Ep 132- 2000% Return on Marketing Through Finding Land Deals feat. Anthony Gaona

Transcript

i don't believe in market saturation at

all at all it doesn't even i never think

about it and i think that's just because

i feel like i'm out working other people

and it's through products like deal

machine and hive mind where you can

continue to market to people over time

and distance without ever having to

think about it so if i've already

marketed if i'm sending a postcard to

100 people or 200 people now that check

with the count is um i'm going to be

talking to those people for all time

already so instead of thinking about

those 100 people i'm going to go find

another 900

right before i even worry about what the

other hundred you're doing and i think

that's where the magic happens is

marketing is cumulative it's over time

and distance um so when somebody says

you know what should i do about my

marketing blah blah blah i'm like do

whatever you're planning on doing for a

year

right and my game is like i said talk to

as many people as possible

but i want to get into your your time

and

talking about your success so tell me a

little bit about how you got into real

estate investing and to where you are

like now what what did that journey look

okay cool yeah i'll try to give you the

short of it

so i've been a contractor probably for

about 20 years but it was my dad's

company i've been doing that for a long

time general contractor

um i was young i thought i was going to

be a famous boxer my dad said get in the

truck you're going to work so all right

whatever

same thing i guess

um with my dad's company it was either

like diesel famine you know we either

had a lot of work or we didn't have any

work at all so i started like tinkering

with like marketing you know trying to

get us more business sometimes it was

door knocking

i've tried mailers you know i've done

everything that i thought would work

right um

whatever generates business so either we

had way too much work or not enough so

that that was kind of like my my history

and then i would say almost 15 years ago

started messing around with online

marketing i started doing some

pay-per-click that kind of stuff and i

got really good at it you know we had we

generated so much business that we

started like hiring all of our friends

and family still generating more

business so we started like

subcontracting

more business coming in so i started

selling the leads off you know i started

just selling jobs okay you just pay me

you take this job

um so that's kind of it led up to me

doing commercial roofing good contracts

you know half a million dollars for a

roof

and i kind of stuck with that niche for

a little while um so i got to the point

where i was looking to build a home so i

said you know i wonder how i could buy

some land you know and get ready to

build a house i've never been a had

never been a homeowner before i've never

bought a house i've been to a closing

never been to a title company nothing oh

wow

so i got on good old youtube right and i

searched uh you know how can you buy

land for cheap you know how can you find

cheap land how can you buy you know get

a deal on land

and of course lo and behold i came

across the term wholesaling

i saw a video somebody made said how to

get land for free and i'm like this is

interesting so i started i went down the

rabbit hole

and i all these gurus kept on saying

marketing marketing marketing i'm like

hey i'm a marketing guy what are they

talking about and then finally the light

bulb came on these guys were using

marketing to generate

uh property seller leads and then you

know monetizing those so like

all the like dots connected in my head

i'm like i've been doing this but i've

been doing it in construction for a very

long time

so i immediately just went like gung-ho

on marketing i did everything i started

doing mailers bandits i mean absolutely

everything just i think i did like 25

000 like in my first 45 days of

marketing

got my first contract

my gosh that is so much when you said

listen when we tell people to take

action you like took action

yeah because i already knew what was

going to happen i feel like i've been

doing marketing long enough to know that

if you just generate a bunch of interest

some of it converts and some of it does

not so i said let me get to a deal as

fast as i can and see what happens and

take it from there

and uh yeah through those efforts um i

thought i was gonna be like a house

flipper right because you see the the

shows on tv and they make it look so

simple of course

oh yeah and they look like you're just

yeah yeah simple

there's one problem but don't worry

they're gonna get over it

eight thousand dollars they remodel

inside and out in 14 days like yeah

right

so um i got a lead in a place called

grandview texas so this is like north an

hour south of fort worth 45 minutes and

it was for a farm it was for 46 acres

the lady gives me the price and uh i was

like man that's probably gonna work for

me i saw that it was off i-35 which is

the main vein that runs through texas i

was like okay wait a minute this is

pretty interesting well turns out i end

up making eighty-five thousand dollars

on that so i was like um i'm just gonna

stick to land right

i stuck with land as niche

and i noticed that even though they were

big deals you know fifty thousand

hundred thousand plus they were few and

far between so i'm doing like eight

deals a year 10 deals a year

for my first couple years

um so i had this dream i said what if i

could like teach the whole entire

country how to find these very specific

types of deals and then just jv with

everybody

um so that's how hivemind was born we

created a crm product white labeled

and then we started inviting everybody

to use it

we'll teach you how to generate high

volume of leads and then

you know hopefully we can jv with some

of these people it's working out great

there's almost 350 of us and climbing

so yeah not too bad at the start but

that's where i'm at right now

i love that and you and you use deal

machine

absolutely yeah so i have a fun a

diminishing story

i love fun deal machine stories

i have a cousin he has a successful car

dealerships off the side of the highway

so somewhere down the road i'm into

investing that's all i do i just invest

i don't take fancy vacations or anything

and i decided that i would like to have

a highway lot you know so that i could

buy stuff cars rvs you know that kind of

stuff and parking on the side of the

road

so this is valentine's day i want to say

it's been about two-ish years maybe

three

and uh i asked the wife i said you want

to go like to dinner and a movie i said

do you want to go find some commercial

property and she's like let's go find

the property so i'm like okay cool he

twisted my arm

oh love of your life she knew she's

that's perfect

she's just like me she empowers my

madness

so um we we're driving down like 410 at

i-35 on the south side of san antonio in

that area and of course we got our deal

machine open right ready and

i was i didn't know too much about the

app you know i hadn't gotten to the

intricacies of it i just knew that if i

find a property i like press the button

and it throws my postcard right that's

all i needed to know say no more

and that's exactly what we were doing so

we were driving around to different

properties and when we found one that we

would like we press the button boom hit

him with the postcard and then i would

never think about it again right worst

follow-up process ever i would never

look back in there i'd never double

check on it

we're driving down i-35 and my wife says

i think we saw one back there she said

turn around and i never saw the thing

absolutely didn't see it just driving

and we pulled over to this property that

we thought was abandoned

we pull over to the side of the road

it's kind of front yard looked a little

messy it looks like a really old house

with two garages one on either side of

it beautiful house like an old german

house with nice beautiful brick arches

amazing property

but nobody had taken care of it the roof

was in really bad shape you had some

material blowing on top of the roof so

it looked like it might have been a tear

down

um but sure enough that's our property

right break out the deal machine boom

send the postcard take a picture

and uh we left didn't think about it

anymore

i would say this is where the magic of

dough machine happens this is what i

love

um we were at home in the kitchen and my

wife's phone rings and it was the owner

of that house

and she's like hey i think it's a lady

from that property so we started talking

she and she said that you know that she

asked i said ask her if she'll work with

us on make some kind of deal

and she said yeah why don't you come

take a look at it i'm in new york i

think she said i want to want to come

down to texas i'll go walk the property

i'll show it to you we'll check it out

bang hang up the phone

like okay this is amazing a lead that we

got months ago

right this is what i love about deal

machine is that it's cumulative right if

you're sending out these postcards

they're sitting in somebody's drawer

they're sitting on somebody's table

they're sitting somewhere um so we went

out we met the seller at the property

she showed us she gave us a grand tour

she said

um okay and i want three hundred and

fifty thousand so me and my wife are

like we're not in a position to take out

a loan for 350 000 for a side project

especially right right something we want

to do as a side hustle and she said no

she says you're going to help me and i'm

going to help you

okay she stuck out her hand i was like

okay shake her hand let's do it then

she says she's willing to work with us

um no closing no anything this is off

the side of i-35 so it's like sixty

thousand seventy thousand cars passing

by from this thing per day

um because i want you to put up your

sign out here she says put a sign i want

you to start generating business just

like like this like right away says you

can put up a sign right now

so i'm like okay again no closing no

deposits no nothing

um it was a residential property i'm

going to like try to file variance with

the city i'm going to all these meetings

and she says i'll go with you so i can

talk in front of the city right from the

mayor all these little people this

little town

and um you know while we're there at the

meeting i showed her a picture of a

house and i was buying subject too and

she goes is this for me and i said

um it can be you know beautiful 3 000

square foot brick home you know white

rock all that stuff

we went to go see it she fell in love

with it so what we ended up doing was a

property swap so she

would take this commercial property and

this subject-to house that i had that i

had no clue what i was going to do with

that picked up for four thousand dollars

and i gave her the house and then she

gave me the commercial property so when

i give her a free and clear deed to the

house she gives me freedom clearly to

the property so now i'm paying two

thousand dollars a month all in for like

a half million dollar commercial

priority so i'm like

so i'm like through deal machine i got a

half million dollar property for free in

my mind

i that is the first i've ever heard of

like a property swap just like

yeah i think that's the first story i've

ever heard of that

swap subject to rap i mean it was just a

crazy

crazy crazy deal it took my attorney a

while to piece it together

yeah what would you say to someone uh

i'm sure that was quite overwhelming

ever like to to go through that so what

would you say is something uh

what would you give advice to someone

who's maybe like it's it's overwhelming

they're like i don't even know where to

start with this it's getting so

complicated i would say don't think

about anything be ignorant like i was

download the app take pictures send the

postcards just do it start using it over

and over and over again

again because you don't know if you're

winning or not unless you use it over

time and distance

and sure enough yeah it paid off huge

for us we actually leased out that

property and it's cash flowing 900 a

month right now the commercial property

so now i'm getting a commercial property

for free you know using deal machines so

i said you get use it use it use it over

and over again even if you don't know

it's working um it is cumulative i'd say

take a year

take a year and send the postcards um

skip trace call the numbers call the

people make the deals but it 100 works

yeah we're big-time believers in it i

appreciate that but

i love that you said i'd love to because

i also send out mail marketing i

and you're you're so

i mean i experienced in marketing um and

i think that's i love that you said that

because i think a lot of people get

discouraged um

by you know month after month not

hearing anything the phone's not ringing

um two questions about your strategy

so you guys send out the mail how many

times do you have it repeating

i just left it on on repeat um i think

we put it every 90 days or something

like that okay definitely yeah so just

yeah just leave it on because in my mind

if you're that interested in a property

like for us to have stopped in the first

place and press send what's obviously

something that we were interested in and

something that we loved and then in my

mind

those people aren't on any list

right i'm in the list business my

partner has a list company called the

list guys um and that's just not really

like how i do marketing so i think that

these people that we are marketing to

using dim machine they're not on

anybody's list and that's something that

not a lot of people are thinking about

you know that chance that that property

is on somebody's list that's why it's

still in the condition that it's in

so it's a very unique property but i

think again it's cumulative it's about

going about after that property over

time and distance

you know less so than just throwing that

one magic dart and then you hit it right

on the right on the money they talk

about the

spray and pray that method a lot

but when people i think you make such a

good point because when people start out

they don't always have like the biggest

budget and so having those

niche that niche list of properties that

you only have um i feel like that's

going to save you money then too you're

not just like spraying it out and and

hoping you actually know that there's

some there has to be some sort of stress

in it and

motivation somewhere

um and what so how does your team look

like now like do you do you how do you i

know you said you go on and you went on

a date with your wife to go do that but

now what is driving for dollars look

like how do you make sure that you're

getting the leads in consistently

um me personally since i'm always

running around looking at real estate we

just we're kind of doing the same

strategy like when i see something we

just pull over and send the cards just

make it happen every single time yep and

then again like i said like my follow-up

game is kind of weak if it wasn't for

hivemind i wouldn't have any follow-up

game at all and then with deal machine

it's kind of the same thing where you

set it and forget it so that's something

that like i feel like i could use that

for the rest of my life it's just how i

operate

um so i mean

that's the easiest thing is and i love

that you said that because i i am the

same way i that's why mine are on for

forever because i'm just like i i know

they're getting followed up i just don't

need to forget about it so it's like

peace of mind anxiety gone

uh you know that they're seeing you so

what do you have a specific like a

favorite postcard to use or do you just

use uh the default postcard

yeah the default it's very very simple

again like keeping it not getting

complicated or anything i think the real

magic happens is because they see that

picture of their property on the

postcard they're like what the heck is

my property why is somebody sending me

this so it's going to make you read it

um i want to find the text maybe we can

put it in the show notes i would like to

find the text what we put on that

postcard but

i forgot exactly how we worded it but

it's just all pretty basic it's like the

way that it comes out of the box

absolutely works we didn't get fancy at

all okay i love that and yeah i think

the biggest thing people get hung up on

are those little tiny things and then

the action isn't taken so

i love that you're you're like preaching

that and

and taking that out um

to people because that's i just feel

like that's the biggest thing everyone

says well what are the what's the words

that i should say and it's like you just

say

whatever's on there or like you can just

easily write a letter type thing to

somebody like it doesn't have to be

super fancy um i and how okay so in the

san antonio market i mean texas in

general i feel like is just very

uh competitive or uh people i've heard

people say oh i'm not gonna send out

mail marketing because

that doesn't work in text because

everyone's getting mail marketing and or

something like that what would you say

how many postcards do you feel like are

sent averaged to get a deal have you

found

you know we haven't done the numbers on

that and again because like my brain has

always been wrapped around doing a ton

of deals right so if i can quantify it

and say hey for every 100 postcards you

send out you get a deal then i would be

stuck to that but i'm like let's send

out 10 000 postcards right and let's get

a ton of deals like a whole

load of them i would say this anybody

that thinks that you know sending a

postcard or sending mail does not work

stop stop marketing to the inner part of

the city so if you take your city it's

like this right this is the city of san

antonio in here

market to this out here

and that's been where the magic happens

because nobody's talking to those people

because people are lazy so nobody's

driving out there so i want you to grab

your doom machine app open it up drive

all the way to the edge of town and so

you start to see farms five 10 acre

farms 20 acre farms even if you have to

drive out 30 45 minutes or an hour and

mark it in that area and watch what

happens i promise you that's where the

magic is it's less about

it's funny too because right they say

texas is very competitive and that's

that has not been my experience and i

only know how to do deals in texas right

i'm learning other states but this is my

primary market so i don't believe in

market saturation at all at all it

doesn't even i never think about it and

i think that's just because i feel like

i'm out working other people and it's

through products like deal machine and

hive mind where you can continue to

market to people over time and distance

without ever having to think about it so

if i've already marketed if i'm sending

a postcard to 100 people or 200 people

now i gotta check what the count is um

i'm going to be talking to those people

for all time already so instead of

thinking about those hundred people i'm

gonna go find another 900

right before i even worry about what the

other 100 are doing and i think that's

where the magic happens

marketing is cumulative it's over time

and distance um so when somebody says

you know what should i do about my

marketing blah blah blah i'm like do

whatever you're planning on doing for a

year

right and my game is like i said talk to

as many people as possible

yeah no i think that that's really

important and then i mean i love that

you're saying even to a year because you

just don't know i've had leads call me

after a year and

like you said they keep it on their

fridge or they keep it on like now oh we

get all the time and i want to know how

you handle this and i'm sorry i'm asking

you 20 questions

but i i have to ask so you're talking

about like the the picture of the house

makes a difference when someone calls

you and they are

done

po'd at the fact that you took a picture

of their house how do you respond

you know i i come from an area of

concern

and then also praising them making them

feel good because they call you they're

lit they're going to be mad they're

expecting an argument i call them and

say it's such a beautiful house and i

saw that the windows are boarded up you

know and i'm a roofer it looks like you

have a roof leak you know on the front

of the house where the shingles missing

and i can tell that the wood's kind of

deteriorating i'm just wondering how

such a beautiful house got into this

condition you know it brings them way

down like oh well it was my mom's house

and that boom boom boom boom boom so

easy from there but if you don't engage

them in an argument and you come from a

place of praise you know even if it's an

empty lot you know that's that's a

beautiful piece of property like in a

nice area and i'm you know the grass is

six feet high you know i'm just kind of

curious like how does the property get

into that condition you know i'm just

just curious so if you come from a place

of curiosity

instead of you know i'm an investor and

i buy this stuff and why did you let

your house whatever i think again like

being empathetic with people and stuff

goes a long way and you'll see people

turn on the dime i had a lady tell me

that my house is not for sale none of my

properties i'll never sell anything and

i said hey look i know you said you'll

never sell this look in the same breath

i said but if you were gonna sell how

much would you ask and she says i

wouldn't take a penny less than 65 000.

and i said um when can you show it to me

she's like can you meet tuesday

so within like six or eight sentences

she went from i'll never sell to i'll

meet you tuesday

i can't believe that was all in the same

breath that that happened like the fact

that i'm like

to me that would i mean she threw out a

number i would have if i was saying that

i'd be like didn't you just hear me i

said no i'm not telling you but no she

just throws out a number that's i guess

it goes to the fact of like uh

uh you don't know unless you ask i guess

yeah and i think like again don't engage

an angry person with with anger or wit

right and we try to be funny and

sometimes when somebody's po we try to

you know say these cool things that we

heard somebody else say

but i think getting all that out of your

head and just being a genuine person

like i said and that's something maybe

they didn't expect you know they're used

to like yelling at people that market to

them and then when you say hey i'm just

kind of curious you know i love that

house amazing house i drive by it all

the time

you know how did it get in that

condition and then they go to a

different spot in their brain probably

they've never been before you know then

they go deep a little bit like well it's

been in my family forever that's why we

don't want to sell it

and then also i always do this too i

always offer to be a resource

so again like this is not me trying to

sell a contractor job because i'm doing

like zero contracting now except for my

own projects but i've been like you know

i have a guy that can work on the roof

for probably next to nothing you know

and if you can't afford it you know or

something you don't want to put money

into you i mean i might get them to do

it for free

maybe for 50 if you bought the material

you know i'm just

you know matter of fact just keep my

number

count on me as a resource if there's

something i can ever do for you you know

you have my number now this is my cell

phone you're welcome to call it seven

days a week

that kind of stuff you know so leaving

people off on a good note no matter what

they say or no matter what kind of

attack they have

i think

that can always go a long way no matter

what even outside of business

i love that yeah so they not only have

your physical postcard but you're

telling them to save your number and to

i mean that's what i love about the

marketing is that if someone says save

my number i may not save it right there

but if i have that physical copy it's

like your business card that they can

hold on to

i think that's wonderful and i love that

i i love how you respond to that because

i have done like the witty things

sometimes of like oh well you know it's

probably i'm i'm on the street like it's

not about thing that i'm taking i'm

trying i'm not a creeper i promise

but i love that approach because

they most likely are in a very

vulnerable position

and you have to

you have to you know adhere to that and

i love that that's so great i i love

man i wish i was in san antonio right

now

uh because this would be so much fun to

get together and um

i had another question and i just lost

it you're getting back in a few seconds

when we change subjects

yeah i'm like i just i i'm getting so

much good information i would love oh i

do want to know so where are you at now

i know you said you have a lot of

projects going on

are you

building a portfolio are you flipping

like what um what does that look like

for you now i know you said you were

doing eight to ten deals you wanted to

do more what does that look like

yeah so now

and leveraging the community with uh

with hive mind and of course now we're

rolling out deal machine to the

community

um yeah but now we're doing like

starting to get like 10 12 contracts a

month and climbing yeah so it's going

crazy i'm just starting to hang on to

stuff so like i said we got the sub 2

house we have uh i bought a little tiny

mobile home park with three units on it

and we have the dealership uh we're

closing on a 5 000 square foot office

today that we're gonna turn into like

the airbnb slash co-working space and

then we're gonna office out of it um but

yeah now we're starting to hang on to

stuff i have uh i bought 180 acres

subdivided it sold a bunch of those off

and so i still have some acreage from

there i have a thousand acres under

contract in texas it's uh two hours

south of san antonio so i'm gonna start

to sell off a lot of that seller finance

some of that stuff so that's kind of my

game now i'm looking for acreage like 50

to 100 acres to a thousand acres plus

within like 30 minutes to an hour of any

major texas city but if it goes over a

thousand acres and over then i'll look

almost anywhere in texas it really

depends as long as it's not like in the

middle of the desert

but that's where i'm at now i'm starting

to accumulate a lot of land

i love that and did you find your land

for your house that you wanted

um we found the one that we wanted 600

000.

right yeah i want it we want it i'm

still going after it but like i said i'm

piecing together all these other cool

deals and moving around resources so

and if we don't find something better

than that's the one i want yeah because

we could use the front as commercial and

then build the house in the back and

it's like surrounded by farms and it's

like included crazy like it looks like

it will never get developed around this

based on where the house would sit so

that sounds like a dream i i

i love that and that is my that is my

dream i want to like a little tiny farm

but i i actually would love to and this

is um

kind of i really appreciate you coming

on here and talking to me about all of

this and i know that you have meetings

as well i'm trying to be very cautious

of the time i'm so glad we got to

connect and don't be a stranger

definitely follow up i want and i'll

send you the link too for the webinar

okay yeah count me in i appreciate

everything thanks for having me on of

course have a good one meet you thanks

take care

you