March 15, 2024 • 26 mins
Step into the world of high-performance real estate investing as we welcome Josh Miller, the mastermind behind GoforClose, to share his groundbreaking tactics for attracting motivated seller leads. In this enlightening episode of our podcast, hosted by the insightful Rod Wilson, we delve into the mechanics of revolutionizing your real estate business through innovative marketing strategies and the power of technology.Josh unravels the complexities of utilizing data analytics and artificial intelligence to not just chase leads but attract those that are genuinely motivated and ready to sell. This discussion is not merely about quantity but the quality of leads that can truly transform your real estate ventures.Listeners will be treated to a wealth of knowledge on:
- The essence of identifying motivated sellers in today's market.
- Techniques to leverage technology for efficient lead generation.
- Strategies to implement data analytics for targeted marketing efforts.
- Insights on scaling operations without compromising on the lead quality.
- Practical advice for both novice and veteran real estate investors to stay ahead in the game.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Welcome to Optimize real Estate Podcast.Hey real estate pros, Welcome to another
episode of the Optimized real Estate Podcast. I'm your host, Rod Wilson,
and on this podcast, it's myjob to interview the movers and shakers of
residential real estate and to pull outtheir top secrets, ideas and strategies to
help you optimize your own business.And today I got a special guest.
(00:29):
I'm super excited to interview this guy, Josh Miller. He has a company
called Gopher Clothes and they basically dodone for you outsource marketing. So it's
a way to basically outsourceer your marketingdepartment to him. He works with relatively
small investors and whostsellers as well aslarge, more institutional They do all the
marketing for Joe HomeBuyer, the JoeHomeBuyer franchise. And the reason I like
(00:54):
this conversation, I love what Joshis doing is that I was never that
great on the marketing side, andhe's got it figured out. He does
deep data analytics. In fact,he has a background in data science.
He basically analyzes your market to determine, you know, the best most profitable
approach and so that's also key becausethey don't just do one thing. No,
(01:18):
no one trick pony here where they'rejust doing you know, Facebook ads
or you know, direct mail orwhatever. He determines what's gonna work in
your market. He talks about nichelistsand why you can focus on them,
why you should focus on them,and how they do it make it easy.
He mentions novations, which I've nevereven heard of that term. He
describes kind of what that is,and then he actually has a free tool
(01:41):
where you could determine the best ZIPcodes, and he makes a startling statement
about AI that's a little scary inone regard, and then the other is
that I think if in fact we'regon, we're gonna have a follow on
podcast to go deep into it.But you know, he just talks about
kind of where it's going. Andthe one thing that stuck out to me
was he said, you about twelvemonths or AI could potentially, you know,
(02:02):
dramatically impact, not if not runover, your business. So enjoy
this episode, and please, ifyou like it, share, share the
episode, leave a review, subscribe. The more you do that, the
more we can get this out there. I appreciate you taking the time to
listen tell your friends enjoy the episode. Hey, Josh, how you doing.
(02:23):
Thanks for joining the podcast. Man, this is gonna be fun.
I'm you know, this is thefirst time I've seeing you face the face.
It's always been via phone call,so that's right. No, it's
always good to put the face.In fact, my lighting is needs a
little improvement. Your lighting is verygood. Yeah, So I guess I'm
just jumping into it. Man,I really appreciate you taking the time.
(02:44):
I know you've got a lot goingon. In fact, we were just
chatting a bit before we got startedabout AI, so I definitely want to
cover some of that. You've gota very interesting background, and I'm actually,
even though we've talked a little bitabout this, I'm excited to learn
more. So when don't we startthere? Just kind of your background,
how you got into Obviously we're talkingabout, you know, some of the
(03:06):
lead gen strategies that you're employing,and I'm curious just you know, how
you got into it. So,spent ten years at Chevron doing data engineering
stuff and having a blast. Andyou know, I saw the writing on
the wall that a forty year careerwith Chevron and that pension at the end
wasn't for me, and I wantedthat financial freedom just like anyone else.
(03:30):
So did a bunch of you know, looking around, found real estate,
and the rest is history. Ikind of did it simultaneously while I was
working. And then twenty eighteen,I think it was, I started acquiring
rentals, got a bunch of them, over one hundred, and realized this
game sucks, man, Like yougotta know you gotta be on your A
game to have a lot of singlefamily homes, especially virtual. I'm in
(03:53):
southern California and these are these wereall in the Midwest. Yeah, I
got my and cuss, but gotmy butt handed to me a couple of
times. And of course, yeah, I did a bunch of flipping and
whole selling and lease options and tryingto find what I loved about real estate.
At the end of the day,I found out what I loved was
just what I What I did atChevron was really the data side of things
(04:16):
and understanding, Okay, you gotone hundred and twenty million homes, who's
actually going to be selling to aninvestor? How to contact them? And
so I became like a marketing guy, by my mistake, and a software
guy and that's where I'm now.So I actually sold my portfolio in twenty
twenty and I've just been focusing onehundred percent on marketing for other folks.
(04:39):
And I love it. Like Iwake up in the morning and I'm just
excited about working, and I,you know, for each your own Some
find that with the deal solving itproblems in real estate, the flipping.
Not me, like it's too stressfulfor me. I just like the marketing.
So that's what I focus on.Very cool. Well, we could
probably do a whole podcast on howyou you said it almost like nonchalant hundred
(05:02):
deals. You know, you gotone hundred properties. That's saying something.
It's in by itself, you know, it isn't It's not like you talk
to folks and they're like, Igot ten thousand doors and all this stuff.
So it's all relatively you know,but it was definitely. I saw
myself as a marketing engine, andmy job was literally just to reach as
(05:24):
many homeowners and get the house intheir contract. I had two acquisition managers,
and I said, get every propertyunder contract, it doesn't mean even
matter at what price. And thenonce we had it under contract, we
could figure out what we could dowith it right, and we get it
listing on it, whether we doa least option, you know, there's
so many strategies. So it wasliterally get the house in their contract and
(05:46):
we can figure out how to makemoney on it, right. Yeah,
I know, you hear that alot where it's like, you know,
if you if you can get agood deal, good real estate deal,
there's always a way to you know, monetize it. There's always either someone
that will want to partner or buyit or whatever. Yeah, it's crazy
because I run marketing for a lotof investors now and it's like, you
know, just based on how manyappointments they go on, how many deals
(06:08):
are going to get And it's youtalked as some investors and you're like,
ah, that person's not interested inselling, and you know, there's all
these excuses they make up and whythey don't call this appointment. But it's
like the people that go on theappointments, the people that write the contracts,
they get the deals. And itis sad, but it's kind of
it still is a numbers game.I'm trying to change that with AI,
(06:29):
but it's a numbers game. WellI'm sure I'm myself and the audience is
definitely gonna want to hear about that. So why don't you get into kind
of before the more AI focused discussion, because I know that's where you're kind
of you're involved and headed. Yourcompany is Go for Clothes yep, And
I guess maybe what was kind ofthe lead into that and basically what what
(06:53):
do you do related to lead genfor investors? Yeah, thanks for asking.
I mean, at the end ofthe day, you know you do
you do the lending aspect that there'sso many aspects to real estate. There's
so many hats that you have towear. There's so many and I see
it as my job to take onthat marketing hat. So if you own
a real estate company and you're like, hey, I need deals, I
(07:13):
can't help you with the seals,I can't help you with a flipping,
but I absolutely can take care ofall that marketing. So I just see
myself and my team to come inand just handle all of your marketing.
So every market's different. That's probablythe biggest thing that I've heard as and
I learned and now we internalize ofhow every market is different and so we
have to utilize different channels to reachhomeowners in different markets. So some markets
(07:38):
we focus on Google Ads by farand away the best marketing channel. Sometimes
it's YouTube ads, sometimes it's directmails, sometimes it's cold calling, and
so really it just depends on yourmarket and it ebbs and flows. Things
change. What might be an incrediblemarket for Google Ads, somebody might come
in and really increase the cost thatmarket, and so we have to decrease
(08:01):
our spend. But at the endof the day, what we do is
we find homeowners who are like,yep, I'm ready to sell, We
do the qualifying, and then wepush those leads over so you can do
focus on the seals and one hundredother things that's involved, but at least
you don't have to take care ofthe marketing. And fortunate enough to have
some incredible clients. Probably one ofour most known is the Joe HomeBuyer franchise,
(08:24):
so we do all of the marketingfor them across the country. There's
some big guys where they they sostupid amount of money and stupid amount of
volume in their markets. And thenyou know, we also help smaller investors
who are just looking for you know, one or two deals a month,
and we do the marketing for themas well, so across the board and
really grateful to find something I loveand work with investors who love what they
(08:48):
do. That's great. So yeah, that was one of the questions,
is you know what is kind ofthe sweet spot. So it sounds like
you work from work with pretty muchyou know, each end of the spectrum
and everything in between. As faras side of investor slash flipper. Yeah,
I mean, at the end ofthe day, it really is just
about increase in your volume. I'dlove to say, like the guy who
(09:09):
does one deal a month versus aguy that does fifty deals a month,
we have incredibly complex different strategies andall this, but it's just not true.
I mean, it's just more volume. If you see a guy in
your market that's doing, you know, twenty deals a month, they probably
are doing very similar to what you'redoing at one deal, but they just
do a whole lot more volume,right, you know, which is always
(09:31):
scary. It's kind of scary toscale like that. I mean, back
in the day when I was doingthis, I was always like, you
know that you have that outflow andyou said something earlier. You know,
it's just a numbers game, andso you kind of know it's a numbers
game, but then you know it'swhatever the number is, five hundred two
grand, five grand, whatever thatspend is a month. You know,
you got to generate. It's like, how long can you sustain that?
(09:54):
And I was, you know,if you don't have all the other systems
in place and whatnot, it getsto be it's kind of check time when
you start. You know, yougot to just you got to have I
guess, have a budget that you'rewilling to stick with. I've heard people
talk about, you know, ifyou're not going to do it for six
months, don't even start, becausesometimes it might take a couple months to
get a good deal or whatever.What's your advice for people on just what's
(10:15):
the lowest bar entry point for aninvestor who's thinking about, you know,
handing over their marketing to someone likeyou. Yeah, so we typically start
with investors spending at least four Ka month, and the reason for that
number is in most markets, that'sabout what it's going to cost to get
a deal. You know, certainlythere's markets where it's far less, and
then there's some markets where it's alittle bit more. But on average,
(10:39):
and that's our goal. Our goalis to get like, hey, if
you're working with us, you're goingto get at least a minimum of one
deal a month. And then obviouslythere's investors that kill that and their cost
per deal is fraction of that,but that really comes down to their side
and having incredible sales teams and incrediblefollow ups and more ultiple exit strategies.
(11:01):
I'm seeing that more and more thatthe top investors that I work with,
you know, they used to justbe wholesalers, and now they're doing whole
sellings and novations, and then nowthey're doing some wholesaling novations and hotels,
and now they're doing you know,so the more exit strategies that you have,
you're putting your marketing dollars to betteruse because you're going to talk to
(11:22):
the homeowner who anovation is the onlysolution for them, and if you only
have whole selling as a solution,you can't help them. So you're you're
saying novations, novations. Yeah,so that's the cool new buzzword. Okay,
Yeah, that's totally new to me, and that's it's been around forever.
I certainly am not experienced at it. Because although it was around in
(11:46):
twenty eighteen, I wasn't handling it. But I can definitely introduce you.
I think you should have on somegreat people that this is all they do
is novations. But the basics ofa novation is that you get into a
contract with the homeowner that says,hey, we're gonna net you two under
K. So at the end ofthe day, you're going to get two
under K no matter what. Youget too under K. I'm gonna put
(12:09):
get some risk, I'm going tobuy I'm going to put the house on
the MLS. I'm going to takecare of any repairs that need to happen.
I'm going to take care of realtorfees, I'm going to do everything.
At the end of the day,you're gonna get two hundred no matter
what. I'm going to list itthough for say three hundred though, and
I get the difference after I takecare of all the stuff and you know,
take care of the out of pocketexpenses that are required. And so
(12:31):
what happens is you enter into agreementwith the homeowner for two hundred, they
put it up on the MLS,they sell it, a buyer comes and
buys it, directly from the homeowner. And so the key point about that
is there's no requirements for FHA andother things like that. They can do
an FHA loan, they can dowhatever the loan they want. It's just
(12:54):
one strategy. It's not the endall be all, and it's it is
risky, and so if you area flipper, I don't recommend it personally.
I don't think it's a battle youwant to get into where you're buying
your You're getting under contract under aproperty, putting one hundred thousand dollars worth
of work into it, and thehouse isn't in your name. You just
(13:16):
have a contract. So I definitelydon't recommend it for flippers. But you
know, if it's a very veryvery light rehab, there's an option for
that, you know. I've alwaysliked that model, and I've always I've
tried on a deal I didn't maybedidn't want to take down myself just from
a risk perspective, I've liked thatmodel as far as like monetizing a contract.
I just never had a huge buyerlist or felt like I was,
(13:37):
you know, wholesale, But Ialways thought there was a room for that
because you get homeowners that want toflip until they want to you know,
improve it and maximize the exit,but they don't know how, they don't
have the resources, they don't havethe time, whatever the case. So
you're kind of able to use yourexpertise on the rehab and obviously benefit from
that. In fact, I waseven thinking, you know, giveing the
(14:00):
homeowner, you know, a pieceof the action if we got over two
hundred, if we got it soldfor three hundred, they'd get x percentage
of you know, that upside orsomething, just to motivate them to want
to do that type of deal.So I actually kind of like that model.
Anyway, we don't want to,Yeah I'm not the experts don't.
Yeah, I don't want to.But okay, it is a cool it
is. It is a great strategyif you if you know, if the
(14:22):
house doesn't need a lot of workand you're just planning on you know,
turning around and selling it the nextday. Anyways, it does, you
know, help you and that younow don't have to go out and get
a loan for the property, youdon't have to pay for the closing the
first time of the homeowner, andthen again when you sell it so you
can buy it higher. And that'sthe name of the marketing game is Okay,
(14:45):
I can run all this marketing andfind homeowners who need to sell,
But how do you show them thatyou're the solution versus all the competition out
there? Okay, So going backto well, I'm curious, you know,
with your clients that you're doing themarketing for, are they typically flippers,
wholesalers, or a combination. Yeah, in the past, they were
(15:07):
almost all whole sellers. And thenI you know, I don't know how
to say this nicely without pissing offall my clients, but I like I
like flippers more. I feel likethere's a lot of wholesalers out there that
it's just about making money and there'sreally no real value that the whole seller's
bringing to the situation. You know, there is that once in a while
(15:30):
that they inherited the property, theylive out of state, and they just
want the easy solution, right,you know, most of the time,
there's not an incredible amount of valuethat they're really bringing that agent can't.
So we have been moving more andmore to work with flippers because I feel
like there's real value we're helping thehomeowner there, and it's easier to wake
up in the morning and feel excitedabout helping people who are helping others.
(15:52):
So absolutely, yeah, I'm definitelyyou know, you go up and things
change, so yeah, we're definitelygoing more and slipper it out. Okay,
as of the last probably a yearor so. And then so you're
in, you're focused primarily on justthe lead gen side. You had mentioned
follow up, which I know isyou know, a massive piece and making
(16:14):
this you know, successful and profitable. Yeah. So once once the lead,
once you basically as a client,they receive that lead, it's kind
of on them to make sure theymaximize that. Yeah. So what we
see we see ourselves as a marketingcompany in their cells. So where's that
handoff. Well, it's when thathomeowner is like, yeah, I need
to sell now in the next ninetydays. At that point we say,
(16:37):
okay, this should be going tocells. And once it's in cells,
you know, you really should befollowing up in person. It should be
the sales person or the owner,you know, talking to that homeowner and
really closing the deal. So whatwe do when we do all of our
follow up, we're more talking aboutwhen we reach out to a homeowner and
they're like, yeah, I'm thinkingabout selling next year, We're not going
to send that person over. We'regoing to keep following up, following up.
(16:59):
That's where you can start using alot of the automation and all that
AI. And that's a real gooduse case of where we're you know,
you can now do much more personalizedfollow up messages and things like this because
we have instead of a VA doingit or a standard automated text. Now
that's where you can put AI inas just one example to help find when
(17:22):
that home owner is ready so wecan send that person over to the to
the investor. Okay, so justto I know, we got to cut
this off. Yeah, that's mybad. I'm sorry. I felt like
I could talk all day with you, and I apologize. No, it's
good. We'll have a follow upand we will. I want to go
deep on AI because I know peopleare very interested in that from the go
for close platform. I guess ifyou want to cover just a couple of
(17:45):
minutes kind of what what are youguys doing? I mean, what do
you what do you? I mean? I know you got to probably analyze
the market, analyze the client andfigure out, you know, where you
want to see your energy. Yeah, because you're you're kind of just like
the client. You're going to belooking at the lowest cost, kind of
highest you know return, type ofyou know leads, and you know,
once you take a look at Iguess the market, in most cases,
(18:07):
you'll determine what's the kind of biggestbang for the buck. Yeah. And
I've got a great free tool thatI have available if anyone wants to do
it on there by themselves, we'rehappy to do it for you. But
if you want to just have ago at it, it's called hottest zip
dot com and you can deep diveinto your market to figure out where you
should spend your marketing dollars. Ata very high level, what we're trying
(18:30):
to do is we're basically fishing,and we want to be in the smallest
pond with the most amount of fish. So essentially, we want to be
where there's the most amount of homeownersselling to investors. And so this tool
allows you to dive down from acounty level to city level to a ZIP
level and really dive in and seewhere's the most competition, where's the most
(18:52):
amount of homes being sold to aninvestor, What's how much distress is there
in that area. If there's nodistress in that area, it's probably not
a great market to be in.Same with days on market. If there's
a high days on market, probablynot a great market to be in.
And so this allows us at avery like that's step one, analyze the
market, figure out, okay,where should we be spending our marketing dollars.
(19:15):
Then we move into the actual homeownersin that market, saying who,
what's the normal profile of somebody selling? And the nice thing is all this
information is historical, so we canlook back and be like, Okay,
seems like there's a lot a lotof higher proportion than normal of inherited properties
(19:36):
that we should be going to.Or you know, in some markets it's
simple it's the absentee owner, right, that one's a no brainer. Or
sometimes it's you know, certain certainthings will be higher than normal of pain
points in certain market, and soat that point we really tried to find
as many of those as we can. Well, we're very data centered company,
(19:57):
so we do a lot of thingslike going into the county records and
pulling as much as we can directlyinstead of just buying it in bold.
That's probably you know, if anyonegets anything out of this and you're struggling
and you want to continue doing iton your own, my first suggestion would
be to stop using these public siteslike propstream and property radar and all of
(20:17):
them. I love them. There'sa use for them, but there's so
many investors now using them, andso instead do the hard leg work.
Go into your county records, findthings like code violations, find things like
eviction records, find things like yourprobates and yeah, this all takes work,
but because it takes work, there'sso fewer people doing it. So
(20:37):
get that hard to get data.Then you can skip trace some call them
direct mail them, the Google ads, the YouTube ads, those are more
once you have a larger spend,that's when you want to get into those.
I don't suggest doing that if youdon't have a large budget. So
and you're referencing basically the niche lists, Yeah, and you guys do that
as well. Is that ye takecare of everything. When we say like
(21:02):
and this was my dream, thisis what I wanted. I wanted a
company I could go to and say, hey, I've got the site marketing
budget, get me leads, getme qualified homeowners who are ready to sell,
who have raised their hand and saidI need to sell my ouse.
So yeah, we take care ofeverything. We take care of a lot,
a lot of data digging. Imean, that's basically a big part
of it is finding that niche datafinding, scraping sites like deceased records.
(21:23):
So we're pulling every day anyone who'sdeceased, we're matching their name with a
property, did they own a property? And then now we've got things like
that where it's just finding the youknow, the few people that unfortunately,
you know, there's a lot ofinvestors out there, there's a lot of
competition, and so what worked before, which was just basically meiling and mass,
(21:44):
it's just you know, it doesn'treally work anymore. Right, we
take care of it all. Righton, Well, I know you got
to run. We are going toby the way, Josh got double booked,
so we're gonna ah right, everybody, No, no, But I
like this. Well we'll turn ina two parter and we'll go deep into
AI because I personally, I'm veryinterested in what you're doing on that front.
Yeah, I'll end on AI justto get folks to listen to the
(22:07):
next one. One hundred percent.I would say, within twelve months,
everything's going to be different. You'renot going to be using virtual assistance anymore.
There won't be cool calling. Allof our Google ads will be different,
our Facebook ads are all different,Driving for dollars will be non existent,
like everything you're used to doing inthe marketing space, because that's really
where I'm focused. I'm sure otherareas too, but everything in the marketing
(22:27):
space will be completely different and changed. And so my one word every like
what I try to get everyone doing, is just it be in it every
day, because you won't. Everyminute that you're in it learning and fidgeting
around playing with stuff, you'll learnsomething new and you'll be ahead of the
game when everything does change. Soyeah, very cool. Well listen,
(22:51):
I really appreciate the time, andI'm looking forward to part two. Dude,
this is thanks for having me on. I feel like I just talked,
but hopefully some value added and thepeople people got their brains turning.
So no good stuff. I mean, if anyone's looking for, you know,
outsource their marketing, which you knowmost I would say myself included.
(23:11):
Most real estate investors not only arenot great at the marketing side, but
also just the data analytics and thedata is everything, and we've we have
it now it's just a matter of, you know, how do you go
get it? I heard Clothier,I heard him actually this morning talking about
how, you know, back inthe day when he started, which is
kind of like when I did,there was no data. You know,
you basically had to go down tothe courthouse. You know, you had
(23:33):
to you know, go to thecounty records and you know start or just
you know, doing mass mailers ordoor knocking or whatever. Now there's a
much smarter way and more cost effectiveway to find you know, motivated sellers,
and I think you've kind of unlockedthat in a big way. Not
to mend that's that's not even talkingabout AI, which is going to make
things even more you know, morepowerful. It's absolutely going to be the
(23:56):
I don't know the exact quote,but basically there's going to be people companies
who utilize AIS and that's it.Like, he's not going to be any
other companies out there. It's eitheryour company that utilizes AI or you don't
exist. It's right, yeah,very cool. Well, we'll we'll do
part two real soon. And again, Josh, appreciate the time, and
(24:18):
hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah, we'll talk to you soon.
All right, thanks Roving. Okay, but bye. Well, that
was an amazing interview, albeit ashort one. We will definitely be having
a part two, if not apart three and four and five, who
knows, so stay tuned for that. Well, that was an amazing interview
with Josh, and we will definitelybe doing a part two, if not
(24:38):
a part three, four and fivebecause this guy is an absolute stud and
I'm really looking forward to picking hisbrain on some of the strategies, definitely
around AI. That's been kind ofon my mind. Been doing my own
little side research on that. Sogo check out hottest zip dot com where
he basically it's a free tool whereyou can determine kind of where the hottest
(24:59):
zips are ZI codes. That is, I would go check out Joe HomeBuyer.
I'm going to do that myself andjust kind of see what they're up
to. It sounds like he doesall the marketing for them. He mentioned
ovations. That's another strategy that,like I mentioned in the podcast, I
think is a very interesting one froma I was always looking at ways to
lower the risk and just increase theability to monetize deals when maybe it wasn't
(25:21):
a perfect wholesale deal or a perfectflip deal, but you got a seller
that wants to sell, and youknow, if you're not a real estate
agent, what are some of thealternatives and working with that person. So
I promise you I'm going to gethim on as soon as possible to talk
about AI. He makes the startlingcomment he made is you got about twelve
months to kind of figure it out. It's going to be changing, just
like every other industry, it's goingto be changing residential real estate potentially dramatically,
(25:45):
which I believe that if you lookat the power of AI. So
that's it. Rod Wilson here.Feel free to reach out any way you
see this or find this, youknow, just message me. You can
always reach out to my numbers mycell phone four oh eight five six eight
six eight seven five for any kindof lending finance needs related to fix and
(26:07):
flip, ground of construction and evensome long term rentals. So we I
really appreciate you taking the time tolisten and we'll see you on the next episode,
Welcome to Optimize real Estate Podcast.Hey real estate pros, Welcome to another
episode of the Optimized real Estate Podcast. I'm your host, Rod Wilson,
and on this podcast, it's myjob to interview the movers and shakers of
residential real estate and to pull outtheir top secrets, ideas and strategies to
help you optimize your own business.And today I got a special guest.
(00:29):
I'm super excited to interview this guy, Josh Miller. He has a company
called Gopher Clothes and they basically dodone for you outsource marketing. So it's
a way to basically outsourceer your marketingdepartment to him. He works with relatively
small investors and whostsellers as well aslarge, more institutional They do all the
marketing for Joe HomeBuyer, the JoeHomeBuyer franchise. And the reason I like
(00:54):
this conversation, I love what Joshis doing is that I was never that
great on the marketing side, andhe's got it figured out. He does
deep data analytics. In fact,he has a background in data science.
He basically analyzes your market to determine, you know, the best most profitable
approach and so that's also key becausethey don't just do one thing. No,
(01:18):
no one trick pony here where they'rejust doing you know, Facebook ads
or you know, direct mail orwhatever. He determines what's gonna work in
your market. He talks about nichelistsand why you can focus on them,
why you should focus on them,and how they do it make it easy.
He mentions novations, which I've nevereven heard of that term. He
describes kind of what that is,and then he actually has a free tool
(01:41):
where you could determine the best ZIPcodes, and he makes a startling statement
about AI that's a little scary inone regard, and then the other is
that I think if in fact we'regon, we're gonna have a follow on
podcast to go deep into it.But you know, he just talks about
kind of where it's going. Andthe one thing that stuck out to me
was he said, you about twelvemonths or AI could potentially, you know,
(02:02):
dramatically impact, not if not runover, your business. So enjoy
this episode, and please, ifyou like it, share, share the
episode, leave a review, subscribe. The more you do that, the
more we can get this out there. I appreciate you taking the time to
listen tell your friends enjoy the episode. Hey, Josh, how you doing.
(02:23):
Thanks for joining the podcast. Man, this is gonna be fun.
I'm you know, this is thefirst time I've seeing you face the face.
It's always been via phone call,so that's right. No, it's
always good to put the face.In fact, my lighting is needs a
little improvement. Your lighting is verygood. Yeah, So I guess I'm
just jumping into it. Man,I really appreciate you taking the time.
(02:44):
I know you've got a lot goingon. In fact, we were just
chatting a bit before we got startedabout AI, so I definitely want to
cover some of that. You've gota very interesting background, and I'm actually,
even though we've talked a little bitabout this, I'm excited to learn
more. So when don't we startthere? Just kind of your background,
how you got into Obviously we're talkingabout, you know, some of the
(03:06):
lead gen strategies that you're employing,and I'm curious just you know, how
you got into it. So,spent ten years at Chevron doing data engineering
stuff and having a blast. Andyou know, I saw the writing on
the wall that a forty year careerwith Chevron and that pension at the end
wasn't for me, and I wantedthat financial freedom just like anyone else.
(03:30):
So did a bunch of you know, looking around, found real estate,
and the rest is history. Ikind of did it simultaneously while I was
working. And then twenty eighteen,I think it was, I started acquiring
rentals, got a bunch of them, over one hundred, and realized this
game sucks, man, Like yougotta know you gotta be on your A
game to have a lot of singlefamily homes, especially virtual. I'm in
(03:53):
southern California and these are these wereall in the Midwest. Yeah, I
got my and cuss, but gotmy butt handed to me a couple of
times. And of course, yeah, I did a bunch of flipping and
whole selling and lease options and tryingto find what I loved about real estate.
At the end of the day,I found out what I loved was
just what I What I did atChevron was really the data side of things
(04:16):
and understanding, Okay, you gotone hundred and twenty million homes, who's
actually going to be selling to aninvestor? How to contact them? And
so I became like a marketing guy, by my mistake, and a software
guy and that's where I'm now.So I actually sold my portfolio in twenty
twenty and I've just been focusing onehundred percent on marketing for other folks.
(04:39):
And I love it. Like Iwake up in the morning and I'm just
excited about working, and I,you know, for each your own Some
find that with the deal solving itproblems in real estate, the flipping.
Not me, like it's too stressfulfor me. I just like the marketing.
So that's what I focus on.Very cool. Well, we could
probably do a whole podcast on howyou you said it almost like nonchalant hundred
(05:02):
deals. You know, you gotone hundred properties. That's saying something.
It's in by itself, you know, it isn't It's not like you talk
to folks and they're like, Igot ten thousand doors and all this stuff.
So it's all relatively you know,but it was definitely. I saw
myself as a marketing engine, andmy job was literally just to reach as
(05:24):
many homeowners and get the house intheir contract. I had two acquisition managers,
and I said, get every propertyunder contract, it doesn't mean even
matter at what price. And thenonce we had it under contract, we
could figure out what we could dowith it right, and we get it
listing on it, whether we doa least option, you know, there's
so many strategies. So it wasliterally get the house in their contract and
(05:46):
we can figure out how to makemoney on it, right. Yeah,
I know, you hear that alot where it's like, you know,
if you if you can get agood deal, good real estate deal,
there's always a way to you know, monetize it. There's always either someone
that will want to partner or buyit or whatever. Yeah, it's crazy
because I run marketing for a lotof investors now and it's like, you
know, just based on how manyappointments they go on, how many deals
(06:08):
are going to get And it's youtalked as some investors and you're like,
ah, that person's not interested inselling, and you know, there's all
these excuses they make up and whythey don't call this appointment. But it's
like the people that go on theappointments, the people that write the contracts,
they get the deals. And itis sad, but it's kind of
it still is a numbers game.I'm trying to change that with AI,
(06:29):
but it's a numbers game. WellI'm sure I'm myself and the audience is
definitely gonna want to hear about that. So why don't you get into kind
of before the more AI focused discussion, because I know that's where you're kind
of you're involved and headed. Yourcompany is Go for Clothes yep, And
I guess maybe what was kind ofthe lead into that and basically what what
(06:53):
do you do related to lead genfor investors? Yeah, thanks for asking.
I mean, at the end ofthe day, you know you do
you do the lending aspect that there'sso many aspects to real estate. There's
so many hats that you have towear. There's so many and I see
it as my job to take onthat marketing hat. So if you own
a real estate company and you're like, hey, I need deals, I
(07:13):
can't help you with the seals,I can't help you with a flipping,
but I absolutely can take care ofall that marketing. So I just see
myself and my team to come inand just handle all of your marketing.
So every market's different. That's probablythe biggest thing that I've heard as and
I learned and now we internalize ofhow every market is different and so we
have to utilize different channels to reachhomeowners in different markets. So some markets
(07:38):
we focus on Google Ads by farand away the best marketing channel. Sometimes
it's YouTube ads, sometimes it's directmails, sometimes it's cold calling, and
so really it just depends on yourmarket and it ebbs and flows. Things
change. What might be an incrediblemarket for Google Ads, somebody might come
in and really increase the cost thatmarket, and so we have to decrease
(08:01):
our spend. But at the endof the day, what we do is
we find homeowners who are like,yep, I'm ready to sell, We
do the qualifying, and then wepush those leads over so you can do
focus on the seals and one hundredother things that's involved, but at least
you don't have to take care ofthe marketing. And fortunate enough to have
some incredible clients. Probably one ofour most known is the Joe HomeBuyer franchise,
(08:24):
so we do all of the marketingfor them across the country. There's
some big guys where they they sostupid amount of money and stupid amount of
volume in their markets. And thenyou know, we also help smaller investors
who are just looking for you know, one or two deals a month,
and we do the marketing for themas well, so across the board and
really grateful to find something I loveand work with investors who love what they
(08:48):
do. That's great. So yeah, that was one of the questions,
is you know what is kind ofthe sweet spot. So it sounds like
you work from work with pretty muchyou know, each end of the spectrum
and everything in between. As faras side of investor slash flipper. Yeah,
I mean, at the end ofthe day, it really is just
about increase in your volume. I'dlove to say, like the guy who
(09:09):
does one deal a month versus aguy that does fifty deals a month,
we have incredibly complex different strategies andall this, but it's just not true.
I mean, it's just more volume. If you see a guy in
your market that's doing, you know, twenty deals a month, they probably
are doing very similar to what you'redoing at one deal, but they just
do a whole lot more volume,right, you know, which is always
(09:31):
scary. It's kind of scary toscale like that. I mean, back
in the day when I was doingthis, I was always like, you
know that you have that outflow andyou said something earlier. You know,
it's just a numbers game, andso you kind of know it's a numbers
game, but then you know it'swhatever the number is, five hundred two
grand, five grand, whatever thatspend is a month. You know,
you got to generate. It's like, how long can you sustain that?
(09:54):
And I was, you know,if you don't have all the other systems
in place and whatnot, it getsto be it's kind of check time when
you start. You know, yougot to just you got to have I
guess, have a budget that you'rewilling to stick with. I've heard people
talk about, you know, ifyou're not going to do it for six
months, don't even start, becausesometimes it might take a couple months to
get a good deal or whatever.What's your advice for people on just what's
(10:15):
the lowest bar entry point for aninvestor who's thinking about, you know,
handing over their marketing to someone likeyou. Yeah, so we typically start
with investors spending at least four Ka month, and the reason for that
number is in most markets, that'sabout what it's going to cost to get
a deal. You know, certainlythere's markets where it's far less, and
then there's some markets where it's alittle bit more. But on average,
(10:39):
and that's our goal. Our goalis to get like, hey, if
you're working with us, you're goingto get at least a minimum of one
deal a month. And then obviouslythere's investors that kill that and their cost
per deal is fraction of that,but that really comes down to their side
and having incredible sales teams and incrediblefollow ups and more ultiple exit strategies.
(11:01):
I'm seeing that more and more thatthe top investors that I work with,
you know, they used to justbe wholesalers, and now they're doing whole
sellings and novations, and then nowthey're doing some wholesaling novations and hotels,
and now they're doing you know,so the more exit strategies that you have,
you're putting your marketing dollars to betteruse because you're going to talk to
(11:22):
the homeowner who anovation is the onlysolution for them, and if you only
have whole selling as a solution,you can't help them. So you're you're
saying novations, novations. Yeah,so that's the cool new buzzword. Okay,
Yeah, that's totally new to me, and that's it's been around forever.
I certainly am not experienced at it. Because although it was around in
(11:46):
twenty eighteen, I wasn't handling it. But I can definitely introduce you.
I think you should have on somegreat people that this is all they do
is novations. But the basics ofa novation is that you get into a
contract with the homeowner that says,hey, we're gonna net you two under
K. So at the end ofthe day, you're going to get two
under K no matter what. Youget too under K. I'm gonna put
(12:09):
get some risk, I'm going tobuy I'm going to put the house on
the MLS. I'm going to takecare of any repairs that need to happen.
I'm going to take care of realtorfees, I'm going to do everything.
At the end of the day,you're gonna get two hundred no matter
what. I'm going to list itthough for say three hundred though, and
I get the difference after I takecare of all the stuff and you know,
take care of the out of pocketexpenses that are required. And so
(12:31):
what happens is you enter into agreementwith the homeowner for two hundred, they
put it up on the MLS,they sell it, a buyer comes and
buys it, directly from the homeowner. And so the key point about that
is there's no requirements for FHA andother things like that. They can do
an FHA loan, they can dowhatever the loan they want. It's just
(12:54):
one strategy. It's not the endall be all, and it's it is
risky, and so if you area flipper, I don't recommend it personally.
I don't think it's a battle youwant to get into where you're buying
your You're getting under contract under aproperty, putting one hundred thousand dollars worth
of work into it, and thehouse isn't in your name. You just
(13:16):
have a contract. So I definitelydon't recommend it for flippers. But you
know, if it's a very veryvery light rehab, there's an option for
that, you know. I've alwaysliked that model, and I've always I've
tried on a deal I didn't maybedidn't want to take down myself just from
a risk perspective, I've liked thatmodel as far as like monetizing a contract.
I just never had a huge buyerlist or felt like I was,
(13:37):
you know, wholesale, But Ialways thought there was a room for that
because you get homeowners that want toflip until they want to you know,
improve it and maximize the exit,but they don't know how, they don't
have the resources, they don't havethe time, whatever the case. So
you're kind of able to use yourexpertise on the rehab and obviously benefit from
that. In fact, I waseven thinking, you know, giveing the
(14:00):
homeowner, you know, a pieceof the action if we got over two
hundred, if we got it soldfor three hundred, they'd get x percentage
of you know, that upside orsomething, just to motivate them to want
to do that type of deal.So I actually kind of like that model.
Anyway, we don't want to,Yeah I'm not the experts don't.
Yeah, I don't want to.But okay, it is a cool it
is. It is a great strategyif you if you know, if the
(14:22):
house doesn't need a lot of workand you're just planning on you know,
turning around and selling it the nextday. Anyways, it does, you
know, help you and that younow don't have to go out and get
a loan for the property, youdon't have to pay for the closing the
first time of the homeowner, andthen again when you sell it so you
can buy it higher. And that'sthe name of the marketing game is Okay,
(14:45):
I can run all this marketing andfind homeowners who need to sell,
But how do you show them thatyou're the solution versus all the competition out
there? Okay, So going backto well, I'm curious, you know,
with your clients that you're doing themarketing for, are they typically flippers,
wholesalers, or a combination. Yeah, in the past, they were
(15:07):
almost all whole sellers. And thenI you know, I don't know how
to say this nicely without pissing offall my clients, but I like I
like flippers more. I feel likethere's a lot of wholesalers out there that
it's just about making money and there'sreally no real value that the whole seller's
bringing to the situation. You know, there is that once in a while
(15:30):
that they inherited the property, theylive out of state, and they just
want the easy solution, right,you know, most of the time,
there's not an incredible amount of valuethat they're really bringing that agent can't.
So we have been moving more andmore to work with flippers because I feel
like there's real value we're helping thehomeowner there, and it's easier to wake
up in the morning and feel excitedabout helping people who are helping others.
(15:52):
So absolutely, yeah, I'm definitelyyou know, you go up and things
change, so yeah, we're definitelygoing more and slipper it out. Okay,
as of the last probably a yearor so. And then so you're
in, you're focused primarily on justthe lead gen side. You had mentioned
follow up, which I know isyou know, a massive piece and making
(16:14):
this you know, successful and profitable. Yeah. So once once the lead,
once you basically as a client,they receive that lead, it's kind
of on them to make sure theymaximize that. Yeah. So what we
see we see ourselves as a marketingcompany in their cells. So where's that
handoff. Well, it's when thathomeowner is like, yeah, I need
to sell now in the next ninetydays. At that point we say,
(16:37):
okay, this should be going tocells. And once it's in cells,
you know, you really should befollowing up in person. It should be
the sales person or the owner,you know, talking to that homeowner and
really closing the deal. So whatwe do when we do all of our
follow up, we're more talking aboutwhen we reach out to a homeowner and
they're like, yeah, I'm thinkingabout selling next year, We're not going
to send that person over. We'regoing to keep following up, following up.
(16:59):
That's where you can start using alot of the automation and all that
AI. And that's a real gooduse case of where we're you know,
you can now do much more personalizedfollow up messages and things like this because
we have instead of a VA doingit or a standard automated text. Now
that's where you can put AI inas just one example to help find when
(17:22):
that home owner is ready so wecan send that person over to the to
the investor. Okay, so justto I know, we got to cut
this off. Yeah, that's mybad. I'm sorry. I felt like
I could talk all day with you, and I apologize. No, it's
good. We'll have a follow upand we will. I want to go
deep on AI because I know peopleare very interested in that from the go
for close platform. I guess ifyou want to cover just a couple of
(17:45):
minutes kind of what what are youguys doing? I mean, what do
you what do you? I mean? I know you got to probably analyze
the market, analyze the client andfigure out, you know, where you
want to see your energy. Yeah, because you're you're kind of just like
the client. You're going to belooking at the lowest cost, kind of
highest you know return, type ofyou know leads, and you know,
once you take a look at Iguess the market, in most cases,
(18:07):
you'll determine what's the kind of biggestbang for the buck. Yeah. And
I've got a great free tool thatI have available if anyone wants to do
it on there by themselves, we'rehappy to do it for you. But
if you want to just have ago at it, it's called hottest zip
dot com and you can deep diveinto your market to figure out where you
should spend your marketing dollars. Ata very high level, what we're trying
(18:30):
to do is we're basically fishing,and we want to be in the smallest
pond with the most amount of fish. So essentially, we want to be
where there's the most amount of homeownersselling to investors. And so this tool
allows you to dive down from acounty level to city level to a ZIP
level and really dive in and seewhere's the most competition, where's the most
(18:52):
amount of homes being sold to aninvestor, What's how much distress is there
in that area. If there's nodistress in that area, it's probably not
a great market to be in.Same with days on market. If there's
a high days on market, probablynot a great market to be in.
And so this allows us at avery like that's step one, analyze the
market, figure out, okay,where should we be spending our marketing dollars.
(19:15):
Then we move into the actual homeownersin that market, saying who,
what's the normal profile of somebody selling? And the nice thing is all this
information is historical, so we canlook back and be like, Okay,
seems like there's a lot a lotof higher proportion than normal of inherited properties
(19:36):
that we should be going to.Or you know, in some markets it's
simple it's the absentee owner, right, that one's a no brainer. Or
sometimes it's you know, certain certainthings will be higher than normal of pain
points in certain market, and soat that point we really tried to find
as many of those as we can. Well, we're very data centered company,
(19:57):
so we do a lot of thingslike going into the county records and
pulling as much as we can directlyinstead of just buying it in bold.
That's probably you know, if anyonegets anything out of this and you're struggling
and you want to continue doing iton your own, my first suggestion would
be to stop using these public siteslike propstream and property radar and all of
(20:17):
them. I love them. There'sa use for them, but there's so
many investors now using them, andso instead do the hard leg work.
Go into your county records, findthings like code violations, find things like
eviction records, find things like yourprobates and yeah, this all takes work,
but because it takes work, there'sso fewer people doing it. So
(20:37):
get that hard to get data.Then you can skip trace some call them
direct mail them, the Google ads, the YouTube ads, those are more
once you have a larger spend,that's when you want to get into those.
I don't suggest doing that if youdon't have a large budget. So
and you're referencing basically the niche lists, Yeah, and you guys do that
as well. Is that ye takecare of everything. When we say like
(21:02):
and this was my dream, thisis what I wanted. I wanted a
company I could go to and say, hey, I've got the site marketing
budget, get me leads, getme qualified homeowners who are ready to sell,
who have raised their hand and saidI need to sell my ouse.
So yeah, we take care ofeverything. We take care of a lot,
a lot of data digging. Imean, that's basically a big part
of it is finding that niche datafinding, scraping sites like deceased records.
(21:23):
So we're pulling every day anyone who'sdeceased, we're matching their name with a
property, did they own a property? And then now we've got things like
that where it's just finding the youknow, the few people that unfortunately,
you know, there's a lot ofinvestors out there, there's a lot of
competition, and so what worked before, which was just basically meiling and mass,
(21:44):
it's just you know, it doesn'treally work anymore. Right, we
take care of it all. Righton, Well, I know you got
to run. We are going toby the way, Josh got double booked,
so we're gonna ah right, everybody, No, no, But I
like this. Well we'll turn ina two parter and we'll go deep into
AI because I personally, I'm veryinterested in what you're doing on that front.
Yeah, I'll end on AI justto get folks to listen to the
(22:07):
next one. One hundred percent.I would say, within twelve months,
everything's going to be different. You'renot going to be using virtual assistance anymore.
There won't be cool calling. Allof our Google ads will be different,
our Facebook ads are all different,Driving for dollars will be non existent,
like everything you're used to doing inthe marketing space, because that's really
where I'm focused. I'm sure otherareas too, but everything in the marketing
(22:27):
space will be completely different and changed. And so my one word every like
what I try to get everyone doing, is just it be in it every
day, because you won't. Everyminute that you're in it learning and fidgeting
around playing with stuff, you'll learnsomething new and you'll be ahead of the
game when everything does change. Soyeah, very cool. Well listen,
(22:51):
I really appreciate the time, andI'm looking forward to part two. Dude,
this is thanks for having me on. I feel like I just talked,
but hopefully some value added and thepeople people got their brains turning.
So no good stuff. I mean, if anyone's looking for, you know,
outsource their marketing, which you knowmost I would say myself included.
(23:11):
Most real estate investors not only arenot great at the marketing side, but
also just the data analytics and thedata is everything, and we've we have
it now it's just a matter of, you know, how do you go
get it? I heard Clothier,I heard him actually this morning talking about
how, you know, back inthe day when he started, which is
kind of like when I did,there was no data. You know,
you basically had to go down tothe courthouse. You know, you had
(23:33):
to you know, go to thecounty records and you know start or just
you know, doing mass mailers ordoor knocking or whatever. Now there's a
much smarter way and more cost effectiveway to find you know, motivated sellers,
and I think you've kind of unlockedthat in a big way. Not
to mend that's that's not even talkingabout AI, which is going to make
things even more you know, morepowerful. It's absolutely going to be the
(23:56):
I don't know the exact quote,but basically there's going to be people companies
who utilize AIS and that's it.Like, he's not going to be any
other companies out there. It's eitheryour company that utilizes AI or you don't
exist. It's right, yeah,very cool. Well, we'll we'll do
part two real soon. And again, Josh, appreciate the time, and
(24:18):
hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah, we'll talk to you soon.
All right, thanks Roving. Okay, but bye. Well, that
was an amazing interview, albeit ashort one. We will definitely be having
a part two, if not apart three and four and five, who
knows, so stay tuned for that. Well, that was an amazing interview
with Josh, and we will definitelybe doing a part two, if not
(24:38):
a part three, four and fivebecause this guy is an absolute stud and
I'm really looking forward to picking hisbrain on some of the strategies, definitely
around AI. That's been kind ofon my mind. Been doing my own
little side research on that. Sogo check out hottest zip dot com where
he basically it's a free tool whereyou can determine kind of where the hottest
(24:59):
zips are ZI codes. That is, I would go check out Joe HomeBuyer.
I'm going to do that myself andjust kind of see what they're up
to. It sounds like he doesall the marketing for them. He mentioned
ovations. That's another strategy that,like I mentioned in the podcast, I
think is a very interesting one froma I was always looking at ways to
lower the risk and just increase theability to monetize deals when maybe it wasn't
(25:21):
a perfect wholesale deal or a perfectflip deal, but you got a seller
that wants to sell, and youknow, if you're not a real estate
agent, what are some of thealternatives and working with that person. So
I promise you I'm going to gethim on as soon as possible to talk
about AI. He makes the startlingcomment he made is you got about twelve
months to kind of figure it out. It's going to be changing, just
like every other industry, it's goingto be changing residential real estate potentially dramatically,
(25:45):
which I believe that if you lookat the power of AI. So
that's it. Rod Wilson here.Feel free to reach out any way you
see this or find this, youknow, just message me. You can
always reach out to my numbers mycell phone four oh eight five six eight
six eight seven five for any kindof lending finance needs related to fix and
(26:07):
flip, ground of construction and evensome long term rentals. So we I
really appreciate you taking the time tolisten and we'll see you on the next episode,
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The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.