3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Scale Your Real Estate Business w/ Cole Ruud-Johnson

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] You are a real estate wholesaler and flipper and you want to be around other people that are looking to grow and expand your businesses in this ever changing economy, then you need to check out our scale community. Go to collectingkeys.com/scale, and you can get all the details there. But long story short, we are a small tight knit little group of serious real estate entrepreneurs that are looking to really make massive income and not just passive income to this ever changing economy. So if real estate wholesaling flipping is kinda your thing, go to collectingkeys.com/scale. Book a call with me in there if you want. I'd love to see if you'd be a good fit.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [0:32] Let's help people build companies that can sustain any market cycle.

Mike DeHaan: [0:36] What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. Today, we have a friend of the show, Cole Red Johnson here. And, dude, super excited to have you on the show today. If you don't know who me and Dan are, I don't know. Go listen to the other 460 episodes we've done at this point. There's plenty of it. You'd probably see hearing us hearing from us. But Cole, for people who don't know who you are, give us the quick too long didn't read about all of the great stuff that you are doing in the real estate space.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [1:07] You know, it's funny. I the too long didn't read thing, I keep seeing people post that like t l d r, and I never knew what it meant until like two days ago. I finally when I looked it up, I was like

Dan Austin: [1:15] Now you're in. Now you're cool.

Mike DeHaan: [1:17] Oh, well, there you go.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [1:18] It's that simple. But

Mike DeHaan: [1:21] That's how I know that you're like busy actually working and not fucking around on the Internet.

Dan Austin: [1:25] Doesn't even know what the Internet is. Yeah.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [1:27] But, yeah. Thanks guys for having me on. I know we go back and forth a lot, we have a lot of the same, I think, core Yeah. Values when it comes to business and real estate. So I'm excited to talk shop for a while. My background, I primarily wholesaler, have been involved in a few flips through partnerships, but primarily wholesale and real estate. Did a couple 100 deals through my company, HelloPad, up in Washington, which is now more just brand based, kind of just put deals together when they come to us. My full time job now, I'm the CEO, President of Easy Button Real Estate, which we're a real estate services company, software, lead generation, and conversion support. That's one of the biggest things we've added recently, helping people actually close deals, not just give them leads. And, I think, I actually hate the word CEO, to be honest with you guys listening. To me, it's not reflective of the job that you do in that role of the startup. You're more like the the chief garbage disposal, I think is a better way to put it. You deal with the all the complaints to employee issues, financial cash flow hurdles, all that kind of stuff. So that's really what my job title is, and do that full time. Couple, we almost have 200 now, team members around the world, and growing really quickly, and I spend most of my time just in the trenches with our team and a couple 100 clients we have learning about people's issues out there, how we can help solve them, and making fun of people online a lot like Mike and Dan do, which is I think my my favorite part of my job.

Mike DeHaan: [2:50] Yeah. Just a Missing piece in the real estate space a lot of times. But, yeah, man. No, that's that's cool. And I I agree on the CEO piece, because I feel like CEO is either overused by people who aren't doing anything and wanna appear important, or it's like reserved for people that are like in c suite, you know, with big, big companies. You know? Feel like if you're doing, you know, $510,000,000 a year, you like, you don't really have a CEO yet. Like you said, you have like the chief garbage disposal, however you put it.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [3:17] Yeah. And I've wanted to it grossed me out because then I'll go see all these guys. I'll go to an event, I see these guys like are doing three deals a year. And that's everyone starts and has their own journey, but they'll they'll shake their hand out, man, the CEO blah blah blah buys houses, and, you know, we're doing like, we're doing three deals a year. And I'm like, that you don't have a there's no employees, there's no infrastructure.

Dan Austin: [3:36] Dude, you can't afford that title.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [3:39] Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's kind of like what the word coaching has become in in our industry. It's so it's I just think coaching's an amazing thing. I have coaches, but it's a very frowned upon term in our industry because of the purple hair guys in our in our world that Yeah. Yeah. That have have taken it and turned it into something that isn't what it should be. So I think it's one of those terms that, you know, if we were at $50,000,000 a year, I'd proudly wear the title CEO. But until that point, I just even with my team, I just I don't want them to call me yet. I'm just like, no, I just I'm the founder and the chief garbage disposal. There you go. It's beautiful.

Mike DeHaan: [4:17] No. That's cool. I like how you expanded on that too. So Easy Button, I guess we worked with you guys years and years ago. You've been doing this for a while. That's why I wanna emphasize, because I feel like the lead generation space that you talked about has there's so many people that kinda come in and out of that role, and we worked with you guys back when you were called magic back in, 2020.

Dan Austin: [4:37] The OGs right there. The OGs.

Mike DeHaan: [4:40] And so you've been been grinding out the same thing for a little bit, but now it's something you've expanded on to, you know, you said like full like lead conversion and all those different things. And like, what does that mean? Because I you invited me to come hang out with you down in Park City with a bunch of your clients community members in February, which was a super fun time. And like, I was impressed with the caliber of guys that you had down there, man. Like, you had dudes that were getting stuff done, you know, they were all motivated. It was just a really good vibe. And so I think that whole inclusive business that you've built out is obviously working because those guys down there were crushing it.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [5:14] Yeah. You know, I I'm really big on when we have our team meetings for the past, you know, I've been running a variation of easy button real estate. It was easy button leads before. It was CallMagic before that since 2017. So the same business now going on eight, nine years. And just chipping away at it, iterating at it. And I think for me, my team comes to me and they say, why aren't we scaling faster? My my honest answer has been for the past couple years, we don't we just don't have it right yet. Like, a lot of people are very successful with us. We just don't quite have it down yet in terms of our alignment with our client, our pricing, our operations, our gross margin, our net margin. We're just not quite there yet. And I've had the privilege of spending a lot of my time with guys who are in their forties and fifties, and been in business for three decades. And every single person that lives a life that I would wanna live, they've been doing the same thing for two, three decades. Mhmm. And I think that's my main messaging in my media as of late, because people will just jump around so much. And I've been doing again, I've been running easy by almost a decade, more variation of it. And I just now, over the last six months, feel like we have the right team, the right offer, the right pricing, the right alignment, the right margins to to scale to the point we want to. And we're a pretty big company. I mean, we're we're a 4 or $5,000,000 a year company consistently, but to now go to 10 and 20. And the one thing we've changed to your question is, we've gone from just a lead generation company, which attracts a very low intent person.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [6:39] Someone who just want leads is someone that's very transactional. The moment that anything goes wrong in their business, they're gonna cut you. It's a very hard And business to be they really, really grow to the level that I wanna grow to. So we no longer let those people come on board as of the last couple months. I'd say it started in really March, a couple months after we were in we were in Utah, and I was playing around with this. And I was vocalizing there that I was playing around with this is, we only work with people who want to pay us for leads and conversion support. That's our flagship offer. It's called the deal engine. They have to pay us for both leads, and one on one support for us to help them close those. And since we've done that, our churn's gone well below 5% per month. Nice. Wow. That's awesome. Which 5% per month in an agency business is kind of the gold standard. So that's, there's just a lot of iteration. And I think people that are in any business, it's just this, I have a good business partner we were talking about before the show, Tucker, who's been doing this for so long. In my early twenties, I just got a pounded in my head by him, like, you can only get rich so fast. Like, you cannot rush it to a certain point. You have to learn the different skill sets. You have to go through all the trials and tribulations and lawsuits and employee issues if you do try to jump it.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [7:46] But you know, it's it looks like you're selling an e commerce store, or teaching forex trading, all the other bullshit. It's just

Mike DeHaan: [7:52] Making NFTs. Absolutely.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [7:54] So yeah, exactly. So I I think that's that's really where people screw themselves up. But yeah, that that's the whole kind of rundown of how we've landed where we are, why we've iterated like we have, is just to create a good product. And there's not that many good products. And that's why we have a client, Brandon Evans, who hit me up this week. He's like, hey, I think I'm joining, thinking about joining Mike and Dan's thing. I'm like, do it. They're, you know, they have a good product. And there's not that many of those out there, because not people don't care enough. There's just so much front end marketing. Hey, I'll yell at you on Instagram, I'm gonna collect $5 from you. I don't really care what happens to you after. There's so much of that that I've just tried to be very careful about how we craft our our product and our messaging.

Dan Austin: [8:30] Man, that's actually really incredible. Because I was thinking about as the as you're talking, like, because we've also watched you, at least Mike and I, from a distance, how you guys have iterated your business. And we've done that several times ourselves. Like you almost like recreate yourself. You're like the Phoenix from the ashes. It's the same company. But you're like, no, this is the new and improved. It's better. And you're it gets exhausting, and it's tiring. But as you're saying that, it's like, yeah, what does that funnel, that marketing look like? Because there's so much bullshit out there for people that are listening, that are looking to buy a product. I mean, it's almost impossible to find something that's good without going through some shit. And every time Mike and I talk to a new lead for our coaching business, they're like, oh man, I'd love to go with you guys, but you know, I paid so and so and I got shit out of it. Because there's like you, to your point, is like there's a lot of front end marketing. We're gonna make you rich right now. Sign up. And then you're just thrown to the wolves, and you're just there that you just spent $5, $10, $20 for some of these coaches.

Mike DeHaan: [9:26] I know. Some of the ones we see out there are crazy too. Like, there's certain names. You know, there's the maybe mom and son couple in Ohio that are like the main wholesaling coast. I don't know what their dynamic is. They're really The

Dan Austin: [9:39] mom and son? What are what are talking

Mike DeHaan: [9:41] She's like she's like fifteen years older than he is. So fucking Oh.

Dan Austin: [9:44] Oh. You're talking about the people they write with do with Schmiffany High?

Mike DeHaan: [9:48] Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You know, that there's like them, they're charging $20 for basically nothing for affiliate links, and then you obviously have the Paces and the Ryan Pinedas and everyone else. But the problem is is, like, you're right, is it's a generally small pool of potential prospects that we have in this industry. It's a small population.

Dan Austin: [10:06] So I wanna stop you there, Mike, because PACE did take a person from homeless to now a 5,000 air.

Mike DeHaan: [10:13] First deal closed. Did you see that? I'm so curious. This is the worst grift. I don't know what the angle is. It's so weird.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [10:21] Now his whole challenge he's doing this week is he's gonna start on a park bench and then go restart his business in seven days. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [10:27] Hell, yeah. I love that for him. That that'll be great.

Dan Austin: [10:30] It's an undercover CEO.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [10:31] They must have been down bad in a meeting for for revenue for this year and be like, how how outlandish do we

Dan Austin: [10:37] need What can we do?

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [10:38] I know. Now we're, you know, our new program is we take we we take homeless people, turn them into into millionaires.

Dan Austin: [10:45] I bet he saw James Daynard's show and he's like, want my own show, this is bullshit. Why doesn't Pace Morby have a show now? I need a show.

Mike DeHaan: [10:52] Yeah. Right? Yeah. God. I mean, then they do like the little human tunnel where she's like walking out of a garage. It's such like a cheesy weird thing, dude. I don't I don't know.

Dan Austin: [11:00] I'm telling you, he's angling for Hollywood, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [11:02] Well, I will say, Cole, he's gonna need lead support here because he's gonna be starting on Park Bench. So you should prospect. You should hit him up.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [11:08] There's no check that some people did write to work with them.

Mike DeHaan: [11:12] Yeah. Right.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [11:13] But I think yeah. It kinda sounds bad. A lot of these guys that are social media influencers, and there's there's a boatload of them that care so much about being famous. And I I wanna grow my brand and I wanna grow our business. And social media is an amazing leverage piece to do it. But like, I really don't care about being famous. Like when I go home after I leave the office, my wife doesn't like her. She does not on my social media. She doesn't care. My family doesn't care. I don't really care. But these guys care I I think it's like the all the kids that were bullied in high school that Yes. Get a little bit of real estate success. And they're like, woah, people like me because I like do real estate. Let me only think about how many people I can tell that I do real estate. That's like the energy a lot of these people give me. And I just don't go to events anymore. I don't go to masterminds anymore. I hang out with like three or four guys that are in this business that actually run real businesses, because it's just so it's that energy that you get of like, you know, they hadn't talked to another human Mhmm. Until they were 27 years old, and they did their first real estate deal.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [12:14] And it's just it's just a weird it's a weird space. You guys listening, the people that you look up to are a 100 times weirder in person than you can imagine. Totally. You actually like peel back the layers and look at how they were pre Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [12:26] That's so true. Anyways, so with your stuff Cole, like what are you seeing right now since you're on like the lead support and helping people close deals? You've also been in the real estate piece for a long time. I don't wanna discount that. Like dude, I remember listening to you on BiggerPockets way back before like we even started. You know? And you were someone that was very inspirational to me starting out because you were a young guy that was obviously very sharp. I mean, you're even young and how old are at? 26?

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [12:49] 20 just turned 27, like Damn. Two and half, three weeks ago. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [12:53] Yeah. Young buck. Right? And you were doing a lot of stuff. And so you've seen like multiple markets come around and like, what are you seeing big picture right now just like with the economy, there's all the doom and gloom with real estate in general. Your clients are obviously still performing, otherwise you wouldn't be having clients anymore.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [13:11] I think there's a couple main topics that are recurring theme in our business. One is all the regulation and stuff people are always whining about of licensing disclosure requirements that are getting more and more frequent. And then you have the the market cycle piece. And and I think the the second piece of the market cycle is, like, I've always been, and I preach to our clients and I preach to my team, like, let's help people build companies that can sustain any market cycle. Because the reality is, like, good buyers Sellers are selling right now. There is business happening that you might have to buy lower, underwrite different. That's just part of being a good operator. And I think the out of the 2,000,000 agents and the 800,000 active investors in our country, maybe 5% of them are actually good operators, decent operators, have a good team, understand financials. So I think it's just our messaging and the type of the reason we're successful, because we're only working with clients that are good operators now. We're not taking the guy that's done three deals and wants to get rich in the next two years, and wants to sign a deal every seven leads we send them, or has one bad month of of business and wants to jump off a bridge.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [14:16] Right? Like, so I think if you're a good operator right now, and you wanna be in the way to depressurize it, if you're okay being in this business for the next twenty years, which you can really make as much money as you want to in in real estate or any industry, but if you're planning on being in this for two decades, you're gonna see so many different market cycles, interest rate hikes, interest rate come down, you're gonna see seven different presidents. You're gonna like, who cares about any of that? What matters is you become a good operator. And that's hard. And people don't like that answer, because then you have to learn how to hire, how to build a team, how to how to actually well, you probably think you're good at sales, you're probably not. How to look at your financials and go, oh, shit. I might be throwing on that I'm a million dollar company on Instagram, but I made 120,000 last year, and worked a hundred hours a week running this big machine for no reason. And I think those are the conversations that I try to have with our team to attract the right clients. And for you guys listening, if you become a good operator and you become good at business, market cycles will affect you, regulations will affect you, but they're not gonna stop you from doing business.

Mike DeHaan: [15:17] Yeah. Are there things that you think you'd do differently in business in like this current market cycle versus like 2021?

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [15:23] Yeah. I mean, I think, well, the one thing marketing is always cyclical. So you're always gonna get ups and downs of your marketing channels. I think that's always gonna happen. I'm big on compliance. I think everyone should be doing compliant marketing. Like, you're gonna cold call, do it the right way. Don't build a business that has more exposure than needs to. If you're gonna do text marketing, do it the right way, which very hard to do with that the right way. Absolutely. But they all come and go. I think it's just being consistent with marketing. Think, again, I think the people that are that are winning right now, they're not concerned with AI and the magic, the next magic silver bullet. They're just doing the hard work every day. The the best operators that we work with, the guys that have really big teams that have been around for a long time, they just are really, really, really good at sales, marketing, and operations. And they don't chase the shiny thing, the subject to, the innovations, the seller finance, the section eight, the all that kind of stuff. They just ignore it. They keep doing what they're good at. Like like Jimmy, James Anarch, he's a good friend of mine, business partner. And he's just you know what he's doing?

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [16:23] He's doing the same thing he's done for the last twenty five years. He's flipping houses. He's building houses. He's running his lending company, he's showing up to the office for eight hours a day, working or more working with his team, and just doing the same thing.

Mike DeHaan: [16:36] It's a great point.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [16:36] I know. I think actually, the longer I'm in business, the more I realize that it's it's just doing the boring shit every single day for a really, really brain damaging amount of time. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [16:47] That's a great point. Because like how I mean, as a business owner, how much do the, you know, world and macroeconomics really affect you at your level? Like, obviously, affect things, you and have to make adjustments. Like you're not if you're in house flipping, you probably shouldn't over leverage yourself when you're the market's not necessarily going up. It might be going down in your local market. But I've always said this, like house flippers have to feed their families, so they're going to flip houses. And if you're a wholesaler, they need deals. And so to your point, if you're good at marketing and sales and operations in your wholesale business, you have people that are gonna buy your deals. It's just it is what it is. People don't just stop flipping houses. Houses don't just stop selling. People don't just stop moving because we're in maybe a down market cycle. You just have to be good at it a 100%.

Mike DeHaan: [17:30] I think a big part of that is just maturity of being a business owner as well. Right? And I will also say that it is so this is like a kind of an Alex Hermosy thing that talks about like, just like don't be in a rush. Right? Like, why are you always in a rush? But that's also such a classic thing to say for like a rich guy. Right? Because of course, they don't have to in a rush. They're fucking paying their bills. Right?

Dan Austin: [17:49] Yeah. I got fucking rich, dude.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [17:51] You you got 40,000,000 liquid. Yeah. Is that Yeah.

Dan Austin: [17:53] I fly private. I'm never in a rush. Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [17:55] But like even even on our own levels, right, I know none of us are at his level, but we've all independently done well for ourselves, like, Cole, I'm pretty sure, like, I mean, I haven't seen your your finance, I'm pretty sure you're not struggling to, you know, buy groceries or, you know, be able to live your life or do whatever. And so, I think almost like the balance is, when you're starting out, honestly, sometimes it does make sense to be in like a little bit of a rush or to push the envelope or to work a lot harder or to take larger risks. It becomes easier when you kinda make that first batch money, whether it's like your first million dollars or, you know, you're able to vastly make an income that exceeds your expenses, then, you know, you can kinda chill out a little bit and actually take your time. And where most people tend to get stuck is because they don't they don't keep like the grit and like the gusto to keep grinding, you know, after like that. You know? And they've they wanna like retire early or do whatever. When realistically, they haven't earned the right to do that yet. Like, you're not that rich, especially these days.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [18:50] Yeah. Well, I also think like the entrepreneur personality, like someone that's actually gonna be successful in business long term, like, there's like, retirement's not really a thing. For sure. And like anytime anytime I meet someone that's it could be at an event, and they're like, hey, Cole, like, I wanna go buy a portfolio, so I just go sit on the beach all day. In my head, I I usually go, I could be wrong where they're probably not going to make it just because of the fact that's not how an entrepreneur tends to think, at least the ones that I've met that have built the kind of career that I wanna build. I think pressure's a good thing too. Like, I I tend to bite off more than I can chew a lot of times in business. And I liked pressure because I I like showing up and having things to push and build on. And so, yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the advice you get on slow down is is more around, at least the way I take it, and the the part of it I think is valuable, is the people that feel like they should change what they're doing because they're two years in and struggling. Like, it's usually not a business model issue, it's usually a skill issue. And, people really get themselves in trouble because they they restart the clock every every six months on what they're doing. And you just you can't get it good enough that way. I cold called for eight months before I got a single deal.

Dan Austin: [19:56] That's pretty good.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [19:57] And then I I had an office with the bullet holes in it that I went to at 19 for three years with with someone got murdered in the parking lot one day, and while all my friends were partying in college. Like it just and that that was that was for four years. Like there's just a certain price you have to pay to be able to build a biz if you wanna be self employed and actually build wealth at the same time, and live on your own terms, there's just a price that you have to pay, unless you inherit, unless you're the daughter of the In N Out people that inherited the company at 27 isn't worth 8,000,000,000. Right? Like that's Yeah. Right. That's That's pretty you and you're listening, kudos to you. I hope we need to become friends. But for most people, there's just a price you have to pay. And changing business models, changing business partners, those things probably aren't gonna speed it up.

Mike DeHaan: [20:41] Yeah. For sure. And I think that, like you said, there's definitely a natural personality tab that's on entrepreneurship, to the point where it doesn't even really become like a question. Like, you're not really that worried about being in a rush, because honestly, you're perfectly happy working a lot. Because, I mean, I'm sure you're probably saying like, what what else am I gonna do? I don't know. Have some recreational time when I know that I need it, but I don't like need it to be all the time. Mhmm. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [21:08] You talk about your father-in-law, 77, like, what else are you gonna do when you're 77 anyways? Dude, I mean, like, you're physically you're physically breaking down, you might as well keep your mind sharp and do cool stuff like that to make deals happen.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [21:18] But I feel like those things go hand in hand. Like, he's still playing pickleball.

Dan Austin: [21:22] He's That's great.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [21:22] Walking 10,000 steps day. He's lifting. He lives the life of a 40 year old.

Mike DeHaan: [21:26] Yeah. You're

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [21:27] right. So I think when I think those two things go hand in hand. They do.

Mike DeHaan: [21:30] Hey, guys. Quick little ask for you if you don't mind. We would love to continue growing this show, and being a small podcaster right now is honestly really hard. Pretty much everybody that I know that has a small show has been seeing a downward trend in listenership and downloads for, like, the last year and year and a half. So if you support what me, Dan, and Dylan do with this show, if you could please go and share it on your Instagram, tell your friends, share it on Facebook, wherever you hang out and your social media. Just go and, like, spread the word about what we do and the value that we bring to you and your business, And that will continue to help us grow and expand our listenership within your circles. So if you wouldn't mind doing that, we'd really appreciate it. And thanks guys. We'll get back to the show. My dad was an entrepreneur as well. He had a travel business. And like still, he'll whenever we talk business stuff, he's like sharp as a whip, you know, like certain things. But then it's funny. So he turns 80 this year. And there's like other stuff from, okay, he doesn't quite understand this anymore, but it's stuff that doesn't really matter.

Dan Austin: [22:25] Yeah. Like technology has passed, but he could figure it out.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [22:28] I get called over three times a day to fix a printer or to get a computer working again or get QuickBooks fixed. So now that that stuff bleeds naturally just because technology advances. So even shit like the people are doing on TikTok and stuff now that I do you know, we just hired someone to our media team. It's like 23. I'm like, what is this stuff you're doing? Like, I feel like I'm pretty savvy technologically, but like and I kinda understand AI, but I have no idea what he's doing.

Mike DeHaan: [22:52] Oh, it's alright. Get that 23 year old to try and like do something in Excel. Done.

Dan Austin: [22:56] No shit. Shit.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [22:57] Yeah. They get them to get them to work longer than three hours day, and someone at 22 is like, what are you talking about?

Mike DeHaan: [23:02] No shit, bro. That dude, that's a trauma. You gotta be careful. Gotta It's a trauma. You're gonna have to go and tell someone about it. Which is funny that you're talking shit because you're you're kind of that same age.

Dan Austin: [23:12] You're close.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [23:13] Oh, it's it's bad. No. I mean, the workout, I think I think every generation has differences. Mine is was the first one to really grow up with like we had Facebook come out in sixth grade, Instagram in like eighth. So like we were right there, and people just do not work.

Dan Austin: [23:29] Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, like my daughter's seven and like kids now, like they say, I wanna be an influencer or a YouTuber. YouTuber. Like, that's like a real thing. Like, you know, even when you're a kid, Cole, like that wasn't a thing, you know? It's just like that's just the way things happen with these younger kids.

Mike DeHaan: [23:44] I mean, it makes sense. You know, Gary Vee said this a long time ago. He's like, you know, why would some young kid wanna come work for your dry ass company for $50 a year when they can make the same amount of money dancing on TikTok? And dancing feels good. It's super valid. Right? Very valid. You know? And that's just the way that the economy has kind of changed.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [24:01] It's how Ryan Pineda made his money. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [24:04] Pretty much. Dude, flipping couches. Hey. It was it was what he wanted. Okay? He decided that Ryan Panay deserve that money. So that's just my god. That's just how it works. But he's the worst dude. I'm so excited for that like big lawsuit to come crashing down. Oh my god.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [24:21] What a crap.

Mike DeHaan: [24:23] How many of those guys do you think are is there anyone out there that you was like a big influence that you think is actually legit?

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [24:28] There's only a handful of guys that I've met that like I would want their life. And that list is that are like decent sized brands. Like James is a TV show now. He's one of them. Like, I go, we go and stay at his house once in a while in Arizona. Like, he's as real as they come. Like, doesn't really care about that stuff. Just does it because it's a lever in his business. Totally. Tucker doesn't have the biggest brand anymore, but Tucker's one of those guys. Other than that, man, I can't say anyone that I've met, and I've met everyone pretty much, I would really sit down and say that I would wanna trade lives with that person. Even a lot of the the really good guys that I've met and had spent tons of hours with, met their families. There's just been a lot. No. There's not again, so many of them have this like wounded high schooler, couldn't get laid until they were 34 years old. This energy that's and that's just a joke, but they have this energy of

Dan Austin: [25:18] like Desperation.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [25:19] I need to be fam desperate to be famous. I will do I will pimp myself out. I will sell whatever it takes. I will say whatever it takes to to get some fame and attention. And I just don't.

Dan Austin: [25:30] I'll ask you about one guy, because you're a Seattle guy. What about Thatch? I mean, he's he's got some nice cars. That guy

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [25:35] Funny about Thatch, my so my mom is is a broker, and her and Thatch started the same year in the same office cold calling together. So I've known Thatch for like my whole life. And I love Thatch. I think he's hilarious. Yeah. I mean He's sick of funny. He does what he says he does. Right? He's I think that he's a little more out there than I would be. Like, and I also think like, I think a 56 year old dude flexing a Ferrari is not like as impressive to me, because like, I don't know, like, I can't seem I already if I had a brand new Ferrari, I I can't don't think right now I would flex it. But in thirty years from now, being like every every morning, like opening my garage doors on my Instagram reel, and I'd I'd laugh with him on his face, but I just don't think like, to me, that's weird a

Mike DeHaan: [26:15] little bit. You know how I know Thatch is legit though? Is because he's a 56 year old dude that just lets himself be 56. He's not like a dude that's like roided to the gills.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [26:23] No. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [26:24] You know, and that's got like a new neck tattoo and has a 26 year old girlfriend.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [26:27] He's a real dude. He's legit. Like, he's he's he made a lot of money before he even started putting social media content out.

Dan Austin: [26:33] Yeah. I've always liked him. He's always impressed me because he he he puts off the vibe of, like, he does some cool stuff, like, don't know, funny stuff too on Instagram. You're like, alright. Cool. Funny. Whatever. Frecking older dude, but, like, you could tell he's done some shit and been through some stuff. So Yeah. He's paid his money.

Mike DeHaan: [26:47] So with all that being said, for people that are trying to grow their businesses or, you know, learn about how to be better business owners or better real estate investors? Like, what are the good resources these days? I mean, obviously, there's our show, which we kinda go all over the place. It becomes more of like a Banteri show. Your show your show is really great. But like, it's hard to find people, honestly. Like, how do you even learn how to do stuff anymore?

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [27:12] I don't know if there's a good answer to that. Like, I I think I think unfortunately, for the way most people enter this business is they end up with a fortune builder, they end up with a Renatus, or they end up with a version of that, and they spend $20.30, $40, and they get punched in the face, and then they do a few deals and kinda learn to sniff that stuff out. That's just a shitty part about the the industry. Like and every industry is kinda like that, to be honest with you. Insurance industry is the same way. There there's kind of grifter the grifters exist in every business. And I think what you can do above all is just avoid the keywords that signal a grifter when they're talking about passive income, and they're talking about get rich quick, they're talking about it's easy, it doesn't take time, energy, money. Those things that you just know when you're good do not exist unless you inherit it. Right? Like, that's the major way to know. And then, if they're just if they're really in your face in the sense of they are tatted up, they're roided up, their their way is the only way. It's I just feel like so much of it just comes with experience where it's it's hard to tell someone who's, like, was 19, no, sorry, I was 18 at a Renatus event. And I'm like, yeah, man, this is the answer. And I sign up for a program where it cost me a thousand bucks a month for seven years to pay for the program. Right?

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [28:26] And I obviously I paid it off earlier, but that they just don't care. Right? And it's those people that there's a new batch of people. Every one of the plant in those countries are interested in real estate. Right? Like I was telling someone earlier on my team is, I'm going to a wedding this week with my, for my, one of my wife's friends. Every wedding I go to, it's just like I play Q and A for a weekend, because everyone wants to be in real estate. Right? And they're all, they're gonna go find someone to give their money to that's gonna promise them the dream. And you guys don't promise the dream, I don't promise the dream. So they get to us later in their journey. But that's just the I don't have a great answer to that, to be honest with you.

Mike DeHaan: [29:01] Yeah. You're right though about everyone being interested in real estate, which almost which does make it so much harder. So I was at yeah. Acquisition.com a couple weeks ago for like our third session there with like their little deep dive coaching thing that they do. They got a lot of value from. But the funny thing was is like the other participants that were down there, constantly they're wanting to ask me stuff about real estate. And they're like not they're in businesses that aren't close to it at all, but it was everything from like this one lady that was under contract buying a primary home that was asking me how she should respond to, like, a counter from the seller. Right? To like people wanting to know about investing and everything else. And it's you're right. It's a completely broadly interesting topic, which almost makes it impossible to get good information as well because the way you can interpret it is infinite. You know? And there's people that wanna be real estate entrepreneurs, and there's people that wanna be investors. Right? But then what ends up happening is a lot of people that should just be investors, they end up pursuing like entrepreneurial stuff and vice versa.

Mike DeHaan: [29:58] Right? I can't tell you like how many people I've talked to that wanna build their rental portfolio, and they come in and they're like, hey, wanna send direct mail so I can buy better rentals. Why? And I'm like, how many houses are trying to buy this? You're like, oh, like one or two. Yeah. Don't do that. Yep. Because the problem is you're gonna be competing with us who, you know, sends 20 to 30 plus thousand dollars a month in mail and has an entire team. Like we will beat you every single time.

Dan Austin: [30:21] And the other challenge with that whole thing is, is it goes back to what we're talking about is like people that are in the real estate space and make money in real estate, that's the only thing they're pitching. So they're like, you need to go build a rental portfolio. It's like, why? Are you trying to do with a rental portfolio? What are your goals? Well, there's tax depreciation. Do you need that? Like for like, what? I don't you know what I mean? Like, like, why? Why? Like, you just gotta ask why like a 100 times, and then you get down. It's like, no, you just want money. Okay, let me show you how to make money. That's a different story.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [30:48] No. It's weird. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [30:49] For a long time, our our tagline of this show was folks are making massive income, not just passive income. And it got a very niche group of people to come and be into it. But tell you what, that is not the popular message in real estate at all.

Dan Austin: [31:01] Everybody wants passive income and like, they need $20 a month passive.

Mike DeHaan: [31:04] Yeah. Right. That's like their arbitrary number.

Dan Austin: [31:06] So so so fucking hard. But you know what? You can make $50 not passive a lot easier.

Mike DeHaan: [31:11] Like Totally.

Dan Austin: [31:12] A thousand times easier.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [31:13] Yeah. Yeah. And and I think most people like, I've talking about this more. I like, firm belief's held loosely. Well, like, I'm I'm always open to changing my mind. One of the things I currently firmly believe is that most people just should not run their own business. That's everything from owning rentals to doing wholesale deal. Like, does that mean they couldn't do it? No. But you're not gonna enjoy your life. Because it's 98% of the time just brain damage. And I feel like podcast hosts, a lot of the times, I feel like what all of us do is the reason we run podcasts and talk to other people is because we like hearing other people say it too that are successful. Right? And that's it. And that's the reality of it is like, it's Right. There's no way. That's why I think Al Shmuelty's blown up the way he has. Because a lot of, like his Twitter today, a lot of what he put out was just like, I'm going through a hard period right now. It sucks. I don't know how I'm gonna survive it or get out of it. It's brutal. Cool.

Dan Austin: [32:06] Me

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [32:06] too. That's the message. And I think most entrepreneurs feel like that.

Mike DeHaan: [32:09] Oh,

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [32:09] yeah. At least part of every day. Maybe not the whole entire day, but at least there's at least a point of every day where you kind of just go, okay, here we go again. Unless you have a sick twisted part of you that likes that, like the quote about chewing on glass. There's just, there's better ways to make money. A W-two is not a bad thing. An independent contractor is not a bad thing. Making 200 a year is not a bad thing. You don't have to go try to make a million dollars a year. Like, there's a lot more to life. And if you don't genuinely love just in a sick twisted amount of pain, running a business probably is not the answer. And that is the that's just my answer to people now. And until I'm persuaded differently, that's how I answer that question.

Mike DeHaan: [32:49] Yeah. One of the things that you said this in Utah, and I've seen you post this on Instagram a couple times, which I really like, I have stolen this. You talk about like the perfect size of a real estate business, like a wholesale business for people. And I think I'll let you react to numbers on that. I don't wanna steal your thunder, but it's one of like my favorite concepts. I think it's so relevant to so many people trying to pursue this business.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [33:10] Well, it came from everyone coming to us, being like, I wanna run a $5,000,000 a year company like you. And I'm like, no, you don't. Yeah. I'm like, no, you don't. Because most days I don't. And I spend most of my brain energy time for the past decade thinking and trying to get better at it. And so I've thought about like my best time in business was either now when we've gotten really pretty, pretty big, or is it like a million dollars where your profit margin's 50%? You have a team of three to five people, your overhead's not insane, you can sleep at night, You can have a bad month and survive it. And so I think for most people, what I tell them now is before you decide what you wanna do in real estate, whatever you're currently doing to make money, take it to a million dollars per year with a small team, 60% margins, low overhead, lean, and then decide. Because one, most people won't ever even be able to get there because it's hard. And then once you do get there, most people won't don't don't need to go any further beyond that. Because then you're bringing in a lot of overhead and office space. You're bringing a bunch of shit that most people just, I feel like, would not wanna deal with. But a lifestyle business is what I call it of a million bucks a year, million and $0.5 a year, 50% margins. That to me, that's when I was twenty twenty one, making 4 or $500 a year.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [34:22] And that's a business that I think is less brain damaged. And a lot of people just, they grow to grow. And they, agents, investors, they get to this point where they're they're just feeding a machine. And I think that's a terrible place to be, because you're not building a sellable business. If you're running a software company, feeding the machine is different, because you have enterprise value for doing it right. But in a real estate business, there's been some people that have said they sold their real estate company. It's not really a sellable business, unless you build something crazy internally.

Mike DeHaan: [34:50] Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And I think that that's such a hard concept for people to grasp because people always think like more money is more better. But people don't understand that revenue is so far removed from profit. So like like last year when Dan and I were really pushing our backyard homebuyer stuff, we did just over $4,000,000 revenue with all that. But we took home like nothing. Mhmm. Barely more than just like our standard w twos versus back in 2021, we did like 1,300,000 and we took home

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [35:21] I remember more money.

Mike DeHaan: [35:22] Over million dollars in profit.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [35:23] It was great. Way better. Was awesome. Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [35:25] You know, and we had two people on staff. When we had the the one that did over 4,000,000, we had like 20 something people at max, it VAs, like it was just HR constantly hiring, and it was like not fun at all. Mhmm. You know, and we did a lot of deals, we did over a 150 transactions, Couldn't tell you anything about any of them, which was cool, I guess. But Yeah. It also like loses the spirit. Right?

Dan Austin: [35:46] You're still you're just working in a different part of your business is all Like, and and I think the the misguided notion is that like your expenses and revenue grow literally together, and they rarely grow together. You know, it's like one or the other. Like when you start out, like your your revenue is growing rapidly and your expenses are staying low. But then if you want to grow your revenue a lot, then your expenses all of a sudden start growing a lot sided, and now your margins get smaller and smaller. Next thing you know, you're running a business for nothing.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [36:12] Yeah. If you if you're at a million, million and 0.5 a year, you really don't get profitable again in a real estate business. You try to scale until you're at like $56,000,000. But for a lot of you guys that are just building real estate shops, you know, it really, it really stuck for me. I went I flew to Naples. We do a we do a leadership off-site every quarter in Naples. And that's where Tucker lives, my business partner. And he I walk into his office, and he's in flip flops at 2PM leaving office. And he builds six, seven spec homes a year and makes $500 to 2,000,000 per home and has two project managers, and like that's his real estate business. Mhmm. And that's eventually, you kinda learn that in this business, especially, bigger is not better. And unless you're gonna go to like a James Dayner level where you're gonna have four different vertically integrated companies that you spend thirty years on to to get it all cranking together, you're gonna make less by going bigger most of the time.

Mike DeHaan: [37:07] Yeah. I think you have

Dan Austin: [37:08] to ask yourself, do you really, really want that? Do you wanna go from 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 in five more years? If you don't want that, that's okay, because you're gonna not make a lot of money while you do it, and it's gonna be a lot of work.

Mike DeHaan: [37:19] Yeah. Well, I think that going about the way you said, Cole, is is perfect. Right? Where you spend a couple years making the $304,100,000 dollars, you keep living within your means, you bank a lot of that money, you put it in reserves, you invest it, you do different things. And then when you decide to go bigger, if you wanna invest $506,107 $100,000 into the new business venture to go faster, it's so much easier to do that.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [37:39] So much easier. Way better. And a lot of people, like, they don't realize that, like, your quality of life peaks out, I would say, about $300 a year until you're making like $2,000,000 a year. Like if you're if you're making paying yourself 300 for your business versus 500 doesn't change that much unless you're like because at that point, you can fly first class most of the time if you want to. You can save money. You can eat where you want, you don't have day to day living expense issues. So like, for me, the richest I felt was when I was in my early twenties, late teens, and the first time I made $300, I'm like, oh shit, like, okay. And then since then, your quality of life doesn't dramatically change above that. Otherwise, you just put more into savings. So if you're growing your business just to slightly grow your income from 300 to 500, it might not be worth the pain. Now if you're trying to grow your income from $300 to $2,000,000 in active income, you have to grow. But to your point, yeah, I mean, it's I think a lot of people don't have that conversation enough either of how much money they really need. And I never really sat down and actually thought about that. How much money do I really need to live the life that I wanna live?

Mike DeHaan: [38:41] Yeah. For sure. You know, and did think more is better, which, you know, isn't always the case. But I don't know, as people do. And people always fixate on the stuff that isn't even that expensive. I remember when I I realized I kinda made it, was I just hung out with Ryan Dossi down in Florida. He's a good buddy of ours. And he let me drive his Ferrari, which I thought was super cool. And I will I learned I'm not a car guy. Like, I I

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [39:04] do not

Mike DeHaan: [39:05] give shit about cars at that moment. But then I looked up what it would take to for me to buy a car like his. And I was like, oh, bro. Easy.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [39:11] I could

Mike DeHaan: [39:12] do Yeah. The monthly payment isn't even that bad. It's like $4. Yeah. Like, it's just that's not even impressive anymore at all. Like, anyone can do that.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [39:20] Yeah. No. It's I'm not a definitely not a car guy. I'm not anything guy, to be honest. Like, out of my wife, if she buys new clothes, I'll wear new clothes, but I spend my money on golf, travel, nice dinner. That's pretty much it. Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [39:32] Yeah. I'm the same way. I fly first class to Asia, and that's where I spend all my money.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [39:36] Yeah. If I have business class, other than that, I really don't really don't care. I like a watch. I have a watch I bought when I was like 21, a douchebag and single. But besides that, like, that's really it.

Dan Austin: [39:45] Yeah. That's it. Yeah. I'm not a guy about anything. I don't have any, like, vices either.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [39:49] Yeah. You do. Like what? Podcasting.

Dan Austin: [39:51] White Claws. White Claws. I don't drink White Claws anymore. I got podcasting. I love podcasting, dude. Podcasting at White Claws? Haven't you seen me? Oh my god.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [40:00] I podcast all night. Yeah. Yeah. Just solo record shows.

Mike DeHaan: [40:04] Now you're Vice Dan. Guns.

Dan Austin: [40:06] Guns. Not even that, dude.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [40:08] A lot of people that start podcasts, they just like listen to self talk. Like a lot of people in our space, they just say shit for no reason online. Yeah. They just love it.

Mike DeHaan: [40:15] Yeah. Well, as they do. Anyways, cool. Well, it's good to have you on, buddy. Give us a quick shout out to where people can find you, follow you, talk about your show, talk about your lead nurturing business. We need we need to find like a new category to describe that in like one sentence, because you said a lot of stuff at the beginning.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [40:32] I just saw real estate services. Right? Like, we really try to be a services company rather than a lead generation business. So you can find me on Instagram at Colt Johnson. You can find me on every platform. I put out content across almost every platform at Colt Ridge Johnson. And Easy Bun Real Estate, if guys wanna check us out, we have a couple 100 agents and investors around the country. Few of them actually, at least one on top of my head has come from your guys come from, is in your guys' community. That's Alex, right? Yeah. Alex, he's he's doing what he's crushing it. So yeah, you can look up easybuttonrealestate.com, talk to our team. We try to be we actually try to do what we say we do, which is a that's the that's where the bar is in our industry. It's can you do what you say you do? 99% can't meet that. So that's my quick rundown. Appreciate you guys having me on.

Mike DeHaan: [41:16] Cool, man. Awesome. Thanks for showing the show. Alright, guys. We'll go and hit up Cole. Check out his business and his socials. If you guys can't tell, knows what he's doing. He's been in the space for a long time, and he is one of the very few people in this that I would vouch to in pretty much every single way. At least from my concede, unless he's a really good liar, which is also possible.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [41:34] Sure. Sure. Why not? All time level psychopath.

Dan Austin: [41:38] Time level psychopath. Yeah. Narcissist for sure.

Mike DeHaan: [41:40] But awesome. Nicole, thanks so much, man. And everybody, thanks for listening. We'll talk to you guys next week.

Cole Ruud-Johnson: [41:44] See you.

Mike DeHaan: [41:45] Thanks for listening, everyone. If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at investor man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore does underscore deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to let us know what you think of the show.