00;00;00;00 - 00;00;20;24

Unknown

Talking to your regular retail buyers on your flip. They're pre-approved. You know, they can go get an FHA loan, a whatever type of a loan. They're like. Garage door color. Don't like it. Oh this over here. Don't like it. Right. It's just petty stuff. Right. But you're like but but I have to cater to them. Like please buy my house pretty please.

00;00;20;26 - 00;00;43;27

Unknown

And we have to frame it that way. So even make it happen. Whereas under finance they're like oh my gosh I can't tell you. I've, I've had just the last couple weeks two people tell me this. So and dozens of other people say this. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to buy a house. So look at those two different mindsets there right where we're talking with that.

00;00;43;28 - 00;01;06;20

Unknown

Yeah, I feel a huge difference. You know, whatever I want my walls. I'm in charge. Versus I never thought that this was possible. And you made it possible. Thank you so much. Hey, hey, this is David Richter of the profit. First of I, I podcast. I actually, when I say special guest, this is a special guest because I probably know Caleb more than most people that I bring onto the podcast we've worked together.

00;01;06;22 - 00;01;27;15

Unknown

We also work with him. He's a client of ours at simple CFO, but he's also been someone that just throughout the years has helped me with some, you know, lots of marketing stuff and helping me with my mindset through that stuff. Good friend. He's been someone that's been there for, you know, like during a big growth period in our life at simple CFO here.

00;01;27;15 - 00;01;48;07

Unknown

So, Caleb, thanks for coming on and sharing your wisdom here today. Yeah, absolutely, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Well, I want to jump in here. And first I just wanted to say thanks for coming on the show. And I know that you have a ton to be able to share with people. Do you want to talk about, like, there's so many places we could start here.

00;01;48;07 - 00;02;05;08

Unknown

So like, where would you like to start? And that would help, like go the right direction, you know, for you. And I want to make sure that we just provide a ton of value to the listeners. So do we want to start with how we started working together or like, I don't know, all your marketing experience? Let's dive in somewhere.

00;02;05;10 - 00;02;24;03

Unknown

Yeah. So we can cover a quick, marketing highlight reel if you want to. But I definitely think the, the since we are on the profit first, podcast, you're probably sticking to some things, around kind of how really is a client, how I got started as your client. Really, on kind of that side.

00;02;24;03 - 00;02;46;28

Unknown

Just kind of touching on some things, some of the bad choices that I made. You know, some, some did different things there that I wasn't really, aware of until we dug into something was like, oh, I messed up there. There go that that would be a great thing, but I'll kind of give just a quick marketing background just so that way we kind of have it a little bit.

00;02;47;01 - 00;03;12;25

Unknown

But, then in real estate since about 2016, late 2017, kind of rumblings of this marketing agency thing didn't quite know what that was. Built a very successful and large agency, and, you know, have I personally have managed over $20 million in ad spend on Google, meta now formerly, Facebook is we all still call it.

00;03;12;25 - 00;03;33;27

Unknown

But, on those two primarily and, have done it for not only for you guys, but a lot of, real estate investors, home services educators in this space. Not only educators in into the real estate space, but in other, avenues as well. So pretty much, you name it. Marketing systems and sales, I've done all of them.

00;03;33;27 - 00;03;51;21

Unknown

And so, at a very high level and for now, I get to do it on my, on my own stuff, which is fun. So kind of the first time in a while that we're back doing it for ourselves as a primary as opposed to doing it for everybody else. Which is awesome. So, yeah. Yeah. No, that's very cool.

00;03;51;26 - 00;04;08;16

Unknown

So then talk about that journey like you've always had real estate investor in your blood and, you know, being out there and helping and not just, you know, like the general audience and like going out there and helping real estate investor. But now you're working on putting those powers to like, okay, how do we make our business better?

00;04;08;22 - 00;04;30;09

Unknown

So you want to talk about like, okay, what are some of the things that you do in your business for the marketing perspective? And obviously how what are you measuring from there? And like, what are some of the most important things that you are measuring in order to get the numbers? Because obviously being CFOs, we want to know, like, what are you, what are you going down to market in to make sure that you're getting the results that you want?

00;04;30;11 - 00;04;58;28

Unknown

Yeah. Absolutely. So we'll kind of jump in. So on the marketing front, we're doing all things online. So SEO, Google ads, running ads through meta on Facebook and Instagram. Those are our, our three winners right there. Those are our three biggest ones. And, you know, I'll look, we've done everything. Direct mail, ads on television, cold calling, texting, you name it.

00;04;58;28 - 00;05;19;25

Unknown

All the typical stuff. Right? But we just keep kind of coming back to our core. Three things that have been my core, three things for almost a decade now. And so those are just, you know, always been there is kind of like this kind of renaissance, mindset for the last couple months that was like, wait a minute, I'm doing all these things.

00;05;19;28 - 00;05;54;17

Unknown

What if we just double down on what's working right now? And really, through talking to my, CFO? Right. Like digging through that stuff and like, oh, wait a minute. We might be on to something here. So we'll talk some more about that. But, I think it'd be good to kind of go backward a little bit because I think that it would be like, I feel like if, if I'm going to paint the picture here, but if we really, like, unravel the entire thing, I think it would stress everybody out because it's stressing me out, once, like if if everybody here really saw the whole totality of what happens, it would

00;05;54;17 - 00;06;31;19

Unknown

be very like, wow, how did you sleep at night? How did you make it? Right? And like, I'll be honest, but bear, that's crawling right, I was, I was oh, we're barely, barely made. But let's go back a couple years. This would have been in late 2023, a couple of years ago. And, and, over the summer of that year, we had, really kind of started to do a couple of, a couple of renovations on some houses and kept a couple rentals and kind of dabbled, I should say.

00;06;31;19 - 00;06;50;08

Unknown

Re dabbled into the real estate side. Like you said, real estate's always been here. It's not going anywhere. Just we kind of got back into it and, started to say, hey, we can do this. Like, we can do this big and efficient with a really big heart of like, hey, I want to provide as many jobs to people locally as I can.

00;06;50;10 - 00;07;21;16

Unknown

Right. Intentions. Poor execution. So take note there. Had, entrusted somebody in a leadership role that I should not have. Unfortunately. And, as a result, between their bad choices, my bad choices are putting this individual in a role. In addition to just lawsuits with contractors. Just crazy things, right? I mean, anything and everything you can think of, amassed to a little over $550,000 of losses.

00;07;21;16 - 00;07;44;01

Unknown

This isn't like losses on your taxes, because we're trying to take write offs where, like, I didn't really like that didn't really happen, right? No. This was like a half $1 million that I didn't have. Now I've just gotten some sitting here with like, millions just hanging out with. Right. It's like, no, this was $500,000 that just like actual real money that gone right, that completely gone.

00;07;44;02 - 00;08;14;10

Unknown

So I had I had a very legitimate decision to make, had to go through and cut that other into that other individual out of not only business, but, personal, stuff as well. That's another conversation for another day. But, through that, luckily, knowing you and was at the time working on a lot of, marketing stuff with, you guys and just kind of I just had that conversation, like, I kind of need some help here.

00;08;14;13 - 00;08;30;11

Unknown

And so working, you know, now, coming out of it is been like, oh my gosh, well, this is wild. So it was kind of that moment of, all right, I'm going to choose, bankruptcy and giving up everything, or I'm going to find a way to make this thing work. Right. It was like, all right, there's just no other option.

00;08;30;14 - 00;08;53;07

Unknown

And so, you know, there were moments where we were literally on our own. I am one Dave Ramsey is not going to love this, but, I'm a big credit card, point person. I am. And so there was a dope, season there that literally, like, grocery shopping, we would get the Walmart, the gift cards from our credit card.

00;08;53;07 - 00;09;15;12

Unknown

And that's how personally we were even, like, able to eat, like, literally like it got to that level, of like, okay, how are we gonna make it here? And the miracle of the whole thing, man, like, the Lord is so faithful. There's no other way to say it. Credit didn't go down. Never miss one month, mortgage, on the, personal house.

00;09;15;14 - 00;09;45;02

Unknown

Always eat food, like, never went with us. Where are we going on vacations? No. But, like, always had. Right. Always had something. Which is a miracle thinking. I mean, like, looking back, looking at the numbers on a spreadsheet, you're like, how? Like, how did this even happen? And so really did it. I mean, it's a testament to not only the CFO I have through you guys, but everybody else that you guys have in your systems, that make you dig in and ask the tough questions.

00;09;45;02 - 00;09;58;20

Unknown

Okay. How are we going to get out of this? What are our options? How can we do this? And so we came up and I would have never been thought about. We came up with the plan of, okay, here's how we're going to go and attack this, and here's how we're going to go get this done and go get this done.

00;09;58;20 - 00;10;19;22

Unknown

And so I just went to work on the marketing front. Right. And we just kept on, chipping away and chipping away. And, it took about 18 months to, to pay that whole thing off to get the whole thing knocked out completely. A very large portion of that was on credit cards and other things. And so, you know, we all know credit card isn't cheap.

00;10;19;25 - 00;10;46;13

Unknown

But we were able to knock the whole thing out completely on. Oh, God. And, now we have new challenges, which we'll talk about some of that as well. But, but yeah, that, that was, all a testament because of you, because of you guys, being able to, to get us through that, just being able to know the numbers that we needed to know and, being able to really make some educated decisions on.

00;10;46;13 - 00;11;11;10

Unknown

Okay, you know, is it smarter right now to wholesale this or flip this or what do we do and and some, gut choices that I thought, oh, we should do this. Got through the numbers. I was like, oh, wait a minute, I it's not that I'm wrong, but the better option for the situation is actually. Yes. It's like, oh, well, I never would have done that.

00;11;11;10 - 00;11;34;12

Unknown

And then realizing what the ramifications of my original gut that, you know, what the gut choices would have looked like, and how that could have even, you know, snowballed things even further. So, yeah. So that part it was wild, man. I know that everyone's like. Right? Yeah. It was a lot to unpack. I realized there's a lot that there's a lot that had happened there.

00;11;34;15 - 00;11;59;10

Unknown

But a lot of great learning lessons. Those were all on flips as well. I think I did mention that, yeah, that that's a whole other topic we will jump into. Sure. But, is, the market and what's happening now, but yeah, absolutely crazy. So had to go in and fix that. And now, I mean, we literally just last month, set a company record for the most, contracts that we've inked.

00;11;59;13 - 00;12;25;07

Unknown

As a company. And so it's, you know, going from that to literal record breaking months. Oh, and July, so the two months ago now, was our, biggest revenue month ever, period, ever. And so on the, on, the real estate side. And so it's like, okay, so not only have we gotten our biggest revenue month and then now most contracts locked up.

00;12;25;07 - 00;12;39;05

Unknown

So I'm like, all right. So this month I'm like, we we I mean back to back months of breaking records like all right, well we got to find another one and smash it. Let's keep going because we're on a roll right now. And so I'm like, all right, well you got to break some records, baby. Here we go.

00;12;39;05 - 00;12;58;17

Unknown

We're going for some more, you know. Yeah. So let me ask you in that process, did you find that it was the exit strategies and having clarity on what was profitable there or where you were spending the money and pouring it into, like when you said that you had the numbers in front of you and like, your gut decision wasn't wrong.

00;12;58;17 - 00;13;18;25

Unknown

It just wasn't the best one. What were some of those examples? That was it. Those exit strategies or marketing spend or a combination of a bunch of things? All of it. So I'll start on the exit strategies to begin with. Right. So like again, you put yourself in in the mindset of, okay, you got a half $1 million and you're trying to uphill battle and my way.

00;13;18;25 - 00;13;39;04

Unknown

At the time, we didn't know what the numbers were because our flips were still listed. And so they were kind of like this ambiguous kind of moving target wasn't actually like an exact number yet. So every month it didn't sell right. It kept going up. And so some of the some of the choices were like, well, I got an offer at, you know, $20,000 below asking.

00;13;39;04 - 00;13;58;00

Unknown

I'm looking at it from the big, big overview. Well, I'm I'm going to wait a month or two before I make a decision on that because I know we can get like it's priced right. He's got an appraisal in hand. I know what it's worth. We're just going to wait then that again to well, hang on now. If we waited.

00;13;58;03 - 00;14;20;05

Unknown

And so we we kind of analyzed a couple of those did a couple of those. And there were at least two houses that we okay. You know, we're going to reject that offer and wait because we feel like we like we think this happened and that was the right choice because it did come eventually. Just talking about a month and a half later, other ones where it was like, okay, even if I got an offer next week, right?

00;14;20;05 - 00;14;34;15

Unknown

It's like, oh, wait a minute, I'm still going to be all the interest, all this, you know, let's just take it then and just move on. Right. So there were some, some of those, again you're looking at the totality of it all. You're like, oh my gosh, this is stressing me. Yeah, I got to get the most possible.

00;14;34;18 - 00;14;54;14

Unknown

Well, it's not necessarily about the most possible. It's about knocking out the debt that's coming in at some of the other things too. Again, this is why having that CFO there, there were a few credit cards that I was able to get 0% interest on. And so we were able to go and kind of, you know, again, in, tandem with that, know when those were expiring.

00;14;54;19 - 00;15;16;10

Unknown

And so one of the houses was a, hey, this credit card is next month is starting interest. So if you take this offer now, you can pay it off before interest ever accrues. So now we can knock that out. But if you wait, you now have the hard money loans and the credit card interest on this car that's going to rack up until you sell it.

00;15;16;12 - 00;15;37;14

Unknown

Right? And it's like, oh, wait, add in it. That's going to like, dude, that's going to go real quick. So there was that angle. And of course wholesale versus the flip ad versus the rental some two. But like in that, you know, okay, wholesale now take 30 grand now or flip it to make 70 grand. Right. Like which one makes sense.

00;15;37;14 - 00;16;03;12

Unknown

And so running those numbers and actually understanding, hey the 30 grand right now guaranteed helps us way more than 70 grand, maybe in six and six months. Right. But again, when you look at it from a totality perspective, you're like, well, 70 grand isn't much larger than the 30 grand, right? So like those are a couple of the examples that were like, hey, wait a minute.

00;16;03;18 - 00;16;21;21

Unknown

Even still, now we're not in that hole, right? That that hole is way gone. We're miles and miles away from where that sinkhole was, right? That's way gone. But we're still analyzing things the exact same way we just. We had one, that we said a company record. They just wholesale deal ever. I I'm just realize this this is back in June.

00;16;21;21 - 00;16;41;23

Unknown

So that's three straight months, man. This month, I'm telling you, we got to get four months now of something huge happening. But that house in June, was an $80,000 assignment fee for those of you that are like, well, I get six figures once. Good for you. I'm in small town with USA are all right I am or our top.

00;16;41;23 - 00;17;06;15

Unknown

Like I should say, our median house value right now is like 2 to 250 right now. This isn't like Las Vegas, where I'm wholesaling a $500,000 house for 600 that like, no, that doesn't like that. That doesn't happen here. So like, this was a big deal. And we just looked at it and said, okay, 80 grand now or 120 to flip.

00;17;06;18 - 00;17;23;19

Unknown

Yeah. Okay. What like what makes sense for us right now. And I was able to sit there and say, wait a minute. Yeah. 80 grand now all day long and not even question it, because had the numbers in front of us and able to actually analyze that and say, yeah, and I'll take that all day. Like all day long.

00;17;23;19 - 00;17;48;06

Unknown

Right. And that was actually that deal right there was the one we were able to pay off our last like 50 or 60 grand, that we had owed from that hole was that one. And so that was a tacit that that was awesome. To, to have our biggest hole. Yeah. That ever. Kind of not that had to be a flip that our, that assignment that you always remember, you know, it's like getting that off your plate and then be like, yeah, this is great.

00;17;48;08 - 00;18;16;25

Unknown

Actually, it's there's whatever that one's always going to be that that like, remember that one right. There's always yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So you had mentioned you have some new challenges. So like what are some of the new challenges that you're facing even with the numbers in front of you that you're trying to work through. So not flipping anymore, which is a big like, okay, I've got my general contractors, actual license.

00;18;16;28 - 00;18;44;13

Unknown

I've got my own crews on, payroll, on salary. I've got like trucks, trailers, equipment, the tool, all the stuff that we've been able to do. Flips at a lower cost. But our market is shifting. And so right now we've got three flips currently. That actually four flips. Sorry. That right now we're going to end up projected losing a little over $100,000.

00;18;44;14 - 00;19;04;04

Unknown

And this is it's like, oh ouch. This sucks. Yeah yeah yeah. Especially after just going through what we just went through and now this immediately you're like, all right, what is happening? Why do I suck at this? What's going on? And so that the the numbers of things that house, my house, kind of what happened. Right. So, and I.

00;19;04;06 - 00;19;22;20

Unknown

Well. And we'll dig into all of them too much, but one of them, was a house that we we were going to move into ourselves. Our house didn't sell. And so we said, hey, we're going to stay here. So that way we overspent probably by about 30 grand. On which was just because we were doing okay, I'm sure things for ourselves.

00;19;22;22 - 00;19;41;03

Unknown

One of them was termite ridden. How that house didn't fall down. I had no idea. That one. I don't give us as big of a hard time on because it was a part of the house that there was no access to, unless you ripped the floor up like there was no way to see it. Right? There was no crawlspace access.

00;19;41;06 - 00;20;05;22

Unknown

There was just no way to see it. And it we had to reframe the entire right half of the house, like, like literally the whole thing and how it didn't fall down. Miracle. So that was a big deal. It was like, oh, crap. Okay. That one, that one sucks. That one's hard to control. But again, we put some better SOPs in place to do better, more thorough inspections.

00;20;05;25 - 00;20;21;25

Unknown

And I and by the way, for those of you sitting out there, like you could have figured that one out. Now, we couldn't have. I had multiple inspectors that I paid to come out there and say, I want you to find how you could have found this way that it was. And they were like, I had three of them.

00;20;21;25 - 00;20;38;13

Unknown

All three of them said, wow, there is no way I could have ever. There's no way I could have seen that. So it's not just be like you had to rip it out to find it. So that one again, chalk that up as a. Yeah, just random that, the other two are just more of a market shift, right?

00;20;38;13 - 00;21;08;05

Unknown

That we weren't ready for. And, you know, in our area, houses are selling for much closer to 180 to $200 a square. And, I mean, you know, against to so you guys added, to, like, 180 bucks a square foot. That's so cheap, like. Well, yeah, I mean, it kind of is, comparatively. And so right now we're under contract at around, $145 a square foot, roughly.

00;21;08;08 - 00;21;32;25

Unknown

Somewhere around there. And so we had to take a really big price drop. And why? Absolutely. I don't really know. We. Yeah. Brand new roof, brand new Hvac, plumbing, electrical. This that the other. It's a bring the house. Right. Bring the house. And, why hasn't sold I don't I don't know other than buyers are picky.

00;21;32;28 - 00;21;56;27

Unknown

We had somebody not like the color of the garage door, so they put it on at a different house. I was like, so tell me to change the garage door. I'll give you a 3 pound credit. We'll swap it out, though. Done right. Like, like to you and I, it's like, well, that's just easy. But we're running into that, that buyers, they're just really picky right now and they're, you know, it's it's really hard to build a business model around.

00;21;56;29 - 00;22;22;21

Unknown

Yeah. Other people to want your house. And so that makes sense, right? We're we're we're guaranteed. Well, we we can count on it. We know what's going to happen and when it's going to happen and control it. I'll talk some about that. But we're kind of shifting that okay. So you are going more towards an assignment to go in that direction wholesale versus just all flipping, which is what you've been doing.

00;22;22;21 - 00;22;44;03

Unknown

And what you've what you've been doing for the last few years. But now the market's telling you something different and the data is telling you something different. So you go into the shorter model, it sounds like. Definitely. So we're shifting to mostly wholesale and owner financing. So that's a that okay. Other very creative thing that we're doing I'm a big creative older financing sub to person.

00;22;44;03 - 00;23;03;02

Unknown

Love that stuff. Absolutely love it. But I have figured out a way to basically take any house that you keep and go get a loan on it and be able to sell it on owner financing via contract for D. And so that's something that we're giving a lot of right now. And it's working really well those buyers.

00;23;03;02 - 00;23;20;06

Unknown

Right. So this is a mindset shift that we've I had to work through and figure this out. Talking to your regular retail buyers on your flip. They're pre-approved. You know, they can go get an FHA loan. Whatever type of a loan. They're like, garage door color. Don't like it. Oh, this over here don't like it, right?

00;23;20;06 - 00;23;43;29

Unknown

It's just petty stuff. Right. But you're like. But but I have to cater to them. Like, please buy my house, pretty please. And we have to frame it that way. So even make it happen. Whereas under finance they're like, oh my gosh, I can't tell you. I've, I've had just the last couple weeks who people tell me this so and dozens other of other people will say this.

00;23;44;01 - 00;24;03;27

Unknown

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to buy a house. So look at those two different mindsets there, right where we're talking with that. Yeah, I want a huge difference. You whatever I want my walls. I'm in charge versus I never thought that this was possible. And you made it possible. Thank you so much. All of a sudden now.

00;24;03;29 - 00;24;26;21

Unknown

Right. Those are two completely different ends of the spectrum. And so that's really why we're shifting that way. Because we can control that. So we'll refinancing these properties. It's got five happening right now that we're working on. We the last two to get completed, we're going to refi all five into one loan. And we've already got two of them sold.

00;24;26;23 - 00;24;44;22

Unknown

So all of a sudden we've got local, banks that I was able to go and pitch the model two. They can see it, they understand it, and they lend arm and they're good. We're all good. And so that's the beauty of it, of just, you know, in this market, you've got to get creative. That's what we're doing now.

00;24;44;22 - 00;25;08;03

Unknown

We're shifting. So no more flips. But what we have currently we got to sell obviously. And and just some little things do like, well, the house that we have on listed can't work for owner, financing. They're a little bit too expensive. So we have our new criteria that we have to focus on. And, so, yeah, again, all CFO driven in finding.

00;25;08;03 - 00;25;26;22

Unknown

Oh, wait a minute. Here's our numbers. Here's where where we have to sit at, not just me. Just just kind of aimlessly wandering. So I feel like if I hadn't have had the, guidance, it's probably another year before I figured this out. Right? You know, it's probably it's taking me some more time to just to, like, stumble across it.

00;25;26;24 - 00;25;45;19

Unknown

Maybe six months. I'll give I'll give myself benefit of the doubt a little bit. Right? Maybe six, that's sure. Six months. But like that, six months. I could be doing more deals that we've the. That shift was already made last month, so we haven't bought any new. We were going to, but then we just pivoted and are just changing the direction on those.

00;25;45;19 - 00;26;11;14

Unknown

And so and it's you know, again now we're going to end up refinancing those we're about three weeks from right now, but we already know how much cash moving back into the operation. Keep things running. So there is no question mark of, oh, when's it going to sell. When this when that. No, we now we know. And it takes a lot of the pressure off of okay cash flow I got to keep this up and running like no.

00;26;11;14 - 00;26;28;17

Unknown

Now we have it. You know, we're, I don't say more exact, but, like, we have a better handle. So. Yeah. No, that's. I really like hearing that. And of how you've taken the action. And I want to apply what you just said there at the end of like. Well, I, I might have found it six months later.

00;26;28;17 - 00;26;46;06

Unknown

It's like, well, what if you didn't have someone at the beginning of all this? And then it's like, wait, could you have waited six months, you know, like to start paying stuff off and then like, all that sounds like that's a no. So it's almost like you got to take the opportunities when they come to you, and then from there work off of them and build and build.

00;26;46;06 - 00;27;07;17

Unknown

And then obviously when this market shift happened, you had someone to go to to say, this has this makes sense to go a different direction at this point as well too? Yeah. And to actually analyze those numbers and you're you're right. I mean, six months probably puts an end to the whole thing. And we're not sitting there talking about how we just set three straight months of they guest assignment fee.

00;27;07;17 - 00;27;27;09

Unknown

Most revenue ever close and then most contracts ever signed in back to back to back months. So we're probably not sitting there talking about that. When, you know, six months. That's a long time when your hard money's racking up and credit cards are racking up. Yeah, I mean that that that again, that's the the swing here.

00;27;27;11 - 00;27;49;18

Unknown

That could put somebody under. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And just to recap, because we're going to close up here in a couple minutes because I want to end with like what you're doing now on the marketing side. And we're still marketing and like all of that. And just tell me a little bit about that. But if you're listening right now, you know, it's like, this is how you're able to go from 500,000 into losses and getting out of the hole.

00;27;49;23 - 00;28;07;22

Unknown

And I love what Caleb did. He put his head down and got to work, but he didn't work in the wrong direction. He worked in the right direction. In 18 months he got out of the hole. And that's why I love the Keith Cunningham book so much, because they just hit you right between the eyes. It's like there's nothing worse than running enthusiasts running enthusiastically in the wrong direction.

00;28;07;29 - 00;28;24;08

Unknown

And it's like, this is where having those key clarity can really help you. And then to go in another period of like, because it's not just going to be smooth sailing. Once you know your numbers, it's being able to handle those storms faster. Once they come up, which it sounds like you just did to be able to pivot in this market.

00;28;24;15 - 00;28;55;19

Unknown

So that's that's I love what you've done. And now I want to talk about seal marketing. Why don't we just end it here with a couple minutes of you talking about what you're doing and how you're helping people on the marketing side in the real estate space? Yeah. So, you know, just like we've we've done since 2017, you know, those things that, you know, kind of mentioned earlier that, you know, hey, we we really we're spending money on TV ads and direct mail and this and that, and we just really got to the numbers and said, hey, what are our core channels and our operation and are really working?

00;28;55;19 - 00;29;20;11

Unknown

And it got down to, in this exact order, SEO, PPC, Facebook ads, those are our three. Like there's right there. And actually, it's funny, I've got I was just doing this, yesterday. I've got the sticky notes right here. Let me pull this up here. I've, I like to write. I like to write stuff down.

00;29;20;14 - 00;29;46;26

Unknown

But I literally, I have them right here, what our numbers were. And I think this will kind of open some eyes a little bit. I actually got one right. There goes SEO, Facebook, PPC. Sorry. Was SEO, we're getting 19.97 ROI on that channel. Facebook was a 5.88 x return, and PPC was a 4.66 x return.

00;29;47;03 - 00;30;16;23

Unknown

Again, those beat all of our other channels. And so we said, hey, we're going to really just focus on that stuff. And so at, Steele Marketing, like I said, we've been doing it since 2017 doing this exact thing for other investors and other, companies. And so, I'm excited because for the first time since, early 2017, our real estate operations and such full fledged running that now we're really able to go back to the old school ways.

00;30;16;24 - 00;30;40;12

Unknown

We used to run things where my real estate operation is kind of the test. Dummy. Right. For everything else, we do, for every for everyone else. And so, people can know, like, hey, when when we run your ads. This has been tested by myself first. My own money is spent on this to test creatives landing pages, ad copy, all of those things first before your money's ever spent.

00;30;40;12 - 00;31;18;11

Unknown

And that's people love that. That tends to be a big resounding, like, man, I like this and that. Again, the other cool part, that I'm excited for and, you know, this is one thing that and I'll be straight up, I tell everybody this, gone are the days of us taking on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of clients is at one point we we we had, you know, hundreds on, you know, we're, you know, capped out at 50 or so, and those spots are, filling up and, so, you know, the the beautiful part about that is that really allows me to kind of workshop and do some, some of these things

00;31;18;11 - 00;31;35;12

Unknown

that I've got clients that call me and say, hey, what would you do, about this app? Should we go creative? Should we do this? And like, I love getting to do that and just kind of talk shop because again, you mentioned it at the very beginning of this. Real estate's in the blood. It's not going anywhere. I'm not changing it.

00;31;35;12 - 00;31;56;17

Unknown

I can do whatever I want to. But real estate, it's like it's always going to come back to that. So, yeah. So it's just been, yeah, it's been a lot of, fun and, just getting to done with other investors. Don't do the same things and push it over to you guys as well. Like, you guys need us telling you, I know that you do because I did.

00;31;56;17 - 00;32;16;22

Unknown

And so you do. Do so, yeah. Well, then how do people get a hold of you if they like that and they like what you're doing? I'd like them to have some place to to go if they're needing that. The beautiful thing is, I am the only Caleb lookalike in the world. If you look me up, social media, Google ChatGPT all of it.

00;32;16;24 - 00;32;41;07

Unknown

I'm the only one of me. You'll find me. My website is Caleb Newcomb. You can go check that out. And probably by the time this gets released, I'm excited because we're working on getting a little landing page up and live with some of these actual numbers that instead of my chicken, scratch handwriting, somewhere, it's it's actual, like, here's the results.

00;32;41;10 - 00;33;03;14

Unknown

Here's the numbers for people to actually go and see and walk through how our CRM is set ups and helped us get things done and all of, the marketing and things like that to actually, like, touch and hold. Okay. What are actual tangible results I could expect, out of, well, investing in that stuff. So yeah, good stuff.

00;33;03;14 - 00;33;19;24

Unknown

So that's where you could go Caleb look at dot com if you want to get in touch with him. And then once he has that landing page you got to see the actual numbers there. Not just the chicken scratch which that was great. So then from here if you're like Caleb as well and you're like, I either have something hanging over my head or I'm just making decisions.

00;33;19;24 - 00;33;42;27

Unknown

But, you know, like, I'm not always making the fastest, best, you know, best decisions. I don't have my numbers. What the heck is he talking about? If you have no idea where your numbers are, or if you want a better crystal ball to see where you're going, reach out to us. It's simple. Cfo.com. We're there for you to make sure you know where your numbers are, to make sure you know where every dollar is going, and actually having a dashboard right in front of you to see where what is coming down the pipeline.

00;33;42;27 - 00;34;03;25

Unknown

Should I change marketing strategies? Should I go out there and change it strategies? What should I do? What's the market telling me to do? So if you need that help, reach out there. If you want help. On the marketing front, this is where the one two punch comes into play. Reach out to Caleb at Caleb Mediacom because if you need more leads in the door and you need more people knocking on your door, calling you on the phone, that's what Caleb can help you do.

00;34;03;25 - 00;34;20;26

Unknown

This is like the make and keep, combo right here because we want to help you keep it. Caleb wants to help you make it. Thank you for listening, Caleb. Thank you for being on the podcast day and sharing all that you did today. This episode of The Prophet First for Aria podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from.

00;34;20;29 - 00;34;46;08

Unknown

Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the profit first system in your business? Schedule a discovery call at simple cfo.com right now. We'll see you next time on The Prophet. First for Aria podcast with David Richter.