[Music]
Hello everyone and Welcome to another
episode of Selling Greenville your
favorite real estate podcast here in the
upstate of South Carolina I your host as
always Stan McCune realtor here in
Greenville South Carolina and you can
find all of my contact information in
the show notes if you need to reach out
to me for any reason at all but
especially for your real estate needs
that is where you need to go look down
probably depending on what app you're
using it's probably a little bit below
the picture of Greenville that this
podcast hasso you can just look down
there and find my phone number my email
address reach out to me however you
would like toand just a reminder
what I always ask you guys please as
always leave a a nice little review
leave a festar rating it only takes a
second to do that and please make sure
that you subscribe to the show today
I'm going to do a little biographical
podcast here this might not be
interesting to everyone but I feel
like I have some listeners that will be
interested in in just kind of knowing
how did I get to this point I am a
realtor I'm also a real estate investor
which a lot of realter are to be quite
Frankwe we have an opportunity to
Avail ourselves of all this information
and everything that's going on in the
market all the connections that we have
and so it only makes sense for realtor
to do some sort of real estate investing
but I went about it a little bit
different way than most didand if
you go way way backI really got into
it much differently than most people did
and so I wanted to go ahead and just
share my story I've never like fully
just hashed out to you guys on here my
story of how I got to where I am today
and so let's go ahead and just jump
right into my storyever since I was
a kid I had kind of a little bit of an
entrepreneurial brainI remember as a
really small kid I I created a menu of
things that I could create in the
kitchen like food that I could create
for for my siblings or from my
parents and you know it was just basic
stuff peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
you know I would put like cheese on
crackers and then melt them and you know
just silly little things like that and I
would you know charge like 10 cents or
something you know really basic like
that to to make these things forfor
my siblings and for my for my parents
I don't even know how long I did that I
don't think I did that for very long
because I realized that I wasn't going
to make any money doing thatbut that
was kind of indicative of of this kind
of more entrepreneurial brain that I had
and then I went through a season where
I wanted to be a meteorologist but it
was like more I wanted to to be more of
like a stormchaser like I was really
energized by this idea of storm chasing
to this day I have books on
meteorologyI'm that's actually still
kind of a love that I have andmy
wife it's funny whenwhen we're
having like weird weather she looks to
me as like before she like puts on
what's his name Chris just Justice or
whatever I don't know whatever our local
weatherman is she like come to me and
ask me like what's happening like what
should we expectand I will you
know usually be very accurate in my
prediction of what is going to happen
weatherwiseand so maybe I will take
up storm chasing as a side hobby at some
point you know that it's still there
it's not exclusive it's not like I I
can't do thatas a hobby but I just
haven't up to this pointbut
unfortunatelymy high school science
teacher like really destroyed the the
joy to be completely honest like
completely took the joy out of the the
possibility of me doing anything in
meteorologywe had a a several week
part of science probably my Jun
either my sophomore or Junior year
where we talked about meteorology and I
mean it literally it sucked all the joy
out of it for me like that was it that
that was absolutely it I no longer
wanted to have anything to do with that
and it's really sad to think about
but but that's the truth I'm speaking
the truth on the showa single
teacher took the joy out of out of it
for meon the flip side I had another
teacher I went to a Christian
Schoolandas probably all you
guys knowI am a Christianthat
does you know weekly attend church
services and all of that by the way if
anyone listening to this podcast is
interested in knowing more about that or
is is looking for a church or anything
like that I have a lot of connections in
that Worldso I'm just going to throw
that out there I obviously do not ever
discriminate or treat clients any
differently on the basis of their
religionI agreed as a realtor never
to do that and it's also really bad
businessbut like most Realtors I I
do observe I I am religious and I do
have a religion and for me it's
Christianityso I went to a Christian
school and I had multiplemultiple
Christian teachers obviouslyand and
they really encouraged me and and a lot
of other people encouraged me to go
into religious studies and this is
actually a big thing that brought me to
Greenville South Carolina was that I
actually and I don't advertise this
very openlybecause it's not
necessarily A selling point for everyone
but I ended up getting a scholarship
to Bob Jones University which is in
located in Greenville South Carolina and
I ended up getting a degree in what you
might call religious studies they called
it Bible Bible evangelism
specifically but basically a degree in
religious studies with a minor in what's
essentially psychology
technically this is a this is a kind of
a funny thing I'm not going to get into
all the details technically a Bible
major couldn't minor in Psychology even
though they had a psychology minor
but they thought it was bad for for a
bad look for people that were going to
become pastors to have a psychology
minor for some reason and so I had to
get a counseling minor but then all of
my electives for that counseling minor
were in in the psychology division so
I just took the bare minimcounseling
classes and just piled up on as much
psychology as possibleso anyway of
you listening that went to Bob Jones at
some point all of that will make perfect
sense and for those of you that did not
go to Bob Jones or do not understand Bob
Jones it that's going to sound crazy but
Bob Jones is and was crazy so so
don't feel bad about thatso I went
to Bob Jones and I thought that I was
going to be a preacher that was really
what I what I thoughtmy life calling
was and soI end ended up going there
I got straight A's top of my class
andI ended up then immediately I I
graduated in 2008 during the Great
Recession I got a jobwith a company
that was based out of Atlanta but they
were relocating to Greenville and this
was very important to me because I was
dating my my wifewe we were not
engaged yet but we were we had been
dating long enough that we knew you know
that was going to happen we were going
to get married and so I knew I needed to
stay local to Greenvillewell the
companyI I joined a company that did
basically Luxury Transportation Black
Car service for very very wealthy
peopleand my job there started off
as a dispatcher I would dispatch the
vehicles and eventually I worked my way
up the up the chain to become the
affiliate directorand so the company
a big selling point was even though the
company was based in Atlanta they were
relocating to Greenvillesimply
because the company founder just liked
Greenville and was and was just ready to
move on from Atlantaand the the
service itself was a global Service so
it wasn't like black it wasn't like they
were setting up black cars specifically
in Atlantaalthough they were doing
thatbut they were setting up
black cars with affiliate companies all
over the world and so it really didn't
matter where the company was located it
could have been in Greenville it they
ended up opening up another office in
Hong Kong andyou know I think that
they're opening up some other offices in
some other areas but they don't need to
have a local office in any one major Hub
it it can be run from pretty much
anywhere and the company is still
to this day operating in Downtown
Greenville but I learned while I was
working therelife just kind of came
at me fast right and so I was I was
actually enrolled at Bob Jones to get a
master's degreebut then I my wife
you know and I we got marriedI I got
about a third of the way through that
master's degree and and then we got
married and and it you know this is all
during the Great Recession I had like no
moneyand then my wife immediately
got pregnant as soon as we got married
and it was like okay I got to put this
degree on holdand then just a lot of
things happened
to the point where it just became very
clear that my that things were not
leading in this direction of me being a
preacher at least not at that stage in
my lifeand so that coupled with me
advancing in this ground transportation
company and and basically being you know
one of the top people in the company and
and so I just realized you know what
hey it really seems like secular work
even though I'm I'm still a Christian
it seems like I am supposed to be doing
secular work in this stage of my life
and we'll just have to see you know if
some kind of ministry related
work avails itself to me then then
you know I can still pursue that at any
other time but right now it seems like
this secular work is what I'm thriving
in well I was thriving in ityou know
financially and and in terms of of doing
good work but that entrepreneurial side
of me and and by the way that
entrepreneurial side of me was kind of
what was interesting to me like from the
standpoint of preaching as well because
when you're preaching like you have
full full control to a certain extent
like you you can use your creativity and
your
imaginationand you can can I
don't want to make it sound like it was
a control thing but you can harness
those aspects of what you're good at
from the standpoint of creativity very
good at studying I I could harness that
I could could do all these different
thingsas you guys know you know from
this podcastyou know I I'm
relatively a decent speaker right
otherwise I wouldn't have a podcast none
of you guys would would listen to it if
I was like a really bad speaker soso
anyway I was doing well in like so many
so many different ways ways but that
entrepreneurial side wouldn't go away
like I couldn't just suppress it and so
as I started to AC acrew moneyafter
you know as I started doing well and the
company started doing well following the
Great Recession it really became
interesting to me to buy investment
properties and that got that I got that
investment property bug from the first
house I purchased that my wife and I
lived in it was basically like a house
flip and so I ended up being able to go
through the whole process of like
negotiating a property down really low
getting it for a great price having
contractors come in doing a
remodel and so I I'm kind of my first
real estate experience was basically the
equivalent of flipping a house and so I
got the bug where it was just like you
know what I I feel like I can make money
doing this I feel like I can I can do
thisand it could be a cool side
hustle and it'll it'll bring me some
more money and it'll help the family
and so I started doing that and I
started flipping houses not in
tremendous volumebut just a handful
of of houses per yearand then I
decided to kind of pivot from there to
purchasing some rental properties I even
did some wholesale real estate deals
and and I I just started finding that I
could actually like there I had a a
Talent like an ability to to do real
estateand eventually I started
having people coming to me like asking
me questions like hey Stan do you think
this is a good investment what do you
think I should do here what do you think
I should do therespecifically when
it comes to real estate and it just
occurred to me that like hey maybe I
actually have a gift in thisand and
maybe I should leverage that gift to
the fullest potential and so while I was
still working in in ground
transportation I went ahead and got my
real estate license and I immed started
getting business from people that knew
me that that knew my work ethic that
knew my attention to detailand
wanted
towanted to work with with someone
that that had all of that and I'm sure
there was also a charitable aspect you
know hey you you need some business
right to to get started some you
someone's got to be your first client
and so so I I was able to do it on
the side well also still working
full-time in transportation business and
sometimes I would you know that first
year in real estate unless you're you're
out like just working 80 90 hours a week
it's if you're just letting business
come to you it's pretty slowso it
wasn't that bad I had a handful of
closings that year and it was good it
was a it was a good ramp up to that
next year I I quit my job and did real
estate
full-time well I determined from the
very get-go that if I was going to be
successful at real estate it had to be
without me needing to do door knocking
or cold calling or things like that and
and I'm not saying that I never ever
will do those things but my business
couldn't depend on me like taking an
hour every day in cold calling I hate
doing that I had done cold calling in
college at Bob Jones I spent a year
as a student caller a very weird job
where I would call high school students
that had signed you know a form for Bob
Jones they were interested in Bob Jones
I would call the high school students
and talk to them and try to answer
questions about Bob Jones and I hated
that job it was by far my least favorite
job that I'd ever had I was soit it
was like it the only job that I've ever
been in that as soon as I hit the
minimnumber of hours I immediately
clocked out and and immediately left
and so that was that was something
that I knew like if I was going to be
successful in real estate it had to be
without me doing these things that I
don't like to dobecause at the end
of the day like really the reason why I
left the transportation company was I
was getting burned out of thatI was
just getting tired of that I was tired
of working for the man I had that
entrepreneurial sidebut it but it
was always just in my head I I just I
wanted a lifestyle that I could control
better I didn't want to have to to work
a certain set number of hours go into
the office clock in clock outand in
addition you know a lot of people say
well isn't real estate just like 24/7
and it's like well yeah it is but
even in that transportation business I
was having to work weekends like I was
basically on call 247in in a very
real senseand so it was it was a
difficult lifestyle very very draining
came home just completely depleted
and so I wanted real estate not just
because I was good at it but I needed
the the lifestyle change as wellwell
the thing is that you can only get
real estate business as a realtor a
handful of waysand one of the main
ways like if you listen to any of the
experts one of the main ways that they
recommend that you get real estate
business is by cold calling and by door
knocking and I was saying right away I
was taking those two off the table I'm
not going to do that so I'm immediately
going against what they teach every
single new realtor to doand had to
make it work my way well needless to say
that first year as a realtor was very
slow because of the way I was trying to
build my business so I tried to do some
things on the side that still gave me
some level of Freedombut they were
kind of outside the box so I bought a
frozen yogurt
shop which either either you know me
well enough to know that or this is the
first time you've heard it and you think
I'm crazy and yes it was crazyI
bought a frozen yogurt shop and I tried
to I tried to to run that it was a
business that was failing I tried to
to inject some life into it and it was
it was tough like it it taught me that
okay I actually am not as much of an
entrepreneurial brain as I thought I was
I'm more of a self-employed brain I like
the endless possibilities of just being
a business owner owner of a restaurant
was crippling to mewhereas in real
estate there's a beauty of it where
there are guard rails to it and so I'm
self-employedso I can still use all
of that creativity and and my
attention to detail and all these
different things that I have but but
it's there are still parameters to it
all at the end of the daybeing a a
frozen yogurt shop owner there's like no
parametersyou can Market however you
want you can price things however
however you want like you can hire
whoever you wantand that was tough
for me I I was not a good employerI
completely owned that that was not my
thing to
do andand so for a year I owned that
frozen yogurt shop before I ended up
ended up selling it I I did it by far
was my worst investment I did end up
having to sell it for a lossbut I
will say
like I said it I learned lessons they
were expensive lessons but I did learn
those lessonsand the possibility
that I would fail in that role was not
surprising when I went into it it was
like okay there are like 10 potential
outcomes that could happen as a result
of me making this purchase and that
outcome was one of them so it did not
come as a surprise it but it did come as
a disappointmentduring that time as
well because real estate was slow and I
was trying to put money into this frozen
yogurt business as well trying to
revitalize itI I needed more money
and so it was actually during this time
that I became licensed as an insurance
adjuster and I actually went and worked
a hurricane which is which is really
fascinating and and just kind of a
crazy thing but we had two major storm
events that happened within just a few
weeks I don't even remember what the
names were so you know it feels like
an eternity agobut two major storm
events happened not very like within
driving distance for mewithin a very
short period of timeand so the first
one happened and the way Insurance
adjusting works is it's also
self-employed for the most part there
are staff adjusters with somesome
insurance carriers but generally
speakingmost insurance adjusters are
self-employed and they work with
multiple different
firms and you just need to do some basic
licensing requirements in whatever state
it is that you want to potentially do
storm work in and so I got licensed in
like basically the entire
Southeastand then I went soI I
tried to Shadow some adjusters tried to
learn the tradeit's very technical
the software is not user friendlybut
I knew just enough to be able to get by
and then these storms started hitting
and so the way it works when a hurricane
hits an area they put out all these
different firms they put out a call to
to all of their adjusters like hey we
have a we are anticipating a bunch of
claims in this area in New Orleans for
instanceare you willing to deploy to
that area and when you deploy with that
means is is you go to that area and you
work until there's no more work to be
done and that could be months a lot of
these insurance adjusters they will make
$250,000 in like two monthsit's a
it's a shockingly lucrative business
because you can easily during a storm
make five6 $700 during a claim and a lot
of these guys will do three to four
claims per dayand that's a that's a
lot of claims like I could not really do
that not not as a new adjusterbut
the first storm hit and I was like I
don't I don't think I'm ready for this
and then the second storm hit and it was
in
Atlanta and or you know it hit a few
different areas but Atlanta was one of
them and it was like they the the calls
started going out from all these
different firms like and I was licensed
in Georgia and and the calls started
going out like hey
we we need help you know and and
here's what happens because so many
people had deployed to the first storm
there was a shortage of adjusters for
the second storm so the firm started
offering more money so now it was like
where it's the first storm you might
make $400 $500 on a basic claim now this
one was more like 650
700 and so I was like you know what I
need moneyyou know I I I have I have
to do this and and you know I didn't
have a lot of real estate clients so it
was like nobody really needed me to be
in Greenvillehad some friends in
Atlanta shout out to Seth and Diana
they were lifes Savers they let me stay
with them for a week and I worked claims
for a week and I had no idea what I was
doing I did an awful joband like
basically I went to the claimsand
like took as many notes as possible I
had no idea like even What notes to take
so I just took as many photos as
possible took as many notes as possible
and then had to try to digest it all at
the end like I was I was sleeping like 2
3 hours a nightand then getting up
and just just starting over I did that
for a week and I was just like I cannot
do this anymorenow I made $20,000
during that week which I needed I I
needed that moneybut it I I couldn't
you know I could have stayed there for
probably a couple of months and just
racked up like quite a bit of money
but the lifestyle I just could not take
it and I was overwhelmed by the fact
that I just I didn't know what I was
doing cuz you know there's only so much
on the job training that I could do and
then it was like sitting down there and
actually trying to input things into the
softwareand it just overwhelmed me
like a lot and soafter a week of
that I gave that up but I didn't give up
the job so I I realized I needed more
training so I went to more training I
went to a week of training in Charlotte
and then it became kind of a
part-time gig for me for for a while
I ended up doingclaims for a
majorHome Improvement storeand
so basically when the the most common
claim was like when they would like
install an appliance but mess up the
installation in some way that it causes
damage to the home then a claim would be
filed and then an adjuster would come
and and would would do the work on the
claimI got in with them via a
claim that happened in in Greenville
that I was able to doand then I
started getting pretty consistent work
from themand really all of this was
really really helpful for me from a real
estate perspective I started to realize
that it was crossing over that as
clients would you know would have
questions about water damage or about
the condition of a roof and whatnot like
I could actually see the roof from the
street and be able to identify problems
with it I I remember driving up to to
one house and immediately just going oh
my gosh and my clients were like what
and I was like look at that roof and
they were like what and I said it looks
like someone took a paintball gun to
that roof and I would just immediately
like from the street saw that that roof
had quarter siiz hail on itand and
so you just become more attune to things
like that and I continued for for
several years even as a full-time
realtor because I didn't get very many
of these claims from from theHome
Improvement storeI didn't get a
whole lot of claims from them so it
would just be a handful of them per
month usually like they might send me
three at a time kind of in the same area
I could just take a day and just knock
it outbut it ended upit ended up
helping me in in so many ways in in
the real estate game
and then 2020 hit and 2020 was just a
super weird time for meI had a
I'd been having health issues for years
and years and I had been diagnosed with
what's called vasal Syncopy it's
basically if you have low blood pressure
and your blood pressure just
completely just drops to the point
that you pass outthat's that's what
it isand it's actually a very common
condition some people have it that they
they pass out multiple times per day
which just sounds awfulother people
just have like experiences of vagal
Syncopy whereyou might have had it
at some point like when you see people
when their knees lockand they pass
out because of that or peoplestand
up too quickly from being in bedthey
they might immediately pass out those
are examples of like non-chronic
vagal syncopy well they diagnosed me as
having chronic vas ofal Syncopyand
they were wrong and we found out that
they were wrong when I had a major
seizure in in
2020and it was right before the
right before the pandemic like we knew
that the the pandemic had started in
Chinabut it hadn't yet had a major
impact here in the US and soso I had
a major seizure event that they
diagnosed me with
epilepsyand then they said you can't
drive for 6 monthsyou need to be
seizure-free for six months for us to
allow you to drive and
so that that was really really difficult
on my real estate business obviously and
thankfully I still had a handful
of those Insurance adjusting claims that
were coming in for the Home Improvement
storethose were able to kind of keep
me a float but basically my real estate
business died for for 6 months during
2020 and we thought that the entire real
estate industry was going to die in 2020
but we didn't realize that it actually
was going to take off a few months after
the pandemic happenedbut it didn't
take off for me I had to ride it out my
wife drove me my cousin drove me you
know to showings and whatnotbut it
it wasn't until I finally was able to
drive again and then ironically when I
was able to drive again the insurance
adjusting completely went away I stopped
getting those claims and I had to make a
decision like do I want to keep pursuing
this or do I just want to double down on
real estate and and do that and I
decided that real estate real estate was
the thing real estate was what I needed
to double down onand so I did and
and of course during all of this time
I've still been flipping house I've
still purchased as anyone that knows me
knowsrental properties at various
times I'm very selective for both what
types of of flip houses I purchase what
type of rental properties I purchase
but I've kept doing all of that up up to
this pointand so I've always had
this pipeline of investor clients and
that has been an extremely
lucrative just a fantastic pipeline for
me I've had to refine it over the years
because some investor clients started
to take advantage of how knowledgeable I
was about the market and they would just
try to get me to give them free
information but then wouldn't end up
actually then they would just try to
Source deals off market and cut me out
andand and so I've had tomake
sure that I'm selective at the end of
the day with who I work withbut here
I amwe're in
2022and I'm doing what I loveI
love being a realtor I'm I like to tell
people I'm the rare so there's a lot of
of Real Estate Investors that are
licensed as Realtors but they make so
much more money on the investing side of
things that really they they don't Focus
very much on the actual retail realtor
businesses out there and I'm one of the
few that I actually just love being a
realtor so much like representing people
in their home purchases or in their
sales that even though I fully recognize
that if I if I basically just quit being
a realtor and just did real estate
investing full-time I would make a lot
more money than I currently doI
enjoy being a realtor way more than I
enjoy the investing the investing stuff
is like super stressful to be completely
honestand so that's why I'm
selective with the ones I take I try to
take the ones that maybe aren't the
highest margin but are going to be a lot
less stressful andand I just focus I
let those come to me like I'm not out
theretrying to you know actively
find the next flip I'm not one of these
people sending you know putting up we bu
houses placards and putting up postcards
and all that I I don't I don't do that
kind of stuff I let the deals come to me
and what I have just doubled down on
is my realtor business and and so
here I am interestingly how this podcast
started this podcast started during that
time when I couldn't driveand so I
finally had the time because I'd been so
busy for so long doing you know all this
adjusting and andyogurt shop and you
know just everything else as you can
tell I always keep myself very
busythat was finally the time when I
wasn't busy for like six months and it
was like okay I have been thinking about
doing content creation for a long time
like that had been on my brain for a
while and it and I love to listen to
podcasts and I was like I'm gonna do
this I'm gonna figure this out like I'm
gonna buy a microphone I'm gonna sit
down on my Mac and try to figure out how
to use Garage Band which I actually had
some good experience at Bob Jones
with one of my roommates use Garage Band
quite a bit and he taught mehow to
how to use it so that actually was the
easiest part of itbutbut what
ended up what what seemed like a really
negative thing ended up being this
blessing in in disgust eyes that during
that time where I wasn't able to drive
because of of my
epilepsyI created the this podcast
which has become my most powerful
marketing tool that I have by far
like I a huge percentage of my closings
are either directly or indirectly
related to this podcastand so I'm
extremely grateful for that and I'm
extremely grateful that they correctly
diagnosed me this this time back in
in
2020because now I'm able to take the
correct medication and I haven't had a
seizure since then since February of
2020 soso that's all under
control and my business is better off
for it so I hope you guys enjoyed that a
little bit of of my story obviously
there's a ton of more details that I
could put in therebut I I tried to
to streamline I actually didn't didn't
none of that was scripted I did all of
that off the top of my head usually I
try to script out a little bit of my
podsbut in this case I was just like
you know what I'm just going to wing it
and just see what comes outso
hopefully that was interesting for you
guys I appreciate you guys listening
and sticking with me for this longer
than normal episode if you liked it
please subscribe hit a five star rating
leave a short little reviewand if
you want to talk to me about any of this
or for any of your real estate needs my
contact information is in the show notes
thank you guys again enjoy the rest of
your week and we will talk again next
time
[Music]