[Music]
they don't want what we know out there
how a person can go from really almost
nothing to becoming a millionaire by
owning rental property he would always
buy these flip houses and i just
remember thinking this guy is crazy why
would he buy that house in the past
decade there's been a huge surge in the
peer-to-peer short-term rental market
become an insider so you have to know
the rules before you get the game every
second counts so
so
make every second count
welcome to the real estate jam whether
you're just beginning or the best of the
best we're glad you're here we will
share successes failures and strategies
for the action-taking real estate
investor and now to your hosts jd and melissa
melissa [Music]
[Music]
hi guys welcome to real estate jam
podcast i'm jd with my wonderful co-host
hey j.d melissa um
um
we are
super excited today uh this is a person
who's had a dramatic impact in our business
business
uh and and many many other real estate
investors and definitely had a a supreme
impact in some of the biggest real
estate investors in the country uh she's
she's the secret to a lot of their uh
success uh val we're so excited to have
you on the show today thank you for
making time for us thank you i love
being here thank you for the invitation
awesome well i gave you a little bit of
an introduction but i'm sure it doesn't
do any justice for those members in our
audience that maybe don't know you or
don't know very much about your story
could you give just give them a
brief uh rundown and then most
importantly let them know why they
should be listening to you
yeah absolutely so
i don't know when this episode is gonna
air but uh while we're filming today is
july 25th so four years ago on july 27th
so almost you know it's our anniversary
i came to the united states four years
ago and i had no idea how much my life
was gonna change when i made that step
so exactly today four years ago uh we
were getting ready to get on on the
plane and packing all our suitcases and
i was so worried i was so nervous like
what am i doing like we're leaving
everything behind we're embarking on
this journey i have no idea what it's
going to take me i'm living behind a
life of comfort and we were living in
sweden at the time you know so i was
like and i i i don't know what was going
to happen and so my husband you know
said um you know what we always know
what we can have in europe
let's see let's see what we can have in
the united states let's just take this
this adventure you know we're going to
look at it as an adventure
and um you know if we're not happy we'll
give ourselves one year we'll have any
jobs we'll work
very hard we'll do our best and if we're
not happy in one year we'll come back to
europe because we know what we can have here
here
and here we are four years later and
this has been one of the most
transformative experiences in my life i
grew so much professionally personally
i just i'm just a different person you
know i just i am forever grateful for
for this experience
and the people that i met and the job
that i had so the first job was in real
estate when i came here
we started with only 400 in our pockets
so the story is we did have some money
set aside for our journey in the in the
us but when we came here we just
couldn't access it anymore the bank in
sweden they required some documents they
required us to physically be present
there to unlock our accounts so all we
had was 400 in our pocket we literally
started from scratch it was the most
stressful period in my life we didn't
have a car we didn't have a place to
live we didn't have uh no health
insurance no social security no just no
nothing you know no credit history
nobody could give us a place to rent
just you know nothing
and um and and my daughter was one year
old at the time
my goal was i need to find a job
if i can pay rent and cover the cost of
food and diapers that's it i don't care
about anything else that's all i want
just making sure that we're okay this month
month
and um
because we didn't have a car i saw this
opportunity working real estate
work from home or answer the phones it
was such a blessing and i was so worried
that i was thinking maybe i shouldn't
apply because i don't have any
experience in real estate who's gonna
take me like i i had this inferiority
complex this impostor syndrome you know
it's like who like no one's gonna give
me a job because i have no experience in
real estate
but i had that hunger you know when i
was accepted
i knew that i was gonna do everything
that i can and i'm gonna learn
everything i can about this industry and
i'm gonna be the best person that they
ever had in their company
that was my goal i was so grateful to be
working from home i didn't have a i
didn't need a car to drive to work
and so um
long story short in three months i was
promoted from lead intake to lead
manager and in three more months i was
promoted to sales director we made 200
deals a year
with a company i was getting bonuses you
know i
just two promotions very fast um and
that's when you know my whole life changed
changed
just that hunger and that you know
stress and and i i gotta tell you i love
the company i was with um blackjack real
estate i loved it i loved the people i
was working with the vision the company
had the impact that you have as a real
estate investor in some of people's
lives i was the one talking to people on
the phone i heard their stories i knew
their problems and we were a solution to them
them
it is such a blessing it is just
the impact that uh i could be a part of
uh that's what made me fall in love with
this industry and i knew that i want to
be in real estate like that that's it
like for me this is the path that i want
to continue on and
even now i'm still working with real
estate investors and i love it every
single day
so that's kind of like in a nutshell
well in in a nutshell
that's a pretty impressive story and not
only is it impressive but that you were
able to do that but it's inspiring and i
think a lot of a lot of our
listeners are are new investors and if
you were able to overcome all of those
things to become
success successful in this industry then
they should be able to
to uh overcome their their obstacles and become
become
successful um
one of the things that that we have um
implemented in our company is all of our
uh lead intake and our our cold callers
we make them go through some of some of
your training and i'm hoping that we
could maybe um dive into some of your
thoughts and theories on on either cold
calling or um
um
or lead
lead intake
and the thing specifically
is that the conversions are in the conversation
conversation um
um
a type of it and i'm hoping you could
kind of explain to our audience
the importance of that lead intake call
or or those cold calls and and how they
really set it up for the entire process
absolutely yes i love it and when i
train virtual assistants now one thing
that i say is you know i get calls
sometimes i get cold calls and i'm very
curious about how people start a
conversation with me how they carry a
conversation and everyone almost sounds
the same people sound scripted they
don't build rapport and in my training
what i'm trying to convey is
connect human to human you know we're
all humans like everybody has good days
everybody has bad days we all have problems
problems
it's it's you're not an island you know
that there's something that unites us
this humanity so when you find that
it's a mindset shift like you know
people don't think that you nobody wants
to talk to me i feel like a lot of cold
calls like oh but i'm i'm intruding
people don't like me everybody's so
bothered by my call no
you're a blessing you can help someone
connect with them hear their story
and very importantly don't try to
convert someone into a lead if they're
not a lead respect that okay
okay
so for example one of the mistakes that
i see a lot of cold callers make is if
someone says i'm not interested in
selling my house they will try to
convince the seller they're like but but
but but we offer this we give cash we
close on a day that works for you we do
this with no listen respect that he was
like hey i get it look i don't expect
everyone that i talk to to be interested
that's perfectly fine but you know what
we are in a position to buy one or two
houses in the area maybe you know
someone who who could benefit from cash
we could really help someone out
you know so that earned me so much more
respect with the sellers and no more
hang ups and no more
you know
cursing out and everything it's just so
much more respect and i got a lot more
good leads that way
rather than me trying to convince them
and not listening to what they're saying
to me
right so
one of one of the things that one of the the
the
gurus that we follow says is you you can't
can't
say the right thing to the wrong person
you can't say the wrong thing to to the
right person and their whole point is you
you
if somebody doesn't need to sell they're
not going to take a discount for their
property they're not going to to [Music]
[Music]
be that person that we're looking for
and i think
one of the mistakes we made early on is
we wanted our cold callers to be
what we call lead specialists where they
were going through um
the initial phone call hey do you want
to sell your house and then qualifying
and deep diving
all at the same time and we we've really
gotten away from that because it's
really hard to train somebody
from the mindset of finding the lead and
then also pushing them over in into the
to the lead follow-up and what was
happening is our cold callers were doing
exactly what you're you're talking about
they were trying to fit a round peg in a
square hole and it just didn't work
no absolutely what i tell uh the vas and
the cold callers i say
it's also a mindset you know it's a
mindset look at yourself as a general practitioner
practitioner
your goal is you know here you come you
have a person you have a patient listen
to their story listen to the symptoms
right but don't don't make offers don't
negotiate and just just listen to the
story and then you decide is that
someone i can help
is that someone i can direct to okay
should my property specialist give this
person a call and are we gonna be able
to solve that problem or is an agent a
better option for you for example right
if your house is in perfect shape if
you're not hurting to sell right now if
you don't need a cash offer if you're
looking for that market value and if my
company doesn't give you this chance
or it doesn't give this opportunity then
i would i when i was on the phone with
the sellers
i like to be completely transparent hey
i would love to make a cash offer but
honestly with your situation with your
house being in great shape why not go
the traditional route why not try an
agent right so i tell the va's where the
cold callers you are a general
practitioner you listen to the symptoms
and then you decide which way would be
best for the for the um for the seller
right so
should i ask my acquisitions manager to
give them a call or is that not a lead
for us
that's it so don't try to convert
someone who's not a lead into a lead
yeah don't fit a
square peg into a round hole absolutely yeah
yeah
now when
one of the things that you've mastered
is training
these other va's and then you you
have a company that
uh provides that but for these guys just
starting out that are looking at picking
up their own vas and and training
training
them do you have any tips for the
the business owner for training their va's
va's
uh absolutely yes i actually have a free
guide on my website free guide on how to
hire your own virtual assistant if you
go to hiretrainva.com
free guide one word
so higher like you know when you hire
someone for work hiretrainva.com freeguide
freeguide
just download the guide i'm really an
open book i give all the secrets uh with
the sources where you can find your own
va's what questions to ask at the
interview what red flags to be careful
of right so how to find that one person
or those people that are really going to
be working with you that will be loyal
to you
and um you know that they're going to
give you results so yeah i absolutely
share that information with with
everyone for free
awesome that's that's a a huge help um
now when when you are um
one of the things that i've heard heard
you talk about uh even today is is
building rapport do you have any tips on
building that
that rapport with the caller either the
lead intake or or as a cold caller
i would say
report is something you build throughout
the call
but don't overlook the introduction you
only have four seconds to make a good
first impression on the phone and people
will either like you or they will just
not see you as an expert and they will
hang up on you so in those four seconds
you really have to sound sharp you have
to sound enthusiastic and you have to be
you have to sound like an expert and do
not sound desperate sellers feel
desperation so one of the things that i
don't like when cold callers
are making calls they're like hey are
you the owner of the property are you
looking to sell the house that's going
to give the sellers a lot of resistance
well what makes you think i want to sell
my house did you see a for sale sign in
front of my house we hear these
objections all the time and it's not
what you say it's how you set it so
instead change the introduction make it
a little bit softer
let their guard down you don't want the
seller's mind to panic
so a couple of mistakes here but that's
going to break rapport um i know some
companies like to say their names their
name of the company which i guess it's
fine but from my experience
if i call people and say hi my name is
val i'm with this real estate company
and i stop here the seller's like who
are you do i know anyone by that name
what company is this you're probably
selling me something i didn't request
this call what is going on are you the
owner of the property on main what's
going on with my property on main is it
on fire did the tenants do something
a few seconds but there's a million
thoughts going on in the seller's mind
so what you want to make sure is you
want to quiet the seller's mind so the
intro has to be to the point short don't
put too many pauses but don't make it
too long either the seller needs to know
in the first four seconds who are you i
mean what are you calling about and
whether or not they're interesting so
the introduction that i usually say
something um
hi uh jd right yeah who's this what do
you want what he needs like hey look i
know you must be a little confused i
don't have any expectations i'm totally
trying my luck here but i was wondering
if maybe you were thinking about selling
the house on maine is that something
that crossed your mind by any chance
again totally trying my luck here
you know or something like that they let
their guard down another thing so the
things like that work trying my luck
here uh i don't have any expectations i
don't expect everyone that i talk to to
be interested i'm calling a couple of
people you know by any chance is that
something that crossed your mind
and they now they let their guard down
it's like well actually
yes we have or no not really but they
don't have the panic
in their mind so that really works well
for me i don't get hang ups now i i
think that's great and most of the time
especially when you're out starting
starting
your real estate investing journey
you're pulling a lot of the same list
that every other investor every other
investor with a team of 15 cold callers
is calling and if you can have your cold
callers separate themselves or you
personally separate yourself from from
that uh noise that they're getting you
know most of the people that we talk to
in the most houses we buy or put under
contract they've already talked to four
or five other investors absolutely i
think that's that's a huge point when
you're different uh you're gonna get a
different response another thing with
and now that you mentioned that that
kind of brings me to this idea another
thing to build rapport is actively
listen to the sellers um i i feel like
one advantage of working here in the us
is that how
open and how friendly people are here in
the states they will tell you what their
situation is that was a little bit of an
adjustment for me because in my culture
we don't talk about our problems we
don't share our problems not even with
our friends like my problem i'll deal
with it and here in the states you hear
it in the seller's voice they want to
tell you what's going on you know so so
i mean help them like for example let's
say we had a situation when the seller
said i did updates two years ago and now
i'm back at square one it looks horrible
some people they just move on to the
next question oh okay so um how is the
roof how old is the
right so hold on a second you two years
ago that should have lasted you at least
five what happened how come you're back
at square one but oh i rented it to the
wrong people they were horrible
there you go that's not only do you
build rapport but now you understand can
you help that person
you know can you you understand the
reason for selling so
so
actively listen to what the seller is
telling you put yourself in their shoes
or imagine this is your friend telling
you if this was your best best friend
telling you this situation
you would be like hold on a second what
do you mean what happened i know you did
updates two years ago
you know you would naturally be curious
have the same approach with the sellers
as well
right i think that's that's great advice now
now um
um when
when
when you're having those conversations
and you're actively listening how do you teach
teach
your va's to to qualify that motivation
how how can i get
i guess the question is how can i get my
va's to understand that that is a
question that they need to deep dive
into uh to give you know one of the the
pillars of the motivation pillar how do
i get somebody else to recognize that or
is it you just have to find a person
that is naturally curious
it helps if you're naturally curious but
it also comes with training you you are
familiar with the pillars your va's are
familiar with the pillars out of all the pillars
pillars
the reason for selling is the most
important one if you can get it out of
that call then you don't know if that if
that is a lead
maybe they have a um you know
they might have a good time frame to
sell they'll if they're looking to sell
as soon as possible and you don't know why
why
then you haven't done your job like how
come you know if they're looking to sell
at a very good price let's say 50 of
what zillow says and you don't know why
or you don't know the condition of the
house then again it's it's you you're
missing out like really lead
qualification is all about why you're
looking to why would you sell now not
just why would you sell but why would
you sell it to an investor
why wouldn't you go the traditional
route why wouldn't you lose the house
with an agent how are we a solution for you
you
so you got to try to find that's what i
was trying to squeeze out of every call
why is that someone that i can help
and um a couple of reasons just i mean a
couple of ways to do it is yes actively
listen and also be in control if someone
says i'm looking to sell my house but
are you one of those companies that are
going to lowball me because i'm not
interested in giving my house away
what do most cold callers do they cave
in they say oh no no we'll give you a
good offer will you you don't know that
you don't know what is a good offer to
that seller right so be in control be
like hey
when you say lowball it sounds like you
might have talked to other companies
they gave you pretty bad offers
what did that look like what do you mean
by low ball
maybe his idea of low ball is actually
within your budget that works really
well you know so
try to get as much information out of
the seller
hear them hear them out what do you mean
by lowball
and sometimes being more direct helps
hey look uh i know i'm not the only
person calling you but if you're looking
to sell the house honestly i'll tell you
the truth i want you to sell it to me
and i want to give you the best offer
that i can the highest offer that i can
so help me understand the properties how
i can do that
when is the last time you've done updates
updates
and then you smoothly go into the
pillars right yeah that
that is amazing i think uh
one of the things that helps us in our
company is role playing back and forth
we try to role play through all of these
objections and every time we get some
sort of objection that they haven't
heard before
we write it down and we go over it in in
our training do you
uh have any tips or tricks on on how to
handle role playing and how to make it
more realistic
yeah i think you're doing great the more
you role play the better and the more
objections you give people and and call
analysis as well
absolutely that's something that we do
every single week we provide call
analysis we we have weekly coaching
calls with the vas we provide call
feedback and that's for the exact same
reason everything is trainable and i
know i sound like i know what i'm
talking about but when i started out i
was i made mistakes i lost deals i made
mistakes for sure
and everything that i learned was from
through trial and error you know i i did
something i i saw the seller's response
i'm like okay that doesn't work why not
maybe i should change the way i ask that
question maybe this objection
if if you know if i ask about the
mortgage that that was the question that
gave me a lot of objections what's it to
you just make me an offer why do you
care about how much i owe for the house
you know so like okay i know why i'm
asking that information so let me just
ask it differently and i can
significantly reduce the amount of
objections that i'm getting when i'm
asking about the mortgage
right so all of that is trial and error
and i listened to my own calls and
listened to my and i also had mentors i
mean the company that i work with i work
with um i don't know if you know chad
king he was
acquisitions he analyzed my calls he
gave me feedback i read a lot of books
as well
right so but that's how you learn role
plays and call analysis
yeah that's that's awesome i think
and this might be a little bit of a
selfish question but i'm going to ask it
from your perspective as being somebody
who has been a caller
and has managed a team of callers i'm wondering
wondering
because we all as business owners we
care about our kpis and that our leading
indicators can help us predict what
we're going to have in the in income
wise in the future
um and it helps us identify where the
problems are um
what when we're looking at managing either
either
cold callers or the lead specialists
what are the the kpis that you think are
the most relevant and how are you guys
looking at your kpis is it just total
number of calls total number of leads
what how can i make sure that i am
using the correct metrics to measure
the success
of the va or really the success of our
team with with regards to the va's
that's a very good question so let's
talk about calling first the number one
thing that i'm looking at is number of
leads per week so the standard is at
least one solid solid lid per day or
five leads a week so sometimes you don't
have a lid that day but by the end of
the week you should get five but they
should be real qualified leads now if
your company can also list properties
that number is going to be higher let's
say if someone calls in and their house
is in good shape and it's a retail lead
and you can offer listing um solutions
then yeah you you should look up more
than five leads a week but that's the
number one thing i'm looking at if we're
hitting that number that's good if we're
not that's when we dive deeper like okay
how many hours did that va call um call
how much time did they spend on the
phone we also look at a veil time how
much time was in between calls now if
the list is a little bit um
it's short then the unveil time might be
longer so we we're trying to dig deeper
and understanding why are we not getting
the number of leads that we need per week
week
so that's when you go granola so yeah
we're looking at number of um hours the
va was on the phone number of total
calls made number of connects let's say
you you contacted 300 people but you
only um
made con well you you called 300 people
but you only contacted 150. out of those
150 how many were leads how many were
not interested how many were wrong numbers
numbers
so that's what we track on every um on
our daily tracker every single day
um but again it starts with the number
of leads and then we we go granular we
also there's only three reasons why your
co-calling doesn't work
one you don't have the right people in
the right seats two your data is not
good or three your numbers are flagged
as spam
so if your numbers are flagged to spam
there are two wonderful websites you can
check out one is call transparency.com
register your number for free
and you know it can uh so it looks legit
when you call the number the second one
is callerid reputation.com it checks
your numbers against all carriers and it
makes sure that you're not flagged as
spam so out of the three the making sure
numbers are not like the spam is
probably the easiest way you can do the
second one is the data of course you
need to have a niche list a lot of
people think that oh if i just pull a
random list it's going to bring me
success you need to do some market
research or just have some information
about your market so yeah the quality of
the data that you have is important and
also if you use a power dialer
make sure you haven't just call you
haven't squeezed everything that you
could out of that
list and it's time for a new list
and yeah and the the first one is of
course the right people you have to have
the right people and that is people who
have good english people who have who
can make good rapport
uh people who can connect with with
others so yeah that that's a good call caller
caller
awesome i think that that'll definitely
uh help us move it moving forward now
let's say that maybe you know a lot of
beginning real estate investors are
working another job this is their part-time
part-time
deal if they were
looking to to find out more about your
services and and to maybe look at
some of the other content that you put
out where where can we send them so that
they can get in contact with you or your
team or or that kind of stuff yeah i
would love to i i
would love to talk to everyone it's um
go to my website hiretrainva.com
book a call with me i will be the one on
the call i want i personally want to
learn more about your business and what
you what your needs are and we will try
to find the
we will find the best person for you and
yes we've worked with companies that are
just starting out
and we've worked with companies that are
well established and already have you
know multi-million dollars um
years so yeah and even the companies
that just started out it's a one person
show and they already get two three
contracts a month even in this economy
uh we actually recently spoke with
someone who got two contracts from one
of our va's that just started out last
month so we're really really happy about
everyone's success book a call with me i
would love to get to know everyone better
better
if you want more maybe
maybe
more tools for your existing va's check
out my tick tock
hire train va
we talk about objection handling and i
make short videos about how i handle
this objection how to handle the
objection i'm too busy to talk now send
me an email i need to speak to my wife
you know so we make short videos and
hopefully your va's will find a lot of
good information there as well
awesome thank you was great info for
sure and i love your tick tocks oh
you've seen them oh yeah
yeah yeah
thank you yeah awesome
awesome
well thank you so much for spending some
time with us today we really appreciate
you we're inspired by your success and
we wish the best for you in the future
thank you my pleasure thank you so much
for the interview
thank you for listening to the real
estate jam
we hope you enjoyed today's episode
for more information check out our
website therealestatejam.com
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