All Forum Posts by: Drew Clements

@Logan Jones, just check the schedule at slreia.com for the lunches and other meetings. 

I just licensed in November and am ramping up my business. Sounds like you're looking to do something similar. Will be fun to talk. Who are you doing your prelicensing coursework with?

Hey @Alan Bischoff,

Hang in there and tell your wife to hang in there too! My wife and I started with a duplex as well and remodeled both units doing all of the work ourselves (and we have three kids). It's super hard, but good tools are still cheaper than good contractors, lol! And starting out, don't beat yourself up on what your time is worth... even if you can only do nights and weekends. The experience you'll get will make you more confident when you're hiring it out and managing the process. If you need know-how on projects, I'd recommend Taunton's Complete Carpentry, Plumbing, etc. Books - WAY better than the Home Depot books (I have both, I'm not affiliated with either). And the one thing that will save you the most time of all - just start working and stop thinking! And work as fast as you can... You'll learn how to do things the best way while you're doing them and there are really only a few things that can't easily be fixed if you mess them up.

Keep your morale up and keep your wife happy. Go to the REIA meetings, they're great. Listen to podcasts (there are a ton out there... just focus on the ones that address the things you need to focus on... distraction is bad).

Good luck!

Hey @Scott Costello - No worries on the confusion... Sorry if I wasn't clear enough in my previous post covering that, but that confusion actually helped me to resolve my question... just in a round-about way. In other words, thanks for the confusion! Led to a better understanding of how I can structure my work.

Cheers,

Drew

Hi @Julie Clark, Thanks for the FB Group idea - just joined... Looking forward to seeing what kind of content is on there. Noticed that one of the organizers is Dan Schwartz - I've seen a few of his videos... way more advanced that what I need now, but hoping to get there soon!

Thanks @Scott Costello! You've really put some great content together there! This is exactly what I needed to see (though I had to read it a couple of times for it to totally sink in).

With your help, I think I've found the missing understanding of how things link together: In your tutorials, the naming conventions for the apps seemed out of sync in places (e.g. The "Leads/Prospects" App in your video is the "Properties" app on your excel sheet, and "Prospects" in the discussion of stages, etc.)... This has been confusing for me for a while, but it just clicked. Some apps ARE stages, while others are supporting/lookup tables, etc.

Before I could understand this, I had to draw it out with apps as nodes and relationships as arrows/relationships with direction. This allowed me to then "layer" on the stages as labels for the apps and helped me to realize that I had the setup for relationships backwards (e.g. Offers has a relationships field that links to Prospects, not the other way around. So I can see now that Prospect has a relationship with an Offer, but Prospect doesn't "link" to Offer through a relationship in Prospects .... sorry if that made zero sense... typing this is just helping me to solidify my learning).

Another key realization I needed (and finally arrived at) is the idea that this is a funnel, BUT there are MULTIPLE entry points (e.g. each marketing channel will "land" a lead into ONE funnel, but at a different point that's specific to the channel). For example, even though my funnel has simple property info at the widest end (and this works for channels like Driving for Dollars where you have the property info before you have a response), many channels, like Bandit Signs, will deliver prospects at a different level - at Response. In such a case, I start entering information on the Response app and create a record for Prospects (property info) in the same session.

I think I can start getting some work done now! Thanks!

For anyone looking for Scott's blog post, here's the link:

https://strugglinginvestor.com/2015/08/the-proper-...

@Jerred Morris is certainly right about the cost of closing the loop on conversion metrics and actual transactions closed. It's complicated with web leads because with the traditional conversion tracking in AdWords, you can't link calls from the website with the ads they saw. However, with some additional code, you can track this now

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6095883?...

HOWEVER, it's limited to tracking calls from AdWords tracking only. If you're running more online campaigns, you'll have to set up a system that swaps out the phone number based on what's called the "referral" - where the web traffic is coming from - e.g. AdWords, Bing Ads, Facebook, etc. There are tons of call tracking providers that can do this, but the trick is to have a separate number for each campaign you want to track. That's one nice thing about the AdWords only setup, it does this for you.

Anyway... just some ideas and discussion on how this gets complicated and expensive! lol!

Good luck with your campaigns everyone!

Hi @Jeff Fairchild, if you're looking to buy leads, remember that real estate will always be a local thing - if you're looking to buy across the nation and have the systems in place to support that, that's one thing; but if, as you said, you're looking for leads in your specific farm area(s), buying leads may be a challenge as a pure function of volume. Portland may certainly be large enough that there's sufficient search volume to support a lead aggregator (as a business model), but if you're buying somewhere that's not "serviced", you may have to do it yourself.

If you do find a re-seller for leads, one thing you may want to make a point of asking is how many times the leads are sold. For example, one of my clients in the Moving industry sells his leads three times each before they're archived. It gives him a better return on his efforts (obviously) without increasing competition too much (at least for that industry). If your prospective vendor re-sells a lead too many times, it's value to you decreases with the increased competition... so ask the right questions.

Good luck!

 I was confused by that when I started setting up my first apps because I didn't see it on any tutorials (just finished watching all of yours btw), so I've been using "Standard". The naming conventions between default fields and apps also makes it a bit confusing, so hopefully this explanation of where I'm at will make sense...

Goals:

1. Have a place where I can, at a high level, manage and organize all of my contacts (sellers, buyers, agents, vendors, etc.)

2. Leverage these contacts throughout my apps, and have my apps - in turn - update/edit/create new contacts, etc.

3. Create Processes for each of my marketing channels (e.g. Driving for Dollars, Web Leads, Referrals, Call-ins, Direct Mail, etc.). I assume these would each be workspaces with their own sets of apps (?).

Right now I'm working on a "Driving For Dollars" workspace with apps for Properties, Property Profiles (relationship with Properties, a Contact Field for Owner, and Mailing address text fields). Mailings are done manually based on an export of this Property Profiles app (I don't have the chops for Globiflow, although that's an eventuality). I'm now working on a Responses app... but I'm stuck on how to "link" it to contacts and Properties and Property Profiles.

It seems that the Contact Field creates a record, but I have no idea where to find it or how to create a relationship with it (Goal 1)... this is the issue I'm having with contacts and I'm guessing this is why Podio is moving away from the contact field?

I'm still really new to Podio, and I consider myself a capable person; but this isn't "clicking" yet - I know the potential is there, though! I'm just missing some key pieces somewhere that I need to get into place to "get" this... any idea what those pieces are?

Hi @Tanner Morrill,

I'm literally watching Youtube vids on this as this thread unfolds... what I'm seeing so far (and from looking at screen shots of others' setups) is that most people are using Contacts, but manage the flow of leads, deals, offers, etc. etc. with different apps - essentially a funnel of apps. I tried doing the same as you - custom apps for contact information using fields other than the contacts field that's native in Podio. Ran into relationships issues that prompted this thread... I'm now moving back to using Contacts and just trying to figure out how to change my perspective to fit Podio, rather than change Podio :)

Good luck to us! 

Thanks for your input @Frank Klein, glad to have someone confirm this approach for me - my goal is to create a system that manages everything end to end, but also keeps track of all the people I "touch" in business. Sounds like that's exactly what you're doing. A friend of mine in Salt Lake City doesn't use a CRM (and is really successful) and knows he's missed out on tons of deals by not keeping in touch with people.

I'll keep moving forward with this - I think I just need to get more practice with the way Podio works... I'm still pretty green at it. Did find some good videos on YouTube after I posted this thread - a  guy named Scott Costello. His tutorials are pretty easy to follow. He also exposed me to GlobiFlow.com... haven't played with it yet, but it looks really powerful for automating tasks, etc.