Building A Sales Team With Luke Andrews

 Josh
 Good day, fellow dealmakers. Welcome to the deal scout on today's show. We're going to have a conversation with a new friend Mr. Luke, Luke. Welcome to the show, 

 Luke
 Josh. Thanks for having me. 

 Josh
 Absolutely. All right. Why don't you give us an idea about who you are and what you do? 

 Luke
 Sure. I am a real estate agent leader and investor in Louisville, Kentucky. I lead a team of about 20 agents and I, I do still help some clients buy and sell their personal homes. I work with a lot of investors generally on the smaller scale, looking for, single family homes to smaller apartment units, somewhere six to 12, six to 12 doors, and then a few, triplexes quadplexes, things like that. I've got a small real estate education company where I, I try to help young, real estate agents who are just getting started in the business, kind of go from day one to, how do you survive through that first five years where 95% of agents are out of the business. So, 

 Josh
 Awesome. How did you get into real estate? Now you have a team of 20 you're teaching other people to do it, and you're balling. Once in a while, you'll maybe sell a home yourself or work on the deal yourself, but how did you get into this game? 

 Luke
 So mine is actually a it's. It's an interesting story. I, I was working in the corporate world. I was in strategic marketing and data analytics and my wife was a real estate agent and I was, working in an office downtown and she said, Hey, it would be great if you had your license and then just while you're on your way home. She didn't have to go out at five o'clock to go do a showing. I could just wing it and take care of that. So I got my license. Part-time fell in love with it almost instantly, and just really got sick of that corporate rat race. Eventually we just decided were going to cut the cord and I was going to jump head first into real estate, full time. We were going to put all of our eggs into that basket as a family. It started with, I have a phenomenal mentor, somebody that I've known since I was five years old, who's been very successful in the business. 

 Luke
 I was fortunate enough to come in at the time where he was starting to grow his team. He realized that as he was bringing new agents into the business, he didn't have enough time specifically dedicated to give them the resources that they needed. He created two, almost like sales manager positions. Myself and I have a, a great counterpart. We took on that initial role. As the team continued to get larger and larger, we realized we didn't have enough hours of the day. Then, so we kind of moved ourselves up. We're more like sales directors. I've got, for sales managers under me who kind of handle that triage piece of it. I handle some of the larger, more in depth, negotiation, questions, legal questions, things like that. 

 Josh
 Got it. And where are you guys located? You mentioned this. It was Kentucky, right? 

 Luke
 Well, what Kentucky will contain Lewisville Louisville. However you want to say it, you know that the locals I've born and raised in this area, you know, my wife and I didn't move to Denver for 10 years, right after college, but had been back here for about nine years now. And, but it's local to us. 

 Josh
 Yeah. My business mentor or one of my mentors in my life, he lives in Walton, which I don't think is too far from you. It's an independence or something. 

 Luke
 Yeah, yeah, 

 Josh
 Yeah. Yeah. So I. Awesome. Awesome. You guys also have good whiskey, some bourbon up in, up in your area, 

 Luke
 Bourbon and horses, but we're going to, that's what we're known for here. So. 

 Josh
 I don't want to mix those two. Well, don't drink and ride, but. 

 Luke
 Yeah. Now we've got signs all over town, Sonia telling you don't drink and ride. 

 Josh
 Awesome. So, all right, so you get into real estate and then you move up to sales manager, then you move up to sales director where you're leading other sales manager for people out there who are running their organization and it's time to build out the sales team. Do you mind if I ask you some sales questions? 

 Luke
 Sure. 

 Josh
 Yeah. I'm working with a company and they're looking to they're looking to grow and expand and they're, the it's primarily founder driven sales, right? The leader of the organization or the group does all the sales and they go, how do we, what's the next step? It to hire a salesperson, a low-level sales person, get them pounding calls all day, is it to hire a sales manager or, so they could start building out their own sales team. Like w what do you think, what is your opinion? 

 Luke
 Well, I, for us, it was more about the decision to scale and to realize that you'd probably have to take two steps back in order to take five steps forward, started doing the math a long time ago, and it's like, I could kill myself and I could sell a hundred homes a year and spend no time with my family, but I could help out a hundred families, or I could find 20 agents that are just 25% as good as me and I could have five times the impact. Right. Making that decision to start scaling and realizing that again, you're going to have to take that small step back in income specifically for the first couple of years, as you are investing in the growth of the team and making sure that everyone that you're bringing on is, fed so to speak with leads and high quality prospects. 

 Luke
 Once they make that decision, it starts getting fairly simple. I mean, there's, I don't know that there's necessarily a wrong way to do it. Once you make that decision. I don't know that you necessarily need to bring on a sales manager in the beginning, but I mean, you can start with just bringing on a buyer's agent, just someone who is out handling all of your buyers for you. The way the real estate game works is you can work a lot more listings than you can buyers because buyers take more time. You've got to drive out from home to home showing them multiple places. So, 

 Josh
 Yeah, I got my start in real estate coming from a background of construction. I had my PhD postal Digger in construction, right? Digging, digging holes for my dad and doing this. I saw these, fancy cars drive up for sale sign in the front yard, drive off and making a lot of money. That's when I got my real estate agent license and started down that path. When you get started, I worked the floor time and essentially worked with buyers all the time and, come to love, working with investors specifically, not necessarily listing homes and working directly with buyers. When it comes to getting your start, you said you have a passion for kind of people getting their start in real estate. Let's just say, I come to wet behind the ears and going, Hey, I want to start in my real estate. Just passed my test, no background, nothing. 

 Josh
 How would I, what would be your ideas of me getting started? 

 Luke
 I tend to work off of a triangle. I, I work in threes. I was very fortunate when I was in the corporate world to get to work with a lot of consultants and a lot of consulting agencies who helped us really try to dial in our avatar, our target market. One of the things that we found was over 40% of the people were a group that we called simplicity, seeking followers, which essentially meant that if you gave them more than three steps to do something, they weren't going to do it. I, I tend to work in threes and it's nice with the triangle cause you get the three sides, but I try to focus on three things is people are coming into the business. One, I helped them really develop and work with their sphere of influence and whether that's one person or 100 people, really how to deep dive into that sphere and how to grow that sphere and not be that, that cousin or relative or friend that everybody starts ducking their phone calls because every time you're calling, it's like, Hey, can you write down the names of three people who went by herself once? 

 Luke
 No, that's not, that's not what we're looking to do, but we really helped them dive deep into their sphere, help them get that dialed in. Number two, we really focus on how to win in today's market because the market, I mean is shifting on an almost weekly basis, but we're constantly working on how do you survive? How do you win in today's market? Finally, third, we teach them how to work with investors for several reasons. One, a lot of agents won't touch investors either because the numbers are too small with somebody who's just looking for, in my market, $70,000 rental properties too, they're afraid of it. It's just something that they don't know we're understanding. So they stay away from it. What we try to do is we try to get them very comfortable with investors because a investors will keep you fed when the market starts slowing down. 

 Luke
 I mean, if, knock on wood, but we have another large market correction that it's the investors who were sitting on cash, who are going to stimulate it. They're going to keep you in the business. It's also throughout the time of year, as you start getting into the holidays as traditional real estate sales from Thanksgiving through new year's, you really slow down. That's when the investors start picking up, trying to get those last minute tax breaks throughout the end of the year, and then three getting in good with investors, you may be helping them buy multiple 60 and $70,000 properties, but they also have to have a place to live for themselves. Generally, they're fairly affluent. And what's the old adage. You are the combination of the five people you spend the most time with. These wealthy investors are probably spending time with other wealthy investors. 

 Luke
 That again, just kind of grows your sphere of influence with the right type of people. We kind of keep that triangle rolling. 

 Josh
 Yeah. My first listing was a mobile home, a single mobile home. I think it was $33,000 located in the national forest, which is about a 35 minute drive from where I lived. I made $300 in commission after working my butt off, showing that thing multiple times, I probably lost money. If it was today's gas prices, this was 20 years ago. If it was today's gas prices, I would have lost money on that deal. I found those signs, we buy houses, cash. I called them all up. When I started doing 10 offers a week, for the different buyers, I created a investor list and such like that. So working with investors was scary. What would, what if they asked me a question? I didn't know what if they asked me IRR a cap rate or this or that. Right. Didn't know, but I knew how to knock on doors, right? 

 Josh
 As you are working, let's talk specifically with investors, right? What's the best way to get started working with investors. If I'm a new agent, 

 Luke
 What I tell my all my new agents is one. I think you need to start just kind of understanding investor math, looking at what rates of return look like too. I think you need to understand cost of some trades. If you walk in and you say, okay, this needs carpet, this needs paint, having a general idea of price per square foot, but three that the absolute easiest thing to do is just go find a deal. If you find a deal, we'll find you an investor. That's finding the investors, the easy part. It's finding the deal. Sometimes it's more challenging. If they can find the deals, I tell them I've got a whole slew of investors and it's their client. They can take them. It's their commission. I, you know, just find the deals. I will find you the investor, 

 Josh
 Th this is the hole which came first, the chicken or the egg, the dollar or the deal. I have so many people coming up to me and they go, Hey, I need some investors, for a real estate project. Okay. Well, tell me about the deal. Well, we don't have it yet. We're looking to secure the financing or the secured, the capital partner. We work our way backwards in the deal. I go, man, start with the deal, find me a deal. I'll find you money. I think that it's their fear or insecurity that prevents them from actually finding the deal. First. They think that if they have money in hand, the deal is going to be easier. What's your thoughts of that? 

 Luke
 I agree with you a hundred percent. I mean, I think it's a lot harder to go out and find the money on the front side, because especially if you think about it and if you put your investor hat on, if you're, and this is what I tell my agents, if you're investing your money before you agree to invest anything, don't, you want to see what it's going to be invested in. I'm not looking to hand you a blank check. I'm, you're trying to earn my business. I'm not trying to earn yours. I, I tell them, it's like, Hey, you go out and do the legwork. Bird-dogging deal. The investors will be there. Once you prove that you can go out and find those deals and make them some money, they will come back. 

 Josh
 Yeah. All right, Luke. You and I are working together for, first week of I've never been in real estate before. I go, Hey man, out of that three leg triangle, I really want to work with investors, but I need to go find a deal new in real estate. Maybe I'd just even moved to Louisville. Right? I'm like, I don't know anybody here. I don't have a sphere of influence here, but I'm willing to find a deal. What direction would you have for me? 

 Luke
 I'm going to tell you that you are going to be, were very big in our office on shadowing because we use this model that we call adopt and adapt, right? Where it's I want you to see how multiple people analyze a deal. I want you to see how multiple people run a listing presentation. I want you to see all multiple people run a buyer consultation, because I want you to see different word tracks, because there's not one way to do this business. I want you to be able to see the way that maybe I do it. I want you to adopt the things that you really like. I want you to adapt for things that you don't think fit your style personality. I want you to start shadowing people as they're out, either showing investors where they're out, just previewing investments. And that includes me. 

 Luke
 I'm not previewing investments on an almost daily basis, not only for my investor clients, but for me personally. I, Hey, just go out and just go shadow, see what they're looking for on a deal. You will be surprised how much you're able to pick up. You can ask specific questions and you can see what's on the market rather than a hypothetical. Oh, Hey. If this house came up for 85,000 and you think you can rent it for 8 25 a month and you run these numbers, no, let's go out and let's actually look at something. Let's put our eyes on something tangible. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Awesome. All right. We're going to be doing this in the future. We're going to be walking deals. We, we have investors buy mobile home parks, multifamily, industrial, kind of, all sorts of different niches within the real estate industry. Let's just say you and I are walking a real estate deal. Pick a category of real estate that you really like. 

 Luke
 For me specifically. 

 Josh
 You specifically. 

 Luke
 I love duplex. 

 Josh
 I love duplexes too. All right, cool. You and I, we go out and I find a deal. I say, Hey man, I got a deal on the hook. It's a duplex that they're interested in selling. They haven't really discussed numbers yet. And I'm a newbie. Luke, will you come with me and have a conversation, do a property walk, and then have a conversation. What would that look like as an investor talking about a deal, doing it, scouting out a deal. We found a deal, got it on the hook potentially, but you're, I'm dependent on you to kind of take me over the edge of how to get that thing bought. 

 Luke
 For me, it's, we're walking in and we're talking to the seller and just like, Hey, obviously this is a duplex. This is an investment for you right now. Let me ask why are you selling? That's going to be my first question is I want to see what the motivation is. If nine times out of 10, at least it, at that point, whether it's true or not their answer as well, we're not really looking to sell, but if the numbers, right, sure. I'll sell. We start going through and I don't immediately point out the flaws. I know there are some agents and it works very well to say, oh, well, I, I see this thing over here and I see we've got some paint issues over there and we've got a busted door here just as I'm asking them to kind of walk me around the property. 

 Luke
 I'll just kind of stop and just kinda linger and just stare at an issue nine times out of 10, I found that they'll point it out and they'll give me a story for it and I can start to figure out, okay, is this something that is, that has been here for a while? This signs of a lingering, ongoing problems, something that's, tends to come back really what I'm looking for. I'm looking for new issues versus old issues. Cause if there's older issues that are floating around there, I'm starting to wonder, is there a lot of deferred maintenance? We're just, we're walking through and I try to get the seller to give me a number on the front side, just to figure out, Hey, what are you thinking here? If they won't give me a number, I've tend to find a trick. I learned from my mentor in real estate. 

 Luke
 I'll pull up, let's say that the Zestimate on Zillow, which I have found aren't accurate very often, but I know where my number is compared to what the estimate says. I like to pull up this estimate and show it to them and then read their eyes to see how they see what they're thinking I want to know. Is that, are they pleasantly surprised? Are they disappointed? Or does it feel like, yeah, that's probably pretty close and then that can help me make a determination to see, are we just crazy off at this point? Or do we think we might have some potential, once you start getting above the duplexes, when you get into quadplexes and especially six tens twelves, things like that, it's harder to rely on something like as estimate, but a duplex I've found you can still find a good comparable sales in most areas. 

 Luke
 If nothing else, it's not about the number it's about me gauging their reaction to the number. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Yeah. Cause then you could start now this happens a lot, people sometimes think that people oftentimes think that their baby, their property, especially if they, if it's been in the family for a long time is more valuable than it is. Or they don't realize the cost of replacement, repairing a roof, new AC units or a new septic tank or new this or new that. Right. How do you deal with unrealistic numbers? Like if they're just, it's completely unrealistic, like you can't make it work as an investment or even to float it, if you were going to even live in one side and rent out the other. 

 Luke
 Sure. I mean, I try to bring part numbers and I say, Hey, let me have some of my guys come over here and put together some quotes for us, just so that I've got hard concrete numbers that I can show them about half the time you ended up getting pushed back that says, Hey, these are your guys. They're just inflating the numbers to try to make you feel better. It's like, okay, well, why don't you bring in some guys, you bring in your people and see what they say. Let's get some quotes there and let's see how well they mesh up. Because I know most of my people, I work with them so much that I'm comparably getting one of the better deals in town. If they don't know somebody specifically, especially for something like plumbing, they're going to call one of the big, what I call the appetizers, the ones that are advertising on TV and everything else, and they're going to be crazy expensive. 

 Luke
 It just makes my quote will keep me better. It makes me look more reputable and more honest. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Then, while you're in this discussion, do you have D D are you trying to lock up the deal at whatever number early on with some due diligence and some backout options or do you just kind of take it slow letter of intents and move your way through the process? 

 Luke
 It really depends. I mean, like if I think that there's like a smoking deal to be had there, I, I try to just hop on it and get it done. I'm also not the type, I'm not the investor that is going to haggle over to grant it. I would miss more than I would gain from that. I think with the way, and I, I still think we have a ways to go and appreciation as much as the market seems inflated right now. I still think that things are going up over time, that I can make that back fairly easily and very quickly. 

 Josh
 Yeah. You could do value adds to the property and to, when you get above duplex or single and you get into dues and such like that, let's just say you acquire the duplex. What are some things that you do to value, add duplexes, tries quads that you can do to, raise rents. That's one thing, like have you seen other ways to increase the revenue streams from properties? 

 Luke
 We have. I mean, there's different things that we've done, specifically, like if there's no off street parking, if we can find a way of maybe there's alley access in the back to take a portion of the yard and gravel that off and then pop a fence in the back so that they can have some semblance of privacy. It's very inexpensive, especially when compared to the cost of building a garage, which allows me to raise rents fairly easily. Or if there is a garage, I've had a lot of success, generally what I've found in these small multi-units the twos, threes, and fours. There's a garage that it's been something that the owner has used for their own personal storage. I either floated up to one of the tenants at 150 bucks a month, or I have found local businesses, landscapers, especially, always looking for places to park things. 

 Luke
 We'll just rent out the garage. It turns my fourplex into a four-plus garage. I've got a fifth revenue stream coming through there that tends to help out. They tend to sign very long-term leases, which are, good for me. It's just a quick little quick hits and revenue. 

 Josh
 Yeah, that's great, man. Best deal. Worst deal. And from the things you've experienced, 

 Luke
 Best deal, we had an investor was essentially liquidating. They were, they were selling a great deal of all of their properties. This is actually how I really got started investing. I, we, my wife and I kept our first property. When we moved, we kept the first one is a rental, kept it for several years. When I really started getting into real estate investing, I had a couple of buddies that we were just going to buy a little kind of run down $20,000 property that needed a whole lot of work that we could do a lot of the work ourselves and an up and coming area. We're going to pay cash, do the work ourselves, get it as a rental. Just try that, try to pull it together. Well, we, and an investor who was liquidating, who was retiring and moving out of town, fell into our lap. 

 Luke
 We ended up buying 13 on the spot. Went from trying to buy one to buying 13. We kind of piece that deal together. And we got it up and running. This investor came back and they had two properties left. They had two single family homes and they needed to die and they both had tenants. And we wanted one. We did not want the other, it was not an area of town that we are interested in running. And it was far from the others. We said, Hey, we want property a, we don't want property B. The owner said, well, I won't sell you a, unless you buy B. I ran the numbers and I said that we could spend $45,000 on just a alone and make the money that we needed. We offered 39, 9 for both, got them. It was essentially, it was the buy one, get one free. 

 Luke
 The second house that we got for free that we didn't want, had a tenant that had been in there. She was paying $420 a month. We owned that property for two years. She paid 420 every month. She never missed a month. She was late twice a year when the rent fell, when the first fell on a holiday and a weekend, and she would call to say, Hey, the rent won't be there until the sixth. Cause of the mail is slow. Is that okay? We had to send an electrician out there. One time to change an outlet, cost us 150 bucks. We cashflow that thing $420 a month for two years and then sold it for $38,000. So, I mean, we're not talking large scale numbers, but a house that we didn't want that we got for free cash flowed for two years. And then we sold for 38 grand. 

 Luke
 Great. I will, I will take those all day long. I'll. 

 Josh
 Take those. 

 Luke
 Works meals. There's, there's probably more than I can count. There is an area of Louisville that's called old Belleville, which is the largest collection of Victorian mansions, I think in the country, maybe second to new Orleans, but just like this massive area, just nothing but these old Victorians from the late 18 hundreds, most of them have been chopped up into apartments. We bought a fiveplex that should've been a phenomenal deal. It was from a sense, we bought it under value that the thing was a money pit. Every single month, you can't separately meet with them. We were having seven and $800 water bills, which we get water bills every two months here. So, I mean, three to 400 bucks a month in water bills, plus three to 400 a month in electric bills, they had box gutters. I don't know. Are you familiar with box gutters at all? 

 Luke
 I mean, if you need a new gutters, it's 35 to 40 grand to put new gutters on there. We never cashflow on a monthly basis on this property. We sold it a couple of years later and we made of money off of appreciation, but I'm by far the worst thing I've ever had. I stay away from those fours and fives now because of that, just I'm gun shy. 

 Josh
 Yeah, no, I hear you. I think that a deal like that, even if it did cash flow, like if it's going to be a pain in the ass, if it's going to be something that's going to take away my attention, if I'm going to get constant phone calls or whatever, man, I'd rather not make money than have more headache. I don't mind making, but it better be good money. Right, 

 Luke
 Right. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Totally. Do you guys, with your own personal holdings or with the groups that you work with, do you prefer using, property managers or managing yourself? 

 Luke
 My self and my business partner, we have different philosophies on it. He, he likes to manage it ourselves because he likes the additional cashflow. I'm not as much of a fan because I want to be as hands off as possible. We compromise and independent because we're constantly trading properties. Our portfolio is smaller, we'll come through and we'll manage ourselves. As it starts to get larger, were at one point we had 15 properties and were managing them ourselves and just, 

 Josh
 That's a lot. 

 Luke
 More sales with it. We acquired, we found another investor, liquidating acquired 15 more. So it doubled yeah. Greatest day for me, because were pretty well forced to turn it over at that point, I hate giving up the revenue, but at the same time, it's a cost of doing business that I would rather spend my time scouting, new deals and then growing my other real estate sales side, really helping my agents develop. So yeah, 

 Josh
 Yeah, no, man, that is, it's so true. It's what is the highest and best use of your time? I deal best with, I'm not the best manager I deal best when I'm finding new deals, new opportunities, new money, new, new resources, new partnerships, like that's where I make. So I, I am a big proponent. My family and I are big proponent on using external property managers. I don't want the phone call. I don't want that stuff. It's not just the revenue. It's the mental drain of that kind of stuff. That's me personal, as you're doing deals and working with your agents and, kind of working on that triangle method, which I really like, because we do need to keep things simple, especially salespeople, right? Keep it simple. Do deals, make money, right. Go home and hopefully hang out with the family. What are some, as you're looking for other agents to come on, other salespeople, what are some like red flags that you're like, sales is not for you. 

 Luke
 If I find somebody who is Ruth bouncing around quite a bit from job to job industry, to industry, it's a red flag for me. It's just somebody that hasn't figured it out yet. And that's okay. I spent a time in my life where I was still trying to figure it out, but moving to this commission only role where we provide a ton of support and a ton of high quality leads, but you still have to get out there and you've got to work on. If I see that bouncing around a lot, that is, that's a big red flag for me. Or if someone doesn't seem coachable, that's also, I mean the real estate side, you can teach it to anybody. Look, if I can figure it out, anybody can figure this thing out. But I had to be coachable. I had to set my ego to the side and realize that I don't know at all. 

 Luke
 Yes, my life experiences can come into play and yes, I can utilize those things, but I still need to listen to smarter people. Who've been in the business longer who have a proven method of success. 

 Josh
 True, absolutely. On behind you. I see some books, some awards, if the office or wherever you're at burning down and you could only grab one thing off that bookshelf, what would it be? 

 Luke
 You know, this book here. Wow. 

 Luke
 Something I was super proud of because it was a time in my life. 

 Josh
 So hold on a second. People are just listening into the podcast. It's okay. 

 Luke
 This is called small steps, sizable gains. It's 21 days to a better you it's. It's a book that I wrote in 2017. It was a time in my life where I was kind of trying to figure it out and trying to figure out, okay, what are my next steps? I, I really know that I'm primed to make a big leap, but I needed to know how to do it. I was listening to all the podcasts, all the gurus, all of these people that that the grant Cardone's of the world, who I think have a lot of great insight, but it's like, Hey, you gotta quit your job and just move to Miami. If that's where, if that's where the person that you want to be like, is that, and tell him, you're gonna go work for free for a year. I got two kids, I've got a mortgage. 

 Luke
 I can't just quit my job and do that. I sit, there has to be a way for people who aren't quite there yet to still be able to make change. You don't have to make these big, massive, drastic changes. You can have these small incremental adjustments that lead to these exponential gains. What I did is I started tracking what were the things I was doing? Just small little things on a daily basis that weren't, didn't seem like major disruptors by the ones. When I piece them all together, they were completely changing my life. This book is all about just reading one chapter a day and the chapters, you could have them done in about three to four minutes, but it's just something small that they can do each and every day. It was something I was just doing for myself. I told somebody that somebody I trusted and liked very much like, Hey, I think I'm gonna write a book. 

 Luke
 And I mean, just laughed. You don't know anything about writing a book. You barely passed English class and you can't do that. And I was like, screw you. I bet I can. I just, I kind of put my head down. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't even tell my wife that I was working on this thing, knocked it out. I came to her and I was like, I wrote a book and it's going to get published. She was like, you don't know any publishers? I pulled up Amazon and I was like, well, here it is for sale. Right here, went out, promoted it. It landed on an Amazon best seller list. I it's terrible. I mean, it is absolutely terrible. Even in the intro, I say, look, if you're looking for grammar and properly, punctuated sentences, that kind of stuff. I ain't your guy. I write, like I talk, but it seemed to speak to people who were just looking to be able to do small things. 

 Luke
 Behind me, on the other side, I was always really big about journaling and I would find these journals and I was constantly going through trying to find new journals that had the things that I wanted and the structure that I needed. I just, I couldn't quite get them, all, someone have a few pieces and then I have to get another one with a few different pieces. It was like, well, Hey, I've published a book before. Why don't I just design something that works for me? I sent it to somebody on Fiverr for 125 bucks. He just designed it for me, send it up to Amazon. Whenever I need a new one, it's print on demand up there. I've sold a few of those as well. I mean, those are mostly just Amazon keeps them around so they print them and just send them to me when I needed a new one. 

 Josh
 Yeah. They'd super cool, man. What did you most discover about yourself? Writing a book? 

 Luke
 I discovered that I had more to say than I thought I did. You start to learn that like, Hey, you don't have to be Tony Robbins to impart wisdom. You just have to be six or 12 months ahead of somebody else. Like you can, there are people that are just a year behind you that they need to know everything that . 

 Josh
 Super cool. Yeah. All right. One of my favorite parts of the show, I pull up these a deck of cards that have questions on it because I have limited brain space that doesn't create the most awesome questions. So tell me when to stop. Tell me what, whoa. Okay, here we go. Here's the question. What's a character trait that you hope you never pass down your kids. What's one that you do hope you pass down to your kids. 

 Luke
 Ooh, character trait that I hope I don't pass down to my kids. I hope that they don't inherit my temper. I tend to get very frustrated and angry about things when they're not going my way. I'm very hard on myself in that sense. I, I have very high expectations for myself. In turn, I think I put unfair expectations on others. I expect them to have the same expectations of themselves and that's just, it's not a fair characterization. It makes me frustrated. It causes me to just say, what, damn it I'll just do it myself, which takes up more of my time, which I don't have a lot of. One thing I do hope they inherit from me my work ethic. That has always been something for me. I always knew that I was rarely if ever going to be the smartest person in a room, but I wasn't going to be outworked. 

 Josh
 Cool, man, as you're building this business, what does, how do you measure your success? You got 20 team members at your building. You've got your own investment portfolios. You've got your own two kids. He wrote a book. What's w what's one and look like for you. How do you're winning as a deal-maker. 

 Luke
 It's really shifted a lot over the last probably 12 months. Part of that I think is COVID causing people to kind of reevaluate where things are. I used to be very analytical and numbers driven, which I still am. You can, you can never completely get rid of that. All of my goals were always very, I need to make X number of dollars. I need to do this many deals. I think some of that was vanity driven. When I really got down to the root of it, it was all about how do I have more impact for my family and how do I have more impact for others? Sometimes going after those goals and chasing those numbers was counterproductive to what I ultimately wanted to do. I was spending so much time working that I wasn't getting to spend the time with my family. I was hitting some of the metrics, but I wasn't serving what I ultimately wanted. 

 Luke
 I really started shifting to more qualitative goals with quantitative actions behind it. For me, it's just, it's about impact. How do I change lives through real estate and how many lives can I change? It goes back to what we talked about at the beginning where, I could kill myself for a hundred deals or I could find 20 agents who do 25% of that and have five X the impact. So how do I go out? How do I scale? That's why I've created some of these courses and things. Now, it's just like, how do I just get this information out into quick, easy, digestible formats? That's all, that's all I want to do. If I can go out and I can change lives and I can help others get into the business and help them realize that their goals are possible and what they want to do, then that's winning. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Tell me about one of the online court or is, I assume it's an online course. Tell me about one of the courses, maybe one of your best-selling courses. 

 Luke
 Actually, there is one that goes very in-depth on the triangle that we talked about. It's, it's all about just crushing it in your first 320 days of real estate. It doesn't have to be the first 320 days. You could be a three or four years vet that just, that you're kind of in a lull or a dead spot, or you've never really gotten up and going, but that has been one that's been super impactful. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Awesome man. Awesome. During this interview, what questions should I have asked you that I screwed up and just did an ask you like completely blanked and us worst host ever. 

 Luke
 Oh, probably. I don't know. I mean like it's, I felt like we, we had a great conversation and that's what I love about this format is we get to do this as a conversation piece. That's what zoom is really opened up to. It's like, I can see your face. I can see your reactions. I can feed off of your energy. That's, I think the way that you do this is really cool. 

 Josh
 Thanks, man. I love compliments. I really appreciate that. Yeah, it makes, like, and I say that a little joking, right? Like a little tongue in cheek, but I think in this world today, people only point out like the negative or they'll put out, criticism and you took that opportunity to go, nah, Josh, I think you actually did get like compliments, make people feel good. It makes them feel unique and special. I like, I, I remove filter in my mouth when I'm doing podcasts interviews and that's the first thing that came to mind is, and that felt good. Thank you. 

 Luke
 Yeah. Well, Hey, I guess I'm a pretty straight shooter. I wouldn't say. 

 Josh
 Like Josh, actually, that was the s*******t show I've ever been on. I've been on a lot. Yeah. Please unplug this thing immediately for the, for new agents or even agents who want to step up their game and they want to maybe get some education or maybe figure out how to do a deal with you or join your team. What's a good place for people to connect with you and do a deal together. 

 Luke
 LinkedIn is where I am by far most active. I know it probably should be Instagram. That seems to be where everybody is these days, but I just, I've never really gotten Instagram and it's been tough for me to adopt. If you go to linkedin.com/sales and negotiation, coach, it'll actually take you to my page or just look up Ruby Andrews. LinkedIn is by far the best place to catch me and where I'm most active. 

 Josh
 Copy, copy. I'm just going to make sure that you and I connect also on LinkedIn. There you are. You just got a new follower, buddy. 

 Luke
 Boom, 

 Josh
 The power of LinkedIn and social networking. One last thing, if there's one more piece of advice, you could give someone who's just about the polo trigger and get their real estate license. They want to focus on that side of the business. One more piece of advice for them. What would you say? 

 Luke
 I would say strongly consider whether or not you want to join a team. Don't focus on splits, focus on value. That's I see so many people that come into this business and they get swayed by these high splits, these 80 twenties, 90 tens, even 75, 25, but they're getting literally nothing for it. It's like, Hey, would you rather have 90% of four deals? Or would you rather come to my team and take 50% of 30, 60, which is I've had multiple agents in their very first year in the business, do 30 to 40 deals. Six-figure earners from day one who have little to no sphere that come in that just work solely on to leads and what we teach them to do. For us find a team, find a mentor, find a leader who is willing to get on the same page with you and who is willing to be there for your growth. 

 Luke
 For me. I tell my agents, Hey, think about what do you want to do in three to five years? If you want to be a leader on our team, if you want to be just a very large independent agent, if you want to go start your own team, I will open up the playbook. I will show you how to do it. I will build you the roadmap. You just have to tell me what you want because most people think, well, it's like, I'm not going to tell that I'm going to start my own team. Cause then he'll try to hold me back. He, I'm not scared of the competition. I'm here to change lives, impact lives. So I will build you the roadmap. I will show you exactly what you need to do, but just don't get caught up in the splits. Look for the value. 

 Josh
 That is, that is an amazing piece of advice because a lot of times people, they'll read a book on real estate and they'll go, here you need the splits and here's how many deals, but like the experience deal flow, like the best thing for deal flow. The best way to get deals is to have traction and to have activity. The busy people get the most deals, right? The, the people doing the most deals get the most deals. They come to them when you do a deal. Cause then if you sell a house, they might need to buy a house then, and then their friend needs to, oh, you just sold your house. Who would you sell it for? A sign in the front yard gets new deals. Great piece of advice. Good job. Thank you so much, Lou. Just awesome. Yeah. All right. A fellow deal-makers listening in as always reach out to our guests and say, thank you for being on the show. 

 Josh
 Find a way to learn from them, do a deal with them, connect with them and maybe even join their team as always reach out to our guests and say, thank you. If you are working on a deal, looking for a deal and you want to talk about it here on the show, head on over to the deal. Scout.com. Fill out a quick form. Maybe get you on the show next till then talk to you all on the next episode. Peace.