Lori and Gordon – Sprinkman Real Estate

Buying real estate can be a challenge.  Helping people find and buy real estate can be a challenge as well.
Lori Schilling’s story in business is a phenomenal story of success, challenges, pivots and growth.  She started a spa business years ago, built it into a successful empire and sold it.  She is now the Lori of Lori and Gordon real estate, using her magnetic personality and savvy business sense to help her clients with their real estate deals.
Gordon started his real estate career by flipping houses.  From this experience, he has joined forces with Lori to help their clients get all the necessary perspectives to evaluate a property.
Listen as Lori and Gordon share their business journey to becoming successful real estate agents, along with the challenges they overcame along the way.
Enjoy!

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You have found Authentic
Business Adventures,

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the business program that brings you
the struggle stories

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and triumphant successes
of business owners across the land.

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We’re locally underwritten
by the Bank of Sun Prairie.

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My name is James Kademan, entrepreneur,

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author, speaker, and helpful coach to small
business owners across the country.

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And today, we’re welcoming/preparing

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to learn from Lori and Gordon
of Lori and Gordon Real Estate.

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So Lori and Gordon, how are you guys.
Doing today?

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We are awesome.
Thanks, James, for having us.

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Fantastic.

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I’m excited because Lori,
I’ve known you for a long time.

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And when we first met, you were
not in the real estate business.

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Gordon, I met you today.
Five minutes ago.

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Five minutes.

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You were not in the real estate business

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when you got into the
whole business world.

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Correct.
Yeah.

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It’s been a while.

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But here we are in this amazing office
here, downtown Madison, I would say.

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Thank you.

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Let’s start with you, Lori

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when you first got started on
entrepreneurial journey.

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Let’s just take it back, way back
to when you first started.

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Your business.

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James, remember, we met
when we were six years old.

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Six years, right.

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It was little blocks.

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Yeah.
Well, thanks for having us today.

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It’s exciting to be here and
thank you for tuning in and watching us.

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Gordon and I have been working together

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for the last almost four years,
but our goal is to share with you a little

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bit about the journey
of what we did prior to meeting each other

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and then what we’ve done
over the last few years.

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It’s been interesting.
Lots of different curveballs and COVID and

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all the random things that get
thrown at business owners.

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Real estate in the past four years, I can
imagine, was super feast or super famine.

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Yes, it has been exciting is the word.

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Sure.
Nice.

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Exciting.
Yeah.

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I went to University of Madison.

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I’m pretty much born and raised here.

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We moved here as a family when I was
six or seven years old.

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I definitely eat, live, and sleep,
and breathe, Madison, Wisconsin.

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After school, I had visions and dreams of

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being a high powered suit wearing
female in the marketing world.

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Oh, really?
That’s what you went to school for?

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That’s what I went to school for.
Oh, interesting.

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I never knew this.
Okay.

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Turns out the only place
that was hiring was Valpack.

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Do you remember Valpack?

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Oh, my gosh, the blue envelope.

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They’re still around.

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They’re still around.

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They’re still around.

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But I didn’t get a cool office.

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I didn’t have to wear a power suit.

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I was going to have to go door knocking
and get people to sign up for coupons.

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And it just really wasn’t my vision.

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And I had coffee with a doctor
one day that I was friends with.

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And I said, if I could find a career

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that people liked me, they came
back because they wanted to.

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They paid me more than I was worth,

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and they showed gratitude,
I would do that job.

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And guess what that job was?
I don’t know.

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Massage therapy.
Massage.

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So the doctor’s like, massage.

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She was like, I got a massage today.

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I paid that woman $50 for the hour.

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She’s like, and I gave
her a $10 tip and a hug.

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And I told her I loved her.
Wow.

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And I was like, Well, that’s the job.
I should do.

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That’s pretty.
Dramatic, right?

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It was extremely dramatic.

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But that was a life changing
conversation for me.

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I guess.
Because I immediately looked up schooling,

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went back to school, got my cosmetology
license, and off I went.

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The funny thing is

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after I got done with the massage
school, I went out to do what?

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Get a job, right?

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I interviewed at really in 1996,
there’s only two places

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that did massage here in Madison at
that point in time, so a long time ago.

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Both of them said,
I’m sorry, we’re not hiring.

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I did what every logical 21
year old entrepreneur would do.

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I said, well I better start my own business?

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And that’s how we started.

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1996, small little spot on O’Dana Road.

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Hundreds of people have been there
and supported me over the years.

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It was pretty incredible.

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And then in 2014, I’m sorry, in 2007,

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we got an opportunity to move
into the Princeton Club.

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A big gym on…
Huge place.

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Huge place.

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That was a really awesome
opportunity for me.

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We took the dive.

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Hundreds of thousands of dollars

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of remodeling, building
the suite, 27 employees.

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Holy cow.
Full on spa.

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Now I was big deal.

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We really did well.

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In 2014, I was walking down the hallway.

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I had literally worked
every single weekend of my life.

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We were open seven days a week.

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I had 27 employees.

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At this time, my now husband
was working with me.

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There was a lot going on there.

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One of the team members said to me,
Lori, you’re not happy anymore.

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One of your employees said that?
Wow.

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Was she right?
She was right.

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I think I just had a resting.

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Oh, you did get the face.
I had the face.

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I just was walking around angry.

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I came home that day and I decided
to take a drastic change in my life.

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I put my business for sale on Craigslist.

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On Craigslist?

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I just was like, spot for sale.

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Here’s how much you can make.
Take it.

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Just to reiterate here,
because I’ve seen businesses

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for sale on Craigslist, but it’s usually
like, hey, I got a dump truck and me.

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It’s got a flat tire, it’s for sale kinda thing.

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You don’t see businesses
that are actually making money

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with multiple employees,
27 employees in a huge club.

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You don’t see that.

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It’d be cool if you did.

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Well, you did for a day.

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You could have seen it, James.

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It could have been yours.
Dodge the bullet.

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Somebody reached out.

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It turned out that they were our buyer.

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Within a day.
That’s amazing.

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So you know my husband, nick.

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He was like, This is a scam board.

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Don’t respond to these people.

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Craigslist is full of scammersers.

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The first week when you put anything

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on Craigslist or wherever,
you’re just expecting the jump, right?

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All the.
Tire kickers.

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It worked out.
It did take a year.

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It was not just a poof,
here’s the check, and move on.

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There was a lot of drama along the way.

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However, it did finally sell in 2014.

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It was the hardest
and the best day of my life.

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It was super emotional to say goodbye

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to all those clients that I had built
relationships

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with, to all of the team that had been
with me, some of them, eight or 10 years.

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My identity,

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everybody in Madison was like, Well,
that’s Lori from the Oasis Dace.

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When people are like, What do you do?

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I was like, Are you
still in the Oasis Dace?

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I used to own the Oasis Stay,
so I didn’t even know how to communicate.

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Interesting.
It was a very, very difficult time for me.

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But I was ready, and I also
thought I was retired.

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I thought for sure I made enough money
here to live on for the rest of my life.

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We took year off,

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went to Mexico for a month,
and I volunteered, and I worked out.

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I just thoroughly enjoyed my downtime.

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I hadn’t had a Saturday off
in probably seven years.

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Wow.

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So it was something that I
really needed to do for myself.

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I imagine that comes to the point where

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you’re like, Okay, I got this time,
and you don’t even know what to do.

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I’ve never planned for this.

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I don’t even know what do
people do on Saturdays?

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I know.

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So there were some Saturdays I
literally just sat for the TV because.

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I could.
All right.

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And it was not something I had done.

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We talked about…

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I mean, that was the hardest
job I’ve ever done.

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Not only physically giving massages 4 to 6

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hours a day, but hurting
cats of employees.

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I said we had 27 employees.

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If every single one of them had one bad

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day a month, I was dealing
with crap every single day.

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Oh, yeah.
Never stops.

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It.
Never stops.

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I’d love to have employees
that only had one bad day a month.

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Exactly.

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So needless to say, it was much deserved.

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Some things happened financially
that we needed to make some extra money.

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You guys both know me well enough
to know that I’m a hustler.

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I just really felt like
there’s got to be a way.

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I don’t want to go get a job.

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You mentioned working for a boss.

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I’ve never had an employer.

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I mean, yeah, I waited tables back in
the day, but I do think I’m unemployed.

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Agreed.

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I took advantage of the shared economy.

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We rented out a room
in our place on Airbnb.

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We started driving for Uber.

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I started dog sitting.

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I would go to people’s houses and take

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care of their dogs while
they were on vacation.

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We started making extra money.

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It was enough money to travel and a little

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beer money and some fun and shopping and
all the things that were important to me.

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But I knew it wasn’t going
to get me to where my.

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Goals would be.
Sure.

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The next level.

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That brings me to the now.

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In 2016, I used some of my money
to purchase an apartment building.

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All right.

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I’ve made a bit of money off of the Oasis.

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How big of a…

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I’m 90 units.90. 90.

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I could go big or go.
Home, James.

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Okay, well, I guess.

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What year is this?

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2016.

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Okay, so where’s this?

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I’m trying to remember where
real estate market was in 2016.

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It had recovered.

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Okay, so prices were high?

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No, they were better than 2008.

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When they were back,
remember when Six was up here?

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You were there, maybe a little.
Bit closer.

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Got you.
And interest rates weren’t?

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They were probably close
to where they are now.

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Yeah.
Okay, 6 ish?

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Yeah.
I think our first property that we bought,

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our interest rate was
like 5.75 or something.

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So it was pretty much right
where it is right now.

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Nice.
And myself and a couple of other partners,

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we bought a 90 unit building
on Raymond Road.

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On Raymond?
Okay.

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Yeah.
All right.

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So that was a really big change.

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Ironically, a couple of months later,
the owners that had sold us

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the property on Raymond Road came to us
and they had another one down the street.

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They were like, Are you guys
interested in buying this one as well?

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Well, that was 100 units.

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Oh, wow.

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I wasn’t working at this point in time.

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One of my partners said, said, Lori,

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would you consider property
managing this property.

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For us?

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I was just going to ask you
who’s doing the managing.

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Okay, this is 90 units.
Me.

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Hi.
All right.

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I said, nick, we’re selling our condo
and we’re moving to an apartment.

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We’re going to buy this building,
we’re going to manage it.

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He was like, Oh, dear Lord,
what are we doing?

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But he’s always been on board
for my big audacious ideas.

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So we did it.

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We moved into a little 900 square foot
apartment and we sold a lot of our stuff.

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We sold our condo.

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We just really burned the ships
and went all in.

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Part of managing that many apartments,

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I had to get my real estate license
so that I could sign leases.

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I did that.

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As all these people were moving out,
I was like, Well, where are you going?

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Well, guess where they were going?

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They were buying a house.

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The logical transition,
you rent and then you buy.

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And I was like, I have my license,
I should be selling these people a house.

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More money I could make.

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All right, sure.

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So in 2017, I started doing real
estate on the residential side.

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I joined a company that had a really good

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team, provided leads, t was really,
I really hit the ground running.

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But it was a fricking lot.

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I was managing 100 and some apartments.

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I was selling real estate
and it turns out I was really good at it.

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In that second year, I
sold like 79 houses.

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In your second year?
Yeah.

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The average realtor sells
like 12 houses a year.

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Double what the average.
Realtor does.

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I was insane.
What do you attribute that to?

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Was it taking the tenants

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of your buildings and moving them
to houses, or was it just…

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You know what I attribute it to?
Charming style?

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That’s it.

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It is my relationships.

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I think the reason why I have always done

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really well in life is because
of the relationships I have built.

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The relationships through the spa world,
the relationships through the community,

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the relationships with my friends,
my neighbors, my coworkers.

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I always say that the good thing about

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working with us is people
like me and people trust him.

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They don’t like you.

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That’s really, I think, then the thing.

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I work to be a good friend.

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I work to pass referrals, give referrals,
be an eye, like giver’s Game.

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That’s always been my motto.

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I think growing up here,
a lot of networking, right?

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That’s how we got.
Oh, my gosh.

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Yeah.
All of the things that…

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Back when you could, right?
Make a difference.

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Back when I could did make a difference.

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And still to this day, that network,

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I was just saying
last week I was at a big Mastermind group

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and they said, What’s the best
advice that you ever received?

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And I said, My net worth is
directly attached to my network.

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And I really strongly.
Believe that.

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That’s fair.
So, yeah.

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Well, you want to hear something funny?

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I just saw this.

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So the end of 2016, I went
to Keller Williams Bold.

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It was a be an amazing realtor training.

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And

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we had to write down what one goal is that
would propel us to success in the future.

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I wrote down that I wanted
a business partner.

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2016, just getting started in real estate.

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We had no idea what it looked like,
but I said, I want a business partner

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that will help me grow
so that I can make $100,000.

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That was.
My goal.

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Nice.

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Lo and behold.
Low and behold.

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Three years late.

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The mail got lost.

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But finally, Gordon was
shipped in from out east.

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All right.

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I was actually about five and a half
hours south at that point.

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Oh, you were a Midwest
guy for a minute, weren’t you?

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Yeah.

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My story is nothing like that.

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I’ve never been to a spa.
You didn’t have a massage place?

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No, I’ve never been given.
A massage.

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Although you probably would be good.

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I never considered it.

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Things go sideways, I guess I.
Have options.

[00:15:05]
Yeah, right?
Next thing you know.

[00:15:08]
Yeah, my story is really different.

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I graduated from college.

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I was in school and I went

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to the University of Alabama Huntsville
and I was an engineer.

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I played baseball and
I was definitely going down that path.

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I always loved business, but

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I would rather read the Wall Street
Journal than popular science.

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But I knew that if I just go get

[00:15:31]
a business degree, quite honestly,
I was like, so did everybody else.

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That’s a long line.

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I was like, I’m just going to be like,
these people, not that there’s anything

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wrong with it, but I’m just going to have
to find some little competitive advantage.

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I need to just get a more difficult degree

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that’s maybe in higher demand, and maybe
I can make more money when I graduate.

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My
theory was I was like,

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I’ll get a degree in engineering
that’s the closest thing to business.

[00:15:53]
I was like, That’s a good blend.

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I got an industrial and systems
engineering degree and a math minor.

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And I was like, Okay, now I’m numbers,

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but I’m also management, and I’m also
nerdy on the engineer side.

[00:16:08]
So I can fit in with a lot of people.

[00:16:10]
It’s a pretty good skill stack.

[00:16:12]
That’s my approach.

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There’s a lot of people that I
described to that theory, if you

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keep building your skills,
and it’s not just taking a class here or

[00:16:22]
there, but really
choosing things that build on one another,

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without having even a college
degree, you can do a lot.

[00:16:32]
Lo and behold, that worked.

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By the time I graduated college,
I already had a job.

[00:16:37]
Literally, I was already working
there as part of my senior project.

[00:16:40]
Nice.
As an engineer?

[00:16:41]
As an engineer, yeah.

[00:16:43]
I was an engine nerd, man.

[00:16:45]
We built engines.

[00:16:46]
I worked at Navistar, which is
the same thing as International.

[00:16:49]
We built the power stroke engine for Ford.

[00:16:52]
I did not know anything about engines,
but I knew how to do it.

[00:16:56]
I knew manufacturing.

[00:16:57]
A lot of the theory.

[00:16:59]
I was mechanically inclined enough to
help the guys work on the machines.

[00:17:03]
But that was super challenging.

[00:17:05]
I was 22, 23 years old,

[00:17:08]
and I’ve got people two,
three times my age reporting to me.

[00:17:12]
Wow.
That’s not an easy task.

[00:17:15]
No.
You learn to navigate things

[00:17:19]
strategically pretty quick
when you’re just basically

[00:17:22]
you’re old enough to be their son,
but you’re also telling them what to do.

[00:17:25]
Give me ballpark of what year ish?

[00:17:29]
2004, 2005.

[00:17:30]
That would have been like ’03 to ’04.

[00:17:35]
For three years, I did that.

[00:17:36]
That was one of the more valuable
experiences of my life because

[00:17:41]
later in life, right, as we’ll get to,
I had to deal with contractors and things,

[00:17:44]
all these people that you need to gain the
respect and you really have to have…

[00:17:48]
You can’t just pay somebody and expect
to have the respect that you might get.

[00:17:52]
But you’re really looking for loyalty

[00:17:53]
and you want them to put
you at the top of the list.

[00:17:56]
That’s something I learned
by dealing with those guys.

[00:17:58]
If I wasn’t handling things correctly,
they were sure to tell me.

[00:18:02]
They were more than happy to.

[00:18:03]
They were like, Young man.
This young punk.

[00:18:06]
It was fun, though.

[00:18:07]
It was great.

[00:18:10]
But we were making good money.
I was an engineer straight up.

[00:18:12]
That’s back when you could
actually get a job, get a job.

[00:18:14]
You know what I did?
It was crazy.

[00:18:16]
I was living in Alabama
for pretty good money.

[00:18:20]
I was like, I need to buy a house.

[00:18:22]
I grew up in the construction business.

[00:18:23]
My dad had a construction company
the whole time I was growing up.

[00:18:26]
Every summer, there’s me beating nails.

[00:18:29]
I was doing construction stuff.

[00:18:30]
I was like, I need to buy a house.

[00:18:32]
If I’m going to buy one,
let’s buy something ugly and fix it up.

[00:18:35]
I bought an online…

[00:18:38]
I bought a foreclosure, a hud home.
You can literally…

[00:18:40]
It’s an online auction.

[00:18:41]
I bought one.

[00:18:44]
You have to keep them for a year without
getting into the stupid details.

[00:18:49]
I had to keep the house for a year.

[00:18:51]
Well, that gave me plenty of time
to do all the work myself.

[00:18:53]
Talking about I’m up on the roof,
new siding flooring.

[00:18:59]
The roaches that this house came with,
the termites, you name it, man.

[00:19:02]
You’re free to charge.
Oh, yeah.

[00:19:04]
All my little friends that lived with me.

[00:19:08]
But it was fantastic.

[00:19:10]
But living in a construction site,
I mean, I could never do it now.

[00:19:12]
I’m a family man.
But back then, it was what I needed to do.

[00:19:15]
And it was looking back, it was gross.

[00:19:18]
But that one project went pretty well.

[00:19:22]
And by the time, before I was even done
with it, I was like, Wait a second.

[00:19:25]
If I pull an equity line on this one,
I could buy that property over there.

[00:19:29]
So within 12 months, I own two properties.

[00:19:31]
And then I was like, Oh,
well, if I have a…

[00:19:33]
I know some other people at work
and maybe some family members.

[00:19:36]
There’s this other deal over here.

[00:19:39]
You guys want in on this deal?

[00:19:40]
I think this one could be a rental.

[00:19:42]
I’m going to flip this one.

[00:19:44]
This thing turned into a business
outside of engineering pretty quick.

[00:19:48]
I was like, Wow, this real estate
thing is fun, investing specifically.

[00:19:52]
I worked as an engineer for three years

[00:19:56]
and I was like, I
got to do real estate full time.

[00:19:58]
So I’m from the Baltimore area, like
she mentioned, I’m from the East Coast.

[00:20:01]
I
proposed my then girlfriend, now wife,

[00:20:07]
because I wasn’t going to ask her
to leave without a commitment.

[00:20:10]
She said yes.

[00:20:12]
In 2007, we moved to the Baltimore area.

[00:20:17]
At the time, we still had
six houses in Alabama.

[00:20:19]
We had created this little real estate
mini portfolio thing.

[00:20:22]
Yeah.

[00:20:22]
19 and a half or were
you on the other one?

[00:20:25]
Yeah, I had the whole thing going.

[00:20:29]
Ultimately, it turned out that I had

[00:20:31]
done an okay job at that, good enough
to not be a huge problem for me.

[00:20:35]
But knowing what I know now,

[00:20:37]
I should have probably handled
doing those deals differently.

[00:20:40]
Maybe some of them I
shouldn’t have bought.

[00:20:42]
But we came out great.

[00:20:44]
Ultimately, I got into the business full
time real estate as an investor in 2007.

[00:20:50]
Great time.
Yeah.

[00:20:52]
Things were looking good until about
six months after we got…

[00:20:56]
Things were actually probably
starting to head down.

[00:20:59]
Honestly, I was like,
That turned out to be a blessing.

[00:21:02]
What I learned how to do
is find good deals.

[00:21:06]
If you can do that,
you’ll never go hungry.

[00:21:08]
I
guess the short way of telling my whole

[00:21:12]
story is that I came into this
business by way of investing.

[00:21:15]
Whereas she came in as, I think,

[00:21:20]
a little bit as an investor,
but as an agent before me.

[00:21:25]
I wasn’t an agent until 2019, 2019 is
why I have my real estate license.

[00:21:30]
But
keep in mind, I had done hundreds of real

[00:21:33]
estate transactions across
that 2007 to 2018 period.

[00:21:37]
I had done more deals than many realtors

[00:21:40]
do in their entire career
as an owner, as a buyer and seller.

[00:21:43]
I mean, we’re talking wholesale,
retail, all the different stuff.

[00:21:48]
And ultimately, we used
to buy homes that were…

[00:21:50]
I’d buy a house for $50,000,
put $150,000 into it.

[00:21:54]
We’re talking large scale renovations.

[00:21:57]
The idea of paint carpet isn’t
a thing that existed in my world.

[00:22:01]
I learned construction.

[00:22:04]
Then when I
decided I was like, You know what?

[00:22:07]
This is cool business.

[00:22:08]
It’s really good money.

[00:22:10]
You flip 20, 25 houses a year,
that many transactions.

[00:22:13]
You can add up.
It’s not bad.

[00:22:15]
However, you have
to constantly chase business.

[00:22:18]
I have to find more houses.
When they come available,

[00:22:20]
I have to be available seven days
a week if that’s what it takes.

[00:22:23]
I knew that when I’m
60 years old, I can’t do that.

[00:22:28]
I had to come up with a plan.

[00:22:29]
I was like, I need to do some
passive income, passive thing.

[00:22:37]
For me, I had learned about apartments
and I was like, Let’s do this.

[00:22:42]
I seeked out somebody
that could help me with it.

[00:22:46]
I guess long story short,
my wife and I decided she’s from St.

[00:22:49]
Louis, we were doing pretty well.

[00:22:52]
We were like, Things are good here,
but maybe it could be great there.

[00:22:55]
It’ll definitely be different.

[00:22:57]
The landlord situation,

[00:22:59]
the opportunities there for what
we’re trying to do is better.

[00:23:01]
So let’s go to St.
Louis.

[00:23:03]
And that was 2018.

[00:23:05]
And then we had what was probably one
of the toughest years of my life.

[00:23:09]
Everything that we had strategized,

[00:23:11]
I’d say two of the 10 things
that we planned worked out.

[00:23:13]
The other eight were like, Oh, wow.

[00:23:17]
That laughed at me for planning them.
Sure.

[00:23:18]
That’s how it works.
Yeah.

[00:23:20]
So 2019 rolls around.

[00:23:25]
We’re about a year into the whole St.

[00:23:27]
Louis experiment, I’ll call it.
And i was.

[00:23:30]
Experimented on.

[00:23:32]
And we’re like,
Something’s going to change.

[00:23:34]
Either we’re going to head back
to Baltimore and just pick up where we

[00:23:36]
left off, or we’re going
to do something different.

[00:23:38]
And

[00:23:40]
the company that she was working
with at the time, the owner was like,

[00:23:43]
If you want to come here and learn
the apartment business, come.

[00:23:47]
Join me.

[00:23:47]
Because you were in a Mastermind
group together, right?

[00:23:49]
That’s how you knew him?
Yeah.

[00:23:50]
We did.
Got you.

[00:23:51]
I had known him for probably three
years at that point, just on top of it.

[00:23:55]
It’s a decent relationship,
but it’s still a Mastermind.

[00:23:58]
He said, Well,
come to Madison, check it out.

[00:24:01]
And if you want to join
the team, you’re welcome.

[00:24:04]
I met her that day.

[00:24:07]
It was me, our middle child now,
and my wife, we came up here.

[00:24:12]
We met at a Lori’s over
south of here anyway.

[00:24:18]
And L orie showed up.
She had her little shiny pecker hat on.

[00:24:21]
I was like, Who is this.

[00:24:23]
Wisconsin guy?

[00:24:24]
Welcome to us, guys.

[00:24:26]
I’m like, What’s going on here?

[00:24:27]
She’s got diamonds on her pecker’s hat,
which all makes sense now, right?

[00:24:30]
It makes sense.

[00:24:31]
Anyway, and ultimately, we met that day.

[00:24:34]
It was inconsequential, I’d say, overall.

[00:24:36]
But part of ways, and then
I learned the area.

[00:24:40]
And we were like, All right,
well, we have two choices again.

[00:24:42]
Baltimore or Wisconsin.

[00:24:43]
We’re like, Let’s do Wisconsin. W

[00:24:46]
e moved up here,
dove into the management business.

[00:24:49]
T hat was April of 2019.

[00:24:54]
And then

[00:24:56]
pretty quickly,
I connected with you and we were like,

[00:24:59]
We started talking real estate. And
by August of that year,

[00:25:02]
I had my license in the state
of Wisconsin, which, look,

[00:25:04]
if you’ve done real estate,
getting your license isn’t that hard.

[00:25:06]
I was just going to ask.

[00:25:08]
I’ve done hundreds of real
estate transactions.

[00:25:10]
It was just a matter
of learning what they do here.

[00:25:12]
And I’ve been educated.

[00:25:16]
I took the real estate class in Alabama.

[00:25:18]
My wife was an agent in Maryland.

[00:25:19]
She was an agent in Missouri.
It’s just what we do.

[00:25:22]
I’ve been in real estate
since I was in my 20s.

[00:25:24]
At this point, I’ve been
in it for almost 20 years.

[00:25:28]
Oh, wow.

[00:25:29]
I got my license.

[00:25:33]
And then she was nice enough
to take me on the ride along.

[00:25:35]
She was like, Hey,

[00:25:36]
you don’t have a lot going
on in the business because I’m not local.

[00:25:39]
I know real estate,
but I don’t know Madison.

[00:25:42]
She don’t know the area.
She really knows Madison.

[00:25:44]
And she’s like, She had
a lot going on, as she said.

[00:25:47]
That was one of the year where she sold
a bunch of houses really on her own.

[00:25:52]
And she was like, You can come along.

[00:25:53]
And then pretty quickly,
while we were in showings, I was

[00:25:57]
contributing things and then
we’re bouncing things off one another.

[00:26:00]
It became pretty clear that her skill
set and my skill set were complementary.

[00:26:04]
A lot of people talk about that.

[00:26:05]
But if you ever came to a showing with us,
it’s the example of all…

[00:26:09]
It really is where the things
that I’m good at and she picks up.

[00:26:16]
It was a really natural fit.

[00:26:19]
She was like, This went good.

[00:26:21]
Should we do this on purpose?

[00:26:24]
Mind you, we barely knew each other.

[00:26:26]
We had been working together in the same

[00:26:29]
property management company for just a
couple of months, but not even together.

[00:26:33]
He and his wife were at a different
property in Sun Prairie,

[00:26:36]
and me and nick were at a different
property in West Madison.

[00:26:39]
We saw each other once
a month at a meeting.

[00:26:42]
That’s funny.

[00:26:43]
He had said, I
want to make some more money.

[00:26:47]
We’ve got two kids.

[00:26:48]
We want to buy a house.

[00:26:50]
He was like, I’ll do some maintenance.

[00:26:51]
I was like, Gordon, you’re not going
to make enough money doing maintenance.

[00:26:55]
You should be doing real estate.

[00:26:57]
He was like, Well,
what does that look like?

[00:26:59]
We literally jumped in the car together

[00:27:01]
for eight hours, had a bunch of showings,
the listing appointment.

[00:27:04]
He helped me write an offer.

[00:27:06]
He was very coachable
and willing to learn.

[00:27:09]
I could tell his work ethic
and mine really aligned.

[00:27:11]
We were both whatever it takes type

[00:27:14]
of people. And
by the end of the day, he’s right.

[00:27:19]
We were just like,
should we do this on purpose?

[00:27:20]
And he’s like, well,
what do you gain from this?

[00:27:23]
Good.
Question.

[00:27:24]
Because I’ve already
very well invested in Madison.

[00:27:29]
I’ve already got a successful business
going.

[00:27:32]
What could I gain?

[00:27:35]
And there were several things
that I believe to be true.

[00:27:40]
Number one, I thought safety and security.

[00:27:44]
I mean, look at this guy.

[00:27:45]
Sure.

[00:27:46]
It’s a real thing to have a single

[00:27:50]
female going into random houses
with strangers you’ve never met.

[00:27:53]
There’s a lot of crazy things going on.

[00:27:56]
So for me to have a permanent security
person with me, that was one thing.

[00:28:03]
The second thing was

[00:28:05]
his brain and his knowledge and his
skill set was not something I had.

[00:28:09]
I did not grow up in construction.

[00:28:11]
When you put the two people,
I always believe better together.

[00:28:17]
Like I told you,
surround yourself with people that are

[00:28:20]
smarter and better than you,
and you will elevate yourself as well.

[00:28:24]
Having his knowledge,
I knew would be better for our clients.

[00:28:28]
Also.

[00:28:30]
The leverage of time.

[00:28:32]
Huge one.

[00:28:34]
Remember, I had told you I hadn’t
had a Saturday off in five years.

[00:28:36]
Now I went back to work and I literally
was working seven days a week again.

[00:28:40]
It’s like a natural.

[00:28:42]
It was just like, I just keep
working, just keep working.

[00:28:45]
But I knew the only way that I would be
able to travel or go on vacation

[00:28:48]
is if I had a partner that could be
here when I was gone and vice versa.

[00:28:51]
I could do that for him and them.

[00:28:54]
And so really, after one ride along,

[00:28:57]
we made a commitment to each
other to start working together.

[00:29:02]
And that was the end of 2019.

[00:29:04]
We finished off the year strong.

[00:29:07]
And then 2020 happened.
What happened there?

[00:29:10]
I mean, there was this little thing called

[00:29:13]
COVID that cracked into
the world, a pandemic.

[00:29:17]
And so we had to immediately pivot.

[00:29:19]
And that’s the best thing about us,

[00:29:21]
I believe, is that both of us
always find or create a way.

[00:29:26]
We are going to make it work.
The hustler.

[00:29:28]
Yeah.

[00:29:28]
And so here we are putting on our booties,
putting on our gloves,

[00:29:32]
putting on our mask, doing video
tours for showings, clients.

[00:29:37]
Is that what.
They were doing?

[00:29:38]
That’s what we were doing.

[00:29:39]
We sold homes to people
that never sold a house.

[00:29:42]
A lot of them.

[00:29:43]
It was at least 10 that year. Yeah.
Did you take any video, walks?

[00:29:45]
Yeah.
So you’re.

[00:29:46]
Taking video walks?
Oh, yeah.

[00:29:48]
Military folks that weren’t allowed
to leave the base, but they had to move.

[00:29:52]
And yeah.
Holy cow.

[00:29:53]
These folks they were like…

[00:29:54]
Doctors coming here
to help at the hospitals.

[00:29:56]
But they weren’t allowed to travel
because they had been exposed.

[00:29:58]
All these different reasons.
Sure.

[00:30:00]
So talking about the reactions
of people as they…

[00:30:03]
After they saw the videos,
they make the transaction.

[00:30:06]
I mean, imagine that, right?

[00:30:07]
You’re coming from, I don’t know,
some cases, Maryland, Ohio.

[00:30:09]
But in the biggest.

[00:30:10]
House or biggest thing you’ve
ever bought in your life.

[00:30:12]
A lot of these people are moving out

[00:30:13]
of an apartment for the first time,
and they’re literally, they don’t know us.

[00:30:16]
They’ve never met us except for over
Zoom or something.

[00:30:19]
How did they choose you?

[00:30:20]
It was online, Zillow, whatever.

[00:30:21]
They found us.
Referral, some people.

[00:30:23]
Some people found us on Zillow.

[00:30:26]
Some people, I think,
just called on a listing.

[00:30:30]
Yeah, that’s who we popped up.
Yeah.

[00:30:31]
And so we would literally do Zoom.

[00:30:34]
And I think that’s where we shined because
I could dig into the construction side,

[00:30:37]
like what’s going on here, what’s likely
to come up in an inspection, etc.

[00:30:41]
And you could talk more about local market

[00:30:43]
houses, what’s nearby,
walkability, stuff like that.

[00:30:46]
Yeah.

[00:30:47]
And it all seemed to be this perfect

[00:30:52]
amount of information they
needed to make a good decision.

[00:30:55]
Sure.
And so ultimately, yeah,

[00:30:58]
every time they’d come, though,
we’d meet them for the first time.

[00:31:00]
Then they would walk into their
house and we were just waiting.

[00:31:05]
If they smile, it was just like this,
it was a sign of relief

[00:31:11]
because you had been
giving these people what you believed

[00:31:14]
to be great advice. But
ultimately, they had to feel it.

[00:31:17]
It never failed us.

[00:31:21]
Ultimately, everybody,
as far as we know, was very happy.

[00:31:24]
That was an interesting time.

[00:31:25]
It was good.

[00:31:27]
It was exciting,
but it was indicative of our style.

[00:31:32]
Keep working.

[00:31:35]
A lot of people were shutting down.

[00:31:37]
I was watching people through social
media saying, I’m not leaving the house.

[00:31:41]
I haven’t done any work.

[00:31:42]
There’s nothing to be done.

[00:31:44]
We were the type of people that was like,
The show must go on.

[00:31:50]
Totally.
You know what.

[00:31:51]
I mean?
A thousand times over.

[00:31:52]
We got out there, we did whatever it took.

[00:31:55]
We were safe and we had a great year.

[00:31:59]
In 2020, we were able to help 114
people buy and sell houses.

[00:32:08]
That’s incredible.
It was literally incredible.

[00:32:12]
We were one of the…

[00:32:13]
If we count us as a one
in a unit, we were one of the top three

[00:32:20]
realtors in Wisconsin
for sales and volume.

[00:32:24]
Were other real estate agents just

[00:32:26]
calling it quits or they’re
putting everything on hold?

[00:32:29]
You’re talking about community wide.
No, I.

[00:32:32]
Mean, I think some of that happened.

[00:32:35]
Some people were…

[00:32:36]
Nobody knew the truth about
anything that was happening.

[00:32:38]
Everybody was trying to get
the best information but like…

[00:32:41]
We’re all trying to figure.
It out.

[00:32:42]
It’s like fog of war.

[00:32:43]
You don’t really know what’s happening.

[00:32:44]
Even if people are trying to be super

[00:32:46]
honest with you, you’re just like,
Should I do this or not?

[00:32:48]
It’s going to hurt me.

[00:32:49]
They didn’t know if by going to their
client’s house, they would hurt them.

[00:32:53]
I think some folks were just
trying to be Uber cautious.

[00:32:56]
They weren’t in the position
to be as motivated, maybe.

[00:33:01]
I think there’s probably
a number of things.

[00:33:02]
I think some people thought that

[00:33:05]
real estate was going to tank
and that they might want to just hunker

[00:33:08]
down and conserve their capital
and maybe do something.

[00:33:10]
All right.
This is what.

[00:33:12]
I know that 2008 was going to.
Happen or something.

[00:33:14]
Yeah, for sure.

[00:33:15]
And look, I can understand why.

[00:33:18]
If anybody came to you and said, look,

[00:33:20]
we’re going to have this thing,
it’s going to be called the pandemic.

[00:33:21]
The whole world is going
to shut down for a while.

[00:33:23]
But by the way, real estate
is going to be awesome.

[00:33:25]
Would you be like, I would have been like,
that doesn’t make sense.

[00:33:28]
Come on.
Let me tell you, the Wisconsin

[00:33:29]
bars are shutting down and the real estate
is still going to be all over the place.

[00:33:33]
No, don’t see it happening.

[00:33:34]
Don’t see it happening.

[00:33:35]
Well, and there was a minute,
remember, when we were…

[00:33:39]
We didn’t even know if we were
going to be considered essential.

[00:33:42]
Yeah.
Oh, that’s right.

[00:33:43]
The essential thing.

[00:33:46]
Well, this is a funny story.

[00:33:48]
We didn’t know what our world
was going to look like.

[00:33:53]
And so Gordon and I did
a family run at Costco.

[00:33:55]
Remember?
We bought $500 worth of food.

[00:33:59]
Oh, nice.
You and everybody.

[00:34:00]
Else, right?
You guys better move in with us.

[00:34:03]
We got to keep working.
The apocalypse.

[00:34:05]
Is coming.
If they are not going to let us leave our

[00:34:07]
house, you better come,
and we’re all going to be here.

[00:34:09]
So Gordon and his wife and his two
kids came and lived with nick and I.

[00:34:12]
Did they really?
For one.

[00:34:14]
Day. yeah. We were like, We’re good.

[00:34:16]
That’s how it worked.
I think.

[00:34:18]
It lasted one day.
It was.

[00:34:19]
And then they were like,
Well, this was fun.

[00:34:22]
And they packed up and they left.

[00:34:24]
But nobody really knew
what was going to happen.

[00:34:27]
And then I think it was that day that they

[00:34:29]
decided that we were essential and we
were going to be able to go to work.

[00:34:32]
T hey were like, Okay, we’ll be okay.

[00:34:35]
W e kept on keeping on.

[00:34:37]
O ur life did change, obviously.

[00:34:39]
Everyone’s did.

[00:34:40]
We all hung out with a couple of people.

[00:34:43]
We didn’t go and do things.

[00:34:45]
We learned how to cook.

[00:34:47]
Gordon’s an amazing barbecue chef.

[00:34:50]
He’s traveled the circuit and has
won a bunch of awards and accolades.

[00:34:54]
T hat came in handy when we
couldn’t go to restaurants.

[00:34:56]
We ended up making the most of it.

[00:35:00]
But along the way, we just kept working.

[00:35:04]
Then in 2021, we survived the year.

[00:35:09]
Things seemed to be
a little bit more normal.

[00:35:12]
We had a really good

[00:35:14]
system. W e decided then that maybe it was
time for us to change

[00:35:21]
and make a little bit more
of the money that we were making.

[00:35:24]
We had a really hefty split

[00:35:25]
with the previous brokerage that we were
with, and that’s how we landed here.

[00:35:32]
Got you.
Okay.

[00:35:33]
In 2021, we interviewed a bunch of places.

[00:35:36]
We wanted to figure out
where our next home was going to be

[00:35:40]
that we could keep
the level of professionalism and

[00:35:45]
all of the other things that our clients
had set as expectations

[00:35:48]
of working with us and maybe even elevate
that experience and be better

[00:35:52]
and be rewarded for all
the hard work we were doing.

[00:35:55]
So that’s how we came here.
So can you.

[00:35:58]
Pause for a minute?
That’s our story.

[00:36:00]
So people that don’t know,

[00:36:04]
you guys are successful, you’re doing
well with the place that you’re at.

[00:36:08]
How does the real estate world
work where you need a brokerage?

[00:36:11]
Good question.

[00:36:12]
When you get your real estate license,
you have to be a salesperson.

[00:36:19]
You have to be
someone that works for someone else

[00:36:23]
for a brokerage
for the first two years or 24 sales.

[00:36:27]
Obviously, we

[00:36:30]
had done that, so we could have gone
and gotten our broker’s license.

[00:36:36]
However, again, I told you,
we believe the power of a team is good.

[00:36:41]
Being in a place where maybe they already

[00:36:43]
have the brand recognition, what
a broker provides is brand number one.

[00:36:51]
They also provide the security
of heirs and emissions insurance and.

[00:36:56]
The overhead.

[00:36:58]
That goes with running the company.

[00:37:01]
Both of us had had our own businesses
for 20 years leading up to this.

[00:37:05]
Neither one of us really
wanted to start that again.

[00:37:09]
We didn’t want to have people coming
and work for us and employees

[00:37:12]
and a business and overhead
of an office and all of those things.

[00:37:16]
So we really felt like it was a smart
decision for us to put ourselves

[00:37:22]
with someone that already
had all those things.

[00:37:24]
So we can just do what we’re good at
and not have to worry about all of the…

[00:37:28]
The other headaches.
Headaches.

[00:37:29]
Let’s call.
Them that.

[00:37:30]
So there’s the trinkety office stuff

[00:37:33]
and all the paperwork insurance,
all that stuff.

[00:37:35]
So you guys can focus on real estate

[00:37:38]
and the transactions
without having to deal with the other…

[00:37:42]
The businessy stuff that nobody
wants to deal with.

[00:37:44]
But there is the freedom as a salesperson
to move about brokerages as.

[00:37:48]
You.
Choose.

[00:37:50]
Because I think that speaks
to your question a little bit.

[00:37:52]
You’re not required to work.

[00:37:55]
Somewhere for any particular company.

[00:37:56]
You’re not tested.

[00:37:58]
Typically, you’re an independent
contractor.

[00:38:00]
Okay.
You have to be, right?

[00:38:02]
Yeah.
As a real estate agent, correct me if.

[00:38:04]
I’m wrong.
Yeah, you can be licensed.

[00:38:06]
But if you’re going to be out there doing
the business that we’re doing, yeah, yes.

[00:38:10]
So as contractors,
we have loyalty to where we’re with.

[00:38:17]
But at the same time, at that time, you

[00:38:21]
couldn’t help but look at the money and
say, but we could have kept more of it.

[00:38:25]
But know this, too.

[00:38:26]
We’re also the type of people that
we made a proposal where we were.

[00:38:30]
We didn’t just say, Look, we’re gone.
Thanks.

[00:38:32]
We’re out.

[00:38:35]
We gave them the opportunity to match
or beat what we were offered elsewhere.

[00:38:39]
That didn’t happen.

[00:38:42]
We are where we are now.

[00:38:44]
But I think in the end, no question from
our perspective, it was a better fit.

[00:38:50]
Yeah, it was meant to be.
Sure.

[00:38:51]
Besides the financial aspect,

[00:38:54]
I mentioned there’s also a culture
or a character of a brokerage.

[00:38:58]
I don’t know very well, but I know there’s

[00:39:02]
dozens, if not maybe
hundreds of brokerages.

[00:39:04]
And even just from my just seeing,
you can see, okay, this

[00:39:10]
is how I would describe them
versus how I would describe them.

[00:39:13]
So is this a.
Better fit?

[00:39:14]
Not one of them.

[00:39:15]
There’s not another one
in Madison that has this.

[00:39:17]
None of them have a turret.

[00:39:18]
This is pretty funny looking off.
You’re sitting here.

[00:39:20]
They just don’t have it.

[00:39:21]
But this is the office.
It’s what you see.

[00:39:24]
But everything else is the same.

[00:39:26]
All the systems, the parts
that you don’t see are there, too.

[00:39:29]
It would be hard for you having not even
been a client, you know what I mean?

[00:39:35]
But the way we do things, this is just

[00:39:38]
emblematic of the whole process
and what you get when you.

[00:39:41]
Deal with us.
Got you.

[00:39:42]
The thing that we liked about coming
here is this is a local brokerage.

[00:39:46]
Right.
I was just going to ask.

[00:39:47]
You about that.
This isn’t a chain.

[00:39:48]
This isn’t a national…
It’s not corporate.

[00:39:51]
They can make decisions inhouse.

[00:39:54]
We get to be a part of something local.

[00:39:57]
That was important to me.

[00:40:00]
And Spurman has a higher Echelon…

[00:40:05]
They’re known for their luxury homes.

[00:40:07]
They’re great living.

[00:40:08]
They’re better experience
than some of the other brokerages.

[00:40:14]
And if we’re going to make a change,
we wanted it to be with one of the best.

[00:40:21]
Nice.
Smart move.

[00:40:23]
Smart move.

[00:40:25]
So the other brokers, or.
The.

[00:40:26]
Other real estate.
Agents.

[00:40:29]
Are they cool?
Yeah, cool.

[00:40:31]
The thing that we

[00:40:33]
have learned over the course of our life
is we don’t like a lot of drama.

[00:40:40]
The only drama I want is
on the Bachelorette on TV.

[00:40:43]
I don’t want it in my life.

[00:40:45]
Shut it off when you’re done
and move on with your life.

[00:40:48]
That’s one thing that I think we really
appreciated about being here is

[00:40:53]
there’s a good amount of people here,
but everyone keeps their business.

[00:40:57]
Everyone is nice, everyone is

[00:40:59]
professional, but we’re not
intermingling and we’re not gossiping

[00:41:03]
and we’re not creating
problems for our coworkers.

[00:41:06]
Nice.

[00:41:08]
For me, the older I get,
that’s just super important.

[00:41:10]
I want to be able to go and do what I need

[00:41:14]
to do and not have to worry about the
little chitter chatter in the background.

[00:41:19]
I bet, especially, I’m just laughing
because I have employees too.

[00:41:23]
And sometimes you’re just like, This
shouldn’t be a problem.

[00:41:26]
But it’s a problem.

[00:41:28]
And I can imagine in the spa world, that
had to be 20 times what the idea was.

[00:41:33]
Oh, my good God.

[00:41:35]
I can only imagine.

[00:41:37]
I’ve had enough drama for 10 lives.

[00:41:40]
I don’t need it anymore.

[00:41:42]
Everyone has seen the TV shows
of the little salons, right?

[00:41:48]
And everybody’s
talking about everyone else and talking

[00:41:51]
about their clients
and gossip and gossip and gossip.

[00:41:54]
And you buy into that when
you’re around it.

[00:41:58]
It becomes like you
know what’s the saying?

[00:42:01]
You become the five people
that you spend time with.

[00:42:03]
If you’re around a bunch of people,
I’m very easily can get involved in that.

[00:42:09]
Can you believe it?
What did she do?

[00:42:11]
What did he do?
And another thing.

[00:42:13]
But when I’m not around it, that’s not me.

[00:42:16]
And so it’s just better for me to be
in a place where there’s less of that.

[00:42:23]
And I’m just much more
successful when that.

[00:42:26]
So, yeah, 20 years,
I really know what I want.

[00:42:32]
Fair.
Totally fair.

[00:42:33]
But if you have any dirty secrets, you.
Can still tell me.

[00:42:35]
I don’t.

[00:42:38]
None that I would…

[00:42:39]
Yeah, lame ones.
So

[00:42:41]
I guess as far as you talked about rental
property, you had rental property before.

[00:42:45]
Do you still have
that in your back pocket?

[00:42:47]
Yeah.

[00:42:48]
So that’s really where our
life has come since 2021.

[00:42:56]
Wow.

[00:42:57]
So both of us bought new homes.
Okay.

[00:42:59]
And i was able to
fulfill my dream of moving to the lake

[00:43:05]
so that I could do
boating and entertaining.

[00:43:08]
We love where we live on Lake Keeganza.

[00:43:13]
And that has been a dream for both of us.

[00:43:17]
So that’s awesome.

[00:43:20]
And a couple of months before or a couple
of months after, you guys bought a house

[00:43:23]
in a community that was
kids driven and good school district and

[00:43:29]
good for them, for neighbors
and barbecue and all the awesome things.

[00:43:32]
Gordon was able to travel a good bit
and really get back out on the circuit,

[00:43:36]
which is his passion and his barbecue and
won a bunch of awards.

[00:43:44]
And we’ve really turned our life into
the vision that we had more so.

[00:43:49]
It doesn’t mean we don’t still work 24 7
when we have to,

[00:43:53]
but we’ve been able to
focus a little bit more on the things

[00:43:57]
that are important
versus just always chasing a dollar.

[00:44:02]
The other cool thing
that we did, you share.

[00:44:06]
With?
With management.

[00:44:06]
Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.
That’s really important.

[00:44:08]
And that speaks directly to your question.

[00:44:12]
So the thing is, these business,

[00:44:13]
when you’re in real estate, especially
when you come in as an investor.

[00:44:15]
I can’t turn that off.

[00:44:17]
That’s really where I come from.

[00:44:19]
So how do you make all that work together?

[00:44:22]
Because we have all these capabilities.

[00:44:26]
We’re the preferred

[00:44:27]
agents of the Madison Real
Estate Investors Association.

[00:44:31]
We have a management company.

[00:44:33]
We now have, outside of the portfolio she
was talking about,

[00:44:36]
we now have 158 apartment units
that the management company manages.

[00:44:41]
That we’ve just bought in.
The last two years.

[00:44:43]
Last two years.

[00:44:43]
We’ve got four full time employees,
two part time employees in that company.

[00:44:49]
Wow.
And then we also do private money lending

[00:44:53]
for people that want usually fixed
and flip type deals, six months,

[00:44:56]
short term loans to keep investors going
and to help new investors as well.

[00:45:01]
We do a one stop shop.

[00:45:04]
What we do here is part of it.

[00:45:05]
But what feeds what we do here
is because we can do so many.

[00:45:09]
Different things.

[00:45:13]
That’s really the vision is these
things all work together in my mind.

[00:45:18]
This is one piece and it’s very important

[00:45:21]
piece and it’s one thing
that we do really well.

[00:45:23]
But one of the things that we really are
passionate about is

[00:45:27]
helping people that want
to buy investment property that are like,

[00:45:30]
I tried the market, I tried
crypto, whatever it is.

[00:45:35]
They’re not experts at that.

[00:45:38]
Arguably, no one is at times.

[00:45:41]
And we say, Fine,
come to us with our open arms.

[00:45:44]
We will help you with real estate.

[00:45:46]
There’s been so many people that we’ve

[00:45:48]
been able to help
really just build their future.

[00:45:51]
That’s one thing that I’ve
always been passionate about.

[00:45:54]
A lot of these folks, they think that, Oh,
I could never get into an apartment deal.

[00:45:58]
She talked about
her first 90 units, whatever.

[00:46:01]
When she was in the spot,

[00:46:02]
she probably never would have
imagined that she could land there.

[00:46:04]
But she did.

[00:46:06]
It’s just a matter of knowing the right

[00:46:07]
people because you’re getting
security and returns that we’re talking,

[00:46:12]
you’re talking like hedge fund level stuff
that you can do locally.

[00:46:16]
You know what I mean?
It’s for the people that…

[00:46:18]
Those are the people we want to help.

[00:46:21]
That’s one thing we’re just very…

[00:46:23]
I think we focus on in addition
to retail clients.

[00:46:29]
Our goal is to have enough

[00:46:37]
business of a life so that we can continue
living the life that we’ve created that we

[00:46:43]
enjoy without having to
constantly be chasing houses.

[00:46:47]
Who knows what’s going to happen, right?

[00:46:49]
The market right now is saying, Well,
this real estate might be iffie in 2023.

[00:46:53]
We might be in for another recession.

[00:46:58]
Our mindset is to just put our head
down and to just keep moving forward.

[00:47:02]
You can’t buy into the hype.

[00:47:04]
You can’t buy into the drama.

[00:47:06]
You just have to stay focused.

[00:47:08]
It might be a good opportunity for us
to buy more apartments this year.

[00:47:11]
It might be a good opportunity for our
investors to buy more houses to flip.

[00:47:18]
That’s super important, I think,
and part of the whole

[00:47:24]
entrepreneurial mindset is
no matter what, find a creative way.

[00:47:28]
Right.
It’s the name of the game.

[00:47:32]
Tell me, you raise an interesting point.

[00:47:34]
When you’re a real estate agent

[00:47:36]
and you’re looking at a property
or you see a property

[00:47:38]
and you see it’s a good deal, how do
you not jump on every one of those?

[00:47:41]
It’s got to be just that you can’t jump

[00:47:44]
on every one of those,
but there’s probably this thing like.

[00:47:46]
It’s a good deal.

[00:47:48]
Well, for me,
it really forces you to focus.

[00:47:54]
Otherwise, you’ll buy
anything that looks right.

[00:47:57]
And that isn’t the same thing
as having a business model.

[00:48:02]
You know what I mean?

[00:48:04]
A good deal is a good deal.

[00:48:06]
And there are different ways to dispose
of those or to make money off of those.

[00:48:11]
You don’t necessarily have
to commit to them long term.

[00:48:13]
But for example, we had two opportunities

[00:48:19]
brought to us and we ended up buying one.

[00:48:23]
And then in light of everything else

[00:48:25]
that we had going on, we said,
This one should go to someone else.

[00:48:28]
And it went to one of our clients.

[00:48:30]
Got it.

[00:48:33]
Could we have pulled that off?
Yes.

[00:48:35]
But with everything we had going,

[00:48:36]
we picked the one we liked better and then
gave somebody else an amazing deal.

[00:48:41]
For us, having

[00:48:44]
a little bit of focus and trying to stay
within what you have going,

[00:48:48]
I think it’s a lot of the lessons we
probably learned earlier in life as

[00:48:51]
business people where we would have
done that other deal that we’re not…

[00:48:56]
Chasing shiny objects.
Exactly.

[00:48:57]
We’re just doing what we should be doing
at a pace in which we should be doing it.

[00:49:02]
Which to me is, I mean, that sort of

[00:49:05]
slow and steady approach
seems to pay dividends more than being

[00:49:09]
hyper aggressive as
I was when I was younger.

[00:49:11]
It does open doors, though, that we could
pivot and make changes if we need to.

[00:49:18]
If the market did change
for the residential real estate,

[00:49:21]
we could do some rehab because
Gordon has that as a skill set.

[00:49:24]
We could do some more property
management for other people.

[00:49:28]
There are things that we could do,

[00:49:30]
but we’ve really found that our
success is staying in our lane.

[00:49:35]
All right. Keep the focus.

[00:49:36]
Focusing on one thing, like you said.

[00:49:38]
But having all those skills
makes our business more resilient.

[00:49:41]
When folks are running
around like, oh my God.

[00:49:43]
I might not sell a house this year.

[00:49:44]
I’m like, fine, I’ll buy houses,
I’ll manage apartments.

[00:49:48]
We have all these like they’re in place.
Adapt as needed.

[00:49:51]
Sure.
Cool.

[00:49:52]
Super cool.
I appreciate you guys being on the show.

[00:49:55]
Thank you it was fun.

[00:49:56]
The last question that I have is just

[00:49:58]
for someone that’s interested
in getting into the real estate world.

[00:50:01]
There’s probably some
things that you learned.

[00:50:02]
Is there any advice that you would have
for them before they jump in head first?

[00:50:07]
I think my personal advice is find a team.

[00:50:10]
Align yourself with someone else that’s

[00:50:12]
already doing this, that is successful,
that has the systems in place

[00:50:17]
that will help propel you because
everyone thinks they can just go out

[00:50:20]
and sell a couple of houses,
but it is a big deal.

[00:50:22]
There is a huge learning curve.

[00:50:24]
And for myself coming from a different
industry, totally in shifting

[00:50:28]
to real estate, finding a good team
that would help me with training and leads

[00:50:34]
and all of the things real estate
was pivotal in my success.

[00:50:38]
All right.
Very cool.

[00:50:40]
Yeah, I’d say I…
Find a

[00:50:42]
good partner.
Yeah.

[00:50:44]
No, it’s helpful.

[00:50:45]
But I would say,
let’s approach it from the investing side,

[00:50:48]
because that, in my opinion,
is also getting into real estate.

[00:50:51]
I think you need to get educated and
you need to be passionate about it.

[00:50:55]
You need to surround yourself with it.

[00:50:56]
If you’re driving, you should
be listening to a podcast.

[00:50:58]
If you’re at home,
you should be reading a book.

[00:51:00]
It should feel that way to you, otherwise,
you’re not going to be successful.

[00:51:04]
Otherwise, you should hand your money

[00:51:05]
to somebody else and let them
invest it into real estate for you.

[00:51:08]
So surround yourself
with it, get educated.

[00:51:09]
There’s local programs where you can pay

[00:51:11]
to learn and be literally mentored
by people that are successful.

[00:51:14]
Do that because it’s going to pay for it.

[00:51:16]
The hard lessons, the expensive lessons

[00:51:18]
are the ones where you lose money
and you didn’t have to.

[00:51:22]
Education is expensive.

[00:51:24]
You’re going to get it either way.

[00:51:25]
That’s the one thing I guess the thing I
always love is when, quote, then they say,

[00:51:30]
if you want to be successful,
just figure out the price and pay it.

[00:51:34]
And she knows me and she
knows that’s what I do.

[00:51:37]
Whether it’s barbecue, real estate,
whatever it is, that’s what it is.

[00:51:41]
The hard part is figuring out the price.
Fair.

[00:51:43]
And so that’s what I would recommend.
That’s cool.

[00:51:46]
I love it.

[00:51:48]
This has been Authentic Business
Adventures,

[00:51:49]
the business program that brings you
the struggle stories

[00:51:51]
and triumphant successes
of business owners across the land.

[00:51:54]
You can do us a huge favor.

[00:51:57]
Subscribe, give it the big old thumbs up,
and of course, comment below

[00:52:00]
and let us know how your real estate
journey is going or you hope that it goes

[00:52:04]
because everybody’s
on their ladder somewhere.

[00:52:07]
My name is James Kedemann
and Authentic Business Adventures is

[00:52:11]
brought to you by Calls On Call,
offering call answering services

[00:52:14]
to service businesses across the country
on the web at callsoncall.com.

[00:52:19]
And of course, The Bold Business Book,

[00:52:21]
a book for the entrepreneur in all of us
available wherever fine books are sold.

[00:52:25]
We’d like to thank you,

[00:52:26]
our wonderful listeners,
as well as our guests, Lori and Gordon.

[00:52:29]
Lori and Gordon, where can
people find you?

[00:52:30]
Well, you
can go to our website, Loriandgordon.com.

[00:52:34]
That’s the easy way.

[00:52:34]
Is it really?
Loriandgordon.com.

[00:52:36]
So, L-O-R-I-A-N-D.

[00:52:38]
Yeah, G-O-R-D-O-N.

[00:52:41]
We’re also on Facebook and Instagram.

[00:52:43]
All right.
Happy to.

[00:52:45]
Phone number?
I don’t know.

[00:52:46]
Do I do phone numbers now?
Phone number?

[00:52:47]
Absolutely.
608-888-1500.

[00:52:50]
That’s how you know
they’re serious, right?

[00:52:52]
Otherwise, they’re just like, I’ll

[00:52:53]
send you an email.
Text?

[00:52:54]
You can text.
It’s okay.

[00:52:56]
All right.
Very cool.

[00:52:57]
Thank you so much for
being on the show.

[00:52:58]
Thank you.
It was awesome.

[00:52:59]
This is been

[00:53:00]
let’s see, what do I got to say here.
Past episodes

[00:53:03]
can be found
morning, noon, and night.

[00:53:04]
The podcast link
found at drawincustomers.com.

[00:53:07]
Thank you for watching.

[00:53:08]
We’ll see you next week.
I want you to stay awesome.

[00:53:10]
And if you do nothing else,
enjoy your business.

 

 

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