How to Crush Text Marketing and Not Get Shut Down in 2023

Michael Bartolomei: Wholesaling would be so much easier if people could get isolated data, truly isolated data, and you knew that no one else had ever made this offer to that homeowner Yeah. And you were gonna, you know, blow their mind with something brand new.

Steve Trang: Right.

Michael: Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Steve: That would be amazing. Right? But you have the world we're living. Right.

Michael: So you have to keep the the entire system Mhmm. In mind, especially in a market like this. Like, it's so crowded. There's so many people doing it. Like, the odds of you being first, like, slim to none.

Steve: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we've got Michael Bartolome with Launch Control. And Michael flew in from Puerto Escondido, Mexico to talk about how to crush text marketing and not get shut down in 2023. Kind of a big deal at this exact moment in time.

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And, guys, if you get value out of the show, please hit that subscribe button. That way we can all grow together. Please do not keep us a secret. Alright. So you ready to get into it?

Michael: Yeah. Absolutely.

Steve: Alright. So I guess the first question is, how did you get involved in texting?

Michael: So I met the founder of the company, Launch Control.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: And, we there was a need because one of the hardest things for people to do with SMS engagement is craft the messaging. Right? Like, what do you say?

Steve: Right.

Michael: And it so my first kind of duty really was to, connect with real estate investors and to help them craft what they wanted to say. But there was a bit of a a secondary agenda to that. Mhmm. Because, what makes Launch special is that it's not just a piece of software. Mhmm.

It's really rooted in real estate investment and overcoming the challenges of real estate investment. Yeah. So we knew that to craft any sort of engagement for real estate investment, it had to come from a place of understanding the challenges of real estate investors.

Steve: And I know you had to go interview all the other investors, but Aaron, who started it

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: Was already in the space.

Michael: Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, he he was trying to overcome the same challenges as everyone else Right. And to find good quality leads to get to the point of discovery call with homeowners and and to close, you know, a lot of deals. He wanted he wanted to be in the upper echelon, and and that that requires, you know, the ability to have a lot of discovery calls and and to close a high percentage of those.

So he rather than going to existing pieces of software to try to solve that issue for SMS engagement, he decided to build a better software.

Steve: Got it.

Michael: One that was really intent on problem solving for real estate investors and focused on their needs. And that's what Lon When did you came out of.

Steve: When did you start working with them?

Michael: Probably six months after the launch of Launch Control, like, right right from the beginning. And I didn't realize that at first. Mhmm. And then, you know, a few months in after talking to him, I realized how how soon in the process I was getting involved. But yeah.

Yeah. Basically, right from the beginning.

Steve: And when did that when did they start?

Michael: About four years ago.

Steve: Four years ago. Yeah. So about three and a half years ago. When exactly, if you don't mind me asking?

Michael: It was in 2019. Not like mid twenty nineteen.

Steve: And I'm asking because this was a time there were a bunch of other people texting already. Right? I think we at that time, we were using, TextMagic if I recall correctly. Yeah. And there were a lot of different platforms out there at the time, but it seemed like delivery rate was not an issue.

And, like, it didn't matter which platform you're using. They all worked. Yeah. Right. It seemed so at the time, And it wasn't until, I wanna say, late twenty nineteen or mid twenty twenty where we had to do this whole tokenization thing where we had to change and mix it up.

And, we were using a Slingshot, which was a white label of some other platform. But, yeah, we had to use all this tokenization. It got really fancy, and it became more and more work Right. To get the text messaging to get the text messages delivered. Yeah.

So what was your experience? Like, do you see, like is this a situation where it just kept getting more and more challenging?

Michael: No. I don't see it as more and more challenging. Mhmm. I just see it as getting closer and closer to the end result

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: The wanted end result.

Steve: Right.

Michael: Which is look. When when you send a text message Mhmm. To someone,

Steve: when

Michael: you send a text message from any platform that you're using, launch or otherwise, you're looking at a dashboard.

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: Right? It's easy to forget that from the recipient standpoint

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: That's a one on one conversation. Yeah. Every time you get a response in launch control, there is someone holding their phone and looking at the message that you just sent. Mhmm. And if you lose that visual sometimes when you're when you're trying to do this in a way where you're trying to juggle 25 inbound conversations at any one time.

Steve: Right.

Michael: But the truth is that is a single individual. Right? And the carriers and this is the carriers that this is a reaction to. They wanna maintain within their traffic channels for their recipients wanted conversations, one on one conversations. Anything that strikes as spam, anything that strikes as repetitive, one message sent to many.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: That was always gonna get filtered out

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: Because it's not respectful of the recipient.

Steve: Well, I like the way you said it. Like, this is a one on one because they actually reply back on the phone. Right. Because one of the things we talk about in our sales training is that because we're trying to buy 10 houses, 20 houses a month, it's really easy to forget that we're dealing with a human being. Right?

Like, yeah, we might try to run two appointments a day, but they might run two or three appointments right now. But prior to right now, they might have not talked to a person to buy their house ten, fifteen, thirty, forty years.

Michael: Yeah. And

Steve: so you're dealing with a person who's going through a life altering experience because that's what happens for them to reach out to us. Like, a life event occurred, and we kinda forget that. And so the example I use in our training is we sometimes can be guilty of kinda like those EMTs you see where, like, every every once in a while, you see an EMT and they're they're kinda laughing. Right?

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: While they're with a like, a person is going through a bad situation. That person is literally having the worst day of their life. Right. The worst. But for an EM two who sees this every single day, they get desensitized to this.

Michael: Right.

Steve: They forget what someone's going through.

Michael: Yeah. I agree completely. It's there's such a level of vulnerability in in these people's lives Mhmm. At the point that people are reaching out to them. Right.

And there is the unknown factor when it comes to direct sell options. So they're already in a position where they feel like they're vulnerable Mhmm. And then they're getting these conversations coming at them that they don't have the research behind it. They don't have the the the knowledge to know that this is a legitimate conversation that they could be having. And so it creates a a sense of distrust throughout the entire industry.

So I I think people also forget the necessity to overcome that distrust by by trying to truly connect with that person on a one on one level.

Steve: So we talk about how to on the title for today's show is, like, how to, you know, overcome or prevent some of the sales challenges or some of the challenges you're gonna have with texting.

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: But before we get into that, actually, let's just really, really quick on a high level. Yeah. What is text marketing, and then what do we say to people that that frown upon it? Okay. So let's start with what is text marketing?

Michael: Well, let's let's start with what text marketing should be Okay. Not what it is. And I'm I'm speaking specifically to the real estate investment industry, not text marketing or engagement as a whole.

Steve: Right.

Michael: So what text engagement should be is a multi touchpoint system that comes in at each cycle of the the sales funnel. Right? So if you think about it, if you if you are able to initiate a conversation via text, you're not gonna close the deal via text. At some point, you're gonna push that to a call. That call is most likely going to equal the site visit.

But in between, how many touch points do you usually have with that client? It can't all be a phone call. It can't email isn't going to be effective. The most effective way to deliver a small piece of information, poignant and you know that it's gonna be read in the moment, even if you're not expecting a response, text. Right.

Right? And it it gets underutilized. When you've when you've completed a deal with with the homeowner and you wanna just send a thank you message, you wanna you wanna communicate with them afterwards, text would work really well. Mhmm. Alright.

When you wanna communicate with your buyers and let them know what you have available. Mhmm. Text is gonna be the least invasive, fastest way to get them to respond. There are all these ways to use SMS engagement

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Throughout the full cycle of closing a real estate deal Yeah. That go underutilized because too many people pigeonhole it Mhmm. As outbound. Right? And and so where where I'd like to see the industry shift is in that that level of growing up and sophistication of really utilizing SMS the way it should be utilized and and to to really take the full impact of what it can do for your business.

Steve: So you're kinda talking about, like, etiquette. Right? Like Yes. There's it's kinda funny. Like, seeing my kids go through this.

They're in sixth and seventh grade, and they're they get, like, email writing. Right? Here's how you send a formal email. Here's how you send an informal email. So we're talking about, like, adding these etiquette behind, the the messaging on for for texting.

Michael: Yeah. And I think that I think that the ways to approach things

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Are really in front of people more than they realize. Right? Because when we say that people are in a position of vulnerability in or or have gone through a life changing event

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Right, there are still levels to that. Yeah. Right? If you're approaching somebody that is 55 and in a high equity situation versus somebody that you know is going into preforeclosure Mhmm. Different timelines, different problems, different approaches.

Right? And knowing by by really looking and analyzing and shrinking down the data that you're focusing on and humanizing that data, it gets easier. Like, I'll see I see mistakes like this that will happen. Right? Like, using that over 55 high equity situation.

Somebody says in a first message, no. I'm not interested in selling my home or not right now. Right? Not a not a hard opt out. They're just it's a timing issue.

Mhmm.

Steve: Not

Michael: interested right now. Right? So you gotta figure someone over 55, high equity situation, they're not in a huge rush. They're they don't have a ticking clock. But if they got onto your list through filtering, this is probably a conversation that they should be having.

Right? If not wholesale, then at least subject to. Right? And so rather than coming up with solutions and different angles to, show them the viability of this route as compared to, you know, the traditional MLS route, someone they'll people would just put them on a drip campaign, and that drip campaign will ping them once a month saying, hey. Do you want cash for your house?

How about cash for your house now? How about cash? There's there's no there's no strategy behind that. It's just a set it and forget it mentality and hoping that that, again, like, the, you know, the desperation slips through. Right.

Right? But how many deals are there that aren't the last resort deals that aren't being closed Yeah. Because there's not strategy focused on what that person needs. Like, what what are their what is their emotional motivation behind wanting to sell that house? You can you can dig pretty deep on that without having a discovery call

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: By just the data that's right in right on your spreadsheet. There's a lot you can mine from that.

Steve: So how would you respond to that? Right? Like, I said, you know, not right now. How would you respond to that with an SMS?

Michael: For for that one, I would respond right away and say, okay. I understand. No problem. Thank you for letting me know. And I wouldn't contact them for a minimum of sixty days.

And and one of the things that I really want people to understand when it comes to marketing, and, you know, I'd love your feedback on this, right, is I feel like in real estate investment, there's a there's a real versus mentality, and it's well, I'm getting more ROI off of SMS than I am off of of direct mail than I am off of PPC. So I'm gonna cancel this and cancel that. Mhmm. Or I heard through someone that there a lot of people are generating leads on Facebook. I'm gonna drop everything.

I'm gonna focus on that. And there's this real versus mentality

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Where I think the truth is everyone should have, at the level that they can afford, a multi funnel marketing system

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: That utilizes everything. So I'll give you an example. Right? If you have some, direct mail leads coming in

Steve: Yeah. Great

Michael: leads. Right? They raise their hand. They came to you. You're not gonna close all of them.

Mhmm. No chance. Right? So what

Steve: do you do with the leads that you didn't close?

Michael: Do you say, oh, well, didn't work on the call or two, or do you take those names, put them into launch control Mhmm. Retarget them, get them to respond, get them reengaged. Yeah. Use the automations in a positive way. And when it's time to get back on the phone with them, get back on the phone with them.

And one of the things that I think is is overlooked in real estate investment or that I see as kind of a gap Mhmm.

Steve: Is

Michael: that I think that everything is a matter of timing.

Steve: Right? Oh, it's very much a matter of timing.

Michael: So if if you weren't able to sell someone on the first go round, right, because it was a matter of timing, then, you know, it's a question of when are they gonna be ready. Right? But here's what I think happens in the middle. Right? I think because direct sell options are so unknown, there there's almost a research period in between.

Mhmm. People go, okay. Have that conversation. I'm not sure that I trust that route. Let me let me dig a little bit.

Let me see if this is if this if this is relevant.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Right? But the odds of them going back to you, the originator who actually teed that up for them and taught them and gave them gave them a little bit of focus on an alternative, it's pretty slim if it's ninety days later or six months later. They're gonna go to the person who approaches them with a similar offer in the time frame that they're ready to sell. And that person's gonna be like, wow. That one was easy.

Mhmm. And it's because you did it for them.

Steve: Right. You did all the Right. All the all the heavy lifting, and then it's like the whole thing, like, open the jar.

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: You know, something you mentioned about the it shouldn't be just one or the other. It should be multiple. Yes. So Jason Lewis is someone that you know, is a friend of mine, someone I look up to on our investment machine. We had a call.

Like, he is having, like, a record record quarter. He's just, blown doors out. And he's like, Steve, of all the deals I've got going on, you wouldn't believe how many different lead sources they're all closing from. Like, I don't know. Six, seven, like, 13.

Michael: Okay.

Steve: Yeah. Like, he just has, you know, fishing lines, all these fishing lines in the water. Right? And whichever one goes goes. Yeah.

But he's just steady Eddie, and one's gonna pop, the other's gonna pop, and his team is ready for whichever one is ready to go.

Michael: Yeah. And and where I think I mean, I don't know his system. I don't know what he's he's doing exactly, but I would imagine that as much as he's killing it, that there's still an opportunity to improve

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Because there are ways to plug those different routes together. Right? If you can if you can plug the the leads you didn't close from direct mail into SMS, if you can plug the leads you didn't close from PPC into SMS Yeah. If you can take the leads that didn't engage with SMS and route those through a direct mail campaign or if you've got leads coming into your website and you're doing cheap retargeting through social, there are so many ways that you can take these channels and plug them together to augment them.

Steve: The om make it, omnipresence. Yes. Yeah. I mean, even Stephanie Betters, right, with LeftMe. She says, like, one of her best ROIs is just direct mail to people that raise their hands, and she just mails them.

Michael: Yeah. That's it. I'm gonna I'm gonna give a quick plug because he just brought her up. We just completed a integration with Left Main for launch control. So anybody that's working with them and wants to have that Salesforce kind of background of what what they offer, we've got that set up now.

Steve: Oh, yeah. I am extremely excited about that because we actually have some challenges Yeah. With launch control, and those challenges are it's working

Michael: Mhmm.

Steve: Better than I expected. Yeah. And so, like, people are just picking up the phone calling us. Yeah. I guess I do wanna sell.

Yeah. Or, like, we don't know how at this exact moment. Like, when they just call us back, we don't have a system right now. So I'm so looking forward to this integration, getting fully, integrated in our left main Yeah. So that we can see that.

Michael: Yeah. I'm happy about it too because I know a lot of people that we work with that are running the bigger shops Mhmm. Are either using left left main, which is great Mhmm. Love that, or they're on the struggle bus trying to figure out Salesforce themselves, which could be tough. So I feel like this is a great hybrid option if you wanna use launch and you wanna have that that Salesforce infrastructure.

Yeah. Just the the left main launch combo is a great one. Yeah.

Steve: I was really excited when I when I saw Stephanie make that announcement, I think, last week. Yeah. So we're talking about how to crush text marketing in 2023

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: And not get in trouble. And Mhmm. I was remarking with you before the show when you and I planned the show. Maybe you already knew it, but I didn't. I was like, this is, like, the perfect time to do the show.

Like, people are freaking out right now on Facebook. They're saying this. Is it two p a two p and DLC, right, whatever, is gonna kill everything. So are we dead in the water?

Michael: No. This is what it comes down to, honestly, is just fear based off of a lack of information.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: That's all it is. Right? So, to clear things up, there there are two things that people need to keep in mind or a real a real clear distinction. Yeah. So there is the TCPA Mhmm.

Which is federal regulations. Right? And then there are many state versions of this. Mhmm. Right?

But these are very big macro telecom industry things. These are not the things that we need to worry about. Like, the the use case has been has been proven. You can text under TCPA guidelines. Launch control as a piece of software is is a 100% compliant because it is not an auto dialer.

Mhmm. Like, the fact that you have to hit send on each of your messages, you can edit them, the the the the fact that you're taking manual actions within the system, that you're sending a different and unique message to every recipient because of the, text spinners within the app. All of that is it keeps messages compliant on that federal legal level. All of the the perceived disruption Mhmm. Recently is actually coming from a 2019 document.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: It's called the CTIA, which is, a set of carrier best practices. They basically got together and put together their best practices of the kind of engagement that they expect through SMS. So all of this, 10 d l c, which for anybody who doesn't know, that rather scary regulatory name, it's just a way of describing a regular phone number. 10 digit long code, an area code, and seven digits. That's the 10.

Right? So it just means that you're using a regular phone number Mhmm. To text a regular phone number. It's not coming from a +1 800 number. It's not coming from a short code.

So this is a a lot of people, I feel, like, put 10 d l c into the TCPA box. It doesn't belong in that box.

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: It's not a TCPA thing. It is a carrier for best practice best practices related Mhmm. Registration process. Yeah. K.

So in any company that is registering through launch control and I wanna make clear, we don't register we we don't register things. We just expedite the registration. Each Just facilitating. We're facilitating. That's it.

They're making it easy so that people don't have to do it themselves because it's it's cumbersome. Right? So, what investors are doing when, they're giving their EIN number and their, company information

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: And they're having their website reviewed to make sure that they have opt in data. What they're doing is establishing through an administrative body called the TCR. The TCR allows you to register once to text with each of the major carriers. So you're not doing multiple registrations

Steve: with each of the major carriers. So you're not doing multiple registrations with each of Verizon.

Michael: Right. Imagine the headache if you had to register with, like, seven different carriers. It'd be a pain. So So they have this administrative body, the TCR, which allows you to single register with all of them. By doing that, you're establishing a b to b relationship with the carriers Mhmm.

And an expectation that you stay within the bounds of the CTIA guidelines. Mhmm. Now those guideline and they have, as the administrators of those guidelines, they have the ability and the right, honestly, to filter, block, or suspend any traffic coming through that channel. Yeah. And that's how it's viewed.

Right? It's not they don't view it as traffic coming from launch control. They view it as traffic through that very narrow channel of your established b two b relationship.

Steve: Right.

Michael: Then That's what company

Steve: I registered, with, DCIA. Mhmm. Right. So my EIN, my corporation. So I remember this all going down back in 2019.

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And I think Trump signed it, like, January 2020 or whatever. Right? I think it was a striker act or something like that because everyone's getting frustrated. Around this time, everyone's getting frustrated with all the text blasting.

Right? And so as I saw this and we're, like, we're gonna have to register our information with the carriers. Like, this is just a bad idea for me as a business owner because at this point, there was not clear distinction between TCPA and all these other things. Like, so I'm not gonna volunteer my information to a carrier only to get slapped for TCPA. Right.

Clearly, that was the wrong decision.

Michael: Right. And it's I I I wish, honestly, I wish that I that I'd taken more effort personally or we'd taken more effort to get more in front of this earlier.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Because it it is a that that blending of ideas of what is just carrier best practices and whether or not you're maintaining a business to business relationship and the TCPA, the blending of those two is what caused all of all of the concern. Yeah. Right? And it's unnecessary concern. They are they are very separate things.

And and when you all of all of the the hoops that that people have had to jump through recently, this is enough that you and I talked about this before before we we came on. And I said, like, I understand that when people you know, from a real estate investor's perspective Mhmm. It's like, oh, they're coming after us. Right. They're not.

Like, real estate investment is the tiniest little fish in a very big pond. Yeah. Right? So, not to say not and and I I will be clear about this. Not to say that there are no eyes Mhmm.

On real estate investment, because there are. Yeah. But it's not a central focus. Mhmm. It is number 3,482 on the list of concerns from the telecom industry.

Right?

Steve: And I think, like, my own personal anecdotal experience as well as what I've read, you know, articles about Yeah. It's, like, it's these student loan companies.

Michael: Mhmm.

Steve: The, car service warranties. I was kinda joking earlier. Like, I haven't had that Acura in, like, ten years. Right. Stop calling about or stop texting about the stupid Acura.

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Or the third one right now is all those ERC ones. I think ERC is probably, like, between the three student loans, car service warranty, and and ERC. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. And that yeah. Those are the big ones. And, I mean, think about think about how hard this is for the carriers. Right?

Like, I've I heard this stat recently. I think it was 23,000,000,000 text messages are sent daily on an Internet on an international level. 27,000,000,000. All of those being filtered through a handful of companies. Mhmm.

Right? Like, obviously, outside The US, there are huge telecom providers as well. Right? But it's it's not that many companies that are processing these billions of messages coming through. Mhmm.

So the it's not like there's someone behind a computer screen going real estate investor, block them.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: I think it they're just filtering mechanisms that are in place to keep that kind of repetitive over over texting from happening. Right? Like, that the the fact that you weren't able to opt out of that message and just stop getting it

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: Is the core of the problem. Right? It's when when someone says, I don't wanna receive this text message, and then they get hit again and again and again and again, then there's a problem.

Steve: Right? I have my, so my best friend, he moved from here to California, and he missed a tax payment on his personal residence. So now he's got, like, a late tax Right. On it. And so he's on a stacked list.

Right? Because now he's an out of state landlord. He's paid his property off, so it's free and clear. So he's high equity. Yeah.

And he's got a tax delinquent. It's like, how do I get off this list? Like, you're toast. You're getting texted for the rest of your life. Right?

He's like, but I keep saying stop. It's like, yeah. You can sit you can say stop Yeah. Forever. They're they're gonna keep texting you.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. And it's look. And an individual should honor that. Right?

Like, an individual real estate investor, that person opts out Mhmm. Honor that. Right. Take them off of your list. Do not text them again.

Right? Because the only thing that you're responsible for Mhmm. Is your relationship to that recipient and your relationship with the carrier. Mhmm. Right?

So if you are respectful of the recipient and you DNC people when they request to be DNC'd, your campaign will be fine. Mhmm. And then the person in the campaign right next to you, it's like, whatever. I'm not gonna listen to that. I'm gonna keep messaging you.

They're gonna get shut down.

Steve: Right.

Michael: And then they're gonna say something like, well, you know, text messaging is dead. Yeah. No. You were not smart about the way that you did it, and you got yourself into trouble.

Steve: Well, because they weren't ever gonna Right. Respond with you. No. You never respect them in the first place.

Michael: Right. And and the list that that friend of yours is on Mhmm. It's not the individual investors list that's the problem. Mhmm. It's it's publicly shared data.

It's where Right. Any anybody can get this. What there's no list to be taken off of. Mhmm. Right?

Unless he wants to go protest the county registrar's office or something. You know, like, he's on a public list. Like, that's that's the list. That's publicly accessible. Right?

So as a individual texter, as an individual investor, respect every recipient and and engage in a a smart sophisticated way Mhmm. You won't have any problems. If you don't treat the recipient as an individual Mhmm. And as as we said at the top, an individual in a vulnerable situation, and and you just hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer, and and disrespect request to opt out, not gonna go well.

Steve: Yeah. Right? So there was something that you and I, we had a conversation not too long ago. It was really eye opening to me. I was like, we have to have this conversation on the podcast.

Like, we must have this specific conversation on the podcast. And it was basically what I was saying is, like, in my experience, the carriers don't want us to text. Right? And you're like, well, actually, that's not accurate. So can you share with me your perspective on the carriers what the carriers want?

Michael: Yeah. Sure. I mean, there's look. There's there's two ways of looking at this. Mhmm.

Okay. So if you look at the CTIA guidelines and you read through those, right, it should be a 100% opt in. Mhmm. Right? But there are 23,000,000,000 text messages being sent every day.

Mhmm. You how what percentage of that do you think are not opt in that fall into, like, a marketing bucket.

Steve: Right? Yeah. I don't know

Michael: I don't know the percentage, but it's in the billions. Yeah. Right? So and and each one of those billions of messages comes with a per message cost.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: So the carriers are making literally billions of dollars off of these outbound messages. Mhmm. Right? And they need to have they need to find a center point

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Between being able to scale up and grow themselves and and to to really enable people to send messages, but also respect the recipients and and have a a system where it's trending towards a much higher level of opt in. It's trending towards more and more wanted messaging. And they they need to find that balance, right, between profitability and user experience. Mhmm. And if you're in your campaign able to earn them some money without disrespecting the recipients

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: You're gonna be fine. Right? It's people that stray from that balance that they're looking for of profitability and user experience. If you break user experience, you're gonna get slapped on the wrist or shut down. Right?

It's it's a pretty simple bargain.

Steve: It's in the carrier's best interest financially

Michael: Mhmm.

Steve: Or text messages to occur.

Michael: Yes.

Steve: It is not in the best interest for their shareholders if all their users are pissed.

Michael: Exactly. Right?

Steve: So what we're suggesting here, we're not stating this. We're just suggesting that the carriers are okay with some sort of gray area where there's a healthy balance between you're not pissing off their users and they're complaining all day, but we're still sending text messages. Yes. And we need to find how to stay in this healthy meeting.

Michael: Yeah. And, look, what we do that I think is really in advance of what any anyone else is doing is from an engineering perspective. Mhmm. We put a ton of focus on the recipient experience. And so we do a lot, like, things that sometimes real estate investors find as, like, gatekeeping where, you know, you can send an initial message, and then you can't send a follow-up for a certain amount of time.

Mhmm. Right? It's because if we don't do that, to be quite honest, people abuse the system. Mhmm. And they send send send send.

Steve: We are not a a compliant group of people.

Michael: Right. And and I wanna I wanna start to to to change that because the the truth is, you know, we say this all the time. Anybody that's gone through onboarding with us will will back me up on this. Right? But, like, all of the money comes from the inbox, not from the messages that you're sending in the batches.

It comes from the people that respond. Right? Like, I I really hate this old adage of, like, well, how many texts do a deal? What do you mean? Like, if you're good, 10.

Mhmm. If you're if you're really bad at it, 5,000. I did it it's it's not a simple number equation. What it is is a question of your ability to engage.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Right? So the way that I look at it, and I I just think this is true, but I would like your opinion on it. You know? Our job as a piece of software Mhmm. And and I'm taking a sigh I'm not I'm taking out all of the education stuff we do with the, customer success team and, you know, the strategizing we do behind the scenes.

But it's just breaking it down to nuts and bolts. Launch Control's job is to deliver messages. Yeah. Right? And get leads into your inbox.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Once a lead hits your inbox, it's not about launch control anymore. Sales processes. Yeah. It's it's you having a system in place to take leads anywhere from a really hot lead to a lead that requires nurturing

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: And have the systems and the cadences in place to close that deal. Yeah. Right? To get that to a discovery call, to get on-site if your boots on the ground. But you that it's on you, right, at that

Steve: I mean, I would argue I don't know how much it it is for them to get the message back to you. Right? Because that should be fairly automated. Right? But if you look like direct mail Mhmm.

If I send out 10,000 direct mail pieces, in a perfect world, 10,000 direct mail pieces land. Yeah. We have people that moved. They're no longer there. Right?

We have other unfortunate human situations where the, the delivery man just doesn't feel like delivering that day. Yeah. They'll just throw the whole thing in a bin. We know this because it's happened. Yeah.

It's happened to us. Right. Right? And so in a perfect world, we send out 10,000 pieces. We get 10,000 pieces of mail delivered.

In a perfect world, we get 10,000 calls from that. But the 10,000 calls coming back from us is really reliant on our message to get them to pick up the phone. Yes. Or, I guess, for direct mail, pick up the phone calling us in this context, replying to our message. Right?

But I wouldn't say the onus on you guys to deliver because I think that's probably automatic if they're replying. Right? The onus is on us to get as high response rate as possible.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, think of it this way. Right? So you send out direct mail pieces, and you you're gonna get some calls back. Right?

Get some people coming back to you. But what you never see is you never see inside the person's home

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: The person who was like, ugh, and they threw this away. Or they're like, I don't know. Right? You never caught that moment of hesitation because you weren't privy to it. Yeah.

Right? But when you send a text message, some people are gonna respond. Mhmm. Alright. You're gonna see that, response because it's it's a text.

People respond to texts to text. That's why it works. Right? You you get a text, you read it, sometimes you're gonna respond. Right?

You're also gonna get those hesitant responses. Right? You don't have that insight with direct mail. You don't have that insight with PPC. You have to wait until they come to you.

They're very passive forms of marketing. Mhmm. The leads are fantastic when they actually do come to you. Right. But there's no ability to nurture.

They either they either come to you and you can close those those leads or they don't. Right? But there's this nurture space with text that doesn't exist in any other marketing medium where you can read between the lines and you can see this is a nurture. This is a direct phone call. This is a hot lead.

This is you can you can determine in that moment you have another opportunity. And it's what you do with that secondary opportunity that could equal five, ten x your return simply by having a system in place to nurture in that space.

Steve: What are those as far as temperatures? Right? Like, this is a nurture. This is a pick of the phone right now. Like, what are some of the things you're looking for?

Michael: Yeah. I mean, it's not always gonna be the most obvious things. Right? It's not always gonna be somebody saying, yeah. I'm I'm looking at a couple of offers when you wanna talk.

Mhmm. Great when those come in.

Steve: Right. Right. That's obvious.

Michael: Right. But there it it takes a little bit of of practice, but there are only certain levels of responses that come in. So I'll give you an example. Right? Like, somebody, you know a house is worth maybe 120 k as a as a wholesale deal.

And the homeowner says, yeah. Sure. I want half $1,000,000. Right? Yeah.

So do they really want half $1,000,000? Or like your friend who got on the list, have they just been hit up one too many times, and they're like, I want a fortune for it. Mhmm. Right? But the backstory, like your friend, in a bit of a situation.

Right? And this may actually be the best way out. So how do you how do you break through? Mhmm. Right?

It's not putting them on a drip automation that every 30 days says, hey. Do you want a cash offer?

Steve: Right.

Michael: Like, that's that's not gonna get it done. Right? So you have to be able to look at that. And in most of those cases, I would pick up the phone, and I would see if they answer.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: And and then I would go through my sales cadence

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: To see if I can kind of break through that wall and have a real honest and open conversation about what their alternatives are and find out what their motivation is and and try to truly help them. Yeah. Right? I'd probably take that shot.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: But I would also you know, I'd look at it and and try to gauge the the temperature. Right? Because some some of those, it's gonna be like, yeah. Let's pick that pick that up and pick up the phone and call that person. Some, you're gonna be like, you know what?

I think they've been pushed a bit too far. Let's just let that go. Yeah. And I'd I would honestly probably DNC it. Mhmm.

You know? Because if you feel like someone's at a frustration point, it's not if wholesaling would be so much easier if people could get isolated data, truly isolated data, and you knew that no one else had ever made this offer to that homeowner Yeah.

Steve: And

Michael: you were gonna, you know, blow their mind with something brand new.

Steve: Right.

Michael: Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Steve: That would be amazing. Right? But you have the world we're living. Right.

Michael: So you have to keep the the entire system Mhmm. In mind, especially in a market like this. Like, it's so crowded. There's so many people doing it. Like, the odds of you being first, like, slim to none.

Steve: We had a property. We locked up, as a matter of fact, last week. So, I mean, we had texting. We turned it off. We reactivated it couple months with you guys.

Couple weeks onboarding this and that. We've been texting, I wanna say, for about three or four weeks now. Yeah. And we had an appointment this week last week, and we went there. And you're talking about saturation.

Right? I'm like, she's got a cash offer for $2.10, a off cash offer for $2.15. Fortunately, we were able to lock it up at 200. Yeah. Right?

But that wasn't SMS lead, and we just started doing this recently.

Michael: Yeah. Didn't

Steve: even take that long to get the first opportunity. But, yeah, definitely feel saturated because, like, I gotta go and win this contract because I know at $2.10 and 02:15, I can't move this property. Right. I know those are bad numbers, but there's someone out there promising them that. So we've talked about the 10, 10 DLC.

Right? What are some other best practices right now? Because that's the promise, right, for the show. Yeah. Best practices right now to ensure well, well, I guess that's the first thing.

Right? To make sure you're still texting is to make sure you get that 10 DLC done. Yes. Because I think effective August 31, you can't text anymore.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, that's with anybody. You haven't been able to text with Launch for a long time without having that because, you know, we wanna maintain the best possible relationship with the carriers that we can. Right. And and it's just like, this is again, this is not just a real estate investment thing.

Mhmm.

Steve: Like,

Michael: name a business. Doesn't matter. If you wanna use SMS engagement in your business, this is the business to business relationship you need to sign up for. Right? It's just required.

There is no way around.

Steve: That's the first step. Right. Moving forward, what are some additional best practices for SMS marketing?

Michael: Okay. So there if we're talking about, outbound marketing Mhmm. Right, so we're we're we're doing prospecting. We need people to get really out of this mentality of of just treating data like data points and not like human beings as we opened up having that conversation. Right?

Yeah. So any any attempts to just, use multiple platforms, for instance. Like, I know people are doing this because

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Launch will put the brakes on a lot to limit, you know, how many texts can go to a single recipient and how often you can reengage. We do all of this, again, for those compliance reasons of keeping people in that band of of, you know, good best practices and in a happy place

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: With the carriers. Right? But there are people that will go and use three different platforms so that they can message the same person three different times. Don't do that. Yeah.

Don't do that. That harms everybody. Mhmm. Right? Because they I have the unique, viewpoint or we have the unique viewpoint viewpoint of you know, Launch Control is basically the biggest network of real estate investors in the country.

Yeah. Right? So I see what everyone's doing all around the country.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: And so I don't see it as an individual. I see it as, like, guys, we're all in this together. Please don't do the bad things because it's gonna make it a lot more difficult for everyone to use SMS engagement as a successful way forward. Right? So we all have to get more sophisticated.

Yeah. And we all have to stop with the nonrecipient focused texting

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: And really start trending towards more levels of sophistication to truly do what we've been preaching for years, which is take those leads in the inbox and challenge yourself to close as many as you possibly can. Mhmm. Right? Like, you know, as far as KPIs go, right, it should be measured not on how many texts you sent Mhmm. But how many discovery calls you set.

And it should be a challenge to your team of upping that number every month so you can up the ROI. Right. The average user on launch control right now gets something like a 10 or 15 x return on launch control. Mhmm.

Steve: But I

Michael: think it's a shadow of what they could get with better practices. Right? So we all need to trend towards that level of more sophistication. I also think and I'd I'd love to nerd out with this about you. I also think that we're we need to start really focusing on ways that investors are bringing in their own opt in data.

Mhmm.

Steve: Right?

Michael: They're they're gathering acknowledgment. Because I think if you think about most of the of the marketing forms that real estate investors are using that, are where you're getting these motivated leads coming in. Mhmm. Right? So you're getting, direct mail lead coming in, a PPC lead coming in.

And, again, like, we talked about this. You send 10,000 out. You've got nothing in that active zone in the middle where you could nurture, but you just have to wait and hope that they come to you. Yeah. Right?

And then they come to you, and it's a phone call.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: So you have that opportunity to close them. Right? But how often do you close on a single call? You have no mechanism in place to reengage. Right?

But the more we push people even with these motivated leads to acknowledge that SMS is is a good way to contact them or, you know, again, I'm all for multichannel marketing. Right? Like, anything that you can get so that you aren't limited to a single touch point. Right? You don't have to close in the moment.

You can reengage and retarget and get after them. That Mhmm. Scales businesses.

Steve: So I think that's a fantastic point. Challenging ourselves. How can we get a higher higher, what's the how can we get more out of people that reply? Yeah. But I think even on top of that too is how do we get more people to reply to the initial text, but then how do we do more with those that did reply?

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: So we're using left main. Mhmm. And there are cadences instead of left main. Right? And this and that.

And so there are SMS automated in there. What would be the difference between automating an SMS campaign for someone that called in from direct mail inside of Salesforce versus doing it through launch control?

Michael: It's gonna come down to, really engagement strategies. Mhmm. You know? Because in any of those, like, comes in through direct mail. Right?

What was the end result of that conversation? Where did that conversation leave off? Yeah. Right? Because that's gonna give you different stories that you wanna tell.

And so by setting up the automations and launch based off of of the exit point of that conversation Mhmm. And how you want it to reengage, then you can, you can have a more sophisticated level of of those retargeted kind of, automations going on. Right? And and have have the full feature functionality of launch, you're gonna be you're not gonna have that that level of sophistication Mhmm. With any other kind of automation system.

Steve: So I'm gonna ask some more basic oriented questions. So there's some things that we can do to get the first message to respond. Right? Like, there were things we're doing for a while Yeah. Was like, hey, Mike.

Hi. Right? Or is this still Steve Sell? Whatever. What are you seeing generally for people that are doing that that are sending out text?

They're having the most effective conversations?

Michael: It it actually usually starts with data

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: And how you segment the data. Right? So the wider the net that you're casting, the worst results that you're gonna get typically.

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: Right? And that's been the problem from the beginning. Right? Is we're like, oh, I'm gonna text Phoenix. Hey, Steve.

You own 57 Green Street. Correct? Right? And it it's everybody's been doing that forever. The people that get really narrowed down, like, all the way down to a housing complex

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: That's obviously gonna make it feel a lot more local. It's gonna make it feel more known. Right? We're actually in the process of working on some new, messaging, concepts that we're gonna be rolling out to try some things. But, you know, something that I think and, you know, again, love your feedback on this one.

I think that REI has a bit of a positioning problem. Mhmm. Right? And we were talking about that level of vulnerability and

Steve: kind of

Michael: getting getting, you know, people that are at that last resort. Mhmm. Right? All of the marketing, in my opinion, is aimed at last resort hopes. Mhmm.

Right? So that's where I think this, like, you know, Cash Kings Ohio, we pay cash. Pure cash. Call us at +1 80756 Right? Like, that is aimed at last resort.

It's not aimed at that nurture phase. It's not aimed at the people that are thinking, you know, what are my options here? Mhmm. Let me let me ask you this question. Right?

Because I I still don't understand it. It's been a question of me for four years.

Steve: Alright.

Michael: And I I I genuinely think it comes down to positioning.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Right? I got into this business four years ago, and I was like, how does every homeowner in America not know about this? How is it when they go to sell their house, they're not like, I have multiple options. Mhmm. I can list it.

I can go create a financing, dig into subject to. I I can sure. I can find a direct buyer. Let's see what they're offering. How does every homeowner not have this three funnel idea in mind?

Steve: Because they're so busy with their lives. It's like I mean, you can talk about the stuff you see in the news. Right? It's like, hey. You know?

Like, what are your thoughts on this? Like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Or, like, I used to be the biggest cardinals.

Michael: Right? Yeah.

Steve: My friends are I'm in a text camp not campaign, text messaging group, right, with my friends. They're talking about the cardinals. Like, I just completely tune out of that conversation. Like, Cardinals' situation has nothing to do with me. Right?

Like, once they re sign Kyler Murray, okay, they're dead for the next four years. They already know that's franchise's toast. Yeah. Anything about the Cardinals, I'm not even paying attention to. It's irrelevant.

Right? And I think that's kinda same thing. Like, with homeowners, they're not paying attention to all these other options because it doesn't apply. Well, once it applies, now they're seeing everything. So we talk about this in our sales training.

It's the reticular activating system. And, basically, what that comes down to is, like, if you're gonna go buy a red Lexus, you haven't seen a red Lexus until you decide you're gonna buy a red Lexus. Now you see red Lexus everywhere. Yeah. Right?

And then for the next two weeks after you buy, it's like, man, how does everyone own a red Lexus? And then after that period of times pass, your reticular activating system's turned off. You don't even see all the other red Lexus.

Michael: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? Or at least you don't see as many. And so I think that there's a moment in time where the because there's so much information out there. The brain just filters in what's relevant. They just don't see all these other options.

But it's the reason why we talk about in our sales training. We absolutely cannot accept. I need to think about it. Because if I'm in Michael's home and I'm good at one fifty, you're good at one fifty. You just need to sleep on it or pray on it just so that you feel good about it.

Right? And it's like, hey, Michael. You seem like a nice genuine guy. Sure. No problem.

Go ahead. Sleep on it. I leave. It's not out of the question that you get two text messages that evening about someone buying a house. We're in Phoenix.

It's just not out of the question. Mhmm. And, like, yeah. Sure. What's your offer?

And then some idiot will make an offer by text message or whatever, and now you're you're gonna tell him, well, you know, I got this other guy who's at 01:50. And the guy says, oh, I can do one fifty five. You and I had a great conversation. We built rapport. We built trust.

We seem to like each other. We're doing business together. I come back tomorrow with my contract, and you're like, oh, yeah. You know, I actually got a higher offer. Yeah.

So when you tell them why don't they why don't they why are they not aware they have all these options? It's just not relevant yet, but the moment is relevant. They are aware of all of their options.

Michael: Right. I have I agree with that, but I also have a slight counterargument. Sure. Okay. So my counterargument is that all of the marketing Mhmm.

That is done in in REI for the most part Mhmm. Panders to the lowest common denominator. Yes. It's last resort. Right?

So people look at that. Even if they hear it, think, well, that's not me. That's not me. I'm not I'm not in last resort space. I'm good.

I have Even if they are technically they are. Mentally not. They they're mentally, they're not. Yeah. Right?

They're like, no. No. No. No. That's that's desperate.

That's not me. I'm not desperate. Right. And there's no marketing in between Mhmm. That's offering just solutions for those that are considering.

So if you think about, like, all of the all of like, if you go on YouTube. Right? Like, your numbers are amazing, but there are 10,000 people talking about how to do wholesale real estate

Steve: and

Michael: how to make money doing it. Nobody is telling homeowner success stories. Nobody's out there talking about the solutions that they put in place for for homeowners.

Steve: Like,

Michael: every deal you close is a is a success story that you had with the homeowner. Mhmm. Nobody's sharing those. Nobody's marketing those. Nobody's positioning themselves.

So I'll give you an analogy. I was traveling in somewhere I was in Nepal. Mhmm. And I got off the bus in Nepal, and I got mobbed by 300 people that were like, you know, stay at my hotel, stay at my hotel, stay at my hotel. And there was one guy that was 30 yards back holding up a sign, which is the price Mhmm.

On the hotel.

Steve: And I

Michael: was like, I'm staying with that guy. And I walked through the crowd, I stayed with that guy. So when they get to that decision point that you mentioned, right, are you gonna go with the person that's always been there Mhmm. And was was a known solution even if you weren't ready to go down that path? Or are you gonna go with one of the 300 that are mobbing you?

Steve: So I think you look at the marketing component. Right? How much does it cost to market someone who is not last resort? Because, like, the margins are incredible. Right?

Yeah. This is life changing for most people. You do one wholesale deal a month. For most people, that's life changing. You're making more money than you can get, for the most part, at a w two.

Yeah. It's life changing. So the margins are ridiculous. Right? So then how much can you afford to spend to market to get these situations?

The other thing too, you can't get those same margins early in the cycle. That's when they're desperate Yeah. When they need help or the margin is highest. And so I'm going to share a story here that I've never shared in public because it's grossly inappropriate. But I think this makes sense here.

Michael: I thought it was my job to say grossly inappropriate things. So I

Steve: have a friend, and she was disgusted with the messages she was getting.

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: This was way before Tinder was around. It was some other dating platform, and she's just disgusted by this. Yeah. Like, why would these guys send these inappropriate messages?

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: I was like, well, it's a numbers game. She's like, what does it mean? Like, you're gonna say no, and most self respecting women will say no and be offended. But there's that one girl that will say yes, and he gets what he wants, and that's it. So all he's doing is marketing like an REI guy.

Yeah. I don't need to put my best foot forward. I just need to be who I, unfortunately, am in that context, and there will be a girl that says yes. Right. And I think that is the lens most people are marketing.

Michael: Yeah. I get it. I agree. I just think that the lens could be a lot wider and could But what's

Steve: the cost?

Michael: Sooner Right.

Steve: To do that.

Michael: Great question. Right? So so how do we how do we do that at at a level that doesn't have a huge price tag

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: On it. And I'm not gonna offer a solution right now. Like, I didn't come here to offer that solution. Right? But what I will say is this.

Like, part of the reason why I'm here and part of the reason why I wanna, you know, partner up with people like yourselves, we just we just closed a deal where we're gonna provide data through DealMachine, and I love the way that they've educated their clients

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Michael: All all the way along. They're really Oh,

Steve: that's great.

Michael: Really great about education. And so I wanna I wanna I wanna team up or we wanna team up with the thought leaders because I I genuinely believe that the way forward, not just for SMS, but the way that all of us are gonna scale in real estate investment is by widening that circle. Right? Because the desperation circle is always gonna be here.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: But if we can get into the nurture circle and the op options circle Mhmm. And we can do that in a way that's cost effective, then we can increase the inbound leads coming in.

Steve: Right.

Michael: Where people are like, look, I don't think this is for me, but I'm I'm curious. How does this work? Yeah. Because then it goes back to it's a question of timing. Right?

Because if they're asking that question, to be honest, and I don't mean to be harsh about it, it's a downward slope. Right? Like, they're it they maybe maybe they'll come into a windfall, and they'll be able to reinvest it.

Steve: Same thing. We're We're like, hey. I got a loan mod approved. Okay. Great.

I'm gonna follow-up in two months. Yeah. Because that's the reality is you got if you needed a loan mod, even if you got approved two months, you're gonna be in the same exact situation.

Michael: Sure. So it's it's an early indicator.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Right? And if we can get these or leading indicator, We can get into that kind of marketing that gives us not only leading indicators

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: But inbound data coming in, then we solved everything because we have opt in data Mhmm. And we have data that nobody else is going after because it hasn't hit the desperation circle yet.

Steve: Right.

Michael: Right? And there's a way that we can manufacture that, I think, that equals that and then reroute that through SMS engagement that's gonna equal this whole circle or circles of available audiences that no one else is touching.

Steve: So we're talking about this theoretical component. Yeah. How are we gonna find everyone else earlier on? Because I think everyone would love to do it. Right?

Like, back so I've been doing this for some time. Right? Back in 2009, I could buy preforeclosure data prior to being public record. Right? So in Arizona, you'd be late for three months.

And after you're late for three months, now it's three months since foreclosure. Right? But the public notice, now everyone is on you. Right. Right?

I was able to buy data where you weren't public record yet. Yeah. That's now illegal. I can't buy that data anymore.

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: I've tried. So to your point about finding by hitting these people earlier, I'm all about hitting people earlier. Question is how what data are you hitting if you're getting to them earlier?

Michael: Okay. Well, I think that there's what we need to make a clear separation, right, between what is data. Mhmm. Because that's gonna be outbound always. Right?

They they didn't come to you. They didn't raise your hand.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Their hand, excuse me. And what is inbound? Mhmm. And and I understand that inbound is, in the beginning, gonna be a fraction

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Of, but it it creates another opportunity. Right? And that opportunity could have a high return. And it also just sets up processes that are there for for scalability. Now there are lots of ways that you can do this.

Like, we had, somebody that we worked with that was on TikTok, and he went around recording videos in the forest, just selfies, talking about wholesaling, and he got 600,000 plus followers. And from those followers, all of all of they got pushed to a website. Mhmm. Not a very good one, but he collected 30,000 plus opt in leads off of that off of that system. Yeah.

Free. Walking around the forest, recording TikTok videos. Right? Like, he put nothing into that marketing cost. Nothing.

Right. I think I I think, like, his neighbor's kid designed the website. Like, nothing. 30,000 plus people said, sure. Send me more information.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Right? So there are ways that that that we can get people to come to us, but it comes down to what I think it comes down to. And this is my personal opinion. K? What I think because there's that desperation circle that we talked about.

Right? Mhmm. Surrounding that desperation circle is mistrust. Mhmm. So trust is a huge barrier to get over in REI.

Right? It is. Because like like the analogy that I gave, 300 people are rushing at you. You're not gonna look around and be like, you look trustworthy. Right?

There's just gonna be a general sense of distrust.

Steve: Oh, yeah. No. There's a lot of people that think we're as cameras.

Michael: Right. So how do you how do you get in front of that? Right? How do you be the person I said was holding the sign in the back?

Steve: Right? So, I mean, the way we found that that we we got a contract, two, three weeks ago. It was a it would they found us through SEO. Right? Yeah.

They went on Google, Googled. People buy houses. We like this company. We went out there, and we had no competition. Well, we didn't have no competition.

We had a home investor guy we're competing against, but they're like, yeah, we hated that guy. Yeah. And, again, we bought it cheaper than the home investor offer. But

Michael: Exactly. And organic SEO is free.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Cost nothing.

Steve: So I think that's one component. But for the most part, hitting people earlier, I don't know how to hit them earlier.

Michael: Well, what I'm what I'm saying

Steve: Or hit hitting people with different precursors.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, that we can we can we're gonna try that through messaging, and I encourage people to try that through messaging to not take the we buy houses for cash Mhmm. Approach. It is on the the reason why I'm I'm I'm sure some people listening or watching have had trouble getting their website, registered with the TCR because they have the we buy houses for cash stuff splattered all over it. Mhmm.

It's because the carriers have marked that as being potentially fraudulent or potentially distrustful.

Steve: Yeah. It's interesting because for us, when we went through that process with you guys, it was really easy.

Michael: Yeah. It's it it it is not a it is not a streamlined system. It's still new for them.

Steve: It's manual.

Michael: It it was And it's manual.

Steve: Fairly seamless. So, actually, I was gonna go through the the feedback here. So Yeah. Before we go through, there are a couple of questions from Facebook that I've I've posted. Hey, guys.

You know? Got launch control here. Everyone's freaking out. Yeah. We got these guys on.

Let's talk about it. But before we do that, so, you know, we are working together, collaborating because you wanna change how the marketing is done. I wanna change how the sales is done, so I think this is perfect.

Michael: Yeah.

Steve: So if you guys are interested in in working with, Michael and launch and launch control, go to textdisruptors.com, textdisruptors.com. So questions from Facebook, and, unfortunately, there were only two. We will get to both of them. I guess there's multiple questions in one of these. How is the deliverability to all major carriers?

So how how is deliver deliverability at this moment with all the major carriers for launch control?

Michael: With us, it's pretty uniform across all of them.

Steve: So what's the do you have a number? I have a number, but do you have a number?

Michael: Yeah. It's it's gonna be, for the most part, in the in the upper eighties. Some will some will go into the lower nineties, but there are a lot of things that affect to that, including, saturation within a market, how many people are sending texts. So it it can vary.

Steve: Sure.

Michael: What what people should understand is if if it's anywhere in, like, the 85 plus range, everything's all good. Right? If it drops down to, say, 60%, it's not launch control. It's not the software. It's the fuel you put in the tank.

So stop, and we'll take a look at your data. We'll take a look at your messaging, and we'll we'll see what clogged up the drain. Mhmm. But it's not the soft the software doesn't vary more than a couple of percentage points. Any big drop, it's what you put in the tank.

Steve: Yeah. And this and you guys have been incredibly helpful coaching our team on that. What are what keywords are a no go? I know, like, it was a big deal in, like, 2019. It's like, don't say blue or out of the blue.

That's gonna kill you.

Michael: Yeah. Don't worry about the keywords. We are constantly or consistently analyzing and and updating those, and we won't allow the messages to go out. Mhmm. You'll know because you won't be able to save a template in the system.

If it's one of those words that are are very clearly being filtered by the carriers, don't cheat. We have a growing list of of words where we you know, somebody wanted to say offer and they put a zero instead of an o, and then I have to roll my eyes and, like, block that. Just just don't. Just, you know, if it's if it's getting filtered again, launches the biggest network of real estate investors in the country. If you are doing these little things that you think are are quick little workarounds for you, it's harming the entire ecosystem for everybody.

Don't do that. If everybody wants to maintain high deliverability levels, play nice so that we can all wanna win. So we can all win. Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: So off top of your head, offer sounds like it's it's a no go.

Michael: But it's already blocked. Like, you don't have that's what I'm saying. Don't concern yourselves with keywords. We'll take care of that. Like, we'll

Steve: let you know. But if someone wasn't using a

Michael: launch, what are the Oh, yeah. Well, look. It goes back to marketing. Right? Like, we buy houses for cash.

That has that is on carrier's radar. Mhmm. Like, solutions for homeowners, alternatives for homeowners is not. Right? So if you're saying cash, offer, deal, out of the blue.

Like, you know why out of the blue is on there? Sound sounds random. Right? It's because one person probably had a text message template that said, hey, Steve. I'm sure this is out of the blue, but just wondering if if you owned 302 Maple Drive.

I I can give you a cash offer for it. Right? And then they sent that same message. And then that investor said to their investor friend, hey. Got this great template.

Starts with, I know this is out of the blue. It's a winner. And then 10,000 people did it, and the carriers were like, why are hundreds of thousands of homeowners getting messages that say out of the blue? Yeah. It's because somebody thought they had a magic text, and they sent it to everybody.

Well,

Steve: I think it's because it started from cold call text Yeah. Or cold call script. What are the volume limits?

Michael: The volume limits on

Steve: texting.

Michael: On texting? It's I mean, we can go all the way up to an enterprise account, which will allow for, well, at the highest level, 10,000 Mhmm. Message segments a day. Yeah. But, I want people to think not and and, look, don't get me wrong.

Like, we make more money as a company when people go up to higher levels, but I don't want people going to higher levels just to go to higher levels, just to send more messages. What I want is people to make as much money as possible out of the data that they put into the system. Right? So before anybody scales up in terms of how many messages they wanna send, I wanna have a conversation or have my team to have a conversation about strategy. Mhmm.

Right? Because if if you can close on a pro account as many or more deals that you could close on an enterprise account

Steve: Mhmm. I don't

Michael: want you burning data.

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: Data is expensive. Skip tracing is it's expensive. Don't do that. Right. I want you to have the systems in place to to like I said earlier.

Right? Like, if, let's say, you send a thousand messages and you get 200 responses, how many from those 200 responses are you gonna filter out as do not calls? Yeah. Now you've got, say, I don't know, 80 workable workable leads in the system. How many of those 80 leads challenge yourselves?

How many of those 80 leads did you did you turn into multi touchpoint conversations? How many of those multi touchpoint conversations had a discovery call? So the level of discovery call, how's like, what's your business close rate? Like, how many did you guys close? Right?

Can you up that number? And think of it from a real inbox KPIs of of conversion. Right? And if you're if you're looking at conversion rates and you've you've like, I can't do any better with our conversion rates. We're closing 60% of discovery calls.

It's bonkers. We're making tons of money. Up your volume. Right. Right?

But don't up your volume without systems in place.

Steve: Yeah. Makes total sense. So, real quick, you know, I actually asked my team to give me some feedback prior to you guys coming on to the show. So there's a few thing few different things. It's from Ira.

She runs our operation. So, things she likes, fast support. The launch control team provides clear, detailed onboarding shares best practices. The 10 DLC registration is made easy since support can provide a specific issue the company can prove to be approved. No need to worry about phone numbers for texting since it's built in.

That's pretty cool. Provides dashboard that tracks deliverability and conversion rates. Can add multiple initial templates that flag all unwanted keywords before saving. Yeah. Provide spinners, so there's different ways of saying the same things.

Options to store multiple drips, quick templates, and follow-up templates that can be assigned to each of the prospects depending on the status of follow through to leave, which is great. Can use up to three phone numbers per prospect. I guess filter out litigators and landlines. That's huge. Saves us money on the landlines and definitely sleep better without the litigators.

And the second, third, numbers are automatically targeted the following day, which, again, makes our lives easier because before, we just focus on the first number. So, I I had them pull up numbers, and we were at 89% deliverability rate, which is significantly higher than prior to working with you guys. Mhmm. Right? Back then, we set out to hell with this thing.

I think we were at, like, sixty, sixty five percent, deliverability rate, and I felt like every month we're playing whack a mole. Yeah. We had to change this. We had to change that. 89%, and it's easier.

That makes me happy as a business owner. Yeah. And 11% response rate. So we're getting people replying. They're interested Yeah.

Every single day. So I think that's absolutely huge.

Michael: Yeah. And, you know, the response rate, it it varies depending on on the market. You know, if you're in in a a little market that's not oversaturated, it's probably gonna be quite a bit higher, 17%. Right? It's never gonna be for outbound, it's never gonna be higher than maybe 20%.

Right? Because it's just the nature of outbound. Inbound marketing, it's double that easy. Right? Because it's it's it's wanted anticipated messages.

Right? So Like,

Steve: in 2018, right, it was, like, almost a 100%. It was ridiculous. Right? Yeah. So but 11%, I'm good with that because compared to co calling.

Yeah. Right? We're getting people we're able to, have conversations with way more people in a lot less time. Yeah. Right?

11% is pretty good on a daily basis. I think we're sending about 3,700 messages a day Okay. Something like that. Right? So to get 300 people to to reply for me Yeah.

Is a way because we couldn't have 370 conversations. No. Cold calling a day. No. Not with one VA, at least.

Yeah. So if you guys are interested again in in in getting some of the results, textdisruptors.com, textdisruptors.com.

Michael: Yeah. And a couple of things I wanted to mention about that. There are certain things that that you mentioned in there, like the filtering out of negative keywords or spam related keywords, creating message variations within the system. All of that is on the engineering side, and that's that's really the platform. And and that that equals us giving you as much of a one on one connection as possible.

Mhmm. So something like, for instance, the tech spinners. What that equals is a different message, even if it's a slight variation being delivered to every single homeowner. Mhmm. Right?

So it gives you the ability to from a marketing sense to AB test things and figure out what's working, what's not. But from an engineering perspective, what it's doing is making sure that what's going through the system is as close to natural messaging as possible. Right? Because we are not doing auto dialing. It is not a robo texting kind of thing, and we don't want anything that even gives the illusion of that.

Mhmm. Because all that we're really doing is giving you the ability to simultaneously maintain 20 active texting conversations so that you can filter as many of those up to that discovery call level as possible. Right?

Steve: Right.

Michael: On the REI side, what I would really encourage people to do is to work very closely with our customer success team

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Because they're not just app experts. They they're they're so deep into real estate investment at this point that I almost feel bad for them. Right, where they're just like, this is every day they're in it. Like, they're giving me they're sending me suggestions like, hey. We're seeing an opportunity in the Upper Michigan Peninsula.

And I'm like, what? Okay. You know? Because they're just really in it with the network. So definitely to work with them.

But the the the best approach that I've seen coming in to to work with SMS engagement is and, look, it's something I really deeply believe with real estate investment is that everybody's always on a learning curve.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Doesn't matter where you are in your business, you're always learning. Right? Network, connect yourself with coaches, get that really good REI kind of background and systems, Really think about even before you get to us how to apply some of those things that you've learned to that early stage engagement. Mhmm. Work with our team on on SMS specific engagement, and you will do extremely well.

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: Right? And, obviously, data matters. Right? Like, we're gonna set people up through the, through the DealMachine, partnership that we have. We're gonna give people, DealMachine data straight out out of the out of the way.

They'll get a a free thirty days with them coming in. So they could they can utilize that, but they don't you know, but in in general, data is really important. Yeah. Right? Like, you the best data that you that you can afford to put in, do that.

And per our conversation, just try if if you have 0% inbound now, aim for 5%. Mhmm. Aim for seven. Try to get the those inbound up because those leads that you retarget with SMS, the ROI on those is outrageous. It's so it's so high.

Steve: Speak on that. I mean, what are some examples?

Michael: Well, I people that are say, like, I gave the the example of, like, you know, using direct mail Mhmm. To retarget. And so they know who you are. Mhmm. You're picking up a conversation that you've already had.

Yeah. You're capitalizing on the timing aspect. Right? You're not sending that retargeting text two weeks later. Makes no sense.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Right? You're picking the right time. You're sending it. When people have done that, like, the response rate is, I don't know, 40 plus percent, and and people are reengaging, and they're able to close those deals. It's they they are motivated leads.

Right? Like, you your your percent it just takes what you were able to close from those motivated leads Yeah. Adds to that. Right? So this goes into what I was saying about, like, not having a versus mentality.

Mhmm. So instead of, like, how many deals did I close with direct mail versus how many deals that I close with SMS, how many deals did you close by joining those two together and and using them using SMS to retarget direct mail, using direct mail to retarget anybody that was a non responder in SMS. And you put all that data together and go, wow. Between the two Mhmm. And using the two to play off of each other and get the best results out of both, I ended up with an extra four deals.

An extra four deals is an extra $80,000, maybe a $100,000. That's life changing.

Steve: Oh, yeah. No. It's real money. Yeah. So another question that came from Facebook was, what are all the differences between, real estate investors texting and, you know, election season's right around the corner.

Mhmm. Because those text messages during a presidential campaign, it's nonstop.

Michael: Yeah. There there really isn't that much of a difference, honestly. Like, it's there everybody has that b to b arrangement with the carriers. It's it's just a question of of filtering, really.

Steve: I think the political campaigns are exempt from whatever laws there are.

Michael: They're they're not they're not a 100% exempt. There is a different filing. Like, the the way that they register, it's it's a different channel that they they register for so that they're they're separately marked. Mhmm. So they're they do still undergo some filtering.

They do get things shut down, but they they it's less filtering for political. It's less filtering for NGOs or any kind of fundraising.

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: They have they have a separate registration process for those.

Steve: Because, during the last presidential election, it was pretty crazy. Yeah. And it's like, okay. Well, these guys are exempt from certain rules.

Michael: So I mean, it's also like, it's a question of it's a question of opt in too and and, like, what's around it. Right? Like, I I don't know this. So, you know, this is not this is not stated fact. But if if, you know, you're registered as a Republican or registered as a Democrat or registered as an independent, it it's it's as close to public record as possible.

Right? So people are gonna be able to get those those lists, and there's there's even in some cases, like, an assumed opt in. Right? Well, you're you're a Democrat. You want Democratic texts.

Right? Like but, again, like, if you can you should be able to opt out of those. And and they're it it There's

Steve: so much money going in. You can't opt out of all of them.

Michael: But this this goes to our conversation. Right? Like, there's there's that balance between this perfect world of a 100% opt in for everyone, and it's all wanted conversations and and the growth of profitability for the whole telecom industry and and being able to stay within the balance of those two. Right? Stay within the balance.

You don't, you know, you know, disrespect the recipient or the collective recipients in in in your dataset, and you'll be fine.

Steve: Right? So best practices, follow the TCIA guidance. Yeah. Get your 10 d l c figured out correctly. Treat text marketing like you would any other marketing, not as just this kinda text blasting tool.

Try to have as many conversations as possible. Yeah. So just like you'd be intentional with your direct mail piece or your TV ad or your PPC landing page, be intentional with your text message

Michael: Yes.

Steve: So that people will reply to it. And then focus as much as you can on the people that replied, not texting these people that have not replied forever.

Michael: Exactly. Exactly. Because all of the money is in the inbox. Mhmm. Right?

So and and if they're all teachable things, right, like, I'll use cold calling as an example. It gets predictable. Right? Like, you know how people are going to respond.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Michael: so you have decision trees. Right? If the person says this, reply with this. If the person says this, reply with this.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Why aren't more people applying that to text? It's the you you you have

Steve: had to.

Michael: But you should. Right?

Steve: You should. Because Moving forward, you have to. The standard is getting raised.

Michael: Yeah. The standard's getting raised, but it what is also hidden in that or not so hidden in that, hidden in plain sight, is that hundreds of thousands of dollars are in that.

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Right? Like, by doing that, it's not because you have to. It's because there are tons of leads that are getting left behind or deals that are getting left behind

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: Because somebody didn't take the one extra step. Right? The one extra message, the one effort to pick up the phone, they'll they're taking the time to instead of having, like, a VA hit quotas to actually have a decision tree mapped out. Mhmm. That if the homeowner says this, notify, you know, the the sales agent immediately and let them call.

If they say this, reply with this quick reply. If they say this, put them on a drip campaign, but set the first, the first delivery date for ninety days out because we don't wanna pester this person. Yeah. Like, have that decision tree. It's a teachable decision tree.

By having a teachable decision tree, if you can take your results with Launch Control from being 10 x to 20 x, 25 x, then what's the dollar value on that for your business? So it's not like you have to. It's an opportunity to Right. Actually make really profitable improvements to your to your your marketing structure.

Steve: Everything you're saying makes total sense. I think the default is just to spend more money on marketing.

Michael: Yeah. And and, well, this is what I'm saying where I think that, like, we can we can work together.

Steve: Yeah.

Michael: And and I don't just mean you and I. Mhmm. I I do want that to happen, but, I mean, in in a sense of, like, the real leaders in the industry and the people that do understand sales and marketing. You know, you and I had a conversation earlier today where I said, I feel like a lot of people get up to that stage in their business where they're making 7 figures, and they think it's, you know, time to go on vacation to Costa Rica, and they realize that they have to learn sales and marketing because their business is that big. Mhmm.

Right? So let's work together to start that at the early stage when somebody still has a day job. Yeah. And and they've got these little bits of marketing that are cheap but effective

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: And and scalable. So So that when they do get up to that stage, they can just bail to Costa Rica and have a good time because they've got really sophisticated sales and marketing cadences set up that are producing, taking their business from 10 x to 25 x on on these combined, you know, multichannel marketing efforts. Yeah. And and everybody is making a can I say a hell of a lot more money? Absolutely.

Everybody's making a hell of a lot more money. Right. You know? Solve a lot more problems. Exactly.

And, yes, thank you. And, also, it means that a bigger pool of homeowners that we're able to help Mhmm. Some of those that haven't hit the desperation circle yet, that are in those outer circles, by widening that pool

Steve: Mhmm.

Michael: It's, again, think about the recipients. Like, how many people did we help out of really bad situations before they got to the point where they just really felt like they had no other option. Right? Like, if we can start helping more and more people, the knock on effect of us helping more and more people is that the reputation of the industry goes up. Right.

And if the reputation of the industry goes up, then more business starts coming to us. Right? Like that manufacturing inbound leads gets easier. Yeah. Because somebody talked to somebody that they gotta they they, you know, had a problem get solved for them before the last resort resort point.

Steve: They're like,

Michael: this is actually a good idea. You should consider it. Right? So, again, we've raised the profile of the industry. The inbound leads come to us.

We close those inbound leads. It's not it's not that hard to project the millions that come out of that. You know?

Steve: No. It makes total sense. I wanna think about something you wanna leave the listeners with, a final message everybody. I'm making just a couple of quick announcements. Guys, you know, again, we've got our sales community.

We've got over a 100 people in there now, and the role playing sessions, the call reviews, we're having live multiple live training calls every single week. If you guys wanna close more sales, the fastest way to do it is get really good at sales. So we invite you to join us in our community at salesdisruptors.com. Make sure you tune in next week. We got Sean Terry.

You know? I consider him, like, you know, the godfather. He spawned all these little wholesalers, including myself. Yeah.

Michael: So we

Steve: got Sean Terry coming on next week. And, again, if you guys got value, please subscribe. A rising tide lifts all boats. So what final message would would you like to leave everyone with?

Michael: Last message would just be, you know, come to Launch Control. We'll we'll get you set up with some really great engagement processes. We don't just send messages. We're really focused on improving real estate investment businesses. So come work with us.

We'll we'll give you the tools to succeed with SMS engagement. And if you need them, we'll help connect the people to people like you that can really help them, you know, learn those sales processes and expand the marketing opportunities that fall outside of our subject matter expertise and just use our our giant network really Yeah. To to, you know, connect people and create those success paths that they need to to scale up.

Steve: Yeah. Perfect. And someone wants to get a hold of you, best way?

Michael: Best way, if you can if you wanna get in touch with me directly, you can email me, michael@launchcontrol.us.

Steve: There you go. Michael@launchcontrol.us is really easy.

Michael: Mhmm.

Steve: If you guys wanna check out text, launchcontroltexdisruptors.com, and we'll see you guys in there.

Michael: Alright. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Steve: Shout out to Steve train. Jump on the Steve train. We real estate disruptors.