Epic Real Estate Investing - Getting Free Organic Leads and More with Matt Andrews | Episode 147

Episode Date: March 2, 2015

Today the Epic Real Estate community welcomes Mr. Matt Andrews to the show.  Matt has wholesaled, flipped, and rehabbed over 500 properties totaling millions in sales over the last 15 years. He is the author of three #1 Bestselling books about Real Estate Investing and sits on the board of 2 worldwide charities.   On this episode, Matt is sharing his FREE strategy for generating organic leads through Google by utilizing Facebook fan pages, YouTube, and virtual bandit signs. His strategy is so simple it’s almost painful! So if you’re ready to put your lead generation on autopilot, grab a pen and paper and listen up! ------- The free course is new and improved!  To access to the two fastest and easiest strategies to a paycheck in real estate, go to FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text “FreeCourse” to 55678. What interests you most? E ducation P roperties I ncome C oaching Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Broadcasting from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. Uh, yeah, but what? Hello, and welcome. Welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing, the place where I show people how to escape the rat race using real estate. And all you really got to do is just shift. Shift your focus. Shift your focus from making piles of money, to making streams of money, and you're halfway there, at least, at least halfway there. Just shift your focus. Stop going to work, work, work. Stop trying to save, save, save. Stop trying to clip coupons and stop tripping over the dollars to pick up the nickels.

And stop doing all that old nasty stuff that's, you know, that just doesn't work anymore. Shift your focus from making piles of money to making streams of money. That's an entirely different mindset that will inspire entirely different actions in your life. do that and you're halfway there at least. All righty. So more exciting stories coming out of epicfastfunding.com. If you missed that episode, is two episodes ago, episode number 145.

I interviewed my partner in this new money resource that we've offered to you here, Epicfastfunding.com. And go back and listen to it. I'm not going to go over every single detail all over again. He went over everything in that episode. But if you need some money to keep your business running or to grow your existing business

or to, you know, even acquire another cash flowing property, go to epicfastfunding.com to complete their 60-second application process. And in seven to 10 days, that's it, just seven to 10 days, as little as $50,000. That's the low amount. That's the low end. And up to $200,000 could be yours. That's the high end. So it's between $50,000 and $200,000.

That could be yours in seven to 10 days. And as I'm looking at it so far, the approval rate, far exceeds the rate of those deemed unqualified. Looking at it, I'd say it's right around four to one with this audience, four people getting approved for everyone that's not. Still a small sample, though. Just about 60 people from here have filled out the application. But with that said, if you have a decent FICO in the high 600s and up,

you're almost assured of getting at least $50,000. And they're unsecured loans at that. So go to epicfastfunding.com and you could have your funds before the next episode of this podcast. That's like within the next seven days. It could be yours. It could be ready to roll. All righty. So I've got a great guest for you today.

Another member of my mastermind group. Yes, I've been making my way through my mastermind group. There's so many amazing people in there with great ideas. And, you know, I just, every time I go to one of my mastermind meetings, I come back with just pages and pages and pages of ideas that I want to implement. And none of us could ever implement them all. But I certainly want to expose you to as many as I can because it might be the very thing that makes the big difference. in your business. And he's going to share something with you today that he shared with me over lunch.

And, you know, what he shared with me and what I was able to do with what he shared with me has organic Google leads. Yes, Google traffic is not a myth. He's got this organic Google traffic coming to me from both buyers and sellers. They're landing in our inbox in less than a month after implementation. and the quantity of those leads, they're growing steadily. We can actually see it happening. And, oh, by the way, this strategy is 100% free to execute.

With all the things out there, you know, clamoring for our dollars so that we can do more business. Us investors can make our business easier or better or bigger. You know, everyone's got the latest trick or gadget or system to sell us. It's really refreshing to learn about something free that actually works. And our guest is going to share it with you in 30 seconds right after this. ever wondered how some investors seem to get the inside scoop and snatch up all the deals? Wonder no more. The secret to finding deeply discounted properties has been exposed, and it lies

within your ability to find motivated sellers. Go to find motivated sellers ASAP.com and download their proven five-step checklist to find motivated sellers in any market. Find motivated sellers ASAP.com. Deeper discounts, less secrets. Mind motivated sellers ASAP.com. On the phone, today we're joined by Matt Andrews. Matt, welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. Hey, thanks for having me, Matt. Good to be here, man.

Cool. Glad to have you. And, yeah, this is kind of the obligatory beginning of, you know, can you share us a little bit about your background? Maybe the next time you come back to the show, we won't have to go over this part again. But I don't, I've met you here the last few years or last few months, I guess, about 12 months ago. and I've gotten to know you, but there's still a lot I don't know about you.

So how did you get started investing in real estate? Well, let me start out by first saying. I don't know if everyone knows this, but we have two of the shiniest, baldest men talking to each other right now. I mean, we have amazingly beautiful bald men to another. So from one bald and beautiful man to another, thank you for having on the show. And I'm glad, you know. And we're both in the time I talk to these people that have hair and stuff. I don't like these people with hair.

I like people like you, Matt, that are like me. There you go. Perfect. So this is good. So, yeah, to be serious now, you know, how I started, I started in real estate investing about 15 years ago. So I started about the year 2000, 2001 is when I did my first retail fix and flip. And long story short, you know, got out of school, you know, did the whole thing that you're supposed to do, got your degree, and got a nice, safe, secure job, and, you know, was wearing a tie. every day and I can't even imagine that right now. You and I have similar style, Matt. I think

we are a T-shirt and shorts kind of guy. Totally. But back then, man, it was like a noose around the neck, and that wasn't my style, but, you know, I was fitting into the culture, and that's what I had to do. And so I was working for a Fortune 500 company. I was in sales. You know, had a lot of energy and, you know, really was pretty green at the time. And I kind of thought, wow, this is it, man. I'm moving up fast, which is fantastic. You know, I like what I'm doing. I like these people I'm working with, and I thought I was kind of on the corporate track, and they put me on the corporate fast track to move up quickly in this company,

and, you know, doing well, you know, company car and, you know, expensive count and all that good stuff. And then I've been doing that for about a year, and about a year into that, they completely shut down my division, and, you know, moved me over to a different division, doing a completely different type of sales, same company, but different type of sales, the pipeline that I built up for about 12 to 18 months, and that was going to continue to supply me business now that I really had it up running, was gone overnight. So it was like, good job building that book of business, Matt.

It's over. Now you're doing that started ground zero. And that was a wide, you know, that really just kind of opened my eyes. That was a wake-up call to where I was heading there and how I just didn't have control. And I know you totally understand and appreciate that, Matt. I know we're talking to mostly entrepreneurs here. We've all been in that position where you just realize, holy cow, I'm not in control of my own fate here. Right.

You know, at any time, somebody can make a decision somewhere that I don't even know on the other side of the country and I could not have a job or I could, you know, have my pipeline taken away from me. So just all these things happened, and that was really the big wake-up call for me. I started studying real estate as I was still working that job. And about three months later, I bought my first property. I think it was the end of 2000. And I was going to buy it, fix it up and flip it, and manage it everything wrong. I completely, you know, I just bought some late-night infomercial thing,

which actually was a decent, you know, starting point. But I just went in there and didn't know what I didn't know and tried to fix my own property, which you don't know me that well, but I have no business holding a hammer or a screwdriver at all. My wife is better. That's up and I. Another way we're very much alike. Very good. Okay. So you're the same way.

Okay. Yeah, you can make the deal. You can put the deal together. You can make the numbers work, but you don't want to be the guy with the drill in your hand. Right. Yeah, no, I'm a threat to myself in that scenario. No, yeah. I'm a threat to myself in the good of my.

property too. I did a lot of property damage. Right. So, you know, that first flip, I, you know, turned what should have been a one-month project into about a four-month project. I took what should have been an easy $25,000 profit and turned it into a $2,000 profit. And luckily, I didn't lose money on it, though. And I learned a ton on that first deal. And I got, you know, I got the property sold, made almost no money, but I got that taste. You know, I got the taste for the deal

and really understood and believed that, man, I can do this. You know, this is something I can control. And even though it didn't work out amazing, it instilled just enough belief in me to do that next one. And so I did another one, and I think I made $12,000 on that one, which at the time for me was really good money for the amount of time I spent on it.

And then I did a third one, and that third one I did, really well. I think I made over 20. And I quit my job after that third flip and flipped a few more, put some money together pretty quickly. I ended up going to Europe for a couple months and kind of of being a hippie. And then came back and really, really started my real estate business in earnest at that point. So that was right around 2001, the end of 2001, when I really started getting into it. So that was how I started. Now, through the years, I've done a lot of retail rehab, like that. I've done a lot of wholesaling, you know, just quick transactions and double closes and a lot of assignments and that type of thing. But my business didn't really explode until about 2007, 2008. When everyone else's real estate went down the tubes, I was just perfectly positioned in the Florida market to pick up a lot of properties really quickly and turn them to these other investors. So, you know, people talk about being in the right place at the right time. I definitely was.

And I knew just enough to be effective, but it was really the circumstances that just fell on my lap and stuff that we were buying for 150,000. Suddenly two months later, we're buying for 40,000, 50,000. And it just made for a cash flow formula that made my wholesale business just absolutely explode. So I'd say 2006, 2007, I was probably doing two wholesale deals a month maybe as part of our business. And from 2008 and then 2009, 2010, 11, we were probably doing 10 or 12 a month, just in that one market. And selling a lot of those to international investors and a lot of people in other markets in the U.S. that couldn't get that kind of cash flow and double-digit cap rates. And so that really kind of took my business up for the next level.

So all my friends are saying, oh, Matt's in real estate, I wonder how you're doing. And because, you know, they're watching the news every day and seeing all this terrible stuff about real estate. my business was absolutely just blowing up, you know, and it probably tripled in the worst years of real estate, 2009, 10, and 11. My business literally tripled during that time. So, you know, continue to wholesale, continue to do some rehab, and then really got involved and really sort of focusing in on a concept, which for me was completely new at the time, but a lot of people I've heard of it now, virtual wholesaling, right? So being able to wholesale these properties many times without seeing them, many times

without meeting a buyer face-to-face and being a middleman and able to flip these properties, wholesale these properties virtually. And I got a real taste for that. Me and my wife and daughter love to travel. We do a lot of that. I know you guys do too. And so we thought, man, if we can really take our business to the point where we can make it truly virtual, where we don't have to meet face-to-face with buyers and sellers.

I don't have to be running in and out of 10 houses a day trying to find that one great deal, you know, trying to fit as many, you know, jumping in as many windows as I can within a day and that type of thing. If we could make this truly virtual, then we could travel and we could work with our charities that we really believe in and work on our other passion project and still be able to run that real estate business back home. So from that point on, really like 2010, probably 2010 until now, we've just worked to continually refine that process so that we can run a completely virtual business. And that's what we do today.

So, you know, to bring us up to speed now, you know, I still live in Tampa, although we travel a lot, I live in Tampa. So I flip properties in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Orlando. Because of the virtual business plan that we're using and how we've kind of created our model, we're able to now. now flip properties in the Michigan market, moved into the Ohio and Indiana markets, and have actually created a pretty good, just a referral business for markets that we're not even technically that involved with, but we're able to generate leads and send those to friends of ours in those other markets. So as we continue to make things more and more virtual and refine that process, we're spending

less and less time, but accomplishing more, which is just an awesome, awesome place to be in, That's what we all want to do, right? Right. So it's been a great ride. The last 15 years have been crazy as far as different things that we've done, but we've really settled into a groove of being able to do these kinds of deals. And I love being able to go with my wife and travel to India and work with our charity there, with the Indian orphan charity that we work with and helping kids there. But at the same time, I'm flipping deals back in Florida.

I'm flipping deals back in Michigan and Ohio. and I just love the freedom that it brings. And this is what I envisioned, you know, back in 2000 when I realized I didn't have that freedom in that corporate world, I kind of envisioned a time where I'd be able to operate like this. And that's what we are now. We're free. And like you, Matt, we can choose the deals we want to work on. We don't have to do any particular deal, but now we can kind of cherry-pick the deals,

and we can choose to do business with people we like. We can choose to do business in places we like. life and the way that we like. And to me, that's freedom. So that's what it's all about for us. Sweet. Well, I guess we're done now. So have a good day. Just kidding. See you. Well, congratulations. I mean, for a very successful 15 years. Something you have so much in common with so many people that I talk to, so many people that I've interviewed here on the show, is that you just hit a pain point and you hit a realization to where, like, I am not in control of anything. And, you know, the rug can be pulled out from under me.

any given point. That's very much my story as well when the digital download came along and people stopped consuming music in the way that they had. They stopped buying CDs and everything went online. It just eliminated the middleman entirely and I was sitting there, you know, sucking my thumb and like, what do I do now? And, you know, you lose your sales funnel by getting shifted into a different division or, you know, your boss gets fired and you were like his favorite person, but now you're not

anybody's favorite person. I had that conversation just recently and where you get to it with a startup and it never actually starts is like, you know, I get it. I get it. And sometimes you just, and you hear these stories. And the reason I'm kind of went down that and repeated a lot of that stuff that, you know, the audience has heard recently through the people that I've talked to is that you hear that over and over and over. You hear it from podcasts.

You hear it on the TV. You see it on the news. You read it in the paper. You hear it from friends and associates. You might even hear it from your family members because it's happened to them. But it doesn't really click and you don't hear it. enough, like it doesn't really click until it happens to you. And it's at that moment where, okay, all right, I, okay, I understand how this works now.

I need to step up and take charge of my own life. Exactly. That's awesome. So what was it about real estate? And when you hit that point, why did you choose real estate? Well, when I hit that point, I was, you know, looking at different options, trying to figure out where my passion was. and I was looking for something, like I said, that really just gave me the freedom, you know,

that I could run it the way I wanted to. And I had a couple of, you know, friends, they weren't real close. People I knew, some friends of friends that were house flippers. And, you know, to me it seemed very glamorous at the time. You know, obviously there's always the ugly underside to everything because every business takes real work, right? Right. But, you know, at the time, to me it looked like, wow, these guys look like they love their life, and they must just do things like pick out paint colors all day long.

just count money, you know? And that's what it seemed like to me. And that's, you know, kind of the picture that flipped this house and some of these TV shows paint, you know. Everybody's sitting at home watching and think, well, I should probably do that. Like it's easy, you know, that's another thing. Obviously, there's shortcuts and there's things we can do to make it easy.

But I was looking for something where I could really affect, you know, change myself and really be in the driver's seat. And it seemed like more than anything else, if I had the right knowledge and I could leverage that knowledge, I could get into real estate, at least in the way I started with very little money, and I started a lot on conventional loans and that type of thing. But if I started today, I would just start by wholesaling and co-wholesaling, you know, what you can do is very little money. So when I compared it to anything else, you know, buying a franchise of something, you know,

starting some kind of technology business from the ground up or a service-oriented business or, you know, anything you could think of, I didn't see anything bringing the results at that point that I could see from real estate. You know, that could be manipulated and, you know, basically one house could provide, you know, five different exit strategies. And I just, I loved being in the driver's seat. Right. And it was an easy, easy way to get in. So that's really why I chose real estate.

I just, I saw that being the vehicle that could take me to freedom. And I'm really happy I chose it, obviously. Sweet, sweet. You know, one thing you said earlier, too, Matt, you said that happened to you in your life with, you know, having, what you want to call it a setback or a failure or an obstacle when everything went to digital download and the music business completely changed overnight for you. Something I thought about and all these other examples, every success story, all of our, you know, mutual friends that we know in real estate. and other businesses, they were all defined by their reaction to something when that happened, you know, how they reacted to it. And obviously you reacted to it by, okay, I'm going to find other opportunities.

Right. But a lot of people, and I did the same thing, a lot of people just tuck their tail between their legs and go home and never play again, you know. And so it really is that reaction to that adversity that determines everything. And when you read success stories about, you know, people in history and, you know, other contemporary figures and, you know, the Bill Gates and, you know, the big guys, the small guys, the sports stars, it's all defined. All of their legacies are defined by how they reacted to adversity. And, you know, everybody that's listening out there right now, I'm sure there are some of you that are kind of in the middle of starting your business or maybe you're running a great business and, you know, trying to take it up to the next level, you're going to hit it. that wall at some point if you haven't already. And your success is going to be determined by how you react when you hit that wall.

Yep. And that's really what separates, you know, the winners, the people that have success and the people that don't. It's that reaction, you know, and either you will be emboldened by it and you're going to go for it or you're going to shrink and kind of fade away. You know, so you have to decide what kind of person are you? You know, what are you going to do there? Right.

And for me, it made me mad. It sounds like probably the same thing for you. It kind of lit a fire in my belly. And had that not happens, I'd probably, you know, be sitting at a table, a desk 10 hours a day with a tire on my neck, hating what I do. And that would just be terrible. Right. You know, you'd said something when the crash happened and your friends were kind of checking out, I wonder how Matt's doing, right? Yeah.

And there's something very unique with real estate. I mean, on the same note that of everything you just went over, there's something actually very specific to real estate is when you tell people you're in real estate. You know, you get a response. You get a reaction. You know, people like, oh, yeah, I would never do that. Aren't you scared?

Isn't that risky? Isn't that terrible? Or, oh, I tried that once and lost my ass. I'll never do that again. You know, you get those types of responses. And I just, when people say that, I'm just like, wow, it's so sad that, you know, either you, failed once or you know somebody who did and you took the totally wrong lesson from the whole

thing. Right. I mean, you walked away with a lesson that I will never do that again. And I was like, wow, how much you, you realize how much you've cheated yourself by taking that lesson from it rather than let's try again and do something differently? Absolutely. You know, I couldn't agree more. There's a lesson to be learned there and which way you go when you're at that fork in the road

is going to make all the difference for sure. but I couldn't agree more. Totally. Well, you touched on something that I'm very interested in, and that's your lead generation. I want to go over that. You generate so many leads

that you can sell leads in other markets, and so you must be pretty darn good at that. So let's go over that, okay? And we're going to go over that in about 30 seconds right after this. Real estate investors, you need to know this. If you do not have a lead capturing website,

a recent study reveals that you are invisible to 90% of the people that want to do business with you. We are epicrealestatewebsites.com. And we have an easy three-step solution for you. Step one, select a design. Step two, choose your domain name. Step three, check out.

Boom. You are now online capturing the names, emails, and phone numbers of people that want to do business with you. Go to EpicRealestateWebsites.com. Act now and your domain name is free. Epic real estate websites.com. Okay, so Matt, you're very good at lead generation. You generate so many leads that you actually sell them to other people. So let's start that being, you know, lead generation being the foundation of every real estate investor's business.

Let's, can you kind of share with how you do it and how you generate so many? Sure, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, a lot of real estate investors, myself included, and I'm sure I'm sure you guys do, you know, utilize direct mail and sitting out yellow letters and postcards or some variation of that. And that's a great way to generate leads, obviously. You know, another, another old school real estate way to do it is bandit sign, putting out, you know, the actual physical signs and that type of thing. And I've done both of those strategies along with a lot of referral-type strategies for years. But a few years ago, I really wanted to figure out, you know,

how can I generate leads and kind of put it on autopilot without spending thousands, you know, on a big direct mail program or without having to, you know, constantly put out hundreds of signs that get taken down two days later, that type of thing. So what we started doing was we figured out, and I had some friends that are much smarter than I am as far as internet marketing and that type of thing. So I really started watching what they were doing with sites like Facebook and YouTube, and specifically how those sites interact, you know, how those social media sites interact with Google and how many times you can rank on Google with content on Facebook and YouTube. And so as I dug into it, you know, I figured, I found out that basically YouTube is owned by Google, right? I think most people probably know that, but YouTube, you know, is owned by Google. So Google likes YouTube.

They consider YouTube an authority site. And that's kind of what they would call it or what they would term it. Same thing with Facebook. Now, they don't own Facebook, but Google likes and trusts Facebook because they know Facebook, right? So they consider Facebook an authority site. So, you know, to kind of simplify it, let's say, Matt, you and I put up a new website tomorrow and trying to get it ranked on Google for something. You and I know that doesn't happen too quickly, right?

You have to spend thousands of dollars on a website. You have to SEO optimize it, and you slowly, slowly organically show up on Google eventually if you're doing it right. And we've all done that, and a lot of people, you know, most businesses run their internet businesses like that. They kind of build it the slow way, right? and that works and that's fine. But what I figured out is

when I put up my own site, Google has no idea who I am. They don't trust. You know, let's say I put on matiantrees.com or something. They don't know me. They don't trust me. I'm not an authority to them, right? But these sites like Facebook and YouTube are, well, if I took the same kind of content

that I was putting on my site but built some sites, you know, some Facebook fan pages and put out some YouTube videos with that same type of content, Google found that stuff way quicker and started actually putting that stuff in their search ranking way than any other way I could organically rank. So basically what I figured out how to do was create what I like to call virtual bandit signs. So these are bandit signs that kind of act in a lot of ways like normal bandit signs except they're not in a legal gray area, which is something that's always been. you know, Tuffler, bandit signs, and they don't get taken down a day later or two days later.

You know, they stay up. So what we do is we actually will take Facebook fan pages, and I'll just use the Facebook fan page as an example. Let's say I was trying to generate leads for Grand Rapids Real Estate Investment. Okay, that's one of my cities I do a lot of flipping in is Grand Rapids, Michigan. So I wanted to generate more leads for that. So I created a page on Facebook, simply called Grand Rapids Real Estate Investment. Then I made a second page called We Buy Grand Rapids Houses. And I think I made a third one called Grand Rapids Investment Properties.

And basically what I did was I named those Facebook pages the exact search terms that I thought people would search for if they were looking to buy properties in those areas. So if I was a cash buyer and I lived out of a market and I wanted to buy properties Grand Rapids because I heard it was a good market. What would I type in? I'd probably type in Grand Rapids Real Estate Investment or Grand Rapids' wholesale properties or something like that. So that's what I would do. I would create these Facebook fan pages, put my information in, put my contact information in, and I would title those the exact keywords that I wanted to rank for. And in some of these small markets, I noticed that within two or three days and sometimes,

you know, two or three weeks, but sometimes really quickly, I would, ranking on the front page of Google. And I basically had done it for almost no money. So leads would start coming in because I have my email address or my website or my phone number and all my contact info is right there on that Google report, basically. So as you bring up Grand Rapids Real Estate Invest, I think you'll still see me as, you know, two or three of the top ten results there. And I get leads from that every day, just like it was a bandit sign on.

the road or just like those people had gotten a letter or postcard and I get leads from for distress sellers wanting to sell their property I get leads for cash buyers wanting to buy properties and I do that through Facebook because Google will rank those things quicker than they would if it was my own site does that make sense totally and there you are right there I just typed it up cool and so I was actually under the impression with YouTube I was actually under the impression that Facebook had blocked or Google yeah Facebook had blocked

Google out from searching their websites or their whole platform guess not yeah I don't think so I mean I've checked a lot of my rankings pretty recently

I'm gonna do one right now so how does so I'm here at your page there's not a whole lot going on you got 2,200 likes there oh just the phone number is what they call under the about part

the phone number yeah exactly that's usually what I do I put the phone number when I make a Facebook fan page or a YouTube video, kind of works the same way. The very first thing I put in the description is my phone number. Or if I was trying to drive them to a website, I would put a hyperlink to that website. Right. The way my system is set up, I want those calls basically going to the same line that I would have my bandit signs going to or that I would drive my direct mail to.

So I have that phone number there. that phone number goes to a dedicated Google Voice number that I have one Google Voice number for each market that I work in. And so basically that Google Voice number just fills up in every couple days I have people go in, you know, to make sure they're getting contacted within 24 to 48 hours. I have, you know, employees and interns that go in and basically clear those out on a weekly basis about every two days. And that's how it works. I mean, it's fairly simple stuff. It really is like a virtual bandit sign.

I'm looking at. You have two YouTube videos on the same page, too. Yeah, I do. Yeah, no, no, Facebook is still showing up. If you type in Tampa Real Estate Investment, let's see, yeah, the first return for Tampa Real Estate Investment is my Facebook fan page. So they're definitely not blocking. Now, maybe with some of the new sites they're doing that,

or maybe with some people they think are trying to do some, you know, some shady. Very cool. Actually, it shows your, and from where I'm looking, it shows your YouTube. video and right there in the beginning is the phone number. Right there's the beginning. Okay. Exactly. Yep.

First thing. Your Facebook page is a couple of more clicks down, but. Oh, is it? Okay. Yeah. That's weird. My returns are different. Interesting.

Did you hide the private result? I don't even know how to do that. I just typed. Go all results. I got both of them, though. Yeah. Well, super. Well, they're on there.

They're on the pro page. That's the good news, right? Proof that it works for sure. Yeah, you're no one with the radio. That's good. Okay, well, great stuff. You know, they cost so little to put up when you, when you look at it versus like a direct mail campaign that you spend thousands on, which I'm not against at all. We still do that.

But I started looking at this because these are leads that not a lot of other people are necessarily capturing. You know, when I type in these search terms, which I know people are searching, you know, real buyers or real sellers are searching for these terms because I'm getting these leads. But when you look down on that page, you know, with the other results, around my result, nobody's directing it really to a point of sale like I am. They're just kind of ranking by accident there, and none of these are optimized to actually bring in and capture leads. So for me, it was just one of those things like, wow, why wouldn't I do this in every market that I've got contacts in that would possibly buy properties or take referrals for, you know, cash buyers? and that type of thing. For sure. That's what we started doing.

That is so simple. It's almost painful. It is. I explain to the people sometimes, I'm like, yeah, that's really it. It's really that you can be. Okay, so here's my question. I know how long it takes to set up a Facebook page, not long at all. So what do you have to do to maintain it or anything?

Yeah, that's a good question. So, you know, it really depends on what you're geared towards. Let's say you're trying to get leads for cash providers. What I would do is I'd put up the page, and I'm not trying to drive thousands of likes to the page. It's really not a Facebook-oriented marketing strategy. It really is a Google-oriented marketing strategy. So I don't do, you know, I don't buy pay-per-click advertising. I don't try to build up that site, so a lot of people on Facebook are seeing it.

I'm really just concerned about people that go to Google and see it and then click into it. So if I have two likes on my page, you know, it won't look as successful, so I want a few likes on there. But as far as how Google ranks this stuff, whether I've got one like or one million likes, they really don't care. So I've got Facebook fan pages with 50 likes that are ranked on the front page. And you haven't been to them in a while, right? And they just keep generating on. I haven't. Yeah, I haven't.

Yeah, they just set them up. And like I said, they're like virtual panic signs that don't get taken down. So I don't really even maintain a lot of them. Now there's a few, probably one fan page in each market that I do kind of keep more up to date. So what I'll do in that situation is I'll try to post things that speak to whoever it is I'm selling to. So if it's a cash buyer that wants to buy properties in that market, I'm going to show them, you know, some posts of me doing deals with other people in that market in those markets. I'm going to show returns that my investors that have purchased through me have gotten, you know, on those deals I've done. I'm going to show pictures of rehabs I'm doing.

just showing activity and showing that investor, that, you know, possible cash buyer that, wow, this guy is really active in the market. Every time, you know, every time I go on here and see anything, he's got another rehab going or he's meeting with some other international investor that he just sold 10 properties to or, you know, you just want to show that you're the authority in that market for wholesale properties or for buying distressed properties or whatever your niche is. that's really what you're trying to do there. So, you know, you can do it on a weekly basis or you could post every day. That's really kind of up to you and how active you want to make it. But the real power, like I said, is then working on Google so you get those leads.

Got it. So does this generate both buyer and seller leads or one more than the other? It does. Yeah, it generates, I see right, you know, when I first started, it was definitely generating a lot more buyer leads than it was distressed seller leads. I felt like a lot of the distressed sellers were,

still offline when I really started a lot of this, and I think a lot of them still are, so that's why you get a good response with mail. But lately, over the last, you know, probably last year or so, we've definitely seen an uptick and distressed owners contacting us. Interesting. And, you know, when you're, you know, because you've done a lot of direct mail to, you know, some of these people that we're mailing to, they're getting a lot of other letters from a lot of other people, right? So you could be one in a stack of postcards or yellow letters, right? But if that distressed owner is thinking, you know what, I'm going to Google, you know, we buy Grand Rapids' houses or whatever it is, then that's a more exclusive lead.

Right. You know, they're probably not going to, you know, they're probably going to go to the one or two top results that they see because who goes to page two of Google, right? Right. So nobody, I don't think I've ever been to page two of Google. It's like no man's land out there. So they're going to go to one of the first one or two that they see, and if I've targeted this right, I should be really the only one that shows up or that stands out on that front page.

So I really have generated both buyer and seller leaves, but probably, you know, if I looked at it overall from the couple of years that we've been doing this, really aggressively, I think probably the best benefit has been out-of-market cash buyers. So people that want to buy something, something in Florida or want to buy something in Ohio that could be, you know, from Canada or from, you know, I've got a lot of buyers in Northern California that find it's online. I've got Australian buyers, Europeans. You know, if they read a report, you know, like one buyer I just sold to from Sydney, Australia, he just read a report that, you know, this one market in Ohio is one of the top markets in America. Just read some, you know, kind of random Wall Street Journal article or something like that and did a search for it. I popped up. and he called me and we ended up doing four properties that month. Sweet. You know, so he searched.

He saw what looked like, you know, the main guy in the market meet that he should be talking to. And I got the call and we did the business. So that's where a lot of the power is coming and reaching out past where a lot of our normal marketing would normally reach. You know, with the power being online and really being able to be seen anywhere in the world, you open yourself up to a lot more buyers and a lot of potential international buyers who, you know, this stuff is all, it just all seems like it's on sale to these buyers, especially coming from where they're coming from. And you know, you're in a California market, and the further north you go in California, it's a crazier it can get sometimes as far as prices and stuff like that.

I sell, you know, five or six or seven properties to some of these Northern California buyers for the cost of one really bad property in San Francisco. Exactly. Exactly. We'll get them a package of 10 or 15, you know, all cash flowing at a 10 cap. So it's a really cool way to reach out and find these other buyers that you may not otherwise have on your buyers. Sweet, sweet. So is direct mail still the main source of your sellers? I think so.

Yeah, I think overall it's still the main source. And we're doing a lot of, we're incentivizing a lot of referral partners now, too. Okay. You know, having people bring us deals. And a lot of that's come from our students, too. You know, we have a educational platform. And really what we want for those students is, you know, to be able to teach them how to really find deals so they can bring them to us.

So a lot of it's come through referral over the last couple of years, too. But if I had to pick just the one, probably the lion's share, I'd say probably still direct mail. What's working best? But I like having four or five different, you know, four or five different irons in the fire. Because if one thing kind of goes wrong, the one thing to stop being effective, you got those other ones pick up the slack. Yeah, you got to have four or five things going at all time for sure. Absolutely.

Well, you got 10 or 12 things going at all time, so it's even better. I know. Well, now I got 14 because I'll do the Facebook and YouTube thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, your YouTube videos, your educational videos, especially, you know, I know you and I've talked about that before, but I love the content you put out and all that kind of stuff is prime for what we're talking about right here. Right.

It would be an easy tweak for you to start kind of SEO optimizing that stuff and generating leads for, you know, whether it's for your educational students or your consulting clients, you know, that type of thing, or for your traditional property business. So, I mean, you're perfectly set up, obviously, to do that. Not everybody likes being on camera, but there are ways that you can make videos and rank without ever being on camera and without ever being in the face of anything, too. So it's interesting how you can tailor all of these strategies to really fit your market, your, you know, your style. And your product or service, it doesn't have to be real estate, right? Oh, you can do this anywhere. Yeah, and the more local, the better it is. I've helped, you know, pet store owners and mom and pop shops, you know, that are just friends of mine.

I've helped them get ranked number one on Google on certain things, you know, a massage therapist, friend of mine. is getting leads right and left in central Florida because they look like they're the only masseuse in town. Right, right. You know, so yeah, it can really, for local SEO, it's very, very powerful. It's a great lead generator. And it just positions you as the expert and the authority in the market. And that's what that two people want to deal with, right? If they're coming to buy from you, it's because they see you as that authority,

which is how you and I do a lot of our business, because people know that we know what we're doing. and the proof is out there to see. For sure. So it is really cool that, you know, we can create these different ways of generating leads. And a lot of it's fun because you're like me. You're a marketer. And we both really like marketing. And it's fun.

You know, and I like seeing why do people do what they do? Why do we buy what we buy? And I love the psychology behind it. And I like testing and tweaking new things and just, you know, seeing what grabs people and what works and what communicates the message the best. So this is a great way to do it. Sweet. So what's working best for you in the direct mail?

Is it the postcards or letters, yellow letters, white letters? What's the... You know, lately it's been postcards. Yeah, it's been postcards. Yeah, it's been postcards. And for a long time, it was yellow letters. And I still get a good response from those. But lately, my partner's been kind of tweaking some stuff.

And, you know, some mutual friends of ours, Matt, or kind of direct mail ninjas, you know. So we kind of borrowed some stuff from them and seeing what they've done and they've helped us to kind of tweak some of our copy and try different things. But I think just the, you know, I think they've been yellow postcards is what we've been doing lately. Got it. And we've had a really, really good response on those. Super.

You have a favorite list that you're sending to? You know, let me see. I'd have to look at my partner, Chris, is the one who chooses most of those lists, and he's kind of always changing him. But I know we've used Kank Clothe Your Software. We've done that quite a bit to find. motivated sellers. We've used those lists in a lot of different markets.

And then we've used list source and a few other companies to pull custom lists. But I think, you know, the absentee owners has been overall has probably been the best list, you know, finding those people that own a property five states away. You know, those have been the best ones. And it's amazing, too, you know, and I'm sure you've seen this too. You know, you put up on direct mail, and sometimes you'll get a call six months later. Right. These people keep this stuff, and it's wild.

So they're a little bit better than normal band designs that get taken down after a day, because they can still keep generating those leads. But that's what I especially like about the Internet marketing, is that they do stay up. And if you continue to kind of feed into those, you can keep those in place on Google, and they'll keep generating those leads. That's awesome. Well, God, Lee, that's cool.

And thanks for sharing that, and thanks for being so generous to information. That's awesome. So let's shift gears a minute. I know you're working on a lot of stuff. You're involved with charities. You have one particular charity that you're focused on. And I know you're involved in your church. And I know you're doing some stuff with, I've seen you on Facebook with pictures with William Shatner.

What's going on in Matt Andrew's life that you're super excited? Oh, man. No, I'm glad you asked you that question because it's, you know, real estate. I love real estate. And it's great. But real estate, you know, is not the end all of my world. you know, real estate's a vehicle, just like it is for you. It's a vehicle to whatever you want. You know, for me, it's a vehicle to spend time with my family more, and it's a vehicle to work on

projects that are not money-motivated projects, their impact projects, and they're fulfilling for me and my wife. And, you know, I've got to really, you know, really just edify my wife here and say, you know, she's, she's the one of our family that is really focused on the stuff the most and has really helped me realize how important it is for us to be involved in this stuff. So, you know, the charity stuff is why we do what we do in real estate. So we have the freedom to look at and look at these other products because everybody wants to do great things. We just don't have time a lot of times, right? So we kind of leverage what we know so that we have time to do the important stuff, you know, and I always say, I always tell people

there was never a multi-billion dollar real estate investor on his deathbed fan. I wish I'd just flipped one more property. I wish I'd just done one more. You know, it's never anything like that. What do they wish? They wish they'd spent more time with their family. They wish they'd help more people or made an impact or created a legacy of good in the world. You know, it's never I wish I'd wish I'd done one other deal.

I wish I could have flipped one more property. You don't hear that. So, you know, all these projects that have. I get into are all because of the freedom that real estate brings. So, you know, just to bring it down for you real quick, two main charities that we're involved with, and the one I'm in the most heavily right now is called Kushi Hona, the Indian Orphan Project. And Kishihana is a Indian phrase, which means feel happy.

And that's a – my wife and I are founding board members. It was started by a really good friend of mine who actually was just meeting with a couple days ago. And what we do now is support about 10 different independent children's homes in India that are all children for the most part, that are all orphans of sex trade workers. So, you know, it's so eye-opening to go over and see how people in other parts of the world are living and how amazingly blessed we are and really kind of almost like we're brats sometime in this country, you know. And, you know, I don't want to get on a band, you know, on a soapbox or anything, but it really helps to get out and see parts of the world that help you

appreciate what you have and not take things for granted. And so that's what we do there. We basically support those homes, and we're growing that network there. That is a registered charity here. We're working to get a registered charity in India, which is tough stuff, but we're working on that, and there'll be a lot of advantages when we finally get that passed through their process there. And we feel like we're having a really, really big impact on the life of those children and really trying to give a future to kids that really just don't have a future otherwise.

And it's a tiny, tiny, not even really a bent and a large problem with a million new orphans a year every year in India, which is unbelievable. A million. But we're starting to change things little by little, and we're hoping through, you know, empowering and educating these. kids that, you know, are in an area where we can affect some change. We're hoping that little by little that part of the world can change and can be made better because of, you know, some of the seeds we planted there. So that's our heart's definitely in that.

Our other main focus is the job mobility that you're making a wheelchair project, and we're going there in April again. And that's not as big of a project, but every year we raise money to take about 600 free wheelchairs down to the impoverished inner cities of Jamaica. And in Jamaica, you've got the Carnival Cruise Line side of Jamaica, and then you've got real Jamaica, right? And so we go into real Jamaica and rampant diabetes, really bad health problems. And, you know, we would go and get a pill and be fine.

These people get their late cut off because they wait so long for medical attention and don't have the proper care. and then they're given like a crutch or they just hop around immobile or they're carried by a family number so what we do is come in there with low-cost wheelchairs that we have manufacturer overseas we bring them there and me and my wife and a volunteer group of you know friends of ours probably about 20, 25 people each year go down and we assemble those chairs and we literally pick those people up off the ground put them in that chair and we give them the gift of mobility And when we do stuff like that, it's just like, you know, so many of the problems that we, you know, get hung up on here just fade away when you're, when you spend time working with people like that.

So that's another project that we're very, very involved with, and then we'll continue to help grow. And that's been a great project. And then there's the William Shatner thing, which is not really a charity project, but that's just a really cool project that came my way. It really kind of fell on my lap. Some friends of mine were business partners with Captain Kirk, and they brought me an opportunity to help him with his media launch for his new book. And so I did that through Kickstarter campaign, which is successfully funded now. And so we're creating that book, that website that goes with the book.

And that's called Catch Me Up. And you can find out about that at catch me up.com. And that's still running on Kickstarter right now, but probably by the time this plays, the Kickstarter will have closed and it's already been successfully funded. So, again, not necessarily a charity project, but, you know, I'm a Star Trek fan, and I love Captain Kirk, and I love, you know, just the whole deal. I've been watching since I was a little kid. And if I didn't have my real estate business set up the way I did, that would have been an opportunity that came to me that I just would have had to say no to. because there would have been no way that I would have the time, the ability to do that, not really knowing where it was leading, where it was going.

But because of my business and the way we have it set up and we have the freedom to take these opportunities when they're presented to it, I did it. So that's been a really, really cool project and definitely been cool working with William Shatter. That is one cool dude and very, very talented guy, you know, a guy who can get about, you know, 10 hours of work done in about an hour. Super efficient. I've learned a ton from them just in the little bit I've worked with them. And that's been a super cool project, man.

So that's kind of what we're working on right now on the non-real estate side, and we're just so blessed to have the freedom to do that. We're always looking for more opportunities and ways that we can, you know, better the ones that we're working on now. Fantastic. Well, God bless you, Matt, and congratulations. Thanks, man. You're going to come to India with us one of these days, man.

I want to take you in the fan over there. It would be fun. Yes, that would be fun. something that I would look forward to doing for sure. Yeah, definitely. Another couple years, we'll let your son grow up a little bit, and then we'll take him out there with us sometimes. Right.

No, that's definitely something I want him to see the other side because he lives a pretty charmed life. Absolutely. I'm just, dude, but if I had it like you have it when I was a kid, boy. I just don't know what I would have done for myself. Well, you know, I think that's something a lot of parents really want for their kids now is to be able to show them and really show them how blessed they are.

by showing them maybe some kids their own age that live a very, very different life. Yeah. And, you know, we've started what we call a volunteerism company, kind of, you know, volunteering and tourism, where we bring families that want to, you know, parents that want to want to have these kids have, you know, their kids have the experience of working with some of these other kids. And, you know, it's kind of been a test program. We've had four or five families come through it now. I've had great feedback, and we're really about to open that up a little bit wider later this year.

But I tell you, when you have a 15-year-old from any city, America who is upset because you couldn't get the new Xbox game, and you take him to work with a group of kids whose only toy is a couple of rocks that they collect them on the ground, and you see how happy those kids are and how fulfilled they are just playing with their rocks on the ground. it changes those kids that come and see that. Right. You know, that's kind of our goal with that because that's, we just need that. We need to see that.

For sure. For sure. Well, again, I'm almost crying on the phone. Yeah, I know. You know, I know you're a busy guy. You got a lot going on, so thank you for coming on the show. If people want to get, oh, my pleasure. Oh, that's great.

If people want to get in contact with you, what's the best way for them to do that? Yeah, probably the best. The best way is, you know, we've got a lot of different sites out there, but the best way to contact us is my website, get on theinside.com. Mm, I like that. Get on the inside.com. And that's the Insider's real estate training program. And that's myself and Jason LaPaisie's my partner. And that's our educational platform.

But we have a lot of, we have a blog, a very active blog there. We put out a lot of videos and a lot of free education and updates about the kind of projects that we're doing. So that's a great place to kind of stop and get in touch with me. Super. Get on the inside.com with Matt Andrews. There you go. All right, buddy. I'm going to let you go. Thank you so much. And we will talk soon. Sounds good. Thanks for having me, Matt. You bet. Take care, bud. Cool. Bye. I'll be back in 30 seconds right after this. If waiting for your investments to grow feels like waiting for paint to dry. There's a powerful secret. Your financial.

planner doesn't want you to know. You can accelerate your investments growth by two, three, or even four times. That's bad news for Wall Street, but great news for you. We're cash flow savvy, and we'd like to offer you free information that will show you how to take control of your investments and double, triple, or even quadruple their returns. And it's yours for free. For the secret your financial planner doesn't want you to know, go to cashflowsabby.com. That's cashflowsavvy.com. you next week or catch me tomorrow on my other podcast, a brand new episode of turnkey real real estate investing. Real estate investing for busy people, just like you. I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream. You've been listening to Epic Real Estate Investing, the world's foremost authority

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