Episode 172: Leadership Insights with Nicholas Nic, founder, CEO, and CFO of Lead Mining Pros
The Profit First REI Podcast
April 13, 2023
David Richter
In today’s episode of Profit First for REI, we are joined by Nicholas Nick. He is a real estate entrepreneur and the founder, CEO, and CFO of Lead Mining Pros, a real estate lead generation company with a focus on cold calling.
Nicholas started his journey in the restaurant industry and from there developed a unique skill set that he carries to this day, wearing as many hats when it comes to running his business. He shares how he uses his roles to run his business at the fullest potential but recognizes the importance of eventually hiring someone to take over.
Tune in to hear more of Nick’s insights into leadership, the importance of knowing your numbers, and the power of cold calling!
Key Takeaways:
[00:45] Introducing Nicholas Nick and His Background
[06:47] On Knowing His Financials
[10:03] Leaving the Restaurant Scene and Starting His Real Estate Journey
[18:15] Lead Mining Pros and Their Cold Calling Services
[20:31] On Maintaining His Hands-On Leadership Methodology and Exiting His Business
[24:54] Seeing the Future in Numbers for His Business
[27:58] Why Investors Live Deal-to-Deal:
[32:32] Connect With Nick
Quotes:
[27:16] “If you’re not good at math, you’re never going to get rich. Plain and simple.”
[28:41] “What makes me successful is I learned to do everything as cheap as humanly possible myself. And then when you do it as cheap as humanly possible, and you’re really good at it. That only means now that throwing money at it makes you better.”
[31:46] “My personal secret to success is not being attached to the result…I’m more attached to the experience that I’m getting,”
Connect with Nick:
Website: https://leadminingpros.com/
Tired of living deal to deal?
If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal, and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David
Transcription:
Nicholas Nick:
What makes me successful is I learned to do everything as cheap as humanly possible myself. Yeah. And then when you do it as cheap as humanly possible and you’re really good at it, that only means now that throwing money at it makes you better.
Outro:
If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for REI podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.
David Richter:
We have Nicholas Nick on the show today. If you don’t know him, then he has as much a character as his name Warren. And he is an awesome guy and honestly has a ton of experience in the real estate space, business management, and now is his own cold calling company. But he also talks about how he sees the numbers and how it helps him see the future. And from his days, you know, 10, 12 years ago from being in the restaurant industry to now being in the real estate world and really knowing the numbers and then talking about his experiences versus just results in what you should be able to see along on the journey. And even if you don’t get the results that you want, led up to that point too. And just really good information, solid information. A lot of fun on this episode too cuz like I said, Nick is a character. Please get some value out of this and we really appreciate you listening to this. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great rest of your day. Hey everyone. David Richter here with Nicholas Nick, exciting guest and I am super excited to have him on. He is the CEO of Lead Binding Pros. He’s also worked in the restaurant industry, in the real estate industry. He has a ton of knowledge and experience. He’s also like a numbers guy too. Like one of those, you know, the entrepreneurs that actually likes digging into the numbers and feeling like a business owner. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today, his background. So Nick, thank you so much for coming on today.
Nicholas Nick:
Yeah, absolutely. As thank you so much for having me David.
David Richter:
Yeah. Well okay, first of all, I’m gonna ask the question that everyone wants to ask Nicholas. Nick, have you gotten made fun of your whole life for that or do you love the, your name?
Nicholas Nick:
Well, you know, I think the best summary is I had a cashier asked me at Starbucks once and she said, what is it like to have the same first name as your last name? And I think the quickest response was that I get held extremely accountable for all of my actions.
David Richter:
Okay.
Nicholas Nick:
And that’s cause nobody ever forgets who I am.
David Richter:
Right. <laugh>,
Nicholas Nick:
You know, not only is the name clearly something, but my personality matches the name.
David Richter:
Oh yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
So you put us both together and you’re never like, who was that guy again? So if I ever did something wrong
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
Or had a bad reputation, then I would actually be hurting like the next time I wasn’t the kid in the back of the class who everyone forgot.
David Richter:
Right.
Nicholas Nick:
Like when he fell asleep. Like everyone knows when Nick Skips school because there’s not all this talking coming out of the other side of the classroom.
David Richter:
Yeah. <laugh>. Okay. I just wondered, I’m sure that a lot of people would wonder out like listening to the podcast and I wanna get that question outta the way so we could get to the real stuff. So tell people about your background, cuz I know you worked in the restaurant industry even before we started recording you talked about like how that prepared you being CEO and CFO of your business and numbers and how important they were. So I guess just tell everyone just that high level overview and then we can go into the nitty gritty questions.
Nicholas Nick:
Absolutely. Well yeah, so I had a really unique background. I came up as a restaurant employee. I was a cook for two years and then lucky for me, I had a natural management skill thanks to my father. And uh, he was always pounding diplomacy and communication into me. And my dad was, he was into building trusses, roof trusses. So that’s all math. Growing up math homework was always very interesting cuz my dad was so good at it. But anyways, that led into my restaurant career. Now what a lot of people don’t know about restaurants is that the p and l actually runs the restaurant. When you get to work, you go to the spreadsheet, you pull up the p and l and it tells you what to work on. If you spent too much money yesterday on employees, well guess what Buttercup, you gotta send employees home today and make up for what you wasted yesterday. Right.? So it was like if you could like play a video game that managed a p and l, that’s what restaurants were. And now one of the reasons why lead mining is an amazing profit machine, I’ll share with everyone, my business is about 65 to 75% profit, which is really high. That’s due to a couple things. One, what the restaurant industry taught me, and two, I carry a lot of roles myself, <laugh>. Okay.
David Richter:
Okay.
Nicholas Nick:
So you know, I’m not gonna lie to you David, you throw in one, $200,000 a year employee into my operations and I’m not that profitable <laugh>.
David Richter:
Right? yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
Okay. But because what of the restaurant did to me, it made me a C F O, it made me a CEO, it made me a director of human resources.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
Because restaurants don’t have those positions. Right. It’s up to you to manage all of it. So now I’m able to wear four hats and it doesn’t drain me cuz it’s what I did for 12 years as a manager. So it’s really cool. And on top of that, the systems that restaurants teach you, the follow through the process. Like I joke and I say I used to teach people that didn’t even speak English how to work at a restaurant. So imagine how good I am with someone who actually speaks English. Right?
David Richter:
Right. Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And so I’ve got all this experience, uh, with employees. So it’s kind of cool the way it’s all come together because if you look at my business now, about a million dollars a year, 30 employees strong, 65% profit, it’s easy to forget that the restaurant industry literally built me brick by brick. Whether I saw it that way at the time or not.
David Richter:
Right.
Nicholas Nick:
Because I hated that career while I was in it. I hated it after I quit it. But now that I’m eight years removed, I’m like this is literally my Bible story. Like I tracked through the desert for so many years to learn the lessons, to now know how to live a beautiful life, You know?
David Richter:
No, that’s awesome. Because it was almost like another college education, right? Because that’s what I feel like my early days in real estate were. It’s like,
Nicholas Nick:
Yes.
David Richter:
Way better than any college education that I got.
Nicholas Nick:
Absolutely.
David Richter:
For that real world application.
Nicholas Nick:
Yes.
David Richter:
Okay. So you say you had to like run it by the p and l the next day. So was that a part of that becoming the CFO F or like knowing the numbers, like would you have gone into business if you weren’t in the restaurant business? Do you think you would’ve been intron as, cuz I see your posts today and I love the post where you’re like, you’re open with your numbers and you’re like, this is what I’m tracking and stuff. And it, it’s very eye open. Like Nick knows his numbers, like I know that he loves this. So would you, do you think you would’ve been like that because, I don’t know, be maybe because of your dad or your background or those types of things that you would’ve had that innately or no? Like no, I would’ve just been running and gunning, hopefully been around.
Nicholas Nick:
Oh yeah. You know, I’ll be honest with you, my p and l now I should show it to you, but it runs my whole business now. And I feel like, would I have still created this business? Yes. I probably would have, would I have four cars, a million dollar property and be surrounded by murals? No, I’d probably be stressed out wondering where all my money is. But the p and l, what it is for me is, and I wish we had more time, I’d actually pull mine up. I’m not transparent, but I see everything, how many dials we did, how many hours we took to dial, how many dials we did per hour, to see how that compares. And when you’re open for six years and you have your weekly dials per hour for six years, you begin to see things differently. Like I can literally, and you already know this man, but I can literally see the future through numbers. Okay
David Richter:
Yeah. And I’ll just share one small story just so they can get a little glimpse on what you and I already know. I ran IHOPs for four years. That was a big part of my experience.
Nicholas Nick:
Okay.
David Richter:
And i hope, despite the late night crowd, was actually my best training experience of any restaurant job I’ve ever had. And one thing they did is they tracked sales by day. Part 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM 8:00 AM to noon, noon to four, four to eight.
Nicholas Nick:
Okay.
David Richter:
And I worked in nine different IHOPs during my time. I was a traveling manager and I can’t even tell you how many times cuz you manually filled out the hours or the sales, how many times? Two, literally the dollar that it was the same exact sales as one year ago on the same day at the same time. And when you start to see how cyclical this world really is, you start to really respect numbers a lot more. So that’s kind of what taught me that whole thing was seen that how cyclical everything is.
Okay, wow. That’s, that is crazy and incredible and it’s, that’s uh, that gave you very healthy respect for the number side, which is great cuz now I like the profit margins as you’re running those types of things, which is incredible. So it sounded like though, back when you were in it that you did not like it. Was it the daily grind? Was it the training? Was it the restaurant smell? Was it the lawn hours? Like what was it about that experience that you No, that was like, or was it all of it and like I hate
Nicholas Nick:
It all? No, you know, I’ll be honest with you man, I loved it for so long.
David Richter:
Okay.
Nicholas Nick:
So when I said I hated it, I did misspeak a little bit cuz I was only channeling my energy after I left the industry. Oh, okay. So after I left the industry, I was really mad at myself for being so skilled and sticking around in such a low skilled environment for so long, if I could be honest.
David Richter:
That makes sense.
Nicholas Nick:
While I was in it, bro, I was like a barbarian in battle, you know? I mean I loved firing people, I loved hiring people, I loved problems, I loved solutions. And that love actually kept me there for 12 years. Stupid and happy. Okay.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And then literally, I think you’re close to my generation. I was such a good manager. My customers were happy, my employees were happy. Like when I was around, everybody was happy. But in the end it was me who wasn’t happy.
David Richter:
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Nicholas Nick:
And I was looking around, I felt like Santa Claus, like I’m bringing all these presents to all these people and no one’s brought me anything
David Richter:
<Laugh>.
Nicholas Nick:
Right. And I realized, and this is what they say, no one’s coming to save you.
David Richter:
Yeah
Nicholas Nick:
I can guarantee you it’s every restaurant employee’s dream to have a customer who’s rich, identify their skillset and give them a job and rip them out of the restaurant industry. Okay. And technically that’s what I almost was waiting for. I’m gonna be the best manager ever and one day Bill Gates is gonna walk in and he’s gonna give me a job. Okay. And I realized that it’s up to me to do that for myself. And I will say I’ve learned that a lot of careers when, when I’ve spoken to other entrepreneurs about 12 years, that feeling that I had seems to kick in for a lot of people. And for me, the reason that really staed me out, burnt me out was there was no new problems. I knew how to handle stealing employees. I knew how to handle hair in the food. I knew how to handle people calling into work. Like I remember I just say, please something new. Just give me something new.
David Richter:
<laugh>
Nicholas Nick:
That’s all. You know. Um, and so that, those are the parts that I didn’t like in the end.
David Richter:
Okay, no, that makes sense cuz that’s, uh, you almost felt like a cage animal, you know, like I wanted to go out there and and hunt, but I couldn’t really, and I was waiting for someone to come open the door, but no one’s opening it for much.
Nicholas Nick:
That’s right. And so, and that’s what actually what I was getting at when I mentioned your generation is it literally, I never that smashing pumpkin song until this moment. And I was like, despite all my rage, I’m still just a rat in the cage.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And except for me, it was despite all my greatness, like I’m showing up so hard for all these people and there’s still no claw game coming and ripping me out
David Richter:
<laugh>
Nicholas Nick:
Of this world. You know?
David Richter:
So what’d you do? So how’d you go from that to like the real estate industry or your next venture?
Nicholas Nick:
I Walked out. I walked out. So my job forced me to, I actually, they transferred me to a new restaurant. This is a true story. They transfer me to a new restaurant and we’re salary. So I’m only making 65 Gs a year no matter what, no matter how many hours I work. So they trans me to a new restaurant and I showed up and I’m scheduled six days a week, 15 hours a day. Okay. That’s 90 hours a week.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
For anyone who’s, who needs a calculator. And it was for six weeks. It was a six week schedule. And let me tell you, you can already probably tell by my personality I’m not a pushover. Okay. <laugh>. So
David Richter:
Oh, well.
Nicholas Nick:
Oh, shocks guys. You know,
David Richter:
<laugh>.
Nicholas Nick:
And so I called the vice president and I said, I don’t know what the hell’s going on here. Oh. And by the way, everyone else was scheduled five days. Okay.
David Richter:
Okay.
Nicholas Nick:
And um, and I was like, guy, I don’t know what’s going on here. My rule is I’ll work with the teamworks if we’re all working six days, 15 hours, I’ll work six days, 15 hours.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
I’m not gonna be the only one doing anything. Okay. They said they fixed it. I showed up to work the next day, I’m two days in to this schedule and they didn’t fix it. And I was like, you know, I’ve been here for five years, I’ve got tons of tenure, if this is how you wanna treat me. And I was already, for the record, I was already gonna quit in December. If I couldn’t find another job, I was already burnt out. They literally started the fire that started burning my boats <laugh>. I was like, alright. And I left them and I sat unemployed for nine weeks. Okay. And not on purpose. I applied to every job in the world and I applied to this job that was a real estate education company that taught people how to invest. Okay. It was an awesome experience. And they had an interview and they didn’t hire me. And two weeks later, as the desperation grows, right?
David Richter:
Right.
Nicholas Nick:
For multiple reasons. One, I’ve been working 70 hours a week for 12 years. Okay. And two, I don’t feel good about not earning income. I followed up with them and I go, Hey guys, I feel like we had a great talk and I’ve never followed up with the position ever before in my life.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And uh, they said, Nick, we totally forgot about you. Can you start tomorrow?
David Richter:
Wow.
Nicholas Nick:
And that, yeah. Insane. And that was, I had no idea what real estate was. I’d been flipping burgers for nine freaking years.
David Richter:
Right. Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
You know, I didn’t even know that. And then this was mentorship. So like, we’re like selling therapy sessions with real estate investors to help people who wanna be real estate investors. Like I was like, what is this world that I’m in?
David Richter:
<laugh>
Nicholas Nick:
You know, I worked there for three months, David, before I even knew what the hell they did. I swear to God I was good.
David Richter:
That’s right.
Nicholas Nick:
But my problem solving, we spoke about that a lot.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
Well what led me here in as short and as few words as possible, I’m a little long-winded, please forgive me. But what got me here was I was solving their problems. Our students were very disappointed that direct mail wasn’t working. Okay.
David Richter:
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Nicholas Nick:
And direct mail has a cost to the government. Like you can’t even get around that cost. Right.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
There’s no cheaper way. And I started teaching people this free method that you may have heard of, it’s called Cold Calling. And so I actually created this business three years before I created it. But I didn’t know it. I was teaching people how to cold call. Not because I knew it was the way, but because it was simply free as long as you had a cell phone.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And everyone was complaining about the cost of direct mail. So we started teaching all these people how to cold-call and it worked. And then when that job came to an end as all jobs do, I realized that I was onto something and I started cold-calling every day. And our first six months, true story, I went from making $67,000 a year even as an executive at that education company. My first six months
David Richter:
Yeah
Nicholas Nick:
With lead mining we did $360,000.
David Richter:
Wow.
Nicholas Nick:
In sales. It was crazy.
David Richter:
Yeah. That’s quite a change. So <laugh>That’s awesome.
Nicholas Nick:
I was still living in a 900 square foot apartment with my girlfriend, her son, and and a roommate. So I was <laugh> dude. That’s how much I was hurting, uh, whenever this business blew up.
David Richter:
Yeah. Well that’s, that’s incredible. So how long were you at that education company then?
Nicholas Nick:
Three years.
David Richter:
Yes, three years. So the first three months were like, okay, what are we even doing <laugh>. And then it was like then learning the actual real estate investing ropes. How long have you had a lead mining up at
Nicholas Nick:
Kron? Well, we’re six years this year.
David Richter:
Really?
Nicholas Nick:
Yeah.
David Richter:
That’s awesome.
Nicholas Nick:
You probably know the numbers more than I do on this side because you know, the CFO background. But
David Richter:
Yeah
Nicholas Nick:
Man, I’m so blessed and after six years I can, we’ve really hit our stride. Like I don’t even really need much marketing anymore or you know, I mean we’re almost like Kleenex nowadays almost. We’re getting there.
David Richter:
Awesome. So then lead mining is cold calling. Correct. So that’s where you’re going in there. And then just so people know you’re teaching now and what you’re providing. So just talk a little bit about what you’re actually providing to for
Nicholas Nick:
Yeah, So what I’ve created at Lead Mining that makes us incredibly unique is we’re a done for you system where we pull the list, we skip trace it, we cold call it and we text it. You don’t have to pay a cold calling company, you don’t have to find a dialer, you don’t have to pay texting overhead. And I think you probably know as well as I do working with all these investors, the subscription costs alone to manage all those services before you even pick up the phone and start working is going to exceed probably $800 a month if you’ve got the texting and the calling and all this stuff. And so what I offer is no contracts, no commitments, no setup fees. Every single product we offer is individually single serving. So you can come in and choose to work with me. And one of my clients earlier just today said, you know, I can’t believe you don’t do contracts. And I said, you know, I like my clients the same way I like my girlfriends and if I just met my girlfriend and she had one great date with me, I wouldn’t make her sign a contract saying she was gonna spend the next year with me.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And that’s not a way to kick things off. I want her to wake up and want to be by myself. I want my clients to want to be in my life. So I’ll be honest with you, the reason why I don’t do contracts is very selfish because it feeds my ego when clients want to be here. Not me going ha ha, I got them. They’re never going anywhere. No, I got them because they are making a powerful decision to be with my team.
David Richter:
No, that’s awesome. So this has been an interesting journey to get to this point. So now owning your business for six years, do you think that uh, and you’re still staying in some of those seats? Correct? Cuz you said that you, you’ve got a great profit margin because you’re doing a lot of that.
Nicholas Nick:
Yeah.
David Richter:
Do you enjoy working in the business still and being like that person? Or do you see yourself getting out of it in the future?
Nicholas Nick:
So my goal at the advice of Tom Kroll is I’m gonna spend the next two years doing what I’m doing now.
David Richter:
Cool.
Nicholas Nick:
Okay. At least one. But my goal is two super next year doing this and I think at the end of this year I’m gonna hire someone to replace me. And I was doing the math and I was like, God nick, if you’re making $700,000 a year and net and you pay someone $120,000 to do everything that you’re doing right now, well yeah. That’s still five 80 <laugh>.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And I just got my whole life back <laugh>.
David Richter:
Right.
Nicholas Nick:
And maybe I get to fall into things I like now. However, I will rebuttal by saying that because I have 30 employees, I don’t do anything I don’t enjoy. Right.
David Richter:
Okay.
Nicholas Nick:
That’s what employees are for. No offense to employees nationwide, but like you’re there. If your boss loved doing it, they wouldn’t have you there. <laugh>, you know, and me, so I don’t like making the calls, I don’t like doing the text messaging, but dealing with the people is a huge passion of mine. And I then again revert to the restaurant days. I mean, I was shaking hands and kissing babies for a thousand people a day.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
For 13 years. It’s so natural for me to interact. So that’s the part that I love. I definitely wanna step away more from system supervision. Okay.
David Richter:
Okay.
Nicholas Nick:
Like I love the people, I’ll talk to customers till I’m 70. Right.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
But I don’t necessarily wanna be the investigator when a system breaks or like right now I’m also the main system creator and the main accountability manager and the main implementer. Right. I would probably love to give those away and then just supervise someone else doing all of that. However, I also respect that I’m a genius at those things. So finding someone to meet my level of know-how and determination in those levels is not easy <laugh> either.
David Richter:
Sure. No, I get it. It’s uh, it’s hard to hand off, hand off the baby to other people to be able to do, to run it and to be able to go go to the next level. Okay. Well this has been an interesting journey. So restaurants, real estate education, then you’ve got the lead mining. Do you see lead mining taking you off into the sunset? Or do you see it as like, do you wanna do other things in as Businesses?
Nicholas Nick:
No, I wanna do other things only because I don’t wanna be a one trick pony.
David Richter:
Sure.
Nicholas Nick:
So I’ll be honest with you, I really wanna create a physical invention. Alright.
David Richter:
Okay.
Nicholas Nick:
I’ve, yeah. I’ve got this great idea right now that’s funny and fun and true called I’m calling the bed straw. Okay. Like I get really thirsty while I’m laying down in bed.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And I fucking hate sitting up
David Richter:
<laugh>
Nicholas Nick:
To like get a sip of water. It sounds stupid. Right?
David Richter:
That’s great.
Nicholas Nick:
It’s like, but dude, imagine just having like a hose and a water cooler next to your bed and you’re just like, oh yeah. Like you’re just, you’re like a baby drinking from a bottle again.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
You know, and I can’t tell you, like I get really thirsty at night and then sometimes cuz I’m an entrepreneur, I can’t sleep. So I’m like, I freaking I’m getting like a cramp in my shoulder from sitting up to drink. But, so, you know, my goal is to really create a physical invention. Um, I do think lead mining will take care of me for the rest of my life.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
To answer that question. Um, do I want it to be where all my eggs are in that basket? Not really. I wanna buy distressed businesses and make them better if I had a dream, um, and I want to um, I wanna bring lead mining the five mill a year and um, and then I just wanna have properties on the side as well, you know, some income.
David Richter:
No, that’s awesome. I just wondered where you thought the next steps were gonna take you.
Nicholas Nick:
Yeah.
David Richter:
I do wanna hit on one point. You have mentioned a while ago you said you see the future through numbers and I’m wondering how if there’s, that’s still applicable today in your business. Because obviously it sounds like in the restaurant business it was like I could have looked back a year and it’s almost to the penny
Nicholas Nick:
Right.
David Richter:
You know, on this specific day at this certain time. How about for like lead mining pros or the what you have today? Is it, I’m guessing it’s not as like this is a hundred percent the same as last year, but help, how does that help you know, the numbers now to be able to predict?
Nicholas Nick:
Well, so now the way I see the future is through my KPIs. Ok. So for example, um, we see a different future, right? So I think as the CFO role comes in, I’m more or less looking for mistakes than bonuses.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
Right. And so like, hey, how many dials did we have last week?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
Okay, how many did we roll over? All right, well if we rolled over this many, that means I’m short on employees. Right.
David Richter:
<hmmm>
Nicholas Nick:
And I track all that on my p and l, my PN l’s, not just costs and money, it’s performance.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And it’s um, it’s follow through. It’s what’s happening next week so that’s an indicator how many dials are being rolled over. The other one is leads per hour. If that it goes really low, that means I know someone’s stealing from me. Right. So if my dials per hour drop, which it never does, I got a great team, thank the holy Lord, but they don’t, and they don’t even know I watched that number cuz I never hold it over their head. But I can immediately tell when someone’s clocked in and not working. So I guess when I speak of seeing the future now I’m more or less preventing a negative future
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
Than seeing a positive one, I guess would be a way to look at it the way I’m using the numbers now.
David Richter:
Oh no, that’s really good. I like that a lot where you’re preventing that negative future instead of just seeing the positive one. Cuz the positive one you can see through, uh, you can really see that, like you said through the KPIs, but then on the financial end it’s like, okay, I wanna make sure I stay away from my death life.
Nicholas Nick:
Well where are we trending? You know? Um, I’ve really been a lifelong mathematician. I call myself, you know, um, I’ve got a great quote that I’m sure you would love to steal. And it is, if you’re not good at math, you’re never gonna get rich. Okay. Plain and simple. If you don’t know how to make five equal 25, then you’re not gonna make your bank account multiply by five either.
David Richter:
<laugh>, right.
Nicholas Nick:
<laugh>. And that’s really been one of my greatest skill sets is, you know, the way that I see the numbers and maneuver around them. Uh, again, the hard part becomes teaching that it’s almost like a numerical intuition that I have. You know, I call it like the matrix. Like all I see is numbers and I know exactly what to do,<laugh>.
David Richter:
Yeah. Oh, that’s great. And a lot of people don’t have that financial intuition. So why do you think on a real estate investor they put off, you know, like a typical real estate investor lives deal to deal doesn’t make the money, definitely doesn’t have 65, 70% margins, you know, like, or net profit or whatever. Like, so why do you think they live? And a lot of people even might be listing right now living deal to deal.
Nicholas Nick:
Yeah. So why do I think that they’re in that position? Is that the question?
David Richter:
Yeah. Why do you think they’re in that position?
Nicholas Nick:
Great question and I’ve got a great answer, but no one’s gonna like it. And it’s because like, my story is the reason why I’m successful and I wasn’t silver spooned, I wasn’t given a great life. We were poor as hell growing up. And what makes me successful is I learned to do everything as cheap as humanly possible myself.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And then when you do it as cheap as humanly possible and you’re really good at it, that only means now that throwing money at it makes you better. And I think that the average person seeks to outsource seek. And even though I am an outsource, I know that they’re gonna, but you know, they have to have some type of knowledge on it. You know, someone doesn’t hire you if they’re already, Hey, I did a million, I got $900,000, I need a cfo. They’re like, Hey, I’m a little upside down. I can’t see through my problem. Can you help me fix this? And, and that’s a wisdom. You wanna know how far you can take it. So another example is, my clients are happiest with us when they’ve cold called before they found us.
David Richter:
Mm-hmm.
Nicholas Nick:
Right. So like, just how your clients are happiest. If they were running their own books before they found you, they’re like, oh my god, I know how much you’re helping me <laugh> right now.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
And it’s like, it’s that person who is not overly committed to doing the task, but they’re committed to dipping their toe in. I think that is the successful person, and I think that that’s one of the main things because direct mail doesn’t work. Cold call, well cold call yourself close your first deal. I’ll tell you what, don’t call me with your last $300 and say, Nick, I need to close a deal.
<laugh>. Right. Don’t.
David Richter:
Yeah,
Nicholas Nick:
No kidding. You know, and, and you know, and I’ll be on, people say that to me. I need to make money. I’ll tell you what, go buy mojo dialer, okay. And buy a list from us and I’ll give you the script for free, but do not give me your money if it’s the last penny you have. That’s not the place. And so I think if we were to summarize all that advice, it’s action taking for the sake of experience. And I think that’s important. Not for the sake of result.
David Richter:
Right.
Nicholas Nick:
Right. I don’t give a shit, you know, I cold call for three months myself and I never closed a freaking deal and I still was on that phone every day with the smile and I gave myself what I call micro wins along the way. If my seller that I was talking to said it was great talking to you, huge win.
David Richter:
Yeah
Nicholas Nick:
If they’re like, have a great day, I’m like, huge win. If they’re like, thank you so much for your time. So I what I do, so now to deconstruct my advice, how do we get there? How do we keep doing things that we hate to get the experience that we need to get to the next level Is you have to create wins other than the final win.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
Just try being pleasant while eating shit all day. And then when you get good at that, then get good at the next part. And then once you have these skills, then leverage them into the next thing. And at least that’s been my personal secret to success is not being attached to the result and I’m more attached to the experience that I’m getting.
David Richter:
Oh, that’s really good. Be attached to the experience, not just the result.
Nicholas Nick:
Yeah.
David Richter:
And making sure that you’ve, that you know where you are. And that’s, uh, I like what you said too, the people that like us the most are like you the most are the people that have done what they’re trying to get accomplished. So they know like, oh my gosh,
Nicholas Nick:
They know what we’re doing. Yeah. When I have a client say, Nick, you got me three leads in 500 dials. They were like, I did 5,000 dials and I couldn’t even get someone to pick up the phone like that person, I mean, that was probably a different problem, but people have said that to me, <laugh>.
David Richter:
Right.
Nicholas Nick:
You know, but they still, they have so much gratitude now.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Nicholas Nick:
That was the verse.
David Richter:
No, that’s awesome. So I guess just one final question. How do they get in touch with you? What’s the best place to go for lead mining prose or whatever else you wanna send ’em to?
Nicholas Nick:
Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah. So leadminingpros.com uh, is the best way to find me. Uh, my cell phone number is actually on the website, so when I say I wear multiple hats, I am not kidding. Um, answering that phone is my favorite part of the job and, uh, feel free to call and test it out, but the phone number on the site is my cell. And so if you take a look at the site, you have any questions or you just want to test me and see if I actually answer my cell phone, uh, feel free to give us a ring. And, uh, I would love to help anybody out who needs some assistance with their lead.
David Richter:
So leadminingpros.com if you’re looking for a good cold calling company where Nick is going to personally help you and get you up and running with his team. So that’s a great place to go. Nick, this has been awesome. Lots of good stuff. I love what you said. See the future through the numbers, making sure that you’re doing some of this work so that way you know, you have the experience, not just the results you’re going through and making sure for the things that you really need, that you can have that experience as well too. So this has been great. And then if you’re listening to this and you’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t know my numbers or like, I’m def I am not a math person, you know, so I cannot get rich, you know, according to Nick’s advice here, then go to simplecfo.com where you have our fractional CFOs as well too and can put one on your team to be an actual leader there to take all that financial crap off your plate cuz you don’t enjoy it. If you’ve ever done it, like Nick said, you don’t like the bookkeeping or the CPA work or you, if you’re wondering where is all my money going, go to simplecfo.com. We can help you find it and put more money in your pocket. And remember, make profit a habit in your business. Nick, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Nicholas Nick:
Yes sir. Thank you. Appreciated you David.
Outro:
This episode of The Profit First for REI podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call at simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on the Profit First for REI podcast with David Richter.
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