From Cold Lists to Closed Deals With Elizabeth Marks

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the New and Experienced Investor Podcast. Today we're talking about blowing up your marketing so you can get the best deals for your flips, your buy and holds, whatever you're into. It's definitely a show you don't want to miss. I'm Alex Barnett. I'm one of your hosts. I'm the new guy.

Welcome back, producer. Yay! My name is Joe Holmes, and I'm the experienced guy, and I'm excited to have the professional producer back instead of somebody sitting next to me that was pressing buttons and trying to figure out who's talking when and where. So not that I'm complaining, but thank you for coming back.

I did watch a couple of those produced ones, and I was like, oh, that's an interesting place to do that.

Yeah, yeah, no kidding. All right.

Right.

The number one podcast in Laguna Hills.

That is right. And today we have an amazing guest. She helps real estate investors turn their scattered cold marketing into deal closing systems. I think all of us need that because I think most investors, new or experienced, are kind of just doing things at, you know, hoping, throw, throwing stuff at the wall, hoping that it sticks, you know, and you'll get a deal here or there, But what if you could turn it into an actual system and have actual results that you can count on? That'd be pretty cool.

That would be.

All right, well, we're getting into that today. Before we bring her on, just wanna remind everybody about our upcoming meetup.

September 22nd.

Yep.

Hangar 24. Our guest speaker this month is Devin Aguirre.

Yeah.

And he's doing PadSplit, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, PadSplit.

That's right.

That's the newest, latest craze in real estate.

Yeah.

Started back in Atlanta, correct? And you're doing it.

I'm doing it.

We went to another meetup the other day, and it's very interesting. Yeah, it's very interesting. I don't know that. Well, I'll get you there. I handle.

I'll do it. You don't have to handle.

Hands off. Fifteen people in one house.

Sure.

You know, one guy was saying that he's doing it, and he brings pizza every week, and you know camaraderie and all that stuff. It's like just send me the check, the rent check every month. That's that's all I want.

Well, if you want to cash flow in California, this is. the new system to get you there.

So, okay, well, it's going to be very— don't forget, be there September 22nd.

Absolutely. I always like to remind you guys, this is a live show. Make sure to share it far and wide with any new or experienced investor and jump in the chat. You have full access to all of us, both Joe and I and our awesome guest. So let's go ahead and bring her in. Today we have Elizabeth Marks. Elizabeth, how you doing?

I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. Thanks for inviting me here.

Absolutely. We are very excited. Um, this is a great topic. topic because it's, you know, all about deal flow. This is where the whole engine, you know, the whole train takes off from this area. So why don't you just go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience? How'd you get into real estate? What were you doing before that? All that stuff.

Wow. Okay. Well, I've been in marketing for about 8 years or so and, uh, helping different industries. And a couple of years ago, I heard somebody talk on my mentor's platform, and then I started consuming his content and decided to jump into his paid community. And that's how I started in the real estate space. And then I tried my hand at wholesaling. So I know you know all about that. Didn't get very far. I did make cold calls like for 90 days. I called pre-foreclosures, Boy, was that tough! But the number one thing that I learned about that, that that ninety days of calling, it was fascinating. I was watching what was going on in my brain when you're making these calls, and the stuff you say to yourself, like the emotions and stuff that come up for just from dialing a phone number. It's really bizarre, but I could see it so clearly. I'm like, this is fabulous. Now I can see it, and I can just flip. the switch off and just keep dialing. I'm like, now that's a good skill.

Yeah, that's something I learned from Joe, is to turn your feelings off.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's very necessary.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Or you'll go insane.

I loved it. I know, exactly.

You know, if you take all this stuff personal.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, you can't. You just turn it off and move on to the next one.

Flipped the switch and I kept dialing.

Yeah, there you go.

So after I did that for a while, I decided that really wasn't something I wanted to do. So then I switched into lending to learn how to be a lender.

Okay.

So I've done a couple private money deals with my own money.

Okay.

And then the rest, I, you know, I connect people. So if you have a deal that needs funds, I know lots of people that have money so I can connect you to them.

That's a good thing.

That's huge. I mean, that's what people are always crying about.

Yeah.

I don't have deals. I don't have money.

It's out there.

Money is everywhere.

Yeah, right.

Thank you. It is. It is everywhere. And then money flows to good deals, you know?

That's right.

Yeah.

All right. Well, let's get into it. So you brought your marketing skills, you saw where it needed to be in the real estate investing space. What were some of the biggest problems that you saw working with, I guess, newer people or experienced people? What, what are some of the biggest problems?

Yeah, well, number one, I mean, everyone's doing everything so manually, like the cold calling, you know, I was just using a phone. Cold calling using your cell phone. And it's like, how do you do the follow-up? You go back to your phone and you retext on your phone. It's like, where's the tracking in that? So anything that's manual in that kind of process, that could be optimized, obviously. Put up a CRM, get a dialer. You can dial through the CRM. It's logging your calls. That's so much easier. You can go back and track everything. You can see what your numbers are. So yeah, any— anyone who's fairly new might be a little afraid of like getting into a system, a CRM. They don't know what to do with it. And it's like, don't be afraid. It can be set up and make your life so much easier. So that's the first place, definitely.

Okay, I agree. Yeah, it's having a system in place too after you do the first round of calls because some of these lists— I just gave a list to like maybe 4 or 5 different wholesalers. There's 17,000 records on there.

Yeah, that's a lot to go through.

That's a lot to go through. And then once you get to, you know, 2,000, you're like, wait a second, I was supposed to call— yeah, uh, Sally back.

All those notes, like the follow-up that, hey, can you call me back 2 weeks from now? And it's like, well, where does that live? You know. Hopefully the person that's making the calls is organized enough to be able to make a note and put it on their calendar and schedule the reminders, right?

Right.

But that's where the CRM comes in and helps out, right?

We've already figured all that out.

It's super easy to do that.

Okay. Yeah.

And so when somebody asks you for a list, don't you just tell them these are the numbers that are going to be successful when you call?

No, you have to go through.

Doesn't work that way?

No, unfortunately.

Have you ever heard that phrase, searching for the needle in a haystack.

Yeah.

Well, that's what we're doing when we're dialing all these numbers.

Okay. Yeah.

We're looking for the needle.

That's right.

Got it.

And some people, they grasp onto the straw, actually. We've seen that a lot where people are going through the haystack and it's just a piece of straw, but they're like, wait a second, this one could be it. I've dialed 100 people and I'm just going to throw all my energy into this. And then Joe looks at it, he's like, that's not a deal.

Sorry, try again.

Yeah, you gotta move on.

Okay, move on.

Right.

Okay, so, oh yeah, um, so let's stay on the CRM really quick. Yeah, because this is a whole— I've gone down. Yeah, I think it was maybe 2 years ago I tried 5 or 6 different ones, moved all my data from one to the next, and then went back to an original one. Are there any that you recommend, or, you know, especially for someone new and they're scared of this whole thing, is there any that you recommend?

I don't recommend systems specifically because they all pretty much do the same thing. What you need is a system you're going to actually use. So look at your own experience, right? You said you tried multiple ones. Which one did you actually use?

Yeah, yeah. I use a version of GoHighLevel.

Yeah.

Um, for the automation.

Okay.

And for the fact that they keep kind of building out different integrations.

Sure.

So then, you know, uh, you can have the system texting people while you're dialing.

Yeah.

You know, it's working in the background.

Yeah.

And it's—

Not to mention emailing. So—

Not to mention emailing, which I don't do.

That's the whole other side of working with a CRM is Defining and setting up the strategy behind how to reach out to people automatically, right? And do it at the right time. Do it when it's behavior-triggered so that the messages go out at the right time, right? Depending on what the person does, then the message goes out.

Can you give an example?

Say somebody is on your website and downloads some free resource that you happen to have. Well, that would be a behavior, right? They downloaded it. So then that would tell the system, okay, now we need to send them these 3 emails that follow up after that resource that they got. So you can nurture them along to take the next step with you.

That's pretty good.

Systems.

Systems.

Systems and processes. I'm a little bit of a geek in that regard.

I mean, but it's, it's It's necessary, you know, and you want somebody who's good at it and passionate about it to do it. I've always just taken that role because I am part nerd, AV nerd mostly. And so I was like, oh, I'll get in there and kind of, you know, try to work on these things. But I just, I don't, it doesn't resonate with me. I'd rather be on the phone with sellers trying to make a deal.

Yeah, you got to stay in your lane, right? You know, where you're— where's your zone of genius? That's where you should stay, right? And then hire out for everything else, right?

Absolutely. Okay, so when it comes to finding deals, how can people implement this, like specifically for real estate investing, flipping, buy and hold?

What—

what—

how can they start building a system out?

Well, there's a number of things I think that lead up to that, right? So first, if you're brand new, you need to start building some kind of brand awareness about who you are and how you help, right? So people will know who you are and what you do. So there's some social media that could be done, right? Well, you can Post on social media to make people aware of what you do. Maybe you're doing videos of behind the scenes and sharing about your journey in real estate investing, so people get a sense of who you are and they feel like they get to know you, and then they're drawn to you. So I mean, that's a piece of it. You want to have some kind of assets out there that people can read about and learn more about. Because your audience is at different levels in their journey. And so you got to think through your audience and where they are and figure out what kind of content they need at every step of that journey.

Hmm.

So there's some planning that goes into it, right? Some strategy first before you go build out all of your systems, right? There's the whole marketing ecosystem you got to think about. Um, yeah, that's what I like to help with, you know.

Perfect.

Um, come alongside you, listen to your business. Where are you? What are your goals? What, what have you done? Um, and then I'll look at it with a different set of eyes than you would, and I'd be able to see where some holes are and where we can come in and put some strategies in place to fill those holes, fill the gaps.

Would you— would somebody benefit from having just one niche that they go after? Like, let's say it is pre-foreclosures. Say for us, it's like mobile homes.

Right.

I don't only do mobile homes, but is that something I should double down on and then, you know, have like billboards and whatever it may be that you're like, mobile home king? Seller's advantage, you know, seller's advantage.

Now, I saw your post today on Instagram and it had 3 replies on it. You know, you said that you paid a wholesaler $60 grand on the last deal, and I saw that there was already 3 replies on there. You know, I'll find you something. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, if you want to pay me $60 grand.

$60 grand, come on.

No kidding. Yeah, yeah. No, Alex does a really good job.

No, it's great.

Really good job.

What's funny is, you know, Joe and I are working on a mobile home development. We ripped off a single-wide, put a brand new one on. I was posting about it and the guy that we bought it from commented. He's like, wow, I'm glad you were able to turn our humble abode into something beautiful.

And I was like— At least it was nice.

Yeah.

You know? At least he didn't say, damn, why didn't I think of that?

At least, you know, maybe he could have said, you know, where are we going to find the mobile home down in Tijuana or something? You know, it's like, well, that was nice that he said something nice.

I know, but it was, I don't know why I was so shocked is because when we're dialing these lists, we're talking to so many people and sometimes they get pissed off. So part of real estate investors are hiding in the shadow. They got LLCs, holding companies. They don't want to know anyone to know who they are.

Right.

But then you see some that are like Pace, you know, the big guys, Joe, out there, you know, like, hey, this is what I do and this is my brand. That's probably going to be better than the guy hiding in the shadows, right? Shucking and jiving.

Because the more people know of you, the easier it becomes to do deals, right? Because there's awareness there. So, but getting back to your question you asked, should you niche down or Stay broad or whatever. From a marketing perspective, it's so much easier to market if you're going to pick a niche, like one very specific type of person that you're trying to connect with. And you're not doing that to exclude all else. All you're doing is to make the message stand out so it gets people's attention. And then once you have their attention, you can lead them on the path, right?

Mm-hmm.

You could have conversation with them. Maybe they clicked on your message because it was written so specifically. They may not even be your ideal audience, but they still clicked it because the message was written in such a way to draw them in. So that's why it's really important to have a niche, like just who it is you're trying to speak to.

Right. Yeah, I mean, I saw that when I didn't want to be the mobile home guy. But then once I started saying that, people started sending us deals just randomly. Yeah, you know, I'm like, all right, just do it.

Yeah, so own it.

Just own it.

Yeah, why not?

Yeah, it brings people in, and then once they come in, then they get to see everything else that you do. Yeah, right.

No, I mean, the money's good, so I don't, I don't care. Yeah, yeah, love mobile homes. Don't gotta tell me.

Okay.

So what's your pro— or, okay, how about this one? Where do you think so many real estate investor marketing efforts fail to convert?

Well, from what I've seen from different clients I've served is they'll, Hire a VA to help them create content just so they can be posting stuff. And it's like, okay, posting stuff is one thing. That's one way to get visible, like, as you're posting stuff.

Mm-hmm.

But the real importance is the engagement. Like you said, the comments, like, who's engaging with the content? If you're just posting stuff and no one ever engages with it, no one reaches out to you, What's the point of it all, right? So in that sense, I see a lot of people will jump in and do stuff, do different marketing tactics, if you will, without like thinking through the strategy. Like, what am I trying to lead these people to, right? What do they need to hear now in order for them to get over here? What pieces of content should I create that's going to lead them that way? So it's a little more Strategic. Yeah.

What about when people are reaching out to sellers and, you know, they're texting, they're calling, they're doing all the things, but they can't get the written contract? They can't get anyone to sign. Is that, is that a workflow thing, or what, what's missing there?

Well, um, yeah, that's hard to say. I mean, You probably would know better than I would as far as like listening to the calls, like how are those conversations going? And then what's coming up on the calls? Because there could be things they're saying on the call that could influence what content you're going to create and push out to them through email or text or what have you that could help nurture them along to make that decision to get under contract, right? Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Are you doing any of that?

Right.

Any of that being captured and then shared with whoever's producing the content or writing the emails?

Right, right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and it kind of comes down to the VA thing as well. I see a lot of people jump into— they start dialing, they find out that it's hard.

Yeah.

And then they automatically get a VA.

Yeah.

But they don't really know The steps to take a person from A to Z.

Absolutely. If you don't know the process inside and out, then how can you hire for it? Because you have to train them to do the process, and if you don't have it down, how are they going to get it down? They're not even in your industry.

Yeah, no, exactly. And, and I think there's a lot of content out there that's just like, you need to start, you know, hiring as soon as possible, which may be true, but You know, you're not going to have those quality conversations with somebody that's, you know, maybe speaks a different language as their first language or from another country. It's just, I don't know, doesn't have the same impact.

Right.

When, when you were calling, how close did you get to a contract?

I was never close to a contract.

No.

No.

Do you know why?

I got, um, I got a couple names that I would then pass off to somebody who was a closer, right?

Oh, okay.

So I was just kind of the lead farmer, I guess, right? And then I pass them off to a closer.

Got it.

Yeah, I didn't stick with it long enough to hone the skill. I just knew, I don't know that this is what I want to be doing with my time.

So yeah, you got to try different stuff out and see if it works.

And actually, what's really funny about all that cold calling In my lending business, I'm doing a lot of cold calling.

Absolutely.

I'm reaching out to potential borrowers. But you know what? It's so much better because these people want to hear from me. I'm the money person. Everyone wants to talk to somebody who has money. So the calls are a lot easier. But I learned the skills of calling, you know, from the wholesale days.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. I was talking to somebody at the meetup actually that we all went to, and he's doing commercial real estate, big commercial real estate over in New York. And he's talking about how he's got a partner who making a ton of money, but every single day starts off his day by doing 200 cold calls to people. You're not above it. He's not above it. He realizes it. power and reaching out to people.

Absolutely. Most of the mentors I've had say you should be reaching out 50 to 100 people every day.

Yeah.

No matter what your business is.

Absolutely.

Really?

I agree.

50 to 100 people.

I need to start that back up.

Yeah.

You know what I did? I— we were cleaning out my office the other day and I have a stack of, um, business cards. And then I was like gonna make a video about that. Yeah, it's a huge stack. And I was like, I'm gonna go through this whole stack and call I don't know who it is.

Yeah.

And try to find a deal in that.

Yeah.

Is that a cool clickbait title?

Of course. I got folders of, uh, when I first got into marketing back in the day and I networked with people. I had cards. I have 3-ring binders of all these cards of these people. And I would just whip out the folder and start calling, see how everyone's doing. What's going on? Any projects brewing? How can I help you?

Right.

Yeah.

Do you want me to buy you a Rolodex?

Sure. Give me your old Rolodex that you had.

Yeah.

They're coming back.

I know because it's like, you know, we're doing all the digital stuff and I never go back. I just never really go back. I don't remember who I'm meeting unless I meet them a couple times. Like we met a couple times and then it finally like started picking up.

Yeah.

I just You put it in there, I scan it, but I never really go back to it. That's just a skill I need to pick up. I need to have a system for that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, one quick thing, like with your phones, if you're meeting people and you're getting numbers and stuff, I use Blink. I don't know, do you use Blink?

Yeah, I use Blink.

I love that thing because the names go into Blink, not necessarily my phone, because into the phone, it's like, that's black hole for me.

Right.

No, because if Am I going to remember someone's name? You know, 2 months later, do I remember that person's name? How am I going to find them in my phone? But with Blink, you know, it saves it by the date that you met them. And I'm like, oh, it was 2 months ago I met so-and-so. Let me just go. And I just scroll 2 months back. Oh, there it is. So that's what I really like about Blink.

I need to utilize that.

It makes it so much easier.

I use— remember the The podcast guest, and I think he's coming back, Link.me. That's what I use, Link.me. And I like Link.me because, like you said, where did we meet, you know, meetup or whatever? What was it about? You know, it's like, I flip mobile homes or whatever. So it's—

Oh, so it's saved in that app, Link.me? Those details are there?

It's saved in there. And then you could also put it in your phone as well.

You could do that with Blink too. Yeah.

Yeah. But yeah, it's— I like it.

Yeah, no, it's good.

You know, I've— I'm obviously old-fashioned and I like, you know, printed business cards the most. But, you know, people your age are always so digital that, you know, finally I'll just put it on my phone and here, scan this, you know. And then once they scan that, then they put all their information in. As well.

So that's great. Yeah, I need to start doing dials.

I'll get you a Rolodex.

There we go.

That's what I've been saying.

Yeah, Daddy needs to dial again.

I think so. You have been lacking lately. I didn't want to mention it, but now that you said this yesterday, now that you're, you know, diming yourself off, yeah, you need to get on that phone because you're so good at it.

Thanks, Jeff.

You are. You're really good. Okay, except for the old man who were in World War II, and they're telling you about all their war stories. And I'm going like, an hour later, I was like, cut it off, cut it off.

It's never gonna be a deal.

You know, I know a few of those were a deal. Move on.

Yeah, it took a while to get there, but Ted was a deal.

Ted?

Remember Ted?

Uh-uh.

He didn't have like— he'd pick up the phone, he had like a home phone.

Oh God.

Yeah, he wasn't—

he was like 90. He wasn't supposed to be driving.

Yeah, he was like, they found me today. Like, or no, no, he passed. He goes to this diner every day and he like passed out while he was at the diner.

Oh no.

Yeah.

And he—

so he was like, I'm not allowed. The kids took my keys away. Yeah, you probably shouldn't be driving if you're passing out randomly.

No kidding.

Good call.

But yeah.

That one did end up being a deal. Yeah.

He was a talker too.

Yeah.

He was just lonely, I think. I know. Poor guy.

Yeah, it's okay. So with the introduction of this AI monster, how is that affecting marketing and how can people utilize it in real estate investing?

Mm-hmm.

But not sound like ChatGPT?

Yeah, no, that's a really good question. So, um, AI is just like another tool. Yay, we got more tools we can play with! But, you know, remember what it was like when the internet came out?

He doesn't remember. No, I remember.

Yeah.

Well, you do.

I do. Thank you.

So it was a new thing, right? It's, it's a brand new thing. Same with AI. It's a brand new thing. It's a, you know, we can use it for all kinds of things. Of course, you need to learn how to use it the right way. You don't want to just use generic ChatGPT, type in something, and whatever it spits out, copy paste that and do your thing with it.

That's what I've been doing the whole time.

We don't want to do that. Okay, that's like immediately, you know, it was made by ChatGPT and not you as the human. So there are ways for you to utilize AI and give it some intelligence and make it sound like you. So there are custom bots that you can create where you teach it, you train it, you know, what you do, how you talk, how you answer things. And then that way, when you're using your custom bot, it can create content that sounds like you.

Yeah, that's a good idea. We should do that for you because Joe's got Hours of video.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we could make a database.

You could, you could. So many mentors are doing that now. I mean, I, I saw a dating coach that was doing that. He took all of his library of stuff and turned, you know, put it in and made that brain, you know. Um, so now he sells this service where you can, you can basically have him 24/7. Through his AI likeness.

Brain.

Yeah, that answers all the questions like he would.

Right. My AI brain, we can create it and then it'll always be here.

Talk about legacy.

Yeah.

It's going to outlive us.

Yeah. Let's talk to Joe's AI brain.

Yeah.

It doesn't eat lunch though. That's the difference.

That's true.

So yeah, okay.

It can do a lot of things for you. So that was just one thing, you know, as far as content. If you want, if you're having trouble figuring out what kind of content to post, you can ask it, you know, create me a content plan. Here's the space I'm in. Here's my target audience. What should I write about? It'll come up with ideas for you. It can generate some content. But again, you need a person looking at the content to see, does it match with what you're trying to do? Does it match with the strategy? Does it match with the audience you're going after? Does it even sound like you? Right? There needs to be some oversight, like a copy chief that looks over everything to make sure that it's right for your business.

Yeah, absolutely. We use that to answer back some of the texts when people are texting us. And sometimes it just goes off the wall.

Yes, sometimes it does.

Like, what are you talking about? But there's been times where it's booked an appointment.

That's great.

That's pretty insane.

Yeah. Awesome.

Yeah. So email marketing.

Yeah.

I never use that. I mean, have you ever gotten a deal from email?

No.

Okay. How can we implement that to get deals?

Um, yeah, well, if you have a CRM, you already have a system that's capable of doing that. So now you just need a little bit of strategy. So you got to build your list. So number one, there's rules around marketing through email, right? There's GDPR and CCPA, the laws and stuff around privacy and protection of people's information. So you can't just— if someone gave you their business card, you can't take that business card. Now I'm going to send them emails all the time.

Oh, people have done that to me.

I know they do. It's a pet peeve of mine. That's, that's not proper. You're not, you're not following the laws, um, around CAN-SPAM Act and CDPA and all that stuff.

But if somebody gives you a business card, I would think that that's the reason they're giving you a business card, to stay in contact.

Contact you, yes. And there's nothing wrong with contacting them, but to market to them—

Oh, I see. Okay, I got it.

Got it. Yeah, they didn't give you consent to market to them.

Yeah, yeah.

So The way— the best way to do that is to offer something free, something, some valuable content. Yeah, that helps them out and they want it and they give you their email address for it. That's the best way.

Got it.

Yeah. So that's something that's permission-based. Yes, always permission-based.

Yeah.

So that freebie, you know, that could be like your book there that I'm looking at right there. That could be a freebie.

Great book, by the way.

Looks great. I can't wait to read it.

Yeah, it's a great book.

That could be a freebie. You give somebody your book and then now they're on your list. And from once they're on your list, now you can plan how you want to market to them, right? They're— because they gave you permission, send me your book, right? So, um, that's where strategy comes in again. We figure out like what it is we want to do What do we— what objections do they have in their head that we have to overcome?

Right.

What do we need to teach them? What problems can we solve, right? And we map these things out. And then there's different automations that we can do. A welcome series would be good, like just starting. If you haven't done any email marketing at all, do a welcome series. So if somebody comes onto your list, then you— there's 3 or 4 emails that are already written So they get a sense of who is this person that I signed up to? Like, what are they about? How do they help? Like, serve up some good content. Here's some resources other people found helpful. You know, give that to them, right? So that it warms them up and gets them ready. And then we kind of touched on the behavioral-based triggers, right? So if they do certain things, then we can send other emails based on what that was. Those are different campaigns that can be set up. So you can think through different types of campaigns that you can run. And again, it's all automated.

Do you have a preset campaign list that you present to your clients and stuff? It's like, here, this is the campaign that you should be running, and here's all the emails and stuff. Do you pre-do that for them?

Yes, yes, I can do that. But then we also have to leave room for, you know, the things that happen in business, right, over time. Like, you don't have everything planned out all the time, right? There's certain events that pop up that you didn't know you were going to do, right? So you need, you need space for that to be able to send emails around things that weren't originally planned. Does that make sense? So you don't— you're not completely automating everything and you're never sending out a single message out again. It's, um, you use automation to enhance the communication, right? So you're reaching out by phone, you're texting, you're sending out an occasional email. Maybe you're inviting them to an event, right?

Yeah.

And any of the other campaigns that we could do?

My, my son is working up an email campaign for me because, uh, I'm a broker and I have got about 350 agents and I'm hiring more as we speak. And he is going to get, um, closings on the MLS and then reach out to these agents that just closed deals saying, hey, we're here at Pelago and we can save you thousands of dollars if you come join us.

Mm-hmm.

And he's, he's Making it as automatic, you know, as possible.

Yeah, yeah, that's good. So, you know, think like the people you're reaching out to. What are the pains and problems that they have that you know you can solve? And serve up some good stuff that like, yeah, come on over here, we'll help you out. Yeah, right. Yeah, just, um, I guess my caution would be don't try and sell them in the first email. Like, you want to give them multiple pieces of helpful material because that's the art of giving, right? Being a go-giver.

Yeah.

And then there's a reciprocity that happens, right? So if you're always giving, they're like, ah, this Joe guy seems like a good guy. He helped me with this, this, and this.

I'm giving them thousands of dollars in commission savings. That's what I'm giving them. You know, they just have to wake up to the fact that We exist. Yeah.

Brand awareness.

Yes. We were talking about that earlier. Brand awareness.

Yeah.

What are some trends that you're seeing that can be implemented in the real estate investing space when it comes to marketing?

Yeah. Well, I'm probably going to sound like a broken record because I guess email is my specialty. I like email. I think that can be leveraged a whole lot more than it is. So I guess in a nutshell, it's looking at how you can implement email marketing and what kind of campaigns you can run to keep nursing that audience, nurturing them until they're ready.

Yeah, that's pretty good. I never email. And I think it would actually work on people. Let's say you're doing a cold call, you're cold texting, you actually talk to somebody, they might feel more comfortable receiving an email than these constant texts.

Yes, absolutely.

That are coming out because everyone's checking their email every day, probably 100 times a day.

Well, everybody likes to be communicated in the way they like to be communicated. So it's not always about the phone. It's not always about a text. It's not always about email. But when they all work together, that's when magic happens.

Right.

So we need multiple touches. The repetition, that's what's going to get people to remember you. And that's going to— how you'll get stuck in their brain.

Yeah. So what do you say to people that feel like they're annoying? people when they're following up?

Um, that's an issue inside of you that you get to work on.

Okay.

Because that's not, that's not true. It's simply not true. Um, there's stats out there that show, um, people who like a certain brand, they, they want to communicate with those brands. So it's like, why aren't you?

Yeah. So, oh, and that's, I mean, that's something like Joe and I always talk about. It's like, you gotta keep following up. You know, I think it's at least 10+ times touching someone.

Yeah.

To get a deal.

It is.

So if you're not even getting there, you're, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Yeah. If you stop short, then it's like that little graphic of that, that guy with the pickaxe and then he walks away and he's like literally an inch away from gold.

Right.

Don't do that. Just keep following up.

Just keep following up. And I've had people, and this is what I explained to, to newer wholesalers or whatever, I've had people say, they're like, wow, thanks for following up. I've just been really busy. So while you keep, you know, hitting me up, I'm not like ignoring you. I just, it's not the right time. And then finally it is the right time.

Yes, exactly.

So There you guys go. But yeah, it's, it's, it's so true. And the best part is, and we're talking about all this, is like you can automate most of those touches. So you don't even have to be thinking about it. You don't need any more brainpower to think about it.

Yeah.

Is there a way that you— do you put it in some sort of like spreadsheet or something? Or how are, how are you making the chain of Reaching out?

Well, in, in the workflows in the CRM, there's a way that graphically lays it all out so you can see if it's a phone call, a text, or an email.

Okay.

It's all mapped out in there.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay. And so I've seen that in GoHighLevel. Is that one that you're specifically talking about?

Yeah, absolutely. I use that for my lending business.

Oh, you do? Okay. Nice.

Yeah, but there's lots of them out there. Yeah, there's something called REI Reply, I think.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, someone uses that.

Um, yeah, there's a ton.

There's a ton.

There is.

But yeah, it's really just finding which one you like, one that you're gonna use. Excuse me.

Okay, gotcha. Uh, this is the part of the show where we've curated a few videos, and I want to get your honest reaction.

Okay.

Right now.

Right now. Honest.

All right.

What do we got, producer?

All right, first up we have lies about marketing and real estate investing.

Let's see. 3 lies about real estate investment marketing and how they could be holding you back from millions of dollars. So as an most investors go out and look for deals. If you're a really experienced investor, you're more likely to go find deals without a realtor and actually go market to find deals. That is the best way to do it, hands down. But here's the lie: most investors are looking for a secret list, or they're looking for some way to find distressed sellers. The best market to hit is not distressed sellers. Distressed sellers are people that are in foreclosure, people that have tax liens, things like that. You don't have to go after distressed sellers. You actually should be going after regular people that have equity in their home. Think about it. People want to sell their home all the time for many different reasons. A lot of times distressed owners don't want to sell because they've got— that's their only place, that's their only option. They're trying to see how they can hold on to their house. Go after people that have equity in their homes. You'll get people that are older, you'll get people that don't want it. You'll make more.

3 lies Okay, well, I only heard— did I even hear a lie?

There was one. That was part one.

One.

That was one lie. Well, um, and he was saying, um, don't go after distressed sellers. I think that goes right back to our talk about niching, right? Figure out your niche that you want to go after. Like, don't get all caught up in the shiny Object syndrome and do what everyone else tells you to do. Go figure out your niche and then go figure out, okay, how do I reach them?

Right.

I think he was saying the same thing.

What did you think, Joe?

I agree. Okay. No, definitely, I agree.

Yes.

I think you should go after distressed sellers.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm the opposite of what he said.

Sorry.

No, that's fine.

It depends on what you want to do in your business.

Yeah, but you know, distressed sellers are like this. They're like, come help me.

They're in most need.

Quick distress.

Yeah, definitely.

Why am I going to go down a neighborhood and just talk to regular people when I already know that this person is getting foreclosed on? Why wouldn't I pick on them first?

Yeah.

Well, you're not picking, you're coming to aid.

I'm picking. I'm picking on them.

They have the most need, so why not go after Where the need is.

No, I mean, I understand what he's saying. They're sometimes the most difficult to work with. But at the end of the day, have they not been the most profitable for us at the end of the day? I think so. Yeah.

And it probably depends on how you approach it too, your mindset. Like, if you're coming out, coming at it with the perspective, like, I want to help this person, you know, I'm trying to, I'm We're always there to help.

That's why Alex is with me, is, you know, they hate me. They love Alex. You know, they gotta say, I don't want to talk to that Joe guy. Alex, Alex, let me just talk to you. I go, okay.

I need a little more money.

They got a good cop, bad cop thing going on.

There you go.

Yeah, it works.

It works very good.

Yeah. I mean, one thing I did I do agree with is he's saying everyone is going for this magic list.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, okay, it could be pre-foreclosure, it could be probate, it could be divorce, whatever it is. There is no magic list. It's you just picking up the phone and, and talking to people. Yeah.

Doing the work.

Doing the work.

And you know what? It could be said about marketing too. So a lot of people are looking for like, what's that thing in marketing that I can do that's just going to blow it all up. And it's like, it doesn't quite work that way. You have to have all these pieces that are working in concert with one another. And eventually the magic happens.

Do you think Cracker Barrel should have changed their logo?

I don't know.

Well, they gave up. They're changing it back.

They are?

I heard that this morning. They're changing it back.

Yeah.

They're putting the old man and the barrel back in their logo. Well, if you If you're gonna call a place Cracker Barrel, then that's the logo. If you want to change it to something else, then fine. Yeah, you know, no cracker and no barrel.

Yeah.

Okay, if you're already known for something, why would you change it? Really start all over again?

Really?

Well, and I think that was the original owner's, like, uncle or something, and everyone was like, it's racist. I don't know what the reason they tried to change it was.

I'm assuming they just thought it was I think it was like modernizing it because they— I've seen floating around on X like some, you know, renderings. They were going to completely redo the insides and it was just going to be like a sterile, like nothing on the walls, none of the trinkets.

Like, then it wouldn't really be a cracker box.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Just, you know, start another restaurant, call it something else. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, leave our traditions alone.

I'm glad they're changing it back. Because sometimes they double down and they're, you know.

Yeah, no, they— yeah, I think, I think the next announcement is the CEO is stepping down.

Yeah, the outrage was pretty amazing.

Yeah, that's an excellent— like, yeah, no kidding.

It was just one of those like, this is so unnecessary, nobody asked for this. No, no, nobody's talking about Cracker Barrel and now it's—

well, you have to justify your job, so if you're the head of whatever, marketing Well, they, they gotta be like, you know, just do the same thing we did last year.

Yeah, well, the stock price was going down and they thought that, you know, this might be a way to get brand attention. Well, that was, but the wrong brand attention.

So stuff.

All right, we ready for the next video?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay, this one is Master Your Follow-Up Game.

The art of following up is really just staying consistent. If I've had the initial conversation, I do voice memos, I do texts, I do email. It doesn't always have to be like a call and then you text. It's just like touch, touch, touch, touch, call occasionally, like touch with a text, voice memo, email, DM. Go out there, follow up, and don't feel like awkward. You're doing the work that's got to be done. Nobody's just going to knock on your door and say, I'm ready to sell.

Right?

You're going to be the one that's going to be able to take it to the finish line by being persistent. The art of following up is really just thoughts.

Well, I agree with these— what he said, definitely. We were talking about that earlier. It's like the work must get done, right? People need multiple touches. You have to stay in front of them so that they— so you stay top of mind with them, right? So we reach out Through multiple methods in order to stay top of mind.

Yeah. I think it's really just a mindset shift. If you've never done this sort of reach out, you got to go through it and you got to be fine with the rejection or just them saying nothing. That changes you as a person.

It does. It does.

Maybe you find out you don't like it.

What does Chad say about calling somebody three times in a row? What does he what does he say that that triple tap triple tap triple tap.

I've heard of double dial, but I didn't hear about triple tap.

Yeah, not to Chad. He's one of our co-callers, and he does a fantastic job.

Yeah, the triple tap. And then I think I think one time he called someone like five times and scared him. Yeah.

Wow, I know.

Really wants to get a hold of me.

Yeah, I know. And she's like, I'm in a meeting right now. What's going on? And I was like, are you still interested in selling?

Who are you, damn fool?

Yeah, that was that one. I was like, sorry about that.

Yeah, I'd be trying to get my wife's in labor right now. What's going on?

Another emergency. Yeah, triple tap is the new one dial.

Got it.

So we don't count that as one dial unless you call them three times in a row.

Yeah.

It's just what you got to do to get through the noise now.

Thank you, Chad.

Yeah, thank you, Chad. That's just because everyone's getting spammed now, right? And you'll get one, you know, one, one-off call, and sometimes I'll answer it, no one's there. Who is that? Who's calling me? Do you know? It'll be like from a 949 number. And I'll call and no one's there. But so you got to call multiple times. This is my point.

Anyway, we—

I think we have one more.

One more. Okay. This one is private money lending gone wrong.

Oh, I have seen and I have heard stories on Facebook of Gator lending gone wrong.

Maybe this will bring us back to the relationship and not knowing the person.

But what do you think about those stories?

Horror stories. I think people get too excited too quick thinking, hey, I'm making 40% return on my money in 4 weeks. That's a $1,200, 1,200% return on your money annually. Not many people are going to have access to that kind of return. I think most people make the mistake because they see the return and they don't vet the deal. They're just excited about the return, so they just wire the money and now your money's gone. But this is what I say is with great return comes with great risk. You said that earlier. And then with smaller return, typically safer. Me, I say the people that have— I mean, even like, I've never lost money on this deal, but I've never lost money on lending deal. But I did lose on my opportunity to make the money. I pulled all my money out before I lose it. I think all the money, all the deals that I didn't make my money on, it was because I made too quick of a decision.

And why was that?

Hesitation? I made too quick of a decision, so I just jumped in right in.

I have seen and I—

Oh yeah, I agree with the second part about jumping in too quick. Okay. Right. So when you are lending, you, you have to vet the people that you're working with, not just the property. Like, the type of lending we do is usually asset-based. So we focus a lot on the asset itself. Like, do the numbers make sense? Is there enough spread there? Can they cover the cost of renovation and whatever else is going on in the deal? So we do focus a lot on that. But you also have to look at the players in the, you know, who's selling it, who's doing the renovation, what's their experience level, you know, to know if it's a good deal or not. So.

Mm-hmm.

Due diligence.

Due diligence.

Definitely due diligence.

And one way to get the credibility is to post what you're doing. That's what I found.

Yeah.

You know, every time I post a project that we've done, more people reach out and they're like, hey, what does it look like to, you know, if I lend some money with you?

And that goes back to what I was saying before. When you're documenting your journey and you're sharing that with your audience, that's all about brand awareness. That's going to build trust too.

Yeah.

So you said you did 2 private money deals with your own money. How did those go?

The first one was great. It was like ideal. It's like I needed it, like proof of concept that this works, right? And it— everything lined up. It was awesome.

Was it a flip or what kind of deal was it?

Yeah, it was, um, it was a renovation. So this investor bought like Like this neighborhood of properties.

Okay.

And then he has a construction arm that would go in, already had agreements that he could go into each unit during the day when they're at work. He could go in and renovate. So everything's fully occupied, rented, and he had the agreements to be able to update them.

Whoa.

60-day cycle, which was perfect because that's what I wanted. I want to put my money in, 60 days later, get my money back. with a nice return. And that's exactly what happened. There was one little hiccup at the end that the county that they were in got hacked, like cyber hacked or whatever.

Okay.

And they couldn't file any paperwork right at the end until the county resolved that.

Interesting.

So they were late 2 weeks.

Okay.

But I didn't mind because I got late fees.

Yeah.

Right? So my very first deal was great. It was a 20% return, Plus the late fee.

Heck yeah.

I'm like, yeah, let's do this again. So, um, then unfortunately the people that I was working with, um, were going through cancer treatments and they couldn't continue the operation. They had to pause everything.

Okay.

So remember what that video was talking about, about like being like, um, too quick to jump in?

Yeah.

So there I was, I had my money and I needed to turn it and I needed to get another deal.

Yep.

Ah, I didn't, uh, take my time to look for the next right deal.

Okay.

Instead, what I did is I found somebody in my community that was spotlighted and was doing what we call gator wrestling. So gathering multiple people together to get the total amount and putting it in a deal, and it was like 22% return. Um, it was a 120-day, so it was longer than what I would normally want, but it was 22% return. And I'm like, okay, I'll do it.

Till they get you.

I'll do it. And I did. And guess what? That was over a year ago.

Oh, you still waiting for your money?

What's the project?

It was a, it was a, um, um, a flip in Philadelphia, and the general contractor, the first general contractor—

Oh yeah, classic.

Did shoddy work, right? And the city kept coming in, shutting us down. Oh, we'd have to get multiple permits. Because the guy wasn't doing good enough work. Then he took off.

Yeah.

And so the, the borrower had to go find another GC. And then that's hard, finding a GC to come in and correct someone else's bad work. That's hard to do. And we got a video, um, last month that showed the state of the property. I'm just like, oh my gosh.

After a year.

After a year. And it is literally down to the studs. Everything's still open. There's not even a roof on the dang thing. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. After a year, it's still sitting in that state.

Wow.

Wowee zowie.

Yeah.

Okay.

That was not good.

So the gator wrestling, that's not just for EMDs. That's like, they'll just put it together to—

This is like for private money lending.

Okay.

Where if You've got your hard money lender in first.

Yeah.

And then the gap funding, the gap funding comes in after. So there were 5 of us on that deal.

Right. And of course, it's like the person that gets spotlighted and all that stuff. I mean, stuff does happen.

Yeah, it happens. But, you know, I'm not blaming that person. I'm blaming this person right here.

Okay.

So it was all on me. I didn't do the due diligence. I took the classes. I know about I know about safety. I know about due diligence. I didn't do it.

What would you have uncovered with more due diligence? Is the person known to be a little—

Well, I don't even know, like, in the situation I'm in, I don't even know how I could have done due diligence.

Right.

You know, because this other person was the keeper of all the contacts and—

I see.

Right? Like, how do I get the information?

Yeah.

I guess you have to ask.

Thank you, Joe. Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.

You just have to ask.

Yeah. Right.

But anyway, it's all good. No, no, it's still in play.

Yeah, it's not resolved yet. And one day it will be. And it's part of my story. Like, I had to be, like Pace says, the knucklehead that had to learn it this way.

You should take a trip over there.

There you go. Show up.

You know, spend a couple days, go look at the property, and then write the whole thing off.

Oh my gosh, I saw the video. It was horrible.

Just write the whole thing off.

Yeah, take a tour of the Liberty Bell.

Yeah, whatever. Is that there?

Philadelphia? I'm pretty sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So anyway, I guess the point is there's going to be good deals and there's going to be bad deals, but you're playing the game. You can mitigate the by doing the due diligence and know who it is that you're entering into an agreement with. It's like, do some background check, you know, check the people out, right? I didn't even know the names of the person that was borrowing the money, right, in the second deal, right?

Right.

So it's like, why did I put my money in and I didn't even know who I was giving it to?

Yeah. So you just know an LLC.

Yeah.

Is that, is that all you knew?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And anyone can make that anyway.

Okay.

That's good.

Don't do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I guess you could just do deals with people that you know personally and then you'd feel better about it.

Absolutely.

All right.

Good to know. Do we have any questions from the chat?

Yeah, we have a couple. Liz is asking, how do you use automation without losing the human touch in your campaigns?

Oh, that's a good question. Excuse me. You work with somebody who is a professional.

There you go.

It's a good answer.

Yeah. If you hire somebody that has a background in direct response copywriting, we're trained in the art and science of persuasion. We know how to get inside the head of the person that we're writing to so that we can craft those messages that are really going to tickle their brains and make them want to interact with you. That's what I do.

Can you give us one example of one that always works when somebody's like not responding?

Yeah, now I see why you called this the hot seat. I noodle, so I don't do so good in the moment.

No, no, I got you. Well, one that I use, and I just got it from, I think it's Chris Voss or whatever, where you just say, have you given up on selling 123 Main Street?

Yeah, I was going to say, are you still interested?

Yeah.

Something like that. Questions, curiosity.

Yeah, we like that one. What else we got?

We got Steph in the chat. She says, Link.me captures prospect info straight to your CRM, immediately into your systems.

Right on.

Oh, there you go. Do you have it integrated with your CRM?

Yes, absolutely.

Oh, cool.

Perfect.

Yes.

Love that.

Yeah.

Well, I have to look and see. Maybe we can integrate Blink into our GoHighLevel.

Oh yeah, true.

I'm sure there's probably a way.

That would be good, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah, I got like 2 CRMs going, one for private money lenders. I think I need to put you in there still. And then one for prospects and sellers. Okay, so maybe I could have another one for—

Why do you need multiple CRMs? Why don't you have them all in the same? Because—

I never thought of that. I don't know.

You can use tagging and segmentation.

Oh, duh. Duh.

Okay. So yeah, you just segment your list and say, these are all the lenders, these are all the—

I think he likes paying for 2 services.

Well, you can just cancel one.

Well, I got one of them for free. I'm not paying for 2. I'm not, I swear.

See, he's looking at producer saying, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.

Do you know how many double subscriptions I've caught him with? Double YouTube Premium, double Adobe Photo.

Right.

Double, like, video editing software.

That's the problem of having your credit card automatically in the internet.

It's true.

Because I'm like, I need it right now.

True. Yeah.

Send, you know. And then, like, later, 4 bills later, I'm like, oh, I'm paying for this twice.

But it means you did that I need it right now twice. Twice. And one of the times you already had it.

Yes.

That's how I work.

That's happened.

Yeah. Thank you. All right, well, how can people reach out if they want to get your amazing service?

Well, um, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Okay, I'm at Elizabeth A. Marks on LinkedIn. Okay, you could go to my website at eammarketing.com. Yeah, um, and I think I had a, a, um, freebie that I was going to give away.

Right.

Do you have that handy?

Um, I don't, but—

In that paper.

Oh, oh yeah, yeah. No, that's all in the— it's all in the show notes.

Oh, okay. In the show notes, then you'll see there's a link. You can get a copy, a free copy of 10 Deadly Sins of Lead Follow-Up and How to Fix It Fast.

Nice. Nice.

See, you're one of the probably— how many guests have brought a freebie? 3 or 4.

Yeah, we've, we've gotten some books and stuff.

Yeah, but not for that, but not for the audience.

This is a first.

This is great.

There you go. That's how you do it.

This is the first.

Yeah. So check down in the description. The link is in there. You know, it's free. So everyone go in there and click and make sure you're doing your follow-ups correctly and start fixing it today. Reach out to Elizabeth. What about for private money deals? Is that still on the table?

Oh yeah, absolutely. If you're interested in that, I think there's going to be a link in there too, right?

Okay.

But my website for that is expandingfreedom.com.

Nice. That's for your lending.

Yes. Gotcha.

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for joining us. This was great. Very informative.

Yeah.

Had a blast. Yes. All right, you guys, make sure to share this far and wide. Go get that freebie in the description box, and we will be back here 2 weeks. I won't be here next week.

Oh, I won't be here either.

So sad. Sad. So in 2 weeks, and then we got a bunch of great guests coming up. So thank you for joining us today. We'll see you on the next one.

Take care. See you. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.

949-625-4533.