Justin Dossey
Justin Dossey has been a guest on Collecting Keys, the real estate investing podcast hosted by Mike DeHaan, Dan Austin and Dylan Koch.
Building Businesses To Solve Your Own Problems With Justin Dossey
Justin Dossey, CEO of Call Porter and Ballpoint Marketing, explains how both businesses grew out of problems he and his brother Ryan hit running their own wholesaling operation: missed seller calls and mail that got thrown out. He walks through how an answering service and a dedicated lead manager fit into an investor's workflow, why handwritten first-class letters get opened more often than presorted mail, and what direct mail actually costs per acquisition.
Key takeaways
- Call Porter's agents answer inbound seller calls as the investor's receptionist, build rapport, take property notes and book appointments; Justin says roughly 30% of direct mail calls are angry or bizarre, and keeping those off acquisitions reps protects their productivity.
- A newer lead management add-on has agents work leads inside REsimple for about 20 hours a month at $500 (beta pricing, expected to roughly double). Justin's rule: every lead in the CRM must have a next action assigned, or it gets forgotten.
- Presorted direct mail gets delivered lumped in with junk mail on one or two set days a week, so handwritten letters with real first-class stamps and no company name on the envelope get opened far more often. Ballpoint tries to time drops a day or two before the local junk mail day.
- Response rates on handwritten letters run about 1-2%, translating to roughly $2,500-$3,500 cost per acquisition nationwide. Mike and Dan's historical cost was around $3,200 with an average fee of $23,500.