The Database 60 Touch Blueprint with Dave Hooke - Part 2

Welcome back to Real Estate Business Builders. This is Lars Hedinborg, founder, Real Estate B School. This is part two of the database 60 Touch Blueprint with Dave Hook. Dave was one of our really just, just a cool guy, just a brother from another mother. Really love this guy and his ability to really just focus on one thing at a time and build his business out in a way systematically. Where he built it to the point where he spends about 60 minutes week in his business and it nets him over seven figures a year. And this is the core element of his business. I think about 50% of his business is generated by this tool. So this is part two. If you missed part one, go back one episode, make sure you get part one. And this is part two. And you're going to really enjoy this. So stay tuned for part two of database 60 touch blueprint.

Right now I'd love for you to engage with me just a second. Go to your phones. Bring your phones up. I want to see your phones. Go to your, go to your, your phone app and hit your contacts if you're an iPhone user. And go in the upper left to where it says lists and click on that and it should give you a number like you, I don't know if you could see mine. It says 3075 in the list right there. It should give you a number. If for some reason that doesn't work, just hit contacts and scroll all the way to the bottom of your contacts real fast. And at the very bottom it'll give you that same number. And type that in the chat for me. Just show me how many is in your list. 17, 53, 31, 74, 29, 45, 63. 5874. Patricia or 9800 somebody. 29, 36, 44, 1 57. I love it. 1875. So good. So like every human knows about two hundred and eighty other humans like that. We have a capacity to do that when we look at our phone. And I've done this exercise over and over again with people, I promise you. Like very few people get into your phone with their name and you've never spoken to them before in your life. Usually there's some communication to get in your phone. There's, there's actually a few exceptions to that. But if you put all of the people in your phone on a spreadsheet and you go through this is like the hard nine hours of work and you just highlight. I recognize them. They would recognize me. I recognize them. They would recognize me with, with a yellow highlighter. Steven Levine, 26,000 people. Sorry, that stopped me in my tracks. I've never seen anybody with that many context. So if you just go and highlight Those at least 40 or 50% of the people in your phone, you're likely going to recognize substantially. And so between exhibit A, that I'll give you your mobile phone list. Going into social media always cracks me up. I'll go in and look at all the friends I have in there and I'll realize like a hundred of them are not in my database and yet I recognize their name. They would recognize me if I saw them out in public. This is one of my favorites. Go into your email and type A if you use Gmail and see how many names A, come up in your Gmail and then B and then C and then D. We do this, do this with our agents and you'll be surprised how many people you communicate with over email that would recognize you as well. Yearbooks, wedding invite list, church directory, spouse and family connections, and they go into a spreadsheet. Then we literally do this hard work, which I promise is no harder than cold calling for an open house, right? Or any other lead source that we're doing. This is no more monotonous than that. It seems hard, but it's the same type of work, right? So we're highlighting the names that know like and trust and then we're either giving this to a VA or an admin or I did this myself. I'm going into the public record, okay? It feels really monotonous. I got like 200 people and I'm going in and I'm finding them in the public record or finding their phone information that's already in my phone. And if I don't have their email information, I am texting them, right? And I'm just doing the hard work to get a whole side of my business set up, right? And this is the objection that we get most often is like, I don't, I don't want to do that. And I'm like, this is the way you build an asset in your business. Everything else we do is prospecting based. It takes our time and it will not run without us. If we want to build an asset based business, we got to build an asset. And the database done this way is literally building an asset in your business that's going to run forever. And it's the one thing in our business that I believe has a ton of value, that's really scalable. So that's sort of the concept around business. It's also in the blueprint started around build it. It's also in the blueprint that I'm going to give you at the end and then we're going to feed it. So real quick we're going to create. I've had this in my calendar forever. A time block once per month on the last day of the month for 60 minutes. You can put that in right now in your, in your calendar, set it reoccurring and call it contact management. And then within the notes of that event, just write yourself some homework. Just write update closed clients to closed and tag them 60 touch. Just write yourself that little note. And then under that right, add four met contacts for this month. And here's the magic of that. If you do that and you're an agent selling three homes a month, 36 homes and you add. Or, yeah, 36 homes a year, and you add four people to your database a month, by the end of the year, your database, which would have started at like 100, 200, 300 from the exercise above, your database is going to have 84 new people or on average eight to nine new closings next year. Because you can convert one in 10 that it didn't have this year. If you just add four month and you're closing three houses a month. If you're a team that's closing 100 sales a year or 200 sales a year, and you and your team members are doing this for 60 minutes a month, you can see how exponentially your database is going to grow. And so the quickest way to add 30 closings to my team is to add 300 contacts to my 60 touch program. And if I'm doing that every month with myself and my agents, I'm able to plan for and progressively grow an impenetrable business because the math always works. The last thing says if you do have an admin, this is something that they can do or hold you accountable to. So the actual deployment or the communication to our database. And I'll show you examples of these in a second. It's 12 direct mail. And a lot of people get really caught up in like, you know exactly what it should look like or it has to be perfect. And for me, like on good, better, best, just to get started, it's just put something together to get in in their mailbox. And we all have heard that direct mail is archaic. But here's the thing we're going to show you with the 60 Touch program, this has evolved. We've actually gone further into direct mail in the last couple of years. We're going to show you how our audience is going to start to see us as omnipresent because some people aren't opening email but they are seeing direct mail. Some very few people don't see our direct mail at all because they have to see it before even they throw it in the trash can. But they're also going to see us client events. They're going to see us through our mass texting. And so we're going to become omnipresent. So direct mail matters. 12 direct mail postcards and newsletters for direct mail items of value that all get open because they're bulky and they have an item of value inside. 36 emails. One is a listings email, one is an educational video and ones in all text with calls to actions. Four client events quarterly and then four database calls which the Touch program gives you 56 touches or reasons to call your database. So it makes it super easy to call them and do what Alan and Crystal taught us earlier, which is then ask for the referral. And we can feel very comfortable going some of the dialogues with a hard ask, especially when we're giving them the type of value that the database program gives them. So just real quick and you're welcome to find me on Facebook or whatever this stuff is out there like in our files and stuff. We'll give you copies of it, whatever you need. But here's just a newsletter. It's a six. It's a six fold newsletter. I started out with just like one page and on good, better, best. That's great if you start out with just one page newsletter. What we do is we have local businesses who want their graphics on our stuff. Pay for our whole touch program so we zero cost it. And then you can just see there's a section where I write every other month. 2,000 characters here. That's a market have our listings featured. It has a note from one of our agents down here. It has Project Lamplight stories of people in need that we served in the last month. And then it has some calls to action and listings over here on this page that you can't see. The next one is postcard. The thing about our postcard is that there's always a handwritten note on it right here. And this actually gets a pretty high read rate. We get inbound calls from this and I've been doing this since 2013 so 10 years handwritten note and tracking it for seven. But you can see just happy spring season. Real estate market slowed down from November to January but the spring Selling season is here. New client appointments went up in March, and many clients have started their buying or selling process for 2023. If you need a free home value estimate or one of our guaranteed cash offers, call us at. And there's a tracking number for us. Email examples. So we just do a listings email, which is high engagement, so that takes them to our website. And then this is our video marketing. So our video blog once a month. A month. And then an alt text email with calls to action, which also drives them to landing pages or our website. And then the quarterly sort of bulk items that have a really high open rate. We do a market forecast right here. And then we do a referral directory, which people absolutely love. And the businesses in here pay us to do this for them. And then a calendar or a notepad, but something bulky gets a really high open rate. And then our four appreciation events, we do a springtime giveaway where we partner with that radio station to promote the heck out of this thing. They drove us 500 registrants last month to our giveaway, which we're able to add those registrants to our database touch program and then add those people to our social media feed. Right. Friend. And follow all of our pages. Independence Day giveaway, same thing. A client appreciation concert in the fall. And then late fall pumpkin pie giveaway here at the office. And then just last couple things, value and delivery. So this just goes along with how we ask for referrals. What I've found with a quality touch program is that when you're loving on your database, it become they say thank you. Like when I call them, they're like, hey, I get all your stuff. Thanks for sending me that. And immediately it becomes very easy to do a very assertive, strong ask. So, you know, Lars, I appreciate you. You too. Like, it's because of you and all of your referrals that we're able to afford to do all of these events and give you all this kind of stuff. So, but you know, in that vein, like, who do you know anybody in the community, social circles, or at the workplace that we could match a seller looking to sell their home with one of our buyers that we could help or anybody buy in her home that we can match with a seller. So no problem asking that question on the tail end of a discussion about one of the items that you're doing for your database. There are six dialogues that we have, and I'm going to give you that playbook, which outlines the exact words that I use when I used to call the database personally. And each dialogue is in a paragraph for you guys to follow. So the apology, the homeownership dialogue, the items of value survey, the client event, the ask for business and the nonprofit dialogue. And then we have a nonprofit amplifier, it's a compassion program and it's called Project Lamplight. So this is something that you could do now or if you just started to implement a touch program, you could integrate this into your touch program. And really what I would say is it makes the entire touch program richer. It enriches the lives of our database in a really big way. So when we're calling our database now and inviting them to one of our for client events, we're able to say by the way, who do you know in the community with a random urgent need that we can serve? The level of conversation that typically develops into is just more meaningful than I used to be able to imagine. We're able to partner with our database and the members in our database so that if they know somebody at their workplace or a neighbor who lost a job, who got into a car accident, who was diagnosed with something, they can apply then in our little application, it's an eight question form for our nonprofit to provide an anonymous check to the person in our database to deliver to the person at their workplace or friend or family member. And then they're just coached to say that a faith based local business wanted to bless them in a time of need. And then we're able to share that back. We asked that client of that database member to share. So just what happened with our, our, our team. And then we're able to just share with our team in our monthly meetings about that they're doing something that's a lot bigger than, than just selling homes. Right. It means a lot more. There's something deeper going on here. And so we have a seven step ministry builder video and if anybody has any interest in that, I can send that out as to. I think it's on one of the Dave Hook websites or blogs but if you can't find it, you can just PM us. And then this is what is, is our gift to you guys. I think this should help you guys tremendously. So this is a 26 page playbook and you can use it to run a database program. So if you give this, if you're an agent, this will be this, this is a way to run a touch program in your database that I used before I had a team. And it doesn't cost a dime. If you're a team owner, you can use this as your new agent onboarding and training manual to get them to running a database touch program within your team. And it just goes in exactly what I trained you guys on today for the philosophy the 76% mindshare principle. Build it, feed it, communicate with it. Step one, build it. It literally just gives you the action items as to what to do. So you could just check the box. I did this, I did this, I did this. Feed it right, exactly what to do and then communicate to it. And then it just shows you what to do to communicate with social media, how to develop content, how to develop a video email, what to do in the phone calls, how to pop by your database, pop by ideas if you're an agent, your handwritten notes and then how to time block each of those items. And then the language that I used when I called my database for about a decade, Homeownership dialogue, items of value, the nonprofit dialogue. Ask for business dialogue in a seller's market versus buyer's market. And it's all in there. And then there's the exhibit for you guys too. So I think that's pretty much everything. Lars suggested I mention this since I've talked to him. I don't know how if it is going to be as helpful as it was, but we do have it done for you. So there's probably some people out there that are like, I'm just going to take a piece of this and optimize it. And I hope that you can and other people just use our playbook and just do it yourself. There might be somebody out there who's like, there's a lot here and I've been procrastinating for years and I just want it done and I know that I'm too busy to do it. So our marketing director, John with Rooted Business Consulting, we have a done for you program where we do about 95% of the program for you and then just prompt you once a month for the. It's roughly about 30, 35 minutes worth of work. We just prompt you and tag you to get us a little bit of information that we need and then he runs it for you. So if you have any interest in that, the confession is that we go really deep on it. So we can only add three people a month to the program. And so if there's more than a few of you that are interested, it just may be a number of months out that we can help. But we do have a brand ambassador add on which some of our clients they0 cost it through this. So we show you how to do that with a venue to have people in the community help you pay for the program so that you don't have to. And then the capacity ministry add on to make it just enrich it is. Is a possibility as well. So I will turn it back over.

We've got you for 10 minutes, for nine more minutes. So go to the Q and A box. So go to the Q and A box. If you have specific questions for Dave and. And if you guys have been around the community for any length of time, I think there's. Well, in general there are a lot of people out there sort of selling you something that. That is not what Dave is doing. He's. He's got a skill set that. And he's got people in his team that he wants to give more opportunity to. So John, his marketing person, this is not, you know, three clients a month is not going to change Dave's life at all. But he knows it's a service that the industry needs and I imagine at some point they're going to scale it. And, and I guard this community from folks that don't know what they're talking about and just have sort of something. Something to sell. So can you talk real quick and, and I want you guys in the, in the Q and A. Go in the Q and A. Do not put them in the thread because it gets lost in the thread. Talk real quick about. Because I said I would do it on the last call. When you shifted your team to. From a culture of like receiving business to building a muscle of having meaningful conversations and tracking and time blocking. Talk about that for a minute or so.

Sorry about that. I was on mute. Can you hear me now?

Yeah, now I can hear you.

Awesome. Yeah, I think what you're referring to is in the early days it was John and Drew on the team and it was like, you know, we've been doing morning lead gen together for nine years and I don't anymore, but the whole team does. And they had been in the business a while and I was like, we're going to have to have to build a business, a real asset, a real business that is going to give the two of you any opportunity at all. Which, by the way, they were both my first agents and John runs our marketing department and runs this touch program for clients and Drew runs our whole team. She's the CEO. So totally authentic. Like, I mean it when I say, like, if this business is going to get to a place that provides you any opportunity, we're going to have to do it differently. And so we have to run a real business and it's going to mean that together we need to continue, get up in the morning and have a predictable schedule like Stacy said, and have some lead gen where we're holding each other accountable, consistency consistently, day after day. And they were like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, well, we gotta call people together and track, we have to, we have to note how many conversations we have so that when we hire more people on the team they know how many contacts they need to have to set an appointment. And we're not driven by emotion anymore, we're driven by data. And they're like, you're, you mean we're going to come into the office and on a piece of paper like mark a tick mark when we make a phone call and like circle it when we have a conversation. And I'm like, yep. They're like, what are we going to say to them? And I was like, all we're going to do is we're going to start, I'm going to do it with you. We're going to go and we're going to start 8:30 on Monday and we're each going to make five calls and I'm going to have the paper too and we're going to market. I'm going to see if any of us set an appointment. We're going to do five calls on morning. It's probably going to take us half an hour for, for five days. We're going to do that for two weeks. We'll see how it goes. After two weeks I said now we're going to, now we're going to do 10. And then after a month I said now we're going to do 15. And then after two months I said now we're going to do 20. And once we got to a point where we're able to fill about two hours of lead gen time and track it consistently, then we were able to invite other people into that world and I was able to provide the two of them with additional opportunity like POD leader opportunities or sales director opportunities or lead buyer agent opportunity or listing agent opportunities. But without that none of that would have been possible. Yeah.

Awesome. Awesome.

So let me, let me rifle through some questions. So that handwritten postcard, my guess is Dave Hook isn't handwriting it. Is it machine generated or do you get a high resolution graphic and put it on there?

Three ways to do it so you can, you can use AI to do it, they'll do it for you. And you can, and that's very new. You can use a handwritten note company to do it. I actually. For years and we still do. I actually. John, do you have one of those piece of paper that I write my postcard on? I just did. I just do this. And a lot of our clients still do this. We send them a piece of paper, they print it, we just write it on here. It was a little box, you can't see it. And then I just scan it back in and that gets laser printed on the 2,000 postcards. Whatever.

Yeah, awesome.

Um, a couple. What was the eight questions you used for the form? I may have missed what that was.

Our Compassion program form.

Yes. If, if that's in your seven step. Seven step Ministry builder video, maybe you can, after we're done you can search for that link and just drop it in the chat.

Yeah, I can drop our application in the chat for you or.

And the, the seven step video.

Yeah, I'll look for that as well. And then also. Yeah, and it's just like name, address, who, who, who is the recipient? What is their need? Is there a funding need? How. What can we be praying for? Are some of the eight questions on the application?

Yeah.

Awesome. Awesome.

What service do you send out the four promotional gifts yearly and what is the cost per gift roughly?

Yep. So for promotional gifts we actually just use a. We have a printer that just does a great job. They're semi local to us and we've been through a lot of printers, like national printers and we've been to a local printer and we landed on this particular printer. John, do you know cost per gift on a promotional items? Yeah, with postage paid anywhere from A$50 to 250 per gift. It just depends on the weight of the package in a bulk mailing piece. So I didn't share it. I'll put it in the chat. Just go to Rooted bc as in business consulting dot com. Rooted bc dot com.

Awesome.

Perfect.

And then last question Richie asked and, and I have, you know we've done the more expensive labor intensive physical in person events and I don't know, I forget what precipitated but we got away from those more expensive events to like five or six giveaways and we just social media related and.

Yeah.

Any thoughts between the two and roi?

Yeah, so we do both. We do two giveaways and two client events and like you we used to do try to do three or four of the in person events and now we're at two giveaways and two client events. So here's the thing with the in person events as the, as the team owner and the agents, I do think at least once a year there is something about being face to face, belly to belly, contact with your people and having a conversation with your highest referral sources that you'll ever get to know. I don't think that at this point in my career it is super scalable to go with those giveaways, but it is very impersonal. So what we do is we use the giveaways in the first half of the year to build our, the size of our database and then, and then endorse them and hit them on social media and with our touch program and love on them and gas and groceries through the radio. And then in the latter half of the year we get in person with as many of them as we can. So we, we do both. I believe in both and I believe they both serve a purpose.

Awesome. Awesome.

The script, Lori, all the scripts are going to be in that database document and Dave, guys, Dave is going to send that to me and I get it out to you guys so you don't have to reach out to Dave for that document. Dave, this has been awesome. I just love seeing, I mean you guys don't know Dave as well as I do, but he's just steady. Is, is the way you win this game and it's, it's not rushing, you know, not trying to leapfrog, you know, and compare yourself. And I, I call him, you know, in a world of like tortoise versus hare, you know that analogy. Dave is like in the most loving way I could say he's the tortoise of all tortoises. He is just steady as she goes. Everyone else is jumping from this thing to a bolt on AI driven chatbot to like switching CRMs, to like I'm trying another radio station because this one doesn't work or hey, someone said this works. So it's a game changer and it, it's all crap. And Dave was just like I'm just going to ignore all of it. I'm just going to go down this path. And he's built a seven figure profit business very, very rare in this industry. I know guys doing 5, 6 million top line GCI that take home a lot less than Dave does on half of the business because it's all about all those shiny objects and I'm on you know, 200 billboards and it's all the stuff, they're not tracking anything. They couldn't tell you what works. Or where business comes from. So, Dave, I appreciate your brother and we will talk soon. My friend. Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's an honor. Thank you.

If you're going to give talks like this, you got to figure out a way to get up to more than like you can onboard three or that might have just been a scarcity play.

Totally isn't. But we do have to figure it out for sure.

Tell John to get get off his butt over there. All right, see you guys. Thank you so much.

I hope you enjoyed that two part series with Dave Hook. He is unlike any other I've known in terms of his ability to focus on one thing to get the results out of it. Squeeze the lemon, so to speak. If you're at a point in your business where you want to grow but you don't know how, just jump on a business growth assessment with us. Go to rebsgrowthassessment.com and we'll talk about where you are right now in your business, where you want to be in two to three years from now and what is holding you back or what obstacles have you seen. So hope you enjoyed this two part series and we'll see you on that business growth assessment. Much love, much respect.