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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