Jeff Filali (Fa-LAH-lee) has been an entrepreneur nearly all of his life.
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He grew up living with his single mother in Section 8 housing projects in Tulsa, Okla. He watched as his mother struggle while going to college part-time and working two jobs in effort to give him a better life. When he was 11, his mother had saved up some money and his grandfather matched it with a personal loan to help her be able to build a cheap home on a vacant lot given to her from his grandfather. His grandfather and uncles built the home.
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Filali started his first business a year later when he was 12 years old by using the family lawnmower to mow neighborhood yards for extra money, and would also use the profits to buy & flip sports cards and memorabilia for more profit.
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While growing up his father wasn’t around much but owned rental property and restaurants in Tulsa, Okla, and his grandfather was a real estate builder, developer and flipped tax auction properties throughout Oklahoma. So, his first exposure to real estate was through “sweat equity” working to help them while growing up.
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Shortly after graduating high school, he had enough money saved to get a loan to open his own restaurant and also purchased his first rental property in 1997. A few years later he sold his business and two houses, and decided to pursue a job in the direct, door to door sales business. This is where he credits a lot of his success, by gaining valuable experience in direct sales at an early age and learning the art of communication and negotiations.
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After some success working for a very strong direct sales company, 9/11 happened and slowed the direct sales business. So, he left the industry to start his own marketing business. A year later he had a few dozen salesmen working under him and decided to merge his company with two partners who had a similar company, in a neighboring market, together they planned to go nationwide.
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Well, fast forward three years later, and the company had tried to scale too fast, and was broke. He had lost everything, was 27 years old, BROKE, JOBLESS, & HOMELESS.... ABSOLUTE ROCK BOTTOM!!!
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He had to start over at the bottom, moved in with some family, starting off working for minimal wages due to the job market being bad where he lived at the time. Then he finally found a creative way to “house hack” by taking a part-time job coaching college Athletics, where he was also a “dorm parent” and lived in the men’s dorms for free, with a meal plan included. He had eliminated most of his expenses, and had the freedom to start several side businesses that eventually grew into real business ventures. As he began to get ahead again, he immediately began also investing in real estate again, doing wholesales, flips and started holding rental property again.
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By 2016, his various business ventures were doing very well, so he formed RBI Enterprises LLC, a new holding company, to oversee all of his business ventures, under one umbrella, and immediately began investing in more real estate and other private equity opportunities.
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In 2018, after the death of his father, he decided to adapt his businesses, to be able to step out and pursue a fulltime “passive investing” role and have more freedom to spend with family, enjoy life and trying to help others.
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In 2018, he also started REIQA to help more people learn about Real Estate Investing. To date, the group has helped over 27,000 members around the world.
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In May 2021, he received another setback as one shot of the COVID mRNA vaccine caused him to become one of the cases who developed serious heart complications as a result and later got serious Heart Failure. But overall, he remains positive and trusts his faith and Doctors, and enjoys each day knowing how blessed he is to still be alive.
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Today, he resides in Broken Arrow, Okla. and owns a portfolio of rental property, real estate notes, and private equity in several businesses. He believes in paying it forward and has a passion for helping young people get college scholarships, learn a trade skill, or pursue entrepreneur endeavors to help them pursue better futures, and enjoys teaching people more about business, investing, finances in general and how to better succeed in life.
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Feel free to contact him, and also follow all his social media! 👇