Verifying if a Real Estate Guru is Legit

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] I've been a full time real estate investor for five years. And in that period of time, I have wholesaled or flipped almost 500 houses across the country. And on the show today, I'm going to talk about how to tell if people that you see online promoting their real estate businesses or selling courses or selling education, things like that, are actually legit or if they're kind of blowing smoke. I'm making this as somebody that has a community that I run. It's called Scale. And we started Scale because me and Dan, we were running the show and was getting a lot of feedback. We were getting a lot of people that were asking questions about what we were doing on the wholesale side of real estate. And so Scale was kind of born as like a little side business, but still the wholesaling and flipping business has been our primary focus for the last number of years. What's common is for that not to happen, right, where people kind of get a little bit of mediocre success with their wholesaling and flipping business, and then they go and they start selling a course. They build a brand community, whatever, and they don't even actually practice the business or their business itself isn't successful, but they are teaching people what worked for them years and years ago.

Mike DeHaan: [1:03] And so it's important for you to understand how exactly to tell the people that are actually worth following versus those that aren't. And this whole thought came from a little bit of Instagram beef that I had with a different creator slash coach last week where they basically made this overly bold claim around a software product and all of the work that they're doing to help develop it, which I knew was inherently false because it's a product that I've used for a long time. And so I screenshotted the BS that they were spewing, and I shared it on my story. And then it blew up and went a lot got to a lot more people than I was expecting to the point that I actually ended up getting a conference call from this individual and the owner of the software company, basically asking me to take it down because they were doing some kind of media promotion with it, which I did do. Ultimately, though, it kind of, like, really got me fuming a little bit over how just full of nonsense so many of these people are Because this group, they have been promoting different products for years that they all claim as, like, the super special secret for their business. And it's just so obvious that they're doing some kind of, like, affiliate grab, just trying to get as many people to sign up with their referral links so that they can go and make money off the affiliate fees even if it isn't actually useful for people's businesses. K? And so when you're looking at coaches or you're looking at people to fall on social media, that's one of the biggest things that you should always watch out for, right, is what exactly are they trying to promote with this product, and what is their reason for doing so? So when it comes to kind of tangible things, like using a different software, a different marketing platform, or a company, things like that, What you should always do is you should go and you should look up that company and you should see what their affiliate offerings are or what their relationships are to the people that's promoting them. Because it's very common for these people to be basic professional marketers, and they'll have like a big brand of people that are in real estate and they wanna follow, you know, these individuals to learn and see what they're doing.

Mike DeHaan: [3:00] And those people, they don't even do real estate anymore. What they do is they just go from product to product that has the next best affiliate option. They just promote it to their audience, and they'll make millions and millions of dollars off of selling you stuff, which probably doesn't even work and that they definitely don't use for their business. And it's really unfortunate because what happens, a lot of newbies, they jump on and they, you know, start buying these products and investing in all these different services that don't actually work and or it's not necessary for them to be spending that much money. And then instead of actually growing their business, what happens is they're just dumping minus some other company so that this person can get an affiliate fee. And we've seen a ton of different versions of this over the past couple of years. We see it a lot with software stuff, especially when a new software company is trying to launch a new CRM that will go and they'll hire a lot of these different influencers to help promote. We've seen it with, like, AI based products over the past couple years has been really, really common. Years ago, was skip tracing. So basically, you know, getting phone numbers for leads.

Mike DeHaan: [3:56] Everyone was promoting a different skip tracing service. We've seen a lot with data products where everyone claims to that their company has discovered the next super secret data product that's gonna make it so your business is better than your competition. And you'll see the same names promoting these things, and it'll basically be across all of, like, the major influencers. And, you know, there'll be the kind of ones that are also changing what they're promoting pretty much every single month or every couple of months, and that's where the red flags will start to come in. Right? And so understand, like, there's situations where these people are trying to sell you, like, a, you know, $5,000 a year product, and they're gonna make a thousand dollars on that referral. And, obviously, they're gonna be highly incentivized to promote that whether or not it works or not because it's such a huge chunk of change they can get from just having an audience. And there's a whole business model behind that. And so when you're looking at people to follow and learn from, what you need to do is, like, look at their messaging, and are they actually promoting things that are actionable content for you or, like, actionable steps for you to be successful, or are they just promoting brands or products or, you know, secrets? Right?

Mike DeHaan: [5:05] And do a little bit of research on their business. Like, how long have they been around? Is their business actually successful? Are there people within the real estate space that are active that actually have good things to say about them? Because the community is pretty small, and a lot of us, we kinda know who the BS are out there. And so find, like, the people that are nearby that you know are active in flipping houses or doing wholesaling or doing whatever you wanna do and see what they think about that influencer that you're following or thinking about investing in their course or buying the product that they recommended and just see what they say. If they have good things to say, then sure. Give it a go. Otherwise, you know, you should be a little bit skeptical. And I think one of the challenges is with all this stuff and why it's so important to understand is it is legitimately hard to get information these days that's, like, actually honest and isn't just somebody peddling something, but it can accelerate your growth so unbelievably fast. Right? And like for me personally, when Dan and I, we first started, the reason we've been able to grow so much over the last five years was because we joined a community that was actually really, really good. We had a great leader behind it who actually practiced what he preached, and we got a ton out of that, and it helped us grow significantly faster than we would have on our own. But, honestly, we were lucky that that was the one that we fell into. So at that same period of time back in 2019, there was so many other people that were kinda peddling nonsense.

Mike DeHaan: [6:22] They were just referring whoever has the best, like, referral opportunity that they can make some money on. They weren't practicing the business. They were just professional influencers slash coaches. And if we'd fallen to one of those, we probably wouldn't have done as well as we have. And so next time you're scrolling through social media, you're watching YouTube, you're doing those sort of things, and you see somebody that claims to have, like, some big secret, just figure out what exactly it is they're promoting and what their relationship to it is. And is it actually something that's actionable? And can they actually, like, back up what they're promoting, or is it something where they're obviously just trying to get, like, an affiliate fee? Right? And big thing to always take away is if people are saying stuff or promoting things and it seems too good to be true, just general rule for life. K? If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, you should naturally be skeptical. So those of guys are starting out, your money's precious to you. You haven't made a lot of money yet, probably, if you're trying to sort of, like, figure out this first phase of financial freedom. And so make sure that you're giving your hard earned dollars to the right sources, the right people, and the things that are actually gonna help you, and you're not just falling into, like, the marketing funnel trap that so many people have made an actual, you know, an art or of a business model out of. And, you know, do make sure that your money is going towards what's gonna help you grow and not what's gonna align the pockets of a false educational brand that's not even really in the business anymore.

Mike DeHaan: [7:37] Anyways, love to hear your thoughts on that. You can go ahead and send me a DM on Instagram at Mike underscore Invest. You should also give us a follow. I really appreciate it. I'll talk to you next time.