Jason Secor's Keys to Mastering the Buyer Side

All right, I think we are live with Jason Secor. Hey Jason, I wanted to have you on here. You've done a real awesome job focusing on what is my core building block number one for the ultimate business blueprint. And specifically, I know you started off by sort of doing all your inside sales and lead converting and following up on your own, sort of owning that for your team. And you've since spent the last couple years really offshoring and going offshore with your inside sales efforts. So give me like 30 seconds on why you chose real estate and what you think ultimately this business can do for you.

I think. Well, first off, I was in a totally unrelated thing. I was pursuing church work and ministry and God has a sense of humor and I said I was never going to be in business. So here I am. So red Rich dad, poor dad, through a series of events led me into real estate via the mortgage business and fallen in love with marketing and realizing through rich dad, poor Dad. I wanted a business that supported me, not a self employed position that I had to go work for. So I wanted to build a business that I could step away from, live the life I wanted with my wife and kids. So that's kind of how I found real estate and what I'm looking for it to do for me.

Awesome. All right, cool. So take me back and kind of explain your so what I teach is a buyer platform, buyer Internet leads, some sort of way to generate massive amount of buyer leads, convert those leads to face to face appointments, get them to be loyal to you, sell them a house. That's sort of the basis. That's how I built my business and that's what you've been working on and specifically the offshore model. So talk to me about the evolution of buyer Internet leads in your business and how it's going to serve as the foundation of your business going forward.

Yeah, absolutely. I started back in before 2004, 2005 I guess is when it was doing online web marketing for leads and evolved kind of through the things you pretty much. I've owned every different platform out there for buyer lead gen with the exception of Boomtown, which I know a lot of other people have. And so now we currently use Commissions Inc. I think the big thing is realizing first off a buyer leads, a buyer lead. So it doesn't matter which platform you have. An Internet buyer lead is an Internet buyer lead. And I would even I know this is one of the pillars you teach is sign calls. Those are great leads. So I think the thing is getting the buyer leads and for us, it's evolved into where it's going to be a self sufficient pillar in our business through the systems we set up. And offshoring has been a big part of that, which is why we're talking today.

Yeah. So go a little bit into your early days frustration with your agents and how they didn't kind of do what was required and then kind of go into you kind of bringing back the reins and then ultimately teaching your offshore ISAs. Go through that for me.

Yeah. You know, very early when we started online lead generation is we brought in multiple agents and we were handing them the leads and saying, okay, here's the process, here's exactly what you do, here's the script, here's the emails, here's everything you do. Go, go make it happen. And we had the accountability meetings each week and people would come back and their leads wouldn't be followed up on. After about six months of this and beating our heads against the wall, I went into them and we basically said, hey, look, I'm a DI personality. And the D in me came out and I was just like, okay, I'm taking this over, I'm going to show you how it's done and then we're going to reevaluate how this is working. Within 90 days of taking that back over, we'd already closed multiple deals, we had a pipeline full of buyers and it was just from the follow up. Very early in my marketing lead generation career, I became of the mindset that the follow up, lead setting, appointment setting, inside sales, whatever you want to call it, should be controlled by the rainmaker team leader in some capacity. Because just as a whole, agents are good at a lot of stuff, but generally if they're good at writing contracts and good at the appointments, they stink at this call the calling leads and then if they're good at calling leads, they don't want to go do the appointments and the showing the houses and that stuff. So I just saw real quickly that there was a distinct division of labor right there and just started building my business based on that from that point forward.

So tell me as a result of doing that, so you've gone deeper in this model than. So I have a local buyer. I say we're a couple years behind you as far as offshoring. So that's my one project for this year, is actually working with you as sort of my mentor to help me figure out the offshore model. So as a result of breaking up the job of outside sales and inside sales, how has that helped Your profitability, what are you able to pay your agents? Because that's one thing. So when I coach teams around the country, even some big freaking teams selling 200, 250 homes ain't got no profits. So it's all cool to sell 250 homes, but if you don't have any money at the end of the day, and the number one reason is because they're not really laying out the value chain. So that mastermind a couple years ago in January where you were just kind of busting out your numbers on the buy side, where average commission check in your market is about $6,000 and you were kind of breaking it up. And the thing I remember most about that, which really stuck in my mind, which is why I value your opinion in this area so much, was that your ability to generate a lead, convert the lead or follow up the lead, get them to come to your office, sit and listen to a presentation and sign a loyalty agreement of the 6,000 bucks that's on the table. There is a lot of value wrapped up in that part of it. They're showing the homes and writing a contract. Contract to close. I think you've got handled with admin. So the part that the agent does, you don't have to pay a whole lot for that part. So how do you work compensation on your team?

Basically, our agents receive 25% of the commission. I know a lot of people on the call webinar of gasping going, how do you get away with that? What I would tell you is we've got to retrain the industry to think in terms and the people we build on in terms of seeing the value and 100% of no deals that they convert on their own aren't going to go buy groceries. They've never accepted 100% split at any grocery store near me. So you've got to talk in terms of dollars generated. And so we've got to speak to potential agents on our teams in terms of if you're going to go this model in terms of how much money do you need to generate? Okay, great. This is how many transactions and this is how our system that sets appointments up for you is going to deliver, which we have all that track, which, you know, using our smartsheets and you use Google Docs. And so we can show an agent looking to come on board our team those numbers and how it's going to equate to net income, which. Which is what they ought to care about.

Yeah, and I've got a similar. I'm going to bring up your document. You can't see it here, but this is Jason's version of my buyer appointment tracker. I actually copied, modeled mine after his. But he tracks every opportunity. So an ISA makes an appointment, they go onto a form online. So they can't get into this actual spreadsheet, but they can go on a form online. They fill it in, then the company, your team, manages the outcome and takes notes and makes sure the most was made of every opportunity. So you'll have access. Everyone on this call have access to a similar tracker through my system. Okay, last 30, 60 seconds here, Jason, you know, someone who's, you know, Maybe they're doing 10, 12 deals, they're kind of maybe getting a little busy. They're thinking about going down this path of, of maybe acquiring one of these big platforms, starting a team, bringing on buyer agents, getting some inside salespeople, hiring some staff. All the awesomeness and craziness that goes along with that. Give a couple words of advice to someone that's looking to do that on this webinar.

You know, I think the, you know, obviously, the. Obviously, the first thing and you know, I believe in this, is you need to get a coach of some sort just to kind of make sure you're making. Make sure you're not going down the path that's going to lead you to disaster. And it's also easy to get sucked into device side, which you and I have had tons of conversations on. So it's really making sure you've got that roadmap. Whether you create the roadmap or you have a coach help you create the roadmap or whatever. And don't go the ISA route too soon. I mean, there's something to be said for just putting on the work boots, picking up the phone and dialing for dollars, and doing it yourself until you're at a level where it makes sense to go out and do that. And your profitability allows you to do that without putting stress on your business. The other thing I'd say is list to last. That's still a true statement in this business. Don't get so caught up in the shiny buyer platforms, although that is the pillar that I started my business with. And overlook the listing opportunities right before your eyes because those listings will give babies in the forms of buyers and other listing opportunities. That would be. My big advice, is don't jump out of the buy side and do an ISA too soon and not convert yourself and be the rainmaker. And then don't get so hung up on the shiny buyer syndrome in the terms of I got so many leads through my new whatever website that you don't pay attention to the tried and true listing side of the business.

Yeah, and shiny objects are the kiss of death. I'm going over that on today's agenda. And the other thing you mentioned there, which you didn't go too deep into it. And you and I both were our main ISAs for several years in our business, and that's something that every agent is looking to abdicate that responsibility way, way, way too soon. So if you're going to lead a team and have them prospect and follow up or go the ISA route at some point, the core building block number one is essential. But like Jason said, and what I teach is in place. You're working expired, you're working FSBOs, you're working your sphere, you're getting listings. You're using the right scripts on all those buyers to make sure you're listing homes that they have to sell. So, Jason, man, I appreciate your time. That's all I got for you today. But keep on just kicking butt there in Birmingham, and we'll talk to you soon.

Sounds great. Thanks, man.

Thanks, man.