Episode #240 – Systems For Scaling Your REI Business with Bob Lachance, Part 2

You're listening to the REI marketing nerds podcast, the leading resource for real estate investors who want to dominate their market online. Dan Barrett is the founder of AdWords nerds, a high tech digital agency focusing exclusively on helping real estate investors like you get more leads and deals online, outsmart your competition and live a freer, more awesome life. And now, your host, Dan Barrett.

0:39 Hey, guys, welcome back. You're listening to the second part of last week's episode? Let's jump back in. Yeah, so like, what do you what have you found to be the ways in which investors work most efficiently or effectively with their team in the Philippines? Right? So it's like, there's like logistical things like there's a time difference. It's like, whatever, you can kind of get over that, or, you know, get faster, they work on your timezone or whatever. Right? But then there's, you know, are there communication issues? Are there sort of expectation issues, like if you're, if you're consulting with an investor, they want to work with people in the Philippines, which, by the way, my, my experience has been very similar to yours.

The the people that I've met, who are working in the States, from the, you know, working remotely for companies in the states in the Philippines, have been almost universally, like very hardworking, very diligent, excellent likes, really well educated, very well trained. I mean, it's not like you're taking a step down in sophistication, theory, very sophisticated in the kinds of work that they can do. But it is a different culture, right? It as it is, in some ways. So like, what do you kind of say to people, if they're saying like, Well, okay, I want to really do a good job both for myself. And for them, what are the ways in which I can make sure that that

1:58 happens, you know, you got to make sure you put the virtual assistants It's same as hiring here, you want to make sure that you put the right person in the right seat. So I've found that you know, if you have, so we do disc profiling and predictive index, right, so we already do that. So we already have kind of a makeup. So when when we have a client that wants certain tasks, that we already have a leg up against everybody else, because we're going to put the individual is strong. And if he's stronger communications, we're not going to probably put them in and bookkeeping, because it's just a different kind of, you know, if you want a bookkeeper, you're probably not going to have that same profile as someone you want to do communication on the phone and things like that.

So that is very, very important. So if someone's looking at that makes you do DISC profile. And I always say this, if you anyone could go hire a virtual assistant on their own right. And I just say this all the time, we obviously have a lot of benefits working with us. But if you want to do it, I would do the same exact thing, you have to make sure. And be careful, because you'll go through 100 applications, and you go through probably 20 3040 interviews, only to get one to find out what the wrong person. So make sure that you're very diligent in that, because I've made that mistake myself, to dog 30. And I went through a couple of them because I was my own worst enemy. Because I didn't know all this stuff. Of course, you know, how many eight plus years later I kind of got it. I got it now. And that's why obviously, with our company, we asked for those things.

But I think it's very, very important for you, and every individual what their hierarchy are, I mean, you know that right, then we're iron heater or in another country, it's the same, but just answer your question as well. Filipino culture is customer service. There's a lot of call centers over there. They're exactly behind. So they work at night on our time. So you and I are East Coast Standard Time. I have almost 20 virtual assistants working for us, and they work our time. And there's not a problem at all.

3:47 Yeah, yeah. So recently started working with a virtual assistant to kind of help me manage my stuff. And I'm always like, what time is it for you right now? And he's always like, that was like four in the morning and I'm like, Sorry, dude. Like I feel guilty about it. He's like, it's not it's not a thing. I don't

4:02 care. It's a way of life. Right? So they're totally normal. But to me, I'm like, I can't say up past 10pm Eastern time. So you know, hurts me it hurts me in my bones. I'm going to so we're just real quick we could take a quick detour. What has your experience been with predictive index? We also started using predictive index this year. It was kind of an experiment for us. I ended up doing way more hiring this year than I anticipated I used it a lot but I also feel like I don't use it anywhere near to its fullest potential and you know people that who are very very deep in predictive index, what's your take on it? How do you guys use it? Just give us a general overview of what you your thoughts are?

4:39 Yeah, you know, we have a lot of clients that want to see the reports right. So when a hiring virtual assistants, they want to see reports, so we give it to them, however, they look at it, you know, they look at it. So we use that in our office here to predictive index because if you want someone on their own, you want someone like a captain or a maverick or or, you know, wow, whoever wants that type of person. We also We're looking to hire a CEO as well. And we're going through this predictive index. And, you know, for me personally, I know a lot of people that really dig into it and really take big stock in it, I look at it, in my, my opinion, when I'm hiring like a cold caller, I want them to have a certain kind of profile, or someone who's going to be on the communication side of it certain kind of profile.

So, you know, again, like I said, everyone has a little bit different take on it, of some people dig into really, really deep, just like you said, you know, you're you're probably just scratching the surface, and I stay on the surface with it. Because when we have clients come in, some of them, you know, our surface, like, let's say us, and then some of them really, really dig in to say, alright, well, if your caucus score is a certain number, I don't even want to look at it. Right. So.

5:46 Yeah, it's, it's interesting, right? Like, it's something where it certainly seems to help direct a conversation. But I also, like me, personally, I wouldn't want to shut someone out merely because they didn't do well on this particular test. Right. But that along with an interview along with whatever might help, I think it definitely helps I 100% agree. Okay, so I want to ask you a couple of different things that I want to ask like 40 billion things, but I'm certain I don't want to keep it too long. So I want to ask, alright, let's, let's go back a little bit. You started investing in 2004. I have been asking everybody on this show this route 13 interviews deep now where I've asked this question every single week, and I want to ask you this question as well. What was 2008? Like for you,

6:32 you know, we actually know is common. This one, I was partners with Pat, we, we were a year ahead of everybody. So we were doing short sales. And we pivoted, we knew kind of knew something was coming up. So we started doing short sales for other investors and real estate. So we kind of pivoted into into a service base, also on the investor side. But once it pivoted, we are still profitable. What I mean by that, because what happened, I mean, it sucked, don't get me wrong, we lost $250,000 in transactions, because what you're doing simultaneous closings at that time, and we'll a lot of people don't know what that means.

But we're using the end virus funding to fund our DLL. Everyone got paid, and we got a nice check. So it's pretty cool. So did it affect us? 100% What I wish I would have done gone back I wish and like 2010 We started buying property. It's all like, I wish like if you can get a crystal ball, that's what I would do. What on the affecting us as a business. I think we're fortunate, you know, pap Powell is a pretty smart dude. And he kind of he was my mentor the whole time. So he kind of saw there's gonna be a change in the market. So we did pivot before everybody else did. So that for us, that was a huge saving grace.

7:39 And you said your takeaway from it was you wish you had sort of buying again earlier, like when you say you wish you're buying into this always buy buying so we would always buy and sell, buy and sell, buy and sell, buy and sell. But you look at some of the individuals that just sold out to maybe funds or whatever that had 234 100 doors, they just made a windfall, like we're gonna bought properties for 3040 50 grand in Connecticut, New Britain, Waterbury, these properties are now 200 grand, right? Even more. So. You look of course, we could all say this, where you can always look back, but so that's why I tell newer individuals, there's never a bad time to start. That's why I said there's never a bad time to start buying ever

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8:53 Well, I love that takeaway, because my follow up to that question was I think a lot of people right now we're recording this at the end of 2022. Right? I think a lot of people right now feel pretty uncertain. It's been a very weird back half of this year. Really, it's been a very weird three or four years. But I think more started to really feel anxiety about the market this year. I certainly see that in my business. When you look at the current situation today, do you see echoes of 2008? Like how are you dealing with the market? Are you changing at all? Are you is it just full speed ahead? How do you view like our current situation?

9:35 So on the real estate side, I'm doubling down. We're going harder, we're spending more money and we're driving more leads. I like it because there's less competition. You're not right. I mean, you look at it and you say if you're a knowledgeable investor, you do things right, you build the right team, right? If you're only in Israel, like if you're only a wholesaling, just wholesaling, start changing your process and you might have to start rehabbing a little bit. The reason why I say that because Back in, oh nine 2010. The only print if everyone does, you could do this statistics online, a stock that was selling, a lot of people will know this.

They're buying our humans, but they're getting bought up by investors, rehabbing them, they would sell because people didn't have money at that time, because they're unlocking their HELOC prior to that, but then didn't have money to fix up and resell. So if you look at that same thing, it's happening, there are still people that need housing, there's still a lack of inventory, Connecticut, there's a lack of inventory. There's not I mean, there's not a ton of land and Connecticut, there is right, a lot of steps especially want to stay near Hartford, where you're gonna go, right, you're not gonna, you're not gonna want to, you know, live near Hartford living, you're not going to move out to like New Hartford, dentists, or Winston or it's, it's a little far away. So

10:44 anyone can look into towns in Connecticut that nobody knows, unless you're from here, but a very nice example are very far away from everything. Yeah, that's exactly right. So that's what I see in the market, people are still buying or selling the most eyeballs out there, obviously, you're gonna find more buyers on the MLS, you have the opportunity to sell your properties there, then that's what I would recommend, because that's where majority of buyers are a lot of wholesalers, or rehabbers, I should say wholesalers are getting beat up because they don't have enough buyers. They're not going they're not selling them in the right channels. So as a wholesaler, you have to find those right channels to sell. And those are retail buyers, you want to make money, you got to figure out how to get those properties in the retail hands.

11:25 Yeah, I really glad that you said the whole thing about competition? Because I do think there is, you know, there's certainly some market correction happening, I think there was a pretty significant gap between probably is still is between what sellers expected to get and what buyers were willing to pay. Right. And there's that gaps are created a lot of uncertainty. But as you said, the underlying situation of the housing market, the what's available, the amount of inventory, all these things, isn't that different now than it was when there was much higher competition, right. And in many ways, you know, all great investment decisions hinge on, you know, something that the rest of the market doesn't or the rest of the market is just making the wrong decision, because it's primarily emotional, and you're making more rational decision, right? So I'm not saying that everybody needs to step up or stay in the market if they're uncomfortable with it. But I am saying, I think there's a lot of room for that strategy to make a lot of hay is particularly when people pull back. So I'm really glad that you said that.

12:26 I didn't let let me just add three seconds. I know we're really young. But and I'll answer as a service provider, too. Right? It's all answered as it so I see some individuals, right that, that they start looking at the numbers and let's go with it. We're in holiday season. Yeah, holiday season is different than not holiday season. So you and I have a unique view on on what we seek right? Once January comes was all of a sudden, boom, your leads start going through the roof again, that are you had to send an election in November. So there's a lot of stuff going on. So the way I see it, I look at it as a service provider, you know what you're typically I love it me because I use my service.

And I'm adding more virtual services because I'm driving more leads. So I can look at it on two different sides of it. So for me, I'm happy on both sides of it. Because I know what happens. When you have less, you may lose a couple clients, right? Both of us may lose a couple of clients. But in the end, you're going to gain more because those individuals the masterminds were part of I know you have a phenomenal mastermind, right? The mastermind, you're part of those individuals have been in business for a long time. And the longer you've been in business, you understand that you've got to stay consistent, you've got to stick it because once you stopped doing as a lead stop content. So kind of interesting.

13:38 If you wait till let's say January, February, March, whenever it is, when lead volume starts to come back. And then you try to put everything in place you find yourself if you're going behind the people that just stayed consistent in the first place. Right. Agreed. So there's a bit of I'm going to throw two curveballs that you will see it we'll see. We'll see how you feel about it. You know, and you can we can take it early, but I'm very curious what you see if any, as the interaction between virtual assistants and the AI tools that are currently coming on the market. So this has been really like the last quarter, massive popularization of AI. I myself been playing around a lot with like the open AI API's and just building little weird tools. I'm curious if you see something cool happening in that space, if anything, if you have any opinions on it, because I think it's an interesting space, but obviously wide open and super new.

14:37 No, it's funny. So there is some fantastic AI out there that you know, will help content rich, right. And I see that as a very good tool because content create creation is you know, you look at and I'll use this as an example. You look at real estate education programs, right? There's really no new information. It's all regurgitated and changed and pivoted on whatever type of personality you've got. Can I do that? Of course they could, they can make a brand new. There's, there's apps that our kids use right now, I hope none of our teachers hear this. But what they do is they literally could take an old paper that someone else wrote, and it'll jumbles everything and sends it back to them.

Like, I almost would not want to get kicked out of school, back in the day if I had that. Right. So, you know, it is what it is. It's just part of how things are going. But if I look at the virtual assistant world, will it affect some content? Creating beatings? Of course it will. But we all have to evolve, I think, you know, it's, it's every industry you got about, you got it, just like we did back in, you know, back in Oh, eight, you know, Pat, and I were ahead of the curve, we got to stay on the curve as a service provider, are going to stay ahead of the curve. You as service, Brian, you're gonna say, Oh, this is fantastic. How can I use AI to help me? So?

15:49 Yeah, we've been using it for things like I made a little program, just with Google Sheets and connecting Google Ads API and stuff, I was able to pull Google Ads metrics. So just like here are all your account metrics. And here are the account metrics for the previous 14 day period. And then I'm going to have the API right, like a paragraph or two that explains those metrics in plain English. Right. And so things like that, I think it's not so much people getting replaced as it is people are going to be capable of more and more sophisticated things in in much shorter timeframe, which I think is just going to be hopefully, really awesome. Either that or the end of the world. It could go either way. But I hope it goes the physical it will be okay. It will be okay. Yeah, like it will be we'll be alright. Now, let's total. Let's go totally the other direction. What, if anything, did you bring to your business from your time playing hockey? You are a professional hockey player, if I'm remembering correctly, yep. What, if anything, did you bring slash learn from that part of your life into this part of your life? Yeah,

16:57 I mean, and I would say two things. One of them is grip. Because business is very similar to do professional sports or sports in general. And it's also, you know, we don't always win in this, this game of business, right? You take a beating, but it's how good you are when you get up, right, you dust yourself off, you get up, there's a lot of takeaways from sports where, you know, you got baggage to game, you didn't dress the game or whatever happens. Someone took your spot in the powerplay or somebody, you know, you didn't do something and you have to overcome adversity. Same with business, you got to always overcome adversity, because, you know, not every day is going to be the same.

You may lose a deal, you may lose a client, I may lose a client, I may lose a deal. It's like, you know, back in the day, you think is the end of the world. But you know, you're like, Alright, you've got to keep going, keep going, I'll add two, I'll lose one. I'll have drink. I'll there's two, it just, you gotta keep going. It's always for progress. So the takeaway is no matter what, it's never the end of the world, ever. The world keeps going. So does the business. So no matter what you get hit, you stumble, you fall down, get up, dust yourself off and keep going. I think that was, you know, grit and in knowing how to overcome adversity, I think are probably the two biggest things.

18:12 Yeah, man, I love how you're saying it's like, you get three, you lose two, you get two, you lose one. It's that that he's sort of accretion of marginal gains is such a powerful image, the compound effect now, right? It's always it's like Darren Hardy's book, the compound effect. Yes, long compound on each other. As long as it's compound in a positive way. You made two steps back, but you're still compounding in the pond and away.

18:33 I love that. You know, I haven't thought about that book and forever. One of my very, I think my very first one of my very first business coaches mailed that book to me, and I remember, yeah, it's such a simple idea, but it's such a powerful one at the same time. Alright, so we've talked about Riva global obviously, the site is at revolt, global.com, R E V A global.com. If people are interested in potentially working with you guys, or just learning more about the service, what should they just go there? What should they do?

19:05 Yeah, check out the website. Of course, we have a button on there. That's a strategy session. So you could jump on a strategy session or one of our teams are always on Instagram. I'm on a bunch of podcasts. I know. Preston is our marketing guy. He's gonna start delivering different tidbits of you know, how individuals use virtual assistants, things like that. So Instagram, like them on Facebook, and obviously our website.

19:26 Alright, so we will have links to all that stuff at the show notes for this week's episode, which he did at Edward stearns.com/podcast. Bob law chance from Riva global thank you so much for coming on the show. And this was really a fun and fascinating conversation. I really appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thanks, Dan.

19:42 That is it. That's it for our interview this week. As always go over to AdWords nerds.com If you need help, putting together a marketing strategy for your real estate investing business, that is all we do, and it has been all we've done for over a decade now. There is a reason we are still in this space. And it's because hey, we're pretty good at what we do. If you need help with your online marketing, go over to AdWords nerds.com and we will help you out. As always, thank you so much for listening. This podcast means the world to me. I appreciate it and I will talk to you next week. Cheers.

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