Welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. Our mission is to share what we have learned from our experience and the experience of others to help you make more money investing like a pro. We want to teach you how to create wealth by investing in real estate, the discount property investor way. To jumpstart your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com, the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. Thanks for tuning in.

David: Alright guys, welcome back discount property investors. This is your host David Dodge along with co-host, Mike Slane. Hey Mike.

Mike: What's going on man? How are we today?

David: I'm doing good man.

Mike: Good.

David: Feeling good, doing good.

Mike: Good, I got- I'm really excited man I got the treadmill you know, for under the desk here at the office and a few days a week, I'm able to get in pretty early and I get about 45 minutes to an hour of walking before-

David: That's about 3 miles, isn't it?

Mike: I don't know. It's cuz I'm going slow cuz you know-

David: Does it not have a mile thing on it? Or does it have a step counter?

Mike: I don't really pay attention. The point is just like exercising.

David: Exercise though.

Mike: So I get a little sweaty but it's great cuz I get that in and then I'll usually run up to the gym and I- cuz I need to take a shower afterwards, there's no shower here at the office, so I go do a little workout there too so it's like getting in two a day, kinda back to that 75 Hard routine.

David: Ooh, I like that.

Mike: So we're going to- we're going to see if we can drop a few pounds, that's the objective here for the next couple weeks man.

David: I was just thinking that last night, I got to drop a few again.

Mike: Time to get trim. Nah, you look a lot better than you did though you know, 8 months ago.

David: I've been maintaining it better than I've have over the last couple years, let's put it that way.

Mike: Yeah.

David: But yeah, I'm trying to keep it below 180 and I was like 183 yesterday, so.

Mike: Well one of those things that I would say that a lot of us normies that can gain weight pretty easily is it's a constant struggle, right? Like it's something you have to keep doing. I'm going to transition here into the podcast topic for the day. So like exercise, it's one of those things that never- it never stops. You have to keep exercising.

David: Yeah, it's like laundry.

Mike: Your diet, you can't just eat cookies, you got to keep eating those salads for breakfast or for lunch and dinner. You know you got to eat those fruits and veggies, not the cookies and ice cream, otherwise you know that waistline just keeps expanding. Well same thing with your wholesale business or at least our wholesale business, we have to keep doing marketing, right?

David: Yeah. It's never-ending.

Mike: Or guess what? Instead of your waistline getting bigger, your paychecks get smaller or non-existent.

David: That's right.

Mike: Now again, that's not to say that somebody's been doing this for many, many years won't have a large pipeline, kinda like ourselves to where if we turned off our marketing, we'd probably keep- still keep doing a few deals a month for quite some time but you have to keep refreshing your business with new leads and you have to keep new people calling you all the time, keep reaching out to new people, keep telling people about your business or it will die and in the beginning, I'd say it's even more important and it's harder. It's so much harder in the beginning. Here's a couple reasons why I think it's harder: one, you don't have the money coming in from the business so all of these things are either an expense in terms of dollar bills or they're an expense in terms of your time.

David: Time.

Mike: So it just is very, very hard to get this big wheel turning, right? That is the wholesale business. Espe- again, it just- it takes a while to know all the pieces too. I see this in a lot of our students where they're just so ready to give up and throw in the- throw it all away and throw in the towel, and it's like you're so close. You're so close, you're doing all the right things and that's all you have to do. You just have to keep doing those right things and eventually you're going to get it moving, right?

David: Yeah, the name of the game is really filling the funnel with leads, you know? That's- in my- that's kind of how I like to look at it because you know let's say that you get- let's say that you do a lot of marketing. You know it could be time, could be money, could be both, and let's say you get on the phone with you know, 40, 50 people, right? Well, you know after you talk to 40 or 50 people, you would think that you know, in theory you would be able to find a motivated individual from that many people but maybe not, you know maybe it takes 100 or 200 people, but the variable I think Mike that is often overlooked is time.

Mike: Yeah.

David: And the reason I say time is because if you give me 50 people that I can call and talk to and not any of those people are willing to sell me a deal, you know, sell me their piece of property, their rental property, their house, whatever, their real estate today doesn't mean that in 4 to 6 months, that one of those 50 people will not have something change in their life or something happens to the property or whatever that may be to where all of a sudden, one, maybe two, maybe even three out of those 50 people-

Mike: That's exactly right.

David: -all of a sudden are like saying hey you know, I'm getting transferred for a job or you know, my great-aunt just passed and has this property now that I've inherited and I don't want to deal with it or I got these tenants in this rental property that aren't paying and they're destroying the property, like things change, right? And time is the variable that is really hard to calculate. So for example, 50 leads come in, right? You know, how many of those leads will convert to a deal? Well that's a hard question to answer because you didn't include the time. So if I were to say, how many of those leads will convert this week? Well hopefully one but maybe not any of them.

Mike: Right.

David: How many of them will convert this year? Well shoot, probably three or four.

Mike: Yeah, it's possible, very possible.

David: You know? It could be less, it could be more but when you include the time in, right? And the reason I even bring that to light Mike is somebody asked me the other day, yesterday actually. Dennis was doing a livestream over on my YouTube channel from BatchLeads. We do that from time to time and somebody said, you know, how many texts per contract? you know, and I was like ooh, that's such a difficult question to answer because sometimes it'll be a hundred texts and we'll get a contract, sometimes it'll be 3 thousand texts, but the variable there that makes the world of difference is the time. Are you talking about how many texts today? or how many texts total and then how much time are you going to give me to follow up with those leads?

Mike: Exactly man, well and it's- and what I was talking about with time earlier is very different but this is very important as well. I was talking about either investing your money or investing your time, so going in and doing the cold calling or going in and doing the texting yourself, that can take up a ton of time if you're doing it all yourself. So that is another thing, I mean it's an investment and it's hard to keep putting that in and like Dave's saying: the length of time before those leads convert can take a long time.

David: Yeah.

Mike: So that's your pipeline but the power of the pipeline is something that's so- I mean it's just overlooked. We overlook it I think a lot of times. We're like oh yeah we're doing you know, 5, 10 deals a month, you know depending on the month and I think that we just take for granted that we have thousands of leads in our system.

David: Yeah.

Mike: So that they're converting all the time and-

David: It's not- yeah, when we say oh we had a good month, we did 10 deals, it's like we didn't get 10 new leads in this month and then 10 contracts on those new leads and then you know, sell those 10 contracts.

Mike: Right.

David: You know, maybe of 10, maybe 1 to 3-

Mike: Exactly.

David: -are gonna be new.

Mike: Exactly.

David: You know? And some months, like this is probably more rare than the normal but some months zero new ones and all of those deals that we did we're from 3 months ago or 7 months ago or in some cases, 2 or 3 years ago.

Mike: Right. Yeah I mean again, it's just that power that pipeline, to have it built up is- we're very lucky again that we're kind of established in this game and we have that. Your contacts, your referrals too, that's another thing. It just doesn't dry up if you maintain your relationships with people. Little bit more difficult, you know, to go out and network over the past year but we're back at it, you know, everything's opening back up and get back out there.

David: That's a great point man. It has been difficult with covid, everyone's wearing masks, no one's wanting to host events, but we're back at this point, you know, it's mid July 2021 and you know, I'm hoping that we don't get too crazy come fall and winter and get back to where we were, but you never know.

Mike: Well, yeah, again, it just- it really all depends. I mean again, everyone's all worried about this Delta variant or at least that's what the media's typing up now. Yeah, fingers crossed that we get through the next- the winter without having to lock up again or lockdown again.

David: Yeah but there are networking events, in fact there's one Thursday and I wanted to talk with you about that.

Mike: Great.

David: We have a coaching call with our students but it's during the same time as a networking event so I wanted to see if you wanted to go and if not, I was going to go.

Mike: Sweet.

David: But networking is so incredibly important, you know? You gotta- it's just as important as marketing, right? Because we get leads, we do deals from our networking and we're not spending money typically to network unless you want to include like gas, right? But we are spending time.

Mike: And that's where I consider networking really a part of your marketing.

David: It is.

Mike: Like that's a marketing technique.

David: It's absolutely-

Mike: Like that's a huge-

David: The time consuming one versus a cost consuming one.

Mike: Exactly.

David: But it's just as important, it really is.

Mike: Exactly. So marketing guys, it's very very important. You gotta build a pipeline, keep leads coming into that pipeline. You never want to shut it off or eventually your business is going to dry up, that's just the way it works. So let's talk about a few more marketing things. So we love networking, it's a low-cost one, very very effective if you can meet agents that have properties that just aren't ready to list, you know, pocket listings are kinda what they call them. Those are often very good lead sources is if you network with a bunch of realtors.

David: But also, it doesn't have to necessarily be realtors. Don't keep your busi- I know a guy that used to say this all the time.

Mike: I did, and you say it for me man.

David: Now I say it for you.

Mike: You say it for me.

David: But don't keep your business a secret and you guys have probably heard Mike or I say this at this point but you know, all- like whenever we're talking about networking, it's not necessarily always like getting in front of agents, you know? That's not always what the goal of our networking is, like for instance Thursday of this week tomorrow night, there's a- FasterHouse here in St. Louis, big company, great people. Great people, I want to emphasize that. I love all those people over there, they're just amazing people, but they get 2 or 3 hundred people in the room and you know, maybe 10 or 15% of them are agents you know, it's a small percentage but there's other investors in that room and you don't always have to go to networking events to network, right? So back to what we were just talking about, don't keep your business a secret. I mean literally when you are out with friends and family and you meet a new person or a new acquaintance, you know, just let it be- you don't have to go out of your way to like hand them a business card necessarily but you might think about that though.

Mike: Well everybody always-

David: At least let them know.

Mike: Everyone always let them know. Everyone always says hey how are you doing? What have you been up to? You know, that question always comes up with your friends. So again, if you haven't talked to them, just let them know hey, I'm starting to buy distressed properties. Oh, that's interesting, tell me more.

David: It's so easy, yeah.

Mike: So again, you can start talking about what you're doing, you're getting into this wholesale thing or you want to do some fix and flips and rentals and just talk about that. Talk about real estate, that's what you're doing. It's super easy to weave it into a conversation. I think the further into your career you get, the more often you bring up real estate and it's really hard to talk about anything but real estate.

David: That's right.

Mike: So don't go down that rabbit hole hopefully but it is a little bit addictive at least for Dave and myself to where this is what we do. We love it man.

David: We love it.

Mike: We want to tell people about it. We've been podcasting for 3, 4 years together, you know?

David: Yes.

Mike: Yeah, we just like talking real estate. So marketing, networking is great. Dave was talking about real estate specific networking and then he mentioned, you know, just like in your social circles and that's great but there's also, if you go, just go to something else, go to another networking event that's a hobby of yours and meet those people. They're not going to be the ones bombarded with real estate, real estate, real estate so you're going to stand out a little bit more if you say oh yeah, I'm a real estate investor, I buy distressed properties and you bring up things like that among your bowling league or your-

David: Man speaking of this, my buddy Matt called me yesterday. He goes hey I might have a potential wholesale deal for us and I said this is great, I go where did- where's the lead- where'd the lead come from? And he goes man I was eating lunch at this bar by my house the other day and I literally went in and sat at the bar and I was just talking with the bartender and the bartender's job is to kind of make friends with the people that come in, right? So the bartenders like what do you do for work? You know, and my buddy Matt's like oh I do real estate, I flip houses and you know, I'm a landlord and he was like, oh my goodness, this is so crazy. He's like, we've been getting a bunch of cards in the mail and we don't know if we can trust those people which I thought was kind of weird but again everyone's little different and he goes, but the fact that you're in real estate is great. Would you be interested in buying my mom's house?

Mike: Nice.

David: She's got some equity in it, it's a big 3000 square foot house, it's just her and she's looking to downsize. Yeah it's a big house for one person.

Mike: Yeah.

David: And he goes yeah absolutely, when can we see it? And the guy was like we could maybe get you in Friday or Saturday. So my buddy Matt called me and was like hey you want to go look at this property? And I was like, absolutely but I made sure to ask him hey, what was that lead source though? And he was like randomly it was just networking with the bartender. So yeah, networking doesn't have to be in a real estate specific group setting.

Mike: I think that's-

David: It can be anywhere-

Mike: Yeah, honestly-

David: -in time.

Mike: I feel like it's more important out of real estate investing circles.

David: Yeah.

Mike: Like yeah, you're gonna meet other investors, you're gonna meet other agents at the real estate groups but those people are flushed with real estate knowledge and experience and you know, it's not that they're competition but they may do the deal themselves or they may have the knowledge, ability, someone else they work with, whatever it is, so you're not al- you're not gonna find a ton of leads there necessarily with the caveat of joint venturing and working with those people, but again, I don't think you'll find many direct to seller cuz they're going to want a piece of it or be a part of it which isn't a bad thing. Again, you're still able to do deals with those people and this is referring to our wholesale side as well. You know, networking is important for us as landlords and flippers as well to find good contractors. So again, there's just so many benefits to getting out there to different groups, real estate groups specifically as well as again your just- your other interests and hobbies. People love talking about HGTV house flipping shows when you mention you flip houses. So again, it's- if you got pictures of nasty houses on your phone, man no better place than to show them. Yup, here's the one I bought, oh man, look at this one, you know, it's like this is the grossest house I've ever seen

David: Makes for a fun conversation.

Mike: Yeah, like Dave, you have to favorite that video of you almost throwing up walking through a house, you know.

David: Man, that was gross.

Mike: Yeah, it's funny though. I mean it's like here, look at this one cuz they can't smell it but like-

David: They can just see my facial expression.

Mike: Yeah, seeing Dave just like eugh, gagging on it like that's- it's funny, you know, people like that kind of stuff.

David: That's right.

Mike: It's just like oh God, you're that guy you know, you buy that shitty house. Yeah, I'm that guy, I buy the shitty houses, hook me up, you know if you're- and I buy the not shitty ones of your grandma's or whatever, you know, like you guys got your parents house, you don't know what to do with it, it's sitting vacant, you're paying taxes on it, don't do that. Don't do that.

David: Yeah, don't do that.

Mike: They cost you every month taxes, insurance, utilities, like dump that thing. I'll- I want to make use of it. So yeah, tell everybody about your business, don't keep it a secret as Dave said, as I used to say, very very important. Put it out there, put it on your Facebook, put it on your Instagram. What's the new one all the kids like? Put it on your TikTok, put it on your whate- any social media platform, just put it out there. Let people know you're buying houses. I think we've beat marketing to death.

David: Well, we beat networking to death, right?

Mike: Networking, yeah yeah.

David: So networking is really important guys, get out there and do it. Do it in the specific real estate settings, do it outside of those settings, do it all the time. It's that simple. Just let people know that you're in the business of buying properties or distressed properties and before you know it, somebody is going to come across one or somebody that they know, like you know, a lot of times it's like a friend of a friend, like oh I always see you making these Facebook posts Dave and I have a friend who needs to sell something and it's like great, connect me. You know, if I'm able to buy that house, I'll take you out and get you a nice steak dinner for the lead, like you know, pay it forward. So networking is very, very important but there's also a lot of other ways to go about marketing to find deals guys. So from the hip, some of the things that we do that we love doing that are great ways to go about marketing would be you know, cold calling and cold texting, right? Now you can do this in real time on Craigslist, on Zillow, on Facebook Marketplace. Go find people that have properties for sale or for rent, call them up, ask them if they would accept an offer that's probably a little lower than what they're asking and try to find the people that are motivated, nurture those leads too, right? Or you can purchase lists of these individuals and go skip trace them. You can create your own list of these individuals by driving for dollars. There's a lot of different ways to go about getting on the phone with somebody via a cold call or a cold text. And another thing that people I think often kind of just like you know, forget I think is a good word, maybe? Maybe not? But it's when you're doing the cold texting, the goal is still to get them on the phone.

Mike: Yeah.

David: You know?

Mike: Dude, people forget that all the time.

David: Yeah.

Mike: I- there are some people- and again I think that it's a little different, some people prefer to text and some people prefer to talk on the phone. When you're dealing with people I would say like baby boomer age and above, they're probably going to lean towards our favor, the phone call. So if that's the person who owns the house, there's a good possibility, they would rather talk to you on the phone than text back and forth all the time. Now the fact that they're replying to a text means that they're willing and able to do that obviously, but again the conversation, being able to get on the phone, that's when you can actually build rapport, that's when you can actually hear the inflection in someone's voice versus just the words that they've typed, and I mean text is a great way to communicate, I love it but it's also a terrible way to communicate because you lose so much in that conversation and it's too easy to forget that. I mean even- I'm sure Dave you're the same thing. When you're texting with your wife or your significant other, you may get into a little bit of altercation because there's something missed in the translation, you know. Just because you said it that way, it's not like you meant it that way.

David: Context.

Mike: Context, exactly. All those context clues are taken out so again, it's just- it's a more difficult way to communicate.

David: Yeah, people will interpret a text a different way. If I send the same text to you that I send to my wife, depending on the topic of that text but same thing, somebody will interpret that as a positive thing, sometimes people may interpret it as a negative thing and you may not have a positive or negative meaning behind it. So yeah, text, it's a great way to go about it guys, we love texting especially when it comes to outbound marketing, when it comes to following up, when it comes to internal communication, you name it, right?

Mike: Yeah, but to Dave's point, it really is- the goal of texting most often is to get them on the phone.

David: Get them on the phone.

Mike: Or to get an appointment, but again you want to speak to them in person or on the phone because that's when you can really make a friend. I think it's very difficult to make a friend via text.

David: Oh, it's very difficult.

Mike: Yeah, in my personal opinion.

David: Yeah, absolutely.  Now, if somebody wants to communicate with you that way, then go that way, right? But do your best to try to at some point get them on the phone because when you do put a voice behind a name and you know, you can use tone and pitch and all these other things, it's going to help with context, it's going to help you make a friend so yeah, great great approach. So cold calling, cold texting, we talked about buying lists and purchasing lists, we talked about making our own list via driving for dollars. There's some other great approaches guys. Bandit signs is a great way to get sellers to call you and a bandit sign's just a corrugated plastic sign, could be single sided, can be double sided and it's something that you know, that you basically, you know, nailed to a telephone pole or used metal stakes and stick it in the ground, and it's called bandit sign because, you know, essentially you stick the sign in the ground or on the pole and you leave it there for as long as hopefully it will stay.

Mike: You crazy bandits.

David: That's right, that's right. Sometimes they won't last very long.

Mike: And band-

David: The cities will come in and try to clean it up and what not. Other times, like I've heard of people you know, out in the country where their signs will be up for 6 months you know, and people will maybe even take the sign down to cut the grass and then they'll stick the sign back up for you. I mean it's just kind of crazy, right? So it just depends on where you're at, but bandit signs are a great way, they're a cost-effective way too to get leads. Not only can you get leads from them but you can sell your leads with them, so you want to use a different message on the side of course but bandit signs are great. Direct mail has been a staple in the real estate investing community for decades and I don't think direct mail is ever going to go away. It's probably one of the more expensive routes when it comes to marketing, but it's also probably one of the most ethical ways, right?

Mike: Yeah. I- I don't know about ethics per se, I mean I'd say that it's more legal.

David: Business ethics.

Mike: What's the Billy Madison thing? We are all now dumber for hearing-

David: We are now all dumber for hearing that, right. Yeah, I mean it's-

Mike: No, but it's- it is- again, it's not breaking any laws, any rules, any invasion of privacy when you send someone a piece of mail. Again, calling someone out of the blue, they can be like what the hell? How did you get my number? You know, and it can be offensive.

David: Yeah, it may upset people but at the same time, you may make somebody's day because they're like man, this is a problem, I am so glad you called. So there's always going to be pros and cons, right? Direct mail is a great way to basically get your phone ringing, right? So when it comes to marketing, there is inbound marketing and there's outbound marketing. And the outbound marketing is typically time whereas the inbound marketing is typically a cost paid to get your phone to ring, right? So there's lots of different approaches. Other than those main things that we had mentioned, there is like a hundred other ways guys, post on social media, let people know that you are interested in buying properties.

Mike: What's the- what's the little course that we have? 50 ways to find off market-

David: 50 plus ways to find off market deals.

Mike: Is that-

David: discountpropertyinvestor.com. It's free I believe over there too.

Mike: Check out discountpropertyinvestor.com.

David: Yeah.

Mike: And that was what I was just going to ask, is it still free?

David: It's free yeah, free course.

Mike: So check out discountpropertyinvestor.com, find the courses section and you'll find 50 ways or 50 plus ways to find off market deals.

David: 50 plus ways to find off market deals.

Mike: And that is all about marketing, great free resource.

David: Great resource.

Mike: To check out. I think that's a great way to kind of wrap up our little marketing spiel. Check that one out guys, you'll find a ton of ways to market. Thank you so much for listening, unless Dave's got something else.

David: That's it.

Mike: Alright.

David: Signing off guys, until next time. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening to the discount property investor podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, and subscribe to help us reach a wider audience to jump-start your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com- the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. We would also appreciate it if you left us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. Thank you in advance for your support and remember you make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. Now let's go build some wealth.