David Lecko Shares How His Clients Are Leveraging Deal Machine to Scale Their Business

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we have David Lekel with DealMachine, and he's here to share how some of his clients are regularly clearing 6 figures, a month using DealMachine. If this is your first time tuning in, I am Steve Trank, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only app you'll need for wholesaling. And I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires, so let's connect on Instagram.

If you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave, give me a thumbs up. And as a friendly reminder, I do not charge a dime for this show. I don't make any money doing this. So here's all I ask. This is what it costs for you to listen to this show.

If you get value today, please tell a friend. You can share the episode right now, tag a friend below, or tell me best takeaway from the show later on. That way, we can all grow together. And don't forget, this is a live show on Facebook and YouTube. So please post your questions for David to answer.

And that's it. We're ready to roll. Are you ready?

David Lecko: I'm ready.

Steve: Alright. So first question is, how did you get involved in real estate?

David: Alright. Well, it was 2016, and, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. And I was playing the cash flow game that goes along with that. Yeah. And I had this full time job, but I was interested in planning for retirement.

And I didn't feel like the stock market or traditional, like, financial advisor approach was enough control for me. Like, I I wanted to be a little bit more hands on and be able to control that investment a little bit. So I was looking for a rental property. And in that cash flow game, you've gotta, like, use your income and then save it up and get out of the rat race

David: Mhmm. So

David: you can move on to, like, the bigger circle where then you can make more investments. And so I was looking for a cash flowing rental. Just couldn't find one on the MLS. I live in Indianapolis. So great city for rentals.

I knew that. And, I went driving for dollars. So I was trying to find a rental that was low priced that I could maybe do a little bit of work on myself Mhmm. And then rent it out and make a cash flow every month.

Steve: Right.

David: And so that was the start.

Steve: Okay. So you wanted to to to drive for dollars and then?

David: And then I had, a lack of follow through problem. So So it was a lot of fun, you know, coming home from work, and I would actually drive and write down the addresses on a piece of paper. Mhmm. And then I would come home, and I should have been following up, you know, looking up who owns the property, sending out a piece of mail. And, but instead, you know, I was hungry.

I was like, I need to make dinner, and I I need to

David: go to the gym, etcetera. And then

David: it was time for bed. Alright. So I went a few weeks without actually doing any of the follow ups.

Steve: Not unusual.

David: Yeah. Not unusual at all, I came to realize later. Right. But I the the straw was I drove by this house I knew I had written down previously, and somebody else was actually working on it. And and I looked down.

I was like, crap. You know, there's my list.

David: Mhmm. And

David: I haven't followed up with any of it. And somebody else is renovating this property and has bought it since then I found it. And so I went home immediately, and I started looking up the owners on the county website. And it was pretty boring. I had thrown on, like, an episode of Friends.

Mhmm. And I had probably 40 properties. And and that took me, like, three episodes of Friends to get through. Mhmm. And I was like, man, this isn't this is not, scalable.

This takes a long time. Yeah. But I just kinda push forward, and I was like, I'm gonna send out mail. I did some googling around on some mail services, but they all had a, like, a minimum amount. Mhmm.

And I had 40 properties. You know, the minimum was, like, a few 100, if not a thousand. And so I I was just like, alright. I'm gonna print these myself. And I was like, I I dedicated all this time already, so I want the best chance to get a response rate.

David: Mhmm.

David: And so I'm gonna put the picture of their house on it because I had been snapping pictures on my phone too. And so I did, like, a mail merge with, like, Microsoft Word and my printer and, put stamps on them and and took them to the post office. It took a really long time. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's how I got

Steve: started. So for you, you did this for you? I was doing it for me. Yeah. Right.

Yep. Okay. So did you have any luck? I mean, when you got started doing that?

David: Not not in that first round of 40 properties. I did not. Okay. But I was already thinking at that time about how much time that took me. Mhmm.

And I knew driving for dollars was a good strategy because I had been to several meetups. Multiple people were like, you gotta start this way.

Steve: Right. It's the best way to start on a low budget.

David: Mhmm.

David: Absolutely. And so my job and my education background is actually computer engineering. I learned how to code on the job at Accenture. My client was actually the post office, and we were building this software for bulk mailers.

Steve: Okay.

David: Yeah. So I I had already had a lot of software background. And for me, I was just like, oh, this is gonna be my weekend project is Mhmm. Build this really basic version that accesses the county records, and then we'll send out a piece of mail for me.

David: Yeah.

David: So that way, it just took care of my lack of follow through. So that's that's what I did that weekend. I spent all weekend just in the computer building a a really basic version of of this app.

Steve: Wow. Yeah. So what year, was that? 2016. 2016.

So not even that long ago. So did you ever buy any properties using this process?

David: Yeah. You did?

Steve: Uh-huh. Okay. And what'd you do with those?

David: So my first one was actually $4,782. Yeah. Yeah. And so it had, like, a blue tarp on the roof, and it was 600 square feet. But it was Downtown Indianapolis.

Yeah. And I knew this area, it's called 16 Tech. I knew it had developments, like, significant developments going around. And this guy had lived here for forty years. He obviously couldn't keep up with maintenance.

He had back surgery, so he couldn't cut the grass anymore. And so he's like, I need to go live. Ended up going into, like, a housing complex. You know? But he he had called me after, like, the fourth or fifth postcard.

And he's like, I got your postcard, and I would like to sell my house. It was the easiest conversation ever.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So you bought it for under 5,000?

David: Under 5,000. And then now it's an Airbnb that makes about 2,000 a month. And it took about

Steve: So it's paid off for itself?

David: Almost. It took about 65,000 to

Steve: Oh, really?

David: To bring it up to where it is. But it's got it's got granite. We reframed the whole thing, redid the roof line. So pretty significant upgrades. But it's, like, full two bath, two bedroom with granite Yeah.

600 square feet silvering in, like, $2,000 a month.

Steve: That's pretty good. Yeah. So one thing that we were talking offline before we even started is that, you know, you're buying properties

David: Mhmm.

Steve: But with a whole different purpose. So, you know, everyone that I talked about, DealMachine, they're looking at it as far as, like, you know, wholesaling

David: Mhmm.

Steve: Piece.

David: Mhmm.

Steve: But your strategy is a little bit different. You're buying properties for another purpose. Yeah. So what are you doing?

David: My goal is to have 10 rental properties that are cash flowing because, for me, the whole start was financial independence. You know? I started with that cash flow game and getting out of the rat race, having that passive income that would cover any basic living expenses, you know, that I had kind of in perpetuity. Yeah. So I'm still actively looking for deals.

So you're driving for dollars still? Yeah. Not me personally.

Steve: Yeah.

David: I do it when I'm just en route. Right. But I I actually hired somebody to drive for me as well.

Steve: Okay. So let's talk about that. What does that mean exactly?

David: Yeah. So her name is Courtney, and she was very interested in real estate. And she responded to my Indeed ad, and I'm I was paying $15 an hour. Mhmm. And so she can drive as much as she wants.

And if she's gonna drive for $15 an hour, she's got a goal. I I need her to add at least 10 properties that meet my criteria every hour. Yeah. And, she just loves she loves driving, looking at houses.

Steve: So she's a person on your payroll? Or

David: Well, you know, it wasn't super official. It was an independent contractor that I was paying via Venmo.

Steve: Mhmm. Yeah. So, she tells you when she's on a clock and she's and and then you're getting ten properties. How does that work?

David: Mhmm.

David: So I would say, every day, I need you to post in Venmo a request for the money. Mhmm. Tell me the hours and the the number of properties that you added. Yeah. And then I I can go in and see that she added that many properties.

She also takes a photo of them. So I can tell that, you know, where the property is, what it looks like

David: Mhmm.

David: And just kinda do a sanity check, make sure, like, she's continuing to do She's actually doing it. What, yeah, what what I'm paying her to do.

Steve: Right. Mhmm. Okay. So is your target user demographic or the avatar of of your user, is it the guy that's first getting into wholesaling? Or is it, you know, like, like, the Polites who is running a massive operation?

Like, what is your Mhmm. Primary work Yeah. Target audience?

David: The the primary person and we have all different levels Mhmm. That actually do this. Yeah. Beginner to somebody making a million a year already.

David: Mhmm.

David: But I always felt like the very easiest person is somebody who's done, like, three to six deals already, and And they're looking to scale. Right. And and in order to scale, they're being told, hey, you need to send $1,020,000 dollars worth of bulk, you know, direct mail. Yeah. And that gets really expensive.

It feels like you're not able to keep a lot of the money for yourself because a lot of it's just going right back out the window. And it's good to reinvest. But we can offer a solution that's not so, heavy on, hard on your wallet. Because when you're driving for dollars, it requires a lot less properties that you find in mail too because it's more targeted. It's not like the same list that everybody is like hammering with mail.

It's a more unique list to yourself. Yeah. And so, we can help them get those same big deals but without spending that amount invested in direct mail, which is huge when you're just starting out because those expense you know, the expenses can get out of hand.

Steve: Oh, they add up really fast.

David: Yeah.

Steve: So you're saying three to six deals, like

David: They're ready to scale. They're feeling like I got the hang of this.

Steve: They're, like, three to six per month or three to six per year?

David: Just they've done three to six total, you know, and they're trying to step it up. They feel like they need to add people, add employees

Steve: Okay.

David: Or that, you know, they wanna take it to the next level.

Steve: Okay. So you're do you're done between three and six transactions, and you're trying to get to the

David: next level. How do I use the DealMachine app to do that?

David: Yeah. So you're actually going to, hire somebody. Mhmm. We we have a program that, you know, you can post Craigslist or Indeed job ads in the same

David: payment structure that I mentioned. Mhmm. The alternative is some

David: people like to pay, like, a dollar the alternative is some people like to pay, like, a dollar per deal, that they add. Mhmm. And what you're gonna do is, you know, add them. We've got, like, a sign up page so they can be added. Mhmm.

And, they get instructions on how to download the app. Do a quick test run. Be like, hey. Before I meet you, I want you to just add 50 properties like this. I'll pay you.

And then, if you like it, then we can meet. Right. And that filters out, like, any time wasters, any people who are just kind of just, like, maybe fizzle out. You know, that'll filter those guys out. And then then you can build, a team of, like, one to two people that actually is is gonna consistently add properties for you every week.

Steve: So someone like me who wants to add some more people to my operation

David: Mhmm.

Steve: You're saying I can do this, create this page Mhmm. Where they register, and I can have them go do 50 properties before they even, like, meet with me to see if I even wanna meet with them. Yes. Absolutely. A really good idea.

So, Max, I don't know if you're listening. We're we're interviewing people right now. So, Max, if you're not listening, we gotta add that. Is this your process.

David: Max is this

David: your, acquisitions person?

Steve: No. He's my partner.

David: He's my partner. Okay.

Steve: Yeah. He's the one that make things actually happen. So without him, we wouldn't really be wholesaling very much.

David: Mhmm.

David: So But I wanted to say it's not that beginners shouldn't use this.

Steve: Mhmm. Or no. Right now we're talking about, like so the three to six, they wanna scale. Mhmm. So if they're adding drivers, people to up upload addresses to their list.

David: Mhmm.

Steve: Gotcha. And then what do they do with that list?

David: So real easy to do is actually send direct mail.

David: Mhmm.

David: And it's gonna stand out more than a bulk mail because every picture that your drivers took is going to be on that mail. Mhmm.

David: And

David: so that's a lot more clear. It's a angle that is apparent. It's not a Google photo. It's actually, letting the owner know, like, you've been to their house. And you're actually very interested.

It's amazing how polarizing it can be. Yeah. A lot of people will say, hey, I I I got a stack of mail over here, but I called you because it looks like you took a lot of time Mhmm. In getting in contact with me. And I appreciate that.

Gotcha. On the other end of the spectrum, anytime you're doing direct mail, you're gonna have somebody that's, just a little bit crazy. You know? I'm sure you've encountered them in in your direct marketing.

Steve: So we had, so I do I do traditional real estate as well. So one of the things we're doing for the longest time, we don't do anymore, was for, like, listings that canceled and expired. And so we would send them mail twice a week for four straight weeks.

David: Mhmm.

Steve: So every house that didn't sell got eight pieces of mail from me in a month. Wow. And I would track the amount of angry phone calls

David: Mhmm.

Steve: Angry mail, whatever. Because I know what that tells me is that my assistant was actually sending out the mail. Mhmm. If I'm not getting angry phone calls and angry emails, I know my people aren't working. So that was my metric to make sure people were working.

David: So here's where people get hung up is they'll say, well, what if somebody sees me taking a picture of

Steve: their house?

David: Mhmm. And every time that's happened, I just saw them the truth. I'm like, hey. I'm I'm a real estate investor. I really like this street.

I like this house, and I'm looking to buy a property on this street. And then their guard just drops. Yeah. But I think I think if you if you if your body language looks nervous

Steve: Uh-huh.

David: You you just gotta, like, really stick your your hand out there so that you're not afraid to show people you're you're taking photos. Right. And I think that really helps everybody drop their guard. Oftentimes, they'll be like, you know, this house has roaches over here. Mhmm.

You know, this lady loves cats, and this is a really bad landlord. Stay away from this guy. Right. You'll get all the information you want.

Steve: Okay. So you're taking a picture of the a house that looks to be in disrepair. Yeah. And then neighbors are coming out and saying Neighbors

David: are coming out and saying, hey. What are you doing?

Steve: Yeah. Oh, so you're just like, yeah. Yeah. We're try I'm trying to buy this house.

David: Yeah. And then the conversation totally turns positive.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Because no one wants an eyesore in their neighborhood. Mhmm.

David: But back to your question about the the people who call in angry. Mhmm. You know, I I always tell this story of this guy who was like, why did you take a picture of my house? And I was like, same thing. I'm a, you know, I'm a real estate investor, was driving by, really like the street, would love to buy, you know, a house on it.

I like your house. And, he ended up saying, well, I just I keep getting so much mail, you know, ever since we filed for divorce, and these people won't leave me alone. And I was just like, hey. I will take you off my list. It's not a problem.

Will you be selling your house eventually? And he's like, yeah. But, you know, not until it's it's all done. All said and done. And I asked if he would like me to follow-up with him at that time, and he said, yeah.

So it's just like, you know, even if somebody is angry, if you can hang on just for a second and and maybe uncover something positive from that. Right. I found that that's that's true a lot more than you think.

Steve: Gotcha. Juan Gutierrez wants to know how can you add people to your account? Or how many people can you add? Sorry. How many people can you add to one

David: account? So we have, two different plans, and, all of them let you add unlimited properties. Mhmm. We have this basic plan that allows you to have three deal finders. And those deal finders are limited access people that can add deals, but they can't, like, spend any of your money by sending out mail or seeing the owner info.

And then on the the bigger plan, which we call the enterprise, that lets you have unlimited deal finders.

David: Mhmm.

David: Yeah. And if you've got, like, a partner, you also get, like, five full access team members where you can control exactly what they can access up until, like, an admin type type privilege.

Steve: Gotcha. That's cool. So I have a lot of people reaching out to me on Instagram asking me questions. And I and I encourage it. Right?

I've I've never, like, I don't I I I acknowledge every single one except for, like, some of the ones, like, feel too hot. I don't know what's going on. Okay. Don't ask me how I'm doing. Right?

David: Yeah.

Steve: But besides those, I respond to everybody else. One of the questions I get is, you know, like, I'm getting started. What do I do? And I've told them, like, if you don't have money in the market, it's gonna be really tough to get into dollars. So I've encouraged people to go get their, become a licensed Uber driver or a Lyft driver

David: Mhmm.

Steve: And then drive for dollars in between. Mhmm. What would you say to that?

David: I think that's a phenomenal recommendation because you're making making money while you're in your car.

Steve: Right.

David: And you're you're doing the work that needs to be done that a, you know, like, a wealthy investor won't do.

Steve: Right.

David: Right? Because if you're wealthy you know, I I was just talking to Tom Kroll and he's like, when you're wealthy, you design a life, without it. There's no inconveniences. You design those out of your life. So Right.

You know, actually driving a street, writing down a house that you see is not something that a, like, a wealthy investor would typically do. And so you can use that to your advantage when you're just starting out because you've got the drive. You've got, like, the the the heart. You know? You're Mhmm.

You're out there doing that work.

Steve: Yeah. And so one thing, Max and I were talking about what we wanted to do was advertise to people that work for

David: Mhmm.

Steve: Uber

David: Mhmm.

Steve: And encourage them to send deals to us. Yeah. Is there a plan for that? How to do that? Like, I joined an Uber group.

I had I had to, you know, under scrupulous.

David: You had the high scruples.

Steve: Yeah. But, you know, I joined an Uber group for Facebook

David: Yeah.

Steve: You know, to kinda, like, infiltrate whatever. But, like, if I wanted to get, you know, a bunch of Uber drivers, Lyft drivers to start sending properties to me, how would

David: I do that?

David: So I have a page

Steve: Mhmm.

David: And it's part of that DealMachine Enterprise account. The URL for mine is, like, dealfinder.team/indy. Mhmm.

David: And

David: if you go to that page, it's a marketing website geared towards attracting Uber drivers, attracting people who wanna make money while they drive. Mhmm. And so they can they can see exactly, you know, how much they can get paid. They'll see exactly what they have to look for, and then they'll have a place to sign up. Yeah.

And then you get pinged, and they've already got the app downloaded. They're in your account. And then you can reach out and be like, hey. This is Steve. Just wanted to say thanks for signing up for my team.

Yeah. I want you to add these 50 properties in the next three days. I'll pay you for them, you know, dollar per property or whatever. The criteria is listed out here. You've already seen that.

And, go have fun. And let me know when you get there. We'll talk about something, like, more long term once you get there.

Steve: So you you recommend creating a landing page?

David: It's with

Steve: yeah. For for Uber drivers and Lyft drivers. Mhmm. How would I market to them to let them know to go there?

David: Well, that's a really good question. I've I've I've exclusively done it on Craigslist and Indeed. Yeah. And if you're in a Uber Facebook group, I haven't personally done that yet. But and I don't know what the rules are there.

But I'd I'd say that's probably a pretty good approach.

Steve: Yeah. It's a lot of political rants in there. It's a really weird Facebook group.

David: Uber drivers got opinions.

Steve: That's true. They have a lot of opinions. Let's see. So Brian Griffin wants to know the link. So what's your link deal finder?

What's your link for the Indie? For Indie?

David: Dealfinder.team/indy,indy.

Steve: There you go. And then let's see. We got other questions. So I'm trying forgive me, guys. I'm trying to balance between Facebook and YouTube.

So we have Douglas Miller wants to know, he he's found addresses that come up as invalids. Is that because they're new builds?

David: Okay. Well, we get the info from 3,000 county databases. Mhmm. And if they're invalid, if he's using DealMachine already, if that comes back invalid, that usually means if you go to the county, they don't have the address for some reason.

Steve: Okay.

David: It's it's probably a data entry issue on their end.

Steve: And if you've got an owner absentee owner who's in England, how would that work to you? Would you still would the old machine still send the postcard to England?

David: You know, we, it's a really good question. I'm not sure.

Steve: It is a great question. If there's

David: an out of country person

David: Mhmm.

David: We, I would I would press the enhanced search button to get their phone number, email address, and other addresses. Yeah. And I'd probably reach out with with either a cold call and also maybe an email.

Steve: Yeah. You guys provide emails?

David: Mhmm.

Steve: Awesome.

David: I have a a Zap setup. Do you know what Zapier is?

Steve: Zapier. Yeah.

David: Yeah. So I've got it set up so that when a new email address is entered into DealMachine Mhmm. Or if you press that enhanced search button and some emails come back, it actually sends out an email to that person automatically. Yeah. So I don't type emails to everybody, but the email is basically what the postcard says.

It's like, you know, hey. I'm a neighbor, you know, was driving by your house over at this address. It's got the photo of the house.

David: Mhmm.

David: And then it talks about, you know, if you're interested in getting a cash offer, please give me a call or a text.

Steve: Yeah. Mhmm. That's awesome. What do you link it with?

David: When you say link it, what

Steve: do you mean? The email. Email platform.

David: Oh, I just link it to my personal Gmail. Personal Gmail? Yeah. So it sends out from there. They hit reply, and then it comes back to my personal Gmail.

Awesome.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So let's say you've got a massive operation. Right?

David: Mhmm.

Steve: And you're looking to scale, you know, like the Polites. I think, you know, they gave a great presentation in Dallas. Mhmm. What advice do you give to someone that's at that level for how to use DealMachine to to leverage their business?

David: Yeah. It's it's, it's all about equipping your existing team with deal machines because they're always out in the field if they're acquisitions people.

David: Mhmm.

David: But they're passing houses that they probably don't end up capturing or they end up in a Slack message that nobody follows through because there's not, like, a a process to that. So first of all is is give this to your your existing team and then start with one one additional driver that's gonna do, like, thirty, forty hours a week.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. And So everyone that's on on your acquisition team has to have the app. Mhmm. Okay.

And then they're responsible for hiding how many?

David: When they're when they're in the field, they're in the neighborhoods you wanna buy in already. Mhmm. So they need they should be adding everything that they see that stands out. And so, typically, with all of our, like, success stories that have come in, we kinda boiled it down to 200 properties times three mailings each is about what it takes at least to get your first deal.

David: Got

Steve: it. So that that's a

David: really good benchmark when you're just trying to test it out and just trying to start is get to 200 properties as fast as you can. Mhmm. We actually have a leaderboard. Some people do it in a day. Wow.

Yeah. They're like and I love that. They're because they're usually the investors that have established systems already, and they're like, I will spend, you know, a thousand bucks to try anything. And if I'm gonna try it, I'm gonna immediately just go and do all the thing right. Yeah.

And then very quickly understand if that's gonna work for you or not. Yeah. And then the key is, like, letting those postcards, you know, repeat. Or if you're cold calling, make sure you actually repeat those phone calls to make sure you can get through at the right time. And so from for big teams, it's about working that math backwards.

Like, how many extra deals do you wanna do from this? And then that's how many properties you need to add. You know, divide that by however many team members you have and every that should be everybody's goal.

Steve: Gotcha.

David: Mhmm.

Steve: Okay. Any other tips from, you know, these really successful operations?

David: Yeah. So I would say a a lot of people dismiss the owner occupied homes. Mhmm. And, actually, all of my deals from DealMachine have been owner occupied. And so I I would say make sure you don't dismiss those.

I know everybody loves the absentee owners.

David: Mhmm.

David: And that's an obvious good lead. But don't dismiss the the ones that are run down that are owner occupied as well.

Steve: Do you think people are are are afraid if they're occupied? Like, you see, like, a car in the in the driveway, they're not reaching out to them?

David: I think people think that they they are afraid, I think. But, also, they assume that if it's owner occupied, they wanna keep their house. But if it's run down, that's motivation in itself. Absolutely. You know, like that guy I had where he ended up just having back surgery after forty years.

Steve: Yeah.

David: And it was all about the timing. He was in, like, my, you know, fourth or fifth postcard that he ended up calling. Mhmm.

Steve: So Juan Gutierrez wants to know, so you can skip trace the address using Zap. Is that is that right?

David: You can skip trace the address in the app. It's instant. You don't have to wait for it.

Steve: Okay. So I'm gonna call a house. I use the app.

David: We call it enhanced search.

David: Mhmm.

David: It's gonna give you back a bunch of phone numbers, some emails, and addresses, everything that we can find

Steve: Right.

David: Just in a couple seconds. And I would recommend it'll say which ones are mobile phone numbers. You wanna call those first.

Steve: Yeah. Mhmm. Gotcha. Let's see what else was there. How much does it cut?

Do you guys handle duplicates?

David: Yeah. So we do not let you add the property twice.

David: Mhmm.

David: That would obviously be a disaster, especially if you've got multiple people adding properties. You don't want it in there four times.

David: Mhmm.

David: So we give you we give you, like, a message that says, like, hey. This property has already been added. And then we also have a route tracking feature.

Steve: Even if I got two different drivers

David: out there? Okay. They can see the PIN, but if they're, like, a deal finder, they won't be able to see, you know, who owns it and all that stuff.

David: Mhmm.

David: But a lot of these bigger teams, they wanna target specific areas. And so we we just came out with the route tracking feature a couple weeks ago. So it'll actually draw a line on the map where everybody on your team has been. Mhmm.

David: So that

David: way, it prevents people from driving the same street twice. It also lets you know when it's time to drive that area again. After after six months, it'll turn from green to yellow.

David: Mhmm.

David: And after a year, it'll turn from yellow to red. And then it'll just go away after two years. Yeah. And so your all your team members can see that. And so it helps you also cover an entire hot area and make sure you didn't miss a street Mhmm.

And also prevents you from duplicating work.

Steve: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And then Jonathan Cornelius wants to know, is there a cost to you sending in direct mail?

David: Yes. It's on the basic plan, 99¢.

David: Mhmm.

David: And on the enterprise plan, it's 80¢.

Steve: And how often do you recommend mailing it? Manuel wants to know.

David: Every twenty one days. And we I I like to do it twenty two days because then it's coming on, like, a different day of the week each time. And then three, every three weeks or so.

Steve: Gotcha. And then Jason Eslinger wants to know, how do you integrate DealMachine with your email? Through Zapier,

David: z a p I e r. Yeah. It's a technology that lets you connect, like, thousands of apps together to work together.

Steve: If you guys don't know what Zapier is, then you're gonna have to find a nerd friend to help you with it because it's not I don't think it's for the uninitiated if you don't have an engineering background. Right? I think it's as an engineer, it's really easy to use. Mhmm. But I think if you're

David: It's as easy as possible,

Steve: still dealing with, like, integrating APIs. Mhmm. So, We can all

David: we can always help you out too. Oh, you guys can help. Guys wanna, like, send us a chat message.

Steve: Perfect. Perfect. And then, Suho Mander wants to know, can you integrate Google Photos instead of taking the photos?

David: Yeah. So you can upload any photo. Mhmm. And for a long time, we didn't have any Google Photo connectivity because Google had a terms of service in there, that says you're not allowed to use street views on print materials.

Steve: I

David: think that's been taken away in the 2019. So we always watch that. So Naturally. That that may change. Yeah.

We, we we kind of have worked on that a little bit so far. But you can so the the Polites actually, they would add properties and have a VA go get the Google photo and upload that. Mhmm. And somebody's like, wow. You did you take all that time?

But, you know, at at $4 an hour, a VA could tackle, you know, thirty, forty of those, no problem, in that amount of time. And so for you know, they have actual dedicated drivers. But for the ones that, you know, the photo wasn't good or if they wanted to add something, like, remotely, they had their VAs upload those photos.

Steve: Adrian Cruz wants to know, like, if you have a fail to find owner, how do you still send the mail?

David: Well, if it fail to find owner, you I we would recommend just, like, finding, like, maybe, like, there's companies like a Private Eye. Mhmm. And I really like Corey over at American Tracers. Mhmm. But we have a lot of users who use, like, batch skip tracing for doing it in bulk.

Again, I think you need a bulk order. Corey might do, like, a one off for you.

Steve: Yeah. But I

David: I would go that route and and try to find more information about the house. Again, we we can only provide, like, what's what the county is providing you.

Steve: Yeah. So going back to, you know, the Polites who obviously had some great success with this, like, compensation models. You know, how do you reward someone or encourage someone to use it, you know, versus, like, well, a, for them to have extra income. But, b, like in Phoenix, there's more than a couple of wholesalers out here.

David: Oh, yeah.

Steve: How do we, you know, encourage them? How do we get them to work for us? What do they need? What do they like to see as far as, you know, working with us?

David: So if you're just starting out, get find, like, a best friend or you're a mom or somebody

David: Mhmm.

David: That's not gonna require compensation. Like, they just wanna help you out. Yeah. Once you've got, you know, done a deal or two, then the two main models we see are, you know, like dollar per house upfront or, you know, an hourly fee. And so, there's a couple different people that works really well on.

Craigslist, a lot of those people in my experience don't understand, constant, you know, like, $15 an hour. Like, they understand that. So but the Polites do all, like, dollar per house and whatever their their price is. So that they've made it work. But in my experience, what I do in Indianapolis is if there's, like, a postal worker or somebody who's, like, got a full time job, they're gonna find these random houses nobody else does Mhmm.

Or, like, a delivery person. And so you wanna make it worth their while. Those deals are probably gonna be better anyway because they're hidden in some cul de sac that nobody's driving.

David: Right.

David: So I'll I'll pay, like, up to $5 per house for that type of person. And and they're not adding a ton of properties. They're busy, but you gotta make it worth their time. And then for a dedicated driver, I I I really like the hourly amount. Mhmm.

And she, you know, my my driver is very happy with 15. I know a lot of Uber drivers think they make 20 an hour, but, it's not always consistent. So I don't know that that's always true. And so I think you could even try experiment with, like, 12

David: Mhmm.

David: 12 to 15.

Steve: So the $15 an hour and that's required is 10 addresses? Like, what's your requirement?

David: Yeah. So I know that, just in Indianapolis, every market has just certain, you know, average deal spreads and whatnot. So it it works out really well for for me to have a requirement of at least 10.

Steve: Gotcha.

David: Now, if she's in, you know, Bates Hendricks, which is, like, a a real popular neighborhood for flipping, I mean, she could probably add 70 in an hour, you know. Yeah. But I don't want her there. I want her in neighborhoods that aren't quite so bad. And so there's gonna be fewer of those houses, you know, to find per hour.

So Mhmm. Keep in mind where you're having them drive as well and set that goal what you think should be the right amount.

Steve: Gotcha. So, wants to know, can you modify the look of the postcard?

David: Yeah. So we actually have six different templates that you can start with, And then, you can change all of the colors. You can change all the text. The, of course, the photo is yours. And then, you can upload your own company logo or photo.

Or, if you're a realtor, you can put your, you know, realtor ID. Some people have, like, logos like that that they need to include.

Steve: Right.

David: Mhmm.

Steve: Can you send yellow letters from your thing?

David: We don't have a yellow letter option.

Steve: Okay.

David: But you can export everything. So unlimited number of properties that your team put in a deal machine, you can export that, and you can you can send yellow letters if you want to elsewhere.

Steve: Awesome. And how many average houses leased to a deal? I think you said 200?

David: Yeah. At least 200 and at least repeating the mail three times.

Steve: And then are you sending the same postcard multiple times, or are you sending different ones?

David: When we, came up with those stats and kind of uncovered that, it was the same one. I know. Once you've done a few deals, we do offer campaigns which lets you change the postcard in the message and even, like, the time frame that that gets sent out. But when you're just starting out, it's not necessary. I mean, the the default postcard is very just, you know, positive and helpful focused.

Just like, if you're interested in getting a cash offer, please give me a call or text and we can close quickly, you know, and with cash.

Steve: Alright. Chris Hart wants to know if you're if if you're ugly, should you put a picture of yourself on the postcard?

David: I mean, I've never been asked that question before. I I I like to make it, in just general, as personal as possible because they're gonna if they're getting mail already, it's probably generic. So if you if you can do anything to make your approach more personal, I think that's a good thing.

Steve: Gotcha. Oh, Tony Robinson is on the on the line. What's up what's up, Tony? We got Tony to close it here.

David: Oh, man. Yeah.

Steve: Let's see. Some of the other questions. You get multiple phone numbers, multiple emails, do you hit all of them at once with the same message?

David: Yeah. Mhmm. Okay.

Steve: There you go. Simple enough. Alright, guys. Keep the questions coming. I'm happy to get these all answered for you.

Anything else you've seen as far as other success stories,

David: you know Oh, yeah.

Steve: That people need to follow or copy for their for to get the most out of the app?

David: Yeah. I I wanted to share this story from, Beau Hunter.

Steve: Mhmm.

David: And he's in Nashville, Tennessee. And, he and I actually used to work in the fraternity space. He worked for his national fraternity. I had previously built this tool to help fraternities recruit. But a lot of those jobs are are pretty much, like, probably 30,000 a year or so.

He did this $85,000 deal Mhmm.

David: When

David: he first started. It was like he was using DealMachine for three weeks, and he was driving around. He noticed there was, like, a modular home on a very wide lot in East Nashville.

David: Mhmm.

David: And he had this mentor that was a builder. And so he he knew that builders will pay for, you know, land up to 20% of what, like, the the final build would be. So there's a lot of houses being built around here for about 400,000. And so, Beau is like, I can divide this lot up into four as long as we just get this modular home off here.

Steve: Right.

David: And so, he he saw it was for rent. He ended up using the enhanced search, giving him a cold call. And he's like, hey. We're looking at buying this area. Not sure if you're wanting to sell.

I saw it was for rent. And the guy was like, hey. I I, I'm am actually kinda tired of this house. He was an older guy.

David: Mhmm.

David: And I think they were previously making, like, $500 a month off this house. Man. Like, a family friend used to be living there, but they they just moved out.

Steve: Right.

David: And so it needed a lot of repairs. And and Beau was like, I'll offer you 300,000. And so his thought was, you know, a builder could put four $400,000 homes on here. Mhmm. And so 20% of that might be around 300,000.

And so the the guy was like, yeah. Let's do it. Yeah.

Steve: It probably came in a little too hot.

David: A little too high. Well, Bo ended up wholesaling this deal, and the, the price was 380,000

David: Yeah.

David: That a builder bought it for. And then two months later, that guy sold it for 420. Right. Yeah. So Beau couldn't believe it.

He's like, I thought this deal was, like, the biggest life changing thing. I it was too good to be true. Mhmm. And then he couldn't believe when this guy sold it for a few yeah. Like, you know, what was that?

Almost 40,000 more.

Steve: Yeah. But he got his 80. Right. Yeah.

David: So I I just love that story because that that was, like, what, you know, two, three years worth of salary

Steve: Oh, yeah.

David: In a deal.

Steve: Yeah. 80,000 goes up.

David: Uh-huh.

Steve: Pay for a lot of marketing. Sir Alvarez wants to know, is there an effective, system for following up, or did you hire someone else to do the follow-up for you?

David: So a big key to the app was it it was gonna take my lack of follow through off the table. And so we had to build in that repeat mailing system so it would automatically do that. And you've got full control over how frequently that goes out.

Steve: Right.

David: So that that's built into the app. In terms of making phone calls, there's not an automated process to that currently. So if you're making phone calls, you know, I would I would recommend setting a calendar invite to do all your follow ups every couple of weeks. Yeah. And so and I

Steve: think that goes back to, right, the exporting feature. Because, like, on our team, we would export them

David: Mhmm. And

Steve: then cold call them.

David: Mhmm.

Steve: Cold call them, text them, everything. You know, Rosa wants to know. She, they're they're in Indianapolis. They want your buyers list.

David: They want my buyers list?

David: They want

Steve: your buyers list. Let's see what else is there.

David: So funny thing about that is, the properties that you find who are owned by LLCs Mhmm. I actually send a buyer's postcard to you. So instead of saying, do you wanna sell your house? I got a picture of their house on there, and it says, you wanna buy more properties like this.

Steve: That's one of the things you have in there.

David: So that's one of the ways that I build the buyers list.

Steve: Interesting. Yeah.

David: If you

David: had a property and it's LLC owned.

Steve: That's a good nugget right there. Do you have any experience with RVMs?

David: I personally have not used RVMs.

David: Oh,

David: wait. I did one time. Yeah. I was in a a group where we all did that, but I I don't use them exclusively enough to talk about it.

Steve: Yeah. Well, Stuart, we use them a lot, and they're a great lead source. So, you know, when you're exporting this and then having your team run it, we do the cold calls. We do the SMS. We do the RVMs.

It's very effective. So if you're on the fence of RVMs, I would say you should definitely do it.

David: I mean, it's very low cost as well for the the amount of that you can do. Right?

Steve: Yeah. Yeah.

David: I know. We have people that use, like, Max's RVM software, REI Rail.

Steve: REI Rail. Yep.

David: Yeah. And their thing is, like, they they tell you who's calling back. So it's like a personal phone call. Yeah. So you can export that from DealMachine, send it right over there.

Steve: Right. Yeah. It's a really, really good system. When he was telling me about

David: it, I

Steve: was like, wow. I can't believe you have that all built out. Entrepreneur wants to know how accurate are your contact numbers.

David: Great question. So I found that about it's instant. So it's the instant, unfortunately, is not at the level of, you know, like a like a TLO or LexisNexis. But I found that about 60% of the time, one of the numbers we give you back is gonna get you in touch with the owner. So

Steve: 60% is pretty good.

David: Yeah. Definitely, like, don't wanna set the expectation that it's it's perfect every time.

David: You know?

David: It's it's not an exact science, especially with the instant thing. But we wanted to go the instant route, constantly looking at different data providers for that. So that way, in that situation where you're, like, right in front of that house, you can just call them up. Alright.

Steve: So boss man says, absentee houses that you found while driving for dollars, are these the same as the absentee list that ListSource provides?

David: When you're well, driving for dollars is different than absentee. You're just using the visual, you know, of the house. So it could be absentee owner occupied.

David: Mhmm.

David: And that's why I said definitely mail to the owner occupied ones because everyone's blasting the absentee owners already.

Steve: Right. Yeah. Any other hot tips or, good good stories?

David: Yes. So, I got a hot tip and a good story. Yeah. So, the other story I wanted to tell you about was, you know, Beau obviously, was working a full time job, had a life changing deal. Mhmm.

But, we've had a few college students pick up the the app too. Brent Brent Daniels attracts a few different college students. I think they've used DealMachine really well.

David: Mhmm.

David: And, Craig DeSanto, he did his first deal. I think he spent, like, $54 in marketing total. Mhmm. And, you know, he was driving around with DealMachine. No noticed this house looked like, you know, it was in ill repair.

And he he called this guy up. The Zillow number he was looking at was, like, 89,000. And, of course, you can't trust that, but it tells you something.

Steve: Ballpark.

David: Yeah. And so this this guy, again, was, like, a tired landlord type situation. And, so Craig asked, like, how much would you want if I could just close you out, cash you out of this house? And he said 30,000. And so Craig put it under contract, sent it to, like, his buyers list of 700 Mhmm.

And nobody bought it. So he noticed some guys working on this house next door, and so he approached them, and they ended up offering $40,000.

David: Mhmm.

David: And so he got under contract. While it was under contract, somebody stole the furnace. And so he actually had to take $500 off of that that offer price. Mhmm. And so after that and the closing fees, his spread was about 8,000, or $8,800.

David: Mhmm. And

David: so that was his first deal. We have a lot of people who mail, but both those stories were actually cold calling. Yeah. Yeah. So, definitely, shout out to Craig and, Brent Daniels has that TTP program that everybody uses.

Steve: Oh, that's a great program. Yeah. Yeah. Brent's awesome.

David: Yes. He is. And, man, this hot tip I wanted to show you is something I gleaned from Max Maxwell Uh-huh. On, making sure you're driving in the right spots. Because with driving for dollars, you know, there's it's all about, like, making the process easy so you can follow through.

But, also, you know, a lot of people would be like, oh, well, I didn't get a lot of results. But then you look and they didn't add enough properties. Or another issue is maybe they weren't driving in the right spots.

Steve: Mhmm.

David: And so you can actually find where the top ZIP code ZIP codes are where most people are buying cash properties, properties for cash. And it actually doesn't cost any money. So you you, like, go to listsource.com. You build your own list, and you select your county, filter it by equity, 99 to a 100%. So, you know, these are cash owned properties.

And then, also filter it by, like, the last market sale date, like, sixty to ninety days.

Steve: Mhmm.

David: And so, that's gonna tell you that list will be everybody who bought a property cash in the in the last few months. And then the next page will be buy. So you wanna click the buy button. But instead of actually buying it, you can actually click this button called partial list or, like, you know, buy partial list. And then you select filter by ZIP code.

And it tells you, alright. You have this many records in this ZIP code. This many records in this ZIP code. So then you can export that and then filter it by which ZIP codes had the most most cash buyers in the last, you know, ninety days. And so I love that because it doesn't cost any money.

Mhmm. And you can very quickly just say, these are the top three ZIP codes I wanna cover. And if you have people driving for you, it's very easy to say, like, go in this specific area as well. Gotcha.

Steve: Oh, makes a lot of sense. That's really

David: I love that tip because it's so great tip. You can do it in ten minutes.

Steve: Yeah. When you said list source and you say free, I was like, I don't know where this is going. Yeah. But that's that's perfect. So entrepreneur wants to know how you can become an affiliate.

David: So, actually, in the app, there's this button that says get free leads.

Steve: Mhmm.

David: And everybody has that. And, we definitely appreciate you sharing DealMachine. That'll give you and the other person, like, a deal credit reward for, when they when they use DealMachine with your promo

Steve: code. Perfect. Evelyn Jackson wants to know what's TTP.

David: It's, it stands for talk to people.

David: Mhmm.

David: And it's a it's a system for cold calling that helps you find these real estate deals for pennies on the dollar. And it's, like, not an expensive thing because you're you're going out there calling and, like, earning the deal rather than just buying mail and sending it out.

Steve: Yeah. It's a program run by, Brent Daniels. So you can look up Brent Daniels. You can look up TTP, or you can go to one of my previous interviews on YouTube, and you can see, Brent Daniels. He's a character.

David: Oh, he's so funny. Anybody tell me.

Steve: So I think that's it. So is there any last message you wanna leave the the listeners with? Or multiple messages. I don't know.

David: Yeah. Well, I just feel like, you know, the the most practical thing is if you're wanting to use driving for dollars, make sure you you get to at least 200 properties as fast as possible and repeat your outreach to those owners no matter if you're using direct mail or calling. I think the biggest advice is, a lot of people try something a little bit, it doesn't work, and they move on to the next thing. And that's, like, the emotion we get, you know, when we're, like, seeing money go out the door and you're just like, oh, I'm not getting a result. It's been two weeks.

But plan it out ahead of time so that way you know when you're gonna stop. So, you know, with driving for dollars, get to 200 properties, send that mail three times over the course of two and a half months. And and that should be, like, your plan for, like, really tackling this and making sure and seeing if it's gonna work for you.

Steve: Yeah. I like that. That's that's solid. And, guys, if you guys are in the Phoenix area or if you guys wanna drive to the Phoenix area, David's gonna be at Dave and Buster's tonight in Tempe at 04:30. So we're gonna be Dave and Buster's.

It's, we're gonna have David speak at five. It's free food. It's free alcohol. So if you guys are in the Tempe, Mark, Phoenix area, I have no idea why you guys wouldn't come. So definitely, guys, 04:30 tonight, Dave and Buster's.

David's gonna be speaking. And I'll just get to know him in person.

David: Yeah. And I was gonna say, if you guys are listening to this, we're gonna do, like, some free deal credits

Steve: for you.

David: And, the the promo code for that is r e d for real estate disruptors. Perfect. And I believe it's $20 worth of credits for sending mail, getting phone numbers, and stuff like that.

Steve: Yeah. I can't ask for a lot more than that. So I'm glad you guys are able to tune in. So r e d guys. And so, yeah, so Dave and Buster's tonight.

Yeah. And then, what else was there? Oh, so if you guys want to or, you know, tune in next week, we got Kenny Casares coming in from Las Vegas. He's also known as Property Plug. He's a he's crushing out there.

And then if you guys haven't heard, I do have my workshop coming up this month, May 25. If you guys wanna find out more about that, text disruptor workshop to 345345. And if someone wants to get of you, how do they get ahold of you? On Instagram, it's at deal machine app. Mhmm.

David: Mine yeah. Mine is is d lecko. So that's d LECK o. And those are are probably the two easiest ways. On on our website, there's also a chat.

We respond very quickly. So any of those ways would be great. Awesome. We'd love to talk to you.

Steve: Awesome. Alright. Thank you guys for tuning in, and thank you. This was Yeah. Incredible.