Welcome to Unstoppable REI Wealth, where we explore the world of real estate investing. In this episode, we dive into the importance of surrounding oneself with knowledgeable individuals in real estate and the value of seeking out helpful resources and guidance. Our guest, Jenna Hoover, a real estate investing entrepreneur, shares her journey of starting, growing, and scaling a successful real estate investing business. Jenna emphasizes the importance of tenacity and not giving up when faced with challenges, and shares her insights on branding, coaching, and working with real estate software companies. The podcast highlights the journey of successful real estate entrepreneurs and the challenges and opportunities that come with it. So, if you want to learn how to succeed in the real estate industry, join us on Unstoppable REI Wealth. Don't miss this opportunity to gain insights and knowledge from the experts in the field. Listen now to this episode and start your journey to unstoppable wealth in real estate! - Interview with real estate investor - Importance of tenacity and not giving up - Success despite challenging circumstances - Starting with no money and using creative financing - Having a bigger cause as a driving force - Investing in real estate without prior knowledge - Importance of not over-improving houses - Importance of branding oneself - Real estate software for finding and managing leads - Mentoring as an alternative to software - Investing in marketing - Setting oneself apart from competitors - Career growth and setting bigger goals - Importance of believing in oneself - Setbacks and failures as opportunities for growth - Surrounding oneself with knowledgeable individuals - Giving back and helping others KEY POINTS [0:0:20] Discover how to unlock the ultimate potential of your financial future with Unstoppable REI's proven strategies for creating unstoppable profits through real estate investment! [0:1:12] Through both triumphant and trying moments, life's experiences play an integral role in fostering personal growth - enabling us to rise above any lingering regrets. [0:3:37] Jenna Hoover, a single mom, courageously pursued her dream of investing in real estate ten years ago with no prior experience – and despite a tumultuous divorce – triumphed to create a flourishing business. [0:5:50] Without a penny to her name, she was determined to make something of herself – leveraging every opportunity and borrowing from loved ones to invest in her future – and become a successful provider for her beloved child. [0:5:50] Jenna is an ambitious independent contractor, eagerly striving to reach her goals and develop long-term plans to benefit the company. [0:8:46] Discover how lucrative it can be to invest in distressed areas with motivated sellers – without the intense competition! [0:8:46] By strategically branding yourself and avoiding costly mistakes, you can establish credibility and attract quality buyers to your over-improved properties. [0:18:3] Fueled by her passionate commitment to success, real estate entrepreneur Billy Alvaro has skyrocketed to fame after early branding efforts, leading to multiple offers from TV producers and now focusing on other lucrative real estate ventures. [0:21:30] By utilizing strategic networking and cultivating a powerful personal brand, you can dramatically increase your chances of being noticed by a major network like HGTV! [0:22:12] By investing in marketing, savvy real estate professionals have seen a remarkable return on their investment – often yielding extraordinary profits. [0:27:49] After making a dramatic life-altering transition from a life of opulence to one of deprivation, a determined individual can take charge of their future and find success through sheer grit and perseverance. [0:38:16] By facilitating effortless communication, businesses can experience a dramatic boost in collaboration and output. Connect with Jenna https://www.instagram.com/jennabuyshouses/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennabuyshouses/ https://www.facebook.com/jennabuyshouses/ And after that head on over to... https://easysell411.com https://billyalvaro.com https://billyssecrets.com Who knows maybe you will be our next partner? To get some neat (and FREE) Tools | Tips | Tricks to help you in REI!
Welcome to Unstoppable REI Wealth, where we explore the world of real estate investing. In this episode, we dive into the importance of surrounding oneself with knowledgeable individuals in real estate and the value of seeking out helpful resources and guidance. Our guest, Jenna Hoover, a real estate investing entrepreneur, shares her journey of starting, growing, and scaling a successful real estate investing business. Jenna emphasizes the importance of tenacity and not giving up when faced with challenges, and shares her insights on branding, coaching, and working with real estate software companies.
The podcast highlights the journey of successful real estate entrepreneurs and the challenges and opportunities that come with it.
So, if you want to learn how to succeed in the real estate industry, join us on Unstoppable REI Wealth. Don't miss this opportunity to gain insights and knowledge from the experts in the field. Listen now to this episode and start your journey to unstoppable wealth in real estate!
- Interview with real estate investor
- Importance of tenacity and not giving up
- Success despite challenging circumstances
- Starting with no money and using creative financing
- Having a bigger cause as a driving force
- Investing in real estate without prior knowledge
- Importance of not over-improving houses
- Importance of branding oneself
- Real estate software for finding and managing leads
- Mentoring as an alternative to software
- Investing in marketing
- Setting oneself apart from competitors
- Career growth and setting bigger goals
- Importance of believing in oneself
- Setbacks and failures as opportunities for growth
- Surrounding oneself with knowledgeable individuals
- Giving back and helping others
KEY POINTS
[0:0:20] Discover how to unlock the ultimate potential of your financial future with Unstoppable REI's proven strategies for creating unstoppable profits through real estate investment!
[0:1:12] Through both triumphant and trying moments, life's experiences play an integral role in fostering personal growth - enabling us to rise above any lingering regrets.
[0:3:37] Jenna Hoover, a single mom, courageously pursued her dream of investing in real estate ten years ago with no prior experience – and despite a tumultuous divorce – triumphed to create a flourishing business.
[0:5:50] Without a penny to her name, she was determined to make something of herself – leveraging every opportunity and borrowing from loved ones to invest in her future – and become a successful provider for her beloved child.
[0:5:50] Jenna is an ambitious independent contractor, eagerly striving to reach her goals and develop long-term plans to benefit the company.
[0:8:46] Discover how lucrative it can be to invest in distressed areas with motivated sellers – without the intense competition!
[0:8:46] By strategically branding yourself and avoiding costly mistakes, you can establish credibility and attract quality buyers to your over-improved properties.
[0:18:3] Fueled by her passionate commitment to success, real estate entrepreneur Billy Alvaro has skyrocketed to fame after early branding efforts, leading to multiple offers from TV producers and now focusing on other lucrative real estate ventures.
[0:21:30] By utilizing strategic networking and cultivating a powerful personal brand, you can dramatically increase your chances of being noticed by a major network like HGTV!
[0:22:12] By investing in marketing, savvy real estate professionals have seen a remarkable return on their investment – often yielding extraordinary profits.
[0:27:49] After making a dramatic life-altering transition from a life of opulence to one of deprivation, a determined individual can take charge of their future and find success through sheer grit and perseverance.
[0:38:16] By facilitating effortless communication, businesses can experience a dramatic boost in collaboration and output.
Connect with Jenna
https://www.instagram.com/jennabuyshouses/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennabuyshouses/
https://www.facebook.com/jennabuyshouses/
And after that head on over to...
Who knows maybe you will be our next partner?
To get some neat (and FREE) Tools | Tips | Tricks to help you in REI!
Jenna 00:00:02 Good. Welcome to Unstoppable real estate investing wealth. My name is Billy Alvaro, aka the Unstoppable BA former billion dollar mortgage banker gone bankrupt, turn professional real estate investor, where each week you'll learn the tools, strategies, systems, and secrets myself and other highly successful real estate investing entrepreneurs use to start, grow, and scale their businesses, creating massive profits and how you can too. And we'll teach you how to put those profits to work so you no longer have to get ready to finally experience financial freedom and generational wealth. Now let's get started. What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to the episode Unstoppable. Rei. Welcome your host, Billy Alvaro. And I'm here today interviewing somebody that I've known of for probably twelve years, but never actually sat down face to face like this. We met once a year ago through a mutual friend, and I'm interviewing today, ms. Jennifer Jen jenna Hoover. I always call you Jennifer.
Jenna 00:01:22 Ms. Jenna Hoover.
Jenna 00:01:24 What is going on?
Jenna 00:01:25 That was such a cool video you just showed. Oh, my gosh, I just love it. That is just so fun. you're just so cool. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Whether Jennifer, Jenna, however you want to say it, you got that, east coast accent, so you could probably say it however you want and I wouldn't understand, but I'm just kidding.
Jenna 00:01:46 So, Jenna, let's get right into it. You've been investing for years, like, you've been at this game for what, 12, 13, 14 years?
Jenna 00:01:55 I just celebrated my ten year anniversary in March this year. So ten years we've known each other, probably all ten.
Jenna 00:02:03 Congratulations. That's a huge thing to actually have, ten years under your belt. A lot of people went to business after the first two or three, so making it to five is a milestone. Making it to ten is almost unheard of, so congrats on that.
Jenna 00:02:14 Well, don't think that I probably wouldn't be in that group if I just wasn't super tenacious. So there's probably all those same sucky things that happen for me that happens for everybody else, except I just don't quit, so I'm relentless with it.
Jenna 00:02:28 Yeah, you don't quit. You just keep, on pressing forward. Tell me ten years ago, because I know a little bit about your story ten years ago, what was your situation when you were getting into this business? Like, what was happening in your world and what made you get started into this investment career?
Jenna 00:02:46 Wow, we'll just bring up those ten year old wounds. Um, no, just kidding. Um, so my background was not in real estate whatsoever, so I went to school for radiology, and I did medical sales for seven years. I was married, I had my daughter. it didn't work out. I was divorced and I was taking care of her. She was about two. and then kind of fast forward, I was at the gym one day, saw an ad for a real estate education company. And I'm like, all right, let's see if I can figure this stuff out. Let's see if somebody can show me how to do this stuff. And I, was super nervous. I basically jumped into real estate at that point. Then I was remarried. So ten years ago, I was basically this, young mom, got into real estate. My marriage, unfortunately, the second one, fell apart, right at the beginning of my real estate career. So ten years ago, I'm trying to fumble my way through creating a business, going through a divorce, raising a two year old by myself, and I didn't even know what the word escrow meant. So that's how I had no real estate experience. But all I knew is I'd watch those shows on TV, and I'm like, I'm painting my cabinets black today. I love this stuff. I want to do it, and I got to figure out how to do it. it was total chaos. Ten years ago.
Jenna 00:04:09 It was. And kudos to you for making it happen. Single mom with a kid. Were you renting at the time, or did you own at the time?
Jenna 00:04:17 Whenever I was a single mom, no, I was living in my parents house in my old bedroom. Yeah. Listen, so when I was married the first time, we both had great medical sales jobs. We were making, like, quarter of a million a year. We had a condo in Pittsburgh, right by where the Steelers play. We had a house in 13 acres, in the mountains. We had property in Shanksville, which is, like, where Flight 93 went down on a really private lake. We had Harley sports cars. I mean, we were living, like, the definition of what everybody's like. That's when I know I made it. and then things fell apart. He kind of had another life and things like that. So at that time, my daughter was six months old, and I went and packed up my two dogs, two duffel bags, me and her, and we went and stayed at my parents. And it wasn't even a year until we went back again, pretty much to just get a U Haul. So, it wasn't, like, my most glorious moment to be like, this is my life. And now I'm living in my parents house because I'd given up my job at that point to be a mom. So I had no job, I had no money. Everything I had in savings went to businesses that he had, and then I'm now living in my parents house. So I'm like, yeah, this is a big transition.
Jenna 00:05:30 Yeah. We went from living the dream to really not living the dream.
Jenna 00:05:33 Yeah, like rags to riches, all that rags.
Jenna 00:05:38 When you got started in this real estate, it sounds like many stories, right? You had no money living at your mom's house. What did you do to get started? I want you to talk to the audience out there who's on the start phase, right? Because this podcast is about starting, growing, and scaling, and there's a lot of people in each tranche, the starting people, the people who are like, I have no money. I have no income. I have no credit. I want to get into this business, but what the hell do I do? What did you do?
Jenna 00:06:06 I had some money in savings because I would take my daughter's child support and I'd put it into a savings account. So, uh, whenever I got into it, the way I looked at it is I didn't have a lot of money me personally, but my daughter had some money in her savings account. And I remember I literally looked at her, she was, like, two years old. And I'm like, can Mommy borrow some money for something and I'll pay you back 10% interest? And it's like I put my foot in my mouth now, because anytime I ever she's going to be 13. And I'll say like, hey, I don't have time to run to the ATM. Can I borrow money? And she'll be like, yeah, with 10% interest, I create Monster. so I borrowed it from her. This is where it's important. Somebody may not have any money, but don't screw credit. So I had credit cards that had no balances on them, that I could write the checks out of them, where you could write a check out of your credit card. So I'm like, okay, I had 0% credit cards. I could pay it off in a year. So I'm like, I'm going to take some of this. I'm going to take some of this. I'm going to invest in myself, in the company that I became part of. I don't even think that they even offer, the type of coaching that I even had back then. So I'm super excited to learn more from you because this is awesome. So I looked at it, and I'm like, I invested, like, 25K into it. And this was, like, ten years ago. So I'm like it was a six month program. So I looked at it, I broke it down, and I said, all right, six months is like 24 weeks. 24 weeks, $25,000. Basically every week I sit here and I don't do something. I'm taking $1,000 away from my daughter, because I literally took it from her. But I took it from her knowing that I had something different about me. I had something special. I may not have money. I may not have education. I may not have experience. I may not have all these things, but I could count on me. I never let myself down. And I especially could not let her down. I couldn't fail. And of course, at this point, my life was a shit show. You know what I mean? I was living at my parents, all this stuff.
Jenna 00:08:06 But your goal was your driving force. She was your reason why every person who wants to drive somewhere, who wants to get somewhere in life, they have to have a bigger cause themselves. It can't just be about you. It has to be about something else. A bigger cause, or in your case, your daughter. Your daughter driving force to get you to the next level.
Jenna 00:08:25 Yeah, definitely.
Jenna 00:08:26 No doubt. No doubt. So you invest the 25,000. Take me through. Take, me through. I know we're going way back. I just want to understand your first deal, because you had no money, you had no experience. I mean, you didn't know anything about real estate.
Jenna 00:08:38 No. And it was so funny. So I invest in some two very, the markets I invest in, they're like, it's a very distressed area. A lot of motivated sellers, a lot of distressed properties, and there's not a lot of investor competition, which is good, but wholesaling sucks. So I would put up bandit signs, and I get a ton of phone calls the next day. And nobody had ever heard of these people from TV that flip houses. It was like this market that has been untouched and unsaturated. So I put up my signs, and a few weeks into it, I had an event where I met a coach, and they were helping me. And they're like, all right, well, make ten offers and see what happens. So I had about six properties that I had been kind of, like, kicking my feet with, and I'm like, uh oh, this could be a deal. Could be a deal. And it was like so I went out, i, uh, listened to my coach, I made six offers, and all six of them got accepted. Six out of six. That doesn't happen. I would put up bandit signs, and I would have, like, 16 voicemails within a day or two. It was crazy. People were throwing houses at me. So I'm like, these are six really good deals. And of course, I had nobody to wholesale them to. And I'm like, all right, let's see what I can figure out. And I moved forward on five out of the six of them. And let me tell you, and it was super stressful. Um, I got one of them. I can't remember. I flipped a couple of them. I had one as a rental for a while. I used an old IRA or some self directed IRA thing I had from an old work company to pay for one of them. And then I didn't know I had to pay it back in a certain amount of months. And I'm freaking out. I didn't even have any education. And I remember I started one of the rehabs. One of my coaches was like I said to them, I'm like, should I have my contractor sign something so if they fall off the roof, they don't sue me? And he's like, you don't have them sign any contracts. And I'm like, I didn't get that far in the training yet. I put up my signs like you told me, and my phone's ringing. Now I'm dealing with all these houses, but the first one I bought, it the woman's like, I want to lose my house or my car because I can't pay for both of them. And she's like, and I can't drive my house, so do you want it? And I bought it for 20K. It took me five weeks. I think I put like, I don't know, like 15,000 or 17,000 into it or something like that. And then found my buyer in 7 hours on Facebook after I was finished with it, sold it, made
Jenna 00:11:02 $38,000 on my first house. And that got me on infomercials and all that kind of stuff.
Jenna 00:11:08 Must have been after that.
Jenna 00:11:10 Yeah, but then I screwed up a whole lot after that because that one was, like, super easy, and it was like an easy flip. And then I'm, like flipping these houses, like in Pennsylvania, making them look like these Taj Mahal houses that you guys have out Easter out west or down south. And our maximum is like a 200K house. And I'm like making them with granite countertops and marble and all this stuff. So I over improved. I made some mistakes, but it took me a while to kind of climb out of that. But it's been a fun ride ever since.
Jenna 00:11:41 How long after you started getting into the flipping? Because you did something very smart early on. You started branding yourself, like big time branding yourself. And you were all over the Internet. Jenna buys house, and you're still over the Internet. So when did that transition happen? Uhdid it start right in the beginning? I'm like, I'm going to brand myself as Jenna, this blonde who was going to be flipping houses with a two belt and going in there. Was that in your mindset in the beginning?
Jenna 00:12:07 I'm blonde. I haven't colored my hair since here down. It was like a blonde moment. So my coaches were like, get business cards. Get your picture on them. And I'm like I'm the overthinker. So I'm like, what do I wear? Do I wear a suit? Do I pose? Do I pose like this in a picture? And I'm like, you know what? Heck with that. I'm just, like, paying somebody to just make, like, a cartoon logo of me. And I don't even want to have to deal with putting my picture on it because I was just, like, so overwhelmed. So I hired this guy. It was like on, um, what was it back then? found some guy and he made my logo. And I'm like, I want it to be this cute little construction girl. And then after I made it, my contractors would look at it. They'd look at me, they look at it, they look back. They're like, well, somebody embellished a little bit and I'm like, hey, you know what? This is the cheapest form of plastic surgery I'm ever going to get. So let me live my life with my tiny, little wasted, big chested logo. Leave me alone. yeah, so I just did that and then I would post it and then it would explode because it was like, nobody has ever thought to do something like that. And then everybody would ask, where did you get it done? And then everybody would use my the guy that I used was this, like, dude from ELians. Now he's like this huge YouTube star, sends pictures of his daughter because he was like, I forget where he was, like in India or somewhere else, another country. And he's like his whole life has taken off. Not because of me, essentially, but he was just some guy on ELians. Then I referred hundreds, thousands of people to him and he's, um logos for so many different people, but yeah, he's super cool. He'd send me some at Christmas time with my logo, with a Christmas hat, just for fun, just so I could use it just to be nice. He was sweet.
Jenna 00:13:57 You're still in touch with this guy? Years.
Jenna 00:13:59 Oh, yeah, his name is Jagdish. Yeah, we're friends. We're friends on social media. Yeah.
Jenna 00:14:05 Good stuff. When did it happen? When did you get your TV show? That was like eight years ago.
Jenna 00:14:11 seven. It could have been eight, I forget. It's been long enough now that I lost count.
Jenna 00:14:18 So tell me, that process, how did they scout you out? What did that look like?
Jenna 00:14:21 so I became like a real estate coach myself after a few months, six months, a year or so, and I became a coach. And I was out actually, across the country doing some training for speaking training. And I get an email and it was HGTV themselves saying, hey, we've been watching you. Creepy. You know what I mean? it's like, hey, we've been watching you. We really like what we see. If you're interested, let's touch base. And so I'm like, is this like a legit email? And I had gotten probably three or four other TV show offers up until that point, but I was like, such a baby in real estate that I'm like, I'm not ready to be on TV. I don't want anybody to see this craziness. There's nothing to see here. I don't want you to see it and then it was like, I couldn't detach myself from my business for a month to film, so I was even offered a TV show. Do you want me to tell you? Is this like one of those things that people want your secrets?
Jenna 00:15:21 Yeah. What's? Your secrets?
Jenna 00:15:22 Okay, so have you ever heard of Armando Montelago?
Jenna 00:15:25 Of course. Yeah.
Jenna 00:15:27 So he actually approached me and had offered me a TV show where he wanted to produce me. And so I was like, that's a really great opportunity, but no thank you. And then I turned it down. So I had turned down a lot of opportunities. And I'm m like, well, this is freaking HGTV. A lot of times when people are approached, they're approached by production companies that are, like, hoping that you're going to be their golden ticket. But they contacted me themselves, and they're like, are you interested? And I'm like, at this point, it was like a year or a couple of years or whatever. After I'd been rolling, I'm like, all right, I'll kick it around. And so they're like, send me a ten minute video clip of who you are, what you do, and how you do it. And luckily, I was, like, obnoxious in the beginning. I take videos of everything. My contractors are being crazy. They'll be, like, smoking while they're pouring gas from a gas jug. I'm like, these people are nuts. and I had clips of so many things and videos of my daughter. So I spliced it all together, threw it to them, and we freaking love it. So they came in. We did a real where we filmed for, like, 13 hours. They positioned it like, they put me with a production company, and then they positioned it to HGTV, and they said, we love it. And so originally they said, we want a I won't say what they said, but they wanted a version of Nicole Curtis because I was a single mom, I do historic houses. They kind of wanted something like that. So that's kind of how we it was kind of like that was the theme. So we filmed that. It was, like a whole month. We filmed it. It aired, it did great. And then they came back to me, and they were like, hey, the hot shows now are, like, guy and girl duos, like Chip and Joanna and Tariq and whatever her name was, Christina or something and they said, we need you to find a male kind of, like, partner. We need you to be engaged for the show. we're going to kind of change the theme to where it's like, people go in, they renovate their houses, they get in over their head, and then you come in, save the day, do the big grand reveal, and then that's that. And I'm like, thank you, but no thank you. So I turned it down to do more. Most people would think that's crazy. I didn't seek them out. They sought me out, which was an awesome opportunity. I have that on my resume. But I didn't have a back end product. I didn't have a coaching product or something. So I didn't really monetize on the
Jenna 00:17:46 opportunity. And plus, social media was different back then, and I was kind of, like, super terrible at social media, other than just being organic. I didn't know how to do anything other than that. So I probably could have blown it up a lot more. but that was then.
Jenna 00:18:02 I think it's amazing, though. It's amazing how really by you branding yourself and putting yourself out there the way you did, because you were young and early in this game, and very quickly you had people from TV making you offers.
Jenna 00:18:13 Oh, yeah. I mean, it was cool. It was really big. And now I haven't flipped a house in quite a while just because when COVID happened, I kind of transitioned my business. I focused more on getting more rental portfolio, building my portfolio, getting into Airbnb. And plus, it was like a sucky time. Material was high. People didn't want to sell. You couldn't go in houses. And I just got my real estate license. So, it was like I didn't focus on flipping. And now we're back into the flipping game, and I'm not even posting anything on social media because I'm trying to be all incognito about it because it's like if anybody even ever reached out, I'm, like, calm down about any of the notoriety about it.
Jenna 00:18:59 I'm glad. So you fast forwarded. You took a little bit of a break. So what does your business look like today? you said you do an Airbnb, you do a buy and hold. Is it just you, Jenna, as the organization? Do you have people that are in your organization that work with you? What does that look like?
Jenna 00:19:15 Yeah. So I'm still the sole proprietor of everything. So I own everything within my business. So I have a couple of different businesses. Um, I have my rental portfolio that I have. And the only reason I did that is because that's how I had started. So I started out by myself as a sole proprietor person. And then, um, my partner, Adam, he was from Kansas. He was actually one of my first real estate students. And then he had contacted me. I always say he's like a total creeper. So he reached out to me. He's like, we had worked together. I was his coach. I helped him for months and months. So he ended up saying, like, I want to do some work for you because kind of like a virtual assistant. Because he's in Kansas, I'm in Pennsylvania. I'm complaining. I have so many leads, and he has the time to evaluate. So I'm like, yeah, you can do some stuff remotely. Fast forward. Like, another year later, he's like, if I'm going to do this, I should just move to Pennsylvania and help you. And I'm like, oh, I don't know about all that because I had another situation before that where I had a total creeper come here and it's like another story, another day. long story short, he ended up, after a few months, moving here, helping me with a lot of different things because he had a bachelor's degree in business, I didn't have that. And we're complete opposites when it comes to certain things work related, like where I'm super slacky. He is very advanced and certain things that he hates to do, I'm like, I knock it out. So we work really well together. So we work together for about a year and then the whole love story. Then you end up getting together. And then we've been together, I don't know, a bunch of years. And we have a son together. He's five. It's me and him. I would say 50 50, even though I still own everything. I guess that's probably my PTSD from my terrible divorces. But that's another story so leave that there. but yeah, so we flip houses. I've done wholesaling and all that kind of stuff. I've done real estate coaching all across the country. I've done all that kind of stuff. And then, I was traveling a ton with the company I was with before teaching all across the country. I decided to step back about six and a half years ago, six years ago, because I wanted another baby. So, I got pregnant, had him, and then I decided to take some time off. And then now I'm back. I started working with another company and they kind of scooped me up and they made it super fun to
Jenna 00:21:42 work with them. So I'm like an independent contractor working with them to help promote their stuff while leveraging all their tools and software to my advantage.
Jenna 00:21:54 Let's talk about that because I know you're a pretty cool software company that's been they've been in the business in the real estate space for quite some time.
Jenna 00:22:01 What's the name with so it's either real flow or lead flow. so if you're looking for the app, it's going to be under Lead Flow and then Real Flow. Make sure you put the E in the middle. Real e flow. But yeah, super amazing company that I've been using their software as a real estate student, as a baby investor since I first started. But now to be work with them and really do a lot of cool things with them. And now, I work kind of building relationships with, different people that kind of promote a product. So yeah, it's super fun because I get to do things like hang out with you, hang out with super cool people like you. But this is like a, quote, job. This is not a job. This is like a freaking dream all the time. Like, hanging out. And I just got back from Florida. I traveled to Florida to and from in the same day to do a quick speaking event. And I get to go to I was in California and then here and there. And then it's like then my rentals are just doing their own thing and my cleaning girls cleaning my airbnb for me. So, I mean, I have different people that I work with. I have different teammates. But I'm still the main show, the head honcha. Yeah, I'm the one that says, what's up?
Jenna 00:23:21 The Real Flow system, what is it specifically? Because, u I want the investors out there to understand how this could assist them with growing and scaling their business. So what is the real flow system?
Jenna 00:23:32 Yeah, so Real Flow, it's a real estate software and it's a CRM, which is basically I like to explain it in two parts. So the first part is like a data source. So real estate investors are sitting there and they're like, where am I supposed to find all these leads if you don't have people calling you? Well, this is the software that's going to find you the leads. So, over 148,000,000 leads nationwide, we can search right there with our searching tool. So from there, we can do things like skip tracing, we can do direct mail, we can call them, we can do all these really cool things. So the fact is that we can find the leads and we incorporate it with artificial intelligence, which is unheard of in some of the other competitors that we worked against. We have so many different tools all integrated together that nobody else has that. So we can basically say, okay, here's all these leads. Great. But now which ones are going to sell? So we have a super high success rate with our sellability scores and predicting the likelihood of these houses selling. So that saves us a ton on marketing. So if I can market to a list of 100 versus 11,000 different people, these are the ones that are going to sell because of our proven systems. So from there, we're also a CRM, and I like to call that like it's almost like a command center or like business management tools. So I can take my deal. I can do repair numbers in there. I can use a deal analyzer to figure out, is this a deal or not? How much will I make? I can pull my calms right there. I can have autoresponders to send out. There's so many different things. So as a brand new investor, if I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. What is my first step? Obviously, seeking an awesome mentor, somebody like you. But if somebody's like, I can't afford a mentor or I don't even know, whatever, then they'll look into something like a software that can basically handhold you and basically send out your stuff. And then when you start making the money, then bringing it back to somebody like you to handhold and mentor them to take them to that next level.
Jenna 00:25:27 Smart. What is real flow cost?
Jenna 00:25:30 it all depends. There's a couple of different packages. You can get it, pay for it by the year, and there's different lead packages. So if you want some really basic leads and things like that, you don't need the CRM. You don't have to have all the. Different tools. If you just want the leads, it's very expensive. it can be a little bit more. But some of my deals, when the AI, the artificial intelligence first came out, I'm super skeptic. And this is before I was even working with them. And I'm like, all right, let's see how legit this really is. So I sent out a campaign in my area. So, like, 59 different people. I used the AI score. I was, like, filtered with that and don't feel like you need to know what heck what I'm talking about. Some of people are like, what filters would I use? But anyways, long story short, I sent it out. I spent $87. I did a two touch campaign. I had 13 phone calls that came back, and out of that, seven of them were decent. One of them I got as a real estate listing. Another one I bought subject to. So the people were like, umy husband works out of town. I'm just scared if something happens. And she's like, I tried owner financing somebody else before. And I'm like, oh, so you're into that kind of talk. So I bought it subject to, all in each month. It was $314. My payment, everything. She put a tenant in there for me. I rented every single month for $750. So every month, I make a positive $400 every single month for the last four years just to see if it works. And if somebody's going to sit there and complain, I have to spend $50 on a software a month, well, then fine. If you don't want those kind of results, then don't spend it. That's your call.
Jenna 00:27:17 The number one thing in this business. And you know, just as I know you have to be a marketer, you have to drive in the business. Whether you're going out there face to face and you're doing networking, or you're doing social media marketing, or you're sending out direct mail or Google pay per click. I mean, my company now, we're putting out about $110,000 a month in marketing. it's an expense, but it's an investment. It's really not an expense. We're getting four and a half to five times our investment back on the capital that we're putting out each and every month. So, like, $100, $200 if you can get a return back. One or two deal. One deal, for Christ's sake. One deal of $3,000 investment a month is a great return if that thing is going to either cash flow or if you're going to fix it and flip it and make ten or 15 or 20 or $30,000. You have to invest if you want to take your company to the next level.
Jenna 00:28:08 Yeah. And since then, in the last year or so, we've came out with, like, before, it was just a residential software. Now we're commercial. So we have a whole commercial division. We're getting lean data. There's so many different things that our software is doing, because obviously you can buy data anywhere. You know what I mean? I can go here, there, or whatever. So how do we set ourselves apart from all the other competitors? Well, we have a team of real estate people that are actually flipping houses that work with the company. Like people like me, where I'm like, well, that area sucks. Let's fix that. Let's do that. So we'll redo the whole comping tool within the whole system. They are so receptive towards what people are using, how to really make it. I wouldn't be here if I didn't like them. You know what I mean? If I didn't like them and I didn't believe in them, I would be like, this is not for me just because I have to really like what I'm doing. Otherwise I don't have to do it. Like, I have my own business. I like the people.
Jenna 00:29:06 Are you working with them full time, or is it like a part time gig?
Jenna 00:29:10 So I'm an independent contractor. So, we kind of negotiate what my roles are or what. I feel like last year, whenever we kind of came together, because I'd been working with them kind of like as a freelancer for a few years, here and there, I would do some videos. I would film this, I would help with that, do different, a little bit more, and help us with, you know, help us with some different things. And so, you know, I kind of help speak on their behalf. I help do different things. But then this year, kind of whenever that year came around, I'm like, hey, we can really leverage me a lot better if we put me here and we do this here. And so I got a lot smarter and a lot better. Even in the last year, I just became more of, like, a business person employee, even though I'm not an employee, but I look at their business, like my business. I'm like, if we have this much percentage of our revenue coming in from this, how can we take this and really blow it up? So I'm working with them in a lot of different areas, and it's really cool because it's like I'm seeing the company grow more and more, not necessarily only because of me. I'm sure that I'm helping and doing different things, but it's giving me a lot of pride because I can help them. But it doesn't feel like a job. Like I said, I just went to Florida and came back, and my daughter got to go with me. She got to see me speak, which was so fun. I mean, like, what person gets to just go to Florida for their job, bring their kid, hang out, all expenses paid, come home. It's super cool.
Jenna 00:30:49 It's a good life. You're doing really good for yourself, Jenna. It's good to see, good to hear, for sure. What's next to you? What does the future hold? The next two to five. What do you see yourself?
Jenna 00:30:57 Oh, my gosh. So I kind of feel like my career started really quickly, and then it became, like, almost like when you drag your feet when, um, somebody's pulling you. I felt like I started too fast. Then I got too scared of how fast I was going, and I put a halt. And then it took me a while to get momentum again, to almost believe in myself because I felt like I still had that shitty mindset that I had when I first started. Because I lost in myself and I doubted myself. And I kind of had to stop and realign and figure out because I had a lot of holes in my business, so I had to figure out a lot of things, like lick my wounds a lot, fix a lot of things. And then now that that's fixed, and now that I have things lined up, it's like I'm so excited. A lot of my goals, like, every year, I sit down and I write goals in the beginning, at the end of the year, before the beginning of the year, just like anybody else should. But I'm hitting so many of those so fast right now that I'm almost, like, a little bit and just being honest, it's almost like, man, I'm hitting these goals so fast that I haven't even made next goals yet. So I almost need to sit down and really figure out what is my long term thing? Do I want to do I'm going to be doing, I'm sorry to cut you off.
Jenna 00:32:07 What you need to figure out is you need to get bigger goals.
Jenna 00:32:10 I know that's what I'm meaning. Because it's bigger goals. Yeah. It was, like, such a delay to get here. It took ten years, but now that I'm here, it's like now I feel like this is where I should have been ten years ago, whenever I was a brand new baby and I didn't know how to do anything. Now I have the education, I have the network, I have the connections. I can do whatever I really want to do. I'm, not saying I could go and do more TV, but if I wanted to, all I have to do is call the people from HGTV and if they would be interested. But that's not necessarily a goal. So I have to sit down and figure it out, because I have some speaking events coming up. I've just spoken vegas last year in front of 7000 people, and I was, like, super scared. But that doesn't sound like a lot of people. But it is when you're standing out there by yourself and you have no idea what you're talking about because they changed your topic 15 minutes before you went out there. Um, yeah. Talk about a heart attack. People are scared of public speak as it is, and I'm standing there and they're like, let's have you talk about this. And I'm like, I wasn't prepared for that. I think that it's going to be a lot of great things. It sounds silly, but I want to build a house for my parents, things like that, where I want to start pouring back into my community. I want to be a cheerleading coach for my daughter's school, little things like that, where I have the time to do it. But I have my business rolling. And if I want to go travel here, we want to go to Ireland next year to see Def Leopard. That's a goal. Yeah, but I never would have thought that's possible. But it's so possible because of what my life has become. But it's all because of just believing in myself, believing in my family, my spirituality, and just the opportunities that I've been given.
Jenna 00:33:56 It's a culmination of all your experiences, right? I mean, everything that you've experienced, you've gone through, the good, the bad, the ugly has gotten you the way you are today. And I don't know, has everybody ever asked you the question, if you can turn back time and change anything, what would you change and why?
Jenna 00:34:11 yeah, and I ask myself that all the time. I think everybody asks their self that. And if you would ask me this, like, six months ago or a year, I could have given you, like, why would I fired that project manager that stole, $10,000 worth of tools from me? Or I never would have brought on those two people, that two investors that ended up stealing from me. I could go back and give you the list, but all that stuff, it hardened me. Before, things got out of hand, I learned so much. I got screwed over a lot. I've had people take advantage of me. I could go back and say, I wish I never would have dated the person that did this or whatever to me, but then I wouldn't have the life that I have now. I wouldn't have known how good I had it at different points if I didn't lose it. And one of my friends used to joke to me, they said, you drank from the Golden Chalice too young, because I had a medical sales job at 20 years old, I was making $126,000 a year. But then it's like, then take that and then lose it all. Lose your relationship, go live in your parents your old bedroom in your parents house with your daughter's crib next to your bed with no money and no job. So that humbles you to a different level, to where then when you start getting out of that, you appreciate it so much. But I don't regret those moments. Those were moments of bonding with her that made us so close. And that's what makes us have the relationship that we do. So really, the only regrets were that I wish I would have been better educated. I wish I would have not gone so fast, because I think I could have really taken off a lot bigger. But I don't think that I was mentally mature enough or ready to be this big TV sensation or anything like that, because I think it would have changed me. It would have changed the course of my life. I mean, I may not have had my son.
Jenna 00:36:04 Exactly the way it was supposed to happen. You are here, and you're in the best spot, from what I can tell, that you've ever been. And you're in this spot because of every single incident, every single experience you've had over the last 15, 2030 years of your life.
Jenna 00:36:20 And I attribute so much go ahead.
Jenna 00:36:23 What would you change? I'm like, nothing. I've had many failures, many ups and downs. Things that I wished back then wouldn't have happened. But if I would have changed any one of those things, I wouldn't be where I am today. Not at all.
Jenna 00:36:36 Yeah. And the thing is, it's just all how you deal with the setbacks. Most of the time, people screw up and they're like, oh, my gosh, I better just hang it up now. I better quit now before it gets too crazy. But me, it's like, okay, I know that if this person can be successful, anybody can. So if I'm screwing up or I'm failing or it's not going that way, then I have to figure out how to redirect and adjust my sales and figure it out. So a lot of that has been like, uh, and not to make it too salesy. A lot of it has been the people with real flow. Like, one of the owners, Greg Clement, I sat in his office, like, six or seven years ago when I was at one of my lowest of lows. And I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to do. Like, these people screwed me over. I lost all this money. I'm basically I can't finish these houses. I don't know what to do. I'm, like, losing everything. And he literally took a whole day out of his day out of his week, and he said, Come to Ohio. Sit in my office. I'm going to work with you. And he sat me down, just friend to friend. He's like, the nicest guy. I love his wife. His kids are great. He has this huge farm. He's just an amazing person. And he sat me down, and he's like, here's what to do. He's like, on this kind of house. This is what you're to do for this amount of time. He's like and then before you know it, you're going to look at your bank account and not realize that it started to increase. And so that's what I did. I went home, and I put my head down, and I started marketing, and I started getting all these deals, and I started buying these houses and flipping a house and made, like, 50K within six weeks. And I'm like, oh my gosh, he knows what he's talking about. And he's just helping me friend to friend. And then he's, like, helped advise me. And my parents have met him, my kids and my daughter has filled out there since she's, like, six years old they're just awesome people. A lot of that has just been by surrounding myself with people, like, super smart people. And now that I'm super connected with you, I'm going to be surrounding myself a lot with you to learn all of your amazing secrets. Because, uI'm like a sponge when it comes to real estate education. And now that I know all the things that you can teach and all of your successes, now I'm going to sink my claws into all of your education. Not in a creepy way, but anybody that's listening, I want to learn from you. Everybody should be wanting to learn somebody
Jenna 00:38:51 like you, all the things that you've done and accomplished. And I don't want the guru that's up there and showing me yachts and saying all these great things. I want the person like you that says, this sucked. I lost it. And then that's the person I want to learn from. Because if something doesn't go perfect, I have a person right here who's going to be able to advise me on how to get out of it. Because you've been there.
Jenna 00:39:12 Yeah, it's cute. I shared that story. It was probably, like, eleven years ago for the first time. And I was hesitant on sharing it because when you expose yourself like that, you are 100% transparent of all this shit that you've experienced. Ah, people going to handle it. I got to tell you, it was so well received because so many people, they have their own struggles that they're going through, and they have no idea, how do I handle it. That one video that I did, I got interviewed eleven, uh, years ago, and I've done many since. It just put me on this different path to really help people. I get calls and texts every month, multiple times a month, from a person that's going through a situation and like, bro, listen, we don't know each other that well. I saw your video. How the fuck did you get through this? I'm in a world of shit, and we have to sit down. And I'll give time to certain people because you could just tell they're being genuine. They're not just trying to take they're really coming from a place of like, I really need guidance. And so I appreciate you bringing that up. I love giving back. Love helping people.
Jenna 00:40:11 Yeah. How long do we have here? I'm a chatter box. I'm going to talk all week.
Jenna 00:40:19 I'm actually looking. I think we're going to wrap up. So people want to get in touch with you, Jenna. How do they find you?
Jenna 00:40:27 Yeah, so I'm on all social media platforms at Jenna. J-E-N-N-A buys. And that's going to be plural Y S, and then houses. Plural houses at Jenna buys houses. So that's where I'm at. And hopefully, we can talk offline, about potentially working together and kind of going from there, for sure.
Jenna 00:40:50 It was really good seeing you. Love you story. Thanks so much for sharing. I know everybody's going to get something out of it. Thanks again, Jenna.
Jenna 00:40:55 Thanks for having me.
Jenna 00:40:56 You got it.
Jenna 00:40:57 Bye. Bye.