00;00;05;21 - 00;00;26;01

Unknown

You're listening to the Profit First for Real Estate Investors podcast. This show is all about helping real estate investors and entrepreneurs bring clarity and structure to the financial side of their business. In these sole episodes, we focus on practical financial strategies that real estate investors and business owners can actually implement, whether it's profit, cash flow, forecasting or mindset.

00;00;26;02 - 00;00;53;13

Unknown

The goal is simple to help you run your business with more confidence and less financial stress. Enjoy the episode. Your marketing is too expensive and your strategy is to unclear. How can I be so confident in that? Unless you're attracting every single dollar that's coming in and going out and you know, I'm getting a 3 to 7 extra turn with five being a great return rate for your marketing, then you're probably just flying blind.

00;00;53;15 - 00;01;10;16

Unknown

A lot of business owners go out there and they know that you have to market in order to get a deal in the door. You have to go and market to get income to come in. A lot of people then stop there. They go out there and then they do throw dollars as much as they can to get the deals to come in the door, but then they don't follow up with their money.

00;01;10;17 - 00;01;35;00

Unknown

A lot of people just never have a good follow up system for their money. To be able to say, did I really get the returns that I really want? Especially if it's a direct type of marketing, meaning whether it's direct mail or it could be PPC, like paper click or SEO, you know, a search engine optimization. I want you to be able to go out there and invest this money and know, okay, how much am I really getting in return?

00;01;35;00 - 00;01;55;20

Unknown

If you turn on Facebook ads, do you know your returns or how to interpret those numbers? Do you have something in place not just on those softwares too? Because a lot of those softwares, whether it be Facebook or Google, have their own metrics and dashboard. But then how about once it actually hits your bank account when you spend that money, but then you actually close deals and you make the money.

00;01;55;21 - 00;02;12;22

Unknown

Are you comparing? How much did I really make from this exit strategy? But then how much did I make also from where it came from upstream in marketing. A lot of people do not tie their back end money with the front end money. What does that mean? A lot of people spend the money on the expenses and they spend.

00;02;12;24 - 00;02;33;11

Unknown

They spend it on marketing, but then they never back it up with, okay, how many deals did I actually close from this? From this marketing channel? Then from that, from there. They never have the dollars and cents line up. What does that mean? That means that okay, you spent, I don't know, $100 and you got this many leads and you got this many deals.

00;02;33;11 - 00;02;47;16

Unknown

Like maybe you got one teal off of that. That'd be great. If you spend $100 and you got one deal, but then you go out and you said, okay, now I made 5000. You made a quick wholesale assignment fee off of it. Then you need to say, well, I spend 100 to get, you know, 5000 in the door.

00;02;47;16 - 00;03;07;06

Unknown

This is a great return. That's where at scale, as people scale up and they do more and more marketing, those numbers get a lot crazier. That's where you're not going to be able to spend 100 and get a $5,000 deal. You might be spending 1000 $2,000 to get a contract signed and closed, and then you're selling it for five, ten, 15, 20.

00;03;07;07 - 00;03;32;08

Unknown

If you're flipping, it might be 50 to 100. But now it's even more important because the bigger you go, the more it is important for you to be able to track every marketing dollar. So in the realm of what we're teaching here, I love to teach the profit first methodology of knowing where every dollar is going. I would have some way, in order for you to know what every dollar is that you spend and where you spend it on marketing.

00;03;32;08 - 00;03;51;01

Unknown

That could be I can profit first terms, I would say, well, you might open up a marketing bank account, but if you do that, what? I would even take it a step further and open up a credit card. And you say a credit card. What? You're endorsing credit cards? Yes. Why would I open up a credit card? Maybe a credit card specifically for a marketing channel?

00;03;51;02 - 00;04;09;26

Unknown

Like maybe you do three main marketing channels and you might have three different cards, or you might open up three different bank accounts and pay for that marketing channel from the bank account. What I'd want you to do, though, is have clarity from what you're spending on these different channels and then saying, how much did we make from that channel?

00;04;09;26 - 00;04;28;23

Unknown

That's where a lot of people, because their front end systems like their CRM or like Facebook, or that they're not tied back into like their QuickBooks or financial software to say, here's what we really made the actual dollars and cents versus what we spent. So that's where I tell people that, like a quick book system is like financial CRM.

00;04;29;01 - 00;04;54;03

Unknown

It's helping you track your money. And that's where a lot of people go wrong. They don't understand, like, I don't understand how to use these systems. Well, you got to use some of that actually knows that that's where you get someone that understands your industry, that understands what you and your age and being able to say, here's the typical of what people in your age, strategy and in your location, especially if you're in real estate, you're location in this area.

00;04;54;03 - 00;05;21;00

Unknown

What we should be shooting for, for the returns in marketing. So if you're not sure what you're spending and the return that you're getting, I would make sure that you have the front end systems tied in with the back end. Meaning what did we spend on this marketing channel and what did we make on this marketing channel? Now, to be a little bit biased here, like in a QuickBooks type software, you can set up different marketing channels, that is expenses.

00;05;21;00 - 00;05;45;26

Unknown

And then you can set up when you sell a property, you can assign it like a tag inside of the system to say which marketing channel did this come from. And then you could pull a report that says, here's all the deals that close from Facebook ads, and here's how much we spend in this month or the last six months in order to get this many deals so you can make it to where you are pulling that those KPIs, those key performance indicators right out of your financial software.

00;05;45;27 - 00;06;02;09

Unknown

A lot of people don't know that you can do that, or that you can set it up like that to be very specific for what you want to track, because usually they're just handing over the keys to someone else to say, here, you drive QuickBooks. I don't want to hear from you until it's tax time. Here's all my receipts at the end of the year in a shoebox.

00;06;02;09 - 00;06;18;04

Unknown

And that's how they're running their business. But that's not how you're going to scale. That is not how you're going to get to where you want to. Keeping the amount of money that you want to as well. Marketing is the most important function in your business. It is the lifeblood of your business. It is how you get cash in the door.

00;06;18;06 - 00;06;34;20

Unknown

This is why it's so important that if you're going to spend money on marketing, that you also know how to track it, that you have a simple system. Like for us, we have a simple spreadsheet where I have someone plug in our numbers on a monthly basis, where these are all the channels. This was our cost per lead, this was the cost per acquisition, like all that stuff.

00;06;34;20 - 00;06;52;21

Unknown

And so we have to make sure that the people we're working with that everyone has like a marketing KPI dashboard to be able to say, here's the numbers, here's what we're actually doing. I want you to have something very simple. So I would start with what are my different channels? And then what's my cost per lead? What's my cost per maybe appointment.

00;06;52;21 - 00;07;10;27

Unknown

If you're in the real estate space what's my cost per contract? Then you can also say to what was my return on this channel? Then you would take how much did I make from this channel divided by how much I spent to be able to say, this is how much I actually made on this channel. I want it to be very simple for you to be able to get your numbers.

00;07;10;27 - 00;07;28;08

Unknown

So you could just start there with those four simple ones. What was my cost per lead, cost per appointment, cost per contract, and then what was my actual return on marketing by finding out from the back end systems, how much did I spend on it? How much did I actually make from it, and then divide it into it to see what was my actual return?

00;07;28;10 - 00;07;48;15

Unknown

If it's 3 to 5 x, you're on the right track. If it's five x or above, that's a huge green light to say. I either need to pour more money into it because I haven't tapped out yet on what I could really get from this channel, or it's a really great channel that we should be focused on right now, and maybe cutting ones that are at the 1 to 3 x return or negative returns that haven't gotten you anything.

00;07;48;16 - 00;08;09;04

Unknown

This is the difference though. This is the difference between the business owner who's just flying by the seat of the pants and their gut feeling, and someone who knows why I'm getting 1 to 3 X on these different channels, so I might need to cut them. Or did. Hey. Am I getting enough of a return like a 2 to 3 x to say we'll keep it for now, but let's see for another quarter if we can bump it up to five x.

00;08;09;04 - 00;08;28;05

Unknown

If you're doing five x or more, then it's like, let's pour some more money into this. If it's 1 to 2 x or below, you might say we might need to cut this one. And this is not a channel that's serving us right now, but that's the difference. Like I said, between an owner who has the gut feelings, who's just going out there trying to do their best but doesn't have the numbers backing them up.

00;08;28;05 - 00;08;55;09

Unknown

I want you to make decisions by the numbers. And one of the most important numbers in the business is what is my return on the marketing channels that we have. Thanks for spending time with me today. If this episode gave you clarity or a new perspective. Be sure to like, subscribe, and comment below if you're ready to apply what we talked about today with real guidance and accountability, visit profitrei.com to schedule a free discovery, call with us to create your path to financial clarity and freedom.