How To Network With The Pro's Without Looking Like An Amateur

Mike DeHaan: [0:02] On Air brands. Don't just go to local meetups and be like a passive person. Don't go there and expect to, like, receive value from people. You gotta connect with people, you know, bring them value, figure out what they need, and do it in an kind of an organic way and just do it consistently over time. Like, you know, you don't expect anyone to just, like, wanna do a flip with you after you talk to them one time. That's not how it works.

Speaker 2: [0:26] Yep. 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: [0:51] Have the clap. Do you we're gonna keep that in. Gonna keep that in. What's going on, guys?

Dan Austin: [0:58] That's out of context.

Mike DeHaan: [0:59] Out of context. What's going on, guys? Welcome to this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. Man, you threw me for a loop with that one. I mean, like, he just start he he was gonna do in the clap that's on his mic and then decides he wants to start talking about STDs.

Dan Austin: [1:16] But, hey, that's not go that way. No. That's just how it is.

Mike DeHaan: [1:20] Yeah. But, anyway, we are in approaching at the end of the summer, believe it or not, in August. And things it's interesting. We have seen like the full I feel like a full real estate cycle almost this past little bit. We've had things go super cold. Suddenly things are absurdly hot. We currently have some people right now that are like begging us to buy their houses. We don't like these weird sort of roundabout ways. It's going to be super interesting to see what happens here over this next little bit. And one of the biggest things that people keep asking me on these different podcasts and stuff I'm on. I've been on a lot of different podcasts recently are like, do I think the market's gonna crash? And, I mean, ultimately, I don't think it is because people are starting to, like, figure out ways to game the system. You know, there's some crafty stuff that people are doing. I mean, the government's already made it so you can buy a house regardless of what the price is. You know, you can buy a house with 3% down or, you know, do all this other sort of stuff. You can get a VA loan if you're a veteran, which is a large number of people that are the home buying demographic right now.

Dan Austin: [2:22] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [2:23] And people were being priced out because the high price points and the interest rates are making things expensive. But now you have all these people out there, all these realtors that figured it out. They're like, people live off of monthly budgets. So what if instead of having to drop our home price $100,000, we just go ahead and offer $20,000 to buy down people's loans to 3%.

Dan Austin: [2:45] And increase your purchase price by 20. Exactly. Doesn't affect the monthly budget that much.

Mike DeHaan: [2:50] Yeah. Like, at all. Or even if they don't do that, like, let's say they they're selling for $4.50 in order to get the same purchase price, they have to sell for $3.50. Even if sell it for $4.50 and the seller gives a $20,000 credit.

Dan Austin: [3:00] Right. It's still more of a net. Understand.

Mike DeHaan: [3:02] It's still it's still a huge net profit for the seller and it's game in the system. And all of a sudden, that person had down payment, sure, at $3.50, they have to bring what 3%, three and a percent. What's that like? $10.11 grand? For $4.50, that's like 16. Like, people can figure out $6,000 versus $800 a month, which would screw people over most of time. Absolutely. You know? I don't know.

Dan Austin: [3:24] I don't feel like I've it's it is interesting because there's some people scrambling on the investor side of things, but then like the solid buyers that we work with are buying stuff from us.

Mike DeHaan: [3:34] Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, like

Dan Austin: [3:36] They're still doing work.

Mike DeHaan: [3:37] Right? Yeah. With with the good deals we've had, they've been easy to sell. I the mean, only stuff that's been hard to sell is honestly the kind of janky deals that we've had.

Dan Austin: [3:43] Yeah. Which honestly probably shouldn't be able to sell them in any market anyways. But

Mike DeHaan: [3:48] we were able to. Last year, for sure. We'd tell them all day because people were desperate for stuff. So that's fine. But then we just, you know, put ourselves in a position where we can take them down or we can monetize them in some other way. You know, whether that's by putting into a seller finance deal with like prolonged lending or things like that. So you can monetize these different opportunities when you have a motivated seller. But you know, it's just, it's a super weird cause especially we're seeing our, you know, the investor, I

Dan Austin: [4:17] think we talked about this

Mike DeHaan: [4:17] in the last podcast too, the investor presence, like the other companies, a lot of people have gotten themselves into big trouble. They're starting to disappear, you know, here locally, and I'm sure the same thing's happening everywhere. But Possibly. You know?

Dan Austin: [4:31] I mean, then again, like, last week I think last week we had, like, six we had we had contracts in escrow to assign in, like, six states.

Mike DeHaan: [4:40] Yeah. That's true. I mean, like, there's still

Dan Austin: [4:42] some OGs out there, like, crushing it. Right? They're buying our deals in six six states, six markets. So

Mike DeHaan: [4:47] that's Yeah. That that's true. I I

Dan Austin: [4:49] definitely think there's some people just getting thrown out of the market. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [4:52] I mean Yeah. I mean, you know, especially if they've made kind of sketchy decisions and they rode the line a little bit close as things started to turn over. Yeah. Mean, well, the thing is though too, like, right now, just with how sellers are, you know, a lot of people still kind of frozen. We're having to just do some weird stuff with some of our deals, man. But I like, like, not like weird, like shady, but just weird in terms of like, what is the situation? So like we have we talked about the the deaf and mute lady. So she and her love interest.

Dan Austin: [5:24] I don't know. She has a love interest.

Mike DeHaan: [5:26] She has a love interest and they wanna buy a interest. No. No. The past one's dead, bro. They got she has got a new one.

Dan Austin: [5:32] Oh, okay.

Mike DeHaan: [5:33] Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. They, like, wanna move into a mobile home and trying to they can't drive. Trying to figure out how to get them over to this mobile home park. So our our act manager James, he's like, let's just send her an Uber. Yeah. I'm sure some random some random Uber driver's gonna be stoked to roll up to this ghetto ass crack house and pick up these really questionable people and take them to a mobile home park and then wait there and then drive with them back. You should have probably hired

Dan Austin: [6:01] a taxi, not a new one. Know. Driver is used to that.

Mike DeHaan: [6:05] Yeah. Dude, we should get, like, a limo. Like, a like a Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not a problem. Problem.

Dan Austin: [6:11] Like, a really beat up limo with, like, hub caps. No. No. No. We just get like one

Mike DeHaan: [6:15] of those limo hummers because those are like extra trashy. Yeah. I mean You know, just give them an experience. The driver will be more comfortable with it. It'll be great.

Dan Austin: [6:25] A bottle champagne. Oh, man. Get some brute in there. They would have a ball.

Mike DeHaan: [6:30] Yeah. It'll be mean, you guys gotta get this.

Dan Austin: [6:32] It's like it's like I'm pretty sure. I don't know the name. Like, one of those one of those real estate shows, like, selling LA or whatever. What are they called? I can't remember. Like, where they got, like, Josh Altman's one of the guys. Right? Yeah. One the high end luxury real estate agents. It'll be like that. It's like that kind of experience except for it's it's gonna be called selling Spokane. Yeah. Right. Trailer parks edition.

Mike DeHaan: [6:51] Selling Spokane, the crackhead edition. Yeah. Right. So funny. But, yes, we got that. And then we have one guy who keeps calling us from, like, random phones, and he keeps telling us he wants to sell his house. But every time we call the number back, the person on the other line's like, yeah, I have no idea who that person is. They just walk up to me and ask to use my phone. So we've been trying to get ahold of this guy. And, ultimately, what we're doing, we we decided we're gonna get a burner phone and, like, go to the house and, like, leave it there and see if we can get him to call us on that. To the door. Oh, so we can at least have a consistent number that we have

Dan Austin: [7:25] to call. That's probably what he's worried of. He's probably running from the government.

Mike DeHaan: [7:28] Probably. Yeah. I have no idea.

Dan Austin: [7:30] It wouldn't surprise me if one of our sellers was hiding from the government. Not just one. And he needed to he need he needed to move around and use other people's phones, and he didn't wanna be tracked. Yeah. God. And also we have that one. We run into some weird shit.

Mike DeHaan: [7:44] Yeah. We have another one right now with these people. It's a super nice house. And the lady I've met her. You've met her. But Jane basically described her as like

Dan Austin: [7:56] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [7:57] I did go walk away. Like, you know, I've made myself house poor, but I have big eyelashes and big toenails. And I like to talk about how expensive my house is kind of person.

Dan Austin: [8:07] Big toenails?

Mike DeHaan: [8:08] No. Sorry. Talking about I didn't

Dan Austin: [8:09] look at her toenails.

Mike DeHaan: [8:10] Fingernails, man.

Dan Austin: [8:11] Didn't look at what are you into?

Mike DeHaan: [8:12] I'm not me, dude. Not me. This is what I'm getting secondhand. I don't meet with sellers. I don't I don't leave my house Monday through Friday. Mhmm. Yeah. That's right. But and and that, like, we have almost tried to make a point of, like, not buying this deal. But she they're like, I know this.

Dan Austin: [8:26] Like, I've tried to not buy it. Like, I yeah. You're absolutely right. They're the one wants us to.

Mike DeHaan: [8:31] Literally begging us to. And with the price they need to be at, we can't necessarily pay cash for it because they only bought it, like, last year. And then we they can't lose money because they can't afford to pay anything else. We're doing an ovation agreement. And, like, they're giving us power of attorney over their house, over everything about it. So we're basically gonna be the owners of it and lead the entire transaction. But, like But the problem is is

Dan Austin: [8:54] the innovation's like me hiring a carpet installer and sending our contractor over there to install, like, a couple items. It's, like, a nice house.

Mike DeHaan: [9:03] Yeah. It's weird. Yeah. And so and so what innovation basically is is we are partnering with them to flip the house. And the reason it needs to be flipped is because they have all these, like, half assed DIY project Half finished half finished stuff that they, like, started and then quit. Probably ran out of money.

Dan Austin: [9:18] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [9:18] And they had this, like we first talked to them, they had this illusion of, like, oh, yeah. You'll be able to do super minor stuff and sell this thing for, like, 600,000. And we're like, well, why don't you do that? And they're like, we don't feel like it. I'm really like, okay. Well, I mean, if you want, like, we could do it for you and then we could go and sell it for you. And they were like, yeah, that'd great. And so that's basically what we're doing. But then over the course of it, Dave, I tried to keep weaseling in all this stuff and being like, well, we have a buyer that's gonna pay $5.75. This house, we're gonna list at $4.99 and pray that it sells. Yeah. In fact, Dan, I have a Well, you and

Dan Austin: [9:52] I have a we have a running bet

Mike DeHaan: [9:54] on this one. You you think it's gonna sell for below that? I think it's gonna sell for below that. Yeah. But I I mean, you know, I but they wanna list it for, like, 600 because they're just disillusioned. Yeah. And then they keep coming back.

Dan Austin: [10:07] Comps are in 8 hundreds. And I'm like, wait. What?

Mike DeHaan: [10:09] Yeah. And then then at one point, they had, like, a buyer that's like, oh, yeah. He's gonna buy the house. You seem to fix it up, and we're gonna sell them for $5.75. And we're like, okay. Well, can we get a purchase sale from them? Then we'll fix it up. And then literally thirty minutes later, they're like, oh, he decided there's too many stairs in this house. It's a rancher. There's like not even there's like a step up into the house. And that's it.

Dan Austin: [10:30] Wow. I'm like, they're just all over

Mike DeHaan: [10:31] the place. Came up with oh my god. So we're just dealing with insane people, like, more so than ever.

Dan Austin: [10:36] Yeah. Just weird. And they look normal. These people at least look normal. Right? Yeah. We've tried every which way to be like, why are we even wasting our time here? Like we could make money, but there's just no reason for us to make money and they just keep coming back. I don't know.

Mike DeHaan: [10:49] Yeah. I mean, and the way we're setting it up, like we're basically just structuring our profit into it so that we're secured and then whatever actually happens with their situation doesn't really affect us.

Dan Austin: [10:59] Yeah. So we we actually on this one, which we haven't done in the past, we actually just wrote in or writing in like we want x amount for profit. Correct. And then our costs, which we budgeted, you know, literally it's like a week's worth of labor. Cause they actually have all the materials on-site, which is the crazy thing to finish it. Yeah. So a week's worth of labor. And then of course our commissions for selling it, cause I'll, I'll be listing it. Which is, we didn't do that in the past. Like, we've done to where we get anything above a certain amount.

Mike DeHaan: [11:25] Yeah, exactly. But then what do

Dan Austin: [11:27] you think is better? I want it, like, your opinion, what do think is better? So say the last time we, we had it fixed at anything above 400.

Mike DeHaan: [11:34] We would

Dan Austin: [11:34] get we sold the house for 500.

Mike DeHaan: [11:36] Yeah. Well, I think I think in the we sold for $5.25. So I think in that market condition, that was absolutely in our benefit because we had a strong reason to believe it was gonna sell for more than we were expecting. Now in this case where it's not as hot, I think it's in our benefit to, you know, give up less upside, but have our profit fixed into the deal.

Dan Austin: [11:53] Yep. And then that's why we would put a POA, a power of attorney over so that we can ensure the home sells.

Mike DeHaan: [11:59] Exactly. So we can't, like, fix it up and then they decide they're not going to work with us anymore. They decide they're not going to go through a transaction. At that point, our only recourse would be to put a lien on the house, something like that for our cost, for whatever our arrangement was. But by having a power of attorney over them on the sale of the house, we will actually go to signing on their behalf and push the whole thing through and be in charge of the entire transaction. And even though they will still be on title, they will be forfeiting their decision making ability regarding the house transaction. So Just honestly, in their case, probably good.

Dan Austin: [12:32] Probably. Obviously can't make great decisions.

Mike DeHaan: [12:36] Oh my god. It's just yeah. It's just fascinating people right now. Yeah. Oh my god.

Dan Austin: [12:40] Weird sellers as always. Yeah. Everything else is going on.

Mike DeHaan: [12:43] Every every single one's different, though. Like, it's it's amazing to me that, you know, we've been doing this for two and a half years now, and you still just never know what these people are going to come out like.

Dan Austin: [12:55] I know it is crazy. Yeah. So at that, we've a lot

Mike DeHaan: [12:58] of seller finance ones we're talking about with people that are looking to exit properties that they know have inflated in value and want to keep getting cash flow and don't pay taxes. You guys aren't versed on seller finance. You should definitely start learning. If you want to learn more about that first shoot me a DM on Instagram and I'll, try to give it to you in a really short version of it. Yeah. I mean, overall, man, we got that. We got our cabins finally closing. We got Oh, yeah. The funky duplex that you're super excited about that you posted your on Instagram about how sad you are that you have to flip it the other day. It was that yesterday. You posted that.

Dan Austin: [13:36] I don't wanna don't flip this house. I don't wanna freaking do the work, man.

Mike DeHaan: [13:41] It's work. It's work. It's not work. You're making Jeff do it, dude. It's not a it's not a

Dan Austin: [13:46] duplex either. It's a house with a d u. You call me up. We got a duplex. I'm like, hell, yeah. Let's do it.

Mike DeHaan: [13:51] It's a

Dan Austin: [13:52] house with an a d u.

Mike DeHaan: [13:53] It's still a cool house.

Dan Austin: [13:54] And, technically, it can be a duplex because they can both be rented separately. So I will give you that. They both are separately metered, all that sort of stuff. But yeah, it's just one of those projects where I haven't really wanted to flip it from the beginning because it's big. And when you're in a the reason why is because when it's it's big, it's in a pretty good neighborhood. It's a pretty nice house in general. Like when it was built, it was built nice and it's been okay. Like maintained pretty well, but it needs upgrades. So big means a lot of square feet. Nicer means you got to go a little more high end. So what you got to do is you

Mike DeHaan: [14:27] got to like think through things, like

Dan Austin: [14:28] you gotta make, can't just do the flipper specials. Yeah. And then, so when you're doing nicer finishes, nicer things that are more pulled together, more designed, and you have a lot of square feet, it's like, oh God, then you have to really look at your budget and say, you know, even $1 a foot extra swings your budget a little bit. You know what I mean? And so you gotta just pay attention to that sort of stuff when you're making decisions as opposed to showing up and being like, this is a, you know, 1,800 square foot, three bed, two bath, bread and butter flip where I'm like, we already have the flooring and storage. We already, we already have the paint and storage. I know exactly what it's going to cost. There's no way there's going be any cost overruns on this. I don't have to think about it. Our guy goes in there, sprays everything, throws down floors, puts in some cabinets and countertops, and we walk out. Like, that is simple. This is just more effort and more stress upon me.

Mike DeHaan: [15:17] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I know you're also a petty person like I am. So think about it this way. The nicer we make that house, the more we can sell it for. And then that You know? We shitty previous owner who was just the bitch right now. She he was, like, the worst kind of person. Yeah. You know, it's like liar deceiver, like, hiding stuff. She left us the fridge full of, like, rotting meat because she was

Dan Austin: [15:41] Oh, so bad. Though we were

Mike DeHaan: [15:43] super nice to her the whole time. And she We were very

Dan Austin: [15:45] nice to her.

Mike DeHaan: [15:46] We bought the house after she called me during Christmas dinner with my family and was like, do you wanna buy this house? I chose to take the call. And you're like, yes. And then she was real nasty after the thing was done. Just think Immediately. She's probably still follows a house on Zillow. If we can sell her house for a ton of money, she's gonna be really upset. And that'll be true. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [16:09] Yeah. No, I agree. And, and there's a few buyers from our buyers list that I'm gonna be call them up and be like, hey, did you see what that thing sold for? Right. You know, I had one guy walking in who's like, you know, he's not blocked to my number, because I want to say nasty things to him when he, when he texts me, but that he's like, yeah, the roof's leaking. I'm like, what are

Mike DeHaan: [16:28] you talking about? The roof's leaking? Like, he's like,

Dan Austin: [16:30] yeah, man, I can tell you. He's like trying to like make things up. So I told our guy, I like, get up on the roof. You know, like, I told him the roof's leaking. I I haven't personally walked in. He's like, the roof's not leaking. I was like, that bastard.

Mike DeHaan: [16:41] Just lying. Yeah. Those people for it.

Dan Austin: [16:43] Yeah. Like coming up with every excuse. So, you know, so there'll be a few people I'll call on this one.

Mike DeHaan: [16:47] Yeah. Just just rub it. Just rub it. Oh my god. Just the way it is, man. Networking right now. What a transition to our educational topic for today. I have no idea where we're gonna go with this, but this is something that just keeps coming up where a lot of people talking about like how to start meeting people in this space, you know, looking at how bigger pockets says to do it, all this other people say to do it, just go to like a meetup and sit there and hang out. That is now we think is the best way. So we are going to talk about what we think is the best way to take advantage of your connections and meet people in, you know, the real estate investing space. That's what you want to get into. And, no, again, don't know entirely where we're gonna go, but really quick, bit here about the instant investor program, and then move back back to talk about that. So be right back. The instant investor program is our twelve week group coaching program, which includes a self driven course and access to our private investor community. We will take you through the full process of how we find our leads, how we market, how we do our sales and follow-up, and how we determine the best strategy for every opportunity that comes our way.

Mike DeHaan: [17:53] On top of that, you will also join a community of other like minded investors nationwide that are all marching towards the same goals, and you'll have direct access to Dan and myself so you can continue learning and growing with us as we continue to adapt and grow our business. So whether you're a new investor or already established, our our systems can help take you to the next level. So if you think you might be a good fit, go to the instantinvestorprogram.com and schedule a call, and we can have you talking to motivated leads in as little as two weeks. Alright, guys. So networking when it comes to real estate investing, when it comes to the real estate business, it is all about not only who you know and who knows you. If you go and you, like, look at any sort of, like, I would say, like, major large stream, I don't know. What's the word I'm thinking of? Like, the the really big I have no idea. Really big, like, OG podcasts and stuff. They'll tell you, you know, go to go to meetups, you know, call around and find a realtor and let them know that they're gonna be your realtor. Right? Build your team. Build your team and do all this stuff. And that is, like, the most boomer antiquated version of building out your real estate network that has possibly existed.

Dan Austin: [19:06] Yeah. The the the they're saying is important.

Mike DeHaan: [19:08] We want this

Dan Austin: [19:09] Which is the network. What network equals net worth is very important.

Mike DeHaan: [19:12] Correct. I think the the concept is right. The execution is so 2012. And it is, you know, as people that I would say are pretty well connected in the real estate community, both locally and nationwide with the different groups we're in, don't listen to those people. If you wanna actually have meaningful connections and have connections where you make money and everyone's happy and you have a respect and you're not just like a parasitic leech on these people, especially if you're starting out and they are used to being harassed, that is not the way to do it. So Nope. Instead, the best way to do it, Dan, go. Oof. Gosh.

Dan Austin: [19:51] The best way this is how I'm gonna teach you guys how to make friends right now. And influence people, I hope too. You know, I got partway through that book several years ago. Never finished

Mike DeHaan: [20:01] That's fine. You definitely can't

Dan Austin: [20:03] be you can't be operating any business like it was back in the old oughts at the turn of the millennia when the Internet was still growing in in its youthful stages. It's just different. Right? Yeah, the the meetups, there are great meetups out there. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, I know people that run meetups, and I think those are great people. And I know so I know their meetups are great. But generally speaking, a lot of meetups are if you want to go and find other investors that are going to meetups because they can't find deals or they're trying to network, that's probably where you should go. Right? Yeah. Because you're gonna find people that aren't doing anything like you, and then you can be around people that aren't doing anything, and then you guys can just do nothing.

Mike DeHaan: [20:43] Just do nothing together. Cause the A want nothing

Dan Austin: [20:46] together and you guys can talk about it. Right. You know, not that A players don't show up or won't be there. They might be a speaker or whatever. There's still some connections there, but it's just not like, if you're, if you're following that model, you're, it's going to take you a long time. And the network that you're building is so important. I think there's a couple ways to do it. Well, there's a handful of really good ways. One, the first one I always love, I think this is my favorite one, is go do a deal.

Mike DeHaan: [21:09] Yep. Buy a house. 100.

Dan Austin: [21:11] Buy a house from a wholesaler, do the deal, get a contractor, let them screw you over, still sell the house, tell that wholesaler you bought it and you sold it, they're gonna know all that sort they're gonna see it. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [21:24] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [21:24] Because now you've got people in your network that you're actually working with, which is really huge.

Mike DeHaan: [21:28] Exactly. And that, and that is the number one way to get started. Absolutely. I mean, that's how I got started several years ago. I bought a house, the flip when I had no business doing that. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Took a risk. Sure. Could have lost money. I made instead I made $4,000 over four and a half months of work. Right? But we have I mean, we have an episode coming out here, I think, so I mean, next week, actually, with a new buyer who bought one of our deals back in January. And literally, this is what he did. He wasn't nobody in the real estate space, still is, but he's now flipped a house. And the way that that went down is he had, you know, followed me on Instagram. I knew him a little bit from beforehand, shot me a message, he was like, hey, I really want to buy a house in the area. And I was like, well, perfect. We actually have a deal right now. We're we're looking to sell. Are you interested in this one? And he said, sure. I was like, let's do it. I said, you ever felt the house for you? He was like, nope. I'm like, okay. Well, this

Dan Austin: [22:22] is gonna

Mike DeHaan: [22:22] be fun then. Exactly. And so but either way, he bought the deal from us, and then he brought in his I think it was his brother or cousin who had a little bit of general contracting experience. And over the course of time, we, you know, we'd made money because he bought the deal from us. And he was like, would you be willing to help coach me through this process? And we're like, sure. You know, absolutely. Why not? We'll take you through it. Like, you've already shown that you're interested and you have value and all sorts of stuff. And he did just about everything wrong that you could do. I'm not gonna go into too many details, but you can listen to him talk about it himself here, like, next week. And but, like, but you know what? In the future, he wants to buy a deal. He wants connections with all sorts of We're happy to make those because we know that he's a go getter. Like, he's going to Yep. He's gonna be

Dan Austin: [23:06] a strong buyer. And he will

Mike DeHaan: [23:07] represent us well when that he's not like, you know, there's not like a referral that we don't actually know is gonna make us look stupid when he goes and, you know, let someone down. Right.

Dan Austin: [23:16] Absolutely. Another way, which is also kind of a costly approach, because buying a deal does cost you money, right? Whether you win or lose on that deal. Another one I wanted to just throw out there really quick before we get into the other methods and get your opinion on is, is paying to be in a group, in groups.

Mike DeHaan: [23:34] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [23:35] As far as using that to network and meet new people that are actually hustling and doing things that can add value to you.

Mike DeHaan: [23:41] Yeah. Well, I think that's super huge. Right? And, you know, this partial plug for our group, when we have the instant investor program, and that's a great way to get paid access to us where you can get literally one on one coaching with us and, you know, opportunity with us on a monthly basis and a weekly basis in the group and then constant access to the group. But looking way back when, I mean, we initially got started in this business by joining a different group, you know, and we made connections in that, that not only have given us education, but we've made money with these people. We've sold deals to these people. They've sold deals to us. We flipped the house. You partner flipped the house all the way across the country with one of these groups because we found the opportunity and they had the crews and we're like, Instead of paying us a fee, why don't we just flip it together? And like, we'll bring the money and we'll do this whole thing. Worked out great. Yeah. Right? And we start to do that and, you know, just a general like like a general group that's full of people that are wanting to get stuff done, you're gonna start to get a get a reputation, and they're gonna have friends that they tell they tell them about you. You know, they'll be able to make connections or whatever you're trying to do, whether that's, you know, and as you're starting to grow your business, not even just about knowing realtors and knowing lenders, but they might have an accountant that can help you out.

Mike DeHaan: [24:55] They might have a tax manager that might have someone that can do cost segregation on your rental portfolio, you know, literally whatever you need, the world becomes a very small place when you start bringing value to other people and showing that you can put that, you know, that time and hustle and that you're an A Okay.

Dan Austin: [25:12] So, so now let's go, let's maybe rewind a bit. And you're, you're, you're a new investor in that you haven't done anything, but you want to be an investor. Like, you're like, that's it, I'm committed. And maybe you're not ready or don't have the ability to pay. You don't have any capital. To join a group or buy a deal. How do you at least find these people? If we're telling you don't go to the group where they all go, go to the watering hole in person, and we're saying that's not the best method. Where else do they find these people that they can network with and eventually build strong relationships with where they can provide hustle or knowledge or what have you?

Mike DeHaan: [25:47] Yeah. So here's what you don't do. You don't reach out to that person and say like, hey, You know, I'm a new investor. You definitely don't lie and say like, oh, hey. I'm an investor, and I'm looking to expand my network. And let me take you out to coffee, or would you be willing to hop on a phone call? Would you be willing to, you know, get on a Zoom or something like that? They might oblige if they're polite. Like, I've definitely fallen into this, but there's not gonna be a whole lot of mutual exchange there. And, typically, what's going to happen is they aren't really gonna be that keen on helping you unless you guys really hit it off for some reason or another, which statistically, you probably won't just because, you know, how many probably won't like you. That's not what I'm saying at all. I like most people. But, like, I mean, I I've had these conversations with new investors regularly where they especially back when I was kind of in, like, the middle tier where I had kinda figured it out, but we weren't doing, like, big things yet. And I'd go meet with somebody within five minutes. I'd be like, fuck, what have I done? I have to like There

Dan Austin: [26:44] are definitely some there are definitely some folks out there that should not they're just not going about it the right way. Like if you, like, honestly, personally, if you like shoot me a text or hit me up in a DM, like, I'll at least give you a response or like Absolutely. Time of

Mike DeHaan: [26:55] But like, Like a DM's fine. But if someone like wants to like take you out to lunch and you're on the same playing field, it's not gonna really be a good usage of your time.

Dan Austin: [27:04] Unless you, there's something which you would have to know the person ahead of time, unless there's some value you can provide.

Mike DeHaan: [27:09] Exactly. So that's what it comes down to is, you know, the appropriate way to reach out to these people is like, you know, hey. I'm a new investor. You know, like, this is kinda what I'm trying to do. I recognize that you could be an expert in this. Like, do you have anyone that I could talk to about it? Or just, like, do it in some way where there can be a potentially mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge or or connections or things like that, you know, whether you can, like, try to find them opportunities. Let's say maybe that you have been, looking at opportunities on Zillow or you've been connecting with lenders, know, connecting with companies and you've found stuff and you know that that's something that they're looking for because you've heard them talk about that on their social media or, like, you know, through the grapevine and you can make that connection. You know, maybe there's, like, one of the key people and you know that they are really trying to figure out how to do a cost segregation on your, you know, on their portfolio. You might be like, don't even know what a cost segregation is, but if you can go and, like, connect with a company that does that and be like, hey, I've talked to these guys about it that can, you know, I might be able to help you out.

Mike DeHaan: [28:16] Like that at least, like, makes it more of an organic conversation instead of, like, hey, would you be willing to give me free mentorship for, like, literally?

Dan Austin: [28:22] Right. Yeah. I think I think recently, Jamie Gruber, the host of the Tribe of Millionaires podcast From Govind Institute. Yeah. Which is a good podcast. He said this as far as like talking to guests and people, like if you were to want to be on a podcast, but I think you can relate this to the situation, reaching out to these people and saying, Hey, you added value to me for this reason. You said this, or I observed you doing this. You added a ton of value to me. I really respect that and want to know how can I add value to you? Or is there something I can do to continue to gain value through a relationship with you? Something like, somebody to that extent, I think would be pretty powerful. If you're trying to reach out to people within, within a sphere of influence that actually like, like in your, I guess in your maybe home market or somewhere you do want to be able to provide that tangible value to them.

Mike DeHaan: [29:17] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's always tricky though, too. Cause if someone comes and says like, Hey, how can I help you out? And they're creating work for you. Right. You know, like, like you honestly have to

Dan Austin: [29:28] think know you got to be what's specific and maybe that's my point is getting specific, like identifying a specific thing about them. Mhmm. That is drawing you in and then identifying a specific thing of where you can add value. Yeah, for sure. Instead of just saying I can hustle and I'll sweat for you. It's like, hey, I see that you own like a 100 properties. Like, can I be the guy that goes in and sells lock boxes on all of them so that you have keys always, and you never have to worry about a handyman not having a key?

Mike DeHaan: [29:54] Yeah. Yeah. Stuff like that's great. Especially if they're local, anything like that is, is super big. Or maybe, you know, that they're an active buyer. Like if somebody came to us and said like, Hey, I know you guys buy a lot of off market stuff. I would love to do all your cash for keys for you. You know, I'll be like, know,

Dan Austin: [30:10] it's my pain in the neck. Take that away from me.

Mike DeHaan: [30:12] Exactly. And you have to be educated enough to understand what those needs are and then have enough gusto to be able to figure out how to provide that value, which isn't easy. Right? Like I understand that's very sort of nebulous and very complex, but that's, you know, kind of what you have to do, know, you and if they're local, that's the way you can do it. And then if it comes to virtual relationships, you're trying to connect with people in other groups. Honestly, the easiest way is interacting, you know, like some like, like if they're on, social media and you've connected with them, like, of my favorite people are people that have listened to some of our some of our podcasts. And they every now and then, they just, like, shoot me a message and they're like, hey. I really enjoyed, like, this episode. You know, I haven't had a question about this part. I'm like, sure. Happy to do that. You do that, like, three or four times. You're familiar to me. Now if that person comes and says, like, hey. I I have this deal I'm looking at. Would you be able to take a look at them? Like, yeah. Absolutely. Like, you know, we built a familiarity and you aren't basically coming in, like, asking me out while I'm, you know, don't even know each other yet. I've never been talked.

Dan Austin: [31:09] Yeah. But I do think in, in going to those virtual watering holes where there are people, because there's a ton of Facebook groups out there, ton of people you can follow on Instagram or, or TikTok or wherever you get your social app, but, like interacting within those groups, that's something I had to like learn myself, because that's not one of my natural, instincts. You're a Reddit. I know you're a Redditor. Yeah. And so places like that, where you see where there are other folks within, a group that you want to be part of is, is socially interacting with them and using those platforms for what they're meant to be used for.

Mike DeHaan: [31:38] Yeah. Absolutely. In fact, you know what I think the best way is to do it? If you have someone that you know, like really needs something, you go and say, hey, I found this really awesome resource about this topic. Here's this episode of the collecting keys podcast. I really think

Dan Austin: [31:51] you should listen. Those guys are so smart.

Mike DeHaan: [31:53] Those guys are so smart. They'll be able to help you out. No. But but

Dan Austin: [31:58] for

Mike DeHaan: [31:59] real, the when it comes to networking and especially if you're trying to build business relationships, I think the biggest dilemma people have when they're getting started is they view networking as somewhere that where they are going to grow. Networking should be mutual growth between the parties. Right? And you need to be approaching it from a position of you're going to be bringing as much value to them as you're hoping to receive back. And that's true across, you know, real estate meetups, business networking, whatever you're doing. I mean, even, like, in GoBundance, you go to the GoBundance events. There's, everyone that calls for GoBundance has have a high net worth, a relatively high income. They have to have a certain mindset. And you go to that, go to these meetups and you can immediately tell who is there to collaborate and who is there to take. And tell you what, the people there to take, they do not build as good a relationships with the rest of the group as the people that are there to collaborate. You know? And And so you have to be that collaborative mindset and, you know, it's social skills. If you're not a social person, I'm sorry, bro. That sucks. Go get a high paying job and invest in syndications.

Mike DeHaan: [33:02] Don't try to flip house. Don't try to

Dan Austin: [33:04] a people business. Is a people business and the value. And the reason why we're talking about it though, is that the value, like, don't know how we would have gotten where we were at without the relationships we have. We wouldn't It have. It's, really hard to think about how you scale or do anything at any, at any level in this business without networking and staying connected with people. What I see this, I'll just, this is one of my gripes too, before we transition, but is there's people that will like, reach out to you and be like, oh, I really want to talk to you and meet with you and blah, blah, blah. And they do it once. It's like a one and done thing. It's like, it's not transactional. So trans, some people treat it as transactional. It's like, no, it's a relationship. You know, you call and check-in with people, you see how they're doing. You see, you know, when you have, when they have a deal or you have a deal, you're interacting with them and talking to them about things. As opposed to trying to make it so transactional, like, Hey, this transaction's done. It was great meeting you. I made a little bit of money off you. Now I probably won't talk to you ever again.

Mike DeHaan: [34:03] Yeah. It totally I run

Dan Austin: [34:04] into those people quite often, it's super like, it's obvious. And then I try not to do business with them.

Mike DeHaan: [34:10] Yeah. Well, then the only time they reach out to you again is when they need something. Right. Exactly. But not even when it's a mutual exchange, like, they're asking you for something.

Dan Austin: [34:17] You don't have no one do that. I'm trying to find friends, damn it. Mean Using me to make money.

Mike DeHaan: [34:23] I mean, business with friends is definitely way better. And if you do have friend friendly relationships with people, I mean, we have made multi 6 figures that has been gifted to us because we have had friends that have brought us in to deals that they needed help with. I mean, they even one of our main competitors, super good friend of mine, and he was trying to figure out a deal, couldn't get the seller locked down. Like, the seller was, you know, basically sick of talking to them. So he gave us the lead, gave us, like, the dirty background knowledge of the seller and his motivation. We went in and approached it as a cold person, flipped, got the contract, split a wholesale fee, and our total fee on that was $70. So we made $35,000 through that relationship that I had Through a relationship. Through a relationship. Like, it cost us nothing except for a bunch of great time and conversation I've had building that friendship. You know? I mean, I I don't know. It's I I don't think there's many friends that would pay a $35. That'd be a really No. No. Not at all. Yeah. So, you know, we have lots of situations like that where so much these things have happened because we provided mutual value from the start and we've continued to provide value to each other over the past, you know, several years that we've been doing this business. So I guess the loop all the around, don't just go to local meetups and be like a passive person. Don't go there and expect to like receive value from people. You got to connect with people, you know, bring them value, figure out what they need and do it in an kind of an organic way and just do it consistently over time.

Mike DeHaan: [35:57] Like, you know, you don't expect anyone to just like, to do a flip with you after you talk to them one time. That's not how it works.

Dan Austin: [36:03] Yep. Yep. And I like what you said there though, too, of like finding out what they need, because you might be like, well, what kind of value can I provide? I don't do anything. And it's like, yeah, you might not know what value you can provide now, but you need to like, be inquisitive and go to the watering holes and listen to what people need. And then you can find where you can provide value.

Mike DeHaan: [36:21] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So is it easy? No. Is it doable? Yes. And is it necessary? Absolutely. So, and like that one thing alone will be a major differentiator and I can build whole businesses off that too. We have a guy right now that we've sold several deals to who helps out with a couple of deals who doesn't even like really run a business. He's literally just a networker. Yeah. And he just has people that will do everything and he's made $3,040,000 off of us over the last few months. Yeah. You know, because he solves our problem. We knew we had deals. We needed buyers. He's like, I know everybody. I'm like, Find us a person and we just figure stuff out. And then not only that, but once he finds the person, he's not like these freaking dispo shops that, like, just find a person and make you clean up the mess. He's negotiating cash for keys. He's making sure that the deals are involved. He's getting involved. He's getting through the escrow process. And you know what? Because of that, we will keep coming back to him and are happy to pay him money for that.

Dan Austin: [37:14] Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [37:15] So, you know, gotta be a value bringer. Well, right on, guys. Well, there's our rant. Let me, let me step off my high horse here and just wrap this thing up. Please steal you. Fuck you. It's not a it's

Dan Austin: [37:31] a pony if anything.

Mike DeHaan: [37:32] Yeah. Right. For you, short side. Anyways, guys, thank you much. Stuff. Thank you so much your interest.

Dan Austin: [37:40] That's an endearing thing for you to call me. I I mean, we

Mike DeHaan: [37:42] have no I I I think you're my longest running friend at this point. Like, pretty much. So Thank you.

Dan Austin: [37:48] Yeah. For better or for worse. I don't know. I would say you're probably close, like, the yeah. We've networked well with each other. We have. We've provided good value back and forth for many years.

Mike DeHaan: [37:57] Yeah. We our our initial value provided was we were both in the engineering program. We were like I know. You're not a complete loser. Yeah. Sure. And that was what we needed at the time. That was our need.

Dan Austin: [38:06] That was our need. We've provided value. That was a decade ago.

Mike DeHaan: [38:10] Yeah. Longer than that. Crazy. I think was 2010, twelve years ago. So Love it. Well, anyway, guys, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast or even if you didn't, go and subscribe and share it with your friends. Even if you don't listen to it, just subscribe anyway. I don't care. Like, we just need we just need to keep getting up the rankings. But share with people that you think would get value from it. Go ahead and follow us on Instagram. I'm at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at investor man. Dan, if you want to learn how to bring value to us, or learn how to invest the way that we have and build, you know, a fat portfolio for yourself and make a large income from finding off market deals, go to the instantinvestorprogram.com. It is a group coaching program, but also has a tier now where you can learn one on one directly from us in a direct meeting where we will literally sit with you and coach you the whole process directly. So instantinvestorprogram.com, check that out. And then besides that, guys, thanks so much, and we'll talk to you next week.

Dan Austin: [39:13] See you all next

Speaker 2: [39:20] podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.