Casey Ryan Shares How He Brought in $2MM in 2019 and Kept 68% of it!

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we've got Casey Ryan, and he drove in from Vegas. The show we did $2,000,000 last year and more importantly, kept 68% of it, an unheard of number as far as profitability goes. If this is your first time tuning in, I am Steve Trang, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only MLS for off market wholesale properties, and I help entrepreneurs create businesses that support their family, lifestyle, and goals through mentorship.

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And this is a live show, so please ask your questions for Casey to answer. You ready? Yeah. Alright. So first question is what got you into real estate?

Casey Ryan: Great. Steve, you you really got that intro down, Pat. What got me into real estate? So, I actually come from a, engineering background. I know there's a few other people in our space that are too.

Yeah. And,

Steve: There's that nerd, Jared Badalas.

Casey: Yeah. Exactly. So I I was going to school, for five years for engineering my, my brother-in-law introduced it to me. He was doing some flips, and, and I was kinda doing my own thing too. I was also on my entrepreneurial journey myself.

And I I I started out, I was buying and selling a bunch of Jeeps on Craigslist. So, like, anything I kinda did, I always did just overboard. You know? So Right. It started where I've just bought one, and, I bought I would buy them for a couple grand buy them for 2, sell them for 4.

This is

Steve: like Panida with the couches.

Casey: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. But I was yeah. So, I wish it was couches.

I would have been I would have been able to do a lot more, Jeeps. But so I I was, buying them for 2, selling them for 4, and I did one of them, and I just got the taste for it. I'm like, dang. I just made more than I made at the time I was younger. So, I was like, more than I made, you know, all month, last month or whatever.

So that one turned to four, turned to six, turned to and got to the point where I was doing, like, 50 of them a year. And, I was trying to balance going to school. I I was going to college. I was working part time, valet at night. So six to 2AM, I'd go to valet.

I'll be at night, I'd be just looking for jeeps all the time on Craigslist constantly, setting up a bunch of searches. And then the second they come in, I'd be blowing people up. It was the same game that we do now, but just bugging people to get what they have what they have that you want. Right. And, so I'm going to school, doing the Jeep thing, working at night.

And then I spent a summer with my my brother-in-law just kinda learning the ropes because he always saw me out there hustling. I saw him doing the same thing. He was he was much older than me. And I just tagged along a couple houses, just drive them every once in a while. And that was back in 2013.

Mhmm. And so I spent a a kind of a summer just learn interning, I guess, just kinda playing around, just figuring it out and seeing how how the paperwork side works of everything. So I did that. I found my first deal back then, but it it it wasn't, as attractive to me at the time because I was already, you know, basically three years into my engineering degree. I'm like, I'm not gonna abandon this and just jump into something

Steve: else. Cost.

Casey: Yeah. And we were just kinda coming out of where everybody was panic for real estate. So it wasn't as sexy as it is now or the last few few years have been. So I just I stuck to the I I I spent the summer through, with him, and then I I jumped back to engineering and just hammered it out for basically two more years. But, like, the last two semesters or so, we started talking again about me doing it when I graduated.

And, again, I was like I was young. I was, like, 21, 22 years old at the time. And, I was getting closer to graduating, but I was all the time in class. I I do my homework at night in between the valet and the jeeps and everything. And then in class, I would be just be on the MLS all the time looking for deals, trying to find wholesalers, sending me deals that's just obsessed with it.

Steve: Well, it's it's fascinating because, like, how are you able to balance all these different things? Right? Like, I mean, I'm an engineer or was an engineer. So, like, engineering school is no joke.

Casey: It was not a joke. Yeah. Right?

Steve: Because you got engineering and then you're valeting, and you're and and and you're doing the Jeep thing. It's just crazy to me that you have all this energy. And something I think is is really important for a lot of guys are getting into this business now because it looks really easy. It is not. It looks really easy.

Right? And they think, oh, I can just get in. Just, you know, do, like, $10 a day or whatever, and I can get this going. But you were obsessed.

Casey: Obsessed. Yeah.

Steve: Right. Absolutely. So, anyway, continue.

Casey: Yeah. Yeah. Anything that I've always done, I've always done a 110%, you know, and and just having a really strong work ethic. So, but yeah. So back to that back to that, I'm getting I'm beginning to graduate.

I graduate in 2015, and I'm just getting good job offers. Because, you know, engineering jobs when you're, you know, you're 21, 22 years old, they're 70,000 base with commissions. You could pretty easily be making a $100 a year within a year or two. Mhmm. And I just decided to abandon that.

And I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna give this a shot. I have the safety net of my my degree if I wanna go back to that. So I I deny all the job requests, and it was like a that was a scary time for me. But I took the risk.

And I jumped on board, with my my brother-in-law, and we we hammered it out for three years. And our first year together, we ended up doing around 70 flips or so. Wow. Yeah. And we were strictly flipping and and do we were doing everything from a to z.

Like, meeting the contractors out, getting the bids, going through every single line item, knocking down the bids, ordering all the stuff from Amazon, getting it to my house, whatever, home Home Depot dropping stuff off all the way through the flip, quality control, scheduling the photographers, staging like, knickknacks from HomeGoods, staging the houses, then listing the property, like, taking the offers. We were the agents. We were everything. And, man, it was it was just too much. So Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve: That was crazy. So it means 70 total

Casey: Flips.

Steve: Flips.

Casey: Mhmm.

Steve: So it's not like you're managing 70 altogether. Like, in order to do 70 flips, you have to be managing how many?

Casey: And then Probably at that time, I mean, maybe you have about 20 or so at a time of that, 15 to 20.

Steve: Yeah. So that's maddening as well. Yeah.

Casey: It was and I and and I'll tell you that the construction, I mean, we've got it down now, just because of the volume that we've done, but it's not my strong suit. Like, I it it's just it's it's brain damage. You can't systemize a lot of it. There's so many different variables. It takes constant, like, driving the you can't just let it go automatically.

You can't trust anybody. You have to verify everything. Right. And meanwhile too, keep in mind, while we're doing all these flips, I'm also finding them on the MLS, working with wholesalers. So at nights, when I when everybody goes to sleep, I get home.

And I I would I'm running all the properties for the auction for the next day. I'm, you know, create lists, scavenging the MLS to find deals, writing a ton of offers. You know? I just found that, you know, with anything, whether it's wholesaling or MLS, whatever, it's just volume. Mhmm.

You know, you gotta do a lot of stuff and you play the odds and you you get deals. So doing all that too and it so we just overwhelmed definitely overwhelmed and just little by little grew our team and, yeah. So then year two then the next two years following that, we did about a 100 properties a year and all flips. No wholesaling at

Steve: So at that time though, like, during the day, you were just managing?

Casey: Yes.

Steve: And then after the day, those are your income activities.

Casey: Exactly. Right. Right. Yeah. I was managing and then, like, looking back, it was so dangerous because I'd be like I'd have the my one of my jeep filled with tile in the back.

I'd be on the phone trying to call contractors or follow-up with agents that I wrote offers on and replying to emails. And I've got 2,000 pounds of tile in the back, and it was way too much way too much. But it it it it just programmed my mind in this business, like, that go faster, faster, faster, faster. So that kinda just became the normal. So you guys scaled

Steve: to a 100 the next couple years. Mhmm.

Casey: And then And then, in early eighteen, we decided he he, took on, he still flips a lot, and he took on a lot of the retail brokerage. And for growing that, growing a brand, growing a business on that side, I took on more of the direct homeowner marketing because we had never we'd not done any I didn't do any direct to, like, marketing at all until, like, really until August 2018. Like, we would be like, oh, let's try PPC and set a keyword up before that, but nothing really, you know. So it wasn't until August 2018 that I really did any marketing. So Right.

And so what kind

Steve: of marketing did you do?

Casey: I started with, I was never comfortable spending money. Everything I always made, I kept as much of it as I possibly could.

Steve: That explains the profitability number.

Casey: Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's kind of to my demise actually because I would probably be a lot better off if I delegated more and, you know, spread it out and I'd have a little more freedom. But Yeah. But, my the first type of marketing I did was ringless voice or actually, voice broadcasting because it's different than ringless voice mail.

And I, I I remember I I set up a voice broadcast and not really knowing what it was at all, I got a list, a random list. I don't even remember. I think somebody gave it to me. I just load it all up, and I'm like, alright. I'm gonna send, you know, a $100 today.

And I sent them all back to my phone. I didn't even know what CallRail was at that time. And my phone literally, like, just back to back to back. Like, I couldn't even take somebody's, text message or call because it's another call, another call, another call coming in. I remember I was answering as many of them I could as I could.

I'm like, this is amazing. Like, I don't know what everybody's talking about. It's hard to get leads or whatever because I hear real estate agents because I came from that side of working with agents trying to find deals. And, so and I remember first round I sent, I I get an appointment, I go on appointment, and I get the deal first. So I'm like, this is awesome.

I'm gonna do this every day. Right. You know, I'm gonna get a deal a day. So I just start doing that a little bit more and just kind of refining it and figuring out what I'm doing there, looking at the data and the reports that comes back after I send them and just refining, refining. And then, I realized that, I just can't be on the phone all day long, you know, just constantly taking calls.

So that was the first, like, marketing I did. And then, I was kinda going through a transition period in my life at that point, because, you know, when you yeah. I was going through a transition period. So I I was like, I wanted to just, go away for a lot like, on a vacation. So I I went to Europe for, like, a month and I Alright.

Hang on. Before you do this, right,

Steve: because I think that's a important point. But before we get there, you mentioned refining.

Casey: Yes.

Steve: Because I think that's something that, you know, a lot of people, once they get in the business and they start doing deals, it's like it's go time all the time. Yep. And there's very little reflecting. Right. Very little introspection.

It's just go go go go go. Yep. What were you refining? What was your refining process?

Casey: Well, my refining process was every single lead that I got, refining process was every single lead that I got that I felt was a decent lead, first off. I would go back and look. I would reverse engineer it, and I would see where it came from, what list, what it like, just see what was going on with it. And I did that with a lot of them, and I just would kinda start to see trends. And then I'd also excel as your best friend.

I mean, some people aren't good good at that great at it, but even on a really simple level, like, pretty much any of the those data driven marketing channels, text messaging, RVM, voice broadcast, cold call, any of those, like, you can just find trends within your data with filters and stuff and just kinda see what's working and what's not. And then whatever's working, just refine it and do more of that. That's basically what I'm by refining. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So something happened and you had to go take a month off.

Casey: Exactly. So I I I go I I take my my now my now my wife, we go to Europe for basically not quite a month. Like, it was, like, twenty something days. And I, one of my when I was flipping Jeeps, I I had my friend, Ryan, that, he's now my acquisitions guy and, like, right hand man. He does way more than just acquisitions.

But, when we were flipping all the houses, he when I was valet, I got him a valet job with me. When I was, flipping the jeeps, he watched me flipping them, and he was like, oh, I wanna do it with you. I wanna do it. And I was always like, no. Like, just don't even don't come into my territory, you know.

And then, one day, I I I had to go to class, whatever, and there's a deal. And I'm like, oh, this guy's always wanted I'm like, hey. There's this deal. Whatever. So he goes and he gets it.

And then we just when I started flipping them, we started doing a lot of them together. And then I moved on from that kind of I was still working ballet and I got him a job there too. And then I went we were flipping all the houses. He wanted to do that too. He's always like, can can I come do it?

Can I I'm like, no? No. No. No. No.

Because I didn't wanna ruin our friendship either. So then he eventually did. And he was doing our project management. Because as we grew, I mean, that first year was crazy and it was always crazy. But, we started to get transaction coordinator, you know, and then project manager and then what so forth.

And he was our project manager, so he was running all the construction jobs. And then when I went to do the direct homework thing, he wanted to come too. So but I was also again, I'm like, I don't wanna be responsible for anybody but myself. I want no I I just wanna be left in my cave to work. I'm ultimately, like, I I'm kind of like an independent worker.

I just like to be kinda in my own bubble. But I I'm going to Europe, and I'm like, I got all these leads. And he keeps asking. I'm like, okay. We'll go okay.

I have these appointments, so I'm gone. Will you go on them while I'm gone? And he's like, yeah. Absolutely. Whatever.

We have no agreement, complaints, nothing. He just wants to learn and same thing with me. So I go away. And while I'm gone, I give him, like, four appointments, and he gets three deals. And I'm like, I knew because when he was managing when he's doing construction management, everybody just loved him all the time.

Like, he has a great personality. I always knew he's better suited for something else because that's like a an hourly task. He's he can actually generate revenue because I would see it with our Jeeps too. And so, I come back and I'm like, man, like, the the like, I I don't love I I was good at acquisitions Mhmm. But I didn't love it.

You know? And this guy loves talking to people. So I, I just start marketing. I'm, like, start feeding leads, and he just starts killing it. So, I don't I don't know if that that's, like, the transition how I go into direct to homeowner and started marketing, but I'm doing RV.

I'm just producing all these leads. I'm working them. He's working them, and we just started scaling up from there. So I think that was 2018. I had a a trailing of the the properties that I had because when you're when you're flipping, you know, flipping, you know, your pipeline gets way bigger because the

Steve: sales cycle

Casey: is so much longer. Mhmm. So, you know, if you, it's you you end up having a lot more properties on your books or whatever. So trailing into 18 when I stopped flipping as much and only it was focusing on wholesaling, I I think that year, I ended up all the deals that I found and every or I I produced and then went on. It was, like, a a little over a 100 again.

And then that that was '18, and then it transitioned in '19 where, I started to see how well we did. And I'm like, let's amp this up. You know? So Well, talking about how well you

Steve: did, like, what were you doing that you're finding was working really well at that time?

Casey: At that time. I I, again, data. I couldn't take the calls all the time with the ringless voice mail and the mess communications or sending out voice broadcasting through mess communications. So I switched to sending out text. I started doing texting.

And, again, not really knowing what I was doing, I would just say, I'm a put $500 in, and I'm gonna run it and see what happens. So I started doing a lot of texting, and we're getting a a lot of deals, like, a lot of deals, you know, when you're spending only a a couple grand a month, you know, when you start getting, like, four to six deals a month, that's that's pretty good. It's hard to get Incredible ROI. Over that. Yeah.

Exactly. It's incredible ROI. And I wasn't then I started to, stack up. I had some cash saved up from those years of, flipping, but but not a whole lot because I was a minor. I was, basically in a partnership, and then we had investors too.

So, I wasn't able when we were flipping hundreds of homes, I wasn't making millions of dollars at all. I put I put my time in, and I, you know, sweat equity, and I learn. And and anyway. So I started to get more cash after I was wholesaling, and then I started dabbling in the more expensive lead channels, PPC, you know, getting content writers for SEO. Pretty much those are only two.

I never did in '18 and pretty much all of '19. I didn't really do any of any cold callers. No. I didn't hire a bunch of cold callers and do all that. I I just only cold calling was our warm leads that we're doing in house.

But Right. Yeah, a lot of text messaging, a lot of it.

Steve: So in 2019, we're talking, you know, 2,000,000 in revenue. That's predominantly texting. You transition from site broadcast or, from broadcasting to RVMs.

Casey: Mhmm. Well, I was doing I that that was '18 that I yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Basically.

Steve: So you trans transition to RVM. Mhmm.

Casey: And you

Steve: had a pay per click and then content writing. So no one's ever talked about that on this show. I think it's a great topic.

Casey: Yeah.

Steve: You wanna elaborate what you mean when you say content writing?

Casey: Yeah. So, I mean, SEO or search SEO search engine optimization, they're basically free leads from Google. It's like Google ranking your website higher, and they are free, but they're the most valuable. Because even when I'm doing PPC where you're, like, in the top of your banner, you have your ads for those of people that don't know what PPC is, is the Google pay per click AdWords. People skip over that because they're like scam.

I'm going to the the people that just rank organic. The real results. The real results. Yeah. And to get ranked, I mean, there's all the keywords and stuff you can do on your website to optimize it.

But one of the main factors is, among dozens of other things, I'm I and I'm not an expert on it. I have a company that helps me with it. But, it's writing articles and content, like, on a blog on your site because that all those, keywords within those blogs, that'll help you start to rank organically. You know? You don't wanna do tricky stuff to try to get to the top because if you get caught, you're cut off.

You're blacklisted. Mhmm.

Steve: So did you have like, when you're doing that, did you have in the back of your mind, like, this is, like, a short lived thing? Because, like, right now, in my opinion, I could be completely wrong. I think this texting is is Grind. It's got a shelf life. It's gonna end Yeah.

Very soon. Did you with with Google with the way they're always changing algorithms, so on, thinking like, okay, I'm spending money in SEO, but this can be gone overnight.

Casey: I didn't think that way. I probably should have, but I was when you're in the eye of the storm, you don't really see what's going and I was doing all these marketing channels, and I'm running the marketing channels. And, like, it was pretty much just me and Ryan working all this stuff. So I didn't think that far. I'm like, I'm just doing what work what's working now, and I'm doing more of it.

Yeah. So I wasn't concerned with SEO and PPC. Honestly, those are the ones that I felt probably most confident in. It was more the the the texting and the the gray area type marketing channels that I was concerned, that would eventually evaporate or, you know, diminish. So that's why I started going in the more expensive ones because I wanted to know how to do a little bit of everything.

So if that does dry up, I'm I can just switch to over here. You know? You kinda always gotta be adapting.

Steve: Especially in today's market. Right.

Casey: Yep. And it's happening right now with texting. It's getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. I've I've seen my the the main thing that I look at when I'm when I'm texting is your response rate, because if if your your response rate, that'll screw up all of your numbers as far as your cost per deal, cost per lead, just the amount you're spending. It's like and so you've gotta really monitor your response rate, and there's so many different factors that go into that.

Steve: What was your response rate? I'm just curious because I didn't get in the texting early like you guys did.

Casey: Mhmm.

Steve: What was your response rate when you first started doing texting?

Casey: So, when I so it's it's hard sometimes to compare across platforms because they'll some of them won't even give you an option. Like, I mean, there's, you know, Launch Control. There's LeadSherpa. There's Roar. There's all these different ones, and they'll rank or they'll calculate them in different ways based on delivered, based on sent, based on there's a a few different things.

So when I was looking at it, I would see other people, using at the time, I was using Roar, And I would see other people using the platform, and they were getting anywhere from, let's say, five to eight to, if you're doing pretty good, 10% response rates. And that response rate was based on sent to inbound, not actually delivered because it wouldn't tell you what was delivered. It would just say sent. So, sent to delivered, and then and I was able to get at that time anywhere from, like, 18 to 25%. So I'd watch what they're doing, and and they're like, oh, I just turn on and whatever.

I've never even looked at any of this stuff. It's so cheap. I'm like, but you have to spend double you know, if you're getting 5% or 6% response rate, I'm getting 24%. You gotta spend four times what I do to to get the same ROI. My cost per deal is a fourth of yours.

My you know? So that's why I tracked it. So yeah. But so is about about 20 yeah. Average is probably 18%, third thirteen, eighteen.

Steve: And what are you using right now for texting?

Casey: I've tried a bunch of different platforms, but, ultimately, I found that none of them all had what I needed for my business. There's a one hole missing here or there. And even if I was talking to, you know, who built it or you you only have so much control, and they're only gonna factor in so much of of you as one user, which they have to. They have a business to run. But there's other things in the back end that were just little by little.

I watched my response rate dwindling and dwindling and dwindling and because there's more people who are getting in, and then the carriers are getting more strict. And the things that I knew needed to be, incorporated into the software just weren't there. So, me and Jared actually dove in to just make one for us because that was my driving force for my business. And I'm like, I'm not leaving into the hands of others when my ROI is insane on it. Like, I I just hire a developer now.

I've got a little bit of money. I'm gonna hire a developer and just build our own. Like, how complicated could it really be? So that's what we did, and it's it's been great. So I just built my own out at the moment.

We're just using it for us in house.

Steve: Gotcha. Gotcha. So going back to 2019. Right? You know, $2,000,000.

Casey: Mhmm.

Steve: If you were to break down you know, you're talking about four different channels. If you break it down, which were the best for you? So, best

Casey: best in amount of revenue.

Steve: Revenue, not necessarily ROI. Right.

Casey: So Best ROI and actual total revenues by far SMS. It was about that was, like, about 30 something percent of our business. Runner-up to that was, PPC, best in revenue, and then not best or yeah. So p p so SMS, PPC, and then SEO. And the way that they would convert SMS is brutal because the conversion that leads to contract is way higher.

It's like, you know, 90 to one or whatever because we're really lenient in how we qualify people. So 90 to one, whatever, 80 to one, a 100 to one sometimes. PPC would be, like, 10 to one, one to eight. You know? And then SEO was, like, one to four.

Like, one out of three leads, we would end up turning into a deal. And and at the time, actually, which I I regret now, but I was a bit I I was just anybody that would wanted retail, throw it in the trash. You know? I just move on. Not I I I mean, I know the difference.

A lot of times people say they want retail. We need to work. I've been working. But when we really saw the person that was ready to sell, list the property, I I and I have my license too. I'd be like, I'm not listing the house.

Let's move on. Right. Now I've started to convert all those leads into to retail listings too. I wish I would have been doing it the whole time because it's been like a cash cow. It's totally passive, you know.

So the conversion would have been a lot better.

Steve: I think this is a great point because it's something that, I when I started the show, you know, almost two years ago, like, I wanted to kinda join the realtor and wholesaler community. That was, like, my vision. Uh-huh. And that's been an abject failure. It's been terrible.

Like, it didn't work at all. But it's something that I I still push. Like, if you're a wholesaler, you should get a license. In fact, a lot of them are licensed in my brokerage because there's this other opportunity that they want retail, refer it on, get 25% Yep. Without the headache.

Casey: You can actually get more than 25% too. Yeah.

Steve: I've heard that as well. That's a common number. But, yes, you're right. Pretty yeah.

Casey: That's a standard. Yeah. So I

Steve: think that's something that a lot of people are missing because you're spending the money on marketing. Mhmm. You're doing all the work. You're spending the resources.

Casey: Yep. The time.

Steve: Yeah. You might as well. Like, if it can get you 3,000 in six months, that's a found money. It's like Christmas money.

Casey: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. When you're when you start producing a ton of leads, it's a lot more than 6,000 or whatever, 3,000.

And it's, like, just on autopilot. You kinda just say you gotta find killer agents that are experienced and show them the opportunity, show them what you've done, and what you like, and it's it's a no brainer for them to take on those leads.

Steve: And there's an additional ROI where you get to be the first buyer

Casey: Exactly. On their listings. Yep. Yep. And they exactly.

All the other properties of the deals that they're working, they they end up bringing back to you. And then a lot of the times, what happens is these people think they want retail, but they don't then they get on the market and realize they don't want retail. So they'll come back around, and it's like, if you just let that lead go, you don't have that same opportunity.

Steve: So you would agree then, like, being licensed, there's benefits to being a licensed.

Casey: Yes. Absolutely key. Or at least having somebody the other reason why it's great is if you're flipping, in a in, like, my in Vegas, it's it's ultra competitive. Is it? Yes.

So the the the those margins are just so squeezed. And if you have to pay an agent on both sides or even on even one side, like, you're gonna get beat out on everything. So it allows you to have that, additional margin to to to survive. And then in addition to that, we when back when we were doing only flips, I was majority of the properties I was finding, probably 80% of them were just on the MLS.

Steve: Yeah. It just took

Casey: it was the same thing as the seller negotiating with sellers. It's just calling a ton of agents, making a ton of offers, and negotiating everything. But because we were licensed, you know, you can you can actually wholesale properties on the MLS. A lot of people don't think you can. They think it's illegal or whatever.

I mean Really? People think that? All the time, they don't believe it.

Steve: Wow. Interesting. So okay. So now the part that I wanna talk about, and this is like the nerdy component. Right?

You know, former engineer, former engineer.

Casey: Yep.

Steve: Profitability is something that's not really sexy. And a lot of people talk about it. Right? So, you know, we all chase revenue. We chase volume.

We chase units. Yeah. Right? But These are the ones that make

Casey: you feel good inside. The big numbers.

Steve: The big numbers. They make they do make you feel really good. But at the end of the day, what pays the bills and helps you sleep well is the profitability. Right. So you've done a great job.

I don't know anyone running higher than 50% profitability. For our team, you know, profitability is something we chase. And last year, we're at 45%. Okay. Right?

Which I've been told is a really good number, but then I see your number. I was like, man, we sucked last year. So let's talk about how do we how did you run a profitable business? Well, one thing

Casey: that might be different, but I think a lot of people probably listening to this podcast are still very involved in their business. I know, there's the vision of having this big sexy company with a bunch of people, and everybody's running. And I don't even know the property's coming through, which which is great, and I'd love to be there. But, unfortunately, I I'm terrible at delegating. I just take it for myself.

I want

Steve: bit of a control freak.

Casey: Exactly. Yeah. So I'm very involved in the business is the first thing. I don't know how involved you are with your business, but, like, every property, I know what's going on, unfortunately. But it's getting to the point where, I've got a little more people in place now or that's not the case, but very involved in it.

And then just just doing the cheap marketing channels until you can afford the expensive ones. As long as you're getting an ROI on all of them and tracking them at at least every two months, you know, to make sure that they're healthy. But but when I was so involved in the business that I knew, I'm like, oh, that deal, I know that came from PPC and I'm gonna make, you know, 17 on it. And we got another one that became this and that. So I just know in my head of everything's kinda profitable.

But then I I would look probably weekly, nightly at each marketing channel, and just look at the live feed of the expenses and the ROI from my revenue from Podio projected and actually closed. I mostly I mean, a lot of people talk about projected and stuff. We close just about we that number is really close for us projected to close because we close, like our cancellation is, like, 5% or something like that.

Steve: Real wow. It's really low. Mhmm.

Casey: Yeah. So I'll put it under contract if I don't if I won't buy it myself at the end of the day.

Steve: Well, I mean, the stuff that we run into is, you know, change of heart

Casey: Yep.

Steve: Screwed up title. Right? Yeah. So So those are the cancellations we have, and I think ours is higher than 5%, between everything. But I think, you know, to go back to we talk about tracking, so, like, something that Max and I do every every Monday, we go over our pipeline.

Casey: Mhmm.

Steve: And in our pipeline, one of the, columns is lead source. Right.

Casey: Right?

Steve: Because if you don't know the lead source, it's really hard to track Yep. Profitability. Okay. So you're heavily involved, and you think that's the biggest part Yep. Tracking the ROI for each lead source.

Anything else? I mean, I think those are I would say common sense. They feel very common sense when someone says it to you. Yeah. But are there other things as well?

Or

Casey: I think that is is never conversion, like, making sure that, you have a good salesperson because salespeople will get fatigued if you feed them too many leads or, you know, if they're not converting things right. Like, the fur before you start doing dumping money into any marketing channel, as you gotta make sure that you have sales and conversion tackled. Mhmm. And and I I'm lucky enough. I think that's one of the biggest secrets to our profitability and our success is is Ryan.

He's an incredible sales guy, and he's not I wouldn't even consider him, like, a lot of times a salesman. He's just it's just so natural to him. It's not like he's, when you think a salesman, he's not like a car salesman. You don't feel sold. Right.

And so, pretty much, like, we would go head to head with a lot of people on deals, and they would give it to us for less often. And and it's because he he's just so likable. So sale, I think that having a good salesperson on your team is is absolutely key to to having a profitable business or a good margin on your business. So they're converting as much as possible.

Steve: Gotcha. So let's talk about, you know, your your your line items. Right? So, I know, like, my biggest expenses one of my biggest expenses is labor. Okay.

Right? So, you know, if you look at most p and l's expenses is is is marketing, hard costs, and then, you know, marketing and staff. So for you, going back to your profitability component, what is your biggest expense?

Casey: PPC is by far oh, and then obviously commissions. But, with Ryan, I I don't we don't do basis as straight commission because he because he he's way better off that way. I've I've just finally when we did last year when so we closed about or we closed a 144 properties last year, and, with that was done with me, my assistant, transaction coordinator, part time bookkeeper, whatever you want, right hand girl, mother hen, Kelly.

Steve: Oh, that one person's doing those three things.

Casey: She's oh, yeah. She does book she, like, goes in QuickBooks, assigns all the charges, prints all their seats, make sure all the files are good. She does all my TC, make sure that, like, any properties that we do, if we wholesale them or whatever or flip them

Steve: She's managing 12 properties a month.

Casey: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Ryan helps too, but, yeah, she's doing that. And she's printing checks for all the vendors.

She's utilities on and off. Like, the there it never ends. And she's

Steve: You got a superhuman

Casey: there. Yeah. I do have a superhuman. You're absolutely right.

Steve: Yeah.

Casey: Yeah. She's incredible. And I've been real I was really lucky to find her. That was a that was my first hire other than Ryan, which Ryan was more of, like, kind of like a partner thing in the beginning when he was doing all the acquisitions. Kelly, I just was lucky enough to find her on Facebook.

And so his assistant was my first hire. But that all that that was done with Ryan, me, Kelly, this part time guy that would kinda dial on all of Ryan's leads, like, kinda warm him up preliminary rapport building, qualifier, whatever people wanna call him, lead manager. But he would only work, like, twenty hours a week. So it was five of us. Me and then Corey, who's also one of my buddies, that would help me finding still some properties on the MLS.

He would do all the disposition, which for us, disposition's pretty simple. Mhmm. You know? And then he was Ryan was doing the project management and acquisitions, and we're like, you need you need to stop doing that. So then Corey took over that role too.

So it was basically just the five of us or four of us plus, chance.

Steve: So yeah. So Ryan's acquiring.

Casey: Mhmm.

Steve: So is he in the cost of goods sold or is he after the the the He's in he

Casey: is he's in cost of goods sold. Okay.

Steve: So even with paying Ryan, you're still at 68%? Yes. That's incredible. Yeah. Okay.

So one thing, I hope you don't mind me bringing this up. When we first met, you were kinda going through a situation. Right? Like, we met. Jerry was speaking at, McPhate Brewery.

Right? I have our monthly meetup, which we're not gonna have this month because of what everything's going on.

Casey: But we

Steve: have our monthly meetup and Jerry was speaking and you flew in from Vegas. Mhmm. But you're kind of going through a complicated situation that time.

Casey: Yep.

Steve: You care to talk about that at all?

Casey: Yeah. So, I I the the that's the transition period is, I me and my partner just went different directions, and it was really, really tough because he was a mentor to me. He brought like, he changed my life. So it was a tough transition when we split. Now in retrospect, it was the best thing for both of us.

So, but, yeah, that was a really whenever you split with somebody that you start did so much with and grew so much with, it's painful. It's like divorcing your wife. You know? So, yeah, that took me a little little bit of time to to get over that hump. You know?

And that's why I didn't wanna work with anybody. I'm like, I just wanna be left alone. I didn't even want, like, an assistant or nothing. I'm like, I just want to be in a cave.

Steve: You know? Yeah. So one of the things that I I've said many times. Right? I think I I think we shouldn't have people shouldn't do partnerships.

Right? Something I've said a lot, Brent Daniels has has pushed us a lot. But at the same time, I have a business partner. You know? So it just made sense with the with with the skill sets.

There were so much synergy. It's like, it's a no brainer. Yep. But for you, someone that's gone through a partnership, you know, and you've learned some lessons along the way. Oh, yeah.

What advice would you you give someone that's, you know, newer and, like, man, you know, this is really hard. I should do a partnership or whatever. Like, what advice would you give someone in that situation?

Casey: I would I would say maybe take it deal by deal. And super, super important is communication, and that is not my strong suit. So I don't I'm not good at communicating my constantly. I I just don't. That's because, again, I'm kinda just operate independently.

So communication, I I don't I in retrospect, it was one of the greatest things that happened to me, but now this is much better because you don't have to worry about, you don't have to worry about someone else's feelings ever. Mhmm. Like, if if I mess up, I already feel like, I already beat myself up enough. I don't wanna think, oh, my partner's mad at me too or whatever, you know, or how somebody else feels. So it's it's a a weight off my shoulders.

For some people, they they like it. I think you might be better off finding somebody to do deal by deal, like, just small partnerships or or like a mentorship where you're kind of it feels like a partnership deal by deal. And then, you know, when you're you don't need that or what or not not don't need that. But when you've grown beyond it, you can still do just do deal by deal as as my take on it.

Steve: Yeah. And, you know, again, you're in Vegas. Right? One of the toughest markets.

Casey: Yep.

Steve: So and you're good friends with with Ryan Penida.

Casey: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Right? And so it just goes to show you, you

Casey: can

Steve: collaborate without having to sign an agreement. Yes. Yes.

Casey: Me and I did a lot of collaborating with guys in in my marketplace that were my top competitors like Alex and Jason. I don't know if you know know them in in Vegas. But they're it's them and Ryan as far as, like, direct to homeowner marketing and a bunch of other guys. Mhmm. And I I it just it's feels good to be an open book and just be like, oh, this is what's working for me.

Like, here's I I like doing it. So that just kinda happened organically. And and me and Ryan were kinda just more friends first, and then it's like we would just then maybe throw in questions every not push too much because, I mean, everybody still wants to have something in their back pocket. You know? Right.

They don't want everything, but, so we would just ask each each other questions and stuff and grow together. You know? Because what what we lose to each other, you know, let's say, of our competition, we let's say every once in a while, we lose a deal here and there. Let's just call it five or 10%. It's first off, it's like, great.

It went to my boy. Like, that's cool. But second off, it's what we grow and gain together way outweighs what we lose to each other.

Steve: So For sure. Yeah. It's not even close.

Casey: Yeah.

Steve: So we were talking about you first started, flipping Mhmm. And then you started wholesaling. Yes. How much wholesaling are you doing today? How much flipping are you doing today?

Casey: Today is different from last year, but, last year is probably 70% wholesale, 30% flipping Mhmm. Roughly. And this this year because nobody saw the any ship. And I I'm not even gonna call it a ship. I'm I'm not worried about it at all.

But, I started buying so much because I I my cash is sitting in the bank. I'm like, I'd rather put it out there in in my business and and maximize all my ROI channels because I know how to flip. I just don't really enjoy it as much. But Right. I know how to flip.

So I I we're flipping a lot more the last couple months. Probably shifted 70 flipping, 30 wholesaling. But, yeah, last year, 70% wholesale.

Steve: Gotcha. Gotcha. So, still no call no call calling.

Casey: Just started dabbling in it the last, like, three, four months. You know? We're getting deals from it and works, but, I haven't refined it enough yet. And, it's it's just like anytime you start a new marketing channel, it's almost like starting another new little business within your business. So with all the other stuff we have going on, if I had the full time to dedicate to it, I'd probably get it dialed in a lot quicker.

But lucky enough, I have people that do a ton of cold calling. I can consult with them. You know? But, yeah, I just started doing cold calling.

Steve: So it's not as efficient as we want it to be?

Casey: No. It's not I mean, the ROI is not what SMS is. So

Steve: I don't think there's anything.

Casey: No. There's nothing.

Steve: You know, for for a while last year, I was looking at our cost per deal with SMS Mhmm. Was was $380.

Casey: That's insane. Yeah. That's insane.

Steve: It's no longer that number. No. It's it's north of 1,200 today. But for a minute, you know, for a very short period of time, it's $380. That was crazy.

You could do that all day. Yeah.

Casey: Even if it's $1,500 or whatever, I mean, this that's it's a no brainer.

Steve: I think, you know, $3.80 average fee is 15,000, like, pour it all into there.

Casey: Yes. Exactly.

Steve: Which I think is the reason why SMS is also ruined. I think we all did that.

Casey: Exactly. Right? Exactly. We all just started pouring gasoline in and just ruined it for ourselves.

Steve: Yeah. Alright. So Devin Burrows had a question. How are you staying ahead of things so that you know when to pivot with your business?

Casey: I have a live feed dashboard of my ROI per marketing channel. Mhmm. And so I can see when things start to I I make graphs of of revenue, and I try to track it based on, not I I split it to see when that lead actually closed the revenue, but also to to see when that lead was actually generated to to know if that revenue or that, lead channel is still producing well. Mhmm. So I can split from SMS, RVM, PPC, SEO.

I have dashboards for each of, with statistics for all of it. So I just look at each one of them and I just click through, and I'm like, oh, that one looks good today. Or, like, that one's looking really good this month, this year, whatever. So that's one thing. The other thing is constantly looking at the inventory in your market.

It's so important because then you'll be able to tell if if you can tie deals up a little bit higher because you're gonna get a little bit more or if, if you're wholesaling, if flippers are gonna pay more Mhmm. That's how I stay ahead of is inventory and looking at the marketing channels constantly.

Steve: Gotcha. Yeah. That's one thing that I pay a lot of attention to. Have to as a broker and a and a wholesaler.

Casey: Yep.

Steve: So you're one of the metrics you're tracking is from con from initial conversation to closing. Correct.

Casey: Well, not time frame, but when the lead was produced. Yeah. You know, to see what was spent spent that month a lot of times.

Steve: Yeah. We need to start tracking that.

Casey: Yeah.

Steve: So, Rick Ryan says dad is watching. So be nice.

Casey: That's my dad. Hey, dad.

Steve: Alright. So right now, you're focused strictly in in Vegas.

Casey: Yeah.

Steve: Alright. So there's a lot of doom and gloom right

Casey: now. Mhmm.

Steve: Right? And the hotel industry is obviously a big industry in Vegas. Are you doing anything differently at all or you're just gonna keep doing what you're

Casey: doing? I mean, I'm liquidating. Yeah. Just to be prepared. I I I kinda always make sure that I I don't put myself in a position where I get run dry if things shift a bit.

Mhmm. But, as far as, like, making sure you have enough cash flow to sustain for, I mean, at least six months, but really you won't have two years is my opinion. For your marketing, for your, hard money payments, all that kind of stuff. Construction costs, you need to be prepared there. But the reality of it is, if you're prepared for a year or two years, if things shift, it's not like every property you're holding is just not gonna sell.

So, how am I preparing? You mean preparing for any sorts of shifts in the market? Is that what you mean by that?

Steve: Are you doing are you making any adjustments at all right now? Yeah.

Casey: I mean, just a very temporary thing is I don't wanna look back and say because we have plenty of leads in our pipeline. So I've pulled marketing back just while I get, because that we have I I think right now, we own, like, 22 properties Mhmm. That we're flipping also. So I'm just gonna start making focusing on construction, getting rid of all of them so I have enough cash in the bank to to strike when when things do get sticky, you know, in a little bit here.

Steve: Yeah. One thing that was really cool, you know, we were on a call yesterday Mhmm. And put together by Carlos.

Casey: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Steve: Right? I mean the power you're talking about collaboration with Ryan. So I like the power to be in on a call with all the top guys across the country. Mhmm. You want to speak on that at all?

Casey: Yeah. Honestly, I was I was pretty flattered that I was asked to be on the call. But, but I yeah. I've been friends with Carl since Sal forever. We're actually when we're bunch buying a bunch of properties, I was buying like, everything when Sal was doing Dispo.

Yeah. So a long time ago. And my personal house, I actually bought from them, Carlos and Sal. I've I I paid them a $98,000 assignment fee. Yep.

So anyways, that was a sidetrack. But on that call yeah. Because you have a lot of people that have their finger on the pulse. They're spending a lot of money on marketing. They're watching things very closely, and they didn't they didn't end up with these successful businesses by mistake.

So, it's just good to to to see what everybody else is thinking. I I think that everybody's specific business is is gonna be different and everybody and their exposure to the market shifts, so the risk is gonna be different. And every, business specifically and market is gonna be different. So, I just kinda took the generalities of it, of it and just made me feel more comforting. Just confirmation of the way that I'm handling the shift for us.

But

Steve: And so, you know, for you, right, for the guys that are listening to the show, like, what's one generality that maybe you could share with everyone that's listening right now?

Casey: Yeah. So the main thing, of course, making sure that, you've got enough cash to sustain. But, I mean, if if it's that if it if it's here now, it's too late if you didn't prepare. So Right. Going aside from that, what you can do is, one, just make a plan and stick to it.

Like, decide what you're gonna do with your business. Like, for me, I decided, okay. I'm just gonna make sure that I get out of all these properties as quickly as I can all the flips that I have. Not in a just fire sale, but, like, complete the projects, get follow the process, but just focus on my energy into that. And don't worry about what's going on because you can't control that.

Focus on what you can control and let the rest happen. But just monitor what's going on, like your inventory rates and stuff. So you Yeah. You price things accordingly so they'll move and just figure out the plan, ignore the rest and stick to it because if you're panicking or you're stressed and whatever, you're gonna make bad decisions. Yeah.

You're gonna sleep miserably, like, I feel great. Like,

Steve: I I I'm

Casey: not worried about it. Yeah. So

Steve: Rome Kirkland wants to know what percentage are your buyers are willing what percentage are your buyers willing to pay for your wholesale deals? 70, 75, 80%? Sure.

Casey: So, the the way that we look at it, and I'm sure that you you do too, is is what they'll pay minus repairs. So, pretty much when when things are hot, buyers are plant paying, like, $84.83 percent minus repairs. I have a couple buyers that are are hedge funds that will sometimes I look at them like they're paying 89% minus repairs, and that number can seem even crazier when I think that the house because the way when I flip, I don't just paint carpet. I've been trying I've been trying to do more now that the market was hot, but I I go all out, new cabinets, everything because I just feel feel comfortable with that model. But they'll go in.

I'll have, like, a let's say, I think 27,000 is conservative budget. They'll go in and prove me wrong every time. And they'll they'll put, like, $7 into it and list it. So sometimes when they buy properties, they'll buy them at, like, 90%, whatever you wanna call it. But but their rehab budget is smaller.

But, yeah, generally, it's 84% minus repairs in Vegas.

Steve: Yeah. What I was hearing in in Vegas this is more than a year ago. What what Jerry was saying is, like, he was offloading things at, like, 87%.

Casey: It's like, man

Steve: This is just as great. Crazy in Vegas. Alright. So Fogtown King wants to know, is pay per click going to be the next marketing channel becomes oversaturated?

Casey: Depends what market you're in, but I can tell you that Vegas already is oversaturated. Yeah. And and you will not never survive with PPC unless you have a killer sales guy. Because or and if you're you need to be able to have the ability to close on the properties too sometimes because they'll squeeze every you have flippers on there and and and more importantly, you have iBuyers. You have Opendoor, Offerpad, Zillow, Redfin.

All these companies are pouring money into the the legal marketing strategies, which is PPC and mailers pretty much. You know? So they're they're they're driving that cost per lead up. So in Vegas, it's already very saturated, across the nation. I don't know.

It's market by market because Yeah. Some people's cost per lead could be here. It's probably 400 and something or whatever if you're if you're just not really refining it. In other places, I people people are like, oh, my cost per lead's $80. I'm like, it must must be nice.

Steve: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think pay per click can ever be oversaturated only because it's such pure capitalism. Like, what you're willing to bid is very much what, like, the value is.

Right? Like, the

Casey: Right. It stops making sense to get an ROI on it.

Steve: Yeah. So, I mean, I pulled back in, 18 in pay per click. Because when I started, I was paying, $2 a click Mhmm. And $12 a lead. Right?

That's when I started.

Casey: That's insane.

Steve: When I said, this is not working anymore, I was at $45 a click, and I think per deal was over $2,000. I was like, a couple of bad months. You really screwed up.

Casey: Yeah. And PPCF, you're pouring $10 a month. If you don't get a deal for a month, it starts to hurt. Like, I

Steve: It hurts really bad.

Casey: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Man, it must

Casey: have been nice to meet him when it was like that.

Steve: Well, I didn't know anything back then. So I was only getting 3 k for assignment fees. Anyway, that was young me. So, Bernard Max says, how do you build your buyers list? Because you're you're mentioning hedge fund buyers.

Yep. Are you are you using hedge fund buyers?

Casey: Yeah. Yeah. So, first, if you if you can get let's call it transactional funding. A lot of people see those as a double close. But if you can get, like, private money lenders to help you sell these cleaner properties as is, you can start because you you'll you'll with the iBuyers and everything, you'll out service the customer or the seller.

They will sell to you over them over, the the iBuyers because they wanna work with an individual. So if you can get money to be able to close the properties, you can sell to the iBuyers. That's one. Two is just go down to your local auctions because the hedge funds will always be there. Mhmm.

Go find out, like, who's buying in in volume and just be build a relationship with them. Bring them deals. And and that's the main thing. Like, I never did the thing where you, you know, export 5,000 buyers and blast to a ton of people. Like, when I when I started wholesaling, I had a different, background.

So any everybody that I was competing against all those years, I kinda was like, hey. Guess what, guys? Good news. I'm gonna bring you property. So Yeah.

I started selling to a lot of people, that were I just knew would outbid me on stuff or right there with me all the time. So those are your most aggressive buyers. But focus I I I most of the people that I sell to are repeat. I pretty much never sell the news new people, which I could be leaving money on the table, but it makes it

Steve: a lot easier. But you got certainty?

Casey: Yes. Certainty and and volume. I can just move on to the next deal because I know I think they're paying something fair.

Steve: So Right. Wesley Harper wants to know how much you're spending per, per month on pay per click and how many leads does that generate?

Casey: Somewhere around I mean, it varies, like, 10,000 to 12,000 is for for Google. And maybe man, I have to look at it. Maybe, like, 40 leads to 50 leads. Whatever it comes out to basically, average about $230 a lead. Yeah.

However many leads that is. Because sometimes there's more web forms and calls and stuff and I just I look at my spend and my ROI. I've I've looked less at the number of leads I'm getting.

Steve: Yeah. That makes sense. Claudia wants to know how effective texting is gonna be in 2020.

Casey: I think that it's going to start drying up for a lot of the platforms because I watched it already with the one when I watched my so I I look at my response rate, but more importantly, if you're if you're trying to test out multiple platforms because all their pricing structures are gonna be different, all their way they I I would calculate if it'll show you because a lot of them, they won't show you everything, but the cost per inbound message. And then you gotta know how many messages inbound does it take you to get a conversion to a deal. Yeah. So I would just I I watched my, cost per inbound message go from, 4 or 5¢ in the beginning when I was getting, you know, 25%, response rates. 4 or 5¢ per inbound message all the way up to 25¢, 27¢, 30¢ per inbound message.

And I'm like, this is crazy. Like, I that's, you know, nine, ten whatever, 10 times what I was spending before almost, whatever. And so watch watch that when you're comparing comparing platforms. So because I the reason that's happening is because the carriers are spending millions and millions, probably hundreds of millions of dollars for software developing software to prevent you from getting spammed. Yeah.

They don't want you to get spammed because now I think they're being held responsible themselves. By congress and the president. Exactly. So they're developing software, so avoid it. And it's it's creating basically, the the most important thing when you're texting is making sure that you have a message profile.

So, like, whatever your message says that's very dynamic and it's it has variables within it and a bunch of like, that so that they can't put a fingerprint on that message very easily. That's how you get good response rates and stuff. So any software that provides that for you, you're gonna be okay, but I haven't found too many that can do it. You know? There are a lot of good ones, though.

There's a there are a couple good ones. Yeah. But it's drying up.

Steve: It's interesting, though, that you're doing cost per inbound message. Mhmm. So I think that's that's a a big nugget there. So cost per inbound message, does the quality of the inbound message matter? And you're talking about cost per inbound message.

Casey: When you when you start sending out half a million messages in a month Yeah. The quality starts to go like, I mean, it's gonna you're gonna it's a lot of averages, you know, as this all starts to level off. So, the quality of the mess if you're if if you wanna do a lot of deals with texting, you're gonna have to blow through a lot of data. So, yeah, you could look at a preforeclosure list and be like, oh, good. I mean, this one converts better for me.

It's less messages in blah blah blah. If you're doing a small scale, then do that, if you have the time to do that. But for us, it's like, I just look at the the averages. But I'll I'll compare numbers with some people, and their number of inbound messages per contract is much higher than mine. And then what does that go back to?

Conversion sales and mark or sales and conversion and following up. So it matters how you're conversing converting, not just what the cost per inbound message is.

Steve: Right. And then just to add on top of the, point is, for for Claudia's question, there was, like, a, like, a little bit of, like, a texting apocalypse, like, five weeks ago. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. When, when All the carriers shut down?

Casey: Yep. One of the provide yeah. Exactly. They saw who was who was doing this stuff to every like, spamming everybody, and they shut the sources down. They cut them off.

You

Steve: know? Yeah. I mean, for, like, five or six days, there was no texting.

Casey: Yep. Exactly. I was still texting.

Steve: Yeah. Because Oh, good for you. You you were ahead of the curve.

Casey: Because I'm I don't have one source that's basically sending out million hundreds of millions of messages. It's, like, on a smaller scale, and I need that for my business. If I had a platform for it, that's different. You know?

Steve: It's just trouble. But and, Carlos Reyes says, hey. What's up?

Casey: What's up, Carlos?

Steve: Warner Carago wants to know which KPIs do you think are the most important to track?

Casey: Interested interested leads to contract because I just really believe them. All the marketing stuff is great and cool and it keeps your margins high if you figure that out. But you gotta have sales before anything. So focus on your number of interested leads, qualified leads, whatever people call, whatever word you use for it, to number of contracts to see how your people are converting. Because you can think that your marketing is going awry, but it could be that, you know, your sales guy's having a bad month with his wife or whatever, you know, that Yeah.

They they could be fighting in his mind somewhere else or, like, he's stressed about it. So pay attention to your people and your sales team.

Steve: But Fun variables. Right? Yep. You guys going crazy. So Bernard has another question.

When you're going against iBuyers, what are you doing to set yourself apart on the deal? Setting expectations.

Casey: To be honest with you, when somebody comes to us and they're, like, like, oh, when you get that that PBC lead that call comes in, and those are more more often than any time, those are the ones that are, like, I already called Opendoor, offered Pat, blah blah blah. What's your offer? Just tell me, and I'm hanging up if it's not good. So to combat that, I'll we'll just straight up be like, that is your best bet. Like, the we'll look at what property type of property they have.

If it needs a certain type of repairs, because they'll stay away from properties that need more than, like, 15 or 20,000, they'll move on. So that's what you wanna focus on and just let them know that you should go go experience it for yourself. If they're they've got this old rundown home and they're like, oh, they like, your offer is, let's just say, $1.60. I bars are gonna come in and be like, 200. It's insane.

So they'll be, like, well, I'm taking that. Like, you should. And if they close on it, that's what you should do. So we we we're just super honest with people. So going going forward with them, when something happens, I've had many times where where they sign the contract with a few of the iBuyers and they keep backing out, and then they they just trust your judgment at that point.

So that's our the biggest way to do it. And then on on top of it, you know, just breaking down the numbers, just being very transparent with sellers and letting them know what really is their best option. Not doing what's best for you. Like, truly tell them what's best for them, you know, and fits their situation. So if that's listing if if you go up to an iBuyer, I'll right away be like, you should listen instead.

You're gonna get more money. Yeah. You know, because I already know that the iBuyer is gonna blow us out of the water. Right. You know, unless it's a certain type of property.

Steve: Exactly. And I could be wants to know, what do you recommend to wholesalers who don't have access to MLS?

Casey: That's a tough question for me.

Steve: And sorry. And don't have thousands of dollars to spend.

Casey: Oh, that's a tough question for me because I always had access to the MLS. I found the reality of it is Zillow's usually real as as much as I hate to say, it's relatively accurate Mhmm. You know, within 5% or so. If anything, I think it's a little low. I don't too often see it high.

Steve: Well, that's that's because they're buying houses now.

Casey: Yeah. Exactly. Right. Exactly. They've they've figured it out.

So what would I mean, I don't know. You probably have a better answer for that with your students that don't have MLS access in different markets.

Steve: We don't take on students that can't afford to market.

Casey: Oh, well, there you go.

Steve: Yeah. Like, they actually have to be financially qualified to join our coaching program. So but I guess for someone like that, I mean, I think door knocking preforeclosed is really not a bad place to start.

Casey: Right. Yeah.

Steve: It's really not.

Casey: And if you get really, I tried to stay less focused. I've I've I've made the mistake in the beginning a lot, but stay less focused on finding like, comping the properties or whatever, getting the exact value because you wanna find the right seller and make a range. And if something every house you comp and oh, if I make the just find a partnership until you can afford the MLS.

Steve: Yeah. Or even just going back to your mentioning Zillow earlier. If you're door knocking, you know, and you and the guy says, I want this price, compare against Zillow. If it's a lot lower than Zillow,

Casey: alright. Plus there's some research. Exactly. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. But if they want close to Zillow, like, just move on.

Casey: Yes. Exactly.

Steve: Lauren Lorenzo Harkins wants to know what company you're using for SEO.

Casey: I I just hire content writers, and they they do I you just go on Upwork and you find people that can speak in or write English very well, and you just kinda give them guidelines of what you wanna write and just have them write a bunch of articles and put them on your site.

Steve: How much are you paying for that? Because you're saying that wasn't cheap either.

Casey: No. SEO is actually pretty cheap. You you for a couple grand a month, you can get a ton of articles written.

Steve: Yeah. You know? Cool.

Casey: And

Steve: then how often are you touching base with your PPC leads that aren't a deal the first time?

Casey: So as I went through towards the end of the last year even though as our PPC was great, PPC was actually dragging my ROI way down which is fine because if you're even if you're making, you know, a 100 on your money, it's like, where else can you do that? So Right. I'm gonna do that instead of a rental or whatever. But, what was the question one time? Can you say it again?

Steve: When you're touching base with it with the paper quickly, it's how often are you touching base with them if you couldn't close them the first time?

Casey: If if you well, a lot of times you can can get a hold back a hold of them very often. But, at least weekly, whatever time they ask you to follow back up in, rule of thumb is cut in half or thirds and check back with them. And when you when you call people back, don't make it about the house. Like like, I'll I'll hear Ryan in the other room who like, it's, Susie, whatever. He'll be like, Susie.

Hey, it's Ryan. And and and, or he's like, hey, it's Ryan. Your best friend, Ryan. And he's like, well, how how's it going? What are you doing?

How's your cat? Like, he that it's like that's what sales is about, is building a relationship with people. So when you're following up with people too frequently and all you're saying is, what about your house? What about your house? It's like, they're not gonna wanna talk to you.

So Yeah.

Steve: House doesn't change very much between calls.

Casey: Exactly. So, weekly. But if if you haven't got a hold of them, you should be calling them two to three times a day.

Steve: And then Chris, John Baptiste wants to know how you feel about PropStream.

Casey: I haven't really used it that much, to be honest. So I don't know.

Steve: So this is an interesting question, from Matt is, what list are you texting to send somebody text a month? Because I imagine you're texting everybody.

Casey: Yeah. So exactly. So, I mean, I I pulled your normal list, like your brief foreclosures, probates, divorce, eviction, all that stuff. But, you'll you'll blow through that in a half hour, you know, when you're not really, but you get what I'm saying? Really quickly.

So I I I just got to the point where I realized very quickly. I'm like, if I just stay at this pace, data and skip tracing is gonna be outrageously expensive. So I just went and I got a a disc from the county with every single parcel. And then, basically, I I took that and bought I built a scraper that pulled all the data from the county with because all I had was basically parcel numbers. Scraped all the data from the county and just made my own mass master list, that I didn't wanna rely on title comes and everything.

I wanted it fresh and new and know where it came from. So I did that and then I refined it all down to the properties that I would know that we could make a deal with. Square footage, property type. And then from there, I took all that data because if you have an Excel sheet that big, like, when you open it, literally, it's like

Steve: It's a

Casey: small bar. On the bottom. It's like that's when you know you got a good Excel or a big Excel file.

Steve: Yeah.

Casey: And so I took that and I put it in a Microsoft Access database and then I made a, I made a macro that pulls from that database.

Steve: Yeah.

Casey: So I'll have, like, lists that are built like product type, single story, this year built, whatever, like stuff that I know is probably distressed or that I like. And I'll just run those generally constantly. So there's a trickle of lead flows. And then the the laborers in pulling those up skip pulling from the database, the preforeclosure, all that stuff. Those are the ones that I'll run through a lot more.

And And so there's a big list running and then there's little list going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom for the the motivated ones.

Steve: Yeah. So

Casey: I'm just tracking all that when it comes into your CRM.

Steve: Sound a lot like Jared right now.

Casey: Thanks. That's who's Jared? No. I'm just kidding. Jared's a good guy.

Jared helped me a lot in the beginning, actually, when we didn't even know each other. I I owe a lot to him because, I mean, I I knew what I was doing in on the, like, value all the other components of the business, but I'd never done any marketing. And this guy opened up to me and, like, would just share so much with me, and it it just made me do the same thing with everybody in my marketplace. I'm like, that that was awesome. Like, I relied on like, he would help me so much just for no benefit of his at all just to to talk to

Steve: Yeah. Well, he probably enjoys having someone else that can't understand what he's saying.

Casey: Very few people do.

Steve: Yeah. Love that guy. Yeah. You got that guy. So, you know, overall running your business now, what is your monthly overhead today?

Casey: Marketing, I just chopped it really hard. So let's not even count about this last month or week, whatever. But usually somewhere between 18 and 25,000 for marketing, and then everything all in all is maybe in it it varies before 40 to 50 with with commissions and everything.

Steve: Alright.

Casey: With commission and marketing is is around $40.50.

Steve: Cool. What is your superpower?

Casey: My superpower, is I'm when I find something new, I'm obsessed with it. And I will not stop until I know it inside out. Not every little detail, but the things that matter, I'll figure it out really quick. What matters and what doesn't. So just becoming obsessed with it.

I just always remind myself like, I'm I'm obsessed with learning. If you're not green, you or or if you're if you're green, you grow. If you're ripe, you rot. So I always remember that and and anything new, marketing channels, whatever, I obsess over them. So that's what I would say my superpower.

Steve: That's awesome. You ever taken the Colby test?

Casey: I haven't ever. No. I just took my first, p or PI.

Steve: Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things in there is FactFinder. Mhmm.

And that's the guy that's gonna go deep. Alright? He's not gonna understand it, like, on a shallow level. Like, he's gonna go really deep on it. And that's just it was one of those things where I'm it was one of my strengths.

What is your biggest struggle right now?

Casey: Biggest struggle. It's just constantly seems to be well, it's it's without a doubt, it's time management. Because when you have a small team and everybody's doing so so many different things, it's you you just lose track of the day and, you know, before I'm like, I can't believe it's 07:00. You know? And then I go home and eat dinner and, like, hang out from it, and I and my my, wife is a nurse, so she wakes up really early.

So we go to bed, and I'm just in bed working, catching up. So I just time management is my weakness, but probably delegation. You know? I'm I'm very bad at delegating things. I just wanna do it myself or even when I do delegate it, like, I just can't let myself wanna just do it again myself a lot

Steve: of the time.

Casey: So I, more importantly, just don't even wanna know what they're doing because if they tell me, I'll just jump in. So

Steve: I totally understand that. Is there a book you've gifted more than any other?

Casey: I haven't gifted a lot of books. I mean, there's a ton of great real estate books, but, one book that I really enjoy, reading again and again and again is the laws of human nature. It's just a I just like listening to, like, the mentality of people over time. It's just a great book, laws of human nature.

Steve: Gonna have to check that one out. Last question. Steve Nash is, my processes my processes are so weak. How can I develop better processes?

Casey: If you're not a if you're not a process guy, you're never going to. So you gotta hire somebody to Yeah. Do it. But you gotta understand what you need done and then show them or find there's a lot of people in our industry that understand processes and contact them and they'll see the holes in your organization in two seconds. They probably all have it written out and everything ready to go.

So hire somebody just if you're if you're not good at it.

Steve: Yeah. There's, Gary Harper with Sharper Solutions, you know. Probably if you could afford that, that's great. If you can't, you know, send me a message, Steve. I've got a buddy, Matt Larson, who's a master.

Casey: Yeah. Matt was at your mastermind. Matt was telling me about how or telling everybody about how he got his workload down to, like, no hours a week and his revenue or his his profitability went up because it trimmed the fat because they put it was it was just really interesting. I'd like to pick his brain on that a little more.

Steve: Yep. Yep. Alright. So I'm gonna let you think about announcement you wanna make while I make a few quick announcements. So our workshop as of today, it's a month from it's a month from now.

As of this moment, it's still ongoing. If you guys want to check it out, go to disruptors.com. You can reach out to me. You know, I'll let you know if it's still happening or not. But at this exact moment, it's still happening.

So if you guys want to double double your business, reach out, check it out. And the things that we got from it is people really appreciated the transparency, level of detail that we dive into each topic. Like I said earlier, you know, I'm I'm a nerd. I'm gonna go really deep on a topic. And so if you guys are interested in in that, check it out.

Right now, we've got on deck Lauren Hardy. She's gonna be talking about virtual wholesaling, which I think is extremely relevant. But I need to confirm with Lauren that she's actually still coming. So, you know, guys, everyone please just bear with me. You know, every everything is live in studio, so there might be some, quiet weeks.

Well, we're gonna have to play this one day by day, hour by hour. So just, stay tuned. Make sure you're in the Real Estate Disrupters Facebook group. I'll be making more announcements there. So last thoughts.

Casey: Last thoughts. I think, again, a lot of the people watching are probably on the more on the the side of just starting, or they have a business and they haven't totally, scaled up. I would say don't follow the trend of massive business with massive so many markets because, I mean, I know a lot of people doing that. Get really good in your market first. Get really good.

And I know I've seen heard other people say that at specific marketing channels. But before you focus anything on marketing at all, like, there's a lot of guys that spend little to no money on marketing and crush it because they're good at sales. Yeah. So focus on sales and, sales and follow-up. That's the number one thing you should focus on.

And then aside from that too is is there's, you know, there's no perfect list. There's no secret perfect list. There's no system that's gonna make your business this or that. Like, just go. Like, take just take action.

Shoot first, aim later. That's, like, the number one thing. The the speed to market will always dominate. So Right. Focus on just taking action and just fail and fail and fail.

Don't be foolish and, like, oh, I'm gonna fail, fail, fail. I have a $100. I'm gonna spend $20 a month on PPC. Don't do that. That's not what I'm saying.

Be smart, but don't be afraid. Just take action and figure out what works and doesn't because and and then final thing would probably be, because focusing on, like, your resources around you is is my peers or or whatever. That's gonna be that's gonna be your greatest resources to other people in your business to collaborate with. So focus on that.

Steve: Yeah. I think so. Finding someone, you know, something that Pace and Jamila have been saying, you know, squad up. But finding someone that's at your level that you can partner with, create a relationship with, someone to bounce ideas off of, you know. We're very fortunate.

We've got to we've got to share our thoughts, you know, compare notes with some of the best people, in the country. Yep. But, you know, wherever you are right now, there's other people in that same circle. Collaborate with them.

Casey: Mhmm. Improve the squad. Yep. Find somebody who's doing more than you and improve their situation. They'll help you too.

Absolutely.

Steve: Absolutely. Alright. Thank you for coming. You're welcome. Thank you guys for watching.

I appreciate it.

Casey: Yeah. See, we real estate disruptors.