 I'd make so much more money if prices went down. It's called dual purpose. It's when you do something for more than one reason. Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for Ricky! Karoo! He is an investor, a speaker, and soon to be remembered, in my opinion, as a legend in the industry. The cool thing about what he was doing was he was documenting everything. Like, he would post his calls, his work he was putting in, strategies. He was sharing everything. What can I do today that's going to put me in a position to where I'm really crushing it in 2038? The increase in the rates and everybody kind of starts slowing down. Everybody's in their mind, especially right now. What you're saying is so powerful, but a lot of people aren't understanding what you're saying. In three years, they're going to resell at a higher price, upgrade to another property. There's three deals. And once you shift your mindsets, we always discount. Everyone hates on the price. So this is the way I had to think. If I wanted to beat the teams, I was beating entire teams. Just do your job and answer your phone and do what you say you're going to do. But because of that and the process of transactions, business is unlimited for every single agent. Friend, longtime agent, lots of fun stories we're going to get into about his past, his future, what he's building, how he's building it, kind of what he's gone through and what he has to say about today's industry. Before we get to Ricky, I want to go right over to Alyssa Glutz, my beautiful co-host. How are you, my friend? Thank you. You're so sweet. I'm doing great. Happy Thanksgiving week to you. It is a beautiful week. And we got my good friend, Mr. Ricky here with us. So, Ricky, say hello to everybody in case they've lived under a rock for a long period of time. Who are you? Where are you from? What are you doing under rocks? Honestly, that's what I've noticed. Now, good to be here, man. Good to see you. Actually, I remember when I first saw you were doing call. You're still doing live calls? Yeah, beers and calls, live calls? Absolutely, still doing that. It's a lot of fun. That was a hoot. I think you were doing live calls before I was doing live calls, I want to say. Or when did you start doing live calls? I started doing live calls probably seven years ago. My old co-host here, Matt, he actually hit me up and he was like, dude, you should do live calls. I'm like, who in the hell is going to watch me do live call calls? It's the most boring thing on earth. He's like, just do it. I'm like, okay, I'll do it. And that's how you and I found each other. I've been following you. You've been following me. We're going to get deep in some crazy stuff. Did you guys know? And I didn't know that I didn't know this. Dude, besides Ricky selling over 100 homes a year as a single agent, he also worked on an oil rig and O8. He was in the roughing business with his father, whose dad is still working with him. That's why I really resonate with that. He failed out of four colleges in two years. That is a land speed record I can't even keep up on because I failed out of one in two years. But we've been able to build our brands. And Ricky, I'm fascinated to watch you right now because you have a uniquely interesting point of view and you're always talking about what the market's doing, where it's going, what to expect. Walk me through your mindset on that a little bit because you're literally forecasting the business. Where are you getting the information? How are you doing this? How are you disseminating it? Yeah, and it's really kind of dangerous too when you get into trying to forecast, trying to predict because if you're wrong and then everybody says, aha, right, that's what's super dangerous about it. And that's why a lot of these, the guy that just left Fortune and went to, he started his own thing, Rezzy Club on Lance Lambert. I had him on and he's great analyst. Like he really lays out some facts about the market and everything and I had him on and I tried to get him to say, oh, where do you think prices are going? He's like, I don't talk about where prices are going to go. I just stick to the facts, what's happening now, where they've been, what it looks like right now. And that's smart. I'm okay with throwing out what I think is going to happen because I've been through so many of these cycles and for me, one thing people need to understand is that when I say what I think is going to happen or what I think you should be doing or if I think prices are going to go up or whatever happens, people need to understand that I don't give a shit. What does happen? Like if I say prices are going to go up, people are like, oh, you're a real estate agent and you want prices to go up or you own a bunch of homes. So of course you want prices to go up. It's like, no, I'd make so much more money if prices went down. I went through 2008. I know what that market looks like and I know how to take advantage of that. I'd make so much more money if we did see a huge price correction. Number one, buyers would come out to Woodworks. I'd sell so many homes. Number two, I'd buy so many homes that appreciate, that re-appreciate it so fast and make your head spin. So like people need to understand when I throw stuff out there, I don't have like this. I'm not talking about it in a way of trying to manipulate the market. Oh, that's what you want to happen because that's what's going to benefit you. You know, I don't care what happens. You know, transactions could go to zero prices. I mean, it doesn't matter to me because I know how these cycles work and I win no matter what they do. I'm just trying to prepare people and like when I see these headlines about prices going to crash or these YouTubers, I mean, it's so funny to see these YouTubers that get millions of views and every day they say the market's going to go down to more than 30%, right? The next day it doesn't. And then they make another video about another reason why it's going to go down 30% the next day and it gets a million views. And then the next day it's like, when are we going to stop watching these guys that get it wrong every single day? And so like with all that negativity in the market, you know, consumers and not only consumers, but agents who don't understand how these market cycles work, they get scared. And I want to give you some reason, right? I want to be the guy that goes out there and says, wait a minute, number one, this isn't going to happen. Here's why. But if it does happen, great. Here's why you're going to still win. Right. Well, I mean, you and I both wrote out 08 and I remember going to a listing appointment at that time, one of the highest listings I ever took was 1.8 million. And the homeowners looked at me straight in the eye and go, will this market ever fall? My dad and I both turned around and go, no. Well, that shit didn't turn out right. And so I think a lot of us have, you know, ideas of kind of what's going to go on, but we're not students of the industry. And you're a student of the industry. You're not taking everything by just the headlines. You're reading deep into it. You're going through analytics. You're looking at numbers. You're looking at trends. And if you were to tell a new agent how and where to start looking at trends so they don't fall into the trap of making broad, ideal, ideal is not even a word. But a large thought pattern of what they feel is going to be taking place in the industry without looking at the numbers, where would someone go to get real industry info so that they could actually become a benefit to their clients? Well, I think first, if you're a brand new agent, you know nothing. I think that you kind of have to start at ground zero and understand the mechanics of the industry. Before you can even start to... Because if you go look at numbers without knowing anything about cycles and just the fundamentals of the industry, then it doesn't do you any good. Like you're just looking at numbers and you have no idea what you're looking at. Right? So I think the first thing is to break it down to real basic layman's terms. And I think the first thing to understand is just a real simple thought. And that is that closings happen every day for the rest of your life, regardless of market conditions. I think that's just a very baseline thought that you need to understand because so many agents feel like their business is predicated or correlated to the market. You know, if the market's down, my business could be toast. My business could crash and burn and I might have to go back to my job if the market crashes. That's not true. I mean, right now we're kind of like, we'll see where we end up on the year, but we might even be below 2008 number of transactions this year. I mean, they just did the National Association Realtors yesterday just did their existing home sales report and the annualized number was under $4 million. I mean, we had $4 million transactions in 2008. We may be below that. I mean, this is as bad as it gets. Could it go a little lower? Sure, not too much lower. We could have another year where it's maybe like $3.5 million. That would be a really extremely slow year, but it can't go much lower than that. I want to bring you back really quickly because what you're saying is so powerful, but a lot of people aren't understanding what you're saying. And like going back to 2008, you and I and Alyssa, we rode that train. That was a shitty train to be on, but we rode it and you look back at it now and you say, okay, I've been here. I played this game. I understand what the game rules are. And I know exactly what I'm going to do in the next downturn. I mean, I'm going to go get a billion-dollar fund and I'm going to go out there and buy every single freaking property under God's green earth. I'm going to keep one cell for massive, massive account of properties. And I'm not going to do it for selfish reasons. I just know what is good. Blackstone did. Exactly what Blackstone did. Exactly. They said they had all these foreclosures. Let's take all of our resources and go all in right here. Yes. And you know what? They made like a bedrillion dollars doing it. They made over a thousand percent return per property. And it was insane because they had to put the money to work somewhere. So not only did they get the appreciation of these properties, but they got all the rent, you know, for 13 years so far. Exactly. They doubled down on every aspect of it. It was absolutely genius. No, we're going to do the same thing. And you're right. The amount of money they actually spent on those foreclosures compared to the homes that they still own that they bought during that time were $100,000. That's worth, say, $500,000 now. Okay. So let's just use just hypothetical. You know, they paid $100,000. It's worth $500,000 now. Something like that, whatever. And the rent is like, let's just say the rent is $4,000 a month. Okay. So now you're and you still own that property. Well, now you're making $48,000 a year on a property you paid $100,000 for, right? Exactly. That has the power of these assets, and you know, especially real estate, maturing, you know, with the increases in rent. Like rent, I think it's going to kind of level out for a minute, maybe even a year or two to the dust settle, but it's going to get right back to increasing, you know, $2,026, $27,000. It's going to go right back to increase and along with everything else. So what I'm really hearing is thinking outside of the box, right? So I just ran some quick numbers. Let's say they bought the property for $100,000, right? It increased to $500,000 for round numbers. That's a $400,000 net gain to them when I even factoring in rents at this time. We're just talking about equity growth. Let's say you have 10,000 homes around the country that you buy. That's a $4 billion profit. You made four extra money plus the rents, and that is the way to think about this upcoming market. How can you help individuals and families? How can you get people out of sticky situations, keep them in properties or whatever it's going to take? But how do you see the future, Ricky? Where do you see this going? Can people recreate 08 in this environment or is this going to be something completely new and different? I think it'll be new and different. It would take this massive amount of foreclosures and forced selling to happen for us to see another 08. And that's just not going to happen for a lot of reasons. Number one, if the government sees that starting to come down the pipeline, they'll just put a moratorium on foreclosures, just like they did during the pandemic. I mean, they'll stop that from happening. And then now the moratorium's off and here comes the gurus again. Foreclosure is up 300%, 300% from three. So now it's nine or whatever. But even through that, that save, that actually, if you think about that moratorium on foreclosures during the pandemic, how many foreclosures that actually save? Because a lot of people during the moratorium, they probably would have got foreclosed on. But they recovered financially before the moratorium was lifted and then kind of got back in a position where they could maintain. That was a really brilliant move, honestly, for the government. It really was. For the government to do that. It saved so many families from losing their homes, right? People don't want to give the government credit for stuff like that. I think that that was a really good move. But, and of course, they did it for selfish reasons. They don't want to have to bell out banks again like they did in 2008. That was a really weird situation because there was no lending regulations. They were just, it was, that was such a weird deal back then. And we just don't have that now. 45% of homes are own free and clear. 4 out of 5 of the homes that have mortgages are less than 5%. There's, you know, we're not, you know, household incomes are still increasing. Jobs are good. You know, we're just not in this situation where we're going to see this force selling. I mean, even if sellers got in a pinch, they could sell it, make money. Even if prices go down, you can't sell it, make money. Rents are still much higher than the 4% interest that they're paying on the house. They could just rent it out rather than be forced to sell. There's so many options now you didn't have back then. So we're not going to have another 2008 situation. I think what people need to look at, because you're asking like in terms of investment, right? How do people get into a situation like that? Well, you have to think about how Blackstone thought about it. They, I mean, at the time, it was like, it was scary as hell to go out and buy some of these assets during that time. That was a very fearful time. It was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. To take a billion dollars or how many ever billions they took and like put it into real estate during that time, that was a ballsy move, honestly. They had this long-term vision. They had like this really long-term vision, right? So you have to think about that, because people want to look at Blackstone and say, okay, they made these billions of dollars, all these houses, they're making all this money, right? And so people get back into this quantum leap mindset, where it's like, okay, well, how can we do that? Well, they started in 2008. It's 2023 now. So if you think on those same relative terms, then you need to be thinking out the same amount of time. So what is that, 15 years? Okay, so 2023. So we're talking 2038, okay? So you need to think, right? See, people think in such quantum leap type parameters, like now kind of thing. And it's like, wait a minute, it's been 15 years. They put this plan in place. They probably were really scared to take that risk in 2008, but it paid off, big risk, big return. So you have to look at the market today, I think, in the same relative terms, okay? What can I do today that's going to put me in a position to where I'm really crushing it in 2038, right? And I think it comes down to this. The home values, right, of today, are going to be higher in 2038. Rents are going to be higher in 2038. Inflation is going to happen, household incomes are going to increase. All that is going to happen over the next 15 years. So are you going to get as great of a deal now as you got in 2008? No, but you could have just as good of a return, especially on the increases of rent and not to mention, you'll get appreciation. So not a 2008 kind of opportunity, but definitely when you're thinking in those terms of 15 years from now, I just bought five new construction homes, DR Horton homes, just bought them in the last 90 days, bought an existing home, bought an office building. I'm buying three acres to build an apartment complex and closing by the end of the year. I'm doing stuff. I'm not sitting around at these all-time high prices and thinking, oh, there's no opportunities. I'm looking at 2038. I know I have a good idea of, you know, around about what my portfolio looks like in 2038. And I'm thinking, let me buy as much as I can. Well, you're stacking and hedging. And one thing that Alyssa always says, you date the rate, you buy the house, right? You marry the house. And I think that's one of the things that people always underestimate what they can do in five years and overestimate what they can do in one year because they're fearful and terrified of the current economic situations, which, guys, I get it, gas is extremely high, food is extremely high, but why not keep buying if you can use other people's money, if you can leverage your own capital, if you can get a good loan, if you can help a family out, buy a fourplex, duplex, triplex, whatever it's going to be, a 50plex, you know, buy land and build, like Ricky said, he's doing. There's no reason not to get in the game right now and start building for your future. If you don't do it now, let me make this very clear for you. If you do not take action now, someone else is and they will take over your potential future wealth. That is a fact. How do you want this to be played out? Yeah, you guys, I was gonna, I have to ask you because I'm a loan officer and you're a real estate agent, but back in the crash time, you know, I can remember when everybody, the lenders, we would turn to, we still had a lot of refi business to do, okay, during the crash and everything. We could, we could still, you know, work out. We still had a lot of stated, stated, no. I mean, there were a lot of still some solutions to help fix people. And I noticed all my real estate agents started learning the short sale game, right? They started getting on the phone. They started figuring out how to be, how to make this work back in the, oh wait, because you had to learn how to pivot in your job in order to keep busy. Now what I've seen in the last couple of years, like since, really since the increase in the rates and everybody kind of started slowing down, everybody's in their mind, especially right now, like where should, how could I pivot or can I, you know, I saw a lot of agents this year start selling solar. The big, the big buzzwords- That's pivoting out of the business. Yeah. That's what you can say. Let me go get a job. Right. But the two things I've seen, the two buzzwords, you know, are subject to and assumable. Those are the two things that I see as becoming- You're right. You just turned into buzzwords, right? Buzzwords, yeah. Two is let me take over your loan, leave the loan in your name, deed the property over to me, which is illegal per the bank, right? The bank- Well, technically there's some, I guess there's some like wiggle room there. There's hopefully some wiggle room. I mean, there's definitely banks that let it slide, especially if the person that takes over the, you know, not take over the mortgage, they start paying the mortgage for the person. Right. As long as the mortgage is paid, the bank just, you know, doesn't care or whatever, but they could, right? Technically they could. You deeded the property over. They could call that loan any minute. So the guy that's made this thing really big, I think he admitted somewhere that he's had a couple of them where the bank did call and it's a small percentage or whatever, but that's not how I want to do business. I don't want to go to sleep every night thinking, are they going to call this loan in? What's my plan if they do? I don't want to deal like that. I'll just buy the property, right? Assumable is different. You're actually assuming the loan based on your credit and everything else, that's all good in my book. But I'm saying assumables, you know, over and over you're seeing a lot in the message boards and everything of saying, you know, that you got to be realistic. They're four to six months to seven months to Mr. Cooper time, which could be, we don't know where they are for a few days. So you're dealing with all these timelines and then you got this company that comes out a month ago with a lot of seed money with Rome, R-O-A-M, and they are this company that's kind of saying, hey, we're going to be a marketplace for you to come shop for a property that has an assumable mortgage already. We're going to give you this house and it's going to say three and a quarter and this is what you're rating. This is what you're paying for. Are they just looking at the count? Are they just looking at like mortgage? Almost being like a middle person. Like if they reached out to the seller and the seller is like on the platform or are they just like pinpointing possible assumable? Possible properties that are backed by it because about 20% of all of the mortgages in the U.S. are FHA VA. I don't know to the point of whether or not they have just used some sort of their system to like go in, grab those, and put them all on the same website. They're charging 1% and basically the problem they're solving, they're saying is that they're going to be the middle man. They're going to handle the servicing lender that's difficult. They're going to contact the realtor and say, hey, realtor, I got it from here. You don't have to babysit this file. Like I'm going to take care of it. And for that... There's a lot of startup type companies doing all kinds of stuff, especially with everything that's happening with the lawsuit. There's a lot of startup and new models and everything like that. Going back to Greg for a second, I just wanted, before I forgot it, with real estate agents and like investing in stuff, what I've found is that a lot of agents say they want to sell forever. And they're only horizon is to be number one or to make a million bucks or whatever. So they don't have anything but past that. They don't realize when they get there, like the grind just begins because January 1st, that million goes back to zero. Now you got to climb this big mountain again and it's work. It's earned income. And we're just so focused on getting to the mill or getting to the two mill or number one in our market. We're not even thinking about what's going to be after that or really thinking about setting ourselves up. And a lot of these agents say, well, I want to sell forever. Well, you think that when you're in the middle of that, building it, because it's so fun building it, but there will come a day when you cringe every time a client calls you. And that's what happened to me. Yep. And you get to the point and you're like, I'm done. Like there'll be that line that you're going to draw. And you're going to wish you would have vault properties or created some kind of passive income to some capacity. And that mindset is something uniquely interesting to focus on because we are transactional based. That's how our brains work in our business. But when you first started Ricky, you weren't doing 100 plus homes a year as a single agent. How did you take that mind shift? What we just talked about, set up in transactional about being more investing and more an investor in your own future. When did that shift for you? Because I think that's one of the most uniquely interesting things. My dad made a comment to me. He's been selling for 60 plus years at this point in three different states. And he looked at me one day and he said, you know what Greg, we should have bought every single home we listed. And I'm like, you are a fucking moron. And I look back at that conversation 20 plus years ago and I say, that was absolute genius. And I didn't have the foresight to see that at that point in my life. How did you sell 100 homes by yourself? What processes and systems did you have? And what would you have shifted? Looking back, you know, Monday morning quarterback, looking back at lab going, I would have changed blank at blah time. I want you to answer that because there are a lot of agents right now who are asking themselves, sitting during the holidays going, dude, this sucks. I have no business. I have no deals. I have no leads. I don't do this. How did Ricky do this? So how did you do that, brother? So well, first, your dad buying every listing. So in the past like four or five years, we've, me and a couple buddies, we've built about 100 homes. We should have kept 30 of those best properties. We'd be so rich right now. You know, we did like 10, 20, 30, whatever a piece on those on average or whatever, right? We'd flip it and make like 100 grand or, you know, whatever and split it and all that stuff. But if we would have kept the 30 best locations, oh my God, we would just be crushing it right now. Crushing. Income, everything else. But you asked me a couple of different things. One, how do I invest in creating passive income? Well, back in 2002, when the market exploded, I made a million bucks really quickly as a really young person and just bought and started flipping homes. I was making so much money. I made about a million bucks. And then I lost it all because I was flipping. I flip one and buy two, buy four. Like I was just like, boom, boom, boom. I didn't know the market could crash and burn like it did. And I lost everything. That's how I lost everything. So I kind of was getting into investing in the beginning. I just did it wrong. Then when I came back, I knew I wanted to invest again, but I was kind of slow playing it because I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to crash and burn again. So I started buying rental properties instead of flipping houses. I bought a couple of duplexes in 2010 or 11, and a couple condos, and I bought a couple houses, buying like one property a year for a while. And then I got more and more serious as time went on and bought more and more properties and stuff. And in 2017, that was the first year I made a million bucks as an agent. That was the year where everything clicked for me that I wasn't going to be able to do this forever. And that's when I got even more serious about buying rental properties. Not only that, that's the year I started coaching and writing and speaking and wrote the books and started making videos and content because I knew I had to build another business out of what I was doing that was more passive or I was just going to crash and burn and live unhappily ever after. So I started buying a bunch of properties and then creating content for agents to try to build that brand because I was literally setting myself up to leave the business. And I wasn't quite ready yet, but like I say, in 2022, the end of 21 and 22 was when I was starting to really cringe every time a client was calling and I was like, okay. And it's a good thing I started in 2017, really buying a lot of properties, really building an online brand so that I already had, I mean, I was matching my income selling at that time with just the brand. And I was able to just give the sales to dad, still make a piece and walk away from sales and then go all in on the brand. So you really have to think about this stuff step by step. As far as the 100 deals a year and like the market right now and agents are sitting around it's Thanksgiving, it's really slow and everybody's kind of like, what the hell? The thing is, is that if you look at any graph, pending deals perk up quite a bit about the first week of January. And by the end of January, beginning of February, the closing start happening from those pending deals. And every year, sales start out like this. And at the end of January, they go just like this and go straight the opposite direction, right? So people just have to understand this is the yearly cycle that happens every single year. Even in 2021, prices went down on a median price basis from the peak, which is like June or whatever, down to like August or September. It went from like 343 to like 338. Now that's not a big drop, but it was a drop and it was during the craziest year. I would say 2021 was probably crazier than back because we had a similar market in 03, 04 and 03. 03 and 04 were really similar to 2021, but 2021 was a different animal altogether. It was probably the craziest, even though in 2000, I can't say it was at five or six, maybe even seven. There was a year we had 7 million transactions on existing homes, which is far more than the 6 million we had in 2021. But 2021 was just ferocious. So even in that ferocious year, like 100,000 over asking and like 15 million offers, prices went down during that seasonal downturn. It happens every year. I don't care what the market is doing and it's worse this year because of interest rates and everything going on. But what you've got to realize is that right around the corner in January, right after the first year, it's going to be balls out. Like Hiroshima, it's going to be nuts. And you should be taking this time saying, okay, you should be licking your chops right now, saying thank you, Jesus, it's not busy so that I can expand my footprint, my digital footprint, my database, people that know who I am in my market. Because if you're not gaining market share, which is people that know who you are, if you're not gaining that while the market's slow, then you're not going to reap the benefits when the market rebounds. It's just like in 2008 when I got back in the business, the market was still really slow, 4 million transactions. Well, what I did in 8, 9, 10, 11 during that slow time to really just build my brand and locally as an agent is the whole reason why I got to 100 deals in 2014. That's the entire reason. But if I didn't take that slow time and build out my database and my brand and what I was doing, then I just absolutely would not have gotten there. In 2008 when I got back in, all these agents were getting all these foreclosures and I was like, damn, that must be nice. That's not the same thing. I looked at that and I was like, wait a minute, they're the bank's bitch. Like they literally have them on a leash, running them around town, changing out batteries, like mowing lawns, like whatever, right? And I was like, okay, I'm not going to do that. What I'm going to do, and this comes back to the 2038 mindset, right? What I'm going to do is I'm going to represent all the buyers who buy these foreclosures because in three years, they're going to resell at a higher price, upgrade to another property. There's three deals from each client, then refer all their friends and family to me who are going to buy stuff, upgrade. And it's going to be this snowball, this spiderweal that kind of happens. And that's exactly what happened. I took 2008 and said, let me just focus on marketing to people who want to buy properties at half off, which there were plenty of buyers. That's the thing. In 2008, that was the easiest time ever to sell real estate. There were no agents. There were no agents. Buyers were literally everywhere. There was so much inventory and like options. They were half price, you know, so investors were gobbling up and you end users were buying one property to live in or keep for a while and then sell it. I mean, it was just like it was so easy back then in 2008. It was just ridiculous. And anyway, we shit on 2008, but I agree with you 100%. Selling the real estate was like breathing. I remember I bought my first million-dollar home when I was 23 years old. And my lender looked at me and goes, okay, you're approved. I'm like, the shit. Are you talking about I'm approved? I was part of a million-dollar loan. I literally filled out an application and just I handed it to him. He called the appraiser right then to go appraise the property the next day and I had the million-dollars in my bank account like that week. I had like cash in my bank. Like they didn't check anything. They didn't check anything. And I think you bring up a good point here. I think we're missing out on the mindset of the future. Like you're going 2028 or 2038, excuse me. You know what's so funny, dude? I posted a video in November 2019, right, three years ago. And it was so funny. Like I actually put on my Instagram yesterday because I went back and I forgot I even did that video. But it was, and like I have the like the bangs and stuff. Like it was like 2019, Ricky. And it was like, I was like, I don't even give a shit about 2020. Like I'm focused on 2024. And I was like this motivational two-minute video or whatever. Like I've always been thinking about like three or four years out at any given time. Because you have to think about how all this stuff plays out because time is going to go by regardless. We're just focused on now, then, you know, we're just focused on now. But if you're, you can do, here's the punchline. You can do so much bigger things if you're focused on three years out or so. Because that three years or whatever gives you time to, for whatever that idea is to mature. It takes time for ideas to mature into these big results. And you can't do these really big things in like one year. Right? So you have to be thinking on this like three to five year, you know, level. Because otherwise you're never going to do it. This is why I think people become average. Because they're always focused on this year. Like I want to make, you know, 250 again, or I want to take the 250 to 500. And they're just kind of stuck because they're just focused on what they're going to do this year versus what I'm trying to help people build their entire career. Right? So I think it's great for people to have these goals to hit a million bucks, you know, next year and do this and that. And I want to help them do those things. But I really want to open them up to, but what, but what are we doing today that's going to make that five million a year in year five? You know, and that may or may not happen. But what can't, but we need to start planting some seeds right now to see what cores out of this. And the good thing is when you operate like that, it doesn't matter if the five mil happens or not. You still win because whatever it's called dual purpose. It's when you do something for more than one reason. I'll give you an example. It's like, if you have a listing and you call the subdivision, right? Most people are calling the subdivision to tell them about the listing, try to sell the listing, right? When I'm calling the subdivision to do that, but also see what others, see who else I can meet to create a relationship with so I can list their property and into seven years, right? How many more? So at the end of that call session of, you know, like 150 owners, I talked to, you know, 18 of them and seven of them had great conversations. I didn't sell the property, but I picked up seven new clients. And so you kind of have, most people walk away from that saying, damn, I didn't sell the listing. And I'm like, why didn't sell the listing, but shit. And every person I created a relationship with, to me, it always worked out this way. It's worth 10 to 20 deals to me over the life of my career. So when I think about those seven people, I'm thinking, you know, that's like 300 deals over the next 20 years, right? The repeat referral and referral over referral. People think so linear. I'm talking to this one person. I'm trying to do this one deal. No, that person you're talking to is worth about 15 deals to you over the next 12 years. You know what I mean? And that is where people fall off because there were so transactional mindset. We're not relationship mindset. And it kills me to watch this happen. The reason why I say this, because I've done it. I mean, I mean, everyone has done this, right? And once you shift your mindsets, we always discount. Everyone hates on the buyers. But you said earlier in this conversation that the buyers were your future goal because they're going to be your future sellers. So if you're starting out the business or you're looking forward and you're starting to plan out, look at trends and you're like, okay, I'm going to work with buyers right now and some sellers. And we also talked about the fact that like when you didn't sell a house that day or if you get all these calls and you didn't get a listing of women, people view that as a loss as a waste of time. In reality, you're building your future income for the people you're going to influence because the people you speak with today or the people are going to be doing business with tomorrow as long as you stay in that conversation with them and never go away. Because real estate agents for the most part, I mean, well, you know our good friend, Brian Casala, the social media giants just absolutely stomped on him for a couple of things he said, which I think is completely irrational. And he had to rebuild it. And so he's rebuilding this. He didn't stop because it got rough. He kept pushing forward on this stuff. So if you guys are making the videos, doing the content, researching the markets, get out there and start working with the buyers. Always with buyers work with the sellers. Yeah, it's so funny because I always do talk smack about like Zilla leads and buyers and just focus on sellers. But honestly, and that's because you knew you asked me what I would go back and change. Right, exactly. And if I could go back and change something, I really don't think I would because it played out beautifully. But and I did go after sellers pretty hardcore. I think that that's something maybe to think about because I talk about sellers, I coach people to like, you know, go after sellers and this is how you do it. And this is all, I think the problem was I didn't understand the script. I think if I went back with a script that I've developed over that period of time and went back and used that script with sellers some day one, I think it would have been a lot more successful on that front. But it is funny because we do shit on buyers as the as industry. Like, you know, that's kind of like the garbage leads and you know, the high end agents aren't going to mess with those and stuff like that. But but really when you think about the 2038 or even the 2026 mindset, really a buyer once they buy now they're a future seller. Yep, 100% that relationship. Like that's your end to becoming a listing agent sometimes that was mine. It was my end I represent all these buyers and foreclosures who ended up listing their properties, buying more properties. And I got to I got to hit up all those subdivisions that I sold in. I crushed them like I called them and hit them with mail and like just I kind of built off the momentum of of selling those foreclosures and those those subdivisions and stuff. So that that's a good thought. You know, everybody thinks about it in different ways, right? I personally love buyers. It's like it's like taking out a kid on Christmas morning to look at houses because they're ecstatic at what they're going to look at. And it's an adventure and everyone's smiling by sellers. I mean, yes, listening to life. I get the I get the analogies. But I mean, if you're just starting out and you're making calls, you're doing doors, you're doing social media, building content, you're building a brand. Anything you can do if you're brand new, you take anything and everything. Easiest thing. Go partner. Okay. Here's the tip, guys. If you're a newer agent, go find Ricky Karuth. Go find Alyssa Glutz, real estate agents that are top in their marketplace. Go approach them, say, Mr. Karuth, Ms. Glutz. I'm a newer agent. I would like to help you grow some of your business. I'd be happy to work with your buyer leads. And I'll pay you 25% of referral just for helping me get my get my hands on this. They are going to say yes, because they're going to make a referral fee. You're going to say yes, because you just got a brand new client for the life for free. And it's right in front of you. I mean, don't even get me started on that whole thing, because like agents, like when you think about the entire game when it comes to Legion, right? You've got social media and cold calls and door knocking and open houses and like Zillow and like you have all these things, and what do all of these activities, right? Every single activity when it comes to Legion, right? What's the one thing they always come back to? It's basically a funnel. All of these are a funnel that lead to the same place. What's that place? Your CRM. It's a conversation. Oh, I'll be back to it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a conversation. So like every single one of those things come right back to having a conversation with somebody to see what it is they want to do buying or selling if they're already working with an agent and how you can help them accomplish those goals, right? And so when I realized this whole, this is the hack right here of the whole industry. When I realized that everything leads back to the same thing, just having a conversation and that the more of those you have to meet people, see what they want to do, why they want to do it if they have an agent, help them do what they want to do, you know, for the rest of their life. That's the whole name of the game. When I realized that everything leads right back to that same point, I was like, why am I spending time, money, and energy on open houses, leads, Zillow leads, postcards, anything? Why am I doing anything when I can get the person's information that I want to do business with for a penny and just call them and just have that conversation? So literally I went back door on the entire market. It was a hack, like all the agents I wanted, they were doing all these open houses and they were doing all this social media ads, they were spending all this money on Zillow. I mean I know people are spending a million bucks a year on Zillow. There was people doing all this stuff and I was like, wait a minute, I can actually go faster than all them for literally no money and be in the same spot that they want to be in way before they even get there because here's the difference. It's like going from Florida to New York but taking a detour through California to get there. I just went straight to New York. So look how much faster I got there. And so this is the way I had to think as a single agent. I don't have a team. I don't have buyer's agents. I don't have listing agents, admin, marketing people. I don't have any of this stuff. So this is the way I had to think. If I wanted to beat the teams, I was beating entire teams in my market. Did you have a huge fear? I mean like did you have a huge network as far as high school and college and your social media? Like any my sphere of influence because in my when I was new, now this is something I will go back and change. I would talk to my sphere of influence because I didn't know what I know now. At the time I said two things. One, I don't want things to be weird and think at Thanksgiving. I don't want Uncle Bobby to think that I'm trying to sell him a house every time I talk to him. So I'm not even going to call him and ask him if he wants to buy anything. And number two, if I can't sell people I don't know that's outside of my sphere, I'm not going to make it anyway. So I was like, let me go ahead and go to stage two of this. Yeah, let me go ahead and go to stage two. And it's almost, this is, it's so funny because it's almost my coaching program now. I don't talk to local agents. They watch my stuff and I'm sure I've got a lot of local people. I know a lot of local people, you know, know what I'm doing and stuff, but I never talked to any of them. All the correspondence I have with like coaching and like the Zoom calls and all that, very, very, very few are local agents. It was the same thing. If I can't take over the world, right? Then what does it matter? So let me go ahead and do that instead of like focusing on like agents around here. But this would be something I go back and change because now I would go to my sphere and I would say, Hey, listen, you know, I'm in real estate now. How are you doing? And I would say, are you looking to do anything right now? No. Cool. Do you have an agent you would work with when that day comes? I'll stay in touch with you. Let me know if you ever want to do any deals or anything. I'm here. I would have approached it totally. If I, if I knew that back then, then I think my business would have grown a lot quicker because I did have a lot of contacts. I just didn't use them. We don't use them because we take them for granted because they're already there. We're always hunting for that new level of, I got X amount of new leads, a new lead general source, so on and so forth. But the people that are in front of you boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, those are the people who know, like, trust you and they want to do business with you. They might not do it today. That's okay. That's just not their life path. But they are going to do it at some point. Stay in relationship with them. Don't do what Ricky and I did. Do not disregard the buyer's secret of that. Serious. Yeah. Here's another. Here's another hack. All right. Everybody wants to try to figure out CRMs and nurturing and staying in touch and client appreciations and blah, blah, blah. It's real simple. Christmas cards. Fucking like, you know, personalized gift, exposing gift. No, no, no, no. Weekly email. Entire database on the same day of the week forever that you write. You don't, you don't get a company to do it for you. That's called being lazy. That's- You do it. You suck if that's what you're doing. You suck right now. You don't suck, but you suck right now. I'm trying to help you here. Like if you have a company posting generic content for you on social or doing generic emails about how to cook shrimp at duvet, what color to paint your fucking walls in the fall, then you're going to the agents who are giving their two cents and their content. The agents that are giving their opinions and two cents and their content, whether it be written word, email, video, pictures, whatever it is, those are the agents that are really winning. You might get a little business off of it from, you know, Aunt Sherry and stuff like that, but you're not scaling your brand. You know, you're not hitting the masses with something that's different and that's what you have to do. And there's nothing different than your opinions on things. So, weekly email and closing gifts, right? The best closing gifts are huge. Closing gifts are huge. Well, for me, the best closing gift I could give them is that the transaction went so smooth for them during the deal that when they leave that deal, I didn't get them anything, right? When they leave that deal, they're like, I'm never using anyone else but Ricky, no matter what, because I never want to risk not having that type of experience during the, during the deal because he made it so easy for us, right? And I did give closing gifts. I got big gift cards to restaurants and I've done closing gift type things. Nothing weird like personalized against their kids graduating. I never did any like personalization. I always thought that was weird, by the way. Yeah. What's that? When people would do something like that, I'm like, that's just like borderline creeper status. It's like, it's for me, and this is a personality thing, right? I mean, some people may love that kind of stuff. I kind of felt like it was like, it seemed a little desperate. Like you're just trying too hard to try to win them over. It's like, just do your job and answer your phone and do what you say you're going to do and make, handle the thing. Like another problem agents have is they want to tell the client every little thing. And it's like some things, you see, they're, they hired you to take the pressure off their shoulders. So they don't have to stress and worry. So you got to take some of that on for them and absorb that for them. And so sometimes not every little thing needs to be conveyed. Of course, you need to be, you need to convey everything that needs to be conveyed. And there's kind of a fine line sometimes there, but you make the client out. You walk the line of being the buffer between the bullshit and the other bullshit disseminating it and then transferring the real knowledge to the client. They're hiring you for that for that buffer zone. And I got to transfer here really quickly. I have one of my good friends, Joe. We're sitting in the background right now, big fan of yours, Ricky. And this is the kind, this is the type of guy, these are the assassins I run with. This guy, he is focused day in, day out holiday, no holiday. He did and does what exactly what we're talking about here. He crushes skulls. He makes the calls. He does his job. He shuts the fuck up and he gets down to work. So with that, Joe, welcome in my friend, meet Ricky. What's going on? No, it's great. Your office fucking looks exactly like my office. You should look, man, a safe, a whiteboard with all the deals happening and all that stuff, man. All right. You got to keep organized when you're busy. So Joe is an absolute crusher on the phone. Like he and I do calls. We probably do about two to three thousand calls a day per person. So Joe, real quickly, my friend, what's a question that you have for Ricky? And kind of based upon our conversation. Well, honestly, the reason why I got into calls was from senior free videos, Ricky, and joined up with this group of guys on Zoom and in January, and we just, I don't know. I just got into it and I think I have over 400 people built in for follow-up since then. Mainly March is when I got the triple line dialer. But yeah, everything you say is correct. And what you do for everyone is awesome. Cool, man. I don't know how to answer that. But no, I didn't have a question. I'm like, everything you're saying is good. I just wanted to come and say that. That's all. What about what I'm saying? Are you talking about? Just everything. Just get over to the calls, the weekly email, 100%. I picked up a deal. Just sent off my 86-1 today. So I've been doing that for a little over a year. So when it comes to the constant communication, the number one hack in life is never stop communicating. Being in front, being relevant, being real, being authentic. And I think, Joe, you do a phenomenal job of that. Ricky, you're teaching a lot of agents to do exactly that, plus with your wonderful flair on top of it. People listen to what you have to say because you're real, you're honest, you've walked the path that people want to walk. And now you're throwing, like Indiana Jones, you're throwing the sand back across the invisible bridge to show people how to get across this impending slower market. And you're saying, guys, don't be afraid. Do these things. Follow my words. Listen to what I'm saying. Don't be fearful. Once you get into fear, fear is literally a prayer for what you don't want to happen. So you sit there and you're like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. That's putting it into the spiritual, energetic realm of life. You've taken that, Ricky, and you've shown thousands, hundreds of thousands of people how to shut their brain off, get down to work, be authentically you and have fun doing it and learn and then show other folks. So what it is, is I was scared too. Right. There were years where tax season would come back around. And I'm like, damn, you know, I don't know what it's going to be. I don't know. I probably don't have enough with no closings lined up. Like I've been there. I've been scared in the same boat, like is this real estate thing going to work out? And that's why I go back so hard and throw as much sand as I can because I know what it feels like number one, but number two, if they only knew what I know now, which is such simple stuff, like closings will happen every day for the rest of your life, regardless of wars, recessions, pandemics, even the pandemic, 80% of the same amount of closings happen. Not only that, 80% of the same amount of deals went under contract and pending. So there were still people writing deals during that 45 day economic shutdown when that that was probably the most scariest moment that that was probably scarier than 2000, any moment during 2008 that 45 day economic shutdown because you didn't know if our jobs would exist. You didn't know if you were going to die from this. You didn't know if your mom was going to die and, you know, rest their souls for people who did have parents pass away and all that stuff. I mean, it's just horrible. You just didn't know what was going to happen. I know it was just killer. But yet, but yet, Alyssa, there was an 80% of the same amount of people wrote contracts, negotiated deals during that 45 day period as they did that same 45 day period the year prior, right? That's what's the market is so resilient. So you have to I want I want people to understand that to the core number one and number two to realize that because of that and the process of transactions business is unlimited for every single agent because if one entity could do all the deals I promise you I would be doing every deal and nobody there would be no agents because I would do all the deals, right? And the next thing is is to value relationships over transactions because remember every relationship was worth 10 to 20 deals to you over the life of your career. And if you if you screw this up with this person over 1% or trying to sell them too hard or some weird stuff that some weird coach taught you or you heard online you're really screwing up 20 deals here not just one deal, right? So that that's the three core principles behind what I teach and I didn't know any of that when I was coming up and I was scared every time I turned around. But that's Ricky, that's why you and I get along so well is because we both walked down the path of fear we both stared in the eye of the devil and we said okay well fuck this is going to get weird but we didn't stop we kept moving we kept re-evolving ourselves Debbie has a question here she's like wait I'm still doing a weekly email where do I get the content I'm struggling with a monthly newsletter so Ricky where's a quick question because I know you I know we are a little bit over time here I know you got another meeting coming up where would you go? Debbie if you go to startmyweeklyemail.com I've got a four week template system where you can just rotate it every month every four weeks deal of the month stats of the month restaurant of the month news of the month and you can actually see on that on that webpage you can see one year going back to last November one year worth of every email I still write my emails that's one thing I don't I haven't let go of with dad taking over the sales and everything I still do the emails because that's my secret sauce that's how I keep the business going but you can see every single email I've done for the last 50 to 52 whatever 52 different emails just go there you can get the template system if you want there's a training video there where I screen share and build an email and you can see every email I've done for the last year just copy what I'm doing that is why Ricky's on the show that's why he is influencing hundreds of thousands if not more people because of the authentic person he is so guys we're not going to take too much more of his time we're running out of runway here get a little plug real quick I'm doing my 2024 business planning session this is my seventh annual business planning session next Friday December 1st at 4pm Eastern all you have to do is text me Debbie it's startmyweeklyemail.com okay but text me at this number 251-312-8844 251-312-8844 to get a link to that business planning session and it's going to be I mean like I said I did a video in 2019 about how 2024 is going to be my year this was in 2019 I'll put that out like 2024 is still going to be my year and this business planning session is going to be lit so do your phone number one more time 251-312-8844 and by the way guys that's just literally his his number I hope you know that love that he's actually giving that out to you guys to contact him why would you actually he does reply he I've sent them messages on Instagram always every single message myself on Instagram message and but text me at that number and I'll I'll get you the link to the to the training to the business planning session perfect right Joe any final questions you have and then I want to bump about right back over to sphere of influence I do a poor job at maintaining contact should I try to just set up quarterly calls to follow up with you dude the weekly email solves all problems man talk to them tell them you're here for them you love them put them in your weekly email they'll call you when they're ready done yeah your systems have to be scalable just simple and scalable right email gets a 90% organic reach social media gets like 5% okay like Nate like Joe name all the different ways that you can stay in touch with your database email phone call text Facebook Instagram what's that a little mail okay okay so mail you can't scale it if you had 10,000 people it's too expensive okay phone call you can't call everybody can't scale it right if you had 10,000 people we can't scale a text that could be something but it's you know it's still kind of an intimate place that's kind of that could be something text could be something social media no you can't upload your database and make sure every single person sees your content can't do it it leaves you with one thing bro email easy simple it doesn't matter if there's 100,000 200 million people it still takes you 15 minutes of wait to give your opinions and hit all those people consistently it's the only thing that I found that makes sense to create a simple scalable system to you know nurture everyone so talk to them love on them get them in there and forget it it's a set it and forget it man then you just kind of keep rolling well that's the content you put into the emails I mean you obviously have your templates but I mean you can bring your flair to the stuff as well if you choose to you do that's what that's well that's what I love you is the templates it says put the stats here and then it says give your opinions on the stats right what it says on the templates oh my god it is bone nominally simple but we're afraid of rejection we're afraid of that two-letter word called no and guess what guys they're not saying no to you they're saying no to the opportunity at that moment like Ricky said multiple times in this interview it's not today it might be tomorrow next month next year go for no Joe's holding the book up right there go for no one of my favorite books of all freaking time Joe I mean Ricky what um what other events what other where were you speaking next where can people get into your sphere huge one man in New York on Times Square right we just kind of didn't have to play announce it yet but uh it's ready it's at goldbarlive.com Ryan Sirhan we have another big name that we're going to announce next week um you know Ryan me it's gonna be a it's right on Times Square it's gonna be really good what when is that what month that's gonna be February 29th I have that on my calendar I appreciate the invite by the way yeah yeah it's gonna be a lot of fun yeah there it's it's uh but dude I'm doing like two to three months I slow down this time here holidays and stuff I'm going I'm doing one of Detroit in a couple of uh weeks for United Wholesale and then um after the first I've got Destin and back to Miami and then New York and then uh Portland and I mean it's you know just your schedule is bananas and I want people to be in your sphere I want people to be in your realm to learn because you have such a good heart you're saying guys please listen to me I'm trying to tell you how to make this simple and if they just listen to you life is going to be simpler so dude so many agents have like the the mission of my program is to reduce the failure rate in the industry right phenomenal anytime everywhere I go I'm like how many people here would not be in real state if it wasn't for my content and there's normally like four or five or maybe 10 sometimes people stand up every single time so that that's what's amazing and it's not you're not I mean you're not making money off a lot of the content you're doing I mean you are making a very good living don't do don't don't get that twisted but what I'm saying is the gratitude from what you and I put out there when I hear someone that says because of your content because of this I have thrived I have succeeded I was going to fail out I was going to go be a car salesman or whatever no disrespect to car salesman and they said you know what because of our conversations yada yada it I'm in the industry and I'm not even an agent I'm a broker and I have an agency that is humbling and it is astonishing we are impacted every single one of us boys and girls have an impact what's your story going to be Ricky's writing his Joe's writing his Alyssa's writing hers what's yours write that think about that really quickly what's your history what's your story and then move forward from there Alyssa take us away with some final thoughts and then we'll let Ricky get on with the rest of his day I can't I can't add much more to what you just said I think it's beautiful it was this was great Ricky I'm going to be in your 2024 business planning and great information and I think it's just awesome to find people with the right mindset right attitude and there are I have one last question for you what what has to happen before the end of the year for you to feel this was a successful year for you oh shoot this year was in the books a couple years ago a member he wrote that down remember this year I mean your your your your year like right now for people listening your 2024 is already done or 23 is done oh no 24 no 24 he's talking to the future he's talking to the future oh right he's already planted the seeds it's just a it's just a matter of servicing now through 24 and what seeds are you going to plant for 26 yeah next year see what I'm saying yeah so but is there some one more thing before the end of the year before this next six weeks is there anything else that is on your calendar that you're excited to do I'm going to I'm going to I'm actually going to mark out the entire month of December so I wrote two books in 17 back to back that I've just like had to get everything on paper I haven't done anything since book wise so December after I do the business planning session on the first the whole month I've got it blocked out just to sit down and focus on getting the third book done which is 17 was a different ball game right I was new to the game I you know the market was different now there's so much and there's so much so many testimonials of the program there's so much going on different there's AI there's there's just so much stuff and so it's kind of do it's time to do it December I'm going to do a third book and I plan on writing that during the month of December I love it that's great great to meet you Noah Loveless is here he said he is a new agent here I just did my first weekly email would not even thought about it it wasn't for your content so thank you so that's a testimony right there brother nice thank you Noah all right guys hey we're going to let Ricky get on with the rest of his day Alyssa Joe and Ricky stay put for half a second but I want to tell everybody out there I love you guys I truly appreciate you we cannot do this show without you thank you beyond words go follow Alyssa go follow Ricky go follow Joe go follow me on any platform that were there Ricky has brought a ton to this industry so far he's going to continue to bring an epic ton of new amazing content that's relatable and something you can implement into your business without having to be a PhD master's degree of ninja mindset to make your business flow and he's real that is the guy you want in your corner right there so you guys I appreciate you I love you to pieces until next time peace out ninjas we're down