How to Make Money in Wholesale Real Estate with Jaben Makings

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This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk Welcome to the show. Hey, Sebastian, thanks for having me on. Hey, thanks for being here. I know that we've been getting you booked on some of our clients shows, so it's good to get you in the mix here on Beyond the Story. Been looking to connect further with you. I know we initially connected over to the great Dan Martell's elite coaching program. What a phenomenal community, huh? I agree. It's phenomenal. Yeah, it sure is. So is Dan. He's like a warm hug with a slap in the back of the head. Yeah. Well, on this show, I love telling people's stories and for context, for our listeners, I always like going back to the beginning of the story to help people really better understand where this all started. Now, the beginning of the story is always different for everyone. So you decide where the beginning is, but let's take a few minutes and bring us back to where it all began, where you started and what brought you to present Yeah, I grew up in a small town in Nebraska, town of about 1200 people, and I was a bit of a troublemaker in high school, right? But I still had that entrepreneurial mindset, trying to start different businesses, started working from a really young age.

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But one thing that I absolutely did not like growing up was school, right? Which then caused me to cause trouble and not I remember I was working at Nissan of Omaha detailing cars and I was driving through the car wash one day and my mom calls me freaking out because she had found out my ACT scores and they were super, super low. Like I took the ACT, I didn't even try on it, just selected random answers the whole time.

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Because they really wanted me to go to college She's like you're not gonna be able to get in this this school that you want to go to with these grades and I Talked with them and a couple weeks goes by and I tell them that I don't want to go to college Right so fast forward a few months I'm planning to move to Arizona to start a pool company or at least learn the ropes and then start a pool company So I move out here about a month after my 18th birthday and my uncle who's a couple years older than me was planning to come out and And he ended up not being able to come out. So I'm like, I've already got my mindset on Arizona. So I'm going to move out anyway, work for a pool company for probably six months before I realized that I did not want to do that for the rest of my life. And one of the big reasons behind that was that I saw the owner of the pool company that I was working for.

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He was in his 60s. And when people would call out sick, he would have to go and clean pools. And that really deterred me from staying in the pool industry. And knowing what I know now, like if the business was built correctly, that wouldn't necessarily be the case. So I remember reading a book on real estate investing in high school. So I'm like, how am I gonna make a bunch of money to be able to go buy a bunch of investment properties and then retire young? I'm like, hell, I'm just gonna go be a real estate agent.

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I'll make a ton of cash, buy a bunch of properties, and then I'll get out of this thing soon. I got my real estate license and the quick cash couldn't have been further from the truth. I did that for a couple of years. I was okay as a real estate agent. My biggest downfall was shiny object syndrome where I was bouncing back and forth between different business ideas every couple of months before I finally decided to start Onyx Investments and go all in on that. When I started it, I made a promise to myself that I'm going to lock in for the next three years without touching anything else, no distractions, and we're going to go all in. Love it, man. And how long ago was that? That was about two and a half years ago now. Cool. So how long did it take to start making some money? I got lucky. So my first 30 days, I had a deal. And then, because we do real estate wholesaling, and for those of you watching that don't know what that is, we basically go out and we find distressed properties, right? And we get the sellers a quick cash offer. And then once we get that property in our contract, we'll go and find an end buyer, typically a fix and flipper that's willing to pay a higher price.

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And we'll keep that spread in between. And so let's say we get a property under contract at $180,000, then we go find a buyer that's willing to pay $190,000 or$200,000. And then at the closing table, we get to, you know, get to keep that spread in between. Love it. So how do you find new deals? We, so we figured out what do 80% of homeowners do when they decide that they want to sell? They're going to go online and they're going to search for a realtor, or they're going to call a friend and family member and ask for a referral to a realtor, right? Whereas most, wholesalers out there are going direct to the seller. They're sending out mailers. They're running Google ads.

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We decided, let's just go straight to the real estate agent because they have this, this access to all of these off market properties. So that's our main business model right now is just reaching out to these agents. And then we're just a cash offer resource Love it. So, I mean, they want that already as, as well. And so do the people that are obviously looking to buy or sell. Exactly. Yeah. So, um, and do you have a team around you or how many people you got working with Yeah, there's currently four sales guys right now and it'll be five on Monday.

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So the plan this year is to finish stabilizing the acquisition side of the business, right? And there's, there's two departments that I really want this year, which is acquisitions and then disposition. So once we get acquisitions completely stabilized, we're going to go out and start building out the disposition side of it. And what dispositions is, is basically, basically just a person building relationships with the end buyer. So the fix and flipper. Right. So the acquisitions is building relationships with the agents. And then the dispositions department will be building relationships with the buyers, because right now it's just me doing dispositions. So we're going What would you say the biggest bottleneck and challenges with the process The biggest bottleneck and challenge is, is people, right? That's, that's something I had to learn the hard way.

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Yes, exactly. Right. It's the best and worst part about business. Cause that's the only way to make a ton of money is through other people, but it's the, it's the hardest part learning how to manage. Right. And I had a, couple of sales guys that were kind of slacking off and doing as they as they wanted, like when I say salespeople slacking, come on. And so what I had to do was I implemented this performance accountability system, right, where they get two strike or two misses equals one strike. Right. And then they get a verbal sit down. And then the second time they have two misses, then we're going to we're going to reduce their commission by five percent. And then the third time that that happens, they're going to get booted off the team. And as soon as I implemented that, then, you know, things really turned around because there's actually more consequences at stake. Because when I was first starting, I really, really wanted to be that cool boss, right? Everybody to like me and stuff. And in turn, everybody was kind of taking advantage of that and slacking off and not doing what they're supposed to. So I kind of had to lay the hammer down and implement some You could add a fourth step there, which is waterboarding and duct tape. I love that one. I wish I could. Salespeople need that. I don't know that they'd welcome that and be open to that at all. So here we are beginning at 2026, the time that we're recording this episode. I know you talked a little bit about what you want to do this year and how you're planning to scale. What are you the most excited about?

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I'm most excited about our long-term vision and where we're going as a company. I think that's really what draws a lot of the people into the company that are here is just our big aspirations and such good opportunity for growth, right? And stuff's changing all the time. So here in the last couple of weeks, I'm getting out of sales. So I'm not doing acquisitions really. Now I'm focusing on dispositions. I've got one of my guys is a sales captain now. So he's handling a lot of the KPIs for the guys out there. So it's kind of fun, and it's changing as the company's growing, and I'm moving into different roles. And I noticed it was actually, you know, a few weeks ago, when I was switching more into a CEO managerial role, I started feeling really burnt out and I couldn't figure out why. Like I was just sitting there powering through like scratching my head. And I realized that when I was in sales, right, my day was extremely structured, right? I would make calls for a couple hours. I would do follow up. I do text and then take lunch and then same thing all afternoon. Switching to the CEO role, I didn't really have that structure, right? So I was kind of bouncing around as answering questions, answering emails, just bouncing all over the place. And finally, you know, I realized I need to implement, you know, the same time blocks, like 60 to 90 minutes throughout my day. And so once I did that, the burnout kind of went away. So it made me realize that burnout is not always from That's good. I like that a lot. I think burnout is a common thing that happens for a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs out there. And I don't think that people take enough time to unpack why, how, how did you arrive at the burnout? And then more importantly, how do you mitigate through it? And then avoid, you know, less than the likelihood of it, of it showing up again, because burnout can, can, can, can, can keep you in places you don't want to You just kind of hate, hate what you're doing when you're burnt out. It's like, it's not fun. You're not enjoyable at work. You're not enjoyable at home. It Yeah, absolutely. So when you're not slinging real estate and putting deals together and doing everything else, what, uh, what interests you?

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Well, I just got married back in August and we found out. Yeah, we found out we're expecting in July. So let's go. Congratulations. Thank you. So I've been spending a lot of time with the wife. I also do jujitsu a couple of couple of nights a week, which has been super fun, super challenging learning Yeah, that can come in effective with your sales reps, too. Yeah, right. So brand new baby on the way. Well, in the summertime, that'll definitely change the dynamic of life a little, a tad bit, huh? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I, I started young. I had a kid at 20, so I don't recommend doing that, but it worked out okay.

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And, uh, sent her off to college and she's thriving now and finishing up the master's program. And now I'm trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. So but I do remember it from the second you actually get the news that a new life is on its way. Everything starts to change, including your mindset and and how you actually show up. So speaking of Dan Martell and his coaching in the community on there, how long you been in the group? I've been there probably just over a year now. Yeah. Same. I joined in beginning of November last year. Okay. Yeah. It's been a, it's been a game changer. Then again, you know, you're slinging real estate, I'm slinging podcasts, podcasts are, they're both pretty hot right now. So it's a two very lucrative businesses to, to, to be in. Cause that's a lot where a lot of the attention is.

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Man, so I tell people, I have a mentor for wholesaling. So the actual doing of the thing, and then I take like everything I learned from Dan Martell and then Matt Verlack, which are, you know, big software guys that run a bunch of companies and like implement all their systems and processes. So like a lot of the stuff that we have implemented here comes from one of those two guys, which is phenomenal. And I don't, I don't know where we would be at as a company without understanding Yeah, absolutely. Systems of process is very, very important. Who are you working with on the wholesale side of things? Austin Zaback. He owns One Roof here in Scottsdale, Arizona. Very cool. That's I mean, your market out there is just ridiculous. I mean, it's it has been for a long time. I mean, I think a lot of people have it's a great place to be. My daughter went to GCU, so I spent a lot of time in Phoenix and I lived in Southern California for 10 years as well, too. And I know a lot of California transplants and East Coast as well come out there, but it's just a phenomenal place to live and plant some roots out there. Now, where are you doing a majority of your real estate deals? Is it there in your backyard or are you doing them Yeah, we're all over. So our two biggest ones right now are Phoenix and North Carolina, a couple of different sub markets in North Carolina. And then Texas is kind of an up and coming one Yeah, very cool. So your sales reps are going out and doing what you were already doing, finding agents that Exactly. Yeah, that's all they do is just talk to real estate agents all day. We have several KPI. So for anybody listening, that's thinking about getting into wholesaling, like the biggest things that we track every single day or talk time, right? So they have to hit a minimum minimum of an hour and a half. And I tell them that that's pretty average. So it should be quite a bit above that. And then when they're first starting out, one of the other biggest metrics is how many agents they're adding to their pipeline every day, which we call a qualified lead. So how many agents can you talk to every day that you can get to know, like, and trust you, then you can go You got to get one of your top dogs on a podcast out there and get them inviting realtors onto the podcast and teeing up the relationships from there. I just thought about that. That's actually a great idea. Random thought on there, and it's also incentive based.

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It's like, hey, your top dog, top sales dog, you're like, hey man, I want you to launch a podcast. I'm picking up the tab for it. You're going to be the host and the star of it. And the return on my investment is that the people that you're interviewing are the people that you're actually doing deals with. I pulled that right out of thin air there, Jaben. I love that. I don't know where that came from on there. But then again, I'm the podcast guy. I can't help myself. But talking about podcasts on here. So is it going to see you stay in focus just on the real estate stuff? Are you a serial entrepreneur? Are there any other ventures No, I'm not looking to touch anything else. And here's why. So, when I was telling you earlier, when I was a real estate agent, I had shiny objects and really bad, right? If you think of a business, I probably thought about it or probably tried to start it, right? selling solar, Amazon FBA, dropshipping, whatever it is, I probably thought about it or try to start it. And that was my biggest downfall because every couple months I was thinking that the grass was greener on the other side, right? When things would get boring and tedious in my real estate agent business, I'd go try and start something else. So then I'd come back to it and then start something else. I lost so much momentum by doing that. So that's why I made that promise to myself when I started this new business that I'm going to walk in and I'm not going to touch anything else. Because I remember when I was, a bit younger, first getting into business, I had seen quite a few places that the average millionaire has seven streams of income, right? So I have that top of mind. I'm like, how do I get several streams of income so I can become a millionaire? Right.

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And I think that was taken out of context in my head, because what I found out later on is that most millionaires start with one thing, then they make a bunch of money, get really good at it. And once they have the time and resources, then Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The whole shiny object syndrome and the grass is greener. Somebody told me a long time ago, the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. Sometimes it's dog shit and high weeds and the grass is greener on the other side where the grass is greener where you water it. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jamin, man, it's been great to get to know you a little bit better and better understand what you got going on with your business.

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Brand new year here, brand new opportunity. So wishing you ongoing success with what you're building here. Seems like you got it really, really dialed in for our listeners. Be encouraged by the message that you got today here that My big takeaway is number one, find one thing that you really, really, really, really, really like, and that you're really, really, really, really good at, and go all in before you decide to throw other hats on and become distracted. And then secondly, duplicate your efforts. Once you get really good at what you're doing, bring some people onto your team that can duplicate exactly what you're doing. And usually nine times out of 10, that strategy is undefeated and gonna work for you. Jabin, any final Yeah, people, you really need to get your mindset dialed in. So a lot of people underestimate the power of unintentional thinking, right?

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So I go out deer hunting every single year, and I'm out hunting for like a big buck, something with big antlers. And when I'm driving through the sandhills, I was driving through this year, and something clicked, like something weird happens while you're up there, because all that's on your mind is this deer. Everything that you see starts turning into this deer, like so the rocks, the trees, the shadows, stuff like that. And I see the same thing in business and in life. If you're constantly thinking about the negative or thinking about what's going wrong, your mind is going to create evidence to justify that focus. So if you don't intentionally choose what you're thinking about, your I love that, man. That is a solid final thought right there. Jabin, thank you for your time, my brother. It's a privilege to be working with you as well, too. Look forward to continuing to do that throughout this year as well. And thanks again for your time. Awesome. Thanks, Sebastian. You got it. Thanks for tuning in, friends. Until next time. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios.