Joe: What's going on, guys, Joe McCall, Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast, what's going on? High five. I hope you guys are doing well. By the way, do you like my new plant? I just got that the other day. I got tired of so many people telling me, hey, why do you still have a Christmas tree when it's not Christmas and why isn't it lit? So I got something that doesn't look like an evergreen pine tree. Anyway, I hope you guys are doing well. This is the Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast. We are coming to you live right now on the YouTube and Facebook. So if you want to leave a comment or review, just say hi. Tell us where you are from. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I'd love to say hi. I'd love to hear how you're doing. And if you have any questions for our guest, then put them in there as well. This is going to be a good show. We're going to be talking about reviving your old leads and even more than just reviving old leads, but working some pretty cool things with the leads that you already have.

Joe: And we've got a great guest on today. His name is Chris Craddock. Sorry, Chris. I'm going to bring him on in a minute. He'll correct me here in a sec. He's with a company called REI Revive and a good friend of mine, Tom Croll. A lot of you all know him. He's been on my show many times. I talked to him a lot. He really highly recommended Chris to get him on the show. And he's doing some really cool things in the real estate investing space that not too many people are doing. And it's super competitive right now. It's hard to get leads. It's hard to get sellers on the phone. But we're going to be talking about some of the things that Chris is doing and how you can do it as well. All right. So first, you guys know about my book, REI Secrets. This podcast is brought to you by my book. You can get it. Just pay shipping and handling it. Six ninety-five or seven ninety-five shipping and handling. We'll get this book out to you literally. I probably lose money on these books, but it's a great way to a lot of people love it and it helps a lot of people.

Joe: It's called daily nuggets of real estate investing wisdom to help you get more leads and close more deals. And each of these chapters are just a couple of pages long. And it reads like you just read one chapter a day to give you some inspiration and some ideas and hints and tips and tricks of how to do more deals. Right. And here's this chapter. It's funny I brought up Tom Croll. Is wholesaling really complicated? No, it's not. And Tom and I talk about this here in this chapter. Tom Croll has a saying. He says, wholesaling is easy, wholesalers are complicated. So anyway, lots of really cool daily nuggets in this book. You can get it for free. Just pay shipping and handling. I don't make any money from this, by the way, because some of you are like but once you opt in to get the book and you pay for it, there'll be some opportunities there. You can buy some of the stuff of mine. But get your hands on this. REISecrets.com. Go get it right now. Cool. Let's bring Chris on. Chris, how are you, my man?

Chris: Hey, brother. How you doing, my friend?

Joe: Doing really good. Glad you're here. And where are you right now, Chris?

Chris: I'm in the D.C. area. I'm in Virginia, about twenty minutes outside DC.

Joe: All right, nice. And I'm going to move your screen up here so I can see you better there. You. I'm sorry about that. Welcome to the show. And a good friend of mutual friend of ours, Tom Croll, put us two together, had a great conversation with each other day and like, man, let's talk about that stuff on the podcast. That would be awesome to talk about. So talk a little bit about your background. What were you doing before you got into real estate and then why and how did you get into real estate?

Chris: Yes. So my story, first of all, you had Tom, Tom's, the man. So great guy and glad we could connect. Yeah. So I, I guess it was two thousand. I graduated from college and went on staff with an organization called Young Life. Loved Young Life. Changed my life. It was great. I made about 20 grand a year from young life. And if you know that DC area, that doesn't work well to raise a family on. And so twenty three. My wife got pregnant and it was before Google was the fount of all information or I didn't have Joe's book, which would probably have helped me a lot at the time. So I went to the library, got rich, that poor dad which was there, and then every other book they had on real estate investing. And I read them all and like almost I just didn't know much. But I knew that they were distressed properties and I just would go out, knock on doors. And in four months I made about twelve times what I made in a year with young kids just flipping distressed houses. And so did really, really well there.

Chris: And then continuing to do ministry stopped the real estate stuff for a while, but always led large groups of teams. And so going back to school, I got a doctorate in leadership and then I guess 2011, I've got six kids now, which probably should have gotten us, probably should have gotten a TV or something. You know, once you figured out what causes them now we can stop it. But it was great. We love it. It's awesome. But if you have a bunch of kids, you know, the money runs out very fast. And so 2011, I went back into knocking on doors of distressed properties and almost all of them because of the crash, were short sales. And so I was paying another real estate agent to draft up the contract. So I was just like, well, let me go get licensed. So I got licensed, draft up the contracts and get paid myself on those. Well, the banks change their algorithms and you stop being able to really make much money flipping short sales. And so during that time, because that always led large teams in real estate, I, I started a ministry. I had read his book, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent. And just started building a retail team.

Chris: And for me, I'll tell one last story. I know I'm probably talking too much. I'll tell one last story. But one of my good friends, actually, I think it's a mutual friend of ours, has one of the biggest wholesaling businesses in the D.C. area. And I didn't know him very well at the time, but I just kept Brad Chandler. It is. It is. Yeah, you could do. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. But I just kept calling over there because I think persistence breaks resistance. Right. And they like me, but they didn't. They tried to spend money on these kind of deals and lost money in places. And they're just like, no, no, no. We're not we've been given we give a thousand leads to an agent, a top agent just recently. And they only closed like six deals. So we're just not it's not worth our time. So I just kept calling. They finally gave me one hundred and fifty leads. Seventy of them had already sold 30 of them when I called them and got in touch with them. We're out of area. So I had 40 leads and I'm like, man, if the person they gave a thousand leads to close six retail deals with those, I got to close six with these hundred fifty and I've only got forty. So I did everything I could, built out every sales idea system that I could on that. But I got six close. I called them up and told them I got six deals closed and they said to me they're like, why don't you come into the office. So I came in and they're like.

Joe: When you say close, what do you mean by that? You are making cash offers or listing?

Chris: No, no, no. I got a listing agreement signed on those deals and then sent with the commission because their license was able to send them referral fees. So they got, they were getting money paid on the deals that I was able to close up and listed the traditional retail way.

Joe: So these were listings that sold and when Brad and his company got referral commissions because they're also licensed.

Chris: Exactly. Exactly. And then the crazy thing is when I went in and they said they said to me, Chris, you just kept calling it, you wouldn't leave us alone and we liked you. So we didn't want to just tell you to screw up is like, so what? So we just gave you leads. All those leads were like five years old. And we figured that you'll get those leads. And I'd just be so frustrated that you'll stop calling every week. And I was like but you actually closed a bunch of them with that. So let's start talking about this.

Chris: And actually we started building out a system and a program from there. And since then, like groups like big groups that are doing a lot of marketing, I mean, we're sending like over 60 grand a month to and a month to and other brand-new wholesalers that haven't even include wholesaling deals. We've taught them how to do this where they've got agents they're sending stuff to and they're making more money on this than they are on their wholesale business because it's crazy. Like normally you can only get paid when somebody wants to sell for like sixty-five cents on the dollar in this. It's like you can either do that or if it's a retail deal or one where they don't want creative financing, you literally can get paid every time the phone rings. So it just makes it makes it great.

Joe: OK, so a lot of people are like, what is he talking about? Right. Like, so you're a licensed agent. Yes. OK, and so you got hooked into real estate by reading the millionaire real estate agent book. Yes, I agree. Killer, not the millionaire real estate investor book. So you decided to go into the realtor route, right? Yeah. And you probably have tried going down that route of trying to get the listings and doing the traditional realtor stuff. I imagine you get a little frustrated with it. And so now you decided I'm going to take some old leads from a wholesaler. You didn't know, but we're five years old. This might have been a good thing. You didn't know, right? Yeah. And so you called them up. And what was that conversationwith those sellers? What was that like?

Chris: I just I mean, I went through a number of different scripts and now we have our old lead script, which I mean, literally I mean, I'm going to give you a if you have a bunch of leads in your database, somebody here's the old lead script is are you still looking to sell if you got the right price for your property boom? I'll tell you, we just sent that text to eight hundred people that were in a database from old leads and we set twenty nine appointments from that. Are you still have to repeat that? Are you still looking to sell if you got the right price for your property. How simple is that?

Joe: OK, so then what? If they respond back. Yeah sure.

Chris: So for me, you know what you need to do is you need to set the appointment. If they think you're a real estate agent, their brother's uncle is a real estate agent. Right. There's more real estate agent than there are cars right now. There are so many real estate agents out there. So you don't want to set the appointment as a real estate agent, but you also don't want you want to be you don't want to be disingenuous either. So what you're doing is coming over and you're just saying, all right, well, sounds good. But why don't I come over and we'll see if we can make a cash offer or get your property sold for a price that you're looking for. And here's the deal. A lot of times people will go to these old leads. And if you're a wholesaler or a fixin' flipper or creative finance guy, you can give that offer. Right. But a lot of these real estate agents feel like. They can't, but here's the deal, like if a house will sell on the open market right now for three hundred thousand and somebody wants to sell it for one fifty, I'll give you my number. Call me anytime. I betJoe. Joe will probably give you his number.

Chris: And you can call Joe. Like you have a buyer and that's the whole thing. So you can go in and you have the different options there. You can, you can do the cash offer. You can put it on the market like everybody else does. Or part of our program is we teach people the five reasons why somebody wants to sell with an investor. And you answer those questions and you create a hybrid model that gets them what they want, but also allows them not to deal with the things that the reasons why they called an investor in the first place and didn't call a regular retail agent.

Joe: So what are some of those five things?

Chris: I'll share all of them. So one is: I don't want to pay commission. Two is I need to sell fast. Three is like maybe there a hoarder and they don't want their neighbors to see pictures of their house online. Four is they don't want people running through their house day in and day out. And five is in need so fast, just like some sort of distress situation where they feel like their house is too messed up to put on the on the MLS.

Joe: So these are the things that you share with the seller in the appointment.

Chris: No. The whole thing is there's a book that I really love. It's called Pitch Anything. And the whole idea is, you know, he talks about this power frame that people can kind of get into. And if a seller says to you, I don't want to sell with a retail agent because it names their reason, whatever the reason is, then you're never going to talk them out. They built their power frame. And it's so hard to get around that power from tools and tactics to do it. But you just don't want to. So when you start asking questions in your prequalification and that's part of our system is teaching the prequal, when you ask those questions, you find out which one of those reasons or ones. Oftentimes there's two or three reasons are the reasons why they don't want to sell to a with a regular retail agent. And then you walk in and you custom tailor your hybrid model after the script, answer to whatever it is, whether it's, you know, whatever the reason is, you custom tailor their model, then they're not setting up that power frame saying, no, I don't want to pay a commission. So, boom, you're done.

Joe: So how do you breach the topic of you are a licensed agent and because I've had that happen to me before too, when that when I said, yeah, I want to buy your house, but if I can't buy it, then I'm going to list it. And then you can just sense the walls coming up with the seller. Right. But like, how do you how do you handle that?

Chris: Well, see, this is part of our process as well, is I don't think that like Joe, if you were to come to me and offer to buy my house, offer to buy my house, look, let's just say I think average house in my market is worth four hundred. Right? So let's say you came in and said, hey, Chris, I'll buy your house for, you know, I'll buy a house for two hundred thousand right now. And I said, no, it's just too low. I'm not willing to do it. OK, well I can listed for three seventy five right now as it is. I don't have any trust for you at this point. You just told me two numbers that are so far apart that you've lost all the trust. So. So our system is that if you're coming in and you give a cash offer, you don't give the cash like somebody the investor already gave the cash offer. And so you don't want to give the cash offer unless they're likely to take that right. You just say I've got a cash offer for you.

Chris: But honestly, with what you want for the house and what you know, what you should get for the house, I don't think you should take that so I could give you the cash offer. Also, I'm a licensed real estate agent with XYZ brokerage. You have to disclose it, but there's a thousand agents out there. And frankly, I don't think you should listen to the regular agent based on what you want because of the fact that you want to sell fast without lots of people coming through your house. We've got our hybrid model for you, which combines all of the investors that we know in the retail model. And we'll make sure that nobody's coming to your house except from one to three on Saturday, one to three on Sunday. Other than that, nobody will be in your house at all. But that worked for you, Joe.

Joe: So you tailor the pitch to based on what their needs are and why they need to sell.

Chris: I think that's what real sales is, right. Like everybody thinks that sales is like taking from somebody, but it's not. Sales is you're a doctor, right. And you go in, you diagnose the pain point and then you write the prescription for their pain. Right. And then the people that make the most money are the ones that solve other people's problems.

Joe: All right. So the seller wants to sell, but they don't want to pay a real estate commission and they're semi motivated. Right. But they and they have the equity. They don't want to pay the agent commissions. And you're sitting there with them. How do you how do you handle that conversation?

Chris: Well, so the thing that I would say there is if you're already at the place where you're arguing about commission, then the power frame is come up and you're already in trouble. Right? So that's the whole thing, I think. What is it? Wayne Gretzky said he was the best because he always skated to where the puck was going to be, not where it was. Anticipation is the real key, and so that's why at the beginning, when you're talking to them about maybe a cash offer, whatever you'll ask, one of the questions is why? Why do you want to talk to an investor versus an agent? And they're going to say, I don't want to pay commission. Right. So at that point, you're not arguing about it? They haven't put their power frame up. They're just they're just giving you background information. Right? If you ask good questions, they will tell you how to sell that. Right. And so that's the whole thing. You're asking that question, which is all part of the process is in the prequalification. You ask this question. So then when you're sitting there, let's say they want to sell for three fifty and they could sell on the market for four hundred, we just say, OK, so we'll just role play here.

Chris: So you want you want three fifty for the house, is that right? Yes. OK, perfect. Well, you know what? I think I'm looking at this right now. I think your house was so really fast, really easy. And I know you don't want to pay any commissions. So how about this? We will make sure. I am sure we can get you three fifty and we'll probably even get you a little bit more. And what we're going to do is have the buyer pay those commissions, pay those fees, pay the transfer taxes. So we're going to tack on a little bit more money. And basically I'm going to negotiate the heck out. I'm going to beat up those buyers to make sure they pay that. And you're going to walk away with your three fifty. Do you feel comfortable with that? Yeah, that's good. Yeah. I mean, at that point they're winning. Right. But the second you're in that you're engaged in the commission conversation. Oh, brother, you've lost. It's done.

Joe: We talked before about somebody that we both know who did this a lot and he would do the marketing and get the leads come in. The marketing going out would be, hey, we want to buy your house. And anybody that called in, if they wanted to sell their house, his phone guy's made an appointment and he would send a realtor to the house. Right. And he would send the realtor to the house with basically two things. Hey, good news. I got an offer for you. Already have a buyer who wants to buy your house. Here's their cash offer. And otherwise, we'll just list it. And here's a listing agreement. Right. That particular model doesn't work necessarily if you don't do it right. And what were some of the things wrong? What are some of the things wrong with that model approach?

Chris: The first one is this. The agent you choose is so important that is literally straight up your business partner. It's not it's not just somebody I'm throwing some leads to, because if you throw some leads to him, you know, it's going to be good or bad or whatever. But if you choose the right person and there's criteria happy, hungry, humble and smart that that you have to go through to get the right agent.

Chris: If you choose the right agent, that person is going to win a lot of deals for you. But if you say so, so what we're seeing right now is for an average agent that you choose twenty five percent of appointments you set them up on, they're going to get signed up as a listing. For an excellent agent, forty two percent is going to sign up as a listing. But what we see, what I've seen with a lot of my friends that have tried this and failed there, like around one or two percent is actually turning into anything. And so that's because they're choosing agent literally. Does the agent, do they breathe? They fog a mirror like, OK, go and they don't know their scripts. They don't know they're dialogs. Are they happy? People want to work with people that smile. Read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. Are you somebody that's likable, hungry? Like if somebody says no, are you going to are they going to take no for an answer? And again, they need to be happy. Somebody smiles, not like an angry person.

Chris: It's like you're going to sign this, you know, like I mean, I love Grant Cardone, but like, I see a little bit of like kind of immature sales people that think it means that they need to, like, beat people up in the way they sell. I don't think that that's right. And then humble. Are they willing this is a huge one. Do they think they know everything? Right. And like confidence and humility go hand in hand. Arrogance and humility don't. And see, that's a huge thing is are they confident where they are, where they're able to walk in, but also sit and say, OK, this person has a system that is working. I can sit at your feet and learn your system. Right. That's humility.

Chris: And then smart and it doesn't mean just great at the SAT, but it also means EQ. How can you read people? Can you read body language? One of my favorite books is what everybody is saying about body language reading. Body language is so freaking good. And you see that. I mean, I just had a deal about a few months ago or sorry, a year ago where the wife kept rubbing her neck. And I had just finished reading that book. And it said that if women rubbed their neck or play with their necklace, they're really nervous. And so I just stopped the conversation. I just said to her, so is there something you're nervous about it? She's like, no, no. I was like, are you sure? And she's like, Well, yeah. And then just unloaded everything. And I was like, oh, it's so crazy. People speak so much, but not always with words. And when people read that. So when you choose the right person. Then you're going to make a fortune, but if you choose the wrong person, maybe you'll make a little bit of money, maybe you'll do OK, but you're never going to blow the barn doors off and, like, totally pay for all of your marketing so that everything you make from there on out is profit.

Joe: So, Chris, what do you recommend to people then who are investors? They've got a business. They've got a bunch of old leads and they're wondering, I want to monetize these old leads. Are you are you saying go get your license, follow up with them, or get somebody on your team who's a licensed agent and trained them on sales or just find a really good realtor and partner with them? What do you what do you say?

Chris: Well, I definitely think I think I know this is different. People go different ways on this, but I think every investor should get licensed because if you are if you are known in your world as the real estate person, everybody is going to buy and sell is going to come to you about real estate and you might as well be able to refer people and get paid for that. So that would be one, too. I think that you should bring somebody in that's going to that's going to do that. You need to have somebody that can accept referral fees and there's a system and a process to do that. If it's not, you tend to bring somebody into your organization to do that. But you need to have somebody that can close. That's not your acquisitions manager. It's not your person offering a massively discounted price is not the same one that's going to close the listings. So you need to have that partner, whether it's in-house or out of house, is totally fine. The other piece and this is, so those are the old leads, but this is where the real money comes from. It's not all the old leads, it's the ongoing stuff. So let's say you close. Let's just say you close four deals a month, one week. Right.

Chris: So if you close of one a week, you probably have between five and ten of, let's say, let's say, five appointments a week. Right. About 20 percent closing ratio. Right. So you have five appointments. Well, one, what happens with those other four leads, those other four appointments they're going to sell to somebody, but you're not getting paid on that. And if you have five appointments a week, I can promise you with the amount of leads that come in, you have ten other people that want to sell and will sell in the next 12 months, but they want to sell at maybe ninety five cents on the dollar and nobody's going to sell that unless they're willing to do creative stuff. Nobody, no wholesaler, no fix and flip person is going to buy it. Ninety-five cents on the dollar. So when you can immediately hand those off in a way that's not, hey, go talk to the real estate agent, because I'll tell you, that's going to always lose. When you hand those off, you are going to make a fortune on going so that all of those leads I mean, literally, there are people that I've been coaching that are making as much money on their handoffs as they are on their wholesaling business. It's crazy. It's crazy.

Joe: Yeah, that's a crazy thing about this, that it's been in the back of my mind for the longest time, like, oh, man, how can I do that? But there's a lot of intricacies and it's not as simple as it might sound if you don't know what you're doing because you can't just refer. If they say no to your cash for you, you can't just say, all right, well, I'm going to have a realtor reach out to you and contact you. That's not going to work. Right. All right. So let's talk about how to find that agent. You know, how do you where do you go? Where how do you find them?

Chris: So, I mean, this is one of the things that I teach. And basically everybody is a part of some sort of investor club or Facebook group or something like that. So you just you just get on there and ask people who do they know that's a great real estate agent and killing it? Well, the problem is you're going to get four thousand responses, and especially if you're even moderately well known in your community as a decent investor, everybody in their mom is going to blow you up. And if they got your cell phone number, they're going to text you and everything else. So there's the script to get that. But then you need to get a VA or you yourself can go through and you need to make sure that that agent is doing the critical number of deals, because if they're not doing a lot of deals, then it's probably not your person. But the other side is you don't necessarily want the person that's doing all of the deals. Because what I found there is then you come in with something that's fairly new to you, even if the system works.

Chris: And oftentimes they're like, listen, I've got my way. I got my thing that I'm doing and they just give you a push back. So you need to find that person that's willing to grow with you because as you grow, if you send them deals, you're going to you're going to get all your marketing paid for and then you're going to pay for more and more and more. And I promise you, I just see this over and over again. You're going to break that realtors business, right? They're going to break. They're not going to be able to handle it. They're not going to be able to follow up. But if they are a smart person that's also hungry, they're going to continue to reinvent the business bigger and bigger because my business would break. Right. Like it just kept breaking and I kept having to reinvent it and know, OK, now that I'm at this many leads, this is what I do. I need to hire. Now that I'm here, this is do I need to hire. And so if you don't get somebody that does all of those things, the business is going to break and then the stuff that you send over, it's going to cap out at them because they're bottlenecked. But that's why you need somebody, I love Simon Sinek, the infinite game, the person that thinks really big and will grow with you.

Joe: Yeah, OK. So maybe I'm a little slow. I'm still confused. On the transition where it comes from, it's a lead that you get how do you transition? And, you know, they're either not don't have enough equity or they're just not willing to drop their price to 60, 70 cents on the dollar. How do you transition that lead into somebody else that's going to follow up with them?

Chris: You just send your property valuation specialist out. You just make the appointment.

Joe: OK, I get it. That makes sense. So the appointment who goes on the appointment is your realtor.

Chris: Yeah. Your acquisitions person is going. If it's a deal the acquisitions person is going. If it's not a deal you're still sending somebody and the realtor knows that. I mean this happens all the time with all the different groups is the agents will kick the deal back to the investor if all of a sudden you're there. And then this happens just a couple of times in the last month with my personal team where they're sitting there in their living room. And the person is like, you know what, I think I'll sell. What's the what's the cash offer again? And they just say the number and they're like, OK. And so the agents have again, you set this whole system up. They have that. They sign them up. And then here's the thing. If you're the investor, you cannot screw over your agent partner and say, hey, thanks for the deal. Whatever they would have made on that listing, like not at your price, but at the price they would have listed on the market, you need to pay them that and also give them a kicker, a bonus, because that was just found money. And the fact that you have somebody of integrity that's working with you, which is really important, and kicked it back, even though they could have made more money the other way, you just want all of our interests need to be aligned.

Joe: OK, so let's talk to the beginning investor who is just them, their solo investor wholesaler. And they've been thinking about getting their license. You know, maybe they're even in Illinois where it's illegal, immoral and fattening to wholesale properties. And they're like, I want to do this. What do you recommend? Getting their license and then say, OK, I'm going to get my license. Who do they hang their license with? Do they become their own broker or can they hang out, hang their license with somebody who gives them more freedom and latitude and things like that? That makes sense.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not a big fan of becoming your own broker. I think there's just so much liability, so much stuff that that is in that. And frankly, most states you have to be licensed for three years before you can become a broker. So that's the deal. And it's not just a liability. All my friends that have brokerages very few of them actually make much money from that. And so the two companies that I think are the best in the world right now as far as team building are Keller Williams, Gary Keller wrote the book on team building the millionaire real estate agent. And I think Gary is one of the smartest people in real estate and also I know EXP becoming a very high investor. They just opened up to become an investor friendly company. So I would say one of those two companies and honestly feel free to do me on Instagram and I'd be happy to point you whichever one I think would be best, depending on your situation. But I think that that's part of the process is making sure that you're aligned with the right people. You're aligned with the right company. You're the average of the five people you spend time with.

Chris: So are you setting up to be in a company that's going to allow you to grow? So that would be the first thing is to do that. And then the second thing is, don't everybody this is this is one of my big problems. Everybody ends up being a cheapskate. And I just hate it because here's the deal. You think, oh, you know what? I'm going to just go and I'm going to close this person up. I'm going to close this person up. I'm going to save money on the referral fee by closing this person up. I'll make this offer. But I think they like me enough. I'll do this. You're going to just lose so much more than you're going to win. Just bring in the partner, bring in your agent partner and let the numbers go. Huge. Stay in your lane.

Joe: All right. Some people are like who are investors or wholesalers are against getting their license because they feel like it's going to restrict them and they're going to get in trouble for making ridiculous low offers to a seller when as a licensed fiduciary, they could have gotten that seller a higher price than their cash offer. Right. So what do you say to somebody who says, I don't think wholesalers should get their license because you don't want to be held to a higher standard, but you don't want to have to answer to a commission?

Chris: Once you get your license, you definitely are held to a higher standard that one hundred percent

Joe: There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that.

Chris: Right. Yeah, a hundred percent is true. What I would say is this. I think that you still should disclose like anything that you're doing, you still should make your disclosures anyway. I mean, that protects you. And I don't think just because you don't have a license that you don't have that you couldn't be gone after. I've got so many wholesaler friends that are not licensed that have been sued. I just know that that can happen regardless. Anybody can get sued in America. The second thing is, if you are licensed, you do not have a fiduciary responsibility to somebody you do not have a signed agreement with, but you do need to disclose that you are licensed as an agent and that you are buying this for profit. Right. So that is just part of the process. You put that sheet in there, you have the boilerplate sheet that is in there that the seller signs and that I mean, that's just part of it. That's how you protect yourself.

Joe: So when you are doing the deal as a wholesaler, you're. Making a cash offer, you still make the disclosures, but you're still then just buying you're buying the house for sale by owner and you turn around and you sell it for sale by owner or what are you doing?

Chris: You can buy it and then you can list I would listed on the MLS, but yeah, you buy it for sale by owner if you want to, if you want to work something out with them where you disclose whatever and put stuff on there. And if you're buying cash there's no reason to. But if you're buying with a loan and you want to have your permission put in towards closing costs or whatever, then then you can do that just depending on what you use in a bank loan or hard money or any of that other stuff. It just depends on your situation. But you can do that. Just everything has to be disclosed. That's if your license. You just have to disclose, disclose, disclose, make sure that nothing is kept secret and then you're your father.

Joe: OK, so let's talk about old leads. This is where the magic of this really happens, because there's a lot of investors out there that have a lot of old leads. And you probably a lot of people listening to this have old leads right now. Let's say somebody has a bunch of old leads. And I want to ask you, how do you find somebody that has a bunch of old leads and how do you present to them? So you have a bunch of old leads. What do you recommend? How do you recommend reviving them, those old leads?

Chris: Yeah, so I say just that that text that I mentioned right at the beginning, throw it all in your text. They're all in there so you don't have to. They've responded to you at some point. Right. This isn't to everybody. You don't want to blast this to everybody because then you can get in trouble on the with the texting laws and everything else. But if they're in your in your CRM because you've interacted with them, then you can send that text out to everybody that says, are you still looking to sell your house if you got the right price for it? It's crazy. Literally, like eight hundred just over eight hundred people. We set twenty-nine appointments from that one text.

Joe: I should clarify too with REI Simple my CRM that I white labeled with Freedom Soft. You can send these texts to sellers out from multiple phone numbers and they limit you to how many you can send at once and they can spin the text. So it has very, very high deliverability. You can get virtual numbers. I really recommend you guys check out Freedom Soft or mine. REI Simple right here to get that. So you're sending this text. Are you still looking to sell your house if you get the price that you want or something like that. Right. So you just start sending the text. Do you do any cold calling or is it just texting at the beginning?

Chris: So at the beginning we just send the texts and then we'll send emails if we have email addresses. Yeah. And then after that we'll cold call through. So the reality is with the text, if you send it, let's just say the eight hundred mark. Right. We had about we had about one hundred people say they already sold. Right. They responded and said we are sold. So by sending that text out a couple of times before we start calling through and the emails out, you're able to cull that down because then you say, I mean, just think if you called one hundred people to say, oh, I've already sold, I mean, how many hours do you say, right. So the text and the email calls that list down and then you get the people that you haven't called. And let me give you guys here's like my number one tool for calling people. Right. This is it. So it's called the double tap text. Right. And what it is, is you call them and then as soon as you hang up, you call them again.

Chris: And if they don't pick up and I'll tell you 50 percent of the time, they will pick up the second call. Have you ever gotten a call twice from the same number? You're like, man, emergency, what's going on? And pick it up. Right? And then and then if you don't get either one of those, then you send the text. It just says, hey, is this Joe boom? And only send that if their name is actually Joe. But it is a joke. And literally, if I get a text and I have before this says, hey, is this Chris? Like, I'm always like, dang, do I know this person. I don't have the number on my phone, what's going on? And so I'm going to respond to that. Right. So that's it to the tap text. So you do that in the morning, you do it a couple of hours later. You do it the next day. And then after the three times that you've gone through, that's when you can start cold calling through.

Joe: Do you leave voicemails?

Chris: Most of the time I don't leave voicemails on the first call through. And then when I call through the next time, that that's it.

Joe: So, OK, now let's say you don't have any old leads. How do you go find somebody else with old leads?

Chris: Pretty much. Almost everybody that's been doing the business for even a small amount of time has leads. And you just and this is the hard part. Everybody thinks that they're going to you know, I'm going to give it to them one day. I'm going to get to them one day. But let's be honest, how many people actually get to them? And so that's that whole thing there is you can go to them and then if you offer them something for maybe you offer to give them you pay for the leads or do something, then then they're willing to have the conversation. But almost everybody feels like they're going to do something one day. So that's the big key is you just got to got to make it worth their while to give you.

Joe: I can't imagine if you if you got some involvement and some of the big Facebook groups or bigger pockets and you started letting people know, hey, who has old leads, I'll follow up with them for you. Wouldn't take that much or be that hard to find somebody that can definitely give those to you, right? Can you do this virtually in other markets or does it need to be kind of in your backyard because either you or your agent is going on a physical appointment?

Chris: Yeah, we just we launched our own personal team in Baltimore, and it's going amazing. There's  some issues like, I think virtual, wholesale and virtual, like all of the expansion in both retail and wholesaling. I think it's hard. Like there's pieces to it that are hard, but I mean, it's going incredible as long as you do it. Well, I would say here's the other thing. So I have a client, a student that I'm working with out in the Midwest. And they had they've just been crushing it. Last year, they made 50 grand total. And literally they called me and said, they're like, we're two and a half months in and we've already made 90 grand just from doing this. Like when last year they made 50 and then they started talking about expanding to all these places. I'm like, whoa, whoa, let's make sure we squeeze all the juice out of where we are before, because once you expand into other places, you realize all of the issues that come up where your systems aren't locked in. So I do think you can and we're doing it right now. But I would just say don't do it too early. I just beg you, don't do it to her.

Joe: All right. Good, good. We got a question here from somebody. If a deal goes back to a wholesale deal, how do you compensate the real estate agent? You go to the brokerage in Tennessee. There are rules for how agents get paid.

Chris: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're going to have to check. Each state has different, different rules. It's funny, I think California is one of the most lax states, which is weird because I think they actually have more rules in all the other areas. But each state is different. So you're going to need to check with that broker in that state. But, yeah, if Tennessee has rules like that, like oftentimes it will have to go through the broker if you pay and then the broker pays the agent.

Joe: And this is important to understand, you know, that if you bought a franchise or you started a business, rather you do not. And if it's a real estate business, the owner does not have to have their real estate license. You can if you took this seriously, you could start a business and have a broker under you that works for you and you pay that however it works. You have to talk to somebody at that level who can answer those questions. But a lot of people don't know that. There's a lot of people that own Keller Williams franchises, EXP franchises, who aren't even licensed themselves, that they make money from that business. So that's there's way if you're if you're talking to if you're talking to an agent about working with you on these old leads and you just tell them, listen, I want to pay you whatever, they'll figure it out, like they'll figure the paperwork out and they may have to talk to their broker, but they'll come to you with something that you can sign at one time.

Joe: An agent that was working for me and her particular broker was a big traditional brokerage, like just normal, like everybody in this area has heard of them, don't like investors. But anyway, this one agent was willing to work for me, helping me do investment deals. And instead of paying her some kind of commission, her broker wanted me to pay her hourly. So I actually paid her. I forget what it was at twenty, twenty-fivebucks an hour. Can you believe that? So I had to write the check to the broker and the broker took some of it and gave it to her. But yeah. So if you want to give them money they'll figure out how to make it work, right.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the big things is making sure the fact that you don't have to be licensed. I mean, heck, the owners of some of the biggest companies in the in the world are not licensed real estate agents. But to have that come in, you just got to you can have somebody that's doing business as under your company or whatever. So.

Joe: Yeah. All right. What are some questions, Chris, that I haven't asked that that are important questions to ask are things to consider?

Chris: That's a great question. So I think the main thing is this. So the old dead leads are important, but I think the biggest key is the new leads that are coming in. So what happens on the deals that where you've gone on an appointment with? Are you afraid to cannibalize those leads and should you be afraid to cannibalize those leads? And so I think that's the question that you need to look at. So if you what I found from doing some research with some of the bigger groups is that if your marketing is like direct mail or radio or TV or stuff where people are coming in and let's just say you're going in meeting in person.

Chris: Now, I understand a lot of people do phone meetings or whatever, but let's say you're doing in-person meetings with somebody. You do an in-person meeting, you give them the offer. If they're inbound leads after five days, you're going to have less than a five percent conversion ratio. So at that point, that's where you need to absolutely hand off the deal and get other people to come in and start working it as well like you used to work at, but get them to work it as well. Now, if it's outgoing stuff like cold calling or voice mail drops or texting or whatever the way that your you're marketing to, we found that it's ten days after the appointments. Those leads are a little bit slower to say yes or no. But after 10 days, you your likelihood is less than five percent, and at that point, 10 days, you need to bring that person in as well.

Joe: All right, very good. How can people get a hold of you, Chris?

Chris: Well, Instagram, I try to always respond to every D.M. It's @craddrock.And my website is Chris Craddock.com.

Joe: CRADDOCK.

Chris: Old high school nickname.

Joe: Let me get to it again. CRADDOCK.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And then my, my website is ChrisCraddock.com and you can sign up there and we can do a free consultation, walk through your business, see if there's a good fit there. But for me my thought is anybody that has leads coming in, you're losing a fortune like literally like my one friend that literally has like three quarters of a million dollars coming in. That's just found money from this. Or my other friend, that's a brand-new wholesaler that has within the first forty-five days, had ten grand coming in when he had zero money from his wholesaling business. I just feel like it's just a no brainer. You do not want to leave these leads just dying in your CRM for other people to make money. Yeah.

Chris: This is so huge. This is so important. My coaching business partner, Gavin, a lot of you guys know Gavin does podcast episodes here. That's how he got started. He did some direct mail, got nothing out of it, stood up at a local real estate club in Phoenix, super competitive market. And he just said, hey, I'm good on the phone. If anybody has old leads, give them to me and I will work them and we can split the deal. Had three people come up to him. One lady in particular gave him forget the number. I always forget just a small handful of leads and he turned within four days. He turned three of them into deals and split the profits. This is just straight up cash deals. There wasn't any listings or anything. And the lady was so impressed. She said, listen, why don't you just work with me as a partner? I'll pay for all the marketing, give you all the leads and you work them. So that's how we got started, just by standing up at a real meeting saying who's got some old leads? That's all you don't you just got to get on the phone. And there's really there's a lot of things I like. What you had to say, though, Chris, about can't just give these to any realtor. You need to work with somebody who understands sales and sales is the million-dollar skill. And that's how this works. It's not rocket science. So either, right? I mean, anybody can learn it. You just got to learn the right scripts, the right questions, the right way to ask the questions. Very cool. All right. Anything else you want to say to wrap up?

Chris: No, no, no, this is it. I mean, this is this has been awesome. I've loved being on here and. Yeah, no, I didn't know that. I know Gavin pretty well and I didn't know that about Gavin. That's awesome. Yeah.

Joe: But you know him from Multipliers mastermind.

Chris: I just, I had a conversation with him last week so. Yeah. Know that's great but yeah. No I mean that's the whole thing. Every time the phone rings you should be able to get paid.

Joe: Yeah. Awesome. All right guys, Chris's website again is ChrisCRADDOCK.com and his Instagram. If you want to reach him out and send him a D.M. there @CRADDOCK. And you can reach him on Instagram. Cool. Thank you, Chris, so much for being on the show.

Chris: This is awesome. Thanks for having me, brother.

Joe: All right, we'll see you guys. Hey, listen again. What's that script are you still looking to sell if you got the price you wanted for your property? Yep. It's a simple, simple text. All right, y'all go send it out and set the appointment. All right. We'll see you guys.