Bill Allen, a retired Navy Test Pilot and real estate professional, is the Owner of 7 Figure Flipping and host of the 7 Figure Flipping Podcast, where he leads one of the top house flipping and wholesaling mentoring groups in the world. Just a few years ago, he was stuck flipping 1 or 2 houses per year and doing all the work himself, but since then, he’s built a systematized business that runs without him. His wholesaling and flipping company Blackjack Real Estate does over 60 deals a year in today’s market.
Bill founded Blackjack Real Estate, LLC in 2015 with the mission of helping homeowners sell their houses for cash. The company started in Pensacola, FL and over time has expanded to Chattanooga and Nashville, TN as well as Tampa, FL. Based out of Nashville, TN, Bill and his team currently flip and wholesale over 60 deals per year. What began as a one-man operation has quickly become a team of 15+ who are experts in their fields and passionate about real estate and helping others.
Bill’s journey in real estate has built his knowledge and expertise in leadership and hiring, raising private money, self-directed IRAs and 401k’s as well as private and hard money lending. If you would like to get in touch with Bill, please visit:
www.7figureflipping.com
Facebook at www.facebook.com/billallenrei
Instagram @billallenrei and @7figureflipping
YouTube – @billallenrei and @7figureflipping
Our October Live event:
FLIP HACKING LIVEÂ on October 10-12, 2024
Register HERE:Â https://fliphackinglive.com/
In this episode:
- 7 Figure Flipping
- 7 Figure Flipping Alumni Program
- Importance of hiring the right people and finding a mentor
- The 500k Challenge
- Bill shares his personal story about his son
- The special wish experience granted by Make-A-Wish Foundation
- Flip Hacking Live Event
I Suvived Real Estate is on October 25, 2024
To purchase an individual ticket please Click HERE!
More info HERE
Episode:
Narrator  Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a show committed to bringing you insights from thought leaders shaping the real estate industry. In each episode, we’ll dive into conversations with industry experts and local insiders, all aimed at helping you thrive in an ever-changing real estate market. continuing the legacy that Bruce Norris created, sharing valuable knowledge, and empowering you on your real estate journey. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this is your go-to source for insider tips, market trends and success strategies. Here’s your host, Craig Evans.
Craig Evans  Hey, welcome back to part two with Bill Allen. Let’s get started. So when we’re looking at 7 Figure, would you say that 7 Figures a company, or do you see it more as a community?
Bill Allen  Yeah, definitely a community.So the kind of story with that goes. So I became, I was a student, right for a couple years. I was a paying member for two years. Then I became a coach for the program. So Justin asked me to coach, and then I became the COO. And when I became the COO of seven figure flipping for Justin, I hired this guy, Nate Johnson, in Blackjack real estate, to be my coo. So he was running the real estate company, and I went to run the education company with Justin and I put systems and process in place during hiring a sales team and things like that. And just helping him, I really helped with the fulfillment events, things like that, like putting a lot more structure. He always did all the front end marketing, running the podcast, all that stuff. And then in 2019, July 2019 I bought the company from him. So I didn’t start the company. I’m not the founder. I am the owner. I do run it. I just hired a CEO for the company now. And so I’m stepping out to do, we have this project with a TV show called kids who flip, coming up with Warner Brothers. And so I stepped out to go do, build the brand a little bit more, do the TV show. Really, I see myself as, like, the head recruiter. Right of the community, like, I have to go out there, and I have to put my values on display, like my integrity. Have these kind of conversations to say, like, come see what we’re doing inside of this community. But 100% I look at as a community, we actually just launched a really cool program, alumni program, because, you know, people don’t stay in these, like, communities forever, you know, they’re paying but, you know, between 15 and $25,000 a year. I don’t have any, like, expectation that somebody’s gonna do that for 30 years, you know. They’re gonna get what they need, and they’re gonna kind of grow, and they’re get to a point where they’re like, I don’t know, like, I’m giving way more than I feel like I’m getting from this community now. That happened to me. I wanted to become a coach. I wanted to, you know, get more involved and and so we just launched this Alumni Program. I mean, you mentioned Georgia, Georgia Tech, like, a big part of that, like me creating that was that exact, like, idea and concept, like, when you go to college and you graduate, in the case of Georgia, I mean, people don’t even graduate from there, and they just fight over the fact that they’re like, Georgia Bulldogs, you know, and so, they’re so intense about it that they will, like, get into a fight. Like they will actually punch somebody else who is a Georgia Tech fan, possibly, you know, and we’re easy to punch because we’re nerds, so like, but like, when you graduate from college, like, you wear the gear, look at this right here. Like I got a Georgia Tech sweatshirt on the floor of my office, like I wear it all the time, you know. And I’m 44. 21 years out.
Craig Evans  You guys just won your first football game in the last several years too.
Bill Allen  That’s right, that’s that was a big game. That’s the first time we beat Florida State in probably 80 years. But, and we had to go to Dublin to do it, but, you know, this is exactly what I’m talking about. And so we get to a point where you leave a community like that, and you’re like, man, I feel kind of like, cast away. I kind of feel like, like the leaders, they don’t talk to me anymore. You know, we used to be best friends, and now, because I’m not paying my bill, I don’t feel good anymore, and we just stopped talking about it like we kind of erase it from our story. And so we launched this alumni group, because I want people to, like, forever, wave the flag of I was there one time, like, this was a part of my journey. This is a community, and you’re not cast away from it, so people can graduate into the community now, so after four years inside the program, they can decide whether they want to stay an active member inside of the community, or they want to become alumni and join the alumni group. And I’m doing an alumni event in just two weeks here at my office, where we’re going to come back for two days to get together and just kind of brainstorm and mastermind together, because everybody’s doing different stuff. They started like software businesses and and gone into apartments and gone in all these different directions now, but they’re all high level business owners that can come back together and and almost like an alumni reunion, you know, like homecoming and so I that was important to me. So, yeah, it’s definitely a community. We really care about our people. Success is the number one thing we’re not the best known. Which is a big problem, and I hope to fix that with the TV show that we’re launching and a lot of other things that we do. But I definitely think we’ve built the best, I think the success rate, a lot of the things that we’ve tried to do for our people, we spend a lot of time and money on the product, a lot more than we do on the front end, advertising and marketing, which I know is not the best thing that we can do as a business, but it feels good to me.
Craig Evans What would you say is the biggest hurdle that you’ve had to overcome?
Bill Allen  Yeah, well, the first one like, I’d say there’s two big in every business. I feel like there’s something that kind of, if you ever study the hero’s journey, there’s like these, this, the hero of the story is you. So in your life, you’re listening to this podcast, there’s something that, there’s like, a big goal and a big dream that you have, and something that you’re like, it’s in the back of your head, it’s like, pulling you, there’s this tap on the shoulder. It’s like, go do this thing. And you’re like, No, no, no, I can’t. There’s just a refusal of the call. So that first step is, like, you refuse the call to adventure, which is what you get. And then, there you’re in the like, ordinary world, and in the hero’s journey, there’s a supernatural world that’s under the surface, like, the second you say yes to that thing and you get around you, like, break through. And you usually you have to find a guide, like you find a guide and a mentor on that journey that pulls you into the supernatural world. I feel like there’s two very distinct times in my life where that’s happened. Number one was Justin’s podcast. Like, that was me going, all right, like, I’m willing to accept the fact that I might not know everything about this, even though I flipped two houses. I mean, I flipped two houses, I thought I was a big deal. Like, I showed up thinking I was a big deal. I was the smallest business. I didn’t have a business. I mean, it was joke. Everybody else doing way more than me. And so I went into a supernatural world where all these people were like, they were like, gonna make a million dollars or multiple million dollars a year. I’d never been around this kind of people, but, but then there’s like, these tests and trials along the way. So the number one, I kind of mentioned it already was hiring someone like that was so scary for me that I was like, I don’t know if this is the right path. Like, I don’t know that this is right but, I mean, I was paying this guy 25 grand a year, and Andy told me, I basically turned into Daniel son, and he was Mr. Miyake. If he was like, paint the fence, I was like, no problem, Dude, where’s the paintbrush? If he was like, wax the floor. I was like, done. And so if he said, hire somebody, I just finally said, all right, I’m just going to do what he says. And I did that. I did that for a year, and it turned out really, really well for me, right? And so, so much, so many times now, in 2024 I feel like people are paying money, or they’re doing something with someone, but they’re only listening to, like, 50% of it, or 30% of it, or 80% of it, they’re like, watching a bunch of other YouTube videos or other podcasts and like, oh, but this person said this, and then I read this book, it’s like, we’re drowning in information and just starving for wisdom. So it’s like, find that one person that you connect with that has the life that you want and the ethos that you want, and just like, go all in on their strategy. And so I did that. It was very helpful. And hiring was the thing in that business. The second piece, and that was like the test, like that was my test and trial to come out with, which they say, in the hero’s journey, you return with the elixir, like you figure it out, like you’ve got it sorted out now, and you come back to the ordinary world with the solution to this problem, and you want to go share it with everyone else. And so the second piece was, when I bought seven figure flipping in 2019 you mentioned the podcast like I’m a behind the scenes guy, like, I’m the best number two guy on the planet. I think I’m not a forward, facing podcasting, speaking from stage, marketer. I’m just my brain works differently. I’m a closet introvert, like, you’ll see me an event for three days, and I will be talking to everyone, like, if you come to the event that in California, like I will be talking to you non stop, like, I’ll be on stage and I will go back to my room and I want to sleep for two days straight, but, like, I’ll turn myself inside out for that event and but it’s not natural. It’s not natural for who I am. And so I’d much rather be like a little bit like more in the dungeon with a spreadsheet, like looking at math problems and equations and figuring out how to maximize the profit ability of a company. And so, so what I had to do was I had to figure out how to speak from stage. I had to figure out how to communicate a message. I had to figure out how to sell I never wanted to sell things from stage. I never wanted to push my products. I didn’t want to do the podcast. I tried to give the podcast away when I bought the company to another guy who was doing podcasts. I was like, can you just do mine too? And he was like, Yeah, yours is a lot bigger than mine. I would definitely do that. And I was like, this is probably a bad idea and so, you know, I had to take that leap without knowing how it would feel or how I would do and just little by little, over time, you get better and better and better. And, I mean, a couple years ago, I got to speak in front of 5000 people at a conference. And now we’re getting ready to film a TV show for Warner Brothers, like it’s and I’m still insanely uncomfortable, like, I am not looking forward to next month. I kind of am, and I’m mostly not like, Oh, it’s this month. We start filming, like, two weeks. And there’s six weeks of filming where I travel around the country with six kids to film them flipping houses. They’re under 18, flipping houses like It will revolutionize the world if this show takes off, and these kids get celebrated, and other kids and families realize that there’s co viewing TV, there’s wholesome TV available. There are really incredible people doing incredible things out there. And if this show goes big, like, I am going to be even more uncomfortable because somebody’s going to stop me in the grocery store here locally and be like, Oh, I saw you on TV. Like, we’re like, okay, cool. Like, I’m just awkward in that moment. I don’t know what to say to them. Like, do I say, yeah, thanks for watching. Like, I so, like, this is another leap there, that everything that you want is on the other side of this uncomfort zone that you sit in. And so there’s been many moments in my life I think, I can’t just say there’s this one, but I mean, you name it, going to flight school, going to college, like, you know, showing up in Atlanta, not knowing anybody. You know, it’s that was 12 hours from my house in Maryland. Like, you know, all these things, there’s new experiences. And what’s cool about it is, if you start saying yes to these things, if you start taking these leaps, it gets easier, like, you know, you start building some calluses around them, it gets a lot easier to for the back end of it. So hopefully I answered your question.
Craig Evans  You did. You did. So there’s, there’s a couple things I wanted to ask you, and one I forgot to ask you, tell me about the 500k challenge.
Bill Allen  Oh yeah. So I think the one of the, let’s see. The reason why I was successful in real estate is because I figured out how to raise money. It’s like the, that’s the thing that you need the most. If you we were able to buy the houses the other people couldn’t. So the cool thing about being a wholesaler. The wholesaling problem that we mentioned earlier is like, Yeah, but they don’t have the money to buy the house. They can’t close on it. They can’t do all that stuff. It’s really kind of could be a scam, you know. And so we always had the ability to close on that properties, you know. And so I was able to raise money. Private Money has really helped me. And in 2020 the challenges were big. This guy, Pedro Adeo, good friend of mine now, but he was like, on, you know, on all over the internet, doing these challenges with all these people. And I started studying his stuff. And I was like, I gotta build a challenge. Like, I gotta figure this out. And this was four or five years ago, and I love talking about money. And so I was mapping out all these different challenges on my whiteboard. And then I was just, it was, like a download from God, almost like it was just like, boom, like money, like I could talk about this every day for months, and I just started writing out, like, every day, this is what I would talk about. And just like, mapped out this challenge. And I was like, Cool, I’m just gonna start filming this. Like, this will be my challenge. And so and Russell Brunson, I was at an event Funnel Hacking live, and he was like, go live for 30 days on your phone, and then you’ll find your voice like you’ll get better at public speaking. You’ll figure out who’s listening and what’s things to talk about. You’ll get more comfortable on camera. And this is right about the time I bought the company, and it was the end of 20. It was February 2020, and I was like, I gotta figure this out. So I did that. And then I was like, Dude, this is what we could do for the challenge. Like, we’ll have people go live on social media talking about their business, because nobody knows about their business, their real estate business. And so it kind of like, I added homework assignments and missions, put an aviation theme to it, and we launched a 500k challenge. So it’s, it’s, it’s a, like, a mission to go raise 500,000 or more of private money in 30 days. We’ve had people raise, I mean, I can’t do a lot of income claims legally, right? But millions of dollars, you know? And so, like, we’ve had, we had some guy messaged me, and he’s like, Dude, I just raised like, 6 million bucks. And so I was like, what? He’s like, Yeah, he was raising money for apartments. And I’ve got people that message me that you know, are raising money for like, venture capital type firms and stuff that are finding this somehow it’s not just only real estate. And so it’s just been cool to see that that thing kind of grow and come to light. And honestly, if I could pick one thing that I would talk about with people or do a workshop on it would be, it would be money. I love talking about money and raising money. And it’s, you know, there’s, there’s so many different things that you can do with it. And it really talks to everyone, the landlord, the wholesaler, the flipper, the Airbnb, short term rental, midterm rentals, apartment investors, everyone, developers at, you know, everybody needs to and, and it’s a, it’s a great benefit, because the people that are investing with you make a great return, like they want these opportunities that we have. There’s just so many, so much like mental junk that comes around raising money. People think they’re asking for money. You’re not asking for money like no way you’re providing a massive opportunity. If anything, they’re just going to thank you their money back once you use it.
Craig Evans  Exactly. I’ve got a private equity firm, and, you know, so many people, even though there’s a lot of people that work for me, that don’t want any part of the capital raise, and I love that portion of it, you know, because, you know, I love those conversations. But…
Bill Allen  Yeah, you know, everybody’s, what I’ve noticed is there are money people that, like, love talking about money, and there’s other people that makes them so uncomfortable, but, you know, they fit in the model somewhere else. Like, what I would say to everybody listening is, figure out where you fit, you know, in the real estate system and then strengthen your strengths and hire out your weaknesses. Yep, you know, that’s the biggest piece of advice that that I could give is you don’t have to be the best at everything. That’s what I didn’t understand from the beginning.
Craig Evans  Yep. Well, listen, I know we’re wrapping up on time. There’s a couple things I want to jump into. So let’s talk about some events. You know, we got our I Survived Real Estate event coming up. Very special charity that’s worked with us, and we’ve worked with them for years. We got Make-A-Wish. I know that that holds a special meaning for you and your family as well. Can you share a little bit with that with us?
Bill Allen  Yeah, my middle son, his name is James Allen. When James was, we were 20 weeks pregnant with James, we found out that he had some difficulties, so he’s got a chromosome anomaly. So for anybody that has a kid like this, or knows anything like it is a mosaic ring 13 chromosome anomaly. So it’ll mean nothing to 99.9% of you, but there’s somebody who’s like, oh my kid has this deletion or this. And so we’re in a very unique world with this chromosome anomaly, where he’s a special needs kid. If you met him, he looks totally normal, like you would, but he doesn’t really talk that much. He didn’t eat for three and a half years. We fed him through a feeding tube, a G Tube, an NG tube, and he’s had five open heart surgeries and six heart catheters right now, and four of those open heart surgeries were in the first six months he was alive. If he was born 20 years ago, he never would have made it at all and but that’s really it. Like heart defects, that’s it. With a lot of chromosome anomalies, there’s all kinds of other stuff. So, you know, Down syndrome is a very, it’s a chromosome anomaly for Down syndrome is and so there’s, there’s a lot of things that come with that. And we’ve been blessed that it was his heart surgery, and he’s just slower to talk. You can’t really understand most of what he says. His little brother can speak his language almost fluently. So if we don’t know what he’s saying, we’ll ask Lucas, Lucas, what is James saying? He’s like, Oh, he wants to go to the library. Like, okay, cool. And we understand probably 20 or 30% of what he says. So yeah, James has been just amazing. And we had a friend reach out to us after his fourth surgery, and was like, you guys should apply for Make-A-Wish, like they have some really cool opportunities for these kids. And I was like, I like, what would we do? Like, I feel like we would be a burden on them. Like I’m doing well financially. I can, you know, if we want to go to Disney, we can just go to Disney. You know, I don’t want to suck money out of the group, the charity, all the stuff, they were like, You don’t understand, like it’s, you cannot get this experience, and he’ll remember this forever. So we had a trip planned in 2021 for James. And so at the beginning of 2020 we got it all lined up. It was, I forget when it was scheduled. But sure enough, covid happened and it shut down all, Give Kids The World is a area down in Orlando that’s owned by Make-A-Wish, yep, and it’s a village. And then they have all this, you know, partnerships with universal and Disney and Sea World and Legoland, and so they do all these Make-A-Wish trips down there. And so we were so excited to go, because we’re big Disney people, and we love going to Disney World at that time specifically, and so it kind of just turned off, and we’re like, oh, man, that stinks. And so, so recently, about a year ago. So I think it was a year ago now. I think was September last year. We actually got to fulfill his Make-A-Wish trip, and it was the most special thing on the planet. Like when people say that you cannot do the things that you can do with a Make-A-Wish button, they’re right. Like we’ve done VIP tours at Disney and universal. We have done all kinds of stuff, but there were things that he got to do that I’ve never seen in my life. Like one example, my and my wife and I were just bawling, like crying so hard. We were at Chef Mickey’s, which we love, this restaurant at the contemporary hotel, the hotel where the, you know, monorail goes through.
Craig Evans  Oh yeah.
Bill Allen  And Minnie Mouse, like is going around to all of the kids, and we he loves Minnie Mouse like he, my son, loves all the princesses. He doesn’t really care about the princess or Mickey Mouse, any other guy. He loves all the princesses like loves them. And Minnie Mouse comes around and she’s like, talking to all the kids and giving hugs. And then she just saw James and walked up to him and gave him like it was, like a five minute hug, like an uncomfortable amount of time with him. And then spent, and my wife, we just both started crying, like it was just like she It was like she knew that this boy needed her, and she the whole world shut down. It was gone. It was just the two of them. It was the most incredible thing. They gave my wife a hug. She’s crying. I start crying. I was like, this is just so awesome. So it was, it was just a we get him. He loves the characters front of the line. It. It was an experience like we’ll never forget so and they, like, don’t even worry about, like, the cost is, like, a small thing compared to what happens. And this is just one person’s, you know, experience. Imagine this over hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of people that get to experience this because we were in the village having lunch with these kids, and you don’t know what the any of these kids are going through. You don’t know if they’re gonna live, you know, to see their next birthday and but the smile on their face when they’re eating 24/7, ice cream at the village is big, and the people that are there volunteering, it was just, I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it. Imagine, like Disney, Disney combined with Disney part two, like the hospitality, I can’t even describe it. So I am a massive supporter. It’s incredible what they do. And we can’t go on trips like that, and these families can’t go on trips like that without the donations of others and the kind of event that you guys are putting on. So we’ve personally experienced this, and I can tell you right now, Make-A-Wish is one of the best organizations that I’ve ever seen in my life.
Craig Evans  Well, we’re very, very excited. We’re making big pushes to to grow this event every year. You know, I’m pushing our team to have big goals and big visions for, what can we do as a community, for, for, you know, organizations like make a wish so and honestly, you know, until our team had told me about you and your family being a part of this, I didn’t realize how big of an how big of an impact this event would have on you and you would have on this event, because of the personal aspect that it comes to for you guys. So, so that’s really cool. I appreciate you sharing that story, because sometimes people don’t want to talk about their their personal experiences. It’s their private stuff. So I’m grateful for you sharing that. So listen before we go. I know you’ve got an event coming up as well. Flip Hacking live. I know Bruce spoke at your event in San Diego. I think it was last year.
Bill Allen  Yeah.
Craig Evans  So tell me about it this year. When is it? What’s different this year? How can our audience participate? Walk ne through that process?
Bill Allen  It’s October 10, 11th and 12th. So it’s just like a couple weeks before your guys event. It is it’s virtual. So this year is a little bit different. It’s a virtual experience. We did this in 2020 as well. It’s incredible. We can put people in breakout sessions. We can do, like, one on one with folks. We can do all kinds of really cool things. And it’s not like somebody just talking at you. It really is an immersive experience. I’m in a studio. There’s, you know, screens. I can see everybody’s face. You can throw up like emojis on the back wall that you can see going behind me. It’s really cool stuff that we get to do. We’re we’re actually, like, asking questions, filling out like an analysis of each investor, and I’m teaching people how to build, like a net worth, like not just flipping and wholesaling, but how to take the what I know and flipping and wholesaling and what I’ve done on the back end, like having a really hefty net worth and be able to to handle a market shift and change because of all the assets that I own. How do you take that knowledge and then turn it into assets? Because I think either people are flipping and they’re just like, the heck or wholesaling or doing something active, and they just are. They’re kind of on a hamster wheel. They just created another job for themselves. It just happens to be in real estate, and then you got other people that are just buying and holding all the time and don’t have enough active income to support that. I’ve been in both seats, and now I’m in this like hybrid seat, where I’m doing both. Usually I’m flipping a couple houses and keeping one, or flipping a couple houses and putting my money into an apartment. And so we’re teaching more of a something we’ve never taught before, which is how to how to build your net worth. We’re calling it the 10k way. So how do you get $10,000 a month in passive income inside of a few years? And so building out the map for that. So that’s what we’re doing. It’s different because it’s virtual, so you can attend from anywhere. You don’t have to pay for a flight at a hotel, all that stuff. And it’s only, I think it’s 100 bucks, like $97 a ticket, so they can go to flip hacking live.com, so flippackinglive.com, and check it out.
Craig Evans  Awesome. Well, Bill man, listen, I have sucked up a lot of your time, and I am so grateful for being on with us. Really look forward to having you with us in October, for I survived real estate, having you as one of the panelists there, and we’re working on having a great, great lineup. But again, I’m very grateful that you said yes and committed your time, so.
Bill Allen Â
Absolutely I’m a little bit nervous sitting next to Bruce, or around Bruce, or on the same stage as Bruce, but yeah, it’s gonna be a lot of fun. And I’m honored, like legitimately honored. I’ve been observing your community and The Norris Group from the distance for many, many years, and to be asked to do something like this is really special, and to have my wife in the audience too will be great, especially with the charity that we’re supporting this year. I don’t think it’s by chance that this was the year that I’m coming so.
Craig Evans Â
Well. And listen, you’re saying you’re nervous sitting next to Bruce. Remember, I’ve always been the guy on the panel. Now I got to be the one leading that panel and questioning Bruce. Oh, man. Again. Bill, listen, I really appreciate your time. I can’t wait to see you guys in October. Listen to all of our audience. So thankful for you being on today. Listening to Bill, we’ve got a lot of other great people coming up as we’re heading into I Survive Real state. Really look forward to seeing you guys there at the event, and we’ll talk to everybody soon. Thanks so much. Have a great day, Bill, thank you. You’re
Bill Allen  You’re welcome. See you.
Narrator  For more information on hard money loans, trust deed investing, and upcoming events with The Norris group. Check out thenorrisgroup.com. For more information on passive investing through the DBL Capital Real Estate Investment Fund, please visit dblapital.com.
Joey Romero  The Norris group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE license 01219911. Florida mortgage lender license 1577 and NMLS license 1623669. For more information on hard money lending go to thenorrisgroup.com and click the hard money tab.