Dave: Hi, I’m Dave Dinkel. And today, I’m here with Carlos Zapata. Carlos is not untypical of mentor students. He started into the program and kind of was spinning his wheels and he actually came back and did what I call a restart. I sat down, sort of one-on-one with him and said, “Tell me what you’re doing on a daily basis.” And once we diagnosed what the problem was, it was kind of an aha moment.

What you did then is you went back and you redid your program. Basically, the problem he had, to make it short, was he had no contacts with Realtors® who had listings. He did everything by email, very efficient. He had templates for each specific email that went out. But the reality was, it wasn’t working and it’s not going to work if you’re thinking about doing it yourself.

So what you did is you actually started to call them and then you hired a virtual assistant to actually do calling for you. So what you do now is you put in the contracts and then she follows up for you.

Carlos: Yes. Normally, I search for the properties. I put the contracts in and send it. And I ask my virtual assistant to make the calls, follow up and to try to find if they receive the offer and really try to make the relationship with Realtors®. I was afraid to make the calls. Right now in the game, I like when they start negotiating with me. They understand what I’m doing.

Normally, if the deal is not a deal for us, we ask if they have found any property with problems that we can work with. That is – that we are moving the wheels right now and have been so much easier and I’m making more money right now than before.

Dave: So let’s talk about one deal you just – actually, you closed it a couple of days ago.

Carlos: Yes, we closed it. I mean I was – at the start, I wasn’t sure that it was a short sale. I was calling everybody in DREIA, Dave, Jim and Viju, whatever on what I’m going to do. The short sale was approved but it still wasn’t the best price for us. We made a good relationship with the listing agent. She agreed to work with us in the whole inspection and we got like $20,000 price reduction in a short sale after that short sale was approved.

And thanks to Dave and Jim and Viju really they were saying just don’t be afraid to ask. The worst thing that you can receive is a no. We ask and we receive.

Dave: Hallelujah.

Carlos: Yeah. Everyone was happy because you made like $18,000 just for that short sale. I mean we are happy because we made a good profit.

Dave: Yeah. And you netted about $21,000 as a gross profit on it which was good. Now, you didn’t have any money in the transaction, correct.

Carlos: No, no, no.

Dave: So if you guys are trying to understand how we do no money deals, it’s all over the internet. It’s all over our other videos. And what would you say to somebody coming into the program? What’s your experience now that you’ve done it?

Carlos Follow the direction of your mentor. I mean sometimes I want to make my own will because I am a real estate agent and have been for 11 years. I was thinking that I knew everything. But I was totally wrong. This is a totally different business. But you don’t have to be a real estate agent to start. You have to just follow directions and don’t be afraid to ask. I mean I called DREIA like four times a day. And they only tell me, “Hey, Carlos. What do you need? Hey, Carlos. What do you need?”

And before I was making the calls, I was afraid to do it. I was like, oh, they’re going to get mad because I call too much. And I called Viju. I call Jim. I call Dave. I call Kevin. I call everybody. And everybody really tries to help.

Dave: And it works out.

Carlos: Definitely.

Dave: We have a vested interest in each student because very oftentimes, we split deals with them. Even if we don’t, we still have a vested interest in seeing their success. So, thank you very much.

Carlos: Thank you, Dave. Thanks so much for your help.

Dave: Congratulations!  And keep putting out offers guys.

To learn more about my real estate investing program and mentoring, click here https://davedinkel.com/mentoring-program/ or click below.