Building a wholesale business

[Mike Cowper]

Hey all!

I got prompted by BP to share my past success and I figured I would share my current situation - I typically like to be more under the radar and let actions speak, but that doesn't work well in a forum setting!

I started investing a little over a year ago and quickly acquired 4 properties to use as buy and holds. In an effort to find more properties that I didn't need to compete with homeowners for (MLS..), I started reaching out to members in my area that had been doing direct mailing. BP was integral in me meeting my now partner, Mike Simmons (Ep. 50 of BP Podcast).

The way it started was just me reaching out via a direct message asking if I could buy him coffee (I did this with several investors in the area). I met him out near his location and had a great conversation about what he was doing and his future plans. Part of those plans was increasing his marketing and potentially bringing on someone to handle calls with that expansion. I took the proactive route and called him back the next day to offer my services free.

Mike was much more generous than that and actually brought me on with a paid position where I was responsible for the acquisition side of the business. I would take on the calls, make the follow ups, visits, and getting the property under contract. I have a sales background, so this came pretty naturally to me. We had success rather quickly.

After several months of this structure, we sat down together to plan more for the future and scale of our business. I ended up taking on more responsibility during those months (helping sell, increase buyers, networking) and we decided to become equal partners. This allowed for more capital to remain in the business (didn't have to pay me on every deal anymore), and allowed us to both focus on ways we could grow our wholesaling business. 

To date, we have averaged $36,000 in monthly revenue. Our goal is to get to $1,000,000 in the next 12 months. Our business has become much more systematized and our lead generation continues to grow and we are finding new ways of bringing us interested sellers. It feels good to be able to solve multiple problems along the way - helping sellers out of their properties and helping investors get off market deals that generate them income (flip or rents). We are focusing on the Metro Detroit market (Redford, Troy, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Warren, Roseville to name some) for the properties, but do work with investors all over. 

It is funny to think that a simple message on this website was something that helped kick this thing off. 

"Action is the foundation key to all success" - Pablo Picasso