The Top 3 Investments To Make When You Start Your Real Estate Business

Mike DeHaan: [0:01] Welcome to the collecting keys Friday focus. What is going on, guys? On this episode of the collecting keys Friday focus, you have me, Mike DeHaan, and I'm going to talk to you today about something that has become a reoccurring question and sometimes concern that I have when people are starting a real estate investing business. And that is, what are the three things that you should invest your money into when you are first starting that business? So as we've built out the Instant Investor Program, you know, we're starting to have more and more people come to that program, start to build businesses, and then also too just from being involved in several other groups where people are building real estate investing businesses of different calibers, different types. There are some reoccurring things that come up that I think people fail to invest money into, and it always blows my mind that, you know, they will spend very large amounts of money on things that I think are less important than making investments in kind of some of the smaller things that I think are much more important that people tend to push by the wayside. And there's three in particular that I think are very, very key to having success, especially in the early stages of your business and setting yourself up in a way that you're gonna be able to grow effectively. And so I just wanted to dive into those and talk about, you know, my thoughts on them. So the first one, and this one is probably the most shocking to me. The first one, the first, like, sort of investment you need to make in your business is in a good CRM.

Mike DeHaan: [1:37] Right? A good customer relationship management software. I think that's what CRM stands for, something like that. But it is so shocking to me how many people come into this business. They're willing to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a marketing website, other systems, but they won't spend, you know, $102,103 $100 a month on a good client relationship software. There are so many of them out there now. I think this is honestly sometimes too why people are hesitant to spend the money because there's so many out there. They don't know which one to pick. But there's so many out there, and, like, I literally we have people that come into the instant investor program, for example, that come into our partnership program, and they wanna spend, like, thousands of dollars generating leads, but then they wanna try and manage the leads in an Excel spreadsheet because they don't wanna spend, you know, the $99 a month on a CRM. So for example, we use Ari Simply. It's an awesome CRM that we have used for three and a half years. It's incredibly simple. It's incredibly basic to set up. You don't have to, like, spend a bunch of time learning anything crazy. And the starter version is $99, and it is more than adequate to get started.

Mike DeHaan: [2:48] And I have met several people who spend 5 to $6,000 a month on other systems on marketing. They drop $2,500, you know, on a website, a logo, a whole branding package, whatever. But they won't spend $99 a month on a CRM, on RE Simply. And then they wonder why when leads are coming in, they fall behind on their follow-up. Right? They don't have any good way of tracking, keeping notes. When they try to bring in a VA or a staff member, things are in absolute shambles because they don't have any sort of organization. A CRM can solve literally all of that, but it is one of the biggest things that people tend to overlook. And I'll say too, get one that is meant for real estate investors. Don't try and use, like, monday.com or one of these, like, corporate sort of project management CRMs for your real estate business. There are ones out there that are made for real estate lead generation and marketing businesses. You know, as RA Simply is a big one. You can buy Podio build outs where, you know, that are meant for wholesalers. There's REI BlackBook. There's so many different ones you can use. It's kinda your pick, but just spend the money. If you you know, people think like, oh, I'll do it as I start to get more leads, all sort of stuff. Just do it from the beginning. I promise me you'll thank me later. And not doing so costs you literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over both the short and the long term, rather than just spending a little bit of money to get that CRM set up.

Mike DeHaan: [4:13] So that's the first one. Second one, and this is a preference one, but I do also think it's something that people often overlook, and that is on a call center or some sort of centralized individual to answer your phone. And this is very specific to companies that do outbound marketing, and that, like, get a high volume of leads, such as a real estate investment business. If you have another business where you don't have as much lead intake, or, like, the leads aren't as time sensitive, I don't think this is as big of a deal. But if you have a real estate investment or wholesale business, you know, when leads come in, they're going you know, they're gonna sell to you or they're gonna sell to someone else. And you need to make sure that you're available to respond to them as quickly as you can. And a call center is a great way to make sure that you have someone available to respond to them literally all the time. So we started with a call center, mostly because Dan and I, we both had jobs when we first started this business. We're not gonna be able to answer calls. If you have a w two, and you think you're gonna be able to answer all of your own calls, don't lie to yourself. Gonna be in a corporate meeting when a lead calls. That's just how the world works. They're only gonna call when you're busy. Having a call center alleviates that problem. We use CallPorter.

Mike DeHaan: [5:23] They're a call center that is meant for real estate investors. They have a script that they go through that helps analyze deals and oh, sorry. That helps gather information so that you can better analyze deals, and they're available twenty four seven. So, like, we have had CallPorter answer calls for us at 2AM. We've had them answer when, you know, we're traveling. We've had them answer when everyone in our company is busy. They're always there to make it super simple. And if you're using something like CRM CRM or Ari Simply, right, you can just have them plug the information directly into the CRM, and it's relatively seamless. People always get kinda worried about, like, quality of the callers and those sort of things, and admittedly, it does vary. Right? Like, we've had some of the reps there that suck horribly. We've had some of them that are great, and there was a bunch that are in between. And I can tell you from a b split testing, having, like, half the leads go to the call center and half of them not, having a bad first call with, a real human is better than having no first call at all. You know? If anything, sometimes it's better because it gives you a little bit of a bonding moment with the seller.

Mike DeHaan: [6:30] Right? You can call them back and be like, yeah. You know, I'm so sorry about Sharon. You know, she sucks. I don't know why she she works there. The third party call center's out of my control. And depending on the seller, like, that's actually a good bonding moment that we have used to build rapport. So, you know, definitely, I recommend it. And regardless too about how much control you want on the leads coming in, I don't care what you say, you don't wanna be taking calls from some crackhead seller when you're at your kid's birthday. You wanna be present for that. You don't wanna have to be, you know, running away, right, and they're blowing out the candles to go go answer a call from a lead that's, you know, gonna be a little bit crazy or tell you to go f yourself, which does happen in this business. That's number two. The third one, and this one is, I would say, like, a lot of people that I have met, they've spent some money on this, but maybe not in the right way. But number three is a business coach or a mastermind group, and specifically one that is the right group for you. K? And I think that that's very, very important to emphasize, because I find that a lot of people, when they are sort of getting into these businesses, or businesses in general, you know, they start getting they do some Google searching, they start getting retargeted by people who teach every kind of business out there now. And, you know, slightly hypocritical, I guess, we have our instant investor program. We teach some things, literally how to build an entire wholesale operation. But I think where people get themselves into trouble is they don't spend money on the right program. What they do is they invest in the one that has, like, the best marketing platform.

Mike DeHaan: [8:03] Right? Or like the most aggressive follow-up tactics, or, you know, they have like the biggest name that leads the platform. More often than not, those aren't going to be the best groups. Right? The people that are spending huge money, have huge, like, of like media quality, have super aggressive sales and follow-up tactics, Those aren't going to be the best groups because their main business is no longer as an investor. Right? They're no longer that involved that their main business is now selling education. And what's gonna happen with those is they're going to give you this sort of spiel about authentic experience. You're gonna get plugged in. You're probably gonna work with one of their coaches or the, you know, the people that are their staff members within their education platform, and you're gonna be it's the piece in the cog. Right? And you're just gonna be churning through there, and you're not really gonna have that much authentic experience. And I'll say, like, if that's your fit, that's fine. Like, you can go for that. But that isn't most people. And point being is, when you're going and you're looking for these different groups, don't just sign up for one immediately, but spend a little bit of time. Find ones that align with your personality, they align with what you want to do with your business, and spend money correctly. Right? Invest money with those people. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [9:13] With the group that you want to, you know, that you feel you're going to align with, with the individual that you're going to align with. For example, you know, like, the instant investor program, people that hear Dan and I on the podcast are like, these guys sound pretty cool. I think it would align pretty well with them. I wanna be in a smaller group that's more intimate, that is more of like a community. Right? We're a great spot for that. There's lots of other groups that have a similar vibe. If you're somebody that is, like, I wanna be part of, like, a huge organization. I wanna go to these big conferences. I wanna do all this sort thing. Go see the rich dad, poor dad sort of guys. Right? They're gonna charge you a lot more. It's gonna be a very different experience from working with us. And there's, you know, bunch of stuff in between as well. So I think that's really important investment though, to be spending money on the right groups. And don't be afraid to spend on multiple as well if you're trying to get different parts of your business figured out. You know, there's coaches that specialize in wholesaling and off market lead generation like ourselves. This one's a specialized in flipping. This one's a specialized in seller financing.

Mike DeHaan: [10:11] There's ones that, you know, kinda do all of the above. Like, I'm personally involved in several different groups. Being involved in those has been a major part of my growth as an entrepreneur, and as with my direct business. And you just have to find ones that sort of fit that mold. And also too, just for a history of realistic expectations on cost, there's you can learn plenty from groups that cost you $10,000 a year or less, or $10,000 one time. When you get into some of these, like, gurus out there that are charging people, like, $20.30, $100,000 even sometimes. And sometimes even, like, there's ones that'll charge you a $100,000, and they want pieces of your deals, that doesn't make any sense unless they are like closing deals for you. Right? Like, if they are literally out there in the trenches working with you and you have a partnership with them, that's totally cool. But if you're signing up to, you know, just like have an hour long meeting with them once a week or once a month and it's costing you $100,000 and they're wanting pieces of your deals, run away. Run away so fast because that is not a good value for you right there. But yeah. Anyway, those are my three things that I think are super, super important if you're getting started in a real estate investing business. Those are things that you should absolutely spend money on. You should invest that money, treat it as an investment, and understand that these three things will make your business, both starting and through the growth period, much more successful.

Mike DeHaan: [11:34] And they're gonna make your quality of life a lot better too, honestly, if you get these things figured out. So spend the money on good CRM, a call center, or someone to answer calls, could be like a lead manager too, and business coach or mastermind that is right for you, fits your vibe, and is marching you towards the goal that you really wanna be at. Anyways, guys, let me know what you think. I would love to hear other key business investments that you guys think are super important when you're starting out, or just in general? Because, you know, I've been in business for a little while, I'm always looking at other things to invest my money into. But, yeah, you should let me know. Hit me up at Mike underscore Invest. Shoot me a DM. Let me know your thoughts. Aside from that, please share this podcast with anyone who might find it interesting or is interested in real estate investing, finance, whatever. Also, you guys should buy some Collecting Keys merch if you wanna rep our show. Go to store.collectingkeyspodcast.com. You know, we got a bunch of our merch on there. We actually sold, like, 15 shirts last month, which is super cool. When we just put that out there, we weren't really expecting to sell any, and we had quite a few get picked up.

Mike DeHaan: [12:34] And if you buy any too, please send me a photo. I would love to have a collaboration of all the collecting keys fans out there. I think that would be super awesome. But aside from that, guys, thanks so much for listening, and talk to you guys next week. Thanks for listening to this collecting keys Friday focus. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.