Turning $35K Into $267K: How to Replace Your W2 as a Wholesaler w/ Shane Schrader

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 see if you're a good fit. 35,000 in and you're already have, you know, over 200 worth of revenue plus equity coming in. What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. Day is a Monday. This is the scale show. And this episode, these kind of scale shows are always about hearing from other growing real estate operators so that you can hear what the people that are actually doing the hard work on the ground are doing to find success in this very competitive business of off market real estate investing.

Mike DeHaan: [1:11] And today, we have Shane Schrader, who has been a scale member for coming up on a year. And, dude, you were one of my favorite, I guess, I can say success stories because you've had some pretty big successes. But you've been able to leave your lucrative w two. You're slinging some deals in Central Washington, and you're also just like a super cool dude that's super active in the community. So, Shane, man, really excited to have you on the show today. To give everyone a sort of general bearing about where things currently stand with you, give us a quick little rundown of who you are, where exactly you're based, and what your team currently looks like.

Shane Schrader: [1:46] Thanks for that awesome intro, Mike. I don't know if it's all true or what, but yeah, it works. Yeah. My name is Shane Schrader. I'm out of Central Washington. Primarily, are doing business in the Yakima Valley, a little bit in Kittitas Valley, a little bit Wenatchee. Yeah. That's kind of my main areas that I market to, doing deals in those areas. Team team, as far as what it looks like right now, it's just me. I've downsized with the idea to try and restructure everything now that I've kinda been in the business, learning what's going on, and we're gonna restructure and and try and go after a pretty hardcore next year.

Mike DeHaan: [2:24] Cool. And as humble as can be, let's I guess, for a little more context, give everyone a basic rundown about what your life and career and everything looked like a year ago versus what it looks like right now.

Shane Schrader: [2:34] Sure. When I first kinda joined Skill Community, I had one duplex as a rental. I was a journeyman lineman, had been for twenty years. Looking for a big change, just kinda kinda just like your story, Mike. I just felt sick of what I was doing. It wasn't the right move to stay where I currently was. And, yeah, joined the community in September last year and just started getting really focused on what it was gonna take to do this full time. I ended up leaving the w two in, I think, February and just went all in there. Just, yeah, pulled the plug on everything and said send it.

Mike DeHaan: [3:10] Yeah. And the thing I like to emphasize with that too is if you guys are unfamiliar with what alignment is, you're basically like the, I don't know, the special forces of every utility out there. Right? Like, you're making big, big bucks out there doing the dangerous electrical work. And the funny thing is is I would say, if I'm being completely honest, the success rate that I have seen with people that have very high paying jobs like that, they try to get into full time real estate is significantly lower than people that come from nothing. Because, like, honestly, that's freaking hard to replace, and that's hard to walk away from. And so huge testament to you to being able to, obviously, figure stuff out enough to feel comfortable doing that and also to, like, just be courageous enough to do it. Because most people won't even willingly risk that. Right? So very, very cool.

Dylan Koch: [3:56] I was gonna say too, I remember I talked to Shane and I were at the first KeyesCon event together, and then we just got left to KeyesCon, and he's basically talking about quitting his job and all that stuff. I was like, I'd give it to you, man. I already done it, but to leave a 6 figure, you know, ish paying job like that is tough, but you also have to have a supportive spouse along with that too. But, Shane, real quick, those areas that you mentioned, where are those in proximity to where you live? Is it in your own backyard, or is this kind

Shane Schrader: [4:24] of what you consider virtual wholesaling? No, it's definitely more in my backyard. It's only about a half hour outside of where I actually live, so I'm able to make it down personally for appointments, schedule contractors, you know, be the boots on the ground guy.

Dylan Koch: [4:37] Okay. When you said send it, and when you did all that, how did you first start? Did you go straight into direct mail? Did you try any other marketing channels? Or what is that what did that look like, what does it

Shane Schrader: [4:46] look like now? Yeah. Was pretty much ignorant to all of what happens on the wholesale side, and I felt extremely comfortable with Mike and Dan and the community and and seeing what others were doing. It really helped me out within that first month. Obviously, went down to KeyesCon and seeing guys like yourself, And it was just really opened my eyes to like, hey. This can this can really happen. Just follow the program that they have going on. And so direct mail was my first way of marketing, and I just followed all of what was instructed in the scale program.

Mike DeHaan: [5:17] Yeah. Appreciate that. The funniest things too is I would say that some of the more, I would say, people that have come through. And this this even just like in scales isn't like fully a scale promo. But it's like in every group or every kind of business is you find what successful people are doing and just copy them. Everyone always tries to find, like, their special secret thing, but they don't have any experience. So, like, what are you trying to do differently? Just like copy the good people. You know how in school they said you shouldn't plagiarize people? In business, it's the opposite. You should plagiarize everyone Yep. That's better than you and just do the exact same thing.

Dylan Koch: [5:52] Being a shameless cloner is what I heard someone say that one time. I was like, it's it's stuck.

Mike DeHaan: [5:57] Yeah. Seriously, though. So, know, I mean, even Steve Job, I think what was it is a this is I think Steve Job said this. I might be misquoting it, but it's a good entrepreneurs create or is it maybe it's good engineers create, great engineers steal. Is that Steve Jobs?

Dylan Koch: [6:11] I don't know. He sounds like a Elon Musk thing, though, too. So it could be him.

Mike DeHaan: [6:14] Yeah. There's probably somewhere the wrath attributed to Martin Luther King or some other bullshit on some fake meme, but, you know, that's an Instagram problem. But yeah, man. So started this out copy system, which is great. What are your, like, your current deal types looking like? Are you almost exclusively wholesaling? Are you doing some flips? Are you doing some buy and hold stuff?

Shane Schrader: [6:33] Yeah. So right now, I'm about 60% wholesale. Think, like, 30 25% flips and 15% buy and hold. Total to this year to date, I've done eight deals. Five of those were wholesale deals, and then the other two are flips, and then one's gonna be a renovation to a buy and hold. Two of those, I have really good owner financing on. Went that route with ended up taking those down with some owner financing, which was great. And then yeah. So, overall, it's the wholesale side of things kept the business open and going and funded those flips, And the exit on those flips should be happening one at the end of this month and then, hopefully, one before the end of the year, and that'll lay out a great runway for next year. And then, Shane, I guess, to touch on that, how quickly did that first deal come after you first started marketing? Let's see. First deal came, I think, at month five is when I initiated the contact with the seller. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [7:34] So okay. So from you started in January. I'm just making that up, but then you didn't get that first sale till May. Like, you know, it's a five month interval between those two things.

Shane Schrader: [7:42] Yep. I started in September and didn't get that deal closed till, I believe, February or March. And were you consistent with the marketing during that time? I was. Yes. I actually ramped it up, if anything. Started out slowly just because I didn't quite fully understand the whole process. Right? But once I did and seen that the mailers worked and that it went to the right people and I started getting phone calls, and then it gave me that confidence just to double it. So I doubled it the second month, and then I doubled it again the third month and just kinda kept at that. Like you said, you said send it. Yeah. $4,000 a month rate all the way till currently. And, yeah, like I said, we're gonna we're gonna double it again and try and pick this thing up.

Mike DeHaan: [8:20] Yeah. And it was funny. You said doubled it twice, but you're still only at $4 too. So I would say that that's very, very low relatively. Right? Yeah. So if you look at what you've totally spent, you know, your total marketing spend is overall?

Shane Schrader: [8:31] Yep. I'm at just just about 35.5. So 35,000.

Mike DeHaan: [8:36] Like, period? That's what you've that's all you spend. You've done eight deals off that?

Shane Schrader: [8:39] Yeah. It'll generate about 267,000 in generated revenue if all those flips close.

Dylan Koch: [8:45] That's like an eight x

Shane Schrader: [8:47] on your ad spend. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [8:50] See, and that's such an important freaking detail because you can listen to like, oh, eight deals is not much. But you've made $200,000 off of $35,000 investment. That's pretty freaking rad. Like, that's awesome.

Shane Schrader: [9:00] 267,500. Not even including your owner finance structure, probably equity in some of that. No. It doesn't include like, those are I bought both those on zero down interest rates. And so it doesn't include like, say, if I keep that for the full five years, that extra pay down. Right.

Dylan Koch: [9:17] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [9:18] That's awesome. So, I mean, like, honestly, at this point, if you continue, even just at the rate you are, pretty safe to say you're gonna replace your alignment income if you don't include your overtime that you guys make silly money on. But

Shane Schrader: [9:28] Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, have some other expenses, including, you know, subscriptions and stuff, but they're they're not real large. Know, the biggest and hardest thing is just getting through these flips, you know? They take the time and do take extra money up front, so. Well, Shane, actually, that, a lot of people get started in real estate investing, and me included when I first started, I didn't know shit about rehabs. So did you already have

Dylan Koch: [9:48] some of that experience, or what gave you the confidence to do the flips instead of wholesaling some of

Shane Schrader: [9:52] those deals at the beginning, or was it out of necessity? Well, that was kind of a positive and a negative. Yes. I had flip and renovation experience, and, obviously, working in the trades and, like, being the hammer and nail guy. I wasn't afraid of any of that, and I knew being that I've already gone through it, I knew what things cost and what kind of my my market labor rate was. So I wasn't afraid to take down those at all, which on the negative side, it really slowed up my wholesale progression and trying to be as deep as I should have been in that section of the business. So with that, what are you projected to make on one of these flips versus what could you have wholesaled it for? So let's see. I guess the one flip, I'll make $80 on it, and Wow. You had net Okay. Nice. Net 80 on that one, and I probably coulda wholesaled that one and made 25. Okay.

Dylan Koch: [10:42] So something like that, I woulda still flipped it. But I was trying to get to the point, like, there is

Shane Schrader: [10:45] a balance in here, especially with how long and time intensive these flips take. Yeah. And, you know, what the cool thing I know everybody has said it before. Once you're a wholesaler, you can kinda cherry pick through the deals. So these three flips that I was able to take down, I cherry picked the crap out of them. I mean, you know what they were. I knew the condition of the property. Like, I had a the one that's closing end of this month, it's a whole tail. Like, we picked it up for $1.55. We sold it for $2.50, and so I'll probably walk away with 50 where we put $10 into it. So, like, that's kind of a, I guess, a example of one deal. And then our other flip, yeah, I mean, it was just a simple needed to happen and need know we needed to take it down. There was a big enough margin there.

Mike DeHaan: [11:23] Nice, dude. That's amazing. So what is your current, like, I would say, like, pipeline and process stuff look like doing this full time? Because I know you've been actively involved in your flips too because you've been you've hopped on to several of our community calls, and you're, like, in a house that you're currently working on. And so in, like, the early, early phases, what is your day to day? How are the leads coming in? Are you answering all your own calls, like, that come in yourself? Are you doing any, like, networking that's helping find more deals or find buyers? Like, what's your daily, weekly workday?

Shane Schrader: [11:56] Yeah. Pretty much all that. I do everything at the moment. I have been doing everything for the last couple months with those flips going on. So deal wise, yeah, just keeping that direct mail going. I do take calls on our CRM app wherever I'm at, try and get back to those immediately, and then basically try and get those appointments scheduled and get over there as fast as I can. If it's that day or the during that week, that's on the wholesale side and the deal generation side. Doing all the transaction coordinating, doing all the disposition. That's grown. As I got deals and I started putting them out there, that's where I really found who the buyers were. And now I work directly with those guys, and I have them waiting. So as far as a business goes, it's great to have the buyers waiting. Now you know you need to go fulfill it, and so that gives you extra motivation. Any downtime that I have, I usually try and get down to the the flips. Now I have some pretty good contractors on board. So now I'm basically just project managing a lot of it, but there's still those small things in between that, say, you know, guys are gonna come do sheetrock and texture and such, and there's still, like, the small things you gotta go clean up, you know, trash and get the paint or whatever it is off of fixtures and do things like that. So those those little things, I've actually have a pretty good strategy going into this next year about how we're gonna take care of that, have it not be me.

Mike DeHaan: [13:15] Nice. That's one of the most underrated parts of, like, doing renovations in general is, like, that final I don't know. I take 3%, like putting the, you know, the outlet covers back on, like

Shane Schrader: [13:26] The punch list items.

Mike DeHaan: [13:27] You know, all the blue tape items, punch list items. Because, like, no one wants to do it, and it's hard to find a handyman that's gonna come and do it. And then even if you do have a good one, they're always gonna, like, just leave obvious shit for some reason. You'll be like, why did you, like, not put the light fixture back on the ceiling? Like, what's wrong with you? Right? So you end up having to it yourself. And to this day, I still haven't found, like, a good solution, honestly.

Dylan Koch: [13:49] Well But that shit matters. You need to I even

Mike DeHaan: [13:51] It does.

Dylan Koch: [13:52] You need to last three percent. As a retail buyer, presentation matters a lot more than you might think.

Mike DeHaan: [13:56] Absolutely.

Shane Schrader: [13:57] Yes. I think I have a solution to that, actually, for this next year. I found a guy who is a coach of my son's, and he did project management, and he did a little kind of maintenance stuff on some apartment buildings. And he was like, Hey, man. You know, I've seen what you've got going, and I think I might be able to help out. And so we're in the talks of, like, developing him into, like, his own separate company so I could just ten ninety nine him and then put him as, like, the project manager slash he wants a little bit of fill in jobs every now and then because he's a stay at home dad. His wife has a has a job, and it will work out perfectly for him to fill in those gaps. So that's kind of my plan going into next year is to utilize him. That'd be good. How many hours do you think you're working right now, Shane? A day, a week? Twelve to fourteen hours a day. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [14:44] Yeah. Yeah. It's a grind, though. And it get it gets better as you go, though. Right? You know that.

Dylan Koch: [14:48] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [14:49] So what is your goals with this thing? What are your goals for the next, like, twelve months, two years? And, like, what do you think your biggest constraint is to getting there? Because, you know, you're making money. Like, if you were to three x your marketing next month, why don't you do that? If or maybe you don't want to.

Shane Schrader: [15:11] Uh-huh.

Mike DeHaan: [15:11] Right? We had a really good talk with Dalen a few weeks ago. You know, one of the things that really resonated with a lot of people was the fact that he did wanna keep it small. Right? And I'd say it was interesting to me. So I guess from from your perspective, what do you want this business to look like for you, and what's preventing you from getting there right?

Shane Schrader: [15:27] Sure. No. I definitely had a had a good sit down. And like I said earlier, restructure kinda thought process about where I want this to be. Just got done reading, 10 x is greater than two x and kinda took a lot of that stuff to heart, and it a lot of it really clicked in my mind. So with that, going forward, it was like, well, I can't just throw a bunch into marketing because I don't have systems. And at the time, I didn't fully understand what it takes to do all that. Now that I've been in the business, understanding from a to z and all the letters in between, not just like a quarter of a letter the alphabet. You know? Now I know where I wanna put those pieces and what I wanna handle. So going forward, it's gonna be definitely hiring. I'll probably outsource the intake calls, get that off my plate. I really enjoy the sales and talking with the customers, so I'm gonna try and stick right in that part of it. Also, that, it helps the deals go through if we're gonna novate it, if we're gonna owner finance it. That's really a hard thing to communicate across to sellers unless you have a really good sales guy. So I'm gonna stay in that position. And the dispo side, I kinda handle that too. So the rest of it, I feel like it's just the intake calls and kind of the mundane stuff. With those flips, like I said, I'm gonna try and bring in that project manager to handle all that stuff. So the flip side will almost be its own entity.

Shane Schrader: [16:43] But, yeah, basically, just getting an understanding what the business needs, where I need to hire people, and what that looks like to grow. Because if you just threw all that marketing money out there, I could have 500 leads come in, but I wouldn't have the process to take care of them. So it was really just an understanding. What does your follow-up process look like with that right now?

Dylan Koch: [17:03] Because if you're like, that's the biggest thing. Like, if you have leads in there, I guess, better question, how many leads do you currently have, and how are you, like, routinely following up with them?

Shane Schrader: [17:11] Yeah. I've got about 570 leads. Those are warm leads in the system. About a 100, you know, dead leads and other things, but that's the battle. Anytime I try and do an office day, I try and pack it full of just follow ups, and I just hit them back, you know, see where they're at. I actually just got through about 60 last week, and I have two deals that'll probably go under contract this week. We're really close to closing them. It was just they weren't ready at the time, hit them back, and now they're thinking they're ready to to sell. So

Mike DeHaan: [17:42] Yeah. Dude, you have that many leases sitting in there? I mean, like, have you have you explored bringing on a lead manager, bro? You could get to two deals a month changing nothing except having a lead manager. Like, if I look back at when Dan and I's business really started to grow, like, the the first time that we started to make, like, money was when we had a good acquisition manager. But the second time was when we got a good lead manager because all of a sudden, all that money that we had already spent that was just basically sitting in, a lead graveyard became valuable.

Dylan Koch: [18:10] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [18:10] Because we weren't working at the AM, like, was maxed out with their time. Because, you know, full acquisitions conversations take time. Right? It's the really manual time of, like, doing this labor intensive outreach, these hundreds of leads. Like, that is a full time job. So have you explored that at all yet?

Shane Schrader: [18:28] Yeah. I mean, you guys just reinvigorated that too. So with the full send, you know, I mean, if I go in and double double marketing on top of that, you know, you still have to complete the follow-up too. Right? So, yes, I did have a VA doing or acting as a lead manager doing follow-up. She didn't do the best of job, so I that opened up how lacking I was on the SOPs for her. But now that I've restructured and kinda looked at that, I've rewritten all the SOPs. I'm right in line with hiring one back again. So that's coming within the next month with everything is gonna be probably hiring another lead manager to continue to do the follow-up. But, yeah, I mean, it's just hard because it's like you hit this step or hit this barrier that I know to go through it, I have to just go all in and put in the puzzle pieces where they need to be. If I don't, I'm gonna be struggling again, and that's not where I wanna be. So it's like, gotta make sure I hire the correct people and put them in place so that all this, I guess, you know, all the leads coming in and all this activity can be handled correctly. Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [19:29] Yeah. And I well, I think for you too, like, that role probably looks a little bit different than what we'd recommend for most people, mostly just because what I know about Yakima. They have a very they're very large Hispanic population.

Shane Schrader: [19:39] Right?

Mike DeHaan: [19:40] And Hispanic population plus more rural area. Filipinos typically might not probably wouldn't be what I would fully suggest. Like, I know we we use them a lot in our business. I try and get someone from, like, you know, Latin America, Central America, somewhere. It'll cost you a little bit more money, but they get you get a Spanish speaking lead that comes in. They're gonna be able to help you out on that.

Shane Schrader: [20:00] Right? Definitely.

Mike DeHaan: [20:00] And not only that, but, like, their tone and their cadence and the way that they talk is really gonna vibe with. What is probably a large number of your leads that come in, or at least not insignificant.

Dylan Koch: [20:09] I was just gonna add to that too. The most infuriating thing you get in this business is your old leads are someone else's new leads. Right? So if you come in and you do the follow-up and you go to call them and like, oh, just sold it to what's his name down the street, and you see that they sold it for less than what you even offered, and that just happened to me like two weeks ago. Right? Like, it's so the fall fortune is in the follow-up. I know it's cliche saying, but it's true. Uh-huh.

Mike DeHaan: [20:32] 100%. I mean, even to this day, like, are closing deals that have been in our system for years. We literally signed one two weeks ago that I think came into system in 2021 and was just getting followed up with periodically. Like, that's especially if you're doing targeted marketing like you are, the people are getting targeted for a reason. You know? And it's only, like, a matter of time before they have more distress issues. So that made sense for me. And awesome. I hope you guys are enjoying this episode. We are seriously trying to grow this podcast so that the voice of what it really takes to grow a real estate business becomes kind of the norm versus the guru get rich quick b s that everyone is fed on a daily basis. With so many podcasts out there, it is hard for us to get discovered on our own. So a quick ask, please share this episode on your social media accounts. Be that a real story, whatever. And if you tag me at mike underscore invest, then I'll give you a follow. And I will also send you a DM so that we can have a little chat about your business and anyways, I could potentially help you grow. So again, please share on your socials. Tag me at Mike underscore invests, that's with an s at the end, and I'll follow you. And we can have a little DM and convo about your business. And maybe I can help you grow a little bit, or you could just say what's up to you. That'd be awesome.

Mike DeHaan: [21:46] But appreciate everyone. And thanks so much for helping us grow. So you mentioned, like, you have a son before. Right? I know you're married. How are you you're working twelve hours a day. How are you balancing all of this stuff with just, like, your general life right now? Because it's always one of the biggest challenges, I think, that newer entrepreneurs have to try and figure out.

Shane Schrader: [22:05] Yeah. I mean, I don't wanna get too, like, woo woo and all that, you know, but I I do focus on, like, meditating every day. I really started to understand the difference between, like, Kronos time and Keros time, what that looks like in my life. But it's mainly just being present when I can with my wife when she's around. Schedule is huge. Making sure that I'm being present and being available to do those things with my son. Just if that means just taking him to basketball practice or picking him up. I mean, making sure that I'm there asking him questions. Trying to be well rounded as a person. As much time and effort that I put into my business, I need to be keeping that with my family as well because that's part of the reason why I'm doing all this. So

Mike DeHaan: [22:46] Yeah. The scheduling's huge. That's always been a big thing for us. Like, I spend the same periods of time with my wife every day. Right? And that's, like, blocked off on my calendar, you know, which is, I guess, like, not a romantic thing, but I don't know. I'm not from fucking Italy. Like, I'm I'm trying to run a business. Right? I don't need to, like, be spontaneous all the time. That's fine. So now that makes sense. And then it's like with the meditative stuff. I know we kind of rip on mindset things like that on the show pretty regularly. But that's because, like, a lot of people, they do those things, they don't do anything productive. Right? You're the opposite. Do you mind kind of diving into how exactly that helps you or, like, how, you know, that helps you focus or or be a little bit more balanced?

Shane Schrader: [23:26] Yeah. For sure. I mean, I don't know if I don't believe in the ADHD kinda, you know, label that's been placed on all of us. Right? Because I look at that, and I say, well, I'm the type of person where back in the day, if we were going to battle or we were going to hunt, like, I wanna be the guy next to you because I have all the energy to do all that stuff and take it all down. Right? But with that, the mind is always going, and it just helps me kinda regather because I liked your post the other day where you're like, any entrepreneur's day starts out with one tab open, and there's, like, fifteen by the by lunch. Totally get that right. But at lunchtime, you know, I'll sit there, meditate for a half hour. It just seems to calm the nerves, calm the energy around me, and then I get back in it and refocus, and I can just hit it hard again for another six hours.

Mike DeHaan: [24:12] That's awesome. Well, and I think the key too is, you know, meditation or what that is. I think it's the fact that you are slightly breaking up the routine, and it forces you to reset. Right? And that's different for everybody. For some people, that's going for a walk. For some people, that's like, you know, breathing and meditation. Like, for you, for me, that's a workout. Like, I very my my brain, I noticed if I don't take, like, my midday workout period, doesn't even matter if I'm, like, hitting doing a heavy lifting session or I'm just doing, like, a little, you know, HIIT workout. Going through that process reframes my focus because it is a consistent routine, and I think the brain ultimately thrives on that.

Dylan Koch: [24:45] Yeah. I think you need to break up the work. I mean, end studying, like, going back to relatable things. If you just go balls to the wall for eight hours a day, there's no chance to recharge at all. And then there's this breaking point where even if you did, it's not gonna get you put to the point where you were at previous to

Mike DeHaan: [25:02] that. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, everyone's had that experience of where you have something that you, for some reason, felt like took you all morning, and then you realize that you didn't actually do any of it. And then you take a break and you come back and do the whole thing in like fifteen minutes. You're like, well, shit. That was dumb.

Dylan Koch: [25:17] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [25:17] What if I just just had just done that at the end of the day, I wouldn't have had to worry about it all day.

Dylan Koch: [25:21] Yeah. Going back to the business a little bit, Shane, I would say, is there a specific tool, a person, or a system that you've hired or or implemented since doing this that has been, like, the biggest leap in your business?

Shane Schrader: [25:34] I wouldn't say leap so much, but just the CRM is huge. I mean, that houses everything. That's been a the tool that I probably use the most besides, like, our mail house and our data where we pull data from. I would tend to think that's been the the largest tool per se that I use in the business. Are you using the CRM for any other tasks other than follow-up? And what I mean by that is, like, they have

Dylan Koch: [25:55] a dialer feature or they have a

Shane Schrader: [25:57] list stacking feature. Are you using anything else inside of that? Yeah. We did actually use a dialer when I had a VA, just a single line dialer. Yep. She ended up getting a deal the second second call out. We got a a pre pre pre foreclosure. Yeah. There's no Liz Pendens even hit. The lady we called her off an absentee vacant list, I think, what she hit on. And she was like, yeah. I don't know. I haven't lived there for over a year and didn't haven't been paying or anything. And they just had got around to filing the Liz Pendon, so it did show up on a pre foreclosure. And, literally, they did that, like, three weeks after we got her under contract, and she said she was getting, like, flooded with phone calls.

Dylan Koch: [26:33] It blown up. Yep. Yeah. Of course.

Mike DeHaan: [26:36] Yeah. That's I like winning the lottery right there. That's like, I don't know, renting a tuxedo and found, like, a $100 in the pocket.

Shane Schrader: [26:42] Totally. Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [26:43] It's pure luck. That's awesome.

Dylan Koch: [26:45] Gotta play the game to get some lucky get lucky.

Mike DeHaan: [26:48] Absolutely. So awesome, dude. So I guess rest of the year, what is your your plan for for growth? Do have anything like immediate? And then we talked about increasing marketing. Like, what do you like your next steps that you're gonna need to take to get from where you are at now to where you're hoping to be to round out 2024?

Shane Schrader: [27:05] Yeah. It's gonna be putting in place those key hires to handle that marketing increase that I'm gonna be putting out there. So I think that's really gonna push me into the next level where, hopefully, I can bump up to two to three deals a month. If I can hit that, then things are gonna become a lot easier. My disposition process is looking pretty good. Like I said, I have buyers right now just waiting, calling me like, hey. Where's the deals? Where's the deals? So that, like I said, is an extreme point to make sure I'm trying to hit. With the ramp up, what are you most worried about? What you do think is gonna be the biggest struggle? Making sure that my SOPs are correct and training the people that I hire to perform what I'd like them to do. When I had the first VA, that really opened my eyes to what that looked like. Now I'm able to prepare a little bit better and go at that again and make sure that person is set up for success. It's never perfect, by

Dylan Koch: [28:02] the way, and they always change. But you get as close as perfect as you can. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [28:06] Yeah. Even at our level, there's, like, little stuff that comes in that you you don't even think about. So this is this is actually a good story. Yesterday so we have Matt that typically runs our national sales team. Right? And he was out yesterday. So I hopped on, and I ran it for the first time in probably four months. And I was, like, actually the leader of this meeting. We're going through reviewing a deal that one of our sales guys has signed around. And he had some questions about the contract that the you know, the guy's been with us, like, four months. So I was questioning on the contract. So the seller asked questions, so I was going through clarifying it. I pulled the contract, I was like, do you always put $0 for earnest money? He's like, yeah. I was like, why? He goes, well, he's like, there was nothing in the onboarding or what to put there. And so I just assumed it would be best if we did zero. This dude's closed like eight deals or nine deals in the last four months.

Dylan Koch: [28:56] With no earnest money.

Mike DeHaan: [28:57] With us never putting earnest money down. I had no idea.

Shane Schrader: [29:02] That's pretty wild.

Mike DeHaan: [29:03] And we've been doing this for years. We've done hundreds and hundreds of deals. I've had a dozen different salespeople. He's the first one to do this. And he pointed out this loophole in our process. So, you know, it is what it is. But hey, you know that he hadn't gotten questioned on it yet. So that's fine. But anyways, really, really good stuff, dude. And congrats on success you've had so far. I love hearing that the full story. And those those numbers too, man, are are awesome that you've 35,000 in and you're already have, you know, over $200 worth of revenue plus equity coming in. So that's that's really, really awesome start. Cool. Alright. So to wrap up the show here, we're gonna dive into our end of show questions. First question, what is your craziest real estate related story?

Shane Schrader: [29:45] Well, I had to think back a little bit on this one. I really haven't inquired too much craziness. I did have a property under contract. I had to move, like, three trailers for this guy off his property, and we're moving them out to, like I think it was his brother-in-law or uncle or something. Anyways, we get to the last trailer, and I got this boat hooked up to my truck. I got it backed in, and all of sudden, this dude's coming out yelling and screaming. And who is this guy? You know? Wasn't out there the first two times when we unloaded the other trailers, and my seller's just he's out there yelling and screaming back to him. They're going to, like, fisticuffs. I'm like, oh, crap. I'm just trying to get this trailer unloaded and get the hell out of there before somebody starts shooting shotguns, you know? And they were like two old dudes, you know? They're like 60 years old, and they're just like, I walk over there, yelling and stopped, and they're all just like dead tired, you know? Bloody die, and like, hey, man. I'll see you later. I'm out of here. I don't wanna deal with this. So that was kinda exhilarating.

Mike DeHaan: [30:45] Wait. Did you figure out like why they did that?

Shane Schrader: [30:47] Afterwards, I asked him, and he's like, oh, you know, I don't know. He just gets all up in arm sometimes, and he didn't like that I was dropping my stuff off out there. And I had already talked to him like, yeah, you're staying. Was that right? He was like, well, yeah. No. I am. Everything's cool, man. It's all good. Like nothing, you know?

Mike DeHaan: [31:04] Yeah. We you just assaulted each other, so I guess that's fine. Go go be roommates more.

Dylan Koch: [31:08] Did they see it throw a few punches, and now you're good. Cool, Shane. Another question for you. If you go back to the very beginning, what's one thing you would do differently?

Shane Schrader: [31:16] Oh, man. That's a tough question because I didn't know what I know now. So it's like, how could I I guess if I look back on it, I would really try and focus more on the wholesale side of things and drop the mindset that I have to do everything with either my own hands or by myself If I would've just listened more to pretty much what everyone says in the community and, like, I would've been light years ahead on the wholesale side.

Mike DeHaan: [31:41] Yeah. It's a hard thing to break, like, to understand, I don't know, the power of kinda getting out of your own way. Right? I don't know where that gets instilled in so many of us, but it's a really, really challenging thing to to overcome.

Dylan Koch: [31:54] I think with new wholesalers too, they're always afraid of what if I can't find a buyer? It's, like, the biggest question. And so, like, if you are saying I'm gonna do it myself, you can ensure that piece of the puzzle a little bit.

Shane Schrader: [32:05] I think that's something to do with it too. Mhmm. Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [32:08] Cool. And last question, Shane, where can people find you, follow you, and reach out to you?

Shane Schrader: [32:12] Don't do too much social, man. Try and stay off that and not really a part of it. Not not part of my business growing stuff yet. Maybe in the future, but I don't know. I got a Facebook page. You can probably find me there.

Mike DeHaan: [32:23] You wanna share your company name or email because if you wanna send you deals?

Shane Schrader: [32:26] Yeah, sure. It's lunchboxhomebuyers@yahoo.com.

Mike DeHaan: [32:29] There you go. Cool. Perfect. And I know you do you're open to doing JVs because you did one with one of our our friends out here in Spokane that ended up getting a lead out there. So I think what on that one you made you guys split what? A $20,000 fee?

Shane Schrader: [32:40] I mean, I'm always open to any of deal structure and doing what I can to provide as much service to anybody that wants to get involved in real estate deals.

Mike DeHaan: [32:48] There we go. Cool. Right on, guys. If you guys have any leads in Central Washington area, specifically Yakima, but sounds like Shane's pretty open to expanding out too. Don't be afraid to reach out to him at was it lunchboxhomebuyers@yahoo.com?

Shane Schrader: [33:01] That's it.

Mike DeHaan: [33:01] There we go. Right on. Cool. Well, Shane, dude, thanks so much for coming on the show. Seriously, again, congrats on your success. And you guys, I hope you got some good value out of this. In case you can't tell, Shane is just a normal dude, just like most of you that are probably not making as much money as Shane is. Might be, but maybe not because those numbers, like, legitimately blew me away when he gave me that breakdown because I talked to Shane multiple times a week, but I didn't realize that it was going that well. And so very, very cool, man. I appreciate you sharing. And, hopefully, guys got some inspiration out of that. If you didn't, I don't tell you. Go listen to bigger pockets or some other twenty year old trust fund bought a bunch of multifamily. And who the fuck cares about that? So alright, guys. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you guys next week.

Shane Schrader: [33:42] See guys. See you.