How Millionaire Real Estate Investors Use PPC Differently

Steve Trang: Welcome back, everybody, to our PPC masterclass of Bateman Collective. We have Brandon Bateman here, and we're talking about how the top teams do acquisitions. This is the fifth of six sear of six fifth of six in the series. We would've went through YPPC, how Google works in bidding strategies, how to make sure you do proper location and budgets. We talked about how to ensure you have high lead quality on your PPC leads.

And today, we're talking about how the top teams before perform acquisitions on PPC leads. So spill spill the secrets, Brian. What what do we got here?

Brandon Bateman: Alright. Yeah. I'm I'm excited to talk about this. I think let's just start with an example.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Right. So I have this client that I worked with. They were really excited about PPC because they heard PPC leads are great. Mhmm. They close at a high rate.

And, this company at the time, they just just a little bit of background. They were doing, mostly cold calling Mhmm. At this point. And they were doing each month somewhere between three and five hundred thousand dollars a month of revenue from impressive. Yeah.

Which is which is pretty impressive in a pretty major market. Mhmm. So you could say they knew how to close. Right? And that was at about a 10 x return on their cold call at the time.

Granted, this is a couple years ago, but that was more possible. But but they they were they were killing it. Right? So then they're like, well, if we could do that, PPC must be easier. Mhmm.

They spend $10,000 a month on PPC for four months and got zero deals. Mhmm. So right now, they're $40 in the hole from from PPC. So they came to me and basically said, like, what the heck? I thought I thought this is supposed to work.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: So we visit things, and we talked about some of the stuff that we're gonna talk about in this episode today.

Steve: Yep.

Brandon: They go back to their team. They implement those things. Once again, they spend $40,000 on PPC over four months. But this time, they got the same number of leads they got last time, give or take 10, but they closed 17 deals out of it for about $500,000 in revenue Wow. Which is over a 10 x return

Steve: Pretty happy at this point.

Brandon: From their PPC. Yeah. Very happy at this point. And I I I share that story to say, like, like, do you think they didn't know how to close leads before? Like, they they know how to do sales, but people get caught off guard from this all the time.

Mhmm. Like, different types of leads require very different types of acquisitions processes. Yeah. And it happens all the time. Like, to me, it's a red flag when we work with the client that has, like, a really strong primary, marketing channel, and then they're switching to this.

They're not ready to kind of deal with the difficulties that are going to come in an acquisitions process from this. So I'm excited to have this conversation with you because I know acquisitions is kind of your thing.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And, like, I wanna be really transparent with this. Like, I've never been in a motivated seller's living room trying to, like, negotiate with them. But let me tell you, like, what I I do have and what it is helpful, and and then you can, like, mesh this information with all the information you get from other people that might fill in some of the gaps. Mhmm. Here's what I did.

So one advantage that we have as a company is we're able to see the close rates that our clients have.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: So here's what I've noticed. The close rates that people say they have and the close rates they actually have are very, very different things.

Steve: Shocker.

Brandon: Yeah. I I know. And sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Like, sometimes people are like, all these leads are horrible, and they're, like, eight leads per contract. And then some other people are like, yeah.

They think they think, like, oh, I'm the best. We close, like, 50% of our leads. Everything's amazing. You realize it's 50% out of the leads that they decided were, quote, unquote, real leads. Mhmm.

You know? Alright. And, you know, basically, if if if the lead doesn't get closed, it's because it was bad is the common

Steve: one way of of of measuring data.

Brandon: Yeah. It's one way of measuring data. It's common with salespeople. I mean, you kinda have to be that way to be a good salesperson. So, like, I'm not like, it kinda sounds like I'm just, like, bagging on everybody in this industry, but I'm not.

Like, I I get it. Like, you're never gonna have the best sales team in the world unless you think you have the best sales team in the world.

Steve: Absolutely true.

Brandon: That's step one. So, like, so I'm not saying that's a problem. But it's cool to have, like, actual objective data Mhmm.

Steve: That

Brandon: shows who's doing really well and who's not.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: So what we did is I took our clients that have the best close rates. Mhmm. Top 10%. I interviewed the entrepreneur. I interviewed multiple members or in some cases, a single member of the acquisitions team that worked there, and just gathered list of, like, everything that they do.

And then I took some clients that we have that are kind of some of our worst

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And I interviewed them and figured out, like, what exactly did they do. So

Steve: that's the Jim Collins thing. Like, let's let's measure what the good people do. Yeah. Let's measure what the less good people do. Yeah.

And let's see what separates them.

Brandon: Well, you have to have both if you're thinking about, like, a good a good data driven way to do this. Because if I just took, like, a bunch of things that the good people do, it's not really useful if the people who suck are also doing those things.

Steve: Right. Absolutely.

Brandon: It's not a differentiator. Right? So what I look for is not just, like, what are things that, like, some good people do? I'm looking for things that, like, what's a common thread amongst all those that are doing really well?

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: That is not a common thread amongst all those that are doing really poorly.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And and we distilled it into three principles, and and that's what I'll be sharing. So so, again, like, never been in the motivated seller's living room, negotiated with them, all that kind of stuff. What we do have is data of, like, people saying this is my process.

Steve: So before we continue there, though, you do have experience being in people's living room selling them other stuff.

Brandon: Do I? Oh oh, you're talking about religion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's true.

Steve: Right? I mean, you have two years of door knocking

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Experience selling religion.

Brandon: That's fair. Yeah.

Steve: Right? So you do have some sales comprehension.

Brandon: Well, yeah. And I've been I mean, every every founder of a company is selling constantly. I mean, what do you think I'm doing right now? Right. So, like yeah.

I I know a thing or two about sales. Probably one or two of those things I learned from you. Right? But but I know it's, like, I know it's different. I just I I don't wanna be the guy.

Like, people sometimes say, like, you really sound like you know what you're talking about. And I've always thought my secret to that is just not talking about things that I don't know about. Yeah. Like, that's how you always know what you're talking about. Yeah.

That's true. So, yeah, this this one's, like, we get a little bit more on the border of, like, I kinda know some stuff from a data driven standpoint, but, like, I don't, like, I don't deeply understand this whole process. Yeah. But but I have it from a lot of exposure, and I have, like, the outside view of it, and I have a lot of data. And that's what's really helpful.

Steve: Yeah. And before you continue, sorry. I keep interrupting you. You know, you're talking about, like, you don't talk about things you don't talk about. Right?

I was having a conversation with somebody. They're like, the reason why I listen to you, Steve, is because if you don't know, you just tell me you don't know. Right?

Brandon: It's helpful because, like, otherwise, you just kinda have to try to see, like, what's what's real. Is

Steve: this theoretical? Is this experience talking? Right? So, like, if I don't know, I'm just like, I don't know.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. And there's definitely some unknowns here and some things that are kind of peculiar. So, yeah, let let's just talk through the through the principles. And I'm I'm actually really curious to hear, like, your your standpoint on some of these things from from your like, we have we have different perspectives on this, obviously.

The marketer's perspective is always that sales just needs to do everything possible to close the business to make me look good. Right? Yeah.

Steve: Close better. Yeah. That's right. And then we'll say on our side, give us better leads.

Brandon: That's that's exactly, like, the dynamic that exists in every company, and I kinda hate it, but it is what it is. It's just it's sales and marketing.

Steve: It it it goes even deeper. So, the the the lead managers might get frustrated with the cold callers. Give us better people. Right? The acquisition people get frustrated with lead manager.

Why would you set me up on that crappy appointment?

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: And a disposition manager is like, why would you give me these crappy deals that I can't sell? Like, it's that dynamic happens all the way through.

Brandon: Yep. It absolutely does. And and that's where it's like my favorite so so here's, like, my favorite ways of tackling this because we deal with this, like, internally too. I mean, I have a sales team, and I have account managers that then get the client where they're like, why'd you sell that guy? Mhmm.

And, like, that stuff happens. But what I try to do is, like, culture of ownership.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Doesn't matter if it was a bad appointment. Like, it's your job to close it. Like, that's literally sales.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And, like, you try to hold the team accountable to the team beyond them's metrics in the funnel. So we don't hold marketing accountable to leads. We hold marketing accountable to sales qualified leads. Mhmm. And we don't hold salespeople we do hold salespeople accountable to close deals.

We also hold them accountable to retained clients from their deals. Mhmm. Right?

Steve: So

Brandon: you just kinda, like, you hold the people accountable to the thing that happens one step lower Mhmm. Which I think naturally happens from in the traditional real estate company where, like, acquisitions manager gets paid not on contracts, but on deals.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: So that's the way you deal with it. Or lead manager could get paid on, like, contracts or health appointments is another one. Yeah. But but, anyways, putting putting that to the side. So there's there's three principles here.

The first one is actually fairly well known, although not always succeeded Mhmm. With, and that's urgency. Mhmm. So here's here's the deal, basically. Like, these these leads, if they're searching right now, they have a problem right now.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: That means that they're likely to act really fast. I I hear stories from our clients all the time that, like, got a lead, scheduled an appointment for the next day, They went on that appointment. They got there, and the person was like, oh, sorry. I just sold the house. Mhmm.

Yeah. It happens all the time.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: I even had someone, someone tell me just just recently, I did I recently did another content series with,

Steve: with

Brandon: one more graphic. Oh, I recently did a, a content series with, with Jerry Norton where we kinda went over some of these same principles, and somebody was listening to that. And, like, they, they had just before had one of our PPC leads

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Where they got the lead in, and they, called it. And they scheduled the appointment for the next day. They went on the appointment, and they just missed it. Right? It had just sold.

So then they were listening to this. This is, like, a week later or something, and then another lead comes in, like, while they're listening to me talking about this topic. And then they think, I'm gonna put this in action right now. So they call the person. There's like, I'm on my way to your house.

And they get there, and they got the contract. Yeah. And as they were leaving the house, the next person was coming up for their appointment. Right. And they had beat them to the contract.

And, like and and I like, I'm I'm hesitant to show this because, like, sometimes the idea that people get is that PPC leads all close really quick Mhmm. And it's not worth following

Steve: up on them.

Brandon: And that's not true at all. Like, our best clients will generally get more than half of their contracts more than thirty days after a lead comes in. Right. But if you do look at how quick leads turn to contracts, it's faster than any other marketing channel. A lot of times people say, like, I'm so fast at closing things.

I think that just means you're, like, really bad at follow-up. Mhmm. Like, let me tell you a stat that as a as a sales trainer is gonna make you feel angry. Mhmm. You know, I told you that we average about 15 leads per contract on PPC.

What would you guess the median time between when the lead came in and the contract was signed? Median time? Median.

Steve: I mean, I'm hoping it's two days.

Brandon: 1.3. Yeah. Yeah. Which to me tells me we stuck at follow-up as a whole. Mhmm.

Or a a really high possibility here is that our clients are actually closing maybe more like one in 12 leads or one in 11 leads. But when it closes, like, ninety days later, they're not updating us with that feedback. Yeah. It's still, like, an opportunity in our system.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, I would say if they're not closing it then, someone else might be.

Brandon: It's totally possible. Yeah. And I'm I'm actually really curious. One one thing that I wanna do is kind of pull in actual sold sold data and be able to better understand missed missed deals. That's something we're working on.

But the, yes. Because there could be a lot that we could learn from that. But the principle of urgency is really important, and it applies in a few things. So, like, one, I've I've had conversations with people where I'm like, okay. How quickly are you getting these leads?

And they're like, I'm super fast, like, always within the hour. Mhmm. It's, like, like, a chuckle in my head. Because, like, when it comes to this industry with the PPC lead, our gold standard is about sixty seconds. Mhmm.

So it's pretty much immediate. Yeah. And it's just it's genuinely hard to do.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: But, even after you do that, then you wanna have urgency with the appointment too. It's the kind of thing where the seller tells you, like, can you come by the house tomorrow? And you say, I'm actually in the neighborhood now. Are you free in twenty minutes? Mhmm.

Like, that's the, you know, the kind of urgency that people like, some of our best clients really apply to these leads.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: It makes a big, big difference because you, the first person to really have that kind of conversation with the seller is likely to be the person who gets the deal.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Or they're at least the person who can, like, imprint on the seller, like, really well. Like, if this if this series is the first time you're ever hearing about PPC, it's pretty unlikely that you're going to want to co work with somebody other than Bateman Collective after listening to this because I put this imprint on you right now. Yeah. Right? And you might talk to other people.

You're you're gonna talk to other people because the logical mind needs to check things off the list. So you're gonna talk to three other companies and then Right. But, like, in your heart, you're just gonna know, like, I wanna work at this company, and you're just looking

Steve: for evidence to support that. To the fifth video.

Brandon: If you made it to the fifth video.

Steve: Yeah. Pretty much.

Brandon: Yeah. That that's a good point. Do I'm curious your thoughts on urgency. Like, is there anything you've learned?

Steve: I mean, we've had that experience. We had it when we transitioned from cold calling to PPC, our guys struggled. And I was, like, flabbergasted. I was like, why are lead.

Brandon: How could you do worse?

Steve: Yeah. Right? And they were saying these are harder. I'm like, what are you talking about? And I was so excited.

Hey, guys. You don't have to cold call anymore. You don't have to do all this other stuff. Like, we're gonna get the hottest of the hot leads.

Brandon: Mhmm. And we

Steve: got a major pushback, and I just did not understand it as a business owner. And I think it could just be, like, you know, I'm coming up now. I I I started actively in real estate in in 2007. Right? Like, I've seen every anything and everything.

Brandon: That's great timing, by the way. Yeah. Horrific. Horrific timing. Right?

Steve: So I've seen anything and everything, and I've done these things.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Right? I've done my own Google. Right? I've done my own follow ups. And so I was so excited to bring it back to cold calling because, like or to do a PPC because cold calling was becoming less and less effective.

Mhmm. I was getting pushed back from my guys. They're like, yeah. Cold calling is usually, like, like, what are you talking about?

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: But really, it just came down to they were just more comfortable

Brandon: Mhmm. With

Steve: cold call leads. Even though PPC is easier, maybe just easier from my perspective, that was something like that that really caught me off guard. And then it's the urgency. Yeah. We had the the urgency.

You know, lead comes in, and they were jumping at it, but, it was inconsistent. Yeah. Right? Like, sometimes, right then and there. Other times, it'd be more a day.

And it's like, what is

Brandon: Yeah. The consistency is a huge one. And that's what I see is people don't it's not that they can't be urgent. It's that I can tell you the most common scenario. And you're you're just gonna laugh and you're gonna say, why couldn't anybody do this?

But, like, I've done things just like this in my say in my business. It's one of those things where it's like, it's so easy to be the guy who, like, pokes at other people and says, well, they couldn't do they could do this better. Mhmm. It's so hard to, like, actually operate a business. Usually, how this works is we tell the client they're working with this, and then they say, okay.

I got it. They go talk to their team. They say, guys, we're gonna start PPC. This is really important. Gotta be really urgent with these leads.

And the team's like,

Steve: yeah.

Brandon: Super excited. Everything's good. And then what happens is three months later, it's just we're not getting, like, the the metrics we need from the sales side from PPC. Right? So so business owner talks to salespeople, like, how quickly are you getting these leads?

And salesperson's like, sixty seconds max. Okay. Couldn't be us. Mhmm. We're getting the leads in sixty seconds.

And then we just like, it keeps on going. And then, like, six months in, we're still not seeing the sales metrics that we need. We go deeper. And I start poking around the CRM. I'm like, well, what about this one that took five days?

And what about this one that took six hours? And and we realized, like, salespeople are like, the way the business owners hold the sales team accountable is by asking them

Steve: Mhmm. What

Brandon: their metrics are. Mhmm. And then their metric just happens to be whatever the best thing they ever did was.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Not their average.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: It's like, oh, yeah. I can think of a lead right now that I did get to within sixty seconds. And Yeah. That's my average.

Steve: Yeah. Well, we always measure ourselves against the best. I mean, that's the joke we always make in wholesale. Right? It's like, if someone says I do they do 10 deals a month, that means that at one point, they might have done 10 deals.

Brandon: At one point, they did seven deals and then they exaggerated. Yeah. Like, that's

Steve: Or they had 10 under contract.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Right? So, I mean, the business owners are just as bad. But, yeah, like, we had the expecta we had the conversations. We set the expectations. We explained why it was important.

And then we look into Salesforce, and then you get really sick your stomach.

Brandon: Yeah. Well, that's why, like, I I can give a few tips on this, like, just things I've seen people do really well. I can tell you most of the companies are really good at this. They have a metric, and it's on some type of, like, daily or weekly scorecard, average time to get to a lead. And what you'll notice is, like, supposedly, everything's fine until you start measuring the metric, at which point you realize everything is not fine.

Mhmm. And then you start to, and then and then you can actually improve, and you can hold people accountable to you.

Steve: What's it? What gets measured? Improves. Improves.

Brandon: Yeah. 100%. So that is, that that is, like, rule number one. Like, you don't need this metric for a lot of other marketing channels. For PPC, you absolutely do.

And And you'll find for other marketing channels, quicker is better. It's just it's, like, it's nonnegotiable for PPC.

Steve: Well, it goes back to our first episode where we had, the just a chart. Right? Like, inbound versus outbound.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Right? You cold call them. Maybe they're ready to sell. Probably not ready to sell today. Yeah.

Right? TV is like, okay. Something happened and, you know, it's that's interesting. Here, they're feeling something viscerally for them to Google something.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's a it's an episodic thing. You don't you don't search for no reason. Like Yeah.

You just go on Google Yeah. Googling your random things.

Steve: I wonder if someone will buy my house today.

Brandon: Exactly. Who does and I'm sure there's someone. Like, I'm sure one of my clients is listening to this, and they're like, I just gotta leave like that. Like, it happens. That's the other thing that happens is if let's just say the acquisitions team's used to getting, like, leads that are, like, pre vetted.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: They'll get these, like, PPC leads suck because this one didn't even have the right number Mhmm. Or something. Yeah. Because, you know, they they just don't understand, like, that's how the game works, but, like, you're still gonna have less leads per contract. If you're really good, you could get this to, like I think a good goal for most companies is 12 or lower Mhmm.

Leads per contract. But it's it's 100% a different game. Rob just told me a story of somebody that that he works with where they had, they had all cold call. They switched to all PPC. Couldn't close anything Mhmm.

On their team. So the business owner is, like, freaking out at this point. He's like, I can't, like, I I can't sustain this, like, not having revenue. I got all this overhead. So so then he starts calling some leads, trying to do some deals.

He calls these people, and he, like, does a lot of deals.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: He's able to lock up a lot of contracts. Mhmm. What he ends up finding is that the way that his team was managing the leads was just, like, they were so used to cold cold leads. They were just planning on following up. Mhmm.

Like, they're just like, it's not gonna close right now. And then what he did is he's like, I have to get revenue right now because I don't have any money Mhmm.

Steve: And my

Brandon: business is gonna go under, so I have to close a deal. Mhmm. And he's like, I can close leads all day like this. Like, if I if I'm, like, calling and I gotta close them now, then then I can do it. And he tried to train his team on it.

It couldn't work, so he fired all of them. And then he hired a whole new team, and then they'd nailed it because they weren't, like, tainted with the cold call leads beforehand. So I thought I thought that was a fascinating story.

Steve: Very unfortunate for that team.

Brandon: Yeah. It's I mean Great

Steve: for the business owner. Yeah. We were unfortunate for the team.

Brandon: No. It's not really great for the business. Well, it's, I guess, better for the business owner than it could have been.

Steve: Well, he's got a team now that can close.

Brandon: Yeah. It's true. But, yeah, so the urgency like, that's another example of, like, if you're just like, if you're calling leads and your mindset is leads take three months to close Mhmm. They're gonna take three months to close. You're not gonna close them fast.

Steve: Just Yeah. Let's see. The I I I heard something great, this morning. Was it your greatest limitation are your expectations?

Brandon: Yeah. It's a super fair point.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Like, if your goal is, like, I gotta close them. Like, I just talked to a client, last week that 40% of their PPC deals are deals that they get from locking up the contract on the very first call that they have with the seller. Mhmm. Like, one call closes are a real thing. You know?

If you have that mindset of, like, I can close this on this call. If you're thinking this is gonna take a month to lock up, then it's always gonna be a month. I think the best mindset is, like, I'm gonna close this right now, but then when it like, it seems like people are either in that camp and then they suck at follow-up or they only follow-up, but then they can't actually close when the time's there. It's like, you gotta have both. You gotta, like, believe it can be right now, but when it's not, still believe it can happen Yeah.

In one to nine months. And people get you know how it is. Like, you'll get a deal

Steve: three years later. It's pretty even split. Sometimes it's 30%, sometimes it's 70%. But there's a pretty even split across the board on average, like, how much is closed on the first appointment and how much is closed, like, after, like, whether it's three months later, six months later, or, like, a year and a half later.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. 100. The only other advice I'd really give for for urgency is a lot of people like to let their team fight over the leads at the beginning. Mhmm.

Like, you're as a salesperson, you're not entitled to a lead. Like, round robin, I think, is really bad.

Steve: Oh, that's atrocious.

Brandon: Yeah. So just, like, a lot of people would just say, the lead's out in the open. First person to grab it, it's theirs. Something, like, something that Cody's team does even deeper than that is they'll say, basically, it's not yours until you make contact with the seller. Mhmm.

So they'll even have, like, all the different acquisitions managers calling the the the seller, because, you know, they're they're ideally looking for the the commission. And, so if you do something like that, you kinda have to make sure you're still, like, are measuring that you're that you're because, like, if nobody owns it, then who do you hold accountable if we didn't follow-up right away? But if you form the you form it and you form the culture right, then it can it can work really well to have that competitive landscape where, like

Steve: I mean, I would say the accountability there, if it's a free for all, the accountability there is, if you guys aren't gonna do this, then the owner will jump in or you just hire more salespeople?

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. That that's a that's a fair point. Like, it's if if it's not gonna call, it's a high lead. Yeah.

Yeah. In theory, until, like, the if your culture went really sour or something. Right? You have to, like, keep an eye on it. But, yeah.

So urgency is the first one. Mhmm. That's a huge one. That's the one that most people know. But it's it's like one of those things.

It's, like, so much easier said than done. Yeah. Just as you know,

Steve: it doesn't mean you do it.

Brandon: Yeah. I'm talking here from my ivory tower. Like, hey. All salespeople should get to leads super quick.

Steve: But, I

Brandon: mean, it's this is, like, this is legitimately hard to pull off. But Oh,

Steve: but that's that's up there with, like, answering a 100% of your calls. Right? Like Yeah.

Brandon: We know

Steve: you should answer a 100% of your calls, but we don't.

Brandon: Exactly. But if you can nail that, like, that's a priority with PPC. Whereas with other marketing channels, you can get away without nailing that. With PPC, you have to nail that. Yeah.

So it's super important. Number two, the second principle that we learned is assuming motivation. And I'll tell you, like, where I came up with the idea of this. After talking to these teams of, like, some of these winning companies that close a really high percentage of their leads, I literally got the vibe from most of the acquisition managers that I talked to. Like like, the the first thing that went through my mind was, like, this person is a little bit delusional, and they're probably the person who loses all their money in Vegas.

Mhmm. They just think, like, all the odds are against me, but this is gonna work somehow. Like, it's so not me. It's probably why I wouldn't be a great salesperson. But the, the the point is, if you look from, like let's just say it's cold call.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: You're looking for a needle in a haystack. The assumption about everything is this is a piece of hay until I can prove that it's a needle. Mhmm. I assume that a lead is unmotivated until I can prove that it is motivated. Mhmm.

Versus with PPC, the mindset generally is I assume that a lead is motivated until I can prove that it is not motivated. Alright. It was just a a different mindset. I know it sounds like a it sounds a little silly, but it's like a real, real thing that I noticed across these teams.

Steve: Well, it's it's really closely correlated with the lack of urgency. It's like, I assume they've they're not in a rush. I assume they don't need to sell.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And, yeah, there's salespeople like to assume things. I I'll just leave it at that.

Same things amongst my own team as well as others. It's it's really easy. Like like, what what Cody would say is, like, people, you know, people write their own stories that justify their own actions Mhmm. Essentially. Like, if you could think of a story that could possibly justify what you did, that's probably a story that they're writing in their head about the whole situation Mhmm.

Until it gets proven wrong.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: You know? So that's the yeah. The the concept is assuming motivation. If we wanna look at, like, how this actually gets implemented, a lot of it has to do with what qualifications does a lead have to hit for you to go on an appointment with

Steve: it, if

Brandon: you're doing the local model. If you're doing virtual acquisitions, then it's a little bit of a, you know, different game. Mhmm. It's more

Steve: like, what

Brandon: does it need for you to go through the whole sales process? This is one thing that virtual teams are a little bit better on because they, like, don't they have less to lose. It's like, I'm not gonna, like, take three hours to go drive over there and meet with the seller and then drive back or something. This this company that I told you about, the very first of this, of this episode Mhmm. That went from 0 to 500,000 in revenue Mhmm.

Over, like, the four months the next four months with PBC, they this is one of the key things that they changed. They changed their qualification criteria. You you're, I'm sure you're familiar with the four pillars of motivation. Yeah. Yeah.

So you I mean, I can like, we have, like, like, urgency, basically, like, how quickly do they wanna sell the house? What's the condition of the house? Are there any other drivers, like divorce or probate or whatever the case is? And then I wanna say price Mhmm. Is the last one.

So I know you know that is for everybody else if they Well, I

Steve: mean, everyone has kinda different things. Right? So you see for color. Some people have EMODA. Alright.

Brandon: I'm not familiar with that one.

Steve: EMODA is equity, motivation, time, agency, like, or authority, and then, I think o is is it ownership? I forget. For me, I only care about one thing. I only care about one thing.

Brandon: What is it?

Steve: Are you motivated?

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. It's a that's a fair it's a super fair point. The,

Steve: I don't care about price. I don't care about price.

Brandon: Well, price is a deceiver more often than not. Yeah. It's Eli. The biggest one of the biggest issues. Believe them when

Steve: they talk about their price. I don't believe them when they talk about the time frame. If you need to sell, I'm coming over.

Brandon: Yeah. Well, that that's a great mindset. This this particular company, the way they did their cold calling was they told their cold callers, we have to hit two of the four pillars. Doesn't matter which two. Mhmm.

Two of the four pillars for it to be a lead. Mhmm. And then you pass it along, which I don't think is unusual for a cold call.

Steve: None at all.

Brandon: They did the same thing with their PPC. The number of appointments they had was really small. Yeah. They were disqualified. Honest.

No. No. They're not honest at all. So so what we challenged them is we I basically told them, I'm like, just just go on every appointment. Like Yeah.

Like, do you wanna sell your house? Okay. I'll be over soon. Mhmm. Like, that that's all.

Right? Like, zero pillars of motivation. Like, do you do you have a house to sell? And the immediate pushback was like, we don't have time to do that. Like, our our guys need to make, like, a certain amount of money.

Like, they can't just be running all these appointments, wasting their time, blah blah blah. And I just said, like, just the first thirty days. Just do it for thirty days. If it doesn't work, then, like, sure. Then you can then you can give up.

But, like, just try it first. So it it might surprise you. So cold call leads that were qualified on two pillars of motivation versus PPC leads qualified on zero pillars of motivation. Their cold call appointments, it took them five appointments to get one contract. Their PPC appointments, five appointments to get one contract, believe it or not.

So with PPC, with much lighter qualification standards, they actually have the exact same quality of appointment Mhmm. On average to what they had with cold call, Right. Which I which I thought was super fascinating. Because what people are afraid of is they wanna waste all my time. Mhmm.

And it just doesn't tend to happen that way. Not that, like, you I mean, you though you'll definitely go to appointments and think, well, that was a waste of time. Mhmm. Like, that's like, not every not every appointment's gonna be a good one, but at the end of the day, like, I'd rather go on five that don't turn into anything Mhmm. Than miss, you know, one that was gonna be good.

You know?

Steve: It drives me crazy. So people, like, over qualifying appointments. Drives me absolutely nuts.

Brandon: Yeah. You

Steve: know, I watched great videos by Alex from Mosey. And, basically, it's like, their job is to say no.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: If their job was to say yes, I wouldn't need to hire you as a salesperson.

Brandon: That's so funny. Yeah. Like, you have to change you have to change their mind.

Steve: Their their job's supposed to they're going to say no.

Brandon: Yeah. Go and talk to them. Yeah. And this is it's kind of like a tricky dynamic because I know a way that a lot of people deal with this problem is you have the lead manager set the appointment, and then acquisitions doesn't have a choice. Mhmm.

You're just going on the appointment if they set it. So then you give the lead manager the because acquisitions tends to have, like, their instinct of, like, I just know it's not a good lead Mhmm. Or whatever the case is versus lead managers. They're like, okay. You own the house.

Okay. Well, we'll be there tomorrow. You know?

Steve: Right.

Brandon: It's it's a lot easier. But then there's also some problems with PPC leads of potentially having lead managers manage the appointments. So this is where you get in this tricky game of, like, do you have lead managers or do you have acquisitions? And we have clients that do it both ways. Mhmm.

But but at the end of the day, that's, yeah, that that's what I think makes it hard is if you have a if you're an acquisitions person making their own decisions about if they wanna go on the appointment or not, I think it's a tricky game.

Steve: Well, you know, there's a property that we bought, that, I ran it. And it was I I heard the inbound call. Right? And the the appointment was booked, and I'm going there on a Saturday.

Brandon: Mhmm.

Steve: And I'm like, why am I going to this property? Like, I heard the call. The guy's not motivated. Mhmm. Right?

And it was a text lead. It's like, I'm like, why am I going? And I was telling myself, like, well, we have a new sales guy. He needs to be trained. So I'm gonna bring him with me, and we're gonna run the appointment together

Brandon: Mhmm. On

Steve: a lead that I believe to be not motivated.

Brandon: Yeah. It's a training opportunity. Training opportunity. Yeah.

Steve: We bought the guy's house.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Like, my story was the guy is not motivated.

Brandon: Yeah. It's even if you're aware of this, like like, we're all subject like, I I do the same thing. Like, so it's like, people after after thinking this probably think I'm just really cynical of, like, everybody and everything in the world, but, like, it's just, like, I

Steve: I you know? You just sound that way.

Brandon: I just sound that way.

Steve: I am. You just sound

Brandon: that way. Yeah. Fair enough. But we all we all do this. Right?

Yeah. So, yeah, that that's that's a genuinely hard thing to do. But what I would suggest if you are running PPC is you need to be running audits of, like, why are we not going on appointments with our leads. And if we're not going on an appointment, there better be a really good reason Mhmm. That we're not going on the appointment.

And just know, like, a really common situation is that, is that we disqualify the leads. When I've heard from some of our clients, it's harder with PPC leads because they're they're a little bit more savvy. They're talking to more people. They feel a little bit more in control. So they're like like, the leads don't sound quite as motivated all the time Mhmm.

As they are Mhmm. Compared to other channels that might be a little bit so, like, some some of those instincts that you build up from all the cold calling leads that you've managed where you start to think, like, I know the difference between a motivated seller and a normal seller. They're not accurate when you switch lead sources, basically, is is what I'm saying.

Steve: Point. And I think, potentially, it's because they're closer to needing to do something. So, going back to poker I was in earlier. Right? Like, how can I tell when you're bluffing?

Right? These classic tales, not professional poker players, but, like, regular poker players. Right? The casino. I can tell that you're bluffing when you're staring me down.

Right? Like, you're just looking straight at me, trying to intimidate me. Because if you're trying to intimidate me intimidate me physically, that means your hand's weak. Likewise, if you've got a really strong hand, you're avoiding eye contact. You might be sipping your water.

You might be looking over here. Right? You give the opposite tell.

Brandon: That that's that's a good point. It's like the reverse psychology of it. I I noticed the same thing, like, when we're working with people. If we talk to somebody and they're like, okay. I'm gonna have to run it by this person.

Like, the decision is not all in my hands. Like, that's the decision maker. Yeah. Versus somebody who's like, oh, I got this. Like, yeah, I I could sign today.

Like Right. They're they're not the decision maker, and they're trying to make you feel like they're, like, more powerful than actually not.

Steve: So it could just be because of the PPC leads, potentially that because they're so needing to sell that they're projecting more strength.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. And there could be some aspect of, like, those who go online being a little bit more savvy than those that don't. There's also aspects of that I

Steve: don't know. Because if you're going online and you're clicking a PPC ad

Brandon: Mhmm.

Steve: That tells me you're a Nat savvy.

Brandon: It it could. It could. I mean, like, I put I click PPC ads for things, And I know exactly what I'm doing, but I'm like, okay. Well, if

Steve: it like

Brandon: So If it's a product and it advertises on it, like, like, what's the what's the problem?

Steve: I don't know. I guess I would say on average, the more sophisticated clicks on the

Brandon: Probably more like you're you're probably very accurate. I'm like, let's give these advertisers a break. You know? Maybe they got a great product.

Steve: And I have done that as well. I have done that as well.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: But I can't remember actually buying anything from those things. Like, I look at it as like, okay. Let's see if it's, like, it's up to this stuff.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. You you bring a fairly good point. Let's talk about point number three. Yeah.

I call it quality first impressions, commonly misunderstood. So I'll explain, like, exactly what this means. Here's the here's the most simple, like, way I can I can think to explain this? So you've heard I'm sure, like, the concept of, like, there's different dollar per hour activities within a business.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Like, for example, admin work, probably, like, a 10 or $15 per hour activity. Or, like, high level vision work is, like, it could be a $10,000 per hour activity. Right? So there's there's all these different, like, levels. It's my opinion that when a PPC lead comes in, that initial call that goes to that lead and that communication that happens there is one of the most valuable activities that could happen in a real estate wholesaling business with, like, the most money on the line.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Yet most people would literally pay a janitor more money than they would pay the person who makes that phone call because they'd have some overseas lead manager to call this person. And I think that's super backwards. Yeah. And what we notice across our clients that are doing the best, oftentimes, it's true that the person who is calling the leads is really qualified. The the specific statistic that started getting me down this rabbit hole was our clients that have lead managers were actually closing worse than our clients that had leads going directly to acquisitions.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: I'm looking into it further. Some of our clients that have lead managers closed really well, but usually they had really, really good lead managers that could probably even do acquisitions if they wanted to. Mhmm. They're able to, like, dig into motivation and all that kind of stuff. So it's, anyways, any any thoughts on that?

Steve: Yeah. So Jason Lewis and I, we've talked about this, right, with Investor Machine. And, basically, like, if you fill out my website for your PPC and I call you, I am able to convey a certain amount of comfort and confidence for you. Like, you've got the right department.

Brandon: Mhmm.

Steve: If I call you and I have an accent that sounds like I'm in India, Philippines, or South America

Brandon: Mhmm.

Steve: You you might go to the next one. Like, yeah. I'll yeah. I'll see you tomorrow, and I'm gonna go check a couple other ones because I don't have full confidence in you.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Here's, like, the way that I picture this. So you picture, like you know, envision, like, a graph, like, showing how a person feels.

Mhmm.

Steve: A lot

Brandon: of people don't realize that we're we're, like, doing PPC for distressed home sellers. Yeah. So what's happening? Like, I'm cruising in my life. Like, everything's good, and then life event happens.

Mhmm. And I just plummet. I'm not feeling good. Right? And that's usually my motivation for doing something.

Like, people are fine, and then they start you start, like, poking them with something, and then they realize, I don't like that. And then they start to take action to prevent that. Right? So I'm down here. I'm not feeling very good at all, and that's when I want to, like, start taking action.

So I'm looking for something that makes me feel better. Mhmm. What ends up happening if I call real estate company one so I'm gonna talk to this one person. I don't really know that I trust. He doesn't seem that knowledgeable, and he doesn't solve my problem.

He just sets an appointment to solve my problem later.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: So what happens to my emotions? I don't necessarily feel better. Mhmm. I don't feel confident about this. So I just clicked on the first PPC ad.

Now I'm going to, like, number two, going to number three. So I'm in I'm increasing competition for that other company. I might have an appointment with them or something, but now they're I'm gonna go on four appointments versus let's just say they talk to Steve first, and Steve just makes me feel like Steve's my guy and he gets me. And because he, like, asked all these questions about my situation, he understands the situation super well. He hasn't given me, like, an offer for my house.

Mhmm. But I feel like my problem's, like, well on the way to getting solved. Mhmm. So I don't feel the need to look other places.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: So it's these little things where it's like it's hard to it's hard to prove exactly what happens, but it's super plausible to understand.

Steve: Super I would say it's fairly reasonable. This this assumption or conclusion is fairly reasonable because we know people run away from pain. That's the reason why they do things. If we can help them, I feel a little relief. They won't need to check other places.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: They might still, but they don't need to.

Brandon: Yeah. Well, let's just say your real estate company won. What experience do you have? What kind of conversations happen internally? Oh, that lead wasn't that good.

Like, they didn't seem that motivated. I went on the appointment, and it was super competitive. They were talking to a lot of other people. They weren't as open with me. Whatever.

When if a different situation happened, then you could actually control how many competitors are on that lead Right. Just by the way that you have your first conversation with the person. And then people also they they make so many decisions based on first impressions. Like, I think I think in, like, most places in business, like, the the too much focus is put on, like, the moment when the thing happens.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Like, I got the contract now, so I did something good now. When you could get the contract right now because of something you did really, really well on the first call that you had with the seller Mhmm. Because that's when they made the emotional decision in their head. Like, after I have a really good call with Steve, it's hard like, I'm gonna talk to other people with inherent skepticism because I'm just putting them up against Steve. Mhmm.

I'm just seeing, do they actually stack up? Are they Yeah. Are they as good as Steve? And and what's gonna end up happening more likely than not is I could even look at other options. But because you've you've already won me over from the beginning, I'm gonna end up signing with you.

And you're gonna think this is a motivated lead. And those other people are gonna, you know, go back to their sales managers and say, no. It wasn't that good of a lead.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: You know? Yeah.

Steve: Because you set the wrong expectations in the beginning. Yeah. Or I set the wrong impression in the beginning.

Brandon: Yeah. So if you're in this situation where you're paying, like, 300 or $400 for these PPC leads, I guess, the the advice here is just, like, make sure that the person talking to the leads is highly qualified. It could be lead manager. It could be acquisitions.

Steve: But, highly competent.

Brandon: Yeah. But don't focus on like, so many people, like, if they're not closing well, they focus on, well, what's happening in the appointment and how are we doing the close? And, like and all those things are super important, but just don't underestimate how much the that first thing because the the data that I collected on this was, like, pretty clear that they're closing a lot better if that person who takes the initial phone call is a lot better

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Which I just think is a commonly overlooked place.

Steve: Yeah. All makes total sense.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So thank you for for humoring me on on, this one. And this is actually our last this is our last, like, standard, episode for this.

We're just gonna have the, the live q and a. Mhmm. So so let me just get the links to everybody so they can so they can go to this. So we're gonna put these in the description. Again, if you wanna talk to my team, we do fully managed for you PPC.

So if you want to, if you wanna work with the experts, it's, batemancollective.com/disruptors. If you want to, sign up for the q and a session so you can attend that live and ask questions, then go to batemancollective.com/toolkitdisruptors, and there you will get the toolkit that I've talked about. Actually, this this, particular one reminds me I have a whole, like, course in there that specifically goes over these acquisitions principles as well as some other marketing principles just as a piece of that toolkit. Yeah. So so definitely take that, and you can even share that with your team from there.

But then on that page, after you sign up for the toolkit, you'll see a way to register for that, for that q and a session. So

Steve: Yeah. It's very, very, what's the word I'm looking for? Thorough. I mean, it looks like a paid course.

Brandon: Have you been through this course?

Steve: No. I'm just saying I'm looking at it on the Oh. All the resources. Right?

Brandon: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're talking about the toolkit. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: It looks like a paid course for everything you have in there, and you're giving it away for free.

Brandon: Yeah. Just to be completely honest, like, I I like I mentioned before, I saw it yesterday for the first time. And the first thought that came through my mind, Garrett's the guy on my team who made it. I was like, Garrett, are you serious? Like, we can't give all this stuff away.

They're like, I had this, like, little gut, like, gut gut feeling, like, this sick to my stomach. Are we really gonna put all that stuff in there? And then, and then, you know, I was like, you know what? I guess it's probably a good thing. Like, you should feel that way.

You should feel sick about how much you give away. Yeah. Because there's there's a lot of lot of really cool stuff in there.

Steve: Well, these are tools that, I've seen you use in consults.

Brandon: Yep.

Steve: Right? So you're allowing whether your your, potential client or customer, do their evaluations on their own, or even maybe a competitor can start using the souls that you pour research into.

Brandon: Yeah. They're, you know, we gotta title this something that they just won't watch. Yeah. That's that's what we need to that's what we need to do. It's kind of funny.

Like, I notice every time I come on your podcast and I talk about a certain strategy, we'll notice in our audits that a few of our competitors, like, start picking up those little things. But sometimes they don't always do it. Right? Something like I saw one where it's like they they, they they did, like, a cross account bidding strategy, but they, like, missed a setting. I'm not gonna mention, like, the specific thing that, like, makes it completely useless if you don't use the setting right.

So it's, it's funny. There's yeah. But but yeah. It's, I understand that will happen, but, like, we're always innovating so much stuff that by, like, you know, by next quarter, we'll already have Yeah. A bunch of a bunch of new stuff.

Something super unique about Bateman Collective is I have a specific team just dedicated to research and development. I have people who wake up and, like, their job today is, like, do more experiments, find outside of, like, no routine management and Mhmm.

Steve: Like, it

Brandon: it's a really fascinating thing to have, like, a department where we just focus on, like, how do we how do we, like, get better at our craft. Yeah. Which is, yeah, sort of it was like a it was like a dream of mine to be able to afford that. Well, that sounds awesome. Right?

Steve: Because, typically, it's we, the owners, have to do that. Right? We're the visionaries. We do that. To have someone else get paid to do that and ideate, that's awesome.

Brandon: Yeah. No. It's it's it's, it's super cool. And and, yeah, the you have to meet some of the people in that department. Yeah.

At some point, it got some pretty, pretty sharp like, honestly, most of this stuff, I, like, I come on here and talk, like, look. This is what we're doing. I take credit for a lot of it. Of all the things we talked about, I'm just looking at, like, the the whole the whole, like, list. Some of these things were my idea and stuff that I implemented.

More of it than not is from people in that department. And then they just, like, they come up with the ideas, and then I just take credit for everything.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's that's good management.

Brandon: Yeah. It's you know, I I love to take public credit for other people's doings. Yeah. Absolutely. But anyways Excellent middle management.

That that that's right. That's right. But thank you, Steve, for for everything here. For anybody listening, I highly encourage you to to check out those links. And if you have any, like, specific questions about your marketing stuff, like, I've got people literally waiting around for you to, like, schedule on their calendar so they can so so they can talk to you about some of this stuff and how it could work for your business.

Highly recommend it.

Steve: Yep. So batemancollective.com/disruptors. If you guys want to do an audit or a strategy session where they Brandon's team can actually look at what your, PPC campaign looks like right now. Or if you guys wanna jump on our live q and a, that we're gonna have, go to this, go to batemancollective.com/toolkit-disruptors. Thank you guys for watching, and we'll see you guys on a live q and a.