What’s Changed in Real Estate: Buyer Behavior, Closing Times, and More w/ Aaron Bihl

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] Real quick before we jump into the show, we created the collecting keys podcast to be a real estate investing podcast that is created by real estate operators for real estate operators. And we want operators everywhere to know what it really takes these days to be successful in this business rather than all the fluff that all the other content creators and podcasters out there make. And so one of the challenges with this is that it's challenging to grow because most operators are too busy out there working. Right? And they aren't always learning or actively seeking new learning material. And so if you could please share this show with any fellow operators you know, you know, you can text it to them, you can post it on your socials, you can leave us a good review that you then share somewhere, that would be amazing. But really, whatever, it really helps us continue to get excited to create content, and it will also help you because everyone that you expose us to will get better as a real estate operator and close more deals. So if you could do that for us, it would really mean a ton. And, otherwise, we appreciate you guys, and let's get into this episode. It's like the cold war of real estate up here right now.

Mike DeHaan: [1:08] What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. This is the show by real estate operators for real estate operators. And today, we have a special guest, Aaron Bihl, who is filling in for Dan, who is off on vacation with his wife. So you have me, Mike DeHaan, Dylan Cook over in Cincinnati, and Aaron Beale down in San Antonio. And if you don't know Aaron, I don't know what to tell you because he is all over the place with the wholesale and flipping space. He's been around for a long time. So for Aaron, for those people who are unfortunate enough not to know you, why don't you give us a quick 60 on why people should care about you and what

Aaron Bihl: [1:48] you do? Oh, gosh. I've known you for, what, five or six years now? But

Mike DeHaan: [1:52] You were what I call my first real estate friend because we connected

Aaron Bihl: [1:55] I appreciate that.

Mike DeHaan: [1:56] On that meetup that we went to for CCF in Forest so long ago. And we randomly roomed together because we were the two people that were like, I would say, less so least socially awkward to like reach out and actually like try to schedule that. Right. Yeah. We just connected right away.

Aaron Bihl: [2:11] Yeah. So I've been doing this five or six years, kind of done everything in the off market world, off market direct to seller. I flipped, I've wholesaled, I've whol tailed, I've bought land, done some commercial stuff. Mainly in San Antonio, now kinda doing stuff all over. So right now, main markets for residential stuff are San Antonio, and then Lexington, Kentucky, and starting to do commercial deals kinda nationwide. So or industrial type deals nationwide is kind of what today looks like.

Mike DeHaan: [2:42] Yeah. And you're the classic wholesaler in the way that I say you're very much an opportunist. Like, I've seen you used to do so many different kinds of deals over the years. You were like the trailer boy for a while.

Aaron Bihl: [2:51] Dude, I still love trailers.

Mike DeHaan: [2:52] Doing all sorts of stuff for these weird mobile homes. You still love trailers?

Aaron Bihl: [2:55] They have a special place in my heart.

Mike DeHaan: [2:57] I think that's so market dependent because it's it's funny, like, depending on where you're at, we won't even touch them, you've made a killing off those down there. And really quick, what's your Instagram too so people can get you a follow?

Aaron Bihl: [3:06] Just aaron dot bihl. So my last name is b I h l.

Dylan Koch: [3:10] Cool. He's got 10,900 followers right now. So after this podcast airs, maybe give him above 11,000.

Aaron Bihl: [3:17] Yeah. It hits 11,000. I make like a political post and it like drops down. Mike unfollows me every time. I'm like, hey Mike, come back, and then he comes back.

Mike DeHaan: [3:25] Oh, I don't unfollow you. That's how you can tell though when you do a good punchy political post. Because I tend to be on the other side of the aisle than most real estate guys. And tell you what, I know when I hit a good one because I will see my followers drop. Like, there's like a very immediate and I'm like, oh, that was I definitely hit it there. But definitely give Aaron a follow. He also likes to talk trash, has great opinions on what it actually takes to be an operator, and it's just overall entertaining. So if you like our vibe, he is definitely your kind of guy. But cool. So in the world of real estate and I guess the economy, it's funny. By the time this episode comes out, it will be a week after we record it. Everything could be fundamentally different, but we have seen a massive drop in pretty much everything over the last five days. Stocks are down way, like, way way down. What are they? Like, a 25% drop at this point?

Dylan Koch: [4:13] From the peak. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [4:15] From the peak. Yeah. Crypto's way down. Are rates down yet? I don't know. We got

Dylan Koch: [4:19] Yeah. Ten years going down too. It's usually you don't see those two trade together. Right? They're usually one's up, one's down. So

Mike DeHaan: [4:25] Yeah. And there's just a general uncertainty in the economy and real estate and everything else right now. But the funny thing is, and I would say this is where I think the value is of being a business owner, is you can kinda just like roll with it and still be fine. Because I don't know about you guys, but like I see a lot of doom and gloom by the people in my circle that aren't really like doing anything. Right? Like, they're kind of relying on passive wealth generation, but people that are business owners are kinda just like, we'll figure it out. You know, just keep on moving along. So it doesn't affect us that much, like big picture.

Dylan Koch: [4:58] Yeah. No. I would echo that for sure. I mean, from a business perspective, we might take a little bit more of a conservative approach on like calculating our ARVs and stuff, but Okay.

Aaron Bihl: [5:08] As long

Dylan Koch: [5:08] as you're just calculating that into the math that you're doing and the conversations you're having with sellers, you can still make deals happen.

Mike DeHaan: [5:14] Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [5:14] So yeah. I mean, the part of being an entrepreneur is just like you said earlier, an opportunist. And think how much our own businesses have changed in the past two or three years just to keep deals rolling.

Mike DeHaan: [5:23] Yeah. Totally. Right? I mean, from back when 2021 when you could just make money off of anything to now, it's drastically different. What are you seeing down in San Antonio, Aaron? Since your guys' market, it had one of one like the longest times on market of anywhere in the country down there for a little while.

Aaron Bihl: [5:40] It is so slow.

Mike DeHaan: [5:41] Is it?

Aaron Bihl: [5:42] Like super super slow. Like, if you have a flip and it's, like, priced, like, great, like, you might sit thirty days without a showing.

Mike DeHaan: [5:49] That's crazy.

Aaron Bihl: [5:50] Investors still seem to be buying. They're just picky. Mhmm. Which is crazy because so I started doing stuff in, like, you know, Central Kentucky, and it's, like, the complete opposite. Like, hot. Like, I post a deal on Facebook, and within, like, twenty minutes have, like, fifteen, twenty people reach out. I post stuff in our Facebook groups here, and it's like, you might get, like, one email over the course of, like, a week.

Mike DeHaan: [6:11] Mhmm.

Aaron Bihl: [6:12] But it's also I have connections here, so I know a lot. It's lot easier to sell deals here just because I know more people.

Mike DeHaan: [6:18] Sure.

Aaron Bihl: [6:18] But they're definitely like, people are definitely thirstier in Kentucky. So it's interesting to kinda see the two different markets of you know, it's super slow here. It's still pretty hot there. But I think, I mean, talking to I mean, you guys and kind of friends all over, I feel like everything's so cyclical. It is. Different markets kinda hit different peaks at different times, and you can kinda be like, oh, if this is happening in Washington, it'll probably be here in a few months, or, you know, those sort of things. So it's always kinda interesting.

Mike DeHaan: [6:46] Yeah. It's market dependent. So I got up here, the investor buyer crew is dead. There's like 10 people that are still buying wholesale deals up here. That's it. But on the retail side, if you have something in the affordable price, my stuff will sell pretty quick. Like, I sold one of my rentals last month that was right at the bottom end of, the average price point. I guess like the mean price point. So the mean by average price point is about 400. I listed it at $4.10. And it went pending in two days for over ask. Right? Good neighborhood.

Aaron Bihl: [7:16] Yeah. That doesn't exist here.

Mike DeHaan: [7:18] Yeah. It doesn't exist at all.

Dylan Koch: [7:20] Yeah. Cincinnati, I feel like you either get that offer that you want in the first seventy two hours, or it sits for four months. There's no in between. Right.

Mike DeHaan: [7:28] Like as soon as the it's like tainted, it goes past like the honeymoon phase of being on your listing, you're completely screwed.

Aaron Bihl: [7:34] Like we'll see too is like, people will be interested, but I'm interested, but I wanna look for like ninety days and like look at every house on and the then they might come back and make an offer. Like, it's just there's zero like urgency with anything.

Mike DeHaan: [7:46] Yeah. We found that on the investor side very heavily. This has been something we've had to change about our process. As they're starting to do longer closings, just because buyers are taking longer times to make decisions for wholesale deals. So even though it's only a small population, there's still a larger number of opportunities that they're we're competing with their business for. Right? And so what'll happen is they will kick us down the line until they know it's like their last day to make a decision or our last day ever to do those process. And they'll be like, well, I couldn't find anything else that I like better, so I'll take your deal now. Right? And they'll just do that repeatedly. So we have had so many deals that it has taken us like two full weeks to dispo. And then finally, when we get to the end of the two weeks, we're still selling to the guy that we talked to on the first day. He just dicked us around for two weeks, right, when he couldn't find anything else.

Dylan Koch: [8:34] Then did he beat you up on price after that? Did he ask for is he knew you're screwed?

Mike DeHaan: [8:38] Sometimes. Like, not a lot because at the same time, it's like mutually assured destruction because they don't wanna be like that because there also isn't a lot of deal finders.

Dylan Koch: [8:47] True.

Mike DeHaan: [8:47] Right? So they know that if they're that guy That's fair. That we're not gonna bring stuff to them anymore. You know? It's like it's like the cold war of real estate up here right now. It's a weird vibe.

Dylan Koch: [8:57] I mean, like I said on the show, my January and February are pretty good. Like my March right now is like pretty slow. We only have two, one closing Friday, one closing next week.

Mike DeHaan: [9:05] Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [9:06] And it's only like mid twenties for revenue wise. And so, I don't know, I see this and I'm trying to send out more deals, keep doing more marketing, tried PPL again, cold calling again now with Aaron's company, and I think it's just one of those times where you're just like, you have to fight through it.

Mike DeHaan: [9:20] I

Dylan Koch: [9:21] mean, I don't know what else to say other than just don't give up, I don't know what to do.

Mike DeHaan: [9:26] Yeah. I mean, and optimize, right? So like you just brought on a sales manager, an acquisition manager.

Dylan Koch: [9:31] Yeah, brought in an acquisition guy Tony, and honestly, that has been kind of eye opening, because I was at the gym, and then he's like, hey, the seller disagreed to our verbal offer, and they haven't signed that one yet, full disclosure, so I'm trying to get them back on the lines. But as he's kind of working leads, and I'm going back through the CRM, and be like, okay, well I can assign you know, these like, really like hundreds of leads that I've I'm backlogged on. I'm going through and there's two things I'm realizing. One, is that we're probably just leaving a whole lot of money on the table because there's not proper follow-up. And then two Yeah. I've gone through some of these now, and like, okay, we would have been at, call it a 100, and I go into the auditor site and this sold a couple months ago for 80 k. Right? And those are the ones that sting the worst. Right?

Aaron Bihl: [10:13] Mhmm.

Dylan Koch: [10:13] So I've had probably five or six of those just in the past couple of days going back through the CRM.

Mike DeHaan: [10:19] Yeah. I mean, that's there's probably even more than that. Right? If you go into, the trenches, there's probably so many deals that you missed out on over, like, the year when it was just you, especially because you just had this kid six months ago, you're distracted, and you're doing everything else. You've been wasting time coming on here for forty five minutes or an hour a week.

Dylan Koch: [10:36] I think it's been about a year now.

Mike DeHaan: [10:37] Probably it's been a little while. Yeah. Pretty close. But what does your team look like now, Aaron, down there in San Antonio? And do they is your team that's working for you, are they all local? Or do you or do have a team like in Lexington as well?

Aaron Bihl: [10:50] That's a great question. They're mostly local. So right now I have three acquisitions people. They're all local.

Mike DeHaan: [10:58] Oh, damn.

Aaron Bihl: [10:59] I have a dispo guy who's randomly in South Carolina. And then I have VA lead managers and a whole lot of cold callers doing pretty much all all marketing right now is cold calling for lead gen. So yeah. So three local guys doing which we've kind of gone more virtual on stuff, even the like local deals where we're running more virtually, we'll go look at it if we have to, but Mhmm. We're not like, let's go see everything.

Mike DeHaan: [11:27] That must be recent. I feel like that you didn't really have much of a team even like a month ago.

Aaron Bihl: [11:31] No. It's very recent. And I've kinda made this transition to like literally everyone's commission only, which could go That's nice. Yeah. Really good or really bad. But it's like everyone who I've hired is kinda in a unique position where it works. And like my perspective on it just kinda has to change. Like, can't be like, hey, stop everything you do and you work for me. It's kinda like, I'll let you do your stuff on the side. This will replace that eventually if you like actually work at it. So then that kinda different approach. But I have a dispo guy who reached out to me probably six or seven months ago, and was like, hey. I wanna work for you. And I've kinda known him for a while, and he's done dispo for a pretty big company. And I kinda just, like, pushed him off, like, hey. I'm not ready yet. And then he's kinda slowly ramping up, and will be full time soon. And then I had a full time AM and then just brought on two more. Because honestly, we literally can't keep up with leads. So with like my cold callers, we're bringing in like probably 50 leads a day, which we're like cherry picking stuff, and it's still like we're leaving so much stuff.

Mike DeHaan: [12:30] That's why it has to be all virtual now. Mhmm. Yeah. Mean, if you weren't doing that virtually, it would be a freaking nightmare. You'd have like full time drivers just traveling all over San Antonio.

Aaron Bihl: [12:40] Yeah. So it's it's a lot of like, right now trying to figure out how to make that more efficient. You know, I can't be comping every house. I can't be running numbers on everything, which is kind of what I've always done. So I'm trying to figure out how to make all of them more efficient, and once we caught Mhmm. Like catch up, I'll probably scale up the caller scale up.

Dylan Koch: [13:00] How are you doing the from cold caller to specific acquisitions person? Is it round robin, whoever gets to it first, you each get sentimental leads?

Aaron Bihl: [13:08] Whoever gets to it first. I want them to fight over them.

Mike DeHaan: [13:12] You create like a hunger games, cornucopia, they gotta go like grab the best weapons at the start and kill each other over them.

Aaron Bihl: [13:19] Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Which is always a battle because it's like you want people to like wanna work together and like it be this, you know, like community and like, hey, work together and all of that. And it's like, how do you create that and also make it competitive? Which is kind of the the balance I'm trying to figure out now.

Mike DeHaan: [13:34] The way I see it, because I I know you're a fitness guy, I think it needs to be competitive like and friendly like it is in a CrossFit gym. Right? Where, you know, you can do the business together and you can celebrate each other's wins, but also if a guy, if he cleans more than you, you're like fuck that guy. Right? Right. You wanna drive to do more than him in the future.

Aaron Bihl: [13:52] Yeah. I mean, that's very much the way it is. And it's also it's still a thing of like, when people start getting deals, it's contagious. I mean, everyone knows this business comes and goes in waves. So it's kinda like, you see someone else getting a deal, and you're like, oh, I wanna follow-up with this person. Like, I wanna deal. You know? So it all just kinda like comes and goes. So hopefully, bringing the other guys can kind of, you know, spur my other guy on a little bit, and then hopefully log in more deals.

Dylan Koch: [14:16] It's not just momentum against like other team members. Shit. But I've even found, if I lock up a deal earlier in the day, I'm more incentivized to keep pounding the phones. Right? So it's a

Aaron Bihl: [14:24] Oh, for sure.

Dylan Koch: [14:25] It's a person by person thing, and a person, you know, individually and team based.

Aaron Bihl: [14:29] Well, it's crazy, because I even see that with like all the cold callers that I still manage. I'm like trying to keep them happy. Because if if they start getting leads, they'll get more leads. If they are calling like lists that are trash and they're not getting anything, then they're like, this sucks. And then it's like they take that into the next however many calls.

Mike DeHaan: [14:45] And you have massive lead flow. Dylan, you have massive lead backlog. What do your guys' processes look like for how you have your team doing that basic underwriting so that you aren't wasting a bunch of time?

Dylan Koch: [14:56] Oh, yeah. I mean, I have a basically an Excel spreadsheet. And then, you know, my guy has had some real estate experience, so he's pretty he's pretty decent with the comps. I showed him my processes, you know, showed him that we check more pending transactions right now than anything. But his area of like, we've done a couple like, hey, go comp this property and then like, we'll just compare, you know, why we got to these values. And we've relatively been pretty close. I tend to be a little bit more conservative than he does. And I think that's because of his role as the acquisitions person. But then, a lot of stuff we try to get on the front end, so like you know, we'll talk the sellers through, and what the rehab's needed. But we also follow the standards like, if it's a medium flip, it's probably 50 to 55 a square foot, just on the preliminary stuff. It's not until

Aaron Bihl: [15:38] we actually have

Dylan Koch: [15:38] to walk through whatever. Dial in those numbers, and I have an Excel sheet that's just plug and chug for him.

Mike DeHaan: [15:43] Okay. And then you just he basically goes through every single one. Do you have like an immediate disqualification on things? Do you have like a a punt with?

Dylan Koch: [15:52] Basically, we don't disqualify things until let's say, say, take us off your list. If they are like, you know, it's a $300,000 house and they're 400 k or whatever, we won't entertain anything like that. But if they have a certain level of motivation, and then there's tasks inside of the CRM we use, Ari Simply. So he's responsible for basically resetting the task if he doesn't get a hold of them, and then if it's a certain amount of time that kicks back to Kimmy who's the lead manager. And then I have to verify all the offers that still go out.

Mike DeHaan: [16:18] Cool. Easy enough. What about for you, Aaron? Because you're getting a ton of leads, 50 leads a day.

Aaron Bihl: [16:23] Yeah. So, I mean, we're super backlogged, but I still kinda run off, like, numbers and offers on everything, which I'm trying to get away from. Mhmm. Playing around with some, like, chat GPT prompts, which seem promising. We'll see. Because I wanna get to the point where the goal is to get out 10 offers a day amongst our guys. So we're not doing that now, but it's like, that's kinda where

Mike DeHaan: [16:44] Is that each or across all of them?

Aaron Bihl: [16:46] Across all of them. So I feel like with our lead flow, we should be able to get a deal a day. Maybe that's aggressive, but not there yet. So it's like, I'm not gonna comp 50 houses a day or if that's like all I'm gonna be doing. So Mhmm. The process we're kinda going towards is they'll do that, and then try to get the prompt in ChadGPT to kinda give me like a, you know, how certain are you in this? And then if it's something weird, then I'll look at it, or my main acquisitions guy will look at it. But if it's like cookie cutter house, it should be pretty good. And then my dispo guy me or my dispo guy will kinda sign off on anything before we send a contract, which was kinda his idea he did before, because he's like, dude, if I have to sell these, I wanna make sure they're not shit deals. Like, wanna make sure that like Yeah. I'm good with it before you know, because acquisitions people just wanna lock up deals, which like you can't blame them. Mhmm. But like Dylan just said, you know, his guy's a lot less conservative than he is because Mhmm. You know, it's like, cool, I got a contract. So it's kind of the idea is to have that, you know, kinda check and balance there with him being like, cool, think we can sell this, or like we're good.

Aaron Bihl: [17:47] So

Mike DeHaan: [17:47] How do you balance that relationship right now between like a new acquisition team and a new dispo guy? Because I guess in my experience when you have those separate, what almost always happens is you have an animosity that builds. Right? So you'll have the acquisition guys locking up contracts, and the disposition guy can't sell them. Let's say the disposition guy sucks. He's not working hard enough, whatever. On the swing back, the disposition guy will say, can't sell them because you're getting these shitty contracts that aren't sellable. Right? How do you make it kinda like mutually beneficial so that they are getting them as profitable as possible, but they're also not like, you know, setting each other up for failure?

Aaron Bihl: [18:23] I don't have an answer to that. So we haven't run into that yet, which I'm sure we will at some point. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [18:26] It will. It'll happen.

Aaron Bihl: [18:28] Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think that's hopefully, you know, by them talking beforehand on deals, it's like, hey, do you think you can move this? Why do think you can move it out? You know? Hopefully, there's more But of I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there.

Mike DeHaan: [18:44] So what do you think Dylan? Over or under in three months time, Aaron has none of these people still working for him?

Dylan Koch: [18:49] Oh, not I'd give it over on that. I was gonna say if you told me one person, I'd say under. But

Aaron Bihl: [18:53] Wait. I have how many?

Mike DeHaan: [18:54] I would say three months. We have zero working for you. No. I'm kidding. I think it'll probably be longer than that. I'd say six months though. You probably have some decent churn because those are the like the human challenges that make sales so hard, right, in this business is there's such a long cash conversion cycle for the AMs. And then when, like, them getting paid is reliant on the strength of the dispo person, you know, even if they do set themselves up for failure, the acquisitions guys with getting bad contracts, they don't always understand that. It gets hard.

Dylan Koch: [19:23] That's human nature to blame someone else.

Mike DeHaan: [19:25] Totally. Right? Like, so when I had my my partnership program that we ran for a couple years, where essentially what all of our partners were is they were dispo partners in in the respective markets that were all across the country. The frustration that would come amongst the acquisition team when they would work their ass off on these deals, and then the dispo guy was not able to get them sold because, you know, they had not evaluated the property correctly. They weren't putting in their work. Right? Like, they were misguided on different things with it. Right? The amount of work has take to get done, all sorts of stuff. It was a nightmare, dude. It was like a constant just like, I was gonna say, like, bitch fast. People were complaining about stuff, but, like, it was a real problem. You know? We ended up having massive drop rates on our contracts, and then it would mess up the relationship with the partners. Right? It's a challenging beast. It's such a weird thing because, basically, you have two sales parts of the business that almost, like, compete with each other, but at the same time are completely reliable on each other are reliant on each other. Right?

Dylan Koch: [20:24] And dispo, I mean, has gotten harder, like, lately because of all the things we've talked about.

Aaron Bihl: [20:28] Oh, dispo used to not even be a thing.

Dylan Koch: [20:30] Yeah. Exactly. You used to post like you said earlier, you're just posting, it's gone.

Aaron Bihl: [20:33] Oh, cool. Deal sells itself, you know? Like, it's get enough deals sells itself, then now it's like, the DISCO guys are literally like cold calling people. Like, know, hitting people up, actually selling them on the deal, almost like your acquisitions guys do. There's no more just like blast it and it's gone unless it's like a crazy deal. And even then, people are so tired of seeing stuff, you can probably skate by several people. Kinda crazy.

Mike DeHaan: [20:55] Totally. You're starting to see that too, just really quick on that. How much harder it is to even get in front of people. And one of the things that we've tracked has been our unsubscribe rate and our open rate on our own buyers list, as well as the number of views that we get on investor lift. And how those numbers have trended over time over the last six months is crazy. We've had almost half of our buyers list that we built over the years unsubscribe over the last six months.

Aaron Bihl: [21:23] I guess you don't have a magical AI algorithm with Investor Lift yet? No. Like creates a buyer out of thin air, and they paid the most price, and it's great.

Mike DeHaan: [21:33] Sure. I I believe it. Yeah. All all I know is that our deals on InvestigateLift used to give like a 150 to $200, now they get like 20. They get nothing. Because no one's looking for deals anymore.

Dylan Koch: [21:45] It has to be buyer fatigue, because I don't It has to be. Because I see something that comes in mind too, I can just tell by the asking price and the zip code. I'm like, nah.

Mike DeHaan: [21:53] Nah. Yeah. And that that's the challenge I think on with wholesale real estate is being a buyer has become so commoditized. And there's such like a glut of opportunity. It feels like if you're a flipper that they no longer have any excitement around the deal. And so you almost have to, like, create that. Hey. So you've heard us mention our scale community before, and I don't have a lot of time, so here are the quick highlights. In Scale, you get all of our processes and systems that we use to do about a 150 deals every single year. You also get a community of investors that are verified crushing it in their markets. Otherwise, they wouldn't even be members. And that way, don't have to waste time with nonstarters like you find in other groups. You also get preferred relationships with marketing companies and even lenders that will give you 100% financing. If you just heard all that and said, nah. I don't really need it. That's not gonna help me. I don't know what to tell you. You're lying to yourself because all those things are guaranteed to help you explode your business and buy more deals next year. So go to collectingkeys.com/scale, and let's see if you qualify.

Aaron Bihl: [22:53] My whole thing has always been like, hey. Like, we like legitimately flip houses. Like, we know we know a little more we're talking about than just your like 19 year old wholesaler. But it's like, how do you convince people of that? Like, so that's what we're kinda running into with some of deals we're moving in Lexington. It's like, all these people are like getting all feisty about stuff, and it's like, cool. I'm new to this market, but I'm not like new to Mhmm. You can find that we do stuff. But it's like, I'm sending out stuff of what I think is very conservative real numbers based on like actual expertise, but no one knows that any different from like the random just putting random numbers on stuff.

Dylan Koch: [23:28] That'll take time though as you grow your presence in Lexington. They're like, oh shit, he actually sends out good deals.

Aaron Bihl: [23:33] But yeah, that's the thing.

Dylan Koch: [23:34] And that will pay dividends.

Aaron Bihl: [23:35] Yeah. Because I mean like here we get to the point where it's like, cool, can sell stuff silencing once I've sold it to someone, because they know it's real. You know? It's like Mhmm. You're not hiding anything. You're not doing that. That stuff just kinda takes time.

Mike DeHaan: [23:46] And the strength of those relationships, I think, is more important than ever. Then also just as a brand. So that was the one thing that was we were we're good at with the partnership program with our back at home buyers is we built out the entire brand to be nationally present. Right? So we had geo targeted Google Ads in every area. We built up the website and the reviews and everything to be location independent, and we built it as like a national company. And so then when we had deals going when we found local buyers that were actually good, it was pretty easy to sell stuff, honestly, because they recognized us as somebody that was like a large company that must know what they're doing because they have this large presence. Sure enough, we were a bunch of ragtag people from all over the countries, and that was not true at all. But it's all about how it's presented. And so, you know, once you kind of get to that point, depending on how you wanna structure your business, it all just comes around to perception for how legit people

Dylan Koch: [24:36] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [24:36] Think you are.

Dylan Koch: [24:37] Think I Hormozi talks about that a lot. Because he had like some supplement brand. He's like, this is the best supplement in the world, but the people who sell the most supplements are the ones with the best marketing, not with the best product.

Mike DeHaan: [24:45] Absolutely. I can't even tell you the last time I looked at a supplement company, because the one that I use and I like, every time they have a sale, they send me a text and they say, the next twenty four hours, everything's 50% off. So what do I do? And I go go and buy enough for me to have for the next three months. And then sure enough, three months later, they're like, right now, for next twenty four hours, 50% off. And I go and do it again. I don't even know if there's better options, they have a really good marketing process.

Dylan Koch: [25:09] Aaron, you said something, I guess twice about, and this will be quick, but like basically technology and real estate. You had mentioned Chad GBT, and I don't know if that was an AI thing was serious about Investor Lift or

Aaron Bihl: [25:20] It was like a serious, but also a jab, of course.

Dylan Koch: [25:23] Yeah. Yeah. That's expected. But, I mean, I've always been super hesitant. Like, I see these AI based cold calling, or calling platforms, or texting platforms, and none of them always seem to work, or you can tell it's robotic. I guess, have you experimented with any of that? Do you have an opinion?

Aaron Bihl: [25:40] Not a lot. I mean, I think there's I mean, I use ChatGPT for like everything. Today, we're like, I have a guy who started three days ago, trying to explain a sub two deal to an agent who doesn't know what a sub two deal is. Like he doesn't know, she doesn't know, I'm using chat gbt to like dumb it down for both of them. Right? So I do that kind of stuff all the time. As far as like any of the kind of like AI tools, I was really excited about this like new CRM that was supposed to like have all this like automation stuff put in, it was like complete trash. I won't name it because I'm nice ish. But even like recently's AI answering bot thing

Dylan Koch: [26:15] Mhmm.

Aaron Bihl: [26:16] It seems promising. And then I like listen to the call, and it's like, hey, I'm Sofia, the AI bot. And it's like every time that happened, it's like click.

Dylan Koch: [26:26] Yeah. And if it makes it to the end, it used to say ending call or like something like that. Yeah. Mean,

Aaron Bihl: [26:33] I've had a few people like do it and talk to them, and I'm like, this is nice, but is that gonna replace people or is it gonna completely turn people off you don't know? Any of the texting stuff, I feel like it's just like a chatbot.

Mike DeHaan: [26:44] You can tell that right away. That's almost easier to tell.

Aaron Bihl: [26:47] Or even if it's good, they don't delay it. So it's like, no one instantly responds a paragraph.

Dylan Koch: [26:52] Yeah. Right.

Aaron Bihl: [26:53] There hadn't been anything that I've seen that I'm like, this is gonna change the world. Like, I mean everyone's selling their like AI bullshit. Yeah. Magic AI list everywhere that's just like white labeled whatever else.

Dylan Koch: [27:05] But Yeah. Most of it's a bunch of trash. But the answering ones is really what I was trying to get to because I feel like it's been a thing for longer than people think. And it in my opinion, hasn't really improved all that much.

Mike DeHaan: [27:15] The problem I have with it, it's one thing if you're selling widgets or you have a very high rate of calls because then you have forgiveness if things get botched. The problem with our industry is the botch is one conversation. That could be a 50,000 conversation that it fucked up. Right? If you're selling, like, car warranties where every car sale is, $17 or whatever Whatever. You know, like, that's fine because you can just churn through people. But I don't really wanna trust my super high value potential deal on something that could be ruined just because I didn't wanna pay a a VA or a call center or an American, you know, rep, whatever your your flavor is, to me, like, the risk reward to that is not worth it. It's asymmetrical. And, like, the only people that I've come to find that are super into that are people that have really small businesses, or they're like so cost sensitive that they're like they're trying to squeeze so little out of like an already minute budget that I'm like, you deserve to not make any money. You should not want to invest in your fucking business, honestly.

Dylan Koch: [28:15] That second point is what I've seen a lot. People who are like, I wanna spend a thousand dollars a month in my business. So like, good luck.

Mike DeHaan: [28:21] Yeah. But I wanna make a million dollars this year.

Aaron Bihl: [28:24] Yeah. One thing I will add to that, that I've been pretty impressed with, I don't even use it anymore, but DealMachines dialer and some of the AI stuff they had built into that, I think is pretty good. It live transcribes it and kinda gives you, like, talking points and suggestions, which I thought was pretty good. The way also, you know, they match area codes outbound to, you know, wherever you're calling. Just some kinda cool stuff dialers do, but not at that price point.

Mike DeHaan: [28:48] That actually is cool though, because it's providing you information faster than you can get it, which is what I think AI is currently good for. You know, when you're trying to use it to impersonate or replace people, that's like a stretch. But if you have something that can go and listen to the the conversation and and tell you the direction to go, that makes sense. Like, imagine if we could do this, and you could listen to us talking, and it went, oh, what's truly trendy right now since you're on this topic is if you go this way. Like, that's what other podcasts have been talking about. That's actually a really good idea at Riverside. You should fucking do that.

Aaron Bihl: [29:18] And I I guess the other thing is AI I mean, reSimply is kinda like summary tool. I use that a lot too.

Mike DeHaan: [29:23] Totally. Yeah. The little AI one where it listens to the call and gives you a breakdown.

Aaron Bihl: [29:26] It's not amazing, but it's like, do I wanna listen to a sixteen minute call? No. Or I can figure out if I do by clicking the button. So that, I actually like a lot.

Mike DeHaan: [29:35] Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And you're like, so it's a ten minute call. It's gonna cost me a dollar to do this. My VA is $5 an hour. Technically, it's only 70¢ to have her listen to it for ten minutes. So I'm gonna do that.

Dylan Koch: [29:46] And then transcribe the notes.

Mike DeHaan: [29:48] Yeah. Exactly. Right.

Dylan Koch: [29:49] Saving 30¢. But okay. I mean, we'll see where it takes us. You know, everyone says technological is exponential, so who knows what it is in five to ten years. But just wanna get your opinion.

Mike DeHaan: [29:59] Five to ten years, we'll be sending out AI freaking acquisition managers that are going in like iRobot knocking on the door.

Dylan Koch: [30:07] Yeah. To your robots, and it'll give you a scope of work by the penny.

Mike DeHaan: [30:11] That'll be fascinating. As soon as they can get that to go into any kind of trade, we're all screwed. Like, have you seen like the robots that they've I've seen them on like trade shows on on YouTube and stuff that are like installing plumbing and doing different things.

Aaron Bihl: [30:22] Did you see the one that got in a fight with people?

Mike DeHaan: [30:24] I did see that one. That was in China though. China's just given us like warnings without giving us warnings. Right? Because especially, like, it's like child sized. So I'm like, what are you gonna do? Like, dress it up like a kid and have just go dick punch politicians?

Dylan Koch: [30:39] Oh, shit.

Mike DeHaan: [30:40] But no. It's yeah. It'll be interesting. But yeah. I've seen the one that do that is like plumbing, I've also seen ones that will do like flooring. You know, the stuff that's like kinda super repetitive. And as soon as that becomes affordable and traditional, it's gonna be a very different ballgame very quickly.

Dylan Koch: [30:54] But We'll have to do what we always do, which is just pivot.

Mike DeHaan: [30:57] Yeah. I thought you're gonna say revolt, fight the machines.

Dylan Koch: [30:59] Yeah. Sort of a revolutionary war. Yeah. War for work.

Mike DeHaan: [31:03] Yeah. Whatever works. Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [31:05] I guess one last topic, and this is just something I guess I experienced yesterday, where we had three deals that I was like pretty certain we had in the bag. Right? And I did the thing you're not supposed to do, where I was like mentally counting the money before it ever even got signed. Oh,

Mike DeHaan: [31:18] you jinxed it.

Dylan Koch: [31:19] Like yeah, like $70 worth of revenue coming in. And we went o for three. Like, whether that be like ghosted us, they had a change of opinion, a family member wants to buy it, all this stuff. And I found myself, I was closing out like the work day, I just like, I was in a bad mood. And I'm trying to like separate the work from, I don't know, from my everyday life. Not trying to be a dick to my wife, or like be pleasant to be around. So I don't know if you guys have opinions around that, or if you experience some of the same stuff, but that's how I've been struggling with lately.

Mike DeHaan: [31:50] So I'll tell you from on a personal level is that will get better with just more experience. I've been playing this game for a little bit longer than you have done. Like, not that much more, a couple years maybe. And I would say that after a while, just kinda get used to it. I will also say that it is easier when you have a team, which almost sounds counterintuitive because, like, usually, it's the team that's making mistakes. But when you have people that, I don't know, I would say, like, are kind of, like, reliant on you and are supporting the process and are bought in, it's like, you know, losing like a a team sport, like a soccer game versus like a tennis match that you lost yourself. Right? Like, you kind of lose together. You win together. I feel like the peaks and valleys are a little bit better that way than when you're just a one man show or you're like a really small business. That's my personal take on it is that, like, it'll change over time. If it doesn't, I don't know. Maybe we should talk to somebody.

Dylan Koch: [32:48] Yeah. Seek therapy is Mike's answer. Maybe. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [32:53] But I don't know. Do have thoughts on that, Aaron?

Aaron Bihl: [32:54] Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I mean, I feel like all this stuff goes in cycles. So in everyone I talk to at any level of business, it's kinda the same because I talk a lot about the like, I can go from like, I'm on top of the world and unstoppable, and like, I made this phone call and made a $100, like, look at me, to like, even in the same day or like same hour, like I wanna crawl in a hole. Oh, yeah. It's like so up and down, but I think you kind of get used to it or you know that that's how it is. So I think my thing is always like when things are going well, like cool ride that wave. When we're getting deals, like be glad, like we're gonna get more. And then when you're not, know that it's not gonna last. Mhmm. But I think the hard part for me is I feel like a lot of response when you have a team too, like if I'm in a bad mood, if I'm like down, like that affects everyone. Mhmm. And I feel like my role as a leader is much more like just hyping people up. Totally. Not like falsely, but if I create a better environment, everyone does better. Mhmm. Where I feel like my job as a leader is to kinda like be level headed, control the things you control. If you can't, it's like whatever.

Dylan Koch: [34:00] Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely more hardened now than I than I am when I first started this thing. Like, that's a fact. Totally. And I woke up today and I was like, fine. It was just like literally a couple hours yesterday. I'm like, this fucking sucked, pretty much.

Mike DeHaan: [34:10] Well, I think that's that's part of being human. Right? I mean, that happens to everybody. Same thing I've or I've had prospects for scale or different things who go to a different route. And it's funny. I'll get spiteful. I'll be like, you don't fuck that person. Right? And I'll get, like, kinda, like, bitter about it for different reasons, but they're all they're all personal problems. You know, honestly, like, everyone has the right to their own choice. You know, even like your sellers, you miss out on those deals for different reasons. There's probably something you can do to do it better next time. Right? And I think it's instead reflecting on what could be done better, what can you improve on, what's the next opportunity. And then something else as well I always find just sort of helps is if you go and you look at like the big picture for your company over the last quarter, six months to a year, and just see what that looks like, and you realize that whatever happened today doesn't really mean anything.

Dylan Koch: [34:58] Yeah. And I my first two months were were great. So like, you know, our q one still looks great on paper. Right? So

Aaron Bihl: [35:04] The other thing I add too is like find things that actually get your mind off stuff. For me, like going to the gym, playing pickleball, like stupid things, like whatever.

Dylan Koch: [35:11] You're a 35 year old dad.

Mike DeHaan: [35:14] That's a

Dylan Koch: [35:14] 35 year old middle aged man.

Aaron Bihl: [35:16] Yeah. But it's like it's certain things that you're like, hey, if I'm doing this, actually can't. Yes. Like it forced me to not be able to think about whatever else. You know, find those hobbies that are actually an escape from something. Yeah. You know? Where it's not like your mind's still racing the whole time. It's like, hey, I actually had to focus on this Yeah. And completely like get my mind off things. That's been really helpful too.

Mike DeHaan: [35:37] Yeah. It's actually a a big thing that I like is the very intentionally removing yourself from a position where you even can focus on stuff. So I know a very common thing, especially for new entrepreneurs, is all of their downtime, because they're excited, is spent reading, listening to, like, real estate or business podcasts, studying whatever, doing mindfulness stuff, journaling, all those things. Those feel like they're rest because you're not actively working. And, obviously, when you get past, like, the procrastination point, which a lot of people do, they use it as that means procrastination. But when you understand the balance of doing those things and working, there has to be a point where you just kinda, like, let that stuff stop. So like for me, people ask me all the time, what kind of podcasts and stuff I listen to? And I'm like, well, I listen to comedy podcasts, and I'll listen to Hermosy podcast when he has a topic that I like. But that's it. I don't listen to real estate shows. I don't listen to business shows. I don't read like business books unless I have a good reason to do so. And I very intentionally, when I'm doing other recreational activities, I completely disconnect it from my business as much as possible. And if it's something like I'm hanging out playing PlayStation, and I keep thinking about something with the business, that typically just means that I'm disorganized and probably need to address that before I'm actually gonna be able to disconnect. And that just comes down to like an organizational issue or like a a planning issue.

Dylan Koch: [36:58] A lot of the stress comes from like conversations that you know you should have that you just aren't having.

Mike DeHaan: [37:02] Mhmm.

Dylan Koch: [37:03] So the procrastination part of that, which I've personally dealt with. I used to do the whole miracle morning thing that like David Osborne from wake up, and I don't do it anymore, but I've made more money, like hand over fist more, since I've stopped doing that, and just started working more. That's the last thing I wanna end on.

Mike DeHaan: [37:17] So as everyone else who ever stopped doing it. And here's the thing, just like if you are into stuff like that, it's a great disciplinary practice. It's like 75 hard. Right? People that do 75 hard all the time are stupid. If you've never done something that's like a disciplined regimen before, like miracle morning setting hour or whatever it is, it teaches you about discipline, and then you can choose to carry that into the rest of your life going forward, or you can just go back to being a piece of shit. It's up to you.

Dylan Koch: [37:41] There's no in between.

Mike DeHaan: [37:42] There's no in between.

Dylan Koch: [37:43] The thing

Aaron Bihl: [37:43] I'll add to that too is like like having people that get it. Mike became a close friend, because I locally don't have friends who do what I do or understand what I do. And you know, it's not super normal to be how I would have someone like, hey, like, I just messed up this call that lost us $30.40 grand. Or

Mike DeHaan: [38:00] Mhmm.

Aaron Bihl: [38:00] Oh, cool. Like, the day of closing, the seller didn't wanna pay his taxes, so we're not oh, we didn't get paid today. You know? Like, all those things that are like normal in our world that are not normal with any normal people. So it's always been super helpful to have connections who who kinda get it.

Dylan Koch: [38:15] Mhmm. The scale group is a big good example?

Mike DeHaan: [38:18] Yeah. Our scale communities, yeah, big thing. Have accountability groups in there that people get a lot of value from. I have GoBundance, Donuts is in GoBundance. Like, that's a big reason people join stuff like that. But that actually changes a lot. Or way back when, Aaron, when we were in CCF, that's exactly what it was there is that was the big eye opening thing was all of a sudden, I was around a bunch of people that really got what we were trying to do.

Aaron Bihl: [38:39] Yeah. Once you realize you're not the only one

Mike DeHaan: [38:41] Yeah.

Aaron Bihl: [38:42] And doing whatever in the middle of whatever.

Mike DeHaan: [38:44] And not only that, but you'll meet people that are exactly like you that somehow made a $100,000 last month, and you're like, what the fuck?

Dylan Koch: [38:50] They're not special.

Mike DeHaan: [38:51] Like, I

Dylan Koch: [38:51] I could do this. They're not special at all.

Aaron Bihl: [38:54] Or you meet people that are not good at anything that made a $100,000 last month.

Mike DeHaan: [38:58] Exactly. That always happens too.

Aaron Bihl: [39:01] Yeah. I think

Mike DeHaan: [39:01] just to round that all out though, you know, if you do feel the stress, like having an out is super super important. And it doesn't you don't need to be productive twenty four seven. And a lot of times, I'll say when you find out this balance, you will actually find that when you learn how to disconnect in the times when you are working, you will be infinitely more productive. Alright, guys. We're gonna wrap it up here. Aaron, thanks for coming on today, buddy. Really quick again. Where can you find an Instagram? And also, what's your podcast? I know you started something recently, if you wanna plug that if you're still doing.

Aaron Bihl: [39:26] Yeah. My Instagram is just aaron dot biel. My podcast is called no name r e I. It's just me ranting about kinda whatever's going on. No guests. Just kinda short episodes for me. Kinda what's going on in the business, life, whatever.

Mike DeHaan: [39:40] Cool. So you call it a podcast. It's I would take a vlog, but without the video. Because, basically, just you talking about your feelings on the Internet.

Aaron Bihl: [39:47] A vlog without the video. Yep.

Dylan Koch: [39:49] Perfect. Otherwise known as an m p three. But yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [39:52] Yeah. An m p three. Yeah. Awesome, buddy. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, and thanks for listening, everybody. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Thanks for listening, everyone. If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at Investor Man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore Does underscore Deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to let us know what you think of the show.