Joe: All right. Hey, everybody, welcome. You’re in for a treat today because you have some very special friends of ours. Steve and Coco Zimmer.  As you can see, Steve is a closet Cardinals fan. Yeah, just doesn’t know it yet. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are in Cincinnati, is that right, Steve? 

Steve: We’re north of Cincinnati. About an hour and a half north. 

Joe: He’s a Reds fan. So I had to get my St. Louis Cardinals hat on here. So if you’re not watching this on video, you’re listening to the podcast. We’ll probably, you know, have a little bit of red rivalry going on between us. You noticed my red on the banner for real estate investing is Cardinal Red. It’s not Cincinnati red because there’s a difference. Just so you don’t think, Steve, that I’m making the banner and the names here in red in honor of you or your reds? It’s Cardinal Red. Now, I remember meeting you guys a while ago and you coming out of Ohio, I think you saw me speak at the Cincinnati REA. Was it the big OREA that they do every year, isn’t it? 

Steve: Yeah. Yes. That would have been November of twenty eighteen. 

Joe: All right. November twenty eighteen. We started working together. You came to St Louis didn’t you, for a workshop that we did start the summer of twenty eighteen. Yes. Yes that’s right. And we’ve been working together ever since. And you guys are just fun.  You’re our funnest probably favorite coaching clients. 

Steve: I love the way you butter people up. 

Joe: Even though you’re a Reds fan.

Coco: You’re the only coach we’ll ever need. 

Joe: Well, all right. You guys are so much fun to work with. North, you’re in the Cincinnati market. And you know, we’ve gone from like when we started working with you, we’re showing you all this fancy technology stuff and all these things that REI simple can do. And you’re like, we just wanna do deals. And so we really you guys have gone so far in like learning the technology, but also learning what’s more important, like talking to sellers and making offers. And so then fast forward a little bit. We just are close to the end of what we’re calling a five offers a day challenge. And so we’re challenging people. It’s an accountability coaching group thing that we’re doing where we’re saying, look, make 100 offers in one month, five a day, five days a week. That’s twenty-five offers a week. One hundred offers in a month. And we are very clear at the beginning, like most of you probably aren’t that actually make 100 offers. But that’s OK. Even if you just make half of the number of offers, if you can just get your things, your goals on a scorecard and get held accountable by a friend or a spouse or us, you’re going to be making progress. 

Joe:  And so you guys have taken that seriously and you’re now, because what’s the number one rule in real estate? Make offers, make offers, make offers. 

Coco: I thought you were going to say follow up, follow up, follow up. 

Joe: Well, that’s number two. But we also got Gavin here. Gavin, I forgot to say hi to you. How are you, man? 

Gavin: I’m very good. How are you doing? 

Joe: Nice. Awesome. Good. Real quick, before we start interviewing and talking to Steve and Coco, if you guys are interested in getting some help working with us. Just gonna give you a quick Web site here to go check it out. REINetwork.com/coaching. REINetworkk.com/coaching. And we’d love to talk to you. And there’s an application page there that kind of explains what it is that we do. And if we feel like you’re a good fit, we’ll get on the phone and talk. All right. So, Steve Ko-Ko, let’s try not to talk about the Reds on this podcast. 

Steve: We can’t talk about it right now. They’re not playing, right? 

Joe: Yeah. Who cares? Right. Exactly. We’re friendly adversaries. Right. But how’d you guys get into real estate? Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Steve: Well, we had another business for 17, 18 years and the Internet took it over. And we saw it coming. So we just decided to try real estate. 

Coco: That was back when the big boom, where everybody was doing it. 

Steve: Twenty, seventeen, eighteen, sixteen. And we struggled for quite a while. We didn’t really do anything but spend a lot of money and lose it. So we did our first flip and march of twenty, seventeen or twenty eighteen. I’m not sure which they all run together. We did a flip and then I bought a rental property and both of them, we lost money because my rental property got broken into when I put a for rent sign out there. So I had to sell at a discount. I did collect insurance, but I did lose about four grand. So you know everywhere. It seemed like everything I touched just wasn’t good. Wasn’t good. So, you know, learn from your mistakes. Then I got sick and tired of the risk factor, to be honest with you. Not wanted a way out of risk factors. So I started looking in the wholesaling and I’m not gonna lie to you. 

Steve: I didn’t grasp it at first. It didn’t make much sense to me and I really didn’t have anywhere to go, and we went and saw you had a REA. Simple lease options make sense. Yeah. Like I like nice houses. Unfortunately, my markets, today’s market, whole lease options have been hard for me because the houses are turning and burning every two, three, four days. So I haven’t been able to really work on that as much as I would like, but I think the market’s changing in our favor on that aspect. So I’ve been wholesaling pretty much ever since I started. 

Joe: And Ohio is a great market for wholesaling, isn’t it? 

Steve: Yes and no. And what I mean by yes and no is you just, we just gotta be patient. You know what I mean by that? And you make your offers and you be patient. And I learned that hard way. 

Gavin: And just to add, that’s any market, I think that’s Ohio. I just think that’s any market. 

Steve: Well then in reality it’s gotten to the point. I think Coco will agree that we’re in every part of Ohio right now except the northwest corner. We’re all over Ohio. We’re in Cincinnati. We’re in Dayton. We’re in Cleveland. We’re in other municipalities that are east of Columbus Day. Zanesville, New Oak. We just opened up another market on the very east side of the state. And yeah, I mean, we’re an hour from Pittsburgh now as far as the market goes, which means we can creep into Pittsburgh. Just got a house I’m working on West Virginia accidentally. Really? Hold me up. I’ve been working on a house with him in Columbus area. And he asked me about buying this house in Virginia house. The house in Columbus just caught fire Monday. So. 

Coco: It’s amazing. Once you get on the phone, it’s amazing how it’s the wheels turn and it gets in motion. Okay. What did he say? I said it’s amazing. Once you get on the phone, how the work, Yes. You actually have wholesalers calling. People calling us a lot. 

Joe: I mean, look what just happened here. Somebody and I’m sorry. I don’t see your name, but it says, Steve, put me in your buyers list in Columbus. So whoever that is, I don’t see your name. So go ahead. And well, we’re gonna give you Steve’s email address here in a minute. In fact, why don’t we go ahead and do that, Steve? Because I know we got a lot of people listening right now in Ohio and they may have a deal they want to partner with you on. They may be wanted to add be added to your buyers list. So your email again was CCB? CCB. And it’s funny. It stands for Cocoa’s Boy. 

Steve: No. All right. I didn’t know we were live. But I thought this was taped. 

Joe: You know, this is live I should have said that. We’re live on Facebook and YouTube right now. I mean, we’re gonna be republishing this as an audio podcast later. Okay. So your email address, if people want to reach you, is [email protected]. [email protected] so the person who was posting that their name is Josie May I believe. Anyways. Now you’ve got your contact info there. So you said something to you about answering the phone. Getting on the phone. And that’s one thing you’re really good at. You’re a friendly guy. I love talking to you. You’re funny. You’re friendly. You’re personal. But that’s been really key for you guys, hasn’t it? It’s just getting on the phone and talking to people. A little bit about that. 

Steve: Well, I just get on there. And how I break the ice with them is a lot of them will say, well, what’s your offer? And I do this. Just find out where they’re coming from and I’ll tell them I’ll say I’ve got a free coupon for a subway sub. Twelve inches. I said, whatever you want, I’ll give all that bad boy. And I can I can do the house for you. And then start laughing or they just know it’s only one out of 10 that does it. But I pretty nice that way and I’m able to slide right in and have a great conversation with him. Stuff that is so good. Yeah. So that’s because I do I have coupons on my phone all the time. So I’m not lying. So the bottom line is it really breaks the ice with them and they relax a little bit more. And I’m able to bring out my personality, which is probably offensive to a lot. But they seem to, you know, work with me a lot better that way. So and I my follow ups, when I have a good conversation with my follow ups, are also going to remember you, right? 

Joe: They’re going to remember you’re the subway coupon guy. 

Steve: Yeah. Ninety nine percent of my deals are follow ups. I got one Sunday. That was a first timer. 

Gavin:  Another key another. Another key point there. Repeat that again.

Steve: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I got one deal. That was Sunday. The guy was desperate. I knew he was desperate because he’s texting me to make sure I’m going to be there and, you know, I could’ve gotten a little bit cheaper, but I didn’t. I felt pretty bad for the guy. He’s losing. He’s losing over fifty thousand dollars on the house. I felt bad for him. But at the same token, I wasn’t gonna. Half of his fifty thousand dollars. So. But it’s rare that I run into that. 

Joe: So ninety nine you said ninety nine percent of your deals come from follow up. 

Steve: No doubt. That’s all I do is follow up by all. 

Joe: And how do you do your follow up? It’s must be complicated. 

Coco: REI. He goes through REI. We set the tasks in REI simple. 

Joe: You set those tasks in there. They remind you to follow up with people. But then actually, how do you follow up? It’s gotta be super complicated. 

Steve: Phone call. Hey, Mary. How you doing? Remember me? 

Coco: Right now we’re sending these little postcards here, too. Every time I send one through REI, I set a task for him to follow up within a week and then he’ll be like, hey, you know, we just sent you a postcard in the mail, that kind of thing. Nice postcard. 

Steve: How are you? How are you sending that postcard? 

Coco: I’m actually, believe it or not, I’m writing them out myself. Wow. Yeah. 

Steve: Not writing them out, but just filling in the address. Well. 

Joe:  I love that, though. Yeah. 

Coco: My name is Steve Zimmer. I’d like to buy your property at. This is for bank analysis. Yeah, if you’re interested in selling. Please call me or my assistant Coco and then it’s got our number on it. It’s already we already have our return and then we just address and then put the address in. 

Joe: And so every day when that task comes up to follow up, you’re just hand addressing a few different postcards. Right. They just put them every day into the mail. 

Steve: Yeah. Well, you skip trace information from skip trace. And then we just write out the addresses, put them in to the REI. Right now, we have our VA, other than making phone calls, we haven’t done a lot of clean up on our REI system. 

Joe: That’s right. We talked about that. Now, are you talking about REI, You’re talking about REI simple. Yes. One of that was really important for you guys, wasn’t it? Like I remember telling you guys, you don’t need to be the CRM expert. You don’t need to be the REI simple expert. You need to hire somebody to run that and manage it for you. So has that been helpful for you guys? 

Coco: Very helpful and very helpful. 

Steve: You know, I’m not computer literate. So, yeah. 

Joe: I’m trying to be really, really nice, Steve. 

Steve: But like, you know, I you know, I’m not. It’s not that I…..I don’t like computers. 

Joe: I was worried when you were at our workshop. I was like, oh, no, Steve, this is bad. Like you’d like. He was really struggling. 

Steve: I just I have no interest in computers. I don’t know. I came in here. Yeah. Yeah. 

Joe:  Let’s turn this stupid thing on. 

Steve: My computer will always have issues. Coco’s gotta come over and straighten me out. 

Joe: So you guys are a perfect team together. You guys are hilarious and you’re one of the funnest coaching clients that I’ve ever had to just help. And you’re always just so you understand. It’s really, really simple business. It’s not that complicated. It’s not rocket science. It’s not rocket science. You just get on the phone and you talk to people. And Steve, you’ve said this before. You get a lot of nose. How do you deal with the rejection? You know, is that something that affects you or you just get used to it? 

Steve: Well, I’m married to Coco, so I’ve learned years that. I’ve dealt with people all my life. 

Coco: So there was at one point, there was a lot of call reluctance. 

Steve: I’ve got to go to Florida in the winter because in the wintertime here, I can’t take it. I get so depressed every now and then. Yeah, there’s no sunshine. So I’ve got to start going to Florida next winter for a few months at a time and just work from Florida. I. And then that’s the beauty of it. I’m knowing how I can work from Florida. 

Joe: And you can do these deals virtually. Do you go see homes? Do you go see these homes right now? 

Steve: No, I haven’t seen any of the four I just closed on. No, no. I love that. You know, the COVID-19’s done nothing different to my lifestyle. You know, other than wearing a mask at the store and grateful that we don’t have it. Yeah. You know, but, you know, I’ve got I’ve got people that love doing what I have them do and they do it. I’ve got a realtor that says send me all the work you can. I love doing this better than sell one hundred eighty thousand-dollar homes. 

Joe: Really? 

Steve: And this guy is phenomenal. He is funny and he does everything for me. And he loves doing it. And I love that. And he’s not greedy. He’s not greedy. 

Joe: And you pay him or you pay him to do the work for you. 

Steve: Yeah. And when I when I tell him how much you owe him, always say, now, that’s not taken out my fees. Let me add in my fees and he’ll say all your damn fees or your darn fees. And I’m just kidding. I love this guy. You know why? And I think Coco hooked him up with me. 

Joe: What are some of the things you have your realtor do for you? 

Steve: Everything. Yeah. 

Coco: I mean, every game he makes pictures, puts lockbox on the house, shows the house. 

Steve: I had a couple junk houses the other day and I said I said, where do I need to be on this? He gives me the numbers. Really? He said, yeah. He goes, this is where you need to be. I said, that’s a little bit higher than I thought. He goes, no, we can get rid of this bad boy at that number. He came back two days later and bought that property. The realtor did. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. He said this is a great deal. He goes, I was showing it to everybody and they said, if it’s such a great deal, won’t you buy it? He goes, I started thinking, yeah, you’re right. So he bought the property and the ones that he told me he would sell that. 

Joe: And you still made a fee on it? A wholesale fee. 

Steve: Sixteen thousand dollars. 

Joe: Sixteen. Awesome. Well, where do the Reds do spring training? Is it in Arizona or Florida? Arizona. So you could go there if you want to do next spring maybe. 

Steve: Well yeah. Yeah. But I like water too. Yeah. Yeah. 

Joe: You can go to the Cardinals spring training in Jupiter. 

Steve: I would do that. We went and saw Philadelphia’s spring training in Clearwater. OK. So not that I care about Philly, but it was baseball in March. I love it. 

Joe: That’s right. I got to ask you, though, how are you dealing with not being able to watch baseball right now or are you handling it okay? 

Coco: We’re getting more work done.

Steve: You know, it doesn’t bother me. I’ve got. Listen to a lot of podcasts now instead of watch TV on that stuff. So I listen to while Bomb and Kornheiser on PTI and there’s a baseball podcast show that I listen to. And, you know, it’s not good enough for my sports. I I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll just listen on radio instead of actually watch it. You know, I just enjoy it that much because I got things to do. And plus, it’s a game. 

Joe: It’s a game. I get it. Yeah. So somebody here, Curtis says, Steve, you work to your strengths. Phone conversations. That’s awesome. That’s really that’s really important. 

Steve: Thank you, Curtis. That’s about the only things I got going for me, Curtis. 

Gavin: I want to talk about that, though, as well. Like it did take some time to go on that virtual side over the time they’ve been working together. You know that. You know, you can hold a conversation. Right. Which is great. You’re halfway there. We’ve done a lot of work in terms of the phone on a virtual level to get your head round. You’re not going out to the properties over the year or year and a half or two whatever we’ve been working together. Talk about that in terms of, you know, what it was like at the start, the things that we’ve worked on to get you better and more confident in terms of position and things like that. 

Steve: Well, couple of things. Number one, I’ve never I’ve always been a hands-on guy. And what I mean by that is I’m always involved in it and I’m always doing it. Does that make sense? Yep. Therefore, while you were gone, I was going to houses this for quite a while because I didn’t trust myself. If that makes sense to make an offer over the phone, I did not myself whatsoever. So then after I met you guys, the first thing we did was we hooked up with finding others to work with us in the market. 

Coco: And I took a leap of faith. 

Steve: It did take a leap of faith, but I did go look at four of them that I bought last year. And the only four on those are the only four I looked at the whole time. I just wanted to see what the heck we contracted. Does that make sense? 

Gavin: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think it’s important for listeners to go well, I’m not like Steve, but my point is that I know that we had difficulties at the start. Through that you’ve come on. It’s not like you just had this gift and you were just locking deals up from day one. No, we had to work a lot on the mindset that you and the restoring the belief that you can do this virtual and you all good enough to lock deals up. Yeah. With the sales cycle of being on the phone, I think that’s important for people to grasp because a lot of listeners so far just think he will seems just got it. And that’s why Steve could do it. And it’s, well no. You’ve worked hard. 

Coco: Yeah. And a lot of your coaching? A lot of your talking. I mean, a lot of phone conversations that we had. You know, well you would be like, well, this isn’t working, Steve, try this or, you know, it’s OK for like you told me, it’s okay Coco, if the guy, you know, wants to hold the contract and it’s in closing, you don’t need the paperwork. It’s okay. I mean, there’s a lot of conversations that we had and where we were struggling with looking at the houses and, you know, letting go of that control. Yes. Trusting him was it was a lot of faith in you guys, I think, because you’ve been there. You’ve done it, you know. You know, the ins and outs of it. And so it was a lot of relying on you and a lot of faith in you and in doing what you guys said. 

Steve: And we’ve had our struggles. 

Coco:  You didn’t let us fall. Never let us fall. You know, we reached out to you for this, that or the other, whatever it was. You were right there for us. That’s awesome now. Yeah. 

Gavin: I think we just did a great video. Guys, if you guys my YouTube channel. Gavin Timms, look for Steve. We did a role-play. And you were even nervous about. I think I’m doing this. You absolutely nailed it. You actually offered me a finance offer. Right. We don’t plan anything. So you should check it out. But you can see they. I wish I had a video and I probably do a recording from like two years ago, year and a half ago to now. Like the difference is just unbelievable. You probably don’t see it, but we do massively. 

Gavin: To be fair, Coco, you know, it’s a credit to you because you’re the one that keeps the ship going. Right. Yeah, absolutely. She’s the backbone that keeps you in check. Right. Because you do get down on yourself. You don’t always make it cause like you supposed to. And, you know, when we have conversations, you know, she’s the one making sure that the offers are going out that you’re following up. You’re doing things right that you’re supposed to be doing. And that’s fine, because that was part of the plan that we put in place. Right. Because you do need somewhat control and focus because you can be like all over the place. Coco does a great job and challenging to allow you to use the skill that you have to get deals done. So I think you’re a great team for sure. 

Steve: Yeah, I think so. We’ve worked together for over 20 years out of our own home. If you can believe that. And we’re still married. And yeah, we are opposites as far as what were what our best asset is. And she’s Gregg on detail. She’s great on computers, paper work and such like that. And about the only thing I’m good at doing is talking to people. Hey, that’s the big money. Right. And there’s times I blow that, like. 

Coco: You know what? He’s really good with figures, too. 

Steve: Yeah. I’m good with numbers. I can sit there and do numbers in my head. 

Coco: Yeah, right there. That scorecard. I love that scorecard. Whoever came up with that’s awesome because that really puts into place our numbers. 

Gavin: Is that the new Google one? 

Coco: The one. Let me see. I have it here somewhere. 

Joe:  Do you do it by manual, by pen and paper then? 

Steve: Yeah. I sit down, I miss a lot. I’ll be sitting down when I make a phone call, I make a line. Then I got talked and I make a line and then I’ve got offers and I make a line and I just and I add them up every week. 

Coco: The scorecard helps keep track of those numbers and it shows you the importance of your numbers. Especially where you’re. Yeah, it’s definitely like, okay, well, I didn’t make enough calls here, so I need to do this now next week. 

Steve: And now we got to work on getting the next thing we have to work on is getting others to do everything else for us. And what I mean by that is making sure things went to title, making sure everything is lined up instead of us doing it. 

Joe: Have you ever considered hiring a virtual closing transaction coordinator? 

Coco: That’s a lot of words, Joe. Yeah. That’s a lot of words. Virtual closing transaction coordinator? 

Joe: Or just a transaction coordinator? Yeah. Transaction. Yeah. Okay. 

Gavin: Only about a hundred and fifty to probably 300 bucks per deal per closing. Yep. 

Steve: Okay. Yeah. Maybe you can. 

Joe: Well I’ll send you some links or some or some companies that do it virtually. There may be somebody there in the local REA’s clubs there. Yeah. That do that for you. And you just might. 

Steve: I would like that because today we had to come up with an addendum because we lowered prices on two of them. 

Joe: I mean, you know. You need to get a virtual closing coordinator or transactional coordinator. All they do is it’s not all they do. It’s a lot of work, but they’re good at it. Right. They make sure that they understand what has to be at closing, that they coordinate with the buyer, with the seller, with the investor. They make sure that all these things are turned in. They stay on top of the title company to make sure you have everything that you need. What else do you need? How are we doing? We’re still scheduled as close and in a week from now, you know, and they just handle all of that stuff, which allows you then to focus on your strengths. 

Steve: I would love that. Definitely. 

Joe: Right now off the top of my head. I can’t think of them. But there’s two Web sites I know that do it nationally. I’ll send those to you. But also be thinking about somebody in your local REA that they just want some extra work. You know, maybe it’s a realtor. It can be a realtor. It can be somebody who’s worked at a title company before. And it’s really helpful. Thank you. Okay. So what kind of marketing are you guys doing right now? How are you getting your leads? 

Steve:  Skip Trace. REI Simple Oh, well, skip tracing on different cities with different venues. Mail, phone calls, e-mails and text messages. 

Joe: All right. So you’re pulling lists of what, absentee owners? Yes, vacant more than 10 years. And you’re just skip tracing them. Yes. 

Coco: And I downloaded the REISimple. 

Steve: Yellow letters, VAs, email them, SMS. 

Coco: You. Are your VA.’s doing some of that marketing for you? They’re doing email blast and texting. OK. Email blast and SMS.

Gavin: Cold calling. Right. 

Steve: And cold calling. Yes. And I’m also cold calling as well, because we’ve got a ton of leads to go through. And we’re adding more cities. So basically, eventually, I want to hire two people to start making phone calls when we really expand, because I would like going into Pittsburgh, West Virginia. I don’t see much there. I just, you know. But Pittsburgh, I would like to go into. That’s where the coocoo originally grew up and maybe expand our market place. I’ve been thinking about different cities. Maybe someplace where I would like to move to or stay at the winter. OK. Build up the foundation somewhere else. Pittsburgh because you’re from there. You grew up there for a few years anyway. Right. 

Joe: Right. I found one of the companies that does the transactional coordinators. It’s onlineclosingteam.com. OnlineClosingTeam.com. Now they help a lot of realtors with. So realtors use them to kind of coordinate the closings and stuff like that. And they also work with investors. 

Steve: And you say it’s a national company. Yeah. Yeah. 

Joe: I’m looking at it here. I had a list of about three or four different Web sites. One or two of them don’t work anymore. The other two or three redirected to the same company. So I’m wondering, I think they might have purchased or bought other companies that did this, but this is the main one. It looks like online closing team dot com. Yeah, this is it. I recognize some of the names of the ladies, mostly ladies that work there. And yeah, they work a lot with the realtors. But also, again, with investors. I would definitely check them out. And if they’re national and if they don’t work out for you or whatever. I’m sure there are people who just ask around in Cincinnati that can help you. 

Steve: OK, good. So we’re just getting Cincinnati. We’re actually we’ve actually been east, so we have not. We’re just now getting into Cincinnati. 

Joe: Cool. So we’re getting a lot of questions in here. Is REI simple similar to REIBlack Book? No completely different. REI Mario Black book is a good tool. REI simple is something that I white labeled from freedom soft and customized it for our types of deals, but they’re completely different. I personally like REI simple a lot better. But REI black book is still good. It’s really good. Somebody is just saying hello. I wish I could for some reason. Streamer isn’t let you see the names. Somebody is asking. Do you have one VA now? Yes. And they mainly do what for you again? 

Coco: And right now he does everything for us. He does. Our e-mail blast takes care of REI simple. SMS texting and cold calling. 

Joe: When you talk to a seller who updates the seller lead in REI simple with your notes. What’s the next thing that we have to do and how are you getting that to the VA update? 

Steve: I just put his name on there. So what I mean by that, I assign him a task. OK. And he goes and the first thing he does every morning is look at his task. So, for example, let’s say he leaves at 3 o’clock and I’ve got three offers after three o’clock to get out. So what I’ll do is I’ll write down my numbers on a piece of paper, take a picture, click it to him and I’ll send that on voxer with that first thing in the morning. Well, let’s say I’ve got a seller who’s actually a buyer, but we have him down as a seller. So what I’ll do in my REI is I’ll go in there and assign him a task. Hey, Joel. Change this guy to a seller. Here’s his information. I’ll put that in the comments and then Joel does that. The first thing he does is his admen work. And then he goes on from there. He takes care of what we need taken care of right away. 

Joe: And so you’ll also voxer with them back and forth with the voxer. 

Steve: We Voxer with him. And we we have a lot of Zoom calls with him there. For a while. We were doing 10 minutes a day with him in the morning. First thing, just going over ideas. How are we doing? Is there anything you need? And so on and so forth, because he’s been locked in his house as well. Yeah. And in fact, I guess they’re worse off than we are from what I’m reading. But anyway, as far as their quarantine. But he’s very easy to work with. Very easy to talk to. And he goes on the training every Thursday. We pay him to go to training every Thursday at 11:00. 

Joe: So this is your VA in the Philippines, right? 

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. And what’s really cool is he was on there two weeks go all by himself with Rod. So he got it really got to drill Rod for a good hour. 

Joe: This is so good. What Steve and Coco are talking about is Gavin and I do something that’s really special, I think, in an industry where we do training weekly trainee. Things for the VA’s, so your VA.’s get on the training with our main REI simple VA. And this guy is a master, he’s really, really good. But we do these coaching calls where you can get on him if you want, but they’re mainly for the VAs to learn REI Simple. Or how can I do this better? What’s another way that we can do this? Really, really fantastic. 

Coco: That’s why he’s cleaning up our REI because he had that one on one with ROD a couple weeks ago. So Rod took him through everything. 

Gavin: Yeah. Well, that’s huge because no one else is doing that. And that’s one of the biggest benefits for you guys is if you can have someone to handle that allows you then again to focus on making money. You know, being on the phone in your office. 

Coco: When you came up with that, that was like major, major change because we weren’t having to tell him, You got to do this or make a video or that kind of thing, because that’s Rob. 

Gavin: You always got to thinking outside the box and stay ahead of the game. 

Steve: Yeah. So what we love. We love the guy. And what’s so cause like we’re gonna send a bonus this year out this year once we close these next four. We send him bonuses on every deal. And it really feels good to send him money because he needs it. Yeah. And I agree. The family. So yeah. We should just give him a raise.  

Gavin: I think it’s good to keep him on the toes, you know, because that began when you said that you know that’s going to impact him more than I say is a raise in times. Sometimes the chunk money is when they can actually get ahead and get things done and, you know, goes a long way. So I think that’s great. Good. It’s good that you’re in the position that you can do that as well. 

Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just texted Whitney a message that I want to send Rod a bonus as well. Oh, really? Yeah. All right. That’s so cool. I don’t know what else to ask you guys. 

Steve: What we plan on doing.. I think the market’s changing to the fact that the reports I’ve been reading, 30, 40, 30 to 40 percent, they’re expecting and they expect a decrease of 30 to 40 percent of house sales. This is what so-called experts are saying. Do I believe them? Who knows? Right now, the market’s doing very well. I think this is gonna be a great next couple of years for lease options. I really, really do. And I’ve got a few offers out there. In fact, I just got off the phone with somebody right before we hooked up with you guys today. And he’s got two houses of his fathers. And these are nice properties. These are like, you know, in Ohio, quarter-million, three hundred thousand-dollar properties, blah, blah, blah. And the kid likes them. His dad’s is now in a nursing home. And they got to decide what to do with dad’s properties. This guy likes them and he’s gonna share him with his other family members. But I told him, I said Tim. I said if you sell it on the market, I said, you don’t know how long it’s going to sit out there. You got to pay the realtor. You don’t have to pay me nothing. And I sent him all that good stuff and he’s excited about it. And I’ve got a few others. I got a guy from California. Same scenario. I’m getting a lot of. Can we wait till COVID’s over because I’m working on a very large deal in Zanesville. It’s a big deal. I’m excited if I can get there. They want me to wait until COVID is quote unquote over. Sure. And I told them, I said, well, you got a couple of years and you know, because that’s what they’re saying. Who knows? 

Gavin: Yeah, it’s real. This is a key thing to that, right? Because we get the same thing. What you need to know why. Why do they want to wait? 

Steve: In this case, because the husbands are all sick and they don’t want to meet up with me. And I told her, I said, well, we can stand far away. I said, I don’t even want go in your house so we can talk outside and. But I’m just you know, they’re older. They’re 81 and 82. So you can be showing a little bit of respect, you know? Yeah. I mean, yeah, it’s my mom’s age, you know, I don’t want to think I’m taking them for a ride per say. Yeah. We’re gonna give them a lot of respect, but they’ve been really cool with me. They know I’m there. They know where I’m at. And but if I can pop this bad boy, it’s gonna be a doozy. So I’m working on it for geesh, five months. I cannot believe that. Five months. Wow. I’ve never been that patient before in my life. 

Gavin: That’s how you’re gonna get him, especially the big ones. 

Joe: This has been so good, Steve. Somebody here, is saying, Steve. It’s like they’re talking to me. I’m computer challenged as well. Guess I need coaching, too, if they help set up REI Simple. Thanks. Yeah. Appreciate that. You guys. Again, if you are interested in getting some help getting some coaching. Go check out this Web site. REINetwork.com/coaching. REINetwork.com/coaching. And if you want to email Steve and Coco, here’s the email on screen right there. CCB for Cocoa’s Boy Property Solutions at G-mail dot com. [email protected]. 

Coco: I like cash-cash buyer better CEECEE cash cash buyer. Yeah, I like that one better. 

Joe: Cool. And we’re getting a lot of comments. Here right now and this one person, so I know it’s going to be real small and we lost you guys. He says I literally just looked at a house now. In fact, I left the house as we speak and it will be a good lease options. She wants money upfront, but she asked a question that I didn’t have the answer to. She asked that if she was to pass while we are in terms what happened to the house. Oh, that’s interesting. That’s what the seller said. If I die, what’s going to happen during the lease option? Well, just real quick. You can have what’s called a limited power of attorney that you can have this evening, an attorney to help you with this. But you always file a memorandum of option. You make sure your lease option contract with the seller is survivable to the heirs, which is standard language in the contract. Number three, there is a limited power of attorney that I have in my course that you can have them sign. So that’s what’s one way to get around. Somebody else is asking here what is a good amount of money to be able to spend on marketing on a monthly basis when getting started. Steve and Coco, do you want to answer that? Like, what’s a good budget for somebody getting started? 

Steve: We do it for less than a thousand a month. Nice. 

Coco: At first. I mean, you know, I said I send up as postcards. That’s our biggest expense. Yes. Yeah, that is our base. And that’s like maybe five more. 

Gavin: Yeah, that’s good. The point is, is that you don’t need a big marketing budget to make money right now. Right. And it’s sustained by this is profit. You know, it’s all about profit. You have to be profitable. You run a very profitable business like we do. And that’s the point. It’s all about how much you put it in your pocket. 

Steve: Now, that’s bottom line. Yeah. I mean, well, I don’t know if that included the costs, the V.A., but he’s not expensive. No, not expensive at all. Cheaper than childcare. 

Gavin: Yeah. I mean, guys, I think it’s a pleasure. I appreciate you getting on. It’s a pleasure working with you. I guess if anyone’s thinking about, you know, working with us, I mean, what do you think? And we haven’t obviously spoke about this. I just want to throw that out. I mean. Well, you know, what do you think? How’s it been working with us over the last couple years now? 

Coco: Oh, yeah. You guys are on top of that. I mean, you get back with us within an hour. Yeah. And you get back. Yeah, you do, Joe. 

Steve: You both have been nothing but over the top. And I do mean that. 

Coco: You’re upfront. You’re honest. Everything that you said in the agreement you promised, you delivered. I mean, as far as you know, we…. Let me say one, two, three. I think we’ve had three or four mentor type people before you guys. And you guys have been the utmost best of all. I did that we felt comfortable with. Appreciate it. Yeah. It’s yeah. 

Joe: We appreciate you guys as well. You had been fun to work with. REINetwork.com/coaching. REINetwork.com/coaching. Steve. Any last words about the Cincinnati Reds? 

Steve: This year’s a wash. Let’s face it. It’s a bummer. I just got somebody here on from Chicago and they said, we’re worried about the Cubbies. You love the Cubs. I love Wrigley Field there. 

Joe: Thank you. From Todd in Chicago. 

Steve: Yeah, I love Wrigley Field. One of the best places I’ve ever seen a game in my life. Great atmosphere. People were fantastic. I mean, it was just friggin awesome. 

Joe: I had a friend. Air quotes, who sent me a Chicago Cubs banner. You know, I collect banners, you know, if anybody’s interest. On my Facebook profile, go to my Facebook page and I have a picture of the banner, two pictures, one on my table and the other one where it’s all crumpled up in a trashcan. 

Steve: Oh. Oh, that’s a shame. 

Joe: No, it’s not. Because I know this guy. 

Steve: The Cubbies and Cardinals hate each other. I mean, there is no doubt about it as I stuff my mouth. But I know you guys have been nothing but upfront, honest. Joe is the technical man and Gavin is the talking. Hey, this is what you got to do. So you got both sides of the coin. You guys complement each other, too. You would make a great husband and wife team. 

Joe: I think we should end this. Dudley is here. Thank you to everyone. It’s been extremely or tremendously helpful. 

Coco: That’s what you’re looking for. Coach Gavin and Joe. Go White Sox. Oh, my gosh. 

Joe: Somebody sitting here. How do we work with you guys on deals? Real simple again. Go to REINetwork.com/coaching. Thanks a lot, Steve and Coco. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Have a great day. Go Cardinals. Bye.