The Science of Flipping - Episode 22: Interview with Todd Toback Part 2 | 8 Secrets to Build a Bigger Better Business | Real Estate Investing Podcast

Episode Date: January 31, 2014

document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab323ee3e", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/post/390", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); <p> document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab323ee97", {"title":"Real Estate Investing Podcast u2013 Episode 22 | Interview with Todd Toback Part 2 | 8 Secrets to Build a Bigger Better Business","subtitle":null,"summary":null,"duration":"","poster":null,"chapters":"","transcripts":"","audio":[{"url":"http://thescienceofflipping.com/audio/Podcast-Episode-21-B-Interview-with-Todd-Toback-Part-2.mp3","mimeType":"audio/mpeg","title":"AUDIO/MPEG","size":0}]}, "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); <a href="http://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/itunes-justin-colby.png"><img alt="itunes-justin-colby" src="https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/itunes-justin-colby-150x150.png" width="150" height="150" /></a></p> In part 2 of this interview, Justin interviews Todd Toback on his 8 secrets to building a bigger better business.  Todd is a master wholesaler out of San Diego. He has built a complete business that allows him to only come into the office 15 hours a week.  Don’t miss this interview.

Welcome to the Science of Flipping Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. Welcome, welcome, welcome everybody to the Science of Flipping Podcast, episode 21, part two. Here we are again with master wholesaler, Todd Toback. I'm your host, Justin Colby, and we are excited to bring you part two of this incredible podcast, The Eight Secrets to Build a Bigger, Better Business. If you've never listened to this podcast, if this is the first time you've heard our podcast, I highly encourage you to get over to our website, thescienceofflipping.com. Get your free e-book. It is the number one e-book on the market today.

It is the 15 most costly mistakes a real estate investor can make in today's market. I know Todd is going to say the same. If we had this ebook when we first started, we would have made more money quicker. We would have made less mistakes. Get to the website, thescienceofflipping.com. Download that ebook for free. It is a must read. Very short, very quick. Make sure you have that. But this podcast is about systemizing your business, hitting the goals in your business so that. But this podcast is about systemizing your business, hitting the goals in your business so that you do not have to be in your business all the time, and you can be working on your business. And the reason why I bring this special guest on is because that is exactly what Todd does right on. So what's number three?

Number three, okay, is, and I know you probably talk about this a lot on the podcast, but sometimes you have to say something 100 times before it really, really sinks in, okay? Yep. And that's a commitment to systems. Now, here's the thing, guys. I feel you, right? I feel you in that a lot of you are entrepreneurs, and you are running around like pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, and you've got so many ideas, and you're so excited, and you are a rainmaker. I mean, you make things happen, and that's the way I am.

And you don't want to sit down and write down what you do on a day-to-day basis. I mean, it's like boring, right? Yeah. But it is so important. So the biggest thing is, yeah, yeah you got to be committed to systems and if you don't want to do it that's okay and i actually don't think that's a really really good use of your time okay well if you don't want to do it you got two choices either let your business explode okay or go nowhere or to hire someone who will do it for you. Okay. And that's my, um, that's what I do. Okay.

So our office manager, we hired him and I'm like, okay, your job for the first four months that you work here is to systemize our business. Right. And this is the format that I want it. And I want you to, uh, we'll sit down and we'll go through everything that we go through on a daily basis, all the activities. And even if it's not perfect, okay, I just want you to systemize this stuff. So we sat down and we started over at, you know, lead management, right? And then two was sales process. And three was transaction coordination. And then four was office management.

And those are the four things, right? And selling the properties was in the transaction coordination. And then we wrote down everything that we do, right? And we had, you know, like 100 things in there. And so what I would recommend is, you know, I know you guys can do that, right? Is start with the four areas in your business and then write down what each major action is in your business, right? An event, they call it, right? And put that in a Google Doc, okay?

And that should take you no longer than an hour to do. A Google Doc and do that. Then have your office manager or whoever else does it start filling in these things with either a training video or a Word document. I love to use Jing. Have you talked about that on this website, on this podcast, Justin? Not on this one, but this podcast, Justin? Yeah, not on this, you know, obviously not this one. But yeah, we talk a lot about creating videos for training manuals. Yeah.

So if you guys should, Jing, we like live and die by Jing. So if you just Google Jing, I think it's Jing Project, you can create five-minute training videos without actually ever downloading a video or rendering a video. It just records it and it gives you a link. And then we take those links and we put it in the Excel spreadsheet. And it's like so easy. And you can run your entire business off one Google doc, with little training videos, and you'll be rocking and rolling. As soon as we did this, like we were like, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. You know, and I would would say don't worry about getting this perfect because we're constantly changing and of course if you're an entrepreneur you're going to come in you're going to be like you know jumping all over the place again yeah but todd to this point i have a

there was a book i read recently um the one thing by gary keller are you familiar with that book i already been added to my list here there you you go. The One Thing by Gary Keller. Gary Keller is the individual who started Keller Williams Realty. But he has a quote that I'll read here to everybody. And it goes along the lines of what you're talking about. So it says, when you want the best results of achieving success, go small. Ignore all the things you could do and recognize the things you should do. Not all things matter equally. And that goes right along the lines about creating the systems.

Having what you say your office manager, go in, focus on your four parts of your business, create the training videos for those businesses. Those are the things that you should and need to be focusing on rather than all the other things that are out there for entrepreneurs to have the squirrel syndrome. Squirrel, right? That's what we all do. But you need to systemize your business and focus on the right things because not all things matter equally. Right. And so, you know, one of the things, Justin, that you mentioned is like being a squirrel is actually a strength, right? Your ability to do that. But the problem is, is that if you're a squirrel,

you know, like running after the next, you know, acorn, right, is that you can't do this on your own, right? You need to hire a team. It is a requirement. And so if you're thinking, wow, you know, I am that person. I have a hard time focusing and sitting down and doing this. Well, you better hire someone like tomorrow because you, you know, you are not being complimentary. You need someone to help you with this stuff. And so even if it's a stretch, you know, you i really really need to do this i have a real estate agent who i work with uh who sends us deals and she is just like that she is so amazing and i love her um but she's really really good at dealing with people and she's really really you know bad at everything else and you know she's like oh i need to get better about this i'm like no you don't you know you need to focus just on being

in front of customers and nothing else and so else. She got someone who helped her with her systems and wrote out these processes. It was like the one thing. Now she's pretty much on pace to double her business from last year, and she's taking more time off. There you go. Boom. Great example. Great example. All right.

Now this one is number four. All right. And this is huge. I mean, these are all huge, but this is like a big star next to this one. And it sounds boring, but I'm going to tell you this right now. lay into number five and that is commitment to a crm okay a crm is customer um relationship management software so if you ever heard of like salesforce or act or um you know gold mine um high rise you know these are all things that help you keep track of your customers and most people when they do direct marketing to motivated sellers or even they're dealing with agents right they get a phone call on their cell phone you know like yeah you know tell me about this deal and yeah and they're dealing with hot deals right well what happens is is that there's no formal system and process and tracking system and follow-up process to to get those deals meaning they have no formal sales process and that is not a business it's a job and that's like throw something against the wall and if you're not

dealing with a CRM it is amateur hour right and I'm saying you must get a CRM I'm gonna give everyone your recommendation. There's a company called High Rise HQ, H-I-G-H-R-I-S-E-H-Q.com. And they have the most simple, effective, useful CRM you could possibly dream of. I love it, love it, love it. And it is actually the core, the center of our business. And it tracks every single lead that we have. It tells us when to call them. It tracks every email conversation that we have. It tracks our deals. And so everything is sitting in there right in front of us. And we know exactly who we need to call and when. We have a rule in our office,

never take a phone call unless you have high rise open in front of your computer. Because I know there's a lot of people out there who have taken a phone call from a motivated seller or an agent. They're like, where's that lead? What happened to that? And then something else happened in their business, right? Maybe they had to put out some kind of fire and they lost that lead. There you go. So, you know, in addition is that your mind is so full of whatever is going on in your business that you are going to miss out on a lot of opportunities if you don't have a good CRM. In addition, you're not going to have capacity, okay, to really grow.

Yeah. Now, Todd, I just want to jump in here because I know a lot of these systems, they give options, right? You've named multiple systems. There's a bunch of CRMs out there. And they all give like, you know, the first, there's a bunch of CRMs out there. And they all give like, the first option is $19 a month, the section option is $29, so on and so on. When someone's starting, what's your recommendation?

Do they go all in and get the best of the best and have that capability from the get go? What would you recommend? So here's what I would recommend. High Rise HQ actually has a free version. I want you guys to pause. If you're on a run, obviously you can't drive and you can't do this, but if you're listening to this in your office, pause this podcast right now

and go to High Rise HQ and go under pricing and scroll down. They actually have a free version, and you can have two users. You can have yourself and you can have an assistant, whatever it is. Deal with it. Okay, so sign up for an account and just start using it. And what I love about the software is that within 15 minutes, you'll be fully functional. So it's really, really intuitive and you can figure it out. And that's why we use it.

You can use other stuff that has more capabilities, but the CRM, and remember this, guys, if you're going to build a big business, it's not about you. It's about your team and what will your team use?

What will they love? What will they say, hey, I'm doing my highest and best work and that's why we chose High Rise because it's so, so, so easy. I'm going to give

a book recommendation here and it's called Rework. Oh, yeah give a book recommendation here and it's called a rework oh yeah great book great book and the guys who wrote that book are actually uh 37 signals which makes high rise so um i'd recommend reading that book and also signing up for an account right now now here's the thing once you get into high rise and you spend two days putting leads in there you're gonna be like wow you know, I'm going to go all in with the software. So after that, I think it's like 50 bucks a month. And that's like the cheapest software you'll find. I don't enjoy free software at all over the longterm because that usually means support will stink. So, you

know, again, this is your business. And if you're going to do it, I'm going to tell you to do here, you're going to have tens of thousands of dollars in marketing here. So it's really, really important to just commit to that. Sign up for High Rise CRM. I have a lot of people say, eh, that's great, but I'll use this one. I'm telling you, we looked at them all. We've actually looked at Infusionsoft and all this other stuff and it's like, it wasn't worth it. High Rise is kind of what we always go back to and I love it. There you go. My team loves it. That's more important. So listen up, folks. Take notes. Get there. Free version. And we're not even affiliates. It's free. Take that.

And I'll tell you this. I was recommending this so much and I'm like, oh, and I love this about actually high-rise. And I'm like, do you guys have an affiliate program? I'm recommending it to so many people. Can you guys send us a commission? And they're like, no, sorry. We're really, really just focused on just developing the software. We just keep it simple, and this is what we're focused. We're not going down that rabbit trail. And so I can recommend a different software to you guys and get paid on it.

This one we don't get paid on, and I'm that passionate about it. And I can tell you that, again, I love their actual response. They just said they were laser focused and I love that. Yeah. That's who you want to be listening to right there. So, all right. What is your number five, sir? All right. So if you really, really, really want to have a successful real estate business, you have to come to the conclusion that you are not a real estate investor. Okay. Now you're like, what are you talking about? I'm not a real estate investor. Okay. If you really, really want to acquire, now there are

some people who are like, you know, they want to hold rentals, right? And maybe you're a real estate investor at this point, but if you want want to acquire and I'm talking about either locking up deals you know wholesale level or you want to lock up as many rehab deals or lease option deals or owner finance deal if you want to do volume and have a really really big business you have to get it out of your head that you're a real estate investor now maybe your team deals in real estate but you are a direct marketer okay you are a direct marketer a director are a direct response marketer. Now, what direct response means is that you send out marketing to a prospect.

And they have one option and one option only. And that is to call you and contact you to possibly do business with them. And I love it, love it, love it. The thing about direct marketing, it could be a lot of things. It could be that you're doing pay-per-click advertising with them. And I love it, love it, love it. Okay. The thing about direct marketing, it could be a lot of things, right? It could be that you're, you're doing pay-per-click advertising with Google. It could be that you're sending out a postcard. It could be that you have an ad on a billboard or an ad on, put out YouTube videos. Um, you know, it could be that you have a sales rep, um, in your office who goes and visits, um, you know, his cold calling offices, you know, for appointments with agents and handing out cards that says, call us, but you were putting out some kind of

advertising that says, Hey, if you're interested, get in touch with us. This is what builds scalability. And if you're the type of person where you're like, yeah, you know, I'm going to build relationships and that's important. That's where I get all my deals. You know what? That's okay. And that's great. But if your business depends on your relationships, right? That depends on you, right? And if you get sick or if you get hurt or if you want to take vacation, guess what? Your business is not running without you. And so for me, I love direct marketing. I love the fact that I already have a postcard template made up, and all I have to do is send an email to my postcard company. Say, hey, I want these 30,000 postcards delivered this week.

We sit there. We have the phone to ring, okay, and motivated sellers call. We go out there. We lock up the property. We lock them up over the phone, and then we sell those properties to hungry cash buyers. We'll then fix them up, flip them, make a profit for themselves. And so for me, we have that mindset. My sole job is to generate leads for our team. That is my job is saying, my only job is now that I have our sales team in place, we have our systems in place, the only thing I'm responsible for is getting incoming leads coming in for our team.

And that is my highest and best work. And so I'd recommend for you to say, wow, if I can get to that mindset, I can get my business from making $50,000 a year to a deep seven-figure income. Incredible. It's a huge mind shift, especially for those who are already

quote-unquote in real estate. Wholesaling or flipping a couple homes a year, 10, 20 wholesales a year. That mind shift guys, I'm not saying that is the way you need to go. You are in the direct response marketing mindset. That's the business you are in and your team will love it for you. They'll work harder for you because they will be reaching their goals financially. And, uh, absolutely. If you're out there, I hope you are taking notes. This is a credible podcast with Todd. So right on, let's keep, uh, now I'm going to, I'm going to do like a little sub, uh, a sub secret of the secret, Justin. Okay. Fair enough. Because I forgot to write this one down, but it is become direct market marketer. Okay. Now, uh, I've been, um, going to this trainer right now. Um, his name is Sia and he's an absolute animal. I mean, this guy is insane. All right. And so he,

what he's really, really big on is whenever we're doing an exercise, right. He makes me do like a lot of reps. right? And I, you know, when I think I'm done, basically where I would normally stop, that's where he starts, Justin. He's always pushing me out of my car. You know, he's just like, lift, lift. And when it hurts, lift some more. And when you think you're done, lift some more. And then when you're really, really done, give me 10 more. And then, you know, and then he's like, when you're really, really done and you can't do anything else, okay, do 10 more with me helping you. I mean he's really, really pushing you.

And so my view, going to this trainer actually has really, really helped me become a better marketer because my voice in the back of my head says this. Mail. Mail hard. Mail often. And when you're uncomfortable, mail some more. And when you're still uncomfortable, mail some more. And less if you do a piece of paper, go across the country with a message to someone for that cheap. And so I'm going to really, really recommend to commit to direct mail as a method going back to becoming a direct marketer. For us, it's the bread and butter of our business. Very good. That's good because I get a lot of questions

about how we're marketing, where we're finding our deal, what we're doing, what we're spending our money on. It's good to hear that you're supporting what I say. Direct mail is the way to go. You can, once you build a business and you have good stream income coming in, take some of your profits and dedicate a percentage of your profits to another marketing avenue, whether it be pay-per-click or whatnot, bandit signs. There's a lot of different avenues, but I strongly suggest if you're using one, and Todd is seconding me on this, is direct mail all day, every day. All right.

But I'm going to mention it. Is that okay? Yeah, absolutely. All right. I think direct mail is really, really important. Sometimes you're like, well, I'll do direct mail when I have the budget I did a I did a a series with my brother okay he's my brother actually six months younger than me he's my stepbrother he's my brother from another mother and actually we're not even stepbrothers anymore

because our parents got divorced but he's still my brother. So Tom, I love you. But about a year and a half ago, he had lost his job. He had all this, he had a bunch of debts and he had like no money in the bank. And he's like, Todd, I want to be a real estate investor. And I'm like, well, how bad do you want it? And he's like, I want it bad. I'm like, are you going to do anything I say to make it happen? And he's like, yes. I'm like, there's no way asking questions. Okay. I'm not going to educate you. I'm going to instruct you. Okay. And that's the biggest thing. Okay. Instruction. So it's not your job to ask questions or ask me why or change things. Just do exactly what I say you have to do. And he's like, okay, now I could talk to him like this, um, because

he was my brother. Right. And, uh, even though it's only six months younger, he's my little brother. Well, it turned out that this was like one of the best things that I could have ever done because I was like, okay, I want you to send out 5,000 postcards right now. And it's like, Todd, I don't have the money to do it. And I'm like, I didn't tell you to ask questions. I'm like, do it, put it on your credit card. And he's like, all right. And he's really, really uncomfortable. And I said, you're going to generate phone calls and you're going to turn that into a deal. And so he put it on his credit card and he made it happen. He did his first deal.

Now, his first deal with no experience, no ideas what he was doing. He only made $2,800. So he pretty much broke even on his first mailing. But it was like, wow, I did it. I did it. And so after that, from later down the line, using the CRM, right, he did another deal that he made $10,000 from. And it wasn't, you know, but it came, you know, two or three months down the line. And so if you're really, really serious about this business, you have two choices, right?

Either A, decide to mail now if you have capital. Two, right, really, really dig deep and find a way to mail out postcards. Or three, get a partner who has money. Now, there's a big caveat to this. If I'm saying like, Todd, put this money on your credit card. I'm going to go into debt to do this. Well, I think there's no better investment than yourself. But to do this, you need to be all in. I know I'm kind of going off on a side note here, but if you're the type of person who's going to, let's say, put 5,000 postcards on your credit card and you're not going to follow up with these leads relentlessly, okay, forget it. Don't do it, right? But if you know, I'm going to do everything I have and I'm going to send out

these 5,000 first postcards and I'm going to call every lead back and I'm not going to stop calling them until someone does business with me and I'm going to send out these 5,000 first postcards and I'm going to call everything back and I'm not going to stop calling them until someone does business with me and I'm going to keep following up with them, well then I see no problem with thinking to yourself and you have to ask which person you are. Are you doing this as a hobby or you are so serious? And if you're serious, you know what? I don't think there's a reason to wait. Just open up your wallet, send out some postcards and when you mail, it it's like an ATM machine, right? You put in your credit card and money comes out.

I love that analogy right there. Literally, right? Because when you're on a postcard, you're putting out your credit card, you know, but money does come out. And that's what I love about direct mail. But, you know, again, if you're just going to sit there and let the lead sit, don't bother, right? But if you really want to make it happen, you want it bad, it's a fantastic investment. I'm with you 100%. Couldn't support you more on that sentiment. All right.

Number six, always be growing. Tony Robbins says, if you're not growing, you're dying. And I found that to be true and so I would suggest really really really digging deep into self-improvement right pick us Brown seminar go on YouTube you know I'm looking at some different books here really good one right here hold on I can't I can't put it down let me yeah it's the art of self-discipline okay by Brian Tracy let me make sure I got the title right i'll turn here okay so it's it's no excuses the power of self-discipline by brian tracy

and um as you do this justin it's the things that you will learn okay the attitude that you will learn, okay, the attitude that you will portray, the leader, and this is huge, the leader that you will become, okay, will far surpass your wildest imagination, okay? Why will people in your company follow you? Why will they work for you? Why will they listen to what you're telling them when they're coaching the trainers? Because they have respect for you, right? And they feel that you will take them to a better place. And so I always have this, you know, my, this mindset that I need to constantly up my game because I'm raising the game. Okay. Of my employees, right? And if I'm going to lead them, well, darn, I better get better every single day. Cause's a cap. If you're a 7, you're only going to be able to make them a 5 or a 6. If you're a 9, you're only going to be able to make them a 7, maybe an 8.

If you're a 10, you'll be able to make them an 8 or a 9. I mean that in all areas of life. Are you taking care of your body? Are you improving your sales skills every day? Are you improving your communication skills with them? Are you improving your communication skills with them? Are you helping them improve their mindset? So really, really commit to self-development. That's something that we've done the past couple of years, and I've seen a phenomenal change in my team.

So if you just pick up that one book, The Power of Self-Discipline, I mean I've been reading it this week, and I'm just like, oh, eating it up. So I'd highly recommend that. Couldn't agree more. I have a handful of coaching students and it's within real estate, real estate being the widget or the vehicle. But I would probably argue 75 to 80 percent of what we review, go over and dedicate our time to would be self-development, mindset, health, diet, exercise, becoming a better you, being able to help others become better them. And if they stop reading, if they stop going to seminars, they will not be able to develop others around them.

I could not agree with you more, Todd. All right. Number seven seven and this is huge outsource as much as you can okay now you may say well Todd you know building a team right you already mentioned that that's number number two well this is a little bit different number seven outsource as much as you can there are certain jobs in your company that really should be handled by an outside person. I learned this in the hard way. For example, bookkeeping. Bookkeeping in our office, what we did is, you feel it. You think, okay, great. I can hire my office manager to do this for me and pay him $15 an hour.

Well, if you're really going to build a big business, do you want to trust someone who's not 100% focused on your business with that much money? Because once you actually make more than $100,000, you're going to start paying a lot of money in taxes. And you want someone who understands where every single penny is going. All right. You want to really, really take this seriously. One of the things I'm going to recommend is find a bookkeeper who you will commit to. And that's all they do. They are a professional bookkeeper.

And you meet with them, okay, for 20 minutes once a week, okay, so that they can handle your books and that you can address any questions to them. There are a lot of bookkeepers that you can find in your town or you can go to really good bookkeepers around the country. One of our bookkeepers, she is phenomenal. She was an auditor for a lot of different big corporations. Now she's up in rural Washington and she's a champ. She's really, really focused on our business and she's not a full-time employee, but guess what? She is laser focused

on bookkeeping and she does a phenomenal job. And we know that is. Now I don't have to hire somebody. Now my team can focus on other things and I really, really enjoy that. So that's one thing that we really, really do. Now, all the other low-level tasks in our office, we ask ourselves, can a virtual assistant do this? So everything from when a voicemail comes in, how is it assigned to our sales team, our web work, our tracking. We have a virtual assistant who handles a lot of this. So you always want to delegate everything to the lowest level possible I have a view and some people say I own right and I don't agree with that okay I I believe in having rock star systems now that is

not but that does not mean I don't hire rock stars. I hire rock stars for positions that need rock stars. So for me, my bookkeeper needs to be a rock star. My salesperson, my acquisition manager, they need to be a rock star. But things that our systems are so good at, okay, but you've made those videos, right? All those things that are really easy that anybody can do, okay, those need to go to a virtual assistant. And you will find that the work that you'll get and the people that you can find for $4 to $5 an hour who will bleed for you, okay, who can handle those activities is, I mean, there's a limit, limitless amount of people out there. So create really, really good systems and outsource as much as you can. Here's another, another mistake that I made at the beginning. And I hope you guys can learn from this.

I hired a office manager a couple of years ago. Her name was Debbie and she was awesome, right? I mean, she, she really, really cared about the business and she worked overtime and I gave her everything and we helped create systems and I gave her a bunch of different jobs. She had like 30 different jobs. And then one day, okay, you know what happened to Debbie? What? She exploded. Okay, I hope not literally, but not literally, not literally. Okay, the wheels came off, meaning that I gave too much responsibility to Debbie, right? And I depended too much on her, okay? And so what I mean by that is some people think they can hire one person and give everything to that, right?

Well, what I didn't do is hire a virtual assistant for Debbie so that all the little stuff, all the really important stuff, right, that we could outsource, right, would take that off of her plate, okay? So Debbie was a rock star, but I didn't outsource enough. And so I'd recommend, again, a lot of the things that you're going to put on your team, right? If it's not their expertise, right, or you don't want it to be their expertise, hire a VA, push it as low as a level as you can, right? And have your team manage those virtual assistants. And so before you know it, if you had one office manager and you could have three VAs, well, you have four employees really with one person's salary and a few hundred dollars a month. Yep.

So do you use virtual assistants in your business, Justin? We do. We do. Most anything that we have to do online, we will use virtual assistants because that is very easily done virtually, right? So the only thing that we'll do if we have to do it online is if we're creating our training videos. Obviously, we will be creating them. But beyond that, lists, scrubbing lists, anything you do online, for the most part, we will outsource to our virtual assistants. And recommendations would be Elance or Odesk I mean those are two of the

bigger names that you can find on my know there's we have a friend you remember Davin he has one two three employee which is a virtual assistant company so again there's a lot of a lot of avenues for you guys to find the right person and what I would say to that is just because you get the first person or recommendation that they assigned to you doesn't mean they're always going to be the right fit. Don't try to fit a square peg into a round hole. You have options. You can always go find someone better or does it more efficiently or sees the vision that you're looking for on a more personal level.

So just because you get your first person doesn't always mean it's going to be the right person. You know, going back to my NFL analogy, Justin, I love to run the business like the NFL. So one of the things I do is whenever I'm hiring a full-time VA, I say,

I'm looking for a full-time virtual assistant. Okay. And the interview process is basically going to be a working interview. And so what do they do at NFL camps at the beginning of the year when they have a bunch of players? What do they do? Justin? Tryouts or? There's tryouts, right? You got to compete. Yeah. Right. And they don't care like, oh, this person went to Tulane and this person went to University of Michigan. They won the Heisman, right? It's not the interview. You got to come to camp and you got to earn your spot,

right? So on my team, and I suggest on your team, you know what? Put them on the field, baby. Put them on the field, make them block, make them run, make them catch, and give them all the same task and see how they perform. And I love Odesk for this one reason, is that they have tracking tools. So if you say, okay, look, here's this training video on how to scrape leads off the MLS. What I'd like you to do is get me 50 leads off the MLS. And then what I want you to do is assign them to our salesperson. Okay. Who, um, you know, his name is this. Okay. And, um, you have seven hours to complete the task. Please do it accurately as fast as you can.

Right? So now you have three people. See who gets it done by the deadline. See how long it took them and look at the quality of work. Right. And if you like them, guess what? They can do another task. Right. And see how they do. If that's great. Hire. You know, so for me, I'm not really into the whole, you know, ask a few questions interview. I want to see what you can do on the field. And from then we'll just make a decision. It makes life so, so, so easy. Put them in play, baby. I like it. Put them in play. All right. Here's number eight. All right. And we're, I know this is a long podcast here. We're at about an hour and four minutes here. So I'll do my best to pick it up here. But number eight, and this is, I love this attitude and you really want to instill this attitude with your team. And this is being about the best you is being the best you can be and your salespeople being the best they can be and just knowing that your business is being taken care of. And that is relentless follow-up with your leads.

We have a saying in my office, and that is no lead left behind. No lead left behind. And that's not, okay, guys, a lead every now and then is left behind. No, it's no lead left behind. No lead left behind. And that's not, okay, guys, a lead every now and then is left behind. No, it's no lead left behind. And so in our system, in our office, we keep calling any direct marketing lead every single month, or sometimes it's sooner, unless they say, okay, call me in three months or call me in six months. We don't stop calling them until they say, okay, call me in three months or call me in six months. We don't stop calling them. Okay. Until they say, take me off your list.

Okay. Because the biggest thing is that if you have a team and you could trust them and you know that they're going to be following up with your leads, they're treating every single one like gold. Okay. In San Diego, by the way, it costs us $66 for every phone call that we get. Meaning that if you take our direct marketing budget, and then you divide that by the number of phone calls that we get, it costs us $66 for every phone call. And our team knows that. Now, if I know that they're following up on those leads, guess what? I'm going to spend the money on marketing so that they can be the best that they can be. And so we have that conversation.

Everyone understands that. Because they have that mantra, I can have the confidence to spend the money. If you have that in your company, you're going to see results, and you'll be more confident to spend the money. We have it on big, big letters. I have it on my screensaver, and then I always put it on our whiteboards. Some of the guys, they have a little sheet of paper that they put by their desk. No lead left behind.

And it's in our training manual. So if you have that attitude, it'll make life a lot easier. I got to be honest with you. You know as well as I, there are so many people out there that, you know, they call them once. They leave a voicemail and it's done. And they say, oh, well, that was that. You know, I left voicemail. I guess they're not interested. And that is a very valuable, valuable lead, right? I mean, once a month, that's great.

And to respect them, if they do mention, take me off your list, okay, not a problem. No more follow-up from us. But once a month for, for I would say at least six months if not forever until you get that answer from them saying please stop calling me take me off your list I just don't like to leave that subjectivity there if you have someone working the phones all day

they should be able to make 60-70 phone calls a day no problem so for them to follow up relentlessly it should not be an issue. We accept nothing less for our team. And you know, it'll give you confidence knowing that. And you know, the biggest thing is if we don't call somebody, we keep calling them and we keep calling them and we keep calling them and we don't stop. And then what we do, and this is a really, really good tip guys is after four calls, if we don't get a a call back what we do is we label them an out

right that means that they were out and i learned that from my father used to have a telemarketing company in the magazine industry and so one day a week our sales team will call on a saturday right they take a half a day once a month and leave the office early and on saturday what they do is they call and they call the outs um those are people who we haven't been able to get a hold of. And what do you know? Pop, right? Once or twice a month, we get a hold of people who we've never been able to get a hold of during the week because they have that weird working schedule and boom, they're home on

the, you know, they're home on a weekend or they're on the home during the evening. But we still don't let that lead go. And so again, just a quick tip that works really, really well for our team. There you go. Great tips. Buddy, you know, listen, this has been amazing. I got a bonus though, Justin. Oh, throw it out there.

I got a bonus. All right. This is one big bonus. I'm going to mention this because for some people, they may not believe in a higher power or you're like, I just came here to listen to real estate, but for me, not to mention this is not being true to myself. Okay. Um, so for me and our business, one thing that really, really helps me and it gives me confidence is, um, a belief in God. Right. And I call it on shakable faith, unshakable faith. And that is, well, it is my mission on this job to serve others.

I believe it is my purpose to grow this business forward. So when I'm scared about making a big growth move in my company, I have this edge that comes from my unshakable faith in God.

And before I make a big change or a big move, okay, I always pray about it. But I would say that if you don't know God, I would say, make an effort to make a true and educated decision about God. And if you already have a faith, well, grow it deeper because it'll make you a better person. It'll make you grow your better business and people will want to follow you. And just life to me is just a little easier, actually a lot easier when you have that unshakable faith. And so, you know, for us, it's kind of the basis for everything that we do in our office. So just the word and take it as you will.

Right on, right on. And I appreciate you giving that golden nugget to all our listeners. And I couldn't stand right next to you or right behind you even more. I'm with you 100%. There's something there that will just give you that extra drive, that commitment. The fear will be reprieved. I mean, there's just something about that. I could not agree with you.

I'll give you a quick example, by the way. There was six or nine months ago, we had lost a deal. We were making $75,000 on it. And we were kind of involved in this like legal battle over it. And, you know, I was like, Oh, you know what, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go after this, you know, I'm gonna take the court because this is our money. And I had like this weird scarcity, you know, mentality in my mind, you know, and I, you know, I sat there and I prayed about it. And I talked to some mentors and coaches that I have.

We're not in real estate, but they're just good spiritual mentors. They said, Todd, close your shirt, give him your coat too. I didn't want to hear that. I did not want to hear that. One of the things that I thought about was, okay, I'm going to pray about this. I just heard, Todd, let it go. Just let it go. I went back to work and I said, team, we're just going to let this deal go. We're going to move on. I believe because we made that decision, our mind was free. Our attitude was free. We went on the next week to have our best week ever in business.

That's a great example. So, you know, faith that everything right is going to work out. Yeah, absolutely. And there's nothing that you can't overcome and God wouldn't give you anything that you couldn't handle. Yeah. So, well, I think that's a great way to end this podcast, brother. I really appreciate you spending this amount of time guys. Uh, his name is Todd Toback. He has built an incredible business down in San Diego where most people would tell you he couldn't build that business. He did it.

He had that faith and now he is where he is. He's an incredible family man. He's a great friend and a great businessman. So, again, I appreciate you being here with us on The Science of Flipping, and thank you again for your time, sir. Thank you so much, Justin. I really, really appreciate it. All right, all right. Well, that's it here for The Science of Flipping.

I've been your host. My guest has been the master wholesaler, Todd Toback down in San Diego. Do it. Do it. Yeah, we are out.