Beyond the Buy: Tony & Dakota’s Real Estate Mastery

In this episode of the REsimpli Podcast, host Sharad Mehta chats with Tony and Dakota, the entrepreneurial minds behind a leading real estate investment firm in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The episode kicks off with an enthusiastic introduction, highlighting the previous successful podcast with the duo and setting the stage for an in-depth exploration of their journey in the real estate industry.

Tony and Dakota share the origins of their partnership, which interestingly began with a connection formed through mutual interests in mixed martial arts and gaming during their teenage years. This unique foundation set the tone for a dynamic partnership that would eventually lead them to become prominent figures in the Fort Wayne real estate market.

As the conversation unfolds, Tony and Dakota delve into the growth and evolution of their business. Initially starting with a focus on the BRRRR strategy (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat), they soon recognized the limitations and challenges associated with managing rental properties, especially considering the financing and cash flow aspects.

This realization prompted a strategic pivot towards wholesaling and flipping, significantly scaling their operations in the process. Dakota, stepping into the CEO role, spearheaded this expansion by building a robust team, acquiring office space, and focusing on streamlining operations to enhance efficiency and profitability. The discussion provides valuable insights into the decision-making processes and the critical pivot points that have shaped their business trajectory.

One of the episode’s highlights is the in-depth discussion on marketing strategies and the challenges posed by evolving regulations, particularly in the realm of SMS marketing. Tony and Dakota discuss the impact of these changes on lead generation and the necessity of diversifying marketing channels to sustain and grow their business.

They share their experiences with various marketing strategies, including direct mail, TV ads, and the potential exploration of radio advertising, offering listeners a glimpse into the complexities and considerations involved in real estate marketing in the current regulatory landscape.

The episode concludes with a more personal reflection from both Tony and Dakota, revealing their hobbies, influential books, and hypothetical discussions with historical figures. This segment adds a humanizing layer to their personas beyond their professional achievements.

The episode not only serves as a testament to their success in the real estate realm but also emphasizes the importance of adaptability, team building, and continuous learning in the ever-changing landscape of real estate investment.

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Transcript:

Sharad Mehta  0:06 

Hey guys, this is Sharad with REsimpli Host of the REsimpli Podcast. I am absolutely excited. I’m double excited today to have Tony and decoder. We’re getting two amazing guests for the price of one on this podcast. So this is gonna be good. I did a podcast with them both couple of months ago. Hands down. That was like the best podcast I’d ever done. Like, there’s so many different directions we went on. So I love that man. I’m so excited to have you guys on the show. How are you guys doing?

Tony Moore  0:37 

Great, great. Now, we’re one of the best podcasts you’ve ever been do. That

Sharad Mehta  0:41 

Was amazing. That was amazing. It was like it was just such good fun. So many topics we covered. It was really, really good podcast. Yeah, you guys have a great show. I man, let’s let’s get started. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you joining in from? What do you do? And how long have you been doing that for?

Tony Moore  0:57 

We’re over in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And we started about six years ago. And at this point, we’ve become probably the biggest single family home buyer in Fort Wayne, Indiana and the surrounding areas. It’s been a crazy journey. It started with just Dakota and I and then this last two years or so Dakota has really stepped into the CEO role. And he ended up hiring like 14 people, I was pretty much like yeah, man, whatever you want, like let’s keep the we want to buy an office, let’s buy an office space. And we bought an office space, we bought a building and turned it into like a little storage space. You know, when you get appliances and stuff and you’re like, oh, man, we really need a place to put all this junk. So we just kept buying buildings and hiring people. And just recently, we just got back from sharper, which we were talking about before we got on the podcast and just learned how you grow really, really quickly. And then you take a look at your business and realise how many inefficiencies are in the business, which is what we were just talking about. So we’ve been grinding it out. Dakota mainly has been grinding it out. And just recently got a bunch of feedback. And we’re excited to start creating processes and procedures and like actually turned this cash cow into a real business.

Sharad Mehta  2:20 

Yeah, isn’t that amazing? Like how, like systems and processes are generally the most boring part of the business. But the most important part of the business. It’s crazy, like people just you know, they get into the business start making money. And then they realise, oh, I have all this revenue coming in.

But I’m not actually keeping anything for myself. I’m not just saying you know, it’s true for you guys, but I’m just saying generally talk to you a lot of investors doing seven figure in revenue, but at the end of the day, they don’t have any money left in the bank account.

So it’s crazy then once you start looking into systems and processes. So that’s amazing. You guys in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I’m in Northwest Indiana, so bad like hour and a half two hours away from from that market. And you guys have mostly wholesaling, fixing flip rental, a little bit of everything.

Dakota Bailey  3:05 

So it’s about 80%, wholesale or wholesale. So we kind of just categorise the same together because we just don’t do much to them. And we’ll we’ll sell them off. So I don’t know what the actual split is between those. But then the other 20% is fix and flip.

We have about 80 of rentals, but we’re not actively growing it the only time that we’re really keeping any more rentals of any sorts is whenever the flip just didn’t work and or like I guess we’re keeping it now and then we’ll just keep it as a rental at this point. So we’re not actively growing anymore. For the

Tony Moore  3:34 

Viewers at home, too. We didn’t start off like that we started off trying to be burr investors. So Dakota was working full time in car sales, I was bouncing around from job to job to job eventually Dakota told me like hey, go into the business. And we’ll just pay you the same amount that you’re making. Because, you know, I kept going from entry level job to entry level job at a specific skill set that was going to pay me well.

So it was easier for me to make the transition. And so for people listening at home and when we started doing the whole like leveraging debt and doing the cash out refinances and getting the money back, then we just quickly learned that like even in a market where like you can buy affordable houses and rent them out pretty well after you consider all of your costs like move out and replacing tenants and property management.

When you really become an investor and and hire a property management company. If you got like 7% notes that 15 years, you don’t cash flow that much. So, point when we joined the wealthy investor or future flipper, mastermind with Ryan Panetta, Ryan Penedo was like guys you got to you got to stop buying rental properties.

You got to actually turned this thing into a real business and decode has always been amazing sales. I’ve been pretty good at figuring out the marketing and then like evolving it as the market shifts. and that sort of thing, we definitely went from using just a plug in your company, we went from using Google Sheets.

Keep it everything in a Google sheet to use it. REsimpli. So that was helpful. And so we have done some systems, we’ve created some systems along the way. But marketing and sales has always been our expertise. And so it just made sense. Find deals, find money, just keep scaling that. And that’s how we actually started to, to really start to feel some success is when we started wholesaling, and flipping. Absolutely,

Sharad Mehta  5:35 

Man, I never asked you guys this question. How do you guys know each other? Because you guys complement each other really? Well, you know, it’s hard in this business, for partnerships to you know, get along really well. You’ve been doing this together for six years. Just talk a little bit about that. And what have been some of the challenges in last six years? Yeah.

Dakota Bailey  5:55 

So the way that we know each other was when I was 14, I was getting picked on by these bullies. And so I was like, Man, I gotta learn how to fight. And so Tony was known as like the guy who knows how to fight because he had a fight club. backyard is videos is crazy. It’s insane.

So then I was like, Hey, man, you know, I gotta learn how to fight. And I was just like, some little broke kids. I was like, Hey, dude, like, I got a budget quarters and stuff. Can you like, take my money and then go and buy me UFC gloves online, because I don’t have a car that I can buy it online for whatever, did some UFC glows.

And then we ended up like having some fight clubs. And that’s how we learned. Tony was in MMA did a lot of fights in the cage. And then I was a boxer. So I did boxing for a couple years. But yeah, we just had a lot of sparring, and we really connected with fighting. And then also, we obviously played like Call of Duty and stuff like that in high school.

But that was just really met when when I was 14, I think he was 16 at the time. So that was how we met. And then yeah, the challenge that we faced, I mean, we faced a lot of different challenges. In the beginning, it was three of us. And we had another partner, and the partner wasn’t exactly showing up as much, Tony and I had more of a connection, we talked a whole lot more. So it felt like me and him were talking a lot more in building the company.

And so then we had the conversation with that guy had to buy him out, it actually was easier than we thought it was going to be because we just started back then. So that was an easy conversation. Because we had like three houses, we did one flip, and we said, hey, we’re only going to do profits based on the flip.

So we bought them out, I think was like four grand at the time. And so that was an easy, but that was still something that arose, like just right there in the beginning. I mean, some of the other complications were a lot of times it would be fear from Tony on, like, you know, hiring people are like the first deal stuff like that. And I’m like, Dude, we’re gonna freakin do it. So like, if you want to do it, you got it, like, you’re gonna be a part of it with me or not. And so it’s kind of like, Let’s go or, or not. And I was like, okay,

Tony Moore  7:58 

Yeah, I’m better at being the worst case scenario thinker. And like, like, Well, let’s think about this. First, I need like, I need six more points of data before we make a decision in order to like, make sure it’s actually the right decision.

Sharad Mehta  8:10 

I mean, that’s really good to have, you know, you guys like really compliment. Like, I’ve noticed that, you know, we’ve connected on few other calls, you guys really complement each other really well. Has there ever. Like are you guys very clear on what your guys’s roles and responsibilities are in the business? Is there overlap? Is there any tension in there? That’s funny that

Dakota Bailey  8:29 

You ask. So we literally were just having a conversation this morning, because I don’t know how much you want to get into it.

Sharad Mehta  8:35 

Yeah, so I don’t want to see like real life fights.

Tony Moore  8:41 

I guess I guess like in November, was when Dakota first came to me because we we constantly are paying for coaching and that sort of thing. And so Dakota just had a discussion with his coach, how he was doing a disproportionate amount of work. And he came to me to talk to me about that.

And I was like, Yeah, that’s true, like over years, like probably over the last two years to Coda’s, kind of like, like I was saying in the beginning of this ended up in the CEO seat ended up in the leadership role ended up in the managing all of our employees role. Were like kind of from the beginning.

I was like, hey, if we buy an office, like I don’t know if I’m necessarily going to be there. I don’t know if I’m about that. Just like Yeah, over the course of the last couple years to code has been doing a disproportionate amount of the work. So we just had a conversation recently.

Yeah, back in November. And I’ve kind of been out of the business since then, trying to figure out what I want for my life and that sort of thing. And I couldn’t figure it out on a conscious level. But on a subconscious level. It was more like man, I want a positive potential future and a positive potential future to me means like having less hours of responsibility as far as the like nitty gritty and the details and that sort of thing and moving towards being a visionary.

And I just didn’t see a a way to do that with the way that we were doing things currently, and so I was withdrawing, instead of grinding it out. And Dakota’s archetype is more like, dude, I’m going to show up and do the work no matter what, like, I’m not gonna let this thing fail kind of thing. And so we’re kind of the opposite in that way to where Dakota was just like, Dude, it’s got to be done.

So I don’t care what task it is, I’ll sit here and do it, I’m coming back into the company. Now, to help create the role each each person’s role and kind of get it dialled in and create the procedures and the processes kind of being like, I guess, I guess they call it the CTO, the chief growth officer is that.

So go into each person figuring out their processes, getting them in training, you’ll and that sort of thing, some of the systems that we’re going to be creating in the near future.

Sharad Mehta  10:45 

So being very clear about each person roles and responsibility, this is my lane, this is your lane, we’re gonna stay in our lane. And then at any I mean, this is great that you guys, like we’re able to have that open communication about hey, I feel like I’m, you know, putting a little bit more than my fair share of work here. And then, Tony, great on you for like just being very open, you know about it and say, Hey, I agree with you. I think that like that just goes to show what an amazing partnership, you guys are both and then working with the leadership team are sharper, I think that she was going to help and give more clarity on the roles and responsibility and a good accountability chart. And how many people do you have in your team right now 13, or 1413, or 14, and then it just kind of make the their alternate responsibilities are gonna pass down to everyone, so everyone knows kind of, you know, what they’re doing, and then the bigger vision of the company and you know, kind of the direction we’re going on. And then you guys have only been doing it for six years, which is not a very long time, and tend to be like the largest homebuyers in your mind. It’s not, it’s not that small area for 20 is a pretty decent sized arcade, what have been some of the challenges in growing the team from where you guys started just the two of you guys. And then you have a team of 1314 people to go to your smiling. It’s

Dakota Bailey  12:01 

Funny, just because like I was literally been thinking so much about this now, like, I’ve learned so much just in the last couple days from sharper, but I thought a lot about this specific question because I care so much about people and about individuals, that what I do is I have individual conversations, and I want the best for so many people. And so what I found that I will do is what do you want? How can I fit that in this vision, which is why I’m so good at sales, because I truly want to help the other person figure out what they want. Like that is like just a something that I really, really love to do. And so then what I’ve done is like, bring these people on, what do you want? Does it fit in our vision? Yes. Okay, cool. We’re going the same way, then what do you want? Okay, cool. Let me make this, oh, that’s a little bit different than this person wants, but I think I can kind of fit it in. When you add 13 people into the mix. And I still have my own desires and wants and needs, it’s impossible to make sure that we’re all on the same page. So now it’s about like, not necessarily the individual. It’s about what’s best for the company. And so it’s a shift for me that is very was a difficult shift. And Gary helped me see it, because I used to think of the company as me and Tony. And so whenever I did what was in the best interest of the company, it would then feel selfish, like I’m doing something that’s for me, as opposed to doing it for everybody else. And so that’s been the biggest shift and the biggest change of like, now it’s not like, Hey, do whatever you want, because I don’t care, I want you to have freedom, because that’s the way I’ve always been like, I don’t like rules. I don’t like procedures. I don’t like that, because I’m used to a sales context 100% commission. So the kind of people we brought on are more entrepreneurial type, but you still gotta create guidelines for them, otherwise, they’re gonna go out and like, now we have a lot of people wanting to start a side businesses wanting to wholesale by themselves like, Bro, are you with us? Are you not, you know, and I’ve always been that way of like, if you want to leave, that’s okay, too. I’m never gonna hold you back from your potential. But you can’t do it inside of this. So it’s just, that’s been the biggest shift is like, whenever you’re first coming on, dude, whatever you do is great. There’s no rules, like we’ll figure it out. And then like, they’re kind of great in their own thing, because they’re entrepreneurs. And then now that we have a big enough team, if you go outside of something now everybody else thinks they can do it, it’s gonna affect the entire team. It’s so now policies procedures are like now necessary in order to actually have it worked for the whole, which is like a hard, hard concept for me, I guess to understand until now,

Tony Moore  14:22 

I don’t think other businesses like ours do is reinvesting in education and reinvesting in our people. Everything from like, you know, just taking the team to 10x growth conference once a year, right? Going to the sharper business training, or even some of the the personal development stuff that we have locally. Like I bring the psi basic seminar to Fort Wayne, and that’s kind of like internal reflection and awareness of like how you show up. And so I think all of the different things that we’ve done then have got our people more invested in our company, and also helped our communication and retained a lot of our employees who like maybe otherwise would have left had we been for leaders, or had they not felt the shift in themselves from doing some of the things that we’ve done with them. But like Dakota said to, you know, the predictive index, the PI test, it’s so funny, like how, maybe like 80% of our team came back a maverick or a captain, which means that you have a bunch of like, type a driven, like, I want to start my own thing type personalities all working in within this company. And the benefit to that is that a lot of times like Dakota, and I didn’t teach them how to do their jobs, were basically like, Here’s a basic template. And like, besides that, like try to figure it out on your on your own. And like, when you can’t figure something out, come back to me, and I’ll give you some direction. And so people have been very good at self leading the downside comes from a strong personalities and like need for awareness, because we don’t have a lot of employees in this office, we have a bunch of entrepreneur entrepreneurs.

Tony Moore  16:15 

Yes.

Tony Moore  16:18 

Yeah, so that one thing in a productive way for the company?

Sharad Mehta  16:21 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s, that’s gonna be an interesting mix. You know, I mean, yes, they’re doing their thing, but at the same time, just to, I think it’s gonna be interesting transition to put, like these guidelines around them, hey, we can do this really well. But there’s some guidelines around it, I think it’ll be interesting transition to do that. Hey, I want to shift gears a little bit here. So you guys are absolutely great at marketing and sales. What are some of the things that are working really, really well for you guys? So this is like March 2024. You know, we have regulations and restrictions coming from like texting and calling, it’s getting a little bit challenging. So I want to find out kind of, you know, you guys are having an amazing business you guys are doing, you know, launch team, what’s working for you guys right now? And what are you guys looking to like, as you see ahead, you know, 2024 and into maybe next year? Which direction are you going in

Tony Moore  17:15 

Because pulling up our whole sales and flips spreadsheet right now to look it over and see the details. But

Sharad Mehta  17:22 

It’s definitely been a very interesting last like six to nine months, like alto since like, mid 2023. Like when, like this SMS restriction started coming in. And I don’t think everyone has kind of accepted that reality. But you know, you guys are still scaling. So I’m very curious to see like, what’s been working for you guys?

Tony Moore  17:41 

Well, what’s interesting is that luckily, by the time those texting regulations went in place, I was like, oh, man, all our leads are gonna dry up. Yeah, that’s texting was one of our highest lead generators at the lowest cost. But then, because of our brand that we’ve been building over the last six years because of our presence with like, you know, the investor, carrot website, and things like that, because of referrals from other people in our market, because we own the Real Estate Investors Association here locally, because we produce social media content consistently. Because we send out mailers regularly. Luckily, we had established like Google Pay Per Click, we just established TV ads as well. We started diversifying our marketing. And so luckily, when that hit, it wasn’t like nearly as devastating as it would have been two years ago. Yeah.

Dakota Bailey  18:38 

So I would say our highest like that we can see, because the hardest part is obviously you know, when you got TV, when you have direct mail, and they go to the care website, you’re not sure if that was the direct mail or was a Google it’s difficult to say, but I know that texting was by far and I mean by far the highest right? It says we have 47 deals last year from texting. Our next closest is 15 deals. And that was direct mail. And currently they’re tied. So whether it’s direct mail or Carolee, we both have 15. So putting those to the next, you know, number two and number three together still didn’t even equal texting, texting. I mean, this is a game changer. We’re still doing it as much as we can, but it’s definitely lower. From there. Our our number four was referral and yeah, from actually, you know, the funniest part is number five is wholesalers, which is basically the same thing as referral. So, yeah, I mean, direct mail and carrot leads. I mean, TV ads have always been great for us, and they generate so much other stuff, and it gets you so much more present. So I’d always say TV is awesome as well. It is expensive, is the only thing

Tony Moore  19:49 

I would recommend somebody start out with TV and I was pretty resistant to TV early on. We found a better carrier who gives us better pricing too, because we just called the local people and we’re like, hey, we want They do TV ads. They didn’t tell us a lot of the hacks like to have your phone number across the bottom the entire commercial to do a 32nd commercial instead of a 15 second commercial because it takes people some time to like get a piece of paper and write down your number, right, this particular TV provider. I’m gonna do what I want to tell people. The TV provider.

Dakota Bailey  20:21 

Yeah, you might actually know the guy to Tony Javier Well, yeah,

Sharad Mehta  20:25 

He just slips right in Carlsbad. Yeah. He peed my ass and pickleball. Yeah. Yeah, so we went from he’s the go to guy for TV.

Dakota Bailey  20:36 

Yeah, we had like price 70 spots. And we’re paying like, you know, I don’t remember is like five grand a month. And within we pay like $6,500 a month, and we get 700 spots. So he literally backs our spot.

Sharad Mehta  20:50 

That’s insane. Money. That is crazy. So 50 bucks for 1500 additional bucks, you have like 650 more on

Dakota Bailey  20:57 

A lot of different channels, too. Now, there’s one channel where we were only on one channel. Yeah,

Tony Moore  21:02 

When you. I’m sure you already know this to shroud. But like TV ads, people are a little bit more invested. They’re a little bit older. They’re the older population that’s watching TV, even the connected TV, like on the iPads and stuff is most 65 year old and older. And when they call in, they’re just so much more invested. In your face. It’s like, Maybe you came on right after their favourite Western or something like, you just have more instant rapport. And TV ads also help you translate or convert better with all of the other lead types to instantly have more rapport. So if somebody got a letter from you, you show up to their house. And they’re like, well, for some reason, everybody always thinks they know who I am. For some reason, though. I’ve seen you before. And then they find out they have no idea who I am. But TV sometimes is just like that, where they see you and they’re like, Oh, you guys are on the TV. And then you’re like, Yeah, I’ve even had our competitors be like, Dude, I was getting somebody to sign a contract, then you popped up on their TV.

Sharad Mehta  22:11 

That’s crazy. That’s crazy. Yeah, man. I think that’s what I’ve heard from other people that are doing TV. And like Tony Javier is great, by the way, like he’s the go to guy for TV. I’ve heard from other investors that it’s the TV, you know, that has so much indirect benefit to other marketing that you’re doing. You know, it helps your direct mail. It just helps your branding it, you know, your website traffic goes up. Because if they someone sees you on TV, they’re going to Google searching you. And it just helps your credibility so much. Are you guys doing any other inbound like radio or just like doing TV, you know, SEO PPC?

Dakota Bailey  22:47 

It’s funny, because everything you talk about or asking questions about I feel like happened today. So I literally just got a call from somebody at Tony’s office, his name’s Noah. And he called me today. And he’s like, Hey, I wanted to get the radio pricing and stuff I was just been in meetings are like, Can you email me like so? We did radio one time, we spent like $1,000, it was on a rock band. So I asked him, like, give me pricing and stuff. It’s definitely something that we want to get into something that Gary sharper just talked about, though, that hopefully Tony doesn’t get mad at us for saying it. Tony Javier is he edited? How how, in this time frame, with the election coming up, it might not be the best time because they’re going to spend so much more on ads, you’re not going to be out there as much so because it’s based on the ad spin that you spend on the and all the politicians are gonna spend way more than you so this might not be the right time for TV. Radio, so he did mention that as I was like, Well,

Sharad Mehta  23:41 

That makes it nice. Yeah, I used to do billboard ads on at 94. And then they would they would always have like, end of mid June to like July 4 booked out because of all the fire workshop. So it’s like, hey, if it’s July 4, you know they’re just going to take all the the billboards in the area so it could be the same for you know, TV election but yeah, it’ll be it’ll be interesting. But yeah, I mean like that’s that’s what I heard from more investors that are being successful in this market is you know, investing more in inbound leads versus outbound leads because then you have a little bit more control and the quality of leads tend to be better I’m sure like the leads that you were getting from SMS were very inexpensive but then you had to get so many more leads in order to convert them into a deal but you know, with TV or other PPC like your conversion is so much better. You’re able to convert like 1015 leads into one deal versus you might have to go 200 leads, you know in SMS and cold calling before you convert them into a deal that’s that kind of what your guys’s experience been

Tony Moore  24:48 

Percent Yeah, Dakota quoted somebody that he heard on Instagram or something like that. I thought it was hilarious. And now I repeat it to people all the time. I don’t know if your numbers are not was like quick, cheaper, easy. You can Only half to

Sharad Mehta  25:01 

Two. Yeah. Isn’t that something like that? They say for the contractors also, like good? Or like there’s something like you can only pick two of the three. Yeah, with that, yeah, quality. That makes so much sense, man. But what’s the what’s the one marketing channel that you guys are like, like if you had to pick one, if I said, Hey, you guys can only take one marketing channel, or if you had someone came to you and said, you know, newbie investors say, hey, I want to take this business seriously. And I want to invest in one marketing channel. Which one would you guys recommend in this market?

Dakota Bailey  25:34 

We’ve always we’ve always done direct mail. And we did that from the beginning, Tony, and I used to actually hand write the letters, and like, put them in the envelope and actually do it. So we’ve been doing direct mail the whole time. And it’s been consistent for the last six years. So that’s always our number one, Tony, Tony came up with a way to make it pretty efficient. And stuff, too, that we can we can tell people about get?

Tony Moore  25:55 

I think it depends with direct mail to like, on your budget. So if somebody and their personality profile like if you’re getting into somebody’s personality type, like, if Dakota came to me and asked me and I didn’t know him, but then he told me enough about him, I’d be like, Dude, I think you could do texting. Like, I think you have the personality for it. Right? And people that are willing to do a little bit more sketchy stuff, if you live in an area and you have like a little bit of a ghetto nearby, and you’re willing to do like stuff. That’s a grey area. And it’s sketchy, and it’s like, kinda not that big. You could do bandit signs,

Sharad Mehta  26:34 

Right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, they’re illegal in our market, you know, the cities would like, find you, at least the markets, some of the cities that we invest in. But yeah, we see a lot of those to investors putting them up. But I do agree with you like, this is what we’ve noticed, looking at the data of REsimpli investors, especially the ones that are consistently doing deals, you know, a lot of them have direct mail as their primary market marketing. But even if direct mail is not their primary marketing, one thing we notice they’re all doing some direct mail. Not everyone is doing TV, not everyone is doing PPC, not everyone is doing radio, but everyone that’s consistently doing deals, is doing some direct mail, you know, whether it’s 1000s of people, whether it’s like a niche list that they’re sending to so I do agree, like someone starting out? And is one want to be consistent direct mail is the way to go? And do you have a favourite list that you would go after,

Tony Moore  27:30 

You know, what’s interesting is, if you don’t have very much money, I think multiple levels of motivation have been good, like an absentee owned property that’s owned by a mom and pop. So individuals only not LLC, right, and trust exclude mixed even. And then sometimes like 50% equity, sometimes it just depends on how big your sample size is, right? A 5 million person city, then you have to niche it down quite a bit. But like 80% equity is kind of nice, because then you know, you have room for a spread. And then also maybe somebody that’s owned the property for 10 years, because they’re probably sick and tired of being a landlord at this point, and ready to give it up. Maybe a house that’s at least 50 years old, because then you’re getting into the like, you know, maintenance type property at that point. So somebody start now I would be like, yeah, just hit all of those layers of motivation, so that you’re getting people that call you that are like, I’m tired of being a landlord. Yeah.

Sharad Mehta  28:35 

Especially with notice, if they own like, two, three or four properties, you know, then they’re not like professional investors, they just happen to have couple of properties that they bought. And they may not be you know, managing it properly. And they just tend to be more tired. Landlords versus someone who has like 510 properties or more. Yeah,

Tony Moore  28:55 

Like five or less properties that are vacant that they really nice. One, two, I really like vacant.

Sharad Mehta  29:01 

Yeah, that’s that’s what I tell investors. Like, if you’re not sure, start with, you know what you guys say. And if it’s a big market, you don’t layer in vacant on top of it. Absentee equity, years of ownership and vacant cool, guys, this has been really, really good. All right, last segment of our show, I’m gonna ask you some question. You can each answer separately. What do you guys do for fun? Other than, like, fight club? Yeah, I’m gonna I’m gonna start with you.

Dakota Bailey  29:27 

All right. What do I do for fun? Well, first of all, I think businesses a lot of fun. I’ll say that, like, I do have a lot of fun. Like, it’s actually hard for me to have fun outside of it. What I’ve been doing lately is been down in Florida. So I’ve been I just started fishing, which is kind of funny. Because like some big fish, and I just feel like that That for me is so fun. I bought like a fishing hat. And then I just got to ride so like, yeah, um, I’ve been fishing because like, do when you’re down in Florida, you never know what kind of fish you’re gonna get. When you’re up in Indiana. It’s like you get bass or bluegill? It’s not that exciting. When you’re like pulling stuff out, I’m like, Dude, I don’t even know what this is like, we got a puffer fish last time and I like puffed up. I’m like, This is so cool. You just never know what’s gonna get. So I’ve been enjoying that. That’s been a lot of fun. What

Sharad Mehta  30:11 

About you, Tony? Well,

Tony Moore  30:12 

I’m not working. I spend a lot of time with my daughter. So she lives. She’s turning nine soon. And so I drive up to her pick her up from school, we go to Starbucks, it’s like a routine, we go to Starbucks, and then we go to the park. And then sometimes we go to our arcade. And then we like to, you know, pick fights with middle schoolers or like, high school dudes that are like, oh, yeah, my, my daughter, and I know this one laser tag plays really well. So we know all the best spots, just runs at people like a like a bandit. And then I snipe everybody, and we usually we usually do it. That’s

Sharad Mehta  30:51 

Amazing that what’s the one book that’s had the most influence in your life? It could be business, it could be personal, or it could be one of each. 20?

Tony Moore  31:02 

Well, Rich Dad, Poor Dad isn’t the easy one. I mean, that’s the biggest perspective shifter. Most recently, the book that’s had a big impact was 10x is better than 2x. Oh, yeah. Ben, Heidi, and yeah, all of the books that that set of authors puts out is like, Oh, he’s really good. But the original gangster of personal development is How to Win Friends and Influence People. That was like the very first book that ever turned me on to, like, Oh, this is an entire class a book that I haven’t even touched yet,

Dakota Bailey  31:34 

Whereby you to go to? Yeah, I was gonna say How to Win Friends and Influence People. That was a book that I read when I was in sales. And I didn’t I, I feel like empathy is kind of hard for me. And so it kind of taught me about empathy and listening to other people and helping with their perspectives. And I like I would give them solutions. And they get upset with him for not being like, Yeah, that’s great. Like it like solving the problem. So that book taught me a lot about just listening to understand instead of listening to respond, and so that book taught me so much about sales, helped my sales skills developed helped me learn about empathy, and what that actually looks like, I’m still like, not, I wouldn’t say I’m the best at it. But I’m, like, growing, and I’ve read that book, like probably like three or four times. I read that book a lot.

Sharad Mehta  32:16 

Yeah, no, that’s a great book. All right. Last question. If you could spend a day with anyone dead or alive. Who would you want to spend the day with? And why? Dakota? Oh, yeah. Now

Dakota Bailey  32:28 

That one’s very easy for me to definitely be Jesus. I mean, the to understand or to ask, I wonder if you would give me straight answers, though, you probably asked me more questions. I’d be like this, and he asked me a question. But like, he’ll

Sharad Mehta  32:40 

Still get you do the answer.

Tony Moore  32:42 

Yeah, you might have to learn Hebrew first.

Dakota Bailey  32:47 

But that would definitely be the person that if I could spend a day or that would just be insane. I mean, yeah, that’s like, a person that I obviously want to resemble. And like live my entire life based off of so just be insane. To see what he’s actually like, because I think that other people have an interesting perspective of him, especially like, our culture that like always just says, nice guy who’s just nice, no matter what I’m like, did you read the Bible? Like it was not always like the most nice, he was like, you know, he, he would just ask you questions be very straight up, and very real, like, just very authentic. And so I think you’re just it’d be, that’d be a dream. That’d be crazy.

Tony Moore  33:28 

Right? Tony? Absolutely killed his answer. I don’t know. Yeah,

Sharad Mehta  33:31 

You got to top that down to No, good.

Tony Moore  33:34 

I wasn’t thinking that I wasn’t going that far back. I was not I could have folks who have influenced me along the way. And even though I feel like I’m moving into different values now, I still like very much value, someone’s ability to articulate and so Jordan Peterson is one of my favourites. Yeah, like taking things that are true. But then he I feel like he does such a good job of taking guesses because he’s mainly known as a conservative. He’s like, if you’re looking for the last conservative psychologist, he’s sitting in this chair in this room talking right now. And I think he’s so good at taking somebody else’s perspective, and giving it credit and explaining why it makes logical sense to them. But then giving his perspective and being like, and this is why I changed my perspective and why I believe this thing now, so Jordan Peterson has been really cool for me to listen to and be like, Oh, those things resonate with me too. I also believe that they’re true. I’ve just never heard someone explain it. Yeah. Now he’s,

Sharad Mehta  34:43 

He’s amazing. He’s got so much great content on YouTube. It’s actually 20. You’re the second person who mentioned him so I guess if someone wants to connect with you guys learn a little bit more about you guys. What’s the best way for them to do that Facebook,

Dakota Bailey  34:57 

You can find us as Dakota bail. Hey Tony Moore. We have our Company Ltd Property Group and we have a Facebook Tony in Dakota. My Instagram is Dakota Bailey dot i n for Indiana. And then I think Tony’s is Tony

Tony Moore  35:13 

David Moore Yep

Sharad Mehta  35:15 

I will put that on in the show notes. This has been this has been great, man. It’s just so crazy. I feel like I’m talking to you guys while you’re standing in my living room. It just it’s so crazy. It’s just I have the exact same wall in my living room. That’s insane. Alright guys, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much. I know you guys are busy. Thank you so much for taking time for coming on the podcast, sir. Thank you, brother.