From Total Beginner to Seven Wholesaling Deals in Two Months w/ Brandon Hien

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] Really quick before the show starts, in case you haven't heard, we have a growing community of investors called the scale community, which is full of people learning to make massive income with their real estate businesses so they can reach financial freedom a little bit faster than building a rental portfolio solely over time, because honestly, that takes decades. And who has time for that? So if you're an investor who is serious about growing and creating a scalable business without needing to be a slave to it twenty four seven, then go to collectingkeys.com/scale and apply. And if you're a good fit, we would love to have you join the community. So, again, collectingkeys.com/scale. Go ahead and apply, and we'll see if you're a good fit. You guys might have heard us joke on the Wednesday show a while back about how we had a member that hadn't even been in a Home Depot before. Yeah. That's Brandon, and he's about to close seven deals in, like, two months. What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. Today is Monday. This is the scale show, and we are here with Brandon Hien, who is one of our scale members that is, I would say, like, one of our big rising stars right now. How long have you been with us for? Like, eight months?

Mike DeHaan: [1:09] Since February. Since February. So we're recording this in September time. So, yeah, about seven, eight months. And you are the hustlepreneur of the group, and I'm super, super excited to have you on. So you guys, this is your first time to these Monday shows. We typically interview scale members, which is our community of growing real estate investors, or we interview other scaling real estate investors from other groups or they're not groups at all or just out there hustling. And we want them to bring the knowledge and skill set and stories that they have been using to grow and scale their real estate businesses. And so, Brandon, to kick us off here, why don't you give us a quick three minute rundown who you are, where you're based, and what your team currently looks like?

Brandon Hien: [1:52] Thanks, Mike. First off, thanks for inviting me. I've really enjoyed your group. You guys, you help us a ton, especially as me, someone who's starting off, you know, new to real estate. So I'm from North Carolina. I've lived in Chicago for the past three years, but I market into North Carolina with the intention of going back there. So, so far I've done everything virtually. So I've worked in tech sales for eight years now. That's what I've done as my career. But I've really always kind of wanted to do something entrepreneurial. I've done a lot of different hustles over the years, tried to start various businesses, even outside of real estate completely. Was doing like social media marketing. Was making YouTube videos for a while. So I really tried every everything until I kind of stumbled into real estate. And I got into real estate because I was doing a lot of stuff with online business, online marketing. And I realized that most people on the the space really weren't actually making that much money.

Mike DeHaan: [2:49] Mhmm.

Brandon Hien: [2:49] Especially coming from a high paying job. One of my goals was to be able to, you know, make more money than I was in corporate America. Income wise, I'm I'm sort of capped out in corporate America. So I figured, hey, I see people, you know, making a lot of money, having freedom, living good lives in real estate. So that that's how I stumbled into this. At first, really, all I knew was that your rent was supposed to be more than your mortgage. And Nice. Back on it now, it's funny because something that you guys preach is massive income before passive income. But all I all I knew was that you make money in real estate by quote, unquote cash flow. So last year, I bought my first rental property. Obviously, it's a hard time to buy rental properties. And my interest rate was 7.5%. And I was so confused because I was like, how do people cash flow? Literally nothing no literally nothing works. So I ended up buying a house for, 25 percent down. Yeah. After closing costs and everything, I ended up paying like $80,000 for a rental property that cash flows $300. Nice. And, another funny part of that was it was a new construction home because I was like, oh, fine. That'll be easier. Like, instead of buying a home I have to fix up, which kinda just shows like how much of a rookie I was literally less than a year ago in real estate to have that.

Mike DeHaan: [4:06] Yeah. I mean, I'm impressed you're able to find a new construction that actually cash flowed at seven and a half percent interest though. Yeah. Or even more than that probably.

Brandon Hien: [4:14] 25% down. So

Mike DeHaan: [4:16] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was standard. It's still funny because that's like the same as my story. The first ones that I bought when I cashed out my four zero one k from Boeing, I bought two new builds that were around the corner from where I live. And my thought process was exactly the same. It's it'll be like no work. It'll just be free money. And then I got to the closing table, and I was like, oh, shit. Well, there goes all of my four zero one k. And that's why I got into flipping houses because I didn't have any more money left.

Brandon Hien: [4:39] Yeah. Exactly. And, know, my goal had always been to have my own company get out of my w two. And I was like, well, this is never gonna work. So I joined another mastermind group that's all about different creative real estate strategies. And so that's where I met you. When I had joined that group, I mean, I had never heard of wholesaling before. You know, they also talked about like commercial real estate, buying small businesses within land. Basically, it's like a starter program into how you can actually make money with real estate. So when I looked at all the different options, wholesaling seemed like the best to me because I was looking for the quote unquote quickest and easiest way to at least make like 10 to 15 ks a month so that can get out of my job. Again, that's 10 to 15 ks isn't replacing my income, but that wasn't necessarily my goal. I was just looking for how could I generate that the fastest so I could be two feet in on entrepreneurship. And I felt like out of all the options, wholesaling was the best. So

Mike DeHaan: [5:35] That's funny. I didn't realize when we connected, you didn't even really know what wholesaling was. I remember hopping on a call with you like, a long time ago, and you, like, were talking about going to work for a local wholesale company there and took some convincing for me to get you to to join Scale and Come and do it yourself. And you actually just, like, went and did, like, the full process for somebody else for a little bit first. But yeah. So you're, like, as green as green could be. Yeah. So now you've been grinding out for a little while. Give everyone a little bit of, like, a preview, I guess, to what we're gonna we're gonna go through your whole process of how you got here. What have your last, like, two months looked like in this business so so far?

Brandon Hien: [6:13] So my last two months, I actually kinda turned the corner and started started having some success. So I've been doing it for seven months now. The first four months were brutal. I had got one lay down sale, but other than that, I didn't get any contracts. I was like, dude, why the heck would anybody ever accept this low offer? And I now was learning everything from scratch. Like, I didn't know anything about real estate, much less about wholesaling. And so the first yeah. The first months were frankly brutal. I was having a lot of conversations, but wasn't getting any contracts. And then all of a sudden, I just started getting contracts, like, one after another after another. And I I went on a streak of, like, six contracts in six weeks. And then I was like, dude, this is it. Finally possible. Like, I can actually do it. And then I thought I was gonna, you know, have my big breakthrough. I had all these contracts. I probably had, like, seven contracts in escrow at one point to close. And just a few weeks ago, I was supposed to have, like, three contracts closed in a week. It was gonna be $38,000. I was gonna have a big business bank account. I was basically, you know, really feel like I get over the hurdle. I went through all the struggles of first getting the contract, finding a buyer, and then started having like title problems or problems with the property. So it was this kind of interesting, you know, you get over the first hurdle of getting under a contract, and then you start running into, you know, all these other issues that I had to overcome. But I've been working through those and most recently closed my third deal last week that got extended for two weeks of title problems, but was was able to to figure it out.

Mike DeHaan: [7:54] Yeah. What? 13,500 thing on that one? Yep. Yep. So, I mean, there you go. Good little paycheck there. And you said before we hopped on, you've closed three, and then you have three more that you've you're intending to close over the next month?

Brandon Hien: [8:08] Correct.

Mike DeHaan: [8:09] Awesome. So so either way, if you stretch that out, all of a sudden, you're doing about a deal per month on average. Right? Even if they all kinda, like, came from the fruits of your labor over the the more immediate period. Let's talk about like your your hustle to like get to that though. Because, you know, how are you sourcing a lot of these deals right now? Because I know over the several months we've been working with you, you've kind of tried everything.

Brandon Hien: [8:33] Yeah. So, actually, my most success so far has been from VA cold calls. So I started off doing direct mail. I still do that. Then I was doing VA cold calls and VA texting, and then I also recently started Facebook ads. But my most successful has been from VA cold calls. You have to go through a lot more leads to actually get good, quote unquote, good leads. You know, I would say maybe like one out of 10 turns into an opportunity. But I had I had the time to work through all those. And also, it gave me a lot of practice having conversations. I'm talking to people and and making offers every single day, getting brutally rejected constantly. Yeah. But it definitely, you know, thickens my skin and gives me experience. So I think that's how and the reason that I wanted to to add on VA cold calling and texting, which I think is good for people who are just starting, is that it gives you a ton of reps. You can spend 3 k a month on mail and maybe talk to like five people maybe. Whereas with VA calling and texting, you're having conversations every single day. So I kind of just look at

Mike DeHaan: [9:40] it as practice, and I think that's good, especially for for people who are starting out. Totally. Well, it's it's interesting because, like, honestly, working with you and sort of seeing how your growth has happened over the last six months has has literally changed my view around how people should probably start in this business. Because so many people, when they try to do wholesale, focus on the marketing and lead generation, which is important. Right? But the problem is is that if you are paying for expensive marketing, expensive lead generation, and you suck at closing deals. You're not good at like, you don't have the work ethic. You don't know how to make offers. You don't know how to calculate comps. You're just throwing that away. And so I've really started to shift my mentality just from watching how you sort of come together of when you're, like, green to the industry, you really should just eat it and be getting those cheap leads, whether that's you calling yourself, that's you paying for a cold calling company for, quote, unquote, less motivated leads. Because that's like you said, it gives you a lot of reps and a lot of practice for not an insane amount of money. Why? Right? And, statistically, if you do it for long enough, you will find deals.

Mike DeHaan: [10:47] It'll feel like a lot of work because it is, but you will eventually find someone that wants to sell. Do you have, like, general numbers over, like, how many cold calling or SMS leads you're needing to get on average in order to get, like, a qualified lead or a signed contract or anything like that? I would say If you're gonna bullshit me, you can say no. We're gonna have a conversation when you're up here in three days for a little scale meetup.

Brandon Hien: [11:11] Yeah. I am. So so I can guesstimate. I I have the numbers in my CRM, but, I mean, I would say one out of 10, maybe, like, okay. This is I feel like I could potentially get this.

Mike DeHaan: [11:24] It's like a qualified like, it's a good conversation. Yeah.

Brandon Hien: [11:28] And and there may be maybe more than one conversations, but it may be like a landlord who wants almost ARV. But, like, at this point, I'm good at telling people who were actually, like, gonna sell to a wholesaler. So I would guess one out of 10 and then maybe, like, out of that, maybe one out of five.

Mike DeHaan: [11:47] Yeah. So about about 50 leads, let's say, for every, like, really good shot on goal. Yeah. Which would about track. Right? So for our calling and texting, we typically see somewhere between seventy and eighty up in our market up in, like, Spokane area. That varies a lot. And it also is very different depending on how involved you are in the initial conversation. Yeah. But no. That's solid, though. Right? So if people listen, that means that Brandon is having 50 conversations for everyone that is like a very legitimate opportunity at a contract. Right? And even then, there's no guarantee you're gonna get it. Exactly. You have competition. You have other people that are making offers. They don't necessarily might not accept your offer, even though it can make perfect sense for them to do so because you're gonna lose their house or other things. I know you've had a couple of those.

Brandon Hien: [12:33] Yeah. And I would say the one in 50, you can get a contract on. But then then I've realized getting a contract and finding a buyer still doesn't mean that you'll close the deal because there can be title problems or other things like that. So many untold things that

Mike DeHaan: [12:49] can happen. And that's why this business is so tricky, but that's also why you can make a very significant amount of money as a one or two person business because Yeah. There are all these challenges you have to face.

Brandon Hien: [13:00] Yeah. I mean, once you finally do get the deal come in, it's like it's like, okay. Close the deal. Now I just covered three more months worth of marketing spend.

Mike DeHaan: [13:09] Yeah. Right? And that's a great way to look at it too is instead of getting kinda greedy and trying to, like, pay yourself, if you instead choose to reinvest that over the next little bit, that's how a business starts to grow. Right? If you can just bank the next six months of operation, whatever that looks like, and then, you know, focus on on that reinvestment. So many people get caught up because they are so worried about, like, recomping their, like, initial investment in the company and the businesses that they don't do that. And they instead try to continue running on their shoestring budget of, like, $1,000 a month. And they're like, why is this still hard? I've been doing this for four months. It's because you never reinvested to make the system better. Yeah. So that's awesome, man. So what do you think was, like, the big difference for you from going those, like, initial handful of months to that period of time where you were signing a contract every single week? Because I I mean, that wasn't that long ago. Right? I remember it was like constantly you were posting wins in the wins channel on Slack. Yeah. So I would say there's a couple things. One is just starting to to make more offers even when they were uncomfortably low. I started this doing this more after KeyesCon because at KeyesCon, I noticed that

Brandon Hien: [14:18] I just wasn't making that many offers because I was like, why would anyone ever accept this offer? So I just started making offers that made sense. And then people would just start saying yes. Like, I remember the first one I did that I was like, she was asking one eighty, and I have to offer $10.03. I was like, there's no way she's gonna accept this. And this was from a cold call same day contract. That's crazy. Yeah. And then I just said $10.03, and she was like, alright, what's next? And I at that point, didn't even know really know how to explain what's next because I hadn't been through the process of of getting a contract and getting it to a title company and going from there. So I kind of fumbled through like, what would happen next? And then I was like, all right, how do I get a contract and give it to her to stop me? Yeah, right. But then once I did that, I could much more confidently explain to people the process. So like, even before I got them under contract, I'd be like, so if you accept, you know, this is what it's gonna look like, and just make them feel confident that I knew what I was doing and that that they will be taken care of throughout the whole process. So that was one thing. Another thing was about three months in, I I found someone off on Facebook who I and this has been a a huge game changer for me with for someone who has basically no experience in in real estate or construction. I would basically, like, reverse wholesale everything, which means I have a guy, a buyer in the area who also does real estate full time. And I just send him all my leads after I talk to them. But before they're under contract or anything, I'm like, hey, I just talked to this person.

Brandon Hien: [15:48] How much would you buy this for? And he tells me how much he would buy it for. And then I use that to go get my offer and negotiate because I'm not great at figuring out ARV, and I'm even worse at figuring out how much rehab costs would be. So even still, I look at some of these leads, I'm like, I really don't know how much to offer this person. So literally every single one, he does real estate full time. He'll get back to me within ten minutes, twenty minutes, tell me what to offer on it. We talk every single day. And whenever I tell other people to do this, the thing they always say is, oh, well, what if they go and stake you and, like, steal your deal? And what I say to dad is like, the world's really not that bad of a place. Like, most people are not out here trying trying to snake you. Like, could it happen? Yes. But I think in in the business, business is a team sport. Real estate is especially a team sport. If you have this mindset that everyone is trying to snake you, it's not gonna be good in the long run. And reality is most not everyone is trying to snake you really. Like, I think it would be very rare for someone to, know, you to go ahead and do that. So having someone like that's been a big game changer for me. And then the third thing is just leads being in my system for longer. Like, now I'm getting contracts on leads that have been in my system for a hundred days or a hundred twenty days, and those just start to add up.

Mike DeHaan: [17:07] Yeah. That's an underrated piece, that last one, that most people don't understand is, like, we call, like, building that lead snowball.

Brandon Hien: [17:14] Big word.

Mike DeHaan: [17:14] Right? But once it's kinda there, it gets gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and you can always kinda carve a piece off of it. Right? But when you only have 20 leads in your system, like, you're not gonna have that same sort of, like, past opportunity that might come around again. Yeah. But I love that all, though, dude. Like, that's all such simple stuff. Right? Like, very basically, you recognize that there was something that you weren't doing or was a problem, and you just found a solution, especially the offers piece. I mean, you're on scale calls. How often are we talking with guys that are like, they just need to, like, make an offer on the house, but they're trying to, like, give a full breakdown of, like, every single nail and screw that's gonna go into this thing? It's like, that's not how it works. Just, like, throw it out there. You don't know and then figure out afterwards. Right?

Brandon Hien: [17:59] Yeah. And I have no idea how much any nails or screws cost. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

Mike DeHaan: [18:02] you you guys might have heard us joke on the Wednesday show a while back about how we had a member that hadn't even been in a Home Depot before. Yeah. That's Brandon, and he's about to close seven deals in, like, two months. So

Brandon Hien: [18:12] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [18:13] Yeah. I mean, that that's amazing. And then that connection that you made on Facebook, so that guy is real estate full time. He's a realtor. Did you know him before? Was that just completely cold outreach?

Brandon Hien: [18:23] So he's not a realtor. So the very first deal that I got on a piece of land, posted it on Facebook. And then I had a bunch of people reach out to me about the land, and then he was one of them. And, yeah, we just built that relationship over time. A lot of people won't want to comp five deals for you every single day because they're doing other stuff. And actually, this guy comp deals for me for four months before we got a contract. That's awesome. And then he closed the deal with me. He got the house for 0% down, 0% seller finance. And I have, like, three or four more other contracts assigned to him. So he basically stuck with me for four months, and now he gets it's beneficial for him because he gets first dibs at all Yeah. All deals. And now he'll go, like, walk properties for me even if he doesn't doesn't wanna buy.

Mike DeHaan: [19:09] That's awesome. Right? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. That's something as well is that, like, when you're starting out and you're trying to find that person, if you can give that impression that you do have hustle and you're gonna have opportunities and stuff, people are happy to help you. Right? And that's another thing that you're talking about. Like, what happens people snake your deals? I think it's another concern people have where they think that more established investors don't wanna work with them or don't wanna help them, which isn't true most of the time. You know? And if you do try to reach out to, like, a big wig flipper and they don't wanna help you, fuck that person. Go find another one. Right? There's tons of them in every market. And you being, like, I don't know, is you willing to put yourself out there and show that you're gonna bring them value? I guarantee that guy's not upset that he went those four months without him getting a deal now because you are essentially free lead generation for him.

Brandon Hien: [19:58] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [19:58] You know? And he's he's paying you for it, but if they weren't good deals, he wouldn't buy them. So he's not having to do that much extra work to just, like, increase his pipeline. Yeah. Exactly. So that's awesome, man. Yo. If you don't follow me on Instagram, which is that Mike underscore invests, by the way, then you might not know that we officially have a new mission as a brand, and that is to help 2,000 real estate investors build million dollar businesses. Obviously, to do that, we need to get in front of as many people as possible. So quick little ask to help us reach that goal. First, shoot me a follow on Instagram at Mike underscore invests. Second, follow collecting keys podcast on Instagram. That's at collecting keys podcast all written out. And third, every time the algorithm is kind enough to show you a post from either of us, share it on your story or in your post and tag us. If you do that, I'll DM you, and we can have a little DM conversation about what is preventing you from having that million dollar business that everyone is seeking. And we can see if we can come up with a plan to help you make that massive income, not just passive income. So, again, if you see any of our posts, just go ahead, reshare them, tag us, and let everyone know that you enjoy the content we produce. It will help us a ton, and then I'll be happy to help you as well. And so as you're you're going through these, what are some of, like, the biggest challenges that you face doing this virtually? Virtually?

Mike DeHaan: [21:18] Because, you know, we've kind of we mentioned that briefly at the beginning, but you've been living in Chicago, doing this in North Carolina. That comes with a whole other set of issues aside from the fact that you were completely green to real estate when you started.

Brandon Hien: [21:29] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [21:29] So what are, like, some of the big challenges with that? And what how have you overcome them?

Brandon Hien: [21:33] I would say, yeah, I guess big challenge is just not, you know, not being able to to go meet people in person and shake their hand and get their trust. I was in North Carolina a few weeks ago, and I went to go visit three sellers in person. And I was like I was like, it was such such a big difference. Like, two to three people I walked up and they were like, we like you. Like, we wanna work with you. It just totally, totally changes the vibe of everything. So to overcome that is just simply more volume, just make more offers, do more volume. And also having someone on the ground, like the guy I was just talking about to be able to to go walk properties and act as my quote unquote partner.

Mike DeHaan: [22:12] Sure. How about like with due diligence? Are you just relying on your partner so heavily right now that you don't even necessarily worry about that? Doing comps or

Brandon Hien: [22:20] Yeah, I basically just rely on him. And when you say due diligence, do

Mike DeHaan: [22:23] you mean like for the buyer? For both sides. Right? Like so, know, doing comps, going and making sure that the house actually does have a roof on it. Right? And the seller wasn't just saying that, you know, like going and making sure that the neighborhood is actually as it appears on Google Maps, and it hasn't been like, you know, turned into a a drug haven, which does happen in some of these places. You know? Like, there's a lot of stuff that's really, really hard to do without getting someone there to

Brandon Hien: [22:48] see it. Yeah. And and to that, I would say lock it up based on what the seller says. And if you have to change after that, then then that's how it is. That's happened a couple times where I lock it up based on what the seller is and a price that works. And, you know, the guy would go walk in and he would be like, yeah, this house is actually a teardown. And the one guy had to negotiate down to 15,000 because I had him at 45. The highest offer I got was 43 because the house was I mean, it was completely destroyed. Like, it's unsalvageable. So I negotiated the seller back down to 33 and took that. Or another one, we had to completely cancel because it was an out of state investor who bought it three years ago. He said it had a rehab inside, and it was all good. And then I had a buyer for it, and they actually ordered an for it, like, from an inspector, and the house is basically rotting from the inside out. Nice. Yeah. Still gonna give the guy an offer. Gonna have to go from $1.60 to 80. He he paid $1.10 for it, but, mean, it's just that's the situation. Like, lock it up based on what you know beforehand. And if that's not the case, then it's not the case.

Mike DeHaan: [23:55] Do you have the official inspection on that one? Yeah. I would share that with the seller for sure.

Brandon Hien: [24:00] Yeah. Yeah. I did. And he was like, he didn't know any of that.

Mike DeHaan: [24:03] Yeah. So, I mean, that's as a crazy situation.

Brandon Hien: [24:06] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [24:06] But that, like, I love that though too. Right? Because you just go get the contracand around based on the sellers, what the seller tells you. And then if the seller lies to you or creates, like, this false scenario and you need to adjust your price, you shouldn't feel bad about that. Right? That is the seller doing something that is not necessarily in everyone's best interest because they're trying to get more money. You know? That's like lying to your doctor about the fact that, like, you smoke cigarettes or that you, you know, you eat like shit. Like, you're you're just lying to yourself and you're hurting yourself when, you know, we're trying to have this solution based conversation and they're not giving you the full truth. Of course, there's gonna be repercussions for that. Yeah. Well, that's awesome, though, dude. So as you've gone through a lot of this, you're obviously wearing all the hats in the business aside from the VAs that do the lead gen for you. Have you been able to, like, manage that decently well so far, like, with continuing to maintain your your higher paying job, or, like, have you had any challenges with that?

Brandon Hien: [25:03] Yeah. I've been able to maintain it well. I'm in a pretty unique situation where I work from home. I have a lot of flexibility in my job. So I have a lot more hours in the day than someone who may only have one to two hours. So I've been able to maintain it from that perspective. I would say now that I'm getting so many follow-up and I like, I'll look at my tasks and I'll have like 75 follow ups in a day, it would be nice to have like a lead manager or someone who could call some of those leads. And some of the leads I'm like, yeah, I really don't want to call this person because they like just told me no a month ago or like, I just like, I don't think that they're a good lead, but I don't want to mark them dead. And I'm getting to the point where I'm getting a lot of those every single day. So I had to get more diligent about like keeping track of my leads that I think are actual leads versus I think the people that could be leads. But because I also have a sales background, I just I've had so many experiences where I did not think somebody would be a lead and it ended up being a sale that I just don't like to completely get get rid of those people. So I would say that's the biggest challenge now as I get more and more, there's just a huge follow-up list of follow ups that I'm like, this is gonna take a while to get through.

Mike DeHaan: [26:16] Yeah. And that'll continue building. At some point, it'll make sense to have a lead manager. Right? Yeah. But you're right, though. You don't want to mark them dead because you never know. We literally have one signed around and assigned for a $10,000 fee that we got last week that not only has been in our system for several years, but has been under contract with three other wholesalers in that period of time. Right? And we have in our notes, like, I just signed with so and so I just signed with so and so I just signed with so and so. We have every reason to not follow-up with that. But our process is we go and check if the property has been sold because they have a lot of the motivators that we look for. Mhmm. Property never got sold, so we would call them. And then sure enough, we were the ones that were able to get under a contract at a price that makes sense and find a buyer for it. Yeah. So you just never know. Right? If you don't follow-up with them, you don't you don't make the money. Right?

Brandon Hien: [27:03] Yeah. And hearing stories that's why, like, being in groups like this is so important. Like, hearing stories like that from you and on all the other guys in the group is just, knowing that it's possible. Yeah. You know? If you just if you're if you're doing it on your own, you may never even think about that to keep those leads in the system. So

Mike DeHaan: [27:20] Totally. I love we're getting some Chicago audio texture there with the background. There we

Brandon Hien: [27:25] go. That's how that's

Mike DeHaan: [27:28] how you know you're you're in the is it the shooting capital of the world? Is that technically what Chicago would?

Brandon Hien: [27:33] That's what I'm saying.

Mike DeHaan: [27:34] I love Chicago. Great city. Yeah. But right on, dude. So what's next for you? You got your first little bit of success. You're gonna start making some money. Yep. Going to stay virtual wholesale. You're looking to move back. You're looking to build a team. You're looking to just hustle and make a few $100,000 a year and, you know, go on vacation? Like, what what's your plans?

Brandon Hien: [27:55] Yeah. So I am moving back. My goal when I started this in the year was to be able to move back to North Carolina. That's where I'm from. I have a huge network there. So I wanted to build the business to a point where I'll be able to basically move back there. And, you know, my goal in February was to get a deal in August, September, and October for at least 10 to 15 k just so I could like have some proof of concept. And even though I thought I was gonna there was a point where I was four months in, I was like, dude, there's no way this is ever gonna happen. I was like, I don't know. I don't know how how I'll ever get a deal. And then the next two months, I was like, oh, yeah. I was like, I'm about to crush this goal. I'm about to be doing, like, three deals a month, have all this money in the bank, then all those title problems happen. And now it looks like I'll end up basically exactly on my goal, which is about, like, a deal in August, September, and October. Hopefully, three deals in October, but maybe definitely probably at least one or two.

Mike DeHaan: [28:53] Awesome. And then after that, are you planning to what are planning

Brandon Hien: [28:57] to go with it? Yeah. So I don't really wanna build a huge team. I kinda wanna rock rock and roll, like, how I'm doing it for now. I mean, I I think it's very very realistic on, five k a month to do, like, twenty to thirty k a month in revenue. I haven't done that yet, so I can't say for sure that's possible, but I just I just feel like it is. And then once I'm two feet in on entrepreneurship, and I'm doing this full time, my goal is to just network in the real estate space, listen for opportunities, and figure out what I wanna do from there. I think when you're, like, full in on entrepreneurship, more doors open to

Mike DeHaan: [29:35] you. Mhmm.

Brandon Hien: [29:36] And you just, you know, you you have a lot of opportunities. I wanna start sharing more of what I'm doing online and just see where it takes me. Also, being virtual is, you know, super important for me. That was one of the main reasons why I wanted to do this. So being able to travel out of the country for a month, which I really like doing. I've done that a lot of times in my life being able to do that, you know, when I want. That's part of the goal as well. So we'll probably rock and roll as a as a solo operator for a while and see where it takes me. There was a good quote from Alex Ramosy I heard about entrepreneurship that was like, you don't know exactly where the cheese is or what it is, but you know it's out there. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [30:17] That's very that is very good.

Brandon Hien: [30:18] So if you just dive in, take action, and and do something, like, opportunities will present itself. I had no idea how I'd ever even end up in real estate. Mhmm. Just do one thing at a time, and things open up from there. Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [30:32] And once you kind of understand how to make money, how to do general marketing, how to do general sales, you can apply that to anything that you wanna do in the future as well. Whether that's continuing to do wholesale real estate, whether that's going into your branding stuff that you've talked about or doing, like, ecommerce, a lot of the fundamental principles are really sim similar. I think it's important to, like, focus on one avenue and make it your good chunk of money, you know, get your first couple million bucks before you kinda get shiny object syndrome in case you get bored or something like that. But

Brandon Hien: [31:03] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [31:03] Like, the skill set of entrepreneurship is so transferable. And that's one of the challenges that I always have when I connect with, like, new people and they kind of have these, like, goals and stuff where I'm like, you don't necessarily know, right, like what you want yet because you haven't had any sort of like freedom or you have no like actual proof of what you can do. You know? And that's why people that are like kind of confined, they always have really, really basic goals. And then once you understand how to make money and you make that first bit of money is when you actually learn what you want in life. And so

Brandon Hien: [31:37] you kinda

Mike DeHaan: [31:37] have to go through that process.

Brandon Hien: [31:39] Exactly. That's why, you know, I don't necessarily have revenue goals. I don't know what I'm gonna be doing a year from now. And I think that's because I've just tried so many different things. I'm more believer in in acquired skills and just keep following your interest and skills, and eventually, you will find something that you like and that also makes you money.

Mike DeHaan: [31:58] There you go. I love it. Perfect. Yes. Right on, man. Alright. We're gonna dive into our end of show questions here to wrap up this one. And so to start off, what is your craziest real estate or business story? And even though you're virtual, know you got a couple good ones.

Brandon Hien: [32:14] Yeah. So I finally got some good ones. I'll do two. So one is this house I have under contract now where the owner's friend has been living in it for two years, and there's no running water or toilet. So I don't know exactly what's going on in there when the guy living in a house with no toilet or water. So I I grew up in a suburb of Charlotte. Looking back on it, you would say it's a upper class suburb. So I I never saw anything like this. Like, I never saw, like, what true middle class or even lower middle class is until I started doing this. And it's so shocking to me all the stories I heard. I've heard this happening, like, forty five minutes from where I grew up, like somebody literally living in a house with no toilet or running water.

Mike DeHaan: [32:58] The good news is that's not middle class. It's definitely like lower, lower class.

Brandon Hien: [33:01] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [33:02] Yeah. So no. Nobody go on a witch hunt for Brandon for being disconnected on that one. It is very crazy, though. So that dude has literally has like, does he just not go to the bathrooms? Like, drive to a gas station? Like, what does he do? I was assuming backyard, but

Brandon Hien: [33:15] I don't know. Does it get cold in Charlotte? Like, like, winter? January and February, it can get to, like, the thirties.

Mike DeHaan: [33:22] Okay. Yes. It gets cold.

Brandon Hien: [33:24] But then the other story was I was in person, and I was with this guy. And we were looking at his he called it a house. It was really a shed. But anyways, it was supposed to be vacant. I'm there with him just hanging out. He's trying to unlock the door. He only has a screwdriver to try to unlock it. And all and all of a sudden, I just hear, who the hell are you? And there's there was a squatter in his house. Like, some lady looks like she just woke up. And she's like this. She's like, oh, like all days think of tears. And he's like, he's like, what the fuck are you doing at my house? He's like, who are you? And I was like, oh, it's a squirrel squatter. So I kinda like took my phone out and tried recording it. I was like, oh. And then he was like he was like, well, you can come in here and check it out if you want. I was like, I'm gonna get, like, hit in the head with a hammer if I walk in here or something. No shit. She had a air just air mattress sleeping in this dude's shed, basically.

Mike DeHaan: [34:17] Did you send that one?

Brandon Hien: [34:19] No. He wanted $80,000 for the. It's literally a shed. Like, it has a double door shed. Like, double doors. I mean, maybe it'd be worth, like, 30 to 40 k. So I offered him 35, and he said he's gonna try to do something with with it. But if not, he'll come back.

Mike DeHaan: [34:35] Definitely follow-up with that one. That will be a deal for sure when he realizes that there's not really a lot for him there, and he has to keep dealing with people breaking in and living

Brandon Hien: [34:44] in there. Yeah. He was like, should I call the cops? I was like, I don't know.

Mike DeHaan: [34:50] I mean, I guess, like, they're they're trespassing? Yeah. Yeah. But that's so funny. Alright. Good stuff. If you could go back to the very beginning, what's one thing that you do differently?

Brandon Hien: [35:01] Yeah. So I I knew this was gonna be a question. I've been trying my hardest to think like what I would do differently. And it's hard because I feel like everything I've done has been like what I thought was best at the time. I mean, I literally started like in your group. So I basically just did everything you guys said. There's nothing that, like, stands out as like, oh, that was a big, big mistake I made. Or I would say, I guess, just just as general advice as, like, people going into it, things I hear people saying is like, from the very beginning, you got to be like super committed if you want to be successful. Like, for me, I've been trying to get into entrepreneurship for a few years. And this is like my last my last go at it. Like, I'm like 29. I was like, dude, I have to make this work. Or It's like game over the world. Well, yeah. But I mean, it's like it's coming up one of one of the last few years of my life where I literally have no responsibilities and can only go all in on me. And I just hear too many people saying like, oh, you know, I I make calls for an hour a day. And I'm like, you gotta, like, have the expectations of, like, how hard you're gonna work to be successful. Yeah, I would say that's, like, the the biggest, I guess, takeaway I've I've got from from this is, like, it's gonna be harder than you think. But once you get past that initial hump, you're gonna be like, okay. That actually wasn't that hard.

Brandon Hien: [36:30] Totally. When you're in the moment, feels terrible.

Mike DeHaan: [36:32] 100%. And that's great advice. Right? And so what I typically tell people is, like, you don't know how hard it's gonna be, but I can promise you it's gonna be harder than you're expecting it to be. Yeah. Right?

Brandon Hien: [36:44] And then once you get over the hump, like, even me, like, I'm almost forgetting how hard it was. And I guess one thing I would actually, I know one thing I would tell myself is, like, try not to be so upset in in the moment. Cause like during those four months, especially the third and fourth, like I was feeling like really bad and I just like really didn't enjoy like life because I was like, dude, this isn't working. Like, breaking out. I don't know what to do because this isn't gonna work, and I'm gonna be a failure again. Mhmm. And I had that same experience when I started off in in sales. And I actually don't even remember this, but, like, I would read in my journal, like, when I would start off in sales, how was, like, super upset. And I was, like, just didn't really like my life. I don't even remember that now because I've had all the success and it I'm on the other side and you forget about that. So I'll say try as best as you can to enjoy the journey when it sucks. But I guess on the same point, you also you also need to feel the desperation and the pain if you want to get get out on the other side. Because if you don't, then you're just gonna be like, ah, my job's fine. I'll you know, this is this is too hard. So I guess it goes both ways.

Brandon Hien: [37:53] You you were you really you gotta feel the pain and go through the tough toughness. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [37:58] That's where grit's built. Right?

Brandon Hien: [37:59] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [38:00] Awesome, man. Good stuff there. Sweet. Alright. Where can people find you, follow you, and reach out to you?

Brandon Hien: [38:04] Yeah. Would say best place would be Instagram. So I'm gonna start posting more here soon about real estate stuff, lot of it's like travel stuff now, but it's b m underscore h I e n. Brandon Dean, h I e n. Pretty sure I'm the only one of those. So should be able to find it that way.

Mike DeHaan: [38:22] Cool. Right on. Buddy, well, thanks so much for coming on the show, man. I really, really appreciate you sharing all these insights. And, seriously, congrats on the success you've had so far. And I'm really, really excited to see how the future pans out for you as well because I know it's gonna be very, very bright.

Brandon Hien: [38:35] Awesome. Thanks so much. Couldn't have done it without you guys.

Mike DeHaan: [38:38] Yeah. Absolutely. Alright, guys. We'll go and shoot Brandon a follow. And if you feel like you are working hard and you're not getting success, if you're not working as hard as Brandon, you're not working that hard. He literally has been grinding for months and months and months, and he is now slinging deals left and right. Like, honestly, it's almost comical. I feel like every other day he is posting some kind of big win in our little scale Slack channel, and it's really, really cool to see. And it is the perfect example of what it can look like if you just have absolute blind faith in the process, you're willing to put in the hard work, and you don't mind making some mistakes here and there. Because in case you can tell, Brandon has made quite a few, And here he is. He's still alive, and he is very, very successful these days. Yeah. So awesome, buddy. Well, thanks for coming on the show. And everybody, thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you guys next week.