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Key Factors RealEstateAF
Educational Podcast for Consumers, Mortgage & Real Estate Industry Professionals. We'll Talk About It All! Key Factors podcast, powered by https://ReviewMyMortgage.com . Your Host Mark Jones invites Industry Pros to help uncover & educate on the key factors of various topics. There’s something for everyone so let us be your guides and get educated. Subscribe & Follow on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Facebook, Instagram, & all other podcasting platforms. Host : Mark A Jones Founder of ReviewMyMortgage.comProducing Branch MangerSr. Loan Officer. NMLS ID# 513437NMLS Consumer Access: http://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/Powered by ReviewMyMortgage.com
Key Factors RealEstateAF
The Emory Group's 600-home success wasn't built on luck, but on consistent action and service.
What if your challenging circumstances became the very fuel that propelled you to extraordinary success? Devin Resendez embodies this powerful transformation. From growing up in San Antonio's inner city with a teenage mother to building one of the region's most successful real estate teams, Devin's journey captivates with its raw honesty and profound insights.
Devin's entry into real estate wasn't planned – it began with a negative home-buying experience that sparked a desire for change. What started as a somewhat vengeful career move evolved into a purposeful mission to serve communities often overlooked by other agents. His strategic decision to "fish where others aren't fishing" allowed him to build a thriving, recession-resistant business by focusing on underserved markets that held tremendous opportunity.
The conversation delves deep into the evolution of leadership – from Devin's early days of simply expecting agents to replicate his methods to developing a nuanced approach that helps each team member achieve their own version of success. With remarkable candor, he shares his mistakes, breakthroughs, and the pivotal mentors who shaped his growth. Particularly moving is his commitment to providing opportunities for single mothers, a direct reflection of his own upbringing and desire to create the support system he wishes had been available to his mom.
Beyond business strategies, this episode explores profound questions about potential, purpose, and the courage to continuously evolve. Devin's philosophy that "it takes no more time to be me than it does for you to be you" challenges listeners to examine what truly separates high achievers from everyone else. His remarkable story proves that with focused effort, strategic positioning, and commitment to serving others, extraordinary business success is possible regardless of where you begin.
Whether you're in real estate, entrepreneurship, or simply seeking inspiration to transform your own circumstances into advantage, Devin's journey offers a blueprint for turning life's challenges into the very foundation of exceptional achievement.
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Host: Mark Jones | Sr. Loan Officer | NMLS# 513437
If you would like to work with Mark on your next home purchase or as a partner visit iThink Mortgage.
Welcome back to another episode of Key Factors Podcast Real Estate AF, where the AF stands for and finance, and I'm your host, mark Jones, and we are powered by ReviewMyMortgagecom, the largest index of mortgage programs in the nation, and on today's discussion, we're going to be sharing some insight with an individual who has grown a team, a powerhouse and essentially, in my opinion, helps out the community that most don't tend to pay attention to. But before we do, I've got a chat GPT bio that I've been doing and I really like this because it kind of hones in on the guest without the guest actually telling me. It's pretty cool. So here we go.
Speaker 1:Devin Resendez is a San Antonio native and bilingual real estate professional known for his people-first approach and commitment to service. In 2016, he founded the Emory Group, now a 40-plus agent team that closed over 600 homes in 2023, earning national recognition for Keller Williams and Real Trends. Devin blends data-driven strategy with the purpose-driven leadership focusing on community impact and housing solutions for families across all stages of life. His work continues to shape the Texas real estate landscape through innovation, integrity and heart of service. Without further ado, I'd like to introduce Devin Resendez how you doing, I'm good man.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Absolutely. That sounds so good, right, god, I love that chat All of a sudden.
Speaker 1:I'm reading this. I look over my guest's head is like it was growing.
Speaker 2:I saw the eagle. I love it, as it should. Man, I have to keep my head contained inside of this building.
Speaker 1:As it should. So, devin, some folks out there have heard of you, have worked with you in the past, but there's plenty of them that tune into this show, that have no clue who you are, and I first want to give you an opportunity to tell us who you are, where you started, where you came from all that good stuff. So, being that you grew up in San Antonio, let's start there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I grew up in the inner city of San Antonio, that's the west side, 19th and Hidalgo. My mom had me when she was 16. She was pregnant at 15. This is before they made the show 16 and Pregnant, so it wasn't really glorified, um. So she was young, making decisions. So we live with my great-grandmother, okay, um, because her parents passed when she was two, so her mom, her grandma, took her in, which is my great-grandmother. So we live with her? Um for most of our life in a shack. It was a two-bedroom, one-bath old house and it was kind of like the reset house for many of the people in our family. Sure, when things would go back, they'd come to the grandma's house and then they get back on their feet, they move on. So when my mom was like 22, 23, we finally got our own apartment, we kind of moved around a little bit.
Speaker 2:I went to Carver Hall in Tafoya, which are schools that are on SAISD. We ended up going to Warren High School is where I ended up graduating from, and what. At the time you didn't realize it, but what you're learning is I knew I didn't know what I wanted to do out of life, but I know what I didn't want. Okay. So I knew I was like this is not the lifestyle that I want for myself. Yeah, and so, seeing my mom struggle, working multiple jobs, I knew that whatever I was going to do, I was going to try to find something that I was going to be able to be successful at and give myself and the people that I love the better life. So we started there, fast forward, graduated from school it wasn't a poor student, I know you hear a lot of that. I was actually a decent student, a lazy student, but I was good.
Speaker 2:I was smart, I understood it, didn't go to college, joined the Navy in 2019.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your service.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and then kind of moved around with that. When I got back home I was here for a little bit, decided to go to LA try to pursue some acting. That didn't work out. Came back home yeah, you definitely have the face for acting. Oh thanks, it looked a lot better man A long time ago. Put on some weight since then. But came back home and was kind of trying to figure it all out, kind of bounce job to job to job. A little bit of everything sales, production management, order selecting, and that's kind of where I found myself. Last was in order selecting, which is I worked for Cisco. It was the last job I had before jumping into real estate.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, so Devin quick question before you continue, being that your last name is Resendez are you mixed race or are you?
Speaker 2:completely. I am. I'm mixed race, so my mother's Hispanic. I have her last name. I'm named after her dad, tomas Resendez. I'm Devin Thomas Resendez. My dad's last name is McCoy. I didn't meet my dad until I was seven and then my uncle was very close in age, so we became close and my grandmother would come around. We're working on a relationship now. He spent 15 and a half years in jail or 16 and a half years in jail. It was a while. The day I left for the service he was on house arrest. He had just gotten released. Oh wow. And so at the time it was kind of when I got back from the service, we were trying to build a friendship. Of course, I didn't yet have kids.
Speaker 1:And so I didn't extend grace, I just felt what you mean by that is, I didn't get the perspective of loving something so much and being able to push aside the pride to create that relationship.
Speaker 2:Correct. Right, that's exactly right. I didn't know. I didn't feel like I was missing anything. My mother was incredible. She shaped me with my morals, my values.
Speaker 2:I think the reason I am the person I am today is a lot of because of the things that she poured into me. She made me believe I could do anything. Ms Connell thinks he could do it. That's awesome, and so I think having that person in your corner is always important, right? If someone believes that you're able to do it and you respect that person's beliefs, and then when you go and try to achieve it, you do achieve it Absolutely. It's that sounding board that people, I think, need to be able to go and reach whatever their heights that they want to achieve. You need someone rooting for you that you believe is going to give you honest feedback. And so my dad wasn't around. We met, we tried it out. It didn't work for a while. We just started reconnecting recently, and again he had a new son, so his son now is probably seven or eight. My kids are 13, 12. Gotcha, I have a two-year-old as well, so you got an eight-year-old brother.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:It's different. Yeah, I bet it's different, but that's what made me so I went to reach out to him. We had an issue. He works in the legal space, so he's in the law firm, and so I needed some assistance and I needed legal advice. So I went to him and so when we were there he said he had to run a pickup dom. And I was like Because we hadn't talked in maybe 10 or 12 years at that time, and so I saw how he was raising his kid and I said let's meet up and talk.
Speaker 2:And so we went and we had lunch and hearing how he was trying to do the right things for his kids now really made me feel like, hey, I'm gonna give you a second chance, because I met my son late in life. He was already four when I met my son and didn't know that I had him. But when I learned about him, it was very challenging in the beginning to build a relationship because I felt like I was I wasn't present for the first few years of his life, so I didn't know where my place was.
Speaker 1:How do I connect that's?
Speaker 2:it. And then you want to come off and be that harsh dad hey, you're doing that wrong, right and, and so I didn't want to come in and and insert myself as that dad rolled off. I want to earn that spot, sure. And so I can only imagine me being 19 and my dad trying to insert himself at that time into my life. I mean, I had a dad in my world. My mom remarried. My mom married First husband only husband when I was 14, she met my stepdad, who I called dad. So that was my dad, because that was the first real role model.
Speaker 2:I don't want to say real role model because I've had other people in my life my uncle, who I call my, my grandpa. He's like my father figure, who's who I grew up knowing, um, and he raised his family, did all the right things. So, as a person, when you're trying to build and shape the person you want to become, you're visualizing, you're seeing how these other people are interacting and you're saying, hey, I like that, I want to do that, yeah, and there's been a few great men who have come in, but a lot of that for me was like who's going to stay here and do the right things and raise the family. So him and my mom have three girls. I have three little sisters. They're not little anymore, but my oldest sister is 22. She'll be 23 this year. Then I have an 18-year-old sister and I have a 14-year-old sister, so they're younger. My son and my sisters are pretty close in age, and my daughters as well, so we all kind of had kids at the same time.
Speaker 1:Makes sense, makes sense. So question for you your dad last name? You said McCoy, right, yep, black, he's black. Okay, and that's what I wrote down here is, and for now I just want a yes or no question. Then we can get into the rest later. Yeah, and you'll kind of see where I'm going with this. In the end, would you say that you were ever held down by your circumstances? No, okay, great, now let's talk about what you did prior to real estate briefly, and then we'll jump into that real estate piece and I will come back to this.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Because, similar to you which I'd go as far as to say folks out there, you look blacker than me and my daddy's black too yeah, White, half white, half Hispanic mother. But I'm just. I hear too many things out there of people holding themselves down based on what they believe that the world is thinking about them, versus what opportunities they're not getting into with the lack of exposure to good things, to good stories, to good victories in our community, and I hate to say that but I'm saying it anyway, no, I agree, and so before we talk about what I did before, I just want to say the circumstances I grew up in.
Speaker 2:They could be chains for people that hold them back from getting what they want or it could be the fuel that launches you to whatever it is you want to become, and I chose to use it as fuel and not be the chains that hold me back from going and getting what I want. That's right Out of this life. So what I did before real estate I pick boxes, that's just go. Order. Selecting is the job title. Okay, you get RF scanner, you pick up boxes, you pick things up and put them down.
Speaker 2:Yes, an oversimplification of the job. While I wish it was that easy, it was challenging it takes. It takes some skill, more manual labor than skill. But the better you get it, the more you can earn Efficiency, that's it, the more efficient you are, the better you're going to do.
Speaker 2:Before that, I was in a few management roles and they just never really worked out for me. I found that I was very vocal about the changes I wanted to see in organizations and it didn't pan out for those that it wasn't their idea. And that's what I've learned as I've grown more in life is, I've realized that people only like the ideas that they've come up with. If it's not their idea, it's not a good idea. And so I did that ended up moving to New Braunfels, because the company I worked for was based out of New Braunfels. We wanted to buy a house. That's what kind of led to me to become a realtor. I went to an open house, met a realtor. We wanted to buy the house and we were still in the lease. And he said well, if you buy this house, I'll buy you out your lease. And I was like cool, that will help us get through this process. I had already worked on my own credit because I had some credit challenges before.
Speaker 1:Same here Before I bought my first house. Same concept, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I was like in the four eighties I had to fix it myself. I called around and, and it was expensive to fix it and I was like, well, if I'm going to pay that much, I might as well pay the debt and start over. And so I was asking what they were going to do. And they walked through disputing and Google was existing at this time, so I was able to put in Google how to dispute your own stuff and realized I could do it on my own. So I went through, disputed everything, fixed my own credit, got it to where I wanted it to be, started the buying process. When we ended up closing on the house, the realtor didn't show up to our closing and he didn't buy us out of our lease. And so when we learned that, I said I'm going to get my license and I'm going to do open houses wherever this man does it, so nobody else falls victim to the circumstance, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was more of a vendetta than anything. I don't think I ever saw myself jumping into real estate. I also don't know how many other people found this as a business that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be a realtor when I grow up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think it's something you aspire to be growing up. Unless you're probably exposed to it beforehand, you may understand what this could be Sure.
Speaker 1:But I had no idea. Right, I can tell you one thing Both of my kids say we don't want to be in real estate or mortgage because y'all worked way too much.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I find the same thing with my kids. Neither of them have any passion for real estate, at least yet they're young.
Speaker 1:They don't know, they don't know.
Speaker 2:And so go clean your room. Yeah, and so I. When that happened, I did a glass door search and realized and realized that realtors only making 40,000 a year and it wasn't enough. But my thought was, if I can do it part-time and do a few here, because on our sale he had made like $12,000. Wow, and I was like that's not bad money. For what I felt like he did was nothing at the time. Um, it was a new home, so we ended up buying a brand new build and so there wasn't much work, in my opinion, beyond the. You open the door, you're at the open house and that's kind of where it went. So there began the journey. This is 2015. I was doing classes that night, so it took me about six months to complete the courses. It wasn't top priority. But when I finally did, we're now 2016,.
Speaker 2:I ended up getting hurt on the job. They put me out of work on FMLA and I start interviewing brokerages and, ironically enough, fun story. So in 2012,. And I start interviewing brokerages and, ironically enough, fun story. So in 2012, I wanted to get into flipping. So back then, craigslist was a thing and I was looking for real estate space where investors were seeking people who wanted to come and learn, whether that be door knocking, calling on house, whatever they need me to do, I was willing to do if I could get the experience of learning how to go about doing it Right. And so I ended up landing at Sell Smart on Callahan with a broker named Joel Corwin, and he's had this program that said earn while you learn, and so I called him. We met. My first question was do you do flips? And he was like, if you come sell with me, I will help you do flips. Wow, so he essentially had me practicing real estate without a license, well, shadowing.
Speaker 1:Shadowing and I've mentioned it before on previous discussions with other guests, that we graze over this topic, but the idea of our generation, the next generation, getting the concept of working for free. But you're not really working for free. You're gaining so much in way of the knowledge and experience by seeing somebody else go through it. Yes, you know, it's just lost.
Speaker 2:And we had had a conversation surrounding what compensation would look like if I was able to perform Right and I felt like I was. I was bringing people in. They were bringing checks. Yeah, at the time I didn't realize the checks were earnest money. There was no one sitting me down to educate me. To tell you what this is so.
Speaker 2:I see them making money. Then, hey, man, I brought a few people in. I haven't gotten paid. And they're like, well, when people get money, baby, this is how they move. And so you hear this outside noise. I was like, okay, this opportunity is not for me. And at the time, we find out that I'm having what I believed was my first baby with my wife she was pregnant and I'm like, well, I got to go get a job that's going to make me some money. Today went back to what I knew, started working. So fast forward in 2016, when I get my license and I have it now and I'm out of work, I'm driving around the square in New Braunfels and I see, sell, smart, okay. And I say, well, now this man has to pay me because I'm now licensed. So I walk in the door. He remembered who I was, um, and he gave me the opportunity, and that's where I started February.
Speaker 1:So that was how many years later we were. Four years later. Four years later, huh Wow.
Speaker 2:And he brought it up. He said you're probably more mature now. And he was right. I really was. I was 22 at the time and now I was 26 years old jumping into this business, wow. And so I made it very clear to him what the expectations were. Like, hey, I'm out of work right now if I'm not going back, right. And so he. And then Monday morning I show up to work bright and early, 8 o'clock, it's probably 8.15, because I assumed all realtors showed up at 8.30. Right, right, it's kind of like the first day of school. You don't want to be late, you want to be on time, you want to make a good impression.
Speaker 1:You want to be the cool kid, but you don't want to be the nerd. That's it.
Speaker 2:Suit and tie at the time, right, yeah, um, so I I show up overdressed, nobody's there. Um, the second I walk in the office, there's a couple that follows me in, um, and so they had the card stacks back then. That would have the agents displayed and they were asking for a chris. And I'm like let's look through here. And I was like I don't see a chris. I'm so sorry. I said, if you want to wait till they open, I'm happy to get with the, with the office manager, and see if she can get us that information. She's like well, can you help us? And this is day one, this is day one. She's like can you help us? And I said what do you need help with? They want to sell our house. Didn't yet have MLS, didn't know I needed it Right, had nothing. So we go behind the computer. I'm just typing stuff on the computer, taking down notes.
Speaker 1:Let me get your address. My name is Devin. My name is Devin.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So when the broker showed up later on that day, we went through it. We ended up getting the listing that would be my first sale Fast forward. I show up the next day and I'm having questions with the office manager, like where's everyone at? Because this is day number two and nobody's here, and this is back in 2016. This is 2016. Wow, and so I'm just confused as to why no one's there.
Speaker 2:She's like without me. They're customers getting those customers from. Yeah, and she didn't have a good answer. Um, she was just like well, they're just getting them from. Where they're getting them from? Yeah, and I was like how could someone like me, who's brand new, acquire customers? Yeah, and she said, well, you can do open houses.
Speaker 2:I'm like where's the broker? How's he getting business? Because he was still a working broker. So he was I won't call him competing, but he was out there working still. That's how you provide to get the lights on right. And so I was like where's he getting leads from? She said, well, he pays for leads. And I said does he have any old leads that I could call? So she called him, got approval, gave me some old leads, started dialing, called an old man. His son wanted to purchase. He had already bought so he was no longer looking, but he said his son was. So timing was just perfect and I just kept dialing and every day I was showing up.
Speaker 2:So from the days we did four transactions so two a week roughly for those for those two, two weeks, and then at the end of the month, every month, that office would give an award for the agent of the month. And so I got agent of the month and everyone was like, oh my God, who are you? Who is this guy? Who are you? What did you do? Did you come from real estate? What office are you moving from? No, I used to be an actor. I don't have the answers to that. I really didn't know what I was doing. And right around that same time I was doing a new home at Perry Homes and the sales rep, after we did the deal, invited me to lunch, okay, and in the car he was discussing like, hey, man, I see a lot of potential in you.
Speaker 1:What side of town was that this?
Speaker 2:was in New the Perry homes, it was Mill Creek, okay, um, so it's 46 going back that way. That's where I was at at the time. Sure, that's where I was doing most of my business. And so, um, as we're driving, he brings up a man. He's like hey, I want you to be this agent. Um, I think he can help take your business to the next level. He's very successful. Are you open to it? I was like, absolutely. Um.
Speaker 2:So he gave me his number, I called his assistant, picked up the phone. He ended up, ironically enough, this agent had also been burned by the same broker I was working for. So there was a oh, wow, if I could take from his plate, I'm going to take it. So when he found out who I worked for, he called me instantly. Yet they recommended that to you. They did I don't know. They knew that that was the situation. And so when he called and we met, I went in with the same thing. I had told George Cohen like, hey, the goal is I'm going to go back to my job. And he said if I can have you earn as much money as you earn in a year between now and then, would you stay? And I said 100%. I said if you just give me to the same amount in a year I would stay no brainer.
Speaker 2:And so Ben began the process of real estate and we began working and every day I would just show up and I would do what I had to do.
Speaker 2:And I had no understanding that other people weren't having the same success as I was in this business, because in our office everyone was successful. They were all doing a lot of deals and there wasn't a lot of people in there, and because we kept the outside noise in, we didn't know that somebody at another brokerage was struggling because in ours there weren't. And so it kind of goes to the phrase of high tide rises, all ships. That's right. And it wasn't until the end of the year that real producers that put out the count of the agents and we realized that we were ranking the top 100 agents both of us and so I was like, wow, we're doing that good. That puts it in perspective. It does. And so I think, because I didn't know that there were agents that were struggling and because I got moved so early, it allowed me to build this work ethic and continue to work without having to be pulled down by the lazy by the ordinary by the.
Speaker 2:I totally get what you're saying, because that could have became me right it could have been like hey, well, I don't need to be at the office this early, and and it and. When the year ended, I realized I was getting lazy at the end of my very first year because I was like, well, nobody else is in the office, I could stay home, but I was still facilitating business and I was working a lot of hours, but I wasn't spending the time. I should have been where. I'm like, hey, I'm in the office every day, I'm doing the right thing. So in 2017, that was my goal I told everybody like, hey, I'm done.
Speaker 2:And we had a poor business model. We really did in 2016 because of the way that I was trained. It worked. You could sell a lot of houses, but we're without needing it to be given away. Sure, I mean, that was the model that I was taught, and I went to a training at the end of that year and I had done the most business in this training because they went around as a small mastermind and so, as we went around, they were like well, how'd you get the business? I was like well, I get a lot of it off of Zillow and we offer a rebate to the buyers who choose to transact with us, just a gasp of no way Like it was taboo.
Speaker 1:Why would you do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was so taboo and I was giving away your money, yeah, and I didn't realize that it was not normal, right, because this is all I knew, absolutely. And so they started going around the the Nate. They were really honed in on P and L Like, are you a profitable business? And I felt very profitable, right. Um, I felt like I was making a lot of money compared to what I was earning before, and so, after that class was over, I texted my team lead the owner of the company hey, I'm switching my business model in 17. It's going to look a lot different. And so, in 17, that's what I did I really honed in on treating this like a business, really more like an efficient job. I don't want to call it a business because it wasn't that yet. It was just a great job that I enjoyed, and I was willing to come in early and treat it like an eight to five type of thing, but I would work later hours if needed and that's.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you said that, cause I wrote this down the idea that you were just speaking about, or the concept of your first year. You started getting lazy at the end of the year, why? Because everybody else is kind of doing it, and when an agent gets in their first year, even their second year, it doesn't really click that you're running your own business just yet. So it's, it's what keeps you motivated. For sure, the money. But if it's your first time making that kind of money, how do you run your schedule? What's most important, how to prioritize my day? I mean, there's so many factors that go into that business, my own business concept, that are missed. What was keeping you driven towards the end of that year? Was it the fact that, oh shit, I'm on the?
Speaker 2:top. I didn't. Even then I didn't realize it and I was never chasing the money. Okay, I think I'm very competitive and so, while I don't think it at the time, in that moment, but maybe subconsciously, I was truly just trying to do more than the person who brought me in. So I was going to outwork him, I was going to do more deals than him because if his number was successful when I came in, he had talked about the year prior making $400,000. And I was like well, if I just made 400,000. So the goal was to get to him. And if I just get to 400,000, then what's next?
Speaker 2:It becomes a conversation, and so I did. And in 2017, after that word had gotten out about the success I had, a lot of the agents from the company I left were coming in wanting to interview me first before interviewing him. But we're trying to figure out was my success because of him, and I was always like, absolutely, if I wasn't here, the questions I would have had, the issues I was facing he was able to help me understand what I should be doing with my business and get me to the next level, so his business began to grow. So in mid 2017, we had adjusted our split model because I was becoming successful and I was like, hey, I don't want to overpay, and so he agreed.
Speaker 2:And as the year went on, the deals became more, and so he felt that I was no longer worth keeping because of the cost to have me, and so he decided to let my license go. We had a lot of deals pending still at that office, and so, as I was looking for new places to go, I wanted to make sure the next decision I made was the right decision for my business and where I wanted to see this grow to, and I wanted to be aligned with the right people, because the first two offices I landed in I didn't know, I didn't go and say oh well, there's multiple places to go to. You would almost think in this business, when you interviewed and how quickly they hire you, that you must be some form of a rock star right, because they instantly hire you.
Speaker 1:It's not even a hard interview.
Speaker 2:And so when I moved, I went to a friend's brokerage who was a mortgage broker and he really just wanted to get more opportunities at our loans, okay. And so he was like, come hangy here, I'll let you stay for free. So while you pick out where you're going to go, he knew I was going to move. Sure, he fell off on here 30 days or 60 days. Yeah, if he can get a look at those loans. He also wanted opportunities to talk to our leads, of course, and so he's like I can get a chance. So Callwell, remax. And then and the reason why I looked at those places is because at the time and this is 2017 a lot of the successful people were at these brands, right, and Keller Williams was the last one, and that one came about because another agent at the Keller Williams Heritage wanted me to interview for his team.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so we sat there, we interviewed for the team, realized it wasn't a fit for what I was trying to do, and so then he set up the opportunity for me to meet with Craig Owen, and that's when the business kind of shifted. We sat for a one hour interview. It ran six hours. We ended up being there all night and then he said let's set up a second one, let's go to dinner. I want to meet your wife, okay, and so when we went to meet my wife, he was selling her the entire evening on. Tell me what you don't like about this, and he's good. Have you ever got to see what Craig?
Speaker 1:Owen, oh, 1000%. Yeah, he's good that man can sell everybody.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, and so my wife is now just like yes, yes, he can go, you can take him. And for me he brought up a concept at the time. He's like what are your goals, devin? And I was like I want to be the number oneute my success based on me. Having some people helping me out Makes sense. And at the time, in 16, this team concept was new. But those who were the most successful had large teams. That's right, and anytime you would talk about their success, somebody would make a remark like well, they're only successful because they have a team Right.
Speaker 1:And I think the comment still probably gets made, but teams are more common now, so they understand it better and I agree with you on that the facade, or that negative trait that it carries over the top. I think the shadow has gone away or dissipated quite a bit, because, you're right, a lot of teams are doing most of the business and it is all due to the head of the snake, in essence, that grew. This thing, grew. The brand is taking the risk to spend the money in order to bring these leads in and build these relationships. And then you get to a certain point and you go okay, now let me duplicate myself the best I possibly can to give the customer still this great experience and have the knowledge and et cetera, along with me if they ever have questions to come through. And that being the case, I mean I, I had a team shoot. I got in in 2012, 2013, 2014 is when I tried to start a team. It was like me and my assistant at the time and.
Speaker 1:I cannot stand the word assistant, so that lasted very short period of time. It's like okay, I'm not calling you my assistant anymore, because I've had too many customers say hey, uh, why are you giving me to your assistant? Am I not good enough? So now you're my partner? Yes, and that changed the concept of okay, now we can add more partners to this.
Speaker 2:And you were early. If you're doing that at 14, you were ahead of the curve right and you understood leverage at the time in a way that nobody did, and that's why I say in the beginning that it wasn't really a business. It was a job, and a great job right. There's nothing wrong with not calling this a business and accepting that it's a great job.
Speaker 1:That's what it is. That's what it was for me. That's right.
Speaker 2:And so when we had that conversation, craig convinced me that if I had a team and I was able to help 10 people reach their goals of reaching $100,000 and in return still under a million dollars, would that not still be a great life? And he's like, and I said absolutely, I said I mean a million dollars to 10 people, I would do that today. Yeah, sign me up coach.
Speaker 2:But it didn't seem possible because my thought was, well, if I was really making because I was making more than a hundred thousand for 16, I think I did that year 365,000 roughly and so. But Alex didn't earn a hundred thousand dollars off of me, right, no?
Speaker 1:So how is that possible?
Speaker 2:So that's what I'm saying, like well, what am I missing in this concept that I don't understand? And so when we left, we shut the restaurant down. When we ended up leaving, his car came first and he had a Lamborghini. Okay, and I told my wife when he got in the car if this man has a Lamborghini, we should listen. Yeah, I'd already been convinced, or someone had already started probing me. The lender we worked with at the time had been trying to convince me to start a team because we had lost an opportunity and I'm sure we lost many others, but this is the first one that we were aware of that I lost.
Speaker 1:And so you know what. Can you give an example of the opportunity that you lost to show the listeners that, hey, if this is happening to you, maybe something to?
Speaker 2:consider yes. So the client had flown in from California. There's an online lead. We met. I picked them up. We went and toured the seven or eight homes that we had already had scheduled that day, yep, prior to him coming in, we knew we wanted to look at. He loved one of them, so we were going to place an offer that evening on the house. Well, the next day, saturday, he wants to see another one. I was already fully booked up so I asked if we could do a Sunday. He said yes, sunday morning comes. I try to reach out to confirm. He doesn't respond.
Speaker 2:The lender calls me around 930 and says that he's putting an offer in with another agent and they've reached out for a pre-approval letter. And he had asked what happened. And I said I told him we could wait till Sunday. I thought we were going to meet this morning. What I learned in that moment is customers aren't going to wait. He was on a limited amount of time. He had to get back home and he had to make a decision quickly, and so I had lost the opportunity. And in that moment the lender had said what if you had a team and someone could have gone and helped that person and you still earned something and I was like, well, it was chalking up to a loss. That's evil getting in the way you realize.
Speaker 1:That's a rare occurrence, yeah.
Speaker 2:And at the time there was probably countless others that weren't as transparent. They didn't impact me as much Makes sense, but it happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, I don't care how good you are, you're losing somebody, that's right. And so we then fast forward. He brings it up. I call the lender back. I met this dude. He said I should start a team. What hadn't been in the business that long, I didn't understand the business the way that I do today, and so it was premature. Now my business was big enough to support having a team.
Speaker 2:That second year I was probably coming off of doing over a hundred transactions. So I was doing a lot and there was business to split. But I didn't feel ready to lead. But I realized I was losing opportunities because I couldn't take them all. And how many of those others that I didn't call or didn't connect with that would have transpired in transactions if someone could have nurtured them the right way and led to business. So we moved to Heritage. We decided that that was the place for us after interviewing everyone. After meeting Craig, he was the one who really did take the most time to pour into us, so he must have believed that there was something here long-term that I didn't see yet.
Speaker 2:Something in you that I didn't see yet? Yeah, right. And so because the other ones were just a quick interview like hey, you want to come on board, come over. And so this was the first one who wanted to meet. My wife wanted to take us out to dinner and there was a connection in that moment. And so 2018 comes, we start a team, we hire our first agent, the lender brings over some friends, we interview, we hire everybody. So we, we grew quickly, so we hired our first agent. She starts to have success right away. A couple of weeks in gets a couple of deals. So it was. It was working. Yeah, and, and there was no training. Because we didn't have any training.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like I didn't get much training. You got a question to ask me.
Speaker 2:And that's, that's how.
Speaker 2:I ran the business and we ran it that way for so long. But we March. So I'm like, cool, we can just get this ramped up. And so I started bringing on agents. We get to four agents by May and the cap starts to hit for the number of agents. And so when we bring on our fourth agent, the cap gets higher, increases yeah, it does. And so we were already capped out.
Speaker 2:But now the cap was reimposed because this new person and so the next deal that closes, we're giving money that we otherwise wouldn't have to, and we realized that our fixed costs were too high, and so we also want to hire again. But now I'm like, well, hold up, I don't really want to hire because I don't want this new cap to increase. So we paused hiring and we started looking to where would we have to move. I like the brokerage that I was at and I've been there now at that point maybe six or seven months I did enjoy it, but I realized that this wasn't going to work for the way I want to grow my business or the way I saw it at the time. Yeah, and so we ended up wanting to move to Legacy, so we moved over.
Speaker 2:We went to lunch, met a girl, well knew a girlfriend, who said, hey, have you heard about me? Not so much unhappiness, but hey, I can't grow the way I want to because of this cost, right, I don't know where to go. I do like Keller Williams, and she had suggested me talking to Legacy and I assumed Keller Williams were all the same. So I was unsure if that was the right move. So I ended up talking to the broker of Keller Williams Legacy and he was like, yeah, you come over. The cap is this? We moved our team over and we began to grow. We moved over and brought on three people the day we moved over, so now our team is at seven. Yeah, this is now mid 18.
Speaker 1:Those couple of folks that were waiting on the sidelines.
Speaker 2:They were ready, yeah, and so we moved over and we quickly grew while we were there. But surprisingly, even though we were growing, we weren't more successful than I was the year prior. Okay, we weren't earning more money, successful than I was the year prior. We weren't earning more money, we were actually earning less. And so at the end of that year, we were at nine agents and this is the end of 2018. And I have another person who wants to come. It's going to put me at 10.
Speaker 2:And Legacy says well, how are you hiring? And I said, well, they're just coming. I really don't know. And I didn't have the answers. And so, when we talked to Steven, steven said, hey, man, let's pause it, let me talk to the leadership and figure out how we're going to impose a cap, if we're going to increase it or not. And so, while he was trying to figure that out, other people were reaching out, trying to get us to move to their brokerage, because at this point we were doing really well I think that year in 18, we probably did like 160 deals maybe. And so we were doing okay. And so another broker just started now and they were like, hey, would your team like to come over and I said, well, here's what I need. I want to be able to grow unlimited. I want my numbers to match the numbers that they currently are, and they were game for that. And this is place number three.
Speaker 1:This would be now my third brokerage. Folks out there listening that may be in a situation to where you might be able to help more people if you added others to the equation and essentially duplicated yourself could train them, et cetera. You don't need to necessarily wait until you're 100% ready. You've got all the answers to your questions. You've got the perfect equation of what you think it's going to look like, because chances are, once you start doing it and putting the wheels in motion, something's going to change and you're going to have to modify your business structure and how you go about things. So, in short, what I'm trying to say is there's never a perfect time. Get your ass out there and fail, and it will motivate you moving forward.
Speaker 2:And that is exactly what happened. I was failing. I was failing as a leader. I was failing as this new team lead. I didn't have all the answers, I was doing it wrong and I think when I started and that's why I said I was premature and jumping into starting a team but were you, who knows? Because it worked out While I was failing I will say the people who chose to join us early on were very gracious. They were willing to extend grace as I was getting it wrong, because that makes a huge difference, because they're the ones imposed with the changes in our splits, correct.
Speaker 2:This is going to look like this now. Sorry guys, I promise that, yeah, and so it was a lot of changing up things. And then we moved to this last place, the third place that we're at Now. We it's a new shop, and they're growing quickly. The leadership is very ambitious. They want to scale and grow fast, and I'm behind it. However, I can't. I want to see y'all do this, I want to see y'all win, and so we're doing it. We're growing as well, which is great. So I think at the end of that year, we probably grew to 16 or 17 people, um, and the numbers were getting bigger, and so at the end of 19, they have a leadership split.
Speaker 2:So 2020 opens up in 2020 and they're splitting, and we already moved from the office. At the end of the year, we had got our own place 2,000 square foot office off of Bandera Road only because they were giving us free space and I feel guilty for taking on the space. Sure, because we had so many people and so we were taking up office space that they could have rented somebody else, and so we were taking too much. At that point, I was like, hey, it's time we get our own place, so we're already about to move anyway, and timing wise and you can call it God or something out there in the world that just opened the right timing for us to be out. And so, when they split, we were torn between the two, and so this is 2020.
Speaker 2:Covid ends up happening. We're growing the world's unknown right, so we're having Zoom meetings with our team and trying to figure out, like, what the next step was going to be. Um, but we knew we had to move. So this is February, we let our license go and we decided to just open up our own place or say, hey, at this point we'll just do our own thing. Um, so I called back my friend Rich, the guy who had the brokerage early on, and say, hey, let me buy yours and take over and let me just own, go, take it. And so I was like, well, I want to rename it. So we renamed it. We called it Live Realty and it was ours. We negotiated a split with the broker who sponsored us. That made sense, so it was more favorable for him. So now he's able to hang his license. So if he ever did a real estate transaction, it was now a free deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, guaranteed money, like, hey, no matter what happens, you're going to get this $18,000 period. And so he was on board. So we started that and we ran it for a while. We moved from the 2,000 square foot building to a 6,000 square foot building, um, and the team continued to grow. Um, we ended up having a higher leadership. So I in those series is I had to get coaches. Okay, um, I didn't think I needed coaches, I thought I had the answers. We never think we, by the way, I didn't. I really felt like, what are they going to teach me that? I don't already know, or I'm going to figure out as I go through it, but what it did was it put fuel on it and it made it grow faster. It put me in the right direction and avoided some potholes. I might have taken other ways without it, and my only requirement when hiring a coach is they had to still be in production themselves.
Speaker 1:I like that, and they had to be doing more business than we were.
Speaker 2:So I was out there looking. It wasn't hard, it was, it was. It was challenging at that point, even though our numbers weren't that big. Right, but most of the people who get big into coaching have already stepped away from production More of the time. Yeah, you are correct. And so I found the coaches and I was telling them my hurdles and how we need to grow, and what we didn't have at the time was somebody who wanted to sit there and mentor the agents, just bringing them in and giving them the opportunity and say, hey, y'all figured out the way that I figured it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And our agents were doing okay, but their numbers weren't that big and I couldn't figure out why we were putting metrics on like hey, everyone should do and now, when you say they weren't that big, what are you comparing it to?
Speaker 1:To your own numbers? To the rest of the company? To the world's number?
Speaker 2:Or At the time it was just to myself, right, and I was like hey, your ambition and I was cutting it low for them at the time.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, because I was like, hey, my first year I did 72 transactions, so I'm on 72 sides. So I'm thinking, hey, maybe that's high, right, but if y'all can do four a month, I'd be cool with four a month, that seems, with the Absolutely, and they were falling short. So we kept moving this goal, this number, down, like, okay, let's do 36 deals a year, right, that's three a month, can y'all hit three deals a month? And it realized that maybe one might get there and the other ones were lagging behind.
Speaker 2:In these early years of our business, the real aha came for me was we had an agent who had been with us for a while and he was about to call it quits, and so when that time came, I gave him a deal it was a small one and then he asked if he could shadow me on a showing and see what that was like. And when he came out and he saw it done live, it clicked for him that the things I was telling him when we would sit and talk we weren't really having meetings back then, team meetings it was just kind of like, hey, y'all go sell, because I didn't want to put any restraints that I didn't have on me. I didn't want to put that on other people.
Speaker 2:I didn't think they jumped in this business to have a boss or to have someone telling them where they need to be at what time. So I didn't want to impose that on them, right, and so I was letting them run Like y'all go do it Knockout sales, thinking that everyone was going to be doing the same things that I was. Yeah, point to the end of the year he became the number one sales guy, I think. From in those six or seven months he did like 25 transactions, so he was getting it and I was like this thing's working.
Speaker 1:And just think the level of humility that he had to have to be able to approach you, not only to let you know, hey, this isn't working out. Number one then also the level of humility on your side and the level of belief that you have in people, especially those that are around you, to give him that deal that he could have went, I'll take it, but I'm going to screw it up or not pay too much attention because I'm already one foot out the door. But then his also level of humility to come in and say, hey, can I shadow you? I think it would be best if we worked this deal together so that I can see what the hell I'm missing because you're being successful. I got into this industry around same time concept and something's just not clicking.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's funny because when he came in, that was his exact thought was if you could do it, I could do it. We both worked together at Cisco, so he came up, so he saw me in that space, and what I've learned over the years is that people always see for you, who you were, and not for who you are. So because we worked together, he must have assumed that our skills and our gifts aligned and they were the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Funny when people say man, you've changed.
Speaker 2:That was the goal. That's it right. It didn't work this hard to be the same. So as I was doing what I was doing, I didn't know that people didn't get it the same way that I got it, yeah. And so when we went out and he came out and he saw it done, I said what if I did this for everyone, when will we all end up? And so that's where the click came in.
Speaker 2:I knew the parts of the team that I didn't like was having to deal with the emotions of these agents who were doing really well. Then they go in months where they weren't doing great. It didn't make sense to me because I'm just like keep showing up, Keep working, it's going to work. And so I wasn't good at dealing with those emotions, it was often said. And so when you had brought up him approaching me, it did take a lot of courage on his end because people said at that time I was unapproachable, or they seemed like I was unapproachable. And what I've learned over the years is it's now a word that I use more often is I'm kind, I'm not nice. And so when you had brought up the deal, I immediately told him like don't fuck this up. Like that was the exact word when I gave the deal.
Speaker 2:And so I'm sure he's already going in with, and it's always been hard for me to to to encourage mediocrity.
Speaker 1:I 1000 percent, not only agree with you, but also, at the same time, guess what folks? Life isn't easy, life isn't nice, life isn't going to hand you a bed of roses for you to pad your bed with. That's not how this game works, and I'm not talking real estate game or mortgage game. Life in itself, it is hard.
Speaker 2:Yes, right. And so when I tell them like I am a kind person, so someone like, so the agents would always say, well, once you get to know him, he's so nice. It's like I'm not, I'm just kind, I'm not nice. I'm going to be hard on you guys because of the expectation that I have for you, but not only the expectations. It'll be one thing if I brought people into my world and say, hey, go figure it out, I'll do open houses every Tuesday, every Thursday, every Saturday. You do those things. Maybe it'll work for you the same way. It's no, I'm giving you leads 20, 30, 40, 50 at some point a month for you all to go and meet with these people and put them into a home. So I'm already providing them the people, right, because this is a contact sport. So if I'm giving you the people at a certain number, it's just math. Hey, when you attend people, I expect you to sell one house and that number to grow as you get better at your conversion. You're handling your objections. That number should then grow to two or three on the same leads, because you're just getting better.
Speaker 2:And so we hired a lead on our team. We made him a COO. We wanted to hire outside of our organization because we didn't want the person who signed up first to feel like she was naturally entitled to the position because she signed up first to the opportunity. So we looked outside of the company and we brought somebody into our organization and into our world and he helped run it. And he came from a completely different level. He was far more compassionate than I was to people, right, and so he was able to give that yin and that yang to like oh Devin's an asshole, I'll go to him, and so they would go to him. And he ran that for a while and our business continued to grow. We were getting bigger and bigger. Then we did 300 transactions and then we just kept growing and as more people came to our organization, they will share the goodness with other people. And we kept growing and it almost felt like why is this getting so big? Right, covid happened. The business just starts to take off, right, the world goes and we're losing opportunities.
Speaker 2:I remember, looking like man, how many buyers did not buy with us this year that came into us and we couldn't help those families for whatever the reason, right. But a lot of times it was the consumers that we chose to focus on. So when I got in the business, I guess you got to backtrack slightly. When I got in, the person I started with was handling luxury price points. His average price point was probably $600,000 or $700,000 at the time. And when I looked at those who were in those markets as I was trying to buy leads there, they were all very successful agents doing hundreds, 200, 300 transactions. I didn't want to compete in that space and be the low man on the totem pole, because back then we were advertising on Zillow and Realtorcom and they would show sales at the bottom and I'm just getting started. So I had like 15, 16, 17 early on and these people got 280. And I didn't want to compete there and I say, well, where are the people not? So where's this market gap and where could I bring the biggest impact? And this is even before I knew it was like market segmenting and I didn't know those buzzwords because I didn't go to college, so I'm not have a all me neither brother, the streets me neither, and so, but it makes sense, that's it to me common sense like it makes sense
Speaker 2:like go where there's no one. Yeah, but it happened to be fish where the fish are, that's it. And it was the largest market. So I said so when I had my rep and I was like, hey, I want to go in these markets, like, well, the price points are really low, and I said how many leads are going to give you? Like 100s? And I was like that's perfect. I was like that's what I need. I need the opportunity, I need to be as cheap as possible. That's right, I didn't have a big budget back then. I think we were, as we started off, at 250 spend early on and we grew it. And we grew it organically as we did more deals. Even back then funny story I had to do a secure card. I had to hide it from my wife because she didn't want me to invest in leads. I had to. When I took a closing, I had it I 700 bucks and so I would put the charges on it. So she didn't know that I was investing. Hey, cats out the bag mama.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I had to hide it because she didn't see it as a value add to our business. Of course not, and it was scary at the time to be investing in something that we didn't know if it would work or not. So as we kept moving it around, we grew, so I went into this market and I realized that the underserved slash, unserved, was in this. At the time, the prices were between anything sub 150 really, and on occasion you might get a big one. 300,000 would be a big deal at the time, and again, this is 16 and 17. So the prices of San Antonio were still pretty low at the time, just to begin with. And so that's where I chose to put my business, because I had the biggest swings at bat and nobody was really fishing where I was fishing. So I had the biggest swings at bat and nobody was really fishing where I was fishing, right, so I had all of them, and then, as my sales began to grow the agents who would come into our markets I'm now the big fish.
Speaker 2:Yes, I had the most sales. So people were then choosing. So we were getting more organic business because we were being selected versus a dial-in call. So it ended up growing organically, no-transcript from production in late 2020, completely where I was simply helping our agents be successful, being present more for them, helping them overcome their objections, finding out where they're struggling in their business, and that allowed for ours to grow and make it bigger. And we've always really leaned on the agents to be agents. In our organization. We don't provide a lot of support beyond the opportunities, and the reason for that is I didn't want to make lazy agents, I want to make great agents, and so I make them do everything, and a lot of them are very, very knowledgeable in this business and they've stuck with us and allowed us to grow together.
Speaker 1:So two things stuck with us and allowed us to grow together. So two things. Did you even know at the time that what you were doing was building a recession-proof business?
Speaker 2:No, At the time I just thought why does no one else know that there's a big opportunity here?
Speaker 1:Okay, and the reason why I say that is me personally. Same thing I worked with and still to this day, I would say a third of my business that still comes in is credit repair. First-time home buyer and people say why do you still work with that? Well, number one, it feels great in helping them, for sure when somebody says no and I'm able to not say yes right away, but this is how, and then it actually happens. It's the best thing, feeling-wise, without the money portion, anything like that, and the price point in itself. There will always be a bigger pool in this price point than there are in the luxury market or anything else. And I've got loan officers that are like man, I wish I could get my average loan amount higher. Well, that time will come, because what ends up happening is you turn all of these first time homebuyers into homeowners and not only are they going to tell people around them, but they themselves probably believe in the things that you've educated them on and fast forward two to three years. They're going to do it again.
Speaker 2:Yes, that you've educated them on and fast forward two to three years. They're going to do it again. Yes, for me, what I didn't know was recession proof Me and another agent after my first year. We worked a deal together and he was also successful at his firm and we were at different companies at the time and he had had a conversation with me real late and he was like hey, man, I think we're going to be the top guys as time goes on, because the ones above us were significantly older than we were and he's like they're going to, they're going to find themselves out because they're older than us. We were so young, 26. I think he was probably 28, 29 at the time. Yeah, so we were pretty young.
Speaker 2:So for me it was like I just got to hold out, I got to be able to stay around and do it and it became to the business I never thought it can grow to become what it's become today and what I think it will be as we go on a couple of more years and I figure out the things that I've yet to learn. When I got in, I was just like can this be enough to keep me out of system? For sure, and the rest of it has just been gravy on top of that and and I don't know what I did to get to where I should have but in the book the Alchemist it says when you align with your purpose, the world conspires to get you there. That's right. And what I found is, when I got into this business, when I tore my rotator cuff after I had the license, it almost felt like timing God, the world saying hey, you're now going to align with your purpose.
Speaker 1:Whether you knew it or not, this is where, bird's eye view, talking about your journey thus far, you can absolutely see that it was aligned and whether at the time, there were mistakes that you made, failures that you made, those two were a part of that alignment. In essence, it brought me here right Now sitting talking with you.
Speaker 2:But even beyond that, it took me to a place that I didn't even know that was possible and the right people were coming in at the right time. It's almost like now you need this person, Now you're ready for this person, and they all began to take chances on me at the right moments, Right, and so now we try to repay it back and give it right. We there's a lot of agents in this business who are building amazing teams on their in their own right and they're very tight on how they hire. It's almost like they're going to apply for NASA several interviews to become part of the group, and that's great for them and their business and for me. All I want to do is provide opportunities for those who are looking for it, because I felt everyone deserves a chance. So when you come to Devon, I'm going to give you a chance.
Speaker 2:I'm going to give you the same tools, the same resources that I give to everybody, and it's proven to be successful time and time again for the people that have chosen to join with us, and all of them have found their own version of success. And I told you how tight we were in the beginning with our goals that we have for these agents. We've gone to now saying you tell me what you want and let me help you get there. Yes, and if you'd get to that point and you realize you want more, I'm willing to push you to get more. But we stopped putting these. I don't want to say they were unrealistic, because they're not, but they are difficult, right. It requires a certain discipline that some may not be willing to commit to because it doesn't fit their lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And I've had to become okay with acknowledging that not everybody wants that for themselves. I could want it for them, but I can't want it more than they want it, and so we've had these people come in and, at different phases in their life, they're now ready for whatever's next. We have an incredible agent. Right now. I'm a female agent. Her name is Catherine. She's been with me since 2018.
Speaker 2:She's one of the ones that came over when we moved over, was also referred by the agent At the end of that year. We did our goals and her goals was to do $40,000 that next year. And I brought her in and I said hey, I'm gonna let you know something. These goals are too small to fit inside my goals. And she was like, if I made that, my bills would be paid. She's now several years making six figures.
Speaker 2:Right now, she's probably one of the top agents on my team at the moment, and now we're having conversations like hey, whatever your life is at today, you're obviously in a new space where you're able to take on more work and we want to be able to help you get there.
Speaker 2:What do we need to do to push you to do more?
Speaker 2:And I think it becomes scary because she's already doing way more than she wanted to do Initially, yeah, yeah, and her lifestyle has grown accordingly, right? So she now has a house and she's a single mom. So it's great to see that our business can cater to those people, because I was raised by a single mom and I would have loved for somebody have taken a chance on my mom the way that I've taken a chance on these women, because what could that have done for our lives. And so to me, it's my way of paying it forward in some regard, to saying, hey, I'm going to help everybody if I can, and as long as the opportunity that we're giving can stay big enough to keep giving those to others, we're going to keep letting it get as organic and as big as it wants to get so that those people can come in our vision and fit in theirs, because my goals are so big we can fit a lot of people's goals inside of mine and still be relatively small.
Speaker 2:I like that because I want to achieve a lot, right and and real estate has become the platform that's allowed me to say, hey, these are now possible. When I got in, I didn't know anybody making a million dollars in real estate, but I saw TV and they're making a million dollars Now. Their price points are $30 million house. It's cool, right, ours weren't. But when I realized it was possible is when it shifted my mindset, and so when I started looking around the room and saying, well, that dude's doing 300, he got to be making a million dollars at 300 transactions, because at my 72, it was 365. So you times that up, he's in that range.
Speaker 2:And so then, when I moved over to KW, they introduced me to the MREA book Millionaire Real Estate Agent. Well, I didn't agree with those principles because they seemed old to me at the time. And again, gary's realized that as well and redone the book. But what it said was there are people making a million dollars doing this. How do I become one of them? Right. And then what I realized and Gary had told me this line a while back is he said it takes no more time for me to be me than it does for you to be you. And he's like I'm just more leveraged and consistent for sure.
Speaker 1:So I've got a couple of questions for you. In what you've just talked about, the idea and I'm huge on it from day one 20% minimum every month over month of reinvesting in your business, and essentially what that is is reinvesting in yourself. How not only difficult is that to do when you have very little starting out, and you've articulated that in the sense that you had to hide that card to even leverage to make that happen. You had the credit issues, so that was also a struggle, but, damn it, I've got to put more money back into this. Or I mean, where were you, number one, where were you getting that idea from to reinvest? Because many go through this business their first, second year and spend what they get and then they realize, oh shit, I got to pay taxes and that's not even in the account. It's not, but how difficult is it? Who did you get it from? So, who did you get it from? And then, how difficult is it to stick to that, regardless of the current circumstances, hoping for the outcome?
Speaker 2:I don't know who I got it from. What I will say is I've always been the type to watch, so when I saw Alex investing in his business and how it's having success, my thought was if I put my money there, would I have the same result? And so that's where it began. We weren't. We didn't have any money, but I think having the right partner is also important, and so when we started to make money, my wife was wanting to save the money because she didn't know.
Speaker 1:Of course, she never had it before.
Speaker 2:We didn't, and I think a lot of it. I think even I don't know if she'll admit it or not today but I think we both were thinking I'm just getting lucky, because I didn't know what I was doing and there was no way that I was good at something. I just started. And so I think we were both thinking this train is going to run and you've been in the business long enough.
Speaker 2:In 16, people were jumping back into real estate. So there was a lot of fear mongering going on of like baby save your money, Kid save your money, man, because this is going to go back to another recession, because they just came out of one. So they were still scarred by their experiences that they had in 2010 and 11 and 12. So they were just coming back to getting back in the grind. So they know that this could happen again. That's right. So we were both like, well, maybe we are just getting lucky, maybe we should put a lot of this aside and save it for a rainy day. And that was probably the best thing that happened to us, because when we wanted to grow, we had the means necessary to do it Absolutely, and so we were able to grow at a pace and we've still been great savers. I'm cheap and I'm not right. People are like oh, devin's so cheap, because I'll say no to some things that you think are random, but I'll say yes to all of these.
Speaker 1:I'll buy that $100,000 car, but don't you dare put that pencil in my shopping cart.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, I Right, and so for us it's never been hard to invest in our business, right, and so we've always been willing to give it. At our peak, we were spending about $100,000 a month between leads and softwares for the entire team.
Speaker 2:To get the business to run and grow. It's not enough to just run. That's exactly right, and we want to continue to see our agents be successful, and we didn't want to dilute our value proposition to the agents who signed up first, to those who signed up today. So we had to keep spending to be able to offer that to everyone who's come on board, and so we were just ready to do it, and so timing is important as well, and I think when I entered the business it was the right time.
Speaker 2:Trade guidelines had changed so we were able to get more time with clients. So when I want to serve as those people, if they need a little bit of work, I could get it done in the time and I was fixing a lot of people's credit myself because of what I did for myself. And now today you've grown into. Now we have a credit pair company that we pay every month who does the work for free for all of our clients. But in the beginning it was like, hey, come by the office, let me sit down with you. Then it became like let's get on the phone call, let's log into TransUnion Disputes and let's go and target these items. And we, you start to learn the rules of the loans and then you start trying to play within the rules that you're governed by and it was like, hey, all we got to do is take off some medicals. We don't got to take them off.
Speaker 2:The best lenders know how they do, just so you know. And so luckily, the right lenders were giving me a chance early and teaching me this so that I could be a better resource to my customers. Because what I realized early was. Every time I step with a customer, all their questions will be geared towards lending. They didn't really have questions about a house I've never convinced and that is still true to this day A hundred percent. And that's how we teach our agents and what I've learned and what I never wanted in the beginning. So let's backtrack to this quick story.
Speaker 1:Which is why you should visit reviewmymortgagecom.
Speaker 2:There you go, Good plug. But when I got in the business, the way the business was shaped back then it was like you don't go out with people in your car until they're qualified, and every time I try to send those people home. I'm glad you learned that early. An initial phone call to the people it was beating my business up and so I would send them over. They wouldn't talk to the lender.
Speaker 2:I wasn't able to build enough rapport, and so we took it to one step further and said what if we just move the buyer's consultation over to somewhere else? And we discussed that in face-to-face, and so what I liked about the online leads is it provided us an opportunity to get in front of these people and see what they like, let them tour. And now we just changed the setting Instead of being in an office or a coffee shop, it's at a house. We're able to discuss what the process looks like to purchase and where you are now and then our job as the agent on my team is to meet the customer where they are. That's right and is to meet the customer where they are.
Speaker 1:That's right and then figure out what the path forward for them looks like. And to add to that, one of the things that I was teaching my agents around that same time because we were doing a lot of Boomtown leads things like that with Keller Williams agents. We were very successful at it because we put a process into place. But the idea of the where was I going with that? Where was I going with that? Where was I going with that?
Speaker 2:I'm assuming you wanted them to meet the people face-to-face, face-to-face process.
Speaker 1:It'll come back to me. Keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no for us. We just had to get belly-to-belly what I realized, and so I had to ask the broker. At the time, I was like, is there a rule behind not being able to meet people who aren't yet qualified?
Speaker 1:is like is there a rule behind not being able to meet people who aren't yet qualified? Oh, I know where it is Boom, the idea of teaching the agent and equipping the agent that are making the calls initially on that lead generation process that more times than not, they're going to build a faster rapport than going, hey, talk to my lender. And now we've got to start back over on that rapport. And a tip for you guys out there is have one of your lenders paper applications with you. You've already built the rapport with that consumer. You've captured them on a phone call. You've met them at a house, coffee, face-to-face, Zoom. What have you Built? That rapport they trust you. Now Go ahead and get their information, Let them know. We're going to get this information and I'll get it over to my lender to get back with you for options. Don't say approval, decline, pre-qualification. I'm going to get, they're going to get with you for options. And the reason being is you're not putting that close ended concept of you have a potential to be declined after doing this.
Speaker 2:That's not a bad idea For me. I realized I need to be belly to belly A. I've always talked really fast and I found that over the phone it's very challenging to build something. You have to get in front of each other, and so when we did, I'm able to understand where you are and we don't believe in saying no, because I've already feel like the people who are calling home. Shopping is the most window shopped item in the world, so it's taken courage already to even want to reach out on the house. So the fact that they're here, I don't want to discourage them at any point in the process. To make them feel like this isn't achievable for them, and so we always say it's always a yes with us, it's never a no. Sometimes it's just not right now and let's figure out what that step needs to look like.
Speaker 1:And then, when I hit them with it, and it's one thing to tell them that, it's another thing to literally show them on screen what that's going to do and see their score pop up and they go wait a minute that's possible, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so we want a lot of people like that early on and it became how we built our business and we were doing it way different than what everyone else was doing.
Speaker 2:It no-transcript feel like a waste of time versus sitting here when it works and it began to work right and and then when it works, then it no longer feels stupid. It feels like that was genius right and now everyone does it that way and that's where it begins and that's where most people's buyers consults are beginning, unless they were referred some other way. But for online leads, that's become the standard of how to work them and how to have the most success with them, and so I don't know if I pioneered it or not. I'm not going to take credit for it, but I will say that it has worked for what we wanted to achieve in this business and, as we look forward to what we think it will look like, I think those same rules will apply as consumers become more instant gratification people. They want to see it now, now, now the world is just moving at a fast pace today and we want to keep up with that right. You had to ask something early on. Do I feel like color has held me back?
Speaker 1:I'm about to get into that. Before you do, okay, hold the thought Putting yourself, because you mentioned a moment ago, were we just getting lucky? You were having the conversation with your wife and at that time you were doing something, but I don't think you realized you were even doing it. Fast forward now. You absolutely know you were doing it. I'm sitting here listening to you, knowing you were putting yourself in a position to win, to have those opportunities and a lot of things.
Speaker 1:A lot of folks tend to be held back by fear and even putting themselves in the position to win, the idea of how do you, growing up, the kids don't really say I want to be a millionaire, because they don't think it's even possible at the time, until you actually meet a millionaire, sit with them and all of a sudden you go wait a minute, that's a normal person. This person is not a superhuman. No, they're normal person that learned how to jump on their passions, be consistent, have discipline, work ethic et cetera, and more times than not, they're willing to share their stories. They're sharing their secrets that are not really secrets, but the idea of that is getting in different rooms. You've got to get into this room. That makes your mindset, go holy shit, that is possible. Then you get to the next phase in your life, in your career, in your income goals, and you get into the next room and you go holy cow, this isn't the end for me. Even that's possible.
Speaker 2:Yes, getting in, I didn't know any millionaires before I became my first myself. Okay, I didn't. I never became friends. While I feel like I'm friendly, I don't socialize that much. I'm not in the spaces to have connected with others who are doing it, so I didn't know them personally. But I saw them in my space achieving those numbers and knowing like, hey, that person's earning 7 million, 8 million, 10 million.
Speaker 2:There is a possibility that this business could become that big if I just align myself in the right places with the right people, and so those people don't necessarily need to be making it. And so I go to a lot of trainings, and they're not always the way you would think, because I take something from everybody. Okay, even if your business is small, you're doing something unique, sure, and I want to go and figure out is that scalable for what we're trying to achieve, and can I bring that into my organization and us scale that bigger? Because you're just doing it for yourself? Yes, right. And so sometimes I'll sit with a lot of agents, or I'll go and sit in trainings for a lot of agents who have become successful in their year, or they're rookie of the year or they've had a few years of success. And I'll sit in and I'm often surprised at how many don't really know what they're doing, but they're saying it without saying it Right. And so I'm catching it like, okay, the time that the true constant is, they're just consistently showing up and putting themselves in positions to win over and over again. So you're spot on.
Speaker 2:But I didn't know any millionaires growing up. When I say we didn't have much, we didn't have much and that's why I knew I wanted to be the first. That's it, and that's what I would tell my mom I'm going to be rich, I'm going to be rich. And I didn't have the answers as to how. I just knew I was right and I told her I'm going to take care of you, you're going to have this, you're going to have that. I just got to figure out how I'm going to get there. And when the thought of what we thought was going to be the vehicle to get us there and it wasn't came, I then didn't know if it wasn't going to happen, because what we thought was going to work didn't, and so I was like, well, how do we pivot back? If that's not the way? Where is it going to be this vehicle? And my mom prays like no other. And when I was making mistakes and I wasn't doing well, we didn't think it was going to happen.
Speaker 2:And, funny story, when I met my wife, I didn't work. She was the one taking care of us in the beginning and we were just dating and I would always tell her family like y'all just hold tight, I'll just hold tight, I'm going to have this and one of her uncles that come to the house not too long ago. He's like Devin, you did all the things you said you were going to do. And I was like well, I hope I'm not done yet because I'm only 35.
Speaker 2:And we had that conversation, my wife and I. We were leaving the house one day and I was like do you think this is it? Like? Is this where it? We designed it. We love it, it's perfect for us for now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like now, granted, for many others, this may have been their dream, their dream, that's right. And I said but it can't be for us, that's right. And I was like but what is next? I was like is it a 7? Because we are really young, most people. I'm 35. I just turned 35 in November.
Speaker 2:We are on the lower end of our life, and most people at this point in their life are just figuring out what's working for them, yeah. And so for us to feel like, is this really where it ends? Is this the peak? Yeah, because it doesn't feel that way yet, because I don't feel like I've reached my potential yet, and that's what I'm striving to hit every single day is how do I reach my potential? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:And in the beginning I didn't know that's what I was doing. I just wanted to be good at something. Whatever it was. Anything I did, I want to be really good at it, and so I spent my life in the beginning trying to. When I got into the business of real estate, trying to figure out what are the best people in real estate doing around the world. So getting on podcasts, reading books and really trying to absorb as much information as I could, because I want to be better. And then, when I got into the leadership role, I want to be a better leader for the people who were positioning themselves behind me and they're, depending on their lifestyles behind mine. That's a big task to ask of someone.
Speaker 2:So we have agents on my team who are much older than I am, and I'm leading these folks and I want to be the right leader for them, because it may be hard for them to view me as their leader when they're older than my mother. 100%.
Speaker 1:I mean the idea of once you get to these peaks or plateaus at the moment, especially for me. I built this business, started several businesses off of it and pivoted while coaching and mentoring my loan officers, and then, all of a sudden, the market changes, so production goes down. I find myself going, well, shit, none of this other stuff works unless this is working, pulling myself away from the things that I had built and thought I made it, yes, and now doing production again. I get the opportunity to do things over and people get to say, oh, if I had a chance to go back and do it over again, I'd do it this way. I'm getting that opportunity as an originator, lender, mentor, coach to my loan officers, creator of tech tools, things like that. Now, at this point, incorporating that into the business, seeing how it's easy for the newer to the business loan officer agent to be discouraged because it's difficult, it is, and the time they're stepping in.
Speaker 2:If you're stepping into the business today, I would argue that it's very much like stepping into business in 2009 or 10, right out of the reception right out of the recession because it has its own fair share of challenges.
Speaker 2:And when you bring up the having to restart or redo something all over again, I find that this business has allowed me to do that and it keeps me mentally engaged because it's always faced with challenges. When I got in the business, it was only up, yeah Right. And so then you hit the peak of COVID and it gets even crazier. That's right. And then it just goes down so fast and you're having to pivot. So you're always like what would I do if I had to restart? And you have to ask yourself that so many times. And I find that the leaders who do stay ahead of this recession and where's at no-transcript page for the same, he's like that's good news and I was like that's not good because that's not what you want right, um, we end up doing more volume this year because the price points are just growing on their own so it's not us, it's just everything's still more expensive.
Speaker 2:And so, but we did almost the exact same amount of units. I think it was actually like six less homes, I think the year prior we were a little over 600. This year we're at 588. Okay, and so it wasn't a lot of deals difference. But what I told him is I wasn't forward thinking enough to figure out how do we overcome that. And I must have gotten stagnant.
Speaker 2:And I read a book and I went back from the book. It had said for if you want to restart and you think to yourself I have to redo it all over, what would I do if I'd start all over? He's like start all over today. And so now, when we come and the questions I'm posing to my agents as we go better, it's like what's your biggest challenge that you're facing? And then you let them solve the problem for the longest time. As a leader, I want to solve the problem for my agents. I relate to that. I felt like A we're going to say both save time. Yes, if I give you the answer, you'll get it. But the question is, if you don't arrive on the answer on your own, do you get it?
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:It won't stick. And so Gary has allowed me to be in his mentor inner circle, which is like the top 50 agents in our company, and in there he poses these and he says well, the ones that I lead, which is very few, he's like we just start with one thing in the morning. He's like and that's what's your biggest challenge you're facing today, or this week or this month. And then they tell them and we spend 30 minutes unpacking that for themselves and they walk themselves through the answers. And when they arrive at it they're like I got it, I know what I need to do today.
Speaker 2:No-transcript unpack where you want to go. Let's start with what your challenge is today and how do we overcome that. And then you got to arrive at the answer here's the answer, here's the answer. Then it goes back and it goes even deeper and says am I fathering my kids the same way? Because my time is. I don't want to say it's more valuable than others, but I'm limited, limited. I have a limited amount of time and so, in order to be as impactful as possible, let's just skirt this whole, figure it out and let me just give you the answer. You may not like the answer, so what ends up happening? When you don't like my answer, you go start seeking it from other people.
Speaker 1:On the money, yep, because it didn't suit. So you find the answer that you want, that you want, and it may not be the answer that you needed.
Speaker 2:So then you end up going and doing that. Then it doesn't work. And then we, when I was in these businesses and I was coming up with what I believe were successful solutions to help improve the business it wasn't their idea, so it wasn't a good idea. That's right. And so now we just let people arrive at the answer. So I've been working really diligently lately on being the right leader for the people who want to align with me, so that I can get them wherever it is that they want to go.
Speaker 1:And it's funny that that that if you walk over to my office right now, I got a glass window on the door and in Sharpie marker it says never tell what you can ask, not even joking. Walk over there right now.
Speaker 2:Do it, and so it's wild right that we don't think these ways. And so when I met with Gary, his first question is like where'd you go to business school? And I said I didn't. And he's like how'd you arrive at becoming a business person? I said I didn't think I was. I'm just a person who's managed to think of things that are common sense. That's right, and they feel very common to me and it feels like this should be general practice, like I don't feel any more special when I, when I was choosing where I want to target my business, I was shocked that nobody else was Right. I was like, wow, really yeah, but for them their time didn't feel.
Speaker 2:It's a lot more work, right, when you get a hard deal, you're fumbling through issues. It takes a little bit more time. It clogs up pipelines for some lenders For sure, right. So we've often struggled with finding the right lender partner because our deals are more challenging, so it clogs your pipeline. It's hard for them to meet successful closing dates because of the issues that are faced with these people. Right, the jobs don't quite line up. It's not 40 hours every week. Now, we've got variable income, so as they start running into these problems. It's almost they always send me the shit. Hey, thank you for mentioning that stuff.
Speaker 1:It does right.
Speaker 2:And so on our team. We really do believe in giving grace to everyone, right? If you're my partner, you're my partner, I'm going to rock with you. We're not always going to win. We're going to go down together. They're still in my life today the closers, the escrow officers, the lenders, insurance guys, the offices in my building he's still around. We still use the same people that were here before. We were successful before. People knew and not everyone knows, and we've stayed quiet about our business. For myself and a lot of people ask why don't you do these things? I think when I got in the business, I already had a big ego. I really did believe that I was better than I was, and had I allowed the external validation to come in, it would have made my ego unattractive and almost like man. That guy's just so stuck on himself.
Speaker 2:And so I stayed down long enough for me to realize, like yo, this isn't really me, it's everyone else, and today on our business, that has helped us become successful. And and I hope that I'm making the right choices. And when I make the wrong choices, they still say, hey, he'll get it right next time and I hope that I do Right. But there's been a lot of times where I've made decisions that not everyone agrees with in the moment and they'll come and they'll vocalize it and I'll say, let's just, let's just try it, yeah, because if it works we'll revisit this conversation. You'll think, man, he was right. If it doesn't, I'll be the one to realize like I didn't get it right and I guarantee you'll be honest in taking that constructive criticism and admitting your fault.
Speaker 1:I'm getting better at it.
Speaker 2:There was a time where I wasn't because, I've always been the type to believe that you should defer to the person who knows right. And so, in in my world, I don't know anybody personally who sold more homes than me in my business right. So for me it's like, hey, if you don't know the answer, just defer to me. Yeah, I got it. And then, but there's people that I go to in rooms and I'm forced to defer because I really don't know. Like, hey, you've done this. So when I'm sitting with gary and we're having discussions and he tells me something, whether I agree or not, I'm like it's the gospel, it must be right, the man has gotten it.
Speaker 2:That's right. And so I remember when I left. So there was a moment where we were interviewing with the CEO of ROA. He had flown in to see us because we had flown to Chicago to visit him and we weren't able to visit, and so, because we didn't meet, he flew out to visit me so we could have that time that we're supposed to, which I thought was cool. Hey, you're a CEO, you can come down and visit. And they were starting something new and cool and we were on board. We liked what they were doing. It was new. We wanted to be an early adopter. We ran it by the team. The team was on board. We don't make a decision now that's this big without consulting the group. And so we discussed it. Everyone was on board. There was going to be some compensation adjustments for this new brand.
Speaker 2:And I went and I told Steven. I was like hey, here's where I'm at, steven, I don't know what to do. And he was like why haven't you met with Gary? And I was like we set it up a while back. It just never came to fruition. He's like you follow up on it? I was like I didn't realize I had limited on time because I had to get back for my daughter's birthday. He was like I respect that and we can go and do that. So I go, we meet, we're sitting down, he brings a gift for my daughter. Wow, cool Right, because he knew it was her birthday and we're talking, and, as we're in the right place, Like this man gets it.
Speaker 2:And he was like you drank the Kool-Aid. And I was like there's always this, this, this. It had a twist in it. It does Right. Everyone always talks about KW and drinking the Kool-Aid. And I said I didn't drink the Kool-Aid. I just realized that this man is so much smarter than I am and I have a lot to learn.
Speaker 2:And in that moment, when we left, he's like, hey, I'm gonna put you in my mentor program. If you allow me, I would love to mentor you, man. And I was like, well, now I'm gonna get mentored by this person. Where could I go? And Tim Howe, and how he's opened up Homeward and all these additional companies that they've built outside of the guy who did fellow, he had brought them up. They're all up in his and they're all in his mentor program. Sure, and they're all building big businesses that align within real estate but aren't directly related to their sales business Cause they were already successful realtors, right businesses. And he was like, let's go and build that. And so I called him back and I was like, hey, guys, we're going to pump the brakes on this road thing. We're in the right place. And it really gave me clarity, but I had to defer a lot of times because we were going and there was a lot of things I disagreed with. But I'm like maybe I'm wrong and I just don't realize it today because this man is so much more knowledgeable than I.
Speaker 2:So in those moments, as we lead, it took a lot for me to be able to take constructive criticism and I'm still getting better at it because there are people who feel comfortable enough to say, hey, devin, I don't agree with that decision that you're making. And I got to go and say, hey, this is how I want to leave. We're facing that today. I have an agent because I told you, I'm kind not nice. There's somebody who's been good to me and I want to be great to them.
Speaker 2:And in that moment there's a clash between our moral compass and the values that we have in our group that have been instilled and been pushed into their heads, like this is what I believe in, this is how I move. It almost conflicts in some ways. But I told the person who came to me and said hey, man, I don't agree with that decision. I think you're going the wrong way and it doesn't align with what you said you wanted for your company. And I said well, the first thing it has to align with is me. I got to be able to sleep at night with decisions that I'm making, whether they're right or they're wrong for sure. And I said and if I get it wrong, that'll be on me, but I can't go and not give somebody a chance, because they deserve it and they should have it with us.
Speaker 2:And so we're having to make these kinds of sacrifices and hard decisions, oftentimes as leaders that the world may look at and say, man, that was stupid of him to do that. And then, if it ends up working out, now you're the genius down the road and hopefully, when this is all said and done, I could be one of those guys. I remember when I met with Scott to me, with Craig, he had said he's one of the most respected people in real estate outside of Deanne Harper, and I was like I didn't realize there was people who were so big in the industry that when they go into rooms they're very well received and respected because of what they've achieved. And I hope that one day, if we do this the right way, someone will say, hey, devin is well respected and what he's bringing to the table is so good, and so hopefully I can become that within our industry and then around the people, more importantly, who are closest to me and are in my direct group, and those are the people I want to impact the most.
Speaker 1:That's badass, devin so many things and we're running out of time here. But one thing that I noticed in that last segment there is you mentioned your ego, but all I'm seeing is your humility and humbleness in how you're going about things, how you conduct your business, how you approach issues and problems and the rooms that you're now getting into because of the way that you're conducting yourself. You may, on a micro level, be a little egotistic, but at the same time, I think we all have to have that trait in order to have the drive, the ambition, the level of tenacity that we have to go about our business, or even go about life, to get to what we want our goals to be. These aren't your goals, these are my goals, that's it.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying you got to be like me, but damn it, I'm doing it. So if you want to kind of get where I'm at, you kind of have to be on the same train.
Speaker 2:You hit it on the money.
Speaker 1:To add and to circle this back up with what I had started this discussion with, and I don't want to get political or anything like that, but I asked you a question has anything held you back from being successful and accomplishing your goals thus far? And a list your credit being a single mom, you had low income to start with. Shit, dude, you're black and Mexican. We're supposed to be the minority. We're supposed to be the ones that are held down and back from the white man or the whatever that's holding us back.
Speaker 2:Those are self-restraints, right. And so, yes, as I gained more weight and got older, I looked more Latino passing, but when I was younger I was more African-American passing, and so it didn't, because people would assume I was black and white and not black and Hispanic, and so maybe they were letting me in because they thought I was half white. I don't know. I've never allowed anything to be a deterrent. I feel like if I go in the room and I can wow the room, I'm going to win, and regardless of color and the only color that ultimately matters to the people who care is green, is the money moving, I'm moving, and so I've never allowed anything to be a restraint. Me being raised by a single mother. I think I'm successful because of that, because I wanted to give her everything first, and the way I am as a husband is the way I wanted my mom to be loved by somebody. So I'm doing it that way. The way that I would have loved to be raised by a father is the way that I'm raising my children right, and the way I would have wanted to be provided for is the way I'm trying to provide for the people that I love. So I think all of the deterrents are why I work so hard and why I do those things is because of those.
Speaker 2:In spite of these circumstances that you mentioned, the credit going bad was on me right. Being young and dumb, I lived a borrowed lifestyle. I had enough to just pay the bills so I could have my shit. And when I lost the job because I worked for somebody else, I couldn't afford to maintain the things that I had. So I couldn't afford the lifestyle. So I fucked my own credit up. That's right, but I'm glad I did it at 21.
Speaker 1:So at 27, it was all gone anyway, but there are plenty of people out there that would blame something else versus taking accountability just like you did. My credit wasn't bad because things were against me. I fucked it up.
Speaker 2:That was it Whoops, that was it Whoops. I did Right. And so, and today I'm finding myself having to make all those things right because I did them wrong early. But I'm glad I did them young. And I tell my mom when we discuss it, because everyone has a horrible time horizon, they believe it has to happen now, now, now now. And I tell her, like when I was making those mistakes and she might've questioned herself as a parent, like, did I do the right things? Was I doing it for my son the best way I could? It's like I let her know at what point are you able to be young and make mistakes? Now to do it at 40, I would question how I was raised.
Speaker 1:Grow up I was like, yeah, but I said at 21,.
Speaker 2:You should have allowed me to make mistakes and realize I'm going to have to touch the stove a few times. I know you told me it wasn't the way to go that way. Right, I got a tattoo at 15. I remember calling on the phone. All my friends were going to get in there without telling their parents and I called her up like hey, mom, we're gonna get tattoos, you cool with it? She's like yeah, go ahead. When I came home, got the tattoo, she's like you did it. I was like I did it. You said it was okay. But we always had such a great relationship and and when I told her I was gonna do it, I meant it. Yeah, it was inside a poor time horizon of like, when I believed I was old, right, right. There was a time where I thought being 35 was old.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Same here and so I'm like I'm not rich by 35. I missed my boat. It's like, no, you haven't, and there's still plenty of opportunity. So that listener who's out there today, life is this because of those lessons and those things you've been taught are shaping you for whatever it is you're going to become when all those things had to happen in order for you to appreciate, when you get to, whatever that looks like next. And I tell people often a million sounds great, but you might be just as happy making $25,000 and you make more today because life feels a little bit easier, and it may be $150,000 more. Whatever that number is for you, you may realize, as you're chasing whatever it is, you're chasing individually because goals are personal, right, and there's no impact outside of us. It's what do we want to achieve, and so it's inside of us, and so not everyone's going to agree with the direction you're going. No-transcript, I think it can happen and for me, I just always believed that I could, and so I did. And every decision I made I made it quick.
Speaker 2:When I joined the service, I went and I met the recruiter on a Saturday, leaving the mall because my car broke down. So I was riding the bus and I was sitting at the bus stop in front of Ingram Park Mall and right behind us was the recruitment office. Wow, I walked up there and I said hey guys, I need to sign on bonus because I need to get a car. What can I do? And so they took me to take my ASVAB on Monday. Did the ASVAB? We went down, they wanted to pick a, and he said why? I said because if I don't, I won't do it. And so he's like the earliest I can get you out is Wednesday. This is a Monday. Wow, and I was like let's do it. And so we left on a Wednesday because I felt like if you give yourself time, you will talk yourself out of doing the thing you said you wanted to do. And oftentimes people who are setting themselves up for goals they've already discouraged themselves before they even put the idea could go wrong, and not what could go right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, devin this was your first podcast.
Speaker 2:My first podcast. I did it for my man, herman. He just passed away. He would always say, devin, get in front of people, get in front of people, and he's like they got to hear your message.
Speaker 1:And I was like no, I can't do that man.
Speaker 2:I can't get in front of people, and he just passed away recently, so when the opportunity came up, I couldn't say no for him.
Speaker 1:Shout. I couldn't say no for him. Shout out to him. I love him Absolutely. Man, you got me there. I want to thank you for this. Thank you, this is not a conversation that I get to have often. Even though I get to do this often, this resonated a little different. This hit a little harder For those of you out there listening. I mean well, you've given us so much, I don't even want to ask Is there anything else you want to say?
Speaker 1:I mean man I think you did it, you, you did it. Oh, thanks, um. And that being the case, guys, the last thing that Devin mentioned um, that can be summed up with time kills all deals. But just know that you've got plenty of time. Until you don't, I'll leave you with that, guys. I'll continue to bring guests just like this, bringing powerful messages that you can take and incorporate in your business, in your life, in your family life.
Speaker 1:Hopefully this stuff is resonating with you. Hopefully you're taking this and sharing it and using it and giving yourself a different perspective of what we go through business owners go through, to know that you too can be successful with consistency, with enough passion, with enough drive, with enough direction. And if you find yourself in a room that you're not getting what you're looking for, move to a different room. It is that simple. It is. In many cases, a lot of fear goes into it, but once you get past that hurdle, that comfort zone that we talk about, that's called growth, and nobody is here to tell you what your growth should look like as long as you're continuing to move forward. So I'll leave you with that. I appreciate you guys tuning in. We're now at just under 21,000 subscribers on YouTube. I'm still mind blown at how people are listening to this stuff, but we were committed to giving you
