Mike: Welcome back, guys. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Discount Property Investor podcast. Your host Mike Slane, joined with co-host, the one and only Mister--.

David: Woohoo!!

Mike: Mister Woohoo, David Dodge over here. Dave--.

David: Hey guys!

Mike: – how are you?

David: Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, whatever time of day it is for you, good day to you!

Mike: That's what's so cool about podcasts, we record whenever we feel like it, you get to listen whenever you feel like it-- it is awesome. We love podcasting. We love listening to podcasts--.

David: Oh-hoooo!

Mike: Hey!

David: Yes, we do.

Mike: New studio, new gimmicks.

David: That's right.

Mike: I like it, man. So what are we talking about today, Dave?

David: Man, today I have an awesome topic. This topic may-- we don't have to go into too much detail on it--.

Mike: Okay

David: – you know, maybe this is a 10-15-minute type episode here today, but it is very, very important and I feel like a lot of people struggle with consistency. So, consistency is the message today--.

Mike: Okay

David: – and it's gonna be the name of the show. It's just gonna be consistent, persistent, action –.

Mike: I like it

David: – equals success. It's a formula, right? So, in the last episode that we did, we talked about running appointments and I had briefly mentioned that, you know, running the appointment's a small part of this business. You know like, I would say marketing is the foundation, if we were to build a house. The appointment, to me, is kinda like the plumbing and the electrical and then the follow-up is everything else. It's the studs, it's the drywall, it's the paint, it's the shutters, it's the roofing, it's the fixtures and that’s kinda how I look at it. So, you know, without marketing, nothing else happens. Nothing else is possible. Running the appointment isn't even necessarily required, in some cases. You can buy a house as site-unseen.

Mike: I mean -

David: You can hire someone else to do it -

Mike: Yeah, virtual wholesaling.

David: - you know, virtual wholesaling right?

Mike: Yeah a lot of people do it without even going.

David: Or, you know, we can Face Time sellers, right? I mean, but running the appointment is, is good to build rapport, make a friend and solidify yourself as the expert. You know, it reduces the seller from wanting to go elsewhere and get quotes from competitions, so-on and so-forth. But again, don't overthink the appointment. Just, you know, go on those, be nice, make a friend, keep it simple, right? But what really matters-- and maybe you'll get some deals closed on those appointments. Mike and I do, we love closing deals on appointments, it's basically the best time and place to get a contract signed; in their house, at their table--.

Mike: Well it's the whole point of going -

David: It's the whole point of going.

Mike: - you're trying to buy the house, right? So yeah--.

David: Right, so don’t forget that.

Mike:  – so get that contract signed if you can.

David: However, you're not gonna get contracts signed every time, unless you are just a pro at this business. And it's gonna come in waves-- you may get 2-3 in a row, sometimes you may not get one for a couple weeks. It's just kinda how it works. But what is more important than, you know, trying to get a deal right then and there, is having a consistent plan for following up and staying in touch with these sellers and staying in contact. So, doing everything in your power to get it signed, that's not what I'm saying here. Don't mix up my message, right? Go on appointments with the intention of leaving with a signed contract. But I can tell you right now, you know, it's just not gonna happen every time. So to me, there's nothing worse than spending money on marketing, our money-- time analyzing deals, setting appointments. Them not being able to make a decision because they may have, they may not be the decision maker, they may have partners, they may have brothers and sisters who are also owners, they may have power of attorney, maybe, maybe complicated, right? Maybe there's a property manager that's in place or a loved one, I mean, who knows? But often times it just, it's impossible to get a deal signed on the appointment. And if you put in all that time and work and money and cost and effort, blah, blah, blah, and then you don't make an offer-- you're like, shooting yourself in the foot. You might as well just take your money out of your wallet and light it on fire, right now. It's the way I look at it. So, you have to be consistent with all things, right? Most importantly, I think is marketing, but that goes without saying. So, the topic of this particular episode here is gonna be 'Consistency and Follow-Up'. So what are some of the ways that we have automated but really more importantly than automated, because REIBlackbook helps tremendously - tremendously! But there's other systems that we've put into place and processes to make sure that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot. And/ or light our own money on fire. We don't wanna do that. So, we have some simple processes that keep us from forgetting to follow up. REIBlackbook helps a ton. They -

Mike: So REIBlackbook again, if you guys are new to the podcast - haven't listened before - go back, we've got a great interview with Josh Arras, he's from REIBlackbook and we share - he shares rather - a little promo code from us. It's REIBlackBook.com/DPI and they'll waive the licensing fee--.

David: Which is $1,000!

Mike: But REIBlackbook is our CRM, so that is, it's basically the heart or the engine - I'd say both -- of our business. It's got - all of our leads are in it so that we can then go and follow-up with them. It reminds us to do it when we need to manually do it. It does it automatically with texts, with ring-less voicemails, with emails - all those things you can build out and customize to your liking. So REIBlackbook's really, really cool. So it is - it really does put some of this consistency and follow-up just on auto-pilot for you--.

David: Yeah.

Mike: - once you build it out, but -

David: - and you have to have the consistency. So, in the beginning, before we had REIBlackbook, what were we doing and what should you be doing? It's simple guys, just-- you already spent time and effort and money to get your phone to ring, or cold-call, text out, whatever, door knock, so you've already spent time and money doing that. You've already spent time, maybe money too, running the appointment, analyzing the deals with the software’s, right? If you can't get the contract signed right then and there, start by finding out who the decision maker is, get something in writing, either a letter of intent or a contract, and get it to them. If they don't sign it right away, no problem, follow-up. Alright. You can follow up in so many ways. You can do it by phone-call, you can do it by text message, you can do it by RVM, you can do it by direct mail, you can go knock on the door-- I mean there's so many ways. I prefer to call or text and so does the team, it’s the simplest and the cheapest.

Mike: One of the things I used to do and, we still do it occasionally, is I will re-send a contract as the follow-up method too.

David: Oh, I'll do it by email. I'll just send it over and over and over again.

Mike: Exactly

David: Yeah!

Mike: So that is a method of follow-up - it's saying 'hey, did you see the contract? Are you ready to sign yet?' Because a lot--.

David: Yeah, do you have any questions about the contract?

Mike: A lot of times people say oh yeah, I'm thinking about it, I'm just not quite ready yet. That's a perfect one, re-send the contract with new, updated dates. Hey, here's that contract again, whenever you're ready.

David: Oh yeah.

Mike: Hey, you ready?

David: What doesn't sit easy about it? I'll change that. Let's have a conversation about that, but yes.

Mike: Yeah so, there's a lot of reasons and there's a lot of ways. So that was one of my favorite things, I'd just like to re-send the contract.

David: Oh yeah, you gotta do that.

Mike: I mean, there's no reason not to.

David: But you gotta be consistent. So, that's what you should be doing. Now get a system like REIBlackbook, or find something similar, guys. We don't, you know, you just have to have something. REIBlackbook's what we use and we highly suggest you use it. It's not the cheapest platform out there, but it's gonna be one of the-- it is the best, by far for disposition of real-estate investments. Period. It is also very, very helpful for acquisition of real-estate investments and that's what we're talking about today, the follow-up. So, you can create automations in here to automatically call, text or send a ring-less voicemail or email or even an agreement, to the sellers every couple days, every week. Not only that, but it creates-- you can create tasks and notes,and that's sorta the main thing, in my opinion that a CRM does. Right? Yeah, it builds websites and it has phone numbers and it has all this other bells and whistles, great, gotta have that stuff too, but at the end of the day, you need to be able to take detailed notes and create a task for either you, or somebody on your team to look at that lead again. What has happened with this lead in the past, right? Because we're looking at it again today. Where do we go from here? Again, we've spent money on marketing and time on appointments and negotiating maybe and contracts singing, but we don't have this deal yet, so what can I do next? So having details notes we'll say, okay, I saw Mike did the appointment 3 weeks ago, I see that somebody on my team, Dennis, Travis, Megan, whoever, sent them a contract three days after that and I can see that we have been calling every 4 days to reach them. Calling's not working. Right? So I have a task today to follow-up with that person and I've seen what I've done so let's change what I'm gonna do. And its simple things like this that will help you get deals. So, calling's not working, let me send a text message, let me send another email to that individual. Right? These are ways to go about it. Let me, maybe, go over to their house and knock on their door, if needed. Or I know that last time I talked to Jim, he was waiting on Susan, his ex-wife, to talk this through before he could get to me, right? So I may reach out to Jim to see if I can help with that matter. Or I may even-- if I get permission from Jim-- call Susan and ask her, if she has any questions or concerns that I can help alleviate. But it all comes down to being consistent with that follow-up, right? You're just solving problems. So automate that process but putting tasks in place that will remind you, or even one step further get a virtual assistant, a partner, a local assistant and put the tasks on their plate.

Mike: I can't even really imagine not having REIBlackbook or the CRM remind us what to do anymore Dave. Like, I--.

David: Yeah, and this is what it looks like when you do that. You just have a bunch of paperwork.

Mike: Well, I just -- I just can't even--.

David: Right, and you're like, well this is a lead, this is a lead , this is leads head here guys, this is actually building permits, but this is what--.

Mike: But no that's what--.

David: - this is what it was when we started.

Mike: I remember when you sweet-hearted, you had a notebook, you had all -

David: I had folders!

Mike: Yeah

David: And I have 3 folders. I had--.

Mike: It was a mess! 

David: I had new leads that have came in; I have deals that I either have appointments for, or that I'm analyzing, and; then I had my follow-up. And before I switched over to REIBlackbook, my follow up folder was that thick, and my consistency was going down the drain and that's when I realized--.

Mike: It's a--.

David: – I need.

Mike: It –.

David: -- help.

Mike: - was so hard. So again, the point being, it doesn't really matter if you're gonna scale up your business - definitely consider a CRM like REIBlackbook. 100% you need it. If you're just kinda doing this part-time, dipping your toe in, maybe you don't need it and that's fine.

David: That's fine, yeah yea, absolutely! This is--.

Mike: You can--.

David: The idea's not to sell it to you.

Mike: You can hodgepodge it. I mean I remember when I would just put to-dos on my calendar. So I'd just be like, oh, call this person back, and I'd throw out their--.

David: Yeah, if you're a--.

Mike: -- week and put it on there.

David: -- part-time person doing this--.

Mike: That's gonna work

David: -- you know, couple appointments a month or even a week, that may work. But once you start spending money on your marketing-- and that's really when you're gonna go from being, you know, just a hobbyist to a, you know, a real investor and deals are gonna start getting done and they're gonna happen, there's whenever you can take the leap and start spending some money on your marketing-- once that happens, you can quickly get overwhelmed, without a system in place to help keep track of it all, but also remind you or your team to follow-up with those people. There's nothing that I hate worse than, you know, squandering leads.

Mike: Yeah, you're just wasting money

David: It's just so--.

Mike: It's just wasting money

David: -- so wasteful. Right.

Mike: Yeah and again-- and we're not gonna win every lead, even with the very, very strong follow-up game that we have-- we still aren't gonna close every deal that we could, and that happens. But, we're gonna try to make the most out of every opportunity. We're gonna try to buy as many houses and help as many people as we can and yeah, the follow up is the key to that. And we are very, very-- I would say-- very good at it. I mean not to brag, that's probably one of our strengths, over--.

David: I mean, that’s the main thing that we focus on, besides marketing. I wouldn't even put one in front of the other, because they're both equally important. Without marketing, nothing matters. You can't do anything unless you just have, you know, all the free time in the world to cold-call, cold-text-- which we do as well, that works--. But we're lazy.

Mike: Yeah

David: We want the leads to come to us and that's where we like to spend money. Also, it's very difficult to scale your time, it's very easy to scale your budget. Assuming you're doing deals, so, you know, going from 2 hours a day to 4 hours a day and cold-calling's great, right? By all means, if you have the time, you should do that, right now. Stop listening to this, so start cold-calling, seriously. But if you have the ability to scale your budget, your life's gonna get easier, you're gonna work less and you are going to get the people that are truly motivated, that your message speaks to, reaching out to you. So it's gonna really make your life a little easier. So, be consistent guys. That's the name of the game. There is a simple formula and its basically my favorite quote! And it is basically this: "Consistent, Persistent, Action Equals Success". And that's it. It's that simple. Don't give up. Don't quit. Be persistent. And how-- what better way to consistently be persistent, other than setting systems in place, to help you automate that process. If you're looking for a CRM, go check out REIBlackbook, that's what we use. It's amazing. It's not the cheapest one out there, but it's the best. Save yourself $1,000 by waiving the license fee by going to REIBlackBook.com/DPI, which stands from Discount Property Investor, it's our initials. And other than that, get out there, do some marketing and get your follow-up game in place, because if you don't you are gonna be throwing money away and I'm just gonna feel terrible for you.

Mike: Thanks for listening guys.