IAM941- Entrepreneur Helps Homeowners Sell Properties for Cash

Steve is a serial Entrepreneur who grew a tech company to over 300 employees which ended up listing on the Australian Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $315 Million. After leaving operational duties at that business he moved his family to New Orleans and started Home Buyer Louisiana which helps homeowners sell problem properties by buying them directly for cash.

• CEO Hack: Prioritisation and backlog using impact/effort prioritization matrix
• CEO Nugget: Build minimum viable products (MVPs)
• CEO Defined: Ensuring you are on the right path and looking for alternatives

Website: https://homebuyerlouisiana.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenkeighery/

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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[00:00:24.10] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:52.10] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Steve Steve Keighery of Homebuyer Louisiana. Steve, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:01:00.79] – Steve Keighery

Thanks. It's great to be here. I appreciate you inviting me on.

[00:01:03.50] – Gresham Harkless

Definitely appreciate you for for coming on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Steve so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Steve is a serial entrepreneur who grew a tech company to over three hundred employees, which ended up listing on the Australian Stock Exchange with a market capital capitalization of three three hundred and fifteen million. After leaving operational duties at the business, he moved his family to New Orleans and started Homebuyer Louisiana, which helps homeowners sell properties by buying them directly for cash. Steve, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:35.09] – Steve Keighery

For sure.

[00:01:36.20] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kinda kick everything off, I know I read a little bit in your bio, but I wanted to hear a little bit more on on how you guys started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story? We'll let you get started with your business.

[00:01:45.40] – Steve Keighery

Yeah. I mean, I think I can trace back where I started to, when I was at university, actually, back in, two thousand. Obviously from Australia, originally so in Sydney and my friend convinced me to go to a Robert Kiyosaki seminar and wasn't really into seminars at that point in time. But like just for whatever reason, I went and just literally, like, my mind opened, immensely. Just just saw something clicked, talking about the cash flow quadrant etcetera. So, you know, I then just started consuming all that information. I still had another, I think, year and a half left at university.

So it gave me a bit of time to think and read and think about what I wanna do. I'll study I'll study in, like, marketing and economics, and and the intention was to get a job. But, like, based on that seminar, I went, you know what? Like, I'm gonna start my own business. So I started my business straight out of university and emerged a couple of times. I used my marketing skills to consult with small businesses. Then I specialized in, like, helping natural therapists, market their business.

That led me to a business partner who had a natural therapist website and we sort of merged our businesses. And, also, there was a home improvement website, which was High Pages, which is the company that, we listed on the stock exchange, only a couple of months back. So then I sort of left operations there, about two and a half years ago growing to a size that had three hundred staff. It just it was great. I didn't need to be there. You know, to be honest, like, listing a company is probably I'm a good start-up person, but, like, it was ready for someone a bigger boy to come in and not take over.

And so I moved to New Orleans and I've always liked property. Also Robert Kiyosaki thing, he's like, buy properties, use your business to buy properties. So the market's really good over here. So I buy properties directly from homeowners. I flip them and turn them into rentals. And, yeah, that's really but really, what got me started was that Robert Kiyosaki's seminar just opened everything up to me.

[00:03:36.69] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. That's definitely exciting to hear how sometimes just getting an opportunity to take a step into something sometimes we don't always think that we will be doing. It kinda opens up the entire world and opportunities from there.

[00:03:48.09] – Steve Keighery

Absolutely.

[00:03:49.19] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. And so I know I did touch a little bit on how exactly you said the clients that you work with. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and what exactly that process looks like?

[00:03:57.80] – Steve Keighery

Yeah. So we, basically, deal with problem properties or problem situations. Right? So we're not, if someone has a really nice house they should be a super realtor, get all homeowners through it, and get top dollar. Right? We are at the end of the market where people have houses that, like, are damaged. You know? They need a lot of repairs. Maybe there are tenants in there, and it's really hard to show. So really those problem properties that are that are very hard to sell. So we help people by just really understanding their situation, and we purchase those properties directly from them for cash. And because it's cash, like, often if you're listing through a realtor, you know, someone might get finance.

And if your home is damaged and needs repairs, like, the banks normally won't lend limit, so that homeowner can't buy it or they don't wanna buy it because it's not ready. So we really help those people with those problem properties be able to sell them. We make it easy. They don't have to clean up after themselves. We just provide a really painless solution, and then we do that work. We're the ones that come in and fix it up, and that's our expertise. So we the clients don't have to pay realtor commissions, and they have a really easy transaction. We get a decent price so we can do our work and make a profit on a flip or or a rental.

[00:05:03.50] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. That makes sense. And it kinda sounds like you fill in, that gap and opportunity where, as you said sometimes people have the property and they can't do anything with it, and they don't know where it turned. But at the same time, you guys are able to kinda get that opportunity. So it sounds like a win-win opportunity potentially.

[00:05:18.30] – Steve Keighery

Absolutely. That's it's we have a our one of our main values is that we do not do a deal unless both people are, smiling at the closing table. And that's why the homeowners are happy.  we're not we don't wanna pay them under what they need to get. Like, we will not buy if they're not happy with what we're offering, we won't buy the property, you know. And likewise, we also need to be happy too, though. We need to so it needs to be a win-win scenario, and and that's definitely our goal.

[00:05:42.89] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. And definitely, you know, as you said so so well, like, a lot of times, if we're not the best fit, then maybe you can go a different way. But you're trying to look for, it sounds like, a very specific segment of the market and be able to kinda create those win-win opportunities. Absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And so what would you consider to be what I call your secret sauce? And this could be for yourself personally or your business or a combo of both. But what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:06:07.39] – Steve Keighery

So from a from a from a business point of view, I think it's really our our listening ability. We, very much listen, and that's the difference because we are the to create those win-win solutions that you mentioned, like, you actually need to know what's motivating the person, and everyone's different. Sometimes it's like they just need to sell fast. Sometimes it's like it's a burden of the property. Like when we listen, we know what they want and our goal is to give them what they want, but also structure in a way that works for us. So Right. The ability to listen. We have techniques and ways that we discuss and get information and determine what they really need, so we can give it to them.

I think on a personal level, like, my secret sauce I think, I just always move forward. I always never never get too down. Like, I don't let things bother me. I don't get too excited or I don't get too low regarding what's happening and just always push forward. Even if you're in a bad situation, you're like, what's my best move? Let's let's move there. And you just keep moving forward, keep growing, and you'll if you as long as you go in the right direction, you'll you'll always do well.

[00:07:09.30] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And that makes so much sense, especially, I always say this phrase that I heard from an internship I had where it's like control what you can control. And I think that if you have those actions and you understand that I can control that, and not get too high, like, because if you take get too high, then you're maybe, like, resting on your lowers a little bit. But if you get really low, then you don't wanna do anything. You try to find that middle ground and try to stay there as much as possible and just be consistent with your actions. That helps to increase your likelihood of not just being successful but sustaining it as well.

[00:07:37.30] – Steve Keighery

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

[00:07:38.80] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I love that listening skill part because, I think so many times, we don't realize opportunities are the ways by which we can make those win-win scenarios. But by listening and engaging and richly understanding what people are looking for, then it allows that opportunity for that to come to fruition.

[00:07:55.89] – Steve Keighery

Listening is an underrated skill. we work on it. We train on it. We just just actually listening is a really important skill that I think most people don't use.

[00:08:06.30] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I would definitely agree with that definitely. So it's good that you're able to do it. You and your team were able to do it. And so, I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:08:21.80] – Steve Keighery

So habit-wise I think the most important things I've used throughout my career are, prioritization and, backlog. So we use, the impact effort. Great. And if you know that, so you so, really, there's always so many things you can do. I think the problem any company has is there are actually too many opportunities.

[00:08:44.20] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Right.

[00:08:44.89] – Steve Keighery

There are too many. So what do you do first and what do you order? So what we always have done is when there's all this stuff going on, we step back and we just we ID. Just put ideas on Post-it notes, get them all out there, and then we put them, on a graph. And the graph is on one axis, you have, impact. Or you had an impact. So, like, what's the impact of this initiative? Then you have effort. Is it easy or hard? And they hadn't got a quadrant. Right? So it is high impact, low effort. You are doing that first. Right? Like, it doesn't take much effort. It's gonna have a high impact. You're gonna do it. Anything, anything that is high effort, low impact, hopefully, you're never gonna do that. That's stay away from that. Right?

Any, anything that is, high effort, high impact, that's that's more of a project. You wanna do all your quick wins first and then work on those projects. So, we would periodically do that exercise, then you just create a backlog. You have all those ideas and they've got all the prioritization. Quick wins first. We're not doing anything but that. Let's knock that out of the park. Next. And then after a little while, then you gotta and then when you ever get new ideas, you get, people chase on the objects. When new ideas come, I now have a place to put it. I'm like, okay. Can you put it where it is on the matrix? Put it in the backlog. And whenever it's the next thing, we'll do it. I'm not doing it until then.

[00:10:08.20] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. And I think especially, truly entrepreneurial people have a a tremendous amount of ideas and things that they wanna tackle. So I think it works within an organization, but also it works, you know, personally and in both ways really because you don't kind of ignore those opportunities. You don't, like, say, oh, you shouldn't have those kinds of ideas. You just put them in their proper place and you say, okay, we're running a marathon, so this is where it falls on the line. And then you start to realize what those quick wins are, those opportunities, and then start to scale things and prioritize them related to that.

[00:10:38.00] – Steve Keighery

Hunter, and it flows through to motivating your staff because I think there's nothing once you have a big team, like, it can be really demotivating when the team members have these really good ideas and they don't feel like they're being listened to. Because so, like, you can't always do it. Whereas having that process, you can appease them in the sense that that's a great idea. Like we're not doing it right now, but a backlog. So it was there and you can track, you can like, so it helps it help you collect ideas. You get more ideas, but your staff can see where things are at and they don't feel like they're not being heard. They can see that it's it's in the backlog to be done.

[00:11:08.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And it always feels like there's a tension between prioritization and being able to create ideas, but to be able to have that combination of both and that and that visual, and allows, as you said, to keep team camaraderie and I think energy towards creating ideas but also allows you to to make sure that you're singularly focused on that opportunity that's before you and not, you know, trying to do too many things at the same time.

[00:11:30.10] – Steve Keighery

Absolutely.

[00:11:31.29] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. And so I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:11:43.20] – Steve Keighery

So what I tell myself, I would learn to, like, build MVPs, you know, minimal viable products I'm a familiar term, but it sort of links to the it helps with the prioritization, but I think too many people have this really great idea. And it took me a while to learn this. Right? And I had to, I had to fuck it up because I'm speaking to myself, but I'll speak to listeners too. Like nine out of ten of your ideas suck. Face it. It's a harsh reality, but like I learned that about myself. You have these ideas, you think they're awesome. Right. But until you test it in the market often you're wrong, you know, you make wrong assumptions.

And I think the mistake a lot of people make is they think this idea is great and therefore they spend all this time planning, and it's I'm building this thing. And that building might take six months a year, and it's like and then they launch, and they're like, woah, like it's not working. Obviously, the MVP, the minimal viable product philosophy is the fastest, dirtiest way you can test an idea. You know, you might even throw up a landing page that doesn't work. Maybe there's a form and then maybe there's no back-end build, but just throw it up there. See people fill it out. Right? Because no one fills it out. Don't bother building the back end. What are you building it for? You know what I mean?

If someone's filling it out, well, now okay. That's working. Let's build on it. So, you know, I think that's the most important for any leader. Just learn to test the concepts, and see what the market thinks. Once you test it and you see it working, throw everything at it. But what I always found was these ten ideas, I thought all of them were great. Didn't work. Didn't work. Didn't work. Didn't work. And because I failed fast, I m v p that then I got to the one that worked way quicker. I spent less time and fewer resources. And when I got it, I'd follow through and and and make it happen. You know?

[00:13:27.20] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. I absolutely love that, and I think it's a great concept to kinda take in mind. And as we were kinda I love how it ties in right with what we were talking about as far as the hacking because I think we have ideas sometimes. Even within our team, we have ideas. So even giving that opportunity to kinda run with that but do it in a dirty quick way just to get the market feedback and then iterate from there. That allows you to really see if it has legs, if it has potential if it's something you want to put more resources into or something that you got to try, see if it worked. Maybe you have that information that will help you out with another project, but maybe that thing isn't necessarily it.

[00:13:30.39] – Steve Keighery

Hundred percent.

[00:13:37.20] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quotes, unquote CEOs on the show. So, Steve, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:14:14.39] – Steve Keighery

I might use an analogy, actually, someone gave it to me. I forget I forget who it was. It probably comes from somewhere, but so I don't know who to be to, but they gave me this analogy and, you know, at one time, what's been a leader? And to me at the time, it was like if you were in the jungle with your team, a leader gets a machete and he's out front slicing through creating a path for your team to follow. And that's what I thought a leader was. But what the person explained to me and I now see was that's actually not the job of the leader.

The leader's job is to climb the tree have a look at the terrain and say, Hey, we're in the wrong jungle guys. Get the hell out of here.  And that's what I think it means to be a leader. You need to be questioning what's happening, questioning the direction, always looking for alternatives, and just making sure you're on the right path.

[00:14:59.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And that's absolutely huge. And that's why I love how it ties into the hacks and nuggets that you mentioned as well too because I think so many times it becomes, I guess I don't know what to say if I know if I wanna say glamorize to be that one with the machete in the front leading the team and the charge. But if you're going to the completely wrong place, then where are you well, you might be leading what you are you are a good leader at the end of the day. Because you really wanna be able to take and look at it and see, like, we're in the wrong place. So the true leader will say, let's go back the other way.

[00:15:25.29] – Steve Keighery

Exactly.

[00:15:26.50] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Steve, truly appreciate that definition and that metaphor, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you could let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

[00:15:41.29] – Steve Keighery

Look, I just encourage all your listeners. I mean, I'm I'm awesome. You're listening to these podcasts and you're you're out there seeking information. Keep going. Information is everything. You know? Like, I I read and consumed, and that's what led me to where where I am now. So keep doing that. If anyone wants to connect with me, you can find me on LinkedIn. My name's Stephen Keighrer. It's, s t p h e n, and then k e I g h e r. Connect me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to help wherever I can and, I wish you all the best on your journey.

[00:16:09.89] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Steve. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. But definitely appreciate, you know, all the awesome work you did, you're doing, and of course, the time and the value that you provided today. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:23.39] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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