How to grow your investor lead pipeline and use outbound sales in real estate (with Mike Singletary, Founder/CEO of multiple businesses) – Real Estate Real Fast EP10

Episode overview

Mike Singletary is an investor who has been in the business for eight years.

He specializes in outbound marketing lead generation and believes that the “burn the ships” mentality is important when transitioning into investing. 

Mike recommends telecommunication marketing (cold calling and texting) as the best way to generate leads, and suggests hiring and training people if necessary.

In this episode, we’ll learn more about investor lead generation with a focus on outbound marketing, creating an effective outbound sales team, using data for sales and marketing, and more.

Episode highlights

• About Mike and Skip Force
• How to build a strong pipeline as a real estate investor
• How to create an effective outbound sales team as an investor
• Why the list is the most important part to outbound sales success
• What is the most effective way to introduce yourself on a cold call
• What you can do as an investor to increase your chances of success
• What is the importance of having a work phone in real estate
• What are some example systems to put in place to ensure success as an investor
• How Skip Force University is helping investors educate their inside sales agents
• How to build out a strong sales team in real estate and how to compensate them
• What software can increase the efficiency of an ISA team in real estate

Episode links:

• Follow ListingSpark on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube
• Connect with Aaron Jistel on LinkedIn
• Connect with Michael Singletary on LinkedIn

Key takeaways

[00:00:55] About Mike and Skip Force

Mike Singletary is an investor who has been in the business for eight years. He previously owned high-end hair salons in Houston, Texas before transitioning into investing. He quickly realized that data was king and began utilizing telecommunications marketing. This led to him creating his own business, Skip Force, which now has a thousand clients. Mike believes that burn the ships mentality is important when transitioning into investing, and he specializes in outbound marketing lead generation.

“I always knew that I wanted to get into the real estate space, but, you know, being an agent really wasn’t my thing. So I kind of dived into the investment space, and that was eight years ago.”

[00:04:10] How to build a strong pipeline as a real estate investor

Mike recommends telecommunication marketing (cold calling and texting) as the best way to generate leads. He advises investors to refine their pitch and hire/train people if necessary. Aaron suggests using YouTube resources to find a script and refining it through trial and error. Both agree that the best way to engage with people is to get them on the phone and talk to them.

“I like to lead the charge rather than, you know, waiting for the leads to come to me. So when it comes to telecommunications marketing you really need to refine your pitch. And the best way to do that, if you can’t do it, is just to hire people and to train. The best way to really engage with people and get them interested in what you’re doing is to get ’em on the phone and talk to ’em.”

[00:06:50] How to create an effective outbound sales team as an investor

Mike Singletary suggests that any investor looking to build an effective outbound sales team should start by investing in a foundation training program and understanding the Sandler sales system. He also recommends building an orchestra of salespeople, as opposed to just giving them a script, so they can be more active listeners and better identify potential sellers’ problems. Finally, tracking key performance indicators is essential to understand what investments are working and how to continue improving the process.

“We believe that you should not be script based. You should understand the script. It’s really important that, you know, what is the most important thing when it comes to any kind of sales, which is active listening. We go through that process and how, and we say you gotta build your sales team like an orchestra. And what that really means is that you don’t just give them a script, you give them a little bit more so that they could be more.”

[00:12:45] Why the list is the most important part to outbound sales success

Mike uses two databases to ensure accuracy and quality and emphasizes the importance of connecting with the right person. He also explains that it takes time and persistence to get to the point where the person is ready to make a sale, but if you can connect with them, you can reach a successful outcome.

“What’s super important for us is that when we get a list, we wanna sit there and organize that list. We wanna make sure that we get the right person, even if they are not motivated or wanting to sell or whatever the case is. That is the most important KPI for us. Because that way we could always come back to them, right? We could always come back to them because they’re on that list for a reason. We’re not just randomly calling people.”

[00:16:45] What is the most effective way to introduce yourself on a cold call

Mike Singletary suggests that when making sales calls, you should introduce yourself by simply saying the person’s name. Pausing after doing so is also very effective. This way, it feels like you’re talking to a friend and not just trying to sell them something. If the person is not who you are looking for, they will usually let you know right away.

“It’s so simple that it’s silly, right? Every single time we call, we’re like ‘Mike’. I mean, every single time, it is supposed to be like you’re talking to a friend.”

[00:18:48] What you can do as an investor to increase your chances of success

Mike says the most important thing is to have a full pipeline and to be able to follow up with leads. He also emphasizes the importance of being able to answer the phone and being able to execute on the call.

“The most basic things [in real estate investing] are not being executed. First of all, the sales call is horrible and I’m kind of grilling them. They either can’t execute the initial call or they never even call me back whenever I say I’m interested. So the ability just to follow up because when it comes to cold calling because it is not a short sale cycle.”

[00:20:52] What is the importance of having a work phone in real estate

When starting a real estate investing business, it is important to treat it like a business and learn how to separate personal life from business life. For example, setting up a dedicated line for business calls can be helpful when tracking incoming and outgoing calls. Additionally, investors should look at what they are doing in their day job to make their business successful and apply the same lessons to their investing business. Consistency and hard work will be necessary for success.

“A couple tricks that we kind of learned along the way is you’ve gotta learn how to not kind of commingle your personal stuff with your business stuff. […] If you’re gonna make this a business, you have to treat it like a business and look at the things you’re doing. Maybe if you’re still at your day job, what are some things that you’re doing at your job that makes that business successful and makes it run and allows you to be effective? And then take those same lessons and turn ’em into the investing world because it’s hard to do this as just a hobby.”

[00:22:30] What are some example systems to put in place to ensure success as an investor

Aaron and Mike discussed the importance of tracking mechanisms such as QR codes when trying to find new leads and opportunities. They also discussed retargeting with different ads depending on the campaign, as well as the importance of having a call center pick up inbound leads.

“You just have to pay somebody on the front end, put the pixel in there, you know, and do that and just retarget ’em and be in front of ’em. Be as omnipresent as possible. It’s not difficult. It really isn’t. And that’s something I didn’t understand at the beginning.”

[00:24:32] How Skip Force University is helping investors educate their inside sales agents

Mike Singletary runs a course called Skip Force University that helps real estate investors with their inside sales agents (ISAs). It’s an intensive three-day foundations course called an Iron Agent Club where ISAs can come in for unlimited times to do live drills. Mike emphasizes the importance of doing more drilling than most people think is necessary – at least twice a week – to help ISAs stay sharp. He also emphasizes the importance of having an ISA in order to have consistency in lead generation and prospecting.

“It’s really easy to be demoralized and really easy to kind of fall into what we call the dummy curve. It’s essentially when ISAs learn  the things you tell ’em to do. They have a lot of success. And then once they have a little bit of success, they hit that bottom. They start, you know, they start just kind of ad-libbing and doing their own thing.”

[00:28:54] How to build out a strong sales team in real estate and how to compensate them

Mike recommends hiring people from the Philippines and Central America, starting them at $4-5 an hour and increasing it by $1 every 6-12 months. He also suggests giving bonuses for qualified leads and a percentage of the deal if they are successful in closing it. He recommends finding a partner if you feel overwhelmed and also suggests emailing him (mike@skipforce.com) for more information on hiring a VA or ISA.

“As far as our compensation, it depends. It depends when they start at a certain wage. It depends on their skillset set. They’ll start at usually between $4 to $5 an hour, and then we increase it $1 every six to 12 months.”

[00:32:58] What software can increase the efficiency of an ISA team in real estate

Mike suggests using Mojo and smrtPhone for outbound calling services, as well as CallRail. He also recommends using a KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) approach to CRMs, and notes that it’s important to frequently change phone numbers in order to maintain a good connection ratio. Finally, he suggests using a dialer to block out time and stay on task while cold-calling.

“Having control of a dialer is unbelievably important. We hop around, but for an easy user interface, something like Mojo call tools works really well. Even smrtPhone works pretty well. When it comes to outbound calling, you have to change your numbers a lot – almost weekly – so that the connection ratio doesn’t plum. I’m also a big KISS rule guy, so just keep it super simple.”