Anshul Sharma | The Closers Podcast #7
AJ Henderson interviews Anshul Sharma, a land investor who built a team of 17-18 people from scratch after immigrating from India in 2011. Sharma shares his journey from a Dell corporate employee to running a multi-million dollar land flipping business, covering his team structure, sales process, recruiting philosophy, and vision for scaling to $10 million in revenue.
Summary
The episode features Anshul Sharma, a land investor based in Round Rock, Texas, who immigrated from India in 2011 on a merit-based scholarship to Penn State's MBA program. Sharma grew up in a politically prominent family in India, drawing work ethic from his father's transportation business and leadership exposure from his grandfather's political career. After completing his MBA, he was recruited by Dell through a VP mentor who recognized his street smarts, and he remained at Dell until 2021 — not by choice, but because his visa status required continued employment to stay in the US.
Sharma discovered land investing in 2017 through a Facebook ad promising no-money-down deals from home, which appealed to him given his corporate schedule. His first deal was a poorly accessed parcel he couldn't sell for a year, but his first successful flip — a $47,000 profit double close — was a turning point. He describes scrambling to find a title company willing to do a pass-through transaction in a single Friday afternoon, calling 10-15 Austin companies before finding one that understood what he needed. During this period, he ran the business nights and weekends with his wife helping on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.
Sharma's current operation employs 17-18 people, including roughly 10-11 in acquisition, 3 closers, 4-5 texters, and 4-5 underwriters. The team sends approximately 8,000 texts per day across 22 working days monthly. Out of every 100 responses, 4-5 are pushed to underwriting, and roughly half of those are rejected, leaving 2-3 qualified leads per 100 responses that reach closers. Closers are expected to generate $100,000–$200,000 in forecasted deal spread monthly, with a 50-60% close rate translating to meaningful commission income. He notes that text leads require 3-4x more qualified leads to close a deal compared to direct mail.
Sharma credits Grant Cardone extensively for his scaling mindset, particularly the philosophy of focusing on top-line revenue growth rather than obsessing over expenses. He also discusses the importance of culture in hiring, preferring candidates who show up consistently and have strong work ethic over those who claim impressive track records but may disrupt team culture. His hiring process involves a probationary period where new hires start in lower-stakes roles like cold calling or qualifying before being trusted with closing responsibilities.
On the disposition side, Sharma notes the land market has normalized significantly from the 2021 peak, now resembling 2015-2016 conditions where buyers exist but aren't frantic. His team now does more proactive outreach to realtors, neighbors, and builders, and employs more frequent price reductions to maintain a 40-45 day average time to find a buyer. He manages a core dispo team of four people.
In the final segment, Sharma discusses his longer-term vision: scaling to $10 million in revenue, building an IP layer around proprietary data and algorithms, and eventually positioning the business for sale — a goal he notes is rarely discussed in the land community. He warns that most businesses break at the $3-4 million revenue mark and that the tactics that got a business there will not carry it to $10 million. He emphasizes that a wholesale business with no documented systems, data, or processes has no sellable value.
Key Insights
- Sharma describes a multi-stage lead qualification funnel where out of every 100 text responses, only 4-5 are pushed to underwriting, and underwriters reject another 40-50%, leaving closers with roughly 2-3 truly qualified leads per 100 initial responses — and he argues text leads require 3-4x more qualified leads to close a deal compared to direct mail leads.
- Sharma argues that most businesses in America break at the $3-4 million revenue mark, and that whatever tactics brought a business to that level will not carry it to $10 million — at that stage, true leadership players must be brought in, and those people cost at least $250,000, meaning the business must already be large enough to afford them.
- Sharma stayed at Dell for approximately four years beyond when his land business was already outearning his salary — not for the money, but because his visa status required employer sponsorship, and leaving Dell would have required him to leave the United States.
- Sharma argues that a land wholesale business has no inherent sellable value unless it has documented systems, proprietary data, and repeatable IP — without those, the business is an empty shell that collapses the moment the owner stops working, making it functionally no different from holding a job.
- Sharma credits Grant Cardone's mindset — specifically the principle of focusing obsessively on top-line revenue growth rather than managing expenses — as the primary reason he pursued aggressive team scaling at a time when nobody in the land investing space was thinking about building teams of 10-15 people.
Topics
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