Oliver Seidler: 'C' Student To $1 Billion In Property
LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:
Oliver Seidler grew up hating school. He did just enough to get by and spent years waiting tables. Oliver then founded and grew PropertyForce, a company that does real estate wholesaling and hard money loans. This year they will complete over 1,000 transactions and 300-400 hard money loans. Oliver is also the author of "A Renegade's Rules: How a 'C' Student Created An 'A' Life, And How You Can, Too". He's inspiring entrepreneurial-minded people who society and schools may label as 'average' to create a successful life they love.
In this episode, hosted by Oliver Seidler, we discussed:
- Oliver is the CEO of Property Force, and he works on identifying properties.
- His company started last March 2006.
- He worked for a company for two years out of college doing wholesale and lending hard money.
- 2009-2010 Oliver’s company became stable and expanded their system throughout the state of Florida, having four offices in one in Miami, one in Tampa and one in Orlando.
- Oliver has 35 sales agents right now and all of them are 100% commission based.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and overview on Oliver’s career
01:16 When did Property Force started
05:08 Talking about Oliver’s educational background
07:40 Oliver’s unorthodox experiences help him in his career.
11:25 Oliver’s thought process in starting the company.
13:19 Focused of Oliver’s company.
15:21 Oliver’s marketing strategies.
19:57 Talking about the growth of the company.
23:38 How they can get hold Oliver and the company
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to the REL freedom podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together.
Mike Swenson
All right, welcome, everybody to the real freedom podcast. And I'm so excited today to have Oliver Seidler on here. And he's going to share his story about how a C student grew up and created an A life. So a little bit about Oliver. He is the CEO of PropertyForce. And he works on identifying properties. And we'll dig into this a little bit, and Florida, Georgia, Texas and other areas, probably like 1000 1000 properties that you guys are going to take on this year, and you do hard money lending, as well. And then he's also the author of a book a renegade rules how a C student created an A life and how you can too, so we want to dig deeper into his entrepreneurial journey. And, and go from there. So welcome, Oliver, we're so excited to have you if you just want to take a couple minutes and share a little bit deeper about yourself.
Oliver Seidler
Yeah, so, um, thanks for having me on. As far as you know, business wise goes and our company, the company was started in March of 2006, obviously, right before the crash, I worked for a company for two years out of college doing wholesale and lending hard money. So we started our company in 2006. And then, you know, obviously, the market crash shortly after made it through that. And then, you know, in 2009, and 10, we're able to stabilize, and then start building some systems expand on throughout the state of Florida, having four offices in one in Miami, when in doubt, one in Tampa one in Orlando, and you know, ran a pretty like traditional wholesale company. And then, in 2015, I had success with that from 2010 to 2015 2015, bought out my business partner at the time, consolidated the four offices into one office in South Florida, and kind of went to a virtual wholesale model. And, um, yeah, did that, and, you know, had a lot of ups and downs through that transition and building of that model, it was different, and there was no roadmap for it.
Oliver Seidler
Got our handle on that, you know, I would say over the last couple years, and now started to, you know, scale the company, and, yeah, scale it out, and with the eventual hope to go nationwide, and then, you know, in that I have now president and a full executive team, so it's allowed me to kind of be more of the face of the company strategical leader of the company, which gave me the time to now write that book. And get rules how a C student, you know, create an A life and focus on that and focus on, um, you know, kind of trying to help out other people who, you know, want to build cool, good lives, wholesale, and you know, building rentals and things like that can build that passive income that Rich Dad Poor Dad talks about, and being an advocate for that, and, you know, hopefully helping other people, whether they join our company, as a salesperson, or maybe just get a hold of the book, and, you know, help other people to kind of, you know, do that, with whatever path they choose.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and I love you know, and we can, let's, let's talk about the book a little bit, and really kind of your, your journey as a part of that book. Because as we were chatting about, you know, so you've got the, what the, what the world and what the education system teaches you, and then you've got kind of what actually happens in real life. And, you know, a lot of times you've got, you know, parents or guardians are mentors and all that, and it's saying, you know, get good grades, get a good job, so that you can live a stable lifestyle. And what we realized is, a lot of times, it's the people that, you know, get bored in school, or they get bored, you know, just in general, whether it's learning, they just want to do go do stuff instead of sitting in a classroom and learning stuff. And, you know, I had a roommate in college, that was the same way, you know, he wanted to focus on taking over his dad's company after graduation, and he, you know, did did fine in school, but at the same time, it's like, that really wasn't what his focus I was, was of the kind of the mental mindset of like, you know, get get good grades. So that's what I focused on.
Mike Swenson
And then really, that mindset kind of hindered me early in my career, because I was so focused on, you know, perfection and getting it done just right. And it was really more overdoing it perfect versus just doing more activities. And I think that that, you know, kind of handicapped me in the early stages. So, so talk a little bit about your journey and how you do found success, you know, through through your, you know, kind of not being what's the traditional, great a student.
Oliver Seidler
I mean, I think that, you know, as far as school goes, I wasn't that interested in most of the subjects in it. And my parents, you know, were from, you know, they're from England, and not so much into the traditional American, you know, go to college and get good grades. So they didn't really put a lot of pressure on me to get good grades. They cared that I was at least passing and you know, getting through that. So I didn't have a lot of pressure coming from home, which, I guess looking back on, it gave me more of a chance to explore, you know, not to school other things, because it wasn't like, I was like, Oh, well, if I get straight A's, you know, I'm sure they would have been happy, but it wasn't strict enforcement, or whatever it is. So I was able to kind of like, be a little more free flowing. And, yeah, I just really had different interests. And so I took a different path. In high school, I did graduate, but, you know, like with A, C, C minus grade point average. But I had done a lot of experiences in there.
Oliver Seidler
More travel than most people. And, you know, I think their travel part is where you can learn a lot. So when I went to college, which took me five and a half years, part of the reason it took me five and a half years was the lack of interest and a lot of debt. But also I traveled all over the world, probably the 2025 countries over that time period, which I think you get a different kind of learning and different kind of experience. So you know, I guess, looking back because I didn't pressure on me, I was, you know, I had I had options to learn in different ways besides just school. And yeah, I guess, to doing what I needed to do to get by and not strive for perfection in it. Yeah. Helped me, you know, later on getting into the professional world, because I didn't have to do everything perfectly. And you know, that yeah, definitely helped.
Mike Swenson
Yep. Yeah. And, you know, since I've been in real estate, so I've been in real estate for seven years, you know, I, I've, I've realized that, you know, action always beats perfection, you know, any any day of the week, and you'll find the most successful people in real estate, whether it's a realtor, whether it's investor, like, they're just churning up dust, you know, like, let's just go make stuff happen, make a lot of contacts have a lot of conversations, and, and then you've got that person that can come behind you and help organize that over time. But, but if you don't have the person pushing forward, you're just not going to grow fast enough.
Oliver Seidler
Yeah. And I think that's it when I talked about in college, you know, doing things like, you know, going to Europe for, you know, five or six weeks, and not really knowing totally where it was going and backpacking through and you know, leaving one college and going to the other college or, you know, doing different unorthodox things like that help, in that, you know, moving forward to professional career, because the first job I had was 100%. commission, I didn't even have a resume to get the job. I had no clue what it was going to entail. But I was like, I'll figure it out. And so I'm learned over my professional career that failing forward is kind of important. And I guess not having not striving for the perfection, you talked about in school allowed me to just say, Hey, you know what, I'll figure it out because of the unorthodox experiences I had, and you know, high school, college, even probably middle school and stuff like that. So it gave me the confidence in myself to kind of take, take a risk or a leap of faith or whatever you want to call it, and then just fail forward and figure it out. Because Yeah, at the end of the day, if you are aggressive, and you just move towards something, you know, most of the time you you'll clean up the dust left behind and figure it so for sure, that was helpful in that?
Mike Swenson
Well, I think another another mindset piece there, kind of a nugget of wisdom is is when you learn how to fail forward, you're not you're not afraid to fail. You know, I think there's a lot of people out there where, you know, you get your hand slapped, or you know, something happens and you get in your own head and, and you just have that fear of moving forward to the next thing because you don't want to upset somebody else upset yourself. But if you can handle rejection, and if you can learn to just keep moving in spite of the circumstances that are coming at you because there's always going to be challenges, but you just can't let your foot off the gas. That stuff is so valuable. And that's why, you know, folks, like yourself are very successful because you just move forward and it's like this thing happened to me. This thing happened to me, okay, that's fine. We'll just go figure out the next way to do it. Versus feeling like Well, I don't want to do it again and fail. Or you know, what, if I get upset, or if I upset I'm worried about upsetting somebody else? No, you just kind of keep moving forward and let that stuff roll off your back.
Oliver Seidler
Yeah, I think it's like the half glass empty or half glass full. I always look at the half glass full and You know, I feel like whatever you want to do, there's always an answer or an option to get there to whatever that outcome is. But as I did the book, and we were going through it, and, you know, figuring out how we're going to structure it, and what the story was, when, you know, it's always easier to look back on stuff and figure out what really happened. But I did realize, and it was the theme throughout the book was that everything in my life had been a risk, or the faith or whatever you want to call it, and then resilience to get through whatever that obstacle will be. Because there will always be an obstacle, and then at the same time, learn as much as I can going through that process. So I think that combination of having faith having the resilience to get through whatever, but at the same time not being super cocky, and learning from other people or books, or you know, whatever, there's a million pieces of information on everything out there. Now, that combination, work really well leap of faith resilience to get through whatever and then learning in the process.
Mike Swenson
So what, maybe let's, let's back up for a second because I want to talk about, you know, kind of what inspired you to write the book and, and, you know, kind of the why behind that. But let's maybe go back to when you first started your company? What was the thought process behind that, you know, wanting to do something on your own wanting to create your own path? Like, what was the reason for wanting to go about and start something yourself?
Oliver Seidler
Well, there's multiple reasons. I mean, I think I just wanted to be an entrepreneur from like a really young age, I never wanted to be like, you know, firefighter, or cop or whatever, you know, most people want to be a doctor, I just want to be an entrepreneur, partly because my family was just, you know, kind of entrepreneurs. And that was just always going to be the path for me, there was really no question, I wanted to make a lot of money, and I wanted to have my own business and do what I wanted to do. And then when I got out of college, I didn't, I had been a waiter and worked a lot of odd jobs in college, I didn't want to stay in that industry. And so real estate was added to this company that was 100% Commission, really kind of like running your own business within a business when you weren't percent commission like that, and got into that, and then was good at it and was good at this industry really figured it out quickly.
Oliver Seidler
And then the company I was working with the path there was to go into start an office in a new city, and you know, kind of have more of your own business within a business. But there just weren't a lot of things that weren't aboveboard, and ultimately, I knew that I would probably not feel fulfilled, running an office for them and want to have my own thing. So, you know, the opportunity came. And I had a friend from college, who was an accountant, also was pretty entrepreneurial, and the operations and financial side of the business and the opportunity was there. And we both left our, you know, jobs or, you know, companies and started around thing.
Mike Swenson
So let's let folks know that a little bit more about property force, and what you guys do, and, you know, for folks that that might be interested as well. But but but talk a little bit about what what is the company? And what are you guys focusing on?
Oliver Seidler
Yeah, I mean, so we pretty much right now are focused fully on wholesale and hard money loans wholesale, you know, broken down a little bit is you're essentially sourcing houses for investors. So the investors local to the different cities that we're in that are looking for houses to fix up and resell or fix up and rent, we have all of their information compiled and database. And then on the other side of the business, we have marketing through direct mail, pay per click TV, cold calling to find people who are looking to sell quickly, we see contracts and then as soon as we secure those contracts, and investors who are looking to fix them up and rent resell them, so we do that everything is virtual now we have technology data, things like that.
Oliver Seidler
We have around 35 sales agents right now all 100% commission a lot of them by their own houses and our investors themselves and we're scaling out we're always looking for new agents, new people who are looking you know, to kind of better their lives are hungry want to you know, kind of want something different than a normal job. So yeah, if anybody's listening in they're interested in that, you know, we're always looking for new you know, hungry aggressive people who are willing to learn coachable that want to, you know, take a different path than the normal nine to five.
Mike Swenson
So, how did you talking about lead gen, like you said, you know, you've got mailers you got pay per click that kind of stuff. wholesaling really has to be kind of a high volume touch point piece, and then you've got it Be able to convert, right? Because you got to you're casting a wide net, and you've got the people that raise their hand. But But not everybody that raises their hand. You know, they may want to sell, but they want to sell for the highest price. And they may just not be a fit for your business. So walk through kind of funneling, who's who's a fit, and how that kind of sales funnel works for you?
Oliver Seidler
Well, I mean, right away with the marketing, we say that we're buying distressed properties, you know, and, as is quick closing, we say to people, we're buying them at a discounted price. So that's going to eliminate a lot of people right there, but use the bull that'll call in something pissed off and want to be taken off of our mailing list. And we try to funnel those people out as quickly as possible. And then that point on, you know, we, that goes to a sales agent who's, you know, talking to the person understanding the situation, or with the house or the person. And while valuing out the property and seeing if we're in the same ballpark, as far as price goes, and, you know, if we are we move forward, if not, we politely tell them that we can't buy their house for the price that they want.
Oliver Seidler
And, you know, even consult them to take it to a realtor how to kind of sell it on a retail level, funnel people out that way. And then yeah, focus on the people that that do want to sell it for the price. So it starts with the marketing right away, letting people know that they're that these are distressed sales, and then, you know, training with the sales agents quick to identify which houses are in our buy box, which ones aren't, which are the right, you know, distress situation, whether it's the house or the person, and then focusing on those ones that are, you know, distressed and want to sell.
Mike Swenson
So then when you get a property and you get a contract on a property, I'm assuming you've got lists of investors that you're constantly working with? And then because you got to you got to find somebody to to then buy that contract. So how does that side work? for those folks that may not understand that?
Oliver Seidler
Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just getting contact with local investors, understanding their wants, their needs, having relationships with them, and then, you know, and then selling the properties to them, you know, matching up the best investor, the property that matches the criteria, what they're looking for. So understanding their needs, and having the relationship investors is definitely really important.
Mike Swenson
Well, then to the investors love it, because they don't have to put all those systems and, and, and kind of that grind in place to find those properties. Because now they can just come to you as one of maybe fewer sources of where they can find their properties off market, and they don't have to do all that work themselves. So they're excited to pay you part of that to be able to not have to do that themselves. Right?
Oliver Seidler
Yeah, of course. I mean, they, you know, some investors door knock, some investors, maybe send out some letters or things like that themselves. But again, they're, they're then competing with me and other wholesalers who don't really do that, well, are trying to also fix up the house, you know, get tenants for the house, resell the house, there's a lot of things on there, and that there have kind of focused on. So, you know, if I was an investor, I mean, I think I'd probably go dealing with wholesalers and other people to find the deals, and I'd rather pay that extra 10, grand or whatever it is. So I can focus on what I'm doing. And yeah, I think it's just a good channel for investors, certain investors won't deal with wholesalers and certain ones will for us, I think we have a really good reputation with investors, because we actually do leave room on the room on the deal for them to make money. wholesalers really strip it. And you know that all the deals, we control ourselves, and we have the contract directly with the seller, we don't sell anybody else's deals, or any kind of daisy chains or anything like that. So for investors, I think we're really solid source of deals because they're priced right. And there's no you know, BS involved in it.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Cuz a lot of wholesalers, like you, you don't know, are they just trying to pull a fast one on you? And yeah, get this property. So having a good reputable person that you can work with is really important, because you want to work with people that you know, like, and trust. And if a deal goes bad, well, then they're not going to want to come back to you. So, you know, having a great reputation,
Oliver Seidler
Reputation is everything. And we've been around for a long time. And, you know, we have a good reputation with investors, we don't screw them over. And we leave, you know, room in the deal. Because at the end of the day, you know, investors are looking at everything from $1 standpoint, what are they out? And what are they going to make a return on it? And so, you know, and obviously didn't want to deal with, you know, people who are, you know, jerking him around and stuff like that. So we don't do any of that. And I think it served as well. Long term. Well, everyone has for sure. So yeah,
Mike Swenson
yeah. So talk a little bit just numbers. I know, I'd shared, you know, about 1000 deals this year. I know you'd mentioned hard money loans as well. Talk to us a little bit about the growth of your company and how that's taken off here. And how you've been able to grow over the last few years.
Oliver Seidler
Yeah, I mean, I think we always had a really good model. And well, you know, it took us a long time to figure it out doing it the virtual way. Like I said before, there was no roadmap to it. So it took us a lot of time to build in that infrastructure, technology data, model work, there was a lot of adjustments on it. And then it finally kind of clicked fully into place about a year ago. And now, you know, since that point, we built a really good executive team, people with a lot of experience on scale. And growing a business, like my technical expertise in wholesale is really high. But as far as you know, structuring the business, the managerial aspects, it's not really like what I like to do. So we now kind of, you know, put together a really good team. And now we can focus on scale. So, yeah, this year, our goal, and I think, hopefully very obtainable is doing about 1000 houses and about 3000 hard money loans. And, you know, next year, we'll definitely be looking to do, you know, probably 1500, expand into some new geographic areas, and just, you know, really focus on our core, which is wholesale and hard money.
Mike Swenson
When I think to another key piece of growth is, you know, being around like minded people, and I know for you, you know, you, you have great people around you. And I know, you're part of the collective genius mastermind, as well, which is other, you know, high producing investors. So just talk about, for a second here, just kind of the relationships that you have of networking with other people that are further down the road or at the same spot as you that can really help change your mindset or grow your mindset to help you grow your company and kind of grow your vision of where you want to go in the future.
Oliver Seidler
Well, in collective genius, it's funny enough, it's actually the smaller wholesalers that have been more helpful. They're probably three or four companies in the country that are bigger than us, as far as strict, you know, wholesale, or doing as many wholesale deals. And there's obviously a lot to learn from them. But I think them it's more on an execution standpoint and structure. As far as what the thing, you know, I've taken away from collective genius is actually the smaller wholesalers who can pivot quicker and try out different forms of marketing and different tech tactics to kind of get to the sellers. And so, you know, for us, I feel very confident in our execution. But you know, if somebody says, Hey, you know, TV works, or cold calling works, and they've done that kind of legwork, and then we can just implement it in, that's kind of been more helpful. And then as far as, you know, just growing a business, and doesn't really matter what the business is, there's a lot of like similarities between different businesses, I think the experience of our executive team, with people who have scaled out much bigger businesses is obviously helpful.
Oliver Seidler
And then I've been a part of EO and YPO for a long time. And that's, you know, really about hiring people and working on the business besides the business. And, you know, I've seen speakers and learn from, you know, people really massive businesses, and, you know, whether it's wholesale, whether it's, you know, selling TVs, whether it's whatever it is, a lot of those principles have been applied to scaling the business and yeah,
Mike Swenson
yeah, and I know, it's, you know, when we talk about building financial freedom and, you know, kind of time freedom, it's, it's having great people, it's having great systems, and, you know, growing your mindset, and you've certainly done that, so congratulations to you on your success that you've had, and, and all the success you're gonna have in the future. So, for those folks that you know, want to learn more about you want to learn more about your company, your book, How can they get ahold of you?
Oliver Seidler
Honestly, the best way now is Instagram. We're very active on social media. So you can see a lot about me and a lot about the company. And you could message me through there. My Instagram handles all of our secular underscore, and our companies as propertyforce.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being on the show. I appreciate it. And best of luck to you in the future.
Oliver Seidler
Alright, thanks for having me.
Mike Swenson
Thank you.
