Today's very special guest is a man that I call friend. He is a nationally certified Life Coach in Leadership and one of top Real Estate professionals in the world closing 30 - 65 deals a month, Chris Craddock is the host of the Uncommon Real Estate Podcast, a Realtor, and entrepreneur who runs multiple successful businesses in the Washington DC Metro area (and Richmond, VA). Chris and his companies consistently bring in close to 10 Million in revenue year after year. His team, The Redux Group, sold just over $160 million in volume in 2020. In this episode Chris is going to discuss how he can bring dead leads to life. Adding thousands to your bottom line. Part of this success happens when you bring an agent in, that fits this criteria Hungry. Happy. Humble. Smart. Training these agents to follow the process that Chris has mastered. Did you like what you heard from Chris? Connect with him here https://www.instagram.com/craddrock/ Email: chris.craddock@thereduxgroup.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!
Today's very special guest is a man that I call friend. He is a nationally certified Life Coach in Leadership and one of top Real Estate professionals in the world closing 30 - 65 deals a month, Chris Craddock is the host of the Uncommon Real Estate Podcast, a Realtor, and entrepreneur who runs multiple successful businesses in the Washington DC Metro area (and Richmond, VA). Chris and his companies consistently bring in close to 10 Million in revenue year after year. His team, The Redux Group, sold just over $160 million in volume in 2020.
In this episode Chris is going to discuss how he can bring dead leads to life. Adding thousands to your bottom line.
Part of this success happens when you bring an agent in, that fits this criteria Hungry. Happy. Humble. Smart. Training these agents to follow the process that Chris has mastered.
Did you like what you heard from Chris?
Connect with him here https://www.instagram.com/craddrock/
Email: chris.craddock@thereduxgroup.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!
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
agent, business, monetize, people, exp, leads, mornings, pay, brainer, money, retail, equity partners, bro, started, biggest, investor, week, buyer, chris, deal
SPEAKERS
Chris, Billy
Billy 00:15
Welcome to unstoppable real estate investing will My name is Billy Alvaro, aka the unstoppable BA former billion dollar mortgage banker gone bankrupt turn 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. What is going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of unstoppable Rei Well, I'm your freakin host, the unstoppable ba here to bring it again. Today I'm bringing in a friend of mine known this guy now for about five years met him at the multipliers him and I became close over the years. Mr. Chris Craddock. What is going on my man?
Chris 01:16
What's up? Dude, can I just say I love that intro man standing there with those beefy arms looking like having glamor shots. So good. I love it.
Billy 01:26
Yeah, good camera guy. How you doing my man? Good.
Chris 01:31
I'm good. I'm good. I just I was mentioned before man. We are moving into our new house. We've been building it it's been a two year build. We are moving the the house. We've already like literally, we own the horses. And we're having to pay to hold the horses somebody else's house. So I'm just like, let's go.
Billy 01:50
Chris, you're not moving into a house. You're moving into a freaking palace. I've seen pictures of this monstrosity that how many square foot Are you building?
Chris 02:01
It's 12,000 square feet.
Billy 02:04
Bro, that's not a house. That's a House.
Chris 02:09
Man. Well, I'll tell you, man, I know my wife is so pumped about having you and your girl come and hang with us. So yeah, I am so pumped about having having our friends down. And yeah, it'd be great.
Billy 02:20
It's going to be a good time to look over the years, man. It's been really cool. Watching you like real? Like, you're it. I don't really want to talk about revenue, but you're doing like over $10 million a year combined with all these various businesses. And maybe it'd be more since we've spoken. But like you are an entrepreneur of entrepreneurs. So my first question because I know there's a lot of things I want to get into. The number one thing is how guys like me can monetize dead leads. But before I get into that, I want to get just a little backstory give us like an understanding of who you are and all these businesses that you're involved with. Yeah, man.
Chris 02:53
Yeah man, so I graduated college in 2000, right. And I went on staff with this organization called Young Life changed my life, man, I'm an all in kind of guy. And I was I was all in on my way to jail and, you know, have a life change. And so I worked there, but my wife got pregnant, I was making like, between 20 and $25,000 a year. And actually, it's funny, she actually left as we're getting ready to move, she left an old tax return from the early 2000s. Right, I got made like $54,000 in, you know, like, I think it was like the end of 2004 or something like that. So it was just crazy. But, we couldn't live in the DC area on the money I was making. And so because my wife got pregnant, she just stay home. So I went to the library checked out every book on real estate investing, and just started knocking on doors and people that were going out for foreclosure. And so now I made like, 12 times in 2003 What I made in a year, and then I, I just took a break, I continued doing ministry until I have more kids and the money started running out. And so I started flipping houses again, one thing led to another I got a real estate license, because you know, there was some short sales, I was flipping and the bank was paying me to do that. And yeah, then December 2014, I opened up a retail team and we focus on doing monetizing these dead leads that wholesalers get that they can't do anything with Yeah, we started doing a ton of business and so then we open up title mortgage, hard money, construction insurance, you know, just a number of other different businesses that all funnel and and basically feed each other.
Billy 04:26
Yeah, the the real feeding from the real estate, which is smart, because you're not going outside the industry, right? You kind of like, you know, if you can make $4 million, want to capitalize on all these different ancillary types of income arms where you can bring it up to 1015 $20 million a year. It's smart, bro. Yeah, and
Chris 04:41
it's great. You know, I remember I don't know if you've ever watched Marcus Lemonis on the prophet, but I just love him because like, he'll go and buy a sign business and I'm like, this is just great because his sign business is profitable on day one, because it puts signs in all of his other businesses. Right and so, so that was kind of that whole idea. I remember I was watching a lot of that, and just realizing I'm like, oh, you know, I can get paid on on a buyer on a seller on a title on insurance, you know, unconstrained like all of these different pieces. It just, it just made the world makes sense.
Billy 05:12
So, so question I have, and I'm sure other people out there have right, some guys included, they have a hard enough time managing one business, how are you going about overseeing and integrating seven or eight different companies? You're not? I don't think you're running each one of these businesses already.
Chris 05:30
Right? No, no, I would die. You know, I had, I used to be my retail team used to be with Keller Williams, and I, you know, thankfully, our team grew really fast. So we were, I was just, you know, honored to be part of a small group that Gary was, was mentoring. And I remember him saying this that I thought was so powerful. And I think every entrepreneur needs, needs to understand this lesson. He said, You can have as many businesses as you want, as long as they're all in a folder, and they all have a face on that folder of somebody that's in charge of it. And that face is not your face, right? Like, oh, my gosh, that's genius. It's genius. And so I've got business partners that, that run every single business. And I guess it was a few years ago, I just realized I'm like, where are my genius zones. And I stepped out of all the things, even things that I was good at, but not in my genius zone, and just got into my genius zone and started, I just would add fuel to the fire of these businesses, but somebody else is running them on a day to day.
Billy 06:29
So on the day they you mentioned the word partners, are these equity partners that you have in each one of these companies that you own?
Chris 06:36
Yeah, so all of them. So the mortgage business is like a net branch. And so it's just interesting. We get paid on the p&l. We don't actually have equity. But yeah, all the other ones. You know, I have equity partners except for my, my rental portfolio. Other than that, I have equity partners
Billy 06:54
That's all you and your and your wife the rental portfolio, right? Yeah. So So you mentioned rental portfolio fix and flip wholesale. Real Estate, you have a regular retail real estate company, Title Company, mortgage company, construction company insurance company.
Chris 07:09
Yeah. I also I'm part of legal shield. I love legal shield. I think it's great. Any any investor, you know, it's prepaid legal, you know, anybody sues you, they'll represent you for free. So that's a that's a good piece. Right there. What else? Yeah, I think I said hard money. And I'm losing? I don't know. I don't know.
Billy 07:30
So just give us an understanding of like, what your average week is like, like, are you? Are you meeting with your business partners on a consistent basis? Like, what does that look like?
Chris 07:40
Yeah, so I have meetings. So I have a rock solid Morning, morning routine, and which I need I'm a high energy guy. And it's really, if I don't, if I don't have put structure into my life, I just start running after just the most foolish, crazy things ever. You know, it's bad news. You know, like, again, I'm just so all in that, like, if I don't have structure, I'm just gonna go all in on something stupid. And so. So yeah, so in the mornings, I do my routine. And then I meet. I've got I got meetings with a couple of them at 830 Throughout the week, where we're doing a check, and we're checking on revenue checking on numbers, like this morning, I did my my meeting with my insurance partner, right. And so we're, we're talking about revenue, we're talking about numbers, we're talking about pipeline, we're talking about strategy, right? Like, how are we going to grow so so I'm going through all of those different pieces with everybody in the mornings before beforehand, and a lot of times it's bi weekly that I'll meet with with those folks. And then the retail business because it's Jim Collins calls it in Good to Great the flywheel. It really is the flywheel that feeds everything else. Because it's my biggest business. You know, I'm more active in the day to day, I still do a lot of trainings, I trained three mornings a week, we have five trading sessions a week and I lead three of those a week and I, I just really love it, that it's something I also really enjoy. It's probably something i i shouldn't spend as much time doing because I know my dollar per hour at this point. But I really, really enjoy that that piece of the business. So
Billy 09:16
it's one of your sweet spots. So that's a good segue into monetizing dead leads, right? Because you and I have been speaking for a while and you get super excited speaking about this part of the business because you're like, bro, you're leaving like a half a million dollars on the table not doing what you're teaching. So let's get into like how could guys like us in the space Wholesale is renovators that are driving in X amount of leads on a monthly basis into our investment company. How do we monetize these dead leads? What is this whole program about?
Chris 09:43
Yeah, so and I'll just give an example. So last month, Bill, you and I are both friends with a guy named Brad Chandler, Brett Chandler's who, you know, here in the DC area. We we built this kind of program together last month. I think we sent him a $63,000 in referral leads, so it was like, and these were leads that he'd just been throwing away leaving in the CRM, they were on a drip, they had a periodic follow up. But like all of them, were just going to go with another investor or with an agent, right? Because they wanted retail price for their house, and they didn't have pain where they had to sell fast. And so, you know, we're, we're, we sent him 63 grand last month. And so that's the crazy thing. And we were set to do 83. But then a couple of them got pushed into September. So but, you know, that's, that's the kind of money that we're realizing is being left on the table. And so every time I talk to an investor, they're like, oh, you know, we're doing something with them, or send them to agents. And I'm like, Are you making money? They're like, Yeah, but then we know, there's smoke and mirrors in this business. I'm like, how much real money? Are you really making money? They're like, every once in awhile, I get a check. I'm like, yeah, that's about right. We've done is figuring out how to systemize this platform to say, okay, when do you send this over? How do you send this over? And what is the agent saying when they get there? Because everybody's brothers uncle as an agent. And so that's what we've created.
Billy 11:11
Yeah. So that, and you systematize the whole process with this, right?
Chris 11:15
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I, I created a coaching business. You know, Rei revive that I was, you know, I was teaching investors, how to partner with agents to do this. And then the cool thing is, exp, you know, I was with Keller Williams and I saw EXP and the EXP model, like, they just, they basically put all of our incentives in alignment where, you know, if people make money, then I make money. And so we all just started, started building this, this up, and it was just so incredible. Because now I can coach people, I can help people, I can train people, and if they are successful, exp pays me. And so you know, it's in my alignment to spend my time and energy just coaching people how to monetize those leads.
Billy 12:02
And that's where a bulk of your time now is being spent in front end, on the coaching side coaching guys like me, in this business, and how to monetize bring over the business. So so let's just watch this, put it on the table, you know, the business I have? How would you be able to what would the structure look like? If I'm like, Chris, I want to get involved. I want to start doing this. I want to monetize, if I could pull in an extra 40 to $60,000 a month in found money. Like I'm all in, what would that look like? What's the indoctrination process? What's the training look like? How, you know, how does this whole thing come together and rollout?
Chris 12:33
So there's two different options, right? So one of the things because because the incentive is so big, with exp to help people become successful, so somebody like your business, if you wanted to, we could do something, we call it roundtable where we partner together for 12 months, and we build a million dollar asset for you. And then then it's yours, we're out like after the 12 months unless we wanted to figure something out after that. But for the average person that just, you know, maybe they're they just want to learn how to do this. I have a weekly group session every Wednesday at 1pm. Eastern. And what we do is I give them all my modules that shows them from start to finish, how to how to have the conversation with the seller, and how to monetize it. And I'll give you the basics of it right now. The main thing is this. Most of the time, investors, whoever's do an act, like the Acquisition Manager takes the call. And they say, let's say somebody has a $300,000 house, and they want, you know, 274, right, there's no money there. You can't wholesale that, right. It's got to pay closing costs and agent fees, like you'd be done. Right? There's nothing there. So it's a retail deal. And they want 270 But there's a you know, but it will sell. And so what, what we do is just say, Yeah, we're gonna send out a valuation expert for you. And then your agent that you have trained, that's good at doing what they do. They go out you have a calendar you have whatever it is, you just set them up, you send them out, they go out. And then they have to have a conversation where it doesn't sound like they're baiting and switching because most agents will go out and be like, here's my listing presentation and nobody everybody's brothers uncle is a real estate agent, right? They care and they have a real estate license. Right? So so they go out, they follow the script, they find out what the pain is just like a wholesale deal and they give them an answer to their pain in a way that everybody makes money.
Billy 12:51
And so what on average, what have you seen the realtors your training, what's their conversion rate from appointment to listing.
Chris 14:31
So this is for held listing because what I will say is this, a lot of times people will set appointments and not have a good appointment set. So held appointment to listing is you know if you're looking at so across the board we're seeing about just over 30% It's like 30 point something for lower tier agent. Bottom line is if somebody's not closing at a minimum of 20% held, they you've got the wrong agent, they either need to be coached up or coached out, right? That's it. But I mean, you got to give them 60 days, because there is a training process that takes place, they need the reps, they need the at bats. So give them 60 days. And then after the 60 days, if they're not doing if they're not doing it at least 25%, you know, move them out. But what I've seen is the best, the best of the best right now are about a 62% conversion ratio.
Billy 15:27
Wow. That's insane. Now, the agents that you're referring these deals, if I was to refer them over, are these agents that are outside in somebody else's network that he worked for the company you're working for, or is like a third party agent that I'm just finding that I'm friends with, that I'm trying to bring into my network? Like, what does that look like?
Chris 15:47
And you get to decide what you want with your business. But this is an ease just like we were talking about verticals, right. When you have a bunch of verticals that feed each other like a sign company, it's called vertical integration, this is a vertical, that is the biggest no brainer ever. So if you were to have bring an agent into your business, now, this is assuming you're, you're not doing it all over the place, but you're doing it in one locality. And then if you want to do more you you're focused, right and an area, right, I would say bring an agent in, that fits this criteria. Happy, hungry, humble and smart. Because if you if you if you run everybody, and I'm telling you all of your salespeople run it through that filter, but if you run it through that filter, then I'm telling you, I promise you, that is how you will grow and and get good. That's how you get talent into your systems.
Billy 16:36
I love it. Hungry, happy, humble and smart. Right? Are you giving? Are you giving your agents a PI test and this test when you bring them in?
Chris 16:46
We do we do? Yeah. So so your your listing agents need to be above the 50% D if they're not, then they're going to have a hard time closing on that. And, and after you, if you're carrying more than three listings at any point in time, you're going to want to bring in a buyer's agent, because that buyer's agent will be able to sit open houses for every four open houses. They said they should get one closed buyer, they you shouldn't be getting phone calls just from the internet on your listings. You set up your buyers to go double in those deals. And so, but that buyer's agent needs to be above 50% i
Billy 17:25
50% eyes so it's a 50% D for the listing. And a 50% i for the buyer.
Chris 17:30
Yeah, exactly.
Billy 17:31
Like write that down. Love that, bro. Love that. So 60 days to get your your agents up to speed? What would it take to get a guy like me my company indoctrinated up to speed like what would that process look like? Is it me coming in and taking training? Is it me changing? Like, what? How, how can we do this together? Yeah, picture this to me for a while. And I've been doing this for a while because I'm like busy with other shit. Like, I'm at a point where I don't want to work that much. But you like I see the passion in what you're saying. And I know it's going to be worth my while to make this to make this happen. So like, talk to me pitch
Chris 18:09
So you're you're a bit uncommon, because of the number and the size of your business. But here's what I would say to you, because of the size your business, I think this roundtable is a no brainer, right? So for Round Table, I'm just going to tell you what, what the deal is, it's for 12 months 25% of all revenue that comes, from your retail business, not your investment business, just the retail business would. And not any of your fix and flips or anything like that. But just your retail business that is new business 25% of their revenue would come as a referral fee, it would pay my back office, and it would pay my sales managers. And essentially, I've got three mornings a week where my top sales guy does coaching for all of your agents, right? Teaching them how to have the conversation, how to handle objections, how to how to close right how to get people signed and inked, right, so he does three mornings a week, they come to our meetings, we have five virtual meetings every morning, 9am to 930, Eastern, all of them that they would be expected to come to 80% of those. So four out of five, and be on video three out of the five. So they're learning and understanding the scripting the dialogue there. So they're having role plays with John, they're in the trainings with us. We would then give all of your acquisitions guys training on how to script when they realize somebody is going to the retail side, right? Because you don't want to say, hey, this isn't a good fit for us, right? You want to just send out the valuation experts. So we would work on that scripting because you got to get that right. Because there's no reason why somebody should say no, if you say Hey, can I send out a realtor? They're gonna say no, but if you say yeah, sure, we'll send you you know, we'll we'll get you an offer. Yeah, you know what's best Wednesday at one or Tuesday at Two? Right? Like, like whatever you get them out. You we worked on that and Then we would also work with your AM's on when they make the offer, they realize they're not going to get the offer, how then do you pivot to get an agent in the door on that front? Because those are the those are the really warm ones because they've already built massive rapport and what their offer was too low. So they need to get the agent in so that you're monetizing, and not just losing that deal.
Billy 20:24
Man, this is like it's it's an it's really a no brainer, Chris, honestly, it's a no brainer. Like we're doing it right now. We're not doing this in a systemized fashion. Like we're, like you said earlier, we're monetizing the leads. But you know what I really go through and figure out what I'm really monetizing. It's, it's so small compared to what we should be. And it's because I'm not systematized, My guys are not trained in this process. I don't have guys on my team, realtor to wise and put through our training to get them to go through they're all doing their own process. And whether they're, you know, what, 20% closing ratio or 60% close ratio or sometimes 5%? You know, I don't know, because I'm really not managing all those retail leads that are getting put over to these agents. So this sounds like like a no brainer, is there a fee to work with you on this?
Chris 21:10
Yeah. So that's the cool thing is if somebody just wants to come in and come in or network and get trained, like exp is like, it's just an incredible brokerage. I mean, it's the fastest growing brokerage in the world. 1100 people a week are joining exp, because of this. I mean, if I were to name, I could name some of the people that have just joined our, our network. And there, there are people that are all over like, like the biggest wholesale, like teachers in the country, some of them have come over because they're like, Man, this is just so important. Because I mean, you look at there's five states that are requiring people to get licensed, if they're going to wholesale, right? Like this is coming nationwide, like let's get out in front of it, and monetize our leads at the same time. It's just the biggest no brainer ever. So there's no fee, you just get licensed and hang your license with us at exp, right. And then boom, you're in our line, exp pays me for the success of the people that are in there. And obviously anybody else that wanted to bring people in, they would get paid for the success of the people that are in there. You know, it's the fastest growing brokerage in the world, because this is the future of real estate.
Billy 22:18
It's really smart, the way you're doing this, like if you if you really look at how you personally are positioning this whole thing, you're adding a lot of value up front for guys like me, but the payoff for you in the back end, if we come into your network substantial down the road, like substantial down road.
Chris 22:35
I mean, here's here's the crazy thing, my buddy AJ Majda he lives in Puerto Rico now as a lot of these guys do, and they're making crazy money because the 4.3% tax rate. But, you know, he brought in 150 people over four years, right? And right now ESP pays him $325,000 every month for that, like it's just the biggest no brainer ever and and all he's doing is bringing people in and then helping them succeed, right? I'm like, you can go to Keller Williams nobody, nobody out there is you know, is getting paid that kind of money to help people succeed, right? A massive level, like across the board. And so, so that's why exp is just so incredible. It's like, man, we're gonna give you a lot of money if you help a lot of people succeed.
Billy 23:17
Insane, bro. I mean, this is insane. I don't even like you just delivered in 20 Fucking five minutes, a ton of value. Is there anything else you want to add to this? Like, how do people get in touch with you to make this happen?
Chris 23:32
Yeah, my My name is Chris Craddock That comm is the site that you can go to I mean, you can find me on on Instagram. It's an old cheesy High School nickname. Crowd rock CRA D D Roc K. I know, I know. But uh, yeah, I just set it up. And then it just became a thing. So I don't know. Whatever, but, but I'll answer any DMS anybody sends me sometimes it takes me a little while to get back to you. But, but I'll answer any DMS people were so generous with me when I was learning. I just anytime I like somebody's vibe, I just reach out to them. And I couldn't believe how many people would respond to me. So I'm just like, Man, I just want to do that for other people.
Billy 24:09
You want to give that and that's what you bro. That's you. That's your nature. Like you genuinely care about people. You give back to people you go on missions, like you're, you're you're a dude who I resonate with, you're down the earth, you're a solid human being and you really, you really do freakin care, bro. Like, no bullshit, you're a caring individual. And you're gonna, you know, 2004 you made 50 grand? I think in 2034. I'm seeing like 50 million or more.
Chris 24:36
Let's go.
Billy 24:38
Listen, this was this was great brother. I really appreciate you having you on. I'm looking forward to doing business with you. And if you guys are out there, and you're serious if you're a brand new wholesaler or a guy who's flipping properties or somebody seasoned like myself, monetize, monetize, monetize, you want to be able to squeeze the juice out of every single lead that comes in and if it's going to take you no time. What You're gonna be able to make a couple $100,000 At the end of the year additional bottom lines your net net no frickin Brainer contact Chris Craddock who will take care of you get this deal go and make it happen Chris I wish you the best real always good to see your face
Chris 25:13
thanks bro you too man