Secrets of Lead Generation In 2024

Michael Fichman [0:00] So if you're looking for money immediately, cold calling is not the answer. But if you're looking to have sustainable, continuous deals in a long term fashion, cold calling is a great foundation to do that on.

Zac Ruiz [0:12] We'd like to take a moment to thank one of this month's sponsors, Sabrina West. Sabrina West, a local mortgage expert, would guaranteed rate will provide you and your clients with real talk in real time. Sabrina is a mentor, investor, and money mortgage expert who provides customized individual consultations with a behavior finance approach and education to help build wealth through real estate. She believes in clients for life, so reach out today, Sabrina.west at rate.com, or give a follow on Instagram at Sabrina G rate.

Speaker 3 [0:42] Welcome to AVLmeetup and Good Evening. Happy Tuesday. We are glad you're here. We're gonna go ahead and get started. So, as you can see, we have our agenda up here, we try and honor the commitment you've made to us by coming by staying on time. And a quick shout out to our sponsors we have if you haven't visited the tables. Shout out to Vesta, Property Management. American Eagle Home inspections. All your inspection needs. Guaranteed rate for your mortgage needs. And Alfie, who here is with Alfie. They are your creative lending solution. Alfie? Well, if they come in the room, your table is moving. So we can find them.

All right, so as you can see, the agenda there, we're gonna run through this stuff pretty quickly. If you have not met me, hello. Hello.

Unknown [1:30] Hello. Hello, Gregor.

Speaker 3 [1:31] Hi, hi, Annie. So my name is Ray Ray Hicks. If you need to get ahold of me for any reason, my contact information is listed right down below. And you're gonna hear this every time, and you're gonna hear our net profit philosophy every time, 'cause it's that fantastic. So what we do here is we bring together the movers and the Shakers. So a little bit different approach this time. So, a mover and shaker. What is that? Well, you're sitting in the room, we thought it would be cool to kind of let you know what exactly that means in our opinion, an influential figure driving change. Raise your hand. Are you an influential figure, driving change? Okay, no, I expected more hands.

Okay, we'll try the next one. We'll try the next one. How about if you are shaping industries? Are you working on shaping your industry in one way, shape, or form? All right, little more boldness. Okay, okay. And how about if you are making moves with bold decisions and impactful action? Every hand, I want to see it, Alexi, hand. Yep, okay, all right, awesome. And a big thing is, you're here, right? And ideally doing all of those things while you're here. So how do you become a mover and shaker? Good question. So by embodying that net profit philosophy. So, of course, we're going to go through our net profit philosophy.

Everything we do here at AVLmeetup is in regards in relation to the net profit philosophy. And if you think about it really, as we get into this, there's not a business issue that you have that you could not solve with doing one or all three of what we embody with a Nutprofit philosophy. So networking, right? So networking is huge. That's what you're doing here. So whether it's building relationships, working on your communication skills. Staying top of mind, or looking for that lead, which we're super excited for our lead gen panel tonight. But you can do that with networking. Education, another key piece, how you stay educated on what's going on.

your industry is super important, but also, what else are you doing? Are you reading books? Are you listening to podcasts? Are you doing things with other people within the community to grow that education? Again, a business issue, if you had one, education might solve it, and transactions. The goal of all that is transactions. If you partner networking, education, plus plus equals transactions. So that's what we promote everything we do, one of those topics. So, obviously, networking, you're all here. Let's pull the room. How many realtors do we have? We're getting our arm workout tonight, guys. All right, all right. And investors, who do we have? Look around. All right, exciting.

Got quite a few. Let's partner up. And next, lenders. How many lenders do we have? Okay, I see some more on this side. over here, guys. This is where the money's sitting. Money sitting here. And how about service providers? You provide service for real estate. Okay, couple hands here, couple hands here, wonderful, and end reps. If you are a non real estate person, or peeps. All right. So if you haven't met whoever's hands are up, let's get engaged, let's find out what they do, let's help each other in business and work on those transactions. So, I saw some y'all taking pictures, tag us, tag us, tag us, tag us.

So we want to stay engaged with you, and, of course, you with what we have going on. Next education. So we have dedicated over 3,800 hours towards educating our local community. Of course, of real estate, and we love our realtors, all of the real estate providers, but we also want to encourage entrepreneurs to come here. Which is why you've seen an interesting array of topics kind of arise as well, 'cause we want to educate the community of professionals as a whole. Did I say, Welcome to AV Almita? And next, of course, transactions. So everything we do, again, focused on the end goal, which is why we're here.

So, if you have done a deal with someone in the room and met them here at AVLmeetup, can you raise your hand for me? Okay, okay. Raise your hand if you have it. Okay, I want to see all your hands up for this question next month. All right? Pull the room, walk around, talk, all right? And help us help you. So how we can do that is by leaning into the AVL community, there's something newcoming. Whoo. All right. So, community. You can tell I like definitions, right? So community is a feeling of fellowship with others as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. So there is the business perspective, which is what we're here for, right? As I mentioned, the net profit philosophy.

However, there's something to be said about a fellowship on a personal level. There's something to be said about building relationships a little bit deeper than, Hey, how are you? And that's what we really want to target moving forward, is how can we build those relationships, where it's not just a one night thing, where we just talk about our business. and helping each other with that is important. However, we want to do something with you guys on a separate level. So, the votes are in, looks like everyone voted, if you didn't check in, you didn't get a vote. So, Trivia and I at Barley's, or Convo and Pool. There's pool tables there. We're gonna have some great conversation.

So Wednesday, May 29th. I'm gonna move out of the way. You guys take a picture. I expect to see all of you there. Every single one. I'm making eye contact right now, so you know I know you're here. So you know I know I want to see you there. All right? Okay. So, Wednesday, May 29, 7 to 9. Should be a great, great night. So, basically, community, like, for real, for real, is what we're looking for. And it is in motion with our first event. So I really hope to see you there. So, one of the great things about AVI'll meet up as well as you learn from each other, on top of our speakers, on top of our panelists.

So, the first question for table topics we have for you guys tonight is which community in Asheville has had the greatest impact on you, and why? All right, five minutes begins. Chat with your table.

Zac Ruiz [7:24] All right, cool. Awesome. What's up? My name's Zachary's. I run the Ruiz Report, and so that's the next little segment of this here conversation. This is actually our 50th month anniversary. Whoa, yeah.

Unknown [7:37] Yeah.

Zac Ruiz [7:38] Thank you. Now you can talk all you want. It's fine. So, yeah, we've been doing this since March of 2020. This March 50 months, and so we're gonna do it slightly different this time, just to kind of spice it up, right? So here's our plan of attack. First one. about supply and demand, 'cause I love talking about supply and demand. Like I always find a way to talk about it, 'cause I think that's kind of everything, right? That dictates basically all that stuff, right? Two home prices, which, directly linked to spry and demand. And then we're gonna go on days on market, and we're gonna kind of go off into a tangent during that, all right? So let's start with supply and demand.

This is my favorite slide of the Ruiz Report. That's why I had a little heart emoji. And so, this slide tells the story of supply and demand. So here is your graphical interpretation class for the day. So this is what we're looking at. So the red bars, that's supply. That's how many new listings came on the market during that month. And the green line is, how many went under contract during the month? So that took off. You see this yellow, highlighted part here? When the red bars above the green line, then that means we added more in supply, we increased the inventory.

And when the red bar is below the green line, then that means we took off by going under contract, more homes, then we added on to the market. But for the past year or so, I wouldn't need to explain that. So something like 13 out of the last 15 months. We have added more supply. We've added more supply than we took off. And so super basic supply and demand. I always talk about. You got to jar cookies, you got a lot of cookies, you're very generous with your cookies. But when there are less cookies, you don't share them as much. So, more supplies should mean that, the prices are going down, right? So let's enhance. Let's look at this a little bit closer and see how to analyze this graph.

So, all graphs work this way. On the left hand side, you're going to see a little red box, and that's April. So we're looking at the month of April, but the one on the left is last April, and then those two bars leading in is seasonality. So those three months represent basically a quarter. It happens to more or less be a quarter this time, right? So last year, from February to March, you can see there was a massive increase, all right? I always say, like, spring has sprung, essentially. People were waiting in winter, and then they all decided to list their homes in March. And then from March to April, there was a little bit of a drop.

We're looking at the red bar, but the green line, the demand, how many went under contract, you'll see that there was an increase, and then it kind of cooled off. So now let's look at this year. And my head. So, this year, from February to March, you'll see that there was also a similar, very large jump in supply, but then it continued, and you'll notice the green line, which is demand, up into the right. So it looks, year over year, it looks like it is a stronger year, compared to last year, from a spine demand perspective. All right? So I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking. What does that suggest about how May will look? Next month? How can we extrapolate, huh?

You like that? Right? So how can we look into our fuzzy crystal ball and say, what is the data telling us? Well, last year, from April to May, there was a jump, but demand remained somewhat steady. So we know, seasonally, last year, this is what happened. But if you're gonna make all your decisions off that, then I'd say that you're like Ms. Cleo, right? This is soothsaying, this is not real. And in case you were wondering, what does this meme look like with my face, that's what it looks like. All right? So moving on, let's look a little deeper. Home prices. This is our graph about home prices. There are two lines, and all the graphs are gonna be the same. The red line is the average.

So what we're doing is we're taking all the homes that sold, adding up all the sales prices, and dividing up a how many homes sold. Average, normal stuff. The green line is the median, if we go from the least expensive to the most expensive, and take the middle number, there's our medium. And what this is telling us is that the medium price in Buncombe County was $480. 50% of all homes that sold, in this month, that closed in this month, in April, were worth 480, 480, excuse me, or more. And the average is 624. This is an expensive place to live. So let's do the same thing. Last year, February, March, April. We had a little dip, and then it went up. This year, up into the right.

But we did have a bit of a dive before that. Right? So year over year. again, looking like a stronger year. But we don't really want to look at month over month. This is my pro tip. This is another slide that has pro tip, right? Monthly price fluctuations are less indicative than annual trends for understanding the market. So unless you're flipping and trying to get in and out with a single digit number of months, you want to look at a more holistic, longer term approach. And so what we have here is the trend line. And the trend line for the past 15 months is relatively flat. I know everyone remembers calculus, and, right, the slope of a flat line zero. So what is that?

That represents about an 8% year over year increase? That's what we're looking at. So how's that compared to the market? Well, if you were to take your money and put in the Dow Jones, you'd get just about 16% your rear? If you would have done the S&P 500, you'd be pushing 26? And that doesn't look that great. Right? But I know what you're thinking again. That's not a fair comparison, right? It's different asset classes. Risk profiles, tax incentives. The way you fund it, right? How irresponsible of you to say that? And you'd be right if you were thinking that, right? And so I just wanted to bring that up.

So the next time someone tries to compare, oh, well, you know, if you pick real estate over this, it's not the same thing. It's Apple Store oranges, so just keep that in mind. Right? So, finally, days on market. Again, the red line in the green line, the average, and the median, and so what this is telling us is in Buncombe County in April, 50% of all homes win under contract in nine days or less. So if you have a listing that is lagging, it's you. You should do something about the price, 50% of your peers sold, right? If you are trying to buy a listing that has not had a price reduction and has been on for 90 days, you should submit a below ask offer. Use this data to your advantage.

That's one of the ways we do it. But who's ready to dig in, right? Let's really look at the data. This one, we're gonna have fun, I think. So, one of the things that, at a glance slide, this is the first three slides of the Ruiz Report, once you kind of know what's going on, you just go there to see what's changed. We're going to read this at the bottom. Home sales, which are closings, increased in April. Just remember that many of those homes went under contract in a previous month. Something I talk about a lot, but I thought I would spell it out here. So this is our contract to close graph, talk to your lenders and closing attorneys. Theyll give you a better idea.

But if you just take all the data, it looks like, between, call it 50 ish days, right, from the moment it goes under contract to the moment you're either getting the keys and moving in, or cashing that check and moving on with your life, right? So let's call it two months, just for fun, 'cause it's easier. Right? So, I decided, let's stack the graphs. What happens? So we've got home prices on the top. Days on market on the bottom. Can we find a pattern? So this is what it means. If a home's sold in November, it closed in November. It went under contract two months before, which is September down here, right? That's how this works.

So it closed, because our under contract days come from those homes that went under contract in that month. That's why it's accurate data. And then the closed is the ones that closed, but there's that 60 day gap we talked about, so there you go. So, homes that sold in December, days on market for October, January, November, right? Two months lag. So, prices came down, and the median days on market went up. All right, so that was my first finding, dear reality. Thanks for ruining my awesome hypothesis. I thought it would go the other way. It's not how it went. So maybe there's a relationship with interest rates. I thought I'd look into that.

So the homes that sold in November's, they had the rate, they locked in in September a little bit earlier, right? So let's do the same exercise, but I'll spare you the slides. There is no hidden pattern here, either. This is an actual picture of me trying to, like, you know, say face, basically. I was like, these are great ideas, wrong. Um, but there is an obvious pattern. Look at this. So the price rates seem to rise and fall with the same two month leg. Look at the shape. It's, like, the exact same shape. It doesn't really make much sense to me. Doesn't really make much sense to me from a data perspective. Let's talk about it later, but I gotta move the show along.

So, I know, again, you notice the black screen's, like, a sidebar I'm talking to. I know what you're thinking. Right? Why didn't you scrap this presentation? Like, obviously, you found nothing. This is silly, right? So, turns out that we're all reading this book right now. It's called Grape by Choice. It's the guy who did Good to Great, and Built to Last, if you're familiar with Jim Collins. And so they have this thing, that these 10 X companies, these companies that had comparable companies that were just as successful, but they somehow made 10 X better. The one thing they focus on is empirical creativity. And so I grabbed a quote here to make myself feel better. 10 X.

Xers appear to have no better ability to predict impending changes in events than the comparisons. They aren't visionary geniuses. They are empiricists. So why do I bring this up? Whether you're investing for yourself, and it's in green, 'cause you should all be investing for yourself, or representing clients, we need less of this, right? Don't predict the market, like, you might be right, but, I mean, you know, if people could predictably do that, you know, they wouldn't be here. Right? You need more of this. You're the captain of the ship looking at the data, assessing the scene, and stewarding your vessel as well as possible. All right? No prediction, more empiricism.

And so it brings it us to this. I usually start with this. Our mission is to equip realtors with data driven market insights. But here's the point, to empower them with industry leading training to become their client's local economist of choice. We're talking about leads tonight. How do you gain confidence in your leads and your clients? Know the market. My assessments were wrong, and I proved it. So now I can talk about that a little bit more intelligently, right? So, if you want to learn to interpret drafts like that. On the house, please enjoy the training for free. Ruizreport.com.

There's a video for every graph, so if you thought that was fancy, you'll know exactly how to do it with your clients or for your own investment. So with that, we'll give you a second table question. How do you incorporate data into your lead gen strategy? And that could be, do you do data driven content? Are you talking about the market? Do you track everything? Do you have goals? 10 minutes, talk about data in Legion. See you in a bit.

Speaker 3 [17:40] Hi, everybody. My name is Kimmy with American Eagle Home Inspection. We are your local one stop stop for all your home inspection needs in Western North Carolina. Do me a favor, pull out your phone. Find us American Eagle Home Inspection on Instagram. Give us a follow. You know what? There's only so much I can tell you about us in 30 seconds, but I promise you, you will not be disappointed if you check out our content. It's very entertaining. It's gonna tell you all you want to know about us. So check us out on Instagram, and we'd love to be your one stop shop resource for your home inspection needs in Western North Carolina. Check us out.

Zac Ruiz [18:12] All right, all right. You know, uh, by how quiet it got, that was easy. Everybody's very excited, so we'll go ahead and get right into it. We talked about, in the emails leading up to this, of, like, defining what elite is, and how you personally defined that in your business. So 30 seconds or less, we'll go ahead and just introduce yourself, and what area of real estate you focus on, agent, investor, et cetera, and how you define the lead. Maybe that's too much for 30 seconds, but quickly. And Jordan, ladies first. Tick, tick, tock.

Jordan Lockaby [18:45] Ooh. Ooh, yeah, sounding good. I'm Jordan Lockabee. I'm an investor and a real estate agent, and a lead in my business, primarily, is anyone who's interested in buying, selling, or investing in real estate.

Unknown [18:59] Awesome.

Chuck Johnson [19:01] That's it. That's very quick. All right, Chuck. I'm Chuck Johnson. I run a real estate team here in Western North Carolina, and sell real estate, invest. We wholesale. We do a little bit of everything, mainly, we sell real estate, and a lead to us is exactly what she said, and it's any conversation I can have. where they're looking to buy sell or invest in real estate. All right, Michael.

Michael Fichman [19:28] I'm Michael Fish. All right, a little further back. All right. Michael Fishman, I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina. I own a real estate investment company with my partner, Ed, who's here tonight. Um, we do a little bit of everything. We do wholesaling flips, long term buy and holds. We also do rent by the room communals, so we do a little bit of everything but new construction. To me, a lead, as wonderfully said, so far as anyone who has some interest in selling real estate, but I'm gonna add, in the near future, if someone does not have interest in selling or buying a property within the next two months, I consider them a prospect, not a lead.

Zac Ruiz [20:07] Yeah, I agree. When I was actively wholesaling a lot in buying, it was always 60 days or less. That's the timeline for it to be a lead. So how does lead generation look in your business today? And we'll go back, Michael, start with you and go back down the panel. Sure.

Michael Fichman [20:22] So, lead generation for us is mainly done with three levers. I would say, probably 80% of our dollars is spent on cold calling. I have a virtual team that I manage out of the Philippines that does the majority of cold calling. We also do some SEO. We get a lot of great warm leads that way, but we've been rocking with a guy for a very long time, so my spend on that isn't quite as much. But I would say the most successful lead channel that we have is actually just community networking.

Ed and I, one of us, or both of us, is at pretty much every single meet up real estate related in Charlotte, and just meeting new people, people who have been in the industry for a while, just trying to offer help and value anywhere we can. Sometimes that turns into deals, some turns that just turns into a new relationship, but as we kind of mentioned before, elite is anyone that has some interest in selling. So might as well talk to as many of those people at all these events as we can. Thanks, Chuck.

Chuck Johnson [21:24] So, ours has definitely changed over the years. Ours is absolutely still calling, and we have really tapped into social media, sphere of influence. We range, it varies, and anywhere between 50 and 60% of our business is fear of influence and past clients. And so we really covet those referrals from those people. So we do tons of, we've got a tourist game next Saturday. We do tons of client events, and things that we give them things constantly. We do giveaways, we give away Pelotons. We do all kinds of things, and we'll get, like the last Peloton. I think we spent total, including what our vendors, I think, $800 and I think there was, like, 60,000 worth of GCI that came from that.

So, we like to give to them, and then the other ones, you know, it's some force of the owner expired. We have a website that gives us a lot of leads. We don't do anything where the, like, Zillow, where they control the lead. It's always we control the lead. We do a lot of Google ads, but my focus is, can I affect the people in my community and give them things constantly where they want to give me business.

Jordan Lockaby [22:42] All right, Jordan. Adding value. So good. Zach, you gonna say something?

Zac Ruiz [22:48] We had a miscommunication here, but Chuck was talking about social media, and so we had to point out, he was our first speaker we've ever had put money behind promoting that he was coming to an event on social media, so... Yeah, we've had over 70 speakers now, and this is one of 70 Plus that was, like, you know what? I'm an advertise. Come here that I'm a subject matter expert on this, so we wanted to shout that out, and, I mean, you just talked about it, so...

Jordan Lockaby [23:13] Is putting your money where your mouth is?

Zac Ruiz [23:14] Yeah, literally, right? So.. Hence the reason. All right, Jordan, back to you. Okay.

Jordan Lockaby [23:18] I don't know if this is where you're heading, but I'm just gonna say a little bit about how this was for me. When I first got into the business of being an agent and just a little bit about how it is now. Do we have any new agents in the house? Oh, you tender little souls? It's so terrifying. When I first got into the business, primarily, my leads were coming from bigger pockets and the investor community here. Any BP nerds? Oh, yeah, what's up? I grew my business from working with investors, and so a lot of in person networking activities like this were really fruitful.

Also, those forums on bigger pockets, commenting, proposing, ideas for new investors, giving feedback, educating people about the market in Western North Carolina. That was a big source for me. But at this point, I'd say similar to Chuck's business. The majority of my lead generation is too my sphere of influence. The people that I know, and the people that they know. Most people want to work with people that they know, like, and trust. So they see this face, they hear this voice. I'm interacting with my bubble primarily now. more than any other lead source.

Zac Ruiz [24:29] Awesome. So we'll head back. And so the next question is about KPIs. key performance indicators. What are you guys tracking? How often do you track it? Is it daily, weekly, monthly, if you can kind of break down the data component of your businesses?

Jordan Lockaby [24:42] I like data. I'm like you, Zach. We could just nerd out on data. Um, at this point, in my business, real estate as a broker or an agent, it can be very predictable, in that, in my experience, in four years, I'm still a newbie, very much in this industry, but what I've found over the last four years, if I set an intention for how much income I want to make in a year, I now know I can backtrack that and say, I now know that it takes me approximately 20 contacts to set an appointment with a buyer or a seller. So if I have 20 conversations with somebody, It generally yields me one buyer console or a listing appointment. For buyer consults.

I typically sign and get under contract, about 80 to 90% of the buyers that I ever have an appointment with. For listings, it's about 60%. So if I say I want to make $200,000 in this industry, I can use my KPIs, my conversion ratios, and backtrack and say, Well, how many appointments do I need to be holding per week, assuming I want to work X amount of hours? So I've really used data and tracked how many contacts I'm making every single day, how many appointments I'm holding per week, what's the result of those appointments? Did I sign the client, didn't I? And then I now have some historical data to know what my conversion rates are.

Zac Ruiz [26:01] How long did it take you to get the historical data, to actually be able to use the what you were tracking?

Jordan Lockaby [26:08] Keller Williams, it's a cult, I'm just gonna tell you. Now, Keller... They say it's a culture. Right? It's a culture. Keller Williams is a great organization in a lot of ways, but one I like is, I didn't reinvent the wheel. When I first started, I didn't have any of that historical data. So I made some assumptions based on other people in the industry. At this point, once I was six months, 12 months in. I started using my own conversion ratios. And guess what? They get better. Okay, I can sign 80 to 90% of the buyers that I meet with, and 60% of the sellers that I meet with, 'cause I have more experience. They were much smaller conversion ratios, you know, two and a half years ago.

Chuck Johnson [26:48] So, hours are similar, and so, ours are a little different in that we have two ISAs, which are inside sales agents that make calls all day, they are in house, and then our agents as well. And so with the agents, interesting, we had just backtracking for a second. We had the worst two months we'd ever had in the January, February of 2021. And what we came up with was, We're not the office. We had stayed out of the office through COVID, and we, as a group, decided we were going to come back to the office, and we had done, I think, 32 million in 2020, which was pretty good.

We did 69 million in 2021, over doubled, and we attributed that to two things, one coming back to the office, and second one, we tracked our numbers. And so with our agents, we track, um, we start with contacts. We don't start with calls. And then, you know, go all the way through the appointment held, the appointment said appointment held in agency, with our ISAs, because we have a formula that we now know works. We go one more step farther, back to dials. And they have to make so many dials, and if they're, you know, if they're not meeting their goal with appointments, then we back, we can go all the way backward.

The other thing I just want to say, like, especially with Zach up here doing the Ruez report, everything with our team, and we've gotten a lot of this, for, like, she's saying, from Keller Williams, is mindset, right? So I take what they do, and then I also do a weekly market rate. And it's for our clients, but it's also for my team's mindset. Like, they got in our team meeting today that this is a much smaller version of what he does. It's just Bunkham and Henderson County, but from Wednesday to Wednesday, there was 128 properties went under contract in that week. Well, the same week last year, 119. So they know, man, go get it. Don't listen, anything, anybody's saying, 7.5%, whatever.

To me, everything, especially the new people, you gotta get your mind right. Just go get one of those 128. That's all you gotta get. If you get one a week, your top agent in Asheville. So, we track that, but we also, we track the market very heavily. We constantly in that report. Thank you, Michael.

Michael Fichman [29:16] Yeah, so, in our company, there are four or five main KPIs that we track, although really only two of them matter in terms of how we judge performance. So we track dials made. But dials made is just busy work. It doesn't tell you how they're doing. It just tells you that they're on the phone. Conversations is the main one that I track. So rather than someone picking up the phone and telling me immediately that they're not interested. That doesn't count in our office. You have to be talking to people for a minimum of three minutes for it to count as a conversation, because if you're not on the phone for three minutes, I don't think you gave enough work to get a real answer.

Beyond dials made in conversations made, we have appointments set to go look at properties, contracts offered, and contracts accepted. Now, the only two that I look at are conversations and contracts offered, because if you do offer enough contracts, and our business, roughly one out of 30 turns into a contract that's accepted. So rather than getting bogged down on the details of how many that have been accepted, let's just worry about how many we're making offers on, and the numbers generally take care of itself.

Unknown [30:24] Can I add something?

Michael Fichman [30:26] Yes, you can. Absolutely, please.

Jordan Lockaby [30:27] Okay, I just thought of this. KPI. Key performance indicator. That one, yeah. This is not really a KPI. I'm gonna call it an SPI. It's a somatic performance indicator. I'm riffing here. One of the things that I don't track, like, writing down numbers, but I do track, in my internal world, is, like, um, after a week of appointments and contacts, and this and that, and the other. Like, how am I feeling? Do I like working with these clients? Did I like busting it for 65 hours a week? I am constantly assessing my own performance and my own energy levels.

And I just want to say that, because if you have not yet figured out that real estate is a very fast paced and demanding industry, let me just be the first one to break it to you. So I want to add that one.

Zac Ruiz [31:20] Oh, very good, right? Be the change you want to see, right? If you think you're overworked and high stress, like, you could change that. So good job. And knowing the numbers make it easier. So, on that note, what do you do for follow up? What's your follow up process look like? Just, I don't know.

Michael Fichman [31:37] Yeah, so I apologize to anyone in the audience, if you've gotten my automated texts, I'm sure you have. Um, we primarily do automated text and email follow up. So once people have given us permission to text them and email them. We put them on drip campaigns that technically vary between every 25 to 35 days. In addition to that, we do have, once a month, touch points where even if we are doing automated texts, we're still gonna give them at least one phone attempt a month. But the biggest thing for me was automating it. So in the past, we had used some different CRMs that was very good at telling you when you needed to reach out to someone, but wasn't so great at just doing it for you.

And we've utilized a couple different CRMs over the years, and we're on a new one now, where it's just click once, set it, and forget it. And outside of the occasional person yelling at me that I texted them 10, 15 in the morning on a Sunday. It works out really well.

Speaker 3 [32:41] What is that, CRM?

Michael Fichman [32:43] The CRM is called forefront, F O R E, front. It's relatively affordable. I think it's roughly 200 bucks a month. You get a whole bunch of users associated with it. I don't own it. I get nothing from it, but please use it. It's a wonderful CRM, geared more towards investors than realtors, but you could definitely use Eliza either way.

Zac Ruiz [33:06] Your CRM doesn't allow you to not send text messages on the weekend? I have an affiliate link for you. That would be $500.

Michael Fichman [33:16] You know, we can talk about this for a minute, because why aren't we texting people on the weekend? Because I don't want to respond on the weekend. So just don't respond. You know, like, I agree with you that some amount of people are definitely gonna get annoyed, but if one out of the 50 is like, Yeah, I'm free for a call in a couple hours, in my world, that's worth it. Fair enough.

Zac Ruiz [33:37] Well, maybe we'll add on to the question, for Chuck and Jordan, do you respond, or do follow up on the weekend then, and we'll find out? So, Chuck, what do you do for follow up, and do you respond on weekends?

Chuck Johnson [33:47] So, as a buyer or seller? No. As an agent? Absolutely. Uh, so ours is my favorite, one of my favorites sayings is inspect what you expect. And so we've got systems in place that we're constantly, we've got pipeline reports. Everybody has their clop. I've learned you gotta make it easy. So the pipeline report, and we do have automated, but there's a lot of just individual touches as well. And, um, the, like, our, our, uh, director sales will hold the ISA team responsible. Now, ISA team then holds the agents responsible because they don't get paid as much if the agent doesn't close. So we allow them to hold the agents responsible. So ours is pretty good follow-up.

We've had some a lot of dead leads that we were able to convert something out of it. And, uh, just one more thing along that is what we are what we teach and feel like we're really good at is asking a lot of questions. Like, he said, the 3 minute. Well, it's simple to be three minutes or longer, if you ask the right questions, it can go much longer. We played a video on our team meeting today. And it was probably 10 minutes. And it was just someone that had said a system that gave them their home value. That was it. And they said, no, we were just looking. Before the end of it, the guy said, well, the neighbor sold for this.

I wouldn't sell for a penny lesson, 550, and we're looking at this area, and he set it up. It's so easy with that. So our follow-up is, was it really someone that you couldn't have gotten? So you ask those three deep questions. So I know it's not exactly follow-up, but it's part of what we do. What are the 3 deep questions? So, the 3D question would be based on what you, and it could... You want to role play it?

Unknown [35:44] You and I can do this.

Chuck Johnson [35:44] Sure. So we scripted and rolled with my team 5 days a week every single week.

Jordan Lockaby [35:50] So I'm the person who I, I clicked the button and you call me and I say, no, I'm not, I'm not interested. I just click the button.

Chuck Johnson [35:57] Yeah, so are you, and so I'll just do it, but if you're not interested at all, I'll figure that out pretty quick. So, are you, what were you looking... What did you think about the value?

Jordan Lockaby [36:08] I mean, I thought it was just completely off, you know? I mean, we bought this house five years ago, and I know it's got to be worth more than 50 for today, so I just I'm not interested in that value at all.

Chuck Johnson [36:20] Yeah, I totally understand. So the cool thing is, it's, like, a really cool software. It's a computer model, and so it could be off, but here's the really cool thing. I can go in, and I can manually adjust. Can I ask you a couple of questions? Like, if you remodels your house at all?

Jordan Lockaby [36:37] Yeah, we did. Yeah, we spent the last year remodeling it.

Chuck Johnson [36:40] Oh, what all did you do?

Jordan Lockaby [36:41] We did new kitchen, two new bathrooms, and we, like, expanded the deck on the back porch.

Chuck Johnson [36:46] Nice. Okay, so the computer model will for sure not know that. So that's gonna make a big difference. Did you add any square footage? No. Okay. So, what are you thinking on the value?

Jordan Lockaby [36:57] I mean, I don't know. I just I see so much in our area that seems like it's way over priced, so $450 seems totally unreasonable, but, I mean, maybe $850 is possible with the market the way it is, you know?

Chuck Johnson [37:09] Yeah, I understand. So, if you were to get $850,000, and someone made you an offer of $850,000. Would accept that? We?

Jordan Lockaby [37:18] I mean, why? Do you have somebody? Possibly. We would think about it.

Chuck Johnson [37:23] Yeah, yeah. Where would you go?

Jordan Lockaby [37:24] Well, okay, I think we can... I can just keep going. This is how it happens. You just get people talking, and...

Zac Ruiz [37:31] Round of applause for the role play. Thank you, thank you. That's really real. That's what we do every day. Thank you. Jordan, your follow up. What's that look for?

Jordan Lockaby [37:40] I forgot the question.

Zac Ruiz [37:40] What does your follow up look like? And do you do it on the, and do you respond on weekends?

Jordan Lockaby [37:45] Okay. Um, to Chuck's point, yeah. If I'm the client, I'm not responding on the weekends, for anything, for a real estate thing, if my hairdresser is reminding me to get an appointment, I am so, uh, I'm really unplugged when I'm unplugged, but it might not be on the weekend. I try to take one weekend day where I'm not working. If there's a family plan on Saturday, I'm gonna go and be with my family on Saturday, and then you better bet, I'll be available for some showings on Sunday. So some people, especially if you're an entrepreneur, weekends don't really matter, and sometimes that's true in our world. But the thing is, like, I'm working for people that mostly work nine to five.

So if their schedule warrants them to be available on the evenings and the weekends, that's when I have to be there. But for my follow up, Yeah. I'll just say, in the beginning of this career, it was much more important for me to be incredibly disciplined on my follow up with every single lead that came in. And I'm gonna give you an example of what that plan might look like. A lead comes into our system. Someone looks at ashful, best, coolest, blonde realtor, right? And I get a thing on my Google Business account or whatever, and they've sent me a message.

The format I'd like to follow, if I'm, like, really on huntress mode, is, like, three times within the next two or three hours, I'm sending an inquiry to try and get them on the phone. There's no, like, I sent a text message, and, like, they just didn't respond, and someone tried two days from now. When you're in hunter mode, and you're really trying to get business, like, you can try and contact someone, like, five times in one day to get a response from them. Time kills leads. I think I'll just end on that.

Chuck Johnson [39:32] Well, can I add one thing right there? Please, yeah. That's true. I cannot tell you how many times that we have continued, they won't answer the phone. We leave a voicemail, we text, we email, and I swear, it's a year later. I've been getting all your texts. I've been really busy. No Lyle, they'll say that to you.

Speaker 3 [39:53] And then they apologize. And they apologize, and I...

Chuck Johnson [39:56] We're ready to start looking now. So, to his point, like, they are getting it.

Michael Fichman [40:01] One thing I'd like to add is, I don't like working on the weekends, either. Like, I don't want to do it, but as Jordan said, there are some people that do not have time to talk to me at 2 o'clock in the afternoon on Wednesday when it works best for me. So, we text, we reach out on the weekends. If I get a response, my first thing is, what is 9 o'clock on Monday look like for you? Right? So, like, I want to work during the week only, but you recognize that some people can't talk during those times, and we still need to be reaching out to those people, too, to Chuck's point, like, we get those texts... Like, the first automated text almost never works.

Like, today, I think I got four or five responses to automatic texts on the sixth text. So there are similar things that it's not like I'm trying to be a different person. It's just, Hey, I'm still here. Stop ignoring me. Just tell me no so I can stop spending money and bothering you. And, uh... Say it just like that, right? Just like that. Yeah, you know? Especially when I'm on the phone. Don't waste my time. No. But generally speaking, it's like, yes, as entrepreneurs, we can create our lifestyle to work the way that we want to. But in real estate, we work for other people. So, we are gonna do anything we can to make sure that we're meeting their timelines and needs. One of the...

Chuck Johnson [41:22] Hello? Hello? One of the highest. As crazy as this sounds, one of the most return text is, hey, the system hasn't heard from you, so it's gonna take you out of the system, sending you houses. Can you please let me know? Are you still looking? And I can fix it. Man, if they think they're gonna stop getting houses, they reply to that, which is interesting.

Jordan Lockaby [41:45] I have my own version of that, and I label it my final attempt, and it's like, hey, you're clearly not interested. I'm going to stop bugging you. you know, best of luck. And they're like, You know, because you're like pulling away.

Michael Fichman [41:55] Yeah, mine is, clearly you've given up on trying to sell your home. People don't like to give up. I promise you that.

Zac Ruiz [42:01] I feel like we have three people who read, Never split the difference, by any chance. once or twice. All right, yes. So, um, one comment, question, and we are gonna have to go through the rest of the questions, 'cause it's all about the Q and A, right? Comment is, all three of them, without fail, said that they weren't responding. Right? And so, as my dad used to say, right? No, it's just, like, six, seven, no's away from maybe, and then not what the heck, right? So don't be discouraged by the nose. It's literally part of the game. Just keep on keeping up. All right, so, question, if you have nothing to add, just keep on keeping on. What does your avatar look like?

Are you marketing to someone, or, and has that changed over time, or you're just, like, are you interested in buying or selling a home at this point? We don't care about any of the other demographics? And we'll go backwards, Jordan.

Jordan Lockaby [42:42] Yeah, this has definitely changed over time, because as I mentioned, primarily, a lot of my buyers, when I first got into the business, we're investors. But today, it's very different. Today, I have two distinct avatars that I am working with and trying to procure much more business with. The first is a buyer or seller in North Asheville with a $750,000 budget that's interested in green and eco living. Boop. That's my peeps. That's who I'm looking for. Where you at? The second is a group of people who are interested in purchasing land and building community together. And this is out in the county.

This is Haywood, Yancey, Madison County, 'cause this is a personal project I'm moving more and more into is buying land with a group of people to live in community, so that's a secondary avatar. buyer client for me.

Chuck Johnson [43:32] Mr. Johnson. We have none. If they want to buy our sale, and it doesn't matter at all. Like ours is serve us. And if it's $100,000 single wide, we are 1,000% okay with that, and we want to help those people. So ours doesn't matter. We want to help them all.

Michael Fichman [43:50] So, we have a bunch of different avatars, but I think the best way of saying it is we seek out people who need to sell, not people who want to sell. Um, there are a lot of people that are praying that you are the person that calls them tonight and offers help to their very difficult situation, right? Foreclosures, probates, tax issues, tired landlords with crappy tenants. Sorry for the cuss. But I don't know where we're at here. So, um, we look for people who are interested because they have to sell. Now, The problem, or the difficulty with that is there is a select number of those people, right?

Like, for example, in Charlotte, there's probably upwards of 100,000 homes that may fit one of those criterias. But there are 4 million plus homes in Charlotte, and when we run a larger team that has a more shotgun style approach to marketing, you run through those 100,000 people rather quickly. So, we're not gonna stop reaching out to those people, but I can't reach out to them every day. So we build those avatars above what we called our base avatar, which is just people who either own their house free and clear, or have a large amount of equity in it. And that doesn't mean that they want to sell. It just means that they are more negotiable than someone who doesn't have those things.

So there's more likely of a sale happening from them versus someone who just sold their home.

Zac Ruiz [45:23] I always used to, for that distinction to be as somebody who's more interested in the process versus the price. And I always found that to be a helpful distinction, as far as talking to people off market. It's like, is it price or process that's more important to you? If it's processed, regardless of where you're at, like, we can probably talk and figure something out.

Michael Fichman [45:42] And most people will always say it's price, like, not many people are vulnerable enough to just come out and talk about their situation. But, kind of as Chuck and Jordan were both saying, like, when you have these three to 20 minute conversations, where you're asking a whole bunch of questions, you're not just checklisting. You're asking questions that force them to talk more about their personal situation, what they're looking to do, what their motivations are. And that's where to go back to, uh, never split the difference. You get those black swan events that you get a piece of information you are never expecting which helps you close the deal. Absolutely.

Zac Ruiz [46:19] If you're a general contractor looking to build a spec home or a real estate investor wanting to build a rental property, a duplex, or even a small multifamily property, then you want to talk to John Sarver or Craig Peters with Alfie. Alfie is well established in the real estate investing community and is funded over $425000000 in loans to real estate investors over the last 9 years. The team is community focused and has helped 100s of real estate entrepreneurs with their real estate investment projects, including both Rodrigo and I. They even bought drinks for everyone when we had to switch venues last year.

Craig and John regularly attend ABL meetups, so try to say hi since they're always ready to answer construction financing questions. On the other side of their business, Alpie Investors is a private debt fund that accepts investment capital from accredited investors and puts it to work in the communities across North and South Carolina. Alfie is a collateralized and defensive investment option that has historically provided predictable and consistent returns to their investors. Alfie is currently accepting new investor capital, so please reach out to John or Craig at Alfie to request a prospectus or set up a meeting to learn more. You can find more at alfieloans.com, ALFIEloans.com.

All right, so we're going to move into the lightning round here. And so lighting round, if you're not familiar, very quick answers, we'll see if we can get in. Oh, maybe we'll only do 2 questions, because we definitely want to do Q and day. But at least, so we'll start with this one very quickly. Do you believe AI is gonna play a role in lead generation for you in the future? And if so, what does that look like? And Michael, go for it.

Michael Fichman [47:51] It's already run running 75% of my marketing business. Okay.

Zac Ruiz [47:55] All right, well, we'll continue then, Chuck.

Chuck Johnson [47:57] Yeah, yeah, and text messages, eventually, as sad as it is, I think there's gonna start making phone calls, too. No doubt?

Unknown [48:06] Jordan?

Jordan Lockaby [48:06] I have no idea. Perfect.

Zac Ruiz [48:09] All right, fair. So I think so, you can't say never split the difference where I went there, right? Favorite book on marketing and or lead generation.

Jordan Lockaby [48:18] I'm gonna say two things here. Josh and I were just talking about atomic habits, which is a book early in my career that instilled in me a lot. I was fortunate in that, he said, lightning round, started... Lightning round. Atomic habits. Atomic habits, but then I'm also gonna say, right now, for where I'm at in my business, I'm actually actively seeking mentorship and guidance in a just a gentler way to do business that's not so, like, hustle, hustle, 24/7 all the time. Feel yourself on caffeine and whatever. That real estate sometimes really feels like that, and I really haven't found a great... You laughing because it's true.

Speaker 3 [48:55] I'm laughing 'cause of lightning.

Jordan Lockaby [48:57] Okay, we're done.

Speaker 3 [48:59] What? We're clapping for two reasons.

Jordan Lockaby [49:02] Yeah. It's... It's honestly a request. Like, if anyone has any...

Unknown [49:06] 'Cause I don't have any.

Chuck Johnson [49:07] Nailed it. Chuck, my favorite, by far, is building a story brand by Donald Miller, and it just, your client's the hero. You're the guide. always. You're never the hero.

Michael Fichman [49:17] So I have two. One of them is Crush It by Gary Vanerchuck. Um, marketing genius, does everything for free, and just gives away value, and it expects nothing in return, yet it comes. So that's how we've tried to model our business. The other one that, I would say, is not a marketing book at all, but it teaches you how to be an expert entrepreneur to help you close more sales, which is called the go giver, and that is by a guy named Bob Berg. That book is something that I listen to on repeat, on Audible in my car for a year straight. It's only about a 100 page book, so I probably listen to it about 50 times.

Zac Ruiz [49:55] All right, so, well, last question. So if you have questions for the panel, start getting ready, the box will be coming for you. All right, Michael, so last question, lightning round. If you could only choose one lead generation channel for the rest of your career, what would you choose and why? Circle of influence, fear does not count.

Michael Fichman [50:13] Do you mean, like, marketing channel? Or do you mean, like, lead Avatar? Marketing channel. Marketing Channel, uh... Cold calling tax delinquency. Chuck?

Unknown [50:24] Social media.

Chuck Johnson [50:25] Sorry. Any specific or just in general? Social media and Google, but paid ads and... Jordan? YouTube. All right.

Zac Ruiz [50:35] All right. So big round of applause for them really quickly. And... Who's got the first question? Raise your hand, stand up, and I will toss you the problem. In the front, in the front. Look alive. Here it comes. Should be. Is this a microphone? Hello? It is a microphone.

Michael Fichman [50:57] Hey, Michael, I got a question for you. Go for it, brother. So you said 75% of your marketing team is run by AI. Can you just elaborate a little bit on that, please? Of course. So, we're not at the point yet where we're using AI chat bots with my own personal voice to be calling out to all the people, so I don't need to hire VAs anymore, right? Like, that's coming, that's probably less than a year away. Uh, but in terms of creating marketing, um, ideas, right? So every single text that is sent was created by ChatGPT, and I just implemented it into our CRM. Every single...

So, we do a once a month meet up down in Charlotte, but we also do a once a week meet up, which is a little bit more education rather than speakers that Ed and I host. So 52 weeks of that. Chat GPT came up with every topic that we're ever gonna discuss on that. Chat GPT helped us do banners for our presentations. It helps us reread offers to purchase, looking for potential errors. So, using AI is not in the automation, I just leave it alone stage yet, but it has turned about 20 hours of marketing work for me into about 30 minutes. Gotcha.

Unknown [52:15] Cool. Thank you.

Michael Fichman [52:16] All right, next question.

Zac Ruiz [52:18] No questions. All right. Nice and easy toss. Um, Jordan, what area are you looking for those those land communities you were speaking on?

Jordan Lockaby [52:30] Do you mean what geographic location? Haywood, Madison, Bunkumbe County? Do you know of some land or something?

Zac Ruiz [52:40] No, I was just curious as to where you were looking at with Mark. We've got a couple pieces of land. Okay.

Unknown [52:45] Alright.

Zac Ruiz [52:47] In the back. In the back. Oh, behind, look right. Look right there. No, he's gonna toss the tad. I just gotta get it closer. Thank you, Ed. Oh, Ed is, look at that. What a teammate. What a business partner. That a good business partner to have. business partner.

Michael Fichman [53:03] Um, this is from Michael. When it comes to ChatGPT, is there any, like, resource that you can refer me, will refer us to, um, to, like, learn, I guess more about that? I'm sorry, brother. I heard the last part, but could you just say the first part again? Uh, regarding ChatGPT? Yep. Is it any resource that you can refer us to? So we'll learn more about that. Yeah, so, I mean, YouTube is a great, like, example of this, but to be honest, I didn't do much education about it myself. Um, the best piece of advice that I could give you to really kind of figure out Chat GPT is get very, very good at iterating.

So you're gonna put something into chat GPT, and it's not gonna give you the exact answer that you're looking for. The best way to get the best answer you're looking for is to ask the same question again in a different way and have chat GPT, continue to spit out answers until you get one that you want. Then when you get the answer that you want, you're gonna ask ChatGPT, little gem here, this is the answer that I was looking for, can you give me the perfect prompt to ask you next time, so I get this answer the first time? And it gives you way too long prompts, but just get a word file, copy, paste them, put your little sections in there, and you're off and running, brother. Thank you.

Of course.

Chuck Johnson [54:31] Hey, I just want to say, it doesn't matter your age, either. Like, I use it as much as he does, it sounds like, and you feel like you're bothering it. Like, okay, can you, that was too fancy. I don't talk like that. Rephrase it. Oh, well, that was to whatever. And you may do that six times. Oh, that was perfect. If anybody's ever asked it to give you a description of a listing, it uses words I don't use, right? And you just have to say, I don't talk like that. And then, you ask what he said or something similar, and then, it just, it changes your life. If you're not using it.

Michael Fichman [55:06] One other thing I'll quickly add with chat GPT is, it can be your own sales manager. So if you're unsure, or you're a little new, and you're not sure how good you're doing on calls with clients or prospective clients, make sure you're using a phone that records the call, right? Um... There are plenty of softwares out there, and most of them can be as cheap as 25 bucks a month, but make sure you're using a phone that records your call. Once the call is done, download the transcript of your call, upload it into chat GPT, and just ask it, What are the three best things I did? What are the three things I did decently, and what are three things I need to improve on?

I have my VAs do that for three calls every single day. So it also has taken a lot of work off my plate, because I used to do that with them. So use ChatGPT. That's a great idea. All right. Who's next?

Zac Ruiz [56:10] Oh, right here, add in the front. Thanks. So, mainly as a focus towards Michael and Chuck, I guess, maybe Jordan used, uh, texting as well, but as far as the regulations have gone down the past couple years, how does that affect y'all's business for Legion?

Michael Fichman [56:26] Sure. So texting and ringless voicemails definitely scare me a little bit.

Zac Ruiz [56:31] Do you mind giving some context for the regulations before you answer about the regulations?

Michael Fichman [56:36] So, um, basically more or less, a lot of the cell phone carriers have come under a lot of file. over the last couple years, because they've been allowing people to solicit, uncontrollably. I think all of us have gotten that extended car warranty commercial, uh, constantly on our phones. But the FCC basically came down, or FTC, whichever one it is, came down super strong on the carriers, and basically said that they have to do everything possible to prevent people from sending multiple texts from the same number in a short period of time.

So what we've seen is a lot of these texting platforms, I'm not gonna name them, but they've had to shut down, change their process, have you upload new, different words that don't trick the algorithms, to make sure you're doing it the right way. Now, there have been rulings that said that if you are asking someone to buy something versus offering to sell something. You are not soliciting. So if you're asking to buy something, I personally don't believe you're soliciting. However, I'm sure there are attorneys that probably feel differently. So, we have completely removed texting and voicemails from our outbound lead process.

Once they respond to us, that regulation issue is gone, because they have invited you to talk with them. So that's when we start doing automated follow up with texting, email, voicemails, et cetera. It's once they've given us permission through a response. We don't do it until they've responded. Chuck, how about yourself?

Chuck Johnson [58:10] Do you worry about the regulation, or... there? So, very much. Keller Williams just settled. I think they might have spent 40000000 on that one. TCPA, and now there's another one and a judge has ruled that even though it's the same thing. Class action usually once it's settled, nobody else can sue. Well, he, no, it's a little different, and it's different agents. What's still the same thing, and people are really, really serious. And the attorneys are very litigious anymore. So we check it against the do not call, and we're serious about that, because I don't want that. So.

Zac Ruiz [58:49] Thank you. All right, next question. Oh, one right behind you, Phil.

Michael Fichman [58:57] Michael, Chuck, Jordan, how are you? Great, brother.

Unknown [59:02] How are you?

Michael Fichman [59:02] Great. Hey. I'm very well. I appreciate all the insight you've delivered here tonight. Appreciate that. My main question is, as far as lead acquisition goes, Are you able to put a price point on what you're spending on acquisition or percentage? You don't have to give a dollar amount, 'cause that's gonna vary from price point to price point? But if you could narrow it down, 'cause I think it's very important to isolate what your percentage of return on investment is, for your actual acquisitions, and I know Michael spending, you said it was about 80% for the cold calling, but we didn't get much from Chuck or Jordan. So.

Zac Ruiz [59:39] What is your marketing budget allocation, essentially?

Michael Fichman [59:43] Both. I mean, you have to analyze what you've spent versus your ROI. So what, how your results for your acquisition, based on, whether it's your payroll, however you would pigeonhole it.

Zac Ruiz [59:57] Can I rephrase that in a different way, maybe, to get the same place? So what type of return are you getting? If you're spending $2, Are you getting $4 back? Are you getting $6 back? Are you getting $3 back? Is that roughly where you're getting at, Mike? That's correct.

Unknown [1:00:10] Yeah. Yes.

Chuck Johnson [1:00:12] All right, so, so, with us, we use a company that manages our leads, and then we were, I was fortunate enough to meet a guy that's top 20 in the country in real estate sales, and he manages all his Google ads, and he's producing over 50 listing leads a week through Google. And so he is teaching my team, and we've done a lot with it. And we've got that to where it's for a lead, you know, it's obviously not converted, but anywhere from $20 to $30 for a seller lead, and much less for a buyer lead. I think through the company, we're not advertising at all, our own money in the Google. We're paying the company to manage it.

And through them, it's like nines, which means nine, which means we would probably be paying 2 or $3 at the most for those buyer leads. And we're converting it at a pretty good clip. I mean, normally an internet lead for us is 3 to 5%. So, you know, say every 100, we're getting 3 of those. Jordan do you have a feel for that?

Jordan Lockaby [1:01:20] Yeah, I'll say Chuck and I were in the same industry, but we're kind of at 2 different ends of the spectrum. Chuck owns a team, a large team here in town, and I'm a member of a team as a real estate agent. So I don't manage our marketing budget, and I don't have my finger on the pulse of that, but from my personal business, I can tell you, very, very little of the transactions, I did last year, came from paid lead sources. The majority of my business comes from my sphere, or past clients of the business that I'm affiliated with, so I don't have any hard numbers, but very few was paid leads for me.

Zac Ruiz [1:01:55] Sounds like an infinity return. All right.

Michael Fichman [1:01:57] That's what Rich Dad is. And for me, um... I can't go, like, one... Theoretically, I guess it's one dollar to earn eight. Um, but typically for us through Colts calling, including the systems, the VAs, hourly, and the lists that we're buying for them to call. It roughly costs about $2,500 to get a contract. Our average assignment fee last year was 18,000. So it's eight to one, nine to one, something like that. When you go into SEO, it probably falls a little bit more to, like, three to one. That sounds right.

Chuck Johnson [1:02:41] And we, if it's less than four to one, we track it. If it's less than four to one, we're not, we stop it, whatever it is. That's good.

Zac Ruiz [1:02:49] All right, last question. If somebody has one. Going once? Oh, there it is in the front. Kai again. All right. Every time someone comes after me going, oh, I had a great question, but I didn't want to ask, so... Next time you're here. Sorry.

Michael Fichman [1:03:05] If you only had one way to generate leads, I know y'all do a lot of different things, what would you do, and who would you hire?

Unknown [1:03:15] What's your budget?

Zac Ruiz [1:03:19] Mike's still gonna get hired. Six month budget. Six month budget. Six month budget. Give it parameters. Do under $2,000 a month.

Michael Fichman [1:03:27] Under $2,000 a month cold calling is the way to go. Um, at least in my opinion. So, uh, good cold call software should probably cost you roughly 250 bucks a month. Um, you're gonna pay roughly $50 per user on that account. So add another 100, 150 bucks. You looking at about $400 to $500 a month for the cold colors and the seats on that platform, right? My VAs, I have 3 VAs that are cold calling 40 hours a week. I pay them $4.25 an hour from the Philippines, which is equivalent to $700 a week American. So, generally speaking, that's 180 or $160 a week per cold collar, I'm spending roughly 2,500 a month for cold calling, and then you add the list in as well.

So, it's hard to do less with more unless you just want to be receiving leads, right? Like, the way we approach it is, yes, hot leads are great, because they have a much higher rate of closing, but I am trying to build a pipeline. So I would much rather be bringing in 40 cold call leads a week with one or two hot leads, 'cause I get some for today, but I'm also building the next six months. So if you're looking for money immediately, cold calling is not the answer. But if you're looking to have sustainable, continuous deals in a long term fashion, cold calling is a great foundation to do that on. All right, Chuck.

Chuck Johnson [1:05:02] So, my answer's gonna be different on this, for sure. But we're in different businesses, right? And I did, we did pay a paid advertisement showing this, and mine is, I believe, we miss a lot in social media, and that is simply, it sounds like maybe you would be on the investing side. What if every day, every single day, you told a story, the story brand, you told the story, and then you told the success and said, I helped Miss Smith and whatever. And what if you just partnered with him? And it was his stories because you didn't have many yet. And then people are, oh, what's your name? Uh, Kyle. Kai. Kaya. So, Kaya, I got a deal. Like, you're still buying, right?

And also in those come, come, come, come. Like, how many deals do you guys probably just someone says, hey, are you still buying houses, Rodrigo? That mine's a totally different thought process, but I believe that's so big that, I mean, I sell all the time to high school. Dude, I haven't seen those people since 1987, and I still sell them houses. You're already doing that, so good job, man. Thank you.

Unknown [1:06:12] Jordan?

Jordan Lockaby [1:06:13] My answer is very similar to Chuck's, because the majority of my business comes from my sphere of influence. The stats on this are that most people know between three and seven realtors. So when someone gets to the point where movement is necessary on their real estate journey, 'cause you're all on a real estate journey, whether you know it or not, you either just bought a house, you're living in your house, and it's going great, but something could be better. You're getting ready to buy. You know, there's this continuum, and you're always somewhere really close on it. So when it gets to the point of movement, I just want to be the person that you like, know, and trust the best, and you call.

So being present and intentional within my community is the best way I can spend my time in my business.

Chuck Johnson [1:06:52] Brag about yourselves. All right, thank you, guys. Brag about your client, then it brags about you. I like it, I like it.

Zac Ruiz [1:07:01] All right, friends, before we head out if the remote does my bidding. There you go. All right, so look, to keep the continuation, we have three things that you can do, right? And I'm pretty sure everyone is gonna block, so I'm just gonna talk about it. Volunteer, either here or with your community. All right? If you want to volunteer here, when you sign up, you hit the button, you can pick what you want to do, and it's either set up, tear down, we got some people helping us right now, facilitate, talk to people, or the welcome table. Right? To invite a friend. More people more better. We like that. And three, make sure you win between meetings, which we're starting to talk about.

So watch something, to expand your mind, invite something you think could benefit, and then network to help grow your sphere and influence, all right? Coming up next is the power of community. Yeah, so we got the women of power, and the digital nomad's gonna be talking next week, and so, or next month. Whew. time flies, though. So come on out for that. Also, I wanted to say, big shout out to our sponsors. We got guaranteed rate, American Eagle, home inspections, and Alfie. They're doing a raffle back in the back, so make sure to check it out. She's waving her arms right now, to know where to raffle. at As always, I promise to get you out of here, you guys, at 7:30, so... Have a great evening.

See you all next month. Thank you to applause to our panels, please. Hey, guys, Rodrigo here, wanted to say thank you for taking the time to listen into this month's panel conversation. We hope that you join us in person at next month's meeting. You can find out more at AVLmeetup.com. We primarily meet on the 1st Tuesday of every month, but be sure to check out our website, AVLmeetup.com. You can also watch this conversation on YouTube at AVLmeetup. Well, also, I have a quick announcement. We started a property management company called Vesta Property Management. So if you're looking for third-party management for long-term rental. We'd love the opportunity to talk to.

Our goal at Vesta is to turn houses into homes and investments into returns. If you're looking to work with a third-party management company that will allow you to have peace of mind and experience freedom around rentals. Reach out to us. We can help make that happen for you. bestapm.com. What's going on, everyone? Zach here to close it out before you sign off for the day. If you liked the data driven portion of today's meetup, then I'd love to take a moment to tell you about the Ruys report and REMC.co. If you're a real estate professional, then you know that you should become the local economist of choice, but you're probably unsure of how to learn the skills required.

That's where the Ruiz Report comes in. We offer customized marker reports to promote your business, training videos so you learn how to interpret the market data, and monthly quizzes to keep you sharp. Learn more at reseport.com and sign up for a free account to watch all of our training videos at no cost. If you're more interested in the live data and some data and analytics dashboards, then I highly suggest you check out ramc.co. REMC.co is the 1st of its kind, data and analytics dashboards for the real estate industry.

Now you have to be an active participating member of the MLS in order to sign up, but it is unparalleled data on every market participant, whether that's an office, a listing, or one of the realtors. Again, you can find out more about REMC.co at REMC.co. As always, thanks for listening, and we hope to see you at one of our next meetups. If you can't make it and you still want to be part of the movers and shakers, then sign up for a free account at AVLmeetup.com and get yourself into our member directory. Thanks again. See you next month.