Seth: Hey, everybody. How's it going? This is Seth Williams and Ajay Sharma. You're listening to the REtipster podcast.

Today, we're talking with Alicia Jarrett of Supercharged Offers. The first time I talked with Alicia was back in episode 92, where she explained a lot of her background, how and why she got into the land business and how she's managed to work her business from across the world in the U.S. Pretty fascinating conversation. If you want to check that out, you can hear it at retipster.com/92.

But in this conversation, we're going to talk about a number of different things, but it's kind of centered around cold calling and then just some other changes in the land business and the marketing worlds. The reason we're sort of trying to focus on cold calling to begin with is because it's grown a lot in popularity over the past year or two in the land investing space. It used to be something that pretty much nobody did, but now a lot of people rely on it either partially or completely to find their land deals.

So we're going to talk about why cold calling is growing in popularity, what kind of land investor this is and isn't for, and how the process works. It's going to be great.

Alicia: Hey guys, Seth, it's so funny that you said that episode. I still remember filming that with you from Australia. And since then, we're now working with customers across 10 countries that are all doing deals in the U.S.

So I love how much this landscape of doing land has just opened up so many doors for people globally. It's fantastic. And that was years ago that we filmed that. That was like pre-COVID.

Seth: I know. That was a long time ago. Feels like last week, but it was quite a bit ago.

Alicia: Good to be back again, guys.

Seth: Is it hard to do what you're doing from Australia? Or have you kind of ironed out the wrinkles? Is it not that difficult?

Alicia: We've ironed out the wrinkles. And I guess it's just more about discipline, right? I think whatever you're doing in business, regardless of where you are or what business you're doing, so whether it's you're doing land or you're doing marketing or you're doing podcasting, you just find a way to make it work for you. And that's just about discipline, scheduling, blocking out the time that you need for the right things at the right time and sticking to it, right?

I mean, people often laugh at me because when I'm in Australia, I get up at like 4:30, 5 o'clock and start work pretty early in the morning. But guess what? I've actually grown to love that because there's this beauty that happens when the sun is rising and you're there working and kicking goals and everyone else is still sleeping. It's great. I love it.

Seth: Yeah, it's interesting. I actually had this blog post I wrote a long time ago about my understanding of the biggest challenges for foreign real estate investors trying to buy and sell properties in the U.S. from another country. And I just went through that thing this past week to like just totally, I basically rewrote the entire thing because I felt like things have gotten, I don't know if they've actually gotten easier or if I've just learned of ways that they're easier now after talking to so many people who work outside the U.S., just in terms of like websites and software and resources and banks that don't make it so hard to get approved.

There's still some challenges, I think, especially if English is not your first language. And maybe if your time zone is way different than the US, that's still kind of hard in some respects. But aside from that stuff, I feel like most things are overcomable, which is kind of cool.

Alicia: Totally agree. Yeah, it's come a long way. So I'm excited.

Seth: So I don't know if we want to start with the cold calling thing, but...

Alicia: Oh, let's jump in, guys. Come on. It's the topic of the month right now. Let's jump in.

Seth: Yeah. So cold calling, that's not originally what Supercharged Offers was all about, but you decided to get into that game. What made you decide to start pursuing that?

Alicia: Yeah, I love that question because here's the thing. I think if you are a service provider in any industry, be that if you're real estate or what have you, the industry that you serve, if that industry is going through change, your services need to change with it.

So quite some time ago, when we just started to see, it was really two reasons. Number one, we started to see a bit of a decline in direct mail response rates. So our customers were starting to want to get a lot more detailed and sophisticated in their direct mail pieces and trying to really stand out. But direct mail, number one, the cost went up. Do you know how many price rises USPS has had over the last like three years?

Seth: It's been insane.

Alicia: Six. Six!

Seth: That's crazy.

Alicia: And Ajay, the look on your face then was like, how many? Yeah, they just sneak it in there every now and then, right?

So the cost of direct mail went up, but also the way that people are doing deals started to shift and change. And I'll be honest, we actually had a provider that we were using at the time for our cold calling. We just weren't happy with it. Like at Supercharged Offers, we've always really prided ourselves on quality in what we do with our services, full transparency with our services, a level of service and customer excellence that we want to be known for. And I think our brand and reputation have really come to that, which is fantastic.

But the provider that we were using, it just wasn't gelling. You know, I think sometimes when you're doing business with other people, your alignment of values really needs to be there, right? So the provider we were using, it just got to the point that we thought this is not a long-term thing. We've either got to make a decision and decision tree was, do we stop doing cold calling altogether and look at something else? Or do we just bring it in-house and look at doing it differently?

We thought, you know what, let's go out and ask our customers. So we did. And a lot of people were like, you know, if you guys can bring this in-house and help us to do more with our cold calling and appointment setting, because we're actually more appointment setters than we are cold callers and I can explain that difference. You know, a lot of customers said they would love that.

So we grabbed the opportunity with both hands and we started doing it nearly six months ago. Now we've got our whole fulfillment team in place, our account management team in place, all the processes, systems, things around it. And it's going fantastic, guys.

Seth: So when you say appointment setting, what do you mean by that? Is that like, the goal is to get them on a call with a motivated seller and that's the appointment or whatever?

Alicia: Correct, correct. So appointment setting is really, I guess, first of all, let me kind of explain the differences between just a standard cold call and an appointment set.

Standard cold call is I'm going to qualify the prospect, qualify the property, get the call recorded, and get that over to you so you can review it and call the person back. We take that one step further where, whilst we're doing a traditional cold call, we can also do a warm transfer to you as a lead so you can start that conversation straight away.

The next level up, and this is particularly good if you are a land investor at the moment and you've got a W-2 job, you've only got certain times that you can call people back, you're a busy person or, you know, just for certain reasons, right? Or particularly if people are doing subdivision and entitlement deals and they want dedicated time with the person to talk about the property in detail, the calling team will qualify the prospect, qualify the property, and then they'll say, “Look, Seth, you actually qualify to have a conversation with our head of sales or our decision-maker,” whatever we put in the script for that. “How does tomorrow at three o'clock sound?”

I can see that they've got some dedicated time for you there. If I book you in, that's going to give you dedicated time for you to have a really good conversation. You can prepare some questions for that conversation.

“So let me get you booked in for that now,” and they'll just go in and through Calendly get it set up for our customer. What we see on that, guys, number one, the prospect feels a bit more special, because they haven't just had someone have a phone call and hang up, they've taken it to the next step already, and they've set the expectation on what's going to happen next.

But number two, that allows our customer to really manage their time more effectively. And we do see at least a 60% to a 70% show-up rate for those calls.

So appointment setting is just taking it one step further. You know, we're always asking ourselves, what can we do differently to all the other cold call companies out there that's going to get better service, better conversations, et cetera. So we can do all of that.

Seth: So I don't know how many of your customers will actually take live calls, if that's a common thing. But if a person does do that, like they got on the phone right now, send them over, let's talk about it. Does that make any notable difference in terms of like, yeah, we close X percent more when that happens? Or does it not really make a big difference?

Alicia: Yeah, look, it does. But let me preface this. A warm transfer is not for everyone. It's for people that are good at having conversations, right? So the three of us, we're talkers. If someone transferred a live call to Ajay, he would be more than comfortable to pick up that conversation and start a chat, wouldn't you Ajay?

Ajay: 100%, 110%.

Alicia: But you and I both know people that are a little less conversational and maybe a little more nervous on the phone that doing a warm transfer, you're going to get someone that's going to be doing lots of ums and ahs and not too sure.

So the first thing that I always ask my customer is, are you confident enough to take a warm transfer?

The second thing is if they say no, I'm like, no problems. I've got a training module. I've filmed a little training module for them on how to take a warm transfer successfully.

And here are the rules with warm transfers. The whole concept of doing a warm transfer is to start a conversation with the decision-maker as soon as possible, because that then builds trust, it builds rapport, and it sets expectations with the property owner on what's going to happen next.

Now, what most people experience with cold call companies is they'll finish off a lead, they'll get the lead over to you, and now you're trying to get that lead back on the phone and they're ghosting you, because they don't know your number. They've never heard from you before. They don't know what's going to happen next.

With a warm transfer, at least if I transfer the call to Ajay and Ajay is like, “Yeah, hey, thanks so much. I'll take the call from here.” By the way, with a warm transfer, we always do an introduction. So it's not like a click-over and then it's weird. We don't want to make it weird, right? We try and make it comfortable.

So we'll do a little introduction. We'll get Ajay on the line and we'll say, “Ajay, we've got Seth. Seth's got a property in Polk County, Florida. He's really interested in talking more about his property. I'm going to send you over all the details, but in the short term, I'm going to connect you with Seth now so you guys can start chatting.”

Now on that conversation, here's what I always say to my customers are the rules of a warm transfer. Number one, enter into the factors of know, like, and trust. So ask them questions about their property. Ask them questions like, Ajay, in your sales script, past, present, future. What did they plan on doing with the property when they got it? What are their thoughts now? And if they did do something later on, what are they thinking of? Would they like to sell? Do they want to hold, etc. So get them talking, but then set the expectation.

And this is where I think “know, like, and trust” comes into play, right? When we set an expectation with someone and we either meet that expectation or we exceed that expectation, the likelihood of them doing business with us goes up exponentially. So if we can then say to that warm transfer, “Hey, look, I've got all the details about your property. Here's what's going to happen next. I'm super excited. I'm going to go and run some comps. I'm going to do some analysis on your property. I might even call the county and just check on some zoning regulations and see if there's anything I need to be aware of. Once I've run my numbers and done that, I'm going to be giving you a call back from this number in 24 hours’ time or 48 hours’ time. And we're going to talk about maybe buying that property from you. How does that sound?”

So now in the mind of the property owner, they know you, they know what you're about. They've told their story about the property, they now know what's going to happen next. And you set an expectation. If you now exceed or meet that expectation, that relationship just goes to that next level.

So for me, appointment settings and warm transfers are all about that speed to lead. How quickly can we get that lead into your ecosystem, into a conversation, and then move them through your pipeline faster?

Seth: Gotcha. Ajay, I'm curious, have you ever done that kind of live transfer thing? Or, like, would you want to do that?

Ajay: Yeah, great question. We have. We worked with a cold calling vendor probably a year and a half ago now that I won't name. Great, great folks running that shop. And they did live transfers.

I'm going to be super honest. So it depends on…

Alicia: It's not for everyone.

Ajay: So in my personal experience, it's very dependent on your availability. So Alicia, you talked about booking appointments. If you run a team and you've got one acquisitions manager, or you yourself are that acquisitions manager, it can be a little bit intimidating because then you almost feel like you missed an opportunity every single time. You could have done a live transfer, but your calendar is actually booked.

A lot of us in land, we're like solopreneurs or we have small teams too. And so, I don't know about you guys, but I might go to the gym at like 10 a.m. instead of 6 a.m. some days. You know, my schedule is not the same every day. No two days are the same.

And so I bring that up to say live transfers are extremely powerful when you can do them because you have a 100% show rate. We're like you're doing that live transfer. So that person's on the phone with you versus...

Alicia: They’ve showed up.

Ajay: They're there. Seth, I know we've talked about before single dials on just a call that you don't have an appointment with. We'll get maybe a 20 to 25 percent answer rate, and then we do a double dial and that might double that up to about 40, 45. And my team does some triple dialing. I don't recommend it for everyone, but we're not afraid to do it. And as long as that's a pretty recent lead, we might get up to a 50% to 60% pickup rate, right? Booked appointments, even better. Alicia, you're getting 60% to 70%. And then a live transfer is the Holy Grail because you're getting a hundred, right?

So there are pros and cons. I would just be mindful of your staffing and your internal expectations for how often do you actually want to pick up the phone when it rings, right?

Alicia: Correct. And not only that, Ajay, I think it's really important to arm whoever the person is that's taking the live transfer. Like what's the SOP? What do we want them to ask? What do we want them to say? And what's the expectation we want them to set?

Now, I've trained up our calling team really, really well that if they do attempt a warm transfer and either you're not available or the person doesn't answer, anything like that, they'll get straight back to the lead and they'll be like, “Look, Ajay's really busy. He's not available right now. So let me wrap up with a few final questions. I can either book you in with him or I'm just going to get these details over and he'll be calling you back tomorrow.”

Ajay: Great.

Alicia: So it's about how you triage that lead, right? If you think about triaging in a hospital, what's most urgent? Where do we go? What do we do? It's the same with calling. You know, how do we triage that lead to make sure that we're nurturing and managing that lead as best as possible based upon everyone's availability and preference?

Seth: Yeah. I wonder, is it possible that the live transfer could actually hurt you more than it would help you? I mean, obviously, if you're not prepared or if you don't like doing that, but is there a benefit to having that downtime of like, “Hey, I'm going to look into this. We'll call you back.” Like, could that actually be better than a live transfer ever? I don't know. What are your thoughts?

Alicia: That's a really good question, Seth. For me, I'm going to answer this through the lens of the individual, because if you are the kind of person who knows how to have a decent conversation and knows what good questions to ask, then there's only going to be a benefit.

The thing where people get a little bit tongue-tied and a little bit stuck is where the property owner is expecting you to come up with a number on that live transfer. And Ajay, you're really good at how you handle this as well, right?

The first thing that I say to people with a live transfer is set the scene as soon as they're on: “Hey, thank you so much. I'm so glad that we were able to connect today. Look, I just want to let you know, not going to be getting you an offer right here right now, but I do want to know a lot more about your property so I can then go and do some more research. And then when I call you back, it's going to be a next-level conversation. How does that sound?”

So really setting the scene. And I've even scripted that for people so that when maybe they're new to doing vacant land, so they're up for trying a warm transfer.

And here's the other thing. I've had some customers now that we've done warm transfers, like they're newbies. We've done warm transfers for the first two weeks of their campaign and they reach out and they're like, “It's not for me. I'm still too nervous.” “No problem. Cool.” You know what we do? Straight away, we switch off live transfers. We complete the call. We get them the recording. They can listen to that, do some research, and then call the person back.

So it's not like you have to be set in your ways and really set in concrete about what either works or doesn't work. I think, in this business, and coming back to your very first question, Seth, why did we do this? You've got to be in this business to be agile, to change, to know what's working and what's not working and roll with it, right? Same with everything we're doing.

Seth: On that whole note of like changing with the times and, you know, direct mail, the performance it's just kind of been going down and down and it's costing more and more and all this stuff.

So I'm wondering, what do you think the future is of direct mail? You have any thoughts on that?

Alicia: Yeah, I do. I very much do. It still has a place. So here's what we're now doing strategy-wise with our customers. And for anyone listening, whether you're working with us or another provider, it doesn't matter.

I want you to think of your leads like a funnel, right? We all know what a sales funnel is. At the top, you might have SMSing. Now we personally don't do SMSing, but a lot of people do. So let's say you do SMSing, but as we know with SMSing, let's say you've got 10,000 leads in there, but you only end up with 400 people that actually respond. So now you've got 9,600 leads that never responded.

So now we put them into cold calling. Out of cold calling, you'll tend to find that we'll get a pickup rate, again, dependent per county, but let's just use some round numbers for example's sake. Out of those 9,400, let's just say that we have 1,000 conversations. So now we've got 8,400 that have still not had a conversation. They're the ones that we can start to segment down into direct mail, as well as—and I'm going to say “and” here, not an “or”—because we put everyone through a do-not-call on litigators list check, those people get direct mail because it's still lawful to send them direct mail. It ain't lawful to call them.

So what we want to do is think of that funnel, right? Same data list, but we're using that data list at every touch point to really maximize who we're reaching out to, but how we're reaching out to them.

What we're now noticing, Seth, though, is in terms of direct mail and response rates, it's really, and Ajay, you've heard me speak about this on some of our calls, right? Market-message-match. What does the data tell us that leads to the right message that's going to match that person to go, “Actually, I think I want to talk to you.”

What do I mean by that? In the data, let's identify all the portfolio owners. Let's identify all the out-of-state, out-of-county owners. Let's identify anyone who acquired the property through a quit claim deed, intra-family transfer or probate. Let's identify everyone that bought it through a tax sale. And then within that, the direct mail piece that they get will be very specific for that.

So if you got a direct mail piece that said, “Hey, it looks like you might've inherited your property in the last couple of years. You know, we're not too sure, but records show that you got it through a quit claim deed or you got it through a hundred dollar transaction or inter-family transfer. If you're unsure what to do with it, maybe we can help you out there. And if there's a probate needed, maybe we can help you with that too.”

So again, really honing in on a more personalized message in direct mail. That's where we're seeing better response rates. Gone are the days where I think people are sending out thousands and throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. You've got to stand out now.

We're also seeing a bit of a resurgence, guys, on postcards, believe it or not.

Seth: When you say postcards, you mean like a double-sided black and white or like colored postcard or anything special about this postcard?

Alicia: Yeah, a couple of ones we're using. So we've got a double-sided. It's just a white postcard and we can do it in color as well. Blue handwritten font that just says, “Hey, I was actually driving past your property the other day or I'm researching. I didn't know how to get in touch with you. Would love to talk to you because there's something I really need to mention about your property. Now, if you've got that, there's something I need to mention about your property.”

And then it's signed, Ajay, here's my number, here's my email. Really simple.

If I got that, oh, it's something someone needs to mention about my property. Does that engender curiosity in your brain?

Seth: Yeah. That's a huge thing in online content right now, like YouTube videos in particular, like thumbnails are meant to create this information gap. So it's like, it doesn't really tell you anything, but you like have to know what they're talking about. And it works on me every time. So I can see why that would work.

Alicia: You've got it. You've got it. It does. It works on me too, Seth. I mean, the amount of ads that I click on because I'm like, oh, I want to know more about that because they've given me the crumbs. Now I want the whole cake.

Seth: Yeah, totally.

Alicia: So direct mail, I think it definitely still has a role to play. But for anyone doing it, you've got to be really now hyper-focused and targeted in what you're sending and what conversation you want to have with the property owner as a result of that.

Seth: Are you using QR codes in any way? And if so, how are you using them? What do they do exactly?

Alicia: Yeah, we do still use them. We use them on a lot of direct mail pieces because, again, if we can push people going back to that factor of “know, like, and trust,” if we can push people back to the website where they can watch a video from you, they can read an ebook from you, they can start to see some case studies of properties. Again, that's just going to give them even more reassurance that you know what you're doing.

Seth: So we talked a little bit about texting, cold calling, direct mail, and all this stuff. So do you have any recommendations or like, what do you typically see in terms of where cold calling fits into this? Like, how many of your clients are doing just cold calling? Or if they're mixing it with something else, what are they mixing it with? Do they start with cold calling or do they end with cold calling? Like, what do you normally see for that?

Alicia: Can I just go all of the above? Let's break that down.

So a lot of our customers are now starting with cold calling purely because of that funnel thing that I mentioned before. Cold calling is a great way to quickly assess new markets because, as you guys know with direct mail, right? We send out direct mail. We might get a couple of people responding the following week. We'll get a smattering of people that might respond six months later, sometimes even a year later.

Cold calling is pretty instant. We are getting leads on day one.

So what a lot of our customers are doing with cold calling is two things. Number one, if they have done work in a market before that, let's say they've sent direct mail out to that market and they've got some deals and they really like that market, cold calling is a great way to double down and do more in that market, kind of farming out those leads even more.

Conversely, it's also a great way to test new markets. So we might have a cold calling campaign that… we've got one at the moment that we're doing like 6,000 leads a month over two months. So that's 12,000 leads in total. So let's say that our customer has, out of those 12,000, they've got two counties that they've done before, and they want to double down in those areas. But now they've got these other five new counties over here that they've never done. They've done research, they think that there's enough buying and selling happening, and they're seeing that there's a demand in the area, that there's building going on, but they've never done a deal there.

So they'll come to us and say, hey, can you do like 2,000 in each of those counties? Because I just want to do a little test, and I want to see what leads come back. And out of those counties then, once we finish the cold calling, we'll push time-out. And our cold calling dashboard, guys, gives you leads down to per city. And then in those cities, what types of properties are coming through. Are there residential, agricultural, commercial, et cetera, depending on your strategy.

So what we'll then do is run an assessment with the customer to say, “Okay, so you've got 300 leads. How many of those turned into deals? Where did you, even if they haven't turned into a deal yet, where are the areas that you got awesome leads from that as you were running your comps, you went, ‘Oh, I really love this area and this area.’ But also where are the areas that you go, nah, don't really want to do stuff there. The areas that get the big green tick, now let's double down. Let's go in those areas. Let's finish off the cold calling. So any other data that hasn't been used will go in. And then after that, anyone that didn't pick up the phone, let's direct mail.”

Seth: So, if somebody is coming to you just like fresh out of their first course they've ever taken and never done anything before, what is your recommended structure? Like if it's just totally up to you to decide for them, what would you tell them to do?

Alicia: Yeah, I would say do some cold calling to test markets.

Seth: Like that's the first thing to do?

Alicia: First thing to do. Yep, that's the first thing to do. You don't need a website yet. You just need to have conversations. You know that I always say that this business, you guys have heard me say this a hundred times now, right? This business is about people, not properties. It's about relationships, not real estate.

So the more that you can get into practice of talking with property owners and asking them about their properties, running your comps, making offers, doing all of that, get that first, get kind of some of those wins under your belt and build that confidence. Then let's go on to all the other stuff. Then let's get really creative, right?

And a couple of years ago, Seth, when we were talking to you about Supercharged Offers, we were the other way around, where like, you need a website, you need this, you need this, you need this, you need this. In the current climate where everyone is really watching every dollar, like we're filming this in September 2024, the economy has been really tough for people. A lot of people are doing really well in this business, which is fantastic. But a lot of newbies are kind of watching their dollars, what they're spending money on, and where they're getting a return.

So if I were new right now, if I just come out of your course, Seth, I've just done your five-day email course and I'm like, right, let's go and get myself some deals. Personally, I would start with cold calling. Because it's going to allow me to overcome any procrastination I've done. Because once that phone starts ringing, I can't procrastinate anymore. I've got to start having conversations with people. And I can see Ajay nodding as I'm saying this, right? Because this is all about action. If you keep taking action, you'll keep moving forward.

The second thing is that it's going to allow me to test those areas that I mentioned really easily. So just doing a sample in a couple of areas so that I can get to know those areas really well, and I don't need to wait for weeks or months for people to respond back to me. So yeah, cold calling is a great way to get that started. And you can either do the cold call or appointment set depending upon your preference, or you can do both.

Seth: Where are your cold callers from? Like, where do you hire these people?

Alicia: We've got a dedicated team. They're actually based in Egypt.

So we looked high and low based upon things like education, English, sales skills, et cetera. So we partnered with a fulfillment company and the fulfillment company is actually based here in the U.S. So the owners of the company and the account manager are based in Florida. Owners are based in Austin.

They're awesome. They've actually been doing real estate leads and cold calling for eight years now. And they've got more than three-and-a-half thousand people all around the world that are cold callers.

And the thing that got us to work with them, number one, when I listened to some of the skill sets and calls from people, I was impressed. But number two, it's a professional business. We're not dealing with VAs that are working from home. These are people that go to an office or they've got all the right systems and structure with their calling systems, their compliance in their systems. They have a manager on site that is coaching them. They've got a quality assurance person on site that's listening to the calls, making sure that they're tweaking anything that they need to.

So, again, that for us was really key. So they are based in Egypt, but so far so good. We've got 16 of them now in the team over there. They only do our customers, so they're getting very, very well-versed in vacant land calls, single-family calls, things like that. So, yeah, so far so good, guys.

And what I will say on this, let me just add to that if I can, because I still get people going, “I don't want someone with an accent.” I'm like, okay, cool. Here's the thing. I have an accent. People want to talk to me all day long.

Ajay: Now I don't trust you.

Seth: Because we love Australian accents, right?

Alicia: True, true, true. But I have customers. I've got one customer, Anil. He's based in the U.S. He's from India. Another customer, Bakhtar. He is from Malaysia. He's based in the U.S. I reckon, and if I keep thinking through, I reckon about 20% or 30% of our entire customer base, even though they live here in the States, they have accents.

So I'm trying to let people know that, hey, you know, we do work in a global community these days. Yes, people have accents, but as long as they can be understood and they're good at sales and they can convert and they can have a good conversation with the prospect, that's awesome. And the thing that I always say to people is, look, if you want an American caller, that's awesome. Go and get one, but it's going to cost you two to three times as much.

Seth: Yeah. I do think a lot of that kind of stuff, the accent is actually a pretty small part of what's going on here if you can have like enthusiasm and tonality and be understood like it's not such a thick accent that you can't hear what they're saying, a lot of that stuff can make up for whatever accent if that's a problem at all. I mean, it’s a small problem.

Alicia: Yeah. And interestingly enough, some of our cold call scripts, one of our opening lines because we actually hired… I don't know if you guys have heard of a guy called Matt Macnamara, but he's a bit of a cold call legend out there. We actually hired him and got him to help us with some script writing. And one of his first opening lines in some of our scripts is, “Hey, this is Ajay here. And just letting you know, this is a cold call. And I know that no one likes them, but if you just give me 30 seconds, I promise I'll make it worth your while.”

So just injecting some humor and some personality in there. I've heard recordings where people start laughing straightaway. And that brings down that resistance.

Seth: So I am curious, how many calls does this involve? Like the structure that I know of, the cold caller handles this first call. And then call number two is on the land investor to pick it up and take it from there. And then there might be a third phone call. Is that kind of how yours works too? Or is it structured a different way?

Alicia: Yeah. So let me take it back to that stage one, Seth, about the caller doing the calls. Because this is one of the things that we also wanted to do differently, guys, because there's a lot of other cold call companies out there will charge you per dial. But if that person doesn't pick up, so they've done a dial, but there's no conversation, you've paid for a dial and you've got nothing out of it.

And we were like, that doesn't kind of cut it because these days, these things here, if I don't know the number, I won't pick it up. That's me. But if I've seen that number three or four times ring me, sometimes I get curious and I call it back and I'm like, who are you? Why are you trying to reach me?

So one thing that we wanted to set up in our cold call team on that front end is a few things. Number one, we don't stop dialing until the time is run out. So we dial on time, not dials. So if you've got a list of 4,000 people and we're dialing that list for the whole month, the likelihood is we're going to end up somewhere between 40,000 to 50,000 dials in that time. That's going to increase the pickup rate.

The second thing is, and we do use local numbers as well. So if I've missed a local number four or five times and I get curious and call it back, that can actually go through to my team and it will have your name on it because we've already got your name and number in the system. And they'll say, “Seth, hey, thank you so much for calling us back. We've been trying to get hold of you!” So again, they can triage that call and get it over to you.

And the last thing is our cold calling team and appointment setting team, if they get hold of someone, and this has happened many a time, guys, where they've gotten hold of a prospect and the prospect is they're out shopping or they're about to go to the doctor's surgery and they've picked up the phone or they're picking the kids up from school. And they're like, “Actually, I would like to talk about my property. Can you call me back tomorrow at two o'clock?” They will actually still call them back tomorrow at two o'clock. Do that lead, get it over to you.

So the one thing that we wanted to do differently is on that front end, we didn't want it to be just about dials. We wanted it to be about as many conversations as we could.

Then on the back end, “back end” meaning as soon as the lead's through you guys… Typically what I'm saying is a minimum of three calls. Ajay, this is outside of your sales follow-up process, right? So those three calls could be, okay, call number one, calling the prospect back or taking the warm transfer to set the scene. Call number two, which leans into your process now, Ajay, is more about confirming the details, making the offer. Call number three is following up on that offer and then putting them into your nurture sequence then on, right? So minimum three touch points, as well as once you've made that offer, putting them into your ecosystem to keep that going.

Seth: Interesting. No, that's super helpful. I can see how it makes sense.

Alicia: And that whole front-end side, guys, we did a lot of research. I don't know any other cold call team that's doing that, by the way. I do know some that do a lot of, you know, we'll do dials, not time, which is great. But being able to take an inbound call, being able to note it in the system and call them back, like all that stuff, that makes a difference.

Ajay: Super valuable.

Alicia: Yeah, exactly. It's all about starting the conversation, right? The more conversations we can have, the better.

Seth: Yeah. This is just so different from sending out blind offers where you barely look at anything. It's such a cold thing. You just put a number on a piece of paper and that's it. We're talking about, no, I need to build a relationship with you and then make you the offer and then follow up on it and then put you in a follow-up sequence and all this stuff.

It makes me wonder how much, well, I guess it's probably different for everybody, but do you know anything about how much people are offering for these things? Are your customers the type who are offering, I don't know, 80% of market value and then doing improvements to the properties and that's why they're having success with it? Or are they offering 40% and doing nothing? How does that work?

Alicia: Yeah, all of the above. We've got customers doing an entire array of strategies. We've got people doing infill lots that want to get them at 50% under and then have a private money partner, partner on the deal. We've got people doing large acreage and subdivision deals where it's more about setting the scene for getting them on a consult call, anything and everything in between.

And the one thing to note is that whatever that customer's campaign is, is custom to them. So the script, the data is custom. The follow-up process on, do they want warm transfers or do they want appointments full? Do they just want the call finished? That's all custom because not everyone's campaign is the same. And even in that, we've got customers doing a mix of both. Like some customers are like, I want to do small to medium infill lots because they're great to cash flow, but I also want to do some entitlement deals. So here's my mix. Here's my buy box.

All of the above. Really doesn't matter. It's more than about how you construct that campaign to increase the likelihood.

What I will say though is if we can maybe talk about conversion rates, because this is where it gets interesting. The types of properties that you're going after and the volume of data obviously have an impact on your conversion rate.

So for someone that's just doing infill lots, we've got loads of data, and maybe it's infill lots of, say, you know, quarter acre up to five acres, as an example. And they're doing a number of different areas. There'll be thousands and thousands of pieces of data that meet their criteria. And what we find there is that in general for every, say, 25 to 30 leads, they're getting a deal, which is great. Pretty good conversion.

If you're doing something more specialized, commercial properties, which we've got customers doing, we've got one customer specifically focused on commercial and industrial land. Less of it, higher prices, different conversations. So the lead flow is a little bit less. And then when they're getting a deal, it's more like one deal for every 40 to 50 leads that come through. But the deal is so much bigger.

So I think you've got to really think about numbers because I got asked this question a few weeks ago where someone's like, "Well, what's the response rate and what's the conversion rate?" And my answer back was, well, that depends on your strategy and your follow-up process and what you're offering.

And equally, I think to your question, Seth, I'm really—and Ajay and I spoke about this on a sales call a little while back—I'm so focused on my customers now of getting them to think about spreading the deal, not just percentage on the deal. So if the numbers make sense, it's okay for you to offer 60 or 65 cents on the dollar if it's a $300,000 property. You don't have to get it at 40 cents on the dollar or 50 cents on the dollar or pennies on the dollar because you're going to lose the deal, right?

So I'm really getting people to think now when we're doing our strategy sessions, "What's the minimum amount that you want to make per deal?" And let's reverse engineer the numbers with the data around that. So the likelihood of you getting that deal over the line is greater.

Seth: So when I hear that, I guess, beginning with the end in mind, like it matters what the land investor is trying to do, what their strategy is, if they're making improvements or all this stuff. So then it makes me wonder: that initial cold caller who's making the first call, are they armed with that knowledge? And what information did they pass along to the land investor when they booked this appointment?

Say, for example, if they're working with a straight flipper who offers 40% on everything, that's a very different thing than, you know, a person who's going to offer a hundred percent and do improvements on all of it. So like a lead means different things to different people. So, does this cold caller understand that and then pass that along?

Alicia: Yeah. There's a couple of things there. Number one, I always say to people, do not outsource your negotiation to a cold caller or an appointment setter. Their number one job is to qualify the prospect and qualify the property and get that lead warmed up and over to you. Because I've had some people say, "Can I give you an offer?" And I'm like, No, no, no.

Here's why. This person does not know your business the way that you do. And the last thing you want is the property owner to be having a negotiation conversation with someone that's going to get stuck and start doing ums and ahs and second-guessing. No, absolutely not.

So that's one thing I would say to people: never, ever outsource that negotiation, that rubber-hitting-the-road-needle-moving stuff. Do not outsource that to someone else. Make sure you've got the right person on there.

Ajay: I just want to touch on that, actually, because I think it's so valuable, and I don't want people to miss a piece of what you said there, Alicia. I think on top of not outsourcing, making the offer, even internally to your team, I want to talk about, like the flip side of that, that it's just extremely valuable today for owner operators to be willing to get back on the phones.

I've talked to a number of people that have said, you know, "My acquisitions rep wasn't performing this, that." And to be honest, sales management is a very different skillset than just sales. It's one thing to just be good or just to be on the phones. And a lot of people in this business will perform well just because they're honest, right? That's like half the battle.

It's another thing to lead people in a way that, to your point, Alicia, understand how you're operating your business. And what I mean by that is, when I'm on the phones myself, right? And I'll give a more literal example.

I did this challenge a few months back. I was throwing this small house mastermind. We had like four guys come in and me and Ben led this thing and it was fun. They came in from all over the country. We all stayed in a house together and those are always just so much fun, right? Well, we blitzed through our material a little bit faster than we had meant to. It was just kind of a hot seat format.

And so we had this flex day and one of the other guys there was really good on the phones. His name is Alan Quintero, awesome guy, good friend of mine. And so I'm like, "Hey man, why don't we do like a closer Olympics? I see the wholesalers do this stuff all the time. Robert Wensley is always really big on this, the owner of InvestorLift.” And so we just streamed it on our Instagrams. We both dropped a thousand RVMs and we were just racing to see who could get a contract first. Okay, it was so fun, so fun. Not to brag but I won.

And 90 minutes into—I think it was 92 minutes exactly or something, it's on my Instagram; you can go check it out—but I talked to a seller and because I'm a business owner that's been doing land for four years... I mean, I heard his name and was able to figure out exactly which property he was talking about on that same call, conduct phase one of due diligence and figure out whether or not I wanted to buy it, know what questions to ask about wetlands, know what questions to ask about access.

Based on that, be able to be like, "Oh man, if this was a perfect property, I'd probably, you know, probably be worth about 50 grand. But I usually discount a property, you know, 20% to 30% if there's access issues or topography issues," what have you. And so ended up negotiating him down to $30,000 on that call. And this is just a one-call close now, right? Which is not always what I talk about. But when you're the owner operator, you just have all the information on how your business works, right? It's all in here. So you can act so much faster.

And fun story—we're sitting here filming this today on September 12th. Two days ago, September 10th, we actually sold the deal. So full cycle, we found a buyer at $42,000, made about 10 grand on it when I think it was the wire we received on the double close.

And so my lesson there is just, I didn't want to miss your point here—that it's not only not a great thing to outsource that piece. But on the flip side of that, it's extremely powerful if you're willing to get back on the phones. And I have a stellar acquisitions manager, and I still jump on every now and then because it teaches you so much and keeps you in tune with the market. So I'll stop talking now after I just say I encourage everyone to be willing to get back on.

Alicia: No, I can't agree with you more there, Ajay. He's like, as you guys know, my background is in business consulting, organizational development, people stuff. You know, I get a lot of customers coming to me wanting help with how to structure their businesses. And the one thing I'm saying these days is, yes, you need a team around you if you really want to treat this as a business, but the number one thing I do not want you to outsource is the decision-making on what you're offering and having control over the narrative of that offer.

Because these days, I think so many property owners, gone are the days where you can have a VA overseas doing negotiation for you. Now, this is not in all cases, right? But I'm thinking of someone new starting their business, trying to get their team in place, etc.

If your decision-maker and negotiator is not confident, doesn't really know everything yet, that first impression with that property owner is gone. And a lot of property owners now, when I speak to them, here's the question I've heard a lot of people ask of late, right? "Are you the decision maker? Are you the person that's buying the property from me?" Now that “know, like, and trust” factor comes into play again, right? It's there.

So I think it's really important to think about what do I outsource, but what do I keep myself that really allows me to move the needle? And that's on the stuff that's making you money, right?

Seth, I want to come back to one thing you mentioned in your earlier question that was 10 minutes ago, which is, are our customers like, you know, doing 40 cents on the dollar or this or that? And I started to explain that, right?

I do want to wrap out that question by saying, our customers that are doing like entitlement deals, value add, et cetera, so what we've got in the script for those is, "Look, Mr. or Mrs. Property Owner, it is worth your interest for me to do this call because my manager who's doing these deals, they're actually often offering above market based upon their strategy. So, you know, if your property does qualify, we can likely get you more than what a lot of other people are offering you."

So again, depending upon that strategy, we'll feed into the script to set the scene on what that person is likely going to do.

Seth: So I've talked to another cold calling agency where the way that they define a “lead” is, is just if the seller says, "Yes, I'm open to selling at a discount," like that's it. Do you do a similar thing or like, do you have to get a lot more specific? Like, cause again, it kind of comes back to what that land investor's strategy is. It sounds like in that case of entitlements. So it sounds like maybe the cold callers teed up with some, I guess, more specific qualifying criteria or something like that.

But beyond that example, like, is it a similar thing where it's really just about finding people willing to sell at a discount? And then the land investor can figure out the rest from there. Is that how it works here?

Alicia: I'm going to take that one step further and say it's not even necessarily about finding people that want to sell at a discount. It's finding people that are open to an offer. Because Ajay and I know this a lot, right? You might get someone that is starting at a case of, "Yeah, I'm open to an offer, but it has to be a hundred thousand dollars," because they've done no research on what their property is, but they've got no idea. So if that cold caller is like, "Oh, okay, well, you don't qualify" and they hang up the call, that's a mislead.

Because if that caller gets through to the right person, let's say they get through to Ajay and they're like, "Yep, I want $100,000 for my property." And Ajay is like, "Well, I've actually looked at your property. And yeah, I can see that there's some others selling around you for nearly that, but they're all cleared. They've all got road access. They've all got utilities on them. And they sold two years ago when the market was really high. So right now I can really only get you like 65. So let's have an open conversation about that."

And that's where I think I look at any lead—any lead as anyone who's open to having a conversation about their property with the possibility of selling.

Now, the reason I'm saying that, and I'm being more open about that with our prospecting team is, I don't want one of my customers to miss the potential conversation, especially because that person might not be ready to sell it that often now.

But let's say in three or four months time something happens to them in their life and they've got a relationship with you, well, guess what? The likelihood of them ringing you and going, "That conversation we had a few months ago, yeah, we're just about to go through a divorce. It was a bit unexpected, but now I'm ready to sell."

So I'm of the view these days, guys, that get people into your ecosystem and start the conversations.

Seth: Is there any kind of like a rating system so the land investor can sort of understand the level of motivation they're dealing with?

Alicia: We do ask for motivation. Yeah, we don't rate it, Seth. But what I encourage people to do is because there's only so much that you can get in that initial conversation, right? And a good cold caller or appointment setter, it's a three- to a five-minute conversation. When they get through to you guys or your acquisitions manager, that's likely to be more like a 10- to a 15-minute conversation or even more in some cases.

And then what I would recommend to people is have some rating systems. So, you know, in Pebble, I've got some of my customers to set up things like tags. So tags being super hot, hot, warm, medium, cold. Now, you could rate that from five to one or one to five or however you wanted, right? But then you can run some reports on your hot properties. They're where you should spend your energy and your time or your medium properties.

So once you've got them into your ecosystem, being able to rate them on the motivation of the property owner, the prospect of the property itself, and if you feel like there's no problems with the property, then that's a super hot. Put that as a number one. But I wouldn't triage it before that to allocate that rating, right? Because you just don't know.

Seth: So if a seller says, "Yes, I'm willing to accept an offer for 150% of market value or 200%," I guess something ridiculous, like that's still a lead that you would pass through?

Alicia: It is.

Seth: Okay.

Alicia: And here's why. This is going to sound funny, guys, so go with me here, right? Have you ever had a lead that is just testing you? That's just kind of joking around just to see what your reaction is going to be?

Seth: Yeah, probably.

Alicia: Yeah, we all have. So sometimes people are like, "Oh, I've got, I've had 20 of these calls in the last month. I'm just going to put something crazy out there and see what happens." Nine times out of 10, most people that are doing the prospecting would then disregard that lead.

And I'm like, well, actually, what if you and your team were to have a really open and honest conversation with that person about what their property is worth, what it's costing to build in the area, the average build size. Looking at their property as is and saying, "You know, yeah, if your property was buildable and I already had a property on it, yeah, we could offer you 150%, but hey, it's not. So let's have an open chat with you about what it's really worth. And maybe we don't land on a number now, but here's what we do. So when you are ready, I'm here.”

Seth: So then I guess myself as a land investor, if I used you, when these leads come through and they're, I guess, scheduled in my calendar, what information can I see about that? Like, can I hear a recording of the call or can I hear like any basic details just so I kind of understand what I'm walking into?

Alicia: Yeah, 100%. So every one of our customers, we set up with their own personalized Airtable dashboard. And in that Airtable dashboard, they will have every single lead that's come through, who called them, the date and time. Property owner's information, property information. Then we're asking things like road access, utilities, motivation, what they plan to do with the property, if anything.

We don't ask for a selling price. And the main reason we don't ask for a price, if they tell us, we'll note it down. But if we ask for a price, they're going to get that anchored in their head. So when Ajay goes to call them back, they've already got 150,000 in their head. We don't want that. We want it to be price-agnostic, but more about property in person.

And then there'll be a recording in there as well. So you've got full transparency of the lead, the recording. Further to that, we have a lead dashboard that shows you on average how many leads are coming per day. And you can report on that down to city, location, and property type. And yeah, it's all open and transparent, which is what I really wanted.

Seth: What does it cost for your cold calling services? Is it like pricing tiers? And like, is it paid by the hour? Let's understand that.

Alicia: Actually paid by the month. And the reason why we do it by month is because we're calling nonstop. So if we've got… our most minimal package is for only $2,200 a month, that's going to get you 4,000 individual property records. We're going to skip it, cleanse it, parse it, run it through a do-not-call list, litigators checklist, upload it to the system, get it all ready, custom scripts, all ready to go.

And yeah, $2,200 a month, which is actually really reasonable. Because I know other cold call companies out there that charge about that, but then you've got to provide your own data, or they've got to charge extra for data and things like that. So yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable.

Seth: Yeah. So it sounds like you do the skip tracing, all the scrubbing, and all that. Do I just tell you, this is kind of what I want, go? And then you filter the list and all the stuff. So I kind of have to trust you to use the right data source and filter it the way that I want based on what I said?

Alicia: Yeah, we give you an onboarding form and that onboarding form goes into everything to do with motivation of the property owner, property characteristics, size, location, zip code, types of properties, how many years they've owned it. The list goes on, right? It's the typical stuff that we would all look at when we're doing this.

And then it goes through some specifics on what are some stuff that you want us to ask in the script. We'll then craft the script based upon what we know what works. And then you get final approval, you get your Airtable dashboard all set up and you're good to go.

Seth: Gotcha. Do you know anything about what the return on ad spend is for your calling service compared to the other stuff we talked about, like texting or direct mail and that kind of thing? Like, is it the best of all of them?

Alicia: It's a really difficult one to answer because it's so strategy-dependent and location-dependent. You know, I think sometimes people expect to be an across-the-board number, but let me tell you, there's some counties in Florida that have got vastly different numbers to counties in Alabama, vastly different.

So I would say to people, don't compare. But what I would say is always be across your numbers with based upon your strategy, how many leads you're getting, what's your conversion rate of leads to deals, and then what's your minimum profit you want to make on those deals? Because then we can set a KPI or a bar with that customer and keep managing it in relation to that.

Seth: Well, so on that, I mean, it is strategy-dependent, totally. But going further, is there a type of strategy where this just doesn't make sense for it? Because the person's trying to do something that just doesn't fit for whatever reason, like maybe the, and I guess this kind of leads into other random questions I had, but like, when you look at the demographics of these property owners that end up saying yes in closing deals, or even the property types that end up closing, are there any noticeable patterns? Like, yeah, these types of people respond well to cold calls. So do it to them, but not them over there because of this.

Alicia: That's a really good question, Seth. And to be honest, we haven't actually noticed a difference yet. There's no standout demographic as to do this or don't do this. What I will say, and you guys know this, right? When the older people answer the phone, they love a good chat.

So the likelihood of older people answering phone calls is better than, say, SMS, where a lot of really older people aren't that tech-savvy, but they've got a home phone that they will answer. That's the other thing too, if we think about that funnel that I mentioned before. So if you're getting all your data for SMSing, there's always going to be a large amount of that data that is non-SMSable. I don't know if that's a word, but let's make it a word.

Seth: I know what you mean.

Alicia: We'll call it that. So they're the ones that you should put into your cold call list as well. They're the ones that are more likely to pick up the phone because they don't have a cell phone or their cell phone's not registered with their home address and things like that.

What I would say is, and this is going to be kind of a bit of an out there one because not many people are doing this, but we've got one customer who is going after industrial wasteland that is owned by the county because he has a specific strategy on how to mitigate wasteland and make it usable for affordable housing. Phenomenal, right?

Seth: Yeah, that's very unique.

Alicia: Getting a hold of the right person when you're dealing with county and government-owned properties is very challenging.

Ajay: I believe it.

Alicia: So that's probably been our most challenging to date. But again, we've looked at some different ways around that and tried to get creative with that strategy. But yeah, really interesting.

Seth: Yeah. Well, it does make me wonder, at what point could a person ascertain that this is not working for them? If you've spent $20,000 on cold calling and nothing's closed, whether it's your fault or the strategy or whatever it is, at what point would you want to pull the plug and be like, no, this isn't the right thing?

Alicia: Yeah. First of all, I would never want any of our customers to get to the stage of $20,000 and not close the deal. That's a no-no in my world.

Seth: Is $10,000 okay or $5,000? Where's the cutoff point?

Alicia: If we've gotten through two months, so our most minimal package being $2,200 a month, right? You need to give it time because you've got to obviously nurture these leads and get them into your system and have a few conversations, make your offers, et cetera. So I always say, give it two months, right? Give it two months because that also means that the person working on your campaign gets to know you and your property owners a bit more as well.

Now, if after two months, you've got nothing under contract, it then becomes a question that I ask, which is, have we got a leads problem or have we got a sales problem?

Now, first of all, if we don't have a leads problem, so if I go through with a customer and say, well, let's randomly select some leads here and I'll actually be on a call with them. I'll get them to open up their CRM. And I say, great, just let's randomly select five properties. Are these properties ones that you'd want to do a deal with? And if the answer is yes, it's like, well, you don't have a leads problem. We're getting leads into your ecosystem.

So then the next question becomes, all right, do you have a sales problem? This is where Ajay comes in, right? And the recording I did with Ajay has helped a lot of our customers really think about that whole process of how they're engaging, how they're making offers. So then when I talk to them about a sales problem, you know, more than often, people are still doing that minimum because there's still a little bit of fear factor in there for them.

They're still doing that minimum of just doing a verbal offer. I'm like, no, current market, you can't be a verbal offer because if you're doing a verbal offer and 10 other people are making a verbal offer, they're never going to remember you. So you've got a sales problem.

So let's think about how you're making offers, getting them in writing, emailing them over, following up, getting that nurture sequence, all of that.

My experience to date, guys, and I'm going to be categorically saying this, 100% of our customers that have done cold calling, none of them have a leads problem. What I would say is that about 20% of them have a sales problem.

Seth: On that though, just to be a jerk and push back a little bit on this. So you said that, I think the way you qualified that, if I remember right, you look at the leads that have come through and you ask them, is this a property you'd want to buy? If the answer is yes, then you don't have a lead problem. Am I saying that right?

Alicia: I would ask more than that. So that's giving you a high level, right? I'd be going through and saying, let's have a look at these properties. So did the numbers work out? Is it a property that you'd want to buy and that you think you can sell? Was the seller motivated or were they open to receiving an offer? So having a bit more of a conversation about, is this one that ticks all the boxes that you could possibly get a deal with, right? Because if I look at that and go, yeah, there's a potential deal there, that's a good lead.

Seth: So I keep thinking, like understanding the motivation of the person to sell. Because I've heard of markets in Texas where like everybody will sell for 150% or 200% of market value. So like, but that's not really a lead. And can a good salesman really fix that? Or is that just a fundamental problem with not enough motivation? So, is it possible to tell your cold callers? Like, screen for motivation. Like, I need to know that they want to sell at a discount.

Alicia: Definitely. Yeah, again, depending on your strategy, we can put the right questions in there for them to weed out those things as well. But I'm a little bit conscious these days of people over-scrubbing and not only just over-scrubbing data but over-scrubbing leads.

Now, if we were in a buyer's market, I'd be all for over-scrubbing because you can be a bit more picky and a bit more choosy. But we're not. We're in a seller's market, right? So this is all about at this point in time, you know, you said September 12, 2024. At this point in time when the market's really tight, having as many conversations with as many people as you can and getting as many offers out as you can.

Yeah, going back to that original, and I love that you were…

Seth: Being combative with you?

Alicia: Yeah, I love it. Bring it on!

So, you know, I do say 100% of people that have done cold calling with us, they haven't had a leads problem, and that's because we're always checking in. So every week our account manager checks in and says, hey, you've had 10 new leads this week. Give us some feedback. How have they gone? Are you making offers? Is the lead quality what you want?

Now, we've had some customers that at week two or three have said exactly what you said there, Seth. I'm in this county in Texas, everyone's wanting 200%. You know, it's not working. I'm like, cool, time out. Let's no longer dial that county. Let's do the next county and put it in the mix and let's start there. Because I don't want to waste time or spend or dials on something that you're not getting the right responses with.

And sometimes you don't know that until leads start coming through, right? Which is why sometimes cold calling is great to test those markets.

Seth: Yeah, totally. Let's talk a little bit about omni-channel marketing. What is this?

Alicia: Omni-channel. “Omni” meaning everywhere, right? You guys have heard me talk about this before, where we've got to meet our prospects where they're at. Now, if that means that our prospect prefers to communicate via direct mail or they prefer a phone call or they want to go online and check you out or they want to click on an ad, whatever they want to do, it's about creating the right ecosystem that makes it super easy for them to do that.

Now, a lot of real estate investors I know, they will prefer to do marketing through the channel that suits them. Like if they're someone that just loves doing SMS and that's all they do, well, that's all that they'll do. But as I said before, if you've got 10,000 records that you're SMSing and only 600 of them you connect with, what are you doing with the rest of them? How are they reaching you? How are you reaching them?

So omnichannel presence, guys, is making sure that that ecosystem of a cold call to a direct mail piece, to the website, to the email sequencing that goes behind that, to the socials—all of it works together. So no matter where your prospect starts, it makes it easy for them to get to you.

Seth: Gotcha. How much more effective is that when a person does omni-channel marketing versus just cold calling in mail or just cold calling? Like, does it make a big deal to be willing to do this?

Alicia: For the people that are really treating this as a business as opposed to a hobby, yeah, it does make a difference. And the reason why we know that is because we can track things like website visits, click-throughs, videos that they're watching, socials that they're clicking on. So when you can see the activity and you know that people are checking you out, you can see from the direct mailers how many people have clicked on your QR code to go to your website. And now if we're running ads for that customer as well, now they're getting retargeted on Google and Facebook and Instagram with ads.

So there are different things that you can do there. And what I would say to people is, number one, it depends on your strategy. Number two, it depends on your budget. And number three, it depends upon how big you want to make your business.

If you're a hobbyist and you just need a basic landing page and you just want cold calls and leads coming in, then just do that. But if you really want to do the whole gamut, do it in a way that that ecosystem works together.

An example being, right, our cold call team, we've got a lead and it's a good lead. And because we're doing appointment setting, we're often getting emails. If we've got an email, not only will they set an appointment, but they're going to send a little personal thank you to the prospect.

Now, in that personal thank you, we might attach an ebook, their website link, their socials. We might put something else in there that's going to entice the prospect to look into us a bit further. So it's all those little things that go back to that “know, like, and trust” factor.

Seth: It makes me wonder, so I know a lot of people, when they get started in this, their CRM is just like a spreadsheet, and they can just kind of do one of these channels, and that's it. I'm assuming if you get into omni-channel marketing, you have to have a CRM, right? Are you just going to go nuts trying to track all this stuff if you don't have that?

Alicia: Yeah, definitely. And the reason why I laugh is when we first started doing vacant land, our CRM was a Google Sheet system that we did for the first 12 months. We literally had a lead sheet, a comp sheet, an offer sheet, and we just moved deals through like you would any other pipeline, right? So, yeah, it's funny.

But, yeah, once you start getting to that tipping point, and I think the tipping point becomes if you can no longer get a grasp and a handle on your tasks that you need to do for day-to-day for the leads that are in your system, you then need to move to a CRM that can systematise that for you.

You know, we've still got customers that are a couple of years in that are still doing their business on Google Sheets because they're only looking to do like one or two deals a month. So they're OK.

What I would say here, though, and this is we can probably go down a rabbit hole with this guy. So we'll be careful here. Right. A lot of people I know will go and pick a CRM because they've heard it's good and they've heard it's popular. I say, nuh-uh.

First thing you should do is either get out a whiteboard or a piece of paper, map out how you want your business to run. So as of today, is it just you and a VA? And how are you running things? How are you running your sales pipeline and your buyer's pipeline? If you think about your business in six months time, do you want a title company to access your leads? Do you want to have five VAs involved where you've got comps person, due diligence person? Do you want to automate task management?

So really think about how you want your business to run, then go and find a CRM that's going to suit that.

Seth: I hate that whole thing. Cause I understand how I can dream about how I want my business around, but like to actually get the answers and see past the sales pitch and like really know? We're talking about like sometimes months of investigation and you don't really know until it's too late and you plugged into it and it's terrible.

So it's like, gosh, I wish there was a better way to just know definitively what's right for you.

Alicia: Yeah, here's what I would suggest to people is, you know, what I love about the vacant land community is we are a community, you know, you guys I consider as friends in this community, and we all know a lot of people. If you've narrowed it down to say two or three systems, put it out there in the Facebook groups and say, guys, I'm considering these three systems. Is anyone out there using these? And can I pay you for 30 minutes of your time so you can show me how you're using it? And what are the pros and cons?

Because you're right, Seth, until you're really in the weeds yourself and working it, sometimes you've got no idea how it's going to really play out for you. So find someone who uses it and get them to give you an overview. What are they like? What are they don't like? What are the pros? What are the cons? All of that.

Seth: Yeah. I do think that's a great idea.

The thing, though, that's also tricky about it is like, it's so painful to get into a CRM and then to move it. If you ever wanted to do that, a lot of people, they really just know they're one and they can tell you their biased opinion on that without really knowing what else is out there because I haven't spent the time looking.

But there's actually, I mean, I do know of a few people who have bounced around to different ones, but like there's, they're pretty few and far between because it's just so hard to do that just by the nature of how these things work.

Alicia: Yeah. We often find that when people start working with us at Supercharged Offers as well, that that's actually a really good time for them to switch for a couple of reasons. If we're setting up their website, their socials, their direct mail, their cold calling, et cetera, we want all of that to go into an effective ecosystem. Because if we're getting them leads, they need to manage those leads, right?

So sometimes working with us becomes the catalyst for them to start thinking about that. The second thing is, I've trained up our data team to be able to get data over to customers to make it easy to upload. And for a lot of customers using Pebble, for example, if they're moving from another system into Pebble, I'll say, “Give us all your data. We'll make sure your data is really good. We'll even upload it into Pebble for you because we know how to do that and we'll get you started.”

So sometimes that catalyst of really thinking about your marketing is a great opportunity to then think about your systems and processes as well.

Seth: Awesome. What else should I be asking you about this? About cold calling, omni-channel marketing?

Alicia: Let's have a quick chat about TCPA and do-not-call list and litigator’s list.

Seth: Oh, yeah, let's get into that.

Alicia: That's not spoken enough about.

And for a lot of people out there that are doing SMSing and cold calling with other companies, and I don't want to say this as a, I'm not saying this to poo-poo any other company, right, but our previous company that we were using, who I have not named and I will not name, they got one of our customers in trouble because I thought that they were being compliant. They weren't. And so when they inadvertently called someone who was on a litigator's list, it was not pleasant to say they're the best, right? It really wasn't pleasant.

So I'm being honest; one of our values in our company is around integrity. And that's sometimes having the tough conversations and doing the tough things, even though it doesn't, it's not easy. It's about doing the right thing, right? With TCPA, which is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for those that don't know what that is. And when you're looking at do-not-call list and litigator’s list, a lot of people are like, don't even bother scrubbing my stuff through there because they're never going to find me because if I don't tell them who I am, it doesn't really matter.

Let me tell you, that doesn't always happen. And if you do get in trouble, if you do SMS the wrong person, call the wrong person, et cetera, it's not Launch Control that gets in trouble, it's not my cold calling team that gets in trouble. It's the owner of the business that actually asked for the services and paid for the services to be done.

Now, I now know quite a few people who have actually been fined for not doing the right thing and the stress that it caused them, but also the image to their business, right? You know, our businesses are all built on brands and reputation and things like that. It can be catastrophic. Not only is it a financial stress, but it's an emotional stress.

So I would say, really think about your marketing guys for anyone listening, really think about it through the lens of integrity. And it doesn't mean that you're going to miss out on a lead because you've taken someone off your data who's on a litigator’s list or a do-not-call list. What I would say is if they're on a litigator’s list, the likelihood of you wanting to do business with them anyway, if that's what their mindset is, is pretty minimal, right? We know those people.

What I would say though is send them direct mail and start a conversation. And if the conversation's not for you, then let that lead go. Don't try and, we say this in Australia, so sorry if I say a swear word here, but don't try and push shit uphill. You know it's do the right thing, keep yourself safe and secure when it comes to this stuff, and you'll always prevail.

Seth: You guys screen all that stuff, right? You screen for the TCPA and litigators and all this stuff?

Alicia: And you'll actually have it in your data. So we'll have all of your data. We'll then skip trace the data. Once it's skipped trace, we put it through do not call a litigator’s list and those will be taken out. They'll be in a separate file because that might still have like 200, 300 people in it. Cool. Let's mail them.

Seth: Is it possible to unintentionally reach somebody who starts litigating against you, even though they weren't on that list?

Alicia: Interesting question. I've never seen that or heard of it. And I would be questioning what would be their cause to litigate you if you weren't breaking any rules, right? And the other rules, like in some states, there's different times that you can call and our team's very compliant in knowing what times you can and can't call.

So the only thing I can think of is if they've inadvertently been called by somebody, maybe not from our service, but being called by somebody that's outside of those hours. And that's, you know, that, that person whose answer has taken offense to that.

Seth: Yeah. So I know one person who came across this - I believe the list was scrubbed and I don't know if a person was missed or if they literally weren't on the TCPA litigator list. And they... I don't know what happened, but apparently the effort was made to get them off. They got called anyway, and this person, they didn't like actively sue him but they threatened to sue the land investor.

And to me... they were like pros, like they almost did this for a living, it seemed like. And to make him go away, the land investor had to cough up like five thousand bucks just to like, "Leave me alone," you know? Like, "This is too emotionally taxing and it's not worth my time - five thousand bucks and you'll go away." And they did that.

But I wonder like if that were to happen with one of your clients, like, would you... how would you handle that? Like, would you say, "We'll cover part of it" or like, "Sorry, you're on your own?"

Alicia: We'd never say, “Sorry, you're on your own.” So when it did happen to our customer in the past, we worked through it with them. So we got on a call straight away. We listened to and reviewed all the calls. We then sought some legal advice around it. So that's the first thing I would do is I wouldn't do any decisions. I would seek some legal advice to look at what's the best way forward here, right? Because I'm not a legal expert and neither is my customer. But yeah. We're the ones responsible for making sure that that compliance is done and we stand by that. So yeah, we definitely work with our customer on a resolution there, 100%.

And when that did happen to our previous customer, we sought some advice, we worked through it, we ended up sending an apology letter to the prospect itself, and it went away, luckily. So nothing actually ever happened.

But this person, when we listened to the recordings, it was like they did this for a living. The way that they baited the caller and then baited our customer on the line, it was like they… yeah.

And it was bribery. At the end of the day, what they were doing was bribing our customer to not sue. And it's like, well, you know, from an ethical viewpoint... I don't know, which is clearly what happened to that person you were saying, right? "Pay me five thousand dollars, I won't proceed."

It's a crazy world out there guys, it really is. So we'll do what we can to always keep our customers safe, and if something were to happen, we'll definitely be standing with them in that and helping them through it.

Seth: Alicia, thanks so much for your time. It's great to talk to you, as always. If people want to talk to you more about any of the things we discussed today, what's the best way to do that?

Alicia: Yeah, drop me an email. So alicia@superchargedoffers.com. Visit our website, superchargedoffers.com or our socials, or just give my team a call, 888-538-5478. We'll take that message and we'll get straight back to you.

But more than happy to talk to people about their strategy, what they're doing, what they want to do, the benefits of appointment setting and cold calling, and just how we're doing things differently.

Yeah, I think that's the main thing I wanted to get across today too.

Seth: And this is episode 198. So if you want to check out the show notes, find links to all that stuff and a bunch of other stuff we talked about here, retipster.com/198.

Alicia, thanks again for being here. We'll talk to you in the next episode.

Alicia: Thanks guys.