're in and out. And then obviously a big thing was always acquisitions issue, right? Getting the amount of deals. So we weren't doing a ton of direct to seller marketing at the time. So we partnered with, yeah, we partnered with a lot of realtors. To get those deals I bought like a few from, referrals from social media, actually, funny enough. And then we pretty much did a lot of partnering with realtors. And then there was a few, like we obviously have always done direct to seller marketing, but I was only spending 10, 000 a month or so, which sounds like a lot. It is a lot. We're quite a bit past that now. So I say only, but it is a lot of money. But at that time. Compared to where we're at now, it wasn't much. So, I could only expect maybe deals from that. So I'm just everything hit at once essentially.

Mike: 4:18

Yeah, and so, after that, you kind of decided that you're going to be about, I think you said about 80 percent wholesale. Is that kind of where you guys are sticking or.

Cameron: 4:26

Yeah. So, so now current day that took a couple of months to transpire, right? We kind of flip to that. So we were heavy flips for the summer. Obviously we got our hands full with those. And then I decided that in order to get. What kind of where I want to go that the fix and flip model prior, primarily wasn't for me. I'm still doing them to this day, but we're talking like maybe one to two a month versus, with the other five to six being wholesales. And so that operation is a lot easier in my opinion to scale, when you're wholesaling, obviously, cause you're a sales and marketing company. And so we started to prioritize our efforts on just acquisition and dispo, right? So assigning those as opposed to taking them down because, And, there's two different companies, honestly, in a sense, when you're doing fix and flips, like you have the sales and marketing acquisition, but then you also have flipping. And those are two things, right? And so I wanted to just get really good at one of them and just be able to prioritize them. And so, yeah, today we're pretty much 80 percent wholesale slash innovation. The other 20 percent I'll buy.

Mike: 5:21

So, what did you kind of change, when you decided to get away from just being like a fix and flip company and decided to be like a really wholesale or offseller off market acquisitions company?

Cameron: 5:35

Sure. So Yeah. systems and processes were big. And then exactly that. It's you gotta get really good at marketing. You gotta get really good at sales. So we upped our marketing quite a bit. I mean, we're to the point, we're spending around, 000 a month now in direct selling marketing. So, we have a decent operation there obviously. So, getting good deals and how to find those consistently. We don't do as much outbound marketing as we did. Right. So a year ago, I was doing a lot of texting, a lot of cold calling. Which in return requires a lot of management, with teams of, VAs and things of that nature. But still there's a lot of more sifting through leads that you have to do versus now we are primarily just inbound. So a lot of PPC, a lot of direct mail and just learning how to consistently track our numbers and be consistent in those processes to get, two to three contracts a week. That's like the biggest thing. So just really getting good and dialed in at our numbers. That changed my business, honestly. Like we did that Q3, Q4 last year and it was a game changer.

Mike: 6:29

What particular numbers did you guys get dialed in?

Cameron: 6:32

Yeah. So we didn't, honestly, I ran a lot based off feel, for a while ago, at the beginning, a year ago, and now we're pretty much running numbers for everything. So it's okay, what's the cost per lead? What's the cost per contract? How many offers does it take to get a contract? How many appointments do we need to go on? So like our team knows exactly what they're responsible for. And then if they're off, off based on something, it's okay, we can at least pinpoint what the problem is versus a year ago, I would say some things like, oh, I don't feel like that's working. I feel like this is working. It's well, we haven't been able to support that. So at least we can actually look at the numbers and be okay. Yes, this is working. This isn't working. So on and so forth.

Mike: 7:07

Are you tracking that down to the marketing channel level?

Cameron: 7:10

Oh, for sure. Yeah, we track. We, in the past, especially this quarter, but last quarter as well we try to track everything like truthfully. I'm trying to get to the point where I know every number in our company, and just get really good with the data. But yeah, we know, what it costs per lead consistently, what it costs per, Appointment, contract, so on and so forth. Closing, things of that nature. So that I'm able to see trends and then also take that information and make decisions based on that.

Mike: 7:33

What's your target cost per contract

Cameron: 7:36

Yeah. So we try to get to around 5, 000 five to 6, 000. We're inbound, right? So like that may be a little bit more expensive, but I know our average deal size is around 33, 000. So it's I'm okay with that all day long. Like I said, we do a lot of PPC. So pay per click and a lot of Google stuff. So, I know it takes us about 13 leads right now to get a contract which is good. i'm happy with that and then it's ebbs and flows too, right? So having that data to see when something's not working see when something's not performing for example last Q3 of last year, we were absolutely killing it with a paper lead service, so we were doing a lot of paper lead, where you just, obviously just pay for the lead in and of itself, we were crushing it. We're getting about a 10 X return. And then as soon as Q4 hit, it was crazy. We hit some like 75, 000 deals here. 50, 000 deals there, it was it was solid and then Q4 hit and it just almost like overnight just pretty much dropped off. So just some changes like that, being able to track the numbers, track the data. We made switches pretty quickly, because I knew what to expect and I knew how to track that at that point. So right now, yeah, we're just big big PPC, big direct mail people.

Mike: 8:40

And then are you hire that PPC out to an agency or is that something you guys actually manage in house?

Cameron: 8:45

For sure. I'm hiring all that out. Yeah, that was the mistake I made at the beginning too. Right. I tried to do everything myself and I'm not a Google PPC expert. Right. I'm not that's not my area of expertise. That's not, up my alley. So now I pay for that 100%. So we have people that, that manage it for us.

Mike: 8:58

I've had a couple of people on the show have talked about PPC and they say a lot of it's about like kind of working very closely with that agency to make sure that I don't, we don't do PPC, so I can't talk about the details of it, just to make sure that I guess they're hitting the right keywords and other things like that. Like how closely do you guys work with your agency and are you giving them like feedback? Or I'm just curious how that all works.

Cameron: 9:19

Sure. Yeah. So I'll say this. I don't know Google PPC in and of itself very well. So that's not my area of expertise, but I do know though, is I know the numbers and I know the data. So I know the industry is, I talk to people consistently, like I know what I'm looking to hit data wise. So like numbers wise, excuse me. So if I'm not hitting those, I'm going to them and I'm saying, okay, what's going on here? Right. I may not know what keywords you're targeting or what our bids are, this, that, and the other, but it's I mean, I'm looking at it. I don't know what, how to recommend something to them, but I can say okay, this is off because I have other data from like people that I talked to or what I've seen in the past that can state otherwise. So that's kind of like how I operate. I just try to know what I'm getting myself into, know what to expect, right? If I know it cost me 6, 000 to get a closed deal or whatever the case may be, like I'm not going to go cry if I only get, three deals a month if I'm only spending 18, 000. So it's like having those proper expectations. Even if it means I'm spending 700 bucks a lead, whatever the case is, I just try to look at it from like a macro perspective. If I'm hitting my numbers, if I'm getting a return, then cool, that works.

Mike: 10:19

What's like the main, maybe one or two metrics that you're looking at and then saying, Hey, my, there might be a problem with here. I need to go talk to the PPC agency.

Cameron: 10:27

Sure. So I try to look, I'm a big kind of volume guy based on like how much we spend. And so I know, we're spending somewhere in the realm of. 700, 800 bucks a day, whatever it is. Right. So it's I know based on that, like for our guys. I should at least have some deal flow or excuse me, lead flow of, like two deals or two leads. Right. The

Mike: 10:44

Per day. Or

Cameron: 10:44

One to two, one to two. Right. And that may be kind of expensive, maybe off, but it's if I start to see that we're not having as many appointments set from PPC, that's something I kind of raise, raise the flag on. And then, based on that, I mean, that's a big, that's a big thing right there. And then obviously we do like a quality of control as well. So it's like, what is the reason that they may not be a quality lead or an opportunity? Right. And so then that can kind of change what keywords or what campaigns are running. But mostly for me it's cost per lead. And then at the end of the day, cost per contract with PPC. So I just kind of try to track those things. Cause if I know if it costs, if I'm getting less leads, but I'm getting more contracts, I'm okay with spending more for that. So it's just, it's trying to just look at it from a macro perspective and then having an understanding of, what are some averages? What are things that are working well for me? If I'm hitting an ROI, cool. That works.

Mike: 11:30

And how are you like managing that kind of numbers further down the funnel In the sense of sometimes it's, what if the sales guy screws up on your team?. Like that it could be a great lead and like you make some mistake.

Cameron: 11:41

exactly. So that's a big thing too, right? It's like knowing where in the funnel you're messing up or could improve, I should say, because you may be, You may want to jump the gun and blame PPC for, poor leads. When at the end of the day, it's it's your lead management is not contacting them within 60 seconds or whatever the case is. Right. So it's like having the whole funnel tracking KPIs is really important for us. And that way we can see if there's a, if there's a drop off anywhere, I can at least look further into that. So like for us, right. A couple of things. Well, like when a lead comes in, we want to get to it within 60 seconds. As we're filming this, we just got one in. So our team better get on that. So it's, yeah, it's 60 seconds, we wouldn't be on the phones because these people are on the, this is specifically for PPC, but they're on the web going from like form to form, right? They're going from website to website. They want to just, you need to interrupt that pattern interrupt. So we want to call them as soon as possible, right? Within 60 seconds. That's our goal. And then from there, obviously have the conversation, try to qualify them, try to set an appointment. If we're not setting as many appointments in a week, right? I may look and be like, okay, what are our conversations on the lead management side looking like? If we are hitting appointments, if appointments are being set and then our acquisition guys are going out there and then obviously they're not closing. It's okay. Cool. Is that an acquisition problem? Is that a lead? Is that a lead problem with the appointments that are being set? Like quality of appointment? I don't know. Right. So it's like that's where we start looking and know where to look. Right. So those are the things that we look to track along the way.

Mike: 13:01

Yeah. And then you guys are doing pretty much all inbound. So what is, I'm curious what your qualification criteria is to go actually out to a property and meet someone.

Cameron: 13:10

Yeah. So I'll touch on that too. We we're in person. So some people do virtual. Appointments, over the phone, I am in person. So that what that means is we're going out to their house, right. For the appointment, some people don't like that. Some people do like that. I'm not sure. I just have always done in person. And it's something I feel confident in. I feel like first and foremost, if there's a guy that's going to do it virtually versus me in person, like I feel with great confidence that I will get that deal over them. We've seen that time and time again. So it works for us. Right. And I'm only doing in central Florida market. So, our radius isn't terribly, big. So what do we do typically is they want, they need to have some sort of motivation, essentially, one of the four pillars where essentially they want to take action. That's a big thing. First and foremost, we want to move forward. And they want to sell their house. So if we get to that point, we try not to overqualify. I'll be honest with you. So if we get to the point where our team knows, like we have a little bit of obviously we have talk tracks and we have scripts and things of that nature, but if they're ready to move forward and make a decision, that's pretty much the biggest thing for us, because I can't say how many times people have said, Oh, I want 400, 000 when we've gotten it at one 20 or whatever the case is. Right. So it's like numbers mean nothing to us. What's the situation, is there some motivation there and are they ready to make a decision if they have that? We're going out there every time because that's that's a big way. Obviously, that's how we get deals.

Mike: 14:21

what are some of your talk tracks to figure out if they're actually ready to make a decision?

Cameron: 14:25

Sure. Sure So first and foremost, like whenever we have a elite come in first and foremost the first thing we ask is okay, what has you looking to sell from there typically like you're gonna get Almost all the stuff you need right? Okay. Oh, well, I'm moving. It's okay, when are you looking to move? Right. So it's very specific on each individual, like person's like case or whatever they have going on, as opposed, I mean, obviously sometimes we ask like how, look, how soon you're looking to sell. Six months, three months, doesn't really matter. If I hear that there's not a lot of urgency there, as opposed to the sometime, most of the times the deal was the deals we get are, man, I got to sell within 30 days. I got to sell like as soon as possible. Right. So things like that, like urgency, So just asking them the timeline. If they have a timeline and they know it, then obviously they're ready to make a decision. So, that's one of the ways. So just, what's the motivation? What's your, are you ready to move forward? So what's your timeline looking like? Do you have a plan? For what you're going to do after you sell things of that nature.

Mike: 15:16

Yeah. What is your sales team look like to handle that lead flow and go out for, go out to appointments?

Cameron: 15:22

Sure. So lead manager two acquisitions now, and then we have a dispo. So these come in and then we try to do six appointments each acquisition wise, for the week per week. Yeah. So where we cover, In central Florida it's, we try to go within obviously an hour of the office we're located here in Lake Mary. So an hour each in a way, but if the leads decent, if we know his motivation, we'll go a little bit further. So in and of that, ideally we're hitting two a day for each guy, but that doesn't happen. So like we try to go to six attended appointments, eight will be booked, but six will be attended, cause there's some sort of no show typically. So that's kind of like the goals we hit. And then from there we should be getting, two to three contracts a month or a week, excuse me.

Mike: 16:02

Gotcha. And you said, was, is one person handling lead management there are acquisitions guys also allowed to jump in on that lead management or that's solely a.

Cameron: 16:11

Yeah, they are. Yeah, they are. They're allowed to take the PPC leads inbound if need be, if we're getting a little slant. I prefer that honestly so specifically for a PPC, things of that nature with high intent. I prefer it to be our acquisition people, actually. Other lead forces, with direct mail, when there's a little higher volume, things of that nature, you can have, just normal lead management. But with higher intent things like PPC, I prefer acquisition people to be taking those

Mike: 16:33

is the lead management in office for you or is that a remote position

Cameron: 16:37

in office. Yeah,

Mike: 16:39

Talk to me about just building out that sales team. That's something we've been doing and it's, I find it super interesting.

Cameron: 16:45

It's been a learning process. So whenever I first hired my first salesperson, I had done the sales and acquisitions myself. So I was confident in it. I knew what I knew it worked for me and I knew okay, it was a lot, it was one of those that's just what you do kind of thing, it's okay, like, how do you not know how to do that when I first hired somebody? So like it was tough because I didn't have like training, I didn't have training or documented processes to be able to be like, okay, here's the recipe. Right? So that's a big thing. It's like truthfully having frameworks, that work well for what does a, an appointment look like? What does it talk to like we have scripts, but I'm a much bigger fan of just having like frames to follow as opposed to just say this word verbatim or say this paragraph verbatim because then you start sounding robotic things like, if there's. Waves, with conversations, like things go all over the place. So I want it to be flexible, but at the same time, like they have like frames to follow. So, we train people on Sandler, which is the stuff Steve training and all those guys, John Martinez, all that stuff. We do that. They're all the same and they have, here's your upfront contract, here's Dicken for motivation. Things of that nature, right? So we try to really have a good frame for how the appointments work, but to build the team, right, it's just constant training. It's constant like feedback on each and every appointment, trying to make sure that okay, what went wrong, what went well, training is a big thing, like consistently, think that you're, they're good. It's like still train. And then having proper expectations too, with okay, these are your numbers. These are like non negotiables if we don't hit them, like why, and then making sure that I understand what they want to accomplish as well. That was a big thing. I would force wants and desires into them, but like truthfully trying to get down to the point, it's okay, how much money do you want to make? Why do you want to make that kind of money? Because it's easier to be like, okay, what do I need to do as a leader to, help you get to that number? Right. It's a different frame. It's a different way to approach it as opposed to, you didn't hit your numbers. What the heck's going on? Right. So that was on me. That was more leadership stuff. Okay. But which I'm constantly trying to work on. I'm nowhere near the best, far from, I'm still trying to get better. But that was a big thing that changed and helped. And then knowing to, I'll still go on some myself as well. I'll still go on them as well. If we need to, so like knowing that I'm in the trenches with them, I think that may help so I can kind of see things, but trying to grow and have something that's repeatable has been. Helpful in building that.

Mike: 18:51

Yeah. What about when you're in the hiring stage, what does your hiring process look like?

Cameron: 18:56

Sure. So, top of funnel, I mean, we try to do a lot of stuff. Wise hire referrals. I prefer referrals if we're being honest, from others. So we try to make sure obviously that they take a personality test and that they're fit for that position. So, there's.

Mike: 19:10

a PI or what are you having them

Cameron: 19:11

Yeah, we do. We do PI. So, then from there, if they're fit there, like that's the first scrub. And then obviously we try to see, okay, cool. What experience do you have? And then it depends on the role, right? So it depends on the role greatly, like kind of how we go about it. But from there if once we hire them, once they make it through that process, we have, 30, 60, 90 days in regards to like there's game plans for 30, 60, 90 beginning there's training, onboarding, things of that nature. And then there's expectations to hit in the 30, 60, 90. And then we just make that really clear. So onboarding has gotten a lot better because we have everything documented. So for each role, okay, here's what to expect. Here's the training. Here's this, here's how we do things. Then we kind of bring them on board. They'll see Some ride alongs or some shadowing. There's some shadowing that's going on. And then from there we have expectations for what they should hit numbers wise on those those 36 90 days.

Mike: 19:59

Yeah. And what about particularly for hiring acquisitions, people like what are you looking for in terms of a profile on PI?

Cameron: 20:06

Probably entrepreneurs are, and any sort of like leadership role is there. It's been really interesting, I was having this conversation the other day too, because I was talking to a couple of my buddies who have seen success from things that aren't in acquisition roles specifically, that aren't just associated with what like, the profile should be. So, there's no like heavy driving kind of like ability there. There may be a little bit more like soft skills, that are hard to kind of like track and see, but. I don't know. I have kind of faded away a little bit, if we're being honest with you, kind of diving deeper from judging so strictly based off of a PI, to be honest with you, because. As a base level, right? If they hit the things that, we want in regards to depends on the test you're looking for, but it kind of just differs because I haven't, we have two guys now. And one of them is lead manager, in my opinion, like the type of personality that's going to lead manager versus acquisitions is gonna be a little bit different as well. So what works there doesn't really work. The best for the actions.

Mike: 21:00

Talk about what do you think that is the difference you're looking

Cameron: 21:03

Sure. So, from what I'm seeing, and this is a learning process, right? So these are things where I talk about on a day to day basis because I have not figured it out to the best, honestly, like the best yet. I'm trying to figure it out for myself. So it's good to talk through and see, cause this is like what I'm thinking about day by day. With lead management specifically, I think there needs to be a little bit more patience as opposed to like with acquisitions, the guys that performed well for us kind of have that I'm going to go out and get it done kind of attitude and can be a little bit more pushy. Can be a little bit more of a driver in a sense. But it's just the way in which they can approach things. I guess we kind of just having kind of a balance between, okay, when do I push, when do I pivot in regards to, with the person on lead management, I think there needs to be a little bit more patience because oftentimes with our guys, they can be on the phone for 30 minutes, right. Before you kind of get really any information or build that relationship. So. Acquisitions guys don't have the patience sometimes to do that and just sit there and kind of chat and, kind of just, be sociable in that aspect, they're a little bit more driving in a sense to where it's okay, listen, we just signed the contract kind of thing. So I don't know. It's just something that I've observed. I need to try to see and test it in myself, but we still don't have like where, we, the two guys we have now a little bit newer. So this job's time to go. So I'm trying to observe there, but the guys in the work that didn't work as well in the past. It's on me. So I don't really have a ton of data that can say Hey, this is working like really well. This is kind of like a new thing for me. Cause there's nobody that's absolutely crushing it. Right. It's nobody's absolutely killing it. So I don't want to be hearing like, yeah, you should go for this or you should go for it. You shouldn't go for this. Cause I still feel I haven't gotten it figured out myself, to be honest with you. But I think that may be a lot more on the leadership side as well. So I don't want to say that it's it's personality issue when their leader, it could be the one that needs a lot of improvement. So I'm not sure it's a day by day thing.

Mike: 22:38

Fair enough. What about the interview process? What does that look like for a salesperson?

Cameron: 22:42

It's served me very well, just because I can honestly I can see how communicate. You can kind of learn 60 second Just video of them talking. So that's, that has served me quite well. At least that kind of helps the filter. And then what we'll do is we'll set up a 15 minute phone call, phone interview. And then from there, if it makes sense, we'll have them come to the office. And then after that, we'll probably have one more sit down and then after that, I should be able to make a decision. So we kind of have a little bit of a filter, but the biggest thing is top of funnel. That 60 second video has served me very well because I would try to talk to everybody. No, it's just a waste of my time. No offense to them, but it's it's, yeah, you gotta be fit to some degree. So

Mike: 23:20

yeah, gotcha. And you were saying that you guys do a lot of, not a Sandler training. We've done a lot of that over the years. I'm curious if you want to talk a little bit more about that.

Cameron: 23:28

Yeah. So Sandler training, essentially, so when I got started It was like from the homebusters model. So the homebusters model franchise model, I'm not sure if you're familiar with homebusters. They train off of Sandler. Right. And so David Sandler, he was a sales guy great sales guy. And he kind of has this like framework that, that we teach about. And we kind of train and to preface this as well, all of the guys you see today, the Steve trains, the John Martinez is, I was talking about a little bit about earlier. They go based pretty much off of Sandler, right? So essentially it talks about having a framework of when you go into appointment, how to structure those conversations. So with, at the beginning you go through an upfront contract. Essentially what that is you're letting them know, okay what's going to happen today, right? What does that look like? So we're going to be in here for 45 minutes to an hour. We're going to ask you some tough questions. We're going to see this property as a fit for us. It may not be a fit. Are you going to be okay with that? Pretty much just letting them know exactly what's going to happen. And you're diving into some motivation. And then obviously there's a few things you need to dive deep into there. What's the timeline, who are the decision makers, you start to wrap things up and then we go back to our car, we talk to the finance team, you see, send it in for underwriting. And then we come back in with an offer, and we try to get assigned then in there. So like that whole frame that I just described is pretty much based off of Sandler, and you're going to say Sandler, that's kind of like the techniques in which we train. And then we dive deep into situations, obviously, like that's more of the training today, right? It's like situational stuff. So if, how do you proceed,

Mike: 24:48

Is that like kind of a role play that you guys have for

Cameron: 24:49

For sure. Role playing because at the end of the day, like once you know the frame, it should be pretty similar. It's just how do you deal with individual situations that arise because stuff can come out of, all over the place. So who knows? How do you stay on your toes and be able to address it?

Mike: 25:02

So, I know a lot of times kind of back to the PPC thing, people have said you kind of got to go to a certain, like wider area with PPC to make it cost effective, but you seem to have done fairly well with it and, kind of sticking to the central Florida region. I guess, what's your opinion on what people say on that?

Cameron: 25:18

Yeah. So I think there's two schools of thought there. I see guys that do it virtually all across the nation, right? It may not be in every state, but like their whole goal is let me get as few lowest cost per lead as possible because in Google, right? The bigger the surface area, obviously the cheaper the lead, because you have a higher volume and you have a higher umbrella in which you're looking to get leads across. My problem with that, the reason I'm okay with paying a little bit more per lead is just because it. I know my market well and I feel like we can execute better than maybe just going early. Right. So it's if I got a lead in Kansas, I'd have to just send it to a buddy. Cause I don't know how to operate as well there. I don't know the market. I don't feel like I have an advantage there. So I'm okay with paying more in that sense, just because we know when we operate in the central Florida market. So I feel very confident in it. Not to mention, we also do in person appointments. So there's that as well. So I think it just kind of comes down to the fact of I have a decent enough area to where it's not, it's not just like one county. I do, we operate pretty heavily in five counties. So it's like County, Orange County, Lake, Seminole, Volusia. So kind of along I 4, which if you're not in Florida, you have no idea what I'm talking about, but Central Florida. So we operate there. And just based on having my PPC there, I can get it to where the numbers make sense for me. If I was just operating maybe in one County, I probably couldn't make it make sense just because there's not enough volume makes sense on numbers wise, right? Because you'd have to, you're bidding way higher and you're paying a lot more per lead just because you have such a small area versus if you tell Google, Hey, Google, I'll take leads all over the place, right? Well, they can just send you ones that makes sense, and bring your costs down. So for me, with the areas in which we have it and it does make sense, Even though I pay more than somebody that would just say, Hey, let me blanket target Florida, but it's just because I operate a little bit differently. I'm not virtual. So even when we're wholesaling, right. It's I want our guys out there. We're the ones taking pictures. We're the ones that are having those conversations. Like we have people that can do walkthroughs on the dispo side that are on the team. Right. So I just feel like we're a little bit tighter and we can operate a little bit more smoothly on that sense.

Mike: 27:15

Yeah. Do you guys find that like the people you're competing against on PPC? If they filled out a few forms is anyone else going in person?

Cameron: 27:22

So one of my really good buddies is also in this. I have a couple of buddies as well. So I kind of know what they're doing as well. It's almost. My, my biggest competition are my friends, which is kind of funny. It happens a lot in business, which is kind of ironic, but it's a mixed bag. It's a mixed bag. I get ecstatic when they don't go in person. I tell my team, I'm like, that's just that's a deal for us. It's if it's going to make sense, like I have with great confidence that we will get that deal before they will, just because we can scorch the earth. Oh my gosh, you're going to sell somebody. You're going to sell this house. Somebody has never seen it. Gee whiz. How do you think you're going to do that? Right? Little things like that. So, but to answer your question specifically, do I see them in person as well? Not a ton. Not a ton. We're pretty quick to try to schedule appointments, right? So if a lead comes in, we want to schedule within honestly, within 24 hours, ideally that day, but late day and we'll stay at the latest, to be honest with you. So like we try to keep it a little bit open schedules for that, just because it's all about speed urgency, right? And especially with high intent. Inbound stuff like that. And that's changed, right? When you're doing cold call and texting, we used to be able to just kind of consistently talk to this person and set an appointment when it made sense. And there wasn't, as much competition. And so it like, it was a different, completely different operating way. Now that we have pretty much inbound, we have to change the way in which we deal with that as well. So pretty quick, we try to deal with everything with great urgency and we're trying to get out there as quickly as possible. Like I want to beat the other guy, cause. It may be talking to somebody, but hopefully they won't be talking to them. If I set an appointment, get out there that day, they want to feel like they can take care of, right. That's what I've come across. Like when someone calls in, they just want to feel like they've gotten it taken care of, it's okay, I'm working on it at least. So it's if they have an appointment, if I'm on the phone with them, whatever, and they know I'm coming, they just feel like, okay, at least I have that taken care of. I don't need to go fill out 10 more forms.

Mike: 29:04

We haven't done any PPC, but we've done quite a bit of direct mail. Like how would you compare like dealing with those two types of leads, like any differences there?

Cameron: 29:12

Yeah. We honestly try to deal with them pretty similar now, just because that's the way we try to do it really, cause it's inbound. Try to get out there as quickly as possible. It depends on, the way the intent based on the direct mail is a little bit different. We sent out some some check mailers. Are you familiar with those? I'm sure you've seen us too. yeah, that's the hot stuff right now. And so, yeah, if somebody's interested, right, we want to get, we want to get out there as soon as possible, just because we want to increase the chances that we're going to get that deal. And I know for a fact that the sooner I get out there, the better my chances are. I want to either be the first person out there. I want to be the last person out there. I don't want to be like in between, right. Because at least first I can get it done, in one shot, if I'm last, I can score sea earth and at least see what I'm working with, but I don't be, I'd rather be the first or fourth, not second or third, just because second or third, you're kind of just a commodity. You don't have anything to base off of. It's more so just. Oh, I got another guy coming. I got another comment or this guy said this, but I got another guy coming. So it's you can't really see what you're working with, but we get deals based on being the first. So I want to be the person there. That's going to just solve the problem. Cause that's what these, that's what these people are looking for is solved problems.

Mike: 30:11

What are are you doing anything like unique with like kind of data or like Any strategies on direct mail side?

Cameron: 30:17

Yeah, I mean, honestly, we just pay, we pay for pretty good data. We've mixed, we've done data flick is the one we're using now. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, but they, it's all AI ranked and all that fun jazz. I just think it comes down to consistency. So, so finding like your buy box, I used to not be a buy box guy. I was just like, yeah, send me anything that makes money. But now I realize Especially in this market, things have changed a little bit. So, I want to target specifically like median house price or below. I own a Central Florida here in Orlando that's about 400, 000 or below. And that just increases my odds for me to be able to A, move a deal. But B, if I need to buy it, I can buy it and I feel comfortable buying it. So other than that, like that's kind of been a specific thing. One thing that's worked really well for us, like going back to finding deals for free, is the realtor side of things. So what I do is I'll go and set up these brokerage meetings at these brokerages here in central Florida. So essentially what we do is I try to get out every month. Typically brokerages have some sort of powwow with our team. And I speak at those and pretty much say. Listen guys, if you ever come across properties that don't make sense for you, I'd love to pay you 1 percent up front and then fix it up or you know get deal with the property whether I Potentially I could wholesale most the time I tell them I'll fix it up or do some sort of wholetail action and then I'll give them the full listing on the back end so That has gotten me an unbelievable amount of deals because realtors don't Look it. Ugly house is the same way you and I do, they look at it as almost a problem, right? They want to have a nice shiny, perfect MLS listing as opposed to, what I deal with this house in these a hundred thousand dollars repairs, they're like, Oh my God, I can't put that in MLS. I don't want to deal with that. So being a solution to their problems, that's been super helpful. For us, if you're looking to get like free deals, So, and just trying to build relationships in that regard because they come across like realtors are out there marketing as well, right? Like they're doing all the same type of stuff. They're talking to sellers consistently. They're going on appointments consistently. I want to be the person they think of when they come across a house they don't know what to do with. So that has served me very well. And you can even wholesale those deals. If you're upfront and honest with them, they just want, once again, they want somebody to just deal with the problem. So that's something that we've we've We've done. That's been quite helpful.

Mike: 32:22

So you just kind of reach out to the different large brokerages in the area and set that up or just kind of relationships over the years or

Cameron: 32:28

We call it. So we just called walk in. I'm actually about to hire somebody as our relationship manager. Yeah, we literally, and I'm gonna, I have a spreadsheet of all the brokerages and we've gone into a bunch at this point, but we walk into them and try to schedule an appointment. Literally, like we drive there. And we try to talk to the broker that's in charge. And we try to get on a, schedule an appointment. Cause nobody's doing that. No one's doing that. That's low hanging fruit. And you would be surprised, like, how many deals they come across that they just don't know what to do with. And then not to mention, right, it's In our industry, in our business, there's very few things that like compound. And so one of the things that I try to think about for my business is what am I, what can I build that does compound like the company vehicle that will really grow? Well, I want everyone to know like our company and our brand, right? So if those realtors consistently, talk about us and think about us, they'll bring us deals for the years to come. And so that's something that I will focus on. How can I. If I shut off marketing tomorrow, how could I still get deals? And so right now I want to build like a brand here in central Florida to where everyone knows it's okay, I'm going to bring my deal to him kind of thing.

Mike: 33:29

yeah. And then are you offering to speak on something specific that brings value to them? Or what's kind of the, what are you talking about at these things?

Cameron: 33:36

Yeah. So quite literally I give a presentation about, cause, cause in my opinion, I mean the values there, right? If a realtor comes across a house that they don't know what to do with, I explained to them, I'm like, listen, if you have come across a house that isn't MLS ready. And I give a bunch of examples, there's an inherited house or there's a tree through the living room. There's a X, Y, Z, whatever the case is, stuff that we buy. Here's how I solve it. Right. And so what that does to them is oftentimes they don't know how to deal with that. You and I think, Oh my gosh, that's an easy 30, 000 wholesale fee, or that's an easy fix and flip. And that's a frame that I would. I've broken myself, but like I try to get other people to break as well. Just because you and I think something that doesn't necessarily mean they know how to do that as well. Same goes flip side, right? It's like I come across so many retail listings, maybe, we do come across retail listings that we'll occasionally try to refer out and stuff like that, but that's not what I'm optimizing for. That's not my focus. For real, they're like, Oh my God, you don't want that. It's no, that's not what I'm optimizing for. So same for the realtors, they're trying to get listings. They're trying to get, retail stuff that makes sense for them. Those pretty houses. Oftentimes they don't want to deal with the ugly stuff. So it's they just, they would much rather be able to call me not have to think twice and get paid more because if they listed on the MLS at, 5 percent and they're getting two and a half of 100, 000 house versus if I fixed it up, they get 1 percent up front versus, and then two and a half on a 200, 000 house when I'm done. It's a win, so that's the value in which we try to create and try to add is giving them another option.

Mike: 34:58

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. You're the first person I've actually ever heard of who's doing that, like in an intentional way. Right. Like going in and giving presentations, like not just calling people and kind of the back burner thing,

Cameron: 35:11

yeah. It's funny because I feel like a lot of people talk about building relationships with, agents now, but it's all like cold call text. And so it's kind of just okay, agent outreach. Well, what does that mean? And they treat it like cold calling or texting to where it's just a mass game. But from my experience, When these agents like see you get to meet you like they know who I am It's like I've gotten deals What will happen is you'll start to find the agents that come across those and then that perform And you'll get multiple deals from that same agent for years to come and so like last year from this one agent Off the top of my head. I know we did a 60, 000 deal with her super easy one And then I think she brought us two more so three deals from one agent From one office meeting, so I was like, is that worth the time? I think so.

Mike: 35:51

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's cool, man. How many would you say that you do on I guess, a month or an annual basis from the

Cameron: 35:58

Sure. So back when I was talking about us buying a bunch of flips, we were going crazy on them. So that's how it all compounded. I would try to do one a week. Right. But I took a break for a while. We're going to build it back up now and just be smarter about it. I'm actually, like I said, I'm going to hire somebody that's their sole job is going to be a relationship management manager to where essentially they're going to go and keep those relationships and build those relationships with these brokerages. If you can get to the point, like our goal is going to get to the point where we do a couple of week, because there's only so many brokerages, obviously like in your area that you're that are, have a, have an office that are like doing business things of that nature. So once we knock them all out, it's just building the relationships with them and keeping the relationships afterwards. So, I want to just get to the point where truthfully, we've spoken at every single operation You know, brokerage in central Florida, and then we just try to keep the relationship with them throughout because all it takes, like I said, all it takes is one person sitting there. What will happen oftentimes if you go to a decent size office is I'll walk out with a deal because some per some person sitting in the back, some realtor and we're like, Oh my God, well, one, two, three main street is that's a perfect opportunity here. Here you go. And I'm like, yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Mike: 37:06

Yeah.

Cameron: 37:07

You'd be surprised.

Mike: 37:08

And then how are you working? Are they just kind of handing the lead to you? You're meeting with the seller and then taking it from there or I guess, what's your approach?

Cameron: 37:15

Involved as they'd like. So it's up to them. You'd be surprised. I have gotten some true layups. I have gotten some true labs. I've given them my price and like, all right, they accept. And I'm like, oh, okay. So, we just spent the first half talking about like sales, systems processes, all that. And then with these realtors, sometimes it's, Hey, here's my number. See if it works. So it really depends on what relationship they have with the seller. So if it's a family member or whatever the case is, I tell them like, listen, I'll be as involved or as not involved as you'd like. But a couple of caveats I give them is typically it needs to be off market. I do buy some on market stuff, but then it needs to have some real good motivation. Obviously the needs, the numbers need to make sense. And then obviously that, Have some sort of communication with the seller, because what would happen when I didn't specify that is that essentially these realtors just did some driving for dollars for me. And I'm like, thank you for your effort and your time, but I don't want to go and skip trace and then cold call and do all that jazz myself. I want to actually talk with leads, like motivated sellers that you've already like pretty much pre qualified. So the way I pitch it is. Do you ever go on listing appointments that you don't know what to do with? So then that was like, Oh, okay. Like I've already had this conversation. I already know what's going on here. Yeah. Perfect. They call me up with a scenario and then here you go.

Mike: 38:25

Yeah, any other tips for people were thinking about maybe trying something like that, things that will work well for you.

Cameron: 38:30

So, I mean, quite literally what I do is I create a presentation, I go and speak there and it literally is examples of what I've done with other writers, right? So like you can just, or even create an example. It doesn't really matter. Just show them like what it looks like visually. Here's this house. Here's what it sold for. If you brought it to me, I would have paid you X and they give you the listing on the backend. So you would make. XYZ as opposed to this. Also, here's how easy it is. You call me, I deal with everything. Let's say it's a sticky deal and there's some probate and there's some liens and it's just this, that, and the other. If you call my team, I'll deal with all that. And all you get in return and what you get in return is a pristine listing on the backend, so it's it's ease, right? So just try to really show them the value that you add. And then don't be afraid like to go in person and ask like genuinely, you'd be surprised, I've literally just cold approached some realtor offices when I was getting started and I would have, I set up a meeting and I even looked like more of a freaking baby than I do now. And I was just a young kid just going up there, talking to him a bunch of there was like a hundred people in the room that one day. A huge brokerage. Huge brokerage. And so literally just ask, because they're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. And then everybody, there's a line out the door afterwards.'cause they're like, okay, I see the value. And then just be really upfront and transparent with what you're gonna do. Just because I really, we really try to care about, like our brand people to, to, know that I'm gonna get the deal done and also respect them. So if you plan on doing this in wholesale. I would be very upfront, transparent with what you're trying to do. At the beginning with them, just so that there isn't any, nothing gets misconstrued or anything just because you want to be able to keep that relationship. So just be honest and transparent, but show them the value show them like what you can do. And then if you build a bunch of many lead getters for you, that compounds, right? Like the way Alex Ramonzy talks about. So I'm building some lead getters.

Mike: 40:12

Yeah. And then if you were going to wholesale it on the back end, and obviously you're being up front about that, how are you compensating them in that case? Because they're not getting that back end listing, which is juice. Really?

Cameron: 40:23

Yeah. Yeah. So I try to work out, I work it out with them case by case. I'll be honest with you. I don't wholesale a ton of them. Have I? Yes. What does that look like? I tell them, Hey, it looks like, if you did this, you would have made approximately X, Y, or Z. If I can just do this, if I pay you X and we get this deal done is that going to be okay? Kind of thing. I try to come up with something comparable to where it's, even if I have to pay them a referral fee of 7, 500 bucks or 10 grand even sometimes, right? If you know there's juice there and I look at it like this, it's a free lead, right? So I have no problem because that goes straight to my bottom line and marketing. I don't need to pay, extra employees, things of that nature. Like those deals go straight to my bottom line. So I'm willing to be creative in that sense. And just, it's situational. So I don't have a formula for that one, but I would just say try to make something that makes sense for them as well. If it's a 100, 000 house, and you know you could have flipped it to 250, 000, right? I have no problem maybe going to them and being like, listen, maybe you could have made 000 when this is all said and done. I'm just going to go ahead and give you that wholesale fee up front. Would you be okay with that? If you're making 30 on top of that, and it's a 37, 000 deal. Come on, all day long.

Mike: 41:27

yeah, gotcha. And the other unique stuff you guys are doing to kind of bring in deals.

Cameron: 41:32

Yeah. So that was one. I do get some deals from social media, some from some people. So, I mean, that was the thing that always helps us. If anybody ever has a deal in central Florida, I'd love to chat about it.

Mike: 41:42

How do you get those? You're just posting about what you're doing or like, how are out?

Cameron: 41:45

Here's how to do X, Y, or Z. I more so just post Hey, here's what we're doing. Because I'm, I'm an operator. So I actually, I'm in the business and I kind of just try to document it more. So, I think that maybe occasionally people see that and they're like, okay, cool. He's done this. He's, Oh, he's done a deal over there. Cool. I'll send him one over there. It's okay, I see he does this. Let me ask about that. And then when I come across a deal, I'll send it his way. And so I'd love to help out in that regard. And then just talking with people consistently, trying to build up my network as well. That's been something that's worked out, but mostly I would say like looking back on it, the biggest things, right, are for us, it's Realtors give us a good amount of business. And then obviously our marketing is the big one as well, because that one's scalable. So it's just I try to build things, a compound, at least try to find something. And for me, that was like the brand thing. So how can I build a good

Mike: 42:29

yeah. And are you guys, you said you were using like data flick and you said, you mentioned one other like AI list provider. Are you guys finding like more. What was that? Audantic.

Cameron: 42:39

back in the day? Yeah.

Mike: 42:40

Yeah. Are you guys finding more success with that than just kind of pulling normal lists from the County with the stress or are you,

Cameron: 42:46

I've gone back and forth with this because I've also jumped in and out of direct mail, full transparency. So I haven't, I mean, there was like years ago, I would be consistent, like when I first got started and then what would happen is I, jump in for four months, jump out for a month, so on and so forth, but all in all, I would say it just comes down to consistency. If you're lit, if you're sending mail to houses that you know you would buy at the end of the day, like it's consistency, that's what I see. So it also depends on the volume, right? If you're trying to just send out a hundred mailers, it's okay, well, maybe you'd want to be way more sniper approach to, as opposed to if you're sending out 10, 000, 50, 000 a month. I haven't seen a huge change differential, if we're being honest between the data, I think that more so it's just being consistent with it. It just, the reason that I like it is just because it does all the filtering for me. So, okay, cool. At least I know that they have a higher likelihood of wanting to sell. So, that's been, it's been helpful. And I've used it for quite some time. So, in comparison, I don't have exact, an exact comparison because I've done it for a while. So for me, it's okay, that works. And then what I'm hitting. So yeah, I should probably keep doing that.

Mike: 43:46

yeah. And on direct mail, what are you guys looking at in terms of like cost per contract?

Cameron: 43:51

It's pretty similar actually. I think it's 6, 200 bucks. Was that a one pretty that we hit a few pops there, but then also, okay, that was this quarter, last quarter, there was one month where I spent One month we spent 15, 000. I just tested something new and literally I don't think I got a single deal from it. We literally just, I think we messed something up there. So, literally,

Mike: 44:14

new thing? So that I don't do it.

Cameron: 44:16

yeah, this was, it was a new provider. I don't want to trash them because it could have been me.

Mike: 44:20

Don't say the name. That's fine.

Cameron: 44:21

Provider. Yeah. It was a new provider. So, it was all of me. And then it's my fault, but that, that provider didn't work out too well for us. So, but once you get consistent, it's just consistency too. So it's if you do something for one month, you can't play, you can't blame them. Right. You need to do something for at least like three months to see any sort of consistency and then know you need to be spending the amount to get those deals. That was my biggest thing that I didn't know when I was getting started. It's like you'd spend a little bit of money and then I'd get, I'd complain as to why I'm not getting deals, but when the data tells you that it costs five grand, six grand, eight grand to get a deal, like how dare you complain, and so it's just, it's one of those things that you got to understand that as well that has helped me and I try not to get mad about that anymore. So it's I understand now it's okay. If you're spending 20 grand only expect to get maybe three deals, like that's just, that's the math. No,

Mike: 45:07

for sure. So it wasn't any particular type of mail that you tried. It was just,

Cameron: 45:11

no, that one was just a blink. That was just a basic letter. So Hey, whatever the case is, but you know, we've had some success with the check mailers, right? So that's worked. From what I've seen though, like if you're just consistent with it, I'll be honest with you. There was a guy I'm in collective genius and it's a mastermind here. And so he's a big direct mail guy in Chicago. And he's here's my, seven figure a year direct mail piece. It was literally a 50 cent postcard that literally just had a little paragraph on it. It was the most basic thing I've ever seen. You've got to be kidding me. I'm over here trying to figure out exactly how to get this blank check. Like what's the ARV on it, how to make it beautiful. This, that, and the other. He's yeah, here's what I sent. And he crushes it. So it's just consistency and volume with the direct mail game. That's my opinion. And that was a good reminder for me. It's I try to get too cute sometimes, and it's just do the basics,

Mike: 45:54

Yeah. Just be out there. Yeah. Like that. You want to talk a bit about the Dispo side and how you build that up in your business? Yeah.

Cameron: 46:00

Sure. Sure. That's a work in progress too. So like I said, the whole hiring, switching Dispo or, switching from flipping to Dispo, like that's been a big learning curve for me in the past year. Right. So it's like trying to figure those things out Dispo for us, what works for us now. We use InvestorLift. So I'm sure people are familiar with, InvestorLift. It's almost like an off market MLS, kind of thing. I guess that's the closest way to compare. Like an off market kind of, database for buyers and other investors to look. So we paid for one of the tiers. I don't even know the name. Maybe it's falcon tier or something to where like you pay for buyers, in your area. And so we've been, we try to curate and build relationships with those buyers. That's worked well for us. We send a lot of deals out on there. We still do Facebook groups.

Mike: 46:40

Are you getting contact info for them when you're doing that? Or is it just kind of have to run to do you get like a phone number?

Cameron: 46:46

Yeah. Phone number and email.

Mike: 46:47

Yeah. number and email verified or

Cameron: 46:50

yeah.

Mike: 46:50

okay.

Cameron: 46:51

And like it, it'll show you a list of numbers. And then I think what will happen is if another investor has called them, like they can check next to that box as if okay, this is the right number. I think it's something like that. But nonetheless, what happens is you'll get inquiry. So once you send out emails, And or text you'll get inquiries about that property. And then that comes with their email and texts as well. So you can call them up. Right. So that's worked well for us. And that was one of those I was like, listen, I have a buyer's list. It was about a thousand people. I hadn't really talked about it, talk to them in a while. So I hadn't built it up. And so I was like, if I want to get this rock and roll on, I'd rather just pay to get to the point where we have some stuff going on. So I bought the little higher tier and investor lift. And so I added my thousand list to that. And so now I think we have 10, 000 buyers, 12, 000 buyers, something like,

Mike: 47:33

wow. Okay. Yeah. And, do you run into an issue, though, with that is blasting out that many people were just, people trying to go behind your back and take the deal and yada. Yeah.

Cameron: 47:42

Yeah. So there's a couple of issues with this boat and even investor lift. Right. So it's yeah, that is something that does potentially happen. Fortunately, knock on wood. It hasn't happened to us. And also to If someone tries to go around my back honestly, they're gonna fail, probably, because we build such good rapport, and we're super transparent. So, I can typically save it, like it has tried to happen before, and I could, I saved it all day, just because they're like, I was fully transparent. They, the buyer thought we were trying to pull a fast one on them. And so they're like, Oh, this is gonna be super easy, but we built a good relationship with the seller. So the seller was like, yeah, no, I know what they're doing. I'm not going to cancel. Like we know what's going on. So that was one thing. If I feel like if you have a good acquisition process and you're open and transparent, then Typically you can try to,

Mike: 48:23

So, are you, talking about that with the seller? How you're gonna like, how you're gonna hold, maybe not use the word wholesale. Cause I don't know what that means, but maybe walk me through what that sounds like.

Cameron: 48:31

Yeah. So, so really it comes down to one of two things. If I know it's a price that I can buy it at, then we typically, which is what we try to do with everything, right? It's I listen, I try to underwrite for me to be able to buy the property. So I tell them if it comes down to we're going to wholesale, it's listen, we may bring in partners on this property. We may end up selling this property to some of our partners, it just really depends. We're not sure what our exit strategy is yet. And then it does depend on the property, right? So it's once I look at it, once I see it, things like that, then we tell them, and then what we'll do is, we pretty much tell them, Hey, listen, we need to see the property. We may bring in other partners to maybe sell to is that all right? And so they kind of know at the day, what's going on. Same goes with innovations, right? It's like when we're listing it, they know exactly what's going on, so people kind of, right, exactly. People are a little afraid. Exactly. If you try to pull a fast one on them, you're not going to get the deal done, so it's terrible. It's a terrible idea. We're not afraid of being honest because I think if you build good enough rapport and you solve their problem and they trust that you can solve their problem, then at the end of the day, they're going to be okay with that.

Mike: 49:23

Yeah. Yeah. We actually we do a couple of innovations, not that many, but I, our thing, we literally tell sellers, just so you know, you're going to see it online for like more than we actually have it in contract with you because we're covering all the costs. And obviously we're looking to make a profit here and they're like, yeah, we don't care as long as we get our one 10 or one 12 or whatever. I agree. I'm like, cool. Just making sure,

Cameron: 49:43

Exactly. I love that. I love that line too. And that's what we start a lot of our conversations out with too, at the end of the day. I asked them, one of the things that we have our acquisitions guys talk about one of the first things they say, have you thought about listening with the realtor? And people are often scared to ask that question, but I love that question because then they'll quite literally tell me exactly why they want to sell to me. And so, What we do with that, it's okay, well, the only reason I ask if you want to listen with a realtor is just because, at the end of the day, if you're looking to get the absolute most for your house. I'd probably recommend you go that route. I say that all the time. And then literally, once you get that out of the way, they're like, okay, this guy's being honest with me. Like he, he's telling me how it is and it's the God's honest truth. And so we tell them that. And then, so then when we make an offer, I tell them, here's how it goes. Like they're going to take a look at the property, run the numbers, look at the comparables, take out realtor costs, take out closing costs. And then of course they want to make a profit. And then they come up with their number and that's how they make an offer. And so I explained that as well. And so we're just open, like overly transparent so that when it, when anything comes up, if they see profit, if they see this, that, the other, like they know what's going on

Mike: 50:42

Yeah, that's I've always loved that line to what about just listing it and then. Yeah. They tell you

Cameron: 50:46

The exact reason why you're going to buy the house. Yeah,

Mike: 50:48

right? It builds a lot of trust too. I mean because it's just the truth, right? I mean You can make more if you list it.

Cameron: 50:54

Exactly.

Mike: 50:54

talk about the innovations. Actually, are you doing a lot of those few of those?

Cameron: 50:58

Well, so we're doing a few like I said, we actually just locked what I'm Right before I got on here today, which is awesome. But what we did when we first, when I first switched to doing more wholesale innovation stuff, unfortunately I jumped right into that boat way too soon. So what would happen is the conversion cycle on innovations is longer. And so what I mean by that is. From the moment you spend cash to get a lead, to closing takes a little bit longer because you have to list it on the MLS. So that's one of those things you got to keep in mind because when you're operating a company, you got monthly bills, but if it takes 60, 90 days to close these deals, you may not see that for a while as opposed to wholesale, you can see, I can close a wholesale deal from lead to close in 14 to 21 days, so cash conversion there is quicker. So I screwed myself up at the beginning with just doing a bunch of innovations. But now what do we do? We, so we work with a realtor and they list it for us. I pay them 1%. And they're trained, they handle all the stuff for us. We have a system there, but essentially what we do as a company, we still offer our cash offer first. And I still, Firmly try to tell everyone listen, you need to try to really go for the cash offer and don't just jump to innovations right away because I had the problem, especially with guys, right? It's if you tell them that you can get it at this price with innovation, they're going to jump to that right away. Cause they want to get the deal. But what you're doing is you're skipping over the good cash deals because you're not fighting for them a little bit more. So we try to optimize and push as hard as we can on the cash basis. So our cash number, which is obviously the lower number. And then from there, if I know that it won't make sense any other way, that's when we pitch innovations. We wait to try to get the innovations. And then from there we try to set really proper expectations. Like this guy knows that we need to have open access. We need to be able to put a lock box on the property. We need to be able to have 60 to 90 days for this thing to get closed potentially. Cause that's a big thing. Access is a big thing. That was a big thing that we're learning about. Making sure that you set that expectation because oftentimes these people don't want to deal with, having people walk through the house, that was one of the reasons they went with an investor quote unquote. So letting know exactly what's going to happen so that they're not caught off guard. Has been super helpful as well.

Mike: 52:59

And then is your realtor handling communication with the seller too? Or is that they're just kind of handling the the potential buyers. Yeah.

Cameron: 53:07

that's our TC. So once an acquisition is it goes to TC. I want to have as much control as possibly as I possibly can. And so like our team that's trained for that part that like that needs to be where they're communicating between, I want the seller and our TC to communicate as much as possible. I don't want any other parties involved just because I want as much control as I can. Even though our builder is trained and they're on our team. So like they know how to deal with all that stuff. It still is, it's easier because our transaction coordinator, like our process goes acquisition, then transaction coordinator for everything. So it's just easier to kinda go about it that way.

Mike: 53:38

Oh, so we were talking a little bit about the dispo side and I kind of jumped in ovations, but you were saying you guys put stuff out on investor lift, but what else have you kind of refined about your dispositions process?

Cameron: 53:47

Yeah. So a big thing is first and foremost, I try to underprice my wholesale, and I try to almost'cause you wanna create interest, right? That's a big thing. Oftentimes you don't have a ton of time. So I try to really. Get a lot of interest at the beginning because what I'll see is if you can get the interest, you'll get a little higher price because you can start genuinely, honestly saying to these people, Hey, listen, I already have a price at that. If you need to get, if you want the deal, you got to be here because you'll get them emotionally attached. Right? So we try to intentionally underprice our stuff because we want stuff to move. Pushing this market, like you got to have price to self price as well. So that's the change we made. And then we try to get three offers on every house before we accept one, easier said than done sometimes full transparency. Right. But that's our, that's what we really try to push for is three offers on each property. And then what we've recently done is really try to push for depending on the house, but like we try to set up a lot of showing times at one at once if it's owner, because that's a big thing we run into is actually, it's just. Issues with with showing the property because oftentimes they want to go with us because they don't have to have a bunch of these showings. So we offer cards to the sellers. It's Hey, here's a 50 public's gift card. If you can go get some groceries while we show this house or go get some food while we're doing this, just so we can deal with that in and of itself, that's been helpful and then building relationships to like that compounds. You know who your good buyers are who'll get it done and then kind of go on from there. So you try, you got to treat dispo, like you treat acquisitions though. So it's you got to have someone on the phones all day, trying to build those relationships and really try to push hard.

Mike: 55:12

Yeah, are you going through and calling people to, or are you kind of waiting to just kind of get stuff back once you send it out? Or.

Cameron: 55:18

Yeah. So our dispo guy, like in, in free time, like he's supposed to be qualifying the list and qualifying the buyers list. So creating, a little bit more buy box criteria, like what they're looking to buy, where that stands, but what we've been doing recently, just cause we've had enough deals to keep them busy. Is he'll just go through and like consistently qualify all the inquiries. So it's we have a bunch of like inquiries from like investor lift or Facebook or whatever the case may be our list. So it's qualify those, make sure you, you really see that. Figure out what they're buying and then try to just keep going from there.

Mike: 55:47

What are you doing because to qualify people to before you'd kind of let them go out to see the house on a wholesale deal because, this is a bunch of people out there just I want to see something,

Cameron: 55:56

kicking around. Yeah. Rocking for sure. So what we do is a couple of things is first off, that's still something we deal with today, right? Like literally we had one where I thought we were going to get locked up yesterday. Guy sounded great. He saw the property and he starts. He doesn't want to sign. He doesn't want to send it to me. EMD. He's Oh, my hard money guy, this, that, and the other, I'm like, Oh my. So I always try to talk to them about yes, terrible. I talked to him okay, how are you buying, like what's your financing look like? So if I hear some, well, hard money. I'm like, okay, I gotta dive deeper into that. What does that even mean? Because everybody's definitions of, private money, cash, they're like, they're all different. So we really try to figure out, okay, does this person have the means to be able to purchase this property? Maybe look at their past purchases. It's okay, are you an actual buyer? And do you actually have the money to close? And are you going to actually close on this thing? So really try to do some backend stuff there. Maybe look at their LLC, see what's going on there. And then ask them, pretty much at the end of the day, we want to have, we want to give them enough information to where pretty much they know when they're going out there. Listen, you've already, you have all the information in the house, like you've seen everything you've already ran your numbers when you're going out there, like essentially this is the last step we're gonna expect an offer from you after this. And we're going to need it to be, it needs to be at this price. So if you don't want to do that, don't waste your time kind of thing. We start to try to really set the precedent there. Like I said, at the end of the day, it's easier said than done. But I won't, if we have a select amount of showings. We want to make sure that we're getting real deal people out there. So we don't want to just waste our time.

Mike: 57:17

Yeah, for sure. Cool, man. Well, we're we're kind of getting to the end here but there's always two questions I like to ask. The first is what is the craziest or most uncomfortable situation that you have ever experienced in a real estate deal?

Cameron: 57:29

Yeah, that one's good. So there was one time when I was going on an appointment with a landlord with this rogue tenant and it was in a not so good area and she has schizophrenia and she came out. And look to peek through the door. We were walking around the house cause she wouldn't let us in. And then when I started to leave and I would try to walk over the house to go in the house, she ran at me like with a gun and was saying like, get off my house, get out of my, out of my house. You fill in the blank. And then, kind of started waving the gun at me, started saying, she's going to shoot me. She said, I'm going to pop a cap in your head. So that was fun. That was really fun. I didn't get the deal, which sucks, but, that's unfortunate, but, that was, that's probably up there. Let's see here. I mean, man, we've had, I've had some good ones. I mean, yeah, there's been like oh, here's a good one. So I bought a house one time and there was, I was driving home from the gym. It was like seven 30 at night and I got a call. I get a call from Orlando police department and they're like, Hey, is this Cameron Moore? I'm like, yes. They're like, do you own the property? It went to their main street. I'm like, yes. They're like, is anybody supposed to be in the house? I'm like, no. So some squatters broke in. Turns out one of the guys was. FBI is most wanted. And so I show up to the house and there's 40 cop cars, like drones everywhere, dogs out and there's a standup, they're inside. Like the FBI is most wanted has guns. Cops are outside. And they're in my house, of course. So that was awesome. That was really cool. Yeah, and so he actually got mad because he brought a prostitute in. He kicked the prostitute out because they didn't pay or something. And long story short, she called the cops. I'm like, okay, this is just fantastic. So, that was a good one too. That was a good one.

Mike: 59:09

That's up there. FBI's most wanted. That's the first time I've heard that one. I've heard a lot, but that's good.

Cameron: 59:13

Yeah, that was a pretty cool one.

Mike: 59:14

Not good, but crazy. Cool, man. And the last question I always like to ask if kind of for the newer people listening to the show is if you could go back in time, when you're looking for your first deal, yourself one piece of advice, knowing what you know now, would you tell yourself?

Cameron: 59:31

I think having the mindset and the frame of Okay. there's one thing and one thing that matters only. And it's literally like, how can I generate revenue? So talking to people, talking, building, relationships with people at the end of the day, like you're, the hours that you're spending on this, like, All of them need to be spent like either, finding deals of some sort. So I wouldn't be focused with, okay, well, maybe what's the best way to find deals? Or, what does my website look like? Or, do I have this in place? What's going to happen when I get the deal? And all those sort of things, like nothing, nothing else matters. Other than just truthfully, just focusing on either talking to people like sellers in themselves. Or trying to find spending your time, finding deals, whether that be relationships, networking, but like all of your time needs to be spent on revenue generating activities, nothing else matters. And the way in which you do that, like that can vary obviously, depending on if you have time, money, whatever the case is, but at the end of the day. Revenues and what is what counts and that's what matters. So getting deals in and of itself, spend your time just doing that work. Cause I got to carry other stuff, so that's what I tell myself. Focus on that.

Mike: 1:00:35

Yeah, great piece of advice. If you want to reach out to you after the show maybe they have some deals for you. Maybe they want you to come into their brokerage office and do a presentation. How can they go about reaching out to you?

Cameron: 1:00:45

Yeah. They can just shoot me a DM on Instagram. It's probably the easiest way. So, underscore Cameron underscore more underscore something like that. So if you type in camera more, I'm sure I'll pop up, but yeah, shoot me a shoot me a DM, love the chat. Love to see if I can help out in any way.

Mike: 1:00:57

Cool. Awesome, man. Well, thanks for being on the show.

Cameron: 1:00:59

I appreciate it. Thanks guys.