Welcome To The Real Estate Underground Show #108!
Today, we're excited to feature Kevin Link from 4 Brothers Buy Houses. Kevin's journey began in securities law and litigation, but after seven years, he felt the urge to pivot toward real estate.
Teaming up with his college friend Jonathan Carcone, Kevin ventured into the world of real estate investing at 4 Brothers Buy Houses.
In this episode, Kevin shares:
To learn more about Kevin and his coaching website, visit 1KFLIPS. For insights into their real estate business, explore https://4brothersbuyhouses.com/. Don't miss this episode for valuable insights into the real estate industry from Kevin Link!
Resources:
Additional Resources:
Welcome To The Real Estate Underground Show #108!
Today, we're excited to feature Kevin Link from 4 Brothers Buy Houses. Kevin's journey began in securities law and litigation, but after seven years, he felt the urge to pivot toward real estate.
Teaming up with his college friend Jonathan Carcone, Kevin ventured into the world of real estate investing at 4 Brothers Buy Houses.
In this episode, Kevin shares:
To learn more about Kevin and his coaching website, visit 1KFLIPS. For insights into their real estate business, explore https://4brothersbuyhouses.com/. Don't miss this episode for valuable insights into the real estate industry from Kevin Link!
Resources:
Additional Resources:
Ed Mathews:
So the big question is this how do real estate investors who don't have a ton of free time, don't have access to off-market deals and didn't start life on third base, how do we conservatively grow our real estate business to support our families, finally leap the corporate rat race and build a legacy? That is the question. In this podcast we'll give you the answers. I'm Ed Mathews and this is Real Estate Underground.
Greetings and salutations real estate undergrounders. It is Ed Mathews and the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today we're going old school, like old school in my experience in that we're talking about flipping, which is something
that is near and dear to my heart. I was just telling our guest
and I'll get into that in a sec. I'll get I'll introduce him in a
second that you know, the my primary vice in the early stages of my.
I loved everything about it and I can't wait to have this conversation. Kevin Link thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the show. And for those folks that don't know about you and who you are and what you do, why don't you give us a little bit on, on your background and how you landed here.
Kevin Link:
Perfect. Yeah. Thank you, Ed, and thank you for having me on as a guest. I certainly appreciate being here. Yeah. Like we were talking about. Started off my career as a lawyer had nothing to do with real estate. I was doing securities law, insider trading, I was a litigator, and I guess I, over, over the years I was practicing
law, I slowly but surely came to the conclusion that I My boss's jokes were not getting funnier and I felt you know, Hey, I don't know that I want to be doing this for the rest of my life. And I felt like that was probably the path I was on. And in 2017, I pulled the plug. My partner, John Carcone, he had flipped a few houses. He and I talked we went to undergrad together at Wake Forest. And so I've known him for a long time. He had flipped some houses and we said, Hey, let's do this together.
So I, you know, it was, it jumped out of the plane, you know, like I was still putting the parachute on. It was like a crazy decision. I can tell you my colleagues my attorney colleagues were all left scratching their head. They're like obviously he's. You know, lost his marbles, so I don't know what, you know, we're gonna find out in three years he's in, he's incarcerated or something, but
Ed Mathews:
Whatever happened to that guy, Kevin? You know, how much time is he really doing, right?
Kevin Link:
So I, and then we got started, you know, single family, flipping houses. Today we're at 25 employees, so we've grown the company. It's in D.C., Washington, D.C. We do the DMV area, and we do flipping, and wholesaling. All of the above and earlier this year, I started a coaching company called A Thousand Flips and that’s where I've been spending some of my time this year and I'm releasing a product next year called the Link Sales System, my last name, which is designed to teach what I view as being the most important component of real estate, which is the sales component, but we can, you know, chat further about that.
Ed Mathews:
So I definitely want to talk about that. I want to do a quick East coast, West coast translation. So DMV area is district of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia for those folks that don't live near the Atlantic ocean.
So Kevin. How did you make that transition from real estate or from law, practicing law to real estate? It's a big jump, right? And you know, I assume you had similar conversations to the ones I had with my father in particular, who told me when I was leaving tech, you know, are you out of your, I'm going to say ever loving mind, but that is not exactly what he said. And you know, so it, you know,
I'm just curious, you know, what was your thought process as you made that substantial transition?
Kevin Link:
To answer your question, you know, how did I handle the transition. I would say not gracefully. It was, you know, I was, as I've told people over the years, you know, when you go to law school, your personality gets worse by 25%, right? You become less desirable in all ways, right? Your personality degrades, you're more caustic. And then after practicing law for seven years, especially like doing litigation, you you know, become even more like entrenched. And and I knew nothing about real estate, so it really was you know, a, I don't know how to characterize it, but a stark change, right? This is something I was moving into an entirely different field that I knew very little about, that I wasn't trained in. It was, you know, just.
Ed Mathews:
What could possibly go wrong?
Kevin Link:
Exactly, right? You know, the first year of the business was rock. Yeah. Like a lot of figuring it out.
Ed Mathews:
So let's talk about that a little bit. You know, when you say figuring it out, you know, I have the image. I always use the image from, you know, my previous techie life, you know, that we're screwing the wings on a plane at 35, 000 feet. And it feels like you went through the same thing.
Kevin Link:
Absolutely. So it was just the two of us. Yeah. Yeah. And that first year we made our first hire later in the year, but it was the two of us, you know, John knew more about it than I did. He had done some flips. He had done some, you know, deal, you know, marketing and figured out, you know, some aspects of it. But for me, I was not only learning how to be an entrepreneur and learning the business, how to do all the things required. I was also learning about real estate, you know, I just didn't know that much about it. And so it was drinking from the fire hose, you know, it was like, make a mistake, try to figure it all out, understand what I'm talking about, learn the material and also learn how to do it at the same time. And it took me a good nine months to a year to start to get my, really get my bearings. And then year two things really started to happen for us. And that's when the company took off to a degree, but the first year was tough.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah. So when you talk about getting your bearings, what do you, what does that mean in your world?
Kevin Link:
Yeah, that's a great question. So everything was new to me, right? So for folks who are thinking about getting into real estate you've got certain components that you've got to figure out. Number one, you know, and I can only speak really from the single family home perspective, but I'm sure there's a lot of overlap, but you've got to start finding deals, right? So like first things first, you got to Find properties that you can purchase at a discount or at a price where you can make money on it, right? So how do you find the properties?
Okay, you find the properties.How do you actually talk to the
sellers, talk to the person who owns it, go out and meet with them, evaluate
their readiness, and close the deal. And then once you close the deal, what
do you do with the property, right? So all the stages. So if you're going to buy and flip it, you've got to know that component. If you're going to wholesale it, you've got to understand that piece of it and have buyers all of it. You know, I guess getting my bearings meaning that I was, you know, each sort of component of the business I knew nothing about so I was like through trial and error figuring it out figuring out what worked from a marketing perspective, how to close deals, how to disposition deals, everything. And I made a ton of mistakes.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah, everybody does. And and I appreciate you being transparent about that because I have yet to meet somebody that, you know, the first 12 plus months are pretty damn bumpy. And that's okay. That's it's supposed to be because, you know, the thing is that you are, you know, you're building systems, right?
Okay. When I want to target a neighborhood, here are the things I do here, the things I say, here are the things I follow up with. And then you document that so that, you know, to replicate it. And eventually you teach somebody else how to do it. And then you reach a deal where you're, you know, you know, there's a viable deal and you're having a conversation with.The homeowner, there's a script there, there's a process you want to walk them through there are things that you need to make sure they're aware of so that, you know, back when you get to the closing table, there are no surprises, right?
Kevin Link:
Exactly. Absolutely.
Ed Mathews:
And then as you move through to actually acquiring the property and bringing it under management, there is construction considerations, there is hold, there are, you know, hold to carry costs, there are you know, a whole bunch of moving parts, team members, as well as processes that you need to manage. And, you know, I'm pretty confident, given that you're an attorney, and especially because you're a litigator, that you are, you run a pretty tight ship, in terms of making sure that checklists are in place and scripts are in place and everybody knows what their role is. Tell me, I'm right.
Kevin Link:
I feel like you're calling me like some kind of a type a of type A psycho.
Ed Mathews:
Type A Yes, psycho. Not yet.
Kevin Link:
Yeah. I only have that's the way that I know how to do stuff. Sort of everything in its place, organized, like just like wall, like exhibits it's the only way my mind worked and every time I made a mistake I was like, okay, that went poorly. I've got to come up with a process to see that doesn't, you know, we can mitigate that risk.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah. And so it's fascinating that and one of the reasons I really wanted to have you on the show is that, you know, first and foremost, when you look at creating deal flow, for instance whether you are a multifamily guy like me or a single family guy like you, there is some basic things that are the same, no matter what the first one is. We are in the marketing business, period. And that's non-negotiable. The fact is that you have to be able to create awareness. You know, I've been on, I was on your site yesterday getting ready for this conversation and, you know, your site does a phenomenal job of kind of creating that buy box of, okay, here's exactly what we're looking for, where we're looking for it so that, you know, if I inherit a house or if I am helping, you know, someone, a family member get rid of a house that. isn't quite beautiful, right? And you know, you become a viable option. I know whether or not, you know, in five minutes on your site less, I know whether or not you're a potential partner, which is really helpful.
Kevin Link:
Yeah, absolutely. You're, spot on, right? Like we are, you can't do this business without having an effective marketing piece, right? That's the only, you're not nobody is going to come, you know, all the properties that we buy are off-market, right? So you're not looking for anything that's listed on the MLS, right? Everything that you're finding is going to be. A private transaction and nobody is gonna reach out to you unless you've got some kind of marketing arm where you are putting yourself out there.
Ed Mathews:
It's, and I think it goes beyond that too, because not only is it a marketing arm Hey, we're out here. Cause there's tons of those guys out there, but it's also the credibility and the trust that you engender over the course of time. And, you know, one of the things that, that you said about your, you know, your new coaching course. And it really resonated with me and because we're rolling out something on the multifamily side and it's ethically based. And, you know, when you said principle based system, that really resonated with me and I'd love to hear more about, you know, when you go into a market. And you're looking to create that awareness and build rapport and trust and then earn the right to work with, you know, a person or a family or whatever, what is, you know, what is your approach? You know, when you talk about principles, what do you, what are you specifically talking about?
Kevin Link:
Yeah. So for me, you know, I don't really consider myself. To be like a salesperson by nature, right? I don't have that sort of, I'm like an introvert in a lot of ways, but I had to figure it out, you know, in order you have to, in order to do this business, you gotta be able to talk to people, you gotta be able to engender trust. So I, for me, you know, the whole ballgame ultimately, and I don't know if you, I don't know if you would agree or disagree with this to some degree, I'd be interested in to hear your thoughts, but marketing, obviously key sort of component, you've got to do it. Ultimately my kind of view of marketing, you know, years into the business now is that marketing is There's not necessarily, you know, there's things that work better than other things.
You've got to track your return on investment and all the things that you do when you're doing effective marketing. But at the end of the day, at least for single family home, there's a finite world of ways to market, right?
You can do direct mail. We have TV commercials, radio, right? You can do SEO through the internet. Pay per lead, pay per click, right? There's just cold calling. There's like a finite universe of mechanisms that everybody could do. And if you pay to do it and you're not, you know, and you're somewhat organized and, you know, figure it out and track your metrics, you can do it.
Just about anybody can do it. And, you know, you've got to do it, but it's something that if you. If you're willing to put in the time and you're willing to pay for it there, you can do marketing and get yourself out there. To me, the bigger, the whole ball game comes down to what do you do once you have an opportunity in the bread basket, right? And especially in real estate, as you know, and certainly single family these days, and then the DC area. It's competitive, right? There are a lot of people running around out there trying to buy houses.
It's just how it is. So most of the time when we get an opportunity, somebody else also has that same opportunity or a handful of other people who do exactly what we do have that same opportunity. And so ultimately sort of success in this business, at least in my view, really starts once you have an opportunity doing the marketing is almost that's the baseline. You got to do that.
Ed Mathews:
It's table stakes. I totally agree.
Kevin Link:
Once you get to the point where now you're generating lead flow, you have opportunities. It's winning those opportunities at a higher rate than other people. It's what will make you grow or not grow and, or wash out. So that over the years is the impetus for my creating this sales system, but I guess to circle back to your question, the only thing that I know to do when, you know, in, in these. You know when I'm talking to sellers is to just be, you know, like hyper transparent and number one I always walk them through my process.
I like to you know, that's something I learned as a trial attorney especially in front of a judge, you know, a lot of judges are get to the Point, right? They want all the information in a teeny, little amount of time, right? Like you gotta be succinct, but clear. And, you know, I think, you know, I learned how to, here's what my services, here's what I do, here's how it works, here's how the process works. I'm going to walk you through that and then give you the good, the bad and the ugly, right? Like here's, here are your options, right? I'm not your only option, right? You have, whenever somebody's thinking about selling, you can list it with an agent, you could for sale by owner, you can sell it to me or somebody who does what I do, right? I'm not the only game in town. And I'm not going to be the path for you to get the most money necessarily out of the property. You have other options for that too. You know, just I guess in a nutshell being as open and informative and transparent and more consultative in terms of the sales approach than trying to sell.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah, I always used to tell our team when we were flipping, you know, if you're on the phone with somebody their job on the phone is to sell an appointment with me, right? Or one of my partners. And. You know, I always used to tell him, I was like, if you at any point in the conversation, feel like you're convincing anyone of anything, stop, thank them for their time, and hang the phone up, right? Because the last thing you want to do is get, especially with something like a home where it's, you know, there's a lot of emotion, there's a lot of memories involved, you know, be a human being, right?
Respect the fact that they are a, you know, they're probably in a spot. And they don't know what to do. And you know, when I hear principal base, you know, I think about transparency, like you were talking about, you know,
the way we did it was we would go in, heck, I'd tell them, here's exactly what we're going to do to the place. We're going to upgrade the kitchens. We're going to upgrade the bathrooms. We're going to do this. We're going to spend 75, 000 bucks. And quite frankly, the house is going to be worth, you know, we're buying it for three, it's going to be worth 450 when we're done and you can do this. In fact, I'll give you my plan if you want. And we part friends, we're good. And you know, the conversations that I always used to have.
So I'm also a bit of an introvert. I'm really not a sales guy. The, you know, the conversations we always used to have with homeowners was, Hey, look, if I need to understand what problem you're trying to solve. And what I meant by that is, are you trying to max out the dollars? Okay. I can introduce you to, you know, any number of. Excellent realtors who will help you do that right now on my phone. I will give you the contacts and I will even call them as I'm driving back to my office. Or do you need to get rid of this property right now? Like in the next two to four weeks, then I'm a solution, but I'm not a solution. If you are, you know, if you're looking to squeeze out every penny, you possibly can. Yeah.
Kevin Link:
That's exactly, I think I've said some of those things verbatim. That's exactly right. And yeah I think to add to add to that, there's, you know, one of kind of the concepts that I employ through my own sales and through this training is, you know, people, you know, people ask, I think just as a general matter, regardless of whether or not somebody has experienced a real estate, a seller is sophisticated, unsophisticated. People I have, for the most part, I think have a pretty good bullshit radar, right? Like they get a gut feel and I thinka lot of times it is that gut feel. At the end of the day when I go and walk into a house, I have the same product slash service to offer as the next guy. It's not, I'm not there to offer, you know, I'm not going to buy the house for cash. I cover the closing costs, right? I don't, I'm not same thing as the next person, for the most part, it's going to be, do they feel comfortable working with you? Do they have a gut feeling that you're going to follow through?
Ed Mathews: And yeah, that's it.
Kevin Link:
You know, price is relevant, but a lot of times price is pretty close between us and other competitors. And so I will, you know, one of the opportunities I try and look for and whenever I'm meeting somebody, it's a lot of times a seller will ask a tough. question, right? They will say, you know, let me ask you this. Can I get more money? Or are you going to wholesale or assign this property? Or is it, you know, how much do you think you're going to make on this deal? They asked me a question that where a lot of times I think as a human, we're inclined to beat around the bush, right? Like we feel like, okay, they're zeroed in. They've hit the town. The chink in the armor and now we're like on, on the defensive.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah, let's see if this guy's going to BS me, right?
Kevin Link:
Yeah, exactly. And that's where I think, you know, one of the things I teach is, and I think it's applicable in law too, right? When a judge asks you a question that you know is a weakness to your argument, there is value in conceding and just directly acknowledging, right? So are you going to assign this? This contract, I might, yeah, it's a distinct possibility. You know, it is direct response responding immediately, not through explanation and tell them how it is, right? Yeah, I might do that.
And then you can provide whatever explanation you want to provide, but I'm answering the question in a sort of direct, honest, candid, unvarnished manner, I think goes a long way with just people in general, right?
Ed Mathews:
I think that's what sets you apart from your competitors, to be honest, because I would love to say that everybody operates that way, but very few do. And so the, just the fact that you're looking them in the eye and telling them, here are the 3 things I may do with this property or whatever, you know, the plan is, I think they appreciate it. And, you know, I'm sure you ask. In fact, I'll ask you and then I'll give you my opinion. You know, the. I'm curious, do you follow up with folks when they finally say yes and sign the contract? Why they did that? Like, why'd they go with you?
Kevin Link:
Yeah, so a lot of times, you know, if they sign a contract, sometimes they'll sign, you know, and while we're there an appointment, a lot of times it's later, but we, I do to get a feel for that, right? It's the kind of feedback that it helps.
Formulate what's working. And so to me, I guess over the years, what I've found is right. There's going to, there's always going to be a class of sellers that care only about price. If you offer a dollar more, I don't care who you are, what you are, what you say, you know, like that's it now, but that I found is a small segment of the population. So most people care about price, but that's a fact. That's just a factor. They also care about who they're working with and, ultimately, I think what people generally say is, you know, so and so offered a little bit more, I'm more comfortable with you. And that ultimately is what I'm trying to achieve when I'm dealing with a prospect of seller.
I want them to feel like that they can trust me and that they just feel more comfortable. And at the end of the day, when they're making their decision, they're You know, I'm not sure they may not be able to necessarily articulate it, but I feel a little bit better about this guy. I just feel like he's gonna follow through, he's gonna do what he says, and that, to me, is the big distinction, I think, between winning a lot of business and not.
Ed Mathews:
Wholeheartedly agree, man. It's you know, we used to go in with our best and final number, right? So if they came back to me and said, hey, can you do, you know, 5, 000 more? The answer is nope.
Kevin Link:
No, I come in with my, I like, I don't like to mess around, I don't like to start low. I come in with my best number that way, you know what it is. If it works great, if iit doesn't, that's okay.
Ed Mathews:
And it's a standing offer. Sit, think about it for a month, think about it for a year. And if it's a year, obviously the market will change and we need to have a conversation, but most likely you're probably, my number is going to go up, not down most years. And, but the, you know, the fact is that I'm not going anywhere. You take as much time as you need.
Kevin Link:
I don't do like these crazy expiry, you know, the offer you know, self destructs in 24 hours. Yeah.
Ed Mathews:
I do that in multifamily world, but I'm dealing with companies. I'm not dealing with people who live there. It's different.
Kevin Link:
Absolutely. That is an absolute, yeah, I'm with you a hundred percent on that.
Yeah. Also, I think a rare thing for
people to do though not the North. I think normally people putting pressure.
Ed Mathews:
A hundred percent. Which is another thing that sets you apart. And, you know, it's always I don't know if you play cards, but I play poker and you know, where I'm the most effective in sales to wherever I was the most effective, either in a sales cycle or at a poker table or elsewhere is when. I didn't care if I won, I already made my number, you know, or I can afford to lose the, you know, 20 bucks that's on the table. So be it. That is when I remove that stressor then you can just be a human being and have a conversation and say, here's the best I can do. Buy it. Don't buy it. Don't care.
Kevin Link:
Yeah. That's a great analogy. And I think, you know, I don't know if you agree with this, but there's, you know, at least in the single family world, there are people who sellers have the option, they can, a lot of sellers are thinking about, you know, do I want to sell to an investor and sort of skip all the, you know, the rigmarole of listing it, or do I want to actually deal with that and try and get a little bit more right. You know, they're making that decision.
I think in my view, it's hard, you know, you people, I think for the most part are going to do what they're going to do, right? It's hard to, they're going to think about it, figure out, okay, I'm going to do option B or a, or whatever they're going to. And I think the sort of idea of trying to steer them, they, or if they're leaning towards listing and trying to steer them to cash is a mistake, right?
Ed Mathews:
That's just it gets you in trouble more times than not. I think that's right.
Kevin Link:
And so it's better, at least I think, and to be neutral and informative and, you know, walk through the options where they, and I think people also are more apt to disclose information to you if you, if they feel like you're coming at it from, you know, an unbiased, you know, perspective, so to speak.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah, totally agree.
So we are getting on in the in the timeframe of this conversation. I could go for days talking about this stuff. But let's get to the the final four and then we'll go from, and then we'll wrap this baby up.
So I'm always interested, you know, guys like you, you know, you and me and other people in the business any business, frankly, You know, we always have those mentors and those people that have thrown an arm around us, either in our personal lives or professionally. And I'm curious, what is the best advice you ever got? And who gave it to you?
Kevin Link:
You know, I was, I don't know, this is maybe, I don't know how it may be a little more unconventional, but when I was a law student took a course called trial advocacy. Where you learn how to, the basics of standing up in court and arguing and being a trial attorney, something that is, you know, hard to do, that's especially when you don't know what you're doing. And and when you're a student, you really don't know what to do. You know, my instructor for that course was also a litigator practitioner as well, and she was, you know, a really great trial attorney, but also somebody that at least at the time that I was like a bit, you know, like she was intimidating. Just really poised, intelligent, accomplished lawyer who was not there to mess around. And, you know, that's a lot. It's a lot when you're a student to stand up on your feet and stare down the barrel of somebody who is just gonna, you know, tear you apart.
Ed Mathews:
Who's a killer. I get it.
Kevin Link:
You're like, I am so over that, but it was, you know, it's a very humbling experience. But one thing she told me along the way that just that it really resonated with me for one reason. She said, Kevin, you know, you've got some ability, some like natural ability, but so do a lot of it. And you know, it's not like you're, you don't have some golden tongue, right? You're like, you're smart enough. You've got some ability, but that's. Again, the baseline, right? There's a lot of people like that. But great lawyers are not born they're made, is what she said to me. And she was like, you can, you know, beat yourself up over this, you can get upset, you can be pout over it but, and, you know, that's fine. But if you want to really succeed and be better than your peers in this, you're not, it's not going to be based on your natural ability. You've got to You gotta earn it. You gotta work for it, you gotta practice, you gotta outwork everybody else.
Like you're coming to the table. Everybody else at the table's smart. Everybody else is right. Everybody is here. You know, you're not just, it's not like you're not the LeBron James, of law school. I'm sorry to say. So if only and but, and she
was but nobody really is there isn't.
It's just not like that. If you come in, you've got to. You've got to make yourself and outward people and I did this. I took this course level one and level two, two years of law school and we went to a national competition and it ended up being a great experience, but it was, I think what I really took. From that is that it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done, where you come from, like in, I think in business too, but certainly some of there are a lot of things in life where you're going to, it's very humbling and you just have to outwork everybody else and figure it out through your own failures and just keep on trying and plugging away and, I don't know. I just really stuck with me and she was maybe because the whole experience was humbling. And then on top of that, she was like, you are just, you are like everybody else. If you want to separate yourself, you're going to have to do something different than everybody else.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah, no, tremendous advice, right?
I tell my girls all the time, I have two daughters, you know, the difference between good and great is hard work. There's no shortcut, right? That's it. And yeah, that's awesome, man.
So I'm always, you know, in terms of. Working hard and sharpening the saw,
as they say, I'm always interested in learning about, you know, people that
run companies successfully, you know, leaders tend to be readers and reading these days doesn't mean a physical book. It can be an audio book. It can be a, you know, a YouTube video or conference or whatever.
And I'm, so I'm curious about how you take in information. And I'm also really curious about authors or creators or whatever, you know, who are you paying attention to these days?
Kevin Link:
Yeah, so that's a really great question.
So I consume information through like audio audiobooks podcasts. I'm in the car a lot You know with work and that's the easiest way for me to absorb and consume information and I guess to me like I am one thing, you know there are people who are like have listened to every single like real estate thing ever created right read it, listen to right and I've certainly read funny ever listened to funny of real estate books but for me, I like tend to find that you know, I like to hear listen to different genres so not genres, but I like I just You know, recently listened to a book about the governor's race in California when Arnold Schwarzenegger was running that. And I find it interesting to hear other people's story, whether it's related to business, whether it's related to real estate or not.
Ed Mathews:
And you learn something, there's always a gold nugget.
Kevin Link:
Yeah, there's always something in there and I find, and I like to relay that to my staff, you know, hey, I was listening to this book about Harry Houdini, right? You know, and this is what happened when he was 18. And here's how he got past this and this. I'm like, I don't. For me, I'm just like I love to listen to audio books and podcasts and hear and in the news and hear what just different people's stories, you know, what they've gone through, what they've accomplished, how they got there. And I think what you find is most people who are successful have taken not a direct line and point it from point A to point B, right? It's a meandering kind of path that went through phases. And but I am, you know, I every time I'm in the car, I'm listening to either a podcast or an audio book.
Ed Mathews:
It's just so I'm curious, you know, what audio, what what podcasts are you listening to these days? Yeah.
Kevin Link:
So I like, there's I like, unfortunately some I do listen to some legal stuff, but it's a, I listen to stay tuned with free parole, former attorney general in New York. I find him to be, I to me irrespective of your politics or whatever he is, I find like incredibly intelligent person. And I like the way that he explains things, and I like the way that he you know, infuses his opinion in kind of a neutral-ish way. And so I've, I listened to all of his episodes, you know, has nothing to do with real estate, but I find that I've learned little tips and tricks just from listening to him do his own podcast about how to be persuasive in kind of a manner that's not in your face. And I think he's really intelligent. I like to hear. What people have to say that I think are, you know, smarter than me.
Ed Mathews:
I'm always fascinated by really abnormally intelligent people, and Preet Bharara is for sure one of those people, right? I'm always fascinated by how they're, how they think, and how they break a problem down. And then, you know, how they interrogate their way, so to speak, into figuring out, okay, what is the best path forward, as opposed to, you know, demagoguing and coming in and saying, we're going to do this, and this. And you know, I always do. I'm a big fan. I am not an attorney but I pulled the ripcord, you know, when I was 19, thankfully, but the, you know, the Socratic method works, and, you know, knowing not only that you should ask questions, but the right questions are really important in, in pretty much anything you do, including this business, right?
So as a former prospective law student and a former practicing attorney I'm going to ask you this, the next loaded question in the final four, number three, if you had to start over, what would you do different?
Kevin Link:
My knee-jerk reaction is to say not go to law school, but I know that's more just emotional. Yeah, no, it's in fact, going through that experience has helped you know, that's obviously shaped a lot of my who I am now, but if I was going to do it again differently, I think the big thing that I would probably do is spend more, learn, and again, maybe this is probably like a, I think, you know, So my company is now about 25 employees. And I think for me, one of the hardest things to do in business is hire people be effective at that. And that's what they say in an interview. And how does that translate into their employment? It's always hard to know. I've been, and I have, I think if I was going to do one thing differently, I would probably take some courses and sort of talent evaluation and learn. Better strategies for figuring out how to hire people for the long-term thatcan really help add to the culture that you're looking to add to. I think hiring is super difficult and so yeah, I've made mistakes and you know, with that for sure. And it is something, and I guess part of it is I was part of the hiring committee for the firm that I work for as an attorney. And I guess I realized after the fact that, you know, hiring attorneys is different than hiring people to become like work for a small business. Everybody who applies to be an attorney is an attorney.
And there's like some threshold, right? Like they're demonstrated their
ability to be an attorney. It's a little different and sort of sales and small business, right? You don't have that kind of like, where'd you go to law school? What's your experience? What trials have you done? You know, that's an easy evaluation process. It's more about kind of character, how hard you work.
Ed Mathews:
How do you handle stuff, right?
Kevin Link:
Yeah, exactly.
And it is, and I still feel like I could, you know, get improved in that area. But that's something I didn't realize when I first started and it took me a while to realize once I got into real estate, how difficult it is and how unprepared I was to really evaluate and make good hiring decisions based on interview process, et cetera.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah it's so hard as, and especially as a small business operator, right?
Kevin Link:
It matters so much.
Ed Mathews:
You know, you're, you have 25 people in your office, you know, we have 10, right? The, you know, you get one, one stinker. And yeah, totally disrupts the culture.
Kevin Link:
Yes. And you spend a ton of time training and all and invariably, if it's a small business, whatever the function is an important function that you're filling. And so it just, it has, so the consequences are more dramatic.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah, definitely more impactful for sure. You bet. Yeah, that's really insightful. I, and I agree.
Ed Mathews:
So when you're not talking about flipping houses and real estate and recovering from litigating, being a litigator sorry, I couldn't resist, you know, what do you like to do? How do you spend your free time?
Kevin Link:
I like avoid it. Trying to avoid my children. Number one. Yeah. What do I, so I I'm into cycling. I like, I started I do road biking, you know, something to help me clear my mind. That's why I had a little scratch my nose up. But yeah, it I like cycling and I like, I have an RV. So I take my son RVing. We like to go camping and stuff like that. Those are the two things where I feel like I can actually get away and, you know, hide from my staff.
Ed Mathews:
Yeah. Unplug, right? Yeah. Sorry. I'm going to be in the mountains. There's no internet. Yeah. My bad. See you on Monday. Good luck. There you go.
Kevin Link:
Yeah.
Ed Mathews:
So Kevin, I really enjoyed the conversation and I'm curious if folks want to learn more about four brothers buys houses or you or anything else, you know, what's the best way to get in touch?
Kevin Link:
Yeah. So if you go to my coaching website, if you know, for folks who are interested in learning more about real estate in particular, the sales system that I develop and use for my own company, which I'm releasing early next year in video format, you can go to, it's a thousand, the website is 1kflips.com and you can do like a free 15-minute discovery call with me if you want to learn more about the sales system and training and coaching with regard to real estate that I offer. So probably the easiest way to connect with me is through the website and double 15-minute call.
Ed Mathews:
Awesome. Kevin thank you so much for your time today. Really good to see you, my friend and and enjoy. Hopefully you get out camping at some point between now and you know, the next time we catch up.
Kevin Link, Four Brothers Buys Houses and thousand flips. com, right? Thousand flips.
Kevin Link:
Yep.One, 1Kflips.com, 1kflips.com.
Ed Mathews:
Thank you. You know, thank you again for joining us.
And it's really good to see you. Appreciate it.
Kevin Link:
Very good. Thanks again.