Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Real Talk with Heather and Andres. We've got a seriously insightful episode for anyone interested in creative real estate and protecting your deals. Today's guest, Caleb, has made a name for himself by seeing what's missing in creative financing and doing something about it. Caleb went from identifying a gap in creative finance to launching three companies to protect investors, simplify deals, and keep things ethical.
Now he's starting a title company to support investors in Colorado. And he's here.
Can't talk. And he's here to share his story behind it. Everybody, let's welcome Caleb. Caleb, thanks for joining us.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Well, thank you. It's an honor. You make it sound really good except.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: For my little mess up right there live, but you know how it goes.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: I'm like, who is she talking about? This guy sounds amazing. Thank you. You do a great job of introing.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: It's the amazing Caleb, everybody.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: Hey, Caleb. And thanks. Thanks for being here. We appreciate the time to go and bring so much insight and value.
Before we dive in into your backstory, what's one message you want people, their audience to take away from today's conversation?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: I've heard it a bunch of times and I know you guys have too, but I'm telling you, ideas are literally worthless without execution.
That's it.
You have to go do something with your ideas.
[00:01:28] Speaker C: Sounds simple enough, right?
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: But let's dive in into a little bit into your backstory before the companies. Right, let's rewind a bit.
What first drew you into creative finance and real estate?
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Well, I found out that you could be pretty flexible. Like, I've always been an outside the box problem solver, so I always enjoy problem solving. And when I got to real estate, you solve bigger problems, you can get paid more. So when there's, you know, fives, tens and twenties of thousands of dollars on the line and price difference and things like that, then there's more money to be made. So moving from just a general problem solver, I used to be an IT and TV repair man and IT technician where just I like the variety of solving problems. Then I found real estate and I was like, oh, this sounds fun. So let me get into it. And I, you know, I got the bug when I read rich dad, poor dad. So then I just dove into real estate and saw that there was a lot of opportunity there.
[00:02:29] Speaker C: Was there a moment or that you saw the process.
Gotta be a better way to make this happen.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: I couldn't catch all of that. Can you try again?
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Was there a moment that you Saw a deal or a process fell apart, and you thought, man, there's got to be a better way to make this happen.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's. That's my story. In fact, I used to have an IT company, and we wrote There is a better way as part of our signature. Right. Because we're always open to. There's a different way to do things. And you. You can always make incremental improvements. So my turning point with real estate was I got into it, I learned it, and I started doing. I joined a wholesale team as a closer underwriter, creative closer. I put the deals together. When the cash offers didn't work well, then we got to escrow, and the title company was not helpful.
All they cared about was closing the deal. They just make sure it's not illegal. That's it.
And I'm like, what about some guidance? Because we just agreed to take over this dude's mortgage, and he's trusting us to do that. And he. And we are trusting you to make sure that we can't do it wrong.
There's no guidance. There was no help from them at that time. And I was like, there's got to be a better way. There's. That's not okay. Because, yes, we're solving somebody's problem. But now that I'm on the inside of the transaction, I see that there's so much room for people to do each other dirty, whether intentionally or unintentionally. And I'm like, there's gotta be a better way than that. And I looked and I looked, and nobody was providing that. So I said, I'll figure it out. I'll build a company, and I will upgrade the quality and the minimum standard of what it looks like to do a deal the right way for creative finance.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: If. If I can dive a little bit deeper into that. It was that you're talking about guidance for. For the consumer itself in that particular area.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Really, it's both. So my business model, I have a primary client, and that's how I train people, is we talk about who's the client. The client gets the primary benefit of our services. However, we establish an understanding with our customers that they. We're in it for safe, legal and ethical. And that means everybody understands the transaction. And sometimes we'll push back on you. If you're a wholesaler or a buyer, we'll push back and say, that's not the best way to do this. You can push. You're. You're pushing somebody around or, you know, the unethical way Technically, yes, you can. In fact, I think my whole business exists at Creative tc. The whole business exists in.
Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
But on the other side of the same coin, just because you can't doesn't mean you shouldn't.
And this, this, this whole thing, because we help people violate their mortgage contract when they sell their home subject to the existing mortgage. That's what my whole business is. And so when you get into that situation, just because you can do, do something doesn't mean you should, because we can legally get this done. And. But also, just because you can't in the mortgage contract doesn't mean that you shouldn't or can't actually go do the thing.
It's a whole world of gray area.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: What do you come up against, more or less, or maybe what do you find more challenging? When people know what they're doing and they're being, let's just say, mischievous. Or when you find people that don't know what they're doing and they think they know what they're doing, which creates the bigger problem for you guys.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Oh, I thought you were going to make it easy on me. The people who don't know what they're doing are usually coming to me with open, you know, open minds, like, tell me what to do, tell me how to do it. Those are my favorite people, the ones who think they know what they're doing in good faith.
They're usually pretty coachable, but they can be harder because I have to invest more into that person to help them succeed because their intention is to succeed and to do things right. But we have to go back and unlearn some things and relearn them. So I do really like helping those people. I pretty much. If somebody's not coachable and they're trying to play tricks or do things a little shady, I'm like, hey, this is the way it has to operate with us. If not, take your money back and don't call me again. You know, like, I don't want my name associated with the way you do deals.
[00:06:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: So that's an easy exit.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely. I think.
And there's always, there's always those situations they come across.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: I find a lot of people are very coachable is we push. Pretty people know by the time they come to my company, they know we've got pretty high standards, and that's why they choose us. And so when I push back on something or my team at this point, because I've delegated company number one, down to other people. When we push back, it's because we've seen challenges, we've seen the ethical dilemmas.
We understand that, yeah, 99% of the time this will. Everything works until it doesn't.
That's what I tell my cut, my team. That's what we tell clients. Everything works until it doesn't. And when you set up a transaction in this certain way, yes, it'll work, but somebody can challenge it in court and it can come back and look really bad on you. Mr. Or Mrs. Investor, who's the business person against this consumer and that's not a place you want to be with finality.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:54] Speaker C: Can you walk us through any scenarios you have?
Do you have encounter like that? Of course. Not releasing any names, but yeah. So paint the picture for the audience.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: I'm going to start with defining what the creative finance stuff is just so we have a frame of reference. So within my context, creative finance is not getting new institutional financing. So that's not a hard money lender. It's not a bank loan. Usually it's I'm stepping in and taking over your payments. I'll take the house, you give me the deed, you leave your mortgage in place. Means your credit's still on the line. If I don't make payments, it looks bad on your credit. Like lots of things to discuss and go through. But that's the transactions we work with. So when we get into a transaction and somebody has a contract with a seller, right, the seller signed this contract to sell their house subject to the existing loan, their loan stays in place.
This buyer didn't give them the sub to addendum which is where you have to initial buy every line. So I seller understand that my credit is still on the line and that the buyer's failure to make payments on my behalf could result in damage to my credit score and that there could be a foreclosure still against on my credit if this goes gets called, there's a due on sale clause. If it doesn't get paid off, if the payments are missed, all these things can still happen. And that I am committing long term to let this person use the loan that I took out. Like if that's not disclosed line by line and signed, that to me is an unethical way to do business because they should know from the beginning exactly what they've gotten into. Because technically contract law says yeah, you signed an agreement, Mr. Seller, and you cannot back out. You agreed to sell your house in this manner.
But on the other side of the coin it wasn't fully explained and disclaimed from the very beginning. So I can't prove that the seller fully understood what they were doing. So some people will get the purchase contract signed with this verbal understanding.
And at closing is when they give the sub two disclosures only.
Well, the seller's already packed up their stuff and moved out. What are they going to do? Not sign that? That's pretty dirtbag move. And that's one of the lines that I won't cross with customers. I'm like, listen, this is non negotiable for me. That seller needs to understand what this transaction is or I'm out.
And it also avoids headaches for the buyer too because transactions do fall apart after the like right late in the game or after the fact because of that sort of stuff. So I'm saving you headaches as a buyer by helping you do this. But if the deal is going to fall apart now, early on, like right at the beginning of the contract period, because they have to sign a disclosure about the way the deal is actually going to work, then it's not a deal.
It's just not a deal already.
So why trick somebody into that?
[00:10:47] Speaker C: Absolutely. And, and I think some, it may be a situation when somebody really want the property but not understanding those, the importance of that aspect. Yeah, they may be overlooking it and they just want to get in that property. But like you said, it is not a deal if you have to deal with somebody like that. That that's not a deal at the.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: End of the day.
And I won't stop a deal because everybody has credit cards. I won't stop a deal when somebody tries to do a deal and has like they're putting all their money into it. But we strongly recommend like what I say is it's cool to do a deal with $0 out of pocket. That's really cool. Good for you. It's not cool to do a deal with $0 in your pocket.
Doesn't matter how you get into it. Doesn't matter if you spend your life savings to get into it. If you have no cash in the bank after closing, that's a foolish position to be in. Especially if somebody else's credit's on the line. You should not be doing that.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: I like, I like that.
I love the way you worded that. So I'm gonna steal that. Do it down. That's like really, really good. Especially being a real estate agent, being able to explain it that way to, to a client. Yeah, I think. And that's something a lot of people, don't you? They, especially if you're, if you're going the conventional way, right. And you're buying a house, they look at the overall total of the house, they look at the price of their mortgage payments. But there's a lot of things in there that aren't factored in that at the end of the day, do you still have money to live?
You're paying your insurance after you're paying your utilities, property taxes, all of that. There's a lot more to it. So I really like the way you worded that well.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: And if you look at banks, they've, they've got it right. They require you to have six months of savings. Like when I went to get an investment property loan, they're like, listen, if you're going to get this, you have to show us liquidity or in retirement savings that you have enough to make six months of payments on both of your properties.
Because I had a primary residence and I was getting an investment loan and they wanted all that liquidity before they would approve the loan. That's smart. That helps reduce the risk of default. It helps people tie, bridge that gap whenever they have a shortfall of cash or lose their job or something. It's important to have that. And so the problem is with investors who are doing creative finance, there's nobody with that six months of savings for.
So that's. I just have to train people, like don't do that.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: That's awesome.
Incredible. I love that, that you guys go ahead and, and train people and pass the measures because people tend to do what they want. Yeah, right. And they don't necessarily put themselves in the best position.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Did you ever read that book, how to Win Win Friends and Influence People?
I have, yeah.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: I have not read that one.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: No, It's a really good one. I read it while I was in prison.
And by prison I mean I was a prison guard. Haha. Gotcha.
[00:13:52] Speaker C: But the like what.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: The thing that came away strongest for me, the one thing that I, if I only remember one thing, it is that people only ever always do what they want.
Well, can't you make somebody do something against their will?
Maybe against their will, but they still do what they want. Right. And I think the example was that if you held a gun to somebody's head, they want to obey whatever your order is rather than the alternative. Right. You've put them in a position where they want to do this thing, whether by force or by, you know, there's the push and there's the pull. So if you just go to the extreme. It's easy to understand. Okay, yes, that person wants to do X more than Y. And I see why.
However, if people only ever do what they want, that's also pretty incriminating against myself because when I do a time audit of my day, I'm like, dang, I just spent 25 minutes scrolling Instagram.
I want that dopamine hit from scrolling more than I want to build my business. Shame on me. Right? So it's very self incriminating. So how can I incentivize myself? How can I leverage in my business? How can I incentivize other people to. To want to use my services, to do deals ethically to appeal to this higher standard?
And that was the one thing I got from that book that was just fantastic.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: And we see it happen and we work with real estate agents and help them generate more business with cloud realty, but we see it happen with agents all the time. They don't want to set up the timeframe to make the outbound calls to generate more business to have those conversations.
But if you ask them what happened, how did the day go?
They just did nothing. You know, they just sit down and scroll around and like I said, it's a lot easier for them. They're doing what they want rather than what they need to and execute on the things that they need to do.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Yep. Challenge yourselves. You guys audit your own expectations. And you're like, well, I want this thing. Yeah, but do your actions say that you want that thing?
A lot of times no.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Go back to what you said at the beginning about the execution, if there's no execution and that. I think that's a common theme that we see when we've done these podcasts and just doing the interviews we do with agents is the lack of execution for a variety of different reasons.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I hate cold calls too. I. Shame on me when I don't do them. But they work with enough time and effort, they work. And I would say I took a note here because I want to stay on this theme.
Growing or succeeding does require delegation.
And that means two things. And I want to make sure. I clarify, delegation is not abdication.
That's not hiring a VA and saying it's your problem. That's not how delegation works.
You have to manage that other person. You have to cast a vision. If you're going to be the leader, you have to cast a vision and get people into it. You can get them into it with force or, or incentive, like positive incentives. Right. Rewards. If you accomplish this thing is a positive incentive. Getting fired if you don't do this thing is a negative. You can use both at the same time, but you've got to have a vision, convey that vision to somebody else and then drive them to action. And that's leadership. That's delegation, is getting somebody else to do that with. And for you, instead of saying, I'm giving you money, go take care of this problem.
That's not, that's not delegation. And so when you grow, you have to be able to delegate, but that also means sometimes that you have to be willing to make less money. You have to give money that you deserve to other people for the sake of getting to that next stage of growing, whatever that is.
[00:17:38] Speaker C: At what point do you. Do you look at where your company was and you say, okay, I need it. I need to bring somebody else to handle this and delegate some of those things, responsibilities, so that you can continue to grow and scale the way that you envision.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: I've been pretty slow to trust people, and I wish I was a little faster, but I don't know. Real life tells me that when I am too fast, it backfires. And so I'm on the pace that I'm on. I just wish it was faster. I guess that's all. But when I see enough to justify a position, it's going to be after the workload is shared by two or three other people working a little past their standard capacity.
[00:18:23] Speaker C: Gotcha.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: I think that's definitely a common theme and a thing too, because it is hard. One, when you're the only person in your business, you're an entrepreneur, you're the only one in your business. And like you were saying earlier, you have to give up that control. You have to give up some of your money, give up some of the responsibility possibilities that you do. It's not only hard to give that up, but it's also really hard in this day and age to find a person who is going to mesh with you, mesh with your business, have the same goals, align with your core values.
All those stars have to align.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: That's a lot.
Yeah, that's a whole lot. And I would say this too, because I've been there.
And there's a difference between a job and a business.
A company can be either one. Just because you have an LLC doesn't mean you have a business. A business is something that operates beyond you and doesn't depend solely on you.
And so if you want a business, you've got to delegate, you've got to get other people in or you know, some people have a business where it's automated systems. Congratulations, that's not me, that's not most of us. That's not real estate agents, that's for sure. And so as we build a team, you've got to find people who do align with your core values. Sometimes you've got to use and leverage people. Not negatively use, like take advantage of, but you've got to be able to leverage people who don't perfectly align with your core values. And it's like you can work in this area of my business, but that's it. You're not customer facing and you, it's for the sake of growth. You have to tolerate that for a while. But if you're building a team, you cannot tolerate that misalignment. I'm telling you, it is poison to the team. And you have to be, be so intolerant of that because that's an offense to your good players who are aligned with your core values. Why are you tolerating this person?
They don't align with the values that you said are really important.
And it's double talk from, from you as the leader if you don't enforce that, if you don't push the person out. Our whole, I've got 14 employees, our whole review system is here's our five core values. Do you mostly do them? Do you sometimes do them or do you mostly not do them?
If you mostly don't do any one of ours, you're out, that's game over.
But you've got to align. You've got to mostly align with basically most of the time I do this thing or I act this way for three out of five and most people don't make it if they don't have four out of five long term.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: I did not know this conversation was going to go into team building. But this is good. This is actually really good because it can be applied to anything, any type of business. You know, everybody is going to eventually need to hire somebody. And these, this is really good information to have for them.
I have a question for you. When you started the first company and then you started the second one and now you're starting the title company, was there ever a point where you were just like, this is too much, I'm over my head. Or were you pretty much always just like, I can do this, I can do this.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Ha. Over my head? Yeah, there was a point we over hired ahead of volume.
There was a market shift I could have, should have seen. Maybe it's easy. In hindsight, I didn't see it at the time. Obviously that was one hundred forty thousand dollar mistake and we had to lay people off. I had to borrow money to hit payroll. I gave people two weeks of severance pay with borrowed funds. Like that was pretty catastrophic. And I could have just been like, dang, I'm going to go get a job at McDonald's. Guys, sorry, this whole thing just blew up. I don't have any money because I didn't. We ran out of money living on credit cards, borrowed money to survive, to make payroll, and we pushed through. And the process of doing all of that and looking like a failure and admitting the failure in front of the team, you lose some really good people that you wanted to stay. We did cuts, right? You cut the people who are too new and unestablished or the ones who are not the highest performers. But then you also lose some of the high performers after the fact, which I also didn't expect. But obviously in retrospect, it's like I just presented an unstable job environment. Why would they stay?
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Gosh.
So there were times when I was over my head and I easily could have quit. But one of the things I learned after coming through it was that if I'm going to do a partnership with anybody, because we talk partnerships all the time, if I'm going to partner with somebody, truly partner, I really don't want to partner with somebody who hasn't been through one of those seasons where it's like, yeah, you could have quit, but you didn't and you pushed through.
I want somebody who's been through that and chose to push through rather than, wow, life got hard, this business failed and I didn't make it.
[00:23:05] Speaker C: Absolutely. And, and to that it goes back into your execution. Right. You made a decision to go forward with it and you learn from what happened then.
And I heard Alex or Mosey, one of his video on his podcast always says, you know, we, we all come in the business, We see things are not going the way we want. It's either hang tight and move forward, go to that, or people fall off the edge and start over something else. And like you said, you don't want to partner with someone that falls down the cliff and continues in circle because they never were able to push themselves forward to the next stage of their business, which go back to. I don't know if you guys read old where the guy quit taking from gold just 3ft, just 3ft before each that mine of gold.
And we see it happen so Time and time again in the real estate space, people quit within two years. You know, they get into a tough moment.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: You got to pick and stick a lot easier.
[00:24:19] Speaker C: A lot easier to quit and fight it through, move forward. Right?
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. It's important to push through and to show that you have done that, because that's the person I'm ready to throw my.
Throw my hat in with to get something done.
And partnerships are no joke.
So what I try to structure is an arm's length defined term like this only lasts six months or only lasts one year. Like, limit how much bad can happen either from me or to me.
I mean, I'm committed to doing things the right way, but I.
People can say stuff all day, but when you look at execution, back to the execution is what matters. I've talked ideas with a lot of people and we've jived. We've had similar values on stuff, but then they kept delaying, kept delaying, not showing up, not doing the thing. And I'm like, this is.
I can't partner with you. I.
Well, yeah, but next month will be xyz.
Yeah, but what about last month and the month before that? And what about this other idea you talked about that you want to do that you haven't touched, you're scattered and you're not executing? I'm not going to partner with that. I can't do it. Go, I'm going to do this. I'm in my lane. I'm going to go do my thing. You go execute on your thing and let's get back together. Once you've succeeded at execution, that's really what has to happen. And so for those of you who are not doing your cold calls or not, whatever it is, that thing that you need to do, you have to do it. You're not trustworthy until you do.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: With your partnerships. Do you have, like, execution timelines, deadlines where they have to be met by this?
[00:26:01] Speaker B: Yep. And I find out pretty quick who's really willing to. Because, like, I have an established name. Right. I.
I execute on the things. I've said no to so many things. And I finally built my reputation as somebody who actually gets ABC done.
And so when I'm like, hey, let's do this together, I love what your idea is. Let's come do it. Here's the performance metrics that I expect out of you. If they're not like, yeah, that's a great idea, I'm in.
If it's not a heck yes, it's a heck no at that point. And when somebody hesitates, I understand asking questions and making sure we're aligned, that's one thing. But asking questions about why do I have to be what?
You mean my equity's at risk if I don't do A, B and C?
Yeah, well, what if something outside my control happens?
All right, you've got the wrong mindset. Nope.
Results matter, not effort. I don't care about your effort. I care about results because the market doesn't care about your effort. It cares about results.
I can appreciate your effort and I can sympathize with you. I've been in the trenches spending time grinding in the wrong direction, but grinding and my efforts were, you know, million dollar efforts in the wrong direction, doing the wrong thing. It doesn't matter how hard you try, it matters what you accomplish. And sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. And sometimes you're really good at working but you're working on the wrong thing or it just doesn't hit or you got the wrong timing or something like that. And that's life. I'm sorry, but I care about results.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: With Creative tc, Dos Guard and the Title company. Are these in certain states? Are you guys national?
[00:27:40] Speaker B: So Creative TC helps with these creative finance transactions. We're consultants and we will help get it across the finish line or restructured or whatever that's in all except New York and New Jersey.
We're a completely 100% remote team and we specialize in this super niche area of creative finance, seller finance, up to wraparound mortgages, contract for deed, land contract, lease option, novation, all the things we're masters and our 5 star reviews prove it. That's 48 states.
The DOS Guard is the same because DOS Guard is due on sale Guard. If you are doing a sub 2 transaction and you want protection from the due on sale clause, we're there. That's what that does.
And then Creative Title is in Colorado to start. Probably Missouri and Arizona will be coming in. Q1 of 2026.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:28:36] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: Now I know a lot of real estate agents when they're working with buyers.
And one, we don't need to be giving obviously financial advice. But a lot of real estate agents don't go beyond the basic loans. They don't look into any other type of structures as far as like you're talking with Creative Financing. So would you say that you spend a lot of time educating real estate agents or do you not work a lot with real estate agents? It's mostly just with the consumers themselves.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: It's mostly with the investors, consumers really aren't aware of this. I do some education of real estate agents, usually on the selling side, not the buyer side.
I don't think I've met a single realtor who's helping unless that realtor is also an investor. I don't think I've found a single realtor helping buyers shop for creative finance deals.
Nobody specializes. I mean creative finance is niche anyways. Creative finance is weird. So it's not what you start, it's not what you even should start with. You should start with a cash offer or a regular loan because that's the normal thing that everybody can support.
It's mainstream.
But if you're looking for creative finance, you've got to be ready to execute. And the average owner, occupant buyer is not ready to put down a $5,000 non refundable EMD without having toured the house. And that's the, that's the terms for most investors selling, you know, the wholesalers who are finding these deals and putting them under contract.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: I think there's a lot of people who want to get into investing but they don't really know what they need. There are people with the means who want to do it, they just don't have them.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Execution matters. Wanting to does not make you an investor. You got to just go drop funds on a house.
[00:30:21] Speaker C: And I'm thinking I put myself on the shoes of a consumer. If I approach a, let's say for sale by owner who wants to do stellar finance as a buyer, can I reach out to you guys or, or the seller in that way to make sure everything is in place the right way?
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:30:43] Speaker C: Especially as a buyer. If I'm not working with an agent, can I say, hey, let me have somebody else take a look at this deal?
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we do that. We have free 15 minute consults because again, that's not what was there for me when I started doing this stuff. And if the industry really is going to be safe, legal and ethical, somebody needs to be there as a lighthouse, as a beacon that people can turn to. And so I have free 15 minute chats, that is a sales consultant. So they will help you through the deal and give you a good gut check of the deal. But they're also a salesperson so they're going to try to sell. Hey, we also can help out in much more detail. We will manage this project for you because there's a lot more to it than just the gut check on the front end for free.
[00:31:26] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And for someone who, who's approaching a seller without a real estate agents. I think it's a way to make sure they navigate and ensure that they're getting the deal the right way. Yeah.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: And we step in.
[00:31:42] Speaker C: I know those deals happen.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And those do happen. And if you convince your neighbor to sell their house to you on seller finance or to let you take over their loan, good job. Really good job. That's where we step in is after that initial conversation where it's like, yeah, I'm open to that. Let's do that. That's when I step in. Because we've got contracts and addendums and paperwork and all the parts and pieces to help you get that under contract and across the finish line. Safe, legal and ethical.
[00:32:12] Speaker C: Nice, Nice. It's good to know. I think everybody out there should.
They come to that situation, should definitely reach out because I want to make sure everything goes the right way and.
And they're getting a deal.
Another day, right?
[00:32:30] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: So walk us through a day in the life of Caleb. I know you're obviously very busy when we were talking before, you know about schedules and everything like that. So you. You wake up in the morning and what does a typical day for you look like?
[00:32:46] Speaker B: About four hours of Instagram and then.
No. So I've been just making myself. I've got pretty consistent, make myself two eggs and a sausage, say hi to my kids, kiss them on the head, whatever. We homeschool. And then I try to wake up before them because I read a couple chapters of the Bible this last two weeks I've been journaling, so I've got a full 8 1/2 by 11 page of prayer journal.
And that's just my morning so far for the last month and a half.
And I've really enjoyed that switch up because I used to stay up late in work and then wake up just in time to get to the day. But it's healthier for me now that I've made that switch to get the day started the right way, do what's important before what's urgent. And so that's Bible reading, hug my kids, kiss my wife, and then get to work.
And so that's the morning. Then I step into a schedule. I've got a marketing guy who's been booking things like this, the podcast and other outreach because I've started a company and we've been raising capital. So getting my face out there is the number one thing because I don't make money and my people don't make money. If people don't know Caleb Christopher's name. And so showing up, connecting with my guys. I have a couple of meetings a week with different departments. That's marketing, that is. And I'm a 14 person company overall across everything. And so I've got a finance guy, I've got a chief of staff, I've got an operations manager, a sales lead and a marketing lead. And so among those five people, that's who I'm checking in with, constantly, updating and recasting my vision for them. And that's once or twice a week per department that I'm meeting with them. And then I'm doing things like this, getting on stage, writing articles. I spent the last day and a half working on an operating agreement for our title company.
So the capital raised pitches and things like that. And once we get the money in the door, so we've got commitments. Once we get the money in the door in the next two weeks, then it's more of the same thing, except on the customer side. So it was like back office or backside. We're working on getting the team together, marketing for that. Now it's marketing and building relationships for the next six months. Let me go meet with brokerages and other things like that. Let me sign up for training events and be a sponsor or a trainer or. What do you guys need? I'll go build it and bring it back to you so that I can get on stage and establish my authority. Because I want people to know my name because then they'll spend money with my company and that will put food on the table for my employees and my family and that's my job.
[00:35:16] Speaker C: Sounds like fun.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: It is. Sometimes it's, it's hard to find direction for the day, but usually we're booking stuff in advance and it's just putting in the reps on, making sure we're getting things set up ahead of time.
[00:35:30] Speaker C: Absolutely.
Love that. Very productive, very efficient.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: You got to be careful that you're not. That you're productive and not just busy too. Because if I, I can answer your emails literally all day and be busy in the business without being productive.
I think that's another trap a lot of us fall into.
[00:35:53] Speaker C: You mentioned it early.
You mentioned earlier, are you busy? But are you busy on the right things?
[00:36:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:36:04] Speaker C: Like I said, you got to be productive doing the right things.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: And I just had a conversation with one of my employees this morning.
We had a management team meeting right before this call and as it was starting, I messaged her and said, hey, you're optional for this meeting because what you're doing is closest to the money. So if you've got something that's active in what you're working on, that meeting with Judy or so, and so go do that. You do not need to be in this meeting because you're closest to the money. Right now.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: I do like a check in with.
Well, maybe it's a complaint, not so much a check in with my boyfriend. And I'll say things like at the end of the day I'll review my day and I'll be like, I'm, I'm not happy with what I got done today. I don't feel like I did anything today. He's like, you literally worked all day. And I'm like, but I don't feel like I was as productive as I could have been. And then other days I'm like, I was really productive today. But those, those days where I feel like I wasn't productive after working all day kill me because I'm like.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: I don't feel like forward progress.
[00:37:03] Speaker B: That's right.
So I did this little time audit thing for a while where I had the day broken into 15 minute increments on a page. So just a whole sheet of paper Pre printed with 15 minute time blocks.
And I would record what I did on a 15 minute basis in shorthand. Something like, spent this time doing that, but because I knew I was going to have to do that and I set a repeating alarm that beeped every 15 minutes. It's like, stop what you're doing. Write down what you just did for the last 15 minutes.
Crap, dude, you get real critical on yourself about where is my time? Am I really spending this time in the best way? That was a really helpful time audit for me because the time audit, that's like hour by hour or at the end of the day, what did I do? Not as effective as starting the day. Knowing I have to account for the, the next 15 minutes, what am I going to do? Am I going to be proud of what I did for the, the next 15 minutes? At the end of it, am I going to be proud of what I did for the day? At the end of the day, am I willing to sign my name and say, caleb Christopher signing off. I'm proud of my work today.
Shoot, man, that was really, it really.
[00:38:06] Speaker C: Put this into perspective.
[00:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah. All the day is going, nobody else is going to crack the whip.
I, I wish somebody was there to crack the whip and like, you know, smack the back of my head like, hey, get back to work. Dude. But as the entrepreneur, as the business owner, as the person who's, whatever you want to call me, breadwinner or whatever, it's my responsibility to stay busy on the right stuff so that my family and my employees have stuff to do and have money coming in.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: And that self regulation can be very, very challenging.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: But it's very necessary as well.
[00:38:42] Speaker C: I recently read Atomic Habits of James Clear and one of the things in the first three chapters in that book is just bringing you awareness to see your habits, like the little things that you do on a daily basis that are just wasting time, that you're just not doing nothing. Right. And it makes you wonder, look, does my current self align with who I, who I'm looking to be? You know, if I want to run this business, does my current self align with what that person looks like, with what that person's daily day is and just sit there and ponder on that and write things down into what's happening. It's really mind boggling to look at yourself and look at the reflection of what you are doing right now, which does not align at all with what you're trying to be.
But at the end of the day, what are you going to do about it? Yep. You know, and execution. Take action to make those changes and make it happen.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Did you see that Instagram post that was like, if you were an investor and you looked at your and you watched yourself for the last seven days, would you invest in yourself as a business?
Would you invest in that version of you as a business? And it's like, it makes sense to me, but I want to be careful about, I want you guys, the audience to be careful about.
Don't say yes so quickly just because you were busy. Were you productive? Did you get results? Because you might say, yeah, I tried really hard. I would definitely invest in me. I don't care how hard you tried.
An investor does not care how hard you try. An investor cares. Can you get results?
Look at Alex Hormozi. He doesn't wear suits. He doesn't have to because he makes money for his investors. They care about results. You can wear flip flops and a muscle shirt.
He's also got muscles. So like, if I wore that, it would look even sillier. But still, it doesn't matter that much what you look like if you're effective. It doesn't matter. All these other parts and pieces if you're effective. And so busyness does not equal investing investment worthy. So be worth investing in. It's just like being a Marriage partner, like, nobody loves me, nobody wants to be. Nobody wants to marry me. Well, are you marryable?
Have you become the person that is worth marrying?
The same thing in business be worth investing in, even if you're not looking for investors?
[00:41:09] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: One thing we ask all of our guests is if they have any interesting stories or crazy stories from their trade that they want to share with the audience and considering, like with the title company. Do you have any, like, I mean, I know not names and anything but any crazy scenarios that happen that you can share with us?
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Hmm.
Yeah. People. I think the craziest one.
Okay, so some people like to buy and sell real estate in trusts.
And what that means is the title of the property goes to the trust or the trustee. I don't want to get too technical, but the trust basically owns the property.
And then the beneficiary of the trust is the person who actually owns the trust and has the benefit of the trust. You can use the property, make money from the property, whatever it is. So the beneficiary interest is what you want.
It's like the member of an llc.
I saw somebody who said trusts were the best only way to do real estate because of the anonymity and all this other crap. I get it. They can be good. However, I saw somebody sell the trusteeship, not the beneficial interest.
The trusteeship is the.
That role is the manager. You sold it. You literally sold a job, not the house. Not the beneficial use of the house, not the right to earn income off of it. You sold a job for $437,000 just now.
Great. John Smith is now the trustee of the such and such trust.
You literally bought a job.
So that's the craziest thing. And it's. It's people who take the Internet advice without understanding the implications of what's. What really the structure of that deal is.
Now I was able to go talk to everybody and go fix it. Like, you sold the wrong thing. You meant to buy the beneficial interest, not the trustee role.
But yeah, just absolutely insane.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Well, so it worked out then that it got resolved. I was like, oh my God.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: But yeah, that person could have walked away and been like, good job. I'm still the beneficial owner and you paid me $438,000 for the job of managing my property for my benefit.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Wow, that's a big oops. Really big oops.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Nobody involved in the transaction understood that. And the title company that was involved, that helped facilitate, didn't fact check, didn't, didn't seek to understand and that's, that's my differentiation as a title company though, is what I found is it's a market of mediocrity.
Everybody's been involved in a deal where you're treated like a task, not a client or, you know, they don't care about your outcomes. They care about closing the file. And then my name is Bennett and I ain't in it. Right. They just want to get it done, move on to the next one. They stay pretty busy. I get that. But the title company's checklist, I'm not a checklist item. You need to understand my, my intended outcomes. We need to be, and this is what I train my team, we need to be outcomes oriented, not task oriented. And when you understand the story behind the deal, what people are trying to accomplish, that is going to affect how you communicate, how often you communicate the like, what information is included. Do you call, what's the timing of all that stuff? Because to serve this person the right way means understanding their needs. And a buyer and a seller have different needs and wants, and so do a buyer's agent and a seller's agent and, and the TC and the lender and everybody involved in these transactions. You have to understand what they care about, what they don't care about, what they're scared of. And you need to manage expectations on the front end. That's proactive communication, not just, oh, hey, this came in, we just found out about this. Here's a problem on your plate. That's not how you communicate with people. So that's, There's a lot of room for differentiation there by just doing that, serving people in that way, treating them as people and clients, not tasks.
[00:45:13] Speaker C: And such an important point there, you know, you're serving people different angles, different points, different needs.
And like you said, maybe other title companies treated a likes of tasks.
And I'm grateful you did. And this is the expectation that I see from a title company. When you have somebody involved that possibility in there to identify these little details that are so important.
But as you said, if they're trading it as a task, how many transactions that happen like that, huh? That most of them just get it done. Most of them have just get it done.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Well, and you can see it when everybody has their favorite escrow officer or closer or whatever that is.
When I say, see, and Judy's the name, sorry, if your name's Judy, I just keep abusing the name. When Judy moves from company A to company B, there's a migration of agents and brokers and customers that Follow her. Because the loyalty is to the person who has figured out how to serve me as a customer. That's the loyalty. It's not to the company. I don't care about company A. I care about working with Judy, period.
And so I'm just going to hire and train a bunch of Judy's.
The name of my company doesn't matter. Like we'll establish a five star brand and reputation but it's because of the people and it's because of the standards and how we serve people. The customer experience is king, period, End of story. And I don't think title companies have focused on the customer experience. So again, ideas are useless without execution. So I don't care that I'm sharing this idea. It's not a secret. Go execute title companies. Let's raise the bar for the industry. I'm going to. You can be a part of it too.
[00:47:01] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: I like the call out. I like the call out.
[00:47:08] Speaker C: That's the way it should be reality. That's the way everyone should operate.
The business oriented, you know, that's how I feel. Business customer experience is key.
Just like us as real estate agents, you want that customer, they're here for us. We want to provide the name exceptional experience and it should be the same in every step of the process.
Whether it's a loan officer title, anyone involved should provide the same type of service.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: Yeah, my goal as a title company and I say my goal because I haven't finished executing, we just raised capital. We've only closed one file so far. We're like brand new out the gate. We've got eight files open, we're opening two more today. So it's in the process. But my goal is I've got a process and we're going to follow up with people after the deal and say, hey, didn't that real estate agent Judy do a great job?
Yeah, I found her five star review link. Would you leave her a five star review for me? I just want to make sure that she understands that we value her and the way she works and communicates, etc. Like I want to get brokers, agents, wholesalers, lenders. I want five star reviews for you guys. I'm going to earn them because I do things tip top. But I want you to earn them too. And so come work with me. We'll get that figured out and we will chase down those reviews for you.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: And how can they contact you so they can come work with you?
[00:48:33] Speaker B: Ooh, you can find me calebchristopher IO or the title Company is actually creativetitle.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: IO and I also have that linked in the show notes. So all you have to do is go to our description and you can click that link and apply to work with them there.
Yeah, like that segue right there into the, you know, well done.
[00:48:53] Speaker C: Not just to work. Right.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Sorry, go ahead.
[00:48:59] Speaker C: I said not just to work with you but if they need the type of services, you know, reach out.
Yeah, absolutely. Investor, home buyers, sellers.
[00:49:09] Speaker B: Well and I will say this too, if you've got a creative finance offer or you think there's an option for creative finance for your buyer or seller, have a free call with my team. That's CreativeTC IO. Have a free call. I do not care. Abuse it.
It's there because it wasn't there for me and that's what the industry needs. So that's what I'm there for. So call, ask. Hey, is this a viable option for the person in this and this state and this and this situation that's nationwide free consults.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: That's an awesome resource for agents too because then it just makes you look like you're protecting you're your client and getting them the resources they need.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: You are. And why wouldn't you want to turn to an expert? Like that's, that's the real estate agents value is being a walking Rolodex of validated people.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: You would be surprised how many agents won't say, you know what, I don't know the answer to that but I have an expert who does. Let me connect you with them. Because they don't want to look like they don't know something.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh shoot, they've got it upside down. Because my value is not that I know things, it's that I know people who can solve the things for you or I know resources to point you to. So look at a customer, hey, we just did an inspection. There's a crack in the foundation. I've got a foundation guy. The roof is pretty old. I've got a roofing guy. Let me call him, let me. You know like I don't expect you to understand foundations to the max. I don't expect you to understand roofing to the max. A general awareness, absolutely. That's basic competence. But you're not supposed to be an expert in all things. You're supposed to be an expert in knowing who can solve my problem. That's the value of a real estate agent. Understanding the terms, conditions, what does this process look like? Hold my hand through the process. But also I've got a whole repertoire of dudes and ladies and companies that can solve whatever problem you ever run into. Because I've done a good job building relationships and vetting people.
That's your value.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: Exactly. You just explained it perfectly.
Perfectly to a T. And that's what we do is we connect people with the people where the problem solvers by connections, not actually solving each problem with ourselves.
[00:51:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Now can we take the last three minutes and turn it into like a six month course and charge $15,000 for it and build a whole mentorship around it?
[00:51:27] Speaker A: Probably.
[00:51:28] Speaker C: Let's do it.
Do it.
Before we, before we get there, can I throw away some rapid fire questions for you real quick? Just four questions.
What's one deal that you will never forget and why?
[00:51:46] Speaker B: The deal where sellers paid me to buy their house, I took over their loan payments and they paid me an insurance check because there was a flooring insurance claim that was being paid out. They assigned that over to me and then they paid me $200 a month for two years because I solved their problem. They had multiple payments on. They had multiple house payments to make and it was not a cash flowing rental. And I said this is how I can help you. Otherwise it's not a deal.
And they said okay.
[00:52:15] Speaker C: Nice, nice.
What's one red? One red flag. You spot instantly in a real estate deal.
[00:52:28] Speaker B: Poor underwriting. Is that no cash in your bank account piece. But also using lofty assumptions.
That's really easy for me to spot. The inexperience when somebody talk. When I ask somebody tell me about their deal, I can tell whether or not they've underwritten it properly and with realistic expectations like A. That's not a deal unless you've factored A, B and C. Oh what?
Yeah. No. Not a deal.
[00:52:56] Speaker C: Biggest mindset shift you had in as a business owner.
[00:53:04] Speaker B: It has been the last two years just beating me over the head. Ideas are worthless without execution. And I thought I understood it before. And every week I get taught again and again the next level of it.
Go execute, you idiot.
Stop doodling and go do.
[00:53:24] Speaker C: Fair enough.
Perfect. One last one. If you could give only one piece of advice to someone starting in creative finance, what would it be?
[00:53:36] Speaker B: Use my company. And I say that from the bottom of my heart. Honest, open, not a prideful position.
We're here to serve. I would say use creative TC if you've not done a creative deal before, I built what wasn't there for me, for you, for anybody else. That's why it exists.
Use somebody who has been through it and understands it. Do not di. Try that thing.
[00:54:01] Speaker C: Nice, Nice.
Love that you have any fire. Rapid fire. Question, how did you want to throw in here?
[00:54:08] Speaker A: No, I think you pretty much got them all. I. I think the main takeaway, I really love the execution. Focus on the execution. Make the execution happen.
[00:54:19] Speaker B: Make it the right execution.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: The right execution. And I really, really just want to say, you know, thank you for being on today's show. I think you brought a lot of value not only to agents but also to anybody who's interested in creative financing. And I just encourage our listeners to go to the show notes, check out the website and see if there's something in there that even if you haven't invested before, might open your mind to investing and reach out to Caleb.
We still like. Yep. Okay. I froze for a second, so I don't know if you guys heard that, but hopefully, hopefully you did.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: I think we got it.
[00:54:56] Speaker C: We got it. We got it.
[00:54:58] Speaker A: Last minute things before we sign off, guys.
[00:55:01] Speaker B: No, it's an honor to be here. I just encourage people to execute. If there's only one thing, go do the thing.
[00:55:09] Speaker A: Go do the thing. Guys. Thanks for joining us today. Don't forget to, like, subscribe and share and we will see you guys on the next one.
