This will help you with SEO and keep your listing on the first page.

Hustle with knowledge seems effortless, and will bring money one way or another. 

Find motivated sellers (direct mail, driving for dollars, seo, etc..) there are tons of bp articles on lead generation.Check out Carrot.com for custom lead generation site.

Sorry.I just have this feeling he is planing to use you to make more money, and shadowing is not enough a reward in my opinion for you to find him wholesale deals,But to answer your question..the SECOND there is a system that the general public can use to find deals the system ceases to be useful.That is why SEO is the best way to find deals because no one can invade your space.

there is no such thing as "before running SEO".

If your website has few pages then you don't need to hire anyone to do the SEO (search engine optimization) as you can do them by yourself. 

I'm very aware that it is super easy to waste a lot of money in DM, PPC, SEO, FB ads, etc. so paying someone who knows what they're doing is very appealing to me.

You get a website.You learn SEO, and you become an expert at it.Once you do you will rank #1 (if you know what you are doing).That is not enough.

I'm an internet marketer by profession, so all of my leads are through SEO, forums and PPC marketing.

No one suspected I had ADHD growing up because I was effortlessly a B student.