Real Estate Evolution: Taking Failures As Learning Opportunities WIth Dan Rochon

Episode 405: Real Estate Evolution: Taking Failures As Learning Opportunities WIth Dan Rochon

 

Society as a whole is going through evolution this very moment, and along with it, the consumer base. Businesses and entrepreneurs need to keep up with this evolution process in order to stay afloat in an ever-changing environment. Dan Rochon, the Head Coach of Greetings Virginia Sales Network, joins this episode to share his story, experiences, and lessons learned along the way as well as his book, Real Estate Revolution. Believing that there are no mistakes in life, only learning opportunities, he talks about the failures he’s gone through and what prompted him to transition into real estate. Learn the challenges you need to face and the mindset you need to have to be an entrepreneur as Dan provides some tips and strategies you need to evolve through the process.

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I’m here with Dan Rochon. He’s a very successful man and have done some pretty big things. We have some things in common in our personal journeys. I already like this guy and I haven’t even got into it yet. We’re going to have fun. I’ve got to pay homage to my sponsor TaxFreeFuture.com. Thank you so much TaxFreeFuture.com for helping people learn how to shelter their income, postpone or defer their taxes. I’m talking about things like 401(k)s, IRAs, self-directed Roths and health savings accounts. If you don’t have a tax-deferred or tax-free environment in which to grow your finances, you have no idea the size of the tool you are missing in your toolbelt. Please go to TaxFreeFuture.com and look at the 37 little video vignettes, my favorite ones. Take a little bit of money that you put into these accounts and grow it into a lot of money. A lot of out of the box thinking and always legal and forthright. Dan, give us a little bit background and then I’ve got some things I want to ask you already.

It’s an honor to be here, Mitch. In 2005, I was a waiter at a very high-end steak house in Washington, DC. I was struggling in my personal journey. At that time, I was an active alcoholic and I was waiting tables in my early 30s. I had already started real estate investing about ten years before then, but I didn’t have a pathway. I knew wanted to be an entrepreneur, be significant and be able to help people, but I couldn’t see the way. I didn’t know what the pathway was. I gave up drinking in 2005.

From 2005 to 2007, it was when I struggled about what’s next in my pathway. I’ve visited seminars and looked at all kinds of franchises. What I realized was that even though I made a lot of money at the time and had an opportunity to meet a lot of celebrities and high-end people that you would know for sure, I hated my job and I wanted to do something else. Finally, a gentleman that I worked with called Bill, had encouraged me to take a look at real estate sales and I did. Eighteen months later, I was able to buy the brokers that I worked in. Ten years after that, I was able to fail in the ownership of the brokers that I bought. I restarted the journey and now I sell real estate full-time. I coach and took some time to write a book called Real Estate Evolution that I share with other real estate agents on how they can be successful and avoid some mistakes that I made along the journey.

Isn’t that funny how there’s always the big failure in everybody’s success story? My book was My Life & 1,000 Houses: Failing Forward to Financial Freedom. I fall down often in that book that my nose should be flat. I’m about to go on my 400th interview. I’m very appreciative that people care enough to listen or have supported me and the people that I interviewed. Everybody’s story has that time in the woods. I was 34 before I figured out how to find my butt with both hands. I was a hard worker, very responsible, and always had the business of the month, which was always supported by bartending at night. I had the same issues with alcohol. I was highly functional. No matter what drunk promise I made that night, I would get up in the morning, slap myself and ask, “Why did you say that? Now, you’ve got to do that because that’s what you said.” I would always honor my word.

I almost think because I was highly functional as well. I wrote a section in the book and my editors, when they were going through it, we fought about this. It stayed in the book. The editor wanted me to take out because I had mentioned I was a highly functioning alcoholic and using those exact words. I thought that that was a curse to me because if I would have been a nonfunctioning alcoholic, I would have been forced to either make choices sooner or I would have had negative repercussions sooner. That high level of functionality got in my way of choosing health sooner.

Another parallel in the writing of my book, I had people come to me all the time and say, “Are you sure you want to say this because it’s not very becoming?” My answer was, “It’s the truth. It’s not fruity and I’m sorry, but what do you want me to do? Go out and lie to these people?” My point of writing the book was trying to help people relate and then help them go forward. I’m sure since you left that section in your book, it’s important to leave that ugly part in. That’s one of my problems with all the self-help books. No one was telling you the downside. No one was telling you the ugly parts.

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They’re all showing you big fat checks and how to make a bunch of money, but no one’s telling you what happens after the get rich seminar. When you get your ass out there and then, “Why didn’t they tell me if people lie to you? Why didn’t they tell me people aren’t going to pay you and file bankruptcy? Why didn’t they tell me all this crap? I could have been prepared at least.” When I did my book, I did the same thing. One time they asked me because my wife was not an entrepreneur and she screamed at me every day, “When are you going to get a job?” It’s like, “I made more than you make all year in a month. I don’t get it.” She was from a certain mindset that was not an entrepreneur.

We had these big arguments and I touched on some of them in the book and things that I did that I didn’t even ask permission. I just said how it was going to be and was an ogre about it because what was I going to do? Go and work at Walmart? I didn’t have a degree. They said, “Is your wife all right with this?” I went to my wife and said, “They’re asking me to make sure you’re all right with these chapters in this book.” I showed her and she read them again. I said, “Are you okay with it?” She said the same thing I said. “It is not pretty but it’s the truth. That’s what happened.” People pick up when you’re writing the truth.

There are some lessons. There are some parallel stories between you and I, and we’ve just met. The outcome is probably a parallel outcome as well and there is no outcome. There’s just, “Here’s where I am today.” What I’ve recognized is that people who understand that they are in charge of designing their own life, when you understand that you are in charge of designing your life, sometimes you’re going to stub your toe. When you stub your toe, that’s my analogy for making a mistake, because I don’t believe that there are mistakes in life. I believe that there are learning opportunities in life. The only true mistake that you can make is by stubbing your toe and then not learning from it. That in and of itself is what I would consider a mistake.

I just had a revelation. I was viewing things in my mind. I quit drinking and smoking on August 1, 2019. There was no DWI, no catastrophe. I realized that I could go no further from where I was under the weight of what I was carrying and I had to shed something. The obvious thing was pointed at my vices. I realized something on the way to my business meetings. Everything negative and positive that you’re doing, it progresses. You can’t hardly stop the progression no matter what it is. If you could learn to choose what you want to progress and what you don’t want to progress, you would be better off if you sat down and analyze. Some of those changes don’t happen very quick. I prayed to God for two years to help me figure out how to get rid of some things that I don’t want to carry anymore. I was afraid to even try because I was afraid I was going to fail and that would escalate things to a whole other level and I didn’t want to do certain things, but I would do it if I had to.

I’m a boring guy but I love life. I don’t care if I’m boring. Here’s where my boredom is. I’m hyper-focused on three areas of my life. Those three areas are my health, my family, and my businesses. That is my life, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for going to go and watch football games and other types of things that many of my friends enjoy. I’m not that interested in it. I’ll go and I’ll enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just not a priority to me. We’re all dealing with Coronavirus and we’ve been at home forever. One night, I looked at my daughter, Maggie. She’s nine years old and I saw that she was a little bit antsy. I said, “Let’s do some s’mores.” I spent a couple of hours out there, lit out a fire out in the yard. I find that I have to focus more on that type of stuff because it is healthy for me to focus on the three areas of my life that I do focus on, but then there are s’mores outside of that as well.

That s’more was directly related to one of those three. It was quality family time. You’ve got to do a little extra and not just the norm. You said that your friend Bill turned you on to the idea of real estate. What was the event that happened where the light bulb went off and said, “He is right, this is it?” What was the event that sucked you in that you felt like, “I see it now?”

 

When my wife and I were dating, my brother-in-law is a very prosperous person. I had perceived him at the time as successful. I still perceive him as successful now but for different reasons than I did then. One of the things that I learned about success is that judging somebody outside, you don’t know what’s going on their insides. I’ve shed the judgment of others of, “Are they successful or not successful?” Whatever the case may be.

Regardless at the time, I looked at him as a success and he had this beautiful sailboat. We were out laughing along the Chesapeake Bay and tacking back and forth. The wind was blowing and it was beautiful. He looked at me and says, “Has Traci introduced you to this course called Landmark Curriculum?” I said, “No, what is that?” He told me about what it was. It was a curriculum that allowed for me to dive deep into who I was and what was stopping me in life. That was the moment right there where I realized that I could achieve in my life what I wanted to achieve. That happened before Bill.

You let opened up before that. You could recognize Bill and recognize these things.

That conversation there was in the reticular activating system of something that I recognized because I had opened up my mind to allow for myself to hear that conversation and feel like, “That may be the pathway.” I realized as I started studying and I was like, “$2,000 and 60 hours of a class. That’s a whole heck of a lot easier than $250,000 or $500,000 to buy a Quiznos. I’m in.”

There are multitudes of ways to make money, especially in this country. You have to start studying to find out where you belong. A lot of it can be free and it doesn’t cost a lot to get involved and to see if it’s for you. Sometimes you have to put out an investment to take it a little further to see if it’s the thing. The days of college degrees are not as necessary anymore if you’re not built for that. There are a lot of people not built for the traditional college way.

I went to the Army instead of college. I look at college as more of a transition stage from child to adult. Even though you’re at the top end of being a child when you go away. What people learn in college is more how to adapt into being self-reliant, independent, and taking care of themselves. Some people fall flat on their face. I certainly did at that age. Most excel through those years. They come out, graduate and move on. The learning opportunity for most is more of the process than the academic of what they learn. That’s not for everybody but that’s my perception on that.

In entrepreneurship, the most significant challenge that you might have to experience is uncertainty. Click To Tweet

A lot to be said for understanding that the only thing holding us back is our limiting belief system. I do this course called Private Money Changes Everything, where I help people raise private money to buy their investment properties or to exercise their investment strategies. There are many limiting beliefs just in that one topic. People are scared to death to go to private people and ask to borrow money or present an opportunity. When I figure out what their limiting belief is, it’s unbelievable sometimes. You’ll say, “I’ve told you exactly how to do it. What’s holding you back? You’re not putting up any numbers at all. You’re not even knocking on 1 or 2 doors and then you’re shutting down.” You find out what their limiting belief is. It’s not hard to change once you figure out what it is.

It’s going to be fear in most cases. It’s going to be something that they’re afraid of. In many cases, it’s going to be fear of being judged. It’s the fear of, “If I take this action and I don’t succeed, what does that mean about me?” It’s going to be somewhere in that area mostly.

People were saying like, “I don’t speak the language that good,” or “I’m new in this business. I don’t have a reputation, I’m too young, I had a bankruptcy, I don’t have good credit.” I finally get up to the bottom thing and say, “It doesn’t matter. It’s about the deal.” Charles Manson should have been able to get a loan for this property. If it’s a good enough deal, no one cares how many people you murdered. If you don’t pay them back, they’re going to get something that’s very valuable. More valuable than they ever had it. It’s amazing to see once they latch onto the answer that helps them solve their own limiting belief system, they’re right up there and now they’re doing it. They get one success and that one success, even if it’s for a tiny amount like they’re your first flip or your first sale in real estate, it’s the confirmation that, “I did it, I can do it, and I can do it over again.” Watch what happens when that limiting belief system goes away.

I mentioned to you that I had a relatively significant business failure. When I did, I took almost $200,000 of debt. It was a significant amount of debt that I was below zero. Even when I was in that financial position in my life, I consider myself wealthy in relationships, spirit, thought, mind, and experience. I consider myself anything but a wealthy man even when I was the opposite of that. Gratefully, I was able to work my way out of a deep hole in a very short period of time. It was less than two years to work my way out of that hole. I don’t believe that if I didn’t have the perspective of, “This is part of the game. This is part of the journey,” that I could have gotten rid of such a significant debt in such a short period of time. Now, I’m above zero and I’m like, “I keep doing this for the next couple of years. I’m good. I’m going to amplify it.”

Significant setbacks or failures raises the bar. You have a choice. You can quit or you can say, “I’ve got that to overcome too.” One of my mentors was a POW. He got captured in the Bay of Pigs and stayed in Castro’s hotel for 2.5 years where they didn’t do very nice things to him every morning at 6:00. I asked him how he survived. He said, “The human body is the most adaptable thing in the world. If you give it enough water and enough protein, and if you can keep your mind, the body will figure everything out.”

When you got that blow and you took on $200,000 debt, you didn’t quit, you kept your mind, you kept your positive, you kept your gratefulness, you kept saying, “I’m still in the game.” All of a sudden, it raised your bar like, “I don’t just have to feed myself. I have to feed myself and I have to make up $200,000.” You start looking at the world differently and scuttling things that don’t fit that and you figured out how to make a lot of money.

 

Compare my experience to your mentor’s experience. My heartache is about 1 out of 1,000 compared to the journey that he went through. I’m not going to take away that there are times when we have bad days. There are times when bad things happen to us. Maybe somebody in your life gets sick. There are things that are real. I’m not discounting that. I’m suggesting that there’s always another person’s journey that has been more significant where they have bad things happen to them every single morning for 2.5 years that I can’t even imagine and get out on the other side with a healthy perspective. That’s phenomenal. To me, I need evidence if there’s somebody else that has done it before me. If somebody else can show that they’ve done something before me like flip a house or be successful in business, whatever the case may be. Whatever it is that they do in front of me, then I’ve got to figure out how. The example that you use with your mentor is significant.

I used it in the same that you said. I was capped. I didn’t have a college degree. I was working my ass off. I was making people good money. I was being responsible, taking care of my job and taking care of everyone around me, and the business owner and his business, but no one was rewarding me. I wanted to go on my own but I was afraid. After I talked to this guy, it’s like, “If you have enough water and enough protein.” What are the chances in San Antonio, Texas, United States of America, with all the friends’ support and my family that I’m not going to get enough water and enough protein? None. He said, “The only thing left is, can you keep your mind?” I said, “I’m going to take that challenge to keep my mind.”

I took having a job off the table so I could back this body up into a corner so bad that it had to figure it out. The only thing I had to do was keep my mind from going back to a job. This guy had to keep his mind of, “When am I getting out of here? When are they going to quit beating me? When are they going to quit starving me? When are they going to quit holding me in isolation?” My deal was nothing, just like you said. He gave me the confidence to try it. I backed my body up into a corner that I would not allow it to get out of until it fixed things and through what that man said, I figured everything out.

When I’m visualizing his experience, the most significant challenge that he might have experienced was the uncertainty.

He didn’t even know if it was going to end at all. It could have gone on for years. It’s easier to suffer through something and say, “I’ve got twelve more months to go and this is over.” He didn’t know that.

If you have a finish line or if you have a definitive, “I can look forward to this and that doesn’t make this misery go away, but at least I know when the misery is going to go away.” That’s completely different than, “Is this the rest of my life?” There is something that we talk about like taking care of the mind. Something that I go through in my book Real Estate Evolution is when you’re taking care of the mind, there are hacks. There’s a thing that’s called a self-coaching model. It is a model where there’s a close loop that we have as human beings, where how we program ourselves leads to what we think and what we think leads to what we feel, which causes the actions that we do and that we create, which creates the results that we have, which goes back into the programming.

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I throw that a closed loop because one feeds into the other. You can imagine that there’s a circle and at the top of that circle is the programming. Into the right is like a clock. It’s pointing around that. The program leads to the thoughts, to the feelings, to the actions, to the results, to the programming. The challenge that people have is, how do you break into that? What I’ve learned is the hack to be able to break into that is through the programming. The programming would be specifically like, “Who am I hanging out with? Am I hanging out with high minded people like Mitch? Am I feeding my brain with positive information? What am I reading? Am I exercising? Am I meditating?”

We’re all making affirmations. Are you being in charge of the affirmations that you make? If you stub your toe and you’re like, “I’m stupid,” that is an affirmation. If you stub your toe and say, “That hurts. I’m choosing not to hit my toe on that ever again,” that’s an affirmation that’s going to empower you. There are ways that you can scientifically succeed to be able to break through that closed loop, to be able to achieve greater success.

Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, it’s now taken over by Sommer. It was the study of your self-talk and how you’ve got to monitor your self-talk because the person we talked to the most in the whole wide world is our self. You’ve got to watch what you say. You should never say, “I’m stupid,” or “I’m an idiot.” You should rephrase it like, “I can do much better than that. I will do much better next time. This is not going to happen to me again. I will be aware of what’s next time and this is what I’m going to do.”

When people hear that, some people think that’s a woo-woo. Not at all. It is scientifically proven and you go and look at successful people time again, I promise you that those successful people have a healthy talk and a healthy conversation with themselves.

If you want to change your life, change the way you talk to yourself. Try it. I believe it. What is your core business?

Real estate sales and coaching. I help real estate agents who are new agents to find the right way to success. I work with a lot of seasoned agents that may have had their best month ever and now they feel like, “Can I do that again?” To be able to have that best month, January, February, March, every single month of the year, and top producing agents who might be frustrated that they’re working eighteen hours a day and they’re not able to participate in the life that they’re creating. That’s the CPI community, the Consistent and Predictable Income community. That’s for salespeople, as well as real estate salespeople, and that’s the coaching component to it. The real estate sales are through my company, Greetings Virginia, which is affiliated with Keller Williams Realty. It’s helping homeowners to be able to achieve their dreams and solve their problems. Those are my two core businesses, but I’ve got 7 or 8 that are intertwined. I’m a silent investor too or whatever the case may be that feed each other.

 

You said seasoned and one thing I recognize about being seasoned, because I’m seasoned in some things and some of us are more seasoned than others. I’m going on 60 so I’ve had a chance to be well seasoned if not overcooked. Sometimes that’s an acronym or equal to we got stuck in our own routine and we’re not making changes to progress. We’ve gotten comfortable or we think we know how this works. We’ve got our own limiting beliefs now because we’re molded by what’s around us. A good coach is someone who can come in and present how to get to that next level. That sounds like what you’re saying that you do.

Oftentimes, it’s in their blind spot. You sit there and they become complacent in life. I need very few people who are consciously complacent in their lives and recognize the fact that they’re not growing. What mostly happens is they get into that rut and they don’t even recognize that there’s more external to them, that there’s more that they can achieve internally. I had another big a-ha moment after I sold the brokerage, and this was in the blinders for years. That big a-ha moment was I realized that I previously believed that I was not worthy. I never recognized that until I freed up my daily activity in my whirlwind to be able to allow for myself to contemplate, think and consider about, what has gotten in my way? I could never see it when I was in it. It wasn’t until I shed the day-to-day when I can reflect on the journey where I realized that I didn’t believe subconsciously that I was worthy to achieve my goals at the time. That was probably the biggest turning point in my life when I realized, “I am worthy to achieve my goals.” That was the biggest launching point that I’ve experienced thus far.

It’s the problem of not being able to see the forest for the trees at these points. You said something that’s key, which jumps out to me. You had to slow and get rid of all the clutter so you could take time to reflect on more important basic things. When I was doing 100 houses a year and I was running sixteen hours a day, I always wanted to systematize my business. I tried and failed four times. I convinced myself that my house flipping business was not something you could systematize, which was complete bullshit because they push a Mercedes out the back end of a factory every 30 seconds. What’s more complicated, building a Mercedes-Benz, a luxury vehicle or flipping a house? There’s no question.

I had mind screwed myself cop out. I said, “I’m going to get around some people that have done it before already. I’m going to pay for their attention. I’m going to get into the right place and the right room with people that have done what I want to do in the industry that I want to do it in.” I thought at first that was the big thing that helped me get there. When I looked back at how I got there, one of the main things that I had done subconsciously was at the point I was getting these coaches, I was going to wrap the business up in a box. When I tried to systematize the other four times, I never gave myself permission not to buy 100 houses a year.

I was trying to systematize with what little of me was left over after a massive big thing. The year that I made it, I only bought 25 to 30 houses. Those just walked in and fell down and sign themselves up. I wasn’t even looking for them. It took me fourteen months of not caring about business, of bringing in business. I’d spent fourteen months trying to fix the inside of my business and that’s when it happened. I didn’t plan this but I’m comparing your words to my evolution and it’s exactly right.

Did you actively take that time? You said you got a coach. Did you actively say, “I’m going to slow down and figure this out?” For me, it was happenstance. I didn’t mean to do it.

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Me too. I didn’t mean to do it, which is a sad state of affairs. I learned everything by accident. I go, “That’s what Dan Rochon was talking about.” What happened was I had gotten worn out over many years of being everything, the buyer, the seller, the fundraiser, the marketer, the website guy, that I couldn’t do it anymore. I was going to quit. I was going to put it in a box. I had bought a lot of forever assets. I buy sell storages and I had bought enough that I never had to work again in my life. I was going to fold that house flipping business up in a box and shut it down, which was $1 million-plus a year. I thought, “What a shame to have to close it down and throw away $1 million a year. I then said to myself, “Maybe I could write $500,000 with the checks to high-level people. I could still keep at least $500,000, but it would run by itself.” That’s what I set out to do.

I didn’t care anymore about doing any more houses. When I went to the Mastermind, I didn’t care about buying houses anymore because I was worn out. I couldn’t do it anymore. That became my breather. It was a shift in gears. It freed my mind from the clutter like you said. The clutter went away. I was focusing on these people. When they showed me how to do it, I didn’t have to write cheques to $500,000. I made more money than I ever made not doing anything in my business. The people that sat, that we figured out to put in each chair once I got the right person, even though they weren’t as good a house finder as me, they were better than me because I was all divided up in 1,000 directions. Even though they weren’t one-on-one as good as me, they were two times better than me at that one thing because that’s all they had to do. The key was, I took the onus. I took all the clutter out of my life to study how to fix this one thing. You said you took all the clutter out of your life to study how to fix yourself. I took the clutter out of my life in this particular instance of how to fix my business. Inadvertently and subconsciously, I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, but when I had done that, that’s when I had my breakthrough.

My business has had a breakthrough simultaneous as me having a breakthrough. I don’t want the readers to miss that point there of it is tied together. If you are struggling right now, something in the background is probably a belief that you created and this might be interesting. It’s probably a belief that you’ve created when you were five years old. Something happened at that point that created a programming that has been in the background for the rest of your life that has maybe served you, has maybe held you back. Sometimes it served you or sometimes it held you back. When you can address that level of understanding of, “I have this belief system of the world and this belief system allows for me to serve others in this capacity to achieve this and this capacity or not. What is that belief system and where did that come from?” When you can dive into that, you can alter your destiny.

Here’s one, “Dad, how are you so good at what you do?” “If you want to do something right, son, you have to do it yourself. No one else can do it.” It’s completely wrong but at age five, that’s what my daddy said. That’s how it works. On some levels, you do have to do certain things yourself but most of the time, someone’s better than you somewhere. You ask the world for what you want. Someone will show up that can do way more than you.

When they’re doing what they’re intended to do in their life, they’re going to love it and appreciate where they are in their life.

Here’s another one, “You eat everything on your plate.” That made me fat. Back when he was saying that in the early ‘60s, portions at restaurants and portions on your plate was not like now. Now you go into a restaurant and you’re heaped up 6 inches tall of food, but that thought is still over there, “It’s on my plate. Now I have to eat it all.” Tell me about your book, Real Estate Evolution and the CPI, Consistent and Predictable Income.

Real Estate Evolution which is the guide to CPI, Consistent and Predictable Income, which I wrote for real estate agents. What we found is that the principles that help real estate agents also help in all sales industries, all businesses and for entrepreneurs. It’s a segment of personal development, a segment of my journey. I hold nothing back on my journey. I’m completely open, transparent and candid in this conversation, same in the book. There’s the exact, “Here is how to do the business.” There are different segments of if you are beginning in the real estate sales business, and this is true of any business. The first thing in house flipping business is you have to figure out where your business is going to come from.

You have to figure out how to lead generate. If you don’t figure out how to lead generate, it doesn’t matter how skilled you are or anything else. You then build on top of that in regards to the organization that you build around you. That’s more about systems and people. When you look at that organization building, what I like to do is to build on the systems first because systems are more predictable than people. The challenge with that is the fact that as a rainmaker or as someone that’s good at finding business, it’s not my skillset to take and document the step by step. That means that I have to find somebody first to document those steps, then the business can rely on those steps, in those systems and then you can build with other people around that.

The last thing in business would be leadership. My definition of it is to help other people to understand how to think so that they can achieve the goals that they want to achieve. When you as a leader or as a coach are able to be able to communicate with individuals in that manner so that they can then achieve what their goals are, their destiny, and their aspirations, then you’ll be in a position that you can get much better results out of people. It takes having the right people in place in the first place. One builds upon itself and that’s what I go through in Real Estate Evolution.

Helping people get what they want so that you can get what you want. Take the focus off yourself, help people achieve, take care of people, and help them get what they need to do. Sometimes life gets a lot easier. You get what you want. I want you to go to 1000Houses.com/evolution and get a free copy of Real Estate Evolution by Dan Rochon. He’s giving the book away free but if one million people decided to do that, he’d be broke in shipping. He’s going to ask that you pay the shipping costs. You said that you had built a brokerage where you were a real estate broker. Is that what you failed at?

It was and I was a franchisee of a major real estate brokerage in the world. 

What do you attribute your failure to?

My failure was not finding the right people for the right roles and being too spread thin. The model is for the owner to find somebody to lead them and run the organization. The challenge that I had was chasing 2 or 15 rabbits simultaneously. When you chase 2 or 15 rabbits simultaneously, you’re not going to catch any of them. I was spread so thin that I wasn’t able to focus on the one thing of getting the right person to be able to lead the organization. That was the biggest challenge that I had. I had some great people in that role. They weren’t just the right people for me or whatever the case may be.

I haven’t coined very much, but I coined this and it always comes up. The hardest thing an entrepreneur will ever do is have one great idea and finish big. As entrepreneurs, we see opportunity in everything. I’ve learned that every great idea takes everything you have to get it off the ground. It’s very seldom with a deal that you have it, you put someone in charge of it and it takes off. It will take everything you have for 1 or 2 or maybe more. Please don’t get the shiny object syndrome or if you recognize that you have it, start to cut it back. Pick your biggest best ideas and scuttle everything else. Once you have that running with no problem and hands off, then you can sit back. This is the other thing, what does an entrepreneur do when he has free time? He fills it up with another idea.

When you’re doing what you’re intended to do in your life, you’re going to love it, and you’re going to appreciate where you are in life. Click To Tweet

He or she starts another business.

I haven’t seen the last 400 houses I bought. I haven’t seen the last 400 people that bought my houses. This show for the longest time consumed all my days and nights because I decided to go into another venture. I had no real expectations on it, but then I started seeing the opportunities, the what-ifs, and if you could. The show has evolved into something that I didn’t even think it was going to be, but it took everything I had for 1.5 years. I’m glad I did it. Do you know what’s cool about doing a show? I get to talk to people like you.

If I asked you, “Could I take you to lunch so I could rake your brain?” You’d tell me to go jump in the lake. If I say, “Would you like to be on my show? I’d love to interview you.” You go. “Yeah.” The question is all the same. The readers here are probably in large part are people that want to be in real estate investing or flipping or some strategy to be a real estate investor. Probably a lot of them or simultaneously are maybe realtors thinking about adding an extra strategy. What would you say to those newer people that are looking at these industries and contemplating them for the first time?

Understand that whether it’s house flipping, wholesaling, buy and hold, fix and hold, selling real estate or becoming a barber, whatever it is that your entrepreneur aspirations are, understand that you’re getting into the lead generation business, specializing in whatever industry it is that you’re specializing in. You’re getting into lead generation business specializing in finding wholesale deals. You’re getting into lead generation business specializing in real estate sales. Whatever the case may be, don’t misunderstand that that’s the starting point in itself. It’s the ending point of every business and everything builds upon that.

In my business, nothing happens until you find a good deal on a house. We’re all marketers, no matter who you are. Even as a husband to your wife, we’re marketing to her every day. If you have kids, the kids are the greatest marketers in the world. They want and they are selling. Just listen to these kids, they don’t give up. I get to learn a lot of sales lessons with these kids.

My nine-year-old daughter, when she takes persuasive techniques back to me that I’ve taught her by her observing me, I shake my head and be like, “You’re too smart. I love you.” I want to invite your readers. I’m online on Facebook. There’s a Facebook group called The C.P.I. Community. You can apply to join that and that’s for all salespeople. High minded conversations take part on that as well.

If you go to 1000Houses.com/evolution, we’ll have a link to that Facebook community. I also want to add a couple of things. I personally function off private money. If you’re not happy with what it takes to make 8% or 9% or 10% with your idle funds, feel free to contact me, (210) 669-4020. I have a lot of opportunities these days. My companies tend to boom during economic chaos. Pandemic is no different. I boom like crazy in the recession of 2008 just by the nature of my strategy. It’s a different dynamic but it’s very true. If you’re out there and you have idle money and you want to have a conversation, no pressure ever. Please give me a buzz or email me at Mitch@1000Houses.com. We’ll have a very transparent conversation with no pressures and show you what I do. I’d like to thank everybody for stopping by to get you some Dan Rochon. Get that free book Real Estate Evolution and check out the CPI, Constant and Predictable Income. Go to 1000Houses.com/evolution. We’re out of here.

 

Important Links

• 1000Houses.com/evolution
• 1000Houses.com/FreeForYou
• 1000Houses.com/Livecomm
• 1000Houses.com/TaxFreeFuture
• 1000Houses.com/aof
• 1000Houses.com/coaching

 

About Dan Rochon

If you’re a salesperson SERIOUS about growing your sales, specifically, if you’re someone who’s actively working in the real estate sales business, then this may be the most important blurb you’ll ever read.

I say that because I introduce to you a book, “Real Estate Evolution: The Ten Step Guide to C.P,I. (Consistent and Predictable Income) for Real Estate Agents” that you should read.

In the book, I teach you the specific steps for creating C.P.I. in real estate sales, and I’m going to show you how to apply it to your own business.

You might have a deep fear of not being able to pay your bills — including mortgage/rent, car payment, food, or taking care of your family’s needs. You might dread having to go back to a 9-to-5 job or being an Uber driver part-time (or full-time!).

If you feel like you spend too many hours of your day trying to “figure out” how to make sales, instead of selling, then this book is for you. This book will help you whether you are new or experienced.

“Real Estate Evolution” is a comprehensive guide to becoming a successful real estate agent. You will receive everything you will need to be a successful real estate agent and create C.P.I. in your business.

I have sold real estate since 2007 and have developed an immense amount of experience. During my journey, I witnessed hundreds (and maybe thousands) of agents fail in this business — which I firmly believe is a shame.

I will show you the EXACT steps that I have used as a real estate agent, to sell one to 15 homes every month for the past 129 consecutive months during three shifting markets.

It took me more than two decades to learn the sales and persuasion techniques and more than one decade of mastering them in real estate sales to produce the content that makes up this book. It took more than a year to write (at the pace of three hours each day).

When you study and implement the program shared here, you will get clarity on how to achieve a consistent income. Becoming a successful real estate sales agent will no longer feel like an illusion or an unreachable goal.

As this book has A LOT to digest, many readers have told me that it is easier to listen to the audio and then take notes in the book. If you have not gotten the audiobook yet, let me help you out. I invite you to do so by visiting www.TheRealEstateEvolutionAudio.com.

I invested my time, knowledge, and money into writing this book because the real estate business has helped me to live the life I want, and I am passionate about helping you do the same.

 

• Here’s How »

• reinvestorsummit.com
• Real Estate Investor Summit Facebook
• Real Estate Investor Summit Twitter
• Real Estate Investor Summit YouTube
• Mitch Stephen LinkedIn