How to Maximize Profit from Your Leads

Mike: This is the flipnerd.com Expert Real Estate Investing Show, the show for real estate investors, whether you’re a veteran or brand new. I’m your host, Mike Hambright, and each week I bring you a new expert guest that will share their knowledge and lessons with you. If you’re excited about real estate investing, believe in personal responsibility, and taking control of your life and financial destiny, you’re in the right place.
This is episode number 419, and my guest today is Dan Schwartz. Dan and I have become friends over the last few years, and we’re both huge believers in what technology can do for your business. Dan operates a couple of different technology products for investors, and given that he literally has hundreds of real estate investor customers, he has his proverbial ear to the ground like few others in our industry. Today, Dan shares what he calls the REI Lead Maximizer, which is the three things that America’s top, real estate investors are doing today to stay ahead of the competition, and to operate the most profitable businesses possible. Get your notepad ready. There’s going to be some powerful nuggets in today’s show. Let’s go ahead and get started. Please help me welcome Dan Schwartz to the show.
Dan, welcome to the show.
Dan: It’s great to be back on FlipNerd. Thanks for having me.
Mike: Good to see you. It’s funny. I’ve told people this a few times we’ve mentioned on the show lately that this is show number 419, so we have a lot of repeat guests, you know. I’ve built a lot of friendships over the years, and it’s like, “Hey, instead of going out to try to find totally new people, I’m like you and I could probably record 10 shows on 10 different topics that would all be good, right?” So, now, I say that and you haven’t been on the show for almost two and a half years, so I’m certain that nobody’s going to say, “Hey, that sounds like what you talked about 230 episodes ago,” you know, or whatever it is. But, anyway, great to see you, my friend.
Dan: Yeah, hopefully, I’m two and a half years wiser.
Mike: Exactly. Exactly. Awesome. Well, hey, I know you’ve got some exciting stuff going on with some changes that you’re in. We’re going to dive into this a little bit here, but you started InvestorFuse, you kind of brought to my attention, it was right before you were on last time which was a CRM for management. Now you have InvestorFuse 2.0 that’s, kind of, rolling out, which is actually built off the Podio platform, and have done a whole bunch of things in the meantime.
But, just maybe introduce yourself for those that don’t know you yet, and then just tell us a little about where you see it’s, kind of, technology going because there’s obviously been a major evolution just over the past two or three years for real estate investors.
Dan: So, Dan Schwartz. I’ve been in the investing space since 2010 after I graduated. Started flipping houses, REOs actually, that was back when REO-flipping was like the thing. Maybe that’s going to be a thing soon again here. And couple hundred deals later, I realized that I knew how to flip houses, but my systems were a mess. So I, sort of, got obsessed with systems, I wanted to be able to flip houses while living the lifestyle that I desired, to be able to travel and do things that I wanted to do, and then enjoy life instead of getting sucked into the weeds of running a business and being the bottleneck to everything.
So, I found out how to build a pretty solid system that gets rid of a lot of that busy work using Podio, which is like a customizable project management tool online that anyone can use, and we’ve sort of tailored it towards the real estate investor sales pipeline. A bunch of people wanted that and it, sort of, manifested into this whole software company where we charge monthly access to really robust Podio workspace for investors. And that has grown since the last time we talked in February. We’re well over 500 companies in the platform. A couple 1000 total team members across all those companies.
Mike: Awesome.
Dan: And it’s cool. John, our CTO, just shared a stat in April, there was a combined total of 780 deals under contract across all of our members.
Mike: Oh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Dan: That’s pretty epic. That’s a lot of revenue getting generated to that. And you know, I got to work with thousands of companies ranging from all different sizes. And I’ve gleaned a lot of insights about what the best guys are doing that the people that are failing are not doing. And it’s given me a good perspective on what else I can build to increase the efficiencies in this industry, and that’s sort of why we were building this new platform.
Mike: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. We’ll kind of, at the end of the show, we’ll tell people where to go to learn more about, because you got some really exciting stuff going on. The cool thing is in, from the very first time we met, we’ve probably known each other for at least three years, I’d say. From the first time we met I love having a discussion when I can . . . I got into real estate 10 years ago, and my job before that was for an e-commerce company. I’ve always been fairly tech savvy, not a programmer, right? But I’ve always, kind of, understood the value that technology plays.
And for years, I said, even before we launched FlipNerd, I’m like, the technology world and the real estate investing worlds had just never collided, right? When I started 10 years ago, literally, up until 5 or 6 years ago, we were still using lots of manila folders, like lots of stuff that we just don’t really have to use anymore. We’re still fairly paper heavy, I’d say, in my office, but, for the most part, like technology just didn’t exist 10 years ago for real estate investors. Unless you just took something like Highrise or something like CRM, which we did, and just like totally bastardize it to make it work for our business.
But, it’s just amazing to see the evolution of technology over the last few years at a time where real estate investing is more competitive than I’ve ever seen. And, you need those edges to stay sharp, right?
Dan: And I would argue that it’s because of technology that the competition exists because it’s leveling the playing field for everybody. And what it’s doing, I believe that the trend is that the more automation there is, the more important it is for you to be a deal-maker, and to develop the skills as a negotiator and putting together deals and solving people’s problems, that becomes the skill set that is most rewarded, not everything else. So, technology is just going to level the playing field for everybody so that managing your business and the admin and taking calls and the technology it’s the part of the business, and your human-to-human interaction is how you compete.
Mike: That’s awesome, and that’s good. That’s good stuff. So let’s talk a little bit about . . . I know what we’re going to talk about today is basically, how to get the most out of your business. And, like you said, you have your ear to the ground, you have hundreds of users on your platform, so you get . . . it’s like a bunch of petri dishes, right? You see what’s working, you know a lot of people, and you know what’s working now. How are people staying ahead of the competition in today’s market, and so you’ve, kind of, coined the term the REI Lead Maximizer, which has three components that we’re going to talk about. So, tell us what that is and let’s dive into each one.
Dan: That’d be great, so, yeah. I would say that the top three things that, like, our best customers are using, the guys that are just getting the most results, there is three things that all of them are doing across the board that they, like, focus on and make sure that each of these components are operating at the best that they possibly can be. The first is obviously, marketing. I’m sure this isn’t the only podcast episode that we’re going to be talking about marketing, but I’ll, kind of, dive into what specifically about marketing lets you set yourself apart. And then once you’re generating your leads, you need a robust, follow-up system in order to squeeze more juice out of those leads. Otherwise, you’re just wasting money on marketing and you’re going to go broke quicker than the other guy. And then all of this is great, but if you don’t have a team in place, so that you’re just not just you holding the bag, then you’re never going to be able to scale to your inevitable financial goals, so.
Mike: Absolutely.
Dan: Those are, sort of, the three things. I mean, it sounds obvious, but people forget that they should be focusing on these things. And they get tied down into the operational stuff, whereas you should be building systems for each of these three things. And once those are in place, you really can maximize the value of each lead that comes in and you make a lot of money, and then build a team around that to support that scale that up.
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Dan: . . . system in order to squeeze more juice out of those leads. Otherwise, you’re just wasting money on marketing, and you’re going to go broke quicker than the other guy. And then all of this is great, but if you don’t have a team in place, so that you’re just not just you holding the bag, then you’re never going to be able to scale to your inevitable financial goals, so.
Mike: Absolutely.
Dan: Those are, sort of, the three things. I mean, it sounds obvious, but people forget that they should be focusing on these things. And they get tied down into the operational stuff, whereas you should be building systems for each of these three things. And once those are in place, you really can maximize the value of each lead that comes in and you make a lot of money, and then build a team around that to support that and scale that up.
Mike: Absolutely. Well, let’s dive into the first one, targeted marketing. So, historically, and even today, there’s still a lot of real estate investors that are throwing lots of stuff at the wall, they’re getting sloppy. In the past, they could’ve maybe afforded to because their margins are so big, and there’s pressure on all that stuff now. So let’s talk about targeted marketing.
Dan: So, everybody should read the book, “80/20 Sales and Marketing.” The 80/20 principle as Pareto’s law, 20% of . . . or 80% of your results come from 20% of the inputs, of the work that you’re doing. There’s a small thing that’s giving you the most results in your marketing. And you need to pinpoint exactly what that is. And for investors, it’s targeted lists. It’s really, instead of a blanket mailing absentee owners, like we’ve been taught to do for years, it’s sending to the probates, it’s sending to your code violations. It’s researching and building a list that other people aren’t willing to put the time and effort into researching. There’s a lot of services out there that can do this for you, but he who has the better list will inevitably, produce more results than the other guy.
Mike: Sure. Sure.
Dan: So that’s for inbound marketing. The big trend that’s happening now is outbound marketing, which is cold calling. It’s you’re driving for dollars. It’s you’re just going out and talking to people, right? Brett Daniels is, sort of, the becoming the godfather of REI cold calling because he coined the term TTP, which is Talk To People. And if you can scale that and you can build a team of cold callers that are just taking one of these targeted lists, calling them up, “Do you have a property to sell?” and doing that every single day, then you’re going to be able to get deals faster than the guy that’s just crossing their fingers, hoping that someone’s going to call them from a postcard. So, targeted, right? You’re going right to the source.
That is, sort of, the macro-trend with marketing, and generally speaking, if it’s a harder way to get the deal, it’s going to make you the most money because less people are doing that strategy.
Mike: Absolutely. And I coach and mentor a lot of people, and I always talk about it. The easier the list is to get and the cheaper it is . . . Like, we have access to data for 3 cents a record now that historically, people think it’s awesome. It’s awesome to get data that cheap, while I was paying 12 cents for that whatever before. But it’s the same data that everybody is using now because it’s cheap, right? So the barrier to access that list, the barrier to entry is the lowest for that stuff, so therefore, everybody does it.
Somehow, real estate investors say, “Well, I got a really good deal on my data,” but then they’ll spend a ton of money mailing to it, right? And it’s like, “Yeah, the data was cheap, but you’re wasting all this money mailing to something that has no motivation flag on it, just because they’re . . . Just because it has equity doesn’t mean that they’re . . . have any motivation to sell, right?
Dan: Yeah. And those targeted lists will be different per market, but some good ones are Notice of Default foreclosure lists, people that are behind in their mortgage. High equity vacant houses, if you’re in an area like Baltimore, there’s a lot of those, or Detroit. And I’m sure if you’re a member FlipNerd, you have access to resources on how to get all that type of stuff. And there are companies and lead generation services that can help you with that, but, in general, that’s where the trend is.
And then also, the best investors I know are simultaneously building a brand, so this is the intangible asset that they have. A brand in their marketplace where people, when they’re ready to sell, they just know to call this person. And this may sound like a pipe dream to you, but it’s actually something that you can work towards by reinvesting the profits from your inbound and outbound marketing into brand-building activities. What are brand-building activities? Website, testimonials, YouTube videos, things that exist perpetually online. Also media coverage, outdoor signage, park benches. These are the type of things that like the big players are doing and everybody can work up to this, but you don’t start with that, right?
I wouldn’t recommend going out and getting a billboard if you’re just starting out, right? First, it’s you . . . those boots-on-the-ground activities, you scale it to inbound marketing, and while you’re doing this, you’re building a brand online and you’re boosting your rankings for your SEOs so that your website shows up when people type in, “I need to sell my house.”
Mike: That’s awesome.
Dan: Yeah. So, you scale into . . .
Mike: Any thoughts on . . . Go ahead. I’m sorry. Go ahead. Talk a little about real fast, just to get your take on it, how to stand out from your brand. Obviously, you’re talking about how to build your brand, do some brand-marketing, but talk about like picking a brand. So sometimes people pigeonhole themselves into some name that they like can’t use if they go into another market, or . . . and not everybody is going to go into multiple markets, but just talk about the importance of building a . . . trying to come up with a brand that’s not necessarily like Mike Buys Houses. Maybe it is, maybe that’s fine, but jut your thought on picking a brand for people that are, like, new or newer, and they don’t really have a brand. They could kind of pivot it at this point, but give us your thoughts.
Dan: Good question. No, that’s a solid question, and the answer came to me as . . .
Mike: I only ask good questions, Dan. All my questions are the best.
Dan: So, the answer came to me as you’re asking that, and you don’t have to pick a brand. Your brand shows up as a result of who you are. So, how you operate, your personality, the way that you like to conduct yourselves and in business is your brand. Maybe you’re a little goofy, maybe you’re a little bit quirky, that should show up in your brand. Maybe you’re just like a get ish done right away, type of person, and you’re willing to display that side of you online, and say like, “Listen, we don’t mess around. This is how we do business. Fill out the form, we’re going to get back to you.”
Or maybe you’re a little quirky and it shows up as just like a, “Hey, if your house is super dirty, and rotten, and there’s cat poop everywhere, then make sure . . . ” you know, and broadcast that out in the marketplace. That’s how people will latch on to you because they’re going to remember your uniqueness. That’s all brand is. Your brand is just the unique feeling that you give the person that is viewing your messages. And again . . .
Mike: That’s awesome. And I feel like a lot of people, you know… You just talked about building SEO, we’ve, you know . . . I’ve talked to Trevor Mauch before, I’ve had him on the show with some other content where we’re talking about creating content. And we know, we’ve had these discussions that the easiest thing to do is just to create content in the process of doing your daily work, right? If you have to like be somebody that you’re not, exactly what you’re saying that, it’s harder to create that content. Because, like, “Well, I have to, like, wear something different now, or I have to do some . . . act like I’m somebody different.”
If you’re just like, “Hey, this is . . . ” If it’s Mike Buys Houses, like, “Hey, I’m Mike, and I buy houses. Let’s talk about this house we just bought,” you know. It’s so much easier to create content . . . I mean, again, this is episode 419. Across our podcast, we have 1,500 episodes. It was so much easier for us to create this show when I realized, “Hey, I’m just sitting at my desk in my office.” People think I have, like, a studio here, but, no. This is just, like, my office and I just happen to have a sign behind me that says, “FlipNerd,” and I can sit down and create a show at any time.
Like, if a dog barks somewhere or somebody sneezes, like, we don’t edit it out. It’s like this is just the show, and just being ourselves was the easiest thing for us to do. And, I guess, that what I’m saying is for other investors, just be yourself, like you’re saying, and things are much easier for you to pull off then.
Dan: Things are more easier to pull off, it’s more fun. And I would also say that . . . I mean, that’s a good, like, kind of, vague answer. But the best way to build a brand is to show that you actually buy houses. So, “Show. Don’t tell,” is a phrase that I just learned in my software mastermind. It’s, “Show. Don’t tell.” Like, when I just told you that InvestorFuse members closed . . . got 780 deals under contract last month, that’s social proof that, like, what we’re doing is actually working.
Every investor should have that and you shouldn’t shut up about it. We just closed five houses last week that this is a testimonial, this is someone that I talked to. Like, those testimonial videos should be like considered to be a very serious task. That’s a $10,000 per hour activity to record videos with your sellers, proving that you’re actually delivering on what you promised in all of those postcards you sent.
Mike: That’s awesome, man.
Dan: That’s huge. That’s very, very huge, and that’s actually what the foundation of your brand should be about. It’s just like Express Homebuyers, for instance, Brad Chandler? Those guys crush deals, and they have more testimonials than you can imagine, so when someone goes to their website, there’s no question that you’re going to get a real person on the phone, that you’re going to get an offer. And that’s the brand that people, like . . . the feeling they get is like, “Oh, these guys are going to . . . This is . . . I finally found the person I’m going to work with. Like, I don’t have to be shopping around anymore.” So you really lean into that and that’s how you build a solid brand at least with your online presence.
Mike: That’s awesome. So we talked about targeted marketing, building your brand there a little bit. Let’s talk about the next. The next step was follow up.
Dan: So, 10 years ago, how did people follow up with leads? I don’t even know anymore, because I’m so into the . . .
Mike: This is not a joke. This is going to make me sound like an old man, okay? But there’s a friend of mine that was buying . . . they were buying 100-plus houses a year. And literally, what they did is . . . even when we started having CRMs, they literally had like a recipe box with note cards in it. And it is a system, right? It’s cheesy, but they would say, “Follow up in a week, 14 days, 30 days,” and just take that card, and bump it back to the 30 days. I just follow up, and we call them again in 30 days. And there was no high technology there, but there’s some simplicity in making sure that you do it right, so. And I’m not saying that’s what all people did but a lot of people were using up until, like, you built, your platform and we really started to get a lot of traction here with different CRMs.
Some people were using Excel and spreadsheets to do things, which is chaotic, at best, right?
Dan: So chaotic.
Mike: But, yeah, follow up is critical, though. So, go ahead.
Dan: When you’re generating thousands of leads, I can’t imagine using, like, a paper-based system like that. In fact, I believe the spreadsheet is what allowed investors to really start doing 5 to 10 deals a month. Because before then, you just . . . the papers stacking up this high on your desk, and I’m sure there were people like that and some might even be listening.
Mike: Unfortunately, there probably still are, so hopefully . . . hope they listen today and change their ways.
Dan: The value of your business is directly tied to your follow-up system. You need to have a rocking follow-up system, and what that means is, every lead that comes in is immediately qualified, is it a lead or is it not a lead? Every lead has to go through that process, and then once it’s qualified as a lead, that lead should not hear the end of you until they tell you to stop contacting them, or they sell their house.
Mike: Exactly.
Dan: And in order to do that, when you’re generating thousands of leads, you need to have a CRM. You just have to have a CRM, whether it’s a spreadsheet . . . Don’t get a spreadsheet. Or one of the many tools out there, shameless plug InvestorFuse, you need to have a CRM in place to capture and qualify and follow up with all those leads at scale. Otherwise, your head’s going to spin and you’re going to pull all your hair out, and all that money you’re spending to do what we just talked about is just going to go down the drain and your competitor’s going to take that deal.
Mike: Absolutely.
Dan: So make your follow-up messaging personalized, so it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from some bot. And if you can execute that at scale, and consistently follow up and stay on this seller’s radar, then you’re going to extract more dollars out of every single lead than the next guy. And, so I’d say the frequency at which you contact these people, make sure to use multiple channels, e-mail, text messaging, phone calls, voice mails, physical mail. Use all these follow-up channels because different people respond to different tactile messages.
Mike: Absolutely.
Dan: And, yeah. The frequency, the medium, and the message needs to reflect your brand like we just talked about. And the more you can do that at scale, the more of those will come back as signed contracts.
Mike: I would say say literally . . . So, I gave a presentation last night to a large group, and I talked about . . . I usually give this example, 90% of my deals come from follow-up. Like, over 10 years, hundreds of deals, 90% of them come from follow-up. Now, sometimes, we get a deal within a week or two. That’s pretty common. It’s not right away, but it’s within a couple weeks. But I give this example often . . . In fact, we have a house under contract right now, which was like closed in two weeks that we generated that lead a year ago. And we just kept calling the guy, every 30 days, we’re touching him, we’re touching him, and finally, he came around and said, “I really . . . ” He appreciated that we were staying on him, right? He appreciated that fact.
He was like, “I just . . . yeah. Let’s talk about it now.” So . . .
Dan: It gives you an air of professionalism, right? [inaudible 00:24:12].
Mike: Yeah. So, of course you’ve got to do it right, but we got . . . Not only . . . We got the house under contract, we’re supposed to close in a couple weeks here, but what he said was after he got it under a contract, he’s like, “I actually have 40 houses and I’m going to sell them all.” He’s like, “I want to give you guys first shot at all of them.” So, I don’t know if we’re going to get them all. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but that was a result of our follow-up. And without taking too much time on the show, I gave an example of a house that we got here about a year or so ago that our first offer was 54 months earlier. And we just followed up monthly for about 54 months.
And most of the time we got a voice mail, but we have a process where my VA . . . I have a VA that does follow up, and he’s been doing it for 6 years, he calls every 30 days, and usually, he gets voicemail. And he will put in our CRM, “Call that voicemail,” “Call the voicemail.” Set himself a task to call again in 30 days. Sometimes, they said, “Well, no, I’m not interested,” and they like hang up on him. And he would put a note in there, but they never said, “Stop calling.” And so after 54 months they said, “Is that offer still good?” And we said, “Well, we don’t know. It’s been four and a half years,” so we ended up buying the house cheaper than what we offered four and a half years earlier because it had deteriorated even more.
But, anyway, just the power there of the importance of follow-up.
Dan: It’s hard when you’re in the current state of like, “I need to get a deal right now,” to really embody the importance of follow-up, but trust us. Trust us. Just trust us. The majority of your deals are going to come from follow-up because think about the situation they’re in. Selling a house is not something that just you do on a drop of a dime. It’s a process that takes time, for them to think it over. The circumstances of people’s lives need to congeal perfectly, so that they can actually move out of their house and sell it, or, you know . . . It requires finesse over time.
And, yeah. The best way to do it is to set it and forget it. Use a system like an InvestorFuse to automatically follow-up with people. And this is a, kind of, a good segue into the next thing because if the CRM isn’t doing it, you’ve got to make sure your team is doing it. So, should we talk about team now?
Mike: Yeah, let’s jump into team, yeah.
Dan: I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to do, personally, five deals in a month by myself. I don’t want to do all the work that that entails. There’s a John D. Rockefeller quote is, “I’d rather make 1% off of 100 persons’ effort than 100% of my own,” because that scales. You can scale that and make just as much as you would if you were doing it all by yourself.
Mike: Absolutely, and more . . . more, probably, right.
Dan: Well, yeah, well beyond that, and you’re creating an asset that maybe you could sell one day. And you’re giving yourself a forcing function to become a leader, to learn entrepreneurship, to learn the importance of building systems, to learn how to focus on the right things. And that, kind of, goes into other areas of your life. It frees up your time so you can focus on the things that you like. It helps you find more time to eat healthy, to work out, to do the things that you enjoy, which might be building systems for your business. That’s kind of what it is for me, I’m a geek. It’s like it’s like a positive feedback loop once you realize the importance of having team members.
So, not only that benefit, but you’re going to make a ton of money doing more deals because now the marketing systems that you have in place that are generating these leads to go into your follow-up system are now getting plugged in to a system that your team can operate in. And hopefully, you have the basic foundations of what I call the Essential Wholesaling Team, which is you have . . . First of all, you have an admin person. Someone behind the scenes that’s doing basically anything that you would do on your computer, pulling comps, entering data into your system, administrative stuff. That’s just good to have that person online, but if you’re just starting out you and don’t have anyone hired yet, the first person who I would hire is a lead manager.
This is crucial because this is the first hire. Someone to qualify all of the leads that are coming in and just go through your seller lead-sheet, and ask the questions, and determine if you have a deal or not. And that person should be well-versed in how to use your follow-up system. Ideally, they’re doing the follow-up for you as well. So, if you have the right follow-up system, then you can hire a lead manager to do all of that grunt work of taking all the phone calls, doing all the initial lead prequalification. At that point, once it becomes a lead, it gets handed off to your acquisitions team. So, if you’re just starting out, you hire a lead manager, and then you’re going to hire an acquisitions manager.
Usually, it’s just you at first, the person that’s going to go and shake the head of the seller and do the deal. So, you need to have a team in place that is doing the negotiation, going into the property. Then you need to have a dispositions manager who is in charge of executing the strategy that’s monetizing the lead. So, if it’s rehabbing, if it’s wholesaling, you need to have a team in place to do that. So, it’s sort of like you can think of it each stage of a lead in the pipeline needs to have one person that’s accountable to maximize each stage of the pipeline.
And then there’s you, the owner, that is bringing in the knowledge, the money, the systems, and the inspiration for each of your team members to take that inbound lead all the way through to check and wire and your bank account. And I know it might seem intimidating at first, but it really is that simple, right? And you’ll feel that once you hire your first person.
Mike: Again, I talked to a REIA club. I haven’t spoken at a REIA club for like five years, but I did last night to a pretty large group . . .
Dan: Nice.
Mike: And I talk about this all the time. It’s like none of us get in this business to become self-employed, but a lot of real estate investors . . . truthfully, unfortunately, a lot of real estate investors fail before they ever do a single deal. They give up, right? And some of it is they realize how much work it is, and if you’re not using a lot of systems and stuff. It’s like chicken and egg, a little bit. You have to have some of these systems, but you don’t have to have all these systems to get started. Like, before you’re even generating leads, like you shouldn’t try to build the perfect business and have it all built out before you even start advertising, right? You’re going to . . . It’s just you’ve got to get started.
You almost have to go through the process of getting a deal, and once you see the process work end-to-end, you’re like, then people are just like, “I get it. I get this now,” right? But it’s critical that people treat this like a business. A lot of people treat it like a hobby, and unfortunately everybody has their own goals. So I’m not here to tell somebody you should never just focus on doing a deal a month, because truthfully, most people don’t even get there, unfortunately. But the reality is if you want to build a business, you need to do a little more volume so that you can justify having these people. Like, you can’t afford to pay all these people if you’re doing one deal a month usually, in most markets, right?
So, it’s like chicken and egg. You want to scale the business and you want to pull yourself out of the business. In order to do that, you’ve got to be dealing a couple deals a month. Depends on the market and what you’re doing with the houses, right? Basically, what I’m asking people to do is think bigger. Think bigger than just you yourself doing everything because that’s not the endgame for probably anybody that wants to become a successful real estate investor.
Dan: Do what you would do if you knew you couldn’t fail, and realize that you can be creative. Like, if you can’t afford someone, get creative. Mentor them in exchange for their services. Pay them a percentage of the deals that come in. There’s ways to a lot . . . There are people out there that will perform exactly what you want them to do, and you just have to put yourself out there and find that person.
Good way to find them, Craigslist, you know. Make sure to vet everybody. Make sure you use your gut when you’re hiring. Make sure they have a great attitude. Make sure that they’re trainable, and that they’re going to listen to you, and that they can take feedback, and that they’re hungry to learn and perform. And maybe someone else, you know . . . this is just a fact of life, but sometimes you’re going to poach someone from another company, or maybe that person from another company is looking for a new position, and their values are more in line with your values, so it makes sense for you to hire the acquisitions manager from another company as long as it’s up to them.
So there are people out there that have experience that you need that can help you scale your business.
Mike: Absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. Dan, this is great stuff. I mean, at the end of the day, we’re kind of telling people here same thing that I say, same words I’ve been saying, treat it like a business, right, put the right processes in place, squeeze as much juice as you can out of the fruit that you do harvest, which is your leads, right? And work those leads forever until they’re dead, or until they’ve sold the house, or they tell you, “Don’t ever call me again.”
Dan: Yeah. But the whole the whole term, “working your leads,” that’s not what investors are. Investors are the guys that are shaking the hand of the sellers, negotiating the deal, determining how much rehab it needs, structuring some, sort of, creative way to acquire that deal, that’s what investing is. It’s not working your leads. Utilize technology, utilize team. If you’re not doing it, make sure someone else is doing your marketing, so you can actually, like, focus on being an investor, and . . .
Mike: Absolutely.
Dan: That’s when your life can really change.
Mike: Awesome. Awesome, man. Hey, so we’re going to add a link down below for those . . . obviously, you’re most well-known for InvestorFuse, so we’ll add a link down there. Where else do people go to learn more about you, or some of the other things you have going on? Tell us more about what’s going on.
Dan: I would check out investorfuse.com at the date that this is being published. You’ll get guided to exactly where you need to go. We have a really good blog too that has some pretty epic content that I’ve poured my heart and soul into. You can check out. You guys are cool if I share the masterclass?
Mike: Yeah.
Dan: So I collected an expert series of interviews about the most modern marketing strategies so, sort of, that whole inbound, outbound, scaling your marketing. I interviewed the best that I know, and I put that into a training course called REI Modern Marketing Masterclass and you can check that out if you want at reimarketingmasterclass.com. I just made that because all of our customers need leads, and the more successful they are, the more successful we are, and we can continue to innovate the InvestorFuse platform which you can check out at investorfuse.com, and newly revamped and re-released to make it super, super simple to use, dummy proof, even. Very impossible to mess up your leads and your follow-up, so if you’re looking for a just a streamlined system, then that’s a great way to make it happen.
Mike: Awesome, man. We’ll add links for all the stuff down below, a few other things that we mentioned during the show today. So, thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Great to see you, always.
Dan: Great to see you too. Thanks so much for having us. This is an exciting time to be doing business, so no excuses.
Mike: No excuses, yeah. No excuses for anybody. Awesome. Awesome.
Everybody, hey, this is episode number 419 with Dan Schwartz. Great stuff here. We shared a lot of good resources, so if you’re listening somewhere off of flipnerd.com, make sure you go to flipnerd.com/shows, and you can get to the show that way, and check out the resources that we’re going to add down below here, some additional links, and other information. If you haven’t already, please go to . . . if you listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, even on YouTube, watching us or listening to us there, if you could subscribe, give us some positive feedback. That’s what keeps us moving forward here, I can promise you.
I have a busy life. I’ve got a lot of things going on, busier than ever. Lots of good stuff going on, but I promise you, it’s the feedback and the subscriptions, and the good . . . the feedback we get from the shows that, kind of, keep us going forward that’s going to help us do another 419 episodes. So, appreciate you all. Have a great day. We’ll see you on the next one.
Dan: See you.
Announcer: If you’re an active real estate investor already doing deals and looking to double or triple your business, you should consider joining the Investor Fuel Real Estate Investor Mastermind. We’re a small group of investors that share our best practices, tips, and tricks with one another in effort to all win. Real estate investing can be a lonely business for successful real estate investors, but it doesn’t have to be. Investor Fuel members meet 4 times a year, but we talk to each other 365 days a year, and we focus on improving the profitability of our businesses. Improving the quality of our lives, that’s why we do this, right? And making an impact on those around us so we can truly leave a legacy.
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