#136 Mail-Right Show With Special Guest: Randy Tobbe of LionDesk

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Why a CRM is One of The Most Important Tools You Need if You Are in Sales? We have a great interview with Randy Tobbe from LionDesk a CRM designed for real estate agent and brokers.

At LionDesk, we are serious about building tools to help real estate professionals close more deals. Our team is constantly innovating and creating cutting edge systems that allow you to spend more of your time talking to the client and less time wondering who and when to follow up. Learn More Here

Here a Full Transcription of Our Interview With Randy Tobbe of LionDesk

Thomas: All right. Well, welcome back my friends to the Mail-Right Real Estate Agent podcast show. We are on episode 136 and our special guest today is Mr. Randy Toby for LionDesk. Randy, welcome to the podcast.

Randy: Thanks Thomas, thanks Jonathan for having me. Pretty excited about being here today. Don’t get to do very many of these so should be pretty fun.

Thomas: Tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and LionDesk. A real quick intro and we’ll get into some deep questions.

Randy: Sure. Yeah. I just work for LionDesk. I do Biz Dev. So I handle a lot of relationships, the integration partners, brokers and corporate execs as far as, you know, people that want to role out an all-encompassing CRM platform to their offices. I handle a lot of the relationships and the conversations around that.

Thomas: All right. And for the benefit of our listeners, LionDesk is a?

Randy: We are a CRM platform. We’ve kind of shifted gears a little bit. We’re turning more into an all-encompassing platform but we started out in the CRM space.

Thomas: Okay. Got you. All right. Well, I’ve got a bunch of questions for you. First, I want to turn things over to my co-host Jonathan Denwood.

Jonathan: Oh, hi there folks. I’m the founder of Mail-Right. We’re a platform aimed at Real Estate Agents and Boutique Brokers with an emphasis of getting you leads through Facebook. Back to you Thomas.

Thomas: And I’m Thomas J. Nelson. I’m a Residential Realtor here in beautiful San Diego, California where I’m never too busy to serve you or your referrals. We’re going to dive into some questions here. Randy, I’m actually literally exploring other CRMs right now. I’ve been a user of a CRM for many years. For those that don’t even know what we’re talking about when we say CRM, what is the acronym CRM?

Randy: Customer Relationship Management.

Thomas: Why do you people need that? And I do emphasize need that.

Randy: Yeah. It’s probably one of the very first things that somebody should get if they’re getting into Real Estate. Even if you just go out and get your license, one of the very first things that people kind of pound into your head is working your sphere, right? So you have friends, you have family and you have friends of friends. So getting them into a database where you can see them, you can reach out to them and you can market to them in a systematic fashion is one of the most important things versus trying to go through your phone and doing that. So having everything really well organized, really well documented and have a strategy behind bringing to light what it is that you’re doing is without a doubt the most important thing I think after getting your license and choosing your brokerage.

Thomas: I would agree with you Randy because I’m often asked on my, I blog daily on ActiveRain where the major of Real Estate meets on a daily basis to exchange ideas and referrals and blogs. And one of the number one questions we get asked constantly is, “I’m a new Agent. What’s the first thing I can do to hit the ground running?

And without fail, the predominant response is, “Get your sphere built and get it into a database or better yet a CRM because that is the heart of your business”. I work my business every day. It’s the first thing I put on my computer and I work through it all day long because this is where I’m keeping in touch with clients and keeping up to date with the marketing I do for them and the transactions I do and so forth. And that’s why I want to talk about LionDesk today because LionDesk is a very robust platform. It’s kind of a one-stop shop. Let’s kind of dive into some of the key components. I have a few I want to ask you about but I want to get your opinion. What do you think are the top 3 most powerful components of LionDesk?

Randy: Well, first and foremost, the ability to customize and configure the platform around how you do business is first and foremost. I mean, I’ve been dealing in Real Estate technology for 10 years and every Agent and ever Broker, they all run their business differently.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: They all have strengths and weaknesses and things that they want to emphasize. So the ability to go in and configure the platform around how you envision or you want to design your business, right? Built by design. So you can set the system up how you want and using the terminology that you want so that it’s working how you envisioned your system being set up. Think of it as like an assembly line, right?

Thomas: Right.

Randy: You spend all of this time putting all of these pieces into place and how everything is going to flow through and there’s going to be doubt, there’s going to be hiccups and things that you can change but if you can kind of create that ahead of time, I think that you’re at an advantage versus being stuck into a system that’s very rigid as far not being able to be changed. The next part is being able to organize and sort information. I think getting all of those contacts in spheres, lead sources, getting leads from Jonathan and having a strategic plan built around that to market to those people specifically is the next piece. So getting to people quickly, efficiently. And then from there, I would say the marketing element, right?

Thomas: Yes.

Randy: So now that we’ve set our system up, we have it organized really well, we can get to data quickly, we have a transparent history, from there it’s how do we plan on marketing to each segment? Because how you market to your friends and family, is different than how you’re going to market to when Facebook leads come in.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: Utilizing buyers or sellers or Zillow or your website or on or offline marketing. So having everything set up ahead of time because how you market and your messaging and put your positioning is going to change.

Thomas: Totally agree. Jonathan and I have talked about that very topic with several guests over the last couple of years where you can’t hit your entire sphere or your entire database with one ad because you have multiple interests within your database and one ad is not going to catch the attention of everybody.

Randy: Now more than ever.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: I mean, with social media, like 10 years, we could have blanketed and sent out 10,000 emails or 1,000 emails with the same message and people were excited to open up that email, right? Now, I mean, it just gets lost. So focusing in on those micro-moments and just the details is a much better way to talk to somebody the way that they want to be, if that makes sense.

Thomas: It totally makes sense. I’ll tell you. I run a networking group for the Chamber of Commerce here in San Diego. And when I am emailing just my members with important information, I’m lucky if I get a 30 percent response from people that know, like and trust me and I’m their business alliance leader giving them information they need to have and they need to confirm back certain things and I still don’t hear from everybody.

Randy: Right.

Thomas: And that’s that group. So now, imagine people that are just leads and you have no relationship with them. So I think it’s very important. And as we’ve discussed on the show before, what you put in that subject line is going to determine whether they even bother to open it.

Randy: Yeah. I mean, as marketers, we kill everything, right? We exhaust that, like banner ads. Now there’s programs that completely do that. So we kill these different outreach or these different mediums and it’s cyclical. So the email stuff is a great example. Like without having a really powerful subject line. You know, like getting an open rate above 10, 20 percent is really hard.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: And we subscribe and we give emails out like candy. So we’re getting inundated with all kinds of stuff. But then, if think about how people are communicating now, how many unread text messages do you have right now Thomas?

Thomas: Yeah. Well, I mean, I try to get to them daily because most of them are clients. But I know what you’re saying because I’ve sent text messages that have taken up to 2 days to get a response to and that’s a text.

Randy: Yeah. But most people don’t have unread text messages. They’re quick to respond.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: And then you go to something like instant messaging and it’s the same thing, really high open rate, really high engagement rate versus your standard.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: So being different is really important.

Thomas: Well, and I want to dive in now to some of the features because we’re talking about marketing. And one of the things that jumped off the page at me when I was going over your website was the email and video texting feature that the CRM features and I’m not aware of many CRMs, if any other CRMs that even offer this.

Randy: Yeah. I mean, there’s other video email providers out there and they do a great job and we thought based upon today and how people are marketing and we know that video is definitely something that’s really really important now, just look at your Facebook feed. It’s like video, video, video, video, video. So we just wanted to incorporate that in, even though we do integrate with some of the other video providers. Video is just something that you have to do now, especially if you really want to stand out. And think it’s really powerful because there’s no face behind an email, right?

Thomas: Right.

Randy: Like that could be anybody. But you actually taking the time to record a video and send it out via email, they’re going to see your face if they do open it. And a video text is even better.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: So a video text message, you know you’re going to get around a 97 to a 98 percent open rate and they’re going to see your face and you’re going to be able to speak to them directly. How many Agents are doing that? Very few. Because they’re kind of stuck in the way that they used to do business and a lot aren’t willing to change. I mean, there’s a ton that are willing to. But being different and by communicating via video, I think that you can get your message across, you can increase your branding and I think that you can make a bigger impact. I mean, why do so many Agents have their face on their card, right?

Thomas: Right.

Randy: Same thing. If you’re sending video, emails and text messages, that’s your face, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Then you friend request them. There’s all kinds of different benefits to that but the open and the engagement rate is way higher than your traditional.

Thomas: As someone that uses video email, I agree with you. It’s probably my most opened email where I can track the open rate. Now, I currently use BombBomb and my question is would I need to continue to use BombBomb if I was using LionDesk or does LionDesk replace the need for a service like BombBomb?

Randy: No. You know, BombBomb’s a great company, like they do awesome stuff and I mean, they were innovators I think in this space when it comes to that. And we still integrate with BombBomb because there’s a lot of additional little bells and whistles that BombBomb can do and provide for the person starting out that doesn’t want to have 16 different platforms and they want a nice and easy-peasy way of doing it, they could use us, right? But we have tons of BombBomb clients that integrate and I think it’s a great program.

Thomas: Okay. All right. Good to know. The next question I had is I notice you guys have what’s becoming a more popular feature in property websites and that’s the text to sell feature. Am I correct in that that’s where you can generate a short text code that people see on a sign rider and instead of leaving a paper flyer, they actually text you for the web information?

Randy: It’s crazy you say that because that’s one thing I talk about a lot, right? We’re going to role play for a second here, right?

Thomas: Okay.

Randy: We’re driving down the street and we stop, we’re with our wife or our partner or whatever, and you see the little box on the sign and you got out and maybe there’s some condensation, the ink starts running together, you’re looking at it, right? And then what you do as the consumer? You probably put it on the floor unless something really stands out.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: Using something like the text to sell numbers, text 123 Main Street to 555-1212. So then, you’re just asking that people to text the number. And immediately from within LionDesk you could deliver them an actual video walkthrough, an e-flyer. At the same time, you’re also capturing a lead, right?

Thomas: Right.

Randy: Whereas, if I just took that flyer, you don’t know who took that, right?

Thomas: That’s right.

Randy: And I mean, there’s proximity beacons. There’s a bunch of random things out there but how more effective than to get somebody’s actual cell phone. They’re not going to put a fake number in there.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: At the same time that that’s happening, you can have them automatically put on to a campaign that automatically sends them a video, “Hey. I just realized that you’re”, or, “I just noticed that you stopped at my property, 123 Main Street. I hope you like the video walkthrough that I just sent you”, and LionDesk is scraping that data. So we’re potentially pulling names, demographic, geographic data, social data and all of this, creating a profile around somebody that just texted.

Thomas: Wow.

Randy: So we’re hitting all of these different things all at the same time just by using that one small feature and that’s just for that.

Thomas: I’m sorry to interrupt. You’ve got me excited here. You’re telling me that if I get a text lead off of this feature, that LionDesk is already doing my homework for me and creating a profile in my CRM with as much information that can be scraped off the Internet?

Randy: That is potentially accurate.

Thomas: Wow.

Randy: And when I say potentially, depending on the amount of different data that’s out there.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: Let me give you an example. I had a call right before I jumped on with you guys and I just put in this guy’s name and email address. I had his LinkedIn, his Twitter, his Instagram.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: I had all of his websites. I had a picture of him. And then, I just started bringing up things in conversation. He’s like, “How do you know all this?”. You know, it was a Broker. And I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t tell you about this other feature”. So it’s pulling a lot of data. And we’re going to continue to evolve the different data points that we’re doing. And David, the CEO, has done a really great job on bringing a lot of that over and keeping it all on one system.

Thomas: That’s incredible. I love that feature. Because I think one of the things that we do poorly as Agents and where some Agents excel is what we do with the leads once we’ve captured them. I don’t think we follow-up enough on them or do enough marketing to them and this takes some of that out of your hands and puts it on auto-pilot.

Randy: Yeah. For sure. People’s attention spans are reducing, I think, by the day, right?

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: They enter in their information and Jonathan knows this because he’s doing Facebook leads. They enter in their information and then 30 seconds later, they’re watching cat videos, you know what I mean, because they’re scrolling that feed.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: So the faster that you can get to them, the better. I helped a client with a campaign and she was going shopping carts. You know, the picture on the back of the shopping cart?

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: And she has it set up in such a way where as soon as somebody texts that information, she has a video text message that’s delivered and it says, “Hey. I know that you’re shopping at X, Y, Z”.

Thomas: Wow.

Randy: “If you need anything, I would love to set up an appointment. And by the way, here’s a coupon for this place”.

Thomas: Oh, that’s cool.

Randy: Instantly, right?

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: She’s instantly bringing value into other people’s lives. Just that little code or that little coupon, right? That’s a cool way of utilizing LionDesk with offline marketing and bringing it straight real-time and speed the lead immediately.

Thomas: Wow. You brought up Facebook and LinkedIn in the conversation and I see that LionDesk offers Facebook and LinkedIn direct ads. How does that work?

Randy: Facebook. Facebook for sure, not LinkedIn as of right now.

Thomas: Oh, okay.

Randy: Now you could run LinkedIn ads and connect via Zapier. So we have a pretty robust API and our team has spent a lot of time rebuilding it and making it even easier to connect to third-party services. But Facebook is an example of being a really popular lead source right now because of the cost per lead is relatively low and I think anybody that’s not on that bandwagon needs to get on now because Jonathan can probably tell you, leads a year ago cost $1.00. They cost 75 cents. And now, they’re costing 2 bucks and 3 bucks.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: So really great place to generate high quality leads right now. So when you’re generating leads on Facebook using Facebook lead ads which I assume is one of the areas that Jonathan works, you’re utilizing different lead magnets to attract potential customers, whether it’s buyers or sellers. And when you’re creating these different lead ads, Facebook is giving you these unique forms, kind of like landing pages but within Facebook. So you can connect those unique forms that you’re creating directly into LionDesk. So when a buyer comes in and opts in and gives you their information, it then passes it on to LionDesk and then immediately starts a campaign based upon the origin. So that buyer guy isn’t getting the 39 things that every seller must do a day later. He’s getting an immediate response from Jonathan saying, “Hey”, even a video, “Hey. Thanks for downloading the information. The link is below”. And then immediately after they get the text with the link. So they’re going to see your face and then they’re going to see this. So it’s automating a lot of the pieces that most people would have to do manually. And speed the lead is one of the most important things when it comes to conversion. So by Jonathan being able to deliver messaging almost instantaneously versus logging back into his Facebook account, downloading his Excel sheet of where those lead ads go and then deploying a campaign. You’ve already missed the biggest opportunity, which is in the first 2 minutes.

Thomas: I think it’s super important to generate your own leads because there’s some stats out there that something like the average customer online fills out about three forms on average. And then, those forms convert their information to a lead, whether they are or they aren’t and those get sold to an average of three different sites, which then sells it to three to five agents who then also share it with lenders and those lenders share it with their entire agent pool. And so, before you know it, you’ve got one consumer that is considered a lead to like 30 people. Imagine being like the fourth, fifth, sixth phone call you’ve made to that guy.

Randy: Sure.

Thomas: By the time you’re number 15 caller, he’s really giving you some choice words. Whereas if you have these Facebook leads that you’re creating on your own and you’re already giving them, like you said, with this instant gratification of a reward, “Here’s the eBook that I promised you with good information”. Now, you’re converting people that are really only dealing with you and they’ve dealt with you voluntarily. They have said to you, “Yes. I want to hear more from you”. Would you agree with that?

Randy: Yeah. 100 percent. I’d be curious, right? Even on Facebook, maybe they’re opting into multiple Facebook lead ads, right?

Thomas: True.

Randy: Which is okay.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: But again, I mean, statistically put this out or NAR put this out and Zillow’s put this out. They’re saying anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of the leads that are generated never get a first phone call, right?

Thomas: Wow. Really?

Randy: But, the other interesting thing is the people that do get a phone call never get a second or a third or a fourth. And we were in New York a few weeks ago for a conference and one of our clients happen to see us and ran up to us and they were telling us this story. And her business was literally on the verge of not making it and she was buying Zillow leads and we all know that they resell those.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: And she put them on a text message drip campaign. And she’s like, “It completely changed my business”. And we’re like, “Well, how?”. And she was like, “It’s my third text message that is converting over 50 percent”. And we’re like, I’m like, “Really?”. So, you’ve got to think about it. If somebody’s opting in and they’re getting phone call, phone call, occasional text, email, email, email, email, right? They’re getting slammed. By the second and third day, people are tapering off. They don’t have the system in place to continuously follow up and if not, it’s on some email string.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: And her third text is almost like a guilt text. It’s, “Hey. I don’t mean to bother you. I’ve texted you 3 days in a row. You filled out information that you wanted from me. Is now a good time?”, or,”What do you want me to do?”. And it’s almost like this guilt text. And they’re like, “No. I’m sorry. I’ve just been busy. I’m getting random calls”. And that’s her conversion and then it’s her third and fourth. And I just thought that that was awesome. Here it was, somebody who’s having a hard time getting this conversion, she implements one small little thing and it has a huge impact on her from a value standpoint.

Thomas: Well, I mean, that brings up, real quick question. I know we’ve got to go to commercial Jonathan. I’m a heavy email marketer and I know email marketing’s part of your campaign so I’m going to say something that’s controversial to our own philosophy here and is, why does anyone even bother email marketing at this point when it seems like text is has a better response rate or is it still a necessary part of our marketing plan?

Randy: I think it’s necessary because there’s a couple things that you can’t do via text. You can’t story tell, right? You can’t story tell and you can’t provide vast knowledge or value to somebody in a text because it’s short. We’ve gotten that text message from our parents or our spouse and it’s like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: And you’re like, “This should have been a phone call”, or, “This should have been an email”.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: As an Agent, you don’t want to do that. You know like, “Is now a good time to talk :)?”. I mean, you can be specific but I still think email marketing is very effective. You just have to utilize it the right way.

Thomas: All right. Fair enough. Jonathan, I will let you take us away to commercial.

Jonathan: Thank you, Thomas. We’re going to go for our commercial folks but we’ll be back soon to have this fascinating conversation with Randy Toby from LionDesk. Be back in a few moments folks.

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Jonathan: We’re coming back. We’ve had a great discussion with Randy from LionDesk and we continue the discussion. Over to you Thomas.

Thomas: Thanks. Actually, I want to bring you in on this Jonathan because we were talking about the Facebook marketing and obviously Randy is your invited guest. I’m assuming that you see a way where Mail-Right and LionDesk can integrate the power of their two systems. How would somebody utilize Mail-Right with LionDesk?

Randy: Yeah. I mean, Jonathan, go ahead.

Jonathan: Sorry about that folks. Well, our system will integrate with LionDesk because they’ve got a good API and there’s a couple others that we will integrate. We chose not to go down the CMS route basically because it’s catered for quite extensively. So there’s different systems for different people, if you understand what I mean Thomas. So it’s a big market with various systems. We’re specifically focused on Facebook and our niche but we will integrate with LionDesk.

Thomas: Okay. And Randy, for folks that may be working with companies like Jonathan’s and maybe their hesitation is having all these companies working in concert with each other. How do you help people integrate their technology with yours?

Randy: Yeah. From our leadership being passed down is one of our number one goals actually. So we don’t want to be everything. We’re not trying to be websites and we’re not trying to do, you know, we’re not trying to do everything. We want to have really core sales and marketing tools to help sales professionals regardless to the profession. That’s our core competency. From there, we want to have one of the best APIs built out to make it easy to connect to best in class services. So it gives the end user the ability to pick and choose those best in class services to create their technology stat or their tech stat. So how one person is doing marketing offline with, let’s just say, farming and they want to use the text to sell number. We want to be able to integrate with more and more of the farming providers, like the lead gen and stuff like that and to Jonathan creating the Facebook ads and doing things like that. We want to connect to that and other third-party services and website providers and MLSs. We want to be more or less the center of that where it’s all kind of feeding in. Again, we talked about this in the beginning, how every Agent does their business is different. If you just go to the chamber and you’re just an awesome networker, that could be your gold mine and that’s what you do when you close 5,200 units a year. That’s awesome. But we want to be the centerpiece of the communication and connect to all of these other applications. That is our goal. It’s not to do what Jonathan’s doing or not to do what these other programs are doing.

Thomas: All right. I want to shift gears and ask you about, well, actually, one thing we didn’t clarify. Is this LionDesk specific to the Real Estate community or do you serve other industries?

Randy: Not directly. No. I would say 90 percent of our clientele is all the in the Real Estate space.

Thomas: Okay.

Randy: We do have insurance people over and mortgage and auto. There are some other areas where we have random people coming in from. But our main focus currently is Real Estate.
Thomas: Okay. Well then, that brings me to my next question which is the deal and pipeline management. Can you talk about that? Because that to me up till now has always been a separate component from my CRM. My CRM currently can’t handle deal management and this is what I’m really interested in.

Randy: Yeah. So deal management is explained, I think, differently by different people. Some people consider, they don’t consider pipeline management until a property is escrow or till they have a contract. Some people start it before that. Some people don’t consider it until a document is signed via DocuSign or DigiSign or Dotloop. So I think first and foremost is identifying where you’re starting point of a transaction is. Personally, I think once you sit and you and I have coffee and you’re like, “Yeah Randy. I’m ready to list with you”, or whatever, I think that that is the point of a transaction. Because now I’ve got to get the contract over to you. We’ve got to review it. We’ve got to go through all of these different things. And that’s where I think the origin starts but other people don’t. Now, inside of LionDesk, we give you the ability to manage your pipeline, manage the property, manage the transactional process that you’re going through. I do want to be real clear. We don’t provide a signature platform and we don’t provide the actual documents.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: The documents are given to you by your Board or your Broker, whoever. And then a lot of the same Brokers and Boards and whatever, they wind up having their own signature platform as well.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: So it’s kind of mandated.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: So we kind of stay out of that area. We do have a direct integration with Dotloop and we’re working on three other integrations with three major transaction management platforms so that even if you are using this TM platform that your Broker’s mandating, because a lot of Brokers mandate, because of the transparency of the transaction and making sure that everything is being done but it doesn’t mean anything because the contact is a contact before it’s a transaction.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: So being able to shoot it into the other platform works really really well. And then, as data’s being gathered on the transaction that can flow back in so when you close that deal, you have where the deal started, everything that it took to convert that lead, the transaction history, how the deal went. And then, you put them into your 7-year touch plan. And it’s once a month a little video that gets shot out saying, “Hey. I hope everything’s good”, or, “I was driving by the neighborhood”, whatever it winds up being. Having a long-term strategy for your existing clients I think is one of the most underutilized opportunities and people don’t do it.
Thomas: I totally agree with you because if you can track the story of each one of your leads, go from lead to client to transaction to closed deal, you have multiple pieces of information that you need for future work, which is the stories that you tell so that you can sell. Because I don’t give people stats, I give them stories. And the other thing is that if you start to track and see what it took, because you hit this on the head. What did it take to convert this lead? Now, how is that scalable? How can I repeat that every time with that type of client so that it’s systematized? And maybe I can train my team members to do the same thing so I can grow this thing beyond me. There’s so many applications for this.

Randy: For sure man. Everyone’s like, “Hey, market update”. They want to tell everybody that market update. They’re being so generic when they’re reaching a lot of people. If you’re taking notes throughout the transaction history and you learn the kids’ names and you know that they love black lab dogs and you start getting these little micro pieces of information, when you’re reaching to out to them, do you think that they are going to care more about the market update? Or you saying, “Hey, how’s Rufus your black lab doing? I just saw one a couple days ago. It made me think of you”. Connecting with people in an authentic way is something that we need to do more of. We need to care more about our clients and not be as transactional. And for the people that do hundreds of deals, I think that there’s small little things that you can incorporate to connect with people. And I think that that’s how you build a long-term relationship, by actually caring.

Thomas: Yeah. I agree with you. And I think the people that do hundreds of deals should have somebody on their team in place to handle the PR of this. I just had this conversation with my Buyer’s Agent yesterday. Because we were talking about, “What are you doing lately for client gifts?”. And she asked me that, “What are you do for your client? What’s a good gift you give?”. And I said, “You know what? I can’t answer that because my gift is tailored to those people”. I mean, whether they enjoy alcohol or not, whether they prefer pizza or ice cream, whether they like a particular restaurant. These are the things you listen for when you’re working with them so that you can personalize, not only the service that you provide them to get them into a closed deal but then the after sales care that you provide them to show them that, “Hey, I listened to you. I’m putting you ahead of just another commission check. This is a relationship I’m trying to build”. Because these relationships create advocates and advocates build a career.

Randy: Thomas, that’s incredible. I think it’s amazing that you do it because so many people just do that generic stuff.

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: What you’re doing matters.

Thomas: Well, you know and I give a lot of credit for training comes from Buffini and company and they’re very adamant about the relationship first. And it’s not like we’re trying to be everyone’s best friend because there’s some people that are like, “Hey. You did a great job. Thank you very much”. They don’t want you taking them to lunch and showing up at their door. But there’s other people that really enjoy it and that’s also part of the process of getting to know your client and their needs. I mean, just the basics. Do you want me to text you or do you want me to call you? Do you want me to email you? How frequently? Those kind of questions. Just getting to know them.

Randy: Just caring more, right?

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: If you do nothing else and Jonathan can chime in if he wants, if you’re able to friend request them on Facebook or Instagram or something like that, he’s the Facebook expert. Log into your account and go smash the thumbs up button. Give somebody an emoji. If they post a picture of their kid doing something cute, say, “That’s cute”. Actually doing that goes so much further. I’ve created long lasting relationship by doing stuff life that.

Thomas: Absolutely.

Randy: Like people that I didn’t even know, right?

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: Because I’ve liked their stuff and I followed their stuff and I engaged with their stuff, we’re now actually friends. And I think that it’s just about caring. Do you care about people? Is that why you’re in the business? I think that there’s really low hanging fruit that you can do to make a big impact and that’s what matters.

Jonathan: Yeah. I’ve got a question. When it comes to messenger in Facebook, obviously there’s been some changes in the messenger system with Facebook recently. But it seems to be something that Facebook is improving, driving. Have you seen any signs of your own user base using messenger and bots and getting results really Toby?

Randy: So, I don’t have very much experience when it comes to the bot stuff. I just don’t. I can see it working because I know that you can run campaigns and I know that you can create different trigger points to reach out to people so I can certainly see the effectiveness.

Jonathan: I think we better, on reflection and I’ll let you do this. Can you quickly explain to our listeners what I’ve just said? Because I’ve got a feeling I’ve just maybe lost a few people.

Randy: No. I mean, so you can create different bots within Facebook that can do automatic outreach to people based upon certain series of events, like happy birthdays and things like that and it comes up in messenger. We’re not doing much in that area. I know that it’s a big opportunity. It’s probably just as big as text messages in the near future. I think that I’m using IM about 25 to 35 percent of the time. Jonathan and I, that’s actually how we communicate. So I think it’s something to certainly pay attention to and learn about but it’s not something that . . .

Jonathan: So it’s something that LionDesk is looking at.

Randy: Yeah. It’s something that we’re looking at, not something that we’re doing.

Jonathan: Yeah. Because it is a very changing, there were mixed messages about its effectiveness but it looks, what I’ve read and seen, Facebook is really driving into that quite big now, aren’t they?

Randy: Yeah. I think that bots are in the very very beginning stages as far as their effectiveness and kind of only what you put in you can get out. So I think if you’re running ads using the messenger auto response, stuff like that, it’s very simple questions, right? Where it’s like, “Where is this home located in this subdivision in Denver?”. I think that once you start going into the nitty-gritty, I don’t know how effective you’re going to be just yet.

Jonathan: And also they’ve added the video conference element to it as well, which is amazing, isn’t it?

Randy: Yeah.

Jonathan: Yeah. I think that’s it. Back to you Thomas.

Thomas: Okay. Do we have time for me to hit another deep question?

Jonathan: Yeah.

Thomas: Okay. Because I want to ask you about Power Dialer, which is a feature on LionDesk. I’m not familiar with this but I’ve heard other agents bragging about a Power Dialer type service that they use. How are people utilizing this effectively? And keeping in mind that we were just talking about building relationships, how do you use Power Dialer in a relational way?

Randy: Yeah. First of all, I think that email and text messages can only take a relationship so far, right? I think you still need to talk to people. You still need to one on one, right?

Thomas: Yeah.

Randy: So once you’ve started a conversation via text or email, you want to get on the phone as quickly as possible with that person, right? I think that that’s the real way to make the big connection. When it comes to power dialing, a lot of people will farm areas. They’ll get lists of expireds, right? Sources like Landvoice. You can go ahead and you can upload these lists directly in or you can use your existing list and you can utilize the LionDesk Power Dialer. So what it is, is it’s basically going through all these numbers, voice mail, you know what I mean? And you’re able to call these numbers much more effectively in a quicker time frame. And then, you can actually identify the different call dispositions based upon what happened. So, left message, left message, whatever. And you could go in and then do double dialing, which I’m a big fan of. So you dial that number twice. So go in, call them twice. Because if you see another number come in one time, you throw it right to voicemail. You see it come in again, you’re like, “Oh, is it a kid?”, you know.

Thomas: Right.

Randy: Something more important. So being able to sort and do all that stuff is great. Now, I will let you know that the LionDesk Dialer is a single line dialer. It’s a single line. It doesn’t do a voicemail drop or an email drop like some of the more sophisticated programs out there. Like salesdialers.com is a really good one. A lot of people use Mojo. Those are for the people that are just hammering through huge lists, right?

Thomas: Okay.

Randy: And you’re just dialing for dollars and that stuff works. It absolutely still works for doing that and it’s just about refining your script and having the right system. And if you’re going to be a Power Dialer, maybe starting off with LionDesk’s Single Line Dialer would be great and then upgrading. We actually plan on integrating with Sales Dialers, which is a really good program. So, yeah, you know, if you want to be a Power Dialer.

Thomas: What you were talking about though is, so if it hits a voicemail, it’s automatically dropping in a pre-recorded voicemail so that you can move on and make the next call while that voicemail’s being left?

Randy: Using something like Sales Dialer and Mojo, that is absolutely correct.

Thomas: Okay.

Randy: We’re a Single Line Dialer with a disposition.

Thomas: Okay.

Randy: Like I said, we’re creating the foundational tools for these people. If they want to find one with all the bells and whistles and all of these other things like, go get Sales Dialers.

Thomas: Okay. And that integrates with you though?

Randy: Yeah. Yeah.

Thomas: Okay.

Randy: I know that we’re working on that integration currently. So I would imagine that that release is done relatively soon.

Thomas: Okay. How long has LionDesk been around?

Randy: About 4 years now.

Thomas: Okay.

Randy: So, David started it about 4 years ago. He’s been in the tech industry. He came from a different vertical but kind of in the same space, the customer relationship stuff. And basically, when he left his last company, he has family all in Real Estate, he comes from a Real Estate family and he was kind of shadowing them and he was looking at some of the tools and he was just like, maybe it was just the ones that they were using. You know, there are a lot of outdated programs.

Thomas: No, they are.

Randy: And he’s like, “There’s got to be something better. And he kind of just started dabbling in it, creating it, he started giving it away and then we’ve really grown over the past 4 years, that’s for sure. We’re trying to get better every day. We listen to our customers. We want to continuously make it better and improve the value for our Agents. And it’s because of our community, the LionDesk community, that we’re able to grow, that we’re able to make the improvements, the enhancements and we’re trying our best to keep up with demand.

Thomas: Man, that’s good stuff. Randy, I’ve enjoyed talking with you about this. I know we have to close out the podcast portion of our show but we’re going to keep you on for bonus content in the video. But for those of our listeners that are signing off with the podcast, could you share, if people want more information about LionDesk, what’s the best way to reach out to you?

Randy: Yeah. Obviously our website, liondesk.com, l – i – o – n – d – e – s – k.com. You can find us on Facebook. You can find us on Instagram. Those are probably the best places and our handles are @liondesk so you definitely get us there. That’s probably the best way to reach out.

Thomas: Okay. And Jonathan, if people want to learn more about Mail-Right, how do they do that?

Jonathan: Oh, it’s really easy folks. Go to the Mail-Right website, mail-right.com or go to our Facebook page. We have all the videos, the full videos with the bonus content on the Facebook page. Back to you Thomas.

Thomas: All right. And if you want to reach out me for a consultation or for sales or referrals, you can find me at thomasjnelsonrealtor.com or virtually thomasjnelsonrealtor on any social media platform like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Folks, we appreciate you joining us each week here on the Mail-Right Real Estate Agent podcast show. Randy, we want to thank you and LionDesk for being our guest today. And those of you who that just did not get enough, come join us on YouTube and we’ll continue the conversation over there. But for the rest of you, we’ll see you next week. Bye-bye.

Our Guest Contact Details

Randy Tobbe of LionDesk
https://www.liondesk.com/

Here’s Our Contact Details

Producer: Jonathan Denwood
Call: (775) 237-3884 8am-5pm PST) Monday to Friday
Email: jonathan@mail-right.com

Producer/Co-Host: Thomas J. Nelson, Realtor
Call/text: 858-232-8722 (Mon-Sat 8am-5pm PST)
Email:TJN@ThomasJNelsonRealtor.com
Website:http://thomasjnelsonrealtor.com