Want to Dominate Real Estate? Learn from Roots Realty Co Founders

so what would your advice be to someone who is a new real estate agent on how to have a $10 million first year I had no idea what the next step should be there's no sexy way to say I want to be an entrepreneur to your parents maybe the underlying fact that I had ADHD and never knew about it in today's episode we're honestly going to break down why you should even care about this podcast what the purpose of this podcast is uh we have two 20s something year old guy guys here obviously we have not lived very long lives and done tons and tons of things but I would say and the amount of time we have been on planet Earth uh in business and life we we've done a fair amount so we're going to kind of give it an introduction to what what is the roots podcast what does Roots mean why is it called The Roots podcast um and as many listeners might know we are both in real estate we are both investors of real estate I have airbnbs properties Maxis properties and we sell real estate we have a real estate team of five agents and it's been growing a lot we've now sold 60 million in real estate and we thought about okay are we starting a real estate podcast another bigger podast Junior and honestly where we both arrived was not really real estate will be a big part of this podcast how to structure deals how to pursue deals how to build wealth in real estate May and and honestly a lot of lessons learned from building a real estate company of Agents but more so we're talking to our past selves which were kind of fresh out of college people who were of the cut from the cloth of lifelong Learners wanted to be investors um wanted to um build something yet they're kind of grasping at how do I how do I get there and I think real estate for any type of person with that mindset is going to be important whether you're just buying your own home and want to build equity that way and stop renting or if you want to have a portfolio of which I would think many of our listeners want so this in this episode we're going to share who we are uh What uh I guess has molded us into the people we are today so max um what is a habit that has helped you the most uh in terms of getting off the ground as a real estate agent who is 23 years old there's a lot of habits out there that help entrepreneurs see the lens of how these Mega companies were created the one thing that stands true is there's one person behind it that has been able to build an Empire I become obsessed with that when I was like 16 years old um a lot of people maybe somebody that went to high school with me he's watching this and it's like oh no that was the the idiot that was yelling out in class or if he wasn't interrupting he was sleeping in the back of the classroom that's because my brain didn't fit in the box of you know a brick prison uh we'll dive in later on how you were an urban educator which I'm always intrigued by uh just from your life today and and what that looks looked like in the past Super curious on that but um for me it was the maybe the underlying fact that I had ADHD and never knew about it is the reason why school was never a box that I fit into um but the reality is there was just an obsession that I wanted to build something but when I listen to all these podcasts it's like oh you have to create the next iPhone you have to create the next Super vacuum you have to be the next um Jeff Bezos and think outside of the box on everyday low prices straight to your doorstep those are Mighty Feats to go after and when thinking about habits in the beginning it it just started off as like an obsession to succeed then you get a little bit of success and you go what actually is success and try to Define that and work backwards and where I landed is now I'm living a life where I could continue to Chase and move that needle and I'm at a place where I just want to create boundaries and that's where habits come in is to start the day days 5:00 a. m. every morning I do the same exact like same exact routine I look like a robot walking down my stairs grabbing my toaster out putting a bagel in cracking My First Energy Drink uh after drinking a glass of water because my brain needs that to start and I finish my day the same exact way and every day I do that so that my brain goes good night and good morning and in that process I'm ready to get rolling straight into gratitudes some exercise time for my mind in the morning always and I think that's the the habit and framework two years ago that I started and then I read a book you know called Atomic habits that actually validated that I'm not insane and not a robot that you you actually do need those um and even I I I think where we got to that question I knew that it was coming it's because I was like if we're going to do a podcast we need to start it the same exact way every single time so our brain goes podcast mode so we're on episode 200 we know exactly where to start and there's no like awkward exchange and then we lose all of you guys uh retentions going down currently as I speak um I want to Pivot it back over towards you what's uh how do you go from being a teacher to a real estate agent you tell me there's a lot to do that conversion but I don't believe you yeah I think what makes me what I've learned about myself and I think self awareness is the the The Meta skill if you're not aware you're like a Playdoh in the allegory cave the person like stuck in the cave watching the illustrations on the cave wall you're not in reality um so what I've learned about myself is that I am very motivated by impact and empowerment and um I thought the lane I was supposed to do that in for many years would be the classroom would be with youth and so I started kind of star eyed I'm gonna go I'm gonna join Teach for America which was a little bit prestigious and hard to get into and go to an urban school and it all sounded like this romantic high impact story and some days it was like that I was teaching kids who who barely knew English you know about the founding of our country I was a socialized teacher and and stuff like that and you know sharing some of those lessons was was impactful and and I think not to take away from that ambition to be a really good teacher I think it's a very Noble thing however for me after four years I felt like I was ground down like in a coffee grinder just to bits and pieces and losing a lot of passion for honestly life um to give you an example I was very much like think out of the box type of educator so I was like if I'm in sixth grade which I taught sixth grade what would motivate me competition a game so I made a ton of things of competition a game and the reward if students finish their work early is I would take them outside and we just talk about life and play and get you know go out and have fresh air well I got reprimanded multiple times to the point where I was risking getting fired for doing these types of unconventional things in the classroom that worked they were every student was excited to enter my classroom and they were like I would hear them say I can't wait to go to Mr Ling classroom we're going to do this fun competition and they would just get but the bureaucracy of public education was grinding it down and so by covid 2021 was really when I started to make the switch I was I was absolutely exhausted from it and I knew I had to make the change the reason I chose real estate was because in many ways it was the opposite there was no set established location you had to show up to every day and the runway was infinite yeah public school was like cool your your salary is 45k that's what it is you can't go up real estate was like it could be a million if you work hard enough or it could be 20K if you don't you know and I liked that freedom and flexibility and I was attracted to the investment you can start when you're 25 and by the time you're 50 you'll have made millions of dollars through the compounding of time and it just felt like such a it just you can see it it's like that is a good investment that is a better investment than almost besides education and your your brain I think it's the the best investment so I was like I know I got to get into real estate and getting the license seemed like the next step I had no clue if I would be this realtor person it was about investment for yeah it was about investment first yeah those were my first two deals was my own investment properties for were my first two deals so the I mean replacing 40K can't be that difficult but cash flow is going to be difficult to be first year was to literally make 40K and was that in the investment space was that uh wholesaling what was the the thought process or were you just like I'm gonna buy one property and figure it out so I remember um my dad saying whoever can figure this out whoever can like be this like investment minded realtor and know all the next places to invest and all the developments happening around town and has those inside Secrets is going to do really well and he was like saying like you should do this and I was like it's not that's exactly what I should do I was like I as a teacher I was like I can teach this real estate right that's when it clicked when it was like oh that's when all the things lighted up in my brain like I can take what I had learned Urban so I was like Urban Indies where all the investment was happening and literally apply it to real estate and I think other people grabbed on to that so they wanted to be clients quick they trusted me because of that story that I had so for listeners I mean having a narrative about where you've been and how and where you're going and how others can be involved in that game changer that's the hockey stic moment in any entrepreneur Lane whether that be as an investor yourself because how can you buy and acquire more properties oh raise private capital and bring Partners on um and also in the lane of being a young real estate agent how do you grow you have a a story that you articulate extremely well a why people were all behind that I like to we always talk about like um not when I say we I'm talking for the industry of of Realtors as a whole it's like when one person moves in the tribe everybody else moves I just watched it happen in my family like over 60% of my family just got replaced into new homes because one person moved and everybody else is like oh that's sick they got a new construction home I want a new construction home it's it's just how it goes what really boy down to is being able to lead people to a win which your dad very sharp guy um he hit the nail on the head how soon after having that first deal closed were you a licensed realator and off and running yeah so it probably seems uh unrealistic that oh you got your license you're a teacher now you bought to invest properties what how does that possibly happen cuz most people who don't start investing in real estate it's because of the money they don't have the capital and uh uh that was because back when I was a teacher I did buy a house in Irvington which is a fairly cheap market for $118 and used my W2 job to buy that and then sold that the last year as a teacher um and it was worth about two times more than I bought it for we did we did do some work to it along the way the mar Market was you know the market during that time it was speeding crazy so 118 sold in like 2021 so for 200 so you just opened up a ton of capital I made six figures on the sale so I bought two properties and our own second home with it cuz 20% down you can buy three properties actually with that amount how old were you when you bought that house uh 23 23 that's 23 held it for four years the reason I stop and ask that my first house purchased at 200k I was 19 years old sold it 3 years of ownership for settlement statement almost 100K on the nose that's crazy how much those I always I we argue on this but I say your primary residence is not an asset it is a liability and but I put an asri I think your first house is an asset your first house is an asset in terms of you have a a base built and you're able to go after that put some Sweat Equity turn some wrenches and you know do work to it um that Capital moves like you're you're going to it sets you up for everything if you can continue a conf booster Equity it's it's huge yeah yeah it it literally the mindset shift from I'm renting to I'm owning is is the it's it's more for your mind and your overall outlook on life that now I'm an owner yeah um it's your second house and anything after that becomes a liability like I promise the houses we live in today is a liability over an asset I do want to break into your background to switch gears a little bit um I remember the first thing I learned about umax was uh like oh yeah he he's Max he's 22 whatever and he owns a supplement store yeah and I was just like what in the world how how did that come to be why at that age like that's a really unique feature of person how did that come to be why yeah GNC was purchased as a result of I had no idea what the next step should be um taking it back to high school I told my parents like there's no sexy way to say I want to be an entrepreneur to your parents at 18 years old right difficult um like what are you gonna go do kid pressure wash build a company that way great way to do it ton of people have been all the scale but like I didn't have anything Tang to take them I'm just like I feel like I have more to give than to go and be boxed into some um being tied to a desk I didn't want to live in a cubicle now you know I didn't know covid was on the way but if I did I guess not a lot of people are tied to a cubicle even if they work that type of job um work from home change the lives um however I I asked I'm like can I take a leap year coming out of high school and at that time they're like uh that doesn't sound like a great idea I had just gotten diagnosed with exercise and du St flexus I was a top like 10 swimmer in my class Across the Nation and had a lot of opportunity in that direction to go to college but that was the only reason I want to go to college was to be an athlete and once I lost that I'm like I don't know where I want to go so of course mental healthwise they were like is this a you need a break because it's just been a really tough set of years or are you trying to um go after some fantasy that doesn't exist and the reality go when I talked about entrepreneurship it was some fantasy that doesn't exist in their brain it didn't calculate dad's worked for the same company he's about to retire at the end of this year um since he was early or late 20s and he's in his 50s now mom's been a nurse all the way throughout so they were in the the lane they were in the path and I'm like I I couldn't even articulate what entrepreneurship was now I kind of still can't even articulate what it is and what I do somebody asked like hey what do you do for a living I'm like in which lane on which day um the question was how did I buy a supplement store and that was the first thing that you had learned about me I bought that supplement store because I did end up going to college I went to Indiana Wesley and University chose to do it online because I felt that going on campus wasn't best for me that I wanted to explore some sort of Entrepreneurship well getting a degree online and did an accelerated version Co ended up hitting anyway so everybody went home kind of lucked out in that I didn't look like the Oddball saying like yeah I'm doing online college while everybody else is off at campus um not in India and Wesley and getting drunk every weekend but at IU getting drunk every weekend and and partying uh their way through their young 20 like everybody does and where I landed was working 70 hours a week at a supplement store at GNC well doing my studies online um and I get my degree the owner of that store comes to me and it's like what's the next step for you because at that point I was operating both of his franchise stores I was doing all the inventory control the hiring the firing I was running the show I mean I was the guy that mopped the floors at night and turn the lights on in the morning at one store and had another person doing the same at at the other um sales had increased by we had a huge swing uh across the the two stores he was up 300K on the year so for me getting my degree he's like are you g to go be a youth pastor that's what I went to school for that's what I felt like interestingly to you called to uh youth ministry in a in a lot of ways is what you were doing it's what I felt called to and and I kind of looked back at him I'm like I have no idea I Lov the idea of real estate investing didn't have enough money to do it had just got done renovating my own house so had some experience didn't use a real or didn't even think that like real estate agents made that much money to be honest I had no idea because I had just done my own deals went to the bank got a loan went to a title company put them together don't do that made a ton of mistakes now that I know what I know and I looked at him and he had just gotten his real estate license just started working with Alex montagano and I'm like I think I want to be a realtor he's like sweet go get your license and I'll Mentor you through it brand new agent working with his rich friends what does that equal me having no clients and having no direction or guidance on how to get clients MH so I spend about six months trying to figure out how to be an agent while still operating the stores so I'm part-time as an agent over hour of a full-time job at the stores couldn't figure it out and I'm like one day it just pops into my head I don't have time like literally there's no time for me to get out of the store to go Network I can't break in I can't go to the trainings because I'm stuck here I have to figure out a way how to get out of here but still have money to eat at the end of the day and to pay my mortgage what that resulted in is I either need more money I either need a raise or I have to buy the store and that was sprung on to me by a Bigger Pockets podcast where they talked about buying a sixf figure income listened to it on the way into work walked in he was in the back and I go hey Adam can I get a raise I knew he was going to say no I was doing the books he couldn't give me a race I was literally at my ceiling and I go what's your purchase price for the playing field store had no idea what that meant no idea how to do that he had planted the seed you know do you want to be a business owner what do you want to do next uh six months prior I go down this real estate you know Rabbit Hole where there really was nothing going on because I didn't have time to do it um and he threw out a number that was 100K lower than what I thought the store was valued at and I'm like deal let's get it done which led me to nine months of SBA Small Business Association loans are no joke um it's definitely not like a dscr loan they for sure want to know what you ate last night for for dinner and everything else mhm um and somehow some way Huntington bank and GNC Corporation approved a 21-year-old that that no 20 at the time that had no idea what he was doing with his life to buy a store still own it today would I buy it again yeah I learned a lot the Lessons Learned are worth it uh is kind of like your your first home is liability your first GNC store is a liability yeah no uh certainly in 2024 not moving at I mean it's hard to compete with Amazon I would think it is yeah it's brick and mortar is interesting and the marketing that goes behind brick and mortar it matters so much to the people that you have in the store my guys are great they are amazing at what they do and help me out a ton but they cannot replace me because I care about the bank account like I care deeply about how much money's in there it's my it's on me right it is a liability unless if it's cash Co it's a liability and when it's flirting that meter of profit if I clocked in I'm going to get the sales done because it it matters that is a hard job to find somebody who's going to Care at that level that's what I provided for Adam my former boss I did care at that level my income wasn't tailored to sales or anything for whatever reason I gave it [ __ ] about how much money he made like I wanted to make him rich I wanted him to never have to come into the store that was a mentality i b I brought into the workplace as an employee that's why it hit a ceiling I've yet to find that drive in somebody um which I'm realizing as I get older how unique that was for me to be in that position and like I'll I guess I'll toot my own whn a diamond in the rough like it's it's just hard to get an employee that's going to make 30k a year to give a [ __ ] mhm and uh which I do have two fantastic employees that have been with me forever and they crush it and saved my life and saved my time in so many ways but they know if I went in there I'm going to outsell because I also have done it for 10 years right uh which is crazy okay not 10 years I've done it for eight years but at 24 I even say that I've worked in occupation for eight years is wild um so yeah that's store if anybody wants to buy a GNC franchise brick and mortar still works I think the main thing to gather from both of our stories and somebody's sitting at home going man I really want to be an entrepreneur I really really don't want to work this W2 job anymore I'm in high school I'm tired of being in the classroom I'm thinking about going to college don't have a scholarship don't want a bunch of debt I want to go in and and they're in a situation like I was where I couldn't even articulate to my parents I just use the word gap year my parents envisioned me smoking weed behind a a dumpster and that's like what they thought that my life would come to and then it was doomsday that I'd brought that up what are the habits that people can start today to arrive there I feel like we've just spit about each other and it's like yeah Max and Tyler who are these two idiots with a microphone how how can a listener go from being an audience member growing with us starting habits uh I'm always intrigued by I mean guys follow Tyler on Instagram if you don't already um six mile run this morning why you're crazy why no I mean people uh will see me post a lot about uh physical habits exercise running and it's because I believe if you're building a house it's like the foundation blocks I really truly believe is the physical habits yeah where do you learn that and then actually go and put the shoes on and do it I I think is my biggest hurt that is that is it actually that's the whole thing just once you are that's literally getting the plane in the air is putting how do you put the shoes on every day and do it day in and day out and what does that do David Goggins has this thing I love which is calluses of your mind he talks about all the time how buin like the dude but exactly David gogin started somewhere true so you start with saying I'm going to for this entire week I have my five workouts or whatever you plan it out you put the the shirt the shoes out the night before yeah you do it in the morning before you get tired and have a day of work I don't care if it's 4:30 a. m you have to wake up I did that for years teaching I woke up at 4:30 a. m. and worked out and is it first thing out of bed I don't I used I was absolutely a psychopath and did that right out of bed there's a new baby in the house life's changed but where does so that habit fit I mean I'm about to be a dad at the so for me tangibly for me tangibly if if I wake up at 5:30 I will have about an hour of like coffee reading relaxation prayer where I'm not like first yeah I'm not going straight into it decaffeinated doing burpees right but I would say after I have had that warmup for my personal time that is when I do it it is the second thing so the first thing is the habits of the mind and I would say the soul which is the the prayer then the second thing would be the habits of the body before I knock off the to-do list the erir that many entrepreneurs even make is they go straight to the to-do list they don't give time for their mind their soul or their body yeah they just go straight into work I think a lot of Realtors and Real Estate Investors operate in the same that if it's a real estate investor that's got a W2 job right they've got to go to work it's first thing hop on whatever search platforms inless is the best to look at the properties to start analyzing immediately because they got to fit it in the day um you actually are the one who well I'll say my early upbringing of swimming woke me up to exercise in the morning but until we partnered up in business it wasn't straight to the gym for me I would squeeze that in or even when I was working at GNC I would do it at work with like bands and and uh push-ups and things like that there was no gym membership for me mhm and I was I started following you after your brother connected us and I was like that's the one thing that stuck out stories constantly workout this and then you had all this success on the back end and when I was stalking you before we met I'm like that has to be why he's successful it comes down to the exercise in the morning which now that I know you well I actually think is true for you that is the engine that runs everything yeah I would say it's the Keystone habit like I think and I I think for many if not most it will be that physical habit I don't care if it's swimming running lifting walking I don't really care it's because that is what uh trains the the calluses right um so I would say it's incredibly important it's kind of like the idea of like if you win the day before 8:00 a. m. the rest of the day is just downhill I feel like that that's why I love a sixmile run in the morning it literally feels like everything after that's easy but it could be three right why is it 6 uh it has been three many mornings I don't it's not 6 every morning but 3 or six it doesn't really matter the hard part is starting yeah I don't even know like running terms what is a marathon how many miles it's 26 26 miles so like that's actually only like quarter marathon I mean a marathon is something most people never do and very tough but no I won't yeah physically literally impossible I would die that's unique to say taking a look at you do I think the thing I am most curious is you are a producer you are very good at getting [ __ ] done there's no other way to put it I think you can just like tackle I don't know if it's a d du list or a system what how do you get so much done because you're going to sell I don't know 18 million of real estate that's a lot of emails texts phone calls driving to properties it's just a lot of [ __ ] that most people can't even comprehend how much that is what is behind that like is there a habit or a way you think about things how how what is the engine that propels that to actually still be a sane person I get bored like genuinely I get extremely bored and the what I learned about myself early on getting out of I never finished homework knowing what I know about myself now and like who I am as I've uh understood like core values more I know that that had nothing to do with the actual task itself or like a lack of Education I could have got that stuff done so easy but you know what was easier copying off somebody 10 minutes before the assignment was due and leveraging another person which you know isn't even the strategy that I use in business but when I'm not excited about the thing I do that I do find somebody else that can do it when it comes to real State and helping people build wealth that excites me and I get pumped up about it so it's easy for me to pop open the dot Loop and send out the email signatures right it's easy for me to to go and analyze a ton of properties because I enjoy doing it but just like you it's it's how I start the day to be able to to fuel that up it's not a like it's not as rigid as yours is going straight to exercise but there is some sort of physical movement and activity in the morning a lot of gratitude is huge for me and what does that look like you say gratitude what is that just sitting there gratitude what do you actually do yeah I have uh a notebook that is like the Gratitude notebook and it is just simply writing out four things I'm grateful for today some days that's literally I'm grateful for my wife I'm grateful for my like that's like three days in a row it could just be gratitude to uh my wife for mothering our child carrying our child right growing inside of her it's a good one keep keep doing that gratitude yeah I probably should happy wife happy life um and where it goes from there is immediately into what could be perceived as working in the business and not on the business it's two postcards to Advocates key advocates in my business thanking them giving gratitude to the support that they have brought to me my business which in turn my family right um I say it could be perceived as working in the business because I'm very rigid to the email messaging to-do list those don't exist before 10:00 a. m. they just don't because that time is the time for me to not get stuff done it's reserved for time for me to let my brain wander and think and that also is what fuels me up like part of my day what doesn't feel like work is inventing new ideas on how to make our company better that's why you'll get spam text from me in the morning of we should do this we should implement this new thing we should start a podcast right because that is like the best highest and best use of Max I think the two things I heard you say was one find something that you are passionate about yeah and that you don't feel like you want to copy someone right and and do it that can produce value for the world and then two is do the uh high value High leverage tasks earlier in the day yeah in the email the Mind drain what I they just drain your mind uh save it for after a certain time yeah I don't need 17 assistance to be in my inbox because you know what happens whenever I don't respond by 10: a. m. I've heard people say this a thousand times problems are no longer problems because people figure their [ __ ] out whatever somebody was urgent urgent with a like fire cop Emoji need your response now they figured out what the response was because I didn't respond are they mad at me because I didn't respond no they went to me first because I was the easiest person to go to if it's I need to figure out where to send an earnest money check to a title company right who's going to know better than that than me right the title company so they find their contact and reach out to them just a stupid example um this reminds me of there's this Matrix that is um at the top left to be like not urgent not important so it's a four by or it's a 2 by two not urgent not important and then there's urgent not important and then there's um like uh important but not urgent and then there's urgent important of course it's called the eyes well it's called the Eisenhower Matrix of course the Urgent and important is like you need to do that Asa everyone knows that but then where people get stuck is doing the urgent but not important for us starting this podcast was important but not urgent yeah but we're sitting here doing it it's the only thing on my calendar this whole afternoon I could probably find 10 people to call 25 emails a bunch of meaningless [ __ ] to read on substack or something to do to fill this time that is quote unquote urgent the reality for people that just got licensed that are trying to pin their first deal ever right we could both easily go and pin a property right now easily we could go make short-term money we could go make $5,000 now but lose literally millions of dollars by not doing the important but not urgent right so think but what we will hit on a lot is that kind of that Eisenhower Matrix of focusing on what is important but maybe not urgent and how to move the needle in your life or business I love the Eisenhower Matrix you talk about that very often what I add to a second layer to it that's just a quick trigger for my brain if it can be done in five minutes or less do it do it while it's in front of you if it can't schedule it and if it's your fifth time doing it find somebody else who can't do it so unpacking that repeatable task there's somebody else that can do it in your business urgent tasks that could be done in 5 minutes or less they're too easy not to just do right right go to a a very visual example the trash is overfilling what do you do you take the trash out somebody calls you they need something sent to you just send it yep if it is a longer task if Tyler calls me and says I want to start a flipping company next year we need to figure out an sop to do that I go great love it Tyler that's what you should be calling me to talk about my brain's going to think about the best way to do that and to build a system that's what I'm an expert in I'm going to schedule that for two weeks from now cuz it's not urgent it's important so I'm going to carve out time which does cue back to the Eisenhower Matrix but for my brain I have to know five minutes or less do it if it's can't be done in that and it's you're not your fifth time doing it schedule it it's your fifth time doing it your objective of the rest of the day is figure out who's going to continue to do that task MH and that has unlocked everything for me this year mhm I was terrified of asking somebody else to do something like as an entrepreneur I'm like there's nobody who can do it better than me it doesn't matter at all that's not how you scale yeah because the greatest Founders that I know that I've studied are still doing it they're still in the business they haven't sold the greatest Founders who are the wealthiest people in the world Own 100% of their companies so why would I have somebody else do my task and then you study more and you go well they're not doing the mundane task there is somebody else coming in that can earn much more than a paycheck at our company that can also do that MH and that's that's been like the the huge growth for me um you however are I feel like on the opposite side of that coin where you're a starter you start things start really important things that move the needle really far and find the person that can close them out MH which is super cool that's actually probably why we're business partners because I was the guy closing them out because I could get test done that's why we work all together where they say with Partnerships find someone who superpowers your weakness Yeah you mentioned you have a brick and mortar store sell supplements GNC you also sell real estate those are two wildly different uh products yeah what's what's the the difference when you show up to GNC to sell supplements versus showing up to home to a showing brick and mortar is becoming more and more challenging to be able to Market because you have to you have to stand out to the Amazon's right I can't compete with the edls we had Costco move intoed everyday low price we had Costco move into our Marketplace in Avon and I know that that's impacted our sales because I sell a lot of the same stuff that we do and what used to work that I need to get back in and under the hood and clean up a little bit is when I was running those two stores our loyalty customers knew who I was by name and had my personal phone number and they would text me and say are you working today they wouldn't text me and say are you working today because they're going to get a discount it's because they were going to get the expert level on supplements very similar to how I run real estate it's all relationships and it's all slow growth through relationships I worked for you know I mentioned that that year before I purchased my GNC I'd increased sales by over 300K across the two stores the reason for that was because it was a compound of relationships over time and I still have people I work Mondays 10 to 2 at planfield GNC if you ever need to find me that's where I'll be and there are the most loyal customers even if they work 10 to two they're coming in on Mondays our highest day is Monday and it's because it's a compound of seven years of relationships and expertise that I bring and they now at this point are friends and just want to chop it up and that's why when you call me on Mondays from to I'm like I'm not answering and it's not cuz I have 17 customers in the store that I'm helping it's CU I have one that's probably brought me 17 customers that I'm intentionally taking 30 minutes out of my time to talk to and I only know them through GNC so it's refreshing too to like get back in and that's exactly how I've built my real estate business now I could probably use your brain on brick and mortar on social media marketing and different things to drive more traffic into the store but what I know is good business is done with people that you know like and Trust MH even if that's just buying your stupid pre-workout like which pre-workout should you buy and knowing that that is the best not just the product that you know Tik Tok shop is selling what what I heard you just say is it's sales sorry excuse me relationship you're like yeah got sell stuff to make money he would have thought the no it's relationships yeah that you're your recurring customers go because of the relationship and same with real estate your recurring customers work with you when there's 10,000 other agents in Indianapolis because of the relationship not only with me they scream from the top of the buildings if you're going to move you're going to move with Max it's not even my tagline but that's what they say because they're fired up about the relationship that I have with them and that I'm really good at what I do and protect them through the sale mhm that is the embodiment of how entrepreneurship has shaken out for me and I feel that I stumbled upon that really Guided by our mentors and as we both were building separate books of business combining together we both were brought up on relationships we're at the relationship brokerage of the city right at properties Andy and but it is what matters mhm and I I don't want to be transactional like zo leads are disgusting to me they help people I mean the founder of our our business his tagline is we move at the speed of relationship yeah something about that just sounds really nice and it's not a slogan that they never put into like you he literally moves so slow through a conversation you he'll meet for an hour and be like 3 hours every time with with Mark dingham uh no he literally says that that's his biggest default that he could have scaled way further if he didn't move at the speed of the relationship but that's also the best thing that he's done too because he has raving fans and people who so genuinely no long trust him but the reality is too especially for the brick and mortar product is price matters yeah and Costco is going to beat you on price what I mean does that mean move over to the real estate side and forget about the supplements on the personal level that's what I've done right all I mean you know my schedule probably better than I do some weeks it's gone that direction it's all real estate um you know selling 18 million this year I wasn't working full-time at the store where that moves to is it's become a good asset and I know that like if the floodgates need to turn back on it can be but I mean tell me what story do you go to that you walk in and you know the name of the person behind the counter none there isn't one yeah at my stores 90% of the customers knew exactly who I was walking in mhm and it's because I took the time to talk to them and what that now means is I have two employees who you know what the greatest compliment that I ever get is man you're here today where's Nick Nick hasn't been in here in forever I'm like yes Nick is prioritizing relationships I don't care if Nick knows [ __ ] about supplements he can talk to people mhm and and help them get closer to their in go literally I used to get on Google in front of of customers M if I didn't know the answer I'd start googling it but it's because I've been talking to him for 25 minutes I don't care anymore if I have to literally look up the answer to what product they need and I'm supposed to be the expert doesn't matter at that point um and what it's led by is a lot of questions I uh just saw a uh kind of a local business owner in Town had a had a really interesting post on LinkedIn that got a lot of Engagement and it said pretty much was like the shift is happening moving back to small and was like it used to be that the currency was attention eyeballs eyeballs millions millions bballs he's like now he's like that's not selling as well it's actually go small cultivate a raving fan audience who knows likes and trusts you and provide real value for them you don't you'd be surprised how little amount of numbers you need of people that will actually swipe the credit card and give a [ __ ] cuz they know you care too I mean why do you think Mom and Pop shops worked so well it's because you got to go in and talk to either mom or pop and you cared about their family and transacting with them meant that their family was getting a better life MH that's how we've advertised and in my brick and mortar store mhm and it moves the needle tremendously in the right direction where the culture and habits break are yeah it's a brick and Mortage store and I get beat by Costco because Costco's Costco and honestly Costco makes you kind of feel that way MH it's not through communication like this it's through a membership MH you're tied to them you got the card in your pocket you're going to go in they're getting they're fighting for the best pricee for you MH and that is where the shift of okay well maybe I can take that relationship model and and bring it into a different industry MH but as a founder that'll be what every business that I own is is grown in uh the foundation of it all is wealthminder preneurship I hate that word for whatever reason I don't even know why I hate it how do you balance a healthy relationship with your wife and family and being an entrepreneur huge shift from being a teacher right you're a teacher for years you got this rigid schedule you leap off into ENT entrepreneurship how does that affect home life and how have you been all the balance that being a first year dad coming up on being a dad I'm super curious the short answer is you don't yeah dang it no but to be honest I heard this on a podcast that work life balance is a myth there's no perfect equilibrium that may be in a science class in real life it does not exist there will be a tradeoff so I'd rather instead of talking about work life balance I'd rather talk about trade-offs yeah so when I was building my business in 2022 the trade-off I made was less time quality time with my wife less quality time uh reading uh reading less quality time doing things I loved like hiking or playing sports or traveling to build the business and it was a trade-off I willingly made I said in 2022 I want to make as much money as possible and that's what I did so in entrepreneurship you're trying to find balance with going from Bridget schedule to I've this relationship I have home life and you do that through tradeoffs you give up what what you absolutely love to do to go and pursue money how is that is that a verbal agreement with between you and your wife um she's a huge supporter I know that she what you do I wasn't saying that was like the end because that obviously has consequences AB not all of them good uh that had negative consequences in the personal life yeah personal health realm definitely like I literally my my stomach got messed up just like too much stress literally bottled up just like literally I think I had ulcers or something going on that was really messed up so that's proof that like that there was a massive toll to the trade-off but my bank account equity going straight up at times you've told me you literally had no idea how much money you made that year I didn't know till the end and when I looked at it it was a lot of money compared to what I was making as a teacher it was a multiple of at least five to six times the amount so for me and that was the first full year in real estate because the year before I transitioned halfway through the year but in 2024 this year I'm now making different tradeoffs so what that looks like is at 5:00 p. m. I have a baby at home my wife's trying to cook and this he's like opening the cabinets pulling glass wear out pulling silverware out going to town on this cabinet that's what his new thing is curious storage right he's supposed to be he's supposed to and I have a deal that I'm stewing on the side I'm working a deal I'm telling someone about a property or setting up showing and it's like oh I know I'm getting one step closer to this commission to this deal and I have to be like no actually I'm GNA go grab him I'm GNA set my phone in the other room shut the door so I can't even see it and go pick up my son and for the next two hours be totally absorbed in family life and forget by 7 p. m.