In this episode of Unstoppable REI Wealth, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Nydegger, the CEO of Kendall Partners. With over a thousand transactions under his belt, Jeff has been leading the company since 2007. During our conversation, Jeff shared valuable insights into his hiring process, highlighting the use the tools he uses to ensure his team members align with the company's values. He also discussed his review process, which has garnered close to 300 testimonials. Additionally, Jeff emphasized the importance of salespeople and staff training and their role in scaling the business. If you're looking to scale your own real estate business, you won't want to miss this episode. Tune in to gain valuable advice from Jeff's expertise in direct-to-seller marketing and buying houses off-market in the greater Chicago metro area. - Interview with Jeff Nydegger, CEO of Kendall Partners - Scaling mode: marketing and expansion - Hiring process and use of Pi tool - Review process and testimonials - Salespeople for staff training - Kendall Partners specializes in direct-to-seller marketing - Focus on rehabbing, flipping, and wholesaling - Unique approach to wholesaling in the Chicago suburbs - Transparency and reliability in the market - Future plans to incorporate Novations - Implementation of Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) - Structure of expanding team - Importance of transparency and seller satisfaction - Scaling the business with departments - Importance of well-structured organization and strong team - Treating real estate business as a business - Motivating and guiding operational staff - Building and retaining a great team - Hiring qualified individuals and aligning with core values - Navigating challenges and anticipating market shifts - Understanding individual preferences and strengths - Improving team dynamics - Importance of being in the right seat within an organization - Avoiding burnout and maximizing productivity - Creating a healthier and more efficient work environment - Understanding oneself and employees within an organization - Negative impact of employees in wrong roles - Importance of people and processes for business success - Strategies for successful sales and building trust - Clear expectations and transparency in growth journey - Investing in branding and marketing for credibility - Training and learning from experienced professionals - Listening to potential customers and addressing concerns - Giving salespeople enough time during appointments - Role shift after purchase agreement is signed - Testimonial process and requesting five-star reviews - Genuine interactions and impact on business reputation - Importance of online reviews and credibility - Correlation between reviews and SEO - Use of AI and direct mail in marketing strategies - Impact of direct mail on lead generation - Challenges with lead generation and conversion - Treating unqualified leads with compassion - Utilizing various marketing strategies - Conversion rates and ratio of leads to deals - Efficiencies and high level of customer care - Challenges of real estate market in New York and Chicago - Tracking and analyzing marketing efforts - Importance of careful marketing analysis and strategy - Financial aspects of real estate business - Gross profit range and knowing your numbers - Adjusting marketing budget for success Connect with Jeff - https://www.kendallpartnersltd.com/ https://www.jeffbuysyourhouse.com/ Email - Jeff@kendallpartnersltd.com And after that head on over to... https://easysell411.com https://billyalvaro.com https://billyssecrets.com Who knows maybe you will be our next partner? To get some neat (and FREE) Tools | Tips | Tricks to help you in REI!
In this episode of Unstoppable REI Wealth, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Nydegger, the CEO of Kendall Partners. With over a thousand transactions under his belt, Jeff has been leading the company since 2007. During our conversation, Jeff shared valuable insights into his hiring process, highlighting the use the tools he uses to ensure his team members align with the company's values.
He also discussed his review process, which has garnered close to 300 testimonials. Additionally, Jeff emphasized the importance of salespeople and staff training and their role in scaling the business. If you're looking to scale your own real estate business, you won't want to miss this episode.
Tune in to gain valuable advice from Jeff's expertise in direct-to-seller marketing and buying houses off-market in the greater Chicago metro area.
- Interview with Jeff Nydegger, CEO of Kendall Partners
- Scaling mode: marketing and expansion
- Hiring process and use of Pi tool
- Review process and testimonials
- Salespeople for staff training
- Kendall Partners specializes in direct-to-seller marketing
- Focus on rehabbing, flipping, and wholesaling
- Unique approach to wholesaling in the Chicago suburbs
- Transparency and reliability in the market
- Future plans to incorporate Novations
- Implementation of Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)
- Structure of expanding team
- Importance of transparency and seller satisfaction
- Scaling the business with departments
- Importance of well-structured organization and strong team
- Treating real estate business as a business
- Motivating and guiding operational staff
- Building and retaining a great team
- Hiring qualified individuals and aligning with core values
- Navigating challenges and anticipating market shifts
- Understanding individual preferences and strengths
- Improving team dynamics
- Importance of being in the right seat within an organization
- Avoiding burnout and maximizing productivity
- Creating a healthier and more efficient work environment
- Understanding oneself and employees within an organization
- Negative impact of employees in wrong roles
- Importance of people and processes for business success
- Strategies for successful sales and building trust
- Clear expectations and transparency in growth journey
- Investing in branding and marketing for credibility
- Training and learning from experienced professionals
- Listening to potential customers and addressing concerns
- Giving salespeople enough time during appointments
- Role shift after purchase agreement is signed
- Testimonial process and requesting five-star reviews
- Genuine interactions and impact on business reputation
- Importance of online reviews and credibility
- Correlation between reviews and SEO
- Use of AI and direct mail in marketing strategies
- Impact of direct mail on lead generation
- Challenges with lead generation and conversion
- Treating unqualified leads with compassion
- Utilizing various marketing strategies
- Conversion rates and ratio of leads to deals
- Efficiencies and high level of customer care
- Challenges of real estate market in New York and Chicago
- Tracking and analyzing marketing efforts
- Importance of careful marketing analysis and strategy
- Financial aspects of real estate business
- Gross profit range and knowing your numbers
- Adjusting marketing budget for success
Connect with Jeff -
https://www.kendallpartnersltd.com/
https://www.jeffbuysyourhouse.com/
Email - Jeff@kendallpartnersltd.com
And after that head on over to...
Who knows maybe you will be our next partner?
To get some neat (and FREE) Tools | Tips | Tricks to help you in REI!
Billy Alvaro 00:00:00 Welcome to Episode 113 Unstoppable REI Wealth. Today I'm interviewing Jeff Nydegger from Kendall Partners. He's the CEO and innovator of this company since 2007. Over the life of his company, he's done over a thousand transactions. And right now, Jeff and his partner are on a scaling mode. They're spending over a month in marketing and climbing. He has 18 full time team members, and, he goes really deep into his hiring process. The tool that he utilizes that we also utilize called Pi, and how it helps integrate his company and make sure the people have the right values. He goes into how he's gotten over 300 or close to 300 testimonials by using his review process, which you definitely want to listen to, and some of the sales people that he leverages to train his staff. If you guys want to scale your business, you definitely want to listen to this. Interview with Jeff Nydegger. Hope you guys enjoy. Welcome to Unstoppable real estate investing wealth. My name is Billy Alvaro, aka the Unstoppable BA, former billion dollar mortgage banker gone bankrupt, turned professional real estate investor. where each week you'll learn the tools, strategies, systems, and secrets myself and other highly successful real estate investing entrepreneurs use to start, grow, and scale their businesses, creating massive profits and how you can, too. And we'll teach you how to put those profits to work so you no longer have to get ready to finally experience financial freedom and generational wealth. Now let's get started. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Unstoppable Rei Wealth. I'm your host, Billy Alvaro, and today I'm bringing in a friend of mine, Jeff Nydegger, who I met at the multipliers Mastermind, I think, like, three years ago, maybe four years ago.
Jeff Nydegger 00:01:47 Yeah, it was.
Billy Alvaro 00:01:48 And, then we're Collective Genius together. Jeff, welcome to the show, bro.
Jeff Nydegger 00:01:53 Thanks for having me on. This is cool, man. It's great to see you back in your realm, in your office, and, looking forward to this. Yeah, I love it, man. I love it. That's where you got everything out your knick knacks, got all your stuff, all the stuff that means the most to you hung on the wall. It's a great place.
Billy Alvaro 00:02:06 Yeah, no doubt.
Jeff Nydegger 00:02:07 I know you got about four computer screens behind you, too. Or in front of you, i, know Day Trader. Or are you a rehab guy?
Billy Alvaro 00:02:15 Yeah, that's so funny. So, Jeff, you're out of the Illinois market. You've been doing this full time for what, since, like, 2007?
Jeff Nydegger 00:02:23 2007. We're in our 17th year.
Billy Alvaro 00:02:26 Congrats. Not a lot of people can say that. Congrats, bro.
Jeff Nydegger 00:02:29 Thank you.
Billy Alvaro 00:02:30 And give the listeners just the background of type of organization you are, what you guys do in your business.
Jeff Nydegger 00:02:38 Sure. the name of the company is Kendall Partners, and like you just mentioned around since 2007, we have a TV brand that's jeffbyserhouse.com, we've done lots of things. Most, of them good and some not so good. And we can talk about that. But, really what the business is now is a direct to seller marketing, business. We're buying houses from folks off market and, taking them to the market. or a few of those are going to be sold to investors. But really, we generate, quite a bit of leads every month and, talk to some folks here in the greater Chicago metro area. And, our purpose statement, we're providing hope to people through a trusted real estate experience, since 2007. So veteran, owned got a great team. We've got 18 of us now. So we're rehabbing, we're flipping, we're wholesaling. We technically don't wholesale. We actually buy every single house. And I think we've done about 1200 houses, in that, uh, 17 years.
Billy Alvaro 00:03:38 Nice job, Ro. Is it because of the laws in Chicago, Illinois?
Jeff Nydegger 00:03:44 No, we technically would be just fine, wholesaling and saving probably $3,000 per transaction. And I get the math. Over a couple of hundred deals a year. we came to the market in 2019 and really wanted to do something different than everybody else was doing wholesaling out here in the Chicago suburbs. And in Chicago really had a bad taste in its mouth. There's just a lot of shady operators, and I'm sure that's where it is in every market. We wanted to come out and really say, you know what, we're going to talk to you, come out and, provide you with that offer, but no fear, because we have the intent and the capacity. Right. So we have the cash and we actually want to buy the house. So we're actually a house buyer, a home investor, not, uh, just a wholesaler, which, by the way, wholesaling is great. UhI think it's a great business model, but for that reason, we've just decided to stick to that. And I believe that we probably win quite a business because people know that we're not going to back out because we couldn't find a buyer.
Billy Alvaro 00:04:40 Sure. It makes a world of difference.
Jeff Nydegger 00:04:43 Definitely.
Billy Alvaro 00:04:43 Are you guys doing any type of Novations out there?
Jeff Nydegger 00:04:46 We are working on that. U there are quite a few people out here that said they've done it and do it. And upon further research, there isn't. Uh, and I don't mind being a trailblazer, but, uh, it's a little bit more work out here. Probably more similar to New York. Just getting it all yes. Yeah. Getting it all dialed in. So, no, we are currently not doing Novation.
Billy Alvaro 00:05:07 So I think one of the challenges you're going to face with that is it's going to go basically against what your promise is to your sellers, right? Is that you're going to come in and actually close with the Novations. You're not I mean, backup is if it falls out, you will, obviously. But a lot of the Novations we see, we're locking them up for higher amounts than what we would if we were it's just, it's a little tricky. Is Illinois, where you're at, is it an attorney closing state or is it Title?
Jeff Nydegger 00:05:35 It's, title. It's technically not an attorney state, but the northern Illinois area, the Chicago metro area, is 99% attorney. So by default, yes, every seller knows that your contract goes right to an attorney, so you might as well call it up here in attorney state.
Billy Alvaro 00:05:52 That's how it is in Jersey. South Jersey's title north Jersey follows New York, which is, uh,the attorneys. The challenge that we have and continue to have at Novations is that piece right there. It's the attorneys getting involved because as soon as they get involved with the language and the contracts and we explain what we're doing, even if we've done a great job, which we do selling the sellers up front, the attorneys have just a difficult time because once you get them involved, you know what happens. The deal killers.
Jeff Nydegger 00:06:20 Yeah. We're working through those logistics now to be prepared for that, but I believe, and I'm sure you'd agree sounds like you would, that, um, uh, it's one of those tools that I feel like with as much deal flow as we have, we should have in our tool belt, so to speak, to pull out. So I'm excited to do it, and we're going to do it. We're just trying to roll it out the right way and find the right agent. Right. I think that's big component, finding the right, uh, agent, that's going to be kind of that one, that's building that bridge from us to the seller and then us to the end buyer.
Billy Alvaro 00:06:47 Yeah. The logistics, the agent, the attorneys, your attorney is going to have to be involved with the back end attorney. I mean, it's a lot of work. Very lucrative if you get it dialed in. I can't say that we have it completely dialed in, but we did one last week. It actually was last month. It's closing next week. $90,000 Novation ah fee, which is fantastic. We did another little 135 thousand, other one for 42,000. But our pitch is that if the buyer comes in and they need repairs and they need something done, it's on us. And we've taken money out of our pocket and done quite a bit of repairs on these properties to get them mortgage ready so these end buyers can get in. So it's almost like doing we do a lot of joint ventures with sellers, a lot of JV deals. We won't buy it from them. We'll just do a JV. So it's very similar to doing a JV, just a little bit more of, uha spin on it.
Jeff Nydegger 00:07:44 And do you feel like after those deals you mentioned were closed and done, that the seller hopefully they did. Hopefully they'll let you a five star review. Uh they were happy. I mean, you were full disclosure on what was going on. And they were obviously I'm hoping they were ecstatic about what took place.
Billy Alvaro 00:08:03 Yeah, they were good. All of them, across the board. We've only done a few dozen. On the Novation side, we've had one that the buyers, their mortgage company, they needed, like, an extra five days. It closed, but it was five days out of a promise. So we just give them $1,000 refund if we don't follow through on our promise, the date we're going to close. We did that. She still left us a shitty review, but, um, it was just her personality style, which sucks. You can't win them all, but for the most part, we're getting those five.
Jeff Nydegger 00:08:29 Star reviews out there. That's great.
Billy Alvaro 00:08:32 give the listeners just an understanding, because I had a lot of people on today that I've been interviewing that are on the scale mode. And like me, like yourself, like the other individuals today, you're scaling right. You're in that mode where you're just going forward. So let's first talk about you said you had 19 people in your organization just break down. I'm sure it's the same type of departments. Break down your departments for everybody. And just give us an idea of how many people you have in each department, specifically on your acquisitions team, your lead manager team.
Jeff Nydegger 00:08:58 Sure. And before I do that, I should say that, 2019, I read the book Traction, which was pivotal for us at the time. Had I read that book three years prior to that, I don't know if it was out then, but if it was, I wouldn't have been ready for that. We just were a different organization. Ah. So getting on this EOS journey, we fully implemented EOS with an implementer, through EOS. And it was instrumental in us making that next big pivot, I would say, into the I don't know if it's the next ten years of our business journey. So we were a team of 15 or 16 years ago, and then whittled it down to a team of five or six, strategically. And then, have come back and built a much different organization, more of a Sales and Marketing organization now, like we talked about. so, yeah, we've got your normal departments between Operations and Finance, marketing, of course, Sales, and then, really Construction Department now as well, with as many rehabs we're doing. So between the 18 of us, to include two owners, myself, my business partner, Kevin, there are, I guess, 16 that would be non owners. And got an operations manager who's really more like the business unit manager, Clen. And then sales manager. Aaron has been with me ten years. Michelle is our head transactions coordinator, although in Illinois, uh, the general term is transactions, manager. But she's really like the deal manager, just, because there's so much stuff, it's not just processing a deal to close. There's so much holding and stuff like that. and she's got some support, uh,with that as well. And then we've got, uh, a, uh, marketing and data manager who does just what it says, all the marketing and all the kind of business intelligence. And then we've got four acquisition managers in the field meeting with folks in their living room and three full time lead managers. Everyone is on salary, everyone's on payroll. Uh, they're all w. Two, they're all part of the team. We've got a construction manager and we've got a field manager who's out running around doing final walks, checking our properties. When you own 40, 50, 60 at a time, you got a lot of real estate out there needs to be looked at.
Billy Alvaro 00:11:00 Yeah, you got a good sized team and you have a real good organization. Over the last how many years has it been since you implemented Traction EOS?
Jeff Nydegger 00:11:08 was the end of 2018, early 19. So it's been a few years now, but, ah, I bring that back to say because, when I share this on other podcasts and things, I think people only see the thousand deals and I'll be the one to tell you that it hasn't all been perfect, nor has it been easy. And it's not the most fun times for me as the CEO and the innovator of the business, to look at some of your friends and colleagues and say, hey, it's not going to work out. It's time to time to find something else to do. And I've had to do that. and we've built back, I don't know if we built back better. I don't know if I want to use that or not. but we've been able to build it back in a whole different way using EOS as the foundation. And now we're working with Gary and Susan Harper with Sharper and using their Rise platform, which is a very similar operating system. but I think regardless of the ones that you choose, your business, in my opinion, I think you agree, would need something, some type of structure for people to come in and, follow. And that really is that thing that determines how you meet, when you meet, where you meet, and the strategy behind whatever the business model is.
Billy Alvaro 00:12:18 Yeah, it's important. We started with them about a year ago. We see the difference in the organization. It's key to have that ingrained into your operating system because guys look at us, people look when they want to flip properties. It's sexy, right? You're flipping properties when you turn into a business and you start having multiple people working for you. You really got to treat it like a business. You can't treat it like just some marketing company, even though we're marketing to drive in the leads. You have a full blown operational staff with every single department if you're not integrating them correctly. Motivating them and putting your values through them on a daily basis, holding them accountable, guiding them, shit could fall apart quick. I've been through I've been through the ups and the downs, and you grow. You have to pull back, you push forward. What are some of the challenges that you guys are facing in your organization and or in your specific market?
Jeff Nydegger 00:13:11 the ongoing challenge, somewhat regardless of the real estate market, is just how do you build and then hold on to a great team? Going back to the multipliers days when you and I met, I came to that group, and I felt one of the strengths that I could bring was that I do view things as a long term relationship. You remember Rob Chavez? He would say that I'm the long range thinker. It, doesn't mean that I'm smarter than everybody. It doesn't mean that I'm thinking so far down the road that I can't enjoy today. I think that could be an issue. but what I think I'm good at, and continuing to improve on is being that forward thinking person, but also viewing the relationships as a long term thing. And what I mean by that is, when we build our team here at Kennel Partners, we want people to love what they do, to find that balance that they really want. Now, I actually hate the work life balance. I think the balance is always like this. Right? But, how do you build the organization, in a growing organization, and continue to keep people, because the turnover is difficult. We haven't experienced much, in the last many years. so I think that's an ongoing challenge. It's just my role as CEO innovator is to continue, to build the team and kind of hold that morale high, the culture keeper, so to speak. And that's something near and dear to my heart, just because I feel like we work hard. And I would say the majority of the people that work here, have been hired via referral. So we knew somebody that knew them. That's key, and felt that they were qualified. So they already came into the organization. And I wouldn't say I'm the easiest to work for, but they already came in with a lot of the core values which are behind me. integrity, commitment, humility, and growth. we hire and fire based on that, just as EOS would say to do. But that is who we are. So I think that's an ongoing thing. And then you have the business and real estate side of it, right. That's ever changing. As, soon as you feel like you figure out your business and your process and your system, and you find your stride, rates go up to 8%, or something happens in the economy that you know is coming, the government will do whatever they can to ruin and shift things. And so that's, that forward thinking that I know your role and my role. We have to be way out ahead kind of predicting some of that stuff. which I don't want to dismiss that because I think that's one of the more difficult things is you've
Jeff Nydegger 00:15:41 got a big ship and you can't turn it around in an hour or in a day, or in a week.
Billy Alvaro 00:15:51 It just takes time to navigate, change direction, for sure.
Jeff Nydegger 00:15:57 Yeah.
Billy Alvaro 00:15:58 Get back to the employees for a second. So when you brought in the EOS consultant or Jarper afterwards, I know you had a lot of people that were referred into your organization. Did you have anybody after they went through the predictive index, they did their background and their personality profiles? Did you have any people that were in the wrong seats where you said, holy shit, this person shouldn't really be doing what they're doing?
Jeff Nydegger 00:16:22 I don't think it was quite that strong meaning, it was that definitive where it was like, oh my gosh, this is not going to work out. But I will say, and I'm glad you brought it up, predictive index has been key. for those that don't know about that, they should research it if they're looking to build a team or have a team. It's never too late to understand your people a little better. but the behavioral assessment, I think, and I'm technically a Pi Master now, but I've done a pretty good deep dive on, well honestly, I've done it on my wife and I. There's a one to one relationship guy that you can do in there and it's like, holy crap, how does this twelve minute assessment know my wife and I that well? So when you do that between managers and their direct reports, you can figure out where they might butt heads. But I don't think we ever had to move anybody out of a seat, necessarily. But as the positions evolved, let's say it's interesting because now the rest of the leadership team, they don't really need me. They'll go back to the Pi and say, I realize why this person doesn't like doing those things. I realize why this person doesn't like to jump on the phone and call. They're very black and white. they view everything as conflict. Where I have other people that like, I would love to call. Right. So I think it's just understanding people's personalities and we try not to ask ourselves a question anymore. Like, why don't they like doing that? Why is it such an issue? Refer back. We just refer back to the PiS. And so M, I don't even look so much as what the profile, the 17 profiles that we could be. M, I'm a maverick. I have a very high A and a low D. I really like to drive and I don't need to be super precise, but I'm very social. Right. That's just my personality so I know who I am. And then once you do it long enough and have enough people, we're pretty spread out for a sales and marketing business. We're pretty spread out over the entire target, if you will, where it's not all mavericks because, it'd be a lot of this. And, I think we've done a good job of avoiding some of that, uh, because I don't want that. We can't be, as Medley would say, bulls in the pen, somebody's about to get poked. it's true, right? It's true. You get a bunch of yous and mes and making a lot of decisions. We'll probably get along really well, but there's going to be a lot of in a moment's time. and that's not always healthy when you're, uh trying to do the day.
Billy Alvaro 00:18:40 To day, when we had the predictive run through the organization, because we use it, obviously, in our current team. Anybody new that comes in, we had a full assessment on our current team, and just about every single person was in the right seat, with the exception of one. And I got to tell you, it was tough because we knew she was an asset for the company, but we also knew she was in the wrong seat inside the company. And when Gary, when he had his meeting with the staff, with the Know, he put the PiS on the board and he went through one or two or three, and then he came to the fourth one and he just looked at him, not going to mention names, and he's like, are you overwhelmed and completely stressed out? Bro broke down, tears, crying. It just pinpointed that she was in such a stress mode because she was able to fit in to do the role. When she converted her personality, she was going crossing the line. But when you do that for a prolonged period of time, it causes a.
Jeff Nydegger 00:19:38 Ton of stress on you when you modify. I think we all can do it, especially if you care about the organization. You'll do it because you feel it's the right thing to do and you're committed to your organization, right? And you want that. But then what does it create? It creates the same thing you would create in you and me. Maybe the length of time we could last might be different, but you burn out eventually. We all do.
Billy Alvaro 00:20:00 I'm actually going through that myself in the company right now, because I don't have a COO and I'm fulfilling that role. And like you, I'm a maverick and I'm stretched out across the board. I don't have the business, the mindset to go into that COO role long term. And I've been in that role for a long, and Gary's looking at me and he's like, bro, you're ready to just snap out? Like you're handling what you're doing, but your Pi is telling me that you can't stand exactly what you're doing. I'm like, you hit it on the head. He goes, we got to get you quick. We got to get a second in command. So we found somebody in the organization who I knew the whole time. He's been with me for eight years. I just got to get him up to speed to start running this thing, because I'm not a detail guy. I don't want to be bothered with meetings on a day to day basis on managing the managers. Like, it's not my thing. I'm good at growth. I'm good at vision. I'm good at leadership, inspiration, big relationships growing. The office of big relationships growing. But the day to day operating. Jeff Holy, it was kind of cool to see when he brought that up on what is going on, because internally, I've been feeling conflict for, like, a year, and I'm like, what is going on here? It's because I'm not in the right seat, and it's probably going to be another year until I get to the right seat.
Jeff Nydegger 00:21:23 It's going to be at least without those tools, right? Without those mean not to say you wouldn't have identified a potential burnout or conflict or just the rub that you're like, why am I doing this? But Pi does help you pull that out. And then I'm in agreement. My, business partner, Kevin Hansen, our offices are side by side, and we've got a pocket door in between. And, it's funny because when I start, I stand up most of the day because I'm pretty energetic and I like to just move and shake. And it drives me nuts to sit in front of the computers. As much as I love it, I need to have my window of time where I need to get out. And he'll just be like, you're, like, doing the pacing thing and heavy breathing. Do you need, like, a walk? I'm like, Man, I just can't do the whole office thing all day long. I need to get out and just do something. We got a basketball court in the office. Thank God we can go out and shoot hoops and burn some energy off. But yeah, I think that's part of it is knowing who you are and then, um, even as an owner, right, even as the owner of the organization, we're not all mavericks. Not every owner of an organization is a maverick. Some are just visionaries, but they don't really have the maverick or captain type profile where you're super high. Just I guess I hate to be infomercial for predictive index. I should have an affiliate link, but, I think it's a tool. Or a tool like, that is something that is imperative if you want to grow an organization and really understand your people and not have to always ask the question, why don't they get it? Why don't they understand it? Why don't they like to do it? Why are they complaining about it, I think it's a worthwhile spend. it's an investment, but, it.
Billy Alvaro 00:22:57 Is definitely an investment.
Jeff Nydegger 00:22:58 It's not cheap firing and rehiring and training. New is like 20 x. The investment, 100%.
Billy Alvaro 00:23:04 I've gone through that as well. That lady that I was speaking about, we found out she was in the wrong seat. She exited, she couldn't take it. She quit. Wanted to repurpose her, but she's, like, can't do it. And she was a good employee, but she, was definitely not in the right seat. But that role transaction coordinator was key to the company.
Jeff Nydegger 00:23:24 Key.
Billy Alvaro 00:23:25 So when she left, it took me the employee turnover in that role. She was there for, like, with us for ten years. Long time.
Jeff Nydegger 00:23:32 Wow.
Billy Alvaro 00:23:33 Not in that role. She was in other roles, and then she ended up in that one because somebody else was with me for ten years, moved to North Carolina. But I got to tell you, the employee overturn with employees, the cost factor, the labor, the time, the money, the resources that you have to put in when you lose a key employee. I went through this in transaction coordinating, and I also went through it on, the controller side. And it was a year of just chaos. Things get hairy and sideways. Even if you have an employees in the role and you need to get them to exit and they're not in the right seat, if they've been with you for years, they have so much knowledge of how the business operates and works. And even if you have everything documented, there's just still so many little things that go on. When you lose that business knowledge, that core that's been with you, even if they weren't working at their highest level, a new person coming in who's a lot better of an employee, they're smarter, they might be faster, they're going to be lost. It's going to take them so much time to pick this stuff up. And so employee turnover, the Pi Predictive Index, and again, it's not a commercial for them, but it is a key tool to utilize when you're bringing in people hiring. We don't hire without it. If they don't meet the Pi, especially if they have a real low Cog score, depending on the role I won't even take the interview. It's not worth it.
Jeff Nydegger 00:24:55 Yes. same. We're in agreement on that. I think it's a vital tool, and I think if you're a company of three or four, maybe it's not necessary, but if you're a company of ten plus, 20 plus, and you're growing, and there's so many tools that come along with it, but yeah, I think back to your question. You had asked about some of the challenges. I think people are always a challenge. And I think what I've learned in this many years of doing business, I don't think I realized it until a couple of years ago. You read all these books. You get all this training EOS, rise. You can do, scaling, up there's, all these different operating systems or philosophies of how to do business. I think it really does come down to, if I can boil it down to its two things, that its most simplified way is it's either a people issue or a process issue. That's it either we haven't done a good enough job of explaining how to do things, or we have the wrong person doing it, or just the wrong people doing, on the team altogether. And sometimes that's the case. Just hired the wrong person, which we've done. we've had some good breakups, where it's like, mutually, like, hey, that is the hard part. Because sometimes when you're growing and we don't know what we don't know because we haven't been to where we're going once we're on the journey or on the path or we get to that next milestone, we didn't realize that it was going to take that amount of work. And the person is like, I didn't really sign up for this, I really love you guys, but okay, well, that's good. I hate for you to be a part of that thing, but I'm like that's kind of just the way it goes. Unfortunately, we uh, try and be very transparent about that because we're, not going to say that when you're growing and you haven't already been to where you're going, it's kind of uncharted territory. So do you want to come along with us? It's a lot to learn. We're going to do it together, so get on board.
Billy Alvaro 00:26:43 Jeff, let's switch over to your sales department. tell me some of the strategies, some of the tools, some of the tips that are really working well for you and your organization on the sales side to connect and to convert, to get the sellers to know like and trust and then convert those over into contracts.
Jeff Nydegger 00:27:02 That's good. That's a good question. I think one thing that we've done pretty well is if I'm m to go back a couple of years and take you just through this new sales and marketing journey, if you will, of being very intentional. And I mentioned before the call here that we spend upwards of six figures, in the mid six figures of marketing, advertising per month. So it generates a lot of leads. It's a big overhead, expense. But we're putting our brand out there, and this is all branded advertising. So I think while we're doing that, we've done a good job along the way of building our credibility up. So, just like you've done for me and I've done for you, we help each other out on making sure we're leaving positive reviews. And I say that because a lot of people in our business, and I know you agree with this, they can't say that they've been in business and done a thousand deals over X amount of years. A lot of them have just started. And that's okay, we all have to start. But I'm saying we win a lot of business because if you go and look at our, let's say, Google reviews, there's a rating and a review. You get the five or the four or whatever. Hopefully they're five. But if you look at ours, for instance, we're getting really good testimonials, and they'll mention everyone's name and how we help them, and it's all really positive stuff. Well, once you build that up, you've got that credibility. and naturally it becomes a little bit easier to do deals and to get business, because people feel like you're a brand, you've been around, we've seen you. And so I think we've worked hard on making sure that has grown with our advertising, if that makes sense, as opposed to just marketing and marketing marketing. We've done both. And hopefully the organic side of things, the referral type business, or the, hey, I found you online and I was just searching around, but it wasn't paid traffic. But they found us because of our credibility. That helps the sales process. we do training. John Martinez, we've done that training. I think our sales guys like that the best. We've, done some stuff with Steve Trang, mutual friend of ours. Steve's a great trainer, john's a great trainer. Jeremy Minor, we've done some of that and some of his training. So we've tried to find they don't really have to be industry experts, in my opinion. I think conversion and sales and negotiation is not really dictated, by the industry that you're in. I think it's more about conversation and, yes,
Jeff Nydegger 00:29:21 you're right. How do you build that trust? So I think that actually starts before they ever engage with you. Meaning, I think if they're a web lead and they find you on your website, they're doing their research and reading about you up front. So that's kind of where it begins on the customer journey. Two is when they engage with you and you actually interact with them. If it's a web form and you're responding to them, it's that first initial call. it's that first initial, hey, how are you doing? so I think our lead managers, we've got three of them, one, female and two male. They do a really good job of listening. I think that's a good part of, selling and negotiating. It's a good part that I think we all miss oftentimes, because we really want to tell them how good we are and what we can do for them. And I think the art of listening is something that's lost. I know sometimes I'm not the best at it, ask my wife. But I think it's like listening to people and what they want. and I think that takes time. I think that takes time. Our sales manager, Aaron has done a really good job of teaching that. And we're listening to calls and we're helping come back. So I think it starts with lead management. That way, when our acquisition managers or our house buyers that are in the field, that are going belly to belly with these folks that are meeting with them in their living room, it's just an extension of what they've already right. It's not a full different I talked to Megan and she said something way different. I'm not saying we don't make mistakes and we don't slip up, but it's never intentional. It should be very smooth for the customer or for the seller in this regard.
Billy Alvaro 00:30:56 There feels like there's no handoff when it's from your lead manager to your acquisition. It's just a nice consistent flow conversation, tonality the values and the business is already brought forward. That trust factor is already there. We get a lot of that insider. They, they say how much they respect and appreciated from the marketing person who's answering the phone, the lead manager through to acquisitions, when Justin calls, my sales manager, when my team goes out and does the inspections on the property, either Aman or David. Everybody in the organization has that common thread of they're really good people, they really care, and they treat the people well. When they go to the house and they all see it. And what's crazy, Jeff, is they're almost amazed by it. They're surprised by it. Right. Do you get like, I can't believe nice your organization is. I can't believe how everybody's respectful and they show up when they say they're going to show up and everybody care.
Jeff Nydegger 00:31:51 Yeah, I agree with you. And I think it's because of the business that we're in. I think that people that are selling homes to us, that is probably going to be their biggest asset that they're selling or their biggest item in their life. Oftentimes it is. And I think that, either they were concerned about an agent working with them or concerned about an investor. we don't usually use the investor word. There's certain language. I think that's a good part of what we train on as well. we don't call it a contract. We call it a purchase agreement. And I know that's semantics between you and the audience, but, it's not when you're the homeowner. And so if they're the hero of the story, which they are, they're the ones we're in business for. And so we've got to win and earn their trust. And they're not all referrals right. Coming to us cold, basically. And they want us to prove to them that we're good and true. they can read all the Google reviews, but they're like, now prove it to me. And they might be saying that out loud, but really they're like, yeah, they're going to be thinking about it. So you're right. I think that we work really well, really hard on the handoff from lead manager phone call to appointment set up. That way, when they get there, whether that's tomorrow, hopefully, or in two weeks, which is hopefully worst case scenario, that really feels good to them that some of the questions were answered and at least we cared and listened to them. And let's be honest. As much as in our business, we want to have a formula for everything these lead calls. Uh, as much as we'd love for them to be seven minutes or less, some of them are 29 minutes, because Aunt Susie wants to talk to someone that's not only an expert, but again, that's going to listen to them and, uh, answer their questions. And it ends up oftentimes the best calls. Maybe you'd agree the best calls have little to do with the house. It's everything about that next move or the situation they're in, or it's like, yeah, it's a three bedroom, two bath, and it's 1500, we bought it 1949, and et cetera, et cetera. But the next 22 minutes are about now. We're painting this picture. Yeah, we're painting this picture for what it looked like and feel like if we were to get this deal done. Where do you want to go next? Because you're looking to transition.
Billy Alvaro 00:34:03 You're future pacing in the conversation and you're having them see what the hell is going to go on. And when they see it and they can understand it, they're already making that decision. When I was in the field, Jeff, years ago, when I was buying properties, the best deals I've gotten were the ones where I took the calls. I went into the house, I would literally plant myself there. In some cases an hour and a half, 2 hours. Now, people would be like, that's insane. I would never spend that much time at a property. But I was buying deep, discounted properties. And it wasn't because I was better than anybody else. The fact of the matter is, I was buying these properties because a, all I did was listen. I asked questions, and then I shut up and I listened and I would let them talk. I had properties that we would purchase, Jeff, back in the day, where I wouldn't even talk about the property for the first hour and a half. It was the last 1520 minutes, where they know like and trust and like, you know, what, what number do you think you'd be comfortable selling this property to me for them, they would say to me, this is the number. I'd like, could you come close? And it's literally like $75,000 less than what I was thinking I was going to buy for. And deals like that not all the time, but deals like that happen, I think, when you're trained up the right way, when you have an organization that cares, and when you do exactly what you said, when you listen, when you listen to people and you just give them that. Now look, certain guys like me, I'm a maverick, type A. I don't want a two hour presentation in my house. Like give me the numbers, give me the bottom line. You really need to understand the personality profile that you're speaking with and kind of modify yourself to kind of connect with them. so I don't want people to listen on the call and think like every call you can win for 2 hours or half hour. It really depends on the personality style that you're dealing.
Jeff Nydegger 00:35:45 It does. And I think you asked about kind of the sales process, but I believe that in this business and probably any marketing and sales business but ours specifically, we're buying folks homes. I think the salesperson or in our business I'm sorry, in our business we're calling them acquisition managers. I think the intuition is one of the most meaningful traits, I guess you'd say so when someone understands what you just said that some people want to be told the information, in twelve minutes and give me your number and leave me your contract and it's cut and dry. That's me too. I may go one step further because not that you don't care, but I do care about kind of hearing a little more. And then some people need to be sat down and they want to have tea and scones for 2 hours. And if your process says, this says I only have 30 minutes to meet with Nancy, I got to be out here in 29 minutes and all you're thinking about is the clock and the next appointment. Then I think we're missing the boat. And so back to the sales process. I think we've done a pretty good job of understanding that and giving our team enough time so that they're not rushed and there's a sweet spot there, right? One appointment a day for them is not enough. Four appointments is probably too much for your average person. Especially uh in Chicago or New York and New Jersey where half the time is in the windshield, sitting in traffic or driving. So they go ahead and go to the house, right? And using that intuition, following our sales process and there's a little bit of some leeway there they earn that right, not day one, but they earn that right, to have that a little bit autonomy. And then once they get a purchase agreement signed that goes right to basically our front office here. And Janelle on our team has that promoter profile she absolutely loves. Actually, they call from the house or from the car and say hey, just was at Theodore Street, she signed the purchase agreement, should be coming over. Well, Janelle will automatically call Nancy and walk her through the next steps, to closing. So then it's out of the salesperson's hands, in Janelle's hands and she's the seller point of contact. That's her entire role. And that right there has been she loves it because she loves to solve problems and help people. And she's this caring, nurturing mother hen. And then, honestly, it frees up our salespeople to go back to, I guess, the front of the line or the next appointment and do the same.
Billy Alvaro 00:38:14 Your Nancy is taking it soon as they get the contract signed. She's the point of contact from that point forward.
Jeff Nydegger 00:38:20 She is. And she's working with Michelle, our transactions manager, senior, transactions manager. She's been with us ten years. and then they're working in tandem. Um, and they've got certain parts in the process that they both handle co handle, with our attorney and the seller's attorney. So right, you've got a buyer's attorney, us, our attorney, and then you got a seller's attorney, and then you got title, and then they're handling all of that along the way to get that. Hey, Nancy, we'll see at the finish line any questions you have. I'm your point of contact.
Billy Alvaro 00:38:51 I love that. I absolutely freaking love, real ah, quick, you mentioned about your testimonial process. Do you have an actual process for that after you're closed? Like, what is your process to get them to give you testimonials? Because we have one.
Jeff Nydegger 00:39:07 Yeah, and it's a rock of ours. so it's one of those, quarterly commitments that we have, um, actually for Janelle, um, since she is the seller point of contact. so it goes like this. If Janelle was here, she'd probably be like, that's actually not the process.but I'll say it how I think it goes. We end up selling the house or I'm sorry, purchasing the house from seller. Nancy in this situation immediately. Janelle will call after closing and say something like, you, know, just been a joy working with you, Nancy, and you should have your funds here from the title company within the next few hours. It's during the business. know, we hopefully we've answered any questions that you might have and we'd love to earn the right to five star review if you'd, uh, give it to us. It means a lot to our business as we continue to grow and work with more folks just like you. And oftentimes like, oh, yeah, no, that's great because I want more people like me to find you. And, uh, in a perfect world, that's how it goes. And then 15 minutes later, you get your five star. And we're always trying to get at Google, Facebook, better business, Yelp, even though I think Yelp's extortion, but those are the channels with Google being number one, in my opinion. And we ask for a rating and for I told you already, the review. And, the cool part is, from my standpoint as the owner, CEO, innovator of the business, all those reviews used to mention my name, even though it's Jeff Buys, your house, and Kindle Partners, uh, they don't mention my name anymore. A couple of things that I'm proud of for that. One, I'm not really involved in the process, and you don't talk to me because we've built a team around it. Right and two, they get to mention all the people that have been involved in the transaction from lead management. Janelle, is usually mentioned because she's spending the most amount of time with the seller, of course, the acquisitions manager. But, it's a proud moment for me because, they go ahead and mention the team and CJ in the field. I mean, these guys are amazing people that really care. And, I honestly out of those reviews. Find out more about our team, and the Humility core value, that we have because of things like last night, CJ, who's 22 years old, is out at 730 at night meeting with a seller because they were supposed to do a final walk through to buy the house at four, which is during the normal working hours. The guy couldn't. And so CJ came back at 730. He's moving the
Jeff Nydegger 00:41:26 guy's stuff out into the garage. He's helping him And, he goes above and beyond that type of thing. Well, CJ is mentioned in these reviews all the time because it's like this young man, CJ, shows up and it's just the most polite gentleman ever. And so he's kind of the icing on the cake. He's one of these 22 year old kids that never respond to you without saying sir or ma'am. And that's pretty rare if you didn't know anymore.
Billy Alvaro 00:41:54 Yeah, it's definitely rare.
Jeff Nydegger 00:41:57 Yeah, so we get that. And then, that's the review process. Now, my old review process, and this is a secret, I guess, that I've told a lot of guys from, CG and Multipliers. I was personally asking for those reviews via a Loom video, to each of the sellers. Those are something that you can pre record. You can just look at your closings that are coming up and record those. You don't need to time stamp those and mention the time in the video or the date in the video because those closing dates, they move. Right. But you can say, hey, Nancy, appreciate the opportunity. I'm Jeff, owner of Kendall Partners. And Jeff buysyourhouse.com. I just want to take a second and say how much we're appreciative of you choosing us to purchase your home. And, hopefully I've answered your questions. If you'd leave us a five star view and I'll include the link, that has gone a long ways because then they get to see me and, hear from me. And it is genuine because I am genuinely asking for them to leave some credibility that's only backfired one time. I sent that review about two days too early, and I mentioned, hopefully, by now you have your money, et cetera, et cetera. And closing was kicked back, and the guy was kind of upset. Out of our own control, attorney and title kicked it back, right. They pushed closing out, but who's always to blame the buyer, right? Because we're the company. And he said, absolutely not. And he left us a three or a four star review, which I'm okay with that. I think we have 230, uh, reviews, uh, averaging 4.9 stars. I can afford a couple of negative, negative reviews, but whatever. So I messed up on that one. But he still said, hey, you bought my house, got us our money. He just asked for my review, my review two days prior. Okay.
Billy Alvaro 00:43:39 when you set that up, was it in an automated sequence? You just send it out from your cell phone? What was your mechanism to sending that out?
Jeff Nydegger 00:43:45 Well, I did it both ways. I would record a few at a time, just on my Mac, and just a 1 minute recording. I'd send the link to Janelle. and then she would send it out at the time off, right. So she'd say, here's a recording from, the owner of the company, basically saying, asking for the review that we're only using now as, I guess a step two or three. And I'm purposely happily doing it.happy doing it, just because I want to continue to see that credibility go, and a little bit of, ah, pride that I want to get to 300 reviews, because I don't know many companies in our industry that are even close to that. And I want to get there hardly.
Billy Alvaro 00:44:26 Any I mean, kudos to you for having 200 plus, man, that's amazing. I think we have, like, 60 something.
Jeff Nydegger 00:44:32 Yeah, I think it's huge. And I think there's some type of correlation. And I don't know what. It's not a one to one, but I do believe that based on the reading that I've done with how Google, does their algorithm, I believe that the more not just your ratings and reviews, but I mean, we write our responses to those reviews SEO friendly using AI. so we'll give it the inputs, saying, thank you, Nancy. And maybe some specifics. We always try and mention the seller's name. We always try and mention their city, not their address, because I don't want to it's private. Uso we'll say, Nancy, appreciate the opportunity to serve you and to buy your home in West Chicago, Illinois, type of thing. And I think this goes back into the funnel and feeds the machine as we're pumping in $30,000 into PPC and a lot of money into SEO. Right. So I think the whole thing continues to work together.
Billy Alvaro 00:45:29 That's a good tip right there. That whole little piece with, the keyword SEO friendly, and you're having AI do that.
Jeff Nydegger 00:45:35 Yeah, we use Chat GPT, and you're just feeding inputs into the system, right? And then it's side note on AI, if you didn't know, don't copy and paste everything that it says because it's not a human if you didn't know, there's not a human behind there. It's actually machine learning. So we only know that because I'm like, that sounds idiotic, but yes, you give it the inputs and then ask, it to make it casual, make it professional, whatever you want. We ask for two or three. I say we, I don't have nothing to do with it. Glenn, my operations manager, handles it with Janelle. But, ah, then if you get on there and look at our reviews, which you can include a link to it and people can check it out and read them. They're crafted, let's say 80% or 90% are crafted with AI. And then we put the final touch to make it personal. We don't want to sound, but it puts some good stuff behind it. And then, like I said, we ask it to write it SEO friendly.
Billy Alvaro 00:46:33 Good nuggets bro. Let's get into real quick because I know we're coming up to 47 minutes mark and I want to be conscious of your time on your marketing end. You're crushing it with TV, you're crushing with pay per click, a lot of pull ins. Are you doing any outbound? You're doing direct mail. You're doing any type of yes, the.
Jeff Nydegger 00:46:51 Only outbound we are currently doing is Direct Mail. I've been a proponent of Direct Mail since we started Direct Mail in 2009, 2008. that goes back to the short sale days. Most of the people weren't in the game then. but when those things short sales came out and I was like, what's that? No one knew. and so we started Mailing to notice a default, probably similar to you and going after the Liz Pendous and people that were, 30 day, 60 to 90 lights. so that was our first taste of Direct mail. And I thought scale back then was sending 30 letters a month, mostly because we were doing it by hand and personally trying to personalize and I felt like, man, my hand is going to fall off. Right? And then things evolve and you hire Yellow Letter HQ or some of the other companies out there to do it more professionally and expedite it. Yes, in bulk and now we use, uh, a lot of different, data aggregators, um, from Audic and maybe even 80 20. And there's lots of different, services out there that will pull information, but we dump that all in the top of the funnel and have a couple of million records on deck, if you will. And I would say right now, we're mailing in between 70,090 thousand pieces per month. So Direct Mail has always been a foundational piece. And I remember telling Kevin, my business partner, I said, some of these other lead channels are up and down. But direct mail, if you're in it to win it using that long range goal of thinking, things don't need to work today, but I need to produce six months from now and forever, then keep the marketing, the mail marketing going. Because we are still doing deals right now, getting contracts today from, uh, what we're calling the COVID postcard that we sent out. Green little postcard that we sent out in 2020. And they may have gotten seven or eight pieces from us after that, but they chose the green card that you're hoping they put on their refrigerator and save for when they're ready. That's the good part about direct mail, is that, they might just hold on to it. The older generation tends to keep stuff, and they keep it in their tidy little pile next to their wallet on their countertop, right? And then when they're ready, they'll pull it out and call that number. And you want them calling you before they go to the Internet. Not everybody goes to the Internet to look, right?
Billy Alvaro 00:49:12 Especially the older folks. The older ones, they don't really do the research, really, you know, pen and pad. They get those letters in the mail, and they may check, on, the Better Business Bureau, but that's basically know it is the amount of leads you're getting monthly. Jeff, break it down, because off camera, we were speaking about that just for the audience. How many leads a month gross leads are you guys generating from all the marketing that you're doing?
Jeff Nydegger 00:49:40 the gross responses I haven't looked for maybe the last 90 days. The number used to be like this. To the amount of net leads that you get. I will say the net leads. We use the term qualified, lead. I think that the industry in general has misinformation on what that actually means. But we determine a qualified lead purely as a house, or, I'm sorry, a seller that wants to sell. And I don't go seven layers deep, or four types of motivation, or four pillars. I know there's lots of different methodologies. I don't think in this market necessarily, I want to talk to somebody that wants to sell their home, period. I don't care about the price or the condition, or their motivation necessarily, or their time frame. And those are the other three or four things that people like to hone in on personally. If you want to sell, then you're a qualified lead. Doesn't mean you're a good lead, just means you're qualified. Above qualified is everything else. And so with direct mail, because it's outbound, like you just mentioned, doesn't mean that everybody that you send your letter to 80 or 90,000 a month that they all want to sell, or need to sell, et cetera, you're hoping that that is good, but it's more of a shotgun approach when you're at that level of volume. So you're. Going to get a lot of, uh, FUS, which we call them, right.
Billy Alvaro 00:50:55 I got this letter 50 times, right?
Jeff Nydegger 00:50:59 We probably get a dozen or so a week, I would guess. Probably five times that I don't know of, people that take our postcard, rip it into shreds, half, burn it, put in the envelope and send it back. Red tape, all of it, send it back to you and save you ever. And it's like death threats, right? But, they're going to the now.
Billy Alvaro 00:51:18 Where they're looking at me up on Facebook and Instagram. They're Imming me and telling me, send me another piece of mail, I'm going to bust your face off.
Jeff Nydegger 00:51:27 I've had letters from, marketing people in Washington DC. For human rights marketing people. Here's the good part about direct mail. It does drive an emotional response. and our message is not, threatening. it doesn't say that you're in foreclosure. Even if you are, we wouldn't say it, we're not saying we're going to foreclose in your house in 30 days. It's really a pretty clean and clear message. Hey, I'm Jeff. Been buying houses a long time. I'm a veteran local, to the area. If you're looking to sell, I'd love to chat with you. Something like casual like. So because of that, we get quite a few leads that are unqualified, which the reason that's important is because when you run a business the size of yours or mine, it still takes a human to sift through all of those unqualified to get down to the ones you can work with. So if we're running about 250 or 275 qualified leads per month, we're probably more 300 to 350 unqualified, if not more. Even 400 sometimes. If the mail is really hopping, and honestly, because we have a reputation and we have, uh, a brand, as you do, you still have to talk with that person. Usually they're live because they're direct mail, they're calling. You still need to treat them with compassion and humility and love, right. And just, even though they want to rip your face off, we just kill them with kindness and kind of have fun with it a little bit and just say, hey, you're right. And we do try and respect the take you off your list. We do have a process for that, but that's how we generate leads. PPC. We've, uh, been doing pay per click for years. Um, Bing and Google direct mail of all different varieties, from a mail piece to a check letter to a we probably send out the majority of our postcards, uh, branded and unbranded. That's the only unbranded marketing we do. And then, uyeah, like you said, TV, and then all the lead aggregators that you're familiar with, between some of the bigger brands that you can buy.
Billy Alvaro 00:53:28 Leads, those are some months. How many are you bringing in?
Jeff Nydegger 00:53:32 Qualified, you said?
Billy Alvaro 00:53:33 Yeah, the qualified leads.
Jeff Nydegger 00:53:35 About 275 is where we need to be right now.
Billy Alvaro 00:53:38 275. And you have three or four acquisition?
Jeff Nydegger 00:53:41 Four. Four.
Billy Alvaro 00:53:43 so how many appointments is each guy going on roughly a week?
Jeff Nydegger 00:53:47 they need to be right in that ten to twelve range. Twelve would be the ideal number.
Billy Alvaro 00:53:52 That's good. And how's the conversion?
Jeff Nydegger 00:53:55 well, I will tell you right now, if you're looking at top of funnel, and a lot of people are using a ratio of, like, how many leads to a deal? Last, quarter, we were just, over nine. So about nine and a half leads to a deal, and we're shooting for just under, eight and a half, which doesn't sound like much, but it is over 275 leads.
Billy Alvaro 00:54:16 Hell yeah.
Jeff Nydegger 00:54:16 so we're probably right in that 22% to 24% conversion ratio, lead to appointment, offer to offer to deal. so every ten calls, every ten qualified leads, technically, should be, u a contract.
Billy Alvaro 00:54:35 And how's your pull through ratio from contract to close? You guys have a decent pull through?
Jeff Nydegger 00:54:40 Yeah, we are working through that now. And I say that because when you're only buying six and eight houses a month only, and we're closer to 2025 now, and doing 30 and 40 transactions a month, I believe the fallout is going to be right in that 20%. Yeah, uh, that's about where we're at right now. I've seen months at 25. Buyers are flaky. I'm sorry? Sellers are flaky. And, it just seems like more and more now, sellers, canceling. but that's not really because they don't like us or like our process. They sign too quick, or maybe they're the heir to the estate and they actually didn't have the authority. Um, and so there's ways to get better at that, but I think we're going to be right in that 20% fallout. So, ten contracts, we're going to buy eight houses.
Billy Alvaro 00:55:27 Yeah. That's awesome, dude. That's where our numbers are. We're not quite as high on the conversion up front. We're only at about 19 and a half percent. Tough market in New York, man. Tough, tough market. The competition, and I think it's everywhere. I mean, competition is the competition. It is crazy. The amount of people that go out to these houses to buy. We're competing with 7810 people at a time. It's crazy.
Jeff Nydegger 00:55:54 Yeah, well, we really haven't had the Ibuyers come in, so to speak. that is one advantage and disadvantage. Meaning a lot of companies have come to the Chicago market and really try to dominate because it's the third largest city in the country, last time I checked. So there's about a 9 million person Metro that our company currently is only buying a couple hundred houses a year out of. So, the market is so segmented, much like Jersey and New York, where you've got a lot of operators that are probably picking off 2030, 40, 50 deals a year, and not a lot that are doing 152 hundred.
Billy Alvaro 00:56:32 Correct.
Jeff Nydegger 00:56:33 so where do the Ibuyers come in? They really have struggled, uh, just because the nature of New York or New Jersey or Illinois type real estate, blue state real estate, it's tough and it's attorney, and it's time intensive. And that's not Phoenix market. That's not where you can get a contract today and close in three days. That doesn't happen here. Not even close.
Billy Alvaro 00:56:57 Not even close with us, too. Our cash conversion cycles are through the roof?
Jeff Nydegger 00:57:01 Yes, through the roof. One thing I wanted to mention for the listeners that are out there and that are building this funnel, so to speak, as to how many qualified leads down to a deal. we measure it all the way through. We, measure it monthly. We look at it every day, or every week, rather. but we measure it monthly, quarterly. And we also measure it per marketing. We call it Marketing Medium, but Marketing channel, lead source, because you can look at the entire business in the funnel, the sales funnel, but we actually look at it through every single way we market because we're spending so much money. And then we can determine, because they're not all created equal. Direct mail is much slower, but it's much more predictable. And so what we call lead to profit from the time the lead comes in to the time we make money is the longest in direct mail, but it's also the most consistent. And the profit per deal is one of the higher ones there. So, I would encourage that people are looking at look at it in total, but then break it down and see, uis your ROI really there?
Billy Alvaro 00:58:12 Yeah. You have to break it down by each type of marketing segment that you're doing. And not just the segment, the list, but each marketing piece, like every one of our pieces, has its own, I guess, tracking number that we have on it. And so we'll know if a piece is a bomb or if a piece is actually making us money. And if you're not looking at this consistently, as Jeff was saying, you could be pissing money out the window, man. You could just be losing money and not even realizing it. What is your number? You're like, if we're not getting a three to one return or four to one return, what's your number to where you're like, you know what, I'm going to cut back. Do you have anything?
Jeff Nydegger 00:58:46 Yeah, I presented on this at Collective Genius, two years ago, and Iremember putting a slide up there saying, I'm only looking for an eight X return. And I remember having $8 bills up there one dollars times, and then eight more dollars. People were like, you're out of your mind. And I thought and then I went to the next slides to show them that we were getting seven and eight X return. This was 2020, and we were getting an eight X return. Direct mail was about an eight X return. As you add more dollars behind that, uh, the return does dilute. Uh, it's just natural. Right. You're not going to get an eight X return. So I think to answer your question, TV is much lower, but I would say overall, we're going to be in that four and a half X marketing. So that gives you an idea. We're spending a million five we're in that five to $7 million gross profit range. that's predictable. The good part about that is if you knew your numbers we know our numbers pretty good we know which levers to pull on the marketing side if we want to. Like, we just upped the budget last week for this month. Uhin the middle of the month, we upped it another $25,000 for the month purely because the leads weren't coming in. I already told you that the engine is built. If you can't afford to put gasoline in the engine, meaning the team is already there. If our team is wandering around aimlessly at three appointments a week or five appointments a week, it's not going to get it done. So we can afford a higher cost per lead. Because I know, like I said, every ten leads, uh, it has been a deal. So if it ends up being an extra $2,000 per deal, then so be it. But I can't let the well dry, uh, all because we're not willing to keep it running.
Billy Alvaro 01:00:27 Jeff, this was a great conversation with you, bro. You brought a lot of really good nuggets to the listeners out there. I appreciate you.
Jeff Nydegger 01:00:35 Yeah, man, it's been awesome. I know we could do this for, like, 3 hours. I know we could.
Billy Alvaro 01:00:39 I know it's been over an hour and I literally have, like, a million different questions to ask you. Just wrap back and forth. It's really cool. Like chatting and brainstorming and just doing a brains up with people.
Jeff Nydegger 01:00:50 Uwe need to do it outside the podcast. You and I need to do it again.
Billy Alvaro 01:00:53 Yeah, we do, for sure. If people want to find you, how do they locate you? How do they connect with you?
Jeff Nydegger 01:00:59 Yeah. so the two places we've got the main website, kendall Partners Ltd. you can search that on the Internet, on the Google or, Jeffbuysyourhouse.com, you'll find my face on there and then you can always email me, Jeff@kendallpartnersltd.com. Um, but I think there's only one out there that's in real estate. Jeff Nydegger. So Google it, it'll come up. I'm on Facebook, I'm not super active, although the marketing people tell me I need to be. So I should probably put some energy behind that to make sure people don't know that I'm alive. So I guess I have to post some stuff. So I'm going to get better at.
Billy Alvaro 01:01:31 That so funny, Jeff. Good seeing you again, brother. And thank you.
Jeff Nydegger 01:01:34 Likewise. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
Billy Alvaro 01:01:37 Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Unstoppable real estate investing wealth. My mission is to give you, my listeners, the blueprint for success. The insider secrets for starting, growing, and scaling your real estate investing business so you can experience and live the unstoppable, lifestyle. I've made it simple for you to catapult yourself to success. Go to Billyssecrets.com. That's BillysSecrets.com. There you will find every single tool, tip, trick, strategy, system, and secret used to make millions of dollars as a real estate investor. Everything my team uses and my guests use all in one place for you to tap into so you can start, grow and scale your real estate investment business. I really hope you implement what you're learning. I hope you utilize these tools, tips, tricks, strategies, and secrets. And I hope to see you on the next episode. God bless.
Jeff Nydegger 01:02:37 Bye bye.