Welcome to the get real podcast. Your high octane, boosted in the trenches, tell it like it is, reality therapy for personal, business, and real estate investing success with your host entrepreneurs, Angela Thomas and Ron Phillips. It’s time to get real.

Ron:  Hey, everybody, Ron Phillips here. Welcome back for another episode of the Get Real podcast. Man, I’m super excited today. I got a friend of mine who is gonna really, really help you guys out with what I think is really, really critical right now in addition to the fact that we’re there right now or not. I think it’s becoming more and more prevalent. And then and he runs so many businesses. And I think as you find out how he runs these businesses, you guys are going to be a little bit set back in your seat just just hearing how this works. So welcome to the show, chris Arnold. I want to I want to talk a little bit about your companies. Right. So you run a very high level mastermind group. And for all of you out there who don’t know what a mastermind is, it’s a bunch of likeminded individuals that get together and try to help each other out. It’s called the multipliers. I love that name. I’ve loved it ever since you created the group. But maybe you have some really, really high, talented, capable individuals in that group. Chris also runs a wholesaling company in Dallas. He also has a coaching arm with Wholesale Inc in the Boys. Some of you guys are gonna know who they are, man. And he does all of this from beautiful Mexico. Chris, how the hell do you do all of that from Mexico? When it’s all here in the States.

Chris:  I mean, the great thing, Ron, is that the technology is here. Right. I remember I read a quote a while back by Richard Branson that said, you know, in 10 years, we will wonder why in the world we ever had offices and that now might be more the case than ever. Right. With things fed up. And so man when you look at things like join me and zoom and all the tech that’s out there. You realize that you’re not required to really sit in an office anymore. And if you’re not required to sit in an office, that gives you the ultimate freedom. Right. And that’s freedom of location. And so and my wife and I chose to come down to the Caribbean, which is where we always wanted to be. And so I run my business is down here virtually while everything’s done in Dallas in different places around the nation.

Ron:  So, Chris, I mean, you used to live in Dallas, right? You had you had your wholesaling business. You moved down to you moved down to Mexico. Talk to us a little bit about how you made that transition, because right now there’s a lot of people who are trying to figure out how in the world to do this, because this is so foreign to them, not virtual as well. As, you know, we’ve been virtual for two years, but I’m not as  virtual as you, man. How how do you make that transition from having an office, which I know you had a great culture down there to being virtual?

Chris:  Yeah. So it’s funny when I originally thought of the virtual world, because as you said, we were in office, it was like a black hole to me. Like it sounded really cool in theory. But there is just a lot of objections coming up in my mind. Right. Like, how do you create a culture? People aren’t in the office. How do you hold people accountable if they’re not showing up to the same place every day when you can’t exactly watch what they’re doing? And so really that first step for us was to hire our first virtual assistant. And we did that not on our own, but actually utilizing a third party, virtual company that already had them trained. So if you’re asking like what was the first step, it was just kind of crossing that line and making that first hire. And then what I realized really quickly is that people that are hatched in the virtual world, I’m talking about the men and women who have worked virtually for long periods of time. They, by nature, are very self-driven, very self-motivated. And what I found was a culture that I didn’t have to train or feel like build a lot of micro management, things like that to get the result. They were naturally that way because in order to survive doing what they’ve  done in the past, they have to be that way or you’ll fall apart virtually if you’re not self- driven. And some of it. If you’re a type person that needs that accountability and that  structure every day. And so that’s really where we begin. And we just began to shift that way. Right. Next person was virtual rather than an office. And before you know it, it swapped to such a degree that it was like most people are virtual and we just have a couple people in the office left. And that’s how we did it. Transitionally.

Ron:  You know, that’s interesting because that speaks to a little bit of some of the, man some of the pain points that I’m hearing. Because when I am when I hear him, I’m thinking, man, we really didn’t have that much of a problem. You know, the way that we did it was we moved everybody. I just sent everybody home for a month and said, you know, let’s try this out and see if it works. And it worked. But our culture was very similar where like, I never had my thumb, like on people. I didn’t have you know, I didn’t have to put video cameras in the office to make sure people were there and doing what they were supposed to be doing. Everybody is doing what they’re supposed to be doing because they like what they’re doing. And I’ve you know, I’ve talked about this on my on my show, but it’s crazy. I know that you believe this because we’ve had conversations about this in the past. Having the right people in the right seats is critical for especially for this right here. Right. Because they have to be self-motivated. To be able to do it means they have to want to do the work. Do we, are we on a delay? Man, I don’t even know right now, guys, we are. Just say you’re good. Yeah, I mean. Sorry about that. Everybody in the whole country is using the Internet all at the same time. So sometimes these are not going to be as crisp as they normally are. But you guys will get the point. 

Chris:  You’re saying the right people, right seats. Yeah, it’s motivation. Right.

Ron:  It’s just it’s just critical right now that we do that. Because if we don’t have them there, then they’re not going to want to do the work. And that’s the real problem. Lot of these guys are trying to put in place. And so all of you who own businesses out there who are virtual right now, trying to put in place things that are like heavy tracking mechanisms that track what everybody’s doing all day long. Chris, I don’t know if you, I don’t know if you have those. I don’t have those in my business.

Chris:  Yeah. The only thing we really want accountable at that level is the sale side. Right. Which you should. So we follow 40 ex or four disciplines of execution if you’re familiar with that model. So we have our weekly WIG, wildly important goal meeting. And that’s obviously built on a scoreboard where we can see like it’s like a baseball card runs. Like you can see all the stats on each of our sales people. And so we manage that decently heavy just because salespeople tend to thrive when you really reward. Both from a monetary as well as an intrinsic value for doing a job well done. And then honestly, the only thing else we have in place on top of that is just the EOS model. Right. So again, there’s the weekly meeting setting our quarterly rocks and so forth. But that’s not really tight micromanagement. That’s just more of laying out a 90 day world.

Ron:  Right. That’s normal. That’s like business 101 stuff.

Chris:  Right. Business 101. Yeah, but above that. No, not anything additional. I’ll tell you, if people are less than like, can you give me some upsides of virtual world? Like I’m stepping into this. Let me paint some pictures of some things I really love about virtual world. Number one is if you’re not tied it to the fact that someone needs to be able to commute to your office. You open up your geographical really territory tremendously forgetting talent. And it’s like, do you want to shop in a 45 minute radius of your office? Or do you want to be able to pull talent from anywhere in the U.S. or outside of the U.S.? And so it’s almost like I equate it to dating. Right. It’s like you’ve a much better chance of finding someone. You know, that’s a great fit if you’re able to look over a broader territory, not just in your home town. And so that’s a huge upside to consider is the talent pool that you get. The second thing I would tell you is I am actually blown away at the culture that we can create virtually. Believe it or not. And then. Right. I think the culture thrives in a different way is we don’t have the day to day drama of who drank my apple juice for that type of stuff. We were not bumping together in a box like we were in an office. But yeah, I feel like the culture I have virtually, I’m being honest with this, is stronger than the one I had in office. I really do. Now, we work at that. There’s some tools and things that we put in place that just doesn’t naturally  happen. But I’m amazed at the thriving culture that you can create virtually as well. I believe that that’s another upside.

Ron:  What are the tools, man? So there’s people right now that are really, really struggling, Chris. And we don’t know how long we’re gonna be in this situation. What are some of the tools that that you’re using that allow you to be able to create that culture or keep that culture built?

Chris:  Yeah, I’ll tell you real basic one that we use, but it’s actually works really well for us is what’s app. And if you’re not familiar with what’s app, what makes it valuable is how easy you can send videos, pictures and things like that in comparison to your traditional SMS. It actually has a lot better. I’ve often wondered why more people in the US don’t use it. Internationally, everyone uses WhatsApp.

Chris:  But to give you an idea of how we take that tool, you know, every Wednesday, for example, we play a Wednesday game and it rotates around. And so someone will drop a question. They might say, OK. Today, we want you to take five pictures of your office at home or your house. They kind of shed a light on who you are in the way that you design stuff. And then everyone just goes out the day and they’ll post stuff. But those like weekly games, things like that. Believe it or not, I’m amazed at how strong our culture is built. Just what’s that? And you’re going really is that the case? And I’m like, yeah, and Ron, I’ll tell you this. Like my C.O.O. and my staff. All the VAs that have worked for me. It’s been like four or five years. I’ve still never met any of them face to face ever. That’s crazy. And they are really, I know their stories. I know their families. I know all the little odd things about each of them. Right. That’s just makes people who they are. And so it just it’s amazing what you can build virtually without ever meeting someone face to face.

Ron:  You know, I’m taking notes right now. And I love that office game thing. I love that one of the things we use is, is Marco Polo for the same reason that you use WhatsApp. Right. Yes. Because, you know, we need to be able to see each other and we need to be able to see how quirky everybody is. Right. I mean, we have a fun office. And just because we’re not in the same location doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. We just had we just had a birthday celebration and there were there were raps and all kinds of crazy songs. We had people. My dog, I put like a, put this paper around my dog’s neck as if my dog was telling them Happy Birthday wrote on it and it was silent, which was stupid and funny. We just have a good time with these videos. Right. And it’s so easy. In addition to that, it’s easy for me as a leader, probably for you to on what’s app, you can just get on there and give everybody some motivation for the day.

Chris:  All at one time was right. That was hard to do in an office. You got a pool, everybody into the same room. Right. Which is difficult to do. And so on. WhatsApp,  I’ve got everyone’s eyes and ears on what I’m posting and it actually makes the communication process much easier.

Ron:  Yeah, I’m. So there’s two tools for you guys out there. I mean, you can use. And then sky’s the limit. Guys, be creative about how you want to operate your internal office. Right. And I agree with Chris. If once you go virtual, you’re going to ask yourself… I love that quote by Richard Branson. I agree with it. I love it because it allows everybody to live where they want and still have excellent employment. Here’s the other thing, too, Chris. You talked about the unbelievable talent that you can that you can garner just by having flexibility. But think about the opportunities that are offered to the people who really, really need the flexibility, who don’t get it from the normal office. So they’re shut out of 90 percent of the workplace that they could get a job. And you can offer them something where you can get really top tier talent. And at the same time, it’s a win because they couldn’t go use their top tier talent at 90 percent of the companies because they have to drive there every day.

Chris:  And that’s usually a lot of times it can be single moms. It can be someone like we have in our office married to someone in the military. So, they’re off at times different things like that and like unbelievably talented. But their life just does not permit them to leave the house every day from 9:00 to 5:00. Right. And there are a lot of those people out there that are incredible. And you give them an opportunity to work from home. Be amazed at who you come across out there that would never get if you’d said no to them in the office.

Ron:  And I think how hard and diligent they work because they’ve been given an opportunity that they have been shut out of for so long. I feel like there’s so many people that are in that situation. Stay at home moms, single moms, you know, whatever the case may be. And they have a real desire to work. And when given the opportunity, men, they really, really come. They come at it full steam.

Chris:  And it’s they’re naturally independent. They’re the type of person who is very independent. I’m not going to shop and swipe a 9 to 5. And then that independence leads to the very thing we were talking about, independence. People are self-motivated and self-driven. They want to do things their way. And when you raise up a leadership team that thinks for themselves like that, that’s where you really begin to step back and have the type of people that can run your company without you.

Ron:  You know? Yep, I one hundred percent agree. Let’s switch gears for just a second. Before we got on, we were talking about something else that I’ve talked about in a couple of previous episodes, but that’s really, really critical. And I’m very curious just to hear your methodology behind this. We’re talking a little bit about cutting expense. Right. I mean, in times like this and actually all the time we should be thinking about  this. But right now, it’s in everybody’s mind and I’m interested to hear, share with everybody what your methodology is for this. And obviously, we’re using it now. But I get the sense this is something that you do on a regular basis where you go through and use this methodology to cut expenses.

Chris:  Yeah. So again, I was there in 2008. So for us, that went through that first challenge, we got smart and we learned the principles that we needed to and the methodologies. And so I think everyone’s hearing get lean, get lean cut costs. And the question I like to ask, well, isn’t there an actual methodology to do that? Absolutely there is. And so, first of all, we start with two plans, right? Our first plan is what’s called the battle plan, which are all of the shifts and tweaks that we just need to make in our business right now. So, for example, we can’t interact with the seller. So we need to build that into a virtual process. Right. We can’t interact with the backside. Cash buyers, all those like current shifts that need to be done literally in like a week to be able to move. And then from there, what we’ve built out is what’s called the contingency plan. And that breaks down how we go in and cut expenses and how we’ve done that.

Chris:  So there’s three things to take a look at. Right. First of all, the easiest way to look at your business is marketing, payroll, operations. Right. So you got all these expenses start with three buckets and everything will fit into those three buckets. And then you go through this process. Everything is either renegotiated, cut or deferred. Right. In my opinion right now, it’s an amazing time to really negotiate every single vendor you have, because normally if you’re calling to negotiate a vendor, it’s a problem in your company. And you’ve got to explain to them what’s going on. The reality is, everyone in the world is on the same page. They don’t even need to hear your story on why you need to renegotiate the costs. And it’s the amazing time to be able to take advantage of the fact that everyone is open and being helpful to renegotiate. I don’t care if it’s $30 a month or, you know, ten thousand dollars a month. Whatever it is, everything should be renegotiated down. Now on the cutting side, right. There are things right now that just need to go. And I’ll use the language my CFO gives me that things really valuable. You know, phase one, you cut off the fat. That’s all the stuff. You should have been cutting off anyway. But if things are good, we get lazy and get some fat on the expenses. Then you cut into flesh. That’s a bit more painful. But there are some things that require a little bit of debate. Then you create a third stage, which is cutting bone. That’s where you’re like looking at stuff going, I need to maybe flip this over to a manual process because like we’ve got to get down, down, down on these expenses. And the last thing is you amputate, which is usually getting into affecting payroll. Are you taking percentages off payroll or maybe having to let some VNC go? But what we’ve always done in that situation is create those four phases. And we do that in advance. So we know exactly what the road is to cut those expenses. 

Chris:  Now, depending on your business right now, you might go through all four of those stages in a week because you have to. Other businesses that have more cash flow. They might kind of lay that out a little bit over a period of time and don’t feel like I’ve got to go all the way to stage four right away. So it just depends. But it’s a good framework. And then the last thing on the defer is, you know, you shouldn’t be writing any big checks for now any bills that you have or you can make a call to someone and say, hey, man, I’m going to pay you, I’m good for it, but I just need to defer writing a check for 60, 90 days. You know, example, that could be a legal bill, something along those lines you got to defer as well. And so and that’s our process that we go through to make sure we’ve got everything in place.

Ron:  I think that’s really smart, man. And that’s really it’s really logical to pinpoint which is which. Yeah. And it’s easy to understand, too, because I’m thinking as you were talking, I’m like, I’m thinking about my arm and I’m going, OK. You can clearly see how this works. I can clearly see how this works. Right. First fat, then you know. And I know in my business, same thing. I don’t have that much fat. But next, I got to cut into the flesh. And then next I got to cut into the bone. And then while the arm is just going to have to go this month because I can’t use it. You know, I can’t pay for it. I think that’s I think that’s really, really key. And it’s really important. One of the things that that I left off, because we talked a little bit about this in a couple of previous episodes, but the whole renegotiate thing is powerful right now. I gave an example of somebody I talked to who was trying to get some videographer done. One of my buddies called the videographer, who’s a really good videographer, and he asked when, you know, what his lead time was. And he goes, dude, everybody canceled. Look, I’m open. What do you need? And he goes, well, then how much would it cost for me to just buy your services for the month? And the guy gave him a screaming deal because he needed the money. So again, win, win, win. This guy’s out of work. Super talented guy. But again, videography is probably not high on everybody’s list. It’s part of the fat. Maybe the flesh is going to get cut. Right. And it did this guy got cut out of business. And so my buddy was able to go do something that he was going to do anyway. But, and he’s going to get it done in, you know, like a fifth of the time because it’s all condensed. And he’s going to get it at a ridiculous price right now, too. And help this guy out. So in times like this, it’s just it’s a really, really critical that we are, that we’re nimble and that we’re able to act instead of react. I think really, really critical right now.

Chris:  Yeah. I think the most important thing is you shouldn’t be deciding in the moment what you’re going to be doing. Be laid out to worst case scenario. And I’m telling you, Ron. That just takes a lot of pressure off the brain and relieves the emotions. You’ve laid out every move on the chessboard all the way to worst case scenario. And again, we don’t know what happened. That’s the other thing. I think we have to be cautious. I can get on. I’ve been on so many calls where on one side, you know, we’re gonna be good in  a month or two. And I have heard one guy go. It’s not going to be a recession. It’s about to be a depression. So like, there’s these like a huge. And again, I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter because regardless of what happens, that doesn’t change my methodology for planning for the absolute worst. I’m going to do it regardless. And I don’t mean to execute on it. At least I know exactly what that plan looks like.

Ron:  Here’s the other thing, Chris. And you know, having been one of the people who made it through 2008, you understand this, right? Because there weren’t very many of us that did. One of the things that’s really, really critical is when you take this kind of pressure off of yourself, your mental capacity can be used in its state that it’s supposed to be in, which is in its creativity state. And it can see the opportunities. And then you can act on the opportunities rather than be in this crazy reactionary mode, because your brain is so overloaded with all of this other stuff, this negative stuff that you can’t see past, you know, what’s right in front of you. And that’s critical at times like this, because you have to be able to clearly see the opportunity and then execute on it.

Chris:  Yeah, a couple ways I’ve heard that said that I’ve always stuck with me. Every minute that you’re focused on surviving is a minute that you’re losing, not actually building, your business.

Ron:  And that’s when I heard it. Everybody wrote that down. That is really good.

Chris:  That, oh, being overwhelmed and creativity. Things are mutually exclusive. You cannot be both. You cannot be overwhelmed. And you can be highly creative at the same time. They do not co-exist. So I totally agree on your getting down to the point of why do we really want to lay these plans out? And because it’s smart to do. But you’ve got to free up your mind and your creativity to run and look for the opportunities because they’re going to be there. And if that stuff is just in your head, there’s no room for thinking about anything else. And I know what that feels like. I’ve been there where you’re just spiraling. Like you feel like it’s a plane going down and you’re just trying in something, right. I mean, your mind won’t stop. Can’t sleep, right. You’re waking up at 3 o’clock in the morning and boom. And if you’re in that state, I’ve been there. It’s painful. It’s just not a good place as the leader of your organization. That’s not who your team needs right now.

Ron:  Yeah. They need certainty. They need someone who can send a message that everything not only is going to be all right, but it is going to be better. But we’re going to come out of this thing strong and with clear, clear purpose, clear direction so that everybody knows how to execute and nobody’s scared. And that’s really, really important as well. Let’s shift for just a second, Chris, because one of the things that I’ve been harping on here is the ability to take advantage of opportunities that are that are all over the place. And I think people get mired in all of this, these things. So we’ve given  you some really, really good tips about fixing this. This this new world of being virtual. We’ve given some great tips about how to cut expenses and plan for, you know, things that may or may not happen. Right. But if we have a plan now, we can free up our brain to see the opportunity. Let’s talk a little bit about that, because you just did this, right. So you just you just kind of in the last little bit here created a new business. And it’s going well, in spite of the fact that a lot of people are freaking out and their businesses are going down. So here you’ve created a new business, in essence. I mean, you’re already a really solid. I mean, you’re coaching top tier talent, so you’re already a solid coach. So that part of it’s not new, but this is a new venture. Tell us a little bit about what it is. Tell us a little bit about why you guys are able to take advantage of something like this. I mean, I would think most people in the current situation would be scared to death to start a new venture or would like pull back hard if they had started a new venture. And it doesn’t seem to me like you’re pulling back at all. It seems like you’re leaning in.

Chris:  Yeah, absolutely. So. And we’re talking about the utilization of radio. Right. To find described and distressed properties. Yeah. Yeah. So. Right. I’ve been doing radio for nine years. It is the only piece of lead generation that I’ve kept in my business that long because it’s the only thing that’s been highly consistent and highly dependable. Direct mail, that kind of came and went a little bit for Fort Worth, particularly in 2018 because it got oversaturated. There’s been other things that we’ve tried that just kind of work on and off depending on pricing, you know, things like pay per click, things like that all the way over to the fact of there is just way too many people on the bandwagon. And so one of the opportunities I see, you know, is we decided at the end of last year to launch REIRadio, which is teaching investors how to utilize radio to find investment properties. And then the first question off out and everyone will realize it is how many people do you know as investors that are utilizing radio and marketing? And everyone I talked to step back and go, Chris, you ask that question and I realize there’s no one I really know. Because there is virtually no competition. So people like, well, isn’t radio old school? Absolutely. Radio’s been around forever. The application of it to find investment properties is what’s new. And then people go, well, do people still like listen to the radio? Absolutely. If you understand that your avatar is primarily over the age of 50. They do not have Spotify downloaded on their phone. They don’t do Pandora. They still turn on the radio and the television because that’s how they were raised to do instead of the opportunity right now with radio is, man, I’m loving this. The radio stations are getting squeezed right now.

Chris:  So there’s two types of marketing on the radio. There’s branding, right. I’m just getting my brand out there, brand awareness. And then those that use radio to actually generate revenue have a call to action. All the people that we’re doing branding, they’re pulling their advertisement right now because it doesn’t drive revenues, just driving  awareness. And so what we’re seeing right now is that the radio stations are going down. And we show people how to get it down to rock bottom prices. They’re actually now going lower. Like when you call and negotiate, there’s no fight anymore with them because they’re like, yeah, I’ll give you that and I have another station. I’ll give you some pretty spots on that station. Hey, why not throw in some, like, free streaming? What else do you need? Because the reps for now are getting hounded by the sales managers to sell advertisement and stop the bleeding that’s happening right now. So if you’re looking for an opportunity radio, is that opportunity because of the time. And more importantly, because even before this whole coronavirus thing, it’s highly valuable because no one does it. Everyone is doing this right now. They’re increasing their cold calling. Right. You see it all over social media. More ringless voice mail, more text blasting. It was already oversaturated. Now it’s going to get even more competitive. And I don’t know about you but I don’t wanna play it a game where it’s that competitive.

Ron:  And I think they’re going to piss people off to the point that they’re going to they’re now going to. I think there’s gonna be regulation on this soon or disruption where automation shuts the whole thing down.

Chris:  I agree.

Ron:  Yeah. So, I mean, I’ve got a couple of personal questions because I’ve been thinking about this. Anyway, I advertise differently than what you’re talking for different business than what you’re talking about. But it’s irrelevant. I’m still looking for deals. Doesn’t matter. I’m not I’m still looking for buyers and I’m still looking for deals. Right. So either way, it’s basically the same thing. And I just was talking about Facebook. Mean, the same thing is happening on Facebook here. You have millions and millions and millions more eyeballs on Facebook. Facebook ad costs are going down because people are pulling back right now and radio was already underutilized. And if people are pulling back on radio, my gosh, it’s got to be it’s got to be really cheap right now. So do you only use it sounds like you’re probably only using local stations, but what about XM? Because I know there’s people who listen to XM and most XM channels don’t have them, but the news channels do. All of the live, like all the sports radio channels do. And I think if I remember back, I used to do radio years and years ago. So it’s kind of apropos that you’re talking about this because we did really well on the radio incidentally. Are you using XM? Because I think you can I think you can do local areas on XM as well.

Chris:  Yeah, we’ve just built our model around FM and not even AM. Right. So you got FM. So again, the difference between AM and FM, and you’re like, OK, what’s that? It’s either music or talk radio. I’m not saying that talk radio doesn’t work. But what we’ve learned is that people that listen to talk radio primarily are usually more affluent. Therefore, they’re less likely to have that circumstance that’s going to create the deal.  So what works best is tacking the actual music stations that your avatar is going to listen to, and there’s only three, honestly, in the U.S., your avatar or demographic is gonna be over the age of 50 is going to be rural, right? Depending where you live or is going to be urban. And what I love about radio is that you can niche and it’s not a spray and pray model. It’s not a buckshot approach. If your target is urban based on the area you live, you just reverse engineer that into the type of music they’ll listen to and you’re going to generate that the client that you’re looking for. If it’s over the age of 50, it’s the same thing. It’s listening to classical music or old school like classical rock. Classic country. That type of stuff. Right. So I love that it’s very niched as well.

Ron:  That’s really, really cool. And yeah. So you’re teaching this number one and you’re doing this. Been doing it for years, apparently number two. And the people that you’re teaching and kind of coaching through this deal. The results that they’re seeing real similar to your results. I mean, don’t tell me a little bit about what the. Tell me a little bit about what impact. I know the numbers. Come on, man. Give us the dirt, dude.

Chris:  Let’s just give the numbers. So I’m gonna break it down again. Cost per lead. Cost per acquisition, depending on how much you’re spending, where you’re at. That’s going to be all over the map. The only true number that matters when it comes to radio is your dollar per dollar return. So for every dollar I put in that coke machine, how many dollars am I gonna give back?

Ron:  I want that coke machine. I want to get one of those Coke machines, put it in my house where I can put a dollar in and get several of them back. That’s the Coke machine. I have a Coke with it, Chris.

Chris:  Yeah. You get both. You get money back and Coke drops out. So we spend twenty seven thousand five hundred dollars a month on radio in Dallas-Fort Worth. And what I’ll tell you is anyone that spending over five thousand dollars a month consistently on radio will land between a one to three to one to $4 return. So for every dollar you spend, you’ll land between $3 to $4 for us and Dallas-Fort Worth. It’s like right on the nose at three dollars and fifty cents. And any CFO will tell you if you’re spending or five grand a month on something, if you can maintain three to four, that’s actually really good. Now, if you’re spending less than five grand a month on radio, like a thousand, two thousand, everyone that I know is reporting back to me about a 1 to 5 to 1 to 7 return. And of course, the reason that’s higher because the law of averages is working in their favor and that is the no B.S. numbers. I get so tired of people. I get a one to fifteen and if you’re getting 1 to 3, 1 to 4 and you’re spending a lot of money, it’s a good return.

Ron:  You know, you got one to fifteen wants on one day because you got one deal that was really good. 

Chris:  Shut up. I totally agree. Okay, so the benefits that hit on top of that, right. The site dollar for dollar is you get two things. You get celebrity status and instant credibility. So think about it where two movie stars come from. Right. Where does celebrity come from? It comes from our minds and it comes via television, social media and radio. So when you’re on the radio, you actually build celebrity status for your name and for your brand in your community. I don’t know another piece of marketing. I don’t care if it’s direct mail, ringless voice mail, bandit signs and that’s it. That stuff does not create celebrity status. If anything, you don’t put your brand on there because people hate you because you’re spamming them. But I would never put my company name on a bandit sign. And then the other thing you get right behind that, which is really important with competition, is instant credibility. You know, Ron, if you’re advertising on the radio, you must know what you’re doing because only experts use the radio. That’s what the consumer automatically comes to in their mind. So we love walking into a property to pick it up or we do it over the phone and we have celebrity status and instant credibility when we start the conversation. That’s a great place to begin in the sale cycle to close someone.

Ron:  And that’s fantastic. So talk to me now. Like let’s say let’s say somebody out there who’s listening, they’ve got a wholesale rehab business, right? They’ve been doing mail. They’ve been doing everything everybody else is doing. Right. They’ve got, you know, an acquisitions person or two. You know, they’ve got the normal structure of one of those businesses. So now I turn on the radio, from what I recall from radio, we used to use radio to drive people to live events. And then from live events, we would sell them, you know, real estate. So when we would turn on a radio ad, I mean, holy crap, dude, like the calls are just I mean, they start flowing in. I don’t know if it’s the same with the type of advertising that you’re doing, but my assumption would be that your call, volume or lead flow is going to go up dramatically. Is there something that people need to consider before they turn the radio on structurally or internally. That would that they would need to do to make this work.

Chris:  Yeah, you got to answer these calls live because they’ll be the highest quality lead that you’ve been able to generate. So, I’m going to, let’s compare it to direct mail because we’re talking about lead volume in a spectrum. So direct mail over here right on the left-hand side is very high. Call volume, low quality lead. Right. Is actually on the other side. It’s actually a lower volume overall, but it’s a much higher quality lead. So the best way that I can describe it, it’s like if you were doing direct mail and could put in the easy button and get rid of all the crap calls that you get, which we know that over 50 percent are complaint calls and just got the good stuff that was left the gold. That’s exactly what radio’s like. 

Chris:  Wow. So we get a good call volume, but it’s great for the new investor. It’s getting in, right? Because number one, you set it and forget it. All you gotta do is get in, negotiate it, turn it on. And then the radio station does everything else. Direct mail. You got to tweak the postcard. Deal with mailing company. Make sure you have a strong back end because you’re about to get flooded with a bunch of calls. Right. Right. Radio is actually a very low maintenance process versus direct mail, which is the other reason we love it.

Ron:  So, Chris, so you’re actively helping investors do this right now? Put this into place, right?

Chris:  Yeah, absolutely. We felt like it was time and again we focus in Dallas-Fort Worth. So we help other people in other cities set it up. That doesn’t affect us at all in our market.

Ron:  Gotcha. So tell us how people can get a hold of you, man. If they if someone’s listening to this and they go, oh, my gosh, that sounds like the cat’s meow. I really want that in my market or in my markets. How can people, how can people reach you without flying down to Mexico, although that wouldn’t be too bad. I wouldn’t. Right. That’s how you get a good way to do it. Yeah.

Chris:  Yeah. To come down in Mexico, go down to Mexico.

Ron:  We’ll hook you up. Other than that, how do they do it?

Chris:  Yeah. So the best way to begin is with questions. And it’s always good to begin by booking a call. Again, now we are limiting the amount of people and territories and markets because we’re not going to let it get oversaturated. So the first thing you gotta figure out is, is your market even open? Because we’ve already sold out markets around the country. But what you want to do is book a call and you can do that by going to wholesalinginc.com/reiradio. Again, that’s wholesalingic.com/reiradio. And you just literally began by booking a call talk with our support staff and and they will. And you should be asking questions. Right. And they will walk through and answer every question that you have about radio. But that’s where you want to begin. Due diligence.

Ron:  We’ll put that and we’ll put that in the show notes to see if you guys didn’t get it. We’ll have that in the show notes. You guys can click on it and run through. And I I can. I can. I’ve never used radio for this purpose. But when we used radio in the past, it was many years ago when I was doing live events, which I don’t do anymore. Radio worked and it worked in a big way. So it doesn’t shock me that this works. I was a little shocked, honestly, at the fact that you’re not getting overwhelmed with calls, but it makes sense. The way you explain it is that, you know, the only the people who are gonna call are the  ones because you’re not in their face with the mailer and you’re not pissing them off about their situation. You’re really offering a solution that they can reach out and get. That’s a whole different type of call than, you know. Why are you calling me about my dead grandma? You know, kind of a call. Those are never say never, but sometimes those are not pleasant calls. Right.

Chris:  Yeah. And one thing I’d say, you know, people ask me, why do people not been using radio if it’s so good? I’ll tell you. Two reasons. People assume, number one, that it’s not affordable. I got to start with a budget of 10 grand or whatever. You can start in any market regardless of how big it is for about a thousand to two thousand dollars a  month. That’s probably lasting much spending on direct mail. My first station in Dallas- Fort Worth, which is really one of the biggest markets for radio. Statistically, my first  station was 1500 bucks a month. That’s where I started and I just snowballed it from there. And then the other thing I find with people is there’s just too many variables when it comes to setting up radio, depending on what you’re selling on radio. There’s a hundred different ways that you can stack a radio at how long it should be, when you should play on what station, what you’re copy. I mean, it’s just endless. And so what you got to do is have all of those things correctly in order to make it work, to produce what we’re looking for, which are real estate investment opportunities. And most people look at it and go, I have no idea where to begin. And so a lot people steer away from it because of that..

Ron:  Chris, thank you so much for. This has been so much content. Man, like in every single piece of it was just really brilliant. Specially for the times that we’re in. And this last this last piece to for people who are pulling back. Man, if I were in the situation where I needed to pull back right now, I would go back and listen to the section. The second section we did about cutting expenses and I would cut that. I would cut things that free up money to be able to do something like this. That’s inexpensive, but that will bring money in. You don’t cut marketing, cut everything else, and you know, your marketing isn’t working. Right. Then here’s another solution to try that. Chris is telling you guys that you could excuse me, that you can try inexpensively. And my gosh, it would be worth a try. Because if you can do a one to three to a one to seven ratio on your dollars, then you need to reroute some of the money that you’re currently spending into this or something. Right. That’s going to get you money in into your business. And, you know, you got to get out of that mentality where right now I’m hurting. So I’m just gonna cut everything down and I’m gonna, you know, sit in behind the toilet until something changes. That doesn’t work. You’ve got to be proactive. You can’t be reactive. And man, you’ve gotten on this episode, you’ve gotten some really actionable things that you can do to take care of yourself, your business and your life. Chris, I’m really grateful that you were able to share all that with us. 

Chris:  Enjoy it. You know, I got such respect for you. You’re one of the guys that call when I’m like, who’s going to be able to answer this question? It’s like, I’ll call Ron Phillips on that one. And I sure appreciate your wisdom.

Ron:  I appreciate that. Wholesalinginc.com/reiradio. Stands for real estate investment, right? REI radio and. And man book some time to talk to Chris’s team. If you like the episode, if you found value in the episode, give us a like. Most important thing you could do right now to spread some cheer is to leave a really awesome comment as well and then share this episode. Share the show with everybody else. You can find the show, GetRealEstateSuccess.com. We really appreciate you guys. Thanks a lot.

This has been the Get Real podcast. To subscribe, and for more information, including a list of all episodes, go to GetRealEstateSuccess.com. Chris