#65 Creating a Business You Love with Trevor Mauch
Trevor explains where the hottest motivated seller leads are and how they convert better than other methods. Trevor’s entrepreneur journey from $0 to $10M and anxiety to consistent, predictable income.
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Itunes – www.TonyJavier.com/itunes
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Show Transcription:
Tony Javier: (00:21)
Welcome everybody to today’s show. We have, as usual a fantastic guest with us. If you are in the real estate investing world, you probably know who Trevor Mock is. Uh, founder of Carrot. Trevor has been in the industry a long, long time. Uh, I’ve been in the industry about 20 years now. I think he’s ge getting pretty close to around there. I think we met 15 years ago, and I don’t know if, I think Trevor probably remembers this ’cause I think I mentioned it a couple years ago, but someone gave me his phone number ’cause I was looking to get into real estate education. Didn’t have a product, didn’t have anything. I’d been in the industry for probably, I don’t know, six years. Um, and I, and I wanted to learn how to, um, educate people. Yep. And so, uh, Trevor had JV update, if you remember that.
Tony Javier: (01:08)
Oh yeah. And I, I think I just literally like in the last year, changed your name in my phone. . It used to say Trevor JV update. There we go. And so one of the things, I’m gonna give you props on this. I’ve never said this to you, but you know, there’s people in the industry or people just in general, when you talk to them, you can just tell, they’re like genuine. They want to talk to you. They’re not fluffy, they’re not ego driven. It’s just, it’s really good conversation. And you were one of those, I remember when I called, I knew you were like, talked to a lot of big hitters. You had, you didn’t know me from Adam. I had no product whatsoever. But you were willing to have a conversation with me when I pretty much didn’t, didn’t know much. And I, you know, was, was kind of newer in, in the education, uh, space. So we’ve gotten to know each other a lot better in the last few years. Still the same guy. Dude, you’re super cool. Just good conversation. So I just wanted to give you props, props for that to start out with.
Trevor Mauch: (02:03)
Man. I, I appreciate it. First of all, I think, you know, that’s one of the things going way back when you have to kind of create principles to live by and do one, one of the things for me, uh, Tony is like, I really love creating and connecting and as long as I’m creating and connecting in the world, then I’m happy. Like, I feel like I have momentum and you feel more joy when you’re creating and connecting. So that conversation and probably hundreds or thousands of others, like, I just love connecting with people. ’cause you never know where it’s gonna go, including calls like this, right? There could be someone listening to this who has a chance to connect to you or to connect to me. And you never know where those are gonna, those are gonna go. One last part of this, another connection thing is, uh, Matt Andrews, who we were talking about right before we hit record. Well I had a chance to sell him JV update. And so Matt took JV update and turned it into family reunion, which we’re gonna be at next week to connect with a lot more people, which is really cool.
Tony Javier: (02:51)
I had no idea that he, you sold him JV update. Yeah. So that was probably, what, five years ago? Six years ago? Yeah.
Trevor Mauch: (02:57)
Right, right around there. He, he had started, he had started kind of having these little family reunion, small masterminds mm-hmm. . We connected. I wasn’t doing anything with JV update at that time ’cause Carrot was starting to take off and that was my full focus. And we talked and I knew it was gonna be in good hands with him ’cause he had the same ethos, the same principles, connect with people, add value, and create, uh, create great things together.
Tony Javier: (03:16)
Yeah, totally. Cool. You know, it’s interesting, I was listen to a podcast this morning by Ed Millet and he had a guy on there that talked about, um, the happiest people in the world. I don’t know if you know this, there’s like an 80 year study, the longest study about anything, period. But it was a study on happiness over 80 years. The number one thing they connected to people’s happiness. You know what it was,
Trevor Mauch: (03:36)
Dude, I I think I saw it was friends and relationships or something like that, wasn’t
Tony Javier: (03:40)
It? Connect connection with people. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t necessarily the amount of connections, it was just that they were intentional about connecting with people on a regular basis. And, and I tell you what, I, in the past three years, I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been. And I can tell you a lot of it has to do with connections. You know, the, the family reunion group, we’re gonna go see Yeah. Having these conversations with people like yourself, it took me probably 15 years to kind of figure that out. Yeah. That relationships were a huge part of just being happy. And then a part of success because you and I are have collaborated on some things. Matt and I have collaborated on some things, the groups that he, I mean, it’s just, there’s so much that can happen when you, um, when you, when you have relationships and, and I think one of your big successes is probably that as well, because the way you connect with people and have been able to, to bring that positive energy that I talked about. And, and it’s just super, it’s a super cool trait to have. ’cause you naturally have that. For me, I feel like I kind of need to, and it’s not on fake by any means, but I feel like I have to pull ’cause I’m a, a super introvert by nature. Oh yeah. So for me to have a lot of conversations, I kind of have to spend some energy. I’m not used to expending, but I know for like people like you and Matt Andrews is, it just comes supernatural. You know? You let,
Trevor Mauch: (04:49)
Let’s, let’s spend a few minutes on this because we, we’ll, I’ll go over whatever topics you want me to dive into, man. Like, like we talked passionate about entrepreneurship. We can talk data and lead gen, but let’s sit on this here because I’m with you. I have found more joy in my life the past three to five years than I did the, the previous 10. And, and people can go, well, you make more money today though. That’s why like, you’re happier ’cause you make more money. I can tell you that there were moments where I made a lot less money and was way happier than moments than I was maybe even this six months stretch, you know, three years ago or seven years ago. And every single time as I look back at it and go like, what created more of that joy? Uh, money only amplifies who you already are.
Trevor Mauch: (05:28)
Right? It, it doesn’t make you a better person, it just gives you some more options. But for me, every single time it was like I try to find more of that joy or find more of that fulfillment thinking I was gonna hit the next revenue goal and then the clouds are gonna part, the angels are gonna sing. My life is gonna be better. And then, you know it, when you hit that first revenue goal, whether it’s, oh my gosh, I had my first 10,000 month, or I made my first dollar right? Or my first deal. Or dude I made, I had my first a hundred thousand a month. You think the clouds are gonna part, the angels are gonna sing. It doesn’t, you just, just set a new goal. Have my first million dollar month, your first million dollar plus month. It’s like, it doesn’t change.
Trevor Mauch: (06:02)
And so for me, once I realized that the path of fulfillment was not the new revenue goal, that was just kind of the game. And that was the ability to then grow a business, to create impact, uh, the joy came from the people I met along the way. Yeah. And it was slowing down and saying, how do I structure in my life, like in my life? And if you wanna go down this path, dude, it could be kind of fun. How do I structure in my life today intentional connection with people in a way that adds so much joy that it requires very little effort. You may not know this, Tony. I’m an introvert dude. Big time. I’m an, I guess I don’t think, yeah, I don’t think Matt Andrews is, I think he’s like, as extroverts it can come. But if I’m in a group of people and I’m not like Trevor, the carrot guy, I’d much rather be back there in the corner talking to one person mm-hmm.
Trevor Mauch: (06:47)
than on a group. And for me, what what I’ve learned is that I have a purpose that I really believe in so much to help entrepreneurs build businesses of freedom and impact. Because I want you guys to create impact in your communities. That’s where we change the world. That I’m like, dude, I have to step outta this, this, this shell to go out there and passionately talk about my purpose. Uh, because if I wanna make that impact, I have to, I have to become this person. And so when I’m having conversations like this, I’m extremely outgoing. But you put me in a, you put me in a, a group of people that is not like my expertise or it’s outside of this world, I’m, I’m probably gonna be back there talking to one person. Much more comfortable being in a very small group at that point. Yeah.
Tony Javier: (07:26)
I’m the same way. I’m a hundred percent the same way. And it’s interesting ’cause I did say you were more extroverted. I think that’s how I worded it. And a lot of people say that about me when I say I’m introverted. Like, what? Like, you, you speak, you do podcasts, you do videos. And I’m like, that’s because I enjoy what I do. And I’m, you know, ’cause if someone just comes up to me, just starts talking randomly about some kind of subject I have no idea about, I’m just gonna shut down. If they talk real estate, they talk business and conversations like we’re gonna have today, then it’s a lot easier for me to, to open up and, and talk. So, love it. So yeah. It sounds like we have some some similar philosophies. And it’s interesting ’cause we talked about, you know, talking about data and all that good stuff.
Tony Javier: (08:02)
And we’re getting into this, which is great. I love, I love talking about this. So I think a good segue is, is talking about kind of building businesses that you want to be, you really wanna be a part of, really want to own. Yeah. So when I started my business, um, over 20 years ago, I thought, man, I just, I want a business that makes a lot of money, right? Mm-hmm. That’s, that’s the goal. I think when most people start their businesses. I want freedom, I want money, I wanna be able to buy things. And for me it’s, it’s shifted over the last probably five to seven years into how can I build something that runs without me? That my team loves to come to work they love to be a part of. We have a great culture of teamwork, got a lot of great things that we put in our business that I feel like has, uh, helped us to sustain where we are now and help grow and, and really have enjoyed more of what we do.
Tony Javier: (08:47)
Hmm. Um, so you mentioned that you like talking about, uh, I think you mentioned it, you’ve kind of said it the same way, or maybe I stole what you said, business that you really want to own. Mm-hmm. , you have a lot of employees. Like I have, uh, a very lean team. I think I’ve got 15 or so on staff, but I know you run a big software company, you’ve got a lot of employees, so it’s a lot harder for you, I imagine, to keep that culture and all of that good stuff. So kind of dive into that a little bit. How you still maintain your presence with all of the people that you have and you’re still just balanced and you, and you still love going to work. Kind of talk us through that a little bit,
Trevor Mauch: (09:23)
Dude. Yeah. Thi this topic is, is so good. And at, at the event next week, I’m gonna be diving deep on this man. So I’m, I’m pumped about it. But I, I think, I think the first thing, Tony, is I never want to have a bigger team. Like I never wanted to have a bigger team when, when, when I started Carrot. And to give everyone full context, you know, where I’m coming from here, I’ve been, been an entrepreneur since I was in college. I’ve never had a job before. Outside of one that I created. I’ve had seven businesses, three of them completely failed miserably, maybe even four depending on where you draw the line of failure. And, um, so most of my businesses have failed, or at least half of them have. And over the years, I, for me have discovered like, what is it that I enjoy in, in business?
Trevor Mauch: (10:00)
And, and I started to, I started to really look at things, Tony, to go, well, I’m gonna stop looking at my time as how much R o I can I, can I get in my time from this makes me money into how can I get R o i into this gives me energy. And when I started to shift that in probably 2011, 12, around the 13, I went from being pretty darn burnout and not wanting to build a team because me thinking building a team equals more pain. If I’m already in pain right now in this phase of my business than I add more people to the mix that equals more pain. So I wanna do the opposite of this and I’m gonna scale back into what’s comfortable, which is what most of us do. And so at that time I said, well, does business have to be that way?
Trevor Mauch: (10:36)
And I started to look at where I was spending my time and I created something I call the energy audit. And it’s really simple. Everybody on on this call can listen. Uh, you can do this and you can follow along, but you can grab a piece of paper or we’ve got our worksheet. You can get, don’t even have to have to opt into it. carrot.com/energy. Just go get it. There’s no opt-in required. Just get the darn worksheet, carrot.com/energy. And you write, you put a line down the middle of the paper and you write down energy drain and energy given that piece of paper. Okay? And then on one side of it, on the energy drain side, you write down anything in your average week that drains your energy. I’m talking life stuff, business stuff, whatever. It could be a relationship or this specific person. It could be an activity.
Trevor Mauch: (11:14)
I’ll give you guys some examples for me. When I first did my first energy audit in 2012, uh, when I had created that processing, there’s gotta be a different way. There’s gotta be a way that entrepreneurship can give you energy, can light me up and potentially make more, make me more money. And I had a hypothesis, ’cause at that time I was burned out my previous company. I said, what if I just went all in on energy? I wonder if I’d also make more money. Uh, but I said energy first, money second. And so what usually happens, so people, they chase money and then their energy is what gets depleted. And then they go home with the crumbs left for their, for their, their spouse and their children. They go home and they lay, they immediately go to the couch. ’cause they’re so wore out from the, that they literally can’t stand to do anything else other than flip that TV on and just veg out.
Trevor Mauch: (11:55)
And so you’re writing in all the things that drain your energy. For me, I love strategy gives me energy. I hate tactics. Like I don’t wanna do any of the execution. I I want to blow on the whiteboard, like get my stuff on there. I wanna leave the room and have someone to do that work. I love this kind of stuff. I love coaching. I love talking to smart entrepreneurs. I love stories. I love history. I love my thinking up cool marketing hooks, but I don’t wanna be the guy now to go build the page. But my previous company was almost all execution. 10% strategy, 90% execution. And so on the other side, if you wanna write down all the things that give you energy in your life, especially the things you’re not doing right now. So at that time I wasn’t really working out ’cause I didn’t have time for it, right?
Trevor Mauch: (12:32)
Like, I was working so many hours, I didn’t have time to work out. So I, I wrote down there working out, spending my time with, with my wife and kids. I love strategy. Uh, I love doing interviews with entrepreneurs. I didn’t have a podcast at that time. I started writing all these things down and at the bottom of this worksheet, and this is where it goes into the team side at the bottom of this worksheet and what, what they say is what’s not measured can’t be moved, right? And so I would put down at the bottom, I’d say, what percentage of my average week is spent in the energy drain stuff versus the energy give stuff. And at that time it was about 70 to 80% of my average week was energy drain stuff. I’m like, dude, no. No wonder I’m getting burned out, right?
Trevor Mauch: (13:06)
Mm-hmm. , no wonder I don’t enjoy my work because I’m going to work every day to do things that suck me dry. And then at the end of the week, I’m wondering, and I’m always looking for these other options. I’m getting distracted by other opportunities because I think that thing might lead me away from this thing that I’m hating right now. It would’ve been probably, you know, around that time, 2012, I made the aim. I said, what if I could every quarter trade an energy drain for an energy give? Could I get this ratio to move from 80% of my work and life draining my energy to 80% giving me energy. And as I started to do it, Tony, one by one, you’d circle one of those items on the energy give or the energy drain column. I’d write down, well how many hours a week am I spending on this?
Trevor Mauch: (13:42)
On an average week? Okay, well I’m writing blog posts ’cause they make carrot money and they’re these 3000 word blog posts. But I love the strategy man. It drains me terribly to write them. Uh, this would’ve been probably 2015 right after I started Carrot. I remember it was the middle of the afternoon. Um, I I had just wrapped up one of those, uh, all night content binges. ’cause I had a deadline. I had to get the article to my, my blog guy. I wrote a great article based on data that showed something that was happening on the lead gen side with Carrot. And then I hopped in the car about 10 o’clock in the morning with my family going over the mountain to my parents’ house. And in the middle of the day, I remember I was awake one second, fully alert one second, going up through the mountains, winding terrain.
Trevor Mauch: (14:22)
The next second I wake up heading towards a guardrail up in the mountains with a ravine on the other side. Mm-hmm. Literally just like the movies right? Where just in time. And you go, there’s no way that happened. That guy like saw it and swerved just in time and his bumper like barely hit the guardrail. It’s exactly how it happened with my three kids in the backseat. My wife here, she was reading. She didn’t see it. And I almost ran our family over a cliff because I was thinking that I had to work my butt off. ’cause I didn’t wanna hire employees. And I had to work late getting all these things done, done rather than learning how to delegate and build a team. In that moment, I got outta the car, my wife’s like, what happened? And I said, babe, I fell asleep. I need you to drive.
Trevor Mauch: (14:57)
I didn’t drive in our family vacations for probably six months after that. Um, ’cause I was trying to get my work life back to where it should have been. And I, I went home and I said, non-negotiable. Computer doesn’t come in the house anymore. I don’t work. We don’t work nights, don’t work weekends. And I have these goals. How am I gonna reach these goals if I don’t work nights or weekends anymore? The only way is through people. And so at that point I’m like, dude, I’m just gonna change my approach. It’s from thinking that employees equal stepping into more pain to finding the right employees actually can equal driving towards purpose and profits driving towards impact. I just need to find the right people. So we have 65 employees today and, um, I could work far less now than I did five years ago if I wanted to.
Trevor Mauch: (15:36)
I just enjoy what I’m doing. And I, I think the biggest thing too, I’m, I’m gonna kind of take it further down this rabbit hole. What I didn’t realize in that 20 15, 20 16, or the 2012 period of my life is I didn’t realize that naturally businesses run on rhythms. Okay? Just like life’s do. Like, like, like our life does. Businesses, uh, break at threes and tens. Businesses break. You’re, you’re gonna see the first break at a hundred thousand, then 300,000, then a million, then 3 million, then 10 million, they break again at 30. Then after you cross a hundred it breaks again. Now I haven’t done that one. And so I’m, I’m, I’m working through the eight figure one right now. And at that time, in that 20, 20 15, 20 16 when I was working late and almost ran my family over ravine, we were right over the million dollar year mark at that time.
Trevor Mauch: (16:18)
And I didn’t know how to delegate. Well, I had eight people working for me and all these direct reports and were coming back to me. It’s like, hey, here’s this thing you delegated, Trevor, how is it? I’d review everything, send it back out to them, they’d bounce back again. It’s like rubber balls, right? And I couldn’t get any of my work done. So the only time to get it done was after my kids and wife went in bed and I’d stay up until two, two or three in the morning. Hmm. And so as I realized this, I’m like, okay, as entrepreneurs, when we hit those pain lines, add around the 300 k, add around a million, add around the 3 million add around 10 million and, and so on, when we hit those pain lines, and I’ll throw it over to you. We either have, we have, we have one of two choices.
Trevor Mauch: (16:52)
We can either hit the pain line and go backwards and say, this is comfortable back here. Right? That’s what I, what that’s why did in 2012 hit the pain line. This is comfortable. I’m gonna stay here. 2015, my vision and my purpose drove me forward. And I said, okay, I have two choices. I can hit the pain line and stay here where it’s comfortable, about a million a year and with this team size, or I can learn what I need to learn to grow through the million a year phase and get better. And so that’s what I chose to do. And I’d be happy to walk through exactly what people need to do at 300 k, a million, 3 million, 10 million, uh, to grow through those pain lines. But, uh, people were ne necessary to achieve the purpose along the way.
Tony Javier: (17:30)
No, that’s really good stuff. It’s, it’s interesting. We have a lot of similarities. I have what’s called an activities assessment. I don’t call it an energy audit, but it’s pretty similar where you list all the activities you do. And most of it has to be work re most of it’s work related is, is what I run entrepreneurs through. And I have them rate one, two to three each activity. Mm-hmm. One is it gives you energy, it’s important and produces high dollar value. Yep. And then a three is sucks your energy does not produce dollar value. It is not very important. Mm-hmm. And then, then two is in between. Yep. Um, so I, I try and do that at least once a year. And it’s interesting when I do that ’cause I’ll catch myself and be like, same thing. It’s like, man, I’m spending way too much time on the things that don’t drive dollar value and don’t provide me energy.
Tony Javier: (18:14)
Yeah. And once you start doing that, I mean, even if you’re not making as much money, which actually what happens is you, by experience, you start making more money. You do because you have better ideas. You’re able to lead your team better. You’re able to make better decisions. You’re able to have time to meet with people and, and create partnerships and relationships. So it’s a huge mind shift. Um, and a lot of people don’t understand that. They think, and part of the reason is the way we were, we were exposed to a lot of information over the last 15 to 20 years. The internet’s come out, right? And it’s big
Trevor Mauch: (18:47)
Time.
Tony Javier: (18:48)
You grind, you wake up earlier, you don’t sleep until you know, you sleep when you’re dead. All that kind of stuff. And it’s, it’s great. The last, it’s probably been the last three years, I would say that that’s kind of like, started to kind of fade out a little bit. But there’s still people with that mindset. And I, I catch myself every once in a while still doing that. Yeah. You know, we, we have our bad habits, but um, like even after this, I’ve got a four o’clock call and I think I’m gonna delegate it to one of my team members and I’m gonna go play pickleball the second. There we go.
Trevor Mauch: (19:14)
. And, and, and that, that’s the thing, right? It’s like we, we need to be doing things that give us energy. Number one, it’s life giving. We, we don’t know how long we’re gonna be here. We don’t know how long the relationships we have in our lives are gonna be there. And, and I think all too often we kind of make this assumption that, that we’re gonna live forever or that that person, that loved one in our lives is gonna live forever. And that, that, uh, sacrificing family or, or loved one time or health for making an extra dollar is, is important. It’s not right. It’s not at all. And and another one of those things, this happened in 2018 where I hit another one of those points. We crossed over the $3 million mark in 2018 with Carrot. And I hit another pain line and I, I call ’em discipline ceilings where you, you see this growth happen and things are going up and you’re like, dude, I’m on fire.
Trevor Mauch: (20:01)
I feel good energy. Like things are hitting, revenue’s growing. But then something happens where like slowly it trickles in. You don’t notice it at first. But uh, you, you start to lose a little bit of momentum and then six months later you go, wow, things are hard again, I don’t know what’s happening. Like I feel like I’m not in, in, in the groove again, my energy’s going down a little bit. I’m kind of doing some things I don’t enjoy. It’s not as easy as it was. And it’s usually you hitting up against this little ceiling where it’s that pain line and you have to adopt new disciplines or habits in your life to enable you to be the person who can actually achieve something greater. And in 2018, for me it was energy again. Like I was doing the right things work-wise, but physically I wasn’t working out.
Trevor Mauch: (20:40)
I wasn’t eating good. And so this kind of goes back into connection. I’m like, dude, I need to get this back in my life. And so I tried all four gyms here in little Roseburg, Oregon, uh, even the one across the street and I wouldn’t even go. And so then I’m like, how do I, how do I shortcut this? And I took this big room we’ve got outside of my office. We made a full on gym with all the rogue equipment. Hired a, a fitness coach. He has an office here in the building too. I’m like, no, you need to have an office here. Rent it from me. You’re gonna be in here. And he comes in three days a week and I have three or four of my best buddies in town who are also entrepreneurs. We get together every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We’ve been doing it for shoot, going on five years now. Yeah. That’s
Tony Javier: (21:14)
Cool. I love that. Yeah.
Trevor Mauch: (21:16)
I love that. And so like that kind of stuff, you’re gonna hit these discipline ceilings when that pain line happens. You just need to pull back and ask yourself. Um, not like why is this hard? But you need to recognize that it is hard, that it’s natural number, number two. It’s like, this is natural. If you’re having that pain line around 300 k, around a million, around three, around 10, it’s natural. You’re normal. You now just need to need to put a picture in your mind of who do I need to become to be the leader who can lead through that. And oftentimes around that million dollar mark, if you haven’t got to that spot, you’re gonna run out of energy. ’cause you’re working your butt off. Get moving and build fellowship into that too. It’s fun.
Tony Javier: (21:53)
You know, it’s interesting, you were literally talking to the threes and tens and I was going on my mind. I’m like, we just hit 3,000,001 of our companies. And I’m like, we just hit a ceiling. And right when I said ceiling in my head you said a ceiling. And I’m like, we need to, we need to continue this conversation maybe offline a little bit. Because there is something about it where you get to a certain point, you hit a ceiling and you’re like, it’s not that things are like much harder. It’s just we hit a plateau and it’s like, we need to get to that next. We don’t have to get to that next level. I mean, it’s comfortable. Mm-hmm. , but we’re not wired that way. Obviously. We need, we need to figure out how to get to that next point because that’s, that’s just the way our minds work. So. Yep. So I love that.
Trevor Mauch: (22:27)
It’s kind of, it’s kind of on in these cycles too. I, I have something, uh, a framework I made called the three year turn and burn cycle that I found for me, it’s usually about a three year cycle that unless you’re just this crazy, crazy fast growing company, it’s somewhere around two to three years, two to four years where you start a business. Um, or you have a, you have a vision. Like it all starts with a vision, right? And oftentimes starting a business starts with the vision. You had mentioned earlier that your journey was starting with the vision for wanting to kind of move away from what you’re doing before and really move towards something more exciting. It’s oftentimes moving away from an income ceiling in a job that you didn’t like. It’s moving away from a job you don’t like. It’s moving away from people saying that you can’t achieve something.
Trevor Mauch: (23:06)
You’re like, I’m just gonna show them. Right? So that’s your initial vision and fuel. Most of the time our visions in our businesses not to go change the world at the start, it’s to get rid of this situation that I don’t like. Right. But about three years into that thing, I talked to two entrepreneurs. There’s seven figure guys right now that they’re three years into their business and they hit the seven figures in this space in three years. And both of them came to me through our new program that we’ve got. And it’s like, uh, they both came with pain and they said, dude, I want to get a C O O and outsource this. I wanna go do something else. I’m like, why do you wanna do that? And they started talking about all these pains that they were going through, right? And I said, well, you’re at what I call the three-year return and burn cycle.
Trevor Mauch: (23:42)
Three years in you’ve had some success. You’ve ran out of runway on your vision. ’cause you now that thing that motivated you back there no longer applies. ’cause you overcame it. But what you didn’t do is you didn’t shift to a new vision. And about every three years when we need to shift to a new vision, we need to take that business vision, revamp it, and connect it to the life vision that we have. So the business fuels our life. But if we don’t, we get to the spot where we feel like we’re maintaining the business, we feel like we we’re, the, the business is draining energy again. Now here’s where it gets dangerous, Tony. And this is where I’m always continually trying to protect myself against. It is at that spot where you run outta runway and the pain line starts to come again.
Trevor Mauch: (24:17)
You start to think, shoot, do I want to be in this business? Maybe I should sell it. Maybe I should go start this other thing over here. Maybe I’m gonna, I’m gonna get distracted by this shiny object over here. And we go do that because as entrepreneurs, we crave creation. We crave new, we want to create new oftentimes. And where I’ve seen a lot of mistakes happen, and I’ve made this mistake as well, is our first inclination is to innovate outside of that business that got us there. Because we think that business is what’s causing pain. And so we go create a new business without plugging someone into that existing business that got us there. Uh, so then you, you get distracted over here, all of a sudden your existing business goes down like this.
Tony Javier: (24:53)
Been there many times.
Trevor Mauch: (24:54)
Exactly. And and that’s why it’s this three year cycle. So a couple things that people can do is you can keep on getting distracted every three years by not having a new vision for your existing business that excites you and how it connects you to your life vision. And then you can start something new and always be on this cycle, every three years, always be frustrated. Or what I have challenged myself to do more now is really look at that and say, okay, uh, let me look at my vision. Have I ran out a runway on the vision? Yeah. We either achieved it or it’s not relevant anymore. Okay, I need a new vision that excites me. But where do I want to be in life? So I’ve got my 20 year, my 10 year, and my five year personal vision story. And I say, well, what must my business be like in order to support that five year personal vision story?
Trevor Mauch: (25:35)
Okay, cool. Can this existing business get me there? And what do I not like about my job in this business that I want to change that would keep me excited about keeping that, that that business going. And then I revi revitalize that business vision for the next three years. And then I say, well, who do I need to plug in over here now to get me out of those things that are draining energy so I can go innovate within this business and grow more value within the business? I’ve already got any point that you evaluate that existing business, you say, you know what? I think I’m done with this business. Like I’ve looked at it, I think I can adjust it. I can hire another person. But you know what, this is an amazing business for this phase of my life. I’m ready to move on, move on. Happily sell it. Do whatever you need to do. Put someone in place and move on to the next thing when you’re ready. But most people are inclined to get distracted first. ’cause they’re running away from the pain of their current business without just creating a new vision that excites them, tying it to their personal and plugging someone in over there three year turn of burn cycle. Man, it’s so common. Like 80% of entrepreneurs I talk to go through it. Uh,
Tony Javier: (26:31)
Yeah. I think, I think the biggest thing with that also is that people are so immersed in their businesses. Mm-hmm. , they’re grinding, they’re working, you know, getting up really early and working really late and, and working weekends, which I am on the same philosophy as you as I am home five o’clock every single day. That is my, that is my promise to the family. Few minutes late every once in a while, but it’s five o’clock for the most part and sometimes even earlier and then on the weekends don’t work. But I think a lot of people just don’t have time to step back and, and create that vision because they’re so busy putting out fires. And what’s interesting is fires typically aren’t even fires. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. , if someone said it the other day, they’re like, if you’re, if you’re putting out fires, it’s probably ’cause you made yourself a firefighter, you know, you’re creating fires that you didn’t need to. No, I’m sorry. You’re the arsonist. Yeah. And, and the firefighter. Right. So I think people will take their businesses and, you know, again, I think both of us were in the same situation at one point where we just felt like we had to be immersed in our businesses that we couldn’t step out of it because things would fall apart because the business needed us. ’cause everything needed to filter through us, and we need to have control of everything. So,
Trevor Mauch: (27:40)
And it’s normal. So it’s totally normal feeling that it’s normal guys. And that’s the cool thing. There’s a prescription, there’s a prescription to come out of that. So make sure you guys are, you know, diving deeper in Tony’s community, diving deeper in his world, find mentors or people who have done that and just recognize that the answer isn’t always moving away from this thing that creates pain. It’s looking at it and recognizing, well, what stage is that business in and what are the things that need to be fixed at that stage? And it’s very, very specific things that need to be fixed at the 300 k, a million, 3 million, 10 million don’t have time for on this call probably, but I’d be happy to come back and dive into all those in detail if, if it made sense.
Tony Javier: (28:17)
No, that’s some good stuff. So let’s, um, let, let’s transition a little bit and, and finish our last segment on data. Yeah. I know you’re, you’re big into data. You guys run a lot of websites for a lot of real estate investors and other industries as well. You mentioned before we started, um, the call, um, the, the show something about data. And we didn’t, I, we, I didn’t dive into it. I just figured it had maybe had to do with some website data. So I’m always interested when we talk, when we have our calls, we, uh, you know, we talk a little bit about data. So tell me what data you’ve, uh, accumulated recently that you think would be good for our listeners to, to have. Dude,
Trevor Mauch: (28:50)
For sure. And, and I don’t, I don’t know if a visual would be helpful. I’m sure most people listen to this on audio. So I’ll, I’ll try to give the best verbal visual as I can, but I can bring up a visual that’s the data too, if, if that would be helpful. But I’ll kind of tell the story. So what, what we’re seeing right now, we’re, we’re recording this in, you know, early 2023 heading into Q two or so. But even if you’re listening to this in a year or two years from now, this can be relevant for you because it’s gonna help you kind of look at those cyclical patterns in real estate. Okay? So what we’re seeing right now is at the macro level on, on the real estate market. And Tony, you’ve got more insight under this than, than I likely do.
Trevor Mauch: (29:26)
But on the macro level, you know, we’re at a spot where home prices are, are likely gonna soften more this year in most parts around the country. There’s gonna be some pockets that are still gonna be really strong, but they’re not, I don’t think we’re gonna see a crash, right? Because the, there’s still, um, an inventory shortage. And the inventory shortage are still up, you know, holding up some of the, some of the home prices there, even though interest rates are gonna go up a little bit more. I feel, I think they’ll be higher in a year from now than they are today. That’ll dampen a little bit of demand. But inventory is still so low in most parts of the market still gonna be strong. And so when we look at the overall, overall dynamic of coming out of this like crazy covid fueled spending spree for two years from everyone around the world, inflation shoots up when inflation shoots up.
Trevor Mauch: (30:08)
You know, it’s simplifying this, but the fed’s response is they have to tame inflation. So they raise interest rates, which, uh, you know, decreases spending a little bit. It decreases the flow of money, which we’re in this spot right now where you have people who are interested to sell their home because they saw the price that their neighbor sold out six months ago. Or they may be having a financial trouble because they got laid off, or whatever’s happening in the macro economies. A lot of weird things happening right now. But there, the, what we’re seeing is there’s a big trend of people searching for, to sell their homes right now. It increased after the start of the year, but then you end up seeing an increase in conversion rates too. And I can show you the data. There’s an increase in conversion rates, especially on Google pay-per-click, massive increase in conversion rates this past eight months.
Trevor Mauch: (30:48)
But what we have is we have a decrease on lead to deal close ratio. And that’s not just online marketing, we’ve corroborated it with a lot of offline sources as well. Or your, your, your lead to deal ratios have decreased in general the past one to two quarters. Now people might be asking, why is that? What do I do about it? So I’m gonna tell you guys what, what I’m directing people to do about it is, number one, we’ve seen Google paid search conversion rates increased by about 20 to 30% this past six months. So you can actually get a lower cost lead today on Google ads than you were would a year ago, which sounds great, right? But the, the problem is your, your, your cost per deal has actually increased from a year ago because the amount of leads it takes to get a deal right now has increased because there’s those people that are on the fence, they’re in this gray area, they’re in what, what I call the shoulder season of the market where they’re not crazy motivated yet, but they kind of want to sell.
Trevor Mauch: (31:38)
They see the price that their neighbor got eight months ago. They kind of want that price a little bit, but the investors know where the market’s going. They’re not willing to pay that. So we’re in this three to six, maybe three to eight month period where we’re gonna have to figure that out. The sellers are gonna have to figure out they can’t sell it for that price. And then the investors are gonna have to figure out to find the most motivated people who are willing to sell at a fair price. Now. So what I’m suggesting people do is as long as your Google ads are performing at profitability or a little bit more, keep that going because we’re gonna see things snap back in three to eight months to where you’re, you’re lead to deal close ratios I feel are gonna really spike towards Q four, maybe Q three, probably q one of, of, of the next year we’re, we’re gonna see a spike of lead to deal conversions because as we see more of the economic situation unfold, Amazon announced another 9,000 layoffs.
Trevor Mauch: (32:24)
Today we’re seeing a bunch of other things. I think we’ve barely seen, uh, what the economy’s gonna unfold for us in front of us. We’re gonna find a lot more motivation being a lot more acute in 3, 6, 8 months. So if you’re tempted y’all to stop your marketing or to pull back back your spend, or I know Tony’s massive on, on tv, I don’t know what you guys are seeing on tv, but if you guys are seeing your lead to deal ratio, uh, you know, decrease a bit on TV or any other channel as long as it’s profitable or near break even, I would say keep that stuff going. ’cause when people are ready to snap back in and actually ready to sell at, in droves, in three to six months, they’re gonna be going to the people who have seen you, who’ve seen you on TV commercials and they recognize that guy.
Trevor Mauch: (33:05)
Like, that’s the guy I’m gonna sell to when I’m ready. Or they’ve gone to your website and opted in and you’re a lead and you’re following up with him every, every four to six weeks. Hey, are you still looking to sell this property? Not today, but man they might be in six months ’cause their situation’s gonna change. And so that’s, I would suggest with people. Now people might be saying, how do you know this is gonna happen? Trevor, same thing happened in Covid and I called it to the T in Covid ad spend pulled back. You, you could get your, you could get leads for 30 to 50% cheaper for that three months. I knew it was gonna go up once things started normalized during covid, but conversion rates went down. So conversion rates on leads went down, but the searches went up. And so what does that tell us?
Trevor Mauch: (33:40)
People are still looking to sell, but the conversion rates are down means there’s a, there’s a, a gap in the demand and the actual people taking action, which means they’re not, they don’t feel like they can either sell because of covid or they can’t find the right property. Eventually they’re gonna need to though. And so I was telling people, guys, do not pull your ad spend back. Okay. Even though you’re seeing less of a return on it now, I think you’re gonna see a spike in a return towards the end of 2020, uh, middle of 2021 going on, going throughout 2021. And we saw people absolutely crush it with that. So I’ll give you three steps. Keep your marketing going as long as it’s breakeven or better. Uh, make sure you have Google retargeting set up or Facebook retargeting set up on your websites. That’s, we help our, our clients do at care as well.
Trevor Mauch: (34:19)
So if people go there and don’t opt in, you’re following them around on Facebook with good credibility, good videos, good ads that loop them back in. Number three, guys follow up like mad. I was talking to a big investor who’s down in Texas last week and he has seven flips right now that are, he’s trying to get rid of them. Basically he overbought last year. He’s got seven flips. He’s like, dude, I’ve got so much money out right now. I’m literally down to like my last 20 grand and I’m trying to figure out how to get these flips sold and he’s wanting to ramp up marketing. I’m like, no dude, you don’t ramp up marketing. You focus on getting your first two properties sold ’cause that’s gonna give you 300 grand back in the bank so you don’t go bankrupt and then create a plan to get the rest of the property sold.
Trevor Mauch: (34:57)
But what you need to do is all those leads. ’cause I discovered he was running Google ads. I’m like, dude, what are you doing? He goes, oh well I’ve got 40 leads in here. Hasn’t haven’t got a deal from it yet. Have you followed up on these though? No, it’s been busy, dude. You don’t need to spend any marketing blows those fricking deals you’ve already got. Get them sold, get cash back in and you pick up the phone and manually text if you have to or call all those leads every so often. ’cause you’re, you’ve got one to two deals in that group right now. You’re just not mining ’em. So I’ll stop with that. But it’s an amazing opportunity right now guys and gals get cheaper leads right now, get momentum and I think you can really capitalize in three to six months. Big time.
Tony Javier: (35:36)
Yeah, I actually said that last quarter of last year, people were pulling back on their marketing and I said to myself, you know, if you have to, if you’ve got an inventory issue, like you said, we did have one client that was crushing it on TV and his market kind of took a, a pretty decent dip and he had a lar he had a lot of inventory mm-hmm. . Um, this was in Colorado. And so I totally understood that. I’m like, get your, get your property sold, come back to us once, uh, you know, once you get your inventory, uh, situation taken care of. But if you’re doing deals and you’re still able to afford the ad spend, there’s a lot of people pulling back. Mm-hmm. , it’s gonna get cheaper for advertising. It’s getting a little bit cheaper for tv ’cause some people are pulling back and I figured it would be the other marketing, uh, same thing with other marketing methods.
Tony Javier: (36:17)
Yep. And so I’m in the same philosophy as you. It’s like if it’s, if it’s making money, continue it because, um, you know, investors are pulling back, they’re getting scared. Mm-hmm. , there’s gonna be less people chasing deals. There’s more regulations coming out with, you know, texting and all that kind of stuff. And if you can outlast the, the next, you know, six to 12 months of, you know, potential softening of the market, which I still, I don’t know if it’s gonna soften quite as much as people say, but that’s another conversation. Just gotta, just gotta spend money when people, people aren’t, yeah. You gotta be smarter with your numbers. You know, you may have to decrease your offers by another 10% just to compensate and instead of doing big rehabs, you may have to do small rehabs or instead of doing rehabs in general, you may have to whole tail or just start wholesaling to make sure you’re not stuck with a bunch of inventory.
Tony Javier: (37:04)
And uh, I will say, um, I do have properties that I bought last year with other partners that we’re we’re kind of struggling with right now. Yeah. So I kind of get what people are going through, but we also have other areas of our business where we’re turning and burning quite a bit and we’re able to sustain it. So we, we really haven’t pulled back on marketing other than one channel just recently that wasn’t performing well for us mm-hmm. , but other than that we’re, we’re, you know, still pedal the metal for the most part and continuing to, to figure out how to do deals. So same philosophy.
Trevor Mauch: (37:33)
Yeah. And, and, and if people, here’s kind of the, the, my last thought on the marketing side guys, if people are thinking about pulling the marketing back, you, you need to really look at not just what’s happening in the f in this next 90 days. You need to think about where’s my pipeline coming in from in six months, uh, you know, in four months. And so if, if you are having that pipeline issue, like, like the, the gentleman I talked to in Texas, he was literally down to like no money. So I didn’t want him to spend his last money on advertising now. Like, get that first one closed, but then you got 200 k, get the ads coming back in ’cause you’re gonna need pipeline again in three to six months. And guys, what, what Tony and his crew does on the TV side, we, we work with some big investors who leverage Kara for, uh, the website side of it.
Trevor Mauch: (38:12)
And you end up seeing a good bunch of people who end up doing a branded search for the company name or the phone number that’s on that TV ad. Make sure you pair the two together. So if you’re doing just online with Kara, you need to find some really strong offline sources. And if you’re doing the volume that is required to be able to do a big on offline advertising, like TV guys work with, with Tony’s group, if you’re doing offline marketing, radio, TV advertising, direct mail, you need to have that online component dialed in. ’cause people are gonna Google search your company name and just by adjusting the website and what’s on it and the credibility, you’re gonna see, uh, sometimes dramatic increase in, in conversion and r o i from your radio and tv. So go execute the two
Tony Javier: (38:53)
Together. Yeah. Omnipresence marketing, we, uh, you know, we tie direct mail with our, with our tv. We basically tie everything with TV obviously just ’cause that’s, that’s our main marketing channel, but that’s what we work with our clients on, uh, with is that PE people are gonna see your commercial or people are gonna see your postcards, they’re gonna Google you. And if you don’t have that presence online with the Google reviews and a listing mm-hmm. and showing that you’re a legit business, then some of that marketing may not be optimized the way that, uh, that it could be. Yep. Um, so that’s, that’s a good point. Omnipresence marketing, make sure you’re seeing anywhere you can Retargeting, retargeting on Facebook and it doesn’t cost that much to retarget. I mean, it’s cheap. Two, 300 bucks a month usually for the, for the traffic that’s, that’s being driven to your website. So, so good stuff, man. Well, let’s start wrapping up. You work with a lot of investors, so anything that you want to share whether thing more that you’re, you’re seeing from, from real estate investors right now that they’re doing well or, or you know, or maybe even not doing well mm-hmm. , um, or anything with the websites that you, you guys are optimizing with split testing. Any other data that you can provide to us that could be good for people moving forward this year?
Trevor Mauch: (39:59)
For sure, dude, and let me, yeah, I’ll, I’ll kind of verbalize a couple things. So guys, video has been talked about for a while and when we dive into our data, and I’m just gonna kind of verbalize it here, but when we dive into our data, the number one highest converting lead source across the 10,000 plus websites in our system, almost a million leads a year coming through our system. The number one highest converting lead source, YouTube, and then IG stories now not by volume, right? So not by volume, it’s still Google organic search, uh, number one, uh, Google Ads, number two, Facebook ads, number three, and then it goes through the smattering every of everything else. But the reason I say this is video is so important right now, uh, everyone is, is, is looking for video to build credibility, uh, to learn who that person is. And so find some ways, Tony’s got some video on his website, so I think at the very least have a video on your darn website and in your marketing and obviously TV is video and that’s one of the reasons it works so well. But make sure you have video attached to it and upload those to YouTube. And we are finding is about 5,000 seller leads came from YouTube last year. They literally clicked the link on YouTube and they went to a site and they convert.
Tony Javier: (41:10)
So are those organic YouTube clicks or are those paid YouTube clicks, huh?
Trevor Mauch: (41:14)
The, from, from our system. It just shows YouTube, which would then infer to me that it’s likely an organic click. So number,
Tony Javier: (41:21)
Number one, you’re saying that’s, that’s your number one source of leads coming into your websites is YouTube and Instagram stories.
Trevor Mauch: (41:28)
It’s the, they’re the highest converting. So the, the number one by volume is Google organic, direct and paid search. Okay? The highest converting is video. So here, this is the action item here. It’s because people are able to, you see you, experience you and build more trust more quickly. So then when they land on your website, they’re twice as likely to become a lead. And so whatever marketing you’re doing, guys, and this actually plays big time to radio and TV, is if you can lead with video before they get to your site or before they call you up, you’re gonna have a dramatic, uh, uh, chance to increase that conversion rate, uh, big time. Um, another couple things too on the marketing side is Google’s doing a lot of changes. So Google made some massive changes last year in 2022. They made a big, uh, Google Core update in May that really focuses on something called eat It’s Expertise, authority, and Trust.
Trevor Mauch: (42:17)
And they just rolled out a new core update like two days ago that we’re all gonna start to see what, what’s happening there. So we’re probably not gonna switch your site over to Carrot until that whole thing shakes out. So there’s not that timing to go shoot this caused this or not. So we’re gonna let that shake out for a while. But it’s the EAT score. And it’s EAT is expertise, authority, trust. Now what is Google looking for? They’re wanting to have people be able to discover that this website’s more authoritative on the topic. Now, how do you show that? Well, you have good content on the website. Video’s a part of that. We found that when videos are on the websites, they actually saw a better boost in their ranking after the May, 2022 update than web websites that didn’t have video on ’em. They helped ’em show more authority, trust the websites that had more credibility.
Trevor Mauch: (42:58)
You, you’ve got a ton on your site on, uh, the websites have more credibility reviews that say, we’ve been in business for 14 years, we’ve done a thousand deals on the about page. The more of that, Google starts to look at it and go, okay, they’re an expert in this thing. Right? And they’ve got trust in there. The more Google reviews you’re building up the link to your site, the more that trust score goes up as well. Mm-hmm. , and we’ve, we’ve got a big data report coming out next month that literally breaks down the big losers and big winners. We picked 20 of each across our system and we said, what were the key indicators of the sites that grew really good on organic ranking versus the ones that dropped after that may update? And we’re gonna do the same thing on this one here. Mm-hmm. . So guys, double down on building out the content in your sites expertise, authority, and trust with credibility, testimonials and video. And I think you guys can’t, can’t go wrong there at all. Cool.
Tony Javier: (43:43)
Love it, man. Yeah. Video’s powerful. You know, TV is, is powerful because of the visual aspect. And, and we see the same thing with, with TV leads. When, when leads come through with t from tv, the conversion rate is much higher. ’cause people feel like they’ve seen you, they kind of feel like they know you and they feel like they trust you. So I, I can see the same thing with YouTube. ’cause if they came through from YouTube, chances are they’ve seen at least a minute to 10, potentially 10 minutes worth of video. They click on the link. They already have gotten to see who you are, what you do, and you’ve been able to build trust and credibility with them. So I, I totally understand that. So, cool. Awesome, man. Any last words before we wrap up? Dude,
Trevor Mauch: (44:22)
I, I, I think the biggest thing, I mean, number one, I appreciate you inviting me on here and I’ll see you next week in person. Yeah. Uh, that’ll be a blast. And I think the biggest thing guys, is, you know, I, I, I could teach lead gen for hours. I could do five day workshops on it if you guys wanted me to. And we have tons of free content, so go check it out on our website, it’s carrot.com. But I think the biggest thing, man, is if anyone’s watching this video and you’re in one of those pain, you’re, you’re at or near one of those pain lines, you know, you just cross a hundred grand and you’re like, how do I grow this thing? And I’m feel like I’m swimming and you’re, you’re working overtime, or you’re 300 grand. You started to get your first little employee in there or assistant in some way, and you’re like, dude, I’m working like extra overtime and how do I get ahead more?
Trevor Mauch: (45:00)
Just recognize it’s, it’s normal. And what you need to do though, is you need to plug into groups of people who have been there before and, and who have done that plug into more podcasts from Tony Plug into our podcast. We teach you guys exactly how to get through these phases. So I want you guys to realize that that’s where the growth comes. Not figurative growth. Like, oh, I’m getting to grow my business. I’m talking like literally you get to grow as a human being when things get hard. So start to relish those hard moments, start to make it and reinterpret those hard moments that those are good for you, right? Just like, uh, James one, uh, first, uh, James one says, did a big study that it’s like, it dives in and says, count all trials as blessing, right? Because those trials make you perfect and, and complete, lacking and nothing. And they make you stronger. They help you build faith. And, and guys, even if you’re not a believer or if you’re not religious at all, take that into a different context and go, when things get hard, that’s when you step into it. And so I wanna see you guys step into it, grow through it, you’re gonna get stronger, have faith that you can grow through that. And I’m just excited to see where you guys
Tony Javier: (45:55)
Go. Awesome, man. It’s not the, uh, not always the end result, but who you become in the process. Right? Exactly. And those painful moments are the times you learn and you become a, a much stronger person. So, heck yeah. Love it, man. Good stuff. Yeah. Looks, look forward to seeing you next week, man. And like I said, you’re, uh, you’re one of those guys that’s just super cool to hang out with and talk to and just super genuine. So I appreciate everything you’ve done. What, uh, what is the best way for people to get ahold of you? You have your own Carrot podcast. Um, where else would you like people to go to kind of learn about what you guys do? Yeah,
Trevor Mauch: (46:27)
CarrotCast uh, carrotcast.com or go to Apple or Spotify, check it out. You guys can just go to carrot.com/blog. We have a lot of free information there, A lot of, uh, free articles and content. And I think the, the, the other spot I’ve got, uh, it’s hit me up on ig guys, Trevor dot mock, Trevor dot m a u c h. I post about what we’re doing and the life stuff as well. So hit me up. I answer all my dms and would love to connect you through there.
Tony Javier: (46:49)
Sweet man. I appreciate you, dude. Look forward to connecting again next week and looking forward to getting our site back over to Carrot. We, uh, we’ve been working on that for a while, so excited. Your team, team has been awesome. They’ve been great and you guys have been doing some great things over there. So congrats on the success and look forward to seeing what, uh, what the future brings.
Trevor Mauch: (47:08)
Thank you, buddy. Thanks man. Appreciate you guys
Tony Javier: (47:10)
All.