Episode 106: BatchLeads 3.0

Title: Batch leads 3.0

Gavin: Hey, guys! How’re you doing? Welcome back to REI Network Podcast with me, Gavin Timms! I have a special guest today—a very good friend of mine. I’m gonna bring him over right now. Jesse, how are you?

Jesse: What’s going on buddy, how are you doing?

Gavin: Yeah, good. It’s been a long time no see. If you’re watching us on YouTube, guys. Jesse’s looking good. If you know Jesse, you know what I mean. He’s been training like a machine, and he’s looking fantastic if you don’t mind me saying so, buddy.

Jesse: Thank you! I appreciate it. 

Gavin: Absolutely, you’re looking good! So, Jesse, if you don’t know him, he is a part owner of batch services. They do a lot of fantastic products. We’re gonna be touching on here in a little bit with batchleads 3.0. Excited about that, I use all that services, but before we do that, Jesse, it’s been a while. I think I’ve had you on the show probably a year or so ago. But tell us a little bit about you, kinda your background in real estate, and let’s go from there.

Jesse: Basically, started wholesaling in 2014 and really was able to cut my teeth and get around a lot of great people, Carlos Reyes, Sal, Brent Daniels, and just really roof them there and really was trying to start to solve some problems. I got to meet Annie and Evo my now partners at a go-giver mastermind that you’re a part of as well, with Brandon Simmons. We just didn’t have solutions to solve problems inside our businesses and we soon created batch skip tracing. We’re looking, at that time, a lot of cold calling was being done.

This was even before text messaging and we were trying to go find more accurate numbers and we were able to do so and then all of our friends started hitting us up and we soon created batch skip tracing. And then, Evo being Evo he’s basically was like, “Well, if we’re gonna give them phone numbers, then let’s make sure they could have a place to store all the records and till through all their lists and it just started evolving into all these other products which then became BatchLeads, which then we added a dialer. “Well, people have lists and phone numbers to call, then obviously we should create a dialer.” And then, we also created BatchDriven which now, with 3.0, is inside BatchLeads now, which is really cool. We were able to kind of collapse the products to where you’re not having all these different subscriptions. We’re trying to really get it to one subscription and that’s something we’re hoping to do with the dialer even further in the future, is to really get everyone to really use the products even further. 

Gavin: Yeah, absolutely. I think what’s unique with knowing you before Batch was even Batch, doing deals, you, Annie, and Evo, is really important because people need to understand that there’s a lot of software companies out there that don’t understand what we do and that’s a problem. Where you’re coming at it from an angle where you know what we need. We sat around a table when Batch before Batch. I was in the same room when we were all having the same struggles with the phone numbers.

I remember the conversation and it just evolved from there. But what’s unique about it for anyone listening to us right now is that you understand from wholesaling, finding discounted properties the thing on creative deals that we need. All your products are supporting that, which is really important. Not only from having good phone numbers and list stacking, but also understanding what we need as wholesalers. Like comps, and all them things that we’re gonna dive more into. So, it’s pretty unique to have that background, because I think that helps you come up with the products that you know that we need, that I use obviously myself and my business, and my clients do as well. So, that’s really good. 

So, you started this off by skip tracing, we’re going to BatchLeads, as you said, now you’ve got the dialer. They’ve all been fantastic things. I use skip tracing and list stacking. Just that alone, allows me to save a lot of money because not only can I stack against what I’ve already paid for. And I’m talking hundreds of dollars and thousands of dollars in skip tracing. And also, sub list. I love that I can create lists within lists. 

Tell us a little bit about when you were using this platform more, building into this, what are the features that you like? 

Jesse: About BatchLeads? 

Gavin: Yeah.

Jesse: The new features or just in general?

Gavin: Just in general. 

Jesse: In general, BatchLeads started off as BatchLeads stacker. So, the biggest problem was kind of what you are talking about—being able to manage all your lists in one place and not re-skip tracing the same records over and over again and that was the first problem that we wanted to solve, was “Okay, how do we keep all our data in one place?”, “How do we keep it organized?” and then, “How do we start layering it to know someone that has multiple distress indicators or someone that’s an absentee owner, vacant, the homes that are 30 years old?” All the filterings that you want to get done. Having to do that when you have all these excel spreadsheets, it never works. So, that was kind of the first problem that we were really trying to solve, is “Is there some other products out there that did something similar?” But I felt like it was so confusing and just a new person getting started wouldn’t understand how to use it and we just made a much more simple version that could expand out and be much more complicated.

But someone just getting started needs to be able to have that list management and understand how to use and understand the importance of it because if you have all these lists everywhere that you’re importing, exporting, uploading, it could get confusing pretty quickly even if you know what you’re doing, it could get really hard. That was the very first problem that we wanted to solve and once we had the foundation built, that’s when we started adding the marketing tools to where you could text out of there. Now, with 3.0 you can actually click the dialer out of there, you have direct mail if you want to have a very targeted campaign. We also created lead scoring which no other product in the space has that unless it’s your actual CRM. You can actually start putting lead scores on your leads and on your stack leads to where you could really start getting nitty and gritty with what’s working for you and how do you identify those properties because you should have a totally different sequence to those very, very niche or high probability of properties that could sell versus just a big expansive list. 

You don’t want the same marketing motions. That’s what our platform’s so great at, is really having you being able to identify those properties that are gonna be more likely to sell than just marketing homeowners. That’s not gonna get you where you need to get especially in today’s market. 

Gavin: Yeah, absolutely. That’s great! So, you touched on a couple of things there with 3.0. When we’re in there now, we could click on the lead and dial it straight from there. 

Jesse: Yeah, you could soft dial. So, it’s a soft dialer. We provide you with that phone number and you’re able to click right in. So then you’re able to contact that lead. It’s almost kind of lead generation CRM now to where you could have all your leads in there, you could text in, you could even call them now, too. And until they become an actual lead and push them to your CRM, you’re able to keep track and manage that stuff even further than you could before.

Another thing we’re working on right now is, if you do have batch dialer, we wanna have a feedback looped to where you do a disposition in the dialer. Soon, you’re gonna be able to see, what changes and what happens inside your BatchLeads account too. So, it’ll take an even step further if you have both products. So, there’s a distinct advantage to really having those, which now the advantage is not having to import and export your list. You can obviously push your list straight from BatchLeads into, but we’re trying to create a feedback loop and that’s something we should have in the next few months. 

Gavin: Which is really good. And these things, this is all important from a coaching background. I’ve coached hundreds of people across the United States. My job is to get you on the phone and doing deals. I want you on the phone, I want you making offers, I want you following up, and I want you doing deals. The problem is, Jesse, when people come into our space, because of the systems that we talked about, we have to take it from this system to this system, to the next one. We spend three weeks and we still haven’t even talked to anybody yet.

So that momentum of excitement of a new course or a new program, and people wanna make money, that’s why they’re here. They wanna make money in this business, they wanna help people. They wanna buy houses, but if you’re not on the phone, then it’s not gonna work. And the big thing for me, is working with something like Batch, is that you’re helping us all, my team included and clients, is to get people on the phone as fast as possible with the least amount of effort, which is gold. 

Jesse: And that’s what we’re really trying to do especially if there’s anyone new watching this. I’ve been new, I’ve wholesaled, I’ve done over 500 deals. And I’ve obviously now, owning Batch, talked to a lot of new people, experienced people. The biggest problem that we’re trying to solve for the people that are using our products is, that barrier to entry is like, that’s why we created that click-to-dial, so you don’t even have to buy the dialer if you’re new. I want you to start taking action.

The biggest problem I see from new people is taking action. Now, you could text and make calls straight out of platform. Skip trace the list, you could do either or both at the same time. But you need to take action A lot of people are like, “It’s not working.” What’s not working is you. You have to get on the phone and talk to people. You have to have conversations. You have to try to get stuff under contract and get deals. And that’s the biggest thing I’m seeing.

I’m really trying to collapse that barrier of having to learn all of these different systems and all of these different products. You have a few hundred bucks a month. You can literally get on and start calling through and texting. Straight through our platform, talking to people and those deals that you get in those first few deals, that’s life-changing stuff but it’s not always easy. Everyone has a different timeline. Some people get lucky. Two new people call 500 people, one person can get a hold of and get a deal. It doesn’t mean they’re better than the other person, it’s just timing. Sometimes it takes 2, 3, or 4 months. Sometimes it takes 5 days. But you have to put the work in because, over a long period of time, it’s all gonna equal itself out.

The more people you talk to, the more conversation you have, the more offers you get out, the more deals you’re gonna make. It’s that simple especially if you’re using our platform and really creating these curated targeted lists, you’re gonna get deals. It’s impossible not to if you understand what you’re doing, and you’re trying to help the homeowner at the same time. What we’re doing is we’re creating speed and time for convenience with the homeowner. They’re giving us a discount. They know that, they always know that. So, make sure that you have the best interest of the homeowners you’re working with in mind as well because, at the end of the day, we’re trying to provide a service and solve a problem for someone. You should go in “How can I solve this problem?” And if they want retail, then refer them to a realtor, it’s not all about you and your deals, you always want to have the right intentions.

And that’s how, us at Batch, try and look at our users and our customers. All I’m trying to do is make stuff better for you but my one lesson to you is when I wholesaled a lot, it was really taking care of the homeowners, really understanding their problems. And if you can’t solve their problem, make sure that you have a network of people that can because that’s how you get referrals. 

Gavin: Absolutely! Couldn’t agree more. I mean, I called my company REI Network for that reason. It’s all about network, it’s who you know. It’s collaboration with other people. And if you go in as well into that call without the mindset of, “I don’t need to buy this for cash, I’m here to help you.” and you’re there to find out what the problem is and solve it. You’re gonna feel better about yourself, you’re gonna do make more deals with more people in the industry. Whether it be creative deals or listing with the realtor depending on what people are listening to this. And getting more deals done and helping more people. And I think what you’re saying as well, Jesse, is from a coaching background, people hide behind these software. So, it’s good for me when I can go, “Alright, you need one thing, let’s go here, you’re new, you have a small budget, and now you can operate and you can do real estate for an affordable amount.” And there’s no excuses about it.

Jesse: And now you can drive for dollars on BatchLeads too and virtually drive. So, that’s a great way to get started. You could go drive around on our virtual driving at work, on your break, and upload 30 properties. And now you could just click through and dial them. You don’t have to use your cellphone. You could literally click through and dial them. You could also create your list. There’s all these different ways to really just— for the people that are advanced. Now you have your acquisition guys that could really take advantage of the whole offering of our platform. But for the new people, I think what we did is really change the game where you could drive for dollars, you could click the dialer, you could send texts, you could have your lists in one place. If you wanna add the dialer you could do that to cold call, but there’s no reason why you can’t start talking to people. Brent Daniels, Mr. TTP like, “I gave you all the resources here. Now, it’s just time to get on the phone and— you wanna sell your house? Alright, how can I help?” And then, that’s all you gotta do. It’s not rocket science, it could be hard.

You have to talk to a lot of people to find that right person but in the market right now, the market’s flipped so, more people are gonna be open to selling. Now the harder part is making sure you’re buying at the right price where you could sell it to someone buying rentals or flipping. The prices are conservative right now. We’re not exactly sure. BatchLeads also has cash buyer list with a new filter we just came out with to where you could pick a zip code and say, “I want some of the spot, five properties in the last three months.” You could skip trace those people and call those people. So, you should be doing both.

You should also be making sure that you’re building those cash buyers biting those cash buyers right now and seeing where they’re buying right now. That’s the biggest thing that I’m hearing right now. It’s not getting deals under contract, it’s making sure you’re having active buyers and where they’re buying at. There’s no point in getting a home under contract unless you personally are wanting to close on it, or you make sure you have a partner that will pay the price or above of where you’re at. 

Gavin: Absolutely! I couldn’t have said it any better. That’s exactly what we’re teaching right now in this market. They literally find where the demand is. As you just said, what are they paying? And if their price has dropped—we see hedge funds pulling out of the marketplace. Hedge funds are dropping their prices. What does that mean for us as wholesalers? If we’re gonna sell to a hedge fund, we’ve gotta get it lower now. So, as the market shifts, we shift but it’s much easier to negotiate a deal when you know where you need to be rather than you’re looking at a year ago comps that were inflated then. That’s not gonna work now. So again, building that network, building that buyer’s list if you’re new. That’s the first thing I would personally recommend that you do, is get on, network with buyers find out what they want, where they’re buying, how many they’re buying, how quickly can they close. And once you have that and you’ve got 10, 20, 30 people, whatever it may be. Now, it’s go time. You transition, you then go and create your list in Batch to mirror what the buyers want, and then, guess what? You start going hunting, you get contracts, you start doing deals. It’s that simple. 

Jesse: Yeah, it’s just reverse wholesaling. And what’s really funny too is we can’t even go from comps from three months ago because the market’s flipped, and then when the market’s going crazy, it was the other way around. You kind of go at comps from six months ago because prices have risen so much. So, to the new people and to the people that are doing this for a long time, the market’s kind of funky but when it gets harder is when you should drill in even deeper because more and more people are gonna quit or get frustrated.

This is where I think the fruits are really gonna lie, there’s gonna be people that are gonna get out because it’s hard. It’s been easy for the last year and a half. But I heard it from the other side too, “Oh, my God! It’s so hard!”, “There’s so many buyers I can’t get deals.” Now, the market’s flipped and people are still complaining again. It’s hilarious. It’s all about mindset. It’s never gonna be easy. This industry is not easy. It’s being agile, it’s pivoting, it’s understanding how to be ahead of the curve and right now it’s making sure you have those relationships with the people that are buying today. And taking care of those people and educating the sellers. 

Now, the sellers are falling a little bit behind of still wanting more money. But if you continue to build that pipeline, your fruits are gonna come in the next couple of months, because these people need to sell and the prices keep dropping. They’re finally gonna unload them or else it’s just gonna keep going with negative equity, and they’re gonna lose more and more money if they’re trying to sell. So, it’s a patience game right now, but it’s always about building that pipeline. The same thing happened at the beginning of the pandemic. Before everything went wild. Everyone got scared and the people that continued to build the pipeline and kept growing, are the people that had huge successes during the huge upshift in the pandemic because they had the big pipelines. It’s doing the same thing but in reverse right now so, continue to build those pipelines and if you’re new, continue to build it, and if it’s a side hustle, don’t quit because the fruits will pay off. You have to stick with it, though. 

Gavin: Yeah, a hundred percent! We did that in the pandemic. What we just talk about, finding the buyers. That’s what we did, we called all of our buyers, and 70% of them were freaking out, and pulling out of deals, and not buying. And the others were like, “No, we’re buying, we’re ready, We’ll buy everything you’ve got. And then it was just “What do you want? What zip codes are you after?”, “Well, this is where we’re buying, this is where we want them.”

So, all our follow-ups, going into Batch, into our CRM, was all then geared toward exactly the areas that they wanted and we just focused on that, and we did really well. We thought it was gonna be the end of real estate. We thought that it was going to be this down crash and then it just went strength and strength to the amount that I can’t even believe, to be honest. Where it’s gone to, from that minute, has been incredible but we are not starting to see the turn of the shift, and will take six months for the homeowners — and we’re a couple of months already, to realize, “Hold on a minute, this is now changing.” and then the panic’s gonna set in, as you just said, they’re gonna be off-loading. But you need them relationships with them sellers. You need that pipeline built. And that’s why it’s gonna be go time. 

Jesse: Yeah, and once it really starts to shift, that’s when a lot of the buyers are gonna come back in for rentals, or AirB&Bs. I don’t think flips quite so much because you don’t know where the bottom is but, a lot of people are gonna start buying houses again as rentals. Even if the interest rates go up, prices are only gonna go down so far. Everything goes up over time. It’s fact. People will start losing up again and having that pipeline—it’s so crucial.

I was talking to a friend and he was like, “Man, I don’t know if I’m gonna get any deals this next month.” and I was like, “I’ve owned a very successful wholesale operation, we had months where we didn’t have any. Honestly. I had a couple of months to where stuff held back and stuff fold forward.” That’s when you understand how crucial that pipeline is. Are you sticking to the process? Are you guys calling every day? Are you doing all the things— do you have a bit pipeline?  And he’s like, “Yeah because some deals fell apart, some people backed out.” and I’m like, “That’s not a big deal. You can’t think of what’s happening right this second overreacting.”

The month before he also had a three hundred thousand dollar month and I’m like, “Alright, dude. You’re doing things right but the market’s a little funky. There’s gonna be a little bit more absent flows and ups and downs. If you can’t stomach it, you’re in the wrong business. I don’t know if you’re an entrepreneur in the first place because it’s not always easy, entrepreneurship, it’s not for the weak, it really isn’t. It’s tough, it’s brutal but it’s fun and there are benefits to it.” 

Gavin: Yeah, definitely. And we’re marketers. So the worst thing we could do is stop marketing, it’s the worst advice you could ever give. You’re not affected today or next week, three months down the line is when you’re suffering and that’s when you can’t pick up. Because it’s like, “Well, I’m marketing again now, what’s happening?” It’s because you’ve missed that pipeline. Like for us, it’s probably three to five months on average, we’ll close deals. Yeah, we’ll get some early, I’m not talking about the ones and twos, but our consistency level is three to five months, and if I stopped marketing for a whole month now, it won’t affect me next month or the month after, three months I’ll be like, “What’s going on? My pipelines dried up.” Because I don’t have that follow-up in place. Especially when we’re talking about text messaging and cold calling. They need nurturing, these two, and you’re building friendships with these sellers. If you have enough friends in that pipeline, there’ll be enough deals coming your way a hundred percent.

Jesse: I think we’ve done this long enough to where we have an idea on what to do and that’s why getting mentored and actually sticking to a process and that’s why I hate to see so many new people try for 30 or 60 days. They actually think they’re not doing a good job or they did something wrong. If you’re taking action, it just takes time. The biggest thing that I took from being a real estate investor and the thing that I wish I’d done a better job at was to enjoy the journey and the process. If you’re really putting that time in and learning that craft, enjoy the struggling time.

My favorite memories of my whole entrepreneurial journey isn’t the mass of success or what we built, it’s the culmination of all of it and to be honest with you, the beginning was the most exciting part. Getting that six-figure wholesale cheque. That was like an incredible feeling that changed my life to where I was like “I don’t have to worry about my rent or my mortgages, it’s actually my first mortgage and it was at 90 thousand dollar condo in Scottsdale, wish I still had that house. 

Gavin: I was gonna say, do you still own it? 

Jesse:  No, I sold it, but I did well on that one. It was not having to worry about mortgages. I remember when I had to go out to a nice birthday dinner, and we go out to a nice restaurant I’d be like, “Alright, how much is the chicken?” Because that’s the only thing that I could afford. I was like, “Man, I hope it’s under 30 bucks.” That changed and having some of that freedom but it took a lot of hard work for me to get there and all of the little things that I learned getting started, that was the fondest part of all of it because the struggle—especially when you’re new when you get to a place where you succeed because a lot of you are going to, the one’s that just quit and give up. But the ones that stick through it—man, you’ll look back and those are some of your fondest memories because you have that hunger you have that grind, you didn’t know what you were doing and you just did whatever it took to figure out a way to have success and get yourself out of the place you were in.

I still look back to that and look at that person and be like, “Damn, that person was incredible!” I was so proud of the work that I put in back then to reap the benefits today. It’s a cool feeling. So, people, when you’re going through it, enjoy the good and the ugly because that’s the fondest part. The beginning is always the fondest, the journey is incredible. Nothing will be like the beginning on the come-up. 

Gavin: That’s fantastic. It’s good to stay grounded, it’s good for me to hear that. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re making money, you’re lying if you telling you’ve not struggled. You’re lying or you ain’t done enough business or you’re too new. We all struggle and that’s how you learn.

You don’t learn from winning, you learn when you’re not winning because that’s when you gotta pivot and pull through. So, well said. Jesse, before we wrap up here, BatchLeads 3.0 just came out.

Jesse:  Yes, Tuesday.

Gavin: 2 days in, and guys, I have a link for you. It’s batchleads.io/gavin, go over there right now, we’re gonna give you a thousand free records to start working, you’re gonna get a 7-day trial to get in this and test it for yourself. You don’t have to listen in to me and to Jesse. You can actually get in there and go “Let’s see if this actually works, let’s see if this is the real deal.” But here’s the thing, guys. Don’t go and sign up and then do nothing. Get in there, sign up, and get using it. Go and pick if you’re new, pick the zip code you live in. Pull a buyer’s list for the zip code you live in. Start talking to buyers, start talking to sellers. It can be that easy, you’ll figure out your target market, later on, just get using the software, don’t sign up, and not use it because that’s pointless. 

So, make sure you go over batchleads.io/gavin, a thousand free records 7-day free trial, and then you’re gonna be signing up, you’re gonna be in. Make sure that you like and subscribe to the show. I’m gonna be having some extra training videos surrounding Batch, me actually using it. Showing you how I operate in my business.

Jesse, before we’re done, anything you wanna share on BatchLeads 3.0?

Jesse: Honestly, we spent all your working on this, we actually started our 3.0 journey in January and we kept adding things to keep getting delayed because I really wanted this to be special and to really change the game. Just let me summarize for the people that haven’t used it and the people that have it. It’s really an all-inclusive way for you to host your leads, skip trace your leads, and market to your leads.

And the new things that we just added were, as I said, which no one else has, you click the dialer, there’s a softphone in there to where you could click through and start dialing to your leads, it already has text messaging and we added driving for dollars. So now you could drive for dollars in your car or virtually from your couch, you could sit there and just go look for ugly houses with our virtual driving for dollars. And we also added lead scoring to where if you know the criteria that you’re looking for, you could start lead scoring specifically to have your whole entire database, you could start scoring that. So, you go even deeper and start going after those homeowners that you’re seeing success with to get deals.  

Those are just a few of the tons of features that we’ve been working on and I’m just really excited that people are having success, we just launched it two days ago and people are losing their minds. It is something really cool and we really try to build this just for the customers. Our biggest core value is being customer obsessed. Being someone that came from the industry and did hundred of deals, all I’m doing is listening to feedback and figuring out how can we make it a more powerful tool for you to get more deals.

It’s not very hard, How do we help our customers get more deals, and that’s all we focus on. It’s really all we do. 

Gavin:  Fantastic. And again, from a coaching background, it’s music to my ears because we can stop all the excuses that people have. Let’s not sugarcoat it because that’s what it is. And we’re gonna get them in, and they’re gonna be able to operate. Start making money as quickly as possible, and start taking action as quickly as possible. And then their day-to-day activity, that consistency is gonna get them the outcome that they need over a period of time, and we said, earlier, it could be on the third phone call, it might be in the 10 thousandth phone call, who knows? But it’s gonna come if you’re consistent.

So, like I said guys, go over to batchleads.io/gavin, there’s gonna be a thousand free records by using that link. 7-day free trial, get plugged in, and let’s go!

Jesse, appreciate you, buddy, looking forward to hanging out here soon in Phoenix, and I’ll see you soon.