Surviving and Thriving in Real Estate: A Couple’s Journey with Mike & Debbie James

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Mike & Debbie James: I never worked harder, longer, more stressful days

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in my entire life than the entire year of 2020 that went right into 2021.

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It was.

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gangbusters.

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So the truth is, by the time we got to the spring in 2022 and Debbie

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is the one that finally was like, I don't think I could take this anymore.

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Um, uh,

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How do you build a successful real estate empire in one of

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Florida's most coveted coastal regions?

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On today's episode of Seat Go Create the Leadership Journey, we're joined by

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our longtime friends and seasoned real estate experts, Mike and Debbie James.

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With over 20 years of experience in the beautiful 38 area of the Florida

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Panhandle, they've recently shifted focus from managing a vacation rental

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company to expanding their investment portfolios and sharing their insights

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via YouTube and a forthcoming podcast.

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Having worked closely with Mike and Debbie on various projects over the last probably

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20 to 25 years, and even coaching them at times through some of their ventures.

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We will dive into their journey from hands on property renovations to

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mastering the luxury real estate market and successfully exiting a company.

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We'll uncover the secrets to their success and their tips for others

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looking to navigate the complex world of real estate investment.

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Mike and Debbie, good to see y'all.

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Mike & Debbie James: Hey, Tim.

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Hey, Tim.

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Good to see you too.

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Thanks for having us.

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I know I'm excited to be on here.

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One of our biggest challenges we were talking about before we hit record is

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to keep this to a somewhat focused and timely conversation because we can get

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on some conversations and get going.

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And, uh, I'm sitting here working on this going, dang, these we've

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known each other for, was that right?

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25 years, 25 years ish.

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Mike & Debbie James: I think you're right.

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And when you said that, it it was almost a sucker punch, wow,

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we've known each other that long.

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We've been through a lot.

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I

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We won't cover all of that here.

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Maybe a little bit of it.

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the amazing thing is, we're only in our early thirties that we've

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obviously known each other for that.

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Mike & Debbie James: knew I liked you.

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We met you at a comedy house, right?

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You were on stage with a mic.

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yeah.

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So anyway, all right.

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One of the things I like to do when I have couples, which is rare, I

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usually ask this question, just.

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like a interesting icebreaker, what do you do?

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But I think i'm going to let each one of you introduce the other just

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say a couple things about the others.

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I'll tell you what, Debbie Michael you start Um, you introduce me to debbie

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just introduce the audience I know debbie but introduce the audience and

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say whatever you'd like Just take a few seconds minute or whatever and then

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debbie you're going to have to follow up So you got to say some nice stuff.

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Michael.

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Mike & Debbie James: There it is.

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you, Debbie is my wife, obviously, but she is a very friendly,

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sassy, smart, athletic, and expert at many things, business.

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And, happy to have her as my partner, both in my personal life and our business life.

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Yeah, that was really good, Michael.

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I'm going to take notes on that and concise.

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So I Debbie, your turn, introduce the audience to Michael.

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Mike & Debbie James: Michael is my husband, of course, and he is honestly

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one of the smartest people I know.

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He's very business savvy.

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He's funny.

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We laugh every day.

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He's also very athletic and my partner and we have worked together

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for a while and we love that.

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He ran our rental company for almost 10 years.

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And, Is very detail oriented and, knows how to keep people motivated.

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Very good.

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I agree, man.

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Both of y'all are in such tremendous ways.

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I would say like wicked smart in certain areas and.

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Golfers, pickleballers, all that kind of stuff.

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Loving life down there.

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Tell everybody where y'all are currently located and just give

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us, each one of you can share on this, but give a little bit of a

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commercial for the area that you're in.

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So Debbie, why don't you start?

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Mike & Debbie James: We are in Northwest Florida, which we are nearest town called

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Rosemary beach, which is just West of Panama city beach and East of Destin.

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It's called the Gulf coast or the Emerald coast.

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We have white sands.

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And it's, we live where people vacation is really a good description.

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People are happy when they're here, they're fun.

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And it's just a very laid back, relaxing type of lifestyle.

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All right, Michael, you want to add anything to that?

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that was pretty good pitch right there.

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Mike & Debbie James: It was, we're not very well known because it's

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difficult to get here via plane.

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There's usually layovers.

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So five and a half hours from Atlanta, four hours from

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Birmingham, seven from Nashville.

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We had a lot of drive to market traffic.

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We're the second most driven to destination in the state

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of Florida, other than Disney.

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And really, truly it is unique because of the way that the ordinance was

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done where it's 50 or four stories.

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So you d it's not Miami, you don't everywhere, no commercial amazing

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people from all o up to vacation where we a of a special unique

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feel anywhere else in florida

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And y'all went, I may have had years wrong, but

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how long have y'all been there?

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Mike & Debbie James: 2004, actually June of 2004.

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So I just guessed at that.

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I said, it seems like 20 years.

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And I think we had met a handful of years before that.

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And, gosh, 20, that is, that's a long time.

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And I'm sure that area has changed quite a bit.

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It is a beautiful part of the country.

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And, I think one of the things some people are going to want to do from

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this, conversation is maybe reach out to one or both of you get more information

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and check on some real estate, check on some real estate in that area possibly.

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But I wanted to start, this was the trigger for me wanting to have

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this conversation with you guys.

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I have a lot of clients, a lot of people I work with, and it seems

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as if a lot of them are discussing and talking about not that they

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want to get out of their business.

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That's not it.

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But.

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They want to know what it looks like to move from maybe their

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business to something else.

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Or what does it look like in the future to exit?

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Or, how do they transfer it from them to children and all this,

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what does the future look like?

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And I guess what a year or two ago, we can talk about the dates on it.

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Y'all did something, we were working together.

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I guess I was coaching and helping with some things and all that.

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And, you COVID was sort of winding down and y'all were able

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to do something really cool.

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And that was someone came in and said, Hey, we'd like to buy.

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The price was really good.

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I thought I'd, I was a little bit of a naysayer.

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I'll go ahead and say, I said, really, you think we can exit?

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Y'all were able to exit.

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So Debbie, give him a little bit.

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Of your perspective, maybe leading up to that.

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And then maybe i'll go over to michael maybe to talk some of the

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details of it But just talk a little bit about where the business was As

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we were we're heading to that point

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Mike & Debbie James: So we had about 41 properties.

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We grew organically and this is our vacation rental company,

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and we were considered boutique.

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Michael was running the company.

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I was doing all the accounting along with doing all of my real estate.

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And it's a business that just never stops.

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It's a hotel like a hotel.

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That's 24 seven, yet it really isn't 24 seven, but it is 24 seven.

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And we had a handful of employees and trying to scale once COVID hit and

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hiring employees got very difficult.

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We couldn't get Michael out of the day to day because most of the, most of

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our owners were my real estate clients.

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And so we had the relationship and it was just, it was one of those type of

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things that it got to the point where the stress, the health, his health.

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we couldn't even have dinner without his phone going crazy.

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And so we just knew we couldn't keep, it was not a sustainable business model

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is you have taught us over the years.

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so Michael take it from there And talk about your role kind

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of some of the things you were doing and your day to day and And then maybe

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anything else as we were heading into this exit event because I want us to

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spend a little bit of time here because everybody has questions about exits.

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It's all the time.

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It comes up.

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So I do want us to dig a little bit on this.

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So it kind of pile on a little bit there and we'll keep going.

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Mike & Debbie James: I'll stay on the high level for just for the moment,

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which is that we reengaged with you, Tim, when we were about halfway through

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that 10 year tenure of the company, and we knew we needed help growing.

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Basically, I had been doing everything.

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If anyone's ever hosted an Airbnb, imagine you're running about 30 of them

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alone, literally with no employees.

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So I had to do all the hiring of the employees.

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There's a lot there.

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It's a rabbit hole.

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I won't go there.

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So I basically reached out to Tim.

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We reached out to Tim, reengaged, realized that he could help us

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with coaching and marketing.

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So really what happened there was trying to restructure things.

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It was a tremendous help for him to identify the problems that I was the

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problem doing everything myself, right?

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Ideal team player, recommendations, things to do, how to hire, working

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with the hires, the employees, coaching one of the employees or operations

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manager, really curating, structuring the business to be more organized and

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to try and get to a point where our life was a little bit more realistic.

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And meanwhile, so effectively it's like having open heart surgery,

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but the patient is awake, right?

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And still has to use its arms and do things.

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So it was very difficult.

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And in that transition, it was, Amazing that we had him to lean on and also at

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the same time because we were growing and scaling, it was tremendously difficult

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and the pandemic was involved in that particular part of the late end of it.

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But for us, it got to a point when we got into that 2022 timeframe.

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Where we recognize that there was a lot of people that wanted to get into

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the industry themselves and there was offers that were being made.

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Debbie was sucked into the business so much more than it was actually inhibiting

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her to do more real estate sales.

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And the 2 of us just looked at each other and we were like, now's the time.

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And we made the decision like, Right now is the time, even though we just

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went through scaling up and hiring more employees and more, we were getting ready

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for the next phase of growth when we realized the market was about to shift

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and that possibly we're going to see some difficulty with the short term vacation

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rentals with occupancy and supply.

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So we took the opportunity at that time, which was an entire 90 days,

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which Tim helped with also of us realizing, oh, my gosh, we have

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to get all the financials in line.

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We have to present this as best as we can to the investors for the exit.

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But the timing for us was perfect because of the challenges of the employees, the

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challenges of her being pulled away from what she loves to do in real estate.

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And it allowed us to actually do the exit and the back end of that for me was very

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difficult because when you're on a gerbil wheel that never stopped spinning, and

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then all of a sudden it stopped spinning, for me, that was an interesting unwind.

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I

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thing, and maybe you do this, Michael, and I've got something

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I want to follow up with Debbie, but I know you don't want to give exact

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numbers or anything like that, unless you want to, but what can you tell us

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about the financials of the acquisition type companies during that time,

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the industry at that time, and Yeah.

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I'll say it this way.

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You could agree or disagree how y'all's timing was almost perfect.

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I just say whatever you want to say about that.

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Cause some people are going, yeah, it sounds like they may

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have unloaded their company.

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I don't know.

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I don't think so.

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Uh, but anyway, what can you say about that?

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That might provide some information to someone listening in?

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Mike & Debbie James: think that for us and an interesting when we first started

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the company, we really didn't think about, we wanted to sell the company.

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We really were building it.

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to sustain it, to have it more of a residual income so that as we would, I

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don't know if we'll ever retire, but it would be residual income, but we couldn't

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get Michael out of the day to day.

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So the timing for us was, we really nailed the top of the market as far

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as selling a vacation rental company.

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It was a time where it was just a very hot industry.

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Our area was one of the hottest.

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Vacation rental markets in the country.

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And we really knew that we had to get a number that was going

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to make sense for us to sell.

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We probably got, and Michael could tell me if I'm wrong, we got probably double

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of what we normally would have gotten.

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Now, had we had 400 properties, yeah, we could have probably really

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retired and traveled and whatnot.

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But I think for us, it really gave us a good nest egg.

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It put some cash in the bank.

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we've been through the ups and downs and so for us, it was really nice to have

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a nest egg to, to be able to do other things, even start planning for retirement

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or what, slowing down may look like.

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but yeah, it would have been a lot less had we either sold prior or after.

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Yeah.

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The timing, there is the Airbnb craze, right?

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It's all of a sudden everybody's locked down.

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And people were like, Oh, just get an Airbnb.

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And everybody was traveling the United States.

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Travel was going nuts domestically.

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And then what happened was private equity started paying

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attention and companies outside the industry started paying attention.

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Airbnb was going through its IPO.

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A lot of eyeballs hit the industry.

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Short term vacation, rentals, vacation, rentals, whatever you want to call it.

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So the acquisitions that traditionally have been four to five times

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EBITDA, that would be that would traditionally be the payout.

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There's different ways to actually structure it, but that's

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one of the metrics that's used when we were going to market.

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Companies were getting eight, nine, 10 times.

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And even the company that we use to do the transaction, they were astounded that

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when we put a number out there, it was pretty much met you were astounded Tim.

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So it was pretty much 10 times EBITDA.

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So we sold with 41 properties and the guy that we did our transaction,

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he's guys, you're getting paid.

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Like you had 82, you're basically getting paid.

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Like in a traditional market.

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You're, it's like 82 and Tim, now here we are two years and a month later

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from our exit and we're back to four to five times EBITDA for the acquisitions.

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So we actually, we got lucky on the exit.

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it was beautiful.

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I want to go back to something that Debbie, there's a couple of questions I

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want to ask on this before we move on.

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Debbie, you brought up a term that comes up often and it's residual income.

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You and I, we met probably around a business, multilevel marketing,

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stuff like that, 25 plus years ago that talked about residual income.

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I interact with people all the time and talk about residual income.

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Do we really think that residual income is a reality or is it some kind of pipe

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dream that every, cause y'all were not.

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we did a lot with this vacation rental business and it was awesome.

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And we will talk about a few more things, but there was

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nothing residual income about it.

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Mike & Debbie James: No, that, that's funny.

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you're

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It is, but it isn't.

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It's funny, but it's not funny.

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Mike & Debbie James: I think if we were just like this hands off and

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had somebody actually running the company, maybe once a day, twice a

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day, Michael would get a phone call.

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Then maybe it would have been residual, but when you're in it and your day

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to day and you're working in the business on the business, you're right.

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It really, I don't, maybe they're really, maybe I'm hopeful that one day we'll

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find residual income, but you're right.

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it's tough.

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and the other thing that I observed, and we had a lot of, we

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had a lot of discussions about this, but I see this with a lot of leaders,

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a lot of people that are talented.

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That they can do almost air quotes for those listening in.

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I'm doing air quotes.

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If you're watching the video, they could do almost everything that's involved

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with the business and air quotes.

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Again, they could almost do it better than anyone else that they could hire.

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So that then opens up this kind of trap that.

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Michael becomes, everything, customer service and all of that kind of stuff.

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And Debbie, even though she's got her real estate over here, she's running

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the finances, overseeing the money, making sure that Michael's trying to

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stay healthy and all that kind of stuff.

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and I do wonder.

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If sometimes it's difficult, we ran into it.

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I'll let y'all respond to this, that is sometimes difficult to move from

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that place where we're doing almost everything to hiring people and

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just getting beyond that barrier.

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We discussed it a lot who either one of y'all want to come in or,

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you respond to that, those thoughts.

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Mike & Debbie James: I will say that.

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In that process, probably the most beneficial thing that I had was one,

Tim Winders: 00:18:40

that we had a previous relationship with you, one with the multi level.

Tim Winders: 00:18:45

Then when we were doing real estate, I buy houses type stuff and renovations.

Tim Winders: 00:18:50

Etcetera.

Tim Winders: 00:18:51

So we had all this previous business history with you and now we're coaching.

Tim Winders: 00:18:55

So I was more open to hear you with guarded language.

Tim Winders: 00:19:01

Say you're the problem and you're the bottleneck and you need to be willing.

Tim Winders: 00:19:09

To get out of the way, get out of your own way.

Tim Winders: 00:19:12

So like a lot of that coaching and then hiring the right people, not

Tim Winders: 00:19:17

micromanaging them and understanding that whole process was a huge part

Tim Winders: 00:19:22

of actually scaling the business.

Tim Winders: 00:19:24

the exit of the business could not have been done as well as it was.

Tim Winders: 00:19:29

If we hadn't met you halfway into building the business, it is that simple

Tim Winders: 00:19:35

that it would have been messy and we would not have been as structured as

Tim Winders: 00:19:39

we were leading into that time frame when it was the perfect time to sell.

Tim Winders: 00:19:44

So one thing, and then I've got a follow up question related

Tim Winders: 00:19:48

to that for Debbie, but Michael, I think this would be a good time, and

Tim Winders: 00:19:52

I want you to just share whatever you're willing to share on this.

Tim Winders: 00:19:56

There were along the way health challenges that, that you dealt with.

Tim Winders: 00:20:06

I'm going to ask Debbie to say something about this too, so be

Tim Winders: 00:20:08

careful what you say, Michael.

Tim Winders: 00:20:10

what can you share about That, because listen, it's one thing to just be scaling

Tim Winders: 00:20:17

a company and, trying to hire people and have the phone ringing all the time.

Tim Winders: 00:20:22

That's one thing.

Tim Winders: 00:20:23

Another thing is when it starts, impacting some personality,

Tim Winders: 00:20:28

when it impact, causes some.

Tim Winders: 00:20:30

Health issues to rear up.

Tim Winders: 00:20:31

But I think it's important for business owners, leaders that are

Tim Winders: 00:20:35

listening in to hear you share a little bit about that journey.

Tim Winders: 00:20:40

Cause that was some of the discussion we would have had

Tim Winders: 00:20:42

very little to do with business.

Tim Winders: 00:20:43

It was like, we got to make sure Michael stays healthy.

Tim Winders: 00:20:47

say a little bit about that.

Tim Winders: 00:20:48

And then Debbie's going to follow up and tell the real story after

Tim Winders: 00:20:51

you share, whatever you share.

Tim Winders: 00:20:53

Mike & Debbie James: So there's really, it's a two prong situation.

Tim Winders: 00:20:55

One is actual health issue from the perspective of blood work was showing.

Tim Winders: 00:21:01

I was completely drained adrenals, completely drained testosterone.

Tim Winders: 00:21:06

And I kept getting told like, we could throw supplements at you

Tim Winders: 00:21:10

left and right, but you are on that phone, which is a trigger.

Tim Winders: 00:21:14

And it's triggering the dopamine.

Tim Winders: 00:21:16

It's triggering you constantly 12, 14, 15 hours a day that you

Tim Winders: 00:21:22

cannot get to a state of recovery.

Tim Winders: 00:21:24

Your body can't get to a state of recovery.

Tim Winders: 00:21:27

And then there's the whole secondary wave that happened during the pandemic,

Tim Winders: 00:21:31

where the stress levels for a multitude of reasons, and I could go down rabbit

Tim Winders: 00:21:36

holes, which I won't, but it was, in that time frame, having a business that

Tim Winders: 00:21:40

was impacted dramatically because we were in travel and we were in a state

Tim Winders: 00:21:45

where they shut down vacation rentals, the stress level got to a point where

Tim Winders: 00:21:49

I tried to calm my nerves at the end of the night, And just ended up drinking too

Tim Winders: 00:21:55

much several times, which led to a cycle of that was the way I was calming myself

Tim Winders: 00:22:00

down after the entire night was over.

Tim Winders: 00:22:02

A lot of times after Debbie had gone to bed, but that was creating

Tim Winders: 00:22:06

a whole new set of problem.

Tim Winders: 00:22:08

And that was those were 2 separate health issues.

Tim Winders: 00:22:11

And 1 was directly related to the stress that was involved with

Tim Winders: 00:22:15

interfacing with the public and employees during the pandemic.

Tim Winders: 00:22:19

The pandemic.

Tim Winders: 00:22:20

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:22:20

24 seven and just one thing on that.

Tim Winders: 00:22:22

And then you can respond.

Tim Winders: 00:22:23

Michael didn't go to Debbie.

Tim Winders: 00:22:24

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:22:25

You, it wasn't as, as if I don't consider you to have an addictive

Tim Winders: 00:22:29

nature or anything like that, but you were really just attempting to slow

Tim Winders: 00:22:34

things down is what my observation, we talked about this, you and I tried to

Tim Winders: 00:22:38

discuss it and then you, I think got some other help, but I don't, you aren't

Tim Winders: 00:22:42

necessarily a, an addictive nature person, but you were just attempting

Tim Winders: 00:22:48

to slow things down was my observation.

Tim Winders: 00:22:50

Is that kind of what was going on or?

Tim Winders: 00:22:53

Mike & Debbie James: It was, and when you're refunding millions of dollars of

Tim Winders: 00:22:57

advanced deposits and at the same time paying out employees and being shut down

Tim Winders: 00:23:03

by the government, effectively, it was something that I just didn't cope with.

Tim Winders: 00:23:08

I got it under control, but during that timeframe, right in the midst

Tim Winders: 00:23:11

of the pandemic, it absolutely was.

Tim Winders: 00:23:15

Very trying.

Tim Winders: 00:23:15

And then to watch other people around us talk about how they were shutting

Tim Winders: 00:23:19

their businesses down that they had for, heading back to Alabama to shut down the

Tim Winders: 00:23:23

restaurant because they couldn't operate and they were bleeding out, it was and

Tim Winders: 00:23:27

watching all that happened, trying to figure out how we were going to survive,

Tim Winders: 00:23:31

that was very difficult and very trying.

Tim Winders: 00:23:33

So it was.

Tim Winders: 00:23:35

a short period of time, in the grand scheme of things, but it was something

Tim Winders: 00:23:38

that was definitely difficult to navigate.

Tim Winders: 00:23:41

Yeah, definitely.

Tim Winders: 00:23:42

All right, Debbie.

Tim Winders: 00:23:43

What's your perspective on all that because I know that, I listen, we talk

Tim Winders: 00:23:47

about issues that like Michael would have gone through there, but I know it

Tim Winders: 00:23:53

was fairly gut wrenching for you also.

Tim Winders: 00:23:55

And, so what, from your perspective, what was going on?

Tim Winders: 00:24:00

Mike & Debbie James: It was tough.

Tim Winders: 00:24:01

It was tough, not only for me, but to see him going through

Tim Winders: 00:24:05

what he was going through.

Tim Winders: 00:24:06

And as we're refunding millions of dollars, and it took probably twice

Tim Winders: 00:24:11

as long for the banks to refund money.

Tim Winders: 00:24:13

People are calling Michael, screaming at him, cussing him out, telling him.

Tim Winders: 00:24:17

He's lying.

Tim Winders: 00:24:18

He didn't refund the money.

Tim Winders: 00:24:20

And it was like, people just lost their mind and look, nobody

Tim Winders: 00:24:26

knew what was going to happen.

Tim Winders: 00:24:27

We had just worked for seven, almost eight years growing our business.

Tim Winders: 00:24:33

And we didn't know if like overnight we were going to be done.

Tim Winders: 00:24:36

And it was, for us going through that as well, as other people

Tim Winders: 00:24:40

actually had to shut down.

Tim Winders: 00:24:42

We were very grateful that we could continue to pay our employees.

Tim Winders: 00:24:46

And wait it out with the stress between us, even his

Tim Winders: 00:24:50

husband and wife was not good.

Tim Winders: 00:24:52

we were arguing all the time and it was we were like a gerbil going in circles

Tim Winders: 00:24:58

with nowhere to go and no way to get out.

Tim Winders: 00:25:01

And so it was, Michael and I had some tough conversations during that

Tim Winders: 00:25:06

time and he did get some other help.

Tim Winders: 00:25:08

And I think from a health perspective, it was the right thing for us to do is.

Tim Winders: 00:25:14

As far as sell the company,

Tim Winders: 00:25:16

So one thing related to that, and we'll, I want to talk about

Tim Winders: 00:25:20

that whole March of 2020 time and in just a moment, y'all opened up that.

Tim Winders: 00:25:26

But Debbie, something that I always observed and you and I discussed

Tim Winders: 00:25:30

this quite often was that you were a successful real estate agent and

Tim Winders: 00:25:38

y'all had started this vacation rental company because they seem to

Tim Winders: 00:25:42

mesh together and fit together well.

Tim Winders: 00:25:45

And we still would say that, I believe.

Tim Winders: 00:25:48

But yet it is very difficult to spin a lot of plates.

Tim Winders: 00:25:54

we all would claim we're multitaskers and, I could run the finances of a vacation

Tim Winders: 00:25:59

rental company and run a lot of the operations and smile and say hello and go

Tim Winders: 00:26:06

show people property on a Sunday afternoon when they're visiting this beautiful area.

Tim Winders: 00:26:12

I know a little bit of behind the curtain.

Tim Winders: 00:26:14

Some people may not, but I, but talk about how challenging it is to wear all

Tim Winders: 00:26:21

those hats, because you and I talked about just things as simple as following

Tim Winders: 00:26:26

up on some leads that would come in because there's just exhaustion from

Tim Winders: 00:26:30

running 40 something companies and keeping up with everything and all of that.

Tim Winders: 00:26:35

So any, anything you want to say about that, because now you're a couple

Tim Winders: 00:26:40

of away, and I've seen, a thriving that we didn't see for a while.

Tim Winders: 00:26:47

Hopefully that's fair to say.

Tim Winders: 00:26:50

Mike & Debbie James: it is fair to say.

Tim Winders: 00:26:51

And I think we do think we can multitask and I think you've

Tim Winders: 00:26:55

really brought to our attention.

Tim Winders: 00:26:57

You know what you really can't.

Tim Winders: 00:26:59

And I think when we first started, look, I'm very grateful.

Tim Winders: 00:27:03

We started, I'm grateful.

Tim Winders: 00:27:04

We sold.

Tim Winders: 00:27:05

So we have learned a lot about the rental market and the ins and outs.

Tim Winders: 00:27:10

So I'm glad we took the journey.

Tim Winders: 00:27:13

if we did it all over again.

Tim Winders: 00:27:15

Which we won't, but if we did it all over again, there are certainly

Tim Winders: 00:27:19

things we would have done differently.

Tim Winders: 00:27:21

but we didn't have the money to pay people at the time to do things differently.

Tim Winders: 00:27:25

So I think as you fast forward, I couldn't, I'm a type A, I'm a kind of

Tim Winders: 00:27:31

a control, not I am a control freak.

Tim Winders: 00:27:33

And so when it came to the finances of the company, I had a lot of trouble thinking

Tim Winders: 00:27:39

about letting go and hiring somebody.

Tim Winders: 00:27:42

It's very easy to get caught up and then all of a sudden money

Tim Winders: 00:27:45

in your escrow, escrow account is gone and I didn't want that.

Tim Winders: 00:27:50

I wanted to be able to sleep at night in the almost 10 years we had the company.

Tim Winders: 00:27:54

I was never, ever late paying an owner, never.

Tim Winders: 00:27:59

That was, and we paid every week to our vendors.

Tim Winders: 00:28:03

And It was something I was very proud of because our vendors were

Tim Winders: 00:28:06

loyal, our owners appreciated it.

Tim Winders: 00:28:10

And yet again, I'm sure, and I know other companies have people that

Tim Winders: 00:28:14

handle the money, but it was doing that at night and then trying, and I

Tim Winders: 00:28:18

use that word try, which I don't like.

Tim Winders: 00:28:21

I was trying to do my real estate during the day and it starts to wear,

Tim Winders: 00:28:25

everything just starts to wear you down.

Tim Winders: 00:28:27

Where we don't really realize it until we're looking back.

Tim Winders: 00:28:31

And I say that because I thought I could do everything and I thought,

Tim Winders: 00:28:35

yes, you've got to be happy and cheery and on point, especially when I'm

Tim Winders: 00:28:40

talking with real estate clients and it's hard when you're tired, it's hard

Tim Winders: 00:28:44

to pick up the phone and really want to do something that I love to do.

Tim Winders: 00:28:49

And so after all this time, Tim, you are right.

Tim Winders: 00:28:52

It is very difficult to multitask.

Tim Winders: 00:28:55

So we're recording this.

Tim Winders: 00:28:57

We'll put a timestamp on something.

Tim Winders: 00:29:00

They tell you not to.

Tim Winders: 00:29:01

We're recording this kind of in mid summer 2024, about two

Tim Winders: 00:29:05

years ago is when you exited.

Tim Winders: 00:29:08

So we've got 24 months there.

Tim Winders: 00:29:11

And then about two years prior to that, we had this, That was COVID worldwide.

Tim Winders: 00:29:19

I had some, somebody called it the other day, global sickness.

Tim Winders: 00:29:22

It was this global sickness event, which actually is more accurate

Tim Winders: 00:29:25

than almost anything I've heard, but I've even shared this before.

Tim Winders: 00:29:29

I don't know if I've shared it on the podcast, but I vividly, Remember March

Tim Winders: 00:29:34

of 2020, some of the phone calls that we were having right around that time.

Tim Winders: 00:29:40

it was like March 13th.

Tim Winders: 00:29:42

Is that your birthday, Michael?

Tim Winders: 00:29:44

And you're in it right around that time.

Tim Winders: 00:29:46

And It was a Friday, the 13th that year, I remember.

Tim Winders: 00:29:51

And Thursday night, I believe we got on a call.

Tim Winders: 00:29:54

I had just gotten, I'd flown back from Orlando for some conference.

Tim Winders: 00:29:57

The world was shutting down around us.

Tim Winders: 00:30:00

You guys had a vacation rental company.

Tim Winders: 00:30:02

I think we've Thought there could be issues, but I don't think we really

Tim Winders: 00:30:07

understood what was about to happen.

Tim Winders: 00:30:10

Y'all have already shared a little bit, but let's go back almost four plus years.

Tim Winders: 00:30:16

And let's talk about specifically how you were able to handle that week.

Tim Winders: 00:30:21

I want to say one thing real quick before y'all either, whoever wants to jump in.

Tim Winders: 00:30:25

I do think that one of the reasons.

Tim Winders: 00:30:28

We, y'all survived was because of Michael's diligence in the way he

Tim Winders: 00:30:35

handled, uh, property owners and vacationers and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:30:40

And because of the diligence in the way Debbie, you handled the finances and

Tim Winders: 00:30:45

those payments to vendors and things like that, because other people that were

Tim Winders: 00:30:49

just a little bit looser and sloppier.

Tim Winders: 00:30:51

Didn't make it.

Tim Winders: 00:30:52

So let's talk just for a few minutes about March of 2020, as

Tim Winders: 00:30:57

much as we maybe get cold sweats.

Tim Winders: 00:31:00

Anyway, which one of y'all want to start and give a perspective of

Tim Winders: 00:31:04

where you're at and what was going on then, and maybe some lessons learned.

Tim Winders: 00:31:08

Mike & Debbie James: I'm interested to hear her comment.

Tim Winders: 00:31:10

Let's hear Debbie from your perspective.

Tim Winders: 00:31:13

We never talk about this, Tim.

Tim Winders: 00:31:14

It's yeah, it's honestly, it's hard to believe it's been over four years now.

Tim Winders: 00:31:19

And I think one thing I do remember, Michael and I were out walking.

Tim Winders: 00:31:25

And we, I'm looking to my left.

Tim Winders: 00:31:27

We have a beautiful pond right next to our home and we were out walking and just.

Tim Winders: 00:31:32

It's trying to think and talk about everything that was happening.

Tim Winders: 00:31:36

And I said to Michael, I said, this is going to be the most

Tim Winders: 00:31:38

beautiful spring break ever.

Tim Winders: 00:31:40

And it was, the weather was absolutely gorgeous.

Tim Winders: 00:31:43

And I think that it was very eerie.

Tim Winders: 00:31:46

it was eerily quiet in one aspect, and yet it was eerily scary because

Tim Winders: 00:31:53

nobody knew what was going to happen.

Tim Winders: 00:31:55

And again, we're thinking, when are we going to make money?

Tim Winders: 00:31:59

When?

Tim Winders: 00:32:00

we had no idea from the rental perspective.

Tim Winders: 00:32:03

And even at that time, real estate, a little further along, I think

Tim Winders: 00:32:08

it was the governor, whoever deemed real estate is necessary.

Tim Winders: 00:32:11

So there were certain precautions we had to take and we could still show

Tim Winders: 00:32:14

property and we had to wear masks and wipe things down at one point.

Tim Winders: 00:32:20

But from the rental side, nobody knew when anybody was going to be able to

Tim Winders: 00:32:25

come back and stay in a vacation rental.

Tim Winders: 00:32:28

Was it a month, six months, a year?

Tim Winders: 00:32:30

And all we're thinking about is, okay.

Tim Winders: 00:32:33

We certainly refunded everybody's money.

Tim Winders: 00:32:36

And now it's like, how are we going to make any money?

Tim Winders: 00:32:39

What are we going to do to survive?

Tim Winders: 00:32:41

And I think that was also probably the second scariest, most stressful

Tim Winders: 00:32:49

time in our life, financial turmoil, I think was probably.

Tim Winders: 00:32:55

The first, but this was really either a close first or second.

Tim Winders: 00:33:00

And it was the fear of the unknown, not only for us, but for everybody.

Tim Winders: 00:33:05

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:33:06

I want to bring up something.

Tim Winders: 00:33:06

Then Michael, I want you to say something here.

Tim Winders: 00:33:10

Here's what I remember.

Tim Winders: 00:33:13

I remember having a conversation.

Tim Winders: 00:33:15

And, and Michael, I want you to give more detailed numbers on this.

Tim Winders: 00:33:20

people may not realize that in March of the year, a place that spring

Tim Winders: 00:33:27

break and summer is so critical.

Tim Winders: 00:33:31

People reserve their vacation rental place.

Tim Winders: 00:33:34

They pay a deposit.

Tim Winders: 00:33:36

Some of them pay in advance and other things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:33:40

And so all of that money.

Tim Winders: 00:33:42

Y'all had, hopefully, sitting in an account and then all of a sudden they're

Tim Winders: 00:33:51

telling people the beaches are, there's variables on what all was going on there.

Tim Winders: 00:33:56

People can't travel.

Tim Winders: 00:33:57

You can't do this.

Tim Winders: 00:33:58

You can't do that.

Tim Winders: 00:33:59

And I remember vividly this conversation.

Tim Winders: 00:34:02

It might have been that Thursday.

Tim Winders: 00:34:03

It's like, okay, do you know, our agreements say we

Tim Winders: 00:34:07

could keep these deposits.

Tim Winders: 00:34:10

But is that the right thing to do?

Tim Winders: 00:34:12

And from a pure integrity standpoint, I was so impressed that it really

Tim Winders: 00:34:18

wasn't a long conversation to say, we don't know all the answers, but

Tim Winders: 00:34:24

we've got to refund everybody's money.

Tim Winders: 00:34:26

And Michael, you can talk about the actual dollars of that.

Tim Winders: 00:34:30

I used to know, and I can't recall now, but I want business owners to picture

Tim Winders: 00:34:35

refunding people in the amount of,

Tim Winders: 00:34:40

Mike & Debbie James: So the biggest problem we had was, and you might remember

Tim Winders: 00:34:43

this, Tim, we had at that time, just one full time employee and then some

Tim Winders: 00:34:46

part times and we spend the winters here in this region, paying employees while

Tim Winders: 00:34:51

there's no revenue really coming in.

Tim Winders: 00:34:53

So you go from.

Tim Winders: 00:34:55

October, November, December, January, February.

Tim Winders: 00:34:57

And then you're like, here comes March.

Tim Winders: 00:34:59

Finally, in the second week of March, you're going to get spring break.

Tim Winders: 00:35:02

And that's when COVID hit.

Tim Winders: 00:35:03

We had people in house, but then all of a sudden it was, wow, pandemic's here.

Tim Winders: 00:35:09

And then the country gets shut down.

Tim Winders: 00:35:11

And what you talked about was, We had a conversation and we're

Tim Winders: 00:35:15

like, we can't keep this money.

Tim Winders: 00:35:17

It'll destroy the company.

Tim Winders: 00:35:18

Like people will actually destroy us on social media, destroy

Tim Winders: 00:35:22

us on every platform possible.

Tim Winders: 00:35:24

And the right thing to do simply was to refund the money.

Tim Winders: 00:35:27

So this was a little contentious issue with some of the owners.

Tim Winders: 00:35:31

Because they were being told by rental companies that they were going out to

Tim Winders: 00:35:35

ski in the Midwest and Utah, et cetera.

Tim Winders: 00:35:38

And they were told, you could come still enjoy the condo, even

Tim Winders: 00:35:41

though the slopes are all shut down and we're keeping your money.

Tim Winders: 00:35:44

So we didn't do that, but there were companies that had to do

Tim Winders: 00:35:47

that because those companies did.

Tim Winders: 00:35:50

Use advanced deposits to pay through the winter.

Tim Winders: 00:35:53

Whereas we never touched the escrow money.

Tim Winders: 00:35:55

So from a financial standpoint, we always ran the company like

Tim Winders: 00:35:59

with trust accounting in mind.

Tim Winders: 00:36:01

And we also had a savings beyond that.

Tim Winders: 00:36:04

So that our operations manager freaked out on day one.

Tim Winders: 00:36:08

And we were like, you don't have to worry.

Tim Winders: 00:36:10

We have already pre planned for a hurricane and to sustain ourselves for

Tim Winders: 00:36:15

six months to a year without revenue, and that's So even though we were freaking

Tim Winders: 00:36:19

out because we weren't sure if the company would survive, we knew at least

Tim Winders: 00:36:21

short term we could operationally roll.

Tim Winders: 00:36:24

The most difficult part of that was as we refunded the money, what we didn't

Tim Winders: 00:36:28

understand was there was a cog, right?

Tim Winders: 00:36:31

We didn't understand that the merchant account wasn't refunding the money.

Tim Winders: 00:36:35

They wanted to see our bank accounts to make sure they weren't returning the

Tim Winders: 00:36:38

money back to the credit card companies to those other people until they could

Tim Winders: 00:36:42

guarantee that we have the funds in the bank to actually secure all that.

Tim Winders: 00:36:46

There were things that you don't think about because the business

Tim Winders: 00:36:49

that we've run goes in one direction.

Tim Winders: 00:36:51

So all of a sudden a bicycle that you ride forward for the first time in history.

Tim Winders: 00:36:55

Now that had to, you had to ride a bicycle backwards.

Tim Winders: 00:36:58

And it was very difficult to actually unwind those transactions.

Tim Winders: 00:37:02

The most difficult thing was you have March through the summer, end of July is

Tim Winders: 00:37:08

pretty much 70 percent of your revenue.

Tim Winders: 00:37:11

And now all of a sudden we were refunding all of that timeframe

Tim Winders: 00:37:15

without knowing whether or not it would rebook when and if.

Tim Winders: 00:37:20

Our particular state would reopen to vacation rentals, which were banned

Tim Winders: 00:37:23

during that time frame, and it made it worse because every two weeks the

Tim Winders: 00:37:26

governor was making the decision.

Tim Winders: 00:37:28

So we would have people book up those properties.

Tim Winders: 00:37:31

Hoping that we would open.

Tim Winders: 00:37:33

And then on Friday at five o'clock, not open.

Tim Winders: 00:37:35

And then a landslide of phone calls, people wanting all their

Tim Winders: 00:37:38

money back because they're supposed to be checking in the next day.

Tim Winders: 00:37:40

So it was this constant for about two and a half months of just uncertainty.

Tim Winders: 00:37:46

And, but we constantly did the right thing.

Tim Winders: 00:37:48

It was like, we'll give you your money right back.

Tim Winders: 00:37:49

We'll give you your money right back.

Tim Winders: 00:37:51

And it was difficult.

Tim Winders: 00:37:52

It was absolutely challenging.

Tim Winders: 00:37:54

And I look back at it, it was extremely stressful, but then the hardest

Tim Winders: 00:37:57

part was the transition, right?

Tim Winders: 00:37:59

All of a sudden all these properties are empty.

Tim Winders: 00:38:01

Because everyone's been refunded.

Tim Winders: 00:38:03

And then the governor says game on, we're open again.

Tim Winders: 00:38:06

And then the, everybody's trapped in the United States.

Tim Winders: 00:38:08

So all of a sudden everybody wanted to book anything they possibly could.

Tim Winders: 00:38:12

So the bookings were coming in.

Tim Winders: 00:38:14

Trent and remember I had one employee, all they dealt with was

Tim Winders: 00:38:17

operations, check ins, checkout.

Tim Winders: 00:38:19

So all the reservations, all the phone calls, all the money.

Tim Winders: 00:38:22

Everything was on my shoulders.

Tim Winders: 00:38:24

Debbie did what she could, but effectively I was running 24 seven,

Tim Winders: 00:38:29

but we always did the right thing.

Tim Winders: 00:38:31

Most of our owners respected the fact that we did the right thing

Tim Winders: 00:38:34

for the clients, the guests.

Tim Winders: 00:38:36

And that was in the end, that was what we looked back on.

Tim Winders: 00:38:39

We, we did the right thing, what we thought was the right thing at

Tim Winders: 00:38:42

that time, given the information.

Tim Winders: 00:38:44

yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:38:45

Mike & Debbie James: was probably.

Tim Winders: 00:38:46

The dollar amount, Tim, was probably over a million dollars.

Tim Winders: 00:38:51

Yeah, it was over a million dollars.

Tim Winders: 00:38:52

In that year, we were probably going to do 1.

Tim Winders: 00:38:54

6 in gross revenue.

Tim Winders: 00:38:57

So we were giving back a million of the 1.

Tim Winders: 00:39:00

6 and that was a guess that we could get to the 1.

Tim Winders: 00:39:03

6 by the end of that year.

Tim Winders: 00:39:05

the interesting thing though, Tim, is when the country shut down,

Tim Winders: 00:39:07

people reacted a certain way.

Tim Winders: 00:39:10

Maybe rightfully maybe not.

Tim Winders: 00:39:12

And then when the country opened back up, it was the total opposite.

Tim Winders: 00:39:16

So they couldn't give us their money fast enough.

Tim Winders: 00:39:18

It was, it was wild.

Tim Winders: 00:39:20

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:39:21

Just wild.

Tim Winders: 00:39:21

Crazy times.

Tim Winders: 00:39:22

It was an odd time.

Tim Winders: 00:39:22

I do remember that the fall of that year was like record setting for us.

Tim Winders: 00:39:28

I don't know.

Tim Winders: 00:39:28

I don't remember year end, but I do remember at the end of the year, we

Tim Winders: 00:39:32

looked back and went interesting, we, million dollars, whatever.

Tim Winders: 00:39:37

But then we had people, there was no schools in the Atlanta area and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:39:42

So people were loading up going to the beach and Florida was open.

Tim Winders: 00:39:46

So thankfully we are in a place like that.

Tim Winders: 00:39:49

Mike & Debbie James: It was a season, right?

Tim Winders: 00:39:51

It was like we shut down.

Tim Winders: 00:39:53

He had bad information.

Tim Winders: 00:39:54

He didn't realize the amount of billions of dollars short term vacation rentals

Tim Winders: 00:39:56

did when a study was presented to him what it was going to cost the state

Tim Winders: 00:39:59

if they didn't open by Memorial Day.

Tim Winders: 00:40:02

He immediately flipped the switch and we were open again.

Tim Winders: 00:40:04

But the challenge became That whole spring was so busy and my life was so chaotic.

Tim Winders: 00:40:10

And then when it was game on, everything went a hundred percent occupancy straight

Tim Winders: 00:40:14

through summer, straight through fall.

Tim Winders: 00:40:15

So when we would normally have a break, we didn't have enough employees and it just

Tim Winders: 00:40:19

kept going straight through the holidays.

Tim Winders: 00:40:22

Straight through winter, right into the following spring break,

Tim Winders: 00:40:25

right into the following year.

Tim Winders: 00:40:26

And I was trying, you remember this, I was trying to hire

Tim Winders: 00:40:29

employees and get up to speed.

Tim Winders: 00:40:31

So what happened was from, I heard people talk about, I remember sitting

Tim Winders: 00:40:36

in the house and playing arcade.

Tim Winders: 00:40:38

I'm like, I had a completely different experience than you.

Tim Winders: 00:40:42

For me, I never worked harder, longer, more stressful days in my

Tim Winders: 00:40:45

entire life than the entire year of 2020 that went right into 2021.

Tim Winders: 00:40:51

It was.

Tim Winders: 00:40:52

gangbusters.

Tim Winders: 00:40:52

So the truth is, by the time we got to the spring in 2022 and Debbie

Tim Winders: 00:40:57

is the one that finally was like, I don't think I could take this anymore.

Tim Winders: 00:41:00

It's affecting my real estate.

Tim Winders: 00:41:01

I was like, you know what?

Tim Winders: 00:41:02

This is the perfect timing.

Tim Winders: 00:41:03

I am literally burn out and having the hardest time, presenting ourselves.

Tim Winders: 00:41:09

And then we were worried about that Europe was going to open and the money was going

Tim Winders: 00:41:13

to get a little bit less awesome for vacation rentals for a couple few years.

Tim Winders: 00:41:18

So the timing for the exit was perfect at that time, but it

Tim Winders: 00:41:21

was crazy, stressful timeframe.

Tim Winders: 00:41:23

And the clientele that came was used to hotels, resorts.

Tim Winders: 00:41:27

So the clientele that came in 2020 and 2021, extremely demanding.

Tim Winders: 00:41:32

They're used to picking up the phone and having a bell hop come take care of the

Tim Winders: 00:41:35

problem in 30 seconds, not 30 minutes.

Tim Winders: 00:41:39

I remember us having a conversation about the expectations

Tim Winders: 00:41:45

of the guests and I remember this conversation is like we, we told

Tim Winders: 00:41:49

ourselves this could be a trend that's not turning around anytime soon.

Tim Winders: 00:41:55

it's not as if people are going to start saying, yeah, the grill

Tim Winders: 00:41:58

isn't as clean as it should be.

Tim Winders: 00:42:00

I'm okay with it.

Tim Winders: 00:42:01

Thanks for just having a grill.

Tim Winders: 00:42:03

No, that's not the way people are doing.

Tim Winders: 00:42:06

Just real quick.

Tim Winders: 00:42:07

Let's move on from COVID.

Tim Winders: 00:42:08

I don't want to spend much time on it.

Tim Winders: 00:42:10

But Debbie, what's a quick lesson or something?

Tim Winders: 00:42:13

we're four Years out from that time Anything real quick that you you have

Tim Winders: 00:42:19

like an always or never or just something that you learn from that period of

Tim Winders: 00:42:24

time Anything that you'd want to share.

Tim Winders: 00:42:29

Mike & Debbie James: Wow.

Tim Winders: 00:42:29

There's a lot of things I guess I learned, but I think it's really just.

Tim Winders: 00:42:35

Having the faith that everything's going to work out for how

Tim Winders: 00:42:38

it's supposed to work out.

Tim Winders: 00:42:40

And I do believe things happen for a reason and it's easier to sit here

Tim Winders: 00:42:45

and say that after the fact, but I think it's really, and just with

Tim Winders: 00:42:51

what we've been through in general, I think just knowing that we're going

Tim Winders: 00:42:55

to be okay and that whatever comes our way, we can work through it is

Tim Winders: 00:43:00

really what I took away from it.

Tim Winders: 00:43:02

Yeah, that's good.

Tim Winders: 00:43:03

How about you michael?

Tim Winders: 00:43:05

Mike & Debbie James: I just look at it like.

Tim Winders: 00:43:07

I don't know what I could have done differently.

Tim Winders: 00:43:10

There were obviously little things that happened, but I feel really good

Tim Winders: 00:43:13

about the way we reacted and some of that was conversations with you, Tim.

Tim Winders: 00:43:18

And I feel really, I feel good in hindsight, the way that we responded

Tim Winders: 00:43:23

to a very difficult situation.

Tim Winders: 00:43:25

And in the future, I would just take that as experience to take a moment,

Tim Winders: 00:43:29

think through the consequences of not acting responsibly and

Tim Winders: 00:43:33

with care and concern of others.

Tim Winders: 00:43:35

the reason that's good and i'll go back to what debbie

Tim Winders: 00:43:37

said It's what I was thinking as we were just talking about this.

Tim Winders: 00:43:39

I haven't thought about it, but Dang, what a tough time but that's just four

Tim Winders: 00:43:44

years ago two years later You exited.

Tim Winders: 00:43:48

Somebody wrote you a very nice check.

Tim Winders: 00:43:50

y'all did a very nice exit.

Tim Winders: 00:43:51

It's not like y'all are still going to get money years from now.

Tim Winders: 00:43:54

Y'all got the check.

Tim Winders: 00:43:56

That's a good tip for people that are exiting companies, by the way.

Tim Winders: 00:43:59

Uh, and then now two years later, you're, we'll talk about this as we wrap up.

Tim Winders: 00:44:03

Y'all are working on some new projects.

Tim Winders: 00:44:05

You've got a lot of great things going.

Tim Winders: 00:44:06

You're going to start taking the wisdom you've gained and possibly

Tim Winders: 00:44:09

sharing that in different ways.

Tim Winders: 00:44:11

So I think the thing, I love what you said, Debbie, we don't We can't ever

Tim Winders: 00:44:14

really know, but I think we just have to have this thought that, you know

Tim Winders: 00:44:19

what, somehow it's going to work out.

Tim Winders: 00:44:22

This too shall pass.

Tim Winders: 00:44:24

We will get through it or you know what?

Tim Winders: 00:44:27

We'll just move on to that next realm, heaven or whatever it is for people.

Tim Winders: 00:44:31

It's like we, whatever it is.

Tim Winders: 00:44:33

anyway, we've got a little bit of time left.

Tim Winders: 00:44:34

What I'd love to do is I'd love to back up a little bit, maybe 25 years

Tim Winders: 00:44:40

or something like that, and maybe.

Tim Winders: 00:44:42

Talk a lot about, y'all getting started.

Tim Winders: 00:44:47

I was trying to remember this.

Tim Winders: 00:44:50

Did y'all meet online?

Tim Winders: 00:44:53

Mike & Debbie James: We did night, January 9th, 1999 was our first date, but we

Tim Winders: 00:44:59

met in December of 98 online before the movie, you've got mail was really cool.

Tim Winders: 00:45:06

And, it was matchmaker.

Tim Winders: 00:45:08

com.

Tim Winders: 00:45:09

Which became

Tim Winders: 00:45:10

match.

Tim Winders: 00:45:10

com

Tim Winders: 00:45:11

There was no internet.

Tim Winders: 00:45:12

Wait, there was no internet then.

Tim Winders: 00:45:13

Was there before 2000?

Tim Winders: 00:45:15

What are y'all talking about?

Tim Winders: 00:45:16

How did y'all meet?

Tim Winders: 00:45:16

there are people that are really doing that right now.

Tim Winders: 00:45:19

They're going, I didn't think they had the internet in the 90s.

Tim Winders: 00:45:23

Mike & Debbie James: had internet, not like today, but yeah, We had, dial.

Tim Winders: 00:45:26

I think it was still dial up back then.

Tim Winders: 00:45:29

Yeah, it was interesting, the responses from people too.

Tim Winders: 00:45:31

It was, I remember one of the parties that we met, some new people.

Tim Winders: 00:45:35

In mid 99 and they were like, Oh, how did two of you meet?

Tim Winders: 00:45:39

And we were like, Oh, we met online.

Tim Winders: 00:45:41

And the lady leaned forward, she grabbed my hand.

Tim Winders: 00:45:42

She's I'm so sorry.

Tim Winders: 00:45:44

It came to that.

Tim Winders: 00:45:45

And I was like, Oh my God, now nobody would think that way, but it was

Tim Winders: 00:45:50

literally like, I was like, so we started telling people, Oh yeah, we met, to.

Tim Winders: 00:45:53

Party or bar.

Tim Winders: 00:45:55

It was like it took us for a long time for people to like, be okay with that

Tim Winders: 00:45:59

being a way to first meet each other.

Tim Winders: 00:46:01

But it was perfect.

Tim Winders: 00:46:02

I just moved to Atlanta.

Tim Winders: 00:46:04

I had a friend that was actually immediately going out on dates and I'm

Tim Winders: 00:46:08

like, how are you going out on dates?

Tim Winders: 00:46:09

We just got here.

Tim Winders: 00:46:10

And he told me about the site.

Tim Winders: 00:46:12

Debbie was already on it.

Tim Winders: 00:46:13

And we met up, and just hit it off from the first date.

Tim Winders: 00:46:16

and let me mention too, that I didn't have a picture because being single, of course,

Tim Winders: 00:46:21

back then we didn't have cell phones.

Tim Winders: 00:46:23

And so I didn't have a picture.

Tim Winders: 00:46:26

And the only reason Michael clicked on my profile is because they randomly

Tim Winders: 00:46:30

assign you a username and mine was Debbie two, two, two, and the two,

Tim Winders: 00:46:34

two, two had meaning to Michael where he did a lot of stock trading back in

Tim Winders: 00:46:39

the day and was very technical in the stock market and two, two, two has to A

Tim Winders: 00:46:44

actual trading pattern that he followed and was successful with, which is the

Tim Winders: 00:46:50

only reason why I clicked on my profile.

Tim Winders: 00:46:51

Yeah, it was definitely, it was something I've traded that pattern.

Tim Winders: 00:46:55

It's a 70 percent reversal pattern.

Tim Winders: 00:46:57

It's Gartley 222, it's on page 222 of a book written in 1935.

Tim Winders: 00:47:02

And it had so much meaning to me that when I looked at it.

Tim Winders: 00:47:05

I was like, ah, there's no photo, but I have to click because

Tim Winders: 00:47:08

it's Debbie two, two, two.

Tim Winders: 00:47:10

And it was just, it was meant to happen.

Tim Winders: 00:47:13

it was a financial track transaction, even way back then.

Tim Winders: 00:47:17

Mike & Debbie James: I know we met you at a comedy club.

Tim Winders: 00:47:19

Oh wait.

Tim Winders: 00:47:20

And the other thing, Tim is, so I had been on there for a few months and my

Tim Winders: 00:47:24

membership expired and I said, and the way they do it and I won't be down rabbit

Tim Winders: 00:47:28

hole, but they keep sending you messages.

Tim Winders: 00:47:30

So and so messaged you so and so messaged you, so okay,

Tim Winders: 00:47:32

I'll extend for another year.

Tim Winders: 00:47:34

Month or whatever it was.

Tim Winders: 00:47:35

And maybe it was 25 bucks.

Tim Winders: 00:47:37

Michael gets me on his two week trial, free trial.

Tim Winders: 00:47:40

he had a timeframe is I got two weeks.

Tim Winders: 00:47:42

Let me see what I could do with this thing.

Tim Winders: 00:47:44

Ah, two, two, two, I'm going to roll the dice.

Tim Winders: 00:47:49

All right.

Tim Winders: 00:47:49

very cool.

Tim Winders: 00:47:50

Cause I know that it was right around that time that we met, we were all having fun,

Tim Winders: 00:47:54

learning a lot of cool stuff in that odd multilevel business, the Amway business,

Tim Winders: 00:48:00

and I don't say bad stuff about it.

Tim Winders: 00:48:02

I wouldn't be wanting to do it right now, but, and then, but shortly after

Tim Winders: 00:48:05

that, you guys started real estate.

Tim Winders: 00:48:08

And I.

Tim Winders: 00:48:08

I think I was around, but I'm having a hard time recalling it.

Tim Winders: 00:48:12

Tell me, what do y'all tell me about how real estate became part of really?

Tim Winders: 00:48:17

It's all that y'all do almost now, but how did that real estate thing get started?

Tim Winders: 00:48:24

Mike & Debbie James: So we ended up taking a class, to learn about

Tim Winders: 00:48:27

investing and Michael maybe remembers how or why we took the class.

Tim Winders: 00:48:32

I just remember meeting you, Tim, and seeing you.

Tim Winders: 00:48:35

At some networking event, no.

Tim Winders: 00:48:39

It was something to do with real estate investing.

Tim Winders: 00:48:43

And I was talking to you after, and I was a little taken back.

Tim Winders: 00:48:48

what are you doing here?

Tim Winders: 00:48:49

Because we were doing the network marketing with you.

Tim Winders: 00:48:52

And then I get home that night and I'm like, Oh my God, you're never

Tim Winders: 00:48:54

going to believe who I bumped into.

Tim Winders: 00:48:57

And I told Michael and I'm like, call him, just call Tamman.

Tim Winders: 00:49:01

at that point, we really hadn't had a lot of conversations with you.

Tim Winders: 00:49:05

We knew you through the business, we were on different teams, so we

Tim Winders: 00:49:09

didn't have as much interaction.

Tim Winders: 00:49:11

and then that's how we got started with you in real estate.

Tim Winders: 00:49:15

I'll let Michael continue, but it was, yeah, so it was funny because

Tim Winders: 00:49:17

she told me she's yeah, I saw Tim and I was like, what, Tim, because

Tim Winders: 00:49:22

like with the business and we weren't even in the direct line, right?

Tim Winders: 00:49:25

You were just somebody that was so good and you were on stage and you

Tim Winders: 00:49:29

were just so conversationalist.

Tim Winders: 00:49:31

You weren't like salesy, you were just, you would speak the truth and

Tim Winders: 00:49:35

Debbie and I wanted to work together.

Tim Winders: 00:49:37

That was one of the reasons why we were looking for network marketing.

Tim Winders: 00:49:40

We desperately wanted to work together as a couple and we saw you, we saw

Tim Winders: 00:49:43

glory and we saw other couples also that we just were like, I would

Tim Winders: 00:49:48

love to get to that point that I could work with my wife in business.

Tim Winders: 00:49:52

And then what ended up happening was, is we did end up transitioning.

Tim Winders: 00:49:56

To look at, because we're both working, but we transitioned to look

Tim Winders: 00:49:59

at real estate as a way to start to supplement and get more income.

Tim Winders: 00:50:04

And that's when she bumped into you.

Tim Winders: 00:50:05

And to her point, it was like, Oh, wow.

Tim Winders: 00:50:07

He's looking at real estate too, even though he's in the

Tim Winders: 00:50:09

multi level and doing well.

Tim Winders: 00:50:11

So that was the spark.

Tim Winders: 00:50:13

That's what led us to start talking.

Tim Winders: 00:50:15

And then we started to coordinate with some other marketing stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:50:18

That's a whole nother rabbit hole.

Tim Winders: 00:50:20

But the whole idea was that I already had great respect for you and glory

Tim Winders: 00:50:24

from what you had been able to do as a couple in that business.

Tim Winders: 00:50:27

And I told Debbie, I was like, we need to latch onto this.

Tim Winders: 00:50:30

Tim's Tim.

Tim Winders: 00:50:31

And you had your sister who was already deep into real estate.

Tim Winders: 00:50:34

So I w I was like, this is amazing.

Tim Winders: 00:50:36

let's try and work with Tim and Glory and really make this happen.

Tim Winders: 00:50:40

And that started the journey or continued us on that real estate journey.

Tim Winders: 00:50:46

So one of the things you did is that you were obviously

Tim Winders: 00:50:49

in that Atlanta market at that time.

Tim Winders: 00:50:53

And.

Tim Winders: 00:50:54

And you did that I think for a few years, and then you transitioned.

Tim Winders: 00:50:58

So I'd love for y'all to talk about what all you were doing in the Atlanta market

Tim Winders: 00:51:02

and then what provoked, what was the catalyst or whatever to move down then,

Tim Winders: 00:51:07

20 ish years ago, 2004, down to that.

Tim Winders: 00:51:11

Area of florida because a lot of people they get started in real estate and they

Tim Winders: 00:51:14

feel locked in And then they don't ever transition So and I do some of these

Tim Winders: 00:51:19

conversations are coming back to me now.

Tim Winders: 00:51:21

I actually remember going.

Tim Winders: 00:51:22

Yeah, I remember that we had a lead gen company and y'all were

Tim Winders: 00:51:25

getting parts of it and stuff like that I mean we divvied that up.

Tim Winders: 00:51:27

It was one one of the best businesses ever, by the way um, but talk a little

Tim Winders: 00:51:32

bit about what you did in the atlanta market and then the transition down

Tim Winders: 00:51:35

to that 30a or That rosemary area

Tim Winders: 00:51:40

Mike & Debbie James: So basically I, at that time I was doing more of the.

Tim Winders: 00:51:44

Like I had Mike buys houses, fast signs, and then right next to them was

Tim Winders: 00:51:49

lease to own or rent to own, right?

Tim Winders: 00:51:51

So I was following your business model where you had people calling that had

Tim Winders: 00:51:55

product they were trying to get out of houses, but you also had people

Tim Winders: 00:51:58

that really needed places to stay.

Tim Winders: 00:52:00

So that marketing arm of doing that allowed you to then.

Tim Winders: 00:52:04

Procure properties with contracts, which Debbie was involved with, then

Tim Winders: 00:52:09

putting contractors in place to ready it up for either the person you were

Tim Winders: 00:52:13

able to find right away with money and they needed a place or to have that

Tim Winders: 00:52:18

inventory to either rent lease option.

Tim Winders: 00:52:20

Or owner finance, right?

Tim Winders: 00:52:22

So we followed a lot of what you were doing at that time.

Tim Winders: 00:52:25

Plus we had the I buy houses leads that were coming in.

Tim Winders: 00:52:28

That was an incredible, business to be able to have that.

Tim Winders: 00:52:31

That let us do for three and a half years, we were in the trenches doing that.

Tim Winders: 00:52:36

And then she finally left her position and was helping me out.

Tim Winders: 00:52:40

So we were no longer in corporate.

Tim Winders: 00:52:42

We were fully working together.

Tim Winders: 00:52:44

And that ultimately led to when we came down here, but I don't know

Tim Winders: 00:52:48

if Debbie wants to lead into, there were other things too, that we

Tim Winders: 00:52:50

did with partnerships with other partners outside of UTEM in Atlanta.

Tim Winders: 00:52:54

I think doing what we did in Atlanta helped me prepare for real estate here.

Tim Winders: 00:53:00

So I wasn't licensed in Atlanta.

Tim Winders: 00:53:02

We moved here in 04, came down, visited the area, drove really the coast from

Tim Winders: 00:53:08

Pensacola to, Cape San Blas, and really, Had a tough time deciding where to go.

Tim Winders: 00:53:15

And so after we moved down, we realized really with your encouragement

Tim Winders: 00:53:20

too, you're like, if we're going to do real estate in Florida, you

Tim Winders: 00:53:23

might as well get your license.

Tim Winders: 00:53:24

Let's let us at least get the commissions and that sort of thing.

Tim Winders: 00:53:28

And so that's how that started.

Tim Winders: 00:53:30

And I think all the experience that I had with flipping and buying and selling and

Tim Winders: 00:53:35

renting and leasing, that really helped, In a different aspect for my experience,

Tim Winders: 00:53:40

now I just had to learn the product here.

Tim Winders: 00:53:43

And so it was really a kind of a natural transition for me.

Tim Winders: 00:53:48

And I finally found what I really loved because when I was in corporate

Tim Winders: 00:53:51

America, I just, I was miserable.

Tim Winders: 00:53:54

I really did not enjoy what I was doing.

Tim Winders: 00:53:57

I should have left, look for another job years prior, but it took me a long time

Tim Winders: 00:54:02

to really find something that I enjoyed.

Tim Winders: 00:54:06

so that's been 20 plus years.

Tim Winders: 00:54:08

And when y'all hit the ground down there in, the beautiful part of

Tim Winders: 00:54:13

Florida, it was the real estate market was fairly frothy all over.

Tim Winders: 00:54:19

it's been frothy ish in y'all's area a good bit during that time.

Tim Winders: 00:54:25

It was still a few years though.

Tim Winders: 00:54:27

y'all did real estate and then you started the vacation rental company.

Tim Winders: 00:54:33

It was 10 years after that, right?

Tim Winders: 00:54:35

Five, seven, eight, nine years later,

Tim Winders: 00:54:39

Mike & Debbie James: Yeah,

Tim Winders: 00:54:39

nine years.

Tim Winders: 00:54:40

later.

Tim Winders: 00:54:40

Mike & Debbie James: 13.

Tim Winders: 00:54:41

So were y'all just buying, selling, flipping, doing all

Tim Winders: 00:54:43

that kind of stuff during that time?

Tim Winders: 00:54:45

Mike & Debbie James: No, the market had, the prices had moved

Tim Winders: 00:54:48

too much here in Florida and the business model that you taught us in

Tim Winders: 00:54:51

Atlanta, we really couldn't do here.

Tim Winders: 00:54:54

And so I really just delved into, to selling real estate for other people

Tim Winders: 00:54:59

and helping and because of my knowledge and my background, I really do deal

Tim Winders: 00:55:03

with a lot of, investors and Michael was doing some other things and we got

Tim Winders: 00:55:10

here at the tail end of the market.

Tim Winders: 00:55:11

And It was wild for a short period of time, and then 2005, the market stopped.

Tim Winders: 00:55:18

It was around probably June of 2005.

Tim Winders: 00:55:21

It's like musical chairs stopped and a lot of people got caught standing up.

Tim Winders: 00:55:26

It really wasn't until about 2007 until prices started declining

Tim Winders: 00:55:32

into the financial crisis of 08.

Tim Winders: 00:55:35

And then prices kept going down when we look back 2010, 2011 was truly the bottom

Tim Winders: 00:55:41

of our market from a price standpoint.

Tim Winders: 00:55:44

And then ever since then we have the oil spill in 2010 and our

Tim Winders: 00:55:48

market really started coming back up very slowly every year.

Tim Winders: 00:55:52

And then of course, COVID, after about eight, nine, 10 years,

Tim Winders: 00:55:57

people are like, okay, where's the pullback, where's the pullback.

Tim Winders: 00:56:01

It was, they kept thinking it was another market cycle and then COVID

Tim Winders: 00:56:04

hits and everybody's okay, here it is, here's the pullback we're

Tim Winders: 00:56:08

waiting on and it everywhere, not just in our area, in the country,

Tim Winders: 00:56:12

the world, it did the exact opposite.

Tim Winders: 00:56:15

The thing that's fascinating to me with all of these

Tim Winders: 00:56:18

Ups and downs and we've had a lot of conversations and we like to think

Tim Winders: 00:56:24

we're really smart and Michael and I can really go down rabbit holes on,

Tim Winders: 00:56:28

the economy and this and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:56:31

I hate to admit this, but I am probably wrong much much more than I'm right.

Tim Winders: 00:56:39

Like, Oh my gosh, you know, we were thinking COVID, we were thinking like

Tim Winders: 00:56:42

we were, we could be dealing with some economic collapse with the country.

Tim Winders: 00:56:45

Oh no, they can print all kinds of money and take care of that and

Tim Winders: 00:56:50

I think we've gotten a good breadth of how much you guys have experienced

Tim Winders: 00:56:56

specifically in business and other things, but specifically in the real

Tim Winders: 00:57:00

estate markets and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:57:02

And now at this stage, you guys, I know Debbie, you are with Sotheby's

Tim Winders: 00:57:08

and you're doing things there.

Tim Winders: 00:57:10

And Michael's also doing some things with you there.

Tim Winders: 00:57:13

But I know that you guys are getting to a place where you're ready to share some of

Tim Winders: 00:57:19

this wisdom, some of the knocks, some of the great stuff, some of the hard stuff

Tim Winders: 00:57:25

that you've experienced, because y'all have got investor experience, you've

Tim Winders: 00:57:28

got, building, you've got development.

Tim Winders: 00:57:31

you've got a lot of stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:57:32

Tell me What's next for you guys what's coming up?

Tim Winders: 00:57:36

What's happening now?

Tim Winders: 00:57:38

And none of it's necessarily definitive.

Tim Winders: 00:57:41

I know some of it y'all are still in the formative stages and y'all we've

Tim Winders: 00:57:45

talked about maybe doing some strategies on some of it, but Either michael or

Tim Winders: 00:57:49

debbie start and the other one can finish up and then i've got one or

Tim Winders: 00:57:52

two more questions before we finish up

Tim Winders: 00:57:56

Mike & Debbie James: really, what we're doing is we're leaning into the fact

Tim Winders: 00:57:59

that now we have a decade of vacation rental in the trenches experience with

Tim Winders: 00:58:05

understanding of our ally, knowing which products perform better than others.

Tim Winders: 00:58:10

During that entire timeframe, it helped us really get dialed in.

Tim Winders: 00:58:14

Debbie alluded to the fact that she went into real estate traditionally

Tim Winders: 00:58:17

and I was doing other things.

Tim Winders: 00:58:19

I was working with vacation rental companies and doing

Tim Winders: 00:58:21

marketing and photography video.

Tim Winders: 00:58:23

And I saw how things changed.

Tim Winders: 00:58:25

I saw the products that did better.

Tim Winders: 00:58:28

So what we're doing now is just what she was doing initially, except now

Tim Winders: 00:58:32

we have all the experience that I had.

Tim Winders: 00:58:33

So she can lean on me for numbers.

Tim Winders: 00:58:36

And then I'll go out with her when she has clients that are looking at

Tim Winders: 00:58:38

multiple properties and I can talk numbers from an investment standpoint.

Tim Winders: 00:58:43

So for the two of us, it makes us stronger as a team to be able to

Tim Winders: 00:58:47

look at a lot of these as assets.

Tim Winders: 00:58:49

I don't go out when somebody's just looking for a second home for

Tim Winders: 00:58:51

themselves, but when she has clients that are specifically investors, that's

Tim Winders: 00:58:55

when I come out and I additionally You know, give my insight as to

Tim Winders: 00:58:59

which one of those will actually do better on a long term basis and why.

Tim Winders: 00:59:04

So that's really what we're doing now.

Tim Winders: 00:59:07

And we're leaning into which Debbie I'll talk about trying to get to other

Tim Winders: 00:59:11

markets with other agents to let other agents and other markets know that if

Tim Winders: 00:59:15

they refer business to us as a team, we could take care of their clients here.

Tim Winders: 00:59:22

And we do pay referral fees to agents.

Tim Winders: 00:59:26

Yeah, anything else you want to add to that, Debbie?

Tim Winders: 00:59:28

Because I know you're doing, y'all are looking to do some video and audio

Tim Winders: 00:59:32

and just share and also anything else?

Tim Winders: 00:59:36

Mike & Debbie James: Yeah, we're gonna be launching a podcast that will help people.

Tim Winders: 00:59:40

We want to do some more video.

Tim Winders: 00:59:42

And, we're doing developments.

Tim Winders: 00:59:44

I have a business partner and we're building spec homes.

Tim Winders: 00:59:47

And we really want to help people understand, even so much as

Tim Winders: 00:59:51

with the rentals, a king bed.

Tim Winders: 00:59:53

If there's no king beds, put a king bed in the house.

Tim Winders: 00:59:56

And that's one tip.

Tim Winders: 00:59:57

And so there's so many little things that people can do to help

Tim Winders: 01:00:00

improve the income of a home that doesn't have to cost a lot of money.

Tim Winders: 01:00:05

it's you don't know what you don't know.

Tim Winders: 01:00:07

And we're just wanting to help share and, Help educate people.

Tim Winders: 01:00:10

So Tim, I can say it's a, it's an FAQ, right?

Tim Winders: 01:00:13

So like we have the same conversation over and over again.

Tim Winders: 01:00:17

So selfishly, we thought if we create a podcast talking about how to buy vacation

Tim Winders: 01:00:22

rentals in this market for income, it would be smart for us to just do a brain

Tim Winders: 01:00:27

dump with a lot of the high level basic things so that they could watch 20 or 30

Tim Winders: 01:00:32

minute episodes, either video or audio and learn about some of the real basics.

Tim Winders: 01:00:37

that helped them to come back to us and work further with us.

Tim Winders: 01:00:40

So it's going to help people from, a kindergarten up phase,

Tim Winders: 01:00:46

but then there's some expert stuff that's sprinkled in there as well.

Tim Winders: 01:00:49

So it's real, and it's also going to help us, cut down the amount of time that we

Tim Winders: 01:00:53

have to re educate everyone on not only the area, But the investment side of it.

Tim Winders: 01:00:58

One other cool thing I wanted to ask this, but I'm going to

Tim Winders: 01:01:01

request that y'all do some episodes on husbands and wives working together,

Tim Winders: 01:01:08

because as I'm sitting here thinking, and we just went over this history,

Tim Winders: 01:01:12

Y'all, miraculously were brought together while Michael was on his free

Tim Winders: 01:01:17

trial with what was, what became match.

Tim Winders: 01:01:20

com and you essentially are very similar to Gloria and I, y'all have really

Tim Winders: 01:01:23

been working together every sense.

Tim Winders: 01:01:27

Ever since that, so I think that would be a really cool discussion because a lot

Tim Winders: 01:01:31

of people want to know how to do that.

Tim Winders: 01:01:33

We don't have time to go into that here.

Tim Winders: 01:01:35

where do people need to find you, connect with you, either socials or websites or

Tim Winders: 01:01:41

anything, or if they're interested in the area and want to come look at property

Tim Winders: 01:01:45

or talk about it or anything, where can people find you just to stay up to

Tim Winders: 01:01:49

date on things that are, Michael and Debbie.

Tim Winders: 01:01:52

Mike & Debbie James: the easiest way probably is to go

Tim Winders: 01:01:54

to my website at debbiejames.

Tim Winders: 01:01:57

com and from there we'll have links to Facebook and Instagram, our phone numbers.

Tim Winders: 01:02:03

And so I think, I mean if you look us up on Facebook you'll certainly find us.

Tim Winders: 01:02:08

I think I'm debbiejames30a and Michael is It's a moving target.

Tim Winders: 01:02:15

Just go to debbiejames.

Tim Winders: 01:02:16

com.

Tim Winders: 01:02:18

Yeah, Michael, I mean, some of this after you've been

Tim Winders: 01:02:20

through the battles, it's like, I'm not that active on social.

Tim Winders: 01:02:24

Mike & Debbie James: Not exactly.

Tim Winders: 01:02:26

So debbiejames.

Tim Winders: 01:02:27

com.

Tim Winders: 01:02:28

Sure.

Tim Winders: 01:02:29

final question here, we are seek, go create those three words.

Tim Winders: 01:02:32

I don't even know if I prepped y'all for this.

Tim Winders: 01:02:34

So this could be a little bit of a curve ball, seek, go, or create those three

Tim Winders: 01:02:38

words, I'm going to ask each one of you to pick one of those words and why

Tim Winders: 01:02:43

that just means more resonates more.

Tim Winders: 01:02:45

So seek, go or create, and Debbie, I'm going to start with you because

Tim Winders: 01:02:50

I could see Michael's wheels turning.

Tim Winders: 01:02:53

So seek, go or create, which one do you choose and why?

Tim Winders: 01:02:55

And then Michael, you're next, and then I'll wrap up.

Tim Winders: 01:02:58

Up and we'll be finished.

Tim Winders: 01:03:01

Mike & Debbie James: Gosh, it's hard to choose just one.

Tim Winders: 01:03:03

I was hoping you'd start with Michael on that one.

Tim Winders: 01:03:05

I would have to say create, and I say that because we can create.

Tim Winders: 01:03:13

Just about anything we put our minds to.

Tim Winders: 01:03:15

I think, for me growing up, my mom would always tell me you can do anything

Tim Winders: 01:03:19

you want if you put your mind to it.

Tim Winders: 01:03:21

And so to create again, it's not, it's, I think easier said than done, but I think.

Tim Winders: 01:03:27

Because look, we live in a free country.

Tim Winders: 01:03:30

we're grateful to be able to live in the United States of America.

Tim Winders: 01:03:33

And we really can create and do anything we want to do.

Tim Winders: 01:03:39

For me, it's seek.

Tim Winders: 01:03:41

So I'm always thirsting for knowledge and seeking wisdom and constantly on the hunt.

Tim Winders: 01:03:47

So for me, seek is there as much as create as a second, a hard second.

Tim Winders: 01:03:52

For me, if I really, you didn't prep us for this.

Tim Winders: 01:03:56

I had to actually think about it.

Tim Winders: 01:03:57

I think I was originally going to go with create.

Tim Winders: 01:04:00

But in the end, my shtick is seek, so I would say seek.

Tim Winders: 01:04:06

Very good, man.

Tim Winders: 01:04:07

I'm so glad that we scheduled this.

Tim Winders: 01:04:09

I, we've known each other for some time.

Tim Winders: 01:04:11

We're on episode, I don't know, two 70 something now.

Tim Winders: 01:04:15

And I'm excited that, I was able to get my.

Tim Winders: 01:04:20

Good friends, people I've worked with, people that I've watched them

Tim Winders: 01:04:24

do so many cool things, go through some challenges also to have a

Tim Winders: 01:04:28

conversation here at SeekGoCreate.

Tim Winders: 01:04:31

What we're titling now, The Leadership Journey, and I think we've definitely been

Tim Winders: 01:04:34

able to discuss that while we're here.

Tim Winders: 01:04:36

I appreciate everyone listening in.

Tim Winders: 01:04:37

Go check out what Mike and Debbie are doing, and if you stay connected

Tim Winders: 01:04:42

here, you might hear updates on it.

Tim Winders: 01:04:43

I'm sure But, go check them out.

Tim Winders: 01:04:46

And if you've just been listening in and you want to support what we're

Tim Winders: 01:04:49

doing here, we welcome that support.

Tim Winders: 01:04:51

We welcome your financial support.

Tim Winders: 01:04:52

Go to seek, go create.

Tim Winders: 01:04:53

com forward slash support that seek, go create.

Tim Winders: 01:04:57

com forward slash support, and you could go give us money.

Tim Winders: 01:05:02

We'll take it.

Tim Winders: 01:05:03

And we appreciate all that.

Tim Winders: 01:05:04

Again, thanks for listening in.

Tim Winders: 01:05:05

We have new episodes every Monday on YouTube and all the podcast platforms.

Tim Winders: 01:05:10

Until next time, continue being all that you were created to be.