Creating Side Hustle Income Through Rehabs And Wholesale With Tiffany High
We’re all looking for ways to earn a few extra bucks with a side hustle, and there are hundreds of strategies to make some money out there. Someone who’s been successful at creating a side hustle income through rehabs and wholesale is Tiffany High. Tiffany is a self-made real estate entrepreneur based in Columbus, Ohio. Today, she joins Stefanie Peters to share how solopreneurs can make that extra income along with their corporate jobs and how people who want to make their side hustle a full-time thing do so successfully and scale their business.
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Creating Side Hustle Income Through Rehabs And Wholesale With Tiffany High
I am lit up to have one of my friends who has been such an inspiration to me in business and life. She is what I want to be when I grow up. Tiffany High is a self-made real estate entrepreneur based in Columbus, Ohio. As a Founder of Heels Homes, she has developed a track record of success, closing over 160 wholesale and rehab deals in 2019. Tiffany's real estate results go beyond the wholesale and rehab industry. She is building an active rental portfolio, which I'm obsessed with because many investors, they fix and flip and then sell. She has a strong rental portfolio while coaching some of the top aspiring real estate entrepreneurs on the systems that have made her successful.
She knows how to leverage her time. As we were talking before, she was telling me she keeps herself in two priorities and the rest is outsourced. We're going to dive into that. She is married to the love of her life and the COO of the company, Josh High. They've built an industry standard and systematic approach that allows entrepreneurs to scale their business by delegating tasks, lowering lead costs and overhead, and while increasing bottom line profits. Tiffany's focus is on helping entrepreneurs scale their business with a lean team and proven follow-up processes. Her approach allows entrepreneurs to take back control of their business by focusing on income-producing tasks. Amen to that.
Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
What I got inspired by and what pricked my interest in inviting you on the show and thank you for your time because I know you're a crazy busy, pregnant mama. That's an entrepreneur. I want to bring us back to where you started. I remember reading a post where you were saying, “I am working a corporate job and I want out. I want to have this side hustle become my full-time income.” Let's talk about it. Let's go back there.
Back in 2017, my seventeen-year-old brother at the time was diagnosed with cancer and I had gotten promoted. I was making over six figures. I was leading an organization. I was on a path to be a very high up corporate leader. I didn't necessarily hate my job. I wasn't one of those people that hated what they did and wanted to get away from it for that reason. The more that you move up in corporate life, the more you travel for the most part, at least in my field. I was on a plane from Monday to Friday or a lot of times. I stay at the weekend and I loved it then because I was in my younger twenties. I got to see every major city in the country. Meet all these people everywhere. When my brother got diagnosed, he actually had to stay in Nationwide Children's Hospital for a year straight. My parents both own their own companies and they never left his side for the full year. They didn't leave Ronald McDonald in the hospital.
Everything was brought to them for a year. From there it was an eyeopener to me at that time of, “I want to have a family. I'm never going to be able to do that.” If something like that happened, if I stayed where I'm at. During the last five years leading up to that in my corporate space, I said, “I want to make more money on top of this.” I started buying rental properties and I was fortunate. I had set a goal when I was 25 to own $1 million in rentals. By the time I was 30 and I was 29 at the time, my brother got diagnosed, I took the plunge. We had bought $1 million in rentals by the time I was 30. I wasn't sure what was next at that point. I knew I’ve got to start a family. At some point, I’ve got to find the love of my life. I’ve got to build something while doing it. I just woke up one day, called my boss into work and said, “If I fail, is the door open? Can I come back?” I wasn't leaving on bad terms. I did fail for six months, that was great but that's how it all got started. That's where I took the leap. I did fail for six months. I was inconsistent.
I would send out some direct mail. It wouldn't get a deal. I would be scared to send out another round. I was honestly afraid to answer the phone when someone did call. I'd make them go to voicemail. Looking back now, those are like $30,000 calls, what am I doing? I can't imagine how much money I missed out on. Fortunately, my husband was partnering with me at the time, but he was still working full-time at a construction company. He kept the confidence day in and day out and knew that we were going to make it. If it wasn't for him, I don't know if I would have kept going but we did thankfully. The year after that, we got our first rehab six months in and then we did about 40 rehabs in the next twelve months.
Side Hustle Income: It only takes one deal to gain the confidence and get the signature.
Some people are having a hard time doing three per year versus 40. Tell me about your experience when you dove in with both feet. How are you dealing with that?
After we got our first couple of deals, I started gaining confidence. It only takes one deal to gain confidence and get the signature. I realized that back then I was in a program that only spoke about direct mail. I have never mastered direct mail. It's not my forte. I've never been able to systemize direct mail. I do every marketing campaign out there except for direct mail. What I did was I said, “I am good at talking to sellers. I am confident I do add value to them. How do I get in front of them in another way?” From there, I door knocked ten hours a day. What I did was, I would take the foreclosure list and I would door knock the foreclosure list. I got eight deals one month that way. Everyone starts somewhere.
From there, I added another marketing campaign and then I went through failures trying to hire VAs and all the ups and downs of that. I've gone through a lawsuit with contractors that year. The first year was all of these learning lessons. It sounds glorious that we did almost 40 rehabs and I think we did $1 million in revenue. I’m sure as heck did not net very much for that. I realized, “Forty sounds glamorous, but I'm here for the big show. How do I get there?” I had happened to go to an event and learned a little bit more about wholesaling. I'm very good at systemizing and on the marketing front and it was more scalable for me. I just took my unique ability and started systemizing the business. I end up doing somewhere in the 160 marks between wholesales and rehabs in 2019 and we've taken off ever since.
It sounds like a straight shot to the top, but I'm sure you've had it.
There are lots of roller coasters.
One of the things that also piqued my interest on Facebook is you had said, you got to the point where you “grossed a lot of money” but you didn't net much. You said. “I've been working my guts out, but where do we go from here?” We were talking about your virtual training group as that obviously you teach all the systems of what you wish you would have known back then, so you wouldn't have had to go through that sweat, blood, and tears and fear feeling, “My life is falling apart.” Tell me about your experience with that.
It was halfway through 2019, we were grossing over six figures a month. We had a massive team. We had 9 or 10 salespeople. I had mentors or gurus in the industry that were a higher scale that says, “Go to all these cities, do all these things, spend all this money.” I’m like, “They're my mentor.” It was the biggest mistake I ever made and we hired way too fast. We weren't hiring based on core values. We didn't know how to lead people, which is a whole different animal. We can be good at sales ourselves but leading an organization is a whole other topic. I had the sales floor and we had hired some experienced salespeople. They came in with this mentality of like, “They know everything and we don't.” We were providing them sufficient leads when they got in, etc. We were still doing tons of training, but we weren't getting results. What ended up happening and anyone that's reading that runs a sales floor will know this.
We still do to this day like, it's the leads, “We need more leads.” It's this, it's that. I had anxiety and I was like, “Maybe it's that I would just triple my budget and marketing, give them three times as many leads,” but then we wouldn't get the results. My overhead was skyrocketing, but my revenue or my net profits weren't matching. I couldn't do it anymore. I made some calls to people like Mark Evans and the industry people have done well for several years. They were like, “Call everyone off tomorrow and let go of everyone that's doing that.” I was like, “That's scary as hell. What if I run into legal problems?”
We did it. It was the best thing we ever did because we woke up saying, “How do we never go through this again?” The answers are systems and all your processes. If you have the right systems in place and marketing and then putting the right people in the right seats, you don't need as big of a team. You're going to help your people make more money per individual than trying to hire a bunch of heads to make up for revenue. I sole focus. I cut out everything else going on in life and said, “I'm sole focusing until I master this craft.” It’s fully mastered at this point. We've partnered with an amazing virtual assistant team overseas. Everything that I used to do is outsourced. You had mentioned before, we're only focused on income-producing tasks.
There are many nuggets in there. One of them is you hired yourself a mentor that taught you to do what he was doing. A lot of times we think, “This looks like an awesome person that I want to learn from.” They are out of control and they don't have the exact results of what you're looking. Success leaves clues. It's important to pick the right mentor. Then also what I heard you say is, “I just got done reading the book, Rocket Fuel of making sure that you have a visionary. You have an integrator.” Someone that works synergistically with you the way that your brain works. My brain doesn't naturally think in systems and processes and systematic, obviously yours does. What is your best recommendation for someone who is a visionary? They don’t think the way that you think, because you said, “That's just the way that my brain default thinks.”
One thing is not that I'm not a process-oriented person. It's about the fact that I found the right project manager. I call him my chief technology officer. He's overseas and he is much smarter than me. He's a developer, coder, strategist, all that. I can go to him and draw a picture on the board and say, “I want this lead to come in here. I want it to go to do this. When someone presses it, I want to do that.” I don't actually know how to do this stuff. I just know how to communicate it and share that vision accordingly to the right people who can then manage and implement it. He then manages all of our virtual assistants, developers. I, to this day, have no idea how many are working for us. I just cut the check and get charged by the hour. It’s his responsibility. He has clear cut expectations. We have reported that we communicate on a daily basis. We're meeting weekly about optimizing different systems and setting priorities.
That doesn't mean that I'm the one implementing it. I'm good at saying, “This is how we're going to get to $500,000 or a $100,000 and these are the things that need to be put in place in order to get there.” Without those right people, no vision can be accomplished. It was about finding the right systems and process-oriented VA company when it comes to real estate and having the right developers. If you go out and hire $2 or $3 an hour VA, you should get what you pay for. I don't believe in that. That first year when I only did 40 rehabs. I was hiring $3 an hour VAs and screwing up everything that I was doing. I was like anyone else that starts waking up at 6:00 AM, I'm trying to pull lists. I'm trying to figure out how you clean it. Stack it, you skip it, where it goes, how you upload things. I don't know how to do it. It was horrible. If you're spending your time doing those things, you aren't spending any of your time making money.
I was mistaken. You are more of the visionary and you found the integrator to put that together. Is that what you're saying?
I have Josh, my husband, who's a COO from a people internally purposes. He's the integrator internally. I have someone overseas, who's Mike, more of my technology integrator. We share the vision with him. He's constantly every week developing and optimizing. He manages outbound with all my operational VAs. Your $8 to $10 an hour tasks, launching marketing, tracking it, filling in KPIs, sending me reports, things like that. He's managing that to make sure it all works. I tell him what I want and when I need it.
How did you run across him?
I was referred to him by a friend thankfully. That stuff didn't happen overnight. It took months to grow that type of relationship with him. We have 200 process documents. It did not happen overnight to build that stuff. We built this friendship and relationship over time. He changed my life and my business and I helped him grow. I owe it to him for everything that he's done for our company. He has 40 to 50 project managers and VAs and developers underneath him at his company as well.
I love win-win situations like that. When you're adding massive value, they're adding massive value. That's truly where the magic happens and taking a step back because that sounds phenomenal. I'm sure there's an audience on the other side saying, “That sounds amazing. I could never do that.” The average person probably cannot do that, but if they have the grit and they have the determination to figure it out, they can. Everything's figureoutable. Let's say there's that person that maybe has been doing some wholesale deals or they're intrigued by the industry. They would like to make some side hustle money right along. Maybe they were you when you were in Corporate America. What would you say would be that first good step for them to move forward and start to create that side hustle income in rehabs and wholesale?
I have two different pieces of advice. There's one if someone wants to try to do it on the side of a job, and then there's advice for people who are already getting some deals done, but they just haven't been able to grow. If you have a corporate role or another job, it doesn't mean you can't make some extra money. I wish that someone would have taught me a lot of this in college. Even if I did one house, it’s for my bills. If I could go back, I probably would've gotten good at this. One of the lists, whether it's probate or foreclosure eviction, something that's a rare niche list in your county and became the expert at it. Every contact that's involved in that at the courthouse, everything knows who you are. With that being said, it's such a small list. You can call them, door knocks them, do all that on the side very easily. That's something that I wish someone would have taught me when I was in college.
If you're doing some deals and you're not growing, that's because point blank, you aren't investing into your company. You aren't investing in yourself. The way that you're going to do that is through systems. Let me take a step back a year and a half ago, we had hired some acquisitions. We didn't have these phone systems. We didn't have all the campaigns we have now. We still were doing deals and making revenue. What ended up happening was it creates turnover because your team realizes, they add value, but you're not giving them the right tools to keep growing either. It’s your responsibility to make sure that that person has all the tools in place, that they can maximize their productivity and growth. Systems changed all the time. They need to be optimized and they can't just change overnight. I want to give you an example. We had people just using their cell phones to make calls. You can't do that.
You have to have them on a recorded system and your minutes need to be tracked. How many six-minute conversations are they having? How many people are they taking through the process? How many offers are they making per process? How many offers per contract? These types of things have to be tracked through systems. The systems can't succeed either. If you don't have the right people in the right seats, it goes hand in hand, but if you're doing a few deals and can't figure out why you're growing, it’s because more than likely two things, you aren't being consistent and you aren't investing into yourself and your business.
Side Hustle Income: Having a corporate role or another job doesn't mean you can't make some extra money.
What would you say would be the first step for that solo entrepreneur that wants to do this right along with their corporate job and this is their side hustle? How would they get that help to keep them accountable, to know that they're doing the right things?
It's hard to find a mentor if you're going to continue to stay at your job. There are plenty of courses out there that can teach you how to pull that niche list. All the ways that you can maximize that list. How you get in front of them. It's on you to time block when you're going to do it, how you're going to do it and be consistent. If you're only going to do this on Monday nights, don't do it. It’s like basketball or football or anything like that. You can't be good at the game if you aren't practicing daily. If you're going to do it, first, you’ve got to make a commitment because it's not going to happen overnight. I guarantee you, if someone would have told me about the foreclosure list in college, I would have gotten a deal a month. That’s door knocking. I'd probably show up to their court cases or something and chase the people out the door and say, “I can buy their house.” I would have found ways. We don't do that now because we have other tools and technology, but there are ways to get in front of people.
Let’s take it a step further for that person that maybe this is their full-time thing, but they aren't scaling their business. I know that you have some phenomenal programs that you've helped people to get out of their own way and help them to become the coach of the all-star acquisitions manager versus them being the all-star acquisitions manager. You can't scale something that you are the one that's running the show.
It comes in two stages. What we've tried focusing on is like creating something that's affordable. One, it’s for people that are in that spot. I don't regret it but I personally paid for two $30,000 programs right off the bat when I was in those spots, and then on top of all the other costs that come with the marketing and the list. We condensed everything that we have learned throughout all different mentorships and through our partnership with the VA company and developers, etc. We created a four week what we call virtual training group and all of them are recorded every month. You get all the recordings, but for a couple of weeks, we go over all my systems in detail, my campaigns, how they're connected, how we launch them, what we're tracking, how they're connected.
Anything you can imagine with my system, it's an open book, you see the inside of my systems. We touch base on our scripts on acquisitions and then we go over to some dispositions. From there, you're getting much value on the technology and system side. If you're ready to take it to another level and learn how to lead a sales team and have further questions on your systems and getting them implemented, we have a two-day workshop at our office that we only let 10 to 12 people come. It's small. It's intimate. We keep it that way for a reason. If I was here, I sell it out every time. If I was here for the money, I'd be running out at a hotel for it. There’s a lot of value to people. When I learned the best between my first mentor was, he brought me into his office. I got to see how it operated. I got to talk to his people. I got to interview the people up in the room. They came out and spoke. They did one-on-ones. I am a visual person. I needed to see how it was operating, understand, meet the people they hired, what were their backgrounds? Why did they start with them? It’s things like that.
That alone, we paid $30,000 but we're charging $2,500 for it. Those are the types of things that make us feel good about giving back for what we're doing. Keeping it affordable, not that we will increase the prices someday but it’s been our goal. We told ourselves, “The first year that we get into the coaching side, we want to give some value back to us. Add tons of value to people and see where it takes us.” We don't know where we're heading with it. We have some goals, but I know that our systems and our partnerships can make a difference in people's companies.
Even with you just sharing your stat, how much do you have in the queue for this month in closing?
Everything that's in the queue. That doesn't mean it's all closing this month. We rehab probably 70% of our properties and us wholesale about 30%. 2019 was the complete opposite. We wholesaled 70% and rehabbed 30%. Our market is hot right now that we can double our profits by rehabbing. We have about 5 to 6 crews that work with us. We do well on flips. We can flip an entire home in 3 to 5 weeks. We never sit on a project for more than six weeks. We got about $430,000 in the queue, but keep in mind that some rehabs might sell this month, next month, and the month after. We close anywhere from $120,000 to $150,000 in a given month. For example, we have all the way out to October at $100,000 a month already just because we have many rehabs.
I keep getting inspired by your post. You said back in 2012, you had this vision of what you wanted to do. Congratulations. You're jetting off to buy the lake home of your dreams. Why don't you share when you saw that in your mind's eye and backtrack it? I'll end with our last three questions because I know you've got to jet onto to that inspection.
Thanks for the congratulations. The first house I ever bought was 25. I had this vision that I wanted to have a second house. At that time then, I didn't understand what it was all capable of, but I knew that I wanted to own rental properties. I went at my lunch break to an open house. This house, which I'm living in right now is in a walking distance area to everything in town. It’s a great location. I didn't know what I was doing. I remember walking and thinking, “I could live here. I have friends that'll move in with me because it's walking distance. They can pay the mortgage while I live here.” I was single. I go up to the agent who's hosting the open house and I go, “I want to make an offer.” She goes, “Where's your agent?” I'm like, “I didn't know I needed an agent.” She ended up representing both sides.
I'm sure she wasn't sad about that.
“I'll give you a full ask.” She’s like, “Where's your letter of qualification?” I remember saying, “I have no idea what that is.” She's like, “There's a bank across the street, go over there and ask them for it.” I went over there. I walked in the door and I said, “I have no idea what I'm doing, but I want to buy the house across the street. What do I need to do?” We went through the process, locked it up, put it in contract. Someone said, “That'd be a great rental. It's a walking distance to everything.” He said, “Post on Craigslist and see what happens.” I posted on Craigslist and over 50 people within an hour, got in a bidding war on what they would pay me for rent. I was like, “Hell with that, I'm going to rent this thing.” out.”
I bought it and closed. I rented it out for five years and then I learned five years later, if you move into something for twos, the last five years, you don't pay taxes on your gains. I knew that the house had significantly appreciated. I wasn't cashflowing much for five years, but the house had appreciated over a $100,000 in value of equity. I said, “I'll move in for two years because my office is located in it. I’ll buy it and then when I go to sell it, it will be able to pay for my down payment wherever I'm going next. The exact amount that we're going to make off this property tax-free is the exact amount I’m putting down onto this new house.
I love that full circle moment. I love the concept that you know that ready is a lie. You are never going to be ready, but you just show up and you're going to figure it out along the way.
I’m not going to lie, I'm nervous about moving. It's 25 minutes from my office and I walk to work.
It will all work out. Last three questions. If someone met you and said, “Tiffany, I want to become the boss of my own life and call the shots,” what's my first step?
I'm going to ask them if they believe in their selves and they take the next step. That’s the first step. Someone asked me that. It’s worded a little differently, but someone's looking at taking this person to a partnership deal without doing any due diligence. They're like, “We believe in this person.” I said, “Do they believe in themselves? If they don't believe in themselves, they'll never be able to own a company.” It takes a lot of mistakes, failures, there's a lot of money involved, and a lot of risks. You have to know that going into it. You’ve got to believe. It's not meant for everyone. Being the number one role in the company isn't always the best. Being number 2, 3, and 4 is normally the best, to be honest with you.
Who is someone that you think I or the Boss Life tribe should know?
I look up to Mark Evans a lot. You might already know him. The one thing I've always respected about Mark Evans is that he leverages people for a time. He's with his family. He invests in a lot of different companies, a lot of different industries. He still works a lot, but he's at least there for his family. He has an unlimited growth mindset. He could make $1 billion and still want to make another billion. I've always looked up to him. He’s a very laid back, hardworking, influential person in the industry. I would say he's definitely someone you should be following and everyone should be following him.
Side Hustle Income: Becoming a boss or owning a company takes a lot of mistakes, failures, and risks; you just have to know that going into it.
I will definitely check him out. Before you share all your handles and where they can find you when they want to learn more about your course, last question, what is your definition of a boss?
A boss is truly someone who’s either spending time doing whatever they want and the only time they're working is making money.
Any last words of wisdom, Tiffany?
Whatever it is that you are thinking about doing, wishing, remember that you don't want to wake up in 30 years and say, “I regret.” Remember, a lot of us probably graduated college in debt. I graduated college in debt and we figured it out. If you take a chance and you fail, who cares, everyone figures it out.
I love your grit and your determination to make it happen no matter what. When you get hit hard, how quick you can rebound and get rocking and rolling again. Tiffany, thank you for being such a phenomenal inspiration. Share your handles, share where they can find out more about your course.
You can find me on Facebook Tiffany High. You can find me on Instagram it’s @TiffanyHighOfficial. I don't just blast it out because I am very particular. I'm making sure it's going to add value to you. I don't want to sell you something. Most people reach out to me or through social media for the links to it. I give it to my partners like yourself. I don't just sell stuff to sell it. People have to go through a little bit of a filter with me to make sure this is meant for you. Let me make sure you're in front of the right thing.
Thank you for adding such massive value to my following. If you want to reach out to me to get in touch with Tiffany, I am honored and blessed to be in partnership with Tiffany. She is such a force to be reckoned with. My challenge to you like every single time is to fire your fear, build your faith and become the boss of your own life. Get after it. Tiffany, thanks much for being with us.
Thank you.
Important Links:
Tiffany High - Facebook
@TiffanyHighOfficial – Instagram
About Tiffany High
Tiffany High is a self-made, real estate entrepreneur based in Columbus Ohio. As the founder of Heels Homes, Tiffany has developed a track record of success, closing over 160+ wholesale and rehab deals in 2019. Tiffany's real estate results go beyond the wholesale/rehab industry, building an active rental portfolio while coaching some of the top aspiring real estate entrepreneurs on the systems that have made her successful.
Tiffany and her husband/COO Josh High, have built an industry-standard, systematic approach that allows entrepreneurs to scale their business by delegating tasks, lowering lead costs and overhead, all while increasing bottom line profits. Tiffanys focus is helping entrepreneurs scale their business, with a lean team and proven to follow up processes. Her approach allows entrepreneurs to take back control of their business by focusing on income-producing tasks.