RG 291 – How to Make The Most Out of Every Single Transaction with Chris Craddock
We welcome the new year with an outstanding interview with Chris Craddock, the man behind The Redux Group, one of the top real estate teams in Northern Virginia.
Chris Craddock is a nationally certified Life Coach, the founder, and CEO of The Redux Group, the host of The Uncommon Real Estate podcast, a realtor, and a successful entrepreneur with multiple businesses in Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Chris closes 30 to 60 deals a month alone and generates over $10 million in revenue from all his businesses. His company, The Redux Group, is the most innovative real estate group in Northern Virginia and has generated $160 million in real estate volume in 2020.
Chris knows exactly how to make the most out of every transaction. His successful real estate group and multiple businesses speak for themselves! In this episode, Chris shares how he managed to thrive in the pandemic by focusing on what matters, reading the data, and making the most out of every opportunity.
We also talk about the effects of COVID-19 on property values, the rate of building, interest rates, and everything in between. Chris relays his observation on how the property crisis has grown on his end over the past year. Plus, we get to hear how he approaches conversion rates; the secret behind how he closes over 50 deals every single month.
Start the year right—sit down, relax, and listen to our first episode of 2022.
Key Takeaways
If you get paid once in a single transaction, why not get paid multiple times?
One of the best ways to generate wealth is to grow the ecosystem around your main business, therefore creating multiple streams of income.
COVID-19 has caused the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.
- Capitalizing on the stuff you already paid for provides the best returns.
- When you learn from a mistake, you get to make more money.
LINKS
dmv.thereduxgroup.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/chris-craddock-92100171/
www.wholesalinginc.com/revive/
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unco…te/id1504771509
Be Bold, Be Brave and Go Give Life a Crack!
Listen to Podcast
Podcast Transcript
Reed Goossens (00:00):
Good day, good day guys. Now, before we dive into today’s show, I want you to let you know that some of you may be aware that over the past eight years, I have built a substantial multifamily real estate portfolio here in the us worth over half a billion dollars. And in that time, my passive investors have received fantastic double-digit returns. And now you can invest directly into my deals for as little as $50,000. So if you’re an interested investor, head over to Reedgoossens.com to find out more that’s Reedgoossens.com. Now back into the show,
Chris Craddock (00:40):
I believe we are in, you know, that real estate is a strong bet for a number of reasons. One, we already talked about inflation real. Estate’s a hedge against inflation, right? People run to hard assets, gold, silver, even cryptocurrency, real estate. People are running to these hard assets. Two before 2008, builders were building an average of 5 million houses a year after 10, 2008, uh, builders had been, and, and this was for decades. It wasn’t just a, a short-term thing. That was the average five, 5 million new houses hit the market every year after 2008, only 20%, only about 1 million houses were hit in the market every year. So because you know, builders went outta business. Builders were gun shy. Banks were less likely to lend the builders. All of these reasons, there was only 20% of the new houses that normally come online were coming online, right? Which again, creates scarcity and scarcity drives prices up.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Welcome to investing in the US, a podcast for real estate investors, business owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs looking to break into the US market, join Reed as he interviews go-geters risk-takers and the best in the business about their journey towards financial freedom and the sheer joy of creating something from nothing
Reed Goossens (02:03):
Good day. good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another cracking edition of investing in the US podcast from Los Angeles. I’m your host Reed goossens as always Abby with US on the show. Now I’m glad that you’ve all tuned to learn from my incredible guests and each and every one of them are the cream are the crop here in the United States. When it comes to real estate, investing, business, investing and entrepreneurship, each show, I try and tease out their incredible stories of how they have successfully created their businesses here in the US, how they’ve created financial freedom, massive amounts of cash, and ultimately created extraordinary lives for themselves and their families life by design. As I like to say, hopefully these guests will inspire all of my cracking listeners, which are you guys to get off the couch and go and take massive amounts of action.
Reed Goossens (02:50):
If these guys can do it. So can you now, as you know, I’m all about sharing the knowledge with my loyal listeners, which is you guys, and there’s absolutely no BS on this show, just straight into the nuts and bolts. Now, if you do like this show, the easiest way to give back is to give us a review on iTunes. And you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter by searching at Reedgoossens. You can find the show, every you podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google play, but you can also find these episodes up on my YouTube channel. So head over to Reed, goins.com, click on the video link. And it’ll take you to the video recordings of these podcasts, where you can see my ugly mug, but the beautiful faces of my guests each and every week. All right, enough outta me, let’s get cracking and into today’s show.
Reed Goossens (03:35):
Today in the show, I have the pleasure of speaking with Chris Craddock a nationally certified life coach in leadership and is a top real estate investor closing on over 30 to 65 deals a month. Chris also hosts the uncommon real estate podcast, and he has a bunch of companies that consistently bring in close to 10 million in revenue year after year. His team, The Redux Group has just sold over 160 million in real estate volume in 2020. I’m really excited to pump, to have Chris on the show today, share his incredible knowledge and his insight into the world of real estate here in the United States. But enough outta me, let’s get him out here. Get, Hey Chris, welcome to the show. Hey, doing today, mate.
Chris Craddock (04:13):
Hey brother. Thanks
Reed Goossens (04:14):
For having Mehi mate. My pleasure. And, uh, as we’re saying in the green room twice in one week, right? I was on your show earlier in the week with your, with your awesome co COE Coca. And uh, now I get to, uh, reciprocate it back here on investing in the US podcast. So great to have you with us, uh, mate, to kick it, to give kick tongue tied this morning on a Friday to kick it off. Uh, I always ask my guests, rewind the clock and tell me how you made your first of a dollar as a kid.
Chris Craddock (04:40):
Well, I’ll tell you, I love this question. And, uh, Barbara Walters in her, that’s one of my favorite books, how to talk to anybody anywhere, anytime, or something like that. It says, this is the question to ask anybody that is a successful businessman. And so you are literally one of the only people that I’ve ever heard ask that question other than me. So I love the fact that you ask it on a pot podcast too. That’s it’s a great, great question there. So for me, honestly, the, uh, so I’ve got two memories. One was collecting rocks and selling it to people that felt bad for me. Like, I dunno, I dunno why anybody would buy any of these rocks I was selling, but I also, um, made those little pot holders, like, like the pot holders. And I went door to door selling ’em 50 cents for the little nylon ones and a dollar for the cotton ones. And I made a bunch of money just selling ’em I’m doubting people even used them or wanted them or cared about ’em. But I think it was like this like little four, five year old kid wandering around asking like, like having hustled that people like man got respect the hustle
Reed Goossens (05:43):
Chris Craddock (06:15):
Yeah, so I mean, honestly, the crazy thing is, I mean, I was a mess as a kid, um, just a total mess, right? So, um, I got into, uh, I got into a lot of stuff and I’d be debtor in jail if it wasn’t for me getting involved with young life and having my life changed. So, um, but I was an entrepreneur even at the time selling things that were, uh, they’re not, most of, it’s not as illegal as they used to be, you know, in the states anymore, but that was what I started doing. I’ve got young kids now and I can’t even believe the stuff I was into as a 13 year old. I mean, it was just crazy, but yeah, entrepreneur, you know, selling streetside pharmaceuticals, don’t put it that way.
Chris Craddock (07:07):
So I went on staff with young life and then was on staff with my church as a pastor. And, um, you know, and then, you know, honestly it, it, it changed my life and I was a salesperson, right? Like I is selling, you know, what, I still believed it to be the greatest product of all time, you know, change your life as far as that’s concerned. And, uh, through the process, 2000, I got married 2003, my wife got pregnant and I was working, you know, as you know, working in, in young life, I was work making between 20, $25,000 a year. And in the DC area, you can’t live on 20, 25 pounds a year. And we wanted my wife to stay home and raise the kids. So, um, I went to the library, checked out every book I could on real estate investing and went and started knocking on doors and distressed properties before I knew a clue.
Chris Craddock (07:51):
Like, I cannot believe how little I knew. Um, but I always say imperfect action. Trump’s perfect in action. Right. And so I just started knocking on doors and within four months, I’d made 12 times what I made in a year. And, uh, I’ll tell you, it was, it was crazy. So it allowed me to continue to ministry stuff, and it allowed us to buy the house we live in now, we’re, we’re actually building another house currently. Um, but then the money started running out as I started having more and more kids. I’ve got six kids now. Wow. And, uh, know it’s crazy, man. Once I figured out what caused it, I could stop it.
Reed Goossens (09:07):
That’s that’s awesome. And so it all, it all came from the fact that you weren’t earning enough and you just took action to go out and find something different. Uh, you definitely struck me as a guy that’s full of energy. So I, I could see that you needed to, to, to harness the energy into something to, to make it grow into, into what it’s today. So that’s that’s well, well done. Um, talk to me about, cause I’ve actually had David Osborne, one of the early, uh, guys of ke Williams on the show, uh, really, really, uh, um, talk to me about what the business is that you’ve grown today and you Mo you mentioned multiple streams of income. A lot of the listeners on the show are real estate investors, but they also don’t, you know, the, the average real estate investor looks at a, at an agent or a brokerage as like, oh, they’re just there to, you know, provide a service, but it’s actually quite profitable. Um, do you wanna walk us through how you built the business in and around creating a, an agency? Yeah,
Chris Craddock (10:01):
So I, I mean here, here’s one of the things that I, I remember hearing a long time ago. Um, I, so, uh, the phrase, you know, the, the business phrase that, that most of us have probably heard of, and if you, haven’t, it’s really a powerful one it’s called vertical integrations, right? Yep. So you’re already doing stuff and how do you add more to it? And that’s actually what I built, um, my coaching business around was, was people that are already paying for things. How do you make the most of what you’re already paying for? Well, my business coach said to me, um, you know, I think a couple years in the business, he’s like, Chris, why get paid one time on a transaction when you can get, get paid five times? Right. Well, I get more clients when you can get more of the client.
Chris Craddock (10:40):
Well, I think it’s both, but, you know, that’s the whole thing. And so when, when you can get paid on, you know, the purchase as, as a listing agent, as a buyer’s agent, uh, you can get paid. I have an insurance company when you get paid to, to help people with I, when you can get paid to help people with title, right. When you can get paid. Um, my wife runs a lending, um, you know, a lending branch, when you can get paid on the lending side, you like, there’s all of these different pieces across the board, you know, construction, hard money. Uh, I, I mean, just flipping, uh, buy and hold property, um, coaching, uh, you know, I’m part of E XP and XP has a really robust downline for anybody that comes in under you. Um, so like all of these different places, um, essentially are, are just different ways that you can get paid doing the same thing. And so I’m, I’m actually rereading, uh, good to great right now, which read in the past, but for, I don’t know why I quote it all the time, but it’s been years since I’ve read it again. And, uh, I’m just rereading it right now. And, and the flywheel is, is the retail business, right? The retail business makes so much business happen. And then, you know, you can throw construction business from there and title and all these other things, the flywheel creates all of these other opportunities.
Reed Goossens (12:01):
And, and I love that. I talk a lot about on this show business ecosystems, which is the, it is around the same thing, vertical integration, and getting paid multiple times on the one transaction. And I think it’s so important. You and I keep harping on it, that that’s, in my opinion, is how true wealth is created. It is about having a little piece of all parts of the pie, not just having the one piece, which might be, you know, buying in our case, in my case, buying real estate, you know, maybe I can do property management. Maybe I can do construction management. Maybe I can get into, you know, a, my, on my side of the fence, we’ve got material sourcings from, from, from the Asian markets, how do I profit on those types of things? So it’s, it’s really, really interesting. And, and after doing this show for nearly six years interviewing so many, many incredible entrepreneurs, the one thing I see the most common thread is that they start with one thing I real estate investing and then grow the eco around that to, to, to really encompass those multiple streams of income.
Reed Goossens (12:57):
So, absolutely love that. Talk to me about how you are seeing today’s market coming outta COVID. How how’d you guys fare, I guess, first going through COVID in last year, and then how you, how you transitioning and seeing property prices skyrocket across the United States right now and really across the world, but let’s, let’s, let’s face it. Yeah. Well,
Chris Craddock (13:17):
I’ll tell you at the start of COVID we had about $150,000 a month in overhead, right. That goes out whether we sell a house or not now it’s, it’s much higher than that, but I still remember, um, you know, just to be honest, like I kept hearing rumblings about it, but I just, you know, there’s always wars and rumors of wars, right? There’s always, everybody always has reasons why they wanna ball up and not go out and make stuff happen. Right. And so I just didn’t think anything of it. And then I still remember the one night my wife walks into the bedroom. Um, I was getting ready for bed and she’s like, Chris, the world is shutting down tomorrow. And I’m like, yeah, right. I I’ve been hearing this for a long time. Right. Whatever. And she’s like, no, read the news. I read the news.
Chris Craddock (13:58):
It’s like walk downs in place, this, this, this. And I’ll tell you, I had a moment of absolute panic and freak out because I’m like, man, we’ve done really well. We’ve got a high net net worth, but we can only go. So, and, and literally, I just bought some stuff in cash that I was like gonna be turning our around. And so, like, I was not cash heavy at all. I was very cash light. And, uh, so I was like, holy crap, bad. This is bad. This is really bad. Like, we can go for so long. And I thought about all of our people and I’m like, man, I can’t leave them to fit for the wolves. So, you know, I, we, as I was sitting there freaking out, I was like, okay, well, I’m gonna keep paying our people. But with that said, I, you know, I can only pay them so long, you know, before, before the well runs dry, you know, if we sell no houses, 50 a month goes out, you know, how long can it go?
Chris Craddock (14:50):
So let’s hope, let’s hope it comes back. But then, then it turned out to be one of the best years that we could have ever dreamed of because when people were stuck inside, they realized that man, I don’t like living here. I’m gonna go find another place, you know, or, or whatever. All of those different things, you know, the investment side of my business started cranking. Um, you know, I started the coaching. Uh, I started to coach on the, uh, on teaching PE like investors, how to monetize some of their, their deals that were dead deals, how to create vertical integrations and what they’re already buying. So all of these things just kind of cropped out of what I thought was gonna be one of the scariest times of my life. It turned out to be one of the best business to, I, I remember dreamed of
Reed Goossens (15:33):
It’s. It’s so funny that you’re looking back on it. Cause I’m sure in that moment you were freaking the hell out. Like you wouldn’t no one thought even, you know, my side of the fence, no one thinks that all of a sudden, everyone talked about the K the V shape recovery, but no one knew how long it was gonna last. Right. Was it gonna be more U shape or was, you know, so to have that bounce back and I guess the question is how long, how quickly did it, did you start you go from that panic? Did it take a couple of months? Because I know on my side of the events, we were really panicking about rent collections in April and may and June. What type of period of time did you start to think? Okay. I can see the light through the, uh, lights, through the trees.
Chris Craddock (16:10):
Well, I on, we had, so I personally own a bunch of rental properties as well, and I only had one tenant even ask about, even ask about not paying. So right away when I, I wasn’t hearing, I’m just like waiting the whole time. I’m like, okay, when are they gonna all ask to stop paying? Um, and then when all of a sudden the market just caught fire and I’m like, okay, when is it gonna fall apart? When is it gonna fall apart? And then I think it was probably around June where, uh, June or July where I was like, okay, because then I started to understand some of the economic pieces there that, um, that the government’s just printing money and creating inflation and that, uh, real estate is the best bets against inflation. And so all the institutional money, all the re anybody that has cash is gonna start dumping money into real estate, which, you know, created what happened earlier this year with this crazy scarcity, which, you know, drove prices up.
Chris Craddock (17:08):
And so then all of a sudden I realized like what the economy was doing and you know, that we didn’t have to worry because, you know, good things are, are gonna come out of this for the people that are in the real estate market. Now, the crazy thing is, again, you know, I, I don’t know where everybody stands politically. And, and I know sometimes this gets politically charged, but I, I love Ronald Reagan’s, uh, quote, you know, the worst, the scariest words in the English language are, uh, I’m from the government and I’m here to help. And, uh,
Reed Goossens (18:22):
For those of you who are interested in staying up to date with all the latest happenings in my business, or to learn more are about passively investing directly into my multifamily value, add deals, then head over to Reedgoossens.com And sign up for my monthly newsletter by signing up, you’ll automatically be notified about my new up and coming investment opportunities. You’ll be able to stay up to date with all the latest real estate news here in the United States, and much, much more so head over to Reedgoossens.com and sign up today now, back into the show and, and look, and I’ll, I’ll be the, the, the international voice here that, that it’s happening across the world. Like back in my home country of Australia, it’s happening in Europe. And I think a lot of people to that point were lessons learned from 2008, right?
Reed Goossens (19:09):
Let’s all be slow getting the, the tap going, but then the tap can be on for too long and you gotta, you gotta flood, right? So it’s, it’s, it’s also, you know, having this, this, this, this opposite effect. So let’s talk a little bit about what you’re seeing in your local markets, and then maybe you just wanna for the listeners talk about where you, where you are currently seeing deals and doing deals, uh, and in terms of market, and then turn into how you’ve seen that from, uh, your brokerage company in terms of the, the, the, the, the spike in property prices. And do you think that’s gonna be maintained?
Chris Craddock (19:42):
Yeah, I, I do think that we’re going up, you know, I, I talk about this on my
Chris Craddock (20:24):
One, we already talked about inflation real, estate’s a hedge against inflation, right? People run to hard assets, gold, silver, even cryptocurrency estate. People are running to these hard assets. Two before 2008 builders were building an average of 5 million houses a year after 10, 2008, uh, builders had been, and, and this was for decades. It wasn’t just a, a short term thing. That was the average five, 5 million new houses hit the market every year after 2008, only 20%, only about 1 million houses were hit in the market every year. So because you know, builders went out of business, builders were gun shy, banks were less likely to lend the builders. All of these reasons, there was only 20% of the new houses that normally come online, we’re coming online, right. Which again, creates scarcity and scarcity drives prices up. So that that’s another piece. The, the next piece is, um, we’re seeing that interest rates are so, so stink and low that people were, are upgrading.
Chris Craddock (21:20):
They’re moving out of their old house, into their new house. And because money is so cheap, they’re able to afford to keep the old when in decades and in generations past they weren’t able to keep those old houses. So now they’re keeping the old houses, which means less houses are coming on the market, um, pushing properties up, you know, again, creating more scarcity, um, and pushing prices up. So I think for those reasons, then there, there’s a number of other ones that I don’t know that we have time to talk about right now. But I think for those reasons alone, we’re seeing a lot of scarcity in the market. And, uh, I, I don’t see a lot of new houses hitting the market that are gonna give us relief from that scarcity, which is gonna keep us in a upward pressure in
Reed Goossens (22:01):
The market. And I, I will, I’ll echo some of what you’re saying now. I think if you look back at history, you know, and no matter where you, where you live going across the world, there’s always been a housing shortage, right? No matter what time of like the late nineties, the two thousands, the eighties, there’s always a housing shortage, right? There’s always something, I think what I’m seeing and hearing and more on the commercial side and the brokers I’m talking to across different MSAs is also this transition. Like I was just talking a broker the other day in Phoenix about in like getting entitlement and trying to build more units is just becoming longer and longer. And I’ve had a lot of experience working in New York city and LA and in Austin where the red tape can be really, um, you know, through political action or inaction.
Reed Goossens (22:43):
Um, and that also causes, uh, an issue with supply demand, right, where you’ve got not enough supply coming to a market, but yet demand is high. Then you are always gonna have this housing imbalance, thus it’s gonna increase rents and thus it’s gonna increase the cost of buying properties. And when wages aren’t keeping up with that, it’s, it makes it very, very difficult to, to offset that and, and, and, you know, bring back a norm coupled with a, you know, quantitative easing. So a lot of things going on in that, but those things are all related to how we are seeing this such this, this, this V-shape recovery, so to speak. But as you mentioned earlier, the rich are getting rich and the poor are getting poorer into how do you know, how is real estate investors? Do we navigate that? What are we doing, uh, in order to place our money?
Reed Goossens (23:29):
Because as, as you know, Chris, as I know, like I, my, my existing properties are looking fricking awesome. Right. But now I’ve gotta go buy new properties in today’s market. Okay. I’ve gotta now readjust my expectation of what I’m gonna pay for a price per pound price per square foot. So let’s get into that second part of my question, which was, how are you seeing the property prices grow over the last six to 12 months? What are you seeing in your, and what again, where, where are you investing? What are you doing business in what areas across
Chris Craddock (23:56):
The country I’m in, I’m in the DC area. So, you know, DC, Maryland, Virginia, and then, you know, I I’ve got teams in Baltimore and also in Richmond, but I also, you know, my coaching business is investors across the country. So, um, so yeah, I, you know, I’m, I’m looking at every all, all across. I mean, we were seeing here locally, we, we had an average growth again, you know, I love looking at the numbers on all this stuff. So, uh, it was, it was just over 23% growth over the last year, um, which is insane, but we’re also DC area. Right? We got hit, we got, didn’t get hit as hard in the recession after 2008. And we recovered faster. Um, because, you know, even when the gr government shrinks, it grows. So it’s like a big magnet just pulling people to this area. And so, um, so yeah, we’re, we’re a well insulated area. We don’t get the same cap rates, um, as other places, um, just because it’s more expensive to buy, but our levels of appreciation tends to be higher. And also, you know, our, our equity and principle paydown safety for this area is, is really, really a strong, it’s a strong area to be in.
Reed Goossens (25:01):
And, and what he list is what Chris is saying. There is essentially, again, back to supply to my, when you’ve got a lot of demand to live in an area, guess what goes down cap rates? Because the risk of buying in a certain area is also diminished because when you come to sell a property, whether it be commercial or residential, there’s gonna be a lot, just a lot of buyers out there. You buying a tertiary market cap rates are gonna be a lot more, uh, expanded because there’s not as, maybe there’s not as many people in that, in that particular market who are gonna come and trade with you once you wanna sell. So it’s all a measure of risk. Uh, again, going back to that supply demand curve. So, um, Chris, how, how are you seeing the future hold for you and your business now coming out of sort of late 20, 21 now where you know, this bloody second variant or third variant, whatever, and I’ve lost count of how many variants there are
Chris Craddock (26:00):
You know, I’m looking at at 2022. And I, I see that we’ve got a strong outlook, so I’m just working to level up myself and, and the different business is that I’m a part of, right. So what am I doing? I’m, I’m just looking to be a better business owner. So learning how to, how to create better dashboards and, uh, you know, and, and read the numbers better. I’ll tell you when, uh, when you first start off, you know, everything’s activity and skill, right? When you first start off, it’s your business grows by, by extra hard work. Right? And so I, I remember listening to Keith Cunningham, um, he was talking about, uh, about that, right? It’s it’s like, you’re, you’re in a low performance vehicle when you first start off like a tricycle, right? You’re just pedaling. You can only go as fast as you can pedal, but then every time you level up your, your, the performance of your vehicle gets bigger, bitter, bigger, and bigger and bigger.
Chris Craddock (26:50):
So just think about going from a tricycle to a bicycle, right? With a bicycle, you can go faster, right. But you have less points on the ground, so you can crash harder. Then you move to a car, right. You can go faster. Now you’ve got a dash for, in front of you. You gotta tachometer a dash, like all the other stuff. And then you can go to like the next level, which like a jet plane, um, and each time you do, it takes less effort to move it. Right. But, but if you crash, it’s a, it’s a lot worse. And so that’s kind of what, what I see as them scaling up and growing as an entrepreneur is, is learning how to, to of read the data and get to a place where it takes less effort, um, to move faster. Right. And so that’s, that’s what we’re really focused on for, for this next year.
Chris Craddock (27:31):
And, and it’s really, really great, you know, I see with, uh, with all the different businesses, you know, we’re, we’re, even as this time of year, we tend to slow down. We’re seeing that we’re, we’re up across the board on everything year, over year, month, over month. Um, so it it’s really good. And, and a lot of my coaching students, same thing, because we’re, we’re looking at how do we just, just make the most of every opportunity that we have. And I’ll tell you for all of those business, all you business owners out there, if you can understand how to make the most of every opportunity you have is the, that is the best ROI you can get, not paying for new stuff, but literally capitalizing on the stuff you’ve already paid for. You get the best return on investment when you can do that
Reed Goossens (28:16):
100%. Uh, I I’m, I’m a bit of a data nerd myself. So what are the, what are those key performance indicators you’re trying to, to Mo to monitor better with your dashboard in 2022, just, just a, just a handful of them, just for the listeners to understand what, what you are doing in your business.
Chris Craddock (28:31):
Yeah. So, so here’s, here’s one of them. So, so I’m trying to look at things across the board where I can look at a KPI and, you know, in all of the different business, I’m, I’m a part of, so one of the ones that we wanna monitor in is conversion rate, right? You look at conversion rate. If you take conversion rate from 10% to 15% or, or 25% to 40% or whatever it is, where, where you’re raising that conversion rate, all of a sudden, you know, what you focus on expands, what you focus on gets better. That’s just the way life works. Right? You think about when you drive down the road, I bought a Ford Raptor a couple years ago. Now, anytime I on the road, I see four Raptors. Right. I can’t miss them. Right. I didn’t see em before, but now I see them, right.
Chris Craddock (29:11):
The same thing’s true is when you focus on something, you begin to start seeing it, our brain, we would go insane. If our brain didn’t filter out things that we didn’t tell ourselves as important. Right? So when we decide that this is important to focus on, then we can make it better. So if you start looking stuff like, like conversion rate, right? That’s one of the big things there. Um, if you go from 20, 20% to 40%, right? Think about the hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, the tens of thousands, depending on where your business is of dollars that you make by just capitalizing at a higher level. Right? And one of the things that you have to do is start asking yourself whose fault is it. If, if these people were gonna sell, or these people are gonna work with somebody in the next six months, and they chose not to work with you normally, like, let’s be honest.
Chris Craddock (29:56):
Most of us like to point other fingers on other people and be the victim and say, oh, they just didn’t get it. They didn’t get it. But when we change our mind and say to raise our conversion rate, we’ve gotta be the, the common denominator, right. We need to say, if I had to do that a hundred times over and over and over again, meet with these people until I got the deal, what would I have done different each time? And could I have, could, is there a world in which I could walked away with the deal? And if there is, I need to figure out what I didn’t do, right? Because then when I figure that out, I cannot make the same mistake. Again, that’s called paying a stupid tax. When you make the same mistake a second time, right. Or a third or fourth time. And so if you understand that, then you can level up and then level up, and then you make a whole heck of a lot more. You become way more profitable because you make a lot more money and a lot less time and a lot less expense.
Reed Goossens (30:47):
And I assume across, when you say conversion rate, it’s about getting those leads. Right. And leads for me on my business is, is new investors. But that comes probably down to marketing. And it probably comes down to, uh, being very, uh, precise with your approach and your, you know, issue and your values and all that sort of stuff that really is going to help the person say, I wanna do business with you. I think if I’ve, if I’ve probably rid between the lines there is that probably how you you’re getting to that higher conversion rate.
Chris Craddock (31:14):
Right. Right. So, so like for you, right. So, so any business, you know, that’s not like syndications, aren’t a business that I’m in right now. Um, so, but let, let’s just say I was in that business. If I were looking at, at conversion, these investors, a lot of people you’re talking to are gonna invest with somebody, with somebody. And if you meet with them or you give them your proposal and they choose that you are not the investment for them, but they’re gonna invest with somebody then, you know, the reality is you probably put, have made a more compelling argument. Right. And if you figure out, okay, what could I have done differently to be more compelling to these people? Right. Because I do believe that my investment is a great investment. I believe that safe. I believe the returns are great. I believe all of these things, but they’re not seeing what I’m seeing. My argument isn’t compelling enough. And if I go back to the, instead of just continuing to send this out, because some people think it’s compelling, I, I tweak it and make it better and stronger. All of a sudden, you know, instead of one out of three or one out of 10, I go to like, I double my conversion or triple my conversion. Then all of a sudden, you know, I’m getting such a better return on the same, same effort put out. Right.
Reed Goossens (32:23):
And yeah, I love sorry to, I interrupt. I love that. Cause I do remember a story back when I first started raising money. I, I think I told her on your show earlier in the week was I approached 50 people to raise half a million bucks. And this is way back in the day. And I heard crickets, right. And it was, it was a reflection of me not doing a good enough job. This is years ago of one, my marketing material to my education process. Right. And three, just understanding as a, as a beginner, when you don’t have a track record, all those years ago, you, you, your conversion rate is gonna be lower. So you need more people in the pool right now, fast forward, six, seven and years later, when you get track record and you get experience and people trust you that comes through time, but you can accelerate that through good marketing, through good messaging and good education.
Reed Goossens (33:07):
And I think, you know, I, I get a little bit off topic here, but it’s, it’s good to talk, relate it back to businesses and conversion and how the underlying systems of what you do in your business. And what I do in my business is really the thing, education, transparency, and building that track record and, and, and trust because that, that that’s easier to get it easy yes. Than a long, no. Right. Because you’re just spending too much money. So I love that. And, and, and even to myself, like, what am I gonna do? Like go through fuel on the fire and spend a bit of money on marketing. Like, it’s gotta be the targeted marketing. Right. And, and I, you say you $150,000 a month, I’m sure within that 150 grand, there’s a lot of dollars in, in marketing that you are spending to get those inbound leads to go and double your conversion. So I, I absolutely love that, mate. Look, I know we’re coming to the end of the show, but at the, uh, what you got personally planned for 20 22, 6 kids, any no, no more on the way I could hope
Chris Craddock (33:58):
Chris Craddock (34:45):
Um, but, uh, that’s, that’s the whole thing there. So we decided to just pick a place Destin in Florida, where they have the crystal water beaches. So I’m, I’m excited about that. Um, never been there, but I’ve heard so many people say it’s great. So I’m like, all right, I wanna go someplace where it’s somewhat warm and where the beaches are clear, um, where I don’t have to worry whether the, whether they’re not gonna let us outta the country. So that was, uh, so we’re doing that. And then, uh, yeah, other than that, you know, I’m really focused on, on raising our conversion rates, um, growing, you know, if anybody out here has a direct to consumer, um, marketing, like your you’re either wholesaler or fixed and flipper, um, we’re building the co the coaching business up, uh, teaching people how to monetize those dead leads.
Chris Craddock (35:25):
Right? Cause most of the time, if you get 20 people that raise their hand and say, I wanna sell, um, 19 of them are gonna sell with somebody else. Um, how do you monetize those other 19? That’s, that’s what we teach people how to do, make the most of that, and really compress the decades and the days so that you don’t have to build the whole thing over years, but you can do it, you know, pretty much takes two weeks to really set something in place. Um, so those, those are the things that we’re really focused on, but yeah, man, I’ll, I’ll tell you, I’m, I’m excited. Like life is good. Business is good. Things are just going in a really good direction. That’s
Reed Goossens (35:56):
Awesome. That’s awesome. Well, mate, at the end of every show, we’d like to get into the top five investing tips, ready to get into it.
Chris Craddock (36:02):
Sure. Let’s do it, mate. What is
Reed Goossens (36:03):
The daily habit you practice to keep on track towards your goals?
Chris Craddock (36:07):
Uh, I’ve got, so I normally was a, uh, a nighttime person when I was growing up and through college. Um, but I, I saw the success lead clues in almost everybody. And somebody’s gonna tell me at some point, so some outlier that wakes up like around 10 o’clock or eight o’clock or whatever, and it rolls outta bed and does their thing and, and is successful. But, uh, I found that almost all the people that I respect start early, they knock out the things that are important and they, uh, they know what their one thing is. And the one thing is defined as some, if, if you do this thing, everything else becomes easier and unnecessary. So my morning routine is, is focused on finding that one thing and really, really focusing so that I, I can get the important things out and not just deal with the urgent. Love
Reed Goossens (36:46):
It. Love it. Question number two is who’s the most influential person in your career to
Chris Craddock (36:50):
Date? I would say, I mean, honestly, I, I did a life map and every time I’ve leveled, it’s always come, uh, because of new relationships in my life. So I have a ton of different people, but honestly, I, like I said, at the beginning, I’d be dead in jail if it wasn’t for my young life leader, a guy that came into my life and kind of taught me what it was to be a man when I was a punk kid that was doing really stupid stuff. So that’s, that’s probably the most, most influential person that kind of got my, my head straight. And then from there, I’ve just had, I I’ve sought out mentors. Um, people when I hear them, I on, on podcasts or, or, you know, at, at conferences, I like their vibe. I just reach out. And so I’ve had, I have a number of people through the years that, uh, that I’ve reached out to built relationships with, that have helped me level up. Love
Reed Goossens (37:36):
It. Love it. Question number three is what’s the most influence tool in your business. And when I say tool, it could be a physical tool, like a journal or a phone, or it could be a piece of software that you can’t run your business without. What is it?
Chris Craddock (37:48):
Um, well, can I say the higher that a higher than I make? Yeah,
Reed Goossens (37:53):
Of course people are tools. Yeah, of course. Not, not, not literally.
Chris Craddock (37:58):
I wouldn’t classify the, as a tool, but like, in that sense, but I dunno, but, uh, I would say the, uh, um, having a COO in my business because I’m such a, uh, a vision driven, um, person having somebody that can implement the ideas and also somebody that he’s somebody that I trust. So when, when I get focused on shiny objects and get, get undisciplined in my focus, he can also ask the question, is this really where you wanna be spending your time and helping me kind of come back to stay staying focused, just, just as an entrepreneur. I know that I can, I can see squirrels everywhere and, and, uh, being able to stay focused, um, being able to have somebody in my life that is disciplined, is able to implement and, uh, keep me focused is probably the best single thing that’s happened in my business career. That’s
Reed Goossens (38:48):
Love it. Love it. Uh, in one sentence question before, in one sentence, what has been the biggest failure in your career and what did you learn from seeing that
Chris Craddock (38:55):
Something worked and thinking that I could just go all in it’s it’s the Hubers born of success, right? So all of a sudden you, you start to win and then you, you go all in before you build systems around it. And, uh, you know, in Zappos, they, they say that, uh, businesses also oftentimes fail because of indigestion. They can’t, they can’t consume everything that they’re taking in. So, um, that happened to me and that’s another story for another day, but, uh, um, literally had about 10 million worth of debt that forced me to get out of that in the early 2000 tens, um, that actually built the business that I have now, but, uh, you know, that was a crazy, crazy, crazy time.
Reed Goossens (39:34):
Awesome stuff. Mike and Las go question for is where do people reach you to continue the conversation they wanna be in your sphere? Where do they go?
Chris Craddock (39:40):
Yeah. So, um, like I said, I reached out to out so many people early on in my career. I still do it. Um, so I wanted to be available to other people. So, uh, on Instagram I personally respond, not my assistants, like in other mediums, um, just because people were so generous with me. Um, so if you go to Instagram, it’s at Cradrock, an old high school nickname. It’s, uh, not my last name, but C R A D D R O C K. Um, if you send me a DM, I will respond to that, uh, personally, and, uh, maybe not right away because I do get a lot of them now, but, uh, um, but I personally will respond because people have been so generous with me on that. Um, also TikTok Chris official. Um, and if you have a direct to consumer, like you’re buying houses, flipping houses, um, wholesaling houses go to my website, chriscraddock.com. And I’d love to see if there’s a place where we could help you, you know, really find vertical integrations in your.
Reed Goossens (40:32):
Business. Love it, my friend. Well, look, I wanna think of, take some time outta day to jump on the show. I just wanna reflect some of things that I took away though, was busily writing my notes standing. I think the, the biggest thing that you said earlier was imperfect action beats. Perfect in action. And that’s a really important quote. And talking about you, going from the different, from a tricycle to a bicycle, then going to a car to build your dashboard, then going to an airplane. I think that’s a really great analogy. I’m all about analogy. I’m very visual and you’re right. Going fast on a tricycle, takes a lot of effort, right? Going fast on a bicycle is a lot easier than in a car. And I just loved how you are now focusing on things within your business to help you build a better ROI. So building out your systems better with all of this stuff you’re doing and using that data that it spits out to make better investment decisions in the future for the business. So I, I really, really, uh, applaud you for that. Um, and, and the last thing you talk about is, is, you know, uh, your, your business through the hard work, uh, what you’ve built today. I think it’s really incredible. Uh, I really give you kudos for all that, but, but did I leave anything out that you wanna add before we sign off here?
Chris Craddock (41:37):
No, this is great. I’ll tell, I’ll tell you guys, um, last two things that I’ll just say is this, um, if you wanna win in, in businesses activity and skill, right? Talk to enough people and then work hard to get better at what you’re saying. When you talk to people like that, you know, if you boil it all down, it’s always just activity and skill, so work hard and then be better at what you say when you’re working hard.
Reed Goossens (42:00):
Love it, mate. Love it. Look again. Thank you for taking some time outta your day. I enjoy the rest of your week. Have a great weekend with a family and we’ll catch up very, very soon. Thanks for having me. Well, there you have another cracking episode jam pack with some incredible advice from Chris. Please check him out on Instagram at, uh, Chad rock. I think I’ve got a, a cradd rock, uh, and we’re also gonna have all the show notes, uh, all the links in from him in the show notes up on my website Reedgoossenscom. I wanna thank you all for taking some time outta your day to tune in, to continue to grow your financial I view because there’s is what it’s all about here on this show. There’s no BS on this, gonna do this all again next week. So remember be bold, be brave, and go give life a.