Pickup The Phone

Chad Davis became a Green Beret at 20 and did four deployments to Afghanistan and Pakistan. After the Army he built a trucking company, then invented a patented cargo net from something his team rigged in Afghanistan. A Fortune 50 client went from about $1,200 in damage per shipment to under $20, roughly $200,000 a month saved. Then he bought into a title company and found out his partner had been...

Conor Watkins was doing $50K months at 19. He closed 30 apartment leases a month (record: 34), grew a page to 140,000 followers, became a broker at 23 and recruited 60 agents in his first 12 months. His lesson: it was never a lead problem. It was talent and systems. Today he still pulls about 1,000 leads a month, organic, with zero ad spend, runs commercial lending and JV deals, and just had his b...

Curtis Warden joins Josue Llanas for an unfiltered conversation about real estate, loyalty, public disagreements and learning to respond differently. He shares his account of the James Toler relationship, his own investment experience discussed in the Jason Bible segment, and the limits of what he learned through others. Josue asks for context and pushes the conversation toward proof, responsibili...

Introduced as having grown Milestone Windows from one truck to over $3 million in revenue, Gene Miles explains the focus, relationships and installation standards behind the business. He started at 46 with two sample windows and committed to one trade. The conversation gets practical about choosing a niche, keeping overhead lean, earning referrals and delivering a clean, careful installation in an...

Brian Buhr built and sold businesses in medical-device sales before turning his attention to real estate and private lending. He joins Josue Llanas to discuss the difference between a successful exit and getting your time back, then shares the details he wants to understand before considering a loan. Brian talks through borrower liquidity, a costly property-survey problem and the bank payoff he ma...

6,300+ apartment units owned and operated. 21 successful exits. Nearly three decades in Houston multifamily. Trey Stone is still buying in a market that has sidelined many syndicators. What has kept him in the game? In this episode of Pick Up The Phone Podcast, Josue Llanas sits down with the CEO of Track Record Assets to talk about the deals he passed on, the market cycles he survived, and the nu...

What does it actually take to build a real estate operation capable of doing 130–150 deals a year? In this episode of Pick Up The Phone Podcast , Josue Llanos sits down with real estate investor and operator Andrew Jobe to unpack the systems, numbers, leadership principles, and investment discipline behind a high-volume real estate business. Andrew shares how he and his business partner went from...

Denied a Mortgage? Watch This Before You Give Up | Josue Reyes What happens when the bank tells you that you don't qualify for a mortgage? According to mortgage loan originator Josue Reyes , that doesn't necessarily mean your path to homeownership is over. In this episode of the Pick Up the Phone Podcast , Josue breaks down alternative mortgage options for buyers who may struggle to qualify throug...

What does it take to build a business that lasts through multiple real estate cycles? In this episode of Pick Up The Phone Podcast , Josue Llanas sits down with David Williams , Founder of Red Door Funding , to discuss the journey from electrician to building one of Houston's most respected hard money lending companies. With nearly 20 years in business , almost 5,000 loans funded , and over $900 m...

Alex Ottewell built a real estate business that completed more than 1,000 transactions and made him a millionaire by the age of 24. Most entrepreneurs would have stayed the course—but Alex chose a different path. In this episode of the Pick Up The Phone Podcast , Alex shares why he walked away from a thriving real estate career to build an oil & gas investment company from the ground up. He br...

What if the biggest opportunity in real estate isn't finding more leads—but building better relationships? In this episode of the Pick Up The Phone Podcast, host Josue Llanas sits down with Ben Deal to discuss why so many real estate agents overlook one of the most profitable segments of the industry. Ben shares how working with real estate investors can create a predictable stream of repeat busin...

ob Wiseman joins Josue Llanas on the Pick Up The Phone Podcast to share how surviving the 2008 housing crash transformed the way he approached real estate and business. What began as a career in home building evolved into a vertically integrated operation that includes lending and title services, allowing him to create more value from every transaction. In this conversation, Rob discusses identify...

Can artificial intelligence actually replace your front desk, run your legal compliance, and fuel your real estate agents for less than the cost of a cup of coffee? ☕🤖 In this episode of the Pick Up the Phone Podcast , host Josue Llanas sits down with vertical entrepreneur and broker Alan Hernandez of White Picket Realty. Alan pulls back the curtain on how he is pioneering a fully AI-operated re...

Join Josue Llanas on the Pick Up The Phone Podcast as he sits down with Dan Axelrod, an economist turned real estate developer, to discuss his unique strategy for building wealth: increasing property density. In this episode, you'll discover: Dan's Journey: From studying economics in Vegas to building single and multi-family units in Houston. The Economist's Edge: Why looking at real estate throug...

How do you scale a real estate investing business from a few inconsistent flips to a highly predictable, multi-deal monthly operation? In this episode of the Pick Up The Phone Podcast , host Josue Llanas sits down with real estate entrepreneur, founder, and innovator Chris Bounds . Together, they break down the exact operational frameworks, marketing channels, and capital-raising structures requir...

In this episode of Pick Up The Phone Podcast, Josue Llanas sits down with Charles Patawaran, entrepreneur, commercial real estate operator, developer, and CCIM designee. Charles shares his journey from building businesses in the healthcare industry to becoming a respected figure in commercial real estate. The conversation dives into business acquisitions, EBITDA valuations, SBA financing, capital...

Welcome to another powerhouse episode of the Pick Up The Phone Podcast with your host, Josue Llanas! In this episode, we are joined by Carlos Pereira, a construction entrepreneur who immigrated from Cuba to Miami at age 10 and went on to build a massive $15 million real estate development empire in just two years. Carlos breaks down his entire journey—from navigating government rehab contracts at...

Are you ready to scale your real estate business and protect your portfolio from modern industry shifts? In this episode of the Pick Up The Phone Podcast , host Josue Llanas sits down with real estate veteran Lee West . Lee reveals how he successfully broke free from the "golden handcuffs" of a stable Big Four accounting career to build a multi-million dollar wholesaling operation, closing over 30...

What does it take to walk away from a traditional family business and build a real estate company generating $4 million a year? In this episode of the Pick Up The Phone Podcast, Josue Llanas sits down with Sean Zavary, founder of Greenlight Offer, to break down how he built one of Houston’s most recognized wholesaling operations. From surviving the post-Hurricane Harvey market to scaling a 16-pers...

HIS AI REPLACED 60 COLD CALLERS | How Josh Fard is Engineering the Future of Loans | Pick Up The Phone Podcast HIS AI REPLACED 60 COLD CALLERS | How Josh Fardwatching the industry change — TCPA, tighter compliance, pricier leads, and finally AI. He didn't just adapt. He built encrypted CRM woFardows, a voice AI for follow-up, and a loan matching dashboard that compares one borrower across 10 lende...

The Man Who Changed Houston Real Estate Forever | The Duplex King Larry Reyes | Pick Up The Phone Podcast Before Larry Reyes came along, nobody in Houston had ever built a true stacked duplex — one full unit downstairs, one full unit upstairs — on a 2,500 square foot lot. The city didn't have plans for it. Engineers said it couldn't be done. His own lenders doubted it. But Larry spent nine months...

From Fitness Trainer to 450+ Wholesale Deals | How Blake Hawkins Built a Wholesaling Machine & Invested $1.5M in Lead Generation | Pick Up The Phone Podcast The unfiltered journey of Blake Hawkins — from 10 years as a personal trainer at 24 Hour Fitness, to selling cars at a Nissan dealership, to quitting on a gut feeling in March 2018 and building one of Houston's most battle-tested wholesali...

From Engineer to $40M Developer: How Jeff Sturman Built 100+ Homes | Pick Up The Phone Podcast The unfiltered journey of Jeff Sturman — from mechanical engineering at Schlumberger, living as an expat in Spain, and house-hacking a foreclosed pool home in Missouri City, to building an eight-figure real estate business with $13.6M in annual revenue, 100+ homes developed, and $40M currently in develop...

From Wholesaling 300 Deals to Lending $50M+ | How Joey Davis Built Spark Lending & GetHardMoney.com | Pick Up The Phone Podcast The unfiltered journey of Joey Davis — from a missionary family moving across Russia, Colombia, and the UK, to wholesaling over 300 properties in Houston, lending out $50 million, and building two companies that are changing how real estate investors access capital....

From Oil & Gas to $100M in Real Estate Lending: How Andrew Faught Became Houston's #1 DSCR Lender | Pick Up The Phone Podcast The unfiltered journey of Andrew Faught — from 8 years grinding in oil & gas, living as an expat in South Korea, and getting fired from his corporate job, to becoming one of the top real estate lenders in the country with over $100 million in closed volume in Housto...