The Science of Flipping - Episode 127: Q&A with Chris Fast about Cold Calling | Real Estate Investing Podcast

Episode Date: August 7, 2018

document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab30224d9", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/post/2972", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab302253f", {"title":"Episode 127: Q&A with Chris Fast about Cold Calling","subtitle":null,"summary":null,"duration":"","poster":null,"chapters":"","transcripts":"","audio":[{"url":"https://audio.simplecast.com/1d11d7e8.mp3","mimeType":"audio/mpeg","title":"AUDIO/MPEG","size":0}]}, "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); Justin Colby does a Q&A with his student Chris Fast about Cold Calling. Get a Free Coaching Call with TSOF team. CLICK HERE TO FILL THE FORM. JOIN MASTERMIND  — APPLY NOW!!

Welcome to the Science of Flipping podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. Yo, yo, what is up? As always, I'm Justin with the Science the science of flipping and i have a very special guest here uh mr chris fast what up brother what's going on dude same old same old my man just trying to be like you ah i love that i love that well you're getting real close these days man we've been working together now for a better part of the year right yes sir yes sir thanks to the board you you weren't any rookie you know when you rookie. When I either came into your life or you came into my life, it wasn't like you started from scratch necessarily. You had a massive background in real estate and whatnot. And so before we jump into this kind of Q&A and the

intention behind this call, so whoever's watching this, whether you're listening to it on iTunes or on YouTube or social media or whatever, the intention is Chris is developing Cold Calling Floor, and cold calling is a marketing tool. And so I want to be able to answer all of his questions for you guys so you know how to handle either developing it yourself, outsourcing it to a VA, whatever that may be. But Chris, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit about, and then also how you and I have been working together.

Chris Fast, Dallas, Texas. Got in touch with you in the boardroom. And just to sound cliche about it, changed my life since I got there. I mean, we knew what we were doing, but we really didn't have a whole lot of direction. I mean, that's the best way I can put it. Even like Kent said in one of the last meetings where you were in the other room, he goes, y'all need to slow down. You can cuss, dog.

It's all good. All right, well, good then. But, yeah, I mean, he told us straight up, slow down and figure it out because you're succeeding by brute force, which is just our nature, I guess. So, yeah, you and I have talked quite a bit. Maybe we mesh well. I don't really know. But you always answer my questions. force, which is just our nature, I guess. So, so yeah, you and I have talked quite a bit. Uh, maybe we mesh. Well, I don't really know, but I just, you're always answering my questions. You answer them with no bullshit. So it helps me get right to the point. But yeah, so, uh, we had, we had, we've been doing real estate for a long time, just, uh, I guess never treating it

as a standalone part of our business. So here we are, which, you know, brings me to the cold call, you know, reason you and I are talking today we've done, I mean, we've done a shitload of different marketing stuff. And of course we have some of the traditional stuff. We can talk about that on another time, or you can ask me questions. I mean, all the traditional stuff everybody does, we do and it works. But for me personally, for my efficiency, I want to get back on the phones. I mean, I have a background in cold calling from selling oil and gas over the phone 15 years ago. So I'm not scared of it. But I also think that I personally can be more efficient doing my crap over the phone. Whatever I can't close over the phone directly, I'll have my acquisitions guys run out to the field and run the appointments

because there's just only so long I can be in the field running appointments. How many a day I can run the appointments. Same with my acquisitions guys. I know their limits to three, four, five appointments a day at most. Um, so therein lies a lot of the reasons why I'm trying to sort out which version of the cold call method I want to entertain. Do I go through this hassle of VA? I mean, I've already been interviewing VAs. I've already lost a couple of them, a couple of them, you know, lied to me about their qualifications. Um, you know, and I don't, I say lie loosely. I mean, they just stretch the truth a little bit and I'm not trying to train. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just not trying to go through a ton of training. If I could find someone who was partially there, it'd be all right. So, you know, so, so the VA, the cold call method, the dialer,

all that stuff versus just subbing it out completely for a lot of money, frankly speaking. I mean, uh, it's not really a lot of money if you compare it to a deal, but pound for pound, it's triple the cost. So I don't know which way is the right method for me at this particular moment. I can see the reasons people want to save money with the VAs, but are they finding qualified, you know, rockstar ninjas right out of the fricking gate or are they having to train them all the VAs, but are they finding qualified rockstar ninjas right out of the freaking gate? Or are they having to train them all? Because that comes back to my wife and I, our same boardroom complaint the last few times.

We're small. We're still keeping it small until we find the right people. And all of our construction companies, all of our other businesses, we've made the mistake of hiring the wrong people just for the sake of growth. I'm not doing it this time. So anyways, long story short, here we go. All right. So the number one question is, do you use a VA versus either keeping in a house out now when you say personally, right? So I'll, again, I'll kind of reiterate what I've built. Um, are you actually going to be doing the calls? Are you looking at hiring someone in Dallas in your office calling? How are you? I guess I should have

clarified that. Yeah. So there's, I guess there's three versions of cold call. There's the VA and the dialer. There's the subcontracting companies that do it all for you, or we do it all in-house. I've explored the in-house method, but I don't know that I can hire somebody at a cheap enough rate to make that worthwhile to internalize. But if you're asking me personally, I have made cold calls here recently just to kind of validate my method. It takes me way too much time, obviously, but I do selectively go after some really nice properties that I come across, obviously, but I'm good on the phone. So to answer your question, no, I'm leaning more towards external sources. So either a VA or a subcontracting company to just do all my dials and transfer the warm leads to me to handle is the way i'm looking at doing unless you clarify that for me

today yeah well i think that's i mean people use virtual assistants in you know they say in generalities meaning usually they're like in india or you know cambodia or thailand or whatever right but the reality is if you outsource it to another company, even if that company is in the U.S., it's still a VA model. Okay. Meaning you're hiring a company to make the calls for you versus bringing it in-house and hiring people and or doing it yourself. Now, when you were doing this yourself, did you see the value?

Were you getting good intel? Were you seeing that, oh, shit, this can work? I was, actually. So even my wife, who would love to tell you she's not a saleswoman, she's closing deals over the phone. And she's doing it by accident. Now, she's not doing the cold calls like I am where I'm going after some of the prime properties that come across my desk. She's handling the warm leads that come in when our two acquisitions people are full. But the model, if you just look at it from the sense she's able to get deals done over the phone, contract, DocuSign, the whole nine,

it just validates that we can be more efficient over the phone and still keep our other guys busy with traditional leads. So if that answers your question a little. Yeah. When I'm talking about going outbound leads, not a warm lead that already came in, I'm saying outbound, that's me calling yourself. Yeah. So I can still, I still, do you know that it can work? I do. Yes. Because as long as you have the tenacity and the, the fortitude to just handle the, all the bullshit, then yeah. Because I'm more efficient making dials and I am driving. No doubt. Oh brother. This is why I love it so much. Right? So again, I'll kind of reiterate

what I've built and then I'll give you some guidance because I won't tell you there's a right or wrong way. All I can tell you is the things I've tried and then where I've ended up. Um, and I want to try to, the intention behind this call is I want to shrink your learning curve so you don't have to figure out which, right? So I've done the VAs and I reached a certain level of success, but in my heart, I knew they weren't doing it the way I want it done. In general, yes. Were they using my script? Yes. Were they using Mojo? Yeah. I mean, in a general sense, they were doing it the way I wanted it done, but I knew they didn't have the ability that I really wanted. I just knew it, right? And I would

listen to their calls because all their calls are recorded. And a lot of times they just don't care, right? They're almost like robots because they don't have an invested interest in the company. Yeah. I've listened to that a couple of months. Now, obviously me cold calling or you cold calling is going to be the best of the best. There will be no one who does it better because it literally is our company. It's our baby. We're going to go after the deal. It's our income, right? Because if we get that deal, that's all our money. Yeah. But if you're looking to scale, and obviously you've mentioned before, you have multiple other businesses and have income, but you want to be able to build this out and leverage it

so you're not doing it all. If you're looking to scale, then... Yeah, this is the main focus at this point. We keep the other companies around just to support this one, just full disclosure. I'm all in on this side. Amen, brother. I know you are.

That's great. So what I have found, and then I just recently tested a call floor, right? I all think they're kind of virtual, right? Cause they they're in Mexico. And the reason why I wanted to do that very similar to you in Texas, we have a lot of Latin people, you know, or Hispanic people that speak Spanish. I lose a lot of leads cause we don't have somebody in house that speaks Spanish. Anyways, keep going. Sorry. So the point to that is, again, we found after auditing them out of brute force, it was working, meaning just by a sheer factor of how many calls they were making, how many hours on the phone they were, it was actually working. So, um, I actually liked that model versus maybe just going to Elance or

Odesk or whatever, and doing like a thousand calls a day who are typically in, you know, wherever they are. Yeah. So I liked that model a little bit better. Okay. Um, the model I currently have is everything's in-house. I have 12 guys on the floor. I pay them hourly. I pay them $10 an hour plus 6% commission. The reason why I like that though is I personally have a full-time manager in charge of hiring, recruiting, training, firing, hiring, recruiting, training. I don't do any of it. Now I'm at a different level than you're at. So to answer your question specifically, I would go two ways. I would go after one of these companies that you believe could fulfill what you want. Have you tried a thousand calls a day? No, I was just turned on to them the other day. Okay. Just like any marketing, it might be worth trying. I've heard amazing things about that

company. I mean, legit amazing. I've also heard they couldn't send me a lead if they had to. So it's like the same thing, right? Like you talked to me a year ago. Fuck. If you talked to me six months ago, I if you talked to me six months ago i would tell you pay-per-click advertising pay-per-click advertising in phoenix does not work can't do it it's fucking you're gonna spend a hundred thousand dollars and you're gonna get one deal i know because that's what i did i basically um told myself shut up i hired a different company and within 30 days I got three deals on pay-per-click advertising. I only bring that to attention is because a thousand calls a day

can be awesome for you and it could be shit for someone in, you know, New York. Right. It's, it's just going to depend. It's your marketing strategy. If I'm, again, me being me, I would rather keep everything in-house if you can. I like that model. I just, I don't know. It's a higher end recruiting model. Yeah. That's all it is, is sales.

So the guys that we have, I think the average age is probably 21 years old. I think the oldest is like 23, 24, you know, the youngest 18. And they're usually college kids just out of college. We have a pretty cool culture around here. So I've been able to develop that. But if I'm going to suggest, you know, it depends on what you want, I guess is the next question. Are you looking to get one or two deals a month out of this? Or are you looking to get four to six deals a month out of this, out of this one marketing strategy? If you're referring to your way of doing it, I mean, I don't want to do anything

unless I'm going to get four to five deals a month out of it. I mean, out of each individual strategy we do, if it's not producing a handful of deals, I don't really want to keep screwing around with. That's why we keep adjusting our bandit sign a handful of deals. I don't really want to keep screwing around with this. Why we keep adjusting our band design business quite a bit. I mean, I've been upwards of a thousand signs a day and long story short, I'm going to do it one way. I want to at least get four to five deals a month from that strategy. So, yeah.

Okay. So I'm going to suggest, unfortunately, I'm not going to give you just a, I think you got to try a couple of things. Basically, if I try something and find it works, work my way up to give you just a i think you got to try a couple things basically if i try something and find it works work my way up to what you're doing i would say maybe potentially start with a thousand calls a day um and or another company if you've been introduced to another company by all means not just them so far okay if you are thinking about doing it bilingual I can introduce you to the company that I was using in

Mexico I know the owner of the company directly so it'd be a direct handoff to you but you got to work with them right because you're dealing with people that are bilingual and they live in Mexico and but you got so you got to work with them you got to listen their phone calls You got to listen to their phone calls. You got to manage the leads. This is all about managing leads. That's the same VA model I've been looking at with the girls from Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, all them. I have to train them a lot more than I expected to, which again, if I knew that going into it, I wouldn't be so shocked. I was just told, Oh, they're the best cold callers. So I've been looking for somebody that's already trained. Nope. Nope. And these guys are trained. I've used these guys. So there are some people

that are trained, obviously it's a call floor. So there's a high turnover and all that kind of stuff. Right. Um, but Mike's a high intensity sale. Like when you're talking about like this guy is the epitome of a call floor owner, right? Like high intensity, let's go, let's go. Like you would literally, you're like, how do you have so much energy all the time? Right? Like, but they're not just calling on Spanish speaking people only. They're calling. I gave everything. I give all my leads, right. Or all the phone numbers. And so when someone answers in Phoenix, obviously there's a good amount and they can have that conversation. So I can introduce you to him if you want. If not, if you want to use a thousand calls a day, then do that.

I was thinking of split testing, depending on where this conversation went today. Obviously, I think your model is where I should probably grow too, because that's how we ran our construction company. We internalized a lot of our labor to not just have more control over it, but to have more control over the price of it too. So how much are you willing to spend? Every month. And I don't care. You could say $1,000.

You could say $10,000. I don't necessarily, as bad as it sounds, have a budget. Okay. I'm willing to kind of… Hey, bro. I started with shit. The fact that you don't have a budget, man. That's not a bad thing to say at all. Right. So, I mean, I'm not gonna,

I'm not gonna say I'm going to dump 10 grand a month at it right out of the gate, but I'm willing to put, I'm willing to put what needs to be put out there. So I don't, I mean three, four, five. I mean, it's, if it's going to produce a return, I don't want to start small and hate my returns. It's like, it's like the bandit signs when we jumped into that, when you and I first met or when first storm, I'm not, I mean, I went go big or go home. Here's, here's my thought with your budget, right? And again, for the people

that are going to watch this training, this may not be for everybody in terms of where your budget is versus watching this training. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk to you and your budget and someone who's similar to, you know, let's call it three to $6,000 a month. This is how I would handle this. I personally would go find two people that you can bring in house in Dallas, in your office. Okay. While simultaneously working with the company from maybe Mexico.

Simultaneously working with either. Cause that gets me started right now. But those two against each other okay so you pin the two dudes most likely dudes the two dudes you have in your office every day against a thousand calls a day or against the the group in mexico and you have the same exact expectations across the board because the expectations are per call floor rep per caller it's not per company right um the expectation should be one to two leads a day if they're calling for four hours so four hours equals how many dials three to four hundred

uh if you're using mojo which I suggest you use Mojo. The triple dialer? Yep. Then they can do more than that, right? They can do closer to six hundred calls a day. Four hours? Yeah. It also depends what kind of answer rate you get.

Because obviously, the more people they're talking to, which is a good thing, the less calls they're going to be making. So at the end of the day, I look for one rep to bring in at minimum five leads a week. But their goal is 10. Two leads a day. So then you got to qualify what's a lead. Here's my lead.

Hey, is this Chris? Yes, it's Chris. Chris. Awesome. I'm looking to buy home in your area. I'm looking to buy cash. And so wanted to see if you're open to a cash offer or interested in selling. You know, I have been thinking about selling. Okay. Awesome. I just make sure that this is the right address. One to the main street. Chris, is this the right address? Yes, it is. Awesome. Now, obviously the conversation goes a little bit further. You know, when are you looking to sell? Um, how quickly are you looking to sell or how quickly are you looking to sell? How much would you like? Um, and when can you close? Okay. That's all I'm doing. That's it. That is a lead, right? If you are looking to sell in the first 12 months

or in the next 12 months, I should say, you're now a lead, period. There's no other qualifications. You're not over-qualifying at all. So the second you say, oh, I've been thinking about selling, you're now an official lead and you're going to go into my Podio account, okay?

So the value is going to be a lot more about, um, um, versus bad leads. Yeah. So you need to have good skip tracing, which is another cost, right?

I've got a decent TLO account. Okay. You have one. Oh, okay. Great. So I have the Nexus Lexus counter or Lexus Nexus. I pay 20 cents per lead. It's expensive, but my contact ratio is like 90%. Hey, is this Chris? Yes. So

nine out of 10 times it's Chris. The other time like, no, I don't know who Chris is. I'm John. So you're referring to getting numbers for your entire list that way? Yep. Oh, okay. So I take the same list. I take the same list that I mail to, all 300,000, and I just break it down in chunks of like 30,000, and I'll go skip trace it.

That's one bad thing about TLO, though. They do not let real estate people batch, and they charge way too much. So I go outsource to get all my numbers. Come to me. I'll, I'll do it for you if you want me to. So it's 20 cents per lead. I won't bash anybody on something that's going to get posted, but one company that's been thrown around our group, the, the number, the number rate kind of sucks, but I mean, I'm dealing with what I got, so. Yep. And you'll have to. And so again. Yeah. But one off though, my TLO account's great. I mean, I, if, cause obviously, you know, you put your time into it, you can get every number you want, but I can't do that for a

hundred thousand. If you need a batch, just send me a message. I'll do it for you. You need to have at least 10,000. It's the minimum. I've got a stockpile of numbers sitting around. No, no, no. Uh, you want 10,000 addresses, right? You're going to send me the address and then I'll say, Oh, minimum. Yeah, absolutely. You need 10,000.

So I'm happy to help you do that. But so kind of to close this gap, hopefully answering your question, how I would handle it. If I'm you, I would hire either a thousand calls a day or potentially hire my Mexican call floor, call floor in Mexico.

What, however you want to say. Um, so I'm going to start with that either way so I can split test those two against each other right away. my Mexican call floor, call floor in Mexico, however you want to say it. So I'm going to start with that either way so I can split test those two against each other right away. Okay. So you could do it that way? While I'm looking for somebody to hire. I would actually just choose one and split test that against the two guys in your office. Okay. I guess I'm not too confident in my hiring ability. So, I'm assuming it's going to take me a minute or two to find somebody worthwhile. That's the only reason I was just... If I'm going to spend the money, then I'll run both of them just for two,

three weeks until I find somebody. 100%. Okay. 100%. Then when I do find somebody to come on board, there's probably, what, a week training curve or something? Let him just listen to all the calls I've been recording. I mean, think about this. This is the script, right? Hey, is this Chris? Yeah, it's Chris. Three sentences. And because they're going to be in your office and you and or your wife will likely have oversight of them. It's not going to take terribly long. Now you got it. The training never really stops, right? I mean, you're always saying, Hey, why didn't you ask this question? When you put the lead into the notes or the notes into the lead, you know, why am I asking you? Why didn't you get this out of them?

It's not just good enough that they're willing, right? So you're always training. But the reality is you want to get them, hey, are you comfortable with this quick script? Great. And then you continue to train over time. That part never really stops. Fair enough. You're right.

So, and then when I have those people, I pay him 10, $10 an hour and 6% commission on the gross sale. So if we make 10 grand on a wholesale fee, they get 6%. So 600 bucks. So here's another question.

Other people may be thinking over, maybe they're not. It comes back to the VA model, women versus men. There's a ongoing argument that goes as far back into my other businesses as possible. Who's better on the phone? Women. Okay. If I could hire women all day long, this role, I would. There's just not a lot of women out there that have thick enough skin, that know what they're doing, that have any level of experience or willing to be hung up on a bunch of times or have people say, fuck you. There's just not a bunch out there, right? That's just the reality. But I would argue tooth and nail.

And that's all I've been interviewing so far. So. Say that again? I said, and that's all I've been interviewing so far. Oh, bro. If you can get two women, oh my God, I think you would crush. I literally can't get women. They don't even answer my ads or anything. So if you can get them, get them. All right.

We'll touch base on that when I see you next then. Cool. All right. For the sake of time, brother, do you have any last questions? I don't think so. I mean, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. I just, I know what I need to do. I was just kind of lost on which way to go at it. So I'll just, I'll run a split test. I'll focus on hiring some people, but I'll start small and then try to work my way up to maybe where you're at, where I've got a few people. But at that point,

I need to be able to have somebody else manage them and not me. So make a decision whether you're going to split test the two floors. I'm going to do that right now. I'm going to, I'm going to do that. And then I'm going to hire somebody. So hopefully by the time you and I see each other, what, in the next month or something like that, then hopefully by then I'll have at least hired somebody or about to hire somebody. Cool. That gives me a full month to figure it out.

And hopefully a lot sooner, but I'm going to give myself a little grace since I'm a bad hirer. I like to just believe what people say and get them going. Yeah. And I would want, you know, listen, bro, like you're charismatic. You're in our mastermind. People love you. You're obviously very successful in business. And I would be very careful about saying you're a bad hire, right? Could you be better? Yeah. But again, this kind of, and this is taking a veer left a little bit, just watch what you say. Watch what you think, man. I did a video yesterday because it's so important, even though you may half-heartedly mean it, right? Or maybe you mean it a hundred

percent. Like, couldn't you get better? Sure. But that's how you got to speak, right? Is, um, you know, I just want you to have that self-confidence because if you go into every interview thinking, Oh, I'm going to fuck this up, I'm bad hire or whatever, then you will. Right. So I, you know, obviously you're charismatic. Obviously you're successful. You have a lot of these qualities. So I would never be scared of interviewing and say, I can always get better. So anyways, we're going left on that, but I would just watch what you're saying. Awesome. I appreciate all the help very much. Of course, brother. Appreciate you jumping on this call. Um, I know this is going to be really meaningful for whoever's watching this, whether it's in a product that they got or on YouTube

or wherever this is, man. Well, here's one more, here's one more point before you jump off, going back to somebody. Cause I, whenever I listened to podcasts, even when it was like a year ago, more than a year ago, one thing that was always before I started wholesaling a lot versus all I used to do was flips. That's why you, and that's probably why I first started talking to you. We both started the same way. All I did was anyways. Um, so going back to somebody that may only have a thousand, 200, I mean a thousand to maybe 2000 bucks to spend versus my budget versus your budget advice to them might be instead of split testing, like I'm going to be doing or even hiring somebody, the advice might be to just simply

pick one of the two, the Mexican call floor, Filipino, Vietnamese, Thailand call center, whoever it may be, pick your call center or pick a thousand calls a day. In either case, pick your poison, pick one, try it. I mean, that might be a better solution for the money, right? I mean, just answer the question. 100%. You just got to get going. I agree with you, right? So pick one and go for it. The next thing I would say to that is depending upon that person's budget. So for example, if that person's like, Justin, I just got started. I just got your training program. I just, you know, I'm in your boardroom mastermind, which is more meant for newbies. What do I need to do?

I can spend a thousand dollars a month. If I'm going to give any type of tips to that person, um, or advice to that person, you're doing it yourself. That's how you're doing it. Period. You're not going to go spend the thousand dollars on a call floor. You're going to go make those calls yourself every single day. Um, because a, there's no cost B you're going to get really good at that. Um, this is the same thing, you know, Scott Bauer, right? He's in our billionaire. So it came to me five years ago. He wanted to hire me as a private coach. I said, yes, he's going to break seven figures this year, but it's because he did everything for the first three years, everything himself and built up an income and built up a savings and built up his business. And now he's able to build

where he's at today. So yeah, if you have less than a thousand dollars a month to spend, you're doing it yourself. There's no doubt. The next level is just hire one person. Next level, do what I'm doing. Next level, do what you're doing. You got it. Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate your time time very much it does mean a lot to me