How a Triple Immigrant Turned Real Estate Leads Into a Multi-Million Dollar Business | Gene Blinkov

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Speaker 8 You can create the life you really want. It is really up to you to create it, right? You have created a U.S.

Speaker 8 business, triple immigrant, living in Italy, essentially never really running the business within the United States. And you live in what I don't, I don't even know, but I know Lake Cuomo.

Speaker 8 You probably live in one of the more beautiful places in the entire planet. And you have a company that you can run completely virtual.

Speaker 8 And so I just want to highlight if you are somewhere that you don't want to be financially, physically located, whatever, you have the decision to change.

Speaker 8 Gene is a perfect example that you can move, you can start the business, you can get going, but you have to make the decision to do it. What is up, science of flipping family? I'm super excited.

Speaker 8 If you are in real estate and you are trying to find more motivated seller leads, reduce your lead costs, and increase your conversion.

Speaker 8 This is the episode you need to listen to and watch of Gene Blinkoff from iSpeed Delete is here. What is up, bro?

Speaker 2 Hey, great to be here, man. Great to see you.
Yeah, man.

Speaker 8 I'm excited. So we were just together in a mastermind, shocker.
All the major players are always investing in themselves, always paying to play, always getting in the rooms.

Speaker 8 You and I were just in a mastermind down in Tampa. Yeah.
Hurricane came. We both made it out safely.
We're back in Miami. Well, let's talk about I-Speed Delight.

Speaker 8 Listen, my podcast is all about real estate investing. Everyone here is either an active real estate investor already doing deals, or they're getting into the game.

Speaker 8 ISP Delite has been around for a while. You have a very high reputation.
Let's talk about how people can find more leads without having to have this massive marketing budget.

Speaker 8 That is a big deal these days. Let's talk about how the ISP to lead system works.

Speaker 2 Yeah, man. So our whole premise at ISP is that you should not have to worry about lead gen so much.

Speaker 2 And the whole mission of ISP to lead is to allow you to go from jumping onto our platform for the first time, the next five minutes, be talking to your next seller that's motivated, that's already filled out their information, that already wants to sell.

Speaker 2 So, not a prospect, not a list of leads, but a real lead that wants to talk to you. And we've done probably about 200,000 leads at this point.
Wow.

Speaker 2 And so, we've got, we try to kind of serve the whole industry. So, both we have something for the newbies, where they can, you know, get in at a very minimal cost.

Speaker 2 And that's the beauty, like no setup fees. You don't got to be qualified or fill out any questionnaires.
Yeah. We make it really easy to sign up.

Speaker 2 We'll give you some promo codes to start with to kind of get your gears going. And you're off to the races.
You can be, we have people that are doing a contract the first week.

Speaker 8 I love that. So I already know people are like, all right, where do I need to go for the promo codes? Because they always want to deal.
So just go to what iSpeedtolead.com.

Speaker 8 And then from there, they'll be able to get these promo codes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, go to iSpeedTolead.com. You're going to get

Speaker 2 a message as soon as you join. You're going to get an automatic message with the promo code.

Speaker 2 And then you also have an option for a completely free training, not a sales pitch from our team to get a claim to the platform because we have a leads marketplace.

Speaker 2 And we also now for three months now have a dispositions marketplace with 6 million buyers. So I speed to lead has a lot of superpower, like a lot of horsepower.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's helpful to get in that free training as well.

Speaker 8 What is, so if I'm speaking just to the newbie and then we'll move on to more the experienced investor, what is the system for them to go immediately start getting leads, right?

Speaker 8 Because as a newbie, and I coach a lot of newbies, their biggest challenge is like, where do I even start? Where do I find a seller, right?

Speaker 8 And so this being a great resource, talk to the newbie right now about ISP to lead and what actually happens.

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. So when you jump on ISP to lead, you're going to get a promo code for like 66% off on your first three leads.

Speaker 2 And so just to compare it to like Google ads or Facebook ads, if you were doing it yourself, our prices are actually lower than you would pay if you were going to Google Ads yourself.

Speaker 8 Economies of scale.

Speaker 2 Yeah, which is crazy, right? And then also, if you go to Google or Facebook, you're never going to get a refund where you're never going to be able to customize what lead you want.

Speaker 2 On iSpeed, you can see what that lead is. You can see how many bedrooms, bathrooms, you can see what their motivation is that they filled out.

Speaker 2 You can see if it's a vacant home, everything about the lead before you buy the lead, you can see.

Speaker 2 And so you can get leads cheaper than Google and Facebook, and they're refundable in case something, let's say they sold the house already. Let's say they change their mind.

Speaker 2 So we refund actually about 15% of the whole volume.

Speaker 8 15, right?

Speaker 2 About 15%, yeah, because sellers are, you know, sellers are fickle. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so we've got a great support team of actually live people, and you don't even have to prove that like something's wrong with the lead.

Speaker 2 We take the responsibility to go make sure, like, to check, like, hey, is everything good with that lead or if they're, you know, know, needs to be refunded.

Speaker 2 So you just use the support button and get it.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I mean, listen, at the end of the day, if I'm a newbie, that gives like a safety net, right?

Speaker 8 Where you like, so for example, if you're doing Facebook ads or doing Google ads, the lead comes in and they just listed it for top dollar.

Speaker 8 There's no safety net. Like you just spent money on that lead.

Speaker 8 What are some of the criteria that they can? I don't want people to refund, by the way, but it gives a nice safety net for the newer investor who maybe doesn't know as much.

Speaker 8 What are some of the qualifications to get or ask for a refund?

Speaker 2 Yeah. So, I mean, if it, if the house is already closed, if they want too much, okay, so that's a big one.
Yeah. Facebook, Google,

Speaker 2 you're out of pocket on those. Right.
Right.

Speaker 2 If they, if it's already under contract, if they under contract, whether it's with a

Speaker 2 realtor or another wholesaler,

Speaker 2 because you can buy leads that are older on an SBC lead. Like the older they are, the cheaper it is.
Sure. And it's a lot more hustle, but people still close a lot of those.
Of course.

Speaker 2 And if they don't, it's refundable. It's like if it's already contracted, it's either contracted or they're still selling.
Yeah. And they're still motivated.
If they want too much, it's a refund.

Speaker 2 If it's already contracted, it's a refund. So it's like, it's very little risk.
Very little. It's a hustle.
And there's leads that you don't have to generate. Yeah.
Already generating for you.

Speaker 8 Do you guys have some data conversion ratio? Now, there's a difference. A lot of people blame the lead provider, name the name it doesn't at all.

Speaker 8 I need more leads or I'm not getting good enough leads. So they go and blame.
But I know as an educator, a lot of times it has more to do with their conversion. Are they good salespeople?

Speaker 8 Do they know how to get the deal versus blaming the lead, right? So in my opinion, even the older leads have so much gold because there's a reason why that lead is still around.

Speaker 8 People didn't know how to convert the lead. They didn't get creative enough.
Maybe they didn't know how to convert a high leveraged deal.

Speaker 8 So for example, a homeowner has a reverse mortgage or a homeowner has two or maybe three liens. Most wholesalers don't know what to do with that.

Speaker 8 So they're going to blame ISP or they're going to blame the lead provider. Not fair.
Get better at your conversion, right?

Speaker 8 We have a reverse flip method that I can go and convert that lead where 99% of the wholesalers would never be able to convert that lead. But it's about conversion.
It's not about the lead.

Speaker 8 So I just think that's an unfair thing that happens in our space is the lead provider gets blamed.

Speaker 2 No, no, no.

Speaker 8 You get better at being a tactician, get better at the X's and O's, and you'll convert more of those leads.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I've got a crazy example, right? So we have a customer that just sent me a story, it's like fresh in my mind.

Speaker 2 Two deals, about, I think it was about 48 or something like that, total, total profit on them.

Speaker 2 And so she, she's actually in Florida,

Speaker 2 Natalie. And so she

Speaker 2 actually

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
And so

Speaker 2 first lead,

Speaker 2 the lead picked up on the 12th call,

Speaker 2 the first time that they've been connected with him. And so these were all, in this case, these were older leads.
Okay.

Speaker 2 So when you buy exclusive leads on iSpeed, and they're automatic, like they're fast,

Speaker 2 you get them the second they come in.

Speaker 2 Obviously, the open rate, the pickup rate is a lot better on.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 they're at like 90 degrees at that moment. Yeah.
And they're in the buying mode. They're just, they just had that pain fresh in their mind.

Speaker 2 They're ready to, and they know what they filled out the form, so they're ready to pick up. Older leads, they might be doing something or not know who's calling them.

Speaker 2 First lead, it was the 12th call when they first even had a conversation. Second was the 17th call.
Wow. But that's 48 grand.

Speaker 8 48 grand.

Speaker 2 48 grand that they made on those two deals. And so the thing is, like, most wholesalers would probably file for a refund by then.
Yeah. And you know what?

Speaker 2 We probably would give it to them because, like, we'd probably try them the seller also. Yeah.
And he wouldn't be picking up. I mean, we only have like five people on the support team only.
But

Speaker 2 so that's, that's the tenacity piece alone, right? And then there's the exit strategies, right? Right. Like, reverse flipping.
Right.

Speaker 2 Exit strategies is everything.

Speaker 8 You need to be reverse.

Speaker 8 And just to define reverse flipping so no one knows, if you don't know, it's essentially being able to find a seller that needs to, not even needs, they're going to lose their home.

Speaker 8 Like there's no more options. So we'll buy the deed from them and we'll negotiate against the bank for you.
So that's reverse flipping. But that is an exit strategy.

Speaker 8 Wholesaling, fix and flip, buy and hold, short-term rentals, mid-term rentals, they're all underwritten differently. And so for the newer individual, they may not have that skill set yet.

Speaker 8 And that's why I don't like that a newer individual just starts blaming lead providers.

Speaker 8 You're newer. You don't have the skill set yet that someone like myself, after 17 years, I can convert at a much higher level because of it, right?

Speaker 8 And so you just brought up something that I want to highlight for iSpeed to Lead, which is you have an exclusivity package.

Speaker 8 That, I think, would be a lot more for the more experienced investors, active investors.

Speaker 8 Talk to the exclusivity package.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so we have... uh you know leads for the uh new folks for like more merch of starting out and wholesaling uh they're a lot cheaper but you know you're gonna you're gonna hustle a little more

Speaker 2 and so and then we have the premium leads that are that come in the second they come in you're getting them in your I-speed platform there's a little mini CRM parking area for them and then it integrates with every CRM out there yeah so it just it's in your CRM the second the lead came in and that lead is exclusive to you.

Speaker 2 And so our rule is that it's exclusive to you until the ownership on that address changes so if we get that lead again it's gonna the system is gonna kick it back out and because we have a storefront there's an actual interface and a store in a marketplace and it's actually beautiful

Speaker 2 you can see that hey your lead's been sold out it's never gonna be touched again we even in one of our ads because it's a concern this is a big concern in the industry like are they reselling the same lead to everyone without selling concern yeah we have leads that are not exclusive and you'll see how many people have picked them up or if no people picked them up.

Speaker 2 And then we have the exclusive thing. We even ran an ad where we have a little piece of code that's responsible for marking that lead sold out for eternity, that seller to address combination.

Speaker 2 And we just ran it to address that objection from people because it's very valid. PPLs are very new.
People are kind of listening to it.

Speaker 2 And we've been trying to be the voice of. just not just talking about our platform.
And that's what our sales team, like, they'll talk about all the PPL providers.

Speaker 2 They'll even give a comparison on the call

Speaker 2 instead of just being pushy. Because that's what people want more.
Like, they want to get a claim to the whole PPL industry, what it is, right?

Speaker 2 We're a lot more than just a PPL provider, but it's still a big part of what we do.

Speaker 8 Well, maybe talk about the expansiveness of ISP delete. I mean, I think a lot of people think about the lead, the PPL side.
Talk about what you really built out.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so

Speaker 2 it's a transparent marketplace where you can pick what leads you buy before you got buy them. And even within the PPL space, that doesn't really exist

Speaker 2 where you can really customize the leads and you can choose them in a visual interface based on their parameters. And so that's just the leads part of it.

Speaker 2 But then we've got, you know, our customers came to us and they're like, dude, we need to dispo these things. We need help.
You guys know stuff. You guys build beautiful interfaces.

Speaker 2 Can you do something? And so we built DealSpeed, which is actually

Speaker 2 in the same login as iSpeed to Lead. And DealSpeed is a Dispo platform.
So there's like 3,000 deals on there already in just the couple months since we launched.

Speaker 2 And so every day there's a bunch of deals that our customers and even people that are not buying elites from iSpeed are just using DealSpeed specifically for Dispo.

Speaker 2 We paid like quarter million for just... all the data that's on there, the cash buyer data.
We cleaned a bunch of emails. We got our open rate up to like 20% on our cold blasts to those cash buyers.

Speaker 2 And you can see which cash buyers have checked out your listing. There's a way for them to message you.
So you have a little inbox from cash buyers where they ask questions. They can make an offer.

Speaker 2 And it's like, yeah, you can, all the levels of them interacting with your deal,

Speaker 2 they can actually, so either, whether they just looked at it and flip their pictures, you'll see that and you can call and be like, hey, I see you spying on my stuff. Right.

Speaker 2 Or they send you a message. They're a little more interested.
Or they make an offer.

Speaker 2 All of those happen, obviously, like in cadence. Yeah.
But it's a really cool platform.

Speaker 2 And we've got rent comps, sold comps on there, so the cash buyer can immediately see and kind of not have to leave the platform and just be focused on your deal.

Speaker 2 And following the family mastermind, we're going to be adding some creative stuff there too, specifically for creative deals,

Speaker 2 some functionality that's going to help. to dispo those.
I love that. I'm really excited about that.

Speaker 8 So you've really turned, and you've been around for several years now, but you've turned into a full-fledged, almost business in a box.

Speaker 8 I don't want to say that because I think it's a little played out, but like you really are a service provider to find the leads and to get it sold, especially on the wholesale side, right?

Speaker 8 If you are looking to wholesale, that is an avenue now that you could just go to ISP to lead. You can find the lead, contract the lead, and then sell the lead all on the same platform.

Speaker 2 Yeah, man.

Speaker 2 And that's, that's, I'm so glad you hit on that because it's one of our just kind of values in the company is to be able to allow the customer to stay on the same platform for a number of hours and stay productive without leaving.

Speaker 2 And so we've bought a title company database. Like we have every title company that's in the States listed there.

Speaker 2 I have some preferred partners too that are investor friendly, innovation friendly, creative friendly. So you can find the title companies there.
Obviously, there's a lot of things that

Speaker 2 you can't have a lawyer check your contract or whatever on ISP to lead, but

Speaker 2 there's a lot of stuff that we cover and we keep keep adding more conveniences for the customer so they can just stay, be productive, and go back to the beach.

Speaker 8 Well, that's the yeah, but that's the key to any business, right? Is you want your clients to stay with you, right?

Speaker 8 That's the reality is to have longevity, a long runway with these clients, because the more you have clients with you, the better you're going to serve them over time.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like man, so Den Martel,

Speaker 2 SAS SAS Academy,

Speaker 2 I was watching one of the modules on SAS Academy. And so

Speaker 2 every time you need to switch screens,

Speaker 2 it's like, have you ever heard that stat? When somebody distracts you from deep work, you have to, you know, there's like, it takes like 15 minutes to refocus back into the zone.

Speaker 2 Same thing when you switch different platforms or screens. It also takes you a long time to like recalibrate.
You know, you might, that's when you'll be tempted to like go for a coffee or do whatever.

Speaker 8 So we're really because you already broke your I'm I'm a super victim of this, right? I'm in deep work. All of a sudden, I got to go do something.

Speaker 8 It jumps over to a screen and then I kind of finish this little thing I'm doing and going back to deep work. I'm like,

Speaker 8 this is gonna be a lot. Let me go grab a cup of coffee.
Then I go grab a cup of coffee. Then I go start talking to my wife or I talk to somebody.

Speaker 8 And then next thing you know, it's an hour and a half later.

Speaker 2 And then you get an appointment.

Speaker 8 And then I'm like, oh, fuck. I'm not going to get back to my deep work.
That is like a super problem for me. There's no doubt about that.

Speaker 8 So for you, your business model is like, I don't want you leaving my screen. Yeah.
You can do the entire thing on one screen. Right.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I want you to be productive for a while, get stuff done, actually do stuff that moves the needle. Yeah.

Speaker 8 So what's the avatar that you would want to be reaching out to right now?

Speaker 8 You're going to probably have 200,000 people hear this, see this, right? Who are you saying you guys need to come check out Lead to Speed?

Speaker 8 Obviously, you have the newbies and you have the experienced. Is it both? Is it everybody? Is everyone a good fit for this platform at this point?

Speaker 2 In fact, so anyone that's doing real estate and is dealing with sellers should be on iSpeed. Okay.

Speaker 2 Like, we have not had the time because we've been just so busy with real estate investors and the wholesaling and flipping industry.

Speaker 2 But the agents that do jump on are like ecstatic because the seller lead is with an agent is, you know, you get like.

Speaker 8 Yeah, they can promise them the top number, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 8 So are you even targeting agents?

Speaker 2 We're not even targeting them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 We should be.

Speaker 2 We just haven't even gone there. We had our hands full with serving customers.
We're serving customers here. But we're also adding

Speaker 2 we're adding a couple of features.

Speaker 2 I can't even call them features. It's like a whole

Speaker 2 big daddy project

Speaker 2 that will just provide another

Speaker 2 point of convenience and valuable way

Speaker 2 to present yourself to the marketplace if you're a real estate professional. And so that's coming up, and we're going to be offering it to our existing users first.
And

Speaker 2 that should be another kind of game.

Speaker 8 So is it essentially like training modules?

Speaker 2 No, it's just, it's going to be more, because we're more like a software company than anything. We're a software company with a giant marketing production department that generates the leads, right?

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 It's going to be, I don't want to tease it out yet. Sure.

Speaker 2 But but you will stay tuned right that sounds interesting we'll hear about it first i love that what um do you like a whole success part of your thing when people are getting deals and they're like in the community saying got another deal got another deal i think that is a huge motivator for people to like stay within the program yeah so actually not yet not yet so we we're thinking about it yeah thinking about it uh we're obviously in some communities we support certain communities around the around the industry because we work with quite a bit of influencers that provide coaching because we want our user base, our customer base, we want them to be coached.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 2 If there was some kind of a, I don't know, certificate or something, some kind of diploma-ish

Speaker 2 thing out there.

Speaker 2 They just like, you got some training. Yeah.
You're not, because number one, I'm worried about the seller too.

Speaker 2 You know, I don't want the seller to be talking to somebody completely inexperienced who just has some money.

Speaker 2 And there's a lot of people in industry that just have some money, but they're, you know, so I fully recommend getting coached. I mean, I'm getting coached, dude.

Speaker 2 We're paying, we're paying quite a bit for coaching.

Speaker 8 I do the same thing. I mean, I have a six-figure budget for coaching and masterminds every year.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 And I spend it every year because just like you, your business has grown a lot and I've seen it grow. But dude, I want to get so much higher than where I'm at within business.

Speaker 8 I can only get there by people polling me there instead of me just trying to figure it out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And even in like a family, right? A lot of people are,

Speaker 2 it's really like a family environment in there. Isn't it cool? And a lot of people are like, dude, no, yeah, just we'll have a, don't worry about it.
We'll have a free call.

Speaker 2 I'm like, no, I don't want the free. Yeah.
Like,

Speaker 2 I want to be your favorite customer. That's what you're, if you're a coach or a consultant, I want to be your favorite customer.
I don't want the free. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, just do the regular thing so you can do your best work, be like super motivated, not have to hold anything back. And yeah, any problem with our company now that we have, that's the first thing.

Speaker 2 I'm like, who, not how?

Speaker 2 Which consultant, like, who's the best out there, the most expensive coach we can hire for that specific problem? Let's go talk to them. And so, I give my guys, like, dude,

Speaker 2 if it's under like a thousand bucks decision to hire a coach or a consultant, you don't even have to call me and approve. Yeah.
Just go and do it.

Speaker 2 Just call me for the call because I want to learn and listen in too. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 Well, so you're working with Dan Martell.

Speaker 2 I love him. Yep.

Speaker 8 He is a go-giver to the 10. He calls me and says, hey, I want to come in, pour into your students.
I'm like, this is amazing. Now, they're not all in SaaS, but they're in business.

Speaker 8 And he is a hell of an entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Right.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 So I love that you're coaching with Dan. That is incredible.

Speaker 8 But let's talk a little bit about you and where this whole thing started, right? You are a three-time immigrant.

Speaker 2 Triple immigrant. That's a triple immigrant.

Speaker 8 And here's what I would say. I love the United States.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 But I'm going to ask you this question. I feel like people have some level of entitlement

Speaker 8 because I don't see the same type of work ethic from people that have born and raised in the United States as I do from the immigrant population here.

Speaker 8 I see the immigrant population here. I live in Miami, so there's a lot of them.

Speaker 8 But even nationwide, I feel as if they understand you need to work, you need to grind, you need to never give up, you got to keep going, more so. than even the people that were born and raised here.

Speaker 8 Would you maybe agree with that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think I agree.

Speaker 2 And I think about this a lot, but I don't really think of it as anything bad. I just kind of take it as it is.

Speaker 8 Sure.

Speaker 2 And I think the thing is, is, you know, it's like I was listening to this gentleman earlier, and he was like, don't ask God for strength because what he's going to do is he's going to send you situations that will make you strong.

Speaker 2 He's not just going to make you strong. He's going to put you in difficult situations that will develop that strength.

Speaker 2 And I think just some immigrants have in common, like, there's no choice for you but to go through those situations. Like we got, I got to U.S.

Speaker 2 I was born in Kyrgyzstan. It's like when I was born, I was still Soviet Union.
And so we moved to the States. I spoke like almost zero English.
Sure.

Speaker 2 And so for two years, it was a pretty awkward experience in high school, too, right? In like rural New Hampshire, where they don't really see a lot of immigrants. No.
Yeah. No.
So

Speaker 2 those situations that you're put in, you're kind of forced to figure it out. Yeah.

Speaker 8 And I mean, you've only been here for, what, 15 years? I mean, your English is really immaculate.

Speaker 2 Thanks, man. Yeah, what, 15, 15, 16 in the U.S.

Speaker 2 And then I kind of kept kept going.

Speaker 8 So, triple immigrant, you now live, where do you're here? You're still, you still have family

Speaker 8 in Europe?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so we

Speaker 2 live in Italy full-time now. Nice.
And I'm in the U.S. about every quarter.
What part of Italy? So north,

Speaker 2 between Milano and the Swiss Alps. Oh, okay.
Milano. It's about a 20-minute drive from Lake Como, where we live.

Speaker 8 Sounds pretty beautiful.

Speaker 2 It's pretty nice. I kind of wanted to stay there for a while when we ended up there.
We didn't plan on moving to Italy at all. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But we were living, I was actually living for some time in Ukraine because we have a pretty large team there. Yeah.
And so I traveled to see my team a few years back and met my wife there.

Speaker 2 Oh, I have a cool. Yeah, and so we kind of stayed there and we had a baby.
Nice. And we were living there for a while because it's so much easier to be next to the marketing and the software team.

Speaker 2 Sure. It's a lot.

Speaker 2 We got a lot of stuff done. That's how this was launched without stepping on U.S.
soil, basically. That's grew to, you know, like thousands of users at this point.

Speaker 2 And so, but then the war started and so we moved to Europe, just bossed from countries, kind of checked out this country, that country, Poland, Czech Republic, France. We were driving to Croatia

Speaker 2 just to see what it's like because I heard good things about it, driving through Italy, never been to Italy, and we stayed there for one night. I was like, this is great.
We got it.

Speaker 2 Let's do a couple more nights. Let's do a few more nights.
Yeah. So, a few more nights turned into like two more weeks on the Ligurian coast.

Speaker 2 A few more weeks turned into two, what's been two years now. And

Speaker 2 the baby's going to Italian kindergarten.

Speaker 8 That's so cool. I think what people need to to take from that just little segment is just understanding you can create the life you really want.
It is really up to you to create it, right?

Speaker 8 You have created a U.S. business, triple immigrant, living in Italy, essentially never really running the business within the United States.

Speaker 8 And you live in what I don't, I don't even know, but I know Lake Womo. You probably live in one of the more beautiful places in the entire planet.

Speaker 8 And you have a company that you can run completely virtual.

Speaker 8 And so I just want to highlight if you are somewhere that you don't don't want to be financially, physically located, whatever, you have the decision to change.

Speaker 8 Gene is a perfect example that you can move, you can start the business, you can get going, but you have to make the decision to do it. And you're a highlight.
You're a

Speaker 8 star student.

Speaker 2 And let me just say this for anyone that's afraid of taking that journey or is afraid of like... leaving your job or whatnot.
You know, I don't lose an hour or a minute of sleep

Speaker 2 about the times when I have to sleep in the office because I had nowhere to live and I was like, you know, under cash-wise because I like overspent and didn't make enough.

Speaker 2 You know, like six years ago, I literally had some times when I slept in the office because I didn't have a hotel or whatever. Basically, kind of like homeless, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And, you know what? I kind of reminisce on those times because it was like, that's when you really get tested. So for anyone that's like

Speaker 2 afraid of the journey, the more you want, the more, the more interesting the journey will be. You're going to have some disappointments.

Speaker 8 Well, this goes back to kind of the U.S. versus the European.
There's a lot of tough times in Europe, right?

Speaker 2 And the life is a lot tougher a lot of times.

Speaker 8 Lake Cuomo is not exactly that. But, you know, you come from a very tough country, right?

Speaker 8 And so when people in the United States kind of bitch and complain about like, I'm not making as much as I want. And I'm not, you know, I don't want to work that hard.

Speaker 8 And I don't want to, I mean, I just go, you could go live in the Ukraine or Soviet Union, wherever.

Speaker 8 Obviously, it's not like Soviet, but you get my point. It's like you could be not living in the United States, like pick and choose what you're trying to achieve here.

Speaker 8 And Gene's a highlight, like, he literally is running a multi-million dollar business with thousands of clients in the United States while living essentially 20 minutes from Lake Cuomo, right?

Speaker 8 Like, that's fucking awesome, dude.

Speaker 8 Um, so now, why did you decide

Speaker 8 I-speed? Why did you decide real estate? Why did you decide, like, where did that come from?

Speaker 2 Yeah. So real estate.

Speaker 2 So it, I actually had a, so I was working at Boston tech firms basically most of my career. Okay.

Speaker 2 You know, my parents are, you know, they, they were, they were big on like, hey, we got you here to the States. Go to college.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I, you know, got through college and like did all that and then started working at these tech companies. And so that was cool for a while, but I just, I just always had the bug, man.

Speaker 2 And I, when I was like 27 or something, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I was at IBM too.

Speaker 8 You mean the entrepreneur bug? Yeah. It's a tough bug, man.
You can't shake that, Baby.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 you cannot quench it.

Speaker 2 If you try to quench it, you're going to be super disappointed if you get old.

Speaker 2 And so IBM is like a superstructured environment too, man. Like

Speaker 2 if you're a rebel,

Speaker 2 you're going to be crying at night because you're just so rigid in there. And that was like the last drop for me.

Speaker 2 And so I experimented with different businesses, different, like a drone video business back in Boston,

Speaker 2 which kind of got me into real estate, you know, ish, because I was like talking to a lot of agents.

Speaker 2 I was pretty big in Boston, actually, with that business, but it's so seasonal that I was like, not it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um, and then I was looking for you know, an opportunity to really break out and like be able to quit IBM because I was kind of semi-important there, like pretty big salary.

Speaker 2 You think about like, I want to cover that. Yeah.
Um, and wholesaling ad, like an ad from uh, from a coach from Chris Roode, with he was like out there with Grant. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um, and I was like, what is this thing? Let's see. And I already advertised my other businesses because I had to like do it.
You know, I couldn't hold call.

Speaker 2 I was, I had, I had to be at work managing people at IBM. So I had to set up some ads in the morning for my business, go to work, and then, you know, everything had to happen in the background.

Speaker 2 So I knew the ad space.

Speaker 2 And then Chris Rood's program. I bought it, dude.
I had so little cash because I had two arbitrage Airbnbs back then. This is, I think, seven years ago.
two arbitrage Airbnbs.

Speaker 2 I just opened one of them in Cambridge, it's like kind of expensive. Sure.
And so I had cash in that, like, no free cash at the moment, but I'm like this wholesaling thing.

Speaker 2 And the sales guy is like, dude, do it. It's like,

Speaker 2 you're going to do well. It's a cool community.
Everyone's a hustler. And I'm like, you know what? So I swiped.
the corporate credit card on that thing, man.

Speaker 2 It's great. I mean, I paid it later, but like, pretty sure you're not supposed to do that.

Speaker 8 Yeah, well, you probably shouldn't swipe IBM's credit card to pay for it.

Speaker 2 It's a good community to Like, for like my teams get together and stuff and like travel. I swipe the thing, man.
So, anytime someone tells me, like, dude, of course, I don't recommend doing that.

Speaker 8 You want to keep your job? Maybe don't. I think Gene was on his way out.

Speaker 2 I was like, my way out.

Speaker 8 Yeah, listen, there's never an excuse. It's never a lack of

Speaker 8 resources. It's a lack of resourcefulness.

Speaker 8 Time and time, I had to call a friend to borrow 25 grand to pay for my first coach. A friend? That's an awkward conversation.

Speaker 2 You used a corporate credit card.

Speaker 8 It's never a lack of resources. It's a lack of resourcefulness.

Speaker 8 So listen, I speed to lead is something that all real estate go to iSpeed2ad.com right now. You're going to get some credits.

Speaker 8 You have a full platform, right? That they can find the lead. They have old leads.
They have new leads. They have exclusivity.
They have almost 6 million active buyers in the marketplace.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we have all the buyers, all the cash buyers that have bought something in the past three years, and then we rank them based on how much stuff they bought.

Speaker 8 And do you do skip tracing through there? So you go

Speaker 8 there.

Speaker 2 Phones, emails, everything.

Speaker 8 Already. So if I already skip trace something and someone else wants that same buyer, is it already there for them? They don't have to skip trace, or do they got to skip tracing?

Speaker 2 We front-loaded, we spent a lot. Yeah, yeah.
Front-load the top 20% of that $6 million. That's great.

Speaker 2 We already did that for our customers. We already got it for it.

Speaker 2 Dude.

Speaker 8 iSpeedALead.com. Everyone needs to go there.
If you're in real estate in any vertical, right?

Speaker 8 If you're doing wholesaling, fix and flipping, reverse flipping, we need to talk about that to all these people.

Speaker 8 We need to teach people more about that because they'll convert higher and they'll just keep buying more leads.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we need to show our guys this. Yeah.

Speaker 8 It's insane.

Speaker 8 Any last words from my man Gene?

Speaker 2 Hey, guys. Be diligent.
Don't give up. And everything's going to be great.
Just keep going.

Speaker 8 Keep your head in there. Great, actually.
End of this episode. Jing blink off.
I speed the lead. You need to get there.
Check it out. Get the credits right away.

Speaker 8 If you enjoyed this, you know other people that need more motivated seller leads, share this with two of your friends. I'll see you on the next episode with another great guest.

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Speaker 3 10 years from today, Lisa Schneider will trade in her office job to become the leader of a pack of dogs. As the owner of her own dog rescue, that is.

Speaker 3 A second act made possible by the reskilling courses Lisa's taking now with AARP to help make sure her income lives as long as she does and she can finally run with the big dogs and the small dogs who just think they're big dogs.

Speaker 3 That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP. Learn more at aarp.org slash skills.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.