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--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): We jumped into the timeshare exit space. First company we ever started, built it up to where I had over 150 W-2 employees in my office. We were doing 34 million a year. We were netting 12 on that. My wife and I own 67% of the business. That's 8 million a year. Now my dear friend, Don, he goes, "Have you ever thought about selling this thing?" No clue what he was talking about. I didn't know you could sell it. And then we started getting offers. We had offers from 147 million to 92 million. I'm like, how the hell did we build something? I want to get closer to God. It's always been something that has been very confusing to me without any shadow of a doubt. A guy like me without something out there looking over me doesn't make it at this table.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Hey guys, and welcome back to Level Up Podcast. This is Paul Alex, and today we have another phenomenal guest. He goes by the name of Eric Klein, guys. Eric Klein is with me. He went from hitting rock bottom to building and selling multimillion dollar businesses, guys. Yes, it's about to be another one. And he's trained thousands in real estate sales and mindset, and he's the founder of Run It Remote and the Refuse to Lose brand. Guys, we're going to dig deep into his story. He has a phenomenal story, dude. I've been following him for quite a while. He's part of Andy Elliott's brotherhood. I mean, that's our connect right there. And I can't wait to tell you guys more about Eric. Eric, welcome to the show, brother.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Thank you. Appreciate you for having us out here.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Thanks for coming out like right in early, dude.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah. From Fort Lauderdale, the Miami traffic is insane. It's on another level, dude.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Dude, when I first moved here like two years ago, man, I come from California. So I was like, there's no way it can be LA traffic. And dude, it's horrible. It's comparable.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah, bro. It is actually way worse. I'm like, Jesus Christ, right? And I ended up buying a home like 30 minutes away in the sticks, bro, because I want to land, right?
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Of course.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I didn't want to be in Brickle. And dude, hour and a half traffic down.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah. But it is what it is. Yeah, man. It's fun, dude. So Eric, let's dive deep into what you currently do right now. Let the public know. What is it that you do right now?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Awesome. So I am in the real estate space, primarily the wholesale industry, real estate acquisitions. I do flip homes. I do have rental properties. I don't talk a lot about that part of it because my partners handle all that. And then I have a call center, Run It Remote, out of Pakistan, which is I'd probably say the biggest company I have right now. We have over 500 employees in that office, 15,000 square feet. We service the real estate industry, home services, and a couple off like hard money lenders and an insurance guy. We offer VA services. And it's that company here over the next 12 to 24 months we're really going to focus on growing and scaling that out.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Okay. And is that a business that you've been in for quite a while now?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I have had that company for just over two years.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Two years. Okay. Yeah. And when did you start your entrepreneurial journey?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I was a year and a half out of treatment. Went into treatment at 28 years old. So I was 30. I'm 44. So I've been writing my own check for 14 years.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): I love that, dude. Yeah. That's admirable, dude. I'm in the game myself for a little bit over five years and I still wake up and I tell my wife, dude, I'm just like, dude, it's such a blessing to be able to work for yourself.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah, and it goes by fast, bro. Super fast. And I tell people this all the time, it's just like the next five years will be here next year. Right? So when you're talking about next 24 to 48 months, I'm like, bro, it's going to fly by. And I've been through it, man. In the 14 years, I've had some really high highs and I've gotten kicked in the nuts hard with 2019. The very first company I ever started in 2009, in 2019 after having it for about seven-ish years, we were getting ready to go through a pretty sizable exit over a hundred million and ended up losing it all like literally overnight.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I mean, that's from going from the halfway house to that. Obviously there's a lot to the story we can talk about, but it's like I made the decision. Me and my wife at the end of 2011 going into 2012, we made the decision we were going to be an entrepreneur. And everyone in our family, at least a good portion of them, thought we were nuts. My wife was eight months pregnant. I had our daughter, which was nine. We had maybe 10, 11,000, 12,000 bucks in the bank, renting a home in a fourth bedroom in a basement. We were like, you know what, let's go give this thing a shot. Like a lot of us go through the self-doubt, the people close to us just trying to protect us. And we ended up saying yes. And dude, it has been a hell of a run. When I say it's been amazing, just building a life by design, by design. Not a lot of people can bet on themselves the way some of us do and build a life where you get to do what you want with who you want when you want. And I'm 44 and it keeps getting better. It keeps getting better.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): It's very unique you say that because I get asked. You came into the office, you see a bunch of young guys in here, and I'm like the senior citizen here, dude. I'm 37 and I don't feel like I'm the senior citizen. I actually feel like I'll perform them in gym and just mindset and then coming in here early, dude, at 5 a.m. And I'm just like, yeah, the energy, right? So when you see that, I can relate to that so much because as I get older, dude, I get wiser.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Of course.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): And I start reflecting back to when we were younger, dude. And we start thinking about, damn, if I would have just pivoted just a little bit more, we would have been a little bit farther, right?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Of course.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): So right before you got into that entrepreneurial journey with your wife, how long have you been married now?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): We have been together 16 years.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Wow.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): And we have been married will be 14 years, man.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Phenomenal, dude. Phenomenal. Most people think a year is long now, right?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah, she's my day one. And she was with me before any amount of success, even a small level of it. Three days before I was walking out of a treatment center, they would load us up in buses and bring us over to outside meetings. And it was literally three days. I was getting ready to get out. I got put on a plane from Chicago to Fort Lauderdale. I was in a treatment center for 60 days. And three days before, she walks into this meeting and she walks through the door and she had this light around her. No bullshit. It's like, you got kids, right?
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Okay, you can't explain the love of a kid until you have a kid. Right. So I couldn't explain what I saw unless you were there and you saw it with me. She walks through this door and she had a light, an aura around her and she came straight up to me. And this was three days. I was broke, broken, helpless, hopeless, homeless, like literally everything. And she walks up, sits down, and we have a conversation. I have $8 to my name, not knowing if I'm going to go back to Chicago or am I going to go into a halfway house.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): How old were you?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I was 28. 28 years old. From 13 to 28, heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. Crack cocaine was the one that brought me to my knees. Smoked crack for six years of that 13. It was rough, man. I had, my journey has not been luck. It's been hard work and not giving up and showing up every single day and just putting in the work, dude.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): She comes up to me. We have a conversation and she's been with me ever since.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): So I get let out of a treatment center. The first date we ever go on, she comes and picks me up. I have no license. My license is revoked in two states. By the time I was 22, 23 years old, I had four DUIs. Driving on suspended. I was a train wreck. And she saw something in me. And I always say it's like she was the one person that would look at me and say, "There's more to your story. I believe in you." And it was the first person that consistently told me that they believed in me. Because I didn't believe in myself. I'd let so many people down, all my family members. But the one that really mattered was I let myself down for years. And when she just continually said, "I believe in you, you can do this, you can do this," it's like she brainwashed me to believe that. I know she really believed in me, but then it was like, damn, maybe if she believes in me, I'll start believing in myself.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): She's your needle mover, dude. I'm a big believer in words are so powerful. The words, what we see, who we are around, our environment. When you say life by design, the first time I ever heard that was when I was in Arizona with Andy's crew and all that. And I'm such a big believer in saying that, dude. Life by design because we have control. We do. And coming from different backgrounds, meeting a ton of different entrepreneurs and just business owners and just people in general, dude, everybody has their seasons.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): And I think it's the experiences that you've gone through that's made you the man you are today, brother. Because if you didn't go through all those seasons, the heartache, the issues with the addiction, you probably wouldn't have been able to push that addicting attitude towards your work and your purpose.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Of course.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Now you have kids, you have a beautiful wife. You're living the life by design, brother. That's a powerful thing, dude.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): It is. Because I lost myself in the sauce when I was even back in law enforcement, dude. It was a toxic mentality. You're dealing with toxic people all the time. And I'm not talking about the people I'm arresting. I'm talking about my coworkers, bro.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Sure.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): You're living that life, sleeping three hours. And I was a single guy. And I was dealing with women. And I was just lost in the sauce myself, dude.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Of course.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Where it got to the point where I ended up getting a DUI. I ended up drinking, blacked out drinking, getting in bar fights. And dude, it's just like, where am I? I lost myself, man. So at the end of the day, I'm a big believer that everybody has an addiction. You just don't know what your addiction is. Most people think when you call yourself an addict, it's usually with something bad like drugs or alcohol. But you could be addicted to sex. You could be addicted to what feels good. You could be addicted to work. You could be addicted to so many other things. It's just being able to control that addiction to the right thing.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah, for sure.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I've been addicted to everything. When I say I'm an addict, I'm an addict through and through. But it's where do I focus my energy to make sure whatever I am going to be addicted to doesn't kill me, doesn't hurt my family, doesn't ruin my relationships. I've been addicted to drugs, alcohol, porn, women, you name it. Money, like I've been addicted to all of it. Going and buying clothes, dude, there's been times where I'll leave a mall after dropping $20,000, $30,000 on a shopping spree.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): I see it, brother, we're in Miami.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): And I leave there like I just left the dope house. So I've been addicted to everything. But now, I don't want to say I'm addicted to it, but I am on this journey, dude. I'm 44 years old. I have cracked the code to where as long as I don't put drugs or alcohol in my system, I will never go broke again a day in my life.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yes.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I've cracked the code. I understand enough about business scaling, building teams, systems to where I'm going to be okay as long as I don't put the sauce in my body again.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): It's always a way I say it, brother. If you were to lose everything again and I give you 60 days, you'd be able to come out with a million dollars already. I guarantee it.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah, I guarantee it. I've proven it time and time again now. And I mean, I see it through your socials. I see when I talk to you, I see the level of confidence that you have. It's the aura, dude.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): And you have the life experience. First thing I talk to when I talk to business owners, I talk to another person who says they're going to do something, man. It's just that you can tell, okay, what have you been through, man? What's your life experience, right? You've been through the shits. Have you built a business? Have you lost it again? Have you been sued? Have you done this? And you've been through it all, dude. So I know that you can easily lose it and then build it again. So you built up a phenomenal company up to, you're about to exit 100 million in 2019. And then what ends up happening, dude, that you're about to lose it all or you do lose it all? What's next on my chapter, dude?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Dude, it was... So I went from working in a call center, learned how to sell stuff over the phone. And I realized you can sell just about anything over the phone. You really can. And I got really good at it. So my wife and I went and any business we've ever had, someone's actually just brought the idea to us. I didn't think of them. It's not like I've thought of all these amazing business models.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): I love that, dude.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Someone was like, "Hey, there's this really cool business model." I'm like, "Who's in that industry? Let me hear some recordings. How much money are they making? Cool. I can go do that." So every business I've ever had, I knew a guy that knew a guy that said, "Hey, you'd probably be really good at this." And I was like, "All right, I'm going to go do it." So we jumped into the timeshare exit space. Was in that industry for 10 years. Built it up to where I had in Fort Lauderdale over 150 W-2 employees in my office. Over a hundred of them were on the phones. We were doing just north of 34 million a year. We're netting 12 on that. My wife and I own 67% of the business. That's 8 million a year. That was at the peak of it.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Right.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): When we were getting sued. So my wife and I went to go buy a home in Fort Lauderdale in the seven aisles. We were getting ready to get a loan for the house, for a mortgage, $7 million. And it's crazy. I just went by that house yesterday, dude. That thing's worth $15 million now. It's crazy how inflation works.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): What in the heck, bro? If I would have held on to that one.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): So we went to go get a mortgage, and the banker, which is now my dear friend, Don, he was like, "Brother, what do you do for work?" And I'm like, "I own a timeshare exit company." Didn't think anything of it. First company we ever started, having a blast, thinking life is amazing, which it was. And he goes, "Have you ever thought about selling this thing?" I was like, had no clue what he was talking about. I didn't know you could sell a business. I really didn't. I was that naive to it. I had no clue businesses sold.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): I love hearing stories like this, but also from a perspective of somebody who just takes imperfect action. You're like, dude, you're like me. People are like, "How did you figure out how to build this and this and this?" I was just like, "Dude, I just did it. I just moved."
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah. That's it. Some directions were good. Some directions were wrong, but I just kept moving.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): You live and learn.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): You live and learn. You take it as a lesson, right?
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Lesson every time. I love it.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): So he says, "Hey, let me look at your model." He looked at it, brought an M&A guy in. They looked at it, and they're like, "Holy smokes, you guys got a cash cow on your hands. Super profitable." And they started talking EBITDA and all this stuff. And I was like, "What is even going on?" They had private equity firms flying in. We were going out to dinner. And me and my wife literally were like, "How the hell did we get at these tables? Is this real? Are they messing with us?" The whole time we almost didn't believe what was going on. And then we started getting offers in. The very first offer that came in, we took the five best. The M&A company took the five best offers. They flew them in. They looked at our facility in Fort Lauderdale. So we had offers from 147 million to 92 million for a hundred percent of the business. And again, I'm like, "How the hell did we build something? How did we get here?" Literally pinching ourselves. So we structured the company, set up all these trusts, got all the paperwork ready. It took about six months to get everything ready to sell.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): And Eric, let me ask you this question, and this is just from me to you, brother, just because you've been in the game longer than me, dude. And with me, I'm such a student of the game, no matter where I'm at in life. My question is, who do you even go to when you're at that stage, dude? They're offering you $147 million and you've got to learn how to structure it. Where did you even get advice? Did you have a mentor at that time?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Don. My good friend Don Weir, which is out of Fort Lauderdale. Shout out Don. He owns a wealth financial company. He manages people's money. A lot of athletes he manages, and very, very big entrepreneurs. But he was helping us. He put us in contact with a law firm that could structure trusts. Because when you get all that kind of money, you need to be protected. I don't know anything. I can't talk about it today because I had people doing it for us because I didn't get it. But lawyers were structuring the trusts. They set up certain accounts for asset protection and all this stuff. Because literally for us, I went from the crack house to a call center to saying I was going to be an entrepreneur. And seven years later, which it went like that, we're talking about a massive exit.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Right.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): And there was a wise man once told me, his name is Jordan Zimmerman, the first billionaire I ever knew. Zimmerman Advertisement is right off I-95, you can see his building. He was like, "Eric, things can come to an end. Just be cautious on the way you spend money." Because again, dope house, penthouse, making millions. When you make millions, you start spending like you're making millions. And I never had anybody around me that talked about finances. Not that my parents, they just didn't have a ton of money. They weren't dead broke, but you were at a different level.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Different level, different way.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah, and they can't give you advice. They can't. And that's what I tell about my parents. They come from, they're immigrants.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): They come from Peru, Mexico. They work very hard. They live their version of the American dream.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Of course.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Back in the day, I'm the first bloodline breaker, brother.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah, man. For sure. Yeah, me too.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): So we structured everything. We ended up going, the deal we ended up going with, 147, they dropped out. They thought there were going to be some lawsuits coming down the pipe. And they were like, "We don't think this is an industry we want to be in." And so we were selling 51% of the company. We were retaining 49%. We were selling 51% for $54 million. I had to stay on for two years. And then we were going to do a second sale after the two years. So it would ultimately have been a nine-figure exit. That's why I always say nine-figure exit. The first one was for $54 million. But I was still going to own almost 50% of the company, which it was a cash cow at the time. And they did all their due diligence. Paperwork was all done. We were waiting to close the deal. And we ended up getting, which I can't name the two timeshare developers just because of my settlement, but two of the largest timeshare developers in the world, publicly traded, multi-billion dollar companies. They got a hold of our book when we sent it out to all the private equity firms and they knew we were going to be exiting. They ended up suing us, my companies personally, and then me and my wife personally. So they sued our companies and then me and my wife. And we got some poor advice from a lawyer. Paid him $150,000. As soon as the first lawsuit came, we panicked.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Of course.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): We didn't know what to do. So we started googling bankruptcy attorneys because we were told by someone if you file a Chapter 11 on the company, no one else can sue you. Because we got one lawsuit. 30 days later, we got another lawsuit. And we're like, "Holy shit, this is scary." We literally panicked.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Was it the first time you were getting sued ever? Ever at this level?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): At that level, yeah. I mean, I've been sued by employees, and you're like, "I could take care of that." But not at this level. No, dude. It was scary. They were bringing in, I mean, dude, I was on the Channel 5 News in Orlando. The two developers were trying to make a big scene out of the suit.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Oh, so you were on the news for the lawsuit.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Dude, there was a lawyer with boards behind them with all my companies talking about me and my wife. And they're saying, "We're taking down the timeshare exit kings of the industry and we won't settle for them breaking or interfering with our contracts." Like, it was bad.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Damn, brother. It sounded like they were trying to take you down like it was a RICO case or something with the feds.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah. And we didn't do anything wrong. But they were making a statement with us. So we would go and stroke a $150,000 check to a bankruptcy attorney. He files a Chapter 11. And our attorneys that were fighting the case for us, they're like, "You made a big mistake doing that." They put a trustee. They appointed a trustee to the company. I had to stand in front of 140, 150 employees in my cafeteria. And with a stroke of a conversation, I had to let them all go. And it happened literally overnight. And we fought that lawsuit for two and a half years. A lot of people are like, "Well, what'd you do wrong?" I didn't do anything wrong. I could sue you right now and you would have to fight me. You'd have to defend yourself against my claims. That's how it works. And it drains you. It drained our bank account. It drained our revenue stream because that shut off overnight. It was robbing me of our family. My family was being dragged through the mud. Me and my wife were on the verge of getting a divorce. I was either days, seconds, minutes away from going and using drugs again. Didn't know what to do. I was lost. I was panicking in the last 30 days. And that was a two and a half year lawsuit. Couldn't start another business up. My legal bill for 30 days at the end was a half a million bucks for a month.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Wow.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): And money, whether they get it in the lawsuit or we settled, they're getting the money. I said, "Let's just settle this." And we made the decision. I told her, I said, "Let's settle it. If we got to go back to zero..." And this is where I was like, "All right, it's time to go do this again. Build another company."
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): And Eric, this is now two years later, so from 2021. Okay, so right after COVID basically.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah. We settled. It cost us either six or seven million, which is a shot in the nut and no income stream. I told my wife, and that's where I found the wholesale real estate industry. And I never looked at it as real estate. I looked at it as the model. Real estate just so happens to be the conversation piece of the lead. But I was looking at the actual model of it. The service.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I told my wife, I said, "Give us a year and a half. Let's settle this. Let's get a hundred percent of our attention back. Give me a year and a half. I'll get all this back."
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yeah.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): And I literally put the blinders on, dude. And I went to war for a year and a half.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): So Eric, what made you decide to make the conscious decision to go ahead and just focus on that model specifically? Was it because of the skill set that you already had with the call centers? And you were like, "Dude, I'm good at this. I'm the best. I'm just going to double down."
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yep. Someone like you, a guy I knew, said, "Dude, there's this wholesale real estate industry. It's just like what you were doing except distressed timeshare owners. Now it's distressed homeowners." So he goes, "You would crush this industry." And I was like, "Cool. Send me a couple of recordings. Let me hear the pitch." He sent me three recordings. I listened to two of them, called Shiloh up, and I said, "Let's go run it up in this industry. We'll dominate it."
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): And that makes sense, dude, because in 2021, I remember it was starting to blow up on social media.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yes.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): So I could see probably one of your friends, probably saw like Ryan Pineda, an example, out of Vegas, big wholesale real estate guy. And they're talking about TikTok, Instagram and all that stuff.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Yeah.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): I'm pretty sure it was because people were talking about it and they're like, "Dude, wholesale, why not, right?" And you got in at the right time.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Got in. Yeah. And immediately hit the ground spreading.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): First year, 2.6 million. Next year, 3.something. Next year, 3.something. Ended up going to a lot of conferences and masterminds. I saw within the industry, a lot of the coaches, gurus, influencers, whatever you want to call them. I was sitting in the crowd and I was there for a very specific reason. One, I wanted to see how they were teaching it because I had my own way of doing it. And I saw a massive opportunity for me in this space. Never once did I ever talk about being a coach, never. But after now 14 years of having a lot of success as an entrepreneur, made tens of millions, lost tens of millions, made it again, I was like, "I can come into this industry and teach virtual sales at a level I don't think anyone in this space can match." All a hundred percent over the phone. If you're going to go door to door and walk in their house, I'm not teaching you how to do that. But if you want to do this over the phone, I don't think there's anybody better in the space to teach you how to implement a sales process virtually that'll get you the results I can get you.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): So I started that. I started up Run It Remote. I knew leads were what drove the business in this industry. So for beginners point of view, because The Level Up has a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, nine to fivers, and they're looking for opportunities. So from the perspective of a beginner, break down what is Run It Up? Like what essentially is wholesaling? Like from a beginner's point of view, Run It Up, the concept that you're doing is essentially you're getting a virtual call center. How's the setup for a beginner?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Got it. So it services the wholesale industry, which is leads. So what Run It Remote does is you hire our cold callers to go and generate motivated seller leads for you. So you can be at home, you can be at wherever you want. It's virtual. They're going to send you homeowners that have gotten a phone call. They've spent three to five minutes on the phone with a call out of the blue. And they've answered very specific questions: "Do you want to sell your home? Yes. Six months or less? Yes. What is your motivation?"
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): They're going to give us their motivation. They're going to give us their timeline. They're going to tell us everything: three bed, two bath, 1500 square feet, 1980 build, and here's the reason I want to sell. We qualify the lead for you, then we send it to you. You've got to go and convert that lead to a contract. That's what Run It Remote is—we are a cold calling VA company that does lead gen for companies.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Let me ask you a question, Eric. I've been using a call center for the past five years. I use it for two different companies. I used it for ATMs, for automated teller machines, for quite a long time. We did Bitcoin teller machines, which is big right now. Then two and a half years ago, we started doing it for credit card processing. I've been using the same call center, man. But I've been curious, because obviously I always want to bring everything in-house.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Of course.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Do you teach this concept for different industries? Is it similar, or is it just specifically wholesaling?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): We can go into any industry. Run It Remote is a company that ultimately we are going to build to exit. It is a cash cow. We control 100% of it. To answer your question, yes, we can help. Right now we have a 15,000 square foot facility in Pakistan. We're building out another 15,000 square feet. A lot of our talent is coming directly out of college. They are teaching English now over in Pakistan in the universities. It's the primary language that they're holding their studies with. Within our office in Pakistan, we have four full-time English teachers, because the first thing someone asks is, "How's the English?" Our English is really good.
--:-- I was shocked when my partner, Sean—Sean Serrani out of Atlanta, 22 years old, one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs at his age I've ever met—he was our ties to Pakistan. His father was born and raised in Pakistan. Sean was born and raised here in the U.S., but his dad still spends six months out of the year there. That's how we were able to get to Pakistan, open a brick-and-mortar office, and build out the team that we have.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Makes sense.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): We dumped $150,000 to $160,000 just in the rehab of our building. Over there, that's a lot of money to rehab in Pakistan. So we have a beautiful facility. Our goal is to ultimately pivot into other industries. With what you are talking about, dude, me, you, and Sean just need to jump on a call and test pilot what you want to do and take it from there.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Dude, let's do it. Yeah, I'm serious. What was the question though? For a beginner's point of view, would you explain it? You explained the concept, which is good because I know there's going to be people watching this. There's going to be a lot of business owners that are going to be like, "Dude, can you do it for my industry?" Because there's so many different industries that can use a virtual call center.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Oh, God.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): I interviewed someone else earlier this year—I think it was John C. from Melio? But she was beginning to start doing this, and she successfully did it through an affiliate hub that would essentially allow you to create virtual call centers. But they owned everything.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): We do an affiliate model. That's where the exit's more than likely going to come from.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): That makes sense, dude. That's good. So let's get into more purpose-driven point of view from your life, brother. What's your why right now, man? You've gone through it all, brother. You've built a $100 million company. You're about to exit. You got sued. You made the money back. Now you're building another venture. We were just talking about your beautiful home. You're about to wrap up here in the next couple months. You got the family, dude. You've been married for so long. You're living what I like to call the New American Dream—life by design, brother. So what is your why now? What is your purpose?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): In the beginning, I just wanted to feel part of a family. I was an outsider in my own family growing up for many, many years. A lot of people say, "Oh, that's such a low-level surface why." Well, when you grew up the way I grew up and you had the internal demons you fought as long as I did, it's not a surface level.
--:-- I want to build the most amazing family and give my family the experiences—not spoil my kids to where they don't understand hard work ethic and all that. I think you can go to an extreme. But dude, I want to show my family that no matter what you go through in life...
--:-- My 13-year-old son is right outside the door here. He's been overweight most of his life. This is answering the why, right? My son's 13 years old. He's been overweight most of his life. I've helped thousands of people. I really have changed their lives and given them financial freedom and broken the nine-to-five and motivated them to want to go and light life on fire. And my own son—I was failing to do that with him.
--:-- He was 11 years old, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215 pounds. He was obese. When I look at the pictures, it almost brings me to tears, because that's a direct reflection of me as his father—the one that's supposed to be leading the pack. Mom too. I believe as parents we failed him.
--:-- We came out to Arizona and he met Andy Elliott for the first time. Andy said something to him that triggered him, and he's never been the same since. He was wearing Elliott shirts for the longest time. His closet was full of Elliott shirts. I had my own brand, I had my own shirts. It was one of those aha moments. I was like, "Wait a minute, dude, why are you wearing my name?" My son—which I'm grateful for, and I tell the story to Andy all the time. I'm like, "Brother, I love you, but I don't want my son wearing your shirts more than mine." Internally, it was eating me alive, because I'm a complete stranger to Kai 60 days ago, and now he idolizes this guy. I'm like, "Where did I go wrong to where my shirts aren't filling his closet?"
--:-- I had to process how I'm fathering my son, how I'm leading my son. Now today, me and Kai are up at 4 in the morning, Monday through Friday together, going to the gym. He wears my shirt all the time. It literally gives me goosebumps. Without Andy, without having that fire, watching another man lead his family the way I was not leading my family... There's levels to this shit, dude.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Of course. Just when you think you are doing it right. And it's not the comparison game, but you're like, "Damn, bro, I thought I was doing okay. No, I'm not."
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): You know what that is? You're inspired.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Yes, I was inspired. There's nothing wrong with that. That just shows what type of human being you are, dude. You're a servant leader. You're leading by example now. You're like, "Dude, I thought I was doing it good. This guy, he's another level." That's inspiring. Let's unlock the chamber. That's how you grow. That's the only way to grow, 100%.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I want to be an amazing leader to my family first and foremost. I want to get closer to God. It's always been something that has been very confusing to me, even though without any shadow of a doubt, for me to be sitting here talking to you with everything that I've been through—and we've only heard a small fraction of it—a guy like me without something out there looking over me doesn't make it at this table. It doesn't.
--:-- I know there's a bigger purpose for me. I attract the misfits, the underdogs, the counted outs, the black sheep—any race, it doesn't matter—because I'm very open and vulnerable with my story. So I attract them all. And I'm real. I have nothing to hide, literally zero. My goal is to help the 28-year-old Eric. Whether you're male or female, I want to be the one that can say, "I believe in you." All it took was one person to say it multiple times: "I believe in you. I believe in you." I want to be that person for people.
--:-- I'm going to be okay in my life. I've hit a point where Eric's going to be okay. As long as I don't put the drugs and alcohol in my system. There's a lot of "me's" out there where I can relate to everything. When somebody says something, I'm like, "Man, you think you're alone, but you're not." I've been in your shoes before—much, much worse. When I can go and tell them my story and just give them a little glimpse of hope and say, "I believe in you"... Not everyone's going to get it. But the ones that are out there where the pain's great enough and they've hit their bottom and they're ready to change—it would be super selfish of me not to go and get as many of those people as I can and bring them with.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Absolutely, man. You never know whose life is going to change. That's why it's super important to tell your story to the public, man. Leveraging digital marketing, leveraging social media, and just tell them the real, dude. This is very inspiring, man. I appreciate that. I love it. I love the fact that you took extreme ownership, bro. You saw your son. He was overweight at a certain time. He was wearing another man's last name. And you're like, "What the hell's going on here, dude? I'm successful. I'm a good father." And then you're like, "You know what? I'm going to suck it up, dude. I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to lead my son."
--:-- It's the same thing, dude. In 2024, it was the best financial year for me. I ran three different companies, and then everything came crashing down. Everything, dude. Got $200,000 taken away from a COO of mine—one of them. The other one almost burned down another company. And then in the meantime, I get married, find the love of my life, my best friend, my rock. And I'm about 245 pounds. I was about 45 pounds overweight, bro.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): No shit? Oh yeah?
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Earlier this year, bro. It's insane. We actually have another mutual friend. He goes by Planet Mike. I've known that guy for almost four years now. I met him in San Diego when I was living in a penthouse over there. I met him in an elevator. I remember I had just a $400,000 day. I was on the phones. He's just like, "Dude, you got some aura inside of you." I'm like, "Bro, I'm just living by design." I don't want to put it like that, but I was just like, "Dude, I'm just living life. I'm happy. I'm controlling my life." He's like, "Dude, we got to be friends." Ever since I met him there, he's always been like, "Dude, you got to optimize your health."
--:-- It wasn't until earlier this year, dude, where it was the pinnacle of depression for me. It was the top. I've been in some deep ass depression. I've gone to rehab myself, dude. I've gone through all this bullshit myself. I tell the real—I tell the world the ups and downs, because with every new level there's a new devil, brother. When it comes to this entrepreneurship game, it's not meant for everybody. It's meant for people that are able to hold the most pain, but then also able to see through all the bullshit and continue. Because it's going to be hard regardless.
--:-- When it comes down to it, the mutual friend, dude, he had told me about you. He told me about you before I even met you. Then I started following you. The second time I heard about you was through Tommy Provich, which is Andy Elliott's guy. He's like, "You've got to meet this guy Eric. He's on fire. He's one of Andy's best mentees right now." I was like, "Really?" Then I met you last time in Arizona, dude. That's how we clicked. It's meant to be, bro.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Of course, man. It's meant to be.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): It's meant for you to be here, tell 4 million listeners on a monthly basis your story, because it's very inspiring, dude. People just need to hear this shit.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): I agree. It's real.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): So in your opinion, what makes someone successful in your space, dude, in wholesaling in general? I've got a few men that are in wholesaling right now, and they're building some nice-sized companies, but not at your level.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Really good question. From my understanding—I don't have any facts to back this up—95% of people that try to jump in the space, there's a 95% fallout rate. People that try to get in and give up before they get their first deal. That's high. That's a high fallout rate. I believe they think they're jumping into the real estate game. They're not. It is 100% lead gen and sales. Then obviously you have to know how to underwrite the deal in order for the numbers to make sense on the lead, in order to assign it and make any money.
--:-- For anybody that's getting in, it is a contact sport. The deals don't find us, we find them. You cannot get around the money-making activities that are going to give you success in the industry—picking up a phone, making hundreds of dials, and getting hours upon hours of talk time on the phones. They believe you can skip that and get consistent deals. It does not happen.
--:-- Trust me, I've had thousands of people pay to understand how to play this game. The common denominator around all of them that have success and the ones that do not is: the ones that have success immediately get to work picking up a phone, taking a script that I give them, reading the script, calling as many homeowners as they can, and just making offers. The ones that don't have success, they'll do it for a little bit and then they just stop. Or they'll make 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 offers and they have not heard a yes yet. And they're like, "Oh, that was bullshit. This don't work."
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Wow.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): It's a contact sport. Momentum is built. It's not given to you. You've got to build momentum. If you're going to get in, just understand—it is real. It's as real as rain. But you have to do the work in order to get the results.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): That's with any industry though. You were overweight. If you would have told me that, I never would have thought you've been overweight.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): No, never.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): But you put in the work. It's like we didn't skip the hard work. I've been doing that for 15 years. Still today, from talking to you to going to the next podcast, I'm probably going to make a sales call because there's leads that are waiting to talk. I haven't gotten too good to pick up a phone. I love that. I'm still on the ground level. I stay in the trenches with my team.
--:-- It's funny, you said 2024, everything came crashing down.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Dude, 90 days ago for me, I made a really bad decision in my business. I always tell my team when I make a decision, I'm going to make it with confidence. Then we're going to figure out whether or not it was the right one. But I need to make sure I've got the team that's willing to back me. God forbid, because I'm human, if I made the wrong one, please just help me make it right. I made a bad decision. In 90 days, net money to the bank, I lost over 300 grand. In 90 days. I pivoted real quick, corrected the mistake. A lot of my team got up and walked out. They were like, "I don't know, dude, that wasn't too cool." So I'm rebuilding again, dude.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): It's constant. I love the game. And it happens. You have to be comfortable making those type of decisions, especially when you've been in the game for so long. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday. He's like, "Pauly," and he's a former police officer, now he's a massive crypto investor. I mean this guy—you give him 50 grand, he makes an additional 20 grand every single month. He just knows how to do it. He's very intelligent at that. I don't know shit about that. I invested $50,000 one time, BlockFi went down, and they took my money. I can't even talk about it. I don't know nothing about it.
--:-- Anyways, this guy, he's just like, "Dude, can you imagine back when we were in PD, if you were to tell the old self that you could take 50 Gs and make 20 Gs within a 30-day span, would you believe yourself?" I was like, "Fuck no, dude. Never. Bullshit. Scam. Not happening." That's what the majority of people see until they experience it.
--:-- I love the fact that you're real, dude. I love the fact that you're saying thousands of people have tried to learn this, but the ones that do make it are the ones that are making contacts, dude. That's it. It's real. I love that.
--:-- So if you could leave one piece of advice for our listeners to level up their life, brother, in 2025 and beyond, what would it be?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Audit your circle. Audit your circle and see who you're hanging out with. Usually you are a product of your environment. I know it sounds cliché, but if you're trying to do big things and you're the only one in your circle that's thinking like that, you're going to have a really, really hard time. I'm not saying cut them out overnight. But I look back 15 years ago, 14 years ago—there's not a single person in my life that was around then. All new people.
--:-- You really need to take a hard look at who you're hanging out with, where you're hanging out with them, and what you're doing when you're hanging out with them. If none of it's productive, there's a really good chance you don't have a circle—you have a cage. That cage will keep you caged up for as long as you can. It could be the closest people to you in your immediate family. I love my mother to death. She's one of my biggest cheerleaders. She wasn't 15 years ago, but I've gained her respect. Thank God, because if there's one thing I wanted to do, it was just make sure she didn't have to worry about me.
--:-- If you're the only one in your circle that's aspiring to do big shit, you more than likely need to find a new group to start hanging out with. I'll say this—and I don't even know if you offer coaching, right?
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): I do.
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Pay to get around people. When I say that, I mean that. "Oh, well, Eric, it's a fake relationship." No, it's not. It weeds out all the bullshit. You might not be able to stroke a big check in the beginning, but get into a group, a mastermind of people that have paid the same price to play. Start networking with them. Start getting new phone numbers. Get out of your comfort zone. All of my friends, all of my business partners, have been met in those rooms.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): A hundred percent. You and I met in a room that was a fat check. We stroked it to get in that room—over a hundred thousand dollars to get in a room. Whether we ever do business together, we've exchanged numbers. Who knows where it leads 12 months from now? Never know. But it weeds out the bullshit. Audit your circle. It means everything if you are trying to have a breakthrough in life and you're the only one in your circle that's trying to have that breakthrough.
--:-- Absolutely, guys. And that's the level up. Eric, where can they find you?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): Instagram, The Eric Klein. T-H-E, then Eric, E-R-I-C, then C-L-I-N-E. The Eric Klein. YouTube, LinkedIn.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Anything else?
--:-- Guest (Eric Klein): YouTube is Eric Klein Official.
--:-- Host (Paul Alex): Got it. That's it, guys. That is the Level Up with Eric Klein. Guys, if you feel motivated from this podcast, make sure to share this with someone that you care about that's going to level up—not only in sales, but lead gen, wholesale real estate. There's so many things that we talked about, even limiting beliefs and mindset. At the end of the day, guys, we are number one in business right now because of you guys. We want to thank you to our 4 million listeners on a monthly basis. We are actually top eight right now in all categories as well. Let's keep it going, guys. That's the Level Up with Paul Alex. We'll catch you on the next one. Thank you.
