Driving for Dollars: The Secret to Your First Deal 🚗💰

What is going on, guys? Sean, Jared, it's good to have you guys. How's it going, brothers?

What's going on? What's going on?

Good to see you, Jared. How you doing? I know you got the internet going on over there. Can you hear us? What's up?

It's so bad, it's choppy. It's going great here.

Perfect, perfect. Well, hey, we're gonna plow through this thing. Hey, if everybody's watching this, my name is Nathan Payne. I've been in the industry for about 7 years now. I've done hundreds of wholesale deals, and what we're going to be talking about today is how to get leads for wholesaling real estate. That's who I am. Sean, tell us who you are, guys.

Just Quickly, I'm Shaun Young out of Atlanta, Georgia. Been in the business now for a little over 10 years. I've done hundreds of deals, coached dozens and dozens, well actually hundreds of students now. And we're here to help you guys out here today.

I love it. All right, Jared, you got that? Tell us who you are.

Yeah, I'm Jared Frankham. I've been wholesaling since 2019, done tons and tons of deals. I don't know exactly how many, but because of wholesaling real estate and buying real estate, it's afforded me to be able to live in South America. Absolutely love it.

Good. You're in South America. I'm moving to Canada. We're going to be outside of the country. My house actually just went under— the due diligence period just ended today. So earnest money is going down, going to get hard. And yeah, that's exciting. You're in Brazil, Canada. Sean, you're in Atlanta, right? I'm in Atlanta.

I'm in Atlanta.

Atlanta's perfect too.

No plans of moving out of the country just yet for me.

Stay where you are, man. Stay where you are. I love it. So, hey, again, everybody, why would you tune in these calls? Well, we've been doing real estate for a long time and we like to get together because we all have different experiences and we all have different things have worked for us. So today we're going to be discussing, in our opinions, what's the best way how to get leads for wholesaling real estate. We're going to break down what we suggest you should do, what we're telling the people we work with. And our, uh, promise to you guys is by the end of this call, you're going to know exactly what you should do, which works best for you to go and get some leads, because it all starts with leads. It all starts with conversations. So if you don't know how to start talking to sellers or who to talk to, this is where you should be. So let's dive right into it, guys. This is a really important thing, right? Important topic, because really without a seller to talk to, without a lead, you really got nothing, right? Absolutely nothing.

Nothing at all. Nothing at all. You got to have them leads, man. This is all— this is a marketing game. This is marketing and sales. So with that, with that being said, you definitely need leads.

So I want to ask you guys a question. So a lot of people say that, right? This is a marketing sales business. I feel like a lot of people that get in this business don't really think that, right? They don't think this is marketing at all. At least when I started, I just thought I just— it was all real estate, baby. And all I had to do is, you know, flip a house or, just focus on real estate, not marketing. So, Sean, when did you realize— and Jared, when did you guys realize this was just like a marketing-heavy business?

Yeah, man, like right, right from the jump, actually. Like I said, um, I— once I got started, um, I had a little dip in my productivity, and it was due to my, to my lack of, of having systems in place and having a follow-up, you know, having a path to that follow-up. So it's super important that you have those things in place.

But anyway, so for me, Sean, so when I first started I didn't know anything about marketing, right? I didn't even think it was that important. So I thought it was all like having conversations with sellers and you had to be like an amazing sales guy and have the best conversations, which is really important. But what I did is I focused so much on getting good at the conversation and the sales process, and I didn't think leads was an issue. I was like, man, maybe I'm just not that good. But then as I got better at sales, I realized, man, I barely have any leads. I barely have anybody I'm talking to. So that's when I realized, oh my gosh, I've been focusing on something that's important, but not the wrong thing. You don't have any leads, it's going to be really hard to convert. So Sean, tell me about your experience with marketing. Like, what, what was the first thing you did to start generating more and more leads? And I'll talk about my experience, and we can even go into what we're doing now, what we suggest.

Sure, guys. A good thing to do when you're— especially when you're getting started— is, is list generation. You want to be able to go out and pull, you know, big lists. You can do that a number of different ways. You can go to the county, to pull specific lists like tax lists, water shut-off lists. I mean, there's specific lists that we can get into, but you can get lists that way. You can also pay for lists from sources like Batch, Batch Leads, PropStream. There's a lot of different lead sources that you can purchase lists, get those lists skip traced, and then call on those leads. What Nathan Payne mentioned earlier is that when he said, "Hey, I was working on the skill set of converting," which is, like you said, it's super important. But without the opportunity to convert, you're not going to convert. So that's why we're saying you got to have— you got to get a lot of— you got to get in front of a lot of people. You got to talk to a lot of people, whether it's, you know, getting in front of them or on the telephone or by text. However you're doing your outreach, the more people that you're, you know, reaching out to, the better your opportunities are to have a conversation.

I love it. I love it. So I know the game in marketing has changed over the years, man, because when I was doing— when I first started 2017 texting was huge, and that was an easy way to get deals, bro. I don't know, I know you probably got into it big with texting. I don't— do you still do it, mass texting?

Yeah, I don't do texting, but it slowed down because of the regulations that came in place, you know, like last year, you know, and then like, of course, the beginning of this year, they really started to crack down on it. So, you know, we've gone a different route, but, you know, you— like you say, we go through waves. When I actually first got started, the big thing was mailers. Um, I literally spent like $320 on mailers on my first mailing campaign and got— ended up getting 7 deals closed. I got 11 deals under contract and closed 7 of those with $325. Could you do that today? I don't think so.

That's freaking insane. You spent $325 and got 7 deals?

7 deals closed. Absolutely, bro.

If that's— if it was that easy now, that would be the greatest thing in the world.

100%. 100%. And so, yeah, no, go ahead, Nathan.

Well, check this out. So when I first started, I spent $10,000 on mailers in, in Utah. Didn't get a single deal. So I don't know. Market is really important too, right? Market, who you're sending the mailers to. It's not just like, hey, do you want to sell your house? And you're going to get someone like, yeah, I'm ready to sell. Let's talk. It's not always that case, right? You got to make sure you're hitting the right people. So when it comes to getting leads, there's so many different strategies, right? So I think, you know, you have to be dialed in on a strategy that you want to get good at. That and you want to master because there's so many different ways to go get leads. You can go, you can be the pre-foreclosure guy, you can be short sale person, the guy, you can be the tax lien person, you can, you can niche down on a specific list and get really good at marketing to that list. One thing that I did which I think was a mistake is I pulled all these different strategies, all these different lists and a ton of them, and I didn't really focus on getting good at the messaging for any of them. And my message was just like, do you want to sell? Do you want to sell? And that is very expensive in my opinion. I don't know if you agree with that, Shawn, but I don't like pull a bunch of different lists and giant lists and they just plow through them because it's expensive and it's not very targeted. But Sean, your opinion, man?

I agree with you 100%. So Nathan, let's break that down a little bit. So you mentioned like specific type of lists. I know that, you know, there's code violation lists, there's tax lien lists, you know, we've got a lot of different lists out there. What are your favorite lists to go after? Let's say the top 3. What are the top 3 lists, you know, as a new person that you think someone should go after? I'll give you some of mine, but I want to hear yours as well.

Yeah. Yeah, man, pre-foreclosures have always been tried and true for me. Those are people that, you know, they're not always super motivated, right? You got to pull out, you got to like build the trust, but those are good probates. They're going to sell. Those are people that don't live in the home necessarily and they don't have any ties emotionally to the property. And absentee owner is always a tried and true, but absentee owner also usually have to go through quite a bit of data to get, get somebody. So it really just depends on your strategy. If you're, in my opinion, if you got a big cold calling team and you got to feed them, you got to have enough leads to do that. So that's absentee owner, that's bigger list, high equity. But if you're a smaller team and you can go target people specifically, it's probates, pre-foreclosures, tax liens, where the lists are smaller but you can get better, you can target them better and get a hold of them better. That's my opinion. So those are the 3.

Yeah, you, Sean, man, I agree with you 100% with what you just said, and I'm glad that you pointed that out, uh, because a lot of people do just kind of go big and they say, you know what, I'm just gonna go pull a vacant list. Listen, and tell me if you agree with this. I know that you agree with this, but, um, I, I think that the best method that you should try to use is, is what's called like double stacking, or, or find, you know, lists that have multiple pain points, right? Pain points, right? So, so let's say they're, they're a probate and they're, they're an absentee owner, you know, and there's some other motivation. So you want to try to look at lists like that when you're trying to build your list, especially when you're trying to niche them down. Because if you, if not, you're gonna have a big list. It's gonna take you a long time to get through 'em. You, it's, it's gonna feel daunting. You're gonna feel like I'm not getting nowhere. You're not gonna be directed or focused in your messaging to those leads like Nathan said, because that's a, a newbie mistake. That's a newbie mistake. Once you start doing this for a little bit, you realize that you have to be very focused on your conversation. You don't speak to an absentee owner the same way you speak to a probate. Uh oh, excuse me, or pre-foreclosure. You know, they're in a different mindset, you know what I mean?

Yeah, you got to be really empathetic to their situation. They're going through some tough times. The landlord, the tired landlord, might not even— he might just be tired. He's like, whatever, you know, he doesn't live there. It's not very emotional for him. But so what were the top 3 in your opinion, Shawn? Then we'll go to Jared on what his top 3.

Yeah, I think, I think pre-foreclosures is a top one, absentee owners. And like you say, I like to go with the code violations. So I like code violation lists.

And to me, the code violation is almost like a driving for dollars list, but you didn't have to drive. The city drove, right? And they're the ones that are like, hey, this house, you know, code violation, it's got the tall grass or whatever the criteria is in that city.

I love it.

Okay. What about you, Jared?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll unmute Jared. Jared, what's up?

Mine is driving for dollars. Driving for dollars. Driving for dollars. Driving for dollars. That's my favorite list. No question. Wow, that list is much harder to get, but it's even, even better for someone who's just getting started. Um, in fact, my first 4 or 5 deals were straight from skateboarding for dollars. In fact, I didn't even drive. Um, the reason I like that is guarantee, uh, the condition piece, uh, of the motivation. So you know that there's something already fishy with peeling paint or something as crazy as like the roof is half blown off. Uh, but in my opinion, if you set your list where every prospect has a higher chance, it diminishes the length of time for your marketing to take effect before you get a deal. And so for someone who's just getting started, what I like about the DFD list, driving for dollars list, is, uh, two parts. One is you need fewer prospects in your list to get a deal, and second is by seeing so many as you drive, you start to see that in almost any neighborhood. Maybe some that don't have HOAs, you know, homeowner associations, but you've seen almost every neighborhood that, that work. And it keeps you motivated and encouraged that, wow, there actually are lots of properties that need some love. And it keeps your mindset right to keep going for the marketing. Because as we start marketing and we start to cold call or send SMS or mail, we hear a lot of nos. Sometimes it's easy to believe that maybe this doesn't work, but you start to see, man, after 2,000 houses that are all banged up, someone's going to sell, right? And so I like, I like the, the reinforcement, the positive reinforcement comes from seeing where I can actually make a physical difference in the marketplace by seeing where these houses are personally. It's what I like about the DFT list. It does take some effort. It's not as easy as just pulling a list from PropStream or something, but you know that every single prospect on that list has a higher chance of sale versus just any whatever list that everyone has.

Yeah, no, I really like that. Sean, what do you— what do you have? Anything you want to elaborate on that, man?

I think that Jared hit it right on the head. That was going to be my next, um, my next point I was going to make. I was going to say, guys, if you actually— the best thing to do if you're getting started is to get in your car or get on your skateboard, get on your bike. No excuses. Just get out there, drive around, ride around the community, look for distressed properties. High grass, boarded up windows, you know, mailboxes knocked off, or, you know, where the house looks out of place based upon other houses in the community, just like Jared said. And once you do that, you start to develop an eye for it, and you can start— basically, that's what, that's why we call it driving for dollars, uh, because you're actually looking for money opportunities out there, opportunities where you can add value to properties, um, get those, you know, get those properties under contract sell your contract to, you know, cash buyers or hold them for yourself if it makes sense. You know, whatever the scenario is, I think driving for dollars is definitely underrated and it's crucial. And if you're in a crunch out there as an investor, I'm telling you right now, get in your car and go driving around, go find some deals. They're everywhere.

No, I love that. I love that. And I want to get you guys' opinion on what I tell the people that I work with, my clients. So this is a strategy I use, and I think it's It's like driving for dollars with, like, with purpose, right? Because sometimes when you drive for dollars, you're like, let me go hit that neighborhood. Let me go over there. I don't really know where I'm going. Let me just drive around, right? I don't know if you guys have ever done that, but that's how I did it when I drove for dollars. I was like, let me just drive. But what I tell people to do is I say, we're going to pull the pre-foreclosure list. You're going to hit up everyone on that list, and your goal is to get a hold of literally everybody. Okay, that's your goal. Not to see who cares if they want to sell or not. Just get a hold of the right person, right? So once you can get a hold of that person, you can then determine, okay, is that person want to sell or not. Now, if you can't get a hold of that person, all the numbers are disconnected or whatever, the next step is go knock on that door, go leave a note on their door. And then while they're out going to do that, take that action, then as you're driving, you see other properties in that area, and then you mark those and you add those to your list. So you're going with a purpose to a property to get a hold of someone that has not been able— you've not been able to connect with, and then you mark as you go, leave a note, knock the door, and you're building up your list that way. So it's strategically like you're doing two— killing two birds with one stone, right? Versus just driving. And, uh, that's— I feel like that's a really— that's what I did when I first started. And, and these are like, I would say, tactics that you use when you're starting out. And then obviously, as you get bigger and better and you have more money, then you go pay-per-click route, you go the pay-per-lead. But in my opinion, it's, it's that strategy of like, be really targeted, mark as you go, and then get money to do pay-per-lead, pay-per-click. That's my, my opinion, guys. What is your response, or what are your thoughts on what I'm telling people. I'm curious what you guys think.

Yeah, you're right on, you're right on it, man. You're right on it. And, um, I think we should literally spend like a whole episode one day all about driving for dollars, you know, exactly how to do it, you know, what do you do after you get the lead, you know, how do you skip trace, you know, the whole entire process so that our, our viewers that are listening can really walk away and, and go get in their car and, and strategically, like you said, have a strategy behind it and go driving for dollars. And there's so many ways that you can go about it, so many different strategies, but make sure that you're not just, you know, driving all over place. Have a strategy about it so that you can kind of target. Okay, I drove this, this area. Now let me drive this area. You know, get chunks of— you make it like chunks of a pie and, you know, knock it off by like that and make sure you're tracking it.

Love it. Jared, do you have anything you want to add to what I said and any thoughts?

Yeah, Nathan, you brought up a very critical point that I think, I think this technique needs to be applied in more than just real estate or more than just door-knocking pre-foreclosures, and that is stacking activities to do more than one thing at one time. So while you're door-knocking, sure, you're already there, you minimize your effort from having to do something else. You can just drive for dollars on your way. It's so effective, and by leveraging that time, you're able to multiply what you're able to accomplish rather than, okay, I'm just going to cold call the pre-foreclosures and then I'm going to drive for dollars separately. And then I'm going to do something else separately. And I did— you're much slower. So what I found is, and this is translated from real estate, from running my business, into multiple areas of my life, is stacking. Do multiple useful things at the same time. Even what I love about this business is it's taught me a lot of life skills. So I like to— even when I'm hanging out with friends of mine, those people are in real estate, and we talk about doing deals together. And we, we are able to do deals at the same time anyway. And that skill set happened from doing exactly what you're talking about, Nathan, is I found a lead that I couldn't get a hold of, so I went to go knock on the door or leave a door hanger or flyer. Why not drive for dollars while I'm out here? Why not talk to the neighbors? And you drum up serious business this way, and it's all by making your life as most efficient as possible rather than just knocking off one task by one task.

Love it, man. I appreciate you, you saying that and elaborating on that. And you know, another great, like, a Pro tip is while you're knocking doors, let's say you knock on somebody's door and they're like, man, no, I don't want to sell. This is a great question to ask if you're there. Be like, hey, you know, that's fine. You want to sell, but I am looking to buy properties in the area. Do you know if there's any properties or neighbors that are like an eyesore? You don't have to tell me like who it is, but I'm just curious, is there any property in the area that you would just love to see get rehabbed? Because that's what we're looking for. All the neighbors know, everybody in the neighborhood knows that problem property, that house that's nasty, that's bringing the values down. Every time I ask that question, they're like, yeah, go down that street to the left. You can smell the cat pee from just the street and they'll point you in the right direction. So while you're out knocking doors, don't always make it like, hey, I want to buy your house because that can get kind of awkward sometimes. You can say, hey, I'm just looking for properties. Do you by chance know of any eyesores or any problem properties here that might be an opportunity that I could look at? Right. So that's just a tip for everybody that's going to be knocking.

Yeah. And my apologies, guys. I just realized that my mic was off this whole time. So my Sound was probably horrible, but, um, it's on now, so we're good to go. We fell our way forward around here.

Well, I heard you. You sounded good to me, man.

Good, good.

Um, all right guys, so we've done a pretty good job of talking about like where we get leads. You start kind of like with the list style. You start with like the lower, uh, budget activities, I would say, when you're starting out, and then you can go scale up. Is there anything else that like maybe we haven't thought of or people don't think about? The thing I want to say is just be careful. Don't, don't think just because you're talking to people as leads and they're saying no that all leads Luck. Like, it does take the right conversations, and I'm tired of— I hear people all the time, oh man, there's no motivated sellers out there. People don't just answer the phone and like, thank you for calling, I'm so grateful that you called me, I'm so motivated right now to sell, I'll sell at a discount. Like, that just doesn't happen. You have to— again, motivation just doesn't pop out unless it's like some crazy low-hanging fruit that they have to sell tomorrow and they have to tell everyone what's going on. You have to pull it out, you have to gain that trust. So So, Sean, are you— do you agree? Like, is there not just like one specific list that's just amazing with every call and you're just like, it's the secret sauce list?

Yeah, there is no secret sauce list. There's no secret sauce, guys. It's just repetition. You gotta just plow through it. Um, like we said, it's a numbers game. You're going to hear us saying that quite often because that's what it is, and we always want to keep driving that home. It is a numbers game. The more people that you talk to, the more opportunities that you're going to for actual leads and having those leads convert into closed deals for you. So it all starts with having mass amount of opportunity.

Yeah. And that was a mindset shift that I had to make for— and it took a very long time, Shaun, that I thought leads— there was like some magical list out there and I was like, man, I don't know what it is. And I would always see as I was like a year or two in, I'd see brand new wholesalers getting deals and I'd be like, how are they getting those deals? I'm better than they are. Like, I'm more skilled, bro. They were just out there. Doing work and I wasn't. Yeah, right place, right time, putting in the effort. And I was probably just like doing a little bit here and there. I'd get a deal and I'd stop because I was tired. You know, you know how it is. Like, yeah, you start doubting yourself.

You say, yeah, I'm going to scale back a little bit here. Maybe I'm going too hard in this direction. And when you take your foot off the gas, it's just— it takes a lot of energy to get your foot back on the gas the right way. So trust me, guys, when you get your foot on the gas, Stay consistent, stay the route. It's not going to be instant success, but know that enjoy the journey, enjoy the adventure of the journey, and you'll be okay.

And I will say this, I think a lot of people struggle to get their first deal in wholesaling because they focus on the wrong activities. They focus on like not the money-generating activities that lead to deals. They'll focus, well, let me get my LLC set up. Let me get— when people say they got their LLC, I'm like, Bro, that, that is— who cares? Who cares if you got an LLC, right? You know, like, people that focus on getting their LLC— let me build a website, let me build a logo for my— let me find a name for my company, bro. Sean, I can't— Sean, I can't tell you the last time a seller's asked me the name of my company. Like, they don't care. They don't care at all what company— they, they want to— they trust you, they want to work with you. And, um, so don't— and that's what people do, they want to gravitate towards the easy thing. So the thing, the way to get a deal and to consistently get deals is to consistently do the money-generating activities, which is get leads, talk to them, and then take them through the sales process. Simple as that. But it's not simple to do. Well, it is simple to do, but it's not simple because you have to do it. You have to work. It's, it's not easy to have to always continuously wake up every morning and make those calls or, or take that action. But that's what gets you paid.

That's it. You're not going to see instant gratification. It's not going to be instant success. Like Nathan said, you could. It might take 2 calls and you get a deal. I mean, it happens all the time, but it could take 2,000. And if you're not willing to go that, go, you know, if you're not preparing yourself up front, you're gonna set yourself up for mental failure, burnout. You're gonna try it and you're gonna say, "Oh, this doesn't work." And there's a bear that one of our mentors talks about. You got to let that bear work for you or it's going to be working against you. And that bear is B-E-A-R.. And that is your beliefs lead to emotions, which lead to actions, which lead to results which substantiate your beliefs. So if you're not getting the results you're seeking, you might want to focus on those beliefs.

That's true, man. Beliefs do dictate what you do and the results you get. So now I think we've done a good job, man. And there's so many different ways to get leads. And I will say this, you know, I could go on for, for hours, but the thing is there's so many different ways to get leads. That is another issue that keeps people from succeeding is they will try to dabble in absentee owners. Ah, this doesn't work. Let me dabble in tax liens. Let me dabble here. And they, they just try a little bit of everything and it's not enough and it's not consistent enough and they don't see the results and they're like, this doesn't work. Where if you just stay focused on, let's just say probates, just pull the probate list, stay consistent, keep mailing, keep calling, keep reaching out to those people with the right messaging. You're going to see results because people in probates, they're going to sell that are going through probate. So would you agree on that, Shawn?

100%. When you're first getting started, you want to go an inch wide and a mile deep. You don't want to be a mile wide and an inch deep and everything. You're not doing anything. It's just a waste of time. Remember that, an inch wide and a mile deep, and that'll save you some time and money.

That's good. And saving money is so important in the beginning, dude, because like me, $10K deep, or I went— what is that? That's wide and deep. I just went, I went wild. Uh, $10K in mailers when I first started, didn't get a deal. First of all, because I didn't really know how to have that conversation, so I was too ambitious with the spend, and I didn't really know how to spend it. Maybe I sent the wrong materials, maybe I sent the wrong list. Like, be careful because you don't want to just be like, oh, I just have to pay money and I'll get a deal. It's not like, hey, money in, money returned. You have to have the skill sets to convert too. So we're just making sure— I'm just giving you guys the sauce where it's not like put this in, get this in return, unless you have the skill sets, right?

That's it, man. You hit it on the head.

All right, Shawn, well, do you have anything you want to say? I know Jared's been in and out. We appreciate his support. Next time, hopefully his internet will be be a little bit, uh, more consistent like we're talking about.

Indeed, indeed. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, man. Um, guys, just on our final parting words, just go out there and make it happen. Be consistent, stay focused. Like Nathan is saying, man, don't waste your time on things that make no sense at all, like thinking of a good name. You know, you're spending 2 or 3 weeks thinking of a good name, you ask all your family and friends, you make up 2 or 3 logos, you get all their opinions. These things don't matter. No one cares. Your family and friends are not going to be the ones that make you, you know, that you're going to change your lifestyle. It's going to be your business and your business acumen and how you operate your business that do those things. So put yourself in the position to learn, grow, you know, get yourself a coach, get yourself a mentor, and you'll be, you'll be better suited to success that way.

Bro, that's so funny, man. I, I remember when I started my business, I spent like, like you just said, 2 weeks, logo, everything on my, my business, thinking I, I just made the best name that people were gonna search. Oh, It's so ridiculous. Well, hey guys, Nathan Payne here again, Painless Flipping. Go to painlessflipping.com if you need any help. That's what I do. I focus on working with people to help them get their first or next deal. We walk people through their deals. So truly a one-on-one mentorship where we hold your hand. That's what I do. And Shawn, where can they reach out to you if they need, you know, any of your services on the VA front?

Guys, if you guys are looking for a professionally trained, monitored, managed virtual assistant that'll help you you know, scale your business up without spending a ton of money, head on over to reiworldsolutions.com. Let me know that you saw me here with Nathan Payne Payne. Take great care of you.

All right, later guys. We'll see you next week. We do this every week. Hope to see you, and please come with the questions. If you're watching this live, give us a like, subscribe, and leave a comment saying where you're watching this. And if you're watching it later on, do the same thing— like, subscribe— and, uh, we'll, we'll be answering your questions. That's why we're here for you. Later, everybody.

See ya.

Hey everybody, what's up? It's Nathan Payne, and for the first time ever, we just released this insane training bundle that has literally everything that I've learned from doing a combined 4,000 deals in real estate, all from starting with absolutely no previous business background experience or any real estate experience. Plus, there's over $19,000 worth of free gifts that we're throwing in, all for an insanely low, low price. If you want to get your hands on this, be sure to click the first link on the description below right now.