From Oil & Gas to 200+ Deals a Year, and Dominating TV Ads | Luke Winter
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What is up, the Science of Flipping Fam?
We are back with another incredible guest.
This man is a master investor, a master marketer, but also has a lot of corporate background.
So, if you're listening to this and you are in the corporate world, he comes from the oil and gas space, left oil and gas to go do over 200 deals a year and now is a master marketer with Hello Pro TV.
We got Luke Winter here.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah,
man.
This is going to be good.
You know, it's always fun for me to be able to interview experts and understand why they do what they do, the challenges they've had.
So for all those out there, if you are still doing the nine-to-five, if you're still in the corporate world, if you're not yet all into real estate, Luke is going to be a great interview.
Let me just go right after.
What brought you from oil and gas to say, screw this, let's jump into real estate?
That was not an easy decision.
So
I worked my way up through the ranks at oil and gas, worked at one of the premier oil refineries really across the nation.
From a profitability perspective, from an operations perspective, we were the high watermark.
And so when I looked at that,
I looked at, well, what is my trajectory here?
I looked at where am I going to go in the next five years, 10 years, 20 years?
Do I want my boss's job?
Do I want my boss's boss's job?
And really, that was about the ceiling.
I looked at both of those and said, no, thank you.
And so, if it wasn't going to be for two more years, it's not going to be for two more weeks, and it's not going to be for two more days.
Yeah.
And so, it kind of got to the point where I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial.
I've been doing some real estate investing on the side.
I bought an apartment building, did some flips, some wholesale deals.
And so, I left that corporate engineering leadership role, Cold Turkey, in search of what is next.
And what is next?
It took a few months to come together, but ultimately went full-time into real estate investing.
So, would you, you know, usually what I find is people need to be going through enough pain or discomfort to make a change like that for any reason, right?
Whatever this thing is, right?
And so, were you at a place of genuine, like, just unfulfillment?
Because probably not pain, right?
They were still paying you.
You weren't, but was it a lack of fulfillment?
Was it just like, hey, I'm meant for more?
What was the thing internally that you were going through that said, fuck this?
Like, I want to go create something on my own.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll get deep here right away.
So
what was big for me is the birth of my first daughter and getting an understanding of like, well, what does parenthood mean?
And what does it mean to be a father and a leader of our household?
You know,
when you're married, dual income, no kids, life is good, right?
Got a lot of flexibility, but...
It gave me a lot of purpose in what I'm doing and the actions that I take and what I do every day once my first daughter came around.
And so that's really where my mindset set started to shift okay and what type of father do i want to be and really what type of stories do i want shared uh when i'm not here anymore what was luke's life like and so i wanted the war stories i wanted the trials and tribulations i wanted the successes you wrote you wanted to run into the storms yes sheesh yeah there's not a lot of you know you it's funny you answer it the way you do i would argue out of all the interviews and people i've met uh and then the people that aren't out of platform like you're at I would say most people would say, because I was becoming a father, because I wanted the security of the job.
I'm the, you know, most men would say, I don't want to leave that security.
You and I are probably built a little different.
We are the guys that are like, bro, there's a store coming.
I'm the buffalo.
I'm running into it.
So that was more of your thought process.
Like, yay, who am I going to be as a father?
Who am I going to be as a leader?
Who am I going to be as a, you know, the family patriarch?
Like, and so that's really kind of where your mind was at.
Exactly.
Exactly.
You know, in the corporate space, my roles were very, very technical.
I was working on projects that it was difficult to communicate to my boss and leadership what we were doing and the technology that we were developing and how we were using it and how it would be advantageous.
Let alone talking to my family about what I'm doing and why it's meaningful.
It would, it would make people's eyes gloss over and go straight over their heads.
Yeah.
And so for me, I thought,
is that the story that I want?
Are those the relationships that I want in my life?
Are those the relationships that I want for the next couple of decades?
And
not that there's anything wrong with that.
Very, very solid career path.
But for me, I wanted a lot more out of life.
I wanted really to look up to the people that are in my network.
I wanted to build those stories of success and get a good understanding of like, hey, this didn't work out.
Why didn't that work out?
And prove to myself also
that I can do more.
I was built for more.
And so that's really what set that trajectory off.
That's a unique, what you just brought up, I think, is I'm hopeful a lot of people can actually have some self-actualization like that, right?
Because I actually just did an episode myself where I talked about like something very similar is like, I'm built for more.
Like I'm not okay with just kind of doing this.
And that is not a common trait.
And you have to have some level of self-actualization of like, I'm willing to go for it i know i deserve it and a little bit of a chip on the shoulder like i know people won't expect me to win and they're probably banking on me failing yeah i'm gonna go prove them wrong and have that chip on your shoulder say just watch like go ahead and snicker go ahead and think i can't do it go ahead and talk behind my back because you're all doing it i get it yeah i'll still have a beer with you but then to be able to say look look what i did look what i built look who i am as a father look who i am as a leader so i love that i i'm hopeful a lot of people are already listening to this like i need to do a little bit more what luke's doing Yeah, yeah.
It's it's important to me.
And
that's really what fuels me and provides me a lot of fulfillment is knowing that I'm on the journey that fills my cup up.
And,
you know, I don't think that
most of our entrepreneur groups are really built that much different, but
maybe they haven't connected with the vision of the better state.
I look at, we used to use a term like the human action model.
And there's three things necessary to make any change or major change in your life or your job or your role.
A vision of a better state is one.
And I think that's where a lot of people just don't have an understanding of what is entrepreneurship.
How would I be a full-time real estate investor?
I can do it on the side.
I can hustle it.
But what would that look like to build a real business around it?
So the other component is a sense of unease with the current state.
And the last component is a belief that you can get there.
And so if you have those three components, then you can start to move the needle a little bit.
Yeah.
So you and I are in a mastermind together, board mastermind, where we officially, I think, connected officially.
Yeah.
You talk about the community to help you get there.
And I think that's a big thing that a lot of people, they shortchange themselves, right?
You and I cut a very big check to be a part of these masterminds.
We cut a check to sit at the table with the people that we know can help us move our needle.
In large part, this is why we're here.
Like I'm here to help you move your needle for your company, TV Pro, right?
For all those real estate investors, TV ads is an incredible.
I've done TV ads for a long time.
TV Pro, talk really quickly about that.
Yeah, we'll come back.
But
TV Pro is in access.
Where can they find you and learn a little bit more about that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the company's Hello Pro.
We really specialize in TV advertising.
Just go to my website, thehellopro.com.
The hello pro.
ThehelloPro.com.
I've been saying TV Pro, just I'm thinking about TV ads.
So my fault.
Hello, Pro TV ads.
I think a lot of people need to understand the value of
getting to the table that can move your needle.
And you made that investment.
I make that investment every single year.
Talk to that point.
Like, you just brought up four kind of main pillars that you genuinely believe in.
One of them being the community.
What is community?
What is Boardroom?
What is other masterminds?
What has that done for your business at Hello Pro?
Yeah.
So not only does it help build
a network of people like yourself that have audiences that can help coach you
and provide some interaction with prospective clients and people that my business can help, but it also helps my mindset too.
In how are people running their businesses?
What do they think about when they hire people?
How do they think about growing their business?
How do they
manage their lifestyle?
What types of things are they doing in their life that are impactful from a health and fitness perspective, from a recruiting perspective, from a personal branding perspective.
And those two components to me, not only from the business development side, but also from the mindset side is incredibly valuable.
Oh, yeah.
Almost invaluable.
I would say there's probably not, when you're in the right community, when you're in the right mastermind, when you have, it is invaluable.
Like the check probably can't be big enough because what it can do for you.
Absolutely.
You obviously know this, but a lot of people have to understand it's more of a long tail play anyways.
The network, the people, Luke and Justin will be closer today from this day forward than we were before today and that long tail relationship will pay dividends over years people want the how do you go make me money right the second how do you make me money the second Justin well Luke has hello pro right I mean that's how you can help people make money in the real estate space absolutely um and so I encourage all all people to have some actualization of like Are you even playing in the league you should be?
And then pay your way to the table.
I do it every year.
I cut massive checks, whether it's individual coaching, masterminds, whatever it may be.
I have a financial coach that I have that's very expensive, but he's had 30 years of financial advising.
Like, I pay him because he has the experience I need.
It's a shortcut.
There's not a lot of shortcuts in business or life, but that is one of them.
Just get straight to the people who have the answers, who have been through what you are trying to do or in some parallel path to that.
And it gives you that
shorter path.
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I don't know if we could call it
quite a shortcut
because you still have to put in the
And certainly, if you want your business to be around in the long term, you have to think about things in the long term.
If you're looking for quick wins,
you probably won't be around in the long term.
You always have to have that long-term mindset from a relationship perspective, from a business perspective.
If you're looking for immediate ROI on your investment in something like a mastermind, a coach, that might be difficult to produce.
Yep.
I agree 100%.
So the thing that I wanted to bring up is immediate returns.
Let's get into marketing a little bit.
Let's talk about your company and what you do for real estate investors, but also marketing as a whole, because the concept you just brought up, I think, is a misunderstanding of what marketing really can do for your business.
Yep.
I will make an art.
Now, TV ads is better than most marketing strategies.
You find real sellers that usually, for the most part, are pretty highly motivated, right?
Cold calling, way less motivated.
So I encourage you guys, again, find Luke, find the website, engage with them, fill out the forms.
Again, let's drive them back to the, where do you want them to go?
ThehelloPro.com.
Go there, talk to them, right?
The reality is people need the very fast way to get in front of motivated sellers.
That's what your company does.
But the mindset of a real estate investor needs to have a longer tail.
That's the challenge.
It's not Hello Pro's fault that the seller didn't want to sell at your price, which is 50% of value in the next seven days.
You need to to have the ability to sell that person overtime.
Correct.
So, talk to the business, what you do, how you're helping investors, and let's talk about the ideology of marketing in general.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And to provide a little bit of context, I'm a former real estate investor.
Yeah,
have
scaled up a business to where most people aspire to be at.
CEO and managing partner of a real estate investing company.
We're doing about 100 flips a year and about 100 wholesale deals a year.
And And so, just to give people some perspective on my background, I just started some random TV company.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, so go in that.
A little bit of your background, and then how does, so going from true real estate investor to now, you know, still an investor, but now you have, you know, this marketing company that focuses on TV ads.
How did that transpire?
Sure.
Why did you do that?
Yeah, yeah.
So, I
left oil and gas, went into an existing organization.
They were doing maybe like 40 or 50 deals a year.
I'd say pretty young from an operations perspective.
Not a lot of systems or processes in place.
Not a good understanding of what marketing was working or not working.
You know, we were, when I came into the business,
pretty unorganized,
but had deal flow, which is good, right?
That's the foundation for any good business.
And fix the pains, although it's not optimized, right?
Correct, correct.
And so the way that my brain works and the experiences that I've had in the corporate corporate space,
it was a very good fit in order to streamline our operations, in order to scale up and understand, hey, how do we do that?
If we need to put our foot on the gas, where do we do that?
Recruiting, hiring, training people, I could do that in my sleep as well.
Had a lot of project management experience, construction experience.
It was a good fit.
So I grew in an equity stake in that business as we scaled up,
which was important to me leaving the corporate space.
I did not want just a standard job.
I wanted equity.
That was very important to me and something we negotiated right out of the gates.
And so we scaled up the business really over the course of about three and a half years.
We were doing, went from about 40, 50 deals a year to about 200 deals a year.
And that's not even including some of the retail deals like that that was
creating way.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that goes to the company party fund, you know.
That's difficult to run an off-market real estate business off of that, but you always have to capture that revenue.
Of course.
So, so,
you know, we kind of got to the point where we needed to come up with what's next in our business.
Do we continue to scale the off-market side?
Do we add more retail team members?
Do we get into lending, title, that type of stuff?
Franchising, licensing, kind of everything was on the table.
And it was really difficult between me and my partners to get an understanding of like, well, Where do you want to go?
Where do I want to go?
And how do we fund that, right?
Who's going to pay for it?
Who's going to staff it
and so we got to the point where we looked at selling the business ultimately we reached an agreement where my business partners bought me out of the business
and so it looked like a pretty standard exit sure and so
you know took some time to again reflect on well where do I want to go well yeah what do I want to do what do I want by the way to actually work out to the to the letter of the law that was on the paperwork like the exit happened the money was exchanged actually happened yep that is unique and you know that but very
for for business owners and business partners to have a divorce and for it to transpire in a way that actually is how it was set out to transpire yeah very unique correct so actually there yeah there's just not a lot of people that have had a uh um
sale or exit out of a flipping and wholesaling business.
Yes, right.
And so it's a, it's a feather in my cap that I wear proudly because to me, not
take away the monetary exchange and all of that, kind of the title of exiting a business, but for me, it's a feather in my cap that I'm proud to wear because we built something of value.
We built something where there's real momentum, there's real processes, there's a real expectation that revenue will continue, that profits will continue.
And that to me is much more
fulfilling than
the monetary side for sure.
So yeah, after that took place, I started to shape a few business ideas.
What happens next?
Met with a handful of advisors who have spent a lot of time in the advertising space and started to shape the idea of what is now Hello Pro.
Cool.
I'm a strategist, so put a lot of business plans together and wanted to make a true innovation in the space, how TB ads are served to real estate investors.
So your previous company that you just bought out of, did you utilize TV as a marketing strategy?
Is that because you're like, dude, this really works?
I know it works.
Is that kind of the...
To no surprise, it was a huge component of our success.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I still think it's one of the most slept on marketing strategies for real estate investors.
It can deliver massive impact.
It's incredibly scalable without a lot of operational headache.
You try and scale up a cold calling team, and you're going to lose sleep.
You're going to pull your hair out.
You're going to be reaching points of diminishing return.
I've done that.
I've had in-house, not VAs and not companies, in-house 20 to 30 20-year-olds that, you know, were going to ASU.
This is when I was in Phoenix.
Yeah.
You know, and they would come in part-time.
And when I say it is a brute force like brain damage, it is.
And scaling that in-house is a whole nother story.
It's doable and it can be profitable, but you could just give, you know, you 10 grand a month to run ads and just let the leads come in.
Correct, correct.
And there is a very predictable process to scaling that up to 15,000, 20,000, 25,000.
And really, what's unique about our offering is that we are using data to understand what's working best for your marketing.
Yeah.
Real data.
And so when we see that opportunity to put our foot on the gas, we know exactly where to do it and how to scale up.
And from the operator's perspective,
certainly you have to write a bigger check, but there's very limited operational headaches associated with that.
You're not trying to recruit and hire and retain more cold callers.
You're not pulling the next list of lower motivated people.
You know, there is a diminishing return with kind of the list way to market.
You're reaching the highest motivated people first, list stacking, AI rankings, whatever that is.
And the more that you want to push that marketing, the deeper into the barrel you have to reach.
And generally, that means a lower motivation.
TV works almost the opposite.
The more that you spend, the more
favorable treatment we get from the stations, the more value adds that we can get, the more freebie spots that we can get, the better programming that you can get.
And so it almost has the opposite effect.
And the more that you lean into it, the more that it gives you back.
So it's not a one-to-one relationship as you scale up.
It starts to become one and a half to one and two to one and two and a half to one.
And now, a next level moment from ATT business.
Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day.
You've got ATT 5G, so you're fully confident, But the vendor isn't responding.
And International Sleep Day is tomorrow.
Luckily, AT β T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you.
AT β T 5G requires a compatible plant and device.
Coverage not available everywhere.
Learn more at ATT.com/slash 5G network.
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Jen's the mother of two teens.
Her online shopping cart is always full of amps and auxiliary cables, so you might think she's funding her kids' garage band.
But what you don't know is she's actually the one shredding on stage.
With TransUnion's 360 degree view of consumer identity, you can get a clear picture of your marketing audience and reach people like Jen with messages that are more headbanger, less homebody.
See how TransUnion is bringing clarity to marketing chaos through deeper insights, smarter reach, and precise measurement at transunion.com slash clarity.
At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone.
You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve.
You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program.
Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals.
A different future is closer than you think with Capella University.
Learn more at capella.edu.
So what's your ideal avatar for a client?
Like, who would you ideally like to come from this podcast to talk to you about being a client?
Yeah, so if you're doing more than two to three deals per month, if you have a brand and a decent web presence, you know, a consumer-facing brand, you've got your Google My Business page filled out, you've got a website that converts pretty well, that's a great time to go into TV marketing.
Yeah.
If you don't have those pieces together, you can start to build that.
TV is an expensive marketing channel.
Generally, your cost per deal is going to be a little bit higher, but you make up for it on the margins on those deals.
And so if your first few deals,
if you're looking for those first few deals,
use other marketing channels.
And as you start to get momentum and you want to advance and start to buy back some of your time and start to buy back some of your operational overhead, then TV is a great time to do that.
I love TV.
I've done it for a long time.
Your point is very valid.
I need people to understand, like, if you're trying to get your first two or three deals, there are cheaper ways.
Like you could call listing agents, right?
I mean, I just had a student close a deal totally free.
But if you have some money behind you using this strategy, you do need to be looking up Luke.
You need to go contact him because I just think if you have any leveled good salesmanship and in a CRM that has good nurture sequences, spend the money for better leads.
Correct.
Right.
And I think TV is just, regardless of the market, I think it just offers the value of the lead above, I would argue, probably most, if not all, other strategies.
That's correct.
To me, there are three main scalable strategies for real estate investors.
TV is one of those components.
Direct mail is another one of those components.
You can get high margin deals out of direct mail, very high motivation, good conversion rates.
I don't care about response rates.
Like, that's a total vanity metric because we've all been on the receiving end of those calls.
And we know what the responses are, and they're not all positive.
Yeah.
But from a conversion rate perspective, like those are generally quite motivated.
PPC, I would say, is the other scalable
marketing channel.
And so if you have a few of those as your foundation in your business, the world is your oyster.
You can continue to scale up significantly.
But TV is generally a front runner in conversion rates and margin of deals.
How much would be like a minimum marketing threshold?
So walk through the business model, right?
So you guys manage it.
You're a managed service.
You're not technically running the ads, right?
This station is.
What do you think between a management service plus the ad spend,
where would they want to be monthly, you know, so they understand like, oh, this is probably the safe number conservative.
Sure, sure.
In smaller markets, we can generally work quite well with a marketing budget of $5,000 a month.
Okay.
And that's usually going to get you,
we'll say 100 ads a month or so.
In some markets, we can work with that budget and get much more, but it just depends a lot on how many stations are there, how many viewers are watching the programming that we want to air on, and that determines the price ultimately on our side.
In larger markets, you might want to start out with a larger budget.
Frequency is very important in TV advertising.
If you air one ad per month, nobody will remember you.
That's right.
You air one ad a week, maybe you have a a chance.
Maybe, maybe.
Generally, we're trying to get daily programming.
So in that same time slot, we have the same viewers.
And so anything that's more frequent than daily is, is generally good.
Yeah.
Same station, programming.
You know, we play with a lot of those different things on our side to build an optimized schedule.
But frequency is very important.
And so
we look at those metrics to do the best media buying that we can.
What about branding?
You know, so I use Justin by Zbama's is the brand.
Yeah.
And so it has a little rememberable, right?
So maybe they haven't seen my commercial in a while and they could be like, Jasmine, does that make sense?
Does that play into anything?
Is it irrelevant?
Is it more my thought of what I think works?
What do you think?
Yeah, yeah.
So I work with a lot of different businesses across the country and people
are.
married to their brand for better or for worse.
Yeah.
I created that brand up for the marketing purpose.
It's not even an LLC.
Yeah.
Because it's just a marketing brand that brings them in doing business as my actual LLC that's going to contract and buy the deal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's go down a little bit of a rabbit hole here because I think it's important for people to realize the difference between running a hustle and doing deals and running a consumer-facing business.
And if you're trying to run a hustle, you can run a business under Luke Winter Equity LLC.
I cannot run a consumer-facing business.
I was right with that.
That's right.
That will engage zero people in my services.
They don't know what it's for.
It doesn't tell people who we are, the values that we stand for, or what we even do.
And so when we look at a consumer-facing business, it's important to have a name that's memorable.
It's important to have a logo that's memorable, colors and fonts that are uniform across your brand so that when people see your TV ad or a Facebook ad and they land on your website,
they recognize that I'm in the right place.
And if they don't recognize that, there's either going to be a red flag or
lack of continuity amongst your brand.
And so you're not building that trust and credibility throughout all of your omnichannel marketing channels.
So it's important for people to understand that you are in a consumer-facing business if you're trying to buy houses direct from somebody.
And so your brand has to support that.
Not everybody who approaches a business like mine
has that ready to go.
And so I'll work with people and provide a little bit of advice on that.
But from a business perspective, get out of the hustler mode.
You are building a consumer-facing brand and business, and it's very important for you to
invest some time and energy so that your brand looks and feels the same everywhere that you are.
Do you have a lot of people that don't have a lot of that infrastructure?
You kind of mentioned it, but like, is it a good amount of people that come to you and be like, hey, I want to get working with you?
And you're like, okay, what's your website?
What's your brand?
And people are like, yeah, well, I don't know.
I have this company called Justin Buys Buys
Real Estate.
And you're like,
okay.
And it's not pointing to the market or what you're actually trying to do.
Do you have a lot of that?
Is are people like?
I'd say about a third, maybe half of the people that want to start airing ads on TV don't have everything buttoned up.
Yeah, they need to think.
Yeah.
For example,
one of the key components of having successful TV ad campaigns is, does your website convert?
And as much as I try and push people to call a phone number, because that's generally the urgent lead, that's who's going to be selling your house.
Those are the people that will sell their house quickly.
There will also be people that want to search you online, look at the reviews.
They might submit a web form a few days later.
They want to read an about us page.
They're going to nose around.
It's about a 50-50 split.
So you have to have a good web present.
And so, for example, I was looking at somebody's website and it was first name, last name, property address phone number uh a consent form i authorize you to text me i give away my firstborn child and a captcha and i was like you are turning everybody away as a web form if you want nobody to submit a web form then this is a good way to do it yeah and um they're like well i was getting a bunch of spam leads so this is why i built it this way with the captcha and blah blah blah And you think about the person selling their house for cash, they are probably not going to be able to navigate a CAPTCHA very well.
I can hardly navigate.
Where's the stoplights and sidewalks and I get it wrong.
And somebody's going to get frustrated by that and go to a competitor's website where it's really easy to fill out that library warrant.
And so those are little things that we'll optimize, you know, before we launch a TV campaign, but it all works together.
And so we provide a little bit of that perspective just because we have seen what works well across all of our client accounts.
But
let's talk about their nurture.
Let's take it to now they're working with you, the leads are coming in.
What about their nurture, their sequence, the follow-up, the CRM, the automation, the AI?
Do you kind of like guide them to say, hey, I'm only going to keep you as a client as good as you are at converting these leads.
So if you suck, you're going to leave me.
And it's not because I'm not doing my job.
It's because you can't convert the leads I'm giving you.
Which, as a coach, that is a large part of our world as, you know, these real estate investors want to blame the lead provider, but they don't want to look at the mirror and say, oh, I actually am not very good at conversion.
I actually don't know how to comp properties.
I actually don't make as many offers as I should be.
I actually suck on my side.
It's not actually the marketing strategy, right?
Yeah.
Do you help them with that kind of stuff?
Do you suggest things or do you have any type of like consultative like, hey, if you're going to come on as a client, I need to see even how your CRM works because I need to make sure that like.
you have some level of follow-up, some nurture.
How's your team built?
Who do you have with you?
Do you do any of that?
Yeah, a little bit.
And what's unique about my business and how we're set up is I meet with all of my clients monthly.
Yeah.
And it's not only just from a, hey, how are your TV ads performing and what can we do from a marketing perspective?
Some of it is providing perspective from groups like Boardroom.
Not everybody wants to pony up all that money to be a part of the group.
Yeah, and you can offer some insights that you're seeing you did.
So you're saying, hey, I'm going to help out my community.
Yeah.
Here's a lender.
Here's what the latest trends are across the industry.
Here's what my other clients are up to.
you know dispo strategy is a is a huge component of people's success and their ultimate roi will be so yeah, there's a certain degree of it.
I wouldn't consider it a core service, but ultimately that will determine their success and probably my business's success as well.
I would make an argument that, well, you and I should just talk off camera about it because I would make an argument you would want stickiness and
your client's ability to actually convert the leads you're already giving them, knowing TB and how good they are.
Yeah.
They're dropping the ball more than you are by far.
And it's because they don't have some automation and they don't have their CRM set up in a way that can nurture a conversation.
When a seller says, no, I'm not really interested, they probably go next, or they say, oh, these leads suck.
Well, it's not your fault.
It's they gotta be able to wait long enough for that motivation to hit, right?
Yep.
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So we'll talk off because I have some ideas to help you kind of keep your clients they already have.
That's great.
That's great.
And
here's a perfect example of it.
I was working with a client for a couple of months.
We were airing their ads, and through some of the data that we were looking at, we can see when there's more or less engagement throughout the day, right?
We kind of plot that over time and that helps us optimize our media buying, which ads are working better at what time of day.
And so we saw a pretty large increase in volume around 9 p.m.
at night.
I said, well, what's your after-hours answering look like?
Exactly.
Because it looks like there's quite a bit of engagement in business around this time.
I want to do more of that, but I'm curious, can you handle after-hours calls well?
And it was more just a curiosity, curiosity, like, hey, here's what I'm seeing.
What are you doing on your end to make sure that that is being monetized well?
And I wasn't quite satisfied with their answer.
As you could guess, they didn't have an after-hours answering service
and only answered the phone during normal business hours and actually sent people to voicemail, which if you're in a service business and you push people to voicemail, goodbye to that lead.
That's right.
So I was like, wow, really?
Friday at 9 p.m., they're not getting a call back until Monday at what time?
It's like, well, probably around 10 or 11 when we're done with our Monday morning meetings.
And like, wow, you're probably not getting any of those opportunities.
Dude, people just need to understand if you're an entrepreneur, your nine to five world is gone.
You are 24-7, seven days a week.
It is the biggest misnomer and frustration.
When you just said that, it triggered me because, dude, people think, oh, I own my own business.
I get more time with my family.
It's actually, especially in the first probably five to 10 years, it's actually probably the opposite because you got to work longer, harder.
It is all on you to go win.
You cannot blame your boss.
You cannot blame anything.
You are bringing in leads, you are paying for those leads, and you are not calling them at nine o'clock or not Saturday morning or not any day Saturday or Sunday because you are the business owner that gets to go to the beach all weekend.
You are not going to be very successful.
You might have some level of success, but nowhere near the level you should.
Entrepreneurs need to wake the fuck up.
It is 100% seven days a week, 24-7, all on your shoulders until the point of scale.
Most people in your world are not at the point of scale.
Same thing with me in my world, when I'm coaching people, I crawl up their ass and I say, guys, this is why you're sucking because you want to say you have the lifestyle you don't deserve yet because you're not working, right?
Sorry, you just triggered me on that because it's so frustrating.
You're like, I'm giving you the golden lead.
It's right here.
It just came in at nine o'clock on a Friday.
Okay, fine.
You're putting the kids down, but there's not answer.
Like, you don't have someone calling them back, answering the phone or minimum, God forsake, someone calling them at 9 a.m.
on Saturday.
Like, you're going to wait till Monday?
Correct.
Yeah.
It tires me up.
Yep.
It is just unacceptable.
And as a picture yourself on the consumer side when you call a local service provider and you get pushed to voicemail.
Don't be that business that doesn't answer their phone.
It is the most simple thing to do.
And what is, by the way, what is a good service provider that you would say, hey, here's a good provider that'll answer the phone off hours?
I have a fair number of clients that are using things like call porter answer connect there's a bunch of the ant you know almost everybody uses call rail yeah but do they but they have a live answering service at call rail not not call rail but i'm saying call routing yeah you know you can have a you can have a hierarchy amongst your team members 100 uh they're all porters and answering service all right yeah correct
yep uh there used to be they may be a ruby something ruby
Anyways, there's been, I've used a handful over the years.
And people
get bought out and whatever.
I think people, if you're going to spend money, make sure you actually have efficiencies.
That's why you and I will talk to see if I can even help your own clients.
Because if you're going to go spend 5, 10, 15, 20 grand a month and you don't have efficiencies, you're just missing out on money.
It doesn't do you any good.
Yeah.
You've got a leaky bucket.
You're pouring more water into a leaky bucket.
And they're going to blame the marketing company, right?
That every time, whether it's direct mail, cold calling, oh, your lists suck.
Your cold callers don't speak great, whatever.
and name the complaint.
The customer is going to blame them versus themselves.
And that's like that whole, I'm big on the self-actualization.
Look in the mirror and figure out who the fuck you are and where are your weaknesses.
Yeah.
And look at the industry.
It's not all
rainbows and roses out there right now.
Ladies, you need, you need to be a dialed-in operator to be successful.
Right now, the people who are marginally okay are being washed out of the industry.
It is massive opportunity if you know what you're doing.
Massive opportunity to take market share because the average players are getting washed out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's
one of my original mentors talked about,
he phrased it in a way, but essentially is like you take market share, you go deeper when everyone's running out because when the, when it's all done, you're going to have so much more market share.
You're going to be the name brand, right?
You're going to be the one that everyone looks to because you're able to eat up that market share.
Now it's tough to be able to have the stamina during these times, right?
You need to dig deep.
You need to work longer.
You need to work harder.
I mean, I've been in this business almost 20 years, this specific business, I will argue I'm working harder now than I did over the last five years during COVID for sure.
Yep.
My wife sees it.
My kids, like I'm not seeing the kids as much as I want to.
Now that's by choice because I'm trying to create more market share and more growth so we can have those moments.
Again, I get frustrated a little bit by these, you know, know, so-called gurus or people on the internet talking about be, you know, take your life back and own your time and vacations and all this shit as an entrepreneur.
I'm like, guys, it is actually the opposite for the first five to 10 years.
And I'm two decades into this and I'm still working harder now than I was during COVID because sometimes it's seasonal.
Sometimes there's a season that you got to dig deeper, work harder and work.
to get what you want.
And right now in the real estate space, we collectively are in a season.
It is harder now than it was during COVID.
I hate COVID, not because of all the health issues.
I hate it because it weakened our society.
It weakened everyone.
Everyone expects free money.
Everyone's expecting
these easy ways to make money.
That's just not the case.
It's never been the case.
It was a unicorn event.
Right.
And now everyone's weak because of it.
Yeah.
If you are still riding high off of YouTube University,
wholesaling will not make you rich in today's environment.
It is very, very difficult to do what was being done four years ago.
You could be an incredibly successful wholesaler,
marginally good at sales and operations,
just because people were paying a very high premium for wholesale deals.
Yeah.
It is
very, very, very difficult.
Only the best of the best operators are doing wholesale exclusively and are spending their way there.
They are cutting massive marketing checks every single month to make sure they're bringing the best leads so that they can have the biggest margins per deal versus volume.
You talked about how you got started, you're doing 200 deals a year or whatnot.
It's a big number.
Yeah.
Now, those same type of operators are doing like maybe 80 deals a year, 50 deals a year, but they're trying to focus on the bigger margins, less volume.
Right?
Yep.
These are all things that everyone should be hitting you up.
Make sure you're going to Luke, Luke Winter.
He's all over my social media right now.
Send me the website one last time.
Thehellopro.com.
You can book a call direct with me on our website.
Yeah.
Guys, if you're interested in marketing and finding a vertical maybe you're not utilizing, make sure you hit them up.
They're phenomenal.
I appreciate you showing up and being so genuine and authentic about it.
It's been great.
Yeah.
Thanks, Justin.
Absolutely.
All right, guys, if this was helpful and you think actually maybe someone needs to know Luke, share this with at least two of your friends.
I'd appreciate it.
See you on the next episode.
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Jed's the mother of two teens.
Her online shopping cart is always full of amps and auxiliary cables, so you might think she's funding her kids' garage band.
But what you don't know is she's actually the one shredding on stage.
With TransUnion's 360-degree view of consumer identity, you can get a clear picture of your marketing audience and reach people like Jen with messages that are more headbanger, less homebody.
See how TransUnion is bringing clarity to marketing chaos through deeper insights, smarter reach, and precise measurement at transunion.com slash clarity.
At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone.
You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve.
You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program.
Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals.
A different future is closer than you think with Capella University.
Learn more at capella.edu.