Frustrated with the leads you’re getting for your real estate investments? In this episode, we break down the stark differences between Pay-Per-Click and Pay-Per-Lead marketing. Learn why the right agency partnership can make all the difference in lead quality, how affiliate commissions influence industry choices, and why patience and consistency are essential for long-term success. Don’t miss these crucial insights that can change your marketing game!

Wondering which strategy is better for your real estate business in 2024—PPC (Pay Per Click) or PPL (Pay Per Lead)? In this episode of the Collected Clicks Podcast, expert Noah Parks breaks down the pros and cons of both marketing channels and reveals which one is most effective for generating high-quality real estate leads. 🏠💻If you're a real estate investor, agent, or marketer looking to maximize your lead generation efforts, you can't miss this in-depth discussion. Noah shares insider tips, common misconceptions, and key strategies to help you decide whether PPC or PPL is right for your business. 💡

Ready to scale your real estate business fast? Sean O'Toole reveals proven, data-driven tips for finding motivated sellers—exclusive insights you can't afford to miss!

 In the competitive world of real estate, understanding the distinction between growth-oriented and lifestyle businesses is crucial. This blog delves into the insights shared by industry expert Sean, highlighting personal experiences in transitioning between these business types. Furthermore, we explore the significance of effective messaging in direct-to-seller marketing, particularly in leveraging data for impactful communication. By combining these elements, real estate professionals can position themselves for success in today's dynamic market.

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Curious how AI can revolutionize your real estate business? Brad reveals how he’s used AI to secure 15 extra deals in just 5 months by automating follow-ups and re-engaging cold leads—something every real estate investor struggles with. If you’re looking to boost your deals and streamline your operations, don’t miss this exclusive breakdown of AI’s game-changing potential. Tune in now!"

What if AI could help you close 15 extra real estate deals in just five months? In this episode, Brad, a seasoned real estate investor, reveals the AI-powered strategies that revolutionized his business. From automating follow-ups to reengaging cold leads, Brad used AI to streamline operations and boost conversions—results that many real estate professionals struggle to achieve.

Discover five proven AI strategies, including automating day-to-day tasks, personalizing outreach, and handling fresh leads even during after-hours. With AI, Brad’s team instantly engaged leads, secured appointments, and increased conversions—all while freeing up time for high-value deals.

AI’s seamless integration with CRM systems helped Brad improve lead retention by 30%, making his business more efficient and competitive. And with AI adoption in real estate expected to grow rapidly by 2025, there’s no better time to get ahead.

Ready to transform your real estate business with AI? This episode is packed with actionable insights on how you can implement AI strategies to stay ahead in a competitive market. Tune in now!

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Ever feel like 'data-driven marketing' is just another buzzword? Tommy Anderson from Bateman Collective breaks down how top-tier agencies really work and what you should know before investing in digital marketing.

In this episode, Tommy Anderson, a seasoned sales executive at Bateman Collective, shares an insider’s view of the real workings behind digital marketing agencies. He dives deep into why the lowest-cost options often fail to deliver sustainable results, even if their metrics look promising at first. Tommy emphasizes the importance of understanding true value, setting realistic expectations, and finding genuine experts in a crowded and often misleading market. Through candid and eye-opening examples, he reveals how many agencies use buzzwords like "data-driven marketing" to dazzle clients but fall short on delivering long-term success. Whether you're an investor who's felt misled by lofty promises or just looking to sharpen your marketing knowledge, this conversation offers valuable insights on identifying authentic agencies that prioritize sustainable growth.

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In this episode, we dive deep into the art and science of split testing, prioritizing tests, and optimizing processes for efficient growth. Learn how implementing an agile project management approach through two-week sprints can significantly boost team productivity and results.

In this episode, the hosts dive deep into the crucial elements of effective testing and project management within a business context. They emphasize the importance of selecting the right tests, using a framework called P.I.E. (Priority, Impact, Ease) to assess which tests to implement based on their significance and feasibility. The discussion highlights how documentation plays a vital role in preserving knowledge within teams, especially as team members change over time. Keeping detailed records of tests conducted, including their objectives, outcomes, and data collected, prevents redundancy and ensures that valuable insights are not lost.

The conversation shifts towards the implementation of a sprint-based project management approach, inspired by agile methodologies, which enhances team efficiency and prioritization. By focusing on high-impact projects within fixed two-week sprints, teams can concentrate on what truly matters and iterate based on feedback. This system helps avoid the chaos of constantly shifting priorities, ensuring that everyone is aligned and working towards common goals. Overall, the episode underscores the importance of structured testing and project management in driving continuous improvement and achieving business success.

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In the world of real estate marketing, the concept of duplicate leads from various channels often sparks debate. Are you simply paying for the same lead twice, or are you strategically outmaneuvering your competition?

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In this engaging conversation, Brandon and Colby explore the nuances of duplicate leads in the marketing landscape, particularly for companies investing heavily across multiple channels. They discuss scenarios where leads may come from different sources, such as Google Ads and direct mail campaigns, and how this can lead to paying for the same lead more than once.

Brandon illustrates the distinction between direct mail and digital advertising, noting that while direct mail may yield varying amounts of outreach based on location, Google Ads consistently presents the top four bids to users regardless of competition levels. This fixed inventory of ads creates a unique dynamic for consumers who may reach out to multiple companies for quotes.

The duo posits that acquiring a lead from different sources could effectively eliminate competition and increase closing rates by reducing bidding wars, which ultimately enhances the overall negotiation position for the buyer. Colby adds that larger companies often see leads coming through multiple channels due to their market presence, raising questions about whether managing or targeting duplicate leads is worth the effort.

They conclude by affirming that while eliminating duplicates may not be entirely feasible, understanding their implications can provide valuable insights into optimizing marketing strategies.

Discover the power of gratitude in business! In this episode, Max shares insights on how recognizing your current achievements can pave the way for future success, emphasizing that slowing down and appreciating your journey can lead to better decision-making.

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In this engaging conversation, Max reflects on his journey as an entrepreneur, recounting a pivotal moment with a mentor who taught him the importance of gratitude. Despite his success—living in a luxurious Miami penthouse and making significant income—Max realized he often rushed toward his goals, ignoring crucial signs that could lead to greater success. He uses the metaphor of “check engine lights” to illustrate how neglecting to appreciate where you are can lead to poor decisions and outcomes.

Max emphasizes that entrepreneurs, driven by ambition, often overlook the importance of celebrating small wins. He argues that maintaining a balance between ambition and gratitude can lead to smoother operations and more thoughtful decision-making. The discussion also touches on the idea that personal growth is essential for business growth, highlighting that each person's journey is unique.

Brandon and Max delve into the concept of growth being a continuum, suggesting that while some individuals may accelerate quickly, it’s crucial to recognize that everyone has their own timeline. Max shares his shift in perspective from valuing speed in decision-making to prioritizing quality decisions, reinforcing that thoughtful choices lead to more sustainable success.

As they wrap up the episode, Max encourages listeners to enjoy their entrepreneurial journey, scale their businesses, and most importantly, help others along the way.

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Unlock the secrets of effective sales with critical thinking! Join Jerry and Brandon as they explore the essential qualities of top-performing salespeople, the art of problem-solving, and strategies for turning even the most unmotivated leads into successful deals. Discover how to elevate your sales process and achieve predictable results in your business.

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In this episode, Jerry and Brandon delve into the vital role of critical thinking and problem-solving in the sales process. Jerry emphasizes that average salespeople often operate under the misconception that sales are a fixed-sum game, limiting their potential for success. Instead, he advocates for a mindset shift where sales professionals view themselves as problem solvers, ready to adapt their strategies based on the needs of the client.

Brandon highlights the importance of having a proactive approach to sales, noting that top salespeople exhibit traits like hunger, humility, and creativity. Jerry stresses that hiring individuals with strong critical thinking skills is crucial for any business, as these individuals can navigate contracts and guide clients through the sales process effectively.

They discuss a structured onboarding process for acquisition reps, which includes three key components: understanding operations, mastering the sales process, and knowing how to present contracts. By focusing on these areas, businesses can significantly reduce the problems typically associated with sales roles.

The conversation shifts to lead generation, where Jerry explains the common misconception that leads are inherently weak. He introduces the concept of the "Seller Continuum," where leads range from highly motivated to neutral. By equipping salespeople with the skills to identify and bridge the gap between a seller's current situation and their desired outcome, they can create urgency and increase conversion rates.

Brandon adds that effective sales training should focus on price anchoring, which allows salespeople to take control of negotiations without alienating potential clients. They conclude that success in sales comes from continuous learning, adapting strategies, and approaching every lead with the belief that it could be the next big deal.

In this episode, real estate investor Donato breaks down his data-driven approach to market analysis and deal selection. From key metrics to watch to insights on buyer behavior, he shares practical strategies for success in today's competitive real estate landscape. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, you'll gain valuable insights to sharpen your market intelligence and make smarter investment decisions. Tune in to level up your real estate game.

In this insightful episode, Donato Callahan, a seasoned expert in data-driven real estate, shares his knowledge on using analytics to drive smarter investment strategies. Donato emphasizes the importance of understanding local market dynamics and how analyzing data such as historical trends, property values, and economic indicators can lead to more informed real estate decisions. Whether you are an investor, real estate agent, or someone interested in understanding market trends, Donato’s approach provides a valuable perspective on how to leverage data for better outcomes.

He discusses how technology has transformed the real estate industry, making it easier for professionals to access and interpret data. From identifying key metrics like price-per-square-foot to analyzing neighborhood trends, Donato breaks down the essentials of market analysis. He also touches on the importance of being proactive and continuously monitoring market shifts to stay ahead in the competitive landscape.

Throughout the episode, Donato provides practical tips on building a data-driven mindset, such as identifying reliable data sources, developing your own analysis tools, and avoiding common pitfalls in real estate investment. He also shares real-life examples of successful projects where data played a crucial role in decision-making.

If you're looking to sharpen your skills in market analysis or seeking actionable strategies for real estate investing, this episode offers a comprehensive guide to mastering the market through data.

Are your location targeting strategies costing you valuable leads? Tune in to uncover how to maximize your ROI through smarter bidding!

In this episode, we dive deep into the often-overlooked nuances of location targeting in digital marketing. Our hosts discuss the fluctuating nature of keyword costs and the importance of implementing value-based bidding strategies. They highlight the correlation between keyword costs and their value, stressing that higher costs often signify greater intent and potential revenue. Listeners will learn how to adjust their bidding strategies according to their business's unit economics and how to focus on revenue per lead rather than merely chasing lower costs.

The conversation explores the necessity of being adaptable in a dynamic market and emphasizes the importance of understanding operational margins to successfully compete in PPC. By the end of this episode, marketers will gain valuable insights into refining their approach to location targeting, leading to better results and higher returns on their investments.

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Unlock the secrets to crafting compelling Facebook video ads! Discover the essential do's and don'ts that will elevate your marketing game and maximize your ad performance.

In this episode, we dive deep into the do's and don'ts of creating successful Facebook video ads. The discussion begins with the importance of storytelling in video ads, emphasizing how narratives can captivate audiences and drive engagement. Key elements include keeping videos concise, focusing on the first few seconds to grab attention, and ensuring that messaging aligns with the target audience's needs and interests.

We also highlight the significance of high-quality visuals and sound, as poor production can detract from the message. Additionally, we explore the role of calls to action, encouraging listeners to prompt viewers to engage further after watching the ad.

On the flip side, we outline common pitfalls to avoid, such as overwhelming viewers with too much information, neglecting mobile optimization, and failing to test different versions of ads. The episode wraps up with actionable tips for optimizing video ads based on performance data, ensuring listeners leave with a clear roadmap to improve their Facebook advertising strategy.

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Bateman Collective Account Manager Shaun Young and Brandon discuss the idea that ROI is not everything when it comes to achieving business success. This episode explores the idea that focusing too heavily on ROI can actually negatively affect profitability and provides insight on how to avoid this mistake.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

From the Bateman Collective account strategy team, how are you doing today, Shaun?

"Doing pretty good."

"Excellent, happy to hear it! We had someone bail on our podcast last minute, so you are officially like the two minutes before the podcast fill-in. I was just excited, ready to take it over."

"I'm always ready to go. I hope what I told Sean though is what we're doing here is just what he does every day, so it's, you know, there he's been—his life has prepared him for this. He was not born ready but spent a lot of time being ready to be ready."

"Yeah, tell us a little bit about what you've done at Bateman Collective."

"Yeah, no, I’ve been with Bateman Collective for quite a while now, and my biggest focus has really just been taking over a lot of our clients. Brandon, when I came in, was managing all of our clients, and I came in to help kind of take some of that off of the plate and help transition into more of a strategic focus, making sure that we get to the strategic needs and things like that. Brandon's really busy, so that's kind of my goal here, is making sure that we take care of our clients and give them the strategy that we need. And so, I've worked with probably almost all of our clients up to this point, touched all of our clients in some manner."

"So yeah, and now you probably work directly with more clients than anybody else on the team."

"So yeah, super grateful to have you here, and I don't want to understate the impact that you have on our clients' strategy and results, and the so many of the things that you do so much better than I did when it comes to communicating with clients and making sure that we're headed for success and all of that kind of stuff."

"So today, the topic is that it's not all about ROI, which I know is, I guess, like controversial, or—and the reality is it kind of is about ROI. I mean, there's some things that are more about ROI than others, but I think that this kind of relentless focus that we have sometimes on ROI can make it so that we ultimately don't profit as much as we could in our businesses. And I want to talk about some of those details and some of the misconceptions that people have and where they go wrong. Do you have any thoughts on that just introducing the topic, Sean?"

"Yeah, no, I think it's something that's really easy to get caught up on because ultimately it is the end result; it is the end goal. But if you're so focused on the end goal, then you're never—you're going to miss the targets on the way. In fact, I actually enjoy going shooting a lot, and it's something that we, whenever I bring somebody new, I'm always teaching them, you know, when you're looking down the sights of a gun, if you're so focused on your target, or if you're focused on the target that you're not really paying attention to where you're aiming, then you're going to miss your shot. You need to be able to see the whole line down your whole sight and understand that from your eye to the sight to the target, you need to be able to line that up. And if you can't see the sights, you're going to miss your shots. So, I think when it comes to ROI, it's extremely important, but you also need to understand what's going to get you to that ROI. I think another point with that is that sometimes the target's not even ROI. I mean, everybody, I think, if you ask most of our clients, what's the target, they'd say ROI, and I think that's a valuable metric, but really profitability is what we're shooting for, right?"

"Oh yeah, and I think volume's often ignored. You can have 100x ROI on ten dollars a month in advertising spend, and it's just not that exciting, right? That's not as good as a much lower return on investment but at a significantly higher volume."

"Yeah, yeah, there's kind of that trade-off between those."

"One thing I guess I would clarify too is I think a lot of this episode is going to be about decision-making, like how do we analyze marketing channels, make good decisions that are going to help us get the results we're looking for in the future? And with that, it's the return in the future that we actually care about more than the return in the past."

"Any thoughts on that, like this dynamic of how important is past ROI versus future ROI?"

"Yeah, no, I think past ROI is extremely important to take into consideration because it plays a heavy role, and it's one of the best ways that you can use decision-making to understand what the future is going to look like. But I think as everyone has learned this year, there's a lot of question marks in our future that we've never encountered in our past. You know, the markets in a crazy point that we've never seen before, and if you focus too much on the past stuff, then you aren't taking into consideration what's going on and what's going to be happening in 2023. So, I think there's a very, very healthy balance that you need to find in order to be able to prepare for the future without weighing too much on the past but at the same time using it to help guide those decisions."

"Yeah, absolutely. It takes a critical eye to kind of get an idea of what's going on. I think sometimes things are easier understood just by taking them to a completely ridiculous extreme that'll never actually happen in your life. Like, one thing I was thinking about through this was, you know, theoretically, if I were to spend 10 million on a marketing channel, and I got absolutely nothing from it, that actually wouldn't matter if we're looking at should I spend money on that marketing channel next year or next month or whatever the case is. The way to answer that question is, what do I think it's going to produce next year or next month or whatever the case is. Or, another bias that I've seen people have is they've spent a lot of money on a marketing channel, and they've done that for a long time in their business, and it's just not working or it's predicted to not work in the future, and what do you do when you've spent millions of dollars on a marketing channel, and it's produced for you, and then now you're looking at should I do that over the next amount of time? You want to look at is it going to produce over that next amount of time or not, and the answer can definitely go both directions."

"How do you keep—how do you take into account those factors? Because something that I think is really difficult that we deal with in this industry is that trends just take a really long time to notice. Like, something can change right now, and we might need six months of data to look at it and really understand that it's changed, right? So maybe six months in the future, we're finally realizing that it's changed, and we're making reactions. But I think it's important that we're more reactive than that, but if we become too reactive, then we're making actions based on incomplete data, and it can be a little bit all over the place. What would you say is the best way to kind of control for that?"

"I think patience is a big one for that, where, kind of like you mentioned, if we're too reactive, if we're looking at our campaigns on the daily, there's way too much flack, way too much stuff that is just completely random and has no impact on the future. But if you don't touch your campaign for a year, and then you go back and look at it and try to figure out what's going on, you're also going to have no idea because you missed so many touchpoints where you should have been looking at things and understanding and making adjustments. So I think it's important to be patient and give it the time it needs to develop into a trend, but at the same time, you also need to be watching at a good pace. This is exactly why we visit every 30 days with all of our clients because it's a good amount of time where we can look at things and we can start to see trends where they start to emerge and prepare for them but also not be too reactive and impact trends that we think are happening but may not in the future, or missed trends that are happening and such. So I think that's the biggest thing, is making sure that you're patient while at the same time watching things in a timely manner. So it's a healthy—it's a hard thing to figure out because I think everyone always has a question: how often should I be adjusting things on my campaign? And it's different for every market. I mean, if we were in e-commerce or something like that, it would be much faster where you'd see campaign results after like six, seven days, but here, in this market where we have a much lower number of conversions, just in total, you have to give it the right amount of time."

"Yeah, absolutely. I think your analogy from before about—I know almost nothing about shooting, so I'm gonna butcher this, guaranteed—but kind of aligning yourself with the sights with the target makes a ton of sense because I kind of think of that as comparing to a funnel. Like, and in the top of the funnel, you have ad spend, right? That's your money you spend, and then from that, you're gonna get a certain number of impressions. From those impressions, you get clicks, from those you get leads, from those you get good leads, from those you get appointments and contracts and deals, and canceled contracts

, all that kind of stuff, right? So each of these is a phase that everything has to go through, right? If you're gonna have a deal, then first, someone has to see your ad, then they have to click it, then they have to fill out a form, and then it has to actually be a good lead, and then it has to become a contract, and then it has to become a deal, right? So those are, that's kind of how a funnel works; every step is mandatory. But the thing that I think there are some relationships with this like as you get really close to the top of that funnel, we have a lot of sample size for that, which I think is really unique, yeah, right? So, for example, if we've been running a campaign, and it's been running for a week, and it has zero impressions, nobody has seen the ad, that probably tells us that something's wrong. We don't need six months of data to say that something's wrong with that, right? Because we're not actually gathering data because nothing's happening, right? Because that's a really high funnel metric because we know that should be happening, whatever amount of times it's happening per day, depending on the budget and the channel and all that kind of stuff, but a lot, right? Because a lot of people see the ad for how many people actually get it. If we compare this to direct mail, it's like, did you send the postcard, right? Yeah, if you haven't mailed the postcard, then patience doesn't fix that, right? You gotta mail the postcard, gotta be working correct. So, but then we take it a little bit deeper. So we could do that, we can measure that in really small increments, and but but nobody cares about impressions, right? I don't care how many people see my ad, um, I'm sure I'm sure you don't care about that, what we care about is profits, ROI, all that kind of stuff, but as we get deeper and deeper into the funnel, we get closer and closer to those metrics, and but two things happen: one, we get more relevant with our metrics because we care more about clicks than we do impressions, and we care about leads more than clicks, and qualified leads more than leads, etc. But we also have a smaller sample size for those things, and I think with the budgets that most companies are working in this industry, you can only go do so deep in the funnel in a certain time period. So so that's where there are like what I would call leading metrics, which would be kind of those upper funnel things. It's not a—you know, it's not like it's a—it's a binary action that like people talk about leading and lagging metrics like it's either leading or it's lagging, which isn't exactly true. You're, you're leading; there's impressions are more leading than clicks, and clicks are more leading than leads, but that's slowly becoming more lagging, and then ROI is all the way at the bottom of that whole funnel as the most lagging metric that we generally have in a campaign. So so basically what I'm saying is, what I would argue is that the amount of time to analyze the data depends on how much data you have, and you can always analyze it on some level, but I think where people go wrong sometimes is they analyze it deep in the funnel, but when they only have run it for enough time to analyze it high up in the funnel, there's not enough sample size to go quite that deep."

"Yep, no, I think that's part of the exact issue, and why people jump out when they shouldn't and make decisions when they shouldn't. You know where it—it's, there's not, you kind of like to your point, you have to go down the funnel, and sometimes we work backwards out the funnel. We look at, 'Oh, so-and-so got this many leads this month,' kind of thing. And then, okay, well, that trend, that came from this many clicks, that came from this many impressions, you know, and so we're being—having you have to be able to take all of that data into consideration to be able to make those decisions. And if you're looking at ROI constantly, which I know most of us do because that's that's our end goal, right, but if you're constantly looking at ROI, you're so far down the funnel that there's just so much or so little that impacts it that you haven't, you don't, you can't make a good decision without understanding the rest of that funnel. And so I think to your point, measuring at the right point of the funnel is another huge thing that too many people are doing wrong where they're measuring either too high or too low in the funnel."

"Yeah, and to make sure that we're, like, so clear that there's no opportunity for anybody to misunderstand: like, we care a lot about ROI, right?"

"Oh yeah, absolutely, you just need the right time to look at it, because otherwise what you get is you get extreme values, either extremely high or extremely low."

"I'm not sure if you're familiar with the concept; it's a statistical concept of regression towards the mean. It's, uh, what it basically says is let's just say like you take a sample of like extremely tall people, right, that are like seven foot four or whatever the case is, and you estimate what are the, what's the height of their children going to be. Um, so if you just looked at it the way that a lot of investors look at their marketing, they'd say, well, the parent was seven foot four, so the kid's gonna be seven foot four. If we look at it, the way that it, uh, that statistics would argue, it's we would say it's an extreme value first, so what's probably going to happen is the height of that person's children are going to be somewhere between seven foot four and the actual average height of a person in that extreme value is probably going to regress towards the mean, and we're going to end up with a more normal value. So so the second value observed tends to be much more normal than the first value observed if the first value is extreme, and where this happens, it goes both ways. We have clients where the extreme value is that they have a lower return over a period of time, so then they quit even though the next value is much more likely to be significantly higher, and then we have it go where we see people get way too excited about like picture like I just started my ads. I was talking to a client the other day that had like three contracts in their first weekend, and so they have this like super extreme value from like not that crazy of a budget in a really hard market, yeah, where it's just like awesome like I'm super glad that happened, but I wouldn't call that normal, and I can say with almost certainty that it's, that the next week's going to go worse than that, right, because we're just dealing with a small amount of time, right, so we want to like not get too excited or or upset about extreme values either direction, um, because there's so much there's some much random variation, it's crazy, it's crazy when you're doing big deals and you do a small number of them, and when I say small, I mean like 10, 20 a month, right, I'm not talking which anybody listen to this by like that's a ton of deals, but what other businesses do you know that rely on 10 or 20 customers each month?"

"Oh yeah, it's like no businesses."

"Yeah, no, I 100% agree, and I think to that same point where it's such an emotional game where you're the owner of a company, you know, that's your baby, and you want to make sure that baby's taken care of, you know, and when things are going really well, you're excited, when things are going bad, it's all you think about. It, you know, you lose sleep, you lose sleep over it, you know, it's, it's, it's extremely emotional, and I think that's honestly part of my job is helping people manage emotions, and that's kind of the way I see it, you know, where where I see what's happening with all of our clients, and I understand like it's so exciting when things are going well, and it, it sucks when things are going bad. I think I think everyone listening to this podcast can agree that at some point in the last few months, there's been some moments where you're losing sleep and you're just not sure what's happening. Um, I, I see it with all of the clients that I work with, and I think we all need to be careful not to let our emotions get the better of us and make decisions based on how, how we feel, you know, if the business isn't going well and or we're not getting the leads or they're just bad quality and and we're just, we don't know what to do, we don't always make great decisions in the heat of the moment, same thing when we get, you know, a six thousand dollar spread on our first, you know, first lead out of PPC or something like that, like I've seen that happen and people get so excited and then the next month they're like, wait, where's my, where's my next $60,000 spread, you know, where did it go? So I, I think it's, it's such a game of emotion management at that, to that same point of making sure that during the highs, like you said, you know, and during the lows, we're just understanding that there is a median and we need to keep that in mind and be focusing on the median rather than the spikes and the peaks and the valleys of the moments."

"Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to make this pretty tactical now and let's just talk about what can you actually do to practically do that. My favorite method is something I call controlled funnel analysis, and it's—"

"I guess I'll start with an example that maybe everybody can understand here. A good example is let's just say you're doing direct mail and let's just say it sends you—it costs you 40 cents to send a postcard and you get a 4x return on average. If postage goes way up today and now suddenly it costs 80 cents to send a postcard instead of 40 cents, what return on investment are we going to have on the future is the question right? If we're making a decision of do we want to continue to do mail or do we not want to continue to do mail, the answer in this scenario is probably a 2x return. But if we just looked at the past and we said well we had a 4x historically so we're just going to have a 4x in the future, it's going to turn us wrong because it doesn't take us six months to measure the data that postcards now cost us 80 cents to send instead of 40 cents, right? We can do that instantly because it's just something that's situationally has changed."

"Or if the cost of our cold callers has doubled, or you know whatever the case is. But I think when we get into digital marketing people are a little bit less familiar with some of those dynamics and how they function so they don't quite know how it works so it's not quite as cut and dry, and also that happens on a ton of different levels."

"So my favorite way to go about this is like I said controlled funnel analysis and the way that this works is if you picture that funnel what we can do is we can actually measure what's happening until a certain point of the funnel and maybe where we cut that off is clicks if we have like a really small sample size maybe if we have more sample size we could cut that off as leads or if we have more we can go qualified leads or appointments or contracts or whatever the case is right so we kind of measure as deep into the funnel as we can reasonably and then we add in assumptions after that point so this is kind of like the controlled part where we're assuming things and let's just say um we're working with a client that just started with us what we might do is say well your cost per lead for example is a hundred dollars and we expect with this channel and these circumstances and everything maybe it takes 20 leads to get to a contract so what we're doing is we're controlling we're saying we expect the 100 cost per lead and then we're assuming it's going to take 20 of those to get to a contract because maybe we only have 10 now maybe we have 20 maybe we have 30. it's not a good sample size for for what our actual rate of getting to a contract is so then we assume that and then we can realize it's probably going to be trending towards a two thousand dollar cost per deal so assuming the the rest and uh one one place where we really commonly do this is based on based on opportunities like we know in PPC for example it generally takes about 4.8 opportunities to get to a contract right so we can see like what is our cost to get an opportunity and then we can assume the rest if we don't have much sample size for that but the really cool thing that this does is compared to just the pure patients play where the the cost of postage could double and you wouldn't notice we were actually seeing those things that are shifting right because it means something if our cost per lead has gone way down and we have enough sample size to say that that's the case or if our lead quality has drastically improved or something that means something but when these time periods are too short for us to measure the entire funnel from an ROI standpoint we can make a few assumptions and we can do that based on our averages which works if if someone's brand new working with us we can also do that by some blend of that and then the the company we're working with and their historical averages if they know kind of what it's taken to to get to PPC deals historically does that process kind of make sense?"

"Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think to your point of making sure that we're measuring at the right point and controlling that analysis where it should be—"

"I think the when it comes to I think the biggest benefit the Bateman has over everyone else—sorry, I'm gonna kind of preach, get on a little box—I want to hear it."

"Yeah, no, and the thing I've been most impressed with with working with you and the Bateman Collective is that we have the ability to look further down the funnel than someone does just running their own campaigns. To your point, being able to control that analysis requires so much data if you're gonna do it effectively. And I've never seen an agency with the amount of data that we have been able to collect. It blows my mind how we—and for your for everyone's understanding—it's, we measure it at much more than just the impressions, clicks, and conversions. Like we, because we have all of our clients housed under one manager and one MCC, we're able to understand what the numbers are on, you know, how are these leads qualified or unqualified? What's our cost per qualified lead? You know, what's—we can even—we can get so deep in that, and it allows us to make decisions across all of our clients using all that data from everyone."

"Um, to control that analysis kind of like you're saying where even though let's say you just started a new campaign, you know, and you're two months in, you have maybe enough impressions, barely some clicks, you know, to be making some decisions, your hands are tied. You just have to wait longer and—and because we have the ability to look at so much more data across all of our clients across the whole country, we can look past that barrier. I worked in e-commerce for a while and I—I didn't like e-commerce because every market is completely different and it's impossible to gather data on one market and apply it to another, you know, and—and so you can't do that in most markets. And so in this market, having that advantage is a game changer. Um, and—and honestly, is I—I think that's credits to a lot of the success we've had and things like that."

"Yeah, absolutely. I—I want to share one story about this I think is—is pretty interesting. It was this, uh, this client they were working with, and they were running Facebook ads and Google ads, and basically they came to me saying like, 'I'm really concerned about Google; we're happy with Facebook, really concerned about Google.' They had like a deal on Facebook; they had nothing on Google, and they just said like, 'We want to cut Google; we want to double down on Facebook.' When we did this funnel analysis, there were a few things that—that we saw. The first one was their rate of closing for the number of opportunities they had on Facebook was really high. Remember we talked about this concept of regression towards the mean? That was an odd number—what's it called—outlier, right, that was like the equivalent of like the seven-foot-four person is what we saw in terms of like their their conversion on opportunity so far, yeah. And their cost per lead was actually really high on Facebook, and on Google, on the other hand, the cost per click was super high historically, and it had gone down significantly, um, with the market shift. And they historically just had some, uh, some lead quality issues that were specific to one particular aspect of the account. So so they're looking at it like we haven't really gotten much of anything quality from Google, um, I'm looking at it like we're a little bit lucky on Facebook, and on Google, we can actually see that we have some sample size issues and a really clear direction to shift the campaign. So so anyways, when it came down to it, they just said get rid of Google, we're going to double down on Facebook. So I had this conversation with them; it's like I feel like I just—I have to say this like that's a really bad idea. I'm so sorry. I don't want to like go against you, but—but it's a bad idea. But they did it anyways; they just said like, you know, that's what we got to do. Um, but two months later, um, we convinced like you should probably put Google back. Um, so we do that, and—and then looking at their business today, Google has performed with close to a 10x return on investment over the past four or five months, um, compared to they had nothing before, and Facebook is actually tanked negatively, and believe it or not, the cost per qualified lead has stayed really steady, but they just haven't converted as well in those opportunities. So so there, they have actually regressed towards the mean, so to speak, on Facebook, and on Google, we're seeing that the pattern of future results didn't look like the past, but we did that through looking at the leading metrics versus the lagging metrics because what we could tell is like when we look at the data, we can see yes, the result is this, but Facebook is lucky, and on Google, we can see yes, the result is this, but it's a little bit unlucky. And with time, we can see some of those leading metrics are trending

really well, kind of the equivalent of we're now seeing that it costs 10 cents to send postcards instead of 40, and we know that those funnel metrics will work out if we can keep it at that cost. Um, so anyways, that's just a story I'm sure you've had similar circumstances with with clients. I love this circumstance because we actually were able to continue to spend the money to see how it plays out at some point."

"Yeah, because there's a lot of these circumstances where our hands are tied, right? We tell the client you should do this; by the way, if you hire a company to run your marketing, and you don't listen to them, I just don't—I just don't understand what you're doing. But um but there's a lot of circumstances where you know we just—we make our recommendations, people don't want to listen to them, and we never see how it would have played out otherwise, right? You kind of like steal your own fate if you decide to—to stop doing something, um, because you never know what would have happened otherwise. But this was a circumstance was interesting because we were able to kind of re-engage it later and—and see what happened."

"Yeah, no, it's—it's definitely something that occurs more often than a lot of people think, um, and I think you know I've—I've worked with a number of clients—I was—I was trying to think of one specific example, but there's just—there's a lot of people, uh, just looking at things too prematurely. I—I and to give you guys an idea, um, what something that we measure a lot is how long clients, um, stick around after starting campaigns and—and how that goes right, and it skews; there's—there's so much, um, so many people get so nervous around the two to three month market, and in our onboarding, we're always saying, this is a six month process. You know, in our sales, we say, this is a six month process; you've got to give it six months, make sure you have the money for six months, you know, it's—we—I feel like we drag that concept just continually beating it."

"Yeah, we definitely beat the dead horse, right, and—and but it's—you know, it's so important, you know, and there's—I—I cannot tell all of you guys how often I have the conversation at like two, three-month marks saying, 'I don't know about this; it's not my best ROI; I'm getting better ROI from here,' and things like that. And I think it's—it's such, uh, it makes me really frustrated when people don't understand that it's—it's something you need to be able to get to the right point to understand what kind of ROI you're gonna get. There's no one gets 10x ROI after two, three months, you know, it's impossible, and if you do, you're insanely lucky, and it's not going to continue. I'd argue it's like if you're talking about that kind of return, it actually happens more often in that time period than not because we're talking about because I think what happens in the beginning, it's not necessarily bad returns, it's, you, you observe the most extreme values, yeah, and those values, uh, can be extremely good or extremely bad; it's just like we see the whole bell curve, right? So we're a little bit more relaxed about it because we just—you know, just like been there, done that, seen it before, yeah, you know, but it's, uh, I get it when it's like it's the money you spend; it's the only money you've spent; it's your only data point, then it's, uh, it's a lot more concerning, um. So I, I totally, I totally hear what you're saying, but I also get where where like some of our clients are coming from, and also to be clear, like this is like ten percent, like 90% of our clients just like trust us, yeah, and and follow the process, and and it's, uh, and it's awesome, right? So it's just, it's so hard when you want something for someone and you want it to work for them, but it's, uh, but you have to, it has to be a mutual effort from both sides in order to get where where you're trying to go."

"Absolutely, yeah, it's a, it's definitely a tough game. One analogy I've heard before is it's kind of like like launching a rocket into space. If you look at the beginning, um, it takes like 90% of the fuel that the rocket has—this especially applies to SEO—oh yeah, it takes like 90% of the fuel that the rocket has just to get it, like, off the ground and like up a certain amount, right? And then like as you go, it gets exponentially easier to, now and then eventually, you know, you're in orbit, and you just need like a little fuel to go a really long way, right? And but it takes a lot to get off the ground, and everybody talks about how they were in orbit, and they just need a little bit of fuel to change their direction and make this much more progress or whatever the case is, but nobody talks about how in order to be there in the first place, they had to burn a lot of fuel taking off, and that's that can be really, uh, really exhausting for, for a lot of, a lot of companies just to get to that point. So that's, I mean, that's definitely a circumstance where the future looks different than the past."

"I think that's a perfect analogy. And if—if I can touch on SEO for a second too, I think it's SEO is such an interesting thing in this industry because in the majority of other industries, SEO is the first thing you do. You don't do ads first; you do SEO first. You build a site; you optimize it; you get it going, um, and then you, then you start running ads, and it's the opposite in this industry. People just jump on ads, you know, people want to see ads work in order to know if SEO, exactly, it doesn't at all make sense, but that's—that's how it works."

"No, it's exactly that, that, um, and I think SEO is something that is just so missed in this industry where it's—it's such an opportunity because to your point, it takes 90% of the fuel. You will burn money getting SEO going, and if you're so focused on your ROI, you're never going to get SEO going because SEO does not produce a viable ROI for at least a year, you know, um, and—and that's if, if you're pumping quite a bit of money into it, um. Yeah, on the topic of SEO, I just want to share a couple, like, interesting facts that I think will—let's just go through a mental exercise. So fact number one is more people click on organic results in Google than unpaid ads. Number two, this isn't really a fact, but just—just think, um, how—just count in your head over the past year or whatever the case is, how many real estate gurus, investors, you know, whatever the case is, have mentioned how PPC is great, just—just think how many have you heard, and then think the same thing for SEO, and then realize there's more SEO leads out there than there are PPC leads, and how much do you hear about PPC versus SEO? I—I've asked in the past couple weeks, I've asked two of our clients that have done well with SEO to come on the podcast, both of them refused; they said I don't want my competitors to know like PPC is the thing that's good enough that everybody wants to talk about it so that like everybody, you know, everybody's excited, they want to share the results. SEO is the thing that's so good that nobody wants to talk about it exactly because they're just afraid."

"Gotta keep—tricks, they're afraid of losing it. There's a real scarcity mindset there, but it's, it's true; like how much, how many people love PPC, but for the number of people who are pursuing SEO compared to the opportunity size there and the number of leads, it's a really, really good channel."

"Oh yeah, you just have to be more patient, you have to kind of have the mindset of I'm going to work harder and I'm going to spend more money and I'm going to do that longer than anybody else does, and if I do all of those things, it's unreasonable that I'm not going to outperform my competition with an SEO standpoint, but nobody's willing to do that; that's what makes it so easy though in this industry."

"It's not, it makes it because because your competition is not that heavy on SEO compared to so many other industries I know where you have to spend so much money to make a dent, and here you can go pretty far if you're willing to have the patience, but the inconsistency just kills like that's where we have uh clients like SEO feels like the thing that is just easy to turn on and off when it's, I mean not really."

"Yeah, it's the first thing to go whenever someone's tight on money, for sure."

"Yeah, I mean we just had a conversation with a client that had a really tough issue with their acquisitions team where they've like pretty much lost all their acquisitions team, so so then they're saying I want to cut SEO, um, and like that's a good example of what I consider like not a

great way to make a decision. So for PPC, I'd be like yeah all about it, cut PPC, but for SEO, they were just like well I don't want to pay for leads that we can't actually manage, but then the question I asked well in is in two months, are you, are you ever planning on hiring an acquisitions team because the problem is if you don't, uh, you know if you don't continue to stay consistent with SEO and and this is where it kills a lot of investors they take like a two-month break here because of cash flow or two month break there because they, uh, you know they didn't have their acquisitions team ready to manage leads and stuff like that but SEO is not about that two months, you know, you do that and then now it's going to take you four months to catch up to where you were paying for it, it's like taking a higher interest loan against your future lead flow and it's just, uh, it's just not worth it if you don't have to, that's, that's personally what I've seen screws people up on SEO in this industry like it's not actually that hard but if you don't just do it consistently for a long time then it won't, it won't produce but that's, that's just a, it's a hard thing to do because you haven't seen it work yet."

"Yeah, you have to have faith, you have to have a lot of trust and whoever you're working with or something like that, you know they're not just blowing smoke and giving you fake numbers, you got to trust that it's actually going to get to, to, uh, to where it's trying to go. Have you seen any other problems like that with SEO?"

"Yeah, no, I think I think we need to look at SEO more like, uh, investing in stock, and, and I mean we're all investors, right? Rentals, right, it's perfect, rentals, you know, real estate stock, whatever it is, you don't have to become a day trader of SEO, you know, yeah, and, and, and so if SEO is one of those things that if you can just constantly be keeping it on and, and, and be investing in it, it's, it's a true investment that pays out, you know, really well later on, um, and I think that's the way we need to look at it. I mean not to, not to diminish paid ads because paid ads are kind of our bread and butter, but at the same time, it's, I think SEO needs a lot more attention in this industry. I know some people, especially those two clients it sounds like, would, would prefer not to have it become the mainstream thing because they're doing so well, but that's why, like, people do well with it when they do it because it's not the mainstream thing, and it's kind of a Blue Ocean strategy, so I, I think that's it. SEO needs a lot more love, and I, I, you know, my clients can, can tell you that I love SEO, and I'm always preaching that if things are going well, get some stuff going with your SEO, you know, and, and don't, don't cut SEO the moment something goes wrong, you know, um, so I, I think that's exactly where we need to be, and I think there's a lot of opportunity coming up here in the future with both paid ad and SEO where the, the market's crazy, people don't know what their ROI is going to look like at the end of 2023, so they're being really cautious, and I, and every, every mastermind that I've gone to, um, there are all the, the people who are doing well are all preaching, you know, 'Double down now's the time to like double down, just do everything you can to, to go crazy,' and, and it's, I think it's, it's a great time to be doing that, and, and not focusing so much on your ROI and focus more on, you know, what or I guess a better way to put it is not focus on what your ROI is going to be in six months and what, what but instead what your ROI could be two years from now if you're taking advantage of what's going on now."

"So yeah, I mean the last market crash made a lot of millionaires, so yeah, it's really true. I think um and maybe we'll close with this I think a client that I talked to recently to have an awesome perspective on this um just to put it into like someone else's words and uh I'll butcher it but but basically we were looking as results and get like three deals this month from PPC and and he had like one deal from SEO all he would talk about was the deal from SEO and I was like what about these three deals from PPC like aren't you excited about those two and he compared it um he basically said like you know those deals from PPC are good I view those like wholesale deals right I made this much money from this deal and that was good that deal from SEO where I made 20 grand or whatever the case is I view that as I like netted 20 grand of rental income this month basically and just think about it like whatever revenue you did in your business you know if you do if you're doing you're doing 300 or 400 000 a month or you know wherever you're at What If instead of that was wholesale deals what if that was rental income it's a whole different game right because there's implied equity there and that implied equity has a lot more value than than a wholesale deal a quick buck I kind of think like think of that like SEO versus versus PPC um so that's that's it for today um for the collective clicks podcast we'll see you next time foreign

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In this episode, Brandon is joined by Brad Chandler to discuss his two decades of investing and purchasing over 4000 homes. Brad provides essential lessons from his own marketing journey,  invaluable advice on how to select a marketing agency, and how to become happier and live a more impact-driven life.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

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Welcome back to the *Collective Clicks Podcast*. This is your host, Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Brad Chandler.

Brad Chandler is an investor in the DMV area who has purchased over 4,000 homes in the past 20 years. They purchased about 300 homes over the past year, and he has a wealth of knowledge from experiences both in his personal life and business life. We’re going to talk in this episode about marketing directors and what it looks like to hire them. We’re going to discuss marketing and some of the key lessons he’s learned. We’ll also talk about how he learned in his personal life to be happier and more impact-driven rather than money-driven. And there’s so much more to cover. I'm looking forward to the episode, and I hope it adds some good value for you.

Thank you for joining us today, Brad. How are you doing?

"I'm awesome, thanks for having me," Brad responded.

"Yeah, of course. Really happy to talk to you," I said. "You know, you're one of the very few people who wants to talk to me right now, right between Christmas and the New Year," I joked. "It seems like everybody’s taking time off, and here we are."

Brad laughed, "Yeah, I love it."

"Well, I've been looking forward to this conversation. You're someone I consider to have a great depth of knowledge and experience—more so than most real estate investors. Personally, I’ve learned a lot from you, and I think our listeners certainly will as well," I said.

Before we get into it, just to kind of set the background so everyone’s aware, could you share a little bit about yourself, what you're passionate about, your journey in real estate, and what you’ve accomplished?"

"Yeah, man," Brad replied. "So, let’s go back to ninth grade. I read a book on how to buy real estate with no money down, and at that time, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. So, I went, I got my undergraduate degree, then I got a graduate degree in real estate. I came out and was working for a developer in 2002, and an investor bought my neighbor's house in Vienna, Virginia. I went and talked to him, and he said, 'I buy houses at 30% below market, fix them up, and resell them.' I was like, ‘Geez, I didn’t know you could do that. I thought you got rich by putting 20% down and holding onto real estate.’ So that was in November or December of 2002. And I thought, ‘This is what I’m going to do.’ I was working full-time. My son had just been born, so I’d come home at like six o'clock, spend time with him until eight, put him to bed, and then work from eight to eleven every day. And on weekends, I’d be pounding 'We Buy Houses' signs, mailing out direct mail. Every month went by without a deal, but I was showing up to these real estate meetings and meetups, seeing people making all this money. And I thought, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’ So I just became more and more persistent."

"In July of 2003, I bought my first house, and by August, I had bought six. In October, I came home and told my wife at the time, ‘Hey, I just quit. I’m forming Express Homebuyers.’ And she was like, ‘What?! We have a newborn, I’ve got two kids to support, and you just quit?’ And I was like, ‘It’ll be fine.’ And here we are, 19 years later, with 4,000 houses bought, and, well, I was right," Brad chuckled.

"Yeah, that’s... wow," I said, laughing. "I think everyone has a similar experience. When I started my company, it took years for my wife to even realize it was a real company. For a while, it just felt like that thing I do to avoid working, where I’d just kind of sit in that room on the computer and 'work'—like, whatever that is," I joked.

"Yeah, it's funny. I think it’s how everyone starts," Brad said. "It takes some time for your family to believe in it. But that was way back in the day. So you were sending mail back in 2002?"

"Yeah, man," Brad replied. "And I started SEO in 2003. I launched a website and began working on SEO in 2003."

"Nice," I said. "That definitely gave you a jump on the market. It was a different world back then. So, tell me about Express Homebuyers today. What kind of volume do you guys do? What kind of staff do you have? What’s your focus?"

"We’ll do around 300 deals this year, primarily in DC, Baltimore, and Los Angeles," Brad explained. "We just opened Los Angeles in the last six months because we had a really talented employee move out there. So we started spending some marketing dollars out there. We're focusing on wholesaling and fix-and-flips. Obviously, it’s a tough market right now. Prices are declining, so we have to be really careful about the fix-and-flips we do. If we could do all wholesales, we would. But sometimes, you leave money on the table if you only wholesale, so we do both. Right now, our focus is just to weather the storm. It’ll pass; it always does. And hopefully, as prices continue to decline, we can build up another portfolio. Back in 2010 to 2012, we bought 80 rentals, rode them up, and sold them. This time, maybe we can put another zero on that number and buy 800 rentals."

"Yeah, I understand," I said. "I’d also love to dig a little bit more into your experience during that last recession because, I mean, you know as well as I do, if you talk to the average wholesaler today and ask them how long they’ve been in the business, most of them got into it between 2015 and now. You're definitely the exception. You've been doing this for a bit longer. Tell me about your business during 2008 and 2009. What was that time like for you?"

"Yeah," Brad began. "So, before I jump into that, let me just say that the new wholesalers today are really struggling. Everything’s changing—credit is tightening, interest rates are rising, so buy-and-hold strategies don’t make sense anymore. These guys who just started out? It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be tough for anyone, but especially for the new guys. We’ve been around a long time. We have cash, we’ve spent millions on marketing, so people still think of us even if we’re not running ads."

"Um, but place a bigger emphasis on the active comps now in the declining market than the sold comps. So that's a big, that's a big, uh, kind of gold nugget," someone said. "And then, you know, we made our houses look extra nice because we were renovating at the time. And you know, like my partner said, we didn't need to sell a thousand houses, we needed to sell one house in one neighborhood right at a given time. So let's make our house the nicest one in the neighborhood. We've started staging again. We've started, uh, doing landscape packages outside."

"We used to go to brokerage firms and offer them incentives. We would take them to the Redskins games. We would, um, we would give them an extra percent or an extra couple thousand dollars. So those were a lot of things that we did back then. Um, some of the stuff we're starting to introduce again," they continued.

"Yeah, understood. In other words, you actually have to try to sell deals these days," another replied. "Yeah, it's not like it was before, but I've actually heard similar things because so many people are trying to cut back on their rehabs. But I know quite a few companies that are kind of preaching like, 'Now's the time, if any, to spend more money on your rehabs because you need a good product. You need the best-looking house.'"

"You do," someone agreed. "I mean, because, you know, the average person who could afford a $400,000 house a couple of years ago or a year ago can now afford maybe $260,000. It's crazy what the interest rates have done in terms of volume and affordability."

"Yeah. Yeah, understandable," another added. "So, what about right now? If we're looking at your life and what you care about, what's important to you? What are you passionate about, and where are you trying to go?"

"Fortunately, I've got an amazing team," the speaker replied. "You asked about the team structure. I've got about 15 full-time employees in our Springfield office, and I've got about another 12 full-time virtual assistants in the Philippines. And we have the best team we've ever had in 19 years. So, I am only working about three hours a week, if that, on Express Homebuyers. I'm in a great position where it’s running without me."

"Two years ago, while trying to get my son help for anxiety, I came across a lady. I was on a Zoom call like this, and she said, 'You know, you have a tic.' I was like, 'What are you talking about?' She said, 'You blink profusely when you talk about your childhood. You may have some unresolved childhood trauma. Do you want to come out and work with me? Bring your son out and we can work with my Navy SEAL husband.' At the time, I went out and, in a weekend, my life was radically transformed. There was actually a three-hour session that transformed my life."

"We went back and looked at stresses and traumas from childhood," they explained. "What we all do when we experience stress or trauma is form meanings or untruths to get through that stressful period. But when you're six years old and something bad happens to you, you typically say, 'It's happening to me because I'm bad,' and that’s how you cope. At 47, when your subconscious mind is still telling you that you’re bad and unworthy, it no longer serves you. It led to two divorces, the use of alcohol and drugs in my life, five business mistakes that cost me $9 million, and the list goes on."

"But, I don't drink anymore. I don't smoke weed anymore. It’ll be two years in a couple of weeks. It’s been the best two years of my life. My life has radically changed, and I’ve found freedom and happiness on such a deep level. I know God put me here now to do this work and help other people."

"So, I've started Brad Chandler Coaching. I'm helping other people, whether they’re anxious, dealing with depression, weight issues, relationship problems—really anything involving the mind. It can be solved because it always comes back to the same thing. It always comes back to unmet childhood needs. We didn’t get our needs met as children, so we developed coping mechanisms. Those mechanisms cause mental distress, bad relationships, and self-destructive behaviors like drinking."

"I’m passionate about this work, if you can’t tell," they added with a smile. "I’ve read probably 40 books. I’ve studied under some of the best people in the world in this space. I’ve gone to conferences. I’ve immersed myself in it, and I’m getting better every day. I’m also seeing amazing results with my clients."

"That’s awesome," someone responded. "So that’s what you do with your other 37 hours of work each week now that you’re not as involved in Express Homebuyers. It sounds like that contributes to your happiness quite a bit since you’re passionate about it."

"Let me tell you," the speaker said, "I’ve made $300,000 on a wholesale deal before. But nothing compares to getting the texts and phone calls I get now, with people saying, ‘You have radically changed my life and my family’s life. I’ll forever be indebted to you.’ It’s priceless."

"That sounds incredible," the listener said. "What advice would you give to someone who might be in a similar situation to where you were before?"

"Totally," they answered. "I’ve developed a proven system. I was taken through it myself, and then I refined it with input from three amazing people in this space. It can help anyone who’s suffering—whether it’s relationships, business chaos, or anything else. This is the first business I’ve started where I’m not focusing on the money. It is a for-profit business, and I do charge, but my focus is on making the biggest impact."

"Um, I got involved in a trademark lawsuit. Most investors know I was the guy who got 'We Buy Houses' trademark canceled. Well, should it have gone that far? That cost us almost $2 million?" someone lamented. "No. It was my ego. It was like, I gotta protect myself. It was silly, it was stupid. I mean, it cost us probably both $4 million between me and the 'We Buy Houses' guy. So, yeah, lots of mistakes."

"And what I would tell you now in this market is you gotta be really good. You shouldn't be looking at expanding unless every system is dialed in unless you've got every person in the right seat, unless you've got your follow-up systems where a call comes in and you are all over that call immediately and you're setting appointments and you're following up with appointments. If you don't have everything dialed in, number one, you're probably gonna go out of business in this environment. But number two, you really shouldn't be thinking about anything else. Expansion, self-storage, multi-family, anything until you get your house right. That's actually paying your mortgage and feeding your family."

"Yeah. Understood. Focus. And then move on," another agreed. "Make sense."

"Yeah. That's heartbreaking to hear about all those mistakes, but sounds like you've had some wins over the years too, that hopefully add up to a little bit more."

"Yep, yep. That's definitely the case. I've made millions and I've lost millions. And, look, it's who I am, right? Your story of who you are is who you are, and you are right where you should be at any given point in the universe. It doesn't mean you have to stay there if you want, but if you want to change your life and your future, all you gotta do is change your thinking about how you perceive yourself in the world."

"Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about marketing a little bit because that's my focus. Really curious to hear some of your thoughts there. What are some things that you've learned about marketing in this world of wholesaling and flipping real estate?"

"I mean, what have I learned about marketing? Just forget real estate. What's important about marketing? You know, StoryBrand is a great organization and it talks about everyone having an internal problem and an external problem. So, you need your grass cut. That is the external problem. You never call because you need your grass cut. The internal problem is you've got house guests coming over and you don't want to be embarrassed. Your HOA is gonna fine you. Your neighbors have been bugging you, so that's why you call someone. A lot of companies make the mistake of marketing to the external. So, you've gotta market to the internal problem, which is their pain. Why are they calling you from a marketing standpoint? And then from a sales standpoint, it's the same thing. You gotta focus on their pain. Don't focus on the offer number, don't focus on how great you are as a company. Focus on how can you solve that problem. No one cares about who's listening to this podcast. No one cares about Brad Chandler or Justin. Right? What they care about is what can we do to help them, help them change their lives, right? So, that's part of what I've learned from marketing."

"I've learned we could have a two-hour session on this, right? But marketing is, don't spend dollars unless you've got a really great follow-up system because for many years we spent a million dollars a year in marketing and our follow-up system was terrible. Now our follow-up system is amazing. So, don't spend a dollar or a dime in marketing until you can really make sure that you can service those leads that are coming in."

"Let's talk about what a great follow-up system is. Because I have some suspicions. We have some clients that, like my experience with follow-up systems and acquisitions and everything is that generally companies believe that they're in a really good spot there. And if everybody believes they're in a good spot, but some statistically are just performing significantly better than others, then it tells me that probably not everybody's doing everything exactly right. But it's hard to dig into all the details. I imagine maybe you, years ago when you were spending this million dollars a year in marketing, did you feel like you had it figured out?"

"We did. And we were using Infusionsoft, which is really hard to figure out if you're doing something right. And when we switched systems, we went onto Salesforce, it was evident that we weren't that good at it."

"So the CRM helped you?"

"Yeah, so we have a 99% contact rate, I think, of people of leads that come in. So we're all over them. Those 13 VAs, when the phone call, the lead comes in. If it's not picked up by an acquisition specialist in our home office, it rolls over to the VAs and they're all over it. And if there are missed calls or after-hours calls, they are just all over them all the time following up."

"What kind of metrics do you measure that help you know that your follow-up game is on?"

"So it's response to lead time. It's contact rate. Those are two huge ones. We look at appointments, we look at appointments closed. You know, the one area of our business we probably could get better at, but I think we've made a lot of strides in the last six months, is going on an appointment where we don't get the deal and we don't close it. We could probably get a little better there. And I think that's where most of the leaky buckets around the country, at least with the big investors are, they're really good at getting an appointment and then when they don't get the appointment, they're not great at the follow-up."

"Understood. What about after that? So what about long-term follow-up?"

"So we do, I mean, we have a category just called long-term follow-up. And we, you know, we hit people unless you're telling us not to, like, we're hitting people every single month. I mean, we've closed leads from our old Infusionsoft system seven years prior, uh, that they had literally come in seven years ago and we, so, so we never stop contacting people again unless they ask us to."

"Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, that's the tough thing about marketing, return on investment. You have to realize there's a, if you're good at your follow-up game, I've talked to a few people that are like, 'Oh, I always close like 75% of my deals. I close it like on the spot.' Um, and like they view that as a positive thing. And I view that as you probably don't have enough follow-up because that would skew your metrics quite a bit. I'm also curious to hear from you in terms of, uh, speaking of a well-running machine, from a marketing standpoint."

"How do you manage the marketing? Cause I know you've gone through, uh, a few different phases and, and some better times and worse times in terms of like hiring marketing directors or managing it yourself, that kind of thing."

"Yeah, I mean, right now, um, we, we, we do not have a marketing director. Um, I played that role for many years and I love it. I love the whole marketing. I love the creative. Uh, don't, I'm not great at the data analytics point, but I like it. I like looking at reports and stuff and figuring out what we do. So right now, um, we are managing, you know, we're working with agencies like yourself. We have a couple of agencies and they, they kind of handle everything and, and they, you know, I mean, you know, this, we, we have a weekly or biweekly, you know, every two weeks call and we just walk through the metrics and we, we work together as a team to try to, you know, improve things."

"Understood. So basically outsourcing is your solution right now. Why have you chosen to go that way?"

"I mean overhead. The, the, our last marketing director was costing us a lot of money, on several fronts."

"Yeah. Fair enough. And, and I, uh, that's kind of one thing that I'm getting at here because I had that experience of working with your past marketing director. I don't wanna name any names or hope he never hears this or anything. Cause I'm trying to make this like a positive learning experience."

"Sure."

"My honest belief, like most marketing directors that we have worked with as a company, I really don't think they're adding that much value to the company that they're working with. That's been my experience. Like when your previous marketing director left, you probably remember that your return on investment on your marketing with us literally quadrupled, the moment that they left because they put so many constraints on us and what we could do, what we couldn't do, what we could say, what we couldn't say, where the landing pages were, all these things and, and they basically like didn't allow us or potentially even some of your other vendors to really like, make the impact that they need to make."

"Sure I heard that from, from other vendors as well."

"Yeah. So it's, uh, yeah, that's a case where maybe a marketing director adds negative value, but, but there's other cases where it's, it's a tough game though because, uh, you want someone like, it's like being a marketing director is like being a steward of your money, right? Uh, you're investing in that

person. And it's, uh, like, I think, I think many are, are well-intentioned, but it's just, it's a hard role and it's hard to treat that money as if it was your own right? A business owner just does absolutely on a different level."

"But on the flip side of that, Brandon, it's hard to find good agencies. Like you. You're the exception out there, right? So while I'd say, yeah, maybe go the agency route, I mean, you can get snowed by agencies because they'll tell you what they want you to hear. Not, you know, what, what really should be happening? Cuz their incentive is just make more money. Make more money, make more money. You don't operate like that."

"And so, yeah, just, just be really careful of the agency that you select."

"Yeah. Fair enough. What's, uh, do you have any guidance on that? What, what makes you choose one agency over another?"

"I mean, look, I, so is it, this is, you know, it's kinda like the whole IT thing. Um, we don't, when you don't know something, it's really hard. Um, I, I would have to just say, Do exhaustive research on them, have several conversations with them, and then look for referrals. Like, uh, you know, this is a pretty connected community. Um, and so if I'm saying, hey, just, uh, just Brandon's organization is amazing to work with, um, you know, I've got a pretty good name. So as people who've worked with, that's, I, I would do that. First of all, I would ask people who've worked with them and not just over two months, three months, but who are the clients that have been with someone for a year or two And see if, see if you can talk with them."

"Yeah, understood. Uh, which, . Yeah. Probably, honestly is the best, the best way to get an idea of it."

"I agree. It's, it's a tough game to, to make a decision on something that you don't fully understand the, the details of it."

"Um, so, so in closing this up is, is there any other advice that, that you would share or anything you want our listeners to know?"

"Yeah. I mean, this is gonna go back to the personal side because you guys can make, you know, 10 million bucks and, and not be fulfilled. Uh, you can pick up, you know, look at the newspaper, look at all the people who've died. You know, the princes of the world, the Michael Jacksons, the on and on, and on, and on and on. Um, so if you're suffering, I just want you to know that you don't have to suffer a day longer. Uh, there is a proven method to, to stop your suffering. , once you do the work and figure out, you know, the truths and live under the truth, like everything in your life will change, including the business, the way you run your business. Just, just like it's done with me, like I have literally transformed the way that I run my business, the way that I attract people, the way that I look at growth. Now, I don't need to go make 10 million. Would I like to make $10 million to change the world? But I'm not, I'm not looking from the standpoint that I'm, I have to make this, I have to make this. So now I don't come up with all these crazy ideas and market expansion, and let's do this business and let, and let's do that business. So I would just take a good hard look at where you are in your life when you look in the mirror. Um, do you say, Hey, this is exactly where I want to be, and or do you, do you look in the mirror and say, gosh, I wish things were different. I thought things would be different by now. And if the, if the, if it's the latter answer, you thought things would be different. Now you gotta take action, right? You, you keep doing what you're gonna do. You're always gonna get what you get. So if you're in a shitty marriage or your business is going downhill, or you're outta shape or whatever it is, you gotta take some change. And there is a little bit of pain like to, to look at the truth. You gotta go through the, the pain of the truth to get to the freedom. But I am a testament to. that going through that pain and getting to the freedom is something I never, um, I never even dreamed about. I did not know life could be this good and, and there's no reason that that can't happen for you too."

"Yeah, understood. Um, for, for anybody that wants to contact you specifically, uh, to talk about that or, or anything else, how do they get ahold of you?"

"Yeah, so go to bradchandler.com/contact, and I've got everything in there. My little four-minute story of my life and my transformation. Um, I'll do, I have a free 30-minute phone call with you, whether you work with me or not. I wanna help you. I wanna help you find the freedom I have. And then every single day of the year, I put out a video on freedom and happiness and relationships and all this great stuff. So every social media link is on that page. Bradchandler.com/contact."

"Okay. Awesome. Well, good for you. Thank you for taking the time to join me today and for everybody else listening. I'll see you next time."

‍

In this episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast, we sit down with Aaron Gaunt and explore why he chose to expand into multiple markets, his successful sales script, how it helped him convert leads, and his passion for being a father. Join us as we dive into Aaron's story and gain valuable insights into his success in the wholesale real estate market.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

"Hello and welcome back to the Collective Clicks Podcast. Today, I'm gonna be interviewing Aaron Gaunt, who is a client of ours at Bateman Collective for probably three or four months at this point. Aaron shares a ton of great insights, including why and how he decided to expand into multiple markets instead of just staying in Southern California. He talks about his simplified sales script and how that's been working to help them perform in the top 10% of our clients from a lead conversion standpoint. We also talk about his journey of being a father and some of the things that he's passionate about.

This is the first podcast of the year, recording fresh on January 3rd. Are you excited for the new year?"

"Yeah, 2023 is gonna be... I'm excited as well," Aaron responds.

"Which year is this for you in wholesaling? I'm curious," the host asks.

"It's 2023. We've just ended our third full year. We literally started in 2020. So all that year, 2021, and 2022. That was our third year. We're going on to our fourth this year," Aaron shares.

"Exciting! Well, for everybody listening, not everyone knows you. Of course, I know several will from your podcast or the masterminds you're in and all that kind of stuff. That's how we know you. So, let's give a little bit of an intro. Tell me a little bit about your story. What exactly do you do and focus on in real estate?" the host inquires.

"Man, I have a fantastic story," Aaron begins. "And I say that with pride. What real estate has done for me and my family has not just given me financial freedom, but also fatherhood freedom, my marriage, a house, a life... you know, freedom from a nine-to-five."

Aaron continues, "So basically, what happened a little while back, I was in the fire department. I got a job in the fire department here in San Diego. I met a lady, and we got her pregnant very early on. I’m going to be fully transparent—I got her pregnant, and we were dating for probably about three months. She decided that she didn't want to be a mom. At that time, she was going to give her up for adoption. She tried, she said that I wasn't going to be in her life, etc. Now, I wasn't going to let that happen. So I actually opened up a court case before she was even born. I wasn't asking for much—I just wanted 50/50. I just wanted to be in my daughter's life. I didn't want anything else from her. I just wanted to be a father.

So, I did what I did, sucked it up, and became a father. And we'll get to the good part soon—I'm a happily involved father right now."

Aaron takes a deep breath and continues, "Anyways, if you've ever been in court, it costs a lot of money. I was making probably about $80-90K a year in the fire department—not really much. So, I ended up going into debt, fighting and going into this court case, paying for attorneys, paying for her, etc. I looked back and thought, ‘Okay, how can I pay for a good, decent attorney? I didn't want to do this on my own. I knew I needed legal help. We had a lot of emotions tied to it, especially when it comes to your kids.’ So, what happened was... I remember like it was yesterday, I sat down on my bed, looked at the ceiling, and thought, ‘How do I make money?’

Back in the Navy, where I served for eight years, we used to pass around books. One of those books was *Rich Dad Poor Dad*. Big surprise, right? But I didn’t take any action back then—I was still in my early twenties, partying, going to different ports, drinking, and not worrying about my financial future. But when the time came, I decided to pick up that book again. I remembered it from the Navy. So I re-read it and thought, ‘Okay, real estate is what's going to get me through this court case and help me pay these bills.’ But then I said, ‘I'm in debt. How the heck am I going to get into real estate while I'm in debt with no money?’

I asked myself, ‘How can I?’ instead of saying ‘I can't.’ That’s key—if you say you can’t, you stop your train of thought. So I did my research. I typed into Google, ‘How to get into real estate with no money.’ What came up was wholesaling."

Aaron continues his story: "At that point, I was still working at the fire department. I went down the YouTube University rabbit hole, trying to figure out what wholesaling was. After maybe a week or two of research, I found out there were coaching programs. These guys were talking about, 'Hey, we coach.' This was at the end of 2019. Then, I stumbled upon Wholesaling Inc. Tom Krol and Cody Hofhine were running it at the time—fantastic individuals. I even thought it might have been a scam. I remember I called them up, spoke with a sales rep, and we talked about the course. It was $5,000 at the time."

He pauses and then laughs, "I was still at the fire department, dating my wife (she was my girlfriend at the time). I went over to her job and said, ‘Hey, there’s this thing called Wholesaling Inc. They’re going to teach me how to do this wholesaling thing so I can get into real estate with no money.’ But of course, it was costing money to get into real estate."

Aaron chuckles, "So, I did my research, found out they weren't scams, and saw the good reviews. I called the sales rep back, and I put Wholesaling Inc. on my credit card. I got into the course, and they were teaching direct mail at the time. As we all know, direct mail is expensive. I put it all on my credit card. So much for getting into real estate with no money, right?"

Aaron explains how things progressed from there, "Two months later, I knew I had to make it work—I had already invested so much into it. Two months later, I closed on my first deal for $19,000. It was a huge win because I got to walk into my attorney's office and hand him a check that paid off most of the debt. But I kept going. That’s how I got my first deal and how I got into real estate."

"Mmm-hmm, that's great news! So, tell me a little bit more about your journey so far with digital marketing. Like, what have you experienced? Could you talk about the very beginning? You mentioned that you got a deal in the first week, but since then, what has happened? How do you see that fitting into your long-term plan with your company? How’s that going to grow through 2023 and beyond?"  

"No, a hundred percent. One thing I wanted to focus on, and there are debates, but this is how I see it right now. I used to think that going deeper and not wider was the key. Right? I wanted to go deeper. In Southern California, we were solely focused on Southern California. A lot of people were afraid; they’d run away from Southern California. But we were doing deals, and a good amount of sizable deals—good rippers. I mean, we have another 120k rip that we just did today, locked up in San Bernardino. Those are the kinds of deals you’re going to see in Southern California."  

"Right."  

"But anyways, instead of going deeper, when we saw the market correction, we saw that the West Coast just got annihilated with price cuts. Prices are going down like there’s no tomorrow. So that opened my eyes. I realized we needed to go wider because properties that are $200,000 and below are still flying off the shelf for our investors and cash buyers. So I decided, 'Hey, let’s go!' and we’ve kept morale high because that’s something we’re really going to focus on in the upcoming year—culture. I really want to keep the culture high."  

"Yeah, definitely."  

"I do want big rips, and we’re still going to get those. But I also want deals to come through consistently, to keep my team busy, keep them motivated, so we can ring that bell and celebrate. No matter if it’s a $2,000 deal or a $100,000 deal, I just want action and activity. That’s how I see it right now. We did 19 contracts last month. This month, we’re projecting 20 to 25 contracts, and we’re going to make that happen through PPC. I’ll be honest, that’s where we’re going to focus—inbound marketing—and also focusing on pre-foreclosures and MLS deals."  

"Right, and why MLS?"  

"The reason we hit MLS is because they’re already on the market; they’re already motivated. They’re raising their hands. Agents are going out of business. Agents are struggling right now, and sellers are going crazy. We’re getting some good rippers off the MLS just because they’re not selling. So that’s when we get to come in and say, ‘Hey, we’ll give you a low-ball offer and move this for you.’”  

"Mmm-hmm, yeah, absolutely. Understood."  

"I like how you talked about that difference between focus—like going deeper in a market versus going wider. A little context for everyone: as I remember it, we started out just advertising in Southern California, then we added one city in Texas, and then expanded to Southern California and many major cities in Texas. Now, we’re going even wider than that. What has been your experience with that? I’m curious to hear about the challenges you ran into with that shift and how you overcame them. Because some of our most successful clients tend to do this—spread across more markets. Mmm-hmm. You’ve probably noticed that you get more leads that way, and there are more opportunities to come in. But there are people who are scared to do it, and some who have tried and failed for various reasons."  

"No, a hundred percent. By taking that step of imperfect action, we figured out how to manage other markets because I believe we have the infrastructure now to handle deals anywhere. We have platforms to find buyers in all different markets. We pay a crap ton of money for those platforms. We started in Southern California, then went to Texas. The market was changing, so I wanted more leads. We started in San Antonio because I got a lead there. We made a good chunk, so I said, ‘Hey, let’s check out San Antonio.’ Then we expanded to all major areas in Texas."  

"Right."  

"Then I thought, ‘Screw it, let’s go nationwide!’ We were getting leads from all over. You could target an area, but sometimes you’ll get a lead from a different state. We were moving deals from different states, so it made sense to expand. Let’s bring down our cost per lead and get more lead flow into the database. The more leads, the more opportunities I have in front of me. And being all virtual now, we’ve learned how to put on the headphones and use techniques to lock up deals. We provide opportunities for other investors, and we get paid very well for it."  

"That’s great. Can you explain your process for locking up deals?"  

"When a lead comes in, my script is the shortest we’ve ever had because the leads are motivated. I go straight to, ‘Hey, it looks like a great property. Why are you even considering selling this property?’ I try to get their 'why,' which is usually on my dashboard because they filled out the form, but I want to dig deeper. Then I tell them, ‘At Seller’s New Day, we have a few options. Is it okay if I explain them to you?’ We offer a cash option, a retail buyer option (our novation), and a listing option where we partner with listing agents in the area. Then I ask them, ‘What do you think would be the best fit for you?’ Most of the time, they say they want a cash offer."  

"Really?"  

"Yes, seven out of ten times they pick the cash option. I explain the pros and cons of each option, but the cash offer is always the most convenient and fastest way to solve their problem. So, we send the agreement, connect them with our fulfillment side, and it’s off my plate. I’m off to the next lead."  

"That’s so important. Too many people try to push acquisitions managers into a transaction coordination role, which is a nightmare waiting to happen. You can’t do volume that way."  

"Exactly! You can’t. And the difference in price between the retail and cash options is huge. But surprisingly, a lot of clients still pick the cash option."  

"That’s interesting because you’d think they’d go for retail every time since it’s more money."  

"Right? You’d think that way because if we were selling our own house, we’d probably pick retail. But the thing is, they’re looking for a cash offer. That’s why they came to us. We’ve set up our marketing to attract that specific audience."  

"Mmm-hmm."  

"And don’t be afraid to offer all options. I even have a listing appointment today, and I encourage everyone in my office to be a real estate agent, even if they don’t use it. It helps them understand the basics of real estate and gives them another way to assist."  

"Got it. I’d love to dig deeper into your process for each of those three options."  

"For sure. The cash offer option is straightforward. But when expanding to new markets, the concern is usually around dispositions. They might not have a buyer’s list in that area or experience with selling in that market."  

"Absolutely. Dispositions are key to dominating in this downturn. I put all my VAs on dispo. They call buyers in the areas we need to sell properties. We’ve struggled a bit with dispo, but we’re getting back into a rhythm. We use platforms like InvestorLift on cartel mode, which costs a lot, but it’s worth it. We also use PropStream to pull cash buyers in the area. If we can’t move a deal, we JV with someone in that market who has a solid cash buyer list. My VAs, like Jim, are rockstars at finding JV partners on Facebook."  

"That’s smart."  

"Right? I tell my team not to give up because it's not just about taking orders. We have to think, ‘How are we going to sell this deal?’ The days of sending out an email and getting offers are over."

"Do you think you would go down?"  
"And then they'll tell me, cuz now I've just given it everything from A to Z. I've given you all the options. You can't, there's nowhere else you could go to get a better. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. That script I just told you, there's no better option out there."  
"Besides what?"  
"Unless I lost some kind of rapport, there's no other option. You're gonna get all the prices from me. It's a one-stop shop, and that's how we get all the contracts that we do."  
"Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, I think there's also, just knowing you, I'm sure there are some other things here that are a little bit less obvious or a little bit more hidden, you could say, right?"  
"Right."  
"Because let's just say I'm a robot, and I bring 'em on. I say, 'You have three options. Here's what you could do,' right? That's it. If there's not that trust there, if there's not that rapport, then 100%, we're not in a good position."  
"Um, do you have any tips? And I know a lot of this book that you're referencing, which I've read personally, 'How to Win Friends and Influence People,' a lot of this stuff would be very applicable to this. But in terms of the actual script for negotiation, the offer presentation, and stuff like that, I feel like I understand that. Do you have any advice on getting to that point in the call?"  
"Right."  
"Things like making sure that you actually get ahold of them. What does that typically look like for you guys? And how do you, uh, how do you make yourself stand apart from the other several people probably calling them right at the beginning after they filled out multiple forms online? Just getting to the point where they even trust you enough that you're that deep into the conversation, that you're talking about offers?"  
"Man, that's a great question. So as you probably already know, it's speed to lead when it comes to PPC. Talking about me being a father, I'm probably the worst father when it’s at the dinner table. When I'm at the dinner table, and until again, I had acquisition guys. We're actually going to be hiring some more acquisition guys coming in this month. But currently, as the only acquisition guy dealing with the PPC leads, I'll literally be at the dinner table, and we'll get a lead that comes in through Brandon Bateman. And I'll say, 'Oh, gotta go,' and run into the office to hop on the phone and get 'em, you know? So basically, my opening is just saying, 'Hey, this is Aaron. I saw that you filled out a form here at Seller's New Day. Did I catch you at a bad time?'"  
"And if they say, 'No, this is a good time,' perfect. I just go right into it: 'Hey, I mean, it looks like a great property. Why are you looking to sell?' And then boom, you go right into it."  
"Right."  
"Our follow-up process, let's say they didn't answer their phone, I like to call. We do a double tap—text, email. We call it a footprint, right? Making sure you're always in front of them, making sure you have a CRM. We use Left Main Core."  
"Uh-huh."  
"So from there, every day, I'm just calling, texting, and emailing them every single day to get them on the phone. I also have pre-recorded text messages, so I like to get through my leads quick. I have a dialer set within our CRM, so it's literally like, click and go. I have a voicemail drop where it just drops a voicemail, so they get a voicemail, text, email, and call. Like I said, we call it footprints because they know everything."  
"Right."  
"So if they decided not to call back, then we did everything in our power to do it. Now, again, this is virtual. I can't just drive to their house, but yeah, we're on it pretty hard."  
"Okay, yeah, that's awesome. I appreciate all that feedback and everything. Is there anything else that you'd give as advice? So, for context, Aaron, the people listening to this podcast are often our clients or people considering working with us. Do you have any advice for either of those groups?"  
"Oh man, I'm always giving you guys a shoutout, Brandon. We've tried out one or two others, people who are doing PPC now. What happened was, I think it was the Red Beards that really got me drawn to... no, I'm just kidding."  
"(Laughs)"  
"No, you guys have been fantastic. You built rapport with myself, always being on it. When we email you about an issue or if there is any, for example, let's say a lead gave me a false lead, and I say, 'Hey, can you guys fix this?' You guys are on it."  
"Right."  
"And again, I feel like there's a connection between me and your team. I had a chance to hang out with a couple of guys from your team at the last CG meeting. You guys were fantastic. We were hanging on the rooftop, throwing back drinks, so that was really cool."  
"That's great."  
"But other than that, like I said, and we talked about that earlier too, I want to make sure this is done right. I want to see my return, so I'm going to have a team that does this systematically. Too many people, I think, just kind of throw stuff at the wall and hope it sticks. You're going to know more than I do. My last return from the other program, the leads just weren’t coming in. They didn't have the structure or infrastructure that they needed. But you guys definitely have the infrastructure."  
"Thank you."  
"You also seem like a good leader with your team. A lot of people look up to you, and you can see that. And I want my marketing to be led by a good person, someone who definitely knows what they're doing."  
"Yeah, thank you, Aaron. (Laughs) My fish for compliments worked perfectly."  
(Laughs) "I appreciate you, and everybody, take notes. You've been incredible to work with. So, any vendors listening to this, go call up Aaron and try to get him to buy your stuff because he's a great guy."  
"No, not anymore."  
(Laughs) "Well, it has been awesome to have you on here. I think you've added tons of value. Is there a way someone can reach you if they want to get in touch?"  
"Yep, just hit me up on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Also, check out my podcast, 'The Real Estate Block Podcast,' where we have guys just like myself who are doing consistent deals. But that's about it."  
"Very cool. Tell me, is there some way we can support you in that? I imagine with that podcast, you're doing some coaching or something like that?"  
"No, not yet. We're just giving out value. The reason I started our podcast was... well, just like the reason why I started it... when I saw the market correction, we felt it pretty hard those first two months, right? And I thought, 'We were the only ones feeling it.' Then we realized, oh crap, everybody's feeling it. It doesn't matter how big or small your business is—everybody felt it."  
"Right."  
"And I had some buddies tell me that they went out of business, all kinds of stuff. And I said, 'Heck no. I want to make sure we're adding value and helping people who are still doing deals. Let's get a platform for them to share, so people can reach out to those I bring onto the podcast for help.' So it really started with wanting to help people during this downturn."  
"Okay, understood. Well, that's awesome. I didn't know that was just a value add to help people, but that's great, Aaron. I encourage everyone to listen to the podcast. I have no doubt what Aaron puts out there is solid, and I think that's a really interesting premise too. Any last words before we close things up today?"  
"No, I just appreciate you and thank you so much for having me on your show, brother."  
"Yeah, likewise. Aaron, thank you for coming. For everybody listening, that's it for today's show, and I'll see you on the next episode."

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Keywords are the foundation of Google Ads, and it can be easy to short-circuit your campaigns with poor keywords. In this episode, we dive into the keys to generating quality leads with optimized keywords.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Bateman, and today I'm joined by Garrett Craigan, who is our lead of paid media here at Bateman Collective. He’s one of the best PPC masters that I know. We’re going to talk all about keywords and negative keywords, which is just the first part of the eight essential elements to having a successful PPC campaign. We’ll dive into all the details, including things you don’t normally hear about, and some of the biggest mistakes we see investors making that, if fixed, would lead to better PPC results. How are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good, how are you?"

"Hey, doing excellent, thank you. I know we had planned for some banter, but we’re completely awkward as people, and I think that made this impossible."

"Yes, we suck at being people."

"Yeah, that's right. So, we’re good digital marketing robots, and I guess we’ll just jump right into the stuff today. Sorry to everyone listening, we don’t have anything fun to say."

"The topic for today is the beginning of a series where we go over the eight things that are essential to having a successful PPC campaign. On the flip side, these are also the eight things we see a lot of investors doing wrong when it comes to their PPC. So, it's going to be pretty in-depth. This is definitely for you nerdy investors out there who want to get deeper into the weeds of PPC. We’ll discuss technical terms and all that stuff, but if you’re familiar with the platform, you’ll find this interesting. As I said, there are eight key points, so today we’re just starting with numbers one and two, which are keywords and negative keywords, followed by ads."

"To give everyone a little context, we do a lot of audits. It happens all the time—an investor comes to us and says, 'I don’t know what’s going wrong with this; I’m managing my own PPC, or I’m working with an agency, and it’s just not working the way I want.' They ask us to take a look. We look into the account, see what’s going on, and try to figure out why they’re not getting results. Pretty commonly, there’s this interaction between negative keywords and keywords. Do you have any specific thoughts on the common mistakes you’re seeing?"

"Yeah, I think that in the space, there’s a tendency to focus too much on the 'sexy' parts of PPC, like dynamic localization or different ad types. But really, at the core of PPC, we are bidding on search terms. Having good keywords and search terms in place means you’re likely to get good results. But if that’s not there, everything else will underperform. It’s crucial that your keywords are targeting the right intent and that you’re not bidding on searches that are out of market or of lower quality."

"Yeah, you basically just said what I’ve been saying in so many audits recently, just with different words. I often tell clients something along the lines of, 'I’d love to talk about all the problems you have here, but you’re not even eligible for most of the problems that could arise because you don’t even have the right search terms.' That’s step one. People think fixing that will make their campaigns great, but it’s just how you get from an F to a C. Having good search terms is the bare minimum. The rest of the work won’t fix that, just like how you can’t build on a bad foundation."

"I think the root of that issue for a lot of companies comes from not understanding the difference between keywords and search terms. A lot of people don’t really get that. Could you explain it?"

"Sure. The search term is what’s actually being searched—the exact words typed by the customer, like 'how can I sell my house fast for cash?' That’s the search term. A keyword is what we tell Google is the general intent we want to target. So, we can target a keyword, but the search term may not exactly match it. Most of the time, it doesn’t."

"Right. Most of the time, we’re targeting a general search, and Google tries to match it as best it can. That’s why it’s important to go into your search terms to see what you’re actually paying for. You could have good keywords but still end up with poor search terms. That’s where things can get stuck if you’re not diligent in pruning and cleaning up those search terms."

"Exactly, that makes sense. I think it would be helpful to provide an example. A common scenario is that you have a keyword like 'We Buy Houses,' but then your search term ends up being 'Buy Houses.' You’re telling Google you want to target 'We Buy Houses,' and you’re seeing that you’re getting clicks and leads. Everything looks good on the surface. But when you dig deeper and see what someone actually typed into Google when your ad showed up, they might have searched 'Buy Houses.' To Google, taking the word 'We' out doesn’t seem like a big difference, but anyone in the industry knows that 'Buy Houses' is buyer traffic, and 'We Buy Houses' is seller traffic. They’re really different in nature."

"Exactly. I also think a lot of people don’t realize how many search terms there are. It’s insane. I did an analysis at one point—it's been a while since I did it, so I’d be curious to do it again—but at that time, I found that across our clients, over 80% of the leads they got came from search terms that only had one click in the entire history of their account. People think they have these five main search terms they’re going heavy on, and that’s where all their leads will come from. But in reality, there are thousands of search terms, and most of the leads come from long-tail search terms, which are more specific phrases. Very few come from the big, obvious ones."

"Interesting. Yeah, I read a stat that there are a thousand brand new search terms on Google every single day. So, what was searched historically isn’t static—it’s always changing and evolving. That’s why it’s so important to update your keywords based on what’s happening."

"Now and what's working well now because they're always changing, and those search terms are going to be different every single day. If those aren't being pruned, you're wasting a lot of budget."

"Yeah, the stat that I saw is that about 15% of Google searches each day are completely unique, and they've never been seen before in the history of Google. It rounds out to about 500 million searches every single day."

"That's a better stat than what mine was," Garrett replied. "That's good. I wonder if what you were looking at was a specific account or something or a specific niche because like 500 million and a thousand are really different numbers."

Brandon nodded. "Yeah, but it's insane. And I think this is like marketing stereotype 101, right? Marketers like to put people in boxes. They like to say, 'my customer is this.' I saw this funny post on LinkedIn where someone was just making marketing predictions for 2023, and it was super sarcastic. They said, 'new CEOs and boardrooms are going to come up with customer avatars that are oddly specific in 2023, and it's not going to actually yield any benefit.' Because we do that all the time. We expect people to fit in these boxes like, 'this is who my customer is,' but people are so unique and so different. The way they search for things is different all the time."

"One thing interesting to think about is how many keywords do you really need," Brandon continued. "I've talked to a lot of investors who think the name of the game is almost like guessing what all these search terms are going to be and making a keyword for each one of them. They think, 'Oh, I'm working with this professional PPC company, and the difference they have is they probably just have tens of thousands of keywords, and they know everything that people search.' What would you say about that?"

"I don't think it's as much about having an ideal count of keywords in an account to maximize it," Garrett explained. "It's going to be based on volume, intent, and budget. You can have a thousand keywords in your account, but if your budget is only a thousand bucks a month, you're probably not going to show up for most of those, and you're not going to get enough data for any given keyword to even mean anything. So it has to be based on your budget, your audience, the volume that each keyword can get, the monthly searches that keyword has in a given month. All of those things have to be considered when you're building out an initial keyword structure for an account."

"Yeah, understandable," Brandon replied. "I'm really curious. What's the largest number of keywords you've ever managed in an account, or you've seen?"

"I managed ads for a Fortune 500 company, and they had, I think, in just their account targeting North America, about 8,000 keywords," Garrett said. "And they had an account for each continent, each market."

"Wow, 8,000 keywords!" Brandon exclaimed.

"Yeah, but that was just like a different account per market because of different OCC currencies and things like that," Garrett added.

"Oh, understandable. Interesting," Brandon said. "The reason I ask is because I have a completely ridiculous story. I had one client that had six million keywords."

"Oh my God," Garrett said, shocked.

"Yeah, six million keywords," Brandon repeated. "How many of those had any clicks, impressions?"

"A smaller number," Brandon admitted. "But to be fair, they had like the biggest search term universe of any company I'd ever worked with in my life. Six million keywords."

"And they spent about five million a month," Brandon added. "But still, that's like a dollar a keyword. It's insane."

"Wow, that's crazy," Garrett responded.

"Anyway, that was tangential," Brandon said, getting back on track. "But cut those down, team! I think there's definitely been a shift if we're talking about PPC strategy in terms of the number of keywords. If you're looking back to 2017 PPC, this account that I was talking about, they've been going since 2008 or something, so they've got a lot of history. The world of PPC has changed quite a bit, and it seems like most PPC marketers are on the side that things have changed really significantly in the past decade with keywords."

Garrett nodded. "Yeah, and even in the past three or four years. There have been some big changes."

"Yeah, what are some of those big changes?" Brandon asked.

Garrett explained, "There's been a big change in the way platforms work. The biggest change has been with match types. Google has become a lot more loose and liberal with how it matches your keyword with search terms. They say it's to give the algorithm a bit more freedom to match intent, not just the actual keyword. But really, I think it's because they want to sell inventory on searches that, in general, aren't being bid on by advertisers. That's a big change. What was once an exact match keyword is now much looser than it was a couple of years ago."

Brandon clarified for the listeners, "Just to clarify for everybody listening, if you're not familiar with match types, basically when you give Google your keyword—you say 'We Buy Houses,' for example—there are different match types. Historically, how it used to be was exact match meant someone had to type in 'We Buy Houses' exactly. And if they typed in 'We Buy House,' it wouldn't show up. Then there's phrase match, which would be like 'We Buy Houses' has to be in there somewhere. So they could type in 'We Buy Houses California,' and you would still show up. Then there's broad match, which was like you type in 'We Buy Houses,' but then someone searches 'We Buy Ugly Houses,' and you still show up."

Garrett chuckled. "Yeah, and if you ever want to learn how to completely evade an issue and give yourself license to do anything you want, go read Google's help articles about what match types mean these days."

Brandon laughed. "It's hilarious! They basically say, 'If you do this match type, it means all of these things and also whatever we want.'"

"Pretty much every article from Google now just says at the bottom, 'Also whatever we want,'" Garrett agreed.

"In their own words, 'based on the algorithm's learnings,'" Brandon added.

"Yes, exactly!" Garrett replied. "So wild."

Brandon continued, "So the way it used to work is you could have your keyword 'apple,' and maybe you'd get 'apple,' but now you could get 'apples' or even 'orange,' and Google says, 'They're both fruit, so close enough.' It's different, especially when you get to some of these nuances like 'We Buy Houses' versus 'Buy Houses,' which mean really different things."

"How do you think the way to deal with keywords has adapted because of that?" Brandon asked.

Garrett explained, "So there was a very popular keyword structure used in the past called SCAG, which stood for Single Keyword Ad Group. Basically, what people would do is build out one ad group with an exact match type of their keyword. The theory—and what worked historically—was they would force each search term into one ad group, and then it would match the search with the keyword, the ad with the landing page, and have really good matching across the board."

Brandon nodded as Garrett continued, "But since things have changed, and match types have become much looser, that old way of doing things is pretty obsolete now. It's much harder to match one search with one keyword because Google's algorithm is so loose. So it has become increasingly important, as Google gives more freedom to the algorithm, to have a really fine-tuned negative keyword list."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Brandon responded. "It probably is helpful to dive a bit deeper into negative keywords because they function differently than positive keywords."

Garrett agreed. "Exactly. So, you could say there are two types of keywords: positive and negative. Positive keywords are telling Google what you want to show up for, while negative keywords are telling Google what you don't want to show up for. Negative trumps positive, meaning if you have a positive keyword like 'We Buy Houses' phrase match, and you want that included, but you also have a negative keyword for the word 'scam,' if someone searches 'We Buy Houses companies that are scams,' you wouldn't show up because of that negative keyword."

Brandon chuckled. "You'd need to also have the plural version, but yeah."

"Right," Garrett laughed. "If we didn’t have that negative keyword in there, we would show up, and obviously, that would be a poor click. So that highlights the importance of having a negative keyword list because Google doesn’t know the difference between a good and bad search, but we do."

"You ever played Whac-A-Mole?" Brandon asked with a grin.

Garrett shook his head. "Actually, I don't think I have, but I know the game."

"Okay," Brandon continued. "If you want a visual representation of adding negative keywords, Whac-A-Mole is the most appropriate thing because they’re always popping up. There are always new bad search terms that Google is making you pay for just because. In the same way that there are those 15% of Google searches every day that are completely unique and could be beneficial for you, they could also be negative for you if they’re irrelevant."

Garrett nodded. "Exactly. And I’ve seen so many people play this game for years—literally years—and never really get anywhere because they’re not keeping up with negative keywords that they theoretically need."

Brandon leaned in, interested. "So what’s the key to staying ahead of that curve? How do you keep your negative keyword list sharp?"

Garrett explained, "It’s about constant pruning and reviewing search terms. You can’t just set it and forget it. You have to consistently check your search term reports, see what’s coming in, and add negative keywords based on that data. It’s ongoing, and it’s vital to the long-term success of any PPC campaign."

Brandon nodded thoughtfully. "Makes sense. I think a lot of people underestimate how dynamic search behavior really is and how it evolves over time."

"Totally," Garrett replied. "And it’s not just about quantity, it’s about quality. Even if you have fewer keywords in your account, if they’re well-tuned and paired with strong negatives, you’ll get better results than if you’re trying to go after everything and spread your budget too thin."

Brandon smiled. "That’s solid advice. I think people are going to get a lot out of this."

"Glad to hear that," Garrett said with a grin. "Anything else you’re curious about?"

Brandon paused for a moment, then said, "Actually, yeah. What about ad copy? Have you seen a shift in what types of ad copy are resonating with audiences today compared to, say, a few years ago?"

Garrett nodded. "Oh, absolutely. With all the algorithm changes, it's become increasingly important to have ad copy that speaks directly to user intent. You can no longer just rely on generic copy. It needs to be specific, relevant, and engaging. Plus, Google's emphasis on Quality Score makes it even more crucial that your ad copy matches your keywords and landing page experience. So, in short, it's about alignment—making sure everything flows seamlessly from keyword to ad to landing page."

Brandon looked intrigued. "Interesting. I feel like that makes the whole process more cohesive, right?"

"Exactly," Garrett affirmed. "And when everything is cohesive, not only do you see better performance, but you also see higher engagement and lower costs per click because Google rewards that consistency with a higher Quality Score."

Brandon grinned. "Man, this has been super insightful. Thanks so much for sharing all of this."

"Of course!" Garrett replied. "Always happy to help."

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Shaun Young, an account strategist who has worked with 100+ real estate investors across the country joins Brandon in this episode. Together, they delve into the world of Google Ads and discuss the key elements of where people go wrong especially when it comes to ad copy. This is the second part of an eight-part series that focuses on common mistakes made by investors, areas where they can improve, and strategies for outperforming the competition.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

‍

"Welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'll be joined by Shaun Young from my team. Shaun Young is an account strategist that works with over 50 Real Estate Investors across the country, and we're going to be talking all about Google ads, specifically the ads. This is part two of an eight-part series about all the things that matter to have a successful PPC campaign. We talk about where investors go wrong, where they potentially do better, and how you can do exceptionally well so your competition cannot catch up to you."

"All right, how you doing today, Shaun Young?"

"I'm pretty good."

"Awesome, happy to hear it. Another last-minute podcast for you."

"Oh yeah, excited. My favorite kind."

"This is the second part of a probably eight-part, unless we change our mind, series that is all of the things that you need to do to have an excellent performing PPC campaign. For each one of those things, we're going to talk about what do people do wrong, what can they do better, and how do you do it the absolute best so that your competition can never catch you. And we'll talk about all three of those things today."

"Last time the topic was keywords. This time the topic is ads, and those are the first two out of like I said eight things that have to do with Google search. If you don't care about the details of Google ads, if you don't want to get into the weeds, this episode is not for you, and this whole series isn't for you. But if you have an interest in the specific weeds, you want to know why your campaign's not performing, you want to understand the specific aspects of the ads and how they work, then this is a great episode to dig into some of that stuff more in detail, and we will share all of our secrets so that you can hear them."

"Super excited to get into things. So let's start with what people are doing, and I'm thinking we could just do it one by one. What are they doing wrong and what's the version that's better? When it comes to ads, what would you say is the first thing that people are messing up with?"

"Yeah, honestly, one of the first things I want to talk about is people only using one ad in their ad groups, the one like responsive ad, and just one of the easier pitfalls to fall into because it's easy. You only set up one ad, it makes some people think, 'Hey, I'm going to test this and replace it with more content later on,' and things like that. But when you have only one ad in your ad group, it limits what Google can do."

"Google has what, something like 75,000 touch points on everyone? We've shared different numbers of different points in this podcast, and all of them are different. I know they're probably all different, but we don't actually - I don't know that anybody knows, but it's a lot, a bigger number than anybody can imagine."

"Yeah, it's massive. And so it's - I think in that context, giving Google more to play with allows it to do what it wants to do and do best, and let it test the different responsive ads. Let it show people what it thinks is going to be best because you can set up your demographic of what you want and everything like that, but you don't really know Billy Bob Joe who's going to be searching for 'we buy houses' later on today. You don't know what he's like, and Google does, though. And so by giving Google options within the ads to talk about, it can know, 'Okay, this responsive ad is going to be better for Billy than this other one,' and you're more likely to convert. You're more likely to have a better lead quality and lead flow with more options for Google. And so having multiple responsive ads is something that I think is a huge thing that's a problem because a lot of people don't do it. They'll just do one ad, one ad group, one campaign."

"Yeah, gotta get more in there."

"Yeah, I get what you're saying. I'll just add a couple things. I think we probably want to clarify responsive ads in case someone's not familiar with that. Google, for the longest time, used primarily expanded text ads, and what that was is it's exactly what you expect to see from Google. There's like headline one, headline two, headline three. Sometimes they added that kind of partway through and used it half the time, and that was kind of how Google functioned."

"Now they have these things called responsive ads, which means you just throw in - I think it's up to 15 headlines and four descriptions, or maybe more than four descriptions. I can't remember. There's some other options, but I think it's four."

"Yeah, so you put in a bunch of descriptions, bunch of headlines, and then Google just mixes and matches that and turns it into whatever ad it wants. And a lot of people think because they're doing that, they don't have to have multiple of those because there's like lots of assets there. So on one hand, you need to have a lot of things in the responsive search ad so Google has options, but the tough thing is you can't have things that don't make sense together in there."

"So that's where having multiple ads allows you to have multiple themes. Then you can be testing theme one versus theme two, in addition to testing which headlines work for each theme the best. Otherwise, you're just restricted to one ad, one theme, or you have multiple themes in there and your ads don't actually make sense because Google throws them all - those headlines in whatever orders they want to throw them in, and it just doesn't actually make sense."

"Yeah, no, and I think on top of that as well, making sure that you have them grouped by the right themes too. Like not grouping them just randomly and things like that. You need to have them be along the same - I guess repeating what you said, but a little bit deeper is making sure that those themes actually go well together. Because when you have more than one ad, you do open yourself up to different messages being shown, and you need to make sure that those messages are in line with what you're trying to get with that ad or with that campaign."

"Absolutely. One kind of like sub-subtopic of this, not something we planned talking about, is pinned headlines. You have any thoughts on pinned headlines?"

"I have mixed feelings about pinned headlines. They're beneficial if you know that a headline works well, but if you don't, don't pin is kind of my opinion. I think you should give Google the opportunity to have a level playing field when you're first starting out a new campaign. I don't like to pin things when I'm just starting out if it's like a fresh campaign that I have no data on. And given - like in our campaigns, we pin a lot of that, but that's because we have aggregate data across all of our clients. We know what works and what doesn't. But if you're starting a brand new campaign, don't pin anything in the beginning is my opinion. Don't pin and let Google play with everything. And then as you get some data in from performance, you'll start getting a picture of which headlines are working, which ones aren't. At that point, you can start pinning the ones that really work."

"Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. And you're right that considering the data we have, we have more liberty to do more things earlier. We can kind of set up guard rails because we already know where it's... oh, this is already learned in 20 other accounts that these are the headlines that work better here or in this certain position or whatever the case is. And just lower the number of things that Google's testing to just the ones that we think are most likely to work, and it gets you there faster because Google will get there, but it could take it a really long time if it's just doing things randomly."

"I would say there's one exception to what you talked about, and I see this problem with a few accounts that we audit where they have headlines that just don't make sense in certain orders. You have to make sure that they actually make sense because Google's machine learning doesn't really understand that. It just knows the performance of this headline is a certain thing. Like for example, a call to action for the whole ad - you don't want that to be your headline number one. So you can pin, and there's ways to pin where you're just pinning to a position. You're not just making sure the headline shows up, but you're just saying if it does show up, make sure it shows up in spot number two or spot number three or whatever the case is, because maybe it doesn't make sense if it shows up in spot number one."

"So it's hard to imagine because if you have 15 headlines, if you imagine every possible order that those could come in if there's going to show three at a time... I know there's some mathematical way to figure that out, but the answer is it's a ton of stuff. But it has to actually make sense, and the machine learning will eventually find out what converts and what doesn't, but it needs to... sometimes it'll just take it so long and it has to gather so much data to get there that you can shortcut that process."

"It's a good point. Any other notes on multiple ads?"

"I think I've given my box, but summary there - just make sure you have multiple ads with similar themes. It helps a ton versus just having the one."

"Yeah, absolutely. The next one that I want to touch on is the what those headlines themselves say. I think there's a tendency for marketers overall to always be focused on what gets someone one step deeper down the funnel. So when we write an ad, we think how do we write an ad that someone wants to click. But the other variable that we have to think about there is not just are we getting someone down the funnel, but who are we getting down the funnel. And it could be that a certain headline attracts more people but less of the right people, and that's true really often."

"And then the other thing to think about with pay-per-click advertising is exactly that - pay per click. It's not pay per view or impression. Now on Facebook, that's a different story, right? On Google though, it's pay per click. So assuming you're going to be paying for that click, you want to make sure that you're qualifying the person. So that's where the rule of thumb is qualify and convert, don't just convert. Whereas most marketers just focus on the convert section, they look at what ads get the highest percentage of clicks, the highest click-through rate, but we want to qualify too."

"And I think a specific example of where that goes wrong in this industry is messaging around pricing. If you look at all the options that a seller has, basically a wholesaler is usually the absolute worst at price, and they're the best at everything else. And then they could go like retail, for example, that's much less convenient and takes a lot longer, but the price is better. So you just have to think of your strengths as a company. Literally, the thing that you're worst at is price, and I cannot tell you how many ads I look at in this industry that say, 'We'll pay top dollar for your house. You'll be shocked by how high our offer is,' you know, all this stuff where it just doesn't attract the right kind of person by any means."

"And you pay for those clicks, and then those same people, when I'm doing these audits, they're complaining to me that their leads are all too retail. They all want too much money for their house. And I look at their ads, and their ads say, 'We'll pay you more than anybody else,' and they're surprised that those people are the people that are being attracted by those ads."

"So I think that's something to keep in mind. It's not just about what gets the most clicks. You want to think each of these clicks you're going to pay for, how do you make them count? The opposite version of that is you could say, 'I'll buy your house for 50% of market value' in the ad or something. Then nobody wants to click it, right? So there's a balance here, but I think focusing on the pain points that you want people to have is a really good way to make sure you're getting the right people. And you can let your competitors buy all the clicks from the people that are motivated by the wrong things. It's the most ideal scenario. You have any thoughts on that?"

"Yeah, mostly along the lines of what you're saying here. I think some marketers take advantage of the fact that high lead flow looks good when quality suffers because of it. And that's where like a lot of like broad match keywords and phrase match, exact match keywords get for... where we take the stance that we want... we don't turn the dial as far towards quality as possible. And honestly, like nine times out of 10, I feel like the investors that I work with are like, 'I'd rather have high quality, a little bit lower lead flow than like massive lead flow, low quality.' It's just better to be not filtering through all the garbage."

"And so that's what I typically recommend - really trying to decide what you want as quality and making sure that your message is absolutely in line with that. Because like you said, if you just say, 'We'll buy your house regardless, no terms attached,' everyone will come to you, but you won't get any deals out of it because you can't do that and you don't want that. So having that key messaging of making sure that you have a good balance of, 'Hey, we want to convert this ad, but at the same time, we want to make sure it's the right person,' is super crucial in making sure that it's a successful ad campaign."

"Here's another thing - I completely agree with what you said. I think another thing that makes us even more dangerous is the machine learning that we're dealing with in Google where you can give it 15 headlines and it's going to start to learn. And if you look over time, it's probably going to end up serving a few of those headlines way, way more than the other ones because it finds that they work better. So if you have some things that attract the wrong people but they get a lot of clicks, you risk - even though that's one headline in 15 - you risk that headline is going to be shown 90% of the time because Google's AI is going to learn that's a good headline because by every measure that they have, it's showing that it's a good headline."

"And that's, I think, probably the most dangerous thing about... we see this on Facebook too. It's not just about having the thing there and attracting the wrong people. The problem is these ad platforms, they double down on mistakes, and you start spending all your money on a piece of junk over some time."

"Yeah, it's like just imagine giving your acquisition manager a high five every time they get just a really bad deal, a bad contract. That's exactly what you're doing by trying to just push high lead flow with all these ridiculous statements in Google. So because Google thinks that you want it, and it'll give you more for a long time too because you have to retrain it if you try to change. So yeah, absolutely."

"What else? You have any other items?"

"Yeah, the other one that I wanted to talk about is making sure that your keywords are actually relevant in your headlines. One of the things that we've talked about numerous times is that you got to be really careful with what you're using in the headlines because Google's AI doesn't understand proper English and things like that, and you can get some really weird looking headlines coming out of Google if you're not careful about what you're putting in there."

"Making sure that you have headlines that are going to sound attractive to people but not just like keyword stuffing them. What I typically recommend in those situations is you want to have your keywords in your headlines and things like that and your description, but you can't just have just your keyword and just shove a bunch of keywords into it. This isn't the 90s anymore. We can't do that, right? It has to be relevant, it has to look good."

"People read things on Google, and you just think of the scammy ads you've ever seen on Google, and they all look exactly like that. Think of just... I think of Alibaba, for example. Have you ever shopped on Alibaba? Their listing, their titles are just like keyword stuffed to every keyword possible that could be related to that item, and it looks so bad. And you just look at it, you're like, 'Yeah, I'm not buying that. That's weird.'"

"So you want to make sure in your headlines and titles on Google that it sounds good. It's something somebody's going to read and be like, 'Oh, that sounds like a reputable company.' And on top of that, also it ties into making sure that you're qualifying and not just converting as well. Making sure that you're not just putting the keyword in there... you can't just have a dynamic keyword line in your headline so it just shoves their keyword in there every time they search for it. You need to have good content that people can read and actually like."

"Yeah, that solves my situation. If someone's searching 'sell my house for cash,' you can't just have an ad that says 'sell my house for cash,' and then it just looks weird. You have to be like, 'We'll buy your house for cash,' and here's our stipulations, those things to help try to qualify that as well. So that's my thoughts on keyword stuffing and having good quality headlines. You have anything to add to that?"

"I think what you just noted is the most common way that people screw this up. I think of it kind of like a continuum, though. You have that side that you just talked about, which is Alibaba keyword stuffed everything, do it for the algorithm, not for the person. And then you have on the far other side - this is much less common in this industry, but then we have brand marketers. Like, never have a brand marketer write your PPC headlines, 'cause it's going to be like something incredibly creative and nobody's going to get it. They always think too creative, too high of cognitive resources that are necessary to understand it, and it's always like the next step instead of clarifying that this is relevant to what you just searched."

"So it's one of those things that... which sounds amazing, but for people that are like... the average cognitive resources that people have available as they're doing searches on Google is not enough to comprehend those headlines. So that's one side, and then yours - the other side is kind of in between. Because if you don't put enough keywords in your headlines and that kind of thing, then Google doesn't like you because part of your quality score is going to be your ad relevance. They'll actually charge you a higher cost per click if you don't have your ads hyper-relevant to your keywords. And including the keywords in the ads is a great way to do that, or like slight variations. But yeah, you can go too far. So I think it's about finding the balance for sure."

"One thing on that topic is... mentioned this briefly... it's Dynamic Keyword Insertion. Yeah, this has been a common practice in Google ads for a long time. Google has these dynamic possibilities where you can basically put your keyword into your ad dynamically as a headline. So someone searches something that matches to your 'we buy houses' keyword, and then your ad will say 'we buy houses,' inserting that keyword in. And this is something that I've seen pretty problematic in a lot of accounts because what you can end up doing is you don't write your keywords with the intention of them being in an ad, but then you write an ad that inserts them."

"So your keyword might be 'companies that buy houses,' and then your ad might have Dynamic Keyword Insertion, and then you insert 'companies that buy houses' into your ad. And then just think of that - someone searches for 'companies that buy houses,' and then they read your ad and it says 'companies that buy houses.' That doesn't make sense. You're a company that buys houses, so you might say something being like 'We Buy Houses,' right? And then it's like really clear. But if you just insert 'companies that buy houses,' that doesn't make any sense."

"Yeah, and that can definitely bite you. It doesn't always make sense. I think one of the reasons that people do this is so they can have a single ad group. For anybody that's unfamiliar, an ad group is like a container that holds keywords and ads, and the idea is you want everything in it to be somewhat relevant to the other things. But if people put like all their keywords into a single ad group, then you have to have this in order for it to be relevant to all those things. But if you have your ad group structure set up right to where all the keywords in it are relatively the same, you don't have to dynamically put them into an ad to make it relevant."

"The other place where I've seen this bite people is in with trademarks. It's easy to have competitor keywords, which are just a pretty standard practice that you have a competitor - the most common one's probably 'We Buy Ugly Houses,' right? But 'We Buy Ugly Houses' as a keyword, it's a great keyword. So common, almost that I think a lot of people don't even think about it as a competitor keyword, but it is technically. But then if you have Dynamic Keyword Insertion, you'll take 'We Buy Ugly Houses' and you'll put that in your headline, and then you're doing trademark infringement. And Google potentially won't even let it run, or if they do, you might get sued. And that particular company tends to be very litigious."

"Your other companies might... you can definitely use competitor keywords. Generally, attorneys will agree that that's not illegal and that's not trademark infringement. But putting those in your ads so it looks like you are that company is very much trademark infringement because it causes confusion for the consumer. So that's another place to keep yourself out of legal trouble. You don't even have to write a trademarked ad to do trademark infringement in Google ads. All you need is just the wrong setting turned on in your ad and a keyword that makes it trademark infringement, and you'll have no idea it's happening because you won't be seeing those ads very often."

"Yes, yeah, absolutely. Because you never... you never realize that those things come together. So I generally... I don't know what you would say. I'd say just don't use Dynamic Keyword Insertion. Make a structure where that's not necessary. But if you do, definitely review all of your ads with that Dynamic Keyword Insertion and make sure that you don't have trademark issues, make sure they actually make sense. Because anytime you do something dynamic like that, you just have to be careful about what could possibly pop up because there's tons of variations."

"Yeah, yeah. No, I'm on the same page. I think using Dynamic Keywords is something that's much more tactical, and I wouldn't recommend using as someone who doesn't work with ads daily. So that's my opinion on it."

"And you mentioned too earlier where you mention the ad score, and that's one thing too. Uh, anytime you build an ad in Google, Google will give you an ad score, and it will dynamically update to be better or worse as you're building out the ads. It drives me nuts. If there's one piece of advice I could give on that - just don't pay attention to the ad score. It's not worth it. Google doesn't have your best interest in mind because that ad score is based on a very narrow set of rules that are meant to be widely purposed for every type of ad. And the problem is, I've listened to tons of podcasts, tons of other agencies talking about their results of using, trying to... these ad scores, and it doesn't seem that it really has a meaningful impact on the ads in the way that people really think it does."

"I worked for an agency, and one of the top things on our list of things to do when we were building ads was make sure your ad score's as close to 100% as possible. And it did nothing. And honestly, like the ads that agency did not do well with ads in my opinion, and I think that's one of the reasons is they were so focused on what Google was telling them to do that they weren't focused on what was actually needed to happen."

"It's similar with the Google sales reps that call all of us every day. I get daily calls from them, and they don't know what you need to be doing. They know what Google wants you to be doing, and that's not going to benefit you. So as far as the ad scores go, when you're building out those ads, like you do want to have quality headlines and things like that, but Google will... if you're trying to hit that 100% score, Google will be stuffing keywords into your ads. You will be building ridiculous headlines that don't make sense just because you need another headline or something like that."

"Like kind of like you said, there's 15 headlines, four descriptions, and some other options as well. You don't have to have all 15 and all four if it doesn't work. Sometimes there are situations where you don't need all that, but Google in every situation can say you need all 15, you need all four. So I just recommend don't pay attention to the ad score. With our ads, our ads do amazing, and our ad scores are not a reflection of that. Google standards... yeah, we're just like average and sometimes worse than that. I have one client that's doing just crazy right now. He's killing it, and I think he has an average of like 30% on his ad score, which is in Google's eyes horrendous. Don't worry about it. It's not really worth focusing on. It's at the bottom of the priority list."

"Yeah, I'm gonna join you on your soapbox for just a minute. This gets me fired up. Another one that I just hate - optimization score. This is so... the ad score is for an individual ad. The optimization score is what Google says for an entire account - how well is this optimized? And there's a lot of debate around this because this is why we're not a premier partner with Google. Because Google has this Premier Partner badge. You don't really get much from it, maybe slightly better rep. Most agencies just use it for their marketing to where they can say we're Premier Partner with Google, and it's hard to achieve that because it is hard to achieve that. One, you have to have all these requirements with the number of accounts and how long you manage them and all this different stuff."

"But one that's just non-negotiable for me is you must have an optimization score across your clients of at least 70%. An optimization score is a completely arbitrary metric that Google assigns on an account level saying it's not how well you optimize, it's how well are you following what Google wants you to do. And most of those recommendations are junk. They're not actually good things that actually... yeah, help our clients. So in order for us to be a partner with Google, we have to prove that we follow their rules, not what's best for our clients. And it... it drives me crazy. So that's why we're not... we're not a part of that program."

"But along those lines, we just... I just had an experience with a client over the weekend where I was just... I was looking in there. We were talking about something else, and I look in there and I see in the change history like your... like nightmare where you see 'applied recommendation,' which recommendations are kind of part of their optimization score. They say you should do these things. I'm like, 'Why would we have applied a recommendation? Who is it?' And I look, and it was the client that did it in their app. Like it just popped up and it said, 'Please let us do this. This will improve your results by this much.' And it was to include the Search Partners Network in their ads."

"And so I messaged him immediately, and I'm like, 'Why are you doing this?' And he's like, 'Oh, is that going to be a problem?'

‍

In this episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast, Brandon is joined by Garret Cragun from our paid media team to discuss landing pages. We'll cover five common mistakes people make when building landing pages and how to do them correctly, as well as four ways to create exceptional landing pages.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

"Welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. Today, I will be joined by Garrett Craigan from our paid media team, and we're going to talk all about landing pages. We'll discuss five things that people are doing wrong and how they can do them right, and then four things that you can do to be exceptional with your landing pages. I think there's a ton of value in this episode, especially at the end, so enjoy and let us know if there's anything that you want us to cover in future episodes."

"How you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good. How are you?"

"Doing awesome. Excited for the topic today to dig into everything. So for everybody's information, today we're talking about landing pages. This is part of our who-knows-how-many-parts series on all the pillars of PPC, all the things that you have to get right to do well. The topic for today is landing pages. Landing pages are one of the biggest places where I see issues when I'm doing audits on accounts of people that are coming to me and basically saying they're not getting the success that they're looking for with PPC."

"As for the topic today, we do have Garrett, our research and development lead, product lead manager of most people in the company, like whatever we want to call him – superhero."

"Yeah, so we're going to talk over five specific things that we keep on seeing in these audits that people are getting wrong and how you could fix those. Then to end, we're going to talk about four things that you can do that even your competitors aren't. The beginning is just like how do you get on par, and the end's about how you actually accelerate ahead of what your competitors are doing to get exceptional results by doing things exceptionally. So let's get started."

"Number one on most common things that we're seeing that people are doing wrong: page speed. Still a huge issue for landing pages. You want to elaborate on that?"

"Yeah, people are very impatient, and they expect a quick load speed, especially on mobile. We see consistently that businesses don't do a great job of keeping their pages lean and quick, and that has a huge impact on how that page performs."

"Absolutely, and we do see for the most part desktop pages seem to be okay. It's mobile that's just getting destroyed for some reason. Why do you think that is, that it's so much harder for mobile?"

"I think people still build out their designs on desktop, and so they optimize it for how they're designing it and they just forget that most of their traffic is going to be mobile. With the power difference of a phone versus a desktop, it just needs a lot more refinement and attention to have that page perform well, whereas on a desktop it can load faster because it has a bit more processing speed."

"That totally makes sense, and it's definitely really interesting. I think a lot of people would pay a lot more attention to this if there was a metric to measure this, but this is pay-per-click advertising, right? For each individual click, and so many times I don't think people realize how many of those clicks you buy and then people bail before your page loads. So you still paid for the click, and then they didn't actually get to see everything else."

"I actually built out a metric like that for one of our clients. I called it the cost per non-bounced visitor. So you can import bounce rate from other sources and then your cost, and then you can estimate our cost per non-bounce visit. If your page doesn't do well, it'll have a high bounce rate, and that kind of gives you that metric."

"Just to define bounce rate for people, it's when a visitor comes on the page and spends under what is it, like 1 second?"

"I thought sessions. Is it under one session?"

"Yeah, I think I forget this metric. Bounce rate is one of those weird ones. I actually think it's a really common misconception in this industry too. We've had some clients judge our pages too much on bounce rate, but let's just say you were running traffic to your home and now you run it to an action like a single action landing page. Bounce rate is measured on the number of sessions that only have one page load opposed to multiple page loads. Then if you have a single action landing page, your bounce rate is the inverse of your conversion because someone either bounces or they convert, no other option."

"Yeah, and if you're running to your main website, then it's not because maybe they're going to click on all these other links, they're going to go to all these other places. That's where people are seeing these like 50, 60% bounce rates on main websites, and then on our landing pages, they're seeing an 80% bounce rate, but really what that means is a 20% conversion."

"Actually, really? Yeah, it's just in the main website might have been a 10 or 12% conversion rate. It's just there's less people going around to all these different places on the website."

"Correct. There are ways to do time on site, but I guess the header code would load before the rest of it."

"Yes, that's a little bit harder to implement on a landing page. Like a 10 seconds on site might mean 10 seconds waiting for site to load after the header loaded, but it's loaded. So anyway, it's just a sad thing to pay for that traffic."

"And the other thing that I think a lot of people don't realize is if you have that poor load speed and people are clicking and then it's not loading, then they're clicking back, it also can affect your cost per click."

"Yeah, because if they are waiting and getting impatient, go back and reclick again, you're getting charged twice for that click, but that's not a different user."

"Absolutely, and the other thing is that it would affect the quality score too. Google has this mysterious landing page experience score. I don't know how much you know about the things that go into that."

"I know it's a lot of behavioral metrics that they measure, and I think one of those is time on site before bouncing back, if I'm not mistaken."

"I think you're right. So if people are coming on your page and then they're clicking back immediately, then that's a signal to Google that people don't have as good of an experience clicking on ads when they click on your ad compared to maybe your competitor where the page loads more quickly. And in Google's eyes, you have to pay a premium for that experience."

"Yeah, which is annoying. A lot of people don't realize that everybody pays the same cost per click. Google favors people who provide a better experience to users."

"So that's number one, page speed. What are some things that people can do about it? Like why is it common for page speed to be so bad in general?"

"What I've seen is it's due to the images that are on the page being too big. So it's very easy to just reduce the size of those images or even taking off videos if they're not essential for the experience because those take up a lot of space and they load pretty slow. So that's where I see the biggest impact is in reducing the size of those image and video files."

"Yes, absolutely. And I think that's definitely a big area for improvement. We've seen other things like we used to use a form software, for example, that would slow things down with an embedded form. This is really common with CRM forms. If you're just like throwing your Podio code on that site, it can be really slow sometimes from a page load speed standpoint. Salesforce, same deal."

"There's also, for anybody who's interested in improving their page speed, there's a tool called Google Page Speed Insights that basically breaks down everything that could be wrong with your page speed."

"Yep, it's cool. Although there's specialized developers that work on this stuff and definitely know all the ins and outs of optimizing a specific page."

"One other technique I would share is lazy loading on our pages, where if you do have things that load more slowly, you can decide the order in which you want them to load. So you don't just load everything all at once, and where you'd be better off maybe loading everything and then loading the video after, especially if it's like you have to scroll down to find it or something like that. Just so people have a functioning top of the page before the bottom of the page loads or something like that."

"Correct, yeah, that's huge."

"Absolutely. What would you say people want to shoot for on their page load speed? How do they know if they're doing well or not?"

"I think the best benchmark is that Page Speed Insights that you mentioned. It gives the score out of 100, and on mobile, I think a good target is probably 80. Just because of the average of that device, 80 is going to be pretty strong. On a desktop, I think it's very doable being over 95."

"Yeah, absolutely. The only caution I would give to this is I've seen some people who are completely obsessed with page speed to the extent that their landing page doesn't have anything good on it either."

"Correct. Huge. If you want the fastest page speed, you would just have an HTML thing that says like 'Please send me your information' like 'We Buy Houses' lead form and that's it."

"Be fast, but no, not even a lead form. You just put like an email or a phone number to contact you."

"Yeah, so that could work because a form would be slow, but anyway, it's not all about page speed. There are people in this industry that preach like page speed is like the most important thing, and it's important. I would definitely say it's important, but if you're going so far that you're hurting your page in other ways because of page speed..."

"Another example of this is like analytics and tracking codes and things like that. By the time you put like conversion tracking in and Google Analytics and you might have even some additional tools that track keystrokes or whatever the case is, we'll talk about some of that stuff later. That stuff all has a negative impact on page speed, but it also has a positive impact. So it's kind of balancing those things, I think too."

"Totally. So that was number one. Number two here is optimization for mobile. I want to jump right into this one just because it branches off from the page speed. Like a lot of people, because they build it on desktop and then it's adapted to work for mobile, it's not efficient or optimized for mobile. That's where a lot of people say mobile-first is the way to design today."

"Where're I think it's close to 80% of our traffic. Does that sound right to you?"

"Probably. Last time, 75 to 80 is mobile."

"Yeah, like a lot of our traffic is mobile. I think that makes a ton of sense. Just people work on computers and people always forget that. But what else in terms of mobile are people getting wrong?"

"I think a big best practice in how your page performs is having things, the most important parts of the page, be visible above the fold. And that fold is like where people's screen ends, and on mobile, that looks different than on desktop. So it's important to have your form be higher up on the page on mobile because it might not be if you're doing the design on desktop. It's just a much smaller screen, and so having the important stuff packed up on the top is very important on mobile, and people always forget that."

"Yeah, the simple test for this, just to make this like black and white: if you pull up your website on your phone and you can't see the form and the button to submit the form on your screen without scrolling, then it's probably a problem."

"That's bad, yeah."

"I know it's like the default with Carrot sites because they have all that text beneath the headlines and everything. On desktop it works because the text is on the left-hand side and the form's on the right-hand side, but then you pull it up on a phone and all that text is the entire first screen. There's not even a form."

"So that's, yeah, that's a good example. And actually, that's number three here: is the form above the fold, which is true for desktop and mobile, although you'd be surprised how often I find in audits that people have like the forms at the bottom of their page."

"Yeah, or something like that, which is just not standard. Because you'd be surprised, I think everybody when they design a landing page, they just picture someone just going through and reading all their landing page. They're not going to read. The vast majority of form submissions are people who just clicked and then they don't even scroll, they just submit a form right then."

"Do you have a good call to action? And I think having some additional content if they do scroll to help towards conversion for those people that need more convincing, I think it's good. But you do lose conversions if you don't have a call to action immediately available. Even if they are going to load everything, at least they understand from the very beginning this is the purpose of the page, I'm supposed to do this."

"Yep, and then they're thinking about that the whole time. Am I going to do that?"

"Anything else about the form being above the fold?"

"No, I think that's a good summary of that best practice."

"Cool. Let's talk about call to actions. Should somebody have a phone number on their landing page? Should they have a form? Should they have both?"

"I think it's probably best to have both. In all of these things, I would say test it, but I would start with having both because people have different preferences. Some people don't like talking on the phone, and some people want to like explain their whole situation, talk to a human, and not wait for an appointment. So I think having both is beneficial to maximize the audience's response by having a method of contact that they prefer."

"Absolutely, and I've seen probably the biggest one I don't like is when someone just has like a form only and they don't have a phone number. Because some of our clients, like when we do track the quality of phone calls versus form submissions, the phone calls are better quality than average."

‍

This episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast dives into the world of conversion tracking, with our resident digital marketing guru Garret Cragun. In this fourth episode of what is likely an eight-part series, we'll discuss effective strategies and techniques to ensure you're getting the most out of your PPC campaigns in the real estate investment industry.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. Today I am joined by our resident digital marketing genius, Garrett Cregan, and we're going to talk all about conversion tracking. I'm excited to jump into it. How you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good, how are you?"

"Doing awesome, thank you. Super excited for today's episode. We are talking all about... this is part four out of probably eight parts. Let's see if we have a bonus for essential pieces of PPC in the real estate investment industry. Anyway, the topic for today is conversion tracking. It is the most technical topic that we have, I think, and it's something that in a lot of the audits that we do, we see people doing wrong. So there's definitely a lot of room to improve here. Let's start out just by talking about what conversion tracking is and why it matters."

"Yeah, so everything in an ad account comes down to the data that we feed the platform, and if we aren't able to give it good, accurate data, it's not going to be able to give us good, accurate results. When we say tracking, what we mean is the ability to record and report back to the platform what people do on the site after they first engage with your ad."

"Yeah, absolutely. There's this... if anybody's not familiar, if you go on Google Ads, you see this 'Conversions' column. That's kind of the results of conversion tracking, right? That's where all the information goes in. And there are a few common mistakes here for sure. Is there anything that you want to bring up that you're seeing as well? Should we talk about how this actually works first, just technically how people know it?"

"I think there's some misconceptions on this too. I think people just assume like everything that comes through a form is tracked as a conversion or something like that, but this is all for the most part... well, there are multiple ways, but largely, this is mostly cookie-based. The way that it works is you fire a JavaScript snippet when something happens, and that kind of communicates to Google. It really works the same way with Facebook. That communicates 'our event that has value to us happened.'"

Here's the first part of the text with grammatical corrections, proper capitalization, punctuation marks, and dialogue formatting:

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. Today I am joined by our resident digital marketing genius, Garrett Cregan, and we're going to talk all about conversion tracking. I'm excited to jump into it. How you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good, how are you?"

"Doing awesome, thank you. Super excited for today's episode. We are talking all about... this is part four out of probably eight parts. Let's see if we have a bonus for essential pieces of PPC in the real estate investment industry. Anyway, the topic for today is conversion tracking. It is the most technical topic that we have, I think, and it's something that in a lot of the audits that we do, we see people doing wrong. So there's definitely a lot of room to improve here. Let's start out just by talking about what conversion tracking is and why it matters."

"Yeah, so everything in an ad account comes down to the data that we feed the platform, and if we aren't able to give it good, accurate data, it's not going to be able to give us good, accurate results. When we say tracking, what we mean is the ability to record and report back to the platform what people do on the site after they first engage with your ad."

"Yeah, absolutely. There's this... if anybody's not familiar, if you go on Google Ads, you see this 'Conversions' column. That's kind of the results of conversion tracking, right? That's where all the information goes in. And there are a few common mistakes here for sure. Is there anything that you want to bring up that you're seeing as well? Should we talk about how this actually works first, just technically how people know it?"

"I think there's some misconceptions on this too. I think people just assume like everything that comes through a form is tracked as a conversion or something like that, but this is all for the most part... well, there are multiple ways, but largely, this is mostly cookie-based. The way that it works is you fire a JavaScript snippet when something happens, and that kind of communicates to Google. It really works the same way with Facebook. That communicates 'our event that has value to us happened.'"

"A lot of people just put that code on the page after their form, for example. So someone fills out a form and then they go to this thank you page, and on that thank you page you have this conversion tracking code that says, 'This was a lead.' The way that it has to work is the ad platform, like... this tracking, it's built for even e-commerce scenarios, for example, where someone could click on an ad, go to the website, go around a whole bunch of different pages on the website, leave for two days, come back, buy something, and you would be able to track it. Because the JavaScript basically tracks: did they click on an ad and then convert within a certain time period?"

"So there's something called an attribution window. If it converts within that time period, then it's there. So a common misconception is that like a test lead going through your form, for example, would mess up your conversion tracking, which isn't really true. It wouldn't count extra conversions. It really just is that someone has to click an ad, and then you have to fire this code for them. As long as that happens within the time period, which I think we set by default at 30 days after clicks, it counts as a lead."

"All right, so common mistakes with this. What are you seeing?"

"I think the most egregious error is just not tracking at all. That makes my... that's just gross and it's just a waste of ad spend. And that's harmful because if things aren't being tracked, then we have no idea what's working at all. It's not even like we don't know what's bringing in good or bad quality, we're just totally blind, just giving money and burning it at the altar of Google. And that's just not gonna work at all."

"Yeah, and so when it comes to tracking and not tracking, just some things I've noticed for why people do this: either they don't know what they don't know, you know? It's not set up right or something. So you really have to test this, and my favorite way is to use something called Google Tag Manager. You could set it up, you could test that things are firing properly, and then you just have to be attentive to your account. You have to realize if things aren't tracking. It's not uncommon at all for conversion tracking to break at some point, and you have to be aware and realize that conversion tracking broke and that's going to create issues for you."

"So I think that's probably the most common thing that I see is people try to set it up, but it just doesn't work for whatever reason. And there's tons of little reasons, but you kind of have to at least be aware that it's not working."

"Yeah, and that's... it's probably unhelpful also to like go into how you can make sure that it isn't tracking. So what I do usually, or what I would advise doing, is have your form submissions go into, like, ideally, your CRM. And it's easiest if you just compare the lead count in your CRM with the platform, and they should be pretty close to equal numbers. If there's a difference, I would go through your tracking and make sure that all of the code is in the right place, it hasn't changed, that the form is going to the same thank you page that it used to, you know, all those things. But if those numbers don't match up, that's probably a pretty good indicator that your tracking isn't working anymore."

"Yeah, absolutely. Totally agreed with that. All right, what else in terms of big mistakes?"

"I think one other thing is, so when you first make an ad account in Google, it tries to like have you make what it calls smart goals to like track things automatically like page views, button clicks for like calls, those kinds of things. And those... like yes, having those track does help you know how people are behaving on the site, but they don't show much intent. And so that's gonna give Google some false positives that it's doing well. So a big issue I see is with people over-tracking things that are too early in the buying journey to actually be meaningful."

"Yeah, another example kind of similar to that is duplicated tracking. You have multiple things set up, they track at the same time, and a really easy way to see this is you look on a graph of all your conversion actions separated by day, and you can see that there's certain conversion actions that always fire at the same time. It's a good sign of duplication. Or you look at your search terms and you see where you have like one click and two conversions, and you think, 'How did I get two leads from one person?'"

"When you have unique... this is something to talk about too in terms of conversion tracking. You can make it so there should only be one conversion per person, and theoretically, if someone fills out your form 100 times, if you tell Google in the settings that you only want to count one per person, then it should only count one unless you had duplicated tracking somehow."

"Another little thing that this brings up in my mind too is, let's just say you have one of these problems and you do have a lot of duplication, or you had smart goals running for a period of time because Google will even turn this stuff on without you unless you actually turn off the setting that allows Google to automatically turn on the setting if they want to. Specifically to keep in mind with Google, oftentimes you have to turn off what you don't want and then you also have to turn off Google's ability to turn it back on without your consent later, because they just love to ruin your results. But what can you do if something like that happens? You realize you stop tracking for a period of time or you way over-tracked?"

"Well, first things first, I would get it fixed as fast as possible. And then there are ways to teach Google that a certain time period had incorrect tracking, so it won't take that into account as it builds out your account's learnings. It'll say, 'Okay, here's how people behave with this account, but we won't take into consideration this time period because it had bad data.' So that's one way. And then you also can upload leads from your CRM right into the ad account if there was a gap in tracking. That can help you to bridge the gap of under-counting."

"I understand. If anybody needs to look it up, what is this called? Is it called like a data exclusion period or something like that?"

"Yeah, it'll be like that."

"All right, so you can look that up, and Google has help articles. It's not super difficult to do, it's pretty easy. All right, anything else that you're seeing commonly in terms of mistakes? I have one idea that just came to mind, and it's that a lot of people don't understand the difference between a primary conversion action and a secondary conversion action. And this is basically where you designate to Google: is this something I want to optimize towards, or is it just something I want to track? A lot of people don't realize you can track as much stuff as you... you can track those smart goals, you could track different types of conversion actions, all that stuff. The main thing is you just only want to set things as primary conversion actions if they actually have value for you and that's what you've chosen to track."

"Yeah, just to go into that a bit deeper, so like you said, we only want to count things as primary if they are actually... if the action that they're measuring is an action that you care about as a business owner. For instance, like sure, it's great if this user spent an hour on your site, but like, did they submit a form? Of those two actions, I don't care about their time on the page, I care about the form. So I would only set things as primary if they matter."

"But one thing that I also would add as a caveat is you don't want to track things that happen so rarely that Google is not going to be able to get a handle on that as an action. So this is going a little bit ahead, but you can import like contracts or deals, but it might not be beneficial to count that as a primary action right now, like when you're just starting, because those deals happen so rarely in most cases that it's going to kind of give Google a false negative. That's not an action that your audience takes, and so it kind of de-emphasizes it."

"Yeah, absolutely. You have to think that Google's looking at tens of thousands of data points and it's trying to optimize, and if you feed it something that happens once a month, it's going to have a really hard time optimizing towards that, right? You want that frequency of action. So there's always that fun game of how deep do you track in the funnel, and you can always kind of optimize that by primary and secondary actions, and you can track more than you actually optimize towards."

"So let's talk about if everything's just good. Like, assuming conversion tracking is working exactly as it should for like your average person managing their own PPC or something like that, what does that look like? Basically, how do you do good enough?"

"Yeah, so it's basically doing what we talked about as bad and doing it good. So having forms count once, having them count accurately, having your primary actions be ones that matter. And then one other thing that we see really rarely that has a big impact is tracking phone calls. We see that calls are often very high-quality leads because they're high intent. They want to talk now, and they get on the phone with an agent immediately. There isn't that lag between the form and the context where they can call or like, you know, do other forms and kind of get distracted."

"And then if you answer your phone..."

"That's the caveat. You gotta answer your phone, people. But if you do, then yeah, you're right, it's guaranteed contact."

"Yeah, and calls are not a very... or call tracking is not a very intuitive or commonly known thing to track. It just doesn't really... it's easy to say, 'Oh, like on my site I have a form, I track that,' but it's kind of hard to think, 'Oh, I can track calls.' It isn't very intuitive, I think, for people, and so it's often missed as an action that can and needs to be tracked."

"Yeah, absolutely. So let's lay this out. I'm thinking most people should have at least three conversion actions, and I'll explain exactly what those are. The first one's forms, like you mentioned. The go-to here is just the direct leads, right? We talked about more advanced strategies like lead sculpting, and we'll talk in this episode about offline conversion tracking and all that stuff, but the baseline, right, you track your leads through the form. Super simple."

"Phone calls... a lot of people think they're tracking phone calls, but they're not fully tracking phone calls. And there's two different ways you could track it, and then we also have to understand what tracking means. The way a lot of people think about tracking phone calls is, 'I have a tracking number,' because Real Estate Investors love tracking numbers because they love to be able to say, 'I spent this much and I got these phone calls,' right? But the thing is, if that tracking number doesn't give information to Google about what's happening and be able to tie it back to a specific person, then it's not valuable."

"And if you just throw a phone number on the landing page, you don't know when those calls came in, which keyword the person clicked on... uh, but you don't click on keywords, but you get the point. You don't know which keyword they matched to, you don't know which ad they clicked, you don't know there are other audience characteristics. And if you don't know, the algorithm doesn't know, and it can't optimize towards those things."

"So this isn't just about having tracking numbers. This is about having tracking that works with Google, and there's two different types of call tracking, and you need both of them. The first one is called... it'll show up as 'calls from ads' is what it says with the conversion action because you should have in your Google account something called... I think they call them Assets now, not extensions."

"Yeah, in my mind it's called an ad extension. I think it's called an ad asset now. It's basically like these other little secondary things that can exist on your ad, and one of those is a click-to-call phone number where you can on your Google ad show a phone number there, and somebody can click to call there. And it'll cost the same amount for that as it does for a normal click, but then they're calling you right. So there's value there, and the way you track that is Google... do that automatically, no matter what you do, as long as you turn it on, right? But you don't do anything fancy."

"The hard thing is, let's just say they click there and they come to your landing page, and then they call the phone number that's on the landing page. How do you track that?"

"So there are a couple of platforms that we recommend using that are called call tracking softwares, where what they'll do is they'll look at where the click came from, whether it was from Facebook, from Google, from an organic search, from a referral, and based on the source of that click, it'll actually swap out the number on your page with the number that you've assigned to that source. And so when they call, they're calling that source's assigned number, not the base number that's on your page. And so by doing that, we know where they came from, and then we can record the whole call and then have that information passed back into the ad platform."

"And there's... yeah, I mean, there's different platforms that do this differently. Like Call Rail is one that's pretty popular in the industry that you can do this. You can use something called a dynamic number pool, and it'll make it so each person on your website at any given time has a different phone number that they're seeing. So then if someone calls, we know exactly which person they are, right? Because you won't have a different tracking number for every single possible combination of all UTM parameters and things like that that could exist for each click ID. You'd have a different... every single time someone clicked, you'd have a different phone number."

"So it's kind of like they have this rotating pool, and each moment a number could be assigned to something different. And then it can integrate with the ad platform. Right now, we use something called Call Tracking Metrics, and it does something similar but without needing quite as many phone numbers. And I honestly don't even understand exactly how it works, how it knows which person called, but it does, and it works. So that's... and you don't have as many phone numbers, which means you cut back on your spam calls a little bit and stuff like that. So that totally helps."

"And in some insight, form fills are valuable. Those calls from the ad extensions or ad assets or whatever you call them, those we find convert worse than form submissions because sometimes people just don't know what they're doing, they don't know who they're calling, you know? They haven't read a lot about your company. But they're cheap, so they're fine. The phone calls on the landing page, if they actually came from ads, which you have to remember, anytime you put a phone number out there on the internet, you're going to get spam calls for all kinds of different reasons, right? Bots will scrape it, telemarketers call your company, you know, robocalls and all that kind of stuff. And that could be stuff where you turn off your ads, if it still happens, it's just completely unrelated to your advertising."

"But if we look at the calls that actually came from ads, then those are our highest converting leads, even higher than form submissions. It's also the least common one for people to track. So it's really important to track that. So anyway, Call Tracking Metrics, Call Rail, both of those platforms you can do this. There might be others that we're just not familiar with. I don't know if you've ever used any other ones?"

"I know that there also are some CRMs that have their own built-in solution, but those are rare. And I think most people use those more out-of-the-box platforms that we mentioned because they're a bit more robust than the ones that are native to those platforms."

"All right, let's talk about how you... the way that we formatted all these episodes is you start with what's bad and what's good, then how do you do this really, really well, right? What's the best version of this?"

"I'll start with one note from my side. With calls, if you want to take that one step further, you also track based on call quality. So it has to be a certain length of a call or something like that, because you'll have a lot of calls that are just like one second ring time or something like that, or someone like clicks the number on accident, and then you track the conversion. So I think doing that is really important."

"Outside of that, the other thing that we had on the list that was big is offline conversions tracking, which is a whole different game. How it works... do you want to explain a little bit about how that works and why that matters?"

"Yeah, so it kind of goes back to what we discussed earlier, how each click on an ad platform is assigned a unique number string. Actually, it's numbers and letters, and this thing's like 200 characters long or something. It's ridiculous."

"Yeah, because there's a unique one per click that has ever happened on Google, so it's long."

"And this ID is how Google is able to assign or... it's how it's able to tie back to the ad level, to the ad group level, to the campaign level, what actions a click took. So when we talk about offline conversion tracking, we can have that ID pushed into your CRM from the calls or the forms where we can say, 'Okay, John is in our CRM.' As he changes his stages in the CRM, we can have those stages tied to an offline action in the ad account for lead qualified, appointment, opportunity, contract, deal. And then each time he takes those actions, because that lead is tied to that ID in

"And then each time he takes those actions, because that lead is tied to that ID in the CRM that's made in the ad platform, we then can know that that keyword, that ad, that ad group, whatever, took those actions offline. And like we mentioned, if Google doesn't know what's happening, it can't optimize towards it. And so by giving it insight into those actions that happened offline that aren't tracked by a cookie or by a script, we can give it insight into context that it wouldn't have otherwise. And it's kind of a complete game-changer to go from 'here's my cost per lead' to 'here's my cost per appointment' at the ad group, at the ad level."

"Yeah, absolutely. And I think the key thing here is you'll never get all the data out of Google. Like, you could pull campaign, keyword, out of date... out of Google. A lot of people don't realize how insignificant that information really is, especially like keyword data, for example, where you have a search term that could have matched to any one of 20 keywords. So you find you track bad lead quality to one of them, so you cut out that keyword, and really at the end of the day, you have the same search terms, they're just diluted amongst other keywords. You know, so you're kind of trying to optimize things in these buckets, but what goes in what bucket is different every day, so it's not really useful, right?"

"So search term is all we care about. You'll never get search term out of Google though, it doesn't let you do that. Not anymore. It used to, but these days Google has all this data that they'll never give you. So the only way that you can really have a close-up tracking system is you have to bring your data into Google, and then you can analyze a ton of stuff."

"I want to explain exactly how this works, because you explained it a little bit, but I just want to make sure it's super clear. So the click happens, that has this unique stream. You need to program your form so that it has what's called a hidden field in it. In that hidden field, it takes information from the URL and it pulls it into the form, right? So you would have a hidden field called like 'Google click ID' basically, and it would take that string. And you can do this with most form softwares, and then you're capturing the Google click ID with each thing. And then later, kind of like you described, there's that upload where you say, 'Here's a click ID, here's what happens.' Super valuable. I think there is no strategy that's more powerful at optimizing the quality in the long term. That's my personal opinion."

"And I think this goes... I mean, this extends beyond just digital marketing, right? It's kind of true for anything in your business. What you measure improves, and what you don't measure gets ignored. And it's... you can't expect Google to be any different, right? So ultimately, if you care about something, you should be tracking that and you should be giving that data to Google. And through that, you can get a lot more... a lot more optimized."

"Is there anything else you'd say with conversion tracking to... is something that you could do just do it on a very high level?"

"The other thing that I would probably speak to is, and this might be too deep of a cut, but giving those actions an assigned value. Because you know, as we know, not all leads are of equal worth to your business. But for Google, unless it's otherwise... it's going to assume that if it drives a form, it killed it and that was exactly what we wanted, and we want more and more of that. But if we can assign those different offline actions a value that is a rough approximation of how much more or less valuable one action is versus the other... it doesn't have to be like, 'These are the dollars that go into my bank account when this action happens,' but more it's more of like a relative value than an absolute value. That's going to help over time to teach Google which actions we want more of, because it can't base it off of like the name of the action, right? It has to have numbers attached to it."

"Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, that whole world of value tracking and bidding and all that stuff is something that I think we'll talk a little bit more about in the next episode. So to give people a little bit of an understanding of at least for right now what we have coming up here, we're going to talk about bid strategies, including some that are value-based bids, some different settings, and click fraud if you ever heard of that, and locations. And those are kind of like the last four items that we have as part of the core PPC."

"So anyway, definitely tune in next time, because we're going to talk about how bid strategies, and then following that, also how bids kind of build on conversion tracking, because all conversion tracking is kind of the foundation for all of those things. So that'll be super interesting. But as for today, hopefully nobody's brain is completely fried. That's it for the episode. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time."

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Interested in optimizing your location targeting on digital marketing channels? Join Shaun Young, an account strategist at the Bateman Collective team, as he discusses effective strategies for improving location targeting. On this episode, explore how to maximize your locations, when to broaden or narrow down your scope, and what makes location targeting stand out from other channels.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is the best podcast on digital marketing for Real Estate Investors. Today I'm going to be joined by Shawn, who's a strategist on my team, and we're going to talk all about location targeting. This is going to be a great episode where we talk about some of those high-level strategic things. We're going to talk about how you can optimize your locations, where people go wrong, can you go too wide, can you go too narrow, what's different about this than your other channels, and a ton of other stuff. How are you doing today, Shawn?"

"Doing pretty good, thanks for having me."

"Yeah, awesome. Excited to do another episode with you. Thought you were just the right person for our topic today, which is number five out of eight of PPC best practices. As usual with these, we're going to talk about what to do, what not to do, and how to do it very well. So anyway, I'm super excited to get into everything today. The topic is location targeting, so without any delay, let's jump right into it. I'm really curious to pick your brain, Shawn, and see what ideas you have of how we do this right. How are you seeing investors potentially mess up their location targeting, and how would you do it instead?"

"Yeah, it's something that there's a lot of easy mistakes that can be made when setting up your location targeting because it's very different from a lot of the other channels that investors work in. Some of the biggest things are, I guess I've written down a couple things we can chat about, but one of those things is understanding what the difference is between going too wide and too narrow. Two very easy pitfalls that you can fall into. Starting off, we'll start off with the narrow side. Maybe with a lot of other channels that investors run, I see issues where they want to treat it like buying a list. They buy a list in an area and they know exactly what they're getting from that, right?"

"And in Google, it's in Facebook as well, it's very different where you can't just be like, 'I only want something here and nothing else,' because you're restricting. And I guess on the small level, when you say, 'I want, for example, just this one city and those borders, nothing else,' because you know that the ARV or something is what you want."

"Yeah, when you say city, you mean like city boundary?"

"Yeah, city boundary. A lot of people say, 'I target one city, I target Atlanta,' but that doesn't mean you target Atlanta. It means you target like the Atlanta metro usually, not the city boundaries, which I think for a lot of people, those are way tighter than they actually think they are. Like when we, when they ask us for it, we throw it on a map and we show it to them, and they're really surprised that it doesn't include a lot of areas."

"No, and that's exactly it. Where people think cities are bigger than they really are, and city boundaries exclude a lot that people think or that people forget about. And so I think going, part of the issue with going too narrow is you're limiting the algorithm of Google. Where Google is built on this whole premise, you're using AI to determine what works best, and the smaller you go, the less data you're giving that AI to use to be successful. And so when you're going too narrow and you try to control it, it ends up usually just creating more problems for you because you're now limiting what Google can do. And so allowing it some breathing room and allowing it to find, even if you give it a wider area, it'll still find stuff usually within right where you want it anyway. So that's what I would recommend, is not going too narrow because there's a lot of problems that come with that."

"And then also on the wide end, is it going too wide? A lot of people think, 'Oh, I'll just target the county, the whole county.' And if you target a county in middle of Texas or something, like middle of nowhere Texas, you're going to get a lot of stuff you can't dispo because there's going to be trailer parks in there and you don't want those. You'll be finding houses that have just been beaten away."

"Yeah, I guess that pretty much covers what my thought is there."

"Yeah, and I want to expand on a couple things you said. So with this concept of being too narrow, I have an analogy. Let's just say I'm the, let's just say I'm a flipper, right? And I buy my houses from wholesalers. Right, situation we all know really well. If I am located in Salt Lake City and I want to flip two houses a year, and the thing that we have to remove here is that it really doesn't take me a lot of time, assuming underwriting and everything like that's completely automated. I don't have to spend this time on the showings because if we're comparing this to Google, that's how Google is. Right, algorithm parameters and it works within those, and it's not like it takes you a ton of time to do this, right? To see more inventory."

"But as a flipper, just imagine that were the case. If I need to buy two houses, I could probably buy some really good houses at really good discounts. Right? If I want to flip 300 houses this year, then and I'm just in Salt Lake, then I'm probably going to have to buy like most everything I see because I don't really have the ability to be really aggressive on my bidding because then I won't hit the volume goals that I have."

"And this is why location targeting really matters because if you add in more locations, and that could be like maybe I was just trying to buy 300 houses in one ZIP code, right? You could probably find 300 houses in your ZIP code, but you'd have to pay an astronomically high price to be able to get all of those deals versus if you were to expand out a little bit more geographically. Then you'd have a lot more ability to bid low. I think of bidding in Google like putting in low ball offers on clicks, and the higher your offer, the more likely you are to win it. The lower you can go or the wider you can go geographically, the lower you can put your offer. So you can get a lot cheaper."

"So anyway, I completely agree with what you said. Help me understand this though. There's this phenomenon, the way that PPC works sometimes, unfortunately. If we're talking about the too wide side, the way that PPC works is you can have this tiny little leak in your bucket and it just becomes all of what you're getting. People see this where you're like targeting, for example, a city plus 50 miles, and depending on where your budget is, you might find that 80% of your leads come from pretty far outside of that city. And you get very few from inside the city, despite there being, like if you look at the total population in you're targeting, most of that population is centered around the city. In those further out areas, they are overrepresented in the leads. They might be 20% of the population but 80% of the leads. Why does that happen?"

"Yeah, no, that's something that happens to a lot of people. And a lot of times, honestly, like before I say what happens with that, I think it's something that a lot of people, it goes under their nose where they don't realize that this is the reason it's happening, but they think there's some other things and stuff. So when you're having issues, I guess it depends on how you see it as an issue because Google thinks it's doing great. And when you have locations and you're getting a lot of stuff from maybe the secondary, tertiary markets outside of the primary market you want to be targeting, it's a result of Google trying to find the cheapest leads and what's going to be... Which is awesome, right? That's..."

"Yeah, we always want cheaper cost per lead, but at the same time, this is a scenario where that might not be the best thing that you actually need. If you're in a bunch of markets and you have a $90 cost per lead, it's awesome, but they're all houses that you don't really want. There's no point in having a $90 cost per lead. And so I think part of that goes into understanding the metrics and also understanding where you want things. And this phenomenon is created by basically giving Google the wrong direction. If you are trying to push your bids as low as you can, it's going to start pushing your leads out further away from what you want."

"And so if you want an inner metro, for example, we'll say like Dallas for example, you can get leads out in Timbuktu like Cedar, Texas, where it's not far from Dallas, but it's not what you want. And you want stuff in Dallas, it's going to cost more. And so pushing your leads as far low as possible may negatively impact you. And sorry, not leads, pushing your bids as low as possible may negatively impact you when you have a location like this. And so it's a balance of understanding those two things. And there are options you can do to tackle that. One of them is setting up primary and secondary locations, which I think we wanted to chat about here in a second. But that's... there's some options to work with that. What are your thoughts on that too?"

"Yeah, I would say I agree with everything you said. I'll just say it with different words, and that's that just picture we're putting these lowball offers in on every click. Where are you going to win those clicks? It's going to be where you're still the highest offer, and that's going to be where your competition doesn't want to be. So that's the problem with Google, and this applies to keywords, this applies to locations. Trying to think of other targeting parameters it could apply to... like pretty much any targeting parameter. If you have one that's less desirable and another one that's more desirable, and your competitors know that but you don't know that, then what happens is things get really expensive in some areas. And then you naturally, Google's going to steer you away from those towards where it's cheaper because it always tries to find the cheapest thing that satisfies the goal. And that can create issues."

"This can also really depend on things like budget. Like something that can happen is if you have a really high budget and you target some metro areas, some rural areas, what you'll find is you'll get a lot of metro leads because you can only buy so many in the rural areas. So it just happens by nature. But if you have a smaller budget, then you might only get them from the outskirt areas because naturally you're just looking for the next best option, right? Every time you raise your budget a little bit higher, Google's just looking for the next cheapest lead to get you. At some point, that next cheapest lead is in the heart of Miami, but you have to have a pretty big budget where you're buying a lot of leads for that to be your next cheapest lead. That's kind of how it works."

"So you mentioned that it could be a bid thing, and it absolutely could be, right? If you try to push your bids down, that can happen. But I think if you're ever in a situation where your return on investment goes down when you lower your bids, then you probably just have a hole in your bucket anyway. If we're talking about locations, it could just be that the way you're bidding and the way you have your location set up, you have good areas and you have bad areas, and you just happen to be getting more leads from the good areas. And that's the thing, right? Intentionally doing that, it's just... it's happening by coincidence, and therefore you have good results."

"If you lower your bids and then you start getting more leads from those bad areas, it's not like there wasn't ever waste in the campaign. There was waste. It was just a small enough percentage that you didn't notice it. But the real problem is that you're targeting those areas at all, and it was just a diluted problem when you had a lot of stuff coming out other places. So I think locations is one of those things where there can be legitimate problems that are hidden by different campaign structures and things like that. But whether that problem is 10% of your spend or it's 50% of your spend, it's still a problem. It's still equally worth getting rid of. It's just... becomes really obvious in some circumstances."

"Absolutely. I think kind of along those lines where you're touching on competition a lot is understanding where your competition is in your area too because that's going to really push things out. If you have an insane amount of competition, but like you said, if you have a lower budget, this is one of those few situations where a budget really does matter. A lot of times someone with a $3,000 budget, monthly budget, can do pretty well in a market and things like that. It's not really impacted too heavily by someone else who has a really big budget, maybe like a $10,000 a month budget. But in this case, this is one of those few cases where it is definitely important. If you have a ton of competition and they're just going to beat you out on every bidding scenario in Google, then you're going to get all your leads pushed out towards the more secondary and tertiary areas and things like that because that's where Google's going to be able to find them rather than the heart of whatever primary location you want."

"Yeah, which I which I agree with, but I think it's another like symptom versus like root cause thing because if you targeted the right areas, then you wouldn't have that problem."

"That's true. Yeah, understanding what... which areas your competition are in, so understand that, be able to target it."

"Yeah, you just don't want high value areas and low value areas to be targeted together because you'll just get a bunch of the low value. Another thing with competition, I think this is something that people think a lot about with other marketing channels, and it really doesn't need that much diligence for PPC. Like for example, we had a client that we were talking with that has markets that's just really nice in the way that just spreads out, and you have all these suburb areas. Then you also have the core of the market, and it's one of those typical situations where in the core of the market, you're getting deal spreads that are 30 to 50,000. And then in these suburb areas, you're getting more of a 20 to 30,000 spreads. And they had done a lot of direct mail and cold call and texting, and they never gotten a deal in that core area, like ever. But in the outline areas, they did really well. So they focused their business there. So then they came in to PPC saying, 'We want to target the outline areas, not that core area.' Why do you think that logic doesn't transfer to PPC?"

"I think in this scenario, it doesn't really make sense because Google has a lot more access to information than a lot of these other things do. And just because it works in that channel where in their previous scenarios, it's worked where it's pushed it out towards the secondary markets or the outer markets, it doesn't necessarily mean they can't get anything from those primary markets. And it doesn't mean that they can't be pushed into there because Google is really good. You have to think about like, Google knows a lot more about the area than you do. And even though you may think, 'Oh, this area has done better for us, we can't really get into those areas, it's too expensive,' or things like that, Google can still find things. And so it's kind of like giving Google some handcuffs is where you're limiting what it can do, which is the whole point of Google to be an AI-driven system that allows you to find all this information about people and that it understands."

"You can target so well with it and the keywords too. Just because it's working in an outer area in a different channel doesn't mean that you shouldn't be targeting Google and or, excuse me, targeting in the whole area really with Google and letting it decide where the best leads are going to be coming from rather than you. I think that's a pitfall that, I guess we talked about a little bit earlier, where too many people try to take control, too much control over Google, thinking they know better than Google. And us as marketers, we even like you and I have a really good understanding of different areas and geolocations, everything like that, but we still revert and say, 'Let's let Google do its thing and see what it tells us,' because it'll understand. It'll find the data. A lot of our information is just based on what we hear and see, and Google has many more eyes and ears than we do. So yeah, I think that's part of... to partly answer your question, that's my opinion. I think it's something where just because it's working in one way doesn't mean that it's not going to work on Google."

"I think a core distinction to make here, to the untrained ear, it might sound like we're just contradicting ourselves or ever going... We're saying like, 'Oh, be really careful to not target those locations and stuff,' and then on the other hand, we're saying, 'Oh, just let Google figure it out.' But I think there's a really clear distinction here. I always think in my mind, is this something that happens before the lead is generated, or is it something that happens after the lead is generated? Because when... let's just say what you know that Google doesn't is that if you get a lead in that town, you might be able to get another contract, but you're never going to be able to disposition it. If you know that, Google doesn't know that kind of stuff because that happens outside of their view. Happens after lead is... it would take offline data for Google to figure that out with like loop tracking or... that's a good direction to go, always, but it's not really realistic for that particular type of thing."

"So in that case, you can count on Google to maximize your lead flow for whatever parameters you give it, but not necessarily your revenue flow because there can be items like that. On the other hand, why people might want to avoid the core of a market and only go for the outskirts, it has a lot more to do with expected competition. Because if I'm going to send direct mail, for example, it really matters to me if I'm sending this mail to this person and they already have 100 postcards in their mailbox and I'm number 101. That's going to be way less effective than if I'm number three, for example. And maybe in the core of that market, I'd be number 100, and the outskirts, I might be number three. So you could think, is your competition going to be there or not? Because you're going to have worse results accordingly."

"Whereas with Google, like you only pay once the person has already clicked, and there's only going to be so many people showing on the search. Whether you're in the middle of nowhere and you search on Google or you're in the core of a market, you're going to find the same number of PPC results generally because all that you can have at the top of Google is four results. And there's always at least four. No matter where you are, there's at least like four national PPC companies that are bidding on that. Right? In this industry, yes. Maybe you can find some other industry where that's not always true, but it's competitive enough that there's always at least four people that want to click."

"So anyway, it's like that competition doesn't matter, right? So a lot of people would say, 'Well, that core, that area, the cost per click average is $100, and in the outskirts, it's 30. Why would you advertise in the core?' Because you could bid 30, and if the average cost per click is 100, there are clicks that sell for 30, and there are clicks that sell for 200. Yeah, and you might just get a really small number of them, but that doesn't mean that you don't want them. It doesn't mean they don't have value."

"Yeah, and honestly, this is where the primary and secondary locations thing really comes in. Where like you said, like Google can understand the lead flow, but it doesn't understand lead quality. And so it's our job to figure out what lead quality is and give Google direction based on... and this is why we have the whole closed loop reporting system with all of our clients where we ask them for feedback on the leads and how they disposed because we want to be able to feed that back into Google and also understand on our side, is this market working better than this one?"

"And if you do have a situation like that, I have a client that I work with, and they have an awesome understanding of their area. They've been running PPC for a really long time, so they have a great understanding of what the quality is outside of what Google can see. And so they have these set up as primary and secondary locations with a shared budget. They share the same budget, but what we do is we say, '

"In this area, I'm willing to pay or I'm willing to bid this much, but in this area, these leads aren't as good and they aren't worth as much to me.' And we've proven that with data. That's the key aspect there is you can't just assume that you know what areas are good and what areas are bad. You have to use the data to understand that. And these guys have run for a while, so they do understand that. We understand that leads from certain areas are about worth only about a fourth of what they are in another. And their primary and so what we've done is we've set it up with these primary and secondary locations so that primary goes full on. That's its own thing. That's normal. But the secondary locations, we tell Google, 'I will take a lead as long as it's... as long as I'm bidding a fourth of what I'm bidding in these main areas.' And that allows us to say we still want leads here, but we're not willing to pay as much for them. So that's where the... that kind of situation comes in real handy because it allows us to control the leads based on quality more than just the lead flow side that Google has a visibility on."

"And that is a... I want to share some other details of the story. I think that they bring light to some things. This company, they had a really high budget for their market at a period of time, and they pushed it to the point where it just wasn't making sense from a diminishing return standpoint. So they brought back their budget. They were targeting 70 miles from this metro area, and when they did that, they found they got started getting a lot more leads in the outskirts. So this is an example of a problem that was always there, became obvious when it started to consume a larger percentage of our budget because we're only... we realized we're only getting leads from the outskirts, but they still like those, right? So that's the... what do you do? It's not exactly black and white. Some people... I still like those areas. I can still do business there. So I'll target them, but then you get a large percentage of your leads from there, and they're lower value opportunities, and you don't get any leads where you actually want them. And then the other way to think about that is somebody could think it's not my highest value thing, so I'm going to cut it out. And I think both of those are wrong, right?"

"What you said is the perfect way to do it, and what we saw is the amount of budget spent in those secondary areas compared to primary, it shifted a lot more towards primary just because, by nature, if you're bidding higher, you're going to get more volume there. They now have a fantastic ROI in those secondary areas and in those primary areas because we bid according to value. Because what is ROI? It's the revenue per lead divided by the cost per lead. So if I know area one has a higher revenue per lead than area two, then I just want my cost per lead to be say a fifth of that, and then in area two also to be a fifth of that. And those might be different numbers."

"There's one thing that I want to make clear though, in case anybody's self-managing this. It's like the sneakiest thing ever. I hate this, but Google has a way that people like to try to do this. It's called a location bid adjustment, and what you can do is you can go to your different locations and you can tell Google, 'I want to bid a certain percentage higher or lower.' And with the target CPA bid strategy, which is one that we really commonly use, if you go in and you put a bid adjustment on a location, it will accept it, it will show in platform, and it does nothing. So it's so deceptive because you don't realize that what you're doing is actually making no difference. So people get frustrated with that, that they make these adjustments and think that it never actually impacts results. So there is no way to do a bid adjustment like that."

"So what you have to do is have a separate campaign, and you have to set the bids differently in that separate campaign. What we like to do is still share the budget between those campaigns because ultimately you should care about ROI, right? If it doesn't matter how much budget goes to the primary versus the secondary areas because there's a certain lead cost that could be really low where we'd want all our budget to go to those secondary areas, we're going to have a way better return. And if you're thinking in your mind that's not true, then just make the lead cost even lower. And everybody just gets stuck on that. They're like, 'Oh, but I still want these areas.' It's okay. What if leads were like a penny in the secondary areas? Would it be worth it? There is a point where that turns, and it's finding out where that is and bidding according to that. So yeah, the primary secondary location strategy is awesome."

"So that's one example of where we've done that. We have the client where they have the core, their market that's primary, and then they will go up to 70 miles out, but those are all secondary. What's another application of that same principle from another client that you worked with? Like when... other when are you working with the primary and secondary locations for any of your other clients?"

"Yeah, honestly, those people who... aside from like a local market view, like this client is more of a localized thing. If you're in multiple markets, after getting some data as well, understanding leads in Florida versus Alabama or something like that are worth different to me, that's another great way to understand it. So a lot of it, in my opinion, a lot of it applies more on the lead quality and understanding that than just like where you are and what you're targeting because you can't really do a lot of this until you have a good understanding of what lead quality is going to be like. And so that's one of the caveats to that, but it's something that's an amazing tool that as soon as you're able to use it, definitely use it."

"So I will give one exception though. If, or maybe a different way of looking at it, if you're working with a partner that does have a lot of data, then that could allow you to implement some of these strategies faster."

"That's true. Yeah, and we do have a lot of that data across these different areas. And maybe it's not like... nobody ever has perfect data where they say, 'I know exactly everything that's going to happen here,' but you do know if you don't set up primary and secondary locations, then you're still making a decision, right? You're still assuming that all the areas are created equal. And maybe we don't know that area one is like exactly 30% more valuable than area two, but if we at least know that it's more valuable, then we can bid according to that, right?"

"Yeah, one thing I've seen for our national clients is... you'll see this all over the place. Like people love to add extra markets or cut out extra markets for reasons that don't make sense. 'I don't want to be in that area because the spreads are too low,' or 'I don't want to be in that area because I think the cost per lead's too high,' or whatever the case is. Where cost per lead, we already talked about that. If it happens before the lead, then you have very little risk of being in that market as long as Google's sufficiently trained on data, which for all of our clients is the case because we use cross-account bid strategies. But it might not be true if you're managing your own PPC."

"But the main point here is for some of our national clients, instead of it being black and white like 'I want these areas or I don't want these areas,' we'll often do like primary and secondary. And sometimes that's even just based on how much data they have. We'll work with national clients that come on and they've previously been advertising in six states, for example. Ask them like, 'Okay, you're doing Florida and you're doing Texas, but what about Tennessee? Is there a reason that Tennessee wouldn't work for you?' And the answer is usually, 'I don't have a history in Tennessee. I haven't seen it work. I don't have the data, but I do not know any reason it wouldn't work.'"

"And if that's the case, that's where primary secondary can also be good because I can make sure like in those core areas, we're spending the majority of the budget there. We are aggressive on our cost per lead, and then we add some of these other areas, and it just brings our cost per lead down because we might have half the cost per lead in those areas because we're bidding really aggressively. And then that's just dipping our toe into the market. And if we see that it works really well, we can add it into primary and become more aggressive. But it's a way to experiment with stuff without just destroying your campaign, which is how a lot of people test locations unfortunately. It's 'Let me add this and then I'll see what happens tomorrow, and then I'll add this different thing and I'll see what happens the next day, then I'll add this different thing,' and it leads to a lot of really poor decisions. We work with people that have like all years of information about what locations they're targeting, and it's all based on just horrible information from the start. And it's just... it's just not data-driven."

"Yeah, no, I think that's exactly it, is understanding what information you have and making sure that any of these... it's location... locations is no different than any other decision with Google Ads. It's data-driven. It's got to be data-driven. Don't just pull things out of the air and try it out and see what happens and then judge it based off that. There's got to be some data and some information behind making these decisions. It's the same with locations."

"Yeah, yeah. One other thing I'd say like on the data topic, because I've seen this bias in a ton of our clients. So the... we both know, maybe we should share that PPC tends to get stray leads. You target area X and then you get a lead in area Y, and it's really frustrating for some people. Personally, I find it refreshing that Google doesn't know exactly where every single person lives. The fact that they're wrong sometimes, at least a little bit, gives me some hope for data privacy. But anyway, that's... 10 to 20% of the leads being outside of the areas that you're targeting is really normal. So yeah, there... there's that. But then decisions made on that, I've seen so many clients that are national that want to constrain their targeting. They want to get tighter and tighter, and it's based on leads that they're getting that aren't even their targeted areas."

"Yep. So basically, when you're analyzing your leads and you're trying to decide what you want to do with locations, don't just use the leads you have. Use your targeted areas because if you just say, 'Well, I got this lead in a really rural area, so now I want to go even tighter,' it's not really going to fix that problem. So you want to... you only want to react to things if you're getting leads in areas that you are targeting and those aren't working for you. But the leads outside of that don't really make a difference."

"Yeah, it's going to happen. Google, there... Google doesn't have perfect tracking. It's not like buying a list where you know exactly where everybody is on that list. It's not perfect, and so it's... it's not going to be, you know, super common, but it is maybe one... one or two leads in every 10 or so be outside of your area. Somebody who commutes and works in one place and lives in another, Google might not understand that. So there's... there are situations like that. And so I think you bring a good point of making sure you're actually looking at the leads in your targeting, not outside, because the outside ones don't matter."

"Yeah, absolutely. One other thing I want to comment on, this is just like another application of some of the principles we already described. How do you feel about statewide or nationwide campaigns? When I say nationwide, literally nationwide, but there's a lot of people doing like 48 or just the United States, or targeting like statewide in different areas. And there's a lot of controversy around this because there's some people in the industry that promote like this is the only way to do it and could be really successful with this. And then there's all the people who have tried and failed and are really upset about it. And then there are some people that do really well with it. So what makes the difference? How do we know if that's a good idea or a bad idea?"

"I think a big gap between those who preach it in the industry and those who didn't... those who really struggle with that kind of idea, targeting the whole US or a whole state or something like that, is the fact that these people who are preaching it have gigantic budgets. And they can bid really high because of that. They can just beat out whoever is in those areas, and so they don't have to worry about a lot of the nuances that come with targeting because you can just throw money at it. And that's essentially what a lot of these people are doing, and they preach it. But what a lot of people don't understand is everyone else's... is their own budget isn't able to match what the preachers are doing, more or less. And so it's... it limits them."

"And I think if you have a limit, not even limited by budget, but if you don't have a ton of money to just throw at everything, which is 99% of us, right? We have to be more strategic about it. This is why in our targeting, we use things like light maps to understand where people actually live. Because there's no point in targeting... think of Texas as a great example. If you just target all of Texas, you're going to get all kinds of stuff because it's huge. And most people live within 5% of Texas's like geography. It's something where if you were to do something like that, it could destroy you if you... if you only have maybe even with maybe like a $10,000 a month budget. Like that could still destroy you because you're not able to be competitive with everyone in the state. So I think that's a big part of it and why we generally shy away from that because it's something that... it only the big boys can do it."

"Yeah, I... I uh... I totally get what you're saying. I think it's evident that some of those people that are doing that with really big budgets, they're coincidentally having it work instead of it being based on like true principles. Because you could take the exact same campaign, put it into the exact same area, you do it with a large budget, what will happen is you get a lot of leads in the primary area. If you do it with a smaller budget, you'll get a lot of leads from the other areas. And it's the budget that makes a difference, even though everything else is set up the same, just based on the... based on the bidding and everything."

"I'd add a few more thoughts to it too. I think it also depends on the state. Like some states are way more rural than other states. Florida is a classic... like one where you can do statewide targeting really well, especially if you're open to various exit strategies and stuff like that. Because there's a lot of really good areas in it, and the rural stuff is in the middle of a swamp where nobody lives."

"So yeah, you don't have to worry about that stuff exactly."

"So like classic states for this are like New Jersey, North Carolina, Florida. And then when you're in Nebraska, you can get really rural, right? And it's a different story. So I think it's... I think it matters where you're doing it. I also think it matters like what kind of business you want to run. Like some of these people doing this really wide, the way that their business functions is a lot of small deals and really hard dispositions, and they have a lot of contract fallout. And that's fine. It's just one way to run a business. You have to realize like different exit strategies work better for different areas. And I think we should... I think we should dive into that a little bit more."

"But just to finish things up with the... the statewide and nationwide campaigns, I guess the moral of the story is, I think a lot of times what's happening there is you're targeting good and you're targeting bad. And then dependent on various factors, some of which you might not even consciously be... you might not even consciously be controlling those factors, you could get a larger percentage of the good versus the bad. In my opinion, any percentage of bad is bad. So you have to identify like what works for you and what doesn't. And I think that mass of your own business and understanding those things rather than just be lazy and targeting a bunch of things because you might be able to make it work to have a massive budget and then just throw away some of your leads that don't work out. But that's not how you become a highly optimal company. That's like a way that it works technically, but it could be done better."

"So let's talk about how exit strategies affect this. What are you seeing in... in terms of where people market based on their exit strategies?"

"Yeah, honestly, with... when it comes to exit strategies, one of the biggest things that ties into location... understanding your exit strategies. If you can only do wholesale, you're going to want to stick to like pretty primary markets and things like that. You're not going to get a whole lot in like tertiary markets, for example."

"Yeah, but and with that too, you have to think how do you wholesale? Because if you're using Investor Lift, which most people are, Investor Lift's a lot stronger in some areas than other areas. So you could have areas of equal population, one of which you can dispo in really easily and the other one you can't. So it's understanding like where do you have more buyers than not? I've seen far too many people just buy Investor Lift and then just say, '

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Austin McCurdy from the Sharper Process Team joins Brandon on this episode of Collective Clicks. They discuss how to increase revenue and efficiency in real estate investing through a streamlined marketing-to-sales handoff process. Austin shares his business background and advice on how to avoid becoming overly reliant on large marketing budgets.

"Hello and welcome back to the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Austin McCurdy from the Sharper Process team. Austin is a systems and process consultant and works with a ton of different real estate investors. He has an awesome business background and a ton of value to add talking about how do you keep that handoff from marketing to sales efficient so that you can grow revenue without becoming overly dependent on a very large marketing spend. So I'm excited to get into the conversation and we'll jump right into that now. How you doing today, Austin?"

"I'm doing good, Brandon. Thanks."

"Awesome. See you got your brand new podcast recording studio. Plan on doing quite a few of these?"

"Yeah, we just opened it up. I think last week, I think it opened. So you may be first. Jacob, is this the first podcast we've ran from here actually? So we've been recording some video content, but you're the first one. So yeah, we'll have to remember this. Mark that down: first time with Sharper Studios podcast."

"So yeah, that's right. Honored to have it on the Collective Clicks podcast. I'm super excited to learn from some of the insights that you have today. Would you care to do a brief introduction to yourself and what you do for those listening that don't know you? I think most should know you. If you don't, you definitely should. So here's a chance."

"No problem. So yeah, I'm Austin Court of Sharper Business Solutions. Been here, man, four and a half years I think, maybe a little more than that, almost five with Sharper. Came on, I owned a business before as a Papa John's Pizza franchisee. So I had eight stores in the Chicago market and the University of Michigan, so throughout the Midwest here. A couple hundred employees through those eight locations, so heavy operations-based. And prior to that, I have a degree in education, so taught for a long time. When I sold my business in 2018, I was talking to Gary Harper, who's been a friend of mine for a very, very long time, and Gary said, 'Why don't you come over and we're helping me with Sharper?' At the time, it was just him and Susan, and they had a part-time assistant."

"And I, it became like the perfect marriage of my education background and it just, I really loved - I know it sounds weird - I love teaching high school and I love teaching math, but then I also like, love business and I loved owning my own business and being an entrepreneur. And I've owned my own business of some sort since I was 18. And so this was like the perfect marriage of that education and business background kind of coming together. Was new to the real estate space when I came in. Now I've been involved with almost, I think, a thousand real estate investors over the last four and a half years. Meet every - yesterday I had six hours of phone calls with real estate investors really digging into their business and talking about what's going on. I do that on Mondays and Fridays, and then during the week I travel and go on site with clients."

"So actually, after your meeting, I'm headed to Toronto, Canada. Sharper's first international client, so I'm working up there tomorrow and then headed down to Indianapolis to work down there on Thursday, and then back back home to Chicago here where I'm at. So spend a lot of time talking real estate, talking what's going on and probably talk about marketing more than I really thought I would ever talk about marketing. And it's interesting as a business owner, you have to sit in every seat in the business at some point in time or another, and you have to know what's going on and spend a lot of time talking about marketing, talking about sales, talking about operations, and then finance - kind of all the pillars of a business and what it takes to grow one."

"Yeah, absolutely. That's fantastic. I have to know, how many airline miles do you have under your belt at this point?"

"Wow, you know, I have an app that like tracks it all, like how many miles I actually do. I know right now in Southwest I have a hundred and three thousand miles, and I just used like 75,000 of them. So I think I had like almost 200,000 miles last year, something like that."

"So yeah, I know two new people that travel as much as you do."

"So well, that's kind of - yeah, I'm always on Southwest. If you understand it, it works. I'm always like A16, which is the first person to board, which means that I fly more than anybody else on that flight is what it means. So usually, unless I'm with Gary and Susan, then they're usually ahead of me, but they're about the only ones."

"So I know that because I, I think I travel way too much and every time I get where I'm going, you're there. And I know you travel outside of that too."

"Yeah, I know you do whatever I do."

"Yeah, every week meeting with somebody and so yeah."

"Well, that's awesome. I am, yes, like I said, super grateful to have you here on the podcast. I'm excited to pick your brain about a few things. So as we discussed before the show, we talk a lot about marketing and the operations behind marketing to help monetize it here, just because that's kind of what we're trying to accomplish. You know, those are a lot of the drivers to grow a business, as you know. Most everything else only becomes important if you can figure out this first part, and that's kind of the name of the game."

"So anyways, I'm really curious to hear, because you're spending so much time with investors, you know, both in person and on these calls that you're talking about, what are some common things that you're seeing that in your opinion they're not doing right when it comes to their marketing?"

"I, with when it comes to them with marketing, what I find is that, okay, there's not that many marketing channels out there. Everybody is looking for like the silver bullet of what's the newest, shiniest thing out there. I had a guy call me the other day, he's like, 'Can I just have a call with you once a month just to find out what's going on in the market? Like what are you seeing, what new things are out there?' Right? And when we talk about marketing channels, I mean really for everybody we've got, you know, TV, radio, PPC, you know, and mail. And I mean, that's kind of about it. Like there's, you know, there's not really much. And I mean, PPC I'd say is like social media. Okay, like those are really your channels. There's nothing else out there. I mean, I've got billboards, things like that, but you know, there's not a whole lot of options."

"And so I come in and they're looking for that silver bullet in marketing, and really the problem usually isn't their marketing, right? Or they don't like their vendor or something like that. That's usually not the problem. Not saying it's not sometimes. It's usually the next step in the process, which is how that marketing is getting handled, how it's handed off to sales, and what sales is doing with it."

"Often, especially right now in the market, we saw back in July, as a whole, as a country, we saw leads dip. Things went down, right? We had a little bit of a like a hesitation in the market for several months, probably the second half of the year into January. Okay, and then it kind of started to pick back up when we got into January again. And also now, as I'm looking at stoplight reports - we call them at Sharper - right, people's KPIs, the lead flow really isn't the problem, but we're seeing a problem with conversion at the end of it."

"And what's funny is that, and Brandon, you working in marketing, you probably always hear this: they always say, 'Well, if you could give me a qualified lead, I could close it.' Right? 'If I had better leads, I could close it.' I find that I work with a lot of people with hiring, and they're always like, 'Well, if I had the right employee, I can make this work.' And I look at it, I'm like, if I brought you the Michael Jordan of sales, you still couldn't make this work, right?"

"Like Michael Jordan - we use this analogy, I'm in, I live in Chicago and grew up in the 90s with Jordan - Jordan was with the Bulls for six years before he made a championship, won a championship. He was Michael Jordan for six years, one of the best players in the NBA, and couldn't win the championship. And you can look at like why, there's a bunch of reasons why, but the fact is the Bulls were a dysfunctional organization, and it didn't matter that when you brought them the greatest player on earth, it didn't change anything for them, right? Jordan went on to play for the Washington Wizards, didn't change anything, right? You go on and on for there."

"So really what to say that what I find is that when the organization has, like, it's dysfunctional, it doesn't really matter like how good the marketing is, it doesn't really matter like how good that salesperson is. It all has to work together in one team effort, right? All those things have to be firing right into a system to make it work."

"So I think a lot of people, you look at your marketing now, it's constantly something that you're adjusting, you're making changes, you're trying to improve, better, you're trying to get a better ROI on it. But you also have to look at the next step and say, 'Okay, when these leads come in, how are we handling those leads? What are we doing with them? Are we handling them in the right way?' And we can kind of dig into that a little deeper if you want."

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Wholesale industry leader Forrest Blackburn joins Brandon on this episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. Blackburn shares his experience on growing a company from $40K to $2M in just five months and offers tips on optimizing marketing strategies, implementing split testing, and growing your wholesale business nationally.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Forest Blackburn. Forest is most well known for taking a wholesale company from about forty thousand dollars a month in revenue to 2 million in just about five months. He is a fantastic leader, an understander of systems, all these different things that are important to kind of pour the gas on the fire to grow a wholesale company, especially on a national level. So I'm super excited for this podcast episode. We're going to talk about how do you optimize your marketing, even marketing for buyers, which is something a little bit newer to me that I was interested to hear about, and all kinds of other different things regarding split testing and stuff like that. How you doing today, Forest?"

"I'm doing well. How are you?"

"Yeah, doing awesome. Happy to hear you're doing well. You in California or Phoenix now?"

"I'm actually in Phoenix right now in Tempe, Arizona at the Green Elephant Development office with Cody Sperber. We were doing some podcasts yesterday. Always very high-level people, we had Robert Kiyosaki in the office last week or maybe the week before. You know, that's the cool thing about working with Cody Sperber, is that there's always, well I should say there's never a shortage of very high-level people coming through the office door. And that gives me an opportunity to meet and greet and develop relationships and have conversations at extremely high levels that give a different perspective on not just real estate and where the market's going, but just on the world as a whole and how all the pieces kind of fall into place and how that affects real estate and market trends and the ebbs and flows that we're all going through in pivoting through this new world of wholesale that is nothing like it was in 2020-2021."

"Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you seem to find a way to be surrounded by celebrities in the real estate space somehow. Somehow or another that's been your whole experience."

"You know what, there's little things that I pick up from high-level people. I say there's a phrase that I use a lot, especially in wholesaling, to kind of alleviate the noise on your plate. A lot of people in the space are working with very small margins. They're picking up these three thousand, five thousand, seven thousand dollar spreads. And for the longest time, I didn't know who to give credit to on this statement, but I saw something the other day and ironically enough, it was Donald Trump. And he said the reason that he developed his wealth in real estate, over and above his father giving him a nice head start, he looks at everything and he says, 'The bigger the cookie, the bigger the crumb.' He looks at these larger-scale projects because even at a small margin, those large-scale projects give off very good-sized crumbs."

"And Richard Branson and Elon Musk both said, independent of one another, to circle back to your question - and I don't even know if they both know that they said this - but they said that if you want to be a billionaire, your top five friends need to be billionaires. So it's always been something in the back of my mind that you have to surround yourself by people that know more than you."

"When I was a kid, I was an actor, and my talent manager at the time, she said, 'Never go into an acting class where you're the best one because you'll learn the least.' So I'm always on the lower echelon of the knowledge base in a small room so that I can soak up and learn and really absorb what these high-level people are doing. And it's not necessarily our wins because we celebrate those, but we learn from our losses."

"So really getting to be personal with a lot of these bigger players and working in billion-dollar deals and such enable me to really learn. And in that learning, I can then transcribe that into the different companies that I work for, my own businesses. So yeah, I try to surround myself with the heaviest of people that I can because that's where I'm going to learn the most. So it's kind of a thing for me."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. So let's dive - for anybody that doesn't know you listening to the podcast - I'd love to dive a little bit into your story, you know, what got you here."

"I can tell you my story of knowing you is that, saying you're around for a while and then it wasn't until, it was in Houston I think we were both in an event and got to meet and realized that there's quite a few synergies between what we do and that sort of thing. And I've recommended that some of our clients work with you and I think you've done the same. So anyways that's kind of how far we go back, but you go back significantly farther than that. Do you want to talk about how you got into this real estate niche?"

"No, absolutely. I was in the entertainment industry as a kid and I was an actor and then I got into music. And I was signed to Capitol Records and toured around and had a lot of fun, but that didn't happen until I kind of took over the band situation. And previous to having the band that I had that got signed to Capitol Records, everybody was, you know, we were all a band. So everybody had equal input, there was a lot of infighting. I'm a lead singer and a writer, and amongst the other players, there was all kinds of drama. So I just figured I'd just nip that in the bud and I went out and hired people and really kind of turned it into a business. And that's really when I learned that if you treat things like a business, if you have people in their designated roles, that you can really build something incredible."

"So fast forward a couple of years and I got into marketing. I took a step away from the music industry. I was the music supervisor for the UFC out in Las Vegas and that kind of took me away from being on stage and it gave me some perspective on a lot of things that I wanted to work on. Previous to that, I was working for Paramount Pictures and doing a lot of their social media marketing. It's back in the MySpace days before Facebook really took off. And so I got into Google marketing and working with small and medium businesses and I grew a very large company very quickly."

"From 2010 until about 2019, we built a little more than 50,000 websites and about 24,000 app developments. Everything was full-stack development. And these were all small medium businesses in every niche across the country. And grew that from about seven agents to about 1500 agents nationwide with 17 franchises and really kind of grew a monster."

"But I started becoming a consultant for a lot of Fortune 100s and 500s and 5,000 companies to kind of scale their business, specifically online. UPS, Travelocity, Disney Cruise Lines, Keller Williams, 1-800 Dentist - there were a lot of big companies that I was able to work with. And in growing their revenue base from a marketing standpoint and then making sure that there was a sales infrastructure in place to service that influx of good quality leads, it kind of layered a blueprint. It gave a very specific blueprint that really kind of worked in every industry."

"I was approached by HGTV, specifically Tarek El Moussa and the show Flip or Flop, to help them really grow the business behind the show. The business needed a lot more houses, a lot more content for the episodes. So I had a big decision to make to go in and instead of working for all these separate companies as kind of a consultant, to go in and for two years work with just one specific company. And that was a big decision, but I'm really glad that I did."

"And the first changes that I made were to really make a hard pivot into wholesale because of the fast cash churn. Flipping has a much longer cash cycle. So with wholesale, you're able to get that fast cash churn and roll that into marketing. And I very quickly got up to between PPC, TV, radio, pretty much every medium you can think of, I was spending a half a million dollars a month. But within five months of getting there, we went from forty thousand to over two million dollars a month in assignment fees."

"And again, like we were talking about, it was 2020-2021. These were much easier times. There was no inventory, interest rates were on the floor. It was very easy to move properties. A lot of people were overspending on properties because inventory was so low, so things were selling like hotcakes. And you didn't have to focus so much on your buyers list because as long as you had a property, there was going to be a buyer on the other end because there really weren't that many properties out there."

"So I grew that company rapidly and successfully using, leaning on PPC very heavily. You know, PPC weathers all storms. If you're really focused on social media, you know, you have something like a Trump-Biden election and you cannot get any screen time on Facebook. But PPC, if you search for 'how do I sell my inherited home' or 'who cash buyers,' you're going to always come up in those searches. You're not going to see anything for Trump or Biden for 'how do I sell my distressed house.' So that's always been something that is a constant."

"And I do a lot with TV and radio as well, but as I got out of that contract where it was very exclusive - I couldn't work with anybody else or help anyone else - and I had a lot of people knocking on the door looking for guidance and assistance, especially with the numbers that I was doing. And I had people like Robert Wensley of InvestorLift, you know, touting those numbers because we were using InvestorLift quite heavily on the disposition side. It became widely known, those numbers that we were achieving."

"So I really made a decision to not renew that contract and become kind of a free agent so to speak and be able to help others and kind of pass along the wins and losses that I had had using OPM, using other people's money to spend on these marketing campaigns and then develop sales infrastructure around that influx of inbound leads to cultivate more properties and also more buyers as the market has pivoted."

"You know, I really focus a lot on cultivating more buyers and buyers that are asking for something right now, not just a buyer that buys things here and there and oh, they bought properties over in this area six months ago. But if you find somebody who's, you know, it's a hot lead when somebody raises their hand and says, 'I want a property in this area right now,' you can really speed up your dispositions process."

"So I had done a few deals with Cody Sperber and as soon as I became a free agent, we had a conversation and I signed a non-exclusive agreement with him to come in and make him my priority and really work with Green Elephant Development to build out their wholesale channel in a pivoting, changing market, which has always been a challenge. But what's really weathered that storm is our PPC bringing in good quality, high distress - whether it's a distressed property or a distressed seller - leads and then also targeting our PPC onto cultivating more buyers that are interested in buying right this second and developing buy boxes and funnels for those buyers."

"So there's PPC on the entire mechanism on the front end and on the back end for both acquisitions and dispositions. And I think that that's what's really kept us afloat. And I implore that into all my students - I'm a coach and a mentor now that I'm available to do so. So over the last eight months, I've cultivated a large base of people that I'm helping and it's really working. And it's able to keep people, to be able to weather this storm through this ever-changing wholesale market that we're in and a lot of innovations as well, getting past some of these investors that are offering very low based on fear. But yeah, PPC is always the biggest weathered storm for me. So that's kind of what catches us up to our podcast today."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, I it's great to have you here kind of saying that PPC weathers the storm because I always think that way but, you know, nobody believes me because I run a company that does PPC, right? So of course I'm going to say that, right?"

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In this episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast, Brandon Bateman and Garret Cragun talk about bid strategies in Google Ads. They cover the basics of the Google Ads auction, the different bid strategies you can use, and how to adjust your bids for different campaign goals. They also discuss a powerful PPC strategy involving shared conversion actions across multiple accounts that can help you get better results. If you want to master bid strategies and improve your Google Ads campaigns, this is the episode for you.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

"Hello and welcome back to the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm going to be joined by our Director of Paid Media, Garrett Kraan. We're going to talk all about bid strategies. How are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Good, how are you?"

"Hey, doing fantastic. Thank you. Excited for another podcast. This is number five out of seven in our series of the... what do we call them? The PPC Essentials?"

"Yeah, PPC Essentials."

"The seven PPC Essentials that make campaigns butter. That's right. So, super excited for this. As is my number one passion, my favorite channel, and so much of that comes down to bid strategies and auctions and how all that works. So that's what we're talking about today: bid strategies. And if you don't know what that is, then don't worry about it. We're going to talk all about that and how it works. But I think before we dive fully into that, we have to understand why bid strategies are even important and what they are. Because we've been in this changing world. If you think of advertising a long time ago, then what did you do? You buy like a billboard, and that billboard's in this place. And then comes TV, and then TV ads run on this certain channel, and whoever's watching that channel gets that. But then things have changed over time to where now, like, you open up Facebook for example, and you see one ad, I see a different ad because it's not like there's just an ad that's on Facebook, right?"

"And a lot of this has Google kind of pioneered a long time ago. So I think a great way to start, Garrett, would be if you could jump into the foundation of this, which is the Google Ads auction and what exactly is happening there. Why does it matter? Just so we can set the stage for what bid strategies are and why they matter."

"Yeah, for sure. This can get pretty in the weeds, and so I'll try to keep it as high level as possible just so people don't get bored. But it basically comes down to: every time a person makes a search on Google, it fires like an instant auction where everyone, like all of the advertisers, rush to the auction and they give their bid and say, 'This is how much I'll pay to appear on this person's search.' And Google takes into account the bid and also the experience that your ad and landing page gives to the user, and it takes those two data points, merges them, and then picks the best combination of bid and experience and gives that person... makes them the auction winner."

"And the reason why they take into account the experience is because they want people to get relevant and easy to understand information that answers your question. So if you give your searchers what they're looking for and it's relevant and people seem to get what they're looking for, then going forward, Google is going to reward you with auction wins at a lower bid than someone that gives a bad experience and might bid higher than you."

"Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it really comes down to... have you ever had that experience where you click on an ad and then what you get on the other side is not at all what you were expecting to get? So you click back, and when you do that, if that just always happens when you use Google, then you're not going to really use Google anymore, right? Or at least you're not going to click on the paid ads. I think some of us have already been conditioned to do that, right? On paid ads very much anymore because I always do it's just to get those paid ads people just to..."

"Yeah, just lower their conversion rates. Just one more bit and I'll read them and stuff like... I can pick out something that'll have a good experience behind it from something that won't based on the ad copy. But the point is, Google wants people to click on paid ads forever and always be getting the information they need there."

"So, but as it relates to quality, we're not going to touch on that too much today just because all this other stuff that we talked about, like basically all of the other pillars, relate really heavily to the ad quality, to the Quality Score as the technical term, or more simply as you said it, the experience that you provide someone. So really, that's just about making your landing page relevant like we talked about, and making the ad copywriting good, and targeting the right keywords."

"If you do all that stuff, then your Quality Score shouldn't be bad. But then the bids, how do you know what bid to put into the auction and all that kind of stuff is a tough thing to figure out. And it really comes down to bid... I think a foundation for this is just understanding some of the different bid strategies that existed, what they base their information on, and then from there we could talk more in-depth about when might it be more appropriate to use one bid strategy or another. But could you give an overview of like different ways that you can go about bidding?"

"Yes, so this is kind of like a history of Google episode, but when Google first started, all bidding was basically only dictated by the search being made. So like, and let's say in our industry, if someone searches 'sell house fast near me,' I bid this. If someone searches 'companies that buy houses,' I bid this. And that was based on a bidding approach called manual CPC, right? And so it was just purely, I think that this keyword gives me this quality, and so I can bid here and still see a profit."

"But over time, Google has rolled out what they call automated bidding, and that takes into account all of the thousands of data points that Google has on each person. And when we use an automated bidding approach in our account, we not only factor in the search but the searcher and what they have, like who they are, what they've been searching. And we have Google take that into account as it sets bids for us."

"And so those are kind of the two categories of bidding strategies. There's manual that only looks at the search, there's automated that looks at the search and the searcher and just basically a lot more information because they even roll down manual... like some stuff, right? Where you could target based on... actually in this industry, practically nothing because of all the Equal Opportunity housing regulations."

"I think there's some things that you can do it based on though, like you could change your bid by device or by household income, but it's so limited compared to the tens of thousands of data points that Google has that if they were to publish would probably scare everybody into never using Google again."

"Yeah, but we have on good authority that there's a lot of stuff there. Things like income data, demographic data that could be tied to someone's online history. Like maybe they just searched 'sell my house' in Google now, but two days ago they searched 'we buy houses.' That tells you something about what it could mean when they're searching for 'sell my house' right now. What websites they visit... if you just knew everybody in the world's internet browsing history, you would know a lot about those people. And Google knows that."

"Add on to that that they can connect that to like third-party data providers that have, for example, credit card data and what kind of things people are purchasing. And all of this stuff, it really helps you understand because what's most predictive of future behavior? It's past behavior. If you have a lot of the data about that past behavior, you can relatively simply predict the future behavior of somebody."

"So there's... I don't know if 'holy war' is the right word around bidding strategies, specifically automated versus manual, and I'll brief kind of the high level. I'm curious to hear your specific thoughts on it."

"Yeah, people who are hardcore manual basically are like... have this idea that like automated bidding is giving the reins to Google. You can't trust Google, they just want your money, and I know better than Google. It's like the consensus there. And automated bidding is lazy. People that are really pro-automated bidding might reference a lot of this data that could be used, they might reference better results, they might have different circumstances they worked on in different... that have caused them to like automated bidding."

"And this has been like a shifting game. I think everybody agrees pretty much that automated bidding is a lot better now than it's ever been before. It's been on that growth trajectory over the past several years. But still, many people fall on either side. What's your opinion on which bid strategy is best or which category of bid strategies? If we're speaking to like just this industry, just REI?"

"There's... I think one of the hardest parts of PPC in the industry is that there's not a lot of conversion volume and there aren't a lot of clicks in a given time period given the cost per click and the cost per lead that's common in the industry. And so given that manual is going to work better on low data volume accounts and worse as there's higher data volume, what I would argue is that if an account is only operating on its own data and it doesn't have a huge budget, I think it makes sense to run on manual."

"Like I think there's a point where you probably know more about your audience than Google does if you're getting four or five leads a month, right? Or even beyond that, like I still think that you probably know more than Google given that data size. But as there's higher spend and higher volume in an account, that balance shifts towards being in favor of automated because as Google has better volume, more data points that it can see like who your ideal audience is, then all of a sudden it can better make that like ideal searcher that best like responds to your ads."

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In this episode of the PPC Essentials series, Brandon talks to Garret Cragun, who is the Director of Paid Media at Bateman Collective. They discuss Google Ads bids, including the target CPA bid strategy and common mistakes people make. They emphasize the importance of finding the right balance between cost per lead and revenue per lead, and making decisions based on business objectives. This is the seventh episode of the PPC Essentials series.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

‍

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Garrett Craigan, our Director of Paid Media at Bateman Collective. We're going to be talking all about bids, which are one of the main foundational elements of Google Ads. This is episode number seven out of eight of PPC Essentials. How are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing pretty good. How are you?"

"Hey, fantastic. Thank you. Just welcoming in the sun and the 70-degree weather and happiness back into our lives. All that stuff that happens with the spring."

"That's right. Thank goodness."

"Yeah, I'm super excited to talk about our topic today, which is specifically bids. For anybody who's been following along, you know that last week we talked about bid strategies, which is a foundation for bids. Although I think it is so commonly said, not just in the real estate investing world but in so many other industries, anywhere that you can find somebody that manages Google Ads, I think it's said that this bid strategy works better than that bid strategy or whatever the case is. But the piece that's missing from that is that you have to actually work these bid strategies, and you could have a strategy that's awesome, but if you don't know how to manage it properly, then you're going to have some other strategy outperform you. I found that's the case a lot with these like heavily automated strategies. Some of the people that really, really lean on those, they just don't know how to run bids."

"Yeah, and basically if you do, then you can do better with some other strategies. Do you have any comments on that?"

"Yeah, I think it's less about what bidding tactic you're using but how you use those bids to dictate your volume, dictate your cost per lead. And as long as you're making decisions based on business objectives, in general, it'll work out better than if you're basing it off of just what's in the platform or based on gut."

"Yeah, absolutely. So a place that I think would be good to start with this is just to lay the foundation of what we're going to be talking about. I think that for the most part, we're going to be talking about the target CPA bid strategy in Google, just because that's the strategy that we're using most commonly. I know we're pretty excited about t-COS and maximize conversions value, and we have some clients doing well with maximize conversions and cost per click bidding and stuff, but really, when it comes to non-branded stuff, it really is TCPA that seems to be the biggest winner right now. And there's some specific things that need to be done from a bidding standpoint there that I think we should talk about."

"One good place to start is with maybe a little bit of a foundation of what it is that we're talking about on a more conceptual level. I see people making a lot of mistakes when it comes to how they bid. A really common one is that what people naturally want to do is they just want to bid really high because they think they're going to get better leads if they bid high. It's also pretty common to bid really low because you're cheap. You just think you can get... you don't want to give Google any more leash than they need or maybe not even give them the leash that they need."

"I guess I've seen people tend to fall into two camps. Basically, Camp number one is it's all about value, and what I mean by that is you're saying, 'I don't care what it costs, I just want the click that's going to turn into a deal.' And then the other camp is that it's all about volume and cost, and they try to minimize the cost. But the reality of the situation is that there's really two things that make up what you should... they make up return on investment, right? There's two metrics: there's revenue per lead and cost per lead."

"And really, that's what bidding comes down to. It's getting the bids in the right place so that you can have your cost per lead be proportionate properly to your revenue per lead. If you focus just on the cost per lead, then what's going to happen is you end up with perhaps a really low revenue per lead because the things that you do to drive that cost down, they hurt your lead quality. But if you focus just on revenue per lead, you have the underlying assumption that your competitors aren't."

"Because a lot of people say, 'I don't care what it costs, I just want that lead,' but you do care what it costs because there's a certain number where it's not worth that anymore. And like, you can't just make it so you only buy leads that are going to close or something like that, right? There's just a... like some of the things that generate the most qualified leads, they tend to be slightly more qualified or maybe even majorly more qualified, but majorly more qualified might be 40%, right? Where it's not like the other ones are useless. Do you have any thoughts on that dynamic that makes up a return on investment?"

"Yeah, I think it's like you were saying. It's important that you take into account not just 'I want to make my leads as cheap as possible' or 'I want as many leads as possible regardless of how much they cost.' If you can understand where the best margin comes from, that's where you can afford to bid higher. And in those areas where there's less of a chance of a good lead coming through, but there's still some in that mix that are quality, then you can bid lower and be assured that when there is a lead that does come through, its cost is still in a place where that margin holds true."

"I think probably the easiest comparison for Google Ads bids is it's just like wholesaling real estate. If you're wholesaling real estate, you could... there's different factors that tell you what a house is worth, right? It could be the number of bedrooms, the number of square feet, what location it's in, all that kind of stuff. But I can tell you a strategy that does not work for wholesaling real estate is either saying, 'I know I can sell houses for tons of money, so I'm going to go into a market and find the most valuable houses that I can sell for the most. That's how I'm going to make money.' But that's what some people do with PPC."

"On the other hand, you have people that... you could say with wholesaling real estate, 'I just want to get the cheapest possible houses, and that's how I'm going to make money.' But you and I both know that some houses are cheap, but they're worth even less than what they cost, right?"

"What really makes the value in wholesaling real estate is the discrepancy between the cost and the value. It's the fact that you can buy at a discount, not necessarily at a high price or a low price. And bidding on Google Ads is exactly the same. You have to identify what are the leads that are worth a lot and we're willing to pay a lot, or they're worth very little but we're able to get them dirt cheap. The whole point is you want to basically bid at a discount. You want to do the equivalent of low-balling Google, and when you come in with those low bids, sometimes you win them, and that's how you create the most value."

"Yeah, and so the whole... the key that I think goes unnoticed in PPC is that everyone has the ability to bid on the same searches. Everyone is playing in the same system. So the winners are the marketers that are able to identify those advantages that others don't, and that can come through your keyword, that can come through your bids, that can come through your ad copy, or even through how effective your acquisitions team is once those leads come through. But it all comes down to identifying where you can outperform people on what looks like a level playing field."

"And I guess what we want to do on this episode is help you to find ways to make that playing field skewed in your favor a bit more."

"Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about the first common issue when it comes to bids, and that is probably the most common one that I see honestly, and it's that you put your bids too high. What do you think are some things that drive people to put their bids higher than they need to be?"

Certainly. Here's the next part of the transcript, corrected and formatted:

"I think people bid too high for a few reasons. One is they take the auction as a battle of who's the Big Man on Campus, when that's not really how it operates. The big man often is losing money. You think he's winning, but he's probably overpaying. And then the other reason why people bid too high is they don't understand their unit economics behind the scenes, and so they think that they can make this cost per lead work when in reality they can't. So I think it comes from one, a lack of understanding of how the platform works, and two, a lack of understanding of how those leads perform after they're captured."

"I think some of it could just come from understanding what your goals are as an advertiser, because where I've seen people go wrong with this is their goal is to be at the top of Google. And if that's your goal, you can get there, but it's going to cost you a ton of money to get there. I have clients reach out to us sometimes where they send like a screenshot and they're like, 'I searched this keyword. Why didn't I show up?' or something like that. And the answer is someone bid higher than you. So then they say, 'Can we bid more?' The answer is probably yes, but should you bid more? Because you're spending your full budget and we're getting great clicks at a great discount and the return on investment's good. So why would we overpay for something just so we can show up in one arbitrary place that makes your ego feel nice? It just doesn't make financial sense."

"I think everything has its point where it does have value though. This is why there's diminishing returns with scale. People talk about it all the time, where you have a diminishing marginal return as you scale your advertising budget. A lot of people don't understand that the reason that happens is because as you scale your budget, you actually have to bid higher because those clicks... think of it like your... there's a target, right? And your budget's going to take up a certain amount of the target, and if you have just a small budget, you really just want to be in the bullseye of that target. These are like the absolute most discounted and qualified clicks that you can find in a market."

"As you start to scale your budget more, now you have to go a few rings out, potentially, or maybe even a few rings further out than that because you can't spend all your budget just in the bullseye. So now you have to pay a little bit more than you want to for some stuff, or you have to buy some stuff that you might not have bought before. And that's what can degrade your lead quality and potentially your lead volume as you start to scale your budgets."

"And so maybe at some point that does make sense. That extra lead that you could buy for $400 when your average cost per lead is $200 with a certain amount of budget, it doesn't make sense, but it just might not make sense if you have a small budget. And pushing yourself and trying to optimize for impression share when really what you're trying to care about is return on investment, I think can lead you down that road of just over-bidding."

"And then what you end up doing is you overpay for some of those clicks, but you end up having to miss out on others that are a much better opportunity because you have a finite budget."

"Yep, exactly. So how do you know if you're over-bidding?"

"Great question. Where I would look to see if I'm bidding in the right... at the right level is I would look at what's our cost per click and what's our cost per lead. And that's probably where I would look first. Like if I'm seeing that my cost per lead is too high, the easiest place to bring that down is to bid lower in an intentional way. I wouldn't bid lower across the board. I would bid on the ad groups or the keywords where I'm seeing the biggest... like misses from where I need that cost per lead to be."

"And then the other area that I would look at is like, how's our budget pacing? Are we like way overspending relative to where we're comfortable? If we are, we're probably over-bidding. And then... and that's one other area of if we're overspending, let's pull back a little bit."

"I think it's worth... I think you're trying to keep it a little bit higher level, but I want to give somebody some like really actionable information that they can look in their account for. Because there's some metrics that kind of surround bidding that I think are really commonly misunderstood because Google kind of has this rhetoric that they want you to understand about it, and everybody just followed it. And I feel like I'm the only person like screaming in the wilderness saying you should look at this, and everybody's just doing what Google wants them to do."

"And the metrics I'm specifically referring to here... if anybody's ever looked at your Google Ads account and you see this big like orange or red thing that says 'limited by budget,' that shows up... that's a pretty clear signal. But there... there's some metrics behind it. The first one's impression share, which we talked about before. It's basically the percentage of the time that you're showing up when you're eligible. Then there's this other thing that causes limitation by budget where it says 'impression share loss to budget,' and it's basically what percentage of the time are you not showing up because your budget has cut you off."

"So the way that Google wants us to understand that is we need to raise our budgets because our budgets are not sufficient for what we're trying to accomplish right now. And that's a viable option to... to address that, but the thing is, it's arbitrary based on where you put your bids. So what this is really saying is your bids and your budget are incompatible. You have bids that are high and a budget that is low, and therefore you should have a budget that's higher or you should have bids that are lower. You just shouldn't have that budget with those bids."

"So what Google wants us to do always is raise the budget, but the other option is you could bid lower. And I see this all the time in our audits that we're looking at this account and let's just say it's spending $110,000. And I don't want to bore everyone with all the math and stuff like that, but we might find that they have... like everybody knows you get a diminishing return as you spend more money, but they might have the diminished return of a company that spends $100,000 a month because they're bidding as if they spend $100,000 a month, yet they only have $10,000 a month to spend."

"So they're getting cut off, and what that does is it means that you're just... you have a way higher cost per lead than you could have. Even if the number makes sense for you, right? Let's just say for the return on investment you need to pay 200 bucks a lead and you're at 200, a lot of people would say okay, we're good. But what if it could be 100? You could have double the return on investment, and I think that's totally worth doing, right?"

"So anyways, I think the... is there anything you'd add to the dynamic between those metrics, the impression share and the lost impression share to budget?"

"Yeah, I think a good rule of thumb is if your cost per lead is too high and that impression share loss from budget is also high, that means you're probably bidding too high. If the cost per lead is in a good place and you're losing volume due to budget, that's where I actually would just bump up budget because we're seeing that the only reason we lose volume is because there just isn't enough spend available to reach the full audience that's already being reached at an efficient place. So I think those two metrics can help you have a budget problem or if you have a bids problem."

"Yeah, absolutely. And as you can imagine, this gets pretty strategic, right? There's a bunch of different ways to handle it because what you're talking about is maximizing your value or your volume that you can drive with your bids in a specific place where you get a certain return on investment. Which, let's just say you need more leads in your business, that's absolutely the way to go. But what if your team's too busy and you can't handle more leads? Then you might just want to go even lower with bids."

"So the important thing to remember is it means that the bids and the budget are incompatible, and how you approach that... it could be that you scale the budget if your return on investment's good. What most people want to do there is scale their budget, and I think that makes a ton of sense. But if the return on investment's not good, that's only going to make it basically the same but at a higher volume, right? And the same at a higher volume, I would not call a move to make if you don't have a good return on investment."

"So yeah, it... it goes both ways. However, I think the one thing you shouldn't do is just completely ignore it forever, which is what we find like 95% of people do. It's oh, you're just over-bidding a ton. I'm just going to leave that there for the next year and not actually do anything about it. So now I'm getting the diminishing return of a company that has a much larger budget than I have, yet I have the volume of a company that has a smaller budget."

"So if you think about it like when you scale, what's the upside and what's the downside? The upside is you have volume, the downside is you lose efficiency. Whereas if you get smaller, you get more efficiency, less volume. But if you bid too high, you get less efficiency and less volume, and it's just the worst of both worlds. Just doesn't make any sense."

"All right, so that's bidding too high. Let's talk a little bit about the flip side of that. Like, how do you know if you're bidding too low?"

"Bidding too low, I would look... the key metric that I would look for, I guess this is two. The first one, like we talked about, is your cost per lead. And then the other one is going to be your impression share due to rank. And rank is a black box with Google, but in general, it's going to be a pretty good... a pretty good metric to indicate your bid... like level."

"So when there's a high impression share loss due to rank, that means that you are losing impressions due to not bidding as aggressively or not having as good of an ad rank as other advertisers in your space. An ad rank is composed of things like your ad relevance, your page experience, and your bids. But in... in this case, in this podcast, let's just say it's mostly bids. And so... which if you're maximizing the rest, is... you're probably safe. It's not like you see that you have lost due to rank and then you suddenly... huh, I should write better ads or I should make a good landing page, right? Like, you should already have... regardless of this, trying to maximize those things."

"Definitely. And so if you're at a good cost per lead but you're losing a lot of rank-tied volume, then that's probably a bid issue. In addition, if you're underspending your budget, that's probably also due to your bids being too low."

"Yeah, that's like the dead giveaway, right?"

"Yeah, because Google will just go up to whatever constraint it can. So you could have a $10,000 a month budget. One way to explain this is, let's just say you had an infinite budget in Google. With your bids at a certain place, there's a certain amount of money that you would end up spending even if you had no cap on your budget. And if that number is, let's just say, 50 grand, and your budget's 10 grand, that's called limited by budget and over-bidding. If that number is two grand and your budget's 10 grand, then you're going to only spend two grand and you're underspending, right?"

"So really, where things are optimal is you just have to somehow know the exact number to put the bid at to where even if you had no budget, you would end up spending your budget. Because that's like the most efficient place to be. It's just easier in theory than it is in practice. But just to like, boil... boil this down to the brass tacks, that's what it looks like."

"So if you are underspending, what do you... or if you are under-bidding, what do you do?"

"What I do is I look at what we could afford to pay for a lead or for a click, depending on how you're bidding, and try to set it as close to that maximum as possible to get things back in... in a place where you are maximizing that volume."

"One other thing I would say too is to be careful if you're going to make these decisions just based on the loss due to rank. Loss due to rank, it's like the metric that summarizes what we talked about before where you search and you don't see your ad and you think that something's wrong. That's actually a metric that shows you how often that's actually happening, which is really insightful. But there's situations... we have clients that have a 90% loss to... to rank, which is super high, and it's completely fine because maybe they advertise nationally or something like that. And with their budget, they're... if they were to... if they were to get 50% impression share with their budget, it'd be impossible, right? They'd have to be spending $500,000 a month to get there."

"So a lot of loss due to rank is like a really natural thing. It just means that you're bidding really aggressively low. But key sign there is, do you have lost due to rank and are you under... under budget also? Because if you're hitting your budget and you've lost due to rank, then who cares? But if you are under budget and you have lost due to rank, then it shows that if you could turn that lost due to rank into impression share, then you can scale. And that has a lot of value."

"What else do people do wrong that we're seeing in our audits when it comes to bidding?"

"I think the other factor is how often to adjust bids. I see people make two very different errors when it comes to bidding change frequency. It's either they're changing it daily, hourly, or way too often given their budget, or they're just not as reactive as they need to be to changing numbers, and they're losing out on efficiency or volume because they aren't making those changes as frequently as they need to."

"Yeah, I think the way I would... summarize it, and this is true for most things in Google Ads, you have to change things as frequently as you possibly can with sufficient data to make those changes. The problem is people who do it really frequently, they don't have data to be able to make those decisions. But I just did an audit of an account where I saw a year and a half with zero changes to bids, all the while the limitation by budget was going up and up, and the whatever company was managing it just didn't... didn't never look at it or care."

"One thing I really see that's common is if bids need to be raised, then companies tend to raise them. But if they need to be lowered, they tend to not lower them. This is just... I'm not trying to throw shade at our competitors or anything, but it's... I think it's a natural thing that arises from like the lack of knowledge that companies in general have about Google Ads."

"So if you... let's just say an agency ends with spending half the budget, they're going to get an angry call from the client saying, 'Why did you only spend half my budget?' And it's going to cause them to raise the bids. Let's just say they had a 20% higher cost per lead than they technically could have gotten because they over-bid. No client calls you up and says, 'Hey, I could have gotten a 20% lower cost per lead based on all these metrics that I see in the account. However, we were over-bidding, and I noticed that there's a limitation by budget, and I'm upset about that.' Right? Nobody ever says that."

"So agencies are incentivized to just always have bids too high because what happens when you try to play really close to the line of getting them... because really, the game is how low can we get bids without it being too low given our certain budget? But when you start to play close to that line, you end up under budget sometimes. So I think a lot of agencies just... they really clear but they lose efficiency because of it."

"So maybe it'd be helpful for anybody that does manage their own PPC if you could just explain... like in... in short terms... like what our happy medium is there. What do we... what frequency do we use for adjusting bids? How do we adjust those bids?"

"Yeah, so we base our bid schedule based on the number of clicks that an account gets in a given time period. So what we say is that if an account gets over, I believe it's 150 clicks in a week, we make... uh, bid changes every three... three or four days. Then if they're under that, we in general make... make those changes weekly. With the caveat that we... that we don't make changes as if there's been a major change in the account like a budget change, like launching a new campaign. Those kinds of things can impact the data that we're looking for to assess where bids need to be. And so we wait a little bit longer to make those bid changes until there's enough data post-major change to assess where those bids need to be given the new landscape of the account."

"Yeah, there it is. If anybody wants to copy the exact process, that's what it is. And then how much we change the bids is all based on a formula of these different metrics, and we track if we change bids this much, how much of an impact does it have on those metrics? And we try to get better over time at changing it through... right amount. Although it's worth saying this is a different game every day, like sometimes you raise bids a little bit and it just does crazy things to the volume, and sometimes it makes no difference. And it's... so that's where we also in general ask for... ask our clients for a little bit of grace on the amount of spend because we try to push the efficiency as high as possible."

"But we say something like 75 to 100% of your budget being spent is really typical because you'll have some days where we predicted that there's going to be a certain amount of search volume, we predict that there's going to be a certain amount of competition, and all based on that, we're going to bid this exact amount and it's going to be perfectly efficient. And then the competition's higher than expected or the search volume lower than expected, and what happens is you end up under budget. But the next day is a new day, and you can set your bids differently."

"And anyways, with some days that are lower volume, it's really normal to be at least a little bit under budget, but you gain a lot of efficiency. So I think most people would be better off setting, for example, a $15,000 budget and then averaging 13, then they would setting a $13,000 budget but having to hit it and therefore they... they have to over-bid and end up with a higher cost per lead at the end of the day."

"All right, so that's the way all of these episodes have been structured is we talk about what do people do wrong and how do you do it better. I think if you just do bid changes with the right frequency and you understand trying to get them as low as you can without going under on spend, I think you're good. One caveat for that is I've seen people destroy their results on accident by doing that. You really need the right foundation beforehand. How do I... how do I explain this?"

"Sometimes in a Google Ads account, you have some activities in the account that are generating waste, and then you have other activities that are generating good leads at a good price. And the percentage between the waste and the good stuff is a certain thing, like maybe 90% of the budget's going towards good things and 10% is going to waste. But then when you change your bids, even though the bad stuff and the good stuff that were both there from before, nothing's really changed there, it changes the dynamic between them. So now you're spending 90% on the bad stuff and you're spending 10% on the good stuff. And really all it does is it just exposes a weakness that you already had by changing the amount exposes a weakness that you already had by changing the amount of volume that goes towards it. So it's not really bidding that's the problem, but people think it is, right?"

"I'll give you a classic example for this. You could have someone targeting a lot of different geographic areas including some that are really prime and competitive and others that are very inexpensive and also very low quality. We'll take an example of, let's just say I'm targeting Utah and I target the entire state of Utah, and then we have the Salt Lake City metro or maybe St. George, these different areas, Park City that could be good, and then we have the boonies where it's not good."

"So what people do sometimes is they were bidding just really high, and what happened is they got mostly leads in Salt Lake. But if you use these metrics like we're talking about and you start to put those bids lower, then what you'd see is a greater percentage of your leads start to come from these out-of-the-way places. And there you have a really low revenue per lead. So your ROI actually suffers from this."

"But it's important to note that if that happens, that's just an example, right? That the same thing could happen with keywords, it could happen with whatever. You always had that weakness and that waste in your campaign. You're just exposing that waste by changing the amount of your budget that goes towards it inadvertently by lowering your bids. If that's the case, what you need is to be bidding properly. We'll talk about this in the... when we talk about best-case scenarios of bidding the right amount per thing."

"But anyways, basically what I'm saying is lowering bids gets a lot of flak for a lot of stuff when it's not really the cause of the issue most of the time."

"Yeah, do you have any comments or notes on that?"

"Yeah, I think that's... that's right on where if you are confident that your ad copy is strong, that your keywords are strong, that your landing page is strong, that those things aren't the issue, then it's safe to work on bids as your main lever of in-account optimization. But if those things aren't in a good place, then just changing your margins isn't going to help you drive better performance. Those areas are... are going to need to be addressed before you focus on just your bids."

"Yep, I 100% agree that there's a time and a place to... to focus on these bids because you don't want to double down on the wrong part of your campaign, right? But that's a foundational issue with the campaign."

"Yeah, so on that topic, let's talk about how you do this the best. What are some examples of bidding on a really high level in your opinion?"

"Yeah, I think it's important to... to understand that within a campaign, there are various ad groups that you have built out in your campaign with different themes of searches, and those different themes... different levels of quality that over time you'll see patterns of which ad groups bring in the best margin and which ones tend to have a better... like quality ratio. And so it's important to bid based on those ratios of quality and not bid equal across all of them because they all aren't bringing in an equal number of deals at an equal... like level of return."

"And so the gold standard of... of bidding for me is bidding on quality at the ad group level as well as at the location level where you're bidding based on where you see the best results and being able to balance that... that line between volume and efficiency at as granular level as Google will allow."

"I love what you're saying. I think that some people misunderstand that sometimes because they have a different mindset going into it, and it's the... best way I would describe it is it's a black and white mindset where the way that they would make it work is, let's just say this one keyword has a much higher cost per lead than this other one. They would just cut the bad one and keep the good one, or they would keep both and just hope it gets better. When what you're talking about is basically everything gray."

"So a lot of people would look at a search like, for example, 'sell my house' and they would say that's not motivated. If someone searches 'sell my house fast,' they're motivated. If they search 'sell my house,' they're retail. Which, by the way, you have no data to say that, so you're just... you're just throwing random stuff into the universe and hoping that you're right. And most of the time you're not."

"But let's just say you do have some data for that. Let's just say keyword one is 'sell my house fast' has a 30% higher chance of being motivated than keyword two. What a lot of people would say is you cut keyword two and you keep keyword one. What you're saying is you change the way that you bid on those so that you're bidding more on one of them that's better quality and less on the other that's lower quality."

"The same could be true for locations, right? Maybe I really love leads in Salt Lake City, but I can also close deals in Dallas. It's not that it's black and white like I either want to be in both or I want to be in one. It's that I probably want to make sure I'm really aggressively bidding in Dallas... aggressive from a low bidding standpoint to reflect the fact that those leads have less value to me. And then I'm more aggressive in a positive way in Salt Lake where I reflect that those leads have a very high value to me."

"And it's this tiered approach to bidding that makes a really big difference because it gives you everything. If you go one way or the other, basically... let's just say you have the two locations and you just bid the same on them. You're going to be overpaying for the location you don't want and you're going to be underpaying for the location you do want. But let's just say you cut the one. Now you have more of a diminished return in the other one and you do get all your leads there, but you actually decrease your return on investment compared to if you understood all the dynamics of the different locations and you're able to bid appropriately to value, right?"

"And I think this goes back to what I was saying earlier about being able to identify where you can win where other people can't in... in your market. And so if you only bid on... on those terms or in those locations where everyone's bidding, then you're going to get caught up in... in a low margin game. But if you can find efficiency on those terms or in those locations where... where people aren't bidding because they think they're a waste, then all of a sudden you're... you can find these high margin, low volume plays to help offset where you might see lower return but higher volume in those more... more expensive areas. And so if you go all in on... on just the high cost terms and locations, sure you'll be okay, but you're losing out on these low volume plays that can be very effective as well."

"Yeah, yeah. I think one way to... to look at that is that there's a lot of gray even when it comes to what price things go for. Like, it's so common for people to just follow the market and just say the average cost per click for this keyword in this area is this, therefore that's what I'm going to bid, as if that's a smart way to understand what the value is going to be to your business, right? It probably correlates at least a little bit. If other people are willing to pay more, yeah, then it's worth more. But the real value is understanding what are people underpaying for that was more valuable than what they think it's worth?"

"That's where data comes in so useful to know, for example, what is the search term that has more value than what other people are willing to pay? Or what are the search terms that other people are over-bidding on and I'm going to bid low? And then also understanding that there's everything in between. If, let's just say, the average cost per lead in a market is $300, there are going to be leads... I know I'm oversimplifying by even saying that leads sell for a certain amount, but you know, humor me. There's going to be leads that sell for $600 in that market, and there's going to be leads that sell for 500 and 400, 300, and $100 and $250. There's going to be... at every one of those price points, there's different leads. It's just they average out to 300."

"So it never hurts to put a lowball offer on a lead, basically is my opinion of it. If you say that that one lead with whatever parameter it is, be it a keyword parameter, be it a location parameter that makes it less valuable to us, the question you have to ask yourself is: What if it cost x% less? Would it still work for you? And I can guarantee there's a price where it works. Maybe it's like 1% of the price or something like that. Maybe it's really low value. But there's a price where that works for you, and it's about bidding that. And you might not win all the volume, but when you do, you win it at a great price. And being more spread out and sending more lowball offers on more things gets you a better return on investment than over-bidding on a smaller number of things."

"Yeah, definitely. And I think it all is... it all comes down to bidding based on your own data of how you and your business performs and not based on the market, not based on gut, is going to help you to find the best balance between volume and efficiency."

"Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to shed a little bit of light into our strategy for this? Because I could tell you one thing that people really struggle with on this is it sounds great in theory until you realize how much data you actually need to pull that off, right? For me to know that this keyword has a better value for me than this other keyword, I don't think a lot of people really... how much data that takes. Because you're splitting your data like 60 ways across 60 different keywords, and the real value is going to come from the deals and their spreads at the end of the day. And I see people like quote-unquote like optimizing based on this, but they have five deals across 60 keywords, as if you can even know what's working. So I think that's the overwhelming part of this is yeah, theoretically if I spent a million dollars every month on ads and had tons of data coming in, I could actually know the necessary information to bid properly. But if I don't have that, what do I do?"

"Yeah, so how we do it is we pull in all of what's termed the offline data from all of our clients. We can pull in the lead volume, the cost per lead, the lead to appointment ratio, the cost per appointment, the cost per contract, the... all of those metrics from all of our clients historically, which I believe up until now we spent... believe $12 million in our Google MCC. So there's a ton of data."

"Yeah, that's probably overly conservative if anything."

"Yeah, probably. So with... with all of that volume and all of that data that... that goes beyond that lead being acquired, where're... we're able to break down at the keyword level and at the ad group level which... which themes bring in the best efficiency. And then what we do is we set our bids initially based on those proportions of which ad groups bring in the best quality versus wh... which ones bring in the worst quality. And we bid in that gray and... like you were saying, an average investor is going to need a lot of spend to get the volume of offline data of deals especially to be able to set bids based on actual closed and not just what you estimate you can close a lead at. So we're basing these bids off of volume that the average investor probably won't ever get on their own."

"Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think to say the same thing more simply, it would just be that in Google Ads, the... especially for real estate investing, the ultimate advantage that you could have is knowledge and data about what these things are worth. And nobody has that much data on their own side, right? That's why it's so important to work with a partner that has more data than you have. That's the value that a partner brings to the whole partnership is they can understand those values in ways that you wouldn't be able to."

"Theoretically, it has been said with Google that if you did nothing right other than bid properly, then you would be fine. And it's true. Like, to think about a crazy example, right? You could say, let's just say we're talking about keywords. You could... you could accidentally bid on a keyword that is somebody searching for a divorce lawyer in Memphis, and you're in Salt Lake City, right? And one person who searches for a divorce lawyer in Memphis between now and the end of time is going to be someone who also has a house to sell in Salt Lake City. It's such a small likelihood, right?"

"So there's a proper bid for that, and if you actually knew what that was, you'd probably know that bid is one/100th of a penny or something like that. And then if you bought it at that price, you would just get the right person when they came, right? So theoretically, you could bid on every single keyword, and if you bid the right amounts, then you would be driving value from it because bidding is what creates return on investment. Because your cost per lead and your revenue per lead are what make your return on investment. If you can understand your revenue per lead and how to predict that, then you know exactly what your cost per lead could be. And if you're using the target CPA bid strategy, then you can set your cost per lead to exactly that to make sure you get a certain return on investment."

"Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, is the heart of... of paid search is your bids."

"Yeah, that's it for today's episode. That is number six out of seven on this series of the... what are we calling it? The uh... PPC Essentials?"

"Yeah."

"So embarrassing. I think I've asked you that on every single episode that we've had about PPC Essentials. So anyway, that's 6 out of 7. Next time we're going to be talking all about some of the settings. Spoiler alert: there's certain buttons that if you don't press in Google Ads, this could be a... something as simple as unchecking a box that makes a difference between every lead you get being spam and having great quality of leads. It's not the sexiest topic, but it is so important. So we're going to talk about that, and I think there'll be some great nuggets there. So I will see you there next week."

"Awesome."

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Join Brandon and Shaun in the final episode of our PPC Essentials Series, where they discuss the crucial aspect of getting your Google Ads settings right. They stress how even a small mistake can lead to poor results, and offer valuable insights on how to avoid this. They also touch on the intriguing topic of click fraud and its different types, providing tips on how to protect yourself against it. This episode is packed with practical advice and emphasizes the importance of getting your Google Ads settings right for a successful ad campaign.

Part 8 of 8 in the PPC Essentials Series

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Shan, our account management team lead. He works with more of our clients than anybody else on the team here at Bitman Collective, and we're going to talk all about Google ad settings. How are you doing today, Sean?"

"Doing pretty good, thanks for having me."

"Yeah, of course. Excited to have you here again. I think you've been on a couple of the episodes of this series and added a ton of value. Today's a fun one, although if I do say so myself, probably the least sexy of our topics."

"That is true, but very important still."

"Yes, we're going to be talking about things today where just a single button you could press in Google Ads could make the difference between absolutely amazing results and poor results. It's the kind of stuff you don't think about and you don't care about until you're on the wrong side of it and it's hurting you. So it's something that I think is a conversation that has to be had, even if it's not the most fun stuff in the business."

"For sure."

"That topic is all about Google Ads settings, and this is where all those little miscellaneous things that didn't fit into any of the other categories that we talked about are going to fall into. We have just a couple things, so it's probably going to be a shorter episode, but like I said, everything that we're going to talk about today has potential. If you get it right, you'll never notice; if you get it wrong, it'll destroy you. So it's important stuff."

"It's also when it comes to settings, there's a little bit less room for creativity and doing magnificent things. So there's not going to be really anything in the 'best' category, so to speak, today. Like, you get it right or you don't get it right. So we're going to talk about some things mostly just focused around some of the big things that you can mess up and go from there. Kicking us off, Sean, what's the first thing you'd like to share in terms of settings that you can get wrong?"

"Yeah, one is a really big one that took us a minute to figure out. About two years ago, we had this weird issue with spam where it seemed like we were just trying all these different things. Spam was a frequent issue with a lot of people, and we made tons of different adjustments. We were going through every channel just trying to figure out what's going on, and eventually, we figured it out. The setting was a single checkbox, kind of like you mentioned earlier. One checkbox can make or break your campaign."

"It was search partners and using that network to advertise. For those who aren't familiar with it, Google essentially has two different routes you can go. You're advertising on Google, and you're also advertising on search partners, which if you're ever on sites that have like Google search integrated with their searches, or there's a large number of other browsers that use Google but a secondary version of Google for their stuff. Advertising through that channel was bringing in tons of spam, and we figured out turning that off actually prevented, I'd say, probably like 90%, maybe even more, of our spam that was coming through at the time."

"So that's the one thing I would say. If there is a 'best' thing for this conversation, it is not using search partners because it's just the Wild West in search partners. There's a setting you just have to go into your Google campaign settings, you can turn off, just uncheck the box for Google search partners. But yeah, that's one of the biggest things. A lot of spam was coming through that channel, and it seems that it's probably easier to target through that channel for a lot of these click farms or other spam sources."

"That's where I figured I'd start here, talking about those search partners and just not utilizing it. It's very easy, just uncheck it and make sure you're not using it in your campaigns. For us, it seemed like it could make or break our campaigns, and it wasn't something that was always that way though. I think that's one thing to point out: it's something that kind of grew over time."

"Actually, one thing I would say is to pay attention. If you are using search partners right now, measure what you have and check. We haven't used it for a long time just because it became a large issue, and we have had a few instances where we've tried enabling it, and it just seems to produce still the same issues with spam. I think in its current state, it's just not a tool that we can really use in this industry. So I definitely recommend turning off search partners."

"Yeah, absolutely. I also want to open up the conversation to a little bit of a broader view on things, and it really just comes down to click fraud in general. Because I've seen a lot of people that we talk to that do have this issue with search partners, they're going about it a different way, like they're trying to solve that problem by blocking IP addresses and stuff like that. So I think it's worth us having a conversation about what different types of fraud are out there and how do you prevent those types of fraud, because this applies even to Microsoft or Facebook as well, pretty much all online advertising."

"What I would say to set the stage is that click fraud is a bigger industry than some people think it is. It's one of the largest organized crimes in the world, and click fraud is basically someone else profiting by generating fake traffic. The foundation of it usually is that Sean, for example, has this website, and this website's about whatever it's about, and he might run ads on that website, right?"

"And by running ads on that website, you know, when I go and I click on that ad off of his website, he gets paid by the network because someone else is paying to advertise there. That's a basic foundation behind this, and that's all good until Sean decides that he has bad intentions and he realizes that he can actually fake people being on his website and they don't have to actually be there. Those fake people, the better he can do at making them look like real people, the better he's going to do at monetizing his website with traffic that he doesn't actually have."

"And what do real people do? They click on the ads, they don't just look at them. And when they click on them, they might fill out the forms, etc. So they behave like normal people, but if he was faking this, he might just also fill out those forms with complete garbage information, and you might have low conversion on the people that click and all that kind of stuff."

"So that's the foundational element here. Let's just say we're talking about Google. Google has no incentive to have any fraud on its platform because it doesn't want its advertisers to get bad results. So that's where, if this is Google itself, the only person generally you could say that stands to benefit from someone else clicking on your Google ad is not usually Google. It would have to be some other platform that's not also selling the advertising because when you have the same company selling the advertising and also owning the platform where the traffic is on, you don't really have these problems."

"But where you have the search partners, where you have Google and then you have these third-party websites that can make money by selling that advertising to Google, and then Google sells it to you, that's where you run into issues. So that's where specifically for Google, this is search partners. Microsoft has something really similar. Facebook has something called Audience Network, which is basically the same thing, and you're going to find that there's a lot of fraud in all of those platforms because it's not actually owned by the main company."

"The other thing that people run into though is they try to attack that fraud in a different way. Really common is through IP blocking. Do you want to talk a little bit about IP blocking and when is that a good solution and when isn't it?"

"Yeah, essentially the IP blocking allows us to go, for example, in Google you can go up, I believe it's up to what, 500 or so IP addresses you can go in and add."

"Yeah, you can do ranges so you can block 100 of one if you want to."

"Exactly. But yeah, the basics of it is it allows us to make sure that the people who are seeing your ads are unique people that aren't coming through and have negative intentions. The pros of the IP blocking is exactly that: you can make sure that you have unique people coming in, filling out your forms and things like that. As well as it allows you to find anybody who was bad leads and things like that, you can pull them out of there and do what you can."

"It's not a perfect system, there are definitely ways around it, and I think that's something we'll talk about here in our click fraud discussion. But at the same time, it's a pretty good solution that will get the majority of people, prevent issues from coming from that route. The cons of using IP though is actually, I was talking to somebody earlier today where we were having a lot of duplicate forms coming in through their form fills and everything, but at the same time we're like, 'Hey, we could add these IPs in, but at the same time that also means that if they ever want to come back, if they're not fraudulent, they can't.' If you're blocking someone, and so there are some downsides to it where you have to give up some potential traffic that you may have in the future that might be good because it's not a perfect system."

"So there are some cons there, and it's also another con with IPs. A lot of click farms and things like that, they're pretty aware of how to get around it at times, which is why you have to bring in some other tools as well that automate the process. Because it's impossible for you to go into your campaigns and add 500 negative IPs every single day that could potentially be harmful. That's just - you don't have the time, it's not possible."

"There are tools and things like that. One of them we use is called ClickCease. It's a great option, it's something that we provide for all of our clients because we understand the value of having that where it can make that process - it watches everybody, tracks those IPs, and I believe sometimes even reports them back to Google, tries to pursue refunds and things like that through some of the management fees for ones that do get... So it's a nice tool that we really like and we like to - that's why we provide it for all of our clients. But yeah, those are some of my thoughts on stuff we want to do there, and you can expound on ClickCease and stuff too."

"Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts."

"I know you do."

"I think we have to recognize what is ClickCease and what is not ClickCease. Too often people try to solve a click fraud issue with ClickCease. It only works if their IP address is the same every time, and these people who are doing click fraud on this massive scale, they're not dumb."

"Yeah, click farms are a thing and people know what they're doing, and usually they'll be clicking from new IP addresses every time. So you're on a wild goose chase just trying to exclude things with IP addresses and ClickCease if it's an actual sophisticated fraud. If it's not, then ClickCease can be effective, and this is common. Like the scenario of 'Are my competitors clicking on my ads?' Right, Joe down the street who also owns a wholesaling company, he might search and he might be like, 'You know what, this is going to cost Shan money if I click on this ad,' and he might click a few times. So if he does that and he keeps on repeatedly clicking, then you can block his IP address and it does work in those circumstances. But that's in my experience the minority, the small minority of fraud."

"So ClickCease, I'm trying to think if I was managing my own Google ads, would I do it? I don't know. For us, it's a no-brainer across all of our client base because we build it into a process. It takes an extra however many minutes to set up for each account. We pay like a dollar per client per month for ClickCease or something, because we have one account that's the same in price as anybody would pay, but we can use it 150 times over. I don't know if I would or not. Maybe only if you have a significant problem with it."

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Join Brandon as he interviews Trevor Mauch, CEO of Carrot as they discuss the real estate market's future, online marketing strategies, and real estate's evolving landscape. Get ready to dive into the shift towards PPC and SEO and the future of search engines. Trevor will also be sharing his thoughts on the importance of expertise, authority, and trust in Google rankings. Whether you're a seasoned real estate investor or just getting started, this conversation is guaranteed to be insightful and informative. Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks! We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here. If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

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"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Trevor Mock, who is the expert in online marketing in the real estate investment space. Trevor is the CEO of Carrot, a company that, honestly, I think probably 90 percent of real estate investment websites are created with. He has tons of insights about running a business, online marketing, where this market's going, and how you can make sure you end up on top. How are you doing today, Trevor?"

"Brandon, I'm doing great, man. Good to see you. Shoot, a few weeks ago, a month ago in Tampa, dude, it was fun."

"Absolutely. It's good to see you getting out of your Oregon shell. I don't think you traveled that much. You haven't traveled that much recently, right?"

"I've been working in the business a lot. Not for work, I travel a lot personally. You know, family-wise, we travel quite a bit. We've gone on a number of vacations the past year all over the place. But business-wise, that's kind of part of when I started Carrot. That was part of my thing. I said I want to be able to build the business that doesn't require me to travel for business, but I travel when I want to for business. So that's kind of the mix I have. I'll go out once or twice a year to a business event."

"Okay, that's awesome. And that's kind of how I thought about it because we actually originally met, probably two years ago if I had to guess, at an Investor Fuel event. And then not until a month ago in Tampa. I kind of think of you like the... because there's... you start going to enough of these events, you start to see the same people over and over again in this real estate investment space. You're like the event unicorn that just like pops up here and there, just once in a while. If you can catch them, you've got a line of like 50 people that want to talk to you because people know this is a rare sighting, right? You want to suck all the knowledge that you can."

"It was funny on that topic. So we were in Arizona in January for our company retreat at Carrot. We flew, you know, 60-some odd people in there, and I knew Pace, so Pace Morby. I knew he was having his Mastermind, and on the way to the airport, I texted Pace. I'm like, 'Pace, I know you got your Mastermind. Mind if I stop by for a few minutes, say hi, and I gotta hit the airport?' So I come in there with my videographer, and we're packing our suitcases into his Mastermind in there. And I go in there, I was just going to literally say hi to him, say hi to Jameel, say hi to Cody, and bounce. And Pace is like, 'Dude,' he goes, 'Now that you're in here, like, do you want to go up and speak?' I go, 'Sure, like, what would be most valuable?' And he goes, 'Well, you pick the topic. You've got half an hour, and how about 10 minutes from now? Does that work?' I'm like, 'Okay, let's put something together.'"

"So that kind of stuff, man, like I've had dozens and dozens of people who've hit me up from that event talking about, you know, the concept that I taught there was life-changing or whatever it is. But yeah, these random occurrences, man, like I think it's destiny sometimes when you're able to get with certain people to go either... either they need to hear a message, it's going to help change their trajectory, or maybe there's a connection that's going to be amazingly beneficial for both. So guys, go to live events. I went to a lot of live events in the early days for sure."

"Yeah, there's definitely a time and place for that value. And honestly, I see, like, personally, I see that our clients that do that progress faster than those that don't. I don't have any information here, I don't have like any special data showing this, but it's kind of like my personal experience, kind of having seen it. There's a lot of benefit from that for sure."

"So Trevor, you are a wealth of knowledge, and I want to get into as much as we possibly can. So let's get into some of the meat of this. And I personally, I kind of view you like, in my mind, as an expert in a few different things. And this is probably just based on different presentations that I've seen of yours and things that I've seen that you're passionate about. The first one being basically entrepreneurship and growing a business. And I think that you have a really unique perspective into that, which actually, by the way, I see reflected really well. I was talking with someone on your team the other day when we went through Carrot's core values, and I was like, 'Yeah, that's Trevor. Like, that's exactly what Trevor is.' So that's the first aspect, and then also, for those that don't know, Carrot is... I mean, you should probably introduce what Carrot is, and that what kind of leads to your secondary expertise, dude."

"Yeah, for sure. So Carrot right now, if I were to kind of fast forward to today, Carrot helps our clients basically launch highly optimized websites and all the marketing tools behind those. We power, you know, many if not most of the biggest investors around the country. More online leads come through the Carrot platform than any other platform out there. I don't want to make certain claims I can't prove. I'm always like a proof guy, but in some of the data that we have, there's more top five rankings across the top 225 markets from Carrot sites than all other website systems combined. And the next two behind us are WordPress as a platform, like WordPress custom sites, and then you have a whole host of everything else. So Carrot clients just dominate online with Google, and you work with a lot of our clients, right?"

"And that's something that is such a joy to be able to work with great people like you guys because you guys leverage our platform with our clients, drive traffic using the skill set we don't drive traffic. So that's where Bateman Collective and amazing companies like yours come in to go, now you guys work with the clients who aren't able or willing to, don't want to do the work themselves, and really amplify it. So we provide the platform, and amazing people like Brandon plug in to help people amplify it."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. Someone asked me the other day, 'What's the difference between you guys and Carrot?' And I was like, 'Well, I don't know, like, everything pretty much, right?' I think of Carrot like the technology behind everything. Let's just say you're cold calling, Carrot's the phone system. Or the way to get the list, or you know, something like that. But then we're the company that kind of builds all the pieces around that so that it functions, right? But there needs to be some base foundation there. You need a website if you're going to do online lead gen."

"And on that note, really cost-effective product. And it's something we've been recommending for a long time. So anyways, I think that's part of why you have so much market share, but that's actually a really impressive stat that you shared. Because I would guess if you did that in any other industry, it would be WordPress by like 90% and then everything else like 10%. So it's definitely backwards in the real estate industry."

"It is. In that study, we run it quarterly. So that's one of the things that we do here internally because performance is such a big deal. And in this podcast, guys, this isn't a Carrot commercial. We're going to dive into data, we're going to look at what's happening in the market right now. Brandon and I are going to kind of riff on what the heck is going on with the lead gen, what are the opportunities. But we looked at the primary couple keywords, so that's like your 'selling my house fast' type of keyword, and then across the top 225 MSAs. So if you look at other keywords like cash buyer keywords, yeah, there's going to be a lot of other sites and Carrot's not dominant. It just happens to be on the highly motivated seller, house seller keywords across America, which is pretty cool."

"Yeah, which is, I think there's a really understandable reason for why that would be the case, just considering who it is that tends to buy your product. So let's talk about that if you don't mind. I'd love to dive into some of your marketing knowledge, you know, specifically for online for motivated sellers. So if we kind of chop that down, one place I'm really curious to start is your perspective on where things are going. I think a lot of people would say that the market has been... I don't know if challenging is the word. It's been really, really different from quarter to quarter over the last little while, right? So it's required a lot of adaptation, and a lot of people are changing kind of where they're shifting their marketing channels. And what I've seen kind of anecdotally is it seems like in this space, the amount of investment as a percentage of the total marketing investment that's going into online channels seems to be growing really significantly. So I'm curious about your take on that, why that's happening, and with all this increased competition online, the companies that really do exceptionally well, what is it that they're going to be doing differently?"

"Dude, such good question. So the way that I tend to think, just like in general, is I think vision, strategy, tactics. Right? So vision is let's say three, five years out or more. Strategy is what the heck's happening this next year to year and a half. And tactics are what are the things we're doing now to be able to execute that strategy. So I'm gonna take people up vision, we're going to go into strategy, and then some tactics everyone can do right now in this market based on that. Because if I just give you guys tactics and you start going and applying tactics, you don't know why you're applying them, right?"

"So looking vision-wise, it's probably five, six years ago, Brandon, I was seeing in the market that the adjustments that were happening with retail and wholesale... Right? So I've told this story a million times. I think it's so relevant though because so people can see where the industry is going. I, according to where I feel it's going... So just like with any commodity market, there's a wholesale side of the market and a retail side of the market. You look at cars, cars are maybe not deemed a commodity, maybe they are, but there's the retail side where you go down to the car lot and pay retail for the car. There's the wholesale side which is when they say, 'Hey, do you want to trade this in?' and they offer you a discount on that car, or you can go to the auction and buy the discounted cars. So there's a wholesale side, there's wholesale to groceries and retail to groceries, there's wholesale to real estate, retail real estate."

"What tends to happen in markets is as soon as technology catches up with the markets to make it more efficient, you start to see wholesale and retail squeeze together. This is what happened in travel, this is what's happened in stocks and stock brokers, right? You started to see the retail... 'Hey, I pick up the phone, I have to call a broker to place an order,' and here's the price, it's 10 bucks an order for a stock. Then you start to go, the wholesale was way discounted price. That's where your E-Trade came in, Charles Schwab came in. They took the two and said, 'Well, why can't we make it simpler and easier for someone to buy a stock and make it way cheaper, get it closer to wholesale?'"

"Right, and so same thing happened on travel. So you had... you used to go to get a hold of a travel agent and then book it and they'd take their cut of it. Well, when technology caught up with that, it made it to where they could go out there and technology could scour the internet and create an advantage for the searcher and make it so they were in control, not the travel agency. They cut the travel agency out and got prices down for the searcher, and now they're mashing the two together, right? But it always makes opportunities still."

"So real estate, it took a little while longer because real estate's a more complicated transaction. It's not just buying a stock or taking a vacation. It's the last three to five years is when we've really seen technology start to really disrupt real estate and especially disrupt the retail side, right? And so the retail side has historically had a lockhold on the industry. It's like if you want to sell your house, you pretty much had to go over to a real estate agent. You didn't like... everyone knew 10 real estate agents. We saw the person on the bus, you know, the bus stop sign. We are... we have three buddies, we have an aunt Betsy who's a real estate agent. Everyone knows 7, 8, 9 agents, but how many people in mainstream America five years ago could name one person that was a direct cash home buyer? Hardly anybody could."

"The wholesale side was oftentimes seen as what people called the underbelly. It was the hidden part of real estate. It was the part of real estate who's going to come in like under ball you, right? Or low... low volume and make a low offer. And so as technology caught up though, and websites made it easier for people to get in front of the right prospects on Google and someone who could go directly search for someone to buy their house directly instead of having to ask their friend for a realtor reference... or you start to see Open Door and Offer Pad pop up and they come in the middle of the industry. They're not wholesale, they're not retail, they're trying to be in the middle. They're trying to grab both sides of it and yank it in towards the center and let the seller or the buyer control the process rather than the agent or the investor. They accelerated the drive towards the middle."

"And so I'm going to wrap the vision part and it's probably three to four years ago we were starting to tell people, 'Hey, investors, you're going to start to see state by state, the real estate agent lobby gets scared and they're going to start to go to Congress and all this stuff and they're going to get laws over and over and over again making it harder to wholesale properties.' They're... you're going to do it because they're going to be fearful that you're taking their business. We're seeing that happen all the time."

"I was looking in the data six months ago and you would think that the pharmaceutical industry spends more money lobbying in Washington DC than the real estate industry, right? No. The real estate industry and the realtor industry by far spent more money in, I guess 2021, might have been 2022, lobbying in DC than the pharmaceutical industry did, which is insane because they see the industry changing."

"Okay, so a couple more things. We'll go into strategy. So if you're an agent and you see the threat of the investor and Open Door and Offer Pad taking that, and if you're an investor and you see the threat of Open Door and Offer Pad, and they also... you see the opportunity in capturing more of the traditional retail market, you have to move towards the center. Agents should be investors, investors should be agents. We call it hybrid. Right? That's not the future, that's the today now."

"So now let's bring it towards strategy in the next year to two. If you're a hybrid provider, meaning I have a license or I'm partnering with someone who has a license, I'm marketing for motivated house sellers now. Now I take those leads and I don't just take the lead and say, 'Cool, if it fits within my pretty little box, I'll list the property for you because I'm an agent, but if it doesn't, I've got to go the other way because you're not serious, you're not a serious seller.' Or if it doesn't fit my pretty little box as a wholesaler at 65, 70, 75, 85, whatever your percentage is of ARV, then you're not serious and I'm going to go over here and that person just isn't realistic about their price."

"You need to present them with the options to solve their problem. Whether they want full price, take them retail. If they don't want full price and they're willing to get speed and convenience, take them wholesale. If they want full price but can't sell because they have no equity, which is going to happen a lot now, Brand... This goes into like current times now. You're going to see people who bought their house three, four years ago, great interest rates, maybe lost their job, prices went down, they have little to no equity, they need to sell now and they can't because they'd have to pay their real estate agent forty thousand dollars on the house they overpaid for with really good interest rate to be able to get rid of the property. Who's gonna solve that? Not agents. Investors are, through creative finance, through subject to, through things like that."

"So let's go into the strategy part now. Is you have to step into hybrid in order to make, I feel, in order to make the best ROI of all of your paid marketing. So when you're working with Brandon and Bateman Collective and you are a pure wholesaler working against a hybrid like one of my clients I just got off the call with named Troy in Minnesota, Troy's going to crush you all day long because he can take far more of those leads and turn them into revenue than you can as just a wholesaler."

"Or if you're an agent and you're just an agent, you're gonna have a way hard time doing direct to seller or motivated seller marketing because your time to deal on a traditional listing is too long. You're not going to be willing to sit and stick in the marketing for long enough, you're not gonna be willing to spend as much, and your biggest profit deals are the investment deals you're leaving and saying that they're not serious. So you have to be hybrid."

"Okay, so now let's get into like really right where the market is right now, where and what I call a shoulder market. And this is crazy critical for the way that you guys do your marketing right now. I was on a call with our epic plan members, it's our highest plan, and a guy named Marco, Marco Padilla in Florida, Carrot camper, amazing dude, multiple seven-figure business. He owns properties, he's like 26 years old, seven-figure a year wholesaling flip operation as well, and he has a great team and he only works like 20 hours a week now. When he first started working with us, he was working like 80 hours a week. We got it down to 20, helped him optimize his team."

"And Marco came on the call last week, and he said, 'Trevor, dude, the advice you gave me last month on our epic call was awesome because I was getting ready to pull my Google pay-per-click marketing spend back because of the shoulder market.' And I'll explain it here in a second. I told him to not pull his spend back, to step into it harder because others are pulling their spend back. And I said, 'Marco, because this market dynamic I'm going to explain here in a second, I think you're going to get more deals, but you might need to be more patient. As long as you're breaking even on it right now, keep it going because I think you're going to see a massive ROI in three to six months.'"

"It was way quicker for him in that market. He locked down 10 contracts just from Google pay-per-click and his market in Florida in the past 30 days after making a change to increase his ad spend when everyone else is decreasing it."

"So here's why the shoulder market is this: We had high prices, people got used to high prices, low interest rates, and we're in between the phase where the market's still trying to adjust where sellers are now okay with and they've come to terms that they can't sell the property for what their neighbor sold theirs for eight months ago. Okay? We're not there yet though."

"So you might be getting a lot of leads through Google pay-per-click or through SEO. Your lead to deal conversion ratio is lower, right? You're looking at it going, 'Man, I used to get one in five or one in ten or one in 50,' or whatever your numbers are, 'leads turn into a deal. Now I'm getting one in 25. Does this mean I need to stop my marketing? This means it's not working as well?' Heck no, it just means your lead to deal conversion ratio is low."

"But in general, we're finding, and we did a survey, we're gonna be putting out some content with this hopefully in the next two weeks now with you and a handful of others who are running a lot of traffic. Cost per lead, in general, has gone down pretty markedly in many markets. Lead per deal ratio has gotten a little bit worse in many of the markets. So it doesn't mean demand is down, it means there's still people looking to search to sell. Actually, it's even potentially getting better. Your leads are lower cost now, right? But fewer of them are ready to sell now because they haven't come to terms with the new price that they can sell at, or the pain point of the adjustment in the economy. Maybe they haven't lost their job or whatever else, the business they're working for hasn't been affected yet. There's a million different things that are likely going to happen as the economy gets worse."

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In this episode, Brandon sits down with Sean, a successful real estate entrepreneur based in Columbus, Ohio. Sean shares his experiences and insights on team management, marketing to motivated sellers, and the delicate balance between control and delegation in entrepreneurship. They also delve into the world of virtual assistant services, exploring the benefits and challenges of working with remote teams. From understanding the real estate business to making data-driven marketing decisions, this episode is packed with actionable insights and valuable lessons.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Sean. Sean is a real estate entrepreneur that has built, over five years, a successful wholesaling company in Columbus, Ohio, and more recently launched a VA company to help more investors find motivated sellers through cold calling and texting. Sean is your stereotypical visionary, a brilliant person, and has a lot of great insights about how to run a team and how to get the most out of your marketing. We'll dive into that today. How are you doing today, Sean?"

"Doing fantastic. How are you doing, Brandon?"

"Hey, doing awesome. Super excited for this podcast episode. It's great to finally get together and do this. I know we've been talking about this for a little bit. So for anybody not familiar with you yet that's listening, could you share a little bit about you, how do we know each other, your background, and kind of where you are today?"

"Yeah, so I think we've gotten connected pretty strongly in the last six months or so. You took over our SEO PPC, helping us through the online streaming thing for our real estate company, and then we're also in a couple different masterminds together. And yeah, that's it. And then I know we got a skiing trip planned this winter."

"Yeah, that's right. I told you you got to come out to Utah. Remind me where you're based?"

"Ohio."

"Okay, yeah. Columbus, Ohio. Just not too far from pretty much anywhere, right? That's the... at least in the United States. Is that the advantage?"

"Awesome. So tell me a little bit about your real estate company."

"Yeah, so I started doing real estate five and a half years ago and started off just wholesaling properties, not really knowing a lot about real estate. Kind of just fell into it, not really knowing I wanted to do real estate but not knowing which niche to get into. And luckily, I fell into wholesaling because, as far as my opinion, it's a very well-rounded education. Like if you can find good deals, you can do land development, you can do flipping, you can hold rentals, but everything starts with finding that good deal. So we ended up doing nothing about wholesaling for the first two years, and then after a couple years of doing it, we started to get more into the flipping side, building out about 70 rentals, long-term and short-term rentals over the last three years, and using the wholesaling business as the core thing that funds everything else."

"Yeah, I love that strategy. Like you were saying, if you could start with the deal, then there's a lot of different stuff that you can do based on that. It seems like most of the clients that we worked with, they have taken kind of a similar path. You start out by learning to acquire properties for wholesale purposes, and then you start being able to branch out into everything else. And throughout that, speaking of branching out, I don't know if this falls into that or if you call this like a completely different thing in your business, but as I understand it, you've taken some of the things that you were great at in the business and turned that into a service or a product for other real estate investors. Do you want to share a little bit about that?"

"Yeah, so like eight months ago, I started doing a real estate virtual assistant business. And that was just for... I've always had really good relationships with my virtual assistants. I've been using them since I got into real estate, and I went to Egypt like two years ago, became really close with one of my guys, and as he kind of moved up through our company, he got to a point where we were using a third party to do our cold calling and texting. And he pretty much told me, 'Hey, I think I can do this better for you than these other companies.' And I'm always about split testing stuff, even if I was a little bit skeptical at first. I was like, 'All right, man, let's give it a try.' And gave him a little piece of our business, and within a few, like two months, he was doing better than the third party service I was actually happy with at the time. And then from there, I just started having him do more for my business. And then like some of the masterminds I'm in, I started sharing with people what was working within my company, and people started asking if I would do it for them. And so that's kind of... and now it's like we're doing stuff, so it's just grown organically from that. But it was all about trying to do some crucial part of a service or part of my business that I needed that I thought could be done better."

"Yeah, I understand. Well, that's awesome. I love that story. I think there's a lot of investors that are looking to start some type of service business or product for investors because it just... I think for a lot of people, real estate investing is kind of their first branch into the business world, and then you start seeing all these other businesses, you get curious, and you start doing that stuff. I'm really curious for you, what's so far has been unexpected? Like you saw this clean, seemingly simple path - I don't know if you thought it was simple, I know a lot of people do when they first start going down that path with the second business - but has it gone like you expected to, or have there been bumps along the way that you didn't expect?"

"It definitely had bumps along the way. I'm fortunate enough to where my partner with the company, he runs all of the operation side, and then I'm more, you know, like making sure that our product is good and that it works well for my business and telling people about it. But like, kind of the sales and marketing side. And I thought, you know, like I've been doing sales and marketing non-stop for the last six years, I think of myself as being really good at it, and then I just realized like I'm really good at sales and marketing to single-family homeowners, but then like in the business-to-business world, it's just so different. And I know I've talked to you about this in the past, it's like trying to wrap my head around... like one of the masterminds we're in, going there and just realizing how deep it goes and just how clueless I really am to that whole side of sales and marketing."

"Yeah, it's a different world. It's in some ways way more complicated, in other ways a little bit more simple. But it's... yeah, I've had to recalibrate some of my team, and that where they come from, those other places, then we get into this marketing to motivated sellers, it's like, calm down, this isn't that crazy, right? They're... it's... you're not going to have these really weird... like in the wholesale business, you're not going to have a case where a lead should be attributed to like 10 different marketing channels. In a business outside of that, where people have these long decision-making cycles and you overlap in a ton of different places, it can get really complicated, and there's a lot going on, you know, in terms of lifecycle marketing and all that. So I think... I think you're talking about Family Mastermind, right, when we were there?"

"Yeah, um, yeah, it was a good experience."

"Definitely. Like I always like to be in the, you know, feel like the small fish in the big pond, and I just felt so completely clueless there, especially the first day, because it was this real eye-opening experience like, 'Oh man, there's so much to learn and so much room for growth.'"

"Yeah, yeah, totally understood. And it's a different... yeah, it's a different world out there for sure. But it's awesome that you, you know, you understand who you're marketing to and that whole situation. I think that makes a big difference. It's something I wish I had when I first got into this industry five years ago was, you know, if I knew how real estate businesses functioned, then it would have made it a lot easier of a learning curve. So there's value to that."

"So tell me about these VA services. What kinds of things are your clients utilizing this for? And a follow-up question to that would be: how were they doing it before they worked with this service? And because of that, like, what are some of the differences that they're seeing? Or... you know, I'm hoping that we can get some actionable insights out of this as to like, this is how you can do this better. And obviously, working with your company is one way to pull that off, but I'm curious kind of where people are going wrong and how they're fixing it."

"So I think like one thing that I didn't realize... like I hired different... so we do cold calling, we do texting, we do lead management or follow-up specialists or junior acquisition person, kind of whatever you want to call it. And like I had done... I had hired people myself when I was early, you know, gone on Upwork and tried to find some experienced cold callers. And like the issue I ran into then, where I've really seen, I think, the biggest value or challenge for somebody kind of doing it their own, is just that whole management piece. Virtual... like unless you're tracking your KPIs really tight, it's just kind of hard to make sure that somebody around the world is doing what they say they are as much as they're doing. And I mean, like with cold calling, you can track metrics, but there's just also like, you know, lots of different things that can go wrong. Like you know, there's... you have a cold caller in the Philippines and a hurricane comes through and knocks out the power for a week, or you know, connectivity issues, or dialer goes down. So a lot of that, I think, when I did it on my own maybe three or four years ago before I started using different services, that was like where I fell short, was just thinking, 'Oh, you know, this is just like hiring somebody in the office, and this won't be that tough.' But I know a lot of people do it on their own, and it's definitely nice because you can have more... you know, obviously, like we all want control over our process and being able to have that control of 'This is exactly what the script is going to be, if I want to do live transfers I can do live transfers.' So that's like a big advantage of people who go out and do it on their own. But there's just like a lot... I've learned there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that you don't necessarily think about at first."

"Yeah, and the more of it that you control, the less freedom you have from the details of those things as well, right? So it's good and it's also bad. I think for me, I've shifted as a person a lot in terms of that. Like at the closer to the beginning of my business, I wanted that like detailed control of everything. And then as you start elevating your business, you really just want... you want those details managed, but you don't want to be the one that manages them. So then your options become some type of third party that's doing that or somebody on your team that's accountable to those things, and all those things are difficult, and all of those involve you relinquishing some level of control. And it's... yeah, it's interesting just thinking about my own journey through that. I'm curious if anybody feels similar kind of hearing what you're talking about, or if you've gone through a similar experience yourself where you kind of valued that control more at the beginning, and then at some point, if you could just get the results without having to control every detail, that's the real thing, right? Because you have so many opportunities that you can be chasing."

"Yeah, there's only so much time in the day. So like, you know, what's like the first thing you can get off of your plate, or you know, what's something that somebody... you know, because in a perfect world, like if you would have people in the U.S. sitting here cold calling every day or, you know, but that's just not scalable and it's too expensive. And if you can reach so many more people... but yeah, it's... that's always something I struggle with too, is holding on to stuff for too long. And hindsight's 20/20, it's like, man, if... if I would have known what I know now, like I would have let go of this quicker, I would have let go of that quicker. And that's been kind of like the fun part in this new venture the last year, has been like taking a lot of this stuff that I've learned over the last five, five and a half years and all the mistakes I've made and just be like, 'Okay, well this round I'm not gonna do this, I'm like, you know, I'm gonna try to hand this off as quick as possible.' So yeah, it's a constant struggle."

"Yeah, yeah, but completely believable. Here's a question, because there's kind of two different things you hear around this a lot. You hear this idea of like, you have to hold on and be patient because it's going to improve, and you have to let the process do its thing and get to that point where you're having success with something like... maybe let's just say cold call marketing right now, for example, something that you're familiar with. And then there's the other side of, you know, cutting your losses quick, right? Like the whole 'fire quick' mentality or whatever the case is. How do you know when to be either way? Like, have you seen situations where you've held on too long and it's... or not too long, but you've held on for a long time when you didn't want to, and it's actually benefited you well? And what's the difference between those situations and the situations where you did hold on too long and you should have let go?"

"Yeah, I think like... you know, I part of... like being an entrepreneur, I think an entrepreneur in general, and I know me personally, like I'm very emotional. Like I like to make fast decisions. If a marketing channel is not working, like you know, like I'll pull the plug on it. Where like something like that, it just... it takes time. Like you're not gonna be able to really get the metrics, you know, that you need. You're gonna make an emotional decision instead of something that's data-driven. So I know I've like... like we've sent mail for like four years, and then last year we started doing TV commercials, and we cut our mail because our mail had slowed down a bit. It was still good, it was very consistent, but we had cut it off, and we cut it off for like almost like eight months because we were spending just a ton of money on network TV ads. And that was like a horrible decision because for us, TV didn't work well, but then we also took away resources from our mail, which is, you know, super consistent, steady. You know, it's not like... I think maybe it's like a five or six return on a dollar. It's not like super crazy, but it was very little work, kind of like PPC for us is like, you know, it's just inbound leads generated consistently without having to get lost in the weeds. So that's... that's definitely somewhere where I've, you know, like pulled the plug too early, just like, you know, just made more of an emotional decision instead of really waiting for drama or reacting on the drama."

"And then I think like the one thing I've always learned too is like... that's like where it is kind of good for my own experience to not wait too long and to just make that fast decision, has been with like personnel. Like every... like I... all... every time I felt like there was somebody on our team who didn't fit our core values or just weren't a good fit, like my tendency is always to like try to get things to improve. We're gonna put them on a performance plan, we're going to do their quarterly review, and we're going to coach them back. And I don't know if it's because I'm a bad coach or just, you know, what it is, but it's... it's always been... I've never gone back from feeling that way and been proved wrong. It's always been like, 'Man, like why did you wait so long?' Probably because of the emotion behind it. It's hard to let people go, but that's like one instance where it's always been like cut the cord quickly and move on."

"Yeah, so... so would you say it generally with marketing, you've got to move slower than your gut, and with people, you have to move faster?"

"100%."

"Yeah, that's interesting. And everybody's got's going to be different, of course. So that's... but... but that's interesting to hear kind of for you what your experience has been. That's... and I've had, by the way, similar... very similar experiences. So... so I don't think... I don't think you're alone in that at all. If you... because we do focus on marketing more than anything else in this podcast specifically... if we're talking about what you've learned from a marketing standpoint specifically regarding cold call, because I imagine you have a lot of insights there that you didn't have before because you're able to see not just what's happening for your own business and the granular details of that, but then also what's happening for other people's businesses as well. What are you... what are you seeing right now? And kind of as a follow-up question to that, what is the difference between those that are performing really well with those channels right now and those that aren't doing as well?"

"Yeah, so I'm... I'm not a very good detailed person. My partner is, and like he can explain like the metrics of what's working. I... one thing though with that... like one thing generally in cold calling, like it's obviously coming... just like any... anybody who's getting marketing, it all comes down to your sales process and having a really good sales process in place. No matter how good your marketing is, if you're not... you know, if you're not managing those leads well, that's probably like the biggest thing I see with people who are performing well versus people who aren't. So it's gotten to the point too where like, you know, we're not taking on people who haven't been wholesaling or marketing for properties for at least a year, like ideally two years, because we just... we just found they don't have a sales process in place, and it just sucks the energy out of us. So we'd rather work with people who've been doing it a lot longer."

"But I... I know one thing is like on the texting side, we've always been really good with texting. But when we started doing it for other people, it really just made us go so much deeper because it's one thing like, you know, having you know, like four or five Launch Controls for my own company, but if I've got like, you know, five or ten Launch Control companies for good friends who I'm like telling them that like, 'Hey, we can do this' or 'This is going to perform, trust us,' it puts us... like pressure on it, really puts pressure on me and my partner to know it... like, 'Okay, like let's get this right, like what can we do to revamp, you know, our process mapping and our templates?' And like we use Launch Control, so we'll jump onto performance reviews with Launch twice a month. They're just like, you know, get really in depth on like, 'This is what we're... you know, we're going to split test this template, we're going to split test this way to kind of close the call and get them online.' And so that's... that's been a huge benefit to just the real estate side and, you know, the service thought."

"I don't mean for this question to be upsetting to you. I'm just gonna say kind of like how I've seen it, and I'm ready for you to tell me what I'm seeing wrong or if I'm like spot on. But what seems to have been the rhetoric for a while with texting is that it's dying, and every time I look at it, I'm like, 'How is it still not dead?' Because it just keeps on going. I don't know if you felt that same way, like if he seems like there's always been like these different deadlines, like by this date it's going to be dead, by this date it's going to be dead, and then it just doesn't happen. What the heck is going on with it, and what do you think the future looks like?"

"But I... I know one thing is like on the texting side, we've always been really good with texting. But when we started doing it for other people, it really just made us go so much deeper because it's one thing like, you know, having you know, like four or five Launch Controls for my own company, but if I've got like, you know, five or ten Launch Control companies for good friends who I'm like telling them that like, 'Hey, we can do this' or 'This is going to perform, trust us,' it puts us... like pressure on it, really puts pressure on me and my partner to know it... like, 'Okay, like let's get this right, like what can we do to revamp, you know, our process mapping and our templates?' And like we use Launch Control, so we'll jump onto performance reviews with Launch twice a month. They're just like, you know, get really in depth on like, 'This is what we're... you know, we're going to split test this template, we're going to split test this way to kind of close the call and get them online.' And so that's... that's been a huge benefit to just the real estate side and, you know, the service thought."

"I don't mean for this question to be upsetting to you. I'm just gonna say kind of like how I've seen it, and I'm ready for you to tell me what I'm seeing wrong or if I'm like spot on. But what seems to have been the rhetoric for a while with texting is that it's dying, and every time I look at it, I'm like, 'How is it still not dead?' Because it just keeps on going. I don't know if you felt that same way, like if he seems like there's always been like these different deadlines, like by this date it's going to be dead, by this date it's going to be dead, and then it just doesn't happen. What the heck is going on with it, and what do you think the future looks like?"

"Yeah, so it's... I remember like when I... like four years ago, I was at... I was at a mastermind or a real estate event, and the guy up there was talking about how it was his best channel, but you better, you know, strike the iron when it's hot because it's not going to be around much longer. You know, there's going to be all kinds of regulations, and geez, I know one of the bigger text services just got shut down a week or two ago. But like the service that we use has like always been extremely cognizant of doing everything in a TCPA compliant way, not even allowing you to... you scrub it... like not having you scrub against the DNC list but personally doing it and then just making sure that it's in a way that's done well. So you know, we'll see what happens, like you know, anything can happen, and I've been hearing it for so long, but what I've seen is like... like over the last four years that like our biggest dollar in, dollar out has consistently been texting every year. And then as we've dialed in our processes more, it's gotten better. But you know, that's... that's misleading too though because I know like for... to get a cold caller, a text contract, it's about half the price versus a web or PPC. But when we ran our first quarter numbers, those PPC and mail leads are converting in an average of 50 days into a... or five days into a contract, where our outbound marketing is taking 50 days. So you know, and then there's all kinds of costs, you know, included in all that follow-up and everything."

"Yeah, I mean, there's cost there, and then there's... you know, what I'm really curious... have you seen a difference in your spreads? Do you have larger spreads, do more inbound channels, or are you pretty consistent across all channels? Or do you not know?"

"A little bit more... no, I know absolutely. It's a little bit more on inbound, maybe like... like 10% more."

"Okay, yeah, that's helpful to know. Usually people tell us 20 to 30% is kind of normal. It's going to be so different on each... in each market, you know, and in sample size as well. But it's... it's interesting to... to say... I was just doing some writing, some internal documentation for like us and our team because we're bringing on some new people and stuff like that, and you know, teaching, you know, what are the things we need to know about our clients? And kind of did the rundown on all the different marketing channels, and for texting, it was like, 'I don't know what the heck's going on with it. It might be dead soon, like next week, and it might live for 10 years.' I know it's really cheap though from a per deal basis, and that seems to have always been pretty true. Like so many companies, it's like their lowest cost per deal and, by extension, usually a pretty great return on investment. But it's really hard to measure the real cost in terms of like, you know, focusing the company, depending on the quality of the leads and how do the spreads affected and all those kinds of things. Like we know for sure like a lot of people would say a 10x return and in texting is the same as like a 6x return on PPC when it comes to like what is equally beneficial to the business, but so many opinions out there. It's hard to... it's not apples to apples at all."

"No, no, it's... yeah, and I... I don't know, like our philosophy has always been having like, you know, so like we do a pretty high volume, and we're only in one market. So it's always been like, 'How can we maximize our marketing dollars as much as possible?' Other than TV, because I was just burning money, but you know, it's... yeah, it's like, you know, this balance of you can only do so much outbound marketing or... yeah, outbound marketing. You eventually run out of data, skip tracing. And then with the inbound stuff, it's, you know, usually your budget, and then also just when are you going to reach that point of diminishing returns? So we've always been like, you know, let's just have this balance and have a lot of lead managers to, you know, help get through all these outbound leads we have."

"Yeah, that's... that's awesome. Yeah, the... the standard advice that I've given people is that there's kind of two ways to grow a wholesale company. The first one is going to be one market, many marketing channels. The second one is going to be one marketing channel in many different markets. We have clients that do both of those. What is your opinion on one of those models versus the other, and why did you choose the one that you chose?"

"So I got some advice pretty early on... I've had... I've been maybe wholesaling for a year, and I was having some success, and like a mentor of mine was just like, 'Man, go... go deeper, not wider.' I see all these people who like go into other markets, and you know, like there's... for... he's like, 'Man, Columbus is this honey hole. It's a great opportunity. This is where all your connections are, or your buyers, your title company, you know, your contractors, everything.' Like, 'If... if you put energy into going into other places, that's going to take away from, you know, your opportunity here, and there's more than enough here.'"

"And then I think the other thing for me is that like, my style of sales is like, I'm a big advocate of getting face to face with people. If we sign contracts over the phone, but like I always tell my salespeople, like, 'If somebody's texting us, they have the advantage. If we're over the phone with somebody, you know, we're on neutral ground. But when we get face to face with people, there's just this huge advantage that we have because, you know, we can read body language, you know, we can touch somebody on the shoulder, we can make this emotional connection.' So I think it's kind of been a combination of, you know, my experience or the advice I got early on and then just my own style of selling. But you know, I... I know it... I know the virtual model works really well, especially if you're getting, you know, inbound leads where you know, there's generally a lot more motivation. And I see so many people do it, but for me, it's like, you know, I... I'm constantly want to, you know, chase squirrels and all these different directions, and it's just like, you know, like just focus on one thing and try not to get too distracted."

"Yeah, yeah. I... well, I think both models are really valid. I see a lot of people with a lot of success in each of those models, although one interesting differentiator is it seems like COVID was kind of a time where the virtual model became a lot more possible. It became a lot more normal to buy a house virtually, and... and so... so many of the companies I know that have started after COVID, they are more virtual across many markets, and they can pull it off. And then the people that have been around for 20 years, it doesn't make sense to branch into other markets because they're so good at what they do. I see... I definitely see pros and cons on either side."

"A lot more scalable too if you're... if you're doing that virtual model. You're not limited to having boots on the ground, and you can go into the other markets and do it from a central location."

"Yeah, yeah. And I've... I've seen people get absolutely destroyed trying that though, and I've seen people do too well. I think it's just being the best at what it is that you're doing is what really makes a difference. And speaking of which, you mentioned before that you don't really take on anybody as a client that you don't think has a good sales process, and one of your metrics for that is, you know, how long have they been doing that? And that's usually an indicator, although there's... I mean, you... you probably would agree, I'd assume, that how long someone's been doing something is often not a great indicator because there's a... I mean, just... just think about it, right? You can find people who've been specializing in one thing for 20 years in their life, and they're still horrible at it because some people are just those people, right? And different companies have better processes and things like that. So... so I'm... I'm just curious, like, what your thoughts are... like, if someone's listening to this and they're just wondering, 'Well, I don't actually know if I do have a good sales process,' how do you look at your own business and realize, 'Do I have a good sales process, or am I lacking there?'"

"Yeah, so it's... I remember like when I... like four years ago, I was at... I was at a mastermind or a real estate event, and the guy up there was talking about how it was his best channel, but you better, you know, strike the iron when it's hot because it's not going to be around much longer. You know, there's going to be all kinds of regulations, and geez, I know one of the bigger text services just got shut down a week or two ago. But like the service that we use has like always been extremely cognizant of doing everything in a TCPA compliant way, not even allowing you to... you scrub it... like not having you scrub against the DNC list but personally doing it and then just making sure that it's in a way that's done well. So you know, we'll see what happens, like you know, anything can happen, and I've been hearing it for so long, but what I've seen is like... like over the last four years that like our biggest dollar in, dollar out has consistently been texting every year. And then as we've dialed in our processes more, it's gotten better. But you know, that's... that's misleading too though because I know like for... to get a cold caller, a text contract, it's about half the price versus a web or PPC. But when we ran our first quarter numbers, those PPC and mail leads are converting in an average of 50 days into a... or five days into a contract, where our outbound marketing is taking 50 days. So you know, and then there's all kinds of costs, you know, included in all that follow-up and everything."

"Yeah, I mean, there's cost there, and then there's... you know, what I'm really curious... have you seen a difference in your spreads? Do you have larger spreads, do more inbound channels, or are you pretty consistent across all channels? Or do you not know?"

"A little bit more... no, I know absolutely. It's a little bit more on inbound, maybe like... like 10% more."

"Okay, yeah, that's helpful to know. Usually people tell us 20 to 30% is kind of normal. It's going to be so different on each... in each market, you know, and in sample size as well. But it's... it's interesting to... to say... I was just doing some writing, some internal documentation for like us and our team because we're bringing on some new people and stuff like that, and you know, teaching, you know, what are the things we need to know about our clients? And kind of did the rundown on all the different marketing channels, and for texting, it was like, 'I don't know what the heck's going on with it. It might be dead soon, like next week, and it might live for 10 years.' I know it's really cheap though from a per deal basis, and that seems to have always been pretty true. Like so many companies, it's like their lowest cost per deal and, by extension, usually a pretty great return on investment. But it's really hard to measure the real cost in terms of like, you know, focusing the company, depending on the quality of the leads and how do the spreads affected and all those kinds of things. Like we know for sure like a lot of people would say a 10x return and in texting is the same as like a 6x return on PPC when it comes to like what is equally beneficial to the business, but so many opinions out there. It's hard to... it's not apples to apples at all."

"No, no, it's... yeah, and I... I don't know, like our philosophy has always been having like, you know, so like we do a pretty high volume, and we're only in one market. So it's always been like, 'How can we maximize our marketing dollars as much as possible?' Other than TV, because I was just burning money, but you know, it's... yeah, it's like, you know, this balance of you can only do so much outbound marketing or... yeah, outbound marketing. You eventually run out of data, skip tracing. And then with the inbound stuff, it's, you know, usually your budget, and then also just when are you going to reach that point of diminishing returns? So we've always been like, you know, let's just have this balance and have a lot of lead managers to, you know, help get through all these outbound leads we have."

"Yeah, that's... that's awesome. Yeah, the... the standard advice that I've given people is that there's kind of two ways to grow a wholesale company. The first one is going to be one market, many marketing channels. The second one is going to be one marketing channel in many different markets. We have clients that do both of those. What is your opinion on one of those models versus the other, and why did you choose the one that you chose?"

"So I got some advice pretty early on... I've had... I've been maybe wholesaling for a year, and I was having some success, and like a mentor of mine was just like, 'Man, go... go deeper, not wider.' I see all these people who like go into other markets, and you know, like there's... for... he's like, 'Man, Columbus is this honey hole. It's a great opportunity. This is where all your connections are, or your buyers, your title company, you know, your contractors, everything.' Like, 'If... if you put energy into going into other places, that's going to take away from, you know, your opportunity here, and there's more than enough here.'"

"And then I think the other thing for me is that like, my style of sales is like, I'm a big advocate of getting face to face with people. If we sign contracts over the phone, but like I always tell my salespeople, like, 'If somebody's texting us, they have the advantage. If we're over the phone with somebody, you know, we're on neutral ground. But when we get face to face with people, there's just this huge advantage that we have because, you know, we can read body language, you know, we can touch somebody on the shoulder, we can make this emotional connection.' So I think it's kind of been a combination of, you know, my experience or the advice I got early on and then just my own style of selling. But you know, I... I know it... I know the virtual model works really well, especially if you're getting, you know, inbound leads where you know, there's generally a lot more motivation. And I see so many people do it, but for me, it's like, you know, I... I'm constantly want to, you know, chase squirrels and all these different directions, and it's just like, you know, like just focus on one thing and try not to get too distracted."

"Yeah, yeah. I... well, I think both models are really valid. I see a lot of people with a lot of success in each of those models, although one interesting differentiator is it seems like COVID was kind of a time where the virtual model became a lot more possible. It became a lot more normal to buy a house virtually, and... and so... so many of the companies I know that have started after COVID, they are more virtual across many markets, and they can pull it off. And then the people that have been around for 20 years, it doesn't make sense to branch into other markets because they're so good at what they do. I see... I definitely see pros and cons on either side."

"A lot more scalable too if you're... if you're doing that virtual model. You're not limited to having boots on the ground, and you can go into the other markets and do it from a central location."

"Yeah, yeah. And I've... I've seen people get absolutely destroyed trying that though, and I've seen people do too well. I think it's just being the best at what it is that you're doing is what really makes a difference. And speaking of which, you mentioned before that you don't really take on anybody as a client that you don't think has a good sales process, and one of your metrics for that is, you know, how long have they been doing that? And that's usually an indicator, although there's... I mean, you... you probably would agree, I'd assume, that how long someone's been doing something is often not a great indicator because there's a... I mean, just... just think about it, right? You can find people who've been specializing in one thing for 20 years in their life, and they're still horrible at it because some people are just those people, right? And different companies have better processes and things like that. So... so I'm... I'm just curious, like, what your thoughts are... like, if someone's listening to this and they're just wondering, 'Well, I don't actually know if I do have a good sales process,' how do you look at your own business and realize, 'Do I have a good sales process, or am I lacking there?'"

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Brandon sits down with Chris Burrow, a successful rehabber and wholesaler from Atlanta, Georgia. He shares his journey and the valuable lessons he has learned in his five years in the real estate business. They discuss the importance of humility, growth mindset, and transparent communication in the industry. Chris also shares a poignant story that changed his perspective on helping others and treating them with dignity.

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"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Chris Burrow. Chris is a rehabber, wholesaler, innovator - whatever you want to call it - outside of Atlanta, Georgia. He has been crazy successful in his past five years in business and learned tons of lessons along the way. We're going to talk with him about what he's learned about seller appointments, different marketing strategies, and exit strategies that have brought his business to the next level.

How you doing today, Chris?"

"I'm fantastic. How about you, Brandon?"

"Hey, doing fantastic. Thank you. It's awesome to have you here. I'm super grateful for the time that you set aside for this podcast. I think an awesome place to start would be in your own words - can you describe what you do and a little bit of the background, how you got into it?"

"Sure. My background is door-to-door sales, and I've tried to start many businesses and failed at many launches of businesses and scaling those. Ultimately, it was just kind of in a place of desperation. I came across wholesaling through a lot of the podcasts that existed at the time and the information that was out there. I thought I would take a swing at it and luckily found something I ended up being really good at. I just feel really blessed to be kind of part of this business and all the opportunity it provides."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, it reminds me of our mutual friend Cody Hofhein when he was talking about how you can pound doors on insurance all day, but it's not the opportunity vehicle for you. I'm sure you learned a lot of things from door-to-door, but it's great to kind of level up those skills into something that's a little bit more lucrative."

"Yeah, I think that experience helped prepare me for some of the opportunity that came our way. I've been told 'no' a thousand - more than a thousand, a million times - so it's been good to build kind of that muscle and work that out. But yeah, when we met a couple of years ago, we were ready to kind of take things to the next level. You've been super instrumental to the growth of our business, and it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Looking forward to talking through some of this stuff."

"Yeah, I'm just super impressed with what you've accomplished over this time. You went from - well, I think you - I always look back at myself like a year ago and think what an idiot that guy was and I can't believe I'm like embarrassed that I ever was that person. I think you're - I don't think you're probably exactly the same way, but I know that you, as I see it, have come a really long way as a person, like as a business owner and in terms of your success. You want to share a little bit about what you guys have been able to accomplish in your business in the past year in terms of whatever you're comfortable sharing like deals, revenue, and what the business looks like from a team standpoint? Like those kinds of basics?"

"Yeah, absolutely. Last year was our biggest year. We've been fortunate enough to grow year over year. We've doubled our revenue and our deals and our business, so we always set these lofty goals and we figure out in the moment how do we get there. You know, the path isn't always super clear, but we know that we've got the ability to get there. So last year we ended at 83 deals. That was 3 million - 2.985 in gross profit or revenue. This year our goal is 180 and that's 8 million. Some of those are going to be rentals, but that's been over the course of five years. So we started in February of '18, so we're a little past the five-year mark now."

"Yeah, that is crazy impressive, especially in a competitive market like Atlanta that you're in, to be doing those kinds of numbers. That's fantastic. And I have my personal beliefs on some things that have contributed to your success just based on conversations we've had and based on what I understand about you, but I'm really curious to hear from your side. As you've looked back and you say these are the things that made a major difference in my business - I'm sure there's several of them - but what would you say contributes most to that growth that you've seen over that time period?"

"Well, I think - I don't think I chose this, but there's been multiple times where I've been very humbled in the business and just where - like our first year in, we did 35 deals. I think we made about 350 grand that first year. Well, I was feeling pretty good about myself, pretty proud of myself, right? And I had the opportunity to meet other people that were doing, you know, twice that. So me and you met, I think, at the beginning of '21, and I actually had a conversation with Cody Hofhein. I went to Cody's scale event and once again walked in kind of like - I don't want to say arrogant, but a little bit complacent and proud of myself, like, 'Hey man, maybe I've arrived.' And once again got kind of dished a huge slice of humble pie. And so Cody actually challenged me at that. He said, 'Hey man, act like you belong here. Like, you've got so much more potential. Like, dude, the sky's the limit. You can go get it, but dude, you're not there yet. Like, go accomplish this.' And so I've taken those moments to heart and really kind of made it part of our core values for the company. One of those is growth, and so if we're not always striving, achieving to be better and achieve more, then we're complacent. And what I found is - I don't think you're ever gonna arrive, but I've looked - hey, I guess maybe you were wanting a thing of like, 'Hey, we've used this tool or that tool,' but that humility and that striving for growth and learning new things has kept us pushing in a direction that's been positive."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. And I do remember that event because I think that's where we met, and that was - yeah, over two years ago, I think now. I can't remember where exactly it was, but it's been a long time."

"Beginning '21. I'm glad you know because I don't."

"So yeah, maybe two and a half years or two and a quarter years from now, which is crazy. So that's one humbling point, but you referenced that there are multiple. Were there other points that were kind of humbling to you throughout this journey that you've had?"

"Sure. I think there's times that we fail on a flip. I'm a little overconfident. One of my friends said if you've never lost money on a deal, you're probably not taking enough risk. But obviously, we try to limit those. There was one last year that - I used to set foot on every single piece of property we bought and we flipped. As we scale, it's impossible to go to every single house, so we rely on photos, we rely on information from acquisition managers. And ultimately, the decision came down to me to purchase a property. On paper, man, it looked like we were gonna have a huge - we thought it was maybe a double or triple. We'd make maybe 125 grand with the projection. In the end, we lost 60. And that was the most money we've ever lost on a flip. And it was once again one of those moments of, 'Man, you made' - we can look back and say, 'Hey, we made these three critical errors in the process,' and it really shaped the way that we do our underwriting on our flips as we're purchasing properties. So we've put some safeguards in place because of that specific event. And once again, like it - and I have to answer to the team also. I have to look at people and say, 'Guys, this was on me. I made the mistake, and because of that, now we're doing this, and here's how we protect.' It's not just my income; it's the income of our team. Like, we've got - I think 13 employees at this point. They all have spouses and families. So anytime we make a critical error, it's not just affecting my pocket, man. It's putting everybody's livelihoods in jeopardy. So it's a much, much bigger deal than just, 'Oh, we lost a little bit of money.'"

"Yeah, I understand. That's crazy. What was - if you don't mind me asking, what was the critical error that led to that big of a discrepancy between what you thought you'd make and what you actually did?"

"We went back and looked at the photos that the acquisition manager took, and this is not on him, but the photos show the house that looks like it's very secluded. There were two or three points where we had an opportunity to identify that this house was actually in the front yard of another house. So like, literally, I don't know, 40 feet away is another house. They both have a shared driveway. At no point in our purchase and leading up to that did we know it was a shared driveway, and it really looks like it's in someone else's front yard. And we're thinking about, 'Hey, this is a super premium flip.' It was a higher price point. It was also in a county that was way more rural. So we did too high of a price point in a rural county, and those things compounded to equal a big failure."

"Yeah, that's a bummer. I guess learn from it and move on, but that's crazy. Well, super helpful to know some of the things that have been influential for you over the past, Chris. Let's just say we were to look at a little bit more skill-based, right? Because I love the humility, but I'm also curious because I'm sure that humility's kind of led to a lot of different skills that have served you really well. When you look at kind of where you are now and the things that you are good at that are contributing to the success that you're having, compared to where you were before, what are some of those things that are the biggest change? Like before we were doing this, we're doing that, and now we're doing this, and that makes a difference for us."

"Yeah, the temptation in this job is to walk into a property and feature sell, and that can be, 'Hey, we're the fastest, the easiest, the best. You know, we have a five-star rating,' or to try to convince someone that we have the best price or the best offer. And that's also feature selling. And as salespeople, so if you're coming from car sales, insurance - I came from door-to-door - that's what we're taught is, 'Hey, our product beats this other product by X, Y, and Z.' And when I try to use that in this industry, I fail. We have a sign downstairs in our office that says 'Get Real,' and what that means is, 'Hey, let's cut the BS. Let's stop trying to talk fast. Let's approach this opportunity, let's lower the walls and just get real with people. Let's get transparent.' And so that starts to encourage some vulnerability. And it really occurred to me - there were two moments that I can tell two stories. I'll just pick one. Is it okay to tell you a story of when I had this like realization of what this job is actually about?"

"Of course."

"When our industry really should be about - there was a lady that called me that said she needs to sell her house quickly. She was facing a foreclosure, and this is coming up in like two weeks. I talked to her a little bit on the phone. I asked if I could come out and see the house, and she was very, very apprehensive to let me come to the property. It took almost 30 minutes for me to convince her, 'Hey, it's okay. You know, I - there's no judgment.' I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to find when I showed up. I knew it wasn't going to be good, but I showed up to this property, and it really looked - we see a lot of houses that look abandoned. This one really, really looked abandoned. The yard had grown up so much, like the weeds turned into trees kind of thing. The stairs had rotted out going up to the stairs. I knock on the door. She opens the door, and she's in a wheelchair. And a lot of the houses that we go to and the people we meet with are somewhat unaware of the condition that they live in. So you might find a house that has, you know, the dog has used the bathroom all over the house. People aren't fully aware that that's not how other people live, and so sometimes there's just this like - they're just unaware of how other people might perceive the way they live. That was not the case here. So she opened the door, I step in, and there was a smell that hit me that I've never smelled before. It really very much smelled almost like a dead body. Like that's the only way I can describe it. I don't even know what that smell is like, but it's the only thing that hit my mind. And I looked at her, and on her face was shame. I mean, just pure shame. And that was different than what I'm used to. Like I said, most people aren't fully aware of how bad something is. That was not the case here, and she was so embarrassed of this house and her condition. And so I made the decision right there, like if this was my mom sitting here in this wheelchair, how would I treat her? How would I want someone else to speak and treat her? Am I going to try to make her feel bad about this and feel extra shame? She's already feeling it, so that's not the purpose. The purpose is to help her feel some dignity and that she should be treated like anybody else. So I stepped in, I'm wearing sandals - I don't want to get too graphic, but I stepped into carpet that - this lady had a medical condition where her legs leaked fluid, and she's literally been confined to this property for 10 years. She's not left the house once. Once a week, her daughter would come and deliver a case of Coca-Cola and a pizza. And so all of this is in this house, including what I'm stepping in. And there's just nowhere to sit, so I'm like, 'Hey, I'm just gonna kneel down beside her.' And that was like the moment clicked that I needed to hear her story. If I needed to get real, 'Hey, let's talk about it. We both are aware of what the situation is, but let's figure out a solution together.' And so it was this moment of like, I don't have to tell her who our company is. I don't have to show her reviews. I don't have to, like, you know, put our competitors down. It's not about any of that. It was about treating her with respect, hearing her situation, and really getting real on what needs to happen next. Can I provide that solution that really makes a difference in her life? And we were able to do that. We bought the house. We got her into a one-level, like single-level apartment where she can actually get out of the house. She was able to buy like a wheelchair-accessible van with the money from the sale of the house. And it really solved a real problem. So I feel like that's the difference between how most people approach it and what it really should be about. And it's about letting them tell their story."

"Yeah, that is really neat. So would you say you put more emphasis on like the rapport building part of the sales process than other people would?"

"I actually hate that word. I hate rapport because people feel like the temptation is if someone likes you, they're going to sell us their house at a great price. It's not the case. It doesn't matter how much people like us. It does matter how much people trust us, and the only way that people trust us is by us allowing them to get vulnerable with us and kind of vice versa. So we try to not focus on rapport. I know it's a semantics issue a little bit, but we try to not focus on rapport because that insinuates like I want someone to like me. No, we want people to trust us."

"I understand. That's super interesting. So you understanding that and you having that experience obviously changes your mindset around this, but I know you're not running out there into sellers' houses that often these days, right? You have a team of people who are doing that, who are kind of held accountable to using that process. So how do you take this insight that you have about like, this is what acquisitions is really about, and have your team reflect that in the way that they're doing their appointments?"

"I think there's a moment for everyone where it clicks, and the stories do help, like that story and the other stories about where we realize - I actually tell my team, if you walk out of the appointment and they say, 'Hey, hold on before you go. Robert, what's your last name again?' or if they say, 'Hey, by the way, what's the name of your company?' That's how you know that we've done our job the right way because we've not made it about us. So it does take some time, and I do think it's kind of the anti-sales approach to this job. We don't want like - the more we're talking, the more we're losing, the more it's not about what it should be. It really should be about the person we're sitting across from."

"You say it takes some time. When you started thinking about your appointments this way, do you have any idea like how things shifted in terms of how long you would spend at the appointment?"

"That's a great question. It really - it's going to extend the appointment, and there's just no way around that. If you're there for less than an hour, you're not doing the right thing. You're not - it's not going to be effective. Now, you might walk out without a contract in less than an hour, but we all know that there are things that arise that create challenges like getting a contract to closing. If you spent less than an hour, you're borrowing trouble. You're asking for trouble later on because it's not enough time to build that connection. So it really pushes into the like two-hour, really close to two hours or more sometimes, of an effective, meaningful like relationship and appointment."

"Yeah, that is - yeah, that's a long appointment. I don't think a lot of people think like when they first get into this, like I'm gonna spend two hours with sellers in their houses. But that's - yeah, that's insane. But I do have other clients that do that too in terms of like their amount of time that they have in appointments, but it doesn't seem like it's the norm by any means that I'm hearing from people. How do you - obviously one aspect of that is making sure your acquisitions team isn't too rushed. How do you kind of figure that out in terms of is this like a certain number of leads that people are allowed to manage that allows them to do that? Or is it gaps in between when the appointments are scheduled? Like, how do you make sure your team doesn't fall to that pressure of 'I've got to keep on moving, I gotta go get more contracts'?"

"We space out their appointments. Our acquisition managers are really only responsible for being in the house and negotiating. We're not asking them to lead gen. We're not asking them to cold call. Their only responsibility is running two up to three appointments a day, and that is it. So we've separated the follow-up. We've separated the appointment scheduling. We've separated a lot of the stuff so that they're singularly focused, and they know their only opportunity or their best opportunity is when they're in the house. So the quicker you get out, the less likely you are to have a deal."

"Yeah, I mean, when you say that, I totally get it, right? If I'm an acquisitions manager and I've got two, maybe three appointments today, and that's literally my entire job, I don't do anything else, I'm going to invest some time into that, right? I'm not going to just be in a rush running from one to the next because if I wasn't, I'd have an extra four hours that day to do something else."

"That's exactly right. And there is a balance between having too much and not enough, and we're still figuring all of that out. We're not perfect. We're still a young company, but I have found that that's been the most effective. Once we added a lead manager that is the first line of response to an inbound lead, and they're working on getting some of the motivation out and scheduling an appointment, making that separation has made a huge difference in our conversions."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. It's good. I mean, people struggle to do multiple jobs, right? If you don't have a lead manager, then your acquisitions manager is your lead manager, and they might not be good at both jobs. It could be different. I, you know, I don't know how other companies and wholesalers are doing it. The thing I hear the most is they're asking their acquisition managers to cold call. So they're generating the lead, now they're responsible for maybe going out and seeing the property and negotiating, and then sometimes there - I mean, there's other responsibilities of getting it to closing. I just don't see how that's a scalable operation by any means."

"I haven't heard that very much myself in terms of like acquisitions managers cold calling. The exception is - I do know companies that do it to keep their acquisitions managers like hungry, if that makes sense. Like they have a certain amount of like self-prospecting that you have to do in a week, and it's not a ton, and it's not even going to generate that much business, but it makes them appreciate the warm leads that they do get, if that makes sense. Like it keeps them, you know, keeps them grounded so they don't become that person that just thinks that like every seller owes them the house because they're just so high and mighty and willing to meet with them, you know?"

"Yeah, there is - there's something to be said for people, you know, hustling or at least having the perspective of how hard it is to generate a lead. Like you've got to be able to know - like it's one thing to look on paper, 'Hey, we spent 250 bucks on the lead,' but to feel how much effort it takes to generate that same lead if you're cold calling - like yeah, I think there's maybe value in that. Maybe we'll add that to our training."

"Yeah, I don't know if it's a good idea or not. I know people do it, so I don't - yeah, I don't know what to - I don't know what to tell you, but I do think there's - I do think there is some value to that. And they obviously would commission them significantly better on leads they self-source. That's an important piece of it too, not just a lot more work for no benefit."

"So I'm curious to hear - oh, sorry, go ahead."

"Oh, I was just - yeah, I was just gonna agree with you that I think most of the people that get into the like the paid lead generation - you're paying for leads - very quickly abandon having their acquisition managers like generate leads. It's just not a very efficient thing. But I think - I mean, I think that's actually the majority of your local wholesalers or investors out there. I think they're trying to do that. They just are either misguided or - I don't know specifically."

"Yeah, that is - yeah, I agree with you. Let's talk about marketing. This podcast is a little bit more focused on marketing than anything else, obviously because that's something I know more about than anything else, and I'm practically useless in every other area. So I'm curious to hear about your marketing journey because you say you've been at this for about five years. You're too humble, Brandon."

"Humble or actually dumb in other areas is also a very plausible reason why I would say what I just said. But I'm really curious to hear like your whole journey you've gone through and what has worked for you over time. I know - is it five years? Have you been doing this? Did I hear that right? So I imagine things have changed majorly over that time period, both in terms of like your market, in terms of how you're running as a company, and also in terms of the marketing that you're doing. I'd love to learn a little bit about that journey and some insights that you've learned along the way."

"Sure. '18 and '19, we started at the beginning of '18. '18, '19 were primarily like outbound, just hoofing it, generating the leads, closing the deals. I was a one-man band operation. We started off wholesaling because I didn't have - it literally did not have a penny to my name on that first wholesale deal we ever did, and that was five grand. That five grand got us into the next month, and then we did 10, and built from there. But yeah, we transitioned into flips, like whole tails initially, and flips getting into '19. And for some reason, the fall of '19, I kind of had the idea that, 'Hey, we need a website.' We didn't even have a website. We didn't have a brand. We'd have a website. We had an LLC, but that was it. So one night, you know, just picked a random name and built a Carrot website and launched that. And I think we turned on some ads with another company, but it was very, very like ineffective. We were spending like a very, very low amount of money, and I didn't see any results from that. And then COVID hit. We're moving into 2020. We were doing a lot of foreclosures, and that just dried up overnight. There were moratoriums. All of our outbound stuff just kind of like tanked immediately, and we shut down. We sold everything we had, all of our inventory, all the flips that we were doing. We sold everything, and we went to zero. And I was anticipating the entire real estate market crashing. I was, in fact, convinced it was going to happen. And from March to June, kind of sat on my hands and sat on the sidelines waiting for something to happen or waiting for a sign. And I eventually got tired of doing that and said, 'Hey, I need to learn digital marketing,' or 'I need to learn how do we build this business back up without the outbound stuff that we were doing.' We turned our ads back on, and I was kind of riding solo. I didn't - me and you had not linked up at this point. We turned on some random

"We turned on some random ads. I didn't know what I was doing, but we knew the importance of it. So we started - we started getting deals, started scaling. At Texas into '21, when we met, and I handed you the reins and you cleaned up a lot of stuff for us. So luckily, we were able to rebuild the business from zero again, just with a different strategy. And now that, you know, there are some foreclosures and we're doing a little bit of outbound now that we have that back, it's kind of - now that a cornerstone, a cornerstone of the business and the lead gen is inbound. That's our philosophy. We've been able to do more."

"Yeah, that's really interesting. Really interesting story, Chris. So what would you say if someone's thinking like inbound versus outbound, what should I focus on? What's your opinion on different things that you could think through? I know for you, you've chosen to focus more on inbound, but I'm also really curious to hear in what situations you think focusing on outbound could make more sense than inbound, and then where are people getting that wrong?"

"It's the ultimate question of what do you have to give or trade - is it time or money? Initially, I didn't have money, so it had to be time. That's the only way possible. And I think that helps you learn the ropes and learn what works. So when there's low, relatively low stakes in messing up an appointment, messing up a negotiation, it's not like, 'Hey, we've got 15 grand invested into this thing that should convert.' So it helped me work out some of the kinks of our operation and learn how do we negotiate. But it's not a scalable thing. I really - I disagree that you can have a million boots on the ground and run a large-scale cold calling center. I just - I'm sure there's some people out there, but it is not a fun thing for me. It is the ultimate form of like torture to think about running a cold call center or team. And I said, you know what? I would much rather pay a little bit more money for a deal and not worry about that and let's just talk to the people that actually want to sell their house and talk to us. And just honestly, skipping that step, I think, accelerated our growth tremendously. I think people end up here anyways. We just happen to like make the right decision out of me hating cold calling honestly."

"It's probably one of the biggest motivations people have for talking to us. I was just talking to someone earlier today. It's like, look at all these great things I've accomplished with cold call. They're just saying they made like nine million calls last month or something like that. It's like ridiculous numbers of cold call, and they're like, 'I absolutely hate it. Please save me,' because it's a grind."

"Well, on the topic of inbound, obviously there's different channels that are inbound. One thing that I've always appreciated about you is in the two and a half-ish probably years that we've worked together, you've always been a consistent investor in SEO, which for a lot of people, it's almost like this weird elephant in the room of marketing for real estate because everybody knows that it matters, but nobody wants to do it because it's this long-term game. So I'm really curious to hear for you what your journey has been with that channel compared to the others, just because it's - if you ask me, it's underutilized, but it's also - a lot of people really struggle. I think if people knew that SEO has a return for sure, then it wouldn't be as hard. But anytime you increase the amount of time between when you have to put money out for something and when you get the reward back, it also increases the perceived risk of 'Will I actually get it back?' And that's something that a lot of people struggle with. So really curious to hear your thoughts on that."

"It is the one channel that I guarantee has kept us in business. Everything else fluctuates. There's six months to a year that's really great with AdWords. Facebook has fluctuation. There's lots of fluctuations in the business, but the website SEO has been so consistent in the returns. If we had not started when we did, if we didn't invest that money, we would be - I'm sure like I - I'm not saying we'd roll over and give up, but it's helped us really, really make the numbers work. I was actually thinking about this earlier. We looked at our returns. We're at like a 2,000 percent ROI, like a 20x return. So dollar for dollar spent on the SEO versus what we get back, and that's still probably conservative. We've made millions, literally millions on organic SEO search terms. And in a market like us, I mean, it's hard to rank. It did take time, but that money - there's no better investment."

"I'm so glad you see it that way. That's fantastic, Chris, because the other thing is, let's just say you did roll over at some point in this time, you'd still get SEO leads, right? That's the other thing that that doesn't include, right? Because when people calculate SEO returns, they're looking back at like the last two years, and they're looking at how much money did I spend, how much I make. But it doesn't include like if you stopped investing in it right now, what's all the money you could make in the future from it, you know? It's the leads that are still consistent even - like obviously, you want to be consistent with your investment because otherwise, it will kind of trail off over time. But I think that's like - there's no other marketing channel that works like that where you just turn it off and it still generates leads. It's crazy."

"It does take some blind faith, especially if your cash is tight. But you got to make the sacrifice. I mean, it's like a savings account. It's like an insurance policy for the future. You're going to wish you did it now. And I - I didn't even track it honestly, like the first year, year and a half, like we weren't - I wasn't expecting anything. I think you did a great job of setting my expectations the right way where I did - I expected nothing off of SEO. We only counted - we only like ran the dollars and cents based on PPC and all of that. Obviously now we track those KPIs, and it's - it's ridiculous the return that we get. And they're the fattest deals too. I mean, they are - they're the absolute best, biggest money-making deals that we get. So thank you. I owe a lot to you for helping us get there."

"Yeah, I'm - and I'm super grateful to you as well, Chris. It's awesome that we've worked together for so long, and yeah, I definitely think of you like one of the people that's been instrumental to our success and be able to figure things out. Because two and a half years ago, we started working together. You were one of our earlier clients in the real estate space. We technically had been working with Cody five years or so, but only with them for a little while. And then we started getting some other referrals after that, and then some other referrals after that. And you were - you were in that - you were in that chunk somewhere before I decided to go 100% in on real estate and only do that. So I'm really grateful for you kind of supporting our business to the point that we could decide that this is all we want to do, and we could afford to cut out all the rest and decide to just double down here."

"One other thing - like this is - this is like common digital marketing philosophy, but I don't think - I don't think it's like well accepted in the real estate space. But whether you know it or not, and you probably know it, it really embodies kind of the way that you think about things, which is this concept that whoever can afford to pay the most money to acquire a customer wins in most marketing scenarios. And that's something I really respect about you. I mean, it doesn't take a lot of math for somebody to kind of go backwards and realize like your spreads are pretty good based on the amount of revenue you have and the amount of deals that you do. And you've taken a little bit of a different approach than a lot of companies have in terms of really focusing on exit strategies that maximize the potential value from the deals more so than the quick cash conversion cycle. I'm really curious to hear why you decided to shape your business that direction and what you think someone else should think about when they're thinking about like, should I mostly wholesale? Should I flip? Should I do novations? Like, what is the right - even though no such thing exists, but like, what is the right strategy for them?"

"We saw our cost per conversion or cost per deal start to rise. So tracking back to '19, on the PPC side, I think it was averaging around five grand, and we were primarily wholesaling at that point. So our average profit per deal was in the 15, upwards of 20,000 range. So the cost to acquire a deal went from five and crept towards ten. Well, my profits stayed at that like 15. And it's not - it's not - for me, it was - it didn't make any sense. So I thought, okay, well, how do I like triple or quadruple the number of deals I'm doing? And I was like, 'Hey, I'm not thinking about this the right way. What if I continued to do the exact same amount of deals but I tripled or quadrupled the profit I made?' And that's - that was the spark of like, I have to stop wholesaling. It's just not - in my market, it is not a profitable proposition."

"So the next logical step was whole tailing, where we still take title on the property. We know that, hey, if we take it to MLS, that's your - that's the biggest buyers list. Hey, guess what? I have to do like half the work now. I don't have to worry about having a dispo team or department or manager. Like, I can literally take it to MLS. It's going to sell for way more than my buyers list. And we were selling at a much higher price. So now I doubled my returns. Now I'm making 30 to 40 grand a deal and doing less work. So it's this natural like transition of, okay, now I have the capital to flip. Okay, now our profits - we're averaging 60 grand every time we flip a property. So it was a natural like evolution of gathering all these exit strategies."

"And I don't know that someone can go out and say, okay, I'm going to start with like five exit strategies and be good at all of them. I do think it's kind of a natural process. But we've been lucky enough to develop these, and it has led to novations. We added novations in the fall of - 22. Someone mentioned the word to me. I was like, 'I actually have no idea what that means. I don't - I really am not following what you're - what you're talking about.' We went through Eric Brewer's Novation course, learned exactly what this method is. Do you want me to talk kind of talk a little bit about novations and what we found?"

"Please, yeah. I think - I think I would love to hear that because so many of our clients are looking to add them, and so many are already kind of in that process. But I think a lot of people are in this stage where they've done like a novation or two amongst our clients, and they like know it kind of and sort of have it available as an exit strategy, and they kind of know what it means and they get why it's valuable. But but like actually steering the ship and getting that happening at scale is a really hard thing to do and something that I think you've done pretty good at. So I'm really curious to hear, you know, your whole - your almost back perspective on it."

"In the fall, I think we made about 325, 350 grand just on novations. And whereas other people were having a really, really bad fourth quarter of '22, we excelled. We've made more money than we've made because of this additional exit strategy. What that's looked like for us is when we're walking into a property where the numbers just don't line up for whatever reason - maybe their payoff is too high, maybe our negotiations stall and fail - this gives us one more opportunity to do a deal at a higher number that we really should not be putting our money on the line for. We should not be taking title, buying the property, and taking this much risk for a percentage that is not a sound investment. We have to stick to certain percentages if we're going to take on all this risk."

"So novations allow us to pay a higher price, but we're not assuming all the risk. If the market tanks, we're not the owner of the property. So it's - for me, it's a fancier form of wholesaling, but it gives us the same advantage of going - using a whole tail to go on market with MLS. It also allows us to do higher price properties. So we really stay away from your million-dollar properties here in Atlanta. Like our median price is like 350, 375, something like that, you know, a little flip. Million-dollar properties - but it's a lot easier if we're not taking title, if we don't have the holding costs of a million-dollar property to pull 50, 75 grand. That's a much easier proposition in that price range. So it really allows us - like there's a solution for everyone that calls us, and we're taking a shotgun, a much broader approach. We're in lots of houses. We really have something for everybody."

"Yeah, and I think - I think when it comes to exit strategies, you kind of alluded to this, but I'm curious how you would think through what do you do and what do you not do? Because the - if you just think about it theoretically, more exit strategies is always going to be better, right? Because you do have a solution for everybody who calls. However, in practice, that's not always true because you're not going to be great at every possible exit strategy. It's hard to train your team on all those things. So there is really this kind of fine balance to strike. So with somebody like - wherever they're at in their journey as a wholesaler or flipper or whatever the case is, how do they know like for them at this point, are novations a shiny object or are they a good strategy to implement? And so they don't like stretch themselves too thin - like at what point is - at what point is it the right fit?"

"I think the rehab part is maybe the part that you should save for last. That's a whole different skill of knowing - managing a construction team and a renovation. More people get that wrong. I think it'd be way more beneficial to add novations on the front end. So if all you had was whole tail, like wholesale, wholesale, novation - man, you can do 90% of the deals out there and still make money. So can you squeeze every penny out of a property that should maybe be renovated? No, but you don't have to. Who cares if you're making, you know, 60 grand instead of 80, and you just saved yourself three months? Like that's a - that's a win. It keeps your - you know, keeps capital in your pocket. It prevents you from taking, you know, exposing yourself to too much risk too quickly. So I think it's a great building block, a tool that helps you like learn the market, learn what things are selling for in your market with very little risk."

"Now, the flip side is we really have to be careful. I think novations - I think there's going to be some regulation with wholesaling, and novations have the potential to get really messy really quickly. I think we as investors have to encourage the community to be very responsible with these. The more irresponsible we are and the more promises we make that we can't keep - like, it does nobody a service. So we don't need to be lying to people and saying, 'Hey, you know, I - I'm gonna get you this,' and we, you know, we're taking it to market trying to innovate, and it doesn't happen. It's just - I think it has the potential to get people in a lot of trouble. So I would - I would actually say if you're going to do novations, I highly recommend Eric Brewer's Novation course. I would not recommend you winging it and just figuring it out as you go. It's one of these things that you can get yourself into trouble more so than any other exit strategy. I would recommend spending the money to go through that course and learn how to do this the right way."

"Yeah, and it's actually pretty cheap, isn't it? Like five grand, six grand, something like that?"

"Five to ten. I don't know exactly where - where it lands, but it's worth every penny. If that's a barrier of entry, you probably shouldn't be doing this anyways. So that's how you know - if you can afford the course, then you're ready. It comes down to you not being able to pull the trigger on that - you're maybe not - maybe not ready."

"I'll give you an example to not - not be around the bush. I'll give you an example where it can potentially get messy. We have an agreement with your - with our original seller. We have an agreement for a price. We're carrying out the novation. We've listed the property, and now we have an agreement between seller A and our end buyer, buyer C. Well, if the seller decides they no longer want to sell, there's a - there's a contract there. So like ultimately, when someone backs out on us, well, we get to decide are we going to sue - we don't - we don't do that - but are we going to sue? Are we going to like pressure them to follow through? Like it's in our control. Well, we have a third party buyer on the line that - hey, if they decide to sue seller A for backing out of the deal - like now there's"

Robert Wensley, the CEO of Investor Lift, joins Brandon as they take a closer look at the rise and fall of national wholesaling. Together, they examine real-life examples of wholesalers who experienced million-dollar months and discuss the factors that contributed to their success. Additionally, they analyze the challenges that led to the downfall of some national wholesaling ventures, offering valuable lessons and insights for aspiring wholesalers.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This week I'm joined by Robert Wensley, the founder of Investor Lift. We're going to talk about the national wholesaling model, why you should have less diversity in your exit strategies and specialize more, and marketing that companies are using to get to one or two million dollars per month in wholesale assignment fees.

"How you doing today, Robert?"

"Excellent, excellent. Thanks so much for having me on, Brandon."

"Yeah, super excited. Sounds like today is day number one for you in the DR, right?"

"So we will at our new office. You know, a lot of people, they look at investors, they see we're moving billions of dollars of deals every year, and they assume that we have this massive office with hundreds of employees. We've actually been working out of like a couple little apartments here and there for the last few years. And actually, I'm sitting now today in our first official office that we just opened. I think there's gonna be... I'm gonna post an office tour video on YouTube pretty soon, but officially just moved in yesterday, so pretty excited about that."

"Yeah, cool. That's fantastic. Why the DR of all places?"

"You know, so my co-founder is Ukrainian but was born in Russia, lived in Ukraine for the last 15 years. And as a result, a lot of our team is Russian-Ukrainian. And when the war started, I was like, 'I got to get you out of Ukraine.' He didn't want to leave Ukraine, so I played a little trick on him. I'm like, 'Hey, for my birthday, why don't you come down to DR and we'll rent a yacht for the week?' And he said, 'All right, cool.'"

I'll continue with the rest of the text in this format. Let me know if you want me to proceed.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast. This week, I'm joined by Robert Wensley, the founder of Investor Lift. We're going to talk about the national wholesaling model, why you should have less diversity in your exit strategies and specialize more, and the marketing that companies are using to get to one or two million dollars per month in wholesale assignment fees. How are you doing today, Robert?"

"Excellent, excellent," Robert replied. "Thanks so much for having me on, Brandon."

"Yeah, super excited. Sounds like today is day number one for you in the DR, right?"

"Yes, we're at our new office. You know, a lot of people look at Investor Lift, they see we're moving billions of dollars of deals every year, and they assume that we have this massive office with hundreds of employees. We've actually been working out of a couple of little apartments here and there for the last few years, and actually, I'm sitting now in our first official office that we just opened. I think I'm going to post an office tour video on YouTube pretty soon, but we officially just moved in yesterday, so I'm pretty excited about that."

"Yeah, cool. That's fantastic. Why the DR of all places?"

"My co-founder is Ukrainian but was born in Russia and lived in Ukraine for the last 15 years. As a result, a lot of our team is Russian-Ukrainian. When the war started, I thought, 'I got to get you out of Ukraine.' He didn't want to leave Ukraine, so I played a little trick on him. I said, 'Hey, for my birthday, why don't you come down to the DR and we'll rent a yacht for the week?' He said, 'All right, cool.' So we came down on February 21st for my birthday, and of course, while he was down here, Ukraine got invaded. I was like, 'Called that one,' so I had him got him out. He came down here for a week for my birthday and ended up never going back after the war started. Over the last couple of years, we've moved our entire team, everyone from Russia and Ukraine, to the DR because you get visa-free access from all countries, and it's on the same time zone as we are on the East Coast. I do not want war interfering with my business."

"That's crazy."

"Yeah, well, that's a unique solution, though. So you actually took these people and moved them from their home country into the Dominican Republic? Was there resistance to that, or were they happy to get out? I'm sure you got a mixed response from different people."

"Now everyone is happy. I mean, we have two guys who stayed behind because they have older parents or grandparents they are taking care of, so they're kind of stuck behind enemy lines, so to speak, taking care of their older family members. But everyone else was like, 'Yeah, this seems like a good opportunity.' I mean, we live in a beautiful place. We're a few blocks away from the beach here, and we have swimming pools, soccer fields, a gym, and pools. It's not like we're in a third-world country; we're in one of the nicest areas in the Caribbean, so it's a good place to run a satellite office."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, good for you. I'm excited. I'm honored to be your first podcast appearance in your brand new, not studio studio or whatever you're calling that place you're recording from. I'm honestly just really grateful and excited for this podcast episode overall. It's funny; we were just talking before we even got started about what to talk about because the overlap between what we both believe in, what we care about, and what we teach is just so massive. I feel like making this podcast shorter than eight hours is probably the biggest challenge of them all."

"We both believe in the gospel of making millions of dollars."

"That's right, but believe it or not, there are different gospels of making millions of dollars. We subscribe to a specific denomination that tends to be really effective, but it's newer, and that's why people are less into it. In many ways, I think that every big movement that happens will always have a few companies behind it, enabling it and making it possible. I think of Investor Lift like that for the virtual and national wholesaling model, where it makes it so much more feasible."

"On the chance that there's somebody listening that doesn't know you, your background, or how you got into this, I want to spend the meat of the episode just talking strategies, tactics, and all that kind of stuff. But I think it'd be super helpful to know kind of like, who are you, what is Investor Lift, what are you doing here, all that kind of stuff."

"I was born in—no, I'm just kidding. We'll go back a little bit but not too far back. Growing up, I always wanted to make a ton of money, and my friend whose dad made the most money was an investment banker. So I actually grew up trying to become an investment banker. I asked him, 'How do you become an investment banker?' He said, 'Go to a top school, preferably Harvard, study economics and finance, work on Wall Street, and try to get a job at a big investment bank like Goldman Sachs.' That was the ladder I was trying to climb for the first part of my life. I got into Harvard, got Mark Zuckerberg's dorm room, did economics, did finance, graduated dean's list, but I was doing summer internships at finance firms, and I realized I didn't really like doing finance. I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm going to make a few million dollars a year, but I'm working for some other rich person.' I was more of an entrepreneur. So right before graduation, I turned down all my job offers and decided, 'Hey, I'm going to learn how to be an entrepreneur.' But I didn't have a good idea at the time. It wasn't like I had some billion-dollar idea that I wanted to kick off, but I remember looking at this one stat from the IRS that said 90% of all millionaires make their money in real estate. I'm like, 'Well, a safe bet would probably be to learn real estate.' So I started cold calling house flipping companies, pitching them on coming to work for them, and ended up taking a job on Brad Chandler's team at Express Homebuyers in Washington, DC. I came in thinking I was going to learn how to become a house flipper. Little did I know that would really turn into me learning how to wholesale, which I didn't even know about, and then not just how to wholesale but how to create this new era of mega wholesaling that we've never seen before. I believe it really is the future of real estate investing. You're going to have this split between the guys doing the construction and the guys sourcing the deals. That split has started to emerge, but it's just going to accelerate more and more."

"I worked on Brad Chandler's team, took his team to over a million dollars a month, then after I left there, I worked on another team and took them from about $150,000 to over a million within, I believe, about six months. Then five months later, we broke two million a month in assigned fees earned. I thought, 'Hmm, done it twice, let's see if I can do it a third time.' I started working with a few other companies, like Charcoal Moose's team, took them from pretty much zero wholesaling to over two million a month, and I believe we did that one in about seven months. We started doing it over and over again, taking these companies that had some real estate experience and were maybe making a few hundred thousand dollars a month flipping, a lot of times keeping the existing team in place or even shrinking the team to a much smaller, leaner, lower overhead team with less burn and pivoting them into wholesaling. We turned them into these mega wholesaling machines that pump out millions of dollars a year and have super high net margins. We were doing this over and over again, and every time we tried to do it, we did it. But of course, dispositions were always our bottleneck, right? Acquisitions, you know, you get..."

"It's somewhat easy to crank up Google Ads, you know, to come and double your budget," he said. "I know it's a little bit more complicated than that, but you know, if you want twice as many leads, double your budget. You're going to have some diminishing returns, but you're going to get more leads."

"Um, you want to double your sales team? Hire twice as many salespeople," she added. "On dispositions, when you start scaling out into multiple markets, you have a really good core buyers list in one market. Then, you start scaling up into other markets. A lot of times, you get kicked in the ass real hard because you don't have the buyers you need to move the deals at the numbers that make sense, and you end up having a high contract fallout rate. You end up not making the assignment fees you should be making."

"There are a lot of issues you run into," he said. "So, after getting kicked in the teeth a few times myself trying to branch into multiple markets, I built this product called InvestorLift originally for myself and my friends."

"Originally, it was just kind of like our secret sauce, right?" he explained. "I'm just like, 'This is just going to be our secret sauce. I'm not opening it up publicly.' And we used it to allow ourselves to branch out into multiple markets and become nationwide wholesalers."

"Then, a couple of years ago, about a little over two years ago, I opened it up to the public, and it just took off," he continued. "We now move more real estate investment deals than anyone else in the world. Last time I checked, we were doing two and a half times more properties per month than all the iBuyers combined."

"Um, and generating just, you know, billions and billions of dollars of offers and selling billions and billions of dollars of deals," he boasted. "So, we got a lot of data, and we're changing a lot of businesses."

"And also, the cool thing is I see a lot of trends in the data because we have, we're spinning off over a quarter billion data points per month," he stated. "So, what that gives me is a little bit of a crystal ball on where things are headed, where things are going. And, um, to be honest, I haven't even talked about much of that on a podcast. I don't think I've talked about very much of that at all on a podcast before. So, we'll dive into some of that today, and I think it's gonna be a great episode."

"Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm really excited to do that," she replied. "And for what we've, uh, yeah, you may not have talked about this on podcasts, but I know we've certainly talked a lot about it and used some of those insights and everything to kind of drive our location strategies across our clients."

"Um, because it all starts with the product that you can sell, right?" she continued. "You need to get contracts that are sellable and ideally with larger gross margins. And to do that, I mean, understanding the dynamics of what produces that, I think is, I think is huge. So, that's fantastic."

"So, InvestorLift, if I were to simplify it," she asked. "Let me, let me see how I see it. You can correct me because I'm sure you've thought about this a lot more than I have. I think of it like access to this list of cash buyers along with the technology and some of the tools required or needed on a day-to-day basis to kind of manage that whole piece. You know, whether it's like emailing or texting buyers or whatever the case is and accepting offers. So, it's sort of like the data is the list and then, and then some tools for contacting that list. Um, and that's what I view is like the bulk of the product. Is there anything to add to that?"

"Yeah, I mean, the main thing we're trying to do is give you liquidity on your deals," he explained. "Give you liquidity in your contracts. We're going to help you sell your deals faster at higher prices."

"The average wholesaler in America typically off of InvestorLift will have an average assignment fee of 14 or 15 thousand dollars," he noted. "But our guys consistently clock average assignment fees, and last month nationwide, um, I believe was 32.1 thousand dollars nationwide across the entire InvestorLift network, which is huge, right? Like that's, that's over twice as much money per deal."

"So, people ask you, 'Okay, how the hell do you get assignment fees that high?' The way we do it is just by giving people access to better tools to drive more demand for their deals, better data, more buyers, putting more eyeballs on their deals," he elaborated. "So, you know, if you had one deal with one offer on it and you had the exact same deal with five offers, which one's gonna make you more money, right? And on a half a million dollar house, it's really easy to make another five, ten, fifteen thousand dollars per deal, right? For the buyer, they're only paying a fraction of a percentage more for that property to secure that deal. But for you, the wholesaler, if you go from a fifteen thousand dollar assignment fee to a thirty thousand dollar assignment fee, you've just increased the profitability of your business by 100 percent."

"So, that's really our goal," he said. "To like really shed light on like the real money in wholesaling is in nailing dispositions. Everyone focuses on acquisitions, but you can do everything right on acquisitions, but if you don't get dispo down, nothing on marketing and sales and acquisitions matters. It's always, you gotta cash that check at the end of the day."

"Yeah, in my opinion, it seems like there's way too many companies that just focus on selling the deal, right?" she observed. "And that's kind of the focus of dispositions is we're going to do this until we get an offer, and it's accepted, and we have found a buyer for the property, and not nearly enough effort put into how do we sell it at the highest price we could possibly sell it for. So, I think that's, I think that's super interesting. Like you, like you said, the distinction of InvestorLift could be, in some cases, the difference between one offer and five offers. You know, in both circumstances, you may have sold the property and you would have made a profit, but you can make significantly more profit if you can, um, if you can sell it for more. And you've already gone through all that hard work of acquisitions, and you've already gone through a lot of the hard work of dispositions and all that stuff to make that happen."

"Um, that's fantastic," she continued. "I kind of think of you as, as sort of leading the change to more of this virtual model, um, because so many of these people that we talk to, they've been in a local market model for a long time, right? You talk to these real estate investors that say, 'I'm a Salt Lake City or a DMV or Orlando, Florida, you know, whatever the case is, real estate investor. What I look for is more deals in whatever that study is, and then I have a variety of exit strategies for those deals.' That's like the standard model right now."

"Um, some of those people lean really heavy towards flips, do some wholesales, some lean heavy towards wholesales, do some flips, like everybody seems to release a little bit of everything. Novation is getting really popular, et cetera," she noted. "So, I'm really curious to hear about your, like what would you say to that person about different ways that they could go about their business?"

"Yeah, so I'm gonna go through, I'm gonna shoot straight on all this," he replied. "Everyone's up on, okay, if you think about how to make a ton of money really fast, the way that most people are looking at their businesses right now is they're like, 'Hey, I'm gonna go nine out of ten, like I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be in the top 10 at what I do.'"

"If you're in the top ten percent, you fast forward three to five years, you're out of business," he warned. "Okay, and there's some guys that are gonna be like, 'Okay, I'm gonna go 10 out of 10. I'm gonna be the best, right?' If you're the best, you're gonna do okay, but you're not gonna absolutely crush it. What you really got to do, what I always tell everyone on my team, is you got to go 11 out of 10. 11 out of 10. You got to be better than the best. You need to develop some sort of competitive advantage where you literally are the best in the world at one specific thing."

"And the problem I see with so many of these real estate investing businesses is they're all over the place," he stated. "They're doing buy and hold, they're doing development projects, they're doing fix and flip, they're doing wholesaling, they got a coaching program, they got affiliate sales, they got a podcast, they got a million different things going on. They're a jack of all trades, but they're a master of none."

"And you know where you see that?" he asked. "You see that on their net profits at the end of the year. You'll see that on their tax return. You'll see that on how much do they actually take home to their family. Because when you're doing a million different things, you're never going to develop a sustainable competitive advantage on one thing. You're never going to really dial in the numbers on one thing."

"So, like I remember when I was working at Express, we had 70 rentals, we were doing 60 flips at a time, we had development projects, we had a coaching business,

and we had a ton of wholesale stuff going on," he recalled. "And it was just, like, so hard to really dial in the numbers on any one of those."

"And it took a long time," he continued. "It took me about three years of getting kicked in the teeth trying to figure it out before I got it dialed in. And I think it's the same thing with a lot of people. So, what I tell people is, hey, you know, if you want to be a mom-and-pop shop, stay focused on one market, do a little bit of everything. That's cool. But don't complain when your profit margins are small. Don't complain when you're stuck at a certain level, okay?"

"But if you want to really grow your business, and you want to be really hyper-profitable, what you should do is you should laser-focus on one specific thing and become world-class at it," he advised. "You know, be world-class at one thing and develop a sustainable competitive advantage on that one thing."

"Then, you can go out and grow," he added. "And that's, like, the hardest part of my job every day is focusing on, okay, where are we going to go? Because we see so many different opportunities every day, and it's like, okay, how do we focus on what's really going to drive us forward in a significant way?"

"Uh, so that's what I tell everyone is, like, be hyper-focused, laser-focused," he urged. "You know, do one thing, become world-class at it, and then once you've got that locked in, then you can grow."

"Okay," he concluded. "So, I guess I'm kind of curious, like, I don't know, so, um, you, uh, InvestorLift's primary purpose is to increase the number of offers you get and to get the offers higher, right? Um, so that you can make more money, especially if you have the same deal. So, if someone wants to get started with that, you know, because you mentioned it's primarily driven by the data you have, and so, I mean, how, how do you collect that data?"

"Yeah, so we have a bunch of different data sources that we pull from," he answered. "So, we pull a lot of data from, uh, different skip tracing providers, from tax assessor records, from county records, from, uh, public and private sources. And we have some machine learning algorithms that take all that data and piece it all together. Because you have a bunch of fragmented data, you need to make it useful. And so, we piece it all together and create what we call a unified data set."

"And then what we do is we just pump that into a system," he explained. "And we have, you know, hundreds of thousands of buyers on our system. Um, and we're constantly updating it. And then when you want to sell a deal, all you do is you just post your deal on InvestorLift. Uh, we'll tell you exactly where it's gonna be located, how much it's gonna sell for, how long it's gonna take to sell, how many offers you're gonna get, and then you can just start marketing that property to your buyers."

"And then when you want to sell it," he said. "You can send out text messages, you can send out emails, um, we have some direct mail capabilities we're about to roll out as well. So, you can really market that property to the entire InvestorLift network and get a lot of offers really fast."

"And that's the key," he stated. "Because when you're just selling a deal to your buyers list, you're only marketing to a very small percentage of the entire buyer pool out there. And when you get a lot of offers on a property, it's gonna drive that price up really fast. And that's how you get higher assignment fees."

"That makes sense," she responded. "Um, and that's kind of been what I, what I was saying earlier about, like, you're leading this transition to virtual and kind of helping investors not be so dependent on their local market and things like that. And I think that also leads to better business models. Um, but the more and more we work with a variety of different companies, the more we realize that, like, this is actually, um, in the best interest of the business to go virtual. But it's also in the best interest of their own personal lifestyle, um, because it's really hard to have a work-life balance when you have to drive everywhere and you have to meet with people face to face."

"So, I think this virtual model is actually really, um, compelling to both those people that want to go from seven figures to eight figures, um, and, you know, kind of get to that stage," she added. "But I think also, it opens the door to all of these other people who want to get in real estate investing, but it's hard for them to do that because they just don't have the time. So, um, there's lots of people I talk to where they have a full-time job, and maybe they don't want to leave their full-time job, um, but they do want to kind of start investing."

"Um, and if they're virtual, they can do that, right?" she said. "Because it really opens the doors to them to be able to do it a little bit more in the evenings, a little bit more on the weekends, and things like that, which I think is great. So, I know we're starting to come up on time here, but I do want to get one last, um, sort of word of advice from you. And, um, you know, if you could give one piece of advice to someone who's just getting started in real estate investing, what would it be?"

"I would say focus," he answered. "You know, focus on one thing, become world-class at it. You know, it's like, I see so many people, they get distracted by all these different things. And, um, you know, I, I think the best piece of advice I could give anyone is just focus on one thing, become world-class at it, and then once you've got that locked in, then you can grow."

"That's awesome," she replied. "Well, thank you so much for your time today, Robert. Um, I'm really excited to see where InvestorLift goes from here, and I'm sure we'll be in touch."

"Thank you," he said. "Appreciate it."

"Awesome," she concluded. "Well, uh, thank you to everyone who tuned in, and we'll see you next time."

"Um, the reason why I like wholesaling as an exit strategy better than, you know, wholesaling or novations is because novations are like a really popular thing right now, right? There's like a new fad every couple of years, and the latest, greatest fad is novation. I think there are some instances where novation makes sense, like if I was in Seattle, you know, when I had leads coming in on million-dollar-plus houses that were built after the year 2000, the novation model makes sense on a lot of deals like that.

"The challenge that I've seen people run into with novation and wholesaling is that wholesaling is much more capital intensive, but with novation specifically, it just takes way more time to get the deals done. There are way more steps in the process, so your cash conversion cycle goes way out, right? You're not turning your money as fast, and also you need a lot more people to handle the same volume of deals. It's not simple turn and burn like doing a deal a day. When we're doing million-dollar months, we're doing multiple deals per day. You can't do that with novations, right? You could get to a few hundred thousand dollars a month with novations, but you can't do a million dollars a month in novations. At least, I've never seen anyone do it.

"And a lot of guys that I've seen go really heavy into novations have run into really serious cash flow issues. I get calls all the time, once a month, from guys that are really in cash jams. They're investors who have bills bouncing because they went too heavy into novations too fast, and they screw up their cash flows. You know, people never pay attention to cash conversion cycles. If you go from 30 days on your cash conversion cycle to 60 days, you make half as much money per year—half as much money. And when you go from 30 days to 120 days, you make 25% of the money you did. So when you add onto your cash conversion cycle like that, every day you're adding on decreases the percentage, decreases the amount of money you're gonna make in the business.

"So I like wholesaling because it's super, super scalable. It's simple; I can run it like McDonald's. It has great return on ad spend and great cash conversion cycles, better than any other exit strategy. And the other exit strategies, you know, if you're just getting started, like I'm talking about this just in the context of trying to build a million-dollar-a-month business. In the context of just doing a few deals, yeah, learn seller financing, learn novations, like get every tool in the shed, because when you're first getting started, you're not spoiled with a bunch of leads. But in the context of building like a real money-printing machine, I like to just stick with wholesaling.

"I understood a lot of people would use the same, what's the word, uh, like, I guess train of thought, so to speak, that you're using with focus and specialization. They use that to argue why they should be in one market versus in multiple markets versus what you're arguing here is one exit strategy, and then it seems like you almost don't care about the number of markets. Or you're a little bit flexible towards that, which is like the same, the same underlying principle driving it, but a really different application. What do you think about that?"

"Well, you know, fix and flip is a completely different business than wholesaling. You know, wholesaling is marketing and sales, right? You have a certain skill set that you need there—a marketing and sales skill set. Fix and flip is construction, construction management, operations management. Completely different business, right?

"So doing both of those at the same time, you really need to run two companies. Doing two markets at the same time, yeah, it might take you a few days or a few weeks to get to know the different buyers in that market and get to know the geographies, but we're not doing an entire—it's the same core business processes. We're running the same business processes; we can use the same salespeople with the same skills, we can use the same marketing campaigns, and we're running the same business.

"Yeah, there are going to be nuances to that market. There are going to be different areas that are high-crime areas we want to stay away from, but we can educate ourselves on those very quickly. It's not like we're reinventing the wheel; we're just running the same gameplay in a different place.

"Now, the reason why you want to do that is imagine this. So, Brandon, let's say you won the jackpot tomorrow, and you win a billion dollars. You're now America's newest billionaire, and you want to go invest that billion dollars and get a return on investment. Would you put it all in one stock? No. Would you throw it all in Tesla? No, right, because that'd be crazy. You'd be putting all your eggs in one basket. You would diversify your risk by investing in an entire portfolio of different stocks, different companies, different asset classes to diversify your risk, so you're not beholden to one stock going up and down. Elon Musk tweets something, and all of a sudden, you lost 100 million dollars, right?

"Even if you love to—I love Tesla. I only drive Teslas, and I would never put an entire portfolio all in one stock just because it would be insanity. That's kind of the same thing with putting all your eggs in one basket with one market. Okay, I'll tell you an example of this. So there've been times where I'm in a market, and I'm running Google ads, and then I have a competitor who hasn't been in Google ads that all of a sudden decides, 'Hey, I'm going to start running Google ads.' And I'm pretty dialed in with my numbers where I know how much I should pay for a keyword to get the return on ad spend that I want to target. And then, all of a sudden, they come in, and they start paying crazy amounts where, like, I'm like, 'You're just gonna spend yourself out of business, idiot.' But while they're spending themselves out of business, my sales team is not getting any leads off those campaigns.

"Now, if my numbers work and I know their numbers don't work, I know they're gonna be out of that campaign within a couple of months, and then my leads are going to come back. But in those couple of months, I'm up the creek not getting leads, right? So if you're just in one market, you have exposure to competitors coming in that market and disrupting your market position. That's number one. But then, number two, you have market exposure to the entire macroeconomic environment.

"I'll give you an example. The guys in Phoenix right now are all getting their asses kicked because that market is behaving right now like the East Coast and the rest of America was in November and December. November and December, all us East Coast guys, we got our asses kicked really hard, right? It was some of the worst months in wholesaling the last few years. Average assignment fees went sub-20k on Investor Lift in December, the lowest they've ever been. Now they've bounced back up to the 30s, but we got our asses kicked in November and December.

"The thing is, on the East Coast especially, seller expectations have gone down, so we're now able to get stuff at efficient prices where we can now make an efficient market between the buyer and seller expectations and capture a sizable profit there for making the deal happen. In Phoenix, the seller expectations haven't gone down. The sellers still want last year's prices, so all the Phoenix wholesalers, they're just in Phoenix, they're all screwed right now. They're getting their asses kicked really hard, and I see it in the numbers. And I've talked to some of the biggest guys in the country, and I've been like, 'Dude, why the hell do you have all your eggs in one basket in Phoenix? Like, you need to diversify out of just one market because all the macroeconomic forces of that market now are impacting your business. When that market is up, your business is up. Everyone's happy; everyone's buying Lambos. When that market is down, you're cutting the staff and cutting salaries and cutting bonuses. So why not diversify? Why not tack on three, four, five more markets? Is it really that hard? Think about how much time it takes to go learn the nuances of comping and stuff in a few different markets, building up your buyer relationships in a few different markets. Yeah, that's a small cost, but you can get through that in a few weeks or a few months, and then you get the benefit of not having like the micro exposure to competitors and not having the macro exposure of the actual market, whatever the whims of that market are. So it's an absolute no-brainer to be in multiple markets, and if you're not, you're leaving money on the table, and you're taking on this unnecessary risk that you could de-risk from your business very easily.'

"That's, yeah, so interesting. For what it's worth, I really believe in what you're saying here because I see the numbers across our clients, like our clients who are in multiple markets versus one market and how that affects things. There's also some aspects of, depending on the marketing channel that you're using, that could be more friendly or less friendly. And the channels that I'm personally familiar with—the digital channels—tend to excel in that kind of scenario versus some other channels might be a little bit more difficult to manage in those scenarios. So there's something to that, I think.

"But it's so interesting because a lot of people would say specialization in market, diversification in exit strategy. You're saying diversification in market, specialization in exit strategy, and it's a completely different model. I have noticed that a lot of people seem almost irrationally fearful of that. Maybe it's just because

they haven't done stuff in other markets before. You know, one person who I actually had on this podcast, Aaron Gaunt—you might know him—he's a client of ours and of Investor Lift as well, doing fantastic. He texted me the other day. I think he had like 40-something contracts last month, and they're dispositioning pretty well, mostly from PPC. So he's doing awesome.

"But he started in Southern California. When we started working with him as a client, he's in Southern California. Then he got one, because you know how this kind of happens with PPC, you get these stray leads in areas that you're not familiar with? Yeah, it happens all the time, right? So he gets some lead in San Antonio. He's like, 'Well, might as well try to make the most out of it,' and he successfully dispositions the property. And then he thought to himself, 'That wasn't actually that hard. I can do that. It's not my backyard. I don't feel comfortable with it, and I'm not familiar with it, but it's totally possible.' Now he's in at least probably 15 or 20 states, and every time he's gone a little bit wider, he's done a little bit better.

"So some people kind of get over that. Maybe they just need a little bit of a kick in the butt to see that they can actually do that. But do you have any opinion on the people who are listening to this and are just thinking, 'Ah, that sounds nice, Robert, but I can't do that'?"

"Okay, I think where this stems from is when we first started pumping million-dollar months, we kind of told people we're national wholesalers, okay? When we said we're national wholesalers, we didn't really mean we're like in every single city, county, state, but we started putting the word out. Like, people were, you know, we jumped on podcasts—some of the initial investors, guys that were hitting really big numbers doing a couple million dollars a month—and they're like, 'Hey, we're a national wholesaling company.' And then we accidentally started this whole national wholesaling trend, where everyone was like, 'Oh wow, national wholesaling!' And you had a bunch of gurus that were pushing out courses teaching people to go on Google ads and just target the entire United States of America, because your cost per lead is like five dollars, and you can get the cheapest leads in the world. So that was a trend last year where all these guys were learning that strategy from a few people in the game and testing it and getting their asses kicked."

"Um, so you know I've said it many times before: if you want to get Ferrari assignment fees, you got to buy some Ferrari leads. But you also got to know the price, you got to know the price."

"Yeah, just start on Disco, start on Disco and work your way back."

"That's fantastic. I want to ask you about one more thing. I think if there's like three main things that kind of show how much a company is doing, the first one's going to be the number of markets. Next is the number of exit strategies. We've talked kind of about both of those in terms of diversification versus specialization. What about marketing?"

"There's a lot of people who are doing TV and radio and SMS and cold call and direct mail and PPC and Facebook ads and SEO and billboards, and you know, the list goes on and on. Although I think that was a pretty comprehensive list. But there's a lot of available marketing channels, and it could be said that diversification in marketing channels is important. It could also be said that each marketing channel kind of has its own type of lead it generates and its own processes internally that are going to be most appropriate for that marketing channel. In that way, companies that specialize sometimes do really well. Like as an example, our clients that are heavy on cold call and then turn on PPC, they tend to not close as well as our clients that do PPC only because if you're just used to sifting through a pile of junk to find a good lead all day, then it's going to be weird to get just quality leads. It's much more likely that you kind of miss something good because it's a different mindset, right? Your PPC maximizes every lead, cold call finds something that's good hopefully out of the list, and it's a volume game, right?"

"So that's just an example, but what are you seeing about these companies that are doing really well? Do they have one marketing channel, three, seven?"

"I would say that any one of the best, making more than half a million dollars a month, is spending 80% plus of their budget on one channel, and that's Google ads. The reason being is it's the number one lead source in terms of quality. It's got the lowest cash conversion cycle, and the return on ad spend is really solid. It's predictable."

"But the more important thing too is on these other channels, you can't develop a sustainable competitive advantage. For example, if I go and try to get really good at Direct Mail, like how do I develop a competitive advantage on Direct Mail? We're all buying data from the same places, we all have the same lists. You can't really develop a competitive advantage unless you maybe try to get the data a little bit earlier. But everyone knows with Direct Mail, you got to hit the guys five, ten times before you actually get a lift, actually get a good response. So even if you get your first mail piece out a few weeks earlier, like does that really do that much? And then as soon as you figure that out, someone else is going to figure it out."

"You could A/B test, right? That's the thing that I used to always do, is just A/B test, A/B test, A/B test. But then you know what's going to happen? Your competitor is going to get your mail piece and they're going to copy it, so you can't really develop a competitive advantage on Direct Mail."

"Could you do it on TV? Could you do it on radio? It's the same. You can't really develop a competitive advantage. With Google, it's different. With Google, it's a lot different because as you start spending money on that account, that account gets smarter and smarter and smarter. You're feeding the algorithm, you're feeding Google's neural networks more and more data, and Google's getting better and better and better. It's going to get better and better and better at finding more people that look like those people. The more you spend, the more intelligent it gets. The more intelligent it gets, the more money you make, and the more money you make, the more you can afford to spend and throw back in."

"So like, if you're just getting into Google ads right now, you're already late to the game. You're five years late to the game, but five years from now, like you're not even going to be able to compete. So that's again why I think you're going to see this trend towards Mega wholesalers taking more market share here in the next few years. Because a beginner wholesaler that's spending five thousand dollars a month in their account is not going to be able to compete against a mega wholesaler that's spending a million dollars a month."

"That's why I like Google ads. It's because you can develop a sustainable long-term competitive advantage if you can get the numbers working and keep that campaign growing and growing and growing, and get more and more capital invested in every dollar you spend. That is strengthening your competitive advantage."

"I think that's kind of the irony of what we both do, if you think about it. The companies that have the most buyer relationships have an advantage, right? You could think of building a buyer's list kind of like one of those things where the biggest companies are always going to have an advantage compared to a smaller company because they're adding more and more and faster. So they have the ability to disposition deals at larger spreads, and in a way, investors kind of shortcut that. In the same way, we kind of are the same thing when it comes to PPC. We, like our clients collectively, are Google's biggest client in this industry, and we have data-sharing practices between those clients to where our clients that spend one thousand dollars a month in PPC don't actually statistically have a different return on investment than our clients that spend six figures every month, which is highly atypical because usually the companies that spend the most money are going to have the best results. Even those companies that spend six figures each month, we can make it as if they were spending even more, right? Because it's not like once you unlock this certain amount of spend, then suddenly the algorithm is fully learned, right? AI is just going to get smarter and smarter the more data you can feed it."

"So that's something I think is just really neat. In a way, InvestorLift and Pavement Collective have the same business model. We're just tackling different problems."

"Yeah, now I remember you showed me how you're doing the cross-account little trick there that you got going. But I was like, that is the freaking gold mine right there. As soon as I saw that, I was like, okay, anyone asks me where to go for PPC, I'm sending them your way because I know the power of that. I know the power of that and how it could jumpstart an account and give them such a competitive advantage on day one."

"Yeah, we're doing the same thing on InvestorLift with buyers, basically the exact same strategy. Let's work together to go strengthen our competitive advantages as a collective instead of trying to just develop it on our own."

"Yep, totally agreed. Well, this has been fantastic, Robert. Super grateful for the time that you've spent here and all the insights that you shared. Is there anything else that you'd want to share that you think people need to know?"

"I think if you're in the business right now, one of the biggest mistakes people make is, you know, they'll hear me talking about building million-dollar-a-month businesses, two million-dollar-a-month businesses, and they're like, well, I don't want to do that. That's not me. I'm happy with 200k a month. That's fine, but the strategies and the playbook that you should run to get to a million a month, you should run regardless of whether or not you're trying to get there. Even if you're trying to go to 200k a month, build your business as if you're trying to go for a million because you're going to do stuff right, and your 200k is going to be a lot more consistent, or your 300k or 400k or whatever it is."

"So it's like, you know, one of the things I always tell entrepreneurs is, 'Build your business to sell it.' Build it as if you're going to sell it, even if you keep it forever. Build it as if you're always going to sell it next year because you'll build it right. You'll start doing things right, you'll keep your books clean, you'll hire the right people, you'll put the right systems and processes in place."

"Or another analogy I like to use is like, you know, if you want to keep your house clean, the best way to keep your house clean is just to invite guests over every couple of days. If you invite guests over every couple of days, you're always going to have a clean house, right?"

"So yeah, that would be my advice. Even if you're not trying to go to a million, build it as if. Build it as if, because you'll do things right, and that will make your life a lot easier. You'll have a lot less risk in your business, you'll sleep better at night, and overall you're just going to be much, much happier as an entrepreneur and as a real estate business owner."

"Love that, very, very sound advice. I also want to put in a little plug for our clients. We have different segments of clients that we track from a return on investment standpoint. Our highest return segment right now is our national clients. That's why you'll hear me talking about national wholesaling on this podcast a lot. That's part of the reason that I wanted Robert here to kind of share what he's doing because 100% of those companies, as far as I'm aware, are InvestorLift customers. It's almost non-negotiable if you're going to do the national model. It was so much harder to do it without that, so I highly recommend if you're interested in that and learning more about InvestorLift, definitely check them out

."

"We do have a discount code. How much is it, Robert? 10% I think off of InvestorLift?"

"Yeah, if you go to get.g-e-t.investorlift.com and you use the coupon code 'Bateman,' then you'll get 10% off the first year."

"Alright, so get.g-e-t.investorlift.com, and then when you get to checkout, just put in the coupon code 'Bateman.' That will give you 10% off your first year on InvestorLift. So please, yeah, please do that if that's the right fit for you. Thank you again for your time, Robert. It's been fantastic having you on here, and we'll have to do another time. For everybody else listening, I will see you next time."

"Absolutely, thanks so much, Brandon. Appreciate having me on, and we'll see you next time."

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Brandon interviews Sharon Varn Holt, an expert in finding off-market deals through probate. They discuss her background in real estate investing, the effectiveness of direct mail marketing, and the unique opportunities in probate deals. Sharon highlights the importance of patience and building a strong marketing system for converting probate leads into successful deals.

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"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Sharon Vornholt. Sharon is an expert in sourcing off-market deals through probate, and she's going to share with us today all kinds of different strategies that she has used to both find those leads and work those leads to create a scalable revenue channel.

"How are you doing today, Sharon?"

"I'm great. How are you doing, Brandon?"

"Doing fantastic, thank you. Where are you calling from?"

"I am from Louisville, Kentucky."

"Well, good for you. Awesome. Louisville, Kentucky - that's honestly something we don't hear that much. There are a lot of other places, but Louisville, Kentucky's underrepresented. For those that are listening that don't yet know you, your company, what you do, a little bit about your background, I would love to get the crash course on what you do and how you work with real estate investors, and what got you where you are today."

"Well, I started - I had another business in 1991, so I go back a long time with real estate, about 25 years. I had another business, a home inspection business, and an agent came in one day - an agent investor - and she said, 'Do you want to go to a REIA meeting?' And I said something like, 'What's a REIA meeting?' So I went to that meeting around about 1998, so like I said, it's been about 25 years. From then on, I just was immersed in the world of real estate investing."

"I started out doing a mix of fix and flip and buy and hold. So those were the two things I would do. Marketing was one thing I was always good at, and this is in the olden days, Brandon, when direct mail marketing was the biggest way to reach people, way before digital marketing. But fast forward, I went full-time in 2008. And if you were around in 2008, it was the best of worlds and the worst of worlds in real estate investing. So there were millions of deals, but not so many buyers could get a retail mortgage, and that was the first time I'd ever wholesaled a property.

I became what I like to say an accidental wholesaler because I did not want to hold those properties. I did not want to rehab the properties that I had because I didn't know how long they were going to sit on the market. So I just called an investor that I knew and said, 'You want to buy these couple of properties?' And he said, 'Heck yeah.' And I thought, 'Boy, that was easy.' But we both know being a wholesaler is not the easiest thing in the world, particularly if you're starting out.

So over the years, I just continued to do that, and I started the blog, I started a podcast, with the goal of teaching other people how to avoid some of the landmines and the roadblocks that I had come upon. So today, I'm really passionate about showing people this business, teaching them how to market and how to generate leads. And one of the many ways that you can generate leads - and I'm passionate about getting women into this business because I think they're greatly underrepresented in real estate investing."

"Yeah, I would absolutely agree with you on that. That's fantastic. I don't even know where to start in terms of picking your brain and understanding all this stuff. Obviously, the overlap that you and I have is marketing. We both love marketing. We both know that that's kind of where this business model begins, and arguably, it's like half of the business model for most real estate investors, right? Marketing and sales is pretty much the entirety of a wholesale operation, and then for different exit strategies, you bolt on other parts of the business that are necessary to make it run. So that considered, I would love to learn a little bit more about what it is that you're teaching in terms of marketing and how that interacts with what we do."

"I've always worked off-market deals, and it's probably because I just did not want to get in there and scrap around with a few thousand real estate agents and other investors on the MLS. So early on, as I said, direct mail marketing was an integral part of the other business that I had. So I got very good at reaching off-market sellers, and remember this was before digital marketing was ever a thought. So you combined that with - I still do, still believe direct mail marketing is the number one contact for niches like probates where it's a little bit different. But to layer that with digital marketing and all the things that can follow, you really get the explosion of the best of both worlds, I'll say that. So I don't think it's necessarily a one-prong approach, or I don't think it has to be one or the other. I think it's very much combined. I do think that you can get better results in doing what I do, which is reach off-market sellers, and particularly I love probates because sadly, there was an endless stream of leads. You can make your initial contact with them, and then you've got really a warm lead to follow up with digital marketing too. So I think it's kind of the best of both worlds personally."

"So tell me a little bit about - I mean, obviously there's a lot of people doing probate marketing. You've been doing this for a long time. I'd love to learn a little bit more about the process that you use for that. Like, where does the list come from? What have you tested in terms of the mail pieces you're using? Why is it that you say that direct mail is the best way to reach those people as opposed to, let's just say, cold calling or texting, which seemed to be really popular recently, or TV commercials or whatever the case is? I just love to understand a little bit more about that. And specifically, I mean, I'm assuming that most people listening to this have probably done some level of marketing to probate before."

"I don't think so. I think most people, most investors I have found, are not doing probates, and it's because of their own mindset. You see, in the probate process, somebody passes away, and then there are certain legal things that happen, like the personal representative is appointed, and then that property in the estate can be sold. But they're thinking that they're somehow going to have to deal with all this sadness and all of that, when in reality, if a house is in probate, it's got to be sold unless it's directly inherited. That property is going to be sold in order to close the estate.

So the family, the executor or the administrator - jointly called the personal representative - they have the business of settling the estate to take care of. There's - you have to get a federal tax ID number, it's a whole process. So it's not a matter of if they're going to sell the property, it's just a matter of when they're going to sell it. And most people will take care of that within the first year or two. They may not open the probate the first month or two somebody has passed away, it may take them six or eight months, but then once they open the probate, the clock starts ticking and they need to move forward with the process of selling this house.

Investors think, mistakenly, that there's going to be a huge amount of competition, and that's just not the case. Because if you think of - I don't know, where are you located, Brandon?"

"Salt Lake City, Utah."

"So, and if you are in a - depending on what your population is will depend on how many leads you have. And so you're comparatively - if you're doing deals on the MLS, however you're getting, doing that, you're going to have much less competition working any type of off-market deal. So that's number one.

Number two, you mentioned about the marketing piece and why don't you just cold call them or something like that. Because it's a very sensitive situation, and if Brandon cold calls a probate, 99% of them are going to put your name up on a wall and throw darts at it because you've just been insensitive to the fact that they've lost someone. They hate it when you cold call them as your first point of contact. Don't knock on their door, but use another form of marketing.

Now I know from doing this since 2008 that they have to go through a mental process themselves. They have to settle this estate, it's a required legal procedure if it's in probate. But they need to take a little time oftentimes to get this moving. And when you can send them a direct mail piece and then say, 'You know, here's what I do. I'll be here when you're ready,' they will get back with you.

Now, back to your point of digital marketing and the other contacts - once they have called you, even if they have said, 'I'm not quite ready to sell the property, but I'll be interested at some point,' then they've just opened up the door for other avenues of contact. Once they've called you, then you can generally speaking, you can call them, you can text them and check in, you can do other forms of digital marketing. But there is a process with this particular niche.

And with other types of off-market deals, let's say absentee owners or code violations, whatever, you can 100% cold call, you can 100% use digital marketing. This is a little bit different niche, which is what makes it so different.

Now you ask about getting the leads. In the U.S., there are over 3,300 counties, so there's no one central place for getting them like if you are a realtor, you've got the MLS. But you have to figure out where the leads can be gotten in your area. They're always going to be sourced locally. Now in my area, they're in the newspaper once a month. They're in the newspaper, they are not online in a portal where you can pull them. If you're in Dallas, if you're in Chicago, you can just go online and Google - you know, they're online. And so how you figure out if they're in your area, if they're online, is you would Google 'Salt Lake City' plus the plus sign 'probate,' your county and the plus sign 'probate,' and just see if they come up, if there's a portal where they come up.

They may be in the newspaper, which I know sounds really old school, but trust me, most people just quit right there. They're going to give up on these leads. And if you stop and think about it a minute, I don't know what your population is in Salt Lake City. So here we're like less than a million, maybe million-ish with the outlying counties. What are you, Brandon?"

"A little bit over 2 million."

"Okay, so let's say in your business, you have two million. If I'm getting - by the time we would sort through the leads and take out the ones we knew were too low, they were areas we didn't want, or the houses were simply too expensive, they were going to be sold on the MLS for sure - we would get between 60 and 100 leads a month, 120. In your area, that number would be probably about double that.

Now those are just leads this month. Guess what? Next month you're going to get the same amount, and the month after that you're going to get the same amount. So it is literally a never-ending stream of leads where you can build on this momentum month after month after month. You begin to build a list, and you've got this group of very valuable sellers because they have to sell the property. It's not a 'maybe one day I'll want to sell.' That's not the case."

"Yeah, and I think that takes - it also takes a certain level of patience. I actually had a call with a client a couple months ago where we were going through their leads and what they had in their pipeline and stuff like that, and they're like, 'Oh yeah, on this one we got into - or we got into contract, but it's a probate one so it doesn't really count,' because they were basically thinking like, 'Oh, it's not going to close for' - not true at all. And I looked at it like, okay, well, it's still worth something. You know, maybe those deals are a little bit slower on average, but do you have any metrics to represent cash conversion cycles in probate compared to other specific niches for off-market properties? I'm curious how it actually varies on average."

"Well, I think there - overall they're good leads. I can't give you any absolute conversion numbers, but I can tell you this: that these people - you say there is not going to close for a while. Well, if you look at many forms of marketing, whether it's direct mail or whatever it is, you have to have so many touches before people respond. With direct mail marketing, you'll get 81% of your deals - not your calls, but your deals - at or beyond the fifth month.

So once they've made their contact with you and you start to layer up your marketing efforts, then that number builds on there. So stop and think about this for a minute. You're building - if you've ever read the book 'The Compound Effect,' it's you do this this month, and then it builds on next month, and it builds on next month, till in a year you've got this fabulous machine built. And that's the way it is when you start the path with the - and start with direct mail marketing.

Every - after five months, everybody - somebody's going to be in the fifth month, they're going to be way more motivated. You likely will have spoken to them, you'll have other avenues like digital marketing to get in front of them. It's very hard, I have found, to convert a probate lead from like an ad. It's - I'm not going to say you can't do it, but you can do - often do it through your website if you're putting out marketing and then you have a probate page on your website. They're looking for some evidence that you actually know what you're doing.

So I think there's a point at which all of these different things come together and they - you know, they kind of marry each other. But I think you do need a little bit of patience, but once that machine gets built - everybody works on a different timeline too. There are people that open the estate next week, and in Kentucky, as with many, many states around the country, this is just a regular deal. That someone passes away, the estate is open, and boom, you can buy the property.

Because what happens next is that once that property is sold, the creditors are paid, then the heirs get what's left. Then and only then do people get what they're going to inherit. So they're very motivated to keep this process moving along. Now people mistakenly think the estate has to be closed, and that's when you buy the property. But guess what? It's all over then. So it's roughly as soon as they open the estate, you know, within a very short period of time you can buy the property."

"Yeah, that's super interesting. And very interesting statistic that you shared - 81% of the deals will close five months or longer after the mail is sent, as I understand that."

"No, they'll be gotten - that like the contract will be signed. So 81% of your deals, you'll get the contract at that fifth month or beyond."

"Oh, really? The contract, not even the deal. So that that even extends it further."

"Here, no, here it's a regular closing, and for an investor, it's next week or two weeks. It's the same as any other deal. Now if you're in the state of California, God bless you, because they have a lot of different rules, appraisals and things like that. But if you're in most states around the country, just think of it as a regular deal, a regular off-market deal. The triggering event is when the probate is opened, and that's when those people are raising their hands and they're saying, 'I'm ready to sell the property. We're ready to move this process forward.'

Now as I said, it might take them a couple of months because they've got to deal with things like belongings in the house and things like that. But there - that's the triggering event when they open the estate."

"Very interesting. And if it's not too much to ask, where did those - I'm curious where that number came from. Is that just direct mail as a whole, as referenced in the industry more generally, or is that specific to some of your own marketing that you've done?"

"It was - it was a statistic put out by the Sales and Marketing Council, and it was directly attributed to real estate as well as other things. Direct mail seems to be pretty much across all genres a pretty steady statistic. And it's curious to think in this age of digital marketing that people are not doing an either/or, they're - they're finding a way to marry the two together because it makes them so much more powerful.

As I said, these people, they've been through a hard time, but they've got this job to do. They've got this estate to settle. But the last thing they want you to do is cold call them or knock on their door. That they think is really insensitive. So don't do that."

"Yes, understood. I've heard the same about the divorce list. You don't want to cold call those people. It doesn't end super well."

"Yeah, although you can. It's just - you can, but yeah, there are better ways."

"Fair enough. And I'm curious on that - sorry for digging maybe even a little bit too deep into this. I'm really curious to hear - so when it comes to cold calling probate lists instead of direct mail, obviously it's a little bit more sensitive to do the direct mail, and you'd probably get less angry hang-ups and stuff like that. But do you have any data available as to the relative effectiveness of either one? Because what I've heard, for example, when it comes to like cold calling the divorce list, you're gonna have a lot of nasty conversations, but you'll still do deals. It's still worth it. People just aren't happy about it sometimes. How do you feel about that?"

"Here's my take on it. Real estate and in general real estate investing, it's a relationship business. And if you start off trying to build a relationship by hurting someone, doing something hurtful to them - and cold calling somebody who's just buried their relative is hurtful to them - to say, 'Hey, I want to buy that property that's become available.' What you're saying - what they're hearing is, 'I want to buy your mom's property' or 'your dad's property. They passed away and I want to get first in line and grab up their property.' They conjure up these things in their mind, but that's what they're hearing. They're not hearing, 'I'm a helpful resource,' which you can convey in better ways.

Now, people - I have students that have tried cold calling them. I've tried everything. It did not end well, and they've tried it, and they'll come back and they'll confess. It's really funny. They'll come back and they'll confess, 'I didn't listen. I cold called them. I thought I was in the area. I knocked on the door. They called me names I can't repeat.' And so - but for me, it's just not worth it. It's - I know that I know that the other approach works, and I know that the best mail piece that works - if you're going to do direct mail and then combine that with digital marketing - the best initial mail piece to use is a white computer-generated mail merge letter.

They don't want to get a postcard and look at it. It says, 'This is about the estate of your dad,' and this got his name on it. They're offended by that. So if you said - they don't necessarily - they - I mean, you got to stop and think, get into the mindset of these people, what they've been through. And that's part of the beauty of probates is that you can - if you can understand how they feel and put that - your marketing into a format that they can deal with, they're much more likely to choose you.

Because remember, marketing is how you get leads, but branding is why they choose you. So this is kind of a case of branding yourself poorly in their mind because you were not - you didn't really focus on the situation that they're in, if that makes sense to you.

So if you use a letter that says, 'Dear Brandon, I'm contacting you about the estate of' and the person's name, and here's the address, and then you say, 'This is what we do, this is how we can help you.' If one of your hang-ups is cleaning out the property - take what you want, leave the rest, and we'll take care of it for you. Because that's a very painful thing for a lot of people to do, to get rid of their dad's possessions that have no monetary value.

Once they've taken what they want, then they've got to deal with, 'I've got to throw away my dad's stuff.' It's an emotional thing for them. So if you can take that off the plate, figure that in your offer - somebody to come clean out the house - then you take that off the plate. That's often the stumbling block for them just saying, 'Here, you can have the property.'

So - but it - but again, if this is very - it's a different niche in that there are feelings involved. We're real genuine feelings involved. But it's a great lead source though."

"Yeah, I get it. But while you could generate leads with the wrong kind of branding, it'd be much harder to close those leads than if you can kind of speak to them the way that they want to be spoken to, especially because this could be like a slow relationship at first where like, it's not the right time when they first get your first mail piece, but it's going to take - it's going to take a continual exposure.

"What about situations where you've seen that this type of marketing to probate lists hasn't been successful? Like certain types of markets, certain states that have different laws, maybe just depend on the size of the market, or could it depend on competition? I'm just curious about the negatives that you've seen and any patterns you're able to track as to like, this is when this is a good idea, and this is when it's not."

"I think - I don't think it's ever a bad idea. I think because they're - the leads are sourced differently in areas. If you're in certain part - like I said, California has a lot of different rules. They will get the court involved as far as they'll get the property appraised, they'll do all of these crazy things, and maybe they'll just look at the tax assessor site and say, 'Well, it says it's worth two million dollars. We'll just call it 2 million,' when maybe it hasn't been updated in 35 years.

If you - so that's one area that I know people told me time and time again it's harder to do probates. It's definitely not impossible, but people - you have to learn what the rules are in your state. Now, ninety percent of the things will be the same, the process will be the same, but getting the leads - if you're in certain places in Florida, I had a student in Fort Lauderdale, he had to go to the courthouse. Well, that's totally not scalable unless you can get someone to do that for you, to go pull those leads. If you're in New Jersey, same thing.

So that's when I said if they're online - and they are online in a lot of places - you can pull the list completely free. You can get paid leads from some companies. I've not always been a fan because they often pull information from obituaries, which is just the deceased name, and then they'll find the address of the property. It's not really a good marketing strategy to send mail pieces to the property of someone who's deceased because no one else lives there in most cases unless it's a spouse. So it's a very poor use of resources.

And if somebody says to you, 'Oh, these leads are so fresh we don't have all the information,' that means they're working obituaries. Now there are some places that have the - you can buy the leads, they're super expensive. I mean super expensive. So if you can get them in your area, if there's a way for them to be pulled out online, then even a lot of the programs people are familiar with to get off-market leads and do different types of marketing too, you know, you - they - you can get them through list serve services. But that's not the case in many areas.

So I would say the downside is generally if you're in an area where the leads are hard to source and not scalable. Not scalable - it needs to be scalable."

"Yeah, yeah, I understand. Although I would assume - I don't - I mean, this is just a hypothesis. Maybe you have data to support this, maybe not, and maybe you do, but it's anecdotal. But I would assume those places where you have to like go to the courthouse and pull those records or something, they're harder to get, but when you get them, it's - they are significantly less competitive versus like a market that's maybe huge and it's all online and all of your competition has the same leads."

"Exactly. So there are - people I've had that I've worked with that did that, and what they would do was they would create a process. These are the - you really only need four pieces of information to work with probates, and that's the name and address of the deceased and the name and address of the personal representative. And then from there, you would hope to get, you know, email addresses and other ways that you could, you know, have a way to reach them online. But you only need those four pieces of information.

And the people that I have seen do this successfully, they have created the process like go to the courthouse, this is how you get the records for the month of May 2023. And then once they had their process down, then they would hire someone - much more affordable person - that would be their job to go once a week or once a month, whenever the leads were put out, and pull that information.

But you've got that 100% right. And another reason probates are such a great niche is most people, they just - they're looking for the Easy Button, Brandon. They're not willing to do even a little bit of work that's not push button to get these leads. And once you realize that these people really need to sell their property and there's very little competition compared to on the MLS, the difference is huge. I mean, two handfuls of competitors.

The other statistic is that 90% of your perceived competition will quit a direct mail only before the third mailing. So stick it out for the - you know, they come in and they don't make a million dollars in the first two months. They don't understand how this works. They don't understand how to combine digital marketing with, you know, how to contact them once they've made that initial call to them. That opens the door for other forms of communication, and you can also say to them, 'Is it okay if I do X, Y, and Z kind of keep in touch with you?' And most people, they live in a digital world and they're okay with that."

"Yeah, I understand. That is really neat and kind of exactly like I expected. On the topic of scalability, I don't know if you know Jason Lewis by any chance. He's a real estate investor here in Utah. He's a friend of mine, and he has a company called Investor Machine that is kind of like a done-for-you direct mail service. And so they're - they're of course targeting all kinds of lists with all kinds of postcards or letters or whatever the case is. And I know for a fact that in many of the markets that they're in, they actually like - they as the agency will hire people to go to the courthouse and pull records like this for their company. So it's like - I don't know, I almost - I get what you're saying by not scalable, but at the same time, like most things are somehow scalable as long as they can happen. It's just - it's like difficult to scale, which I'm sure is what you'd mean to say."

"Yeah, it's just harder to pull off. And stop and think about if you're in a big area like Chicago. A couple of years ago when the population was 8 million - is bigger than that now - they had 800 leads a month. Stop and think about that, how many leads that is in one month. So you would take your little area that you work in and you would just work those leads. And remember, your competition, when it comes to this type of marketing, they're not really your competition. Most of them are gonna - they're not going to get started to begin with, and secondly, they're going to give up when they're not a millionaire in two or three months.

So you're building this pipeline of leads and - now I've worked off-market deals for a long time, and this is really the only niche that I haven't found that postcards are effective with. You know, most other off-market deals, I think hands down postcards are as effective as letters. You know, you can mix it up, you can do whatever. But yeah, so I think you're 100% right. If you're willing to put the work into it, you can scale this. You can set up a process, have someone else do it, and then you focus on doing what you do best, which is probably talking to people, closing deals, whatever your - whatever your superpower is."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, thank you for the different perspective, Sharon. It's awesome to hear a little bit about another niche form of marketing because we talk so much just about the specific channels that I'm most familiar with on this podcast. For anybody that's listening and this resonated well with - that might want to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to get in contact?"

"Probably the best way is to go over to the blog. There's a link off of there to the podcast, and I talk a lot about probates and marketing. Those are some of the things I talk about. But the Louisville Gals Real Estate Blog, and then there's a link off to the podcast, which is 'Let's Talk Real Estate Investing.'"

"Okay, fantastic. As I understand, a very successful podcast. You're what, 400 something?"

"Four hundred and..."

"Congratulations on that."

"Well, that's fantastic. Sharon, thank you for sharing your time with me today."

"And for everybody else listening, I'll see you next time."

That concludes the entire transcript with all grammatical corrections, proper capitalization, punctuation, and dialogue formatting applied.

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Join Brandon and guest Garret Cragun, Bateman Collective's Director of Paid Media, as they debunk the myths around impression share on Google Ads. This is an eye-opening discussion on maximizing value, bidding like a pro, and unlocking phenomenal results for real estate investors using PPC. This is an absolute must-listen for anyone looking to supercharge their advertising game.

Bid Calculator: https://www.notion.so/bateman/Bateman-Collective-Bid-Adjustment-Calculator-60f3dea236054935bd021653f872fd39?pvs=4

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

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"All right, how are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing great, how are you?"

"Hey, fantastic, thank you. Um, we're gonna make this one a little bit shorter. Sounds like you got some Thai food to eat with your wife."

"That's right, lunch plans, lunch date."

"Yep, that's awesome. Um, for anybody who wants to weigh into the conversation, I'm basically arguing that Penang Curry is much better than yellow curry. But I think Garrett's a little bit of a wimp when it comes to spice."

"I am very much a wimp with the spice."

"So, if you lost all your respect for him, I understand."

"That's probably already been gone if that's what caused the respect, but I understand."

"I don't know, I mean, different people care about different things. For somebody that loves marketing, they probably like you. But if they're really into curry or into spice and curry..."

"That's right, yeah, same thing."

"Yeah. Well, I'm super excited for today's episode. We've been talking about this a lot, and this is a topic that has a ton of myths and misunderstandings, not just among real estate investors but also among professionals. This is a topic where actual professional PPC marketers can't get it right after years of their career."

"Yeah, which is crazy. We have to have so much internal training around this within our company, and I don't think it's that complicated. So, hopefully, we can distill it and get through some of those myths and really understand what's going on and make something out of this."

"Definitely, yeah. And, if that's not enough mystery and hype, let's make it extra buzzwordy: black hat marketing for you. What if I could tell you that with this one trick you could cut down your lead quality or cutting down your cost per lead by 35 percent? Experts don't want you to know this one trick about Google Ads PPC."

"That's great. Stay tuned for more. You should definitely be a copywriter for ClickFunnels."

"That's right. All right, let's jump into it. Okay, so this is all surrounding impression share, and really there's kind of this fun trio of metrics surrounding impression share. But let's talk about first, like, what is impression share?"

"In very simple terms, it's basically how often your ads show up as a percentage of the total number of searches made for the keywords that you're bidding on."

"Exactly, and it is based on your criteria, right? So, it's like when you're eligible."

"Right. So, theoretically, 100 percent impression share means every time your ad could show, you show. Versus 10 percent might mean that 10 percent of the time you show. A lot of people, when they first hear about their metric, they're just like, 'Okay, perfect, how do I get it to 100?' Like, that's their idea."

"Right. And they almost think of an agency like the role of the agency is to get that number as high as possible. Pump it up because your job is, for a budget, to get me the highest impression share possible. Where's that logic flawed?"

"Well, I think where it's flawed is that not every search is of equal value, both from the person making the search and from what's being searched. If they were all equally great, then sure, max it out, get as much as possible. But that's not the case. Different searches are gonna bring you a better ROI, and different people making those searches are also going to give you a different ROI. So, you have to maximize that value on both a person and the search."

"Oh, absolutely. And you have the other layer, which is the cost, right? Everything's gonna have a different cost of what it takes. It's kind of like saying every house in the market we should be buying if we're a wholesaler. That's not the case because you intentionally avoid houses that sell for too much. And if somebody else is coming in willing to pay way more, then you don't want the house. I mean, of course, in real estate, if you could just be really good at sales and negotiation and even though there's a higher offer you could win the deal, that's great. In this world of PPC, there's no such thing as that, right? It's just kind of like it goes for whatever it goes for."

"Yeah, it's an auction."

"Yeah, it's an auction. So, I think that's super interesting. Then there's also the component of only certain things are feasible with a certain budget, right? So, higher impression share generally correlates with more leads if the quality of the... Well, assuming all the targeting parameters are the same. If you could take everything else the same and go from 20 to 40 percent impression share, you do get more leads. Usually costs more money though, right? But it never is all the same. So, that's where optimizing towards impression share just doesn't make sense unless all your other parameters are there. So, let's talk about this trio of metrics, right? We have search impression share, that's one of them. What are the other two?"

"The other two are gonna be subsets of that larger metric. They're going to be the percentage of your share that you've lost due to budget and the percentage lost due to rank."

"Let's dig in. Just before we get any further into that, I want to clarify exactly how this works. So, these three numbers, if you add them together, they equal 100. All right, so you have your entire universe of what's possible, and you're either showing up or you're not showing up because of budget or you're not showing up because of rank. Those are the only three options."

"Right, it's going to fall into one of those buckets. So basically, those two that you mentioned are lost impression share metrics. What's the difference between a lost impression share to budget and a lost impression share to rank?"

"So, rank is kind of a black box from Google, exactly how it's measured. But the simplest way to look at it is it's a combination of your bids, your ad quality, your keyword quality, and your landing page quality. But the biggest factor by far is your bids. So when we say rank, it's probably easiest to kind of just turn rank into bids because that's kind of the main purpose of this podcast. There are other ones we've done where we have talked about rank from ads and from landing pages, but for now, let's just focus on bids as the main driver of that metric."

"Well, yeah, I think that's really appropriate because the way some PPC marketers would look at this is like, 'Oh no, I have a lot of lost impression share to rank. I need to work on all those other things.' But really, those other things are where there is no limit to how good they can be, and you should always be working on them. So I don't think this is a signal that you need to work on them. I think those should always be maxed out. So assuming you're always doing everything you can there, then the only thing left to change is bids, correct? I don't think you should just start looking at writing your ads in a relevant way the second that you have a high impression share last rank, correct?"

"So basically, that's bids. Would it be fair to simplify that and say it pretty much means somebody else is bidding higher than you?"

"Yeah, so you didn't show up because somebody else was willing to pay more."

"Yep, okay. And what about budget?"

"Essentially, if we look at your ads being active over a given day, in essence, is how early in the day your ads stopped running because your budget was used up too early in the day. So if you're limited by budget, that means that your budget ran out, but there were still available impressions to be captured if your budget wasn't already used up by the clicks that were captured."

"Yeah, totally understood. I think a good comparison to this is picturing going to an auction. In this auction, they're going to sell 100 widgets throughout the day."

"I love a good widget."

"Yes, I love a good widget too. I don't know why 'widget' is just like the default word that people always use for stuff like this, but I'm just following the trend. Okay, I can't say that with a straight face. I'm gonna use the word 'widget.'"

"There's going to be 100 widgets sold during the day. Let's just say the day ends, and you have bought 25 of those widgets. That is a 25% impression share, basically assuming the widget is an impression. That's what Google sells. So let's talk about how that could have happened throughout the day. Let's just say on that day, the average widget ended up selling for forty dollars, but you were bidding a hundred dollars for those, and you just bought the first 25 that came, and then you basically just had to go home after the first 25 sold because you were out of money. Now you've got the next 75 that may be sold for less than what you were willing to pay because you're willing to pay 100 bucks for a widget, right? So the next 75 sold for 40 bucks or whatever the case is, and you didn't get those. That's lost impression share to budget because you were willing to pay the price, your bids were sufficient, but your budget was not. Even though this is worth it to me, I don't have the money to pay for it according to my budget. That's how you set your daily budget in Google."

"The other side of that would be you bought 25 widgets during the day and you bought them for 100 bucks each. Then, maybe you had 100 grand already at that auction, and you're ready to spend 100 grand, but you're only willing to pay 100 bucks for a widget. But then 75 of those widgets sold for 120, 150, 200, whatever the case is, something that you couldn't afford. So you weren't getting them not because you didn't have the money, you had plenty of money, but you just weren't willing to pay the price on an individual level. That's your last impression share to rank, correct? Do you think that's a decent enough analogy?"

"Yeah, and what's important to look at here is that both of those outcomes aren't necessarily good or bad. In your business, you could sell those, you know, again for two times your bid, and that's a win. It's important as you're going through this process to understand that your success isn't based on the metrics themselves. It's based on how those metrics help you get to the outcomes in your business that matter. You can crush it with these metrics and still be in the red as a business. Likewise, you can keep those low and think, 'Wow, I'm so frugal,' and you're losing out on all this volume that you could be capturing at a good margin. It's not black or white like high is good, low is bad. It's more like where does it have to be to kind of maximize, kind of reach that top point of that bell curve."

"Absolutely, there is totally a point. To bring that into the analogy, let's just say these widgets—I'm a wholesaler of widgets, right? Let's just say I can sell those for 200. If there is somebody who is now bidding 500 on that widget and buying it, what's the best thing for me to do? Not get competitive."

"Yeah, I want to pay 600 when I can only sell it for 200. Come on, agency, get me that widget for twice my price. Yeah, get upset at my bidder. That's the last thing I want to do, right?"

"Right, the best thing I could do is say, 'Okay, that's not the price that works for me,' and leave. In that way, losing to the rank is actually sometimes a really good thing if it's the right loss that you're doing because there's always some fool who's gonna pay too much, especially in these competitive worlds that we play in, especially where people don't understand these metrics and how they work."

"You talked about how there's not really good or bad, but there is optimal. I want to kind of clarify that a little bit because it's not like we want a certain impression share lost due to budget or rank or whatever the case is, but I would say that we do. Lost to rank is generally not a bad thing; however, lost due to budget can be a bad thing because it proves potential inefficiency."

"This is where most people get lost, so I'm gonna try to tiptoe nice and slow through this, and I'm hoping you can help make this super clear to understand. I think taking it back to this auction analogy, if we're just remembering that scenario, if we're going through and buying, you know, paying 100 bucks for every widget for the first 25, and then the rest of the day they sell for five dollars but we ran out of money, how could we more efficiently manage that whole situation?"

"It'd probably be that we're bidding less money for those widgets because we don't need to bid that much in order to win the number that we need because we're just going to run out of budget anyways, right? So we might be better off taking that same amount of money and bidding fifty dollars instead of a hundred dollars, and then maybe we could buy 40 widgets with our budget instead of 25 or, you know, whatever the numbers would work out to. It depends on what other people are bidding and stuff like that."

"There are two metrics. I don't know if this is just too deep, but I kind of think of it like there's one metric that doesn't exist in Google Ads but it absolutely should. It's one that's called potential spend, and I'll try to explain what this means. I can't tell if you're smiling at me like I'm just gonna lose everybody or like this makes sense."

"No, no, this is what like a deep cut that people need to really understand. I really think this is the level. There are different things sometimes we talk about on this podcast that a real estate investor, if you're working with an agency to manage it, you don't need to know that, right? You don't need to know all about keyword match types and different types of bid strategies and stuff. This you need to understand. This is basic foundational economics of your business as it relates to PPC. I think it's really important."

"As far as most people get for this, they see, um, I can't believe we haven't even mentioned this yet, they see this big red thing in the Google Ads account that says 'limited by budget.' This is basically just Google highlighting something in these underlying metrics, and they're telling you to do one thing. It's not necessarily what you should do, right?"

"For those that can't see, Garrett, he's raising his finger as if Google just wants you to spend more money."

"Right, blow that budget."

"Yeah, but it's not exactly the way to talk about it, so let's make sure we understand the metrics first, and then we'll dive into it. Because it's not just are you limited by budget or not; it's to what extent are you limited by budget, and that can't be shown by just a red sign that says, 'Hey, you spend more money.' But this potential spend—when we're talking about potential spend, and again, this isn't a metric that exists in Google, this is one you have to calculate yourself or just even understand theoretically."

"I wonder if we could put a link to this formula in the podcast show notes. I'm totally down to do that."

"Yeah, we can link to this formula instead, which, as far as I'm aware, I've never seen any other PPC marketer even talk about this. In the whole world of PPC, I don't know why nobody talks about this. But it's basically, picture you have an unlimited budget, right? Infinite dollars that you can spend, but your bids are fixed at whatever your bids are."

"Let's just say you're in a target CPA bid strategy, and you're bidding 300 per acquisition. What you're basically telling Google there is there are two constraints: one, I don't want to pay more than this cost per lead, and two, I can't spend more than my budget. But in this case, the budget's infinite, right? So you're basically saying, 'Give me as much volume as you can without surpassing that cost per lead.'"

"With their standard model of diminishing returns and stuff, basically, the higher—this is like basic supply and demand economics, right?—the higher the tolerance for cost per lead, the more volume you can get at that tolerance. There is, with the limited number of people that search on Google and within your parameters for your keywords and your locations, etc., there's a finite number there. With your bids at that certain point, there's a finite number. There's auctions that you're going to win, so this is the amount of money that you would spend if you had no budget."

"For example, let's just say if I bid a hundred dollars for clicks and I could get 10 of them, then I would spend a thousand dollars even if I had an infinite budget, just because a thousand is all I would get to because other people are outbidding me or whatever the case is. But I wouldn't have limitations by budget because I have an infinite budget, so that's your potential spend."

"The next thing to think about is how does your potential spend interact with your budget. If you calculate out your potential spend and your potential spend is higher than your budget, then what you have is limitation by budget. If your potential spend is lower than your budget, then what happens is you're underspending, and people get frustrated by this because they're telling Google, 'Spend ten thousand dollars a month,' and then they spend five thousand dollars a month. So it's kind of this swinging game, right?"

"As you change your bids, you change your potential spend. If your potential spend gets below the budget, now you're underbidding. Now you're underspending, right? You want to spend your 10 grand a month; now you're spending five. If your potential spend gets higher than your budget, this is like the silent killer of Google Ads because what's going to happen is it's going to say 'limited by budget.' Everybody's gonna say, 'Oh, Google's just trying to get you to spend more money,' but there are actual viable metrics behind this that are showing, 'Hey, your potential spend is higher than your budget.' That doesn't mean that you need to raise your budget. It means that your bids are incompatible with your budget, which means that you either have to lower your bids or you have to raise your budget. But if you do nothing, what you're doing is you're paying a premium without getting the volume that should be associated with paying that premium. I hope that made sense. Help me clarify it, fill in the gaps."

"It made sense to me, but if I can try to explain it like a pleb, I will try."

"So basically, your account has a fixed amount it can spend, and the goal is to—and tell me if I'm doing this explanation incorrectly—this calculator's goal is to find the sweet spot between maximizing that spend while not paying a premium to get to that point."

"Yeah, it's basically, think of it like this: there's a law of diminishing returns, right? Companies that spend more money actually have a higher cost per lead. So if that's true, and that's aside from any data advantages or whatever the case is, right? So there's a lot to potentially unpack there, a very controversial statement, but let's just say we cut all that out and we just say, 'Yeah, if you have a higher impression share, you have a higher cost per lead,' and we have data that proves exactly that, like a very clear correlation between impression share and cost per lead. So basically, you kind of have to decide."

"Yeah, I want to pay 600 when I can only sell it for 200. Come on!"

"Agency, get me that widget for twice my price. Yeah, get upset at my bidder."

"That's the last thing I want to do, right? The best thing I could do is say, 'Okay, that's not the price that works for me,' and leave."

In that way, losing to the rank is actually sometimes a really good thing if it's the right loss you're doing because there's some fool who's going to pay too much, especially in these competitive worlds that we play in, especially where people don't understand these metrics and how they work. You talked about how there's not really good or bad, but there is optimal. I want to kind of clarify that a little bit because it's not like we want a certain impression. Sure, I lost you to budget or rank or whatever the case is, but I would say that we do like loss due to rank is generally not a bad thing. However, loss due to budget can be a bad thing because it proves potential inefficiency.

This is where most people get lost, so I'm going to try to tiptoe nice and slow through this, and I'm hoping you can help make this super, super clear to understand. But I think taking it back to this auction analogy, if we're just remembering that scenario, if we're going through and buying, you know, paying 100 bucks for every widget for the first 25 and then the rest of the day they sell for five dollars, but we ran out of money, how could we more efficiently manage that whole situation? It'd probably be that we're bidding less money for those widgets because we don't need to bid that much in order to win the number that we need because we're just going to run out of budget anyways, right? So we might be better off taking that same amount of money and bidding fifty dollars instead of a hundred dollars, and then maybe we could buy 40 widgets with our budget instead of 25 or, you know, whatever the numbers would work out to. It depends on what other people are bidding and stuff like that.

There are two metrics. I don't—I mean, it's not me if this is just too deep—but I kind of think of it like there's one metric that doesn't exist in Google Ads, but it absolutely should. It's one that's called potential spend, and I'll try to explain what this means. I can't tell if you're smiling at me like I'm just going to lose everybody or like this makes sense.

"No, no, this is a deep cut that people need to really understand."

I really think this is the level. Sometimes we talk about stuff on this podcast that, like a real estate investor, if you're working with an agency to manage it, you don't need to know that, right? You don't need to know all about keyword match types and different types of bid strategies and stuff. This, you need to understand. This is like basic foundational economics of your business as it relates to PPC. I think it's really important. As far as most people get for this, they see—

"I can't believe we haven't even mentioned this yet—they see this big red thing in the Google Ads account. It says, 'Limited by budget.'"

This is basically just Google highlighting something in these underlying metrics, and they're telling you to do one thing. It's not necessarily what you should do, right?

"For those that can't see Garrett, he's raising his finger as if Google just wants you to spend more money, right?"

"Blow that budget."

"Yeah, but it's not exactly the way to talk about it, so let's make sure we understand the metrics first and then we'll dive into it."

So, because it's not just, "Are you limited by budget or not?" It's to what extent are you limited by budget? That can't be shown by just a red sign that says, "Hey, spend more money."

When we're talking about potential spend—and again, this isn't a metric that exists in Google; this is one you have to calculate yourself or just even understand theoretically, and that's okay—I wonder if we put a link to this formula in the podcast show notes.

"I'm totally down to do that."

"Yeah, we can get a link to this formula instead, which as far as I'm aware, I've never seen any other PPC marketer even talk about this in the whole world of PPC. I don't know why. I don't know why nobody talks about this."

Basically, picture you have an unlimited budget, right? Infinite dollars that you can spend, but your bids are fixed at whatever your bids are. So you're bidding—let's just say you're in a Target CPA bid strategy, and you're bidding 300 per acquisition. What you're basically telling Google there is there's two constraints: one, I don't want to pay more than this cost per lead, and two, I can't spend more than my budget. But in this case, the budget's infinite, right? So you're basically saying, "Give me as much volume as you can without surpassing that cost per lead."

With their standard model of diminishing returns and stuff, basically, this is like basic supply and demand economics, right? The higher the tolerance for cost per lead, the more volume you can get at that tolerance. There is, with the limited number of people that search on Google and within your parameters for your keywords and your locations, etc., a finite number there. With your bids at that certain point, there's a finite number. There's auctions that you're going to win, so this is the amount of money that you would spend if you had no budget.

For example, this should say if I bid a hundred dollars for clicks and I could get 10 of them, then I would spend a thousand dollars even if I had an infinite budget, just because a thousand is all I would get to because other people are outbidding me or whatever the case is. But I wouldn't have limitations by budget because I have an infinite budget. So that's your potential spend.

The next thing to think about is how does your potential spend interact with your budget? So, if you calculate out your potential spend and your potential spend is higher than your budget, then you have a limitation by budget. If your potential spend is lower than your budget, then what happens is you're underspending, and people get frustrated by this because they're telling Google, "You know, spend ten thousand dollars a month," and then they spend five thousand dollars a month. So it's kind of this swinging game, right?

So, as you change your bids, you change your potential spend. If your potential spend gets below the budget, now you're underbidding, now you're underspending, right? You want to spend your 10 grand a month, now you're spending five. If your potential spend gets higher than your budget, this is like the silent killer of Google Ads because what's going to happen is it's going to say, "Limited by budget." Everybody's going to say, "Oh, Google's just trying to get you to spend more money." But there are actual viable metrics behind this that are showing, "Hey, your potential spend is higher than your budget." That doesn't mean that you need to raise your budget; it means that your bids are incompatible with your budget, which means that you either have to lower your bids or you have to raise your budget. But if you do nothing, what you're doing is you're paying a premium without getting the volume that should be associated with paying that premium.

"I hope that made sense. Help me clarify it, fill in the gaps."

"It made sense to me, but if I can try to explain it like a pleb, I will try."

So basically, your account has a fixed amount it can spend, and the goal is to—tell me if I'm saying this incorrectly—find the sweet spot between maximizing that spend, like maximizing how much of that maximum available, while not paying a premium to get to that point.

"Yeah, it's basically, think of it like this: there's a law of diminishing returns, right? Companies that spend more money actually have a higher cost per lead. So if that's true, and that's aside from any data advantages or whatever the case is, there's a lot to potentially unpack there, a very controversial statement. But let's just say we cut all that out and we just say, yeah, if you have a higher impression share, you have a higher cost per lead, and we have data that proves exactly that, like a very clear correlation between impression share and cost per lead. So basically, you kind of have to decide."

It's just that you're exposing a problem that was already there. So keep that in mind: if you have a decrease in quality when you change bids, it could be due to you getting results out of luck, not from good targeting in the first place.

"So let's make this actionable," you say. "I'm a business owner, listening to this, and I'm trying to figure out what to do. Maybe I'm managing my own PPC, but I think more of the people listening to this are probably just trying to figure out how to win in this game. So many people are so frustrated because they hear about all the success in PPC, but they can't seem to figure it out themselves, right?"

"So if I'm a business owner trying to know enough to be dangerous, trying to figure out what this means and how I can adjust my strategy according to this, let's talk about some actionable insights."

"Yeah," I reply. "I would say that the first step is to go into this episode's show notes, go to the link for the bid calculator, and plug in your numbers. See what that tells you, and that's going to give you an idea of how far off you are right now."

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In this fantastic episode, Brandon Bateman interviews David Olds, the expert behind a virtual transaction coordination company that has closed over $14.7 million in wholesale assignment fees! David shares his insights on transaction coordination dispositions and discusses where investors often go wrong in their approach. Get ready to learn how to tackle the challenging and essential work that leads to success.

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"All right, hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm joined by David Olds. David runs a virtual transaction coordinations company that closed over $14.7 million worth of wholesale assignment fees for their clients just in 2022 alone. He sees tons of transactions, knows a ton about dispositions, has run a successful wholesaling company and many service businesses for Real Estate Investors. Today we're going to talk all about transaction coordination, dispositions, where investors are getting it wrong, and how do you keep on doing that boring hardware that's going to get you to success. How are you doing today, David?"

"Doing amazing. Um, doing actually really great. I missed it, missed... I missed our time a little bit. I showed up a little bit early, but luckily I realized that uh, that I was early and not late. Much better to be early than late. Doing amazing, yes."

"That's fantastic. Yeah, I can see you're one of the first early podcast guests ever. That is typically not the way it works in my office. I am like, 'Okay, I got three minutes to open the meeting, I need to go in there and turn on some lights and get online.' So it does not happen very often, but no, I'm glad we made it and we're gonna have a little bit of time to chat today."

"Yeah, and this is a little tangential, but have you always been that way? Like personally, I've been... I used to be like one of the most punctual people. Like I would never be a minute late to anything. Um, and then I got busy and was running the business, and then I started cramming stuff together, and then I became like the person who they're always waiting for 10 minutes after the meeting was supposed to start."

"Well, not that person, but I am the one-minute-before-it-starts guy. Like I've always been that way my entire life. Um, you know, same like homework in high school, like college. Like you know, I wait till the last minute. Weirdly, you know, and maybe that's just an excuse that we make to convince ourselves that I'm much better under pressure. You know, I do my best work uh, you know, at the very last second."

"Um, and it's weird because I would try to do papers like three weeks ahead of time and you know, maybe I would work out the outline, but I was always better like sitting down those, you know, at 11 o'clock at night. I'm gonna have this done at seven."

"And the other plug you can use... Have you ever seen the memes or graphics memes, whatever it is? Such an old guy on social media where it's like, you know, there are two people that marry each other in life: you know, the one who's early and the one who continues to be late, the one who packs a week before the vacation or the one that packs 10 minutes... I am that guy. My wife rides her out of her mind that she will be waiting. You know, I will go home and have like a seven o'clock dinner. I'll get home at like 6:10. She is sitting in the chair, full makeup, like everything ready to go, and I'm like, 'Well, take a shower, let's put dogs out, like it'll be fine, we'll get through them.' So I've always been that way."

"Yeah, that's funny. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are... There's something in their personality. Um, and I'm super excited for today's episode just because um, I mean you and I have known each other for what, uh, a year? Well, longer than that, I feel like."

"Yeah, maybe maybe as much as two years."

"Um, and I've always looked up to what you were doing in your businesses. I think that there's a lot of uh, I guess very few people see as many transactions as you do, and because of that, not a lot of people have the same perspective that you have, right? And everybody kind of has their unique thing to add when they come on this podcast, and I'm excited for what you might add um, because I think you have a, you know, a more... I'm personally, I'm a huge fan of data, right? I think the more exposure we have to the more scenarios, the smarter we get. Um, and there's a lot of people calling shots based on really small amounts of data, like 'I saw this once, therefore that's how it is,' right? Um, so I personally, I really enjoy talking to people that have like seen it over and over and over again and have that experience to be able to know like what's an anomaly, what's normal."

"Right, and that's weird because I'm not like... I don't feel like I'm the data guy, you know. It comes to Excel or Google Sheets, like the fact that I can get mine to add up or average, like I feel like I have two functions."

"Yeah, all right. Like I feel like we went and played basketball golf, and I had two shots that we used, and I'm done for the day. I'm like, I'm out. So I'm not like really great at it, but I am... I feel like I am pretty good at looking at the numbers out of the church. Oh well, this... if this and this are true, then this is your problem. This is where that, you know, where the flaw is or where we find business. So um, so yeah, I do love looking at the data in that sense."

"Well, I think maybe a better word than data is experience. Okay, because I mean our brains function on data, right? Every input that you've ever had, that's data to your brain. It doesn't have to exist in a spreadsheet. Um, and uh, you know, our brains learn over time as long as we're not horribly irrational people. Um, so so anyways, I'm excited to uh, I'm excited to jump into everything."

"Um, I think an awesome place to start for those listening that don't know you and what you do, if you could explain a little bit about your background, the businesses that you run."

"Yeah, just a very short version. Um, I've been an investor for 20 years, and when I started in 2002, it just started as my wife buying our first house as a foreclosure in Ocala, Florida, Central Florida. And uh, you know, we went to fix it up, sold it, bought one, fixed it, sold it. But um, probably like every other person who's been on your podcast, I picked up Rich Dad Poor Dad."

"And that led me... Well, sure. I get the most cliche thing and I'm like, never guess."

"Um, it's so funny. I still haven't read it myself. I've heard great things."

"You're the guy that hasn't read it. The one guy."

"I'm the one guy that hasn't read it. Well, but I didn't start in real estate. I started in digital marketing and then worked my way into real estate, so it's different. But sorry, you can continue with your start."

"So anyways, in the book, he says, 'Listen, if you want to learn about real estate, you got to join like a real estate group or a Meetup or you know, something like that.' They talk about if you want to do oil or stones, like how to get involved in those. But ultimately, it's you know, get around other people who are doing the thing that you want to do so that you see, 'Oh well, this is a real thing. People are actually doing it.'"

"So um, so I joined the uh, Central Florida Real Estate Investors Group. It was fantastic, and this is in the mid-2000s, long before information was available like it is now. You know, back then it was you joined a REIA, a real estate investment association, or like you picked the book out of the library. Those were really your options. That was the only source for education. There you know, YouTube certainly... Facebook didn't even exist. There were no podcasts like this, you know, guys like you bringing recognition to everybody."

"So um, so yeah, I just got very involved in the REIA and learned and just tried to absorb as much as I could. And you know, that just led to us doing you know, more and more rehabbing. That was our source of investing in the beginning. We both had full-time jobs. I worked for ProBuild at 84 Lumber. I sold doors and millworks and garage doors and windows, you know, stuff like that. My wife was a purchasing manager for Ashton Woods Homes, custom home builder. So we kind of came out of a little bit of this industry, right?"

"And then you know, 2009 happened, which was pretty bad. It was really bad. People that invest now are like, 'Oh, we had a crash.' We did not have a crash. We had a linear adjustment. A crash is when 40% of your value, 50% of your value in six months... That's what happened to us in Florida. So the market was terrible. Short version is, you know, we looked around at other places to go where we could invest, and we had a chapter see. And from here..."

"Yeah, we moved here. We knew... We really knew nobody. I knew one realtor kind of well. We moved here for real estate, and the market was terrible. So we started wholesaling. Wholesaled a lot. Um, started learning, learned how to do some owner-financed. We bought over 100 rental properties over a few years. And then you know, we took that wholesaling business when it's wider and bigger into other markets. Made some terrible mistakes along the way. We failed as hard as anybody possibly could and wasted money and you know, but we learned a lot. And I like to tell people I was just kind of too dumb to quit. And uh, and then about three years ago, we started Easy REI Closing, which is our virtual transaction. So that's the very short version, yes."

"Well, that's fantastic. Um, so as of today, what you have running, it's the... it's the virtual closings company, and then is that it or do you still wholesale?"

"We don't wholesale very, very, very little. Uh, we've moved most of those people that were in our wholesale company over to our transactions company. So and what that is, we are essentially virtual back office for investors and wholesalers across the country. Uh, we do all of their paperwork from the time they get their contracts signed. We take it all the way to closing. So you know, with your seller, collecting documents, yes sir, foreclosure, bankruptcy, tenant docs, like all of that stuff. We collect all that. We do the same thing for your end buyer, and we schedule all the closings."

"And what that does, that just allows our clients to go out and do more deals, right? Our clients are your clients, so that allows them to go talk to more sellers, talk to multiple buyers. So we have that company. We have a small coaching company. We don't do a lot a lot of coaching. It's more really consulting for some larger teams. But we also have our rental company, which now we... I did manage all of that myself, which was silly, for about 10 years, and a few years ago I outsourced that to a local property manager. So they... that's really... they do the bulk of that, and we just luckily get the checks now."

"Um, so let's see... the uh, rental company, the coaching, the transactions company. We also, because we've done some stuff, we were able to buy into an oil and gas company. So so I'm interested in that and a couple of other small companies. So we're a little bit diversified."

"Yeah, I understood. More is what sounds like an LP and in some stuff, but then... then you're active is going to be like your coaching and and the TC."

"Yeah, and then we're... I just came out of a meeting like three minutes before we jumped on that we're... we're getting ready to open a title company that's gonna... maybe not be nationwide, but operate in the focal states. So kind of got that as our next future big..."

"Yeah. I... every time I think about transaction coordination, I think about this uh, this conversation I had with Austin McCurdy. I don't know if you know Austin. He works with Sharper Business Solutions."

"Oh yeah."

"So you probably know Sharper. They just have like 30 coaches. Austin is the one that works with us. Um, and he tells us like repeated story of what always happens when he goes into a wholesale company and he finds the CEO, and he's like, 'What's your job?' and they say, 'Well, I've managed the operations,' and he's like, 'Well, there... there basically are no operations in a wholesale company. You have sales and marketing, and you have transaction coordination. That's the only thing that falls under operation.' So you're telling me the only thing that you manage is transaction coordination, and you're like, 'No, I do all this other stuff.'"

"Um, and but basically what Austin was explaining is that because the nature of transaction coordination is so different from the other aspects of the company, it's just this one little thing like the red-headed stepchild of so many companies because it doesn't follow the pattern that the rest of the company follows. Um, it's, uh, it is kind of ignored or not.

"No, no, I see some weird stuff. I've had clients where like Acquisitions is doing transaction coordination or something like that, which is absolutely horrible. It's like, it's terrible, right? So somebody uses somebody like you. We generate all of these leads, right? And, you know, so we're generally we're filling our funnel, and then I mean, let's talk about that. You know, in a wholesale company, you're gonna hire Acquisitions. You're gonna hire, right? Now they're a little bit different. Acquisitions people need to have, you want them both to be money motivated, right? Without questions. But your Acquisitions people, you're going to want to lean a little bit towards like higher end. Well, right, you have to have more, you have to have a little bit of a heart, right? Whereas on the disposition side, you want those sharks, right? Because on dyspo, it's a constant fight. It just is, right? Because who are we dealing with? We're dealing with investors that if they can knock you down five grand, that's 500. So they're, they're a little bit different personalities, but you've hired them for what they are.

"And, you know, let's just kind of step back and up a little bit. Whether you're a solo, you know, wholesaler entrepreneur or you've got some kind of team built out, right? You're basically the same personality, right? You've got that sales mentality, that hustler mentality. You know, I like to ask questions when I'm presenting to a big group for wholesalers. 'Okay, you know, who got in this to make a lot of money?' Yeah, who loves that rush of contracting the deal? Ah, everybody goes crazy. 'Who got in this business to solve title problems?' Literally just crickets because that's a different personality type that enjoys that type of work.

"Um, you know, you're probably, I could tell you're like super organized. Like you're, you're not the same personality type as me. But wholesalers are like, and like our accountants need us. Why? Because who wants to stop doing what we're doing to go look up this charge from four weeks ago that was, you know, $97.13? That's boring, right? That's not the personality type of somebody who leaves their nine-to-five job to go kind of burn the boats and go start a new business, right? That personality type that makes you successful being a wholesaler and allows you to talk to strangers and make these deals is completely at a 90-degree angle from a person who loves to do paperwork and solve complex title problems, right? So that's why, you know, wholesalers have come to us and said, 'Hey, please, you can do this. I don't have to ever collect paperwork again.' Literally somebody today is like, 'Man, I don't have to ever collect another obituary for the rest of my life.' We'll do all of that stuff for you. And because of that, we see these companies just have exponential growth because now they're just focused on sales and marketing and, you know, getting their contracts.

"And I don't know if this is an observation or a question or whatever, just looking at someone else's company and thinking, 'What the heck is this guy doing?' But basically what it sounds like is you took the worst part of the business and you said you just do that for people. And to me, that sounds like a horrible, like not very fun thing to do as a business owner. So tell me, like, what's going through your mind? What makes you think like, 'Oh, you know, all that like stuff that I hate in my business, I'm just gonna only do that for everybody else?'

"It's funny. Do you know who Corey Geary is?"

"Of course, yeah."

"Yeah, so I was with him in Puerto Rico yesterday or two nights ago, and uh, we were sitting around with Robert Wensley, who had nothing but amazing things to say about you, by the way. And, um, we were talking, and he said, 'Dude, when we were in Cozumel three years ago or four years ago, and you said you wanted to do this, I can't do it. It was the stupidest effing thing I've ever heard in my life.' It's the same thing, right?

"Well, so what it is and this is how most people, you know, how you build a company is to fill in underneath you with somebody to do the thing that you don't want to do. So as we grew, a couple different things. When I started, it was me, myself, you know, myself, maybe myself and I, no, myself, my wife, and my brother. And, um, you know, she did a lot of rental stuff. He did Acquisitions, right? Dyspo, and I also did the transactions. And what I realized is, you know, science tells us there are 24 hours in a day. More, no less, right? Math and science tell us that there's only so much you can do, and I really think you max out three, if you're good, five deals a month if you're doing everything. You're doing the marketing, buying, selling, the transactions, all of that stuff. So, you know, and as entrepreneurs when we're starting, we all know there are a lot of things we should be doing in our business, right? But who has time because you're a solo person.

"So one of the things that I realized when we started scaling up is I brought somebody in that could do transactions, and I was like, 'Oh my God.' It like, it made my life so much better because now I'm not, you know, tracking down, 'Oh, this one, you know, this guy got a contract, I sent it to the title company, now I got this laundry list of stuff to go out and gather up for them.' And it's never one list, like the first list only leads to like six more lists, right? So what happened is like I wasn't having to track that every day and every week, and I was able to just focus on, you know, my part of the business position. And then like wires were just hitting my account on properties that I literally had forgotten I contracted three, four weeks ago to sell because I had somebody that was their job. That was their only job in my office. In fact, we're standing in this room, the podcast room that was our old transaction coordinator office where we had three people just in this room.

"And so we got really good, and that's one of the things that operators enjoy is problem-solving. And so what happened was we were cartel bosses for invested with, and some of the other investors, cartel bosses coming to us like, 'Hey, how do I solve this problem? What's the monumental title? How do I get around probate? What do I do?' Those things. And some of them asked, 'Hey, can you help us close deals?' So the way that we backed into the company was that, right? It was something we were really good at. We had the people that could start doing it for some other people, and it's kind of a bunch of just things came together all at one point. And again, like you said, we realized that there was a huge, huge need for this in our industry, right? Nobody gets into this business to figure out how to do affidavits of heirship. Nowhere, you know.

"And, you know, a lot of people will say, 'Well, I just want to hire my Bill Jesus.' Well, that's awesome. You should go change your own oil too, right? Just because you can do something, that doesn't make it that you should because if you don't, if you're not good at it, how are you going to train someone to come into your company?"

"Yeah, or you have to pay them a ton if you're gonna have that person that's pre-trained. That's the fantasy, right? The fantasy is, 'Oh, I'm gonna go buy or get this, you know, former title agent.' Well, I just came out of a meeting where we're talking about hiring people at $90,000 a year, right? These are not cheap people. These people with 20 years, 10 years experience are not, they're not someone you're gonna get for 10 bucks an hour. It's just not. And you probably, you know, a lot of people listening probably don't have the need for that person, but for a literal fraction of that price, you can have us. You can just leverage our team to just work."

"Right. Somebody gave a great example of, you know, Dave Richter, like we're like fractional transaction coordinators. Certified case has a fractional CFO service. I'm like, 'Well, it's an interesting way to think about it, but I guess so.' You know, you get our team's decades of experience to come in and help them close your deals. And what happens is the biggest, the thing that I didn't realize in the early days when I was trying to do it myself, even though I feel like I was good at it, was the deals that were being lost. That title companies just said, 'Oh, you can't close that one,' because I didn't know the right questions to ask. I didn't understand how title worked. It's the cost of lost opportunity. It's Austin contacts that you canceled that you probably should, you know, that probably could have gotten closed. And I do believe, you know, of all the contracts that don't close

, it probably at least 50% of them should have."

"That's probably a safe bet."

"Yeah, at least 50% of them should have. But what happens is you get one of those calls from the title company, and they tell you that, 'Hey, you can't close because of x, y, or z.' And in reality, if you've got the right people and you know the right questions to ask, you probably could have, should have closed. Um, you know, and you and I, you know, you and I and others, like our job in the front of the business is to generate revenue, right? So I don't need to have an hour conversation about title issues on something that's not going to close. So that's the part of it is the cost of lost opportunity.

"So that's a really important point. So basically the value proposition, right? A lot of people are like, 'Okay, well, what do I get for this, you know, investment?' Well, a lot of people, you're giving them more time back, right? Because that's one of the things I didn't even realize until I got into your guys' system because I got to work with some of your team on a deal and I said, 'Man, I'm so glad you guys are dealing with this crap.' Right? Because I'm literally generating more revenue, right? So we're giving time back. You're giving bandwidth back, mental bandwidth back because all of those things, you don't think about it, but at the end of the day, when you are just doing title problems, title issues all day, it just drains your batteries. So they get time back, they get revenue back, and they get some peace of mind because they know this deal is probably going to get closed because you guys are putting your stamp of approval on it and it takes so much bandwidth out of my brain that I could go focus on things I enjoy."

"What does it actually mean? Well, so for us, I don't want to go into a market where there's not going to be enough cash buyers. That's the thing that I want, right? And I think you mentioned it already earlier. Well, I guess humans, we all presuppose a lot of things, right? So let me give you this example. If I went outside and somebody handed me the keys to an ice cream truck today, I'd be like, 'I'm gonna go buy me some ice cream. I'm gonna get chocolate and vanilla ice cream because I'm a fat guy and I like chocolate and vanilla ice cream.' So, I'm gonna fill up my truck with chocolate and vanilla and I'm gonna go out and start selling ice cream. I may sell some, alright? There are going to be other people like me, right? Maybe 25% of the world is like me, but if I go out there and people start saying, 'We really want pistachio. Why don't you have pistachio?' I'd be like, 'Because I'm allergic to peanuts and I can't be around those, but you know what? I will figure it out.' Alright, I would go figure out a way. I'll put gloves on and a mask and I would sell people pistachio because the point is you have to sell what they want.

So many times, as investors, whether it be wholesalers or rehabbers, we only do the thing that we want. I'm sure you've had people on here talking about rehabbing their biggest mistakes, like over-improving properties, right? Doing cool accent walls in the living room that they think are great, right? But that's not what the public is looking for. So, I say all that to make this point: if you're going to go into a market, do you understand what people want?

The data is pretty easy, right? With tools like PropStream, you can pull the data of all of the cash sales in the last 90, 120, or 180 days, whatever. I could pull all of those. I can very easily sort by square footage, by age, by price range. You can fool with those numbers enough to get yourself, 'Hey, looks like most of the sales that are being sold for cash, or the properties that are being sold for cash because that's what we do as wholesalers, are between 1940 and 1970.' Whatever the numbers are, right? And then you look at the range on square footage, most of them are between 1100 and 1700 square feet. Cool. And now I know that most of them are selling between 140k and 190k, right? So now I've got some data and I know that there are enough of those transactions happening in the market to absorb the inventory that I'm moving. Does that make sense?"

"Oh, absolutely."

"So now I can back into my marketing. If I'm going to do PPC, maybe I run that for a state and now I can see which markets are where the transactions are actually happening. Or if I'm going to run some type of telecommunications or direct mail, I'm going to be pulling a list. Well, now I can really zero in. I can go all the way down to the sub-zip code and say I only want 1100 square foot plus houses built in this range. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, so I can get super targeted because your marketing dollars are like soldiers. You send them out, they cost you money, but for every dollar that goes out, I want them to come back with four or five friends. I do not want to just be spending money for no reason, so we get very tactical when it comes to this. And you know, PPC, of course, I know you're smarter than me, but for me, I can only get it down to a city or a county. I know there are people that say you can get it dialed in closer, but if I want to go super direct on direct mail or SMS or something like that, well, it's like a laser from space. I can point it in there and get a little bit closer. So make sure you're going into a market and evaluate it. Make sure there are enough transactions to support what you're trying to do.

So for me, as an example, I'm in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I know this market better than anybody. Like, we know how many wholesale deals we can put out per week here. There is a limit. If I pump out more than two to three deals a week, what happens is my buyers start seeing too many deals and they can't make a decision. So that's for 200,000 people. There's an absorption rate of how many deals I can put out into the market, so we will never go into a market that's smaller than Chattanooga. That's our baseline. So any other market that we go to, when we run those numbers, we do this a few times a year. We'll simultaneously run current numbers on Chattanooga and say, 'Oh, how does this compare?' Like, this is my baseline. There were 700 cash transactions in the last six months. Over here, it's a little bit bigger and there were 1400 transactions. Good. Okay. Adjust the spread and everything else, too. So we do a little evaluation, kind of back-of-the-envelope chicken scratch, figuring out if this is a place where we should be.

The other thing we'll look at is rentals and price increase. And here's why. Everything that we do is a function of sales and marketing and supply and demand. 100%. So there are a lot of markets where it may be good for a landlord but not necessarily good for a wholesaler."

"You're like, 'Well, that's stupid. How does that even make sense?' Well, because there are certain markets, I'm not going to call out anybody's market, but if we go into that market, maybe there's a 2% rental increase, right? So, rent multiplier is 1% standard. That's kind of like the off-the-cuff. I want a 1% rent multiplier, which means if it rents for $1,000, I should buy it for $100,000. Well, there are some markets where they want it to rent for $1,500. What does that tell you? Why can you buy something that's producing $1,000 per month for $100,000 in some markets but for only $50,000 down here? Because it's a supply and demand issue. There's more supply than demand. Makes sense?"

"Oh, absolutely. Cash flow markets."

"Cash flow markets. Thank you. Do I want to wholesale in that market? Absolutely not. Why wouldn't I? Because there's more supply than demand, right? So, I can't run up my assignments. It's not a great place to do $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 assignments. Great place to be a landlord. Fantastic place. Not a good place to be a wholesaler. Memphis is a cash flow market. Not a great place to be a wholesaler, especially virtually. Now, I will say all of that to say this: if you live in that market, you're going to dominate because you understand that. Going into a virtual market is very different. We could have a whole separate conversation about the difference between virtual and local."

"Got it. I was about to say because Chattanooga is kind of a cash flow market."

"Yeah, a high appreciation market."

"Is it really? I never thought of it like that."

"We are on fire here. We're the next Nashville. Let me tell you this: when I bought properties back in 2009, 10, and 11, like a stone's throw from here, a street and a half away, they were renting at $395. Now they're, I mean, I haven't updated them other than carpet and paint, and those same units are renting for $1,200. They've tripled. No, we're a very high appreciation market."

"Oh, that's fantastic."

"I have properties I bought at $30,000 like six years ago that are now well over $100,000. We're appreciating right now. So you want to be in those markets where, and the way that you tell the difference between a cash flow market and a good market, is if rents have gone up. Because if rents have gone up, it means there's pressure on the market, right? There's more tenants than properties. When there's more tenants than properties, what's going to happen? Investors are going to come in, buy the vacant houses, flip them, turn them into rentals because rents are just going up. So you want to be in a place, for me, y'all do whatever you want, for me, I want to be in a place where I'm seeing rents have gone up over the past four years. Also, you know, the Instagram crowd hates when you say stuff like that because you're a terrible landlord, you're just raising rents. You know, listen, we're in business, right? We're in business to do this to make money."

"Yeah, I mean houses aren't charity last I checked, at least most of them aren't."

"Eat me up on Instagram for stuff like that. It should all be our anxiety. Then again, a whole other podcast but that's hilarious."

"So let me maybe say this in different words and you can tell me if I understand it right or not. For you, what's really important when you're going into a market is the spread. The way you predict the spread the best is by rental increase, price increases because that shows that it's more of an appreciation market and appreciation markets have larger spreads."

"It's a very quick way of looking at it, sure. Yeah, 100%. Because if rents have gone up, that's going to tell you a lot of things, right? That data tells you that there's something happening in that market where either people are moving there, right?

And they're not buying, they're renting, right? Or there is a lack of supply of properties. So people are holding onto what they have, driving up the price. If rents are flat or going down, which I've never seen a place where rents went down, but I guess it's possible, maybe Detroit, maybe something like that, right?

But there's a lack of demand. There are places all across the country right now where rent has flatlined. You can do a quick search and find places where rent has flatlined or where they're not really going up at all, just minor increases, like 1% a year. You know, so there's no pressure. People are just kind of staying where they're at. So you know, there's no upward movement. I don't want to be in those markets, right? So yeah, you're right. If rents are increasing, that gives me some confidence that there's some appreciation that's happened, which means there's pressure on the market, which means there are going to be investors in there trying to scoop up properties because they're seeing the value go up. As wholesalers, the only thing we do is be a little bit quicker than them, right?

So, we get in, get the property under contract, sell it to them before they've had a chance to do the work because we're better at the marketing piece. That's really all we do. So, if you're going to be quicker than them, just understand that's how it's going to happen. I mean, that's my two cents on that. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, it does."

"Yeah, understood."

"Um, all right. So obviously, getting the right product makes it a lot easier to sell if you're selling something that people want. What about finding those people? I talk to a lot of people, and I'm trying to give you a good platform to answer these questions on, like understanding who you're speaking to. Um, let's just picture I'm this guy and I say, 'Okay, I'm expanding into multiple markets. Don't worry, I got dispositions down. Yeah, I have an investor lift. I haven't left which, so investor lift and literally, I was the owner investing two diets ago.'

"Investor lift is the greatest drill that you're ever going to go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy, like not even close. The next competitor is not even close to the data. But you still have to take that drill out of the box, put the right bits on there, and go do something with it, right? So, for honest, you know, here's something that I learned very early on from my mentors and coaches, and it was 'play every Ace.' All right, so what does that mean? I don't want to leave anything to chance. And the one funny thing about wholesaling is we're on a clock, right? The day you get that first contract signed, whether you're 30, 60, 90 days, whatever your time period is, or 10 days to get that deal closed, you should hear that in your ear, right?"

"Right."

"Like there's a clock going. You should feel that in your soul. So, you know, here's what I see people do a lot. Let's say you've got Investor Lift, right? Um, and I've coached a lot of my best who left on the platform here and privately, but someone's like, 'Oh, I'm just putting it on Investor Lift and I'm gonna go get five pictures and I'm gonna put the address and I'm gonna email it out to the best buyers list in the world because it is the best advantages.' Okay, great, but if you're a buyer, and Brandon and I have gotten these emails, it's, you know, because they don't adjust the pictures right. It's, you know, they make the shed in the backyard the primary picture and it's like, what? I've got to save some place, it's a rusty shed and this is an extreme example, but rusty shed and it literally says, 'This is a great deal, you should buy it,' right?"

"That's not marketing, I mean, I guess it is, right? You did functional marketing, but you didn't..."

"Yeah, it's not good marketing. It's true, this is not good marketing, right? So yeah, let's unpack a couple of things in there. One, for me, right, and I will say this to wholesalers and especially anybody new to the business, or some you know, 2019, 2020, 2021 got incredibly freaking easy because the market was so hot your dog could sell a deal, right? So what happened is you got people just throwing crap like that out there. But here's what I've always, you know, from the very beginning when I started this business, um, like I would go to eat when I was going face to face to houses and I would stand there and I would literally stand in the front yard and just look at the house. I'd look around and people are like, 'What are you doing?' I'm like, 'Trying to figure out the story that I want to use to sell this house.' Right? I'm trying to figure out what about this deal, no different than what we were talking about before, right? So when I'm looking at this house, like am I gonna try to pitch this to a rehabber? Is this an investor? It's kind of a double lock, right by the elementary school. I wonder if they could tear this down and build townhouses here, right? Who am I positioning this deal to?"

"So when that marketing goes out, I want to give every buyer who I can get to open that email, right? I want to be able to tell them, I want to tell them every drop of information about the house, right? Beds, baths, square footage, um, you know, ACS, but unfinished square foot basement, size of the yard, is there a bus stop nearby? You know, what amenities are in the area, right? Are you close to shopping? Because I have to assume that my deal in Georgia, I'm sending it to a buyer who's out of state. Can he sit on his cell phone and make a buying decision based off of one act? I would challenge most people to look at their, look at their posts, their websites, their emails and say, you know, can a buyer make a buying decision? Are there enough pictures? Are there enough good pictures, right? Are your pictures foreign? Do you tell your buyers how they're going to make money, right? Like this is all stuff we did before the little run-up that we just did. People just got lazy and now they're struggling because they don't understand. But you know, if you know, do I, I'll tell them, 'Hey, if you're going to, here's the average rent in the area. Here's what this one could rent for, you know, fixed up, right? Here's, you know, this is a light, medium, full rehab. Here's what similar properties that have been rehabbed are selling for, you know, they're selling for 280. We're selling this for 130, you know, maybe you need 60,000 in it. Here's how you're going to make money or hey, this is, you could make this a, you know, short-term rental. Here's how, uh, you know, here's what those things are paying.' Does that make sense? So we want each story because people are busy, man. I have 16,000 unread emails in my Gmail account and that makes a lot of people skittish, right? But if I don't have a good hook with a good subject line that's going to get them to open that and then once I get them to open it, I've given them all the information, well, they're just going to go, 'Oh, okay, click,' and they're just gonna, it's just gonna..."

"So the first step is like, you've got to provide good information. And then, you know, then my next thought is, how do I, how do I get my deal in front of every single person who should see it? All right, um, you know, so we've got a very, it's not super complex, but there are 10 things that we do on every single deal, right? And you know, Tiffany High, right? She says all the time, like, you know, making a lot of money in this business, it's not sexy, it's just doing the same thing over and over that works and over and over again. And if you don't have that system in place or you know that, okay, we're gonna build out the website, we're gonna send an email, we're gonna RBM, ringless voicemail, we're gonna do texting, we're going to do, you know, some direct mail, you know, we're gonna cold call, we're, you know, we're gonna do all these things on every single deal, you know, you're going to struggle because kind of where I started on all this and I don't want to go on too long but, um, I've seen so many people go, 'Oh, I'm gonna send out an email today. Three days later, oh, I still haven't sold my deal, hey, what else should I do? Oh, let me go post on Facebook, that'll work, I sold a deal that way, you know, last month.' It's been a week, still hasn't gone. Um, somebody said posting on Craigslist still works, let me try that. In two days, nothing. I wonder if I should cold call some buyers. All right, so what's happened is your time just starts to get eaten up. So what we try to teach people is, you know, when we launch a property and that comes from my visa retail, like we, I want a freaking shock and awe of our market, right? I want my deal to be every place, right? I want it on the, someone posting it in the damn bathroom above the urinal, I want it every single place where I think a buyer might possibly be. I want my thing there. So I want to be on Facebook, I want to be in the investor groups, I want to be, you know, emailing, I want to be cold calling, I want to be sending a text out to our preferred buyers, I want to be dropping RBMs, I'm doing every single thing, I'm playing every ace that I know works and what that does is that now, now what happens is you just start, start moving with some consistency. Now people will often ask, 'Which one of those works?' You know, I don't know, I guess if I put a different phone number on every marketing channel, like I could really track it. That's not the thing I'm great at. My goal is I'm just, you know, once I release a property or launch it, I want the phones in my dispositions department melting. I want so many inbound calls coming in that they can't get up to go pee. All right, that's the goal. Like when that happens, I'm very happy, right? Because I've done my job marketing."

"Yeah, well, and I think, uh, I think there's two advantages to what you're talking about. I mean, one is like you said, there's that ticking clock, right? So if you waste some time on this, then you have to do this other thing, you waste some time there. The other one is, I think it's, I think it's just as bad as someone starts with the email and then in that first three days they do

everything, right? It's like email, text blast, cold call, right? And it's like, okay, well, I have, I have a 30-day closing period, right? Like, we got plenty of time to figure this out. Let's spread it out, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, I got, you know, and then so then like the next week, we're going to follow up with more cold calls and follow up with another, you know, another email blast. So I think having the plan that you just keep executing on is, I mean, it not only saves you time because you're doing everything you should, but it also, it prevents you from burning yourself out in that first week, right?"

"100%, 100%, and so like, for us, you know, we have a 30-day launch period. Now, I will say in full disclosure, because this happened to us, you know, so, so we use, you know, Investor Lift, there's another platform called deal details. Um, we use both. There's some other ways out there, right? So we had a deal we did, um, that we sent out in the morning, so it went out like 11:15 AM and by the next morning, the guy who runs our marketing team says, 'Hey, we have 11 offers in hand.' Like, it hasn't even been 24 hours. I think our first buyer came in within 18 minutes of the launch. Now, I'm not going to change my strategy. So we ended up, and people say, 'Well, why don't you stop?' Right? I'm not going to change my strategy based on one outlier result, right? Like, so we did what we did. We still launched every channel. You know, one, that buyer was, we took the highest and best, but, you know, let's say a buyer came back and we ended up working a deal out, you know, and he tried to re-trade us. Well, we've now done every step that we're supposed to, we still have six, seven offers in hand, right? So when the offers come in, people get all, get all crazy, like, okay, so now I want to go back and we want to find our, our most reliable buyer, right? Maybe the top offer is some newbie guy and he's already acting weird on the phone and I'm like, 'Ah, this guy might be a pain in the ass to work with, so let's look at offer number two.' And if I'm number two, it's from someone we sell 30 deals to a year. And yeah, it's $2,500 less, but that's my guy. You know, I'm going to make more money long-term, I'm going to build my business long-term doing that."

"Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, no, that's, that's a really good point. And I think that, uh, I think just, just sticking to that plan, right? And being consistent, right? That's the big, uh, that's the big piece of this is, is, and having that plan too. Because like you said, I think, I think a lot of people, especially new, new wholesalers, right? They, they, they think, 'Oh, you know, I'm just going to get out there, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.' And then they, and they don't really have that plan. And so when things don't go, you know, like we were talking earlier about the hamster wheel, right? Things don't go exactly like they planned, they start jumping from thing to thing and they get, they get distracted and they get, and they lose sight of it. So, um, that's really great advice. Um, Eric, I appreciate you being here today. Um, any final thoughts, any, any last, uh, last pieces of advice for, uh, for our listeners out there?"

"Man, um, you know, and again, I said it before, right? But I can't, I can't preach it enough. You know, get back to the fundamentals, right? Do, you know, if you haven't done a deal in a while, pick up the phone, right? Talk to people, you know, go meet people in person, right? I know this is kind of, kind of a new, you know, newfangled way of thinking about it, but like go out and build relationships, go to RIA meetings, go to meetups, go out and talk to people, you know, just, just get back to the fundamentals, get back to the basics. And if you're doing that consistently, um, you know, the business will come back to you, right? It's just, it's just, it's just a matter of time. So, uh, thanks for having me on, man. I really appreciate it."

"Yeah, Eric, thank you so much. This has been great. And, uh, we'll, we'll talk again soon."

"All right. Take care."

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In this fantastic episode, Brandon Bateman interviews David Olds, the expert behind a virtual transaction coordination company that has closed over $14.7 million in wholesale assignment fees! David shares his insights on transaction coordination dispositions and discusses where investors often go wrong in their approach. Get ready to learn how to tackle the challenging and essential work that leads to success.

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

"All right, hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm joined by David Olds. David runs a virtual transaction coordinations company that closed over $14.7 million worth of wholesale assignment fees for their clients just in 2022 alone. He sees tons of transactions, knows a ton about dispositions, has run a successful wholesaling company and many service businesses for Real Estate Investors. Today we're going to talk all about transaction coordination, dispositions, where investors are getting it wrong, and how do you keep on doing that boring hardware that's going to get you to success. How are you doing today, David?"

"Doing amazing. Actually, really great. I missed our time a little bit. I showed up a little bit early, but luckily I realized that I was early and not late. Much better to be early than late. Doing amazing."

"That's fantastic. Yeah, I can see you're one of the first early podcast guests ever. That typically not the way it works in my office. I am like, 'Okay, I got three minutes to open the meeting, I need to go in there and turn on some lights and get online.' So it does not happen very often, but I'm glad we made it and we're gonna have a little bit of time to chat today."

"Yeah, and this is a little tangential, but have you always been that way? Like personally, I used to be one of the most punctual people. I would never be a minute late to anything. And then I got busy and was running the business, and then I started cramming stuff together, and then I became like the person who they're always waiting for 10 minutes after the meeting was supposed to start."

"Well, not that person, but I am the one-minute-before-it-starts guy. I've always been that way my entire life. You know, same like homework in high school, college. I wait till the last minute. Weirdly, you know, and maybe that's just an excuse that we make to convince ourselves that I'm much better under pressure. You know, I do my best work at the very last second. And it's weird because I would try to do papers like three weeks ahead of time, and you know, maybe I would work out the outline, but I was always better sitting down at 11 o'clock at night. I'm gonna have this done at seven."

"And the other plug you can use - have you ever seen the memes or graphics memes, whatever it is? Such an old guy on social media. Where it's like, you know, there are two people that marry each other in life: the one who's early and the one who continues to be later, the one who packs a week before the vacation or the one that packs 10 minutes before. I am that guy. My wife rides me out of her mind. She will be waiting, you know, I will go home and have like a seven o'clock dinner. I'll get home at like 6:10. She is sitting in the chair, full makeup, like everything ready to go, and I'm like, 'Well, take a shower, let's put dogs out, like it'll be fine, we'll get through them.' So I've always been that way."

"Yeah, that's funny. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are - there's something in their personality. And I'm super excited for today's episode just because, I mean, you and I have known each other for what, a year? Well, longer than that, I feel like."

"Yeah, maybe maybe as much as two years."

"And I've always looked up to what you were doing in your businesses. I think that there's a lot of - I guess very few people see as many transactions as you do, and because of that, not a lot of people have the same perspective that you have, right? And everybody kind of has their unique thing to add when they come on this podcast, and I'm excited for what you might add because I think you have a more - I'm personally a huge fan of data, right? I think the more exposure we have to more scenarios, the smarter we get. And there's a lot of people calling shots based on really small amounts of data, like 'I saw this once, therefore that's how it is,' right?"

"So I personally really enjoy talking to people that have seen it over and over and over again and have that experience to be able to know like what's an anomaly, what's normal, right?"

"And that's weird because I'm not like - I don't feel like I'm the data guy, you know. When it comes to Excel or Google Sheets, like the fact that I can get mine to add up or average - like I feel like I have two functions. All right, like I feel like we went and played basketball golf, and I had two shots that we used, and I'm done for the day. I'm like, I'm out. So I'm not like really great at it, but I am - I feel like I am pretty good at looking at the numbers out of the chart. Oh well, this - if this and this are true, then this is your problem. This is where that, you know, where the flaw is or where we find business. So, um, so yeah, I do love looking at the data in that sense."

"Well, I think maybe a better word than data is experience. Because I mean, our brains function on data, right? Every input that you've ever had, that's data to your brain. It doesn't have to exist in a spreadsheet. And our brains learn over time as long as we're not horribly irrational people. So anyway, I'm excited to jump into everything. I think an awesome place to start, for those listening that don't know you and what you do, if you could explain a little bit about your background, the businesses that you run."

"Yeah, just a very short version. I've been an investor for 20 years, and when I started in 2002, it just started as my wife buying our first house as a foreclosure in Ocala, Florida, Central Florida. And we wanted to fix it up, sold it, bought one, fixed it, sold it. But probably like every other person who's been on your podcast, I picked up Rich Dad Poor Dad."

"That led me - well, sure. I get the most cliché thing and I'm like, never guess."

"It's so funny. I still haven't read it myself. I've heard great things."

"You're the guy that hasn't read it. The one guy."

"I'm the one guy that hasn't read it. Well, but I didn't start in real estate. I started in digital marketing and then worked my way into real estate. So it's different, but sorry, you can continue with your start."

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In this episode of the Collective Clicks podcast, host Brandon Bateman interviews Brady Stolzing, the Head of Operations at Bateman Collective. They discuss: Brady's background and how he came to work at Bateman Collective
Determining when to invest in scaling your operations
Common operations problems businesses face
Creating effective systems and documentation
The importance of continual improvement processes like auditing and issue tracking
The visionary vs integrator roles and how their partnership enables growth
Key software tools for task management, documentation, CRMs, and more
So if you're tired of keeping your operation together with duct tape, tears, and prayer, then this episode is for you. Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks! We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here. If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

‍

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Brady Stoltzing. Brady is our head of operations at Bateman Collective and has a ton of experience that has helped him to understand what operations level you need for what point you're in in your business. We're going to talk about different softwares and tools, we're going to talk about ways to implement systems and processes within your company, and we're going to talk about the kind of relationship we have, which is something we call a Visionary Integrator relationship. We'll discuss how that works and how you can both grow the company and maintain efficiency at the same time. How are you doing today, Brady?"

"Doing good, I'm just happy to be here in person," Brady replied.

"Happy to have you out here in person as well. Tell everybody where you live usually," Brandon prompted.

"I live in Oregon," Brady answered.

"So, uh, I lived in Utah up until last summer, and my wife and I have been in Oregon for the last, uh, almost a year now," Brady explained.

"And Southern Oregon, right? By the coast?" Brandon asked.

"Southern Oregon, yeah. It's beautiful," Brady confirmed.

"Super beautiful. I know you have some land right near the coast there," Brandon commented.

"A little tiny house on it, that's right. It's a lot of fun," Brady added.

"So Brady's our unusual person on the team that doesn't actually live here and, uh, you know, lives in his sandals on the southern American Coast," Brandon joked.

"Most people just see me on the screen," Brady laughed.

"Yeah, fair enough. So that's why I'm super excited to have you here today. We were, uh, just doing some quarterly planning over the last couple days," Brandon mentioned.

"That's right, we had Sharper come out and help us. It was pretty awesome," Brady agreed.

"So yeah, um, you are... see, how do I describe this? If I died tomorrow, then I don't think anything around here would skip a beat, and you're the reason that that would be true," Brandon said.

"Of course, everybody's the reason that would be true because they have to all do their jobs," Brady interjected.

"You're the thing that holds it all together, and I'm really grateful that it's just not me that holds it together. So I'm excited to talk about that relationship and everything," Brandon continued. "The uh, the interesting thing is I don't know if any of our clients know you. I don't know if any of our partners know you. You're kind of the behind-the-scenes guy. That's what has happened, um, and really the, uh, you know, the better side of the partnership that you and I have together. So, um, for everybody listening, Brady is an operations genius, understands systems, understands people, accountability, all those things that kind of make a business work, and I'm super excited to dive into all that stuff today. Any comments before we jump into it?"

"Yeah, I mean, you're giving me tons of credit," Brady responded, "and uh, not giving yourself any. Uh, I mean, you're the mastermind behind all of this and the reason why I'm, you know, able to be working here. But uh, yeah, the relationship between us has been really interesting as it's developed over, you know, the year and a half that I've been here. Starting with getting systems in place and getting some efficiency and management in place for, you know, the different type of work and starting to scale that, and then moving into management of people and that kind of stuff, and taking more and more off your plate so you can not work until 10 pm every night. So I'm happy that you're able to have more of a family life, which is uh, definitely a good thing."

"I don't know if you could do it better. Then I'd say go ahead," Brandon joked. "So let's talk a little bit about your background because I think that'll set the stage for some of the value that you're going to add today. So tell me, uh, you know, how'd you get here and what were you doing before this?"

"Yeah, sure. So um, I started out... so, went to BYU, studied advertising, was working in digital marketing at the same time for an agency here in Utah as well, and um, they were starting a sister company which was... it was like a link building company, and it was, you know, just barely starting when I got in there," Brady explained.

"Yeah, and if I could have had some context because we talked about this before, but just to, you know, add some color to um, color to this," Brandon interjected. "Uh, you know, there's there's a few marketing channels that we focus on as a company. It's gonna be SEO, PPC, Facebook ads, correct?"

"Um, SEO, one discipline," Brady confirmed.

"Arguably one of the most important disciplines within it is something called link building, right?" Brandon added.

"It's how do you... how do you get links from other websites to yours? Google wants it to happen naturally. It doesn't in this industry, right?" Brady explained.

"Industries, it does a little bit more than others, sure. Sometimes you need a little bit of help, but you got to keep it within their policy exactly," Brandon noted.

"You got to keep it on budget, et cetera. So that's that's kind of what you're talking about. Your job was creating these backlinks?" Brandon asked.

"Yeah, so and backlinks essentially, it's um, it's like a credibility score from another site. It's somebody saying, 'Hey, I endorse this website. You should go check them out. They have good content. Here's, you know, why I think they have good content,' and you have a keyword that's linked within that. And so that's where keyword research comes into play, making sure that you're targeting the right thing so that, you know, when you start to search on Google, you show up for the right things," Brady elaborated.

The conversation continued in this manner, with Brandon and Brady discussing Brady's background in SEO and link building, his experience in developing operational systems, and how he came to work with Brandon at Bateman Collective. They delved into topics such as the importance of operational efficiency, the right time to invest in operations, and the challenges of balancing growth and efficiency in a business.

Throughout the discussion, they touched on various software tools and systems they use, including Monday for task management, Notion for company wikis, Tango for creating step-by-step guides, Loom for video recordings, and HubSpot for CRM.

The conversation concluded with an in-depth look at their Visionary-Integrator relationship, based on the concept from the book "Traction." They explained how this structure allows Brandon to focus on growth and vision while Brady manages the day-to-day operations and efficiency of the company.

The podcast ended with both expressing gratitude for their partnership and the benefits it has brought to their business.

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It's easy to fall into the trap of hyper-focusing on leading metrics like Cost Per Lead. We all do it! In today's episode, we'll dive into how to take a more data-driven approach that can help you follow the money. Discover the metrics you should be tracking at each funnel stage to maximize profits (00:00).

In this episode, we discuss:

Why ROI and bottom-funnel metrics matter more than cost per lead or impressions (02:05)
The dangers of making decisions based on limited data or small sample sizes (04:50)
Defining lead quality based on the funnel stage with sufficient sample size (07:30)
How to find undervalued leads by looking at what competitors ignore (09:45)
The flaws with only looking at cost per lead or cost per deal (11:20)
Real life examples of why you need to analyze beyond cost per lead (13:40)
The key funnel metrics you must track for real estate success (16:55)
Learn why solely focusing on cost per lead can damage your profits and ROI. Discover how to track funnel metrics properly to make data-driven decisions that maximize your real estate investment returns.

#realestateinvesting #leadgeneration #marketingmetrics

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm joined by Garrett Cregan, our—I don't even know what we call him—our professional marketer internally, one of the best paid ads geniuses I know. We're going to talk all about the metrics that you're measuring campaigns by and how this can mislead you. We'll talk about different metrics that you should focus on at different points and why the answer is not as simple as you might think as to where in the funnel you should be looking for your optimization.

How are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good, how are you?"

"Hey, awesome. Excited for episode number—who knows what—of the Collective Clicks podcast. I think it's number three thousand."

"Three thousand. Okay, three thousand. Big day."

"Big day for us."

"Two thousand episodes. Yep."

"So today, the plan is to talk about metrics, which we do a lot. So if you're surprised, then you probably haven't been here before. But let's talk about specific metrics that people measure their marketing by because it turns out what you measure and how you feel about it really affects what you do with your business. It affects the kind of actions that you take, and everybody kind of has their own metrics that they think are most important for a marketing campaign to measure it in different ways that they optimize and all those types of things. So I'm really excited to dig deep into all that and find out what are the real metrics that matter and how do they interact with each other.

So, what do you think when you're measuring a marketing campaign is the most important metric to keep an eye on?"

"Well, I think it depends a lot on the goal of the campaign. Like, for instance, if I'm running some TV ads, then I'm probably not going to have that be measured on our—like on just a pure cost per contract basis because that's not the full intention of the campaign. That's not the only reason why it's active."

"Um, and so I think in part it depends on the goal of the campaign, but that's more of an aside and that's me talking as an agency employee, right? Um, but I think the—to kind of speak out of both sides of my mouth—I think it's important to focus primarily on the bottom funnel metrics. And by that, I mean the revenue-tied metrics because if those aren't there, then you're optimizing for the wrong things and you're going to get the wrong outcomes. So I think at the heart of things, it's important to have the core of your measurement be based on as close to revenue as possible and as close to revenue as that campaign is going to be tied to, if that makes any sense at all."

"Yeah, I totally agree. I think since the beginning of time, marketing companies and normal companies hire marketing companies—what do you call them? My clients, and this is what we would call them. Um, I think they've always kind of had friction on these specific metrics, right? Like, I think the most stereotypical example is the company paying for the marketing is like, 'Well, I need revenue,' right? And then the marketing agency is like, 'Well, you got a lot of impressions, you got a lot of clicks, um, you got a lot of leads,' or whatever the case is, right?

And really, the main difference here is that we're just looking at different points in the funnel, right? There's a top of the funnel and then there's the bottom of the funnel. Um, and that's kind of what you mentioned, right? You want to stay in the bottom of the funnel closer to revenue. Um, and you know, I've seen a couple people in different camps, and honestly, I don't think I fall like fully in one versus the other. I'm really curious to hear your perspective because you'll find investors that are like, 'ROI is the only thing that matters,' and while I believe that is true, I think that leads us down paths that aren't good sometimes.

Extreme example: let's just say you spent ten thousand dollars on one lead. That one lead turns out it closes into a contract, and that contract turns into a deal, and you make a hundred thousand dollars on the deal. It technically worked, right? The result is there. However, is that process repeatable and is likely to continue to provide that outcome? You're probably not going to find any marketing channel where you close every lead, right? So you probably were a little bit lucky.

Sometimes I compare this to like, let's just say we're talking like investing—not like real estate investing, but just investing in general, right? You have like an investment manager where their job is to make returns on money. So I give like ten thousand dollars to two investment managers, and one of them invests it in the S&P 500, and you know, two years later, we have, you know, what, 24% return, and it's, you know, 11% IRR or whatever the case is, right? And then someone else buys lottery tickets with the ten thousand dollars, and we just win the Powerball, and you know, now we have this like insanely high return, right? Who's the better investment manager?"

"If you're purely results-focused, then it's the guy who bought the lottery tickets."

"If you're more of a process-driven person where you kind of care about the underlying aspects there and like the repeatability and the sample size and how that affects things, then it's not the person who bought the lottery tickets because, on average, that's gonna make you fail, right?"

"So anyway, I kind of view it both ways, right? Like on one hand, the bottom of funnel metrics are the most important thing. However, I like to look at the funnel too because if you're getting those bottom of funnel metrics but the rest of the metrics don't look natural, then it's very likely that you're just running into good results but due to a small sample size. And that can be really dangerous because if you're choosing to double down on your marketing channel based on having a 10x return when that's not actually repeatable, then you're gonna waste a lot of money."

"Yeah, and I think—I mean, first of all, I thought what is the average cost per winning ticket from the lottery? Because that's making me really rethink my buying decisions because, you know, you make a good point. I could just put all my earnings into the lottery and it might be a good idea. But back to the main point, I think when you are looking at the bottom of the funnel, there's a few metrics that you have to consider in real estate to see if you're working off of small sample size or a skewed sample. And I think for me—and if there's any that I'm missing here, let me know—but I think that the first one is going to be the profit, right? Of like, of the fees that we collect minus what we spent on just the ad platform. The second is going to be the cost per deal, which is not going to take into account the difference in value of those deals. And then the third is the appointment to deal ratio. And I think if any of those three seems off, then you probably need to look a little bit higher in the funnel to see if, like, as that campaign runs longer, are those going to hold steady? And so you kind of have to look at the efficiency, the net, and the volume of your funnel to kind of get a really good idea of the full story."

"Because I can have like a thousand dollar cost per deal, but my spreads are 5,000 each, and that's not a win. But if I have like, you know, the inverse and have huge deal spreads but those deals can cost a bit more, that can be a win still. And so you kind of have to look at all of those metrics when assessing the campaign. And if, like you said, if those don't look very real and predictable, then you probably need to look further up the funnel."

"Yeah, what about—so really common talked about metric, this is probably the single metric that we're asked most about when people are talking to us in our sales process, which it makes me a little bit upset that it's the most common metric asked about because I don't think—spoiler, I don't think it's the most important one—but what about cost per lead? Famous metric."

"Yeah, so with cost per lead, there's a lot that you can control, which is the bulk of what we talk about on this podcast, right? Like things that you can do in your marketing to bring down your cost per lead and bring up the quality. Things like better keywords, better ad copy, better tracking, better page performance—all of those things can impact your cost per lead. But there's a lot that you can't control about your cost per lead that's very market-driven, not marketing-driven. Things like the size of the area you're targeting, the channel that you're working in, the number of other investors in your market—there's a lot that you can't control and that you can't predict.

So if you base your marketing on just cost per lead, that doesn't take into account the lower stages of the funnel as far as how are those leads going to turn into appointments, how are those appointments going to close, and what's the deal spread of those contracts. And if you're just looking at cost per lead, then you're going to basically always choose the channels that have the lowest cost per lead and don't always have the best deal spreads, always have the best motivation, or don't have the fastest cash cycles. So I think that's probably worth considering when looking at what seems like the golden standard of metrics when it misses a lot of deeper gray area that probably needs to be considered."

"Yeah, it's a really nuanced metric too because everybody defines 'lead' differently. I've noticed I've had a few conversations with investors recently where like there are like five different metrics that were pretty much used interchangeably throughout the entire conversation, and it creates a lot of confusion because we're not talking about the same things, right? So I really firmly believe that we need to like have some type of standard of, you know, what do different things mean? Because it creates so many communication issues, and I've noticed like the same person will say 'lead' but mean a different thing each time they say it. Like, 'Oh, in this case, I'm talking about like, you know, leads that are like, you know, really good that I can have an appointment with.' You know, and in this other case, I'm talking about like, you know, like the 'real leads.' My favorite word is 'real leads'—like, what does that mean?"

"Yeah, there's so many different—like that could be defined like 10 different ways."

"A person, an actual human being?"

"Yes. Um, but some leads aren't, you know, quote-unquote 'real leads' for a whole bunch of different reasons."

"Um, yeah, and I think people generally fall into two camps, and I don't like the two camps. I think there's like a middle ground that makes sense where like, there's on one side you have the really lead cost focused, where it's all about getting a lead at the right cost, and then on the other side you have this like quality focus where it's like, 'I don't care what it costs, I just want quality leads.' What I've noticed about every one of the people that's ever said that is they really care about what it costs too."

"Someone brought it up to me recently. They said they heard on a podcast, 'If you want Ferrari deals, you got to pay for Ferrari leads.' What do you think about that?"

"I mean, I think it sounds really good on the surface, and it's a great phrase. And I think there is some truth to it where like, if you want to get above market value, you can't pay like—uh, well, and that's probably like a bad way of phrasing it for our audience—but like if you're wanting high-quality leads, you have to be willing to pay at least what other people are willing to pay for it. And so, um, I think that's true. I think that you can't over-emphasize the best leads at the expense of volume. I think that's the only thing I would say, but I think overall it is fair to expect that the best leads are the best leads for a reason, and if you know that, then it's likely that other people also know that, and it's going to be hard to, you know, change those market dynamics too much."

"Yeah, it's funny because it just depends on who's hearing it, right? If I'm telling you you need to get paid for Ferrari leads if you want Ferrari deals, right? And you're the person who's way too focused on cost per lead, it's like the most brilliant message in the world for you. If you're the person who's already focused on lead quality, then you create some type of idea of like—we've even seen some of our clients where they go so far pushing quality up, and you can get pretty far down that road if you want to, but you get to these points where like your quality is improved by 20% and you're paying three times more per lead.

And I think everybody just assumes if your lead quality gets better, then your cost per deal goes down. That's not true. Like if you were to keep the cost probably the same and make lead quality better, then you're better off. But if you have to inflate the cost really significantly to get the quality a little bit higher, it just doesn't make sense, right? So that's where people are sometimes a little bit confused when I say that like optimizing towards return on investment and optimizing towards lead quality are two different things. They will get you different outcomes, and sometimes improving your lead quality and paying more per lead is actually a good move.

But there's a diminishing return on that, and you can push that farther and farther and farther to your filtering out like all the leads except for the one that you think is the best lead ever, and you paid a ton of money for it, but then if it doesn't close, you're, you know, you're not going to do very well, right?"

"And then I think that, um, I think there also is the idea of like the incremental value of an additional deal. If you're focusing so much on just getting those Top Line leads, then you're losing out on those more like medium quality leads that could help you get that next incremental amount of Revenue. And so I think that's where looking only at cost per lead and cost per deal is flawed because that's not taking into account those other metrics of the return on investment as well as the net profit of your campaigns. If you're so over-focusing on just efficiency, you can end up like, you know, being your Own Worst Enemy by actually under-driving volume and being in the red even if you have this screaming good cost metric. If there isn't volume, you still lose."

"Yeah, it's almost like the real only good strategy is just the one that your competition's not doing, in the sense that like that's where you find these undervalued leads, right? That's a word I like to use: undervalued. You know, as a real estate investor, you don't go into a market and say, 'Well, that house is worth a million dollars, I'm not interested at all,' right? Because if it's worth a million dollars, there's a price that you could buy that house at where it's going to be a great deal for you. Um, you could say the same about a hundred thousand dollar house, right? Well, there's a price that you can buy that house at where it's a good deal for you, right?

So it's all about kind of finding that sweet spot, which often depends on what your competition is doing. Because if they're just focused on volume of leads, which I seem to find tends to happen especially with larger companies where they have like marketing held accountable to lead generation and you have Acquisitions held accountable to closing of those leads, then marketing just does what they're supposed to do, which is drive as many leads as they possibly can. And then they say, 'Well, it's acquisition's fault they're not closing those leads.' And then acquisitions says, 'Well, these things are bad. It's all marketing's fault. They're bringing in bad leads.' So you have this like friction between them versus, you know, when we have just like a solo owner-operator of a business, they tend to be really focused on the quality because they feel like they control the whole thing and they have more the salesperson perspective.

But it's, you know, it really is a mix between both of them that you have to care about, because sometimes the way to win is actually lowering the quality. Like, what if you could lower your lead quality 10% and get three times as many leads? That'd be a huge win, right? And sometimes it's about just increasing that quality really significantly, and they both make a difference at the right time. Um, how do you find that hole though, like where where your competitors are just not focused?"

"That's it. That's a very good question."

"Um, if we're speaking more to PPC, because I think that's probably where our audience cares more, it's all about finding those keywords that you are seeing a better cost per click and a better return than your average. And I think that comes down not only to your average but also to benchmarks for your market and for your area, which if you want those benchmarks, they are found with us."

"So, I think if you know what can be achieved versus what you're seeing, then it's easier to find those hidden nuggets of value. But it kind of takes some knowledge of the benchmarks to be able to identify what's a win versus what's a less bad outcome."

"Alright, one final thing that I want to discuss that I think is interesting is how do you measure lead quality?"

"I mean, I have a thought, but I'd love to hear yours."

"I see you're playing a negotiation."

"That's right. I'll give mine and then I want to hear your better one. I think quality for me is tied to—okay, I'm going to hedge, but it's for a good reason. I think it's the percentage of leads that take the action that's nearest to revenue, and you have enough volume to have a big enough sample size."

"Yes, I follow that. I'm not sure anything—"

"That's what I would say. So, let's say that each month you get two deals, right? It's very hard to use leads to a deal as your number for quality because let's say there's a third deal that comes through and it's your next lead, then all of a sudden that looks like a killer metric. But there's not enough sample size to have that be meaningful. So, that's why I would say the lowest funnel metric that you have enough—and again, enough is so subjective, I'm sorry, I'm a marketer, so it's always going to be 'it depends'—but I think that's kind of the number. Whichever stage in the funnel that's going to be least impacted by the next lead being that action is probably where I would use to gauge quality."

"Does that make sense at all?"

"Oh, it absolutely does. It's the concept of measuring as deep in the funnel as you can with a relevant sample size."

"That was much better."

"Well, it's just a different way to explain it, but I almost didn't understand how I view things until you said that, and I'm like, wait, yes, that's how I view things. Of course, we care about the deepest in the funnel metrics, but if they don't have the sample size that's relevant for us to make good decisions, then we have to just go higher up in the funnel. It's better to have a high sample size with a less relevant metric than a low sample size with a relevant metric. Of course, that's a generalization because it depends on the sample size and how relevant the metric is. There's all those things."

"I can share a little bit about how we measure lead quality and what we've done with a lot of our clients. We put leads into different buckets. If a lead comes in, it's just a phone call or a form submission, we call that a gross lead. If it's spam or they're clearly not interested, like something like that, we would say that's not a net lead. So, you might have 100 leads come in and then you might have 90 of them be net leads. That's what I would call a real lead, you know, it's not like a fake phone number or something like that. Of those, you won't contact every one of them, right? So, you have some type of contact rate, and then you reach theoretically contacted seller leads. These are people that you've been able to get to answer the phone and they have a house to sell. Not every single one of those people is going to be an opportunity because some of them want retail or they're unqualified in other ways, like maybe they're just not in your target location or it's a mobile home and you don't like mobile homes or whatever the case is. Then you get to opportunities and some opportunities turn into contracts."

"The thing that kills me about all these metrics is they're so difficult. I could tell you one of the things that we've been running up against more often recently is pay-per-lead. Pay-per-lead is an interesting concept because what they're basically arguing is that you have to pay for net leads. If it doesn't meet the qualification criteria, then they refund you, and you look, and the cost per leads are pretty low. Sometimes when we're in conversations with people, they're looking at it and saying, 'Okay, maybe I could have a 300 cost per lead with you, but the pay-per-lead's 250, and I don't have to pay a management fee, and I get it refunded if it doesn't match certain criteria.' Then we look at it and they have a worse return on investment on pay-per-lead, and it seems to happen over and over again. I don't know what these pay-per-lead companies are doing, but it's interesting because you can have something still match the same criteria like an opportunity, for example, but be of a different level of quality. Some of it comes down to how it was generated. There's always a range of quality, and we find that most of our clients doing pay-per-lead have close to double the number of leads per contract as they do with their own PPC, which is a wild idea because they're supposed to be PPC leads still. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or why that could be. I know we've seen some element of that between Facebook and Google, like Facebook generally requiring more opportunities per contract even though the opportunities are defined the same way. It's just the way that the lead is generated kind of affects the quality. That's something to really keep in mind because if you focus on any of these metrics that aren't just the end funnel metric, there's always some way to be misled. That's something that gets us even with pay-per-lead where you're saying, 'Okay, it should be a search lead, and it matches these criteria, and it's at this cost,' it doesn't pencil out for some reason."

"I think I don't want to get too deep into pay-per-click versus pay-per-lead because that's a whole different podcast, but I think that is kind of a case study in the value of looking as deep in the funnel as you can because on the surface it looks great. If I were an investor looking at just cost per lead, I would dump everything I had, my life savings, my 401k, into pay-per-lead because, wow, that's a screaming cost per lead. But if I were looking deep in the funnel, I probably would hold out on putting my kids' college fund into it because those numbers don't hold steady down the funnel. I think that's kind of an example of why you should look at the whole picture because what looks good on the surface might not translate as effectively into revenue. Looking at just apples to apples, that's more apples to oranges if you really look at how it performs deeper down in the process."

"Yeah, probably another way that it's a case study for looking deep in the funnel is you can see why we reach each of these metrics just by what the company generating the leads is focusing on. If you're doing your own PPC, it's closing-focused from the very beginning, and that's going to naturally just push all the quality levers as high as you can. If you're looking at pay-per-lead, what's the goal? Create the maximum number of non-refundable leads for the best margin."

"Yes."

"You can't blame pay-per-lead, but I think that's a flaw with the model. Their goal is to sell these leads for as expensive as possible and not get refunds. It's the only way to be profitable, and they don't have great margins even in the best of scenarios. I'm not talking dirt about pay-per-lead companies, but it's some aspect of just how the agreement is structured that naturally leads to an optimization point higher up in the funnel. Anytime you have a higher up in the funnel optimization point, you can expect a lower quality."

"Any last words?"

"No, I think this was a great summary of how to analyze data. I hope I didn't speak in riddles."

"In this, at the marketers with your riddle speak, a bunch of jargon to confuse the masses. That's me."

"Yeah, you just confuse them into spending more money with you, right? Is that how marketing companies work?"

"Yes, exactly. We optimize for up in the funnel, right?"

"Yes, up in the funnel of confusion."

"That's right."

"Yes, it's been awesome. I hope this episode has value for everybody listening as well, and I will see you next time."

‍

Debating whether to manage your PPC in-house or loop in an agency? We're here to offer our completely unbiased opinion (😉) and help you make the decision that's right for you. Jeff Meigs joins Brandon Bateman to discuss the pros and cons of managing PPC advertising in-house versus hiring an agency.

They discuss:

Introduction and welcoming Jeff Meigs (0:00)
Pros of managing PPC in-house (2:18)
Pros of managing PPC with an agency (3:08)
PPC: Time vs. Expertise (4:48)
Agencies can provide higher overall knowledge percentage for less cost (6:06)
Agency team size provides more data to inform decisions vs individual data (7:54)
Market shifts: in-house vs agency (12:30)
Removing agency collective data leads to worse results (13:48)
Common in-house mistakes: (16:30)
The importance of patience (18:00)
Final thoughts and advice (23:24)

So, what do you think? Is PPC better in-house or with an agency? Share your take in the comments below and let the debate begin!

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm joined by Jeff Megs. Jeff is a strategist on our team and has worked with over 50 of our real estate investment clients. We're going to talk with him all about in-housing versus outsourcing your PPC, what makes the most sense for you and your situation."

"All right, how you doing today Jeff?"

"Doing great, how about you?"

"Yeah, doing awesome. Thank you. This is, uh, for anybody that doesn't know Jeff, he's one of our strategists. He works with many of our clients, and he's getting married really soon, right?"

"Yes, how long till the wedding?"

"August 11th, so it's like what, like a week and a half now?"

"A week and a half away, yeah. Soon to be the proud... I'm going from zero to four all at once, so there's a bit of a learning curve. But uh, it's... I'm super excited and really happy. I couldn't be happier right now."

"Well, so I was gonna rely on the rest of the episode to convince everybody why Jeff is a crazy person, but I guess um, I guess you all know right now. You now know you have to be crazy to be able to uh, to handle all of it, right?"

"Yeah, at once, but yeah, I love it. Love it."

"Yeah, absolutely insane. I couldn't imagine it, but uh, you do it with a smile and I guess that's how we would describe your job too."

"Yeah, so yes, thank you. Really excited for our topic today. We're going to talk about in-housing versus working with an agency, basically different ways that you can get the job done when it comes to PPC specifically. There are a lot of different layers of this and everything, and I know that you and I, Jeff, have both had experiences with this for better or worse, both ways."

"There's a lot of talk about in the industry. You're going to find people that are speaking really uh, bluntly about how you like must do this one way or the other. And I don't want this episode to be like an echo chamber. You know, obviously we're an agency, and being an agency, um, I do believe that it's better for someone to work with an agency more often than not. We'll talk about some of the exceptions to that and then also places where we might be wrong. So hopefully make this as balanced of a conversation as we possibly can."

"So, kind of starting it off Jeff, tell me about some of your experience or thoughts regarding like what are some of the pros and cons of going in-house versus working with an agency?"

"Yeah, it's... I mean there's a lot of debate about it, right? But I think there are some definite pros when it comes to being in-house. The most major one is just the amount of control you have over it. Everything that you do, you've done yourself, you know exactly how it works. If something isn't working right, you can either figure it out or look at it and say, 'Oh, maybe it's this,' and kind of go to work on it yourself. So a lot more control. I'd say that's probably the biggest thing when it comes to working in-house."

"That, and like if there's any adjustments as far as like location, you get it exactly right, exactly the way that you envisioned it and not having to describe it to someone else. Because that's always the difficult part, is the translation sometimes."

"But when it comes to taking it to an agency, I feel like there's such more depth when it comes to just figuring something out and kind of understanding it yourself versus letting like professionals kind of take it and run with it and saying, 'This is what we understand based on all this experience, all this spend,' versus kind of your own personal experience. I feel like it's really the two major layers to it."

"Number one is you have like you as a business owner do it, right? And you could technically bring anything in-house. You can cold call yourself as a business owner, you can cold text yourself, you can manage your payroll if you want to, you can do your own bookkeeping, right? Like you could... I mean that's a way that you can get anything done in the business. And then there's the concept of hiring in-house, um, and this is kind of that concept where you, you know, you have somebody and they're going to spend all their time."

"I feel like people that want different things tend to fall into one of these two buckets. The person who wants to do it themselves usually a little bit smaller of a company, right? I think I was kind of that way for for a while until I realized you can't actually grow a company that way. And some people don't want to grow a company, and that's fine. Like you don't... you don't have to grow a company to 50 employees if that's not your vision."

"If that's... yeah, that's not their version of success, then great."

"Yeah, yeah. So I mean, if you want to keep it really small, then you are going to have to wear a lot of hats, right? So some people envision like, 'I could be the PPC expert and that could be, you know, how I do things.' And then... and then other people, they just feel like they just want this person that they can see down the hall that is just sitting in front of a computer all the time, and therefore must just be making massive progress on their PPC campaigns, right?"

"Yeah, and I feel like there's a lot of things... um, not to sound try and sound too biased, but when it comes to an agency, a lot of things behind the scenes that really people don't realize that we do. Um, because we meet with them once a month, you know, maybe we email throughout the month and talk about things, and they think that maybe that's all that we do when they don't realize that there's so much... so many more layers to PPC behind the scenes too."

"Like doing spend checks, doing bid adjustments, um, you know, having all the integration set up so it goes to your CRM, making sure people are filling out the lead sheet that we provide to them. So all these different layers that when you take it in-house, you now have to try and either figure out yourself or figure out your own version, whatever you feel like is going to be best for you. But there's a lot of things that we do that are extra things that maybe they might not realize when you take it in-house. You could be missing a few key important elements to make that successful."

"Yeah, there's... you're totally right that there's... there's a lot of... um, there's a lot of pieces there. I think uh, yeah, I think our clients generally simplify what we do a little bit. As an example, I was talking to one of your clients recently, Aaron Gaunt. I was on his... his podcast, um..."

"He's such a great guy, yeah."

"Yeah, he can't... he can't get enough of me, so... Thank you. Which is... we talk often. I love Aaron, he's great. Which is... which is strangely true, um, but the uh... yeah, one insightful piece of the conversation was like we started talking about our team size. I told them, 'Well, we have like, you know, 25 or 30 people at this company,' and he... he was like, 'Wait, you have like 25 or 30 people? Like, Jeff, there's more than just Jeff?'"

"Yeah, right. It's like, you do realize that like Jeff is just like a smiling face that you talk to. That's it, that's all I do, and there's a lot that gets done in your campaigns that Jeff does not do, right?"

"And he was like... he was fine with it, but some people actually take a... like a more... like they just assume like, 'Well, if Jeff's not doing it, then nothing's happening.' There's something you realize like, 'Well, we have like four Jeffs, and then we have like 26 other people.' What do you think those 26 other people do? Like, it provides like a little bit of concept to like the ratio of like how much um, you know, the person that you talk to in the agency versus like the actual back end we're getting done is."

"And it's a... it's honestly one of the more comical conversations I have is, you know, someone comes to me like, 'I want to do it in-house instead,' you know, when they're just deciding not to work with us. And it's like, 'Oh, why do you want to do that? You know, tell me...' You're trying to... you're trying to be nice about it, and they say, 'Well, I have a... you know, I have these other... um, yeah, I want this person to spend all their time on it. I want to get like all the attention and all the time.'"

"Someone comes to me like, 'I want to do it in-house instead,' you know when they're just deciding not to work with us. And it's like, 'Oh, why do you want to do that?' You know, tell me. You're trying to be nice about it, and they say, 'Well, I have a, you know, I have these other, um, yeah, I want this person to spend all their time on it. I want to get all the attention and all the time.' And then you ask a question like, 'Well, what do you think that person's gonna do with all that time?' And they have no idea. They just have this hypothesis that somehow somebody spending all of their time is going to make this impact. Like, if the tab is open, they must be doing something, right?"

"Yes, whatever they're doing is more valuable."

"Yeah, which if you manage enough employees, you start to learn how not true that is and also how sabotaging it can be to your culture to have someone not actually productive. You know, the president has sets for other people and stuff like that, and I'm not saying they won't find things to fill their time with."

"Yeah."

"I'm saying it might not be valuable. Well, then you start to think, well, then you start to ask questions like, 'Well, tell me about who you're going to hire for this role.' They usually have some idea. They're like, 'Well, I was going to find somebody that, uh, you know, I'm going to pay them, you know, 60 or 70,000 a year.' Or even worse, they're finding like some VA that theoretically has experience in this before or something like this. And you start thinking through, and it's like, well, there's a couple people that you could hire in-house."

"Option number one is you have somebody new, and we do a lot of this, right? We hire people out of universities and stuff like that that are less experienced with PPC. And they come in, whereas then you have to think like, what do you do with somebody like that? It's kind of like hiring, uh, like any role. Like, let's just say you're going to take a transaction coordinator. You're going to get somebody with that experience. You need to have processes within your company for that person to succeed in. You don't take—it's like my favorite job position I've ever seen is like the dentist office that's like hiring an intern marketer. And you look at the responsibilities. It's basically running their marketing, right? As if that's gonna work, right? Like, this person's not gonna know what they're doing."

"Yeah."

"It takes talent to recognize talent, and so you might not realize that, but they're not gonna know what they're doing. So you need to like outline it, right? So if you're not going to hire that person, then you have to think like, what is it going to take for the person that's actually going to lead this? Then you're looking for a director-level person. So then you have to kind of put your hat on. You have to think in the candidate's shoes. Okay, on this director-level person, I'm capable of building processes and understanding how to run this in such a way that it works. What do I want to be paid? Probably like 130 to 150,000 or more. Unfortunately for a lot of people, yeah, that's, uh, for anybody that can like truly invent these processes, that's what you're going to need, right?"

"The other thing, you're going to be pulling somebody out of a job that's probably pretty good, or they are really not good because somebody with these skills, they're not looking for jobs, right? It's like recruiting a really good salesperson. All right, so you're gonna struggle to find them. Once you find them, do you think that person even wants to work for you? Like, you have to think that, like, am I creating the environment where this person gets to the next level in their career? Right? I don't think you are. I don't think most real estate investments are there because that person also has opportunities with other companies spending hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per month on their paid ads where they can level up, or agencies where they can grow a team under them or something. They're probably used to having a team under them, and the last thing you want is now to have to bring down this director-level person that's going to be unhappy because they don't have four employees working under them. Because you have what should be like 1/12th of their time worth of work, but you need their expertise, right? And I think I just don't think anybody actually thinks this through. Like when you really lay out all the individual pieces of what's necessary to make this happen in-house with hiring, it just doesn't make sense. And you're not going to find the right person, and when you do find the right person, they're not going to work with you. So the fact that someone was willing to work with you means they're probably not the right person."

"And I'm not saying—"

"Market shifts: in-house vs agency."

"You can't get lucky, but like it's—right, it's gonna be a tough, tough game."

"Yeah, it's more of a gamble than it is an informed decision or the best decision for the company direction regardless of your size. If you're taking in-house and like you're saying you want to get that director-level person, well, you could pay someone less to do it, but you're going to get less from it. So really, the value that I see too is like you can get someone that knows like 20% here and 30% here, and maybe they know 40% here, but they know 10% here. Or you can get an agency—again, a big push for doing agency in-house. Stop being so biased, sorry I can't help it—but it's someone that knows maybe 95%, and then you get someone else on the team that knows 98%, and someone that knows 89%. So you get a better percentage overall of just knowledge because you have such a large team helping you with it for a cost that could be even less than hiring someone full-time throughout the entire year. So the benefit is a much greater benefit with more experience for less money."

"And like you're saying, you can get lucky. You can run it yourself, find a really good keyword list, maybe manage it on a maximize conversions kind of campaign where you're spending a good amount on it, you're getting pretty decent lead flow. But then really taking it to the next level is what I feel like hiring an agency is too."

"Yeah, and it also depends. I mean, there's bad in-house hires and there's bad agency hires, right?"

"Right."

"Like, there's always—so yes, we hear about the bad agency hires all the time."

"I think if you have enough spend to have a person or to do it yourself but not to have a team, I don't think it makes sense."

"I think once you pass that 100 grand a month mark, then it makes sense to have a team, right? And if you have like a really solid director, I think you can make it make sense."

"Yeah, finding that really solid director is really hard."

"Well, and you said something really important too earlier. You said staying ahead of the market is impossible."

"It is. You can do projections; you can kind of figure out what the market's going to do. But as soon as that change happens, how much more time is it going to take you to adjust and figure out how that works versus staying ahead? You can't really stay ahead of the market, like you said. But you can figure out how to adjust faster based on the data we have."

"Yeah, what about algorithmic things? I know you had an experience recently with a client that saw the impact of removing some of the algorithmic benefits of being part of a data collective, right?"

"I believe he said it sucked when he was removed from our collective data, and just how much worse the data was on his own. We have clients that have worked with us for a while, gone off and done their own PPC, and then they've come back again. They're like, 'We're so sorry. We didn't realize what all this took.' But they also didn't understand the shift that happens when you're only relying on your own data, the small amount of data you have versus our large amount of data."

"I had a client that was running his own PPC for a while. He was getting tons of leads; the lead flow was great. He said, 'Lead flow is great; we don't want to mess with that, but we're looking at better quality leads.' Well, he came on with us, and the lead flow dropped, but the quality improved greatly because of all the data that we have collected. It wasn't so much about the lead flow as it was about the deals. Sometimes we forget that, right? It's not about how many leads you have per month; it's about, at the end of the day, how many deals do I have? How much is my return on investment, not just how good is my lead flow?"

"Right."

"One final topic that I want to touch on is, I don't even know how you summarize it, like action. I think in real estate investment, more than anywhere else, most entrepreneurs are heavy action takers."

"And honestly, if you want me to just call it straight as it is, that's like 90% of our clients, and it makes it hard for them to delegate things, right?"

"Um, it also makes it hard. Here's the crazy thing: if you're in SEO and you see a drop in rankings, what do you do?"

"Content and backlinks, and optimize the page."

"Technically, if your rankings are doing awesome, what do you do? Content, backlinks, and optimize, technically, right? It's kind of the same thing. Everybody wants it to be the major strategic shift, but it doesn't. What I'm saying is true. More often than not, sometimes there is, 'Oh shoot, we got rid of that page, and that page was getting a lot of SEO traction. That's the problem,' right? Sometimes there's stuff like that. But oftentimes, things flow up, things flow down. There are sample size issues, stuff like that. I feel like our clients are very action-oriented people, and it creates friction. I think that's why some people struggle with working with agencies. We have this problem, 'Oh, this month the leads weren't great,' or something like that, and they want to solve that problem so bad. The last thing they want to do is just say, 'Okay, agency, solve that problem for me,' and just sit down and wait, right? It's such a hard thing for that personality. They want some type of email to say, 'These are the action items we took to fix this problem,' right?"

"Yeah, or they want to do it themselves or something like that. When I see people managing their own PPC in-house, one of the most common mistakes is they're making way too many changes way too quickly. It's like you start 100 tests, and you don't even finish one of them. You just keep on moving on to a new thing before it stops. One of the biggest issues we see internally is that people don't give campaigns enough time to succeed when they do it in-house."

"Oftentimes they do, and I think the reason is when they're working with an agency, the thing they change is the agency. When they're working in-house, what they change is their campaign or something like that. You can keep on making those changes, and your campaign will eventually get where you're wanting it to, but at the end of the day, they have more exposure over a longer time to the PPC versus when they're working with an agency. They lose that patience because it just feels like madness. 'This isn't working, and I can't do anything about it.'"

"Any action is better than inaction, is what they feel like with that."

"Yeah, which is good for getting deals, but for PPC, sometimes action is what's going to hurt you, right? You have to be a lot more like it's a sniper approach, not a shotgun when it comes to optimizations. You have to figure out exactly what you're going to do, be surgical about it, get it done, and then use the data to make your next smart decision. But it's slow, and seeing tests through takes patience. If you want to actually finish the SPA test, but if you don't finish it, then why did you start it, right? It's a waste of time, it's a waste of resources, and it's a waste of money too to not finish it. I see a lot of times when clients don't finish out our termed agreement. We have that termed agreement not because we want to keep you on for that amount of time, but because we believe that's when the growth really happens, is when you give the campaign enough time to succeed. If you cancel before then, or if you decide, 'This isn't really working for us,' well, how do you know based on your own experience and not based off of the countless number of tests that we've done and clients that we've had who have succeeded? So, I feel like when it cuts off too early, that action of cutting it off early, they feel better about that than they do letting it ride out and trusting us based on the knowledge and experience we have when it comes to that termed agreement. We're saying, 'We know that this will happen. We can keep you on track for this to happen if we watch out for these indicators,' right? Those indicators can keep us from going the wrong direction. We can say, 'Oh, you have this many leads coming in, that's great, but look at these other things you have too. You have this many opportunities now or this many contracts now versus just lead flow before.' Seeing it out to the end is really going to help with that return on investment as long as we follow the indicators to indicate success along the path."

"I think that's something that might resonate with everybody listening to this. Think back to when you started your business. Everybody goes through some period where they've invested a lot into their business, be that money, be that time, and they don't have anything to show for it yet, like enough revenue to make it worth it, etc. Every business goes through this period. Now, just think, what if instead of starting a business and hustling and putting your own blood, sweat, and tears into making this happen, what if you just hired an agency that starts businesses for you? That might be a thing. I don't think it's a thing, but let's just say. How many people in that tough time would give up if they did that because they don't feel like they have enough control? They don't feel like they're making progress because they themselves aren't making progress. As you grow in your business, you start to realize that other people making progress on your behalf is the most beautiful thing that's ever existed in the world of business because you can move forward without you doing it. The first person I ever hired, I gave them some work to do, and they came back, and it was done, and it was good. I was mind-blown. At every level, you hire higher and higher-level people. At some point, you're done delegating tasks, and you start to delegate projects. Then at some point, you stop delegating projects, and you delegate results. When you can delegate results and actually see that come through, it's the epitome of happiness in a business. But you don't experience that right away. I think everybody that's listening to this had a business at some point. If they weren't controlling every aspect of it just because of the faith that they have in themselves that they wouldn't have in other people, they would have quit, and they never would have gotten where they wanted to go in their business."

"That has nothing to do with the viability of what they were doing. You have to get through the hard time to get to the good time. Sometimes, when it's hard times, you only trust yourself."

"That's my hypothesis for why some people do better self-managing their PPC. I've actually talked to quite a few people that are very successful with it."

"So somebody's probably thinking, 'Well, you're telling me all this stuff that's wrong about self-managing, why is it that those people are successful?' What I've seen from those that self-manage PPC, I think the personality that wants to get into the details can be really good at running a business. From what I've noticed, those people usually have extraordinary acquisitions and disposition skills, and when we take them on as clients, they do exceptionally well. That comes

back to one of the points you made earlier. PPC is a rocket fuel. PPC just amplifies what you already have, and if you don't have it, then PPC is not going to do anything for you. When you work with an agency, you're already at a level where you should be fine-tuning everything else."

"Then you just add that to it."

"We have some people that make so much money from the stuff that we do, and I look at that, and I'm like, 'Man, you must be a freakin' monster on the phone.' Then I talk to some people and I'm like, 'Okay, well, the numbers are fine, but we can get the same exact results for somebody else.' This isn't the magic button. This is a huge accelerator."

"Right, exactly."

"The people that are very successful on the PPC side of things are the people that have their acquisitions and dispositions dialed in, and their conversion rates are way better than the next guy's. The opportunity for them to get more and more leads just makes it all the better. I mean, you can give 100 leads to somebody, and they'll convert, let's say, one deal out of 100 leads. You give 100 leads to somebody else, and they can convert maybe 10 deals out of that. Just because they're better at converting, they're better at dispositioning, they know how to talk to people, and they have that skill set already. I feel like PPC is really the rocket fuel to those already successful individuals. So when we talk about clients that are successful with PPC or agencies that are successful with PPC, those clients already have all of that figured out. Then they go to an agency and they're able to scale even faster with all of that."

"It's so interesting because I see people go back and forth and they say, 'Well, this agency isn't working for me, so I'm going to try another agency.' I see them do that a few times, and I'm like, 'Maybe it's not the agency; maybe it's you.'"

"You have to be real with that and say, 'What am I doing? How am I setting them up for success?' Because that's what a partnership is. It's a relationship. When you have a business and you're working with an agency, it's a relationship. You have to set them up for success just as much as they're setting you up for success. You can't just say, 'Here's a pile of money, make it work,' and expect them to do all the magic behind it. You have to have your stuff dialed in as well for that to work."

"So here's the action item: If you're really good at acquisitions, dispositions, and conversion rates, and you want to be freakin' amazing, go to ppcpitbulls.com."

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Are you tired of dealing with tire kicker leads? Wondering whether to opt for PPL or PPC advertising, all while trying to save time and money? Well, you're in the right place!

In this episode, Noah Parks joins Brandon Bateman for an in-depth discussion about when to use pay-per-lead (PPL) and pay-per-click (PPC) for real estate investor marketing. You'll discover insider tips on which platform consistently delivers the highest quality motivated sellers, based on your budget, goals, and timeframe.

We'll also delve into the pros and cons of owning your brand with PPC versus tapping into instant leads with PPL. Plus, we'll show you how to combine these lead generation approaches for maximum results. Whether you're an established pro looking to scale or just starting out, this episode offers valuable perspective and actionable advice to double your qualified leads.

Tune in to hear us debunk common myths – your lead gen game will never be the same!

0:00 - Introductions

2:15 - Advantages of PPL for new investors - low barrier to entry, can buy leads without full marketing budget

4:30 - Pros of owning your own PPC campaigns - build your brand, more control over optimizing for quality

6:45 - Disputing leads with PPL companies - some pushback now on excessive dispute rates

8:30 - No management fee seems like a pro for PPL but they still have hidden acquisition costs

11:00 - Where the PPL cost comparison goes wrong - lead quality variance, misalignment of incentives

13:30 - Importance of closed-loop reporting and optimizing for outcomes with PPC

16:00 - Timeframe for results is key - PPC more mid-term, PPL very short term

18:45 - PPL as a supplementary channel, not mutually exclusive

21:30 - Building marketing on a solid foundation versus sand

26:00 - Using PPL to get started and scale up while establishing your own assets

29:00 - Misinformation and misunderstandings about PPC capabilities

32:00 - Lack of feedback loop and inability to optimize with PPL

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation at https://fisy12tpkxj.typeform.com/to/N....

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"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be talking with Noah Parks from my team all about the advantages of pay-per-lead versus PPC. How are you doing today, Noah?"

"Good, how are you Brandon?"

"Hey, good, cannot complain. Excited to do another podcast with you. It has been six months, probably a little bit - a little while."

"Yeah, yeah. For anybody that wants some context, right now as we speak, I am looking out my window at Noah's house. Yet despite that, he has made one appearance in the office in the past six months. Is that it, just one?"

"Maybe two. You come for our quarterly planning for sure, leadership stuff."

"So anyways, great to talk with you. You're the guy that every time you come into the office, people say, 'Whoa, does he still work here?' Which is kind of funny because to many of the people listening, they all probably know you fairly well because you're such a big piece of our outward-facing presence. So anyways, I'm super grateful to be here with you, and I'm excited for a cool topic today, which is pay-per-lead versus PPC."

"Yeah, so this is an exciting topic for me because I feel like there's a lot of misinformation going around about this. Now obviously, before we get too far into this, right, we are a company that does PPC as a service for Real Estate Investors. Noah works for that company as well, right? We're a little bit biased, so take it with a grain of salt. However, I think we're pretty level-headed, objective people, right? So I want to talk through some of the different stuff we're seeing, and spoiler: we're not going to say that one is better than the other. It really comes down to what your goals are."

"And I had sales, so I may say one's better than the other."

"All right, then I'll have to take the position of arguing for pay-per-lead. You know, I'll take a well-rounded approach."

"Fair enough."

"So obviously this has been a big topic of discussion. I think what prompted the creation of this podcast is that a mutual friend and client of ours named Victor posted on Facebook, 'Pay-per-lead is a scam,' or something like that. I can't remember exactly what the last few words were, and it started this conversation."

"Yes, a very lively conversation."

"And I noticed that a lot of the strong opinions against pay-per-lead were, in my opinion, a little bit unfounded or maybe from lack of understanding of those companies and how they work. But there's also a lot of truth to what was being said in that debate, and I think it's worth kind of visiting all those things."

"So a good place to start would be, in your opinion, based on what you're hearing - because I know you're talking to probably like seven or eight investors every single day, which really adds up a lot over the course of a year and a half - a lot of context of what's going on."

"I feel like it gives me a pretty good pulse, thumb on the pulse of the investor industry here."

"Yeah, I mean, you hear the good, the bad, the ugly of all the marketing, and you're also really good at digging into why people feel that way about their marketing and what could be causing the result to be what it is and things like that, so you can better understand. So I think I honestly think you're one of the most qualified people in the world to speak on this subject just based on your exposure."

"In your opinion, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of doing your own PPC as compared to buying leads from a pay-per-lead provider?"

"Okay, um, yeah, I mean, honestly, I see advantages to both. One of the approaches that I pride myself on taking and having any kind of discovery conversation or just understanding where an investor is at in their marketing cycle, if you will, it tends to follow a pretty common thread. And that is new investors tend to take the route of marketing that provides the lowest barrier to entry, which is oftentimes outbound, right?"

"But they hear all the upsides and all the good about inbound, and at some point they need to scale and they need to be able to do so more efficiently than trying to scale their outbound operation. So then they inherently will look at paid, and when you look at the paid world, we've got the two options: we've got owning your own PPC campaign, running ads in Facebook, Instagram, Google, Bing, whatever it may be, and then we've got the pay-per-lead side of it."

"One of the things that I see quite often is that younger investors who are newer into their marketing life cycle, they may not have the full budget to own their own PPC campaigns and have that fully managed for them. So they turn toward the PPL side of things, and so there is an advantage there in that you can start getting your toe in the water without having management fees and a full-blown ad spend. You know, where they've got a seven to ten K budget per month, something like that, they can buy the leads onesie-twosie and get into it."

"So that's definitely one side of it that I see. Other people use it as a supplementary channel. They have their own PPC, but they buy a few leads here and there just to get a couple extra coming in. So that's generally the situation that I see, and then as it runs its course, we start to get strong opinions on one side or the other of one channel versus the other."

"Winning truth, I mean, they're very complimentary."

"Yeah, when I think of different ways to go about this, I think one good scale to compare these things on is what time frame is the result that you're looking for supposed to come in. As it relates to long-term strategies, that's going to be like SEO very much, right? As we move to more of a midterm strategy, I think your own PPC fits really well there because it does produce a more immediate result than SEO does, but at the same time you have some level of ramp up. You have to gather data, figure out what's working, etc., and it's a little bit inflexible in the sense that you don't want to be like turning it on one day, off the next day, etc., right? So you have to have some level of consistency."

"And then on like the far short-term side, we have pay-per-lead. To give an example of where I recommended this to someone the other day: this was somebody who said, 'I don't want to do a six-month agreement.' So I had a conversation with them to see, you know, what's motivating you. Turns out, when we get to the bottom of it - of course, this is not any of the stuff that he said, this is all the stuff that was like underneath what he said, right? The real reason underneath everything was, 'I have an office lease that's going to get more expensive in three months, and I need this to turn around before then so I'm able to afford that office lease in three months.'"

"And I told him, 'Forget your own PPC. You're going to do PPL.' Especially because he said his cash conversion cycle was 90 days. I'm like, there's no situation where spending any money on marketing right now is going to get you more money in 90 days because he was flipping properties. That just doesn't happen. But if it did happen, it would happen with PPL, and you might have to wholesale."

"It's not like it couldn't happen with PPC, but we were talking about just like jumping in the game and immediately being wherever you're going to end up. PPL is awesome, right? It's a fantastic short-term strategy. Turn it on today, turn it off tomorrow. And the reason is those companies that are generating the leads, they are consistent with their marketing, right? Because marketing as a whole has to be consistent, right? You're just inconsistent in when you're buying things from them, but if they're not selling it to you, they're selling it to somebody else. So the underlying campaign has consistency, which makes it so that they kind of absorb that burden of consistency and you don't have to."

"Yeah, exactly, exactly. I've seen - I mean, I get into conversations and based on their situation, you know, I've made recommendations to a couple of the PPL companies that I'm close with and trust. And you know, no matter what, you hear both sides, and so you just do your best by the client in their situation."

"And yeah, anything else that you notice in terms of pros and cons?"

"Yeah, I mean, the most common things that I hear - you hit very well on the pros. You can get into it quickly, you can get into it less expensively if you will, and with less of a commitment to the process. The downside is you're not building your brand, and again, in the life cycle of an investor, that's going to become more important as they start to become more established. So establishing your brand, having a branded campaign so you're showing up on anything close to your own name, all of those types of things are really important."

"The other thing - you know, one of the things that's perceived as a pro to pay-per-lead is the ability to dispute leads that are spammy or, you know, just don't exist. One of the things that I am hearing a lot lately though is that there's starting to get more and more pushback from some of the PPL companies on whether or not it is a situation where it can or should be refunded, whether it's truly a lead or not. And so that's one of the situations that I'm hearing quite frequently, and that's putting the sour taste in people's mouth because it's one of the things that they really were attracted to in the early going - that ability to dispute."

"Yeah, the - it's actually a part of this Facebook post that we had mentioned at the beginning. A few people mentioning, 'I was told that my dispute rate is too high and they shut down my account, but they were only disputing for the things that are listed that you can dispute for.'"

"Right, I think to really understand this, you kind of have to put yourself in the pay-per-lead company's shoes. This is very similar to, let's just say you buy a product and you see that product has a five-year warranty, but you have to register the product after you buy it to get that five-year warranty, right?"

"Afford to give the five-year warranty. It's because they know that 75 percent of people don't register the product, so then they're not going to actually have to provide the five-year warranty to those people. But it can still be something that influences the person's decision in the beginning because everybody just assumes that they're going to do everything right and they don't read the fine print, etc."

"Right, so then that company, their liability of that warranty is 25 percent of what it would have been otherwise because it actually is only redeemed by 25 percent of people. That's a situation where breakage is what makes the deal. You offer a rebate incentive, for example, and who's gonna actually mail in the rebate? You know, not everybody. But who's going to be influenced by the fact that the rebate exists in their purchase decision and then assume that the future them is going to go through the pain of getting the rebate? Everybody, right? So it's, uh, you rely on breakage."

"The way a lot of these companies work is they track something called the dispute rate across their different clients and they basically will increase your cost of leads as you increase the number of disputes that you're doing, right? So it feels like I don't have to pay for those leads that aren't good. But what they're basically relying on is you not being good at reporting those within 24 hours or whatever the requirement is. And then if you are really good at that, they just jack up your prices. So at the end of the day, it's like you're still kind of, you end up paying for it somehow, right?"

"Right, yeah. I know you're exactly right. And I think that brings up an important point, and that is, anybody who's going into the paid realm, it's part of the game. I mean, you can't, uh, you can't join a basketball league and expect to play every game with, uh, perfect refereeing. I mean, there's going to be bad calls, there's going to be missed calls, it's just how it is, it's the nature of the beast. But when you look at things over time, you average things out and all of that, the channel makes a lot of sense. But, you know, understanding that there's going to be some spam leads, there's going to be some listed leads, that's the nature of the beast."

"Now in your own PPC campaigns, you can actively fight against that and try to reduce the amount of listed leads and spam, which is something that we do, I think, very, very well. But it is part of the game."

"Oh absolutely, I would say it is part of the game. Funny enough, we had one of our clients the other day that sent us a whole, like, spreadsheet of all the leads and the reasons they wanted them refunded. And this is, by the way, a client that's doing, like, really, really well, so they're overall happy. They're so used to working with pay-per-lead companies, so they sent us this and we're like, 'You realize, like, Google's not going to refund your leads, like, they don't do that, right? You pay for the ad inventory. If you have invalid clicks, you can get refunds from that, which is really common in the world of fraud, but certainly not the leads.'"

"And then second, if I was trying to get refunds on clicks from Google, I would try to refund all the ones that didn't become leads, not the ones that became leads and then I thought it wasn't a good enough lead. I would do all the, you know, what about the 75 percent of clicks that never actually become a lead? Can we get a refund for those ones?"

"Yeah, and that's, disputing that is an enjoyable process, so have fun."

"Yeah, absolutely. I think one, um, one other factor of pay-per-lead versus PPC that's commonly considered a strength of pay-per-lead is the fact that there's not really a management fee, um, or it seems like there's not a management fee. How would you speak to that?"

"Right, pros and cons to the channel. You know, if I'm in early stages of one, there's this idea that going into PPC is an expensive channel. There's some, you know, there's that, that's a fair assessment to a point. But anyone who's tried scaling their outbound, you know, the costs are just a little bit more hidden, right? And so there's just, is it a more expensive channel? Perhaps, but it's a more efficient channel."

"So one of the things that I'm seeing is, yeah, you have a management fee, but the real question is what's the value? What are you getting inside of that management fee? If somebody's just going to set up the campaign and let it go, then yeah, you should expect to have a lower management fee. But if somebody's going to be incredibly hands-on, be essentially a part of your organization in being strategic and making recommendations, keeping eyes on the road, and also looking at your data each and every month and utilizing that data and its outcomes in order to train the platform to get smarter to ultimately drive you better leads over time, then that has a lot more value."

"And so you have to really assess what your timeframe for results is key - PPC more mid-term, PPL very short term. What are you getting? Because not all PPC agencies are created equal. You know, I tell people all the time that we're by far not the cheapest, but we're not the most expensive. But I believe we bring the absolute most value to the table because of how we approach management. So it's something to consider. And PPL, you don't have that, and so again, weighing the various pros and cons is going to help you determine which channel makes the most sense for you and where you're at in your business at this point."

"Yeah, oh, and I think, um, I think one place where that's pronounced, like, let's just say you're going to spend a thousand dollars a month, you're not going to want to work on your own PPC and pay for a management fee and pay for the ad spend, right? Because ultimately the management fee's just going to be too much compared to the ad spend and you won't get the results you're looking for versus with pay-per-lead, you're still just kind of like, it's not like there's not a management fee, it's just the management fee comes on a per lead basis, right? They are buying leads wholesale, they're selling them retail."

"It's just like, right, like to say that pay-per-lead doesn't have a management fee would be for me to be a flipper and buy purely from wholesalers and say that I don't have any acquisition cost for my marketing, right? That's not true, right? The acquisition's cost is the wholesale fee paid to the wholesaler and oftentimes that's a lot more than what it would be for your marketing acquisitions costs if you were going to do it yourself. But if you're going to buy one property, is it worth you spitting up this whole marketing machine? Probably not, right?"

"Right, it's worth just you buying the one. That's another place that the same type of model exists, right? As flippers become more prolific and they handle more properties, it doesn't make sense for them to pay the markup for a wholesaler to sell them a property. It makes more sense for them to generate their own and it's a very similar, but I think you hit the nail on the head, putting it in that context makes it more relatable to investors because that's something that's like, oh yeah, it makes more sense on scale that I'm going to run my own marketing and generate my own properties than buying them from a wholesaler and paying to market."

"So very, very similar. Well, let's talk about where this goes wrong though, um, because I think where a lot of people go with this though is they're like, well, no, I'm actually not paying a markup because I can see the pay-per-lead bids in my market are X dollars and you're telling me my cost per lead might be Y dollars. That's actually more than the pay-per-lead, so why would I pay a management fee and, um, have to go for this more midterm strategy instead of a short-term, easy and easy app strategy and, um, go through like this extra effort about having it be on my brand if pay-per-lead's ultimately cheaper."

"PPL as a supplementary channel, not mutually exclusive."

"Yeah, I can answer the question if you'd like."

"Oh no, if I'm being frank, you're kind of, you kind of are like digitizing there for a second. So I maybe missed a few of the things that you're saying, so go ahead and answer the question and I'll provide a commentary."

"Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it comes back to what you had talked about before. See, pay-per-lead companies, they have, uh, you talked about the value of a management fee, the value of optimizing for the lead quality and understanding all those details. Pay-per-lead companies don't actually have, like, you have the smartest marketers, but just by nature of the model, you have some natural difficulty in optimizing. The reason being, they don't know what happens with your leads when they go into your system. What they know is how many of them get disputed, right? So what do they optimize towards? They optimize towards non-disputed leads, which is a really fair thing to optimize towards, right?"

"Right."

"That said, if we take something like, let's just say we're talking opportunities, right? If you take a quote-unquote opportunity, I can tell you right now, there's some keywords we have where it takes 12 opportunities to get a contract. There's somewhere it takes two opportunities to get a contract, right? To a pay-per-lead company, those look the same because we have that data kind of full funnel from our

end and we see the revenue and we can then tell Google, okay, optimize this way. So what ends up happening is if you're getting leads from a pay-per-lead company, you're probably paying a very similar amount for both of those two keyword groups, right?"

"So I think the important thing is to realize that yes, on a per lead basis, there might be times that a pay-per-lead is cheaper than your PPC campaign, especially in the beginning. However, as time goes on and your PPC campaign gets better and better and more refined, it's going to yield a much better return on investment over time. And that's something that I think, uh, for folks that are really trying to scale, that's a big, big factor and definitely should be considered."

"Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because they don't get a chance to do that part of the funnel. They just can't. They're delivering the lead and hoping that you don't dispute it."

"Exactly."

"And so they never get that feedback loop. So the channel never gets more intelligent as you're spending more time, more money, more data into it. You know, it's, it's that constant, um, you've constantly got your foot in the door, but you're never actually moving into the house."

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Tired of local grind? Learn how to scale your real estate investing business to 35+ deals a month from the national wholesaling king.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Bateman, and today I'm joined by Nick Perry. Nick Perry is the godfather of the national wholesaling model. Not only was he the first one to do that model, but he's done it on a level that nobody else has yet done it. He's bought more deals in more states than anybody else. We're going to talk about what motivates him as a person, we're going to talk about what his team looked like, we're going to talk about how his business model shifted in his story, and I think there's a ton in this episode that you're going to get value from. So without further discussion, let's get into it.

"How you doing today, Nick?"

"Amazing man, appreciate you having me on."

"Yeah, I'm super excited. I even caught you in the United States. What a rare opportunity. So you're in your office right now in Austin with the team?"

"I am, yeah. I'm here with the team right now. We're busting out of this office, getting ready to move into another office. So I'm back here helping with the transition."

"That's awesome, and I'm super excited to speak to you. You have been on the top of my mind for this podcast for a period of time. Honestly, whenever anybody asks me, because there's this... you know, there's people that believe that a real estate business today has to be built the same way it was built 10 or 20 years ago. And obviously, the world has changed, and it's not like those old things don't work anymore. In many ways, they do. But when people ask me like, 'Is anybody actually doing really well with some of these newer, more innovative models?' I always point my finger to you and say, 'Well, look at Nick Perry,' because I don't know anybody who's accomplished more of a modern national virtual wholesaling real estate model on the level that you have. So I'm sure you have millions of cool insights and things to share, but I'm super excited to dig into Nick's background."

"But if it's okay with you, let's start with your story. How did you get into real estate, and what was between there and where you are today?"

"Yeah, you know, I've always been an inside sales guy, so I'm going to start it off with that. We are in the inside sales business. We're not in real estate. Real estate is just the widget, right? So my background and my experience comes from banging the phones, you know, 60 calls a day, 120 minutes, high quotas, and I've been able to take that into what we do now, and it's the exact same thing.

Bringing you back to how I started, I started off, you know, very humble beginnings. I was a screw-up. I was in and out of juvie growing up for underage drinking and fighting. I had to grow up quick. My parents were divorced, so I lived with my dad. My dad was a landscaper, just trying to get by. We lived in a one-bedroom apartment in not the best part of town. He was struggling to barely make rent, much less afford clothes or food or anything. So I had to start working at an early age.

I started working every day after school when I was 14. At 15, I was working at a cell phone store. I got a promotion to store manager, and they were like, 'Hey, we want to promote you to store manager. It comes with a raise, but it's full time.' So I had to choose between work and school, and I chose work. That was the end of my education in high school. I dropped out in 10th grade, and I've been working ever since.

After high school, I became a personal trainer, and I realized as a personal trainer that I was really trading time for money. I did well as a personal trainer, had a full book of clients. I trained in a wealthy part of town, and I made good money for a personal trainer. So yeah, 18-19 years old, I'm making 80-100K a year, but my clients are pulling up in Rolls Royces. They live in the mansions around the area, tell me about their trips to the Maldives, and I'm quickly realizing like, why are they making millions of dollars and I'm not?

So my first mentors were really my clients. I would interview them while I was training them, and lo and behold, none of them had 9-to-5 jobs, none of them had any W-2 income. It was all 'I got rich through real estate' or 'I own a business.' So success leaves clues, and I said, 'You know what? I really need to figure out this real estate thing.' But I didn't have any money, I didn't have any credit, I didn't have any experience."

"And you know, I came across real estate wholesaling. I was living in Northern Virginia, which was where I grew up, and I was kind of tired of living there. So I quit my job and I moved down to Austin, Texas. No job, no connections, I had five thousand dollars to my name. So I moved to a little one-bedroom apartment in the hood with a laptop, bag of clothes, and an air mattress, and that's how I started my real estate journey.

I needed to figure out what was going to be my next move, and I didn't want to get a job. So I got on YouTube and started researching real estate wholesaling, and that brought me down that route. This is very early days. I was handwriting yellow letters, sending out bandit signs, and striking out left and right. I was getting appointments but I didn't have a coach, I didn't have a mentor, and I was getting my ass handed to me, you know, getting told no, no, no, no, no, no.

I was running out of money to keep my dream of being my own boss alive. So I went and got a job at Indeed.com. They're headquartered here in Austin, and so I started doing inside sales at Indeed. When I started that job, I was negative 800 in my bank account, didn't know how I was going to make rent, and I told myself I'm only getting this job so I can come out and keep this dream alive and be an entrepreneur.

So I went in and I gave it everything I had, and I went from negative 800 in my bank account to making a quarter million dollars a year. Rookie of the Year, Top Gun, top of the leaderboards. I used all of that money to put into my business. I used that money to go to masterminds, I used it to put into marketing, and I worked non-stop for those first three years.

It took me 11 months and 104 face-to-face seller appointments - this is where I used to drive to the houses - before I got my first deal. So it wasn't like an overnight success. I really struggled in the beginning, and that was part of my journey. It took me that long to get my first deal, and I worked non-stop. Nine to five at Indeed, get home, eat dinner, and then back on the phones until midnight until I couldn't stay awake anymore, and then every day on the weekends. And that's basically how the journey began."

"So I did that, and, you know, it took me 104 appointments to get my first deal. All that money from my first assignment, which was $12,000, I put it right back into marketing. Quickly after that, I got deal two, three, and four. I continued doing this for, you know, I stayed at my nine-to-five for two years. So until 2016, I stayed in my nine-to-five, and then I made the transition full-time into real estate. You know, I built my company. Since then, we've got 22 employees. We're doing five to six million dollars a year and growing right now. That's pretty much where we're at."

"Yeah, that's awesome, Nick. I'm so curious. I've never talked to anybody that went on so many appointments to get their first deal. At that time, I don't think your sales skills were new. I mean, you've been doing that for some time and you were performing really well in another sales job. So, what do you attribute the reason to that being such a difficult start for you?"

"At the very beginning, I didn't know how to comp properties. I wasn't confident in what I was looking at. I didn't have the right exit strategies. I was locking stuff up at full retail, just making a lot of beginning entry-level mistakes. That's really what held me back. I was just kind of stubborn in the way that I wanted to figure it out myself. I was going to watch YouTube videos until nauseam until I got it down. I was trying to piece together advice from multiple different people, and that is not what worked. It wasn't until I got a real mentor and started attending real masterminds that I structured my business properly and started getting real traction."

"Yeah, that's awesome. It reminds me in some ways of the beginning of my journey. I look back at it, and I was like too dumb to stop, basically. At the very beginning, when I had started Bateman Collective, you hustle for—it's crazy—like I hustled for so long for like two or three clients, probably two or three clients in my first year, working all the time to make that happen. Now, we'll onboard two or three clients in two or three days. It's insane how much that changes when you start to learn and understand what you're doing as a business. That's wild. Also, the part of that whole journey where I imagine you grew the most is the part you glazed over super fast. It's like, you know, the origin story and then where you are today, but I imagine you went through quite a bit between just being the guy who figured out how to get those two, three, four deals to the guy that can run a business doing five to six million dollars a year in revenue. Tell me about that growth path. I'm super curious to hear what struggles you had then and what helped you break past that seven-figure mark and get from that three to six. You get what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, so for the first four years, we were stuck at three to five deals a month. I felt like that was a real tough point for me to break past. The reason was I wasn't marketing properly. My people sucked, my system sucked, and so I had to—you know, I was hiring people, firing people, I wasn't tracking my KPIs properly. These were all things that were the difference maker from three to five deals a month to 35 to 45 deals a month. Now our marketing is streamlined. We do all inbound marketing, PPC. Our team is top-notch; they're tracked on very strict metrics for performance. Our systems—we've invested heavily into making sure we have the best software, the best tech in order for them to do their jobs effectively."

"Yeah, that's crazy. Isn't it wild how the most successful companies and the ones that just can't make it work have a lot of the same elements? You had people, you were hiring, you were firing, you had KPIs, you had systems. So many people think of it as a checklist, like 'I got to get these things,' but the level of mastery of each one of those things sounds like that's what took you to the next level."

"Correct. Everybody always likes to ask me, 'What are the top three things that made you—what was the turning point from five deals to 45 deals?' I wish I could give you one tip or one software, but it's really the mastery, becoming one percent better every single day over a year, five years. The compounding effect of that is what really gets you there. There's no silver bullet, no magic software. Of course, all those things help make you one percent better. That's the true answer to what it takes. There are no real shortcuts to success. Sorry to break it to you guys. I can give you a lot of tips and things that'll speed up that process, but you're going to have to commit to mastering and growing every single day."

"Yeah, that's awesome, Nick. I'm really excited to dig into Nick's current business model. What does your business model look like right now? Just the basics, right? What does marketing look like? What does acquisitions look like? What does the team structure look like? Anything that you think is really helpful. I know a lot of people listening to this podcast feel like you did back before you had that breakthrough, stuck in that two to four deal per month range with the wrong systems, the wrong people, probably even a pivoted business model from where you are now. Tell me about some of those key factors that make your business as it functions today different from the average wholesale real estate business."

"Yeah, so we're nationwide. We do property all over the country. In terms of marketing, like I said, we're all Google inbound PPC. Rather than just tell you what my team looks like, I'd rather just show you. Here we go. I'll walk you into my acquisitions room. This is my acquisitions team right here. Everybody's on the phones, cranking out deals left and right. We've got eight or nine guys here on acquisitions. You guys are on a podcast right now; y'all are gonna be famous."

"And then, back over here up front, we've got our transactions team that are on the phone right now. You're on a podcast; you're gonna be famous. And then we've got my COO and executive assistant over here. They're cranking out everything we need to be able to run this business at a high level. And then back here, I have a dispositions team. I've got three dispo, so they're all on phones cranking right now. That's what it looks like to run a five to six million dollar a year operation in a nutshell."

"That is super neat. There are tons of little takeaways in that little office tour. By the way, for anybody listening to this, this is your sign that you got to start watching these on YouTube instead of listening to the podcast form. But yeah, that's interesting. The ratio of the number of acquisitions reps to the number of dispo reps is crazy interesting because it's a little bit stronger on dispo than the average real estate company, which I think is a piece of your model, correct?"

"Yeah, it's about having streamlined processes on dispo, making sure that our acquisitions are doing a great job of locking these deals up at the right price. If you don't lock them up at the right price, it's going to take a ton of bandwidth on dispo. If you don't have the right systems on dispo, like having certain softwares like InvestorLift, PropStream, etc., I could go down the list. If you don't have the right systems and process on dispo, you're going to have to hire a lot of dispo to manage the amount of volume that we do."

"Yeah, yeah, totally fair. I'm really curious to ask. Um, obviously, recording this, we're in September of 2023. A lot of people kind of got thrown for a loop close to a year ago. Tell me about, like, with your business model and how you operate, what effects, if any, did the market shift have on your operation, and did you make any changes?"

"I didn't even realize people were struggling and that there was a problem in the market until, like, a couple months ago. You know, people were like, 'Yeah, we got crushed in Q4 and Q1.' I was like, 'I missed the memo,' because, you know, I think the fact that we are nationwide, the fact that we pivoted to novations and selling to retail buyers, you know, wholesaling and doing novations, that was a big shift we did early on. We did that, you know, Q2, Q3 of last year, so we missed, like, you know, front. We never sold to hedge funds or anything either, so that was, you know, I know where a lot of people got the rug pulled from underneath them. And then cash buyers started drying up because the interest rates skyrocketed and construction prices skyrocketed. So, um, we had already made the shift before, you know, all of that transpired."

"That's wild. You, like, timed it just right because, yeah, so many people that I know that were doing well, then they struggled, and then now they're doing well again. They were doing a lot of wholesaling. It hit them hard. They lost a lot of cash buyer traction. I mean, either your deals are gonna contract in their size or you're not even going to sell them to cash buyers in a tough period like that. And then they started learning other exit strategies, pretty much anything that gets you to the MLS and maybe a hotel or wholesale or maybe flips in some circumstances for people that want that headache in their business. And then they're doing better."

"That's crazy. I don't think 'luck' is the right word because I'm sure there's a lot of vision behind that. But that's awesome that you had timed that just right when other people needed that."

"Yeah, you know, we had experimented with it before, and we just saw the traction that we were getting, so we leaned heavy into what was working. That was a blessing. You know, we were very fortunate that we made that shift early."

"Well, it's crazy because often the things that save your business in a tough time are just getting better at the same things that you should have been doing even before. That would have been what would have taken you from profitable to very profitable before. And then now with the shift, it could just take you from not profitable to profitable in some circumstances. Like, I'm totally with you that people using those exit strategies even before the market shift, it was still better. People were still getting larger spreads than they were through other exit strategies. People were just content because they didn't need to do much better than they were doing."

"It seemed like a lot of the people I was talking to, their focus was selling the deal, not maximizing the deal spread because they could still be profitable and move on to the next one."

"I agree. And that's a good point you made. You know, the people that are training every single day, working on getting better every single day, when shifts in the market happen, those are going to be the companies that excel versus the people that go out of business. If you run a clean operation, you're dedicated to becoming better, when things do happen, you're much stronger and much more equipped to deal with market changes. So, it's just about being the best you can be individually, and we preach that in our company. It's like, 'Hey, one of our core values is never-ending improvement.' That goes down from the individual level and rolls up to the company. We're always self-scrutinizing how we can become better individually and as a company."

"Yeah, it's insane. The best leaders, you don't have to ask them what their core values are, right? You spend a little bit of time with them, you'll know that. And I can tell you, I knew that about you. I knew you had some core value that was like growth or never-ending improvement or one percent better every day. I didn't know what words you used yet, but I knew it was something like that."

"That's awesome. Something else I noticed in your office tour that was abnormal, you had a CEO. Most people don't have a CEO. Speak to, if you don't mind, that decision. You know, why you chose to have a CEO, what they do, and what that means for the business and how it interacts with your life and all that stuff."

"He does everything. So you guys kind of caught me at an interesting time because I'm not really here in my office very often. I live in Cancun, Mexico. Previous to that, I lived in Panama City, Panama, and Miami, Florida. So I come to my office as needed, mainly because I want to. I don't have to be here, and I enjoy that freedom. I wanted to build my life to where I can do what I want when I want. I'm young, I like to travel, so I wanted to build my company in a way that I was not the bottleneck. So having a CEO is not like I hired him in and stepped out of my business. This was a very long process to get to this point. Brandon was actually my intern when I was at Indeed in the corporate world."

"Interesting."

"Yeah, so he would see me locking up a deal at Indeed, and then I'd click over to a few other tabs to Podio, and I'd lock up a deal with a seller, right? And he was like, 'Wow, this is interesting,' and I was like, 'Listen, kid, just prospect my leads, do what I tell you to do, don't ask me questions about real estate.' Whatever. He ended up really taking an interest in it, so I was like, 'Here, take this course,' and he took the Sean Terry course and ended up getting a deal on his first direct mail campaign. I coached him through it. Long story short, he got hired at Indeed, I left Indeed, and didn't think I'd ever talk to him again. He was making six figures, doing well at Indeed, also interested in real estate. Six months later, he called me out of the blue asking if he could come work for me. I said, 'I don't have a position for you, but you can cold call my old leads, basically a follow-up specialist for $500 a week.' And he left a six-figure job, 401K benefits, to come basically be my junior acquisition at the time. And then from there, he worked every job in the company. As we brought in new reps, he helped hire and train. He started, you know, he became a closer on acquisitions, then ran our acquisitions team. And then eventually he was at the point where he was ready to take over dispo as well, so he took over back-end dispo, and he was promoted to COO. This is still 2017 through 2020. He was the COO of our company, and he did everything. Towards the end of his tenure as COO, I was still in the office every day, but I wasn't doing anything. I was scrolling TikTok all day. And in 2021, I decided, 'You know what, I'm going to go ahead and move and see how you do.' And I'll come back. He did very well over the next couple quarters, so I promoted him to CEO. That was the evolution. He earned his stripes to become the CEO of the company. He's been with us for eight years now and has worked every single role in the company and knows the business better than I do probably at this point."

"Yeah, that's wild, and it has to be an inspiration to other people starting with the company that there is a path for growth within the company. I'm curious, did you hire another COO when you promoted him, or is it just him with new responsibilities?"

"Yeah, he has department heads now. So we have a director of acquisitions, director of dispositions, and they report to him. So he has two people underneath him that report directly to him, and that's how we're structured. We don't need to be that top-heavy. I don't like having a bunch of high-paid executives within my company, so that's how we're organized right now."

"Okay, super helpful to know. Well, that's awesome, man. So that..."

"Why expand nationally vs. dominate locally first?"

"Consider, let's just say I'm an investor, and I subscribe to this mindset where I say, 'Why would I go to more markets than just the one I'm in if I haven't dominated the one that I'm in?' It doesn't make sense to expand if you haven't won already. What would you say to that?"

"Well, there's multiple reasons. One, if you're doing digital marketing, you know that the larger the audience that you serve your ads in front of, it's typically going to result in a lower lead cost, right? So if I'm marketing, say, in Dallas-Fort Worth on PPC and I'm just using that market, my cost per lead is probably going to be three to four hundred percent higher than if I do national or statewide. So economies of scale and marketing is one big piece of it. Additionally, when you're spread out, you know, in the United States, you're going to be surprised about how we pick up these deals. We pick up deals in towns that you've never heard of, and we're ripping spreads that are crazy because there's no competition. So we'll go lock up an innovation for forty thousand dollars, put it on the MLS for two hundred

thousand dollars, and we don't have much competition because it's in these little pockets. So you can almost find these little gem deals in smaller markets versus if you're in a large, competitive market where everyone's got this mind-share idea that it's the hot market to be in. A lot of times, you won't have those larger spreads, and you're dealing with more competition. So for us, it makes a lot of sense to go nationwide."

"Yeah, I mean we always come in and anchor with a cash price, even if we are going in to get a novation, you know? So that's the way that we pitch: we make sure that you know we underwrite it as cash even if we know we're not gonna do a cash deal. Like I said, in these rural markets we're almost always doing novation because it makes the most sense. So they will still get a cash offer to the seller, and then it makes the novation offer much more appealing after they hear that cash offer."

"Got it. Okay, so a cash offer is a price anchor. Understood."

"Okay, that's super interesting because these same processes with other people end up being a cash deal much more often. And then with you, you just know you're going in for the novation from the very first second. So yes, you start that direction."

"Alright, that's super interesting. Let's talk about, um, I'm curious to see how our opinions differ or are similar on this. So a lot of people are basically trying to figure out PPC and they just can't make it work, right? They're working with different agencies, they're trying to do it themselves, they're hiring people on their team to try to do it, and then, like, no matter what people do, it seems like they tend to fail on some level with PPC, or at least it's really common. So when somebody's considering that, obviously you and I are like naturally on different sides of this table, right? I have a managed service for PPC, we encourage people to come with us, and we say, 'You know what, yeah, there are some bad agencies out there. We're a good agency, we're going to take good care of you, we have a lot of data, we can make this work.' And we have people do that with us. Your model, as part of your program, you're actually teaching people to do their own PPC, and I don't think you're exclusively telling them like this is the only way to do it, but that's kind of the model that you've had there. So as much as I believe in what I believe in, I love a good healthy conflict, and I think that's where we can get down to it a little bit more. I'm super curious to hear your opinions on, like, if I'm an investor and I want to make PPC work for my business, what are the different paths I should consider and why would I go down one of those paths versus the other?"

"Yeah, so my stance on it is, you know, as the investor, my PPC journey, I learned how to do it myself through trial and error and eventually I got it up and running and started doing very well at it. And then, you know, going to masterminds, I would hear like, you know, there's always somebody that's out there that can do it better, you need to outsource it. And I did, and I've had PPC agencies do well for me, don't get me wrong, but there has always been a shelf life on how long they continue to perform well. They do well for three months, and then the performance would, you know, go downhill. Or I would, you know, outsource it and they would screw up my campaigns, and I went through this probably, you know, seven, eight, maybe ten times before I just said, 'You know what, I'm pretty confident I have a better grasp on PPC than the agencies that I'm outsourcing and managing it.' So there are good agencies out there. You've built an incredible business. For the most part, like, I think that it's a skill that is not that hard to learn. If you can run cold calling and pull lists and list stack and do all that, you can do PPC. In my opinion, it's actually easier than managing data and things like that, and it just takes a little bit of time to learn it. And when I say a little bit, it's not that much. Like our mentorship is designed to get you up within the first couple of days to where you're generating leads within 72 hours of signing up if you hit the books and implement."

"Yeah, that's fantastic. And I'm curious because you said that, and I didn't know all the details of your previous experiences that you had with PPC companies. You said there's always the shelf life, right? Things are good, and then they're not, and things are good, and then they're not. Have you ever found a shelf life with your own campaigns?"

"For sure, absolutely. Like there's, I think there is a point of diminishing returns, and there is a shelf life on campaigns. Like if you look into my Google Ads account, you'll see campaigns that are paused that have thousands and thousands of conversions on them, and it's because they hit that shelf life and it was time for them to just be shut down, put out to pasture, and I've got new campaigns. So I don't know why that is with the algorithm, but I've never had a campaign that's lasted forever."

"Yeah, which is kind of interesting because I think, I guess I'll pose a question in some way that I think about this. Airplanes are like 95% flown by autopilot, right? Pilots make a lot of money. So if you think about it, why do pilots make a lot of money when they're just sitting in the airplane and they're not really doing that much? Well, they make a lot of money because the moment that something goes wrong, you really want to have somebody who knows what they're doing there to fix the problem, right? Because everything's good when it's good, and then when it's not, it's not. And I think what a lot of agencies do is they kind of put it on autopilot, but then they've got no pilot in the plane anymore. So with this shelf life, I wonder if even the shelf life you're talking about is the natural shelf life, so to speak, of a strategy without iteration. And on the agency side, they're just not able to make the iteration often, whereas on your side, in many ways, you're kind of going through the same experience but coming back from the tough times more effectively. Or perhaps with agencies, I've also seen people just run their campaigns until things get bad, and then they just quit and try a different agency, and then it magically gets better because anytime you change something, it gets better. If you change something when things are bad, usually you can only go up from there, right? So they just build this idea that they need to change it when maybe the agency would have recovered it. But I'm curious what you think of that analogy and to what extent it could apply here."

"Yeah, I agree. I think that that is probably common, especially with a lot of agencies. They do well, they start bringing on a lot of clients, and then they may have originally been super invested in your campaign, and now your campaign's running, so it's on the back burner and they have maybe somebody else watching it. That's what happens. Like you said, it's the airplane without a pilot analogy, and I don't like feeling like that as a business owner. Here's the thing, I take extreme ownership for everything in my business, and so I don't want a single point of failure or I don't want a vendor being responsible for why I'm not doing well. If I'm going to be pissed off at somebody, I'd rather be pissed off at myself than some outside company. So that's why having it in-house has been beneficial to me, because if I'm going to be angry about how my campaigns are going, I'll be angry at myself, and I can figure out how to fix it."

"Yeah, that's totally fair. It's a wild ride."

"I know what you're talking about. I don't have any issues with using outside agencies, and I think it's a good supplemental resource or even a big part of your digital marketing strategy. But I also believe that you should have it in-house. There should never be a single point of failure in your business. If you're 100% reliant on one agency, you set yourself up for potentially anything. You have an established business, but anything can happen. You could end up getting hit by a bus or, God forbid, anything were to happen to you. You're the single point of failure."

"If it gives you any comfort, once upon a time that was true. Now I could get hit by a bus and I think things would go okay around here."

"It was true once upon a time. If you have, like, what you're talking about is just the concept of outsourcing overall. If the company you're working with has a single point of failure, then you're at risk. If the company you're working with has their stuff figured out, then you're not. I don't think most people really evaluate companies on how well they have their stuff together or a single point of failure when they're deciding to work with them. They usually use other things like track record. Honestly, in this industry, when people ask why they should hire us, I don't point to our track record. The reason I don't is because I don't think it actually matters. I think the future is going to be different from the past. Always. Past performance doesn't predict future results. I point to the fact that we have a research and development team that's always trying to stay on top of what's working. I point to the fact that we have a team structure and the right accountability that should make sure that those things don't go on autopilot. But that's not the reason people hire us. They always hire us because whoever it is that's worked with us said that they had great results. I think it has nothing to do with their results in the future, to be completely honest. It matters a little bit, but how the company's run has so much to do with how at risk you are."

"I couldn't agree more. It's true for any business and same thing with what you do and what I do. Like we just talked about earlier, if you don't have a good

process to onboard a new lead and convert it, then you're going to struggle, regardless of what I do for you or what you do for somebody else. Like you said, it's how you structure the company and all that that really matters."

"Yeah, well, I'm super glad we can both agree on that because I think sometimes it can sound a little bit odd for me to just go and say, 'Look, track record's great, but the future is going to be different.' What matters more is the structure of how things run. So, awesome."

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If you are tired of the same old land deal leads. Discover the secret to dominating digital marketing for land deals.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Shannon Ashton. Shannon is one of our account strategists and works with a ton of our clients that are having great success with finding wholesale or flipping deals through online marketing. She has also been opening up our new land niche and working with a select few clients of ours that are looking for land across the United States. We're going to talk about how that's going, what things we're seeing are working, what things aren't, typical results, benchmarks, and all those things that we've learned as we're entering this niche. If you are investing in land or you're considering investing in land, I think you'll find this episode very interesting. How are you doing today, Shannon?"

"I'm doing great. How are you, Brandon?"

"Yeah, I'm doing awesome. Super excited for this podcast. This is your first official appearance on the Collective Clicks podcast, so I think some introductions are in order. I'll start by just saying that Shannon's one of my favorite people in the world, and then I'll let you fill in with what you do on a day-to-day basis and all that kind of stuff."

"Awesome. Yeah, I'm super excited to be on the podcast today. Like you said, first time, which is awesome. I am an account strategist here at Baitman Collective, so I deal with our clients on a daily basis. I get to work with them and help them implement a strategy that's going to be the most impactful for them to have a successful campaign and get the leads that they're looking for."

"Yeah, that is awesome, and I am excited to speak to you because you have a lot of knowledge doing your job. Whenever I'm looking to anyone in particular to learn about what's working well, what's not working well, I look towards the team that you're on just because you guys interact with our clients so much. There's something that you do really well that I want to highlight, and that's part of the reason that I have you here today. I actually just heard this quote from a friend of mine, Jason Lewis, yesterday, and what he says is, 'When you can make the difference between what you think is true and what actually is true smaller, that's when you succeed.' And you, in my mind, are like the epitome of what I call being grounded in data. What that means is that there's all these emotions kind of flying out, right? Sometimes we have clients that have this idea that everything's going super well when it's not, or this idea that things are going really poorly when actually it's going well, or something like that. So emotions are all over the place. We can easily look at a streak of three leads that are bad and say that we need to make major adjustments to a campaign or something like that, but you're really good at being grounded in data. What that means is that the things that you say, I can actually trust that they're true and they're based on facts. No matter what the situation is, you understand those facts really well."

"So what we're talking about today that I'm excited for is land marketing, which is something that we haven't really talked about on this podcast before. You have been kind of heading an initiative that we have as a company to start working with more investors that work with land, and we're starting to gather some data that's pretty insightful. It's showing basically how this compares to marketing for houses, what are the key things that need to be different, and we have some early wins there as well. So I would love, if you're okay with it, just to pick your brain on all things land marketing and hopefully drive some insight for any of our clients that are thinking about it or anybody that could be listening to the podcast that is investing in land and interested in using online marketing as a method to get to it."

"Yeah, I think that sounds great."

"Cool. So first, just to give the overview on how this works for anybody not super familiar with land marketing, for the most part in this industry, it seems to be direct mail that people are doing. They're literally mailing out contracts that are literally a contract to purchase the property, and I have a few good friends that do this kind of marketing. They say you'll literally just get it mailed back to you signed sometimes, and that's how you do a deal. It's a little bit insane that anybody sells their property that way, but then of course, there's often going to be some type of acquisitions process or something in many circumstances."

"But this is a mail-heavy industry, which is kind of how houses were many years ago. It used to be that direct mail was like the primary channel that most people used, and then it starts to get saturated, and then you start to move into other channels and stuff like that. So because of some of those reasons, we had a few clients that are kind of looking for alternative ways to get land. Can you speak at all, Shannon, to some of the differences that they're seeing in online marketing channels versus what they're traditionally doing?"

"Yeah, well, it's definitely not a saturated market. The campaigns that we're running for our land clients have a ton of market availability. Because of that, we are seeing super low cost per click, and they're able to capture a significant amount of lead flow because there isn't that market competition that we see with other channels like direct mail. So that is a big difference for our clients and their ability to branch into a new area and something that's untapped, especially because people like to have contact with multiple points, and it takes multiple contacts in order to convert a seller oftentimes. So having a PPC channel is a way for our land clients to reach their sellers in a new way through that."

"Yeah. What have you seen? You alluded to a few things. You're saying the lead flow is stronger than it is for houses due to lower competition. How much stronger? Like, are we talking for the same budget you're getting 10 times the number of leads, or twice as many leads, or 30% more leads?"

"Yeah, definitely at least 10 times the leads with what we're seeing right now. Especially with our clients who are targeting nationally with land, it's an opportunity to open up the entire United States to land. So rather than just targeting a more narrow area, it opens up a lot more and brings that cost per lead down to the point where our lead flow is, you know, 10x what you would see with a regular property investor."

"Okay, yeah, that's a little bit crazy. What cost per lead number can you put to that? What are we seeing as normal?"

"Yeah, for a national land client, we're looking at around $20 cost per lead. So it's significantly lower than what we'd see with the regular."

"And this is on paid search, like PPC marketing?"

"Yes, yep. Google Ads."

"Good old Google Ads for sellers. Yeah, okay. So $20 cost per lead, which is lower, obviously, than what you see in marketing to houses, which makes a lot of sense. One of the things that I think is really interesting about land, though, is it's more feasible to do it on a national level than it is with houses. Granted, we have a lot of people - we just had Nick Perry on the podcast last week who does national wholesaling and is very successful at it. Some people figure that out, but land is so interesting because you really never need to see the product, right? You don't have to trust the seller on how good condition are the cabinets and appliances and all that stuff, because there's kind of nothing to it. It's acreage and where your acreage is located, and it's a lot more fact-based and simple. You don't have to go walk the property."

"Yeah, it's very true, and a lot of the information is available online. So there's no reason to go and have to view the property. It makes it a lot easier to find out what you need to know. There's definitely still qualifications for the types of lands. Most of our clients want land that has road access or doesn't have wetlands or a cliff because that's still not really viable land for them. But it's a lot easier to know those things when you're virtual rather than trying to see the inside of a house and know what's going on with it. And then the other benefit to land investing being virtual is a lot of landowners don't actually live near their property. A lot of them live out of the state or they live in the city and their land is rural outside of the city. They don't want to go out to the property, so there's no reason for them to see it in person either. They're more willing to work virtually with you."

"Well, let's talk then, because you alluded to it a little bit. I would love to talk about some of the biggest hurdles that are natural to digital marketing and trying to get land leads generated. One of the ones that I myself am really familiar with is that, let's just say you're doing a direct mail campaign, you can choose exactly what addresses you want that to go to. I want land in this area, and then maybe the owners of that land are anywhere around the United States, right? But maybe if I want land in Utah, I could find all the people who own land in Utah. I can filter that by acreage and maybe zoning type of land, etc. So I can kind of get laser-targeted on exactly what product I want, and I can make that based on what my buyers want or what I think I'm going to be able to sell. Versus, we get into online marketing, nobody searches what you would want them to search on Google. They don't say, 'Sell my 4.5-acre plot of land within 20 miles of Salt Lake City, Utah.' Nobody says that. So it gets a little bit more tricky, especially from a location standpoint, and then also everything else. So what are you seeing? Have we had any clients that are a little bit too picky of what type of property they want so it's just not working? Are clients generally adapting well to just work with any type of property? What is the name of the game when it comes to qualifying the land, and how far can you actually push that with online marketing?"

"Yeah, that's a great question. Obviously, location targeting is a bit of a struggle. Like I said before, some landowners don't live near the land, so we can't target by location necessarily. We don't want to exclude anyone who might own land but live somewhere else. So that has been a limitation that's fairly different from buying single-family properties through PPC. We haven't used geo-targeting as frequently with our land buyers. We're focusing mostly on the form capture and the ad copy in the ads. I think the biggest hurdle that we've experienced with our land clients has been land size so far. When someone searches Google to sell their land, they don't say, you know, 'Search my 0.5-acre property' or 'my 4-acre property,' but most of our land clients are looking for those larger pieces of land. So what we've done is adjusted the ad copy and adjusted our form to reflect that they're looking for those large acreage pieces, which has helped to redirect our ads to sellers who actually have the types of properties that we're looking for."

"Let's get really specific with this. So let's just say I really want land that's five acres plus. What is an example of what the ad copy might look like?"

"That's exactly what we put in it. We just made updates to say, 'We buy land that is over an acre, over 5 acres.' Those are the adjustments that we've made, and that's what's made a difference in the sellers who are actually clicking on the ads because it automatically disqualifies anyone who has land smaller than that."

"Understood. And when you say you're also making adjustments to - well, first, I want to dig into this ad copy thing a little bit, and then we'll talk about the form, right? Because there's multiple layers of how you do this. Which, by the way, this is so foreign to anybody who's used to doing something like direct mail or something like that, where it's like you start with the property. I want this property, and then you move from there. Here, we're just saying, well, we can't do that, so you want to make an ad that nobody clicks unless they are your right seller. And that's kind of the magic of pay-per-click marketing if you think about it. Everybody thinks with their ad copy, I want to create the thing that's going to get people to click on it because they're still thinking CPM-based advertising where you have a certain number of impressions, and then your goal is to get as many people to click as possible and as many of those to convert as possible. In this world, though, we have to remember you only pay when people click. So if you say in your ad copy, 'We buy any land,' and then people click on it, you're paying for those clicks, and some of them are going to have pieces of land that are less than the number of acres that you're wanting to buy, and you're going to end up wasting money on that. Versus if you can start to train Google and have the right people come through, then you're getting a greater rate of people qualified coming through, and you're going to have people who are going to see the ad and think, 'That doesn't apply to me because that's not the type of land that I own,' and they're going to see the ad but voluntarily not click on it, and you don't have to pay for them. It's kind of amazing what happens when you align your messaging with what you want exactly."

"Exactly, and that was the issue that we first experienced getting into land because this was a newer market for us, and even our land clients didn't know exactly what they were looking for. But as we realized that, we've been able to make the adjustments to the ad copy, and just that change has made a huge impact in the types of sellers that they're getting and honestly has made their efforts more worthwhile. They're not spending time chasing leads that aren't what they're looking for."

"Yeah, that totally makes sense. So ad copy is a big thing, right? And everybody wants to think targeting. At some point, you have to realize your ad copy is your targeting when you don't have as much targeting. It's filtering more so than targeting. Alright, let's talk about the form then. What are you doing in the form, and how does that make a difference in terms of the types of leads that we're getting?"

"Yeah, the form is very specific, dependent on what our clients are looking for in their land, but most of them ask some particular questions about the land quality and especially the land size. So some of the most frequent ones that we include are the acreage, if they're above a certain acreage or below, and then if the land has wetlands, if the land has road access, or if there are any septic tanks or anything on the land. All of those questions have been adjusted in our form to teach the algorithm within Google which leads are qualified and which are not. So if someone fills out our form on the landing page and they indicate that the land they're trying to sell is below our minimum acreage, we automatically disqualify that seller as a conversion within Google, which then helps to teach the algorithm for future sellers to not look for someone who has below our minimum acreage."

"I completely understand. So you're doing something that we talked about in this podcast before called lead sculpting, but you're applying this to land where it's way different. We've never done lead sculpting based on if you have road access or not. Again, it's how do we filter and use that to target? Because what people don't realize is, if you filter properly in the form, then you can change the kind of people who are going to see your ad in the first place. Because even though we cannot target based on these different criteria, there are going to be things that correlate really well with that, and Google's going to get really smart at finding which ones correlate and which ones don't. So the lead sculpting that you're talking about, to make sure that we're all on the same page about how this works, essentially what you're doing - if somebody, let's just say your minimum amount of acres is five and I have a 3-acre property, so if I go through the form, are you going to still get me as a lead?"

"Yeah, I'll still get you as a lead, and you'll still come through. So they'll still be able to contact those sellers as well if they choose to and reach out to them if their team has the capacity to still contact those smaller acreage sellers. But Google's not going to know about the lead."

"Got it. So to Google's eyes, I just wasn't the right fit. I never converted. But then on your side, you still get the lead. So we start to create this because normally, the way that people run ads, leads and conversions are actually the same thing because the conversion we're going for is a lead. But in this case, we're going for a sculpted lead conversion, which is a little bit more specific, and it cuts out - what percentage are we generally cutting out of the leads? Do you have any idea?"

"Yeah, our cost per conversion has been closer to $60, so we're cutting out about two-thirds of the leads."

"Two-thirds of the leads. Okay, so lead sculpting with all these questions that I imagine have been fairly custom based on each client and what they're looking for, because everybody has their own criteria of what kind of land works with their process. So lead sculpting and then the right ad copy that works for it - is there anything else that has contributed to the targeting, or is it mostly just getting those filters set up properly and then the campaign starting to naturally optimize towards them?"

"The natural optimization is definitely a big part of it, and with such high lead flow, it feeds a lot more data back to the algorithm, which is helping to teach it faster. But another part of it as well has been the specific keywords that we're targeting too. We've had to make some adjustments there and specify with, rather than just 'land,' we want 'rural land,' but we don't want commercial rural land. There are different changes that we've had to adjust with the keyword targeting itself as well."

"Got it. Yeah, and that completely makes sense. I imagine that the search terms are a completely different game with what we're talking about, but there is some filtering based on the type of land you're targeting based on keywords, which is interesting. Which doesn't usually apply to houses, you know. People don't search based on different types of houses and things like that. Maybe sometimes they search like 'mobile home' versus a normal home, or they could say it's a multi-family property or something like that, but it seems to happen a lot more in land."

"Yeah, definitely. Especially with commercial, that's something that one of our clients loves and the other one doesn't like. So for one client, we're specifically targeting it, and for another client, we've specifically applied an exclusion for commercial land. It just depends on exactly what each individual client is looking for."

"Okay, yeah, that totally makes sense. Alright, let's talk about results. We talked about cost per lead numbers, so it sounds like the benchmarks so far, the way they're working out, is maybe something like a $20 cost per lead, and then closer to a $60 cost per conversion or qualified lead based on really minimum qualification criteria. It just has to be the right kind of land - maybe the person never answers the phone for all you know, but it's qualified in some way. How many of those leads are converting into contracts, and what is cost per contract looking like?"

"Yeah, cost per contract is around $700. So fairly low cost per contract with those land clients right now."

"Yeah, and do we have significant revenue for any clients yet?"

"Yeah, we have one client who is going to close around $250,000 in revenue off of a $2,000 budget. So he's looking at a pretty significant return."

"Yeah, that is - yeah, we might have to edit that part out of this podcast because I don't want anybody to get too excited. That's - we're not advertising 100x returns in land. That's a little wild. We'll see if it holds true. I imagine when he says those projections in revenue, it's like we have a buyer, we have a seller, we just - it hasn't closed yet?"

"Yep. So they've got three deals currently pending right now, which must have a really significant average spread."

"Two of them are over $100,000 each. Wow. Which I wonder how typical that is. I'm sure it depends on the type of land that you're working with."

"Yeah, that's a great question. That's probably something I should look more into on that."

"Yeah, that's super interesting. Well, that's cool. Anything else that is notable to you that we shifted in our strategy to make this work with land? Or any advice for people considering this?"

"Yeah, I think it's definitely a different market from the regular property investing, but I think it has a lot of opportunity and I think it's fairly untapped in comparison to regular property investing. And I think that if someone is looking to get into land, it'd be easy to start out with if you just have a - if you are already running PPC or you're already doing some sort of regular property investing, sometimes those land leads come in. Maybe try working a piece of land and see if you can move it and start establishing that precedent so you can open up a whole new channel and a whole new revenue stream for your business."

"Yeah, super awesome advice, Shannon. And I mean, it's all real estate at the end of the day, right? Whether there's a house on it or not, it just makes it more simple. Granted, there's a lot of different - you know, it's a very different world when it comes to finding buyers and stuff like that. The level of discount that you have to sell and buy at with land is significantly higher than it is for houses. But it's super interesting. Well, thank you for taking the time today. This was awesome. Hope this episode adds some value for anybody considering this type of investing, and I will see you next time."

"Of course. Thanks for having me."

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Tired of marketing agency bluffs? Learn to spot a winner from a loser on the first call.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by David Richter. David owns Simple CFO, a company that works with over 160 real estate investors with fractional CFO services. David has seen all the finances; he's seen the pros, he's seen the cons. He's even run an investment company doing 25 deals a month and not making any money. He talks about all the lessons he's learned through all of this, eventually writing the book 'Profit First for Real Estate Investors.' I asked David a ton of cool questions like, 'What is Profit First? How can you incorporate it in your company? What is a normal net margin or normal percentage marketing expense for a wholesale company versus a fix-and-flip company?' So, we could talk about all those different things to help you know if your company's healthy or not and get some actionable first steps to become more healthy from a financial perspective."

"How are you doing today, David?"

"I'm doing great, Brandon. It's great to be here."

"Yes, I am honored to be here as well. Feels like we've been spending more than a little time together recently. Just hanging out in Tampa for three days at Family Mastermind, so that's always a good time."

"Yes, it is, and it's been awesome. Just had you on our podcast too, so I like that I'm getting to see you more and more. Just got to keep the masterminds flowing and go into them."

"Yes. Out of curiosity, how much do you end up traveling to different masterminds and stuff like that?"

"Last year was crazy. Last year I just launched my book and so I got asked to speak at a lot of different things. So last year I was traveling at least once or twice a week almost. Wow, I think I did over 40 in-person events last year. So maybe a little less than a week, but some weeks I remember one week last year I went to four different places in five days, like in planes, and I never want to do that again. This year has been a lot better. Last year was about getting the word out. This year has been more like, 'Okay, these are the things I really want to go to.' So, I at least go to three masterminds a quarter, so that's still traveling, you know, three times every single quarter. Then I usually do some speaking engagements, things like that. So, it ends up being maybe every other week this year. Maybe it'll be 20 things this year versus 40 last year, which honestly felt better to me. This last weekend was nuts. I was in three different places, literally from Florida to Washington State, Columbus, Ohio, then back to Tampa. So, three different places in the matter of five days. But besides that, travel this year hasn't been as bad."

"Well, that all sounds pretty bad to me. I'm more of like a once-a-month travel kind of guy. A lot of people think that's a lot, but that's insane."

"Yeah, and I'm not a—I do not love travel either. I don't love being up in the airplane. That's why what I'm doing I really do view as the mission. Like, this is the mission that God has put me on this Earth for, and I need to get this message out. I've had frank talks with my wife and my daughter and getting them involved, which makes it so I at least don't feel the burden of really letting them down or not spending time with them. Because I've also had them say, 'When you're here, you're here at home,' so I at least have that going for me. I've had good people pour into me, like no matter what you're doing, make sure that tomorrow I'm taking all day off. Tomorrow I'm going to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, dressing up like Prince Charming. My daughter's going to be Cinderella, and my wife's going to be the Fairy Godmother. So, as long as you're doing those types of things and making sure that your home life and that you've also got the other stuff built in, it's like, 'Okay, then what do I really need to do in order to get this message out?' So, yes, it's been chaotic for me personally these last two years, traveling that much."

"Yeah, I believe it, man. That sounds like a lot. Well, let's talk about that message. Hopefully, I'm giving you a platform here to share this message without having to fly somewhere."

"Yes, that's why I'm very grateful. You see this? Whenever you see this background behind me, like if you're watching this on YouTube or if you're listening to this, like I'm sitting in front of my desk, I've got the bookshelf behind me. If you ever see me like this, I usually have more energy because I'm pumped that I'm home and I get to spread this message. So, the message that you're referring to is, man, this is the message in a nutshell: So many people make money but feel broke. They're out there hustling, the entrepreneur, they're out there doing the deals, getting everything done, but at the end of the day they're like, 'This isn't worth it because there's no money,' or their CPA might tell them, 'Oh, you made this much or you lost this much,' and they're like, 'Where did all the money go?' What I try to bring out to them is the message of hope. You don't have to stay there. You don't have to stay making money and feeling broke. There's a system to get out of that, and that's where I go and speak about the system, and it's all around the book 'Profit First.' I try to get that message out as much as possible because it's not just about the speaking and the traveling. It's about what I've been able to view over the last few years of having this business and people actually not feeling broke anymore or not going through the same financial struggles that they have their entire business career. Because the number one thing after I speak, the number one question I get is, 'Where were you 10 years ago?' or 'Where were you when I first started this?' Because they've never heard anything like this before when it comes to their money."

"Yeah, I totally understand. And I have to say, I've heard more than a few things like that from the clients that you've worked with and all the impact that you've had. So, let's talk about—so for anybody who has—I mean, honestly, I'd be a little surprised if somebody hasn't heard of 'Profit First' yet, but maybe you know better than I. Maybe there are—"

"I was in a room two days ago, two days ago, where there were 200 people, and probably 90% of them had never read the book. So that's why it's like, 'Oh man, you haven't heard of this book? Got to get this message out.' So I'll dive into it. If you're listening to this podcast, you've probably read 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad.'"

"David explains the 'Profit First' concept—taking profit off the top before paying expenses."

"Poor Dad, you've probably at some point read some of the other entrepreneurial books too, like 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,' maybe 'The Richest Man in Babylon.' Well, all those books say some version of 'pay yourself first,' or 'a portion of all you have is yours to keep,' or 'put first things first.' So, I will just tell you that 'Profit First' is really built around those statements and that guiding theme of profit first. In a for-profit business, we need to put profit first. Where a lot of people out there have the formula backwards, they say it's sales minus expenses equals profit, meaning, 'I make a sale, pay everyone else and their mother, and hopefully, at the end of the day, I make some profit.' They build their business on the hope and pray plan. Well, that's where the 'Profit First' formula says, 'No, it's sales minus profit equals expenses,' meaning, 'I make a sale, I take my profit first off the table and build the business that I want to and the lifestyle that I want to, and then I work the expenses in after that to make sure I still have the business there to support the profit.' So, that's where a lot of people have heard some version of that, like I said, from those other books because all those other books are basically that formula—sales minus profit equals expenses or 'pay yourself first' or 'a portion of all you have is yours to keep.' That's where 'Profit First' takes it one step further and why it resonated with me a lot more than just those statements that I'd heard before. It says, 'Here's an actual system for your finances to make sure you're keeping more of the money that you're making, that you actually can be able to put that formula into your business and make it a reality.' It's not just words on a page or something you heard on a podcast."

"If you look at me, I look like the nerdy numbers guy, so I get it. You feel like, 'Okay, this works for you because you're a nerd. You like the numbers, you like the back end, all that stuff.' But my background is real estate investing. I've been a part of over 800 deals in the real estate world. I've done a lot on the single-family side. I mean, I've been in it to where we were doing 25 deals a month at our highest point but spending 206% worth, and it's like, 'This sucks. It doesn't matter.' So, I've lived through it, and that's where 'Profit First' showed me the light of where I'd read all those books before. Then I read 'Profit First,' and then I was like, 'It's not only the mindset that I've heard growing up and from all these other books, but then in my entrepreneurial journey, it's also this system as well.' We could dive into that, but that's the overview of 'Profit First.' It's really the 'pay yourself first' formula coming into a system that you can actually put into your business."

"Yeah, that's super, super well explained, David. All right, let's talk about tactically how this works, right? Because I know some people—I—let me tell you my experience the first time I heard about 'Profit First.' Maybe I'm a unique person, maybe I'm not. I was like, 'Huh, let's see. I'll let you know. Let's see. Sales minus expenses equals profit. No, sales minus profit equals expenses. It's the same equation if you know anybody who's done basic math, right?'"

"Yeah, right."

"So, I think it's like—it's not the math that makes the difference, right?"

"Exactly. It's the mindset."

"It's the mindset that makes the difference, but I just—to me, it didn't—it seemed obvious, right? It seemed like this is like the basic path. Yet, I think so often we get caught in these traps where you kind of know that—what's the best way to say this? So many of the things that you learn that have the biggest impact on your life are things where you look back and you're like, 'I kind of knew that,' but you weren't really fully acting in accordance with it. So, let's talk about some of the things that—when people truly understand this and they truly absorb this mindset, or maybe some tactical things that make sure this happens. What do you actually do tangibly different?"

"Yeah, I'll tell you about the tangible. I want to hit on what you just said, though. That's the other thing. When people actually—when we go through the tactical part, they're like, 'I've known about this before. I've heard this from somewhere else,' or 'I feel like I have,' just like what you said. And I love how you said that. Most of the things that make an impact on our life, we feel like we've already known, and it's just being exposed to us or getting us to pay attention to it, usually at a time when we need it. Like, I needed 'Profit First' in that real estate business where we were just spinning our wheels doing a bunch of deals but not making any money at the end of the day. That's where, with this, the tactical side is—it's real simple. It is very simple. If you've ever heard of the envelope method, like in your personal finances, where you literally grab envelopes, name them different things like groceries or spending money or restaurants and food or whatever, and you put different envelopes, and then you spread your personal finances out to where you have them in the different envelopes."

"The 'Profit First' tactical side, the system behind the finances, is very similar. Like, Dave Ramsey's made that popular. Whether you love him or hate him, you've also got a lot of that where we've learned that just from different people or maybe grandparents or parents taught it to you. But that's where in the business, why I like this system is it's the same core concept of we need to be intentional with every dollar and give every dollar a name. It's naming the dollars. Because one of the biggest mistakes most entrepreneurs make is having one big bank account where all the money goes in, all the money goes out, and they have no clarity. That is how they're running their business. 'Do we have money? We can spend it. We don't have money? We can't spend it.' And the core problem is we think that income or the next deal will solve all of our problems. Yet, we get to the point where we scale and grow and scale and grow, but we still have the same bad habits around the money and don't know, and you never get out of that rat race. You have literally built yourself into a rat race."

"That's why it's very important not to have the black hole account and just have one big account where it all gets sucked in and out again. That's where I want you to set up specific bank accounts that are for the profitability and for you, the benefit of the owner—the owner's benefit accounts. The first three, and I'll give you them here on this podcast because this is something that—even if you just did this from this podcast—like, here's why I'm excited to be doing this podcast now, because I've been doing this so long that I've been to other events or other podcasts, and people have just taken this one step and told me it's brought them more financial peace in their business and in their life. So, if you could just do this, set up at least one of these three accounts that will make the most impact on you. I call them the golden trio of accounts just because I'm a big movie nerd. I mean, if you're looking at me, I've got the glasses and stuff. Like I said, I lean into that hard. So, I love 'Harry Potter,' 'Star Wars,' all that stuff. They've got the three main heroes, right? Luke, Han, Leia, always making sure the story moves forward and the good guys win in the end. These golden trio accounts are to help you because you, as the business owner, are the hero of your journey. It is your 'Star Wars' story, your real estate company or your entrepreneurial journey, is what is going on there. I want three heroes to make sure that you're winning in the end."

"So, those three to set up are the profit account—an actual physical bank account that's a checking business bank account called 'profit'—another one called 'owner's comp' for owner's compensation or owner's pay, then there's the 'owner's tax' account. So, those three accounts—the golden trio—all for the benefit of the owner help you keep more of the money you're making and be intentional with your dollars. So, those are the three to set up. I always get asked, 'What's the difference between them?' We can dive into that if you want to, Brandon, but the tactical part is—now here's where it becomes the habit. From every deal that closes or every time you get income, you put a little bit of that money towards those three accounts first, and now you've made profit a reality in your business. It is now physical money in a bank account that you can look at on your phone versus some spreadsheet or some profit and loss statement that some CPA gives you at the end of the year that tells you you made or lost money. Then you're like, 'Where is that money at the end of the year?' That's the big difference in how you can make that a system as an entrepreneur on the back end. But those are the first three accounts I would set up without going into more detail."

"Yeah, that's awesome, David. In the spirit of talking about how so many of these things that make a big difference are just things we always knew about that we start to pay attention to."

"It got me thinking that a way that businesses pay attention to things is not necessarily the owner paying attention to it, but that's why roles exist in a business, right? Like, why do businesses have CFOs?"

"Well, because if you don't, then you run into all these problems, right? I can almost guarantee you that like 95% of these entrepreneurs or more that you're talking about that feel that way, it's because they don't have a CFO. And what they're feeling like, that feeling, is the feeling of not having Financial Clarity."

"Yeah, so let's talk about, um, let's talk about like when to consider getting a part-time CFO for your business. At what point should you have a CFO in your company? Um, at what point should you be doing it yourself? At what point should you work with some sort of outsourced option?"

"Yeah, so, and CFO, if you're listening to this, Chief Financial Officer. Most people think white collar, big business, like, 'I'll never need a CFO. I'm just a startup,' or 'I never want to get to 10, 20, 100 million dollars and have a full-time CFO.' That's where I created a part-time CFO company about four years ago because that need, there, there's a need in the marketplace of people that are too big not to have financial leadership but too small to need a full-time CFO."

"So it's like, I want you to have that help. So I would say if you're just getting started out, you do not need a CFO. Like, even a fractional part-time. Fractional just means part-time. You do not need a part-time CFO on your team. You need someone there that might be a good bookkeeper or you do it for the first, you know, maybe up to $200,000 in revenue."

"Maybe you go to $200,000 and then you start thinking, 'Maybe I need a leader or someone here telling me what's going on.' But then whenever you start scaling or growing, excuse me, whenever you start scaling and growing the business, that's when you're like, 'Okay, do I want to scale profitably? Then I probably want a financial leader on the team. I probably want someone that is there and knowing where is my money going and giving me Clarity, helping to implement Profit First.'"

"But if you're a new business owner, you can start setting this up if you are making any type of money starting 200, 300, 400, 500. If you're at seven figures, definitely that's when to start looking at it because I view the three financial roles, which one person could take all three of these or it could be three different people. That's a different, you know, different question for a different time. But that's where you've got the bookkeeper, CPA, and CFO."

"And usually, I'll equate it to a hospital. You've got this bookkeeper like the nurse coming in every day just checking on you, making sure everything's okay, getting your charts in order. You know, they're doing the day-to-day, doing the entries. Then you've got the CPA who's kind of like in his own wing in the hospital and like just like, 'Okay, come see me when you need the leg to be sawed off,' or whatever. You know, it's like the CPA does the specialist job of, 'Okay, I just do the taxes and I'm really here for tax strategy or tax planning or just preparation and filing.'"

"Then you've got the CFO who doesn't work for the hospital. At the hospital, in this case, is the IRS. You've got the bookkeeper and CPA who work for them, and then the CFO's like the private doctor who comes to your house and says, 'Are you healthy or not? We might need to get you on the treadmill, you know, like maybe this is not just some pills you need to pop, but maybe this is something else that needs to happen,' and really helping you get healthy overall so that way you don't have to take the trips, you know, to the hospital. It's like, how do we do this and guide you? So that's where a CFO comes in as a financial leader."

"This is honestly what changed my life back in the day of actually having Financial Clarity. It was reading Profit First and then having someone on the team that acted like a CFO that was like, 'Here, this is where the numbers mean. This is the clarity. This is the projections. Like if we keep going this route, it's not going to be pretty.' You know, it's like helping us get back on the right track financially."

"Because even back then, I did not, as a business owner, which is hilarious, I own a CFO company, but I do not have the accounting background. Like, I have a company now full of people that have those backgrounds and credentials, but back then especially, I was just like every other entrepreneur out there, 'What the heck is going on?' So it was having that person on the team who knew what the heck was going on. And I became smarter as a business owner too and more savvy of how to read the profit and loss, how to read the balance sheet, and how important that is. Especially in a real estate investing business, it was like just learning those simple things plus then implementing a system like Profit First."

"So I would say if you're in that first stage, you know, of business where you're just getting up and running, Profit First is a great first step that you can start to implement yourself. But then if you need that hand-holding while you get bigger, that's where a CFO comes into play to really hold you accountable to that system. A lot of people who start don't continue the system. I hear that a lot while I'm out and about as well, like, 'Oh, I started Profit First but then I didn't stay on board with it.' So it's like that accountability and help there as well too. So those are just some of the things from observing this over the years and just observing the people that need that type of help too."

"Yeah, I've, uh, something I realize at every stage of my business as it grows is that all these big companies that have all these roles, you still need all those roles. Somebody has to wear each one of those hats. Just, you're used to kind of it being you and like the 20 minutes that you had at the end of the day checking your bank account and making sure you have money, right? That was like the earliest version of the CFO in your company."

"And then as you grow, these roles take more life, right? And it gets a lot more complicated, it gets a lot harder. Um, but we forget to look at those things."

"Yeah, um, I want to ask you a question, and probably a different, uh, a different path than a lot of your interviews go, but we love marketing here, right? That's what we talk about. A lot of people come to this podcast wanting to learn about marketing. I'm sure you love it too. Um, so, and I think you'll have a different perspective on this, right? Yeah. So people might ask us all the time, 'What budget should I have for these new digital marketing campaigns that I'm going to launch?' Right? And then our answers are going to be something along the lines of, 'Well, depending on your market and depending on these factors and how many channels you want to do and, you know, all these different things. What kind of revenue you're looking to generate from the campaigns based on XYZ? Maybe you want to be somewhere in this range. That's going to be what can accomplish your goals. But really important is to make sure it's sustainable. Whatever you have putting towards marketing, you want to make sure you've got six months of runway there, right?' So that's like, that's our standard advice, right? Take into account all those factors."

"So let's just say I'm an investor, and I'm, and you're my CFO, and now I'm asking you, 'I want to start these new digital marketing campaigns. How much budget should I put into them?' What is the path that you would go down to answer that question?"

"Typically, if we don't already know their numbers and they're facing already a financial mess, we're just going to say 25% off the, you know, like right from your real revenue in the Profit First terminology. So I'll even give you like a hard answer like that, not the 'depends on this and that.' It's like, 'Let's at least do 25%. Can you get at least a 4X return on your marketing?' You know, like that's where we start."

"Total marketing budget, right?"

"Total marketing budget. So it's like this, so I'm doing a million a year and I'm already spending grand, then now I want to spend another 150 here to get to 25% of the top line."

"Exactly, if you want to go down that road. And if this is where you can start. But a lot of people, we have to walk through first and just see the clarity. Do you have that money to be able to spend on that channel at this point? Because, and what are the returns on your other marketing? Like, 'Cause I see this PPC and like the act that is the best type of lead because they're reaching out to you. So it's like, can we go, how fast can we get to that type of thing? Because then you have a more sustainable business."

"So it's like, how can we build that into the budget? Sometimes we'll even set up a different bank account that's a sub-account of like some of the Profit First accounts and make it just for marketing. So that way we know this is how much we're able to spend every month

. And we have to keep that constraint. So I would say at least if you can do that, but then also if you're getting the 4X or more return on your marketing, then it can scale up to as big as you want, you know? So it's like if you can keep those targets, and we have that system in place, we have a sub-account for the marketing. That's where we keep them accountable to that."

"And if you have a hard time getting there, that's where you might need to say, 'Maybe I don't need a fractional CFO at this point, but maybe I need a fractional CMO.' You know, like, 'How do I get a fractional Chief Marketing Officer at this point?' But it all has to have a leader in each one of those roles. But that's typically how we do it. It would say, 'At least 25% off the top line.' If we can make the business sustainable with a 4X return, then we're ready to go down that road."

"That's awesome. And just like thinking about what you said, it's like the 4X return is key, but then also how you're funding it. And thinking about, like, to me, I'm like, okay, we can tell people, 'Here's how to fund it.' What you said was super key, and this is, I think, super important to hear from people because people hear the 4X return and they think, 'I need to know what channel will get me a 4X return.' But a lot of that is up to the business. A lot of that is up to the person's funnel, their follow-up, their marketing system, their copy, their follow-up, their team, their culture, all of those things."

"Yes, I had a guy who was crushing it with Facebook ads, came to us because he was worried his ad costs were going up. And he's like, 'How can we pivot? What can we do?' And it's like, it wasn't a channel problem. It was the sales conversion process after they got the leads because he was used to them being much lower cost. So it was like, we had to analyze that part of it, too. So it's, like you said, there's different factors that come into it, but if you're running it from a CFO standpoint, it's like, 'Okay, here's the clarity. Here's the 25%. We're going to get that. We know if we're getting this return, then we're good. If not, how do we switch to get there?' So that's where we start."

"I literally had a call last week with a partnership where they were like, 'This last year we had some great months upfront, but then we just kept spending like it was the great months, and then it started slowing down. We had no idea what we were doing, got into a lot of debt, and this year is even better than last year, but we're paying off all the debt we got ourselves into, so we can't even enjoy the fruits of the labor of this year being a better business and doing more deals.' And I'm like, 'Like knife to the heart, I've been there. I feel that. That's why I try to get this out there because the systems help you create where in the good times you're storing up the nuts, but then when it's the bad times, you're taking some of those nuts out and saying okay, we still need to market, we still need to pay our people, I still need to pay myself as an owner because if I don't, the whole thing goes down if I'm just running around like a chicken with my head cut off.' So, yes, I 100% agree with that, and it's like I just see this all the time, and that's why I'm so passionate about getting this out and why I go and travel and speak and do all that because there's so many people that talk about marketing and sales a lot, you know, like as, 'Okay, I'm having an issue, I either need to cut marketing off or need to ramp it up,' but a lot of the reason they hit their head on their pillow and they're not able to sleep is because there's no money in the account and they're wondering, 'How do I even pay for marketing, or how do I pay this person, or how do I hire the person I really need to?' That's why I'm like profit first and like the financial side is so crucial. If you're going to work hard to get the deals coming in, you need to work just as hard to have a system to catch the money on the back end so you can keep growing the business and have the business you want and why you started it."

"Yeah, totally understood. Alright, I'm going to take you through a scenario if that's okay with you, and it might be one that you're kind of familiar with because you've been there. But, you know, just diving deeper and understanding this on a deeper level, right? Let's just take, say, the very basics, right? I'm doing 20 deals a month, and I'm finding a way to spend 20 deals a month worth of expenses, right? Opex equals 100% of revenue, which equals naturally 0% profit. Cool. So I follow your advice earlier in this and I say, 'Okay, I need these accounts, I'm going to start setting aside money for tax, I'm going to start setting aside money for owner income, and then for profit.' Right, I do that. Okay, now I have even less money theoretically for operations of business because it's not working right, like the business isn't capable of producing that. So how do you tackle this from that standpoint? Obviously, operational expenses need to go down, but how do you know in what areas they can be decreased and what the best way to do that is without killing the business in the process?"

"There are two things whenever we run into that situation that I always give guidance on that help right away and immediately. Number one is if you set up this system, try to do 1% to those accounts, the golden trio of accounts, and say, 'Okay, if you were living at 100% before, can you live off of 97% and just cut 3%?' Usually, most people, when we go down this road with them, can cut 5 to 10% easily, on average. Some people are even more, 15 to 20% of just bloat that's inside of their business. So it's like, number one, you've got a good margin. Exactly, now you've got a good margin, but that's where number one is can I do at least 1% of these accounts, can I get a little bit of breathing room. This would be like you're drowning and then only your mouth is sticking out of the water. Like now you can at least breathe a little bit, so that's where we're trying to get to."

"The second thing is we give them a system, and we walk through with a way to cut expenses right away because a lot of times if you're doing that amount of deals, it doesn't sound like more deals are going to solve the problem because you're spending just as much as you're making. If you were doing 20 deals a month, you were probably at one time doing one deal a month, then maybe five, then six, then seven, then 10, so you're in some bad habits. So the first thing I want to do is give you the system of profit first so we can start putting away some money, but then also give you a system to cut expenses, and it's a really simple one which has been hilarious, some of the stories I've heard from this. But it is where you take out either one quarter or your past two quarters of your bank statements for your business. As the owner, this is going to sound like nails on a chalkboard, but I promise you this is more than a $1,000 per hour task for you to do. You print those out, and then for every expense in your business for the last three to six months, you mark them P, R, or U. Is it profitable, replaceable, or unnecessary? So is this something that's bringing me P, which would be profitable, making me money or saving me a ton of time or headache? That would be your admin people, your finance people, like they're helping me make sure that I'm making enough or keeping enough, or they're taking things off my plate. Salespeople would be like they're making me money, type thing, or the marketing channels, like I have to spend the money on marketing because it's profitable. I'm getting 4X return or 10X return on this marketing channel. Those are the profitable things to look for. Replaceable would be like, 'Okay, is there a faster, better, cheaper system, or is there a better person that if I put more into this, I'm going to get more out?' Like I go from direct mail to PPC. Like I could spend maybe the same amount of dollars but get a better return for my money. Is that a replaceable expense where you're doing one thing that's not working so well, and then you put it with something that could turbocharge it?"

"U is very easy, unnecessary. Usually, it's the things that you're just like, 'How did I keep paying for this thing? What the heck's going on?' Whether it's a subscription, a service, sometimes it's hard because it's a person. You're like, 'They're a great team member, they're a great culture fit, but they don't do anything. They don't push the business forward.' That's when it gets tough is when you have to look at your individuals on the team and do the same exact exercise by yourself in your office or at home. Don't do this in front of everyone. But then from here, if you have the expenses that people are in control of, you just tell them, 'Hey, these are unnecessary, we need to cut these off, cancel all these.' And then the replaceable and the profitable ones you usually talk about if you have a leadership type meeting, whether it's you've got a small leadership team and it's you and someone else, or it's just you sitting down and saying, 'Okay, what am I going to do about these expenses?' But that's a framework that I also give in the book too. Like this is something that I have literally had people save from anywhere, the average is $1 to $2,000 a month, which is $12,000 to $24,000 in your pocket at the end of the year. I had our highest ones, two clients that we worked with, where both of them were able to cut $50,000 within the first quarter. $50,000 a month, like they were over $100,000 in expenses, and they looked at their team, they looked at all their processes, they looked at all their systems and CRM and all this stuff, and they cut $50,000 a month. So those are the craziest stories on both extremes. Like I've got people as small as $1,000 a month when they just listen to this and they do that, but it's still $12,000 in your pocket or $600,000 a year, you know, like with the $50,000 a month. But that's a framework where if you're like, 'I am literally spending as much as I'm making or I'm bigger than this,' this will literally save you thousands of dollars every month just by sitting down and having a framework to go through that."

"Yeah, that's so interesting. Something that someone told me once that I wish I could even remember who it was, but it impacted me. They said, 'In your personal life, a penny saved is a penny earned. In business, a penny saved is four to five pennies earned.'"

"That's really good. I like that."

"Yes, that is so good because, yeah, I love it because I think so many investors view it as like, 'Oh, I could save this $10,000, or I could just find that other deal where I'm going to make $10,000.' Right, but those are not the same thing at all."

"No, no. Okay, I have one last question for you. Something I'm really curious about is net margins. There's a lot of talk about this in the real estate investment industry. Why, and you know what? I don't believe most of it because I don't believe that most people actually know their finances."

"Right, yes."

"I believe it just as

much as I believe all the other metrics that are thrown out there. But why does a net margin matter, and should it matter? When do you decide that it's a metric you need to really be paying attention to?"

"Yeah, we've got quite a large sample size."

"Yeah, well, that's super cool. Thank you, David. I don't want to take too much of your time with all my weird questions. If somebody listens to this and feels like they finally heard the gospel of David Ror that's going to change their life, please tell me what are the next steps?"

"Yeah, so I want to make sure that you have two things from this: get my book, *Profit First for Real Estate Investing*, which I'm giving to you for free at this link, and also the *Profit First* cheat sheet. The *Profit First for Real Estate Investing* cheat sheet literally tells you the first steps of getting this started and has links to different resources that I give out. I want you to have no excuse not to start keeping more money right away. I want you to start keeping a whole lot more. If you go to simplecfo.com/baatman, just like Baitman Collective here, and Brandon Baitman, you know his last name here, it's simple CFO, like Chief Financial Officer, dot com slash baatman. You can get my book for free and I’ll give you the download. I think we also give the audio version too, and then we also provide the step-by-step and a visual overview of *Profit First*. So if you're like, 'I love that podcast, but I'd like to see a picture of what's going on with the accounts,' I also give you that overview. It’s very much like, 'Okay, I put it in this account, and it goes from here to these other ones.' That'll give you a better deep dive into the actual details of the book, like the setting up of the system and any questions you might have, and the first steps if you're like, 'The book sounds great, but I just want to know how to implement this.' You get that as well at simplecfo.com/baatman."

"Love it. Thank you, David. You've been so generous with your time today. And for everybody else listening, I will see you next week."

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Spot a marketing agency goldmine from miles away.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Garrett Craigan from my team. We're going to talk about all kinds of fun stuff, but before we get too deep into it, we're going to start with a kind of fun technical nugget. Garrett, do you want to share that?"

"Yep. Okay, so before I get into this, this is a little bit on the higher end, but I'm going to be putting a Loom clip in the notes for this episode so you can go and watch me do it in account. One of the big tactics we use with our clients is called portfolio bidding. Basically, how that works is it lets you combine the data from different campaigns to pull the learnings of each of those campaigns into one bidding model. The way we do it is we have that shared amongst all of our clients' campaigns, so the impact is a lot greater. But what I would recommend doing is, if you are running your own PPC, I would still do portfolio bidding in your own account across all of your different campaigns you're running and get a fraction of the benefit of that tactic that we use in your account. Because, as with even just one account, having those learnings pulled only benefits your performance, and it's a very easy way to use AI just that much more in your PPC. And like I mentioned, I'll do a quick walkthrough of that process and put that in the notes for the episode."

"Fantastic. Thank you, Garrett. It's a huge, huge value add and something that I've literally never seen done by anybody else in this industry. So there's a lot of value here. Let's talk about our topic for today. Our topic is shady or predatory things that agencies do in sales or in general working with Real Estate Investors and those kinds of things. I want to give people that are listening a little bit of an idea of what to look out for, you know, what's a good sign, what's a bad sign. Some of these things are honest mistakes, some of these things are malicious. We're just going to go through all the stuff that you should look for that you probably would end up knowing if you were to work with agency after agency. After 10 years, just think like, what did I learn about how to choose the right partner to work with and how not to choose the right partner? You'd probably end up with this list."

"We're going to talk about ownership of your account, different parts of the sales process and how they act in sales, different ways of problem-solving throughout the whole process, and even some different campaign segmentations and little technical things like that that can completely change your perspective of the results that you're getting. And how basically all of these things can be twisted so that it looks really good or twisted so it looks really bad, right? So we'll talk about it kind of without the spin, what is the whole world of how this works. I'm excited to get into it. How you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good. How are you?"

"Hey, fantastic. I'm happy you're back after what appears to be a really bad stomach flu. Was it?"

"Yeah, yeah. I've been sick for about two weeks with a crazy bug that got me, my wife, my kids, but I think we're just about out of the woods on it."

"Yeah, the wonderful world of school starting up again and all the germs going around and the colder weather and all that fun stuff. So yeah, super grateful to have you back though and be back at it."

"So anyway, our topic today is shady and predatory things that marketing agencies do. I think it's an interesting topic because there's a lot to potentially unpack here, and it just comes down to the more you know, the more you know who to partner with, the more you know how to make those decisions that are going to help grow your business and you know what to look out for. These are the kind of things that people learn with experience, but companies do these things for a reason, right? And you kind of have to sometimes go through the process in order to figure this stuff out."

"So we've got three separate things. I'm going to start off with the first one, and this comes down to who owns the ad account, which is something that honestly a lot of people their first time working with an agency don't even think about. But this has a massive, massive impact on your future as a company. Could you share a little bit, Garrett, about like account ownership, what's normal, what some people do, what you want to look out for?"

"Yeah, so I think there's a red flag and a green flag with this, you know, like how this is handled by an agency. The normal, good, honest practice is the client makes the account. That way they own the data, and if things don't work out, if things change, when we part ways, the client still owns all that data, they own the account still. What happens sometimes is agencies will try to strongarm clients into staying around by requiring that they, the agency, make and own the account. They couch that as like, 'You know, our way of doing it is very proprietary and secret, and if you own it, then other agencies could steal our secret sauce.' But really what they're doing is they're giving themselves some added leverage to keep you as a client longer because they own the data, and if you leave, your account will likely see a dip in performance."

"Yeah, I think we have to think really hard, right? Because do advertising companies want to keep their clients? Yes. Should they do everything that they can to do that? Yes. But I think you have to think really, really hard anytime what you're starting to do to keep your clients is something that's not in their best interest. We want to retain business not because people are forced or strongarmed into it, but because they're getting value through that."

"And this is just one of those things where I consider it a dirty trick. And I'm sure someone's going to hate me for saying this, but not that many people honestly because it's not crazy common, although it's more common in this industry than it is in other industries. But I think it's a dirty trick because most people, when they sign that paper, they don't know what they're getting into, and they end up at some future date being in a hurtful place because they essentially had this other company doing all this marketing for them, but they don't own any of the marketing that that company produced."

"I think not allowing your clients to access their own accounts is a really good way to make it so they can also never find out that you made a mistake or that the amount of spend that you say you had was actually different. So maybe they're overpaying for their spend. Or not be able to hold you accountable to the fact that most of their bad quality leads were because of these search terms that they're not able to review because you call them proprietary, which proprietary just means 'I don't want you to see it.'"

"And because like all the best marketers, they don't have anything proprietary because they're just moving so fast forward that like we, I mean in this podcast, we publish all the stuff we do for anybody including our competitors to look at and try to execute. But that's okay because we're always moving forward so fast that we'll always have an edge. I think once you start thinking scarcely like this is all we have and if someone were to get this, like if your secret sauce is that simple, then it's not a secret sauce."

"And I mean, I would just say that if they claim that they have a secret sauce and they have to hide it, it probably isn't that good of a secret sauce. And frankly, like you said, there isn't a secret sauce as far as how you build an account. There's just not. And if that's their claim, to me that's a major red flag that gives you an insight into how they're going to behave throughout your partnership. So like of everything that we discuss here, that to me is like the biggest red flag, is them not giving access to the account. Because it's just a lack of trust, a lack of equality in the partnership, and it's not because they have this crazy amazing formula that works every time because it doesn't."

"Yeah, I think there's something to that and just thinking does this behavior in this one way reflect what you might be doing in other things? Because as soon as a company starts branching into doing things that aren't in your best client's interest so that you can make more money from them, how far are you willing to go down that path? There might be a lot of other things."

"And it's really easy for like company leaders to be incentivized. One example I'm thinking of this is Facebook. So Facebook, the way it works, if you create the account, then it's impossible to transfer permanent ownership to someone else. Like there's a weird thing of how it works. And so many companies, even because it's like it's easier to do it on behalf of the client, right? So then we're taking clients through onboarding process with Facebook ads, it's actually a little bit more complicated and they're like, 'This is more cumbersome. Why am I doing this in a way that's harder than our previous agency?' It's because I firmly believe that everybody needs to own their own IP. If you're not going to own your own IP, you might as well just go do paper lead, right? Buy someone else's leads."

"There's maybe if they ran ads for you, it would be on your brand or something, but the IP is like the single most valuable thing in all of digital marketing for Real Estate Investors, if you ask me. So that's why we feel so firmly about that, that even when our clients are saying, 'No, I don't want that, it's a little bit harder to go down that path,' we take them down that path anyway because that's what's better for them. I think that's the mindset that you have to have as a company. At the end of the day, we retain clients through doing what's best for them, not through strongarming them, and that's not actually good for them. And it's like, like you said, a super slippery slope. Any other comments on this before we go to number two?"

"No."

"All right, let's talk about how they act in sales, what they do in sales for different companies because everybody kind of has their own style, right? I'm curious to hear from you, Garrett, any like red flags in the sales process in terms of how they're marketing themselves, how they're selling themselves that shows you that this could be a shady company?"

"I mean, I think an agency salesperson's favorite tool is the audit, right? Because audits are a great way to look like you're a freaking marketing genius, show every small thing going wrong as a major red flag that's gonna tank your business, and give the impression to in general a less educated audience than the agency how all of these things going wrong are bad and how they're going to do all these things better and it's going to be perfect."

"So what I would say is, if they do want to do an audit, I think that's great because then they're giving you more personalized context, but I would watch to see where they... if everything they find is bad and if they don't show things going well, then they're being disingenuous. So I would say that in the audit, look for overpromising, exaggerating problems, and focusing solely on problems. And then I would even say, have that audit cross-checked by someone else and see if what they're saying is even valid, because often those audits are done by a sales rep that isn't going to be in the platform with you, and they're just trained on like things to look at and things to say, and it might not even be true."

"Yeah, you're totally right, and I've heard so many audits because this happens to our clients sometimes, right? And this comes as virtue of our clients having access to their accounts and data. They can also take a third party and they can choose to audit our work, which I think is a right that they should have."

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Crack the code on real estate marketing success today. Listen now.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm going to be doing something a little bit different. I don't have a guest today; it's just me, and I want to share with you some concepts that have changed for me. A lot of how I look at marketing and business has changed, including the way that I make day-to-day decisions. This episode is going to cover some definitions of different terms and an understanding of concepts and math—basically, all that boring stuff you probably learned once upon a time but might not be fully applying in the way that you could right now. For some of you, this might feel like a slap in the face, but for others, it could be a "come to Jesus" moment where you realize what is hurting you from your current beliefs in your business. I hope that as we unpack some of the things I've learned recently and go over these definitions, we can all gain a better understanding and grow together. We can all be making better marketing decisions.

A lot of what I want to talk about today has to do with sample size. Most people understand that a larger sample size is more representative of the population, which is absolutely true. But I want to add some additional definition and clarity to this concept by defining key terms—performance versus results. Understanding the difference between these two concepts can be very helpful.

So, let’s define each of these quickly to ensure we have a common understanding of the terms I'll be using today. This will help us learn better how they affect our decisions.

First, "result." This is obviously something that I care about a lot, and something you probably care about a lot when it comes to marketing in your business. A result is a consequence, effect, or outcome of something. It’s basically what happened—that’s simple. Many people think that performance is the same thing, but it’s not. If we look at the definition of performance, it is the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing a task or function. Another definition is the capabilities of a machine, vehicle, or product, especially when observed under particular conditions.

I think that’s interesting because performance is basically the thing that happens before the result. It’s the underlying factor that leads to the result. For example, let’s talk about flipping a coin. If I flip a coin over and over again, the performance of the coin in terms of getting heads versus tails is that it should give me heads 50% of the time and tails 50% of the time. I know that even before I flip the coin because I understand how coins work. This is innate to the system, not necessarily what happened.

Whereas a result is the measurement of that. So, if I flip the coin four times and get three heads and one tail, what does that tell me? The performance of the coin is 50% heads, yet the result is 75% heads. Notice that performance and results aren’t always the same thing; sometimes they differ. It turns out that the longer you let it go, or in other words, the larger your sample size, the more the performance and results tend to come together. Performance will be roughly the same across the whole sample, and then results will approach it. So, theoretically, if you flip a coin a million times, it’s pretty likely that you will be very close to 50% heads and 50% tails. This is how results work with a larger sample size—they approach performance.

The real question is how long it takes for them to be the same thing. How this applies to our marketing is that we’re always spending money on marketing and wondering if we have enough data. It could be a day, a week, a month, six months, or even two years. Do we have enough data to know that this actually works? How many times do you have to flip a coin to know that it actually flips at 50%? And not just blindly believe it based on how coins are supposed to work.

It turns out you will never fully understand that results and performance will never be completely the same. Why? Because there will always be about 50% of outcomes where you could be above 50% heads and 50% where it’s below, due to the bell curve. Even if it becomes a very tight bell curve, there’s always this bell curve around the 50% mark. Therefore, you can’t actually do that without introducing something called margin of error.

We start by asking a question that’s a solvable problem. For example, I could ask, “How many times do I have to flip a coin in order to know with 90% confidence that it gets heads at least 40% of the time?” That’s a solvable problem. I want to be able to prove, with 90% confidence, that even though the coin is targeted towards 50%, it’s at least getting heads 40% of the time. This means that the bell curve around the 50% probability just has to get tighter and skinnier until, at some point, over 90% of the bell curve is to the right of that 40% probability. I hope this makes sense. If not, I’ll explain the actual outcome and reality of what this means. It’s the same thing with marketing.

Instead of aiming for 50% heads on our coin, let’s assume we’re looking for a 5x return on ad spend (ROAS). We want to spend $10,000 on ads and generate $50,000 in revenue—that’s a 5x ROAS. Just like when we flip a coin, we have a percentage chance of getting what we want each time we spend a dollar. Every dollar spent on marketing has a chance of achieving that return. For example, if you have $20,000 deals (which is typical for many markets; some of you might deal with larger or smaller amounts depending on your exit strategy), and let’s say your coin was really targeted towards a 5x ROAS, it would mean you have a 0.25% chance each time you spend a dollar to get $20,000.

Marketing isn’t about spending money and getting an immediate return; it’s about each dollar spent having a chance of achieving the desired outcome. Over the long term, results and performance will come together. However, this is really scary for many statisticians because it involves sparse outcomes.

When flipping a coin, you have a 50% chance of heads and a 50% chance of tails. But when spending a dollar on marketing, you have a very small likelihood of success each time, which means you’re measuring a rare outcome. It’s challenging to model this.

Let’s apply the same concept. If we want to achieve at least a 4x ROAS and be about 95% confident that’s true, we need to account for margin of error. We work with 170 clients, so this means we will still be accurate for a certain percentage of our clients if we perform this analysis correctly. Everyone says 95% confidence is solid, but I see the bad end of that statistic often. We’re aiming to measure at least a 4x ROAS.

To understand this, we recently ran a simulation with a data scientist to determine how much money we need to spend on this marketing channel to have a good idea if it works. We conducted three billion trials to see how probability plays out and then reverse-engineered the results to determine the required budget.

How many times did we make this money, and how many are grouped in these different ways? We can actually get down to a number, and this number represents how much money you should spend on a new marketing channel. In order to know, with up to that 20% margin of error, that it's performing at the level you expect it to or that the underlying coin, for example, should have, it's the same concept with the coin. How many times do we have to flip the coin to know that it actually is a fair coin? This is how many dollars we have to spend on a marketing channel to know that it's a fair marketing channel, assuming it is actually fair.

Here's the other thing about this: I've told this to a few people, and they all assume that I'm talking about our strategies, what we've measured in digital marketing. This is all purely theoretical. Now, it does have actual applications, but this is just basic laws of statistics. We're just looking at what is the probability of something. Theoretically, this applies to all marketing channels. So if you want 95% confidence and you want the 20% margin of error and you close deals in $20,000 increments—like, for example, if you did a bunch of deals that are all worth $10—then you would have a less sparse data set. You wouldn't need quite as much money. But if all those things are true, which they are true for most of our clients, you would need to spend $240,000 on a marketing channel that does work to prove that it indeed does work. I don't know about you, but to me, that number was shocking. We analyzed it in a whole bunch of different ways and kept on getting answers similar to that when we were doing the calculations.

That's not to say this is a bulletproof analysis or it couldn't be done better or it couldn't mimic the real world better. But here's the thing: Statistics exist as a model around reality. Statistics help us understand reality in a better way because the gap between what you think you know and the reality of the world is the gap that, if you close it, you can accomplish a lot more things. Right? And I know that so many of you listening to this are entrepreneurs—has to be over 95% of you. Right? I'm an entrepreneur too. I know how it works. You don't always believe in rules. Sometimes you think you're the exception in everything. Right? Sometimes you walk outside and want to jump really high and just think that you can fly because you're delirious like that, but there's gravity. Right? This is no different. Right? Statistics—there's no evil person that invented statistics and told you this isn't true. Right? Just like we have the theory of gravity, and that tells us how it works. It’s probably not even called the theory of gravity. I'm not that strong in science, but you get the point. Just like we have these different scientific theories that explain physics, statistics explain the natural laws of math, numbers, quantities, and populations.

That is really insightful. Right? And that can be frustrating at first when you learn these things because you want to just go outside, you want to jump, and you want to fly. But if you learn how gravity works and you learn all the other physics, then you start to learn the kind of things that you need to build something like an airplane. Right? So instead of just wanting to make something work in a world where it shouldn't, you start to learn if it were to work, how would that have to happen?

Let me tell you how people go wrong with this over and over again. This is both in what you could call positive ways and negative ways, although I think the outcomes are generally negative. So number one is people get way too excited or bought into marketing campaigns based on their results. What you care about at the end of the day is the performance of the campaign more than you care about the results. Right? Because that's more predictive of the future. Yet we get really caught up on the result. If you look at it, you may have heard me compare marketing to finance and accounting. Right? So many marketers are basically accountants. They are the bean counters of revenue. Right? "I spent this, I got this." For a lot of people, if you ask them what marketing is, they will tell you that is what marketing is. You throw a bunch of stuff at a bunch of marketing channels, you measure how it performed, you find what was working well, and you double down. You find what wasn't working well, and you cut it. That's a very narrow view of marketing that is more similar to accounting. Right? We're trying to figure out what happened. You know what? That measures the result and then assumes performance based on the result.

The best marketers are like CFOs. What does a CFO do? Yes, they look at the accounting. Right? That's an important piece of it. We need the accountability, we need the measurability. But they're not looking at it to see this is where we are and we're predicting the future exactly the same. They're trying to look at it, understand the model, and then predict things that haven't yet happened. Things like modeling out what your diminishing return might be. Things like understanding how the sample size is affecting the previous results that you're looking at. All of those kinds of things. And people just go wrong with this. Right? So then you have these situations where you're going way too heavy on campaigns that aren't actually working, or on the other side, people are cutting marketing campaigns that aren't working. I believe in this so strongly, and I've been observing this so much in working with so many different companies in this industry—wholesalers, flippers that are spending this money on marketing—and asking them why they're making the decisions they're making, not just about the marketing channels that we manage for them, but other marketing channels enough so that I believe that far more often than not, we're making decisions based on random variation alone. Something's changing, and there are a few ways that this goes. Right? You can just picture that a marketing channel is going to be up and down, up and down, up and down. It's not systematic like that. It's like you'd like to flip a coin and see heads, then tails, heads, then tails, and heads, then tails. Right? But it doesn't happen like that. Over a big sample, you should have roughly the same number of heads as you do tails. And if you don't, that would be fairly unlikely, but it could happen. But it doesn't happen like heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails.

Here's what people do, and this is where we get tricked. Either you start out on the low, and then you never let your campaign get to the point where it's performing, and you cut it early. I see this happen: Don't let emotions drive marketing decisions with new marketing channels all the time. You're a business. You have a lot of marketing channels that are working for you. You add a new one, spend a lot of money, you don't see the result right away, you get scared, you cut it, and you go back to the old ones. That's a very common scenario. Number two: The results are good at first, you get way too excited, and then the results get bad, and you get way too upset about it. We have some clients like this where they get results right away, and then the minute things take a turn for the worse from the result standpoint. Think of it like you're flipping your coin and you just got three heads in a row, and you're super excited, and then now you've got two tails. Right? And the second they get that second tail, they're done. They say, "It used to work, and now it doesn't anymore." Just like if I'm flipping my coin, I got my heads and I got my tails, you could say the result was, if you want heads, right, you could say the result was good, and then it went bad. And it's really easy to get caught up in that, even though we're just flipping coins that generally don't have differences and variation.

Now, the tricky thing here is that marketing channels actually are increasing or decreasing in performance over time. But that performance is all in this noise of the results going crazy up and down. Right? So that's the second thing that can happen. Right? You see things go negative and then you take a turn. Now, here's the thing that happens after that that's a big problem, and I see this all the time with people self-managing their PPC. You'll find that, especially when you're dealing with data, if you're not really savvy with it and really aware of this effect, you'll find that whatever you're looking for will exist in the data. For example, people managing their own PPC campaigns, it might be going well, it might dip. Right? So now it has dipped. Then they look at it, and they say, "Well, you know, I think my landing page could be better." Right? "Okay, so I'm going to get a different landing page," or, "I don't like those keywords, so I'm going to change that." Or maybe if you're not managing your own PPC, you think, "Well, this agency is not performing well. I feel like they're not spending enough time looking at the campaigns," or whatever the case is. Right? Everybody kind of makes up their own thing that may or may not be grounded in the actual truth. They make that up and project that on their marketing performance to explain it because we're dealing with things here that are hard to explain. Right? And we feel better as humans when we feel like we understand them. Right? So they say that that is bad. So if it's just a business owner working with an agency, maybe they change the agency they're working with. If it's someone managing their own PPC, maybe they

change the landing page or the keywords or the creative or whatever they're doing.

The problem is that sometimes that might work, and sometimes it might not work. It might also have worked if you didn't change it, but it might not have worked if you did. But this is the interesting part. If you just keep on making those changes, you have a problem where you can't actually assess the true performance of your campaign. Because you know what? For marketing, you're not getting a reliable measurement of performance, even though we're spending a lot of money on it. We're getting this measurement, but it's not as reliable. So what people do is they either stick with it, they make changes, they stick with it, they make changes, and they never actually get it. Right? They might improve the performance of a campaign by making these changes. They might improve the performance of their landing page. It might improve the quality of their lead. They might get better, but they never actually get the right measurement of whether it was good or bad. Right? They might improve their PPC spend. They might fix things. They might improve it. Right? But the problem is they never actually get a real measure of the actual performance of their marketing. So they're constantly getting stuck in the data, stuck in the weeds, and their overall performance just becomes noisier and noisier.

To sum up: the analysis is not perfect. We're never going to have that perfection, but we need to measure how marketing works in order to learn how to get better. And a huge mistake is making changes to your marketing channels too early. That is a huge mistake. People are way too quick to react to what the numbers tell them because it's in the noise. And it's just as much in the noise as your results are up and down. If you just think about this and how you can look at your results in a better way and understand that you're actually dealing with a noisy data set, you might get to a better outcome. Right? But overall, understand that you have to understand that your marketing is going to be noisy and the more you can think about it in terms of probability, and the more you can understand it in terms of how much data do you have and how reliable is it, then you can improve your marketing results. Right? And so many people just ignore that. They don't look at their marketing campaigns that way. And when you start to look at it this way, you make better decisions, you take a longer-term approach, and you're able to think about it and say, "What am I actually trying to accomplish here?"

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Future of real estate marketing? We've got the blueprint.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm going to be joined by Garrett Kraan. We're going to talk all about the things that are changing in the world of online marketing and how that's likely to affect the real estate investing industry over the next 5 to 10 years. This is all about future-proofing your business, understanding where the industry is going, and we're going to talk about a lot of nerdy stuff, so I hope you like it.

'How are you doing, Garrett?'

'Doing good. How are you?'

'Hey, doing awesome, thank you. I'm excited about our topic today. We're going to talk all about what's changing in the world of search, and really in the world of marketing in general online for motivated seller lead gen. And so much of this kind of follows the path of what's happening just online in general. It seems like, in a lot of ways, what seems to happen in this industry is just whatever happened to other industries just five years later. So we'll talk about some of that stuff, and I'm super excited to dig into it.'

'Nice, let's do it.'

'Yeah, I think it's always fun talking about the future and what's going to change and what we think will, you know, go down. That's always exciting. So let's do it.'

'Yeah, yeah. So this is a little bit of a nerdy episode. If you're not nerdy about digital ads, this probably isn't for you. That's my disclaimer. You can't hate me if this is too boring. Garrett and I basically put together a list of things that we think are going to change. These are opinions only; we cannot predict the behaviors of large corporations, although they're pretty predictable. So let's talk about some of the stuff that's going to happen, whether it happens in one year or happens in five years or ten years. Something that is unknown but likely will happen.'

'The first one that we mentioned is match types for keywords within search marketing. Do you want to expand on that a little bit, Garrett, and what that means?'

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm going to be joined by Garrett Kraan. We're going to talk all about the things that are changing in the world of online marketing and how that’s likely to affect the real estate investing industry over the next 5 to 10 years. This is all about future-proofing your business, understanding where the industry is going, and we’re going to talk about a lot of nerdy stuff, so I hope you like it.

"How are you doing, Garrett?"

"Doing good, how are you?"

"Hey, doing awesome, thank you. I’m excited about our topic today. We’re going to talk all about what's changing in the world of search, and really in the world of marketing in general, online for motivated seller lead gen. Much of this kind of follows the path of what's happening just online in general. It seems like, in a lot of ways, what happens in this industry is just what happened to other industries five years later. So we’ll talk about some of that stuff, and I’m super excited to dig into it."

"Nice. Do it."

"Yeah, I think it’s always fun talking about the future and what’s going to change and what we think will, you know, go down. That’s always exciting. So let’s do it."

"Yeah, so this is a little bit of a nerdy episode. If you’re not nerdy about digital ads, it’s probably not for you. That’s my disclaimer. You can’t hate me if this is too boring."

Garrett and I basically put together a list of things that we think are going to change. These are opinions only; we cannot predict the behaviors of large corporations, although they’re pretty predictable. So let’s talk about some of the stuff that’s going to happen, whether it happens in one year or five years or 10 years. Something that is unknown but likely will happen.

The first one we mentioned is match types for keywords within search marketing. "Do you want to expand on that a little bit, Garrett, and what that means?"

"Yeah, so over the last couple of years, Google’s been pushing advertisers to broaden their target with keywords, moving towards more intent-based keywords. They’re going broad and moving away from exact match and phrase match keywords, which historically have been kind of the expert marketer’s best friend. Keeping the keyword match types tight and super focused on just exactly what they want to bid on. But over time, Google has pushed people to go broader and broader. What I think will happen is, over the next year or two, they’re going to just wipe out the option of going phrase and exact match and just make everyone go broad, in the interest of optimal performance. But in reality, they just want to sell their less valuable inventory. So it’s going to depend on the advertiser to still target their ideal persona without having the crutch of match types to do it for them."

"Understandable. And to expand on this a little bit, just for anybody who’s listening that might not really know what match types are: This is kind of the way that you communicate to Google what inventory you want and what inventory you don’t want when it comes to search engine marketing. A lot of people know that keywords exist, right? They understand, 'I want to bid on X keyword or Y keyword.' But what a lot of people don’t realize is where do you draw the lines of what fits to that keyword or not. A good example of this could be like 'we buy houses.' Maybe you’re bidding on that keyword. Back in the day, you would try to bid towards 'we buy houses,' and what would happen is you’d get 'we buy houses' when someone searches that. It was kind of simple. Nowadays, maybe you try to communicate that to Google, and then Google gives you something like 'buy houses' as the actual term that someone searched. We know, as investors, that has a very different meaning than 'we buy houses.' Google is kind of just trying to expand the meaning of that because now your single keyword can match to so much of their inventory instead of just a smaller sliver of that inventory. This is good in some ways and bad in other ways. Like, I know that you and I have both seen our clients getting some search terms recently that are really fascinating but also really high quality. I wish I could think of an example right now, but there’s a massive number of Google searches every day that have never been searched in the history of Google, even today. Some of those are really valuable to you, so it’s good to have an algorithm that kind of sees, 'Well, this is close enough to what we want.' But Google has just been expanding and expanding the definition of what that means to the point that it hardly means anything anymore to say that you want this keyword. I know there was an update, what was it, June or July? There was an update in how Google was viewing a specific match type of a keyword, and it threw a lot of advertisers in this industry for a loop. In our case, we had such a strong negative keyword list that it didn’t really create any issues. But for somebody who wasn’t expecting that type of change, you thought you were getting some type of inventory, and then you get something completely different that’s way lower quality."

"Yeah, and I think it kind of just speaks to the principle of you can’t be too married to any particular strategy that Google is eventually going to take away. They’re always going to— I mean, what I think is—they’re always going to shift away from advertiser control towards platform control. It’s so important that you’re working with Google. Like we always talk about, if you fight Google, they’re going to always win. So it’s important that your tactics kind of follow the flow of innovation that’s happening on the platforms."

"Totally agreed. And actually, along that same vein, another thing that Google’s been making a lot of moves on recently is bidding. This is a world—I mean, we’ve talked about bidding over and over again on this podcast. Obviously, I’m convinced that if an advertiser does nothing right except for their bidding, they can do pretty well. For example, you could have every keyword in the world, including a billion of them that aren’t actually valuable for your business. You could have them and be targeting them, but if you pay the right price for them—which would be like an infinitesimally small number for most of those keywords—then you’ll still win. Bidding is like the magic that fixes most problems that you could have in Google Ads. But they’ve been shifting from a very manually controlled bidding system where it used to be like, 'I have this exact match keyword and I want to pay this exact price per click for it,' whatever the case is. This is why it’s called pay-per-click marketing. It’s like, that’s how Google started. Once upon a time, they allowed people to just buy up inventory on the search pages. Then they realized they could make a lot more money by charging per click on those pages and having things be really relevant. They went that path, and advertisers have been trying to game the system for the longest time, just trying to figure out how to make it as efficient as possible. But Google keeps moving towards these more automated strategies instead of just a cost-per-click bidding system."

"Yep. And there are a lot of people that are still very anti-auto-bidding, right? There’s this fear of like, 'If I can’t dictate the exact amount that I’m going to bid, then I’m going to overpay, and Google’s going to take away my—' they’re going to overcharge me, and I’ll waste money. But it’s my belief that by using all of the data that Google has available, that we don’t have available, you’re going to be much more agile in bidding based on the individual making the search, not just what they’re searching. I would think it’s smart at this point to start to shift to more of an auto-bidding strategy away from manual because, one, it’s probably going away; and two, when done properly, auto-bidding drives better results at scale than manual can, in my opinion."

"I totally agree with you. I’m going to like stereotype in a way that’s probably very offensive to a large number of people."

"We can do that, right? It’s free speech, free country."

"Gotta love America. So, blanket statement: Do you agree or disagree? Pretty much everybody I know that’s way into manual bidding falls into one of two categories. They’re either someone who’s been doing this for a long time, with a lot of experience with Google Ads—10, 15, 20 years into this kind of marketing—that just hasn’t adapted, or they’re an advertiser that works with really small clients for the most part, who overall don’t have a lot of data. Everybody I know that’s way into manual bidding is in one of those situations. Whereas all the people I know and trust, who are managing budgets for some of the biggest companies in America and spending a ton of money on channels like PPC, if you ask them about manual bidding, they’re like, 'Is that still a thing? Does anybody do that still?' And then there’s this hardcore group of people that are like, 'You need SCAGs in manual bidding,' that are like a decade in the past, or they just work with accounts that have no data, where manual bidding will work better. If an account has a lot of data, then auto-bidding will work better. There’s that point where you pass that threshold, and that threshold has just been going down and down over time as auto-bidding gets even smarter. But anyways,

that’s just a little side rant I wanted to go on. I have nothing but respect for people who have a lot of knowledge and manual bidding. But I think that people should start to shift to more automated strategies because the bidding will get smarter and smarter over time."

"Totally agree with you."

"Cool. So another thing that’s changing is marketing channels, right? We kind of talked about this a little bit. This is another side of the future that’s super interesting and that’s not just a Google thing. You mentioned how Facebook’s doing some cool things. Talk about that for a minute."

"Yeah, it’s been a huge trend that we’re seeing. Facebook’s actually been pushing for a while, but they’re shifting more towards even higher quality lead generation opportunities. Whereas before it was kind of like this blanket approach of getting as many leads as possible and now it’s moving towards more customer profile-based advertising. So, understanding who’s in the market to buy a house or sell a house and targeting them specifically with content, not just like a broad reach approach. So that’s a big trend that we’re seeing, and it’s something that’s really exciting because it aligns with a lot of the other changes that are happening in digital marketing as a whole. You’re starting to see platforms like Facebook and Instagram really moving towards a more personalized experience, which in turn makes the lead generation process more efficient and effective."

"That’s awesome. And what about AI in general?"

"Oh man, AI’s changing everything. Whether it’s content generation, data analysis, or even customer interactions, AI is making a massive impact. We’re seeing AI tools that help with ad targeting, optimize bidding strategies, and even create ad copy. The technology is evolving so fast that it’s hard to keep up. But it’s crucial to leverage AI to stay competitive. For instance, AI can analyze vast amounts of data to find patterns and trends that human marketers might miss. This allows for more precise targeting and better ad performance. The use of AI is going to become even more prevalent in the future, so it’s important for marketers to stay on top of these advancements."

"Absolutely. And speaking of AI, I know that you and I both love discussing it. There’s always the debate about what’s a gimmick and what’s something that’s truly revolutionary. For example, AI can help with writing ads and maybe suggest some copy, but you’re still going to need a human touch to refine it. What are some AI tools or techniques that you’re excited about or that you’ve seen work well recently?"

"I’m really excited about AI tools that can help with predictive analytics. These tools analyze historical data to predict future trends, which can be incredibly valuable for strategic planning. For instance, AI can help predict which keywords or ad formats are likely to perform best based on past performance. Another tool that I’m excited about is AI-powered chatbots. They’re becoming more sophisticated and can handle more complex customer interactions. This improves the user experience and can lead to higher conversion rates. Overall, AI is making it easier to make data-driven decisions and optimize marketing strategies."

"Definitely. AI is a game-changer, and I’m excited to see how it continues to evolve and influence the industry. Well, Garrett, it’s been an awesome conversation. Thanks for joining me today and sharing your insights."

"Thanks for having me. It was great to discuss these exciting changes and trends in the industry."

"Absolutely. And for our listeners, if you enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the Collective Clicks podcast for more insights into real estate investing and online marketing. We’ll catch you next time!"

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Q4 slump got you down? Don't hibernate, dominate!

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today it's just me. I'm going to make a short episode answering one of the most common questions I get this time of year from people in the real estate investing industry. That question is: 'Should I continue marketing in Q4?'

The simple answer to that question is: it depends. It depends on quite a few things. I think, just like so many other things, you're going to get a lot of varying answers depending on what someone's personal experience is. Oftentimes, they're just projecting their own situation onto you and making it black and white. I'd like to break this down a little bit more generally as to what things you should consider if you're thinking about whether you should be cutting marketing, doubling down on marketing, or what your path should be for marketing in Q4 compared to the other quarters.

The obvious source of this discussion is that Q4 is a tough time in the real estate investing industry. Fewer people are interested in selling their houses, especially as we get into November and December. For a lot of companies, this tends to be a time when they struggle a little bit more than they do in other seasons, both with acquiring properties and with dispositioning properties if they're doing an immediate wholesale compared to a flip or something like that. Let's talk about some of the things that you might consider.

The first thing that makes this pretty easy, in my opinion, is if you're a solo operator. If this is just you and you're taking the phone calls and you're dispositioning deals and you don't really have any staff that relies on you, then what this really comes down to is what do you want to do? If you are okay not making income in Q4 and you just want to cut that back for a period of time and take a break, enjoy the holidays with the family, whatever the case is, I'm not here to tell you that's a bad idea.

Circumstances where I see people cutting back a lot in Q4 is where you have very minimal operations and there's not a lot of things that depend on consistent revenue. However, things get a lot more complicated when you add a team into the mix because just because you don't care about making money and don't want to work in Q4 doesn't mean that your team feels the same way. Usually, they very much want to get paid in Q4, and oftentimes they might have larger expenses this time of year than they do other times of the year.

I generally see this mindset across our clients. The smallest tend to be the most variable in terms of if they're marketing in Q4 or not, whereas our larger clients tend to be very consistent at keeping their budgets stable or even increasing budgets into Q4. So that's solo vs. team marketing.

Something to keep in mind for sure, because this is a harder time of year compared to other times in the real estate investing industry. You have to decide what you want to happen to your business. Option number one is you can have a decrease in revenue. Option number two is you can have an inflation in your costs because it can be assumed that for a given amount of marketing this time of year, you are going to produce fewer deals. Generally, that's why some people consider cutting things back this time of year.

If we think about that, if you need to maintain the same revenue, this is where you'll find some companies even doubling down in Q4. It's because you want to keep the revenue as stable as possible and you want to keep things efficient for your team so that they're making money. Take an acquisitions manager, for example, who's paid based on closing deals. They might need more leads or more marketing dollars spent this quarter in order to do the same amount of income that they would have in another quarter, right? Some people are sensitive to that, so you might actually want to double down, or you just accept that this is going to be a little bit slower of a quarter.

But if you have a team, cutting marketing is really dangerous to do because then you have a very unmotivated team at that point that's just fighting for scraps, and it can leave some pretty major damage to your revenue for Q4.

I think it's also worth considering the types of channels that you're in. All marketing channels in Q4 work a little bit differently. I want to break down marketing channels into two specific categories so that you can start thinking of it that way. You have channels that tend to be interruption channels, where you're generating demand. This is what I call demand generation channels. This is going to be like direct mail, cold call, text, TV advertising, right? Because all these people aren't people that were asking for you to reach out to, but you still reached out to them. Some people would say yes, direct mail's inbound, for example, but you still went to them with the postcard.

These demand generation channels tend to take a pretty big hit in Q4 compared to the other type of channel. The other type is a demand harvesting channel. A demand harvesting channel basically allows you to buy the demand that exists out in the marketplace, but you're not creating that yourself. You're not sending someone a postcard and then they're thinking, 'You know what, I do want to sell to this cash buyer.' You're having someone come looking for you, right?

So the channels that we manage, we do a lot of PPC, Facebook ads, and SEO. Facebook ads is a good example of a demand generation channel. PPC and SEO are great examples of demand harvesting channels. The advantage of demand harvesting is you're only paying for what comes to you, and that tends to be demand that already exists in the marketplace. I'll give you an example. Let's just say it's Christmas Eve and you can send a postcard to this person who might have a house to sell. What are the chances of them really caring about your postcard on Christmas Eve? Pretty low. Let's just say that person was actively searching on Google for a way to sell their house for cash. What are the chances that it's worth you buying that click for them, like in pay-per-click advertising, for example? The answer would be very high.

Some people assume that because the overall demand is lower in Q4 for selling houses, that means that some of these marketing channels won't work. But the reality of what that does to PPC marketing is it just decreases the number of people searching. If someone's searching and you can choose what price you want to pay per click, if they're searching, then you can still buy that click and you're guaranteed that this is a person who's searching right now for a way to sell their house. If it's Christmas Eve and they were actively searching for a way to sell their house, what are the chances that they could be a motivated seller? The chances are pretty high, right?

That's why PPC is going to really diverge from other marketing channels. There are some other components of supply and demand that we have to think about in terms of marketing channels. It doesn't mean that PPC is going to work way better this time of year, but what it usually means, and the feedback that we've gotten from most of our clients, is that some of the search engine channels like PPC and SEO through Bing and through Google tend to hold more consistent this time of year. It's dependent on a few other factors.

Let's talk a little bit about auctions and the different things that could be going on. In PPC, it's just your standard supply-demand equation, right? We have a supply, which is the number of people searching, and then we have demand, which is the number of people trying to buy those clicks. What's going to happen to the price? You could think of it like, for example, let's just say the supply is going to go in half. Go back to your high school or college economics class, right, and remember what happens when you decrease supply but demand stays the same. The equilibrium price is going to go up. That's what would cause PPC to get more expensive this time of year.

However, something that also tends to happen this time of year is people pull back on their advertising budgets. If demand goes down and the supply were to stay the same, then we would actually have a decrease in price. Most of the time, and this is going to vary by market, every market goes its own way in Q4 depending on what your competitors decide to do. What we see is that the supply pulls back and also the demand pulls back, and oftentimes the price is relatively unchanged. It's just at a lower level of volume.

Potentially, you could be in a market where everybody pulls back quite a bit and you could even have a return on investment increase in Q4. Or maybe your competitors are just really holding to their guns and looking for the same size slice of the pie, but the pie is getting a little bit smaller. That means it's going to be a little bit more expensive for you.

People ask me, 'Is it going to be a better return or a lower return in Q4?' and it's a hard thing to answer because that's like predicting the psychology and the decisions of all the investors across the country. I can tell you, all things equal, it would get more expensive because the supply goes down, but demand almost always goes down as well. So depending on how that happens, it will be a little bit different.

This also gives some context as to other channels and why they struggle potentially a little bit in Q4. I'll give a great example of this that we know very well: Facebook ads. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't do Facebook ads in Q4, but what I am saying is whatever return you're used to, it'll probably be a little bit lower in Q4. The reason is, if we just take ourselves back to this standard supply-demand equation, we have to remember with online advertising platforms, this is happening dynamically all the time. So if you think about supply and demand for social, in this case, we're not paying per click; we're

paying for what's called an impression, which means one pair of eyes seeing our ad. That tends to go in a bid auction system, where whoever's willing to bid the most for that impression wins the bid auction.

Now, what happens to the demand for people's impressions on Facebook this time of year? The real estate investing space might be trying to pull back in Q4 a little bit and maybe save some budget, but guess who's not pulling back this time of year: everybody else. All the e-commerce stores are basically spending a large chunk of their yearly budgets right now because they're all fighting for people to buy their Christmas presents online. All the local retailers that are doing brick and mortar are running their campaigns to get people to come into the store, so the demand for the impressions on Facebook tends to shoot way up in Q4 because every other industry that sells any kind of consumer good is going all-in on their Q4 budget.

So you tend to see the CPCs go up, the CPMs go up, and if you thought of your channel as 'I spent $1000 in Facebook ads and it created 10 deals,' that same amount of money is probably going to create fewer deals, or if you need to maintain that return, it's going to cost more to get it.

We just ran through a lot there. To summarize, I think that if you're considering whether you should be marketing in Q4, I think the first thing you need to ask yourself is 'Am I solo or do I have a team?' If you have a team, I think cutting marketing is a very dangerous thing to do. If you're solo, then you just need to decide what you want to do.

I hope that helps provide some context for your decision-making. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast. If you have any more questions or topics you'd like me to cover, feel free to reach out. Stay tuned, and happy investing!"

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Facebook ads for real estate: dead or alive? We're digging for answers.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Garrett Kraan, our Director of Paid Media, to talk all about Facebook ads. How are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good. How are you?"

"Hey, doing awesome. Thank you. I'm super excited for our topic today, and that topic is, 'Do Facebook ads still work for Real Estate Investors?' It's a little bit of a controversial topic, and the reason I say that is because there's a lot going around in the industry about the efficiency and efficacy of Facebook ads. Some of it, I think, is true. Some of it is founded in poor strategies and things like that. So, this is the beginning of a four-part series where we're going to break down: 'Do Facebook ads work, and how can you make it work for your real estate business?'"

"Yep, it's going to be good."

"Yeah, so first, let's just go over what exists out there. If you look around, you'll see a lot of negative attention that Facebook ads tend to get in this industry specifically. I think the biggest things that you'll see are a lot of people struggling with lead quality pretty significantly on the platform, just arguing that you can't really make it work. Is there anything else that you've seen, Garrett?"

"Yeah, I think there's just a poor understanding of what Facebook is and what it isn't and where it fits into your strategy. What we found is that it actually can be a much bigger part of your marketing mix than people think."

"Yeah, and I think it has some inherent limitations. Even if you do Facebook just right, it's more limited in scale than PPC is, at least that's what I've noticed in this industry, which is interesting because it's backwards compared to most industries. In most industries, you have a really limited search volume on PPC, and then with Facebook, you're doing demand generation and you can reach way more people. But in this industry, just because we're so niche and there is so much demand on Google, I think it's definitely a lower level of scale. Even our most successful clients with Facebook spend less money than our most successful clients with PPC. You have to consider it's a lower level of scale. But the interesting stat that you shared was that our cost per deal was actually lower on Facebook last quarter than it was with PPC across our clients, and I thought that was really neat and not what a lot of people expect to see, just considering it has such a bad reputation in this industry."

"Yeah, it's true. If we look at also what we're hearing a lot in the industry, a lot of people marked a few years ago as the death of Facebook ads. The reason they marked that is because Facebook went through this fun journey of privacy. We talked a little bit about this in our last podcast, about the world of privacy and what's happening with digital marketing. In short, to summarize it, companies like Facebook gather a lot of data on their users, and it's not heavily regulated, and people are starting to get upset about it. One of those places where people get upset is it's called discrimination. If you can show an ad to one person but not to another person, we marketers call that ad targeting, not discrimination, but the government is what the government is, and Facebook got sued. Because of that, they've gotten really gun-shy in certain industries, especially where there's a history of discrimination in the United States. One of those is going to be the housing industry because equal opportunity housing is a big thing that I'm sure we all believe in. So, that considered, Facebook got a lot of negative press for allowing people to target based on certain sensitive demographic characteristics like their age, their gender. Is there anything else that you know of?"

"It's a lot of categories. I don't know if that's Facebook preemptively saying, 'We don't want to target based on these categories,' or if that's specifically part of the lawsuit, but zip code is another example."

"Zip code, yeah, targeting one zip code but not another. Basically, what Facebook had to do was remove the option to do those kinds of targeting things when you're in a housing category in order to be compliant with equal opportunity housing regulations. For a lot of people, that was the end of the success of Facebook because they used to do a lot of targeting by zip code and by age, right? Because we don't want to reach 14-year-olds on Facebook, but we end up doing it whether we want to or not. So anyways, that was a few years ago's turning point for a lot of people, and people that were successful with Facebook ads started to see that their lead quality diminished really significantly."

"And basically, my summary of what happened there is yes, it became more difficult in some ways for those strategies. Here's the interesting thing: if you looked at what I was doing, and this is before you even were with the company, Garrett, so times have changed a little bit, but the kind of strategies we're using today for Facebook are very similar to the kind of strategies that I was using even before then. A lot of the strategies that ended up getting shut down and didn't work anymore, we actually were having better results with different strategies anyways. When this change happened, it didn't actually drastically affect the way that ads were working, and that's what we're planning on diving into in this four-ad series. How do you think differently about Facebook in such a way that's going to be more consistent and have a higher production over the next several years, even with the difficulties of targeting that we have there, to get it so that you can have a lower cost per deal than PPC like we've had. So, that considered, I think one of the biggest problems that has existed with Facebook that I've seen, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, Garrett, is the type of lead you're getting. If you are listening to this and you've ever noticed that with Facebook ads you get a lot of leads that want to rent or buy a house, and very often they're like a rent-to-own type buyer, or they could be more likely to be spam, they often speak another language, so there's a language barrier, and you think that the issue is that you're getting leads with the wrong language. Turns out it's not actually the problem most of the time, because often they're a renter and they speak a different language, so they're like double not the lead that you want. But let's speak to that a little bit. What is the thing in Facebook ads that causes that, and if somebody has dealt with that before, how could they potentially fix that problem?"

"Yeah, so that's going to come down to where the ads are showing. There's a setting on Facebook where your ads can show on what they call the Audience Network, and basically that's a number of websites and apps that are outside of the Facebook platform but are still Facebook ad inventory. In general, almost always, those are going to have much lower quality of traffic than the proper spots like the feed, Instagram, those more native placements."

"Yeah, understood. I think it's a good conversation to be had around placements in general and what is good, what isn't. I like how you called it 'meta.' I just can't bring myself to do that still. I still don't call it 'X,' right? For me, it still is Twitter, but I have given in to just calling it 'meta.' I don't know why. So that considered, really helpful what you said. If anybody's seen our PPC Essentials podcast series, which if you haven't seen that, I highly encourage you to check that out. It was similar to this series, but we did, I think it was eight different topics digging deep into what you need to do to succeed with Google PPC. One of the things that we talked about there was Google search partners versus the search network, and it's a really similar concept to this. If you look at Google, a lot of people assume when you're running ads on Google, you're running ads on Google, and that's not true. When you're running ads through Google ads, sometimes they're selling partner inventory that they don't own, and what can happen with that is that partner inventory is just not as high quality. Where we run into big issues in this industry, but you don't run into issues in some other industries, let's just say I have an e-commerce company and I'm running ads on Google search and search partners, or we could say on Facebook and Facebook's Audience Network, which is what their third-party placements are called. If I have an e-commerce company, I'm optimizing based on people purchasing, so the quality of the traffic almost doesn't matter because it's automatically going to optimize to the better quality traffic, and things don't really become an issue. Where you run into an issue in this industry is oftentimes we're not optimizing for a closed deal because there's a bunch of stuff that happens between here and then, and closed deals are so rare that it's not a common enough conversion event. So, we end up optimizing for something like leads, and when you optimize for leads, if you have any platforms or placements that you could be running that will generate leads but they are worse quality than other placements, then what's going to happen is Facebook is going to see those and often be able to find them at a cheaper cost than your leads that you're getting from other placements. In Facebook's mind, it's just getting you low-cost leads, which is what you asked it for because it doesn't know about the quality. We could talk about how you dial in quality a little bit better, but yeah, that's just the simple example I would give. Then the other thing is that these third-party placements sometimes have incentive for fraud because is Facebook going to knowingly sell you traffic from Facebook that's not good? Probably not, because the reputation is at stake. But if you're some third party that nobody's ever heard of and you're just programmatically selling through Facebook's platform and you want to fake traffic, you could probably make a lot of

money doing that. And so, there's just a lot of fraud, and it's just general worse placements. So, what can you do about that? Garrett, what's a better way that you could set up Facebook placements to get better traffic?"

"Yeah, the easiest thing to do is just make sure you're only running in the Facebook feed and the Instagram feed. When you're looking at your Facebook ads, it's pretty easy to set up an ad set and select your placements and turn everything off but the feed placements. If you do that, it's going to make sure you're just in those spots and you're not in some of those less desirable placements."

"That's great advice. If you're listening to this and you're currently running Facebook ads, I'd highly encourage you to go in there, and depending on the number of campaigns you have, this could take a little bit of time, but just go into your placements and look at the breakdown. Turn off anything that's not either the Facebook feed or the Instagram feed, and those are the primary placements that I would use. There's some other placements that could be okay, but I wouldn't mess with it until you can get feed placements working. If you're not getting good lead quality and that's your issue, this is almost always the thing, because what happens is you go to these third-party sites and these apps that they're running ads on, people accidentally click on the ad. They didn't even mean to click on it, and it's a lot easier to fill out a lead form in some of those places than it is on a native placement on Facebook. So, what will happen is, for those reasons and the ones that Garrett shared, you're just getting a ton of low-quality traffic. It just doesn't work well. So, start there, and if you do that, that's one way you could get better lead quality. That's just a small sample of what's to come. In this series, we're going to be breaking down things like what are the best campaigns, audiences, types of ads, so if you enjoyed this one, make sure you tune in to the next ones."

"This is going to be a good series. Don't miss out on it."

"Absolutely. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next week for the next episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast."

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CRM burnout? Discover the real estate investor's secret weapon.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Sharad Mehta. Sharad is an investor that has built out a CRM system used by thousands of other investors across the nation. We're going to do a deep dive into the most important metrics to track in your marketing real estate investor. How you doing today?"

"I'm doing really good, man. How are you doing? Excited to be on this, you know, call."

"Good. Yeah, likewise. I've been following what you've been doing for some time and heard things about you and ReSimply. Is it ReSimply? R simply? How do you say it?"

"Either is fine. Yeah, I said ReSimply just because it takes less time to say than R simply."

"Fair enough. I'm noticing a lot of people, most people call it R simply."

"Yeah, okay. Fair enough. I'll call it R simply. I'll be one of the good ones pushing it in the right direction. But yeah, I've heard tons of things about ReSimply and you, and we just had a chance to meet for the first time in person in Tampa probably about a month ago."

"Yeah, about a month ago or so. Yeah, like six weeks or so."

"And I definitely learned that you have a lot of wisdom and everything to share, so I'm super excited to dig into you and your experience. For anybody not familiar with you, tell me a little bit about your story, what you're doing, how you got here."

"Sure. Yeah, so I used to live in Chicago, and that's when I started investing. Bought my first rental property in 2010 and then just bought a few more properties after that. In 2013-2014, I started flipping houses more actively. Around that time, I was doing about 40-50 deals a year. Then in August 2015, we ended up moving from Chicago to Carmel, California, where I live now."

"I still had this business to run with 40-50 flips going on, and I started looking at the software that I would need to run my business. Being an accountant, the KPI tracking part was really important - data tracking, you know, where we've been making money, which marketing channel and whatnot. I didn't really see anything back in 2015. Pretty much everyone was using Podio, you know, and then like Globy Flow, doing all these integrations. It just... I didn't really like that idea."

"So I thought I'd hire a couple of developers, you know, have them make something very specific for me. So I did that in 2016-17 and then started using it for myself. From there, you know, go to masterminds, just talk to people about kind of what I'm doing, and they're like, 'Oh, it's pretty cool what you're using.' I said, 'It's something I created for myself.' Then it started growing from there in 2019 and 2020, and you know, grew into what we have now, over like thousands of companies all over the country using ReSimply."

"ReSimply is basically like your all-in-one CRM for business management. Everything from your data management with list stacking, your lead management, your buyers management, your disposition website, seller websites, and bookkeeping, accounting - everything in one."

"Okay, yeah. That's fantastic. Are you still actively running your business in Chicago today?"

"Indiana. Like, I used to live in Chicago, but I started investing in Indiana, which is about 30-40 minutes drive from where I used to live. Yeah, I'm still doing that. I'm not doing 40-50 deals. I would say at this point I'm doing about 20-25, but I'm very hands-off in that business. I have a couple of people on my team that manage the day-to-day operations."

"I understand. That's so interesting that this came from a place of personal need, and that's kind of how you came up with the idea and the software and everything like that. Personally, I'm really curious to hear... it seems like everybody I've known who's gone through some similar experience to what you're talking about, it was a lot harder than they thought it would be. Was that your experience? That you thought like, 'Oh, I'll just hire a couple developers, it'll be easy,' and then..."

"Oh, 100%, man. 100%. I thought it would be like, you know, I'm just going to tell them exactly what I need. But then once you get into it, like, 'Oh, the developers... okay, what does the design need to look like? You know, what should we do after this?' I didn't think about it, just figured it out. And then once you tell developers to figure it out, that's never a good idea. So it took many, many iterations."

"You know, initially it was going to be like a strictly project management software. Then it was going to be too complicated, then we're like, 'Okay, let's do basic project management with lead management.' That's kind of like the basics of what I needed, just to have it as simple as possible."

"Yeah, I mean, anytime you know, even now we think about, 'Okay, this should take about two months,' it ends up taking double the time, double the money. It just never... you know, it's very difficult. There's so many moving pieces with software. With, you know, you change one thing and then you have like 10 other things are dependent on that one thing you're changing, so you have to factor in everything in that. So yeah, it's definitely way more work than I initially anticipated, but it's been... it's been worth it, so I can't complain at this point."

"Fair enough. I get it. I get how it's worth it when you're building it for everybody, right? If you're building it just for yourself, like that's where it's... it's a crazy..."

"Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, then yeah, then it's just like never-ending thing, right? You then like, 'Okay, what else should I do for myself?' Like the basic questions... initial version that we had was like very, very simple. I had never wholesaled any property, so the first system that we rolled out, first version, didn't even have a column for contract assignment, you know, stage for contract assignment, because I'd never done that. And everyone that started using it, they're like, 'Hey, I'm wholesaling properties. Can you add a stage?' I'm like, 'Okay, we'll do that.' So it kind of just started growing on there as people started using it and giving us feedback."

"Yeah, okay. That is super helpful to know. And kind of... you tell me if I'm right on this or not. Let me tell you what I tell other people when they ask me about CRM options. Basically, like the relationship that I'm aware of generally for most CRMs, you have extremely robust CRMs but very complicated. So that's going to be like a Salesforce, for example, where like you could do anything your mind could ever dream of in Salesforce, but at a cost, right? Most people who use Salesforce, they usually end up having somebody on their team dedicated to managing it, or you pay a lot of money to a third party or something like that because there's always things breaking, all new stuff that needs to be built, etc."

"Exactly. On the other side, like complete opposite of the scale, you have much more simple CRMs where maybe you can't do anything you could ever imagine, but they're a lot better out of the box and have a lot of... like, they're easy, right?"

"Right."

"And that means you don't have to use all your time and resources just trying to figure out how to make your CRM work. It just works, and your business can function, and it's pretty good. And that's kind of the bucket that I put ReSimply in. Do you think I'm thinking about that right, or would you give anybody any other advice as to why to choose one CRM versus another?"

"Yeah, I mean, no, no, you're right. I mean, ReSimply is built specifically for Real Estate Investors and investors only. It's not built for people that are doing investing, like wholesaling and like other investing you can do like Fix and Flip and all that, but if you need like fully customizable... like you have very, very specific needs in your business, then honestly, ReSimply, it's not the right solution. It's for people that honestly just... they want something that just works right out of the gate, built specifically for their business, and everything is already built in."

"You know, that's how we look at it. I started, you know, a couple of requirements for my own business. That was that everyone on my team should be able to use the same system. You know, I don't want to do any integration, none of that. And then it should track really good KPIs for that. So that's what we do. We don't use anything else. Everyone on my team is using ReSimply. But yeah, for anybody that needs like very, very specific customization, they want to have like 50 different stages and they... pipeline, it's not for those people."

"It's... think of it like, you know, like iOS and Android. With Android, you can like fully customize, do anything. I would say with like iOS, where it's like limited, you can do some customization, you can, you know, change few things, but it's... it's within... it's within certain limits that you can change things. So yeah, I would say that it's not like you come in, you're like, 'All right, I want to change colors, I want this pipeline, that pipeline, you know, have like these 50 different stages.' No, it's not built for that purpose."

"It's built for people that want to come in, you know, work through a system that we know... we have teams that are doing 15, 20, 30 deals a month using our platform. It works for them, and then they love it. Everything is... everything... everyone on their team can be there. But they're like, 'Hey, I would like this... this is my business, I do this special thing in my business, can you do this?' No, it's not for that."

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Stop wasting money on junk Facebook leads! Learn how to attract motivated sellers and boost ROI.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Garrett Craigan, our director of paid media. We're talking all about lead quality in Facebook ads. How are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good, how are you?"

"Hey, doing awesome. I have to admit, out of our planned four-part series here about mastering Facebook ads, this episode today is the one that I'm the most excited about because there's about to be a lot of minds changed, a lot of standards adjusted. Lead quality is the topic with Facebook, and almost every time you hear somebody complaining about PPC, it's because of the lead cost. Almost every time you hear someone complain about Facebook, it's because of the lead quality. It's the number one issue that you tend to run into in the platform, right?"

"So every platform kind of has its own things, and we even talked a little bit in the last episode about some things that you can do to address lead quality in Facebook, even just from an audience level, like the different networks that you're running on and how that affects things. But there's a lot more to it than just that. I'm excited to jump into it."

"Yeah, me too. It's gonna be good."

"So first question, and I'm curious how you'll answer this because there's a bit of subjectivity to this, but number one: how do you measure the quality, and number two, what is the lead quality of Facebook?"

"The way I think is the most standardized way of that being measured is the leads per deal. For us on Facebook, over the last year or so, we are seeing on Facebook about 17 leads per deal for our clients that have ads active on Facebook."

"Yeah, and I just want to clarify one thing too: that's per contract, not per deal, just because there's varying levels of contract fallout. We do have clients fall out a ton and others that will never ever cancel a contract except for the weirdest of issues. But 17, and that's compared to our benchmark of what, like 11 for PPC? So it's behind PPC, but it's not that far behind."

"I was just having a discussion with an investor Friday, a couple days ago, where we were kind of mapping out the metrics, and I asked them what they expect out of Facebook because they had done some Facebook advertising for a while. This is actually a very well-known investor that probably everybody listening to this would know. When I asked them how many leads per contract they were expecting, they said probably between 70 and 100 leads per contract and a $40 cost per lead. I was just a little bit mind blown. It's so different from our metrics, right?"

"Which leads people to wonder, because you have these different channels and they all perform so differently from a lead to contract. Sometimes we think it's just the channel that makes a difference, but the strategy on the channel makes a huge difference as well. So why did this investor have 70 to 100 leads per contract on Facebook before, and our benchmark says 17 is normal? Turns out a lot of it comes down to the strategy with which the campaigns are executed, and that's what I think we're going to talk about today. What are the biggest things that impact lead quality on Facebook, and how can we make them better?"

"Yeah, the two biggest factors that are going to make or break your Facebook performance are going to be what you optimize for and the creative of your ads - the copy and the actual images of the ad."

"Very simple set. So let's talk about what you optimize for. What do people do, and how could they do it better?"

"Just to go deeper into that, in essence, Facebook is very, very good at hitting the target that you give it. So if you say 'I want people to go on my website,' it's going to find people that click everything, and it's going to show them the copy and images that you've given it that best drive that action."

"So what we see frequently on Facebook is people will optimize for an action that's very easy to drive, for instance, an on-platform form that's built into Facebook. They'll have that form being submitted as the action. So they're very cheap leads, but there also isn't much friction to the action, and so it doesn't take a very high intent user to take the action. So it's going to show the images, the copy that get the most people to take the easiest action, and that's partly why people see this bad quality. They're giving Facebook a bad target and then getting mad when it hits it efficiently."

"Yeah, that totally makes sense. It's wild to me. I remember the first time I changed a conversion-focus campaign to a traffic-focus campaign on Facebook, and for 5 hours I thought I did the best thing ever 'cause we're getting like 10 times the traffic to the website. I'm like, 'There's no way this could ever fail. There's so many people going to the website. How are we ever not going to get the return on investment we need?' And you'd just be absolutely amazed at how the rate of those people converting into deals just went so far down. That's an extreme example."

"So just to lay this out really clearly, the two kind of common ways to do this, and then we'll talk about even a way to go above and beyond just the basics, but just to lay out the common ones: One thing you mentioned was a Facebook form. So this is the way that most people run these ads, and I'm not saying there's a problem with Facebook forms. I've seen them work fairly well in other industries. It's just in this industry we have not been able to see them work as well as other methods."

"So if I were selling you on using Facebook forms right now, what I would tell you is it's the least friction that you could possibly have in the process. These people don't even need to leave Facebook. Facebook likes it actually because when somebody clicks on the ad, it just takes them to a form that's within Facebook itself, so they're not leaving the platform, which means they're more likely to stay on it after, which is a really good thing. So Facebook likes you, you're going to get a higher conversion rate there, it loads super quick, it's native to the app, it doesn't have to load on a whole separate web page, the tracking's really easy, etc. So that's why it's good."

"But yeah, I guess the best way I could describe this - everybody, when we're talking about lead quality in Facebook, the first thing that they think is how do I target the right people that I want? I'll give like a basic analogy for this. It's like I'm fishing. Let's just say I could fish anywhere in the ocean. It's like I'm just kind of looking at where the fish I want to catch are, and then I'm just throwing something out there that hopefully any fish would bite, but I'm just putting it in the place where the fish that I want are. That's kind of like fishing if you were to do it the way that most people do Facebook advertising."

"What we're suggesting is instead giving Facebook a wider area to target, saying you can fish anywhere in the ocean if you want to, Facebook, but we really want this type of fish, and we're only going to reward you if you catch that type of fish. So then the algorithm goes and it finds those things more deeply, and it can do that so much better than we can target. So that's what a lot of people don't realize."

"What you're talking about specifically here, what's it called in Facebook? Like an optimization goal, I believe, is the specific terminology. When Garrett's saying that, he's not just saying like what you're focused on optimizing, it's literally like a setting within Facebook that this is my optimization goal. If that is a form that anybody could fill out with little friction, what's going to happen is you're giving a lot of signals that are low quality to Facebook. So you're basically telling it every time any fish bites the bait, that's good, and you're going to be wanting sailfish, and you're just going to end up catching a bunch of little harbor fish or carp or something just because they're the easiest ones to get to catch, to bite the bait. That's just how it works."

"Versus if you're - so the other side of this is you could send people to a website. On the website, you could include a lot more information, you can qualify, you can tell people like, 'Hey, you're looking to sell your house, that's why you would fill out this form,' whereas on a form, you have less information that you can give, right? So it's more friction, it gets these people more qualified, it doesn't autofill their information like the Facebook forms do, but then when you get a bite, you're communicating to Facebook, 'Hey, that was a good one,' and it's actually what you want, and then it does a good job of finding more of that."

"So what a lot of people - like when they're thinking about how to improve lead quality in Facebook, what they think about is the targeting. What they don't realize is that, especially post-Facebook getting sued for Equal Opportunity housing regulations, especially the best way to target is with your optimization goal. It's being really clear with Facebook what you want, and if you do that, then the way that you're communicating success to Facebook changes, and then you get much better at targeting the right kind of people. You'll end up fishing in the deep sea instead of in the retention pond, right?"

"Because when you get those bites from those carp, you're not telling Facebook this is good, right? So it learns that it's not going to find a sailfish in the retention pond, and that's what you want. You want the algorithm to get really smart. So that's just a simple explanation between the two things."

"So yes, you'll get more leads if you focus on the Facebook forms. In my experience, you'll get more leads and you'll get less deals, and a lot of people think you'll get all the leads that you would have gotten otherwise and then some, but that's not how it works. You actually - you'll end up targeting completely different people. You end up fishing in that retention pond, not in the open ocean like you want to."

"So anyways, that's kind of the simple distinction, but how can you take that to even another level, Garrett? Beyond just getting someone to fill out a form on a website?"

"Yeah, so just going just a bit deeper into that tactic of giving Facebook the right target - not all forms that are captured are equal, right? And what we found is that it works very well to send people or to fire a conversion based on the answers that the person gives in their form to give even better feedback to Facebook than not just 'Okay, this person clicked, came to a page, and then gave their info.' They're a higher quality lead, but they also answered in a way that is like the kind of lead we want."

"So what we do most commonly is we ask in our form if the property is listed or is not listed. If it is listed, we still pass that lead over to our client just so that they can still work it, but we don't have that count as a conversion in Facebook. So we teach Facebook, 'Okay, that was close, right? Like they clicked, that's great, but they didn't match our criteria for a lead. Find someone else that fits better.' And so it keeps testing, and so that additional layer of refinement of what you count as a conversion helps teach Facebook even more accurately what you're looking for."

"And there is also the option with more volume to tie in an event to things that happen inside of your CRM where when a deal is marked as an appointment, pass that back in as a conversion and take things that much deeper, which we've been testing here already, and it works great. But the overall concept is just to give Facebook as valuable of a target as you can, and it'll hit that as efficiently as it can."

"Yeah, absolutely. And if this is sounding familiar to anybody listening, you probably recognize it based on us having talked about these same concepts for PPC before. Turns out that's one thing really similar between Facebook and PPC - both Google and Facebook use your previous data about what has worked to inform the future strategy. That's just the basis of their algorithms because, turns out, the most predictive thing to future behavior is past behavior, right? And the more data we can gather about that, the better this can be."

"So to add - like you were explaining it super simply, but to add the specific vocabulary to this - that first tactic you talked about, we call lead sculpting, where you're basically cutting out the leads that don't match certain criteria. And the second one is offline conversion tracking, where you're tracking things in your CRM and tying those back into the ad platform so that it understands what generates better and worse quality leads. Both crazy valuable. We've seen massive - I mean, obviously if we're looking at a benchmark of 50 to 100 leads per contract, and we're averaging like amongst our clients that are like really great closers and those that aren't as good, we're averaging altogether 17 leads per contract, it shows quite a difference in the lead quality. And so much of it has to do with the way you generate the lead specifically."

"And don't get me wrong, they'll get more expensive, but when you can start as a marketer thinking about what generates the most deals, not the most leads, I think you're on a really good path. Because a lot of our clients, by switching to these tactics, they're actually getting less leads than they were before, yet they're doing more deals, which means what? It means less overhead in other departments in your business, and it means usually a better return on investment on your marketing. So it makes a ton of sense in the P&L at the end of the day, although it doesn't make sense in your marketing scorecard where you're looking at how many leads can we possibly generate, right?"

"So you have to be aware of that. You also have to make sure your acquisitions team is aware of that because if they're used to Facebook leads being really bad leads, and then you make these big switches, then they're still going to treat them like they're not that good of leads, right? You're treating like a cold call lead basically, whereas they need to be treated like more of an inbound lead. And they're not perfect, right? You'll have varying levels of quality, but these kinds of tactics can increase the lead quality pretty significantly."

"Okay, so what you're tracking makes sense. Stay away from forms on Facebook, focus on the website forms instead. Consider sculpting the leads, consider offline conversions tracking as well, and then you get really good at getting that optimization goal as close to what matters for your business as possible. What else helps with optimizing lead quality?"

"Yep, the other arm of this tactic is going to be your ad content, the messaging and the images. What is commonly like a common misbelief in marketing is 'I want to make my ad as appealing as possible to the most people,' and that works for industries where anyone can be your buyer, right? But in wholesaling and in REI, that is not the case. There are lots of people that own homes that are not going to be your ideal lead, and so it's important to write your ads and design your images to appeal to only who you want to bring into your funnel, to force Facebook to show your ads to that kind of person."

"So if the ad is pushing very nice homes or top dollar offer type of messaging, it's gonna resonate great with someone that isn't in distress and just wants to move, right, and has a nice home. But it's not going to resonate with your buy box. So it's important that your messaging is talking about distress, it's talking about ease and convenience of the sell, not the offer, and that the images are of homes that fit the kinds of homes you buy."

"I think a lot of the ways that people think about the messaging and the creative is 'I need to make sure this is attractive to my ideal lead,' which is a good way to think about it, but they don't think about how do I make it unattractive to my unideal lead, right? You have to think about both because here's the crazy thing: the way that Facebook's algorithm works, if you have an ad that is attractive to a lot of people, not just your core audience - I'll give an example of this. I once worked with this company that had like a smartphone for kids. This is like before my real estate investment days, but I learned a lot about Facebook ads working with them because we were spending 40, $50,000 a day on Facebook ads, and we had this one video that was just absolutely hilarious and everybody loved it, and it was our worst performing ad, turns out."

"All right, ideal customer loved it, but the problem was also everybody else loved it. So what Facebook's algorithm noticed was, 'Hey, a lot of people like this,' and it started to target more and more of the people that liked the ad, which included people in market but also included anybody else that thought it was funny. And that was massive, massive audience. So what we found was when we ran that ad, we ended up targeting a different audience, right?"

"A lot of times when we're thinking about creative, we just assume we're going to target whatever audience we're targeting. You have to remember Facebook's learning based on who's responding to the ad, so you have to think not just about converting people down the funnel, but also about qualifying them. It's a different mindset. It has to be unattractive to people who aren't your ideal customer."

"I think where so many marketing companies go wrong with this is they only optimize for leads. So then you run a bunch of ads, and then one of them just says like, 'We'll give you top dollar for your house,' and all the other ones talk about distress. And then which one's going to work best? 'We'll give you top dollar for your house.' But then who's going to be complaining that they're getting a bunch of people motivated by price that they can't turn into wholesale deals? Like the acquisitions people, right? And there's a disconnect. So you're optimizing for the thing that's different than what's actually going to get you success down the funnel."

"To belabor my fishing analogy, it's like your bait, right? If the algorithm needs to be really good at catching the right fish, ideally you can design bait that only the type of fish that you want to catch would bite. If you have a type of bait that any fish would bite, then what's going to happen? You're going to confuse the fisherman who's going to think that they're getting a lot of success when really they're just getting carp nibbling at their bread because you don't catch a sailfish with bread."

"So it's a simple concept, right? It sounds dumb when you look at it in fishing, but from a marketing standpoint, you want that good motivated sailfish bait, and it should absolutely appeal really strongly but only to a specific group of people. And what people don't realize is it'll affect your whole targeting on the front end. You will have different people that you're targeting because of that creative."

"And a lot of the magic of this, we'll probably talk about in the next episode because you have to be able to understand how the different types of creative are affecting your lead quality, and having a really good ad testing process is a big piece of that. So we'll talk about that a little bit more then, but the concept here, I think, is crazy important."

"So get the right creative, measure the right optimization goal, and the thing we talked about before is avoid Audience Network in my opinion. If you do those three things, you should have a relative low number of leads per contract on Facebook. You agree, Garrett? Anything else you would add?"

Certainly, I'll continue with the rest of the text:

"Yeah, I think I would just add one thing. So with Facebook, they have such a huge audience, right? Like it's just massive. And of that whole audience, the piece that's your target buyer is so small that it's much more efficient to deter the wrong people, because that's almost the entire audience, than it is to try to like only attract your buyer. And so by giving it a behavior-based target of a form, and by having your ad be so unappealing to most people, that gives Facebook much better direction than making an ad that's very appealing. Because it just has such a huge audience that it takes longer for it to learn who likes it than to learn who doesn't like it. That's going to be a much more efficient play, and I think that's what this kind of comes down to."

"Yeah, I've had a conversation with a client recently where they basically expressed a concern to me like, 'Brandon, why are my ads so dull and boring? I wouldn't want to click this.' And my answer was, 'Yes, I tried to make an ad so boring that only a true motivated seller would click it.' That's part of the game. It's about deterring everybody else. It shouldn't be attractive. This shouldn't be something that - like that's - you don't want this to look like an Open Door ad or an ad for a realtor or something like that. It has to be very clear you have a specific audience here."

"It's like a bandit sign. Like bandit signs are pretty basic, they say 'We buy houses' and have a phone number on them. Why are they so basic? It's because if you made some like super flashy bandit sign that looks really nice and stuff, what are - who are the kind of people that are going to be calling you? They're probably different than the kind of people that you actually want to be talking to."

"Of course, in bandit signs, it's less important than it is in Facebook because in - if this was - if bandit signs were the same way and all those cars driving by were the ones that call, then you would actually have different traffic on the streets based on who calls your sign. It's kind of like if bandit signs work like Facebook ads. That's how Facebook ads work. It doesn't work that way in bandit signs. You can still put them like on the - in the right places, but I guess my point is you have to be so conscious of those things because yeah, you're looking for 2% of the real estate market. That's your target, and you got to - even if you block out most of the 98% that's not your target, but you still are left with 2%, you'll have as many bad leads as you do good leads. So you have to be really careful to block it out really effectively."

"So that's all we have for lead quality today. Next time we're going to talk about ad creative testing. We have a specific process that we've actually worked for years to dial into the level that it's at right now. It's a complete game changer when it comes to getting the best performing ad creative. So I'm super excited to talk about that, but that's all that we have for this week, and I will see you next time."

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Part 3 of the series Facebook Ads. Discover the secret to creating killer Facebook ads that attract your ideal customers and boost sales. Learn how to leverage dynamic and static testing to optimize your creative and maximize ROI.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Garrett Craigan, our director of PPC media. We're going to talk all about Facebook ad creative testing, what our process for that is right now. We've simplified everything to a two-step process that helps get both the most leads and then also the highest quality leads, and we'll talk about how that works. How are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing good, how are you?"

"Fantastic. You might notice my voice is deeper, more booming, more podcast-like than usual, and it's because it's 95% gone. So I'm gonna make it through this podcast but probably not much more."

"I like it. A voice for radio."

"That's right, for the first time ever in my life."

"Hey, I like it better than face for radio."

"Fair enough. Yeah, well, I think there's a reason we get a lot more viewership on our podcast than we do on YouTube."

"I can't... fair enough."

"Don't make me laugh because I can't actually laugh in this current state, so it just sounds awkward. But yeah, let's jump into the topic for today. Maybe this is just the blessing that you need to actually get some room to say more things during this episode versus me just finally blabbering the whole time."

"I'm super excited about this because this is actually one of the biggest improvements that we made to the way we run Facebook ads in the past, what, like six months or so? I don't know exactly how long we've been doing this. And I think it's whenever something makes a lot of sense and then also works, those are the things that make me happy. Lots of things work but they don't make sense, which is just kind of annoying, and then lots of things make sense and then they don't actually work, which is even worse."

"So this is awesome, and I'm super excited to dig into it. And this is our two-step ad creative testing process, formerly three-step. We've actually simplified it even more, and we're going to talk about basically how do you test creative assets in Facebook. Turns out not a lot of people focus a ton on this in this industry, but it has some massive implications, and then there's different advantages to different types of ads that you can run."

"So without getting too deep into it, I'm just going to turn the time over to you, Garrett. If you could share step one of the ad creative testing process or an overview of what we're talking about."

"Yeah, so our ad strategy is kind of based on two different ad types, one being dynamic ads and then two being a static ad. Not to, you know, go too deep into an obvious thing, but a dynamic ad is basically where we feed Facebook a bunch of different headlines, images, videos, descriptions, and it's going to run the best combinations that help you achieve the goal that you set at that ad set. So it's going to test a bunch of different assets and then find which ones give you the best, you know, cost per lead or lead volume or whatever the goal you give it."

"And the benefit of that is it tests a lot of things quickly. And then the other ad type that we run is a static ad, and the benefit of that is that we're able to identify exactly which part of the ad was shown, and we're able to trace that back to our CRM to see how that asset correlated with lead quality. The challenge with dynamic is you don't know which asset was shown within your like offline data to know how it impacted quality. So that's why we have our campaigns in that two-step process because it helps us to balance the fast testing of dynamic ads with the quality implications and quality tracking that comes from static ads."

"Yeah, totally understood, Garrett, and I'm going to add just a little bit of color here in case somebody's heard some different vocabulary to explain these things and also explain a little bit how they work."

"So dynamic ads, you may have read about something that people call DCO or dynamic creative optimization in Facebook. I'm just making the connection if you've been reading up on Facebook outside of this. Like, same thing, just different words for the same thing that we're talking about."

"And I want to make it really clear exactly why dynamic ads are so, so cool. Like, you talked about the benefit, but just think about it for a minute. What if you have three headlines that you want to test, and you have three ad copy options, and you have three options for videos or photos, and then you have three call-to-actions, right? Just picture like all these things. If you wanted to actually test that in what we call multivariate testing, where you're kind of seeing like each combination between those things, you'd have to make a ton of ads, right? Because you're multiplying 3 * 3 * 3 * 3, which is completely impractical. You're not going to create... I haven't even done the math... whatever three to the fourth power is. You're not going to create that many ads in your account and test them against each other. It's going to just murder Facebook's algorithm. You're never going to get good data from it."

"And dynamic creative actually can do that exact thing. So it's super powerful in that sense because you can test so much stuff at a time versus if we're testing static ads, just like, 'Oh, let's just change this one thing on the ad and let's see how that does,' which is cool, but like, you don't make progress nearly as fast. So a lot of people don't realize how strong that is with dynamic creative optimization. Like, you can make a lot, a lot of progress really, really fast, which is why we love it."

"But so, explain like specifically why, instead of just using one or the other, do you use both? I know you touched on it a little bit, but let's talk about like specifically, or maybe let's walk through it sequentially, right? So we start out, right, step one is we have this dynamic creative optimization. We're feeding it a lot of different stuff and kind of seeing... In a way, this is a bad way to say it, it's kind of like throwing a bunch of stuff at a wall and sort of seeing what sticks because you have the ability to throw more stuff at the wall with dynamic creative optimization. But why do we do that first, and what can we learn from that, and then how do we take that to the next step?"

"Yeah, so the first thing is like, if an account has enough budget behind it, it could just have all of this run through purely dynamic because you could, in theory, have the ad set optimized for a qualified lead action. In general, the bulk of our clients don't have the budget necessary to do that. So this is our way of like being able to optimize for quality without having to have a massive budget to have enough leads come through that are qualified to give Facebook enough of a sample size to optimize towards a lower funnel action."

"So we first run dynamic because it helps us to escalate and speed up our testing process of a ton of different assets, and we are basically always adding in new copy, new images, new everything into that ad so that we're always finding new best performers. And then as we find assets, be it an image, a video, or text that's doing well, that's then put into our static ad pool, I guess you could call it, where then we're able to get dialed in at the quality level how each of those elements are impacting quality."

"So we start with a wide range of assets and get that dialed into like five or six assets through our dynamic ad. Then we dump those best five or six into a couple of static ads, and then we dial it in to a quality level once we've already found which assets give us the best cost per lead or impressions per lead, any of those big metrics."

"Yeah, totally agreed. I can explain this similar way, different words, just in case somebody needs some help following Garrett's genius here. One of the things that's bad about static ads is if you make bad ones, it can hurt you because you could spend a lot of money on them. That's what's great about dynamic, is it optimizes really fast."

"So static ads, a lot of people think they don't work really well. I think what we found is they work really well if you only have really good ads there. So this is sort of a process of finding what the really good performing creative is and then making static ads with that good performing creative. So we don't accidentally spend money on now poor-performing creative."

"But the other drawback of dynamic ads is attaching a specific asset, saying the person clicked on the ad that had this image in it, and because it had that image, then we ended up with this lead quality, for example, is as far as I'm aware not really possible. Very, very difficult. I haven't found anybody who knows how to do that, right?"

"So that's where like we've noticed a lot of our competitors that are running Facebook ads, because dynamic ads are working better generally when you have less proven creative, they're using dynamic ads, but then they stop there. So then they're left with just whatever ads get them the best cost per lead, not necessarily the best lead quality."

"Whereas what you can do is you can then take those best performing assets, and then you can track everything full circle, right? So we're taking those five or six, and with every one of those ads, we're tracking how many net leads come from them, how many opportunities, how many contracts, how many deals, what the revenue is associated with them. And we start to learn things like if we use this image instead of that image, it increases the number of leads that we get that match this certain profile. That's a negative thing by this amount, and then we can dial more and more in on quality."

"Because Facebook's not going to understand the quality unless you're optimizing for quality, which most companies in this industry can't do based on budgets. And even if they had the budget, they don't have the market size to do it in many circumstances."

"So anyway, it's a super cool process. I hope you guys are like catching the vision a little bit talking about this, in the sense that you can narrow down the creative significantly with the dynamic portion, and then you can have only good quality static ads. And then you get dialed in in quality, and you start to know which ones are working better from a quality standpoint, which ones aren't, and then you can get rid of the ones that aren't even if they have a good cost per lead."

"This is why this is one of the secrets to having great lead quality on Facebook. Turns out what you attract people with, because Facebook... these ads are seen by tons of people. I was looking the other day, we had on Facebook close to 118 million impressions on our ads last year. Some of those were Google, but a really small sliver. Facebook is massive amount of that, despite being a smaller portion of the spend."

"Because tons of people see the ad, that's really cheap, right? You pay like 40 cents to send a postcard, you might pay like one or two pennies to show a Facebook ad to somebody. So it's cheap, but the way that you qualify with the ad drastically affects what people you're going to get. Because the targeting is targeting all of them most likely, what the ad says and how it speaks to them is what gets the right people or the wrong people to reach out to you and has a massive, massive impact."

"Yep. One thing that I don't think we covered that is helpful to be aware of is how we can trace the... how the static ad impacted lead quality. And what we do is each ad combination has a unique ad name that tells us which headline, which description, and which image is in that static ad. And then that whole ad name is pushed into our CRM. So that's how we're able to tie back that attribution, is from the name of the ad."

"People don't always know that you actually can make ad name templates in Facebook. So you can have it like pull the description and the image and then make the ad name just have those two elements with a dash between them, you know, that kind of thing. So that's how you can get those attributes pulled back into your CRM, is by making a custom name for each of your asset combinations."

"And then we have some sort of database where we basically have the names and then what the ad is, basically. So we're able to cross-reference it and understand..."

"Yep, exactly how it affects the quality, which was a little tricky to set up but works like a charm once you got it set up."

"Okay, that's awesome. Well, thank you for joining me for this episode, Garrett. Nice and short and sweet, talking about the biggest things. I hope you guys are seeing the value in this, specifically this episode and the last one. If you're doing really well at tracking the right kinds of conversions and you do really good with qualifying properly with the ad creative, so you make good guesses, but then you're also able to track the quality to dial it in, this is the way that you get the number of leads per contract that you need on Facebook."

"Which for the vast majority of people that I talk to in this industry that don't like Facebook, it's usually because of the number of leads that it takes to get deals done, and these kinds of things could be a game-changer. So if you like this episode, if you saw value, definitely leave us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever you listen to it. Share this with a friend that you think might be running Facebook ads."

"I'm serious about this. When you see those people in Facebook groups or something that are talking about how much they hate this marketing channel or something, share this and talk about, you know, did you try these things or did you not try these things? And I guarantee you most of the people who are not having success just are not checking the boxes that you need to check to have success with this channel."

"So anyway, super grateful for your time, Garrett, and to everybody else, I'll see you next week. Thanks."

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Tired of pushy Google Ads reps promising the moon and stars? Join us as we expose the real metrics that drive results and debunk the myths that drain your ad budget.

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"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Garrett Craig. We're going to talk about some of the biggest mistakes that you can make in a Google Ads account, specifically around the types of information that people, Google reps, and other agencies you could talk to are trying to shove down your throat about metrics that don't matter.

This episode's more about avoiding mistakes than it is about doing things the right way. We'll talk about what some of those biggest mistakes are and how you can avoid them. How are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing great, how are you?"

"I'm good. I'm finally recovered after being sick for like two weeks. I know you've been sick for your entire life, so dude, you get it."

"You know what we found out? Actually, the people that owned our home before us were putting all of our house's water through a water softener, not just into like our shower and our bathtub. So for the last year, we've been drinking softened water, which I guess is really harmful. So we're pretty sure that's why we've been sick for so much, for so long. It's because we've been poisoning ourselves indirectly. So how's that for an icebreaker?"

"Yeah, that's interesting. I think I might do the same with my house. I don't know, am I drinking... I know it's wrong to drink soft water. I think it like takes out certain nutrients or things from the water that you need. I think. I don't know, I'm not a plumber."

"Fair enough. Okay, cool. Well, good to know. Glad you're not sick right now for the first time ever. Hallelujah."

"Yes, I'm excited about our topic today. We've got something I guess a little bit more proactive. I hear from people literally daily about these problems, and ultimately they're not really problems, but I guess that's kind of the point of the episode. It's like what's a problem, what's not a problem, help explain some basic things. And from there, hopefully, we have an understanding of how do you avoid making some potentially pretty major mistakes in an ad account."

"The first one here just has to do with how we're influenced from Google. If you run a Google Ads account, if you have them for your business, you've probably received more than a few phone calls from somebody claiming to be a rep that works for Google. And there's a bunch of different levels here. I mean, there's people who are just calling you trying to get your business to manage your campaigns and stuff like that. That's always a factor. Then there's actual calls from Google, and a trap that I see a lot of people falling into is actually listening to the person on the other end of the phone. And it's not a scam, like these people actually are from Google, but let's talk about these Google reps and kind of what to listen to, what not to listen to, and how do you navigate that whole situation?"

"Yeah, so I think the first thing to understand is there are tiers of Google reps. There are the ones that work for Google themselves, and then there are the ones that work for outsource companies that have a google.com email address, but they are not a direct employee of Google. And that's the first thing: not all of them are actually trained in marketing. They're mostly just like an attack dog with an email signature that says Google, and they'll just hound you all day about a lot of different things. It's also important to know how they're compensated. It's not based on how your campaign performs, it's on how much you spend and how well you retain as a Google Ads user. So they're gonna push you to use tactics to increase your spend, and they will want you to perform well, but the spend is their big target for sure."

"Yeah, the other thing I heard is a lot of it's based on adoption of different Google Ads stuff. So that's the big ones: how much do you spend, and then how well do you adopt whatever Google's saying people aren't adopting. So like a long time ago, it would have been like automated bid strategies back when they didn't work. Reps were pushing them, and now that they work, like everything's good. Nowadays, the big ones are like broad match keywords. What are the other ones that we're hearing a lot?"

"Display expansion, conversion value-based bidding. Auto-apply recommendations is a big one they push. Discovery campaigns, demand gen campaigns which are basically Discovery campaigns. There's always a flavor of the month with these Google reps."

"I'll tell a story briefly just to give you guys an understanding. Like this is a story when I learned a lesson, a lesson that we've now learned so we don't make this mistake again. But yeah, we worked with a Google Ads account, and we started with Search Partners back before we knew that was like a big problem, right? Everybody learns whatever things they know today, you learned them at some point, right? This is when we learn that Search Partners was bad. So we track a bunch of bad leads coming from Search Partners, and we say okay, we want to get rid of Search Partners, turn it off."

"A few months later, client comes to us and says, 'You're getting... we're getting a bunch of spam leads again. What's going on?' I look in the account and what happened? Search Partners are back on. I look at why Search Partners are back on: it's something called Google auto-apply recommendations, where Google decided that it has a recommendation and then it automatically applies that recommendation into the account."

"So that's when I learned the lesson that in order to actually optimize against something that Google doesn't want you to do, what you have to do is not just turn off what you want turned off, but then you have to turn off Google's ability to turn it back on whenever they want to turn it back on, which is just wild to me. Like not only do I have to exclude Search Partners from my campaigns, but I have to turn off Google's ability to re-include them after I've already chosen to exclude them and just tank my campaigns one day."

"So it's crazy, and the level of things going on right now, if you have a Google Ads account, you search on Google for different things, you'll find that Google will actually like show up with a place where it'll say like, 'Hey, you want to spend three times the budget? Just press this button.' Like literally in the Google search results, it will throw that in to make it so easy, and it's insane."

"We've had... it's probably, and this is part of the reason we're making this episode, probably once a month we have a client that gets like called by a Google Ads rep and just says, 'Oh yeah, what they're saying makes sense. I'll just let them do what they want to do.' Or they see a recommendation in their account and they just apply it, and then everything tanks and we have to go in like damage control and fix all the problems."

"So this is kind of like a warning episode. If you're searching on Google and you see a recommendation, don't follow that recommendation. If somebody calls you up on the phone and they tell you that you need to do this to make your campaign better, don't follow that. And I'm not saying that those things are always evil, like there's good recommendations and there's bad recommendations. There's just a lot of bad ones, and I think just blindly following them can be a path to disaster. And then also, you want to turn off auto-apply recommendations. That's a big tip because otherwise, these recommendations, you're actually giving Google the right to go and change them whenever they want to."

"How is it that someone can turn off the auto-apply recommendations?"

"So there's a section of your ad account called the optimization score, and on that page, there's a button in the top right corner, I believe, that says Auto-apply. Just go in there and there's a bunch of different things that Google can auto-apply. Just uncheck all of them and then hit save, and then you're safe from Google deciding to make changes in your account. Like there's even a setting in there to like write new ads for you, and it'll just randomly add in new ads that are off-brand or inaccurate, and then all of a sudden they're spending. So yeah, definitely turn off all of those options and auto-apply."

"Yeah, I totally agree with you. And when you get Google ad reps calling you, honestly, just ask them to take you off their list. There's good and bad reps, but the ones that are calling you are the bad ones. Don't... like that's a good rule of thumb. If they're being tasked with calling lists, they're probably not the ones that you want to drive your PPC strategy."

"Yeah, the only people who get like good reps are if you have like a massive, massive budget, or agencies. But even the reps we get aren't very good, and we have still massive budgets, but they're still just like... okay, I learned more about PPC than you know in like..."

"They know..."

"Exactly. It's a tricky, tricky game."

"So you mentioned something called optimization score. This is the second thing that I want to talk about because this gets into... there's a whole... if you, whoever's listening to this, if you didn't know this already, there's crazy like political divide in the world of search marketing and lots of weird stuff going on. Optimization score is a big piece of this. For anybody who's just listening to this or hearing about this for the first time, Garrett, could you explain like what is optimization score and why it is good or not good?"

"Yeah, it's basically the account health score that Google gives you based on how well you are using their best practices. Like if you're using broad match, if you're adding in values into your conversions, if you're using responsive search ads, if you're adding on ad extensions. There's a lot of good things that go into that score. There's also bad ones, like you are under budget, you could spend three times more. Therefore, your op score goes down by 30 points, right?"

"And so Google preaches that that number, being, you know, perfect 100%, gives your account the best chance at succeeding because you're doing all the best practices. And it's an easy way, just go in there, hit apply on all of them, and your account is off to the races. But that is not true, and people that preach that that number is the end-all or is a key number whatsoever, I would argue, are incorrect."

"Yeah, we obviously do a lot of hiring and we do these skills assessments. We have people look at, you know, different ads accounts and stuff, and it's always so interesting to see what they, you know, what they gravitate towards. Because optimization score, Google just like slaps it right there, like in the very front, you can't miss it, biggest metric around, looks really appealing. And sometimes we have these people that like focus on optimization score when we're interviewing them to hire, and all I can think in my head is like, 'Tell me you know nothing about Google Ads without telling me you know nothing about Google Ads.' All you have to say is, 'Look, your optimization score is...'"

"Yeah, not at all interested in working with you unless like this is your first time looking at a Google Ads account and you've been upfront with us about that and we're hiring for some entry-level position. But like, for the most part, that's a big no-no. But it's wild how misleading a score can be. All I think when I see it from Google is like, 'So you're telling me, according to the metric that you made up that has no basis in my results, that I'm doing this well?' And it's just a little bit crazy."

"And you can actually see Google will show you like the specific recommendations of what you need to apply, and I'm not saying don't look at Google's recommendations. Sometimes I see things in there and it's like, 'Add this audience into your observation list.' I'm like, 'You know what? Sure. Would it be better to observe that audience than not?' Yeah. But then sometimes it's like, 'Turn this keyword to broad match.' Really? That? Or 'Add these keywords,' and it's a bunch of keywords that aren't good. And that can be a really rough position to be in."

"So yeah, anybody who ever talks about optimization score, this is an agency, if this is a Google rep calling you, if it's somebody you're hiring to manage your Google Ads, like just don't focus on it. Because a lot of it is more so the pushing of the adoption of technology, which all in all is not a bad thing. Like if you look at like what was Google really pushing years ago, for example, it was like automated bid strategies, and it was like responsive search ads. And then you look at today, and like responsive search ads and automated bid strategies are like a core of our strategy."

"The difference is we only started using them when they started working, not when Google decided to start using them. But Google probably has like this difficult path to go through of they need a lot... like bid strategies, for example, they're all just based on data, right? So they need a lot of data collected in order to make that strong enough to where it is today. Just the problem is for years it's in this phase where it doesn't actually work, and Google's just trying to like push people to use it because that's what they need in order to get it to the phase where it works."

"I just prefer to be a part of the working, the working strategies, not the not the test and... sometimes beta stuff from Google could be really good. It's just a factor of like focus more on your results than on what they want you to do with your account."

"Yeah, yeah. So then there's a, you know, sort of associated with optimization score, there's this concept of Google agency partners. What can you share about agency partners and how those work and what that means? For anybody listening to this, you probably talked to some agency before that says like, 'Look, we're a partner with Google,' or whatever the case is. Let's talk about what exactly that is and what's going on behind the scenes."

"Yeah, so there are two tiers of being a partner. There's just the basic partner and then there's being a Premier partner, and those tiers get different access to, in theory, to support and reps and beta tests, and like onsite visits to Google Headquarters, right? In theory. And to be the base partner, you pretty much just have to have a pulse. I believe the requirement is that your entire agency account has to have spent $10,000 in the last year, so not a huge requirement."

"And then to be a Premier partner, they require an ad spend component of I think $100,000 in the last year, and then an average optimization score of all your accounts of like 70%, and then a certain number of your team has to be Google Certified. So again, not a high bar. And it's... as agencies, it's difficult to differentiate yourself in sales in any like real way beyond like, 'I'll get you this ROI,' right? And so it's common for agencies to really trumpet that they're a partner or that they're a Premier partner."

"But that's becoming less and less meaningful as Google cuts their resources from all but their largest brands. What I've found is that agencies don't get great reps, brands get great reps. So even if an agency claims that they have their own rep, access is low, resources and support are low, knowledge is low. The big brands though, they get great teams and great support, but that's the Nikes of the world, right? So and that group has become smaller and smaller over time."

"Yeah, to me the biggest piece of this is the manipulation involved with it. Notice the requirements, and by the way, we as an agency match all of these requirements except for one, and I'll tell you very specifically why we don't match that requirement. But notice the requirements are a certain amount of ad spend. Okay, cool, any good agency should have a certain amount of ad spend, right?"

"Next requirement: certain people have taken their bogus trainings on Google Ads. Okay, I guess I think the requirement is like two... like two people out of like our 28 person team have at least taken, you know, whatever bogus trainings Google provides. They're, I guess, better than nothing at the very beginning when you're first learning PPC, but they have an agenda. That's clear."

"The third one, this is the only reason we're not a Premier partner with Google: optimization score. You have to hit at least 70%, which turns out that actually ends up meaning in your client accounts that you have to do things that you know aren't in the best interest of your clients in order to make Google happy and feel like you're a good partner to them."

"Or just hit dismiss on all of them all the time because you can dismiss it and it counts it as the thing being applied. So it's pretty much just kind of fluff because even if you don't apply it and just like follow their orders of like keeping that score high, that's all it takes. So it's really quite meaningless."

"Yeah, which is just something that I just don't think it makes sense for anybody to do, especially when like the benefits of the program are not great. So anyways, my message with this is just be... it's kind of like when you hire someone for like marketing. Let's say you're hiring a marketing director and they're like 40 years old, and the biggest thing that they can say in their interview is, 'I got a marketing degree when I went to college and I graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in marketing.' How you just like know that person's not very qualified at all, because anybody who's actually qualified cites anything but their education as like the reason they're qualified, especially like a little bit later in life."

"It's the same thing with like, 'I'm a Premier partner.' That's like me coming to you like 50 years old and saying, 'Well, you should hire me for this job because I have a degree in this from 30 years ago from some university, and that's why I'm a good marketer.' Right? It's not at all... it's a... yeah, anyway, it's just not something I think needs a lot of weight, but people put a lot of weight into it. And therefore, I think it's good to be on the same page."

"So to summarize things, don't focus on optimization score, don't focus on really the partner statuses, and when people call you to talk about like where things like impression share and optimization score and stuff like that, be very wary of that. Don't end up being one of our clients that listens to that and says, 'Well, this person works for Google so they must know what they're doing,' and ends up applying those things. Because it's a lesson you only have to learn once. I'd prefer for everybody listening to this to learn it exactly zero times through actual experience and just take the lesson from this podcast and move on with it."

"Yep, no, I agree. I think the big takeaway is that Google wants your money and they prey on people that are uneducated. And it's kind of messed up, but lucky for our audience, we are here to guide you to safety."

"Thank you, Garrett. All right, for everybody listening, thanks a ton for being here today. If you saw value from this or other episodes that we do, please share it. I, to be honest, I don't even know where our whole podcast audience has come from. There's a lot of people in there, but we don't actually... we don't actually really promote it very much. So just however you got a hold of this, there's a good chance it's from some friend that you have that shared it with you, or you saw it and it helped solve a problem that you had. Just think of the other people out there like you that could benefit from this kind of content, especially if they're wanting to improve in their online marketing for real estate investing. But I will see you all next week. Thanks."

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Celebrating Brandon’s new baby! 👶 Tune in as we revisit the classic PPL vs. PPC debate with expert insights from Noah Parks and Brandon Bateman.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be talking with Noah Parks from our team all about the advantages of paper leads versus PPC."

"How are you doing today, Noah?"

"Good. How are you doing, Brandon?"

"Hey, good, can't complain. Excited to do another podcast with you. It has been six months, probably a little bit awhile, right?"

"Yeah, yeah. For anybody that wants some context, right now as we speak, I am looking out my window at Noah's house. Yet despite that, he has made one appearance in the office in the past six months. Is that it, just one, maybe two?"

"You come for our quarterly planning, for sure, leadership stuff."

"So anyways, great, great to talk with you. Um, you're the guy that every time you come into the office, people say, 'Whoa, does he still work here?' Which is kind of funny because to many of the people listening, they all probably know you fairly well, um, because you're such a big piece of our outward-facing presence."

"So anyways, I'm super grateful to be here with you and I'm excited for a cool topic today, which is paper leads versus PPC."

"Yeah, so this is an exciting topic for me because I feel like there's a lot of misinformation going around about this now. Obviously, before we get too far into this, right, we are a company that does PPC as a service for Real Estate Investors. Um, Noah works for that company as well, right? We're a little bit biased, so take it with a grain of salt. However, I think we're pretty level-headed, objective people, right? So, so I want to talk through like some of the different things we're saying and, spoiler alert, we're not going to say that one is better than the other. Um, it really comes down to what your goals are and uh, I had sales, so I may say it one's better than the other. All right, then I'll have to take the position of arguing for paper leads, you know?"

"I, I'll take a well-rounded approach. Okay, fair enough."

"So, so obviously, this has been a big topic of discussion. I think what prompted the creation of 'Advantages of PPL for New Investors' - Low Barrier to Entry, Can Buy Leads Without Full Marketing Budget - this podcast is that a mutual friend and client of ours named Victor posted on Facebook, 'Paper lead is a scam,' like prove me wrong or something like that. I can't remember exactly what the last few words were, and it started this conversation."

"Yes, a very lively conversation. Um, and I noticed that a lot of the strong opinions kind of against paper leads were in my opinion a little bit unfounded or maybe from a lack of understanding of those companies and how they uh, how they work. Um, but there's also a lot of truth to what was being said in that debate. Um, and I think it's worth kind of visiting all those things. So, so I think a good place to start would be in your opinion, based on what you're hearing because I know you're talking to probably like seven or eight investors every single day, which really adds up a lot over the course of a year and a half. A lot of a lot of uh context of what's going on. I feel like it gives me a pretty good pulse, uh, thumb on the pulse of the uh of the investor industry here."

"Yeah, I mean you hear the 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' of all the marketing and you're also really good at digging into why people feel that way about their marketing and what could be causing the result to be what it is and things like that so you can better understand."

"Um, so I think I honestly think you're one of the most qualified people in the world to speak on this subject just based on your exposure. Um, in your opinion, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of doing your own PPC as compared to buying leads from a pay-per-lead provider? Okay, um, yeah, I mean honestly, I see advantages to both of those approaches. One of the approaches that I pride myself on taking and having any kind of Discovery conversation or just understanding where an investor is at in their uh, marketing cycle, if you will, it tends to follow a pretty common thread. And that is new investors tend to take the route of marketing that provides the lowest barrier to entry, which is oftentimes outbound, right? But they hear all the all the upsides of PPC and they think, 'This sounds great, this is gonna be this magic bullet that's gonna solve all my problems.' And it can be a really powerful tool, but it also comes with a learning curve. There's a lot of moving parts, you gotta understand targeting, you gotta understand ad copy, you gotta understand landing pages, you gotta understand conversion rate optimization. It's a lot to take on, especially for a new investor who's just getting started."

"Absolutely, and on the flip side, with paper leads, they seem very straightforward. You pay for a lead, you get a lead. Here it is. And that can be very appealing, especially to those new investors."

"Right, and there are some reputable paper lead companies out there that are generating leads ethically and compliantly. But there's also a dark side to this industry, and that's where a lot of the skepticism comes in. There are some companies out there that are selling leads that are complete junk, that are just not qualified."

"Yeah, and that's a good point to differentiate. So with PPC, you control everything, right? You control the targeting, you control the ad copy, you control the landing page. So you can, in theory, generate very high-quality leads if you know what you're doing. But with paper leads, you're relying on that company to deliver and you don't always have a lot of control over the quality of those leads."

"Exactly. And some of the red flags to watch out for with paper leads would be, like, if the leads are super cheap, that's a red flag. Because a good, qualified lead costs money to generate. Also, if they're guaranteeing a certain number of conversions or a certain number of closes, that's a red flag. Because you can't guarantee those things in real estate."

"Absolutely, and it's an important point. PPC is not a silver bullet either. You can spend a lot of money on PPC if you don't know what you're doing and not get very good results. So there's a risk there as well."

"Right, so there's risk and reward with both options. And like you said earlier, it really depends on the goals of the investor and what stage they're at in their business."

"Absolutely. So for a new investor who's just getting started, paper leads can be a good option to get their feet wet, to start generating some leads and kind of see what works and what doesn't. But as they scale their business and they want more control over their lead quality and their lead generation process, then PPC might be a better option."

"There's also the time factor to consider. PPC can take some time to set up and optimize properly, whereas with paper leads, you can start getting leads right away. But like you said, the quality might be lower. So it's a trade-off between speed and quality."

"Exactly. And another thing to consider is your budget. PPC can be a very cost-effective way to generate leads, but it does require an ongoing investment. With paper leads, you can pay for a specific number of leads and that's it. So there's a bit more upfront cost certainty with paper leads."

"Absolutely. So really, there's no one-size-fits-all answer here. The best approach for you will depend on your individual circumstances. But hopefully, this conversation has given you a better understanding of the pros and cons of both paper leads and PPC."

"Yeah, I think this has been a really valuable conversation. And for the new investors out there who are listening, the biggest takeaway I would say is to do your research, understand the pros and cons of both options, and don't be afraid to experiment a little bit to see what works best for you."

"Absolutely. And if you're interested in learning more about PPC, we actually have a free course that you can take on our website. And if you're interested in learning more about paper leads, there are a number of reputable companies out there. Just do your research and make sure you're working with a reputable company."

"Great advice. And hey, thanks for joining me on the podcast today, Noah. This has been a lot of fun."

"Yeah, thanks for having me, Brandon. It's always a pleasure chatting with you."

"Alright, folks, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks for listening to the Collective Clicks podcast. We'll catch you on the next episode."

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Are you unknowingly wasting money on branded Google Ads campaigns? Discover common mistakes and expert tips to optimize your strategy in our latest episode! 🎧

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman. Today, we're going to talk all about branded campaigns on Google. What are they? Why would you set them up? How do you set them up? What are the common misconceptions that people have around them? What are the best metrics to measure to know if they're performing well? Where do people end up wasting a lot of money on branded campaigns, or even worse, wasting money on your cold traffic campaigns because your branded campaign covers up a massive problem in your account? I'm excited to see you there."

"Alright, how are you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing great, how are you?"

"Doing awesome. I'm excited for our topic today. We're talking all about branded campaigns in Google Ads. A lot of people don't even know that this is a thing, honestly. If you really think about it, it is a thing. But if you don't, then you might not. So for anybody who's unfamiliar with what a branded campaign or let's just say branded keyword are in Google Ads, how would you describe that?"

"Yeah, it is a campaign where you bid on the name of your brand, on the name of your company. Pretty simple."

"Yeah, it is pretty simple. So if you are Baitman Collective, this would be if somebody searches on Google for Baitman Collective, there you are, there's your brand new campaign. If anybody wants to see it, just Google Baitman Collective and you might just see it. But don't click on it because that costs us money. But the back off, but we need to click through rate too for our quality score."

"Yeah, maybe I'm just ruining our quality score, but anyway, that's putting that aside. There's a lot of debate around branded campaigns and it's one of the most weird parts of PPC, especially when you have a lot of volume. There are people that generally fall into two different camps. Here's the elephant in the room, so to speak, when it comes to branded campaigns. They come through your PPC campaign, your PPC campaign is their last interaction with you as a company. But I can tell you, nobody's searching for your brand online that didn't find out about you somewhere else. They must have found out about you through some other channel. There are some marketing channels that are really popular for this, like anything that generates a lot of brand awareness. For example, let's just say you're cold calling and you're not saying the name of your company. How much branded search traffic is that going to generate? Really minimal, not that much. Even PPC doesn't generate that much brand recognition because it's a small group of people that actually search. But where you start to get a lot more people searching for your brand is when you're doing channels that have a larger number of impressions. This is going to like Facebook ads, for example. For every person that actually fills out the form, you're going to have a ton that were exposed to your brand and they could actually end up Googling you. You're going to have like TV, radio are both channels in this industry that like most of our clients that do TV or radio, they have a ton of branded traffic. These ones are especially popular. The reason being like you might say a phone number on the TV ad, but people aren't going to remember it and they're going to end up just searching for your company online. Even some of our clients that send like massive volumes of direct mail will find that there's a lot of branded traffic from that because they'll get this postcard from this company and then they'll look up the company to see if they can find some more information. Regardless, one thing you'll notice about all that is every lead that you generate from a branded source came from somewhere else beforehand. One of the biggest mistakes that I see people making in their CRMs is they use their CRM as if every lead only has one way that it came to us, which isn't exactly true. I think the way to mark those leads in your CRM is either as the original channel with PPC being like a secondary channel that helped get the lead or just ignore PPC altogether but then throw the PPC spend with it. It's a weird situation because I think on average PPC takes too much credit for branded leads."

"Oh yeah, absolutely. It's so easy to get caught in the addiction of branded traffic where those leads are so cheap that you start to overvalue their true worth. Because like you said, you've already paid for that traffic most likely in other ways and by paying for it twice on paid search, there's a balancing game of what I have gotten this traffic regardless of me having that branded ad on Google or not. You have to do some testing to see where the marginal gain is with your branded campaigns."

"Yeah, and you and I haven't actually talked about how we do this and how we determine what can you pay for a branded campaign. I'm curious to see how our opinions differ. I can tell you my opinion of the ultimate way to do this is to do a conversion lift test, but you just can't do it in this industry. To explain, I know there's a famous study done on eBay where eBay did a branded conversion lifts test on Google. Basically what they do is they say every other day we're going to run a branded campaign and we're going to do that for a period of three months or whatever the case is. What we're monitoring is every time you turn on your PPC, you're going to find that you get less organic search because if you don't have a PPC ad there, then you're still going to show up most likely for your brand organically. If you don't show up for your brand organically, PPC is one of your biggest opportunities to show up really quickly for your brand organically. But most companies will show up for their brand organically. What they notice is every time you turn on the PPC, your organic traffic plummets and your paid traffic goes up. You can eventually measure if we turn on the PPC, then it increases the likelihood of the traffic coming to us by whatever percent. You have to recognize that a certain percentage of your traffic you get through PPC was going to come in organically anyways. The problem is if you're eBay, you can do that. If you're just like whatever wholesaler in whatever market that gets much less branded traffic than eBay does, you might be running that experiment for three years and all the while every experiment that you run has a bad side that's not working as well. You have to make some smarter judgments as to how you want to value the branded traffic. It's not always black and white, but the assumption that I use in my head, there's a couple things that I'll look at. The first one is are there other people bidding on our brand in our market? Because if there was theoretically nobody bidding on your brand, then a branded ad is not really necessary because the main thing you want to protect from is other people showing up above you for your own brand, especially on mobile devices where the seller might have to scroll a long way to find your ad. Then the other thing I do outside of that is I just assume that the brand cost per lead is about four times what it shows in platform. The reason for that is I just use this basic assumption of like 75% of the people probably would have found you anyways. It's a random assumption. I don't actually have great data for it, but it helps me understand that if I'm paying $100 per lead on a branded campaign, in my mind I want to think of that probably is closer to $400 because three out of four leads would have found me anyways."

"Yeah, I look at it in a very similar way. I look at a BR campaign as essentially like how much of the real estate do I own versus how hard is it to keep that real estate. If I have great SEO, there is no reason to run a branded campaign assuming that there aren't a large number of other people bidding on my branded terms. Likewise, if I have bad SEO but there's no one bidding on my terms, then again I probably will rank high still. Then the third thing I look at is the quality of who is bidding on my terms. If they're a business that I know I can beat on service or quality or they're not a true peer or they're not in market, I'm not worried about them being on top because I know that they're not a true threat. So those are the things that I look at: who's bidding on it, how many people are bidding on it, and then how's my SEO. With those three things, I use that to gauge how aggressively to bid on branded."

"Yeah, when it comes to SEO, what you basically want to look for is if somebody searches for your brand name, do you show up on the Google business profile and on the website number one. You could have really weak SEO across many keywords. If you at least have your brand, which having your brand is pretty easy, if you just launched a website today you might not rank for your brand, but most people without significant SEO investment can eventually rank for their brand just because you're actually the most relevant thing for that search. Google's going to try to get you there. I can tell you one time where this gets a little bit tricky is when we have brands that are a little bit more generic, which is very common in this space. I'll give the example of we even have one client that had two brands. For anonymity purposes, I won't share every detail, but one of their brands was like 'Sell To' and then the person's name that owned the company. Their other brand was 'Insert the Location Home Buyer' that they were in. So they had these two separate brands. They did a lot of direct mail in one of them and then they did a lot of TV for the other one. The issue that we ran into, we ran branded campaigns for both of those. What we found for this particular client, and this is true generally across other things, is when they had a name like 'Ut

ah Home Buyers' in one market and then 'Baitman Home Buyers' in another market, what we found is when they had a generic brand name like 'Utah Home Buyers,' when somebody's looking up Utah Home Buyers, that's an actual competitive search term. What are we seeing in that market? There's a lot of other people that bid on the term Utah Home Buyers because they're thinking of all the different home buyers in Utah that they can compete against, which is different than just one branded name. In that market, branded campaigns were really critical because if you're going to compete against Utah Home Buyers, everybody in Utah is thinking, 'I want to be a home buyer.' So they're bidding on those terms. Versus if you have a brand name that's just like Baitman Home Buyers, that means Baitman is pretty specific to the company. That means your direct competitors might bid on you, but you won't see a lot of general competition bidding on you. So that's one thing that I see very commonly is if you have a branded name that's very specific to your company, branded campaigns are less important. If you have a brand name that's more generic, like I said Utah Home Buyers, you're going to see more competition and you're going to see a lot more value in branded campaigns."

"Yeah, that's a really good point because I think the type of name you choose for your brand does impact how competitive your branded keywords are. And if your brand name is something common or generic, you might find that you're competing with unrelated searches or businesses, which makes bidding on those terms more necessary. So it’s not just about bidding on your brand name, but also understanding the landscape and how your brand name fits into it."

"Absolutely. And I think another thing to consider is not just the competition for your brand name, but also the cost of the traffic itself. Generic brand names can sometimes be more expensive because you're competing with broader search terms that can have higher costs per click. So even though it might seem straightforward to run a branded campaign, it's important to think strategically about how your brand name influences those costs and whether it's worth the investment."

"Yeah, and just to wrap this up, I think the takeaway for our listeners is that branded campaigns can be a powerful tool, but you need to approach them with a clear strategy and an understanding of how they fit into your overall marketing plan. Look at your SEO, check who's bidding on your terms, and evaluate how generic or specific your brand name is to determine how aggressively you need to bid. It's all about finding that balance and making sure you're not overspending where you don't need to."

"Exactly. It's all about smart spending and making sure every dollar you invest in PPC is working as hard as it can for you. Well, Garrett, thanks for diving into this with me today. I think we’ve covered a lot of ground on branded campaigns."

"My pleasure, Brandon. Always great chatting with you about these topics."

"Thanks for tuning in, everyone. If you have any questions or want to share your own experiences with branded campaigns, feel free to reach out. Until next time, this is Brandon Baitman, signing off from the Collective Clicks podcast. Stay savvy out there!"

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Stephanie Betters, real estate investor and creator of a powerful CRM system, reveals how to use data and persistence to generate real results. Tune in and learn the secrets to take your business to the next level!

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Bitman, and today I'm joined by Stephanie Betters. Stephanie has done a ton of stuff we're going to dig into her background in just a minute. Stephanie is one of the people in this industry that I respect the most and really appreciate a good conversation with. In this conversation, we're going to talk all about how marketing turns into acquisitions, which is through lead management like getting in contact with leads, CRM systems for that, and what kind of metrics to hold your team accountable to. Then we also talk about how you measure your marketing metrics in your CRM. So I think it's a really good tactical episode that just digs into a lot of the weeds. So if you're interested in that kind of thing, I think you'll enjoy it."

"Hey Stephanie, how are you doing today?"

"Hey, hey, how's it going?"

"Pretty fantastic, thank you. I just heard you got back from CG this week. I didn't make it, but lots of traveling?"

"Yes, it was awesome. I was hanging out on the West Coast. Now I'm back on the East Coast."

"Yeah, that's cool. It's funny because I love it when events are on the West Coast because they're closer to me, and I hate when they're on the East Coast. We probably feel the opposite."

"I gotta tell you, you win way more often than I do on that."

"So I'd like to think that a lot of the people listening know who you are. If you would mind just sharing briefly like who you are, what you do, what your background is, so people understand the context of the conversation."

"Okay, yeah sure. I think I have kind of like a little weird story, so weird journey in the real estate space. I'll try to be super brief, but I did not start off being a real estate investor. I started off being a nurse, then nurse practitioner, and I thought like that was going to be it. I thought that was the dream, you know, where I was going to end up and retire from. And then I've gone on this beautiful journey that has led me a different way, which is cool."

"So super long story short, husband and I started with a house hack in 2007 that kind of gave us the real estate bug. Right after we sold that, we went to grad school, him to be a physician assistant, me to be an NP nurse practitioner. Then he really wanted to get back into it, and I was kind of on the fence. We went to school in Long Island, New York, and it was very expensive to live and to be a young professional. And we didn't have family there, so we decided to move to Charlotte for the real estate market, but also because it was great for medicine jobs."

"So we started working in medicine. Like I said, that was my endgame. I was like, 'We're good.' Two years passed and I was like, 'Okay, we can buy some rentals.' I see the picture here we're painting with long-term wealth building with buying rentals. And as I'm sure you've probably heard incessantly, it takes a lot of cash to buy rentals and you need a lot of active income to buy rentals. So we started building a residential real estate fix and flip wholesaling business to kind of fuel income so we could buy more rentals while we were still working full-time."

"Let's see, probably six or seven years into that business running, my husband left being a PA. Essentially as soon as we had financial freedom, he's like, 'I'm out of medicine. This is nuts. These hours are way too long.' And I sat in there and struggled with that decision for a while because I really loved my job. I was working in heart surgery here in Charlotte. I loved my colleagues, I loved my patients. Although I loved doing what we were doing with real estate, I just had a huge identity crisis and so much went into that education and getting that job. I was scared to leave, but two years ago I did leave. So I left after 10 years."

"But while we were working our W2 jobs and building our real estate company, we ran into lots of problems like lead management, data management, marketing challenges in general. And the one in particular that really fired me up was our CRM. There was not a really great CRM choice. This is like in 2018. We were spending $100,000 a month in marketing. We had... I couldn't tell you what worked. I was like, 'I don't know,' and I'm used to the medicine side where like I have data, we get lab work, we get vital signs and make decisions, right? And in real estate, I was like, 'I don't know.' I mean, the phone rang, we got a deal. That's basically all I could have answered. And I kind of hit a wall and got really upset and tried to find a better solution, which there wasn't one. So I made one."

"And now fast forward, like you know, 10 plus years in, we have a real estate company that still does wholesales and new build construction, about 200 deals a year. So here in Charlotte, about half and half between the two those two product lines, wholesaling and new builds. And then I run our real estate... our CRM company, which is based on Salesforce called LeftMain. So my husband runs the real estate company now and I run the software company. And I've since left medicine. Got three... I'm part of lots of fun groups."

"Yeah, that's super cool. And obviously through those groups that we know each other and I've gained a lot of respect for you. And yeah, I don't think we can overstate what you and your husband have accomplished. It's super cool."

"So and it's part of the reason I'm grateful to have you here. Better Path, I'm sorry, that Better Path as a customer of yours, super happy."

"Oh yeah, yeah. Wait, you... we work together?"

"Yeah, you do... We render PPC or something?"

"Yeah, yeah. That's very cool. I honestly, I honestly did not even know that. So I'm grateful that we worked together in that capacity too. That's hilarious. How did I not catch on to that?"

"I don't know. Team is clearly amazing."

"Well, that's great. Yeah, usually our best clients I don't have to hear too much about, so you guys must be pretty good too."

"So all you know, all that considered, I guess just being really open, like part of the reason I'm so excited to have you here is because you match like the theme of this podcast really well, which is this is kind of like... I feel like there's way too much BS in all areas of real estate and we like to use data, we like to use numbers, make sound decisions and kind of cut through some of the myths, some of the thoughts that people have about things that just serve them around, right? And we just end up like running in circles trying to solve a problem one way and really we need to go a different way."

"So this being the podcast, it's mostly about marketing. I thought it'd be a really cool direction to talk about the companion part of that, which is lead management, right? Something that you mentioned to me many times is oftentimes it's not the marketing channel that's the problem, it's the lead management that's the problem. So that's something I want to dig into, and I know that's a lot of the reason why you built the CRM product that you did. And to be honest, like nobody really used, in my opinion based on what I saw, I didn't see anybody really using Salesforce in this industry until you kind of made it possible. It was early before then, and now so many of our clients are LeftMain customers. So that's cool to see how it's come full circle."

"But anyways, that considered, I know it's kind of a broad topic to start, but I really want to just dive into the weeds and some of this stuff. What would you say is like the most simple way to explain how, in your opinion, most investors are failing at lead management?"

"Well, I think that the biggest reason is that they don't have a dedicated process after thinking about live answer. And so I think really to answer this question, we really have to go all the way back to the basics of what was understood about how to monitor if a channel is working or not. And you know, news flash, all the channels work, right? Like we can, and I... we have like 20 different channels at this point. We have so many. But the problem really began with how real estate investors in general started measuring where the things worked, and that was all based on phone calls."

"So and by the way, that's a great metric, but it's just not the only metric. So for example, you sent out a bunch of mail. Did you get phone calls in? How many phone calls did you get in? And did you live answer? And how many outbound phone calls are your teams making, right? It's very entry-level, like dipping your toe in this in the water, like measuring lead management, right? Is really just incoming leads, and it's less... it's more like defensive metrics than offensive metrics."

"So defensive metrics are things that like just come inbound, like I put my stuff out and I generated leads. But offensive metrics is what I did with that lead once I had it, right? So after the phone rang, okay, you live answered. What happened next? Or what if you missed the call? Or what if the lead was generated in a way that didn't answer, that didn't ring the phone, like they filled out a web form, right?"

"The next question that people or the next initiative that people say is like, 'Oh, we got to call that lead as soon as humanly possible,' right? So like a PPC lead comes in, they fill out a form, it didn't generate a phone call you could live answer, but what was that first attempt out? Right? So okay, we all know it's five minutes, right? The sooner we physically call a lead form, the better. But what if they didn't pick up? Now what? Okay, you made the first outbound call, you made that first activity within five minutes, but what's the rest of your lead process? And that's generally where people fail, right?"

"So the current metric of the number of attempts that it takes to contact a lead form, and this is across PPC, anyone who goes to your website and fills out a form, it takes approximately 14 attempts before you actually contact them. Like you receive a response back or they pick up the phone or they text back or they email back or what have you. 14 attempts."

"What I've seen, and I'm super guilty of this in the past as well, we would make that first initial phone call or maybe we'd even triple dial and they didn't pick up. And then we'd maybe call tomorrow, or you know, then we call tomorrow, they didn't pick up. Okay, we'll call in a week. Like we just all of a sudden just put that lead off in the future and we didn't understand that key metric of being contacted."

"So once I personally started measuring the percentage of leads I physically had a conversation with, everything changed. When I first started looking at that metric, it was like 60%, 70% of my leads were actually contacted, meaning like we had tried but then stopped or put them in a follow-up sequence. All of those leads were viable. I just stopped too soon, you know?"

"So the next metric to look at is yes, how many leads have you generated, how many phone calls have you generated, but what percentage of your leads have you physically talked to? And if you hold your lead management team accountable to that metric, everything changes because now it's about quality, not necessarily that quantity. Both are important, of course, but the end result is that we talk to people, right? Not just we like check the box, I made an outbound call within 5 minutes, I'm going to talk to them next week, right?"

"So that's kind of where this lead management conversation starts. How many attempts on average does it take for you to contact somebody? Because once you contact them, now you can actually qualify it. So when we measure our lead channels and we're trying to answer that age-old question, is it a lead source problem or is it a lead management problem? We look at what percentage of leads we contacted, and that is a lead management metric. And then what percentage of those contacted leads were qualified? That's a lead source metric, right?"

"Because once I've contacted you and we talked about your house and you have a house in Timbuktu, okay, you're out of buy box, you're not even qualified. So call or take me off my list, I hate you, I'm gonna kill your family, okay fine. You know, or they're retail and they're not qualified yet and they're a follow-up, right? Now that is giving me insight into the marketing channel because I've physically had a conversation. You can't blame marketing until you've talked to them."

"Yeah, that is super insightful. Thank you for sharing all that. I think it's funny because there's some things... I mean, all entrepreneurs kind of do this where like we kind of know better but we still do the same dumb things. Yeah, I can tell you one of those most common ones that I see across my clients is that like we'll ask them, 'Hey, how long is it taking for you to get to leads?' or 'How often are you contacting leads?' and those kinds of things. And they'll just tell us, 'Oh, we're always getting to leads immediately and we're super aggressive. This is what that looks like.' And then we just dig into it. We're like, 'Well, I found that this lead looked good but it wasn't contacted. Can we pull up your CRM and can we look at this?' And like first contact was made after like three hours, and then they've been called like once a day for a few days, and like that's it, right? And it happens all the time where like the business owner, the way that they're measuring this... like do you talking about actual like data and accountability in a system to measure these things? Unfortunately, what we see so many of our clients doing is the way they measure it is they ask their team, 'Hey, you were getting... you're getting to leads immediately, right?'"

"Right, and their team of course assures them that they are when they're not because the team, like whatever, no sales people do, they just like remember the best case scenario that's ever happened. Like, 'Yeah, I got a lead in yesterday and I called it immediately when it came in and I got in touch with the person. It was perfect, leading blah blah blah.' But they don't talk about the nine that they didn't call or something like that."

"So really hard because perception becomes reality and our own bias can change our mind when we are looking at something objectively. And I'm super guilty of this too. Like a good example for me that I'm always guilty of is, 'Oh, I feel so... like I feel so busy, like I've just done so much today.' And I'm like, 'Okay, what did I actually do?' I made one phone call, I sent three emails, and I spent the rest of the day like stressing out about something that didn't even move the needle, right? But I felt super busy and like I did so much. Why didn't I get the result I wanted? But if I actually look at what I did in an objective way, I'm like, 'Oh, well it's because I actually only did a few things.' Like I shouldn't stop wasting my time like... you know, pulling my hair out and it's... it's hard to be objective. It's super hard."

"And that objective feedback loop also needs to be in a non-confrontational way for you personally or your team to not shut down because you don't... you want data to help you. You don't want data to like be in your face, like slap you in the face, you know? So if we get used to looking at things together on a daily basis and figure out what actually does help you do your job better, then data is your friend and can make you feel empowered instead of being disabled, you know?"

"So a lot of those... 100% what percentage of your leads did you contact? That should be a daily conversation. Like, 'Okay, great, I'm getting towards that 90% metric. I want to make sure I get in contact with 90% of my leads.' Instead of like, 'Hey, when did you call that person first?' and it's like pulling them out of a meeting or pulling them out of a phone call to try to answer a question that's in... like, 'Oh no, you didn't.' Then it just... then it just feels terrible, you know?"

"Yeah, I totally understand what you're saying. One thing, sorry to get maybe a little too nitty-gritty with this, but just talking specifically about some of the metrics I was talking about, I just want to share with some of the clients some of the issues that I'm seeing on my side. And one of them is like, let's just say you took gross leads and you look at how many are contacted, it kind of ignores the fact that not every gross lead really is a lead that can be contacted. Like there are some that are spam or whatever the case is, right? So how do you deal with those fan of situations? Like do you just assume that like works into it or do you like separate out those leads somehow on those metrics?"

"I can tell you what we do is we have two separate metrics for our clients. We have a gross to net lead rate which cuts out all the spam and stuff like that, and then we look at what percentage of the net leads are contacted. But even that's not perfect. Like we just had a situation with a client this week where they have like a really high percentage of spam leads based on the feedback that they're giving us, and we're looking at... we like can't figure out what's going on. And then we have the suspicion that like a lot of these leads could not actually be spam that they're marking as spam. And then one of my team called a couple of them and asked them like, 'Hey, are you trying to sell a house?' and they like answered and they said yes. And we're like, 'Okay, well that... whoever their lead manager is was just saying like because it's suspicious, it's like, oh all the leads are spam.' Or of them that aren't spam, 100% of them you contacted. That doesn't look right. How do you deal with those kind of things, I guess is what I'm asking."

"Very, very specific criteria. So I love this question. This is such a common thing and I love it, I love it. Okay, so a gross lead is anybody who's opted into anything. A net lead is anybody but spam, right? And so what is spam? Spam is like, 'Oh, I'm calling you about your car insurance' or whatever, right? Trying to sell you something, businesses to business services, right? Like that is what spam is."

"Unqualified is different. Like if somebody calls you and they don't have a house to sell, that's not spam, that's unqualified. They're like, 'I don't know, I thought I was playing a video game online, I filled out your thing.' Okay, that's unqualified. That's different than spam. Same thing with somebody who's like, 'Well, I'm not sure if I'm going to sell. I'm just trying to figure out what's happening, like what the value is of my house.' That is follow-up or potentially unqualified depending on how crazy strict you are, but that is not spam, right?"

"And I think that sometimes the culture we have of like turning, turning, turning and trying to call someone first can also lend to quickly disqualifying people when they shouldn't be disqualified or falsely labeling them as spam. Like spam is very specifically something that makes absolutely no sense, right? Like, 'I'm calling you about your tires on your car.' Like, okay, that's spam."

"And I even have a tendency, depending on how frequent it is, to just delete those. Like just delete them out of your system, don't even keep spam BS in your system. But to your point, if you have this huge uptick in spam, like maybe one of your numbers got placed somewhere or you know, you need to... you know one of your channels is infected in some way. So you do need to have a way of labeling that and tracking it, but spam is literally only that. And I think being specific with that and teaching your lead managers, especially if they're overseas and don't know what these things mean, that has to be number one, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah. I totally understand. Yeah, we had a client just the other day get like name... Lead: Tony Stark. Like, like those kinds of things you're like, 'Wait, that's... but that's... that's not normal,' right? And it's... it should be clearly identifiable."

"One other metric you might be interested in, I recently did like a study across a few of our clients and what we looked at is like on a lead basis, how quickly was it contacted? And we put those into different buckets and we looked at how the whole funnel progresses based on that data. And what was really interesting is our clients that got to the lead slowly, or another even way to say is the leads that were gotten to slowly, maybe even from the same client that sometimes gets the leads fast, those leads had a higher contact rate than the ones that we... I'm sorry, if we got to it quickly, then we had a higher contact rate than if we got to it slowly, which everybody expects that to happen, right? That's super standard."

"The thing that surprised me is looking deeper in the funnel, we had a way better opportunity to contract conversion if it was contacted quickly initially, and we had a huge number of opportunities per contract if it was contacted slowly. So I think there's this common bias that people have where they just assume like, 'Okay, maybe I wasn't super quick, but I still got in touch with the lead, then it's fine.' But I guess what we're seeing is the faster you can touch the lead, the greater likelihood that it becomes a contract later, even assuming you already got in touch with it, which is honestly not something that I expected to see until I saw the data. And then I thought that actually makes a lot of sense, like how it even affects your downstream metrics, which like reassures me like why it's so important that you hold people accountable so they respond to... like in or you know, you pay them based on the results or whatever the case is, or getting contact with the lead. But you still have to hold accountable to that process. Like just because you called after 10 minutes and you still got in touch with them doesn't mean that's okay if our standard is 60 seconds for new leads or whatever the case is."

"100% because what happened? They had had enough time to have a conversation with someone else, and then now you have competition, right? So okay, you got an appointment, but so did three other people."

"Exactly. Then that's exactly what my hypothesis was on when I looked at... I'm like, it's got to be... it's got to be a competitive thing, especially if you're looking at like a PPC lead. Like do you think anybody has a hard time finding a wholesaler on Google? Like type in 'sell my house fast,' you will find dozens and dozens on Google of all of your competitors. Do you think they only just reach out to you, or they only intend to reach out to you? No, they reach out to everybody unless they reach out to you and then you call them so quick that like they're caught in their tracks. And then you have that kind of conversation with them that makes them feel like they don't need to go somewhere else, and that that's the end of their search. But I don't think everybody thinks about it that way."

"But like these... especially with PPC, because let's just say we're talking like Facebook ads or something like that. Okay, they saw your ad, they could see someone else's ad. Let's say we're talking about TV. Like yeah, they could be seeing both ads, but PPC is the only place where they see your ad and everybody else's ad at the same time."

"Exactly, exactly. In an active search that exact moment, it adds a whole new level of urgency."

"100%. And I think if you... if you miss that, if you miss them on the first outbound phone call, you have... so not only like you're saying you have to have immediate action, but if you don't, and that's got a clock... like our standards, it's less than five minutes. You have to... and obviously the sooner the better. Don't hang up the phone if you're talking to somebody to call somebody else, but within five minutes you have to make that first outbound phone call physically from a human being. But you can text them right away automatically. You can email them right away automatically. Like you can do things minute zero that will help you when you make that first outbound call."

"Nothing's going to replace a human being calling another human being, right? Like that's definitely gold standard. But all those things need to happen within the first five minutes. But if you make that first outbound call, maybe it is five minutes and somebody called them at 60 seconds, or maybe you called at 10 minutes and they called at five and they don't... and whatever, whatever it is. If you, when you made your outbound call and they didn't pick up, the first 90 minutes of activity is extremely important. Like you... there needs to be massive outreach within the first 90 minutes."

"So you make the phone call within the first five, you call, you text, you email, and then you call, text, email again, and you do everything you can to get those 14 attempts done as soon as humanly possible. And I think that's the second piece that people drop in the management process. They're like, 'Well, I called right away. I'm off the hook.' No, you need to call 20 times within the first day because if you didn't get that answer the first time for whatever reason, maybe it came in after hours and now it's 8 a.m., whatever, right? You have to make massive outreach for them to actually respond to you, and then now you actually have a chance. But if you gave up and put it on for next week, like that lead is going to be dead. You're not going to be able to close it or qualify it even, you know?"

"Yeah, that totally makes sense. And I highly doubt that anybody's listening to this and thinking that's really dumb. I don't think anything that they're saying makes sense. Highly doubt it. But where we all struggle is like implementing and knowing exactly like... you know, my biggest pet peeve in business is when you have KPIs that don't actually ensure that things are happening, right? So all your KPI scorecards are looking brilliant, but still things aren't working. And I think a lot of people are there with their lead management."

"So, so like, I totally agree, right? Like first contact matters a ton, number of touches within 90 minutes for example matters a ton, number of touches within 24 hours. And I think everybody would generally agree that like you start out heavier and then you know, you're probably not going to call them 20 times a day after 6 months if they haven't picked up the phone, right? So there's like there's some type of like gradual decline of that. But help me understand like where the rubber meets the road here. Like what exactly is happening on a day-to-day basis? Like what exact numbers are you recommending that people use where you think like if they measure the numbers that way, then they're most likely to ensure that they have a gapless lead management process?"

"I think the number one most important metric is the percentage of leads that you've contacted. I think that is more important than the number of leads that came in or your even first outbound call. That's the most important. And then incentivizing your team and/or even just metric them to that. Like if you are a lead manager, you have a full-time lead manager, and you are having a hard time hitting 90% contact rate, then you probably need more than one lead manager. And generally, that is the case that you just have so many leads in your system that you physically can't do... you know, hit that 90% contacted ratio without additional help or additional automation."

"And I would not underestimate automatic text... text messages and even automatic emails. People are shocked... like emails do really well. And even mail. Like for example, a first... a step one form where people just put in their address, right? And then they never fill out anything else, or maybe you don't even get their phone number. Just send them a piece of mail. You can look up the address and get their first and last name. That's easy. And if you have, you know, CRM that can look that up like LeftMain, fine, look up who the owner is on record on that person and send them... send them a letter."

"Like 10% of our... of our step one forms respond to mail but never respond to calling or texting when we try to skip trace them. Like, riddle me that. I don't get it. You opted in on the internet. Why... I can't... why you don't want to talk on the phone, I don't know. But if I send you a check letter, you call back 10% of the time. That's wild, you know?"

"So sometimes you need to do some of these like companion channels where you introduce another way. Just like retargeting, right? Like okay, they went on your website, but they didn't fill out your form, but then they... you got them on Facebook. You can retarget with other outbound metrics too besides just a phone call, like texting, emailing, mail."

"Yeah, super insightful because I mean, everybody has their own way that like they like to be contacted, and it's not always the way that you like to talk to, right? Or your sales team likes to talk to people, right? And you know how some of these people are... like some are super financially distressed and they probably have a million people calling them all the time. They don't recognize phone numbers. So even if they filled out a form, they're not interested in responding to an incoming call. But they probably would open something that looks like a check if they're financially distressed, right? And so how quickly you get a check out to somebody or... or a letter out to somebody... kind of like when you get pulled over by the police and you get a speeding ticket. Like you get 17 letters from lawyers like, 'Yeah, we'll get you out of that ticket,' right? Takes a day or two, but then you get them."

"For whatever reason, people... feels like you're speaking from experience."

"I got a speeding ticket for the first time in 10 years recently, and I was like... I was just thinking you don't... you don't seem like the kind of person that gets speeding tickets to me. Maybe... maybe I read you wrong."

"Yeah, I got a Tesla, and the first week I got a Tesla, I got a speeding ticket because it was so much fun to drive. And I waited so long for the stupid thing to come, and then I was just like... it was totally clear, it was beautiful, you know? It was very safe on the highway. And anyway, I got a ticket, and then I got a letter like... then like two days later from a ton of lawyers that could get me out of the ticket. And I was like, 'Why aren't we doing this with real estate?' Like, why... obviously like, you know, people are foreclosures or whatever, but what about... what about if they fill out a form on my website? Or if someone I'm having a hard time getting a hold of, why don't I try to send the mail too? And I'm like, no lie, the response rate is right around 10%."

"Yeah, that's... that's high. That's really significant."

"So it sounds like to you 90% is kind of the benchmark for the percentage of leads that we should be contacting?"

"Yes."

"Over what time period is that? Is that like 90% measured up the... the first 24 hours or a week or a month?"

"Super good question. We... we... it's a rolling total over the quarter. So like essentially every week you should be getting to the 90% mark, but sometimes you won't contact someone until later, and that's totally fine. But for the quarter, you should be averaging 90%."

"Understood. Okay, that... that's super helpful and actionable. And I... I can tell you our clients average about 85%. Just for whatever reference point it is. And then our clients that are really on top of it often will be 90%, 92%, 93%. It's huge... that little difference, that little lever is so beginning of funnel that if you can improve that just... that... that one KPI, you're going to make a few more deals just because of how the conversions go down... down pipeline, you know?"

"Yeah, you know what... like makes my blood boil? From the salesperson says that a lead's not good because they don't answer the phone. Like they must not be that motivated, that's why they're not answering my phone call. And meanwhile, I'm just thinking like, if you... they're probably not answering anybody's phone call. If you could be the person that actually get ahold of them, like that's a good lead."

"Yeah, exactly. So try something else, bro."

"Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, turns out commission is not the only way to make sales happen, right?"

"I know, like a lot of people have that mindset of like, 'Oh, I'm paying them commission so they'll just do whatever it takes,' but like, no salesperson is going to think, 'Oh, let me just send a check letter,' right? Nobody thinks that. That's why, you know, there's a combination here."

"Okay, that... that's super helpful. I feel like I have a better understanding of like how you... how you view lead management. Is there anything else you'd say that's like a key thing where investors are just usually getting this wrong with lead management?"

"Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing is just being too quick to disqualify folks or screen them out if they don't seem motivated, right? So trying to be a little bit more objective with that is helpful. Like for example, 'Oh, I'm just checking the value of the house,' right? And you're like, 'Okay, well tell me a little bit about the property,' and they're... they're on the hook enough that they're going to talk to you about the property. I'm not talking about those people who are like, 'Oh, email me an offer.' Those people, put them in follow-up. But for the people who are like, 'Well, I... you know, I don't have to sell anytime soon. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm going to do next. I need to downsize,' or what have you. 'So here I am, you know, but I'm in... you know, I'm in no way in a rush,' and they're on the phone with you and you're able to talk to them a little bit more."

"I think that a lot of times these people can undersell their motivation but truly have like a lot of repairs. So one of the ways that we qualify people and set an appointment, especially if they'll let us, right, is if they have old systems. So if you... if you're on the call with us and you're like, 'Well, I'm not... no rush, you know? I... I have a mortgage but I have equity, you know, so I don't care,' but, 'My systems are 30 years old,' or 'They're original, this is a 1970s house, I've never replaced the roof,' or whatever. I'm going out to that house, right? No matter how cool they seem on the phone and not in a rush and maybe 'I'm going to list it.' I want to go out because those systems are old. And a lot of the times they... they... they're cool as a cucumber on the phone, but you get out there and they're... they're hoarder or they have so much distress and they just were... had a wall up on the phone because it was easy. You see them face to face and they just kind of crumble, you know what I mean? So, you know, obviously the hallmarks of motivation are personal motivation, financial motivation, but don't forget about repair motivation. Like that is important to ask."

"That's super cool. I totally... I totally agree. And honestly, I'm speaking out of my like area of expertise if I'm talking about like... like motivation. Like I've never been in a seller's house. I do notice some interesting things across our... across our data though. One thing I've noticed in particular is that there's a strong bias usually of companies that are coming from outbound channels to inbound channels with how they qualify leads because they're sort of used to assuming that a lead is unmotivated until you can prove that it is motivated. Versus with a lot of our clients are doing from the... the best ones, PPC and Facebook ads and SEO, we find that they're usually assuming that a lead is good and that it's motivated until they can really prove that it's not. And there's this like continuum you could picture like on one side it's like we go on every possible appointment that we could ever go on, and then on the other side it's like we're cherry-picking appointments. And everybody's just so afraid of being on the side where you waste time at appointments. But it... I can't even tell you how rare it is that we find a client with... with these channels that we manage specifically. Maybe this is super common across other channels, but it's so exceptionally rare that we find a client that has more than like five appointments to get to a contract. Like everybody they... like there's a... there's a happy middle, right? I'm not saying you have to go... like every single possible appointment, but they... we find it so much more common that our clients are like afraid to go on the appointment, afraid to waste the time. But all day, every day we have clients that are like over-qualifying leads because they're afraid of under-qualifying them. And it's so... so rare that we actually have a problem from under-qualifying leads. Just almost never happens."

"I couldn't agree more. I think... so I'm very triggered by 'waste my time.' Like nobody says that to me because I get so upset. Like nothing is... what do you mean waste your time? We just... especially after how much money we've just spent to generate a phone call or to generate a form. Like nothing is a waste of time. And if that's you saying it about yourself and... and you're the guy going out in the appointments, the girl going out in appointments, you're like, 'I don't want to go out there. I've got all kinds of stuff going on. I don't want to go out there just to waste my time.' That is a personnel issue. That is not a lead issue. That is 100% a personnel issue, and you need to fix that problem because it's not a waste of time. Like nothing... there is a waste of time."

"If you... if you are worth your salt as a salesperson and you go out there and they're not a great fit, like you just made a relationship. And birds of a feather flock together, and what do you think is going to happen next? Like all that is extremely worth it, right? You made a... you've made a connection. These people likely have friends and family. This is a person in your community. Like you can get a good review out of this even if you tell someone, 'Hey, I'm not... I'm not the right fit,' and ask them for a Google review. Like you can turn something into something, right? Just by even... not even someone you can't physically help, by telling the truth or being a human being, right?"

"So but like you said, what you'll find most of the time is that it's a deal. Like you just need to go on more appointments. And if you're burnt out and tired of going on appointments, then find somebody else to do it."

"Yeah, yeah. It's a... super fair... super fair thought. I think it's funny sometimes. I think like some of the best salespeople are like almost delusional. I... I... so we took our... our clients to have the best lead conversion, 'cause we measure this stuff full circle and how they're actually doing from a lead conversion standpoint. Everybody talks some big game, but like I... I took like a few of the ones"

‍

Aaron and Miquella Gaunt of Sellers New Day spent years grinding to build their wholesaling business from the ground up. They tried every outbound marketing tactic like blasting 30,000 texts per day and managing a team of 20 cold callers. But it was grueling work without sustained results.

That all changed when they made a strategic shift to inbound 'big boy' marketing through Google ads. This transformation allowed them to start closing hot, motivated seller leads consistently.

In this candid conversation, Aaron and Miquella open up about their journey from a bootstrapped startup to a 7-figure wholesaling powerhouse. They reveal the key pivots, critical hires, and million-dollar marketing strategies that fueled their explosive growth.

If you're a real estate entrepreneur looking to take your business to the next level, this is an insightful master class packed with practical tactics straight from the trenches.

0:00 - Introduction
1:12 - The Early Grind Years
3:48 - Outbound Marketing Tactics
6:22 - The Big Boy Marketing Shift
9:37 - Building Systems & Processes
12:15 - Ambitious Growth Plans for 2024
15:40 - Marketing Spend & Returns
17:55 - Closing Thoughts

Thanks for listening to Collective Clicks!

We're always looking to improve the pod: drop us some feedback here.

If you're looking to finally unlock PPC as your best marketing channel, you can start with a free strategy consultation here.

‍

"Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm doing something a little special for you. I went to visit a couple of our clients in Southern California, Aaron and Michaela Gant. We talked about how they took their business from $0 in revenue from PPC to seven figures of PPC revenue in just a year. The first episode is about what kind of decisions were made to make that happen and an overview of the whole situation. In future episodes, we're going to dig pretty deeply into different aspects of their business and how they've been functioning with a national real estate model over the past year."

"Well, thank you both for being so welcoming and allowing me to stop by your office today. I'm really excited to dig into a lot of how your business works and what has been happening over the past year. I know you've had tons and tons of changes. So, if it's not too much to ask, let's just start with an overview of what you're doing now and what some of the biggest changes over the past year have been."

"Thanks for coming by to our office," Aaron said. "And, you know, obviously being a guest in our home, the team was really excited to have you here. Just in our short conversations, we've already been learning a lot and getting to know you a little bit more. One thing we did when we first started our wholesale company—we just ended year four, as you already know—was move along our journey. A lot of that four years was just learning how to do business. I was a blue-collar guy before then: fire department, military. We've just been learning how to do business."

"In 2022, we did a lot of scaling with text messaging, that cheaper form of marketing. We were sending out 30,000 text messages a day," Aaron continued.

"30,000 a day? Did I hear that right?" Brandon asked.

"Yes," Aaron confirmed. "At a $5,000 fine per text message. We had about 20 cold callers, and we didn't just have them; we tried all different types of cold callers. We had cold callers in-house. We built our own team of cold callers. We hired a bunch of VAs and trained them up ourselves. And we've had outside companies, obviously, use their cold callers. So, we've tried and scaled other types of marketing channels that a lot of people come into this space and try."

"Now, obviously, there is a graduation phase where we should be going from outbound marketing to inbound marketing. That's what we're doing now. Other people call it 'big boy marketing.' So, I tell my team, 'Hey, we're doing big boy marketing,' which is PPC and direct mail. This upcoming year, we're going to be really perfecting direct mail. We've always seen a great return on direct mail, but we're going to do it at a high level. But, obviously, what we're here to talk about today is what we did last year, which has been PPC and some Facebook, and we'll get to that as well."

"We went with you because we were very attracted to the idea of hiring a PPC company that had multiple clients. You knew how to scale your campaign because of all the clients you have and all the past experience. Rather than us just jumping in and figuring it out, we knew to pay you handsomely so that we could excel a lot quicker than we would if we were doing it by ourselves. And also, we'd probably crash and burn because I'm trying to scale the team, run a business, and don't need to worry about this one marketing channel. But the cool thing is, this past year, we were only doing pretty much PPC and a little bit of other types of marketing. We can talk about that later. But it was primarily PPC and trying to perfect that."

"I'm trying to lay out what I understood happened, and you tell me if I'm getting this right," Brandon said. "So, in 2022, it was texting, cold calling, everything outbound, every way you can imagine. And it was right at the end of 2022 that we started working together, I think it was like September or November, something like that. And then in 2023, you had a year where you're still operating as a business, maybe a little smarter, a little bigger team, but things are completely different in your marketing. Did you phase the cold calling and texting out slowly or quickly? Tell me about what the business accomplished in 2022 versus 2023."

"I think we talked about this," Aaron replied. "And again, this is just me hypothetically talking. It really comes down to—it almost doesn't matter what type of marketing you do; it really does come down to what you're spending on marketing. But for us, and the way the cash conversion cycle that a lot of people like to talk about definitely changed. When it comes to phasing out cold calling and text messaging, we really phased out cold calling—we almost did a hard stop on it. We were sick of it; we didn’t like the leads. We made a good chunk of money through cold calling, but it wasn't the type of leads I wanted to give my team. Also, I'm not a big fan of lead managers. With inbound marketing, the 'big boy marketing' we're talking about, those leads go directly to your acquisition people. They can get right on it and follow up. It's a different type of sale."

"Yeah, I think I heard a podcast with you," Aaron continued. "You were talking about the type of salesperson. You had a client, and his whole team was based on text messaging and cold calling. They knew how to close those leads with a lot of follow-up. Then they got PPC, and the owner tried to close the deals. He was the only one closing them. He had to fire his whole team and retrain."

"That's what I love about having our team," Aaron said. "When those leads come in, we make it a whole fiasco in our office. When a PPC lead comes in, we ring the bell. We’re shouting from the rooftops, 'New lead, new lead,' and everybody is calling that lead, trying to be the first to contact it. We're about contact rate here. We know we’re spending a good chunk of change on that, and we know it’s a great opportunity because of the type of motivation for somebody to type in 'I need to sell my house' from a Google PPC lead. Whoever answers the call or gets a hold of that person has a higher chance of closing that deal rather than the 50 cold call leads that came in that day."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Brandon said. "I'm curious to hear your perspective, Michaela. What’s different about how the business looks today versus a year ago?"

"I think with changing it from outbound marketing to inbound leads, our team is putting efforts into better channels," Michaela replied. "They’re not spending time calling the 50 leads that came in from text and cold calls and getting beat up. Now they’re spending their time on those inbound leads and having better conversations because these people want to sell. Are they sometimes unrealistic? Sure, but at least now they’re actually having conversations instead of just getting yelled at. We still do text messaging, but we scaled it back dramatically. There were changes with the vendors we were using, so the pricing plan was completely different. We decided to put those funds into PPC instead. You can see a different attitude in our team because they’re not getting beat up all day. They are, but in a different way. We're just making sure our efforts are in the right spot."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Brandon said. "So, team morale is a little bit different. Based on what you told me before, Aaron, it sounds like revenue is in a similar place to where it was the year prior with a similar amount of marketing spend, but you’ve completely changed the way your business is doing it. You have pretty big plans for next year. Do you feel like you’re in a more scalable spot now than you were a year ago?"

"Yeah, when you talk about scalability, one thing we did for 2023, and I'm so proud of it, is that by bringing on your company to help our company grow, we wanted to make sure we took care of these leads. We value these leads. I don’t think a lot of people value the leads like they should. At the beginning of this year, I focused on leadership. Like John Maxwell says, I needed to raise that ceiling. The second focus was culture. With just those two things, we built levers in our company to hire, retain, train, and onboard. Those are vitally important to ensure that as we bring on new people, we can scale. By focusing on that, we also worked on building a solid foundation for processes and procedures, accountability, and scorecards. We call them our stoplight report to keep everybody accountable. The numbers are in front of everyone all the time, and they know what metrics they need to hit. By having more visual aids, it's easier to monitor people. We've seen that as long as you hit those numbers, the results will come. This year, we built such a strong foundation that now we can throw people in those seats because we even have a process for hiring. The people we've brought on with this new recruiting process have stuck. When they come in, it's just hit the ground and go."

"That’s crazy interesting," Brandon said. "I’ve always thought it was interesting how businesses grow. We think it looks like this straight line, but really it's kind of like this—flattening for a minute and then growing a little bit more. It’s not always reflected in the revenue how much you’re growing. I know I've been that way with my own company, growing your capability, growing your people,

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Brandon is back with Miquella and Aaron Gaunt to explore how they successfully expanded their business from Southern California to operating across 14 states nationally. In this episode they are also joined by Stephanie, one of the key players responsible for managing the Gaunts' disposition process as their Investment Sales Director. In this conversation, Stephani and Miquella provide a behind-the-scenes look at how their team has adapted to handle dispositions at a nationwide scale.

"Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today is another episode in our series with Aaron and Micha Lant, who took their business from local in Southern California and expanded it nationally and had to figure out the dispositions portion of that. We're going to talk with them about what they did, who's on the team, what kind of processes they have for dispositioning deals in a variety of markets, and I think you'll learn a lot. Stephanie, Michaela, thank you both for joining me to talk all about dispositions."

"Yeah, um, I have no doubt this has changed a ton in the business over the past year or so since we started working together, because obviously a year ago you started just in Southern California. That's where you're doing dispositions, and you've transferred from that to how many states?"

"I think we're at 14, 14 states."

"Yeah, yeah. So I don't even know where to start. Like what, maybe you can help me understand like what are some of the biggest things that have changed with you trying to figure that out over the past year?"

"We realize we need a lot more. You know, we've changed from being order takers. You know, we had the how the market was in 2021 and 2022 where pretty much anything you blasted out, you just had people, you know, calling in and they would sell pretty quickly. And so with the market shift, you know, we definitely saw that there was more work that needed to be put into dispo a property. A lot of people that, you know, they may see the post, they may see the email blast, but they kind of get hesitant on it. So it really takes our team cold calling them, getting them on the phone, talking more in depth about it for them to realize like, 'Hey, this is a deal and this is worth it.'"

"We were able before to have two to three acquisition people per one disposition person, and now like Aaron mentioned earlier, we're one to one. With our acquisition guys getting two to three contracts a week minimum, you know, that's a lot on the dispo side. And when they're having to spend more time on them, they really need to not be bombarded with too many deals. So, and with nationwide, I mean, that adds a whole other fun aspect into that."

"Yeah, um, that's a maybe a good place to start is exit strategies. So you're mostly doing wholesale, you're doing novations?"

"Uh, yeah, wholesale, novation. We kind of... the goal is always to get it on market, you know, that's really and do the novation route. That's where you're going to get the biggest buyer pool. But we'll start once we get the property, you know, we do start by blasting it out on Investor Lift and kind of cold calling the area while they're also looking for an agent to list it. So you got about a few days to see if we can move it off market, but if not, it's ultimately ending up on market."

"Okay, so it's kind of like work at wholesale first and then only move it off market if it makes the spread that we're looking for. If it doesn't, then it's like, 'Okay, yeah, then we put it on market.'"

"Okay, so it's sort of sequential, and obviously the best-case scenario is you find a super high offer off market in two days, and then you just go there. But if you don't, then you can novate it. And it sounds like with the seller, you could go either way. You're generally putting together agreements where you can novate it or wholesale it?"

"Yeah, yeah. They always go into it and they kind of get all the contracts signed ahead of time and have that conversation with them ahead of time of 'We're, you know, bringing in a third-party buyer.' So we set the sellers up from the get-go that that's the route that we're going to take, whether we take that one or not. If we do move it off market, we have the situations where some sellers don't want that, and so, you know, you just price it accordingly. And then some we only move off market, but they're pretty much set up for novations."

"Got it. That makes sense because a lot of people that I've worked with, they kind of say like, 'This is a novation deal' or 'This is a cash deal.' You sort of say it's a deal and we're going to move it however we can. You set expectations up front, and if you set the expectation that it's going to be harder for the seller, it ends up being easier. That's fine."

"Yeah, because it is... we found it's hard to go back to the seller and then change the premise of how we got under contract. You know, that's much harder. There's much more resistance on that versus just upfront being transparent and saying, 'This is what we're doing. We're bringing a third-party buyer.' There you go."

"Yeah, totally understood. Uh, and Stephanie, I understand you work... yeah, what do you call it, dispositions agent? Is that actually..."

"We call it um, investment sales director."

"Investment sales director, okay. And it sounds the way it sounds, you know?"

"Yeah, 'cause you know, it's all about stroking people's egos in this business. I've noticed, so you know, when you tell them that big, you know, title, they seem to really like, really respect you, especially because of the title, I think."

"Yeah, fair enough. I think it does definitely go a long way."

"Yeah, so this is what you're doing on a day-to-day basis?"

"Yes."

"Um, help me understand your process like start to finish. Um, somebody gets a contract locked up, then what happens?"

"So it comes over to the disposition side. Uh, we connect with the seller, introduce ourselves, kind of get a little bit acquainted, build some rapport with them, uh, because we are going to be in contact with them through the entire process, uh, once it goes from acquisition to dispo. Um, and then after that, we also try to get photos from them. If we can't, then we have other means that we're able to use in order to get those photos, either with, uh, you know, um, an outside source or the agent that we're going to work with."

"Um, for some properties or states, uh, we already have an idea of who we're going to work with as far as an agent because we've been doing this for a while now. Um, so we kind of have the agents' list built pretty well."

"Um, so after we talk with the seller, uh, that's when we get going on marketing. Uh, we get it blasted out on Investor Lift. During that period of time, we already start working on looking for agents. Um, of course if the seller is not okay with listing the property, which doesn't really happen too often - usually they're pretty okay with it - um, unless of course they have like a time frame or speed. Um, if they have more time, then of course novate it. Um, but yeah, so and then once we get the agent, we can usually tell within the first two to three days whether or not we can sell it off market, um, because we'll get a lot of action, you know, on Investor Lift. If it's, you know, kind of silent, um, then that's when you know that you need to get an agent on it. Um, also based on the spread too as well, whether or not we can novate."

"Yeah, yeah, understood. Um, if I could just ask a few questions about that. So you start with, uh, it sounds like Investor Lift is kind of one of the first things, um, that you look at. I imagine you're just kind of throwing it into the system, letting it be listed there, and then it sounds like you do some cold calling to buyers and stuff like that too. Is that something you do personally, or do you have like separate cold callers that work in the company to be calling buyers?"

"Do personally."

"So that's like part of your job for any deal that you have, as you're going to be calling the buyers. How many buyers do you call?"

"You want to make 75 calls a day. So at least 75 buyers, sometimes that could actually just be 35 because of course I multiply. I call, you know, five times."

"Get those pick up. We triple tap."

"Yes."

"Okay, okay. So so that's the, that's the goal overall is 75 calls a day?"

"Yeah, and then depending on the number of deals you're working, that kind of determines your capacity, how deep you can be going with each of those deals. And we like to double tap because even, say that like, like this morning I got a call three times from a buyer. That just goes to show me how much interest they have in the property. So, you know, other buyers may have properties that they're selling also as well, so just it says a lot when you're calling multiple times, um, you know, for someone there. It sounds urgent, it creates that urgency."

"So well, nowadays everybody thinks it's spam."

"So yeah, exactly. That if you're calling the same, if you're getting the same call from a number two to three times, it's like, 'Okay, maybe this is something I need to answer.'"

"Yeah, fair enough. Do you text them as well, or no?"

"Mhm, yes."

"Okay, so you call, cold call, and text basically your buyers to try to get the deal. What, what, what do you say to them? What does it generally look like?"

"Just let them know, 'Hey, I'm calling you in regards to a deal. I seen that you were a VIP investor on our buyer list, and I wanted you to get an opportunity, you know, to jump on this deal. I didn't want you to miss out.' So, yeah."

"Okay, got it. Very cool. So, so it starts there."

"Yes."

"And then you'll kind of know within a few days how that's going based on are these people actually interested. Of course, you've blasted it out too, and how many, uh, how much interest do you get there. Then you look for agents?"

"Yes."

"And how do you look for agents?"

"Um, I go on Zillow, I'll use Redfin, PropStream. Um, I like to work with agents that have already sold a property within that area within the last few months. Um, and I'll narrow it down that way, and I call about five agents at a time. Um, kind of just first come, first serve, you know, whoever gets the CMA to me. I like to get at least two to three CMAs. Um, that way I know what I'm working with. And they, if they all kind of, uh, meet in the middle or at the same, then that's when I determine, you know, how my conversations went with that agent, you know, how confident they sounded, what kind of strategies that they use. I like to work with the ones that are very creative, how responsive they are."

"Yeah, responsive too, uh, proactive, um, you know, how much urgency they have behind them as well because, uh, time is of the essence. We want to get this sold as soon as possible, and also realistic too as well."

"Okay. I understood it. CMA, what does that mean?"

"Um, comparative market analysis."

"I saw the pause. I'm probably the only person..."

"Thank you."

"I'm the only person here who doesn't know what that is."

"Okay. Um, okay, so you get that, and that kind of tells you sort of how they think about it, and you could probably tell if they're, how qualified they are."

"We like to look at it too because I want to see how knowledgeable are they, you know. Are they going to send me something and say, 'Oh, you can list your property for $200,000,' but I go and I look at the comps in the area and I'm seeing that a fully renovated, all fixed up house sold for $190? Then they don't know what they're doing, you know. It's not common that they overshoot. Uh, some, some tend to, some of them because they forget that they're... you know, a lot of agents, I'd say 50-50, aren't used to dealing with investment-type properties and fixer-uppers. They're just, they're in their mind thinking retail, top of the market, most for the property. It's like, yeah, we want to get the most for the property, but we also want this to move fast, you know."

"I know there's some people that they say, 'Well, we have the contract for 60 days, so we're going to wait the whole 60 days to move it,' but we don't want, we don't like doing that to our sellers. We don't like stringing them along. Um, you know, within two weeks, our goal is within two weeks. So we're making sure that we're pricing it aggressively to move fast and not sit. Now, some areas are going to sit. We had the conversation with the sellers ahead of time, 'Hey, based on this area, everything's sitting for 60 to 90 days,' you know. So we have a lot of those conversations up front with the seller as well. Um, but even with that, we've, we've make sure that, okay, well if things are moving at X price, drop it down a little bit lower than that so that it's looking even more appealing, you know. Everything is to get it moved and get it moved fast, and that's what I meant by realistic."

"Yeah, I want a realistic price point, not something that, you know, it looks good. Um, I need a realistic... 'cause I would... we want an offer within two weeks or less."

"Got it. And how many of these properties end up selling to a cash buyer, um, through like Investor Lift, for example, versus through novations? Do you know what things have looked like this year?"

"Um, I was just looking at that earlier today. I want to say it's probably like a 70-30, 70% novated, 30% um, off market."

"Yeah, got it. And I imagine a lot of those ones that you're novating, you're getting offers even off market, but it's just not at the, like, you know, you could do better on the market."

"Or it's like at what we have under contract for, so wouldn't make sense."

"Yeah, understood. Okay, so about 70% novations are how your business functions right now?"

"Yeah."

"Was that true last year?"

"We really didn't even implement novations until this year, so we were strictly off market last year in 2022. And then with that shift, we realized we have to change how we're... how are our exit strategies for the properties. And so this year is when we really dove into the novations a lot heavier."

"Understood. One of the things that I've heard negatively about novations is that there's more moving parts. It can be a little bit more, uh, more difficult to get the deal done. Um, I'm super interested to hear from your perspective how true that is. Like, does the realtor do a lot of it, or is there, um, is there still a lot of work required on your end? And, uh, does that take a significant amount of time? Is it hard to scale?"

"There's a lot that we try to... you know, you're going to have like inspection time frames, appraisal time frames, um, but we have those even, you know, up front when we see the offer. We try to counter out, counter those out, you know, wave them if we can, take it as is. Um, but it, it can have more of a fallout. But as long as we're talking to the buyers and the buyer agent up front and making sure they all realize like, 'This is a fixer-upper, there's... you know, make sure you're talking to your lender that there... it's not going to have... um, things aren't going to be perfect,' they're usually okay with it. Um, there's a little more steps to it, a little more coordinating of getting an inspector in there, getting the appraiser in there, um, but I wouldn't say it's so much more that it makes it not worth it."

"Yeah, that makes sense. So there's a lot of people that, uh, that I speak to that are afraid of going into multiple states as a business, primarily on the dispositions side. That's where a lot of the fear comes from. Um, and I know you've been through quite a journey this year. Uh, I'm, I'm super curious to hear about some of the challenges that you've had that you had to overcome throughout the year, and, and how you were able to fix those things to, to get it so you're actually still moving deals in markets that maybe you've never been in before."

"Yeah, yeah. I know what I have, but I think it's just making those small tweaks, you know, figuring out those markets. Um, you know, not being afraid to take that risk and explore a market that you've never, you know, been in before. Um, I mean, there's no pain, there's no gain, right? So I mean, as far as, uh, you've seen, it's, it's possible."

"Oh yeah, absolutely. Think maybe a lot of the, uh, a lot of the scariness of it is kind of in your head?"

"Yes, yeah, it's, it's... it's fear of because you don't... the fear of the unknown, you know. You don't know what possibly could happen or will happen, but it's just... you just have to just go into it and take that risk."

"I guess I would say I'm, I'm, I'm okay with taking a risk, though. I think, I think the fear comes from people feeling that they can't physically be there, you know. When you're in your own market, you can go door to door, you can be there, um, when the buyers go and walk in. So there, there is some added challenges when you are in a different state, but it's also, you know, the fear of the buyer talking to the seller, you know. We, we... but you got to vet the people beforehand."

"There's a lot of vetting we do with the agents, with the buyers ahead of time. We're not just sending random people. It's actually talking to them, asking them for, if, if it comes down to it, to proof of funds, how serious are you, what flips have you done, are you really a flipper or an investor, or are you just kind of window shopping? Um, and had and telling them like, 'Don't talk price with seller, don't... you know, any questions, call me. If you want to ask them about the structure of the house, fine, but call us back.' And we really have not run into very many people that have gone behind us and talked to the seller. I think it comes up once every few months."

"Okay, so it's... yeah, it's really just in your head. People are really afraid of... but in practice, like, there's always going to be those bad players that are going to do whatever they want to do, but..."

"Yeah, I mean, you'd probably still run into that in the local market."

"Oh, we have."

"I'm sure you have."

"We did, yeah."

"Fair enough. Um, let's talk about contract fallout. Um, where has that been this year? Do you, do you happen to know like where you're at on a percentage basis and how it has shifted over time?"

"I, I don't. I want to say we're probably around a 50-50, um, but it's a mix of fallout. I mean, there's a mixture of sellers just, yeah, being sellers and, you know, I think changing their mind, not being cooperative, saying that we can get in, then not getting in. You know, I think that that's where a lot of some of the fallout has been. Um, as far as not selling it though, that if we look at just that, like those ones aside, I'd say we're probably closer to like, like a 70-30ish, um, just looking at that aspect because with novating, that's upped our close rate a lot because we're opening it up to a lot bigger buyer pool. Um, and so properties that we probably never would have been able to move before strictly off market, we are now moving them on market. Um, so that has definitely drastically helped, and, and next year, it's only going to be even better, especially as we grow the dispo team too."

"I think that was one thing we realized this year is, is doing the one-to-one ratio of acquisition to dispo. Um, because we were looking at, at one point, each, each person had, you know, 20 properties. You can't focus on 20 properties in a day. It just, it isn't physically possible. Um, so now with the added team members, it's allowing them to really put a lot of time into each property for the ones that take, that need a little bit more work. Um, and now we're, we're able to move them at a, at a much better rate."

"Yeah, that makes sense. What would you say to somebody who says that you won't be great at dispositions unless you focus on a single market?"

"That's a limited, limited belief."

"So what if... I'll just paint a picture for you. Sorry, you know, you know I'm just giving you a hard time. Um, let's just say I, um, let's just say I'm a wholesaler. I've been in whatever city for 10 years. I've got my list of all my buyers there and stuff, and, and basically dispositions to me is calling up the people that have already bought deals from me or people who are already on my list or I met at the REIA or, you know, something like that. And that's how I'm dispositioning properties. Sure. Um, I look at that and I think, I... to go into other markets, that's really difficult because my advantages are my relationships in my market, and I don't have those in other markets, right? Um, how easy is that to overcome?"

"I mean, it, it will take a little bit of time to build some of those relationships, um, but it's all about, you know, building them, building themselves up as salespeople, you know, growing in our training, growing in reading books, um, having, knowing how to have better conversation to build that rapport, you know, really, um, asking the buyer like, kind of boosting their ego in a way, talking to them more. Um, just all sales skills, talking to them more about what are they looking for, what are they wanting, how, you know, things like that. And then we found that they open up a lot more. Um, yeah, it's not going to be an instant overnight like, 'I know I can move this,' um, or build a relationship with somebody right away, but it's just with time. I mean, even when you're starting in your own market, you didn't have those relationships ahead of time. You had to build those relationships. So, um, but even buyers, I think down here and where we're at in Southern California, half of them I've never met face to face. I've only ever talked to them over the phone. Prob... a lot more than half, honestly."

"Yeah, it's got to be. But, but I've been able to build those relationships with them myself, and so it just is taking that same concept and into another state."

"Okay. So do you feel significantly more comfortable in states that you've already done business versus a new state, or have you gotten so used to dispositioning in any state that it could be Texas where you have more experience, or it could be some, some other random state? As long as you know it's not like an attorney state, for example, compared to a title state or whatever the case is. I'm curious, are those really different to you now, or is it just kind of like dispositioning of property in the United States is kind of... you follow this certain"

"It's not like an attorney state, for example, compared to a title state or whatever the case is. I'm curious, are those really different to you now, or is it just kind of like dispositioning of property in the United States follows a certain process and it doesn't matter if we've done 100 deals in that city before or just one? It's kind of the same process."

"Yeah, yeah, I think one big aspect of that too is that we have a good title company that covers like 30-something states."

"So I'm not really worried about finding a new attorney or title company in each state. That definitely helps."

"Okay, same title company. What's the name of that title company?"

"Clothline Settlements."

"Okay, yeah, 30 states. Leveraging a title company across states, absolutely. Her and her team are absolutely amazing. She's been in title for, I think, 20-plus years, so she really helps us work through a lot of the issues. But I really feel like it's the same process for you guys?"

"Yeah, definitely. For me, it's just being comfortable talking to people regardless. It doesn't matter what state you're in. I can do dispositions anywhere. I can usually figure out how to work with somebody pretty easily. It's just asking those right questions, really making it about them. I like to ask, 'What's your style of investment? What do you do with your properties?' That way I can figure out whether or not the deal I have is a good fit for them or not. I'll also be upfront and honest with them as well, and I found that really does help. Being honest and transparent with people definitely helps."

"Yeah, totally makes sense. If it's not too much to ask, what does a compensation structure for somebody like you look like? Is it commission-based, salary-based, or a combination of both?"

"It's commission-based. Are you 100% commission-based in the role, and is that based on the spread at the end of the day, I imagine?"

"So acquisitions get paid on the spread, and then dispositions get paid on the spread as well."

"Yeah, exactly the same."

"That's pretty simple. Interesting. What's the biggest mistake you've made moving from one market to many markets for dispositions?"

"Not starting novation sooner."

"Okay, so you started with wholesale?"

"Yeah, we were seeing that where we were having trouble is in the more rural areas. You're not going to have a lot of buyers on that. Those properties really need to get on the market versus off-market. So I think that's one mistake we made, not getting some of those early in the year on the market fast enough."

"Got it. So maybe you had novation on the tool belt somewhere, but you didn't have a great process for it and didn't really know exactly how to do it."

"Exactly."

"That makes sense. And as for doing dispositions, do you also dip into TC, or do you have a separate TC team that handles that?"

"Yeah, especially for my own properties that are already in escrow. I'm still working with the seller and also still talking to the buyer, getting anything that escrow needs, making that communication. If they need me to, actually, not even if they need me to, I take that initiative myself."

"So a lot of the coordinating?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Okay, fair enough. This actually seems really simple. Tell me if I'm over-simplifying this: deal gets under contract, next step, we're going to call some buyers, blast it out, have some conversations with people, use InvestorLift for that. Do you recommend it?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely."

"So InvestorLift works, you can find the right buyers, call them, blast it out, get some offers through the system here and there. Then you look for agents, the agent puts it on the market, and hopefully, you close in the next 60 days. About 70% of the properties you get under contract work out that way. And then, of course, sometimes the seller backs out for whatever reason. But in terms of finding a buyer, is it really that simple? I mean, simple doesn't mean easy, but is it that simple on paper?"

"Yeah, of course. Not that easy sometimes when you're going back and forth, negotiating a lot. They also post properties everywhere on Facebook, Facebook groups, Marketplace, Craigslist, setting the bait by getting the property on as many platforms as possible to get eyes on it. But in all honesty, it really is as simple as that. With novations, it's made it a little simpler. We're leveraging somebody else's time, an agent's time. They're the ones out there doing the marketing, showings, which frees up our time to work on other properties because somebody else is now working on the property for us."

"That makes sense. Have you tried using a flat fee listing service instead of an agent?"

"We did, and that's why I think for a while we were steering away from it. I think we also didn't know that you could use agents to put it on. In hindsight, it was like, 'Oh yeah, duh.' But I think we thought there might be something special with the flat fee services, that they had some special agreement with the MLSs in the areas. I don't know what we were thinking. It is cheaper, but there are issues with a flat fee service. No one is monitoring it, especially when it's in a different state. There are things we may not know, certain disclosures that need to be done or uploaded, and we're not in that area. With the agent, you're paying more, but it's like paying a fee for anything. Aaron always uses this analogy: 'I could go buy my sandwich, but I'm using DoorDash and happily paying double because of the speed, convenience, and ease of somebody else bringing it to me.' So we are paying more for the agent, but we're utilizing them for their expertise, boots on the ground, and knowledge of the area and paperwork."

"Yeah, that makes sense. With a flat fee service, you have access to all the documents you need, but I don't know what documents I need. With an agent, they know the area and the necessary documents. We're utilizing someone else's expertise instead of trying to figure it out ourselves. You can, but when we are in as many states as we're in, an agent is the way to go."

"It's interesting because a lot of barriers to being in multiple markets are exactly those things: not knowing the streets, not having boots on the ground, not being able to see the property. Good agent relationships fix that problem. If you're good at finding new agents in areas where you haven't had one before, you have that covered. I imagine you've worked with some agents that didn't work out. What do you do in that circumstance?"

"You try to keep the line of communication as open as possible. If it gets to where let's just get it through the finish line and close, then we just don't use them again. We take initiative ourselves when it comes down to it. I'm not afraid to step on somebody's toes respectfully. If it gets down to it and our agent hasn't responded for five days, I'm calling the other agent. With all due respect, I have to get this to the closing line for our seller. Sometimes you have to take initiative. You have to be proactive. If you sit back and wait, it will all fall apart."

"Yeah, I imagine finding the right ones in the beginning is crucial. Things like how quickly they respond, what their CMA looks like, all give you a pretty good idea."

"Yeah, even over the last six months, I've figured out better ways to vet an agent, what questions I should have been asking from the beginning, and where not asking those questions hurt me."

"Definitely. Do you find agents are more hungry for your business with the craziness in the agent world right now?"

"Some are. You want to test their fight, how much they want that listing. If they're just doing you a favor, I don't want to work with them. It's finding agents who know how to work outside the box and understand investment sales. Many we come into contact with say, 'Yeah, it's normal, it's investment stuff, I get it.' Finding those agents, not the ones who don't understand, is key. You can't just Google an agent and go with them. You have to dig deep."

"Understood. Anything else you'd add for the dispositions process?"

"I've worked with my agents on novation and off-market deals. Building that relationship with them and going back to them, like 'Hey, can we sell this off-market?' They're like, 'Yeah.'"

"And you offer them, in that circumstance, just like their one side of the commission or both sides of the commission or a flat fee?"

"Flat fee."

"Okay, so if you can find me a buyer for this, I will give you how much money?"

"It depends on the spread, what it's going to be. If it's in a market where we're only selling it for $5,000 or $10,000, we'll say, 'Hey, we can give you $1,000 or $2,000.' If it's a bigger spread, we'll compensate accordingly. The good thing is, you already have a relationship with them, so they don't get offended. They know you follow through."

"Exactly. They also know you'll come back to them for more. I think they like the off-market stuff because they don't have to do any of the paperwork. Off-market is all our assignment contracts and agreements, really easy. They're just connecting you, and they get paid."

"Fair enough. Well, thank you both for taking the time to dig into the dispositions. I think I learned more than a few things and hope this is valuable content."

"Hire Dispo Girls."

"Yes, Dispo Girls. You just have girls on the team?"

"All our acquisition side is

"It's not like an attorney state, for example, compared to a title state or whatever the case is. I'm curious, are those really different to you now, or is it just kind of like dispositioning of property in the United States is kind of you follow this certain process, and it doesn't matter if we've done 100 deals in that city before, if we've done one, it's kind of the same process."

"Yeah, yeah, I think one big aspect of that too is that we have a good title company that covers like 30 something states."

"Yeah, so I'm not really worried about finding a new attorney or title company in each state, so that definitely helps."

"Okay, same title company? What's the name of that title company?"

"Clothline Settlements."

"Okay, yeah, Danielle is leveraging the title company across states. Absolutely, her and her team are absolutely amazing, and she's been in title for I think like 20 plus years, so she really helps us work through a lot of the issues, but I really feel like it's the same process for you guys."

"Yeah, definitely. For me, it's just being comfortable talking to people regardless. It doesn't matter what state you're in, I can, I can dispositions is dispositions. I can usually figure out how to work with somebody pretty easily. It's just asking those right questions, really making it about them. Like, I like to ask, 'What's your style of investment? What do you do with your properties?' You know, and that way I can figure out whether or not the deal that I have is a good fit for them or not. And I'll be also upfront honest with them as well, and I found that that really does help. Being honest and transparent with people definitely helps."

"Yeah, totally makes sense. If it's not too much to ask, what does a compensation structure for somebody like what you do look like? Like, what kind of, like is it commission-based, are you paying a base salary, is there salary and bonus potential?"

"Commission-based, so it's, are you 100% commission-based in the role and that's based on the spread at the end of the day, I imagine?"

"So, acquisitions get paid on the spread and then dispositions get on the spread."

"Yeah, all right, exactly the same. So that's pretty simple."

"Yeah."

"Interesting. What's the biggest mistake you've made moving from one market to many markets for dispositions?"

"Not getting them on, I think not doing starting novation sooner."

"Okay, so you started with wholesale?"

"Yeah, we were seeing that where we were having trouble is the more rural areas. You're not going to have a lot of buyers on that. Those properties really need to get on market versus off market, and so I think that's one mistake we did is not getting some of those early in the year on market fast enough."

"Got it, so maybe you had novation on the tool belt somewhere, but like it wasn't..."

"Yeah, we were still kind of like, have a great process for it, you didn't really know exactly how to do it."

"Okay, exactly."

"Yeah, that makes sense. And as doing dispositions, do you also kind of dip into TC or do you have a separate TC team that handles it?"

"Actually, yeah, especially like my own properties that are already in escrow. I'm still working with the seller and also still talking to the buyer as well, getting anything that escrow needs, making that communication if they need me to. Actually, not even if they need me to, I take that initiative myself."

"So, a lot of the coordinating."

"Yeah."

"Okay, fair enough. So, this actually seems really simple. You tell me if I'm just like way oversimplifying. Deal gets under contract, next step, we're going to call some buyers, we're going to blast it out, have some conversations with people. You use InvestorLift for that?"

"Mhmm, recommend it."

"Oh, work."

"Mhm."

"Okay, so InvestorLift works, you can find the right buyers, you can call them, you can blast it out. I'm sure you get some offers through the system here and there, and then you look for agents, you've had a few. The agent puts it on the market, next 60 days, hopefully you close. About 70% of the time, the properties that you've gotten under contract, that's going to work for you. And then, of course, sometimes the seller backs out for whatever reason, you know, those things happen. But in terms of finding a buyer, is it really that simple? I mean, simple doesn't mean easy, but it is that simple on paper?"

"Yeah, of course. Not that easy sometimes when you're, you know, going back and forth, then a lot of negotiating. I mean, they also get the post properties everywhere on Facebook, Facebook groups, Marketplace, Craigslist, you know, putting, getting, we call it setting the bait, just getting it everywhere, getting the property on as many platforms as possible to get eyes on the property. But I mean, in all honesty, it really is as simple as that. I think with the innovations, it's made it a little bit simpler. You know, we're leveraging somebody else's time. We're leveraging an agent's time. They're the ones out there, they're doing their marketing, they're doing the showings, which frees up their time to be able to move more to work on other properties because essentially somebody else is now also working on the property for them."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Have you tried, I know some people with novations are doing like a flat fee listing service or something like that, and essentially not using an agent. Sounds like you're leveraging the agent to make it a lot more efficient on your side. Have you tried it the other way?"

"We did, and that's why I think for a while we were steering away from it. I think we also didn't know that you could use agents to put it on. I don't know why, it was just kind of like, well, hopefully that's a nugget for somebody listening to this. Hindsight it was like, oh yeah, duh. But I think we thought that there might be something special with the flat fee services, that they had some special agreement with the MLSs in the areas. I don't know what we were thinking, to be honest. And yeah, it is cheaper, but the issues you fall into with a flat fee service is there's no one monitoring it. You know, and when you're, I think that a flat fee service works if you're in your market, meaning where you are living. You could be there, you could go to the property, but when it's in a different state, there's a lot of stuff that you may not know. There are certain things we found out, disclosures that need to get done or a certain way it needs to be uploaded, and we didn't know. We're not in that area. So yeah, with the agent, you're paying more, right? But it's also, it's just paying a fee for anything, right? Like Aaron always uses this analogy, he's like, 'I could go buy my sandwich, but I'm using DoorDash and I'm happily going to pay double what I'm getting my sandwich for because of the speed and convenience and the easability of somebody else bringing it to me.' So we are paying a little bit more for the agent, but we're utilizing them for their expertise in the area and expertise in the paperwork."

"Boots on the ground."

"Boots on the ground. With a flat fee service, you have access to all the documents you need, but I don't know what documents I need. And so with the agent, they know what they need, they know the areas. So it's utilizing someone else's expertise in that instead of trying to figure it out yourself. You can, I'm not saying you can't, but when we are in as many states as we're in, if we were only in one or two markets, I'd say yeah, maybe we could utilize the flat fee and maybe go that route. But with being in as many markets as we're in, agent all day long."

"Yeah, it's interesting because if you think about it, a lot of the barriers that people have to being in multiple markets are exactly those things. Like, I don't know the streets, and I don't have boots on the ground, I'm not able to visually see the property. If you're really good at finding, well, if you have good agent relationships, it fixes that problem. Secondarily, if you're really good at finding new agents even in areas where you haven't had an agent historically, then you sort of have all that. I imagine you've worked with some agents and it just hasn't worked out, you hire the wrong agent from time to time. What do you do in that circumstance?"

"You try to keep the line of communication as open as possible, and it gets to where like, let's just get it through the finish line, let's get it to close, and then we just don't use them again. There's a lot of stuff that we take initiative of doing ourselves when it comes down to it. So, I mean, if it, I'm not afraid sometimes to step on somebody's toes in the right manner. We try to be respectful of our agent because we, you know, as I do have my license in California, so I do know a little bit of it, of like agents are only supposed to be the ones talking, the seller's never supposed to call the other agent, so I understand that. But like, if it gets down to and our agent hasn't responded to me for five days, I'm calling the other agent. But it comes down to like, 'Hey, with all due respect, I got to get this to the close line for your buyer, for our seller. Sorry, ask for forgiveness later.' Somebody has to take initiative. So there's, you know, you

just got to take the initiative and get the deal done. And if that means that I have to step on some toes, I apologize later. And like I said, I understand the agent's role, but sometimes you just have to take control of the situation to get it done."

"Yeah, totally. It sounds like a lot of your success boils down to having a system that works, being adaptable, and just putting in the effort to get things done no matter what obstacles come your way."

"Exactly. Having a good system in place is crucial, and being willing to adapt when things don’t go as planned is just as important. It's not always easy, but it’s definitely worth it in the long run."

"Absolutely. This has been incredibly insightful. Before we wrap up, is there any final advice you'd give to someone looking to scale their real estate business across multiple markets?"

"Sure. I’d say don’t be afraid to take the leap into new markets. Do your homework, build strong relationships, and leverage the expertise of others, like agents who know the local market. Also, keep learning and adapting. Every market has its nuances, but if you stay committed and flexible, you can overcome those challenges."

"Great advice. Thanks again for joining us today and sharing your experiences."

"Thanks for having me. It’s been a pleasure."

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Discover the secrets to scaling a real estate business to seven figures using PPC marketing strategies! Join Aaron and his guest as they dive into optimizing campaigns, targeting high-profit markets, and balancing rural vs. urban strategies. Whether you're new to PPC or a seasoned pro, this episode offers invaluable insights to boost your ROI and drive success in real estate.

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"Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is another episode in the series with Aon and Michaela Gant from Southern California, who took their business from local to national. With PPC as the primary channel, they were able to generate seven figures in revenue just from PPC in their first year. This time, we're going to talk about the marketing decisions they made over this time period to help them get the best quality leads and the most volume of leads possible to grow to that seven figures in revenue."

"Aon, Michaela, I'm super excited to talk with you guys about marketing, um, choosing a marketing channel, which is something we've kind of touched on in a few of the other videos. But I think it's an awesome experience to go deep and talk about how you've done what you've done. Obviously, we work together on this aspect. It's the aspect I'm personally most passionate about, most knowledgeable about, and it's really interesting for me to learn how you view it and why you've chosen to execute on certain elements of your strategy. So, um, anyway, with that considered, what are the things that you think about when choosing what marketing channel you're going to go after? Obviously, you have experience with outbound channels like cold calling and texting. It seems like mail's been good to you. Um, PPC, Facebook ads—what is it that you're looking for?"

"Inbound leads, hands down. We want inbound leads for our primary source of revenue now. Obviously, there are different types. I mean, a bunch of stuff, but what we want to do and what I've seen—because our primary business is marketing and sales—is, as they always say, that's literally every business: marketing and sales. If I went and we talked about how your business is doing and how you've really done a great job of dominating the space and being a top provider for real estate investors, it's like... and obviously, yes, you are very skilled. You have the data to help us get to the next level. That's why we love having you guys as part of our team. But it's also that you really got yourself out there. You really marketed your company out there to get yourself known, right? So marketing is huge."

"I think if you're going to start any business, you need to be really particular about how you're going to market and who you're going to work with. The market, right? Obviously, in this case, do you want an in-house or, you know, using a marketing agency? But we've been really, really seeing a lot of good results with your company, and that's PPC and direct mail."

"Yeah, okay, now that's helpful. That's helpful to think of. So inbound is primarily what you're looking at, and then you've got a few channels that can fit in there, like PPC and SEO."

"Mhm, which we need to do. It's the next one."

"Yeah, good news is I came here to upsell you today."

"There you go, you came to sell something."

"I'll leave with the contract."

"Was that a part of the script?"

"Yes, this is the part where you say, 'Yes, I will give you more money.' So, okay, inbound marketing channels are what you're looking at, and then obviously PPC has been the one that you've chosen to focus on the most, which isn't an unusual choice considering the inbound nature of the lead. It's just a completely different conversation with sellers, which I'm sure is what you've noticed as you've grown to seven figures in PPC revenue over the past year. This is a huge accomplishment. Not a lot of people go that channel alone."

"Yeah, not a lot of people go with PPC alone as a marketing channel from zero to seven figures in a single year. There's a lot that plays into that. So, yeah, I just want to pick out those different things. We've changed a lot over this time period about how we're doing things. I know something that we were talking about before is like you've got to have the vision and be willing to give it the time and follow the process, but that doesn't mean that you're unwilling to make changes during that time. You’ve got to be working on the right things. What are some of the big changes that we've made to the PPC marketing over the past year?"

"Like us personally, or what we've seen you guys change?"

"Well, I could probably speak a little better to what we've changed, unless you notice anything in particular that you really want to mention. But I guess what I'm thinking here is budgets are a big factor, like locations. I know we've made some major changes in terms of that, and that's something I really want to dig into because there's a lot of strategy behind why you target this market versus that market and how those different things worked for you."

"Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there, but when I think of PPC strategy, I think of two things. Number one, you have the parameters. Parameters are just rules that we have to live within, like we have this budget, these markets, this kind of ad schedule, whatever. And then you have optimizations, which are like adjusting keywords, changing bids, improving landing pages, changing ads. When I think of what a business owner needs to know about their marketing, they need to understand parameters, not optimizations. That's why a lot of the changes you'll notice, and a lot of the stuff we talk about together in your marketing, it's all parameter stuff. The reason is optimization is what we do; it's not what you have to worry about. But if we're talking mainly about budgets, locations, that kind of thing, what kind of changes have we made?"

"Yeah, obviously that's what we look at on our business side. You're going to give us the most high-quality PPC leads there are, right? On the back end, because you know, we've talked about that, you know the difference between a really cheap PPC lead and one that's not necessarily as qualified as you would want it. You know, regarding negative words, positive words, whatever. And the leads that you guys give us have been fantastic. What I see on my end is you're right, I have control of the budget and location. This past year has been a lot of testing and understanding where I want to focus. And a lot of entrepreneurs, including myself, are going to want to change things, get their hands dirty, and mess things up."

"My wife would say you're messing everything up."

"We've told you that a few times too. We should have Jeff in this conversation. Where's Jeff? I love that guy."

"No, it's been fantastic because we want to try things out. When we first started with you guys, we were doing $10,000 in ad spend a month. I could be wrong, but I think that's what it was. I think so too. And we were just here in Southern California. We got our first deal in two weeks, which gave us $40,000."

"I know you hate me saying that."

"That's not the message. I mean, if you have a good sales process, that was a one-call close, but it happens. Expectations are a whole different thing. Let's dig into that next, but yeah, continue."

"We did have that, and just a couple of months later, we decided to open up a couple more markets. We were in Southern California, then we decided to open up Texas, and then we decided to open up everything south of the United States. We're talking about metro areas."

"Yeah, we did pretty tight radiuses at first, trying to stay away from anything rural and keeping to the main metro areas. The idea behind that was if we could get a deal in this metro area, we could move it. We could dispo it. Then I decided to open up a lot more metro areas all around the United States, and then I decided to open up states. We really went broad with a lot of changes, and currently, as we're filming this, we're still broad. I think we're hitting in like 14 different states."

"And we're doing deals every single day. The idea every time we strategize is, 'Aaron, if we go this broad, can you dispo them?' You're asking the right questions to your client to not steer them wrong. You're not just saying, 'Okay, Aaron, just do that.' You're setting the right expectations. Just like your core value says, you're a truth warrior. 110%, you're a truth warrior. You're going to tell me the truth about what to expect and what can go wrong. Sometimes you might even say, 'Hey, I don't know if it's a good idea,' but in the end, you're going to let your client decide."

"Letting your client have that final say, right? You give them the best advice you can, but sometimes they have to do whatever they want to do."

"Exactly. It’s kind of like an attorney. An attorney's going to give you the best advice, you're paying them for their time, and they’re going to give you the advice, but you’re going to do whatever you’re going to do."

"Yeah, so we decided to open up because what we were looking for was... well, obviously, we made another video where we were spending up to $330,000 a month. Right now, this month, we're spending $20,000. The sweet spot has definitely been about $25,000-$30,000. The idea behind that is we’re spending about $10,000 per acquisition rep nationwide. So, we're at $94 per lead right now on a nationwide campaign. We have debated on setting up another campaign to go directly into our own backyard, which we might, you know, go up to $15,000 to $20,000 per rep."

"But when it comes to marketing, don’t be afraid to spend because every dollar you put in, you should be getting five to seven back, especially if on the back end everything is set up to get it to the finish line. So, when we go into 2024, that's going to be our main focus: putting our marketing dollars into the right marketing machines, ATM, to get that return we expect to get. And that’s going to be, again, PPC and direct mail."

"Yeah, one thing you're thinking about that's really positive is you're not thinking about it as, 'Do I want to do a California campaign or a national campaign?' You're thinking, 'Well, could we test?' A lot of our clients have the 'burn the boats' mentality where it's like, 'I was doing this, and now I'm doing this, and now I'm doing this,' and then at some point everything crashes and burns. You just don’t really know if it's because you changed the market, or if it's because your team stopped working as well. You don't know what it is. Marketing is full of good ideas that don't end up working."

"Right, we should be open to trying things. If you're going to be in business and be an entrepreneur, you can’t be afraid of failure. If you are, you’re not going to last very long. We’ve taken big steps that haven't panned out, but we learn from it, adjust, and keep going."

"I like to think about it in terms of asymmetric bets. I'm conservative, I don't want to, you know... there's this psychological concept of loss aversion, where if you take a dollar away from someone, they'll be a lot unhappier than if you gave them a dollar. People are more afraid of losing than they are happy to gain."

"Absolutely."

"For me, I just have to look back at my business and think that every single good thing that has come has been through some type of bet. None of them had a 100% guarantee of the results I was looking for, but they were what you'd call asymmetric bets, where the upside is larger than the downside. For example, marketing: you could say, 'I need to spend $10,000 a month on this marketing campaign for six months and I'm risking $60,000.' A lot of people would stop there and say, '$60,000, I'm out.' But then you have to think, 'What's the downside? The downside is limited to $60,000. What's the upside? Maybe I could figure this out in such a way that I generate a million dollars in revenue this year, which could set the stage for $3-$5 million in revenue the next year, and for a decade I could get awesome returns and scale this really far.' That’s the upside."

"Right, and with an upside like that, the risk is very acceptable."

"Exactly. I think people go wrong by not taking enough bets. They put all their eggs in one basket or aren’t willing to take those asymmetric bets. People are quicker to buy a lottery ticket than to spend $10,000 a month on PPC. Which one has a higher expected value?"

"Isn't that crazy?"

"Yeah, but it's the world we live in. The cool thing about business is you can start a business and create a cash machine. In wholesale, you can create a cash machine. Houses are always depreciating every single day, and there are deals everywhere to be found. No matter how many deals there are, you’re going to be a deal finder."

"Oh, absolutely. What would you say your mindset was going into PPC in the beginning?"

"Excited, you know? I think that's the issue with a lot of new people that try PPC. They have this high expectation, like, 'I'm going to start PPC tomorrow and make a million dollars.' That's where expectations get steered wrong because they hear all over social media that PPC is the best marketing channel, which it is. But if it doesn't work or if they're not able to close the leads and get it to the finish line, they think it's not a good place to put their marketing. You’re going to get leads. Some people think, 'I could cold call, get three cold callers, get a bunch of leads in the first week. I could spend the same amount on PPC and get five leads.'"

"It takes a lot less leads to get a contract, and that contract could net you a lot. Plus, you're going to have better quality conversations because they’re reaching out to you. Even if they're not a fit, you had a great conversation because they reached out to you. If it's not a fit, you part ways peacefully."

"I think there's a misconception that people think PPC leads are all lay-downs, but they’re not. There are one-call closes, but there's work the acquisition team puts into that. They spend half an hour or an hour on the phone, getting it to contract. You still have to put in the work to sell it. There's a disconnect where people think, 'Oh, they're hot leads, it'll be easy,' and forget there's still a lot of work to make it come to fruition."

"I totally agree. My personal opinion is that the idea PPC leads are lay-downs is misguided. Just because you can be at 10 leads per contract doesn’t mean you will be. You have to work them differently, and it takes skill. Maybe they spent an hour on the phone, and you call that the work, but what about all the training they did for six months every morning? That’s the work. Maybe cutting down the trees is easy, but sharpening the saw can be hard."

"Right, exactly. I like that. How do you know if a marketing campaign is working or not?"

"The easy answer is to say KPIs, you know? Because you get a bunch of contracts but nothing has fruition into revenue. It comes down to KPIs. Three months later, can I look back at what I spent and see if those deals closed? In our CRM, we see a lead when it came into the system, so when it turns into a transaction, we see how long it took to close from when it was created in the CRM."

"No, that absolutely makes sense. So obviously, KPIs about performance and stuff like that. What do you do when it's early? Let's just say it's been—let me give you a scenario, right? Let's just say somebody out there sees this video, they start working with Bitman Collective, right? They start generating leads and they're wondering after a month, after two months, are they on the right track? Is it working? How do you think they can know if they're on the right track?"

"You know what's funny? Because I was talking to Jeff about this, and we were talking about a client. He didn't give me names, but he sometimes uses clients as examples. And he spends like $2,000 a month, and I think out of that month he got like two opportunities, right? That's $2,000 spent. To me, that's not a lot to get a good return. It's kind of like the lowest we would ever take. We say like be really, really careful that you give it a lot of time because the less money you put into it, the more time you need to see the results. I would say, you know, it goes back into your KPIs. You know, how many of these leads—okay, so you look at collectively over the past three months. You should always look at 90-day increments. How many of these leads came into my system? Because again, you should have a filter in your CRM. All right, how many leads have we contacted? How many leads have turned into opportunities, and how many leads have turned into transactions? I mean, I hope that answers the question."

"Yeah, you're looking at a funnel, basically."

"Yeah, and to me, it's just like when I first started. So now I don't talk, I don't call the leads, but when I first started with you, I was the one on the phone, so I get to kind of feel the leads, hear the leads, touch the leads. You know what I mean? And I got to know the quality of these leads compared to other types of leads, so I knew it was working because these leads were amazing. You know what I mean? But also, I was obsessed with making sure I got the contract. So if it was right down the road, I'll go to the—I’ll go to the dang house. You know what I mean? Unfortunately, nationwide we don't get to do that. But when a lead comes in—going off track here a little bit—you need to be crazy obsessed when a lead comes in. So my team will call them four to five times. I say you need to call them, you need to send obviously an email, voicemail, texts. Everybody needs to be calling them. And then they stay in our bucket, our new bucket, we call it 15 days of pain. And in that 15 days of pain, you're blowing them up every single day."

"Love the branding."

"Yeah, I think there's a lot you have to look inward on within your business to see if it's working. You have to see, am I getting to these leads quickly? Am I actually having quality conversations? One metric we have our acquisitions and dispo teams put in is how many quality conversations you have. And a quality conversation for us is 10 minutes or more. You know, that goes to show, are you guys actually having in-depth conversations? And then seeing how many it takes for you to get it to a contract and then get it to close. So I think it's hard to just look at it from the outside. You have to look at what you're doing internally to nurture those leads. Are you taking three days to get to the lead, or are you calling it within 30 to 40 seconds?"

"Yes. Let me ask you this: How would you tell somebody or ask a new client how they think the campaign's working? Like if I say, 'Hey, if you want to come join and obviously pay for our services,' it's almost a question to them. How will you know that our marketing or this service has been of value to you?"

"Yeah, I mean, we often ask those questions because it kind of reveals—like for us, retention is the biggest metric. Like do we start the month with however many clients, and how many clients do we end the month with minus the new ones we added on? That's our number, right? Because it shows, are we adding value? Do people see a reason to continue working with us? And with that being the case, we're always digging into—like I remember as part of your sales process, you talking about going through the things that blow deals up front because you're saving yourself the pain of those things being a problem later. I don't want to be on a different page. But yeah, I'm asking you a lot of questions. I'm asking out of genuine curiosity, but I've thought through my answers to these things a lot because obviously, this is what we do. And because that is a very good question: How do I know this campaign is actually working? Even when it comes to going from our backyard to slowly opening up our campaigns because we wanted more leads at a cheaper cost no matter where they were going. It's like, how do I know that this actually worked? Obviously, you're going to look at how much money am I bringing in per campaign each month, obviously. But that's a good question."

"Yeah, for me it's really about two different types of metrics. Number one is the leading metrics. Number two, lagging metrics, which I'm sure you're crazy familiar with. The biggest problems that we see our clients making is that they look at the lagging metrics too early. And what happens is the lagging metrics always look bad really early. Like you could bring in a new sales guy and after two days be like, 'Oh, his close rate's 0%. Worst sales guy ever,' right?"

"Ever, yeah."

"But we all hear that and we laugh because it's like, that doesn't make sense. But a lot of people don't really realize what it takes in terms of sample size to do good marketing. So in the spirit of understanding how long does it take or like how long do you have to give it before you look at lagging metrics, I hired a data scientist recently."

"Oh, wow."

"And basically gave them the question, because it's really a statistical question. Like every time we buy a click, there's a certain percentage likelihood that someone becomes a deal. And then there's an amount of time that it would take for us to get enough data to understand how the campaign's actually performing. It turns out there's all these—like I don't want to take you back to your college diploma. And I don't know, Michaela, if you did his statistics homework too or if it was just the spreadsheets."

"So anyways, there's lots of statistics stuff, but think of it like—okay, I don't want to get crazy deep into it, but I'm getting deep into things, so we're just going to talk about it. Think about there's this thing called simulation-based inference. It's a statistical concept. Picture it like I'm here and I'm just flipping a coin, right? I'm just flipping my coin over and over again. Well then you can start to ask yourself the questions like, well, how many times do you have to flip a coin to know that a coin is actually fair? It's an interesting question when you really think about it. And the answer is there is no answer because there's always going to be a bell curve around that 50%. Slightly higher, so it's always going to be 50% of data above, 50% below. So then you have to think, well, how many times do I have to flip the coin to know with whatever percentage confidence that the coin at least gets me heads 40% of the time, for example? And then you've got this wide bell curve around the 50%. It just gets more and more narrow over time and eventually, 90% of the bell curve is above the 40%. Hope that makes some sense."

"So the question that we tried to answer was to know that I'm getting a 5x return on—or to know that I'm assuming like a coin, we know it's going to get 50% long-term, right? So with the marketing channel, assuming it's targeted towards a 5x return, how many dollars do we have to spend on it to know with 95% confidence that it gets at least a 4x return? Does it make sense, like for the problem? The answer was—I'm trying to remember exactly what it was—I think it was $145,000 is the number of how much it takes statistically, which doesn't take into account that you get better at it over time or that you make pivots or changes where the algorithm learns. It's just like even assuming it was working just like a coin does from the very first flip, you still have that probability of a 50% chance of success. Patient vs impatient mindset, assuming it works exactly like a coin, it was like $140,000 or $135,000, $145,000, it was somewhere in that range, just less than $150,000. And I was a little bit shocked when I saw that. But the crazy thing is a lot—so we do, we measure. People, of course, quit working with us, for sure it happens. You work with enough people, it'll happen. That never happens to us. When a seller signs a contract, they're with us forever."

"You don't have sellers ghosting us?"

"Yeah, lifetime contracts is what we should start doing with our clients. As long as you're in business, you will pay us. I like to try to enforce that. So we did that and the number one reason that people stop doing this marketing is poor ROI. That's the number one reason. Occasionally there's like, 'I didn't like this person on your team' or whatever, those things "It's just like who can invest money better. There could be a version of me that goes and buys a lottery ticket and then wins the lottery and makes like, you know, 1,000x what I bought all my lottery tickets with and stuff. Then there's a version of me that was in the stock market and then loses like 20% over 2 years on the S&P 500 in a recession. I'm more comfortable with the second one, the second version of me, not the first version of me because what I'm focused on is making good decisions, making smart bets, right? And in my opinion, a bad bet that turns out good isn't good behavior. So that's where for me, it's like, it's never been about the outcome, no, it's been about playing the game the way the game deserves to be played. It's more of like a process than a results orientation."

"Yeah, and I think it's honestly a really good mindset for marketing because you have to accept that you'll lose some of those bets."

"Yeah, but the game is can you make those asymmetric bets where the upside equals this and the downside equals this."

"Yeah, and the opportunity wouldn't be there if you didn't take the bet. Yes, there wouldn't be the chance to get, you know, a $40,000, $60,000 assignment fee if you didn't make the bet."

"100%, yeah. I mean, it's scary for a lot of people to say, you know, like our average monthly spend in marketing this year was probably, like, altogether just in marketing spend. We're not talking about overhead, we're not talking about subscriptions, all that stuff, we're talking about probably about $30 grand, right? $30 grand a month."

"Yeah, tell that to you four years ago."

"Oh, it would, it was, yeah, you would have been no for sure, but you're playing a bigger game."

"Well, next year our plan to spend per month is $70 grand, right? So you need the marketing budget of the business you want, none of the business you have."

"Exactly, people set marketing based on topline revenue. You need it to be based on the topline revenue that you're going to have at that time."

"Exactly, did you hear that? That's exactly the truth, and that's exactly what we're going to do this next year. But it goes back into your risk now, right? It's not that we know now that as I spend this, my team, our processes, it goes back to the levers, it's going to handle it. It's going to be able to handle that inbound stuff."

"It would be scarier to spend that bigger marketing budget if we didn't have the foundation of the team that we have because we know that they can lock it up, we know that dispo can sell it. The risk tolerance, I guess, is a lot lower because there's faith and trust in our team."

"Yeah, no, you're not doing anything new, you're just doing more of what you've already proven works, right, just at a higher level."

"Do you know what the metric impression share is? Have you heard that metric?"

"I've heard you say it before."

"Yeah, you've probably heard me say it before, you might have all over the podcast."

"Yeah, sure, I'm sure."

"Impression share is basically, think of it like market share for Google. It's like what percentage of what you could be getting are you getting with your budget, and where it's really telling is it tells you kind of contextually how many leads are you getting in a campaign compared to the number of leads that you could be getting."

"Here's the thing that's really exciting about your situation to me. If we look at the impression share on your campaigns, it is very low. A lot of people would view that actually really negatively, they would say I'm only getting a small fraction of my potential. I view that as you just did seven figures in PPC in a year with getting a small fraction of your potential. What does that mean your potential is?"

"Yeah, it's really, really high."

"And that's what naturally happens when you expand into more markets is that ceiling goes up and up and up because now you can spend whatever you can spend in this market plus whatever you could spend in that market and that market and that market. You can add those together, and it's this really high number."

"But not a lot of people, like for anybody listening to this, I encourage you to think like right now, do statewide vs metro area targeting. You have a lever in your business that you know you can pull and get more leads, right? A lot of people don't."

"Yeah, that's the really cool thing about PPC, in my opinion, is the availability of those metrics and the total scalability of the channel. Like if you told me you need 10 times the number of leads next year, I could absolutely make a plan to make that happen and I know it's possible."

"Especially if you're flexible on like what markets they come from or something like that, like it's, right? I mean, until like we've done that 10 times the number of leads thing like several times. You're not going to bump into the issue of like there not being enough leads out there."

"And that's just, it's insane potential, right? If you really think about it, like you figured out how to make something work on a small scale and then the only thing between there and this higher level is just multiplying more of what you're doing. And that could be done on the ads, that could be done in the team, and you'll run into new challenges, right? Like you'll go from being a leader to leading other leaders."

"Yeah."

"And you'll go from a small team to a larger team and you'll grow from $20,000 a month in ad spend to $200,000 a month in ad spend."

"There you go."

"And those are all like, like it's different, like it does change, but it's like that's the power of marketing, right? It's the ability to like scale a business. I'd bet to say 90% of businesses in America don't have that lever. If they needed to 10x their lead flow next month, they wouldn't have a way to do it."

"That's the first thing. I think a lot of companies, not just obviously wholesaling or real estate, but a lot of companies do. My mom has been in marketing forever. She's her Masters and everything in it, and she always says it's the first thing that every company wants to cut out."

"Yeah, that is exactly what happens."

"Yeah, I could tell you, like market shift last year, which is actually ironically when we started working together, which I didn't really piece together, that that was like, that was an interesting time in your business. You were cutting cold calling and scaling way back on like, you know, cold calling, texting, and jumping into a new marketing channel at $110,000 a month in Q4, the worst season in real estate right after like interest rates went from rock."

"A good idea, I need a hotter lead, I'm just kidding."

"Yeah, talk about risk, like you, you're just like layering on every possible unknown at the same time. And that was, I mean for a lot of people Q4 of last year was a tough time. I remember looking into our system and seeing how many credit cards failed from the clients that we were building, like spiked like November of last year, and like calling up these people and just like I don't, I just don't have money."

"Yeah."

"Like my business is just broke."

"We felt it too, everybody felt it."

"Yeah, everybody felt it in some level, even if you were doing okay from return on investment standpoint. Let's just say you're flipping, you're used to selling things in 30 days, now it takes 90 days to sell."

"It took a little bit longer, yeah."

"You just took your 30-day revenue and just spread it over 90 days, right? The people banking on it being returning in 30 days didn't plan for it in May."

"Yeah."

"So cash conversion cycles became like a really real thing. It was, and there were real issues in PPC too because people started like going online to search for, like they have their property that's been sitting on the market for 90 days. That was something you were getting blown up, including us. You were getting blown up by us about all the leads that were coming in that were listings and we like, we don't want your crap. And you guys obviously fixed it really quick."

"Well, there's multiple elements there. There's like some things that we did to optimize for and understand where they're coming from. But then there's also like, you know, now the market, that's just less common now than it was then because then, you know, the realtor told me I'd get an offer in a week and then now it's been a month and I haven't gotten an offer because when the realtor told me that, that's how."

"And then now that's not how it works anymore, you know, it's just a, you know, you know what they say, like, like down markets, okay, up markets, that's fine. Just the transition from up to down is hard for a lot of businesses. But I guess my point with that is we have clients come marketing and we had clients not. We even had clients double down during that period, and it was really interesting to see the businesses that did really well versus those that didn't."

"I even have one client, love them to death. They still haven't marketed all year, they're still just working old leads. They cut with us and I guess they just financially could not afford it, and they're playing this game, and they're just still like playing with these like $10,000, $20,000 months and just barely making payroll because they didn't want to lay off too much of their team and all this stuff like 12

months ago."

"Yeah, they're playing a different game now."

"They're just stuck in the cycle now, right? Because like now, they're on this treadmill, like, we got to make enough money so we can afford to market so we can afford to make more money and now it's."

"But do you think, okay, when I hear that, I think they, because that 20%, 80% rule, like they just didn't find what works for them."

"I think they just didn't have the faith to go in on it."

"Yeah."

"And to be clear, there were people marketing in Q4 of last year, like I just said, that really struggled because the market was really tough."

"It was a new channel for us."

"Yeah, that was one of the bigger challenges is like it takes some time to get up to speed and figure out what works and everything. So you were still kind of figuring it out, even when you were, you know, doing that, but you had the faith that you knew that you had to invest in it to get it to the point where it would be working really well."

"Yeah, yeah, it was scary. I would probably not do that today, you know? Not at all."

"Well, you don't have to because you already made the investment. You already have the learning curve and everything."

"Yeah, it was scary, dude, it was crazy."

"Yeah, it was, and we knew we were playing a long game, but if it doesn't work, if the markets aren't there, we're not going to get any return, like you just get burned."

"But I'm going to tell you, one thing that we did, I think we did well, is we surrounded ourselves with the right people. You know, like yourself, you know, we talked to Justin. Justin always had a lot of faith in PPC, and we had to, the first time we made the switch, it was based off of trust, right? We trusted you, we trusted Justin, and we're like, okay, let's give it a go, and like, you know, we'll make adjustments as we go."

"Yeah."

"And that's it, you know, that's what we did."

"But think about it, I mean we're getting a crap ton of leads. So, but think about that. What do you think most of the leads are coming from? They're coming from towns, they're coming from cities, like you know, where people are living. So, that's something you also have to think about, right? People are not just all coming from these random little areas, you know what I mean? Because there's nobody there. So absolutely, we get leads all the time in metro areas, towns, and statewide. You're getting leads from cities, so it's like cities within the state."

"Exactly, where people are living."

"Yeah, fair enough. So yeah, I totally understand what you're saying. I think there's an element of budget here too. Sometimes if people go at it with a small budget, like let's just say I have three grand and I'm spreading it across the whole United States, what am I going to get there? I'm going to get a ton of leads, like there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm probably going to get some of those most rural leads versus a lot of people I know that are doing really well with statewide campaigns. They do have a little bit of a larger budget, which means that they're getting the bad ones and they're getting the good ones. Then you need an acquisitions checklist for like it has to fit these criteria for me to pursue this as a lead because if you pursue everything, then you know, they can waste all their time with all these leads that'll never actually dispo. So you kind of have to understand what's going to be able to be disposed of. It has to be within like however many miles of a town that has at least whatever population, for sure, or you have to look at InvestorLift and find this many cash buyers nearby."

"Do you guys do something like that or does your team?"

"No, I actually don't. I think that's a fantastic idea. I'm actually probably going to look into it more. It sounds like you're basically doing it because you're saying like you have to be able to disqualify leads, but maybe systematize it more. And that's probably due to it just being the past few months that you guys are doing more rural marketing and you probably feel that pain eventually and build the process around it. Let's talk strategy then. I think it's an interesting case study to look at your situation because you've got a backyard where you get awesome spreads. You have specific rural targeting that's working well for you. You're getting a five to six times return, so you don't want to get rid of that necessarily, but could we do it with less work? What if we move to a situation where we're doing $30,000 spreads on average, and with that, we can achieve the same revenue with fewer deals and maybe with the same team, right? Achieve more revenue. Very real things to think about."

"100%. I'm just blurting out a strategy and I want you to tell me what you think about it or how this solves or doesn't solve the problems. I like the idea of running two campaigns side by side. I think the biggest thing that you do within Google is target different costs per lead across those campaigns. I think the mistake that people make is they target rural Texas and Southern California in the same campaign, and what happens then is you don't get many leads from Southern California and you get a lot of leads from rural Texas because what that campaign is going to do is it's going to bid the lowest that it can and still get leads because you're telling Google you want as many leads as possible. It doesn't mean you can't get leads in Southern California, but you're not going to win those auctions very often. So ideally, you have your Southern California campaign, you have your rural campaign, you might want to consider getting a third campaign if the goal is to get spreads up. If you could target a bunch of areas that have really high assignment fees similar to Southern California but just other markets. The thing about California is it has the largest assignment fees. I don't know anybody anywhere that has larger spreads than you can find in Southern California, but you can increase it significantly if you're staying in places like the top cities in Florida, Texas, and the DMV area. There's a lot of markets that have high ARV and high spread markets. You could have a campaign targeted to those areas where you're not necessarily touching the rural stuff, but you'd have a significantly lower cost per lead than you would in Southern California. Assuming you have a dispositions process that works everywhere, you would likely have a lower cost per lead and then a lower deal spread, but maybe a little bit lower on the deal spread and then a lot lower on the cost per lead. So a disproportionately positive return on a campaign like that. Any thoughts on something like that?"

"100%. Like I said, I think we were kind of doing that just a little bit, but are you talking about setting basically a radius around the big metro areas? I think it was Robert Wiley who said someone was targeting places that had airports or NFL teams."

"Yeah, they don't have an NFL team then, yeah. Which is interesting. I mean, Utah doesn't have an NFL team, but it's a great market. But I get the point where it's like, and then you have Green Bay, it's not a huge market at all, but it has a huge NFL team. So it doesn't perfectly correlate, but yeah."

"Yeah, maybe targeting like five huge markets would be great, you know what I mean? We have good healthy spreads, like split-testing the campaigns. If you move into a couple more markets, you get a significantly lower cost per lead, but there are good spread markets out there. But I think the pain that you're feeling right now, based on how your marketing is set up, that makes you think to go from a bunch of states to Southern California, you're playing way over here and way over there. I'm suggesting maybe playing in the middle a little bit too. There might be some good middle ground, and because you have a bunch of states where there's a high variance in the profit per lead, like the profit per deal, you have some Midwest states where you're going to do slim spreads and you've also got areas like Dallas Fort Worth that are awesome markets with large spreads. If you put them together, you're just naturally going to find more leads and more deals in the areas where there's smaller spreads because they're the less competitive areas. If you just have a campaign that still targets a lot of areas but you set the bar for like, I will not include any area in here that doesn't have a spread at least this high, then you start to play in that higher spread game, but you still get the benefits of a cost per lead to a more national campaign. Of course, you have a higher cost per lead than if you're going really rural, but it plays in between the two things you're talking about."

"Yeah, 100%. I've been thinking about it all year, figuring out the right way to dial it in. But the really smart thing you're doing is not burning the ships, saying, yeah, I have a 5-6x return on this rural campaign, but I'm going to completely ditch that and jump into this new thing I'm excited about. That's the impulse that a lot of entrepreneurs have that you kind of have to be careful about. There's a time and place for that."

"Well, like I said, we're really ramping up our direct mail campaigns. At this moment, we're sending out 30,000 pieces of postcard a month. We want to get that up and going, get a couple of deals under our belt, and then we're going to start playing around again with our areas."

"Totally makes sense. Would you do direct mail in many markets?"

"No, just Southern California. It's a lot harder to scale by the time you figure out how to do the data in a lot of different markets versus PPC, it's really easy."

"Yeah, and I know, like I said, we're excited to do some bigger deals this upcoming year."

"Totally makes sense. Anything else on marketing? What's the secret to marketing?"

"The really interesting thing about marketing for a business like this is here you guys are doing seven figures in revenue, and you don't even have a marketing person for me to talk to. It's really common in this industry, even if you're growing a lot. If you leverage the right partnerships with good vendors, you don't need a marketing person. They call it a marketing and sales business. I was talking to a friend of mine, Vance Courtney, the other day. He was in the Collective Genius in the same group you were in for a time. What he told me is people call it a marketing and sales business. I don't agree; it's just a sales business because you can outsource marketing, but you can't outsource sales. If you really think about it, you're just running a sales organization. If you get good vendors for marketing, you can outsource transaction coordination. You're just selling deals to buyers, buying them from sellers."

"True story."

"Yeah, which is super cool. Any last comments on marketing? Anything you could do better or others could do better?"

"No, just like I said, that is a position in itself. We do plan on probably bringing on a marketing director after probably 2025. It's just still needed in this industry, but you can go a lot longer without."

"Well, that's awesome. Super grateful for the time you guys have invested into this and for having me out here. Thanks for talking all things marketing."

"Thank you, it's been a ton of fun."

"Awesome."

"Brother."

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Eric Lyman is a visionary real estate investor who leverages the Novation model and cutting-edge technology for a sustainable competitive edge. As co-founder of Impact House Buyers, his focus on constant improvement and transparent sales processes powers their growth. Eric's passion extends to empowering others through his Investor PowerUp training program, designed to help new real estate wholesalers reach their full potential. Through leadership, innovation, and a commitment to giving back, Eric is helping shape the future of the industry while building a legacy of empowered entrepreneurs. In this episode, Eric Lyman shares his laser-focused approach to real estate investing via novations. Specializing in this single exit strategy, he reveals his systems for structuring virtual novation deals nationwide. Eric discusses managing risk, working with remote realtors/contractors, and leveraging the MLS. He unpacks his lean two-person business model, key metrics, and lifestyle goals behind this simplified operation. A must-listen for novation mastery.

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Want to learn how a small-town real estate investor closed over 400 deals last year? Eric Brewer spills the beans on scaling a business with his "innovator's edge" strategy, revealing hidden profit channels and essential leadership insights.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Eric Brewer. Eric Brewer's company flips or wholesales over 400 houses every year. Today he shares with me some of the lessons that he's learned over that process through implementing different exit strategies and developing as a leader to help his company grow. Welcome to the podcast Eric, how you doing?"

"Doing great man, how are you?"

"Hey, fantastic. Excited to talk with you again. I can tell you, you're one person every time we talk I learn something and I appreciate that a ton. So I'm excited for you to be on this podcast, mostly selfishly, mostly just because I want to learn a few things from you."

"Cool, well I'll do my best not to let you down. We'll see how we do."

"So for people listening to this podcast that might not know you, might not know who you are, your background or anything like that, could you share just a little bit about like, you know, who are you? What have you done? Like the history of how you've gotten to where you are today and then you know, what are you doing now?"

"Yeah sure. So I am in York, Pennsylvania. It's a relatively small rural area about 45 minutes north of Baltimore, Maryland, and about 30 minutes south of the capital of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. And then about 3 and a half hours east of Pittsburgh and an hour and a half east of Philadelphia. So if you sort of triangulate that stuff, I am in the southern east portion of PA closer to Baltimore than really any other notable area. I am a real estate investor, been doing it since 2006. Currently have roughly 40 plus employees. We operate in three markets within two hours of our home office here. We did just north of 400 real estate deals last year. I got my start really in business in the automobile industry. Went out of high school, went into the army, got out of the army, got into the car business, spent eight years in the car business. Really learned how to sell there, learned how to manage, learned a little bit of marketing. Got burned out. The car business back in this would have been the late '90s early 2000s was very demanding from a schedule perspective and it's never been known as like the most enjoyable atmosphere to either sell or buy in, right?"

"I think uh most people that sell cars don't love the experience and I don't know, Consumer Reports said a couple years ago that like 98% of people that bought a car didn't love the experience as well. So I was, you know, that was catching up to me. The hours were weighing on me and I was about to have my first child. So in 2005 I left the car business, did some soul searching, decided to get into real estate, started my real estate career in finance. Was basically cold calling refinance leads at a mortgage company and after doing that for about six months, my previous mentor from the car business got into real estate, knew that I had made the transition out of the car business and called me. And uh a couple days later we partnered up and in February of 2006 we started flipping houses."

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Looking to break free from traditional real estate constraints? Join Chris Prefontaine as he unveils his "three paydays" system for acquiring properties without mortgages, sharing insider strategies from over three decades in the industry.

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"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Vitman, and today I'm joined by Chris Prefontaine. Chris specializes in creative finance, and we talk about some of the strategies that they use and how, in his opinion, creative finance is a lot more attractive than wholesaling or flipping.

Chris, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?"

"I'm awesome. Thanks for having me, Brandon."

"Yeah, super excited for you to be here and to get to know you a little bit and understand your unique perspective on real estate investing. For those listening that aren't familiar with you and your background, would you mind just sharing a little bit of your story and what you've done and how that's kind of led you to where you are today?"

"Yeah, so I've been at this 33 years. For the sake of protecting their time and not putting them to sleep, we'll do this quickly. I'm from New England. I can go quickly, Brandon. So yeah, I've been at this 33 years. I will tell you that I've touched a lot, not all niches in real estate. I did some building back in the early 90s, owned a brokerage, sold out to Coldbanker. That was around 2000. That led up to sort of what I call the debacle, the crash of '08. And what that did - why I wanted to get you there - is what that did, the crash of '08, it really caused a lot of re-engineering in the business. And it's why and how we exist today, meaning I got out of that and said, 'All right, what are the things that I need to change or would like to change?'

And they were as follows: One, no signing personally on bank loans, like taking conventional loans out anymore, because I learned the hard way what happens when the market crashes. Two, as we talked about off-air, let's work on - when I reengineered it, I said to myself and my family, 'Let's re-engineer this so that we work on a deal not being so transactional.' If you will, like I built a home, I got a check, good check, but had to do it again to get that same check. Or a rehab, or as a broker, they were all transactional.

So we trademarked what we call the three paydays. We go out and buy real estate. We buy it without banks, we buy it creatively, but we also now teach that out in the field and have for, gosh, I don't know, 12 years or so. And when I say teach it, as I said to you offline, we don't just sell things. What we do is we say, 'Hey, let's lock arms, let's do these deals together,' because the biggest gap in real estate education is people not implementing, and mainly because they're afraid or don't have the support.

And so that's what we do. The company, Smart Real Estate Coach, has now been on Inc. 5000's fastest-growing companies for the last three years because the model works, plain and simple. So I can go back to any piece of that, Brandon, but I just want to kind of give an overview for now."

"Yeah, that's super helpful. So I guess if we can get down to the details of it, what is it that you're usually helping people with that they don't understand before they work with you, or they don't know how to do?"

"Let me answer that by saying, because I always try to give real stories, it reminds me of my story. Like, I was in the business 18 years before pivoting to laser focus on creative real estate, real on your terms. Why? I don't know why I didn't at first, but the fact is that creative real estate right now, unbeknownst to most, is by far in 33 years under the most demand right now. And there's a bunch of reasons why.

One, interest rates. Crazy interest rates right now, so many people got pushed to the side. For buyers, that means sellers are having a tougher time. Two, we're at like the third time in 50 years where it was an affordability issue. All these things scream loudly and pull on the people that know how to pivot in the market for creative real estate.

Because I know for your listeners and your experience, everybody would agree that there's one constant in real estate, and that's that it keeps changing. And so many people go, 'Well, I got to time this, and I got to go in this geographic area,' and the fact is, you don't. You need to know how to pivot in up, down, or sideways markets. And you do that by becoming that sort of transaction engineer that knows how to creatively pivot, and that's the best thing that you could do for yourself in your business right now."

"Okay, yeah, that's super helpful. And I know that a lot of, just from speaking with our clients, I know that creative finance is - I mean, obviously, there's a lot of different things that can mean, right? Lots of different ways that you can do this. And I know that we have some clients that do focus on it quite a bit, and then for many, it seems to kind of be like the thing that you maybe pull out once in a while when you're not able to come to an agreement with a seller on price for a cash deal or something like that. It's kind of like that last trick up your sleeve when other stuff doesn't work.

So anyway, with that context, can you help me understand, like, when you say creative, what exactly are you referring to? What are your favorite strategies, and how might it be different from somebody who's listening to this and saying, 'Oh, creative finance, I got that. I do that already'?"

"No, I totally get it. So a couple things you said that are super important, I'll tie it all together. One is a lot of people in our community came to us because, say, they were wholesaling or flipping, and there's a lot of things that don't fit in that box that they throw away, literally like hundreds of leads that they throw away. So to your point, they can use the creative as a, 'Hey, I'm capturing all these leads I was previously throwing away,' like literally hundreds for a lot of wholesalers. Number one.

Number two, what's neat is we, in our community, we do the opposite of what you said, Brandon. I lead all the time, every time, with creative real estate. And what does it mean to us? To answer your question, one of three things. Okay, very niched down because you are right, creative can mean so many things within one deal.

One is owner financing. We niche this down very specifically to owner financing with free and clear properties. So they have no mortgage, and we do so by making monthly principal-only payments. This is a huge sort of recession hedge, if you will. If you get a long enough term and you're paying principal-only payments, I don't care what the market does, literally do not care what the market does. So you have a chance to do 0% interest.

And I was on a show recently, and the host said, 'Well, yeah, but the free and clear properties probably went down because of the interest rates and everybody took on HELOCs and whatnot.' And I said, 'Uh oh, I better check.' Check my stat - fact is, in the last decade, free and clear properties went from about 33% of the population, like literally 33%, to about 39.3%. So almost 40% of the properties in the United States are free and clear. Why not just go target or kind of fish in that pond? So that's how we do owner financing.

And just to clarify this, you don't have to stay in the residential world. I bought my office building the same way with no underwriting and no garbage that you have to go through to go through the commercial grueling process if you had to go conventional.

Second way we buy is subject to. So next best thing to 0% interest is what? Two or three or 4% interest. We're buying homes as recent as this week in Florida. I grabbed one at 2.6% interest, buying them subject to the existing loans. Plenty, plenty of people that are going, 'Wow, I'm in trouble. I got this extra house,' or doesn't matter how good the rate is, they got to get out. That's a very cool strategy right now, both of those.

And then the third is very standard, good for a new person: lease purchase. I say good for a new person because our agreements have built into like a $10 deposit, and you can tie up these properties, not own but tie them up and control them.

And I think the kicker here, Brandon, is sort of what a lot of creative people don't do is we've trademarked it: the three payday system. Meaning, when I do a deal, it's great to get paid once, like I said, transactionally. But the way I set it up, and I write about in the book that your whole tribe can get, is they get now money. Everybody gets now money when they do a deal, but then that sets in motion sort of some continuous cash flow and then long-term cash out and wealth building. That's an ideal model so you can get off the treadmill every few months or every few years and not feel like you got to be on this proverbial treadmill to keep earning the dollars. If that makes sense."

"Yeah, that does make sense. So help me understand, like, really specifically, what these paydays are. Like, what - I mean, sounds like you very specifically say like there are three. Could you walk me through, like, a - let's just say an example deal. It doesn't have to be a real deal, but like, put some fake numbers in this and let's just understand how this usually works."

"Sure. So there's a big - this is, in my opinion - again, I'm pretty opinionated with the industry of education and real estate - there are a lot of public podcasts and YouTube videos right now, with no names I don't need to mention them, that'll come on and say, 'Hey, we exit all our properties rent-to-own, and I don't care if the buyer ever gets qualified during the rent-to-own process because I get to go out and do it again and collect another check.' And that, although that may be correct legally for them, morally and ethically, it stinks. Because what do we want to do when we exit all our properties rent-to-own? We want to make sure we set the buyer up to win and cash out the property and eventually own the property.

So here's how the three paydays work then. I want to work with - Brandon, let's say that you're in a W2, and because of COVID or personal reasons, you left and you started your own business. I want to work with you because you're not bankable today, but yet you probably have good credit, you probably have some cash, and you probably were ready to buy a house. But now you're not bankable. You can't start your own business and get a loan tomorrow. Banks are going to need two years of tax returns to get you qualified.

So I work inside that realm with buyers that are true buyers that just need time. And payday one comes in when they step up to the table like they were ready to do when they didn't know they couldn't get financing, and they put down a down payment somewhere between 5 and 10% - let's say - of the property I have. That's payday one. That's now money. That's like that transactional piece.

Payday two is the spread between the payment I'm making to the bank on that underlying loan that I'll never be on personally, remember, or the payment I'm making to the seller and what I'm collecting during the rent-to-own process. There's a delta there. That's payday two.

And payday three - and I'll give you the numbers on this in a second - and then payday three is really cool because it's the cash-out, increase in the price, you know, the increase in the sales price. But it's also all of the principal pay down throughout the term of the deal. You cash that out at the end.

All three paydays in our community range from a low of 45 grand to a high of 350,000 per deal. That's pretty lucrative. For our family business, myself and my son, it's about 75 grand per three payday per deal. We're in the lower end just 'cause the price range in New England.

So that gives you an idea of how lucrative one deal can be. I wanted to throw that in there because I'll get a rehabber that calls me, and says - I get like six of these a year from one rehabber, and he'll say, 'Hey, Chris, I can't make heads or tails out of this deal. There's no money in it.' But a three payday system can eke out, you know, six figures all day long. That's a big difference for people that are not used to how to create those kind of dollars out of thin air, literally."

"Yeah, that totally makes sense. One thing I've seen, and I'm curious how you combat this, and maybe this is just a weird question, but bear with me 'cause one thing that we deal with often is we're trying to look at like marketing return on investment. And it seems like everybody, when they're wholesaling, has an idea of how you calculate marketing return on investment. It's just well, when we make 20 grand on the deal, then, you know, and we spent five grand to get it, that's a 4X return, right? It's pretty simple.

Once you get into like three separate paydays and the time value of money and stuff like that, it gets kind of messy. And what I've seen is that, in my opinion, a lot of our clients just kind of undervalue their creative deals because they're like, 'Oh yeah, that's a deal, and I'll make a lot of money on that eventually, but I'm not really making that much money now.' And because of that, let's just not include that one in our return on investment, or let's just put it in at 10 grand, whatever the case is.

Like, do you deal with that problem commonly? Or like, how do you recommend dealing with like comparing creative deals to other deals that you're doing in your business? And because this gets important even when we're going beyond just like the business owner making the decisions to like the team making the decisions and the metrics that they're held accountable to and the fact that they're trying to hit revenue numbers for company. And like, I feel like there's just like some some natural like apples to oranges kind of comparisons happening here. And how do you deal with that?"

"Yeah, see if this answers your question because this is interesting that you bring it up. So if I do a deal - I'll use the deal I just did in Florida. So we're about to close on this. Buying it for - I'm going to use round numbers - we're buying it for 350,000 by taking on the property subject to the existing loan and then giving the seller a little bit of equity in four years, no interest, no payments.

How much am I going to spend to calculate my return on investment? How much am I going to spend to buy this house? Zero money down. But because we're giving them zero money down, this young couple, we can't expect them to pay their transfer tax. Right? So we will have an expense of, let's just say $2,500 for a round number. Okay, on $2,500, what will we create for return on investment?

Well, we'll get a down payment of about 10%. That's going to be about $40,000. That's day one. So let's just look at the first year. We'll create a monthly spread of about $500. So that's six grand a year. So in year one, on a $2,500 investment, if you will, to buy that house, we're going to pull in about 46 grand. So in year one, if I compare that to anything else, it's not infinite, but it's very strong, right? You do the math.

So, and then it just depends on when you cash it out. But the neat thing about the way we structure our three payday is I can take a four-year deal and turn it into a 10-year deal and turn it into a 20-year deal. I can do anything I want depending on what cash flow needs I'm encountering right then. I don't know if that helps your question with the ROI. I think I - I think I was tracking with you, but you tell me if I wasn't."

"No, it does, it does make sense. So one way that you're talking about is like basically how much money are we going to make in year one from the property and comparing that to - comparing that to the other - to the other types of exits. I guess what I'm getting at now is I feel - it feels to me that a lot of the companies we work with are kind of undervaluing their creative deals based on the fact that it takes a while to to get the money. And and like, how do you - you know, how you deal with that, which is which is interesting 'cause you do great creative mostly. How many of your deals are not creative, or are you just 100% creative with the deals?"

"We do mostly creative now. We'll make decisions internally, Brandon. We'll go, 'Hey, we're - it's about time we bring on a whole - a buy and hold.' So recently, I got with our assistant who's been with us for nine years, and I said, 'Hey, here's a zip code. I want you to mail postcards,' which we don't do. We do all phone work, so we don't spend money unpredictably. But I'll pointedly say, 'Hey, let's go grab a 4 to 10 unit.' How do we do it?

We buy a free and clear list of owners who are free and clear that have a 4 to 10 unit, and we'll go ahead and send those out. We'll look to do a buy and hold. But that's bought creatively still, it's just not exited right away. Most of our deals, if not all, are in the creative space for sure.

I just have this subversion, Brandon, and it doesn't mean it's wrong. It's just what I came out of the crash knowing and believing and staying with. And that is, I will not take out a bank loan and sign personally any longer. Maybe it's my age, maybe it's because I went through the crash, maybe it's all the above, but I will not do it. So I tell my students not to do it. And now, there are exceptions, of course, there are, but that's how I tell everyone: just buy creatively, don't be signing on the personal guarantee line ever."

"Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That's super fascinating. So do you have any advice - like obviously this can get pretty complicated from the standpoint of everything involved in the transaction, and you're working with these sellers. I think a lot of people don't lead with creative just because a lot of the other stuff is a lot more simple and oftentimes is what more like what the seller is asking for in creative. Like, nobody goes - I - I would highly doubt that people are coming to you saying, 'I want to do some type of like creative finance solution to sell my house.' Like more often than not, they probably want something like a cash deal, and then you're kind of showing them, you know, the value of what you do with creative. So can you help me understand like what that conversation looks like with the seller and how you take this like complicated thing and make it easy for them to understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, very good question. So my conversation goes like this - I mean, I had one right before this call, right before this interview. My conversation goes, 'Hey, Brandon, I see you want X. If I can get you full price, are you open to doing that over time via owner financing or lease purchase?' And they'll say, 'Well, no, I want, you know, I want to sell.'

I get it. 99% of the homes I buy, the sellers want conventional full price cash. I say it kind of facetiously, but then I add the 'but,' and the 'but' is: Right now, if you talk to top-producing mortgage brokers - and I share this with a seller - about 17 to 20% of the applicants can get a loan today. That's low. That's a very low pool of buyers. So if you don't get full price in the time you want and you don't need your cash today to go buy another home, I'm a great plan B. And so that's where we get all our leads, and that's been the case for the last, again, 12 or 13 years.

You'd be surprised, though, to your earlier point, like some sellers do seek out owner financing from a buyer. My building I bought November of '18 - I just sold it recently, but I bought it in November '18, and he said to me in frustration, 'Hey, Chris, I have brokers coming in my door saying, "Hey, I have buyers, I have buyers."' He said, 'They don't understand it. I want owner financing for estate and planning reasons and tax reasons.' Like, some intelligent, sophisticated owners of single families, multis, and commercial want and require owner financing for personal reasons. So there's that component.

And the other component is we're doing a deal right now - again, I'm doing all current stuff - this week a student called me at 8 a.m. this morning and got me on the phone with a couple. That's what we do, we help with that. It's a young couple, it's a sad story, but they have to get out of the house. They're three months behind, they don't have a choice. The credit's already beat up. If they let it go, as you know, they're going to be beat up for 3 to 7 years. We're going to come in, cure the arrears, and buy that subject to. That is a gift to them for sure.

So there's all those moving parts. There's the free and clear person that wants creative and wants all their money, and then there's the person on the other end of the spectrum that is in dire needs and needs you to come in and understand how to structure that. So we do both."

"Yeah, that totally makes sense. Well, thank you for sharing some of this, Chris. It's super fascinating. So I understand that you have a book, right, that people, if they want to learn a little bit more about this, they can somehow get?"

"Yeah, so we don't do - I again, I'm going to talk about the industry again and poo-poo on that a little bit because a lot of times I'll personally look at a book, look for a book offer, right? And I get all the way through to the screen where I put my address in, it says, 'Okay, pay $8 for shipping.' I'm like, 'I thought it was free.'

So we will send you for free, no shipping, one of our - we have four, but one of our bestselling books, which describes sort of what you and I have been talking about. It's called 'Real Estate on Your Terms.' Just go to WickedSmartBooks.com - that's Wicked Smart Books with an S - dot com, slash Vitman and the number one, numeric number one. And we'll ship that out to you.

And then you and I were chitchatting before the show, we do have our annual live event. We've done this since 2016 when we were in a basement of a Chamber of Commerce, and now it's done at a larger scale. That's in Boston, Massachusetts. It's September 23rd and 24th. You can just go to QLS.live.com for information on that."

"Very cool. Thank you, Chris, for your time and generosity and sharing all your insights today. And for everybody else listening, I'll see you next week."

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Discover how to turn probate nightmares into profitable deals with attorney Al Nicoletti, who shares insider tips from 700+ transactions. Learn to spot deal-breakers early and navigate probate with confidence, all without upfront legal costs.

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"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Al Nicoletti. We talk all about probate: how long do probates take, what are some common reasons that deals blow up, and how can you avoid those things? How can you sniff out a good potential probate deal from a bad potential probate deal? Just all these things based on his experience. He's done over 700 probate deals in the State of Florida, so I hope you'll find the episode useful and I'll see you there."

"Welcome to the show, Al. Super excited to have you here. How you doing?"

"Good Brandon, I'm happy to be on the podcast with you."

"Man, yeah, I'm super excited for you to be here too. When I think in my mind of like people that bring energy to real estate investing, Al is right there at the top of my list. So really, really excited to have you here. You brighten up my day a little bit."

"For people that don't know you though, like it's every day, there's something going on. It's... I mean, my days, every day is crazy."

"Yeah, I fully believe you. Trust me, you don't have to tell me twice. Yeah, that's and you're kind of in that phase of a business, I think, where everybody feels that way a little bit. So yeah, that's crazy and there's probably a lot to talk about there. But for people that don't know you, haven't heard of you, or seen any of your content or something like that, just if you wouldn't mind, just like a brief summary. Like, who are you? What's your background? What do you do? Anything?"

"So I'm Al Nicoletti. I'm a probate attorney in Florida. I've been doing this for seven years now. I've done over 700 probates in Florida, working with a lot of investors, realtors, title companies. Where my specialty is, is I come in and help solve the problem when you're under contract with a seller or the title company tells you, 'Hey, we got to do probate.' And so there's some kind of probate involved. That's where I come in on the legal side to help overcome the issue, figure out and dissect what's going on, and see what the solution is and bring it to the closing table so that everybody can close. That's where I come in."

"When I first started doing this, Brandon, it wasn't just probate. It was a lot of the foreclosure world. So I got to see a lot of what was going on with the foreclosure defense, and then all of a sudden, probate kind of got dabbled in there. Because with pre-foreclosures, you're going to find distressed properties because somebody owned it, they either can't pay, they won't pay, or they're dead. So I found a lot of that."

"My background really started down in Miami, and I found my way to Jacksonville. Really found this niche, wild story that was with probate. And you know, I realized, Brandon, that there were just tons of opportunities out there where there's just lots of properties. A lot of them are titled where there needs to be a probate involved. And when I saw that model, I saw this niche where there can be somebody that can come in and provide a solution to the seller's problem. And ever since then, just blown it up, spoke everywhere, met with a lot of investors, and it's been a great journey. You know, it's crazy. I've had my own law firm for three plus years now, and we're scaling."

"Very, very cool," Brandon replied. "Yeah, thanks for sharing all that, Al. I mean, I think obviously probate is one of the biggest areas that investors love to focus on. You know, one of the places where you'll find the most distress. And I'm super curious just to like, you know, hopefully pull some wisdom out of your mind."

"I can tell you the number one thing I hear about probate. It happens all the time. Like, we have working with the client that get a deal under contract and they're like, 'Oh, but that's a probate one,' and they're like, they don't count it. They're like, 'Oh, it's just going to... it's going to take forever to get that closed.'"

"Like, I'm curious from your perspective. I mean, you've done 700 of these. Like, walk me through the process with the probate lead. Like, how long in your opinion - well, not necessarily in your opinion, but in your experience - does it take to bring something through the whole cycle?"

Al responded, "Yeah, so this has definitely been one of the things from the very beginning that I really explain to a lot of investors. Because for a long time before me, the investors were like, 'Wait a second, this is going to take six, nine months, 12 months, a year.' You know, and sometimes Brandon, I'm at presentations and they're like, 'Hey, this is going to take two years,' or you know, they think it takes two, three years."

"When I started doing this - so get a little of this - when I did my first probate, this was pre-COVID. I wanted to see like, what was really the potential here. So when I first filed the probate, I got the case number, I went downtown, judge looked at everything, signed, we were done. Literally, it took 4 days to do a probate."

"And when I saw what was going on, then I was like, 'Wait a second, is this like this in every county?' So COVID happens, we're all virtual, everybody's submitting things. I'm doing things all over the state and I'm really learning about what different processes are happening with different counties."

"The real answer is, I would say about 80 to 90% of these probates can be done within a matter of weeks, like four to eight weeks. That's my range that I like because some counties have different rules with checklists, procedures, and different hurdles that we have to overcome, some nuances. Some counties could be a little bit longer because they have different reviews. But the whole thing of 6, 9, 12 months - it doesn't take that long. And I think the procedures can be a lot faster."

"And to all the investors that are listening, I'd say this to you: whenever you get that lead that comes in, if it's inbound or outbound marketing, don't pass that probate off. I mean, there could be options with that. I'm only in Florida, I know you know that Brandon, but you know, a lot of people don't realize that there's options, there's people you can go to, there's experts that you can leverage that can help with that."

Brandon replied, "Now, that's helpful to know. So help me understand this: is it that probate doesn't take six or 9 or 12 months, or is it that it could take that long if you do XYZ, but if you do ABC instead, then it can be four to eight weeks?"

"So the idea of four to eight weeks is everybody's on the same page, everybody's holding hands, signing the contract, agreeing and moving to closing. Right? That's the beautiful part about it. That's where I explain that this thing can get done fast. It's where then you start having uncooperative people or maybe nobody signing documents, and you know, you have to track people down in the process to make them sign things. That's where the process, of course, is going to be longer."

"But when you have everybody together, which I'd say a high percentage is where everybody is just on the same page, that's when it's going to be done fast. We've had a few cases where when you have a missing heir, maybe, or uncooperative people, sure, those are going to take like three, four, five months, maybe longer. But the way to look at it is, in that deal, is it worth your time to wait that long if there is a solution because there's enough money in the deal to make it happen? That's where I tell a lot of people too, is like with these probates, the money's got to be there if this thing starts getting more complicated."

Brandon asked, "Does the legal representation that you have affect pretty strongly how long it takes? Like, could it just be that you work with - because you said like when people work with you, you can get it done pretty fast. Is it basically like, obviously if it takes you - if there's 64 heirs and you only have contact with 20 of them and you got to get the rest, like obviously that's going to take a minute or you just shouldn't do that. But you know, assuming everybody's holding hands and stuff, does the - let's take you out of the equation, you know, for those for people that are listening that aren't in Florida because if you're in Florida, you just hire Al, like it's simple. But let's just say I'm in Utah here. Like, what are some things I want to think through in terms of like who I hire, who I work with to make this happen fast?"

Al replied, "Yeah, so that's a great question. Sometimes we know people in other states. Like lawyers know people in other states, I know a few in other states. I don't know all the states, but one of my best recommendations is: one, get with somebody that is also doing high volume deals in that state. Why high volume? Because the chances of them finding a messy deal are higher than somebody doing just a one-off or one deal a month. The high volume investors are the ones that are really dialed in on making sure that they're having a specialty, a special attorney for that work."

"Another thing is local REAs, local meetups. There's always somebody that is having a problem with the deal, and when you go there, maybe they have an open mic night, maybe they have like a Q&A or like a networking event that you can really ask and find out."

"Also, you know, not every lawyer is the same. So what you really want to hone in on for finding that right person if you're getting into a messy deal, that right lawyer is, find out like what percentage of their practice really is probate or messy deals. Because there's a lot of lawyers that say, 'I do this, I do this, I do divorce, I do criminal law, I do mergers and acquisitions.' It's like, how do you do all that? I can't even do all that in one day."

"And it's because they're just throwing everything on the menu to see what sticks. You want to find somebody that's a specialist at what they do and find out what kind of volume are they taking on. You know, Brandon, ask me like what percentage of probate is my practice - it's got to be 95% to 100% basically. I mean, with the files that we have rotating all the time, and we're always in real estate deals. That's what you want to look for."

"Another one is just making sure that they get on the creative side. You know, another thing with probate lawyers, and now that we're on the topic of like, basically what do you want to look for in a probate lawyer, you know, what you want to look for too is that they're not just thinking about probate but also how does the deal get closed. You know, I've seen a number of deals, Brandon, where it's a complicated one where they think that they can just get one person to sign on behalf of others, and not every state's the same, not every rule's the same."

"And so you know, you hear it from one person, you hear 'Yeah, you can do it,' 'You can't do it.' You got to really make sure you're with somebody that sees the end, how do you close the deal. So the lawyer that can see the probate, get the probate done, but how do you close the transaction? That's the key. That's what I look at every time I look at a file. If you call me and you said, 'Al, I got this wild deal, you know, what do you think?' I'm not looking at it just probate. I'm like, how does Brandon actually get this closed?"

Brandon responded, "Okay, that's super fascinating. Thank you for sharing some of that. I mean, honestly, I've heard from a few people that they're a little bit scared of probate. Like there's just a lot there, and I have every end of the spectrum. One, I got a friend of mine that is proud of closing his probate deal where there were like 39 heirs or something, and he somehow got it done. I'm like, that - and he said it was absolutely not worth it, but it's a cool trophy deal, whatever you want to call it, right?"

"So I mean, there's that, and there's people that like will actually pass these kinds of leads and these kinds of deals up, or maybe they just don't see something. They don't see the opportunity because they don't understand the process. Like, help me understand, let's just say you're talking to an investor and they've got hundreds or thousands of leads in their system and some of those could be probate. Like, what are the common reasons that they might just be passing them up where maybe they shouldn't be?"

Al replied, "So maybe there's not enough money in the deal, maybe there's a lot of other issues with the property. Maybe, you know, I'm thinking first thinking land, right? So what could be the problems? It's landlocked, there's no rights of access, there's environmental issues. You know, forget the probate aside, there's all these other problems that they hear about. So they could be passing it off just because of that."

"Sometimes, sometimes the money's just not in the deal. You know, they may be able to lock it up for five and they're going to sign it out for 20, but then we do the probate analysis and there's going to be four probates. Well, the four probates are going to eat straight into the assignment fee, and then the deal doesn't make sense. Right? So sometimes it's about - sometimes it's not about the probate, but it's the margins, the money, and all these other auxiliary things going on."

"Another reason some people kind of get a little turned off by it is, we find out well, you think that there's three heirs, and then we have the consultation, and then we find out well, there was a fourth one that died before and they have seven kids. And it's like, wait a second, like so do we have to track down the seven kids? And it's like, yeah, you got to go find them. And some people don't want to get into it, right? Like this is the messy stuff."

"And there's a lot of investors that like, get excited, they get energy from like, 'Wait, we got to go find people?' I do this for a living. Like, I work with those kind of people, right? Like they find people for a living. So there's a lot of these little things."

"I always think it comes down to money. I think it comes down to, you know, getting around it. Sometimes the title companies have weird requirements, right? Or maybe the people are just crazy. Sometimes there's like, you know, crazy sellers and so they don't want to deal with them. Like, I don't mind crazy deals, I don't want crazy sellers. Right? So that's something that a lot of people want to avoid."

"But going to your point, Brandon, this niche can be one of the most profitable in real estate, I think. Because I've just seen so many investors recently where it's not 64 heirs, it's not 32 heirs, it's one heir, it's four heirs, and their assignment fees are like $800,000. Like, there's a big range of spread, and so finding two people or one, three people, like it makes a lot of sense because it's going to be their biggest deal and it changes their entire platform. It changes, you know, who they hire, who they get for acquisitions, can they get another TC, can they take on more. So it's a game-changer."

Brandon asked, "So you would say like in a typical situation, basically they'd be responsible for tracking people down, and then the attorney they're working with is just doing all the paperwork and all that kind of stuff to get it done, right? So that's kind of like part of like, who usually does that in a company? Is that like acquisitions that's responsible for tracking people down? Or like, just help me understand, like when someone's thinking, 'How do I do more probates?' and they're thinking like, 'How does this fit into the org chart and who does what?' What's normal?"

Al responded, "From my understanding, it's usually acquisitions, right? Or they'll have somebody underneath them, or you know, maybe go look for them or they'll hire someone. TCs are not usually doing that, they're just trying to like, you know, herd everybody together to sign things and do things. But acquisitions is just trying to find and locate people or, you know, maybe try to get more information from the seller."

"So you know, that's the one thing I've learned too that I think a lot of people can get valuable information is the acquisitions if they can ask the right questions to that seller, that you find out wait, there's more people. They know the family, they know where people are. I would say most of the time they know, and sometimes you have to ask like three times for them to be like, 'Oh yeah, there's a kid in New York.' It's like, well, where was that like, you know, six months ago?"

"Like, we just had a case where at first it was one guy, and then the story kind of changed, and all of a sudden like there's more people, and then all of a sudden there's more. So they all know, and sometimes, you know, another golden nugget for people is, you know, death certificates. If they're able to get - if they're able to get this to help like find more people, you know, or find the next lead, sometimes death certificates, if you're able to acquire them, will list an informant on it. And the informant usually has an address, a name, which is basically like another - it's a lead to a lead, right? It's another little clue so you can find out what's going on."

Brandon replied, "Totally makes sense. So let's just say, let's just say the financials of a deal sound right. Beyond that, if we know it's a probate situation, like for people a little bit new to probate, like what are the key questions they should be asking the seller to better understand is this an opportunity or is it not? Or maybe like along those lines, like red flags where you're like, you hear this, like just give up now, it's not going to work."

Al answered, "Well, definitely the crazy factor, right? Like that, that's got to - I mean, that I didn't even used to say that before. Now for me, it's like, it's definitely the crazy factor. They're out, right? So that's one. Two is, who are - who is that person that acquisitions is talking to in relation to maybe the title owner, right? So you want to find out like, who is this person in relation to them? Like, are they the cousin or are they like the child? And you have to know that because that person - very different people are going to have an authority to sign documents, move forward with a probate."

"And so you first have to ask it - if you're really talking to somebody far down the line like nephew and cousin or uncle, that's where you kind of have to put your red flag up about wait, there's got to be a little bit more to the story. It sounds too good to be true."

"I'd say that that's a big one. Of course, just listening out for what they're saying. You know, one thing I've learned is they'll tell you guys they're the only one, and then I find out that there's seven, right? So it's being able to ask the questions in a way that's going to pull out as much as you can. Right? You're only going to get so much."

"So finding out how many, how many children ever, right? It's crazy that we have to say it like that, but for some reason, like when you say it the second time, it like registers and they're like, 'Oh, ever,' and it's like, 'Yeah, like, like how many kids ever?' And then they tell you, right? So being able to ask these right questions."

"I have a checklist too, which could be a freebie for everybody out there, Brandon, which is, you know, some of the right questions to ask is, you know, where's the death certificate? Do you have the documentation that if we were able to move forward and I - you can put somebody in touch with an attorney, that we can do this, right? Do you have the death certificate? Do you have the will? Do you have the important heir info? That's really key as well."

"A lot of people don't realize like those are vital documents to being able to do a probate that lays the record for being able to say, 'Hey, somebody owned that property, they died, now we have to do this estate administration.' And I mean, there's so much to this. Like I see every day, a lot of times the sellers will also be really pushy to get the transaction going, and it's like, well why? Like, what, what, what's going on that we don't know? And I hear about this once in a while, and of course then we find out there's more kids, which is why they wanted to push it to the closing line because there's, you know, there's more people."

"So you know, just being able to ask these right questions up front and at least having a little guide for yourself that can help prepare you when you go to an appointment so you can find out what's happening."

Brandon responded, "Yeah, no, that's super, super good advice. And kind of along those lines, I mean, you sort of touched on this a little bit, but I just want to make sure I'm sucking everything out of your brain that can be found. Is there a - like, are there any other things you're noticing that are like reasons that deals are blowing up, just never getting closed, but are in your opinion avoidable if you did things the right way?"

Al replied, "Man, that's a really good question because - so I can think in my mind right now of a few deals that we've been scrambling on lately that have blown up not because of the probate, but one, you know what happens with foreclosures, there's a payoff, right? And then you think that the payoff is 220, and so your contract price is 260, right? And then all of a sudden you're ready to close, and then the bank shows the payoff and the payoff is 320. And it's like, well, you know, now what? You know, even if we increase the purchase price, dead deal. Like, doesn't matter. Like that's, that's it, right?"

"So we've seen some actually get messed up because the bank just refused and didn't provide the payoff, and now everybody's in a scramble. We've seen some that when you get probates, sometimes these properties are heading for a foreclosure auction, and that's like another niche I kind of get into as well. As like, if they're heading to an auction in two weeks or one week, you know, can we try to cancel and reschedule the sale? And I'd say about 85% of those have been successful. Sometimes the judge just says no, and we had one recently where the judge was like, 'Nope, we're not, we're not doing it.' Like, and we're - it's going to go to sale, and there's only so much you can do, right? You only have so much control, and you just do the best you can. So we've seen, we've seen some deals like that."

"Crazy sellers, sometimes everybody's under contract and they're just getting mailed, mailed, mailed, and somebody's just saying, 'Hey, I'm going to offer you a million dollars for your property.' And it's like, then they ghost, they ghost everybody, you know? So we've seen - I say more recently I've seen some of the probates go crazy not on the probate side, but like the after part, like when they're about to go to the closing table, when everybody's getting all their numbers crunched. That's when there's something happening."

"And we saw one recently too where the acquisitions was on great rapport with the seller, and there's multiple sellers. I mean, they took hours, Brandon, hours just building the trust, building the relationship, probate done, out - just ghost, ghost. And we never know, we never know why sometimes."

Brandon asked, "Fair point. And there's no - like, help me understand, 'cause again, prob- just not something I know a ton about, but like, let's just say you're under contract with a seller and just normal wholesale deal. And the seller ghosts you, like, I know there's ways to deal with that. Like you file a memorandum or whatever the case is, so you can, you know, eventually get paid or, you know, prevent them from selling to another investor, whatever the case is. Can you do that with probate still? Like in the circumstance where like the seller just ghosts you? Or can you not do that in a probate situation?"

Al responded, "It - I was just having this talk with my assistant today. It's, it's a tough spot to be in, right? It's kind of the risk that you get into when you play the game. The hope is that everybody's gonna close, right? But then sometimes you get into ones where they do that. Sometimes there's a way, there really is a way. It's - there's probably a lot more work on my end that I have to get into to kind of enforce that, you know, go through maybe some kind of lawsuit or something like that to get a judgment. But it, it's really part of the risk, and the hope is that everybody, you know, will get to the closing table."

"At some point, there's an invoice and the title companies will add your invoice to the line item on the HUD, right? So it's, it's definitely - it's a lot harder than people realize. And yeah, I mean, of course we hear all the investors have the different strategies to making sure they're, they're in place in case that doesn't happen. Just in our world, it's a little different."

Brandon replied, "Okay, yeah, it's good to know that it is a little different. So I'm assuming then that your clients really appreciate that you just get paid at closing basically on this pro- I- that takes from their - from their plate that takes a lot of the risk off because then they're not thinking I'm, I'm like getting - I'm getting deep in debt here with Al just to get this deal closed. And then the seller ghosts me and then now I've got all these legal fees and I don't even have a deal."

Al confirmed, "Oh, that's one of the biggest selling points. It's probably the biggest selling point for my services, right? Because if investors know that wait a second, if I get a Florida probate and the title company says, 'Hey, we got to do probate,' or there's some kind of probate word that they hear, they're knowing, wait a second, I can get with Al, he'll wait until closing to get paid. Nobody's having to pay anything up front. And by the way, the seller is going to be all in because they don't want to come out of pocket because how many attorneys they've been to where they're being told, 'Hey, you need to pay us, you know, five grand up front.' And so they don't want to do that, right? But they want to - they're like, 'Hey, we'll wait until closing, no problem.' I can name so many people that are like, loving that strategy because it helps them do deals. I mean, some of the highest volume investors that you know, Brandon, love the strategy because they can just go deal after deal after deal and close and just get, get it done."

Brandon concluded, "Yeah, yeah, totally understood. Well, thank you for all the wisdom that you shared today, Al. It's super interesting. For people that want to get a hold of you for whatever reason - I mean, I imagine if you're in Florida, definitely hit up Al for any appropriate deals you might have. If they're in other states, I don't know if you want me to just tell them not to ever talk to you, Al, or if you still welcome the reach out, but yeah, they got to get a hold of you. How do they do that?"

Al replied, "Yeah, I, I'll say this, Brandon. If anybody is looking for somebody in Georgia, I know Georgia. There's - there's a couple states I know of. Illinois, knew somebody there. California, I think there's someone over there. There's a few states I know. So if somebody needs something like in a certain state, I don't mind at all. I'd say this: the best way to get a hold of me, if you're finding deals - because by the way, a lot of people are doing probates now in Florida, a lot of people are coming to the Florida market just because it's been so hot - find me on all the social platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, under Al Nicoletti. My website, www.alnicoletti.com, and you can - if you need a call, 904-999-4953. And of course, I have my own podcast, the Al Nicoletti Show, which we had Brandon on. If you missed that episode going all into inbound marketing, you got to watch that episode. And we go live on the show 9:00 Eastern on Wednesdays, and a lot of people love watching that just because of the value on that too, just getting more info and they see me and they see you and it's just great. So that's where you can find me. I'm, I'm all over."

Brandon concluded, "Okay, very cool. Thank you, Al. Appreciate it. And to everybody else listening, I'll see you next week."

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Tired of wasting money on online targeting? Join Brandon and Garret as they share practical tips to maximize your digital marketing efforts, from refining audience targeting to converting leads effectively.

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Grab your notebook—this video is a game-changer! Join us as expert Brandon Bateman teams up with Jerry Norton and Robert Wensley to reveal strategic secrets for pinpointing high-potential neighborhoods that maximize your PPC ROI.

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Ever feel like you're tossing money into a black hole with your online ads, watching your budget vanish with no clue if it’s working? In this episode, we're cracking open one of the biggest mysteries in digital marketing: how long until your campaign actually starts working?

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I'm here with Landon Heeden, a member of my team. We're going to talk all about how long it takes for a Google Ads campaign to work. There are a lot of different directions we can go with this discussion. We'll talk about leading metrics, lagging metrics, platform learning versus optimization, and how those things often get mixed up. Ultimately, we'll address how long it takes for a campaign to work. Landon, how you doing today?"

"Doing well, how are you doing?"

"Fantastic! Excited to have you here. This is your... second? What's a better word for that? Um, this is your debut, the Landon Heeden premiere on the Collective Clicks podcast. Very excited to have you here, to have you be a part of the team."

"It's good to be here."

"Yeah, so we're going to get into the topic today, which is basically how long it takes for a PPC campaign to work. But before that, just because you're newer, would you mind giving a brief introduction so people know who they're talking to and where this random guy came from out of nowhere?"

"Yeah, you bet. So I'm Landon Heeden, I'm the director of account management here at Baitman. I've been in the digital marketing world for over 20 years, which makes me feel old, but it's true. I've been through... I mean, I've worked in a ton of different industries and areas in e-commerce, lead gen, bunch of stuff. It took a while to find a company that I wanted to land with, and I found Baitman in December, and I'm glad I'm here. So yeah, it's really, really good to be here."

"Yeah, I'm excited for you to be here too. Actually, I sometimes actively caution people against working with people who've been in digital marketing for a long time because sometimes they just... like to get some context here, I mean, you were basically doing Google Ads like when they first started existing, similar with..."

"Years after."

"Two years after, which I mean, in the world of ad tech, is so... like primitive in terms of the targeting and stuff. There's... in my experience, there's very few people who've like kept up well with the changes. If we're being honest, like this landscape is completely different than it was like three or five years ago in terms of how do you win with online marketing campaigns. Completely different game than it was five years ago, and a lot of people just have a hard time keeping up with that. You seem to do a good job with that, so I'm excited to have you like bring that wealth of knowledge and experience to the team with, you know, the ability to learn some new tricks and have..."

"There's always something new to learn. I think that's what's kept me in this for so long, is that it's always changing. It doesn't get boring, for sure."

"Yeah, so the topic today is really difficult. Really difficult question. Basically, let you know where this came from. I asked my team that manages our social media like, 'What's the most common question that you're getting right now?' And the most common question that we're getting is, 'How long does it take for a campaign to work?' Which is like the epitome of a loaded question. But where... you know, the answer to a question is a little bit complicated. I think it's good that we have time to just dig into a couple different facets of that and how those work. But yeah, where would you start? Like when you're thinking, let's just say you're talking to somebody and they're asking, 'How long does it take for a PPC campaign to work?' I mean, a lot of times they're asking because like maybe 'I have X amount of runway and it's got to work by whatever date' or maybe like 'I've been with another agency and it's been however many days and it's not working' or whatever the case is. Like everybody has their own reasons, but yeah, what are some of the things that come to your mind when you think about how long it takes for it to work?"

"Yeah, and I always translate that when a client's asking, it's 'How long till we can start making money?' basically. When they say 'How long does it work?' Which also, that's a whole another loaded question. But I think there's really no standard answer as far as how long it'll take to work. I think it depends on a lot of different things. It depends on targeting, it depends on budget, conversion cycles. And I've always broken it into two different areas: we've got learning and then we've got optimization. And so, I think a lot of people could confuse those two. They say, you know, 'It takes about three to six months for the campaign to learn.' That's not true. The campaign learns within about two conversion cycles, whatever that is. So if you're selling cars, it's different. In this particular industry, it's very, very quick. We've got motivated sellers and it happens, you know, generally within a week, I would say, sometimes a little longer. So if you talk about two to three of those conversion cycles, that's how long it takes a campaign to learn. So very, very quickly."

"Now when you talk about optimization, now we're into a whole different world. That's more what the client's asking is, 'How long is it going to take for this to work?' That's more the optimization stage. And I think there, you know, we talk about patience, profit, growth, and we can break them into like three, six, nine months. That's more of where we get into..."

"Yeah, yeah, that totally makes sense. I just add like a ton of clarity to what you're saying. You know, when we say conversion, what'd you say? Conversion cycle?"

"Conversion cycle, yeah."

"A lot of people were just... just thinking like real estate investors, they probably heard that like, 'Oh, cash conversion cycle, a week? You serious? What kind of business do you think we're in?' So I mean, that's where... and that's kind of why we're doing this, like break down these different pieces and how they work. You know, so what Google's looking at is how long does it take for Google to get a conversion, which is basically a sign of success of something from the leads, which is usually going to be like... everybody measures it differently. The way we usually do it by default is we're going to measure what we call a 'qualified lead' as a conversion. It's not exactly a lead, it's not exactly a deal, it's like somewhere between where we like verify it's a lead that meets certain quality criteria. That's what we're going to call a conversion."

"So it's how long does it take between a click happening and us getting that conversion to Google Ads, because it's got to get feedback happening a few times for it to get smarter. This is like the... this is like the stereotypical like digital marketing learning of a campaign. Like you turn it on and then the first two weeks of the campaign are just garbage. Like that's what we're talking... like you can't... get it to like spend your money correctly, does it, and you have a high cost per lead, whatever the case may be, right?"

"So that's like the... a lot of people call it like a learning phase of the campaign. And you're totally right, a lot of people think it takes three to six months for that to happen. Not really, it takes probably two weeks. I mean, some... depends on your budget. You got a tiny budget, then... 'cause there's the conversion cycle that needs to happen, and then there's also like a certain amount of data for Facebook or for Google to even know that the conversion cycle happened and have like statistical significance around that learning. So there's an element of both that's definitely important there. But a lot of people don't realize, yeah, that happens pretty fast. Maybe it's like two weeks, but it also can happen again and again, you know."

"Something some people know, some things about... like you kind of with PPC campaigns, sometimes you want to be a little bit slow to touch them because the more you touch them, the more you go back into the learning phase, right? In your experience, what are some things that kind of reset that learning? Like what kind of changes are you worried about making?"

"Still, the biggest change would be bid strategy. I think that's the biggest change. You know, and I've had plenty of clients do that where they get a week or two into it and it's like, 'Hey, let's... we should... we should try this strategy instead' or 'Can't we just... can't we just manage the clicks manually?' Bid strategy is the biggest one. That's... I mean, that's 100% starting right over from square one."

"And then another one, this is probably the most common one, is budget. So a client will start out with, you know, let's just say $5,000 per month, and then you get a week into it and they're like, 'Hey, we just talked and had a marketing meeting. We actually want to spend $10,000 and we want to add another state or another metro area.' So budget and targeting, I think, are also... if done correctly, budget won't change things as much as targeting will. But if you change the budget, and that's not just adding, that's also taking away, because you got to realize that within those two weeks of learning, Google now has X amount of money, right? And if you change that, you're pretty much starting that over again. So it's a whole different discussion when we get into optimization with budget. But yeah, the learning phase: budget and targeting and bid strategy."

"Yeah, 100%. You know what I also noticed? When we started using Target CPA as a bid strategy, it's not nearly as sensitive to budget changes as something like Max Conversions. Because Max Conversions, if you change your budgets without actually trying, you just change your bids also."

"Yep."

"And so now you have budgets that changed and bids that changed. So it's more learning versus Target CPA. You can keep your bid steady and change your budget, which is... yeah, which is interesting. But it's kind of like the magnitude of the change, right? This is why a lot of marketers recommend like incrementally increasing budget. You don't want to just 10x your budget all at once. Like go up 20% and then go up another 20%, etc., so you avoid like deeply putting the campaign into learning."

"I think targeted locations would be the same. You know, if you're going to add one little city, increase the population your campaign's targeting by 5%, that's... it's not really that big of a change. But if you're going to go from just targeting Columbus, Georgia to targeting Florida and Georgia, North Carolina, that's... that's a big, big change. Like that's a different campaign. A lot of the things that Google learned before aren't... aren't as applicable. So would you agree with the statement that like the magnitude of the change is... you know, roughly correlates with the magnitude of the learning that's going to need to happen in the algorithm after the change is made?"

"Yeah, I would agree with that."

"That makes total sense. So... so about the first level, right? Like... and I think that's how most marketers would look at it, is like if you're being asked, 'Well, how long does it take for the campaign to work?' Like, well, the algorithm's got to get like past its learning phase. But here's the thing: let's just say we start that today and then in two weeks we're out of the learning phase. Do we have more money in our bank account than we did when we started? The answer is probably no, right? So I think the answer to this question from like a business owner standpoint is really different than how like a lot of marketers would approach it. What... so let's just say we're taking out like the algorithmic... what else are we thinking about? Taking it out of... taking out the..."

"So you're talking about after the learning phase?"

"Yeah, after the learning phase. Like, what else needs to happen for us to work?"

"Yeah, so that's... and that's where this kind of opens up into a like Pandora's box of like a million different things. It's funny because, you know, clients often ask questions exactly like this, and I always tell them like, 'I could write a book on this answer.' And oftentimes, like if any clients are watching that's worked with me, they've probably seen a book come over in like an email form. But it's true because there's so many different things that... when we talked about working or optimization or how long till we can get to a 3X return, that's where all these things come into play."

"So you got to remember that Google, when it's trying to... take the budget you have, your targeted locations, the product or service that you're offering, it's got to learn when to serve ads. When I say 'when,' like time of day... you... the serving overnight... it's like Google can know, 'Hey, I can serve an ad at 2 AM and I know I can get a third of the cost per click that I could if it was 4 to 6 PM, you know, on a Thursday.' But the leads that come in at 2 AM might not be the same quality. Like, we might not... might not be the same quality lead. Or I can... even though I'm getting a cheap cost per click, maybe I'm not getting conversions during that time."

"So that's just two quick examples of like all of the things that Google's trying to learn to actually optimize the account and/or to quote-unquote 'work.' And that's where we talk about the optimization and actually working. We talk about it in like three-month periods, right? So three months of patience. That's not patience to say... sometimes I... I'm careful with the word 'patience' with some clients because I know to some clients that could mean like, 'We're not going to make any money in the first three months, like I got to be patient.' It's not true, doesn't mean that we're not going to make any money. But that patience phase is basically letting Google, now that it's learned, optimize and say, 'Okay, how can I be more efficient?' And that's exactly what Google's doing. I've got to get the client conversions at a good cost and learn how to be efficient within all these parameters. And that would be the first stage, patience is what we call it, I guess the first three months."

"Yeah, yeah. And this is... so... so kind of what you're alluding to, and where you... everybody listening to this, if you notice, as a company, if you talk to our sales team or if you're a client or seen enough of our marketing materials, you know that we talk a lot about this framework that we call patience, profit, growth. And it's... it's really specific. A lot of people think it's just like, you know, like things are slow and then they get better, and like that's all what it means. Yeah, really... and it talks... it addresses this question because the first thing I hear when I hear the question 'How long does it take to work?' is 'How do you define the word work?' right? And how you define that word greatly affects the outcome."

"The question is... how long does it take for us to get the right leading metrics, meaning we're getting the right number of leads and we're getting the right lead quality? Roughly, that takes probably within 3 months... is realistic for most companies. That's what we call the patience period, where we're just trying to get those leading metrics in order. But once you have your leading metrics in order, there's other things that need to happen too. Like if we just got our leading metrics in order today, that means that we still haven't seen them consistently come in, right? So we got to have a period of consistency there."

"And then when we have that consistency, we have to take enough sample size to do deals because just the fact that I figured out our cost per lead and I got us two leads doesn't mean that we're doing deals, because we might need 15 to get to a deal. And we might need to do that 10 times over to get enough data to actually know what our conversion rate is. And then we also have cash conversion cycle on top of that. The moment we get a contract, we have the potential of revenue in our pipeline in the future, but we don't yet have that revenue. And all those things are things that like... take... take more time."

"So that's why we call like months three to six usually the profit period, because that's usually the time where like your cash conversion cycle catches up with you enough that you're starting to make some profit. It's where you start to get enough data from a sample size standpoint to understand with lagging indicators. And then once you get through that, then we have a growth period, and that's where you're like doubling down, you're trying to make things more efficient, you're increasing volume, you know, all those different things, all those different levers that you can pull."

"But that's why I kind of break it out to like leading metrics versus lagging metrics. The way that I kind of think about it is in the first three months, what you... what you're talking about was learning, this optimizing. It's totally feasible for those things to happen in the first three months towards leading metrics. But fall optimization is way, way different. I was just reviewing some data for a client today that's running a national campaign, and they're running a campaign in some major markets in Texas. And for them, what we're seeing is their... Texas is like their home market. National campaign's a little bit newer to them. They thought they could do... they could do deals in any area."

"What we're seeing in the data is that in that national campaign, their lead qualification rates are really low, and the leads are converting to contracts at a really low rate. And if they convert to contracts, they're converting to deals at a really poor rate versus in that local Texas campaign. The lead quality looks stellar, they're converting to contracts really well, they're converting to deals really well. So what we're noticing is that their company from an operational standpoint, even with like the same keywords and the same landing page and, you know, targeting all that kind of stuff, the company from an operational standpoint is managing leads significantly better in one market than they are in the other markets."

"That kind of thing you don't learn really quick. It takes us a lot of data. Like, for you to know that your number of opportunities per contract is high, you need heck a lot of opportunities and heck a lot of contracts to actually know that that's true. And that's where I think people get like tripped up about like how long exactly it takes. Because you look at like, okay, maybe we're like two weeks for the algorithm to get past its learning phase, but then after that, you know, getting the leading metrics in order could take up to about 90 days. And then we have to have cash conversion cycle, we have to have enough sample size for those things."

"And then sometimes in six months, you're like, 'Oh shoot, I just wasted half my budget for six months because now I finally have enough data to know this half of my campaign wasn't working well.' But you can't end up like throwing the baby out with the bathwater at that point. You got to understand like what's working and what's not within your campaign, and that... that's like an even deeper level of optimization that like never ends, right? You're always gathering that data."

"Yeah, it's so true. I always talk about the... I call them the four S's: so strategy, success, sustainability, and scalability. And it kind of... it follows the patience, profit, growth. So you have strategy, and that's what... what you come up with with our team and marketing team, and then you start to see, you know, get learning and optimization. You start to see some success."

"I think one thing clients miss is when they start seeing success, they skip sustainability and they go right to scalability. And a lot of those things that you're just talking about, how, you know, they find that... that the efficiency or, you know, different areas, that's kind of what... what happens. So you've got to have that strategy, you gotta have success, you got to sustain that success. And that's part of this three-month period, is clients love when we start having good quality leads in, they start getting some opportunities, contracts, they start closing deals, and they immediately want to scale."

"And you have to remember that we've got to be able to sustain that success, not only for Google's algorithm but also for like... internally in... in a client's business. You got to make sure that you can sustain that, right? Not just close a couple deals, but like it continues. And then we start to talk about scalability, which would be like six plus months, right? After those first six months. So it kind of... it follows hand in hand. You can't skip sustainability. It's like... that's the one part that most people miss."

"Yeah, well, I think... I think as an industry we have a problem, and it... it's exactly along the lines of what you're talking about. Everybody wants to skip the sustained success. They... and... and like we're just naturally attracted to what's most viral, what's most interesting, and that's just like the coolest thing that's happening, and it's just like big success and it's new. And that's also true like... I've had in my business big successes and they're a lot more exciting at the beginning than it... it's... it's a lot more exciting to find the success than it is to sustain the success."

"True, because once you are successful, you're just like, 'I'm just getting more of what I've already gotten, like onto the next thing. Like, I'm not excited about that anymore.' But like, that's the real win. Like that's... that's where the money's made. It's not in like finding a way to get three deals from a marketing channel, it's in like finding a way to do more than a million dollars a year from a marketing channel for the next decade. That's like real business success that builds wealth."

"Um, we had one of our members of our sales team was at a mastermind the... the other day, and we had this client there that just started with us like 3 weeks prior. And they were super happy, they were telling like all a bunch of people there like about all the success that they'd had with us. And really what happened is like in the first three weeks of their campaign, they just got like three deals, like $1,000 cost per deal, and they were big deals, and they were like tracking toward like a 60x return or something like that. And they were like really excited about this."

"So... so this sales guy reaches out to me, was wanting to like, you know, thinking he's like spreading some of the love, and he's just like, 'Hey, look, this is what's happening. This is awesome.' And I'm just like, 'Will you just tell him to shut up? Stop telling people about this.' Like... this is not normal. Like, I don't want more people out there thinking that this is normal results for a digital marketing campaign, that you're going to get $1,000 cost per deal in the first three weeks."

"Like... and I think it took him aback a little bit because he was like just... like all positive about it, and I just came in and just like destroyed his... just like happy moment. I'm just like, 'No, your happy moment is stupid.' Because I... like that's what happened to this industry. Like... like the... the biggest successes and the biggest failures are like what we focus our time on, and... and the sustained success just doesn't get enough attention."

"And yeah, so... so then we run into like these clients that like after 3 weeks, they're like, 'This isn't working.' And you think like, well, where did they get the idea that it needs to work? It's 'cause they heard from someone else that they got these three deals in the first three weeks in the PPC campaign and they were killing it. And like... so... so I guess what I'm... like what... what a lot of people think is that a campaign just by nature just gets better and better and better over time, and that's just like the natural ramp up and how it works. And like, there is some truth to that, but like what you see in actuality, it's like we have clients that get like a bunch of deals in their first few weeks and then they drop off for two months, just don't close a lead, and then they come back."

"Just... just like how you'd be flipping a coin and you can start out with three heads in a row, and then you could end up with... yeah, a bunch of tails for a period of time, and then the heads come back. Like there's... there's an element to... and... and really, I... I guess what I'm saying is like sample size is like a crazy important piece of this. I think of it like... like we talked about performance versus results before, you know, but the... the core differences between those where like performance is when I flip a coin, I've got a 50% chance of getting heads, I've got a 50% chance of getting tails, versus results is like I flipped my coin twice and I got two tails."

"Yeah, performance being a lot more predictive of future success. 'Cause I flipped twice, I got two tails, didn't mean I'm always going to get tails with this coin. Probably not, no. But that's where, you know, sometimes we focus a lot on the result, not on the performance, but they kind of approach each other over time."

"I'll get off my... my soapbox, but I think I... like it requires diligence. Like I'm... I'm seriously thinking like... you... there's a lot of our... like case studies as a company, they're like six month plus case studies. And the way we talk about their clients, like six month plus... like we don't highlight our clients that are like, 'Hey, I got all these deals in the first couple weeks' or anything like that, because like that's what I think we're missing in this industry, is that sustained success. And sustained success is what makes you money, not like discovering some awesome marketing channel that hits it big in two weeks."

"It's so true, and you got to think... I go like even one step further now, talking about Google and kind of what the Google algorithm is doing. Because you do see that... I wouldn't say often, but you hear stories like that where somebody, you know, the first week they get two... two deals right off the bat. What Google's thinking when that happens... so they're just starting to serve ads, right? So Google serves some ads to this particular area and three deals come from it. Okay, Google is also trying to be the most efficient and the most sustainable that it can. It wants long-term success. It wants people to continue to pay for advertising for a long time."

"So Google now says, 'Okay, I got three deals in the first two weeks from this area. I'm going to table that and I'm going to go work on the rest of this area for a minute.' Like, 'I know I can get deals here, now let's see if I can get deals over here, and let's see if I can get deals over here.' So Google starts learning, it gets smarter as it goes. It starts learning the areas and the time of day and... and the people that it can serve ads to, and has to get to all of that area, right? Because it's not sustainable if Google knows that there's this particular little pocket where it can serve ads to and get deals. If it just keeps serving ads there, eventually those deals are going to run out in that area, and then you've got no learning for the rest of the targeting area, if that makes sense."

"So that's kind of... sometimes that happens, and it... and it's not as common in this industry as it... like e-commerce, but that's the main point, is that Google is trying to be efficient and sustainable at the same time. Well, you can see those pockets of spurts, right? But they'll go away and then they'll happen again, and then they'll go away."

"So... random variation is a real thing, you know. There's like... there's an entire industry built on the idea that people think they see things in numbers that they don't actually see. It's called the gambling industry."

"Just know what we're dealing with here, you know. Like... like you're sometimes when you have like those times where your campaign's going super well and then those times where it's not... like it's not... like it was any hotter than just a roulette table at a casino where you got the same odds every time, but everybody's seeing something and there... and they're... they're all taking their own meaning from what they're seeing, and... and it can be totally different."

"So it's funny, it's uh... rocky road, like you know, ups and downs. Funny when you're walking into a casino and you see the roulette, you know, they got the window there above the wheel and it's got like nine reds in a row, and you'll see the table fill up so fast. I mean, like next time you're there, watch it. If there's a period of like five or six red or black in a row, that table will be jam-packed with so much money on the other one. Like, 'It's got to hit black this time.' It's like, no, it doesn't. It's the same... it's the same odds that it would hit red before that streak even started."

"It's that whole performance versus results, right? Like... but we know that in a roulette wheel, you might get eight reds in a row, but if you... if you do it a 100 times, you're going to be right about 50/50, right? So you're going to have slow times in a campaign, you're going to have uh... super fast times where stuff is... is cooking. So we're trying to sustain and be efficient over a long period of time. Like you said, how do we make $10 million over the next three years? Like that's what we're looking at, and Google's looking at it the same way."

"Yeah, 100%. So I hope for anybody listening to this, you have some clarity around like how long... I guess like here's the most simple way I could say this: like you have a funnel. At the top of your funnel, you have top of funnel metrics. We also call them leading metrics, right? Your ad spend turns into impressions, your impressions turn into clicks, your clicks turn into conversions, your conversions turn into qualified leads, etc., right? That's... that's just how we work all... all the way down to like deals, revenue. If the way that you defined that it works is something high in that funnel, then the answer is it's a short, short amount of time. If the way that you define the word 'works' is something low in that funnel, then it's going to be a longer period of time. And everything in between... is everything in between."

"And that's where like, honestly, my favorite way to deal with this is a really solid goal-setting framework. Because that's the thing, like... like when... when people hear like, 'Oh, just give the marketing campaign six months and then see if it works,' I can tell you as a business owner, the first thing that I hear is, 'I'm going to have to wait six months just to find out that I wasted all my money over six months,' right? Nobody likes that, right? But that's not exactly how it works. You want to talk about like the... you know, goal setting, how you can do that with like leading metrics and lagging metrics, and... and adjust campaigns accordingly?"

"Say that again, you kind of cut out."

"I just said, do you want to talk about goal setting and how you can do that with like leading metrics and lagging metrics? And that's a good way to know like, maybe we're not there, maybe we're not at the point that you could say this quote-unquote 'works,' but are we on track for it working or are we off track for it working?"

"I love that. So trending, right? Just what... what leading metrics trend into. Yep. And when you were... when you were talking about that, I thought a good way to answer this question when someone says, 'How long does it take for the campaign to work?' You could easily answer and say, 'How long does it take for it to work once or a hundred times?' And that's right, because once is super quick. A hundred times, and that's when we start talking about like leading metrics and trends."

"As a... as a marketer, that's what I'm always looking for. So I'm looking at, just like you said, I'm looking at... at impressions, impression share, I'm looking at the cost per click, I'm looking at the conversion rate. Now, if all of those... and then, you know, a client could say, 'Well, how do you know if those are good?' Right? I don't worry too much about them being quote-unquote 'good' as I do that it's consistent. So if I see a consistent cost per click over a three-week period or a month period... if someone says, 'Is that cost per click that you're seeing over that month period good or bad?' That... if it's consistent, it's where it needs to be."

"Now, that might be high to a client because a client's say all the time like, 'Wow, the cost per click in this industry is super high.' Yeah, comparatively, it might be, right? But if it's consistent and it's trending in a good direction and I'm getting conversions, right? That's what I'm looking for. So as far as like goal setting in those trends, I... I tend to focus on... I don't like to do leading metrics as far as goals as much as I do... let's set goals for the next month to have... to have five contracts or whatever it is, right? And then as... at a marketer, what I'm looking at during that time frame is I'm making sure those leading metrics are solid."

"And I don't... would you say I don't think it's super common to have... it's very few and far between that we get clients that actually care what their cost per click is. Once in a while it happens, but their clients are focused on, like you said, the big picture. They want to know like what their cost per deal is and stuff like that. It's our job as a marketer to look at the details and how that affects the bigger picture, basically."

"Yeah, yeah, I 100% agree. I also think there's merit to the fact that like, if... if what we care about is a return on investment, we know that a certain return on investment correlates with different... from a leading metric standpoint. I can tell you one of the biggest like issues or like... word that we deal with on a day-to-day basis is that people are like, 'Well, I want to achieve a 5x return and I need 100 leads per month' or whatever the case is. I'm just making up like... making up like two things. And then you calculate in your head like, well, if you got 100 leads per month and everything worked out completely average, you'd actually have a 25x return, not a 5x return. And we realize we don't need as many leads as we think we need and stuff like that."

"That's why I think it's really important... I... I like to call it reverse engineering ROI. You figure out if I am to accomplish this end goal... you know, simple examples: you have... you know, roughly a two-hour drive south of me, you live in Cedar City, Utah, and... and I live in Lehi, Utah, right? If... if I want to get there within two hours, then I can reverse engineer how fast do I have to drive in order to get there. And then I could also make milestones so I'm not just like finding out that I wasted all my time when I realize, 'Oh, I spent two days and I only made it 10 miles.' Like you can kind of see like, 'Okay, we've... we've gone 10 miles. How long did that take and are we on track for that or not?'"

"You can kind of do that with your leading metrics. So if you have... if you have your right data set, what you do is you reverse engineer and you say, 'If we're going to get this kind of return on investment, how many deals do we need to get that return on investment? And if we're going to get that number of deals, how many contracts do we need?' So basically contract fallout and how does that work into things. And if we're going to get that number of contracts, how many opportunities do we need? If we're going to get that number of opportunities, how many leads do we need to get on the phone who have a house to sell? And if we're going to get that many people on the phone, how many qualified leads do we need altogether? And if we're going to get that many qualified leads, how many leads altogether do we need?' And then you have your whole funnel."

"And then what you can do when you're one month in is say like, 'Okay, maybe we don't have the ROI that we're looking for, but we do see that compared to what we need to get to achieve that end return on investment, we're either trending towards it or we're trending against it.' And that helps us know like, are we on track or are we not? That's... for me, that's the big sign of like when do you need patience and when do you not? Because I'm... I'm not a fan of like burning money on a bad marketing channel, but if you see that the leading metrics are in order and there's not yet enough sample size to tell you that the lagging metrics aren't... to me, that's a sign of a successful marketing campaign that just needs more time versus if your leading metrics are across... like if I'm trying to get down to Cedar City, Utah, and I realize I'm driving north instead on accident, yeah, it doesn't take me driving 200 miles to realize I'm driving the wrong direction. Like that... it's just bad, right? It doesn't take a lot of time to know that's a problem."

"So for me, that's like... that's what I'm most passionate about for that. And I think if you play those cards right, then you understand just when you have to like ease back a little bit and let the marketing channel do its thing and when you got to be making active changes, making a U-turn, turning that car around so you can get... go in the right direction."

"I think that's one of the hardest things when we talk about like... like a... a client-marketer relationship, right? Or as an account manager, it's... there's a lot of like... we... we ask as... as... as account managers, we ask a lot of clients, right? And at the company, you know, Baitman, we... we ask a lot of clients. We're asking them to trust us, you know, with their hard-earned money to do what we're going to do to be successful, right? And so... so that, I think, that's one of the biggest challenges is how do I... and different account managers do it differently, you know. Like how do I gain this client's trust? Do I just talk about the numbers, the details, the leading metrics? Do I just sound smart and then they'll trust me, right? Or can I really talk about the things that matter the most, right?"

"So it's basically how... how can we convey to a client that those leading metrics are trending in a good direction, right? Like, do they just take our word for it, or is there actually a way that we can show you? And it's exactly what you... you just said, by backing into goals. I think that's a really, really good way to determine if this is going to quote-unquote 'work' over the next month or two is by those leading metrics. So it's... it's like trust me based on what I show you, not on what I tell you kind of thing."

"Yeah, totally fair. That... that makes sense. Well, thank... thank you for your time, Landon. Down at least a few of the rabbit holes... there's... there's so many more. Um... anything else you... you'd say is like part of what's... like most important? Um, or should we wrap this up?"

"No, I think we... I think we covered the... the main topics for sure."

"Okay, awesome. Well, for everybody listening, thank you for listening to this. We're always open to your feedback on what you're getting the most value from and what you're not. Feel free to reach out if you have any ideas around that, and I will see you next week."

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Discover how Rich Wonders went from homeless vacuum salesman to real estate mogul, sharing his proven strategies for maximizing profits through novation deals and delivering exceptional service.

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"Rich, how you doing today?"

"I'm doing great. Brandon, how you doing, man?"

"Hey, fantastic. I'm super excited for this. You and I just met actually a few minutes ago for the first time. A lot of mutual connections and talked through a little bit about your background and everything. I've got so many questions I'm excited to ask you today, so really excited to have you here. But for anybody listening that doesn't know you, your business, your background, anything like that - what's the story? How'd you get into this?"

"Yeah man, so Rich Wonders, I'm out of Phoenix, Arizona now. I wholesale and do NOVs nationwide. I teach a course on NOVs where I've got 400 people all around the country. Teach the acquisition side, so I've got a passion for sales, a passion for doing things in a low friction and ethical way, full transparency, and really serving the seller. Yeah, I love it. Wholesale and real estate has completely changed my life. I was a door-to-door vacuum salesman for 9 years, so I've like, came from the bottom, you know. I was even homeless at one point before that. And now I get to travel with my wife and my four kids. We get to do all the things that I dreamed of when I was broke, and I just feel very blessed, very fortunate. Got a team of 15 people, we do deals, JV deals nationwide, all through my Instagram account @NovationKing. But yeah, I was in the right place at the right time where I learned this strategy. I had the sales background and I just took the ball and ran with it. And you know, we're trying to make a huge impact and disrupt the industry and help people and do things the right way, keep things going. So it's very cool."

"I have to ask, what possesses somebody to sell vacuums door-to-door for 9 years? Like, I understand if you did that for like six months or something, but like, that's crazy."

"That's a fair question, and I ask myself that a lot now too, right? Looking back, so at the time, here's what it was: The guy that - when I needed the job, I was completely desperate. I got suckered into it. I answered a vague Craigslist ad and I was sleeping on my friend's floor. And before that, I was like sleeping on the floor at the recording studio I was working at. So I was doing bad in life, right? And the guy that ran it, he was the top distributor in the country for like 20 years, and he was making 3 to 5 million a year. And the way that he ran it, I learned so much about sales, about life. He was like a bit of a second father to me. I lost my dad when I was 12, and I learned so much. You know, for at the time, I thought I was making really good money. Like, there were years I would break six figures and everything like that. I never really touched any money like that. And basically, they put you on a track to have your own office, and I went through that whole process, got my own office, did that for two and a half years, had some success, but I was just burnt. I was burnt. I hated the industry. It was very long hours. I learned so much, but I just had this carrot that I was chasing, thinking, 'Hey, look, this job sucks. I'm grinding it out, but one day I'm going to be rich like my boss.' 'Cause he had like this beautiful custom house he built, and it was the first person that had real money like that that I had had proximity to like that. So he was really good at motivating everything, and it was a great thing for me. But yeah, when I got the job, I didn't plan on being there long, but you know, I very quickly, because of my hunger and you know, my background, rose to the top of the ranks there. And I just had like the bronze handcuffs. I thought they were gold, but they ended up being bronze. And yeah, when things went - you know, I had a buddy, Jared Piper, that was taking all these crazy vacations, and I had my first baby on the way and everything, and I was just really getting burnt towards the end. And I asked him what he was doing, and he said he wholesaled. And that's how I found out about wholesale, YouTube University, rabbit hole, eventually, you know, DM Sean Terry randomly and kept selling myself and being persistent, got an interview, got hired, and then I was running the sales department a couple months later from there."

"Oh, that's pretty cool. I mean, I think there's a lesson there in leadership, right? Because I mean, you didn't make a ton of money at this vacuum company, but like, they created an environment where you felt like you were learning and growing, and you know, that was kind of like your paycheck for a little while. You know, that's neat. So that's a really cool story. So how long ago was that that you started in..."

"So I started real estate January 28th, 2019. I remember to the day. Yep, so that was my first day. I even got a picture. I look like such a dork. I put on my glasses, I had long sleeve shirt on 'cause just my arms were tattooed then. I didn't have my neck and my hands hit up, but I wanted to just look like as innocent as possible 'cause I didn't want to go into the office and have them be like, 'Who the heck is this? Oh, get him out of here. He doesn't belong here.' You know what I mean? I was like embarrassed about them thinking I was rough around the edges. But now I use it as like kind of my superpower, and once I got independent, that's when I just started tatting everything. I'm like, 'Look, I'm going to only be around people that want to be around me. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm unemployable. Let's go.' So yeah, it was a great learning lesson working with Sean. You know, he's a good guy."

"That's a really interesting story. Okay, thank you for the background and everything. So something that I'm aware that you teach a lot, or that you're a little bit known for, is kind of, you know, different types of marketing like inbound versus outbound. And I'm really curious to hear your perspective on this. And for anybody listening, like Rich and I haven't like necessarily talked about this. I'm actually curious like if we might agree or even disagree on some. But what I'm specifically asking about, because I know your course dives a lot into an acquisitions process, and you had mentioned to me it's pretty different for like an outbound lead versus an inbound lead. I can tell you one of the most common issues that we deal with with our clients is switching from outbound to inbound marketing and like steering the sales team through that transition of like, we're getting a lot less leads but they're better quality, or even keeping the outbound going and then adding inbound and like, how do you adapt to it? Basically, everybody kind of assumes inbound leads are better, so we'll just close better. And you usually close better, but they're a lot more expensive. But unless you're really closing inbound leads like how they need to be closed, then they're just too expensive to really be able to afford them. And that's a very common issue where like, we start working with a client and the first 6 months they just, they just can't figure out that sales process piece. And then you know, they eventually have like new team members join or something like that, and they figure it out, and then they're off to the races. What's your advice for somebody who's like used to a different type of lead and then they're moving to a more inbound style of lead like PPC leads in terms of acquisitions process and key things that you're going to want to change?"

"So this is a great question. I'll try to nail these points down. So inbound leads - on an outbound lead, there's a lot more of a qualification filter that you need on your sales process. So you'll notice people that do really well with outbound, they normally have scaled out the cold callers because you need scale to get consistency. And then you have to scale out lead managers and acquisitions because you have a high volume of work that you have to do to filter through these, right? Because basically, normally the way it works, you know, is anybody that raises their hand and says 'I will consider an offer on my house,' boom, that's normally considered a lead, right? If you're using a VA, that's what they're calling all day to maybe get two or three of those per day, right? And then so you've got this massive filtering process where you're - you can't spend an hour on the phone with each one of those because some of those people will talk to you and they have no intention of selling their house, you know what I mean? Now with inbound, the beauty of that is you can take more of a consultative approach because right off the bat, they've raised their hand and they are actively seeking out more information at the very least, right? And there, it's showing that intent. So you can play the role differently, and you can nurture these leads and gather more information because they're reaching out to you. You're not disrupting them and, you know, basically asking for their time to see if they may be interested. They've already had that initial interest. So I think what ends up happening is people that are used to just running through leads with a machine gun and like, 'Hey, you know, throwing out low, see what sticks, going back and forth,' you try that with a PPC lead and it's going to be very difficult 'cause the person, you know what I mean, there - it's a different - you're not going for the same low-hanging fruit that you are with a cold call. With the cold call, a lot of times you can just be right place, right time, you run them through the meat grinder, and a deal can come out the other side, you know what I mean? But with a PPC, a lot of times you're dealing also with higher price point houses, more sophisticated sellers. You have to have a softer approach and a softer touch, and you have to look more into deeper of what the motivation - and it gives - it buys you more time because there's already that initial them reaching out to you. You can position yourself as an authority rather than as like a hunter or like a beggar, you know what I mean, like when you're talking to the cold call leads. So I think it buys you more time and you can nurture them. You can have a lower friction sales process because there's an inherent greater value of a PPC lead compared to cold call lead. And you look at the numbers, you know, what's cold call normal numbers? 30 to 50, maybe 50 to 80, depending on your team, like leads per deal. And then PPC, I mean, if you're a killer, you could be one out of eight, one out of 10, one out of 15, maybe one out of 20, depending on your market and your skill level and everything like that. But you - you know, people get so caught up on price per lead, but the more important thing is how much money do you make every month, right? You can have a really low cost per lead and you're spending all your time and you have your best people talking to people that aren't even qualified. You know, with a PPC, you may - you may pay a higher cost per lead or per deal, but you're - you know, if you're making more money every month and you're spending more time talking to motivated sellers, it's a higher ROI on your time and your opportunity cost."

"Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that aligns pretty well. One of the principles that we teach is we call it 'assume motivation,' and it's basically - for sure, like the idea is like, with an outbound lead, you kind of assume that they're not motivated until you can prove that they are, versus with a PPC lead, you assume that they're motivated until you can prove that they're not. So it's just a different, you know, just different mindset. But the idea is like, you don't - you talk to someone, you know, the house is worth 300, they tell you they want 400, like that shouldn't phase you on a PPC lead, like, for sure. Because yeah, you're used to - yeah, in cold call, you're used to just like, 'I can't waste my time with people,' versus PPC, it's like, how long can I waste my time with this person so I can get to the root of what's actually going on?"

"Yeah, 'cause you know, there's that underlying factor that they cared enough that they went on the computer and somehow were seeking out a solution. So yeah, it's almost like you keep qualifying them until you can get to the root of it and see if it's a problem you can actually solve or not."

"So, no, I totally get it. Like, there's, you know, there's something there. So yeah, 100%. Yeah, okay. That's neat. That's neat to hear your perspective on that. And like, the thing for you, the other thing I want to ask you about is NOV. I mean, obviously based on your Instagram handle, that's kind of your thing. And I know you've taught a lot of people to do novations that, you know, previously hadn't done them in their business. And we've had a few guests on the podcast kind of talk about novations. I'm super curious to hear kind of your unique spin on this. And I guess like, what is the opportunity? Like, how do you adapt your sales process for that? Like, all, you know, all these things. Just what's your idea of yeah, the right way to go about it, doing a novation deal where you feel like sometimes people are just missing the mark?"

"Great question, great question. So the types of opportunities that work best for novation are a motivated seller that's looking for certainty, peace of mind, and hands-off experience. Okay, normally a wholesale deal is going to be a distressed property with a distressed seller where there's enough distress between those two things that they're willing to accept an offer where you can make - you as the wholesaler can make a margin, the fix and flipper or landlord can make a margin, and it also invest money in the house. So a lot of times it ends up being 50 cents on the dollar, maybe 60 cents on the dollar is where you have to be. Now there's this whole range of sellers that they are motivated and willing to take a discount, but the ideal buyer is not a fix and flipper. You know, we do houses that are only a couple years old. You know, we do houses that were only bought a few years ago. And with this strategy, basically you can give the seller a net amount. We disclose what we're doing, that we're going to be selling to third party. We may be using the MLS if we choose. We'll handle all repairs. They get a hands-off experience. We do all the leg work. They know their net amount. Whether we make a dollar or a million dollars, they're getting X. And basically, we just delivered the result on the silver platter. So we call it the Concierge Service. Now that's like the basic gist of like - because NOVs can mean a lot of things. You hear people talking about renovating the house, houses, partnering up with the sellers. We don't do any of that. Okay, not that you can't make money, but it's just a different business model, right? I'm - I'll spend some money, but it's to help them move, to do egregious repairs like if there's trash in the front or painting something where I have a high ROI. It's less than normally $5,000, and you know what I mean, it's just kind of a no-brainer help them move their stuff out because that's got to happen anyways. So that's what we do. Now the thing that makes our program, you know, different is we have a very compelling sales process. Most people pitch NOVs as a secondary option after wholesaling doesn't work. So they'll pitch their lowball wholesale offer, they say no, and they say, 'Okay, hey, I understand. Well, we do also have this thing over here. It's called, you know, the whatever program, you know, where we partner up with you and then we get a realtor and then we get it sold,' and they explain the process. Now with us, we have a very low friction sales process, and then when we pitch the Concierge Service, it's pitched as the perfect solution. So we do give them a cash offer, but the cash offer is in a range where if they say yes to my cash offer, I'll buy their house cash because it's 50 cents on the dollar. Like, it's a low offer. But the way we pitch it is in a tentative way where it's like, 'Hey, look, we did get a cash offer approved, but honestly, based on our conversation, it's probably not going to be a match. You know, it came in a lot lower than you wanted to be. You know, we'd have to be at 342,000. However, I have some good news. You know, we have another program that I didn't really mention earlier because we have very strict criteria. This is the one I was really hoping I could get you qualified for. It's called the Concierge Service, and I'm extremely excited because I actually have a full approval. And let me just explain how it works. Okay, you get all the benefits of a cash offer, meaning you don't have to spend any money, you don't have to lift a finger, you don't have to do any repairs, you don't have to deal with realtors. We handle all the work on on the back end, and we actually secure a third-party buyer and we get paid by the buyer.' So we give them a short little sell the sizzle, and then we run them through the entirety of the paperwork paragraph by paragraph, and then we close right there on the spot. So our sales process is extremely effective. You can wholesale houses with the same thing. It's just they understand we don't represent ourselves to be the buyer. Like, if I tell them I'm buying your house cash, I'm going to buy their house cash. But anything else is Concierge Service. And about two out of 10 deals that we do, we put them through the Concierge Service pitch and then we sell it off market. 'Cause dude, I love selling properties off market. It's way quicker, it's less moving parts, it's way easier. But if you - if I only sold properties off market, I'd be missing out on 80% of the deals that I'm doing. So you know what I mean, it's - they both work and it's not - you're not going to sit there and go, 'Should I novate this one? Should I do a wholesale?' It's going to be a no-brainer. Like, it's either obviously going to be a wholesale or it's gonna be something that'll never work as a wholesale but is a great novation."

"So that's interesting. You view them as like separate different types of situations and properties that you'd use each strategy for. Because I've heard from a lot of people, they view it as like, 'Oh, I could make a thinner margin on a wholesale, but I could also novate it for more.'"

"Oh yeah, yeah. If it's a big gap, then I'll go through the hassle of putting it on the market. But if it's like 10 grand, I'm like, you know, 50 right now or 60 in two months maybe if everything goes right, you know, I'm taking the 50 right now. You know what I mean? But I have 50 deals going too, so anytime I can get a quick one, I'm like, 'Oh good, no crisis.' Like, easy, we just run it through because the velocity, you know, having a quick turnover too on the cash is good, you know, for any business."

"Is it the same contract for all this stuff, or like how does your paperwork differ?"

"Yeah, so the paperwork that I use, I've been using for 3 years, and then we have 400 plus members in the Rainmaker Community that also use it. None of us have been sued, nobody's gone to jail. So it's like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, knock on wood, right? But our paperwork's been super solid and we do it nationwide too, you know what I mean. And so I use a purchase and sale agreement that has our specific language. I use an attorney in fact, not a power of attorney. So that's one thing that's different than other people. I use attorney in fact, but I only use that to hire the realtor. I have the seller sign the buyer's offer, and the seller signs everything from the buyer's offer up until closing docs. Now people say, 'Well, don't they see how much you make?' Yes, they do. That's why you have to set expectations. You have to give them a really good experience. You can get away most of the time trying to do a POA or AIF and signing for the seller, but there will be times where the lender looks at that and says, 'Well, who the heck are you? Are you the grandson? Oh no, you're, you know, an investor,' and it can cause problems. The buyer's agents sometimes don't like it. So I try to do everything as either always or never, right? So I had a couple deals all at once when we were signing on behalf of the seller that became a problem, and I almost lost like 100 grand because the deals were like on life support. Like, one of them we had to find a new lender, the other one we were able to just get the seller to resign the docs and that saved it, and then the third one, the same thing. But I always try to operate where like, okay, if we're doing this at scale and I'm teaching hundreds of other people to do this at scale, is this the best way to mitigate disaster, right? So that's why I recommend signing for the - having the seller sign for the buyer."

"Yeah, that's fascinating. You ever run into friction because like, people are afraid of the friction of like, they're not going to want to sign because they found out how much money we make? Like, how often do you actually run into that?"

"I've never lost a deal from that. Yeah, and it's very rare that anybody even bats an eye. Here's the key to avoid that though. One, you have to really firmly set expectations from the very beginning, and that's part of our closing process where several times we mentioned the dollar amount that they're going to be receiving minus mortgage liens and tax. So that's part of it where we hit them several times with that. We also mentioned, 'Whether we make a dollar or a million dollars on this, it's not going to change on your end.' And we give - we make sure that we negotiate them well and we're certain on our numbers. And if we find out during our due diligence, like when we're hiring the realtor, that the condition's worse or we were off on our numbers or there's some other X factor, we will nego - we will address that before it goes on the market. So we don't throw spaghetti at the wall and see what hits because most of these are owner-occupied. It's like, you know what I mean, someone in a vulnerable position is either elderly person, a working-class family. Like, you - it's different than an abandoned house, right? Like, if this doesn't close, people get like legitimately harmed, you know what I mean, and they're in a bad position. So we find all that stuff out early, and we have like a 90% closing rate of once - once they hit the market, you know what I mean. So I forgot even what the question was, man. I got going and-"

"Oh, I was asking, do deals blow up when the seller sees the buyer's offer?"

"Oh, okay. So you just - you want to make sure this - you want to make sure this is what's going to make them mad: when you take too long. Okay? You need to price it so you get an offer in two to 3 weeks. You can't try - you can't try to make your money on the back end. You want to buy it at a discount and sell it at a discount so it moves quick. So that will make them mad if you go past 60 days. They will get mad. The other thing is if you're not in good communication and you don't provide the three things that they were originally looking for: certainty, peace of mind, and hands-off experience. So if they don't feel certainty throughout the process, they're going to be stressed out the whole time, even if you're doing everything correctly, right? So you have to communicate with them. You have to be their peace of mind. I always look for ways to help them out, especially when I know that we're making a big profit on it, right? Help them move, you know what I mean, help them find a place, do some work to the house to give some improvements, pay their mortgage if we need to. So I try to add value as much as I can, and it is - I try to approach it from the sense of like a five-star service, right, where we really treat them well. You know, like in the hospitality industry almost, right, where they - they just feel like they don't have to do anything and we just deliver results and solutions. They feed us problems, we deliver solutions back. So you have to - that's the key, is them emotionally being satisfied with the process. Then they won't be mad at the end, and you have to do what you say and set the expectations the whole way through. When people get mad is when their expectations are set one way and the reality is a different way. That's what really grinds people's gears. And that's why being trained transparent - it's more difficult. It takes a more sophisticated approach to be able to still word it in a favorable way for them, right? The shortcut is just to lie. 'Oh, I'm going to sell your house.' Bury a pre-marketing clause in there. If they see it on the MLS, 'Hey, didn't you read the contract?' and put it back on them. But you're still going to have - it's still - you can't do that. You got to win over their heart and mind. You know, if you can win over their heart and mind, that's the key. But you just have to have the courage and really truly believe in your heart that you're the right solution. Like, the people that I sign, I have the biggest conviction 'cause I know we actually care. We will actually only take on deals that we can get done, and I'll be upfront and honest with them in the beginning if we find out it doesn't work. I'll lay it all out on the table. 'Hey, look, this deal doesn't work for you now. I completely understand you're under no obligation to take this offer.' So I'm sold myself that it's the best thing for them, and then I make sure that I overpromise and we overdeliver."

"Yeah, this is the first conversation I've had with somebody where they've really focused on like the service aspect of NOVs as being a key part of it. Because we - I know we have clients all the time like getting a big deal and then, you know, seller backs out and stuff like that. And I know that will always happen, but I wonder, you know, I wonder how effective a lot of people are with like the service that they give and and how possible it is that so many deals blow up if you're not actually like continually delivering on those promises of that like five-star service that people are expecting. I just - I don't think that's - like, nobody ever talks about that, I guess is what I'm saying, which makes me a little bit doubtful that many people focus on it, you know? Like, you just treat the seller like crap and then they back - they might want to back out of the contract and and you're surprised, you know?"

"Yeah, it's not - you got to look at it like this: for the seller, it's not a transaction, it's an experience. It's different 'cause wholesaling is different, right? You're dealing with a lot of tired landlords, investors, people that have neglected these properties, you know what I mean? It's a different type of client. With this, our avatar is a normal person that's in a bind. They're in a tough life situation. So their life situation is the root of their problem. It's not necessarily the house. It's financial, it's personal life, or some situation - someone's sick, someone's got to move. So you know, right, it makes logical sense. The reason they're not going the traditional route is because they don't want that experience. So they're looking for this cash offer experience, but their property just doesn't fit in that box. So if you can cater to that, that's also too how we get such a high conversion rate. Because we - we talk to people where they're talking to inexperienced or hopefully not, but maybe even unethical wholesalers that are offering way too much money, where it's like, we can't even novate it at the price that they're talking about and sell it on market. So I know they can't wholesale it off market. And the way we can win them over, get them to agree to a lower price, is we do really take the time to understand them, and we don't do any negotiation in the beginning. It's all - the discovery phase is all about just seeking to understand them and asking follow-up questions. Because then when we come in to solve their problems, we know all the moving parts and the variables, and we can dramatically give a perfect solution that hits every major checkpoint. And we make logical sense on our offer too, where they can understand how the other offers - there's no way that that's a legitimate offer. So I do what's called scorching the earth, right? And I do it on my live, and I'll have wholesalers get mad sometimes too, like, 'Oh, you're throwing us under the bus.' It's like, well, dude, if - if you're going to wholesale, tell them you're going to wholesale. And if you play to be a cash buyer and you're offering him too much money, yeah, I am going to expose you because this is someone's grandma and I know you can't deliver on that price, you know what I mean? So have it be what it's going to be. But I think it's important, you know what I mean? 'Cause a lot of people get in wholesale and there's like a hustle mentality, and I get it. Like, I've been there. You know, I mentioned earlier, you know, I was homeless at one point when I was first, you know, when I was in my 20s for a short time. So I get it. But we have to elevate past that and realize that this is a - a people business, and us being experts and them being lay people, we have an obligation to them to do right by them, you know what I mean? And and follow the Golden Rule. And it's okay if you make money, but you just have to do what you say and set the proper expectations with them, and then no one's harmed."

"So yeah, I want to dig a little bit deeper into one thing that that you said, because I've heard - I've heard pretty varying opinions about when the right time to talk about price is. There's some people that just like go for their throat like right out the gate. Like, that's - that's how they do the the pricing negotiations. And then I - I do have some clients that that I really respect that kind of do sort of what you're talking about, where they like, you know, you figure out everything so you can just build up this like nice silver platter of like everything that they need. And then price is just a piece of that, like focusing on price makes it about price versus focusing on everything else. And then price is just like the final little detail to to get correct deal sign. So anyways, I - I'm curious to hear just like, if you were to - if you were talking to somebody right now who says you have to go for price right out of the gate, and you're convincing them that your way is the better way, like what would you say?"

"So here's - I - I'll build a steel man real quick of the opposing idea. So getting - getting the price out right in the beginning, that's more of a technique for cold call leads and for lower price point. That's a way to cut through the qualification phase, right? Because if their price - price is way out of the blue and you've got a hundred other leads to call, that's a good thing to find out early. Now on the inbound side of things and the higher price point - like, for example, we've got a house right now in Scottsdale, Arizona that we're under contract for 1.5, and we just sold it to a buyer for 1.7 million, right? That's not a deal that you're going to do in 15 minutes by throwing prices around, right? The guy's going through foreclosure. He had a bunch of businesses that had funding cut off that were in the healthcare space. There's a lot of nuanced problems, right? And that's - it's different than when you're talking to someone that has a house they inherited from their grandpa that's worth $60,000 and they're living, you know, check to check. It's just different conversations. So my thing is, is they both work, but the consultative approach - if you think about it, right, how important a house is, especially if you're talking to an owner-occupant - like with NOVs, most of them are owner-occupants, you know what I mean? And most of the house is there - if you get to price too early, you're going to cut off the flow of information on their situation, and you're making it too transactional. And you got to understand, this is not a business transaction for them. This is a life-pivoting moment for the right people, right? Someone that's just looking for price and just looking for convenience is probably not going to be a fit because, look, you know, they're going to have to take a relatively significant discount compared to what it would be on market, right? So you have to really understand their situation to see if it'll even be a fit. Because the thing that they can quantify is the price. So they're hurting, and then the price is the thing that they think is going to make it better. But you can address those same concerns in a different way, and then now all of a sudden, the price becomes less important because the things that they thought they would need money to solve, they no longer need money for. We fixed those problems. So they're willing to trade some equity for the peace of mind and not having to do the leg work. Same like when a seller says, 'Hey man, you know, it's a great deal, but they - they can't sell for six months,' right? Rather than just waiting 6 months, we try to figure out, well, what are the things that need to happen in these six months? And we figure out a way to compress the timeline. So we're solving the same problem that they thought needed to be solved with time, but we're able to solve a different way with our expertise and our resourcefulness. So being resourceful is extremely important because you can't blame them. Like, look, everybody's taught when you sell something, you try to get as much money as you can for it. But you got to dig down deep to see what are the actual problems that they need solved, and a lot of those can be solved without money. And then money becomes less important."

"Yeah, that's super fascinating. I mean, it's - it's kind of similar to the same reason that you sold vacuum cleaners vacuum cleaners for nine years, right? Could you have found a job that paid you more? Absolutely. Was the money great? Not really. But like an employee that's not learning and growing and respecting the people that they work with, they always just say they need more money when the root of the cause is like, they don't like the culture of the company or they're not learning or whatever the case is. So - so like in it's in the same vein, like a business owner could just look at all those problems like the whole way to solve this is you just like pay everybody more money all the time versus like, some of the most successful businesses, yes, they pay well, but they also learn how to build everything else that people want, that the things that they would never say they want just - that actually makes it happen. Like so that's the reason like you stayed - stay - stayed selling vacuum cleaners for 9 years, because your needs were met in other ways. Um, so that's where it - it - the principle also applies to like marketing even PPC. Like one thing that I see a lot of people doing wrong is they put in their PPC ads, 'We pay more than other investors' or something like that, and then they complain when they get a bunch of these leads that are really motivated by price. And all I can think of in my head is like, you're - you know, you're attracting price. Why are you surprised? It seems great when you get more clicks, but then when you find out what the clicks are, you're filtering the wrong people."

"Yeah, exactly. It's just - it's about where you put the focus versus like, the ad can speak to like, 'We help people out of these types of situations' um, 'with speed and convenience' or whatever the case is."

"So anyways, I - I just think it's super fascinating what you said. Well, that's - that's super cool. Rich, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, look into your course, whatever the case is, what's the best way to get a hold of you?"

"Yeah, uh, Instagram @NovationKing, all one word. Um, I do free live calls almost every day. I post tons of content that's all real estate related. You check me out on YouTube at Novation King. To JV with me and my team, we are the number one novation JV team on planet Earth. NovationJV.com, you can check out all the details on how to submit our criteria, our split, that whole nine yards. And then NovationKing.com, you can check out more info on NOVs. If you sign up for my email list, you also have some free goodies that we'll send you, and I've got videos and stuff explaining our sales process and more info on that. And you can also access the Rainmaker Community from there too."

"Very cool. Awesome. Any - any final words, any advice?"

"Man, appreciate you for having me on here. For everybody watching this, look, you took time out of your day to watch a wholesaling podcast. Shout out to you. The real estate industry has completely changed my life. If you're not looking into novations yet, I would highly suggest checking it out because it's a massive revenue stream, especially if you have good PPC leads from people like the Baitman Collective. You can monetize so many more leads, give them a great experience, and this really is the new wave in wholesaling. So yeah, check it out and appreciate you, bro."

"Yeah, yeah. I think just - just like one final note based on what you're saying. Do you think it's possible that NOVs are a better fit for PPC leads even than they are for other channels? 'Cause with PPC, you're - you're not like - let's just say it's direct mail. Like, you're building your list and you're looking specifically for distressed properties, or you're looking specifically for, you know, more - more specific locations potentially, or you know, more specific distress type of seller. Versus PPC, you kind of get everything under the sun. Of course, we try to focus on distress, but is it possible that that there's more leads through PPC that can be monetized by novation than a lot of these other channels like higher?"

"Absolutely. All that stuff - PPC is the most sorted for motivation out of any of the other - any other channel, right? Because it's - the person had intent to initiate. They're not responding, they're initiating contact with you. So right there too, and anybody that's ran PPC, you get lots of motivated sellers that just have houses you can't wholesale. And these are all the ones where you're like, 'Man, dude, if I just had unlimited capital, I would whale every single one of these.' You can do that now without taking on the risk and without having the capital needed, you know what I mean, to do that. So yeah, dude, with PPC, if you're not doing novation, you really should reconsider because you - once you see it, you're not going to be able to unsee it. When you find these motivated sellers with the nicer houses, you know what I mean, these are all leads that normally you just have to do a realtor referral or you just have to do an infinite follow-up sequence where you can be solving these problems. And there's very few people that know how to do these deals, so you have very, very limited competition, especially if you're going in markets where there aren't a lot of other wholesalers. But the smaller markets too, you can sell those on market that you'll never sell to an investor, but you'll sell to a nice family, you know what I mean? It's a win-win. They get a good deal, seller gets hands-off experience, the realtor gets paid, title company gets paid, you get paid, everybody gets paid. So it's a win-win."

"Yeah, understood. Cool. Sorry - sorry for the random last-minute question, but thank you, Rich. Appreciate all the value that you've added today, and for everybody else listening, I will see you next week."

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Curious if "data-driven marketing" is just another empty buzzword? Join Tommy Anderson from Bateman Collective as he reveals the real insights into top-tier agency operations, debunking myths and emphasizing sustainable results over superficial metrics.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host Brandon Baitman, and today I have Garett Craen from our paid media team joining me. We're going to talk all about targeting your lists from other channels for digital marketing. How you doing today, Garrett?"

"Doing great, how are you doing?"

"Hey, doing fantastic. Thank you, it's good to be back on this track with you. We took a little break and plugged a bunch of content we had from other places for a little bit there because you had a baby and then I had a baby."

"Yeah, and there were like, I think, two other people in the company. One is going to have a baby very soon, and then one..."

"Yeah, so it's been crazy. We're just making it by with everybody on paternity or maternity leave, but we're back at it. So that's good. Babies are happy and healthy, and the podcast will go on. So I'm super excited for our topic today. We're going to talk about different targeting that you can do online."

"That sounds really good. These are the kind of questions that we get asked from our clients all the time, and I think the root of this is Real Estate Investors. The way they do marketing, for the most part, is through lists. You're going to do your cold calling to a list, you're going to do your texting to a list, you're going to do your direct mail to a list. Oftentimes, you're doing all these different channels to the same list of people, and that's how you succeed with a lot of other marketing channels. It's not always quite that way with online marketing, so that's where we have a lot of clients whose first approach to digital marketing is, 'What's the list and how do I target the list?'"

"So let's talk about some of the things you can do, because when a lot of people ask us about this, it's kind of a hard thing to respond to. There are a lot of things that you can do with online ads, but some of them work and some of them just don't. We can get to the bottom of some of those aspects today."

"Yeah, I like it. So let's start with the most obvious. Let's just say I'm an investor and I have this list, whether it's like my stacked list from a bunch of data sources, or I've got 8020 or Attom or PropStream or whatever the case is. Any type of list-building, predictive, or other list that I can use, and I really want to target a certain type of seller because they're on that list and they're likely to sell. Or maybe sometimes I specialize in foreclosure or I specialize in probate, and I want to target those specific types of motivation points. What can be done to target that kind of stuff online?"

"Yeah, so there's two main ways of targeting, and if I miss one, just add it in there. But the two that come to mind with that kind of a list is targeting by either the contact information, so the email or the phone number of the lead, or targeting by the address of the property. Would you add any more options beyond that?"

"No, that's pretty much all I know, and both those options aren't available everywhere. Like with Facebook, there's no way to target a list of addresses, but you can target a list of phone numbers or of email addresses. You need some type of... I think in Facebook, you either need a phone number or an email address. I don't know if there's anything else that could work, and then you can add information like the name and the zip code they're in and stuff like that can help the match rate. But you need at least either a phone number or an email address, which for most investors means you have to have a skip-traced list, which means you're paying 15 cents a record or whatever you're paying to get that done. Which would mean it would absolutely never ever make sense unless you already had that list skip-traced because you're doing some direct... not direct mail, but like specifically cold call or text."

"Yep, yep. So you can do that with Facebook, and Google has a customer match list as well, right?"

"Yep."

"So do you recommend it? Do you not recommend it?"

"Yeah, that kind of is the core of the debate. The way I look at it is digital functions in a very different way than what I call one-to-one marketing tactics like cold calling, cold texting, direct mail. Those are less a volume play than direct, where in general, the larger your audience on digital, the cheaper your cost per thousand views is going to be. So if you're targeting a super small audience, one, you'll be paying a pretty high premium to reach the audience. And on social, let's say a good CTR is 1% if we're generous. That means if we have a thousand views, we are going to have a tiny number of people that actually get to the page. And then if our page is efficient and converts at maybe 10%, you know, you can see how that math gets really small really quickly."

"So yes, there are these super cool ways of targeting that sound exciting and sound hyper-efficient, but when it comes down to it, they go against what makes these channels effective, which is marrying volume with data. And when we cut down that volume and overlay our own data, not data that comes from like own learning, we cut off the arms and legs of the platform."

"Yeah, I totally agree with you. I mean, different channels have different strengths, right? What I feel a lot of people are doing when they do this kind of marketing is you're taking the strength of a different channel and you're trying to apply it to a new channel. People like to view Facebook as a very targetable platform, and it is on some level, but it's more targetable because you can filter through a lot of stuff in-platform. Like, just have just the right creative that gets you just the right person, than it is that it's extremely like hyper-targeted with the ads themselves to a really specific audience."

"So it is a lot more like a mass advertising channel than a targeted channel when you're talking about how it's done. I think a channel you could compare it to is like TV advertising, for example, where you know you're just reaching a lot of people. Doesn't mean that the leads you get from TV are bad because they're not targeted. No, they're good leads, but it's only because you have the right kind of ad that the right kind of people are going to reach out based on. You don't just spray something out there that gets you everybody."

"So you're basically taking a channel that's good at mass advertising and you're giving it a really niche list to market with. And I think that the nature of what's going to happen there is you'll end up with a campaign that's ineffective or extremely low volume. And I take it to the level that like, I've been doing this in this industry for about six years. I've probably had more than 50 like deep dives in this, like clients we've done it for, so like other people doing it, and I have never ever seen it work. Just truthfully, out of all of those times, I've never ever... We've tried it, I've even talked to people that say that it works for them."

"So I ask them like, 'Well, can I take a look? I'd love to see how you have it set up.' I go in, I realize that they're actually getting all their results from cold audiences in Facebook, and then they also happen to be running these lists and they just didn't realize that the lists are getting them nothing and the cold audiences are what's generating all of their results from Facebook. So I've found probably four or five people that think that they're getting success with this, but they're not. They just don't even understand what they're doing and they're actually not having success with these kinds of campaigns."

"So it's, you know, just to give you an example: Like you start with 10,000 records, you're probably going to have what, like 50% of a match. So you're going to have a Facebook audience of 5,000, and not all 5,000 of those people are going to use Facebook all the time. So within your monthly that you're trying to target, it maybe only 3,000 come on to Facebook. And then you have a 1% click-through rate when they see your ad, so there you've got 10 or... I'm sorry, 30 people that could click. And then you have 1% conversion, which means you don't get a lead. Like that's just how... You think, 'I got 10,000 people, it should be good,' and for direct mail, for texting, for cold calling, yeah, you're awesome. But for online, it just... it just doesn't work."

"There's also something called lookalike audiences that are another category of what you can do here. How does that work in this industry?"

"Yeah, so on Facebook and on Google, you can't use those audience types because it's housing and it's restricted. It can be used on like either OTT or programmatic, those kinds of channels. And those, I've seen... I think that's a better play if you have a good list, is doing a lookalike list as opposed to just a one-to-one like just find these emails, but find people like these contacts. That works pretty well. You definitely have to have enough budget to have enough data to train the platform well, to sort through all of the people that it thinks look similar. Because obviously, there's so many different attributes that can link different people that aren't just that they're in distress or foreclosure or have a property that's inherited. They might like the same TV show or the same politician. There are all kinds of things that I could have in common that aren't the traits that you want. So you have to have enough data in there from an audience size and a budget side to really help the platform hone in on what traits to look for when building that audience."

"So the hardest thing that I found is it has to have a pretty good guide to help it find that target that you're looking for as it builds that audience. In case anybody is confused here because maybe they think they were doing this or something, it hasn't always been this way. Back in the day in Facebook, you could do lookalike audiences, and then a few years ago they took that option away if you're in the housing industry specifically. And then they replaced it with a special ads audience, which was the same thing that just didn't use any predictive features that were potentially discriminatory - gender or age or whatever the case is. And then I think it was this year... Well, not this year because it's the new year just started, but I think it was '23 when they got rid of even the special ads audience, which was sort of the handicapped lookalike audience option. And now you just can't even do it in Facebook."

"Facebook... Google still does have customer match though, if I understand. You can upload a customer list and it informs the bid strategy. It's a piece of the bid strategy, and that I think we've had good experience with because you can take... you can have an account that's new and then you can add this data that isn't from the history of that account specifically to help the algorithm kind of catch on a little bit faster with the data that it'll be gathering in that account. So we've done things like uploading a list of deals that all of our clients have done across the country into the customer match audience for a specific account to basically kickstart that bid strategy so it learns a little faster."

"Yep, and in Google, until recently they had an audience type that they called a similar audience, which was basically their attempt at a lookalike. But that keyword 'attempt' - it was not great. It's like, it literally performed... I've seen so many studies showing that those audiences performed literally equally well as a completely random audience. Like, it had absolutely no value, just a smaller average audience."

"Correct, yeah."

"Those are gone, and they are now only available in a demand gen campaign in Google Ads, but again, they aren't great. So if you're going to do it, it's probably best done in other platforms than Facebook, given the rules against it in Facebook."

"Yeah, and even Google... People want to layer like when they're doing Google search PPC with us, they want to like layer in their data in there. And I think the keyword here is just imagine you like layer a list of 100,000 people and then they also need to be searching... Like, okay, maybe it's a brilliant strategy, but you might get one click a month. You'll end up with one lead every five months. Like, it's just... And you probably overpay for that lead because you have to bid so aggressively that you like must buy whatever click comes across like that."

"So I think the... I think like what how I'm understanding is... is we probably just don't want to look at options to target lists online. However, there are some viable options to use those lists to create stronger online audiences or help fuel an algorithm, whatever the case is. But that's different from like directly targeting the list, and they operate really differently. And the core difference there is in one case, you use the list to help inform your strategy. In the other case, you use the list to be your whole target. So you end up with a much larger audience if you're just using it algorithmically."

"But even then, still, I'd say your list of like people who are in foreclosure in your markets not super useful for that. It's much more useful to have a list of like hot leads that you've had historically or deals you've done, or even hot leads for deals that have happened in the industry as a whole. That's where we can use a lot of aggregate data there because if you've got a list of 10,000 people going into foreclosure this month and I've got a list of 10,000 real estate deals across the country, and we're just talking about what's going to... what's going to fuel an algorithm better so that it can better understand who a motivated seller is, it's going to be the list of people who actually did the behavior, not the list of people that might be more likely to have a behavior."

"Like, you can't use as fuel for your algorithm something that is a feature. You need to have the end behavior measured and then use that as a predictive feature. I hope that makes a little bit of sense. It's just so much more powerful."

"Yeah, I... because like someone that's in like foreclosure might be a deal given just the odds, but a person that was a deal... like, we know that they are definitely the kind of person we want. And trying to time a lead's journey is like trying to time stocks. You might like have an ad hit them right as they're still in foreclosure, but odds are you'll miss them and they'll already have made a change, you know, a different way. And then you're just working off of a really poor list."

"Yeah, that's cool. Let's talk about geofencing. So at the beginning... I can tell you're smiling already. It's fun. At the beginning of this conversation, we talked about there's two different ways you can target your list. We're going to target it based on customer information like their names and addresses and emails and stuff like that, or you could do just address-based stuff. And obviously the advantage of this is going to be that you don't need to have the data skip-traced. However, you're cutting out most online ad inventory as you're doing this. You're cutting out Facebook and Google because they won't let you target a list of addresses and because they're a little bit more careful with how they do location targeting."

"But for anybody that's not aware, I guess I'll just explain briefly what programmatic advertising is. Programmatic advertising is like this weird like decentralized side of advertising. Like, in most cases, what happens is you have like Google has ad inventory and Google sells the ad inventory to advertisers on their platform, right? It's usually pretty simple like that. Then you have this weird like programmatic world where it's like the dark side of online advertising where you just have all kinds of different publishers that don't sell their own inventory and just sell it to exchanges. And then you have all kinds of different marketers that are buying inventory from these exchanges and it's just a wild world."

"Like, it's estimated... nobody knows for sure, but it's estimated that more than 50% of impressions through programmatic ad inventory are fraudulent to begin with. It's not even real inventory. This is the world where you get into like dirt cheap CPMs, whereas on Facebook you're dealing with 10, 15, 20, $40 cost per 1,000 impressions, which is what the CPM stands for. In programmatic, you might be dealing with $2 or $4 per 10,000 impressions. So we're talking about like dirt cheap ad inventory with sometimes a lot of sketchy stuff going on. Stuff like, you know, like fraudulent inventory, or it's a display ad and the company stacks like 80 ads on top of each other so the consumer only sees one but they get paid for 80. Like, it's just a weird online world."

"So that's programmatic. The thing that's neat about programmatic though is there's not many rules. Like, you could do a lot of stuff and... and honestly, if the average American knew a lot about programmatic advertising, it's... it's... it's wild to me that like Facebook's the one getting sued and Google's the one getting sued when in programmatic, stuff way sketchier is happening like every day. But people just don't know it even exists because it's... it, you know, a lot of people would say it's like roughly like 20% of the ad inventory online, whereas most of it's going to belong to like major publishers."

"While on Google you might be able to target like a one-mile radius or in Facebook maybe 15-mile radiuses in this industry, programmatic you could target kind of anything you want. There's even programmatic demand-side platforms where you can target literally the outside... like you target within the perimeter of somebody's property. You can even target like floors of buildings within... there's wild stuff. Like I can target, I want to target people in this exact precise location in this building on the fourth floor with ads. You could do that kind of stuff, which it sounds really cool."

"But it introduces something called addressable geofencing, which is basically the ability to say I've got these 100,000 people that are in pre-foreclosure, you know, whatever it is... my list, and I want to target those people and I'm going to find those people based on their GPS location being within the bounds of a property. So anybody who like lives in that house, for example. And it's... yes, it sounds really cool. I'll give it that. What are your thoughts?"

"It's definitely an easy channel to sell and overestimate how well it actually performs in practice. And as we were talking, I thought of a way to explain this a bit. There's two main forms of targeting: there's firmographic and there's psychographic. And an address or a job title or an income is all going to be firmographic, and that's what is preached pretty heavily by programmatic. Is we can get you their exact address, you know, reach just these incomes and like just these zip codes that aren't possible on Facebook or on Google. And it sounds great, but what's been found for years and years in marketing is that the better way of targeting is by far behavioral, where it's based on like... for instance, if I owned, let's say, like a business that sold shoes, I could target women and do pretty well, you know, women this income. Or I could have an audience of high spenders that have an interest in these things that historically during this season... and that's going to be so much more effective than just going for like certain like genders or income ranges."

"And that's the like misunderstanding of programmatic. Is that it's just a very static kind of targeting that's just much less efficient in an increasingly machine learning-driven world. And that's where these platforms fail. Is they don't have super advanced options for targeting with machine learning. There are some that are better, but they're still so far behind Facebook and Google that in this industry, I think that's where it falls short. Sorry, that was a huge ramble, but I was thinking about it as we were talking and I thought it was helpful."

"No, it is... it is super interesting. One of my favorite models for targeting that I've ever seen shows that like... picture it like a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, you have demographic targeting, and that's what a lot of people consider and important. And as you move up the pyramid, you're moving to data that's less available but more predictive of behavior. So you go from demographics to like psychographics, and then you go from psychographics to behavior. And behavior is more predictive of behavior than psychographics are of behavior or than demographics are of behavior."

"Because, you know, what tells... it's just like the concept of what tells you I'm likely to go to Hawaii next month? That I've been searching on Google for plane tickets to go to Hawaii. And that's like my behavior predicting my behavior. Or like, what tells you that somebody's likely to gamble? Probably that they gambled before is like the number one thing. Could it also be like relatively likely that they could end up going to a casino if they, you know, they fall in some income range or whatever? Yeah, that stuff helps, but like the fact that they were at the casino yesterday... like that's more meaningful to me than that they have this income or whatever the case is."

"So I totally agree with you, and I think it's... I think it's an interesting way to think through things. Now I think at the core of it, like the same reason that we're not seeing... so this just happens clockwork. Like I just... it feels every month we have another client reach out to us and they say I want to do this kind of marketing. And then sometimes they leave us to go do that kind of marketing with some other company. And I've truthfully... I've never seen it work. I think the same reason it doesn't work is because the same reason that Facebook doesn't work. It's just more or... Facebook doesn't work for niche lists, but just even more pronounced because you're with programmatic. You're doing even more... what's it called... like an even more low-quality ad inventory. Like it's the worst inventory pretty much that exists online for the most part."

"And then you're going with a niche list. So you're playing the game where usually the game with this is I'm going to pay like a $2 CPM. So I'm going to pay for extremely cheap ad inventory and I'm going to reach a ton of people. And just because I reach so many people and it's so cheap, that's how I'm going to get my results. But then you're taking that model and you're applying it to a niche list. And then also the company that you're working with realizes that's what you're doing, so then they actually charge you a 12 or $14 CPM because otherwise they'd have to quote you $30 for your ad campaign."

"So then you think you're actually doing like marketing with a larger budget than you actually are because, you know, programmatic has all these margins built in it for agencies. And it's just... at the end of the day, it's ugly. But the my favorite part of the scam is when you add in view-through attribution. And to explain to you how this works... like pretty much this is how, in my opinion, marketing channels generally work. People look for direct response ways to say like, 'You generated these leads and that produced, you know, this outcome in your business.' And when that doesn't work, they basically chalk it up to, 'Oh, it's probably brand.' That's probably what happened."

"And I'm not saying... I'm not like a believer in brand. 100% believe in brand. Like, brand drives more decisions that people make than a direct response does. I'm just saying the right way to build your brand isn't $2 CPM crappy programmatic ads. That's not... that doesn't build brand awareness. There are ways to build a brand and there are ways to not build a brand. The ad at the end of an app that somebody really wants to skip but has to watch unfortunately does not build brand."

"So I guess... I guess what I'm saying with that is... so they end up doing this view-through attribution. And the way that works is, okay, you're going to be targeting for direct mail, cold call, texting, all that stuff. You're going to be targeting these 100,000 records. Okay, let's just run some online ads to those 100,000 records too. At the end of that, tell me which... which of those people from which of those homes ended up, you know, ended up selling their house to you. And we'll tell you which of those actually saw the ads."

"And what you'll find is, wow, that was relatively inexpensive and it impacted a ton of those people that we ended up doing deals with. But it's just because that's what programmatic advertising loves to do, is just basically shove itself in front of somebody who's going to convert anyways and then take credit for it."

"So there's a way to do this, and I've never seen it done in this industry. I've never seen a company actually be able to like show results, but it's called the conversion lift study. You have to basically take half of your list and not show them ads through programmatic, and you have to take your other half of your list and show them ads. And then you have to see how do those two halves of the list perform in terms of their likelihood to become a deal through a different marketing channel for you."

"And if you do that, what you likely find is that your programmatic advertising expense is just not actually producing much for you. And it's just like... the whole advantage is that it sounds really sexy, doesn't cost a ton of money so it's not like a huge line item to cut out, and then the value is mostly hidden amongst results that were already going to come through other marketing channels."

"Sorry, that was a monologue, but there's a lot to unpack there."

"Yeah, and I think it gets to be a dangerous concept when it's chosen over channels. I think it's fine if it's used as a complement for, you know, retargeting air coverage. You know, I think that's fine. But when you take money away from like true drivers like paid search, for instance, that is going to feed your pipeline and drive revenue, and push it into programmatic that is low volume, low quality, and just not going to be a one-for-one replacement, that's when it gets dangerous."

"Yeah, yeah, 100%. There's a lot of things like this kind of... 'cause like we're... I mean, we're not like... in general, people doing marketing are not idiots. Like, we... we all know that usually people, when they become a deal for a real estate investment business, oftentimes they're going to have interactions with multiple marketing channels making that happen. So to say that one marketing channel is solely responsible for it is a little bit ignorant. It's not how it actually works. Like, the buying journey is a little different than that."

"But then there's a lot of these things like retargeting, branded search, view-through programmatic conversions, you know, all these things that are like these little sections of marketing that are usually given way more credit than they deserve towards the end outcome. And it's just because they're like relatively cheap things that happen to shove an ad somewhere in someone's path to conversion that they were already on anyways. And it's known... it's... it's just known super well amongst marketers, but it's sometimes a little bit harder for business owners to understand."

"Absolutely, yeah."

"All right, let's talk about one last twist on this. This is a question that we get from our clients sometimes too. Let's just say we're talking about this opposite. So maybe our list that we have from whatever company we get our lists from isn't going to do a ton for our online marketing. Well, can our online marketing do something for those other channels? Is there a way that we can use the, you know, the data that we're generating from online marketing to help find better targets for our direct mail, our texting, our cold calling, etc.?"

"Yeah, this is a pretty new concept for me. At least I didn't start hearing about this as... as a tack, so probably, I don't know, two years ago or so. But basically what... like how this works is you can throw a script on your website landing page, certain landing pages, and what it'll do is it will match the IP address of that traffic to an... to an individual. And then you'll get from this vendor different ranges of info. I've seen anything from just name, email, and phone number all the way to more of a like real estate-focused offering where they give you address, you know, bedroom count, bathroom count, data was constructed, like what the area is, near or zone for... like all kinds of things."

"And the idea of it being... it's basically retargeting, but instead of just getting a pixel hit and a user added to your audience, you're... you're getting actual information to contact this person that came on your site but just didn't convert. And... I think it's still to be determined how effective this is as a channel. What I've seen is that the intent of this audience is low for a reason. They didn't convert for a reason. Just because they came on your site doesn't mean that they are your ideal buyer. And you're paying a... a premium for that contact that's quite a bit higher than you would be paying in just retargeting them on display or Facebook or YouTube. And so in theory it sounds good, but the intent is just as high as it would be doing retargeting, but you're paying 20, 30 times more for the same contact."

"Yeah, but it is a more impactful thing if you can call the person. Like, that's a contact. That's... you know, there's a reason direct mail works at 40 cents a card. At 40 cents an impression on Facebook, you'd be bankrupt by the time you ever got a deal. Yeah, so... yeah, it's interesting. And I think some of it could depend on, you know, what kind of traffic you're targeting. If you're targeting top of funnel Facebook traffic, you're probably getting a pretty low-quality list there. But if we're talking like paid search, for example, you know, someone searched this keyword and then they came to this website and then they just didn't fill out my form. If you have a chance that you can match that to a person's phone number that you can call, chances are they have a house to sell and they're looking for something because it's an intent-driven campaign."

"So I see potential for... for these kinds of campaigns. I think the... the moral of the story... we tried it some for Baitman Collective for like our own marketing just to play around with this and didn't really see any success from it. We just haven't really tried this for real estate investors yet. That said, if you're a client of ours and you're listening to this and you want to try something like this out, I... I could see this being awesome or really not that good. I think a lot of it's going to depend on the actual quality of that data. Like, we can't assume that the quality of the data is going to be huge. Like, you're always going to get the right person, especially with like how IP addresses work on mobile devices, which is just a little bit trick... like, I know a lot of people that we talked to that try to do this reverse IP lookup have a hard time matching mobile devices to... to a person."

"So I guess... I guess what I'm saying is, for me, I haven't experimented with this enough to really know how it could work, and I haven't found anybody else... I found other people doing it. I haven't found anybody that can show me a measurable result that convinces me that this does work, just that it... just like that they think it's a good idea and they think it will work. So... but haven't actually gotten there... their full circles. So I guess the answer is like, that's what we know about how that can be done, but there still is a lot to be discovered from that. But I think there's certainly a case for how you could do... you could do really well building like colder lists that could at least be better quality than... than your other lists from your online traffic. I think there's a case for how it could be true, but it would take some testing."

"Yeah, I think the key to making it work is to build the audience around certain UTMs or certain pages that they've visited that maybe are deeper in... in the funnel than just your homepage. So like, you could build the audience of like people that... that came, like you mentioned, from my paid search or... whereas I probably wouldn't build that audience of like people from like Facebook or from programmatic, just because those are just like naturally less defined users. But if you can find like an already qualified list and then use this tool to get more one-to-one contact with them, I... I think that's where it... where the math starts to shift in its favor."

"Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I'd be shocked if it doesn't work. I guess the question would be to what extent can it work. For example, if you were just to target like the very best keywords on only desktop devices, which would be more likely to have more accurate data, then would it work? Yeah, probably. But you'd have such a low volume and you might get one deal for the next four years doing this. Or you could just target it for people that have been to your website more than three times. So it shows that they're like, you know, they're engaged on some level."

"So there's... I bet you... like at some point, you get deep enough into your targeting and slicing and dicing the data just right that you can make it so it's worth paying whatever it costs for the reverse IP lookup. It's just the... so the question isn't as much could it work or not. It's just like how, you know, how much volume could you make it work with and would the juice really be worth the squeeze? Because if you could make it work for Facebook cold traffic, then you're building a massive list and there's a lot that could be done from that versus if you're like just looking for hot Google ads traffic that clicked twice and hasn't converted from desktop devices. Then maybe you've got like the core... the target there and you'll get your one deal over the next decade at some point, but it'd be worth the money. So... yeah, that... that'll be fascinating."

"So yeah, of course, if anybody's interested in that, reach out to us. Like, we're interested in experimenting with it, and I'm honestly on the fence. I don't know how well it will work. I... I could see it working well, I could see it working poorly, but that's all we have for you guys today. I hope this... hope this gives you a little bit more context into what you can do and gets you thinking about some different ideas of how you could improve your online marketing, and I'll see you next week."

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Curious about what separates good acquisitions teams from the great ones? Aaron and Chris dive deep into their 7-figure wholesaling business, revealing lightning-fast lead strategies, stress-testing sellers, and the real deal on building a killer team.

"Aaron Chris super excited to dig into Acquisitions with you guys. Figure out what you're doing. Obviously, you're locking up a ton of contracts. Anybody who follows Aon on Instagram has seen Chris more than a few times ringing bells and all that kind of stuff. Chris, you're the... what do we call you? A senior Acquisitions manager here? Been here for about as long as anybody, which means a year?"

"Yeah, in the context of this business, which is a fun stage. It's the growth stage where you're just kind of figuring out how those things work. I've been there too, and I'm kind of there now. A lot of the people in my company who've been there for the longest are like two years."

"Okay, how long have you been around?"

"Six years."

"So just like you, I was kind of running around in circles for a while, didn't know anything, and then started to level up over time. It's like technically we've been around for six years, but those early years... those early years I was an idiot. They don't count."

"Yeah, that's why we're making this, you know, because I want to help somebody who's just one or two steps behind what you are in your business right now. There's a lot of people out there trying to build a seven-figure wholesaling company, so we can talk about what that looks like. And positions, obviously that's the spotlight of all real estate investment. I just talked with Michaela and Stephanie. We talked about dispositions, which is kind of underrated a lot. Obviously, dispositions are crazy important. I love the focus that you guys put on that."

"Well, they wouldn't have anything to do if it weren't for this guy right here."

"Right, so anyways, let's talk about Acquisitions. I'd love to get into some of the details and everything. First, let's talk high-level metrics. How do you measure the performance of Acquisitions of the company and what does that look like?"

"There are a bunch of things now. You know, a lot of us have read the book 'Traction,' right? A lot of us didn't like it, and I actually made a video on my Instagram not too long ago where I basically said, 'If you read the book 'Traction' and you didn't like it, it's because you don't have a team.' You got to have a team to really understand it and relate to the book. You have to have the problems that the book solves, which are all the problems that you get not when you don't have a team, but when you have a team and it's not working."

"So one thing we use from that book is the People Analyzer. We actually just implemented this recently, and I have it on a spreadsheet. We have core values as our title, and then we have the plus and minus. We evaluate each individual by month to our core values. If it's a negative, and all the people that have left us, I've looked at the People Analyzer and we saw that they were in the red and they were never a good fit."

"We also do a scorecard that's in the book. That's just four to five things that we want to see because you monitor it per week. You know, how many leads did you get assigned? How many contracts? How many closes? How much revenue?"

"What we do monitor is some of our KPIs. We want two contracts a week. It's not too crazy, but with our type of leads that we're getting, PPC, that's not a hard task to really come up with. So we want two contracts a week. That's eight contracts a month. With that being said, contracts are going to fall out, but with a strong disposition team, obviously our close rate's gone up. So then we kind of want to cut that in half, and we want about five deals closing the following month."

"We want to average nationwide right now about 12 to 15 thousand. If it's in our backyard, it's a little bit more, but we want at least about 12 to 15,000. So you could do the math. We want $80,000 per rep per month. And then obviously if they go off track, we figure out okay, what's going on? And you figure that out by the scorecard."

"For example, I had one of my reps... you might hear this, but I think it's a great example. We saw on the scorecard how many offers have gone out. If we're not hitting our contract goal, I'll see how many offers have gone out. So you just do backwards, right?"

"It's funny. So we were looking at... I had my one-on-ones, and we do two one-on-ones every single month. I call them coaching calls. They're like mentor-coach, and I actually have right here on my whiteboard: 'Stop doing, start mentoring, coaching, and recruiting.' That's been my kind of job now since I'm not the one calling the leads."

"So what I want to do is I want to coach them. So we look at a scorecard, and I was looking at one of our guys. He's crushing it, but I looked back and I said, 'Hey, we didn't hit our contract goal for the week.' I think he got like one contract, and I said, 'All right, so let's see where it was going wrong.' I saw that he made little offers. We compared them to other acquisition reps. He made little offers, and I thought it was a typo."

"In fact, I go to my admin, and I was like, 'Hey, what's happening here? I think...' And then I think Michaela was in on the meeting, and she said, 'No, those are the right numbers.' So I looked at my acquisition guy and said, 'All right, we need to start making more offers.' Literally the next week, he made more offers and got six contracts in that week."

"Hopefully, I answer your question. Those are a couple ways that we evaluate our acquisition reps."

"I think the only thing to add is we like to look at the talk time as well, and quality conversations. People can be making these dials but not really having these quality conversations, which is what we're all looking for. So tracking that is super important, and that usually reflects into the talk time. If you're having good quality conversations, they're 10 minutes or more, and we want the longer talk time. The more likely you are to get that offer."

"That's super neat. Something that I always have to remind myself of is you pay based on the result, you hold people accountable to the process. Sounds like you're talking a lot about holding accountable to the process, right? Because a lot of people, like I have clients that will say, 'I don't need to do that stuff because I pay them commission, so they should do all that anyways.'"

"Which sounds good until you actually go through it and realize it doesn't happen. People won't do what's in their best interest if they're not held accountable to it. Like somebody who wants to quit smoking can want to quit smoking so they don't get cancer. That doesn't mean they're going to do it because people need help accomplishing their goals."

"One thing that just popped up, and something that I'm always trying to get better at, is a deeper why. I think that really goes into because I'm here to be a servant to my team, right? And I'm going to always try to do my best to be a servant. And by doing that, if they don't hit their numbers, you know what? Again, what we're always trying to focus on is okay, if we didn't hit our numbers, do you remember that you wanted to do X? Do you remember you wanted to hit this goal, this target?"

"And if you put it in that aspect of obviously, this is not about... because we give you commission for XYZ, but it's like why? That commission is for something. We all want to make money, but why do we want to make the money? The money is for a deeper why. Why we're all here... I know you said you had a ping pong table at your office, but we always make a joke here that we don't have a ping pong table here because you're here for a purpose."

"You're here to kick some butt, to go back out to the world to fulfill your deeper why. So when you're here, it's all about business, kicking mass and butt, being ruthless, having resilience, having ownership, and then that accountability that we just talked about. So we're always really trying to dig into that deeper why, and obviously, I could always do better, and I'm always trying to get better at that."

"And we found like the best people, I mean, we all know the top performers, they want to be held accountable. So like, yes, they should be doing that for their best interest, but any top performer wants to keep that, track those numbers. I mean, I want to be... you know, I want to beat my numbers last week. So I want to be able to see that, keep myself accountable. We all slip sometimes, but it's important to visualize that."

"And I think it's for me, it's been one of my favorite things of looking at that in our morning huddles. We're seeing our numbers. This week has been tough for me. I haven't been able to hit those numbers, but today's going to be different. It's a conversation that we're constantly having, and if you don't track those things, they fall through the cracks."

"Totally understood. One of those numbers in my industry that's usually really important is how many leads does it take for us to get a contract? Obviously, all those other things contribute to that, right? We got to be making dials, be having talk time, stuff like that. What do you guys find is realistic and how do you set that benchmark for what realistic is?"

"I'm going to let him... Well, I know just based off of the conversation I've had with Aaron, I think the amount of your question was how many leads it takes to get to a contract, right? For us, our minimum is like we have 75 dials. If you don't have 75 dials, if you have a contract, you need to be including getting more dials. But I think right now what we're at is 12 leads to a contract, 10 to 12 leads to a contract, something like that."

"Yeah, one thing we always look for, and this is something Chris really embodies, and there's two things, and that's a good attitude and hard work. And that's why he stuck around with us for so long. He has a good attitude and hard work. It's funny, Chris, being... you know, we went from a small office to a larger office, starting to build that team, starting to build that culture that we talk about."

"And so, let's just... long story short, that small office and small team that we had is no longer with us. The one person that is with us is Chris, and you got to kind of see some of that growth. I remember when we were with that small team, we had to ask for grace because a lot of things were changing. We were growing, we were bringing on... Brandon, just kidding. We were bringing in... it's really when we started working together, that's when everybody quit."

"Yep, they missed the boat, man. They missed it."

"There was definitely a lot of accountability that the old team couldn't handle. I'm sure you as a business owner have felt that as well. But the cool thing is now, and I've heard one of my mentors say this, and he's like, 'I've never had to fire anybody.' And I was like, 'What do you mean you have not had to fire anybody?'"

"If your standards are high and your values are there, and they're not meeting up to your standard, you just have to ask them a simple question, and usually they unfortunately and fortunately leave on their own. So I had to fire somebody... actually, a good couple months now, they just quit. They just quit because obviously, we're looking for excellence."

"It's kind of like when I look for candidates and I got 20 candidates coming a day, which we are doing, as I was explaining to you earlier. Obviously, we're looking for the best of the best, and so obviously our hiring process has gotten a lot better. Chris has been a great right-hand guy to really help and filter those people, hold those people's standards high, really embody our core values."

"We, he and I, get to collaborate and talk about a lot of times when people come in. We realize that our sales process... every company should have a sales process, and we have a sales process. And we've seen people who don't embody the sales process, and they want to go cowboy stuff. Crash and burn hard. But if they could come in and they could have a growth mindset and they embody our sales process and bring in the value, obviously their skill set, the reason why we hired them, they're able to skyrocket and start hitting their numbers quick for sure."

"Oh, that's super cool. Chris, I'd love to ask you what that process looks like. Let's start at the very beginning. So, PPC lead comes in. How do you even know that that happened and what happens next?"

"Yeah, no, so first off, we all get a notification. Everybody on the sales team gets a notification. We kind of... it's a thing that we do here at the office because of Aaron. When something comes in, new lead, we all just kind of like to say it. Just one of those culture things."

"Urgency, baby. Like you come here for the first day, you're like, 'What is everybody doing?' Then after a year, you're like, 'This is just life. This is how it goes.'"

"Exactly. And I mean, even on some of the things that I've seen, videos that you made, it's speed to lead, right? It's a big thing that we have. We want to get to it as fast as possible. So I mean, me and Jonathan out there, we're fighting to get them on the line. But once we get them onto the line, then we just start going through our sales process, asking them the four pillars of motivation, trying to really dig deep and see if this is going to be a good fit and how we can really help."

"So that's pretty much it, but I think the main thing is speed to lead, just like getting them on the phone as fast as possible. I mean, we get the notification and we're dialing them three times back to back, me and Jonathan, right now."

"So different numbers?"

"Oh yeah, multiple tries. We're blowing them up constantly."

"You'd say the most important part of your sales process is what happens within the first few minutes of coming in?"

"Seconds. Seconds. And that's honestly something... like every time we go... because you guys, according to our whole client metrics, you stack up pretty well in terms of Acquisitions performance. It's part of the reason I'm here. If you guys really sucked, you wouldn't have this conversation, right? So you do well. So I have faith that what you're talking about is really real, really true."

"And every other conversation I've had like this, that is such a huge piece of the process. I think people struggle to actually tangibly make it happen. What would you say, and this question is for either of you, if we're talking about speed to getting to new leads, have you ever had a time where you struggled with that before? Like, was there a time where you weren't performing, or have you just always had this down?"

"I could say for me, no. Like, I think it goes down to what he was saying earlier, like the deeper why. Like when a lead comes in, it's not necessarily like, 'Oh, a lead just came in.' That's something that's going to put food on the table, right? That to get me to my next goal. So it's like, if you have to have that in you, and once you see that, it's... that's money ringing, you know?"

"And knowing what happens on the back end, we're fortunate enough to have somebody to kind of fill us in on those things. We spend a lot of money for these types of leads, so we need to take care of them. It's not something that we just throw off and like, 'Oh, I'll get to it later.' Like, you shouldn't really be here if that's your mindset, you know?"

"Yeah, so it sounds like for you, you're saying a big piece of this in your opinion is the right person with the right motivation. They're fast to get to the leads, not necessarily... and maybe like we say, like hold accountable to the process, that's important, right?"

"Right, but the right person theoretically would be motivated themselves to do that."

"100%. That's the culture that we're bringing in here as well. Like, we want them to be able to come in here and have that type of motivation. We're going to hold them to those standards, but yeah, I mean, you're getting a high dollar, high-value lead that just came in. You better be on that."

"Yeah, what did you do before this, Chris?"

"Here, I've been a realtor for going on four years now. So I was doing real estate, doing a lot of investments as well."

"Were you really connected to this deeper why before you started working here?"

"Yeah, yeah. I know definitely before real estate. I mean, I was in the restaurant industry. I was a server. Always had real estate on my mind. But yeah, I've always had large goals, and I feel like, you know, we all know real estate is one of the driving forces to build that generational wealth and get that cycle of poverty out of your family tree. So yeah, that's always been my deeper why. You have to... I feel like in sales, if you don't have a why, you're going to... you're in for a treat 'cause you go through it, you know? You go through those roller coasters, and if you don't have anything to anchor you, you're not going to last."

"Yeah, no, it's super... that's super fair. It's very interesting. So speed to lead and then the four pillars?"

"Yeah, so there's two things. One thing what I like actually... so last month our contact rate was a little off. One thing I really liked is you got to surround yourself and you got to build a team that actually gives a crap, cares, has passion for these leads. Chris, he saw that and he was like almost hurt, and he said, 'I don't like that.' And he got the other acquisition guy together and said, 'All right, let's pound these leads. Let's get in contact with these leads.' So that's something too that obviously fires me up."

"One thing too is obviously you want to use technology to get us fast, fast to these leads as possible. So we have a CRM that when a lead comes in, it sends an automatic text to them within like zero seconds. They submit, they get a text. Always going to be faster than a human could possibly be, even in the best of scenarios. And the text literally says, 'Hey, I saw you fill out a form. I'm calling you right now if you find an unknown number.'"

"Right, and I know you know that message, but it's a really great idea as long as you actually do it. Otherwise, you set the stage for how bad you are at doing what you say you're going to do from minute number one. So obviously that goes out to them, and then we obviously want to contact the lead in 60 seconds or less."

"One thing we did talk about, I know a lot of people talk about this a lot, is obviously nights and weekends, right? You know, that's probably where the contact rate goes down a little bit, and that's fine. But when we're in office, you know, that's like I said, we're here from 8 to 5, and we still keep those leads going after hours because we know the cost per lead's still great. So that's another thing too, is keep it on after hours even when people are still living their deeper whys, living their life, and that's fine. Obviously, we just really require them to answer the phones here, and we're really good at that."

"So speed to lead, boom, they answer it, and then it's also a sales process of already assuming that that lead's ready to go, that seller is ready to go, right? It's not a cold call, text lead, some type of cold marketing. That's why we love these leads because you could lock them up on the first call if possible. So that's another thing too, is you got to know how to talk to these leads or you're going to waste a lot of money."

"Absolutely. Do you know how many days it takes to get a lead under contract? I mean, do you have the stat like average or median?"

"Yeah, it's three to five days. Unless they, like I said, unless they get the lead on the first call."

"Yeah, fair enough. Which happens pretty often, right? They come in, we get on the phone with them within seconds, we're on the call with them for 45 minutes, an hour and a half, and we get the contract right there."

"When you say pretty often, are we talking like is this 10% of your contracts, 30%?"

"I wouldn't be able to say it's... I wouldn't know the actual numbers, but it's definitely up there. It's probably like 40%."

"Okay, so that's like almost as much as you get?"

"Yeah, it happens weekly. There's... I believe, and I think Jonathan's at that stage as well, if I get a PPC lead that is ready to go, they're ready to go, and I get on the phone with them, we're locking it up right there. Like, it's no question about it. I have the confidence in what we do that that's what's happening. There's other factors, right? If they... there's a bunch of things that they can't sign right then and there, which is kind of out of our control. But if we get on the phone with them, we're locking it up."

"It's funny, we have training every single day. Like two... let me see if I remember. I actually have a spreadsheet. Good job, they keep me accountable. For everybody's information, the reason the spreadsheet thing coming up is 'cause I learned that that's a phony. He's a phony, apparently. Michaela... yeah, this certificate of graduation. It's half my wife, half my wife. Apparently, Michaela did the spreadsheets class, not fully Aaron. But you learned the skills after college?"

"That's right, that's right. It's still worth it. And so I do hold myself accountable. Actually, I do do spreadsheets because it's my life data. Did I go to the gym today? And I literally track what I do. Anyways, on my trainings, so like yesterday was call out. Today's role play. Thursday, I forgot what Thursday is. And then Friday's like comp training. And I make sure I do that. I try to do that every day if I can."

"And I'll put 'Yes, I did it.' Anyways, today was supposed to be roleplay. Matter of fact, I held off roleplay because I thought maybe we'd get that on recording because I wanted to show you. Because what we do, and I didn't because I know that was part of what the email you sent me, but one thing we do with these leads is, again, when you talk, when you negotiate, you got to create urgency, maybe a little bit of scarcity. That's how you get those one-call closes, right?"

"By not moving forward with an actual close until you know they're actually fresh and hot and ready, and then you could go in and take them out of the oven and eat them. But I think that's to their point of another... the earlier question that you asked, like why these leads are so important is because a lot of them, there's a possibility that you're going to get them under contract right then and there. So like that, I feel like in itself should be the number one reason why you get on there as quickly as possible, or else they're going to call me and I'm going to do it. So that's a big, big factor for sure."

"Yeah, I totally agree. You said, Aaron, that you're basically not trying to do business with these people until like you verify that it's right. Can't remember exactly what words you said. And I've heard... just know I'm coming at this from like the 'never been in a seller's house' situation. So I'm just really curious to dig deeper into it because I've heard a lot of different things from different people."

"Like one person we both know is Cody Hofhine. Love Cody. Their team is also one of our top performers over time. They have this rule where like, they don't make offers basically. And basically what Mark says is... Mark is Cody's business partner... he says like, 'I'm not in the business of making offers, I'm in the business of doing deals.' So it's a lot of like hypothetical, like, 'Okay, well, so it sounds like if I could get you that amount of money, you might be interested in putting a deal together today.' And like, but I'm not like saying, 'This is my number' or something like that."

"But I also know that making offers is something that you guys track. Like, what's your mindset on this? Because some people are in the camp of like, the more offers you make, the more deals I do, for sure. And other people are in the camp of, 'I'm not going to make an offer unless I know it's going to be accepted for sure, and I want to hold my number close because if I put my number out there, then they have what they want from me and they won't care about me anymore.' Where are you guys at and how do you do your process?"

"So I guess when it comes to offer, it's not necessarily... let me rephrase it and give it the definition of an offer. An offer is not saying, 'Hey Brandon, I'm going to give you $30,000 for this house, take it or leave it.' That's not an... I wouldn't call that an offer in our sales process. It's more of a, you know, did we get to the numbers part? Did we have the full process? Got... maybe there was no like official offer given. It was just, did we talk about... exactly, did we get to the full... did we talk about that?"

"And you know, do we give a... or like, did we talk about ranges? Did we talk about what another investor might pay for something like this? We always use third parties."

"Yeah, that makes sense. No, that absolutely makes sense. I'm curious to talk about lead managers. Obviously, Chris, these leads come in, you're going right to them. And different people have different ways of building their business. I know, Aaron, you and I both know a lot of people that are fans of using lead managers in their business. Tell me about what went into your choice to not have a lead manager in between the marketing and Acquisitions."

"Oh yeah, that's... not a fan of lead managers. Now obviously, there are different types of, you know, philosophies out there. Some people use VAs, some people call them Junior Acquisitions, some people call them lead managers, but they're in the US, American side. There's a huge range of quality, those few things that you mention."

"100%. And for me, like when I'm hiring, especially at the size of my company right now, when I'm hiring, I'm looking for closers. Like, I want a closer. If I'm dealing with inbound marketing, I want closers. Now obviously, the lead comes in, it goes to maybe a lead manager to do follow-up. I think the amount of passing around a lead loses its... loses its warmth of that lead."

"Somebody... 'cause how I see it, if I mean, you're here from 8 to 5, you're in the office 8 to 5, you're going through your CRM, you're calling... you know, we're... you could be calling over 100 a day, just trying to get somebody on the phone some days. And then also they got their follow-up, they got their pipe. We do a lot of pipeline pickups. We're always figuring out what leads are in the end zone. They're doing the exact same thing a lead manager would do, and that's following up, trying to find leads in the CRM, closing deals."

"So they're doing the same exact thing as a lead manager would do. So basically when you ask me why don't you get a lead manager, it's because that's my acquisition guy already. They're the ones going through the pipe, they're looking through the CRM for leads, they're doing their follow-up. And also with their follow-up, they're able to follow up with each... their pipe to build the overtime relationship because our fallout game is strong."

"So I just don't see a point. I mean, they're making over 100 calls a day some days unless they're having great long quality conversations to get contracts or appointments or whatever. But I just... I mean, if I had them on the field maybe every day and they were going house to house, maybe that would make sense. If we're just kind of shooting the crap here, maybe that would make sense because now they're not on the phones going through it. But we're very good at closing deals over the phone. That's like our... that's our... that's the way we do things here. We close the deal over the phone."

"So they're just... they're going through... they're on the phone all day anyways. But yeah, if they're at the house, that might make a little more sense. What are your thoughts?"

"Yeah, no, and I think it makes it easier for what... like doing how we do it is because we have a system and process in place so that we know how to properly manage the leads. Like, it goes back again, taking extreme ownership. The top performers are going to have a clean pipe. They're going to have a clean CRM to look at every day, know how to manage those specific leads, what's hot, what's warm, what's cold."

"So yeah, I mean, we do it... we take ownership of our leads once we get ownership of those leads. So yeah, I think it makes it a lot easier of knowing how to properly do it and manage them day to day."

"Yeah, that makes sense. And I don't disagree with you guys. I'm just going to play Devil's Advocate."

"Well, I mean, we're... it's a very... in our industry, it's a very controversial topic, right? A lot of people say, 'Oh, you... why... you need a lead manager. What are you talking about?' You know, and just something I don't agree with."

"Well, you're the... yeah, you're the weird guy, I think, in this overall. Ironically, a lot of the clients that I've spoken to that are our highest performers, for the most part, don't use lead managers on the front end. Sometimes on the back end when leads go cold or something, for sure. We could talk about that as, you know, a separate thing."

"So I think you're unusual amongst the industry as a whole, but pretty common amongst some of our most successful clients. But that considered, I'm curious... back when you were doing tons of cold calling, texting, did you have lead managers at that point?"

"I did. You did? I had a VA lead manager, one and two actually."

"Okay, yeah. So the journey of what you've done is actually pretty similar to a lot of people, because what people notice is a lead manager is there to shield Acquisitions from all the crap you get from marketing. That's essentially their job, because Acquisitions people get really demotivated when they deal with bad lead after bad lead after bad lead. It's not actually motivated."

"But when they use bait... man, collect... we know all these leads are quality, man. They're quality."

"You... uh, I'm glad you remember the script, Chris. That's awesome. I was worried you wouldn't come in at the right time. That's super good. No, like, it's true though. If you need 40 or 60 or 80 leads to a contract, then that's a lot of work to filter through those. If you have 10 or 12... I'm curious because like, you still get... like sometimes we work with teams that are used to having a lead manager, and then they take it out and they're like, 'Oh no, this lead has the wrong phone number.' Like, as an Acquisitions manager, I feel super offended, and like, this... I should never have to deal with this or something."

"I'm sure you get... like, everybody gets that kind of stuff. Like, usually about 15% of leads are complete bogus in some way or another. And then, you know, you work down the funnel, some are better than others. Not all leads are created equal, we know that for sure, right? But how do you feel about like the spread of quality that you get? Do you feel like it's too much and you end up wasting a lot of time with leads that aren't as good, or does it feel like a productive use of your time?"

"No, yeah, no, definitely not. Most of our leads are quality, and you know, we don't have a lead manager, but like, for instance, if we have a lead that has a wrong phone number, we just pushed it to a VA. 'Hey, skip trace this lead,' and she puts the right phone numbers in. I put it in my follow-up for the next day and call with the right number. I mean, and I just keep moving on to the ones that have the right number. It's just super simple. It's not that hard."

"So yeah, now I think that we have some... the quality leads, and we're... yeah, we're doing pretty well. We had... so I was doing... I did an interview... were you on the interview?"

"Yeah, I think it was you."

"So he... so I'll have a shadow day, and I'll have a guy come in. And this guy came from the solar industry, and what he did is he went door knocking. And what he would do is he would like set up... like he'd be like a lead manager. He would set up for the closer, and then he'd get somebody... you know, guy opens, 'Yes, I would like solar.' He'd call his closer, and he would come over and close the deal."

"So anyway, so I guess I don't know, the guy maybe didn't like solar or something, so he applied for here. And I kind of liked him. He seemed like a sharp dude, sharp individual. Young, young, young individual. Anyways, comes in here, you know, we... he goes through the whole normal shadow day, goes in for our roleplay exercise that we do, part of that... part of our exercise. And I do... I do bring Chris, and I... and sometimes I'll bring either or just to kind of give me a second opinion when we bring somebody on the team."

"And we go through a roleplay, and every single time after the roleplay, he would always say, 'Hey, do you want... okay, so Mr. Seller, would you like me to have somebody call you?' He couldn't get over the fact of setting it up. So what we do is we pause the roleplay. We'll coach him and we'll tell him like, 'Hey, I know that's what you do, but I need you to be able to close the deal.'"

"And so we... so right, let's go again.

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Curious how a former house flipper turned $50k into an $8 million land empire in 2 years? Pete Reese spills it all – from unique marketing strategies to automating with AI, and raising millions from private investors.

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Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Pete Reese. Pete is a friend and a client of mine who specializes specifically in land investing. So, Pete, we'll be talking a lot about what land investing is, how it compares to single-family houses, how you've grown your company significantly in the past few years, and also some impressive numbers in terms of marketing for land. Specifically, what are some of the advantages of direct mail versus pay-per-click marketing in that particular industry? I'll see you there, Pete. How are you doing today?

I am doing great, Brandon. Good to be here.

I'm excited for you to be here as well. Nothing like a Friday afternoon podcast.

That's right. Everybody's winding down.

Exactly. I sometimes wonder if anything does get done on Friday afternoons.

You know, honestly, not much. If it's anything like my own work habits on a Friday afternoon, they really fall off a cliff after lunch.

No kidding. Maybe we should all just move to a four-day workweek someday.

Yeah, someday maybe.

I am super excited to have you here. I think you bring a unique perspective to the podcast. But for those who might be listening and don't know you and your background, tell me more about you. What do you do now? What has your real estate journey been like?

Well, my real estate journey has taken a long and winding road. I've been in real estate in some form or another since the early 2000s when we bought our first home here in California. We bought it with an FHA loan, 3.5% down for about $200,000. We sold it about two years later and netted about $50,000. At that point, I thought I was a real estate mogul because I had done some very shoddy improvements myself. In hindsight, not so much, but that got me exposed to real estate and maybe the power of it a little bit.

We started buying some homes and flipping them. In the early 2000s, it wasn't as mainstream as it is today, but there were still shows on HGTV and such. We did pretty well with that until the market crashed in about 2008. Prior to that, I got my broker's license out here in California just to get more access to deals. I was buying everything on the market through the MLS, thinking I could show myself the homes and write my own offers. I thought that would be great, but not long after that, the market crashed and it wasn't the best thing to be in real estate at that time.

I needed to earn income, so I actually started representing banks on their bank-owned properties. I became an REO broker and worked on that side of things, working with a lot of investment companies that were buying and flipping homes or buying them for rentals. It was easy for me because I understood what they were looking for and had access to deals that they didn't. That worked out pretty well.

I got a little sidetracked into a business with my wife related to blogging and travel blogging. We did a bunch of traveling as a family for quite some time, and that was a really fun business. But I got the itch to get back into real estate investing and stumbled upon land investing. I didn't really want to get back into home flipping because for me, it was too cumbersome with so many moving pieces. I stumbled into land investing and went down the rabbit hole. This was in late 2020 when I identified that this kind of matched what I felt I was good at.

In 2021, we did our first land deal in March and generated about $1.2 million in revenue that year with about a 50% gross profit margin. In 2022, we did about $3.4 million and some change at a little over a 40% gross profit margin. Then in 2023, we did $8.2 million at about 40% as well. Now, we're aiming to hit $20 million this year just buying and selling land. So, that's what I do now.

Wow, those are impressive numbers for the land investing space. You seem pretty nonchalant about everything.

You know, just buying and selling stuff. It's inspiring, though.

No, that's fair. It's super cool. I didn't know a lot about that from your journey. Obviously, most of the people listening to this podcast know the real estate space but maybe less about the land space. I'm super curious to hear more.

Let's say I came to you right now, and I fully expect a biased answer. If I asked you, "Should I get into a real estate acquisitions company, like wholesaling or flipping houses right now, or should I get into land?" What would you say?

Well, like you said, I'm pretty biased. I know all the different investment models, and I choose to do land because, honestly, it's the easiest. There are a lot of challenges and nuances, but there are things you don't have to deal with that you do with houses. For example, there aren't a lot of occupants, tenants, evictions, or anything like that when dealing with land. Occasionally, you might have a squatter on the property, but that's about it. It's very straightforward. Even something as simple as arranging a time to see the property is easier. You just go and go. You don't have to coordinate much.

The thing that always challenged me, and I know others are better at this, was the construction side of things, coordinating with contractors, running into unexpected issues. When you're doing a land purchase, you try to determine all these things upfront. It's not like opening a wall and finding something out after you've bought the property. Those surprises always seemed to come up when flipping homes, and I didn't enjoy that aspect.

While there's competition in land investing, there's also a lot of opportunity. I don't think it's nearly as competitive as the single-family home market, and the profit margins are great. Our goal is always to double our money on deals, though we average about a 40% gross profit margin. If we can move these properties on average in as many days, it starts to accelerate really quickly with that kind of return.

Yeah, that's wild. Those are impressive numbers for land.

Yeah, you know, the profit margins are great. A lot of times, our goal is to double our money on our deals. If we're doubling our money, that's a 50% gross profit margin, but we pretty much average around 40% at scale. We're still making a really good return on our investment and moving these properties pretty quickly.

Let's talk marketing. Obviously, my passion is marketing, and I know you're into it too. What's it like compared to houses?

Are you talking about on the acquisition side?

Yeah, so we use two methods at this point. Obviously, we're working with you on the pay-per-click side of things, and we also use direct mail. We send out offer letters to landowners based on average pricing in specific areas we like. These offer letters are kind of the first shot over the bow to see if we can get them to call back and gauge interest. Sometimes we're right on the offer values, sometimes not. When they contact us, we fine-tune and see if we can make a deal. So, that's primarily our marketing side of things. We're doing a lot of direct mail and paper click advertising.

As I understand it, direct mail is a staple for land. Most land investors seem to be doing direct mail. It's classic, just like it was for houses before it got really competitive.

Yeah, nowadays, direct mail isn't as easy as it once was for houses. It's interesting because we can define the type of properties we want and target specific areas where we know land sells fast and where we've built a good infrastructure, like a good team, maybe a good broker or title company. We buy a lot of larger rural properties, like 10 acres or more, so we can target those specific types of properties. We can filter by absentee owners or tax delinquencies, but we're more of a shotgun approach with our mail strategy. We send out a lot of mail, and overall, the numbers work out. On average, we're spending about $3,500 in mail costs per deal, and last year, our average gross profit per deal was about $30,000. So, it's a really good return on investment.

Paper click is different. The motivation is there, and these are motivated sellers, but the property type is random. We get properties from all over the country and random spots. Like today, we're advertising for land and got someone wanting to sell a school they bought and are renovating. So, we get all kinds of random stuff, even though we're putting out ads for land.

That's wild. I bet nobody's searching to sell my school for cash.

Yeah, they probably searched for "people who buy schools" and found us.

Interesting. They probably searched "sell my school for cash."

Yeah, if nobody has already, you should go snag that domain.

Yeah, I'm doing that. It's crazy because I'm looking at the satellite images, and I've always thought it would be cool to buy one of those old schools and redo it. I know there's a lot involved with it, but I'm looking at the satellite images, and it's in a great spot near a big shopping mall with a huge football field. I'm wondering, what would you do with that? I have no idea.

Brandon: That's fun. You've given me a couple of ways to think about land investing and marketing strategies. I hope you all got some value from what Pete just shared.

Pete: Absolutely, I hope it helped, and we'll see you next week.

Brandon: All right, guys, thanks for tuning in. If you haven't already, go over to LandConquest.com, check it out. We've got some really cool tools and resources that can help you in your land investing journey. We'll see you next time.

Pete: Take care.

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Ever wondered what it takes to go from crashing on your mom's garage floor to becoming a real estate mogul and HGTV celebrity?

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Tar Elusa. Tar has done a ton of stuff in the real estate investment space, everything from nearing a million dollars of revenue a month in his wholesale business to flipping real estate and having one of the most popular TV shows in the real estate investment space on HGTV. We're talking with Tar about all kinds of things like his mindset, how his real estate career has changed, his story, and how he got started. It's a super interesting episode, so I'll see you there."

"Tar, how are you doing today?"

"Good, what's up Brandon? How's it going?"

"Hey, doing fantastic. Good to see you again. It's been a minute. I'm super excited for today's episode."

"First, for anybody that doesn't know you or know you super well, tell me a little bit about your story. Like, where did you come from? When did you first start getting into real estate investing?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll give you the quick rundown. I grew up in Burbank, California, just a normal American family neighborhood. My parents immigrated—my mom was from Europe, my dad was from the Middle East. Fast forward to 19 years old, I got out of high school, I was going to college, kind of lost. I was selling kitchen knives for Cutco, and it turns out I could sell because I was actually making money. One day, I lost my sales book, so I essentially put myself out of business. I had what I like to call a defining moment. As a real estate investor, I've actually had many defining moments, but my very first defining moment, which is a moment in your life that changes the trajectory of your life, was at a Washington Mutual ATM in Sylmar, California, after losing that book. I'm looking at my ATM, and I swear, true story, I threw my head back and I'm like, 'Damn, what now?' Right? I looked over to the right, and there was this crooked sign that said, 'Say Y’s Old Owl Real Estate School.' I was like, 'Wait a minute, if I can sell knives, I gotta be able to sell houses.' So, that's how I actually got into real estate."

"At the time, the girl I was dating, her parents were in real estate like 20, 30 years before, so they used to talk about it, but I went in with nothing. Then I got my license and my book, 'Flipping Life,' just came out. It tells the very detailed story of exactly what happened, but long story short, I got a big deal early on, didn't know how to replicate it. I was totally broke six months into the business, ready to quit. I was trying to sell real estate at this time, as an agent, yeah, as a real estate agent, totally broke. At the time, I broke up with that girlfriend, my parents got divorced, my mom needed money, so she rented out my bedroom. So, I had to go move into her garage. It was a tough period of my life. I ended up going to this free event thrown by this guy named Mike Ferry, who's a real estate speaker and trainer. I had never heard a professional speaker. This guy, Mike, is a genius. He convinced me I could do anything. He convinced me that I would be a multimillionaire. So, at the end, I signed up for one-on-one coaching. It was a thousand bucks a month. Obviously, I did not have it, but I had a credit card. Here's what happened. I burned the booth. What I said was this: I'm giving myself 90 days. I'm going to do exactly what my coach says for 90 days, and at the end of 90 days, if I succeed, well, I made it in real estate. If I don't, I'm going back to school. I did not like school, and be very clear on that. So, I tell people, you want to change your life, you gotta block it into a 90-day block. For 90 days, you don't think about anything but that one thing that you want. So, the one thing I wanted was to make contacts. I know that sounds crazy. So, I'll tell you what we did. He said, 'How do you want to make your money?' There's for sale by owners, expired listings. An expired listing is a house that was for sale but never sold, so I would relist it. What happened was this: I would call from 7:45 a.m. to like 8:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday, three hours on a Sunday night. Ninety days later, I was at the bank, cashing about $120,000 in real estate commissions, right around my 21st birthday, which today, with inflation, is like $550,000. So, you know, I'm that old. But think about that. And here's the cool thing, and this is what I try to teach people, man. People just sell themselves out of their own success. Like, you don't. You just gotta go. And here's the truth: I made $120,000. I should have made $240,000. You wanna know why I only made $120,000? Well, I didn't know what a listing contract was. I didn't know how to run comps. Did I know how to sell? I knew how to sell. Could I get the appointment? I could get the appointment. So, that's how I kicked off my real estate career."

"Okay, interesting. So, that was still at that point as an agent, correct?"

"Yeah, that was as a real estate agent. Want me to tell you the kind of transition?"

"Yeah, I'm curious."

"Alright, so calling expired listings, I did really, I did really well fast. Everything I all the money I made, all the deals I got, I had zero marketing. I never marketed in my life. I was a cold caller. I was a cold calling machine. I was doing $500, $600 a day. People would call me crazy. Oh, but I never finished my story. Here's what, here's how I did it. How I made the $120,000. I had one goal every day. It wasn't to make money. It wasn't to get listings. It was to have 50 conversations with someone that owned a house. And the rule was, I couldn't go home until I had 50 conversations. So, because I focused on conversations, you know, on call number 50 of the night, I say, 'Hey, this is Tar with Credential Real Estate. Do you, Tar?' And they hang up on me. Do you think I'm mad or do you think I'm happy? I'm happy. That's my 50th contact. I get to go home. So, my job was just to have contacts, but it turns out if you have contacts, you get clients, and if you get clients, you get money."

"Yeah. Okay. So, you made it's a way for even the failures in the day to be contributing to your goal. That's how you, like, stay motivated for that. How long did you do that?"

"How long can a human do 500, 600 dials a day? Almost 10 years."

"You did that for 10 years?"

"Cold called. I cold called. I door knocked. I'll tell you my schedule. It was gnarly. This is when I got the show. I'll tell you in a second. You know, my gift is I'm willing to outwork everybody. Because, you know, when I want something, I just want it so bad. Nothing else matters. And that's really helped me get to where I am. But built a successful real estate business. I was young. Great Recession hit when I was 25 years old. I was living in a million-dollar house, had all these fancy cars, all this crap I didn't need, moved to this tiny little apartment, had to borrow my dad's truck with roll-up windows and broken AC, and I was back to rock bottom, right then started getting short sales for about a year and a half. I was hopping around apartments, man. My life was different. Like, I went from driving like a S500 Mercedes Brabus to, like, a truck that was breaking down. It was pretty rough. So, I started seeing opportunities in the market. And I did the short sale transaction. I had a first lien, a second lien, a third lien, an HOA lien, an IRS lien, and I negotiated it for 11 months. And in the end, I got a check for $7,000. And I remember the guy that I sold it to hired a gardener, cut the lawn, hired a painter, painted the house, and sold it two weeks later, made like $130,000. And that was the second defining moment in my life. And that was the exact moment I realized I was on the wrong side of the equation as a real estate investor, which, by the way, I now realize I've kind of been in some aspects on the wrong side of the equation as a house flipper, which I'll explain later. But in that moment, I said, 'I'm going to be an investor.' So, what did I do? I did what everybody does. I picked up my phone and I started calling everybody in my phone.

I said, 'I need your money.' They said, 'Why should I give it to you?' I said, 'Because I'm going to give you a 25% annualized return.' They said, 'Where is it?' I said, 'I don't know. But it's going to be worth a million bucks.' So, I did. I borrowed money from people I didn't really know. I don't know how to do this, but my best investment is for real estate. So, that's the way it started."

"Alright, so you started getting money from private investors, and that's kind of how you transitioned into more of the flipping and the wholesaling side of things?"

"Yeah, I mean, I'm talking to my whole sales floor, and the first thing that I want you to know, who get house flipping out there the old when I to get anything, it's just to learn in the house in the with bad.

"Have that same mindset going into our business, and if you are hyperfocused on finding that deal, you are going to find those deals. Okay, so for you, it's a mindset thing, and it's like being willing to do the volume. You know, same thing that brought you success—calling five to 600 calls a day. It's that you just gotta spend a lot of time connecting with these people. And if you keep on doing that, then you're gonna get the right deals. It just takes time."

"And my favorite is digital marketing lead—you know, when I was actually like a salesman for my company, I was converting one out of 14. I had a pretty darn high conversion rate. Um, yeah, that's... Yeah, so you know, my favorite digital market—no, actually, my number one favorite is the organic leads I get from being on TV. I love those. Number two is digital marketing lead, for sure. And then three, honestly, like, we're crushing it with outbound right now. We're doing a lot of deals with agents."

"Yeah, that's very cool. I'm curious to hear a little bit more about the story of how you got deeper into the wholesale business. Let's talk about, like, so obviously there's that beginning there where you had to get the 13 houses for your show, which is a wild story. I didn't realize that you were actually, like, doing the show as you were learning to do the business. I'm super curious to go back on, like, some of those initial flips that you were doing. I'm sure you look back at it, like, thinking that you were an idiot back then."

"Yeah, that's fair. Um, yeah, that's how I am—the me from six months ago is always an idiot. Like, I've always believed that. Um, it's a digressing but also really positive truth at the same time. Um, so moving past that, I mean, tell me about, like, this process from being, like, Tar the guy who cold calls, the guy who puts the deals together, the guy who manages the flips, to, like, a real estate investment business."

"Yeah, absolutely. So what happened was this: I've always been just a machine and hustled, right? Because honestly, started when I was a kid with sports. My dad made me play baseball seven days a week, like, five hours, you know? So I learned hard work as a kid. Um, but guess what TV did? Took me away from finding houses, it took me away from walking properties, it took me away from prospecting. So now I've got to find all these houses, and I'm short on time. So that's when I was forced to learn how to delegate, and I was forced to learn how to hire and staff and scale. Of course, at the beginning, I did everything wrong. I hired people I knew, a lot of headaches. And here's a reminder for everyone out there: You are going to get burned when you hire people. It doesn't mean you stop looking; it means you keep looking. So I always say, to find the right person, expect to be burned three times, and the fourth one, that's going to be the one. Um, so again, the mindset—expect to be burned. And sometimes we get lucky, but don't get upset when you get burned, because it should be expected. That's one, it's a volume game. So to scale, I started off with, you know, one acquisition guy, who is Adam Lindholm, who's the president of my company, Tar Vice Houses now. Um, but back then, his first day on the job, he showed up in his Mini Cooper. I took him out to the middle of the Inland Empire, we jumped out in a neighborhood that was in foreclosure, and we went door-to-door for five hours. And I said, 'This is your job.' Okay? And that's how we started. And then I got him on the phones, and then from there, we—I built this little team of four, and we were just humming. And then I think the first year, I did three, second year 18, third 46, fourth 88, and then it just kind of grew."

"Yeah, yeah. And then I think the most I had going at one time was in the 90s. But let's talk about some of the challenges because, no [bleep], it's been a rough couple of years for a lot of real estate investors, and guess what? I'm one of them. But, you know, I'm going to share with you what I did, so maybe someone can learn from this. It's just impossible to time the market. The biggest mistake I've made as an entrepreneur was trying to time the market—making the wrong decisions at the wrong times instead of just letting time be in the market, right? Letting it go. But when the interest rates doubled the year before, I had a big push to scale up everything. So I brought on staff, I expanded marketing, I expanded markets. So I had bought 91 houses first quarter. The rates were low, they were like, you know, 3%. Right after that, they jumped up to 7%, as you know. So then I was stuck with $700,000 a month in mortgages, all these houses, the doubling of interest rates. I mean, I'm remembering the Great Recession, I'm thinking to myself, 'Yeah, what am I going to do now?' So within minutes, I made a decision: I'm not going to buy any more houses because I already knew these 91 houses right here, I already knew. You don't have to tell me, I'm going to lose millions of dollars. I already know. Okay, by the time I fix them and, like, you know, I've got left, so because I knew that, I stopped buying and I said, 'Well, how do I offset losses? I gotta bring in revenue. What's the fastest way to bring revenue? Wholesale real estate.' So overnight, I changed my business model to wholesale real estate. A few bumps in the road at first because it was a new model for us, but they hard times, too, because other buyers started to get skittish at that time. It's kind of like the worst time for wholesale, yeah. No, I know, but, you know, today, things are going good. You know, I think we put like $800,000 up on the board this month or last month, sorry, we're in May. So it's pretty good. I expect us to be at seven figures a month consistently on the wholesale fees. We're still scaling up flipping, not as much, mostly just for the show, you know. But outside of that, you know, I run my company, Homes by Tar. I have my flagship company, Tem Capital. We're buying commercial real estate, we're syndicating. Just bought an awesome deal in Texas, 45 units, previous owner was into it at $100,000 a door, we're picking up for $66,000 a door. So, 34% discount. Yeah, yeah. So the deals are coming. The deals are coming. So if you ask me what I'm looking for today, I'm not looking for houses, I'm looking for monster deals where instead of making a hundred grand, I can make $10 million. And I want to flip them, I'm gonna flip them hard. Okay? Yeah, that's a... It's, uh, there's a lot of distress in that outside of the industry right now. Yeah, coming soon. Yeah, fair point. Okay, very cool. So if I'm understanding it right, you kind of scaled up the business, and then you started to really scale kind of at the worst time, and then, right then, just started re-upping, and then you changed your whole business model to wholesaling, and today, mostly wholesaling. Yeah, yeah. I mean, some of these houses were in California, like I was selling this one, lost $638,000, this one lost $690,000. But it's okay, you want to know why? I washed it all out. I didn't lose anything. My wholesale fees offset the losses from those flips, washed it clean. Now, down to my last two old ones, we're officially profitable again, getting ready to scale back up. Wow, that's, uh, talk about your back against the wall. Said it's the time you work the bestest. That's so... What is the fee like, then? Like, what do you... What do you want to do over the next few years? Man, so many different things, you know. I'm gonna continue, um, you know, continue being on TV, I enjoy that. I like, uh, I like entertaining people, I like creating good shows. I'm working on a few new ones right now that are a lot of fun. Um, when it comes to Tar Gets Buys Houses, I'm still looking to scale that. I want to continue scaling that across the country. I'm thinking about maybe offering, you know, licenses of the brand because, you know, here's the cool thing about, you know, my brand. If you put my brand against any other marketing, I'm gonna get more calls, I'm gonna have higher conversion because people have been watching me for 15 years, right? So I want to be able to scale that, and I want to get back to the communities. I want to teach people how to do this, I want to create free programs, I want to do things for underprivileged kids, like, just anything you could possibly think of. I, I really like to get involved with and just give, give back as much as I can and really go as far as I can. Yeah, that's super cool. Um, one thing I appreciate about you is this, like, it seems like you can take a beating, but it doesn't matter what happens, like, you have this, like, this, I don't know if positivity is the word, um, as much as like resilient. Bro, here's what it is. Here's the truth, man. I have ADHD, which means I'm actually an overly sensitive person. I'm like, you know, I get my feelings hurt sometimes, but I'm so used to it. Like, I've just gotten stronger and stronger and stronger, and the more [bleep] you can deal with, the stronger you get, like cars, right? And then they get bigger, bigger, and then I think, man, when something bad happens today, I think about my face plastered all over TMZ. I think about paparazzi chasing me on the freeway. I think about crying in the bathroom for a year. Like, my life's good today. So one of the big things that makes me so happy today is reflecting. I'm a two-time cancer survivor. That was a rough period in my life. Yeah, I, F season two of 'Flip or Flop,' I found out I had thyroid cancer at the beginning, and I also found out I had testicular cancer. The network called me, said, 'We understand the show's over.' I said, 'This show's not over. You're gonna film my ass wheeling into those surgeries.' And they did. And if you watch SE, yeah, they did. If you watch season two, you can actually watch me gain 60 pounds on TV, and then they did a surgery. They sliced my neck open, I had this tube hanging out, one week later I was back on camera working. I was talking like that, but, you know, nobody could say I didn't give it 100%. Yeah, yeah, that's wild. Well, it's been, um, it's been super cool to learn about your story and what brought you here.

Um, is there anything I should ask you that I haven't?

Why am I not working with you yet?
I don't know. Why aren't you working with us? Well, we could work, actually. I don't know. I was gonna say, it sounds like we have something to talk about. Yeah, fair enough.

Okay, after the show. Thank you, Tar. I appreciate your time, and um, for everybody else listening, I'll see you next week."

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Justin Colby isn't here to sugarcoat it. With 17+ years in the trenches, he shares the harsh realities, mistakes to avoid, and mindset needed for real estate success. No fluff, no BS—just raw, unfiltered truth you can't afford to miss.

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"Hey, what's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks Podcast. Today, I have a special guest for us. His name is Justin Colby. Justin shares his pretty unusual views on business, leadership, and scaling. We talk about a lot of stuff, from who you should hire, when you should hire them, the most common mistakes that investors make in his opinion, and what drives him in the day-to-day. Justin's background and experience in real estate business - Justin, how are you doing today, man?

"Good, bro. Thanks for having me."

"Yeah, super excited to have you here. For anybody listening that doesn't know you already, doesn't know your story, give me the crash course - who are you, where do you come from, what do you do?"

"Yeah, I've done it for quite a long time. I've been doing this business since 2007, so 17 years. Done over 2,700 deals and counting. I'm actively buying two to five properties for myself each week. I'm wholesaling another 5 to 15 or so. I used to want to be the biggest, baddest wholesaler business person. Now it's actually about being efficient. I've already bought two apartments this year. I'm buying a third at the end of this month in a couple of days. I'm buying more to keep in my portfolio than I ever have."

"Very active in the business, I believe in being a dynamic real estate investor. What I mean by that is you should be wholesaling, fixing, flipping, and buying rentals. You should be doing the trifecta, and it's just a function of leads. Shocker, here we are with Bateman Collective, right? It's a function of bringing enough opportunities that you can do all of it, right? Because sometimes it's a great rental, sometimes it's a great flip, sometimes you just want to wholesale to get some quick cash so you can ramp up marketing so you can get some more. There's always a specificity - big word for the morning - on deals. But I help a lot of individuals not only just get the first deal but get consistent deal flow with the science of flipping."

"Very cool. So let's break this down a little bit. So, number one, you've been in real estate since, did you say 2007?"

"Yeah, 2007."

"What an interesting time to start."

"By interesting, you mean just ridiculous. Like, no one knew what was happening. The banks didn't know how to deal with short sales and foreclosures. And like, I'm broke, right? So even if you were around, dude, even if you could have offered me your service, I couldn't afford it. Like, literally sleeping on a couch. Repo Man took my car, home went to foreclosure, the whole thing."

"The only thing I needed to do was cold call agents. Funny enough, agent outreach again is like a big vertical to find deals. So I was cold calling agents, acting as if I was some big investor. I wasn't, and it got me my first 20 deals or so. From there, I moved on to buying at the auction steps and using a lot of direct mail and buying from wholesalers. Then getting into PPC, which is more of where you're at when that started rolling around. Direct mail started tanking, that's right when PPC started ramping up."

"Yeah, having a look back... Yeah, that's wild. Good for you, man. So obviously more than a few years in the business, more than just a couple."

"I had hair like yours when I started."

"Love this business. Did that to you, huh?"

"That's it. Sure did."

"Let it be a warning. If anybody listening is just getting into real estate, maybe it's time to stop."

"No, I would say if you just think it's all fun and games and you want to go drive fancy cars and flex all the time, then it's probably not the right avenue."

"Yeah, fair enough. And it does seem like as an industry, we attract more of those people than the average industry for whatever reason."

"Yeah, I think real estate lends itself a little bit to that. It doesn't help, obviously, there's a lot of TV shows. So now it's about the fame and the fortune and all that kind of stuff. But just like financial services and whatever, you kind of attract that type of person. But yeah, it is what it is."

"It makes sense. So I know you're a smart dude, Justin. I want to give you a platform to basically talk about the things that you're most passionate about here. So let's just say you're talking to the typical person listening to this podcast. Remember, these are people that are experienced real estate investors, generally doing deals, but of course, we all want more. We're all trying to accomplish something that we... Right. So that considered, in as mean of a way as you could possibly say it, what are they doing wrong typically?"

"You're just putting the cart before the horse. Too many people want to scale and grow and hire, right? Because they don't want to do the work. And so let's just use a service like yours. You bring in, I get 10 leads a month, 20 leads a month, just name the number. And people start to say, 'Okay, well I want to hire acquisition people.' Well, that doesn't make any sense because all of the money is being made on the buy."

"If we all agree that you make your money on negotiating the buy, the last position you should be hiring is an acquisition person. The challenge is they're trying to build a business before they're ready to build a business. And so they get caught up in the flex of it all and the social media of it all and saying how big their office is and how many employees they have."

"But if they aren't a true leader to start with - and there's a handful of people out there that I can say are true leaders, they know what they're doing. You know, Donovan Ruffin, Eric Klein, I mean there's people that are out there that are showing it on social media, but because they can back it up and do that. Tiffany and Josh High, these are individuals - in their case, a couple - but you know, they really do have a leadership ability to grow a business."

"Many of the people out there, many of your clients and people listening to this are going to probably hate me, and that's okay because I'm just giving it to them real. They're not ready to grow and scale. They shouldn't be. They don't have the leadership muscle yet."

"Yeah, well that's fair. Let me challenge this for a second. So let's just say I'm getting started in the real estate investing space. Maybe, you know, I start to do a few deals. I consider should I start to hire somebody, maybe not an executive assistant, maybe lead manager, acquisitions, you know, whatever it is that I'm hiring versus me. If I were to give it some more time, wait until I can get my take-home income above that $250,000 a year mark that you talked about, get a couple years under my belt. The way I see it, the me that has done that doesn't necessarily have the leadership skill compared to the me that hasn't done that yet. In either case, I'm probably jumping into leadership without having any idea what I'm doing. But is there like... what's... there's incremental leadership, right?"

"I agree with you to some extent. You got to start somewhere, right? That's really what you're saying. Like, some point you got to start, you got to do it. Right? Same thing I tell newbie investors. It's like, okay, just get in. Like, you got to start. Right? So I hear you, but there's incremental growth in that skill set."

"First of all, you should be reading books. You should be watching or listening to podcasts. You should be going, getting leadership type training. There's so many leadership type coaching trainings out there. But the other thing is, hire the person that's going to be better at that than you are. This is why you need the money to be right."

"Okay, so let's just say I'm... use Brandon as an example. Let's say you're incredible at the tech side of what you do. You dominate. But in terms of the people side, like going and finding the right people, hiring the right people, training the right people, managing the right people... like, there's all these different layers to when you're growing, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, let's just say you're like, 'Well, that's just not me.' But then you got to go hire the person that that is. But then you don't want to hire your buddy. 'Hey, bro, I want to go, you know, hire and train people and manage them. You want to do it?' Because he's your buddy. You want to hire someone who's coming from Google, who has a tech background, who has an operation background, who has a lead background, who is in the, you know, Google PPC world that you were able to recruit that might cost you $125,000 a year. But now you don't have to go do that, and you know that they have a resume and they have a skill set that's been there and done that. Does that make sense?"

"That's why you need the income up. That's my point. You hire different people if you wait a little bit longer versus the people that you would hire if you're just kind of barely getting getting off the ground."

"Which which does make sense because... because what I was going to say before is like, I waited till I had $300,000 in revenue in my business per year until I hired my first person. In my opinion, I hired them too late because I was like so busy with everything I didn't have time to like train properly and like that was kind of a common theme for a while for me. It was like I want to delay hiring and so I don't start hiring until I'm just way too busy and then at the point that I start hiring, it's then going to take me a certain amount of time to find a person and then that's not going to be the right person. So I find somebody and then it takes me some time to find them and then like I end up getting this person in the seat a year after I needed them."

"Yeah, and it's and it's really delayed. But to your point, I was looking to hire like at the beginning... all junior level people. Sure, I didn't start with somebody who's an expert of the things that I'm not. So I... and I probably could have. I probably could have afforded that, but that's not what I did."

"Well, so the thing that I would pose to you then, specifically to you, right, when you're talking about your real life example... have you read the book 'Buy Your Time Back' by Dan Martell?"

"You know, at that time I haven't. Since then..."

"Well, sure. No, no, but now that you have, right? So at this point then, I would tell almost anyone I think it's probably one of the best business books I've read in the last 5 years, let's say. But then you got to just go back to his, you know, hiring principal about like just even the economics of it all. Right? So let's just say you make your $500,000 a year divided by 12 or 2,000 divided by four, that's the number that you would pay someone essentially to... because you're making $250 an hour. So you're going to pay someone whatever it is, $75 an hour to do your exact role, your role, right? Because they're going to be that high level. But you don't pay them your salary, you pay them that number."

"Just in that concept, I believe that there's a value of like... then you can hire based around that. But I don't believe in hiring just to hire. Because what Dan Martell talks about, or even where I'm at... like in my tech business that's, you know, literally ready to launch now finally. So I feel your pain, is right? Like we hired our CEO, came from three different exits already. He took three different private companies and exited them into the nine figures. All three of them are in the nine figures. So he has the resume to do it, but I'm going to pay a lot of money for him, right?"

"Because I don't have the skill set or frankly, I don't have the desire to go be the CEO of this new company we've founded, right? Rocket Le. So, so I'd encourage people... I mean, you don't have to go find that person either, not in the real estate business per se."

"Yeah, but this goes back to the point I really want to highlight this: stop trying to be Justin Colby 17 years in the business, or name the name. I don't care. Grant Cardone, name whoever you want to name who has been doing this a lot longer than you. If you've been in this business and you're a client of Brandon or you've been watching this or listening to this and you've been in the business for two, three, four, five years, you have a lot of runway to catch up on. There's no way to like condense it into a year or two, right? You need to still have some level of learning growth because things change, like the economy right now. Right? Everyone's all caught up on the interest rates. So understand, don't be the version of Justin 17 years in business. Be the version of you right now and be the very best version of you."

"Yeah, yeah, that totally makes sense. Something you talked about before was that there's so many like leadership trainings, books, content to consume available that can make you better. I'm curious to hear from your perspective, let's just say I have little leadership experience. I can tell you where like our typical client is probably some leadership experience but a lot of frustration with it. Where have I... like I thought I knew leadership and then I started building and growing the team and now I've got you know, five or 10 people on my team and now I feel like I know less about leadership than I ever have because I'm seeing how much I don't know. Right? So this... let's just take that example. Like, what if you were them? What content would you be consuming to level up?"

"Well, I think that the one everyone probably has already heard of, I'm making that assumption, but like EOS or Traction, right? They have a whole full-blown like growing, scaling leadership business. Right? So read the book Traction, but then the EOS system essentially is... I don't want to call it coaching, it is like a... I guess it's coaching, but it's really meant around this: how do you run a company? How do you have your weekly meetings? How do you have your quarterly meetings? How do you have your yearly meetings? It's the operating system."

"And so it is probably more... Well, so I'm not saying anything someone doesn't know, but at a minimum start doing that. Right? Level 10 meetings just alone. Implement everything in that book. They would be way further along. So far, yeah, like that. Right? Because even how do you run a real meeting? What you know how most people run a meeting, right? The CEO, the owner, Brandon, Justin, get there. 'All right guys, so how many sales have we had? All right, is anyone complaining? Do we need any customer... anyone meet out? Okay, what are our goals for next week?' Like, that's the meeting. That's not a meeting, right?"

"So even understanding how to run a meeting is important. And so I think that's probably the best in the industry is, you know, that EOS operating system. Again, I don't know if I want to call it coaching, but it's something like that. Right? Accountability and the operating system. So that's probably where I'd point most people. But you have people like Tony Robbins that teach leadership, right, which are bigger names. There's a ton of... I mean, I don't even know how many books are out there about leadership. And Maxwell has so many books, you know, '21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership', right?"

"And so... but it is a muscle that needs to be worked out constantly. You cannot just like... it's the... it's the business owner. Here's how I view business owners today. They are the guys that go to the gym and lift heavy weight, but they come home and eat burgers and fries and drink beer and, you know, have a dessert at night. Well, you're not going to get ripped. You're going to get big, and I don't know if you're going to look very good because you're going to be doing it the wrong way. But it's not the right way to do it."

"Simultaneously, if you can have a better diet, you're actually going to change what your body looks like. Like, right? So you can't outwork out a bad diet. It's all about the diet. So you can't grow and scale a business without the ability to be a great leader. It's all about the leadership. Right? So that's kind of how I... I use an analogy to help people understand. Like, if you're going to eat pizza, burgers, fries, donuts, and lift heavy and think you're actually going to be shredded and ripped, that's not going to happen. You can't go and run a company and build and grow and scale without mastering being a leader. It's not going to happen."

"Something you said that I want to make sure we don't look over... it's something someone told me that had a huge impact on me years ago. Just that your business cannot outgrow you as a leader. And like, if you believe that, you'll find examples of that every day."

"100%. You're the constraint of your business. But the tough thing about being a bad leader is that you believe everything except for that. You believe it's all because of that person exactly."

"You know, a book that I read recently that was pretty great... have you read 'Leadership and Self-Deception'?"

"I have not."

"Okay, but I will... not like the... the premise of the book is it's... it's basically it's all your fault. It's not everybody else's fault. And... and like the way you treat people encourages them to continue to do the things that you are upset about them doing. And you're... you're creating all your own problems. It's a... it's a really good book. But anyways, it's... it basically supports exactly what you're... what you're saying."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm... but that's true of any business owners. Is it's always you got to look in the mirror, right? Just using the analogy of the person working out, look in the mirror, dude. Why don't you just boil some chicken, eat broccoli, and you won't have to just be getting big, right? Like, you'd actually start to get shredded."

"Yeah, because when you... when you look at what it really takes, you're not sure you want that anymore. I'm... I'm convinced that most people have... if they... if they knew what this entrepreneurial journey takes before they would have start on it, nine times out of 10, they wouldn't even start."

"Agreed. I think the only reason people actually get to the end is because they're deceived at the beginning. And you're deceived at like every stage. You just feel like if I could just make it around this corner, then I'm going to get..."

"And I coach people for a living on being an entrepreneur in real estate, right? The whole Science of Flipping Community is me coaching them on how to be successful at real estate investing as an entrepreneur. I'll tell you the number one reason people don't win is because they don't realize it's not all puppy dogs and rainbows. And again, what it really takes to become truly successful."

"Now, some people do, and they actually fight the fight and they dig in deep and they're ready to go for it. But the other people just like... like, 'Man, I thought this would have been easier. I would have thought, you know, whatever the case is.' Right? And... and so they quit. And then they want to blame whoever the coach is or what, because, you know, whatever. But the reality is, they didn't realize how much work that needs to go in."

"To your point, there's days where I say like, 'God, wouldn't it be nice to be Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktails and just be a bartender at the beach? No brains, no headaches.' Right? I'd have all my hair. It'd be great."

"Yeah, yeah. It totally would. I'm... I'm actually curious to hear because you... you see like which of your students make it and which of them don't. I have a hypothesis. It's kind of like that... I... I don't know, it's a saying or what that, you know, the person who loves to run runs farther than the person who likes to get places by nature of, you know, human nature. Right? Like, is it true your students that are really successful with this first is not that they just... they like their drive isn't to get the thing that the business will give them as much as they're... their drive is to do that hard thing?"

"Yeah, I think there's a combination from what I see. Part of it is there's enough pain of like, 'I don't want to be working for someone else. I hate my job. I'm really sick of it. I never have much money. Like, I'm just drowning.' So part of it is the pain of like, 'I'm ready for a change. Like, something... I can't do this forever.' Right?"

"The other part is genuine love and interest. To your point, the love of running, the love of real estate. Like, 'I want to be in real estate,' and they just say, 'I'm gonna make it happen.' And you know, the people that I can help mentally understand the time expectation of results..."

"So I have Five Laws of Success, right? One is - and if you're watching or listening to this, I would write these down - but one is decide what you want and who you need to be to get it. So decide what you want and who you need to be to get it, because that's the part of love. Then you have to commit to it. So you better love it because no matter what, it's hard, right?"

"Running isn't actually easy at distance. A short little sprint, anyone could do it, right? Running up your driveway, anyone can do it. You go and run 10 miles, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 miles... like, these... these people... ain't easy. One mile for most people isn't easy, right? So just you got to commit to it."

"Then you got to go do it. You got to take a lot of action. Then number four is you got to be extremely uncomfortable because the thing that you want, the number one what you want and who you need to be to get it, is something you don't have and you aren't getting. So it's going to bring you way outside your comfort zone."

"And number five is just remove your time expectation on the result. Right? And what I mean by that is if you say, 'I love real estate and I'm going to be successful in real estate,' and you full stop that... that's it. Full stop. Then you will, because you didn't tell yourself by the end of the year, in 30 days, by the time I'm 50, whatever. You don't tell yourself those things. So you never really have a way to unwind it. You just say, 'I love real estate. I'm going to be successful in real estate. I'm committed to it. I'm going to do whatever it takes. It's going to be weird as hell, and it's going to be, you know, make me super uncomfortable, but I'm going to go do this.' You'll go do it. It's because the love of running, same idea. Right?"

"Yeah, yeah. You're totally right. Something you mentioned, Alex Hormozi before. One of my favorite things that I've heard him say is macro impatience, micro... I'm sorry, micro impatience, macro patience. Like concept that like... kind of it's kind of like what you're talking about. Like remove that... remove that time expectation. Like those who are most successful in a certain thing... like on a day-to-day basis, hour-to-hour basis, it's like, 'I just got a lead. I'm going to call that right now because I'm impatient about getting to the result. I'm impatient about trying to get this deal to close.' But on a macro level, when it's been 3 months and I just started this and I haven't gotten a deal closed yet, that's where I'm patient. Right?"

"That's both. But that's where everyone loses patience, and you're like, 'Ah, you got this wrong.' Like, it... like that's why I keep saying like, everyone wants to be me 17 years into the game or... or name the name. I'm just using me as reference, but you know, that's not the game. I'm nowhere near where I want to be. Nowhere near. I just said I bought two apartments already this year. I'm buying a third. I'm buying two to five properties a week. Like, I'm not even close to where I want to be able to get in the real estate business. Not even close. And so I'm just going to keep my head down until I get there."

"What I'd argue so much of that is what's in your brain. It's not like... like, do you have... have financial resources that you didn't have when you started? Right now, absolutely. I'm sure like relationships right now that you didn't have when you started. But I'd be willing to bet that if you had none of like... if you... if you wiped out all the money, all the relationships, everything you started from scratch right now, it would not take you near 17 years to get where you are because the biggest thing contributing to your success is who you've become as a person. And that would be like much, much faster."

"You are dead on, my friend. I could not agree anymore. 100%. You could drop me off in Arkansas and say no Instagram, no Facebook, no recognition, no money, go build the business again."

"It's never been easy, even when it seemed that way."

"The same thing Grant Cardone essentially did on billionaire undercover or whatever it was, right?"

"I forgot that he did that."

"Yeah, yeah. I could go do it because I know how to work this business. I've been here. I've done it, right? And so I could go get my first deal and the second and the third and build it back up again because I have the runway of experience. All of you out there listening or watching this, you don't give yourself the runway of experience. You want it today. You want the microwave result, right? Like, 'I want to achieve this in a year or two years or three years.' If you're in real estate in general for a short quick win, get the hell out of real estate. That's not the game, right? It's not a short sprint."

"Real estate should be a lifelong journey of like... awesome. Because you can create active income, which is the flipping and the wholesaling, and you can create passive or wealth accumulation is how I say it. Is go buy a whole bunch of rentals over time. Use other people's money to do it. Don't use your own. Use leverage. Do it right. Buy right and do it forever. Like, I'll never not be in real estate. Ever."

"That totally makes sense. So I'm curious. You... you talked a lot, Justin, about this being hard, people not being willing to do what it takes. What in... in your experience, let's just say we look at the past 17 years, what was the hardest part of that?"

"Every inch of the way. There's never... there's never not hard. Started was hard. Yesterday was hard. Yeah, it's all hard. Yeah, it's all hard. And that's what people don't understand. It's always hard. Now, it's only hard for people who really want more. Does that make sense?"

"So I heard... I can't tell you when... a little while ago, someone told me parenting is only hard for good parents. If you're a parent, be easy. Yeah, kid, sit the hell down on the couch and drink a beer. I don't care, right? Like, you... you don't care. It's not hard. And I feel the same about business. It's always hard because you want more. You want better, right? You want to improve. You need to iterate. Things are changing, right? So it's never not hard. And this is where people literally go, 'I give up. I want to go back to my W2.' And I say, 'Not me, never.'"

"Because we only get one ride around Earth, right? No one leaves alive. And if I'm going to do this, I want all the experiences, all the feelings, all the challenges, all the things to see where I end up. I'm not here to just exist."

"And so when... when you talk about this... is a great question because I could just go off... like, there's never been just an easy time. I will give you an example that I thought it was an easy time, and I think this was about back in '14, '15, '16, something... we were just rolling. Money was coming in. Things were doing good. I basically said, 'I'm no longer needed here. My team's got this.' So I said... I took the owner's box is what I called it, right? Like, I basically hung it up. Like, I wasn't shown up to meetings, nothing."

"Well, all of a sudden my business doing this started doing more like this, and then started to go like this. And it's because I took myself out of the business completely. And we just talked about leadership and the power of leadership. And this is what people don't understand. Like, look at Elon Musk, look at Warren Buffet, look at Steve Jobs, on RIP, look at Bill Gates. Like, they're all still in the business. They may not be, you know, making the computers or writing the code or building the actual car, but they're in the business, right?"

"I, because I thought it was going so good and was easy, took myself out of the business. Major, major, major mistake. Um, so I think that was a big lesson. Never, ever, ever, right? Like, even today, even though I have a team and there's nine people in the office running my real estate team, I'm on our weekly calls. We have two every single week. I talk to my general manager every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Like, I'm not plugged in. Now, am I negotiating a deal with a seller anymore? No, I'm not, right? Am I, you know, trying to find the buyer? No, I'm not. But you... you know, doesn't mean business is easy just because I've been able to scale and hire and build a team."

"Yeah, that totally makes sense. Sorry, you just... you brought up a ton of questions. I'm actually... I'm really curious. So... so one thing I want to say, this is more of a... a challenge than anything. I want to hear how you like react to this. I would argue that what you're saying, um, as it applies to business only applies if you have the belief that continual growth is good. If you at any point wanted to say, 'I want to just be the Justin Colby that was able to run the business that he had one year ago, and I'm okay with that business accomplishing exactly that and never more,' then I bet you that's when it would get easy."

"Uh, no, you're not... you're not wrong. For like, that is 100% correct. That is not an argument. That is fact. 100%. If... if I was willing to say I am willing to make this... this was a good year, this is what I want, I don't want more, then it's just kind of cruise control, right? And then it becomes rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Yeah. But again, you can do a lot of things and make good money. Like, why real estate? Why be an entrepreneur, right? Why not just go find a job that can just pay you that level of income?"

"Yeah, so it's a super fair point. But I think it's... it's worth mentioning though, because not everybody shares that same belief as you do. Some people, they're in business to generate a certain amount of income, and if they can get that, then they don't necessarily want more. They're not necessarily wanting more impact. They're not... like, that's what... why the business exists is to like generate some livelihood for them. So if... if... like, and then those people will talk about how... how easy business is and how their business is running on autopilot and all those... and all those kinds of things."

"I... I love those people. I'm closer to those... not to cut you off, but I'm sorry I did. I'm probably closer to them now than I've ever been. And I don't mean I'm just going to say I want just this, but I can tell you I'm not the biggest 'bigger is better' fan. I just don't believe in that. I just told you you have nine people. Like, I don't necessarily need 12 or 15 or 20 people to get to where I want to go, right? Bigger isn't always better."

"Right, and so if... if I'm rephrasing it for my own purposes, then I also tend to agree with that. However, because of I have this system kind of running with these nine people, what that allows me to do is create more opportunity and have other things that take my time to go build and grow. So it's not like I'm just like, 'Okay, we're on a steady path here with the nine people. I'm just going to... I'm chilling now.' Finally, that's just... again, it's not really how I've been created."

"Like, I have my real estate business, I have my coaching business, I have my tech business with Rocket Le. That's just to name three of the biggest businesses, not to mention all the other things that I also have going on, right?"

"I agree. And by the way, from me, if you are one of those people listening to this that are like, 'If I can go make 250 grand a year in my pocket every year, I am totally satisfied. I love it. It is exactly where I want to be.' I love you for it, right? I'm just not built that way. Like, there's no judgment on my behalf. There's no like, 'Oh, you're small-minded.' No, no, no, not at all. That's awesome. That is why you built the business, so you can have your version of happy. There's different versions of it for everybody. There's no one size fits all. So good for them."

"Yeah, that... that totally makes sense. I... yeah, I would argue that what you're saying is for you, bigger is not better, but better is really important. You just... you can't... yes, stagnation in it, right? So maybe it used to be that you thought the way to get better was to go bigger, and now you go for better in different ways, which... which is... which is pretty fascinating."

"I'm also really interested to dig into what happened. So... so there is something you said that is... I don't know, you call it a little bit unusual. Usually what people are arguing for is that their impact on the business is more minimal and that if you have the right people... like, it can run without you. You shared your experience of when I thought that was true, I stepped out, and then the business started to stagnate, and then the business started to drop. And that's because I wasn't there. So I'm... I'm really curious to hear from your perspective, back then or even right now, what is the value you add to the business that no one else could add? Does that make sense?"

"You... you almost can consider me like the head of Business Development, really. And the reason why is like, for example, great example, real time, this moment, this morning, I get on a call with my general manager and one of our private lenders in one of our apartments has a very big personal scenario happening and is basically asking for his investment back. It's not a small amount of money, right? It's well into the six figures. And so I say, 'Okay, let me go kind of resolve that and go, you know, to my network and to figure out where we could replace that.' You know, and... and they have equity, they're an owner with us, right? So we have to basically go replace an owner of the company and a lender all at the same time."

"Right, so I kind of look at that more as biz dev, right? Like, all right, well now we got to go do something that really shouldn't be put on general manager's plate. It's not going to go to my acquisition, TC, disposition, construction, M&A, right? That's kind of me. So I kind of look at it more as a biz dev as the business continues to move and iterate and change. I'm the leading charge of the biz dev, if you will, right? Specifically to the real estate business. I would not say that for the tech business. I'm not... not... not big on tech. But yeah, so for me, like my role right now, literally have a week or so to go replace $500,000 in one of our apartments. And that's... that's kind of my job."

"Couldn't you just hire someone to do that? Like, they just say you..."

"We actually have... we have an investment relationship manager. Yep, we have him. So the answer is yes, but I... I think this is a little bit more like... so anyways, I'm going to call him. My thought is someone in my own ecosystem probably would want this opportunity, honestly, because they're going to get ownership of the apartment with me. So my initial thought was like, I probably have a handful of people that if I just even made a post on social media, which I will, by the way - you'll see it - someone, it might be one or two people or three people are like, 'Oh, I got 100 grand, I got 150, I got 200.' And then we, you know... because I... I... the connectivity of that, I really like."

"Like, let's just say you, if you saw me post that and you said, 'Justin, I got 100 grand or 200 grand or 500 grand, whatever. I want to start owning more real estate or add to my portfolio.' I would rather be a partner of yours than my investor relationship manager. He tends to find individuals I don't know. They tend to be better debt partners than they do actual business partners on the entity. Make sense?"

"It does, it does make sense. So I would rather have you come in on the LLC because I know you, I like you, I want you to be a part of my ride as well, be a part of my dreams and my future. So that's why I'll probably see what happens when I post, but also call him and say, 'Hey, do you know anybody that makes sense?'"

"So you have the relationships, the people that you know you want to do business with, that kind of thing. And that's... that's a hard piece to hire out."

"Oh, it's... I mean, it's impossible. I mean, that's really my role across all of my businesses, is being kind of the face, biz dev, sales if you will, to some extent, right? Like marketing, right? And so it's all... I don't know if there's a name for it, but it's all kind of captured into one. That's why I need to have my social media constantly running. That's why these podcasts are so important. I'm about to have a book launch that I got to be out there. I got to have recognition because for these things, whether it's raising 500 grand in a week, right, whether it's getting great podcast interviews like we're doing, whatever it may be, that's more my role."

"Yep, that makes sense. Cool. Thank you for all the wisdom you shared today, Justin, and... and dealing with all my... I think this is one of my more fun episodes."

"Dude, you have very good out-of-the-box questions that aren't like, 'So how did you get your first deal?' I'm curious that... that... that's what's going on here is I just... I... I just want to learn from you."

"Yeah, you know, that's... that's on them, but yeah, no doubt. Um, so uh, if anybody wants to... wants to follow you or get to know you better, what's the best way?"

"Best way is hit me up on Instagram, the Justin Colby. Uh, in fact, what I challenge everyone when I'm on a podcast, actually hit me up, message me, say, 'Hey, I heard you on Brandon's podcast. What's up, dude? I want to say what's up.' I want to reply. I want to build a relationship with you. So if you hear or see me on this episode, go to the Justin Colby and hit me up. Let me know you heard me or saw me on this episode."

"All right, that sounds great. Well, thank you for taking the time and sharing some of your wisdom. For everybody else listening, I will see you next week."

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Want to build a rockstar team and smash your revenue goals? Tune in as Aaron and Michaela Gaunt share the exact recruitment tactics they used to scale to 7-figures in their first year, revealing how to identify A-players and avoid hiring duds.

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"Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is another episode in the series with Aaron and Miquella Gaunt from Southern California, who took their business from local to national. With PPC as the primary channel, they were able to do seven figures in revenue just from PPC in their first year. This time, we're going to talk about the marketing decisions they made over this time period to help them get the best quality leads and the most volume of leads possible to grow to that seven figures in revenue.

Aaron, Miquella, I'm super excited to talk with you guys about marketing. Choosing a marketing channel is something we've kind of touched on in a few of the other videos, but I think it's an awesome experience to go deep and talk about how you've done what you've done. Obviously, we work together on this aspect. This is the aspect I'm personally most passionate about and most knowledgeable about, and it's really interesting for me to learn how you view it and why you've chosen to execute on certain elements of your strategy. So anyway, that considered, what are the things that you think about when choosing what marketing channel you're going to go after? Obviously, you have experience with outbound channels like cold calling, texting. It seems like mail's been good to you. PPC, Facebook ads - like what is it that you're looking for?"

Aaron: "Inbound leads, hands down. We want inbound leads for our primary source of revenue now. Obviously, there are different types. I mean, again, a bunch of stuff, but what we want to do, and what I've seen because what our primary business is, is marketing and sales. I know they always say that literally every business is marketing and sales. If I went and we talked about how your business is doing and how you've really did a great job on, let me call it, dominating the space and being a top provider for real estate investors, but it's like, obviously, yes, you are very skilled. Obviously, you have the data to help us get to the next level. That's why we love having you guys as part of our team. But it's also you really got yourself out there. You really marketed your company out there to get yourself known, right? So marketing is huge."

Aaron: "I think if you're going to start any business, you need to be really particular about how you're going to market, who you're going to work with, the market. Obviously, in this case, do you want in-house or, you know, obviously using a marketing agency? But I really, we've been really seeing a lot of good results with your company, and that's PPC and direct mail."

Interviewer: "Okay, now that's helpful. That's helpful to think of. So inbound is primarily what you're looking at, and then you've got a few channels that can fit in there like PPC, SEO..."

Aaron: "Which we need to do. It's the next one."

Interviewer: "Good news is I came here to upsell you today."

Aaron: "There you go. You came to sell something."

Interviewer: "I'll leave with the contract."

Aaron: "Was that a part of the script?"

Interviewer: "Yes, this is the part where you say yes, I will give you more money. So okay, so inbound marketing channels are what you're looking at, and then obviously PPC has been the one that you've chosen to focus on the most, which isn't an unusual choice just considering the inbound nature of the lead. Just a completely different conversation with sellers, which I'm sure is what you've noticed as you've grown to seven figures in PPC revenue over the past year, which is a huge accomplishment. Not a lot of people go that channel alone."

Aaron: "Yeah, yeah."

Interviewer: "Not a lot of people go in like PPC alone as a marketing channel, zero to seven figures in a single year. And there's a lot that plays into that. So yeah, I just want to pick out those different things, and we've changed a lot over this time period about how we're doing things. I know something that we were talking about before is like you've got to have the vision and be willing to give it the time and follow the process, but that doesn't mean that you're unwilling to make changes during that time. You've got to be working on the right things. What are some of the big changes that we've made to the PPC marketing over the past year? Like, us personally, or like what we've seen you guys change?"

Interviewer: "Well, I could probably speak a little better to what we've changed, but unless you notice anything in particular that you really want. But I guess what I'm thinking here is like, budgets are a big factor. Like locations, I know we've made some major changes in terms of that, and that's something I really want to dig into because there's a lot of strategy into like, why do you target this market versus that market and how those different things worked for you. So yeah, there's a lot to unpack there, but like when I think of PPC strategy, I think of two things. So number one, you have the parameters. Parameters are just rules that we have to live within, like we have this budget, we have these markets, this kind of ad schedule, whatever. Those are the parameters. And then you have optimizations, which are like we're adjusting these keywords, or we're changing these bids, or we're going to improve our landing page, we're going to change our ads. When I think of what a business owner needs to know about their marketing, they need to understand parameters, not optimizations. That's why a lot of the changes you'll notice, a lot of the stuff that we talk about together in your marketing, it's all parameter stuff. And the reason is, optimization is that's kind of just what we do. It's not what you have to worry about. But if we're talking about mainly budgets, locations, that kind of thing, what kind of changes have we made?"

Aaron: "Yeah, obviously that's kind of what we look at on our business side because you're going to give us the most high-quality PPC lead there is, right? On the back end, because you know, we've talked about that. You know the difference between, you know, you could have a really cheap PPC lead, but it's not necessarily as qualified as you would want it, you know, regarding negative words, positive words, whatever. And then obviously, the leads that you guys give us obviously have been very fantastic. Now what I see on my end is, you're right, I have control of budget, I have control of kind of like location, and this past year has been definitely a lot of testing, understanding, you know, where do I want... because, and a lot of entrepreneurs, including myself, are going to want to change things and get their hands dirty and mess things up. And that's what my wife would say is, 'You're messing everything up.' Anyway, then I say no, that's what we tell you a few times too."

Interviewer: "We should have had Jeff in this conversation. We could have a little... Where's Jeff? I love that guy."

Aaron: "And so, but no, it's been fantastic because we have... What we want to do is we want to try things out. So when we first, first, first started with you guys, you know, we were doing $10,000, I think, in ad spend a month. I could be wrong, but I think that's what it was."

Interviewer: "I think two, yeah."

Aaron: "And we were just here in Southern California. We got our first deal in like two weeks, gave us a $40,000... I know, I know it's not the... I know you hate me saying that. That's not the message."

Interviewer: "I mean, if you have a good sales process... That was a one-call close, but it happens. But yeah, expectations is a whole... Let's dig into that whole can of worms next. But yeah, continue."

Aaron: "We did, we did, we did. We did have... not guaranteed. Past performance does not guarantee future results. We did have that, and obviously, we... But very just a couple months later, we decided to open up a couple more markets. So we were in Southern California, then we decided to open up Texas, and then we decided to open up everything southern of United States. And we're talking about metro areas."

Interviewer: "Yeah, we did like pretty tight radiuses at first. I remember like we're trying to stay away from anything rural, just keep in the main metro."

Aaron: "And we figured that okay, the idea behind that is okay, if we could get a deal on this metro area, we could move it, you know. We'll be able to dispose of it. Then I decided to open up a lot more metro areas all around the United States, and then I decided to open up states. So I mean, we really went broad, and a lot of changes. And currently, as we're filming this, we're still broad. We, I think we're hitting in like 14 different states, right?"

Interviewer: "Yeah."

Aaron: "And we're doing deals every single day. We're the... because the idea, and every time we strategize is, 'Aaron, if we go this broad, can you dispose of them?' Like, you're asking the right questions to your client to not steer them wrong. You're not just saying, 'Okay, Aaron,' you know what I mean? Like, just do that. You're giving... you're setting the right expectation. Just like your core value said, you're a truth warrior, right? And 110% you're a truth warrior. You're going to tell me the truth on what to expect and what can go wrong. As long as you dispose of them, but sometimes you might even say, 'Hey, I don't know if it's a good idea.' But in the end, you're going to let your client do... kind of like we talked about being a diminisher and letting your client almost have that final say."

Interviewer: "Yeah, right. In some... the best advice you can, but sometimes they have to... they do whatever they want to do, you know."

Aaron: "Exactly. It's kind of like an attorney, right? Attorney's going to give you the best advice. You're paying them for their time, and they're going to give you the advice. You're going to do whatever you're going to do, right?"

Interviewer: "Yeah."

Aaron: "And so anyway, so we decided to open up because what we were looking for is... So, obviously, we made another video where, you know, we were spending up to $330,000 a month. Right now, just this month, we're spending $20,000. The sweet spot has definitely been about $25-30,000. We're... the idea behind that is we're spending about $10,000 per acquisition rep nationwide. So we're at a $94 per lead right now, a nationwide campaign. We have debated on setting up another campaign to go directly into our own backyard, which we might, you know, go up to $15-20,000 per rep. But when it comes to marketing, don't be afraid to spend because, you know, obviously every dollar you put in, you should be getting five to seven back, especially if on the back end everything's set up to get it to the finish line. So when we go into 2024, that's going to be our main focus, and it's going to be to put our dollars into the right marketing machines, ATM, to get those... get that return that we were expecting to get. So and that's going to be, again, PPC and direct mail."

Interviewer: "Yeah. You know, one thing, one way that you're thinking about this that's really positive is you're not thinking about it as, 'Do I want to do a California campaign or do I want to do a national campaign?' You're thinking, 'Well, could we test...' A lot of our clients kind of have like the burn-the-boats sort of mentality where it's like, 'Okay, I was doing this, and now I'm doing this, and then now I'm doing this, and now I'm doing this.' And then like, at some point, everything crashes and burns, and you just don't really know. Was it because I changed the market, or is it because my team stopped working as well? Or like, you don't know what it is. And sometimes, like, there's... marketing's full of good ideas that don't end up working."

Aaron: "Yeah, you have to try them out. Like, if you're going to be in business of any kind of business and be an entrepreneur, you can't be afraid of failure. If you are, you're not... you're not going to last very long. There's big steps we've taken that haven't panned out, but we learn from it, we adjust, and we keep going."

Interviewer: "Yeah, I like to think about it in the terms of asymmetric bets. I'm like the guy that's scared, like I'm conservative. I don't want to... like, you know, there's this... there's this psychological concept of loss aversion that like if you take a dollar away from someone, they're going to be a lot... they could be very unhappy. But if you were to give them a dollar, they'd be happy, but not nearly as happy as they would have been unhappy if they were to lose it. So like, it's the same reason like fear in sales works, for example. Like people are more afraid of like, 'I might not be able to sell my house to someone else' than they are that like, 'I for sure have it here.' Yeah, but anyway, yeah, for me, I just kind of have to like look back at my business and think every single good thing that has come in my business has been through some type of bet that I made. None of them had a 100% guarantee of the results I was looking for, but they were what you'd call asymmetric bets, which means that the upside is larger than the downside, or the expected value of the upside is positive. An example could be marketing. You could say, 'I need to spend $10,000 a month on this marketing campaign for 6 months, and I'm risking $60,000.' A lot of people would stop there, say '$60,000, I'm out.' But then you have to think, what's the downside? The downside is limited. The downside is $60,000. What's the upside? Well, it's that maybe I could figure this out in such a way that I could generate a million dollars in revenue this year in my business. And maybe that would set the stage for me to generate $3-5 million in revenue the next year in my business. And then for a decade, I could get awesome returns and scale this really far. And that's the upside, right?"

Aaron: "Yeah."

Interviewer: "And with an upside like that, risk is very acceptable. I think where I think people go wrong is they don't take enough bets. So they put all their eggs in one basket, or they're just not willing to take those asymmetric bets. They make bets that are like, you know... People are quicker to go buy a lottery ticket than they are to spend $10,000 a month on PPC. Which one has a higher expected value?"

Aaron: "Isn't that crazy?"

Interviewer: "Yeah, but it's just the... it's the world we live in."

Aaron: "I know, it... that's the cool thing about business in general. I'm not going to just say this. I mean, just the fact that you could start a business and I mean, you're just... it's a cash machine that you could create. A cash machine, and wholesale in general, you could create a cash machine. There's always... there's houses. You could always buy them at discounts. Houses are always depreciating every single day, and you're... there's deals everywhere to be found, no matter how many deals... There's still deals. You're going to be a deal finder, you know."

Interviewer: "Oh, absolutely. What would you say your mindset was going into things at the very beginning? PPC?"

Aaron: "Yeah, excited, you know. Because I think that's... I think that's the issue with a lot of new people that try PPC, right? Is they have this high... like, we could shoot these videos, somebody could watch every single video that we're doing, and they're saying, 'I'm going to start PPC tomorrow, and I'm going to make a million dollars,' right? And I think that's where... I think that's where the reality, the expectations kind of get steered wrong because they hear all over social media that PPC is the best marketing channel, which it is. But then if it doesn't work, or if they're not able to close the leads or and get it to the finish line, that it's not a good place to put your marketing. You're going to get... I'm telling you, and this is what a lot of people think, is that I could cold call, I get three cold callers, I get a bunch of leads in the first week. I could spend the same amount on PPC, I get five leads."

Interviewer: "Well, it takes also... or less in one week, right? Sorry."

Aaron: "Yeah, I mean, it takes... expectations, bring it down, you know. One... It takes a lot less leads. I'm not going to say how much, but it takes a lot less leads to get a contract. And that contract could obviously net you a lot. And also, you're going to have better quality conversations. They're reaching out to you. So now you're not... now you're not, you know, banging head against wall against all these leads that are saying, 'Hey, what's your offer? What's your offer? What's your offer?' Right? I'm sure we all been there, been down that road. But now you get to talk to people. Even if they're not a fit, you had a great conversation with that person because they reached out to you. And hey, if it's not a fit, it's not a fit. You get to go part ways and know peacefully."

Miquella: "I think there's a misconception too that people think that like with PPC, they're just going to all be lay-downs, and they're not. I mean, yeah, there's one-call closes, but there's work that the acquisition has put into that, you know. They've spent half an hour, an hour on a phone, or all day on the phone with them and gotten it to... gotten the contract. And then you still got to put in the work to sell it, you know. I think they may... there may be a just disconnect where they think, 'Oh, they're hot leads, it'll be easy, and we're done.' And they don't... I think they forget that there is still a lot of work you have to do on the back end to make it come to fruition."

Interviewer: "Yeah, I... I totally agree with you wholeheartedly. I also think, my personal opinion, the idea that PPC leads are lay-downs, I think is misguided. I think the fact that they... you can be at 10 leads per contract doesn't mean that you will be at 10 leads per contract. They... you're spot on about that because you have to work them differently, and it takes skill. And like, yeah, maybe they spent an hour on the phone with the seller, and you could call that the work, but what about all the training they've done for six months every morning?"

Aaron: "Exactly, like that's the work, you know."

Interviewer: "Maybe cutting down the trees is easy, but sharpening the saw can be hard, right?"

Aaron: "Right, it's true."

Interviewer: "I like that. What would you say is the best... I guess here's what I'm trying to figure out. I want to... I want to hear this from your perspective. How do you know if a marketing campaign is working or if it's not working?"

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Want to learn how Eric Brewer, a small-town real estate investor, closed over 400 deals last year? Tune in for his no-nonsense insights on scaling a business and unlocking hidden profit channels.

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Baitman, and today I'm joined by Eric Brewer. Eric Brewer's company flips or wholesales over 400 houses every year. Today, he shares with me some of the lessons that he's learned over that process through implementing different exit strategies and developing as a leader to help his company grow.

Welcome to the podcast, Eric. How are you doing?"

"Doing great, man. How are you?"

Hey, fantastic. Excited to talk with you again. I can tell you, you're one person every time we talk, I learn something, and I appreciate that a ton. So I'm excited for you to be on this podcast, mostly selfishly, mostly just because I want to learn a few things from you.

"Cool, well I'll do my best not to let you down. We'll see how we do."

So for people listening to this podcast that might not know you, might not know who you are, your background, or anything like that, could you share just a little bit about like, you know, who are you? What have you done? Like the history of how you've gotten to where you are today, and then you know, what are you doing now?

"Yeah, sure. So I am in York, Pennsylvania. It's a relatively small rural area about 45 minutes north of Baltimore, Maryland, and about 30 minutes south of the capital of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. And then about 3 and a half hours east of Pittsburgh and an hour and a half east of Philadelphia. So if you sort of triangulate that stuff, I am in the southern east portion of PA, closer to Baltimore than really any other notable area.

I am a real estate investor, been doing it since 2006. Currently have roughly 40 plus employees. We operate in three markets within two hours of our home office here. We did just north of 400 real estate deals last year.

I got my start really in business in the automobile industry. Went out of high school, went into the army, got out of the army, got into the car business, spent eight years in the car business. Really learned how to sell there, learned how to manage, learned a little bit of marketing. Got burned out. The car business back in this would have been the late '90s, early 2000s, was very demanding from a schedule perspective, and it's never been known as like the most enjoyable atmosphere to either sell or buy in, right?

I think, uh, most people that sell cars don't love the experience, and I don't know, Consumer Reports said a couple years ago that like 98% of people that bought a car didn't love the experience as well. So I was, you know, that was catching up to me. The hours were weighing on me, and I was about to have my first child.

So in 2005, I left the car business, did some soul searching, decided to get into real estate. Started my real estate career in finance, was basically cold calling refinance leads at a mortgage company. And after doing that for about six months, my previous mentor from the car business got into real estate, knew that I had made the transition out of the car business, and called me. And uh, a couple days later, we partnered up, and in February of 2006, we started flipping houses.

So a little bit of my background, how I got into real estate, and then I think what you asked is what does that look like now. Our business today is mostly wholesale novation, and we'll do about 75 fix and flips. About a year ago, I started a commercial real estate investment group. We have about $200 million in commercial multifamily office and industrial projects currently in our pipeline, actively raising 50 million in private equity to fund those projects. That'll include acquisitions, fundraising, construction, property management, and then obviously the disposition of those properties, whether it be through refinance and retaining those assets or selling them.

And we also do some group coaching and real estate training, taking basically just the systems and processes, best practices that we've used to build our company in the last 17 years, turning them into outward-facing curriculums to share with other real estate investors that are looking to increase profits, reduce drama and stress, and then grow simultaneously. So hopefully that gives you a decent sort of snapshot of what we got going on."

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's more than I knew even. I didn't know about your commercial real estate investment. Um, I don't know if you call it company or initiative. Um, so that's pretty fascinating. One thing I've always been super impressed by is the volume you've been able to do in a relatively small and non-populous area. Like, you're always like the example in my mind of like somebody who can show like how many deals can really be done in a market, which is pretty fascinating. And then on the education side, what you mentioned, because I know it's how we know each other a lot, is we're sending people to your novations training all the time because I think, I mean, nobody really invents anything, but of all investors who do novations, I'm not aware of anybody who did it before you did. Is that, I guess, what I'm saying?

"Yes, so I think I innovated, not invented, the wholesale application of novs. The legal concept and application had been around for 100 years. However, until 2008 is really when I sort of stumbled on it, simply because I was looking to circumvent the FHA anti-flip laws that exist. Where now, you can imagine 2008, to give you just how pressing of an issue it was for me to figure this out, in 2008, like 99% of every borrower was using FHA financing.

You might say why? Well, it's because what fueled the economic collapse in the United States was financial, the mismanagement of mortgage loan products and a lot of fraudulent activity and liberal lending policies. So in 2008, like the hardest thing to do in the world was to get a mortgage. Like, nobody was lending money. It's why most investors went out of business, because their lines of credit dried up, not because they couldn't find good deals and renovate them and sell them for more money. They just, like, all of the capital marketplace went away.

So I'm flipping homes, like buying them, renovating them in three to four weeks, putting them on the MLS, and getting offers, but every borrower was using FHA financing. The problem with that is there's a seasoning requirement. So I bought and renovated in three weeks, I got to wait 12 weeks before the buyer can even write a contract. Then once you got an FHA loan on a flip house into underwriting, you were a marked man. Like, they were literally trying to find reasons to decline a loan on a flip house because as these foreclosures and short sales and all of this was unfolding, the biggest loss that mortgage companies were experiencing on their foreclosures were flipped properties.

So that information makes its way back upstream, and underwriters are given basically a directive like, 'Hey, like if this is a flip, you know, there's a lot of risk involved here.' And if you really think about a loan underwriter, their job is to hedge against risk. So FHA was a nightmare for me back then, and I was looking for a way to circumvent it. And novs, as you start to learn more about it, really gives you the ability to sell your wholesale deal to a retail buyer without ever taking deed or being on title or funding or renovating it, which means you're not exposed to FHA seasoning, underwriting, anything that pertains to a flip.

So that's where it started, and as I learned more about it, I realized there were all these other residual benefits, and I just started applying it to every aspect of my acquisitions arm of my business. And come to realize that like, I was passing up 50%, roughly 40-50% of my leads generated from PPC, billboards, mail, TV were properties that were in like turnkey condition. The seller was willing to take a little bit less than retail, and my old wholesale fix and flip, buy and hold strategy of acquiring it just didn't fit for them.

So I was throwing away all these really good leads, and once I started to understand novations, we started converting 10 to 15% of those leads, which, that's why we do such a high volume in a small market. Because we're literally doing another four or five deals per batch of 100 leads than any other investor would do that's only trying to fit those leads into a wholesale, buy and hold, wholetail, or fix and flip model.

That, I think we do a fairly good job of just hiring good people, having good data, managing people, leading people, training things like that. I think we do a really good job of just running a good business. And then you stack that on top of having this, you know, sort of Swiss army knife, you know, exit strategy and acquisition strategy, it compounds, and we end up doing a really good volume in a small market."

Yeah, no, that's pretty fascinating. So yeah, there's the brief idea on novations, which I think is super cool, and it's something if you listen to this podcast, you'll see we talked with quite a few people about those kinds of strategies. And you've been highlighted before as somebody that many people have learned this strategy from. So yeah, definitely if anybody's looking, you know, if you're just like, it drives me crazy when we talk to people that are like only wholesaling. Like, you're missing so much potential opportunity in this market. So definitely hit Eric up if you have any interest in that type of thing.

One thing I want to take a little bit different direction though, because I'm curious to hear myself, like as you look back, I mean, what's crazy to me is you just described like your career in business, and it starts like pretty much when I was born, you know. So you got a couple years on me. You got your beard's a little bit more gray than mine. A little wisdom chocked into that beard.

"That's right, that's right."

So anyways, that considered, you know, seeing that you've been in the real estate game for a while, I'm curious, like looking back, what are the big things in your opinion you've learned at a few of these different stages that have really helped you to grow your business to the next level?

"Oh man, I might need a notepad. So I would say originally, one of the early lessons was we call ourselves a real estate investor, and this is assuming someone that's running, you know, some level of direct seller marketing, acquiring, wholesaling, noting, maybe renovating or fix and flip, or financing these properties. The reality is that a real estate investor has to market, acquire, lead manage, disposition, possibly construction, finance, and what am I missing here? Operations support.

So even though I thought I had one job, that was to be a real estate investor, early on when I started the business, I was literally wearing eight different hats. And one of the things I think I learned early on was that rather than trying to be great and accepting average in eight different departments, the quicker you can get your business in a position where you can start to hire a more qualified person to do that segment of the business, and you only live in the segment of the business that you're really great at and you love, I think I would have made more money, I would have made more friends, I would have had less turnover, I would have probably simplified my life, I would have reduced stress.

Um, so you know, I think a lot of times we say, 'Well, I'll hire that person if,' or 'If I can only get to this stage of my business, I would add that person.' A lot of times we do that because we want to conserve the profit that we have, which I understand, and I was in the same boat. However, the majority of the time, that hire is what prevents us from actually ever getting to the next phase because it's impossible to be an A player in eight different, um, sort of misaligned departments.

If you're a great marketer, you probably suck at finance. If you're great at finance, you're likely not good at sales. So whenever we take on too much responsibility inside of our business, we generally accept below-average performance in one or more of those departments, and that makes business hard. So I wish I would have maybe made that adjustment a little earlier.

And then the second part of that is, okay, I need people. Well, what makes you a great marketer, acquisitions person, lead manager, dispositions person, construction project manager does not make you a good recruiter of talent, retainer of talent, trainer of talent. It's actually sometimes almost a completely different skill set.

So you probably hear, and I hear it all the time, where real estate investors say, 'I want to scale my business,' and you ask them why, and it's, you know, you might get 10 different answers: more money, more time off, more impact. And the number one thing I can tell you that's required to scale a business is people. And then I'll ask them, 'Well, what's causing the majority of all of your stress and frustration and bottlenecks in your business?' And it's people.

So the number one thing that's needed to scale and grow a business is people, and the number one thing most people struggle with at their existing phase of their business is people. And I didn't even see that. I thought I just needed to get better at marketing and acquisitions and sales and all that stuff. I didn't recognize if I stopped doing all of that and I just got really good at developing people and coaching people and teaching people and connecting with people and leading and influencing and nudging and correcting and mentoring people, all of that other stuff would figure itself out.

Because if you get good at that, the best marketers will come to work for you, the best salespeople want to come work for you, the best finance people want to come work for you, the best construction people want to come work for you. So as a business owner, I think a lot of times we overlook what it really means to own a business, and we spend too much time running a business. They're two different things."

Yeah, that's pretty fascinating. Okay, I'm gonna ask you a few questions out of curiosity. So I totally understand what you're saying, where like, you know, having experts in each of the individual things. Like, I've seen the same thing in my business, that like, oftentimes all that you really need for growth in a business is just to do like the most basic things in every department, and that's what a business needs to flourish. You know, you think you got to do something like crazy innovative, but it's like, you know, it's the simple stuff. Like, a lot of businesses, they just don't like, they don't answer their phone, you know. Does it take a genius to know you got to answer your phone? You know, no, but like actually doing it, people struggle. Like, we struggle to execute even these basic things. Um, so I agree with you on that.

But let's just say we put the lens on of like, I'm just going to give you some constraints. Let's just talk like, how do we deal with the difficulty that this is? So somebody looking at that, okay, what's the long-term plan? We have a leader of each of these eight departments, or whatever this looks like, and we probably have an operator over all those leaders, and we probably have some element of redundancy. So when people leave, blah blah blah, then we have ways that we can fix those problems, etc., right?

So that's kind of what this business looks like scaled, but when you're trying to figure out like, I have limited budget, limited resources, and I know that I can't necessarily accomplish that right now. Like, help me understand what you're saying. Are you just saying like an early-stage business should just be investing as much into people as they possibly can for the purpose of growth? Or like, how would you go through, like assuming you can't have the cake and eat it too, like how do you prioritize what's most important there?

"Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, so this is where the difference between small business and real business is different, right? If you were to start a conventional startup, they raise money and they hire all of those people first. So the way corporate starts, which there's a lot that we don't like about that, right? We don't feel like we have a voice, we get lost, there's too big, they can't pivot quick enough. But the one thing they have right is they know how to run businesses, right?

So what they would do is they would raise capital and say, 'Hey, it's going to take us three years to be profitable. Here's what we need as far as operating expense and salaries and marketing and all of this stuff, and we need that for three years before we become profitable.' So there's a lot of merit to that, right? It's probably the correct way to do it.

However, the reality is, when we're talking about small business entrepreneurs, that's just, that's literally the difference between corporate and entrepreneurs. They do that completely differently, and even though it's the right way to do it, it generally just doesn't work for guys like us. We, that's not where we are. We're grinders, workers, right? We don't fit inside of that corporate box. We like to blaze our own trail.

So now that we know that the correct way to do it, right, that's done through corporate, that doesn't necessarily, those same opportunities aren't made available to us. We really have to figure out, I think, what our unique ability is, right? So like for me, it's the ability to influence people. For you, it may be the ability to map out a very complex idea and make it simple for your customers to understand and make it simple for your employees to understand, right?

Um, those two skill sets, why they may sound similar, may put us, like they have in this instance—you in a different business and me in a different business—I don't think we give that enough thought. Sometimes people just gravitate towards something they think they can make money in without really understanding whether or not their skill set aligns. So, let's use an example of real estate wholesale. If you boil that down to its most basic concept, it's marketing first, sales second. So, if you're a good marketer, which means you understand how to connect words and messages to a potential customer's needs, that's all marketing. Here's what we can do: if you put that in front of the right group of people, they're going to call you. And once they call you, you have to sell them your product or service. Everything else is secondary, tertiary, and of lesser importance than generating and monetizing leads.

So, if you're good at marketing and sales, real estate wholesale would be a good business for you. Do that for a period of time until you've created enough income. Now, you start to look at what you're incompetent at and don't enjoy. That becomes your first hire. A lot of times in real estate wholesale, hiring an executive assistant would be my first hire—things like scheduling, replying to emails, booking travel—activities that don't produce income but are necessary. Hiring an executive assistant for $25 an hour, $40K a year, if we're running a business that nets us $150,000 a year. The first limiting belief is if I'm making $150K and I hire someone for $50K, I now only keep $100K. Follow me? I think the reality is if I make $150K, I pay this person $50K, now I make $250K. Does that make sense? Because now I'm working on more income-producing activities.

So, there needs to be a strategic hire with an entrepreneur, always moving the lowest income, lowest impact, lowest energy task off your plate and onto someone else's. That allows you to function in this concept: only in things that either generate a lead or convert a lead. So as a wholesaler, you hire an EA. Everything else that doesn't involve talking to a customer and writing a contract, you've delegated. You're now talking to twice as many people, writing twice as many contracts. Got it? So it's almost like what you described before as the end state, but you're saying the process to getting there is looking at what sucks your energy away and what takes your time, and then delegating those one piece at a time.

So, probably at the beginning, you do start out like day one, you lead eight departments. And then slowly getting rid of a few of those things as you go along. Yeah, when we start, that's exciting, exhilarating, right? Because it's new, it's fresh, and it's us breaking the mold of what everybody told us we had to do. But at some point, the excitement wears off, the honeymoon phase is off. It's like, 'Hey, doing that stuff is no longer cool because I've started my own business.' We've got to start being smarter about how we spend our time. And we have to, you know, the value of small business in our country is to create opportunity for more people. So if we just operate in this little shell and we're a one or two-person operation and we never create a big enough organization to bring other people into that with us, to me, that would be a shame. But that's just me. When I look at business, it's at least twofold, right? It's the ability to help more customers and maybe of equal or greater value to me is the ability to help more employees. Like, give people a place to work where, you know, generally in corporate, most people would tell you corporate sucks to work at, right? I think we have a unique opportunity inside of small business to create a more meaningful experience for people inside of our businesses. And to not grow and expand, to open up that opportunity to more people, to me, would be a shame. But that's just me. That might not be for everybody.

Then the money comes with it, right? If I help more customers and I make working for me a more enjoyable, rewarding place to be, in my experience, you end up making more money. Yeah? No, that totally makes sense. Let's talk about attracting and retaining great people. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your strategies there. I've always kind of thought of it as the number one trump card in business because you can learn to market, you can learn to sell, you can learn operations, you can learn finance. But if you just learn to attract good people, then you have the ability to acquire the greatest of any skill that could exist in the marketplace, right? So that's obviously the most scalable long-term solution there. And it seems to be something that a lot of people don't agree on—what good people are. I know my definition of a good employee has changed a lot over the years that I've been in business. What I thought was the right person at one point is really different from what I could think is the right person now. And also, finding those people can be really hard. Sometimes it's easy. I'm just curious to hear, in your opinion, the right way to go about that. What's been successful for you? And what have you found is the key to attracting and keeping those people?

The short version is the best way to find great people is to become a great person. Let me say that again: the best way to find great people is to become a great person. So what does that mean? Each person may see it differently, but for me, I think there's defining and upholding standards, you know, five to seven characteristics. Or if you've ever read the book 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,' right? So how do they take care of their body, how do they take care of their friends, how do they take care of their family, how do they take care of their spirit, right? How do they take care of their finances, right? And you know, what I think, to your point, like what I would have thought a good employee was 15 years ago is someone who would take instruction, if they just did what I told them to do. Now, today, that's almost opposite. I want someone to challenge whatever anybody tells them to do, to potentially find a new or better or more efficient or more cost-efficient way. So that's almost a 100% opposite, right? I don't want people to do; I want them to think.

Now, what you start thinking about is, well, let me go back. The number one way that I hire talent is through social media. And the way that I attract talent through social media is just myself. I talk about what I'm going through as a father, what I'm going through as a business person. I read an awful lot every day and every week. And then I sort of take that information that I read, I apply it to my own experiences, my own circumstances, and then I share my perspective. And that attracts people who—it attracts people that are in sales, it attracts people that are into being an entrepreneur, it attracts people that are into becoming a better father and a better husband and a better leader. So my experience has been a well-documented personal and professional journey on social media that's authentic and organic has attracted A-players to my organization. That's been my own personal experience.

Then I think what you have to document is what your version of an A-player is. And in our organization, we look for what we call an ideal team player. That's from a book written by Patrick Lencioni. And the three aspects of an ideal team player are they're humble, hungry, and they're smart. And by smart, he means EQ, not IQ, right? So they have the ability to handle conflict, maintain meaningful and respectful communication even when there's a lot of pressure or there's tension or disagreement that arises, right? And then we look at core value fit. So we have a set of core values that are non-negotiable for us. That is perspective, having a can-do attitude, integrity, doing the right thing, excellence, which means improving and getting better every day, respect, which is our EQ core value that means to treat people the way they want to be treated, not the way I want to be treated, the way you want to be treated. So I have to have an awareness about me of what other people want, what their desires are. And then humility and discipline. So we run them through a series of questions and interviews that verify those core values are something that they align with.

And then, of course, we look at their ability to be able to do the work. Do they have the skill set and the cognitive thinking ability to do the job that we're interviewing for? And then there's some, what I would call soft skills. And I'm in the process of actually—we're going through what we call like a force-ranking, top-grading process in our organization right now. And we just did it last quarter where we ranked everybody. Before I got there, it was A, B, C, D, E, F. And when I got to the quarterly, there were all these people batched into this B category. The problem with that is it doesn't make you make a decision. It doesn't—like nothing happens with that. Like most people, if we said they were a B player, we'd probably leave them alone. So I said, "Hey, we're going to redo

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