Cold Calling Tips For Real Estate Investors With Brian O'Neill

 Josh
 Hey, good day, fellow dealmakers on today's call episode, we're going to have a conversation with a real estate investor. Who's going to give us some cold calling tips, right? This guy is a pro at it, and he's going to give us some ways if you're getting into real estate investing, or if you're a seasoned pro, you may want to listen up because this may transform your business and the way you do things. Brian, welcome to the show, man, 

 Brian
 Josh, thanks for having me excited to be here and dive in on the cold calling topic. It's going to be fun. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Now, before we dive fully into cold calling, you also have a podcast show, your real estate investor kind of give us an idea of who you are and some of the things you're focused on. 

 Brian
 Yeah, I do have, I am a real estate investor. I specialize in creative financing. For those who don't know what that is, it means you're basically buying on seller financing, lease purchase, seller financing, owner financing, subject to that's what I specialize in. I learned that from my coach and my mentor. Prior to that, I was in corporate America for 25 years. Josh. I was, I worked for the same company for 17 years. I was an elevator salesman. If anyone thinks that you need all this corporate experience to become an investor, you don't elevators in real estate are not related. Yeah, I've been at it for, for a few years and it's been, it's been really rewarding. It's been really great. I love this each of creative financing. 

 Josh
 Super cool. Give a shout out to your show. Give us an idea of what your show is and where guys can guys and gals and dealmakers can find out. 

 Brian
 Yeah, the shows everywhere. It's called a better way with real estate. It's on apple, it's on Spotify. It's, it's everywhere. It's on my website as well. We're hitting, we're running one episode a week on that show. 

 Josh
 Super cool. All right. This is a little deal unrelated, but I got to ask this two questions about elevators. Cause you're an expert you've been in it for 17 years. You're an expert in elevators. First question, will softball pitch. What's your favorite elevator music? 

 Brian
 Well, you threw you through for a loop. That's a great question. I thought you were going to, I thought you were going to make the ups and downs a joke, which I get quite. 

 Josh
 Bit often, right? 

 Brian
 Oh my goodness. Every single time. I don't know if I have one out, maybe circle back to me there. I liked definitely instrumentals. I don't like, I don't like, I don't like words, so I would have to be some type of instrumental for sure. Yeah. 

 Josh
 Yeah. My favorite would be like a sad day, dude, 

 Josh
 Dude, dude kind of like that. I like. 

 Brian
 That. 

 Josh
 One. Right? You hear that on a lot of elevators, but I'm like, anytime it goes on, I'm like, yeah, that's my jam. 

 Brian
 I'm impressed that you know that too. Like the melody that's really good. 

 Josh
 Thanks man. I appreciate I am cultured. Right? I have this button on my phone that tells me what song's playing. That's a cheat code for, to try to look and sound smart. And I probably got it wrong. Anyways. Second question is when you're on an elevator, there's this like code of, you're supposed to stand in your little square. You're supposed to look down at your phone. No sounds are supposed to come out of your, like, so what's the proper elevator etiquette, 

 Brian
 I, I really don't like that code. I mean, I just, and I think that also depends on where you are too in the country for some reason. Cause I, I did, when I was in the elevator business, I traveled a lot. I was traveling a hundred thousand miles a year. I was in a lot of elevators and a lot of different markets. In the Midwest people would say hello to maybe in the Northeast, they wouldn't not to, not to discriminate, but I think it really just depends on where you are, but I always would at least not talk to people, and say good morning or good afternoon. I mean, you gotta have some type of greeting, right? 

 Josh
 Yeah. Yeah. I like to mess with people on elevators because everybody is super anxious. Right. Cause they're like, all right, socially, what am I supposed to do here? Like, I'll go, there'll be a three-star building. I'll be like, Hey, will you hit number seven for me? They're like looking and they're like, their brains are like fried. They're like, what do I do here? If you ever see me in an elevator, I'm probably going to love on you and mess with you. 

 Brian
 There's a good chance that we have, I've been around quite a bit. Maybe you've already been a one together. 

 Josh
 That's right. Awesome. We have an elevator here in our office. Next time you come to visit, we'll do an elevator ride together and we'll record an episode in the elevator. Does that sound cool? Oh. 

 Brian
 Wow. That'll be a first. 

 Josh
 All right. Back to pack the deals, Brian, how'd you get into real estate. You pulled the plug on the corporate world. Yeah. You, you jumped off the elevator and you dove into real estate investing. How did that work? 

 Brian
 There's the elevator joke. I liked it. Okay. Yeah, no, I did. I did jump off it. It took me a very long time to get here. Right. Like, we're going to be talking about today with cold calling. I was scared, man. I was fearful for a long time and I was comfortable in my current situation with my W2 job. It took me a long time to get over that fear and that's okay. I started a lot, a lot later than I wanted to, but ultimately once I got to the point where I was fed up and I had enough, I did a couple of key things that really helped me get from the W2 world or wanting to do something actually doing it is I got over the fear by hiring a coach, hiring a mentor we've discussed too. That it's a super important, I don't all of our lives, Josh, from our growing up, we have coaches, we have mentors in all walks of life, school co sports coaches for playing sports. 

 Brian
 All of a sudden we get out of school. We get into the corporate world. We don't think that we needed anymore. Right. That's not true. That's why I stayed in place for 25 years. It wasn't until I got a coach that I was able to kind of crush that fear of like, what if I mess this up? Or what if I fail? I'll never not have a coach again. 

 Josh
 Never not have a coach again. Yeah. Because when you grow up, you're like, I'm an adult. I know it all. Or I'll figure it out. And that's expensive. Figuring, figuring your s**t out on your own is timely expensive. It's brutal because most of the time we can't figure it out on our own. Do you agree to that? 

 Brian
 I couldn't possibly agree more. And I thought I knew it all. I thought I could figure it out on my own. And I clearly couldn't. It took me 25 years. 

 Josh
 You know? I think that is so awesome that you look back and you go, man, I tried to figure it out and I was kind of stuck. Right? Like, and then I hired a coach. What was the precipice? What was the thing that turned in your brain that you go, I can't do this on my own. I need to invest in a coach. 

 Brian
 That was really it was the investment. I just, I had to start shifting the way that I thought about moving the needle in my life. You know? I was in reality, I was hiding behind, I think a lot of real estate investors do have they hide behind their education. You can listen to podcasts and read a bunch of books and get super comfortable and addicted to that. Be careful because you do need to take action. It was just the mindset shift jobs of, okay, I need to invest in me first, not a deal, not a bunch of systems out, a bunch of, lead generation. I need to invest in Brian first. Once I came to terms with that and committed to it, things really started to change in my life. 

 Josh
 That's super cool. I've gone through the courses the first or real estate course I ever went through was Carlton sheets, buying house, no money down creative financing, what was there, there was a specific term that he used back in the day. I forget it was like buy houses, no money down. I was like, this is a bunch of crap. I saw, I kind of stumbled upon an opportunity and I bought a house with no money down. I was like, oh my gosh, I made 14 K on a, on flipping a contract. I was like, holy moly, this works. And it, I kinda like baffled me. I looked around, I go, why is nobody else doing that? Right. And, but I was under the same thing. I didn't go to school for real estate. I was working against guys in gals who were masters degree in real estate finance. 

 Josh
 I didn't know what the hell that was. Couldn't spell it, but invest in me. First. I bought that course at a garage sale. To be honest, it costs me five probably. He made me 14 K but invest in me first. I think that's so awesome. Hiring a coach, what was the hesitancy of hiring a coach? You got to the point, you're like, I need help. Holy crap. This is expensive. Right? Hiring a coach is not cheap. It shouldn't be cheap. It should be expensive. What was the hesitancy for you? 

 Brian
 It is. It should be, I don't know if I fully agreed with it at the time. Certainly by my wife didn't that was a roadblock. Right. Not to say anything negative about her. Cause she fully supports me. But, and I think a lot of folks in my situation project onto that situation, well, no one's gonna approve of this, right? No, one's going to approve of this and they don't need to, quite honestly, only you do knife. It was really getting over or just understanding that, Hey, there's, I'm not just giving somebody money. There's a return associated with this and a big one. Like you gave, you spent $5 and made 14,000 like that mark, that math works all day. 

 Josh
 Yep. 

 Brian
 That when I started to look at the return, like, what am I going to get out of this? Not just from a dollar standpoint, but also advancing me personally in my life growth. I've achieved more in the last few years than I did the previous 25. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Isn't that crazy? So I I'm the hardheaded knucklehead guy. Who's like, oh, figure it out on my own. I try to learn how to code, try to learn how to build websites, try to learn. I went bankrupt. I mean, I absolutely worked myself from four in the morning till 12 o'clock at night with the new baby, trying to learn how to do stuff that I could easily outsourced. I was holding onto what little money I had. I cashed out a pension to do it and I lost it all. Now I go, who do I CA who could I get to show me how to do this faster or do it for me. Right. I suck at that stuff. Get it out of my hands as fast as possible. You said you've entered. 

 Brian
 Thank you needed. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just want to ask a follow question. You, do you think you needed to go through that to be where you're at right now? 

 Josh
 Absolutely. This knucklehead. Absolutely. I, I had to be at the end of my rope, crying, depressed, thinking about ending it all multiple times before I finally found the value investing in myself, right. Hire a coach, hire mentor, work with advisors, bring on people and go, Hey, I don't know what I'm doing. Humble enough. Right. I I'm the guy who had to lose it all to be humble enough to go. I don't know. Right. And then I, that's me. There's there's a lot of deal makers like me out there who just had to lose it all before they could build it all. I've experienced faster growth in the last few years than the prior decades. Right? Like I just thought I was smart enough, fast enough, strong enough I could. This was a lie that I had grown up in my like training. Keep it in the family, do it yourself, keep it in house. 

 Josh
 How did that work out? Josh? Not great, dude. I cannot agree with you more like you and I we're brothers now elevated brothers, very hugging. Like I love you. I'd love this message that you're sharing. It's so good. Invest in yourself, invest in a coach, open up your checkbook. Hire. If that, if that's all you guys get this dealmaker thing is get a coach. Who's done it. Who's doing it. Who's doing it better than anybody else. Hire them, buying them go faster, split the pie, build better pies. Do it. You said there was another thing after the one thing is fear of hiring a coach and then fear of pulling the plug and going from W2 to a full-time. What did that look like? 

 Brian
 That was scary, man, because I had been with the same company, like I said for 17 years and it wasn't, I had good relationships with, with my, with my bosses, ? So that was difficult. That was scary to tell them, and again, like we do, when we're going to, about to talk on the phone, we project onto things like w w we already determined the outcome before we actually go through it. It, they, couldn't not have been more supportive of me, which was surprising. Like, Hey, you're doing the right thing. We're so proud of you. And you know, we'll support you. And we get it. I think the major robot roadblock behind that was, again, fear of not this not working, even though I have a coach and I have confidence in myself, this is a new venture. If I fail, do I have to go back to the W2 world? 

 Brian
 Am I going to run out of money? Am I going to look bad? My reputation. Fear of losing my reputation, fear of losing money, fear of losing my time. Like, this is a waste of my time. I just had to get over that. I, I had been working on mindset shifts for, the few years prior to that. So I was ready. 

 Josh
 The process of going from I'm leaving to real estate. Did you build yourself a runway? Did you have, like, I already had a coach. I already had 10 deals in the pipeline. I already had money coming in. I had that safety net now I'm doing it. What did that look like? 

 Brian
 Yeah. It took, from the time I started with creative financing investing, it took me about nine months to leave my job and a couple of things happen. Yeah, I had a bit of a runaway, so I add some income. I have proof of concept, Hey, this works, I can do this. The second, I would probably say the most important thing that happened. This is why having a coach is so important. I didn't, I never thought this before. Cause again, we're conditioned all the way through school to think this certain way that we have to go to get, go to school, get a job, throw all this money in your 401k and retire. Maybe at 65. Right. My coach said to me, Brian, the job is the risk. You are expendable. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 Some of the best advice I've ever received in my entire life, the job is the risk. It was like, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. Like he's so right. Like they can, cause I went through the oh eight debacle where I went through three rounds of layoffs and I've survived and it easily could have been made. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 Easily could have been made. That's when I said, okay, look I, no, one's going to fire me. I'm my own boss. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Unless your wife fires, you really she's probably the boss around there. 

 Brian
 She is. And she could. 

 Josh
 Shout out to the wives out there. The wives of entrepreneurs, the wives in spouses, I should say. Right. Like I, I, holy moly. I I'm I'm near-sighted cause I'm a dude, but like shout out to all the spouses and partners of entrepreneurs mandate is gotta be tough as you're building this. Right. Like how long ago was that? That you fully moved over. 

 Brian
 So this was September of 20, right. Smack in the middle of COVID. Yeah. Right. So talk about a nerve wracking. Yeah. It worked out, I mean it worked so I couldn't be happier. 

 Josh
 Awesome, man. All right. On a day-to-day basis, what does your day look like? 

 Brian
 Sure. It looks a lot different than it did a few years ago, but I'm still, I'm talking to sellers every single day. Like that. There's no way around it. When you're a real estate investor, at least the way that I invest with buying on terms and create a financing, you've got to talk to people. You got to talk to people, you got to follow up. So I'm managing my team. I have a team of four people, but that work on the team. We're, we're out there trying to find deals man, on a daily basis. It's more challenging here with what's been happening. You just have to change your approach and stick at it. Cause you know, fees, things change, right? Shifts markets are shifting constantly and you just have to stick with it and be ready, because what's happening right now. Or what I'm seeing is a lot of people are getting worn out. 

 Brian
 A lot of investors are giving up. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 They can't do deals. So keep going double down. That was the other advice by coach gave me double down. That's what he said. When, when COVID was announced March of 2020, he said, do not freeze doubled down. I made twice as many dials as I did the previous week. 

 Josh
 Oh dude. All right. We're about ladies and gentlemen. We're about to get into cold calling. We're almost there just a few more questions what's buying on terms. 

 Brian
 Buying on terms is not buying conventional. Okay. What, when which, when we say we're buying on terms, we are going to a seller and we are going to use them as the bank, for lack of a better phrase. It's like they have a mortgage in place or they own their house with no debt free and clear, which is one-third of all houses in north America are owned with no debt. A seller has the ability to be the bank, just like Wells Fargo or bank of America. You just have to make a deal with them. Or if they have a mortgage, you can structure something on and what's referred to as a lease purchase or a lease option where you lock in an equity position that they have now for a time out in the future, maybe four or five, 10 years or whatever you can get. 

 Brian
 You're making their mortgage payments every month they move on with their life. Those are like the two biggest scenarios that we're talking about terms. 

 Josh
 Copy. Alright. Ready? Greg calling. All right. So let's start with your first approach. Where are you finding, this, the information. How do you, how do you even before you even dial, what are you doing? Pre dial. 

 Brian
 Okay. Where I get my leads from is I'm looking, I'm talking to sellers who are actively trying to sell their house. 

 Josh
 Fitzpatrick for sale by owners, stuff like that. 

 Brian
 Fizbos expired listings, expired listings are big. Cause that means they've been on the market for a while. Weren't able to sell for rent by owners. You can get a lot of you can cause for rent by owners could just simply be tired. Landlords six could be tired landlords in there. 

 Josh
 Yep. 

 Brian
 So that's who I'm. So that's who I'm mainly going after. I don't wanna say going after, so I'm calling are people actively trying to sell their house. Right. 

 Josh
 All right. So it's a first sale by owner. They, they tried listing with an agent. It's an expired listing and they're sick of working with agents and you call them what's your, what's your strategy? What's your tactic? What Intel are you doing prior? Are you doing analysis paralysis? Like you're cause you're training people. Now you have a team of four who do this with you and for you what's it look like? 

 Brian
 Sure. The initial calls just disclaimer, my VA's make those, but I used to make them all right. I can tell you the best way to make dials is to not analyze, like do not be up on Zillow, looking at the properties. That's just going to set that's number one, that's going to a company that you don't waste a bunch of time and it's going to prevent you potentially from making the call. Right? Because this seller is never going to agree to anything. Yeah. So avoid get rid of the distractions. Is there. I used to call it right off a list, Josh, just to list the names list of numbers. And I knew nothing about the house. 

 Josh
 We feel as deal-makers and I used to have to make a hundred calls a day, B2B sales, man. It was brutal. I did door to door sales brutal, right? Like, so like I would sit there and go do all my analysis on my iPad. I would do all this work. Before I knew it, half the day was gone and I was like, well, I got to get lunch and come back. And then I made three calls. I got to a point where I'm like, I need to make a hundred dials, a hundred knocks or whatever the case may be. Yeah. Just freaking call go, Hey, I saw the ad for your house for sale. Could we chat about it? Right. And then we're in it. All right. All right. Ring, ring, Hey, this is Brian or Brian's VA like w how does that go? What are some tips and tricks and things not to do on a cold call? 

 Brian
 Yeah, man, this is so important. Again, you, our first tip, I would give the audience. Okay. That there's a reason that you are called the buyer and they are called the seller. You are buying their house. You are not selling them anything. Yeah. Do not feel like you have to tell them how great you are and what you do and how you can solve their problem. First, you have to understand what their problem is. You can offer the solution. Yeah. My tip to you is my tip to the audience is be curious, okay. Approach it this way, because everyone's done this. Everyone's had this situation happened to them. What would you do if your neighbor put a for sale sign in the yard, he's going to call what'd. You. 

 Josh
 Do ask them the price. Why are you selling. 

 Brian
 Martin selling? Where are you going? What's going on? Yeah. Same thing. Right? Treat the seller as your neighbor. To get specific on the script, on the script, Josh, typically what we're doing is something along the lines of what you just said, Hey, I'm Brian, I'm calling about your house at 1 23 main street. I'm just seeing if I'm just seeing if it's still available. Yes. Do you have a couple of minutes to chat? I want to ask you a few questions and see if it's a good fit for us to buy. Yes. I do always respect their time. Right. I go into some questions. I have a series of about, I called them money questions. Like what are the two or three money questions that you could ask a salary that gets them to talk. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 I get really good at it so they can tell you about the house. If you let them go and listen, instead of telling, listen, don't ask, don't tell, ask, they'll talk. Sometimes they'll tell you what their motivation is without you even ask it. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Do you want to hear another golden nugget? Like you're just, you're sharing some gold here, bro. I appreciate this. That was a Southern thing. I appreciate not. I appreciate you. So sometimes my Southern gentleman comes out. This whole thing is the psychology of the call. It's you've got money in your hand, essentially. I'm the buyer, right? The psychology is I'm not trying to sell them anything who doesn't want to talk to a potential buyer. If they're truly a true seller, they're going to take your call. Like if they start asking you drill a new questions and you can talk more, but man, the psychology of a buyer and the psychology of a seller, Hey, I got something you want, it's called money. Do you want to do a deal? Oh, this is so good. Brian. Thank you. All right. Tip one, be curious, treat your seller as a neighbor. 

 Josh
 Just what's going on. Why are you doing this? Where are you moving? Right. Tip number two. 

 Brian
 Tip number two. You have to find the seller's motivation. If you don't, you are wasting your time and you're wasting their time. You, the seller that needs full has a house that's ready to go fully fixed up. They're going to get full retail. The pre-call letters are in our in buyer's hand. Like that's not my seller. I can't help them. I can't help them. And that's okay. I tell them that I'm looking for people who are not, in a distress situation, not necessarily in dire straights, but they have of, they have some pain. I have a problem that I can solve that the conventional market can't solve. And I'm just listening for that. I do that by asking questions that are in the right way and getting them to talk. 

 Josh
 Yeah. What's a bad question to ask in terms of seller motivation, right? Like what's a wrong way to approach either the curiosity or the motivation. What, what do you see? Like people doing? You're like, oh, you just lost that deal before it even happened. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Again, in terms, one of the questions that we ask, as we start asking them, we started asking them some pretty personal questions about their home in terms of like, do you have debt on it? Like, do you own it outright? Do you want a free and clear you can't lead with that? I have a lot of newbies will lead with that because they're following a script that. 

 Josh
 Really, 

 Brian
 Yeah. You have to avoid the checklist. I normally, when I can get that every time on any seller, it's just when you ask it and how the conversation is going, I'm just, I'm looking really to understand like, Hey, your house came off the market. Like, what happened? Why do you think it didn't sell? You would not believe how effective that question is. Why do you think it didn't sell people, go they'll to all that. They'll then they'll give like three or four motivation points. Oh my realtor, they sucked, people were, people didn't like the kitchen, whatever. I mean, then you'll get them worked up. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 Why do you think it didn't sell? It's their opinion, not Brian's opinion, not the realtor's opinion, it's their opinion. 

 Josh
 I've seen a lot of, so I've hosted a bunch of real estate shows and such, and I've asked these kinds of questions and you're nailing it because I've seen a, an investor who comes in and it's, their whole approach is to beat down the price. Right. They're going, oh man, that wall has a crack in it or that off man. That's terrible. You're just pretty much insulting the person the whole time. They know nobody knows their house better themselves. They know that crack and they know all this stuff. They're like, I could only give you this. If they're desperate enough, they'll do it. Asking them like, Hey, why do you think it didn't sell? If they come out right off the bat? I think I was asking too much. Or I got some deferred maintenance or I've got to, like, I'm just not good with people. 

 Josh
 Right? Like I've I have big dogs that are, it smells in my house. Right. Like I love that. What's the weirdest answer you've ever received. 

 Brian
 I've talked to thousands of sellers. It's hard. It's like the elevator question. The weirdest answer, I'm trying to think here. I've so many, I mean, people will tell you like the craziest things about their house, but I did have a couple of hoarding situations. Like, I'll tell you like, yeah, there's, you can't even walk through the house. Right. And, and then they'll go into that. Again, that's a problem you can solve. Right. Right. 

 Josh
 Hey, I'll. 

 Brian
 Take care of so I can, yeah. I like free and clear houses. Of course you're not going to sell the house and or people that have, there's been a lot of folks too, Josh with COVID that just gave up, like they stopped paying their mortgages, which is upsetting. It's just the way it is. You hear all different kinds of crazy stories. And, and that's something that if you make enough dials, you're like, you'll pretty much hear everything. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Holy moly. That is so good. Yeah. Why do you think it didn't sell what's when they come to all right. All right, Brian, make me an offer or it's 300 or something that like, let's get to the brass tax. How do you approach that subject? 

 Brian
 I get that a lot. I get a lot of texts back. Make me an offer. Or when you call them up, make me an offer. I'll just simply say geo, a lot of people calling you up, just making your offers without seeing the house and talking to you. Cause I would never do that. That's bad business. 

 Josh
 Yes. We do get those calls coming in. 

 Brian
 Right. That separates me from all the people that are doing that. Not to say that, we're not to say anything negative about them, but that separates me in terms of whenever I get a question thrown at me, my first reaction is ask them another question, 

 Josh
 Ask another car. And it's like judo right here. This is. 

 Brian
 Make me an offer. Like, or, or even, what's your price. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 I haven't seen the house yet. I don't know what the price is. If you ask questions the right way and frame the conversation the right way, I'd never make offers. The seller writes the deal for me. 

 Josh
 It's cellar. That's tip number four. The seller writes the deal. I might not these tips together with you. This is great, man. The seller writes the deal. Now what does that look like? We're chatting and finally they go, boom, and they're ready to write the deal. Right? You've maybe you've done the tour. You'd like to go on-site or send someone to do the site and they're ready. They're ready to write the deal. How does that, how do you get them to do that? 

 Brian
 Yeah, there's a couple of different ways I do it. If I'm in person I will have normally had, so we will normally have some conversation around price. Right. This is one of the reasons why I think Zillow is a bad idea to look at it. When you're talking to a seller, if a house is listed for 300,000, I know what it is. I know what they want for it. What were you hoping to get for a purchase price to 80? If I never asked that question, I wouldn't have got the $20,000 discount. 

 Josh
 Right? 

 Brian
 I'd sell it for two 80. Okay. Hypothetically, if I could get a hypothetically, if I could pay that, what's the longest you'd be willing to go. I'm about like owner financing. Hypothetically, if I could get that for you, how what's the longest amount of time. You'd be willing to go. Not I'll pay you a thousand a month for five years. What's the long as you want me to go. It's me it's then it's me asking. They tell me, well, 10 years, well, now I have a house at $280,000 that I can get financed from the seller for 10 years. I didn't make any offers. I just asked them. 

 Josh
 That is so awesome. 

 Brian
 Thank you. I wrote a book on this, by the way. 

 Josh
 I really what's your book called? 

 Brian
 I wrote an ebook. That's called how to master the phone at 90 days. I think we should just give it to all your listeners for free. Oh, cool. 

 Josh
 Awesome. What we'll do is if you need to create a specific link or something, we'll put that link. If they want the free book on mastering the phone with these kinds of questions and in this kind of training, we'll just put that link in the show notes. You, if you're driving drive safely, if you're jogging, jog safely, you can always go back to these show notes, click on the link and I'll get you this free thing. Thanks, Brian. Total help putting that out. 

 Brian
 Yeah, totally. 

 Josh
 If I could get that for you, that price to 80. Okay, cool. Let's just hypothetically, if I could get that to 80 for you, what's the longest, you'd be willing to go for that. They're like, cause now their brains going, oh, I don't know, like I'm 60 years old. I could probably do another, having an income for the next 30 years might be good. How about 30 years? You'd love that you write. 

 Brian
 Don't I I'd say I wouldn't even know needing to go and see the house. I mean, I, I would, I was, . Okay, great. And again, you, you don't react. You just take the information. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 Like I don't say all that or if a seller said two years, which I would never take 24 months and then I'd say, well, what's the lowest monthly payment you would accept. What's the lowest monthly payment you would accept. 

 Josh
 Because you're backing your way into the interest rate. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Yeah. I would address the shorter term. Cause I can't do all three. I can't max out the price of the monthly with the shortest term. I had a conversation with a seller this Morning in Florida on a $2 million property. I did the same thing with them and I got him from 24 months and he's willing to do something that's 60 months. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Nice. 

 Brian
 Just by asking him. 

 Josh
 So, all right. So based on this, oh gosh. I'm not gonna, I won't ask all the mechanics of the deal. Cause I know that you guys have a patent program and you're working on some cool things, but the mechanics of it is let's just say, he says, five-year-olds on a $2 million property. You get the, you get the pricing. Right. You guys repackage it and put to a rent to own situation. Right. It baked in where you're depending on appreciation to occur or does this work in a, a flat market or what happens if the market goes down? 

 Brian
 Sure. Great. I mean, great question because we get this all the time because it's a fear for a lot of students and even sellers. Cause he asked the same thing. So time solves everything. If I'm paying a seller 10 grand a month, that's not what this deal is. I'm just say, if I'm paying a seller 10 grand a month, over five years, I mean, do the math principle only no interest. That's a big paid out. So you have five years. I mean, you could typically ride out a cycle in five years. Maybe it may be a smidge longer. I'm not over, we're not overpaying for the property. And then the loans getting paid down. You have outs if the by-end doesn't work out. He literally asked that same question, like what are the outs? And I explained it to them. I say, but look, that has nothing to do with you. 

 Brian
 Like the contracts with your buyer. Not them. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. So you have outs. What about the seller? Are there seller outs? 

 Brian
 Yeah. The seller does have outs depending on what the deal structure is. On a lease option, the deed stays with the seller. So they would get the house back. If I defaulted, they'd have to deal with the situation in set house, the buyer. Normally, their loan has been paid down for a couple of years. They have some appreciation potentially. They don't want the house back, but they don't have to go through foreclosure. If an ownership transfer situation occurs on a subject to transaction or owner financing, then the seller would have to foreclose. If that's an issue, we can do something on contract for deed or a land contract with the DDS just goes back to the seller in case of default. 

 Josh
 Yep. Yep. Super cool. Brian, as you're you, you you've launched into real estate investing. You've built a team right. Fairly quickly at the time of this recording, less than two years, what metrics do you measure if you're heading in the right direction, if you're being successful or if you need to adjust. 

 Brian
 Sure. Metric. And so glad you brought this up. If you're not, if you don't know what your metrics are, you don't know why, why you get up in the morning, get to the desk. You got to measure what you're doing, right? Cause, cause these businesses predictable, if your KPIs. We're measuring number of dials and how many people we speak to live. What percentage of those live sellers that we convert to leads. Okay. A lead is not someone who is, Hey. Yeah, sure. Come on over. I'll sell you my house on our financing. It's they're open to the idea. Okay. They go on a followup and then all of those leads, how many are we? How many appointments are we going on? How many offers are we making? Obviously the conversion of the house under agreement. So that's what we're tracking. We're paying very close attention to that. 

 Brian
 I, we meet weekly with the team on those numbers. 

 Josh
 What's a tool that you recommend using that helps the real estates who are high prospect hunters. What's what are few tools that you use? 

 Brian
 Sure. I use this a couple of tools that I use to manage all of my contacts. I use a tool called freedom soft. 

 Josh
 Okay. 

 Brian
 Which has been pretty great. I mean you can call out of there recorded calls as well. We've gotta be careful watch the laws in your state, but you can manage everything and workflows. You can put them in different workflows where there's a lot of automation in there. You can pull lists out of there. We don't really do that much, but it's a great system to manage everything and have a team in there all at the same time, calling the other tool I use is perhaps stream that everyone's familiar with and we pull less, we run comps. It's a great tool. I mean, for the money is it's completely worth it. 

 Josh
 Yeah. What was the biggest mistake you've made? You got into it, you had a coach, you have a system you're making a ton of dials, hired some teammates. You're crushing it. Wife's happy. You got a cool kid. What's the biggest mistake you've made in this business. 

 Brian
 The biggest mistake was, and while it's important to evaluate this too, was when I started having success, I started getting away from the stuff that made me successful and I started piling off, right? Like, oh, well I'll do a podcast. I'll open it up. I'll I'll launch a YouTube channel. Like I'll do all these. I'll do some coaching. I started getting distracted. It's also the nature of the way that entrepreneurs work, I think. I got away from that and you have to just check yourself. I think it's good to have like a personal offsite every quarter or maybe every trimester depending on what you're running on. And it just evaluate what you're doing. 

 Josh
 Totally such a great idea. As an entrepreneur or early, you're hustling, you're talking to everybody door hanging, phone calls, send out letters, you're doing all the work. You get in a few deals, you got the money in the bank and then you stop doing all the things I got you successful. Six months later, your pipeline's empty and you're like, oh crap, we've got to turn this on again. So you turn it on right now. How do you, how have you found to keep your foot on that gas pedal? 

 Brian
 Yeah. It's, it's really, again, I do the personal offsite. I evaluate, it's really having the mindset of and knowing what, why you're doing this. Look, there's never been a day where I've gone to this desk and said, oh, I can't wait to make a bunch of cold calls or call people. Yeah. I love it. I mean, there's some people I'd probably say that, but I'm not one of them. I just always have to look back at why am I doing this? Like, what's my purpose. What's my vision. What's my vision for the business. And what's my purpose, you know? I do this because as I told you, before, I was an elevator salesman, I was flying a hundred thousand miles a year. I was missing my kid grow up. 

 Josh
 Totally pain. Right. You're like, I don't want to miss my kid growing up. 

 Brian
 Yep. And, and that ate at me for a long time. Yeah. And now I'm home. I get to see them every day. I don't miss practices. I don't miss games. I never, I'm never going back to that life. Whenever I feel like I might be headed in that direction, because maybe I'm not getting enough deals or talking enough people. I just think about that. It's like, all right, well, I'm going to go make phone calls. 

 Josh
 Yeah. I'm going to go knock doors. I'm going to. 

 Brian
 Do whatever it takes. 

 Josh
 And whatever it takes. Cause I'm not going back. I think when you asked me earlier, you said, Josh, do you think you had to hit rock bottom? Yeah. For me, yes. For others. I don't think so. Like what wisdom is learning from other people or like learn from me and these other guys and podcasts and all these authors and all these people that are going, Hey, I I've stumbled really hard learned from my pain. That's such a great reason to keep going right. Is I want more time. Cause that's all, we everyone's investing all this stuff and I want to be an investor and I want to be real estate and all the blah, blah. Right. What, what do you really want? I want time and freedom. I want more time with my family doing what I want to do and I want to do what I want to do time and freedom. 

 Josh
 Right. Yours is, I want more time and freedom with my family. That's awesome. Have you ever lost sight of that in the process of building? Right. In order to, I want to spend more time with my kids. I'm going to not be with my kid working on this business. Full-time have you had to find that balance? 

 Brian
 What an awesome question. And yes. I was made aware of that by my coach, reason number 4,025 to have a coach is they tell you that stuff because they've been through it. Yeah, I had, I was doing two jobs at once, so I would make phone calls and airport lounges and hotel rooms. Whenever I had time on the weekend, so yeah. I was away from them while I was trying to build this. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 It's just, you have to make a sacrifice. Right. You have to do what others are not willing to do. 

 Josh
 Right. Yeah. How did you course correct? The coach said, Hey, red flag guy, Hey, if you go down this route, you're going to lose your family. You're going to burn yourself out. You're going to wind up in the hospital. You're going to, what was your red flag that you're like, whoa, I gotta pivot. 

 Brian
 Are you talking about when I was in the job or after I was built the business? 

 Josh
 Sure. You tell me. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Well either or right. Yeah. I, so I did have, I had a, kind of a personal rock, bottom moment when I was working in the job. Right. Because I just wasn't living life the way that I, that I envisioned or I wanted to write, I was angry, man. I had a lot of regret, a lot of resentment, I have a strange relationship with my father that started to carry over into my son's life. It was like, I got to do something different. I got to do something different. It all started from when I talked about this in my book too, is it all starts from within, like, it took me so long to realize that until I start to change the inside, like nothing outside is gonna kind of change. I work, really worked hard on the inner world and then things started to change on the outside and I refused to believe that for decades refused. 

 Brian
 Wow. 

 Josh
 Thankful that you're sharing this with us, first of all, it's hard for guys to talk about feelings and emotions. Like, especially like when I was like, I was wrong ego, but super cool that you're sharing this. Thank you so much. There's so many dealmakers out there. I interviewed a guy who lost 50 million bucks and he had to get back and he rebuilt it better. It's so hard for us as dealmakers to get help. 

 Brian
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 Right. So man, I love this. Hire a coach, hire, invest in a coach because that's truly investing in you as you're building this out. Brian, you said, keeping an idea of a focus, a mission, a purpose, right. One of yours is from what I heard time and freedom with family. What does the future look like? How do you looking back, you and I hanging out 40 years from now or sipping on some, my ties or whatever we drink when we're 90 or however old, how do we know we won? 

 Brian
 Yeah. That's great. I'm sure there'll be an elevator involved in some their jobs. But yeah, that's such a great question. How do we know that we won? I, I think for me it's less about what I have, like material stuff. Cause I used to think, I mean, I have vision boards with, jets and Lamborghinis on and all that nonsense. Right. Which is great if that's what you want, but that isn't what fulfills you. Right? For me, I'm close to, I'm pushing 50 years old here and I'm starting to get a taste of that time and freedom now. I really just want more of it. I mean, I really truly want the freedom to be able to do the things I want with the people that I love the most and really create those experiences. That money cannot buy. 

 Josh
 Super cool. Now you have a podcast show. Tell me the name of it. One more time. 

 Brian
 It's called a better way with real estate. 

 Josh
 What's a question that you like to ask on the show with your guests. You've done. I think 40 something episodes like I was trying to remember. 

 Brian
 Yeah. It's about that. It's a, it's a newest show. Yeah. Thank you. I it's been a lot of fun doing it. I like to ask, I like to ask, cause I, I, I work with a lot of folks who are like me. Yeah, right. Or like me, the old Brian, right. 10 to 15 years ago, the younger version of Brian. I think it's important for aspiring investors to hear those stories because all of you come to, O'Brien's got all figured out or the guy who had 50 who lost a hundred million dollar business. Like it's hard to visualize if those people ever had struggles. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 I like to always hear what their story is like what, so that's why I think it's important, especially for men to be vulnerable. Right. To share because it's important for other men to hear it. Because I, as I started being in the show, I said, I refuse to believe that I needed any help, which is nonsense. I always want to get the message out. Like, Hey, there's people out there listening that need to hear that you had challenges that you didn't just wake up and roll out of the womb. You know, the successful person. 

 Josh
 I know people what they, it seems as though they have the Midas touch and anything, they touch turns to gold. I know some of them and it's almost unbelievable, right? Like you're like how, when is this going to run out? You know, that's not me. I don't have the Midas touch. I have to learn of what touch as I get older. Cause not everything you touch turns to gold. Sometimes you touch stuff in it's poison Ivy. So like I'm learning the hard way. A couple of questions that I have. Here's this, if I picked up your phone and I looked through your most played YouTube video or song, what would pop up? 

 Brian
 I'm a big U2 fan cell. That they would be either where the streets have no name or without you. I love that's like if you ever saw the Seinfeld episode where they talk about, the guys in the car listening to Desperado and he just doesn't, he doesn't, it doesn't move and listens to the song. Like that's my Desperado. I just jam it up no matter where I am. That song goes all the way out. 

 Josh
 Yeah. With, or without you too. I, I just, 

 Brian
 That's my elevator song. That's your. 

 Josh
 Elevator song. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Instrumental version. Yeah, exactly. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Do you play an instrument? 

 Brian
 My Delt. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Brian
 No. 

 Josh
 Me either one song you do not want to hear on an elevator is sugar. We're going down by falling away. We're going down. You're like, no, go out. Right. One of the things I like to do, I have a deck of questions or some randomness into our conversation sometimes. Super scary. Tell me when to stop. We're going to have a fun time. 

 Brian
 This is awesome. Stop. 

 Josh
 Okay. Here we go. Here's your question. There's two of them. So I get to pick which one? Oh, just going with the first one. What do you think about intuition or following your gut? Do you think it's real or phony? 

 Brian
 So I think it's real, absolutely. A hundred percent. You have to listen to yourself. 

 Josh
 Give me an example of when you did not. It got you into trouble obviously say for work here, right? 

 Brian
 Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Well, I'm trying to think of what what's appropriate for the, for the shell. I, I didn't listen to myself for years. So let's, let's give an example. I had, I had an opportunity. I would say it was about seven years ago to get into real estate. I think it was about seven years ago. I had an opportunity to enter into a deal and I was too scared. I didn't do it. I was like, I'm just going to stay with my job and not do it. I regret that and everything was telling me to go at it, but I stayed right where I was because I felt safe and comfortable and frightened to death to do this real estate deal. 

 Josh
 When's the last time you looked that up and then ran the calculations of what you would have cashed out with. Have you done that? I don't suggest you do. 

 Brian
 Yeah. I certainly have. I certainly have thought about, I've done that with a lot of stock deals too, that I thought that I should have bought, like people told me to buy it. I'd never did it. It's like, oh man, I, I, I wouldn't even be talking to anybody right now. I'd be on, I'd be on that, my tie beat somewhere. Right. So sure I've done that. But we all do that, right? 

 Josh
 Yeah. Yeah. Mine was, it was doing a deal. It was doing a deal with a friend. I knew forever, man. My gut was just off on this. I was like, he wouldn't do that to me or whatever. My wife even said, no, my gut was saying no, but I went in, I was desperate and I wanted the home run. I wanted the grand slam and yeah, that costs me a lot of money and a lot of emotional relation capital with wifey and such like that. Now B K w what's that stand for. 

 Brian
 BK? W that's the initials of my family, Brian, Katie and my son. Yeah. 

 Josh
 So you got a family owned business. 

 Brian
 I do. The kid gets it all. 

 Josh
 He behaves himself and he follows the rules of the trust. He. 

 Brian
 May not want it, but he gets it. 

 Josh
 Whether you like it or not kid, what is one characteristic or piece of advice that you have for your future dealmakers? Your kid, who's going to get this. Maybe listen to this one day, he wipes off the MP3 or eight track. He listens to this interview and he gets one piece of advice to the future self of your kid. What's that one thing. 

 Brian
 I would have, I'm struggling between two, because it's my kid. I'm just going to say, it's an extension of what we talked about before with trusting your gut. It's like, just believe in yourself, listen to yourself. You are, when you decide you are truly powerful. 

 Josh
 Oh Dan, and nobody could give you that. Right? Like you talked about this. This might be it for our other show. I have an impact show for men, but I just feel like I got to share it with, like, if you had daddy issues, like I did right. Love my dad. He was, but I had daddy issues and my whole life, I felt like I was chasing for my dad from other men, from other people. I want to be validated. I want to be important. I want to be cool. I want to be Josh. The success, Josh did this or whatever. And I chase chase until one day. I think I had a coach here comes to coach who goes, Josh, do you realize that you're valuable? You don't need to, like, he called me out on my s**t. Like, you don't need to try so hard. 

 Josh
 Like, you're just loved if God loves you. If you love yourself, what else do you need from anybody else? I was like, oh, I shot through the heart. Right. I was like, so that's what I hear in this for your son is one day just going, dude, you're valuable. You're important. You don't need anything else, man. You got this. 

 Brian
 Totally. I can completely relate to the dad thing too, man. Wow. That was almost like you were speaking directly to me. 

 Josh
 Yeah. It's, it's crazy though. All deal makers deal with this imposter syndrome, all deal makers, deal with this. I'm just trying to fit in. I just want to feel important. I just want to feel loved. Right. There's going to be a, one guy out there with no Spock emotions. Right. He's going to go, I don't need that. Okay. Other than that person, we're all in this because we want time. Freedom, love, acceptance. Tony Robbins nailed that with his six spokes of whatever. Super cool, Brian, I really appreciate you. You opening the kimono and being vulnerable man. During this interview, I probably didn't ask a question. Other than where can people connect with you? They're going to get a free book. If they click on the link you down below. Other than work at people, connect you. Cause I'll be the last thing we talk about. 

 Josh
 What's one question that I probably should ask you that I completely screwed up and forgot to ask you. 

 Brian
 I asked this question a lot on my show too. I mean, you've, you've covered a bunch. I think just going back to aspiring and investors or maybe brand new investors, because that's kind of where I've where I am. Although I've mastered skill of the phone, I'm still bad in other areas, right. Or working, improving in other areas as a business owner, I just think constantly working. So this isn't really a question. This is me giving advice. I think constantly working on your personal game is the most important thing that you can do, like have a routine practice. If you're going to pick anything out of the routine, like, people say meditation and affirmations, all this stuff. I think the most important thing that you can do as a person is to have a daily practice of gratitude. Okay. Because if you cannot be happy for the things that you have in your life right now, totally, you will never be happy ever. 

 Brian
 It doesn't, you're not gonna, buy stuff and get money. All of a sudden be happy. Like that's not going to solve your problem. It's like the divorce couple that gets a dog and they think it's going to fix their situation. Like you got to find a way to be happy now and work on that daily. First thing I wake up when I get up, first thing I wake up in the morning, 30 seconds of gratitude. Last thing before I go to bed at night, 30, 60 seconds of gratitude, it's changed my life. 

 Josh
 Super awesome, man. Super, super awesome. Yeah. I agree. Can I make a confession to you? 

 Brian
 Yes. 

 Josh
 I'm terrified of elevators. So I take steps to avoid it. 

 Josh
 I'm taking steps to fix my, I messed up that joke. Oh, 

 Brian
 Really did. I'm afraid of Heights and I'm six foot seven, so and an elevator sales one. I, I mean, I that's even worse. 

 Josh
 That's good. Last question. Other than the lanky dude that they could find in here for their free book, what's a way for people to connect with you and do a deal. 

 Brian
 Yeah. I'm all over social media. If you go to my Instagram, that's where I mainly live. I shouldn't say all of the social media, I'm getting kind of old for social media, but you can go to my Instagram page. That's the real Brian O'Neill dot com. I'll let you know. I can give you that for the show notes again. BK w property solutions.com is my business website. You can go there. When we give the link for the phone, for the how to mask the phone in 90 days, there'll be some attachments there and links to get in touch with me and I'm happy to talk to anybody. 

 Josh
 Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. What we'll do is we'll put all those links in the show notes, you and I would just stay over after so we can get all that information. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow deal-makers as always. Here's my request to you, reach out to our guests and say, thanks for being on the show. Find a way to do a deal with them. That's the purpose and mission of the shows, connect deals and deal makers together. That's my whole business model. That's everything I do is around connecting people and people in deals to deals. All right. So please help me with that. Connect with our guests and say, thank you. If you're working on something and you want to talk about it here on the show, we'd like to share the story of makers and then we find deals and then we typically do deals together. 

 Josh
 If you want to come on the show, talk about a deal. Whether you're raising capital buying stuff, investing in things or trying to sell something, head on over to the deal, scout.com, fill out a quick form, get you on the show. Talk to you all on the next episode. See you guys.