288 Mail-Right Show With Special Guest Ricardo Bueno

We Discuss All The Leading CRMs With Ricardo Bueno

Jonathan Denwood: Welcome back folks to the Mail-right show its episode288. Yes. It’s me. Jonathan Denwood unfortunately, Robert can’t be with us. He’s getting his jab today to be free of this terrible virus. We’ve got a returning guest. We’ve got Ricardo Bueno. We had a great discussion a few weeks ago. The time is just disappearing Ricardo.

Ricardo Bueno: I have no sense of calendar or time. It’s just yesterday, today and tomorrow. That’s the only, that’s the only metric I use.

Jonathan Denwood: Yea I’ll get a bit like the weeks are just kind of- they are all the same we invited you back cause we really enjoyed that last discussion. We’re gonna be discussing a little bit about today’s market Cooper but mostly about CRMs. It’s a passionate subject that a lot of people love to discuss and Ricardo has got a load of knowledge in that particular subject. So let’s start off Ricardo with this crazy market that we are facing what’s the kind of feedback that you are getting in general about the market.

Ricardo Bueno: you know, I have agents that I’ve been in this industry for 10 years, so I’ve seen a couple of different markets I got in just before the subprime market collapse. I have realtors who’ve been through several markets and some are saying, you know, this is the craziest one they’ve witnessed because you have situations where a listing is getting, you know, 18 offers over the weekend or just taking no more showings. Like the property just went on the MLS today, by the time, an agent’s trying to schedule a showing for their client like it’s too late, we’re not taking any more showings. So properties are flying off the shelf so to speak agents who are representing buyers. You know, buyer’s offers, aren’t getting accepted, they’re getting beat out agents who, you have other agents who in a lot of our markets, you know, low inventory. So the challenge becomes, well, how do I get more listings? I feel like that’s not new. This whole, I need to get more listings. It’s just, it’s just now the pressure’s on, to try to kind of step it up and level up our marketing.

I think that when the market is hot and when things are going well, it’s easy to kind of go about your day and go about your business. And it’s easy to pick listings or like you have a tree, right? It’s easy to, get the listings or pick the fruit at the bottom because everything’s going really well. But you know, there’s a bunch of really ripe fruit at the top, and it’s easy to ignore investing in continuing to feed and grow your business. I think that the messaging that you put out into the market, we need to put a little more thought and tact into it. So for example, if I’m trying to advertise and generate new listings, I’m going to do an ad campaign saying something like the market is super-hot, find out what your home is worth. Click the link below. That’s not nearly as effective as saying- doing like a carousel ad and saying, where will we move with so little on the market to choose from? Where will we move next with so little on market to choose from? How do we buy or how do we sell safely during a global pandemic? What home, what small home improvements can I make, to increase the sale or the price on the sale of my home?

And in cutting to the realtor, if you’re like most people in 2021, these are some of the questions that have popped into your head, listen to how I help Ricardo and Ashley find their dream home while safely, putting their current home in escrow. If you have any thoughts of moving in 2021, click the link below to find out what your home is worth and get my free report on five simple ways to increase the value of the house of your house without breaking the bank. So, which marketing message is gonna resonate more. Then, the one where you’re saying the market is hot get your free comparative market analysis or the one where you’re literally speaking to the pain points of today’s consumer,

Jonathan Denwood: Well it’s the elephant in the room either you are going to confront it or just making it doesn’t exist won’t get you anywhere is it?.

Ricardo Bueno: Yeah. Yeah. So the other challenge is, you know, we talk about everything. We do everything we do in sales, like in my role, in it really any sales role, you’re always building a pipeline. You’re always working on marketing hopefully, and building a pipeline. And so when you have a business and you get busy, it’s easy to forget to do the stuff that is nurturing and building your pipeline. And so in real estate, we always say, transactions or business lags 90 days. So three to six months, what you do now in your marketing is going to come to fruition in three, four, six months from now, when you get busy and you have like 3 transactions that you’re juggling, heck in today’s market, you have one listing that you have to present 18 offers on. Trust me, that’s cumbersome. I get it. But what happens is when you get busy, you stop doing the daily activities that are meant to be planting seeds and nurturing so that you do have that steady pipeline, you know, 90 days out.

So when you forget to do those things, it’s going to be a rude awakening when we get three months out and you’re like, whoops, what do I do now? And you’re struggling to kind of play catch up. So, so the thing that I challenge my agents is to ask yourself, what can I automate to buy back my time? And so that I am doing those activities, what can I delegate? So, you know, if you’re making over a hundred thousand a year, you should have a virtual assistant. There’s a lot of misconceptions like, well, they can’t do it as well as I can. You know, that’s a common one. But being able to outsource to a virtual assistant or, you know, can I eliminate this task? It’s a repetitive, annoying, pestering little task. Can I eliminate it so- [Inaudible 07:02]

Jonathan Denwood: I think that’s fantastic insight. But I would say that you actually need to read up a bit, you know, go to your podcast, you know, read up some of your stuff about what you got to know before you hire a virtual assistant. I’ve known a lot of very, skillful agents that are very successful agents, but, they just blow through a virtual assistant. If they last more than a month, then you’re lucky. And, a lot of it is you could understand what you’ve got to provide to allow that virtual assistant to be successful would you agree with that?

Ricardo Bueno: A hundred percent? I’m in that situation now. And it’s just, you know, what can you do to set that per it’s like hiring somebody- What can you do to set that person up for success? And, and, you know, part of that is documenting what it is you do in your day-to-day business. You know, what’s your playbook for doing this one task, and then can you, successfully translate that to somebody else so that they can pick it up and take it from there?

Jonathan Denwood: and thinking they are going to do it a hundred percent as well as you isn’t realistic, is it? I think you’ve got to have a fresh show. You know, there’s a certain standard that you won’t accept. And then there’s a certain standard you would accept maybe the first three months. And they might be an improvement after they [inaudible 08:51] But if you think these people are going to do be just as good as you-

Ricardo Bueno: Or you are cloning yourself?

Jonathan Denwood: you’re going to be disappointed aren’t you?

Ricardo Bueno: Yep 100%.

Jonathan Denwood: Well, I just thought that was worth asking you that question. So let’s go on. We’ve got enough. Let’s go on to CRMs. and I’m sure it’s the question that you are, asked the most and it’s definitely the question that Robert and myself definitely Robert because he has written so much about CRMs, is that we’re always asked what is the best one Ricardo? What is the best one? How do you respond to that? Because I know the way I respond to it, and I think it’s the same as Robert’s response to it.

Ricardo Bueno: It’s funny because I secretly hate that question I average, let’s say 30 to 50 one-on-one appointments with realtors every month. And that is, single-handedly probably the one question I get on almost every appointment because I sit down and I audit, right. I do a business audit with my realtors. It’s a coaching session so the first question I ask, or, or I ask, how do you manage your database? Walk me through how you manage your database. Like, oh, well, I don’t really have a database. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why we’re meeting. You know, what’s your favorite CRM and the question I’ll tell you why I hate that question in a second. But the reason I- what I throw back at them, and it’s the same question that I get when somebody asks, I want to run Facebook ads, I need leads so I want to run Facebook ads. What I throw back at them, as I say, well, what’s your budget? What’s your budget? And how many people do you have in your database?

Because if somebody says, Oh, well, I don’t really want to spend a lot of money, then I’m not going to show you the good CRMs. And if you tell me that I don’t really have a database I’m starting from zero, then that wipes the slate clean on a lot of the CRMs that I, would probably recommend for a power user, right? For somebody that has, you know, generates a few hundred leads a month, maybe they have a couple of buyers agents that they want to, you know, outsourcing leads to et cetera, et cetera.

So the reason I, I kind of hate this question and it’s kind of funny, what I tell people is to pick your systems and stick to them. So I’m all for embracing new apps, new technology, new CRMs, new websites, however, you’ll never become great at using the tools if you’re constantly changing them. So you’ll never become great, or you’re never become effective at wrangling your database If you’re constantly changing CRMs because, Oh, I heard that one’s better. So what I would say, and what I would argue is you got to commit to utilizing certain key programs. One of them is your CRM and the other one is, maybe it’s ads or whatever, and then just work on, or invest time on improving your skills within those systems.

So I don’t think, for example, if you bought, like KV-Core and you were paying degenerate leads through KV-Core and you didn’t close any. And so then you went to commissions, and you paid money to generate leads there and you didn’t close any, and then you went over to real geeks and you paid money and, you know, you generated leads there and you didn’t close any the question shouldn’t be where can I find better leads? The question is I don’t think you have a lead problem you have a coaching problem. And we need to improve on, building or developing your skillset to be able to engage and nurture those leads so that you can improve your conversion-

Jonathan Denwood: You’ve opened a whole can of worms, we’ve got about five minutes before we got to go for our break. But, the whole thing is, I think there are different CRMs for different types of agents at different times in their career, in different scenarios, you know, Mail-Right, has a basic CRM. I was in two minds for us to guide down that road. You know, we were initially just gonna have an APR that integrates with some of the leading ones which have its own hassles anyway, but in the end, we decided just to build, because fundamentally, I think it came from I don’t know who said it to me, it was another experience trying to- They said to me, the best CRM is the one that the agent uses.

But I think when it comes to leads, let’s start with leads. I think that is the problem because what I know is an internet lead. I’ve really got to confirm with the agent that I’m talking to do they understand what an internet lead is and isn’t? And what I mean by that, Ricardo is the internet lead in no shape or form can be compared to somebody in your local community recommending somebody that they have a close personal relationship to you.

Ricardo Bueno: A hundred percent.

Jonathan Denwood: A lot of our agents, actually if they’ve never been involved in the purchase or the utilization of internet leads, really struggle with what they’re actually buying into. First of all, would you agree with that? And secondly, got any insights about that?

Ricardo Bueno: Yeah, so the reason I always ask my, if we’re doing a coaching session, I always ask where’s your database? How do you manage it? Because having a good sort of past client experience so that you’re nurturing that lead, or you’re nurturing that relationship, even after the transaction closes, that’s going to be the highest and best use of your time. If you work on establishing a better post-close follow-up process and sort of enhancing that experience, you’re going to get more repeat and referral business and getting more repeat and referral business that’s just low-hanging fruit. Your chances of closing a referral from somebody that’s, that’s like, taking a layup and basketball to use an analogy versus an online lead that’s like taking a three-point shot with a game on the line, and two defenders covering you. It requires a lot more, practice skill, and a whole lot of other things.

When it comes to online leads, we call those people button pushers and form fillers. They’re not just converting on your ad or on your website. They’re converting on about a dozen other ads and websites. So the name of the game really is to be aggressive. Number one but to find kind of a balance between, am I being persistent, or am I being pestering? Cause you don’t want to be pestering. Remember they’re converting on about a dozen other websites. And then the name of the game is long-term consistency because a lot of these leads are early entry buyers, or they’re just looky-loo sellers. So they’re not going to be ready to convert when you want them to convert. And you want them to convert now because duh paid for this lead and I want to sell them something now, but that’s not where they are. As I said, they’re an early entry-

Jonathan Denwood: It’s not reality is it but so many agents, don’t understand the fundamental roles now. And I don’t know if it’s because they’ve been sold [Interposed talking 17:30] , or they don’t want to hear about the reality. It might be a mixture, isn’t it?

Ricardo Bueno: I think we get sold easy button. So just buy this thing and you’ll close, you know, 10 million in production in the first 60 days. I think that’s on the one hand, the bill of goods that were sold, but yeah it’s gonna take 3 to 18 months. Consumer direct leads always take three to 18 months. And then depending on the lead source, you know, Facebook ads, I consider interruption marketing. So those people are usually very early entry, Google ads they’re a little more problem aware they’re looking for something very specific. That’s the person Googling, you know, two bed, a three-bed, two-story house in Costa Mesa with one bed, one bath on the first floor, that person is looking for something very specific or a specific type of inventory that person’s not on Facebook clicking on an ad, trying to buy a house. So, so you’re going to convert your Google leads faster than you will, your Facebook leads.

But it’s a, it’s a game, it’s a grind. Somebody, I forget where I heard it and, and this is a simplified version of it or an overly simplified version of it. But you know, real estate is simple. It’s meet people or talk to people, nurture the relationship and then close the sale. Meet people, nurture the relationship, close the sale. We often skip number two, we meet people or we talk to people and we want to close the sale. We forget to invest time in nurturing the relationship. And, that’s where the CRM comes in.

Jonathan Denwood: We’re going to go for a break. We’ll be back in a few moments.

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Jonathan Denwood: We are coming back [Inaudible 19:46] own listeners Robert has left me now he’s gone to have his vaccination. He predicted he would feel pretty rough after it and he does. But at least he’s been vaccinated you know, he won’t go down with this terrible COVID. And I have as well so I’m joyous as well the prospect of going down with that, wasn’t a fantastic prospect. We got a returning guest, got Ricardo with us got a great podcast Ricardo we have all the links in the show notes, but you want to listen to his podcast- You’ve got one of the better podcast obviously not as good as mail right but you do a really excellent job.

Ricardo Bueno: Where are you at? You’re at 200 episodes?

Jonathan Denwood: We’re up to 288.

Ricardo Bueno: that awesome.

Jonathan Denwood: I wouldn’t listen to the first 50 though it was a bit rough to say the least.

Ricardo Bueno: That’s how I feel right now.

Jonathan Denwood: You’re doing a good job. Now, so before we went for a break, we were discussing what is a lead and a lot of agents don’t understand the reality of internet leads and that’s partly due to people like me at Mail-Right. But I think I’ve done my best when I’ll have my consultation with possible clients, not to overinflate, what Mail-Right can do for them. So I think it’s partly those that are selling similar products to Mail-Right. And also, lack of knowledge from the agents as well. So I definitely think with different CRM systems, you got systems like line desk that try and be everything to everybody. Great value I think maybe could be criticized because of a lack of they’re trying to do almost everything.

And then you go, some very establish, ones that, probably their interfaces, aren’t the easiest to use. Then you’ve got, you’ve got systems like follow up boss, which is superb I would say in UX design and in general functionality in power follow up, boss is one and Boomtown maybe Boomtown follow up boss, are some of the most powerful, but not really aimed at the single agent in my mind, or the agent couple or the agent that might have a couple of buyer agents to me, you need a- that’s a CRM that’s really either with a dedicated agent that is providing leads to like 10 15 agents or brokerage level almost to. Where mail, right we’re at the real geek, bold lead they are our two main competitors where we’re aimed at the single agent and the power couple, or agent might have a buyer junior agent working for them. Would you agree that you really got a split the market up dependent on where the agent is? Do you agree how I am breaking it up or do you feel-

Ricardo Bueno: Yeah. And so that’s the thing though. I always say I’m a big fan of kind of getting everything that you can out of what you’ve already got. And so what I mean by that is utilize the tools that are already being presented to you as either a member benefit through the MLS or that are being offered to you for free from your brokerage. So here in Southern

Jonathan Denwood: we are going to strongly disagree.

Ricardo Bueno: So I, I always say for my agent, who’s just starting out. He doesn’t have a big marketing budget is spending money on a bunch of different tools. I say you know what, just use line desk. Cause it’s a member benefit through the MLS. If you’re an agent that has a budget, if you work at a, like an indie brokerage, you have a team. And so it’s important to you to round Robin leads between you and your team. I always say, you know, go to follow up boss, make the investment use, follow up boss because it’s worth the investment. for me, I tell people to stop shopping based on features because you’re always gonna find a CRM that has better features than the last one. So all I really care about is can I automate certain sequences, certain drip sequences. So when a new lead comes in irrespective of lead source, can I start that lead on a drip campaign?
And can I have sort of, an established set of tasks so that I know that that lead is getting nurtured for the long-term and that I know that I’m doing my job of following up with those leads?

And most CRMs, they’re going to allow you to do that one way or another. they just use different language to basically say the same things and then broadcast emails so it’s having your, your right now, we spend a lot of time sitting down with our agents to craft, stories or case studies off of the listings that they’re closing. And we use those to craft very specific sort of emails that we send to different segments of your database. So most CRMs will allow you to create filtered views, for different segments of that database so that you can send personalized marketing messages to them.

So really the best practice is I don’t think it’s so much a function of features, but, you know, are you tagging your leads accordingly? And are you creating filtered views and segments, or are you sending the same message to everyone? If you’re sending the same message to everyone, that’s where you’re going to get some unsubscribes, if I’m someone in your database and someone in your list, I’m looking for a starter townhouse or condo, and you’re sending me, you know, $3 million listings. Yeah. That’s nice eye candy, but that doesn’t relate to me in the experience you’re crafting as one that says, this agent doesn’t care about me or doesn’t care to know that, you know, I don’t care about that listing. So I’m going to go with I’m going to go chase that listing down or the property search down somewhere else.

So I think it’s, I think it’s organizing your database, segment your database, do a good job of constantly updating your database and then, you know, take stock of your lead sources and set up your automation or your drip campaigns to those different lead sources.

Jonathan Denwood: I would say at Mail-Right you know, I actually I think when it comes to that, you best to be looking at using, utilizing maybe the CRM that your brokerage provides because KV-Core has been very aggressive with the packaging and the discounting and the outreach they’ve been doing to brokerages national chains and independent [Inaudible 27:47]. They’ve been quite aggressive, and it’s a great system, but, I think also you’ve got to understand that obviously, you are in partnership with your broker. It’s always been an up-and-down relationship. I’m not here to bash brokerages unlike grant wise was notorious he still is with the way, he attacked brokerages. I’ve never wanted you to go down that road.

But on the other end I think you’ve got to face the realities of the relationship that if you’re relying totally on a broker tool both in your agreement because they provide in that tool, they have access to your database. So if you leave that brokerage, they got the total rights of the market to have access and market to that database don’t they, what’s your thoughts about what I’ve just said there?

Ricardo Bueno: So we always, if you’re using a CRM, that’s powered by your brokerage, we always recommend having a backup of that database. So if you’re running ads, for example, Facebook ads, we use Zapier to get the leads out of Facebook into your CRM, but then we always create a Google spreadsheet. So we add that lead to a new row in your spreadsheet, so that you always have a living, breathing document of all of the leads that you’ve generated from all of your lead sources, because, I’ve consulted for brokerages we rolled out Boomtown for all of our agents, at one of our brokerages. So 2000 Boomtown websites across 26 offices in 22 States and yeah, its protocol. The second you say, I’m having thoughts of leaving, you shut down the account and you restrict access so that you don’t have access to those leads. And those leads get reassigned either to another agent or they get assigned to the office and redistributed.

So you’re playing in somebody else’s sandbox and that’s generally speaking, you know, not good. I would always like, you should always own your website. You should always own your content. You should always own your data. And I mean-

Jonathan Denwood: I think we’ve got to be realistic here I also feel that you’re right. You are right to point out. We’ve got to be realistic. I totally agree with the things I would do because I got Mail-Right. But I think I still have – I wouldn’t just say that because people would just think am a bullshitter. I do honestly believe that anyway. But on the other hand, if you’re really starting out and you got no money and your struggling to put food on the table, just go with it. Like what you say, just go with the brokerage tools that you’re probably paying for anyway, in your brokerage fees but on the other hand, when you get a bit more in a better situation, financially, I think depending on the agent tools, probably isn’t the best way to go because, it’s a bit like the website isn’t it almost every brokerage provides some form of agent, one page or very generic agent website. And I think in 2021, that that’s kind of semi bonkers, isn’t it?

Ricardo Bueno: Yeah. Very, very much so.

Jonathan Denwood: Are you okay in staying with us for another 10 minutes for bonus content?

Ricardo Bueno: Yep

Jonathan Denwood: I want to talk about the importance of having your own website and get, your views on that. So we’re gonna, the 30 minutes has just flown actually. I’ve tried not to be too wondering in my questions to listeners and viewers. But we’re going to wrap up the podcast on the show and we’re going to go on to bonus content, which you’ll be able to view on the mail-right.com YouTube channel, and also on the mail right website. We have a full transcription of the interview and all the links. So Ricardo, what’s the best way of people to find out more about you, what you’re up to, and your latest opinions and views about real estate

Ricardo Bueno: And rantings, the easiest place to do that is Ricardobueno.com. I have a weekly newsletter I share, you know, once a week tutorials, videos, webinars, things of that sort. And then I have a weekly podcast I basically, interview other technology providers in our industry, but also agents, top producing agents in our market to find out what’s their secret sauce? What is it that they’re doing in their market that’s working for them right now? But yeah, you guys can find that more over at RicardoBueno.com.

Jonathan Denwood: I would highly recommend that. I think it’s one of the, obviously not as good as Mail-Right but almost I’m biased listeners and viewers.

Ricardo Bueno: One can dream.
Jonathan Denwood: We’ll be back. Well, hopefully, Robert will be back next week. We got another fantastic guest booked. And we’ll have another great discussion, but remember, go over to the YouTube channel and watch the bonus content. We’re going to be talking about websites we will be back next week see you soon folks bye.

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