The Science of Flipping - Episode 145: Interview with Bob Lachance – Secret to Cold Calling

Episode Date: June 14, 2019

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Welcome to the Science of Flipping Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. Yo, yo, what is up? What is up, everybody? Welcome back to the Science of Flipping Podcast. I am your host, Justin Colby. And if you're actually watching a video of this, you see next to me, I have a very, very special guest, Mr. Bob Lachance. But before I introduce you, dude, I just want everyone to understand if this happens to be your first time hearing me or the Science of Flipping Podcast, it's about the systems, the tools, the connections to really build a business and not be stuck in your business. So regardless of you maybe just starting your real estate

business wholesaling, or if you've built a massive wholesale business and now you're going into rehabbing or buying and hold, this is the strategies, the tools, the systems that you can implement immediately to create a very successful real estate investing business. And for that reason, I had to bring on my guy, Mr. Bob Lachance, because he was one of the first mentors I ever had way back in 2007. And we have done a lot of business over the years, and he has been very, very successful in the cold calling space. And I bring that to light because I know a lot of my followers know I've successfully built a very large lead gen system using cold calling. And part of that is

with Bob and his crew. And so, Bob, what is up, dude? What's going on, brother? Well, first of all, thanks for having me. And now you're aging me, dude. I like it. You know, we've known each other since 2007. You see the bald spot on my head right here. When my beard grows a little bit, a little bit bigger, I got my white spots all over the place. My daughter kills me every day. Dad, are you going to highlight your hair? I'm like, listen, I'm not going to do it. It's my 11 year old daughter. But anyway, thanks for having me, brother. Yeah, dude. So your bald spots in the front, mine's in the back. I get to hide it a little bit more, but that's all whatever. I digress. So listen, you know, a lot of what I've talked about over the years now, and I'm firm on this is we are in the marketing business period. There is no discussion about it.

And I cut my teeth in this business, specifically real estate investing by cold calling. I was broke, busted, disgusted. Most everyone knows my story. I was sleeping on my buddy's couch. The only way I knew to get a deal was to call agents on Zillow. And I literally, all day long, my goal was to call 100 calls a day on my cell phone, right? Just one by one. Hey, saw your listing on Zillow. Want to have a conversation? And I did it every day. And finally, nine months later, I got my first deal. But I've always been a massive advocate for cold calling for motivated sellers. Now, I talk a lot about every, you know, direct mail works, PPC works, band of signs works, door knocking works, that all still works. But I've never left cold calling. And as a matter of fact, the reason why I really needed you to be on this call,

and I'm so grateful you have time for me in the science flipping is because I did it two different ways. I used the virtual model versus what I believed that was going to be a better model at the time, local. I hired locally. I paid American rates. I was paying $20 an hour. The expensive model. Right. And I had 12 local people in Phoenix calling at $20 an hour. And then I pinned that up against the virtual model, which would be Riva and in your company. Dude, I'll tell you now, and I'm sitting here publicly, which this is going to go everywhere. You'll see us on Facebook, Instagram, you name it, as well as iTunes and all that. There is no quantifiable difference in quality of lead and deal type when paying someone $20 who sits next to you versus paying someone a virtual assistant rate that may be in Indonesia or South America somewhere, right? And so I need you to come on because your services

at Riva is so good. And the statistical data will show every time that no one has to lose money like I lost money. No one has to go torch the $120,000 I went in with the local people to create valuable leads. At this point, I digress. I want you to talk now because I obviously torched a ton of money learning the hard way. Roderick Well, it's funny you say that because obviously we're, you know, you and I are part of a number of different mastermind groups, right? And it was kind of funny, last mastermind group I saw, I was presenting exactly on this particular topic and our numbers were within 3% difference of, you know, a virtual model or an

in-house model. It's actually pretty, it was incredible. So anyway, we're out of the Philippines. I know you know that. I've been around, what, I think five years, started my first company five years ago. But just going off of the numbers here, and I just want to, do you mind if I dig into some numbers a little bit? No, I think that's really important. I think a lot of people don't understand the power of KPIs, key performance indicators, the numbers and how that moves your needle. So, I want you to do this. Absolutely. Okay. So, there's a couple different pieces I want to make sure that everybody's aware. I wrote down. So, if I'm looking down, I'm on camera. I wrote

some notes down here. One of the really important things that we have to look at is if you start with, everyone starts with a list, right? Every cold calling process starts with a list. So what does that mean? That's non-owner occupied, it's pre-foreclosures, et cetera, et cetera. So let's say you buy a list of 5,000 names, right? We'll call them records, 5,000 records. When you get those skip traced, you're going to lose about 40% of those records because they won't come back with a phone number that is valid. There's different services. I am just going across grain on some of the averages. We good with that? Right. Cause I know you, you know, and there's some bigger ones. You got

different types of skip trace services that you talked about on your last episode, right? Because I know you, you know, and there's some bigger ones, you got different types of skip trace services that you talked about on your last episode, right? Yeah. And I think one of the things I'll mention here, just because we're talking about that, I've always been an advocate, there are a lot of services out there, okay? I've always been an advocate of getting better quality data, because then your connection rate is higher. And that's all you're looking for right and so for my loyal listeners i do have an option um i'm not going to say it because i'm kind of gaming the system but i have very very high quality data um that i can help my loyal listeners but if you're doing voicemail drops or ringless voicemail i do not believe you need high quality data. If you're using, you know, VAs or anyone for cold calling where there's person to person, I'm always going to argue, spend more on

your data so that you can have better quality data. Yeah. And you will spend more and that's okay. I agree. Because if you're in it for the long haul, it takes time. I was just talking to someone today trying to explain this whole process, right? Because they think, all right, when you have 5,000 records, that means you're going to be dialing 5,000 people. It doesn't work that way. You start with 5,000. You cut it down after you skip trace.

You're probably stuck with 3,000, right? Now you're stuck with 3,000 names. And the beauty of what happens here is now you're at 5,000 or now you're from 5,000 to 3,000. And then what's 40% on average of 3,000? Just under two grand. Right. Just under two grand. That's your connect rate. That means how many people will typically answer the phone. Now, I pulled stats from my team from yesterday.

And here was the stats. It was a 31.73% connect rate, right? So on those numbers, those 3,000, it was 31.73%. But here's where it really starts getting into numbers. There's a difference between a connect rate from landlines and a connect rate from mobile phones. Right? What do you think, just off of guess, what do you think the landline connect rate came back at? 20%? 7%. Which makes sense because, you know, many of us don't even, I don't remember the last time I'll be honest

with you. I answered my landline phone because I'm looking at the number. I'm like, dude, I don't even know. I don't have a landline phone. The fact that you have a landline phone is cool. That's the other side of it, right? It's tied to all my other crap that I probably don't need if I really looked into it, right? But cell phones, mobile over 50% connect rate. So I guess I was thinking about that backwards. I was thinking it was going to be, yeah, okay. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Over 50%, whatever that number came at, I think it was 31.73% when I averaged them. I could be wrong for all the data guys, number guys, I don't know. But anyway, it's around that number. So out of that number, it kicks out 1.5%, somebody who raises their hand that says, I will, I am interested to sell. I'm interested

to entertain an offer from you. It doesn't mean that they are like so motivated where they're losing their house tomorrow. This particular strategy has to do with gauging motivation because you know, we, you and I talk about this all the time. It has to, it leads in conversion. Not every investor is the same in the middle, right? To where you, you can make money. If you're an investor, you're a buy and hold investor. You also could list properties, you're owner financing, you also rehab and wholesale. That's five different ways to make money. Guess what? You have a way better opportunity than I do to turn every single one of those leads into money. And if it's not every single one of them, a higher percentage. No doubt. No doubt. And so just because the way I speak is very similar to

yours, how that typically, and you and I, prior to this call to make sure we were speaking the same numbers, how that really looks is you're going to have a higher connect ratio. Out of the connect ratio, roughly 10% of all your call volume will be an actual contact. And what that means is if I call Bob and I say, hey, Bob, do you still want to mention? Yes, this is Bob. That's a contact. It doesn't mean he wants to sell.

It's a contact. And then from there, it's roughly a 7%. What you call ITS, I call just a lead, right? Like ITS is interested to sell. I call a lead because they're interested in selling 12 months. So if you make 1,000 calls, right, or 10,000 calls just to make numbers easier, 10% of 10,000 calls is going to be a thousand. 7% of those thousand is going to be 70. You'll have 70 leads, right? And so we're in alignment. I speak about it in a certain way that I think my followers and listeners hear me a lot.

So just so, just so we're all clear. Yeah. And the numbers end up being the same, but from there and here's, could I add a system in there? I think is very important. So when that happens, let's say it's an ITS. So you have, let's say you're using our team to do outbound dialing or you're building your own, either one, right? Here's what I recommend happens. Once that ITS comes, it goes to then the investor, which is you or me on the ground, right? Let's say our VA team then sends me a lead. It's best always to have that acquisition person take that first call. And if they're calling back and they don't get a hold of them, what you should do is explain exactly who you are, who your team members are.

So then now you pass it off to your virtual assistant on the follow-up side. There is such a huge miss here with investors because everyone has a funnel and we were just talking about marketing. One's outbound dialing, one's direct mail, one's Craigslist, Zillow, whatever you have, Facebook marketplace, whatever it is, right? They all come into the funnel. That first interaction should be with us as the acquisition people on the ground, right? Unless it's a inbound call where a VA takes it because it's a, we buy house postcard. That's a little different, right? But that first interaction, right? The outbound dial, I do recommend that a

live, you know, investor that has the game, it's your business. And then you get the gauge that you put into three categories. One category is going to be warm. One's going to be lukewarm and the other one's going, and you can, you could change the terminology. Last one being cold, right? And then you have your VA follow up every seven days for warm, every 21 days, and everyone could have their different timeframes. This is what I do. Every 21 days for lukewarm and every 30 days for cold. So then that's the follow-up. I mean, what is it? 70% of all properties are bought through follow-up and that's it. Whether you're an agent or you're an investor, it's the same. I think mine's higher. I think it's like 85%. We were looking at it to start this year off what we did last year. And it was like 85% of all deals done were in a follow-up phase. Yep. And that's where I personally would get, I would invest in

a virtual assistant to do that because when I first started real estate, I didn't tell you this, but started in 2004 and I would door knock every freaking day, dude, from 10 AM to 3 PM. I just retired from hockey. So I, dude, I didn't know anything. So I was door knocking every single day. And I mean, the only thing I knew was, all right, I got to take action. I got to take action. But when I got home, let me rephrase this. I took Saturday and Sunday off. This is Monday through Friday, just so I'm very transparent on that. I would go home and I would actually have that list of pre-foreclosure individuals that were losing their houses, and I would skip trace them. And I'd be hammering the phone till eight o'clock until my wife and kids, or I had my first kid then, till my wife was still saying, get off, you gotta, you know,

spend time with the family, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But that was just, you know, it took me a little while to figure it out that I was going to burn out if I kept this freaking going. Right. Yeah. No, I think again, I'm passionate about cold calling again. This is why I want you on here. And in fact, you know, the follow-up game is just as important as the front end. If not, sometimes more important. I mean, the reality is fortune's in the follow-up, and that's a very true statement. You got to first create the ability to have a lead so you can follow up on. But absolutely that follow-up, especially if it's in that, you know, 21 day follow-up or every,

you know, 90 day follow-up or whatever the, you know, 30 day follow-up, you have to have someone doing that consistently. And that's where your services are so great because not only are you being able to call the lead, but you're also being able to follow up with those leads that aren't in the hot bucket, right? The hot bucket, I would say your acquisition guy in your office needs to be doing it or you do if you're a solopreneur. If it falls into a warm lead or a cold lead, I highly suggest having your, you know, VAs be doing that for you so you can be focused on those, you know, low hanging fruit, hot leads that you need to get in front of immediately. Yeah. And so when I look at it, when I talk to, you know, investors and they say investors or agents, it doesn't matter for real estate

professionals. And they ask me, Hey, Bob, I know I need help. I, you know, could you walk me through what a, what a agent can do or with it, what a virtual assistant could do? I tell them to write a T on a piece of paper and put time on the left-hand side and put either money, business growth on the other side. And I look at it, no matter what, whatever tasks that you look at in your business and what you do, if it has to do with, it's going to save me time. This is not putting money in your pocket in essence, right? So I say, okay, what is the main reason why you want to VA? Well, you know, I want to spend more time with my family. I want to spend more time with my wife. I want to get my kids off the bus and, you know, get my kids on the bus and off the bus, et cetera. So I said, okay,

perfect. Now let's walk through some of those tasks that are taking up all of your time. Is it posting on Zillow? Is it posting on Craigslist? Is it scraping leads through, right, for sale by owner sites. No freaking way should anyone be doing that. If you're sitting on your butt, I can use you as a great example, right? You're a high level investor. You're going, going, going, going, going. If you had to sit down and go through Craigslist, go through Facebook marketplace, go through Zillow, outbound dialing, you would go nuts, right? You're obsessed, right? What, you know, I look at you and your business, I would say, okay, I would have a VA join all of these investor groups because you're looking for the top level

cash buyers in the area. So you go to all those investor groups, you scrape MLSs, and you look at all the cash buyers, you have your VAs outbound down and set appointments for you. You would never do that because you would stop doing it because you're busy here. You're getting a deal closed here. You're meeting a seller. You're meeting, right? If I'm sitting on my butt, like I'm doing right now, that means I'm not making any money as a business owner, right? You should be networking. You should be talking to agents. You should be talking to investors, private money lenders, buyers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? As you can tell. Yeah. No, I think that's, I mean, again, you know, specifically to cold calling, I think everything's a marketing channel, but I think you can use that same virtual assistant in

a sense to do not just a list, you know, here's your list of 5,000 to call, but also hit Craigslist every single day and call the one-off properties. Here's a list of realtors you need to be calling about their listings. Those actions are not best utilized with us, the business owner and operator. Those are definitely employee-based. And obviously, as I just proved to you at the beginning of this call, when you're hiring an employee at $20 an hour versus a VA at a much less rate, you will not statistically see the difference, right? And just to add to that, I just want to put a bow on the example that I gave with time and making money. So making money on the right

hand side, you know, you have investors that hire virtual assistants to help them make money. Cold calling is a great example because they're outbound down. They're doing those tasks. They're hammering the phones to set appointments for you, right? The other one is on the follow-up virtual assistant where you have, I mean, we talked about this, geez, I think a couple of weeks ago about, you know, if you're going to spend X amount of money on all of that marketing and it goes into a funnel and you call them once and they don't answer, what happens? You're going to go to the next lead, the next lead, the next lead. And before you know it, you got 500 leads sitting there and you're like, oh crap, what do I do now? Yeah. And that's where you need to have the follow-up. That's where you have to do it.

Dude, I, you know, again, I'm passionate about this. I think my, my fans know that my, my following knows that. So I appreciate you, uh, coming on here and just talking about the power of having a virtual assistant. They can do so much. I think we kind of focused on cold calling truthfully, because that's, uh, you and I have been talking a lot about that over time. Um, but they can do so much. Right. And, and that's the power of them. um lead in our business there's two issues it's the lead gen or conversion and so if you can have a va handle both which would be the lead gen and then the follow-up so that those leads never die and they get onto your uh onto your plate then that is going to be ultimately most important so um, dude, you hit it on the head, man.

I really appreciate you being on here. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, I think we talked about something. So where do we find you? So you and I, you know, we're chatting about what we can do for our listeners if they wanted to get a hold of you. And I think you kind of said you were going to hook me up a little.

Not me, but my followers, all you. And I think you kind of, you said you were going to hook me up a little, not me, but my followers, all you people listening to this and watching this. If they go to you on a very specific site, you know that comes through me and you are giving them a discount. Is that a fair assessment? That is a fair assessment. So I set it up. So everybody go to flippingvirtualassistance.com. So that is specific

to Justin, to you and your followers, your team members, everyone who, you know, you know and recommend our service. So we want to make sure that we, you know, funnel everything to you to give that discount. So again, it's flippingvirtualassistance.com. You said it like a commercial. I did. That was pretty good. Virtual.com. I love it. Well, dude, I, you know, I really, you brought that to my attention. You said, Hey bro, I want your, your tribe to kind of get a discount. So I appreciate that. You did not have to do that, but I'm very thankful you did. Um, guys, I use VAs. I am a passion about cold calling and passion about lead gen. If you are going to do this, Bob is I use VAs. I am a passion about cold calling and passion about lead gen. If you are going to do this, Bob is my recommendation. Okay. Um, if it's cold calling,

awesome. If it turns out to be something else and follow up, awesome. If it turns out to be something else where it's list building and they do it all, this tends to be more about cold calling, but guys, he is my recommendation. You know, he said there's going to be a discount for anyone I bring. So please, it is flipping, what was the website? Flipping, flippingvirtualassistance.com. Flippingvirtualassistance.com. I appreciate your time, man. You've knocked it out. And so thank you so much for being on here. All right. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks brother.