Building A Top Notch Acquisition Team with Noah Gilliom

Noah Gilliom: [0:00] I think when working with direct to seller, I always present ourselves as a solution based selling company. In that, the people we work with, they're never... Nine times out of 10, I'll say they are not in a great financial spot. They're not in a good physical spot or something, something along the lines. They're not properties that can go on the retail market, but they still have a certain need out of those properties. So, we always present ourselves of, Hey, look, we're going to give you a solution. And the answer is you're going to sell your property and the cash from that sale is gonna help you out of this solution. And I always tell my guys, look, there's four main points of motivation.

Speaker 2: [0:38] Welcome to the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [1:02] What's going on, guys? In this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast, we have Noah Gilliom, who... If you have heard of him before, it is probably through Ryan Dossie. Ryan... He is Ryan Dossi's business partner in his wholesaling business out in the Indianapolis area. If you don't know who Ryan Dossi is, he is a pretty large influencer slash wholesaler who's been around for quite a long time, especially for how young both these guys are. Yep. But Noah runs the sales team for their operation. And in this podcast, he drops such incredible knowledge on how to actually build, manage, and operate a successful wholesaling sales team. Well, I I say wholesaling, an off market investor sales team that is, like, just efficient and actually, like, get stuff done without having to beat your head against the wall, which is one of the biggest challenges in this business.

Dan Austin: [1:55] He makes it simple. And this is definitely like, if I could have, like, red flashing signs on the title of this episode, I'd call it, like, the acquisition manager episode. Because if you're, a acquisition manager yourself or you wanna hire one, this is like... He talks about, like, from hiring, like, the best practices all the way to how to do your... Make sure your team are doing the follow ups, which are so key to your operation. It's real... I mean, he's he's spitting fire. That's good.

Mike DeHaan: [2:18] Yeah. He does. Yeah. He did. He spit a lot of fire for sure. And, yeah, just brought a ton of incredible knowledge. And the thing that I loved about it too is as you kinda get through it and you get to the end of it, you know, I think you have the same realization that I did, Dan, of, like, it's not rocket science, like, honestly.

Dan Austin: [2:35] And It's not even science.

Mike DeHaan: [2:37] It's not even science. It's just... It's, like, kind of boring consistency just like everything else. But the way he lays it out just makes so much sense. And there's, like, so much legitimate tangible advice to the point that I was sitting there listening, and I was like, shit. I'm gonna go and transcribe everything he said, put it into chat GBT, and just have it create all of our SOPs from what he put out there.

Dan Austin: [3:01] Boom. There you go.

Mike DeHaan: [3:02] Anyways, guys, enjoy the show with Noah. He's a super nice guy too. Reach out to him on all the socials that he drops at the end because he is more than happy to chat with anybody. He also gave a link that you can book a call with him too if you want to, you know, talk about your sales process, go all that sort of stuff with him, which I would highly recommend you take him up on. Yes. But besides that, please share this episode with anyone who has any interest in sales or off market real estate at all. This will definitely be helpful to anyone who's interested in that space. Aside from that, if you wanna start getting off market leads, go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free. Get your free five step guide to start generating off market leads. And then you can start closing deals with all these sick tips that Noah shared with you in this episode. So sick tips.

Dan Austin: [3:44] Sick tips.

Mike DeHaan: [3:45] Alright, guys. Thanks so much for listening, and enjoy this episode with Noah Gilliom. Alright. Noah Gilliom, it's good to see you again, man. It's a... It's been a little while. I feel like I feel like what's funny. When I first met you, I was just kinda starting out in the real estate game, and now we've grown a lot. You've grown a lot. And for people who don't know who you are, maybe give us a little bit of a background about you and what you do in the real estate world. And just like everything in between, Manx, you have a really, really impressive resume people are gonna be super excited to hear about.

Noah Gilliom: [4:18] Oh, man. I appreciate it. For people that don't know, I'm Noah Gilliom. I'm an Indianapolis based investor, but I flip wholesale own rentals in Indianapolis, Louisville. We're starting to get into Philly. We've got some stuff in the Dallas area. Then in a little bit, probably end of Q2, we're going to get into the Naples Florida market. So we do a mixture of flipping. We do wholesaling. We own some rentals. We used to have a huge portfolio, ended up selling it off. But yeah, I've kind of run the gamut, started this game in 2016, so I've been around for a little bit. I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly. I've earned some stripes, taken six figure hits, you know, whole nine yards. But I would say that without all that, I wouldn't be the investor I am today. But but, yeah, that's a little brief intro about myself.

Mike DeHaan: [5:04] There you go. The super quick version. So cool. So I didn't realize you've been in since since 2016. So I will say you are officially the wholesaler that we've had that's been around the longest. We've had several wholesalers on this show.

Dan Austin: [5:16] So you've been wholesale... You were wholesaling in 2016? Yes. Like, that's when you started. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. So way back before it was cool, before there was all the social media people that were out there. Yeah. Well, people don't tend to stick around that long either. Like, you hear, like, oh, two to three two, three years that you make a quick buck and then they're gone.

Noah Gilliom: [5:33] Oh, yeah, absolutely. I remember back when we could run deals at 68%. It was great. Those numbers were amazing. Yeah. Our first numbers we started at was 68% of ARV. And then slowly over the years, crept up to 75. Here we are. I guess that just means I'm an old man.

Mike DeHaan: [5:49] Yeah. Right. I guess old man who said, wait. You're turning 30 next week. So that's some context for the listeners out there.

Dan Austin: [5:55] Get so old. No.

Mike DeHaan: [5:56] So so that's cool, though. So I guess, like, I've been asked, how did you get into the real estate game? Let's go back a little bit further then with that.

Noah Gilliom: [6:03] Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So I got got into the real estate game mid twenty sixteen. So I met my partner, Ryan Dossi. I'm sure a lot of listeners know who that is.

Mike DeHaan: [6:11] Little name drop there.

Noah Gilliom: [6:13] Yeah. A little name drop there.

Dan Austin: [6:14] Yeah. Ryan.

Noah Gilliom: [6:15] But, we met on the church worship team, actually, back in 2016. He played guitar. I played drums.

Dan Austin: [6:20] Is this when he had long hair that kinda covered part of his face?

Noah Gilliom: [6:24] It was medium long. Wasn't... He he didn't have, like, swoopy thing going.

Dan Austin: [6:28] Yeah. Love those pictures

Noah Gilliom: [6:30] he But post that was a little bit after those days. He had just moved to Indy, so we knew each other for about a year, and then I hopped in the real estate game with him. He had actually put out a post and was like, Hey, I'm looking for someone who can run appointments for me. That's about as deep as I got. And I was like, Hey, you know what? I was in social work before all of this. I loved it. It was very fulfilling, but the pay just wasn't there. It was a really rough work environment. You work countless hours and people don't appreciate you. People don't care about you at all. And I was like, you know what? I could do a career change. Let me see what we can do. So I sat down and we had coffee and he's like, look, man, you would be a great option and a great add to our team. But if I'm being honest with you, I don't know how I'm going to pay you. And I was like, as long as I can make $2 a month, we'll figure something out. That's where we started. Grand a month. Yeah. $2.

Dan Austin: [7:23] So awesome.

Noah Gilliom: [7:24] And we made it work. We started and yeah, that was when we wholesaled. So we wholesaled, I think that year we did 12 deals. And then 2017 came around and we're like, right, let's scale this thing up. And then we did 74 deals in 2017. And then in 2018, we switched to the buy and hold method and we added 74 single family to our portfolio. 2019, we're like, All right, let's scale this thing up. Let's add multifamily. And we added like 87 doors in 2019. So we were up to about 165 doors, I think at one point. And at that point, it was great. We self managed everything. And then we kind of came to a screeching halt. We were in a partnership that everybody kind of got tired. It was time to move on. We actually sold off the portfolio and then we started flipping. So I think 2020, 2021, we're kind of building years, getting our feet wet, basically paying the bills so we could stay afloat. Last year, 2022, I think we flipped 21 houses just within the Indy market. And then at the tail end of 2022, we added Louisville. And then there was a flip in Philly that I wasn't super part of, looked at a little bit of stuff on it, now we're going to start to ramp that up. Then, yeah, we're going to get into the Naples market, try to flip a few in the DFW market and move on from there. I think right now we've got between our various markets, I think we've got eight flips going on right now. Interesting. A few different ones hitting the market here in the next week or so. But yeah, we've mostly become a flip operation at this point, but we're gonna start to do...

Noah Gilliom: [9:00] We're in the process of starting a opportunity zone hedge fund, So we're getting that all set up. Mhmm. But all of the deals that we do at this point are direct to seller. Really? In house, we don't buy anything off the MLS. We don't buy anything from other wholesalers. We just negotiate our deals straight direct to seller.

Mike DeHaan: [9:16] Interesting. Yeah. There's a lot to unpack there. So that... First off, I love the fact that you were in social work before you got into wholesaling and managing your sales team. So I feel like that is a very direct relationship. Like, you're working with the same kind of people

Noah Gilliom: [9:30] Oh, a 100%.

Mike DeHaan: [9:31] Honestly, as as motivated sellers. So that that seems like a like a perfect match. Like, if anything

Noah Gilliom: [9:37] There's lot of PTSD there. I'll walk in the house and be like, oh, I've sat in this house for child home visits.

Mike DeHaan: [9:42] Oh, really? I've been here.

Noah Gilliom: [9:45] There's a lot of similarities there.

Mike DeHaan: [9:47] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, that's cool. And then so Yeah. With your guys' portfolio, I guess I didn't realize you guys... You sold off all 160 something units.

Noah Gilliom: [9:56] Yeah. We ended up selling everything off. I think we kept, like, five to eight or something like that. Yeah, we sold everything off. We exited the partnership, sold everything off just to start with a clean slate.

Dan Austin: [10:09] I'm going to ask this, how did you get, you said you guys self managed it. Was that kind of a partnership with somebody else that was helping you guys manage it? Because that's a lot to self manage plus the flips, plus the wholesale operation.

Noah Gilliom: [10:19] So we actually didn't partner with anybody. We just hired everybody in. So we brought in a property manager. They were on our payroll. We had a project manager. They were on our payroll. We had two to three maintenance guys and then some part time labor guys. We had trucks, trailers, maintenance vehicles, whole nine yards. So it was a full blown company to manage all of those rentals that we had. And then everybody says, Oh, self manage because you're to save money. Spoiler alert, you don't save money by self managing. You just have more control. It was a good thing to self manage because you're not paying that 10% management fee, but ultimately you have staff. So you're paying them anyway. Big thing I would say for newer people or people thinking about buying rentals is weigh the pros and cons of having your own manager or paying a third party, because both of them have great upside and then both of them have downside as well. We just found that in our particular market, we were like, You know what? We want the pride in ownership and we want everybody to be in house, which is why we went that route. Mhmm. So in addition to the maintenance guys, project manager, property manager, we had leasing staff, a few admins, an accountant bookkeeper on staff, as well as a few acquisitions guys, lead manager, that that whole nine yards.

Mike DeHaan: [11:39] I think that the key... So we... We've starting to self manage again after firing yet another property manager because we just

Dan Austin: [11:45] can't find ones that are worthwhile. We don't want to... We're like in the... Like, Mike and I agree. We don't wanna be property managers, but we're also like, that's all we've got right

Noah Gilliom: [11:54] now.

Mike DeHaan: [11:54] Yeah. We just can't find a good one. We've gone through so many iterations. And it was just, like, basic Like, I... Like, people who've listened to this show, you'll... Gonna hear me harp on this again because I'm still bitter about it. But I had these, like, a class properties. We brought in a property manager, and I was like, cool. So my own my own private rentals. I was like, yeah. I'm going on a trip for, like, a whole month. I'm gonna go to Africa. Here's, like, a whole month to get the properties ready to go. They're both turning. Here's your property manager. Help me get them turned. Lease them up while I'm gone. You know, you got plenty of time. Month before I'm gone, not leased up. Month I'm gone, still not leased up. Month I get back, they're still not leased up. Three months. Man. And finally, I'm like,

Dan Austin: [12:33] And they're easy to they're easy to lease properties.

Mike DeHaan: [12:36] These are like a class, like, nicest part town, good properties. I'm like, what the fuck? So one day, I I go to the properties. I just take a bunch of photos. I'm like, come see what happens. I throw them up on Zillow. I have them listed. I have them leased and money in my bank in thirty six hours.

Noah Gilliom: [12:51] That's insane. What were they doing besides Nothing. Obviously. Nothing.

Mike DeHaan: [12:57] Make any sense.

Dan Austin: [12:58] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [12:58] You know? And... Yeah. Then we've since fired that same prop manager from everything else after we spent a month onboarding them with all the properties. We're like, no way.

Dan Austin: [13:07] Oh, yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [13:07] Yeah. It's a challenging thing. And like you said, like, bringing it in house isn't any cheaper, but you do have more control.

Noah Gilliom: [13:13] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [13:14] And it is that that trade off. So, no, that's crazy. I guess I didn't realize. So so when you sold that too, just one last note on that. Did you sell those to the open market or do you like sell those to like the third partner and he bought you out?

Noah Gilliom: [13:25] We sold them on the open market. Okay. So yeah, we had we had a realtor that we used that we sold everything. Most of them were Most of them were occupied actually, now that I think about it. There were maybe a few that were empty, but we sold them to investors on the open market. Gotcha. Nice. We're in the height of the market, I would say end of twenty twenty to beginning of twenty twenty one when the market was pretty solid. Obviously, didn't hit the highs that we did beginning in 2022, but we still sold for a pretty penny. And we we made out and exited that partnership, and everybody was happy. And Yeah. We've known.

Dan Austin: [14:05] I was gonna say, like, like, and I don't... You don't need to share your exact numbers, but it sounds like... Because you guys bought so many so quickly, just logistically, how did the exit go and did you $10.31 or did you guys just cash it out and say, we'll just pay the taxes on it. We're all happy.

Noah Gilliom: [14:19] Yeah. We... So we didn't ten thirty one anything. We just paid the taxes on it. We were done with everything. There were a few projects and stuff in there that kind of started the end of the partnership. They were bad buys. We shouldn't have bought them. There was one in particular that I remember. It was a seven unit building. This was our fault completely. We didn't use our due diligence. Great. We trusted our contractors. We didn't get a full blown inspection. Thought the roof was fine. Thought the HVAC was fine. Well, it turns out it wasn't. Ended up being a $64,000 flat roof.

Mike DeHaan: [14:52] Oh, shit.

Noah Gilliom: [14:53] So yeah, it had a mansard shingle edge and then the flat roof on So just this flat part was $64,000 and then we still had the shingled edge. Yeah, that was a fun time. So I mean, we took some significant losses on some stuff, which kinda evened out. Like, our gains weren't huge on it because of the losses and stuff that we had taken Right. As we built up to it.

Mike DeHaan: [15:16] Gotcha. Well, still, like, that's some pretty decent cashback and gains. So Ryan bought the little single seater car. He drives around on, Instagram. What what what color is your Lambo that you bought?

Noah Gilliom: [15:28] Oh, man. I wish I had one. My my end game is a nine eleven Turbo s, so we'll we'll get there.

Dan Austin: [15:33] Yeah. Yeah. There you go. There you You're a Porsche guy.

Mike DeHaan: [15:35] No. That's cool. Yeah. That's interesting. I didn't I didn't know that background for

Noah Gilliom: [15:38] you guys. Yeah. We've been we've been through the rigor. We've earned some stripes along the way.

Mike DeHaan: [15:41] Oh, yeah. Yeah. And think that that's a good lesson too on on partnerships in general. And that's something else that Dan and I get asked a lot is about partnerships and how to structure that. How do Dan and I trust our partnerships? And if I'm being completely honest, if Dan and I ever had a falling out, which I can't imagine happening, it would be fucking messy because

Dan Austin: [15:59] it would be such a mess.

Noah Gilliom: [16:01] Hell, man. That would be insane. If Ryan and I had a falling out, which I would never see happening, it would be an absolute cluster to just every... Everything that's involved would be just absolute nightmare.

Dan Austin: [16:12] To unwind? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [16:14] So that is interesting. And then... So cool. So then everything else you're doing now, you said you're mostly a flip operation. Yeah. And... But everything's direct to to seller, like you said. And that's one of things I really wanna dive into with you. And I think it was super valuable to our listeners is, like, from... You know, you've been really involved in the group, the great cash flow group, which is Ryan Dossi's group that Dan and I got started investing, and we start started with our wholesaling business going through that. And you've always been, like, the sales trainer and kind of, like, the acquisitions pro through a lot of that stuff. And I guess for all intents and purposes, in our eyes, you are one of, like, the best... I wanna say, like, small scale, like, acquisition team leaders. Because, like, there's some of these people that have these huge shops where they have, like, 17 sales guys, and they basically run like a Wolf of Wall Street style where they're hitting the phones, and they're, like, ringing the bell. But you guys are running what I would say is a more desirable business for most people. So I would love to get into, a, what does your team look like, how you built it, and just your thoughts on acquisition in general for off market properties because that's a big hurdle a lot of people have to try and figure out.

Noah Gilliom: [17:25] Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Let's unpack that. So right now on our acquisitions team, we've always varied from two to three sales guys. And then with that, we have a supporting lead manager. Our lead manager is phenomenal. She takes all the inbound calls. Obviously, use CallPorter. Shameless plug there. We use CallPorter for the intake, but then once that happens, our lead manager takes the calls, sets them for our appointments for our sales guys. And then our sales guys go out, meet with the seller, figure out the problem or solution we need to accomplish. And then from there, we all run numbers on it. They figure out what they think an offer is. We double check it, make sure everything's good to go. And then we deliver the offer. So in my eyes, having that smaller tight knit sales team has allowed us to excel in this particular space. We aren't huge by any means. We probably do eight to 12 deals a month, whether that's wholesale, whether we buy a bunch of them or keep them, who knows what. But those are pretty average numbers. Obviously, we could do better. Some months are worse. I mean, like last December, we do much. I mean, that's just kind of part of the game. That's the real estate world as the seasons Yeah.

Noah Gilliom: [18:36] So, in that, so yeah, we've got a good core of our sales guys and our lead manager. They work together very closely. Everybody's in the office. Everybody's talking all day. Typically, they average anywhere from 50 to 70 calls a day outbound is what they do typically. Some days are less, some days are more, depends on the day, or if there's a long weekend, whatever that may look like. But leading that team is, interesting, but it's a very close knit group and I'm a very hands on with these guys. I talk to them every day. I see them every day. I think that's one thing that a lot of people can get mixed up. A lot of people will be like, Oh, I'm going to hire a salesperson, and then just turn them loose. Then they're done. It's like, Well, your training doesn't stop there. You need to work with them, work on new objections, teach them about the market, make sure they know the market's changing, making sure they know how to use the market changing as an advantage in negotiations for these folks. And I guess getting into the negotiation realm a little bit, I think when working with direct to seller, I always present ourselves as a solution based selling. In that, the people we work with, they're never nine times out of 10, I'll say they are not in a great financial spot. They're not in a good physical spot or something along the lines. They're not properties that can go on the retail market, but they still have a certain need out of those properties. So, we always present ourselves of, Hey, look, we're going give you a solution. And the answer is you're going to sell your property and the cash from that sale is going to help you out of this solution.

Noah Gilliom: [20:13] And I always tell my guys, Look, there's four main points of motivation. There's either a financial aspect, there's a physical aspect, there's an emotional aspect or a spiritual aspect. So when you talk about that, you need to build that rapport with the seller to figure out what problem are you solving for those folks? Say it's a financial issue, mortgage is too big, or they're on a fixed income and they retired and they can't pay for the house anymore. There's a financial motivator. If it's a physical motivator, it may be an elderly couple and they have an upstairs that they haven't used in ten years because they can't get up the stairs. Or it's a 3,000 square foot ranch and they really only need a seven fifty square foot one bedroom. Physically, that's a motivator for them to sell. Emotional, could be mom and dad's property. Mom or dad passed away and they want to sell it because they don't want to deal with mom and dad's property. Or emotionally, they're going through a divorce and they need to sell that. So those are some emotional motivators. Spiritual would be like, some people feel called to sell their property or they felt a pull or push in a different direction, so they took a different job and needed to relocate, something like that. So we really dig into those four main motivators. And people always say price is a motivator, but price is just an object in my mind.

Noah Gilliom: [21:31] If I can accomplish one, two, three or four of those main motivators, accomplish that and make them feel good about that, price is just a number. It doesn't matter. Look, I can get you out of the house. You're not going to be financially strapped. You're not going to have 2,000 square feet you don't need. And we're going to get mom and dad's house back to its former glory. And I'm going to pay you a $100,000 cash. The cash thing is like, Well, sure, it's a less price than I want to take, but I've accomplished A, B, and C, and they're going to be happy with it. That's the solution that we're providing. It's never about a number. It's always about how can we help them out of the situation they're in, transition them with a super smooth close into their next property. That's how I frame all of our negotiations, all of our selling, all of our presenting of offers. All of that comes from those four

Dan Austin: [22:21] That's the simplest way I've heard somebody talk about what Mike and I try to explain, which is the house. We like to say the house, the object, the asset is not what we're selling or buying for that matter. That's not part of it. It's the people and solving their problems. But I love the way you put it into four categories of what you're actually selling and and how you're getting through those. And then the cash, the money is just a byproduct of that.

Noah Gilliom: [22:43] Correct. Absolutely. Because you're

Dan Austin: [22:44] actually solving their problems. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [22:45] That that's that's a really awesome way to put it. Actually, we always say exactly. We're we're solving people's problems in this business, but putting it that way makes sense. Although don't think we've ever had a spiritual seller up here. We're all heathens up here in the Northwest. That must be a Midwest thing.

Dan Austin: [22:58] Yeah. We are heathens. It's gotta be a Midwest thing.

Noah Gilliom: [23:00] You know, being in the Bible Belt, we've got we've got different things that come along here. I mean, we've had people like Literally one spiritual example I can think of is we sent this lady a mailer. Her husband passed away and she put the mailer, it was in the front of her Bible and she had kept it there for like three or four months. Then finally she was like, I was in my Bible reading and I closed it except I didn't close it all the way and your letter popped out. At that point in time I was like, I'm being told to sell this house. And so she gave us a call and we're like, all right, here we are.

Dan Austin: [23:31] That's awesome. Dude, God is on your side.

Noah Gilliom: [23:34] It's definitely interesting, but yeah, that's the easiest breakdown I've found, and you can get into the weeds with motivation and all that stuff, but I think that's the easiest and quickest way I've learned to explain it. And I talk to my sales guys, I talk to my lead manager about that all the time because when we're on the phone, I used to be, before we pivoted more to that, I always was like, Well, tell me details about the property. Is it busted? Does it need a lot of work? This, that or the other. Now I'm like, cool. It's a three bed, three bath. I don't care about that. Hey, why are you looking to sell? What are we looking to accomplish with the sale of this house? Is the house too big? Is there something that you can't do? I know you told me it needs a lot of work. Can you not get the work done because it's too much financially or is it too much physically? Or if you're digging into that house, is it too emotional for you to go through a house where God forbid, your son or daughter died or something like that? What's really driving you to sell this property? And you know what? As Dan said it, cash is a byproduct. I'm gonna get you out of the solution, and you're gonna have money on the side from the sale of this house.

Mike DeHaan: [24:38] Yeah. That's awesome, man. I I love that. That's a great approach. On that same sort of note, I guess, just... I don't wanna make this a marketing show, but to find those people obviously is a unique task. And and I will say that the one thing that we do... First off, I love the story about the lady with the letter in her bible because that is why we love direct mail. We tell people similar stories like that all the time. Totally. It lingers. We did a deal last year where the owner of the property had died, and the brother came in to clear... Like, you know, clean up the house. And sure enough, on the on the kitchen table was a letter from our company. He picked it up, called us. We signed it around that day, and we closed on the house two weeks later. Right? That is the power of direct mail. No one else would have ever been able to get that deal because it wasn't anybody else's radar. But marketing for the kind of people that you're looking for, and I use direct mail, is it all just like the standard stack list stuff? Because I guess I say that because we do that a lot, but still, maybe just because our market's so bubbly, we get a lot of people that, like... The objection we always get is like, well, my problem is I want more money. Like, you know, I want a higher sale price. Right. That's a great point.

Noah Gilliom: [25:47] Yeah. Absolutely. So we use we use a mixture of lists. So, obviously, we've got our niche list that we do that we pull weekly, and that's going to be like divorce, probate, tax liens, code liens, anything, any violations like that that are publicly recorded. Other than that, though, mean, we stick with pretty standard lists. I mean, we'll do absentee with equity, we'll do owner occupant with equity, seniors lists. If they've owned the house for X amount of time, we kind of hit the whole nine yards with that and we just kind of move our mailing cycles around. And I will say with the direct mail thing, we learned this the hard way. We're like, let's do a giant ass mail campaign. So we dropped 35,000 pieces. That was a nightmare. Don't do that. Take those 35,000 pieces and drop them along seven, eight weeks, something like Spread

Dan Austin: [26:31] them out.

Noah Gilliom: [26:31] Because we're like, You know what? Let's keep the team busy. Let's do that. And ultimately, sure. We had a crazy influx of leads, but when you have that many leads come in, you're not gonna work them the way they should be worked. Yeah. Stuff falls through the cracks, just doesn't work out. So if you're thinking of doing a giant list, unless you have a giant sales team, it's not gonna work. Not gonna do Do it

Mike DeHaan: [26:50] you mail the same people every month? Do you do it every two months? What does that look like?

Noah Gilliom: [26:55] It kinda depends. So if we run a list and pull a lot of deals from it, we'll mail that list again. That might be a month or two months later. Just kind of depends on the results from the initial campaign. And then also in that, we will switch up what we send them. Did we send them a letter the first time and now we're sending a postcard? Or did we send them a postcard to gauge interest and now we're sending that letter to them because they called in, but we could never get them on the phone. Or does our copy switch like, Hey, what are your plans with one hundred twenty three Main Street versus, Hey, I want to give you a cash offer for 123 Main Street. Depending on the seller, depending on their point in time when they read that marketing solicitation, as you can call it, different words and different copy and different product is going to speak to them differently at that point in time when they receive it.

Mike DeHaan: [27:42] Yeah. Love it. And those little details too, they do make a big difference. Like, you know, what are your plans versus people that give you an offer. They establish a different kind of intent. And most people overlook those. Yeah. So, no, that's super awesome.

Noah Gilliom: [27:57] We'll get people that like, one time we ask people, Hey, what are your plans? And they're like, My plans are none of your business, blah blah blah blah blah. Whereas you hit those same people with, Hey, I've got cash, I want to give you an offer. They're like, Okay, let's chat. Exactly. So, it really does depend on how you're hitting those folks and what you're saying to them, how they're gonna react differently.

Mike DeHaan: [28:17] Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Dan Austin: [28:18] How do you, Indy is a competitive market. Like, I talked to a lot of investors, and it seems like you could throw a stone to hit at least one or two off market people. Do you think... What is your competitive edge, or do you think you guys just have, like, that local boots on the ground that gives you that edge versus virtual folks? Or where does that come into play?

Noah Gilliom: [28:35] Yeah. I think I think it's a combination of both. I think that's a great question because we do get... I mean, it's a great Midwest market, like here, Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, all very, very similar type markets. Pricing is similar, contracting is similar. I think one edge that we have is we really do take the time to build the rapport with these sellers. Typically, I mean, if they're getting cold called, they're going to get an offer and they're not going to hear from people. Well, with us, they get somebody on the phone, we go out there, we meet them, we figure out their problem, and then we tell them how we're going to solve their problem. So being more relational and more rapport focused, I think has been one big competitive edge for us because sure, they get five, six, seven wholesalers or other investors who are like, Yeah, want to buy your house for $100,000 Oh, you don't want that click up. Okay. Well, on our front, okay, dollars 100,000 doesn't work, but we're going to accomplish X, Y, and Z for you. We're going to do this for you. We really take the time to paint the picture when we deliver an offer. And I think that's one thing that have a competitive edge on because we are so rapport focused when we meet with these folks.

Mike DeHaan: [29:46] Yeah. That's huge. A lot of that obviously comes from your sales skills, right? Your sales team's sales ability and their rapport building skills.

Noah Gilliom: [29:56] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [29:56] What kind of individuals do you look like for that role and, like, where do you find them?

Noah Gilliom: [30:01] Yeah. Great question. So we've found our... Let's see. The ones we've had recently, we have found them. I think we found them on Indeed. We used to use WiseHire and then we got... We were paying a lot more and then got the same results as we did with Indeed caliber of people. But we're really looking for... I mean, they have to be highly motivated individuals. They have to be able to be on the phones. They have to enjoy that. These people are people that enjoy the hunt because I guess this is something we'll get into, but I mean, follow-up is key. So these people have to hunt for it and work for it. It's not a one call, one close. Like sure, those deals happen, the lay downs, and they're great. But 85% of our deals are not lay downs.

Dan Austin: [30:42] So true.

Noah Gilliom: [30:43] So we look for those people who can take no for an answer, but not take it as the final answer and then follow-up and reframe it in a different light so that the sellers can understand. But they have to be highly motivated. All of our guys are quick. They have to be able to rebut and handle objections very well. So we're just looking for, I guess, for starters, they're going be a very people focused person. They're going to be able to pick up on body language, things that other people say, stuff like that. But then also they're very people friendly and people pleasing. So they're easy to meet with, easy to chat with, but also very aggressive in, hey. We're gonna get this done, and this is how we're gonna get it done for you.

Mike DeHaan: [31:26] Yeah. How do you screen for all of that? Like, I mean, because that's all... That all kinda makes sense. Right? But when you are interviewing somebody, you have a fifty minute conversation. You can get, like, the general vibe of that they're putting out, which is gonna be their best possible impression.

Noah Gilliom: [31:41] Oh, yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [31:42] But, like It's the first date thing.

Noah Gilliom: [31:43] It is. Yeah. Yeah. It's the first date thing. So they'll go through a series of phone interviews, probably one or two of those, and then probably one or two in person interviews or Zoom, depending on where And they're then from there, I think a big thing that's helped us is we typically put people on a ninety day probationary period because statistically, you know someone after about ninety to one hundred days is when you really get to know somebody and see their true colors, is what research has shown. So in that, Indiana being an at will state, which is nice, you can hire fire for whatever reason, but in that ninety day probationary period when we hire them, it is very clear that, Hey, that first ninety days, pro vote period. If you don't like it, you can leave. Totally get it. It's fine. If we don't like it, you're gone. Leave. But it really gives that ninety days, we go through a decent amount of training and stuff like that, but also it gets them a chance to really feel out the acquisition manager position, gives them enough time to get a few deals under their belt, gives them enough time to kind of take what we give them and make it their own. There's still obviously a lot that we turn into and train on, but that's how we've found the guys that last longer, they do well in that first ninety days and that's how we kind of separate cream from whatever else you wanna call it.

Dan Austin: [33:04] Interesting. Have you noticed over the years of doing this and hiring an acquisition manager, is there an average length of service, or do they have an expiration date where they've just lost their steam or disenfranchised or just want to do it themselves?

Noah Gilliom: [33:18] That's a great question. I feel like that sales in general, sales guys are always coming and going. That's just kind of how they are. I would say our longest guys have been with us a couple of years. Other guys have been with us for like a year and move on. So it kind of depends. Also, the market plays a role in that. Like if they're not getting the deals, is it because of the market, but is it because they've lost steam or they don't care about it anymore or they think they can do it? We've had everybody leave for various reasons of that. Everything you said, we've had people leave for.

Mike DeHaan: [33:47] I believe it. I wanna go into that follow-up that you talked about saying that they need to be good at follow-up. I imagine you have some sort of process built around that.

Noah Gilliom: [33:55] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [33:56] And, you know, like... Because I would say one of the biggest struggles that we have... And and I know at least one of our sales guys will probably listen to this. I constantly get frustrated because our sales guys will regularly say, I need more leads to close more deals. I'm like, bro, we have 4,300 leads in our system. You're honestly gonna tell me that there is no opportunity in there.

Noah Gilliom: [34:19] Yeah. There's no leads. Come on, Mike. There's no do anything.

Dan Austin: [34:21] There's none left.

Mike DeHaan: [34:23] You know? And even the ones that are years old, we have closed deals that have come in years earlier. You know? But then what happens is... And this is partly our problem because we don't have a good follow-up process that's, on... You know, our in SOPs. You don't even have SOPs. That's what we're working on right now. Instead of going and hunting for stuff, they'll just freaking do nothing. Right? And so, like, I guess, internally, what is... What do your guys' follow-up process look like? How do you train them? How do you keep people accountable? Like, what's your approach to all of that?

Noah Gilliom: [34:52] Yeah. I think I think for starters, so all of our guys are commission based only now, which is very helpful because, I mean, at the end of the day, if you don't hunt and kill anything, you're not gonna eat. So that's a big motivator in a sense. And also your top sales guys want that kind of structure. They want commission only because they know they're going make more money. There's no cap. They can do whatever they want as long as they're getting deals. As far as follow-up goes, typically, so say we give an offer, we're going to follow-up the next day or give it one day and then follow-up two days from the offer given. From there, we're probably going to follow-up a couple days after that, and then maybe we hit them the next day immediately. And so say our max offer is like a 100. When we first offer, we're going come in at like 80, 85. And then in the additional follow-up, three to four different calls is when we ultimately get up to the max. Because a lot of things I see young sales guys do or inexperienced sales guys, they'll come in, offer, and then at the end of that first call, they're already up on to $100. It's like, are you supposed to do when you follow-up with these people? Be like, Hey, have you changed your mind?

Noah Gilliom: [35:58] There has to be incentive when you follow-up with these people. And that incentive is, Hey, I'm gonna offer you more money. Or, Hey, I'm gonna offer you a little more money, but also, you know what? Let me throw closing costs in there for you. Hey, I know on the last call I said I'd pay closing costs. I actually talked to my manager. There's always a manager that everybody talks to, even if it's me. I'll tell people, Hey, I chatted with some people. We can actually do that clean out for you so you don't have to worry about Adding little tidbits as you follow-up. So within two weeks of that initial offer, we've probably followed up five to six times in that two week span. And then from there, we'll probably follow-up one or two more times, but once we get to eight, typically at eight manual touches, then we put them on a drip sequence. Depending on their situations, we have drip sequences built out for various reasons. I think we've got 24, 26 different drip sequences in our system for various objections and stuff like that. We toggle on that sequence. It may be a long term follow-up. It might be a short one where they get hit eight times in the next three weeks. But all of that comes after six touches initially and then probably a few more in the following weeks. So let's just say three weeks after an offer is given, they've probably been followed up with eight to 10 times. And that's all manually, that's via phone call, via text, whatever that may be. And then from there, that's when drip sequences get tagged in.

Noah Gilliom: [37:23] And most people don't follow-up that hard. Most people might follow-up one or two times, but if you're following up, if you're the guy who has the lowest offer, but you've followed up a million times, I love saying, You know, you've talked to a bunch of different people. None of the offers have worked out. I'm still calling you. Why can't we just make this the final offer? You don't have to think about anything anymore. I can be your final offer today. Let's get this thing sold.

Mike DeHaan: [37:46] Yeah. So on those follow ups, I guess, like, do those conversations look like? So obviously, you're coming up the price, and that's always a question that our guys ask us is like, well, you know, they're starting at 80. How do they justify the increase to 85 to 90 to 95,000 with the seller

Noah Gilliom: [38:02] So over those coming from there, usually that's where I always fall back on our finance team or our manager or whatever. I'm like, Hey, we've talked to them. We finagled our rehab budget a little bit more, or, You know what? We found that we can pay a little bit more. We have a few deals closing, we have more funding, or who knows what. But that's kind of how we frame it of, Hey, you know what? We dug a little deeper. We've tightened down our budget so we can pay a little bit more. And another good way to combat that is, Hey, we've chatted with our contractors or we've chatted with our rehab team and we can tighten down the budget. Because we can tighten down our rehab budget, because you and I both know the house needs work, right? Which is why you're selling it because you can't do the work. But we've been able to tighten it down enough that we can actually pay you a little bit more. How does this sound? And I take care of closing costs and you don't have to clean the place out.

Mike DeHaan: [38:51] I love it. Yeah. Take my house. Yeah. Right?

Noah Gilliom: [38:54] Let's sign.

Dan Austin: [38:56] Throwing it. No.

Mike DeHaan: [38:57] No. That... That's good stuff. So as you're doing that, like, follow-up over those couple weeks, does that change if you end up with a situation where the seller just doesn't respond? Because that's a super common thing that we encounter as well, Something that our guys regularly complain about, which is understandable, is they'll call people after the initial offer. We're just like the masters of getting ghosted right now, man. Like, we don't get a lot of second dates after the first one doesn't go very well.

Noah Gilliom: [39:22] Yeah. Yeah. No. That's a great question. I would say with that, we either we can change phone numbers in our system, which you guys do, or I'll just text them and be like, Hey Tom. And that's all I'll say. And then they might text back and be like, Who is this? And then we could reevaluate and go from there or like,

Dan Austin: [39:41] Dude, you're a master.

Noah Gilliom: [39:42] Just little things like that of like, Hey, what's up? How's it going? And they'll be like, Who is this? And they'll like, Oh yeah, it's the guy who wants to buy your house. Let's chat about it. I can pay you more. Or if you're like, Hey, I know my offer didn't work yesterday. I actually reevaluated it. Give me a quick call and let's chat about it. Stuff like that. And then ultimately, if you still get ghosted, that's just when we throw them on like a drip sequence and then just kind of start to bombard them slowly but surely.

Mike DeHaan: [40:08] Yeah. Do you still mail people that you have on like drip sequences?

Noah Gilliom: [40:13] Yes. Yeah. We will do that, especially if they're on the long term follow ups. We'll we'll either do what we call as, like, a cold call. We'll just call from our cell phone or something like that just to be like, hey. Have you thought about 123 Main Street? Have you thought about selling it? Like, pretend we know nothing about Or we'll send them a new piece of mail. Hey, we chatted six months ago. Nothing ever came of it. Markets changed. We can offer something different. Give me a call. Stuff like that.

Mike DeHaan: [40:37] You'll actually do mail specific for people that are already in your system.

Noah Gilliom: [40:42] We've, yeah, we've done that a few times if they're on the long term sequence.

Mike DeHaan: [40:46] Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. That's that's really smart. Gotcha.

Dan Austin: [40:49] That's a... What would you call that? It's like an assassin trick right there.

Mike DeHaan: [40:52] Ninja.

Noah Gilliom: [40:54] I'm pretty sure you can pull all of that data. Like, when you export, you can go and see what leads are on what campaign. And then depending on what campaign you are, you can pull all that info and then send it off.

Mike DeHaan: [41:05] Yeah. You can. No. That that... Yeah. That's that's slick. I like that. No. That's cool, man. It's lots of lots of good stuff. I just like the funny thing is is like the stuff you're saying, like, it's not rocket science, just having intention

Noah Gilliom: [41:17] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [41:17] About it and strategy behind it and consistency. I at its core. No, that... That's super cool. And then I guess this is kind of a a selfish question as well a little bit. Once you have stuff signed around, I know you guys have a transaction coordination team in house. What does that handoff look like from your AM to your transaction team? Because I guess something that we have encountered has been more often than not, the act manager has spent the last two to three months building a relationship with this person, and now you pass it off to Cindy. They don't like Cindy. You know, they don't wanna they don't wanna work with Cindy. They wanna work with our sales guy. Yeah. And maybe that's just because you work with crackheads. I don't know if you have the same problem.

Noah Gilliom: [42:01] You've got our fresh air out

Mike DeHaan: [42:02] here. Yeah.

Noah Gilliom: [42:03] Yeah. Yeah. No. That's a great question too. Typically Typically, handoff is once it's signed, Hey, you know what? We've got up to this point. I was the person to get this contract to you, now we're going to pass it off to our transactions team. So and so is going to reach out to you. So and so from title is also going to reach out to you. However, if you do have any issues or concerns, reach out to me because ultimately it is the responsibility of the acquisitions manager to get it from under contract all the way to close. If we have to renegotiate, if we have to tell them the inspection was bad, if we have to extend or do anything like that, that is ultimately the job of the acquisitions manager because they should wanna get that deal closed because that's the only way they get paid.

Mike DeHaan: [42:43] I love that. And then you'd almost make Cindy the grim reaper either out

Noah Gilliom: [42:46] there like

Mike DeHaan: [42:47] just delivering bad news. Exactly.

Noah Gilliom: [42:50] Because then you're just like, those people know nothing about them. All they see is a piece of paper, all the legalese, all of that. They don't know the whole story. That way, if issues arise and renegotiations happen and stuff like that, the acquisitions manager can take everything that we've done up until that point and paint it in a picture that the seller's gonna understand. For sure.

Mike DeHaan: [43:10] Exactly, man. Nice. No, I love it. There's so much good stuff. If you guys have a sales team, you know, anybody who's listening has a sales team or you wanna build a sales team, literally just like remind the rewind the last twenty five minutes on this because Noah just literally gave you the perfect outline that is so simple on how to build an acquisitions team for an off market real estate investing company, whether that means you wanna

Dan Austin: [43:35] Literally, from from how to hire them to how to coach them. And then just, like, repeat what he said over and over again, and you're gonna find deals, and you're gonna close deals.

Noah Gilliom: [43:44] Yeah. And it's... And I think to that point too, it's like a lot of people... This is the whole real estate world in general. Everybody gets the new shiny object syndrome, whether it's the new CRM, whether it's the new sales tactic, or it's the newest call center that does cold calling, or the newest comp software or whatever. Everybody gets shiny object syndrome, but it's like you said, Mike, it's not rocket science. It comes down to consistency. Take the basics and master the basics and then be consistent with those basics. That's where the results come from. Because We fell into the trap with our teams and with Ryan and I of getting the shiny object syndrome and doing all of that. Then sure, you have the greatest latest technology, but if you're not closing deals, it doesn't matter. So just stay basic. Totally. And that's how I say for our sales guys and our lead manager too, when you're talking to these people, don't talk to them like it's a... Sure, you need to think of it as a sales opportunity. Don't talk to them like it's a sales opportunity. Talk to them like it's a conversation. Sure. Have a script. That's great. So you know what you need to accomplish on the phone call. Don't sound like a robot because then you're not personal. You're not building the rapport. Stay very simple with everything. Anything you do, be able to explain it to a fifth grader, essentially.

Noah Gilliom: [45:00] That's like when we explain offers and what we're gonna do and stuff like that, especially if they're like... Like in Indiana, we pay taxes in arrears. So we have to explain to sellers, Hey, you're going to prorate your taxes. We may have paid the last installment in '22, but now that we're eleven days into January, there's still eleven days of unpaid. So because Indiana does this, this is why we do this. So being able to explain everything in a very, very simple form is crucial. I say that because people, if they don't understand what you're doing, what you're saying and what you're going to do for them, ultimately they're going to say no. Because in this world, no one wants to feel dumb, so no one's going ask the question. But because they don't ask the question, they're automatically going to say no. So if they don't understand what you're going to do for them, it might not be because they don't like the offer. It might be because you didn't explain the offer right. So that's where we and my sales team, we have to take it upon ourselves, Hey, I know you said you wanted to think about it, but just a quick question. What did you need to think about? Was there something there that I didn't explain? Because if you didn't understand it or I didn't explain it properly, I want to make sure you have all the information to make this decision possible.

Noah Gilliom: [46:11] And I want to help you make that decision. So let me help you make that decision. So what did I not explain well? What don't you understand? Because I want to help you get to that decision of you selling the property. And if people don't understand it, their first instinct is to be like, No, I'm not going to do it. And it's because they don't get it. It might not be because they don't like the offer. They just don't understand what you're gonna do for them.

Mike DeHaan: [46:35] Yeah. I love that. I think that's especially true with the motivated seller, our type of people as well. They're highly sensitive to things where they don't know what's going on. Exactly. That's one of the things too. Like, so many people get into this business, and they don't wanna... You know, they suck at sales. They don't wanna do the follow-up. So... Or, like, they don't know how to market and find opportunities. There's like, I'm gonna do creative financing, and I'm gonna go and try and do a sub two wrap mortgage with a crackhead. I'm like, don't even do that. They're not gonna get it, and you're just gonna end up being not fruitful

Noah Gilliom: [47:09] Good luck. At all. Everything comes down to simplest form, explain it well, explain it multiple times and they're more likely to say yes. Because we're in a society that, I mean, I don't want to feel dumb. You guys don't want to feel dumb, but I mean, obviously, we're wired a little different. We're gonna ask questions, but most people don't ask questions. Yeah. It's like we have one opportunity to present it and present it well, and that's that's where you have to differentiate yourself.

Mike DeHaan: [47:35] I love it, man. Great stuff. And it's a great great way to go into our end of show questions there. You try to drop some really incredible knowledge here, Noah, so I really appreciate

Noah Gilliom: [47:43] Absolutely, man. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [47:45] So end of show questions. First one I'm very excited about with you because you have been in the off market world for a long time. What is your craziest real estate investing story? And this can be a, you know, good story, a crazy seller, a big loss. The only rule is it can't be about finding dead people in a property because I don't like those stories.

Noah Gilliom: [48:05] We did have one murder property, but we won't go there.

Mike DeHaan: [48:08] Mike is Yeah.

Noah Gilliom: [48:09] I would say one of the craziest deals we did. Oh, man. There's... Oh, man. There's so many. I would say a little bit, let's go with the grossest one. So there's a gross one that we did. Oh, this was a few years ago. Tenant was in the house, landlord got tired of being a landlord, wanted to sell. So we go into this house, tenant's toilet had stopped working months prior. Instead of telling the landlord, they were going to the bathroom in five gallon buckets.

Dan Austin: [48:36] Oh yeah, of

Noah Gilliom: [48:37] So there's the first strike, but you would think also like, okay, sure they use the bucket, dump it out. No, when the bucket got full, they just pushed it to the side and got a new bucket. So we go into the bathroom and there's like 15 buckets of tubing. Oh, man.

Dan Austin: [48:53] No way. At two or three, come on. Like, you're like, okay, this is bad.

Noah Gilliom: [48:58] Oh, it was it was bad. So that was a fun one. We ended up wholesaling it. We did all right with it. Let's see what are some other... I think the craziest one, we did a mobile home recently. And it's probably in my career, the worst deal we've done. I think we lost $14 on it. Took like eight months to do FHA inspections, tying down a mobile home, all of that whole nine yards. Absolutely the worst deal we've ever done. Yeah, those are the two that come to mind when it comes to the craziest and or worst stories that I have.

Mike DeHaan: [49:32] Yeah. If the worst loss you've only had is $14, I mean, that's not too bad. What are what are price points in your area?

Noah Gilliom: [49:38] That one was sold for like $22.30, I think, something like that. Well, that was that was $14 on

Dan Austin: [49:45] I was... Yeah. That's

Noah Gilliom: [49:46] we actually sold it. Other deals, we've lost more money on just due to CapEx and stuff like that. Like that roof.

Dan Austin: [49:51] Sure. Okay. Gotcha. Makes sense.

Noah Gilliom: [49:53] Yeah. Yeah. We've had 6 figure losses when it's come to apartment buildings. So that's

Mike DeHaan: [49:57] Gotcha. I'll bet that's not too bad. Dan and I are about to take a $50,000 haircut. So Yeah. And that happens.

Noah Gilliom: [50:04] It happens. And it's... And as long... The way I look at it, one, you become way more seasoned. Two, you earn your stripes. Three, you're never gonna do that again.

Dan Austin: [50:12] Absolutely. Yeah. Exactly. You you learn so much in those

Noah Gilliom: [50:16] We have rules that Ryan and I put together, and we name them based on the property.

Mike DeHaan: [50:22] Okay.

Noah Gilliom: [50:22] It'll it'll be, like, the only street deal.

Dan Austin: [50:25] Dude, I love that.

Noah Gilliom: [50:27] Which was the one we lost that that roof on. It'll be like, don't pull an only or don't do this. And we we name it after the seller or the street name.

Dan Austin: [50:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's and it's only a loss if you quit. Right? So, like, if you're still here, like, you're saying you earn your stripes, you learn more, and you just never do it again.

Noah Gilliom: [50:47] Yeah. Or if you do happen to do it again, just do it not as bad.

Mike DeHaan: [50:51] Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Improve... Make some improvements. Awesome. Good stuff. Alright. Second question. What is your top tip for either a new investor looking to get started or for a small time investor looking to take their business to the next level?

Noah Gilliom: [51:06] Right. So let's see. For a new investor getting started, I actually filmed a reel on this the other day. Haven't dropped it yet. But there are three things that I say to do. Learn your market. So know the great areas to invest in, know the trendy areas, and know the areas that you don't want to be in. Learn what's trendy, learn what you can get away with, learn what's standard, learn your market, and know your market very well. Second is get invested into your local Ria meetups. Get invested, get networked. You will meet contractors, buyers, lenders, anything that you could need are going to be in your local Ria meetups. Usually there's at least one. So if you want to go to those meetings, if you want to be on Facebook, whatever it might be, those are the things you need to get involved with. And then, oh crap, I forget what my third thing was. Oh no. What was my third thing? Oh, oh. Let's just go into

Dan Austin: [51:58] those two

Noah Gilliom: [51:59] big things so far. Oh, oh, the third thing. The third thing is figure out what you want to do. Are you trying to take this and replace the W2 income? Are you trying to take this and make it a side hustle? Do you know you just want one, two, three, four rentals? Do you want an Airbnb? Go in with a strategy of what you want to do because the first thing that leads to burnout is when you hop into the real estate world, you're going to drink from a fire hose and it's next There to are so many different things. It goes back to the shiny object syndrome of exit strategies. There's a million different ways to make money in real estate. Pick three to five of them and focus on those. So before you hop in and start spending money on stuff, figure out what you want to do. Is a side hustle great? Do you want five Airbnbs and that's passive income? Do you wanna quit your w two? Because all of those are great options. You just have to figure out what you wanna do and tailor your approach to your angles.

Dan Austin: [52:54] I love that. Mike, that's such a good advice.

Mike DeHaan: [52:57] Yeah. That's super good advice. And, you know, because most people too, I mean, they'll even see, like, what Dan and I do and that sort of stuff, and they'll want the results. You know, they wanna be able to travel or, like, you know, have, like, a decent house, you know, do whatever. But realistically, to get there doesn't match the lifestyle that they actually

Dan Austin: [53:15] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [53:16] You know? And, you know, just... You can... You still get the same result. You just go about it a slightly different way. You know? You have to look sort of short term and and long term what you want things

Dan Austin: [53:24] Well, and and you simplify it too. Like, I love, like, okay. First of all, figure out what you want, but then, like, start by getting to know your market. Don't try to be doing everything in a market. Don't try to be doing everything under the sun, all the shiny objects. Be like, I wanna buy 10 houses. I need to learn the market to know where the best places are to buy 10 houses and then start doing your approach to get to that point.

Noah Gilliom: [53:44] Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [53:45] And I guess just one thing I'd add on that too is for people is once you just sort of decide that commit to it, you know, don't go and, like, start to dabble in houses and then go, you know what? I'm gonna buy RV parks instead. And then just do a complete left hand turn and just, like, screw up everything. Thought you

Dan Austin: [53:59] can adapt your strategy, but, like, give it some time to season a little bit.

Noah Gilliom: [54:03] Yeah. And I I think that's the thing a lot of people get is is a common misconception of, oh, you're in real estate. You're gonna get rich really fast. I'll be the first person to tell you, uh-uh. Mhmm. It takes a lot of time. I mean, even on a wholesale cycle, you're looking at thirty to forty five days. If you're flipping, there's a ninety day turnaround probably. And that's if you have an If effective rehab you're a new flipper, you're probably looking at six months, like three months in rehab and then on the market. Like it's not a get rich fast and it's not a get rich with no money in it. You have to pay for money for coaching or marketing or whatever it may be. There's all those gurus out there that are like, you can get rich with no money and fast and in ninety days, you're gonna have a Lambo and a thousand square foot beach house. It's like, it doesn't work like that. And don't think it is.

Mike DeHaan: [54:52] OPM, bro. Just go find a grandma with a HELOC and steal her money.

Dan Austin: [54:57] Yeah. Yeah. Right. Go go lose her money. Yeah. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [55:02] Cool. So last question. Where can people find you, follow you, and reach out to you if you like them to do so?

Noah Gilliom: [55:07] Yeah. Absolutely. You can find me on Instagram. Instagram handle is nigilliam. And then I'm also on Facebook, just Noah Gilliom. You can add me there. You can DM me there. I've got my Linktree set up if you wanna set up calls, see what tools I use. Those are gonna be the best ways to reach me.

Mike DeHaan: [55:24] Cool. Easy enough. Nice. Easy. Perfect. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Noah. You dropped an incredible amount of knowledge on this, and I'm really, really stoked. Just like like how it all... Like, I had my vision of how this interview with you was gonna go, and you surpassed it. So thanks so much for that.

Noah Gilliom: [55:40] Glad to hear it. Now I appreciate you guys for having me on. Absolutely. This is great.

Dan Austin: [55:45] Yeah. Surpassed Mike's. That's hard to do. Good job, Noah. You beat Mike's expectations.

Mike DeHaan: [55:52] Yeah. Absolutely. So... Well, thanks for listening, everybody. If you or, you know, you know anyone that has any sort of interest in building a sales team to do off market real estate or, you know, wants to buy properties in general, go listen to this podcast. Go and share it. Listen to it again. Put it on repeat because the entire blueprint to build a sales team and a sales process was given to you here in fifty five minutes. So absolutely listen to it again and share it with anybody else who might find it interesting. Not only will you help them, but it helps us grow the show. Outside of that, if you wanna start getting off market properties for yourself, you can go to collectthekeyspodcast.com/free, and you can get our free five step guide to start generating off market leads. And then you can take all these new tactics that you just learned from Noah and start applying them and start getting your own big deals done. So, anyways, guys, thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to y'all next week. Thanks for listening, everybody. Please make sure you subscribe and leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, please make sure you go and you share this with other people within your network. We are really trying to grow this thing, the best way for us to do so is by you telling other people to come and check us out. You can also follow us on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at investor man Dan.

Mike DeHaan: [57:05] You can follow the podcast at collecting keys podcast. And if you wanna learn how to make real money as a real estate investor or you want to grow your already existing real estate investing business, please go and check out instantinvestorprogram.com and book a call with either Dan or myself, and we will see if you'll be a good fit. Thanks for listening, everybody, and talk to you next week.

Speaker 2: [57:26] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.