Wealthy AF Podcast
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Wealthy AF Podcast
The Power of Mentorship and Referrals in Real Estate Investing
Imagine skyrocketing your yearly income from $20,000 to a whopping $200,000 in just 18 months! This week, we have the pleasure of hosting Brandon Barnum, affectionately known as the king of referrals, who will guide us on how he made it possible with his ingenious referral strategies and a shift from a transactional to a relational mindset. Brandon's remarkable journey in the realm of real estate investing is filled with valuable lessons for all of us.
Brandon will also reveal how an unexpected mentorship with the influential Mark Victor Hansen, transformed his life. We take a deep look into his relationship with this mentor, how it boosted his confidence and supercharged his success. If you've been wondering about the potential benefits of hiring a coach, Brandon's experience will be enlightening, demonstrating how it could return a 10x ROI in terms of increased revenue and time.
Get ready to tap into the genius behind Brandon Barnum's latest venture - the Homeowner Alliance. He'll share how he's working towards creating an online community page for every neighborhood in America, in an effort to connect homeowners with top-rated, vetted professionals. We'll also cover his co-marketing campaign, home search, and home valuation reports. Ladies and gentlemen, strap in for a thrilling ride as we journey through the multifaceted world of real estate investing with Brandon Barnum!
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Welcome back to another episode of Latinos and Real Estate Investing Podcasts, where individuals just like you come to learn how to create wealth through real estate investing, business ownership and entrepreneurship. And today's guest is Brandon Barnum, and Brandon is often referred as to the king of referrals. He's an award-winning serial entrepreneur. He serves as the CEO of HOAcom, the number one referral network for home service professionals. Man, this is important. I'm glad to have you here, brother, because, as we talked a little bit off air contract, this is our biggest challenges. It is, and he's also the chairman of the board of the champion institute. He's a highly sought after expert in referrals, marketing, sales, joint ventures, business development and business growth strategy. Brandon's passionate about empowering business owners and professionals with step-by-step systems for attracting profitable prospects and expanding their income, influence and impact. There's a lot there and we're going to learn a whole ton. I'm glad that you took the time. You're at a hotel room, you want to speak in engagement and you made the time to be here with us. So thank you, brother. Really appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2:My pleasure, martin. I'm happy to be here and to I wish I could meet all the people that are listening. But that's all right, you and I will just talk.
Speaker 1:We'll talk and they'll listen and they'll get a ton of value from our conversation. Tell us, brandon, tell us how did you become the king of referrals. Tell us how you started all of this. I mean this is you're doing something great. You're impacting, you're teaching entrepreneurs how to build businesses, how to create strategies. Tell us your story. How did you get started? I started there.
Speaker 2:I got started, I got custody of my son in my 20s and I became a single dad, and so I was making about 20,000 a year, and once I got custody, I couldn't afford to make my mortgage payments and pay for daycare. And I found that out because my mortgage company kept sending my checks back and they said NSF insufficient funds. That means they bounced. Some of your listeners are too young, they don't know what a check is and they don't know what that means, but that's okay. So I had to make a change right and I got into the mortgage business and thank God I had somebody that taught me how to build referral partnerships and really how to create raving referrals, and I was able to 10X my income from 20,000 to 200,000 a year in just 18 months, and so now I'm just on a mission to help as many people learn that as possible.
Speaker 1:Man, that is awesome. We have a lot of business owners listen to us, a lot of aspiring business owners listen to us, and so tell us someone's listening and they're like, how in the world do you do that? So, first of all, what is that? What is that referral thing you just did? I forgot how you coined it, but what does that mean when you build that network of referrals? So let's talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we teach to build a trusted team, like for your investors. And we were just talking about contractors, right, you get these contractors that are not showing up Just what. You got to fire them. And you got to find somebody that's reliable, that's committed to doing business with you and delivering on time on budget, just in living their word, right. And if that's not your current contractor, you got to find somebody that is.
Speaker 2:But what we teach is to create a team to build your dream, right. You got to have people your real estate agents, your mortgage lenders, your insurance agents, and then your painter, your plumber, your electrician, your HVAC garage, where all the other professionals if you're an investor, you want to help them understand that, look, this isn't a one-time deal. If I'm hiring you, I'm going to be hiring you. If you deliver, I'm going to hire you for years to come, over and over and over again. So you need to look at this not as a $300 or a $3,000 job. You need to look at this as a $30,000 or a $300,000 relationship. So part of it is a mindset shifting from transactions into relationships. And then what we teach is build a trusted team. I'm literally here in Denver and I've got an audience at 300 tomorrow and we're teaching the raving referral system. So we're going to teach them how to create partnerships with the people that are already serving their perfect prospects so they can win more business together.
Speaker 1:That's amazing that you're doing that. It's interesting that I'm having this conversation with you. I was yesterday on. We just were moving up into developing my company. So we're going from flipping and holding and now we no longer. Flipping is not as attractive because of where the market is. So we bought our first true development play, which is a commercial building. It's a 12-minute commercial building. It's condemned, so it requires a different set of skills. So I'm learning that as we're going. It requires different set of skills and it requires different moving parts.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that we didn't know was that we need a professional drawings to present to the talent show. So we need an architect. So I had my assistant call around on some architects. Now we don't have some of these architects are crazy. They want $100,000. I'm like you're not my partner. Of course, you'd love to work with me if I wrote you a check for drawings for $100,000.
Speaker 1:But that was the thing I was telling my assistant. I said listen, when you call on these architects, exactly what you just said. We are building a business that is going to require their services on an ongoing basis. So what's important is that you tell them that we are not looking for a one-time transaction? I'm not. I really meant this. I'm not looking for a one-time transaction. I'm looking for a partner that can come along in the team and it's long term, because this is what we're doing now and tomorrow. We actually are negotiating right now a warehouse building that we're going to put 44 apartments in there and we're going to need an engineer and we're going to need an architect and we're going to need the drawings, and this is what I'm talking about. I want to continue that relationship, and so you hit it right spot on as building those people that want to come alongside you and grow with you, and you can both grow together.
Speaker 1:But how does one do that? How does a new person per se, brandon, that's just starting out and I'm going to use real estate Yep, because that's what I know and that's what I do, and I want to talk about your home referral company and how that works too, in a minute. But let's say, you're a new guy and I'm going to tell you I'm going to speak for myself, because when I was new, this was my biggest fear, because the contractor's taking my money and running away. You hear those horror stories all the time and then you get burned a couple of times and you create systems and things, guardrails, to protect yourself. But how does one start to build that? Where do you tell someone to start? Hey, I need a plumber. Hey, I need an electrician. Hey, I need a drywall guy, hey, I need a GC. How do you vet him? Where do you start? How do you? What do you recommend people? People go to do that.
Speaker 2:Let's start Well, first of all. Yes, great question. If I were in those shoes, knowing what I know now, I would, number one, I would make my list. Who is it that I need on my team? Who are the professionals that I wanna have? And then I would go to the people that already know like and trust me, and that I know like and trust right. Maybe it's a real estate agent. Maybe you're part of a realist, a real group, right In your local neighborhood or community. Maybe you're part of a real estate investing group and you can go and you can say, hey guys, I'm looking for a good fill-in-the-blank professional. Who do you recommend? If you're working with real estate agents and most of you guys should be, because they're out scouting for deals for you, right? They know people. If they've been in the business five, 10, 20 years, they know people. They've already done the betting for you.
Speaker 2:So, number one, make a list. Number two you gotta ask for help. And this is where a lot of people fall down, martin, is they're afraid to ask for help. They're so concerned about looking good that they're not really doing good because they're fronting, right. They're putting out this false narrative about who they are because they wanna look good to others. And the reality is, martin, if you ask somebody for help, they wanna help you. And making a referral and introduction, the beauty is it helps both people it helps you, the person that's looking to hire the pro and it helps the pro. So I love making recommendations and referrals because every time those people talk in the future they're talking about you. So that's where I would start. Number one make your list. Number two ask for help.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a book I can't remember the name of the book. I think it's the Greatest Salesman, greatest Insurance Salesman. I can't remember the book I read and his secret he was like the number one insurance salesman in the world. I think that's the name of the book I can't remember. I've read so many and in this book the guy's secret was actually just that what you just said. His secret to his success was connecting people without an interest. I know that Brandon needs a CPA and he had a CPA. He would invite Brandon for lunch and say, hey, brandon, let's go to lunch in New York City I can't remember the name of this book and now it's in my head and he would bring Brandon and he would bring the CPA. He'd say, hey guys, we're gonna have lunch, we're gonna have hot dog, whatever it is, and Brandon here is full and he was the greatest connector and that's how he sold the biggest life insurance policies in the company's history or whatever it's because he became really good at connecting people.
Speaker 1:I'm actually reading a book now that actually just finished listening to a book that actually referenced that. So it's really interesting that I'm having this podcast interview with you. I'm gonna look at that book right now. So, my friend, you mentioned a lot of key points, a lot of really important things. You said, rhea, meetups trusted people you trust and like and feed right. Where does one start to do that right? So who would that be right? Is that your CPA? Where does one start for that? You?
Speaker 2:start with the people that you already know, right, and you make an inventory again, take that list of who you wanna be connected with and then you ask the people that you already know. Number one find a mentor. Like, if you don't have a mentor in this business, martin, you're kind of a mentor to the people that are listening right now, right, you're teaching them the secrets, you're giving them the shortcuts, helping them to quicken that path to success. So you're that virtual mentor for them. And I don't know if you have coaching, consulting practice, hire you one-on-one. But they should Like, if they need help, you gotta find somebody. And I'll tell you what. I have hired so many coaches over the years and I usually get a 10X ROI on that investment, right, because the money I pay the coach usually comes back to me at least 10-fold Not only an increased revenue, but also shortens time, because instead of me being a knucklehead and learning all those hard lessons myself over years, I can have a great coach that's already done that and they'll tell me that in days or weeks. So find a mentor, find a coach, and then ask the people that you know, find somebody that's successful, and say would you mentor me?
Speaker 2:My personal mentor is Mark Victor Hansen. He's the author of those chicken soup for the Soul Books and he's been my mentor for the last 19 years. I was just talking to him the other day and, amazing man, he is connecting me to your point. He's connecting me with so many people that I ended up doing business with having his clients. They became faculty for my companies and so having somebody and the scariest call I ever made Martin was to Mark asking him to be my mentor I don't know why, but I was afraid it was like tough to pick up that phone. I was just so fearful because I didn't have the confidence. Once I had him mentoring me, my confidence rose because now I felt like I had the keys to the kingdom. This man was teaching me so much. I was learning at an accelerated rate. So one of the biggest keys to success is finding a mentor.
Speaker 1:So tell us, how was that call? How did that?
Speaker 2:go for you. You know what. I had met Mark May 18th 2004. And I hired him to come speak at a fundraising event I owned a mortgage company at the time in Portland Oregon and he came out, he spoke. We raised enough money to donate $1.2 million in medical supplies that day.
Speaker 2:The next week, my wife and I went to Maui and Mark teaches to make a list of all your goals. Have at least 101 goals. So I went to Hawaii with my wife and I made a list of 338 goals and one of my goals was to have Mark Victor Hansen as a mentor, right. So I came back and I said okay, and I got up the courage to pick up the phone and call and he was like, absolutely, I'd love to. So it was easy from his perspective for me, like I made up this story in my mind. We do that sometimes as business people and entrepreneurs. We think it's gonna be a certain way and I would advise you to assume success. Yeah, assume that whatever you are gonna do, that you're gonna be successful. See yourself as successful. Know before you pick up the phone it's gonna be a yes, and it won't always, but that confidence, that energy, that vibration will attract more success to you Absolutely.
Speaker 1:that's really really good sound advice, man. Just you picked up the phone when you didn't want to. And that's the difference between successful people, people achievers, and non-achievers is that they do the things that are uncomfortable anyways. They do it anyways. It does feel comfortable, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Doesn't? It's against my norm, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Yes, tell us about your company, brett.
Speaker 2:Can we do that, martin? Can I tell you one thing about Mark? This is so important on that beach in Hawaii. One of the other things that I wrote down as a goal is I wanted Mark Victor Hansen to write about me in a book by May 28th 2005. So this is one year later. Right Now, mark taught me in his stuff. He says you gotta be specific about your goals. He can't just say, hey, I want to have Mark Victor Hansen write about me in a book. It has to have an actual date associated with it, right? So I did that. We ended up becoming friends.
Speaker 2:Well, I had hired him after reading the One Minute Millionaire, and if any of you guys are listening right now and you haven't read the One Minute Millionaire, you need to buy it. It's actually a real estate investing book, okay, so it's the step-by-step process of how to create success, and it's like two books in one. It's also a fable, a fictional story of a woman, and it's actually based on a true story of a woman who went through this trial and struggle and then had a mentor, use these tools and strategy and created a million dollar business. Right, so it's a great book, but what happened was after a few months. Mark calls me up one day and he says hey, brandon, robert Allen, you know the guy that wrote no Money Down right, robert Allen, real estate investing. He was the co-author on the One Minute Millionaire. He says Bob and I are writing the sequel to the One Minute Millionaire and it's gonna be called Cracking the Millionaire Code. Would it be okay if we wrote about you in that book? And what do you think?
Speaker 1:I said Martin of course, of course it was well. I requested this. You didn't know about it yet.
Speaker 2:Victor, I didn't tell him that you didn't tell him, but that book was published on May 31st 2005, three days after my gold date. How cool was that. Like you know, I'm writing it on that beach. I didn't know how that was gonna happen. But the reason I tell you this story is I want you to understand that once that Materialized for me, once that happened, I'm like okay, wait, this is real. Like everything that Mark teaches is real and that means I can ask for anything. And then you got to go ask for help and get it. But, like, one of the things is, I wanted to meet Bono by May 28th 2005 and I met him in six months. He's the lead singer for you too, for anybody that doesn't know. And so, like, amazing things happen and the power is in creating your goals. Live life by design, get crystal clear on what you want to accomplish and when you want to accomplish it by, and you'll see amazing things happen in your life.
Speaker 1:All right, I love that and the book I was telling about it's a go-giver, by the way. Yes, that's the book I was telling that that I was just reading. We talking about the referrals, the One thing you mentioned about. You mentioned about Victor here. Here was my question, victor what has been the one biggest thing you have learned from your mentor? Big? You can share, you can share with us.
Speaker 2:You've learned to ask for what you want. So his most recent book, mark, has sold over 500 million books. Okay, he is the number one nonfiction author best-selling nonfiction author on the planet. His latest book is called ask the bridge from your dreams to your destiny. And the biggest thing that mark taught me was to get over my fear, live in faith and ask for what you want, because it really comes down to taking action. And when we're asking, we're taking action. And Most people, when you ask them hey, martin, would you do me a favor? You're either gonna say yes or maybe tell me about it. Right, how can I help? We all, as human beings, want to help, and when you can get other people helping you Achieve your goals, you'll accelerate the process.
Speaker 1:Man. That's that to us, that that really landed with me, madam, I'm, I'm chat. I'm having some challenges right now with a project we're working on, and we were all hands I'm all hands on deck. I'm really resourceful and I like to figure things out, no matter what, and Right one. That one landed for me. So thank you. Thank you for sharing the normal.
Speaker 2:you try and do it yourself, don't you?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, sir, that's this night is. It's a? It's an achievers kind of tendency. We're used to doing and getting things done and it's just just go, go, go, go go. Absolutely, it's something that I've learned. I've gotten better over the years, brandon, and but sometimes I tend to revert back to okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm in this situation, I just got a, I got to get it done and I got. I just, instead of asking, asking people for help, and and sometimes I get caught in that trap.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and here's the thing, as, as a CEO, what I've learned is to ask who, not how. Who can get this done? Not how can I get this done? Right, because those of you it. In order to really create leverage in your life and in your business, you need other people doing things for you. You're doing it, martin. You're doing it with your, your contractor, right, you're getting other people. You're not fixing the sink, you're not putting in the floors, but now just expand that. Who, not how?
Speaker 1:Got it. I'm taking notes of that brother, taking good notes of that. Yeah, so, brandon, what is um? Tell me about HOA, because you're doing, you're doing, you know it's a referral service professionals, tell us about that business and how you know. Yeah, that's that got started. Oh, bro.
Speaker 2:This is. It's so big, honestly. So After I was in the mortgage business, I was on a mission, starting in about 2010, to help people build their business by referral right, so I started building technology platforms. Back in 1997, I created kind of an early version of Zillow. All right, I was in the mortgage business. I created an online homebuyer guide. We featured real estate listings and then I used to go to realtors and say, hey, I want to feature your home on the Portland online homebuyer guide and I would create an online Listing of their property with exterior and interior photos before anybody on the planet was doing it. Now, the truth is it was download before this whole Wi-Fi thing, so it took forever to load. But people used to like to see inside the house because there was no other option and so, fast-forward. After I got out of the mortgage business, I started building tech platforms and over the last 13 years, I've built three different technology platforms. Last one we built was called refer Com. We built that into the world's largest referral network. We had over 5 million members, including 250,000 realtors, and we we sold that company in 2019.
Speaker 2:So I was kind of sitting on the sidelines going okay, lord, what do you got next? What do you want me doing? And I started coaching a local business owner in Phoenix, arizona, where I live, and we kind of came up with this concept up what if we could create like B&I, just for professionals who serve homeowners, right, b&i power team for real estate, kind of right. So we created the homeowner Alliance calm and that was our original company, and we started generating home buyer leads here in Phoenix about 1500-1700 home buyer leads per month. We were referring those off to a realtor and we had a real estate brokerage. We were just making a percentage of the commission without ever showing a house.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's how we started this company four years ago. But we realized that we didn't control the transaction and they weren't closing a high enough percentage that we wanted. So we pivoted the model and we said, okay, we're gonna. We thought that was phase one, but we're like okay, we need to build the network. So what we've done is we've created the number one referral network for professionals who serve homeowners. Just like I was saying earlier, we help them partner and cross promote each other. So we have a referral partner blueprint that teaches them how to partner with other pros like your homeowner, your insurance agent, your Realtor, even property managers right, property managers can be gold because they're dealing with investors all day long.
Speaker 2:So we help, we create a profile and basically what we're building is like next door. If you know, the next door app meets Angie's list, meets Zillow. So we're creating an online community page for every neighborhood in America and then we're that's the next doorpiece. We're selecting top rated, vetted professionals in all of those different areas. They apply, they get background checks, they get approved and then they become the trusted painter for that specific community, right? So we're starting with the, the neighborhoods they live in and the neighborhoods around that. And then we also added home search and home valuation reports, kind of like a Zillow report on your property. We do the same thing, except we automatically send them every month to the homeowners in our pros database and it's a co-marketing campaign. And what that means is it's not only about that one pro, it features their entire trustee. So they're telling the homeowners here's the people that I trust and you can trust too. I gotta ask you okay.
Speaker 1:So, by the way, brilliant, my friend, absolutely brilliant, love it, love it, love it, love it, love it, brilliant, absolutely. You know one of my mentors, one of the people I've studied on there, is Keith Cunningham. I don't know if you're familiar with Keith Cunningham, the author of the Road Less Stupid. He wrote the Road Less Stupid for yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yes, and he actually is the key note. He teaches at Tony Robbins event, at the business mastery event. He is the one that teaches that whole course and I attended. I attended an event with him, the smaller event with him, the four day MBA, and in Keith talks about business is a thinking, is not. Is a thinking is not a tactical sport is a thinking sport right Strategy, it's thinking right. And I want to share with the listeners because I always share that here right.
Speaker 1:Most people my mentor currently his mantra is most people want to be successful but don't want to do the hard work of thinking right. As a business owner, we have to think right, we have to spend time and thinking strategize. So I like for you to share with us me and the listeners how you came up with such a brilliant idea, what was your process to come up with this and I know sometimes we're driving and it's like boom and it just these things come. But I know better. You and I both know better that you have to seek in order to find, you have to ask in order to receive right and you have to knock for that door to open right. So you and I both know better that we, like you said Victor told you have to ask right, what process did you take to come up with such a brilliant idea? Because that it's just genius. What you did, what you created, was genius.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't take the credit. First of all, I give all glory to God, because that's really the answerer. Right? You asked the question and God delivers, so I'm just blessed. I just focus on being in the flow and doing his work and stay humble and but ask for guidance, right? I ask for everyone, and even beyond God. My team deserves so much of the credit because this isn't just me creating this. This is we creating this. I have people that I brainstorm with every day. I got about 25 people on my team right now and so we're talking about this every single day. We're constantly. We're here in Denver and I just brought up our new CRO. This guy had a $1.3 billion exit and we're here having conversation with people that run insurance agencies. I was just meeting with this Hispanic, this guy. He is doing not only fixing flips and wholesale himself, but then he's helping coach people on all. He's literally targeting contractors and helping turn them into fixing flippers. I'm like that's cool, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:And so smart. But we're talking about these challenges that people face and really it comes down to finding out where's the challenges that people are having and asking what's a better way to solve them, like, how can we solve that and do it better? And, brother, it's been a 26 year journey Like this isn't an instant overnight. This is almost three decades of learning and being in the market and asking homeowners and asking pros what they want and need and then solving problems for other people. That's where the answers come from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great solution that you come up with. I gotta tell you, and I want you to definitely share the website at the very end with our people. So, if we have an entrepreneur, an investor, a young person, that's because we have a lot of young listeners. We have a young person, I think, and they're saying, man, this guy is awesome, he's brilliant. What? I wanna start investing in my first deal. I wanna do my first deal. I wanna get it. I don't know how to? What are you recommending? There's so much. We're in the information area. There's so much information being thrown at us. I was interviewing someone a moment ago today and they were saying that we were talking about AI and that AI is gonna create. Right now, content is king and we're gonna get to the point where he's an AI expert. We're gonna get to the point where it's gonna be curating content. It's gonna be kinging it Because there's so much information.
Speaker 2:That's what we're doing, brother. We're doing it down to the neighborhood. We don't wanna be the content creators. We wanna be the content curators. We wanna take people like you that are creating the content and help get your message out to more people. Now, we're not there yet in the development of what we have planned, but that's part of the plan is. We don't wanna create content about real estate and mortgage and insurance and investing in real estate. There's people like you, that that's your passion, that's your purpose, right? So what if we can take your message and get it out to more people? That's what we're out to do. So I agree with him, by the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I never thought of it that way. Right, I never, like ever, dawned on me. I was like holy smokes, that makes so much sense. You're right, like content creators, it's the way. Because there's so much information. What's real, what's not? Who do you wanna support? Who do you wanna?
Speaker 2:like. Who do you, martin, think about the most valuable company is on the planet? Okay, besides Tesla, right? For example, most of the top valued companies on the planet are information portals. Right, it's Facebook, instagram, linkedin, the Twitter, these companies that have created a way to communicate messages out to the marketplace. So that's the business we're in. I realize that doesn't apply to most of your listeners, so let's bring the conversation.
Speaker 1:What it does, what it does what it does. It does because a lot of our listeners are trying to figure this whole thing out and they need to. You know a lot of our listeners I could speak for myself, right? A lot of people don't have the opportunity to sit down with a guy like you, right, and I get to be that vessel for them to bring you on here and have this conversation and they can hear you and I can at least try my best to ask the questions that they would like to hear and that they would find value. So it is valuable. So, if we have a young person listening that wants to get started in business in today's world, there's a very different world than when you got started, even when I got started 24 years ago. Very different world, very different times. What are you telling them, brandon? What suggestions are you telling them? What are you telling them to start? What's the thing that they need to learn?
Speaker 2:one to one. Great question, martin. So I've got three kids. My oldest is 30 years old. He actually works for us full-time in our pro success team.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the coolest part about what I'm doing is I get to build it with my son, which is amazing, very awesome. Yes, I have a 23-year-old son and he's just about to graduate from college. He's doing door-to-door sales this summer, selling pest control, learning a ton. But he came to me about a year ago and he said Dad, I wanna start learning how to be a real estate investor. So your question is right on point, because I'm gonna tell you what I told my son is we gotta get you a mentor, right? So literally, I connected him with a man that's been a real estate investor for 30 years. This guy has done like 3000 properties over his career and now I've got them together. So my son is being mentored, right.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's awesome, because I'm not the expert in that field. I know partnerships, referrals and marketing. That's what I do Some technology, but honestly, I am a non-technical founder. That means I got geeks that write the code. That's not me, right? I'm the evangelist. I share the message to your point. I'm the visionary. I think a lot about what the future looks like and then I create the future that I want to be.
Speaker 2:But for my son I said we need to get you great mentorship. We need to get you somebody that has been there, done it, knows all the tricks of the trade, they've learned all the hard lessons, they've fixed and flipped and failed right, they've gotten stuck, and so that's what I did with them. So I don't mean to say the same thing over and over again. But if you're just getting started, go apprentice, go learn from somebody that's already done it, go add value. What I did to get Mark Victor Hansen to be my mentor is when I called them up I didn't tell you this earlier, mark, but when I called them up I said I believe that if we work together I can pay you a billion dollars over the next 20 years in commissions, referral fees, consulting fees and profit share. I got his attention right Because when we had breakfast together the first day I met him and I told him I was doing commercial lending. At that point I had my residential mortgage company but I had kind of evolved into commercial asset, back to lending developments and so forth and the biggest deal I had done at that point or worked on, was $10 million. Within six months of meeting Mark. He expanded my thinking. He opened my eyes to all that was possible and helped me view the world in a totally different perspective and within six months I was working on a billion dollar deal.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the power of mentorship. I mentor others. I'm a big brother, so I'm an ambassador, actually, for big brothers, big sisters, and I've got a 15 year old kid that I'm mentoring. Right now. I'm actually my wife and I are trying to adopt a foster care kid around 15 as well, because I believe that once you know, you have an obligation and a responsibility to transfer that knowledge to others. So you know, if you're in your 20s and you're listening right now, there's those of us that are in our 50s. We wanna pass on what we know to you.
Speaker 1:So don't be afraid, be brave and ask yeah, man, I'm so glad you said this, brother, because that's like I might have said this earlier to you I used to be that young person that was praying for a guy like a mentor like you, to come and teach me. And today I know and I don't know everything, but I know my things and what I'm good at in the real estate world, and this is why I have this platform, because now I want to be. It's my responsibility to be that guy to that younger version of me that was praying and asking, when I was dead broke and didn't have a pot to piss, and just praying to God. God, please, I don't want anyone to give me anything, just send me the person that's gonna teach me, lord, please. And the Lord has sent many, many people in my journey.
Speaker 2:And Mark, you asked, you ask God. So Mark Fick-Brahmsen teaches ask others, ask yourself, ask others and ask God. Ask yourself the questions that you wanna ask. Right, ask other people for help and ask God for help. And you started by praying for a guide, right? God, please send me a guide. And he did, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I gotta tell you that the secret to my ongoing success is I pray every morning after I meditate, saying God, give me the guidance for this thing I'm working on for my family, for my kids, for my kids. You talk to me, download me, tell me what I need, guide me. That's part of my secret gratitude and just being grateful. Which leads me into my next question for you, brandon, is what does your you said you think a lot about what the future looks like. That's extremely powerful what you just said, because that's a visionary, that's right Think a lot about what the future looks like, and if you could share with me and the listeners what does that look like? Do you have a structured time? What does your morning ritual look like?
Speaker 1:I met Hal Harris a few years ago that I wrote the morning ritual book. It's a weird. It's a funny story because I met him at a convention, actually two years ago and that was like in Rupi. So he was speaking and I went to the bathroom and I ran into Hal in the bathroom. I was like how, man, you changed my life, my, your morning ritual thing, and I was like, oh, I'm being the weird guy right now in the back of my. We both laughed about it. I was like, sorry dude, I was, I just I was excited because, literally, let it up first, bro. Literally I used your morning ritual in my ritual. So I let you know what.
Speaker 1:What is that for you, my friend? What is your morning ritual look like and what is your think time? Do you have a? Do you have a? Something I learned from Keith Cunningham is think time. He has dedicated think time and, man, that's a tough thing to do. I'll tell you, man, for me it's a muscle. That it's like you start with a question and you boom and you just let your brain and you put a timer and you just, you, just. It's a muscle. It's a muscle that has to develop and I'm curious to know what does that look like for you? Do you have? What does your ritual look like? Do you have a think time, dedicated time that you like, hey, I'm gonna create and you're gonna think about your future and create your future. Share that with us, please.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I do it several times a day, but I would say the morning is the most fertile right and especially the important time is to ask yourself a question before you go to bed, because your subconscious doesn't sleep right. So while you're sitting there sleeping, if you ask yourself a question before you go to bed, usually you'll wake up with the answer all right. Now I listen to a lot of worship and praise music. That's my jam. I'm not an R and B, I used to be an R and B guy and now I just find connections through praise music. So I normally wake up. I don't set an alarm and God just wakes me up with a song in my head, and so I normally do a three praise Jesus in the morning because I'm like, okay, I get to play another day, and then I lay in bed and I'm in gratitude and I'm thanking God for my wife, for my kids, for my life, for my team, for building this dream, like I'm literally thinking about and sharing gratitude for all that is in my life.
Speaker 2:Now, once I get out of bed and I go take the dogs potty and feed them and all that, then what I do is I turn on. I listen to some vibrations. So I've got some harmonics that I listen to, different frequencies that have no lyrics but just work in the background and kind of tune me in. And then I read right now I'm reading a book called Amplify your Influence, with Renee Rodriguez. I'm speaking at this event, so I'm studying about public speaking. And then I have a journal right, so I journal. I write about what does the future look like? You know what is the same exact journal, by the way, brother.
Speaker 1:I believe that to me for Christmas two years ago, the same exact journal, that's awesome man.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it and I write in purple. It's the highest spiritual color. You see, I'm wearing purple today, so I mean that's it. And then, throughout the day, like I live in Arizona and I live in a freezer because it's so hot outside. My wife's got a cold inside so I got to go outside to warm up, and then I just spend time out there with the dogs and I try and work outside in my backyard as often as I can if I can stand the heat just so that I can think about what I'm creating and the challenges that I'm dealing with.
Speaker 2:Now you want to surround yourself with smart people. Like I just hired this guy as our new COO. 30 years retired captain in the Navy. He led 412,000 troops in the military with a $518 billion budget. Wow, I'm like if he can manage that, he's lead my team. So like that's one of the guys that I talked to you about, my chief revenue officer. He just joined our team a week ago. That guy just had an exit not long ago for $380 million, and before that was $1.3 billion. So surround yourself with smarter people than you are, people that are strong where you're weak and that can strengthen it. It's who, not how, you think about. For those 20 something year olds that are listening. The beauty is, martin, if you hire them and you're mentoring them, they're then building your dream While you teach them how to build their own, so it's a total win-win.
Speaker 1:I love it, brother. Thank you so much, man man brother, thank you so much, brandon. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Page full of notes, my friend, of all of the insights and all the wonderful things that you shared with us today here. My friend, we're going to go into the Untitled Round where we're going to ask you a series of questions. It's just for fun. You don't have to think, you don't have to justify just one word. Answers are okay. Are you ready to play? My friend, let's roll. Awesome. A million dollars is small.
Speaker 1:I've always wanted to travel to Thailand. My advice to young people is find a mentor. People coming to Phoenix Arizona should try.
Speaker 2:Saltwater tubing. Kayaking down the saltwater river with wild horses Saltwater tubing that sounds cool.
Speaker 1:With wild horses.
Speaker 2:It's a river and there's literally wild horses that you'll see on the river.
Speaker 1:That's pretty awesome. I think the president right now is.
Speaker 2:Wow, really you want me to answer that? I'm impossible.
Speaker 1:I'm unelected, okay, family or business, family Book smart or street smart? Both Wine or beer, beer Passion or stability, passion, success or happiness, both Angry client or angry coworker Neither Awesome, all right, all right. Before we go, I just need to. I want to share something, some of my lessons, with the audience and with you. My biggest takeaway from our few minutes here together thank you, first and foremost, brad, and we're coming out here. I know you're busy, you're running your company and you're out there speaking and doing things. I'm really grateful for that Taking the time, guys listening.
Speaker 1:My biggest takeaway here is that higher power connection that Brandon talked about here closer to the end of the podcast, is that connection to God, him praying, him asking, him, asking for guidance, and he's built this great big thing and he's doing great big things and it's that what you'll find and what I have found, brandon, and you'll probably have found that with Victor, I've read his books as well, not all of them, but I've read his books. Some of his books, of course, is more popular ones. Is that morning ritual, right? That bestful people? I mean, there's a couple of things here I picked up. He spends time thinking right, most people want to succeed but don't want to do the hard work of thinking. He spends time thinking. He does it multiple times a day, multiple times a day. Right the questions? His ritual is the questions he's asking himself before he goes to bed. He asks himself the question to download his unconscious mind before he goes to bed. These are little things that successful people do. That generate success.
Speaker 1:Guys and sir, thank you so much, brandon. I'm really, really grateful that you came out, that you shared with us. There's so much golden nuggets in this episode and some of the things that you shared that is a must. Must listen to, not just once, but a couple, two or three times. Come back to this, listen to this episode multiple times. And, my friend, if people wanted to connect with you, people wanted to find you. How do people find you? Where do they get your content, your information? How do people connect with you? Brother?
Speaker 2:Yeah, easiest place is brandonbarhamcom. You'll find links to all my stuff. If you are a pro serving homeowners, come check out what we're doing at hoacom. You can go to proshoacom that's the best place there. Yeah, brandonbarham, you'll find me on LinkedIn. I'm not as socially active as I need to be. I'm bringing on a new social media manager that'll do all of that for me, because I stay on focus working on the business. But, yeah, brandonbarhamcom is the best place to find me.
Speaker 1:And guys. One other thing. One other thing, one other thing successful people are never afraid to share. He said it multiple times. It's our job now to want to help and give it back and help others, help others. We want to help others because he knows what it's like to be in your shoes. So thank you, brandon, again for coming on. Brother, thank you guys for listening. I appreciate you and you are welcomed in this podcast anytime, my friend.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it. It's my honor and pleasure. Thank you, martin, and guys, go out there, be bold, ask for what you want, get clear on what it is you're creating and ask for help. People want to help you. No-transcript.
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