Business
Today we're talking to Dan Schwartz who I was referred to by my friend, Dan Barrett. His life before real estate was a band member (Pigeons Playing PingPong http://pigeonsplayingpingpong.com/). And while he was playing on the weekends he went to a "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" event (knowing that being self-employed is the route for him), and started his journey in real estate. Dan met a friend who was doing wholesale rehab house sales on Craigslist. They partnered up because the friend could do the real estate mind-stuff (guessing a resell value within 5-10K) and Dan's specialty was building a business: Making phones ring with leads, setting up processes and measuring and keeping track of things, so nothing falls through the cracks. This partnership thrived and eventually this lead to 7-8 deals a month and quite a nice living income. BUT! simultaneously, he was still playing in this band. The band's popularity took off and they ended up doing 180 gigs a year all over the country! He had this dream of being a real estate rockstar.... By day, having this awesome real estate job that he can do anywhere and at night, banging on drums and partying. Awesome life! Who doesn't want this? Enter: Podio. https://podio.com/site/en A cloud-based project management system that he customized and fit to his lifestyle and business style. So he can easily automate, track leads and progress. I asked him just HOW he gets the phone to ring. Back then- they were doing a lot of prospect writing on MLS (which is still great but only writing dozens of offers a week). But NOW, the hot-ticket in Baltimore is direct mail absentee lists and direct mail (spending 2-3K a month). After doing this for a few months, they started seeing the patterns on the type of returns they were getting. Following the 80/20 rule(https://www.perrymarshall.com/8020-book/), they looked further into the details (like demographics, age, locations, etc) and started target marketing to those specific zip codes and absentee owners. Eventually Dan worked his way into online PPC marketing, which has also become really effective (90%!!!). And currently, Dan's role is removed from the day-to-day and more about Podio Investor Fuse. Whoa. Hold on. Big words... What does that mean? Don't worry. Dan breaks down what Podio is, what you can do with it. Adding apps, customizing different types of sales, creating PDFs of contracts, communicating with your team, automating various actions, etc. But you need to set all that up! Guh! Time consuming! AND EXHAUSTING! What Dan has done is figured out all the hard work- and instead of using third party tools- he has built something under his code and server and you get a fully-functioned workspace for a flat monthly fee. It is designed with whole-sale in mind (general lead-management system). But the whole system is designed to convert leads. You aren't using Podio currently? No problem. It's really easy to import your leads from various sources. You ARE using Podio? Great! It still looks the same, so you won't be caught completely off-guard, but you'll be given access to a bunch of new/great stuff! A few things that you can't do in Podio currently- but can with Dan's Podio system: -click on "make offer" -emailing/texting from the apps (from the actual seller item) -every single touch-point is automatically logged. (every time someone calls, incoming text, email, etc. is all logged) -comparable sales data PDF (from Zillow. a map and analysis is spit out of what someone is looking for) It's going to be launching in Early Feb 2016. If you want more information, go to: Investorfuse.com (sign up for updates) info@investorfuse.com (email us with questions/comments/concerns!) https://www.facebook.com/investorfuse (the latest updates!) Here are some demo videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGs3MT4b0Uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUxqUnClGuE I know. I know... It sounds like an infomercial.... But trust me, guys! We're entrepreneurs. We shouldn't bog ourselves down with technology that makes our lives harder! Either higher someone else to do it and start focusing your energy on stuff that moves the needle. http://investorfuse.com/skills. And knowing how to build your team. http://investorfuse.com/team/