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Transcript:
Chris Bounds 00:00
So, what was the point where you decided, hey, it’s time to give this a full go? Like we’re, we’re done with the j ob thing?
Phillip Thai 00:07
Yeah. So, um, so kind of fast forward after the first year, like I got my first deal. And then like, I landed five deals pretty much.
Chris Bounds 00:18
Actually. Yeah, let’s go back there. Yeah, it’s took a year right to get that first deal.
Phillip Thai 00:23
Took me a first year of just networking, grinding studying late nights. I was impatient. Yeah, like, well,
Chris Bounds 00:31
what marketing source?
Phillip Thai 00:33
That’s the thing like I was so scattered brain that I was like, doing half assed marketing. I was like, like sending mailers, they all fail, because I didn’t do multiple rounds of mailers. And I didn’t do follow up. I would. the only the only marketing thing that I had was like Craigslist bandit signs and going to networking groups, because I was I literally just spend my last like 40k pretty much and I’m trying to pay off this debt.
So I was doing everything else that I could to generate leads. And what really got me my first deal was networking. I networked with, you know, local meetup, Ria groups, my own fortune builder group that I actually bought into. And so a deal passed, another spectrum builder student sent me a deal that they didn’t want. It was a full gut rehab, it’s probably not the first deal that I would recommend anybody because it was, it was a vacant shell. It was built in 1900. It had no roof. It was a fire damaged property. Not not a good recommendation. That’s
Chris Bounds 01:46
quite a learning experience. Yeah.
Phillip Thai 01:49
I literally everything that happened to this property, like, like everything that could go wrong went wrong in this property, and I barely made it out. I broke even because the market saved me.
Chris Bounds 02:03
So you broke even in a very risky, dangerous situation. But on the plus side, the knowledge that you gain that you can’t learn in books, like exactly, there’s, there’s just no way any mastermind program or a course or whatever can teach you what you just went through. That’s the that’s the street knowledge. So that is vastly more valuable than everything else you did before. Wow. risky and you do have to be careful, those kind of things. You came out broke even. But now going forward, how long did it take you to get deal number two.
Phillip Thai 02:39
So your number two came like, like, as soon as I got that deal, maybe a month later. So I was like,
Chris Bounds 02:45
a year to get deal number 130 days getting your deal number two.
Phillip Thai 02:51
And then another deal came after and another came after within within the span of like another three months? I got three more deals,
Chris Bounds 02:59
how much did that you attribute to confidence?
Phillip Thai 03:04
Um, I wouldn’t say well, confidence did contribute a little bit to it because of the knowledge that I spent day in and day out learning. But it was
Chris Bounds 03:19
I mean, in your ability to analyze the deal, and then also translate that into sales negotiation conversations.
Phillip Thai 03:26
Yeah. But all these deals were just were wholesale deals. Yeah, so these are these weren’t like deals that I’ve done direct seller to?
Chris Bounds 03:36
But do you feel like like before deal number one, were you pitching other deals, and you just didn’t get them? Or do you rely on your pitching other deals, it’s just maybe you were being older conservative, because you were scared.
Phillip Thai 03:52
That was part of it too, as well. But I think the major part of it was that I didn’t have good negotiation and scale us and skills with the seller. And I was also very petrified to talk to any sellers, then.
Chris Bounds 04:07
So um, you’re now you’re dealing with wholesalers, which, obviously a much different conversation. But I you know, until there’s two real estate agents to like when they get the first client, or whether your first flip or wholesale deal, it’s just, it does take longer to get that first. But you always find the deal number two, three or four, it comes much faster because now you got little confidence, whether it’s obvious or not, that does permeate but you also have the experienced transaction, you know a little bit about what’s going on. You’re not a pro yet, but you’re starting to get the hang of it. And that’s helpful poem. It’s funny how that works.
Phillip Thai 04:47
That is very true, that you make a really good point. And that kind of like like looking back on it. Now that kind of was what’s happening. I’d get a little more confidence build up like it’s kind of snowball effect. Um, and so, you know, at the, at the time, I had like five renovations going on at one time.
Chris Bounds 05:08
I was saying for for new investors.
Phillip Thai 05:10
Yeah, it’s insane in three of those out of the five are full guts, which I do not recommend. And then a full time job on top of that. So I was literally like a maniac at work. I was like trying to get all my work done as a software engineer, and those are quality of sleep. And I was trying to maximize every break I had, every everything that I had as far as timewise. And eventually, they got me fired.
Chris Bounds 05:43
Boss saw your slip, and it was like, hey, look, you gotta make a choice here. Or he’s like, now you’re out.
Phillip Thai 05:48
Yeah, he pretty much. My my current job, bought my first shot fired me. And so and a lot of people would freak out, right, but I had so many things in the fire that I didn’t have time to worry about getting another job. And so I went ahead and just finished the renovation, I think it was a blessing in disguise, too. And then that helped me finish the other renovations, and then roughly about the third renovation, I started to look for another job.
And I landed another software engineering job at this quarry aggregation, they sell rocks for like gravel for roads, which is a huge industry that did not know about its luck companies. And they’re a billion dollar family company that’s been around for over 100 years, which is just here in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, roughly. And they make about $1.5 million a day just selling gravel, which is insane. Yeah, some rocks dirt. Yeah, rock. It’s insane.
Chris Bounds 07:05
Hey, kids, like not all business has to be sexy, like exacto rocks. And
Phillip Thai 07:11
I had a, I had a mind blowing epiphany or experience with like, just walking through their real estate and like, just, they would have a, in their headquarters, they would have like a TV saying how much money they make every hour. It’s just insane. So I took a little break after those five renovation because a little bit burnt out. And then I kind of reassess my business at that time. And I found that, you know, like everybody else in the real estate industry deal flow, it was like my, my crux, like where I have the most weakness in.
And so, you know, that led me to Google again. And so I ended up finding pace Morbi and the sub two group, and I went ahead and joined another mentorship. And the key lesson here is that even though you join one, you know, mentorship group, you shouldn’t stick, you shouldn’t always just be comfort or be, you know, stagnant in that one group, you should always go out and, you know, continue to build your network and continue to grow as an individual and gain more knowledge because it helps you become a better entrepreneur becomes
Chris Bounds 08:29
typically have their own personality. And yeah, I mean, one, they can be very niche, they’re not all really niche, but they can be and regardless, they’re gonna have their own culture. So they’re gonna have their own conversation piece and the, if you will, so getting outside of that is going to help expand growth. At some point, you’ll almost always outgrow a certain organization, or at least you’ll reap some some point of limited returns.
Phillip Thai 09:03
All right, for our group, you mostly will and not say anything bad about Fortune Builders is like that group. It wasn’t a very cohesive, it wasn’t like a Go Giver group, per se. It’s kind of like all for your own kind of deal. Whereas paces group I have experienced the totally opposite of that, where everybody’s all about helping each other and help each other grow and expand and paste more bases the person that he’s always giving to his students, and I’ve never met a mentor like that, ever. And he’s still giving, he’s giving more value than what I gave him. So. So with that new mentorship group, I actually found my next business partner, and he took me from zero rentals to pretty much 15 rentals in a matter of over two years growing my net worth two significantly more than what it was before.
Chris Bounds 10:05
Did you want rentals before that moment? Or is it something that he sparked in you like, hey, look, yeah, and you started accumulating rentals?
Phillip Thai 10:15
No, actually, I’ve always wanted rentals, but I didn’t have the, the knowledge or the money capital to acquire them, or the actual other knowledge of like buying rentals subject to Yeah, which is assuming was more it’s really
Chris Bounds 10:29
is now not money, it’s knowledge is just knowledge. And I really want to stress this point, because when I was reading your profile that made me smile, because you see a lot of wholesalers and flippers, like they could do 100 200 500. And they don’t really own anything. And that’s no different from a real estate agent that has done 1000 transactions, and the only home that they own is their own personal residence, or work in a job. And the only asset you own is your 401 K, nothing wrong with them, it’s just gonna be really, really slow and difficult to build wealth. And at the end the day once you stop working, your W job income stops, you stop working with clients, your commission goes to zero you stop wholesaling, income, stop, stop flipping income stops, stop buying rentals, while you still kind of have all the other rentals you bought. It’s not it’s not like 100% passive, like, like some people sell it as but it is wealth building. And that is on your balance sheet. And that doesn’t look good if you treat if you run your business. Right,
Phillip Thai 11:36
exactly. So that’s always been the goal because I’ve when I was 26. So kind of circling back in that age, I set a very ambitious goal at the time that I thought I wanted to become financially free by 35 Meaning I want the passive income that is coming in every single month to cover my expenses so I don’t have to worry about finances. But furthermore, I wanted to start a family by 35 and so I get the spin the time that I’ve never got from my for my family, my parents onto my children. So I actually want to spend all the moments that I have with my with my children, so I can raise them so I can become a good father their best friend or whatever they need me to be. So that was my my driving. Why? on why I even did all this in the beginning.