Joe: Hey, guys, how you doing, Joe McCall here, Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast. Glad you're here. It's going to be a good episode because I got a good friend on with me. His name is Alex Pardo. And we're gonna be talking about a couple of three things today on this podcast. Number one, leadership. And we're gonna be talking about scaling your business. What's the right way to scale your business? Maybe now's not the right time to scale your business. But if you are, how do you do it? How do you provide the right leadership in your real estate investing and wholesaling business? Alex has been in the business for a long, long time in a very competitive market. And we're going to be talking about that with Alex. So I'm excited about this podcast. Stay tuned. A lot of you are going to get a lot of value out of this. All right. Couple of things. Number one, this podcast is brought to you by my book, Wholesaling Lease Options.

Joe: Get it right now. WLOBook.com. WLOBook.com. This book teaches you the exact strategy that I use to quit my job way back in 2009 as we were about six, eight months, 10 months, twelve months, whatever. A year into the last recession. Everybody thought I was crazy. My boss at the time thought. Are you sure? You know, if it doesn't work out for you, this real estate thing, you can always come back and work for us. And I said, nah, man, you don't get it. I love working for myself and working for myself from home for over 11 years now. And it's just normal to me kinda right now. But this was the strategy I used. This is a strategy that let me quit my job and I teach you how to do these quick flip lease option deals from beginning to end in this book and you can get it. This is a timely, timely book right now for this market. Get it at WLOBook.com. It's free. I just asked to pay a little bit of shipping. All right. The second thing is we're gonna be doing this podcast live on Facebook and on YouTube. So if you're watching this right now, say hello. Tell us where you're from. Type in something in the comments. Give us a thumbs up. Write something in the comments. Tell us where you're from, either on Facebook or YouTube. Please just say hello. Tell us where you're from. And if you as we're going through this, if you have questions, please type them in there and I will answer them or me or Alex Pardo will answer your questions for you. OK. Now, if you're listening this as an audio podcast, welcome. Glad you're here. Please subscribe. If you've not already go to Apple podcast or Spotify or Stitcher or Google Play wherever you go, and please subscribe to this podcast. I really, really appreciate it. All right. And Dennis is absolutely right. He says right here, lease options are about to pick up. They're not about to pick up. They already are picking up. So again, guys, go get my book WLOBook.com. It'll take you a couple hours to read it. It's a thin book, but it's all killer. No filler. Okay. It's got good stuff in there. Cool. Are enough of me talking. Let's get to Alex. My friend on Alex Pardo. How are you, brother?

Alex: Brother, I am blessed. I'm amazing. It's awesome to be in the show. I think I told you this yesterday. Yours was one of the first real estate investing podcasts I ever subscribed to. I called you the OG of real estate podcast yesterday and you kind of started chuckling. So it's exciting to be on.

Joe: Well, I'm glad you're here. We don't know. Alex has a great podcast called The Flip Empire Podcast. How long have you been doing that show, Alex?

Alex: Launch June 2016. So just crossed over 400 episodes. Good for you, man. And how do you do them weekly or what? I do it twice a week on Monday. I do a master class, I do an interview style. And then Thursday, it's just me kind of a shorter five to fifteen minute deep dive on a particular topic.

Joe: Nice. All right, cool. So you're in Florida, southern Florida. Yes, Miami. Miami. So a few wholesalers there in Miami. Just a few. Just a few. Just a couple. How is business for you. Talk a little bit about, you know, over the last year. What are you doing right now in business? And then how are things? How have things changed in the last few two to four weeks?

Alex: Yeah. So great question. You know, business is pretty good and I say pretty good because we've had over the course of the last year, we've had some challenges. And I think it's let me kind of set the groundwork. I truly believe in transparency and I don't know about, I don't want to speak for others, but I learned more from the lessons learned to the failures that people have than I think I do from the successes. And there's enough kind of chest beating out there as far as, you know, deal counting and all that kind of stuff. Don't get me wrong, we've had a lot of success. But, you know, if we would have had this conversation, Joe, a year ago, I was in a mindset where I wanted to grow and scale my wholesaling operation in South Florida. And as you mentioned, you know, we're in a pretty competitive market. There's a lot of people that do what we do. And so we really over the course of the last two, two and half years, we've really been pushing the envelope of how do we stand out from the crowd? And we do that from an internal business structure, and then we do that to the message that we communicate to homeowners. But we've had some challenges. You know, a year ago, I was in growth and scale mode. Today, over the course of the last six months, I have taken my team down from eight people down to four. And that's been very intentional, very strategic.

Alex: One of the things that we will probably talk about on the show today that I didn't realize when I was going in growth in scale mode is that my overhead ballooned up to like just under fifty thousand dollars a month. And I'm a big admirer. What was that? Yeah. That includes marketing. And, you know, my two highest expenses were labor and. And I think with most businesses, that's probably the case. But I found myself kind of mid-last year, July, August, saying to myself, this was never really the vision that I had for my business and for my life. I always wanted a lifestyle business. I'm big on family and big on travel. And it became this machine, Joe, that I felt like I had to feed, feed with money, feed with time. And even though don't get me wrong, you know, we had the EOS structure in place and I have a COO and I have great team members. And it took me a while to find those people. I still felt like I was from a leadership perspective, from a visionary perspective, I was still very involved in the business. Now, I wasn't the one talking to sellers and going out on appointments, but I was running meetings and I was doing a lot of that kind of stuff. And some of the joy started to kind of get sucked away from the actual business, you know, because I had all this overhead. We had to do a couple of deals a month just to break even. And finally, I kind of had a gut check call. I had a conversation with my coach. And around August, September, I started the process of unwinding this beast, this machine that I had built. And I'm a lot happier now. So we're not just a ton of volume, but I'm happier.

Joe: Man, this is so important because people forget this. They see those big guys with the Lamborghinis, the big, nice offices. It's funny. Some people go broke trying to prove to broke people that they're not broke. Trying to understand. Right. And what is people are out there saying, yeah, I'm making a million dollars or a million dollar a month business. But what they're not talking about is the overhead. They're not talking about their net profit. And that's all that matters. This is a law, a science of business. This is a undisputable law of business. The more revenue you make, the less profit as terms of net margins that you're gonna make. Right. That's right. It's easy to make twenty-five thirty five percent net margins on a million dollar a year business. It's almost impossible to keep that. Once you start growing and scaling, you know, as you start doing multiple millions a year, five million a year, you're looking at normal margins of maybe 15 to 20 percent if you're good. Yeah. Right. Right. So that's people think I'm going to do a million dollars a year. I'm going to I'm going to do 20 deals a month. You maybe can, but I'm telling you guys, the sad truth is your profits will go down. You'll be working harder, making less profit. It's not what you make, it's what you keep. Would you agree with that, Alex?

Alex: A thousand percent. Joe, gross revenue is it's vain. It's what you keep. It's what goes down to the bottom line that really, truly matters. And it's not just what you make. It's like you said, it's what you keep. Right.

Joe:So you're right. You pushed a hot button for me, Alex. I was talking to somebody the other day. Maybe it was you. We won't name who this person is that we were talking about. Was it you, Alex? An off line yesterday when you were talking? I think so. I think a certain big wholesaler that a lot of people know. Yes. They're doing 10 million a year. But you know what they're counting? They're counting the buy and the sale. Right. And just like realtors, they're counting the value of the homes that they're selling, not the profits. It's appearances. Oh, my gosh. And when they say they're doing 20 deals a month, they're really means they're buying 10 and they're selling 10, the same 10. And that's 20. People are doing that. Guys, you got to… We were talking about that. Alex, I'm talking yesterday. Yes. Yeah, we were yesterday. So you guys, you got to take these numbers with a grain of salt. And these people are out there bragging about all these deals they're doing. Don't believe the hype. All right. And you need to ask them. Listen, Data, not drama. You need to get down into the numbers. Show me your real numbers. And I guarantee you there's a lot of things that you don't see that are going on that you don't want to part up, because once you scale to that level, it's a pain in the butt. I'd rather keep it small and keep it all. That's right. All right, Joe, I'm glad this is especially timely now, isn't it?

Alex: Yeah, because, Joe, I see you and I see so many people out there on social media, again, kind of beating their chest about how big their team is or how many deals are doing. But nobody knows what's really going on behind the scenes. And a mutual friend of ours, Christina Krauss, you know, said a year or so ago, she said, scale to be better. Don't scale to be bigger. And that. Really, really down or yeah, scale to be better. Don't scale to be bigger. And then here's the other thing, Joe. I see a lot of people quote unquote, scaling, but yet they don't have systems, processes, standard operating procedures that don't have a structure within their organization. And on top of all that, they don't even have the right people. Like Jim Collins talks about having the right person on the right seat, on the right bus. So when you try to scale and you have all this like lack of focus in an organization, it's a recipe for disaster.

Joe: Oh, yeah. It certainly is. And you know what got you to a million dollar. What got you to a 500000 year will not get you to two or three million a year. It takes an entirely different skill set. Bigger businesses come bigger problems. Right. And it's not as easy as you might think to scale with the current knowledge that you have, the current team that you have. It's all about I love that scale to be better, not bigger. If you. Scale to be bigger before you're better. It'll be a. You're building a house of cards. Yeah, it's going to look like this virus thing happens. It's all gonna come crumbling down. And I'm predicting we've talked about this. I'm predicting you're going to see a lot of wholesalers, a lot of rehabbers go out of business over the next six to twelve months.

Alex: Unfortunately, it's gonna happen. And Joe, you and I know some of the bigger investors across the country. The bigger the team, the bigger the overhead, the more concern they have. And I get it. And I understand it. We're an interesting, uncertain times right now. And I always go back to: have a vision for your personal life and then make sure that your business is designed to support that life. And I know you and I subscribe to the same philosophy and mindset, but yet I see so many people out there chasing the dollar, chasing a big dream, chasing numbers. But ask yourself why you truly happy? That's what matters.

Joe: This is so good. And you're absolutely right. Because, well, again, you see people saying, you know, they're making ten thousand dollars on these deals. Okay. 15. They're showing these big checks of thirty thousand dollars. I did a video about a year and a half ago. I remember this. It was funny. I did a deal I made. Well, I had a check for seventeen thousand five hundred bucks. I was like, yeah, this is cool. I'm going to do a video. Right. And I almost hit record. I was gonna show off my check. Right. And I thought, wait a minute. I actually spent five grand to buy the deal. This is a vacant rural lot. Five grand to make the deal. I split. I have to pay somebody else three or four grand out of the profits. So my real net profit on this deal is only like sixty five hundred bucks or something like that. Right? Not bad. So I was so I thought, oh, my gosh, I almost did it. It's so tempting, isn't it, to fall into that. So I did a video actually talking about it and playing. Playing a game with it. I was like, hey, listen, look at this check. But let me tell you something that no one else is really telling me about this check. This is it. This is my gross profit. I still have to pay this and this and this and then taxes on top of that. So when everybody's saying they're making 30 grand for it, do you see these big checks? That's not the truth. There is more behind it. They have overhead. They have teams. They have marketing expenses that went into that deal. Yeah, they have taxes. They've got to pay on that, and splits that they have to pay lenders. They have to pay all that money. Right. There is a lot more to it. You've got to know your numbers. This is really, really important. You've got to know your numbers. And if you don't know your numbers, you don't have a real business.

Alex: Hundred percent couldn't agree with you more. Yeah. You know, I said something on my podcast that 10 people were reaching out to me about it. I said, I truly believe that transparency and vulnerability is the new currency in 2020. And I think we need more guys like you that are willing to show the check, but reveal the truth like, hey, look, this is actually in my pocket. Sixty-five hundred bucks. And people need to know that because what's funny is that you see a lot of people making decisions about their business based on the perspective that they have from their seat. But they don't really know what's going on until they make all these decisions. They end up building this business and then come to realize, hey, this is not what I thought it was. This is not what it's cracked up to be. So just really get clear on what you want, why you want it, and then methodically go about the business of a building that, you know, no pun intended.

Joe: All right. So talk a little bit more, Alex, what your business looked like before a year ago and what it looks like now. What are some of the things that you and your team are doing?

Alex: Yes, well, we had a year or so ago, we had a team of eight, you know, and I had your typical classic structure. You know, I had a couple of lead managers. I had an acquisitions manager, dispositions manager, transaction coordinator and a couple of VAs. And one of the VAs was responsible for cold calling. So, you know, we had a lot. And I say a lot. That's relative. I know some guys that have one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month in overhead. For me, 40 to 50 grand, which is a lot more overhead. And we were ninety eight percent direct to seller. And I think I want to kind of pause here and let people know. You know, one of the things I'm always asking myself and I'm asking my team is, if I was to hire myself or if I was to hire you as a consultant looking from the outside in and you were to look at our business, how would you put us out of business? So if you ask yourself kind of remove yourself from your business and say, how would I put this business out of business? Where are the holes in the boat? And when I asked that question last year, I started to realize that, number one, we're only in South Florida, which is a very competitive market. Number two, we're only direct to seller. So, you know, in 2014, '15, '16, Joe, we were doing 60 to 80 deals a year just off the MLS with me and a partner. No overhead. It was like shooting fish in a barrel back then. We were just sending offers. The wholesaling them. Yeah, we were a whole set of them. Yeah, we were double closing. There were bank REOs. We were using freedom soft back in the day using the offer by just sending out a better offer. Yeah. That actually worked it when we were doing like 70 something close to 80 deals a year, 2014, '15, '16. And then the market started to shift and we went pretty much 100 percent direct to seller and now that's when the overhead started to really increase. So anyways, I had your typical and….

Joe: Keep your transactions really good. Are you seeing that coming back?

Alex: Yes. Yes. I think that's going to be back. I think it’s coming back. Matter of fact, one of the things over the course of the last week since this whole COVID-19 thing came about is we've been very much more proactive and intentional about reaching out to agents because deals are going to start. Falling out of escrow. And if you're in a position where you can perform, i.e., close on, you want to be there for them. And also we're sending out text message campaigns. We're sending out. Be careful with the whole voicemail campaigns depending on where you are. That may be illegal. So just caution there. But yeah, we're being much more proactive about getting in front of agents because I do think that's gonna be around the corner.

Joe: All right. Nice. So continue where you were.

Alex: Yeah. So last year we were 100 percent direct to seller and we were going on average 10 to 15 appointments a week and we were probably converting 20 to 25 percent of those appointments. And then we were selling them. We were taking them through kind of that process. We were taking them over to the dispositions. And then we had a transaction coordinator that would close them. And then it started to get. I had one of my acquisitions managers left at the beginning of last year and at the same time I was replacing him with a new acquisitions manager and we hit a bump. Q1 headed into Q2 was pretty slow for us. And I realized that we needed to have more redundancy within the business. I should have had somebody that was ready to step into acquisitions. And if I'm being totally honest with you, Joe, I would rather do anything else in the business than go back out on set of appointments, you know. But looking back now, I should've. I should've rolled up my sleeves and I should have been the one to jump in. I see too many leaders, you know, wholesale operations and real estate businesses that they have a team, but yet they're not willing to do the work at times. And sometimes you've got to roll up your sleeves and jump in. And that was a mistake on my end. And so it took a good two to three months to get the new acquisitions manager up to speed. And again, during this time, my overhead continued rise and continue to rise. We were sending out thirty-five forty thousand postcards a month.

Alex:That was Miami area South Florida. Yeah, yeah. Primarily in Miami. I was a pretty big city, so we were just focused on Miami fans. Ironically, I started building a rental portfolio in Cleveland, Ohio. I sent out one campaign, Joe. Sixty-seven sixty-eight hundred postcards. I got four deals. It would have taken me hundred plus thousand postcards to get four deals in Miami. So I defer to you with virtual investing in Chris Chico, our mutual friends.We should have been more spread out looking at middle America, looking at cash flow producing markets where, you know, we're not going to see twenty, twenty five-thousand-dollar wholesale rips. We might see five to seven, five to ten, but it's a volume game. And the same systems and same structure we had would have worked in another market. And then, yeah, I just got really clear on what I want the direction the business was going in. And so I had to let a few people go. And I was very upfront and very honest about that. I had one team member that decided to leave and kind of go do this on his own, which I fully supported him. And now my overhead is about half of that, you know, including what I pay myself. And I don't have that pressure of having to do X amount of deals a month. What I'm really passionate about is coaching and the mastermind group that Steve Cavanaugh and I run and pouring into people's life. I mean that that's why I launched the podcast four years ago is I was having these types of conversations with people. And it made me feel some type of way to know that I was helping someone. And closing deals just didn't fulfill that for me anymore. If that makes sense.

Joe: Oh, yeah. That's why I do this podcast three times a week. I love this part of the business publishing information, content, books, videos, podcasts.

Alex: And you can tell because you're so good at it and you can tell when someone is in it for the dollar. And when someone's in it because they generally like it, generally care. And you should be well compensated for what you do because you provide awesome value in content. But you could just tell when someone is getting into info publishing or internet marketing because you know, they can make a lot of money versus somebody that they genuinely want to help.

Joe:So they won't be around very long. It's a tough business. So what does your business look like today?

Alex: Yeah. So now it's a team of four. Very tight. I haven't thought it. What do they do? Yeah. So I have I have Elizabeth, who handles. She's our acquisitions manager and our transaction coordinator. So Elizabeth, last year was our transaction coordinator solely. Now she's been trained, you know, through John Martinez, a sales training. She's been trained. She's really, really good at it. And so she handles both sides of that. And then I have Adrian, who handles our marketing, handles our dispositions, and then I have a virtual assistant and myself. So it's a pretty lean team.

Joe: Your wife helps a little bit to show me a picture of her writing some letters.

Alex:So you want to know what's funny about that, Joe? That's the first time that she's jumped in to help out. She helps me when it comes to like, you know, booking hotels for events and things of that nature. But as far as the real estate business. Yeah, a couple, last Saturday we were hand-writing. So one of the things we talked about on my show was guys go out there and start nailing one page contracts. Mail offers to homeowners. Homeowners that's what we are seeing now, Joe. We've had conversations as recent as yesterday with homeowners that told us to go pound sand, kick rocks, as they say, a couple of months ago. They're calling us now. The tune is a little different.

Joe: Oh, my gosh. You have so many old leads you could be following up with right now and you're still sending the same offer again.

Alex: We all have money in our database. There's money right under your nose. And the most expensive lead to generate is the one you don't have. And people neglect the ones that are already in their system. So follow up, follow up, and send one page offers. Just set start sending out offers, giving offers to people.

Joe: Oh, yeah, that's really good. My two girls just walked in. So anyway, they wanted my help hanging something on a tree. I can't. I'm busy.

Alex: You want to know what, though? Like not to get off topic, Joe, but I think that's what this business can do for you. You know, the fact that you can be home, you can be doing what you love and you can take a couple of seconds, bounce over, spend some time with your family. I mean, that's what it's all about.

Joe: I have on my calendar to go take a walk with them. We have a state park just right over there. If you've seen any of my videos. I back to a state park, and we're planning on going for a walk three o'clock today.

Alex:So I don't know this, but we I drove by your house about three years ago. I was staying with I was staying with Sean McCloskey. Oh, yeah, we were. You were driving by. So beautiful area. Loved it.

Joe: OK, cool. So your business, it looks like today you've got somebody helps you with with the marketing transactions, dispositions and you. Yep. They're trying to be in a virtual business. Has your marketing. What kind of deal volume do you have right now? On average per month?

Alex: Yeah. So we're doing about two to three deals a month. So we're doing. We're leaning heavily. So we've taken our direct mail, Joe from thirty plus thousand postcards, down to about three to five thousand postcards. We're focused on niche lists. We're focused on stacking those niche lists, which essentially is taking all your different lists and then finding the records, finding the homeowners that are on two or more or less. So we've become much more niche and we've been leaning heavily on text message marketing. So we've seen some results from, you know, it's cheap. It can be scaled. And so on average, we're sending out roughly around a thousand to fifteen hundred text messages a day. And you're using Sherpa. Is that right? Yeah, we're using Sherpa. Now, I think things are changing when it comes to as you know, when it comes to, you know, marketing from a text message perspective, it's getting a little bit more challenging. Yeah, but it's funny, Joe, because I remember three years ago, two or three years ago, cold calling, it seems like burst onto the scene. And then it was RVMs during those voicemails and then it was text message marketing and it seems like every year. So there's like a new marketing channel. And I think the more the more competitive our industry becomes, the more archaic marketing is going to be. You know, so like the bandit signs, the door-knocking, the driving for dollars, all that old school stuff that a lot of people don't want to do. we're thinking of even placing a newspaper ad as old school as that sounds.

Joe: Doesn't Steve Cavanaugh, does he still do the PennySaver?

Alex: I don't think he's currently doing it, but he was pretty big on that.

 

Joe: Oh, PennySaver ads work well. He had consistently pull one or two big deals a year from out of that. The, I see direct mail coming back to talking about how we just did a campaign kind of by accident, just 600 postcards to a small list. And I think Birmingham, Alabama. And that's competitive there. A lot of wholesalers. So there's not as many as maybe you have in Miami, four percent response, four percent response rate. Yes. You've gotten over twenty-five calls from six hundred postcards. What? That's insane. We did this. We did a campaign a couple weeks ago. It just happened. Just hit during this week. Right now when we're having this. Everybody is freaking out. But I'm predicting you watch less competitors, less people doing direct mail going forward, more motivated seller. Direct mail is going to start working again. I mean, even if this is an aberration, you know. But when I was talking to Shawn Terry a little bit about this the other day on a podcast, he's doing a lot more. He's going after small towns, doing some Google AdWords because there's zero competition in these small town, especially now that Zillow and offer pad and those buyers are suspended. So Google ads have gone way down. Was targeting small markets outside of the big MSA is the big cities and seeing really, really good response and then doing postcards in those small towns, doing really well with response rates going from a half of a half a percent response rate in Phoenix, to 2 to 4 percent response rates in some of these towns. So like stay tuned for that. If you guys can stick around, stick through this challenging time in the market, direct mail could be become more and more viable.

Alex: Yeah. And you know, I think with whether it's direct mail or anything else, it become a student of direct response marketing. You know, anything you can consume of Dan Kennedy. I know you'll back me up on this study direct response marketing.

Joe: I have two or three of his books right there. I still need to read them. And I've got a whole huge monster course back behind me. I've got a stack myself. You know what he said? This is really interesting. You said if you've not made somebody mad, he used more colorful language but not made somebody mad by twelve o'clock. You're not marketing hard enough. You're not doing enough marketing. Good rule of thumb. I like that. All right. So you're doing two to three deals on average a month. You're sending maybe about three to five thousand postcards a month now where you were sending 30 to 40 thousand postcards a month. Yes. What other market? Oh, you're doing text messaging right now. Are you doing any other marketing?

Alex: Yes. So the only other marketing is we've been a lot more purposeful and intentional about sourcing referrals. You know, and one of the things that I challenge my team with that challenge myself with, quite honestly, is I had never really been too big into social media. Like I'm not the guy that you're gonna see posting the checks and. But I realize that there's a missed opportunity there just to like if you're true to yourself and you just kind of share what you do on an everyday basis. You know, so we've been more intentional about posting on social media. And we've seen some results from that, and then, like I said, reaching out to agents, reaching out to I forgot who I got this from. You may have shared this with me, actually. You know, there's somebody that all he does, it was you that you go to your phone. That guy that goes to his phone whenever he wants to pop off a deal. Well, I heard a similar story that once a week this person all he does is he starts calling people and he starts saying, hey, I'm looking to buy. I'm looking to buy. And he just keeps on until he connects with somebody. So basically, we're trying to source more referrals.

Joe: It's real simple. You ask two questions, call everybody in your Rolodex. Maybe you don't have a Rolodex anymore. Everybody in your database, right. Number one, do you have a house you're looking to sell. Number two, do you have a house you're looking to buy. And you'll find somebody if you make enough phone calls where you can wholesale a deal to each other.

Alex: I would add a third one. Are you a potential lender? Yeah. You know, are you looking to place some money and makes some good returns. And then the last thing that I mentioned, Joe, as far as from a marketing perspective, you and I had this conversation less than a month ago. And actually because of COVID, things have just kind of been put on the backburner. But I'm going to be launching a local podcast here. I'm going to be I'm going to be just educating, training, providing content similar to what I do on the Flip Empire Show. But it's gonna be specific for South Florida investors. And I love podcasting. I know how to do it. And I'm pretty confident that over time that's gonna bring some opportunities and……

Joe: Man, I love that idea. You have that that audience might be 10 percent of your flip empire audience, but you're gonna make ten times the amount of money from that audience. If anybody else listening to this. You know, if I were to start a new podcast and I was actively wholesaling like in a big way, I would be doing a podcast for every different market that I'm in. And you can talk about the market. You can interview other people in that market. You can interview lenders and title companies and realtors and property managers and contractors. You can talk about a deal of the week, right? You can talk about a deal that you have that you're trying to sell. You can do a podcast episode on giving advice to people, looking to sell their home, looking to buy a home or manage a rental property. And you're gonna get, because anybody who's in that market, when you release a new podcast, yours is going to be the first one they listen to. Right. Because there's nobody else talking to them. They maybe subscribe to 30 other podcasts. But when you're doing one talking about real estate in south Florida. Holy smokes. I'm excited and I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes.

Alex: Thank you, brother. I'll keep you posted. I really appreciate the feedback you gave me. Here's what's crazy. As big of a city as Miami. There's no podcast directed at real estate. There's some realtor podcasts, but I looked them up and they just weren't active. Most podcasts die after like 10, 15, 20 episodes. So I think there's there's an untapped space there that I think we can dominate. And then we also recently started a meetup group. We only had one our second one got canceled because of this whole COVID thing. But I think meetups are there's an opportunity there as well.

Joe:I want to ask you about your mastermind, but that's really good because Steve Cavanagh was really good at creating those local type of meetup groups, as you mentioned, EOS before, and how that's kind of helped you in your business. Can you talk about what EOS is and what how has that helped you?

Alex: It’s from the book highly recommend you guys if you haven't read Traction by Gino Wickman. It's the entrepreneur operating system. It's essentially, it's a structure and it's the guts of the business, you know. So with EOS, we have our level 10 meetings, which are 90 minutes once a week. We have our daily huddles, which are short 15 minute meetings. We have quarterly meetings, annual meetings. And essentially it takes you through like, we hired I hired on EOS implementer. And it was a three day process where we went through our VTO, which is the vision traction organizer. And you start by getting clear on what are your core values, right? Why does the business exist? And it has to be so much more than just making money. What's your PCP or purpose, your cause and your passion? And then you get into your 10 year strategy and your tenure vision. You get into your five year vision and then you break it down to your one year vision. And then from there and I realize I'm kind of going quickly through it. You have quarterly rocks that are intended to get you to your one year goals and your 1 year vision. So read the book Traction. It's I wouldn't call it a quick, easy read. There's a lot to it. And I haven't found anybody that has successfully implemented EOS on their own. So we decided to pay a pretty penny and hire an EOS implementer. And it's been huge for our business.

Joe:So you can hire somebody and is still a good idea for a smaller business. Three, four people. It's still a good process to go through.

Alex: Yeah, I think if you read traction, they tell you that typically it's for teams of like five to 10 or more. So I don't know that you need EOS per say. I don't think. Matter of fact, I'll tell you, I don't think you do need EOS, but you do need some sort of operating system. You need some sort of structure within the business. But definitely if you have a handful of team members, I think it's something you can greatly benefit from.

Joe: I'm in the middle of reading Clockwork Right Now by Mike McCallowitz. That's the guy who did Profit First. He's awesome. And it's a little it's like the EOS type of a thing, but from a different perspective. Yeah. All right. So how are you shifting things as we go forward in the market now? I mean, we were talking about this earlier, getting a little harder to find. We're coming out of a seller's market into a buyer's market, right? Yeah, I believe so. It was easy to find. Byerly it's hard to find several leads is probably gonna be coming where it's easier to find seller leads and it is buyer leads. How are you shifting and preparing for that?

Alex: Right now we're starting to place and this is when I say starting, I'm talking like within the last week we've had more of a shift on focusing on buyers. We got to be honest, Joe, we kind of got lazy. When we got a deal, they were selling themselves. I mean, we were it was almost embarrassing how quickly we were selling certain properties. There's others that require more legwork, don't get me wrong. But sometimes we would send a text message to one of our top buyers. I'll take it. Paperwork is over in less than an hour. Deposits and by the end of the day and we're closing two weeks later. I mean, it was that simple. And now we're having conversations with those same top buyers. And some of them are kind of cautious. They're like, we're on the sidelines right now until this plays out. And we kind of got lazy continuing to build our cash buyers list. And then like you said, I think acquisitions is going to become a little easier and I think dispositions might be more challenging. So we're just being more active with sourcing buyers. We're doing bandit signs. Believe it or not, as old school as that sounds, bandit signs have always pulled cash buyers for us. We're going out there. If you go to real-estate-agent.com. You can buy a list of all the realtors in the country or just a particular section. And we're reaching out to the realtors that have been involved in that. The buyer's agents who have sold the property to a cash buyer in the last six months to twelve months. We're developing relationships with them.

Joe: How are you doing that? Are you calling them?

Alex: Yeah, we're calling of them. We're emailing them and we're sending a text message campaign. And what are you saying to them? Yeah, we're just hey, we're local homebuyers here. We buy with cash. We're not here to waste your time. We want you to represent us. Okay. So we want you to get the commission and we can act quickly. Here's our proof of funds we send them. So that they know we're serious. And then we always like to follow up with the phone call and say, hey, here's what way I know you get solicited. I know you get tons of like blind offers. Here's why we're different. And honestly, we just we're thinking long term. We want to build a relationship with you. And if you send us a property, we'll get back to you the same day and we'll let you know why it works or why it doesn't.

Joe:So are you contacting them to find deals or to find buyers?

Alex: Both, both. So when we have since we're on the phone with them already, we tell them, hey, we're actively always looking to buy. And the deals that don't fit our criteria, we always sell them off. We wholesale them essentially.

Joe: I love that. That's a great way to approach realtors. So they know you're serious.

Alex: Yeah. So we always say if it doesn't fit our buy box or our criteria, you know, we sell them to other cash buyers. I saw that you sold this property on one to three Main Street. You know, do you think you have other buyers that might be interested in properties like that?

Joe: Now, you don't make those calls yourself or you outsourcing that to a V.A. or acquisitions.

Alex: Yeah. Adrian, one of our team members is making that and I'm rolling up my sleeves and jumping in and making those calls, too. Yeah, we have we have a smaller team now, so it you know.

Joe: All right. So you're being more active, proactive with finding buyers. You're using signs, contacting realtors. What else?

Alex: Yep, contacting realtors. Again, look for cash buyers who have bought properties. So absentee landlords, you know, are a pretty good source of buyers. You can do a direct mail campaign if you got a list source, if you got to a… There's a number of tools out there where you can essentially get a list of absentee landlords or people that have bought properties cash where skip tracing them, you know, using we use Batch Skip tracing for that. There's a number of sources out there and then we're texting or calling them.

Joe: By the way, I’m just talking to Rob Swanson. He is adding into freedom, soft and raii simple. In the next few weeks, a way to Skip Trace LLC, which I'm so excited about.

Alex: That's the best. So we actually it's funny that you said that because right now with our with our skip tracing provider, I don't believe we can skip TraceLLCs. So we have our virtual assistant in the Philippines just to five to 10 minutes worth of research on the LLC. And she's usually pretty good at like seven out of 10 times, eight out of ten times she'll find the website or contact information and then we just call them directly.

Joe: That's great. And you can also, for those of you out there, don't have a VA to do that. You can also just go to fiverr and do a search on fiverr for L.L.C., skip tracing and you'll get 20, 30, 40 different companies that will do that different. Right.

Alex: You know, what's another thing, Joe, that admittedly we haven't done? Because honestly, I'm not, I'm not 100 percent sure how I feel about it. Maybe I'd like to get your thoughts on it. I know a couple of guys locally here that have built massive buyers lists. I'm talking tens of thousands of buyers. Now granted, a small percentage of those are probably active, but all they do is swap less with each other. Hey, I'll give you my buyers list. You give me yours. I don't know how I feel about that. So we haven't done it. But I know guys that have done it and have built a big, big buyers list.

Joe: Yeah. I mean, that's good. But like, what do you do with that list? You still have to talk to them, right. So you've got to find some way to call them or reach out to them. Yeah. So some wonder, too, with buyers, you need to understand the importance of a personal connection with buyers, you know, because typically you only sell your deals to your five or 10 most active buyers. But every. I mean, I can't tell you how many times we have sold multiple deals to buyers. And they tell us over and over again, you are the only guys who answer your phone. That's crazy to me. Isn't that insane? Like for some reason as investors, it's hard, we're hard to get a hold of and I'm guilty of that. But like especially your buyers, it's more important than ever that somebody answers the phone and talks to your buyers. It's more important than having somebody answer the phone for seller leads. You should have both. But like. Yeah. That's really, really critical.

Alex: The other thing we do, Joe, really quick and this is a simple tip, it won't cost you any money at all. Really is whenever you guys are out there and you contract vacant properties, put one or two bandit signs on the yard of the property. Now, you might want to talk to the seller and get sign off on that so you don't have any issues. But if they're out of state, usually it's not an issue and you'll pick up five, 10 calls a week just off of one or two signs on the lot of a house that you already have under contract or even maybe a house that you own. So right now, some of the simplest, easiest marketing channels are right under our nose and we don't even really think about it.

Joe: You have a funny bandit sign that you use what he what does your sign say?

Alex:So this is a sign that I told Joe this yesterday. I'll caution you. You're going to get a lot of interesting calls. And if you can record them, it's hilarious. But we have an 18 by 24 bandit sign that the headline is Sleep with me, cash only and the phone number. And when I tell you your phone is going to melt, it will melt. It's a house. Sleep with me, right?

Joe: I mean, do you at least put like two bedroom, four bedroom, two bath on there.

Alex: Nope, sleep with me, cash only. And the phone number. That's it.

Joe: There's a sign that we use sometimes and it just says four bedroom, two bath. I'll take anything. Phone number. That's good. Works well, too. All right. Can we talk about private lenders for a second? Do you have private lenders that you've been working with in the past? Where do you get the money to buy your deals? And are you seeing the private lenders kind of pullback right now?

Alex:So let me answer the second part of the question first. Yes, I am seeing some of the lenders that I work with pullback. And I think this is critical during this time communication and I dare say over communication is essential. You have to communicate whether it's good news, bad news or no news, communicate. Keep the lines of communication open. Talk to your buyers. Talk to your lenders. Find out how they're moving forward, you know, because different people have different mentalities and different business models, et cetera. So, yes, I am seeing someone. Now, having said that, there's one or two that are like, you know, business as usual. Let's continue to move forward. If you have an opportunity, bring it to me. But I'd probably say a good 70, 80 percent of them are just being a little bit more cautious. And then what was the first part of your question, Jill? Are you using private lenders and not or not? Well, I'm not for our wholesale deals. I am for other types of properties like rentals and things of that nature. And so we double close. We don't assign properties. Very rarely do we assign property. So we have an AB contract. We have a BC contracts. And we disclose in our BC contract that we're going to use the end buyer's funds for our AB transaction. And we have you know, we have a title company. We have multiple title companies that have signed up.

Joe: And when you still double you double close with your buyers, end buyers money.

Alex: Correct, and this and this is interesting. There's a lot of controversy around this because I've talked to title companies and I've talked to people that say, no, that's illegal or you have to use transaction funding or whatever the case. And we've taken this up the chain. I've talked to multiple attorneys that say as long as you disclose it and it's cash, you can do that. But I'm not giving any type of legal advice. All those disclaimers, talk to a local real estate attorney, obviously.

Joe: Here's the thing. Bottom line, there's nothing there's no law against borrowing money to close on a deal. So why not borrow money for a few seconds, for a few minutes from your end buyer to close on the deal? That's all you're doing, right? Right. Pay them a little interest or something or they waive the interest. I don't know. But like, there's ways to do it. And if you found the title company that says you can't do it, then find another title company and keep on asking until you do. Bingo. People do it all the time. And with the cash transaction, again, it's crazy. Like you talk to the right title company and they're like cash, no big deal. Just disclose. It's like, what's the big deal? So you get that title company you want to find, right? That's right. Yeah. OK. Are you going to be more actively pursuing new private lenders or are you good for now or what's your plan with that?

Alex: We have a good five to 10 private lenders that we can tap into. But yes, similar to buyers. Don't make the mistake that I/we made where like you get comfortable with your like top whatever top buyers, top lenders, because eventually that might dry out. You know, so here's the bottom line, Joe. I think you always want to be putting out and letting people know what you do. So if I was to go into your marketplace and people don't know who you are and what you do, I think you need to be more intentional about going out there. When somebody thinks of a house or when they think of real estate, your name, your business should come to the top of their mind. That's when you know you're doing it right. And you do that by putting yourself out there, which for many people can be uncomfortable. And, you know, a while back, that was uncomfortable for me. But you've got to break through that fear. Nobody. If people judge you, who cares? A, but B, just put yourself out there. Be yourself. Let people know what you do. Lead with your heart. Lead from a place of service and wanting to help others and everything else is going to take care of itself. I really believe that.

Joe: Let's talk about your mastermind. Every time you post these stupid pictures of you and this big, exotic, beautiful beach, I was like, stop it. I'm like, here I'm stuck in. I love where I live. I'm just get jealous and I'm being funny. You got this really cool mastermind that you're doing with Steve Cavanaugh, mutual friend. So I was joking about calling those pictures stupid. None. I hate when people..don’t stop posting them. OK. All right. But you're invited any time you want to come. What did you start that for?

Alex:So we started that kind of a quick funny story. Steve and I are part of the same mastermind group. And remember, I told you at the beginning of the show how I built this machine and I started to suck some of the joy out of the business for me. I felt, Joe, and this might sound weird to some people, to others, that they're going to understand. I kind of felt like God was tapping me on the shoulder and was literally speaking to me saying there's something bigger and better for you out there. You know, other than just doing deals and deals and deals and deals. And then I started to work with my coach. I started to pray about it. And Steve and I were in a mastermind. And he was kind of transitioning out of his local Maryland REA, and he wanted to take his coaching business to another level. And long story short, him and I were kind of thinking the same thing. I said I would love to launch a hybrid mastermind and coaching program because I've gotten so much benefit from both. But I'm a part of a high-level mastermind, but there's no coaching. And then I've worked with coaching. But then I have to go somewhere else for the mastermind. I said I'd love to create a hybrid group of the right people, something small and intimate. But here's the thing. I didn't want to just focus on real estate and making more money. I wanted to work with people that wanted to better their lives and had a desire to impact other people.

Alex: So long story short, in June we launched Ascend which is a hybrid masterminded coaching group which is focused on life and business. So it's for entrepreneurs. It's not just real estate investors. Because of our audience it has a good 80 percent of the people are in the real estate space. But I had coached people in the past, Joe, and when it's not the right person, it makes a difference between having fun and not having fun, at least for me. And so when we got really clear on our core values and the type of person we want to work with now, I feel completely different about coaching and running that group with Steve. So it's a passion. We meet three times a year. There's ongoing monthly coaching and it's awesome to know that you're pouring into someone's life, but you're not having to hold their hand because they're already at a certain point.

Joe: You do some cool trips where you actually help do missions work. What do you call those trips that you do?

Alex:Yes. So that's something Steve Cavanaugh runs is called Master Mission. So it's combining it's we spent half the day masterminding in Guatemala and we spend the other half doing mission work and getting out there. And this is in Antigua, Guatemala. And I'll tell you this, if you have never done a missions trip that needs to shoot to the top of your list, that will give you so much perspective and insight on what really matters. Joey, it gives me chills thinking about it. When we went to Guatemala last year, there's people that live on dirt floors in a 10 by eleven, ten by twelve space. Five, six family members living in that space. And yet they're so grateful. They have so much appreciation for life. They have so much love and zest for life. And here we are. And, you know, we might pull up at a Starbucks drive through window and, you know, go off and complain because they gave us the wrong coffee or they gave us too much ice. Yeah, it's. And by the way, I'm… I'm not like that. I don't know. I'm guilty, too. I'm sorry. So a man it just it gives you perspective. And when you do when you do something for others, you just feel different and things change, at least for me.

Joe: Oh, I forgot about our comments. And look at look who showed up. Look at a typical structure that only Chico would put from the land of milk and honey. And, you know, he's got a dirty mind. And I don't even want to talk about what he's thinking about. I love that guy. Man, Chico's the best. Dennis, what's up? Lease options are about to pick up. All right. You got Alex here from Raleigh, North Carolina. Roddick Roderick from Atlanta, Georgia. Love it out there. Dennis, thank you. Keep up the good work. Appreciate that. All right. Should I, Chris made another comment. I think I can show this one. Let's do it. The best 1.5. So. All right. Who is the half, Chris? Who is the half? Put you on the spot. You saw. That's what I got.

Joe: Yeah, whatever. I'm interviewing him later today to Keith's kind of. Good question. I'm gonna bring it up in a minute. Aaron from Fort Worth. What's up, Bobbie? These sessions are very good. Keep them coming. Appreciate that. Mario's gotta a good question here about calculating offers. Will cover that in a minute. Bobbie's York, New Jersey. What's going on? But has another question. Bobby is also saying here, wholesalers don't answer their phones. That's right. Bobby Jam. What a great name. Do you know JP?

Alex: Of course. JP's, my guy. I love him.

Joe: I love JP. He's the best. Glad you're here. Yes. This is a normal I don't get this many guys that I know, friends on the podcast. So, Alex, you did something. You did it, not me. All right. So we got some good questions. Do you mind if I bring them up and ask you? Let's do it. Like, first of all, what is Chico mean by Florida? Land of milk? No, wait. Never mind. Yeah. I'm not going to answer, though. I know the answer, but I'm going to do it.

Joe: Keith here I'm in Hammond, Indiana, with the moratorium on foreclosures now or soon. How will that affect the ones that have tenants in their properties when they don't pay because of hardships? I think he's might be asking about lease options specifically. But I wanted to ask you, Alex, what are you seeing now in Florida? Are they putting some moratoriums on foreclosures? And they're also sometimes saying we're putting a moratorium on evictions. They're telling landlords you can't evict right now. What are you seeing?

Alex:So we're seeing I'm not seeing anything on foreclosures, at least not yet, unless I've missed something in the last 24 hours, because it feels like things are unfolding by the minute. Obviously, they're putting a pause on evictions. And what I heard is that right now, I think it's 60 days. I think that might be extended out for six months is what I'm hearing. And one of the things that we have done in reaching out to my tenants and others in a mastermind group that I'm a part of is, they're being very proactive about reaching out to tenants, not to give them a green light, not to paint, but just to keep the lines of communication open and say, hey, listen, we understand this is going on as far as like putting a pause in evictions. We still expect you to pay your rent. If for whatever reason there's a hardship, we expect you to come to us. Let's figure something out. But then again, I've talked to other people that are kind of not communicating with tenants and they're expecting they're going to pay. So I don't know. I don't know what the right or wrong answer is. We like to over communicate. So I think reaching out or having your property management company reach out to the tenants. But it's going to be an interesting time. Here's what I'll tell you. There's going to be a lot of motivated landlords, so reach out to them.

Joe: And especially you all in Florida. How many motivated former Airbnb owners or current Airbnb owners are going to be getting budget right now. They're. It's sad. They're getting crushed. They've got their first mortgage payment coming up in a week. As when we're as it as we're recording this since this all kind of hit the fan. And yeah, I think there's going to be a big opportunity. My prediction with landlords and Airbnb owners who have ridiculous low interest rates in the threes and the fours to buy properties either subject2 or owner finance Rapp's or land contracts or lease options and hold them for the long term, you know, turn them into rental properties because people always need a roof over their head. Let things calm down over a few months here. People move. They get job transfers. Life happens. They people will need a roof over their heads. And the population of the US is growing. So there will always be a need for single-family housing. No need to panic because there will always be a need. But my point is I'm predicting that these landlords that are getting in trouble, Airbnbs, you're gonna be a lot of opportunity coming up. That's why what we were talking about before. It's important now more than ever to be marketing for buyers. Yes, tenant buyers, owner, occupant, owner, financed buyers, cash buyers. You need to be the ones who are good going forward and marketing for buyers. My plan is to do a lot more content over this over the next few weeks and months about this on my podcast. But teaching how to find the good buyers, those are the ones that are going to succeed going forward. I really think it's important.

Alex:So you bring it up while you're bringing up the next question, I think. One other thing I want to throw in that's kind of relevant to this conversation is now's the time to let other wholesalers and agents and people in your marketplace know that you're actively buying. And if you happen to be in a position where you're well-capitalized or you have access to funds, let other wholesalers know, hey, if you can't take this through over the goal line and pass the finish line, there's opportunities to collaborate in joint venture if you have resources that others might not have.

Joe: Yeah, very good. Okay. Mario, it's a good question here. How do you calculate offers for cash flowing properties wholesaling virtually. How do you like to make your offers?

Alex: I know we don't do the male formula that whole 70 percent, you know, 70. We don't do that. We just simply and this might be oversimplistic. We look at cash sales and we look at cash sales and we want to be right below the cash sales, 5, 10, 15, 20 grand below the cash sales. Now, granted, if you're in a particular you're looking at a subdivision or zip code that maybe doesn't have cash sales, maybe instead of three months, expand it out six to twelve months, usually you're gonna be able to find cash sales. If not, then you can you know, you can use the male formula. But quite honestly, we just look at the cash sales and we want to be right below. That's really good.

Joe: I learned this from Tom Carroll. You take the lowest three to five cash sold to investors in the last six months. Whatever you can find and then average them. Multiply that by 80 percent. Real simple, quick and fast. That'll get you right below what investors are paying for. And then you add on your 10 grand and then look at your active competition, your active listings. Are you still going to be below the actives in that area? Yep. And then go with that.

Alex: You know, it's another thing that we do. We look at our assessed value on Miami-Dade dot gov. Usually the assessed value, which is a lot lower than the actual value is in the ballpark of where we need to be. So sometimes if we want to just do a quick and dirty, we'll go look at the assessed value on the county recorder's site.

Joe: Nice. Good. And you get sold data from Zillow, Redfin, MLS. I really like Redfin in Florida. Seems like they're tied in pretty closely with the MLS. You can get data from them. So when you bought your properties in Ohio, did you do the same thing? When you just look at what other investors are paying for and you were a little below that.

Alex: Yeah. Now, granted, when I went into Ohio, the idea wasn't to wholesale, although I did wholesale. So we picked up four deals off of that one campaign. I wholesaled two of them. And I kept two of them as a rental. When it's a rental, you're looking at cash flow, you know, so we take we take the gross rents. We multiply that times twelve. We usually take 40 percent off the top, you know, for property taxes, insurance, maintenance, property management. And then we try to be at at least a 10 cap or higher.

Joe: What about buyers for lease options? Should be wary. Well, no, I don't think so. But just to get in, like with any kind of deal, you're gonna need to be focusing more on marketing for buyers. And if you've got a good deal, you'll find them. But you want if you're doing if you're trying to find buyers for lease options, you want to make sure you're working really good with a closely with a mortgage broker that can help you tell you if this person has a good shot of getting a mortgage in six to twelve months. All right. So just a couple more questions here. Alex has a question. What's a good way to market for buyers and vetting them? We talked about this before. Well, you're doing marketing for buyers right now is signs, bandit signs. Good old fashioned, ugly, handwritten bandit signs, agents contacting agents being proactive. And what else?

Alex: Yeah, contacting the cash buyers who have bought properties in the last six to twelve months, skip trace them and then load them into a tax software service or just smile and dial. It's excellent. Very good. And Bobby's saying, thanks, guys. You're welcome. Is that his real name? That is an amazing Nabi Jan and I love that.

Joe: I like that name, too. Cool. So you're mastermind, by the way, Alex. How can people get more information about that?

Alex: Thanks, Joe. Yes. AscendYourSuccess.com. We are almost full. And just a quick, short video on the application process. It sounds great. Yeah, you got it. Then this thing is awesome. I love this.

Joe: AscendYourSuccess.com, AscendYourSucces.com. That's right. And there's an application process right there. There's an application process to get in there.

Alex: Yeah. Exactly. Well, Steve and I will hop on the phone with them. It's not a sales call. We don't even make any decisions just to kind of find out more about the person, make sure it's a good fit on both ends. That's good.

Joe: And you do three meetings a year. Monthly coaching as well. That's right. And you just go to pretty cool locations.

Alex:Yeah. So right now we're keeping in south Florida. So we bounce back and forth between Miami, who in June will be in Miami and then West Palm. So Miami, West Palm, Miami, West Palm. What what's going on?

Joe:Can I get you any masterminds in St. Louis, Missouri? What's wrong with you guys?

Alex: Ah man. I'll leave that to you. I'll leave it to you. Nothing wrong with St. Louis. Beautiful city, by the way. I love it. But I don't know. It's just it's a little warmer out here.

Joe: All right, man. Hey, Alex, I appreciate you being on the show. Now your podcast is Flip Empire. Yeah. Show everybody right now. Please go to your podcast player. Your Apple podcast and look up Alex podcast. The Flip Empire Show. Subscribe to it. Check it out. And if you interested in working closely with Alex and Steve Cavanaugh, which I've had on the show a couple of times before, Steve's a good friend of mine back going back years and years. Great guy. He's got an amazing story. His first deal was really hilarious. But if you want to work closely with those two cool guys, good to AscendYourSuccess.com. Check out their mastermind of man. You gave us a lot of really good tips today, Alex. I appreciate it. Lot of good things to think about. Really things good things we can take action on and actually implement, which is super cool. I appreciate that.

Alex: Yeah, I appreciate you having me on again. Yours was one of the first or second one that I subscribe to. Back in '11 when I didn't know what a podcast was. So it's awesome to be on the show, brother. Thank you.

Joe: Cool. I appreciate it. All right, guys, we will see you all later. Take care. Thanks a lot.