Travis Johnson: (00:00)
Assuming it’s a normal starter, home starter price, you’re always gonna have a buyer for it. But those are also the most competitive ones from an investors to buy because they also know the same thing. We provide a service, we improve neighborhoods when we buy these houses that are heavily distressed in, in some fashion, we’re only making everything better. But ultimately, I’ll tie it back in, TV was our winner in that regards. So being on TV was the biggest game changer in our business.

Noah Kesslin: (00:24)
When it comes to the tv, I mean, what has been the game changer as, as far as that goes, and what has it done to not only the business, but maybe the numbers as well?

Travis Johnson: (00:35)
I would say TV brings you in a lot better quality lead. Again, when someone reaches out to you to sell their house, boy that really breaks the ice tv. Overall, the lead quality has always been the highest for us. And the warmest lead, when we say warm, it’s most qualified. Like they truly do want to sell their house. You might have $20,000 just to be effective on tv, but if you spend the money and you’re not willing to do the follow up, you’re just money away. People are happy that they sold their house to us, so obviously

Noah Kesslin: (01:03)
You, what’s going on everyone? Welcome back to the REM podcast. My name is Noah, and today we have

Travis Johnson: (01:09)
Travis with Minnesota nice home buyers. Awesome.

Noah Kesslin: (01:12)
Travis, I appreciate you for coming on and taking your time to share with the viewers. I wanna start by just kind of hearing your story a little bit, how you got into real estate, what you’re doing now, just kind of give us a, a quick overview.

Travis Johnson: (01:25)
Sure. Um, I got into real estate, uh, back in, it blurs between 2001, 2002. I always did it part-time, to be honest. I was kind of chicken, you know, I give up a day job to go do this. It’s like, well, let’s see if I can slowly break into the business. And it just took a, a long time for me to build up confidence. Uh, so I kind of started off house hacking, you know, where you kind of buy the, the house, live it, fix it up, and then sell it about every two years and roll the money forward. And that worked well for us until the crash came along and that slowed us way down, you know, like everyone else. And then we just kept plugging ahead and eventually, and it was the last day of 2015. I just remember it was December 31st, 2015.

Travis Johnson: (02:05)
That was my last day at my, uh, employer that I worked at forever. And I decided I got tired of office politics, so I decided I gotta make a change. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that I was gonna become a real estate investor because I was like, I don’t have that much money to kind of like start off, you know, because I always assume you had to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it, and I have to be found out you don’t, it, it’s helpful if you do. I mean, if you do, you’re blessed, but wholesaling is definitely a way that you don’t need money that’s just assigning contracts and getting paid for it. So kind of went down that path and then ultimately formed Minnesota nice home buyers and my wife joined me in the business and here we are all these years later. Awesome.

Noah Kesslin: (02:45)
What specifically drew you to this niche?

Travis Johnson: (02:49)
This is gonna be weird, and this probably only applies to people that grew up in the eighties and nineties, but, uh, infomercial on tv, Carlton Sheets. I kept seeing his commercial, or infomercial I should say, because it was always a half hour long. We didn’t have cable TV grownup, we were poor. So we only had the free antenna channels and Carleton sheets pretty much every weekend would buy primetime, uh, airwaves time. And he would talk about with the investors that he had on that were doing well, about how much money they were making. And I was just blown away that people can make tens of thousands of dollars. And I wanted to do it, but I obviously, I didn’t even have the money to buy the course. I was also a kid still in high school, but I was fascinated literally from that infomercial watching it over and over and over again that people could make large chunks of money because, you know, back then minimum wage I think was at $4 an hour. And I’m just thinking, hey, if someone could make 20, $30,000, you know, again, they didn’t tell you exactly how they were doing it. It’s an infomercial, but it, it got me dreaming and that’s what really tied me into it. Plus, I like working on houses in generals, like fixing up stuff, you know, especially around the house, that type of thing. So I felt like it would, it’s gonna be a natural fit.

Noah Kesslin: (03:57)
Yeah, it’s crazy what, uh, what you could see on a TV and really believe that you can do. That’s awesome. And speaking of that, what does your business look like today?

Travis Johnson: (04:06)
Well, I don’t want to come off like bragging. That’s not the meant why I am answering that question the way you are, but we’re in the seven figures of making money yearly now, and we’re doing approximately give or take 10 houses each year on either side, but around 70 houses a year. So we’re not the biggest investors, but obviously we’re not onesie twosies, but we are very fussy on what we will take down. There’s a lot of investors, I’m confident we could do over a hundred houses a year if we wanted to take down properties that had thinner margins and thinner, I would say is under 25,000. Now, if you’re assigning a net, do that, but if you’re actually gonna rehab it, that gets to be a little thin for us. So we purposely get a ton of leads, especially from tv, and we weed through those and we only look for the ones that really make sense for us, uh, to buy. But because that, we’re so careful that way, we do pass on a decent amount of, of properties, but we also make a really great living because of it.

Noah Kesslin: (05:00)
That’s awesome. What was your life like before real estate investing, day to day operational, family life? Like, what, what was it like back then, and then how has it changed since starting the business?

Travis Johnson: (05:12)
When I graduated high school, I only did, I wouldn’t even say a year of college. It was only a quarter back then. They didn’t have semesters, it was quarters. And I did one quarter of college. I was recruited to play basketball at a technical school and I went and did it. Uh, it was fun. I, I enjoyed the sport, but I also realized I wasn’t going no NBA path. So I was like, Hey, life’s gonna happen. I better get real with it. So I got a job. Uh, I was offered a job in the Twin Cities area for, I think it was $9 or $9 and 50 cents an hour back in 1998, you know, at $4 an hour. What you were making that I thought, man, I struck the jackpot. Little did I know the cost of living was vastly different from small town USA where I grew up to the big metro area.

Travis Johnson: (05:51)
But nonetheless, I already committed, took the job and that was running, uh, phony computer, computer wiring, so like for businesses that had to operate. And I did that. I was a technician out in the field, running wires, working on phone systems from 1998 and with various companies, but almost the same employees around you. They were bought out and sold off, and you kinda just moved from one company to the next. And eventually I got over to another company where I worked my way up into like a warehouse manager job and then ultimately ended up at operations manager, but it was office politics. I worked, uh, you know, plenty of 10 hour days. I’m not gonna say 12 hour days all the time, but there was a lot of 10 hour days. I had to drive an hour and a half one way to work every single day to get there.

Travis Johnson: (06:31)
But I chose to live where I did. I, I lived in a smaller town, but I had to commute a long ways. And I just did that over and over. And eventually office politics is what took me down. I just was like, I’m over this, everyone’s adults here, but everyone’s whining. Like they’re a bunch of two year olds. And I said, I’m, I just don’t want this. And then the ethics of my prior employer was starting to get into gray areas, which I didn’t like, and I asked for corrections. They weren’t willing to make those corrections, which I knew they wouldn’t, but then I just was like, I can’t stay, stay here. So that’s why I made the direction into real estate.

Noah Kesslin: (07:04)
That’s awesome. When it comes to that ethical questions and just work in environment, how do you use that and take that into your business to make sure that it’s the culture that you guys have?

Travis Johnson: (07:16)
Oh, yeah. You gotta be always honest with people. I think that’s why a lot of people relate to, to me when they decide to sell the house is because they’re like, man, you’re just, you’re straightforward. It doesn’t seem like you’re hiding anything. And I’m like, well, that’s the only way you should be in business is obviously something to that effect. Like you should always be upfront. And some people call me blunt, and that’s fair. I’m not saying that I’m not, I try and do it in a way that is sincere, but also like, just get to the point. This is like the honest answer. If you like it or not, that’s up to you. But I know I don’t put no skeletons in the closet when I do my business so I can sleep at night knowing like nothing’s gonna come out down the road and like, oh, will someone come out and sue me because of this?

Travis Johnson: (07:56)
Will someone come back and then say something bad about me because of something we did in the past? Instead, it’s like, no, I, I do, everything’s the right way. Or at least what I think is the right way. We’re all not perfect, right? But also I believe in karma. So I also think of it that way. You can do something, cut some corners, probably come out a head on a deal or two, but it’s gonna come back to bite you. And I always feel like since we do the right things, our business has continuously grown every single year, maybe at the beginning, not as fast as you wanted, but ultimately it grew at, at at a rate that was acceptable to us. And now we make a really good living and provide for other people, employees also. They, they make a good living from what we do.

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Noah Kesslin: (09:17)
How important do you think culture is for work environment for your company?

Travis Johnson: (09:23)
It’s a loaded question to answer is it’s super high. Um, I will admit we made mistakes in the cultural, uh, department in, uh, in our office where we thought we picked the right people. Um, again, if you were never a boss and you never hired employees before, you’ve worked with employees, right? We all were employees at one, one point or another in our lives. But where you really break down to, you really have to be in line with the values that you want, but also know that you’re bringing in the right people in the right positions. Because if they don’t get along with one another, they’re gonna butt heads. And it only takes one employee to, to almost start sinking the ship so they can poison the well very fast. And the wife and I, we had to learn the hard way. Uh, we had some employees where we thought we could work it out, like, hey, we will just a little bit of discipline, we’ll, we’ll straighten ’em out and say, do this. Either you have it or you don’t. That’s what we ultimately found out. So once we realized we had the right people, then we did everything, uh, possible to make sure we retain the talent because the synergy of the right culture all came together. So it’s huge.

Noah Kesslin: (10:31)
Yeah. Are there any main key strategies that you guys are using right now to really excel in your business?

Travis Johnson: (10:37)
Uh, , another loaded one. Strictly tv. Yes. The accelerator business is all starts with the leads and then it’s whatever you’re doing on the back backend, obviously they convert those leads. Um, if you have different exit strategy, if you’re doing innovations, doing subject to, if you’re taking on rentals, the three I just listed off there, we don’t do any of those. I know a lot of other investors do, and it works, uh, in our market. We’re primarily a fix and flipper, uh, type of company. Um, so we have a unique funnel that we take on. And again, that’s kind of goes back to where we’re very fussy over what deals we will take down, but the ones we know that we’re taking down are traditionally money makers for us.

Noah Kesslin: (11:14)
Awesome. In this day and age, like today, are you being a little bit more careful of what you’ll take down than maybe like a year ago just with where we’re at in real estate right now?

Travis Johnson: (11:25)
Yeah, it, it is. Um, we’re still not afraid to take it down. We just have to buy way deeper. And I’m talking like not $10,000 cheaper. Like there’s times where we’re like, Hey, we’re 35 to $50,000 less, and we get a lot of sellers like, Hey, you’re crazy. We’re, we would never sell at that price and say, Hey, that’s fine. But I also have inventories set sitting, which now proves to me that the market doesn’t wanna pay top dollar. And we literally in the last 30 days, just dumb luck of timing here, we’re listing, uh, properties almost $30,000 less than what they’re actually worth when we put ’em on the market, just so that we get traffic right away to the property. And it, and it sucks because on some deals, you know, if you only have 30 or $40,000 profit built in, well unfortunately you’re making nothing.

Travis Johnson: (12:14)
It became a hobby house, but we had old inventory, so it’s like, well, you wanna keep turning it. That’s the whole idea. The cash, the cash conversion cycle is what we, uh, go by. You just have to do the right things. But what we also real realize is when people realize it’s a real good deal, we almost get into multiple offers again, and at a time when multiple offers don’t exist. But you have to be smart enough that you, your price is just at the right number where you know you’re not gonna lose numbers if lose money. I mean, if someone comes in and only offers you, you’re asking price and no one else gives you an offer, right? Do you have to sell? Of course you don’t have to, but you know, if you list at that price and they’re giving you that price, you really should sell it unless someone else motivates ’em to a higher number.

Travis Johnson: (12:57)
So, um, that’s not the most exciting. But then when you go onto the new inventory that you’re getting in this market, we’re buying deeper knowing that, let’s just say hypothetically a house should sell for 300,000, I’m gonna buy that house and more than likely know, I’m gonna list it around 2 75, 2 70 or 2 75, like 25 to $30,000 less than what it should actually sell for. Guess what happens? That means that seller has to take that much less. And in granite you wish everyone would say yes, but there’s still plenty of competitors that are buying at a much higher numbers. I expect those, those competitors in I would say four or five to six months will realize that they’re not getting rid of that inventory. They’re gonna be taking on some losses. And my hope is that they burn up most of their capital on those properties and they can’t get rid of them fast enough that they’re winning today. But then I will start winning in early spring because I already adjusted my marketing plan and how we buy properties accordingly. Yeah,

Noah Kesslin: (13:55)
For sure. Are you trying to stay within a certain price point of houses as far as like, you know, median pricing? Or are you not really too worried about, you know, the reason why I ask is a lot of times right now what we’re seeing across from every market nationwide is, you know, that first time home buyer price point is still selling a lot faster than a high end house, which I think is always true, but especially right now, are you seeing that as well? And how are you guys kind of navigating that?

Travis Johnson: (14:23)
Yeah, first time home buyers, I don’t be honest, I don’t care what market is, those are always gonna sell. They just are, but they have to have normal flow to a house. I shouldn’t, you know, there is a little caveat, but assuming it’s a normal starter, home starter price, you’re always gonna have a buyer for it. But those are also the most competitive ones from an investors to buy because they also know the same thing. Like, Hey, we know that it’ll sell, so you don’t get as fat as margins on those starter homes. Or at least that’s been my experience, uh, in this tightening of the market. At first, uh, when we had a correction, I would say, I think it was almost this time last year, I stopped trying to buy any house above 400,000 unless they almost were giving it away. Now as I look at the data, it’s really, if I still price that house, that’s worth a whole lot more, but at a way cheaper price, there’s still a buyer that will come out of the woodwork to buy it. So I, I don’t put limits on myself, I’m just, our limit is we can buy it, it’s just, if it’s a $500,000 house, this might shock you, but our offer might only be 2 75, 300,000. And of course, most people should tell us to go pound sand, and I’m okay with that, but occasionally there’s gonna be one that’s gonna say, yes, I’ll take that off and I’m gonna be glad they did because now that one house, if it was 500,000, I could list it at 4 50, 4 25 and still make money at it.

Noah Kesslin: (15:37)
Yeah, for sure. What do you think is the main misconception about what you do for people not in real estate?

Travis Johnson: (15:45)
Yeah, I was gonna say, I think some people could say bottom feeders, like almost like a lawyer, ambulance cha chaser type thing. I, I think they just think like, Hey, you’re in it for the money. You low ball everyone and you guys are greedy and you guys are all wealthy. And, and it’s, it’s like, it’s not that way. It can be for some, but it’s really, it’s not. We provide a service. We improve neighborhoods when we buy these houses that are heavily distressed in, in some fashion, we’re only making everything better. But, uh, unfortunately, some people just say, you know, they almost compare us to I, at least the comments I see on my Facebook ads. You know, like, are you part of BlackRock? Are you part of a, you know, hedge funds? And it’s like, no, we’re a small family owned company, but they, they’re like, you guys are the ones driving up the home prices ’cause you’re buying up everything and not leaving anything. And it’s like, I’m not buying up anything other than the people that reached out to us saying, I have something for sale. That’s our marketing. Our marketing is all geared towards inbound marketing. So we, we don’t talk to anyone unless they raise their hand first, but we kinda get labeled with kind of bottom feeders. But I know at the end of the day, I have plenty of happy testimonials. People are happy that they sold their house to us, so obviously they would be the ones that would disagree if they thought we were crappy people.

Noah Kesslin: (16:59)
Yeah, for sure. When it comes to real estate, there’s a lot of people that are real estate investors and there’s a lot of people that call themselves real estate investors. What do you think separates the top investors, the top operators from everyone else in your experience?

Travis Johnson: (17:13)
Treating it like an actual job, meaning work at least the eight hour day or close to a eight hour day and consistency where you just keep plugging in, even when you get kicked, when you’re down, you, you gotta get back up and keep going out there. Um, you could kinda use that phrase, every no becomes a yes, you know, one more. No, because I, I’m not excited by it, but it’s almost similar to that way of thinking. Um, but it’s everyone that I see that hasn’t gotten remotely even to my level, and I don’t even think I’m high up on, there’s plenty other bigger players in my market than me. Um, but I know the ones that are only maybe doing four or five houses a year, they’re probably working another job somewhere else. And I’m not saying that’s wrong, but if you wanna separate real investors from part-time and the part-time ones that wanna say they’re full-time, they’re not putting in a valid days, work every single day that they need to treat it like a job because that’s a, you know, when I left I put all eggs in one basket when I left my job.

Travis Johnson: (18:13)
So I treated it like a job. I, you know, I also was trying to be respectful of family time, so I always told myself, I can work seven to five, but I’m not gonna work later because I wanna be around for my kids’ activities. And all that doesn’t happen occasionally you have to work later. Yeah. But that’s no different than a regular job. Occasionally you have to work later, but I would say 98% of the time I’m between those hours now, I’m a little more fortunate now that we got systems and processes in place. I would say more times than not, I’m about five to six hours in a day type of thing that I put in. Still a decent amount of time I put in, but not, I don’t do the eights hardly anymore, which is nice, but it didn’t come by accident.

Noah Kesslin: (18:54)
Yeah. When it comes to the word success, everyone has their own definition and means something slightly different or majorly different to everyone. How do you define the word success? And then how do you look forward and seek it and, and what does that mean to you?

Travis Johnson: (19:11)
Uh, success to me was proving that I could be independent. Like I didn’t have to rely on a employer for a paycheck. I’m kind of stubborn that way, you know, when I went off on my own, you get a lot of, a lot of family and friends, you know, they, they don’t wanna say it to your face, but they’re like, you’re crazy. You know, why would you give up a job that’s a guaranteed paycheck? You have kids, you gotta take care of them, you know, how are you gonna do this? And it’s like, you know, I never even thought of it. I, I guess I, you know, of course I thought of all this stuff, you know, I’m trying to think of it all, but without risk, there’s no reward. And it’s like I had to make a change and that’s how it goes. But my, as time went on, success to me was be able to consistently provide for my family with cushion left over and knowing that we’re running a, a successful company that can keep people employed and their families be able to pay the bills, that type of thing. So success to me is knowing that I’m providing for my family and my employees. That’s the barometer that we use.

Noah Kesslin: (20:08)
That’s awesome. When it comes to a work life balance, you kind of touched on it a little bit, but you know, I know most investors get into this space for time freedom and to be able to enjoy their life. How do you balance the work with the life and how does being a real estate investor help you, I don’t know, be there for your kids more or, you know, be able to enjoy certain things that you weren’t enjoying or couldn’t enjoy, you know, working for someone?

Travis Johnson: (20:35)
Yeah, I’ll answer the last part first. I would say that the flexibility gives you, again, the flexibility doesn’t mean you don’t still put in the time some other way. But if we, if my wife wants to volunteer at, uh, my girl’s, uh, elementary school, you know, they, they allow parents to volunteer in the classroom and she does that, uh, probably about four or five times a year with our three daughters, just do it with my son. But now he’s up in middle school, so they don’t really do that. She gets flexibility on that. Uh, when we have to have doctor’s appointments, just even if it’s routine dentist appointments. And then especially when it comes to activities now, you know, we’re running everywhere. We have four kids and you know, as soon as the end of day kind of comes around like four 30 or five o’clock, you already gotta be ready to be somewhere else.

Travis Johnson: (21:20)
Well, you’re not, you’re not rushing home. Instead it’s like, Hey, we’re going to go home at 2 30, 3 o’clock, start, get ready for all those activities. So it truly just gives you time, flexibility to set your own schedule. But we still have a job to do. So you gotta be efficient with the time that you do have and, and, and arrange to make sure the stuff is getting done. But, you know, we have a, an office where, where we come every day, but also we work from home when, when necessary, uh, type of thing. So we try and make sure that, um, the business has obviously gotta be taken care of because, uh, without that we can’t provide for our family, but we want the free time that comes with having the flexibility in the schedule. My wife and I, we’ve talked many times where we we’re like, you know, if we didn’t do what we did, I don’t know how we’d be able to get our kids in all these activities and get it.

Travis Johnson: (22:06)
And I almost kind of feel bad for the parents that are, you know, playing with our kids in whatever events. Like I know they’re coming from a job and they’re not bad people for coming from job. I get it, but I don’t like, how do they get it done? Because they’re probably scrambling, getting off work at four, trying to beat rush hour home just to get your kids, throw ’em in the car, you gotta get ’em to an activity, but when does the meal happen? Right? More than likely your kid needs to eat. So everyone’s scrambling. So flexibility is, is number one that came from, uh, the real estate part of the business, um, that we enjoy the most. Enjoy, again, treating it like a job and just showing up every day to do it. We rarely work weekends, occasionally I have to go out, but I mean, this is so occasionally, but just if you respect it like a job and put in the valid effort, and at the very beginning I fell into this trap and I didn’t know, you know, you don’t know what trap you fall into until you kind of discover it.

Travis Johnson: (22:58)
Uh, go into like a real estate mastermind kind of highlights things like this, you know, but sometimes I was doing busy work just so I felt like, Hey, I’m doing my job. I’m, you know, I’m getting stuff done. But I realized, hey, I’m doing a 10 or $12 an hour a job work and I gotta be doing these 50 to a hundred, $150 an hour more type of activities. So eventually when my business started to take off, I started changing the mindset like, I’m no longer mowing lawn, I’m paying someone to mow my lawn now. You can’t just sit back, have your feet up because that really didn’t achieve what you were trying to do. It’s things like that that I think people at the very beginning of their real estate investing career, they pick low level activities, but they’ll fill up their day in an eight hour day and say, boy, I’m really achieving something and I don’t fault ’em. That’s where you gotta start, and that’s where you think you’re doing the right thing. But I’m, I’m also telling you, you gotta, you gotta take those low level things and check ’em aside and have someone else do it and start doing the, the bigger activities.

Noah Kesslin: (23:52)
Yeah. When you talk about masterminds and just having a community, no matter what the community is, no matter, you know, what group it is, there’s tons of them out there. How important do you think it is for someone to join a community and be around other people that are doing what they’re doing? How important is that for you and how important do you think it should be for other investors?

Travis Johnson: (24:15)
I think it’s extremely important. I, I do get it. The cost is normally the prohibitor, right? A lot of people, there’s tons of masterminds. So this is a blanket statement. So I could be wrong, and I’m not trying to offend anyone that owns a mastermind, but normally, like the cheapest mastermind you’re probably ever gonna be in is maybe five grand a year, but you could easily be 30, 40, $50,000 in a year for a mastermind. You gotta find the one that fits your personality and guess what? You’re not gonna know right away. You’ve gotta join the mastermind and start seeing the people around you and say, Hey, you know, these are people I think I can relate to. Uh, but the importance of going to something like that and being consistent about the mastermind. The one I go to, I’ll say it is in Investor fuel is the one that I, uh, I’m part of.

Travis Johnson: (25:01)
But there’s collective genius, uh, the Boardwalk, there’s plenty others. So meaning you pick the one you want, go down that path. But as an investor, if you’re doing this full-time, even if you’re only doing one or two deals a month or maybe a year, but you’re committed to doing it, you’re gonna feel like you’re on an island when you’re investing. Because once everyone leaves for the day and goes work, and you’re at home and you’re starting to start the business, when you come and stumble into something and you’re not sure how to get out of it and you don’t know who to turn to, that’s where the struggle gets. And then a lot of people end up giving up like, well, I don’t know how to get past this problem. I don’t know who to turn to. A mastermind will point you in the right direction if you use ’em correctly.

Travis Johnson: (25:43)
You know, just ’cause you’re part of it. You gotta reach out to people and say, Hey, this is what I’m struggling with. Who do I talk to on this? And for me, it wasn’t so much struggling, like how to get certain things done. It was marketing strategies, is what I used investor fuel for, um, to help me in my business, like what’s working. And I tried a ton of different marketing strategies all the same from the group. Half of ’em, half of ’em worked, half of ’em didn’t. But I don’t blame the group. It wasn’t market specific, you know, like, Hey, I tried, it didn’t work, but ultimately I’ll tie it back in, TV was our winner in that regards. Being on TV was the biggest, uh, game changer in our business to start with.

Noah Kesslin: (26:23)
When it comes to the tv, I mean, what, what has been the game changer as, as far as that goes, and what has it done to not only the business, but maybe the numbers as well?

Travis Johnson: (26:35)
Sure. I would say TV brings you in a lot better quality lead. Again, when someone reaches out to you to sell their house, boy that really breaks the ice. You know, if you’re a cold caller texter, you, you’re trying to dig up someone that says, Hey, are you thinking about selling? If so, now you gotta get them thinking about like, Hey, you need to sell, but you need to sell at a discount. Um, so that kind of struggles that way. Direct mail, um, is a marketing channel. I think it’s both ways. I think it’s outbound because you’re sending a letter out, but then if they pick up the phone and reach out to you, then it’s like a warm inbound lead. But is it really, you know, and it’s not wrong, it’s just a different type of lead. Uh, pay per click is a different type of lead.

Travis Johnson: (27:15)
Uh, Facebook ads, uh, pay per lead. But TV overall, the lead quality has always been the highest for us. And the warmest lead, when we say warm, it’s most qualified. Like they truly do wanna sell their house. Um, they’re not kicking the tires. Some do, but most of ’em don’t. So the quality lead is there and when it comes down to it, their obviously the most profitable. But then again, it’s also the biggest part of our marketing budget is tv. Um, because it works so well, we put so much money behind it. So, um, there could be other channels that, that work better. We’ve tried plenty others, uh, just found out to be the most consistent. And since it has been consistent, we, we just stay down that, that path.

Noah Kesslin: (27:58)
That’s awesome. When it comes to tv, some people might feel like they’re too small or, you know, whatever the case may be. In your opinion, who do you think is the most ideal investor for TV commercials?

Travis Johnson: (28:11)
Just ’cause you have the money, let’s say the Stark tv, that doesn’t guarantee you, you know, it’ll be blunt that you’re gonna be successful. If you’re a small investor, you can be small to start on tv, absolutely can, but if you don’t have someone that answers the phone every time it rings, like live, like every time that phone rings, if you don’t have someone answering that phone, don’t get on tv. You almost shouldn’t do any marketing channel to be honest. You should always answer live. And then if you don’t have a follow-up system, uh, CRM, if you don’t have a CRM to put these leads into because just ’cause they’re the, the warmest leads for us, not all of them say yes in the first month. Rarely do they, they need some nurturing. They might, most of ’em do go between month two and three with us.

Travis Johnson: (28:55)
If they’re thinking about selling, uh, there are some that sell wanna sell right away. We love them. They come in normally, they say, Hey, we want to close in two weeks and we make it happen. Um, but then there’s plenty others that you just have to work just a little bit longer to get. And with that, it was CRM to remind you, Hey, did you follow up with this person? They send out an auto text or auto email saying, Hey, we’re still there. Remember we looked at your house. You’re still thinking about it. If you don’t have a CRM, definitely don’t get into tv. But I would also say don’t get into any kind of marketing because you, it’s all in the follow up. You just gotta keep following up with people and then everyone’s gotta learn the skill. But if you’re not naturally gifted, like connector with people, like if you’re socially awkward, you don’t like to, you’re probably not ideal.

Travis Johnson: (29:38)
Doesn’t mean you can’t be on tv. You just have to have a different point person that are talking to people just ’cause you, you think it’s a great channel, which it is. You gotta make sure that you’re not afraid to chat with people on a personal level. And, and it’s gotta be casual, kinda like what we’re doing here, just, just chatting type of thing. But if you feel like you have to be high pressure, people are gonna be turned off by that all day long, you know, you definitely wanna dodge that. Um, but I would say those are the key ones, I would say right off the bat is like, Hey, make sure you’re answering the phone live and you have a CRM and willing to do follow up, uh, in these cases. Because if you’re just like, Hey, I got, you know, let’s say they came in with a $10,000 budget, right?

Travis Johnson: (30:17)
Every market’s different, right? You might have a $5,000 budget, you might have $20,000 just to be effective on tv, but if you spend the money and you’re not willing to do the follow up, you’re just money away because I guarantee you, you’re gonna say, Hey, I got this one deal. I spent 30,000 in marketing and I got a $60,000 profit deal. I only made 30,000. First of all, I’d still say, Hey, that’s a win, right? Uh, type of thing. But if you’re saying, if that’s all I’m gonna get, you’re not doing all the leads correctly. And if you’re more blessed and do subject to ations and uh, you know, seller financing, that type of thing, you’ll crush it even more with tb. And even if you have a real estate license and you wanna list property, you will excel at TV because you have so many more marketing channels. Well, I should take it back, not marketing so many exit channels that you can use on these leads. So you’re gonna, you’re gonna have a great ROI

Noah Kesslin: (31:10)
For sure. If you were gonna restart today in real estate totally from scratch, your business is no longer and you were gonna restart, what would you focus on first?

Travis Johnson: (31:20)
I would immediately, uh, have a CRM get the phone number and I would get on TV. For me, that’s what I would start over with, be able to track it. I wouldn’t even worry about hiring an employee right away because I’m starting over. It’s like, nope, I gotta, I gotta get it started. I would do those things. I would be like, I’m ready to take the phone call and have a CRM for the follow-up and get back on TV to get the leads coming in without the leads you die. You gotta stay consistent with the marketing there. I hear this way too many times from people that maybe quit TV at some point, or I hear from our rep, I like to talk to her a lot about things where some people are just, they need that instant results and they’re like, oh, you know, it’s becoming a slower month.

Travis Johnson: (32:01)
I gotta cut back on the marketing. And it’s like, oh, that’s a death of any business. You know, like, don’t cut back on the marketing. And it’s a fair reaction, you know, and you’re like, Hey, if I’m not getting much, I gotta preserve the capital. That’s the one area you don’t preserve capital. I would say fire an employee before you get rid of your, uh, your marketing channel. That’s just my opinion, uh, of staying consistent. And that’s, that’s just me being very blunt. But those are the three things that I would do right away. Awesome.

Noah Kesslin: (32:26)
What would be something that people would be surprised to learn about you personally?

Travis Johnson: (32:32)
Well, in person, they always say I’m bigger than what they thought it was gonna be. Right?

Noah Kesslin: (32:36)
Definitely taller than I expected, for sure. , yeah.

Travis Johnson: (32:40)
I, I I like to think I’m average size, but a lot of people disagree with that. I’m a natural smart by trade. So if people eventually get to know me, uh, then they’re like, Hey boy, you’re not serious all the time. And it’s like, well, why take life over serious? You know? It’s like you gotta take something serious, but it’s like, come on, we can have some fun about it. But I’m a secret giver for things, you know, when, when the holidays come around or if people are in need of things, I don’t go to social media and say, Hey, I’m doing this one thing for you, type of thing. Um, you know, like as an example, last year in local Facebook community in our town, everyone has ’em, right? You join the local ones I put out there, I didn’t put out there in the sense like, Hey, I’m looking for people.

Travis Johnson: (33:21)
What I meant by people post, like, Hey, I hate to ask this. Uh, someone will post and say, I don’t have any money to put kids, you know, gifts for my kids type of thing, and I’ll just go in there, please DM me. I don’t say, Hey, I got money for you or anything, I don’t do that. I just said, please DM me the ball’s now in your court. If they DM me, then I go ahead and find out how many kids they have and then I give them money, I’ll just send it. And, but I don’t post that online. I don’t, I don’t tell anyone. I just, I just do it, stuff like that. And it’s, I like giving, but I also don’t like the attention that kind of comes from it. Um, I’m weird that way, so I’m more of a just, Hey, I’ll help you out.

Travis Johnson: (33:57)
You know? But you know, a lot of times people that need help are ashamed. Right? And, and it’s valid. You know, you feel like I have to rely on someone else. And, and I wouldn’t say when I was growing up, I was in that situation. We grew up dirt poor. But after moving away, even though, uh, from home, I was never, I didn’t have a ton of money, but, you know, I had savings from my job type of thing. So I never had to relive kind of how I did growing up. But how I grew up poor definitely made me into who I was. ’cause I appreciated things way different. You know, it’s like everyone else has some of the nicer stuff than I always had garage sale, hand me down stuff. Having anything brand new never existed in our household. It was always a hand me down or some item was used. So even till this day, I still don’t buy a brand new car because I don’t know what it’s like to buy a brand new car. I buy a used car because you never buy brand new. Of course, I almost don’t buy brand new just because of depreciation right away. But the mindset is there, other than I do buy nicer used cars than I ever have. But it’s, it’s funny that way. But I would say that’s more my secret is I like to give stuff away. Just I do it in a private set, private way.

Noah Kesslin: (35:02)
That’s awesome. What drives you personally to keep innovating and keep pushing forward in your business?

Travis Johnson: (35:08)
I’m just naturally motivated. I can’t sit idle. It’s just not in my DNAI, I kinda get antsy. So that’s one benefit that I have because since I don’t like to sit idle, then I get bored. So then I’m trying to think, well, what can I do different in my business? What can I do different at home? What can I, so it’s just a natural, I think you either have it or you don’t. And I wish that I could teach people to be motivated like me, but it, it doesn’t work. There’s a lot of people motivated by money. We all are to a point, right? You know, know we’re trying to do something. But if you’re doing it strictly for the money, it doesn’t matter how much money you get, you’re never gonna have enough. So you have to kind of realize there’s a certain amount that’s like, Hey, I can live very comfortably off of this and still have savings and that’s enough.

Travis Johnson: (35:50)
So then we try and drive draw threshold where without like, well, do we add another business? Do we buy another business? Do we do this? Or do we want more headaches even though our income’s gonna go way up, but do we want more headaches? Or it’s like, and of course, uncle Sam comes along and normally takes a chunk of the money. So that normally deflates the, the ability to want to do more if you’re already making a comfortable living. But my motivation is it’s already there, but, uh, at the end of the day, it’s family. Selfishly, it’s always that I wanna provide for my family and know that we’re taken care of in the case of a, an unfortunate event financially, you know, if the economy went down, something like that, that I can find a way to still provide.

Noah Kesslin: (36:29)
That’s awesome. Well, where can people find you? Where can people learn more about you? Where can people connect with you on, on social medias?

Travis Johnson: (36:36)
Again, I’m not huge on it. I’m on Facebook. I don’t even have an Instagram account. I don’t put myself out there that much, but our website is mn nice.com, our phone number’s listed on there. Um, if someone ever wants to talk to me, they can just say, Hey, I saw you on the podcast. I have some questions. Just go ahead and go on there and call our office and I’ll call you back and, and we can chat. A lot of people are surprised when they do reach out. They’ll never get me live. I have staff that answers the phone type of thing. But everyone is always surprised when they leave a message. I didn’t even have people from the TV commercials, Hey, I’m an investor. I was, uh, I think it was actually outta Houston area, to be honest. This was almost like six months ago that says, Hey, I’m an investor.

Travis Johnson: (37:17)
I’m out of town. I saw your TV commercial, could you call me back? Of course, he already said he was outta area. I could just say, well dude, I’m not buying a house from him. But instead I called and he says, he said, oh, first of all, I’m shocked that you even called me back. I didn’t think that was gonna happen. I was like, well, you asked for a callback. I was like, yeah, doesn’t mean I called it within the first four hours, but yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna call you back. And then we just chatted briefly, but he was saying, I just really like your commercial. You sounded very sincere, but now with you calling back, I realized that you are really real, like, almost like who you say you are on tv. And it’s like, well, who else was I supposed to be ?

Travis Johnson: (37:51)
But people are surprised by it. They’re like, I can’t believe you came to my house. I’m like, well, who else was supposed to come to your house? You know? I was like, but I think everyone’s used to like, no, no, these are the higher ups. And then you send other people out. And that’s currently not who we are. But yeah. So if you reach out, I’ll chat with you. Uh, if you’re having struggles in your business, I’ll help you out. And it’s funny, even in my market, I tell people I was just at a meetup in my market about 30 days ago. I was on a panel and I was telling people every channel of marketing I was on, I said, everyone, this is where I, uh, this is all my marketing. This is how much money I’m spending, uh, each channel. Um, this is a cost per contract.

Travis Johnson: (38:25)
And people were kind of dumbfounding like, why are you giving away all these secrets? And it’s like, well, is it really secrets? Because I said majority in this room. I said, I hate to be blunt, won’t do with this information analysis paralysis. You guys are just gonna sit there and analyze. So I said, there will be one, I hope one will take this information lightly and, and, and go ahead and reach out and say, how were you doing this? Now there’s a few secret sauces that, you know, you can’t ever give up, right? That’s just part of your business. But I also know that I can get you on the right path far enough down that you can actually be successful with what I can share with you. But of course, I can’t give away everything on that, you know, it’s just, that wouldn’t be smart for me in business.

Travis Johnson: (39:01)
But I’m always, I’m an open book and I am that way at Mastermind, but I’m also like that in my, my open market, even with my competitors, I’ll sit down with my competitors. Uh, we do quarterly meetups, um, where we just go to lunch, we talk about our businesses because you gotta not see them as competitors. Collaborators is really what you’re doing. Again, they’re not gonna share their immediate secret of what makes them really click or their specific marketing list that they’re, or they found the best success on. Right? But the point is, is if you see people not as competitors and you’re being open with them, you’d be surprised at how you can actually do even more business. So for sure, I know I gotta teed off how to reach out to me, but I’m saying you’re good. If you do, I will chat with you. But at the end of the day, that’s the ball’s in your court.

Noah Kesslin: (39:44)
That’s awesome. Well, Travis, I appreciate you for coming on. Always a pleasure speaking to you and everyone else. Thank you. Thank you all for watching.