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A
This is Wake up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. Hey.
B
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C
Hey, what's up everybody? We are back with another episode of Wake up to wealth and I cannot thank you guys enough. We are consistently number one in the investing category on Apple, consistently outranking Dave Ramsey. We cracked the top 15 in business a few weeks ago and it's because you guys continue to support the show. Our last four episodes all averaged over 80 plus thousand downloads. So I can't thank you guys enough to continue to support the show, continue to subscribe, continue to download, telling your friends about it because we don't do any paid marketing, we're not spending any money on paid ads. And this continues to grow. All of you guys also know if you follow the show, you can check us out on YouTube as well as our at our Wake up to Wealth YouTube channel. But again, I cannot thank you guys enough for supporting the show and the growth we've had is because of you. So thank you guys so much. And today I've got somebody I've been wanting to get on for a while. We happen to be in a mastermind together and I happen to be in the room with this guy when he presented and just got to see all the stuff that he was doing and he's onto some really cool stuff and he's done some really cool things in the real estate investment space. He's done a lot of things in different walks of life in the real estate space too, which I think is awesome because he's battle tested. And that's Steve Trank. Thank you so much for being on the show today.
A
Oh, man. Thank you for having me. It's a tremendous honor. Appreciate this opportunity.
C
Yeah. And Steve has a podcast as well that I happen to pay attention to and listen to and watch if you wouldn't mind. Shout that out for us.
A
Yeah, it's the Disruptors podcast. It's on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify. We bring on entrepreneurs that are doing the business for real. We actually vet all, everyone that comes on. So what, every clickbaity headline that we put in there, the titles all verified. So. But yeah, big guys doing big things.
C
So if, for, for everybody listening, if you wouldn't matter, if you wouldn't mind, give us like the, the. The 30, 000 foot tour of like how you kind of started in this industry and then kind of what you've morphed into to today.
A
Yeah. So, I mean, if you go back, because I, I've been in the business for almost 20 years now, but, you know, I started off as an engineer, right. Reading rich dad, poor dad. It's like, okay, having a boss sucks. I already felt this way. Now there's a way out, right? So I bought properties, they didn't work out. Became a realtor in 07, did that for a bit, did foreclosure, short sales and so on. Eventually started my own brokerage. And along the way I realized that I need to get good at marketing because at that point, I wasn't good at marketing, I wasn't good at sales, and I wasn't good at leadership. But I made it four years, right? Started my brokerage, like, hey, I need to learn marketing. So I went to Craig Proctor, learned that, and then from that, actually learned business. And along the way I learned how the best marketing unique selling proposition was for me as a realtor, was your home sole guarantee or I'll buy it. And that led to a lot of listings, but it also led into this wholesale journey because then I started buying people's houses because they would want cash offers. I was like, you don't want my cash purchase price like I do. It's like, no, you really don't. I said, no, I really do. So I started buying houses through that. So I became a wholesaler, reluctant flipper actively. And then I started a podcast. And then from the podcast, became a sales trainer. Along the way, also started a title company, there's a joint venture on a mortgage company, started a bank. So like anything and everything, just all these opportunities because we were consistently taking action, because we're consistently doing things, open more doors, created more opportunities.
C
Yeah. And so while you're doing that, are you buying stuff and holding it? Are you getting assets? Like what, what. What were you doing? Also on the.
A
Oh, man, we did not buy enough assets. I'll be honest with you. I had a Lot.
C
Everybody says that, by the way.
A
Yeah. I had a lot of baggage because I started in 07 and 07 was not a good time to start real estate. So what did I see? What was my experience in real estate? Watching people get divorced, losing all their assets. Not only some people getting divorced, some people killing themselves. Right. Like it was a dark, dark time.
C
Yeah.
A
In real estate. And so you read all the books in 05 and earlier, it's like leverage, leverage, leverage. Right. And you get into real estate, it's like, well, here's what happens. We hyper leverage. And then also got to work with all the clients are super wealthy. It's like, okay, how do the wealthy people buy properties? Well, they just bought everything cash. So, you know, for better, for worse, probably now worse. We bought all our properties cash. Like, we bought a property, we paid it off. We bought a property, we paid it off. So we don't have as many rental properties because we were intent on paying the properties off. Because the lessons I took. Right. The baggage I got in that time was own everything free and clear. Because you saw what happened to everyone that didn't. And the ones that own their things free and clear, man, they killed it in the recession.
C
Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a lesson in that for sure. I mean, 100%. I mean, we saw in 08, I got my real estate license at the end of 07.
A
Yeah. So about the same time.
C
So to your, to your point of, you know, grown men crying in the kitchen, people committing suicide, you know, craziness. And I mean, I. I saw people, hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth that were over leveraged, go to zero like that. Yeah.
A
So many people went past zero and went negative. So many people. Yeah.
C
Yeah.
A
Because of leverage. Yeah. So.
C
So at some point in your journey. Right. Which you. And I'm not just saying this. Cause he's on the podcast. You guys know that. You follow me. I very rarely will ever endorse anybody or say I listen to anybody or pay attention to anybody because there's a lot of bullshit gurus out there that are full of shit. You actually at some point said, I'm going to get into the sales training and not. So I didn't know before I met you in boardroom, the engineer, you know, back in. Which makes sense. But it's like you almost operationalize sales training and there's a lot of objections that I've heard from you that I've used and implemented into my sales team. So at some point you said you saw a need for this. And you dove into that. When do you think that was?
A
So that was in 2019. So when I started my podcast in 2018, I didn't have any specific agenda as like, I don't have a course to sell or anything like that. Like, let me just start this podcast, right? And I could see the best way to grow my podcast is, you know, reach out to other influencers and so on. And Max Maxwell at that time was like the most like, well known influencer in the space. So, you know, had him come on the podcast. He's the only one I ever offered to pay. He didn't accept it, but he was the only one that ever I ever actually offered to pay to come onto the podcast, right? And after the podcast, we got to talking. He's like, hey, I'm doing this event, you know, in Dallas. We're going to have like a thousand people there, maybe 2,000. Would you want to speak there? I was like, yeah, of course, I'd love to speak there, right? And then as I'm, as I'm heading over there, I was like, well, what will I talk about? And at this time, I was training my team and then I had other people asking me to train their team. I was like, well, let me just talk about sales on stage. Let me see if I'm on anything here is do I have something that people actually want? And so I just shared on stage what I was sharing with my friends privately. And like, the amount of people that were like, came up to me afterwards, like, thank you so much. That was really helpful. People tagging me on Instagram, hey, I used this Steve Trang line and it made me money, right? And people were asking me like, hey, like, do you have something I can come attend? It's like, well, you know, like, yes, I didn't, but like, yes, I do. Like, let me figure something out, right? As an entrepreneur, let me make something. And the amount of people that really, really needed help. Because at that time there was only one other guy really well known to space, which was John Martinez, which, you know, he kind of paved the, the way for, for sales education. But there was such a big need that it's like, all right, well, people are willing to pay for it and it doesn't take that much more effort from me. Let me go ahead and do this. And then just over time, you can see like, the revenue come from this side. It's competing with the revenue from the wholesale side. It's competing with the revenue from the title side. Gotta figure out where we're gonna put our attention right.
B
Hey, what's up, everybody? This next segment is brought to you by Greg Hurlein and my good friends at Horizon Trust. Greg's a guy that I trust, a real estate partner of mine. Greg's company, Horizon Trust was founded in 2011, has over a billion dollars in assets. And what they specialize in is helping you get into a self directed IRA account that you can leverage to do things beyond traditional investments so you can invest in things like precious metals, real estate, private lending, and so much more. So a lot of people are not aware that you can do this with your retirement account. And these are the guys that I trust. They do a single low annual fee, no hidden fees. They provide exceptional services. I know them and I trust them. And they are a licensed custodian governed by the IRS and the Department of Labor. So they've got the proper compliance and maintenance of your accounts. These are the guys that I trust. These are the guys that I would refer you to. So if you're interested in finding out more of how you can use your IRA to unlock all kinds of different ways for you to invest it, these are the guys that I want you to talk to. So here's where you got to go to check them out. Www.horizontrust.com forward/brandon B. So they know you came from me. That's www.horizontrust.com forward slash Brandon B.
C
Yeah, I think one of the, I mean, you've got a lot of good ones, but I think one I got from you that I personally have used a lot had something's wrong with me. I still get on the phone sometimes to close a deal and I rarely will go on an appointment anymore, but I still like every once in a while need the dopamine hit. I also like talking to the consumer just to see where their head is at, to get a feel for what's going on because I can train my sales teams better in real time. But one that I got from you is when you're talking to a seller, one that I love that I got from you is, hey, listen, I don't make offers. I buy houses, right? And I've used that so many times of like, hey, I'm not going to make you an offer. I'm going to buy, you know, my intention is to buy your house. And if I make you an offer, I promise you it's going to be less than what you think. You know, I'm here to buy your house. And just that little nuance of framing I've Been able to use and implement, and that one's worked really well for me.
A
Yeah, it's just positioning, Right. Like, I'm the pro. What do you want to do here?
C
Yeah, yeah. What's another? If you wouldn't mind, share one or two of your favorite objective handlers.
A
So the one that I get teased on quite a bit, but it works because I've used it is, you know, I'll say what it is, and then I'll talk about how it works. Right. So I was like, hey, Brandon, it kind of sounds to me like getting more money is more important to actually spending more time with your grandkids right now. Yeah, that could be a really hard thing to say. Right?
C
Yeah.
A
So what are we doing there? It's that you told me this whole time, right? As we've gone through pain and gained everything else, like, it's important to be close to your grandkids. You lived another one state over. You know, one's a year old, the other is three months old, and you don't get to spend a time with them. It's a pain in the butt to get over there. And if you just lived in the same state and, like, in the same city, you could spend as much time as you want because you didn't get to spend time with your kids. And now this is your time to wake up for or way to make up for it, right? Like, all these things. Right. And we spent, like, an hour talking about, like, all these things. And the end it's like, well, we need more money. And then it's like, now, so what do we have here? We have two different, like, truths. Like, they believe they want more money, and they believe they want to spend more time with their grandkids. And so we have the moment of truth. It's like, hey, Brandon, kind of sounds to me like you said this was really important earlier. Now you're saying you need more money. So help me understand. Like, it kind of sounds like getting more money is more important than being with your grandkids right now. And they're like, no, it's not. And then they decide to give themselves the haircut. I can't say, well, you need to take 30,000 less, right? I can't say that.
C
Of course.
A
But I could put both of them in front of you, and then you pick, and then you decide, you know what? If I can just be with my grandkids right now, I don't need the extra $30,000.
C
Yep.
A
So it's the matter of reframing, right? Because Oftentimes in negotiations, we're focused on the commission, we're focused on the price, we're focused on the fee, whatever. It's like if we focus and remember why you asked me to come over here, because you had this other problem that you want to solve, is that still important? And we focus on this other problem that you really want to solve. Why are we fighting over the small stuff here? And that's how we handle a lot of objections.
C
Yeah. I mean, true influence and persuasion with another human being is not forcing them to make a decision, but getting them to make a decision based on the information you presented them. That's really the decision they wanted to make in the first place.
A
And they told you they wanted that, right? That's what they told you they wanted. A hundred percent, you can help them do it.
C
Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah, that's. That's really good. I. I like how structurally you framed around that. So now are you're still pretty heavily actively involved in, in the coaching business, right?
A
Yeah, I mean, basically all my attention now. So we're saying, you know, like, we have to focus, right? Like, what are we going to do, which way we want to go. The path I took, I don't recommend this for everybody, but the path I took was eventually just closing businesses because they couldn't get me to where I wanted to go. Right. So, like along the way, we shut down the brokerage, we closed the title company, stopped the mortgage, jv. And then the last thing, which is the hardest thing was to stop buying houses because I've been doing it since 05. Right. The first property I bought as an investment was 05. So to stop buying properties in 24, that was the hardest one, the hardest business to close because that was the closest, most tied to my identity. Right. And so for me now my time is spent 50, 50 between fulfilling ourselves, education, people that we coach on sales, and the other half right now is how to implement AI and sales. Like, all my thoughts today for the most part is like, how can we incorporate AI more in the services we're offering? Those are the two areas where I spend my time today.
C
All right, we're going to talk about AI in a second, so I don't want to glance over this. I was sharing this with you offline before we got on. So how do you. You said a couple important things. The last thing you said was it was tied to my identity, which is very important. But you said you just, you decided, and I would imagine these companies were generating you some revenue. You Know, you weren't. You weren't doing it because they weren't making money. You know, like, that is probably one of the hardest things any entrepreneur can ever go through or ever deal with, which is, I gotta burn the good to get to the great. I'm personally struggling with that right now. So, you know, if you wouldn't mind just kind of sharing, like, walk us through that. You know, you did. You did it. You decided and you did it. And you walked away with re. You walked away from revenue and businesses that you had, you know, probably put blood, sweat, and tears into because you said, I got something over here that I think is going to be bigger.
A
Yeah. So the one of them was. One of the first ones was the brokerage. And, like, anytime someone says they want to start a brokerage, like, I will consult with them for free.
C
Hell, no, don't do it.
A
Let me tell this right.
C
Yeah.
A
And. And one of the things that people will say all the time is like, but you have a brokerage. I was like, well, yeah, because I started it. I put all my work into it. It's hard to close, right? But eventually, eventually it became easy to close, right? Like, you know, you're at real. You're at exp. I'm at real, right? Like, we made a decision based off, you know, what made sense for us, but it was like, the amount of money I'm. I'm making and the amount of effort I'm putting in, it just doesn't work anymore. So that's got to go. The title company, I was making money, right? But I wasn't making 20k a month like I was before. I was making, like, you know, 2000, 2500. And when that was happening, and then the real estate commissioner is like, hey, I don't like that you're not a broker and you own a title company. I was like, all right, don't need that headache. Get rid of that deal. Right? And then the wholesaling, that was the hardest one because that was profitable.
C
Probably really profitable.
A
Yeah. So the reason why those. The biggest challenge I had was in all the years, I never found the right person to run it. And so then it's like, do I want to continue hiring the right. Finding the right person to hire it, to do it, or just move on? Because, like, on my calendar, it was only four hours a week. On my calendar was only four hours a week. And so it turns out I was just lying to myself that I thought I was only taking.
C
I was going to say, there's no it's just no way. Yeah, yeah.
A
So what wasn't on my calendar were all the guided minutes. Hey, we have a problem. Hey, the seller's not responding, right? All the fires were not on the calendar, right? There are, like, people stopping by my door. Hey, gotta deal with this guy. Deal that. Hey, you need to call this person, right? Like, I'm the guy with all the relationships in the city. There's a problem. I have to make the phone call. And so I never accounted that for that in my calendar. And so when I finally shut that down, not only did I have more time on my calendar, but I had more clarity and presence. Now I can think about the problems and how I can fulfill our clients even more. I got to do more for our clients now, which make them happier. Retention's lower. Our retention is better. And like, you know, when you're running a business where you're a service provider, it's not important just to get clients, because that is important. It's not just that. It's keeping the clients, right? And so once I actually stop buying houses, I actually have the bandwidth and the clarity, the silence, where now I can actually think about, hey, how can we make this a better experience for our clients? So that was the biggest change. But, man, like I said, it was hard. I talked to a lot of people. A lot of people, like, am I doing the right thing here? Because what are they going to say? What are they going to say on social media? This is my identity, right? I'm the one that's, like, all, like, anti. I. I don't like it when people talk about when they sell education on stuff they don't use, right? So the good thing is, like, I don't teach wholesale, right? I teach sales. But, like, that was hard for me because, you know, would I listen to myself if I wasn't buying houses? Like, these are all the things I had to go through to make that decision. It was not an easy choice. Like, it was the right choice, but it wasn't easy.
C
One of the things you said that I. If for our listeners. I don't want anybody to miss this. You. You talked about the time, but you didn't say it. But you said it. You also talked about the brain space. And I think that is an entrepreneur. One of the mistakes that we all make as entrepreneurs, we like to say yes, and we also think that we can do it all. You know, both of my coaches always tell me that I'm one of the rare people that can run in a hundred different directions and be Successful at all of them. But at some point, I'll hit my limitation. And the reality of what you just said is very, very true. If you're listening to this, if you say, oh, it's only four hours, or I'm going to go over here and do this, it's only this. It's only that the actual brain space that it occupies is way more than you can quantify. Do you know what I mean? And you. You basically just said that of. Once I got free from it, I could. I was free in my brain to compartmentalize something else in there to be successful at. Because it wasn't taking the space.
A
And I didn't realize it. That was the thing, right? I didn't realize it. I thought it was fine. I thought it was no big deal. It's crazy, like, how much, like, the story we tell ourselves. They're so powerful.
C
Well, the other thing that I think that you said is I'm a huge. So I. One of the things I do is. And I'm not super vocal about it, but I help people become a keynote speaker. And. Because the reason why I'm not super vocal about it is because there's some people that call me. Actually, a lot of people that call me that I have to say no to. Because speaking on stage is one thing. If you want to become a really good keynote speaker, it's a whole different. You have to have a certain level of it already, and that's shit I can't teach. But one of the things that you just. That you said that I think is very important is you said identity, right? And I think for an entrepreneur, one of the things, for instance, that I do is I try to teach people that are on the brokerage side to get on the investment side, and they get so caught up in the identity of, I'm a top producer, I'm a this, I'm a that, and I'm not trying to shit on anybody. But the thing that you just said, why I think this is so important is you're just like every other entrepreneur where you. We all go through the same things, but you went through, man, I've got to break my identity. Which is a tough one, right?
A
It's the hardest one.
C
Yeah. But you did it.
A
Yeah, well, I mean, thankfully, though, with lots of really good friends that were willing to challenge me, right? Because, like, it wasn't one friend, it wasn't two friends, right? It was like, okay, I got three people that I respect that are constantly pushing me and saying, like, you're Being foolish. Right. And so, all right, you got three friends that you look up to. You spend money to be around. Like, why are you spending money here? I'll put another way. The biggest thing I hate as a coach is when someone pays me and they don't take my advice.
C
It's great. It's so wild. Yeah, it's. Bro, you're so right on that.
A
And I was that person. Yeah, right. So I was like, hey, maybe I should take their advice because, like, I pay them.
C
Yeah.
A
Hey.
B
This next segment is brought to you by my good friends at Rocketly AI.
C
That is Rocketly AI.
B
If you're in the real estate business, especially investment side, and you need a platform that can run your real estate business and talk to leads through AI when you're not able to talk to them and can qualify and get to all the leads you can't get to. Plus it has a amazing piece of technology with it called Lead Detector that helps get all the people that come to your site and not opt in to opt in to turn into a lead. These are my good friends at Rocketly AI. I'm part of this company as well. I use it to run my real estate business, my real estate investment business. Go check them out again. Rocket League AI. And thank you guys for sponsoring the segment.
C
So fast forward to now. You are knee deep in the AI stuff, right?
A
Yes.
C
So there's. So there's a lot of noise around this subject and like, we don't. It's hard if you're, if you're from the outside world and you're just learning this and you know, who, who actually knows this, who doesn't? Who's full of shit, who's not. I believe you're pretty far ahead on this already. If you wouldn't mind, like, give us your thesis of like, where. What are you doing? Where is this going? And why is this important for people to understand.
A
Man? What we're doing is we've created an AI tool. I'll talk about what we did, I'll talk about why it's important. So what we've done, the first thing we did was create a call review tool, right? So after every single call, every single sales appointment, it's uploaded AI, it's scored, reviewed and analyzed every single one, and is analyzed and put into Google Chat for us. You can use Slack and use Google Teams, but it's put into a chat for all the other salespeople to see. And the salesperson is required to go in there and comment on the feedback because we Want to close the feedback loop? Because what happens a lot is when you do call, reviews are tough, right? Do we do it weekly, do we do it monthly? And if you're anything like me, I treat it like QuickBooks. Yeah, I'll get to it eventually. And then eventually it's like six months. And all this time your sales guys aren't getting coached up, right? So call reviews, like instant call reviews, within minutes they can see it. Right? So I think that's one of the first things. The other thing too, we created role play bots where you can call the bot and you can buy their house over the phone, but you can hear like real objections, real personalities, and we got varying degrees of difficulties. And then what we're releasing officially tomorrow is our AI lead manager, AI caller, right? You fill out a web form, it calls you right now, you call in after hours, you call in on the weekends, or your sales guys are busy, they don't take the phone call, it goes to the AI it can take and schedule an appointment for you. So that's what we're doing. So. And it was. It's been incredibly challenging. So why is it so important? The reality is technology is moving so fast. And we've heard this over and over again, right? For over two years, I think probably three years now. People are saying, like, either you use AI or you get beat by someone that's using AI, right? And I think that's been true for quite.
C
I would agree with that 100%.
A
Yeah. But I would say it's even more true now. And now that I'm really neat deep into it, the reason why that's true is not only is it increasing operational efficiency and everything else is also reducing overhead. So if Brandon and I are in the same market, right? And he's got an extra $10,000 a month because he doesn't have to pay for this employee, that employee, and so on. He's reduced his overhead by 10,000amonth. Everything else is exactly the same. Our closers are the same, our marketing is the same, Right. Our admin abilities are exactly the same. We got the same title companies. Everything else is exactly the same. But Brandon's got an extra $10,000 a month to spend because he's not paying employees for this work. Who's going to win in the long run? It's not even fair. So forget about AI being more productive and more reliable. If nothing else, it's just a reduction in cost. So now, in doing this, I learned a whole lot, like super nerdy stuff. I Don't know. I want to get into this stuff. But the difference between Claude and Grok, ChatGPT and what is 4.0 and 4 and 4 mini, there's. And the cost behind all that and, you know, using any. I don't know how deep you want to get into all that, but there's a whole different world to get comfortable once you go down this AI road.
C
Well, I. So one thing I just think is people, you know, more and more people aren't. But there is, there is a large amount of people that are turning a blind eye to this saying, you know, whatever.
A
They're not just turning a blind eye, but they're also, like getting cute with it. And I don't know, maybe there's just something wrong with me, but I see how everyone's using AI. I'm like, why are you doing that? Making images, making goofy videos. If you're using it to play with it to advance your business, then good. But if you're using it like a hobbyist, I think there's great threat you have to spend time on figuring out how to improve efficiencies in organizations. Right now we're using AI to basically do 90% of the heavy lifting for a sales manager so that our sales manager can actually look at the calls that actually require review. Right. Like, not having to listen to all the calls, I think is. Is an absolute disaster. And you look at us, right? You and I, as business owners, what are we typically, metaphorically, we are the surgeons, right? We come in tactically, right? You got this one problem that you guys can't solve. I'll come in, I'll solve that problem, right? That's what we get paid for.
C
Yeah.
A
As a sales manager, I don't want him banging his head against the wall doing all these call reviews. I want him to review the calls that there are clearly problems on. So now he gets to be a surgeon on just the calls that we need to review versus, well, let's just throw a dart at the dartboard. All right? This is a call we're going to review and we don't know if it's any good or not. So I think that's been one of the biggest things for our sales managers. The feedback we get consistently is like, man, it makes it so much easier to manage the sales team. And if you look at like every organization up until 2025, right, because it's not allowed anymore up until 2025. Marketing, super high accountability. How much did you spend? What were the channels? What was the return in ad spend. How many appointments did we get? How many? Like, super high accountability in marketing, right. Account accounting, you can't screw it up. Either zeros out or it doesn't. It's pass fail operations, right? Like, did we get the paperwork done? Did we close on time? We can measure all that. Sales is like a black box. Leads went in, contracts came out. What happened on those appointments? We don't know. And now we do. Now we know. And within our organization, our worst salespeople can listen to the calls from the best salespeople. It just increases accountability. And now that we have more accountability there, you know how it works. What you focus on improves so there's no more hiding in sales. That's what we're doing now.
C
Where, where else do you see? I mean, you're, you're, you're far ahead on some of this. Where else do you, where else do you see this taken over? Like, where, where. Who needs to be concerned?
A
Everyone needs to be concerned. So right now what we're seeing is by the end of the year, I think a lot of inside salespeople will be out of work. I think if you're not in the top 10%, 5% in your company as a lead manager, you're going to be gone. I think that's number one.
C
Do you think that's because the voice is going to get really good?
A
The voice is already really good. Like, you can test it out later on. Like, the voice is there. The voice is there. The speed is there. It's. It's here, right? So, and you look at the complexity of a sales conversation as a lead manager. Like, you know, lead manager, it's sales. But the complexity, or you deal with the same objections over and over again. It's not like this wide range of complexity. Whereas you meet as homeowner face to face to buy their house. Like, okay, like, what is the actual problem with what do you actually need today? What do you need next month? What do you need a year from now? We can get super creative, right? On an actual homeowner that's buying their house. But in scheduling an appointment, the complexity isn't that crazy. So I think by the end of this year, if you're not top 10% as a lead manager within your organization, you're probably gonna be in trouble. Unfortunately, that is my measurement success for my software. And then I think in 12 to 24 months, if you're not buying in person, you could be in trouble. Because the limitations of what we can do with our AI right now, like I thought six months ago, we're at least three years away from replacing salespeople because it's such a soft skill, it's hard to replace. We're feeling Pretty comfortable. 12 to 24 months. Like, if you're not buying, if you're not meeting a person face to face, we can accomplish almost everything over the phone. And the reason why I say this is, like, if you look at, like, yourself, myself, we can beat a computer in a sales conversation all day, every day, right? All day, every day. But the computer is, like, 80% as good as us. But it's never sick, never fights with their spouse, never goes on vacation, never deals with, like, call reluctance. Because, like, on our best days, we're monsters. But on our worst days, you know, yeah, we might have a milkshake for lunch. You know, like, we're not always our best selves, you know, the sick kid, or we're in an appointment, we're putting out fires, or we just.
C
Yeah, the outside. The outside influence.
A
Yeah. Right. But, like, I'll tell you, like, we created our lead manager, and I created the bot. Right? Like, so Ian on my team, he programs the bot. I create all the interface around it. And I forgot oversight. This is the first version I forgot to set a limit to how many times the AI will call me. Right. I didn't do it right. AI literally called me 15 times in a row, and I'm panicking the whole time. How do I get to stop calling me? It called me 15 times in a row because it has zero call reluctance. It has no negative stories. It just does what it's supposed to do. So I think if you look at, like, if it's 80% of us as good as us, but it's 100% reliable, 99.9% reliable. I think everyone needs to be paying attention. This is salespeople. I mean, like, our title company that we've had a strong relationship with, they can now pull title. I want to say. I think they were saying under five minutes, like, with AI, like, we're in Maricopa County. So, like, everything. Everything is public record. Like, you can find anything. But they can get a clean title in five minutes in Maricopa County. Right. So as a title officer, what do you do with that information? Right.
C
Yep.
A
And so I think if you're not meeting people face to face as a soft skill in. In our industry, I think you want to start paying attention.
C
Yeah. So I thank you for explaining that, because I think a lot of people don't know that. So if anybody is paying attention to this and watching, how can they connect with you on some of this stuff?
A
So we have objectionproof AI. It's a website. You can upload any sales call, right? It could be text, MP3, WAV, M4A, anything. You can upload it there. It'll review the call. There's no charge. My team hates it when I say it. But use it, interviews it, I don't care. Right? We have teams uploading 20 calls a day. It pisses my team. I was like, whatever. It doesn't really cost us anything. So you can upload as many calls as day as you want. They could role play with us. If you text ROLEPLAY1WORD to the phone number 33777, you can role play with our bots. You can hear what our bots sound like. And then the last one, the, the lead manager is going out tomorrow. If you text AI caller, it's two words, AI caller to the same number, 33777. You can actually hear what it sounds like when our AI lead manager calls you to schedule an appointment. Like, that's up and running today. You can hear the quality of the voice, the latency. You can see if they sound realistic or not. But it's here.
C
That's awesome. Number one, I want to thank you for your time. I always end the show with the same thing. And one of the reasons why we, we, we created this show was I didn't grow up. I didn't grow up with money. And as I started to, to get successful, I learned that there's two economies. There's the educated and non educated. And I'm not talking about you got an education from school. I'm talking about getting in the rooms with people like you and learning how things really work. So I always ask everybody at the end of every show, what does wake up to wealth mean to you? Because we named the show this to teach people how to wake up to their own version of wealth, man.
A
So for me, wealth is very closely tied to freedom, right? Like for me, I am unmanageable. So I want to be able to do what I want, whenever I want. Just turns out I work for the craziest boss, right? Because I work 80 hours a week. But you know, I get to do pretty much whatever I want whenever I want. And so that's, that's what waking up wealthy means, is that I don't, I, I have obligations that I choose to fulfill. I don't have any obligations that are required of me that I don't have a say in, right? Like, if there's requirements or obligations is because I committed to them, they weren't placed upon me. So I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, with whoever I want. Like, that's for me, wicked wealthy. I'm not obligated, actually. I take that back, Uncle Sam. That's an obligation I didn't commit to, right? But beyond Uncle Sam, there's not a single obligation requirement placed upon me that I didn't choose for myself.
C
Awesome, man. Hey, if you guys are listening to this, check him out. I mean, he's got some real stuff. I've bought his education for my sales team. As I mentioned to you guys earlier, I've gotten a ton out of it myself because I. I'm a student. I like to nerd out on this stuff. He's made me a lot of money with some of the things we've implemented that we've learned from him. Check out what he's doing, check out his stuff, check out his podcast. And Steve, I want to thank you so much for coming on and chopping it up with us today.
A
Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
C
Hey.
B
This next segment is brought to you by Paramount Property Tax Appeal. And these are guys that I trust. My good friend Wes over there. If you're overpaying for your property taxes, Paramount Property Taxes Appeal specializes in helping commercial property owners and homeowners reduce their tax bills, ensuring that you only pay your fair share. These guys are going to fight for you. And these are the guys that I trust. You can reach my good friend Wes. Their contact information is 310-897-5056 or wespptaxappeal.com that's wespptaxappeal.Com foreign.
C
Thanks so much for.
A
Tuning in to this episode of Wake up to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way we'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please.
C
Leave us a review on Apple Podcast.
A
And tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us. Until next time, Sam.
Host: Brandon Brittingham
Guest: Steve Trang
Date: August 20, 2025
In this high-energy episode of Wake Up to Wealth, host Brandon Brittingham sits down with renowned real estate investor, entrepreneur, and sales authority Steve Trang. The conversation dives deep into the rollercoaster journey of building—and exiting—multiple real estate-related businesses, the psychological hurdles of entrepreneurial identity, and the rapid rise of AI in real estate sales and operations. Listeners gain actionable insights into strategic focus, high-impact sales training, and the critical importance of adapting to technological shifts for long-term wealth and freedom.
Background: Started as an engineer, inspired by "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and a dislike for having a boss. Became a realtor in 2007 during the market crash, did foreclosures, short sales, and ran his own brokerage.
Transition to Wholesaling and New Businesses: Unique selling proposition (“your home sold guaranteed or I’ll buy it") led him into wholesaling, flipping, and eventually launching a podcast and multiple related businesses, including a title company and a mortgage joint venture.
Positioning and Reframing Offers:
Confronting Contradictory Priorities:
Principle: True persuasion means helping clients make the decision they really want.
The ‘Burn the Good for the Great’ Struggle: Letting go of profitable but misaligned businesses to focus on greater opportunities.
Breaking Identity Attachment:
On Brainspace and Focus:
Taking Hard Advice:
AI-Powered Tools:
Competitive Advantage—Efficiency and Cost:
The Paradigm Shift in Sales Management:
AI Will Disrupt Jobs—Soon:
On the 2008 Crash’s Impact:
“Some people getting divorced, some people killing themselves—it was a dark, dark time in real estate.” — Steve Trang (05:04 - 05:25)
On Sales Mindset:
“True influence and persuasion...is not forcing them to make a decision, but getting them to make a decision based on the information you presented them.” — Brandon Brittingham (14:20 - 14:33)
On Identity and Entrepreneurship:
“It’s the hardest one...man, I’ve got to break my identity. Which is a tough one, right?” — Brandon Brittingham (23:12 - 23:13)
On Focus and Letting Go:
“I never accounted for that...When I finally shut that down, not only did I have more time, but I had more clarity and presence. Now I can think about the problems and how I can fulfill our clients even more.” — Steve Trang (18:43 - 19:24)
On AI vs. Humans in Sales:
“The computer is like 80% as good as us, but it’s never sick, never fights with their spouse, never goes on vacation...On our best days, we’re monsters. But on our worst days—you know, we might have a milkshake for lunch.” — Steve Trang (33:03 - 33:31)
"For me, wealth is very closely tied to freedom...I have obligations that I choose to fulfill. I don’t have any obligations that are required of me that I don’t have a say in...I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, with whoever I want." — Steve Trang
Listen to this episode for a powerful blend of real estate wisdom, tactical sales advice, and a look into the AI-powered future of the industry.