How to scale a wholesaling business

Failure is expected

Let’s be real. You won’t make it. You will fail. You will give up. The data says so. Thousands of people every single day give this thing a serious go, and thousands fail. You think you’re different? You think you’re the exception? Yeah, so did the thousands of others who failed today, yesterday, and the day before.

Please understand that I am not some rich bloke born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I struggled, and I too, failed. When everyone else had toilets I had a Home Depot bucket and a plastic Walmart bag. They told me to send mailers, make calls, send texts, buy lists and do it all over again. And if it doesn’t work, don’t worry, it is only because you didn’t do it enough… so do more! Sounds familiar?

So yea, I wasn’t kidding when I said you will fail. But here’s the twist:

Scaling isn’t a trick you learn after your tenth deal. It’s what happens when you keep doing the right thing, learn from every cycle, and don’t quit.

Success in a bottle

Success is not something that can be forced; rather, it is cultivated, it is nurtured, it is grown. The ingredients are:

1. Motivation is the result of an external force that demands action. Motivation gets you started. Drawing strength from your “why” is essential.
2. The difference between confidence and ego is the acknowledgment of weakness. Knowing that you don’t know everything fuels your quest for knowledge. Knowledge gets you to take action in the right direction.
3. Action without knowledge is a leap into an unpredictable unknown. Taking action gets you “somewhere”. Taking the right action gets you to your predetermined destination.
4. Success is not achieved by avoiding mistakes, but by learning from them. Planning not to fail is a guarantee to fail. Persistence keeps you going!

And in that order. Scaling needs all four. Most people who stall have one missing, usually knowledge or persistence.

The cycle: log, fix, double, repeat

Your first deal paid for itself and for next month. Now: take back what the deal cost you, pay next month’s SEO, and double your marketing budget. If $1,500 gets you 1 deal, $3,000 should get you 2 deals (at least). Why “at least”? Because you wrote down everything that didn’t go as planned. The second time around should be better!

1. Keep a log from day one.
   What caused stress, delays, what you missed, what could have been avoided.
2. Fix the top three things before the next cycle.
   Not everything. The three that cost you the most time or money.
3. Double the budget only while cost per deal holds.
   If a doubled budget brings twice the deals, double again. If cost per deal jumps, fix targeting before adding money.
4. Set each fee from its own numbers.
   Every deal gets its fee from its own buyer data, never a round guess.
5. Repeat.
   Once could be dumb luck. Twice, doing the same thing, is a SYSTEM!

The FT&C method is the Forced Traffic & Conversion cycle: log, fix, double the budget while cost per deal holds, repeat. Your money is making you more money: the Money-Making-More-Money Machine. WHAAAAAAAA?? Calm down, Seabiscuit! Because now your one-person team (you) can’t handle the leads.

Hire people. Fire yourself!

Now you stop… Step back. Look and admire what you have built. If you think that hiring people will magically lessen your workload? No, it won’t. Your job now is to train these people to fit the system. At least this is a temp job.

1. Someone to answer and book.
   A receptionist who answers every lead fast and books appointments. Speed wins sellers.
2. An acquisitions manager.
   Runs the numbers and the appointments your way: how you talk to sellers becomes their playbook.
3. Write down how you do it before you hand it over.
   Your log from the cycles is the start of that playbook.
4. Note every bottleneck, and fix it with training or the next hire.
   Then give it a try, observe, analyze and tweak.

Where scaling stops being linear

With every new cycle of marketing, you increase your budget even more. Keep in mind, there comes a point where scaling your budget does not linearly scale your leads. I am aware of this, and so should you be. Paid traffic in one market runs out of new sellers to reach; each extra dollar buys a little less.

But by that time something very interesting should happen: the SEO you started in month one has been creeping in. Organic leads cost you nothing per click, and they come from the people who searched for help and chose you. That is where scaling keeps going after paid ads flatten out (SEO for real estate investors).

Step out. Automate!

As you increase your budget and hire more people, you get more leads, make more offers and do more deals, all the while doing far less work, because you have a complete solid team in place that handles every task there is to do.

And some of that team isn’t even people anymore. Humphrey, the assistant inside Apex Vivus, follows up with every lead and explains the numbers in plain English, day and night. Deal Radar keeps re-scoring your farm area every night while you sleep.

Scale your wholesaling business, step by step

1. Close one deal the right way.
   Numbers first, honest offer, buyers ready.
2. Log everything, fix the top three.
3. Double the budget while cost per deal holds.
4. Write the playbook as you go.
5. Hire someone to answer and book, then acquisitions.
6. Keep SEO running from month one,
   so it’s there when paid ads flatten out.
7. Automate the follow-up and the watching.

Questions