https://open.spotify.com/episode/3tyNj0fkIl2qnx1MoHvMla?si=rckXuyVTQrCVknA48QMt2w

 

 

 

Show Notes

In this episode, David Interviews Robert Syfert of InvestorPO Inc. David has known Rob for some time from live events as well as masterminds that they have attended in the past. Rob teaches David in this episode about all the really great features that he offers in his CRM software called InvestorPO. Check out this episode if you are looking for an all-in-one CRM that can help you automate your follow up, to get you more deals closed in less time.

Things that cover in this episode:

• Who is Robert Syfert?
• How software called InvestorPO works
• Wanting to create investment real estate platform
• Why InvestorPO designed around the needs and goals of real estate investors
• Social lead profile

Links mentioned in this episode:

• InvestorPO.com

Affiliate links:

• DPIPodcast.com/comps
• trial.propstreampro.com/discountpropertyinvestor
• reiblackbook.com/dpi/

 

 

[bg_collapse view="button-green" color="#4a4949" icon="arrow" expand_text="Episode Transcript" collapse_text="Episode Transcript" ]David: Alright guys, welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. This is your host David Dodge. Today I am joined by a friend and actually a fellow mastermind member of mine now, welcome to the mastermind, Rob. Mr Robert Syfert. Hey Rob, how are you, buddy?

Robert: I am great. Thanks for having me on, Dave, it's a pleasure.

David: Absolutely, man. I have been wanting to connect with you for a while anyway. I am going to knock out two birds with one stone on this episode. We are just going to catch up with Investor PO and what you've been up to. I have been following you for quite some time, two to three years I would say at this point. This is going to be awesome. So Rob has a website, InvestorPO.com. It is more than just a website, it is a CRM that has a ton of features. I am going to let Rob tell us all about that. Rob, before we get started, how did you get started investing in real estate and or wanting to create investment real estate platform?

Rob: Yeah so I will give you the shortest possible story version of it. I wanted to get into real estate since I was 18 years old and watched a [00:01:59.03 - inaudible] commercial. I was like, that is brilliant, that's what I want to do! But, I grew up, I had great parents, married over 40 years. It has been-- do good in school, get a good job and retire at some point. That was a hard transition for me. I was constantly studying real estate, read every 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' book there was, every one of his people. I wanted to do real estate for a long time, over a decade. I finally just took action, got into real estate. It has been almost six years now that I just made a leap, went all in to real estate and everything took off at that point. Build a massive wholesaling business that turned into a massive turn-key operation. I owned a management company with over 500 doors under that roof. From all of that I wanted to move, I wanted to simplify my life. I wanted to expand the business. We ran everything on whiteboards and spreadsheets, right. Someone introduced me to this thing called Podio. I want to call it Polio now, although I have to say I still like it because it got me to where I am. That ended up being a black hole, right? Oh, I can build everything I want, cool. They don't tell you how much that is going to cost, how many parts it takes to build. The more elusive question is, once I've done that, they don't tell you-- you are always going to want to rebuild or add another thing, or change or tweak. More importantly, someone has to maintain it. In technology, building it is just one side of the coin. Making it run forever and always work is a totally different bit, right? I went down that road, over a year of-- I think we rebuilt ours for our business to do what we wanted, three or four times, tens of thousands of dollars shoved into it, then we were ready. I moved across the country to Tampa from Metro Detroit where the operations were. We were ready to slay out more markets and blow up our turnkey business. I ran into a private mastermind where I shared one piece of the automation that literally doubled our conversions and leads, and allowed us to get rid of three people, because we automated all their jobs. When I shared it, everyone tackled me at lunch and says, there is nothing that does that you do, how is that possible? I hired an awesome tech guy to build it for me. That just opened the door to, we want that, how do we get it? I don't know, I paid somebody, you can pay someone like that too. I went back and said, hey how do we do this? There is a big need here. They basically said, you have one of two options here. You are about to grow into ten markets because you wanted to build a system you could duplicate and grow into markets. Or, think of those as your other office locations. We can just start building this for multiple users. A few months, couple of meetings in San Diego with the head of our tech and some other tech people, and we realized; there is a big missing need in our business, in our whole real estate space, and no one got it, or I just never saw it I should say. There was no system I saw that did it. It seemed like it was a bunch of technology built for what they thought real estate people did, and here was an actual real estate guy-- none of that works so I built my own, and here we are. That's what made me start investor PO, it has been almost two and a half years now since we started that. Literally, that's it, that's why I got into it. I got into it because, number one, it solved a problem for me. Number two, it ended up being a tremendous problem in our industry, and now I'm on a mission, right? We are going to be the head of innovation, always innovating. As we talked about before, how can I simplify this for anyone getting started, or anyone trying to scale their business, so they don't have to go through all the crap I went through?

David: Okay, very cool. So you created Investor PO, you learned about Podio because you were building off of that. Where are we at now? That was awesome, very cool. You are not even in that same space anymore though essentially.

Robert: No like I said, we are fast track innovation, right? Anyone who had Investor PO two and a half years ago, it is not the same Investor PO today. If you check us out six months from now, it won't look the same either. It will have the same look, feel and core concept behind it, but it will only be refined, improved and more efficient. Day one, to this day I am surprised when someone does Podio why they don't do what we do, we built a hybrid, right? We built in a way that you had a dashboard, and your platform was all your communications. So it was your e-mail, your phone system, your text message, your call tracking, e-signature, your-- all these tools that you have to program in to get Podio to work and a bunch of tools that connect it all. We just said, let's build all of that as ours, and then let's talk to Podio from day one, that was version one two and a half years ago. Version two, earlier this year was-- okay let's-- no one has to work in Podio any more. We still needed Podio on the back end, because we had so many hundreds of users that had it, that we didn't want them to-- oh hey we changed, now you have to jump over. No, just log into our dashboard or log into Podio, they are both 100% compatible. It made it very easy for us to transition from our current hundreds of users. Now we are in the next evolution in the same year. We are even faster with our innovation, right? Literally just shut off-- either being shut off today or tomorrow on the back end, there is no more Podio. There is now 100%-- and that is literally just so people can understand on the technical side, and some tech people would understand, that literally just means everything is the same as you see on our website, there is just no Podio in the background, which means we had to go in and remove every reference to the back and forth that we did in our hybrid to Podio. So now-- probably by the time you watch this show unless it is live right now in the moment-- we are already there. What that also means is by the time you watch this, it will probably be five more benefits to the system that was are including buyer agreements for selling deals to buyers, that is coming in, we have totally enhanced our KPI section, so now we narrow down your SMS analytics, your phone analytics, your e-mail analytics, your-- how long does it take you from the day someone contacts you to the day you close? Broken down by every campaign averaged across your whole business. What is the cost per deal average? Profit per deal average. These are all the new things that are being turned on in the next day or two.

David: Wow.

Robert: That's where we are at today, and I won't tell you where we will be in six months, just to say, watch out. That's the most that I can say that is coming in the next six months. Once we are off Podio, that means our innovation team is wide open. Out biggest challenge over the last two years was-- well if we build these feature, how are we going to make it compatible with Podio also? Even though ours looks better, we still have to make it talk to that. That's like three months ago we said, alright, no more features, we are not releasing anything new, the only mission we have right now is to get us off Podio, because we have twenty things we want to do, and they won't look good, they won't function right, they will be confusing because we have to make them talk a certain way. So screw that, get off Podio and let's make it do exactly what we want it to do, so we can make it as super simple as possible.

David: Man--.

Robert: I don't want to make it a dummy system where you have to answer twenty questions for it to do the next thing. I don't want to make it simple where you can't mess up at the same time.

David: Yeah totally get the difference between the two. You have to have enough data in the system to be able to have it work, totally get that. So Rob, this is awesome. You have built out a system that basically can-- a real estate investor can put data into, and work these leads all the way to the finish line, but along the way it will help them work the leads too, correct?

Robert: Yeah, literally tells them step by step what to do. Most of us, the biggest thing we lack quite honestly, and the thing people come to us for is they suck at follow up. Or, they think they are good at follow up but they forget. They hire someone to follow up and that is a manual process and they go on vacation, right? The number one, the core of the whole system is unlike anything else you have ever seen. Our automation is pre-built, and it works from day one. So even if you sign up and you don't go set up follow ups, they are already on. We have already taken it and built six different funnels for you. Different language for your sellers, different language for your buyers. So we are already sending e-mails, text messages, ringless voice mail, drops, and even one off postcards-- I think I might have lost my audio.

David: No problem.

Robert: It will keep following up with them for as long as you want it to, in any way that you want it to until you get a deal under contract. That it does, if you go on appointments, cool, click and go on an appointment. You have an inspection section that will link to your contractors to go review the property if you want them to. You can go out yourself using your iPad or your tablet, or your phone even, everything works. If you make an offer, click a button it will arrange your contract. Again, these are already pre-built in the system. Of course you can come in and change it, put your own contracts in, put multiple contracts in. If you don't, you already have-- we like to call it a black box, right? You have a box that already works that you can configure and change. The most thing I see most people sign up for something, then they don't use it because they don't understand how to set it up. So we just set it up for you. It is already built off my business, we already know what works. It follows up for you, and you either have to shut it off, or change it, because you want it to fit your--, so many people on our Facebook group, the seller told me three months ago, and I just got the biggest deal in my wholesale life, because he text me and said, I am just following up on your text, I would like to get that offer now. I didn't even know what he was talking about. I looked and said, oh my God, your system sent a text message, I never set that up though, I don't know how that would happen. We are not going to take for granted that you sucked at it before, you came here and suddenly got it figured out.

David: That is sweet! So Rob, who is this system for? Is it real estate investor as a whole? Is it rehabbers? Landlords? Is it wholesalers? What would you recommend this for particularly? It seems to me like it is a mix between a CRM and a marketing machine. It is combining like ten services that you would essentially need to go and get, like a phone system, a text drop, voice mail blast, direct mail. All these tracking phone numbers. All these things that-- I could name right now 12 systems that I use in my business. They are not all necessary, but as the CEO in me wants to see what's happening, we have all this. It seems you me you have pieced all that stuff together again.

Robert: I will answer that front part in two ways, because on the marketing aspect, even though we have the technology for everything, we track all the marketing and the results, but we don't do it. What I mean by that is when I talk about texting and ringless voice mail and direct mail, those are follow up sequences to a lead that already replied. In marketing, if you are going to go hit-- which we do too, right? We have a different system today for blasting 10'000 people with a text message. We don't do that, even though it sounds the same it is actually different from a law stand point. Our system-- I say two ways, right? Today it does not.

David: No, sure, we get that.

Robert: Maybe one of those things in the next six months that I'm talking about is a way to automate your front end marketing too. Who is it built for, right? We can integrate with any marketing you have, and it will all flow into IPO. IPO takes over, and it manages your business. If you are a real estate it really doesn't matter, because whether you are rehabbing, flipping, turn key, wholesaling, you are still talking to sellers that you are buying from, or someone that owns a property, right? Seller and agent, somebody is bringing you a property. All real estate investors start with that, you have to buy a property. Now that means we manage all of our communication, all that business up to the point of getting the deal under contract for everybody. At that point, if you are a flipper, you can push, we have open API and [00:15:24.13 – inaudible], so you can push from us into anything you are going to manage your rehab we don't current do anything with managing the rehab. We just found too many people do it too many different ways. We chose not to build that today.

David: Right. That's fine, that makes sense.

Robert: Or, if you are a turn key guy same thing, or if you buy and hold, once you bought it and want to manage it, we are not a rental management platform.

David: Yeah, you guys get you to the purchase though, that's really what matters, that's the hardest part.

Robert: Now if you are a wholesaler or if you are a flipper or turn key guy that has your list of buyers, then we do have everything related to your buyers built into the system too. Then you can e-mail blast your buyers.

David: That's cool.

Robert: You have a landing page built with a flyer you can promote the deal to everywhere publicly, and if they respond and come to the system, you can handle the negotiation of those. You can also do the contract with the buyer as well. All that is built in to close out the deal 100%, and 100% track all your KPI's, you know A-Z. Rehab and rental management is the only two things we don't do. Those are financial beasts really.

David: Yeah, absolutely. That's okay though. This is a system to get you to the contract, get you there. Whatever exit you decide to take from there is you. That could even sometimes shift or pivot. That's okay. From the time you set up a system to market, and those leads start coming in, you guys probably have the best system on the market that helps you get the deal. It has relentless followup which is built in, and that is probably the number one thing that people struggle with is following up, right? I know the importance of followup, I have two full time people that do nothing but that. So we have got maybe 4000 leads in our system over the last five years. All they do is call or text 30-50 of those people everyday and start a conversation. If they are not ready to sell, no problem. I am happy that they spend five or ten minutes on the phone with those people to appease them, so we can call them back and six or eight more months and so on and so forth. So the follow up is key, if you don't have a team of people, the only other way to do this is to set aside time to follow up with these people, which is very time consuming. You guys have fixed that problem.

Robert: We replaced three of them-- two of them were our follow up people, we have also automated comps, we used to have a person do that too. Yeah that's exactly what we do, just said, how can we automate this and make it come from us? That's part of the voice drops that are in there, right? Because it's a phone call.

David: Right. Let's talk about some of the features that you guys have. I am looking at the website right now. You guys have e-mails, you have SMS, phone--. What is it?

Robert: I wanted to add because people sometimes ask this question. Every text and every phone number is from your local area code that you chose.

David: That's sweet. That's awesome. What's the social lead profiles? What's that?

Robert: Man, you are getting into the juice stuff! Social lead profile, we didn't even talk about it, but it's probably one of the most powerful things, especially on the buyer side. Our system has the ability that in a second will scour the internet, find their phone number and e-mail address, see if there are any social profile available for them. That means-- it's publicly, that means anything--.

David: Like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, any of that crap, right?

Robert: Yeah, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Bios, PinInterest. It also pulls in any image, pulls in any job titles or companies they own, and it updates the whole profile with the links for all that.

David: Wow that's awesome. Very cool. Then you said voice mail drops. You guys do one off postcards, again this is on the followup side, guys. You guys even have e-signature built into this thing too?

Robert: Built in, don't need your own e-signature account. Here's what's sexy too, not only will it generate any signature of our agreements that are built in, you can import any agreement on the fly without selecting anything, just send to e-signature and it will automatically not only e-mail, but our system automatically sends a text as well, so they get a link in their SMS. If there is multiple signers, in the pop up when you ask it to send, it will ask if there is multiple people, you just input their name, phone number and e-mail address and they will all get a link at the same time.

David: Damn, that's cool.

Robert: -- it automatically progresses it to the next stage in your system so that your transaction team takes over, because now you have a contract to work out.

David: Damn, the e-signature platform is really really cool. I have yet to see that. I use-- I have one, but it's-- it doesn't work to my-- to the way I like it to work, because I can't sign it the way it's set up. I use Podio and I use Right Signature. There are three people involved here, Globiflow, Podio and Right Signature. It is cool, I can generate a contract, I can send it, they can sign it. When it comes back it makes triggers. But, a lot of times they want a copy of it signed, right? I have to print it, move it into another system, whatever it might be.

Robert: In your signature you said you can't sign it?

David: Not currently. Maybe I could build it out more, but I am just tired of dealing with it, man.

Robert: On our side, all you do is go underneath your agreements, there is a little button that says 'Require duel signature' you click it, and say who on your team signs it, you will get the link the same time the seller does.

David: Yeah, see that's sweet. I like it.

Robert: No Globiflow, no E-signature account, just something IPO does all built in.

David: I love it. How did you get the name randomly?

Robert: I hate that--.

David: I like the name. What does the PO stand for though?

Robert: I like it now, I didn't when we made it, but we just never changed it. Investor PO is-- wait for it, Investor Podio. That was because the first stage was-- in the mastermind we were like, look-- I am not a software guy, so I will tell you what, you pay us a bunch of money and we have a thing called Investor PO now, Investor Podio, we will take money underneath that name and we will clone our system and you can have it. It's your Podio, and we will build-- connect all the tools for you, right? Pre done just like ours, then you can do whatever you want. Three months of that and we were like, no, we need to make this a real business. Well, we are not going to get a new name.

David: No, I get it, I like it. I was just curious. Hey Robert, tell me more about the instant comp reports. Again another software. I have access to my local MLS, because I am an assistant to my assistant if you can follow that loop, and she's an agent. She's my assistant, but I am her assistant on the MLS so I get access that way. We also use PropStream to pull some lists. Of course random one off lists from-- I should say comps not lists, in PropStream too. How does your system work? I've done some in the past where it pulls it off Zillow, and that is good too. I am just curious what yours is working with here.

Robert: Yeah we pull in-- as soon as a property hits our database we pull Google and Google Street. Then we also pull-- for the comps we pull in Zillow, we pull in Total View Real Estate, and we pull in E-appraisals. We are pulling in three different public-- we pull in the public data, then we link them all in, we average the three together so you get an average likely comp of the property, then there is a built in calculator for what you should offer based on-- you can manipulate rehab costs--.

David: Change your discount rate and everything else.

Robert: Yeah, discount rate-- that instantly happens as soon as a property hits the database, three different sites, average that across each other-- the current comp system, I say current because--.

David: Everything about it involves and it changes, I get it, man. Hey, tell me more about the phone systems. I have three CRM's at the moment like I was telling you, right. I have Podio, I use another one for my marketing, I use another one for KPI's, on top of about ten other softwares, right? One thing I have always struggled with, and I don't know if you have figured this out yet, but one thing I have always struggled with is the phone systems. Some CRM's don't have anything to do with them. Others can record calls. I just got on one the other day that was really neat, because you can make a call outbound from the CRM. The downside was that when the call came back, they didn't necessarily come back in through the CRM, just ring a third party phone. I am just curious, how is yours set up? How does yours work?

Robert: Well that's cool to know right? I don't know the inner workings of other CRM's, so ours is-- it's an area we are going to keep going down. Our phone is the biggest part to me. For us for the phone, your call tracking number as soon as you create it, automatically is linked for KPI's, and it is already set up so all the automation that goes out for voice tracks and SMS come from that same local number. As soon as person calls in, we are capturing the call, recording everything that happens unless you turn it off. You can answer that, it will ring through to you on your company number, maybe you designated on this market campaign we want it to go to Bobby's cell phone, or all your buyers go to this guy. Every campaign can be routed somewhere different. Everything comes in, we capture it. Outbound-- once it's in the system, there is a little blue button with SMS, e-mail and a phone call, so when you want to text out you just click the button, it pops up, type in your message, click send, they get the text. Click same thing for e-mail and it comes from your e-mail. If they reply back it will come to you. Or, you can integrate with your e-mail so it comes in as well. The phone call you specifically asked, you click and it will pop and say, do you want to call the landline or the cell phone number? Either one, you select which one and click, it will call them. It will record the outbound call for tracking and training purposes, and it will have a little pop up on there that says the number you're calling from. Depending on which campaign you are calling them back from, you know which phone number to leave if you leave a message. Hey call me back on-- whatever the number is, right?

David: Right. That's pretty awesome.

Robert: If they call back it routes through, then it links, so in the lead and on your logs as a company, you can do training on all the recordings and everything. So we are 100% seamless. We can also integrate with an outside phone service if you want to buy your number from somewhere else. The difference being we can track everything inbound, obviously we don't have the ability to track outbound from your service.

David: You see that's the problem is because they are third parties. Let's assume that I create an account, I import some numbers in, then the analytics get even better, don't they? You can actually see the out bounds on that as well. Do you have the ability to record out bounds?

Robert: We record our outbound calls by default. You have to turn it off for it not to do itt.

David: Right, right. Wow. Rob, this is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time, buddy. Very impressive.

Robert: Labor of love.

David: It's a labor of love. So-- there is just so much more. Google Maps and Street views, you guys are doing the comparables. You have an appointment management system. You have an inspection report system. A repair estimator. Tell me a little bit more about the offer management offer analyzer. How does all that work? I would imagine you could build an offer right out of the lead, then that's when the-- what was it we were talking about earlier? The e-signature agreement are-- you are just talking step, step, step, right?

Robert: Something became a contact, they called you, it escalates to a lead because you qualified that they own a property. That is a property that has comps on it, right? You get to the point where you either go on appointments and inspections, or you are making an offer. All these are like, click the button because I want to make an offer, okay now you are into the contract, put in your details, your EMD, what title company, who you are closing with. It already put in the address, seller's name, purchase price that you put in and all that. How long have they got? Who is playing closing costs? Then you are literally clicking a button that says, generate one of your built in agreements. It will generate one, fill everything out for you, then click the e-signature. That's it. The analyzer is part of that comps, right? After we average the comps we also have the full-- do you buy at 70%, or do you want to manipulate the percentage? Add in a drop down of zero up to a hundred bucks per square foot broken down by ten bucks per level. Add in wholesale fees, keep changing your maximum offer based on that. You can sit there and play with that and analyze your deal. It's not like full blown rental analyzing.

David: No, it doesn't need to be though. That's the point, guys. That is the point. A lot of my audience, a lot of my listeners and viewers, they are new to real estate investing, they are looking for help. One thing I always tell all my students too, is the amount of offers you make is very closely related to the amount of money you make. If you are sitting around worried about making offers, you have a problem with your business. You have to make offers. I try to make 5-10 offers a day, I don't care if they are at 20 cents on the dollar, I make it a routine to do this day in and day out. The reason that my company does 8-10 deals a month on the low side, is because we are sending tons and tons and tons of offers. Been doing this for close to five years and we have done over 400 deals at this point, probable because we have sent 40'000 offers. Love it. This automates this process.

Robert: If you don't make an offer you won't get a deal.

David: You won't get a deal. The answer is no if you don't ask, right?

Robert: If you don't make an offer you won't get a deal, that much I know. I see your point.

David: I absolutely love it. Guys you heard it right here on the Discount Property Investor podcast, Mr Rob Syfert. Rob, thank you so much for coming out. Check it out guys, Investor PO is the name of the company. InvestorPO.com is a place where you can go and learn more about it. He has had some great demo videos on there, he has the list of features, I don't think I have seen a list this log on a website in a long time if ever, pretty awesome. Then he has a couple of different package options, guys. So you can fit what makes sense for you business, so you are not spending a crazy amount of money if it's just you, right? That is a big deal for a lot of people who are solo-entrepreneurs, or they are just getting started. They can't afford to have seven softwares at a hundred bucks a piece. This here along not only is it more affordable than having seven softwares, but you get all seven, eight, ten, probably fifteen different things all in one. So guys, this is awesome. Rob has got me over here thinking, because I got like eight or nine of my own softwares, I have three CRM's. I want to rip my hair out most of the day. This is cool. So I am definitely interested in learning more. Again, check it out for yourself, guys. InvestorPO.com. Rob, anything you want to add, man? Anything you want to drop the audience about maybe a coming soon, or something that is under utilized in the system that has a tremendous amount of value?

Robert: Well something that is coming soon that is also under utilized is the follow ups, right? We give you every one pre-built. We day one decided not to include any voice mails, because we wanted to leave it up to the user to use their voice, we give you the scripts. We only start you off with a month's worth of messages. Again, our style may not fit yours. What we have found is most people then don't know why we didn't do that in the beginning. People don't go and record their freaking voice mails, people don't go make more messages--.

David: That's probably part of the beginning set up too, right?

Robert: It is. It's like day one, we tell you to go do this stuff. This is--.

David: You guys need to have a list of like 30 things that are required before they can even access it.

Robert: Yeah, but they don't, so we are again, we are going down the path, we are just-- hey, we know from hundreds of points that people don't do this, so guess what? We are just going to build over a year's worth of follow ups, we are going to pay professional voice overs to record all the voice mails you should have, and now they are part of your team and we are just going to give it to you, right? If you don't want to leave it to chance we just want to make it similar.

David: Right. Well guys, check it out, InvestorPO.com. Super cool stuff. I am going to watch the demo after we end the podcast here, I want to get some more information for my own company. Guys, don't forget to check it out, this is an episode of the Discount Property Investor podcast. You make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. Do not forget that. Also if you are in the wholesaling business, you are in the marketing business, guys. Do not forget that either. Very big points we like to make on every single show. You are not going to have a business if your phone isn't ringing. So you have to do marketing in order to get deals. Until next time guys, we are signing off. Rob, thanks for coming on the show. I am grateful for you and your time.

Robert: Thank you. [/bg_collapse]