From Broke to CEO: Alex Montagano’s Blueprint for Real Estate Success

I think a lot of people look at real estate now as this like sexy business and this area where it's like you scroll through Tik Tok and you get all these reals put in front of you about how real estate makes you rich and what that whole world is like I didn't have an option for a job I was not going back to the quote unquote real world of corporate America and I called a buddy my buddy helped me move and when he helped me move he was like man I'm so embarrassed for you this is pathetic what's a matter with you um I was like oh while you're at it I need $5,000 all right welcome back to the roots podcast where we talk about planting roots and Building Wealth in Indianapolis and elsewhere today we're here with Alex montagano Alex montagano is a realtor a business owner he owns lockstep realy Which is the number one exp uh team in Indianapolis they do a crap tonn of volume of realy sales um also a real estate investor has a residential portfolio and uh just a good friend and Mentor so thanks for coming on Alex awesome thanks for having me we're excited to uh jump in love I've been looking forward to this episode because this is going to be the closest to where Tyler and I are headed I think captured uh we had rex on call back to Rex episode Rex is just in 300 doors like I don't even want that that's too much and uh I'm excited to jump in what's the point in your background becoming a realtor that you realized you didn't want to be a solo preneur and you wanted to build a business yeah so I'll go back a little further and I think it's fun to jump into this but um I think a lot of people look at real estate now as this like sexy business in this area where it's like you scroll through Tik Tok and you get all these reels put in front of you about how real estate makes you rich and what that whole world is like and um I dabbled a little bit in real estate when I was in college I worked for uh somebody that owned a substantial amount of real estate around Butler University and I was a leasing agent for him but when I got into the corporate world when I got out of college I really struggled with the idea of like here's the box of what corporate world looks like fit in it or will make you fit in it and that worked for a while when I was in my early 20s and I job jumped a little bit and when I got into real estate um I got in with three main goals and I think it's important to cover this because it helps pave the way and tell the story but the three main goals were one I wanted to build a Recession Proof business I was getting in the business in 2012 when all the stories and conversations that everybody had was man back in 2009 and 2010 you'd go six months without a sale save your money keep your money and it was like man it's not like this in the market now and so you're learning that so one was Recession Proof business build a business big enough that you can withstand any changes of Market two if the time and when the time came to be a husband I wanted to be able to be president I I had a front row seat my mom and dad growing up they had a great relationship they raised me and my brother really well they were at all of our stuff they poured into us as parents and we were very fortunate on that front and I know it's not like that for everybody so I was like if I can build this if you get to create a real estate business however you want and you could build this I want that and then number three when I have kids I want to be a present dad and honestly for probably from 2012 to 2018 2019 I had no time leverage like I had an admin that worked with me I didn't have a team I started floating some leads to some agents to be like I have more leads than I know what to do with but I don't really want a team um but I was doing between and 17 and 18 I think I was doing like 60 to 70 deals and a lot of that was by myself um so you're doing all this business you're making all this money and then when it's time to enjoy it you're doing all these deals and you're making all this money and then it's like I need to enjoy it and so what I would say is I got married in 2020 we were a covid wedding in October and like I knew there were there were two things the first thing in 201 18 I had I was doing a deal with a business business colleague of mine Daniel leaper who you guys know I had a client who was a friend of my now wife and we were buying Daniel's house I did not know Daniel he was a new realtor and I was hammering this offer out at the dinner table telling Daniel you're going to take this deal my client's the best buyer and I'm the best agent you need to sign this and my wife is sitting across from me eating dinner with me that she made looking at me going can you put it away for like 10 minutes and if you knowen like those aren't like she's awesome she gives me a ton of Runway to be myself and and to work how I love to work but when she talks it's super important to her so it's was like this is that whole side of like present husband that I'm trying to build towards that I'm feeling this like I don't know how I'm going to fix this so hearing that was like I have to fix this 20120 2019 2020 assembly of a team starts happening but 2020 at my wedding on the party bus after the wedding getting ready to cut it Loose with like all my best friends and everything I get text from attendant hey there's a house on uh I think it was in Devonshire we really want to see it and I'm like I answered and was like guys I have an agent that will call you they'll take care of it I'm literally in the process of getting married we just talk to them I'll I'll talk to you in a couple days and at that point I knew was like I have to fix this um but if you look at me as a how I run my business I'm somebody that's like I'm really good at developing relationships building lead funnels uh gaining trust and closing business that's something I did very well the systems the op operations the organization stuff horrible hate it not something I ever enjoy and I still don't do it so it's like I needed to have a team for the time leverage and it was probably like the like the nail and the coffin was like 2020 after the wedding it was like you can't keep doing this yeah on well in your story I just have to say this I literally feel like you were just saying my story yeah I was going to say that was October 2023 for me right and that was 2022 for me in a nutshell you know what I mean yeah when did so when did you have your your yeah son I had my son um December of 2023 yeah so and then yours was like 6 months ago right months three months golly can't believe you're here getting married and having kid makes you have to get organized as a entrepreneur in real estate and a realtor it it makes you have to level up your systems and boundaries and your client expectations it's a really good thing but it's not easy and it does make a dent in your business availability it is like and morina I had twins in 2022 in the summer and look like we were the market was good the rates hadn't really done what they've done and jumped up until that point and so we had twins everything changed Big Time overnight then and then the market moved and it was like it made driving business and having more opportunities more substantial because of what the rate changes were they were putting people out of the market I mean rates went from 3 to eight so fast right um and the systems and the processes and what we've done is we took the path of like and like I love the idea of inspiring agents and people to help them achieve and accomplish things they never thought they could do by increasing your level of Tolerance and will for struggling through what you think you can't do and so it's like I want to sell 10 houses and this was a conversation I had with Daniel when I just met him and it's a fun exercise I always do and I could do it with you guys I think it would be fun but it was like Daniel how many houses do on a sale next year he was like 24 to a month and I was like that's awesome man what if you sold just 40 and he was like yeah but dude like 24 or two a month it's fine and I was like but if you sold 40 the output of 40 is only 1. 5 extra homes a month so instead of doing two you do three and a half your life's really on a workload not that much different if you can be efficient what you're doing but boy 16 extra houses how much money do you make per deal he's like I make this like what would you do with all of that extra money how could you invest it how could you pay off debt what would that do for your family and so like those are the exercises I love to do as a team lead um but yeah yeah um I want to go back because you are a very good realtor like I know without a shout out of doubt if I wasn't in real estate came across you met Ro for coffee I would hire you yeah thank you I'd probably be working with a team member but still get some level access to you and that'd be fine and danandy I don't think I'd have a problem with that but um you build trust exceptionally quickly and you know your stuff you know the market but when did you know you were going to be a realtor and when did that light Bob click like oh this is I'm really good at this and I want to do this yeah so uh 201 11 um I had a job at the Pacers I was selling season tickets we were in the midst of the NBA lockout and I was on I was a salaried employee with a commission structure and the commissions were paid when you could collect the full amount of season tickets and an NBA lockout happened and so they could only passay a salary and then that we were collecting deposits so deposits uh salary was 25 Grand I was like hey if I collect all these deposits when do I get paid the real money like all the commissions and they were like you're smart enough to ask you're smart enough to figure out that until the season opens up and people start paying for tickets we can't do this so I left and took an opportunity at exact target at the time they were the Trailblazer of the tech space um people were making unbelievable amounts of money in the SAS space and I was like man this is I could sell a catchup popsicle to an esimo what you know white glove woman yeah so I go there seven interviews and I get a job I pull all the strings to get the work everybody calls in the favors it was it was like the last ask of people I had and um I get in there and like the first day I was like nope this is not what this is not what I should be doing and I knew I was in a bad spot and I was at a phase of my life when I was really immature so like take the idea that I picked a wrong passion to pursue then I got it and then I couldn't even give it the energy and the time that it deserved to see it through I was immediately like heck no I got to get out of here and so I was like trying to learn and TR just failing miserably and was like you know what I so it would have been that I started there in November and in January I texted a a real estate guy that I knew from selling season tickets who had told me anywhere anytime any place I'll give you a job and guarantee you'll make 100 Grand if you follow the systems I make and I was like well I'm not going to make the money at exact target that they're telling everyone so 100 Grand that was like the metric and that's always a metric that young folks use like I want to make figures so I was like I'll just call him so I called him up like hey remember me he's like call my assistant set a lunch we'll talk about it and so that was uh like January or February of 2012 um I left exact target at the close of first quarter so it was uh March 31st of 2012 I went to a n-day real estate course and got in after that and I knew at that point that it was my four fourth job since graduating from college in 2009 so we were April of 2012 and it was my fourth job and you know we live in a different time job jumping was not a thing back then you couldn't just leave a job and get a raise leave a job and get a raise people looked at your resume and was like why don't you stay anywhere and so I knew I don't have a lot of favors to call anymore I didn't have as the network I should have had I knew I was in trouble with the idea of like this needs to stick and to answer your second question getting in the business in April of 2012 um I did what a lot of Realtors do I enjoyed the freedom I'd wake up at 8:30 I live down on the canal I'd run on the canal in the mornings eat my breakfast watch sports center hang out make my way to the Century 21 office around noon forget my computer go home and call it a day and it's like all of the sudden uh it was like August or September and I remember looking at my bank account I had no pendings I had no clients no clue and I had enough money in my bank account to cover what one month's living was and look I was 25 living fast going to bradpole you know taking advantage of kill Roy's deals on Mondays and Tuesdays and Saturday you know we've all been there and I had to get a loan from a friend I had to move out of my Canal apartment and uh when I moved the whole like mentality of like I didn't have an option for a job I was not going back to the the quote unquote real world of corporate America and I called a buddy my buddy helped me move and when he helped me move he was like man so embarrassed for you this is pathetic I can't what's the matter with you um I was like oh while you're at it I need $5,000 because I have no plan of money and I don't believe in credit card debt and I couldn't have got a business loan I couldn't have got anything because I didn't have any streams of income or sources of anything and he gave me five grand and was like get your stuff together I don't care if you ever pay me back just I just want to see you do better and I knew at that point that was octo October of 2012 I knew like back was against the wall and then it was like I was stuffed in a corner big time at that point and I stopped all the the crap that I was doing so I cut out going out I cut out the fun and I got really focused I started doing tons of expired calls tons of fsbo appointments um which those used to be very common back in 2012 um and then all of a sudden my sphere because I started cleaning up some of my personal Behavior like my sphere started chipping in and in the first half of 2020 or 2013 I could go back and look at the numbers but by the end of like May I'd done $4. 5 Million worth of business taking a pretty nice Chunk on that those were all self-generated leads by hustling and I learned man you can be paid really really well and you could build something really really fast if you and I used to say this real estate is very easy if you're passionate about you do you smile at people and you're super nice and you actually care and listen and so in a industry where that is uncommon which is unbelievable people making the biggest investments in the world all you got to do is be nice and care about them and legitimately Do It um and you make a nice living I knew at that point it was like stay this course stick to this path just keep shaking hands and just keep moving um and I think I'm on to something here I love it that the silence is because that story is so powerful because the discipline that we don't see on the daily even with our own team not anybody on our team currently but the people that have left and come back and been like wait you didn't help me you didn't help me fulfill the sixf figure journey and it's like you showed up with no discipline yeah it is um look you there's there used to be a guy I worked at Century 21 and he would take this huge whiteboard and he'd write all this stuff on it it was like 13 14 15 sources of generating a lead in a transaction in real estate and he was like be really good at like three or four of them and I remember I was like well I'm 25 I don't have this huge sphere of people that have disposable income to buy real estate real estate was not the conversation that it is today I know you guys just did a deal with somebody I think he was 19 years old like that was not a huge thing back back then so I was like what do I do and the guy that his name's Glenn Bill Glenn runs a team in Washington Township ton of success another exp team and he was like for sale by owners expired listings open houses door knock you know for sale by owner fsbo fastest source of business opportunity like and I was broke man like it I I was living on my buddy's money in my crap hole of a duplex like what the heck am I doing as a kid who like I had really my parents shielded me from so they created discipline and behavior but they had no idea how stupid I was like acting and so like I couldn't call them because they my dad would have been like tough get a job I don't care I think the most successful real estate agents are the ones that burn the ships and have to make it y but you find out what you're really made of either you have the self disipline and the consistency and you're a good person and you do really really well I think Max and I both when we decided to get into real estate it was no I'm going to do a part-time job and have this $2,500 a month coming in no like that absolutely just does not work I quit my job making 40K as a teacher no other income was coming in luckily I'd sold my first house and had proceeds Y without that nice little piggy bank which was not like unlimited uh I had infinite motivation to just go out and burn a freaking path through the jungle well don't you remember it was like anytime you get a check early on it's like okay this pays for the rent this pays for the car and then a student loan payment and then I got okay if I go out to Brothers on Tuesday the drinks are only $150 Sunday night yeah yeah exactly you can get Buckets for 10 bucks at you know wherever but well I remember thinking my first uh goal was to match my teacher salary and make 40K and I was like okay it was like 10 homes or something silly easy and then by quarter two of that year I was like oh we're in business like I've already made it and that's when the lights really went on of like oh I'm taking this fully I had to go ahead the cheat code is buying your Runway I mean I tried to get in in 23 doing it part-time while operating uh the GNC business and then buying the GNC business that's when it happened bought the GNC business jumped out of the plane no parachute yeah this new company that's a baby right that needs to to grow up on its own and I'm like I still want to chase after real estate and then you get the wheel going and and you have to you have to cash checks to be able to pay the the SBA loan on the GNC plus the mortgage it's it's such a glamorous industry too from the outside looking in I get more calls about wanting to be an agent than I do to buy a house I think CU they're like oh you're the self-development guy you're going to help me be an agent I'm like sure I'll take your call you know I have to bet those now because it could be Unlimited but uh It's So Glamorous and they see the Instagram stories of me going to appointments and showing houses and they think oh I can do that really quickly they don't know the back end yeah of like 90% time I'm hungry as hell and just waiting for that lead to pounce on and not pounce on that makes me sound like I'm you know I got to force them into something uh but the variable income the stress of having a mortgage and a kid it's a lot well it's still very hard for me well and I think uh um I saw something on Instagram and I've heard this thing and you talked about burning the boats but um like as you get better and I think we all do this in this room I think this why this is conversation is good and why it's valuable for the room and this easy conversation to have but like in 20 when you got in and all you had to do the bar was a $40,000 year salary and then you attained it and then what did you do you raised the bar and you raised the bar again and um I think that is like Beyond mountains there are more Mountains to continue to conquer and there always will be and so the day you hit your number financially or the biggest goal you have as a realtor look goals are just road maps like whether you hit them or not that's a different conversation we can all have but that's not what the point is it's are they are you staying on the path are you still working towards what your promises are delivering on the things that you say you're going to do and that's what makes good entrepreneurs great and it makes others average or poor well it's trying to find Joy while you are in the game celebrating the wins along the way the funny thing is you start off broke you make it you you raise the bar you become obsessed with the bar that you've set that's way too high to achieve you drive yourself mad you end up going oh shoot I have no systems no process I'm doing this all I'm just flying by the seat of my pants my wife's yelling at me to stop working at midnight and you find yourself needing to birth a lock step reality and then what you built that six times and burnt it to the ground and built it again and and figuring out the process what I love about your team is you have admin Realtors that's what I've noticed all over the place so everyone within that is an agent can run their own business so what I ran into is when I initially built the team it was a montagano real estate group and it was I had a brand I had a cache I was doing business things were good I had leads and that's just what we were okay and an agent left my team because it was all about me and your faces and my client sign and I'm like hold on here like my face was in the driveway and in the front yard and in your client's living room signing the contract last week like that this is a team this is how this is designed in real estate like nothing is out of bounds with this and after that guy left the team I think there's always a lesson to learn and how everything goes right so I could have looked at that and been like ah forget it he wasn't a fit for us onward but I thought is there a way to avoid this conversation ever again because coincidentally enough that conversation about my face being in a front yard happened on my honeymoon when I was on the beach in Hawaii and that burned even more it was like this will happen forever um and so when we I went back and I went to a couple guys on the team and I was like Hey what if what are your thoughts on something like this and they're like what about the montago group and what about this and I called a somebody that is on my personal board of directors people that I value in the conversation that if it's a critical thing and I'm going to ask I used to ask a 100 people now I ask like five so I went and I asked him and he said yeah what if you talk to a brand consultant built something totally different that was bigger than yourself that could scale and be a real thing down the road and I was like oh cool yeah I'll talk to him so I talked to this guy and he was like hey I got an idea and we built lockstep but it's built like people Tak an affiliation and say Alex and lockstep are like similar one and the same but if you peel the onion back further and further you have a bunch of agents who are running different styles of business because real estate is no longer fsbos expired door knocking open houses y y it you could do a million different things so we have a bunch of people that specialize in what they want to do M you just better stick to our core values you better work your tail off be passionate about what you do and represent our brand to the fullest and you can build your brand however you want and our agents get to Showcase themselves which is somewhat uncommon on teams in our real estate industry yeah in business development Lane so that's around 21 lockstep is born lockstep started Construction in 21 launch 22 okay February 22 so you're hitting a time in the market where light people up you close and everybody can build their own business I'm seeing a shift into 25 in building a team obviously we're super early on in our team we're almost at like that montago group moment where it's like wait are we I mean we are we're down to to bones at point and well you build it up and it falls down you build it up and then you don't like the direction you look at it and you entrepreneurial conversation of today sucks and the next day is we've got it all figured out we're on the journey and you go back and forth back and forth every day months yeah yeah we got it yeah but I feel like this uh individual relationship business is the model of I would say like an era of 18 to 23 is and we've like turned a new corner where we're almost going back to that systematic admin business what I when I look at lock step I see you have role players and individual businesses and I think you hit the right time to be able to build that yeah where you can go a little bit wider and have the platform and the brand where we're struggling with roots is we've done that agents have picked up left taking their business what are we left with y a whole chunk of our business gone yep um so we're like toying with okay how do we get everybody to kind of man their station go back to um they can put their sign it won't be I don't have signs with my face on it but yeah uh it's our generated business and helping people on that blueprint to six figures there's so many ways to it's um I think look there's I I tell this and it's um some self-deprecating truth and humor in this like I got in in 12 the market improved every single year all the way up until covid pretty much I say my business grew every single year but prices go up there's more transactions it's an easier job like I'm not a hero here I'm no superum uh how did you build your rental portfolio we could get into that you want to know how everything I bought I bought between 2015 and now well if you go back 2015 to 2022 before the rates moved you couldn't screw it up you really couldn't and if you're buying to hold or you're buying to move boy if you bought it before 20121 if you bought it you could turn it in a couple months and make 30 40 50 sometimes 100 % so it's like just turning the key in the door exactly yeah and so look I'm the benefactor of some fortune and where we are now is like how do you help others achieve that same opportunity within our team um but also I think like and you guys probably are experiencing this too like are not everybody that walks in the door and works at Roots is going to be like Max and Tyler and they're never going to be and that's like I really struggled with that early on like nobody works like me and and you guys don't get it and now I look at it and it's like no I didn't get it people are coming to me to learn what nuggets they can take from me what environment can I create that's a formidable culture of business growth so people can accomplish what they want when I started I only wanted to make a 100 Grand right as I grew that goal has changed and changed but these agents that are coming making 100 Grand in real estate today is much different than it was in 2012 and so meeting people where they are and then leading them to the next phase and helping them understand how to raise that bar is what a lot of our agents we've been able to help um and I think they're the most appreciative of is that they truly get to be them their authentic selves within a supportive brand what is the full vision of lock step realy uh it's a great question I'm not a big long-term Vision guy but I've said this recently so I'll just say it now we'll be a real estate team that sells a thousand houses um we uh uh one of our numbers guys and a partner of mine A friend of mine has recently come to me and like hey if you look at the mayore top 100 list here's where you fall uh of the people that are ahead of you they have an average of 21 years more experience like I don't really care about that um but what I that doesn't do anything for me but I understand the value that that does for our team so what we've always said is the bigger we make our room at lock step the more opportunities our clients benefit from there's more off-market opportunities today we have a off-market listing it's a duplex that we had five clients through four of our agents brought their buyers through and somebody gets to pick now if that went to the open market you guys know this there's 50 people in that door so it's like creating levels of benefit for our agents you need deals done across the table all the time that's what we're very focused on within investment real estate especially had 17 of 21 of my listings last year 21 listings 17 with a Roots agent or myself that's unbelievable but you know so our goal and I've just said this thousand houses and when I said that the guy was like looking he's like if we do a thousand deals we surpass every new constructive new construction agent on the board he's like we are the highest team and I'm like what four lock steps growth and where our direction is as a business that's fantastic that's amazing and what that means to sell a th000 houses you need to have a room with a powerful culture where everyone's pulling the rope in the same direction and that's been a great it's a fun challenge um like growth makes people uncomfortable agents always think no and this isn't Senator on lock but this is just conversation in general so you guys probably experience this you bring in five new agents and the five agents that exist there what do they think where do my leads go what about me who's how's Max going to have time for me are me and Tyler still going to be able to work out in the mornings is Tyler now going to become corporate you know meeting structure he got a vivid vision of Alex at the gym with 31 agents behind him because that's about how many agents you need producing to hit a thousand yeah I mean look this is exactly it so it's like but if you build the culture strong enough and I have this conversation with our agents it's like everybody was brought to our room by somebody else and who do you want to work with and if you could create an environment that's welcoming to other people you can go hey I want to work with Max here's why Max fits our culture and bringing them in causes hardly any ripple effect and it just puts one more person behind the rope and that's what makes good culture the best and it what make work in our industry doesn't feel like work it's fun you know and it's all culture no TC no just all individual culture it's it's a brand AI can't fix for you social media can't fix for you no uh none of the like all that Tech like yeah people keep talking I had a coffee meeting yesterday the guy talked about AI for like 30 minutes I didn't give one crap cuz like yeah I'll figure it out and like whatever I'll watch some YouTube videos figure out but guess what I'm having coffee meetings with 10 people this week five of them are going to close with me at some point and that's how this still works well you could be having a 100 Zoom meetings right and he's like follow up AI will craft my follow up it's like dude they're going to sff through that BS in my opinion look we so we've leaned into and this is a a great dialogue we've really leaned into um leveraging virtual assistance we have six employees from the Philippines and look with that comes its challenges but again this is about create like I think it's important to step back and understand like what the goal is and all of this and I think if it's like I just want to do more of what I'm passionate about when I want with the people I want to do it with I think that's probably if you like drilled into the core of humanity I feel like that's pretty valuable spend time with the people I love as often as I can without fear of all this other do I have the money and how do I pay my bills and all that stuff right so we have I had a meeting a couple days ago with an agent she's fantastic that meeting was scheduled by my virtual assistant he sent a followup or a confirmation ahead of time and a followup asked her thanking for it she then asked him can I schedule another meeting with Alex and then she text me on the side and said hey this was great so I think like understanding this whole AI world like AI will not replace Realtors it will hinder realtors that do not use AI because you'll be left in the Dust by the people that do so it's like learning what which is every advance right exactly everything that you have to adapt to and I think what you described is uh the ability to have freedom and how do you get there it's pretty simple you need listings you need leads and you need leverage as an agent at least that's the way to get there and you have the listings you have the leads and it it took a while but you got there and you're and you're at like a huge Pinnacle of Leverage to the point of which I think like you say you want to do a thousand doors I don't doubt you yeah CU I'm I'm going to see it happen here's a debate that realators will appreciate should mayore get the team button to track volume where everybody can use it he has his deals I have my deals our numbers but I always look I know you have everything that comes under your license and I look at it I'm like hey if we added ours up we'd be in the top 100 yeah and I think what's again my team came to me in 2022 when we were launching and they were like I think we should write all our business under you because of what it showcases and what's funny is my board does something now where if a deal gets put under Alex and there's a co-agent that's Max the deal's 5050 and the portions are cut in half and so when we ran a calculation my my listing coordinator who isn't he's he's just getting it on the market and we just like I have him do there so he you know people can call leverage right he's got crazy volume his volume is like beating AR he was like he was what the crap he pulled up his his my board and he's like look at at all the pendings I have yeah that's funny it's just all between it's tough I mean look like everybody's building their own business there's always a sense of like pride and your numbers and all those things are important to you um yeah there should be like that way there really should be a team metric then it is really frustrating to your point I have a co-agent on every single deal I don't work with buyers and he inputs all my listings yeah it's uh look I mean look I'm the benefit like if you just go in with shows in myor Alex montago $7 some million well the guy calls me and he's like Alex didn't we do more than that I'm like we did 85 million he's like it says here we only did this many deals and I punched in some numbers and I'm like here's what happened this is what it is and it's like look all that stuff it's important because it gets put in the ibj and it gets put out there as marketing content that then generates opportunity but I think it's important too like what are our goals right my goal is not to be number one like that'll take care of itself if we do and we commit and we stay on track those are just like this is process not result like that's what we drive and I know you guys are big on my stipulations are going to change in the future we know that that's temporary but the relationships and the systems You're Building sure are more permanent you know I think you're doing the right thing there you mentioned something that I just want to ask about which is you have a personal board of directors I'm really curious what is the point of that and what does that look like yeah so um as I've gotten older it's like decision making is tough um there's typically like Financial ramifications behind a lot of stuff that you do as you scale and as you grow your business um there's people in your life that you have interaction with often and so they just become like I would say different a little different than like a list of mentors like I have a couple of people that I can just go talk to when it comes to certain sectors of things and so um as I've built that it's like when a critical thing happens in my life there are just a handful of people that I'm going to go talk to and it's formed over time and what happens is and you guys will experience this and I'm sure you already are it starts this big and then it starts coming in from the sides and then it just becomes here's what it is and um I always use it and what's interesting when I moved to exp in 18 I went to my at the time my personal board of directors and I every single per I I was looking for a reason not to move because I was like man I believe it's this opportunity that I need to take advantage of and called my mom called this called that called this called that everyone's like you need to move and I'm like oh my gosh what the hell so I called my real estate coach and I'm like Dustin just tell me every reason I shouldn't do this he's like run away from this this is a terrible idea yeah and I was like man you're the only guy not only am I thinking about firing you right now but I'm definitely going to move so I make the decision to move he now is an agent at exp which is hilarious um but anyways it was like that has always just helped and what I do then is I can take the perspectives there'll be different opinions in the room there's different levels of professionals it's not like every realtor here has to sell over 50 like every person's a realtor and they have to sell over 50 house a year and I need your opinion it's not that it's this is uh my best friend for 20 years he knows Alex at his soul and this is my wife and my mom and this guy is a business partner I've had for a really long time this guy manages my like that's how this gets built and so um those conversations and then you look at it and go well this is why you're saying that out this is why you're saying that in I'm going to make my decision this way and that's really helped me move and move faster I just know where to go to get the resources that I need to help me get over the humps that we face on the decision side of things decision making is at a high level is really hard I think it's really fascinating to see how some people fly by the seat of their pants and maybe that's their parents or whatever but or their business partner but I think having a almost like a napkin like these are my the people that know me from the core of my identity they know me as an individ idual or a friend not just as a business person I think is hugely valuable and I think that I'm like racking my brain I'm like who would be on mine and like I do have it informally but I'm like maybe I need to implement that and have people giving me that feedback across the Spectrum I think that's really powerful I was going to make a joke but I'll keep that in house you should call them yeah what you should call them and call those people and let them know that they're of directors about to do on the r no just kidding drive home I've just sign this contract cont it is you're in the will um but it's just it makes the idea of critical decisions easy and there's no order and operation with those phone calls but it's like they're the people that into two like the decisions that you're that they're helping you with they don't have vested like the vested interest is in you so they all they want like look my mom just wants all everything to be the best for me and my wife wants me to make decisions that help get our family with a direction that is important to us but then also what is the least pressure mounted situation that Alex is creating so like when I ask when I make decisions sometimes it's like hey Meen what do you think about this and she's like is this going to stress you out it's not like oh my gosh what would this do for our family it's like Alex I just want you to be happy happy and healthy and present and here for us you know as a husband and Dad and so it's like you get a little perspective from everybody um and then the other side of it and I think you guys would agree with this you take all of it and then you evaluate it and sometimes it's just so wired into your core you're going to do what you do because in that moment of decision no matter what everybody else said it's the next version of the boat burning and you're going for it and I exchanged messages with with a good buddy of mine yesterday and we were talking about deployment of capital and investing in Opportunities and I was like yeah man like sometimes you just got to go for it and he was like you always do and he's an incredibly successful business entrepreneur and I'm like oh hell yeah man like that to me is like and and if you look back and you look at like your guys buying GNC like you're going for it then building Roots you're going for it and as like as you're buying properties like look there's never as much money in it as you think and there's never as much money in your bank account as you think and then you do it I mean look when I bought my first duplex in 2015 I remember looking at my bank account and looking at the house and going well 15% of this is everything that's in there but I need to put money into that okay so what pendings do I have okay I'll pay pay the taxes later and then I get the inspection report and I'm like sit down with my buddy he's on my personal board of directors he's like draws all over the sheet shows me all this stuff as the reasons why I should do it and he's like just do not bail on this deal it be the best thing you ever did and I bought that duplex for 275,000 bucks in 2015 on a 30-year rate I owe 190,000 on it it rents for 46 100 bucks a month every single thing is upgraded updated fixed killing it it's in in an a-level neighborhood and I was like this close from jump and ship on it Tyler needs those leases for a comp on something he's buying do serly I'm doing that right now I have a duplex I'm in the middle of buying 330 needs renovation uh 00 block of college yeah and um luckily my dad as my partner so like he's helping with the capital and he's not doing any of the work I'm doing all the the work on it Y and it's going to be a great return for us both but there was this thought of like I'm cash flowing the renovations basically is part of the agreement from rentals and I have some refinance money but it's it's really tight like if hpsc breaks another property like all right there's my savings right um and I'm just like I know in 10 years I will kick myself you have to buy that for not buying it ref on it you have to go that we at a mastermind and everyone was like buy it you have to buy this and hold it and I was like should I flip it cuz I was like maybe I'll flip it get 40 s they were just like go and so it was like you know at a gut level when it's a really good opportunity and you should swing for it and all of us here at this table do that we will swing and sometimes you'll whiff or you foul the ball but it's like at least you swing the bat yeah I think um yeah it's unless you're doing it or you've done it or like the people that you want to be in the rooms with like the biggest people like you guys bring him in here and like you're talking about Rex and like 300 doors and oh my God yeah like to get in those rooms those are the swings you have to take and like he didn't just look we're trained and we're built and we're educated as young folks to get a job get a job that's what they say that's what the your parents say get a job like hey Dad can I have a baseball bat he's like here's a resume get a job like that's how it started when I was 16 years old like but get a job go to college be stable be safe and just base hits your whole life and sometimes like that is an incredible formula for how some people are wired up but you know I've even had this conversation with my wife and I'm like look I can't explain it to you I just have to do this and she's like do you and we yeah we laugh cuz we have that relationship and she trusts me but it's like yes I do and it's like the extra rep at the gym or fin finishing a workout some people if they don't do it they don't think about it they don't care but if you were to miss it you'd remember about it the next time and the next time and you'd be sitting on your bed going to sleep at night going I can't believe I didn't finish that it eats you up inside and like you just got to go for it and I think it gets a little easier to live in that world if you surround yourself with more people that have that idea um and then it helps you make sure going for it is calculated it's not an uneducated flown by the seat of your pants hey I just do this because I'm going for it like no like I'm going for it because this fits my portfolio this is what the cash flow is this is what the short-term pain is this is what the long-term opportunity is holy cow we got to do this in your case it's everything I've said for the past two years is exemplified in this one deal yeah like for your portfolio so it's like yeah Tyler swing it hard Swing Swing the the bad as hard as you can because it's going to end up being a home run yeah um going to the board of advisers it's like this year I was in entertaining trying to do 12 flips I was sitting down doing my goals as we all do and I'm like I want to do 12 flips I went to my board of advisers you know what I came back with hey Max that's a terrible idea you have a baby and a baby company that like both need nourishing this year yep focus on the one thing yep family Roots that's it it's like okay that's where I need to go I'm ready to go run through that brick wall you do a ton of flips or you're entertaining some flips um I you do it at two things you do interesting with them one most of it's cash or Equity two you got your financial adviser CPA whatever he is to closeup shop just work for the flips and lock step yep what's the advantage of how does how does he bring in that partnership yeah yeah so um one there's like a personal understanding of uh that this whole conversation and going for it like he understands my personality so like put some guard rails around those things uh knows when to push and knows when to pull type deal um but what how that came to fruition is a couple years ago 2023 I was doing my own property man I think I probably had 14 15 doors at the time life was great but it was like man I need I want to build a property management company I think or at least some sort of entity to cover my stuff so that sector is free I don't have to touch it anymore and then we could go pick off some other additional doors and he was like hey we could do this one of three ways we can hire Kenny Hall he's great we love Kenny this is easy uh you I can continue to do it and try to build it out over time based on what I'm doing or Russ could get involved and he could get under the hood of the PM side of things and as he got under the hood it was like I'll help you build it out so then we can offboard the roles and responsibility to somebody else well that turned into some project management when you have a tenant leave and destroy your house and it's like we have to put the pieces back together here's a $75,000 renovation um here's all the checks I I can't like look my main source of income is and the best thing I could spend any time doing is leading and working at lock step that is like the job number one but I think when you look at creating additional business income resources it's like well what else do you do well I have a rental portfolio well if I'm paying attention to the rental portfolio it comes at the expense of paying attention a lock step so when he took that over it was like I could pay more attention here I could pay more attention here and so when he came to me with the idea of hey I want to do project management with you and I want to get under the hood at lockstep and understand what levers we can pull to fix he's incredible with systems and operations I am not I don't that a that ain't my jam it ain't going to be my jam um let it be somebody else's and let's employ them to do it this allows me to keep focusing on lock step so early on when he came over it was like hey we finished a couple projects I'm like I don't think this property management thing is something I'm we're going to enjoy um let's get into some flips he's like oo this could be fun like this is like Hands-On one deal sell it one deal sell it one for him it's a lot of numbers yeah numbers and in systems yeah no that's why I wanted to do it all numbers it's all real estate this I will I will you will do this and I love it when the time's right right so you know he's got the financial understanding he's got the personal understanding and then he understands the operative of how to do a flip and what that looks like so what it does for me like we have a house in the market right now and um the profit margins on it are great um but they're a little leaner than we'd like but look I think part of being an educated business professional is like yeah it sucks I wish I was making double but look there's a cost to education this is the first one we've done together there is uh there's now systems processes organizations and relationships that we form that make the process hundred times easier and we probably tried to fit a square peg and a round hole on the deal and it's probably my fault for being a little Giddy and excited about an opportunity so sometimes you got to get hit on the chin now currently we have a backlog of three more projects that are going on and what's funny is like we look at that and we laugh at the job that we've done there from a standpoint of like boy we really are trying to thread a needle and then we look at the three others and we're like these are how we create big opportunities and um I think if you've ever invested like you look at the numbers and you're like oh my gosh how am I getting this opportunity it's the opportunity you're talk about with Tyler you know buying the duplex and it's like you have to buy it so when recently we we just bought this last one my wife's like do you have to buy this I'm like I I don't I can't not like it's literally right over there I have to get it you know so it's like I can grab my binoculars and see it don't even need when it's in your neighborhood too yeah it's too tough you know and so it's like um that works so I can keep our main things the main thing and one of the things I I've done is the longer I've got into business is I've empowered people in positions of decision making to help with the operations so I can do what is the most important things Recession Proof present dad present husband so none of that says we have to do this to sell a thousand houses that's just a byproduct I don't care if we sold 999 it would burn my ass a bit but it I'll throw you a listing thank you you'll have them um but it's like it's about those three things so you know for me it's like home every day before 5:00 so I could walk in the door and see my kids for a couple hours before they go to bed and help my wife uh recap the day and get dinner ready together like all this is going on and I still get to do that every day and that is the most underrated portion in all of it and look you could change things and you could adjust systems and keep a little more money but it comes at the expense of that stuff at the end and we were talking about this before we started the Pod and it was like you know talking about being a sales guy who sells a ton of real estate versus being a business owner who creates leverage and look Leverage is not only about money like time leverage really is an unbelievable thing and look you guys both have really young kids my kids are two and a half like it is hard and it's hard to be in this business and it's hard to be in this industry like when sewer line breaks at 700 p. m. it is a fire drill and so like to not be the person that ever gets I get that call the next day Alex theur line broke last night here's who's going to fix it here's what it's going to cost well they were going to go fix it regardless it was going to cost regardless but I got no stress no conversation no tenant freaking out no backlash and in the world of real estate like stress through the roof proof if you're handling everything there's so much emotion there's so many people there's so much ruins a day ruins a day it ruins a night ruins a week sometimes it's really cool I mean what we just went through is a story of I was struggling to pay that that rent check yeah and moving out of the canal Buddy says get your [ __ ] together let's go yeah um here's five grand don't ask for more [ __ ] together and and now you're saying that when the [ __ ] breaks you're not the one that gets the call yeah and it's the next conversation of um yeah we've dealt with this before you know how to do it just uh limit the damage and get it taken care of and let the pros be the pros I think that's the other side of this like I'm a pro of real estate but I don't walk behind an inspector and go oh check that GFI you better do it like no like he goes through sends me a report I look at the report and I say these are the things that are important that's the difference here like you line yourself with professionals that you trust and then you keep leveling up and like there will be times and look to get better Professionals in the room sometimes it costs more money and sometimes it cuts into your profit margins but if you're trying to build something that gives you the main source of Leverage at the end it allows you to pick and choose what your fate ultimately is nobody here has once said I'm questing a journey for a financial number at the end we would all love to be incredibly wealthy and I believe we all will be the journey will all be different for all of us but the most like the wealth for me is the time I get to spend wife kids the life that we get to live family things like that yeah worth any cost yeah well before we let you out of here we got three quick like fire round questions okay um I'll let you kick it off let's see how good your memory is it's been like a month since we recorded I could never forget what's your go-to dinner spot or spots in Indianapolis Blue Beard for sure sure they just changed the chef but I went back this weekend and um it was solid it was a great experience so I would say that for a date night for sure great pick I can second that one I'm trying to go tonight yeah they take reservations did you know this they used to not they do now if you walk in they will tell you you have to wait and wait and wait shoot make a reservation I know I'm calling after this I was going to be T yeah I sat at the bar this weekend and I saw like a dozen people walk in and be like it's an hour and a half weight and I'm like this is a change for you guys going to hot to and go across the street yeah that's what we did this exactly what we did yeah what's one habit that's changed your life this will be a fun one uh 43 days ago I started cold plunging and I think like being like the one thing about cold plunging is that if you cold plunge you have to tell everyone that you do it and I do that um but been loving the 5 a. m. stories oh man it's AES I do like it a lot he I was uh I worked out with him first and it was the first day I did it was with him it was like 18 degrees outside and I was like but I got to the middle point of the day and was like I feel different I feel different I feel different and so what it's helped with I sleep better at night my caffeine intake after probably uh like 10:00 a. m.